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By Root 595 0

as she stowed her belongings that the man who had lost the umbrella (she would always think of him as The Man with the Umbrella) was seated ahead of her in first class. She wondered briefly where he lived, why his destination was Boston. She imagined him as a leitmotif in her life, passing by at odd moments — in a taxi, or walking just beyond her reach on a busy street. She wondered if he had already been in her life without her noticing: in a hotel in Africa, for example. Or at a diner in Hull. And it was impossible not to imagine that if fate had engineered her life differently, it might have been he who had stood with her at the gate, who had kissed her for so long. None of these mysteries could be known. Guessed at, surely. Believed in, yes. But not known, not absolutely known.

From her briefcase, she took out a book and opened it, though she was too distracted just then to read. In her raincoat, with her white blouse and black skirt underneath, she might have been a lawyer, returning from a deposition; a wife flying home after visiting relatives. Outside her window, the cloud was low to the ground, and she told herself, automatically, that take-offs were safer than landings. A flight attendant shut the door and, shortly afterward, the plane began to move. Linda said a prayer, as she always did, and thought of how Vincent had been cheated of years, of how hard Marcus would have to work to free himself of addiction. She thought of Maria’s need to have her own life, and of her aunt sitting with her missal beside her. She thought of Donny T. with his dollars, and of a woman named Jean whom she had never known. Of Regina whom she had wronged, and of Peter, nearly forgotten. She thought of Billie, cheated beyond words. And, finally, of Thomas, her beloved Thomas, wrenched from arrogance with a crushing blow.

What was left but forgiveness? Without it, she was suddenly certain, what there was of her life would be a torture, right down to the death agonies of the nursing home.

A bell dinged, and there was silence. And in the silence, a word formed. Then a sentence. Then a paragraph. She searched for a pen in her purse and began to write in the margin of her book. She wrote down one side and up the other, defacing one book with another. She wrote until her hand hurt, until a flight attendant brought her a small meal. She put her pen down and glanced through the window. It was miraculous, she thought. The plane was emerging from the mist to a universe of blue sky and mountainous cloud.

PART TWO

Twenty-six

The mango was alien and fleshy and reminded him of a woman, though he couldn’t decide which part. The color running from lizard salmon to grass green, a mottled palette that changed overnight if you left it on the sill. Moody, like Regina. The skin was thick and tough and hard to penetrate; the flesh fibrous and succulent, glistening with juices. The flavor was divine. There was a knack to eating the things he hadn’t mastered yet, a way of peeling the skin and removing the stone and cutting the fruit into decorous slices to place on a white china plate; but the best he could manage was to stand over a sink and suck on the flesh. He liked to think about Regina naked in a bathtub, the juices running from the tips of her nipples. The fantasy fading inside a minute: Regina would never eat naked in the tub. Wouldn’t allow the mess.

Jesus, it stank in the market. It was the meat, covered with flies, in the dukas by the walls. The scent bloody, a fresh kill, a carcass still oozing. Worse was the smell of the meat cooking, not like any steak or chop he’d ever eaten. He was certain it was horse flesh, though everyone denied it. A woman, barefoot, with a child tied in kitenge cloth to her back, was standing next to him and opening her palm. Not speaking, just waiting with her hand out. He reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a handful of shillings. She mumbled, Ahsante sana, and moved on. He brought pockets full of shillings to the market now. It wasn’t just the guilt, though there was plenty of that