Soon I rounded a corner and saw Anju’s house down another street. Lamps were everywhere, leading the way. Her house was small and square, painted a peeling, almost-white yellow, half hidden beneath the shadow of a frangipani tree. Right outside her window the flowers opened smooth and white and clean. Their smell was like vanilla but sweeter and freer. I brushed my way through clouds of the fragrance and, heart thudding fast, touched the shabby wood of Anju’s window. She’d already opened it for Sangris. I didn’t want to startle her, so I looked inside to the faint glow of her room and whispered, “Anju?”
She was sitting at her desk, brooding over an enormous textbook. That made me smile. She looked up as soon as she heard her name. She jumped when she saw my veiled figure, then her jaw dropped as she recognized me. She glanced at her bedroom door to make sure it was closed. “Frenenqer? How did you get here?”
I lifted myself in through the window. “I walked.”
“That’s dangerous!” she said in admiration.
“Not really,” I said. “It wasn’t far. And even if cars follow you, they usually don’t mean business . . . Believe me, I should know.” I took off my shawl and bundled it up.
Her room was smaller than mine. The walls were painted dark green, making it look still smaller. Most of her stuff had been cleared out, leaving only the bed, a few textbooks on a desk, and a night-lamp. I liked the soft, mellow glow a lot better than the blaze in my bedroom.
“I had to come,” I said, scrambling onto her bed, where she joined me. “This way you won’t have to send Sangris over, see?”
White teeth showed in her grave dark face as she grinned. “You did it, then?”
“Yes.”
Fiddling with my hands, I told her all about it. She sat at the foot of the bed, arms around her knees.
“What does your father do now?”
“Ignores me, mainly. But that’s the same as before.” I glanced at the window again. “When do you think Sangris is coming?”
“Soon,” she said. “I asked him to come in human form this time. I told him it made me uncomfortable to speak to a cat.”
I shook my head at her. “You had this all planned out, didn’t you?”
“I also gave him some of my brother’s old clothes,” she admitted. Anju had an older brother who had moved out long ago. “I’m sure he thought I was a bit weird.”
“He thought correctly,” I said, smiling.
I didn’t want to talk about Sangris anymore. My insides were tight enough already. We chatted for a bit about Anju’s new school in Qatar, but too soon we fell silent. Anju sat at her desk near the window, where the lamp was, and resumed studying. I think it was her way of giving me some space. I was in a darker corner of the room, trying to be calm. The scent of frangipani in her room grew heavier and outside, the crickets serenaded the silence.
When Sangris came, I wasn’t prepared for it.
There was a sound as if wind had gone through the branches of the acacia tree outside, and then a tap on the window frame. Then Sangris slipped into the room, lightly, the way he used to enter mine. A shock of familiarity went through me. He looked just as I remembered, and it might have been yesterday that we had stood in a field of Spanish sunflowers and teased each other. The only change was that he didn’t look as happy as he had looked then. There was no spark in his eyes when he faced Anju. The black hair fell across his forehead and I saw his cheekbone and the straight line of his nose as he turned to look at her. She continued to work at her desk.
“Anju,” he said, and his voice was exactly the same.
At the sound, my heart started to knock at my chest.
“Hello,” Anju said in her steady voice. She closed her textbook reluctantly. “I suppose you want to ask about Frenenqer.”
“Yes,” he said. He became a bit more animated. “How is she?”
“She’s fine,” Anju said in her blandest, most unresponsive manner.
“What about that art project of hers?”
“She’s done. Finished it a few days ago. The new head of administration took it to hang it up in the main office without telling her. She wasn’t very happy about that.”
“I bet not,” he said. “What did she do?”
“She says she’s hatching plans for stealing it back.”
From what I saw of Sangris’s face, it looked like he was beginning to smile. “What else?” he said. There was some of the old tenderness in his voice. “What else is she up to?”
