Forgive Me (17 page)

“Not a chance,” said Nadine, pushing the button for her own floor. “I might fall asleep before I get to bed.”

“You could sleep next to me,” said George. He was quiet as the elevator rose. “It would be nice,” he said, “to have you next to me.”

Nadine leaned against him. She was tired, shivering-cold. “Okay,” she said softly.

Fully clothed, Nadine fell fast asleep in George’s bed. When she woke, it was barely dawn and she was ravenous. George had his arm around her waist. She moved it with care, and he slept on as she crept from his room.

Nadine took the elevator downstairs in her rumpled clothes, entering the grand, empty lobby.

“Hello, dear.” Nadine turned and saw Sophia sitting on a velvet couch by the fireplace, which was full of smoldering embers. Sophia was dressed in a black suit and leather pumps.

“Sophia,” said Nadine.

“She wants to meet with me,” said Sophia, holding up a sheet of paper. “She came here, to the hotel.”

“Who?” said Nadine.

Sophia read off the paper. “Fikile Malefane,” said Sophia. “However you pronounce that.”

“Evelina’s mother,” said Nadine, suddenly longing to see her. But Nadine had never lived up to her promises. She had not earned Fikile’s generosity and warmth.

Sophia raised her eyebrow. “You’ve done your research,” she said.

Nadine came closer to Sophia, sat next to her on the couch. Sophia’s hair and nails were perfect, but her eye makeup was smudged and runny where tears had marred it. “Is it asking too much,” said Sophia, “to have someone to blame?”

Nadine put her hand on Sophia’s hand.

“My son,” said Sophia. “My son, Jason. He loved to dance. Did you know that?”

“Tell me,” said Nadine.

“He loved to dance, and he loved that band, the Grateful Dead. They sang all about peace and love. For God’s sake, Jason should have been born in the 1960s. Lord knows I never belonged there, with all the hippies in the mud.”

Nadine smiled.

“This lady,” said Sophia. “This…” She looked at the paper again. “This Fikile woman. She wants me to speak at the hearing. To support her daughter’s amnesty. To let the girl out of jail.” Sophia stared at the letter, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. “Jason didn’t do anything,” she said.

“No,” said Nadine.

But Sophia wasn’t listening. “I have been done a wrong,” she said. “I have been wronged. My son is dead.”

She began to weep. Nadine wished there was something she could say to make things right, to convince Sophia to forgive Evelina, to testify on her behalf. Sophia looked at Nadine pleadingly. “Can you see?” she said. “She wants me to talk with her. Mother-to-mother. But I can’t. I just can’t.”

Nadine tried to think of an argument that would change Sophia’s mind. Sophia’s testimony could alter Evelina’s fate, could save her from spending her adulthood in jail. But Nadine was silent. As always, she was silent.

Thirty-four

NANTUCKET TO STARDOM

Sorry. I got interrupted by Mom and her curried cauliflower dinner, gag. Back to the story.

After my awesome audition, Malcon took me to the Hyannis Hearth and Kettle to celebrate. Over a big sundae, he made me tell him every detail of my performance. He listened to me, never interrupting, never looking worried or concerned.

When the waitress dropped the check at our table, Malcon said, “Wait. This is on me.”

I didn’t say that I had no money, or wallet for that matter. I just said, “Thanks.”

“So,” said Malcon, “how about coming over to my apartment and watching some videos?”

“I thought you lived in Boston.”

“I do,” said Malcon. “Right on Copley Square. But I keep a place here, in Hyannis. For business.”

My stomach hurt a little bit. “Um,” I said. “I told my parents I’d be home tonight. They’d be really upset.”

“Another time, then,” said Malcon. He drove me to the dock, and before I climbed out of the car he said, “So I’ll meet the early boat next Saturday and give you a ride to the Boston audition.”

“Okay,” I said. “I can’t believe it.”

“You’ll need to stay overnight,” said Malcon. “We won’t be able to make it back for the ferry. My agency will cover a hotel room.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Hey,” said Malcon, looking me in the eye. “I’m really proud of you.” He leaned forward and kissed me lightly on the lips. I wasn’t sure how to feel. The kiss was creepy, for sure, but Malcon was my talent agent and I wasn’t going to mess it up. Men kiss each other in Europe, after all.

“Here’s a few bucks,” said Malcon. “Buy yourself a treat for the ride home. I’ll see you next weekend.”

O
n the ferry, I got a seat by the window. We pulled away from shore, and I watched the lights get smaller and smaller and disappear. Soon there was just dark water. I was, as Mom would say, on Cloud Nine.

