Boy, Snow, Bird: A Novel

by Oyeyemi, Helen

  Yasmin Khoury had another question: “Do you know what a lobotomy is?”

  “I think so. It’s when they operate and remove parts of your brain, right?”

  “Right. Boyfriends are the same thing. They shrink your brain. Any female who really wants to be able to think for herself shouldn’t be wasting her time on boys.”

  “Oh.”

  “So are you going to break up with your boyfriend?”

  “Uh . . . maybe. If we stop liking each other or something.”

  She was beginning to look around for somebody older and more revolutionary to talk to, so I asked a question to distract her. “What do you spend your thinking time on, anyway?”

  She set her glass down on the table between us. “I think about things that are gone from the world.”

  “What things?”

  “Well . . . the ancient wonders. The libraries at Antioch and Timbuktu, the hanging gardens at Babylon, the ringing porcelain of Samarkand. The saddest thing isn’t so much that all that stuff is gone . . . in a way it’s kind of enough that it was all here once . . . but now it’s all just garbled rumors a brown girl’s father tells her until he thinks she’s gotten too big for bedtime stories. None of the stuff that’s gone has been replaced in any substantial way, and that depresses the hell out of me. Oh, never mind. Sorry. Forget it.”

  “Well, I won’t. We’re the replacement.”

  “The Brown People’s Alliance?”

  “Do you see anybody else volunteering?”

  She laughed. “No pressure, huh . . .”

  “So. Do you still think boyfriends and, uh, lobotomies are the same thing?”

  “Yup. Nothing’s going to change that.”

  I didn’t tell Aunt Mia about the Brown People’s Alliance because I know how she is. Nothing’s off-limits with her; she would’ve put it in the newspaper and tried to pass it off as cute. She used to mention dumb convictions of mine in her articles, though Mom banned her from using my name: A six-year-old girl of my acquaintance won’t touch canned tuna fish because she believes it to be the flesh of mermaids. Words cannot adequately describe her solemn, speechless anger as tuna salad is served and consumed. It’s the anger of one who knows that this barbarism will go down in history and the sole duty of the powerless is to bear witness. “Reason with the kid,” I hear you cry. “Set the record straight.” Don’t you think we’ve tried? Nothing can be done to convince her that canned tuna really is fish. Were Chicken of the Sea to remove all mermaids from their packaging and advertising overnight, she’d only call it a cover-up. She quit making those little mentions when she realized that most of her readers thought I was her daughter. In their letters to the editor people kept writing things like “as the mother of a young child, Mia Cabrini ought to know . . .”

  “So that’s all you’ve got for me?” Aunt Mia asked, after I told her what little I’d managed to overhear. We were driving home in her little pink car. When she slowed down, I thought she was going to fling open my door and tell me to get out and walk, but actually it was because there was a stoplight ahead.

  “That’s all I’ve got. Sorry.”

  Aunt Mia said: “Somehow I doubt that, but have it your way. You’re a deep one, Bird. Just like your mother.”

  Don’t say I’m like her. Don’t say I’m like her. That’s what I was yelling inside.

  “Hey, Bird—”

  “Yeah?”

  “Do I look forty?”

  “Forty years old?” I asked, trying to buy time.

  “Yes, forty years old.”

  Her eyes flicked up toward the rearview mirror. I was sitting in the backseat because she doesn’t like to have anyone sitting next to her while she is driving. She says it makes her feel crowded in. I hadn’t shown up in her mirror at all that car ride. I begged that missing slice of me—hair, cheek, chin, and the top of my arm—to appear behind her before she started to feel funny about not seeing it there, but the mirror didn’t care whether Aunt Mia felt funny or not, or it was my reflection that didn’t care. Thanks a lot, rearview mirror. Between talking and watching the road and trying not to crash her car, Aunt Mia’s attention was fully booked anyway. Dad drives and Mrs. Chen drives but Aunt Mia just gets behind the wheel and hopes it’s another one of her lucky days. For a split second she lifted her hand to adjust the mirror—I could tell she was starting to feel funny, starting to feel that something didn’t fit, but couldn’t figure out exactly what—then she said, “Ha,” more to herself than to me, and looked ahead of her again.

