Peaces

by Helen Oyeyemi

  In the fullness of time the ritual concluded, leaving yours truly physically spent. I took a nap on a top bunk, and some people may have passed through the carriage then—or there was hubbub from the picture gallery next door. I heard people, but nobody tried to wake me.

  When I did wake, of my own accord, it was with the thought that vital fluids wouldn’t be the appeasers in this situation. The one offering Honza was after was an answer to his questions about what I tried to do for that old man’s son. If I told him that, he’d finally accept our breakup and get lost.

  Why had I rushed into the flames for this person I saw, or thought I saw? (What was that? Was it love? Agape, philia, or a passion felt at first [or final] sight?)

  But Honza’s question can’t actually be answered. It’s a trick question, and he knows it. Answering it invalidates everything. What do I mean by “everything”? Everything everything.

  I climbed down from the top bunk, gathered various far-flung pieces of clothing, got dressed, and crossed over into the bazaar carriage, too fuzzy-brained to register shame. I was sure the maintenance team were going to talk about the stains I’d left in that dormitory. I’d be lucky if they didn’t report it to Ava. I tried to recall the name of the male maintenance team member I’d heard Allegra talking to via walkie-talkie. Edwin? Oliver? I wasn’t sure what he looked like (there were eight or nine possible candidates), but I was going to pin this on him anyway. “I’m afraid I don’t know anything about this, but why don’t you have a chat with Edwin or Oliver?” I’d say. “Maybe he saw something.”

  The bazaar didn’t accept credit cards. I knew it before I was told. Some of the stallholders seemed to have resigned themselves to shopper no-show and were sitting on stools gossiping over cups of tea and shots of vodka. Those stallholders didn’t look my way, and neither did the ones who were painting each other’s nails and giving each other shoulder massages. Right beside the entrance, a black girl in her midteens was tending to a slate water wheel that stood in a stone bowl about the size of a Hula-Hoop. This girl, who’d been painted gold from head to toe, was the official beginning of the bazaar. She sent a very clear message to anyone who walked in wondering if their cards would be accepted here, this girl painted gold and dressed in a gold leotard and gold socks to match her Mary Janes. She’d set a cap of gold wire and pearls atop her cornrows, and the slate wheel sang to itself as she let water fall from the golden jug she held. She varied the force of each pour. A caress here; an injury there. When the spokes of the wheel idled to a sulky click click click, the girl poured steadily from two jugs at once and sang a round robin with the wheel, putting words to its glad tintinnabulations.

  “Hello,” the girl said, when she noticed me.

  “Hello. I’m Otto.”

  We shook hands. The girl said her name was Paz. And she asked me if I wanted to buy the water wheel. “You’re one of the non-honeymoon honeymooners, no? Don’t you think it would make a romantic gift? It is very simple to operate and to sing with, as you have seen.”

  The presentation of the wheel told you all you needed to know. It was the kind of item that could only be purchased with doubloons pulled from a treasure chest you’d wrenched out of the keeping of a deep-sea skeleton.

  “Er … I’m actually not carrying any cash, but maybe Xavier—”

  “Don’t you want to know how much it costs?”

  “Go on, then. Tell me.”

  She whispered the price in my ear, paused, then whispered an adjusted price that factored in a seven-year installment payment plan. I looked at the water wheel again.

  “I don’t think anybody’s going to take this wheel off your hands, Paz,” I said.

  “What a pity,” she said happily. She dipped her two gold jugs into the water at the base of the wheel and waved me onward, adding over her shoulder: “We accept cheques.”

  Moving from stall to stall I sipped tea, watched a snail race, became referee of the snail race and arbitrated a doping scandal, sipped vodka, sipped tea laced with vodka, kept forgetting I don’t have a chequebook. I haggled half-heartedly over a pinhole camera I thought Spera might like, and almost bought moonstone and labradorite scrying balls for my mothers. Not because my mothers are especially into scrying or meditation, but because Dean, the holder of that stall, had gone to great lengths to source some of the pieces he’d laid out on display. Allegra had written to him months ago asking him to put together a scrying edit for Ava. Now that Ava was seemingly no longer bothered about looking into the future, I still thought Dean should have something to show for the time and care he’d put into gathering this row of globes. Each one was the flawed vessel of a perfect storm. But Dean said not to worry about it. He’d been fending off buyers for months. He wanted to give me a tip, though, for when I was doing my Christmas shopping and what not: “Bringing a scrying ball into a home that ain’t in touch with its own clairvoyance? That’s just asking for trouble. Just think about it, mate. You know it makes sense.”

