by E. C. Frey
“All right. David?”
“Yeah.”
“Our relationship can’t be anything but professional.”
“I hear you. I just can’t commit to not trying. See you soon.”
The phone clicks before I have a chance to respond. He leaves my words dangling somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean.
David is an intimate part of Africa; his soul is fused to it. The way mine is.
I return to Africa because I need to be needed and I need to forget.
Africa. The mother continent is a web of life that reminds me I’m a fraction of what it is to live. Wild and untamed, it shimmies along a dangerous line between survival and annihilation. I’m not sure that I don’t skate that same boundary—that we don’t all. It’s just easier to know it in Africa.
The magnitude of the terrain diminishes my problems. I remember the year in the Congo. Africa is full of paradox. But then, maybe I am most at home there. My life has been one of paradox: a white girl living in a black girl’s body, a black girl living a white girl’s life, growing up the daughter of a product of the Jim Crow South, living in one of the wealthiest towns in America. Paradox doesn’t confound me—it defines me.
It reminds me of the women of the Congo. Through their pain, their gracious smiles comforted me, and their children pulled at my own discordant feelings about motherhood. I had embarked on my career with a sense of loss, bitterness, and injustice, but they set me straight. Why should my life be easy? When I was a little girl, my parents told me I could be anything I wanted. They weren’t being disingenuous. They believed their words. But then, why should my life have been any different than those who I served in the Congo—or anywhere else, for that matter? What made me think I was so damn special?
I pick up a picture of my family and caress the smoothness of the glass that protects the moment. My hand comes to rest at the center of the framed image. God, I would do anything to have that moment back, to be safe and surrounded by those who once made me believe the world was good and I was safe in the middle of it.
They believed things were changing and they wanted me to be a part of the metamorphosis. My tear smears the illusion.
If such a dream exists in the sub-Sahara, it is veiled by the needs of survival. It is the sense of lack and sharing it that first drew me into my love affair with David. It was the camaraderie of desperation, the proximity to suffering, that drew us together. But lack also destroyed us.
My hair clings to my temples. No matter how many times I pull it back, I can’t seem to rein in the wildness of it. Nor can I slow the evolving sense that I no longer belong in Africa. I now belong here.
An American with American problems, I have to finish what I’ve begun, but I also need an answer from Jerome—a final good-bye, or an agreement to pick up where we’re leaving off in a year. The latter would be nice, but I lost my attachment long ago to getting hard-and-fast answers from others. That has been the only salvation in my nomadic life. As for my friends, that is an appointment I will never break. It is a commitment bound in blood. We are as different as oil and vinegar, but shaken, our bond is unbreakable. We are what we have witnessed. We are what we have done. We are the silence we have kept.
I have to convince Jerome. I dial his number.
“Jerome Davis.”
“Hi. We need to talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. It doesn’t matter what I say, you’re still leaving.”
“Jerome, you knew who I was when we met. I’ve never played you.”
“What’s the difference? I at least thought there was a chance.”
“There is a chance. I’m only gone one year. We both . . . just wait.”
“Wait for what? You’re calling all the shots. I need some space. I’m hangin’ with my boys tonight. I’ll catch you tomorrow.”
I smooth my hair back from my face. “Why don’t you spend the night with me so we can figure this out? It feels so . . . unresolved.”
“Talk about what? You’ve already made up your mind. Nothing we say tonight is going to change anything unless you agree to stay and be in this relationship.”
“I guess I hoped we could spend as much time together as possible.”
“Yeah. I guess I hoped you’d be staying so we could spend time together, too, but look where all that hoping has got us.”
“You know this is my life. You’ve known it all along.”
“Look, you met someone, decided to commit to that person, and stayed. End of story. Change your story, man. Quit running away to Africa.”
“I’m not running away. I’m an aid worker. It’s what I do. If I don’t do it then who will?”
“That’s a fucking cop-out and you know it.”
“This isn’t going to get us anywhere, is it?”
