A Traitor to Memory

She'd never considered before what safety there was in imprisonment. The answers were simple when you were inside, and so were the questions. In freedom, there were too many of both.

Katja turned from the cooker, one plate in her hand. “Where is that boy? His pancakes will be like pucks for hockey if he doesn't hurry.”

“He wants to go to Disney World for his Christmas hols,” Yasmin told her.

“Does he?” Katja smiled. “Well, perhaps we can make that happen for him.”

“How?”

“There are ways and there are ways,” Katja said. “He is a good boy, our Daniel. He should have what he wants. So should you.”

Here was the opening, so Yasmin took it at once, saying, “And if I want you? If that's all I want?”

Katja laughed, placed Daniel's plate on the table, and came back to Yasmin. “See how easy it is?” she said. “You speak your wish, and it is granted at once.” She kissed her and went back to the cooker, calling out, “Daniel! Your pancakes are ready for you now! You must come. Come!”

The doorbell buzzed and Yasmin glanced at the small chipped clock that stood on the cooker. Half past seven. Who the hell …? She frowned.

Katja said, “This is very early for a neighbour to call,” as Yasmin loosed and retied the obi on the scarlet kimono she wore as a dressing gown. “I hope there is no trouble, Yas. Daniel has not played the truant, has he?”

“Better not have,” Yasmin said. She strode to the door and looked through its spy hole. She drew in a sharp breath when she saw who stood there, waiting patiently for someone to answer, or perhaps not so patiently because he reached out and pushed the bell once again. Katja had come to the kitchen door, pan in one hand and pancake turner in the other. Yasmin said to her in a terse whisper, “It's that damn bloody copper.”

“The black man from yesterday? Ah. Well. Let him in, Yas.”

“I don't want—”

He rang the bell again, and as he did so, Daniel popped his head out of the bathroom, shouting, “Mum! There's the door! You gonna get it or wha’?” without noticing her standing in front of it like a disobedient child avoiding castigation. When he saw her, he looked from his mother to Katja.

Katja said, “Yas. Open the door.” And to Daniel, “You've got pancakes waiting. Two dozen I've made you, just as you like them. Mum says you want Christmas at Disney World. Put your clothes on and tell me about it.”

“We're not going,” he said sullenly as the bell rang another time.

“Ah. You know the future that well? Get dressed. We need to talk about this.”

“Why?”

“Because talking makes dreams more real. And when dreams are more real, they have a better chance of coming true. Yasmin, mein Gott, will you answer that door? He's heard us, that man. He plans to stay till you open.”

Yasmin did so. She jerked on the door so hard, it nearly flew from her hand as behind her Daniel ducked into his bedroom and Katja returned to the kitchen. She said without preamble to the black constable, “How'd you get up here, then? I don't recollect buzzing you into the lift.”

“Lift door was ajar,” DC Nkata said. “I helped myself to it.”

“Why? What more you want with us, man?”

“A few words. 'S your …” He hesitated and looked beyond her, into the flat where the kitchen light made an oblong of yellow on the carpet squares in the sitting room where no other lights were yet lit. “Katja Wolff here as well?”

“Half past seven in the morning, where'd you expect her to be?” Yasmin demanded, but she didn't like the expression on his face as she asked the question, so she hurried on. “We told you everything there is to tell when you 'as here before. Another time through everything i'n't going to make no difference to what we already said.”

“This's something new,” he told her evenly. “This's something else.”

“Mum,” Dan called out from his bedroom, “where's m' school jumper? Is it on the telly 'cause I can't find it with the rest—” His words trailed off as he left his bedroom in search of the piece of clothing. He was wearing his white shirt, his underpants, and socks, and his hair still glistened with the water from his shower.

“'Morning, Daniel,” the copper said to him with a nod and a smile. “Getting ready for school?”

“Never you mind what he's gettin' ready for,” Yasmin snapped before Daniel could answer. And then to her son as she snatched his jumper from one of the hooks next to the door, “Dan, mind you see to that breakfast. Those pancakes're dead trouble to make. See you eat them all.”

“'Lo,” Daniel said shyly to the cop, and he looked so pleased that Yasmin's insides quaked. “You 'membered my name.”

“Did,” Nkata said agreeably. “Mine's Winston, it is. You like school, Daniel?”