2007 - Two Caravans (25 page)

I AM DOG I SLEEP MY BELLY IS FULL OF GOOD DOG FOOD MEAT I HAVE WON THE HEART OF THE GOOD VEGETABLE-SMELL FEMALE I HAVE SOOTHED THE MAN-DRINK-STINK MAN I HAVE CHASED AWAY THE TROUBLESOME CAT NOW I SLEEP I AM DOG

Dear sister,

In this house of Toby Makenzi is a miraculous bath which upon touching a switch swirls the water around as fullsomely as the Shire River though off course without crocodiles and whiling in this bath I fell into a worry about these good mzungus in their godless torment and wondered how to bring them consolation.

For this Pa loves hunting and the life of freedom in the woods yet is confounded by the city. This Ma loves the Pa but is confounded by his whisky drinking and blaspheming. Then I was smitten with a joyous thought. I will give Pa Makenzi the fishing rod of the Mozambicans and the red bucket. Thus he will hunt for fishes in the rivers and leave behind the whisky drinking and blaspheming. And what could I give to Ma Makenzi? For everyone knows that a beauteous woman is hard to please and I am a poor boy with nothing to offer. And I was smitten with another joyous thought. This Ma is beloved of vegetables I will give her the carrots.

This thought along with the fullsome swirling of the water caused me to open my heart and sing the song of praise which Sister Theodosia taught me
Ave Maria Gratia Plena
. And this was also joyous for the Ma’s name is Maria.

Andriy Palenko, how can you in all conscience go off and leave your young friend Emanuel in the care of this abnormal family? What’s the matter with these people, in their massive many-windowed house? Two cars (yes, after the father arrived, he saw a nice fat Lexus squatting on the drive beside the little Golf), three high-spec computers, four televisions, all with flat screens, five bathrooms, four en-suite (yes, he made a little tour of the house). Etc. What is the point in all this stuff if it doesn’t bring you happiness?

If his family had had a tenth, no even a hundredth of all this wealth, everything would have been completely different—and would these people even have missed it? “A man needs enough,” his father had said, “no less, and no more.” But they hadn’t had enough. Poor Dad. Yes, his father knew better than anybody that to go underground in those conditions was risky. But when you haven’t got enough, that’s what you have to do.

Andriy is lying stiff and fully clothed on one of the two beds in the room he is sharing with Emanuel, staring at the ceiling and trying to prepare himself for the conversation ahead. In the nearest of the five bathrooms, Emanuel is singing, filling the whole house with his exuberant music. Andriy has a sudden image of that moment in the cathedral; the pink open mouth, the closed eyes, the tears. The singing stops. There is a sound of water gurgling down a plug. Here he comes.

“Emanuel, my father was kill in coalmining accident. Your father was kill in canal accident, yes?”

“Both killed. Mother and father.”

“This is very terrible. To lose both parents at one time.”

“Also my baby brother. This I cannot understand. To punish my little baby brother.”

“Emanuel, this is not punishment, it is accident. Sometimes no person is to blame.”

“But maybe my father is to blame for being unfaithful to my mother.”

“And you think this canal accident was for punishment?”

“No no. HIV sickness was punishment.”

Hm. There may be some vital connection you are missing here, Andriy Palenko. But it’s no use worrying about something you don’t understand. You’ve only got tonight to get your message across. “Emanuel, my brother—do you know what is condom?”

“Of course I know. It is an abomination in the eye of the Lord. In Chichewa, we have a saying:
Only a fool eats the sweet with its wrapper
.”

Emanuel is standing in the middle of the room, drying himself vigorously on a fluffy white towel, as though burring his small, lean, knotty body into polished ebony. Andriy has never seen him naked before. He tries not to stare, but he can’t help taking a surreptitious peep. Is it true what they say about the black man’s manly parts?

“Condom will protect you life, Emanuel. With condom you can have plenty sex no problem. No virus. No organism. No HIV. No problem. After, you say prayer and God will forgive.”

