Travel Light, Move Fast

by Alexandra Fuller

I could see this was one of those customary circular conversations; they were a regular feature with me, Mum, and Vanessa; we’d perfected the art of the round. But instead of reacting as if this were normal for us, I reacted as if the hotel room were on fire; it was the fresh grief, I suppose. I lost my head completely.

  “Mum,” I shouted. “You have to get up. If you don’t get up, we’ll miss our plane. We’ll be here for another week.”

  Mum reappeared, frowning. “Stop being so bossy,” she complained. “And pessimistic. It’s not helpful.”

  It wasn’t helpful, I knew that, but I couldn’t help myself; helplessly unhelpful. “Vanessa’s the one you really want in a panic situation,” Mum always says. “Nothing fazes her, really.” Which is true until it isn’t, but in any case, Vanessa would have coped much better than I in this moment. And if Vanessa wasn’t coping, she knew instinctively how to get other people to cope on her behalf.

  Dad coped too; it was one of his signature characteristics. I never saw him break down, ever. Or it took a spectacular accident, a coup, a national crisis to momentarily lay him down, but never down and out. “Make a plan,” Dad always said. “And if that doesn’t work, make another one and if that doesn’t work, you’re probably the problem.”

  I’d done it all wrong.

  I’d gone without a plan, or a contingency plan. And in so doing, I’d unmade any plan I’d ever had. And I was now indubitably the problem. In the few minutes between getting out of bed and now, I’d managed somehow to lock myself not only out of Mum’s room but also out of my own. I found myself alone in the corridor, keyless and without tea, in my pajamas, achieving all the conventions for the representation of Shakespearean female madness. I wasn’t distraught, exactly, but I was distracted, my hair about my ears.

  This wasn’t how it was done, I knew that; I’d failed my first test.

  Mum wasn’t like other people; it seems an obvious thing to say, but she was supernaturally unlike other people, in very particular ways. For example, it wasn’t always apparent if she was conscious or unconscious, even when you’d hope there was no doubt. Recently, she’d had emergency intestinal surgery in Lusaka— her third—during which the anesthesiologist had managed to paralyze her without knocking her out for the entire four-hour ordeal.

  “He was Rwandan,” Mum said. “And he was jabbering away in French to the Congolese surgeon the whole time. I told him I’d listened to as much of his boring conversation as I could and then I’d started to think about more interesting things, merci beaucoup.”

  The Rwandan anesthesiologist had denied Mum’s account, but we believed her. Dad had taken away Mum’s driving privileges years before. “She’s incredible, your mother. She’ll keep going long after grown men are felled,” Dad had said with real admiration. “It takes a hell of a lot to knock her out, your mum.”

  I berated myself; I should never have left Mum alone the first night of her bereavement. I should have stayed with her. I could have stopped her repacking; I might have prevented her current condition. I pushed the button for the elevator, waited a couple of seconds, then flew down the stairs anyway.

  * * *

  —

  OBVIOUSLY, I KNOW VERY LITTLE ABOUT HUNGARY. I was in the country for twelve days, and for that entire time, I went back and forth along the same few miles between the hotel in which we were staying and the hospital in which Dad was dying. However, I’ll say this: If Hungarian hospital staff, taxi drivers, and hotel receptionists are an accurate indication of Hungarians in general, then Hungarians are my parents’ kind of people; calmly upbeat in the face of disaster and tactfully practiced at removing the toppled bodies of foreign invaders.

  “Daughter Fuller,” the man at the front desk greeted me, politely unsurprised by my appearance as I came clattering down the stairs a few minutes before five, bedraggled and close to tears. The taxi driver had arrived already too; he was drinking coffee. He regarded me with concerned interest. “We are sorry, Daughter Fuller,” he said.

  “Thank you,” I said. I frowned, did I know him?

  “And now you go home,” the receptionist said, as if that were a cure he knew something about, a cure he was offering.

  “That’s right,” I said. I cleared my throat. “But I’m afraid I’ve locked myself out of both the bedrooms, and we’re not quite ready.” I paused. “And I’ll need help with the luggage,” I said. “I can’t manage it at all.”

