Allegra stood up too: “Wh—Ava? You can—?”
Ava gave her the smile. The really very wonderful smile. “I can what?”
She could, and she did. She’d unseen us. But not Allegra.
Why didn’t I (or Laura, or Xavier) force bodily contact? Why didn’t one of us tap Ava on the shoulder, for instance, or stand in her path and insist that she take notice of us? We didn’t dare to. As for why we didn’t dare … you wouldn’t have either! Suppose your finger passed through the shoulder you’d presumed to tap, straight through, as if that shoulder were a mere hologram? Or suppose some overwhelmingly anti-magnetic sensation prevented your finger from descending onto the target shoulder? Let’s just suppose and suppose and suppose, and never find out for ourselves what life turns into after that decisive a failure to connect …
When The Lucky Day got going again, it blasted along the nighttime rails like a getaway train.
All the breakup advice I’ve read advocates drawing boundaries of your own. At some point you have to become as unavailable to your rejecter as they are to you. So here are my red lines:
No thinking of the infirmary car that was in the very last carriage, beyond the bazaar carriage. I’m discarding the memory of lying in there that very night with Xavier and Laura and Allegra, lying there two by two, drinking in the ether of that antiseptic haven and trying not to think about what’s going to happen to us now that we’d been unseen. Let’s forget the way Allegra offered all three of us a shoulder to cry on but we were too bitter to take her up on it. I won’t say which one of us told her, “This isn’t something you have to worry about, Allegra. Yet.” There’s no use revisiting Allegra’s semi-elated expression as she agreed with us regarding the “yet” bit; I won’t wonder whether she considered that uncertainty a perk.
Nor do I want to talk about how Ava came into the Stojaspal inheritance the very next day. Conjecture’s almost too tempting. If I gave in, my guess would be that the question of Karel Stojaspal’s son wasn’t even raised. I’d wager that the sanity trap lay in Ava’s own raising of the question. Since she didn’t, everything quietly continued as she perceived it. That is, as if this Přem person had never been.
And I certainly don’t want to bitch about Árpád Montague XXX and the slightly apologetic yet maximally dedicated way he pretended to unsee us. He only did it because Chela did. I’m enclosing the last time I saw Árpád in a square of fat red lines …
It was in the infirmary carriage. Ava had just visited Allegra with a care package: chicken soup, a pair of fresh white trainers, etc. We, the soupless and white trainer–less, had glared and glowered throughout this visit, to very little effect aside from dispelling surplus feeling. You always imagine that the things said about you behind your back will have some intensity to them, but Ava spoke so airily of our departure that it was highly unsatisfactory to hear ourselves talked about. The mongooses were in attendance; apparently respects must be paid to Ava’s favourite … and Árpád gave me a single backward glance as they were leaving the carriage. One look before running to catch up with Chela Kapoor. Whipped. Whipped! Atrociously so.
21.
What I do like to remember is the sight of Do Yeon-ssi waiting for us at the station, drinking a soju milkshake with her sunglasses on. She was sitting on the suitcase I’d left behind, and when she saw us come staggering along the platform with Xavier’s suitcase, she said: “So my nephews are back. My nephews and …?”
Laura sat down beside her.
“Shin Do Yeon, meet Laura De Souza,” Xavier said. “Your niece until further notice.”
I clocked Do Yeon-ssi clocking Laura’s expertly concealed black eye. The auntly eyebrows rose a fraction of a millimetre, and she rolled up her sleeves. After three solemn rounds of “paper, scissors, stone,” during which both she and Laura unwaveringly chose “scissors.” Do Yeon-ssi said: “Well, this aunt has been waiting a long time for you, niece. But … no Árpád? No Yuri?!”
We held the swiftest frown ballot imaginable, Xavier, Laura, and I. Laura was elected official spokesperson. “Well, Ms. Shin. We’ll have to tell you later on, piece by piece.”
Do Yeon-ssi looked at us, then at the swiftly departing Lucky Day. “I see …”
She did, I think.
It was sunny out, so we walked home along grassy lanes. Good weather is exciting for the sociable yet self-conscious; it’s a chance to discuss something positive without appearing to boast or pry. Laura De Souza took us by surprise with the amount she had to say about the weather. I think we surprised ourselves on the same front. Still unsure if we’d truly made it to the end of that honeymoon of ours, we exchanged weather-based pleasantries with all and sundry. Little things concerned us: Xavier and I had just found we’d both been locked out of our Instagram accounts. Probably an unrelated hacking spree …
It’s early days yet: only a month since we got unseen. And so far everything—even the ongoing Instagram exile—has been supremely pedestrian. I, for one, welcomed the recent rainy spell. On strolls around the village I’m yet to tire of the thrill of leaving footprints in the mud.
*
April 14, 2019 November 23, 2019
Prague, Czechia
Acknowledgments
Thank you, Dr. Cieplak. Thank you, Tracy Bohan. Thank you, Petr Onufer. Thank you, Jin Auh. Thank you, Mike Baugh. Thank you, Alison Fairbrother. And Sarah McGrath—thank you.
About the Author
Helen Oyeyemi is the author of The Icarus Girl; The Opposite House; White Is for Witching, which won the Somerset Maugham Award; Mr. Fox; Boy, Snow, Bird; Gingerbread; and the short-story collection What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours. In 2013, Helen was included in Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists.
Also by Helen Oyeyemi
Gingerbread
What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours
Boy, Snow, Bird
Mr. Fox
White Is for Witching
The Opposite House
The Icarus Girl
Copyright
First published in the UK in 2021
by Faber & Faber Limited
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
London WC1B 3DA
First published in the United States in 2021
by Riverhead Books
an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC
penguinrandomhouse.com
This ebook edition first published in 2021
All rights reserved
© Helen Oyeyemi, 2021
The right of Helen Oyeyemi to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
Cover design by Faber
Quote by Ludvík Vaculík found on page 142 is courtesy of Gerald Turner’s translation of A Czech Dreambook, published by Karolinum Press in 2019.
This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–36660–6
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