He refolded the piece of paper – Rahul now staring – and shook his head as if in awe of my talent.
You wrote about how you felt that the poet was speaking to you, and about how you were reminded of the boat races your father took you to. Really, it was very touching, mol.
I said nothing, and he patted my hand.
But you know, he continued, Kumaran Asan was also so fond of those boat races! Unfortunately, that was also how he died! One of the boats capsized on the lake one year, I think in the early twenties, and nearly everyone drowned. When I read your words, for some reason, all these connections came back to me. I felt I had to see you again and tell you this about the boat races, how the lake swallowed up one of Kerala’s finest poets.
He smiled, and then grinned at Rahul: eda, now she’s all yours.
But Rahul was not talkative. He only asked about Danny, and followed my résumé with: I remember the night he was born. And then he smiled at me, and I remembered in turn his hands in my hair, long at that time, down to my waist, brushing it out and helping me plait it, helping me pack a snack and my bag for school. But now the years that had stretched between us seemed condensed. He would be, I calculated, about seven years younger than my fiancé, and he did not feel so much ahead of me in age or life. By the time we reached dessert – the professor insisted I choose something – I had shared my story of my sojourn in Delhi, of the failure to find any more information of my father, and the professor hummed unhappily – so difficult for you – but I did not tell of my recent return to Zambia and the ghosts I had unearthed. I was not ready for that. Rahul, it appeared, was involved with research into antiviral drugs and AIDS, was a frequent visitor back to Africa, had not long ago been to South Africa and Kenya, although not yet Zambia; that trip was in the offing. He was planning to travel to Philadelphia as well, and I mentioned that my mother and stepfather lived nearby. That’s nice Aunty remarried, he said, and this comment made me remember his words, that last day: it’s nice for Aunty to have some company.
The professor excused himself to use the washroom, and Rahul turned to me: you look wonderful, you know.
I fanned my fingers in front of my face. You’re kidding, right?
It’s not as bad as you might think it is, he said quietly. You still look lovely, Sissy – narrowing his eyes – as I’m sure your fiancé keeps telling you. Or at least, he should be telling you.
I grinned. You were my favourite out of all the boys, you know.
And you were my favourite girl.
I was the only girl!
No, you weren’t. There was Reeba, remember?
Did you ever go out with her?
He shook his head: she didn’t want anything to do with me.
And I laughed; charmed by him, warmed by this reminder of how much I had liked him, trusted him, and immensely moved by the thought that he had known me as a young girl.
Tell me about the others, I said. How’s Aravind?
Oh, doing brilliantly, the bastard, he replied. He’s in Australia. Benjy and I keep in touch with each other regularly. He’s still in Zambia. He’s a consultant oncologist at the hospital in Lusaka.
I was silent, thinking that if I had known I might have tried to see him on my visit, that afternoon when I had stared at that list of names. Rahul was watching me, and I tried to smile, took a sip from my drink. And Bobby?
He hesitated: Bobby died, Sissy.
His voice lowered, and he looked down at the table for some moments before speaking again.
He did so well, he became a journalist, based in Johannesburg. He reported on the first democratic elections in South Africa and he covered the Rugby World Cup for the BBC. He was working on a longer report, on the lack of new housing in the former townships. He loved it. It was his dream job, you know?
I nodded, and he continued: he was in bed in his flat in the city, when he was shot by an intruder.
The words passed through me like a chill breath, and I must have grown pale, because he touched my hand briefly. I saw the professor returning from the washroom, and then thankfully being called to the desk to take a phone call. We waited together, as a series of images played out before me: Bobby with Aravind, Bobby giving me the small wooden box and, inevitably, that afternoon, the cricket ball bruising my not-yet breast and his words sowing an iniquitous seed.
I turned to Rahul: the same kind eyes, in an older face.
Do you remember the story of the plane? I asked him. And the raid?
Of course.
