She taps him on the shoulder. He swivels around. Facing her is not a forty-something-year-old man, but the boy with little legs, eager to grow, bounding up the stairs two at a time. So this is what Genie’s coma has done to him: made him eleven again.
I am Six Million Dollar Man and you are …
‘Li’l sis,’ he says, reading her face, trying to gauge something. ‘I was just calling you.’
‘I know.’
‘You didn’t answer.’
‘I know.’ She removes something from her handbag. ‘Consider this my olive branch,’ she says, handing it to him. It is a cluster of jacaranda flowers. ‘First bloom.’
She smiles. He smiles. They hug. The beginnings are always nice.
‘Pretty deep T-shirt you’ve got there.’
Marcus examines the front of his T-shirt as though noticing it for the first time. Red, orange, green and blue lines intersect and diverge haphazardly. Marcus frowns. ‘Yes. I suppose it is rather labyrinthine … deep.’ A flash of recognition. ‘Oh. It’s the T. You know, the Massachusetts public transportation system.’
‘I know what the T is, thank you very much,’ Krystle says, going to stand behind him again. She reads: ‘We travel not to reach a destination but to arrive with love, in love, to be with those we love.’
‘Is that what it says on the back?’
‘Yes. That’s why the words are coming out of my mouth. It’s called reading. You should try it some time.’
‘Rather appropriate for the occasion,’ he says, turning to face her.
‘Rather on the nose. Poor Esme.’
‘Poor Esme?’
‘She picked out your clothes, didn’t she?’
‘Yes.’
‘You know there is a word for relationships like yours.’
‘Loving. Symbiotic. Caring.’
‘Not healthy.’
‘That’s two words.’
‘Unhealthy then. Co-dependent.’
‘What do you mean “Poor Esme”?’
‘I mean just that … Poor Esme.’
‘Chris!’
‘She wants you to come back to her.’
‘But I haven’t gone anywhere.’
‘Says the man waiting for a flight at the airport.’
‘Oh, come on. You know what I mean.’
‘Hopefully you’ll get to know what Esme means. And soon,’ Krystle says, patting him on the shoulder.
MARCUS
As the aeroplane descended upon the land of patchwork green, brown and yellow fields, Marcus looked out of the window and remembered a time when his entire life had been contained in one of those patches – the Beauford Farm and Estate. From up there, the country seemed so peaceful, so quiet, so tranquil. But it has not been any of those things, not since the liberation war, which has since given way to ethnic genocide, civil unrest, political disturbances, massive emigration – all within the span of thirty years: a generation.
Marcus and Krystle exit the baggage claim area and there they are: his mother, his father, his grandmother. His family. So very changed and yet so very much the same.
His mother sashays towards them, arms outstretched, looking every bit like an actress on stage. A lipstick smile on her lips. But her eyes are sad – so very sad that Marcus cannot look into them for fear of seeing something reflected there that he has yet to acknowledge. Her eyes are the only indication that the play she is in is a tragedy. She throws her arms around him, and he, not knowing what else to do, kisses the only imperfection on his mother’s otherwise perfect face, the bite mark from the day he left the Beauford Farm and Estate.
Marcus shakes hands with his father. A strong, firm, manly handshake that belies the helplessness they both feel. Marcus takes comfort in their tacit pact to feel one way and act otherwise with each other. It is a silent reunion, as it should be. Marcus leans down to hug his grandmother, whose weak legs have confined her to a wheelchair. She pierces him with a paradoxically focused but vacant stare. Just as he disengages his arms from around her neck, she grabs hold of his hand and, suddenly lucid, whispers: ‘They are plotting to overthrow the government.’
Marcus kneels down in front of his grandmother and pats her hand in a way that he hopes comforts and reassures her. Who are ‘they’, Marcus wonders. His grandmother’s arthritic index finger seems to be pointing in the direction of his parents. ‘Who are you?’ his grandmother suddenly says to him, her face contorting in fear, her eyes brilliant with paranoia. ‘Who are you?’ she screams. ‘You are one of them.’
