I came down my steps. I reached my hand out and tilted her face up. Her eyeballs and lids rolled down just like the eyes of the dolls she used to play with. Her skin was cold to my touch. The vertical scars at the outer edges of her eyes were now seasoned lines, though I recalled the day Rosina's blade gave birth to them, and how they had been raw and choked with dark blood. I jerked her chin farther up. Still she wouldn't meet my gaze. I wanted her to see the scars on my body, one from her betrayal of me with Shiva and another from her becoming more Eritrean than any Eritrean, resulting in the hijacking that drove me out of my country. I wanted her to see my rage through my outer calm. I wanted her to feel the blood surge in my muscles, to see the way my fingers curled and coiled and itched for her windpipe. It was good she didn't look, because if she'd so much as blinked, I would have bit into her jugular, I would have consumed her, bones, teeth, and hair, leaving nothing of her on the street.
I took her by the elbow and led her inside. She came like a woman going to the gallows. In the foyer as I bolted the door, she stood rooted to the mat. I led her to my library—a dining room that I had transformed—and I pushed her down on the ottoman. She perched on its edge. I stared down at her; she didn't move. Then she coughed, a spasm that took fifteen seconds to pass. She brought a crumpled tissue to her lips. I looked at her for a long time. I was about to speak when the cough commenced again.
I went to the kitchen. I boiled water for tea, leaning my head against the refrigerator as I waited. Why was I doing this? One minute homicide, the next minute tea?
She had not changed her position. When she took the cup from me, I saw her unvarnished, chipped fingernails and the wrinkled washerwoman's skin. She pulled one sleeve down, passed the cup over, and repeated the process with the other, so as to hide her hands. Tears streamed down her face, her lips pulled back into a grimace.
I had hoped that my heart would be hardened to such displays.
“Sorry. I work in a kitchen,” she whispered.
“After all you have done to me, you're sorry about the state of your hands?”
She blinked, said nothing.
“How did you find me?”
“Tsige sent me.”
“Why?”
“I called her when I got out of jail. I needed … help.”
“Didn't she tell you that I didn't want to see you?”
“Yes. But she insisted I see you before she would help me.” She glanced directly at me for the very first time. “And I wanted to see you.”
“Why?”
“To tell you I'm sorry.” She averted her gaze after a few seconds.
“Is that something you learn in prison? Avoiding eye contact?”
She laughed, and in that moment I wondered if, with all she had seen and done, she was beyond being touched by anger. She said, “I was stabbed once for looking.” She pointed down with her chin to her left side. “They took out my spleen.”
“Where were you in prison?”
“Albany.”
“And now?”
“I'm paroled. I have to see my probation officer every week.”
She put her cup down.
“What else did Tsige say?”
“That you're a surgeon.” She looked around the library, the shelves full of books. “That you're doing well.”
“I'm only here because I was forced to run. Forced to leave in the night like a thief. You know who did that to me? To Hema? It was someone who was to our family … like a daughter.”
She rocked back and forth. “Go on,” she said, straightening her back. “I deserve it.”
“Still playing the martyr? I heard you hid a gun in your hair when you got on that plane. An Afro! You were the Angela Davis of the Eritrean cause, right?”
She shook her head. After a long while she said, “I don't know what I was. I don't know who I was. The person I was felt she had to do something great.” She spat out the last word. “Something spectacular. For Zemui. For me. They promised me that you and our family would not be harmed. As soon as the hijack was over, I realized how stupid it was. Nothing about it was great. I was a great fool, that's all.”
She drank her tea. She stood up. “Forgive me, if you can. You deserved better.”
“Shut up and sit down,” I said. She obeyed. “You think that does it? You say sorry and then leave?”
She shook her head.
“You had a baby?” I said. “A field baby.”
“The contraceptives they gave us didn't work.”
“Why did you go to jail?”
“Must I tell you everything?”
She began coughing again. When the spasm was over, she shivered, although the room was warm and I was sweating.
“What happened to your baby?”
Her face crumpled. Her lips stretched out. Her shoulders shook. “They took my baby away from me. Gave him away for adoption. I curse the man who put me in that position. Curse that man.” She looked up. “I was a good mother, Marion—”
“A good mother!” I laughed. “If you were a good mother you might be carrying my child.”
She smiled through her tears as if I were being funny—as if shed just remembered my fantasy of our getting married and populating Missing with our children. Then she began to shake, and at first I thought she was crying or laughing, but I heard her teeth chatter. I had rehearsed my lines in my head as I walked out of Asmara, walked all the way to the Sudan; Id rehearsed them so many times since. I imagined every excuse she might offer if I ever met her. I had my barbs ready. But this quaking, silent adversary was not what Id envisioned. I reached over and felt her pulse. One hundred forty beats per minute. Her skin, cool just a while ago, was burning to the touch.
“I … must … go,” she said, rising but swaying.
“No, you will stay.”
She was clearly unwell. I gave her three aspirin. I led her into the master bath and ran the shower. When it was steaming, I helped her undress. If earlier I had seen her as an animal in the predator's lair, now I felt like a father disrobing his child. Once she was in the shower, I tossed her underwear and shirt into the washer and ran the load. I helped her out of the shower. She was on glass legs. I dried her off and sat her on the edge of the bed. I put a pair of my winter flannels on her and tucked her in. I made her eat a few spoons of casserole and drink more tea. I put Vicks on her throat and on her chest and the soles of her feet, just as Hema would do with us. She was asleep before I slid the woolen socks over her toes.
What was I feeling? This was a Pyrrhic victory. A pyrexic victory— the thermometer I slid under her armpit read one hundred three degrees. While she slept, I moved her wet clothes to the dryer and stuck her jeans in the washer. I put away the casserole. Then I sat in the library by myself, trying to read. Perhaps I dozed. Hours later, I heard the sound of a toilet being flushed. She was on the bed, covers thrown to the side, pajamas and socks off, wrapped in a towel and wiping her brow with a washcloth. Her fever had broken. She moved over to make room for me.
“Do you want me to leave now?” she said.
In that question, I felt that she was taking control because there was only one possible answer: “You're sleeping here.”
“I'm burning up,” she said.
I changed into my boxers and T-shirt in the bathroom, took a blanket from the wardrobe, and headed for the library.
“Stay with me?” she said. “Please?”
I had no reply planned for that.