he only thing missing, he thought wistfully, was gin.
The hell do you think I’m doing? he halfway wanted to retort, watching the lime foam softly in the tonic water. She was frowning again. Godsdamn, but he knew that expression; it was like looking in the mirror. Except he was absolutely certain he didn’t scowl and sulk that much. He supposed, adding another wedge of lime and sucking at a tooth, it was rather appropriate for her age.
A few bubbles drifted about in the water. “Suppose you will,” he murmured, watching her hands. Somehow he couldn’t help another smile twitching at his lips, watching her tip in a few pattering droplets of syrup and add more than a little lime. It wasn’t the kind of amused smile he’d had before; there were lines at his brow he couldn’t get rid of.
He listened, nodding. His smile spread into a grin – brief – when she shrugged.
He took a sip as she went on; he’d made his a little too sweet, he thought. His smile faded, and he nodded again, slowly. His eyebrow twitched at the mention of the sacrifices of love, at the words tripping and tangling over themselves. He took another sip as she fell silent; there was a pause. Cerise was fussing with the coaster, rumpling it underneath the glass, and he frowned.
Who’s sacrificing her love? he almost asked. Which one? “I see, I think,” he said instead, knitting his fingers over the carved calypt. He looked out over the distant lights and shadows of Dejai Point, breathing in deep the night air and the smell of cooking. “Anaxi female – political agency, that is,” he said.
Coward. He didn’t know much at all about Anaxi female political agency – Anaxi galdor female political agency, he thought – other than that it existed; for all that he tried to tug at that string in his mind, he couldn’t unravel it into something worth saying.
Love, he thought to say, then stopped. Sacrifice, he thought to say – that seemed even less wise.
Why me? he wanted to ask suddenly. Why’d you lend it to me? He remembered blinking, wide-eyed, at passages (... with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses …), disturbed by others still more. He’d half-wondered, from time to time, if Cerise meant it as another jab about that tekaa lad.
But he’d traced familiar thumbprints in the old paper, pages worn from the turning. The thing didn’t feel like a jab in his hands; or else it felt like the worst jab of all, and it dug into him worse than a riff in the gut, and he thought it must’ve dug into her, too.
It was the arata lad again, dragging him out of his head. He looked up, this time, and caught a grin as he set down the bowls of lemon water.
As he washed his hands off, the lad set down a tiny saucer of what looked like minced, smoked fish. “Perch,” he said brightly to Cerise. “Caught a day ago,” he said, juggling one of the metal tins off his shoulder. “If ada’na Uloma finds out, I’ll be deep in trouble.”
It was mostly as he remembered. Both tins had the same array of stews and greens he remembered from before – one with cabbage and potatoes and carrots; another a dollop of glistening yellow lentils, garnished; greens tangled about onions – but the meat looked like fish this time, pale between drizzled, hot-smelling orange sauce. The last thing the lad set down was a basket with several layers of soft, spongy flatbread, folded almost like cloth.
“So, the miraan,” he was saying, still grinning, with eyes only for Cerise. He set a fork and a spoon and a knife in front of them, him first and then Cerise, matter-of-fact. “Is she –”
“Iki’roh!”
“I’ll – ah – enjoy, please,” he said, dipping his head and shoulders. “A guest,” he added, “is like a…” The shout came again from the stairs, this time louder; one of the other lads, carrying out a basket of bread, was laughing. Iki’roh grinned at Cerise and took his leave.
He grinned, watching him go. After a few moments, his grin faded; he looked back at Cerise and cleared his throat. He glanced down at the forks and spoons; he almost said something, but couldn’t quite bring himself to it.
Very slowly, wordlessly, he reached for the flatbread. It was still warm, and he tore off some with his fingers, glancing at Cerise.
“You said,” he began again, “in the letter – you wondered what she might’ve chosen. Elizabeth, that is. If she’d had a choice.”
He withdrew his hand slowly, then hesitated, then – nudged the basket of bread a little closer to Cerise. “Did you write about that?” he asked. “What might’ve been?”