The Apex Book of World SF 2 (15 page)

"Your father called,"
said Mum one day when I visited her. She didn't look up from the stove. "He
wants to talk to you."

They hadn't spoken
to each other for a long time now. When communication was absolutely
unavoidable, they sent messages through me. They didn't hate each other; I
think my father was afraid of my mother who, in turn, looked through him.

"My fault," I said. "He
has been trying to reach me for a month now. Sorry."

"He didn't tell me
anything else." Based on her voice I assumed she was smiling sarcastically. "He
just asked me to tell you—visit him by all means—then said goodbye. I think he
doesn't really know how to treat me. Will you put the cloth on the table?"

I took out the
plates: a plain white for her, the blue one from my childhood for me that had
cars, bicycles and ships running along its edge.

"You don't know what
he wanted?"

"I learnt long ago
to leave his things be. You know the cost." Her voice was sour, as always, when
she talked about my father. "If I am not cautious, I might get to know
something."

"I see."

"Is that why you won't
talk to him?" She glanced at me searchingly. "May I ladle you some soup?"

I nodded.

The bean soup was
thick and hot, it burnt my tongue. It was good to sit in Mum's kitchen,
although it has been a long time since I had last felt at home there. Lights
were subdued, noises low: the cat purred in front of the stove, the washing
machine rumbled softly in the bathroom. I was calmed not by the familiar plate,
noises or the taste; the peace and harmony came from not speaking to my father.
Suddenly we were on the same side and closer to each other despite our
differences.

I finished eating
sooner than my mother. I leant back and looked around the kitchen. It was
cluttered, full of bric-a-brac, crochet left on the top of the fridge, books
put down, opened on their belly.

"If Dad had begged
you back, would you have gone back to him?"

She looked up
surprised.

"What do you mean?"

"When you took me
from him when I was small. If he had called you back…you said you wanted it…would
you have gone back to him? Would you have stayed with him, even if he'd seen
you leave?" I didn't add the question: would you have broken the prophecy?

Her mouth was pulled
into a smile as if by a hook.

"It was so long ago, Judit…"

"Would you have gone back?"

"Maybe, I don't
know. I wouldn't have taken it for long, even then."

She shook her head,
more to herself than to me, and continued eating.

"It doesn't matter,"
she said at length.

I left it at that.
Maybe she was right.

 

My father died. I
hadn't seen him before that, and I hadn't talked to him. I had erased his last
message from my phone without listening to it; I learnt the news shortly after
I had done that. I don't know what he wanted to say. I imagined a thousand
messages, but I can't say if the real one was amongst them.

 

He had a heart
attack. Perhaps he could have saved himself if he had called an ambulance, for
he knew when he would die. But he did nothing of the sort. He simply lay down
and waited for the last kick of his heart. A bottle of whisky and a big bar of
hazelnut chocolate were prepared on the bedside table. The silver wrapping was
torn just a little as if he had changed his mind.

I inherited his
flat. I packed his things and I should have thrown them away but, somewhere
between casting everything onto the floor and bundling it into a carton, a
feeling overwhelmed me that the pullover I held in my hands was my father. And
the books on the shelves, also. The used toothbrush, the leftover food in the
fridge, the stuffed notebook on the table, the old guitar in the corner—all
were him. Unmatched, incomplete objects that were not bound together by
anything anymore. I tried to imagine my father in the pullover, the pen in his
hands, his feet in his slippers, but I couldn't. My memories were leaking.

He had wanted to
talk to me. For the last time.

If I had known…

I realised in the
end that knowledge wouldn't have been absolution. If the only reason to talk to
him was his death in a month, a week, a day, I wouldn't have been less of a
stranger to him.

I stood in his flat,
knowing where every object belonged and yet I felt lost. I had tried to
understand him but had failed. It was too late for that now. But there was something
I was still in time for.

 

I purchased a ticket
to India. Just then, I didn't know when I would come back or how long I would
have to stay for. I was only sure that I wouldn't budge from Iván's side. I
didn't care what happened in a day, two days, three days or a month; I just
wanted to be with him and not on another continent, alone.

