Sleeping Awake

by Noelle, Gamali

  “Really? Perhaps you should give her a call. Reacquaint yourselves and see if you still share the same interests,” Grand-mère would counter.

  Maman’s knife scraped against the china. Once dessert was over, Grand-mère announced that we were to retire to the parlour for coffee.

  Maman stood. “I don’t think so, Michèle. I’ve got a headache.”

  Grand-mère rang a little bell that I hadn’t noticed was beside her. A maid emerged from the kitchen. “Annette, kindly show Mademoiselle Thompson to one of the guest bedrooms so that she may rest.”

  Maman was Madame Saint Clair as well. And even if Grand-mère was using the name that Maman was born with, it was Jeannot-Thompson. Maman made a startled cry.

  Philippe stood. “Go, Trischa.”

  Maman stared at Philippe. She didn’t smile at him like she usually did, and there was no warmth in her gaze. She looked almost like a statue. Silently, she placed her napkin on the table and followed behind Annette.

  “Now then,” Grand-mère said, smiling. “Wouldn’t you girls like a tour of the house while your father and I discuss adult things?”

  We didn’t reply. Annette returned and began an oral history of the house. Apparently a high-ranking Nazi official had temporarily lived there during their occupation of Paris. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that Grand-mère was somehow related to Hitler for all of her purist ideals.

  “What was she saying about Africans?” Cienna whispered to me as we walked through the halls.

  “She thinks that they all came here on a boat,” I replied.

  “So what’s wrong with that? We go sailing all the time.” Cienna said, biting her lip.

  “She doesn’t think that they belong here,” I hissed. Up ahead, Annette waited impatiently for us to join her in yet another guest bedroom where some famous person or the other had stayed.

  “Why not?” Camelea asked.

  “She doesn’t like them,” I replied.

  “Why not?” Cienna asked.

  “Because they’re Black.”

  Cienna stopped walking. “But Grandpa Bill is Black, and he’s Maman’s papa.”

  I rolled my eyes. Explaining everything to them was too tiresome a task. Instead, I grabbed her hands and pulled her along as Annette disappeared into another room.

  “Why do you know all this?” Camelea asked.

  “Because I listen, and you don’t,” I snapped.

  I didn’t say much for the rest of the tour. I didn’t know about genetics then, but I wasn’t stupid. If a person had a Caucasian mother and a Black father, then a person had to be both. And if Maman was both, then we were Black as well. Did that mean that Grand-mère didn’t like us either? It was obvious that she thought very little of Maman.

  Maman was waiting at the front door when our tour ended. She handed us our coats as she spoke to Annette. “Kindly inform Monsieur Saint Clair that if he is not ready in five minutes, we will be taking a taxi home.”

  Annette curtsied and hurried off to find Philippe. The doorman opened the door for us, and we went out to wait by the car. Grand-mère didn’t come to say goodnight. When Philippe tried to open the car door for Maman, she slapped his hand away.

  “I’m not incompetent.”

  The car ride home seemed longer than the time it took for us to get there. When we got home, Maman hurriedly kissed us goodnight before going upstairs. Philippe called for our nounou and told her to put us to bed. I expected him to hurry upstairs after Maman, but he didn’t. Instead, he turned right and went off in the direction of his office.

  *~*

  “What does our last visit to Grand-mère have to do with anything?” Camelea asked.

  I turned to look at her. Was she an idiot? I know that we were only preadolescents at the time, but it should have been obvious that dinner had everything to do with why we were living in New York instead of Paris.

  “Michèle considered our marriage to be a disgrace to her blue-blooded lineage,” Maman said. She pointed to a second photo, one of Philippe and an older man who looked very much like him. “Your father proved to be a disappointment. He’d gone off and married an American of all people. The fact that my father was a Black Jamaican didn’t improve matters. Philippe was to marry into another family of wealth. But most of all, the family had to be European, have a respected family name, and above all else, they had to be approved by Michèle.”

  “Oh,” Camelea said.

  Oh! I could have slapped her. Clearly, Cienna got all the smarts as well as the looks during their time in the womb.

