What was I supposed to do? Strip?
But then it slipped out with a grunt, like a sudden, unexpected fart. She blushed.
“He’s not funny,” Vasinthe snapped. “Don’t encourage him.” She trained her sights on Issa once more. “Stop making excuses for yourself. You could have taken his biography!”
Ha! He scoffed. That thing was ghost written. This means something!
Vasinthe jerked her head angrily. “Why? Did Guevara weave it himself?”
Katinka buried her mouth in her palm and crossed her legs tightly.
“Ssh,” Kagiso beseeched, rolling his eyes around the room. “Not so loud.”
Vasinthe swivelled her eyes in his direction, inhaled deeply, then whispered rebuke at Issa. “You didn’t have to wear the damn rag. You could have taken it in a bag! If you absolutely had to.” She turns to Kagiso and Katinka in turn to make her case. “There were people there, colleagues, who had gone to great lengths, made considerable efforts, to look their best, to make a good impression. And then, lo and behold,” she points an upturned palm in the direction of her errant son, “in strolls Issa Shamsuddin, wearing washed-out jeans and a faded T-shirt.” She turns back to Issa, her hand now brandishing a wagging forefinger. “That’s how you stir resentments, make unnecessary enemies. I just wish you would develop a sensitivity for these things.”
Issa remains undeterred. But I told you what I would be wearing.
Exasperated, his mother raised her upturned fork once more. Kagiso cleared his throat. She laid the knife down slowly and rested her hands on the edge of the table as if to push it away. “I thought you were joking.”
Have I ever joked?
Kagiso regretted glancing at Katinka; her eyes had started to water with the effort of restraint, her nostrils flared and she had turned the colour of the lobster shells on her plate. Suppressed laughter is contagious. He pushed his upper lip between his teeth as a sort of ineffectual combatant.
“Then why did you fax me your measurements?” Vasinthe demanded.
Because you insisted! In any case, they weren’t even my measurements.
“What! Whose were they?”
His.
Kagiso, suddenly implicated, cleared his throat and attempted a straight face. Vasinthe turned on him. “Were you in on this?”
Laughter still twitched at the corners of his mouth. He struggled to speak. “Um...”
No, he wasn’t. I figured that if you refused for me to go like this, then at least he’d be able to go with you.
Kagiso smiled, but Vasinthe was not endeared. “You stubborn, stubborn boy. And did you figure the security problems that would have caused? I’m sure that would have been very amusing indeed, absolutely hilarious.”
Katinka dropped her head in awkward embarrassment.
Look, what’s your problem? Issa implored with hunched shoulders and upturned palms. I mean, he wasn’t even a wearing a suit himself.
Vasinthe pushed her untouched plate aside and pressed a napkin to her mouth. “Issa, he is the president. And you were his guest. My guest!”
Yes, Ma. The president. Not God, just the president. And I voted to make him so. Did you?
The inference landed, crash, like a dead whale in the middle of the table and drew the attention of everybody in the restaurant.
Kagiso’s jaw dropped. Katinka’s fork stopped in mid-air. She looked at it, contemplating whether to bring it to her mouth or put it down. Issa blinked slowly. He watched his mother’s hand search the table. First, it hovered over the knife. Katinka turned her eyes to see without moving her head. She laid down the fork. Then Vasinthe’s hand moved to the uneaten piece of snoek on her plate. Kagiso swallowed deeply: “Ma Vasinthe?” he whispered, as if trying to rouse her from sleep. Her hand, no longer able to restrain itself, desperate to clutch and throw, seized on the glass of red wine in front of her. Issa raised his arms in a protective gesture, exposing an autographed flank. Guevara glowered. Vasinthe, aiming at her offending son’s face, flicked the glass by its stem with a deft wrist movement. Its contents travelled through the air like a red arc. Plate-balancing waiters stopped in mid-stride, other diners gasped and Kagiso and Katinka watched in horror as Vasinthe’s face-seeking missile hurtled out of control and hit its unintended targets with deadly inaccuracy.
Mandela.
Guevara.
Collateral damage.
Irreplaceable.
