Waiting for Tomorrow

by Nathacha Appanah

  “Okay.”

  “So what’s your real name?”

  “I’ll tell you another time.”

  And the element of chance in all this, the ease that is established between two women who have only just met, is no small thing. Anita looks back at the room with new eyes. Now she notices the shadowy figures on the sofas, a woman dancing out in the full light, a man in the half light at the edge of the dance floor waiting for some sign, a tune, another tempo, before he goes to join her. No, it is not true that there is nothing here. Here, too, there are years, hours, and the same sentimental crowd clinging to its dreams.

  Adèle and Anita sit there, the two of them, looking out to sea. The night is cool, there is this perfectly round moon, tinged with gray, with beige, with pink, there is the sound of the waves. In this moment, which is both simple and extraordinary, Adèle glimpses another way of living, another way of loving, giving, weeping, laughing, working, starting again.

  Adèle decides she will not tell lies to Anita as she lies to other people. She will tell her her real name, she will tell her her life story, talk about her husband and her son. On the beach, in the utter purity and nakedness of this moment, something is released deep within her, a knot slowly unraveling itself and she breathes deeply. The night fills her.

  Yet between them that night there are no revelations, no secrets shared, no solemn vows. They speak the way the waves are breaking down below, without hesitation, but with no haste either.

  Long silences occur that do not trouble them. Adèle tells her what she does: three nights at the Tropical, days at the Lesparets. A hardworking and lonely life emerges in the short, simple sentences she uses.

  “Do you get on well with the children?”

  “Yes. But I don’t know if I’ll continue with it. I was in an accident this morning.”

  “What happened?”

  “A bus I was on crashed into a car. I was thrown out.”

  “What? My goodness! But are you all right? You still came to work?”

  “Some people were injured, but I was fine. I was just a bit bruised on my back.”

  “But that’s a miracle! To be unscathed after being thrown out from a bus!”

  A miracle. How many times has she heard that word today? How many times between this Saturday now and that Tuesday so long ago has she prayed for one? A miracle.

  “What does ‘unscathed’ mean?”

  “Hmm … It means without any injuries. But it also means that you’re a survivor.”

  A “survivor.” Adèle rolls the word around in her mouth and for her this has the same effect as a creole word tasted after so many years, something both sweet and strong at the same time.

  A boat passes by out there upon the dark sea. With winking lights it moves toward the line of the horizon. Maybe people on this boat are gazing at the land, leaning on the rail, their eyes fixed on the lights that trace the contours of the city. Where are they bound for, what are they thinking about, what are they saying, what are they hiding? Can they sense the presence of two women sitting on the beach, their silhouettes like two motionless rocks?

  “Do you miss our country, Adèle?”

  “No. Do you?”

  “Yes, sometimes. But I can never figure out exactly what it is I miss. It’s strange. It’s like thinking about people you knew long ago. You can no longer picture their faces but you remember things they did, things they said. The odd phrase, the odd gesture.”

  Then Adèle thinks about her son. She no longer remembers his face but she can still smell his warm, sweet breath in the morning, when he was a baby, she can picture his favorite toy, a bright red wooden car, she can hear him babbling, she pictures the white Fiat driving away and her son’s arm waving goodbye to her. But she can no longer picture his face.

  In the car Anita offers Adèle a throw for her legs. On the backseat there are coloring books, a child’s seat, rubber boots. Anita apologizes. “It’s an old car,” she says. “Don’t look at all that mess,” she says again. Then, before starting the engine, she asks: “Would you mind if we drove around a little before I drop you off?”

  Adèle is surprised and appreciative of being spoken to like this, close at hand, as if she were a normal woman, a person who might be offended by disorder, or have cold legs, an ordinary woman with an ordinary life who might be in a hurry to get home.

  Anita’s car slips slowly through the night, drives along streets lined with ancient trees, passes through the center of the city, drives around the big park where during the day one can sometimes see the long necks of giraffes among the trees. The night air, so deep and soothing, fills the car. There is nothing to be said, except, perhaps, thank you.

