by Jemma Wayne
Until suddenly, through the tents and pain and starvation, Auntie appeared. And all at once, there was an alternative. Not to be happy, that was a feeling long abandoned, but perhaps in another country, it might be possible to forget. She did not hesitate in agreeing to leave Rwanda.
Emily fingered the corner of the piece of paper and recalled Lynn’s jubilant face on handing it to her. She folded it, then unfolded it, and folded it again.
On the steps to the GENSUR office leant a middle-aged woman, unmistakably Rwandan. She’d spotted Emily on the other side of the road where she’d been standing frozen and staring at the building for the past half an hour. But the denim-clad woman did not wave or usher her over, instead she lit a cigarette and waited for Emily to take her own time. Another 10 full minutes later, Emily finally crossed the busy divide.
The woman welcomed her as though they’d made a pre-arranged appointment and led Emily inside. “You’ll be wanting to see Alice,” she informed her. They walked in step through the corridor and Emily allowed herself to be guided into a small office where another, younger woman was sitting behind a desk. On the walls, Emily noticed photographs of other Rwandans, some wearing traditional dress and standing within Rwandan villages, others clothed in suits and ties in front of London buildings, proudly shaking somebody’s hand or holding a document in front of them. The woman who had led her inside waited while Emily examined the images, then smiled broadly.
“This is Alice,” she informed her, signalling to the desk-seated woman. “I’m Gloria. We are both here full-time. Alice moved to London just three years ago. I’ve been here since Before. My family though, they were in Rwanda.” Gloria extended her hand and not knowing why, Emily took it. “You can come here as often as you like.”
Gloria left and Emily hovered unanchored in front of the desk until Alice signalled for her to sit down. She did so slowly.
“Can I take some details?” Alice asked gently, sensing Emily’s unease. Her voice was soft and melodic, and she posed the question as a genuine inquiry, possessed with understanding of how great a request this was.
Emily nodded.
“Your name?”
“Emily. Emilienne.”
At this correction, Alice switched to Kinyarwanda.
“What is your address?” Even in another language Alice’s voice held its soothing tone, but the transition shook Emily. She lifted her hand to her fringe and patted it carefully down.
“Hendon,” was the most she was able to volunteer.
“What street?”
With trepidation Emily provided the name of it, then her building, her flat number, the name of the village where she had lived in Rwanda, and the names of her parents and each of her brothers, and the number of years she had lived in London, and confirmation that she was Tutsi. The words fell from her like teardrops, the first few slowly and one at a time, the rest in a fast flood. Names and numbers. Her head felt light and a little dizzy. A lot dizzy.
Alice looked up from the notes she was diligently taking. “Gahiji, I know a Gahiji,” she mused quietly. “He was with the rebel army during the genocide.”
“Oh,” said Emily. Her head was throbbing and she was finding it hard to concentrate. More and more often these headaches were coming. She rubbed her fingers across her temple.
“Are you alright?” asked Alice.
“It’s just a headache. They make me woozy.”
Alice made a note on her pad.
“Do you experience this a lot Emilienne? These headaches? This dizziness?”
Emily narrowed her eyes but didn’t answer. She didn’t like such intrusive questions, and Alice’s understanding of this seemed to have disappeared.
“Emilienne,” Alice pressed on. “Were you raped in Rwanda?”
Emily stood up. “What?” Her chair shot a few feet backwards. “How dare you? How dare you ask me that?” she attempted to shout, though her head was pounding so intensely now that she could barely manage a whisper. “How dare you?” She backed away from the desk and felt the door against her back. She found the handle.
“Emilienne, I didn’t mean to upset you,” soothed Alice. “It’s only, you see sometimes headaches like these are an indication of… But we don’t have to talk about it now. Please, sit back down.”
But Emily could not sit back down. Her head hurt. She smelled her mother’s cooking, and her head hurt. She heard the words of the rosary, and her head hurt. She felt her face hitting hard, evening soil. Lynn had been wrong. Laying it out did not rid her of the memories, or neutralise them. Her head hurt. And her heart hurt. And everything span. She felt nauseous. Forgive, Lynn had said, but how could she?
“How dare you?” she asked again, louder.
“Emilienne,” Alice urged.
But now Emily had turned, and was running again.
Outside her block of flats, a gang of young boys kicked a football to each other and showed off their various tricks. One of them, a lanky lad who stood head and shoulders over the rest, could throw the ball into the air and catch it on the back of his neck. Another could bounce it between his knees and feet seemingly indefinitely. A girl about their age with blonde hair scraped into a ponytail was standing just to the side, and it was for her that they jibed each other and let out ever louder and bawdy shouts. Not far behind them, Omar leant against a wall. He was conducting a deep conversation with someone at the other end of his mobile phone.
Emily swallowed hard. Lately, she and her neighbour had meandered well past hello into musings about the cold weather, crazed Christmas shoppers, and about her job and his family who seemed to call him on his mobile incessantly, breaking their increasingly comfortable flow. They never talked about his job or her family, but there was an obvious absence of both and so she supposed, no need. When, on occasion, there was the kind of pause in which one of these subjects was required, Emily scurried away on the tail of some excuse. But every time, she hoped this wouldn’t happen, that their conversations might stretch a little longer, a little deeper than they did.
