by Nafiza Azad
Paheli opens the door and steps through. We follow her. The heat greets us like a lover, enveloping us in a tight embrace. Talei beams, luxuriating in the familiar feel of what was once her home. Areum and Etsuko, though, groan their displeasure.
Thus, we arrive in Lautoka, Fiji. You may have heard of Fiji. People speak of it fondly as a holiday destination. Couples who want something more exotic than Hawaii often name it as the place they will honeymoon. Safe in a resort, where the locals are trotted out to perform so their culture becomes a spectacle for those who have money and are willing to part with it.
After all, everyone has to eat.
We are standing in a small alley beside a rather run-down apartment building on the outskirts of Lautoka City. The apartment on the second floor is ours; we bought it through an intermediary ten years ago. The apartment is dusty, and the mismatched furniture looks particularly forlorn. A withered hibiscus plant stands in a sunny corner. The stuffiness in the air tells tales of our neglect.
Areum turns on the air conditioner at the highest setting while Daraja gives her a look and turns it off. She opens the large windows instead, letting the air in.
“There’s no breeze, Dara!” Areum whines, flopping down. Her long hair, currently an electric blue, sticks to her skin, and she picks up a lock, giving it a sinister look. “I think it’s time for a haircut.”
Kamboja, splendidly ignoring her, settles down on the tiled floor. Her hair is shorn short. “I feel every minute of my seventy-five years today.”
“You’re actually seventy-six,” Valentina says, giving her a sweet smile. Kamboja’s glare amuses her, and she giggles merrily.
To be a Wild One means to exist partially in the human world and partially in the middle world while not belonging to either of them. Why? Because we belong wholly to the Between, which is not a world but a pathway.
Though the worlds we partially inhabit are anchored in time, we aren’t. Time moves forward for these worlds, but we remain stranded at the age we were when we accepted the stars we wear on the palms of our hands. In other words, our bodies do not age, though our minds do. If you want to call this immortality, you are welcome to.
Talei ignores everyone in the cramped living room and opens up all the windows Daraja hasn’t gotten to. The noon song of the city pours in, and for a minute, we sit quietly and listen.
Cities have souls, you know. They are alive and sometimes they die. They grow old either gracefully or shamefully. They shrink and they expand. They grieve and celebrate. We have been to many cities in the world. We have learned the languages they speak, and though we cannot speak these languages, we have learned to listen and understand.
Lautoka City, or as it is known among the locals, Sugar City, is full of verve. Not the verve you’ll find in, say, New York, but an island excitement. A molasses-slow excitement. The air is heavy with the smell of, yes, exhaust, but also sugar. The sugar mills are hard at work on one end of the city. The magic here is thin and patchy, though. Bigger cities, older cities, have stronger magic.
We breathe deep of the sweet air and let the excitement in it infect us. We are here for the festival after all.
“Mangoes,” Paheli announces suddenly. “I must have mangoes.”
“I’m sorry to break it to you”—though by the sharp grin on Talei’s face, she’s really not—“it’s not mango season.”
“Well.” Paheli illustrates her disappointment by sitting down on the floor beside Kamboja.
“Get up.” Valentina nudges her with her foot. “We have to go get some money.”
“Oh. I suppose I can find ice cream along the way.” Paheli perks up and gets to her feet. Her cloud of light pink hair is tied up tightly in a bun. “Who is coming with us?”
Daraja and Talei elect to accompany her while the rest of us pick up the supplies from under the sink and give the apartment the cleaning it desperately needs.
We have been to Lautoka City enough times that her streets are, if not home, then familiar to us. It is late afternoon, and the city is gaining an emptiness that is normal for her. Soon, stores will start closing up, and the night will find the city ready to sleep. Of course, not all stores close. Some, especially those that serve food and offer other entertainment, remain open till late. The only bus station in the city is open for service until six p.m. You are on your own after that.
