4

Friday evening one late summer or autumn in a seaside town with a beach and a university, its small courtyard open to a square with corn vendors and juice stands and booksellers and a library.

The woman who is searching for her child recognizes the grocery stores she sometimes sat outside with necklaces and crocheted washcloths neatly arranged on a skirt, and remembers at what time the restaurants set out their evening menus and the cafés pack in their patios; she recognizes the cleaners who move through the same places at the same times every day, and knows where the health centre is where she took The Missing One and without presenting any documents turned the girl around and pulled up her sweater. The girl had wounds from working on the corniche and when the nurse saw her, she took her in and washed the wounds clean, dressed them and administered painkillers to help the girl sleep.

The woman remembers that behind the hotel in the farthest corner, where everyone ignores her now, two palms grow paler with each passing day and farther along at the bend next to the bus stop sits a tobacconist with whom she usually talks on the days when it’s possible to talk at all. Have you found her yet? he asks each time he sees the woman coming and when she doesn’t answer he hands her a cigarette and if she can manage to say not yet he hands her two.

Will I get to see her when I die or right before death? the woman asks out loud now on the square near the library and the fountain and is what my grandmother said true—that you meet the children you’ve lost as if on a path and they follow you in? she says and passes the park benches and the cherry trees, the shop windows and the playground.

If we meet in a dream she says and continues past the schoolchildren lollipops in hand leaning over the flowing fountain—if she calls my name once more as in a question or game and asks me to come she says and sees the office buildings on the left and the tailor’s shop on the corner, the restaurant she once promised to take the children to and the greengrocer who despite the rush at the cart notices her limping along and runs to meet her on the square.

The greengrocer wants to talk to her and to embrace her, asks if she would like to sit down and rest awhile, then tells her he already visited the children this morning and dropped off some bread and some fruit, some beans and some vegetables he says and I told them to make sure to drink plenty. I have told the children not to go out on the road except for palm fronds and tea he says and warned them not to go with the men I’ve heard visit the alley claiming to know where the girl is or where you are sleeping at night—have you heard about that?

The greengrocer seeks her gaze, is either walking behind or beside her and finally stops, takes her hand.

Have you heard? he repeats, facing the cart and everyone he has left in the line—have you heard about the men who make their way to the alley at night and try to lure the children away?

Later that same evening by the railing on the corniche, the woman remembers The Missing One as if she were closer now and as beautiful and regal as ever; the woman sees the girl walking not along a hard slick corniche, but on a sandy beach with sun chairs and a parasol, towels laid out in rows at the water and the air warm, one spring or early summer in the city.

The Missing One walks the outskirts of the shoreline with her younger siblings following behind and carefully searches the sand; the children wait for her to call come or hurry and then with their pants up high they run to her pointing hand and fall into reverent silence.

Look how lovely this one is The Missing One says and holds up a shell or stone to the sun. Do you think it fell from the cliffs? she says—or is it a gift from the god of the sea or the stars? The girl says have you ever seen anything so lovely? while the younger siblings shake their head and then here you go before she hands the stone to our Pearl, now overjoyed on the shoreline.

Does the woman remember this?

Yes, she remembers that day The Missing One said it might be all right here and continuing along the beach where the sun chairs were fewer and no white tourists sat up and peered over their sunglasses, watching them surreptitiously or openly the closer they came; the girl went to where the lifeguards would not ask her to get out of the water and shouted from there it might actually be all right here, Mum—can you imagine? before she stripped down to her underwear and ran into the water.

The greengrocer asks if there is anything at all he can do and the woman replies no and thank you, replies fine and I don’t know and then hurries on across the square.

At the library those working the counter that day ask how she’s doing and tell her that no one has called, not yet at least, but maybe soon, says the new librarian, who then asks if the woman might like to make more copies of the flyer or add a phone number to the image.

Perhaps you’d like to tell me more about how she was dressed and if she walks or stands in a particular way? Do you have the names of her friends and over the years did she acquire a scar or mark that isn’t visible in the photo that you might be able to tell us about?

The woman shakes her head and says no and I don’t know, says no, I don’t think so as best she can and then there is no more recent picture—they took everything as if she needed to catch her breath between each word.

She speaks almost inaudibly and feels then, as she does several times a day, out of sorts; when her eyes fall on the poster with the photo of The Missing One dressed in her best pants and sweater by the ditch between the former homes on the hillside, she once again knows where in life she is and walks to the door.

