by Grant Stone
The quicker she could get out of here, the better – having decided not to kill him, she had now become complicit in saving him. Or rather, allowing him to save himself: once she was safely away from here, he was on his own.
At last she heard the faint whirring noise of the runabout. The driver scowled at her, especially when she saw the fresh trail of vomit down Donna’s top from the panting, half-delirious dog Donna held in her arms. ‘In the back,’ she said, ‘and don’t bring that mutt anywhere near me. I’m taking the pair of you to a vet. For your sake, I hope the vet has a shower.’
Donna cast one look back at the house as the driver turned around on the crumbling strip of road. She fancied that she saw eyes peering at her through the bedroom window. Then Rufus threw up again, and she had other things to worry about.
THIS TIME, THE HEADACHE was more intense, and there was blood. This time, Nasimul did throw up, more than once.
He was alone. No woman with a gun, no dog. But she had left him something: a water bottle, and a little yellow packet of what he took to be some sort of food: he could not read English, so he did not know it read ‘Juicy Fruit.’ And, next to them, some coins, though he had no idea what they were worth or what they could buy. He had read death in her face when he first saw her, but now she had offered him another day’s lease on life.
He drank a few sips of water and waited for the headache to recede.
The pain was so strong that he did not hear the runabout pull up. But the sound of the voices caught his attention. Had the girl with the gun betrayed him after all, leaving the water and the yellow packet and the money because she knew it would keep him distracted long enough for soldiers to come?
He was in no shape to fight, and did not know whether he had time to flee. He crawled to the window and peered out, aware of the risk of being discovered. The girl was climbing into the runabout. The vehicle was moving down the street, turning around where the sealed surface disintegrated into gravel, gathering speed as it accelerated back past him and went out of sight. For now, at least, he was alone. Having nothing better to do, he lay down on the bed again and, though his headache continued to pound, went back to sleep.
THE SUN CRAWLED ACROSS the face of the day. Donna was very late to work, but Mrs Alberts did not seem to mind – indeed, she refused to let the girl get on with her usual tasks, and instead insisted that Donna tell her everything about the events of the night. ‘Your commanding officer called me!’ Mrs Alberts said several times.
Donna thought that if Mrs Alberts was impressed by Corporal Reweti, she would be impressed by anybody. Nevertheless, recounting her adventures to Mrs Alberts was a whole lot better than cleaning up the rest of the mess Kimmy Potiki and her boyfriend had left in the back room, so she sat nursing a coffee – a rare and precious fluid these days – and told Mrs Alberts everything, except for the really important thing.
If the guy had any sense, thought Donna, he would lay low all day and make a break for it at night. The Juicy Fruit she had left him would stave off hunger for a while. She knew there was a risk he might get caught and turn her in to try to save his own neck, but as soon as she had found him and not shot him she had stepped over a line. Now she would have to live with the consequences.
‘That poor dog!’ said Mrs Alberts for the fifteenth time. ‘Are you sure he’s going to be all right?’
‘The vet said he’d eaten enough to make him very sick, but probably not enough to kill him, or he’d already be dead. There’s something in chocolate that we can digest easily but dogs can’t. If he’s going to make it through, he’ll start to come right in a couple of days.’
‘Well, when you see him again, you tell him he’s a very brave dog from me. I can’t believe that anyone would help these people! Do they really want our country to be overrun with millions of Indians and Indonesians and Bangladeshis?’
‘I can’t believe it either,’ said Donna.
NASIMUL WAITED UNTIL the sun had been down for several hours before daring to move. His head still hurt, and though he rationed his water as strictly as he could, only a third of the canteen remained. The strange sweets had proved tasty but unfilling, and extraordinarily difficult to swallow.