‘Welcome home,’ Krystle says to Marcus, as they all quickly exit the airport terminal.
KRYSTLE
You can never go back home. You can never make the same journey twice. The past is always another country. Clichéd as these aphorisms are, they are all true – tragically so, Krystle thinks. She never comes back to the same country, the same home. Something always develops while she is away. Things change abruptly. Case in point: the house she grew up in. What was once a grand double-storey building with a yard full of jacarandas and flamboyants and a manicured and watered evergreen lawn is now a skeletal frame with a single flamboyant tree (thanks to her mother) and an unkempt yellow lawn (thanks to her father). It did not take decades for things to deteriorate – just a few years.
Her mother, a once stand-by-your-man wife, at some point had just stopped standing by her man. Her father, a once avid gardener, at some point had just given up being avid about anything. A development. An abrupt change. Sad. Tragic, really.
‘You know, the reason Marcus has not been speaking to you is because of the jacarandas,’ Krystle volunteers as the car comes to a stop at the top of their driveway. She finds herself, as she always does, agitating things. She cannot help herself. She feels that her family needs – no, deserves – to be agitated.
‘Is that true, Marcus?’ Thandi asks.
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Marcus says, getting out of the car, not quite able to hide the sadness in his voice.
‘But I made sure to save the flamboyant. The one you liked playing in. The one with the tree house. You’ll see why the jacarandas had to go once you enter the house,’ Thandi says, pulling Marcus towards the house.
‘See!’ she says once they are in the house, pointing at the huge cracks in the walls. ‘The roots were destroying the foundation of the house.’
‘There were always cracks,’ Krystle says, nonplussed.
‘Were there?’ Marcus asks, genuinely surprised.
‘The cracks were not as big as they are now,’ Thandi says, defensively. ‘If we had let the trees grow—’
‘The point is there were always cracks,’ Krystle cuts in.
‘No. The point is Marcus has to understand why we cut down the jacarandas. It was to save the house.’
‘It was a jacaranda tree,’ Marcus says, almost in a whisper.
‘What?’ Thandi asks.
‘The tree house was in a jacaranda tree, not a flamboyant. So you can go ahead and cut the tree down if you want,’ Marcus says, running his left hand over one of the cracks. He turns and attempts to smile at his parents but cannot.
A development. A change. Sad. Tragic really.
‘All felled, felled, are all felled. Of a fresh and following folded rank. Not spared, not one,’ Krystle recites Gerard Manley Hopkins’ ‘Binsey Poplars’ as she makes her way up the stairs, the rest of her family in tow. Her grandmother’s slow progress up the stairs is aided by both her father and Marcus, whom she has forgotten that she has forgotten.
‘So it was you who recited the poem,’ Marcus says. ‘I couldn’t remember if it was you or Genie.’
‘It was both of us. We had to recite it in Mrs Finlay’s Grade Five class. It was a rite of passage at our school. A successful recitation meant that you automatically got into Miss Forbes’ A-stream Grade Six class. Genie particularly likes the lines, “O if we but knew what we do. When we delve or hew – Hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender
to touch, her being só slender.”’
‘Since country is so tender,’ Dingani says, speaking for the first time since entering the house. Her father is another change. He looks like a shadow of his former self.
Krystle opens the door to her bedroom. The room has been frozen in time: the 1990s. Posters on the walls; popular fiction, magazines and comic books on the bookshelf; clothes in the wardrobe. This is the only thing that has not been allowed to change. Forced to remain the same, it has become uncanny, something at once familiar and unfamiliar. She knows why her room has been preserved: it serves as a monument to Genie’s time with them, but it really is a monument to her absence.
