This Brutal House by Niven Govinden

Author:Niven Govinden
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Deep Vellum Publishing

3.

He can pass exams, but there are twenty-four hours in a day; ample time to be used. He compiles lists of advocacy groups from library records and passes these to the Mothers. He finds the names of their elected representatives and calls their offices from a pay phone outside the school during lunch breaks, arranging meetings for the Mothers to attend and speak on their behalf. He creates a poster which they pin to every tree and newspaper bin on their block. He distributes leaflets outside the subway, and enlists the children to do the same at other points in the city, uptown spots she talked about and may have taken a chance on. He changes the design of the poster for a second round, and then a third. They letter-box the neighbourhood, partnering with a boy who drops pizza leaflets into every home. He takes an hour a day to run in a different part of the city, the exercise clearing his head from study, his eyes taking in every detail of bars and back streets, opportunities she might have taken had she been there from free choice.

He presses the Mothers to call the advocacy groups again; to go in person; to turn up alone; to turn up in groups; to attend in full drags; to bring a beatbox and vogue the fuck out of their offices; to invite them to the balls; to give trophies to the elected representatives; anything to frighten or cajole them into action.

The Mothers were confident again as they took to the streets in their garms, purposeful in their step, strong in voice as they gripped hands and made their agenda known. They flushed away various pills or did not renew certain prescriptions when they expired. There was less weed in the apartments, but whether that was theirs or the children’s doing, he did not know. Clear-headedness ruled their home; they were not always active, but they did not bury themselves in sloth, writing letters from bed, or spending the day in their housecoats glued to the telephone.

He did not direct, merely encourage; once they saw that their letters received replies and phone messages returned. The words themselves were meagre and disappointing, lip service to keep prospective voters sweet, but they understood that results bore greater fruit so long as they remained present, running a campaign to their tune, of its own logic and meter, but undeniably driving forward. From their bedrooms and the sofa, they waged, pushing, and then pushing further, heady now with the power of their voice.

Evenings, their recollections of Sherry dominated talk at the dinner table, the children’s indulgences neglected or ignored; the Mothers rewriting their history for those who would be around to tell it; that through their imperfections they had fashioned a diamond from concrete, a girl too precious for these streets.

‘Gurl had the best of everything. Whatever we could afford was hers. Time we went without eating if it meant filling hers.’

‘What you talking ’bout? She ate like a bird.

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