  “Non-honeymoon honeymooner!” Paz the Golden pounced before I could move on to the next stall. “You still haven’t bought anything,” she said, and showed me a handful of cut emeralds. “What about these?”

  Emeralds …

  She swirled the stones, and their colour crackled. I’d pictured stones like those the first time I’d heard a friend call an aubergine “garden egg.” Green shells that hatch long vines.

  I recoiled without quite knowing why and asked sharply, too sharply, where she’d got them. Looking crestfallen, Paz lifted a dazzling arm and pointed to a stall near the end of the carriage. The stallholder was only dimly visible through a wall of cages. They were wearing a lot of costume jewellery.

  “What’s in those cages, Paz? I can’t see from here.”

  “Taxidermized animals,” Paz said. “They’re his speciality.”

  “This guy sells emeralds and taxidermized animals?”

  “That’s right. There’s this gigantic parrot that looks like it’s having a nightmare forever and ever.” She reflected a moment. “I really don’t like the parrot. But maybe you would? Since you don’t like the emeralds, and I do?”

  “It’s worth a try,” I said. “Introduce us, please, Paz?”

  “That’s the spirit! Be friendly to me, honeymooner. He’ll give you a good discount if he thinks we’re friends.”

  I should have been looking ahead as Paz the Golden took my hand and led me past the other stalls, but we kept passing people and situations I couldn’t let go without one more glance. I had to turn and berate the stallholder who’d popped an unwanted Pallas Athena style helmet on my head. I had to turn and thank the person who removed the helmet and daubed my wrist with jasmine oil. I had to turn and ask for more information on the crunchy, spicy, and/or worryingly mushy tidbits that had just been popped into my mouth by one stallholder after another. The onboard train bazaar was in overdrive for its lone shopper. And then, just like that, we were at the counter of the emerald and taxidermized animal stall, Paz was pouring her handful of emeralds into the velvet pouch that had been left beside the sign, and I was standing nose to nose with a stuffed mongoose in a cage. Two mongooses, actually. They’d been sawn in half and sewn together.

  This cannot, this cannot, cannot be.

  Nose to nose, eye to eye. Chela I may not know so well; the feel of her paw in my hand, that’s already faded. But I know Árpád Montague XXX, from the downy tips of his ears to his graceful flanks to his balletic toes. It was him. It was them.

  I didn’t speak for what felt like a few minutes but was probably only seconds.

  Once I was absolutely sure I wasn’t going to throw up, I said: “Why are they in these cages.”

  Paz jabbed a finger at the 15 MINUTES BREAK sign on the counter and said of the man who’d left it there: “According to him, they move sometimes. Bite, even!”

  I put my fingers through the bars of the cage, to try to stroke the fur. Paz went quiet, but her sigh showed she now understood she probably would
n’t be making a sale here.

  My fingers and thumb brushed, tapped, then flicked the mongoose’s back. Papier-mâché and synthetic fibres, united so tenuously that one touch damaged them. Hence the cages. Ha! I only had a moment to take that in before I heard Xavier’s voice in the crowd behind me, but looking back I feel like that was the moment I broke faith with Árpád, with all the Árpáds who lived and died alongside the Montagues. When I looked at a not particularly well-made figurine and mistook it for Árpád and Chela. There’s just no excuse for it.

  I moved in Xavier’s direction, listening to what he was telling the stallholders. He was clearing the premises, directing everybody in the carriage out onto the platform, answering questions and complaints alike with: “Sorry … I’m so sorry about this … We need everybody off the train … yes, maintenance team, too … Sorry …”

  He told the stallholders Ms. Kapoor had asked him to assure them they’d get all their items back in good condition. She’d purchase any damaged items. Yes, any. She guaranteed it.