I went to the snack bar to get a Diet Coke with Malcon’s money. I wore my fedora. The cashier—a teenager with a unibrow—looked at me funny, but I didn’t care. I bought the soda, and then turned around. In the fluorescent light, I saw a woman sitting at one of the tables. She was pouring wine from a little bottle into a plastic glass. In front of her was a box, wrapped in silver paper. She ran a finger along her hair, and pushed it behind her ear. I ducked down. It was my mom.

I sat a few rows away and watched her. She drank her wine and stared out the window. Once in a while, she picked up the package, examined it, and then put it back down. Finally, when her wine was almost gone, she opened the present carefully, peeling back the paper along the taped edge. In the box was a picture frame, but I couldn’t see any more from where I was sitting. Mom stared at the frame with a tense expression. She looked at it for a long time. Finally, she drank the last of her wine. She stood up.

I looked the opposite way when she passed me. She threw her cup and the picture in the big trash can. Then she walked over to the stairway and began to climb. I guessed she was going to stand on the upper deck. She liked to watch Nantucket come into view.

The captain announced that we were about to dock. I didn’t have much time. I ran over to the trash and pulled the frame out, then went back to my seat and held it under the light. In the frame was a picture of a big old farmhouse. I liked it. There was a big barn, and a sign that said,
POST CHALMERS HOLIDAY FARM
. It made me think of the time we went to the Barnstable County Fair and Dad and I milked the cows. The cow’s teat things were warm. Mom watched us, leaning against a wooden rail and smiling. “My farmer boys,” she said. Why had she thrown this picture away? On the back of the frame, someone had written a note:

FOR N,

THE ONE PICTURE

I COULD NOT TAKE

G

What was this about? I had no idea. But the picture would always remind me of making the top ten at the Mashpee Mall Regional Auditions—the best day of my life—so I decided to keep it.

The ferry docked, and I watched Mom walk off the boat. She looked like someone I didn’t really know: someone a little mysterious. This had happened before, when she was picked up by a car to go on book tour, or when she went away for a girls’ weekend with Aunt Lily. Usually, she was just Mom. But once in a while, she was somebody else, somebody with a whole life I didn’t even know about.

I saw her walk to the Saab, start it, and drive away. I had left my bike chained to the stand outside the Nantucket Juice Bar. As I unlocked it, I felt confused. I was proud of my audition, so proud that I didn’t even care that someone had written
FREAK SHOW
on my bike with Wite-Out. But I was also a little scared, the way I always was when Mom became the Other Lady, the lady who might have something better to do than hang out with me.

I rode to Quidnet Road under the stars, with the picture of the farm in my basket. At home, Mom had left a note for me to come and kiss her good night. From the doorway of their room, I watched my parents sleep, curled around each other like snails. I kissed them, and Dad said, “Climb in.”

It would be warm under the comforter, but I said, “I’m not a baby,” and I left them. I went to my room. I didn’t write. I stared at the ceiling for a while. I felt angry at my mom for being the Other Lady. It made me want to have my own secret life.

Thirty-five

N
adine spent Sunday asleep in her room, the phone off the hook. On Monday, she ate breakfast in the hotel’s Colony Room, next to an enormous mural of a black servant carrying a white party’s picnic up a mountain. As she started into her plate of passion fruit, smoked salmon, and toast, George sat down across from her.

“Hey you,” said George. “Have you been in hiding?”

“George,” said Nadine.

“Yes?”

“George, that night…” Nadine couldn’t look up. Her breakfast smelled strongly: cloying fruit, the burned edges of the toast. She felt bile rise in her throat, but she choked out the words. “That night, when Maxim asked where I was, what did you tell him?”

“You know,” said George, his fork hovering over Nadine’s plate as he decided what to take, “we can be married today. I know a judge. Something good, at the same time as all this sadness.” He looked long at her. “You
were
joking about the pregnancy?”

“George…”

He nodded, as if something were settled. “I’ve put a call in to
Time.
They want to send me to Rwanda. You’ll come along. Genocide. Call Ian, or whoever you’re working for.”

“Some honeymoon,” said Nadine.

“We can join the mile-high club on the way over,” said George, wiggling his brows.

In spite of herself, Nadine laughed.

S
he walked to the courthouse, past a throng of singing South Africans and a throng of foreign reporters filming the singing. Ruth smoked a cigarette in the reporters’ room. “Another day, another dollar,” she said when Nadine entered.