  “Okay,” the receptionist agreed.

  The taxi driver put down his coffee. “Don’t worry,” he said. “Like Bob Marley song. Everything is all right, Daughter Fuller.”

  I didn’t want to disagree with the taxi driver, but it seemed easier he discover for himself how unlike the Bob Marley song things were in that moment for Daughter Fuller. I followed the men upstairs, the receptionist opened the door with his master key, and there was Mum, a listing, disheveled Jack Russell terrier, atop the bedclothes.

  “Mum, you’re up!”

  “Yes.”

  “Madam Fuller,” the taxi driver greeted her warmly.

  “Mića!” Mum replied reaching out her arms. “Oh, I’m very, very sad! My husband is dead; he died, my love, he died.”

  “Yes, Madam Fuller,” the taxi driver replied. He embraced her. She clung on. “I heard the news. You are sad. I am sad.”

  “You know each other?” I asked.

  “Of course I know Mića,” Mum said. She frowned at me over Mića’s shoulder as if I’d forgotten the name of her favorite dog. “He’s the hotel taxi driver.” She sniffed bravely and patted Mića on the back. “Aren’t you, Mića?” she said. And then, in more practical, clipped tones. “Thank God for you. My daughter’s completely gone to pieces.”

  Mića, I won’t forget his name; nor Ábel, the aptly named receptionist. “I’m going to be fine once this sadness wears off,” Mum said as Mića helped her into her clothes. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

  “Like Bob Marley song,” Mića agreed.

  “Exactly,” Mum said.

  Meantime, Ábel had somehow managed to close Mum’s suitcase; it bulged, the seams groaning, but it contained everything now, including her pile of interesting things. He’d also produced a wheelchair, a bellboy, and two styrofoam cups with tea in them for the road. Between the two men and the bellboy, they heaved Mum into the chair.

  “How do I look?” Mum asked.

  I riffled around in her handbag for her perfume, the new fragrance by Yves Saint Laurent, Black Opium; an overwhelming stench. “Ah, my new pong,” Mum said. “Dad bought it for me in the duty free at O. R. Tambo on the way here.” I drenched her in it. I put on her dark glasses, a slash of iconic Dior red lipstick. “There,” I said. “That’s better.”

  “Everything is okay,” Mića reassured us; he surveyed the scene like a satisfied artist, all the props in place, everything properly settled. “Don’t worry. Everything is okay.”

  Which, of course, it was, from any distance at all; from any distance at all, we were okay. In fact, we were better than okay. We were two recently bereaved women going home to bury their dead. Our grief had been supported, believed, privileged. Our foreignness had been noted as a mitigating circumstance, a cause for further pity and not the reason for further horror.

  “Of course it’s okay,” Mum said. She patted Mića’s hand. “We know that, don’t we?” She peered at me over her sunglasses. “It’s going to be okay, Bobo. Don’t worry. We’ll make a plan. It’ll all be all right. Won’t it, Mića?”

  * * *

  —

  MUM WAS MAGNIFICENT, there’s no denying it; she kept up a conversation with Mića the whole way to the airport, all the while with her late husband of more than fifty years in an urn inside a cardboard box, clearly marked as such, on her lap. It would have been too much for most people, but not for Mum.

  Admittedly, she slurred a little sometimes, l
anding hard on consonants then sliding off them unsteadily, but since both she and Mića were speaking in heavily accented broken English, it wouldn’t have been easy for a casual bystander to tell that she’d been up all night, repacking.

  Although the effort had clearly exhausted her; she fell asleep as soon as Mića and I wrestled her out of the taxi and back into the hotel wheelchair. I put the cardboard box on Mum’s lap. She folded over it, like a protective slumbering cat. I wheeled her to the check-in counter; Mića went in search of food.

  “She must use her legs to get on the plane,” the check-in man said, looming above his counter to peer at Mum. “She must walk herself.”

  “She can’t,” I said.

  “What’s wrong with she?”