Anju glanced into the corner where I sat. I stared back with sudden panic. Not yet. If I had to talk right now I’d choke. She rolled her eyes and returned her attention to Sangris. “I don’t really know. I haven’t gone to school for the last couple of days. I’m done.”
“Oh,” he said, and the room went very quiet again. He drew back, and the light of the lamp splintered in the dark mess of his hair and slid along the hollow area under his eyes. It reminded me of the moonlight on his face, the first time he’d come into my room. But now he looked drained. I’d never thought Sangris could look that drained.
“I can’t thank you enough, Anju. I know I’ve been bugging you. But it makes a big difference to me. When I don’t know what’s going on, I just . . .” He shook his head with impatience at himself. “Now that you’re leaving, I don’t know what I’ll do.”
“You could always try talking to her yourself,” Anju said. She was probably bored of covering for me. I stopped breathing.
But he didn’t even pause to consider it. “You know I can’t do that.” Absently, still gloomy, he reached out to pick up one of the textbooks. “It’s better if she doesn’t have to worry about me. It’s not fair to hang around like some lovesick kid who just can’t let go.”
“Isn’t that pretty much what you’re doing?” Anju said without a visible trace of cruelty. She was probably laughing inside.
Sangris didn’t deny it. “I guess,” he said. “But at least I never go to see her.”
It would have been the perfect time to introduce me, but Anju was having fun now, in her own impassive way.
“Why don’t you?” she said.
“Because . . . that would be creepy.”
“Don’t you think it’s slightly creepy to ask her best friend about her every single week?” Anju said. Oh, she was enjoying herself.
“Probably,” he admitted. Then, quickly: “You’re not going to tell her, are you? You promised.”
“I’m not going to tell her,” Anju agreed, choosing her words carefully.
“Good.” He relaxed. “I know I shouldn’t be here. But . . . it’s harmless. At least it’s from a distance, right?”
She leaned back in the chair. “What would Frenenqer say if she found out?”
Stung, he said, “What I told you. That I’m hanging around like some lovesick little kid.”
“Frenenqer,” Anju said, looking directly at me with her black almond-shaped eyes, “is that what you would say?”
“No,” I whispered.
Sangris dropped the book. He whirled around and saw me. I stared back from my corner, curled up in Anju’s blanket. The darkness beat around us. Anju, ignored, got up from her desk and walked out of the room. She took her textbook with her, picking it up off the floor with a long-suffering air.
Sangris. He was all of my fading memories made solid. It was as if we still stood on the floor of my bedroom while he told me that I smelled of milk and honey, as if we still caught frogs in the hidden wadi of the mountains, as if I had just taken him home from the Animal Souk and cradled him in my arms to warm him. As if I was showing him the guppies swarming between my fingers in Thailand. And this was a new memory too. The faint light and the yellow-hearted frangipani in the night and the little green room that was Anju’s. And Sangris—he stared at me as if he was unsure whether he was hallucinating or not. He didn’t move for a long time.
“Hi,” I said, clutching the edges of Anju’s blanket.
“Nenner?” he croaked.
&nbs
p; “Yeah.”
“I—I’m sorry,” he said in confusion. “I didn’t know you’d be here. I’ll just—” He moved toward the window.
“Don’t go,” I said. I dropped the blanket around my knees.
“But—”
“Don’t,” I said earnestly.
He stopped.
His eyes didn’t leave me for a moment. His expression wasn’t so much one of shock now. It was more the way that a man in the desert would look at a mirage. Wary, waiting for it to disappear, but at the same time, caught. “How . . . long were you there?” he said.
“The whole time.”
“You heard . . . ?”
“Yes.”
He flushed. “I didn’t mean for you to hear.”
“I know. Anju told me. She told me all about it. I came here on purpose to see you again.”
He sank down slowly onto the other end of the bed. “I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near you,” he said. His eyes were still fixed on me.
“No,” I said. “I missed you.”
“I missed you more,” he said hoarsely. “Much more.”
