Stoker takes a hard look at his most senior aide, a man he’d trusted through three whole terms. A man whose intelligence he’d clearly underestimated. Stoker had known this day would come eventually. He’d thought he would be embarrassed and apologetic, but now, looking at these pictures, he can’t help but notice how sublimely happy he looks in Felicity Lyons’s skin. And it’s not just the performance high he’s used to. He feels an odd sort of pride, leading parallel lives, and succeeding at both despite the emotional and physical drain. The confidence he’d built up onstage translated directly to confidence on the chamber floor, and vice versa. Wallace Stoker would still be a bumbling aide with an impressive collection of beige suits without Felicity Lyons, and Felicity Lyons would still be singing uninspired Top 40 drivel to the background of drunken bar fights if it weren’t for Wallace Stoker. He realizes, here in the sanctity of the men’s room, that he can’t afford to give up either of his loves. And even if he could, he wouldn’t want to.
A deep rage wells up within Stoker’s heart. He tries to tamp it back down, but you can only put so much pressure on a lump of coal before it has no choice but to become a diamond. His fists clench. His heart pounds in his ears. There’s no way Stoker’s going to let this little chop rob him of his identity. Neither of them.
“Mr. Mbende, I think you’ve put things in perspective for me.”
“I’m glad, sir. Again, I hope there won’t be any hard feelings.”
Oh, there will be.
The two men shake hands, and as they’re about to leave the men’s room, Stoker grabs his Silverthorn bottle from the counter and raises it up high behind Gregory Mbende’s head—a good vintage, with nice, thick glass. The swing seems to take forever, so long Stoker thinks Gregory will spin around and catch it in the palm of his hand, but at last the bottle collides with Gregory’s skull. The dull thud snakes up Stoker’s arm and buzzes in his elbow like a mis-hit shot with a tennis racket. Gregory Mbende, his longtime friend and aide, drops to the floor like a sack of dead kittens.
Stoker recoils, hand trembling. He tries not to think of Gregory’s family, of how his kids had scrambled up into Stoker’s lap the first time he’d been invited to Gregory’s home, like they’d never met a stranger. He tries to erase the image of Gregory’s wife, forget about those plump, welcoming cheeks, those almond-shaped eyes, and the smile as white as a strand of pearls. Stoker’s got to keep his cool. He drags Gregory’s body into one of the stalls and props him up on the toilet seat. He then pours a mouthful of sparkling wine into Gregory’s mouth, and after wiping off his fingerprints, sets the bottle in Gregory’s lap. When he’s done, he looks at Gregory’s bot who’s standing there perplexed.
He shoves it in the stall, too, then grabs a bathroom closed sign and leaves it sitting out in front of the stall.
It probably won’t buy him much time the way people are drinking out here. Stoker scans the crowd until he sees his mother, then stumbles toward her, one foot in front of the other as the numbness inside spreads to his extremities. He smiles politely as she introduces him to a gentleman she says is a dear old friend, though Stoker’s too out of it to catch his name. The man’s handshake is firm and as rough as pumice, his eyes oddly familiar and impossibly wise. Out of habit, Stoker tries to do that thing he does, to meet people in their reality, crossing the boundaries of age, race, gender, and ability as if they were but doorways from one room to the next. He attempts to meet this man at his level, but Stoker gets the distinct feeling that he could never reach high enough, far enough, wide enough.
Stoker is left speechless for the first time in his life, his mouth boorishly agape.
His mother excuses the both of them, dragging Stoker off into a secluded area behind a grouping of potted ferns. In the span of a minute, Stoker tells her all that’s happened as her face gets longer and longer. But if there’s one thing this family is good at, it’s keeping its skeletons locked in the closet. Couldn’t have had six generations of successful politicians without it.
“I’ll take care of it, dear,” his mother says to him in a way that holds its own weight of a veiled threat. Councilman Stoker gets the distinct feeling that he’s jumped out of the mouth of a shark and into the mouth of a dragon. His mother is going to own him for this, he knows it. “Now, go on,” she says. “You’ve got mingling to do.”
Stoker nods, but his heart is numb. His body is numb. It’s all he can do to stand there, that envelope clutched to his chest. Those pictures of him wearing the hell out of that dress—so strikingly similar to the 2035 classic gown Farai Ngcobo had worn to the South African Music Awards. Blue velvet embroidered with silver beads. So stunning. A dress like that is hard to forget.
Only Stoker doesn’t remember wearing it. Not at all.
Chapter 12
Nomvula and Mr. Tau
“Nomvula, you eat like a bird,” Mama Zafu says, dipping her big wooden spoon into Nomvula’s bowl as she gulps down the last of the stew. She then takes a sip of beer and pats her mouth nice and clean with her sleeve. “This is the third day in a row you’ve left food on your plate. Have you lost your appetite, or do you just not care for my cooking?”
“Your cooking is always wonderful, Mama!” Nomvula throws her arms around Mama Zafu’s neck and kisses her hard on the cheek. Oh, she’s hungry enough all right, but it’s Mr. Tau’s bread she has a taste for. That and more of his stories.
“Says my niece the bottomless pit.” She clucks and smiles, going through all sorts of pains to avoid looking Nomvula in her oddly colored eyes. Never that. She puts her hand to Nomvula’s forehead. “You don’t feel sick. Is it a boy you’re trying to impress, then? You can tell me if it is, child.”
“There’s no boy,” Nomvula says quickly. It’s not a lie. Not really.
Mama Zafu hums to herself, then shakes her head. “Maybe, maybe not. But there will be one day, my dear, and now that you’re almost a woman, I suppose it’s my place to tell you about how babies are made.” She looks at Nomvula uncomfortably, even more so than usual.
“I know all about it, Mama Zafu. I’ve seen how it works.”
“Have you?”
“Mmm-hmm. With Mr. Ojuma’s goats. The man goat climbs up on top of the woman goat, and they play like that for a while, and then the woman goat starts getting fat, and that’s when the baby is inside.”
“Well, I suppose you do know a little. But people are not like goats, child. There’s all kinds of things involved when it’s people. Like love.”
Nomvula purses her lips. “Have you ever asked a goat if it is in love?”
“Nomvula, now is not the time for games. This is important. There are girls your age with child already, sweet-talked by boys and men alike. And once those boys and men have played, they don’t stick around once the fun is over.”
“Like what happened to my mother,” Nomvula says quietly.
“Like what happened to your mother. Your gift is precious, and only you will know when it is time to share it. Now tell the truth, Nomvula, is there a boy?”
“There’s no boy, Mama!” A man, yes. Yesterday, she and Mr. Tau had played pretend together, down in the brush where they shed their mortal clothes. He’d held her hand as he’d sprouted wings like a hundred golden swords from his back. Nomvula gets bubbly with envy every time she sees his wings. Hers are such wispy little things, thin like thread, and the dullest of grays. But they’re wings all the same, and together they flew and flew, up and up until the ground beneath them looked like a tongue lapping at water.