The following morning, we woke up to Celeste’s scratching on the door and realised that we’d fallen asleep halfway through Ad Astra. My guests had booked a nighttime game drive that night and I had the day to myself. We had a leisurely breakfast in bed, after which a video call from Nazir’s family came in and he went out on the veranda to receive it.
He spoke at length with both his mother and his sisters, switching between English and what I thought was Hindi but turned out to be Tamil, his mother’s native tongue. He also spoke Punjabi, his father’s native language and a bit of Arabic on account of being raised Muslim.
Having nothing else to do, I heaved a trunk of books from under the bed and began flipping through them. There were several copies of Reader’s Digest from the era when Mandela was still the president of South Africa and Saddam Hussein was a growing concern for the west — not that we knew anything about it. There was a stack of Harry Potter hardbacks that were probably worth something on the rare books market, a collection of Dr. Seuss children’s books and bundles of cartoon comics from the 90s.
I unwound the sisal twine binding them and inspected the humidity damage. The pages were rigid and stuck together, but came apart without tearing once I gently slid my palm between them. I recognized them from my own childhood. They came nestled between the crisp sheets of the Sunday newspaper and were the finest contraband you could sneak into school back then.
They were rivalled only by lyric journals and bubblegum stickers. If you had stickers, you had a pack of smokes to trade. But if you had a Beano comic book, that was the equivalent of a cell phone in prison. It shot you right to the top of the food chain. A comic book could get people to do a week’s worth of chores for you. As long as you had a fresh and steady supply, you never had to sweep a classroom or weed a flower bed again. Such labour was worthy if for a short but glorious fifteen minutes you could forget about homework, and revel in the misadventures of Roger the Dodger, Minnie the Minx, Dennis the Menace, Beryl the Peril and a superhero going by (of all names) Bananaman.
The trunk was lined with patterned rayon and smelled like moth balls, an old and familiar smell to me. I had the distinct memory of picking Mom up from the airport with several such trunks. There was a photo of it, in fact. The two of us on the tarmac, a Kenya Airways plane behind us. I was standing next to her in a purple princess dress and she was squatting next to a luggage pile as tall as me.
I remembered going places with Dad where Mom was absent — shopping, tours, but also family gatherings.
I texted Mark. Does Mom ever say she went to study abroad at some point?
—Dunno. Wouldn’t you know?
Right. It would’ve been before Mark was born. I was six years old and she brought all this shiny jewellery and make-up that I was not expressly forbidden to try on but that I dared not touch. I remembered that Dad was anxious and that even though no one told me to, it was crucial that I be on my best behaviour that day — that I not be a bother.
I always saw Mom as a travel agent at the booking office. She had been there for as long as I could remember, but what if that was a blank I had filled in later? I knew that Dad had started his career as a driver for Somak. They didn’t start the agency until later. What if she hadn’t been with us at all?
— Oh wait, there’s that picture of me with her on a station wagon.
— Dad never had a station wagon.
— It wasn’t taken here. There is snow in it.
— That can’t be you in the photo.
— It is, when I was a baby. It says Me & Son, Detroit, Michigan. On the back.
— You weren’t born in the states bro.
At that point he apparently got tired of texting and sent a voice note instead.
“Obviously she must’ve been on a trip or something!”
I sent a voice note back. “I would’ve been eight or nine by the time she took such a trip. I’d remember. You weren’t born until after she came back. I remember being at the airport and you weren’t there.”
“I’ll bet you your Harman Kardon I’m right.”
I laughed. It was typical of Mark to invoke my bluetooth speaker to settle our contests. He had designs on it, and his invocations always had the effect of raising the stakes of even the pettiest debate a thousandfold.
“I’ll take that bet because you’re so wrong! And when I prove you wrong I want something of equal value.”
“Haha! Well, joke’s on you ‘cause I don’t have anything worth that much.”
He didn’t know it but he was about to lose his gaming console to me. Naz’s call ended and he returned to find me reading supine on the floor.