 

He was waiting for
me at Delhi Airport. The huge, multicoloured and multi-smelling crowd in the
waiting hall undulated between us, but it disappeared when I saw Iván—or I just
pushed everyone aside, I can't remember. Our meeting was just as you would
expect. I will skip that.

"I have been waiting
for you," he said in the cool cab. His hand enveloped mine, holding me as he
might hold a bird. "I knew you would come."

"Funny, I didn't
know."

"I knew it for you."
He laughed. "No, that's not true, I didn't know. But I am happy."

"And were you
careful with the trees?" I asked.

"I haven't as much
as peeked out, just like you said. This warning was a clever idea; it made me
think of you whenever I saw a tree. Smooth. Is that why you warned me?"

I was giddy from his
closeness. I hadn't seen him in such a long time; all his features were new and
yet painfully familiar. My fingertips remembered him more than my eyes.

I saw only his eyes
and mouth as he talked. I noticed his dark tan, the scratch on his neck from
shaving, his thinning hair. I was unguarded. I hadn't yet got used to taking
care of him, although that was the reason I came.

In the sudden heat,
as we were walking towards his lodgings, pulling my suitcases after me on the
bumpy street, I didn't notice the people, the houses, the dirty motorbikes. The
screeching, the honking din, the shouts, the singing on the street, the stench
rising from the pavement; all of it came to me only later. I didn't see the
truck turning the corner, nor the timber whooshing free.

Iván was looking at
me, pointing at his house behind him.

"I had rats but I
put out some poison," he said. "You are not afraid, are you?"

His eyes told me
something else. I smiled and I started to answer this other, unspoken question
and then…

The timber could
have hit me but I only felt its draught. Iván fell like a bowling pin. His head…
I am unable to write down what happened to his head.

I hadn't stopped it.
I stood on the street that was suddenly filling with a loud hubbub; I smelt the
stink and the spices and stared at Iván lying before me. I almost leant down
but froze. I would have recognised his death even if I hadn't seen countless
other dead before. I knew it.

The year had passed.

I understood nothing
from the shouts around me. They spoke a strange language, strangers all. My
suitcase was dotted with red, the feeling of Iván's touch was cooling on my
hand.

The sounds fled; the
scene became distant and memories attacked me.

First from the past:
Iván, laughing when he tried to hide a pain; his touch on my belly; him shaking
his hair from his face—then from the future: me, as I run away from all
relationships; me who lets go because holding on hurts more; me, who will be
the last oracle on this Earth for I won't bear a child for anyone.

I see me living
alone, and when the gas remains on—accidentally or deliberately—I flare up
without anything to feel remorse for, only that I have nothing and no-one to
regret. It will be a perfect death, for I won't be alive before it happens. I
won't even be old.

I trembled with the
certainty, and then I was again standing on the pavement with two Indian women
beside me who held my hands and talked to me in English. A large crowd gaped around
us. Iván was covered with a tarp that had offered merchandise a few minutes
ago.

I stared at the
plaid tarp and still the tears didn't come. Only later, at the police station
where no-one understood my pronunciation and mangled English and my stammer.

I don't recall how
and when I made the journey back home.

 

They left me alone.
Perhaps they realised that my gaze was barbed wire and my silence a brick
wall—at least they didn't approach me. They knew what had happened and talked
about it, too; I heard the half-sentences float out of the nurses' room.
Although I wished to see them fall shamefully silent as I entered, I waited in
the corridor until the topic shifted.

 

I smoked a lot alone
in the hospital garden. I noticed that the others went down separately whenever
they could, while I was turning the sheets, giving shots, serving dinner. It
was already winter, my fingers were chilled red and my feet were cold in my
clogs because I only ever put on a coat, but I wouldn't go back until I had
smoked at least two cigarettes.

"We will catch a
cold," said Anna from behind me on one of the freezing afternoons.

