Gingerbread

by Helen Oyeyemi

  The letter was written in tiny cursive script across three thin sheets, and it was Gretel through and through:

  Harriet, I’m sorry to call you away from the present moment. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this to you, but you were in a dream I just had, so I think it must be all right to intrude for a few seconds. The dream: We were in times to come. You’d grown up, and as discussed, I had not. But we were a pair of prisoners up before some sort of tribunal, and our judges knew that I was older than you, even though I didn’t look it. They were all little girls, every conceivable color and none of them above the age of nine. They were wearing those wigs barristers wear, so they all looked like deranged lambs, and they kept waving assorted objects in our faces—an extra-large bar of chocolate, a mortgage application, a Nobel Peace Prize medal, an assortment of old-fashioned porn, newspaper headlines, a baby’s dummy, scientific research articles, a yoga mat, reams and reams of statistics, what else did they bring out . . . the list of things they didn’t bring out would be much shorter. And the shouting as each exhibit was presented: What do you make of this, then? How about this and this?

  Eventually the leader stood up, unrolled a wheel of parchment, and read it all the way down to the floor and all the way along to the back of the hall—this was a list of all the laws we had broken—and when she got to the end of them, she said, Well, quite, but the main problem is that you’re in breach of contract, ladies, so it’s not looking good for either of you, I’m afraid.

  And you said, Wait, what, what contract! What is it you wanted us to say to all this?

  The leader said: Anything. I suppose you thought you could just hum and haw and meddle and take notes without anybody ever finding out what it is you stand for and what you oppose. Guidelines, all you had to do was lay out guidelines . . . now look at us—WE’VE GONE ASTRAY—

  And the entire tribunal came running at us. They were screaming that they meant to get their support and inspiration by hook or by crook. Some of them grabbed me around the neck and near well pulled my head off . . . I saw that others had got hold of your shoulders and were trying to pull you away from me, but we held on tight and started using each other’s bodies sort of like truncheons, and we sent those kids flying left, right, and center . . .

  I expected their guardians to roll in and send us flying ourselves, but those little idiots didn’t have anybody else. They all lay down flat on the ground, bawling, SAVE US, SAVE US . . . This was addressed to us, to me and you, but it wasn’t clear exactly what they had in mind. I mean, if they meant “save me” as in rescue me, that falls under my remit as a changeling, but if they meant “save me” as in preserve me, surely that’s more up your gingerbread street. I do think that if they meant both things they were in luck, because really we don’t go anywhere without each other.

  It was the last note the Druhástranian pigeons brought back before they retired. After she read it, Harriet got out an atlas and flipped through it, looking for the locations Gretel had pinned, wishing she’d paid more attention instead of leaving it all to Gretel. One place in England, one in the Czech Republic, and the third she couldn’t remember at all. They hadn’t even set dates, so even if they were both at the right place, the times to meet might well come and go unremarked, making Harriet just like those winners of the numbers game who’d lost their tickets and never found out that they’d won. Harriet and Gretel had form, though. They had luck.

  Her thoughts continued past luck, as night thoughts do. And as Harriet thought and thought and thought some more, it seemed to her that there was something particularly Druhástranian about this dream of Gretel’s. It wasn’t an easy conclusion to arrive at, and initially she balked at it, being only barely aware of having inherited discourse that the only characteristic Druhástranians really share is a rejection of commonality, of some worldview only intelligible to a Druhástranian. Quite right, it’s all I can do not to tune out whenever anyone starts talking like that, but nevertheless, nevertheless, Harriet argued with herself, Gretel dreamed quite a Druhástranian dream. I mean, the absence of inclination to pass commentary, a reluctance to subscribe to any ideology in case the compromise proves catastrophic; those aren’t the only clues as to the Druhástranian nature of this dream. What about the fear that not having a point of view is in some way a crime? If this dream had been dreamed by a non-Druhástranian perhaps it would have had moral or spiritual overtones, or nationalist ones, or Gretel would have dreamed we were in a psychiatric hospital being treated for this chronic lack of a point of view.

