Triptych (19 page)

The three of them are verbally reprimanded for failing to follow proper channels of hierarchy and for a moment, Kalp is terrified that they will all have their employment terminated. Instead the very dark, very elderly human in charge of the panel sucks on his moustache and shakes his head a little and says, “All right then. Have fun. Now shove off, I have six more hearings today and I want to go up to my cottage before the sunset. Ta.”

Either in celebration or to avoid any further confrontations with co-workers while the topic is still in debate, the three of them depart the Institute at the lunch hour and inform the receptionist in the lobby of their intention to not return to work again until the following Monday. They stop at a small store that specializes in frothy coffee confections and pre-packaged sandwiches and take them across the street to a green space.

They sit on the grass. Kalp enjoys the tickle of the verdant foliage against his bare feet and the sunlight on his face. Basil grumbles and applies a thick protective cream to his pale skin to avoid sun damage. He offers it to Gwen and she politely declines. Basil tackles Gwen to the ground playfully, wrestling her until he has her pinned beneath his strong thighs, her hands trapped against her legs, and slathers her face with the cream against her half-hearted protests.

He offers some to Kalp, but Kalp’s fur is protection enough and he does not relish the thought of how oily the cream looks. He half hopes Basil will tackle him, too, but is not disappointed when Basil does not. Thus far, there seems to be no indication that the humans are aware of his physical regard.

They drink their cold coffee and eat their cold sandwiches. Kalp discovers that he does not like lettuce, and picks it out of the melange between the bread. This does not offend Gwen or Basil — they explain that many humans have food preferences as well, and so disliking lettuce, while perhaps rare, is not unheard of. Kalp is relieved. He worries less and less everyday about offending his teammates, but he still worries all the same.

There are many birds in the park, and several of them very bold. Basil rips a piece of his bread off the top of his sandwich and tosses it at his feet. Immediately the birds swarm, cooing and flapping, and Kalp is amazed at the tussle that goes on for a single scrap of bread. He eats most of his own sandwich but retains a portion to feed to the pigeons.

There are also several human mothers or fathers nearby with their offspring. Catching sight of the first, Kalp is unable to breathe for a moment. A
child
. He aches, deep down, remembering how strongly he and his Aglunates had been hoping for one of their own. It hurts to see this perfect little being, so far away from his ruined planet, safe and happy and completely unaware of the horrors that had happened a galaxy away. This child must be very young. Perhaps it had not even taken its first breath when Kalp’s Aglunates had taken their last.

His eyes burn in sorrow and Kalp turns away, covering them.

“Kalp?” Gwen asks, and her voice is soft and filled with concern. Kalp forces himself to look up, to fake a smile, but she can see that it is fake.

“The child,” he says. “I…it hurts me.”

Basil frowns. He balls up the empty wrapper of his sandwich and keeps pressing at it with his fingers nervously. “Hurts you how?”

“You would say…’my heart breaks.’”

Gwen sucks in a little gasp of breath and her eyes become wet again. “Oh my God, Kalp — we never asked. I feel like such a
heel
. Did you lose anyone? Stupid, obviously you did, I just meant…I mean, we didn’t
ask.
”

To lose
is an euphemism for
die
.

Kalp shakes his head. “My parents. Maru and Trus…my Aglunates. We were merely hoping for a child.”

Gwen snakes out a hand and wraps it around Kalp’s. He notes with strange detachment that he no longer recoils from the feel of the secretions of her skin and the almost invisible swirl of wrinkles on the tips. He only takes pleasure in the warmth and intent of her touch.

“I’m sorry,” she says softly.

Kalp knows that this is not an Apology. Kalp has heard these words uttered in this way many times since coming to Earth. They are an expression of condolence. Basil pats his arm on the other side, and it feels good to be between them, to feel the warmth of their skin, the patter of their hearts, and know that he is protected and is precious.

Kalp looks back up at the child. Kalp cannot tell if it is male or female — it is clothed in the generic denim pants and tee-shirt that all humans seem to wear. It is so small it cannot propel itself and requires its mother to hold onto its hands to remain upright.

