Suddenly, Jane wanted to run through the water as fast as that bird had. She wanted to wave her arms and shout at the limp, left-behind birds until she scared them into flight. She wanted to see them take to the air, drink the newness of the sky and imagine a new place for themselves.
She wished she’d brought the small silvery urn with them. She thought of it, sitting on her bedside table next to her books, her reading glasses and a vase filled with roses from their garden. She thought Grace would like it here, to be sprinkled on the surface of the water and to sift, slowly, down to nestle into the silt below. She’d rest among the other lost eggs and be watched over by the birds. Maybe, soon, the rain would come back and spill down the sky for days and days on end. If that happened, Nakuru would fill. The flamingos that hadn’t left yet would shake the rain from their feathers and raise their necks so their beaks would point skyward. Grace would swirl around their feet and they would watch over her.
* * *
Africa had, in Jane’s mind, cemented itself into a shadow land—dark and veiled and seething with things that frightened her. Insects and snakes and newsreel images of civil wars and starvation, of guns and hunger and disease—of accidents that happened in the blink of an eye, ones that changed everything. But she was linked to this place, now, deeply and irretrievably, and she couldn’t face going back to the States. She told Paul, when it was time for him to transition to a new post, to bid on another African country. Jane knew they couldn’t stay in Kenya forever—Paul’s job wouldn’t allow that—but she wasn’t ready to leave Grace’s place behind, either. Grace was Africa now, too, and Jane wasn’t ready to make the continent nothing but conversation for cocktail parties. She was trapped, linked to the place by the worst moment of her life. So when Paul was offered Lusaka, they didn’t hesitate to accept.
But Jane didn’t expect the shock to her system the move caused. She didn’t expect the anxiety, the visceral instinct she felt, her body, veins and tissues all leaning away from here, cringing away from this strange place, pulling her thoughts back toward the familiar, always. Like the way a plant in a gloomy room curves and stretches toward the distant band of light it craves. Jane felt physically the yearning toward her daughter, toward the past when things were still okay. She was not moving on; she was not beginning to accept. She was in danger, she knew, of being cemented in this, a beetle cast in amber, forever preserved in a terrible moment.
She tried to explain her feelings to her husband; she tried to tell him how stunned she was by the unfamiliarity of everything she encountered. Everything was different now that she didn’t have Grace to explore the new place with her. The air itself smelled repugnant to her, and every morsel of food, every sip of water, tasted dusty and old. She didn’t know if it was the new country or her grief that colored everything here. Paul smiled sadly when she told him all of this. He’d held her hand and said, “You’ll get used to it. It will become less hard. I promise.” And what choice did Jane have? His work was here now. It was a distraction for him and it was working for him. His feet were finding ground. If she left, she would leave alone.
The other American embassy wives were so different from her. They had kids or jobs to go to, things to wrap themselves around. They seemed breezy and confident and comfortable here. They spoke of Lusaka like they spoke of their children—pesky and frustrating, but beloved. Jane tried to socialize at the beginning; she tried hard to conjure the person she had once been, but when she went to the spouses’ teas and to the meetings of the International Women’s Group, she found her words stuck behind her lips. Her roots had been clipped; she had nothing here—no job, no friends, nothing that was hers alone. Even her words had been pruned. She was aware that some of the other embassy families knew about the accident, about Grace. Embassy communities were tight-knit, and even though the people within them moved around constantly, that meant that all of them knew people in common—news of tragedy spread fast through the expatriate grapevine. Jane never spoke of it to anyone, though, and nobody brought it up with her. Paul encouraged her to speak with the embassy doctor; he could arrange counseling, maybe an antidepressant. But Jane couldn’t imagine crying and talking about it with a stranger.
* * *
Jane’s whole purpose while Paul was at work became avoiding the houseman. The houseman’s name was Moffat. Moffat sounded like soft old slippers shuffling along through the rooms of the house. Moffat’s mannerisms bore a disconcerting similarity to Muthega’s—he spoke in the same way, and he provided a similar service—helping Jane with things she didn’t necessarily need help with. He was kind, too, like Muthega was—giving rides to the women and candy to the kids who thronged around the truck. Moffat’s kindness made Jane angry. Sometimes people would come to the door selling fruit or fish, and Moffat always opened the door. Jane never gave him money to buy any of the things, but he always crouched in the doorway and chatted.