I glanced back. She
hadn't even put on a coat, just a sweater. She didn't seem to be cold; maybe
she had spoken only to make me notice her. I made some space for her by the
ashtray of the refuse bin. As she stepped closer, I grew dizzy for a moment.
She was pregnant but she didn't know it yet: I saw her going on maternity
leave. I kept silent for a while then said:

"All those
cigarettes will ruin you."

She laughed
hoarsely. "Look who's talking! You have more nicotine in your blood than
haemoglobin."

I shrugged. I knew
how I would die, and it wouldn't be from smoking. "Not yet," said my father
from my memories as he pulled me across the street.

We were silently
blowing out smoke.

"So what's going on?"
I asked for the sake of asking.

"I have a room full
of living dead," she said calmly. "I hope they hang on until Christmas."

I nodded. Rooms like
that embittered nurses. Smiles and comfort lasted only so long. For half a year
by my reckoning.

"I can take over if
you like." It would mean hell for administration but it was all the same for
me.

"No problem," she
said and smothered the butt. "Are you coming? I have a kilo of tangerines,
would you like some?"

I went with her to
her floor. Their nurses' room was smaller but more snug. Someone had brought
several pots of poinsettia, and I smelt the cinnamon bark hanging from a closet
door. I closed my eyes. Iván's perfume also had a hint of cinnamon, and I
realised that I missed his scent the most. I will remember his smell longer
than his face.

We ate tangerines
while Anna talked about making Christmas presents. She didn't ask me what I
would give for Christmas and to whom, and this bothered me, although I had no
inclination to tell her. When the time came to check the wards, I accompanied
her because I felt that our conversation was incomplete.

Dead were lying in
the room. They were still alive but as I looked at them, I saw how they would
die.

"You were right," I
whispered to Anna.

"About what?"

I just nodded at
them. I waited while she made her round. She stopped at every bed and asked how
she could help. I was wondering whether I should tell her there were some who
wouldn't live to see Christmas, but in the end I kept silent. I knew my father,
and he wouldn't have given away information like that. There was a reason for
that. When Anna came out to the hallway I just smiled.

"You are doing the
same," she said as we were walking back.

"What?"

"You know it is only
a matter of a little comfort for a few days, and still you won't give up." She
stopped at the door of the nurses' room. "Well, bye."

"Bye." I didn't
budge. Then: "I think you are pregnant."

The surprise in her
face. The happiness. Who would have thought? I was amazed. Is that all? You
tell a prophecy and you do good with it? Then the sudden prick: why hadn't my
father told me anything happy?

"How do you know?"

I shrugged. "A
feeling." I turned away and then I remembered what I had vowed. That I would
never have a child. Ever. I was already sorry for saying anything at all.

"I have to go. My
patients are waiting."

She nodded. "You
seem to be in need of a nurse yourself," she said in her old, wry voice.

She had thrown me
off my balance again. Her remark hurt, although I didn't really understand why.

I went back to my
own floor. As I was adjusting the pillows under the patients to make them
comfortable, I was chewing on Anna's words.

"May I have a glass
of water?" The raspy voice jolted me out of my thoughts.

I looked down at the
old woman, and a wizened prune of a face looked back at me. My vision blurred
and in a memory—as if it were my own—I saw her recover from her operation and
fall in love, then marry. I was shocked. Her skin was yellow, her eyes full of
grit—not someone who has something waiting for her. And still.

I poured her a glass
of water. My hand shook.

"Don't worry, love,"
I said as I handed her the water. My father kept prophecies to himself, good
and bad alike, although the latter was more likely to be spoken. I could afford
to tell the good news. A small thing but it is within my power. "Two weeks and
you will be like new. You will even dance at your wedding."

She laughed. "Me? Oh
heavens, no! Perhaps at yours, Judit."

Definitely not at
mine, I wanted to say, but my throat constricted. The face of the woman looked
younger from laughing, and I would be sorry to see her age again. Plus… My
breath stopped. The stupidity and futility of prophecies was suddenly plain,
and I was lost amongst the waves of my thoughts.