The mother is staring at him, eyes wide. Kalp supposes she has never seen one of his people in the flesh before. She does not look scared, but she seems wary. The child is oblivious, pointing and trilling at the antics of the pigeons.

“I have an idea,” Gwen says. She pulls the last of the bread out of Kalp’s hand and tugs him to his feet. She goes over to the woman and Kalp trails behind at a suitable distance.

Gwen introduces herself to the woman, and Kalp notes that she leaves off her job title. Interesting. She offers the child the bread, breaking it up into small pieces and handing them to him one at a time. She breaks off three in succession and the child dutifully tosses them at the birds. The pigeons swarm and the child laughs.

“This is Kalp,” Gwen explains to the mother. “He’s never seen a human baby before. Can he give your son bread?”

Kalp makes a note to himself to ask Gwen how she knew the child was male.

The woman nods. Kalp crouches beside the child and peers into its — his — face. He is not scared of Kalp. He peers back, blinking, then reaches out and pats Kalp’s cheek. His hand is even wetter, even fatter and more fragile than any other human hand, and it breaks Kalp’s heart a little more. He reaches out and returns the gesture, running his finger pads across the plump cheek, over the fine, smooth hair, being very careful not to scratch with his nails.

“He is very handsome,” Kalp says truthfully to the mother.

She smiles.

There is a
whiirrrr-click
and Kalp recognizes that sound. Still image-recording devices — cameras — have been present at every event Kalp has attended on Earth. So, he does not have to turn around to know that Basil has removed a camera from his briefcase and is taking this opportunity to capture what Kalp is sure will be a future favoured memory. Kalp wonders if Basil will mount it on the wall beside the kitchen. He hopes so. He would very much like to be part of that house. That home. When he walks through the domicile, he can see Gwen and Basil in each room. Kalp wants someone to be able to see himself there, too.

Kalp takes the bread from Gwen and breaks off small pieces for the boy. He throws them jubilantly. Kalp joins in. The pigeons coo and click and get closer and closer, until the boy kicks up a foot in a dance of elation, and they all scatter.

When the bread is all gone, the mother picks up her son and walks away, smiling. She raises her son’s arm for him, mimicking the parting salute by shaking it gently. The boy is laughing.

Kalp feels like perhaps he should be laughing too.

Lunch finished and their trash tucked into the provided receptacles, they make their way back to the car.

***

Basil is very excited about the prospect of Kalp’s cooking.

Basil is usually excited about any and all food in general, but the thought of getting to eat alien food prepared by an alien himself has him eager and wound up. He rushes up and down the aisles of the chain grocery store searching for viable substitute ingredients, reading nutritional guides, and snubbing the lettuce table in the produce department.

Kalp is rather more distressed, because the green things are too green and the red things are not red enough and none of the herbs smell correct. He wants this meal to be perfect, but he cannot find what he needs. The floor of the supermarket is waxed to a shine, and Kalp cannot seem to grip it well enough to keep from sliding around corners and into shelves. It is mortifying and frustrating and Kalp is hating every second of it.

After a quick consultation over a bin of sweets that Basil has surreptitiously dipped his hand into, they pay for the three vegetables that were suitable and pile back into the car.

“I am sorry,” Kalp says, miserably, his toes sore. He is riding in the passenger seat this time, and even the breeze from the open windows and the motion of the vehicle are not enough to cheer him.

“Not your fault,” Gwen says. “I’m not a fan of big box stores anyway. We know another place.”

This “other place” is a small outdoor market tucked away in an ancient square at the centre of the village in which they live. As Basil parks the car, he points out the church that was built in 1407, the meeting hall across the square, the pattern in the coloured cobblestones. He is clearly proud of his cultural heritage.

Kalp asks Gwen where she was born and whether they might visit her home village, and her answer is more complicated. She tells him about deportation ships and horse theft, of a country called Whales and another called Kanada. Kalp gathers she is from the opposite side of the planet, which explains why her accent is so much flatter than the other humans around here. For a while Basil and Gwen playfully fight about the relative merits of Hockey and Football (“real footy, not the sissy-boy crap with padding”), and Kalp is not quite sure which either is, but they sound like sorts of war games.

