When I think of weddings now – all the waste and propaganda – I prefer to remember that fake spring union of Misrak and Abebe. We understood that the dangers of hours and hours of cohabitation would never touch these two, and as such, they were gleaming, like the afternoon itself. We knew as well that our own futures were bound to be different. About romance and companionship we knew little, but watching those two commit themselves felt honourable, the way marriage was intended to be, a transaction devoid of the complications of love.

Chapter 23

23

There is an intimacy with women that is as domesticated and necessary as doorknob, pillowcase, wrist. I long to be fenced in that way. Sometimes I climb into bed with Lucia just to feel the heat off her back. I wait till she’s asleep to slowly unhook the tangles in her hair. I press my nose into her neck and it brings me back to myself. Even Ma, who would rather rearrange rocks in the garden than stay enfolded in the sheets, understood my need to lie in the aftermath of her warmth while she fixed herself up for the day. I always lay on her side of the bed, never Papi’s – covers up to my chin, watching as she rattled around with bottles of cream on the dresser. Polka-dot terry-cotton robe wrapped tight around her spare waist, socks up to her knees. This is when she was still thin, when I thought everything about her was as majestic and enticing as a holiday in a hotel.

I cannot know if men share this, if their anatomy allows it. In college, there had been a new friend, Elisabeth. ‘Are you a dyke or something?’ she asked when I did her hair in a French plait and pressed her shoulders afterwards. ‘Of course not,’ I said, fingers leaping away from her skin.

How to explain it, though? Always in bedrooms, always a distant sexual thrum. Even those tiny Madrasi friends, those pigtailed girls from Rosary Metric, whose faces I have forgotten, but whom I remember coming over to play – the shy tingle of pleasure of bringing down each other’s panties and powdering each other’s bottoms. The softness. The sheer peachiness of a girl’s bum. And running out of the room afterwards to play hide and seek, faces hot with shame.