The Blue Taxi (39 page)

On the far blue slice of sea, a tiny dhow showed up; it bobbed and bobbed and dipped. As Gilbert watched it with one eye,
he felt himself come loose from Hazel Towson.
Sweet ships, those
, he thought. And felt something that had flattened in him struggling to
rise. Was it? Yes. He recalled the splendid sons of Sindbad. Bearded, full of song. The book he had purchased then set down.
So long ago, it seemed. Had he even read that volume’s inside flap? Perused even the foreword, the acknowledgments, at all?
Making for the harbor, the ship swelled a bit in size, and Gilbert found his feet. He echoed Hazel’s words, but curt. “Oh,
yes. A strong girl. Brave. Just fine. Thank you, Mrs. Towson,” Gilbert said. “I’m sure.” He was thinking about mangroves.
Hazel’s face receded. He couldn’t hear exactly what she said; nor was he aware, precisely, of his own replies. Things like,
perhaps:
Oh, yes. I’ll tell her that I saw you, certainly
. Rather like the ebbing of a song, each word softer than the last. Wobbling but determined, he found an opening in the crowd,
turned away from her, and finally slipped free.

He was so relieved to be in motion, to be smelling other bodies now, and, still, the scent of sea he had discovered not so
long ago in the city’s swelling air, that he did not mull over or weigh what Hazel had revealed. He did think, briefly,
So what if Sarie didn’t go?
That ship was getting bigger, and Gilbert had an urge to walk towards the harbor to get a better look, to meet it. He felt
tired of Hazel Towson; he even cheered for Sarie.
Good for her, to let that woman down
. And when he thought about the Mountain Top Hotel, he smiled. When had Sarie gone there? Why had she not told him?
Why the Mountain Top Hotel?
Oh, she did do silly things sometimes. He laughed, feeling oddly tender. Had she more imagination than he’d known?
Sarie must be dreaming, too
, he thought,
of how our lives will be, once I’ve sorted this thing out. Once I have a business
. Jewels, was it? He’d buy his woman jewels, he thought, and more. And where
had
he put that book, which he’d bought on
that day?

As he walked, picking up again the thread of happiness that had wound around his legs and chest, then spun him like a top
when he’d first started out, Gilbert thought that in the evening he would
make, for fun, just fun, an inventory of all the things he’d buy for Sarie once spare parts were getting from his stores to
those who needed them the most. Once he’d found his place in… History. He paused a moment with this thought because, he realized,
he did not mean, for once, that old, old History of grand safari tales and hatted men with exploits, but a new one, an invigorating
History, for a new land on the up.
An economic History
, he thought.
When I have made my mark
. He was so enthralled by the idea of this future that he quite forgot where he’d been headed when Hazel had appeared, and
instead of visiting the Post Office, instead of sighting dhows from the seashore, Gilbert found himself nursing a warm pint
at the Victorian Palm Hotel, where he watched the light of day sink into the sighing, trembling sea. He scratched his shoulders
now and then, shifted in his shirt. But the itching didn’t stir him. He was thinking of the sky, how neat it was at the horizon.
As neat
, he thought,
as our new life will be
.

Eighteen

W
hen Sarie and Agatha went again to Kudra House—Agatha triumphant that her mother had, this time, permitted her to come—things
did not go as expected. As they stepped into the courtyard, Maria was just coming down the stairs, holding in both arms a
bulging printed cloth filled with upstairs laundry. At last! Maria—who knew what Sarie didn’t—could not quite believe her
luck. Wasn’t this a chance? Had she finally been rewarded for her steadfastness and prayers? She slowed at the last step and
smiled, and Sarie, thinking,
She has never smiled like this!
grew wary. Standing on the threshold, Maria said, “Hallo. Welcome, Mrs. Turner.” She blocked the entrance firmly, did not
move aside.

