the
trees were on the neighbor's side of the fence and beyond
Madam's control to do anything about, or so Malika had rationalized each time she had decided not to tell Madam about the
nightmares. Malika couldn't be sure what Aatha may have
known or suspected. Aatha had never mentioned the nightmares or asked Malika whom it was she was wrestling and trying
to push away in her sleep, and since Aatha herself had seemed
to sleep peacefully, Malika had concluded after a while that the
banana trees weren't haunted after all. Not all banana trees
were, as she knew.) She turned from the window when the
sound of the Corolla's engine had faded in the distance, evaporating like the trail of a Boeing 747 passing overhead.
It was half-past seven. (Later she would remember glancing
at the kitchen clock, at the black numerals and the position of
the two black hands on the round white face, there on the wall
above the refrigerator. She had noted the hour by force of
habit. Malika always knew when to expect Madam back when
Madam went out, especially when Madam was taking one of her
drives to the airport, as she had told Malika she was doing this
evening. She knew then that Madam was unlikely to bump into
a friend and be delayed spontaneously.)
Malika put the bowl of oranges and apples that sat on the
kitchen table during the day back in the center of the table, a
porcelain bowl hand-painted in coruscant swirls of azure and
magenta, which Madam and her husband had found in a backstreet potter's shop in Macao ages ago, just after they were married and before Francesca was horn. (Madam had been dismayed to
discover the shop gone by the time she was in Macao again, in
May of 1984, a year after her husband's passing. Madam was
taking her first vacation alone that time, unaccompanied even
by the children. The former back street had become a thoroughfare, developed almost beyond recognition, she would tell
Malika upon her return. None of the other proprietors had been
able to tell her where she might find the Portuguese potter she
had met on her previous trip, and while Malika was unpacking
Madam's suitcase and sorting through unworn clothes and
clothes to be washed, Madam had speculated out loud that perhaps the potter had passed away, her voice filling with regret
the way a well slowly fills with rain during the monsoon. Or so
Malika would remember as she was looking back, on one of her
mornings yet to come.)
She turned off the kitchen light after picking up the book she
was in the middle of reading from her blue desk (switching on
the lamp on the armoire before she left the room), and walked
to the front of the house to settle herself in one of Madam's cane
armchairs on the patio, a habit she had started forming after
Michelle left, on those first few nights after the wedding, when
the silence in the house had been deafening and Madam had
started going out for her drives alone on the new highway.
From the patio one could catch the sounds of Madam's
neighbors on the right (on the left if one was looking from the
road), a family of four. One might hear the thud of an object
dropping on the floor (slipping out of the hands of one of the
children, Malika presumed-the son was four, the daughter was
five), the clink of a glass or the tinnier ring of a metal utensil,
and sometimes voices. Bits of parental conversation might ripple out of a window and drift through the thick hibiscus hedge
along the fence, or the son's voice (more often than the daughter's) might break out, raised in a pouting protest. One could
hear, too, if one were attentive enough, traffic humming on the main road a quarter of a mile away, a soothing slush of tires
through puddles if there had been rain, or on a still night like
tonight, just a whirring rhythm of the engines of different
cars, the squealing crescendo of a bus approaching a stop, and
in Madam's garden an almost imperceptible bristling of night
insects beating
trees were on the neighbor's side of the fence and beyond
Madam's control to do anything about, or so Malika had rationalized each time she had decided not to tell Madam about the
nightmares. Malika couldn't be sure what Aatha may have
known or suspected. Aatha had never mentioned the nightmares or asked Malika whom it was she was wrestling and trying
to push away in her sleep, and since Aatha herself had seemed
to sleep peacefully, Malika had concluded after a while that the
banana trees weren't haunted after all. Not all banana trees
were, as she knew.) She turned from the window when the
sound of the Corolla's engine had faded in the distance, evaporating like the trail of a Boeing 747 passing overhead.
It was half-past seven. (Later she would remember glancing
at the kitchen clock, at the black numerals and the position of
the two black hands on the round white face, there on the wall
above the refrigerator. She had noted the hour by force of
habit. Malika always knew when to expect Madam back when
Madam went out, especially when Madam was taking one of her
drives to the airport, as she had told Malika she was doing this
evening. She knew then that Madam was unlikely to bump into
a friend and be delayed spontaneously.)
Malika put the bowl of oranges and apples that sat on the
kitchen table during the day back in the center of the table, a
porcelain bowl hand-painted in coruscant swirls of azure and
magenta, which Madam and her husband had found in a backstreet potter's shop in Macao ages ago, just after they were married and before Francesca was horn. (Madam had been dismayed to
discover the shop gone by the time she was in Macao again, in
May of 1984, a year after her husband's passing. Madam was
taking her first vacation alone that time, unaccompanied even
by the children. The former back street had become a thoroughfare, developed almost beyond recognition, she would tell
Malika upon her return. None of the other proprietors had been
able to tell her where she might find the Portuguese potter she
had met on her previous trip, and while Malika was unpacking
Madam's suitcase and sorting through unworn clothes and
clothes to be washed, Madam had speculated out loud that perhaps the potter had passed away, her voice filling with regret
the way a well slowly fills with rain during the monsoon. Or so
Malika would remember as she was looking back, on one of her
mornings yet to come.)
She turned off the kitchen light after picking up the book she
was in the middle of reading from her blue desk (switching on
the lamp on the armoire before she left the room), and walked
to the front of the house to settle herself in one of Madam's cane
armchairs on the patio, a habit she had started forming after
Michelle left, on those first few nights after the wedding, when
the silence in the house had been deafening and Madam had
started going out for her drives alone on the new highway.
From the patio one could catch the sounds of Madam's
neighbors on the right (on the left if one was looking from the
road), a family of four. One might hear the thud of an object
dropping on the floor (slipping out of the hands of one of the
children, Malika presumed-the son was four, the daughter was
five), the clink of a glass or the tinnier ring of a metal utensil,
and sometimes voices. Bits of parental conversation might ripple out of a window and drift through the thick hibiscus hedge
along the fence, or the son's voice (more often than the daughter's) might break out, raised in a pouting protest. One could
hear, too, if one were attentive enough, traffic humming on the main road a quarter of a mile away, a soothing slush of tires
through puddles if there had been rain, or on a still night like
tonight, just a whirring rhythm of the engines of different
cars, the squealing crescendo of a bus approaching a stop, and
in Madam's garden an almost imperceptible bristling of night
insects beating
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