Читать книгу Open Water - Caleb Azumah Nelson - Страница 10

3

You lost your grandma during the summer you were sure you could lose no more. You knew before you knew. It wasn’t thunder’s distant rumbling like a hungry stomach. It wasn’t the sky so grey you were worried the light would not shine again. It wasn’t the strain in your mother’s voice, asking you not to leave home before she got there. You just knew.

You return to a memory of a different time. Sitting behind the compound in Ghana, where embers of heat so late in the day make you sweat. As your grandma sits on a rickety wooden stool, chopping ingredients for a meal to be prepared, you’ll tell her that you met a stranger in a bar, and you knew before you knew. She will smile, and laugh to herself, keeping her amusement contained, encouraging you to go on. You’ll tell her how this woman was slight, but tall, carried herself well, not in a way as to intentionally intimidate or placate, but in a way that implied sureness. She had kindness on her features and didn’t mind when you hugged her.

What else? your grandma will ask.

Hmm. You’ll tell her that when you and the stranger introduced yourselves, you both played down the things you did, the things you loved. Your grandma will pause at this detail. Why? she’ll ask. You don’t know. Perhaps it was because you had both lost that year, and though you kept telling yourself you couldn’t lose any more, it continued to happen.

So? There’s no solace in the shade, your grandma will say.

I know, I know. I think both of us kinda negate that whole encounter. It was too brief. There was too much going on. It wasn’t the right time.

Your grandma will put down the knife, and say, It’s never the right time.

You’ll sigh and gaze towards a sky which shows no signs of darkening, and say, I guess there was something in the room that night, which I didn’t feel until I met her. Something which, looking back, I couldn’t ignore.

When you sow a seed, it will grow. Somehow, someway, it will grow.

Mmm. I agree. I just . . . I met this woman and she wasn’t a stranger. I knew we had met before. I knew we would meet again.

How did you know?

I just knew.

And in this place, a memory from a different time, you would like to believe your grandma will be satisfied with this. That she will give the same wry, contained smile and laugh to herself again.