Your Sad Eyes and Unforgettable Mouth by Edeet Ravel Page B

suspect.
    “I’m Maya, by the way,” I said. “I teach art.”
    “I’m Tyen. I was doing a graduate degree in biochemistry at UBC,” she said. She was older than I’d thought at first, in her late twenties at least.
    “Who was that guy?”
    “My cousin. He’s mad at me. My family wants me to go back to Vancouver. I can’t go back. I’m mortified!”
    I’m used to second-language English, and I assumed Tyen had meant to say something else— fed up , for example. “I have a spare flat below,” I said. “You can stay there if you like—it’s empty right now. I just need to heat it. It takes about half an hour to warm up.”
    Tyen smiled and took my hand. One of the clan—what were the odds?
    “You have nice eyes,” she said. “They show what you’re feeling.”
    “Sugar? Milk? It’s skim…”
    “And your hair is the colour of the earth in Egypt.”
    “You’ve been to Egypt?”
    “Only for one day. My father took us all in a plane from Vietnam to Montreal when I was ten, and we stopped in Egypt. The earth there is exactly red.”
    “Is he a pilot?”
    “No, he’s a doctor. My mother’s brother was the pilot. My mother died when I was three—she stepped on a landmine, left over from the war.” She yawned. “I’m having jet lag. I flew in from Vancouver this morning.”
    “Why don’t you want to go back to UBC?” I asked, trying to slice the pie without making too much of a mess.
    “I was caught stealing,” she said, pouting. “It was mortifying.”
    “What did you steal?”
    “I filled in that I worked five more hours than I really worked … Your arms are so long. And your legs. Next to you I’m a shrimp.”
    “You know, probably no one cares about those hours, apart from you.”
    We spent the next three weeks talking about the fabricated worksheet, Tyen’s future, the respective lengths of our bodies. In the end she decided to complete her studies, but only if I promised to email her every day. I kept my promise, though I haven’t been able to reach her recently, because she’s been doing fieldwork in some Peruvian bog, miles from anywhere.
    But yesterday a letter arrived, filled with long descriptions of vein necrosis in leaves, period cramps, cravings for ice cream. In a PS she added, I can’t wait until I see you again. Stock your freezer with B&J organic chocolate-fudge ice cream. Next time I come I’m not leaving so be warned. Love me. Your Tyen .
    That’s all I have to report. I’ve been occupied, I’ve been busy, with nothing to show for it. Yet all the minute tasks that take methrough my days seem important—crucial even—at the moment I perform them. Another kind of fabrication.
    Things are amiss with me. I know that. Things are not as they should be. Reliving that morning by the lake at Camp Bakunin, I feel exiled, almost, by the collapsed bridge between those hopeful stirrings and this land of nowhere, this coalition of no one, to which I’ve been relegated—have relegated myself. But at my back I always hear—something. Not time’s wingèd chariot, something else, just as rumbly and threatening. Not the future. The past.

1969

I left my heart at Camp Bakunin. School, now drearier than ever, held me prisoner, and I counted the days to my release. But in mid-April Jean-Marc phoned to say that the Bakunin group had disbanded. Mimi was leaving for a kibbutz in Israel, Anthony had moved to New York, Olga was running an artists’ colony, Sheldon would be touring with a rock band, and Bruno had joined a Jesus cult. In any case, the campsite was no longer available—the insurance company had discovered that there was no running water on the premises, and without coverage Jean-Marc couldn’t get a permit.
    I wept with frustration and disappointment. As if he knew how I’d take the news, Anthony called an hour later. I was sulking in my room, but I dutifully trudged to the telephone when I heard the ring. My mother and Bubby were superstitious about the phone,