Not that we are going anywhere outside the city. We couldn’t even if we wanted to. We can travel between cities in the Between but not out in the world. Our footsteps can only go as far as the city boundaries. Beyond that is an invisible wall that separates the wild and the city. We can bang into the barrier, but we cannot get through it—not unless we take off our stars.
After ten minutes of walking, we reach a rather shabby store located between a clothing boutique called Makanjee’s and a place selling silver pots and pans. The windows of our intended destination are entirely opaque, as if the products inside are too precious to be viewed by the passing riffraff.
A bell rings when we push the door open and pile in; it is a sonorous sound that echoes in the dark interior of the store.
Large canisters full of colored sugar make up the entire inventory of the store. But see, this isn’t the sugar you will find in a grocery store frequented by humans. No, the sugar crystals offered by this store have rather esoteric qualities that customers would do well to be aware of. We have, on occasion, sampled some of the sugar from this place. It caused us to stumble into dreams where flowers bled crimson and the sun was a threat in the sky. Another time the sugar gave us wings, and for thirty minutes we flew. Yet another time, the sugar turned us all into stone, and we learned the true meaning of stillness. The effect wore off, but we have a newfound sympathy for statues.
We haven’t been to this store in years, but nothing seems to have changed in the time we were away. We wait at the counter, and a minute later the proprietor emerges from the back room with a wary look in his eyes and a weapon in his hands. We look at the staff he is holding with great interest.
Valentina gives Paheli a look, and Paheli looks wounded. “I haven’t done anything to him. I swear!”
The not-human man’s name is Josefa, and he has always been friendly to us, so the hostility we see on his face is unexpected.
The staff, made of some kind of wood, is hooked at the top and has a vaguely menacing aura. It is a magician’s staff; that much we know. We also know that it is used to direct magic to or at anyone the wielder desires. We are of the Between, however, and untouchable, at least by magic.
Josefa relaxes infinitesimally when he recognizes us, and his expression reorganizes itself into something friendlier. He lowers the staff and places it out of sight.
“So, you are not going to try to kill us?” Paheli asks. Valentina pinches her. “I’m just asking!”
“I’m sorry. There have been upheavals recently,” Josefa says shortly. He is a tall man with dark skin and amber eyes. His age is indeterminable. Middle worlders, not-human men and women, live longer lives than their human counterparts, but they, too, cannot evade death. Every city we have traveled to has a store run by a not-human person with whom we can exchange the Between diamonds for money that we use in the human world.
“What kind of upheavals?” Paheli asks, the usual joviality absent from her face. What she means is, How will this affect us?
Josefa gives us a considering look. He knows that we are of the Between.
“Power has changed hands. That which was imprisoned was set free. The streets have, once again, become hunting grounds. Those without magic are becoming reacquainted with their vulnerability. You…” Josefa looks at each of us in turn. “You ought to be careful. He has designs on the Between, and you who walk it freely are most in danger.” Josefa doesn’t specify who this he is. Instead, he holds out his hand, and Paheli drops three diamonds into it.
The Between is made entirely of magic. Sometimes excess magic is expressed as diamonds, hard gems made of solid ma
gic rather than the usual carbon. If no one picks them, they are reabsorbed by the Between. And no one can pick them apart from us.
You see, middle worlders have to pay a measure of magic to traverse the Between. The amount of magic required is calculated by the distance traveled and paid when they touch the door leading to the city they want to enter. While magic is not exactly sentient, it is particular about certain things.
“This is the amount you’ll get in return.” Josefa names an amount, and our eyebrows rise. The amount is a lot more than we expected. He looks at our expressions and makes a face in return. “Magic levels are decreasing around the world, so the price for it has gone up.”
In the middle world, magic is both energy and currency. Middle worlders cannot function without magic, which also buys services and items. Magic has two states of existence: one is force, and the other is diamonds.
