Free The Opposite House by Helen Oyeyemi Page A

would have thought of each pupil’s answer to the question ‘Why did Hamlet delay his revenge?’
    I let Tomás into the flat, and we find Chabella trying to make Aaron’s video camera work – she is pressing and wrenching at the boxed slot that holds the camera battery, and that makes me nervous, so I take it away from her. She says, ‘You know, I looked in the cupboard. All that ground cassava, all that rice. I bet you eat it plain. You eat too much colourless food, do you know that? If you’re not careful, when you have a child it will be an albino; yes, laugh, go on, but I don’t babysit albinos . . .’
    I give her Tomás; he allows himself to be enveloped in Chabella and her patchouli and ylang-ylang scent. He answers all her questions and lets her sit on his lap and be his tiny Mami. He agrees to be cooked for. I know that Chabella finds Tomás easier. The Tomás Project has a clearer direction: Bring the boy out of himself! Make sure he’s not hungry! Make sure he understands that he is handsome! But don’t let him think he’s too handsome! And Chabella must also makesure that Tomás does his homework. Papi is too trusting with Tomás’s homework; he waves his hand and says, ‘The dwarf will get it done sooner or later.’
    Tomás starts his maths at the kitchen table, clearing away my song sheets and gummy food wrappers without comment. Chabella, dicing yellow squash on the chopping board, announces that she wants to spring-clean the flat.
    ‘Mami, no, we like it like this,’ I tell her.
    ‘I will ask Aaron,’ Mami replies, hacking steadfastly at an old carrot. I wince; it looks as if she’s slicing up a knobbly orange finger. ‘He will agree with me.’ He probably will.
    ‘He’ll go straight to sleep when he gets back anyway,’ I say, jangling my keys in my hand.
    ‘Is that what happens? He goes to work, comes back, goes to sleep? Last night you didn’t even let him get into the bed. He-ye-ye , the way these young women are caring for their men . . .’
    Tomás gets up from the table and disappears into the sitting room. From inside the sound system, Prince Nico Mbargo’s electric guitarist lets loose a miracle riff and the Prince shouts his mother’s name. ‘Ah! SUSAN! Presenting you with . . . Sweet Mother!’ Tomás one-two-steps into the kitchen and, to Chabella’s delight, into her outstretched arms. He mouths, ‘Sweet mother I no go forget you.’
    Chabella, laughing and beautiful, cradles Tomás’s head and kisses the tip of his nose and opens her arms a little wider for me, and even though I am supposed to be on my way to see Papi, I throw my arms around them both.
    I didn’t know how many cycles of egg donation Amy Eleni had gone through before she told me. At some point Inoticed that she was wearing her sleeves excessively long. And I feared the hysteric,
    (of course I forever fear the hysteric)
    she who no longer manifests herself in screaming and fainting and clinging to walls but gets modern and hides herself in a numbness of the skin that demands cutting. There was no way to find out without making a fuss, so I just watched Amy Eleni. We went for manicures together; I reached out and snatched up her sleeve, quickly, let it fall back quickly. She was amused, but I had seen yellowing puncture marks, fastidiously spaced bruises fading back into her skin tone. The manicurist asked me if I could just keep my hands still for a minute.
    I mouthed, ‘What are you shooting up on?’ I tried to put on an expression that said I knew something about shooting up on drugs.
    Amy Eleni said, ‘For heaven’s sake.’
    Afterwards we went walking through Regent’s Park, through sunlight and sprays of raw green. Amy Eleni handed me information sheet after information sheet from her bag. They were crumpled, studded with thumbprints, as paper gets when you carry it everywhere. Even a passport must get like that if you take it out to look at it often enough. Lots of thank yous, lots of