by Katie Crouch
“No,” Mark said, shaking his head vigorously. “See, Taimi is Meg’s age. When Taimi was born, I was with you.”
“Hmmmm.” She was so drunk, it felt like someone was telling her a bedtime story about someone else. It was delightful, but she already regretted the hangover. She drank some more water. “So you mean Mila’s other daughter? The one that’s a pain.”
“Right. Anna. She’s twenty, so that’s exactly the age she would be based on when we were together. See, we didn’t have an affair, Amanda. We met when I was in the Peace Corps. And then there was the combi accident—”
“Noooooooo!” Amanda threw her head back and howled. “I can’t hear about the combi accident even one more time!”
“It’s important,” Mark said, slapping the table.
Amanda picked up a lemon rind and sucked it. “You know what I’m going to do?” she asked, standing. Mark shook his head. “I’m going to have a cigarette.”
“What? You can’t do that.”
Amanda smiled wickedly. Their entire relationship started because he was her athletic coach. Smoking was like fellating another man in his presence.
“Oh yeah. I bought some a few months ago at the Portuguese grocery store. That lady with the blue braids was there. You know her, right? And I was complimenting her on her hair, because some braids really are a work of art, you know? These were, like, lavender and silver. She looked like a fairy princess. Anyway, right behind her head were these cigarettes, and pasted on the package was this absolutely disgusting picture of a mouth filled with cancer. It was unbelievable! The tobacco companies would never let the anti-smoking people do that in the U.S., but it’s so smart, right? I mean, black goo is literally oozing out of this woman’s mouth. Look.”
Amanda went to the desk, fetched the cigarettes, and held up a packet wrapped in an image of a mouth riddled with sores.
“And I was there buying pre-cut vegetables or something, because, that’s, like, what I do. I make healthy meals for you and Meg. I keep things going. So I put the minced game and the chopped-up French beans on the counter and said, I’ll take those smokes, please. So easy. Do you know I haven’t had a cigarette since we’ve been married? We’re so fucking healthy together, Mark. We eat kale and we work out and we have sex once a week like it fucking matters. Like doing all of that will keep the bad things away. But now our kid is in an international prison. Prison! And what now? You have some other kid? And also, you took all of our money. Was that for the kid?”
“No.”
“Okay.” Amanda fished a lighter out of a drawer and lit a cigarette. The sound was so lovely—a nice crinkle. She didn’t bother inhaling, because she knew the smoke would feel awful. The action of it was satisfying enough.
“Don’t you at least want to go outside with that?” Mark asked.
“Where’s our money? One hundred thousand dollars of GiaTech stock. You know we have to pay taxes on the gains?”
“I used it to buy gems.”
“What?”
“Gems. Namibian gems. I was going to surprise you. I’ve been getting into the gem business.”
“Hmmmmm.” Amanda pawed the vodka bottle, but she realized that she was at her tipping point—any more alcohol would only make her vomit. “How did you do that?”
“Through Anna, actually.”
“Your kid?” she asked, scratching furiously at a bite on her knee.
“Right. But I didn’t know she was my daughter. I just met her in Swakop and she started talking to me about it.”
“You randomly went into business with a woman who is probably your daughter, but you didn’t know that?”
“Right.”
“Namibia is a fucking small country,” Amanda said. “Maybe this is good. Maybe since she’s your daughter, she’ll come back with your money.”
“That’s positive thinking.”
Suddenly Amanda was very, very tired. She sat again, sliding down in her chair and looking at her cigarette. “You know what, Mark?”
“What?”
“I don’t care about that other daughter.”
“Well. You might when you’re sober.”
She shook her head. “No. Listen. Let’s get this straight. You brought us to Africa because you were looking for Mila. You have a kid with Mila. You’ve spent all of our savings on some weird scheme, except you didn’t, because your partner, who happens to be your kid, absconded with the money.”
Mark hesitated, then nodded. “Yes. It does sound bad when you put it like that.”
“The thing is, all of that is really, really bad, right? I mean, you couldn’t make up more reasons not to love you.”
