Miriam Toews - Irma Voth

Why? she said. It was boring.

No, I mean just talk to me about anything in Plattdeutsch, I said.

She told me that she had gone to the museum of anthropology that day with her class and that she had really wanted to steal a tiny little artifact, a charm or something, that had once belonged to an Aztec warrior.

But you didn’t, did you? I said.

Of course not, she said, you can’t. They’re under glass.

Oh, I said. But you wouldn’t have anyway, would you? I said.

I don’t know, she said. I might have if I thought I wouldn’t be caught.

You would? I said.

Maybe, she said.

Don’t, I said.

Why not? said Aggie.

Because it’s stupid, I said. And you know it.

Then we started talking about Katie because I had remembered the time she’d been arrested for assaulting a police officer. She’d been walking home late from a bush party and the cop had stopped to ask her what she was doing out so late and she was kind of drunk and she kicked his car and told him it was none of his business so he drove along beside her saying stupid things and she was getting madder and madder and she threw her lip gloss at his face and so then he made the decision that it was his business after all and he stopped the car and dragged her into the back seat. She kicked and screamed and swore and that resulted in more assault charges or maybe mischief or something or other and she had to spend the night in jail.

She spent the night in jail? said Aggie.

Yeah, I said.

That’s so fucking cool! said Aggie. Nobody ever tells me anything about Katie. What kind of lip gloss was it?

I don’t know, I said. Chocolate mint.

What happened after that? said Aggie.

You don’t want to know, I said.

I do so! said Aggie. You can’t stop the story there. You don’t know what I want to know and what I don’t want to know.

Don’t you know? I said.

No, she said. How would I know?

Well, I said. How do you think someone like Dad would have felt about his daughter being arrested for assaulting a police officer when she was coming home drunk from a bush party and then spending the night in jail?

All she did was throw lip gloss at him! said Aggie.

Aggie, I said.

What? she said.

You know exactly what, I said. You don’t have to use your imagination.

After that Aggie did fun things to try to cheer me up. Sometimes she’d grab me around the waist when I wasn’t expecting it, yell surprise and throw me down on the bed. I tried to do it to her one time and she laughed but said that I had to be careful with her belly button. She made up a game she called Baby Detective. I’d be lying in bed reading my new book or sitting on the balcony tying my shoes to get ready for work and I’d feel something. I’d sense that somebody was watching me. And I’d turn to see Ximena’s big, spooky eyes. Sometimes from low down, close to the floor, and sometimes from high up, near the ceiling. Aggie would stand behind the open door and hold Ximena in different places so that only her spying little baby face poked out.

Then one afternoon when I was finished cleaning I went into our room to have a short nap. Ximena was in a playpen in the courtyard and Natalie was keeping an eye on her while she fixed up the planters. It was a very bright day and I had opened all our curtains in the morning when I went to work so that the sun would wake Aggie up for school. But when I walked into our room the curtains were closed and it was completely dark. Much darker than usual. I couldn’t see anything. And there was a strange noise. I whispered Aggie’s name and waited. I stood perfectly still for a minute trying to understand what was going on. Slowly, as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I began to see little dots of silver light. At first I saw only a few but as time passed the room was filled with them and soon I was surrounded by them. I smiled. I understood. Aggie had covered the windows with thick, dark material she had found somewhere, maybe it was painted cardboard from school, and had used a pin or something tiny to prick hundreds of holes into the blackness to create sunlit stars. I took a step into the darkness and bumped into something hard. It was a floor fan, a small one, that Aggie must have tied strips of newspaper to and the fan was blowing them to make a noise like wind. I backed up a bit and felt the wall. It was cool and smooth. I carefully sat down on the floor and leaned against the door. I sat in the dark. I stared at the stars and listened to the wind.

I was still sitting there when Aggie came home from school and barged through the door and knocked me over. She switched on the lights and then said oh, you’re here! There was a gecko on the wall beside my head. Aggie put her face next to it and said hey there, little gecko boy, did you enjoy your trip to Chihuahua? I thanked her for her gift of wind and stars and she said yeah, no problem, it was easy and then she showed me a giant painting she’d done in art class. It was of Katie in jail, doing a karate kick in her cell, her braids flying straight out behind her, trying to kick out the walls.

It’s called Chocolate Mint Lip Gloss , said Aggie.

Wow, I said.

We laid it out on the bed and looked at it.

Did you ever meet her boyfriend? said Aggie.

What boyfriend? I said.

The boyfriend who hit her with his car, said Aggie.

What are you talking about? I said. I thought you said nobody ever talked to you about Katie.

I’m talking about her boyfriend who hit her with his car after their big fight, said Aggie. Mom said he couldn’t see her in the snow or whatever. What are you talking about?

I put my hands over my eyes for a second trying to see something that wasn’t there. Then I clasped my hands together so that my fingers met and formed a tiny pocket that held nothing. I looked at the wall and the gecko was gone. We had sunlight and traffic noise and breath. We had art. We had each other. We had ourselves. We had memories and we had lies. Those were the difficult-to-insure contents of our room.

What’s your problem? said Aggie. Where’s X.?

In the courtyard with Natalie, I said. In her playpen. Katie didn’t have a boyfriend.

Yeah, she did, said Aggie. Mom told me.

Well, I said, no, she didn’t have a boyfriend.

Well, said Aggie, whatever.

So, it couldn’t have been the boyfriend who accidentally hit her with his car in a blizzard after a big fight, I said.

Who hit her then? said Aggie. She got up and went into the bathroom. I could see her reflection in the mirror. She was cleaning her belly button with a Q-tip soaked in sterilizing solution, dabbing it gently over and over, thoroughly.

Dad hit her, I said.

She stopped dabbing at her belly button.

She told him she was moving to Vancouver and he said she couldn’t go and she said yeah I’m going, or something, and then she took off and was running down that road behind the second barn. I guess she was trying to get to the highway to hitchhike to the city and he took off after her in the truck and hit her.

She shouldn’t have told him she was going, said Aggie.

I looked at her reflection. She had started dabbing at her belly button again, that little portal that connected her to her past. She kept dabbing while I talked so that eventually she had the cleanest belly button in all of Mexico.

Well, actually she didn’t tell him that she was going, I said.

You just said she did, said Aggie.

I mean she did tell him that she was going, I said, but only after I told him.

You told Dad she was going to Vancouver? said Aggie. Why would you do that?

Because I didn’t want her to go, I said.

You shouldn’t have told him, said Aggie.

She was really excited about going, I said. I mean she was sad to be leaving but she was also really happy.