It was 1:30 p.m., and the cafeteria at the embassy, crowded and noisy earlier, was starting to empty. They were standing in line with their trays, the sun streaming through big transom windows.
“You’re sure?” she asked.
Kwana Jones and he were about the same age, so Collin felt he could be himself. She was a little younger, maybe 25 or 26. Black people had that effect on him, as if they could see through his class’s bourgeois pretense. She was the person in charge of the list, calling the doctors and referring them to patients on behalf of the embassy. And she’d been kind to him when he’d first arrived, when most had been indifferent.
“You’re pregnant,” he said. “Yes, I’m sure.”
“You’re sure, sure?” she asked again. “I’ll pay for this.” Jones saw that Collin was reaching for his wallet; she produced a bill first and paid the woman behind the register.
They carried their lunch trays to an empty table in the back, under the windows. Kwana walked with a real grace. She was tall, as he was, and he enjoyed watching her move.
Collin wondered why she didn’t have a trace of African-American idiom. She spoke English like an English teacher. She probably hid it, he thought, in order to get on in the world. He knew that she’d grown up poor. She sounded like any young American professional woman, except she was black and trim and pretty—if not beautiful, then very close to it. She had a nice smile that told you that she was probably kind and naïve—except when you looked into her eyes. Something in the eyes disabused you of that. She may have fixed the English to pass, but the ghetto she’d grown up in was stamped in her eyes. There was a hurt part somewhere at the core.
He wondered who the boyfriend was. Someone here at the embassy, he imagined. He was going to be a father, whether he was ready to be or not.
They sat down. She was wearing a white sweater with a big tall collar, and it made her brown skin look that much more beautiful. He’d asked her out when he’d first arrived, but she’d said she was seeing someone and turned him down. He remembered the rejection very well; he didn’t get them that often. He wondered if it would have been his child now if fate had had it another way.
He unloaded her tray for her and put both trays on an adjoining empty table. When he turned back, he saw that she was crying. She quickly wiped the tears away with a napkin. He was a little shocked.
“Can’t have that. What is it? Can’t be the food? You haven’t tried it yet,” he said, trying to make a joke.
She smiled and reached over and held his hand, which he hadn’t expected either. She’d been so formal; warm, but a little formal, always a little distant, too.
“Thank you,” she said.
He looked into her eyes, seeing a very complicated look there.
“Well, you paid for lunch,” Collin said.
“I didn’t want to believe that little plastic stick thing,” she said.
“I don’t blame you. . . . I was glad to do it.” He’d run the test for her at the American hospital where he had privileges.
“Are you going to tell me who the lucky young man is?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Okay. Does he know?”
“No.”
“I see,” Collin said.
“He’s not young, either,” she said.
“I see. You are going to tell him, though?”
“I don’t know. . . . He’s white.”
She hadn’t touched her food. He picked up his sandwich and took a bite. He was hungry and getting a little uncomfortable. He couldn’t put on his doctor’s face; he had one especially designed for these kinds of talks, but he knew it would be wrong to put it on. She was talking to him like a friend, and it dawned on him that she didn’t have anyone to talk to.
One of Kwana’s colleagues from the State Department, an older white woman, passed with a friend; they stopped at their table and said hello to Jones. Kwana introduced Collin and they were impressed, thinking that they were an item. She didn’t mention the doctor part.
“We should have gone out. When you asked. And maybe I wouldn’t have all these problems right now,” she said after they left.
“You couldn’t blame me for trying,” he said.
“I thought you were cute. For a white boy,” she said. “All the girls here think you are. They all want to get deathly ill so that you can hover over them, if you know what I mean.”
She started to work on the soup in front of her. She opened the package of crackers on the side and ate one. She was thinking, looking at the soup. “He works here. I’m not in love with him,” she said. “He’s in love with me.”
“Of course he is. Look at you,” Collin said. “Is it the age thing?” He decided to engage. He forced himself not to act like a doctor.
“Yes. I suppose so.”
“Does he really love you? Then it might not matter so much. Or is it something else?”
“Yes. But I don’t think I can have a baby with a white man. No, that sounds stupid. I mean, it was hard enough being black. Why would you do that to a child? You know what, everyone, black and white, they make these kids feel bad. I’ve seen it. They want something from them. You know what I mean? Some kind of allegiance. It’s . . . sad, because they don’t have it to give.”
“No, not really. I mean, I don’t really understand. They’re just children, aren’t they? Why do they have to fly a race flag?” he said.
“. . .There’s something else. I have to tell someone. Will you . . . I don’t want you to think less of me. I like you. I don’t have a lot of friends here. Here at work, at the embassy.”
It seemed odd that she was picking him to confide in. He was white. He was a man. He hadn’t really known her that well. She was the woman who called him to refer patients. It was true they spoke often, but they weren’t really friends. Not really.
“Of course not,” he said.
“I dated him because of who he is. I mean, I needed a favor. My mother was in New Orleans, all my family. This person. He’s . . . Let’s just say, he was able to do things most people can’t do. He got them out, all of them. Right away. I knew he could. Or at least, I thought he could.”
“I see.”
“I was attracted to him in a strange way before that. I can’t even explain it. We were going out. Nothing serious. I liked him. He beat some guy up in a restaurant who insulted me. Some college boy half his age, calling me a bitch. He was nice. But I knew it couldn’t go anywhere. I think he’s almost sixty. He won’t tell me for sure. It’s a mess, isn’t it? He helped me. I was the one who seduced him. I felt grateful, like I owed him something. After I saw what people went through there . . . he got them out. One phone call. Can you understand? I didn’t think he’d fall in love with me. I thought he’d see it for what it was. I don’t know what I thought. I was grateful, but that’s all.”
“You’d better eat something,” Collin said. He reached over and touched her hand. It was cold. She picked up her spoon.
“Am I a bad person, doctor? . . .Was that wrong?”
“No,” he said.
“Now we’ll never be able to date. You know too much about me.” She laughed. And he laughed, too. But he was afraid for her.
She ate for a while, and they talked about the embassy, the people they knew. He told her about some of the funny tourists he’d been treating lately, the woman who wanted to hire him to travel with her.
Then she stopped him and asked him if he would help, if she wanted to get rid of it—if she could have it done at the American hospital. He told her she could, but it wasn’t covered and she would have to pay something. She nodded.
He looked out the window on the opposite wall then and into the blue afternoon sky. It seemed endless and sure of itself. Before he left, she hugged him. She said she would call him and let him know what she had decided.