The Blue Taxi

by N. S. Köenings

  He was so relieved to be in motion, to be smelling other bodies now, and, still, the scent of sea he had discovered not so long ago in the city’s swelling air, that he did not mull over or weigh what Hazel had revealed. He did think, briefly, So what if Sarie didn’t go? That ship was getting bigger, and Gilbert had an urge to walk towards the harbor to get a better look, to meet it. He felt tired of Hazel Towson; he even cheered for Sarie. Good for her, to let that woman down. And when he thought about the Mountain Top Hotel, he smiled. When had Sarie gone there? Why had she not told him? Why the Mountain Top Hotel? Oh, she did do silly things sometimes. He laughed, feeling oddly tender. Had she more imagination than he’d known? Sarie must be dreaming, too, he thought, of how our lives will be, once I’ve sorted this thing out. Once I have a business. Jewels, was it? He’d buy his woman jewels, he thought, and more. And where had he put that book, which he’d bought on that day?

  As he walked, picking up again the thread of happiness that had wound around his legs and chest, then spun him like a top when he’d first started out, Gilbert thought that in the evening he would make, for fun, just fun, an inventory of all the things he’d buy for Sarie once spare parts were getting from his stores to those who needed them the most. Once he’d found his place in… History. He paused a moment with this thought because, he realized, he did not mean, for once, that old, old History of grand safari tales and hatted men with exploits, but a new one, an invigorating History, for a new land on the up. An economic History, he thought. When I have made my mark. He was so enthralled by the idea of this future that he quite forgot where he’d been headed when Hazel had appeared, and instead of visiting the Post Office, instead of sighting dhows from the seashore, Gilbert found himself nursing a warm pint at the Victorian Palm Hotel, where he watched the light of day sink into the sighing, trembling sea. He scratched his shoulders now and then, shifted in his shirt. But the itching didn’t stir him. He was thinking of the sky, how neat it was at the horizon. As neat, he thought, as our new life will be.

  Eighteen

  When Sarie and Agatha went again to Kudra House—Agatha triumphant that her mother had, this time, permitted her to come—things did not go as expected. As they stepped into the courtyard, Maria was just coming down the stairs, holding in both arms a bulging printed cloth filled with upstairs laundry. At last! Maria—who knew what Sarie didn’t—could not quite believe her luck. Wasn’t this a chance? Had she finally been rewarded for her steadfastness and prayers? She slowed at the last step and smiled, and Sarie, thinking, She has never smiled like this! grew wary. Standing on the threshold, Maria said, “Hallo. Welcome, Mrs. Turner.” She blocked the entrance firmly, did not move aside.

  Sarie raised a hand up to her throat. She swallowed. What was happening here? Unhappy, she said, “Thank you,” and tentatively made as if to go up. But Maria, not giving an inch, grasped her bundle tightly. She tilted her head to the side. “You want to go up, isn’t it?” Her choir voice was sweet. How terrible the girl was, Sarie thought, standing there like that, between Sarie and her man. Sarie frowned, stepped back into the alley and reached for Agatha’s hand. Who did she think she was? “Don’t you want to go upstairs?” Maria said again. Oh, she seemed to swell up in the doorway, girl and bundle, head scarf, as if doubling in size to conceal the stairs behind her. “Up?” Maria pointed with a finger, to the sky. Sarie wavered and fell silent. Squeezed her daughter’s fingers with such fear that Agatha cried out and snapped her hand away.

  Sarie rallied. “Of course I’m going up.” Maria, having tugged one of her plump feet from her blue thongs, leaned her shoulder on the lintel for support. Deliberate, she gave an ostentatious point and flex of chubby, able toe, then rested her bare sole on the surface of her shoe. It was a fine display of comfort, of her right to be exactly where she was, of her feeling that, indeed, she ought to have a say. She looked down at Sarie’s pale, long feet, then, leisurely, at the pomelo-sized knees that showed below the frayed hem of the white visitor’s dress. Her eyes at Sarie’s face again, ashine, she shook her head almost sadly and let out the following news: Ismail, Ali, and Habib were hard at work at Mr. Essajee’s Emporium. There was no one to meet her. No one there to watch her little girl. Tahir was not well, after all, not well enough to host her. What would she find upstairs? Oh, Maria didn’t know. Because? Oh, yes. Well. Majid Ghulam had gone out. “You see, you see. Bwana Jeevanjee’s not here.”