Mrs McKenzie showed me to a room right up in the eaves of the house—such a pretty room, everything matching in blue and white, like in a magazine, and even my own little bathroom with a fluffy white towel warming on the rail and a new bar of scented soap still in its wrapper. I unwrapped it straight away. It smelt spicy and expensive, not sweet and sickly like soap in Ukraine. I wondered if it would be rude to ask whether I could keep the soap when I left, or whether she would even notice if I just slipped it into my bag. After I’d showered I put on my nightdress, which looked crumpled and grey in that clean white and blue room, but I had nothing else. Then I sat in the armchair, smelling the soap on my arms and hands and wondering where Andriy was, and wondering whether he was wondering where I was. There’s something very romantic about attic rooms.

Then there was a knock on the door. My heart started to beat like crazy.

“Come in.”

But it wasn’t him, it was Mrs McKenzie.

“Hello,” she said, in that soft subtle voice that was like the smell of the soap. “Can I come in?”

“Of course. Please.”

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

“Have you got everything you need?”

“I like this room very much.”

It was true—I felt as at home as in my own little bedroom in Kiev. Why is it that when you think happy thoughts, tears can suddenly come into your eyes? Sniffle sniffle. What was the matter with me? I don’t know why, but all at once I found myself telling her about Vulk, and then the words just came pouring out: his creaky coat, his live-rat ponytail, his cigar-stinking car, his sly black hungry-dog eyes. When I tried to describe that night, the words got stuck in my mouth and made me choke.

Mrs McKenzie said in her kind voice, “You know, yoga is very calming when you need to relax. Would you like me to show you?”

“No, it’s OK.”

In my opinion yoga is a typical Western fad, but I didn’t want to offend her, and anyway I was still sniffling.

“Do you miss your mother, darling?”

“Yes, of course.” Then suddenly I blurted out, “In fact I am missing my father. Since he is no longer living at home.”

“He isn’t living at home?”

“He is gone to live with someone else. Someone much younger.”

As I said those words, I felt my face turn red. I didn’t know if it was shame or rage. I felt so sad for Mamma, all by herself in the apartment, talking to the cat, eating breakfast on her own and dinner on her own. Then I thought of the way she was always nagging him: do this, do that, do you love me, Vanya? When I have a husband, I will never do that.

“You really love him, don’t you?” Mrs McKenzie smiled.

“No. Not at all.”

Then I laughed, because I realised that she was talking about Pappa, but I was thinking about Andriy Palenko, and wondering what it would be like to feel his arms around me.

Suddenly there was a quiet knock, then the door opened. My heart jumped. But it wasn’t Andriy, it was Toby.

“Ma, have you got any condoms?” he whispered.

Mrs McKenzie didn’t even turn her head.

“Second drawer down, my side of the bed. Take care not to wake your father.”

“Thanks, Ma.”

Hm. Interesting. Strawberry Flavour Ticklers. These are not like any Ukrainian condoms that Andriy has seen, though probably the principle is the same. But how will they demonstrate it to Emanuel? “I suppose we could show him some porn,” Toby McKenzie looks glum. “That might get him horny. I could download something from the net. Paris Hilton and friends. Busty Biker Chicks. You ever seen that?”

“Pornographia?”

“Busty Biker Chicks. Unbelievable.”

“I think for Emanuel pornographia is not good.”

“Yeah,” Toby McKenzie nods. “He’s a bit of an innocent, isn’t he?”

Andriy is sitting with Toby McKenzie on the red sofa downstairs in the TV room. Everyone else in the house is asleep. Toby is drinking beer from a can. He offers one to Andriy. Andriy shakes his head. He needs to keep his head clear. Then he thinks maybe it’s better to be a bit drunk in this situation. He accepts the beer and takes several gulps.

“Toby, this my friend Emanuel, I am worry for him after I go.”

“Don’t worry, mate, I’ll look after him.” His glibness is not reassuring.

“Like you say, he is innocent. Maybe better is for him to stay like this.”

Toby McKenzie gives him a sideways look. “You want him to stay innocent? What you giving him condoms for?”

Andriy wants to say something deeply intelligent about how Emanuel must take the best of what the West has to offer while also keeping hold of the best from his own culture. But the thought is too complex for his limited English. Maybe the beer wasn’t such a good idea.

“He is African,” is all he can mumble.

“It’s up to him, innit?” Toby scratches the roots of his long plaited hair, examining his nails for evidence of dandruff. “He’s got to have the choice. Everyone’s got to make their own choice. That’s freedom.”

“Sometimes we have freedom but we make bad choice. Look at my country Ukraine.”

