Picking Up The Pieces

Chapter 9

A lazy fly buzzed past my arm and landed on the table next to a plate of sweet cakes that lay warming in the sun. I flicked my hand at it and watched as it lifted off, made a slow circle over the tabletop and landed on the other side of the plate. This time I waved it away for good.

Mariana had gone into the kitchen to make more tea, leaving me sitting alone except for the two little girls who had been in the square when I arrived. They had insisted on coming to play in the courtyard to make sure they didn't miss anything. Each child held a scruffy, well-loved doll beneath an arm and took turns jumping over a rope tied to a door handle while sneaking glances at me.

The bones of the wicker chair pressed into my back as I looked around me. After I had come into the house through the front door, Mariana had led me through a dark hallway and out into the blinding sun of the small interior courtyard. The day had already become hot and I fanned myself with a napkin as I waited for Mariana to return, but the telephone had rung and I now heard her chatting with the caller.

The relative quiet of the courtyard settled around me like down. I hadn't slept nearly enough on the train from the French frontier. I had hoped to see some of the passing scenery before the light faded, but by the time we pulled out of the station at the border it was too late to see much more than lights twinkling in the dark.

On the train I had purchased a bottle of water, a crusty roll filled with sliced meats and a factory-made, packaged apple dessert which I tossed out after a few bites. I slipped off my shoes and curled my legs up into my seat, pulled Neil's Bible from my bag and began again to search for his clues. 

Opening the book in my lap, I had turned the pages one by one. My notebook and pen lay beside me on the seat and I made notes as I leafed through the Bible. In some instances there was only a small red dot, other places had certain words circled. I made a mental note to watch for patterns that might be revealed by the different markings.

I came across markings in the tenth chapter of Genesis. The text recounted the building of the tower of Babel, how the people believed that they were so smart and technologically advanced that they could build a tower and get to heaven whenever they wanted to. Unfortunately for them, God had other ideas. Because the people all spoke the same language it was easy for them to collaborate on the project so God simply changed their languages so they could no longer understand each other. Confusion reigned and the plan fell apart. It seemed like the salient point Neil had emphasized was that these people already had some pretty advanced abilities.

Now in Mariana's garden, with the sun warm on my face, my mind slid into a heat-daze and I had nearly dozed off when she sashayed back out into the courtyard, her green dress swirling around her legs. She plopped down in the sagging wicker chair opposite me and flung an arm across her forehead.

"Oh, my goodness, my goodness," she exclaimed. "Just when you think everything is good, she goes wrong. What am I going to do?"

Startled by this drama, I said, "What is it? What's wrong?"

"De nada," she sighed, waving a hand over her head. "It is my mother. She wants to come and stay with me, but she doesn't want to sleep in the bed we have. So she wants to bring her own bed, but wants to keep it at home, too. This is impossible. She can't have her bed at home and here, too!"

I tried to appear concerned, but the situation didn't seem particularly earth-shattering to me.

"I don't know what to do with her. Now she is by herself, my papa is gone. She phones me every hour. I know she is lonely, but my goodness, I have other things to do. Now she wants to come and stay but not come and stay, but she wants her own bed at her house and at my house. She doesn't want to live alone, but she thinks it is too busy at my house for her. The children make too much noise, but she's lonely without them."