Although Jane and Paul had always had household help in every post they’d taken, Jane realized that she’d never been home so much. She’d been busy, out and involved, helping at Grace’s schools, working out at the embassy gyms. This was not how she’d been since Grace was born, terrified to leave home, forced inside by fear, like an animal too used to captivity to find the courage to escape, even when the cage door was wide-open. For the first time, Jane found it disorientating to have a stranger underfoot all day. She tried to avoid him, but it was hard.
The house had only two levels: the bottom one was a wide-open swath of living room, dining room and kitchen, and the top was just a line of three airy bedrooms and a bathroom laced like beads along a wide, empty hallway. Moffat seemed determined to dust and mop in every nook. Jane wanted to make herself invisible when Moffat was in the house, so when he arrived each morning, she acted busy and distracted and greeted him while hurriedly gathering up books and papers and pens and a large mug of tea. When she scooped up all she could hold—books and papers in one crooked arm, mug of tea clutched in the other hand, she escaped to the backyard table, where she sat shuffling her pile of novels and books on native flora, or she hunkered down in the weeds and poked at the dirt with her trowel and tried to force away the image of a pair of tiny hands in hers. Grace had helped in the garden since she could sit up.
* * *
One day, Moffat didn’t come. Jane felt his lateness without looking at her watch. She sensed she’d waited longer than usual to gather up her books and her tea; she noticed a slight difference in the intensity of the light that streamed through her kitchen window. She wondered what happened. She thought she should try to get in touch with him. But how? Jane had been to his house only once when she and her husband dropped him there in the car one rainy afternoon when his bicycle chain was broken.
It was late morning when Jane heard the familiar click of the gate latch and then the scrape of metal against the concrete walkway. She stood up from her patch of weeds in the yard, laid her trowel aside and wiped the dirt from her hands. She saw Moffat and a woman she didn’t recognize walking slowly up to the front door.
The woman was tall and sinewy, and under the puffed sleeves of her blouse her bare forearms were lean and muscular. She wore a piece of colorful fabric wrapped tightly around her waist like a skirt, and it hugged the hard bloom of her pregnant belly tightly. Jane walked around the side of the house to meet them. “Come in,” she said, gesturing to Moffat like he was an expected guest. She wondered how one was supposed to talk to the houseman when he appeared at the front door, late and with a guest. Should she be stern? Beatific? She led the pair into the living room and sat down in an armchair. She was embarrassed about the mud smeared on her legs and under her fingernails.
Moffat and the woman huddled on the couch. “This is my wife, madam,” Moffat said. Jane was surprised. Moffat looked ancient and mousy. His wife looked elegant and clear-eyed, and sitting ramrod straight on the couch, she towered over Moffat.
There was a pause,
and Jane wondered if she should offer the couple tea. She thought yes, she would, and moved to get up. Just then Moffat and his wife rustled and spoke to each other in hushed voices. They looked at Jane expectantly and she sat down again.
Moffat’s wife leaned over to rummage in a small bag at her side and then drew out a white envelope. She handed the envelope to Jane and sat back. Suddenly Moffat’s wife looked tired. Jane had a flash of empathy. She’d never been so tired as when she was pregnant. She could have slept and slept.
Jane held the envelope in her hands for a moment. It felt empty except for a small lump in one corner.
“Madam,” Moffat began, “we had a thief in our house last night.” Jane listened while the story unfolded, the envelope cool between her fingers.
A pair of robbers had slid into Moffat’s house before dawn that morning. They came in through the plastic sheet that covered up the unfinished part of the roof. Jane wondered what the robbers were after. She’d seen Moffat’s house herself. There was nothing to steal there. “My wife heard the thieves before I did, madam—she fought with them.” Jane glanced at the tall woman on her couch. “There was a fight, madam, one of the thieves, they bit my wife.” Moffat pointed to the envelope in Jane’s hand.
