| |
Jaidev
“MATE, YOUR PHONE HAS been ringing for like half an hour,” Xavier says when I return to my room.
“Oh, right. Thank you.” I grab it from my bed. Eight missed calls. All from Bastien. Shit. I’d only popped out for a walk. Needed a breather. After my session with Taryn, I attended Madame Cachelle’s classes, then ended up having dinner in the canteen with Peter, and wow, that is one annoying guy. All his talk about sex was just getting too much. Especially when he seemed desperate to know about previous relationships I’ve had. Whether I want to go to the clubs with him round here as there are always lots of ‘keen girls.’
I’ve only ever had one girlfriend. Her. Camille. My dance partner.
Darkness shadows me for a moment. I mustn’t think about her. About what happened.
I swallow hard and focus back on my phone. If Bastien is phoning rather than messaging, something is wrong. Majorly. And that just makes my heart pound faster. It has to be Avril.
I take a deep breath and call Bastien. Xavier goes back to his desk. His laptop’s open and as I count the rings of Bastien’s phone, I find my eyes focusing on what Xavier’s doing. He’s Googling auditions for fixed-term ballet company contracts in the UK. I press my lips together. So, he’s applying elsewhere then. He’s accepted that me and Taryn will get the positions with Roseheart, and he’s not going to try and change the company’s mind, like those dancers were suggesting to Sibylle.
Or he’s keeping his options open.
Xavier sees me looking and quickly closes the browser. His desktop photo shows two white boys, arms around each other, smiling at a camera. I think one is Xavier—when he was much younger. And the other a little brother? Both have the same brown hair and dark eyes. Then Xavier closes his laptop. He swivels in his chair so his back is to me, and just sits there.
I walk to the wardrobe and open it absentmindedly as I wait for Bastien to answer—it’s just ringing and ringing. My side of the wardrobe is still very empty. My suitcase still hasn’t arrived. At the airport I asked Lani to pack for me, telling her what I wanted. Mainly just ballet clothes, but also my father’s áo giao lĩnh. It’s the only thing I still have of his, and he told me it was his father’s before him, and his father’s too, and so on, being passed through the generations. I never met my father’s father; he passed away of cancer before I was born.
The only grandfather I met, though I was too young to remember, was my mother’s father. He was born in Tezpur, on the banks of Brahmaputra in northeastern India, and moved to Vietnam when he met my grandmother. I’m named after him, and I’ve always felt a connection to him because of it. I smile as I remember how my grandmother told me when I was three years old that I thought he was actually two people, as we used both the Indian and Vietnamese names for ‘grandfather’ for him. My parents encouraged me to use Ông Ngoại, as Vietnamese was my first language, and while my grandfather often called himself by that name too, every once in a while, he’d refer to himself as Dada—it was what he called his own grandfather in Tezpur. My grandmother laughed once, when on the phone I apparently asked if both Dada and Ông Ngoại would be at her house when we next visited.
Although I don’t remember firsthand the grandfather I was named after, I have fond constructed memories of Dada/Ông Ngoại based on my grandmother. But with my paternal grandfather, my ông nội, the only thing I have that links me to him—and my other ancestors from that line—is the áo giao lĩnh, the traditional garment being passed down father-to-son. It also makes me feel connected to my father too, and I often wonder when my dad would’ve chosen to give it to me. Instead, it became mine when I was orphaned, left to me in the will, and my bà ngoại kept it safe for me until I was about twelve. Then she presented it to me, this fine collared robe that felt like a lifeline, a way to connect with those I’d lost.
The ringing on the line stops, and Bastien’s voicemail finally kicks in.
“Bastien, I got your missed calls. What’s going on? What’s happened?” I can’t keep the worry out of my voice, and I pray he’ll return my call soon.
Next, I phone the hospital Avril is in. International calls are expensive, and she texted me right after I arrived in England telling me not to call. That she’ll have a nurse call me if it’s important, otherwise we’ll just connect on messenger. We have been exchanging messages and small updates, yes. But Bastien’s missed calls have me worried something’s happened with her. As I wait for staff at the hospital ward to answer, I check Messenger. No messages from her there.
Xavier swivels in his chair. It creaks. He looks at me and then around the room. It’s a poky little room, with two twin beds crammed in, two desks, and one shared wardrobe. Apparently other rooms have multiple wardrobes, but not this one. There’s no en suite here either. We share a bathroom at the end of the hall with six others.
At last, the ward answers, and in French I ask if Avril’s okay. They assure me that she is and that she may even be able to go home next week, with help.
“Home? I... I’m not there. I’m in England,” I tell them.
“Will anyone be there? We’ve got another son in our records. Bastien Troisière?”
“Yes, uh, he lives near her.”
“So, he’ll be able to help?” the nurse asks.
“I hope so.” My voice is small. I mean, Bastien will. He’s getting better now.
“Great,” the nurse says. “We’ll be in touch with him anyway closer to the day we plan to discharge your mother.”
“Great,” I say.
Bastien won’t let her down. He can’t. Not when she’s always there for him. For us.