  “Her,” I said. “What is wrong with her?”

  The check-in man gave me a withering look. “I’m not a doctor. You tell me what is wrong with she. I am asking the question. What is wrong with she?”

  Mum was snoring a little. It was a deep sleep she’d fallen into, and sudden, the kind that catches long-haul travelers and children off guard. Her dark glasses were sliding down her nose.

  “She’s had a stroke,” I said, as softly as I could.

  “What is this?” The check-in man looked dubious. “Stroke?”

  Mum stirred restlessly.

  “A stroke,” I repeated, louder. “An accident in her brain. She’s had a stroke.”

  Mum jolted completely upright, suddenly wide-awake and in good voice. “I’ve had a what?” She sounded offended. “I’ve had a stroke? On top of everything else, I’ve had a stroke? Bobo, what are you jabbering on about? No, I haven’t. I have not had a stroke.”

  “Yes, Mum,” I said. “A stroke. You’ve had one.” I made big eyes at her, so she’d know I didn’t really mean it. Mum blinked at me in disbelief. I turned back to the check-in man. “How do you usually get people who can’t walk onto planes?” I asked. “There are all sorts of reasons people need to be in a wheelchair. Why does it matter why she can’t walk? She can’t walk. Don’t you have a ramp?”

  The check-in man remained unmoved; the male equivalent of Jazmin, he even looked a little like her, I thought, preemptively resentful, unhelpfully touchy. “She must use her legs into the plane,” he said again.

  I took a deep breath. “Isn’t Hungary in the EU?” I asked. I hoped to sound connected, authoritative.

  “Oh, Bobo,” Mum suddenly interjected loudly and clearly from behind me. “What rubbish.” She glowered like an owl over her dark glasses, first at Jazmin’s brother, then at me; her fingers gripped the cardboard box containing the urn.

  “Mum,” I said. “I can manage.”

  Mum gave me a withering look. “Push me up to the counter,” she demanded. “Let me deal with this.” I pushed her closer to Jazmin’s brother. Mum took a moment to compose her expression; an air of wounded authority isn’t easy to achieve while propped up in a hotel-issue wheelchair, but she managed it. “Listen, my man.” Mum leveled her gaze intently. “I’m very sad. I am very, very sad and I must leave this place.”

  Jazmin’s brother blinked impassively.

  Mum took a breath. “My husband of fifty-one years died yesterday morning, here in Budapest,” she said very slowly; her Memsahib Abroad accent, but with even heavier measure. “We came here two weeks ago to take the healing waters, but he died. Caput. Finito.”

  “Oh,” the check-in man said, his expression changing.

  “Yes, not very healing waters,” Mum agreed. “We return to our homes like this: one in a box, one in a wheelchair.” She allowed a moment of unlikely grace to settle on the scene. “But it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault at all. We just want to go home.” She clutched the cardboard box more tightly. “We’d like to put this whole matter to rest. As quickly and quietly as possible.”

  All the rules always changed for Mum and Dad. I’d forgotten that; my parents moved through the world because of the resistance they met, not in spite of it. Some of this had to do with the side of history they’d landed on, and the side of history they’d backed. But some of this had to do with their basic natures; they were able to grasp on to hindrances and use them to pull themselves toward an acceptable solution.

  “Oh,” the check-in man said again.

  Mića reappeared in that moment with Mum’s snack. “Köszönöm szépen,” Mum said, reaching out her hands as if taking Communion from a priest. “You have been so kind, so kind. And this lovely gentleman”—she bestowed a smile on Jazmin’s brother—“is going to work out how to get me onto the plane. Aren’t you?”

  Then she ate what Mića had given her, obediently and carefully. He watched her like a kindly, indulgent nurse. Mum watched Jazmin’s brother like a hawk. Then suddenly, it was apparent we were moving. Mića was leaving.

  “You are a good lady,” Mića told Mum. “A brave lady.” He refused my offer of payment. He told Jazmin’s brother he’d be back another day for the wheelchair, as if we all belonged to the same small town, and had known one another awhile. He mopped his brow and bent to embrace Mum. They both cried a little; Jazmin’s brother cried a little too.