Sarie raised a hand up to her throat. She swallowed. What was happening here? Unhappy, she said, “Thank you,” and tentatively
made as if to go up. But Maria, not giving an inch, grasped her bundle tightly. She tilted her head to the side. “You want
to go up, isn’t it?” Her choir voice was sweet. How terrible the girl was, Sarie thought, standing there like that, between
Sarie and her man. Sarie frowned, stepped back into the alley and reached for Agatha’s hand. Who did she think she was? “Don’t
you want to go upstairs?” Maria said again. Oh, she seemed to swell up in the doorway, girl and bundle, head scarf, as if
doubling in size to conceal the stairs behind her. “Up?” Maria pointed with a finger, to the sky. Sarie wavered and fell silent.
Squeezed her daughter’s fingers with such fear that Agatha cried out and snapped her hand away.

Sarie rallied. “Of course I’m going up.” Maria, having tugged
one of her plump feet from her blue thongs, leaned her shoulder on the lintel for support. Deliberate, she gave an ostentatious
point and flex of chubby, able toe, then rested her bare sole on the surface of her shoe. It was a fine display of comfort,
of her right to be exactly where she was, of her feeling that, indeed,
she ought to have a say
. She looked down at Sarie’s pale, long feet, then, leisurely, at the pomelo-sized knees that showed below the frayed hem
of the white visitor’s dress. Her eyes at Sarie’s face again, ashine, she shook her head almost sadly and let out the following
news: Ismail, Ali, and Habib were hard at work at Mr. Essajee’s Emporium. There was no one to meet her. No one there to watch
her little girl. Tahir was not well, after all, not well enough to host her. What
would
she find upstairs? Oh, Maria didn’t know. Because? Oh, yes. Well.
Majid Ghulam had gone out
. “You see, you see. Bwana Jeevanjee’s not here.”

Sarie thought Maria must be joking. Not here? Not here?
Awful girl!
“Pardon?
S’il vous plaît?
What do you mean?” Sarie asked. She took a step towards Maria, came so close she felt the edge of the fat bundle graze her
thumping chest. Maria didn’t budge. Sarie’s hot heart clenched, unclenched, and jumped.
He’s gone?
She could not quite believe it. “What?” she said, more softly.

“Not here,” Maria said, more firmly. “I say, Bwana Jeevanjee’s not here. Gone out. Won’t be back today, oh, no.” She drew
her foot, as if it were a tongue, across the length of her own sandal, played the blue thing with her toes.

In the alley, Sarie faltered. Had she feared this all along? Had she shored up the walls around the present stillness to prevent
exactly this? Had she encouraged all the poetry to make quite sure that he would know her value and
not do a thing like this?
Majid out.
Out?
What could he be doing? Sarie’s head was spinning. What could the man
need
out there? What had he gone for? She could
not hold Maria’s gaze. Agatha, irritated, twitched. Sarie sought her hand again and caught it firmly up in hers.

As Maria watched her, Sarie thought about what she had seen from Majid’s bedroom window once. Men huddled under buses, fiddling
with tools. The cane-juice maker, busy at his press. A world. Was
that
where he had gone? Was he milling in that world
she
did not know? Oh, Sarie wished to act. It was hard to be observed so closely by a house girl. She let go of Agatha’s hand
and, to put up against Maria a united front, tried to put her arm around her daughter’s shoulder. But Agatha, who had desires
of her own, sprang up from her place and, abandoning her mother in one energetic thrust, pushed herself very quickly between
Maria and the wall and went skipping—Sarie heard but could not see—up the stairs beyond.

Betrayed by her child, alone before Maria, Sarie was doubly upset. But being doubly upset just then redoubled Sarie’s strength.
She could not let Maria win. As though she had remembered suddenly, had been foolish to forget—
what had she been thinking
—she tried a little laugh. “Of course! Of course he has gone out. I forgot, you see. He told me this last week. That he would
not be here.” Maria was unmoved. Sarie said, as though Maria were really, really stupid, “I did not
expect
to see him. But I have to go upstairs.”

But Maria was not finished. Something in her had finally been set free. She was going to speak—on behalf of good women everywhere,
in service of the Truth (if not the truth, exactly). “Well, I have tried to stop you, Mrs. Turner. Go on. Go up, just.
He’s
gone. But
our lady
is upstairs.” Then, like a fighter who goes slack to trick a great opponent, Maria moved at once out of the dark doorway,
down into the alley where Sarie, shaking, stood. “Go see her, the lady of the house.” The stairwell loomed as Maria, generous
hips asway, started towards the courtyard. Sarie looked as though she had been hit.