Flapping waiters descended on the scene like aid workers at a war. “Madam, are you alright? Sir? Quick, snap snap, get some towels! And water!” Kagiso and Katinka dropped their arms limply by their sides, innocent bystanders, stunned wine-speckled targets of ricocheting shrapnel. Vasinthe slumped back in her chair. In a flash, it all came back to her, the relaxed air of the proceedings, the lack of pomp and ceremony, the way he really does make one feel at ease.
When the last person had had her book autographed, Issa got up from his seat and walked over to where he was seated. Neither of them had had dessert, neither of them had had alcohol. It had been clear to all that Issa, wearing only washed-out jeans and a t-shirt, had caught the president’s eye.
I used to wear this T-shirt on demonstrations when you were inside, he said. I only wear it on special occasions now – they laughed – because it’s getting old and I’d like to keep it for posterity. It would mean a lot to me if you signed it here, please. He pointed his finger at the space above Guevara.
“Oh, I get pride of place,” the president joked.
They laughed again.
He took the pen. “My pleasure,” he said, and signed his loopy signature. “You know, he is a hero of mine too.” Then he leaned towards Issa and, tugging at the T-shirt, whispered loud enough for all to hear. “Maybe you could send me one of these in the post some time, so I can wear it on my next visit to the States.” And then he laughed his infectious laugh as he shook Issa’s hand and patted him on the shoulder.
Vasinthe brought her palm to her mouth. How to take it back? She couldn’t. The shot had been fired. The war would follow its own course.
Mother looked at son, suspended in disbelief, his arms outstretched, head hung, surveying his bleeding side; the final dying pose of another Issa. She wanted to wash it all away, stop the stain from spreading, like a flood, into Guevara’s stern teetotal mouth, stop it from staining a loopy teetotal autograph, stop it sinking into the lean gashed side of her teetotal son.
He looked up at his mother. You’ve killed me, his eyes said. It is finished.
The clamour of the salvage operation penetrated the haze. They watched plates and glasses and bottles and silver pepper pots and pretty flowers being whisked away. Stained linen was stripped, folded and solemnly carried out. The meal was over. The deed was done.
Issa was the first to rise. He peeled the T-shirt from his body and lifted it over his head, revealing the hipbones above the belt, the hollow concave stomach, the stained red chest. He dropped the soggy T-shirt on the table, where it landed with a squelch. They watched the red liquid oozing from the lump of cloth, like blood from a bludgeoned brain – were fixed by Guevara’s unblinking, lifeless eyes. Issa turned away and walked out of the restaurant, bare-chested. When they stepped out onto the pier looking left, looking right, he was already gone, wearing only washed-out jeans.
“This is Russell Square. The next station is Holborn. Please stand clear of the closing doors.”
When Katinka arrives at Vasinthe’s hotel on Russell Square, she announces herself at reception and waits on one of the comfortable sofas nearby. But she soon feels closed in by the oak panels, the marble walls and arches, the sparkling chandeliers. She moves around awkwardly in the sofa, then gets up and paces the foyer. She smiles with relief when Vasinthe descends the grand central staircase a few moments later. When they have exchanged greetings and preliminary pleasantries – Katinka compliments Vasinthe on her exquisite salwaar khamees, which, had it been presented to her in a bundle on a stick, she would have taken for candyfloss
and tried to stuff in her mouth – Vasinthe inquires as to her preference: “Tea here in the hotel, or a walk and maybe something outside?”
Katinka does not hesitate. “A walk would be good,” she decides. “It’s a lovely day outside. Spring is in the air.” She finds the hotel overbearing, too unchanged.
Vasinthe drops her key at reception then, in an unexpected gesture, takes Katinka by the arm and leads her out of the hotel. “I see they’ve refurbished the square,” she says, as they step into the bright spring sunshine. “Do you mind if we go for an amble in there? I’m curious to see what they’ve done to it.”
“Of course not,” Katinka obliges. “I haven’t seen it either.” She presses the button on the traffic light and watches as the breeze lifts the scarf that is draped loosely across Vasinthe’s chest, falling elegantly down her back, the weave so delicate it seems it might be unravelled in the wind.
When they step into the square, Vasinthe smiles. “This is so nice. And look,” she exclaims pointing at the new cafeteria. “They’ve done away with the greasy spoon! That was an institution.”