When the Masukus learned that Genie had left them to live with Jesus, Krystle’s grandmother, Eunice, had descended on the room like a fury. (Her grandmother. Another change. Once strong and formidable. Now senile and frail.) Her grandmother had got down on her knees and ripped from the floor the adhesive tape that she herself had put there when she found out that Genie was coming to live with them. The tape was supposed to divide the room in half, but it really gave Krystle the lion’s share of the room. The Masukus, one and all, pretended not to notice. Genie had never complained.
Having ripped off the adhesive tape, her grandmother set to work stripping the bed, emptying the clothes chest, the laundry basket, the bookshelf on Genie’s side of the room. She had the gardener and the maid carry the bed, the chest, the laundry basket and the bookshelf outside. All Genie’s belongings were piled high in the middle of the yard. Eunice poured paraffin on top and struck a match, consuming Genie’s existence in flames and sending it up in smoke. While doing all this, her grandmother spoke of Genie’s betrayal after everything, everything they had done for her. To run off with a man twice her age – a vagabond at that – making the Masukus the joke of the town. After everything, everything they had done for her. Such betrayal could not be borne.
‘Why are you crying?’ her grandmother had asked Krystle before slapping her across the face. The first and last time she had struck her. ‘That girl has proved herself to be a disappointment. Never, ever cry for someone who has disappointed you. You hear me? Never, ever cry for the ungrateful,’ her grandmother said, taking Krystle’s face in the palms of her hands before engulfing her in a hug. Krystle wished that, like her parents and Marcus, she had not been at home to witness Genie’s erasure from their lives, that smouldering ash.
Krystle realises that the rest of her family members have followed her into the bedroom. They look around. They wait, almost expectantly, for Genie to descend from the roof, materialise from the wallpaper, rise up from the floorboards. How old would she be, this Genie that they are waiting for? Ten years old, as when she first arrived? Eighteen years old, as she was when she left? Thirty-nine years old, as she is now, lying in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital?
Her father, her mother, her brother and her grandmother leave the room quietly. They – the lucky ones – can leave. She cannot. She has to live with the absence. She has to live with a Genie who is not there.
Krystle looks at the telltale line left behind by the adhesive tape. She gets down on her knees and traces the grimy demarcation with her index finger. Tracing the evidence that Genie’s life with them had not been as easy as they all liked to remember. They had loved her in their own way, the only way they knew how … jealously … possessively … imperfectly.
VIDA
There are tubes everywhere. There is a feeding tube in her nose. There is a breathing tube in her mouth. There is a tube attached via a syringe to a viable vein in her right hand. There is a catheter in her urethra. The bag that collects her urine has been chastely covered by a baby-blue cosy cover: an attempt at respect and dignity that seems mockingly too little too late.
Genie’s body is in distress. Vida feels it. He also feels the absence. He knows that Genie is not here. The Genie he knew, the Genie he experienced, is somewhere else. Perhaps she is working to come back to this body, this body that was once hers. Perhaps she is not. Her body looks bereft. He wants more than anything to touch it, to give it solace, comfort, life. But he has been ordered not to. In fact, his hands have been encased in surgical gloves and his mouth shielded with a surgical mask.
Dr Mambo has told him in clinical terms what has happened to Genie. She has been kind enough to not fill him with false hope. She has been a friend enough to say that she will accept and support his decision whatever it may be.
It has been seven days.
Seven days since he returned from Stockholm. Seven days since he found the two glasses with the desiccated lemon wedges on the kitchen table. Seven days since he found Genie’s childhood suitcase packed and placed at the foot of the bed. Seven days since he saw the sunglasses on the bathroom basin. Seven days since he left The House That Jack Built. Seven days since Genie has been in a coma.
For seven days he has tried to hold on to his anger. For seven days he has failed. He does not feel anger. He does not feel sadness. He does not feel sorrow. He just feels.
He looks at her body bereft, and he knows. He knows. It has been seven days since Genie left him. Wherever she is, she is not coming back … not to this body … not to this life … not to him.
