by Anne Ostby
Kat looks at her, smiling with her whole big mouth as she lifts her glass anew. “Yes, it does,” she says. “Everything we ever wanted.” She lets her gaze glide across the room. “What do you think, ladies? Did everything turn out the way we wanted?”
“Well, I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” Lisbeth responds without missing a beat.
Wildrid thinks she hears a challenge in her voice, and picks up on it. “You mean for the big house on the hill?”
Lisbeth looks at her, astonished. “Yes…That’s what I mean. And for a bastard of a husband who thinks only of himself.”
Sina jerks up her head; Wildrid sees that the guarded look in her eyes has dissolved into a kind of amazement. The tension sparks along the walls, shoulders are squared, and Wildrid feels a delighted rush in her stomach. She throws the ball to Maya.
“And you, Maya? Would you trade it in? Would you rather be in Norway? With Evy?”
She doesn’t know why she added that last part. To insinuate that Maya needs a babysitter no matter where she is? She wishes she could take it back.
Maya holds her glass in her lap, clutching the stem with both hands.
“I was good at drawing,” she says. “And painting. Branko paints. Evy’s husband. He’s a painter.”
Ingrid looks at Maya, astonished. Had she had dreams beyond her teacher’s desk? She pictures them clearly, Steinar and Maya. Goal-oriented, unwaveringly clear on what they wanted. Stability all the way. Could it be that Maya didn’t get everything she had wanted?
Wildrid understands, a small triumph behind the orange bandanna. “Colors, right, Maya? That’s what we’re missing back home, colors?” She gets up and takes a few quick steps into the garden. Disappears for a moment and returns with a yellow flower that she tucks behind Maya’s ear. “It’s not too late, you know. Never too late.”
She leans forward and gives Maya a hug. Ingrid feels Maya jerking backward and spilling red wine in her lap, but Wildrid squeezes her harder. “You’re allowed to draw, Maya.” The words follow of their own accord: “Maraia can draw with you.”
Her gaze involuntarily travels over to Kat. Looking for Kat’s approval. Kat’s blessing. No conversation is over before they hear from Kat.
But there’s no reaction from the wicker chair by the stairs. The forehead under the bangs is wrinkled, her gaze fixed on the horizon. Kat is somewhere else.
“And you, Kat? Is there anything you’d change? Anything you’d do differently if you could make the journey all over again?”
Ingrid hears her own voice, but it’s Wildrid who asks. Kat and Ingrid have known each other forever; Ingrid would never have asked her that. She’s seen Kat with Niklas, seen what they’ve accomplished together. Seen them passionate, ecstatic, exhausted, resigned. Seen them fight so the sparks flew, heard them make love through thin walls. Ingrid is sure Kat wouldn’t change a single comma in her story.
But Wildrid gets another answer. Kat pulls her gaze back from the beach. “You can only see one step at a time,” she says. “Never the whole journey, and then suddenly it’s over. But I’m happy. It’s been wonderful.” She smiles softly, as if at her own secrets.
“But it’s not over!” Wildrid objects. “I still have so much I want to do.”
Kat nods slowly, as if she agrees, and Ingrid feels something gnawing at her: Is Kat sitting there so self-satisfied with her colorful, exciting life that all she can do now is lean back? Enjoying the memories of her dramas and triumphs as she feels sorry for those who have lived their lives in the background, applauding from the sidelines?
“You’ve never seen it, have you?” Wildrid says sharply. “Never understood how you were the yardstick for everything, how we all strove to be just a tiny bit like Kat, a fraction of what you were! And don’t you see it now, with your loyal subjects gathered around you once again?”
Ingrid is horrified. She wants to get up and wrap her arms around Kat, tell her she doesn’t mean a word of what she just said. That Kat has been an inspiration for her always, that there’s no one she loves more. She wants to say that she’s tired, she’s had too much wine, she didn’t mean it!
But Wildrid holds her back. Wildrid throws her arms open wide and turns to the others. “Lisbeth! Sina! Tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about!”
