The Best American Short Stories 2012

by Tom Perrotta

  Uncle started the Shakespeare Reading Group last winter, with the dust like fine sugar on the grass, in the air. Auntie thinks it’s ridiculous—“Houseboys reading Shakespeare? I mean, really . . .”—but defers to him on this as on everything. Uncle’s secretary, Akosua, makes the photocopies in his office then brings them to the house wrapped in paper. Kofi drags the lawn chairs into an oval by the pool, carrying out an armchair from the living room for Uncle.

  They started with Othello. You found a copy in the study from Comfort’s final year at Ghana International School. You read it in one sitting, seated cross-legged by the bookshelf. Uncle appeared so silently you didn’t hear him. At some point you stopped reading and there he was. Uncle: arms folded, leaning lightly against the door frame. You uncrossed your legs quickly, fumbling to get to your feet, trying to think up an excuse for being in there. No one’s forbidden you to enter the study—as you’re forbidden, for example, to enter Auntie and Uncle’s room—but no one’s exactly invited you either. It’s your favorite room in the house.

  On the one occasion Auntie caught you reading, she said nothing. She was passing by your door on her way down the stairs. You were upright in bed by the window for light, reading Comfort’s House of Mirth. She had a bottle of Scotch. She started to speak, hiding the bottle, then stopped. You pretended not to notice the bottle. She was staring at the tie-dye that’s taped to your wall, as if suddenly transfixed by the pattern. You considered her. It was a new way of seeing her, your own gaze unnoticed, staring straight at her face while she gazed past, through yours. She looked young without makeup, and tired. Even soft. The cream-satin nightdress, sponge rollers.

  “That’s Ruby’s lappa, isn’t it.” A statement, not a question.

  “She gave me the cloth, for decoration,” you said.

  “That was kind of her,” Auntie said. “Ruby . . .” Then stopped. You waited for her to finish. She didn’t. She stared at the tie-dye cloth (Ruby’s old lappa, a worn piece of wax batik, blue with white stars, sort of misshapen stars, more like starfish), saying nothing, then abruptly looked away, as if remembering you were there. She said, “You’ll strain your eyes, reading in the dark like that.”

  You didn’t mention that you don’t have a lamp. “Yes, madame.”

  But she didn’t forbid you to enter the study. You did and found the battered Othello. You were there sitting cross-legged when Uncle appeared at the door and you half tried to stand.

  “Don’t get up.”

  His voice was so gentle, just barely a whisper, as if speaking too loudly might cause you to rise. “Please, don’t get up.” He laughed softly. He sighed. “You look just like your mother.” He told you to keep Comfort’s copy of Othello. He invited you to Shakespeare Reading Group that week. You went to the garden, read the part of Desdemona. The pool brilliant blue in the late-morning light.

  George read Brabantio. Francis read Roderigo. Iago read Iago. But his name then was Yaw.

  The best-looking houseboy, indeed.

  It’s the skin that seems edible, that insists upon being looked at, less the color than the consistency, the constancy, and the eyes. You’ve only ever seen such eyes on Ashanti men with slender builds. Those twinkling, inky eyes, as narrow and angled as Asians’.

  Yaw made his announcement at the end of the hour with his hand on his packet as if the play were a Bible. “From this day forth my name will be Iago.” Uncle asked why. “He is strongest,” Yaw said.

  Kofi raised his hand. “Yes, sir?” Uncle said.

  Kofi looked at Yaw, almost pityingly. Sighed. “The king is strongest.”

  “Impeccable logic. But Yaw is correct.” That one dimple. “Iago you wish to be, Iago you are.”

  Iago, né Yaw, in the doorway.

  “Good morning,” he said brightly, leaning into the kitchen. He held out the mangoes to Francis.

  “Good morning,” you said softly, turning from the table to face him, losing your breath for a moment at the sight. Comfort said nothing, her mouth full of kelewele, blowing out air—“Hot, hot, hot”—as she chewed. As a rule she isn’t rude to the house staff (like Auntie) but she doesn’t “associate” either. Even to Ruby, who was employed before Comfort was born, Comfort says little. The only employee you’ve ever heard her thank that one time is Francis. She barely seemed to notice Iago, back-lit, at the door.

