by Nōnen Títi
As the three kings, who
promised me their friendship
led me across,
I left you
in the deep.
I walked on fire
the night you burned.
You lit a flame;
it licked my manly hood.
I hooked the bait that
caught you on my rod.
That night I cooked
your silver body
in my pot.
I walked on air
the night you flew away.
Your lashing storm;
a blizzard in my name.
Raised by my snowman
who melted in the bedroom.
That Christmas night
when you were
not alone.
I’ll walk on earth
the day I leave you.
My head up high;
I’ll go and seek my path.
For I have tried and failed
to bring you water.
I am not rain,
like her,
I never was.
Shit. I can see why he didn’t want to be there. I can almost see him blushing, just a faint flash of red that fades as fast as it comes. I’m struck again by his loneliness. The last part is for Uncle Charl. I wonder if he gets to read it. I wish I could answer this in some way, but I don’t have the words.
“Are you getting up today or were you intending to spend your last day with us in bed?” Granannie asks, coming into the room. “Is it Friday already?”
“Ellie is making French toast.”
“I’m coming.”
The kitchen is steaming with hot drinks and filled with the smell of warm bread. I wish I could stay here forever. I say good morning and am ushered to sit down by a plate full of cinnamon toast. Opposite me, Jerome turns away when I look at him. Is he embarrassed? All through breakfast he avoids talking to anybody and he doesn’t once look at me.
“What’s up with you?” I ask.
Aggressively, Jerome stands up so his chair falls backward and he leaves the kitchen moments later. Now they all look at me. “I have no idea, honest.”
“Maybe he doesn’t want to leave tomorrow,” Miranda suggests, but that isn’t it. Whatever’s hurting him is deep and serious.
“I don’t know either,” Uncle Charl says to Grandpa Will.
Granannie leaves to go after him. Rummaging through every little corner of my brain, I try to figure out what I could have said or done to cause this, because it’s me, I’m sure of that. We had dinner, then called home, had coffee and went to bed. I didn’t see him since, except the poems… My stories! I almost drop a plate.
I gave him the whole folder without editing, without removing the one about Nikos. “Oh shit.” I turn bright red with only the dishwater to notice. Oh, how stupid! Why didn’t I think? Why do I always end up wrecking things when they’re good? Not just the story; I kept the letter in it. “Damn.”
“If you’re trying to break the dishes, you may as well do it before you wash them,” Ellie says.
I have to find Jerome before he finds Uncle Charl. I drop the plate back into the sink and walk out, drying my hands on my pants. I run upstairs first, hoping that he’s alone, but his room is empty – so is the bathroom. I meet Granannie heading for the stairs when I’m just coming down. “Where’s Jerome?”
“I can’t find him. What happened, Mariette?”
“I don’t know.”
She doesn’t believe me but lets me go. I run to the barn. He must know this is the letter Uncle Charl was looking for. “Jerome?”
He stands at the window, silhouetted against the light. I can’t see his expression, but I feel that he’s watching me.
“I never meant for you to see it.” I walk to the side wall so I can see his face. “I didn’t think; only just now.”
He stares out the window, refusing to acknowledge me. His throat jumps when he swallows.
“I didn’t mean to keep quiet about it, it just happened. Please Jerome, it’s only a story. I made it up.”
He breathes deeply and slowly, through his nose and he won’t acknowledge me. I talk to him anyway. I tell him how I found the letter that I wanted to show Grandpa Will but never did. “I was afraid Uncle Charl didn’t want anybody to know. I wanted to give it back to him.”
Only I’d had the chance for the last two weeks and never once thought about it. I step a little closer. “Listen, Jerome – don’t go pouting on your own. If you’re angry then shout at me, don’t run.”
“You ridicule me and then you wonder if I’m angry?” His voice is raw, but at least he’s finally saying something.
“I know you’re angry but I didn’t ridicule you,” I answer, trying to be gentle.
