The Blue Taxi

by N. S. Köenings

  She walked slowly in the flat, washed things she had left unwashed for months—the insides of the cabinets, slats of glass on the hinged windows, the bathroom’s high, wide sill, the round drain on the floor. The present was no longer what she had thought it was. She did not know what was true. And so what of the future? What was going to happen? What had Gilbert written to old Great-Uncle James? Write, he had, she thought, though he hadn’t told her, hadn’t answered, even when she’d asked; had simply looked at her in that irritating, absent, beaming way. Had the letter reached its aim? How had Gilbert introduced the idea of the business? Would Uncle James agree? In a far-off English place, had their fates been sealed? When she tired of her husband’s smiles and pressed him, Gilbert shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Or tried to kiss her on the cheek. Said things like, “Let’s not talk until it’s real,” and “Later, later, dear. Once we’ve gotten a reply.” And, “Trust me, Sarie, please.” Was he doing what she thought? Would he fail, again? Would this man she had accepted years ago bring ruin on them all?

  She had liked the feeling that the present would go on, like this, forever, but now it wore her down. She thought about the baskets and the spears she’d seen at the Mountain Top Hotel. The jewels. Such sparkling, colored things! Such comforting, dear trinkets. As if to will the business and her future into being, she focused on them, thought: Arrows, bracelets, stones. She saw them clearly in her mind. Oh, if she could step into that future, Sarie thought, the present, so unknowable, suddenly, couldn’t cause her grief. She worried about Gilbert’s silence, then told herself she shouldn’t. She wanted, and she did not want, to know. And so she told herself: Gilbert has been quiet because he wants to be so certain we are fine before we really start. He does not want me to hope. When he has an answer, he will want to talk. We’ll discuss it all. I will try to wait.

  But not knowing made her anxious. She went to find her husband, who was dozing on the sofa. “Gilbert?” Gilbert grunted in his sleep. She sat down at the piano. “Gilbert.”

  He was dreaming about Fiats and about Hungarian buses. The sound of her voice stirred him. “Mm?” he said.

  Sarie plucked a note from the piano. Two. “Gilbert.” The dream-sights disappeared. Sarie said, to herself, almost, but to her husband, too, and loud enough to pull him out of sleep, “It’s going to be all right, isn’t it? Isn’t it? It is.” Gilbert stretched his legs, pushed his toes against the pillows. “What?” He opened both his eyes, just barely, peering at his wife beneath a folded arm. “The business,” Sarie said, voice softer now, as though she was afraid. “The baskets and the sculptures.”

  Gilbert smiled at her in half sleep. “Come,” he said. He unfolded one arm, he beckoned, and was pleasantly surprised when Sarie came towards him. She seems a bit worn, he thought. And tired. All this waiting and the worrying have my little Sarie down. Sarie knelt beside him. He could hear her breathing, shallow, saw a flutter at her eyes. He was touched. My dear. He thought again how pleased Sarie would be if Uncle James agreed and when he told her what he’d planned. How she would see that cars were far better than statues, much more sturdy and exciting than gaudy souvenirs; that they shouldn’t (Gilbert almost laughed, thinking of how Sarie spoke) put their eggs in baskets. When he placed a hand on Sarie’s shoulder and looked into her face, she didn’t flinch, or push his hand away. Gilbert felt confirmed. See how she needs me. “It’s going to be all right,” he said. “You’ll see.”

  Sarie fixed her eyes on his, tugged with one hand at his shirt. “You will go to look?” she asked. “You’ll go to find the Post?” Oh, he would be her soldier, would defend her, life and limb. “Indeed, my dear. Indeed. And if there’s no letter today, I will go again tomorrow. And the next day, and the next.”

  He yawned. It was time, wasn’t it, that Uncle James replied? He’d go out in the afternoon. Gilbert took hold of Sarie’s fingers, closed his eyes again. He thought about Judge Hewett and Kimbuga. And giraffes. In a moment he’d have really woken up, feeling fine; and perhaps, perhaps, once he ventured out, there would be a letter. Lolling, Gilbert sighed. Sarie took her hand from his, sniffed at it, and, sadly, wiped it on her dress. She went back to the piano. Without thinking, Sarie did what she had not done in years, what she had not liked doing, and what the Sisters had always said would save her, if she would only try: she bent her head and prayed.

