sets the tub in front of him. “Ayeesha’s third is too old to be sleeping with her now. She took it. I told her she’d have to come get it herself, ’cause I wasn’t gonna be dragging it all the way ’cross the street, so she did.”
N’Doch pouts irritably, knowing Fâtime won’t turn away from the screen long enough to notice. Now the table and the two folding chairs beside it, plus the TV on its plastic crate, are the only furniture in the house besides the loom in the corner and the broken-down cot behind the sheet on a rope that offers Fâtime a measure of privacy. The sofa was hers, after all, and it’s true he hasn’t been home in a while, but where’s she think he’s going to sleep?
“She pay for it?” he demands through a sticky mouthful. He sees the finished weave on the loom is still short, a long way until her next sale. His mama’s generosity worries him sometimes.
“‘A sack of relief rice, near full. Ten cans of beans, two melons, and the promise of a dozen of those big yams she’s growing up right.”
He sits up, impressed. “Got any melon left?” He can’t think of anything that would taste better right now.
Fâtime rolls her eyes back at him briefly. “Finished the first two weeks ago. She’ll bring the second when her next crop comes in.”
Two weeks?’ It’s been longer than he realized since he’s visited. He should come by more often, he knows he should. He’s all she has left, ’cept that crazy old man out in the bush, his grandfather. But he hears no reproach in her voice. His mama, he knows, gave up a long time ago expecting much out of the men in her life. They’re always dying or leaving.
He reaches for another fistful of rice and discovers he’s cleaned the bowl out already. Impossible! He’s just started eating! He tips it toward him. Sure enough, he hasn’t left her so much as a grain. He sets the bowl down and flattens his palms on the table. But maybe he won’t show her thejewel just yet. In fact, he can’t really bring himself to take it out of his pocket, to reveal such a lovely thing in the drear light of this house.
“Ma, I didn’t bring you anything this time. I was . . .” How can he begin to explain? “. . . kinda in a rush.”
Fâtime shrugs, points at the screen. The lovely woman has changed one sparkling gown for another and redone her makeup. “Not a brain in her head, this one with the nails. Now that other one, with the head of hair, look, here she comes now, see her? She’s a smart one. She don’t let anybody by her.”
N’Doch looks. The woman in the French-style gowns has been replaced by another slim beauty wearing bright festival robes and a high, elaborate hairdo, corn-rowed and braided and strung with glittering glass beads. Her skin is dark silk, flawless. She is breathtaking. Normally N’Doch would use this occasion to drift off into a fantasy about himself and this woman in a soft bed somewhere. Perversely, he finds himself staring at her hundreds of beads and tiny braids, thinking that both he and his mama could eat for a year on what that hairdo cost. Probably the jewel he’s stolen wouldn’t bring as much. A single hairdo!
This is an odd thought for him, not that he hasn’t counted such things out before, but odd that he should feel
angry
about it, rather than merely envious. The equation is somehow shifting in his mind. He used to be glad that at least his mama had the vid and its constant diet of fantasy to distract her from being so hungry most of the time. Now there’s this vague, undeveloped notion that if the hairdo wasn’t eating up so much of the world’s money, there’d be more of it around to feed his mother and himself. The idea sighs into his head like a night breeze and out again as he loses his grasp on it, unable to apply it in any pragmatic way to his own life.
But it leaves him looking at his mother from a new angle, actually
looking
at her, for the first time. She’s his mama, but
N’Doch pouts irritably, knowing Fâtime won’t turn away from the screen long enough to notice. Now the table and the two folding chairs beside it, plus the TV on its plastic crate, are the only furniture in the house besides the loom in the corner and the broken-down cot behind the sheet on a rope that offers Fâtime a measure of privacy. The sofa was hers, after all, and it’s true he hasn’t been home in a while, but where’s she think he’s going to sleep?
“She pay for it?” he demands through a sticky mouthful. He sees the finished weave on the loom is still short, a long way until her next sale. His mama’s generosity worries him sometimes.
“‘A sack of relief rice, near full. Ten cans of beans, two melons, and the promise of a dozen of those big yams she’s growing up right.”
He sits up, impressed. “Got any melon left?” He can’t think of anything that would taste better right now.
Fâtime rolls her eyes back at him briefly. “Finished the first two weeks ago. She’ll bring the second when her next crop comes in.”
Two weeks?’ It’s been longer than he realized since he’s visited. He should come by more often, he knows he should. He’s all she has left, ’cept that crazy old man out in the bush, his grandfather. But he hears no reproach in her voice. His mama, he knows, gave up a long time ago expecting much out of the men in her life. They’re always dying or leaving.
He reaches for another fistful of rice and discovers he’s cleaned the bowl out already. Impossible! He’s just started eating! He tips it toward him. Sure enough, he hasn’t left her so much as a grain. He sets the bowl down and flattens his palms on the table. But maybe he won’t show her thejewel just yet. In fact, he can’t really bring himself to take it out of his pocket, to reveal such a lovely thing in the drear light of this house.
“Ma, I didn’t bring you anything this time. I was . . .” How can he begin to explain? “. . . kinda in a rush.”
Fâtime shrugs, points at the screen. The lovely woman has changed one sparkling gown for another and redone her makeup. “Not a brain in her head, this one with the nails. Now that other one, with the head of hair, look, here she comes now, see her? She’s a smart one. She don’t let anybody by her.”
N’Doch looks. The woman in the French-style gowns has been replaced by another slim beauty wearing bright festival robes and a high, elaborate hairdo, corn-rowed and braided and strung with glittering glass beads. Her skin is dark silk, flawless. She is breathtaking. Normally N’Doch would use this occasion to drift off into a fantasy about himself and this woman in a soft bed somewhere. Perversely, he finds himself staring at her hundreds of beads and tiny braids, thinking that both he and his mama could eat for a year on what that hairdo cost. Probably the jewel he’s stolen wouldn’t bring as much. A single hairdo!
This is an odd thought for him, not that he hasn’t counted such things out before, but odd that he should feel
angry
about it, rather than merely envious. The equation is somehow shifting in his mind. He used to be glad that at least his mama had the vid and its constant diet of fantasy to distract her from being so hungry most of the time. Now there’s this vague, undeveloped notion that if the hairdo wasn’t eating up so much of the world’s money, there’d be more of it around to feed his mother and himself. The idea sighs into his head like a night breeze and out again as he loses his grasp on it, unable to apply it in any pragmatic way to his own life.
But it leaves him looking at his mother from a new angle, actually
looking
at her, for the first time. She’s his mama, but
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