She does not invite him to go visit her nation with her. Basil senses his disappointment and holds Kalp back for a moment while Gwen goes to investigate a stand filled with soft bright scarves.

“Gwen had a really horrid row with her mum,” he says quietly. “She doesn’t talk to her no more, yeah?”

Kalp comprehends. He is unsure how he feels about the news. He understands the slang word “row,” that it is a very heated argument. He had rows with his mothers and father when he was young. All offspring do. But he also wants to shake Gwen and yell at her, tell her to talk to her mother before a disaster strikes Earth, too. Before it is too late. Kalp’s family died while he had no regrets, and he is lucky. He would be unhappy if Gwen remained miserable about her mother, and then something horrible happened.

It is also partially selfish, and he can admit that to himself. He wants to see Kanada. He wants to travel to the other side of the planet and see long flat prairies and pointy mountains and the curved waterfall that is famous for simply existing. He wants to see them with Gwen.

He wants to hear people talk in the same flat cadence that Gwen does and know it as her own, as her accent, her marker of home.

Basil rubs Kalp’s shoulder in a comforting, friendly way, and tentatively, Kalp raises his hand and returns the gesture. Basil accepts the touch, seems to enjoy it as much as Kalp does, so Kalp leaves his hand there as Basil leads him over to the side of the square with the food stalls.

Basil tells Kalp about his own family — the torment of being the youngest son with two elder sisters, his mother’s rotten culinary skills, his absent father — while they crush and sniff herbs between their fingers. These sprouts are far more fragrant than the ones in the commercial market, though they are not as visually appealing. Kalp wonders at the inanity of cultivating the visual quality of an herb over its ability to add flavour when all one is going to do is chop it up for the purpose of
adding
flavour anyway.

They purchase great handfuls of several different plants, including one that smells like it may produce a beverage Kalp used to enjoy at home, and the woman behind the stall gives them their package wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Kalp finds it quaint. The next vendor is selling fruits — big red apples and purple figs and green fuzzy little things that Basil tells him are kiwis and come from the bottom of Earth — but the vendor is not pleased with Kalp’s presence.

He makes a sharp gesture that Kalp does not understand. Basil, however,
does
understand it and becomes immediately enraged. He shouts, quickly and in a baser language filled with cusses and slang. The fierce anger flowing from both human men hurts.

It almost comes to fisticuffs. Kalp has hold of Basil’s arms as best he can, his long fingers wrapped around to restrain the furious human. Gwen comes rushing to their aid and to Kalp’s surprise, is even more vocal in her reprimand of the vendor than Basil, though she helps Kalp keep Basil’s fists in check. Kalp supposes that her vocabulary of impolite words is even more extensive than Basil’s because she says several things he does not understand (but nonetheless perceives the meaning), and then she speaks in an entirely different language:
“Cer i grafu! Y sais afiach!”

The vendor’s reaction is to turn entirely white, then entirely red. Another vendor must come and restrain the first and Kalp presses his ears against the back of his neck, eyes darting to the growing crowd, searching for escape points.

This day really is not going well.

The sharp bark of an angry man breaks up the crowd and they scatter away like the pigeons in the park. This man is wearing the uniform of the local constabulary and Kalp’s whole posture sinks. They are going to be arrested and thrown into jail for this disturbance!

But the police man does not yell at his team, he yells at the vendor. He calls the vendor “bigoted” and “slanderous” and tells him to pack up his cart and go home. Kalp is sure that the vendor cannot afford to be closed for business on a fine sunny afternoon, and he supposes that is his punishment for starting the altercation.

The vendor packs, muttering more obscenities under his breath.

The police officer sends a few sharp words to his team, as well, and Kalp dutifully bends his head and lifts his palms to catch the reprimand.

Bemused, the police officer then shakes Kalp’s hand, apologizes for the “display” of the argument, welcomes him to Earth, and strolls away. Kalp is confused. Basil is still puffing through his nose, cheeks mottled and red, and Gwen’s hands keep balling up and flexing alternately on her hips.