Maybe it was true. I had a feeling like all the air in the room was sucking me toward him.
Here I was, sailing on a dark green sea, because Sangris had missed me.
My father was just a father. The sunflowers were just sunflowers. And Sangris and I were sitting on the same bed, in the semi-darkness, with Anju’s blanket strewn thread-like between us.
The white petals of the frangipani flamed outside the window.
“Why did you want to see me?” he said. “Are you all right? Has anything happened?”
“Something happened,” I said dreamily.
Alarm took over his face. He leaned forward. “What? Do you need my help?”
“No,” I said. “I’ve taken care of it.”
His keen face. His slanted yellow eyes. The hair that framed his head in blackness. I found it hard to keep myself calm. I wondered if this was what Sangris felt like every time he looked at me. How did he stand it?
“I can’t believe she told you about me,” he said.
“I wish she’d done it sooner.”
“Really?” he said, uncertainly.
“Yeah.” I swallowed. “I wanted to hear about you too. Tell me how you’ve been.”
He chewed at his mouth. “But I haven’t done much,” he said. “My life’s been a bit incoherent, like before the Animal Souk. I jump around from place to place without any particular reason.”
“Humor me,” I said.
He did as I asked.
“This is the first time I’ve turned human since Heritage.”
“Why?”
He looked at me. I understood.
“And you?” he said.
“My mother cut my hair,” I said, choosing something he already knew.
He hesitated, then said to the embroidered pattern on the blanket: “I think it looks cute.”
“My mom practically cut it with a pair of pliers,” I said. “You’re biased.”
We both smiled, but not at each other. He didn’t see me. He was studying the blanket, twisting it in his fingers. And I was watching his long nervous hands. “No, really,” he said. “It looks like you’re wearing a cap. And it shows your neck.” He stopped suddenly, probably remembering Heritage. I wasn’t sure what I felt, but warmth was a major part of it. He changed the subject hurriedly. “I’ve been going to new countries. I was angry at first, for—you know. In the closet. But then I thought, it’s not your fault if you don’t—you know.” He winced at how awkward it sounded, and rushed on. “So I thought of revisiting the places where we went together, but that was too much. I went to that sunflower field near Santiago, and . . . Um. It was bad. So I’ve stayed away since then.” He stopped himself again. “Sorry,” he said, still not meeting my eyes. “Too much information?”
“No.” I had to tell him. Now.
I drew a frightened breath. Everything was very vivid now. I took in the clumsily built, deep green walls around us. They leaned in, as if they were green hands clasping us together. I took in the night-lamp on the desk and the textbooks in the corner and the closed wooden door. I saw the white flowers gleaming outside like moons caught in the tangled foliage. And Sangris, on the edge of the bed, his head bent as he fingered the blanket. The lamplight directly behind him made him appear dark in contrast, but his eyes were clear, clear yellow, aflame in his face, brighter than anything else in the room. And I was aware of the light sliding along my own arms and down my exposed neck as the hair tumbled short and helpless around my ears. A pain like a high, thin note of music slanted through me, straight through the chest and down, deep inside.
“Tell me what happened,” he said. “The thing that Anju helped you with.”
“I defeated my father,” I said.
The blanket fell through his fingers and his eyes shot up to mine. The pain and the sweetness grew, and things were flowing into me.
“Your father?” he repeated dumbly.
“He’s not a god anymore,” I said. “He’s just a man. I told him that I loved him and I broke down everything he’d done. I’m not a figment of his imagination now, and he doesn’t have any hold over me, and every part of me is mine.” Nerves vibrating, I leaned over across the bed, leaning into the lamplight. Gingerly I took the blanket out from beneath his hands. I tried my best not to tremble. “It also means there aren’t any walls in my head.”
In pure astonishment, Sangris stopped breathing. “Nenner?”
Frangipani and darkness and heartbeats. On my knees on Anju’s bed, bringing myself closer toward him. The little room was absolutely silent.