  “Well? Do I look forty?”

  “Yeah.”

  She muttered something in Italian. I think she was cursing.

  “But aren’t you older than forty anyway?”

  “Cara . . . this ice you’re skating on is very thin.”

  I told her that she was obviously also gorgeous, but she said she didn’t want to hear about gorgeous. She’d heard me calling a grilled cheese sandwich gorgeous just last week.

  Neither of us said anything for a while, then I asked if she was okay.

  “Sure I am.”

  “But your stomachache . . .”

  “Stomachache? Oh. Stomachs. Sometimes they ache. That’s life.”

  She kept her eyes on the road and got her smile right on the second try. I sat back and told myself that I was letting her keep her secret, that I could find out whenever I wanted. If I was able to mimic Mom’s voice, that might even have been true. I could have called Aunt Mia up and got her talking. But Mom is impossible to copy. I try and try, and each try sounds less like her. I’m not able to play Mom’s voice back in my head the way I can other people’s. I’m beginning to think that it’s my ear. Maybe I don’t hear Mom properly in the first place.

  —

  louis chen slipped me a flower-scented envelope when he came over that dinnertime. Bird Whitman, c/o Louis Chen . . . Snow had perfected her handwriting to a copperplate script. I stuck the letter into the pocket of my overalls, where it rustled impatiently as we watched Batman and Louis tried to get me to say “Sorry, toots . . . I’m antisocial” just the way Catwoman said it. Everyone at school had moved on from Louis’s being a Vietcong, and he said there were no hard feelings. (I had some, but he didn’t ask me.) The new thing was a note someone had pinned to Carl Green’s locker. The note read BARBARA THOMAS IS FAST and inquiring minds wanted to know whether this was true, and what Barbara Thomas was going to do to try to prove her innocence. Louis looked as if he was feeling sorry for her, especially when I pointed out that the only way she could prove she wasn’t fast was by never kissing another boy until the day she died. But I couldn’t think of a better person for such a thing to happen to, so I laughed. Going to middle school in the same building as the high school students makes you see the reality. School is one long illness with symptoms that switch every five minutes so you think it’s getting better or worse. But really it’s the same thing for years and years.

  Dear Bird,

  Your letter was such a wonderful surprise; really it was. I’m still thinking about how to answer the question in your postscript. I wasn’t expecting you to insist on honesty. Don’t you find that most people try to make each other say things that aren’t true? Maybe because it’s easier, and because it saves time, and . . . now it sounds like I’m trying to sell you dinner that comes in a can. (“So they got us eatin’ dog food now,” Uncle J says.)

  I haven’t met very many people who seem to want me to say what I really think. So I’m out of practice. Wait for the next letter. I’ve got a question for you, though—what do you mean when you say that you “don’t always show up in mirrors”?

  Best love from

  Your sister,

  Snow

  Hi, Snow,

  It’s great that you wrote back. Thanks for the birdcage! Please find enclosed an extra-special pen. Wait’ll you find out what it does; y
ou’ll flip.

  I’m writing this to you from detention; I’d better tell you right off that I’m not a delinquent or anything, but I’m frequently in detention. I’ve got this piece of paper underneath an essay about Flax Hill back in 1600, and every couple of minutes I turn the page of my notepad and write to you a little more. I don’t know how much more I can say about Flax Hill back in 1600. According to the textbooks, this town was just a big grassy field and some primitive peoples, but Miss Fairfax says finding out more about the plants and what they could be used for is a way of finding out more about the people. So I’m listing plants that grew here back then. Clammy ground-cherry, starved panic grass, jack-in-the-pulpit, scaldweed, nimblewill—don’t they sound like the ingredients of some terrifying potion? I don’t think those are the real names for those plants. I mean, the people who saw those kinds of plants every day wouldn’t have given them names like that. I’m guessing somewhere along the line it was decided that the Native American names weren’t important because they were too difficult to spell, and then, abracadabra, scaldweed and panic grass. The other day I met a girl who said a lot of things are gone from the world and seemed to feel kind of cheated, and I guess this is just another thing she’d get disgusted about.

