by Nick Lake
— She told me that if anything happened to her, I should look after my dad. My voice was catching – this was the part I hadn’t told my dad about, hadn’t told anyone about. I told her nothing was going to happen to her, I said. She told me again, if anything happened to her, I should look after my dad.
Farouz nodded slowly.
— She was sick? he said.
— Yes, I said. She was sick. In here. I touched the side of my head, in what I figured was a universal gesture.
— I see, said Farouz.
I held the railing, my hands pale next to his dark ones on the smooth metal.
— My mom went to work after speaking to me, I said. She went to the roof. She stood on the roof. And . . . and . . .
Farouz touched my hand, and it was warm, his fingers were warm.
— I see, he said. I see. It’s OK. I see. You don’t have to say.
I nodded. I took my hand away. The sea was so black beneath us it looked like a hole in existence.
I was seeing someone falling through that blackness, from the stars, down to the earth.
*
When my mother rang me on my phone at school, I was playing Bach’s Chaconne in my head, imagining the movement of my fingers. It was the virtuoso piece I was going to play if I got to the finals of the Menuhin Competition, which is this really big deal contest I’d been selected for – one of twenty-two chosen in the world. As soon as I answered and heard her tone, the music stopped. It never started again, not really.
The whole time my mother was speaking, I was looking at the coffee machine in the common room. It was a Gaggia, because that’s the kind of school I went to. It had a scratch on its right-hand side and a two-nozzle espresso system. It was silver. Behind it was a window with a hand-shaped smear on it and, on the other side of the glass, a chestnut tree, with a girl juggling brightly coloured balls underneath it. There was one cup of coffee, half full and cold, on the formica table. Just to my right, there was a single chip in the formica.
There was a pigeon strutting on the windowsill. It was 11.16 a.m., according to the clock on the microwave next to the Gaggia coffee machine – and the microwave was a Samsung, with a tomato stain on the inside of the glass, most of the buttons worn away, apart from the one that said 360 watts.
I still can’t not see those things; I can’t forget them. And ever since, I can’t look at a Gaggia coffee machine in a café, or a Samsung anything, without seeing what happened next. It’s, like, you know when you see your own phone, or your own coat? It’s just a phone. It’s just a coat. It’s an object; it doesn’t mean anything. But because it’s yours, there’s a kind of glow that it has. It has meaning, a link, a light from within, which comes just from the connection that you have with it.
For me, it’s the same with those brands. It’s just a Gaggia coffee machine, just a Samsung microwave to other people, but for me it’s lit, it’s glowing – every one, every time, whether it’s in a coffee shop in London or in an advert. Those things have meaning now. They have this sort of sick lustre of significance, and will never lose it, the same as if you sold your car but saw it again on the street; there would still be a light on in it, making it different to all other cars. But this is not a happy glow.
And even Farouz could see it, even Farouz. When I was telling the story, he knew what was going to happen when my mother said that about looking after my dad, and doesn’t that show what a moron I am, what a waste of space?
I am a disgrace, because even Farouz, who was a pirate from Somalia, who had never even met my mother, knew what happened next.
My mom went to work after speaking to me, after repeatedly telling me to look after my dad, after essentially telling me what she was going to do. After I didn’t listen, after I didn’t understand, she went to work in the trendy buildings where her science magazine was based and, instead of going to her office, she took the lift to the top floor and walked across the roof – it has shingles, I have been there, I have inspected it – and she threw herself off . . .
flew, for just a moment . . .
and was she scared, was she frightened, did she wish she hadn’t done it? I don’t know . . .
then hit the ground, and was taken to hospital by ambulance, where they gave her 5.7 litres of blood, and tried to set her broken ribs and collarbone and leg and hip, tried to restart her heart three times using a combination of palpitations and shocks at increasing voltages – I saw the medical report, it was on my dad’s desk, and now I can’t ever, not ever, forget it – until, eventually, they had to give up, after the defibrillators kicked for the final time and, at precisely 14:01 and 45 seconds on the 22nd of July 2006, according to Dr Hafaz, who signed the certificate with a semi-legible scrawl, she died.
Farouz didn’t speak for ages. I thought I could see him frowning in the dark.
— Oh no, I said. Your religion. You probably think people who commit suicide go to hell, or something. I’m sorry.
I don’t really know why I was apologising, though – out of politeness, I guess.
He sucked in air through his teeth. Then he reached out and touched my hand.
— I think that a person who commits suicide is leaving hell, not entering it, he said.
At that moment, the moon came out from behind some clouds, and I turned and met his eyes. I looked down, broke the gaze.
— I have a brother, he said, taking back his hand.
I looked at him. What he had just said, it was like . . . It was like it didn’t follow on from what I had said, but at the same time it did. Straight away I thought, his brother is dead. And then I found myself thinking, I hope he isn’t. But I was pretty sure I was right.
— Older? I guessed. I could tell from the slightly awed tone in his voice, which I was sure he wasn’t aware of.
— Yes. He is in prison.
