The Other Half of Augusta Hope

by Joanna Glen

  I went to my room and I packed my suitcase.

  ‘You can have the telescope!’ I called through Diego’s bedroom door.

  ‘I never wanted the bloody telescope in the first place,’ he called back.

  ‘Which tells me everything I need to know about you!’ I shouted.

  ‘Can you only like people who like telescopes? That sounds typical of you!’ he shouted back.

  I walked out of the gate, and my fingers were shaking.

  Like my father’s.

  I wanted to phone him and tell him that he didn’t only kill the boy. He killed Julia too – by not letting her save him. He ruined her life with the guilt of it. Except I couldn’t hate him when I thought about his wheelchair and his corduroy slippers and his shaking fingers and his face with the crack down the middle.

  I dragged my case across the road and down the boardwalk over the dunes, and I left it there because its wheels wouldn’t roll over the sand.

  Then I saw the artist.

  ‘Can you keep an eye on my case?’ I said to him, not looking at him. I always found I couldn’t look at him, not straight, eye to eye, though I so wanted to. I so wanted to talk to him again.

  ‘I need to go down to the end of the beach,’ I said, still not looking at him. ‘To think something through.’

  I looked up.

  He nodded.

  I headed back to our special place.

  I drew a huge X in the sand with my heel.

  X marks the spot.

  I sat next to the X.

  I don’t know how long for.

  Trying to find a path through my thoughts.

  Throwing stones.

  My teeth were chattering though it was warm and humid, a sea mist forming across the beach.

  The artist came down.

  I didn’t look at him.

  He stood next to me.

  I still didn’t look at him.

  I tried to stop my teeth chattering.

  ‘I’m leaving the beach now,’ he said. ‘I can’t concentrate. Come for the case when you want it. I’ll hold it in my coach.’

  He pointed, and I nodded.

  ‘Are you staying down here?’ he said.

  I nodded again.

  ‘So what’s the X?’ he said.

  ‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘Or maybe everything. Like in Maths.’

  I turned around.

  He was staring at the X, and at the rocks, and the pine trees, and out to the hazy sea, now almost flat.

  ‘Would you like to stay in the coach tonight?’ he said.

  ‘How did you know?’

  ‘I knew. There’s a space at the back, with a bed. It’s totally separate from me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said.

  He looked at the X again, and he untied his sweater from his waist and put it around my shoulders. But it didn’t stop my teeth chattering.

  He sat down next to me, about a foot away, but I felt him.

  We both looked forwards – the way you might sit in a gypsy caravan, going from town to town. Except there was no road – only sea. In a gypsy caravan, you’d be closer together.

  Which would be.

  What would it be?

  Unbearable.

  ‘So,’ he said. ‘Why the X? And why here? Tell me …’

  ‘I don’t want to,’ I said. ‘You tell me something.’

  Still looking forwards, taking up the reins of our imaginary horse, on our imaginary road.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘What kind of thing should I tell you?’

  ‘It has to be something to do with X,’ I said because it was the first thing that came into my head.

  He laughed.

  We still looked forward.

  ‘People drew Xs on the face of our president – on posters,’ said the artist. ‘And the president killed them for it. For drawing two simple lines. How weird is that?’

  I know this, I thought, I read it, I researched it.

  I didn’t move.

  Or, to put it another way, I couldn’t move.

  ‘Pretty good, don’t you think?’ he said. ‘Right on theme. And with so little warning.’

  I tried to smile at the same time as I tried to breathe, at the same time as I tried to form words. Four words I was trying to form, four simple words – quite normal words in normal circumstances.

  ‘Where are you from?’ I said.

  I could feel I was hunching my shoulders, frowning, waiting to hear.

  I turned to look at him.

  He turned to look at me.

  He smiled, and his mouth made dimples on his cheeks.

  ‘Burundi,’ he said.

  The world had to keep turning.

  But, even if it was turning, I was stuck.

  Held.

  Not breathing.

  It came over me – the feeling. Was it a feeling? Or was it some change in the atmosphere like before a storm? Whatever it was, it was heavy and warm – and it seeped out of the letters of Burundi, dripping over me from the capital B and the u and the r and the u and the n and the d and the i, it came pouring out of the word I chose when I was seven years old, when I turned the globe in Hedley Green library, but I’d never heard it before like this, I’d never heard it before in his gravelly voice, I’d never heard it said right.

  I was covered from head to toe in Burundi.

  Burundi, Burundi, Burundi.

  Say something.

  I heard my mother’s voice – I can’t imagine what you’re going to do with all those books of notes.

  And I could imagine what I was going to do with them.

  ‘Your President Nkurunziza, who seemed so hopeful, has robbed you of hope again,’ I said to him, looking straight at him. ‘How much more can your poor country suffer?’

  Now he looked straight at me too.

  Our eyes locked.

  ‘How do you know all this?’ he said. ‘Nobody knows anything about Burundi. They never put it on the news in Europe.’

  ‘On the twenty-fourth of August 2015,’ I said, and I was gabbling now, of course I was gabbling, the words tumbled out, as if they’d piled up at the bottom of my throat, ‘the commission concluded that the president could run for as many terms as he likes. So that means a fourth term, I suppose. And that means more bloodshed in your country. And still no happy ending.’

