The Dragons, the Giant, the Women, стр. 30
I used freelancing as an excuse to make offices of Brooklyn cafés and city parks. An excuse to take spontaneous flights to visit my brothers and sisters in Texas after spending too many days pretending to understand the meaning of those paintings in Manhattan museums. An excuse to meet friends with nine-to-fives on thirsty Thursdays and giggle as they tried to stay awake at their desks the morning after, cursing me out with emojis via text, and thereafter promising them I’d make it up to them on the following week. Love was all around me, and yet once fall came, I barely left my apartment for reminders.
When we were children and the teachers told stories of love, we did not fully understand. Then they began to have different conversations with the girls than they had with the boys. They separated us into rooms in those elementary schools in Connecticut and in Memphis and in Spring divided by thin walls where we could still hear the boys laughing as they explained our parts, the unmentionable parts, the parts between our legs that were rude to speak of. And when we giggled our way through our questions, the teachers mentioned love, but we did not fully understand it. So Papa and Mam tried to explain it and they spoke of love in that creamy, sterilized way, stripped of those parts that were rude to speak of, and because they censored our parts, neglecting mention of those stiffening limbs, I did not believe its bigness. I ignored the rage in their eyes. “Our love for each other saved our family,” they would say. “Our love for each other got us through the war,” they would say. “My love for Mam,” he said. “My love for Gus,” she said. And how could anything I would find live up to that?
“Have you spoken to Mom and Dad?” Wi asked.
“I spoke to her this morning. Dad was at the university.”
“I still can’t believe they went back there,” she said. “You sound better. A little better.”
To this, nothing.
“Have you heard from him?” she continued.
“Every time I talk to Mam—”
“No,” she interrupted. “Not Dad. I meant … well, sorry, never mind. I shouldn’t have.”
I pressed my bare feet against the cold bars of the fire escape. A cool breeze brushed against my face, separating the phone’s mouth from mine.
“I’ve been thinking about that rebel. Who came for us,” I said.
“What rebel?”
“During the war. It was weird. She was carrying palm oil like a little baby. In my dream. And I’ve had a couple of them.”
“Hm,” the sound came from my sister as half laughter, half disappointment. “Have you spoken to K?” she asked.
“Mom asked me that earlier. Is this an intervention?”
Wi laughed and I was better for it.
“Did you find someone?”
“I mean, I don’t know. K becoming a shrink doesn’t mean it’s for everyone,” I answered.
“She means well.”
“Sure.”
“It’s just … it’s just that none of us have seen you like this,” Wi said. “You’ve had breakups, and I know this one was serious. And the dreams again. Mainly the dreams. I don’t know. It’s just …”
Nightmares were old friends. They started in Stratford. On that day, Mam made us wear three ill-fitting hooded black raincoats given to us by a member of our new church. She insisted that it would rain that day and we had no choice but to remain still as she pulled and tied the braided black strings so that the hoods hugged our chins. We were told to go to the bus stop holding hands, because although Connecticut traffic was nothing compared to what we had trekked through in Manhattan, Mam was convinced that the stillness of the Stratford town was more to be worried about than the taxis near Columbia’s campus. The stroll was uncomfortable because as the pair of long johns underneath my jeans and sweater rode up, I could not reach my hand into my raincoat to pull them down (for fear that Mam was still standing at the front door watching until we boarded the bus, and would punish me if I let go of my sister’s hand for too long). A honeybee stared at us when we arrived at the corner. Other than her peculiar shirt and pants, she wore black dress shoes with neon-yellow strings and a headband with two yellow cotton balls glued to the end of movable wire. A princess fairy joined her in ogling, raised her pink wand over her mouth as she whispered something to the bee with unbridled giggles.
We were used to being on the receiving end of suspicious looks by then. Barely one year in and our new country let us know, every day, that we were different. As the children made their way to the bus stop, all sniggering and abnormally happier than the day before, they stopped and examined us with what appeared to be extraordinary disbelief and disappointment. When the bus pulled up at our corner, a Native American chief with red pillow feathers wedded to his head by a rubber band pointed toward my sisters and me and snickered. Wi pulled K’s and my hands to the bus door and we followed her inside. We shared a seat in the front, two seats behind the driver. I reached into the arm of my raincoat and pulled the thermal down toward my wrist from the annoying bunch it had made underneath my armpit.
In my classroom, after taking off the dreadful raincoat, I was subject to the same attention my sisters and I received at the bus stop. Confounded as to why my classmates were still looking at me, even without the raincoat, I looked down at my shirt and inspected it for any stains.