Chapter 19
'It's because no one prays in this house that this has happened,' Samia said in their living room once they had reached home from the court house. Farhia took her hijab off and turned on the music, Qalanjo, Deesha Dheel, the same song she always plays, all the time, like the song does something for her beyond the simple pleasure one gets from listening to music. 'Without prayer expect no peace! Always with the music, playing that Samaroon. Turn that off, naya. Is this the time for music? Come let's pray. Let's pray our afternoon prayers. Put your hijab on and let's go. You're entirely too quick to take your hijab off,' Samia added suspiciously. Farhia recognised it, turned the music off and went to pray with her mother.
Samia wanted to start regular prayer sessions with the entire family throughout the day starting from the next day but that would have to wait because the next day was Sunday when there would be a cultural festival. Several of the children would enter and represent Somalia but before then they would have to go to a shop to buy some outfits for them. She had six kids, and four of them would take part. One of them should have been too but he would not go. He was never around which Samia noted.
'Why is that boy never around?' Samia asked her daughter. 'What does he get up to?'
'I don't know. I can't control a child at that age. One less child in the house means less noise.'
'Yah? What does that mean? You're always talking about how you find it hard to breathe but if you change the colors of the rooms you will find it less suffocating. Who told you to use that color? Crimson? Also a date must be set to see the eldest and regularly too, in the prison where they're taking him.'
Farhia flinched but didn't respond. Not long after they left to buy the outfits for the kids.
The shop where they were headed to was on the other side of the city, in Ealing. The journey there was frustrating for the mother of six. She had a hard time keeping her kids still and preventing them from bothering people with their noise and physical touches, playing tag and peekaboo with random women's dresses. Samia as well was bemused and exasperated to see such behaviour but Farhia said that they were not to be disciplined in public because they might get in trouble. The kids rejoiced in their freedom not feeling threatened by the snapping and the dragging away. Then they reached the shop, a small nondescript shop on the high road and when they rushed in, the shrieks of glee made Farhia beg for quiet. She looked around the shop, and breathed easy for it was empty.
'What's wrong with these kids?' asked Samia, startled at their boisterousness which she still had not got used to.
'Sorry, brother,' Farhia said to the shopkeeper behind the counter. 'These kids drive me crazy.' She let out a noise of exasperation but then her voice took on a more brooding tone. 'One day I'll have no choice but to run away.' Her eyes were hard now at this growing realisation that was growing less and less quickly as it reached decision.
The man, bald, medium sized of around forty smiled indulgently for this was not the first time he had heard something like this.
'Don't touch anything and come here,' she cried as something clanged on the floor. This shop had various items of a Somali origin like diracs, sarongs and other cultural things. It was a Dirac that had fallen on the floor and Farhia went over to it to put the dirac back on the rack. She then grabbed one of the boys. To make him stop running around.
'I'm sure it'll get better,' the shopkeeper said, looking from the kids to Farhia and then Samia.
'This is Mohamed; son of Moussa; tribe of Fatah,' said Farhia, introducing her mother to the shopkeeper.
'How are you autie?' he said to Samia.
'Good, nephew. We're family.'
'That's right, auntie.'
'I was at your uncle's funeral a couple weeks ago.'
'Son of Mahmoud?'
'Yes, your grandfather's son.'
'I was going to go but I couldn't. I had to deal with business here.'
'It's just a funeral. You'll see plenty soon enough if you wish to attend some. Mine is coming.'
He let that blasphemy settle in the dust and turned to Farhia.
'How was the trial?'
'Guilty. He'll get at least fifteen years.'
The shopkeeper shook his head.
'Terrible, terrible. I'll make dua for him. Terrible situation....his father should have been there. Maybe then…'
'What can I do about that,' she said, looking around. 'Nothing I can do about that. He's in Australia now.'
'Australia?'
'Yes, he's remarried again. He and his new wife are going to Australia to live there. I think she's pregnant now. That's how it was for me too. I got pregnant and he left to come here. A couple years later I joined him. That's how it will be with this new girl.'
'Crazy. It's crazy how the new Somali family is like. A family in the UK and a family in Australia. I bet he planned this from the beginning. This is wrong. The wrong husband.'
Farhia smiled.
'At least I get to live in London,' she said, in an attempt at joviality. 'And the kids can have an education.'
'Educated in what?' said Samia. 'They grow wild here.'
'They should have their father with them,' the shopkeeper said, looking at the kids running around the shop. 'Without their father…I think we all know.'
