Helen Oyeyemi - What Is Not Yours Is Not Yours

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IT’S MOSTLY men you’re hearing, or at least they sound male. But not all of them. Among the women Eva can be heard shushing herself. You chant and shout and cuckoo call. You recite verse, whatever’s good, whatever comes to mind. This is how you pass through the building of Eva’s quietness, and as you make that racket of yours you get close enough to the book to seize both covers (though you can no longer see them) and slam the book shut. Then you sit on it for a while, laughing hysterically, and after that you slide along the floor with the book beneath you until you find a roll of masking tape and wind it around the closed diary. Close shave, kiddo, close shave.

—

AT THE WEEKEND you go to the address you found in the diary and a gray-haired, Levantine-looking man answers the door. Eva’s lover? First he tells you Eva’s out, then he says: “Hang on, tell me again who you’re looking for?”

You repeat Eva’s name and he says that Eva doesn’t actually live in that house. You ask since when, and he says she never lived there. But when you tell him you’ve got Eva’s diary he lets you in: “I think I saw her on the roof once.” His reluctance to commit to any statement of fact feels vaguely political. You go up onto the rooftop with no clear idea of whether Eva will be there or not. She’s not. You look out over tiny gardens, big parking lots, and satellite dishes. A glacial wind slices at the tops of your ears. If you were a character in a film this would be a good rooftop on which to battle and defeat some urban representative of the forces of darkness. You place the diary on the roof ledge and turn to go, but then you hear someone shout: “Hey! Hey — is that mine?”

It’s Eva. She’s on the neighboring rooftop. She must have emerged when you were taking in the view. The neighboring rooftop has a swing set up on it, two seats side by side, and you watch as Eva launches herself out into the horizon with perfectly pointed toes, falls back, pushes forward again. She doesn’t seem to remember you even though she only left a few days ago; this says as much about you as it does about her. You tell Eva that even though it looks as if her diary has been vigorously thumbed through you’re sure the contents remain secret. “ I didn’t read it, anyway,” you say. The swing creaks as Eva sails up into the night sky, so high it almost seems as if she has no intention of coming back. But she does. And when she does, she says: “So you still think that’s why I locked it?”

Thank you, Piotr Cieplak, thank you, Marina Endicott, thank you, Tracy Bohan, thank you, Jin Auh, thank you, Bohdan Karásek, thank you, Sarah McGrath. And Kate Harvey — thank you.

Kenneth Gross’s absorbing Puppet: An Essay on Uncanny Life has also been influential here.

Helen Oyeyemiis the author of five novels, most recently Boy, Snow, Bird , which was a finalist for the 2014 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. She received a 2010 Somerset Maugham Award and a 2012 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. In 2013, she was named one of Granta ’s Best Young British Novelists.

This is Grainne’s self-perception. If you can overlook her narcissism you may come to care for her one day.—M.A.

You sayin’ you care for me, Marie?—G.M.

At least that’s what Grainne Molloy imagines Rutherford said. This is not verifiable!—T.A.

Bah, history students.—G.M.

Again with the unverifiable exchanges, Grainne…—T.A.

Leave me alone, Theo…—G.M.