She says, with the calmness of Lot addressing his betrayers, “I wish you had let me know because I’ve made other arrangements. In future, always tell people what you have in mind. I might not have come if I’d known you expected me to spend the night with you. In fact”—she looks at her wristwatch—“I really must leave. Will you pay for my water, or shall I pay for it myself?”
And with that, she walks out of the café bar.
—
Bella is not proud of what she has done, but she feels that she had few options. She couldn’t let Ngulu get away with such insulting presumption. But she is angrier with herself than with him, for it is she who put herself in a position to be treated with so little respect.
It will do her good to spend an evening by herself, relaxing and eating leftovers or making herself an omelet. Then she can set to work cracking Aar’s e-mail and other accounts. Realizing that there was no way of knowing what personal secrets she might find once she cracked the computer’s code, Bella had decided not to seek Salif’s assistance in puzzling out his father’s passwords or bank details. It wouldn’t be fair to him, she thinks, nor would it be fair to his father. The living who happen to have access to the secrets of the dead must deal with them as though they were sacred.
She doesn’t recognize anything she is passing, and wonders if Cawrala has led her astray, but then she spots a familiar landmark and knows that she is on the Uhuru Highway. She knows the way from here. She silences Cawrala and drives the rest of the way home feeling calmer. Next time, she thinks, she will bring along some CDs, music to feed her soul. Jazz, in particular, has always nurtured and sharpened her creativity, bringing out the best in her.
She is only a few streets from Aar’s house when she hears her phone somewhere in her handbag. She decides she won’t bother to answer it. Likely it is Ngulu calling to apologize, and she has nothing more to say to him. In any case, she has never liked the idea of being on call like a medical doctor, obliged to answer every time the phone rings, and she disdains the habits of the text-messaging generation, who seem to think of their iPhones as extensions of themselves. On the other hand, what if it is Salif, or Dahaba having a difficult time and needing to be comforted or picked up? Didn’t Bella tell her to call her at any time of night or day?
By the time this thought occurs to her, she is home. She parks and deactivates the alarm, then goes into the house, turning on the lights in the kitchen. She pulls out her phone to see who has called. Gunilla!
Bella dials her back. They chat for a few minutes, and Gunilla asks after her and the children, speaking as a friend rather than as Aar’s colleague. Bella tells her about the sleepover at Fatima and Mahdi’s and her plans for a solo dinner of leftovers and a quiet evening of work. She makes no mention of her encounter with Ngulu, needless to say.
Gunilla says, “Of course, you haven’t had time to do a proper shop! In fact, you probably don’t even know your way around the neighborhood. You know, I’m not far from you, and there is a big mall close to my house that doesn’t close until about nine in the evening. I know how difficult it can be to figure out daily life in a city that you are not familiar with. Would you like to give me your shopping list, and I can get the items for you and bring them over later? I have to do a shop myself.”
“I don’t want to trouble you,” says Bella.
“Or how about this? You have a bite to eat. I’ll come for you in an hour or a little less, and we can go shopping together. I’ll take you home, and if you have the energy, we can have a chat and a cup of something.”
Bella’s heart surges with pleasure, but still she hesitates. “Are you sure you have the time to do all this?”
“I do,” says Gunilla, “and I’d love to see you.”
“Brilliant,” says Bella. “I look forward to it.”
As soon as she hangs up, Bella realizes that she has forgotten to tell Gunilla the address. She is about to ring her back when she remembers that, of course, Gunilla knows where it is. She has been here with Aar. Bella smiles to herself — she’s not the only one with a secret life.
Bella brings the carryall with Aar’s personal effects into the house. She puts the laptop on the desk in the study and plugs it in so that it can charge. She puts the rest of his things back in the carryall, which she hides under the bed. Then she goes downstairs and makes herself a bowl of spaghetti with plain tomato sauce.
When she is finished, she goes back upstairs and sits down in front of the laptop. She guesses at the password, trying various combinations of Aar’s pet names for her, Gacalisissima1, Nuurkayga3, Gabar, Gu’, TobanKaroon! She tries the date of her birth. After a few attempts, she hits on the right combination.
As she waits for the desktop to appear, something inside her goes very quiet. For a moment, she feels as if her heart were about to stop pumping blood to her head. It’s as if she has crossed the boundary between herself and Aar by accessing his private life without his permission. This is an infringement she would never have allowed herself while he was alive. What makes it kosher now that he is dead?
Bella hears a quick rat-a-tat knock downstairs. The time has passed more quickly than she thought. Gunilla is at the door, her idling car behind her. She says she will wait for Bella in the car. As she turns to leave, Bella notices that Gunilla is wearing the necklace that is the twin of her own, the one Aar got for them both.
She goes upstairs and turns off the computer, puts it in her room under the mattress. Now that she knows how to get in, there will be time to venture further later. She locks the bedroom door, shuts off the lights, sets the alarm, and locks the door to the house.
—
On the way to the shopping center, Gunilla speaks of her own delight at having met Bella. “Only I wish the circumstances were different,” she says.
“It can’t be helped.”
Indeed, Gunilla says, they almost met once.
“When was that?” asks Bella.
“Remember when you came to spend a few days with Aar in Istanbul?” Gunilla continues without waiting for a confirmation. “I was due to arrive from Stockholm two hours after he escorted you to the airport for your departure. He dropped you off and waited for me to arrive.”
Secretive Aar! “I was there when he bought that necklace,” Bella says.
“And did he tell you to whom he was giving it?”
“I didn’t ask him.”
“You were not curious enough, you mean?”
“He was a very private man, Aar,” Bella says carefully. “I think you too would have found it unbecoming to ask him questions of that nature if you had known and loved him as much as I knew and loved him.”
There is a silence, a silence that indicates that they have arrived at a sort of T junction in their conversation, no way forward, only to the sides.
Gunilla says, “How have the children been?”
“We’re okay when it’s just us,” says Bella. “But as Sartre says, ‘Hell is other people.’ When others are around us, there is turbulence.”
As if intuiting which “others” Bella is referring to, Gunilla says, “By the way, we had a three-way conference call at Valerie’s insistence, involving me, Valerie, and the Ugandan lawyer representing her. She wanted to enlist our help in a new idea she has: a trust in the name and for the benefit of the children, to be set up with UN help. Naturally, she suggested that she, as the surviving parent, be appointed as the trustee. She spoke at length about her business savvy, managing what amounts to millions of rupees — not that millions of rupees is that much.”
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