'One down five to go,' she said, grinning painfully because in her mind, despite attempts to place blame elsewhere, a present mother was guilter than an absent father. 'Do you have the outfits ready, brother?'
'I have them in the back ready for you.'
He went to the back and came back with three outfits.
'They're tailored from last time, but if you want you can have them try them on and I can make some last minute changes.'
Farhia took the outfits and barked at the kids to follow her to the changing room. Once they were out of sight the shopkeeper continued with his earlier theme.
'If we lived near each other I would help, even with me having my own children, but the distance…'
'If she was in Somalia there would be help everywhere no matter where you live.'
'She still has young children. Maybe she should consider remarriage.'
'Out of the question. All decent women know they are bound by their first marriage. Besides, what man would marry to raise someone else's children? Only a degenerate. What would he be after?'
'Maybe a revert?'
'For what?'
'They're more tolerant and view the world differently. They would do anything to marry a Somali woman.'
'God forbid. A non Somali long term marriage would be even worse than being stranded with seven children by yourself. They'll make a fallen woman out of a mother. What needs to happen is she needs to take her role up with dignity and come with me to Somalia to…yah?'
Farhia and the kids came out wearing their traditional outfits.
'All we need now is some beads to complete the picture,' said Farhia in a better mood.
The boys were wearing flowing white robes that covered their whole body and that were strapped around one of the shoulders, with the other shoulder half way bare. The girl had on the same fabric, with one of her shoulders initially appearing exposed, but on closer inspection one saw that she was wearing a maroon scarf that covered this shoulder, matching her skin so well that it looked exposed. The scarf was also tied around her waist.
'Is that how they will go?' asked Samia, surprised.
'Yes. There will be a performance where they will sing and dance to Qalanjo's song, Dheesha Dheel. They've heard it so many times that they don't need to practice it. Something like the national anthem is going to be too vexing to -'
'You have an obsession with that woman and that song; so much so that you forgot that this woman is a Samaroon from Ogaden! Nowhere near you! This garb is from their culture and is not even Somali.'
'Yeah it is. Ogaden are Somali people, so whatever is theirs is all of ours.'
'Has she lost her mind?' Samia asked the shopkeeper and then turned sharply back to Farhia. 'All day playing this song. If you were to go to Ogaden now you wouldn't even be able to understand them. What do they have to do with Somalia?'
'Everyone has an accent…'
'It is not ours,' said the smiling shopkeeper, 'but we can use it still. That's what they want to see here. Might as well give them what they want sometimes.'
Samia watched as Farhia ushered the children back to the changing room. She was cursing herself and said aloud in self reproach:
'If I knew she would get hooked on the song I wouldn't have been playing it so much when it first came out, when she was younger. Fool that I am!'
The shopkeeper let out a low laugh and said:
'My older sister used to play that song all the time too when it came out. 'Dheesha Dheela dulkayaga,' he hummed. 'I always think about my childhood when I hear that song as I'm sure Farhia does,' he added, with a sad, knowing smile. 'What I wouldn't give to play that song all day long, the sounds of when I was a child, to drown out the cries of my own children.'
Chapter 20
Xemi met them at the airport; Hyacinthe and her sister, Violet. She was wearing a light summer dress showing parts of her that revealed that she sunbathes nude. Xemi tried to be as platonic as possible but he had a big smile, a beautiful one unbeknownst to the wielder, brighter with a particular whiteness since the braces were removed. Just before boarding, Xemi said to Violet:
'My father left me for a year and a half and I threw the keys to his house in the sewer. Your father left you for your whole life but you still want to be around him. Why do you want to see your father?'
She stared at him for a moment, the question surprising her.
'Doesn't everyone want to see their father?'
'For what?'
She had the most delightful lips permanently curved at their ends spread into a smile. The mockery expressed by it was unmistakable and Xemi couldn't help but smile back. Hyacinthe was in the toilet so they were alone.
'Some people curious about things like that. Anyway, it's Portugal. It has beaches and sun. I can get a good tan there.
'I bet you can,' Xemi said softly as Hyacinthe walked towards them.
They landed in Portugal and were making their way to the hotel in a cab while Xemi was afflicted. He found the Portuguese heat similar to the heat in Somalia, just like the white houses were white like the houses of Somalia, and things were stifling for him.