“You make believe there’s something wrong with Dad.”
“I didn’t, what makes you say that? It’s a story. You saw the letter. You’ve got to understand what it says. Your dad loves this guy. Why don’t you call him?”
“You’re lying. I told you he was just a friend.”
“What?” And he had me feeling guilty!
On an impulse I push him away from me with both hands and then kick his leg for good measure. “You are so judgmental, you know that? You might sound like the nice guy, never using bad language and all, but you’re the one turning your dad into a stranger and you insult this family. Nobody here buys into that kind of pathetic selectivism. Grandpa Will won’t for sure, nor Granannie. They just want to see him happy, it doesn’t matter with whom.” I take a breath and grab his shirt when he tries to turn away. “Is that what the poem said? You knew about it? You could have made him happy. You didn’t fail at all – you never even tried. You know what I think? I think you’re jealous. You’re so afraid you’ll be rejected that you act as if you already are and you turn away from your dad because you’re afraid his life will be in your way. Maybe GG wasn’t even real, just morality’s voice, your voice and it was you who didn’t want Nikos there and it’s you who made him go mad!”
I know I’m going way over the top and I half-expect him to slap me, but he doesn’t.
“You’re selfish and you’re spoiled and you no longer exist for me,” he hisses, straightening his back. Then with a yank on his shirt he walks out.
Now what? I need help; I can’t let him suffer alone, and knowing Jerome he won’t tell anybody. He’s walking to the house. I follow at a distance. I need the letter – my folder – but Jerome goes straight to his room. I try, but can’t open the door. He must have barricaded it.
Instead I decide to tell Uncle Charl, but when I finally find a moment alone with him, I don’t know where to start. The moment passes. Next I go in search of Grandpa Will – I deserve the trouble I’ll get into for lying, but I find him trying to get Jerome to open his door, so I walk away.
“Is there anything you want to tell me?” Granannie asks when I cut the vegetables later, but Aunt Ellie is there.
“No.”
Jerome comes down for dinner but he ignores me as he said he would. He more or less ignores everyone and I see no sign from Grandpa Will or Uncle Charl that indicates they know. I excuse myself, saying that I’ve forgotten something. Upstairs I find clear tape around his door handle and covering both frames; a whole roll by the looks of it. Chances are the folder isn’t even there, so I go back to the kitchen. I know he glances at me even if I miss the moment.
I sit down and stretch my leg under the table as far as I can. I move my foot into the right direction but only manage to kick his shin on the third try. He ignores it. I ‘accidentally’ spill my water, so it drips down his side. He doesn’t even stop eating while his dad and Aunt Ellie dab it up. But his eyes are wet. How the hell are we going to get home tomorrow like this, and with Miranda? How will we manage at school?
Our last evening is silent and painful. Though I’m sure Jerome would rather be in his room, he stays downstairs. I deliberately keep looking at him so he notices it, but he never
wavers. Grandpa Will asks about the train ride – are we sure he doesn’t need to take us? “Or Ellie can drive you all the way.”
“We can manage,” Jerome says.
I agree and so does Miranda, who is excited at the prospect of going by train instead of by car.
“What’s going on?” Granannie asks again when we go to bed.
“It’s just sad to leave here,” I lie. I will so miss sleeping with her tomorrow. Tonight, however, I can’t sleep. It’s two in the morning and I’m still replaying my blunder in my head. Why didn’t I think before deciding to return the favour? Just when it was…
I can’t do this. I have to get through to him.
Granannie is breathing regularly. Very slowly, I push away the cover and crawl on top of it. Since Grandpa Jerry is no longer using it, his side of the bed – the side I’m on – is against the wall, so I move to the foot-end before stepping down. I find my sweats in the faint moonlight. Holding my breath I open the door and then look back; no response. Most people go a bit deaf when they get older.
