Half the Day Is Night by Maureen F. McHugh Page A

looked unused—so this was not just residential flats. Then a storeroom full of old furniture. Then a bedroom. Just one room, with a bed. Like a hotel room almost except there was bric-a-brac all over the table: glass harlequins on a lace doily, feather masks on the wall and a handful of medicine bottles on a glass dish. An old woman’s room.
    Bedsitters? Rich daughter letting old grandfather live in poverty—although the place didn’t feel impoverished, just empty and ugly and full of old people’s used things.
    He followed her down five steps and across a large room with dining tables and chairs draped in white cloths. The walls were mirrored, reflecting back white-shrouded furniture. Community dining?
    â€œJude?” she called.
    The place made him uncomfortable, with its empty concrete rooms. Maybe it was being closed down or something? She had not said anything about having to move her grandfather, but then she hadn’t said anything at all about him.
    â€œJude?” she said again, and he followed her through a door into a kitchen. Just a kitchen, good sized, with a wooden table and chairs and a shiny yellow tile floor. The black man mopping the floor said, “Don’t you step on my floor, miss.”
    â€œJude,” Mayla said.
    The man leaned the mop up against the counter and tiptoed across the clean floor and gave Mayla a hug. “Where you been?” he asked.
    â€œI’ve been busy,” Mayla said.
    â€œHe’s an old man.” “Old mon,” Jude actually said, in helium falsetto.
    â€œI know, I know. How’s his cold?”
    Jude shrugged. “The man, he’s eighty-two.”
    â€œIs he in bed?”
    â€œNo, he’s out on the spring court.”
    â€œIs Domingo with him?” she asked.
    The man shook his head. “There’s nothing wrong with Domingo. You just feeling guilty, knowing Domingo is taking care of him and you don’t get out here often enough.”
    â€œI didn’t say anything,” she said, throwing her hands in the air. They both laughed, as if this was an old thing between them.
    â€œYou both staying for dinner?”
    â€œOh, Jude, this is David Dai, he’s working for me. David, this is Jude.”
    â€œWhere’s that other one?” The man’s voice was carefully neutral.
    â€œTim is going back to Australia. We can’t stay for dinner this time. Next time, I promise.”
    David suddenly understood, this was all one house. This was all Mayla’s grandfather’s house. The lobby, the parking, all the rooms. The dining room draped in white. All empty.
    â€œI’m baking potatoes,” Jude said, “not in the flash, neither.”
    â€œWith real sour cream?” Mayla asked.
    â€œWhat do you think?”
    â€œNext time,” she said. “I promise.”
    All one house. Huge and ugly and cold.
    He followed her again, back out across the empty dining room and up another five steps to a room with mirrors like windows and tables covered with lace and picture frames. Another wooden door with a blue and white plate set in it. Mayla pushed the door open and yellow light spilled out.
    The room was full of light and he blinked. The bright air was damp and misty, no, it was misting. Raining. Like rain. Space went up and up; twice, three times the height of the kitchen. There were clusters of plants and in the center of each clump stalks of tall bamboo, four or five meters high. The floor was terra-cotta tile, glazed Indian red with artificial rain. All around the walls, tall mirrors like windows. And in the center was an old man in a wicker chair and a young man holding an old navy blue umbrella.
    â€œHello,” Mayla said, her voice too loud and too cheerful, “over your cold?”
    â€œNearly,” the old man said. He was a flat-faced, long-boned ugly old Chinese man with dyed black hair. At least David assumed it was dyed. “How is the