Helen Oyeyemi - Boy, Snow, Bird

“The humming, Agnes. The humming,” Arturo told her. “We don’t need it right now.”

She stopped, bewildered. “Who was that humming? I didn’t like it, either. Oh… I see… you’re sure it was me…? I’m so sorry.”)

Olivia looked across the table at Vivian, who’d tied a scarf around her head. “I see now that you must do what you want, Vivian. Stop keeping your hair tidy, if that’s what you think is damaging it — I’ve never had any trouble in that area, but as I say, do what you want to do. I’m your mother and God knows I’d rather have you well than sick. Do you understand?”

Everybody kept still. I’d become aware of my neck swiveling as I looked at each person who spoke. This watchfulness was partly selfish, I was anticipating an episode of plate hurling and wanted to be sure I wasn’t caught in the crossfire. Snow and Bird hadn’t moved their heads much — it was their gaze that had been traveling from person to person, on opposite sides of the table. But if my daughter and her sister had noticed each other’s expressions, they might’ve been surprised to find that they both looked exactly like Judgment Day.

Vivian walked around the table to her mother’s seat and shyly submitted to being kissed on the forehead. There was also a whispered recital of pet names I never knew she had. Agnes piped up: “I hear they’re beginning to say that black is beautiful now.”

Olivia gave her friend a deeply cynical look and said: “We’ll see. Would anyone like some more of these potatoes? They’re very good, Clara.”

“Fattening, though…” Agnes murmured, but Olivia continued: “I hope you’ll let me have the recipe.”

“Sure,” Clara said, in a faint voice. Maybe she couldn’t find the caustic tone she wanted. Brazenness can knock you sideways like that.

—

i volunteered to clear away the plates once everyone was done eating, and Snow got up to help me. Vivian and Agnes and Olivia talked over one another. Oh no no no, Snow, you’re the guest of honor, leave it ’til Phoebe comes tomorrow —but Clara gave Snow the nod that sent her to the kitchen sink with me.

I meant to ask Snow how she and Bird were getting along. I’d thought they’d be inseparable, but I hadn’t really seen them together. I’d seen Bird roaming the woods with her gang of five, and I’d seen Snow out on the terrace of Flax Hill’s European-style café (European-style as far as any of us could tell, anyhow), smoking cigarettes, hearing out marriage proposals, and giving them marks out of ten. The girls in the group laughed indulgently, knowing that Snow was too nice to want what wasn’t hers, and why not let your boyfriend practice proposing so he’d get it just right for you? The girls’ laughter got a little artificial when Snow dropped her lighter and six or seven of the boyfriends vied to pick it up. Bird’s fifteen-year-old beau couldn’t speak for stammering when he encountered Snow on the porch; yes, of course he did. Here’s what I couldn’t have foreseen — that I’d be anxious for Snow and her sister to be friends. More specifically, I thought it would be better if Bird liked Snow. I couldn’t give a reason for this anxiety; Bird has disliked people before and they’ve been fine. But like everybody else around here, Bird isn’t quite as she was. Maybe the timing of this visit is bad. While Snow’s out in the evening, Bird plays Julia’s lullabies at low volume and sits cross-legged beside the record player, listening with a vacant expression. Arturo asked me if Snow was aware that Bird had borrowed her records, and I mixed him a drink and handed it to him before I answered. “Don’t take this as me bad-mouthing your daughter; I’m not. It’s not so easy to tell what Snow is and isn’t aware of. She very sweetly keeps those cards close to her chest; I hope you won’t deny that.”

My husband drained his glass, and when he spoke again, it was about Bird, not Snow. He reminded me of how she’d been deeply interested in the Cinderella story for a few months when she was nine years old, how she’d had one or the other of us read it to her a countless number of times and gone to sleep without expressing approval or disapproval until one night when Arturo closed the storybook and she asked: “Is it a true story? Not the fairy godmother stuff and her dress turning back to rags at midnight — I know that’s true. But Cinderella just sweeping up all those ashes every day and never putting them into her stepmother’s food or anything — is that true?” He said he knew it was dangerous to say yes, but another part of him thought So what — she can’t prove it isn’t true. Our daughter settled back onto pillows and said pleasantly, “I think they’re lying to us, Dad,” before switching off her bedside lamp to let him know he was dismissed for the night. He said that the way Bird was listening to Julia’s voice reminded him of the way she’d listened to the Cinderella story all those times we’d told it to her. He was understandably concerned, so I told him everything was going to be okay, which was another lie of the Cinderella variety.

The sink was big enough for Snow and me to stand side by side while we soaked and scrubbed all the sauce boats and soup bowls and the swallow-patterned plates. We looked into the dishwater instead of at each other. She trickled water through her fingers.

“Weren’t we here together like this years ago? Only I sat up on the counter. It was your birthday and you were stirring things and chopping things and begging a cake to rise.”

“That was in the other house.”

She brought both her hands down and punched the water, spraying us both with greasy suds. I took a few steps back in case she was about to run amok, but she went still and kept her eyes averted. I wiped my face with a kitchen towel, decided to work the “game of charades” angle, and said, “Angry?” in the same tone of voice I’d have used to ask Animal, mineral, or vegetable?

She said: “I’m sorry. Close the door, please. This isn’t like me.”

When I came back to the sink, she was scrubbing again, elbow deep in dishes.

“Snow. Who told you it isn’t like you to get mad?”

She didn’t answer, just dragged her sleeve across her face, then returned both hands to the sink.

“You feel I’ve treated you badly? Snow?”

“Yes, you have.”

I’d like to know if Snow has come to feed on adoration, on the gentle tone of voice people take with her. Does everybody who crosses her path have to love her? Capture all hearts and let none go free, is that the way she wants it? But I don’t think she knows the answer any more than I do. She’s mad that I haven’t been able to love her. Maybe she’s afraid that I see something in her that she isn’t able to see for herself. But the trouble is, I don’t see much of anything when I try to see her. She stands near me and I know that someone’s there, but when I look, I find another face in the way, and hear another voice, not Snow’s at all, but distorted versions of my own face and voice, I think. And even though this screen and I have become aware of each other, the screen rests easy, banking on its history of standing between people and my own aversion to closeness. I’ve been so afraid of getting closeness wrong, because I don’t know how to do it, because I don’t know what my mistakes reveal — maybe they reveal very good reasons for my having been unloved as a child, I just don’t know.

“Let’s make up,” I said.

“How? I don’t hear you apologizing.”

Our reflections rippled in the water, stretching to breaking point, and swam away from each other in pieces, then the pieces shivered together again, stretched to their limit, burst.

“Let’s do it the way kids do it,” I said.