I open the door to Jerome’s room just as silently. Before I’m all the way in, the bedside lamp goes on. “It’s me. I came to ask for my folder,” I tell him.
“I don’t have it.”
“You do, Jerome; please. I know I messed up, but I didn’t mean to.” I walk closer. He turns his back to me.
“Please, Jerome. I never begged anybody for anything ever before. You can keep the letter.”
“I don’t want it.”
“You need to call him. Uncle Charl wants him, don’t you see that? Tell him it was my fault.”
“I’m not listening.”
But he is. He can’t ignore me. “Don’t be as big-headed as I am, Jerome. It hurts people. It hurts your dad.”
“Go away.”
“Not until you promise and give me my fold-”
He moves too fast. I try to wrench myself out of his grip but his weight knocks me to the ground and I end up next to the bed. His knees press on my arms. “Get off me,” I whisper, too aware that it’s the middle of the night.
When he takes a hold of my face I can see a strange smile in his eyes. My body remembers before my head does. “No, please let go of me!” I try to jerk, but he’s stronger and has the better position. This is ridiculous. “This is so wrong.”
He lets go as suddenly as he jumped on me and then sits against the bed and buries his head in his knees. My legs are still shaking but I sit up and rub my arms. Is he crying?
The big light goes on above our heads. Granannie is standing in the doorway. Shit, I’m to blame for this. I invaded his room. “I only wanted to-”
“Not now. Get up, you two.” Granannie is frowning. “Go wipe up and find me that letter. Then come to my room. Let me lean on you, Mariette.”
“Are you okay?”
“I have to go back to bed. Without stockings my legs hurt – varicose veins,” she answers.
I let her lean on my arm and take her back to our room. “Find me my shawl.”
I know which one she means, so I drape it over the headboard and crawl into bed. Jerome comes in, in pyjamas. He avoids my eyes and hovers near the door until Granannie comes out of the bathroom. “Move over, Mariette, as far as you can. Get in, Jerome,” she says.
This is a little embarrassing, though much more for Jerome than for me. Granannie climbs in last, tucks the shawl around her shoulders, and settles against the pillow with a sigh of relief. She picks up the letter. She needs her glasses to read it and puts both into her drawer when she’s done. Jerome is lying very still, staring at the ceiling. I’m back as far against the wall as I can and leaning on my elbow, but I keep my eyes on my grandmother.
“Tell me what you know about Jerome, Mariette.”
“What? Why? I mean… I don’t understand.”
Granannie repeats her request without explaining it.
“I don’t know. He’s quiet; he writes poems and he’s… uh, sensitive.”
“Tell me something about Mariette, Jerome.”
“She doesn’t care about people’s feelings.”
“Would you call her more dominating or more submissive?”
“Dominating.” He keeps his eyes closed. I can’t blame him and at the moment the tone of his voice hurts me more than the words do.
“What about Jerome?”
“He’s assertive, though; not dominant, but not submissive.” He certainly wasn’t just now. Granannie seems to have forgotten that it’s nearly three in the morning.
“So when you dream – and I don’t mean your subconscious night-time dreams – when you dream, do you dream of being as dominating or submissive as you are in the daytime?” Granannie looks at me for a moment though she’s asking Jerome, but he says nothing.
“Of course you don’t. What would be the point of dreaming about something you already have? Dreaming is a perfectly healthy way to balance out your needs. But sometimes people find a partner with whom they can actually exchange roles for a while, usually at night. Those are very lucky people. Charl and Nikos were like that.”
I can feel Jerome’s body tense up, but otherwise he doesn’t move.
“Nothing in this letter is news to me,” Granannie continues. “Charl told us about it when we couldn’t find it in the barn. He told us a lot of things we didn’t know before. Since then we’ve been trying to find Nikos, but everybody seems to have been told not to give any information and we don’t want to go to the authorities because of what that neighbour said. We knew from the start that one of you must have the letter, so when Jerome went to the barn and Mariette followed, I knew who had it all this time.”