Vida is defeated. He can accept any change except death. Death, like a jealous lover, consumes completely. Death will not allow him to intervene.
Looking at her body lying there, Vida understands with amazing grace that the body is a threshold, an entry point for something else entirely, something elusive and ephemeral, something precious and beautiful, something that can fly away without a moment’s hesitation.
He knows what he must do next.
DR MAMBO
Dr Prisca Mambo does not think that in all her thirty years of practising medicine she has come across anyone as defiant as Imogen Zula Nyoni.
‘How long do I have?’
Those were the first words Imogen had said to her during their initial encounter. A schoolgirl in uniform with her hair reluctantly tamed by a blue, red and white scrunchy. She looked both younger and older than her sixteen years: younger probably because she was slightly built and older because there was an undeniable wisdom in her eyes, something more than just mere intelligence – a knowing that had already happened.
‘How long do I have?’
Imogen had had to repeat the question. Since starting her practice in the 1980s, Dr Mambo had told countless people that they were HIV-positive. It was never easy news to break, but she took some measure of comfort in the fact that the people she told were usually middle-aged and had lived their lives. She had never had to break the news to a teenage girl whose life was yet to begin. And Dr Mambo had actually taken the coward’s way out. Once she had received the results of the blood work from the general practitioner, she had decided to tell the girl’s guardians the news, reasoning that they were better equipped to break it to the girl. So she was rather surprised when the girl made an appointment and came to it alone.
A name on a hospital chart is one thing, the bearer of that name sitting across from you is another. The number ‘16’ next to the word ‘Age’ on a hospital form is one thing, an actual sixteen-year-old girl sitting across from you is another.
‘How long do I have?’
‘As you may know, there is still no cure for HIV,’ Dr Mambo said tentatively. ‘There is antiretroviral medication. ARVs. Expensive. Too expensive for us at this time … but hopefully in the future … in the near future … in the very near future … we will be able to make them affordable and accessible. We are making definite strides in that direction, so I am hopeful. Very, very hopeful. ARVs go a long way towards ameliorating the symptoms. So like I said, hopefully in the very near future you will have access to them.’
‘How long do I have?’
‘With the ARVs, patients – people – have been known to live very long and productive lives.’
‘And without the ARVs?’
‘Well there are many variables—’
&nb
sp; ‘How long do I have?’
‘On average, once the disease is no longer in its dormancy, patients – people – have lived for up to five years without the ARVs, but that is the average. Some patients – people – have lived for up to ten years … some even longer. A good, healthy diet and regular exercise can go a very long way towards mitigating the ravages of the illness.’
‘So realistically I have about another five years. So the best I can hope for is living long enough to turn twenty-one.’
‘I think you can afford to hope for more than that. You are young and healthy. And, like I said, the landscape is rapidly changing. I’m confident that you will have access to the ARVs.’
Just then Jesus walked by the window, pushing his Scania pushcart.
Imogen surprised Dr Mambo by smiling. ‘Don’t worry, doctor. Five years is long enough for me to do something good with my life.’
Dr Mambo had witnessed many different responses from people after hearing that their lives would be curtailed by HIV/AIDS: women often cried, men often got angry, mothers often became frantic about the futures of their children, fathers often worried that they would not have time to provide enough financial security for their families, some patients (mostly men) got violent and threw things at her as they angrily inquired of her who had given them the disease. No one had ever smiled. This girl, Imogen, who had probably had the misfortune of receiving a blood transfusion that was contaminated, and who therefore had contracted the disease through no fault of her own, had, instead of anger, chosen to smile.
That was when Dr Mambo had noticed it, the defiance in Imogen. It was in the way she held her head at a particular angle, the way she squared her shoulders, the way she looked you in the eye. She was determined to face and perhaps conquer whatever came her way. She had seen things, experienced things and understood things that could have broken her, but she had used them to grow even stronger instead.
The Theory of Flight Page 19