  About being honest: so far I haven’t noticed anybody picking out lies for other people to tell. Please give an example. Dad may have already told you that nothing ever happens around here.

  When I say I don’t always show up in mirrors, that is exactly what I mean, i.e., it is a statement of fact.

  Your detained sister,

  Bird

  Dear Snow,

  It was nice of you to reply to me using the pen I sent you, but as you may have realized by now, the ink goes invisible after a few hours, and all I can say is it’s a good thing you used a different pen for the address or the letter wouldn’t have reached me at all. I tried to retrieve your words by tracing over the marks the pen made on the paper, but the result leaves me hopelessly confused, so be a pal and send it again—

  Bird

  Dearest Bird,

  The incident of the disappearing letter is only one tenth of the mischief that gift of yours caused in my life, but thanks anyway. I wanted my kid sister back and I got her back with a vengeance. Sisters come with a lot of benefits—let me know if you’re ever in the mood for reading a really long poem and I’ll send you “Goblin Market.”

  For there is no friend like a sister

  In calm or stormy weather;

  To cheer one on the tedious way,

  To fetch one if one goes astray,

  To lift one if one totters down,

  To strengthen whilst one stands.

  I used to think that was stuff a mom should do for you—I guess I felt I needed someone in my life to do those things and decided it should be a mom. But a sister or a friend, or a combination of both, that works too. Let’s be those kinds of sisters if we can.

  In my other letter I asked if you’re aware of what happens to girls who say that they don’t always appear in mirrors. Doctors get involved, Bird. Sometimes girls like that end up in clinics out in the middle of nowhere, being forced into ice baths and other terrible things I won’t write about here. I just want you to be really sure you mean what you said. Are you sure?

  AML,

  Snow

  Dear Snow,

  Was that supposed to scare me? I’m already in the middle of nowhere. And, yes, I’m sure. It obviously bothers you, so let’s just talk about something else.

  Bird

  Bird,

  I was only asking like that because I don’t always show up in mirrors, either. For years I wondered whether it’s all right or not, but there’s been no one to ask, so I’ve decided that I feel all right about it. It’s a relief to be able to forget about what I might or might not be mistaken for. My reflection can’t be counted on, she’s not always there but I am, so maybe she’s not really me . . .

  . . . Well, what is she then? I guess we’ll find out someday, but I’m not holding my breath. I think that maybe mirrors behave differently depending on how you treat them. Treating them like clocks (as almost everybody seems to) makes them behave like clocks, but treating them as doors—does any of this make sense to you? Yes, no?

  My heart used to stop dead whenever I thought someone else had noticed. But I’ve found that other people usually overlook it, or if they notice, they think it’s something the matter with them, not me. Four times in my life so far someone’s started to ask me about it . . . “You know, for a second I thought . . .” and I’ve looked at them all mystified, as if they were talking gibberish. Then they start worrying about clinics and ice baths and soon after that they dry up. So, yes, when you say that it also happens to you, and you refuse to take it back—well. That unsettles me. Of course it does.

  Either you’re lying or you’re the other thing—I don’t even want to write it down. But if you’re the other thing then I am too. And why would you lie? I’ve decided to believe you. Maybe it means we’re not supposed to be apart. Or . . . there’ll be some kind of mayhem next time we’re together.

  Aunt Clara and Uncle John send you greetings. And I send you love

  as always,

  Snow

  Dear Snow,

  Yes, you’re grown up and I’m not. You’ve made that very clear. Have you forgotten how it felt when you were thirteen and people tried to humor you?

  I guess you’d really like for us to have something in common, and that’s why you’re pretending you know what I mean about mirrors. But we have a father in common. That’s more than enough. I strongly recommend that you talk about something else in your next letter.