  The car passes back along the avenue that runs beside the sea, then finally heads off toward the bypass, the industrial zones, land left fallow, wasteland. She stops just beside the bus stop where Adèle had been standing that morning. Where is that snake now? Can one’s life change in a day? Does a single day like that suffice for one to say “enough” and for one to end up, at last, by turning the page?

  The world as Laura sees it

  LAURA IS SIX. Her father makes wooden horses for her, which they paint together in all colors, also a dream catcher made of little pinecones and feathers that hovers gently in the window, and a white desk, a cradle for her dolls, a fruit and vegetable seller’s market stall, a little cabin in the garden. When he takes her out for a walk in the forest she carries a little basket for pinecones, twigs, leaves. She likes gathering pinecones with a perfect V. Sometimes, if they find a dead bird, they make a bed of supple branches for it and cover it with ferns. Laura likes it when her father lets her stay in his studio for a little while, as he is putting things away or reading. He clears one end of the table, gives her sheets of paper and pencils, and she would like this moment (inextricably associated with the smell of turpentine and the color yellow) to last forever, and forever is a word she loves a lot. He tells her to be careful of the paint, because it leaves a mark, and of the brushes, which are heavy to hold, and he teaches her the different shades of color. Carmine, chocolate, magenta, mustard, purple. He always studies her drawings closely before smiling at her and asking her precise questions to which, inexplicably, she finds the answer. He does not hang up her drawings, unlike her mother, but stores them in an orange folder, and, later on, a green folder. In the car he sometimes takes her on his knee and lets her hold the wheel. He tells her tales of things that happened right here, in this forest, under this very sky, to this wooden toy. When he carries her on his shoulders he holds onto her calves and she can wrap her hands around his face. Laura likes to view the world from up there, with people looking up and smiling at her, and she is proud, strong, and light.

  Laura is six. Her mother wakes her up every morning by saying, bonjour, ma petite chérie, and blowing on her fingers, along her arms, her neck, behind her ear; she reads her stories every evening, she sings and dances, she makes marvelous afternoon snacks with chocolate cookies, syrups, peeled and cut up fruits, and sandwiches of white, sliced bread cut into geometric shapes, with white napkins, all carefully stored away in airtight boxes, as if they were treasure. Her mother tells her stories involving sand, the sea, trees that are good for climbing and hiding in, stories in which the sun is so hot it can cook an egg and make the roadway melt. She says one day we’ll go there. She says I must teach you the creole language. She cleans Laura’s toes with a little brush shaped like a crocodile, she tells her the names of plants, she stops the car for them to pick bunches of wildflowers, or just to look at a meadow. She is very patient about getting her to eat, cutting things into little pieces, inventing songs and little tricks. She lets Laura draw in her study while she is working and Laura knows how to be quiet, hoping that this moment will last forever. Her mother still carries her on one hip, supporting her bottom with her forearm. Laura likes her mother’s strength for she can carry her like this for a long time and still do other things with her other hand. Laura remains
silent when she is carried like this, so close to her mother’s body that she can smell her sweet scent. She can feel the slightest quivering of the muscles, the hollow of the hip she is perched on, and she has the same light, joyful sensation as on her father’s shoulders.

  Laura is too young to be aware of the magical nature of her house, of her bedroom that is like no other—there is a hatch inside her wardrobe that leads to another hatch inside her parents’ wardrobe and sometimes, when she has friends to tea, her mother allows them to play at passing through from one room into another—her wooden toys, her birds on the wall, her little princess’s cabin in the garden. She likes going to see her best friend, Sophie, whose parents have an apartment in the city with a big TV and wall-to-wall carpet in the living room. She could spend hours at the window watching the cars speeding along on the boulevard down below.