“You,” Katinka says, cringing slightly at the crude word, “seem to know this part of London quite well.” She’s been anguishing over how to address her companion and wishes she could resort to the safety of an honorific pronoun, as would have been the case if they were speaking Afrikaans. She can’t call her by her first name. If Vasinthe were Afrikaans she’d call her ‘Tannie’ or if she were Indian, she’d call her ‘Aunty’. ‘Mrs’, if it were an option, would be easy, she thinks. ‘Professor’ seems formal and Katinka doesn’t want to appear unacknowledging of her academic success, but how does one address an Emeritus Professor during a walk in the park? She decides as far as possible to avoid calling her anything.
“Yes. I studied not far from here. But that was years ago, don’t ask me when!” she says jokingly. “More recently, I’ve been coming and going for conferences and the rest.”
“And do you always stay on Russell Square?”
Vasinthe nods. “It’s my corner of London. I like it. I can find my way around from here. And, of course, it reminds me of my youth, when I was young and foreign, a dangerous combination!”
Having bought drinks and two slices of pastry, they sit by the fountain in the middle of the square. Occasionally, when the jets of water rise to their full height, drowning out the city beyond, the breeze carries a cool mist from the spray in their direction against which Vasinthe shields her face. She has settled, facing Katinka, her left leg draped over her right, her right elbow resting on the backrest of the black wooden bench. The posture makes her look confident, self-assured, like an actress being interviewed, Katinka thinks. Heads turn.
When chitchat and pastry nibbling is over, Katinka makes it easy; she broaches the subject. “I’m sorry about Issa,” she says.
Vasinthe’s expression withers and, inside her chest, her heart sinks. The reason for their meeting has been raised and her secret hope that Katinka would know something the others didn’t, something she couldn’t tell her on the phone, something so significant that it was imperative she wait to tell her in person – shattered. A nervous smile takes over her face, more an embarrassed pulling of the cheeks than a smile. Then, suddenly, this poised, accomplished woman is exposed, vulnerable, like a girl. Katinka watches as she unravels a perfumed handkerchief from her pouch, releasing its delicate fragrance into the air; jessamine, violet, rose?
“Excuse me,” Vasinthe says, pushing her sunglasses to the top of her head. “I’m not usually like this, and definitely not in public.” She lowers her eyes gently to the perfumed cloth, first the right, then the left. “I think it’s being in London.”
“No need to apologise.” Katinka inches her hand towards Vasinthe’s shoulder, but then withdraws it, cautious of penetrating the scented bubble, which seems to mark the boundaries of her sweet-smelling silk-swathed personal space.
Vasinthe clears her throat. “The same thing happened to me yesterday when I met his supervisor,” she confesses with a sniff. “You know what they say about researcher/supervisor relationships?”
Katinka shakes her head.
“That they’re like marriages.”
Katinka laughs nervously. “No, I didn’t know that.”
Encouraged by the response and wanting desperately to kindle laughter rather than tears, Vasinthe continues. “It’s true. I am myself constantly engaged in polygamist commitments. At the moment I have two husbands and a wife of my own in Johannesburg. I know how close the bond can grow.” She leans back to watch Katinka’s enjoyment of the analogy. “So I thought that I should explain to my,” she draws inverted commas in the air, “‘son-in-law’ in person.” She tries to join in the laughter but a swarm of persistent twitches ambushes the corners of her mouth. She purses her lips and drops her head.
Katinka feels a tug. She clenches her teeth in a tight grip until it feels that they might shatter. She cannot cry too.
A few moments later, Vasinthe proceeds cautiously. “Apparently they worked very well together,” she says slowly, pronouncing each word very deliberately. “He thought Issa’s research was very promising. Pertinent was a word he also used. I had to admit that I knew very little of what he was writing about.”
She pauses.
Katinka waits.
“Before I left, he gave me a file containing some chapters from his thesis, a few articles. When I saw his name on the front cover, in his own handwriting...”
Katinka’s exhalations become staggered. She clenches her jaw again. Her ribs start to ache with the effort of restraint, so she hugs herself tightly across her chest. The embrace provides little relief.