  Yours respectfully,

  Bird N. Whitman

  4

  Hi, Sis,

  Here I am, talking about something else: our Aunt Clara. She’s a marvel. There’s a photo of her enclosed but she doesn’t photograph well. She won’t mind me saying that. She’s so lively in person, she’s got these bright eyes and her hair floats out every which way around her face and often looks as if it’s moving of its own accord. She thinks quick, talks slow, works porcupine hours—that’s what she calls her night shifts at the hospital because she sees porcupines along the road on her way to work. She taught me nice handwriting and how to cook. I want to make her happy and proud of me. I made her cry when I was young, Bird, and I wish so much that I hadn’t, or that either of us could simply forget it happened. It was during our first week together, one night just before she put me to bed and just before she left for work. She had a map of America on her lap and she was trying to explain to me that in some states colored people were equal to white people in the eyes of the law, and in some states they weren’t. We had to stand with the people who were still struggling until everybody had the same rights everywhere, that’s what she said. I was only eight years old (this is something I’m always telling myself in my own defense. I was only eight years old, only eight years old, Your Honor) and nobody had ever told me to my face that I’m colored, so I knew it and didn’t know it at the same time. I thought that if I accepted what Aunt Clara was saying, then that map would apply to me, that map with the hideous borders she’d drawn onto it in red and blue. So I grabbed both her hands and smiled at her, to try to get her to go along with me, and I said: “No, no, don’t say that about me. That’s awful. It can’t be true.” She wasn’t surprised, just sad. She let out this one quick breath, like she’d just been hit really hard in the stomach, and she rubbed her eyes and said she must have gotten dirt in one of them. I crept back to her in the morning with questions—what about Dad, what about my grandma, and my other grandma? Yup, them too. I remember it was very early, and she was eating her breakfast standing up, with her uniform hung up over the door behind her—when she’s not wearing it or washing it or pressing it or mending it, she keeps it in a plastic cover with a cake of lavender soap in each pocket—she was patient
with me. It was Uncle John who said things like “Don’t know how I’ll go another day without boxin’ this child’s ears for her.” He used to run a home school; eight of us sat cross-legged on the carpet in Uncle J and Aunt C’s front parlor, learning Brer Anansi stories to begin with and years later reading our way through Othello and then a very interesting half-book called Peter the Great’s Blackamoor . . . (Russia’s another planet, Bird. Not only that, but the author stopped writing the book all of a sudden—nobody knows why. He lived in the nineteenth century. Maybe it just wasn’t the right time for him to tell the story. Or maybe it doesn’t matter what century it was, maybe he just didn’t like the way the story was headed and it screamed and laughed and spoke in tongues when he tried to turn it around. We’ll never know how it ends. He put it away and moved on to the next thing.) When Uncle John introduced me to the others, to my dear friends Ephraim and Laura and Abdul and Peter and Rukeih and Anita and Mouse, he told them they weren’t going to have any problems with me as long as they understood it was going to take me a while to get to know anything about anything. Uncle John was a sharecropper somewhere in North Carolina but he wound up in jail at one time—he says he was guilty, but he won’t say what it is he was guilty of, but he’s not a violent man, so I doubt he hurt anybody. Aunt Clara was dating his cousin, who let Uncle John sleep on his sofa when he got out of jail and was looking for some work to do. But Uncle John stole Aunt Clara away from his cousin. He’d had a lot of time to read while he was in jail. “Did you know England had a queen whose father had her mother executed?” he’d say. “She never married.” Aunt Clara would tell him he was making it up and he’d tell her more and more and they’d sit there talking themselves hoarse in Uncle John’s cousin’s kitchen until Uncle John’s cousin would say, “Well, I’m going to bed, y’all,” and leave them to it. He took his loss of Aunt Clara like a man and at the wedding he said he knew he could never be the encyclopedia that Aunt Clara needed. Our grandma told Aunt Clara that if she married Uncle John, she’d be disowned. Aunt Clara said: “Well, you found the excuse you were looking for, Mother.”