Speak No Evil Read online

  My mother’s mouth falls open and her eyes lock on to my face. She has heard me swear before, on the phone when joking with friends but never have I said any such thing to either of my parents. Never. I have always assumed that such an event would result in my being beaten within an inch of my unborn grandchild’s life, but she just stands there like a malfunctioning robot. Is anyone keeping you here, she says finally. If you are unhappy, please go. Go and find the place where you feel happy. I’m sorry, I say, but it’s too late. I’ve fucked up. The less I’ve said the better things have been, the less likely my father has seemed ready to pounce on me for the smallest mistake. If she tells him what has happened, this might be the end. I’m really sorry. My hands smell of cucumber as I wipe my nose. She tosses the vegetable peeler in her hand to the counter between us. Its protected blades glint in the sunlight streaming through the large bay windows. Do what you like, she says. Mommy, wait please, I say. Get out of here, I don’t want to talk to you. Not like this, in my house, my mother says. Her voice is flat and hard, her eyes fixed directly to mine. You should go and find whatever it is you want to find. Me, sef, I’m tired, I’m going upstairs, she says. I listen to her reach the top stair, enter her bedroom, and shut the door. It’s just me now.

  9

  For some of us this is the end of a season, the culmination of three months’ worth of gut-busting hard work, Coach Erickson says. It’s hard to hear him over cheering from the bleachers as the track teams from rival high schools arrive and parents transform into fans and fanatics. The sun bears down on us. We sweat but haven’t even started our warm-up laps. For others, it’s the end of the road, the last time you will ever run competitively. Whichever one it is doesn’t matter. Today we’re going to leave it all on the track—every last drop of sweat, every ounce of energy—we are going to leave it here and we are going to take that title, Coach Erickson says. We all cheer because this is what we are supposed to do, but I know that everyone is nervous. The relay teams have botched handoffs twice this season. One of our high jumpers sprained his ankle playing pickup soccer. He wears sunglasses and a baseball hat with his sweats, but he’s a junior, so for him there’s always next year. I want to see personal bests, Coach Erickson says. And if you’re not racing, you’re warming up or cooling down, and if you’re not doing either of those then you’re cheering your heart out for this team. All right bring it in. Adam.

  Our hands stretch toward the center of a circle where Adam starts to hop from left foot to right foot while bobbing his head. We’re on a new level he shouts. We’re on a new level we shout back. We’re on a new level. We’re on a new level, he calls and we respond with more and more energy until we are all bouncing and shouting and the sweat starts to drip down our faces. We break into hoots and hollers, streaming towards the sun-baked orange track for our two team warm-up laps. According to tradition, seniors link arms and lead these last laps at the championship meet. I join my classmates at the front. Adam says, we’re almost there Harvard, and rubs my head. Let’s do this.

  As we pass the packed bleachers where fathers have taken off suit jackets and rolled up their sleeves and mothers fan themselves with their programs, I notice my parents standing together amidst a sea of white faces. My mother wears a pantsuit, which means she has come from the hospital and my father wears dictator aviators while he holds his gray suit jacket folded over his arm. They wave when they see me, but my arms are locked between my teammates. I can only nod and smile. If my mother hasn’t said anything to my father by now, she probably never will, but she still hasn’t said much to me this past week either.

  When we finish stretching I take a moment to myself underneath the large maple trees on the far side of the track. It’s almost over. All of these people who have dominated my life ever since I became self-aware will soon fade away and there will be new people and new structures. I haven’t told Coach Erickson that I’m not going to run at Harvard. Not that I don’t see the point, but I’m tired of running in circles while thinking that I’m making progress. And yet it is progress. I can see the seconds and milliseconds shed from my time. I cross the finish line before everyone else, accept their smiles and high fives and fist bumps and then line up to do it all again because that’s what I’m supposed to do. I don’t want that life. Damien said I don’t have to have that life, but we haven’t spoken since I left his apartment and I’m too afraid to call.

  We’re still friends right, Meredith says. She stands over me in her black warm-ups with purple and gold stripes at the sleeves. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail. She has a cartilage piercing in her right ear. I think it’s new. I thought you weren’t talking to me anymore, I say. She wears racing flats instead of trainers and she keeps bouncing to stay loose. I wasn’t but then Rowan asked me to prom. Oh, that’s nice, I say. I told him I was going with you. Please save me from that hideous creature, please. She sits down next to me, slips her arm through my arm and rests her head on my shoulder. I mean you can’t already have a date or something, she says. I tried to talk to you, I say without looking at her, I sent you notes, I bought you candy. It was good, she says and also you can’t draw for shit. I wasn’t drawing for shit, I was drawing for you. Very funny, she says, so we’re cool? Totally cool. You’ll go with me? I don’t say anything. Meredith stands up and dusts her hands off. I’m going to Barnard, by the way, she says. I look up. She smiles. Wait, seriously? Congrats! I start to get up but she waves me down. You can celebrate with me tonight—Riverrun. I nod yes. Every senior goes to Riverrun and has gone for as long as track has existed. It’s how we know the season is over. It involves alcohol and the Potomac River, and only seniors are allowed. The school hates it, but what can they do besides issue warnings to kids they can’t really punish. I’ll see you there, Meredith says before she jogs off to join the girls stretching in a circle on the grass.

