Inside the Cliff, Ibutatu Estate
He could picture the scar, he thought; he’d looked at her hands enough for it. He found the outlines of it, slow and steady, tracing them; he went on to the next, then, finding the smaller line and slowly shifting his thumb along it. He thought that they formed a pattern with her freckles, and if there had been light enough, that he could have found shapes in them, understood them.
Cooking and needlework, Aurelie said. For a moment, Aremu had nearly forgotten; he frowned a little, and her hand stopped. She didn’t take it away, though; he was glad of that.
Puzzles, Aurelie said, and she let out a soft little giggling sound. Aremu smiled; he found he could picture a little Aurelie – his mind sort of substituted a shorter version, with a rounder face; he wasn’t sure whether to give her less or more freckles – earnestly squinting at blocks of wood.
“Yes,” Aremu murmured; he shifted against her a little more. His legs were cramping, a bit; he drew his knees up, resting his feet flat on the ground; the rock was cool and wet, and felt pleasant, for all it seemed to sort of prickle against him.
“I liked them as a boy,” Aremu went on; his eyes fluttered shut. “Uzoji had some, and we liked to do them together. I told my mother about them, and she bought me one for myself.” His face tightened, and a little wrench went through him.
“I spent hours on it,” Aremu said, slowly. “It was… it had a lot of pieces, and I liked putting them together; it was shaped like an airship. I was nearly done when my father found it,” his hand softened on hers, just a little. It didn’t hurt, he thought, here, to talk about it. There was no room left for pain with the ache in his head; it drove out all the rest, and he was left strange, and floating, distant. He thought of an airship, and an anchor; he felt as if Aurelie’s hand on his cheek, and the droplets of water from her hair, her fingers woven through his, were all that held him to Vita.
“He burned it,” Aremu murmured; his thumb traced the delicate bones of Aurelie’s hand, from her knuckle to her wrist, slowly, and then back up again. “He explained to me it was a waste of time. I never did another one; I told Uzoji it wasn’t allowed. I don’t like to talk about him very much,” he sighed a little. “I can’t think why just now.”