Sometimes, as she listened to him proudly describe how his brother would soon be returning from university – his brother who was studying law he always added – and how he himself was thinking about going away, Emily imagined Omar’s arms around her. She had never thought this way about a man. Deliberately, she wondered if she could kiss him, and forced herself to envisage it, but always this was a step too far. The thought of skin on skin triggered, still, a physical reaction and shot pain and sickness throughout her body. But when their fingers brushed on the handles of doors, she felt a shiver of unfamiliar excitement rush through her. When he called her sister, her heart pounded a little bit faster. And for some reason, she hadn’t thrown away the piece of paper with a list of books he had suggested she read. Although she had no intention of reading anything about the concept of god, even a foreign one called Allah, whose followers, it was said, were the only ones in Rwanda not to join in with the madness when it overtook other holy men.
Emily crossed the street and walked with her head down towards the stairwell. Omar called out to her, but she didn’t turn. The past bubbled beneath her skin. Tears and rage and desolation pumped dangerously in her veins and she knew that faced with his kindness, she would not be able to stifle the hot flood of images. She reached for the stairwell door, but too quickly, he was in front of it.
“You’re crying,” Omar remarked immediately. Emily wiped her face roughly with her sleeve. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she rushed, mortified.
“What’s wrong?”
Emily shook her head but words refused to come. Her veins throbbed. Frustration gripped her. She’d been feeling so much better lately, so much more of this world, but now all at once she was stuck again, cut up and made un-whole.
“What’s wrong sister?” Omar repeated with urgency.
“Nothing.” She paused. “Nothing. Leave me alone.” She said it firmly, but could not move from in front of him, and O
mar hesitated for only a second. Then he opened his arms and brought her close.
The unexpected warmth of his body enveloped her and she sank into his chest. Her legs were heavy and useless, but Omar effortlessly held her up. It had been so many years since she’d been hugged, since she’d been touched, it was so soothing, so tempting to let herself be comforted by him. But then her mind clouded with visions of other male arms and bodies, and evening soil, and suddenly she had to get away. She couldn’t breathe. With force, she wriggled free.
“What’s wrong?” Omar asked again.
“I can’t - ” Emily whispered.
“Can’t what? Sister, you don’t have to be afraid of me.” Omar lifted his hand to stroke her face. “You can trust me.”
“I can’t trust anyone.”
Bewildered, Omar stared at her and said nothing, then abruptly, the spinning in her head grew faster, her legs buckled, and he caught her again.
Drinking sugary tea, they sat in his small flat, which she discovered was an exact replica of her own, save for the fact that his was piled high with boxes it seemed he had still not unpacked. Emily shook. Omar placed a blanket over her but the frostiness was not in her bones. Her heart felt frozen. Iced over she supposed, to keep hotter things out.
Taking another sip of her tea, Emily inspected this new, curious state. She was not on the verge of tears, she did not feel sad, or fearful, or angry. Instead, quite abruptly, she felt no emotion at all. She liked this. It was a useful transition. An English barrier of ice. Omar put his arm around her, but it felt dead and too hot.
“Don’t touch me,” Emily said.
“I’m only trying to help.”
Omar pulled back. Letting his arm fall his eyes betrayed a concern that days earlier would have quickened Emily’s step and consumed her. But suddenly everything about Omar’s presence frustrated her. It lit a flame and drew her back towards feeling.
“Don’t touch me,” she repeated. “I don’t need help.”
Omar shifted so that their sides no longer touched. They didn’t look at each other.
“Your brother will be arriving soon?” Emily asked in a conciliatory tone, though even she could hear the coldness in it.
“No, not anymore. He’s going to New York,” Omar replied, unable to hide the disappointment from his face, nor the pride that followed it. “On a scholarship.”
“Oh?” said Emily, but by now Omar had refocused.
“Allah can help you,” he offered carefully.
Emily spun towards him.
“Allah?” She was calm, but her eyes were severe. “Who the fuck is Allah to me?”
Now it was Omar who pulled back. “You’re not a sister?”
“God is a fairytale for children,” she answered coolly. “You are naïve Omar. There is no god. There is only humanity, and the devil, which is the same thing. We destroy ourselves in the name of some greater order.”
“You’re not a sister?” Omar repeated, stunned.
“I am nobody’s sister. Not anymore.” Her voice was flat and listless. “I am nothing.” She stood up. The blanket fell from her. “And I want nothing, except to be left alone.”
His door slammed twice: once when she left the flat and then again moments later. She heard it from her bed where she had fallen on entering her own dark cave. She heard his footsteps on the stairs, moving away. She heard him and the hope of him disappearing from her grasp. But it didn’t stir her. Nothing did.
For two days, Emily slept.