'That heat was so bad over there,' he started to muse to himself. 'Just like the heat is bad here.' The seawater had started to penetrate his nose now. 'That damn stinking city. It was by a sea, too, like this sea. The Red Sea, that one was. How come I didn't smell water there? This one here is so strong. All I can smell is -' He caught his breath suddenly, realising something. 'But; when was the last time that I thought about that place?' he asked himself in bemusement. 'I'm forgetting them already. So quickly, so easily. But I'm still doing family visits.' He smiled. 'Visiting other people's families. While my own family…' He let out a sound that was indeterminate, which could have been one of dismissal, sorrow or disregard. Hyacinthe turned to him as they waited for their cab to pull up and asked if he was okay. He said that he was fine.
'Why does the Mediterranean Sea smell like that?'
They had turned into a road that was on the side of a cliff with the horizon being blue water. Xemi experienced a jolt of exhilaration going up the side of this cliff, feeling like he was mid air, falling.
'Like what?' asked Hyacinthe.
'Like…strong ocean water.'
'Haha,' laughed Violet, turning from her front seat. 'What's it supposed to smell like?'
'I don't know. Have you ever smelled the Red Sea?'
'The Red Sea? No. What does it smell like?'
'What do you think it smells like?'
'Like dead bodies. Blood in the water.'
'Makes sense. But it smells like shit.'
'Like shit, as in shit, or shit, as in nothing?'
'Man, I don't even know. It's one of them.'
'Where is the red sea?'
'By Somalia.'
'So my sea smells better than yours,' said Violet, smiling.
'That's not far from the Danakil Depression,' said Hyacinthe, frowning at her sister.
'Danakil Depression? Where is that?'
'It's some volcano type thing in Ethiopia. I heard it smells bad there. Maybe that's the reason why it smells funky around the Red Sea.'
'Hmm. Is that why,' said Xemi, thoughtfully. 'I thought it might have been something else. The Danakil Depression in Ethiopia. Ha. My mother hates Ethiopia.'
'Why?'
'I don't know.'
'Because of the Danakil?'
'Hmm. Maybe. I don't even know. Maybe I'll ask her some time…' he added with an odd smile. 'Yeah, I'll ask her next time I see her.'
They had booked into a passable hotel with a private swimming pool, though the beach was a twenty minute walk away. Violet had her own room while Xemi and Hyacinthe shared another. Since the flight was short and they had finished the particulars of travel by one in the afternoon, they decided to cut the suspense and see their father. They took a mini bus as their father's house was an hour from the hotel, which was why the hotel was chosen. The bus had a two seat seating arrangement. The two sisters sat with each other, nervousness expressing itself more pronouncedly in both of them now. Xemi ended up sitting next to an elderly Englishman. Age had wasted most of the muscle from him while his blue eyes sought the semblance of intelligence. His demeanor was one of 'vitiate my body, make it yellow and sexless, so long as I can solve cryptic crosswords that most can't, I will be content'. Xemi greeted him, he replied back with a grey smile. They introduced one another. The gentleman's name was Lucien, on a visit to Portugal for a few days. It turned out that they were going to the same estate.
There was a name day, the name day of the two sisters's step-mother. Lucien had met her in Brazil where he had lived. Xemi informed the two sisters of this celebration of which none of them was aware. After initial suggestions of turning back they decided to continue as they were almost there and the bus wasn't going to turn around just for them.
They stopped at a public square and were directed by Lucien who had been there before, to a house with an open door that had music coming out of it. The strings of Brazilian notes made the scene picturesque. Lucien called out in Portuguese with a distinctive English accent. A black person appeared, and looking at them, the first thing that one felt was the queer sensation that one was looking at two genders at the same time. Then the feminine overcame the masculine. The woman had a short afro and narrow hips which gave the initial impression of masculinity. The warmth exuding from her was the femininity that overcame it. She greeted Lucian in excited prattle before she noticed the retinue. She looked at them studiously while Lucian explained who they were and then smiled. She had small teeth but the good nature was evident. A little red growth was visible on her lips and one could see several others smaller and dimmed around the red growth.
'What's that on her lips? You see that?' Xemi whispered to the two girls.
Hyacinthe fished out a tremulous smile and Violet laughed softly.
They were asked to enter and heard rumblings of discontent. The words were in Portuguese but the sense of it was unmistakable. It was a boy who was venting not loudly but above the normal decibel appropriate for the setting. The lady of the house released a sharp word to call order.