  I would much rather see Damien than go to Riverrun. I pull my phone from my bag and punch in his number. It rings but he doesn’t pick up. I hurl the phone against a tree trunk. It bounces off and lands at my feet undented, unscratched. I am losing my pride, I tell myself. Niru, get over here, Coach Erickson shouts at me from the infield. I change into my racing shoes.

  The moment before the gun goes off is always the most silent. Your world is quiet, but it is not calm. The runners around you bounce and flex and relax, flex and relax. They slap their faces for motivation, they look to the sky and mumble prayers to God. The coaches shout instructions and the teammates cheer as do the fans in the stands, but you cannot hear because you are somewhere else, somewhere deep inside, preparing your body to deal with the coming pain, the breath sucked from you, your limbs on fire and the voices that won’t let you stop. They say keep moving, it gets better, it will be better if you can only break through this pain. They say there’s another life after this torture, a new level, just keep breathing. Then the gunshot and your body no longer belongs to you. Yes, you are there, you are present but you are no longer in control. Whatever happens from this point happens and all you can do, all you must do now is breathe, keep breathing, don’t lose your nerve, don’t choke, no matter how much it hurts, don’t stop breathing otherwise it will all be over before it’s time.

  They cheer for me. I can’t breathe. Harvard isn’t going to know what hit them, I hear. I can’t breathe. We are the champions, I hear, we are the champions, they sing around me. I can’t breathe. Your personal best by a long shot. That’s Coach Erickson’s voice. That’s my boy. It’s my father. It’s like I’m dying, trying to hold on. My body says oh no, and my knees buckle but so many arms are around me, they hold me up. The voices they say breathe, keep breathing. They bring me water, they bring me something sweet and then they lay me down in the soft grass where I feel the blades against my tingling skin.

  The parents mill about the bleachers and track to congratulate and collect their various offspring when the meet is done. My father leans against the chain-link fence separating the bleachers from the track, his s
hades over his eyes, sleeves rolled up. He smiles at me, a full-on I see you smile that must have only ever occupied his face at the moment I was born. He waves at me as I sift through seniors and our supporters speaking words of humble thanks and goodbyes. My medals hang around my neck. Our team trophy has passed from hand to hand as we take pictures so that later, when we have children, we can prove that we were once active and fit. My father doesn’t have these pictures, he has the war, but he smiles all the same. He says congratulations, and holds his hand out to shake mine. I accept and his rough palms grip my hands tightly. Your mother had to go back to work, he says. She’s proud of you, we’re proud of you, I’m proud of you. My stomach flutters. My parents do not say things like I’m proud of you or I love you often—my mother more than my father, which is still almost never. They show their love by paying our tuitions, OJ says, and by putting food on the table. They show they are proud by demanding even more than you think you can do. OJ is coming for my graduation—his girlfriend too. He says he is proud of me, but he doesn’t know me. When we get to the car, my father hands me the key, still smiling. He says, you should drive.

  My father doesn’t joke with his car, this Range Rover, a gift to himself bought a year ago the week after the board elevated him from COO to CEO. It is metallic midnight blue with deep brown leather seats and a grille curved upwards into a smug luxury-car smile. OJ had managed to convince him to let him take the car on runs to the grocery store, but no farther. I have sat in the driver’s seat and fiddled with the steering and controls when the car was in the driveway, but nothing more. You’re sure, I say. You know I didn’t learn to drive until I entered university, my father says. The license plate shines in the sunlight under a glimmering Range Rover logo. My father’s car has no stickers or decals, unlike my mother’s Mercedes with its Harvard sticker peeling from the bumper. I couldn’t afford to, what money was there to buy a car, my father says as he rests his hand on the side panel, then removes it immediately. The car is hot. I didn’t know this, but I now file it with the long list of things he lacked growing up that he has given to us that we should be grateful for, like private school, piano lessons and family vacations to Venice and Prague and Rio de Janeiro. OJ says our father lives somewhere between the self-satisfaction that his success has made us soft and disgust that we are unacquainted with the brutal intensity of a world that he has effectively tamed for us.

  Ngwa, ngwa, let’s move, my father says. But as soon as we sit down, there are questions. Did you check that you’re in park? But Daddy, you parked the car, I assumed you wouldn’t—Never assume. Emergency brake, he asks. I push the button and feel a satisfying click. Do you know what all these lights mean, he asks. My father takes his Montblanc pen from his pocket and reaches across the center console to point at the dashboard. Okay, tell me. Tell you what, I say, now regretting not riding back on the bus.

  You need to know these things. You don’t want to be one of those people who just drives, that’s what women do. A man should know what he’s getting into, you should know what you’re getting into, my father says. He’s the kind of person who reads manuals for everything. Order and instruction, rules for this, laws for that, how-to diagrams and flow charts to show a clear path towards a clear goal. Maybe you should just drive, I say. My father says nothing for a moment before he shakes his head like he’s shaking away a fog. No? He says, let’s get going. My phone buzzes in the center console between us. It’s Damien. Ngwanu, my father says, you can’t be looking at your phone and driving. I pick up the phone and quickly slip it between my thighs. Then I pull out of the lot.

