These Dreams of You

~ ~ ~

Zan says, “Well, we wait for Viv to come back from Addis Ababa.” To his surprise, he has to suppress an impulse to tell Brown about the foreclosure.

“Yes, of course,” says Brown, “any news on that front?”

Zan chews his lower lip. “No.”

“Hmm,” Brown just nods. Off in the area of the bar, Zan can see Molly getting Parker a Coke and Sheba a Sprite; the boy is trying not to get talked to by some of the students while Sheba reverts to form, climbing on things. “A bit of a handful, aren’t they?” He tries his best to sound good-humored about it.

“This is nothing,” Zan says. “Peace in our time, to quote a British prime minister. It’s like the nanny has cast a spell on Sheba.”

“I see. So what’s it all about?”

“The nanny?”

“Viv in Africa.”

Zan looks at Sheba, out of earshot. “Her mother,” he answers, nodding at the girl. “I mean her birth-mother.”

“I thought she was an orphan.”

“Well, James, orphans have mothers. They’re just not mothers who are in the picture anymore.”

Brown says, “But this one is in the picture now, I take it?”

“It’s not that she’s in the picture,” says Zan, “it’s the way she’s not in the picture.”

Brown shakes his head and shrugs.

“We’ve been trying to find out about the mother for a while.” Zan glances back at the girl. “Someday she’ll want to know. She’ll be angry if we never tried to find out. She’ll be angry at us anyway about one thing or another, about all kinds of things, but this one she’ll have a right to be angry about. A couple of months ago Viv got a journalist in Addis on the trail, he asked some questions, and now there are these. . well, they’re not even reports, they’re too undefined to be reports, they’re rumors. . or what have you. . that this journalist Viv hired was getting close to some discovery about the mother and, in asking all kinds of questions, something happened to her. She’s in jail. She’s in hiding. She’s fled the country. She’s dead.” He looks at Molly. “Listen, what do you know about—?”

“Another drink?” asks Brown.

Zan realizes he’s downed the one hand he has. “O.K.,” he says, pulling some money from his pocket, “let me—”

“Don’t be bloody silly.” The Englishman gets up to get another drink. Zan continues watching Molly and Sheba, calls over the waitress and orders fish and chips for the kids. When Brown returns, Zan says, “The kids like your fish and chips.”

“Hmm,” says Brown.

“Thanks for the drink,” says Zan.