Mark leaned over and grabbed her hand. “Amanda, don’t say that. I know this is all super messed-up, but what I realized today…” He squeezed her fingers, hard. “What I really knew when I saw Esther was that I … just love you so much. I really do, and all this other crap doesn’t—you and I—”
“I’m. Not. Done.” Amanda’s voice through the room was sharp and percussive as bullets. Mark sat up straighter and put his hands in his lap.
“Okay,” he said quietly. “I’m listening.”
Amanda took a quick drag, made a face, and exhaled. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. That we were over. Like, since a couple of years ago. I’ve been thinking that we’ve been just going through the motions, and that we’ve been too lazy or scared or something to call it a day.”
“Amanda—”
“You’ve been lost, or something, and I didn’t like it. I mean, I guess it was this Mila thing? Or this job thing? Anyway, I thought if I could be so together, what the hell is wrong with Mark? I just was sort of living around you, doing my thing. And you let me. Except sometimes you’d put up a fight with how to parent Meg, which was annoying. But I would just parent around you.”
“Spoil her, you mean.”
“Shut up. Just shut up, okay? So now you’ve gone and really messed up. Like, on paper messed up. Anyone would say, Okay, Amanda. This is your chance. Time to go.”
Mark didn’t say anything, but below him, he felt the floor fall away.
“The thing is, I can’t seem to do it. I’ve been thinking about this all night. I can’t leave, because I love you. It’s not reasonable and it won’t make me happy, but it’s not supposed to, I guess. Being together isn’t always about happiness, is it? Or having this perfect life all the time?”
“I guess not. Though we were happy, sometimes.”
“Sure.” Amanda nodded and dropped her cigarette into her almost-empty glass, where it expired with a sizzle. “Sometimes. I know. But the point of being with someone … marrying yourself to a person … is so you have someone around when things aren’t perfect. I think. Like now.” She shrugged. “So there it is. You’re a beautiful, royal screw-up, and you stole our money and you have another kid. But I still fucking love you.”
“Dollar,” Mark whispered.
Amanda started crying. “Let’s get Meg back. Just bring her back, Mark. I don’t want anything else.”
She pushed her glass away and buried her head in her arms, then let herself cry as Mark picked her up, carried her to the bedroom, and pulled the covers over her. Amanda cried and cried for her daughter, for her marriage, for her mother whose dying wish, long ago, was nothing more than to make her chicken salad.
I will make Meg a sandwich, she thought dimly.
Finally, she was asleep.
/ 34 /
When Meg woke up the next morning, sunlight flooded the room. The air conditioner hummed with a hushed reverence—none of the spits and groans of the wall units at the Evanses’ bungalow. The sheets were crisp and white, and she was in a bed as big and cushy as her own parents’. In fact, the room looked a lot like a hotel room her parents might stay in when they all went to Napa or one of those safari lodges near Etosha.
She rubbed her eyes. She had definitely never been here before, and it was also definitely not the room she had gone to s
leep in. And now the door opened, and a lady she didn’t know came in. But the lady was pretty and wore a suit. In Meg’s experience, grown-ups in suits generally knew what they were doing, so she didn’t scream.
“Good morning, Meg,” the lady said.
Meg nodded. Never talk to strangers, she could hear her mother saying. Even if they are the first person you see in the morning.
“I’m Ellie. Would you like some quiche?”
Meg shook her head.
“Pancakes?”
That was a bit of a stumper.
“I believe we have real Canadian maple syrup. One of the embassy mothers nabbed it from the Canadian booth at International Day.”
“Have I been kidnapped?”
“No.” Ellie briskly laid out a clean towel, a toothbrush, and toothpaste on the bed. “The ambassador felt it would not do to have you stay the night in the holding cell. But legally, we can’t let you go, either, so letting you sleep at home was not an option. Therefore, the ambassador decided to place you in one of her personal guest rooms, as you are under guard here. We have six suites for visitors, so it wasn’t a problem. You were so tired you didn’t wake up when we transferred you, which is why you don’t remember moving.”