  Sarie thought Maria must be joking. Not here? Not here? Awful girl! “Pardon? S’il vous plaît? What do you mean?” Sarie asked. She took a step towards Maria, came so close she felt the edge of the fat bundle graze her thumping chest. Maria didn’t budge. Sarie’s hot heart clenched, unclenched, and jumped. He’s gone? She could not quite believe it. “What?” she said, more softly.

  “Not here,” Maria said, more firmly. “I say, Bwana Jeevanjee’s not here. Gone out. Won’t be back today, oh, no.” She drew her foot, as if it were a tongue, across the length of her own sandal, played the blue thing with her toes.

  In the alley, Sarie faltered. Had she feared this all along? Had she shored up the walls around the present stillness to prevent exactly this? Had she encouraged all the poetry to make quite sure that he would know her value and not do a thing like this? Majid out. Out? What could he be doing? Sarie’s head was spinning. What could the man need out there? What had he gone for? She could not hold Maria’s gaze. Agatha, irritated, twitched. Sarie sought her hand again and caught it firmly up in hers.

  As Maria watched her, Sarie thought about what she had seen from Majid’s bedroom window once. Men huddled under buses, fiddling with tools. The cane-juice maker, busy at his press. A world. Was that where he had gone? Was he milling in that world she did not know? Oh, Sarie wished to act. It was hard to be observed so closely by a house girl. She let go of Agatha’s hand and, to put up against Maria a united front, tried to put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. But Agatha, who had desires of her own, sprang up from her place and, abandoning her mother in one energetic thrust, pushed herself very quickly between Maria and the wall and went skipping—Sarie heard but could not see—up the stairs beyond.

  Betrayed by her child, alone before Maria, Sarie was doubly upset. But being doubly upset just then redoubled Sarie’s strength. She could not let Maria win. As though she had remembered suddenly, had been foolish to forget—what had she been thinking—she tried a little laugh. “Of course! Of course he has gone out. I forgot, you see. He told me this last week. That he would not be here.” Maria was unmoved. Sarie said, as though Maria were really, really stupid, “I did not expect to see him. But I have to go upstairs.”

  But Maria was not finished. Something in her had finally been set free. She was going to speak—on behalf of good women everywhere, in service of the Truth (if not the truth, exactly). “Well, I have tried to stop you, Mrs. Turner. Go on. Go up, just. He’s gone. But our lady is upstairs.” Then, like a fighter who goes slack to trick a great opponent, Maria moved at once out of the dark doorway, down into the alley where Sarie, shaking, stood. “Go see her, the lady of the house.” The stairwell loomed as Maria, generous hips asway, started towards the courtyard. Sarie looked as though she had been hit.

  Maria could not quite repress a giggle, a hurrah. A Jezebel. A harlot. A painted she-demon born and raised in Sodom. Mungu amsamehe, nothing but a viper. Maria felt so wonderful that she kept right on saying things as she proceded towards the taps. Had not Brother Ewald called them soldiers, free to use all arms? “She’s very beautiful, you know. We love her! Bwana’s favorite lady.”

  Though she herself felt frozen as a fruit ice, Sarie’s feet propelled her. A lady? The lady of the house? Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire? Her legs shot her up the stairwell like a rocket and right into the parlor, where, shocked, enraged, she found her daughter sitting comfortably on the settee while a lovely woman dressed in green taught Tahir how to walk.

  Sarie’s heart fell from its cradle, clattered through her stomach, and zoome
d down to her feet. She nearly fainted from it. The boy was standing up. What’s more, he was in the midst of taking a great step. He’s walking all around, won’t need any help. The sight of it—the woman in the dress (plump, fine-faced, bright-eyed, capable, and shapely!) and the crippled boy on crutches—was too much, and twofold. How could she not have known before, considered what would happen? How would Majid have any time now, how would they find silence? When could she come by? And, worst of all, just then, slicing at her gut: Who was this new woman? What was she doing here?

