The Worlds Within Her (2 page)

IS THE TEA
too strong, Mrs. Livingston? Shall I brew another pot? Are you sure? Well, if you're sure. Here's your lemon wedge, I don't know how you stand it. Upbringing explains a lot, I suppose. Sugar and milk. I don't think I could bear the taste of tea any other way. Ahh, that's good.

Now, to get back to your question — why don't I call you Dorothy? As you say, we are neighbours. We have known one another for some years, and we are both of an age that prompts either politeness or impatience. But, as I say, upbringing explains a lot. Do you know, Mrs. Livingston, that not once did I call my husband by his first name? Others called him Vern or Vernon. Those were the ones who didn't know him very well. People in the diplomatic corps or the cabinet. Those who knew him less called him Mr. Ramessar. But those who knew him best called him Ram. For me, he was Mister Ramessar before we were married. He became nameless for a while after our marriage, and
finally he became, for me too, just Ram. Never, ever, Vernon. You know, after a while, Vernon hardly seemed to be his name. It didn't suit him.

Now, why don't I call you Dorothy? Well, my dear, as with Ram, you do not strike me as a Dorothy. Blame it on
The Wizard of Oz.
Dorothys live in places called Kansas, and they get swept up by things called twisters. They are tossed hither and yon — why do you laugh? “Hither and yon” may no longer be part of the vernacular but the phrase still serves admirably. Now Dorothys — Dorothys have their lives turned upside down by these twisters. They find themselves in situations that make no sense in
your
world. They meet, and must accept, tin men and cowardly lions. They encounter beings both good and evil, and sometimes they triumph, sometimes not. And sometimes, when the twister has returned them to their world, they have no idea which way things have gone. My dear Mrs. Livingston, if I do not call you Dorothy, it is because you are less a Dorothy than I. Do you see what I mean? Yes, of course you do.

You must not hold it against me, calling you “Mrs. Livingston.” You must know that even my son-in-law James remains Mr. Summerhayes to me. And I do have a great affection for him. He's a good man. Yasmin is Yasmin. She has been Yasmin from the moment of her birth. But she is the only one.

Now then, another cup perhaps?

THE INSTRUCTIONS THEMSELVES
do not interest her. She has already heard them in English, in French, countless times over
the years. Her luggage is safely stowed under the seat in front of her; she knows how to buckle her seat belt, how the oxygen mask will tumble, how to brace herself in case of emergency — not that it would help much, she always thinks.

She averts her eyes from the flight attendant's vaguely embarrassing pantomime, but she finds herself listening to the pipe-in speech, to its cadences leavened by the rhythms of elsewhere. She hears, not for the first time but with a new clarity, aspects of her mother's speech patterns heightened, a syllable elongated here, a conjunction attenuated there.

Only as the aircraft gathers speed, only as its nose lifts from the tarmac like an animal alerted does it occur to her that she has hardly thought of Jim since the hug, the kiss, the enforced smiles two hours ago.

When the aircraft levels off above the clouds, when bolts of sunlight file unfiltered down the cabin, the pages of a childhood book of Greek myths come to her and she thinks of Icarus, condemned for the arrogance of overweening ambition when his only fault had been inadequate preparation. The pages turn in her mind to sky and sun and sea below, and Icarus, youthful and brown-limbed, looking back aghast at feathers falling away from the wax melting on his arms.

FRIENDS, MRS. LIVINGSTON?
But you
are
my friend, I like to think. I suppose it all comes down to the meaning of the word, if you see what I mean. There are people who have countless friends, people who collect friends the way some people collect
matchboxes, with a glorious indiscriminateness. They count as friends people they do business with, people with whom they regularly chat about the weather … It may have something to do with the debasement of language, don't you think? The word “acquaintance” is such a good one, precise in its way.

To me, friends are people who come back, despite everything. Do you see what I mean? That brooch you are wearing, for instance. A gift from your son, if I'm not mistaken? Last Christmas, no, two Christmases ago. Well, that brooch, my dear Mrs. Livingston, of which you are evidently so fond, you wear it so often, is one of the most hideous pieces of jewellery I have ever seen. It is simply dreadful. It looks like a squashed cockroach. It sits like a stain on your chest.

Oh, dear, have I offended you? Such was not my intention. Or maybe it was, to be perfectly honest. But it was not gratuitous. I am making a point. My judgment of your brooch is not a judgment of you. It is a judgment of the brooch, and of your son's taste in jewellery. But my point is — would you hold this against me? Would you allow that ugly thing to get in the way of our friendship?

There! I thought not. You will come back, won't you? Despite my opinion of your brooch. My comment is not something an acquaintance could get away with, though. Your brooch, and its emotional weight, are worth more to you than mere acquaintanceship. And our friendship is worth more to you than your brooch. Or so I hope. You see what I mean? Yes, of course you do.