  “Put yourself in your father's shoes,” Maman said. “What would you have done?”

  “Maman, why are you trying to make excuses for that man?” Cienna asked. Before, she’d been stroking Maman’s hair; she stopped.

  “I’m not making excuses, Cienna,” Maman replied, leaning against her. “I’m just explaining what was going through your father’s mind.”

  People like to say that you should never say never, but I would never take the route that Philippe had chosen. I’d been on the receiving end of such a decision, and I knew what the parties involved would experience. He didn’t have to walk away like that. He could have grown a backbone and told his mother off. He could have had her continue to not speak to him. He could have decided to not be her toy and done the right thing. He could have prevented us unnecessary pain. He could have been a husband and father. He should have stayed.

  “It was all very sad.” Maman sighed. She fondled her wedding ring. Even after Philippe left us, she never took it off.

  Sad wasn’t the word for it. None of my most powerful anti-depressants and mood stabilizers could have had an ounce of an effect on us.

  “You shouldn't hate him for he's done,” Maman said, smiling at us weakly. “You should pity him. Eleven years is a long time, and all the things that he's missed during that period will never come back to him."

  I didn’t hate him; I loathed him.

  “After you pity him,” Maman said, leaning back against her pillow, “you forgive him, just like I’ve done.”

  Maman’s words resonated as she left us with silence to keep us company. I knew what she was talking about, of course. Cienna and I had had similar discussions about why we were damaged in our own sweet ways. And while I was all for learning how to fight the urge to push away any man who dared to love me, I was not about to forgive Philippe.

  *~*

  The next morning, I felt as like I had fallen asleep in wet mud and had been cemented to the bed overnight. When Nicolaas came into my room, I couldn’t so much as turn my head towards the door. I was still in my dress from our so-called dinner party, and my pillowcase was painted black and red by my makeup. I looked like an extra in the Nightmare Before Christmas.

  Maman was gone. I closed my eyes as the tears began to form.

  The bed became heavy as Nicolaas got in with me. My skin cooled to the touch of his lips brushing across my forehead. My eyes fluttered open, unable to prevent the dam from bursting.

  “Mooi.”

  I shivered.

  “Are you cold?” he asked. When I didn’t say anything, he pulled the comforter over me and tucked it under my chin.

  “Thank you,” I managed. My throat felt as if I had swallowed a cupful of sand.

  If he was surprised to hear my voice, he hid it rather well. He simply nodded and leaned his head against the pillow so that he was in my direct line of vision. It was oddly comforting to just lay there with him.

  “She’s gone,” I said.

  His hand reached across as if to touch my hair. I shrugged away. “I don’t want to be comforted.”

  Nicolaas nodded his head to an unknown rhythm.

  “Maman has cancer,” I said. “I was too self-absorbed to realise, so I don’t want you to try and make me feel better.”

  Despite my previous comment, the distance between us lessened as he pulled me into a hug. His snakelike arms slinked around my back; I was trapped.
<
br />   “Nicolaas this is not funny.” I struggled to break free, but like a fly in a spider’s web, I was stuck; he would not let go. “Nicolaas!”

  If possible, he held on tighter.

  “Nicolaas, please stop.” I said, blinking back the tears that were forcing their way to the surface. My body gave way to the shivers and the moans, and Nicolaas’ white shirt was slowly stained black from my mascara. All the while he cradled me, stroking my hair and murmuring that it would be okay.

  When I finally managed to regain control of myself, Nicolaas spoke. “You’re not self-absorbed.”

  I smirked at Nicolaas as I looked up from my position on his chest. “That’s easy for you to say. Your mother wasn’t dying of cancer before your apathetic eyes.”

  “You’re not apathetic,” Nicolaas said.

  “Yes I am.”

  “Okay, maybe just a little,” he consented. “But that’s not why you didn’t notice; your mother didn’t want you to.”

  “But why though?” I asked. “Why could she tell Philippe and not me? I am her daughter! Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “Who is Philippe?”