— What for? I asked. Oh, I thought. So not dead then.
— For this. For being a coast guard.
— A coast guard? I asked.
— That is what we are. You call us pirates. We call ourselves coast guards. We, here, we are the South Central Coast Guard.
I snorted.
— You think it’s funny? he asked. The people here, they used to be fishermen. Do you know what happened to them?
— No.
— Fishing vessels from your country, from other countries in the West, they came and fished in our waters after the government collapsed, in 1991. There was no one to stop them. So our fishermen took guns and went to attack them, to stop them stealing our fish. There were a lot of guns because of the war. Then the fishing boats began to have navy escorts, and we could not do anything against them. So we stole ships instead. That is how we began.
My mind was reeling. It hadn’t even occurred to me that these men had a story of their own, that they were anything but thieves, pure and simple.
— OK, I said. So you and your brother are coast guards.
— Well, no. I am, but he isn’t, actually. He did one of those hollow laughs.
— Then why –
— Why is he in prison? In Somalia, we have a saying. If you cannot catch a thief, you catch his brother.
— Right . . .
— Well, he is my brother. He was riding in the wrong car, in Galkayo, where we live. An expensive car, belonging to a friend of ours, who is like me, but older, more successful. In Galkayo, if you have a sweet ride, or you have bought yourself a big crib, then the police, they –
— I’m sorry. A crib?
— That’s not the right word? You know, a house.
— I know the word. It’s just, it’s something American gangsters say.
He shrugged.
— Sometimes I watch MTV, he said. I pick things up.
I felt embarrassed, then, like I shouldn’t have said anything.
— So they pulled your brother over, I said, to try to get back to the subject.
— Yes. And they decided he was a pirate because he was in a nice car with
a pirate. So they threw him in jail and they told me I must pay fifty thousand dollars to get him out. Of course, the pirate who was in the car with him could pay this money himself, so he is already free, but my brother is still in there.
— Wait. Where did they think you were going to get fifty thousand dollars?
— From this. From hostages.
I was pretty confused by this point.
— So the police know you’re a pirate?
— Yes. Of course.
— Then why not arrest you?
He sighed.
— I told you. Do you not understand anything? You don’t catch the thief, you catch his brother. I am useful to this crew, to the South Central Coast Guard. I speak good English. My brother does not. So it is me they need. It is me who must work, who must pay.
There was a tightening in his voice, as if someone were wrapping a wire around each word, strangling it.
— I’m sorry, I said, though I still didn’t really understand anything properly.
He lit a cigarette, smiled in the light of it.
— I will earn a lot more than fifty thousand dollars from this one, he said. I hope so, anyway. I will free my brother. And then he and I will leave this country. Go to Egypt, maybe.
We talked for a while longer, but it was late, and I guessed my dad would be worrying about me, so I got up to go back inside. Farouz stood up, too.
— I have to stay out here, he said. To guard.
— I know, I said. I . . . Thank you for my watch. Thank you for showing me the stars.
Oh god, what a lame thing to say. How cheesy. And so ridiculous, like something out of a Disney movie, when here I was with a Somali pirate, someone from a completely different world, who might as well have been an alien.
But he didn’t seem to think it was odd.
— You’re welcome, he said. He shook my hand and electricity poured into me, practically crackled blue and sparked in the air.
Then he lit another cigarette and turned away.
— I’m on guard duty, he said.
And he left, and the electricity left with him, like someone had pulled the plug on the world.
I wasn’t angry with my mom, not exactly. I’m not angry even now. What I’m saying is, I understood what she did. She was miserable, and she ended it. I suppose I respected her choice.
There was only one note, and it was for me. It was under my pillow that night, after the hospital. After the waiting room. After the little bag they gave us, that had her wedding ring in it – the one I wear on my ring finger, and who cares that I look engaged – but not her handbag and purse, with the baby photo of me in it, because those were covered in blood (contaminated, the hospital secretary said) and they had to be burned (incinerated).
I never told my dad about the note. I never told him about the phone call, either. Can you blame me? It would basically be like telling him that I killed her, that I was so colossally stupid that I didn’t get it when she said what she was going to do.
The note under my pillow said:
We are stardust.
My hand clenched, scrunching up the note. My breathing was loud in my chest. Everything seemed very bright.
In my head, I was on the beach in North Fork with Mom. I was little – I don’t know, nine, maybe. She was pointing up at the stars. The North Fork is a bit like the Hamptons, but less pretentious, or so Dad says. He bought the house soon after he got his first big promotion. It’s near a little town called Greenport, where there’s a marina, lots of antique shops and a few bars and restaurants – Emilio’s, where we used to go for pizza; the Sound View, where we would sit and watch the ocean, eating crab and lobster.
Mainly, you go to the North Fork for the views. At our end of it, the far end, it’s a narrow strip of land. Farmland, mostly: corn and pumpkins, which people sell in season from carts by the road; wine; grapes. And on either side is the sea, framed by impossibly long beaches, sparkling in the sun, or glowering grey in the rain or gloom. The land is flat and there are dunes, seabirds, tufts of grass. It’s beautiful.
