by Lia Hills
Taryn: “Jeff Buckley was into Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.”
“Is that what got you into, what’s it called?”
“Qawwali? No.” Samara hands me the CD cover. It’s got writing I don’t recognize and it looks pirated. “Actually, I first heard it when I was in Pakistan, hanging out with these drug lords. Don’t ask.”
As if I was going to. Samara stretches on her back, her hair fanning around her, probably dreaming of tall, dark guys doing coke. I recognize the incense, forget its name. Taryn lays her head against mine. The music stretches around us, sounding of deserts, of birds soaring above sand—the lonely search for something real on a Saturday afternoon.
* * *
Memory.
A Saturday in June. Dad and Adam have gone to a football match but I didn’t want to go because Adam’s team is in first place. I hear music filtering from the living room—Mom’s sprawled on the couch, her arms stretched above her head. “Oh, hold me like a baby.” I watch her without moving, mesmerized. “I thought you were reading in your bedroom. It’s Suzanne Vega,” she offers over the music as she straightens her shirt.
Apart from Pop’s funeral, that’s the only time I heard my mother sing.
LIFE’S LONGING
SUNDAY MORNING, Adam wakes me, a red bruise trailing the bone of his left cheek. “So, what happened, Will?”
“I don’t know, I just lost it. You okay?”
“What’s going on? Is it exams, or is this about Mom?”
“You really want to know?”
“Asked, didn’t I?”
So, I tell him, everything, from the wake with the sinister great aunts, right up to the party at Ritchie’s, and he listens, doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t even nod.
“That’s quite a story,” says Adam, once I’ve finished. I wait for him to comment, to offer some kind of judgment on the saga of my grief. He shifts at the end of my bed. “I’ve been thinking.”
“Yeah?”
“About why I stayed?”
“Okay.” I can tell he wants me to haul it out of him but I reckon it’s time he did that himself.
“It’s got something to do with what Mom said the last time I saw her.”
“Uh-huh.”
Adam taps his fist gently into his hand. His bruise is almost flattering on his cheek. “She said that, with me gone all the time, it felt like we were no longer a family. That something was coming undone.”
“She always was good at explaining that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, she was.”
He sits unmoving on the end of the bed, and I know the longer the silence, the less likely he is to speak. “Adam…”
“Listen, you going to the christening today?”
“What christening?”
“Our new cousin. Rachel’s baby son. Didn’t Dad tell you?”
“Nah. Nobody tells me anything.”
“I’ve got a couple of spare shirts. You could borrow one if you want.” Adam looks at The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying on the stack by my bed. “So, do you reckon you’re getting close?”
“To what?”
“To finding an answer.”
“Not sure there is one,” I say picking up the book. The gold lettering of the title is hard to decipher in the light sifting through the curtains.
“Do you think I could borrow it?”
“Go for it.”
He flicks through the first few pages. “Impermanence, huh?”
I shake my head as he shoves the book under his arm and leaves, absently stroking the bruise on his cheek.
* * *
Aunty Rachel is hyper when we get there, scuttling around making sure everyone knows everyone else. Turns out it’s not technically a christening—it’s called a naming day instead. The baby’s almost three months old. My cousin was born exactly one month before my mother died. His life will always be a calculation of that.
“Your mom and I were raised Catholics, but we both gave that up a long time ago,” whispers Aunty Rachel to Adam and me. When she says mom her face goes rigid and the baby starts to cry. It’s kind of ugly as far as babies go, basically a collection of pink rolls of fat. And it’s very loud.
“Was I like that?” I ask Adam.
“Not unless I pinched you.”
“Bastard.”
“As far as I remember you were a pretty quiet baby and you weren’t that ugly.”
“Sssshhh.”
Aunty Rachel herds everyone into the back garden to a wooden arch shrouded in roses. I remember Mom always loved it, wanted Dad to build one at our place, but he never did. “Welcome, everybody, to Sam’s naming day,” she begins.
She looks proudly at Uncle Derek who’s trying to smile above Sam’s squawks. He gets to hold the baby. Uncle Carl and his wife, Catriona, are there with their three little kids; all my cousins are younger than me. There are heaps of people I don’t know, which reminds me of the wake. Thankfully, no great-aunts. And there’s Dad, gawking at that archway, not listening at all.
Aunty Rachel squints at Sam’s din. “The following is a passage from Kahlil Gibran.”
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
Dad turns to Adam and me, a triangle of glances that we hold as my aunt reads poetry and my cousin wails.
* * *
After the ceremony, everybody goes inside to have something to eat.
“You coming?” asks Adam. He looks good in his suit.
“No. I think I’ll stick around outside for a bit. Don’t think I can handle Aunty Rachel.”
“Sure, I’ll bring you back something to eat if you like.”
“Thanks.”
A couple of my little cousins are kicking a soccer ball around the backyard and it’s getting a bit rough. One of them, Essie, comes over to me—I think she’s about four. “What’s your name?” she asks, rocking on her shoes.
“Will. I’m your cousin, remember?”
“Maybe. What are you playing?”
“I was thinking.”
“Why?”
I smile. “Adults like to think about things.”
“Are you an adult?”