“I don’t know how you do it,” said Nadine.

“Nor do I,” said Ruth. “My husband’s going to leave me.”

“What?”

“Nobody wants to hear all this…this shit. We knew, of course. We knew. But this…” She waved her arm. “My husband says it’s too much. He wants to fuck someone who doesn’t have these images in her head. Who talks about wallpaper and crown moldings.”

“I’m sorry,” said Nadine. She thought of Hank, who despite all the sickness he dealt with every day savored his life in the evenings, talking about his basil plants and baseball.

“C’est la vie,” said Ruth.

E
velina no longer wore pigtails. Sitting between her lawyers, facing the commission, she stared straight ahead, her eyelid still half closed. She did not speak throughout the hearing. Instead, the monotonous voices of her lawyers detailed the way a crowd of young people stopped Jason’s car and threw a brick through the window, chasing Jason when he tried to flee. The group chanted “One settler, one bullet,” as they advanced.

Leaning against the back wall, her notebook flipped open, Nadine tried to block out the visions, but could not. Jason, falling down. Jason, attacked. And finally, Jason, dead, the final blows struck by pigtailed Evelina.

Evelina’s lawyers insisted the killing had a political motivation. “South Africa is free today because of bloodshed,” one lawyer said. He explained that despite her young age, Evelina had sympathized with radical ANC activists, and had taken their sayings to heart. “She truly believed that this killing would advance her country toward a fair and democratic government,” he concluded, staring at a spot above the Irvings. “She is sincerely sorry for the death of your son, and asks with her whole heart for forgiveness.”

Finally, Desmond Tutu announced the end of the day’s session. “Tomorrow,” said a female member of the TRC, “the Irvings may make a statement, if they so wish.”

The courtroom was quiet, waiting for the Irvings’ answer. Even Nadine found she was holding her breath. Sophia stood, and gathered her purse. She stared defiantly at the crowd. “We do not so wish,” she said emphatically. Nadine saw an elderly black man’s face fall, heavy with disappointment.

“It is my hope,” said the TRC member, “that you will reconsider.” Sophia did not speak. Krispin put his arm around her, and they walked past Nadine without looking at her. They would be escorted back to the hotel flanked by bodyguards.

Nadine looked in vain for George in the group of photographers trying to capture the Irvings as they walked down the courthouse steps. She took a taxi to the Victoria, planning to order dinner to her room, to lie down for a while. Her wrist hurt, her heart hurt.

T
he hotel lobby was crowded with a group of young men in ill-fitting suits and an old woman in a wheelchair. Behind the front desk, Johanna spoke shrilly. “I’m sorry,” she said, her Afrikaans accent strong. “I have to ask you to leave right this instant.” She was visibly upset.

“We need to speak to Sophia Irving,” said one of the men, who wore a panama hat. “It is an emergency. I must insist. This is Fikile Malefane.”

“I’ll call the police!” said Johanna.

Nadine looked at the group, at Thola and Evelina’s mother in a wheelchair. Fikile’s face held more lines, and her cheeks were sallow and sunken. Fikile caught Nadine’s eye, and she spoke in much-improved English. “Please,” she said. “Help me, please. I need to speak to Mrs. Irving.”

Johanna turned to Nadine. “Are they with you?” she asked.

“Oh…,” said Nadine.

Fikile stared at her. “Nadine?” she said.

Fikile’s brown hands were cupped together. Nadine focused on them. She remembered her soft ballet flats, the scuffing sounds they made when she wore them. “Yes,” she said. “Fikile, it’s me.”

“Can you help me, Nadine?” said Fikile.

Nadine stared at her but couldn’t find any words. “No,” she said, shaking her head and moving toward the elevators. She needed to lie down. Her mind reeled: what could she possibly do? “Nadine,” said Fikile, her voice desperate. Nadine stepped into the elevator. As the doors closed, Fikile cried, “Can you help me, Nadine?”

Nadine slumped against the fake books lining the wall. She pressed her hands to her eyelids. When the elevator stopped, she rushed down the hallway to her room, where she could be alone. There was an envelope taped to her mahogany door. Nadine ripped it free and stuck her card in the door. The card didn’t work. “Goddamn it!” she said. She inserted the card slowly, and the lock turned. Nadine sighed with relief.

In her room, she lay down on the unmade bed. The note was written in George’s scrawled handwriting:

N,

I TOLD MAXIM YOU WERE DOWN THE HALL, BUYING HIM A COFFEE. I TOLD HIM YOU LOVED HIM.

G