  Her mother talks to her, with many an “oh” and “ah” and “hmm,” about the faraway island where she was born, but Laura has never been there on the plane, she only knows the car in which they sometimes drive for hours on end—her parents call it going for a spin. All the time they keep saying look, Laura, look—they go to the sea, to the mountains, to the lake. In the winter they light a fire in the fireplace and perform puppet plays written by her mother.

  “Where is my prince?”

  “He’s been swallowed by the dragon! It’s all over for him. Kaput.”

  “What am I going to be when I grow up?”

  “You’ll be president of the republic!”

  Sometimes she would prefer things to be simpler, for the princess to be reunited with her prince and for the dragon to be killed with the sword of truth and love.

  Laura is a little girl people call “good.” She is not one of the ones people swoon over. She has a frank stare that can be unsettling, as if she knew things, as if she has a sixth sense about the nature of men and women. Her parents would like to glimpse what she carries within herself: her mother’s passion, her father’s good looks, a talent for perceiving and transforming, an original mind, a luminous spirit? They are impatient to see her grow up, impatient to know what elements of themselves she will carry within her.

  It is in the evenings above all that Laura wishes she could be with them. When the hour for her bedtime has long since struck, when the books have been read, the kisses given, the day talked through, the songs sung, and she can hear her parents living another life down below. There they are talking, laughing, sometimes arguing, drinking and eating, watching films and listening to music, and on some evenings when sleep will not come, she feels as if she were a total stranger to them, as if she could disappear, no longer exist, and they would not notice her absence. Later on her mother comes softly upstairs and closes the door to her study. Her father goes out and she sees his tall figure walking, softly as well, across the grass, and a moment later the lights come on in his studio. What they do at night, each of them in their own space, is something mysterious from which she is kept firmly at a distance.

  Her mother has less time these days. She talks on the phone a lot—with a much more animated and high-pitched voice than usual—she is never far from her diary and on occasion she argues with her father about this. She has a meeting and so has he, what is to be done about the child?

  The child the child the child.

  She wishes they would stop calling her that. She would like a dog, a little sister, she believes the secret promises she makes there in her bed at night (if I have a sister, I’ll stop listening at doors; if I have a dog, I’ll stop looking through your stuff, Maman). At school they ask her why her mother is black and when she goes home and puts this question to Anita she replies crisply: “I’m not black, I’m brown. Can’t you tell the difference?”

  She feels both poor and rich, both adored and neglected. She has all she could wish for and is alone.

  Then at the start of spring she meets Adèle.

  It is a Saturday afternoon and fine enough for her to play in the garden. A checkered tablecloth, a frilly dress, shoes with heels, bracelets, a tiara. Real little cookies on little blue plates, real fruit juice in the red teapot. Her father is sitting cross-legged and she has just made him put on a cardboard crown that she had saved from their Twelfth Night celebrations.

  “Would you like another cookie, Your Majesty?”

  “With great pleasure, Your Highness. This is delicious. Did you make them yourself?”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. I used flour, eggs, sugar, and chocolate chips baked in the oven. Would you like some fruit juice?”

  “Yes please, Your Highness.”

  Adam and Laura are more than transformed. They are magically transfigured by the game, the dressing up, the setting, the green lawn scattered with dozens of cloverleafs, all the tiny things that have to be held with the tips of the fingers, this cup, this saucer, this perfect moment. The truth is, thinks Adam, it is our children who raise us onto a higher plane, there will never be any painting, any monument, any house, any friendship, any lover, any book that can match this. Laura hears the clatter of Anita’s car pulling up and is disappointed. She knows her mother’s arrival will interrupt the game. Anita will be tired. She will want a cup of tea, her father will, as well, and they will end up saying what they always say to her, go and play on your own for a little while.

  “Hi there! Cooee!”

  Anita is not alone. A big, tall woman is following her. As the two of them come walking through the wisteria arbor with the light behind them it looks as if Anita has a giant shadow.