“I’m sorry I made you wait,” I said, with the last of my breath. With a lightheaded feeling as if I was throwing myself off a cliff, I moved through the dark green air, leaned farther across the bed, and kissed him timidly. On the cheek at the corner of his mouth, first. Then, when he still didn’t move, I brought myself to his mouth and kissed him there too, my head tilted. There was a brief moment of sweetness and heat. Then I began to draw back.
But before I could, Sangris’s hands were on my back and he was leaning forward too. He kissed me and when he found that my mouth moved in response, his whole body came to press against mine and we fell backward onto the hard little bed as the frangipani burned, seeping its scent into the room.
A long while passed. Sangris wouldn’t let me talk. Or rather, I couldn’t talk because he kept distracting me. His fingers were in my hair, or stroking my throat, or at the base of my back, feeling through the loose cloth of my clothes. And his mouth—whenever I tried to catch my breath he pulled me back greedily. A slow crimson flame was beating between us. We drowned in the little dark green room. Occasionally I would resurface and see the brilliant white of the frangipani flowers before he drew me back, and the warmth of their whiteness stayed in my mind as I touched his cheek and found an area at his throat that made him gasp for air when I kissed it. He spoke occasionally, but most of it was incoherent, or mumbled into my skin. He said my name a lot; sometimes I heard him moan something about warmth and milk and honey. But most of the time we were wordless, cupped in the green hands of the room.
Because I was still me, I stopped him when his fingers unconsciously tugged at my shirt. “I’m seventeen,” I reminded him. He groaned and held me tighter. His eyes were shining canary yellow; they stood out above everything else. “And besides,” I added, “you have to give me a moment to breathe so that I can tell you I love you.”
Sangris looked down at me, his hair in disarray. “Say that again,” he said breathlessly. “What did you just say?”
I laughed and refused to speak.
“Say it,” he begged. I reached up and put my arms around him, curling, my insides fizzling.
“I thought we were too busy to talk.”
“Tell me!”
“Tell you what?” I said against his neck. “That I love you?”
“Ye
s. Tell me properly,” he said. “It’s not fair. You already know how I feel.” For a little while he lost track of his argument, because he’d dipped his head down. He didn’t seem to be able to keep his mouth away from mine for more than ten seconds at a time. But then he was insisting again, “You need to say it.”
He refused to be distracted even when I targeted that spot in the hollow of his throat. “Come on,” he said, though he couldn’t help tilting his head back. “Say it. Please.”
“Not here in Anju’s room. That’s weird.” I smiled at him through the drowsy light. “Maybe you should take me somewhere else.”
“Anywhere.”
“The sunflower field. It’ll be dark in Spain now, though . . .”
Sangris didn’t care. He picked me up straightaway, kissed me again, and brought me toward the window. I noticed his hurry and it made me feel as hot inside as if I’d swallowed the sun. At the last minute I remembered to ask, “Shouldn’t we say good-bye to Anju first?”
“I’ll bring you to see her in Qatar,” he promised. “We can thank her then, and you can chat and be polite all you want. But right now we’re headed for Santiago.” He already had me out of the window and in the scrubby herb garden near the flowers that gleamed white in the darkness under the acacia tree. “You’re not going to get out of this one.”
“Why would I want to?” I put my head on his shoulder, almost causing him to forget to grow wings before we took off. When we left the ground, there was a sensation as if someone had upended a packet of sparkles into my stomach. But maybe that wasn’t just because of the flight. It might have had something to do with the way that Sangris moved as his wings beat. I had never allowed myself to press close enough to notice it before. Looking up at his flushed face, I said, “And after we spend a while in Spain, let’s go to Thailand and see if the orchid gardens are open. Or maybe we could find a beach somewhere that’s quiet, with waves that glow green at night and sand that’s still hot from the day. I know a place near the Arabian Gulf.” I could tell, from the way he kissed me in midair, that he liked that idea.
The Girl With Borrowed Wings Page 22
