A. Barrett - Love Is Power, or Something Like That - Stories

It was the worst time of her life: the guilt, the grief, the pileup of disasters. Two days later, two days after she killed the dogs, Mr. Bille suffered the final heart attack. There had been no time for forgiveness, no time to coax him out of the silence that followed his explosion of rage at the news of the dogs’ deaths. One morning he rose and left for work without replying to her greeting or eating her food, and by evening he was dead.

But for her children, she would not have survived. The catastrophe that collapsed her world exposed her children’s toughness. They stood by her in her darkest hour, frightened out of their mourning by the intensity of hers, pleading, consoling, urging restraint as she rolled around in bed and beat her fists, as she retched when the tears would no longer seep from her stinging eyes, as she wallowed in guilt and snot, embraced her grief along with her pillows, and turned her back on life, hope, self-control. Her children fought her with common sense and coerced her with love. They reminded her of the times the doctors had warned their father to give up smoking and alcohol and to adjust his eating habits; they told her, the dogs’ deaths don’t matter, the dogs’ deaths don’t matter, the dogs’ deaths don’t matter, until, one day, the dogs’ deaths didn’t matter. The worst thing that happened to her revealed the best thing she had.

When Ma Bille turned into her street, the security lamps on the front walls of the queued houses were glinting dully in the dusk. She stopped opposite her house, looked left, right, left again, then placed her foot on the road and looked right, just in time to glimpse a shape streaking across her frontage. Cardinal Rex, wherever he’d been, had seen her, she thought.

“That was a rat. They’re getting bigger and bigger these days.”

Ma Bille spun around, wincing as her joints creaked. But when her eyes — squinting, straining in the gathering darkness — confirmed what her ears had heard, she forgot about her pain. It was Perpetua. Her gate hung open, which, given the lateness, was unusual; and, even stranger, Perpetua was still sitting in the darkened doorway of her house, as if she hadn’t moved since morning. Ma Bille sniffed loudly to mask her amazement, and slowly, deliberately, turned away. She hurried across the road, unlocked her front door, then stood on her doorstep, one leg in and one leg out, stared into the darkness, the loneliness of her house. She pulled the door shut and walked back across the road. She entered Perpetua’s gate, halted in front of her, and said, “How come it’s today you’re talking to me, after all these years?”

Perpetua raised her hand to slap away a cloud of mosquitoes. “I don’t beg anybody for friendship,” she said, her voice assured, careful with pronunciation.

There seemed nothing left to say, and Ma Bille’s legs ached.

“I should go,” Ma Bille said.

“I know — time to feed your cat.”

“Yes.”

Ma Bille did not move. She wondered if she should ask. It wasn’t her business, but Perpetua had reached out, broken the silence. For a reason.

In a cautious tone, Ma Bille asked, “Is there a problem?”

“No,” Perpetua said.

“Are you sure? I’ve never seen you outside this late before.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Perpetua said. “It’s just that my legs have refused to work.”

“Ah.” Ma Bille clicked her teeth together. “Sorry, I know the feeling. My legs do the same thing every morning.” She paused. “Should I help you inside?”

“I’ll be grateful,” Perpetua said.

Ma Bille started forward, and Perpetua leaned aside to let her pass through the doorway, then raised her arms so that Ma Bille could grasp her by the armpits. Ma Bille pulled up the smaller woman, clasped her to her chest, and then dragged her into the house with backward steps. After a drawn-out, exhausting effort, Ma Bille eased Perpetua into a chair in the parlor, and then dropped into the adjoining seat, blowing hard and dabbing her face with the edge of her wrapper, her free hand rubbing her shaking knee.

When her heart rate calmed, Ma Bille pushed herself to her feet. Perpetua’s house was the same floor plan as hers, and in the dark, she could have been at home. She walked to the window and drew the curtains closed, then felt along the wall for the light switch and snapped it on. Perpetua was sprawled in the armchair, her arms dangling over the sides and her legs stretched out before her. Her ankles were swollen to the size of her calves.

“How are your legs?” Ma Bille asked.

“Still dead.” Perpetua passed a hand over her short dapple-gray hair. “It’s my arthritis. I’ll have to find a way to get to the hospital tomorrow.”

“Which one?”

“College Hospital.”

Ma Bille walked to the open door and gazed out for long seconds, then turned back into the room. “I’m going to College Hospital tomorrow for my eye operation,” she said. “In the morning, around ten. .” In the warm light, she caught the gleam of Perpetua’s teeth. She smiled back. “The blind leading the lame, no?”

At Ma Bille’s words, Perpetua looked down at her legs, the set of her head as expressive as a sigh.

“Don’t worry, it will be okay, these things happen for a reason,” Ma Bille said. “As I always say: the worst thing to happen to you is for the best—”

“ Sometimes,” the two old women said together, and stared at each other in surprise, then burst out laughing, their voices ringing through the house and across the street.

This morning, same as other mornings that he skipped school, fifteen-year-old Samu’ila pushed open the glass swing door and stepped into the chilled air of the cybercafe. It was a long room, a converted warehouse, and there was no ventilation other than the doorway, which was always shut. High on the wall at each end of the room two antiquated air conditioners wheezed and juddered from the flux of electric current and puffed clouds of frost. Harsh white light poured from the ceiling, and a red plush rug, scuffed to brown down the middle by the tramp of feet, covered the floor. The length of the room was lined on both sides with wooden tables, on which sat computer monitors. Beneath the tables stood CPUs and UPSs, with their red, green, and yellow lights flashing, and on the ground, where the red of the rug was still as bright as the day it left the loom, a tangle of wires slithered in and out of everything.

The walls were pasted with notices that warned off fraudsters, spammers, and hackers. As Samu’ila halted before the attendant’s desk he saw a poster on the wall, a new one, which read:

We are pleased to announced to you

That our overnight browsing is now

N250!!!

We promise you that you will surely

Going to have a great night with us,

As you come.

We are here to make a different.

Signed: THE MGT

The attendant was a young, pretty woman. She wore sky-blue jeans, tight from hip to ankle, and a pink halter with a décolletage that made Samu’ila suck in his breath: he could see all the way to the rims of her areolas. Atop her head was perched a stiff wing of acrylic hair extension. Her feet — with their long, curved, Smarties-colored toenails — were propped on the desk, crossed at the ankles. She was reading a glossy paperback, which she held in front of her face like a compact mirror. Samu’ila coughed to draw her attention. She did not raise her eyes from the book. He was used to her ways.

“Which book are you reading today, auntie?” he asked.

“ Love’s Brazen Fire,” she replied. Then, with a sigh, she swung her feet off the desk and slammed down the book. “Why won’t you people leave me alone!” she snapped as she glanced up. Her eyes flickered with recognition, and, “You again,” she said, her voice flat, resigned. “Don’t you go to school at all? How much time do you want today?”