They came to an open area, a regular living room, beyond which one could see the kitchen. The same room held the dining area. This was set up for guests with trinkets for divertissement but they were early as there were only three people there. One was a beautiful boy, slim, with dark curly hair and a languid way about him, one that has such strong sex appeal. He was holding his head with his arm in an acute angle, the mass of curls slithering between his fingers, gazing at the guests in a curious way. He was sitting on a light brown and cream coloured sofa with his feet tucked under a pillow. The hand which was not drowning in curls was resting atop the pillow. There was also a young girl there, looking like her brother's sister, with the soft whiteness of her father's race, in her late teenage years, standing next to the trinkets, filching things. She also was staring at the new, unexpected company. The last person was a middle aged man with glasses, with a paunch, damp, straight hair, cut medium length, and a face that was suffering from the heat. But what type of heat was it? Surveying the couple we once again wonder how two average or even below average people could make such beautiful children. The man needed no introduction as he was aware of what his children, whom he once had abandoned, now looked like. With a flamboyant air and exclaims of 'Bella, Bella!' he embraced his children, kissed them both while theatrically puckering up his lips. He held their chins when he did, and kissed them flush on their lips. Xemi's eyes quickly darted to the step-mother's lips.
'Oh my my, that's reckless…maybe he's just caught up in the moment,' Xemi thought to himself, grinning, his brain still not appreciating that he would be indirectly kissing those same lips sooner or later.
He greeted Xemi warmly while shaking his hand and kissed a grimacing Lucien on the cheek. Their exchange had an oddness about it, like it had layers beneath superficial greeting. The nervousness that anyone had was soon evaporated by the charm of the man which, affected or not, still did the trick. He spoke English with the liquid accent of a Portuguese speaker; making the words blend with each other, and himself difficult to understand sometimes. He introduced his second family.
He was named Washington, his son Ricardo, his daughter Sophia and his wife Anna. Hyacinthe and Violet greeted their siblings with a little embarrassment while Xemi took advantage of European custom to linger his lips on Sophia's cheeks. She kissed his cheeks unabashedly with a full kiss rather than in stern, closed lips that is normally used in greeting and after drawing her lips away from Xemi's cheeks her mouth remained open in flagrant sensualism. These kids spoke surprisingly good English but their mother had only a grasp of basic words. Xemi sat with Lucien further removed from the family circle to not impose himself on the reunion.
'How was your voyage, sister?' Ricardo asked with the self satisfaction of someone practising a foreign language they knew full well they had already mastered.
'Very good brother, uneventful,' Violet answered, pushing her chest out for self confidence.
Sophia continued eating, while Hyacinthe threw furtive glances at her father. Anna and Lucien were engaging in an animated whispered conversation. A sultry breeze wafted through the house and it was so pleasurable everyone slowed to experience its soothing effects.
'I hope the heat isn't stressing you, the way it's stressing our father,' Ricardo waved a little at his father who was sitting next to him, while never unravelling the hair he was playing with. Washington's face was a diamond mask.
'Are you ill?' Hyacinthe asked him.
Ricardo snorted, but then tensed as his father made a movement. Washington however ran his own hands through his thinning hair and then laughed a little and asked them to excuse him. His son watched his father leave with a hateful look. A few minutes later he came back with his face wiped and a tray of glasses filled with lemonade. If one were to compare this scene with a dramatic play, Xemi felt that they had come around a denouement, some revelation had happened or was happening, and not all may have been aware of it.
Chapter 21
The room had two windows on opposite sides, with pale curtains wafting inside and outside of the windows. The gauze curtains had perforations which, when still, allowed a particular type of light into the room. This light gave the room a warm sheen, softening the sharpness of the midafternoon sun. The wind stopped its torment of the haggard curtains and gave the room a chance to experience the misty light of a dream sequence.
'How is mama?' Washington asked his children, and then added quickly like a man who blurts out whatever because he doesn't know what to say: 'We might return to London'.
After expressions of surprise the predictable response was when and why?
'Yes, father, why?' asked Ricardo, evidently intent on conflict. His father showed a shadow of rage on his face but ignored his son.
'Everything is the same here,' he lamented. 'Same, same. Change is good.'
While Washington spoke, Xemi couldn't help but notice his extravagance. He spoke with flailing gestures and dramatism.
'What's loyalty anyway?' Ricardo indolently addressed the gallery, his fingers still overflowing with curls.
'A virtue.' Violet said.
'A curse…' Hyacinthe added, and continued, '...sometimes, especially if the sacrifice called for is happiness.'