“Sort of.”
“What are you thinking?”
I look over at the rose arch. “I was wondering what it would be like if my mom was here.”
“Where is she?”
What do you say to a kid? Essie’s staring at me, waiting for an answer. “She’s dead.”
“Is she in heaven?”
“I don’t know. What do you think?”
“Maybe she’s in that rose. The white one.” She points to the archway.
“Oh, yeah. Why’s that?”
“My mommy is beautiful like a rose.” She grabs my hand and leads me over to the roses. “Can you pick one? The pointy bits hurt my fingers.”
“You mean the thorns.”
She nods and points to one that’s still opening. “That one, please.”
I bend it at a joint but it doesn’t come easily. I go carefully so as not to bruise the petals and finally it breaks off. Its center has a tinge of pink.
“Here you go.”
“She’s in there,” says Essie, lifting the rose to me.
“Who?”
“Your mommy. Look.”
So I look, the scent of the rose rising to my face like sweet wet grass. There’s a beetle crawling among the petals; it keeps slipping. “There’s a bug in there,” I say.
Essie nods and waits, and I allow myself to slip into her logic, a mother, a flower. If she stood under this rosebush long enough maybe they share something on a molecular level, some of her memory is held in its water. But I know that’s not what Essie means.
“So, you think my mom is in this rose.”
“Yes.”
“So do I,” I say.
Essie strokes the rose, careful not to crush it. “You can keep it, I have a mommy.” She lets it drop into my hand, an
d runs off to join her two brothers who are wrestling over the soccer ball on the grass.
Adam comes over carrying a napkin and a plate piled with food. “Getting a bit claustrophobic in there. Rachel was talking about Mom and started to cry so I left her with Dad. Probably do them both good.”
I take a bite of a chocolate éclair.
Adam frowns. “Oi, you’re meant to eat your veggies first.”
“I’ve been having an interesting conversation with Essie. She reckons Mom’s in that rose.”
“Kids, huh?”
Adam picks up the rose, holds it to his face, a petal brushing his bruise. He breathes in deeply, turns to me. “Come on, eat up. We should be getting home.”
* * *
Essie’s last comment to me as she left with her brothers: “We don’t know when we will die, but our bodies do.”
DERVISH
THEY SAY IF YOU HEAR about the same thing three times in a row, you should take note. Mystics. That’s the word I seem to be hearing right now. I found this site about whirling meditation, guys spinning around and around. Faster and faster they go, arms wide, long hats pointing to the sky, sometimes for an hour, till, through loss of ego, they reach the perfect. No sitting in mountain caves, they just twirl, mystical white spinning tops, and when they return from wherever it is they go, they press their belly buttons to the earth, and are ready to love, to serve. Dervishes, they’re called, a kind of Sufi. What some people won’t do to get closer to the truth. And me, what do I do? Read a few books from the library, surf on the Net. Where’s the passion in that? I feel itchy, on the inside. I need action. To whirl myself into a frenzy. To feel what it means to be alive.
* * *
In my notebook, I copy a quote from Rumi, founder of the Whirling Dervishes:
If your knowledge of fire has been turned to certainty by words alone, then seek to be cooked by the fire itself. Don’t abide in borrowed certainty. There is no real certainty until you burn; if you wish for this, sit down in the fire.
* * *
Take the day off from school with me tomorrow. There’s something I want to do.
♥ Will
* * *
Such as? I don’t want to sound like your dad, but do you think it’s a good idea with your exams coming soon? Besides, I’ve never skipped class.
T ♥
* * *
Good time to start. Anyone home at your place tomorrow?
* * *
Yeah, Dad. He’s working on an article all day, he said. I don’t know. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Come around after school.
T ♥
* * *
Will? You still there?
* * *
The girl at the checkout looks younger than me and for an instant I get this premonition of what life might be like if I fail my exams, if I don’t do what everybody says I should. To hell with it, I could be dead tomorrow. I need to treat life like those Buddhist monks I read about who turned their teacups over every night before they went to bed and let their fires go out because they knew there was no guarantee they’d ever wake up.
“That’ll be $9.80,” says the girl, shoving the spray can into a bag.
I give her a ten-dollar note. “Keep the change.”
“I can’t. Here, take it and stick it in the charity box over there.” She points to a plastic dog with a slot in its head. “Better than giving it to these guys. Bloody corporate robbers.”
It’s then that I notice the girl’s name is Cherry and her fingernails are painted black.
“What are you going to do with that?” She grins, nodding at my plastic bag.
“Nothing.”
“Yeah, right.” She leans over the counter and whispers, “I’m getting off in half an hour. Will you wait for me?”
First thought, Taryn, followed by, maybe it’s time for a little fire. “Sure, why not? I’ll meet you at the café downstairs, the one next to the sushi bar. By the way, my name’s Will.”
“Where there’s a will.” She laughs, too loud for the lady behind me. “Won’t be long. Only a few more people to rob.”
* * *
The coffee’s bitter and I’m thinking this was a dumb idea. Somebody I know might see me. Tell Taryn. Tell Dad. And what’s with the anarchist checkout chick?