  ‘Tell me how you know, Augusta.’

  Augusta.

  I melted at the sound of my name.

  ‘You know my name?’

  ‘I’ve heard you on the beach, riding, early, with the other two,’ he said. ‘But tell me how you know all this stuff about Burundi.’

  He turned around on the sand, and so did I, and we sat cross-legged, opposite each other, and his face had opened up.

  ‘I picked Burundi when I was seven years old.’

  ‘What do you mean you picked it?’

  ‘As my favourite country. I liked the sound of the word. I didn’t know what was hiding inside its letters then. I didn’t know about Lake Tanganyika or massacres or three hundred thousand people dead. I found that out later.’

  ‘I picked Spain. Like you, I didn’t know.’

  I stared at him, as he looked away, and I was seven years old in front of the big rotating globe, with all the land masses separated by the same blue sea.

  Or was I?

  No.

  Definitely not.

  I was twenty-six years old and riding a gypsy caravan.

  Somewhere.

  Somewhere.

  Anywhere.

  With him.

  ‘So,’ I said. ‘Tell me how you came from Burundi to La Higuera.’

  He came a bit closer.

  I let him.

  We were both still cross-legged, like at school.

  Except – everything.

  His knees, sticking out of the rips in his baggy jeans.

  A bit closer.

  His skin.

  The feel of it.

  Knee to knee.

  Say
something.

  ‘I came on a boat,’ he said, and I looked at him, though I could hardly bear it, the looking. ‘Like the others. The Senegalese selling stuff on the beach. But you don’t meet many here from Burundi. No one else is mad enough to walk.’

  He laughed.

  ‘You really walked?’

  ‘I walked.’

  I saw the map in my head.

  ‘I arrived with nothing,’ he said. ‘And I worked over there.’

  He gestured to the road behind the village.

  ‘You know, the holiday complex that never happened.’

  ‘I saw it years ago,’ I said, ‘when I was fourteen, when it was being built. In 2004.’

  ‘In 2004?’ he said, turning his head. ‘Fourteen?’

  Puffer fish clouds.

  Sunrise.

  Dolphins in Tarifa.

  Julia.

  ‘Then, later, I escaped. Like you.’

  ‘That’s going in the wrong direction,’ he said. ‘Nobody wants to escape from England.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Why an X and why here?’

  ‘Can you tell me some more stories about the X because I don’t want to tell you mine?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  ‘To tell me your story?’

  ‘No, not my story,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to say much more about that.’

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  We looked at each other, and though we didn’t yet know, we knew.

  ‘Go on then,’ I said. ‘More about the X.’

  ‘You know the flag of Burundi has an X with a circle in the centre?’ he said.

  I nodded.

  ‘I do know that,’ I said.

  We smiled at each other.

  Keep it light.

  Keep it surface.

  The waves left a layer of foam on the sand.

  Keep it foam.

  Don’t go underneath.

  Don’t go into the water yet.

  You might drown.

  ‘You may not know,’ I said, ‘that, in my country, the X is also a warning sign for the point where a railway line intersects a road at a level crossing.’

  ‘Oh really?’ he said.

  Keep it foam.

  Don’t go underneath.

  Don’t go into the water yet.

  You might drown.

  He could think of nothing he wanted to say about railway lines intersecting roads.

  And who could blame him?

  This was entirely understandable.

  ‘I hate level crossings,’ I said.

  ‘Do you?’ he said.

  I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Your turn,’ I said.

  He was silent for a while, looking out at sea.

  Then he turned.

  ‘The top and bottom triangles of the X are red to show that my country has been bleeding for so many years.’

  Bleeding.

  Your country?

  Or you?

  I think maybe you.

  ‘The level crossing sign is white outlined in red,’ I said. ‘They used to call my sister Snow White and me Rose Red. Tell me something white or red.’

  ‘My brother Wilfred grows red roses.’

  I couldn’t breathe.

  What are you going to do with all these pages of notes?

  ‘He’s the Rose Farmer of Bujumbura then?’

  He laughed aloud.

  ‘How do you know? How do you know he’s in Bujumbura?’

  ‘I’ve read about him. He’s actually your brother? Tell me about him,’ I said.

  ‘You’ve read about my brother?’

  Now, total incomprehension in his face, as he narrowed his eyes at me.

  ‘Yes. A journalist went to interview him. But he wouldn’t speak. Tell me why he doesn’t speak.’

  ‘This is amazing!’ he said, and he got to his feet.

  ‘Amazing,’ he kept saying. ‘Amazing.’

  I got to my feet too.

  He turned around as if he was going to hug me, and we moved towards each other.

  But then we just stood there, saying again and again, ‘Amazing.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me why he doesn’t speak,’ I said.

  ‘He has nothing left to say.’

  ‘So tell me another colour – something white.’

  ‘I can’t think of anything white,’ he said. ‘This is quite stressful.’

  We both laughed.

  ‘You must be able to think of something white,’ I said.