Ricardo sharpened his posture and one knew he was about to expound on something he had thought of before. Something he himself felt was genius and had been wanting to share with others since he had come upon it. He excitedly asked his half sister:
'You heard of -' he paused searching for the right words. His excitement killed his fluency.
' - the freeing of black American slaves?'
Without waiting for an answer he continued impetuously:
'As soon as the slaves were set free, they returned en masse. I hope you don't mind me speaking about this,' he asked Xemi with a slight smile.
'Don't worry. My family made a few slaves themselves,' Xemi retorted drily.
'Then we have something in common,' he replied with a laugh and then turned to Hyacinthe, his opponent.
'My meaning was that if you break bonds, the ones who were bound come back. The same goes for the bindings of loyalty which however when broken can never be reinstated. It's like a cracked ring. You can put it on, but its beauty is destroyed, liable to break in two parts at any given moment.'
Violet smiled a sulfurous smile with her softly curved lips and her full face, as she looked from her brother to her sister who now said without matching her brother's energy, her voice comically deeper than his:
'I like your comparison. Loyalty is of the same essence as slavery. It can be impossible to free yourself when by rights the bonds should never have been there in the first place. Imagine putting the most beautiful necklace on a child, telling it to never take it off. Even the most beautiful necklace will break or strangle as the child grows. Some sentiments are as beautiful as a necklace and just as deadly.'
'I can't respect a traitor whatever their reasons.'
'Better betray others than yourself.'
Ricardo's lips trembled almost imperceptibly; and looked like a young scapegrace who finds his adversary was stronger than he had anticipated and perhaps stronger than himself. He flew out wildly.
'Loyalty to the country that gave you roots. Loyalty to the family that gave you warmth. Loyalty to the wife that gave you love. Is that a curse, sister?' he finished acidly.
There were noises outside which shifted the mood, splintering the thickness of sibling rivalry into light festivity. Ricardo went back to playing with his curls, his petulance on full display while the other guests walked in. The birthday party started.
Xemi found himself with Sophia. He gave her a questioning look. She had never stopped eating since they came.
'She won't be slim for long,' he said to himself and to her said:
'Your brother is very passionate. Is that how you are too?'
She interrupted her gorging to say:
'No.'
'Doesn't your father's misbehaviour bother you?' he asked, intrigued by her indifference.
She looked at him with eyes that were like a vacuum and said firmly:
'No.'
Xemi looked around and saw mostly men that Washington was introducing his daughters to. These men, if Xemi's judgement was correct, wouldn't cause a father to worry, for his girls anyway, as their wiles would be directed at the other sex. He looked back at Sophia. 'Yes, it bothers you alright. If you weren't eating you'd be cutting your wrists open.'
The party was interesting as Ricardo seemed to be the one that was feted, rather than the birthday girl, his mother, who served more than she enjoyed her own party. He was the centre of attention, all the men surrounded him. Washington spent most of the time trying to claw some of that attention for himself. Xemi looked on with fascination.
'Washington's mother warned Anna not to marry him as he wasn't the type to give yourself to,' Lucien told Xemi sitting next to him again on the bus. 'She was in love, and the mother wasn't explicit and so she couldn't see what was in front of her.'
'So is he bisexual?'
'I think he's gay but women fell in love with him. He used to be very handsome and adventurous. For some gay guys the male ego remains the same. The more women they bed, the more self worth they have, the more masculine they feel, even if they are not attracted to them.'
'Anna is masculine herself...maybe that's why he married her and not Hyacinthe's mother.'
'Her soul is beautiful. She does everything for him and adores him. She's the main source of income for that family. It's really unfortunate how it turned out.'
'I was watching him and I can't see how someone can't tell he is gay. Even his son is.'
Xemi noticed little almost invisible red spots on Lucian's lips and continued:
'She's making herself look like a fool. That's why he's with her. Because she is a fool and he knows it, and takes advantage of it. And what about those things around her mouth?'
Lucien writhed uncomfortably in his bus seat.
'She's a cleaner and thinks that she got it from some infected surface of a house she was cleaning.'
'Ha! The best liars are the ones that lie to themselves. And I suppose she thinks that she was the one who gave it to her gay husband ?'
Xemi smacked his own face in disbelief. He was also mildly surprised at Lucien's openness with a near stranger and put it down to him being a natural gossip.
'The people who lie to be happy deserve everything they get,' Xemi added.
'Even their own happiness?'