Sina lifts her head, looks from one to the next. “If that’s how it was, I had no idea,” she says. “I was just grateful.” She blows out a big cloud of smoke and turns to Lisbeth. “If I had to do it all again, I’d be much less grateful.”
Lisbeth shrugs. “I always knew,” she says. “That I wasn’t like you, Kat. No one could be like you. But I didn’t care. I had other things.”
Ingrid wants to stop them all, stop herself. That’s not how it was! There will always be a leader. Someone to look up to, someone to write the rules. Someone the others are eager to please. That doesn’t mean she’s…some sort of tyrant!
No? Wildrid asks. Hasn’t it been convenient for Kat that you’ve always been there, ready to praise and admire her? To follow close behind her, camera in hand, ready to document her and Niklas’s amazing accomplishments? Why couldn’t it be you in the center of the frame? Why weren’t you allowed to shine?
Ingrid shakes her head. No one shines when you wear a size 12 shoe. When your hands are wide and knobby and you earn a solid B+ average, you’re trusty and reliable and you slowly rise through the ranks. But trusty and reliable doesn’t catch anyone’s eye. Solid and patient doesn’t send anyone’s pulse racing.
She can feel Kat’s eyes on her. Turns toward her and meets her gaze.
“I’ve loved so little,” she says.
The silence hums in their ears, tightening like a coil around Kat in the center. She opens her mouth at last.
“It’s not too late,” she says. “You just said it yourself. You can always find something. You can never know what form it’s going to take.”
Wildrid grabs Ingrid’s hand. “That delicious feeling,” she whispers. “Again and again.”
—
Ingrid doesn’t draw the curtains in her room at night. She likes the shadow play of the branches on the speckled brick wall outside, and the window is too high up for the guard to peek inside.
She sits on the edge of the bed, unwraps the orange scarf loosely tied around her head. Checks whether Wildrid is still there, hammering away in her chest, but no. The house is quiet around her, even the gecko on the wall above the light switch is frozen still in the moonlight. I’ve loved so little. She pictures Kat’s face, Sina’s. Has Sina loved? Has Lisbeth? “You can never know what form it’s going to take.” Maya and Steinar. Sina and her son.
Ingrid searches her heart. She retrieves what’s inside with trembling fingers: Simon and Petter. Kat. A pair of surprisingly young eyes looking at her through a wreath of laughter lines: I’ve been waiting. I thought you would come.
She lies down on the bed, feels the familiar aching in her back. Thinks to herself that she’ll take Sina out to the garden tomorrow. They have a glut of beans right now, okra too. Maybe Sina could plant some flowers? Ginger flowers and yellow allamanda. Bird-of-paradise flower. Delicate frangipani. Ingrid knows the perfect spot. In the right-hand corner just below the porch, with enough sun, not too much shade. Sina can make something beautiful there.
Ingrid turns toward the wall. Tomorrow she’ll write to Kjell and ask him to sell her apartment.
48
Ateca
Tonight I dreamed of black clouds, Lord. They burst with roars of thunder, and the water flowed across the earth. The ocean rose to meet the rain, and the waves crashed in over the land. The fields drowned and villages were washed away. Afterward the ocean lay calm and quivered with lifelessness. Only a few twigs floated on the surface, and an empty red boat. When I awoke, I knew something important was going to happen.
I said nothing to the ladies. Kaivalagi don’t understand dreams the same way we do. For them, a dream is something the heart doesn’t dare to rem
ember by day. Something old that you can’t let go of. For us, it’s about the future. A hope we can build something on.
I was afraid when I received the next sign. It’s been many years since I’ve heard the death drum, but I recognized the sound at once: the slow, heavy thud is impossible to miss. When the lali beats the rhythm of death, it’s not intense and passionate like a meke, or light and dancing like when a baby is born. It’s deep and dark, and lets the echo from one beat reverberate completely before the next one comes.
I knew it was the death drum because Akuila didn’t hear it. He stood beside me outside the house, and as the heavy rhythm sang in my head, he was talking and laughing as usual. I turned away from him and listened for the sound. But it grew weaker and weaker, and finally turned into silence.
