Night one Friday soon autumn in a city where the noise from the corniche wakes the street dogs who, shielded by the reeds and the stacked sun chairs, are dozing at one end of the beach; each time the tourists hoot, they wake up and bark—each time the music gets louder and the wind finds its way to where they’re curled up with their muzzles pressed into the sand, they lift their heads and fall back asleep, and so it continues the whole night through to dawn, until there is no one still drinking and eating on the corniche.
The woman searching for her child approaches the restaurant where The Missing One once worked and sits down on a bench opposite, looks around. A few restaurants away you also happen to be sitting, talking to your co-workers about the architecture and the food in the city.
They haven’t quite got tipsy yet and started girl-watching and you have yet to take your walk, to look for another spot along the corniche.
The woman is no longer wearing a headscarf or slippers and doesn’t have it in her to shout hello or come here when she sees a girl heading to the kitchen across the restaurant floor; she offers no reply when a man addresses her from the road and does not look over at the grill kiosks or the harbour.
Of all my children, she is the one I miss the most the woman says out loud and remembers the girl walking here one night with a sack or bag in her hand—of all the people I talk to in my mind, she is the one I want to hear she says and remembers that it was to or from the market that they were going and that they had just sat down to rest when the girl stood right back up and started walking towards the alley.
The woman remembers that the girl’s hair was still long in plaits down her back and that she hadn’t yet been bruised on her arms and legs; she remembers that they had talked about her younger siblings and why they hadn’t been allowed to start school and that the light had been both dawning and gloaming, whichever it was, it was a light to which she wanted to return.
Yes, the light may have been of the dawn streaked pink or green, or of the dusk like the light was before the girl disappeared when the sun would sink towards the mountains and the harbour and the city would take on a soft almost hazy darkness, inviting and warm, a light less violent than the light now.
No, the light was different and brittle back then, not blinding like now, and she saw that the girl was lost in thought and for once did not ask what or who or how or why; the woman just walked beside her daughter and said nothing the whole way except once as the alley drew near and the girl put the sack down and crossed the road to enter the palm groves on the other side.
At that moment—just as the girl reappeared holding palm fronds as big as she was—the woman said I wish you wouldn’t take that job on the corniche and then fell silent, taking the fronds from the girl’s arms and listening to her say that she’d already made up her mind and it was going to be fine—that she was not alone in working there and together they were strong, it would work out one way or another, she knew it would.
The woman takes her bag off, sets it on the bench where she is sitting across from the restaurant, now with patrons at every table on the patio. Tonight the music is unbearable, pulsing hard throughout the corniche, still every now and then she can hear the tourists howling with laughter or asking for more to drink, can see them as they stop to look at her and then continue as idly as before across the corniche.
When the children who are following the food approach her and ask if she would like some chicken or some of the bread they’ve managed to rustle up on the corniche, she has the energy to take them in her arms and tell them she has eaten and is very full; when they ask are you sure? the woman says she has never eaten as much and then now you must eat just as much—you understand that, right?
Is your sister feeling better? she asks the girl holding her younger sibling’s hand and then I know a good health centre where she can go. Have you all found a place to sleep? she asks the boy beside her and then I know a place where you can go.
After the woman has described the way to the alley and told the children that in the alley they will find both a place to sleep and friends, she opens her bag and takes out the girl’s soap, puts it to her nose. Then she takes the knife out of her pocket and holds it in her hand and finally one of the photos of The Missing One, which she kisses before turning to face the tourists and the restaurant on the corniche.
I am searching for my daughter the woman will then say as loudly and clearly as she can.
She worked here on the corniche and it is for her sake that I have come she will say while standing outside the entrance to the restaurant.
Saturday morning a different perhaps milder light upon the city.
Do you remember what she was like at the library? the children say to each other when they at dawn rise from their beds and peer into the darkness, checking to see if the ball has resurfaced or if Gran has tossed it into the alley. Do you remember which book was her favourite, the one she always used to read sitting against the armchair on the rug even if the armchair was free and she could just as well have sat in it? the children ask and wash their face and neck, run a hand through their hair.
Do you remember we once asked her why she didn’t sit in the armchair when it was free and she shook her head and said she couldn’t bear anyone looking at her as if she were soiling it? Do you remember that she then picked us up and put us in the armchair instead and said that we should never think that of ourselves, that we were soiling things? the children ask each other as they watch the sun rise over the rooftops across the street and listen to the traffic get heavier and maybe somewhere a chirping bird, a barking dog.
The children nod and say I don’t know what the book is called, but I remember what it looked like and what it was about—maybe the librarians will know what it’s called if we tell them she was reading it? and then take out bread and beans, fruit and oil in the alley.
Yes, I’m sure they’ll know what it’s called, but I don’t dare go in case she or Mum come home and I’m not here the children say, mouth full of breakfast.
I dare, but I don’t want to go either in case she or Mum comes home and none of us are here the children reply and lie down, waiting for the sun to rise high and for them to make their way to where Gran is and find the ball, toss it back out.
It is then or soon thereafter that the children from the corniche walk into the alley and see a mountain of stones rise up and obscure the view of the children and the grandmother they have heard about and who are said to live in the alley; later, they are not sure exactly when, but it is then or soon after that the children in the alley hear a hello? and pick up a stone and stand at the ready, guarding everything laid out on the shawl in the alley.
Later the children from the corniche explain how they ended up there and ask if what the woman had said last night is true—that they can sleep and eat here, rest and warm themselves a while?
Is it true your sister has disappeared and she had short hair that only went down to here? the children from the corniche say and our Pearl, Mo and Minna nod, saying she worked on the corniche, we don’t know where she is before they take out tins of beans to dish out and set water out in the sun for the children to wash themselves with later.
Our Pearl, Mo and Minna show the children from the corniche the fallen walls facing the construction sites and the bathroom with the ceiling torn down as well as the sweater they can put on if they feel cold.
Finally they show them the spot where the grandmother can no longer be seen and say our ball is back there—let’s go get it and then perhaps we can play together here in the alley.