The money was in his pocket. The men’s clothing that had been left behind was far too big for him, but though the women’s was much closer in size, he could not bring himself to wear it. He had ended up wearing a pair of men’s trousers with the bottom of the legs rolled way up and the belt cinched to the tightest possible setting, and the oversized shirt he had been wearing when the girl with the gun arrived. The smell of vomit had only intensified as the sun heated the house, and he was as desperate to get away from the house as he was deathly scared of what might happen when he did.
At last he could put off his departure no longer. He went out the back door into the still, muggy night. It was quiet: as far as the Shore Patrol and the regular Army knew, the shipload of infiltrators who had arrived last night had all been either captured or killed, so patrols had been scaled back. He slipped along darkened streets and quiet alleys, looking for unlatched doors and open windows.
It was very late in the night when he found a house in which someone, reckless or restless or drunk, had left the back door unlatched. He found a bedroom in which a teenage boy slumbered, clothes strewn all over the floor. In the dark, by feel, he discarded his ill-fitting clothes and put on new ones that fit better. He was even able to steal some jandals to protect his feet from the debris of the streets.
He was creeping down the hallway, looking for the kitchen, when a light flicked on in a bedroom down the hallway and a sleepy voice called ‘Jason! Go back to sleep!’ He froze until the light went off again, then left via the unlatched door, stomach rumbling.
It was a pale dawn before he found a row of shuttered shops. He sat under an awning and watched two plump shopkeepers arrive, one on foot, the other on a bicycle, and unlock their shops for whoever had money or ration cards or both.
The third shopkeeper was thin and brown, and more cautious than either of his predecessors. Nasimul watched as the heavy corrugated iron door at the front of the shop rolled up, revealing a cornucopia bathed in golden electric light from within. There was no one visible in either direction. Nasimul crossed the street and entered the shop. To him, its stock of bruised fruit and undersized vegetables seemed a paradise. He selected an apple, a banana, two more chocolate bars, and a water bottle. He approached the counter with his selection, put down his little pile of coins. ‘Buy food?’ he asked.
The shopkeeper looked him up and down and up again, then went to the front of the shop, rolled down the blind, locked the door, and opened another door at the back of the shop. ‘No talking,’ the shopkeeper said in Bengali. Nasimul followed him into the darkness beyond, devouring the apple as he went.
Bree’s Dinosaur
A.C. Buchanan
MY HOST SISTER TAKES a break from the dinosaur to watch me baking, sits on a stool with her knees pulled up, bare feet displaying chipped nail polish. Her name is Bree and she’s not quite sixteen, but her parents still have a plan for us to become best friends. I don’t tell them – and they don’t ask – that I already have a best friend back home, that she’s getting married in five months and I’m not sure I’ll be able to be there even though we promised we’d be at each other’s weddings. You can make promises like that, when you’re younger, because you can still manipulate the future, compress it down to converge on whichever moment seems most important.
I’ve lined up the ingredients on the small strip of bench not taken up by the breadmaker, the food processor, what I think is an ice-cream maker, and two other completely unidentifiable appliances. Bree picks up one of the plantains, holds it by one end delicately as if it’s hot to the touch: what is this, some kind of deformed banana?
I tell her that I’m making cake, and that I hope she’ll enjoy it. My orientation pack says that sharing something from your culture is a good way to connect with your h
ost family, but I think my mother would be horrified at the idea of me presenting this haphazard recipe as emblematic of my culture, and I certainly don’t think it will be enough to connect with Bree.
The foreignness hits me in waves, like a recurrence of the car sickness I felt on the first night as we drove in darkness up the hills and round the tight corners of Wellington’s suburbs. I measure out flour and become suddenly aware that these are not the ceramic measuring cups from the box of kitchen equipment, some of it more useful than others, which my grandmother gave me when I left home. It hits me that I’m more than three hours from Sydney, another thirteen from Hanoi where I have lived these past eight years, and then two by road to the small town where the remnants of my family still live.
