by Susan Conley
Luke turns the TV to some French talk show. Then he takes the Valium with a sip of water from the glass on the bedside table and dials the Hotel Estheréa. “Brekken,” he says loudly. “B-R-E-K-K-E-N. Gaird. One night. I don’t know the room number.” Then he waits. I think it rings and rings but no one answers in Gaird’s room because then Luke hands the phone back to me. “Not there. I didn’t think he’d be in the room right now. He would have checked out already.”
He settles into watching French TV—I’m not sure how much of the shows he even understands, but he laughs from time to time and I go into the kitchen and call Macon. “Are you missing me?” he asks. “I’ve got salmon I’ll grill on the roof.”
“I’m missing you more than you even know. Luke isn’t feeling well. It’s his lung. He’s had breathing trouble. I think I should sleep over.”
“Oh, Christ. Is he okay?”
“We’ve been to the hospital. We’ve seen a new doctor. They talked about anxiety, and they’re running blood tests. It could be mono, I bet. Or hepatitis.”
“Why didn’t you call me earlier? I’m so sorry.”
“I tried you at the legal center twice, but then I gave up. Sara says to give the lab a full week. I’m going to need to be sedated to wait that long. Maybe I should take one of his Valiums.”
“Go to sleep now.”
“I’ll try. I miss you. Did I already say that?”
I LEAVE LUKE’S early Tuesday morning and get Gita at the asylum center. Then we both take the train to the academy. When I come back in the afternoon, Luke’s in the den on the phone to China. He hangs up and says he feels fully recovered. I think it’s the Valium. I make asparagus soup.
“Leave.” He almost kicks me out after dinner. “I’m fine. Go back to your French lover. Go live your life!” I make him dial Gaird at the hotel again so we can both ask him to come home, but he’s not there. I take a cab home, but it’s painful to leave my brother alone in his apartment, and my resentment for Gaird grows. Why doesn’t he call Luke? Why isn’t he home?
When I get back to the apartment, there’s a note from Macon saying that he’s in Chantilly with Pablo. He returns after I’ve fallen asleep. On Thursday morning I get to have coffee and oatmeal with him before he leaves for the courtroom. Then I teach on Rue St. Sulpice and leave the academy for the asylum center at three.
Sophie lets me in. But she doesn’t smile. “What’s wrong? Tell me what’s wrong.”
She puts a long, pink-manicured finger to her lips to shush me. Then she takes my arm and walks me down to her office and closes the door. “Moona has been taken away.”
I don’t hear what she’s saying at first. “What do you mean, ‘taken away’?”
“She was deported yesterday. They changed the date of the hearing at the last minute, and her lawyer didn’t get the paperwork. The hearing was last Friday. She and her lawyer believed it was meant to be yesterday. If you miss your court hearing, you’re automatically denied. The officers came for her after breakfast.”
“You’re joking. You’re not serious.”
“This often happens. They had a seat on a charter plane leaving for Bombay. I tried to reach you, but you never answered the phone at your home. They are calling it a voluntary reunification with Moona’s aunt.”
“The wife of the uncle who raped her? How could they send her back?”
“The girls cannot be expelled on their own, because they are only children. But they can be reunited with family. You know this.”
“Oh, Sophie.” I sit down on the stool with my bag in my lap.
“Gita won’t get out of the bed. She saw them take Moona out to the van. Then she screamed and ran into her room, and she won’t move. She skipped kitchen duty. If she isn’t up by the time she’s meant to work there again, then I will call Roselle and try to get her a medical excuse.”
“Or the guard will report her?”
Sophie stands up. “He will report that she is uncooperative if he knows that Gita is in bed, but he won’t find out if I can help it. Today is the working of a mysterious God.” She looks up at the ceiling and raises her eyebrows like she’s frustrated with her God today and why can’t he just give her a little help?
I look down at my watch. It’s four o’clock. “Can I stay? Can I see her?”