I didn’t really get any of it when it happened. I’ve read about it all since . . .
Well, you were young then.
So many people died, were hurt, Rahul. Why did nothing happen to us then?
He raised his eyebrows, gave a small smile. It wasn’t our time, I guess.
I said nothing, and he took my hand.
It’s so nice to see you like this, looking so well – he ignored me as I rolled my eyes – hearing of your career – and then he pressed the ring on my finger – your engagement. Everyone was so upset when we heard what happened.
Again I did not say anything.
And you haven’t seen your father? he asked gently. All these years?
I shook my head, withdrew my hand, pushed my plate away.
I went back, Rahul, I said. Just a few weeks ago. I went to Roma, just for a day. Can you imagine? I flew in from Cameroon where I had some work. I kept expecting to see someone I recognised or someone who recognised me. But I didn’t. The school has changed so much as well . . .
He was quiet.
You remember Moses, who used to work for you?
He nodded.
Did you know his last name?
He nodded again. Phiri.
I was speaking slowly, but the words were coming from my lips with ease, even though I had never said them before. Do you know I never knew anyone’s last name? Grace, Ezekiel – I paused, stilling my heart – Jonah . . .
He said nothing, only kept watching me.
So, it feels right somehow, you know, that I lost my own last name. Olikara. I deserved it, because I never knew theirs.
Deserved it?
He made a face.
Sissy, you were really young, only a girl, that’s why. At that age, you depend on your parents to tell you these things.
I didn’t tell him that I suspected my mother, if not my father, was similarly ignorant. I asked: have you kept in touch with anyone else?
He knew what I meant without asking.
I met two Zambian guys I went to school with in Nairobi. They’re also involved with the AIDS project.
From Kabulonga High?
He nodded. You see, I was nearly nineteen when I left. You were so much younger, Sissy. Which was a pity.
He took my hand again to lie between both of his, rolled my engagement ring between his fingers, cocked an eyebrow. But there was, despite the condensed ages, so much more and so many people now between us. Then he smiled, and I managed to smile back, before he continued, his face now serious: don’t be too hard on yourself.
Why so sad-looking? The professor had returned. Don’t make her sad, Rahul, keto? This is a celebration, a reunion!
And when, later, he offered to call me a cab, and I told him there would be no need, my fiancé was picking me up, he repeated: excellent, excellent.
20
IT was the following morning – Tembe driving the pick-up, my mother sitting beside him with Danny on her lap – that I said to her, ‘The headmistress wants to see you, Mama. I forgot to tell you the other day.’
She nodded, did not reply. That morning, she had announced that she would accompany me on the school drop-off. She had hoped to leave Danny at home with Grace for she planned to meet up with Mr Cooper at his office. But, for the first morning all of us could recall, Grace did not arrive as expected. The granny flat, too, was empty. This circumstance left us uneasy, so out of character was her absence, even though Mr Cooper tried to brush it off
before he left in his blue car, assuring us that she would turn up with a good explanation.
As I made my way to my classroom, I watched my mother walk down the path to the headmistress’s office. She was dressed in one of the cotton saris she wore for teaching, her hair in a single plait, suddenly reminding me of the mother who had for years left the small pink bungalow, lab coat folded and tucked into her basket, my father at her side, to open the laboratory and teach chemistry to rows and rows of navy girls.
I kept one eye on the classroom window, gaining a reprimand – Sissy, pay attention! – and saw my mother walking back to the pick-up, against which Tembe was leaning. She looked no different, but an audience with the headmistress was rare. I could only imagine the conversation. My husband has left me, Sister Catherine, and my twelve-year-old daughter professes that she is in love: perhaps you could say an extra rosary this evening as an offering to halt the decline of this family? Or had she been more prosaic: no, Sister Catherine, no need to enrol Sissy into any school. She will be returning to India for her studies, as we will all be leaving Zambia to resume the lives we should have had before we left. I carried on, in my imagination: my son needs a father, my mother was saying, standing erect and proud, and pulling her sari palloo dramatically over her breasts. My daughter is lost, but my son can be redeemed.