  Nonsense, nonsense, Harriet argued back, if we really must call the dream something, let’s just call it Gretelian.

  But listen, listen . . . a mind-set that’s caught up in, even imprisoned by legality and correctness of form . . . what is that way of thinking if not Druhástranian? To be Druhástranian is to be dissatisfied with one’s condition until one can find some official personage to sign off on it. And if someone says that what you’re doing is all right today, won’t you need to get that approval reconfirmed later, get another stamp at some other desk a year from now? Of course this is a mind-set that a nation can be stunned into. All you need is a century or two of freedoms and strictures that appear and disappear between one year and the next, words and deeds that were frowned upon just yesterday receiving vehement acclaim today . . .

  Oh, then Gretel’s dream wasn’t specifically Druhástranian after all.

  Just think of all the mayhem a mind-set like this is proving to be the basis of elsewhere, everywhere; there’s nothing unique about this . . .

  There was a smidgen of sadness that came with washing her hands of the night thoughts in this way—also . . . sneakiness? She felt as if she’d just told herself a good lie. A lie sandwiched so beautifully between a couple of truths that its form couldn’t be delineated.

  (Harriet’s daughter squirms, and the dolls named Prim and Lollipop share a couple of night thoughts of their own:

  “This is the kind of thing you thought about in bed when you were sixteen?”

  “You should’ve played with dolls more when you were growing up. Luckily it’s never too late to start . . .”

  Harriet reminds them of Dr. Ilesanmi’s express stipulation that talking to Perdita is part of the girl’s therapy, that what she says is less important than letting Perdita hear her voice and letting Perdita hear words arranged and pronounced in similar ways to those in which Perdita herself spoke before the gingerbread. Perdita and the dolls quiet down, and Perdita gives Harriet an eye-smile of stunning purity: Tyra Banks would be proud.)

  Anyway, Harriet did her bit of thinking in bed, and then she slept, but not so deeply that she didn’t feel and hear levers and pulleys at work as her room went up two floors, down three floors so that it rested atop the basement, and then back up to her preferred height. Gabriel must be back. He and Ari were the only ones who didn’t hesitate to keep pressing buttons like that.

  (Harriet has fetched the letter from Gretel. Perdita and the dolls pass it around and confirm that it’s written in what they believe to be Druhástranian.

  “And when Rémy gave this to you, he said what again?” Bonnie asks.

  “Read this and unwind a bit, something like that.”

  “Sounds like he’d read it first. He knows Druhástranian? How?”

  Harriet tells them that that question has taken time to settle. Two Kerchevals wanted to forget they used to share a hobby, and a third wanted to cover up all traces of having gone against Ari’s wishes. So after much fruitless sleuthing, all Harriet Lee had to do was put a couple of direct questions to Ambrose Kercheval in Druhástranian. He jumped. Right out of his skin, as they say; quite athletic, really. He high-jumped and then started chattering away. He’d taught his son and nephew Druhástranian when they were little. He’d been teaching himself, and they wanted to learn too—Rémy because he found the language easy to pick up and Gabriel because he found it almost
impossible. It all started with some lullabies Ambrose came across in a job lot of recordings he bought when his friend’s music shop was closing down. He played them to Ari and revived the rumor about their great-grandfather the Druhástranian hot-air balloon pilot. Ari did like a bit of heritage but wouldn’t hold with lullabies. Namby-pamby drivel that doesn’t prepare you for adulthood . . . he told Ambrose he’d better not hear him singing lullabies to their boys.

  So Ambrose just made sure Ari never heard it. But after a few months of the language lessons, his pupils stopped believing that the “Druhástranian” they’d learned could be understood by anyone outside of the trio. Gabriel made a tactful accusation—if there can be such a thing as a tactful accusation, Gabriel would be the one to make it—that Ambrose was basically inventing the language and trying to use it as a relationship bandage. A father–son bandage, a cousin bandage, that sort of thing. And when Ambrose thought it over, it began to seem that really had been his subconscious project. Especially after he’d made contact with citizens of various countries who said they were Druhástranians. They all turned out to be people whose Druhástranianism was a nonviolent product of their alienation from every society currently known to them. He had some good chats with those ones, but not in actual Druhástranian. Harriet couldn’t keep from mentioning her conviction that at least a handful of these contacts really could speak Druhástranian, but she didn’t feel like being of assistance to the kindly man with scarlet spilled all over his shirt collar. There are plenty of reasons why a Druhástranian abroad would claim not to know a word of Druhástranian, but sheer bloody-mindedness is probably top of the list.