  Without waiting for a welcome—indeed, it seemed to her that she had arrived unnoticed, that no one saw her, or that if they had, not one among them cared—she moved, invisible, towards the settee and sat down. The coffee table, she could see, had been pushed back to its ordinary place, too close to the seats for her to stretch her legs. She thought that she might cry. But she was wrong, of course; she was too large not to be seen. Tahir had looked up but hadn’t nodded at her; rightly so, for his efforts were elsewhere. Agatha, it’s true, ignored her, but this, too, from a child, is a luxurious sign of notice. Sugra did pay heed. But she was in the midst of something urgent; she wanted first to make quite sure that Tahir was all right. She’d been saying, “Come to Auntie, now, just a little farther, show me what you know.” And Tahir wobbled, moved. Went to stand beside her. And then, and only then, Sugra reached for Sarie’s hand, for Sarie, who had collapsed on the blue seat and who needed, Sugra knew the moment that she looked, all of her attention. Sugra understood who this must be. It pleased her. And while Tahir leaned against her, she smiled a great, warm smile so bright it deepened the nut color of her pleasant, open face and made her eyes look light, cream-green like her dress.

  Sarie, trembling, took the woman’s hand. But a heat licked at her throat. Who was this? Who was this upstairs-going-lady about whom she’d not known? What was she doing here? How could this have happened? Had Majid thought so little of her? Had he been fooling with this other woman all along, bathing after holding Sarie only to move on and pollute himself—crudely, coarsely, she was sure—with another woman’s limbs? Sugra’s sweetness didn’t help. It was, thought Sarie, A distraction, subterfuge. Sarie was unnerved, yes, at last, just as Gilbert had predicted: well out of her depth. Her teeth felt furred and warm.

  Sugra, still holding Sarie’s hand, nudged Tahir from her side. She looked across at Sarie as one does at an accomplice—as though surely Sarie cared and was delighted that Tahir was, after so long, finally standing up. “Is that all you can do? And with guests here! Can’t you do it harder?” Sarie took her hand back and, feeling slightly sick, sat looking at the boy, the woman, and the room. With his only foot, Tahir took a step. He propelled his shoulders straight ahead, nudged both crutches forward, then pressed his full weight down. The abbreviated leg, suspended like a cluster of bananas on a tree, hung loosely from his hip. When Tahir put his good leg down, the half-leg—like an echo or a recoil—swung forwards and then back. Sugra clapped her hands. “So, my little man, you can do it after all. Again, yes, now, please—or?”

  Agatha, supportive of her allies when it mattered, applauded from her seat. When she said, “Yes, you must do it again!” Sarie felt betrayed. But she decided to join in. They’d been through this together, after all. “That’s right,” she said. “Do it for your friend!” she said. “And for me. For your Mrs. Turner!” Her voice rang oddly in the air. She could not say his name. Agatha continued to ignore her. Tahir, concentrating, didn’t answer. Sugra’s smile was kind, but at that moment Sarie feared her. She felt distinctly separate from everyone, even from her child. As if confronted by a family, a threesome: Tahir, Agatha, and the-green-dressed-woman-with-the-smile, the lady of the house. And on the settee, like an extra limb, huddled in the corner, all alone, Mrs. Gilbert Turner. Sarie felt demoted. We love her, she heard Maria say again. She’s so beautiful. Bwana’s favorite lady. Her throat hurt. Her bowels shifted, continents adrift; the soles of her feet burned.

  Without meaning to, she winced. Sugra saw her from the corner of an eye. She patted Tahir’s arm and sent him to his room. Not everyone was as interested as she—though they should be, Sugra thought—in little Tahir’s legs. “Take your friend along, will you?” she said. “Show her how you put your crutches by the bed so you can reach them by yourself” The children slipped away, Tahir struggling bravely and Agatha excited, giving praises as they went. The women were alone.

  Sitting in the chair Majid Ghulam had taken that first day, just beneath the clock, Sugra looked benevolently at Sarie and said, of all things, “I’m so glad you have come.” What perverted twist was this? Sarie had no idea what to do, what could be expected of her. Or, indeed, what she could expect. Majid’s lady. Could her lover have deceived her? She thought about the Kuria cattleman and about Angélique. Had that thief been faithful? Had Angélique gone, too, to where her lover lived, and found he had a mistress or some wives; that he did, in the end, love cattle more than he loved her? Her eyes roamed over the coffee table and the floor, her legs, as if looking for a clue. She felt Sugra waiting, watching her. Did not know where to look. She scratched her wrists, wound her ankles round and round. At least I, she thought, told him of my husband. I told him about Gilbert. I told him nearly all.