Especially at night – there are so few lights compared to New York, compared to anywhere, really, and it makes the stars pop out of the blackness.
— We’re made out of those, said Mom to nine-year-old me, pointing to the stars. Did you know that?
— Huh?
— Stardust. We’re made of it.
— No, we’re not, I said, because I had been learning things at school. We’re made out of DMA.
— DNA, Mom corrected. And that’s right, yes. But I’m talking about smaller than that. You’ve got to go back to the big bang. What happened then? There was a big explosion that threw carbon atoms, bits of matter, all over the place. Some of them made stars. Some of them made moons. And some of them made us.
— We’re made out of the same thing as stars?
— Yes, honey. On the particle level.
— Wow, the nine-year-old me said.
— And when our star dies, she said – the sun, I mean – when it goes supernova, we’ll all be broken down to carbon again, and we’ll go floating around the universe. Then everyone who ever lived will be together, just drifting, in little pieces. And eventually, they might form a new star. You and I, even if our bodies die, we might end up in the same star together, one day.
I wasn’t really paying attention to that then.
— The sun’s going to die? I said. When?
I was scared now. Looking back, it was pretty messed up, what my mom was saying to me; it wasn’t the kind of thing parents are meant to tell their young children. And it should have set off all kinds of alarm bells. But I was a kid; if I heard bells, I didn’t know they were alarm bells. I was like a Blitz baby who thinks that an air-raid siren is a nightly lullaby.
— No, baby, sorry, she said. I didn’t mean to scare you. The sun won’t die for a long time, like a billion years from now.
— Oh, OK.
— But the point is, when we die, it won’t be the end. The atoms live for ever. You and I, we could be made of bits of dinosaur.
— Dinosaur?
— Yeah. You and me, we could have the same T-rex in us.
I put my hands up, bared my teeth, roared. Mom fake-squealed. I chased her down the beach, giggling, giving out my roar.
*
Back in my room, six years later, after I found the note, I sat down on the bed, my head swimming.
I knew what she was trying to say. That the two of us would end up in a star together, one day.
How dare she? I thought.
That night, and my dad never asked why, I took down all the little glow-in-the-dark stars from my room and I took them into the back garden and I fucking doused them in lighter fluid and I fucking burned them.
— Tell me about your family.
— I don’t have a family. Only Abdirashid. My brother.
— OK, tell me about your brother.
— I have already told you. He is in prison.
— I know that! I mean, tell me about before. About growing up.
Farouz pursed his lips. We were sitting on a sunlounger. Me with my iPod and earphones on my lap, so I could say I’d been listening to music, if anyone asked.
— I went to school because of an imam, he said.
— An imam?
— Like a priest. Of Islam.
— Oh, OK.
— This imam, he was the head teacher of a charity school, in Galkayo. That is where my brother and I ended up, after my parents were killed.
— Your parents were –
— That is a different story, he said, cutting me off. Galkayo is in Puntland. We are not from Puntland, my brother and I. We are from Mogadishu. So it was difficult for us at first. The dialect is different. The people did not like refugees. The first year, we lived on the street. We begged for food. We walked to get water from wells. Sometimes, we caught rats.
— Jesus, I said.
He shrugged.
— A r
at is better than dying. My brother, too, used to go off places. I don’t know what he did. Maybe I do know what he did, actually. But, anyway, he went away, and when he came back he would have small amounts of money, and we would eat well for a day or two. That was good. Always, when my brother left me, it was the same place I had to wait for him, a little shop that sold fruit and snacks. Now, that same shop sends supplies to pirates here in Eyl. I know the owner – he is quite a rich man.
Farouz paused, seeming to examine the sea. I could hear it tap, tap, tapping against the yacht.
— Every day I waited at that shop for my brother, he said. Until one day, I stood up and walked away. I don’t remember thinking, I can’t bear this any more. Nothing like that. It was just something I did. I walked around Galkayo for many hours. In those days there were no big houses, because the piracy had not really started, or it had not started being so profitable. And no big cars on the road. Just shacks, mainly, and mosques, and some small houses.
After a while, I came to a low building and heard the voices of children from inside, chanting. I looked in the window. They were sitting there, with textbooks in front of them. It was a school! I had not realised until that moment that I missed school. I know Abdirashid didn’t. He was always in trouble when we went to school in Mogadishu. His grades were terrible. My parents were always saying to him, why can’t you be more like Farouz? And I thought that was funny because I wanted to be more like Abdirashid.
— So the school, I said, they let you in?
— Not just like that! he laughed. The first day, I merely peered in the window. And when I came back to the little shop, Abdirashid beat me and told me never to run away again. But of course I did, the very next day. I went back to the little school every day, and I stood by the window, listening to what was being said inside.
— And then the imam saw you and asked you to come in?
— No!
Farouz lit a cigarette, drew in a deep breath of smoke, and it was like the stars were burning up into vapour, then entering his lungs; like he was sucking the stars from the sky.