You’ve said that we should trust you, Lord. That you’ll lead us safely through the storm. Help me to be brave and strong.
And Vilivo, Lord. I don’t know where he is, but I know he’ll come back. Watch over him in the meantime. Help him and let him find work, so he can support himself, become an adult, and start a family.
In Jesus’ holy name. Emeni.
49
Maya
She doesn’t remember what Evy said. Evy is her daughter. There was something she said. I should have written it down, Maya thinks. What Evy said.
The kitchen around her looks familiar. The thing on the counter that you put bread in; when the slices come out of there, they’re brown and slightly burned. The creaking noise when the door swings open behind her reminds her of birds. The woman with the dark curly hair who always makes her tea smiles and hands her a cup. Maya smiles back—who is she again?
—
“Evy said it’s your decision,” Kat says. “Whether you want to keep living here with us or you want to go back. She said she could make up a nice cozy room for you in their house in Trondheim.”
“Trondheim,” Maya repeats. Evy lives in Trondheim.
Kat nods. Maya nods back. She likes that they’re nodding together. Something on her chest makes a clicking noise. She looks down. Every time she nods, there’s a clicking noise when the seeing thing she wears on a string around her neck hits a button on her shirt. She keeps nodding, click, click, click, click.
“Maya,” Kat says, and grabs her arms. She’s stopped nodding. What is she saying now? Her mouth is very close to Maya’s face.
“Evy loves you very much. We do too. It’s your decision where you want to live.”
It’s your decision. It’s your decision. It’s important that she hears what the mouth is saying. She has to remember it. She should write it down.
—
A very old woman stares back at her in the mirror, surprised. The strange thing is that when she blinks, the woman in the mirror blinks at the same time. Maya tries to blink with one eye to make sure she’s seeing correctly, and the woman does the same. She has a seeing thing hanging on a string around her neck too. Maya turns away from the woman in the mirror; she looks cross. She wants to find the woman with the curly hair who always makes tea. Has she eaten dinner yet? She can’t remember.
—
“Maraia’s here to see you,” Kat says.
A small child comes in and sits on the floor. “We can look at some books,” the child says. “I’ll find one.”
They look at the big book with flags and oceans. “There we are,” the child says, and points to a little speck in a big blue field.
“Yes,” Maya says. She doesn’t know what the child means, but she understands that it’s possible to be a speck. Be like a speck.
“I knew someone who painted pictures,” she tells the child. “Specks of color on top of other colors. I don’t remember who it was.”
The child gives her a long look. “Do you get scared when you don’t remember?” she asks.
Maya doesn’t know. Is she scared? What was she supposed to be scared of again? She stares at the mosquito net hanging like a white rolled-up cloud above her bed. She’s supposed to be scared of mosquito bites.
She looks at the dress the child is wearing. Orange, with red and white flowers. She opens her mouth. “Bowl,” she says, and looks at the girl with her eyes full of wonder. She doesn’t know why she said it.
But the girl smiles. “Bula,” she responds, and smooths the dress down with her fingers. “Bula dress. Madam Kat sewed it for me.”
Maya shakes her head. She’s the one who sewed the dress. She’s sewed all of Evy’s clothes. They don’t have a lot of money, Steinar and she, and it’s useful that she can sew what her daughter needs. “I can teach you to sew,” she says in Norwegian.
But the girl shakes her head. “Now I don’t know what you’re saying,” she replies. She speaks a different language, and Maya is glad that she can understand it. She wants to respond, but the words glide away, like ice skates on the frozen-over lake at Reitviksletta in the winter. She opens her mouth and closes it again. Strokes her hand over the flowers on the girl’s dress. She’s not Evy after all. “Bula,” the girl says again, and smiles.
From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Subject: Good to see you
Dear Evy
It was good to see you. I know it wasn’t easy to leave here last Sunday, and I think you’ve made a brave and compassionate decision. I feel sure that letting Maya stay here with us will give her the best days possible. We don’t know how many more of them there will be, but we’ll make them as good as we possibly can for her.