“Nope. Like I said, I’m hangin’ with my boys tonight.”
My head throbs. “I’ll see you tomorrow then?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow.” The click is emphatic.
The sunlight glares through the window. Sweat drips from my scalp. Why not just leave as a free bird? That’s how I’ve always done it and I’ve been fine. Why am I willing to leave for Africa with a boyfriend tucked away in New York? Why am I even willing to come back to New York? I’ve never called anywhere home again since leaving Sunny Hollow. Africa is the closest I’ve gotten to calling a place home, and it is far too large a continent for the name to have any true meaning. It is more an abstraction.
I dial the number I’ve known by heart all these years, no matter how far away or how long I’ve roamed.
“Hello.”
“Mariah?” Even now after all these years and the miles in between, I am that little girl again.
“Eve? Are we catching up in Charleston or are you out so you can spend an extra week with Jerome?”
Jerome may be right. I am running away to Africa—but there’s not a true place I can call home in America. My home has been taken from me. But my friends still root me to this world, to my past. Like there is still the hope of a place to rest.
I thought I could test the waters, see if I can bow out and give the week to Jerome, but I know I will be in Charleston. Mariah doesn’t have to say anything. Not that she ever has. She has always spoken volumes without even parting her lips.
“No. I’d never miss it. One week more or less with Jerome is not going to make a difference. Is it?”
“I suppose not. Are you okay with that?”
“Yeah, I suppose. How ’bout you? Are you done with your assignment? What was it on? Water, right?” I watch as the dust swirls. “Mariah?”
“Yeah. Instead of gold, the hot commodity is water, and guess who gets to decide who has it and who doesn’t?”
“Careful, Mariah. You’re losing your objectivity.”
“Yeah. I can’t help it. The entire concept of water as a tradable good pisses me off. Those who can’t afford it will die of thirst. Seriously. It’s screwed up. Africa is already in trouble. I just finished the section on the Middle East. But . . .”
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble again. Right?”
“Right. If not already.”
“What do you mean? You know, one of these days, you won’t be able to talk yourself out of it.”
“Yeah, I know. Listen, I can’t wait to see you.”
“You didn’t really answer my question. What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing. Really. I’ll see you soon. Okay?”
“All right. Listen. Did you find out about the guy who Heather thinks is stalking her?”
“No. I’ve tried to find out who lived in that house. I left a message with Jake Cruise, who used to live where Heather’s street met that line of houses. After everything burned down, a lot of people never came back. But that house was rebuilt. There’s no record of a man by his description living there then, but maybe Jake will know when he calls me back. I just don’t know how the man could have survived all these years. I’m afraid Heather hasn’t real
ly seen him.”
“You mean, you think Heather is crazy?” That isn’t an idea I want to entertain, but our last conversation left me with the same question bouncing around in my head. We are sisters. They are all I have. I know when one is in trouble.
“Maybe there’s an explanation. And then there’s the matter of the fire.”
“Yeah. Maybe. But they haven’t figured out who started it and it wasn’t much of a fire anyway. They were lucky the plumber was there and could get to a phone to call it in.”
I flex my calf muscle. It aches. Massaging it does little to abate the rising spasm, and my chest still burns.
“Yes, but he’s the reason they’re blaming it on Heather. He said there was no one else there, but Heather claims there was.”
“And you question her claim?”
“No. I don’t know. I’m not sure she even knows. In the meantime, I’ll keep trying to find out something about the guy. Hopefully I’ll have something soon.”
“I hope so, too. Be careful, Mariah.”
“I will.”
“I wish I was as certain.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know.” Pacing the floor unwinds my calf muscle. I need to run. “Maybe I’m just feeling unsettled about life right now. Things aren’t working out . . . easily. Nothing seems to be going right.”
“Don’t worry. It’ll work out.”
“Okay. I’ll see you in Charleston. Have a safe trip.”
“Manana.”
