Amy Eleni’s eyes narrow, but she checks her rear-view mirror and turns the car round, she turns the car round, thank God.
‘You think I don’t understand this pregnancy thing, and you’re right, I don’t understand it. But please do me the courtesy of thinking it’s because I’ve never been pregnant, not because I’m gay, not because I’m not going to have any kids. I saw your face when you found out I’m an egg donor,’ Amy Eleni says, flatly.
I don’t say anything to her. I look out of the window. I want to drown her out in case she says anything else; I would turn up the volume of the music, but I don’t want to touch anything in her car. I just want us to be safe. I don’t know what ‘us’ means; there are combinations — me and my son, me and Aaron. And there’s me and Amy Eleni, the friend who came and made it so that I needed no other friend. Green changes back into grey, the pavements return.
When she drops me off outside Aaron’s flat, I get out and say to her, very carefully, ‘I can’t see you for a while. And we can’t talk about this baby any more. It’s not your fault — it’s mine.’
She just nods and rolls up the window.
Sleep, get up, et cetera.
I want my Papi to come for me. But if he comes with reason I will turn him away. I don’t want the everyday Papi who lives out of a suitcase of ideas and cigars and woollen slippers. I want my Papi of emergencies, the Papi that I can reach when we’re both quiet and straining to catch each other.
Papi caught chickenpox when I was twelve. Tomás was three, and Mami’s main concern was keeping Tomás away from Papi so that no one died. I hadn’t had chickenpox yet, but I volunteered to be chief nurse and snuck into Mami and Papi’s bedroom to check on him even when Mami banned me from doing so. Papi was very quiet, very patient. His eyes, peering out from the tufts of camomile-soaked cotton wool that Mami had left on his face, were pale red. I loved him so much more because he didn’t have anything to say about his chickenpox, my brave silent sufferer; I sat up beside him in bed and hugged him carefully. I wanted to catch the pox from him because I thought it would help him by dividing the spots in half. I took his temperature with increasing daring, leaving my hand against his forehead for so long that I thought I was sure to succeed. His fever ran so high that entire week that it seemed certain he would spontaneously combust. But when I knelt by his pillow and told him so, he laughed breathlessly and asked me what I knew about spontaneous combustion. So I showed him books — the best picture was of a man’s leg resting at the foot of a chair, a few inches away from a hill of ash. The leg, dressed in a knee sock and training shoe, looked jaunty in its independence, as if it was about to launch itself towards the ash and kick it in every direction. ‘There’s a man who spontaneously combusted,’ I said. ‘I bet he didn’t say anything when it was about to happen. I bet he knew what was going on, though. He must’ve felt hot.’
Papi agreed with me.
The next morning I woke up before the sun did, gagging with thirst, feeling as if my tongue had been scraped with a rusty spike. I kept spitting dazedly into my hand to see if there was blood. My pillows were sucking me in.
‘Papi, Papi,’ I shrieked, and he came. When he saw me, he tutted as if it was my fault I felt sick. He said, ‘Oh, Maja.’
I tried to stop spitting into my hand. I knew it was ugly, but I couldn’t help it; my hands were seamed with glassy, bitter-smelling bubbles.
Papi ran his fingers over the red rash on my forehead and kissed me all over my face, and said, very low, very serious, very kindly, ‘Gracias, m’hija, gracias,’ until I settled against his shoulder, content that he was grateful. Papi comes to conclusions suddenly and works backwards, once he’s there at the beginning of a thought he understands.
Papi: ordinary boy or extraordinary boy? When Mami used to corn-row his hair for him he would think of something and get impatient halfway through and wander around the house looking for the book with the paragraph that was perfect for that starburst of thought. Even if Mami worked quickly she could only get half of his head done at once, then for the rest of the day he would go around with his fingers marking several places in several books, one half of his head neatly plaited, the other half a mass of curls with an afro comb quivering in it. He looked like a retired rapper in denial. Eventually he’d stop in front of a mirror, tut and say, ‘Chabella, I thought you had finished? Somebody needs to take these plaits out.’
Chabella started enlisting me to corn-row the other half of Papi’s head so that we had a better chance of making his hair presentable. But one day he defied us. He went out and came back with his head shaved. He stood dramatically in the doorway and crowed, ‘Ha!’
My Papi loves salt so much he can eat it sprinkled over thinly sliced tomatoes; if he feels his blood pressure rushing he reaches for more salt in case it’s his last. My Papi is so fond of conclusions that he reads the last three chapters of a novel before he reads the first. My Papi dreams of small children who will call him their abuelo. But all that means is that if I want revenge I will have them call him ‘Grandsire’, curtsey or bow, and ask if he will take one lump or two.
Only with Papi can I forgive at the exact moment that he hurts me. It is as Chabella said: there is nothing wrong with my father except that he stopped listening to me. But Awe is not my mother, Chabella is, and she is not on my side. I thought she was fighting Papi and sugar and England with her tears and flowers, but really she has been fighting me, too.
The doorbell rings so urgently and so many times that it wakes me. I go to the main door barefoot, rumpled, and disoriented. Papi has sent Tomás to pick up my plane tickets. When Tomás comes in, I see that he’s surprised by how dark the flat is. He draws in a deep breath and says, ‘Why does it smell so damp in here?’
I could tell him about the leak, but instead I say, ‘Because it is England.’
He is abashed, as if it’s his fault that I’m not going to Habana. He shuffles his feet while I go through my bag for the tickets. I am slow finding them, but I do not think to withhold the plane tickets because I do not think. When I find them, I hand them to Tomás without taking them out of the envelope.
Tomás says, ‘Maja, I did try to talk to him for you.’
I hug him and he resists at first, then he folds into me.
I say, ‘Why couldn’t Mami talk to him for me?’
Tomás lets go of me and says, ‘Mami’s ill.’
‘What’s wrong with her?’
He pauses, fumbles for the root of the problem.
‘She can’t find her Santeria beads.’
I am laughing now. I can’t give a reason for it, but my brother wants to know why. His face comes very close to mine and his hands form fists; I press a hand down on my chest as if somehow that will silence me, but instead my hand falls onto my stomach, and we both look, we both look at the bump. Tomás eases away. His voice is shaky. ‘She’s lost her beads. It’s not funny. Papi and I talked about getting her some more, but apparently they’d have to be consecrated and all this stuff and you know that’s enough to send Papi mad because he doesn’t trust babalawos. But this thing with Chabella. . oh. You should come. She’s. . I don’t know. She tutors and she cooks and she makes those paper flowers and she just sits there and she’s so sad. It doesn’t sound like anything. But. . you should come.’
I cross over into the bedroom and bring Tomás the collar. When he sees it, he sits very still and looks as if he has forgotten how to breathe. He thinks I am heartless to still be holding the collar after what he has told me. He doesn’t understand that Chabella and I are fighting. I hold the collar out to him, draw it back.