Maya still enjoys spending time with us in the sweet house, and I honestly believe that a piece of chocolate or two a day is good for everyone, no matter the state of their health! She likes painting; she often sits on the porch with watercolors and paints together with little Maraia, whom you met. It’s become harder for Maya to speak English, it seems, but she and Maraia understand each other anyway.
Let’s keep in touch.
Warmly,
Kat
She walks beside the child along a beach. They hold hands and walk toward a red boat pulled ashore under some palm trees. A large, broad-chested man spreads out his net to dry across the boat, a spiderweb with glittering drops of ocean.
“Bula, Jone,” the child says to the man.
“Bula vinaka, Maraia.”
Maya takes off the head thing that makes her hair sweaty. She looks at the child, who nods to encourage her to say something. “Bula vinaka,” Maya repeats.
The man laughs; the child laughs too. Maya stands still and absorbs the laughter, a warm, gentle wave rolling toward her. She can’t remember what was so funny. But the laughter is round and comfortable, a song through her head. She shuts her eyes to picture it. A red stream behind her eyelids, a trembling. She feels the wind lift her hair from her head, feels empty and light. There’s something she should remember. But the sand under her toes is cool here in the shade, there’s a taste in her mouth of something sweet. Maya draws a deep breath in through her nose, hears a startled cry from somewhere far away. A feeling of gliding slowly through time, arms holding her tight as the big song breaks through and fills her to the brim.
50
Sina
She walks past Maya’s room. Peeks in through the door that’s ajar and sees a book with large maps laid on the floor, a pile of ironed clothes on the bed. The afternoon is hot and sticky, and Sina wonders whether she should walk over to the sweet house. There are molds to be washed, cardboard boxes to be folded, tinfoil and cellophane to be cut. It’s cooler in there and probably empty; Kat’s in the kitchen and Ingrid’s in the garden. In a few hours, when the day begins in Norway, Lisbeth will get on the phone with potential customer contacts. Maya’s gone for a walk and Maraia is with her. Sina decides to glance around the corner below the porch, where her Vanda orchids and copperleaf are now thriving in full bloom. Thanks to the compost Ingrid makes out of their food scraps, the bearded iris seems to be doing especially well.
She takes the four steps down into the
garden before she sees him. Jone comes walking along the beach, carrying something in his arms, something heavy and limp. A small person walks beside him. From their rhythm, the slow steps without haste, Sina can tell right away that something’s too late.
—
The worst part is Maraia’s huge black eyes. She just stands there, doesn’t cry, doesn’t say anything. It’s worse looking at her than at the lifeless bundle that is Maya, the hat Sina carefully strokes off her, the shell that is her body. Kat tries to talk to Maraia, ask her what happened, but she gets no reaction. It’s Jone who speaks. He tells them that Maya looked completely normal when she and Maraia came walking along the beach, before she suddenly stopped and collapsed.
When the doctor arrives, Sina hears something about “a massive stroke” and “there most likely wasn’t time for her to feel anything.” But she’s not interested in the why or how. It’s over, it’s finished, she knew it the second she saw Jone’s big dark shape coming into focus from the backlit shadow.
—
Sina wants to bathe and dress Maya, and she wants to do it alone. She rejects Ateca’s offer to help, and gets a basin of water and washcloths from the kitchen. She places the green plastic tub on the stool Maya used as a nightstand. Yesterday I was rinsing rice in it, she thinks. She sits on the edge of the bed, on the sheet that still smells of her sweat. One of Maya’s hands lies palm up, gaping like a hungry animal. Her fingers are dry and cold to the touch when Sina turns it around and lays it to rest alongside her body.
She makes sure the water is lukewarm. Pulls the dress over the head of the deceased, strokes her hair. It feels withered, like old grass. She loosens the underwear and carefully pulls it off.
She’s never seen Maya naked. The white folds of skin, veins and brown spots on a silent map of sixty-seven lived years. The soft cloth caresses her slowly, bit by bit, rinsing, concluding. Over. Our time on earth.