Tatjana Soli - The Forgetting Tree

“We’re not in Kansas anymore,” Lucy said. She walked around the room as if she were viewing an exhibition at a museum, stopping at the table in the corner. She motioned Claire over. At first glance it seemed a crowded jumble of junk. There were at least forty or fifty liquor bottles: Scotch, vodka, wine, beer, all sizes, some empty, some unopened.

“Maybe she’s into recycling.” Lucy giggled. The room had her jittery. “It’s like a folk altar. I’ve seen altars like this in Santa Fe.”

After looking more closely, they saw the arrangement was not random, was far from a cluttered jumble, was in fact laid out with great thought, and a kind of mad deliberation. At the center, among the bottles, was a crucifix, and behind it, taped to the wall, were dozens of religious postcards, some old and yellowed, some shiny new. On the table were a few burnt-out candles, and in the center of it all was the picture of Minna and Claire in Mexico, except the part with Minna had been torn off so that Claire sat grinning alone, her arm embracing empty space.

“That’s mine!” Lucy said. An old doll’s head was jammed atop one of the bottles; a corded, soft pouch was on top of another.

In a flat dish were the dregs of a noxious-looking liquid now dried brownish red, like the muddy bottom of a parched lake bed. On top of it lay a small clump of hair, more like the loose hairs pulled from a hairbrush than a clipping cut with scissors. Claire’s.

A small pink book lay open at the side. Childish writing visible in purple ink. “My diary!” Lucy said. The date fifteen years before: Josh is missing. Please bring him home. Josh is missing. Please bring him home. I promise not to lie anymore and to do my homework. Over and over the same sentences for pages.

“I thought doing this as punishment would bring him back,” Lucy said. “Why is she going through my stuff?”

Written on the wall behind the makeshift altar, because altar it was no matter how murky its intention, were the words OGOU BALANJO.

“She said she missed home,” Claire said.

“She’s not talking about Cambridge either.”

Claire felt overwhelmed and ill, yet kept looking as if some key would explain it all.

Black figures were now on the yellow walls, one a man dressed in red, holding a long chain that ended around the neck of a smaller figure, walking away, head down. In his other hand, the man threatened with a long whip.

Claire stood, rapt, unable to fathom the message, and only wished she could have drunk in the whole impression alone, undisturbed. She felt protective, but of Lucy or of Minna she was not sure.

“This is seriously troubled,” Lucy said at last. “Is this, technically, voodoo ?”

It came to Claire like the welling up of an unsuspected, subterranean source — a ready ability for lies, deception. “Minna wants to be an artist. She’s exploring the island’s colonial past. Its history of slavery.”

Lucy’s experience in Santa Fe, working with artists, had habituated her to a certain driven, obsessive quality in the creative life. All manner of bad behavior, past and future, could thus be explained away. It made for such a comforting notion, Claire tried to believe it herself for a moment.

“How come she never mentioned it?” Lucy asked.

“She’s afraid she’s no good.”

“It’s powerful, isn’t it? I could see this hanging in downtown lofts. Should I talk to the gallery owner?”

“Eventually. Right now, officially, we haven’t seen it yet.”

Lucy left the room, singing:

How do you do that voodoo

That you do so well

That morning, Claire’s whole body ached, and when Lucy injected her she screamed, pain shooting all the way to the bone. She refused anything to eat and would only suck ice chips.

When a car rolled into the driveway, Lucy ran to the window. “It’s Minna!”

Don’s car in the driveway now a source of rescue. Minna had ensconced herself, made herself part of the family. Yet who was she? Minna stepped out, wearing a beautiful yellow silk dress, elegant and expensive, but the tightness of it undoing its intended effect. Her gold earrings and bracelets marked her as if with price tags — bought. Don walked in after her, carrying thick, glossy bags from designer boutiques. More clothes in service of creating what effect? What life was Minna preparing herself for? She seemed too far gone to return to the Spartan life of grad school.

When Minna saw Claire in the living room, she kicked off her high heels and hurried to the couch. “Oh, che, not so good? You’re hot.”

Claire shook her head, turned away, embarrassed at the fevered burn of tears.

“I’m glad Lucy called. I’ll fix you right up.”

“What’s that on your finger?” Lucy said, grabbing Minna’s hand and holding it high. “A diamond?”

“Don proposed.” Minna laughed. “I said I’d take the ring and think about it.”

Claire was startled that her earlier lie about a proposal had come true, as if she had conjured it. Minna changed back into her plain housedress, and the pain in Claire’s chest lessened in the security of her being back. Barefoot, Minna walked into the kitchen to mix one of the herbal drinks. Alone with Claire, Don sat on the couch. “I want to apologize about Mexico. I just freaked out when you got sick.”

“What are your intentions?”

“What?”

“Toward Minna?”

He shrugged. “I’m wild about her.”

“But she isn’t one of your Hollywood starlets. One of your waitresses. She’s complicated.”

“That’s what I love—”

Claire held up my hand. “No one mentioned love. Complicated as in depressive. She’s very high-strung. You and I have talked about the little discrepancies.”

Don remained silent.

“I’m trying to look out for her interests since she has no family here.”

Don shook his head. “This job will be over by the end of summer, right?”

“True.”

A tendon in Don’s jaw throbbed. Claire couldn’t take her eyes off it, the gauge of his truthfulness.

He stood up. “The thing I always admired about you is that you minded your own business.”

Had they become enemies so quickly, fighting over Minna? When Lucy came back into the room, he said a curt good-bye and backed his car out of the driveway in such a hurry he ran over a hedge of French lavender.

“You called her?” Claire asked Lucy.

“Yes, and good thing she did,” Minna said, coming back from the kitchen. The elixir stank of rotting and was a thick, unappealing brown.

“I can’t.”

“You will.” But Minna relented and poured sugar into it. “Where did Don go?”

“He’d had enough of our house of women, I guess. He gives his love.” Claire thought she saw a shadow pass across Minna’s eyes for a moment, but then it was gone. She couldn’t possibly love someone like Don. Or was Claire hoping that? What kind of friend, mother, was she, not to look out for the girl’s well-being? His ordinariness didn’t fit Claire’s romance-novel idea of her.

“Let’s get you in a cool bath,” Minna said.

* * *

Lucy helped Claire undress, seeing for the first time the scar across Claire’s chest. Lucy grimaced. “Can I touch it? Does it hurt?”

Claire felt embarrassed, but Minna was blind to the amputation as if it were as commonplace as her own body and said, “Course you can. It doesn’t bite.”

Minna ran the bath, and they both helped Claire into the tub, full of greenish water on top of which floated large, crumpled green leaves, resembling a lily pond. Down at eye level, Claire saw that they were lettuce leaves.

“Takes the heat away,” Minna explained.

“I feel like I’m in a salad.”