  “You are welcome, Sister Comfort,” he whispered. She looked. The sun from behind him seeped into her eyes. Seated across from her, you stared at her face.

  You’d never seen this particular look in her eyes, which are dark brown and gentle, even flat sometimes, still. Not empty, as such—not like Ruby’s—but still, like the eyes of a cow, deep and sated. She looked up, saw Iago, and her eyes sort of flickered. Just the hint of a hardening.

  “Morring, Yaw.” Her mouth full.

  As you stare at her now through the wide picture window, looking down at the garden and your cousin in her lace, you think to yourself, as you thought at the table this morning, it’s a very pretty face. Sort of heart-shaped and plumpish, with the cheeks of a cherub, the long curly lashes and small, pointy chin. Her lips look like pillows, some unique form of respite: top lip and bottom lip equal, together forming an O. She has Uncle’s flawless skin, the same sparkle and shade as the earth after rainfall, as shea-buttered soft. The skin on her collarbones and shoulders, in particular, is impossibly smooth, with a specific effect: that calm kind of loveliness unique to flat landscapes, to uninterrupted stretches of uniform terrain. Perhaps in the absence of the absolute standard that is Auntie, you’d call Comfort beautiful.

  But there she is—Auntie—fluttering from table to round table, drawing all eyes and oxygen toward her, restless Monarch. She is somewhat less witchlike when viewed through the window. Merely beautiful beyond all reason. The long jet-black hair against skin that won’t tan, wide-set eyes, and the war paint of cheekbone. For a moment you wonder if it’s the beauty that’s aggressive, perhaps in spite of its owner, and not Auntie herself? Perhaps anyone so striking, so sharp on the outside, would appear to be hard on the inside as well?

  Then Auntie stands straight and the moon gilds her up-and-down: white in a garden of color, as foreseen. As you watch from the study Auntie flutters to Comfort, who is fussing with Kwabena, her fiancé. Auntie offers her cheeks, one then the other, to his kisses. Comfort steps back, for no reason; there is space. Kwabena begins gesturing, chatting animatedly with Auntie. Comfort sips foam off her Malta, gazes away.

  She isn’t lovely near Auntie; you see this now, plainly. She couldn’t be lovely. She is too starkly lit. It isn’t that Auntie casts others in shadow, as you’ve often heard it said. It is the opposite. She is luminous. A floodlight on everything around it, in darkness. In an instant something lights Comfort’s eyes.

  It is the same thing you saw for that moment this morning, the sun slanting in thick and golden as oil. That flash, like two fireflies in Comfort’s black pupils, while Iago wiped his hands on his trousers, looked down.

  Francis finished crafting a blossom from an orange, then turned his focus to scalloping mango. He gave the overripe mangoes to Iago as he does, despite Auntie’s weekly speech on “free lunch.” You finished your pawpaw, surreptitiously watching Iago, his chale-watas wet still from washing the car. The pink tip of his tongue on the stringy-gold flesh, the wetness around his mouth made your stomach drop down. A feeling very similar to wetting the bed when the dream is most vivid. The dampness and all.

  Iago finished the mango and tossed the pit across the kitchen. It landed in the rubbish with a clatter. “Goooooooooooooooal!” Francis called out like a football announcer. You giggled. Comfort slapped at a mosquito.

  “Is madame in the garden?” Iago asked, licking his fingers.

  You nodded. “With the caterers.”

  “Bloody party,” Comfort said. She considered the mosquito bite blooming on her arm. “Damn mosquitoes. Every Christmas. For what?”

  “I go and come.” Iago,
backing away from the door. He ran down the path along the side of the kitchen.

  This scraggly grass walkway runs between the house and the Boys’ Quarters, the staff’s modest barracks, half hidden in brush. On the other side of the house is a wide pebbled walkway that winds from the gates to the garden at the back. This is how party guests access the garden. The house staff, forbidden, use the kitchen path. It scares you for some reason. Its dark smell of dampness, the wild, winding crawlers climbing the side of the house, the low-hanging tree branches twisted together like the skinny gnarled arms of a child with lupus. And, set back in shadow behind the tangle of branches, ominous and concrete, never touched by the sun: those three huddled structures with their one concrete courtyard where the houseboys sit on beer crates and eat after dark. If you’re passing the round window on the second-floor landing, you can look down and make out their shadows at night. A cooking fire flickering against the black of the sky and their laughter in bursts, muted refrains. No one’s ever forbidden you to join them, to go back there. But no one’s ever invited you either. They scare you: the Boys’ Quarters, the trail through the thicket.