“Dear girl. You can sit in my office all night if you like. I will be acting like this is just another day in the asylum world, because that is what it is, so help us God, and we will wait for Gita to wake up.”
I sit in the chair and stare at the little rugs on the wall. Where has she gotten all these kilims? Every ten minutes or so I lean my head out into the hall to see what’s going on. I keep seeing Moona’s face—an older face than Gita’s, with wise, dark eyes. Gita gets up twenty minutes later to go to the bathroom, and Sophie and I follow her back into her bedroom. It’s a small, makeshift space with a plywood bureau that has decals of Winnie the Pooh stuck to the second and third drawers. Nothing on top of the bureau. The bed is the only thing in the room that feels permanent. An island. Safe zone. I lean against the radiator, and she sits on top of the blue polyester quilt. Her feet are side by side in small black sneakers on the floor. The skin under her eyes has gotten darker in the two days I haven’t seen her. Tears slip down her face and onto her hands, which she’s folded in her lap.
“I’m not being strong today.” She cries harder and puts her hand over her mouth.
“Oh, Gita, no one said you had to be strong. This is a bad day. This is a very bad day.” I can’t even say Moona’s name out loud. It’s like she’s died. It’s got to be so damn scary to get taken to an airport and put on a plane and flown to a city that could be days away from your real home. You don’t know anyone and you have very little money, maybe enough for a meal. How is this meant to be reunification?
“Moona was not thinking far enough ahead when they came for her,” Gita says. “She was not fully expecting it, and now she is gone and we will never be seeing her again.”
“Gita, I’m so sorry. I know you loved her. We all loved her.”
“I have great respect for you, Willow, but I loved Moona like a sister. You do not know her the way that I was knowing her.” Gita looks stronger. Blood returns to her cheeks now that she’s a little angry with me.
“You’re right. But your hearing in court will give you the chance to get out of this place legally. Just think of the life you could have in France.”
“Kirkit is legal.”
“You still think of him often?”
Gita gives me a very small smile. “He is my friend. I want a friend like him.” She looks away. Sophie just smiles.
I moved toward the door. “It’s time for class, Gita. Let’s go down the hall and get set up.”
“Thank you, Willow.” She smiles. “Thank you, Sophie. I will be in class in a few minutes if that is okay.” Then she lies down on her bed with her sneakers still on and puts her hands over her face. She looks too young for any of this to be happening.
“The system is making this girl crazy, so help me God,” Sophie whispers in the hall.
“The hearing has to work. That’s it. It’s just got to. We can’t let what happened to Moona happen to Gita.” I’m full of self-righteousness and false conviction. Macon will fix everything. The good side will win because we have more heart.
Precy and Esther are already on the couch when I walk into the common room. Then Rateeka and Zeena. Gita is last. I’ve brought maps for class, and I spread the one of Africa out on the floor so we can all circle around it on our knees.
Precy points to Liberia. “My brothers and sisters are going to bed there now. Look how close they are to the war. How close. I am praying they are okay.”
Esther traces the African coast with her finger. “It’s a long way from France to the Congo.” She doesn’t smile. She just stares at the map. “One day, when the camp was flooded again, my uncle sharpened a piece of wood and took me up to a lake. We caught three fish for d
inner, which was good because sometimes my mother would cry when there was no food.”
I unroll a map of Asia and put it down on the rug next to Africa. Rateeka and Zeena and Gita begin talking all at once. We don’t have Moona to translate, though. There’s such a hole where she used to be. Delhi sits close to the center of India, and Pakistan sits on India’s left shoulder. Gita says, “Where is Bombay? Where? Where is it?” I point to the city. “I wonder if Moona can hear us there now? Where is Jaipur?” I point again, and Gita gets quiet. She puts her finger on the Arabian Sea. “That is the ocean? I have always wondered where it was. Our country looks so small here. I thought it was a bigger place than this.”
“Everything is smaller on the map. Here.” I point. “This is Jaipur.”
“Where is the national palace where my baap was working?”
“The map is too big to include the palace.”