  Perdita says that must have been amazing for Rémy, unfolding Gretel’s letter and being unable to read it, then picking out words here and there and slowly realizing that he knew what they meant. The experience Perdita describes is very similar to that which Harriet and the dolls undergo as they listen to the half-words she’s stringing together.

  “I don’t think it can have been that amazing if he was thinking about jumping off the side of the building afterward,” says Harriet. “I mean, when there’s that kind of change in the way words work, it can make you think you’re no longer in your right mind.”

  Lollipop says: “You appeared before those two cousins like . . . like a fairy.” Harriet doesn’t know why saying this should earn anyone a nudge and a death stare, but this is what Lollipop gets from Perdita.

  “Like a fairy?” Harriet repeats.

  Lollipop isn’t scared of Perdita. “I mean, they invoked you, and there you were in front of them, saying: Hello, would you like some gingerbread? Furthermore, that chap over there . . . the one with the tasteless shirt and the peppermint cane . . . did you know that what you’d come to think of as his abject poverty of spirit is actually MAD SWAG?”

  “Well—ha-ha—OK. But Margot came too.”

  And Bonnie wonders aloud whether it’s still nighttime or not.)

  * * *

  —

  RÉMY’S LEAVING THE KERCHEVAL household coincided with Ari’s being away from home more than ever before, traveling the country with his nephew and introducing him to clients and contacts. Gabriel sometimes studied in Ari’s vacant office, but more often than not he was off-premises too, at some library or other, or staying over at a friend’s house. The members of the 3:00 A.M. kitchen crew changed: Harriet would bake gingerbread while Margot, Mr. Bianchi, and Ms. Danilenko played a card game called “Marriage” and turned up the radio to obscure the sound of Tamar’s ear-splitting telephone rows with Kenzilea. Harriet scanned the internet for indications of what it was Ari did for a living. Nothing came up when she searched his name—for some reason the search engines eschewed their usual practice of referring to people with the same first name or people with the same surname when it couldn’t find anything on a person with that exact combination of first name and surname. Searching Ari’s name got Harriet literally zero search results—still does. It was the same with all the male Kerchevals, though traces of Tamar and Kenzilea abound. When Rémy started work for Ari’s company, it occurred to Harriet that she hadn’t searched the company name. She did so, and read her way through a lot of positive buzz. Clients fully recommended the company’s services without being at all clear about what it was the company had done or was doing for them. Well, who were the clients then? Those Harriet found any mention of were mainly notable for living off income inherited back in Victorian times. Members of online forums with usernames that matched some of those on Ari’s client list wrote about a two-way selection process: you solicited Ari’s services, but he only took you on if you met certain criteria of his. Margot was doubtful. Would people like this openly use their real names as usernames? They’d recently discovered that a Facebook friend of Harriet’s they’d both thought was a famous actress was in truth an anti-fan of that actress who dedicated about an hour of each day to posting unflattering paparazzi photos and insipid status updates based on her estimation of the famous actress’s inner life.

  Harriet went to bed. Margot went to bed. Ms. Danilenko and Mr. Bianchi went to bed. Tamar reeled from closed door to closed door, crying and asking if Gabriel had come home. Gabriel . . . Gabriel . . . hello? Is anybody awake? Her hard-hearted housemates waited for her to realize she had work in the morning, and after one more journey around the house, she said, Five A.M.! and went to bed herself. Once she was certain the coast was clear, Harriet opened her bedroom door to go to Margot and found Margot already there on the landing. On the count of three they stated their interpretation of the search results on Ari’s company.