  ‘Oh shit,’ he said.

  Another burst of laughter.

  ‘That’s not white,’ I said.

  We both laughed.

  We both stopped.

  ‘Come on!’ I said. ‘It’s easy. Doves, sea spray, fingernails – or maybe yours aren’t.’

  ‘Look,’ he said. ‘We don’t have black fingernails!’

  Now we were both really laughing – what was it about this man? Course I knew nobody had black fingernails. What was the matter with me?

  He was holding out his hands, his definitely white fingernails.

  And we couldn’t stop laughing.

  And I couldn’t stop blushing.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’

  Then we were quiet again, but the laughter was still hovering underneath.

  ‘Choose another colour,’ I said.

  ‘The two sides of the X are green for hope. Esperanza,’ he said. ‘If I have a daughter, I’ll call her Esperanza.’

  ‘My surname is Hope.’

  ‘Your name is Hope?’

  I nodded.

  ‘Tell me something else,’ he said.

  ‘I bought a telescope to look at the stars, but I left it behind in the house and now I wish I hadn’t. Your turn. Tell me something about stars.’

  I was speaking so fast.

  And so was he.

  We couldn’t stop.

  It all poured out.

  ‘There are three stars at the centre of our flag,’ he said. ‘For Hutu, Tutsi and Twa. For Unité, Travail et Progrès.’

  ‘Unity, Work and Progress?’

  ‘You speak French?’

  ‘And Spanish. And English. And Latin,’ I said.

  ‘But not Kirundi?’ he said, smiling so wide, with a wicked look in his eye, teasing me. ‘So disappointing!’

  Another burst of laughter.

  Then silence again.

  As we both stared at the X.

  ‘X is a confluence – where people come together,’ I said.

  People come together, I thought, people do come together – and my heart was racing – and not just apart.

  Could we come together?

  ‘X is where the apostle Andrew was crucified,’ he said.

  People are crucified, they really are, not only the apostle Andrew, but normal people, like me – sometimes life crucifies the rest of us too.

  ‘The crux decussata,’ I said.

  ‘I don’t know any Latin,’ he said. ‘But you could teach me.’

  ‘You could teach me Kirundi,’ I said.

  And possibly, we could also resurrect.

  He said, ‘Let me introduce myself. I’m Parfait.’

  ‘Parfait?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Perfect, parfait, perfecto, perfectus all come from the same root, did you know? It’s the Latin per – meaning completely – joined to facere – meaning do. Done completely. So you’re the finished article. Entire and complete and perfect.’

  ‘You’re too kind,’ he said, and I laughed.

  He pulled up his plaits into a bunch and tied them with a grey cotton band.

  ‘Shall we go?’ he said.

  We?

  Shall we?

  Anything.

  Anything.

  With you.

  We started walking up the beach towards the coach, and, as we went in the door, I saw a cross made of driftwood hanging on a hook.

  Then
I saw a painting on the wall.

  A girl dancing.

  The skirt of her dress was made of satin ribbons, and as she turned, the ribbons became paint, splashing the white walls around her.

  I thought, I want to be that girl.

  ‘You will be quite safe here with me,’ he said, and he showed me my little room behind the plastic partition.

  I thought, I don’t want to be safe with you.

  I want to be unsafe with you.

  Parfait would disappear for hours to paint – or I supposed he was painting. And when he came back, we were both a bit nervous around each other.

  We’d start talking at the same time.

  Then we’d both stop.

  I’d feel myself blushing.

  And I’d busy myself.

  Or he would.

  It was quite ridiculous.

  I’d never known myself like it.

  Anyway, there was something else on my mind, and this eventually took me to the chemist, and it was on the way back from the chemist that I saw the stall selling flamenco dresses.

  ‘Do you have one in orange?’ I asked.

  The woman went to the back of her van and pulled out a dress. She held a blanket to shield me as I tried it on. I stared at my flat stomach, muscular, same as always – it would all be fine.

  The woman held up a cracked mirror.

  There I was: cracked, in an orange flamenco dress.

  My mother’s mirror broke and Julia turned it into a mosaic, which is what you can do with broken things. You can turn them into something else.

  The dress was goldfish orange, with tiny white dots on the frills – volantes, from the Spanish word volar, to fly.

  I wouldn’t fly away from here.

  I would find a way.

  The woman wrapped the dress in tissue and put it in a white plastic bag.

  ‘I don’t use plastic bags,’ I said to her. ‘The bags are killing the dolphins out in the Straits of Gibraltar. And the whales. And the fish. And ultimately us, you see. Because we eat the fish.’

  The woman creased her brow.

  I took the dress out of the plastic bag and gave it back to her, and I headed for Restaurante Raúl, passing the art gallery.

  I went into the tiled hall of the restaurant and swung open the door to the Ladies. I locked myself in, unwrapped the package and read the instructions.

  I tried to make myself pee.

  Count to one.

  And two.

  And three.

  And four.

  And five.

  Then have a look at the line.

  The line was turning blue.

  Is that blue? I thought, looking at the blue line.

  That can’t be blue, I thought, looking at the blue line.