  I found Xavier at the heart of the milling crowd and seized his hand.

  “Awww, three cheers for the non-honeymoon honeymooners,” roared Dean from the scrying crystal stall.

  The crowd obliged. Hurrah for love! And then the two of us (“Quick,” Xavier mumbled, “Quick, quick, quick—”) helped Paz relocate her water wheel to the stabling yard platform. At every stage she explained that really she was helping out, taking the wheel with her. There was no way our Ms. Kapoor could afford it.

  Paz the Golden was the last stallholder to disembark. She waved at us with both hands, and I saw that the palm of her right hand, the one that had held the emeralds, was now She-Hulk green. She said something I didn’t catch, and couldn’t stay for, as Xavier had slammed the train door and was running ahead of me through the dormitory car, shouting that Yuri was here. Árpád and Chela had caught him and brought him to us.

  By the time we reached the sauna car, Xavier was repeating himself on loop: Yuri’s here, Árpád and Chela caught him … and I was trying to ask: “Has Ava … Can Ava …?” but it was as if this news had broken both our vocabularies.

  The third steam cubicle was occupied; we both saw that quite distinctly as we passed it. One after the other, we said, “Ava?”

  She sighed but made no other reply, just let us go by without a word.

  19.

  I’d love to be able to describe Yuri for you, but I really never found out much. I never even heard his speaking voice clearly. Having compared notes with Xavier, this is what we’ve got for you. Height: Around five eleven. Hair: brown. Physique: the melted oblong of an out-of-shape wrestler. And there we hit the limit of our recollection. This was partly down to a toned-down version of the same processing problem I’d had with him before, when he’d come onboard in pajamas. But there’s also the fact that this time he was wearing a full-face diving mask. Every facial feature was pressed down under clear plastic and tempered glass, so that whole area looked like a template more than anything else. I should at least be able to describe his eyes, since I looked into them for quite a while. It was a highly enjoyable stare. Nuanced as fuck. Like the very best of arthouse cinema. However. What colour are Yuri’s eyes? Not a clue.

  We had our stare, and then I asked him if he had any questions for me.

  “None whatsoever,” he said. “You?”

  I did. I looked around at Xavier, Laura, and Allegra, and I asked Yuri if he was going to kill us. This seemed to shock him. “What?” he said. “You’ve changed, Otto. You didn’t used to overdramatise situations this way.”

  Was my question really that startling? The four of us were sitting with our backs to the train wall, our legs bound at the ankles, and our arms tied at the wrists. That was Yuri’s doing. Laura had a black eye, and Allegra’s nose was bloodied. Also Yuri’s doing.

  Silly us for getting all worked up about these things. Yuri explained that he actually liked us. Some more than others, but he was about to put all four of us in danger anyway.

  “Exciting times for this pair of nineteen eighties babies … oh hurray, hurray for your generation,” he said, kicking Xavier, then me, then Xavier, then me. “Rationing intimacy like it’s wartime butter. Tolay was single, you were single, you fancied each other, shared interests, Honza needed a lot of help believing in himself, you needed a lot of help believing in yourself—”

  (Kick, kick)

  “You two could have built Honza and Tolay up, you could’ve really had something beautiful with them, spread the nurture around a bit—”

  (Kick, kick.)

  “But noooooooo, you still felt like you could do better, didn’t you, Otto and Xavier?”

  (Kick, kick, plus a nimble zigzag between our legs as we rolled around, trying to trip him up.)

  “And have you? Have you done better? With each other?”

  (Kick. Seeing that Yuri had completely succumbed to his own mask-muffled diatribe and really wasn’t going to give it a rest with the kicking, the fight went out of me. I had another go at fainting.)

  “Does this meet your high standards?”

  (Kick, kick. I still hadn’t managed to faint. So I very clearly remember Xavier shouting that he was going to tell on Yuri to Do Yeon-ssi.*)

  Hang on.