  One—two—three—is Ari . . . a hit man?

  If they’d known they’d be helping someone spend blood money, they would’ve just stayed in Druhá City.

  A couple of days later, Ari came home, and Margot burst in on him while he was lunching at his office desk. She asked about his profession, and he laughed through a mouthful of salad and told her not to worry her pretty little head about it, in those actual words. Then he shuffled some papers and added that unless she had any other questions or concerns, he had to be getting on.

  Margot and Harriet had already discussed what they would do in this eventuality, so Margot proceeded to go all nineteenth century on Ari. She spoke of largesse, unquiet conscience, and umbrellas of protection that must be retracted for the good of all. Ari’s appointment book was open on his desk, and Margot took advantage of her partial view to note that his next meeting was with Gabriel. His own son making appointments to see him . . .

  How about speaking plainly, woman?

  If you think you can keep me and my daughter around forever just because you want reminders of your own generosity—!

  Suppose that’s exactly what I think—what then?

  Well, it won’t do. We’re moving out.

  Wonder who’ll be next, Ari said sadly. Maybe Tamar.

  Margot told him she believed his big brother would always back him up.

  That right? To be honest, I’d never really thought about it. But yes, good old Ambrose. Well . . . best of luck with it all. Call if you need anything.

  And Margot did call. Not to make any requests, just to tell Ari things she thought he might like to hear about. He warned her that she should spend her time more constructively, but if a week went by and he hadn’t spoken to her, he’d phone and grumble about people who expected other people to wait around for their calls.

  11

  The Lees didn’t leave Whitby. They stayed in town, but . . . well, I’ll put it this way: For a year and a half, the view from Harriet’s bedroom window had been a cue to start her morning. She’d wake up, go to the window, and, unless the weather was very bad, she’d see Ambrose Kercheval pottering around his rock garden, tapping his rainbow-striped cane with an air of being about to launch into a Gene Kelly–style showstopper. She had not been unappreciative at the time, but she only really discovered just how splendid
that view had been when she and Margot began living within their own means and the tiny window of their studio flat looked out onto a brick wall. The Lees’ new digs were the best they came across after asking an estate agent to show them all properties with “as little natural sunlight as possible.” Stating a budget was anathema to Margot Lee—she’d do anything, anything to avoid revealing that her funds were insufficient. It was like Ambrose and decision-making, only the contortions were more bizarre. Would Ambrose pretend to find sunlight deplorable so as to get out of having to make a decision? Come to think of it, maybe he would.

  Given the parameters they’d searched within, the view from the studio flat was as to be expected. And as far as Harriet was concerned, the interior more than made up for it. She and Margot had said goodbye to their rental deposit, borrowed principles from the art of Kintsugi, and used metallic paint to augment the vein-like fissures that ran all along the walls of the flat. At one point during the painting process Harriet noticed that her mother was quietly sucking in a great deal of air through her mouth and letting an even greater amount of water out of her eyes. What to do? Harriet cleared her throat a few times, and Margot continued crying; then Harriet scratched her head with the handle of her paintbrush, a miserable scratch that only made her head itchier, and Harriet asked: Are you OK?

  Yes, of course. Nothing’s really wrong. It’s just that here we are in this ugly room trying to make it nicer to live in, but we’re probably only making it even uglier. It’d be good if I could manage not to make such a mess of things, for once. Maybe next time. Anyway, what about you? Are you OK?

  Harriet mumbled that the paint had been a good idea and she thought it looked really nice, and she and Margot went on trying. Rays of platinum crossed beams of dingy plaster; the dimensions of their room deepened. As they painted, Harriet made an attempt to ask a question via telepathy. She would’ve loved to know why Margot went on dragging her daughter all over the place in the name of some better way of life that probably didn’t even exist, doing this in the full knowledge that said daughter had no special needs aside from that of being wherever her mother was. And just when Harriet’s telepathic message to Margot was almost ready to send, the woman flattened a hand across the girl’s forehead and said: Don’t wrinkle your forehead like that; let’s minimize frown lines while we can, OK?