Exile by Ann Ireland

Author:Ann Ireland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FIC000000
Publisher: Dundurn Press
Published: 2002-08-17T04:00:00+00:00

12

I POURED OUT A MUGFUL OF RASHID’S coffee, which had been sitting in the pot since six a.m., and took my hangover outside where the sun had finally cracked through the mist. My roommate hadn’t spoken to me, merely performed an exaggerated sniff a few minutes earlier while I stumbled down the hall naked. He was mortally offended by the aroma of whisky clinging to my flesh.

I wondered if Rashid ever had sex, and with whom. I was certain that he would leap from bed and be standing under a pounding shower before his lover closed her legs. He would never have placed a hand on Rita’s thigh, never inflicted his horny presence on some dewy co-ed. His cautious steps as he made his way through our house irritated me no end. The single black hair left in the sink was repulsive, his muffled farts and discreet coughs burrowed into my skull. My presence had been imposed on him and I was never to forget it.

How had we come to this? I can only say that when I first met the man I was available for friendship. I thought, in my naïveté, that here was a comrade and to each other we could whisper our secret lives and frustrations. Rashid had no patience with such sentimentality. The only way to survive here, he told me once in a rare exhibition of honesty, was to disappear. He’d left his real life behind. This new existence was merely survival, a period of waiting until it was possible to return. As he bicycled in place each day, so would he live without moving.

The children next door were jumping up and down on a plastic contraption fitted with a slide. Their dog, a grey mutt, was tied to a tree, yapping, and this is what had finally penetrated my sleep. The postman cut across the lawn, his navy rain cape flapping.

“Here you go, sir.” He handed me the bundle of mail, held together with an elastic band.

I gazed at the elegant script and exotic stamps from Pakistan, India, Belgium, Italy… all addressed to Rashid. He was involved in an international committee of scientists-in-exile.

Why hadn’t I heard from my own family? Loneliness sucks you dry, turns you grateful for the smallest attention. I popped open the front door and tossed his letters onto the chair, watching as one slid to the floor.

“Would you like this, Carlos?” It was the mother-professor from next door, standing just beneath my front steps, offering up a giant cut peony. “It must have broken off in the rain.”

“Thank you.” I took the shaggy-headed flower and held it while she peeled off her gardening gloves and scratched her cheek. I tried to remember her name.

“Yesterday was hellish,” she said, “with the kids cooped up inside during the storm.”

Yesterday.

I repeated the word to myself. The word should lead to a simple remembering, for all of us inhabit a “yesterday.” What did I do then, and where was I when I did these things? A picture should come to mind without struggle.

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