  I learned how to drive with my mother because my father couldn’t sit still. From the first movement forward my father’s involuntary motions started. He chewed his lips while curling and uncurling his fingers on the armrest as the car gradually picked up speed. He tapped his feet and craned his neck to search for traffic and threats that I couldn’t see. Manage the car, manage the road, manage my father, it was altogether too much work. Things have not changed. My phone buzzes again and I look down. You have to watch the road, my father shouts. I can’t, I say, I can’t watch the road when I’m too busy watching you. Well don’t watch me then, focus on where you’re going. I can’t not watch you. My phone buzzes again. Who is calling you like this, my father asks. Here, give it to me, he says. If you can’t focus then give me your phone. He reaches for my legs. The car swerves as I push his hand away. He braces with one hand against the dash and the other wrapped tighter around his armrest. I slam the brakes. We screech to a stop and the cars behind us on the GW Parkway begin a symphony of angry horns. Someone passing in the next lane shouts, the fuck is your problem, through his closed window.

  You’ve got to pull to the other side of the road, we can’t stay here, my father says. He presses on the hazard lights. I think you should drive, I say. Don’t be ridiculous, let’s get moving, we’re causing a scene. No, I think you should drive, I say, I can’t drive with you in the car, it makes me too nervous. Well you’d better learn cause you can’t drive without me in this car. Now let’s move. I say, no, I’m not driving, you should drive, that’s what you want. I wanted to do something nice for my son, he mutters, I can’t believe this. Why are you so, so—fine, come down from there. I put the car in park and engage the emergency brake. When the doors open, the honking reaches its full intensity. The car horns harmonize and clash in an improvised, syncopated rhythm.

  You guys okay, a youngish red-haired soccer mom asks as she rolls by in her red Chevy Tahoe. Her sunglasses sit on her forehead. She has crow’s feet and freckles near her eyes. Just a little car trouble, think it will be okay, thanks for asking, my father says in his clipped tone reserved for white people.

  I pick up my phone and step out of the Rover. A long line of cars stretches behind us down the GW Parkway. The Potomac River uncurls and expands even as it wraps around the city and the Cathedral glowers down on us. Somewhere in this mass of hatchbacks and SUVs some mom is worried about being late again to get to her kid’s Little League game, and some dad is worried about being late again to pick up the kids for their weekend with him under these new and still-strange custody arrangements, some Salvadorian with no papers but lots of drywall in the bed of his pickup is worried because each minute in traffic is a minute more of possible exposure to law enforcement and who needs that. They are all now taking their anger out on me. My father brushes by me and sits down in the driver’s seat. Then I hear the hood pop and he walks to the front of the car muttering, I can’t believe this.

  I put my hand to my forehead and whisper the same thing. I want to shout, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH THE CAR and then add a YOU FUCKING IDIOT for good measure, but I stand silently between the car and the sloping grass-filled median holding my breath. Will you get in the car please, my father asks.

  I walk around the back and smile at the older white man tapping his fingers against the steering wheel of a late-model Cadillac. I open the passenger door, but I don’t get in. I shut the door and then close my eyes. A moment later I feel the hood slam shut. My father theatrically dusts his hands. The back of his shirt is soaked through with sweat. You all right over there sir, asks another driver, a young white guy with shaggy hair and sunglasses.

  I think so, my father booms back and then dismisses the guy with a head nod and casual wave. Niru, will you get in the car please, he says as he climbs into the driver’s seat. He doesn’t look at me as he turns his attention to adjusting the rearview mirror. I clutch the door handle and bounce on my toes. My calves burn. Get in the car now, he shouts. I can feel his anger vibrate against the closed window. What’s wrong with you? Our eyes lock through the glass. He checks the rearview mirror again. It will never stop, I say. Carpe diem, I say. My phone buzzes. Niru just get in, get in and let’s talk about this. He reaches across the seats to try and push the door open from the inside, but I press my body forward against it. I listen to the hot metal of the engine click as the car idles. I smell the exhaust from
cars creeping slowly by. Their horns have not stopped. Their horns will never stop. My phone buzzes. Then I turn and run through the cars to the shoulder lane. My legs are so tired. My chest burns, but I don’t stop. Just keep breathing, I tell myself. It gets better. Niru, my father shouts, please come back, talk to me. But there is nothing left to say.

  Part II

  Meredith

  1

  The day I return, a homeless man comes up to me as I stand looking up at the gilded ceilings and shield-bearing Valkyries in the main hall of Union Station. He smells of urine and drink. His white beard has red streaks from malnutrition. You look lost, he says, are you lost? I tell him I’m fine and rummage through my backpack for the first note I can fish out from the miscellany I dumped inside before I left New York. It’s a crumpled and worn five that I hold out at arm’s length with my fingertips. He only has a few teeth that wiggle when he smiles. His eyes water. God bless you, you have a good heart, he says before he wanders away across the patterned floor towards another traveler.