The cat – Chloe – crashes backwards through the cat door, tail puffing up as she returns herself to an upright position. Bree slides down from the stool to pick her up, soothe her, as I mix ingredients together. Bree wears her blonde hair in a long plait, which I don’t think is fashionable. It makes her look young, which is the opposite of what I wanted at her age – but then, I’m not sure what Bree wants. Despite Sue’s determination for a friendship to form between us, I’ve barely spoken to her in the time I’ve been here.
Our bedrooms are upstairs, part of each located over the garage, with a bathroom beside them and a microwave and electric jug on a shelf across an alcove. Bree’s room – where she is building the dinosaur – has been closed to me, Bree slipping out through the narrowest possible opening in the door, locking it behind her. Mine could be a model for the standard homestay room. Every item on the list has been ticked off: one bed, one set of drawers, one desk, one lamp. I bought a navy-blue duvet cover to replace the salmon-coloured one which was there when I arrived, covered the pinboard with photos of family and friends, just like I did when I was eighteen, but it still feels generic, as if I’m a homestay student before I’m Cam.
Sue said that she hoped I will be a good influence, and that the arrangement will help Bree take some steps towards independence. Besides, she said, smiling, Bree can help you with your English. I don’t tell her that my conversational English is very good, thank you, and that the course I’m doing is English for Business Purposes which I doubt Bree can help me with very much, and wonder if a homestay was a bad choice. Sue means well, so most of the time I say nothing.
Bree wanders off with Chloe hanging over her shoulder, back to her dinosaur. I blu-tac a vocabulary list to the cupboard and read over it as I mix, my lips forming around both familiar and unfamiliar words, the vibrations of the beater numbing my fingers.
Sue works at an intermediate school, and by the time she gets home the house smells of plantains and batter. I’ve worked out how to set the timer on the oven, and full of all the good guest resolutions in the world, rinsed the bowl and utensils and stacked them in the dishwasher. I can hear the sound of thumping and a whir like an electric drill coming from upstairs.
‘This smells delicious,’ Sue comments, negotiating the doorway with her arms around a box of papers. ‘What are you making?’
‘It’s like ... a bit like a type of banana cake. It will be ready soon if you’d like some.’
‘Oh, that would be lovely,’ she says. ‘You’re such an angel, Cam.’
We eat fish with peas and boiled potatoes which Bree immediately smothers in butter, salt, and pepper. I’m well accustomed to the weeknight ritual by now: Martin will ask each of us in turn how our day was, and Sue will bring it to a conclusion by asking and how was your day, Martin?
He asks me first, and I say that my day was good, thank you, that I only have morning class on Tuesdays and after that I came home and did some study and baked a cake. Sue says that it’s good cake and he should have some after dinner, and that I’m very talented. Martin asks her how her day was, and she says that this government has a lot to answer for, but the kids were well enough behaved. And then it’s Bree’s turn. I think she’s going to say that after school she watched me bake and Sue will be all approving, but instead she says: I’ve been building my dinosaur.
I chew on a mouthful of lukewarm potato and look out through the ranch slider. Bree reaches over and pours herself a glass of water, the ice cubes clinking as they hit the pinched spout. Sue turns and looks at Martin, a forced smile creasing her face.
‘And how was your day, Martin?’
OVERNIGHT, A STORM hits. The wind rattles my windows and I’m awake, sweating uncomfortably even though it’s cold. Branches thump against the walls. Over my years in Hanoi, I have become used to the sounds of an inner city, the repetition of pedestrian crossings and stalled traffic. Out here in the suburbs, the Karori wind, and then the rain, take me by surprise as they emerge amongst the silence, enveloping the house, the wooden cladding stretching and relaxing, creaking each time the weather pauses for breath. The rain drums heavy on the metal roof and I feel as if I could be alone up here, as if the rest of the world has fallen away and it’s just me and the weather.
It is only wind, of course, that is roaring like some untamed beast. It sounds like it’s coming from Bree’s bedroom, but that must be no more than a trick of how sound carries in this old wooden house. Aching, I clench the duvet round my neck and fall into an unsatisfying sleep.