  Adam and Laura remain rooted to the spot for a moment at the sight of this curious phenomenon. Then the woman steps aside, Laura moves closer to her father, who gets to his feet and picks her up in his arms. They still have the crown and the tiara on their heads.

  “Adèle, this is my husband, Adam. And the little princess here is Laura. Adam, this is Adèle, the lady I told you about.”

  Adam reflects that she has a face like those of the goddesses in the Cour de Richelieu at the Louvre. He has an impulse to run his hands over the perfectly formed, downy crown of her head. What has gotten into him?

  “Come along. Let’s have a cup of tea indoors. Laura, could you go and play on your own for a little while?”

  Adam sets Laura down on the lawn. A cup has spilled on the tablecloth. Everything is spoiled.

  Suddenly this amazingly gentle voice emanates from Adèle’s massive frame.

  “Why don’t we take tea out here with the princess?”

  Three adults and a child have a dolls’ tea party. She is like a tableau vivant, thinks Adam. Her story is incredible, thinks Anita. I’m a real princess, thinks Laura. This is a dream, thinks Adèle.

  A dinner

  THEY WILL BE HAVING DINNER IN THE GARDEN. This, Anita says to herself, as she admires the table, fully laid, is just the kind of thing that she should be handing on to Laura as her heritage. The patchwork of a whole life. The silver service from her parents-in-law, the royal blue plates she had picked up in an antique shop in Paris, the Basque tablecloth bought in a mountain village when covering a story, the white table napkins embroidered with her parents’ initials (S and P) entwined, glasses that were a wedding present, the table made by André, Adam’s father, the chairs retrieved from a yard sale and fixed up by Adam, a bouquet gathered in the meadow by Adèle in a cheap vase picked up at the supermarket, coasters made from bamboo.

  Here and there in the garden Adam had set up poles with solar lights. As night fell they would be glowing softly like stars fallen from the sky.

  She would like to capture under a dome this moment when everything is in suspense, perfect, like a flower bud about to open and reveal its promise to the world. It is the start of summer and this year, the year when she will be thirty-seven, Anita is the beating heart of her home and her family. She washes and polishes, she changes the curtains, she does the cooking, she starts wearing her bracelets again, she gets out her long gypsy skirts. She takes her siestas out of doors, where th
e grass is as thick as a carpet, she makes Adèle laugh, she is healing her with her friendship, her time, her house. She often clings to Adam, gives him passionate kisses, she is rediscovering the thrilling sensations of long ago, ones that bore into the base of the spine and make her toes spread out like a fan. She finds him handsome, she admires him, she has an amazing sense of being more in love with him than ever, she is happy. Anita feels she has found her way, is on the right road, she welcomes this exciting new life, one in which she works, writes, loves, has extra energy. Since Adèle came everything has changed. She looks after Laura when Anita and Adam are working; she cooks, she sews, she encourages, she mends, she loves them. She bathes their house in a serenity that was hitherto lacking, she gives the family that little bit extra that oils the wheels of daily life, lightens routine, and makes the windows gleam. But that is not all.

  Since Adèle came, Anita is writing. She has returned to her notebooks, she has been doing research, listening, taking notes, and, one evening in spring, started work on, shh, a novel. Chapter one, chapter two, the impulse does not fade, Anita is finally in possession of that mysterious thing—something beyond strength, courage, inspiration, tenacity, something that does not interfere with household tasks, motherhood, parenting, love, the body, sexual desire, dreams, hopes—the thing that makes her set down one word after another, one sentence and then another, one page and then another, without losing heart, without self-denigration. Adèle has set Anita free to write. But this is not all.

  Since Anita came, Adam has begun another series of paintings, inspired by Adèle’s story and the first pages of Anita’s text. He has cast aside brushes, spray cans, pencils, palettes. He has only made two paintings so far. He is no longer striving to imitate a landscape or a face, but to evoke an emotion, a texture, a taste. He works more slowly than usual, but this new path is enthralling.