  I pulled away from Nicolaas and tucked my knees under my chin.

  “Noira?” he asked.

  “My father. He came to dinner last night. Didn’t Cienna tell you when she called?”

  “No.”

  “Well he’s here. He’s been living in New York for almost a year, and Maman has been secretly seeing him. Now he wants to be a part of our lives.”

  “Maybe he wants your forgiveness...”

  I cut him off. “I don’t care why he came to dinner. He was like my fucking hero and then he just up and left.”

  “He was your what?” Nicolaas chuckled.

  I took up my pillow and gave him a threatening look. “Don’t you dare make fun of me, Nicolaas Armgard. Not when I am this unbalanced.”

  Nicolaas put his arms in surrender. “I was surprised, that’s all. You haven’t exactly been forthcoming with your emotions. The last time that you mentioned your father was when I threatened to permanently withhold my cock and leave for good.”

  I slapped him in the face with my pillow. “Are you calling me a nymphomaniac?”

  “No!” He took refuge on the other side of the bed.

  “Then what are you saying?” I demanded.

  “Noira, I don’t think that you are a nymphomaniac,” Nicolaas replied. “I just think that you’re scared of the truth.”

  “Whatever,” I sniffed.

  “Now can you please put down the pillow? You’re messing up my hair.”

  “Forgive me for being more concerned for my potentially dying mother and not your precious coiffeur,” I said, rolling my eyes. I dropped the pillow in the middle of the bed.

  “I never said that you shouldn’t be concerned for your mother. Just allow a tiny bit of room for concern for my hair.” Nicolaas pulled me into his deadlock embrace and kissed my forehead.

  “Why do you insist on kissing me? I look like Halloween thrown up.”

  He pinched my nose. “You’re kind of cute when you look like a bum.”

  I stuck my tongue out at him.

  The door to my room burst open and Cienna came in. “That man is back. He wants us to get packed.”

  “Cienna, I was trying to speak to…”

  Instinctively, I pulled up the covers as Philippe came through my door behind Cienna. At least I knew where she had inherited her lack of respect for people’s privacy.

  **~*~*~**~*~*~**

  ¯ CHAPITRE DIX ¯

  LOST!

  Even though I had offered to drive my sisters and myself to Philippe’s house, Philippe insisted that we all drive over in his car. He was going to send someone named Luc for my car the next day.

  “Probably an indentured servant, given his penchant for cruelty,” Cienna muttered under her breath.

  Philippe was already in the car when she made the utterance. Camelea paused and gave her a deploring look, before opening the front passenger door. Of course she’d want to sit beside him.

  As we drove away from the house that I had never quite managed to call home, I turned to get a final look. For possibly the first time ever, I wanted to run back inside and lock the door behind me.

  For the few minutes of the ride, all was silent. It wasn’t until we were out of Old Westbury that Philippe cleared his throat.

  “Girls,” Philippe said turning down the radio. “Does your mother know about your...friends?”

  I knew exactly which friends he was talking about. Once he came into my room after Cienna and saw me sitting on top of Nicolaas, he paled so much that he was lighter than the cream-colored ceiling.

  “Of course she knows about our friends,” Cienna answered.

  I looked out the window at all the familiar sights as we drove towards Garden City and away from everything that I had known.

  “So your mother, she, she allows you to have males in your rooms like that?”

  I answered. “They aren't in our rooms like anything. We're not bringing boys into our rooms while Maman is at work to have sex with them.”

  Camelea looked at me through the rear view mirror. I raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I-I never said that.” Philippe choked. He was as red as his tie.

  "Then what are you trying to say?" I asked.

  “Oui. Quel est le point?” Cienna asked.

  “Well... I know that given the circumstances, I'm new to this, but nevertheless, I am still your father.”

  “Philippe, what are you on about?” Cienna demanded.

  “Cienna, just give him a chance to speak!” Camelea commanded. I’m sure that she would have gagged us if she could.

  Cienna gave her the middle finger.

  “Go on, Philippe,” Camelea said. She patted his shoulder as she spoke.

