The Weight of Water (4 page)
Read The Weight of Water Online
Authors: Sarah Crossan
Mama prods me.
Pushes me forward –
Me and my English.
‘We are looking for a man,’
Is all I can say
Because I am mesmerised by the puffy nipples
Poking through the holes in the man’s vest.
‘Do I look like some kind of poofter to you?
Get lost. Go on!’
He slams the door
In my face.
Just once.
HARD.
‘What’s a poofter, Mama?’ I ask.
‘A type of landlord, Kasienka,’ Mama says,
Very sure of her English.
II
The old lady wants to help.
She looks sorry
For not knowing more,
Tells us she will ask her friends
At Tuesday bingo
If they’ve seen Tata.
Her head rolls to one side,
Heavy with regret,
And this makes me feel
Very small.
III
There is no answer
At the next house,
Just drawn curtains
And a closed wooden door
With the paint peeling.
IV
When it gets dark,
I want to go home.
‘One more street, Kasienka,
Then home. I’ll make bigos,’ she says.
But Mama misunderstands.
When I say home, I don’t mean
The Studio.
V
She is too tired to make the bigos,
And throws together cheese sandwiches
For dinner instead.
Then she unfolds her map
And marks the streets we have searched.
‘It could take us for ever,’ I complain,
Though not too loudly,
For fear of pinching Mama’s mood.
‘You in a hurry to be somewhere else?’
Mama asks
And goes back to the map,
Leaving me to my pessimism and
French homework.
Kanoro lives in our building.
In the next room.
He shares a bathroom with Mama and me.
But he is not a nasty person:
He is beautiful.
He is blacker than anyone I have ever met.
Skin like
Wet ink.
And he scares me,
Until he smiles:
Pink,
All gums,
A smile that makes his eyes twinkle.
In Kenya he was a doctor.
‘For children,’ he explains.
Again the smile,
The gums.
The twinkle.
In Coventry he is a cleaner
At a hospital,
Like Mama.
‘I like to work in hospitals,’ Kanoro says.
Mama laughs:
‘They think you are nothing,
These receptionist women and porter men.
But you are better than them;
You are a doctor,
And they don’t know it.
Ignorant English.’
Kanoro shakes his head
And like stars at dawn
The twinkle disappears.
‘It is Kanoro who is ignorant,
If he thinks he is better.
There is honour in all things,’ he says.
Mama winces, then smiles.
And in her smile there is an
Inky glint.
The staring boy is there,
Sitting on the tiles
With his feet in the water.
Kicking.
I hurry to the other end of the pool,
Head down,
Hands hiding my chest,
Planning to dive in,
To save myself.
But somehow I stumble
And fall,
Making a mighty
SPLASH
That attracts too much attention.
When Mama said,
‘We’re going to England,’
I didn’t see myself
Alone.
I knew I’d be different,
Foreign.
I knew I wouldn’t understand
Everything.
But I thought, maybe, I’d be exotic,
Like a red squirrel among the grey,
Like an English girl would be in Gdańsk.
But I am not an English girl in Gdańsk.
I’m a Pole in Coventry.
And that is not the same thing
At all.
Five foreigners in my class
And, very strange,
Quite coincidentally,
Teachers never put us
To work in the same groups.
Each group must be given
Its fair share of duds.
No need to overburden
One particular person.
This isn’t prejudice:
None of the smart ones
Ever end up together,
None of the dim kids either,
Or the noisy, naughty ones.
Teachers aren’t stupid.
But maybe they think we are,
When they pretend to make
Random selections.
The teachers who
do
let us choose
Make the mistake of thinking
Everyone will find a place;
But there are always
One or two of us,
Left sitting,
Desperately scanning,
Hoping to be considered
By a group of unpopulars
With too few people
Before the teacher turns,
Detects the exclusion
And with a wagging finger says,
‘
You!
Work with
them
.’
There is eye rolling and chair scraping
As we shuffle forward,
Unwanted and misused,
Like old boots dragged
From a river.
The boy from the swimming pool,
The boy from Year Nine,
The watcher,
Is called William.
He tells me I’m a mean swimmer
And should be on the school team.
I didn’t know there was a team,
But I should be on it,
William says.
I’m mean,
William says,
Pushing his hair
Out of his eyes
And hitching up his jeans
Which are slipping around his hips.
He doesn’t say much more –
He just stares,
And this staring brings my dinner
Back into my throat:
Green beans and bacon.
I swallow it quickly.
And with twisted tongue tell him
I’m twelve,
Almost thirteen,
In case he thinks otherwise.
When I talk he looks at me
Like I am amazing
And then he says,
‘
Why
are you in Year Seven?’
And I don’t want him to think
I’m stupid, so I have to say,
‘It’s because I’m Polish.
I’m in Year Seven because
I’m Polish.’
This is the truth
And yet, it is only
A small piece
Of it.
I tell Mama about the swim team
But not about William.
‘No time for this, Kasienka,’
Mama says. ‘We have to find Tata.’
She points to the map
Pinned to the wall like ugly art.
I nod,
yes
, though I do not want to look for Tata –
Tata does not want to be found;
He is in hiding – he is hiding from us both,
A truth that makes me grind my teeth sometimes.
But I don’t tell Mama this,
Even when we’re searching.
Night after night,
Street after street,
One door at a time,
And it’s raining,
And I’m hungry,
And teary,
And tired,
Because hope is all Mama has.
And I cannot take it from her.
There is a leaky tap in the kitchen,
in our room, where we sleep.
All night it plays a rapping rhythm
against the metal sink,
And Mama, next to me,
murmurs along to its beat.
I want to get out of bed to tighten the tap,
stop the dripping – the rapping-tapping.
It’s times like these Tata would be useful.
He’d have a box of tools
And no fear about waking Mama
to get the tap fixed,
though she might grumble.
He uses sharp spices
Which we taste in our dinner