  I should go back a bit, to when Xavier and I ran into the carriage near the front of the train. The one Ava shared with Allegra and Laura.

  Slowing it down for you, my observations in order: Allegra and Laura had been drinking tea at the kitchen table; they stood up when we came in. Pages from our collective file on Přemysl Stojaspal littered the tabletop, along with a number of highlighter pens. This shouldn’t have been allowed to happen on Xavier’s watch, and I said as much. (“Aigoo,” Xavier said, kissing two fingers and touching them to my lips.) Next I glanced at Ava’s sleeping compartment, even though I knew she wasn’t there. Her theremin was all set up for playing. Chela opened and closed her eyes at us in rapid sequence; a greeting in affectionate amber-lit Morse code. And Árpád, never one for long reunion speeches, simply whisked his tail in our direction. Laura predicted they would give this world some “badass descendants,” and Allegra agreed: “Beginning with Chela Kapoor II.”

  Huh. Well, the age of the Árpáds can’t last forever.

  I’ve left the most incongruous feature of this train carriage scenario for last: a figure I might not have automatically viewed as Árpád and Chela’s quarry if not for their watchful stirring whenever he stirred. He was standing in the lounge area wearing a diving mask, yellow swim fins and a peacock green wetsuit. His oxygen cylinder was still strapped to his back, and in his left hand he held a white balloon on a string. “A peace offering,” he said.

  So, this was Yuri. I reserved comment until I’d looked him over. He told me to take my time, and I did, slowly reconciling myself to the presence of this being who stoically dripped water all over the rug as his white balloon bobbed from side to side. The others had accepted the fact of him too; I could see it in their eyes.

  Wondering aloud what was taking Ava so long, Laura drummed her fingers against the tabletop, drained her tea, then turned to Yuri.

  “Well, Yuri. The mongooses have brought you to us because—”

  We were all listening for the conclusion of this sentence with intense interest. We didn’t know the reason. Did Laura? What? How? But Yuri cut her off with his own declaration.

  “I brought each one of you to this train, of course. And long after you realised you weren’t exactly brought together for a fucking Girl Scout badge ceremony, you’ve stayed on. Because I’ve kept you here. Well, really, you’ve kept each other here, with your eagerness to form a clique of people something out of the ordinary is happening to. Mundane jobs and Instagrammable honeymoons? Oh no, not for us. We’re the passengers of The Lucky Day … ahem … hello … excuse me?”

  The four of us were muttering to each other, exchanging notes as to whether this Yuri sounded anything like the way we rememb
ered him sounding … “him” being Přemysl, Honza, Raúl, Tolay. He was telling us he’d brought each one of us here, but I, for one, didn’t feel at all acquainted with this person. This was very much a meeting for the very first time. The others seemed to agree. The consensus was topped with a sprinkle of relief. Honza hadn’t come after me after all … now nobody else would know how bad I’d been at being with him. I got the feeling Allegra shared my relief (with her own variation on the theme), and Xavier didn’t. As for Laura, she gave confusion the middle finger and recommitted to some semblance of order.

  “Pardon me, er—Mister,” Laura said. “What did you say your surname was?”

  Yuri unzipped his wetsuit and ran his hand around his chest for a few seconds. It looked as if he was gloating over his sheer, hairy manliness, but then he winced. “Found it …” He pulled his necklace over his head—it was a needle with thread looped through its eye.

  He took a deep breath, then popped the white balloon with the needle.

  The air … atomised …

  … and then every particle of it twitched.

  This was not the kind of situation consciousness is in any way equipped to cope with, so my “I” fled over the hills and far away, yodeling as it went.

  It returned once it realised it had nowhere else to go. Why else would you return to a situation that’s only very marginally less stressful? Ridges of train carriage wall digging into your back, hands crossed over your chest like the dearly departed who is about to be lowered into the ground, Árpád and Chela snarling away in his ’n’ hers cages, Yuri crouching down in front of you for just long enough to unzip your jeans and leer as he points out that you’re not wearing your Czech day-of-the-week underwear. “Ha! I knew it … I knew Svoboda was fooling himself that you liked those boxers.”