  Sugra knew of Mrs. Turner’s visits, how since the accident on India Street she’d come almost every day with her little girl in tow. She’d heard about it from the aunts and from people in the storefronts whose wandering eyes were keen. She’d also heard it from the boy. She respected her for it. Was grateful. So rare, these days, for strangers to be gentle more than once! In Tahir’s version, Sarie’s energetic daughter sat beside him on the bed feeding him bananas or reading from a book while her mother sat with Majid, demure in the front room. Sugra, who thought that, like her cousin, Mrs. Turner was a widow, who had heard no mention of a husband, had, actually, hoped that they did do more than talk. She had thought (since no one in their family would have him) that Majid might find pleasure there. Weren’t British women known for starting up affairs? And hadn’t Ghuji seemed much braver recently than he had in a long time? Smelled a little sweeter? She could see that Mrs. Turner was unhappy. She said, “You expected to see Majid, eh? You came to see my cousin?” Sarie didn’t speak, was watching, waiting, thinking, trying to stay calm. Sugra attempted to encourage her. “I have heard about your visiting, you see.”

  Sarie focused on this last. It was not the best thing to have said. Now Sarie imagined Majid telling all to someone else, to someone he loved better. Laughing. A jealous woman would be easier, she thought. But the more Sarie looked at Sugra, the more she felt that Sugra had nothing to fear. Only a woman who is perfectly secure can treat a rival kindly, after all. Sarie felt confused, said nothing. Something in the woman’s face was tender. Sugra seemed concerned.

  Sugra, for her part, was beginning to feel certain: the British woman came for more than tea. She cocked her head and gently said, “He’s gone out. I am as surprised as you.” Sarie paused, sniffed. Rethought things a little. Could a rival be so calm? Sugra looked at Sarie sideways across the coffee table and touched her hand again, inviting her to join her in soft talk about Majid. “All of us have worried so for him, you know.” She lowered her voice. “Since the children’s mother died. May she be in peace. It altered him completely. He’s been lost. Has Majid told you this? It’s good he has a friend.”

  All of us. Sarie felt as she had the first day, the first time she’d entered Tahir’s room after the accident and had thought about the aunts. The women who made visits, came with cakes, and with no feelings of trespass watched the sick boy sleep. She felt again that she did not belong, that she stood uncertain on the margins of an unfamiliar world where she might make mistakes. As Gilbert had done far more than imply. She tried to slow her heart. Wait a little. She bit down on her lip and nodded slowly. “You are Majid’s cousin?” She could not meet Sugra’s gaze. Her fingers fluttered at the hem of her white dress.

  Y
es, Sugra knew a sweetheart’s longing when she heard it. She almost laughed out loud. After so much widowed love and sorrow, how natural, how wonderful, that Ghuji would be subject in the end again to really masculine desires. She could also tell when a woman thought that someone else had slipped into a bed. How silly! The parrot cried out from the kitchen. Sugra clapped her hands down on her thighs, let out a pretty giggle. “Yes!” she said. “My husband lets me visit Ghuji now and then, you know, because we were children here together. Ghuji is my cousin, like a brother. I look in on the children when I can. It’s hard once you are married!”

  It took Sarie a moment to understand that Sugra’s “Ghuji” was her very own Majid. This woman—not a lady, after all, perhaps; perhaps a relative who had a husband of her own—knew her Majid by a nickname. As children do, as people who are raised together. A brother, Sarie thought, embarrassed. Oh, that terrible Maria! Had she been playing games? From the wild mix of emotions that were twisting in her belly and sending heat into her face, a tear had escaped. She squeezed it from her eye with a deep frown, as though something else—dust, an unknown thing, an insect—had caused it to appear. She batted at her face. Relief? Yes, oh, yes, relief. Her Majid, her poetic lover-man, could not have a lady. Only me, she thought. Finally, she looked across at Sugra. She did not care if her voice shook. “Will he be back today?”