“You knew where Jerome was? Then how did you know he had it just now?”
“Because I was awake when you left the room. I was in the doorway the whole time.”
Jerome turns onto his stomach and buries his head in a pillow. Granannie sends me a small smile before turning off the lamp. Not sure whether it’s the right thing to do, I put my hand on Jerome’s hot back and rub slowly. Halfway, I meet Granannie’s hand.
“I walked in on them,” Jerome says, so quietly he hardly breaks the silence. “I heard talking, so I walked in… and then I didn’t want to listen to him. I felt betrayed and then Nikos left… because Dad told him to… for me. Then he started drinking again, so when he… that night, it was because of me, because he was lonely, but I didn’t know. How could I have known?”
“You couldn’t have. Charl told us about that too. He should have been honest with you kids. But then, Jerome, you found it hard to see Charl as your father, didn’t you? That’s exactly the reason he kept it from you. He was afraid you wouldn’t accept him and you treated him as if he were the child.”
Granannie’s hand moves to Jerome’s head, her voice no louder than his. “It’s true that some people are born as if adults and others die still children and they need to be treated accordingly, but within the right social setting. You have a natural tendency to take responsibility even for things that don’t concern you. With that comes the tendency to tell other people what to do, but that doesn’t mean you know best. It isn’t right for a child to tell his father how to behave even if your intentions are good. It wasn’t your place.
“There are also people who, by their very nature, don’t like to be in charge. Today those people find themselves in a very frightening world without much structure, and sometimes they may want somebody else to take control at home. Nikos was able to do that for Charl and you have to remember that there is nothing wrong with that.”
I can’t help loving my grandmother for her gentle words, even though they’re pretty confrontational, and they float in the darkness, just reaching me over Jerome’s head. There they stop. This is between just us.
I don’t remember falling asleep but I wake up when Granannie gets out of bed, my hand still over Jerome. I leave it there. I like him this way – so at peace. Today we have to go home so I don’t want to get up in the first place. �
�How did you know about what went on… and that night, what you said last time; how do you know all that?” I ask my grandmother, trying to whisper.
“Experience, baby; the only thing the young can never take away from us. I need you to run the washer before breakfast so you can hang it out before you leave, Mariette.”
“I’m getting up.”
Jerome opens his eyes. It takes a moment before he blushes. Granannie sits down at the edge of the bed, so I make myself scarce.
When I come out of the shower, only Granannie is there. “Once you have the washer running I want you to bring the letter to breakfast.” She taps her dresser drawer. “You can explain to Charl where it came from.”
I expected that. Once I changed the towels in the bathrooms and have collected the sheets from Miranda’s room, I knock on Jerome’s door. “Room service.”
He lets me strip the bed but doesn’t speak. I have no idea what to say either.
I’m also not quite sure what to say to Uncle Charl when I walk into the kitchen with that letter fifteen minutes later. Ellie is at the stove and everybody else is finishing breakfast.
“Rowan, Miranda, please go and play outside for a bit,” Granannie says.
“Why?” Miranda asks.
“Because we have something to discuss.”
“Can’t I discuss it too?”
“No,” Granannie says.
“Why not?” Miranda ignores a nudge from her more perceptive older cousin.
“Because your grandmother says so,” Grandpa Will answers. “Why am I always left out of everything?”
“Because this doesn’t concern you and because I am telling you, and if you have a problem with that you can have a smack to take along with it.”
Miranda chooses to save her backside and leaves with Rowan. I hand Uncle Charl the letter first and wait until he looks at me. “I had it ever since that day. I lied when you asked. It came too suddenly. I didn’t tell anyone. I wasn’t sure if you wanted them to know.”
I have to glance at Jerome then. He’s just watching, apparently unmoved, but he’ll be noting every response from his dad.
“Everybody knows by now,” Uncle Charl answers, carefully smoothing out the creases in the paper.