“Oh, yes,” Jane breathed, and slit it open with a finger, dumping the contents into her palm. Moffat’s wife sat still and calm on the couch. Her thin body, straight but for the round stomach and the knot of brilliant cotton on her head, made her look like a wilting flower.
Jane looked at what lay in her palm, confused. It was a small mushroom, no bigger than her thumb tip and the color of warm earth. She wondered what to say. Why would they give her one brown mushroom? And what did the mushroom have to do with their story of the thieves? She raised her head to ask, and when she did, she saw Moffat turn to his wife and nod abruptly. Moffat’s wife pulled aside the colorful fabric of her headscarf to reveal her upper neck. It was streaked with blood. Moffat said, “Her ear, madam.” Jane looked at Moffat’s wife and then back at the mushroom in her own hand. It wasn’t a mushroom at all. It was the smooth fleshy lobe of Moffat’s wife’s ear.
Jane swallowed and tried not to recoil as she shuffled the bitten-off ear back into the envelope. Her hand felt as if it had been burned in the place where the ear had sat for those long seconds. She wanted to cry.
“Madam, we need a ride in your car to the hospital. My wife needs to see a doctor. In the fight, we think the baby could be hurt.”
“Why did you save the ear?” Jane’s thoughts were jumbled; she couldn’t make sense of what Moffat was asking. She thought of the flesh in her palm and swallowed, tried not to blanch.
“The ear is proof of this fight, madam. I can show the police. I can show you so you know I was not lying when I didn’t come to work this morning on time.”
“Um...and the baby?” Jane asked, swallowing her tears of horror and longing for her chair in the yard, her trowel and her weeds. She rubbed ineffectively at the dirt on her hands.
“Yes, madam, my wife is worried about the baby. The thieves, they kicked her.”
“Oh, my God!” Jane said. Her voice sounded too loud. Moffat and his wife were so calm. She, on the other hand, felt completely out of control—like she was shaking from the inside out. She’d just held someone’s ear in her hand. She tried to measure her response, to calibrate her voice to match those of her visitors. “Of course,” she whispered, “let me get my keys.”
* * *
The teaching hospital lay on the outskirts of Lusaka. Jane drove hesitantly. She hated driving now. She was nervous; the streets were rutted with deep holes, and people, animals and other cars tended to appear without warning. How easily accidents could happen. She sat stiffly and gripped the wheel tensely, leaning forward with concentration.
The sun was in her eyes, and she fumbled to pull down the shade. She crawled along through the traffic, unsure where to go, which turns to make. Occasionally Moffat leaned forward from where he sat in the back seat with his wife, and pointed one way or another, and Jane dutifully turned.
* * *
The halls of the hospital were filled with people. Jane felt nausea rise—this place was too similar to where she’d seen Grace, broken and gone. She didn’t think she could stay. But Moffat guided Jane and his wife to a space on a wooden bench set against a wall. He motioned to them to sit. “I’ll try to find the doctor, madam—you can sit here.” Jane and Moffat’s wife sat. The space on the bench was small. Moffat’s wife was pressed up against Jane on one side, and on Jane’s other side was an old man with a shriveled arm. The man appeared to be asleep, his head lolled back against the wall, his mouth slightly open and his eyes shut. Jane sat stiffly, trying not to feel the closeness of Moffat’s wife’s pregnancy. She couldn’t bear to think of the hollowed-out space in her own body.
As other people sat down, the space between the women got smaller and smaller, and Jane felt herself being squished. The old man’s wilted arm lay like a flower against her leg, Moffat’s wife’s elbow was almost in her lap. The hallway grew hotter and hotter and the air grew thick and smelled of unwashed skin and the fetid breath of the sick.
Jane felt herself growing light-headed and angry. This place was making her anxiety raise its head. This wasn’t good for her—to be reminded. Why did Moffat make her do this? Why was she stuck in this horrible hospital hallway pressed skin to skin with all these strangers? These Zambians were staring at her unabashedly, probably wondering—as she herself was—what she was doing here. It occurred to Jane that she should be frightened—Africa was dangerous, after all—but she felt too annoyed to be scared.
