Tess Evans - Book of Lost Threads

‘The ambassador will see you now.’ The secretary interrupted her thoughts, holding open the door of the inner office. ‘Mr Ambassador, Ms Ana Sejka, student intern from Australia.’

Ana entered the room to be greeted by a short, thickset man who held out both hands in welcome. ‘Come now,’ he smiled. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea. Then we can have a little talk.’

Ana sat in the chair he indicated and was surprised to see that he was making his own tea.

‘There,’ he said, fitting a ragged tea cosy over the pot. ‘We’ll just wait for that to draw.’

He sat down opposite her and smiled again, a slightly lopsided smile that recalled the young Lusala Ngilu who had presented his credentials to the United Nations so many years ago. His large dark eyes shone, and Ana saw in them not only kindness but a determined optimism, a need to see gold among the dross. Embarrassed by such uncompromising faith, the young woman’s eyes strayed to the teapot.

‘I’m afraid my tea cosy has seen better days,’ the ambassador said, his eyes following hers. ‘I must be due for a new one. Do you have any left?’

Ana blushed. ‘I’m afraid I have all of them left, Mr Ambassador. I… I’m afraid I haven’t been able to think of an original use for them.’ It’s not that I didn’t try , she thought, remembering her file searches, her discussions with colleagues, most of whom thought the enterprise peculiar to say the least. She’d even emailed home to her puzzled mother, who replied, What is a tea cosy? ‘I’m sorry, Mr Ambassador. I’ve failed you.’

The ambassador poured the tea, asking only if she took milk or sugar. He sat back, and she noticed a small twitch in his cheek.

‘I have to say,’ he told her, ‘that I’m impressed at the many uses our clever young interns have found for the tea cosies over the years.’ Ana blushed again and started to speak. Lusala interrupted her, concerned that she’d taken his remark as a rebuke. ‘No, no, I never thought that there should be a new use each time. I just wanted the young person to think about what it all means. What does it mean to you, Ms Ana Sejka?’

She sipped her tea, stalling for time, her mind blank. She had so wanted to impress this man who was widely respected at every level and across political divides in this complex organisation. She searched her heart before responding.

‘It’s respectful,’ she finally said. ‘We must use them properly out of respect for her-her kindness .’

Lusala smiled gently. ‘I can see you’re worthy of the task, young woman. Now,’ he said. ‘How many do you have?’

‘Eighty-two.’ ‘What have you done with the others?’

‘Nothing. That’s all there were. This Mrs Pargetter may have lost count. Or she’s slower than she was. She must be quite old by now.’

‘She must have been younger than I first thought,’ Lusala murmured, half to himself. ‘But you’re right. She’d be getting on by now.’ He put down his cup. ‘I’ve asked you here because I need you to do something for me.’ He looked at Ana for confirmation and she nodded her head. ‘Good. Firstly, I want you to distribute the tea cosies as I direct, and then… well, let’s get the first task over with.’

So that was how Ana Sejka, Kosovar refugee from Shepparton, came to be standing at a soup kitchen in the Bronx, handing out tea cosies at the behest of the Kenyan Ambassador. She’d sewn the holes up to make beanie hats as he had instructed and then spent the best part of a week gathering her courage.

‘You have to be mad,’ her friends told her. ‘Apart from anything else, it’s dangerous.’ When he couldn’t dissuade her, Martin, an American IT adviser who worked on the floor below, announced that he would escort her.

‘No strings,’ he assured her when she demurred. ‘Just helping a pal, a mate , as you Aussies say.’

At first they decided to stick to soup kitchens and emergency accommodation hostels. Neither of them felt up to scouring the parks and bridges at night. Lusala had been very specific regarding what she was to do. She was to approach a suitable person and politely offer the hat as a gift from Mrs Lily Pargetter from Australia. She had surprisingly few rebuffs. Her first recipient was an old man who accepted the gift with boozy gratitude. A man with wild eyes, dragging a useless leg, took another hat. Australia , he said . They fought with us in ’Nam . An old woman looked at the orange and red hat she was offered. Rather have a blanket , she said ungraciously, but I might as well take it .

After the first night, they realised that they’d approached only old people. The young homeless seemed more threatening, and Ana was too timid and Martin too prudent to approach them. They sensed an anger in many of them that was not so evident in the older people.

But Ana felt uncomfortable and couldn’t sustain this discrimination. ‘I’m sure the ambassador wants us to spread this right across the homeless community,’ Ana said to a reluctant Martin, and the next night they gave hats to a shivering junkie, a youth proclaiming Judgement Day, and a young African-American woman pushing a baby and a wide-eyed toddler in an ancient pram.

It was a strange task, humbling the giver with the modesty of the gift, and enhancing the receiver as they accepted the odd-looking hats.

After two successful nights, Ana and Martin expanded their operation into the early morning, just after daybreak, leaving the small woollen bundles beside people sleeping rough. In order to fulfil Lusala’s request they left a note pinned to each gift. There were some nasty incidents. Once, a junkie pulled a knife on them, and they were verbally abused several times, but they persisted until their task was almost complete.

‘We’ve still got two left,’ Martin reminded her when Ana proposed they head for home. ‘Let’s get rid of them first.’

‘I keep one-that’s what all the Lusalas do. It’s supposed to be some sort of talisman,’ she explained. ‘And the ambassador asked me to save one for him.’ She took out a cable-knit cosy of peacock blue with black borders. ‘This one’s just right for the ambassador, I think. I’m keeping the plain violet one.’

Martin put his hands on her shoulders and lightly kissed the tip of her nose. ‘Thank you for letting me in on this, Ana. Maybe we could get together some time for a coffee?’

She smiled, her luminous eyes blinking behind her glasses. ‘I’d like that.’

Summoned once again to the ambassador’s office, Ana put the blue tea cosy into a gift bag and rode the elevator to the tenth floor where the secretary officiously checked the little parcel.

‘It’s a tea cosy,’ Ana explained. ‘For the ambassador.’

The secretary just rolled his eyes and handed it back. ‘You’re to go straight through,’ he said.

‘Ah.’ Lusala smiled as she entered. ‘Mission accomplished, I hope?’

‘Yes, Mr Ambassador.’

‘And that’s my new tea cosy?’

‘Yes, Mr Ambassador.’

He took it out of the bag. ‘Very handsome. But I’ll miss my old one. This is only the fourth I’ve had since I opened the original parcel.’ He slid out a drawer and retrieved a carved wooden box. ‘This is my first one,’ he said, stroking the matted wool. ‘I carry it with me everywhere. It keeps me grounded, you see. Reminds me of why we’re here. Everyone in the UN is under constant threat of drowning in futile bureaucracy, and we have to make a conscious effort to keep our heads above all that political sludge. So our job, the job of all the keepers of the cosies over the years, is to foster simple decency.’ He raised a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Does that sound pompous?’