Krysl
gone. She'd stood and walked. If she could walk away, I thought, she might walk back. But as soon as I thought that, I knew she wouldn't. I heard Felicia practicing the violin, the faltering sound of her bow~ ing. Then on the nightstand I saw my mom's diamond ring. I knew she'd left it because she wasn't coming back." I flipped the ring on its chain from beneath my tee so that Garang could see it. He picked up a fallen tamarisk twig and presented it to me. "Tamarisk," he said. "Now you." "My folks fled to London of all places. I was oorn into the era of the Coronation. Had my electric train flanked by sheep and hedgerows-but they also steeped me in cattle songs. Weekends our house filled with women cooking, men talking Parliament, candidates. Toured the British Museum, all that loot filched from Africa, case after case. "Then the backlash. I'd be high on soccer, white boys' skins and mine open under the sun-and some kid would hit me with the word: Nig!" He paused. "My Golden Retriever, Majok, was my chum." He turned on his comic riff. "Me, I'm the advert for quantum mechanics. You've heard of Schr6dinger's cat? This is what they call a thought experiment, Tamarisk. Hypothetical. Imagine a physicist bloke prepares a box equipped with a kitty sized guillotine in the center. Pop kitty into box, close box. Whether or not the guillotine gets tripped is decided by a random event just after we pop kitty in. Now kitty is either dead-or alive." He turned his hands up. "Dinka or Brit, which am I?" "You're the kitty," I said. "That's not hypothetical." "You heard of that chap who strung his tightrope over your Niagara Falls? He took along a stove and in the middle cooked an egg. That's me, love-scrambled egg on the cusp." He grinned. "But don't forget, I come from privilege. My father's lecturers levered him into a prestigious firm. We hung out with the pale upper crust: how I got into Cambridge. I'm whiter than you-save for my Dinka skin." It was heady, this truth telling, and a relief. I didn't have to make myself into a production. He looked at me and said it again. "Pink Tamarisk Annie." "Take off those shiny boots," I said. "Let's see you get down and dirty." "Is this a come-on, this invitation to undress? What will I get for . 1" It.
"The feel of your very own African mud between those spiffy Brit toes." He laughed, and we stood up. It was nearly dark. "I'll shine the ISO
ruGUE #28