“Sorry that went a bit long, Moms,” he said by way of explanation. “So, what do you want to do today?”
Weeks before, whilst trying to identify an optimal location for a birdbath on Naz’s compound, I’d lost myself down a garden Feng Shui rabbit hole. I had this image of watching birds playing in the water over breakfast and I thought that a spot just off the veranda would work. But I forgot to account for Naz’s cats menacing the smaller birds or Celeste’s kittens being frightened by larger birds — crows, kites and kestrels were no stranger to these parts.
The birdbath I selected, and went to great pains to smuggle out of Mundia’s warehouse, came in two tiers. But, it was short and sat too low on the ground to accommodate the prevailing circumstances. Nevertheless, I had become attached to the idea of gifting it to Nazir so I had the tiers separated. Then I had an iron bar cast to hold them on either side so that the cats wouldn’t scale it and the birds wouldn’t swoop too low. It came out beautifully! Perhaps too beautifully, as I now found myself nervous about giving it to him.
I had not anticipated any adjustments when I first envisioned it. I thought that I would casually deliver it as something extra I had lying around that would be more useful in his garden. But then I wondered if it wasn’t too much.
Isn’t it famously a bad idea to give expensive gifts too soon in a relationship? Except, we’re not in a relationship so maybe those rules don’t apply? Still, wouldn’t this tip my hand? Spook him, maybe? I thought.
“What? What is it?”
“I brought you something, but I’m not sure I should give it to you now.”
“Oh, a gift?” he perked up. I nodded. “Well, let’s see it then. Now’s as good a time as any.”
“Mmmh. It’s actually kind of a little project. We’re going to assemble it together. Let me show you.”
We took the parts out of the cruiser and set them on the ground: two wrought iron bowls, one bar, two steel chains, one bolt.
“Can you tell what it is?” I asked.
He pulled the sleeves of his shirt up to his elbows and began circling the items. He took the bolt, hit the brim of one of the bowls and listened keenly.
“Well, they’re not singing bowls,” he muttered to himself, but just loud enough for me to hear. Then he clanged the bowls together and again made a show of listening.
“They’re not cymbals either.”
I realised that he was doing a bit and started smiling. He did a few more inspections involving sniffing and even biting at one point, each time scratching his head like a cartoon character that was absolutely stumped. At last, he raised his finger and said, “Oh! I’ve got it now for sure. These are the scales of Libra!” he declared straight-faced and I dissolved in hysterics.
“It’s a birdbath,” I said, still catching my breath, “To go with your birdfeeder.”
“I know,” he said, wrapping his arm around me. “Thank you Cheri.”
We set about digging a hole where we would plant the iron pole. It soon became apparent that we would have to steady it in concrete — something we did not have. I’d been so caught up in the arrangement of it that I forgot the practicality of it. I started to worry that it had been a bad idea after all, but then Naz had the idea to use a plaster leftover from when he built the outdoor bathroom.
“It’s not ideal but it’ll hold,” he said, “Provided no one swings from it.”
It was midday then, and the sun scorched with a fury that could only have been a herald for the rain to follow. Cosmo was missing in action that day, but Celeste was sprawled in the sparse shade of a yellow-barked acacia tree near us. The kittens, now almost a month older since I’d last seen them, had grown curious and more playful. They fearlessly run circles around us, wrestling, biting and spitting at each other.
Occasionally one of them yowled and Celeste raised her head to check on them, but she did not get up and they soon returned to their games. A particularly hot chase spilled over into our work area. The kittens raced through the wet plaster, leaving tiny paw prints on Naz’s pristine work. We considered doing another coat over the prints but then decided to add our own hand prints, which was the superior idea of the two. Later, we would go for a walk in search of pine cones and wild flowers and Nazir would teach me how to make potpourri. But it is this part of the day that I remember most fondly.
I had succeeded. I had vacated my life for a time, and there was joy to be found on the outside. That is, until the day I threw my Harman Kardon speaker into a lake. There was no joy that day, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
***
To be continued…
