She opened her bedroom door and shouted to her daughters: “When are you leaving to go to your party?”
“Soon!”
“What does that mean? Tomorrow? Next year?”
“Five minutes!” Tsedal said with a giggle.
“And where is Lulit? Don’t tell me your sister is with that good-for-nothing azmari!”
Another giggle. Angry, Woede walked back to her bedroom, stood in front of the long mirror, and started fixing her hair. She regarded herself: her hair had become — to her surprise — whiter, her eyes smaller, the parabola of her mouth losing its rectilinear charm, her lips developing minuscule notches. She felt a flash of terror about her fifty-five years, then decided to employ those machines of forgetting: eating well, flirting, and acting youthful.
She changed into her pajamas and slippers and threw a large towel over her smooth, curvy hips. She walked out of her bedroom, crossed the salon, and stopped in front of the bathroom door.
“Tsedal, are you not finished?”
“Give me a minute!”
Tsedal was her second-oldest daughter. She was studying at Samara University, somewhere in the east. Woede believed her daughters had become corrupted and irresponsible. The youngest, Lulit, a graduate of Yared Music School, was currently performing in an obscure band. She was already lost in a romance with a dumb musician, together disturbing neighbors with their trumpets. Her oldest daughter, Senait, was gone for good, married to a medical doctor, Euyel.
A few weeks ago, she visited Senait and stared into her blank eyes, emitting pure ennui. She should not have married Euyel.
“How are you?” she asked her.
“You know.”
That was a perfect illustration of the principle of least effort. Senait’s voice was subdued, thick, cold, yet clear. Those two easy words fell on her mother’s ears like granite slabs. Could she tell Senait that her snobbery was just a cheap disguise, a way to somehow absolve her of responsibility? Could a mother be jealous of her own daughter?
It happened seven years ago. She went out to the countryside to visit her father and mother, leaving Senait to take care of the house. She had returned home without a warning. The front door of the house was closed so she had to enter it from the back. She found the back door ajar and everything seemed quiet. Grumbling about the unlocked house, she pushed the door open, thought of making coffee, and walked quietly into the salon. There she saw Geleta and Senait. Senait’s dress was pulled up and Geleta was kissing her, his pants down to the floor. She saw with horror his primitive thrusts and Senait whimpering like a colt. She returned to the patio and sat there, contemplating the incompetence of her husband and how she’d borne his stupid children without pleasure.
The image of this incident was burned into her memory. She understood such desires were wrong and that her current behavior was evil. But she still thought about Geleta with a desire that inflamed her loins.
Woede’s daughters perceived her as uneducated (true), a woman who oozed cheap perfumed sweat (sometimes), scratched her perennially dry skin (rarely), and was a terrorist posing as a mother (often). She had overheard Tsedal and Lulit telling salacious stories, like how they moaned while being fucked. Those seeds that she had grown for nine months in her womb were injuring her.
“You only have five minutes. After that, you have to leave the bathroom!” Woede roared.
She had clout, not because she was a mother, but because she had the money. If she wanted them to commit suicide, they would perform a sweet hara-kiri. As she made her bed, she heard the howl of a dog. The noise hung in the air like it was traveling on aluminum wire. She recognized it and trembled. Six years ago, the very day she heard Samrawiw deliver the most persistent howl the neighborhood had ever heard, Senait and Euyel were wedded. A year or so ago, Samrawiw howled and then a girl, the daughter of an acquaintance of hers, was run over by a truck. Six months later she heard another howl, and someone very close to her died from unknown causes.
Tsedal came out of the bathroom with a wet smile, in a fog of perfume. Ten minutes later, when Woede left the bathroom clean and refreshed, Tsedal was already gone. Woede sat in the salon drying herself. She turned the CD player on and set the volume high so she could hear it from anywhere in the house, then walked back to her bedroom. She put on a light dress and sprayed perfume on her body and into the air around her. Then her phone started vibrating on the bedside table. She snatched it up and said softly: “Are you here?”
She rushed out of the bedroom. When she opened the door, she was hit with cold, moist air. Then she heard the howl a second time, a canine bass, sad and consistent, tearing across the air like a stone. Frightened, she glanced up at the sky as if in benediction. It took her a few seconds to sort things out, and then she walked to open the main gate. There stood Fiqre in a dark overcoat, the collar up. In a remote corner of Woede’s brain, the howl scratched her with worry. Fiqre was quick to hug her. She nuzzled his neck hesitantly before delicately pushing him away.
Woede hurried back to the house and waited for Fiqre to follow, holding the door open with an outstretched hand, exaggerating the curve of her lower back. Fiqre walked in with a gentle stride and patted her where she loved to be patted. She giggled sweetly. He took off his London Fog overcoat and threw it toward the sofa, and before it landed, he was all over Woede. Hanging on each other — kissing, pushing, and pulling — they staggered to the bedroom.
With some effort, Woede managed to tell Fiqre that she must first close the window and the door. He pretended not to have heard her entreaties. His hand crawled under her dress, and she was nearly lost in his embrace.
Suddenly, she saw something bobbing languorously in the penumbra of the evening. Her mouth opened with surprise, her reflexes slowed. She cursed and nudged Fiqre out of his daze.
“Something wrong?” he asked.
“I saw something outside... through the window.”
“It’s just your eyes.”
“I swear by Mariam I saw a round, floating thing covered with cloth or leaves. I do not know—”
“Maybe it’s a bird.”
She pushed him away and moved to the window to look outside — it was cold, quiet, and rainy. Her fear subsided. She slammed the window shut. When Fiqre approached from behind and hugged her, she was on the verge of believing that it was all in her mind.
“Oh, don’t be afraid. Everything is fine,” said Fiqre.
She quietly stared at him, opened her legs absentmindedly, letting his hand crawl between her thighs. But in her heart there was fear. She realized that she had never been this anxious about dying.
Durban Dinga
Delani drove blindly, but not really blindly. He drove as if he had a purpose that he had forgotten, which made him feel a little irresponsible. The mid-August weather was pleasant. On his shirt lapel was a circular pin with the image of a laughing Mandela, framed by the colors of the South African flag. He parked at the side of Wande Cele Road in search of the victim. He knew the street as well as his own private parts. He was tired not only of this Tuesday, but of his life. The newsmen’s daily rants about a changed South Africa — peace, prosperity, equality, a new age, and new times — was all baloney. He did not care about their declarations, because he was so close to the terror of everyday life.
He had been told over the police radio to go to Lotus Park, Wanda Cele Road, near M35 between Isipigo and Orient Hills. The dispatcher named Nomathemba, his classmate in Police College, told him to move his butt fast and check a dead body. It was probably a bergie or a dinga, just discovered south of the city. He asked for details. You’ll get them, fat man.