  At last. On the Thursday when it happened, Gilbert had the wherewithal to close the Post Box door and step out from the wall so that any men could reach their letters without having to push Gilbert around as that historian had once done. Tearing at the aerogramme (all blue, not pink, with Airmail stamped in English), he felt a little sick. He’d grown, admit, accustomed to the waiting. To the sense of possibility. To maybe yes or no, a feeling of perhaps. “Perhaps” was easier than other things, of course. Easier than certainty. And pleasant. Maybe yes and maybe no: all maybes, nothing to confront. Gilbert’s mouth went dry. His fingers shook a bit. That letter held the future, everything; could hold, he thought, obscurity or greatness, a decision—between a life and something else, something too familiar, worse. He took a deep, deep breath and told himself to think about the sea—the one thing, Gilbert thought, he really shared with Uncle James. Each man by a shore, each aware that on the unknown side of dangerous waters there lay all sorts of potential. A great, blue kind of peace. I’m ready.

  Feeling deft for once, he worked the complicated creases without tearing the paper. He smoothed the light thing out and closed his eyes before determining to look. His knees knocked. He felt a coldness at his spine, a tingling; as if a smaller version of himself, coiled and tight, hands across its ears and eyes, had hidden there, prepared to fall or cry so that, should the letter bear bad news, his larger self would not. But as he opened his eyes slowly, the bigger, life-sized Gilbert, too, small one notwithstanding, almost, almost, wept.

  Dearest Gilbert, Uncle James began. I see you have grown up! Thank you for your prompt and, shall I say, inspiring, response to my last letter. I have considered your proposal. Gilbert closed his eyes again. Could he bear to read on? The letter trembled in his hand. The huddled little man at the base of Gilbert’s spine stretched his arms in wonder. Gilbert read a little farther, felt something like a song. You have gone some distance towards restoring, or securing, rather, my confidencein you. Some of us, it seems, take longer to mature than others but shape up after all. And for you it is high time. I grant you my—provisional—approval. I will wire necessary funds. But, dear Gilbert, before-warned that without certain proof of progress I cannot be relied upon to furnish further monies, and that, following this wire, I will discontinue your allowance. Any future wires are to be treated as investments. Do recall, as I explained in my last letter, that I shall expect returns. I have paints to buy.

  Had he been a looser man, Gilbert would have jumped for joy or hooted. Instead, he hugged the aerogramme tightly to his chest and rubbed his hands across it as he walked, blindly, to the street. Further monies. How stuffy Uncle James had grown! How pompous! But how dear! Oh, yes, it was going to be all right. Just as he’d told Sarie. He had intended after stopping for the post to pass by the Victorian Palm to look for Kazansthakis. But this was news for Sarie, wasn’t it? For Sarie, first of all. Let Kazansthakis wait! Feeling like a husband, Gilbert hurried home to number 2, where Agatha and Sarie, bent over the Adventures, were reading about pirates.

  Sarie took one look at him and knew. Oh, some things did turn out! Nevermind Majid Ghulam’s Sugra. Nevermind her lover’s absence. She’d work it all out later. She took in Gilbert’s blush, the glitter in his eyes. Gilbert, speechless, nodded on the threshold. Without stopping to think, impelled by her relief Sarie hurried towards her husband and thrust her arms around him. Small in her embrace, Gilbert, shocked, mouth muzzled by her shoulder, muttered, gasping, “Yes. Great-Uncle James agreed.” Sarie, seeing trays of precious stones, crates abrim with bracelets, spun around the parlor with her only legal man clutched tightly to he
r chest. Gilbert, like an inexperienced girl in the hands of a good dancer, felt his two feet leave the floor. Just as he had held the letter, Sarie lunged and lurched, pressed him hard against her breasts, and cooed into his ears.

  She’s happy! Gilbert thought, and because he could not recall the last time Sarie had held on to him with so much strength and focus—or indeed, if she had ever done so—he let her squeeze and turn him until he felt a little dizzy. “Sarie, Sarie, stop!” he said.

  He pulled himself away while Sarie laughed out loud. She jumped into the air and landed with a hearty, solid thunk on the red settee, where she kicked her feet before her like a swimmer. “Oh, Gilbert!” Sarie said. “You wrote him a nice letter! We must thank your uncle James.”