“So, Will, what’s your tag?” Cherry arrives wearing a bright red top in keeping with the theme.
“Don’t have one.”
“Well, have you at least picked a spot?”
“There’s this place I’ve seen from the train, under a bridge. It’s about three stations down.”
“Cool. So, only the one color then.”
I drink the last bad mouthful of coffee. “I’ll only be writing words.”
“Sounds like you’ve got a plan. Come on, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
It’s cooler under the bridge and our mission feels nobler away from people’s eyes. I know everything about Cherry—how many half siblings she has, that her father’s gay, the name of the first guy she ever slept with, and how useless he was. How the second one was fucking great! She looks like she’ll jump me if she gets the chance even though she’s only half my size—her fierceness makes me feel like a dumb kid and an old man all at once.
“I can’t believe you’ve never done ecstasy. Until you’ve dropped an E you haven’t lived.” In Cherry’s world, there is a long list of things you must do in order to have lived. I’m about to do one of them. “So, what are you going to write?”
“All of us are creatures of a day.”
“Why?”
“Because I think it’s true.”
“Fair enough. Did you make it up?”
“No, Marcus Aurelius did.”
“Who’s Marcus Aurelius?”
“I can’t believe you haven’t read Marcus Aurelius. Until you’ve read his Meditations, you haven’t lived.”
“Loser.” She shoves me hard, then steadies me, hands on my arms. “Train coming. Move back.”
“Move back? Shouldn’t we get out from under the bridge?”
“No fun,” she says pressing her back into the wall. I do the same, the mortar jagged against my hands. The roar of the train entering the tunnel, getting louder, the warning rush of wind, and suddenly it’s there, the sound of metal on metal, a violent pitch. The flash of silver. I stop breathing. Cherry screams. So loud, so loud, then gone, the tail end of it speeding down the track.
“You okay?”
“Sure,” says Cherry, her hair blown off her face. “I always scream with stuff like that. Gets your heart going. Come on, we’d better hurry, in case the driver saw us and phones it in.”
I pull the spray can out of my bag and test it on the wall. The paint spits. Cherry laughs. “You have to shake it first, you idiot.”
“I know that.”
Overhead, cars judder across the bridge. There’s a long patch of black where somebody’s painted over some graffiti, so I start spraying on that.
“White on black. Very good. Easy to see.” Cherry straddles a track to watch me as I work. Her boots crunch on the gravel and smoke from her cigarette curls around her shoulder—now that the train’s gone there’s no wind. I spray into grooves and over bumps. I have to keep standing back to make sure the whole thing is straight. The sentence seems longer now that every letter requires effort. Both of us, me and Marcus Aurelius, are earning our place on the wall.
“Your first masterpiece,” says Cherry when I finish. “Better get out of here now, just in case.”
She grinds the butt into the polished track with her boot while I wipe the paint that has dripped down my fingers onto the wall. Hope they can’t take prints from this. I shove the can back into its plastic bag—I’ll dump it at the station, or maybe I’ll keep it and write something somewhere else. Cover the whole city in philosophical graffiti. I need to get myself a tag.
* * *
On the way back on the train, we pass under the bridge. Two cops are
standing next to our words. Cherry waves at them as we go past. “At least they’ve learned something today,” she laughs, kissing me on the cheek. “Can we do this again?”
“I’ve got a girlfriend.”
“I didn’t ask you to have sex with me,” she says, grinning. She pulls out a pen and writes on my hand. “That’s my number. Call me. Whatever. I’m getting off here.”
“Thanks,” I say.
“Thanks, yourself.” Her bright red top is a beacon moving along the platform. I pull out my notebook.
15. Will others get burned if I sit down in the fire?
Memory.
Mom’s gone. Dad said she went to visit an old friend, but she didn’t tell me—Mom always tells me if she’s going away. It’s not so bad because we get to eat takeout all week and stay up late. I’ve just turned six. Dad forgets to tell us to go to bed. He forgets to take out the garbage and the bin starts to stink.
When she comes back she’s wearing a new red dress. For a few days she keeps trying to hug me whenever I walk into the room. She leaves her packed bag sitting by her bed for ages, until one day it’s gone. I find the red dress in her wardrobe, scrunched up and shoved to the back.
* * *
Wednesday night. Supermarket parking lot wall.
To live each day as though one’s last.
—MARCUS AURELIUS
Thursday, 3 a.m. Side of the school gym. With Cherry.
A man who has learned how to die has unlearned how to be a slave.
—MONTAIGNE
Friday after school. Other side of the railway bridge. Cherry couldn’t make it, she had to work, but that’s okay, this one I want to do on my own.
I get the can out of my bag and give it a good shake. The Marcus Aurelius quote I did last time is still there, nobody’s painted over it yet—I’ll have to do the letters smaller because there’s less room on this side. Too many tags.
I pull my notebook out of my bag and open it to the new quote, write You must have, and get halfway through chaos, when I hear it—the screech, the oscillating rattle, the fading of all other sound. Spray can secure against the wall, I go to climb out of the tunnel but my foot freezes on a rock at the bottom of the bank. I go back inside, to the middle of the tunnel, to its stretched light, press my shoulder blades against the wall.