The woman says thank you and I have to go now to those who have brought tea and cake and then you are very kind but I really must go before she continues out of the room.

The people working the counter that day follow her and promise that the phone is in working order and the answering machine is on; they say that the long-awaited call will one day come, they can feel it, and just as the woman hears this, she steps out into the twilight and crosses the road.

Twilight soon night above a city where the students always the last to leave the library have gathered around the dented car door, carried here from the junkyard to light a fire of palm fronds and twigs atop, bake bread and fry thinly sliced potatoes and set a teapot on the flat stones beside.

The students sit with their backs to the stark new building, mix the batter of flour, salt and water, and share between them what vegetables and fruit they have; they remove their socks and shoes, then take out their books, quizzing each other to prepare for the final seminar tomorrow, reading aloud and demonstrating.

The children in the alley haven’t started to freeze even though at this time of day they usually sit around the fire not too big so the wind won’t carry it off.

Yes, at this time of day the children in the alley usually lie down in the dark next to what used to be a wall and is now mostly rubble, and cover themselves with the blanket, look up at the sky—do they see anything there? The children usually straighten their pillows, no more than two sweaters around which their grandmother sewed a piece of sheet, and press their feet together, hold their hands like binoculars and then continue to search the sky—do they see a star or moon or the light sailing from the moon down towards their faces now cast blue in the alley? Do they see Venus, the brightest of stars as The Missing One used to say, and with Venus in sight, can they orient themselves further across the sky?

But not tonight.

Tonight the world feels different somehow new and the ball the children are still kicking between them feels harder and newer with each thud against the ruined wall—shinier each time our Pearl picks the ball up with her hands even though that’s not allowed and more beautiful, yes it’s almost sheer beauty, each time Minna manages a header or chest trap.

The children say kick it to me and take a leap across the alley, say here and stand wide-legged, at the ready.

The children play long after the streetlamp shines red on the mountain of stones piled in the middle of the alley and it is not until the ball, kicked from one side to the other, ricochets somehow and rolls off to the pit at one end of the alley that the children stop playing.

The children stand there, watching the ball go.

They wait for it to bounce back or for Gran to toss it their way, but nothing happens and no ball is returned to the game and the children in the alley.

It’s not actually a pit Mo says and looks at the dark beneath Gran’s tarp, in the daytime the only shade in the alley—after all it’s just the darkness from where Gran watches over us he says and waits, grabbing his head.

When neither ball nor grandmother appears, the children eventually move into the darkness to search for the ball there.

From time to time they look back at the road and the mountain glowing red, and then go farther in.

The children move first to where the light from the streetlamp seeps in and a sparse darkness envelops and enfolds; here they see their ragged sweaters in a pile and plastic bags folded neatly beneath a rock, the books no one reads anymore in stacks by the wall and farther away a notebook The Missing One would write in from time to time.

The children lift the pad out of the dust and cold and tuck it under their sweater, carry it with them.

Then they go deeper in and soon the darkness is heavier and harder for them to navigate—soon they can no longer discern anything but shadows and contours and soon the cold makes its way in and turns their young bodies stiff.

Is this the same alley where they’ve been sleeping and eating and fighting and playing, with the same depth and the same shade, the same bullet holes in the walls and the same bed where Gran used to sit or lie and from there look out across the alley?

Was it this deep before too, and this dark and cold and impossible?

The children don’t know yet keep going, catching sight of a rope and their old slingshot still intact and take the slingshot with them—see a pair of scissors Gran forgot to put away and Mum’s soft shawl and pocket them both; the children see the vague outline of the slate no one uses anymore and the camping stove they gathered around in the evenings now overturned and finally also a teapot, a sugar bowl and a comb broken in two.

The children carry everything back out into the alley then return to the darkness, move farther in.

The ball is nowhere to be seen.

Do you remember the cats in the afternoons? the children ask each other as they search the depths of the alley.

I remember their golden fur, one soft the other coarse, and the scratch of their tongues against my hand the children reply, now almost completely invisible in the alley.

Do you remember the ditch and the water rippling in the ditch? the children ask each other, crouching in the darkness by the wall.

I remember my feet in that rippling water and your laughter the children say to each other and drag their hand through the dust, trying to find what has disappeared and is no longer present in the alley.

The children drag a cold hand from one side to the other, once and then once more.

They do this many times and eventually come to a standstill in the dark. Then Minna says it’s ours, you have to give it back and waits awhile; she says if you don’t want to give it back to us, we’ll come get it when it’s light out and the sun is at its highest point and the mirror will help us find our way to you and then she awaits no answer out in the alley.