Every middle worlder is born with a level of innate magic. As they spend time in magic-rich places, the level of magic they contain rises until they are carrying the maximum magic they are able to. This is not always pure magic but a sort of abbreviated magic. A filtered magic of a quality somewhat higher than unrefined oil but barely.
Josefa hands over a large wad of local currency in exchange and cautions us to be careful once again. Immediately after, he returns to the back room, leaving us standing in the dimly lit store.
Daraja and Talei move closer to Valentina and Paheli as Josefa’s warnings linger, unsweetened by the sugar in the store. Paheli pockets the money, meets our eyes, and breathes out.
Paheli: The Vagrant Experiences of a Mango Addict
Sometimes I like to stand with my feet pressed to the pavement of a city and feel it breathe. And sometimes I wait till midnight to eat mangoes because mangoes taste the freshest then. Valentina refuses to indulge in my profundities, but she, whom I found on a bridge in Paris, is a star that commands its own planets and disdains mere immortals like me.
I have been a Wild One for a very long time. Too long, my bones grumble, and sometimes there’s an ache in me for green things. Not that I would know what to do with a forest if I found myself inside one, but still, I like dreaming.
I look at the faces of my sisters when we leave the sugar shop, and they look as jittery as I feel. The unnamed he has struck a chord of familiar terror in all of us. This certainly won’t do. We cannot afford fear; we have paid far too much to it already. So, I lead them back to the apartment where we pick up the rest of our mismatched crew, and we make our way to Marine Drive.
I insist on buying ice blocks from a corner store and make short work of the sweet, milky treats that taste a little like heaven if the place was a flavor. Not that I have any hope of gaining entrance there. I lick my fingers when I am done until Daraja stuffs a wet wipe in my hands. We walk, unseen by humans and ignored by the infrequent middle worlders, through the city toward Marine Drive.
Like everything else that doesn’t fit within their boundaries of normal, we, too, are naturally invisible to human beings. To become visible, we have to bring together intention and energy. This is not difficult, usually, but it does get annoying, so mostly we don’t bother. Everything we touch becomes invisible as well. We pretend it’s a superpower, and in some ways, it might as well be.
Ghufran walks next to me, her footsteps still uncertain, as if she’s unsure of her right to the ground upon which she walks. She has been with us for a while now, but fear still sets daily in her eyes like the sunset we have come to see. We sit in a line on the seawall, legs dangling on the seaside. The sky is readying itself to perform for us and we, well, we have always been willing spectators.
You would think, considering the transient nature of a Wild One, I would grow inured to the comings and goings of those I call my sisters, but, and you can ask Valentina this, they all leave a bit of themselves within me. Right now, there are eleven of us: Ligaya, Kamboja, Daraja, Widad, Talei, Sevda, Areum, Ghufran, Etsuko, Valentina, and me. Five years ago, there were twenty.
The sky is soon painted in the crimson shades of a broken heart; it demands all our attention. Sunsets and sunrises are perhaps the only things that still command our reverence. One announces an end to pain and the other indicates a new beginning: two things that are invaluable to us.
“What Josefa said…,” Valentina says suddenly, and I look at her. She catches my eyes and becomes quiet. But of course, it’s far too late.
“What did Josefa say?” Areum asks.
“He warned us of a new danger,” Daraja replies, shivering even though it’s a hot day.
Now everyone is looking at me. I glare at Valentina and pretend I have all the answers. I am really good at pretending, in case you’re wondering.
“We have no information yet, so there’s no use panicking. There’ll be plenty of time for that once we know exactly what shape this monster takes,” I say. I understand why the girls are spooked. Thus far, we have lived, skirting the peripheries of the human world and the middle world, slipping under the radar of the magical heavyweights. We don’t like the idea of having targets painted on us.
“Let’s go back to the apartment. We still have a festival to go to! We’ll find out more about this person later. All right?” stinky Valentina says, trying to make up for placing her foot in everyone’s mouth earlier.
I jump off the wall and wobble. Ghufran steadies me without a word. I beam at her before I start walking. I wonder if they will have mangoes at the festival.