A friend, in my opinion, Mrs. Livingston, is someone who will bury you not out of obligation but out of a profound sense of comradeship. You see, it is not always easy being a friend.

Now, do be a dear and put that horrid thing into your purse …

Thank you ever so much. Now then, shall we have a cuppa?

DRINKS ARE SERVED
and soon the volume of conversation in the cabin rises, acquires the intensity of a party losing its inhibitions.

Yasmin, unable to concentrate, closes her book, a plump paperback tour through the crumbled remains of empire in contemporary Eastern Europe. The headache she thought appeased reasserts itself, and she regrets having had just a coffee. Everyone else seems to be holding wine, beer, whisky, rum-and-Cokes: tourists assuming their new carefree personae.

She wonders briefly at her choice of book, the topic on the face of it so remote from the place she has left and from the place to which she is going; and she wonders whether this might be the reason the book attracted her, for its very distance from the worlds that are hers: a sign, possibly, of her fear.

But then she grows irritated with herself. Couldn't it be much simpler than that? It was Charlotte who once said that life is not a novel, that it is full of the meaningful
and
the meaningless; Charlotte who pointed out that we underestimate the pleasure we get from the empty and the insignificant.

And so Yasmin reminds herself of why she's bought the book: because a colleague in the newsroom recommended it; because she is curious both personally and professionally; because she likes to read about her world and about worlds different from her own; because it was there, in the bookstore at the airport, with a cover that caught her eye. All reasons so prosaic, so pedestrian, she tells herself, that they can have nothing to do with fear. It is, she realizes, one of the faults of her profession: seeking out patterns, links, events that will form a chain. And when none is discovered, the instinct is to impose one. This
book, her worlds, her fears: this seeking after significance is not self-awareness; it is, she suspects, its very opposite.

She signals to a passing attendant and asks for a vodka and orange juice.

“Yeah, sure, honey,” the attendant replies, offering her seat companion another beer.

The man, red-eyed, holds up his empty can in a large, work-scarred hand, the muscles of his forearm rolling and tightening under his dark skin. Unexpectedly he catches Yasmin's glance, returns her smile with a shy resignation. She sees that he is working at containing a submerged skittishness.

The drink, when it comes, contains much vodka and little orange juice, the ice cubes floating around hollow and fragile. Through the window, a few high clouds scud by, suffused with sunlight …

White on blue, up and down, spinning around and around and around faster and faster …

White on blue, glimpses of green, white on blue, up and down faster and faster white white white —

Hold on tight!

Faster and faster, green white blue

Don't let go! Don't —

A cascade of green brown blue white …

Umph!

Green. And brown. And white on blue.

And darkness crowding in at the edges.

A gathering up in hands.

The shadow of a face against the blue.

“Hi! How ya doin'?”

The voice brings her back to the rumble of the aircraft, to the cabin restless with laughter and conversation. Her eyes flutter
open to a young woman standing in the aisle, a drink in her hand. She is leaning in over Yasmin's seat companion and seems determined, despite his reserve, to engage him in conversation.

“Fine,” he mumbles.

“You on your way home?”

“Yes.”

“Were you here on vacation?”

“I was workin' in Niagara, pickin' fruit. Temporary work permit.”

“Yeah? That's great.”

“Not really. Fall off a ladder, hurt my back. So is back home for me.”

“Gee, that's too bad. Hope you get better soon.”

“T'anks.”

The woman's gaze shifts to Yasmin. “You on your way home too?”

“No.”

The woman's eyes narrow in curiosity. “Have we met somewhere? You're familiar somehow.”

“I don't think so.”

“I know I've seen you somewhere. You work downtown?”

“Around there.”

“Probably seen you buyin' lunch or something. So … you on vacation?”

“No. I'm taking my mother back to her home.”

“That's great!” Her head swivels around. “Where's she sitting?”

“Actually, she's in my suitcase.”

The woman freezes, cocks her head in puzzlement.

“Oh, don't worry,” Yasmin says, enjoying the cruelty of the moment. “She's dead. We had her cremated.”

The woman's face distorts in dismay. She turns abruptly and begins pushing her way up the crowded aisle back to her seat, her vacation off to a bad start.

Yasmin immediately regrets the callousness, regrets the pleasure it has given her. Jim would be appalled.

But her seat companion is grinning. He says, “You really livin' up here?”

Yasmin nods.

“Serve her right then, if you follow my meanin'.”

Yasmin smiles and the man, with nothing more to say, settles back into his seat and shuts his eyes.

Yasmin takes a sip of her drink and returns her gaze to the sky, the clouds and the consequences of reaching too far into the unknown.