“Where is Swam Singa Road, where my house is standing?”
“I will look for it when I’m there.” I stand up. “I’m going to India this summer. I have a book to research there in July.”
“India,” Gita says like she can’t believe it. “You are going to India?”
“I’m going. I’m so lucky to get to see your country.”
“It will be hot in the summer months. Very hot. Watch out for the rickshaw drivers because they will want to take your money. Remember, many of the people do not speak English like you.” She smiles. “You are going to India. I will write you a letter for Moona and a letter for my grandmother. I don’t know if she’s still alive. The last time I saw her she was very sick and sleeping.”
The girls each stand and find seats. “Can you try to tell me one thing you’re afraid of about living in France?” I ask. “Just one sentence. I’ll go first.” I pause for a second. I’m trying to get them used to talking about the stories they carry in their heads. I say, “I am afraid that my brother will not get better.” I wish I could take my words back the minute I say them. The girls have enough fears without adding my brother to their list.
“Brahma has made the universe as it is for a reason,” Gita says slowly. “I know you are sad, Willow, but you should not have fear. Brahma is wishing it to be, and your brother will find peace.”
I’ve bungled class for the night. There’s another awkward silence. Then Precy says, “You have told us something that matters to you. We each need to go now. I will start. I am afraid of men. All men. Beginning with the men that were in the van that took me away from my family. And the man in the kitchen who cooks for us and the man who is the guard here.” She finishes and looks down at the rug.
“Thank you, Precy,” I say.
Gita says, “I am afraid that my family will find me here and take me back with them and I will have to live with Manju again. I must write the letters for Moona and my grandmother.” She pulls a piece of paper from her notebook. “You must go to India and give them my letters.”
Esther says, “I am afraid there is no one to marry me in my lifetime.”
“The army,” Zeena says. She understands more English than she can speak. Rateeka just smiles and moves her hand back and forth in front of her face to signal no. The sky darkens outside on the street.
“Speaking to the judge in the courtroom will be much less scary than the things that happened to you before you got here. But you have to be willing to tell your whole story.” I’ve become fixated on the court testimonials. I want to cram them with as much detail as possible.
When the girls stand to leave, Gita hands me the letters she’s been furiously writing. “Sometimes,” Gita says, “if I closed my eyes in Brady Passage and listened to the Hindi and smelled the chapatis, I was back in Jaipur.”
The lights are on in my apartment when I get home. I’m so grateful for that and for the man sautéing a steak at the stove. I kiss him on his face and make a salad with arugula. “Moona’s gone.”
“Moona who?”
“Moona on Rue de Metz. My student. Gita’s friend. They came and deported her yesterday with no warning.”
“Oh, God.”
“How can they do that? How can they just take her? I can’t believe the system works like this.”
“Did she miss her hearing?”
“Apparently.”
“They do that. They change the dates and catch you on the mistake.”
“God, it’s a cruel system.” Then I tell him about the letters Gita wrote in class today.
“Well, now we know that the grandmother is alive. We know that Gita’s got family in Jaipur.”
“We’re not sure she’s really alive, are we? She was an old woman. Gita thinks she’s probably dead. So the fact that I just told you Gita wrote a letter to her grandmother will hurt her case?”
“The court always wants reunification with family, Willie. The girl is only fifteen.”
“But you said you’d make me her guardian.”
“For the courts. You guide her through the preparation for the hearing, along with me. But the only way she gets to stay here alone is in foster care, and it’s very unlikely. Here.” He passes me a plate. “The steak is done.”
“I don’t want to lose this appeal.” I stand in the kitchen holding the plate and stare at him.
He considers me for a moment. Then he takes the plate back and puts it on the counter and pulls me toward him. “I’m on your side. I’m her lawyer, remember? I’m the one working for her. Me.”
“You?”
“Yes. Me.” He kisses me on the forehead and on each cheek. “Do you understand now?”
“I’m too wrapped up in it.”