By day the air is calmer, the rain coming and going in patches. I pull on a raincoat and my most waterproof shoes, run for the bus. It’s close to full and I cling to a pole as we wind our way down the hills and through the tunnel, water dripping everywhere, passengers squeezing on. In class we role-play Informal Workplace Interactions, discuss different workplace styles and how meanings can be misconstrued, a vague feeling of anxiety clutching at me as pitfall after potential pitfall comes to light.
After school finishes, I eat lemon syrup cake with yoghurt in a Cuba Street café with two of my classmates. Violet is an accountant from China; unlike me, she wants to stay in New Zealand permanently, just a matter of finding a job, she says. Katja is German and only taking the first part of the course. After that, she says, her girlfriend will meet her in Wellington and they will buy a second-hand van and travel for three months. We’re all around the same age, and we talk about how strange it is to be studying again, to have classmates again, and yet be so far from home.
I don’t talk about Bree and her dinosaur, or about how Sue wants to sort everyone’s life out, or about my brother, who has been increasingly on my mind. I talk, instead, about my work as a business analyst in the energy industry, and how with increasing interest in hydroelectricity in many areas of the world I hope to find work in an international company. I’ll go back to Hanoi initially, I say, but perhaps I can be transferred somewhere in a few years. I realise, as I sip my coffee, that I feel the same way I did when I first started university, the same as when I first graduated: that the whole world is open to me.
I order another coffee, dark, strong, as Katja tells Violet a story accompanied by demonstrative gestures, wide arm movements. Through the window, as I wait in line at the counter, I watch passers-by, an abundance of tattoos and striped socks. A rite of passage I circumvented, though some people seem to stretch it forever, unrestrained by plans.
And yet I know from my life, and from my parents’, that plans don’t always work out anyway.
I look at posters over Violet’s shoulder as we laugh about one of our tutors who is able, at will, to transform himself into an exaggerated American, dragging us up to the front for role-plays as we attempt, nervously, to respond to his loudness in kind.
Outside, the rain comes heavier, pedestrians manoeuvring themselves against the windows to stay under the awnings, drops of falling water reflecting in headlamps as the darkness comes early. We look outside at the weather uncomfortably, reluctant to make a move.
As it happens, we stay there another hour, ordering coffees on a rotation so there is always something on the table, an excuse to stay inside. Eventually, though, Violet swings her red leather bag over her shoulder.
‘
My turn to cook,’ she explains, wrapping a long scarf around her shoulders as she makes it through the glass door and out onto the street. After Katja finishes the last of the bottle of pear cider she bought when she tired of the repeated coffees, she too moves to leave, on her way to meet up with a group of German travellers she’s connected with online. She tugs at her straggling dark-blonde hair, retying it in a loose pony tail, and promises to see me in class tomorrow.
So that just leaves me here at this painted, chipped table. I drink up the last of my coffee and then make a move, toes numbing up with the cold even as I’m barely out of the door, hands dug deep into my pockets. It’s still apparent how few people I know here – and that the few I do know have therefore become such a big part of my life, irrespective of how little we may have in common, whether we would have made our connections in another place.
I make my way through the rain, hood pulled up tight, manage to find a seat on the crowded bus as it makes its way through the city, past the botanic gardens and up the hills to home.
Home for now, at least. The wind is loud against the wooden walls. I change into dry clothes, switch on the fan heater, and drag a blanket around my shoulders, enter a new batch of vocabulary into my flashcard app. I try not to listen to whatever is happening on the other side of the thin plasterboard wall that separates my bedroom from Bree’s.
THERE’S A PHRASE IN English: the elephant in the room. As far as I can tell, the only reason for it being an elephant is that it’s big enough that no one can avoid seeing it. Perhaps what’s happening here is something even bigger than an elephant. A dinosaur in the room.