“It’s all Mum’s fault,” Salif says.
“How so?” asks Bella.
“She didn’t have to stay with Dad,” he says. “And it would even have been okay if she left him for a woman. But couldn’t she have partnered with a woman good enough for us to accept into our family? She chose a basement bargain! And you know what they say, you get what you pay for.”
Bella knows she can’t afford to comment.
Dahaba says, “Padmini should’ve stayed on the couch where we left her. You took the trouble to make it up for her.”
“Or the two of them should’ve shown patience until they were in their own private hotel room,” Salif says. “Even cigarette packets carry warning signs.”
Is he trying to be hilarious? Bella thinks, taking a mouthful. But she keeps mum. She must let them speak their minds.
Dahaba now says, “After they went to jail for it, you would think that they would be more careful the next time.”
“I’ve nothing against Mum going gay,” Salif says.
Dahaba says, “It just gave me a shock, seeing them and all.”
Bella looks at one and then the other, and speaks with extra caution. “In much of Africa, being gay is considered an abomination. I hope you are more advanced in your own views and are more tolerant of other people’s choices. What people do and who they do it with is their own private affair.”
“I agree with you on that score,” Salif says. “But there is a but.”
“Let’s hear it,” says Bella.
“You must tell the truth, no matter the fallout,” he says. “Why lie and say that Padmini is like a sister to her when it is clear there is something else going on. You see what I am saying?”
Bella does. Indeed, she is astonished to find that he is thinking just as she thought.
“What about you, Dahaba, darling?” says Bella.
“I am not against her being gay,” says Dahaba slowly.
“But you were shocked,” Salif reminds her.
“Because I didn’t expect to come upon them,” she says. “And because Padmini called me evil.”
“And what do you think now that a little time has passed?” Bella asks.
But Dahaba is unwilling to say.
“What’s your position, Auntie?” says Salif.
Dahaba says, “Auntie lives in Europe, where they accept such behavior, where they tolerate it.”
“What are you saying?” Salif challenges Dahaba.
“In Europe, being gay is no big deal.”
“Why don’t you let Auntie answer?” he says.
Bella says, “People everywhere should be in a position to make their God-given choice and to be with those they choose to be with. We Africans lag behind the rest of the world, and we waste valuable energy putting our noses in people’s private lives. We have no business there.”
“Did living in Europe change your views,” Salif asks, “or are those the views you held before you left Africa?”
“I’ve always appreciated differences,” Bella says. “My mother had a lot to do with that. She appreciated the things that set people apart. She was never one for monotony.”
“Why are most of us so wrong about this?” Dahaba asks.
“We are ill informed about the world, ill educated, intolerant of the views of others when they do not agree with ours,” Bella says. “We are undemocratic, just like our governments. But sex is a personal matter that our societies and governments have no business with.”
The children are proud of her strong statement, she can tell. Especially Dahaba, who makes as though she might applaud.
Salif says, “Have you ever fancied women?”
“Never,” Bella replies.
“Not even tempted?” Dahaba asks.
“Never.”
Salif asks, “Did it ever cross your mind that our mother was inclined that way before you discovered it to be the case?”
“You never know what you know until you come to know that you know it,” Bella says. And then she gets to her feet and starts gathering the plates.
“Auntie is smart, isn’t she?” Dahaba remarks.
“Smart in her evasiveness,” Salif says.
Bella adds the plates to the mess in the sink. But she doesn’t speak of the tedious business of dishwashing. Instead, she says, “Any plans for today?”
“We’d like to visit Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi and their children,” Dahaba says.
“I can you take there.”
“Can we sleep over?” asks Dahaba.
Bella thinks that Aar would not object. And she would love to see his dear friends again too.
“I’ll ring them,” Dahaba says. “And then we’ll do the dishes.”
Salif says, “We’ll make our beds.”
Bella goes up to her room to collect the presents she has brought for them. She has always wanted to share her knowledge of photography with them and regrets that she never found the time until now. She brings down two identical digital cameras, each with a manual. But Bella shows them the basics herself, along with a few shortcuts she knows.
“Can we show them to Zubair and Qamar?” says Salif.
“Of course you may.”
Dahaba takes a selfie and says, “How exciting!”
Everything is quiet, save for the clicking sound of Dahaba taking photos, now of Bella or Salif, now a selfie, and now of objects around the room. She is getting more excited by the second. But Bella’s mind has gone in a very different direction. She is imagining Death entering the scene again, depriving her and others of those they love. She remembers reading Roland Barthes’s prophetic answer to an interviewer: “If photography is to be discussed on a serious level, it must be described in relation to death.” She remembers vaguely that Fatima was having a medical procedure. What kind of procedure? she asks herself now. It is not the type of question to put to Dahaba at this very moment when she is enthralled with capturing life. She will ask Salif when the two of them are alone; maybe he will know. She says to Dahaba, after she has taken yet another photograph of her, “Now what did Auntie Fatima and Uncle Mahdi say when you rang the house?”
“They said we are most welcome,” says Dahaba.
“Only for an afternoon visit or for a sleepover?”
“Sleepover,” Dahaba insists.
“I want to hear one of them confirm it,” says Bella.
“Would you like to ring them now?”
“There is plenty of time before we go.”
Dahaba practices with the cameras a bit more, taking photos of Bella, then of Salif. They pose in ones and twos, and then take a selfie of all three of them.
Bella starts on the dishes. Salif, unasked, puts away his camera and begins to dry the plates. Bella remembers wanting earlier to tell him about not leaving the door open the way she found it when she came in with the shopping. But she is content to talk about this on another occasion. And, with him helping, they are soon done.
Bella leads the children upstairs and they help each other to make the beds, to turn off their computers, to draw the curtains, to put the wet towels on racks, and to flush the toilets. Then Dahaba and Salif pack their shoulder bags with a change of clothes and their toothpaste and toothbrushes. Dahaba gets Uncle Mahdi on the phone to confirm that she and her brother are welcome to stay the night.
Bella makes a call of her own in the privacy of her room: She telephones HandsomeBoy Ngulu, the lover who lives in Nairobi. They chat briefly, the first time they have spoken since her arrival. Of course, he has heard the tragic news, and he offers his condolences.
“If you are free this evening, maybe we can meet,” she says.
As soon as the words leave her mouth, alarm bells of worry ring in her head. She wonders if she is ready to meet a lover so soon after her brother’s death. But her heart’s quickened pace at the thought of it is pleasurable too. They agree to meet in the café of the Nairobi Serena, a five-star hotel.