Jane was distracted by a fluttery touch on her arm. Moffat’s wife was looking up at her, wiggling her fingers lightly on Jane’s arm to get her attention. “Yes?” Jane asked, more sharply than she’d intended.
The women spoke words that Jane couldn’t understand. “I’m sorry,” Jane muttered, “I don’t speak Nyanja.” The woman motioned to the bench they were sitting on, and then made a gesture of leaving and returning. “Oh, yeah, you want me to save your seat. I’ll try.” Jane couldn’t think of a way to do that. She shrugged. “I’ll try,” she said again.
Jane spread out when Moffat’s wife left. She slid down and let her knees fall open. She pushed her elbows back so they touched the wall behind her. She made herself big. It suited her mood to poke the old dead-armed man in the side and to glance up angrily at the lady standing nearby with a sagging toddler in her arms, eyeing the vacated space with big, glassy eyes. It was a side effect of grief—this anger, this self-involvement. Before, she would have felt sad to watch this woman and her sick child. Now, though, she couldn’t spare the emotion on someone else’s pain. She hurt too much herself. But she felt an odd sort of kinship with Moffat’s wife, whose ear she’d held in her hand and who had entrusted her with her valuable spot on this bench.
Just when Jane thought she couldn’t hold off the press of people anymore, she saw Moffat’s wife returning. She edged through the crowds belly-first and caught Jane’s eye. She smiled and held up her hand. In it was a smooth, ripe orange, a bright blister of color in the dark hallway. Jane smiled back and folded herself smaller so the woman could sit next to her again.
Moffat’s wife began to peel off the skin of the orange, sending light sprays of scented spritz into the air. It smelled delicious. Jane tried not to stare, but her mouth watered. She was suddenly thirsty and hungry. Moffat’s wife nudged her with an elbow. Jane looked up and saw the peeled orange in her outstretched hand. Moffat’s wife smiled.
“No,” Jane said, hesitating, “you go ahead, pregnancy makes you hungry.” She knew the woman couldn’t understand her words, but it seemed worse to stay silent. Moffat’s wife pulled back her hand and in one swift motion split the orange in two right down the middle. She pressed half into Jane’s hand. Jane looked down at the plump, cool half she held. She wondered if
the orange was dirty. She watched Moffat’s wife use her thumb to dislodge a section from the half she held, and slip it between her lips. Jane could almost feel the sweet juice and pulp sliding down her own throat as Moffat’s wife swallowed. Moffat’s wife reached out and, before Jane could refuse, grasped Jane’s hand and pressed it, palm down, on the tight rise of the flesh of her stomach. Jane closed her eyes and felt the baby thump. When she opened her eyes again, Moffat’s wife was smiling up at her.
“I had a baby, too,” Jane said. She knew Moffat’s wife couldn’t understand, but it helped to say the words out loud, to claim them again, after so long.
“I lost my baby.” Jane’s eyes filled, and her breath shortened. The panic rose in her body again, setting off the flashes of light in her head and the breathless feeling of drowning. Jane closed her eyes and tried to count her inhalations and her exhalations, regulating her breath. She felt Moffat’s wife pluck the orange half from Jane’s hand. Then she felt the soft edge of a section against her lips. Moffat’s wife held the piece of orange up to Jane’s mouth, her slim, dark fingers so close to Jane’s face that when she opened her eyes, she could see the rough skin on her knuckles.
The orange was cool and sweet. It filled Jane’s mouth with juice. She opened her eyes and tried to smile. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Just then Moffat pushed through the crowd and reached out to take his wife’s hand. Moffat’s wife stood, and Jane saw the way the two looked at one another. Had she and Paul ever had that expression? That look of instant understanding and devotion? The moment, so many years ago, when she sat in the car sobbing as Paul held her flickered into her mind. He did then. There was a time, not so long ago, when they’d understood each other.
The Brightest Sun Page 27