“Oh.” Meg looked around more carefully. There was no phone, and the windows had bars on them. But this didn’t mean anything, because all of the State Department houses had bars on the windows. Taimi was the only kid Meg knew with a clear view. “Can I talk to my mom?”
“Absolutely. We will take you back to the embassy where you can participate in proper visiting hours, which are held from one p.m. to four p.m. Providing the security guards are back from lunch.”
“Okay.”
“The ambassador would like to have breakfast with you. You have no other clothes, but why don’t you shower and brush your teeth, then I’ll take you to the dining room in fifteen minutes.”
Meg nodded. Ellie left the room, and she grabbed the towel and went into the bathroom, which also looked like something in a hotel. She didn’t know why Ellie bothered with the towel, because there were towels everywhere, even little hand ones, folded to look like birds.
Usually her mom still ran the water for her when she bathed, and put bubbles in it. Her dad told her mom she was spoiling her, but Meg’s mom said she liked to do it, in that leave-me-alone-you’re-being-a-pain voice. Meg’s mom used that voice a lot with her dad, especially in Africa.
Meg didn’t know how the shower knob worked, so she used the tub. There were lots of tiny bottles. She didn’t bother reading the labels, opting instead to dump all of the contents in the tub, so that the water was a milky, bubbly soup. It felt nice. She stayed in until her fingers were raisin-y, then got out, toweled off, and dressed in her dirty International Day hip-hop clothes. She skipped her underpants because they had skid marks. Those she just threw away.
“Okay,” she said, coming out.
“That was much more than fifteen minutes,” Ellie said.
“Sorry. No clock.”
Ellie didn’t reply, but took off down the hall. Meg guessed this meant she was supposed to follow her, so she trailed behind, peeking into the other bedrooms, which looked just like the one she had come out of.
She wondered what the ambassador would say to her. She still wasn’t sorry for selling the German stuff and sending the money to the orphanage. The stuff was ugly, and those weird people Taimi found were willing to pay big bucks for it. And anyway, those kids needed someone. She saw them all the time. They knocked on her window when her mom drove her to school, boys and girls just like her, their bare feet covered in dust, crust in the corners of their eyes. They wore the same clothes she did, leggings and cool T-shirts, only their shirts had holes in them and were covered in dirt. The boys wore girls’ clothes, the girls wore boys’. It didn’t matter. They didn’t beg like the old men and the homeless people in San Francisco, who sat under bridges by the grocery store surrounded by tents and dogs. They didn’t shout at you or wave funny signs. These kids just looked at Meg, sometimes with eyes yellow where they should have been white. They did a dance with their hands, a kind of knocking. Meg’s mom kept boxed juices and bottles of water for them on the passenger seat. She’d crack the windows and hand the juice out, as if she were afraid the little boys and girls would crawl into the car and hurt her. Which was impossible, because they were no bigger than Meg.
So, even though she was in trouble, she was happy the kids were getting the money. Which was what she told the ambassador, who had already started in on a stack of pancakes.
“Yours will be here in a minute,” she said. “I have to go to the embassy, so I couldn’t wait.”
“Sorry,” Meg said. “I like baths.”
“As do I,” the ambassador said.
The ambassador was pretty. She was not fat, exactly, but round, with lighter skin than Taimi’s. Taimi told Meg it wasn’t proper to talk about the color of your skin, like, its actual color. But Meg didn’t understand that, because in Africa it was such a big part of how you looked. Besides, she’d told Taimi, if you stick to actual colors, like, compare the skin color to something else in the world, that couldn’t be wrong, could it? Like, her mom’s skin was tan, especially in Namibia. Her legs were the same color as baked hamburger buns. Her dad’s skin was pale, just a few shades darker than typing paper. When he burned, the color was the same as raspberry jam. Taimi’s skin was pine-tree-bark-brown with a little navy-blue-crayon rubbed in. It sparkled awesomely on its own, without glitter. Taimi said she was probably Oshiwambo royalty, and Meg suspected this was how you told if you were royalty or not in Africa—the amount of natural glitter in your skin. The ambassador’s skin was the same color and polish as that of her dining room table in Los Gatos. It was smooth and looked clean and like she polished it with Pledge.