  * * *

  —

  I DON’T KNOW WHAT THEY USUALLY DO with people in wheelchairs at Ferihegy Airport, but we were driven to the plane in an ambulance, four handsome medics in attendance like the 911 version of the Hungarian Chippendales, Mum regal as it was possible to be in the hotel’s shabby black wheelchair; and from there she was foisted on board the plane with the trolleys containing ham-and-cheese sandwiches.

  She waved one last time at the city. “Good-bye, Budapest,” she cried as the ambulance sped back toward the terminal. “Good-bye.”

  It was definitely like a movie, but much more surreal.

  “I can’t forget this city, I’ll never forget this city.” She smiled sadly at the airline stewards as they strapped her into her seat. “The last place we were together; my husband and I. Thank you. Thank you all so much. You’ve all been so kind.” She pinned her nose to the window. “Oh, dear, how sad. Good-bye, good-bye.”

  I’d been unable to find two seats together; buying two air tickets from Budapest to anywhere at the last minute had been hard enough. I took my place near the back of the cabin; I put Dad under the seat in front of me. The whole plane reeked of Black Opium. The other passengers began to filter aboard, everything so stubbornly routine, as if death had not recently visited, nor displacement and despair. The safety talk was given in three languages, the plane took off; I stared out the window.

  Central and then Western Europe lay beneath me, greener and hillier and emptier than I had imagined this late into a hot summer. Villages were swept into valleys along veins of glinting water; rivers and reservoirs, tiny mountain lakes; everything seeming ancient and long settled, the blood and sweat and mud of generations soaked into one place.

  But armies had washed back and forth across these pleasant-looking little settlements too, and in living memory; these quietly innocent places, scouring bloody tides of armies, over and over again.

  The bodies had piled up here too, everywhere.

  The bodies were still piling up.

  Done correctly, years of careful tending, it was still going to take more time to grieve the dead from all these tragedies than the living had left. And yet, those who forget to grieve, forget. Everyone knows the forgetful are doomed to repeat the past; the willfully forgetful too, churning up the past like bones in the field.

  It still happens in Zimbabwe: A farmer tills up the war’s bones.

  There’s no escaping this.

  * * *

  —

  IN A DREAM I HAD a few weeks after Dad died, I was in an overcrowded taxi in India. Whatever city I was in, the place was thronging, the taxi was moving slowly; pedestrians, cattle, and vendors pressed against the window. Suddenly I caught sight of Dad in the
crowd, pedaling a rickshaw. He was shirtless, pouring sweat, laughing. He pulled up next to the window of the taxi. I’d tried to find the taxi’s door handle, a way to open the window; I was desperate to get out. “Dad!” I’d shouted through the back window, turning to face him as he receded and the taxi pulled forward.

  “Dad!”

  “It’s okay, Bobo.” Dad was still laughing. “It was just a life! It was just one little life.” And then he was gone, absorbed back into the great throng of people from which he’d briefly emerged, and the dream over.

  It was just one little life.

  He’d wanted me to know that; or, the part of me that knew him best knew he’d want me to know that. It was sometimes hard in the mysterious, murky time of early grief to know where I thought he ended, and where I knew I began, but somehow, in a dream, we’d collectively come up with the idea that his life had been no more than what it was.

  It was just a life; it was just a little life.

  But what a riotous little life it had been.

  PART TWO

  A Widow’s Farm

  Chirundu, Zambia

  The Day We Die

  The day we die

  the wind comes down

  to take away

  our footprints.

  The wind makes dust

  to cover up

  the marks we left

  while walking.

  For otherwise

  the thing would seem

  as if we were

  still living.

  Therefore the wind

  is he who comes

  to blow away

  our footprints.

  —SONG OF THE SAN BUSHMEN, FIRST NATION OF SOUTHERN AFRICA

  CHAPTER ONE

  If You’re Going to Go to the Dogs, Go the Whole Way

  Hello, Nikki.”

  I swiveled: the accent, the familiarity.