Nostalgia (19 page)

The Notebook

#57

The Bridegroom

On my wedding day I was not allowed to see Roxana. While I showered and was perfumed, and waited with the men, her male folks came around to banter, and to make certain I would not venture out with others to take a sneak peek at my bride. There was my father the Nkosi and my brother and my cousin. I wore a white collarless kurta brought by my mother from Boston. My sister had not come. As we sat there on the decorated front porch there came from the backyard kitchen the scent of fragrant rice pilau, and the smell of goat roasting and potatoes frying. From Roxana's
end further up the street and outside the compound came the sound of women singing. Little girls went to and from our houses to report on the proceedings. The compound gates that day were left open. Finally a band was heard, tambourines and drums, and a trumpet, as the bridal procession approached, the women singing in a lilting chorus about the bride and the groom and the wedding night. She arrived at the door escorted by the women, her face pink with shyness, wearing a pure white robe with a red binding at the throat and a thin veil also brought by my mother; her hair was bedecked with jasmines, her hands and feet were hennaed. The music stopped, and we sat on the low stools and my father the Nkosi began to officiate. Her lips were full, her hair thick and wavy, we spent the most joyful time together possible…

On the day I left it was raining in sheets, Roxana and the baby Saida were on the porch waving.

ARTHUR AXE:
Well, Tom, here we are. Two more bite the dust.

TOM:
Yes, Art. I feel for you—your two favourite fictions rejected.

AXE:
It's more the technology, as we both know, that began to unwind. Though I get your point, both characters, Presley and Frank—I can hardly call him Dr Sina, can I?—both rejected the treatment that could have saved them.

TOM:
The irony is, Art, that the doctor refused to heal himself.

AXE:
The irony is, yes, Tom. Though I myself would call him an unstable fiction. An unviable character. I was young when we made him. Perhaps we put too much of himself into
the new fiction. Not always a good idea. As he himself could have told us.

TOM:
Yes, he could have, Art.

AXE:
Mind you, they both lasted a long time; both were called in and repaired, weren't they?

TOM:
Sorry, that was before I myself was transitioned, Art. But we have the records.

AXE:
Well here we are, then, all transitioned. Nothing wrong with us, is there?

TOM:
Not that I can see, Art.

…

AXE:
Now, Frank…

TOM:
What about Frank, Art?

AXE:
You would hardly call Frank a terrorist.

TOM:
No, Art. Elim Angaza was a doctor and teacher.

AXE:
Not just that. A Norbert Weiner Fellow in mathematics at MIT. What made him drop all that and return home? What is home, after all? What a waste of talent, to take it to wither away behind the Border. What would they know in that hellhole about the beauties of science, mathematics, or art?

TOM:
It makes you think.

AXE:
It certainly does. We brought that talent back, though. And it aided us. But he didn't know that—and that's the irony, if you want one.

TOM:
It certainly is. I can see that, Art.

AXE:
Amirul, on the other hand…

TOM:
Definitely dangerous.

AXE:
Yes. Even transformed. Of all the practitioners available, he sought out Frank Sina. And Frank Sina protected
him. Amirul knew exactly where he could find sympathy. The worm knew just where to go to survive. What do you say?

TOM:
They were brothers, Art. And blood is—

AXE:
Yes. Thicker than water. It's in those relationships that the worm hides…

…

TOM:
You're thinking, Axe.

AXE:
That's my job. There's much to ponder after this.

TOM:
I can help you with that.

AXE:
Tell me, Tom. What accuracy would you place in Frank's so-called entries in his Notebook? His feats of imagination. Always dangerous, flights of imagination, no telling where they might take one. How much truth do they contain? How much of Holly Chu's story as imagined by Frank Sina, Tom, would you consider to be close to truth?

TOM:
After a thorough search, Art, and according to certain parameters, I would say eighty-three percent. Which is not a bad mark.

AXE:
Not bad at all. An A grade. A fictionist, would you say?

TOM:
I would say that. Like you, Art.

AXE:
Stop the flattery. And why, Tom, why this fixation on the reporter. That all three turned out to be connected to Maskinia is uncanny. But not a coincidence, for certain. What's the connection of Frank Sina to Holly Chu? I could guess, but—you tell me, Tom. Consider that a test.

TOM:
Of course, Art. I already have the information. Holly Chu was Frank Sina's great-granddaughter—and therefore a great-niece of Presley Smith. Elim's daughter Saida attended
university in Nairobi, United East Africa, where she married a Chinese expatriate called Kerson. The couple emigrated to the north. One of their offspring was Kelvin, Holly's father.

AXE:
Well I'll be doggone.

MY THANKS TO MARTHA KANYA
-
FORSTNER
, my editor, for her patience and indulgence; Kristin Cochrane for encouragement, often over tea; to my agents Bruce Westwood, Tracy Bohan, and Jackie Ko; Professor Chetan Singh and the staff, the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, for their generous hospitality; Lathika George for making possible my stay in Kodaikanal. And to Nurjehan for indulgence, understanding, and companionship; and of course, for going over the final manuscript.

Grateful acknowledgement is made to Faber and Faber Ltd. for permission to reprint an excerpt from
Aeneid
, Book VI, trans. Seamus Heaney (London: Faber and Faber Ltd., 2016)

A quote was used from the following source:

p.102
The Bhagavid Gita
, trans. Juan Mascaro

(Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1962; rpt., 1973).