“Here we go,” the ambassador said when the housekeeper came in with a stack of pancakes. “Did you know that pancakes were invented in ancient times?”
“Yes,” Meg said. “We learned that in school. The Romans ate pancakes. But not with syrup.”
“That’s right. Very good,” the ambassador said. She looked at Meg, appraising her. “You’re all clean.”
“I threw away my underwear.”
“Oh. Well, we can arrange for you to get your clothes, surely. Though”—she leaned in—“if I had my way, I’d never wear any, would you?”
Meg considered for a moment, and decided it was an appropriate time not to answer.
“Meg,” the ambassador said. “I appreciate your motivations for selling the stolen items. And that you didn’t know they were stolen. But you’ll be in a lot less trouble if you just tell me how Josephat Shilongo’s daughter set this thing up.”
“No.”
“No, she didn’t set it up?”
“No, I’m not telling on Taimi.”
The ambassador put her knife and fork down. Meg noted that she had eaten almost all of her pancakes. “I appreciate your loyalty. But sometimes in diplomacy we must participate in give-and-take.”
“I don’t know what that means.”
“What about Mrs. Shilongo? Did she help you put the site together?”
“Nope. She didn’t know anything about it.”
“Mr. Shilongo?”
“No. He has someone else do all of his computers when he sells stuff.”
The ambassador straightened up.
“Sells stuff?”
“Yeah.” Meg crammed as much pancake into her mouth as she could. So far, she had learned that, when in jail, food came only sporadically.
“What stuff?”
“He sells animals,” she said with her mouth full. “To hunters.”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah. He has this computer guy tell the hunters where the animals are and when they can come. It’s like a club.”
“What kind of animals?”
“Um…” Meg had to think. She had only been in the room once when Mr. Shilongo was talking
to his friend about it. Actually, she had been in the closet, playing Spy, and when Taimi had run in and found her, Mr. Shilongo had looked pretty mad. But then Taimi had said of course they hadn’t heard a word of his business and had done a little ballet dance, and eventually Mr. Shilongo had clapped. Taimi was good at snowing her dad.
“There was a rhino they were selling,” Meg said. “Two elephants, also. They use a drone to take pictures. And get the … um … kward-nits.”
“Coordinates?”
“Right! All I remember was that Mr. Shilongo said he personally could never go online for safety reasons. Which I thought was weird, because what about a computer isn’t safe? Anyway. That’s how I know that he didn’t help with our website.”
“That’s very good, Meg.” The ambassador wiped her mouth and put down her napkin. “That’s very, very good.”
“Okay.” Meg ate some more pancake.
“Ellie?” the ambassador called. “Come here, please.”
“Do you think I can go home today?” Meg asked.
“Oh yes, my dear,” the ambassador said. “I believe we have come across your bargaining chip.”
Spring
Shi ha monathana omuti nomuti, aantu yoompadhi mbali oha ya tsakanene.
Trees stay rooted, but people, they come together.
—Oshiwambo proverb
/ 35 /
Frida watched from the kitchen as Miss Persephone hopped from room to room like an angry bird. Her employer clutched a notebook that sparkled. Her bare feet were dirty, and her hair was piled on top of her head in a big, tangled poof. Frida had tried to follow and help her at first, but her efforts seemed only to make the poor woman angry, so instead Frida straightened and cleaned where she could in spots that weren’t filled with boxes and Mr. Adam’s clothes.
Miss Persephone had gone to see the ambassador four weeks ago. In her mind, Frida labeled this as The Day. On The Day, Miss Persephone had found out about Mr. Adam’s other woman. She hadn’t directly told Frida about this, of course, but when Mr. Adam had come home later in the afternoon, Miss Persephone had screeched like a wet baboon and started throwing dishes; he was only able to escape when Mila Shilongo had emerged from the guest room and held Miss Persephone down. Since then Mr. Adam had been living in the pool house, sneaking in and out the back gate when Miss Persephone wasn’t home. He had asked Frida once to fetch him some groceries from the main house, but when Miss Persephone found out, she had become so angry that everyone—including Mila Shilongo—had run for cover.