“Yeah, you’re wrapped up.” We sit side by side at the table, and I pour red wine. The candles burn down while we eat.
I call Sara after we’re finished. “What is the news on Luke’s lab report?”
“It’s Thursday,” she says. “We took the blood Monday. We won’t hear anything until tomorrow at the earliest. But plan on next Monday. Things work even more slowly in the lab on the weekends.”
“This is cruel.”
“This isn’t cruel. It’s science.”
“It’s France is what it is. Painfully slow. What are we looking for? Are we looking for mono? Hepatitis?”
“You can’t think about these things now. It’s late. Go to bed.”
“Sara, you’re the one who must be exhausted. How do you feel?”
“Bigger than a truck and lobotomized. I can’t remember anything and I weep constantly. Yesterday I forgot where I parked the car. Today I forgot where I put my keys. Rajiv found me tonight crying in the kitchen, but I’d forgotten who he was. The love of my life—can you imagine? But other than that, I’m doing well.”
“You’re going to be the most incredible mother ever. I love you. Go to sleep.”
“To sleep.”
“Right to sleep.” Then I hang up.
19
Jell-O: a brand name for a dessert made from a mixture of gelatin, sugar, and fruit flavoring
On Friday Delphine gives in and allows Pablo to sleep at my apartment. It’s taken her most of the spring to agree. June and the horse chestnuts on my street are in their glory, with shiny leaves and white flowers that have begun to drop on the streets and turn yellow. There’s a boy I know walking toward me hand in hand with his father. I run and pick Pablo up. “I’ve missed this boy!” I give him a kiss on the face and he laughs.
We head to the market on Rue Gracieuse to buy things Pablo will eat for dinner—potatoes that I’m going to mash with butter, carrots, white onions, beef in wax paper, and peaches and ice cream. We appear to be a small family. A simple construct. But no family is simple. Not mine. Not Macon’s. We’re always more complicated than we look. Our history complicates us. Our longing. Macon holds on to Pablo’s hand, and every few minutes Pablo reaches for me and asks us both in French to lift him off the ground.
When we get back to my apartment, he circles the living room twice and stares at the furniture. Then h
e looks over at his father, who stands in the kitchen doorway watching. I’ve made the couch up with blue sheets and bought two Matchbox cars and a plastic bag of Legos and left it all on the trunk by the couch. Pablo picks up the cars first and drives them over the trunk and drops them off the edge. “There is a roof,” Macon says and sits on the floor with him and puts the cars through a series of races. “There is a roof and a ladder that we can climb up to see the city.”
“Where will I sleep?” Pablo’s mind must be working hard to fit these new pieces together.
I stand next to the couch. “Here is your bed, Pablo. Your very own bed.”
I can’t tell if he approves. He says, “Where is the roof, Daddy? Let’s go up there now.”
Macon puts him on the third rung of the ladder and climbs behind him, lifting him in his right arm rung by rung. I stay in the kitchen and finish the pot roast my father used to make, with the white pearl onions and potatoes and little slices of carrots in a brown sauce with the meat. During dinner we run out of milk. Macon says, “Pablo is a muesli man in the morning. Muesli and bananas. I should go to the store.” He runs down to the street.
“You are doing such a good job of eating, Pablo,” I say in French. I hope he won’t cry while his father’s gone. But it’s entirely possible that he will, and I’m ready for it.
“Thank you, Willie,” he says in English and smiles. Has Delphine coached him to speak only English with me? Does she know I can speak French? “I am eating to get strong.”
“What is your favorite food, Pablo?” I say in English. “I want to cook that for you tomorrow night. What do you like the very best?”
“Jell-O. Orange Jell-O is best.”
I’ve been expecting a child—someone to tend to—but he’s a sweet little person. Macon walks in and does a small kick in the air with the milk jug in his hand. Then he goes to the kitchen to pour Pablo a glass. Pablo eats everything and starts to rub his eyes at the table. I get the dishes in the sink while Macon carries Pablo to the couch and pulls the blankets up under his chin.