  Iago disappeared down this path.

  You took your plate to the sink, turned on the water to rinse it. Francis patted your head, took the plate, pushed you away. Your willingness to do housework is an oddity at Uncle’s, as the notion of house staff is an oddity to you. You who ate leftovers at the bar with the busboys at the end of each night while your mother drank rum; who helped maids on the mornings your mother was hung-over; eating left-behind chocolates and half-rotting fruit. But Ruby doesn’t need or want help with the washing. Iago will let you trail him, reciting Othello, across the lawn (he has memorized his part and no longer needs a script), as Kofi will abide your quiet audience. Francis will let you watch from the little wood table while he skins and chops chicken in the afternoon light. But no one will allow you to do what you’re watching. It was Kofi who one day read from his script: “Blow, blow, thou winter wind! Thou art not so unkind as man’s ingratitude.” You’d been trying to hang your sheet on his line outside the kitchen. A breeze had kept billowing it up. Francis finished breakfast and arranged it on a tray. As if on cue, Ruby came into the kitchen, chale-watas slapping the concrete. She stopped when she saw Comfort. A small curtsy. She didn’t smile. “Miss Comfort. You are very welcome home.”

  “Morning, Ruby.”

  Ruby, to Francis: “Madame already took breakfast?”

  He handed her the tray. “Only tea.”

  “Will she eat?”

  “She’s fasting for the party.” Comfort sucked her teeth dramatically. “That’s my mother. Bon.” It was the briefest of glances: Ruby’s eyes lifting sharply, darting quickly to Comfort, then snapping back down. Comfort didn’t notice. Ruby left with Uncle’s breakfast. The swinging door flapped lightly back and forth, then shut behind her.

  Comfort turned to Francis, scratching the mosquito bite on her arm. “Kwabena is coming for pre-party cocktails. I told him I’d make him that chin-chin he likes.”

  “Mais bien sûr, mademoiselle.” Francis began wiping the counter.

  “Bloody bugger. Still thinks I can cook.” Comfort laughed. “I haven’t seen him since August. I was slimmer then, wasn’t I?” She sucked at the bite as it started to bleed. She looked at you jealously. “Not like you. But still slimmer.”

  You shook your head, lying, “You’re still the same size.”

  She beamed as if with delight at your very existence. Then, suddenly remembering: “I brought some books back from Boston.”

  “You did?”

  “Yes, of course. They’re in the study. Go and get them.”

  “Don’t do that, please.” Iago. Appearing at the door. He leaned in (the houseboys don’t enter the house) and held out an aloe leaf to Comfort, cracked open. She looked up and frowned. The little flicker again. Confusion? Irritation? But smiled politely.

  She went to the door, took the leaf from his hand. “Aloe,” she said, sounding confused.

  “For your arm,” said Iago, backing away from the door. Suddenly shy. Disappearing. Comfort watched him go, rubbing her arm with the sap. “Has Iago gotten taller?”

  “Oui. C’est ça.”

  VI

  The study is at the end of the second-floor hallway at the opposite end from your bedroom. Its one wall-length window overlooks the back garden, the three other walls lined with books. Uncle’s large desk and stuffed chair face the vista, the chair with its back to the door. And the rug. Every room in the house boasts a thick Persian rug, courtesy of Auntie’s (estranged) Uncle Mahmood. In the study—as in the parlor, as in the dining room, as in the drawing room—this furnishing serves to mute footfalls.

  The door was half closed when you came for the books. Comfort said, “Go and get them,” and you did as you were told. The swinging door clapped shut as you bounded out of the kitchen. Up the staircase to the study, skipping every other stair. You were wondering what books Comfort had brought back from Boston, whether more Edith Wharton or your new favorite, Richard Wright? The door was ajar but no sunlight spilled out of it. You approached and peered into the slim opening.