Maria could not quite repress a giggle, a hurrah.
A Jezebel. A harlot. A painted she-demon born and raised in Sodom. Mungu amsamehe, nothing but a viper
. Maria felt so wonderful that she kept right on saying things as she proceded towards the taps. Had not Brother Ewald called
them soldiers, free to use all arms? “She’s very beautiful, you know. We love her! Bwana’s favorite lady.”

Though she herself felt frozen as a fruit ice, Sarie’s feet propelled her.
A lady? The lady of the house? Qu’est-ce que ça veut dire?
Her legs shot her up the stairwell like a rocket and right into the parlor, where, shocked, enraged, she found her daughter
sitting comfortably on the settee while a lovely woman dressed in green taught Tahir how to walk.

Sarie’s heart fell from its cradle, clattered through her stomach, and zoomed down to her feet. She nearly fainted from it.
The boy was standing up. What’s more, he was in the midst of taking a great step.
He’s walking all around, won’t need any help
. The sight of it—the woman in the dress (plump, fine-faced, bright-eyed, capable, and
shapely!
) and the crippled boy on crutches—was too much, and twofold. How could she not have known before, considered what would happen?
How would Majid have any time now, how would they find silence? When could she come by? And, worst of all, just then, slicing
at her gut:
Who
was this new woman? What was she doing
here?

Without waiting for a welcome—indeed, it seemed to her that she had arrived unnoticed, that no one saw her, or that if they
had, not one among them cared—she moved, invisible, towards the settee and sat down. The coffee table, she could see, had
been pushed back to its ordinary place, too close to the seats for her to
stretch her legs. She thought that she might cry. But she was wrong, of course; she was too large not to be seen. Tahir had
looked up but hadn’t nodded at her; rightly so, for his efforts were elsewhere. Agatha, it’s true, ignored her, but this,
too, from a child, is a luxurious sign of notice. Sugra did pay heed. But she was in the midst of something urgent; she wanted
first to make quite sure that Tahir was all right. She’d been saying, “Come to Auntie, now, just a little farther, show me
what you know.” And Tahir wobbled, moved. Went to stand beside her. And then, and only then, Sugra reached for Sarie’s hand,
for Sarie, who had collapsed on the blue seat and who needed, Sugra knew the moment that she looked, all of her attention.
Sugra understood who this must be. It pleased her. And while Tahir leaned against her, she smiled a great, warm smile so bright
it deepened the nut color of her pleasant, open face and made her eyes look light, cream-green like her dress.

Sarie, trembling, took the woman’s hand. But a heat licked at her throat. Who was this? Who was this upstairs-going-
lady
about whom she’d not known? What was she doing
here?
How could this have happened? Had Majid thought so little of her? Had he been fooling with this other woman all along, bathing
after holding Sarie only to move on and pollute himself—crudely, coarsely, she was sure—with another woman’s limbs? Sugra’s
sweetness didn’t help. It was, thought Sarie,
A distraction, subterfuge
. Sarie was unnerved, yes, at last, just as Gilbert had predicted: well out of her depth. Her teeth felt furred and warm.

Sugra, still holding Sarie’s hand, nudged Tahir from her side. She looked across at Sarie as one does at an accomplice—as
though surely Sarie cared and was delighted that Tahir was, after so long, finally standing up. “Is that all you can do? And
with guests here! Can’t you do it harder?” Sarie took her hand back and, feeling slightly sick, sat looking at the boy, the
woman, and the room.
With his only foot, Tahir took a step. He propelled his shoulders straight ahead, nudged both crutches forward, then pressed
his full weight down. The abbreviated leg, suspended like a cluster of bananas on a tree, hung loosely from his hip. When
Tahir put his good leg down, the half-leg—like an echo or a recoil—swung forwards and then back. Sugra clapped her hands.
“So, my little man, you can do it after all. Again, yes, now, please—or?”