  Steadying himself at the piano, still undone from the surprise of Sarie’s—so impulsive!—arms, he beamed. “It worked, my dear, it worked.” Gilbert wiped the sweat from his bare brow and stood there, panting, trying to collect himself again. Agatha, who had retreated to the kitchen while her mother pulled her father up into the air and made circles with him on the floor, looked warily into the parlor and wondered what had happened.

  Hands flat on her thighs, knees bent, like a diver at a pool, Sarie asked, “What shall we do now?” She was imagining Gilbert and herself bent over the kitchen table, Gilbert’s notepad at the ready, pencil in the air. Gilbert listening to her, writing what she told him to. She imagined herself shining. But Gilbert tucked his shirt into his trousers and adjusted his old belt. “I think,” he said, “that I’ll go see Kazansthakis.” Wasn’t that what he’d intended from the start? Shouldn’t he be there right now, on the patio of the Palm, waiting for a toast? Kazansthakis, after all, together with the little dream, Gilbert’s little hope, was the reason for this plan—the brains, so far, behind Gilbert’s new idea. The Frosty King would know exactly what to do. Oh, he’d go there right away.

  It was not what she had hoped. But Sarie held her tongue. She did think, He should stay right here and make the plan with me, but she also felt, magnanimous, that she should grant her husband a little space for joy. For feeling that he’d done something important. As he had. With Majid she had learned the place of intermittent silences, and she had also come to see that certain questions were right on, and others were too quick. Why not treat her Gilbert to a little kindness, too? It’s true, she thought. Kazansthakis had been in business for a while, had lived through Independence, and the parlor was aboom. He would have some contacts, too. Why should she imagine selfishly that she would be this thing’s only heart? Why not be generous, for once? “All right,” she said, adjusting. “Mr. Frosty will help us with the baskets, then. He will give us counsels.” Proud of her own kindness, Sarie nodded at her husband, then bent to rearrange the crocheted headrests on the chairs.

  “The what?” asked Gilbert, already heading for the door. He had quite forgotten. Had she not held to him so well, so beautifully, when she’d first heard the news, he might have loosed a laugh. He didn’t. No, a wave of tenderness engulfed him. “The baskets? Oh, Sarie!” His fingers lingered on the doorknob; his heart beat warmly in his chest. Poor big-boned, helpless, misguided, funny, darling Sarie. Would she not give up? Her persistence charmed him fiercely. “Yes, yes,” he said. “Of course he will. The Frosty King, indeed!” As he left, before Sarie could dissuade him or push him from herself he grabbed her face with both his hands and planted on her damp, soft, open mouth a loud and smacking kiss.

  He did not find the Frosty King at the Victorian Palm. Instead, he drank with Göethe Bienheureux (who talked about his sausages) and bought a Danish engineer a drink. The engineer, impressed by Gilbert’s tenure in the country, was thrilled by Gilbert’s anecdotes. “It’s an honor,” the man said. Gilbert talked about the Sikh shrines on the railway, and the King of Kudra’s wives. He also named the disparate places where body parts reputed to belong to Dr. David Livingstone had been diversely laid to rest. The engineer applauded. “Not really? You don’t say? I’ll remember that one, sir,” he said, “so I can tell my friends.”

  Twenty

  In its part of the city (beside the Old Empire Cinema, just by the new harbor, and not far, either, from the People’s Bank, the Post Office, the dead clubhouse, and the Court), the Frosty-Kreem was a significant attraction. All kinds of people went there on a sunny day and had done so for years, and others, when it rained, sought shelter and dessert. At the Frosty-Kreem, Kazansthakis saw, coming in for cold things after hot lunches of stew, smartly done-up office men with lipsticked women on their arms; independent ladies ordering fancy sundaes, ateeter on high heels; saw ministers, officials, people from the Customs Office, others from the Bank. In the afternoons, schoolchildren in groups came—a crush of blue or green topped with white and satchels; boys with tender Adam’s apples, girls with hardening limbs. He saw the stalwart Vunjamguu types who, after Independence, had had nowhere to go, and also the new immigrants, the people who had once lived on the islands, and their children. A few of these were Europeans, teachers, most of all: a bony, quiet woman who had run a Sewing Program (once Livery-Jones had died); a now-wrinkled Mr. Pursewarden, who had taught literature out there and now wrote poems over chocolate mounds with nuts; and also solemn Mr. Suleiman, who the Frostys knew had suffered, had had narrow escapes, and who, though he had once driven a cab, was sometimes brought on foot by nieces, not for ice cream but for shakes.