“Maka Manana.” Our old language comforts me. It’s our way of saying good-bye without ever meaning it.
Heather needs me now more than ever. Mariah did little to change my mind.
And worse, Mariah is hiding something.
And then there is Jerome.
I don’t bother wiping away my tears. Why shouldn’t the world know? I’ve kept my sorrows stashed away for far too long.
How can I break my commitment to my organization?
I’ve worked for them for years. It’s my job.
It’s who I am.
I’ve been an aid worker so long I can’t remember any other life except the one I led before the unfathomable sorrow.
I have to find my sneakers.
How can I turn my back on my African family? Turn my back on their suffering? How can I, in the span of a month, make a choice that will forever change the course of my life?
I don my sports bra and top. I find my sneakers. It’s fresh air I need. I pop an antacid. If I have a chance of finding answers, it will be out pounding the pavement. I head in the direction of Central Park. My walk turns into a run.
Running is the one thing that is as natural as breathing in and breathing out.
4 Mariah
We live in a spider’s web. Eve’s phone call reminds me of this. Under the distraction of research and deadlines, it is sometimes easy to forget.
I light sage. I perform the same ritual to remind me where I am from, to remember this land for something more than the flag that was planted and now flies above.
Hello relatives. Mitakuye oyas’in. I am born where thunder and the mystery of water meet, born when the lone wolf cried into the frost of the Hard Moon night, his voice of and defined by the wilderness. I am a truth walker. My mother is of the Thunder Clan of the Ho-Chunk. My father is of the Shawala tiospaye of the Sincangu Oyate Lakota, and his mother was Mdewakanton Dakota, descended from one who was saved from Abraham Lincoln’s mass scaffold only to die a far more bitter and cruel death as a prisoner of war at Camp Kearney. Her homeland by Mde Wakan, Spirit Lake, is gone and her people are dispersed to many reservations, the ancestors’ bones cast to the winds like her tribe.
Relationships are the blood of the people and were the first thing taken, the knowledge of its value realized on first expression of invasion and consummated in forced boarding schools. This knowledge my grandmother weeps into the soil where the debt of suffering upon this land lays like an open wound. But I am also white, descended from those men who did their duty to strip us of our culture and language for our land, and married white women when they were done with their Indian experiment in civilizing, when the last breath was extinguished from their first wives who walked on. I am consumer and consumed, cheater and cheated, invader and subsumed.
Remembering is important. Like I said, I have long been entangled by the spider’s web. Our words are wakan, powerful and reflective of our thoughts, our intent in the world. I hunt the hidden clues, those things that are not said. I stand between the wamakaskan, the living beings of the earth, and those who would destroy them. The web is tightening. The trickster is out and about. He reminds me of the stakes. He reminds me to take myself less seriously, lest I forget, and sometimes he reminds me of home. I am still in exile.
Heather needs us. We keep the secret, the one inconsolable secret. The flame of the candle dips and weaves in the quiet of my apartment. My dogs slumber, but I know their eyes will open if I move. Their slumber is watchful. The round robin of phone calls between Fiona, Heather, Eve, and Espy has woven my unease into a tight cocoon of nerves. Poor Heather! The web is wrapped so tight her thoughts are muted within. Eve believes I can crack the mystery of Heather’s visitor and the fire, but I cannot. My own world is unraveling. My stints in war-torn Sarajevo, Congo, Beirut, and too many others to recount no longer seem to hold a candle to the mess I am in. No shots have been fired, but I am terrified of the powers against which I have pitted myself. At least in war, you know the bullets are out there. You have a 50 percent shot at surviving. This is different. I don’t even know who my adversaries are. Not really. I just feel the threat of their power. It is as if they are ghosts.
But I promised Eve. I dial Heather’s number.
“Hello.”
“Heather? How are you?”
My movement stirs the dogs.
“I’m fine, Mariah.” Her sigh tells me something different.
“You sound . . . worried. Did the police find any evidence of forced entry?”