'These people are not happy. They're just liars, and I seen one who was sick of it.'
Over the next week Xemi saw more of this family and the more he saw the less sympathy he felt for Anna, in equal proportions to Ricardo's disgust towards his father. He saw also that Sophia and her brother were almost opposite in world view. She was an aloof sprite of detachment while he was a raging fury whenever his father was in the same vicinity, especially if his mother was there too. Xemi thought that she was the perfect type to marry. They will give you blind loyalty while demanding little in return.
The foreign guests spent most of their time with Ricardo who showed them around as at eighteen he was not far from their age. Though Xemi hated this heat he still went along to the beaches because he was there by choice and it was curious how being there by choice made him do things he didn't want to do. Still, he had recompense. Violet in contrast with Hyacinthe, tanned beautifully as her original colour was lighter. Hyacinthe however became uglier the more tanned she became. Some skins aren't made to tan and he was losing desire for her. Violet had competition from someone who didn't tan at all. Ricardo's marble whiteness never did bend to the sun. He remained what he was and Xemi liked looking at him, and when he shook his hand for greeting found they were the hands of a seraph. The only things that changed were the eyes which went from dreamy to resolute. He said he would be beginning an apprenticeship and leaving for America, to work for a senator. It appeared his expenses would be paid for by the senator. Lucien, who also liked looking at Ricardo, raised an eyebrow at this news.
'He looks like the Brazilian boys who surrounded me in Rio. Beautiful, gorgeous. I don't know how many I had there, must be in the thousands.'
'Was it the blue eyes?' Xemi asked him.
'I'm sure it was more than one thing,' he responded sheepishly.
'Haha in any case, why did you leave?'
Many people have moments where they are fluent to the point of intoxication and seem possessed when they have one of these spells. But these moments never last long and very rare are those who are like this consistently. Lucien was one of those rarities. He could think and speak virtually at the same time and never paused for a word or for consideration.
'Fear, panic, disease. I caught so many sexual diseases that every time I took antibiotics, the virus took longer to kill, and the doctor didn't even bother giving me lectures anymore. I saw him practically every two months at one point, and his frown of disapproval had long become the smile of friendship. I caught syphilis countless times, among various other things, but I didn't care about that. It was curable. Then came the incurable virus. One by one, my former lovers died. Me and my partner decided to get tested soon as we found courage and we came out clean. It got dangerous because the boys never stopped becoming more beautiful. So we decided to leave. Me and my Brazillian partner at the time we left to go to London.'
'Are you still together?'
'No. We were partners more out of longevity than anything else. We were living together and continued to do so in London.' He paused, not for thought, but to choose a memory. 'In this same place I was asleep one night. I can't remember the dreams I had but they must have been sweet because I was in the deepest of slumbers. Then I felt something brushing my face followed by a warrior cry and a deep voice that exhorted someone to stay away. And then the cry again and I opened my eyes, clutching the sheets wrapped around me. A naked stranger was being chased by another man who was naked also, but this one was familiar to me. He was the one letting out the warrior cry and the other was attempting a mock escape. They wrestled and played until the warrior told him to stop messing about. I was lying in the same bed with the red eyes of frustrated sleep while they romped next to me. Out of principle I didn't leave the bed nor did I say a word, as the cries turned from warriors to that of lovers. Now I'm by myself renting out rooms in my house while someone new has taken my little warrior, though we are still friends. I have a room if you're looking for one?'
Xemi had been staring at him, incredulously, and wasn't sure if he believed any of it. But why would this old man lie?
'Let's exchange numbers,' Xemi told him. 'I think I might take it.'
As they said goodbye to the country, Xemi thought that they had spent more time with the children than they had with their father. Though he was in raptures when they met they fell victim to the most fickle of men. Even when they were in the same room Washington seemed distracted. 'How restless can one man be?' Xemi asked himself. He did think that it was shame that made him so jittery but he then decided it was boredom. Still, he said goodbye with the same rapture he said hello with. Ricardo simply said:
'Greet your mother for me, sisters.' and then added in the most sincere tone: 'I must meet her someday.'
In his mind anyone scorned by his father was of the highest virtue.
Travelling back, Hyacinthe was ecstatic and judged the trip a perfect success. In her eyes character meant less than blood. She had already made plans of creating a new bond inviolable by either side. Violet was more nuanced and adored her brother more than her father. Xemi liked Sophia the most. He could already tell that the food she was eating was going in the right places.