“Are you really not worried about this new threat?” Valentina says in my ear.
“I’ll worry about it after the festival,” I tell her, and walk faster.
Cotton Candy Sugar Screams
The Sugar Festival is an annual celebration in Lautoka City. There is a parade, but we are more interested in the festival grounds located in Churchill Park, not far from the city center. The festival grounds boast fair rides, food vendors, game kiosks, and a stage upon which musical performances, both traditional and modern, are held.
We emerge from our apartment two hours after the night swoops down, spilling darkness all over surfaces and shielding the cracks in the pavement from further censure.
The chaos of the coming night is all but shimmering in the air. The evening is full of possibilities, and, despite the warning from the storekeeper, we are eager to realize them. Not many middle worlders make their homes in Lautoka City; the magic here is too thin to sustain them. Middle worlders run on magic created by human lives. Therefore, the more populous a place, the more magic it contains. The middle worlders who do live here, like Josefa, are powerful beings boasting a greater ability to soak up loose magic from the surroundings compared to others.
You might be curious about what draws us back to this humble place, to this humble festival. Is it the scent of sugar in the air that persists no matter how many other smells try to drown it? Or is it the way the lights of the city and the festival push at the darkness that frames heavens heavy with stars?
Yes and no. You see, one of us, Talei, is from Fiji, and Lautoka is the closest she will allow herself to get to home. Her city is on the other side of the island, but she is not yet ready to return to it. So, we come to Lautoka City once in a while so she can taste home in the air, in the night, and in the sense of the wild waiting at the edges of the lights. For now, this is enough for her.
We walk slowly as the island night demands. Humans avoid us without realizing they are doing so. We hear the music long before we see the lights of the festival. The din of excited voices adds to the soundtrack of the night. The smell of meat sizzling on the barbecue grills is acknowledged by the growls in our stomachs. Truth: We do not eat to live. We are sustained by the magic of the Between. Another truth: What is life without food? Our stomachs remember hunger and we indulge them happily.
We enter the festival grounds unseen before appearing in front of the food sellers. We startle them with both our presence and our voracious appetites. We gleefully patronize little booths selling
clouds of cotton candy and snow cones in the colors of the rainbow. We play games and win stuffed animals that we pass on to kids who look at us suspiciously before accepting them.
As the hours slip by, the darkness deepens as does our awareness of shadows.
The festival grounds are getting crowded when we return after watching a meke performance by traditional Fijian dancers. Paheli suddenly stops. We recognize her stillness. We follow her gaze and see three men herding a young girl away from the grounds to the back of a stadium located in a cordoned-off area of the park. Their intentions are as obvious as is her terror.
Other people see the girl’s distress, but not one of them moves to intercede. Funny how often situations like this occur.
Time shifts and the men succeed in isolating the girl. The back of the stadium is deserted. The music from the festival is a distant thump. The girl whimpers.
We follow and we watch, transfixed. Her terror echoes all our pasts.
We do not hate all men. Just most of them. That old adage, you know? Guilty until proven innocent.
When we invited men into our stories, into our bedrooms, under our skin, and close to our hearts, we didn’t expect them to destroy us as a demonstration of their strength, as an expression of their masculinity. But they did. Or at least they tried to.
None of us were saved by any princes. No kind woodcutters passed by when the wolves were making meals of us.
But we survived. If not in entirety, then in fragments.
Paheli moves. We flow behind her, almost as if we are one body, and perhaps in this moment we are.
The men see us too late. They see our bodies, our mouths, our hips, our femininity, and they think us weak.
Paheli steps forward and all attention falls on her. She is like a storm at dusk, our Paheli. Her eyes are the blue of broken hearts and her face is the reason for them. She becomes the only one they can see and the girl is left to flee. She hesitates before some sense of self-preservation pushes her away. The men barely react; it is almost as if they are in thrall to Paheli.