Before the children make their way back, they find The Missing One’s old jewellery box and take that too, wiping it with their sweater, carrying it under their arm.

Do you remember the tins we filled with mud? the children ask each other as they slowly move towards the mountain, gathering the palm fronds and twigs into a pile and lighting the fire.

I remember the tin cans and how to fill them without getting cut the children reply as they pour beans on bread atop a sheet of newspaper and settle down in the alley.

Do you remember how the sun would sink over the hillside and make night of the mist clouding above our homes? the children ask each other and take out their mother’s shawl from their pocket, hold it up to the streetlight and the black sky, then spread it out in the alley.

I remember the sun, the mist and our homes the children say to each other and place The Missing One’s notebook, jewellery box, and everything else they have taken on the shawl now hidden behind the mountain in the alley.

Later the children will make room for a kitchen with a hotplate and two pots and a corner for the clothes and the jewellery box; they will put the laundry tub in a corner and hang a rope along the wall for the clothes to dry in the sun, and perhaps take out the slate and sometimes a book as well, settling down in the alley.

Friday night and a darkness deeper than before descends, advances on the children brilliant red in the streetlight’s shine and touches them in play and laughter with the ball they have found and are now kicking around the alley.

The moment the grandmother sees the children carrying in the ball she stands up, keeps an eye on it and keeps an eye on the children’s game in the alley. Sometimes when the big stone mountain the children have built obscures them and causes them to vanish from sight for a moment, she prepares to dash out, screaming their names. And sometimes when the ball rolls towards the ruined wall and the pavement and keeps going as if headed straight for the traffic on the road, she turns away, refusing to watch the children follow after it, refusing to watch them die out on the road.

The grandmother feels for the first time in a long time an autumn chill and wonders if she should light the fire herself—does she remember how? She takes one step forward but doesn’t come any closer to the children and then wonders where the matches are and the lighter fluid, have they been used up? She wonders if the children have gone off to procure such things or if she should do it herself and then sits down, no, how? the grandmother says out loud in the depths of the alley—it’s not possible she says and falls back against the wall.

Had you been here now, you’d be calling for them to eat and saying it’s already late and the fire must be lit and the ball put away the grandmother says and points to a spot on the ground in front of her as if The Missing One were there. You would have told them to get some sleep even if there are no more school days and that the relief organization might show up tomorrow and give them new notebooks and new pencils, new coloured drawing paper and a new writing board, who knows? the grandmother says and tries to keep warm by softly dancing around the end of the alley.

We were inseparable, my Naima and I, have I told you about that? she says as if whispering to The Missing One. Perhaps not as inseparable as you and I, of course—if you wanted to go to the sugarcane fields, I’d come along and if you wanted more books to read, we’d walk to the library together the grandmother says—still Naima and I were inseparable. The morning her little brother knocked on the door and told me she had disappeared, I’d just sat down to eat some bread and cheese. He asked if I knew where she was and I remember thinking he looked sloppy in his unironed shirt and muddy slippers, hair uncombed and no bag or belt. I said no and told him we’d last seen each other the previous night when we’d sat by the fountain drinking sodas and smoking a cigarette. I said that she’d told me about her job and that she was tired of riding the bus and that she’d prefer to work somewhere else nearby the grandmother says and keeps moving through the alley, watching the children’s game and intermittently closing her eyes as if she were wishing for the impossible.

Later when more and more girls disappeared and the boys were in the war or in prison, not one person kept looking for my Naima or the green sweater and cotton pants I knew she was wearing that night. I’d told them—I described what she was wearing and said I knew she had my pink panties because she’d borrowed them that day—but the police said they’d found nothing and had nothing to go on.

The grandmother dances, wishing for the impossible, and when the ball slowly rolls into her part of the alley, she picks it up and doesn’t give it back.

As she continues to watch the children as they approach the depths of the alley in search of the ball—creeping through the darkness and carrying out everything she has been storing in her part of the alley since the girl became one of the missing—she moves in deeper, to a place she did not know the alley contained, and is soon no longer seen in the alley.

If you’d been here the grandmother says we’d have stayed up while the others were sleeping and smoked the butts I saved, drunk our tea. We’d have lit the kerosene lamp again and I’d have put my head in your lap—you’d have read to me and then we’d have talked about what it was going to be like when you finally stopped working on that bloody corniche the grandmother says, clutching the ball in her hands more tightly.