She’d seen people who’d run off to save their families and others who’d run off to be saved from them. Families full of endless table chat as easygoing as families that loved each other without words. (In hers there were just three women right now. Her heart skipped a beat when she thought of her little sister; it only started back up when she concluded that, like her, she’d know how to take care of herself.)
Plus, all families had started off in some mysterious way: to repopulate the earth, or by accident, or by force, or out of boredom; and it’s all a mystery what each will become. One time she’d been in the middle of an argument between sweethearts. The woman had run to the switchboard, planted herself behind Makina and stood there responding to each of the man’s grievances; it was sheer pigheadedness till Makina began to rephrase their respective complaints: You like my cousin better, you can keep her, She says that was low, you getting with her cousin, What are you bitching about? I’m the same cat I was when you met me, He says he’s acting like the man you wanted him to be, Oh, then me too, so don’t get in my face cause I already knew that friend of yours, She says what’s good for the gander is good for the goose, But you’d never done nothing with him before and me and your cousin was an item, He says that’s apples and oranges, I don’t care if you was an item back in the day, but I damn sure care if you still are, She says to stop playing dumb, It was just one kiss, the last one, He says they were saying goodbye, Oh, right, then mine was a goodbye, too, She says why can’t she if you’re still messing around, I’m not saying you can’t, but it bugged me when everyone found out, He says he’s not that jealous but you shouldn’t be so brazen. Then they both shut up and Makina concluded I think you’re both saying that the both of you could be more discreet. For a while after that, every time she bumped into them they’d thank her for getting them back together. Then she didn’t see them anymore.
On her way to the army base Makina passed a building whose steps were crowded with people holding multicolored flags; her excitement and hurry having subsided, she stopped to see what it was about. There were couples holding hands lining up to see a very solemn man who said something to them and after he said it everyone cried and there was rice and clapping and rejoicing galore. They were getting married. Makina was so dazzled by the beauty of the ceremony that she didn’t at first notice that the couples were either men or women but not men and women, and on realizing it she felt moved by how many tears were being shed, like flowers from their eyes, over how hard it had been to get there, and she wished that the people she’d known in the same situation could have been that happy. What she couldn’t understand was why the ring, the official, the godparents mattered so. Makina had admired the nerve of her friends who were that way inclined, compared to the tedious smugness of so-called normal marriages; she’d conveyed secret messages, lent her home for the loving that could not speak its name and her clothes for liberation parades. She’d witnessed other ways to love … and now they were acting just the same. She felt slightly let down but then said to herself, what did she know. It must be, she thought, that they know other marriages, good ones where people don’t split up, where fathers don’t leave and they each keep speaking to the other. That must be why they’re so happy, and don’t mind imitating people who’ve always despised them. Or perhaps they just want the papers, she said to herself, any kind of papers, even if it’s only to fit in; maybe being different gets old after a while.
She went on her way, toward the west, and after many blocks made out another array of flags, equally pretty but all lined up and all the same size. This was where the soldiers were.
7. The Place Where People’s Hearts Are Eaten
Wait here, the soldier said.
As she waited at the entry booth for the anglo whose name the black man had given her, Makina wondered what she’d do if they brought bad news, if they told her that her brother had died or that they had no clue where he might be. Mr. Aitch might lend a hand in exchange for an additional favor, but that would mean mixing with crooks again just for the sake of a tip-off she couldn’t necessarily count on. And what was the point of calling the cops when your measure of good fortune consisted of having them not know you exist.
The soldier returned to the booth and sat down behind his desk. He opened a folder and went back to concentrating on the papers he’d been reading before Makina arrived. He’d only just started when he seemed to remember she was there. He looked up and told her the soldier would be with her right away, and went back to his reading.
A few minutes later the door opened and there appeared before her, dressed in military uniform, her very own brother.
Neither one at first recognized the specter of the other. In fact, Makina stood up, greeted him and began to express her gratitude and ask a question before picking up on the soldier’s uncanny resemblance to her brother and the unmistakable way in which they differed; he had the same sloping forehead and stiff hair, but looked hardier, and more washed-out. In that fraction of a second she realized her mistake, and that this was her brother, but also that that didn’t undo the mistake. She stopped breathing for a second, placed the fingertips of one hand on the desk so as not to lose her balance, and reached out the other to touch the apparition that was this man she had not asked to see. He took her arm, said to the other soldier I’ll be right back and versed out to the street with Makina.
They walked awhile in silence. They turned their heads to look at one another, first him, now her, then stared ahead again, disbelieving. They pondered some more what each should say. Finally, still staring straight ahead, he started off:
Did you have a hard time finding me?
Kind of; I only found you when I stopped trying.
How’s Cora?
Alive, said Makina; she thought of the message she’d brought him but instead she said What about the land?
Her brother chuckled. You went to see it, didn’t you?
Makina nodded.
After that I bounced from back alley to back alley and ass-kicking to ass-kicking, till I met the old lady at the restaurant. She fed me soup till I had strength enough to come home.
But you didn’t come home.
No, he said, I didn’t come home.
Her brother told Makina an incredible story. After the land fiasco he was too ashamed to return, which is why he accepted the first job that came his way. That woman had come offering the earth itself for his assistance. She spoke latin tongue and asked for his help with every term of entreaty she could find in the dictionary. She took him to her house, introduced him to her husband, to her young daughter, and, after waiting for him to come out of his room, to a bad-tempered teen.
This is who you’re going to help, said the woman. But I wanted you to meet the whole family you’ll be saving.
He must have been about the same age as him, just barely grown-up. Like him, without consulting his family he’d decided to do something to prove his worth as a man and had joined the army, and in a few days they were going to send him to the other side of the world to fight against who knew what people that had who knew what horrific ways of killing. He was of age, but acted like a child: for the whole insane hour that their interview went on he kept clenching his fists and pursing his lips and only looked up when everything was settled. Over the following days he approached Makina’s brother several times to ask who he was, where he came from, if he was scared; but he didn’t speak enough of their tongue to respond and only said the name of his Village or the term for its inhabitants, which didn’t begin to explain his previous life, or he simply said no, he wasn’t scared. The other adolescent nodded and went off tight-lipped, as if there were something he had to say but didn’t dare.