“No. They have found nothing. I wish we weren’t meeting in Charleston this year.”
“What do you mean? Your vote is the reason we’re going to Charleston.”
“I know, but I guess I just feel safer at home right now.”
I tug a thread that has pulled itself from my fraying couch. “Safer? It seems like meeting us in Charleston might be safer for you. Letting things settle a little.”
“I know. I guess I would feel safer with Brandon around. Although, truth be told, that’s not entirely true. I’m not sure he wouldn’t feed me to the lions.”
His name twists inside of me. I’ve known a hundred men like him. All dressed up in a designer suit, but you can smell the predator a mile away—and Heather is his prey, the quarry upon whose vulnerability he feeds daily. But I cannot say this to her. She is already too frightened.
“That doesn’t sound like you. What’s changed?”
“Oh, nothing. It’s just a feeling I have. Like he’s watching me or something. Like he wants to . . . I don’t know, Mariah. That day the plumber was there, I had the distinct feeling someone was in the house.”
“I know. Your visitor?”
“Now I’m not so sure. It could’ve been Brandon. The window was open in the upstairs guest bedroom. I never open that window except to air it when guests are coming. I saw a shadow pass. I thought it was my imagination—or worse, my visitor. But when I think about it, the silhouette reminded me of Brandon’s. And then the fire started in the trash can in his den. Like he was burning something he didn’t want anyone to see. Especially me.”
“Are you sure? Maybe you opened the window at some point and forgot to shut it.”
“Maybe, but doubtful. And what about the fire? I just feel odd about the whole thing. Maybe he needed to get rid of something, the fire got away from him, and to avoid suspicion, he said he wasn’t there and blamed the fire on me.”
“I thought the plumber was there. Wouldn’t he have
seen Brandon leave? Did the police see any signs of him or of his having been there to start the fire?”
“Are you a prosecutor? No. No one saw him, and yes, his DNA and fingerprints were all over his office, as they should’ve been. I know I heard someone in the house. I know I saw something in the window, and I know I didn’t start the fire. It feels like it was Brandon. Listen, it’s not just him or this incident, really. Work’s trouble, too. We’re in the middle of layoffs again. They’re bad. And I have a case on my hands that implicates my boss and his boss. I’m feeling a little bit like a sacrificial lamb, when I should be a tiger.”
“Then don’t be a lamb or a tiger. Be a horse and run like hell and kick some ass on your way out of the paddock.”
Heather giggles. “You make me laugh.”
Thank the gods I still have some humor left in me. Lately, I haven’t seen the humor in much of anything. I cannot see myself for the trees. I have been away from the Rez for too long. My grandmothers want me home, but I am stubborn, and I risk losing myself because of it.
“Seriously, Heather. Maybe getting away to Charleston is exactly what you need. Get out of the paddock. Besides, I need the break too.”
“You? Why?”
“Oh, nothing.” It’s a bad day when a self-proclaimed truth walker becomes a liar to her best friend. “I just need a break.”
“You’re not going back into a war zone. Are you?”
“No. Nothing like that.” It’s not really a lie. It’s just not the whole truth. But explaining the current state of water rights is not something one can explain in a minute. In a world of manufactured scarcity, water must be there for the taking and made into a consumable good.
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Heather. I promise.” Sometimes, on the most peaceful of days, I can still hear the bombs. The madness of war dogs me. “No more war for a while. It’s all peace right now.” My words are trite and taste like vinegar.
“All right. I’ll see you in Charleston.”
“All right. Heather? Just call me if anything happens. You know we’ll all come if you need us.”
“Yeah. Maka Manana.”
Right! If Heather needs me, I’m only four and a half hours away with no traffic. A lot can happen in that time. I’ve experienced people sitting next to me one minute and evaporating in the next. It only takes the blink of an eye to obliterate the trace of a human. Shattered for the gods of war and the glory of civilization. Dismembered and dis-remembered.