  Philippe stumbled on. “Has your mother ever discussed males with you girls?”

  “The only male she's discussed with us was you,” I replied.

  “Well then... Men... Not all men, since there are the obvious exceptions, gay ones primarily, want one thing from a woman...”

  “Love?” Cienna asked.

  Cienna and I grinned at each other. It was decided then, in our mutual understanding, that we were going to have fun with Philippe. We should have been the twins, I swore.

  “No, not love...” Philippe’s hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the whites of his knuckles were replaced by the pink of his pounding blood.

  “No love?” I asked.

  “Well of course love, but not at first... No, not love...”

  “What then?” Cienna piped up.

  “Well to be quite honest, sex.” Philippe sounded pained as each word was practically pulled up his throat. He took off his tie at the stoplight.

  “So let me get this straight,” Cienna said. “You're a male and you're not gay, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You're gay?”

  “No!”

  “But you just said...”

  “Well I didn't mean it in that way.” Philippe sighed once again. His hands were shaking as he reached to turn up the AC.

  Camelea spun around again and shot us a murderous glare. I stuck out my tongue, very much the image of a mature and wiser older sister.

  “Okay, you're not gay,” Cienna continued. “So since all heterosexual men want sex from women, and you are heterosexual, does that mean that when you were younger, all you wanted was sex?”

  I had to cover my mouth to prevent myself from laughing out loud.

  "Exactly!" Philippe slammed his hand against the steering wheel. The horn blared into the night.

  “Cienna!” Camelea screamed.

  Cienna and I glanced at each other and burst out into uncontrollable laughter.

  Philippe recommenced his stuttering as he shook his head in a rather violent manner. I worried for a minute that he was seizing.

  “No... I mean, yes. I was cu
rious when I was younger... All boys are curious about sex... You know what I mean, right? It wasn't something that I had to have.”

  “It wasn't?” Cienna asked with wide eyes. Really, baby lambs couldn’t have appeared more innocent.

  “Well no, not for me...”

  As much as I was enjoying the proceedings, I decided to save him before Cienna took things even further. “Yes, we know what you mean, Philippe. Respectfully, however, we're young adults and we know what men want. Are you finished now or is there more?”

  “I just don't think that you girls should be alone in your mother’s house with boys.”

  “Is that all?” Cienna asked.

  “Yes Cienna.” Philippe sighed. “That is all.”

  “Well we won't do it anymore.” Camelea said, giving him a reassuring pat.

  “Thank you, Camelea,” Philippe whispered. The side of his face was a contortion of veins.

  “At least not in your presence,” Cienna feigned a whisper, but we all heard it.

  Mercifully for Philippe, I’m sure, we entered Garden City a few seconds later. Soon, his house loomed over us, like an old hag.

  He gave us a grand tour and introduced us to his staff, although why he had a small staff and a large house when he lived alone was beyond me. As expected, the interior looked as if no one lived in it, with its antique furniture that were more for show than for actual use. I recognised one of the women in the family portrait above his office chair.

  She might be my grandmother, but my feelings towards the woman who ruined my life were anything but loving.

  May her path be so very slippery and dark to the point of blindness.

  *~*

  Everything about Philippe’s house was wrong. The yellow walls in my bedroom were obnoxiously cheerful. The curtains over my windows were sheer and let the light in as soon as the sun rose. The sheets did not cool to my touch. The enthusiastic staff waiting to cater to our every need was annoying. The cook, Madame Laurent, was trying to get us fat.

  I wanted to tell Maman...but I couldn’t. We’d found out two nights before that Maman had developed anaemia as a side effect of her cancer. Her doctors hadn’t found out until she had fallen unconscious, because blood couldn’t circulate air to her lungs fast enough. She’d had to get an emergency red blood cell transfusion. When she called the next day, I wanted to use my ten minutes with her complaining so that she would realise how truly miserable I was there. I wanted to beg her to come home so that we could leave the sunshine prison where Philippe, who seemed to have forgotten that we were not the children that he had left behind, closely monitored our moves.