‘Sissy!’
My teacher had lost her patience, which she rarely did, and I hurriedly returned to my books, my friends tittering behind their hands.
At lunchtime, my mother again, in the pick-up, with Danny; she scanned the crowd of parents retrieving their children. Perhaps she was making sure that Jonah had not arrived to ply me with more gifts. Back at the Coopers’ house, there was still no sign of Grace. My mother on the phone: hello, Sam. No, she’s not here. I’ll make something simple for tonight, there’s still lots in the fridge. The conversation sounded cosy and domestic, my mother speaking easily. She hung up, did not pick up the phone again and dial the number in India, which I knew she had already tried several times already: other things to worry about. After lunch, she swept the kitchen and hall while I emptied the washing machine to hang the clothes in the backyard. It had become hot and sticky, mosquitoes abounded. There was talk that the rains were late and that when they arrived they would be heavy. Indeed, the weather seemed to match my feeling of foreboding: Grace disappeared, Ezekiel banished, Jonah removed, my father fading away. I slapped at my shins and remembered how my father had gripped my foot on that last encounter. But concurrently, I could feel Jonah’s hand gripping my ankle, even though he never had, had he? I wiped my forehead and rested for a moment. The dizziness passed, and I walked back into the house with the empty laundry basket.
My mother and I avoided each other, and Mr Cooper seemed to sense the awkwardness. His joviality at dinner was a reminder of his earlier attempts with Mrs Cooper and Ally and Mary-Anne, so I began to feel uncomfortable, dining with their father. I asked to leave the table and I saw my mother watching me as I made my way back to the bedroom – my bedroom now. I heard her checking on Danny, and then she knocked on my door, leant against the doorway. ‘Reading?’
‘Yes.’
‘Have an early night, okay? You slept late yesterday.’
‘Okay.’
She hesitated. ‘Good night, mol.’
‘Good night, Mama.’
I didn’t ask about the meeting with the headmistress and she did not mention it. We both knew larger things were percolating.
The next morning Danny mewled in the car, wriggling furiously on my mother’s lap as Tembe drove me to school, and I felt a malicious pleasure at seeing him grab roughly at the neckline of her sari blouse – stop that, mon! Tembe jiggling a bunch of keys to distract him. Good work, Danny, I thought, climbing down from the pick-up and seeing in the distance the headmistress pausing on her way to her office to watch as it drove away, Danny now pulling at my mother’s hair. But by the time I returned from school, I only felt sorry for my mother, who looked harassed, standing behind the ironing board, Danny whining on the floor beneath her. I was going to offer to make her a cup of tea when the phone rang. Mr Cooper, telling my mother that he would be bringing a Chinese takeaway home. He did not wish her to feel obliged to cook every night. She placed the phone back in its cradle. Danny was still grizzling, his fingers in his mouth.
‘He’s been like this all day. Maybe . . .’ But she didn’t complete her sentence.
I said, ‘I’ll finish the ironing, Mama.’
She looked up with surprise. ‘Are you sure? I’ve done most of it . . .’
‘I can do the rest.’
She smiled. ‘Okay, thanks, mol. I think I’ll wash my hair.’
Then she waited as if expecting a rejoinder – and the deal is that you give me back my necklace. But when I picked up the iron, she turned away, not quite hiding her relief. She left the room and I could hear the water running in the bathroom; now she was humming a song under her breath. She appeared later, fresh-skinned and sweet-smelling, with her hair damp and loose around her shoulders, in her sleeveless light green kurta and navy stirrup pants, patting at her head with a towel. ‘That’s better. Why don’t you also have a wash, mol?’
