Song of the Exile by Kiana Davenport

Author:Kiana Davenport
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780345515445
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2008-09-30T04:00:00+00:00

HIS ENTRY INTO THE LANE WAS QUIET, UNSALUTED.

“Slow. Slow.” Timoteo helped him from the cab.

He moved with a peculiar grace, Malia supporting him, remembering he had always moved that way. Now it was a different grace, of a man both blessed and cursed, lifeswept and slightly fragile. His mother stood laughing and sobbing, holding a child in her arms. He limped into the house and sat, exhausted. They put the child on his lap; she burst into a salvo of chirping and saliva.

Keo dropped his face against her hair. “She smells so clean, so ‘ono!” He hugged her, holding on.

Yards were empty, curtains drawn. Behind the curtains, neighbors clutching rosaries, little Buddhas. An exhalation down the lane. One of their boys had made it home.

He moved like someone who had slept for centuries in a city buried in sand. He roamed the house at odd hours, staring at clean water running from a faucet, weeping at the waste. He stared at the toilet, not knowing how to flush. He watched the eye on the back of a dollar bill. The eye watched him. He had forgotten the meaning of certain words. Deodorant. Mayonnaise.

Someone said, “Shampoo!” He jumped. It sounded like a command.

Cars backfired, he flew under a table. Sitting in the dim-lit bathroom during blackout made him shriek. But sitting alone in the dark, he cried. Meals were hardest. Everyone talked, so as not to stare. He studied forks and knives, confused, and ate with his fingers. He poured copious mounds of salt and sugar, together, on his food. He ate everything but meat—the sight of it took him back to an awful landscape, unspeakable things turning on spits. Sometimes, entering the kitchen, he was so swept by the surplus of food, he blacked out. Late at night Malia heard him digging in the garbage. She found half-eaten things stored beneath his bed.

Sometimes he locked the door to his room, privacy such a novel thing. Then he threw the door wide open, terrified. Neighbors came slowly, one at a time, bringing covered dishes, holding back tears at the shock of what he looked like, what he had been reduced to.

“So glad you home. Take time, Keo, boy—take plenny time.”

The smell of fresh coffee took up whole mornings. The shock of toothpaste on his tongue. The scent of rain. Sounds of people laughing. The silken skin of the child nestled in his lap. Just being took up the whole day. He sat in the tiny yard, in the rich profusion of greens. The schizophrenia of flowers. He could eat a mango, he could sleep. He could do anything. Which paralyzed him. Sometimes he clutched the sleeping child, carrying her like a talisman, holding her up against his nightmares as people hold up crucifixes against vampires.

He stood in Jonah’s room touching his football pads, his surfing gear. He studied snapshots, his big athletic body, a handsome face meant to break hearts. The smart son, destined to make the family proud. He remembered their last night together, Jonah hugging him, saying Keo was his hero.

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