  Others were old residents whose families had built the firmer parts of town. Among them, Theosophists and Hindus, Sikhs and Catholics, too. Others from the offices: the girl who worked, he thought, reception at the corner clinic, and her husband, the meteorologist with a mustache, who did something in town. Evening moviegoers, who could fill him in on what had happened on the screen if he couldn’t get away and see it for himself; and also the expatriates, the fresh post-Independence folk who gave the place new life. (“The expats,” he would say, while Mrs. Frosty rolled her eyes at him. “Their wives don’t pat them anymore!”) There were Danes and Swedes and Finns, serious men who tirelessly initiated roads, the plans for which had been drawn up in countries full of snow; doctors, German and Chinese, who bemoaned the state of things; some inscrutable geologists. He also saw a good deal of the airline people: Hans, the German, with his lean wife Greta and two fat boys who liked strawberry ice; a never-married Dutchman (Jan?) with pearly, vacant eyes who ordered huge banana splits but did not like whipped cream. And, of course, most regular, the family from France.

  Xavier and Madame Celeste, a small and shapely couple with four anxious little girls, came, almost without fail, every other afternoon. Xavier had no real taste for ice cream, but he liked to talk with Kazansthakis while his girls sat by the window, where they pointed shamelessly at people on the other side of that clean glass with motions of their spoons. They liked vanilla scoops awash in chocolate sauce, which Madame Celeste, with a nervous giggle and a flash of creamy teeth, always very loudly called “a Negro in a shirt.” Indeed, while outside poorer folk bought orange ices from the cyclists when they could, or only dreamed of sharbat, juice, and yogurt shakes that they could not afford, in safer circles the Frosty-Kreem was central, and Kazansthakis knew it. If he listened closely while he worked, he could acquire new connections, and could stay as up-to-date as nearly anyone in power, or more. And though he didn’t like to do it, he could ask for favors now and then. In the wake of Gilbert Turner’s outlandish proposal, at the urging of his wife, Kazansthakis had put out a single feeler to help things come out right.

  The Air France troop came into the parlor, as expected, on a Thursday afternoon. Casting nervous glances at the Frosty King, his wife, and his own hands, Xavier had waited by the register until the girls, with Madame Celeste presiding, were seated at the window. Impatient, tugging at his sleeves, he watched Kazansthakis for a while, until he had no choice but to go through with what he’d come for. He slicked down his light hair; moving closer in, he raised his arms so that the counter’s edge was tucked into his armpits. His
hands reached out to Mr. Frosty. Kazansthakis, occupied, saw the air man wink and wondered whether Xavier had something in his eye. “Are you all right?” he asked. Xavier crooked his finger. “Kazansthakis,” he said in a whisper. “Those things you wanted, man ami.” Kazansthakis wiped red syrup from his hands and frowned. Xavier looked lugubrious. “What you asked me for. They’ve come.”

  “Ah?” At first, thinking about cones and sprinkles, the Frosty King did not understand. He rubbed idly at a silver scoop, checked his white apron for stains. “Hmm?”

  Xavier brought his head so low that the counter glass fogged up with his breath. “Those things you wanted.”

  Kazansthakis, who had so many things to keep track of, couldn’t think what Xavier meant. He looked the Frenchman in the eye and waited. A sigh was building in his mouth, a tapping in his foot. Xavier brought his face even closer to the Frosty King’s. He cast a glance over his shoulder at the girls, and Kazansthakis for a moment thought that Xavier, who’d gone red, might be suffering from sunstroke or be about to tell the Frosty King his latest dirty joke. “The spark plugs!” Xavier whispered.

  Kazansthakis stilled his raised foot in mid-tap and brought it down around his other ankle, like a serpent at a tree. He squeezed the unsighed sigh back down into his throat. “Ah,” he said. “Ah. Hah.” The spark plugs. He remembered now. The Air France flight had come in on the Monday. “Ah, hah. Very good.”

  Xavier, whose whisper had the sound of sand, said he would go get them. He gestured, like a mime, They are in the car. “I’ll be back,” he said. Kazansthakis rolled his eyes, thinking that unless Xavier grew accustomed to acting more discreetly, he’d not call on him again. How could a secret be a secret if one treated it so strangely? “So go,” he said. “You think they’re good to me out there?”