I bathed, and was putting on my second-favourite pair of dungarees just as Mr Cooper drove up. I watched through the window as he got out of the car, brown paper bags in his arms, and then turned to watch as another car drove up: Mr Lawrence. I could hear them greet each other, then Mr Cooper – of course you can, Charlie – slapping him on the shoulder. It appeared that Mr Lawrence was at a loose end and would be staying for dinner.
The Chinese food inspired the men to become nostalgic, reminisce about their favourite take-outs from their hometowns, while they showed off their skill with their chopsticks. My mother and I had pleaded off being tutored and were allowed forks. With Danny now tucked away for the night, we made a cosy foursome at the table, and as Mr Lawrence spooned rice and noodles from the boxes onto our plates, Mr Cooper peeled the foil cap off a bottle of wine and twisted the opener into its mouth.
‘Fee’s gone to Victoria Falls to visit some friends who are out there working or something,’ Mr Lawrence was saying.
‘She didn’t ask you to join her?’ My mother was grinning, fluttering her eyelashes.
‘Go easy on him, Laila,’ Mr Cooper drawled as he pulled the cork out. ‘He’s just a kid.’
‘Hey!’
‘Although,’ Mr Cooper continued, ignoring Mr Lawrence but smiling and crinkling his eyes at my mother, ‘you’re a spring chicken yourself, I believe.’
My mother laughed then asked, ‘Can I ask how old you are, Sam?’
‘You can. Forty-two.’
‘And Cindy?’
‘Forty-one.’
‘George is forty-one.’
She spoke almost to herself, and I was not sure the men had heard. It was the first time she had mentioned my father’s name in my hearing for many weeks, and as if she had evoked a charm, I had a sense that my father was behind me, his breath whispering against the back of my neck. I turned around, but saw the window was open, a breeze wafting into the room.
‘Girlfriend I had in college?’ Mr Cooper was saying, ‘Went to Guatemala without telling me. Ended up hooking up with some Che Guevara lookalike . . .’
Mr Lawrence was looking sheepish and annoyed at the same time. ‘I don’t really mind her going . . .’
But my mother and Mr Cooper were laughing now, catching one another’s eyes, and I realised that they were enjoying their shared roles. Here’s to two abandoned spouses.
‘Okay, okay. Well, Sissy,’ Mr Lawrence turned to me, ‘we’ll just let them have their fun. Why don’t you tell me what you’ve been up to?’
And as I opened my mouth, I saw my mother’s expression falter, and I felt a stab of anger. Mr Lawrence, I am in love, and my mother has confiscated the necklace given to me by the object of my affections.
But I said, ‘Just school and things, Mr Lawrence.’
‘Well, at the weekend shall I take you swimming again someplace?’ He turned to my mother. ‘May I, Laila?’
‘That would be nice, Charlie.’
‘And you should come too. Remember, I’ve heard of your legendary prowess.’
‘Really?’ Mr Cooper looked piqued at this revelation. ‘You’ve never . . .’ he broke off.
My mother turned to him, smiling and nodding. ‘Yes, it’s true. I used to swim in the river near where I grew up, and the lake too. Like a fish.’
‘Really?’ he repeated.
But my mother did not elaborate, only fell silent. The mention of the water, the mention of my father’s name, had made her pensive. Perhaps she was thinking of her childhood home, her child self, her band of brothers, the birds, the trees, and the water, warm as a bath. And the image flitted through my head of my father tossing my mother into the air, of their laughter, of my mother’s wet, half-naked body wrapped around me. Perhaps she was thinking of the same, for I found that she was looking at me, her eyes solemn, a small smile playing on her lips; and then she looked away, picked at the food on her plate. We were all quiet, and then my mother put down her cutlery, laid her palm against her cheek, her elbow on the table. ‘How did you and Cindy meet, Sam?’
Mr Cooper glanced at her, finished chewing his mouthful. ‘I was working as a community organiser, and we brought her in one day as legal counsel.’
‘And where do you live, in the States?’
The Wild Wind Page 22