When Vasinthe feels capable, she tries again to ease the air. She blows her nose. “What is it with me,” she reproaches herself. “I seem to have you either fighting back laughter or fighting back tears.”
Katinka gives vent to the sobbing laugh that had started to throb like a painful lump in her throat.
When Katinka returns with two bottles of chilled water, the glasses turned upside down over the top, she waits for Vasinthe to secure her powder puff.
“That was quick,” Vasinthe says, hurrying the procedure. When she has slipped the silver case back into her pouch, she reaches for one of the bottles. “Thank you,” she says with a guilty smile. They unscrew the bottles and drink thirstily.
“Issa’s supervisor always sounded to me like a very nice man,” Katinka says with a quenched sigh. “I would have liked to meet him.”
“Yes, very nice,” Vasinthe admits, sliding her sunglasses back onto her nose. “Not a great talker, like Issa.” She looks into the fountain, observing its simple modern design, an almost indiscernible circular depression in the middle of a larger concentric circular space. She counts the sprays of white frothy water, like liquid stalacmites, at once shooting up and collapsing back down on themselves. Thirteen. She follows the trajectory of the tallest spray in the middle – Judas, she decides. “I got the impression they didn’t actually say very much to each other.” Her tone is distant, as though hypnotised. “That they communicated entirely in writing. Reading and writing.”
She cuts short her reverie and turns to Katinka. “You two used to see each other regularly, didn’t you?”
Katinka shakes her head keenly. “Once a week. At least, once a fortnight.”
Reassured, Vasinthe smiles. “And what was he like? With you, I mean?”
Katinka considers her response. “Do you mind if I smoke?”
“Not at all.”
She lights a cigarette hurriedly and then answers, smoke rolling from her lips. “The same way he was with everybody, I guess. Quiet, observant, never saying very much. You know what Issa was like.”
“Even with you?”
“Even with me,” she concedes with a shrug, then rests her smoking hand along the back of the bench.
Vasinthe is surprised. “Oh,” she exclaims.
“Why? What made you think
he’d be any different with me? Issa was the way he – ” She revises her statement. “Issa is the way he is.”
Vasinthe looks at the grassy patch beyond the fountain, as if searching the languorous bodies there for an answer. “I liked to think that there was somebody who he was normal with. At least one person he could gossip with, binge with, get drunk with, have long conversations with. Somebody he could be less lonely with.” She looks at Katinka. “I always imagined that person to be you.”
Katinka shakes her head. “I just can’t see Issa doing any of those things. And as for being lonely, I think he was only ever lonely in company.”
Vasinthe starts fidgeting with one of the silk tassels on the edge of her scarf. “But he counted you as a friend, did he not?”
“I’m sure he did. In fact, I know he did. ”
She wraps the tassel around her finger “And you him?”
“Absolutely. One of my dearest.”
She tosses the tassel aside impatiently. “Yet he imposed his contrary disposition on you?”
Katinka taps her cigarette. “I didn’t... I didn’t see it as an imposition. I didn’t expect him to be any other way. I wasn’t bothered by his silence. Neither, I think, was Frances.”
“So what? You both endured him?”
Katinka refrains from clicking her tongue. “Not in the least,” she says, attempting temperance. She looks up to where the green turrets of Vasinthe’s hotel peer like a fairytale through the treetops and raises the cigarette to her lips. “Look,” she says, when she has exhaled, “there are many people I can get drunk with in London. Everybody drinks here. It’s the norm. An almost obligatory part of life. And there are even more people I can gossip with.” She looks at Vasinthe. “But very few of them listen. Issa was different. He listened. He was the perfect audience.”
When the jets of water in the fountain suddenly collapse into gurgling mushrooms bubbling in the shallow pond at the base of the fountain, the noise of the city comes rushing into the square. Open-topped buses crammed with sightseeing tourists come and go on Southampton Row – the distinctive automatic drone of the black London cabs starting and stopping in the congestion contribute to the din of the coagulated first-gear traffic on Montague Place. Huge coaches with enormous protruding antennae-like mirrors, deliver crowds of walking camcorders to the British Museum.
Silent Minaret Page 12