III
Chapter
Thirty
Vera’s father picks her up from the station in his new Honda saloon. She misses, suddenly, the old, rickety jeep, and the sheepdog who was once the main occupier of its back seat. As her father approaches across the station yard, she misses too the sight of his moustache, which she notices has disappeared from its perch above his lip. She misses feeling entitled to tell him how naked his face looks now, how silly. But he greets her as he always has, as though it hasn’t been months since they’ve last spoken, years since she’s spoken truth. And when she bursts into tears, he wraps her in his arms.
The 20 minute journey to the house is familiar, though a few new shops have opened since she was here last and a row of houses have sprung up next to the Pitman farm. Somehow, the refuge of childhood places, the sanctuary of countryside space makes Vera tearful all over again. Against the back-lit sights of her youth, the darkness inside of her feels darker, the heaviness heavier. She does not know if she is coming home, or still running away. It has been three days since Venice.
In Vera’s old room, her mother has replaced her single bed with a double that she’s made up with new linen, positioned a bowl of tangerines on her night stand, and somehow managed to unearth the stocking Vera used to hang by the fireplace, now lain out ready for her on the bed.
“I made the spare room up too,” Vera’s mother winks as she begins to unpack. “In case Luke manages to make it down for a night. I’d like to meet him, before the wedding.”
“I don’t think it’ll happen, Mum,” Vera replies.
“Oh well,” her mother smiles, squeezing her tentatively on the arm. “More mince pies for us then.”
It isn’t until Christmas Eve that Vera initiates real conversation. Both her parents have been tiptoeing carefully around safe topics, and even after two days they have not strayed far past what her cousins are up to, the state of her mother’s garden, and the weather. Vera is both grateful and saddened by their efforts. They should not have to feel so very thankful to have her home. They should not feel her presence with them to be so fragile. They should feel confident to demand the truth, the hard, breakable things. That is what she is here for.
She edges open the door to the living room and pads in slippered feet to the piano. The old mahogany instrument reminds her of the tunes of her childhood, and she lowers herself onto the leather stool gingerly. Her father looks up from his New Scientist magazine and nods approvingly at her hands caressing the keys. Her mother lowers the volume of the television, bursting with kitsch Christmas specials that somehow this year strike Vera with their brassiness. Vera allows her right hand to play a gentle scale, an exercise of preparation, then she closes the piano lid.
“I need to tell you both something,” she says.
Immediately the television goes off and her father’s magazine is dog-eared. Again, Vera feels ashamed by her parents’ eagerness to accommodate. “We’ve been hoping you’d, well, maybe want to talk to us. Is everything alright with Luke?” her mother asks, but Vera’s father flashes a warning look: don’t ruin it, he is saying, don’t pry, don’t risk making her stop. “Since you’ve come home, I mean, since you’re here… ”
“It’s okay, Mum,” Vera says, and she takes a long, audible breath, filling her lungs, replenishing her courage. Her parents wait patiently, respectful of the pause, of the breath, of the world tipping. And when she exhales, even before she utters a word into the painful space between them, it is as though the dark heaviness is rushing out of her, the countryside infusing her instead with fresh, free air, un-riled by city clamouring. The truth, it turns out, when allowed, dances on the tiniest breeze.
“The truth,” says Charlie, “Is that you don’t have a leg to stand on. I’m the father. I’ve been there since the second I found out he existed. I wanted to be. You on the other hand left him for dead on a doorstep.”
“Not for dead, for a better life,” she protests.
“And you placed him into better arms did you? Made sure of better parents? Watched him take his next better bottle? Vera, you thought he was dead.”
“I wished he wasn’t.”
“It’s irrelevant.” Charlie gets up and opens the door for her. He has been persuaded to let her in by a short dress and contrite, fluttering eyelashes, but has not taken kindly to her suggestion of friendship, shared parenting, separate relationships, hers with Luke. Not that she has run any of this past Luke. Nor does she intend to until she
knows for sure that she will be able to see her son. In Venice, the very mention of Charlie sent Luke reeling, so she knows that proposing they share their lives with his offspring, and hence with him, may be just too much. It probably will be too much. In any case, she and Luke haven’t spoken since she left Italy without him. She wonders if he knocked on her bedroom door for a long time before stepping into its emptiness. She wonders if, when he found her gone, he was surprised, or regretful, or perhaps relieved. She wonders if what happened in the bathroom was indeed a well-meant test, or Luke’s own wobble, or the beginning of the end. She knows that it may already be over. But the thought of this pains Vera deeply and she will not believe it is so. Despite frothy, foamy memories, the idea of a future without Luke in it makes her heart squeeze itself against her chest and her lungs feel taut again, the way they were for so long before that deep, tearful breath at St George’s. Without him, even as briefly as it’s been, time has started to slow again, to muddle, to pause. And the hands on her shoulders have become lighter, less apparent. She should not have shrugged them off so hastily. She does not want to lose that clarity. She does not want to lose Luke. She should, perhaps, have walked through the bathroom door. But she cannot again lose her son. And so she is here.
“Look Vera, the second you declare yourself his mother, the authorities will be after you,” Charlie continues. “And you’ll end up in jail. Is that what you want?”
“How is it any different if you and I are together then?”
“Because you’ll be there as my partner. Nobody ever needs know there are real, biological ties between you and him.”
