He looked at her, then tapped himself similarly. “Colene.”
Oops. She cast about for something else. She picked up a notepad and pencil, and quickly drew two figures, one small and female, the other larger and male. She pointed to herself, then to the female. “Me. Colene.” Then to the male. “You.”
She paused expectantly.
He took the paper. “Me. Colene,” he said, pointing to the female. “You. Darius.”
Well, it was progress. “Me Colene, girl,” she said, tapping herself again. “You Darius, man.”
He nodded, pointing to her. “Me—”
“No, you.”
He looked perplexed, but managed to get it. “You Colene girl. Me Darius man.”
She smiled. “Yes.” It was a beginning. He did not know her language, but he could learn. She drilled him on Yes and No until she was sure he understood them, and tested him on the picture of the horse on the wall, titled “For Whom Was That Neigh?” “Man?” she asked, pointing to it. No. “Girl?” No. “Horse?” Yes. He had it straight. Then she gave her message. She opened the door and pointed to the house beyond. “House. Colene. Yes. House. Darius. No.”
After some back-and-forth, he seemed to understand. But he seemed uneasy, even uncomfortable.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
Finally he made what might have been taken as an obscene gesture, but he did it in such an apologetic manner that she knew he wasn’t trying to insult her. He touched and halfway squeezed his groin.
“The bathroom!” she exclaimed, catching on. “You have to use the—” But she couldn’t bring him to the house for that!
“Wait,” she told him, and dashed back to the house. She dug out a big old rusty pot and brought it to the shed. “This.” She pantomimed sitting on it. She even made the whoopee noise.
He looked extremely doubtful. “No, I won’t watch you!” she said, knowing he couldn’t understand the words, but hoping the sense of it came through. “I have to go to the house, there.” She pointed to it. “So my folks won’t know anything’s up. I’ll try to check back on you, when I can. You just stay here.” Then she stepped out, and closed the door on him.
She was just in time: her father’s car was pulling into the drive. She hurried to the back door and in. She checked the kitchen to make sure that nothing there would give her away, then went to the front room to pick up her school books. But no, this was Friday, and she never did homework on Friday. She didn’t want to arouse suspicion. She had to be perfectly normal. So she turned on the TV too loud and plumped down on the couch.
Her father came in. “Turn that thing down!” he snapped.
She grabbed the remote control and diminished the volume just enough to accede without quite ceasing to annoy him. He went on to his bedroom.
One down. One to go.
An hour later her father, clean, shaved, and neatly dressed, went out again. Colene stared at the TV, pretending not to notice. She didn’t care about his date with his mistress, as long as he was discreet. Well, maybe deep down she did care, but that was worse than pointless: it only cut her up further. There was nothing she could do about it anyway. So it was safer not to care.
Fifteen minutes after that, her mother’s car arrived. Colene remained before the TV. Actually her mind was on the man in the shed; she wasn’t paying any attention to the program. But she had to play her role, more so today than usual.
Her mother went straight to the kitchen, and Colene heard the first drink being poured. Good; there would be no trouble from that quarter this evening.
She got up, leaving the TV on, and went to the kitchen. “I’ll just take a snack out to the shed, okay?” she said, picking up some candy bars and raisins. She put tap water into a plastic bottle. Her mother, intent on hiding what could not be hidden, offered no objection.
Colene carried her things out. It was strictly live and let live, in her family; none of them wanted the hassle that a challenge to any of them would have brought. If someone insisted on visiting, all three of them shaped up to put on a good act for the required time. What was to be gained by letting the truth be known? A philanderer, an alcoholic, a suicidal child. Family love? What a laugh. Ha. Ha. Ha. Maybe there had once been love. Now it was merely strained tolerance. Typical American family, for sure!
She knocked on the shed door, just to warn Darius. Then she opened it.
He had used the pot. She could tell by the smell. She should have brought a cover for it. Without a word she walked across, set down the candy bars, picked up the pot, and carried it outside and around to the back of the shed. There was an old rusty spade there with a broken handle. She used that to dig a hole, and she dumped the pot and covered up the stuff. She had had some experience with this sort of thing, and knew that it wasn’t worth even wrinkling her nose. It wasn’t as bad as cleaning up her mother’s vomit, after all.
She found a battered piece of plywood, banged it against the ground to get the dirt and mold off, and set it on the pot. She brought the set back into the shed. She put them down in a corner.
Then at last she faced Darius. “I can’t stay long,” she said.
He nodded as if he understood. He smiled.
She smiled back. Then she picked up the candy and raisins. “More food for you.”
He insisted this time on sharing it with her, so she ate one bar while he ate the rest. He was much more alert than he had been, which was a relief. He was also halfway handsome under his dirt. There was nothing wrong with him that food and a washcloth wouldn’t cure.
Well, that she could handle. She found a tatter of colored cloth she had pretended was the flag of her imaginary kingdom in the Land of Horses and poured some of her cup of water on it. “Clean,” she told him, and proceeded to rub it across his face. He did not protest; in fact, he seemed used to having such a thing done for him. Finally she fetched her comb and combed his hair back. Oh, yes, he was handsome, when allowance was made for his stubble beard. But that kind of beard was considered macho, because of all the undercover criminal-playing cops on TV.
They drilled on vocabulary. Darius was a quick study—a very quick study—and so was she. Soon they had the words for the parts of the body and items of clothing, and were working on other parts of speech. For the first time Colene appreciated basic grammar, now that she was teaching it. It was convenient to say “noun” or “verb” in some cases when clarifying the use of a word. When Darius indicated the door and said “verb” she knew he was zeroing in on things like “open” and “close” and “walk through.”
One bit was fun in its own fashion. She had a little box of wooden matches in the shed, which she used for lighting her canned heat so she could do a tiny bit of cooking. An electric hotplate would have been better, but she didn’t have one. This was good enough.
Darius saw the box, and inquired. “Matches,” she explained. Then she demonstrated by striking one. He gaped as it burst into flame. Then he wanted to try it himself. She let him—and he burned his fingers on it. But he was really intrigued by the phenomenon, like a little child. “Keep them,” she told him generously. “I can get more.”
He put the box away in a pocket, smiling. It was as if he had found a charm.
She tried to learn his words for things, but they were melodious and extremely strange, with nuances she was sure she was missing. She was apt at language, but knew that there was nothing like this on this side of the world. So she concentrated for now on teaching him. When he could talk well enough to tell her where he was from, she would look it up and learn a whole lot more about him. Somewhere in the Orient, maybe, though he did not look Oriental.