  The drapes were pulled over the window, uncharacteristically. Uncle’s breakfast tray, balanced at the edge of the desk. The plates were all empty, Francis’s blossom destroyed. A stack of glossy paperbacks beckoned by the tray.

  You assumed, perfectly logically, that Uncle had finished eating and left the tray for Kofi or Ruby to come collect. You pushed the door slightly and slipped into the slim opening, your feet sinking into the soft of the rug.

  Uncle was in his chair, facing the window and drapes, gripping the edge of the desk with his fingertips. From your vantage behind him across the room in the doorway, you could barely see Ruby between his knees. She was kneeling there neatly, skinny legs folded beneath her, her hands on his knees, heart-shaped face in his lap. The sound she made reminded you of cloth sloshing in buckets, as rhythmic and functional, almost mindless, and wet. Uncle whimpered bizarrely, like the dogs before beatings. For whatever reason, you stood there transfixed by the books.

  It was Ruby who saw you but Uncle who cried out, as if sustaining some cruel, unseen wound. Now you saw the trousers in a puddle around his ankles. Now he saw you, mute, at the door. He grabbed Ruby’s head and pulled it away from his lap. She crumpled to the rug like a doll.

  “Stupid girl!” he spat. “Get out! Get out!” Whether to you or to her, you weren’t sure.

  Ruby scrambled to her feet; you stumbled back out the door. She wore only her lappa and a tattered lace bra. She looked at you quickly as you pushed the door shut. Her almond eyes glittered with hatred.

  You recognized the expression. You’d seen it once before, in the morning in Lagos with your mother and Sinclair. You’d been loitering in the kitchen waiting for the cooks to finish breakfast. Just as Francis does with Iago, they’d slip you anything spoiled: collapsed soufflé, browning fruit, crispy bacon, burned toast. The trick had been to show up after Sinclair made his rounds, shouting complaints then disappearing until dinner. The spoils that morning had been unusually abundant: enough fruit for a week, pancakes, overboiled eggs. A younger cook had set the food on a metal rolling cart and sent you up to your room in the freight elevator.

  The rest you remember not as a series of events but as a single expression. A postcard. You must have inserted the keycard in the door, which would have beeped open, blinking green, making noise. But they must not have heard you. So you wheeled in the cart and just stood there, frozen, mute at the door.

  That expression.

  Your mother on the floor, Sinclair kneeling behind her, their moaning an inelegant music, the sweat. Her eyes open wide as she looked up and saw you, surprised that you’d returned from the kitchen so soon. And the hatred. Bright knives in the dark of her irises. Unmistakable. You’d left the cart, running.

  From the study to your room.

  Slamming the door, leaning agains
t it. The sound—sloshing cloth, buckets of soap—in your ears. Your bright blue walls trembled, or seemed to, in that moment, like a suspended tsunami about to crash in. The image (not yet a memory)—of Uncle in his desk chair; of Ruby folded prayerfully on her knees between his—flashed on the backs of your eyelids like a movie whose meaning you didn’t quite understand. But you saw. In that moment, as you stood there, with your back to the door and the lump in your throat and your pulse in your ears, you saw that it was you who were wrong and not they. You were wrong to have pitied her. Ruby. That she could make Uncle start whimpering like the dogs before beatings meant something was possible under this roof, in this house; something different from—and you wondered, was it better than? preferable to?—the thing you lived out every day. You envied Ruby something, though you didn’t know what. You stood at your door trembling jealously.

  Someone approached.

  You heard the steps (small ones) on the other side of your door, followed by the faint sound of feet on the stairs, going down. You waited for a second then cracked the door open. No one was there. You looked down. Someone had stacked Comfort’s paperback books on the threshold. Like a fetish offering. You glanced down the hall to the study; the door was open. The drapes had been drawn back to richly bright light. You picked up the books and you walked down the stairs. The meaning—whether Uncle’s or Ruby’s—was clear.

  So you went to the garden as you would have done otherwise, had you not seen what you saw in the study just then. You said nothing to Francis, who was just starting the chin-chin, nor to Iago, who was making centerpieces of torch gingers as you appeared. You didn’t so much as gasp when you found Comfort by the pool on her back on a towel in a bikini.