Toby McKenzie shrugs. “You make the wrong choice, you got to live with it. Look at my Pa. Funny thing is, he thinks it’s me that’s making the wrong choice. He thinks it’s a choice between working for the system or being a dosser. But it’s not.” He crunches the empty beer can in his hand. “It’s just a choice between whisky and narbis.”

This boy is not stupid. But why is he in such a mess?

“OK, Toby, maybe you right. With condom he has choice.”

“At least if he makes the wrong choice it won’t kill him. Not like that bloody stuff my Pa drinks.”

“But how will we make this condom demonstration?”

“Maybe you’ll have to demonstrate,” says Toby.

Hm. This could be embarrassing. Andriy takes another gulp of beer. On the television screen in front of them a troupe of almost-naked female dancers are tossing their hair and thrusting their hips forward rhythmically. Despite their frenzied activity they are having zero impact on his manly parts. Will they be arousing for Emanuel? Unlikely.

Toby McKenzie takes the remote control and starts flicking through a few channels. There is politics, home improvement, a cookery programme. Suddenly he stops. “That’s it. Vegetables!”

Andriy struggles to picture some arousing scene with onions and cabbages. Really, these Angliski are quite original.

“My Ma’s got plenty of them. What size is he? Carrot? Banana? Celery? Cucumber?”

Andriy tries to recall that lean black-skinned figure towelling himself dry with a white towel.

“Not cucumber. No. Carrot, no. Maybe we try medium-size banana.”

Dear sister,

I have been thinking much about those long ago days before the convent and the orphanage and the mission house at Zomba when we lived with our mother and father and sisters in our mud walled cottage on the banks of the Shire River of the long days of my nakedness and river fishing and gathering of mangoes. In those days I had a different understanding of the world.

But when aged twelve I was beloned and taken into the orphanage by the good nuns there I discovered the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For Sister Theodosia said that God is Love and the Maker of all Good things but Sister Benedicta said that all the Evil that befalls us is a punishment for our sins such as the sickness that took away our parents. And the everlasting punishments that would happen after death she said were consideringly worse than death itself with roasting fires and boiling oils and lumps of scorched flesh torn off with pincers.

Then I fell to imagining the gruefull torments our dear ones would be suffering in hell and often I cried in the night longing for your comfort dear sister but you were away in Blantyre. Then Sister Benedicta chastised me with her staff but Sister Theodosia taught me a prayer to sing to Mary mother of Jesus who would enter seed on our behalf
Ora pro nobis peccatoribus
. This is a song of such outstanding beauty that singing it would set our loved ones’ souls at rest even the peccatoribus and also my own soul.

The fear of these torments kept me away from any canal knowledge despite my sinful curiosity. But tonight Andree and Toby Makenzi showed me how I may be protected against orgasms that cause the deadly sickness by clothing my upstanding manhood in a condom and in this way I may enjoy canal knowledge without paying the mortal price. Then I recalled that Father Augustine had said the condom is an Abomination in the Eye of the Lord and although my body would be saved my soul would frizzle in hell. And I said if I am going to frizzle for canal knowledge should I first taste the sweet without the wrapper?

But these good mzungus showed me the use of the Abomination by means of a Banana in such a cunning way that the Banana would frizzle and not my own Immortal Soul. They took the Banana and clothed it in the Abomination and Andree said now Emanuel when you are coming together with woman you put it not upon Banana but upon your own manly part. This caused me to smile then Andree unclothed the Banana and ate it being Ukrainian and much beloved of Bananas. So by using a Banana instead of my own upstanding manhood it would frizzle up in the Fiery Pit and I would be spared.

For the life of the soul endures beyond the life of the body which has only a brief flowering then is cast like grass into the oven said Father Augustine who is a kind man with a big belly and crooked teeth and very short-sighted. Then he put his arm round me and said don’t worry boy your parents were not bad people but they suffered from the frailty of our fallen human condition. And seeing the questioning look still on my face he sighed and said dear boy there are some mysteries in the ways of the Lord which we are not given to understand but some among us believe there is no evil without a purpose and we believe He only permits evil because it is a test for our own Goodness.

But still I have been rubbing some questions over and over in my head until they begin to smoke and burn like fire sticks and I pray feveredly for His guidance as I contemplate the Decision I must make. For if I choose the earthly delights of canal knowledge then I will never know the heavenly Love nor sing in the Choir of Angels.