In the Palm by Elna Holst

Author:Elna Holst [Holst, Elna]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: stranded, LGBT, island, Cambodia, NineStar Press, medical profession, humor, amnesia, survival, interracial, lost
ISBN: 9781950412716
Publisher: NineStar Press
Published: 2019-07-12T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fifteen

REN IS OBSERVING me out of the corner of her eye as she stirs the pot on the fire. I am seated in her hammock, the swinging lulling me, as I truculently masticate my next to last nicotine gum.

We haven’t spoken since the meet-the-parent ordeal. I’ve been crying, non-stop, howling and snivelling and carrying on, and Ren has been at a loss of what to do with me, after having at last, obediently, fetched me my bag from where she had hung it beside her own.

“Dimanche no like Maman?” she asked anxiously, and I shook my head wildly, then nodded, then shook it again. Finally, she gave up, her face closed, and she disappeared outside. She came back dripping half an hour later, two dead parrots dangling from a string over her shoulder, Chien zigzagging about her legs. I looked at her mutely, refusing to acknowledge her return.

She proceeded to pluck the poor birds, leaving their gaudy feathers in a pile beside her, over in what is obviously the cooking corner. There’s a small opening between the wall and the roof, an aperture intended for letting the smoke of the fire out without letting the rain in. The medic in me wants to tell her to be careful, to take precautions, to try not to breathe in the smoke too much, or she’ll contract COPD. The hurt and embittered little girl, however, prefers to keep her mouth shut.

For now I am well and truly adrift. Without a name or a memory, my body barely intact, without even the clothes I had on my back. Cut off from all possibility of succour by the next-to-constant rain and the distance to the beach where I came from, where my ragtag construction to call attention to myself from passing ships has, in all likelihood, been torn down by the wind, the birds, the downpour.

I feel nothing so much as misplaced—dropped like a plaything by the side of the road, mud-splattered and the worse for wear. Dropped, and picked up—by whom? I know nothing about this strange creature: Ren. How did she come to be here? Who are her people? Why—oh, why for the love of pity does she live in the middle of a tropical island, in the company of no one but a feral dog and a corpse?

The remains of her mother, whose dress I am wearing. I would be shuddering if I had the energy, the presence of mind to react. I am sinking fast into lethargy.

“Food.” Ren stands at my side, proffering a hand-carved bowl of steaming stew. “Eat.”

I wait to hear the familiar cajoling: good Dimanche, but nothing comes; she simply deposits the bowl on the floor in front of me and draws back. I peer down at its contents: a thickened liquid, seasoned with dry herbs, in which fatty pieces of chicken-like meat floats. A thought crosses my mind and a reluctant shadow of a smile touches my lips. Parrot soup. Parrot soup for the soul.

Lowering myself to the floor, I raise the bowl to my mouth to taste it.

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