“I feel like I could just hold you and smooch you right here, Fire.”

“Smooch?”

“Yes, ‘smooch,’ like white people in those sixties beach movies. Smooch.”

“Well, don’t let me stop you from”—he made his brows dance—“smooching me,” he replied.

“Not here though.”

“Why?”

“For me to smooch you to show you how happy I am, I’d have to smooch you too many times … and my train is coming any minute now. You have no idea what you’ve done for me this morning, Fire. You have no idea what it means to me that you’ve come here … to Brooklyn … all the way from London … overnight … for no other reason than to see me. I needed this. But I didn’t know I did.”

An intense silence fell over them, and they stared at each other for a second, which in their heightened state of attunement felt like a minute. In this suspended flash of clarity, in which the world around him and his swirling thoughts moved slowly, showing their undersides, Fire glimpsed the logic behind the chaos of the universe. He began to understand why he needed her, and why he needed distance from Blanche. Sylvia needed him, showed her vulnerability, which made him feel useful, potent—valuable in the way of a solution to a riddle. And Blanche did not. She was older and—especially when they’d met—more accomplished in many ways, and she refused to surrender control to him even when she was ill … The most she would ask of him in those days was to bring her water, and read to her, and drive her to the doctor. And she only seemed vulnerable while begging him to return to her. After which, things would be the same. He was a child for her. At best an adolescent. But with Sylvia he could be a man … whole … ranging freely between the roles of giver and receiver.

“I’ll walk you down,” he said.

He watched her get on the train. She stared at him through the window. He moved his mouth, pretended to say something. She wrinkled her brows, trying to tell him that she didn’t understand. He pretended to say something else. She wrinkled her brows even more, transforming her face into a sign that read, “Hurry up and say it slowly. The train is about to leave.” He mouthed some more. She gave up. Put her thumb in her ear and her pinkie in her mouth to say, “Call me.” He blew her a kiss. She swallowed it, still trying to make sense out of nonsense as the train entered the long black tunnel.

chapter five

He called her in the early afternoon.

“Hello.”

She leaned back in her chair and began to rub her belly through her yellow cotton blouse.

“Where are you?”

“Brooklyn,” he said. “Outside a Senegalese place named Keur N’ Deye. I just left Moshood’s. I had to get a few things for my cousin and his girlfriend. Phil and I were supposed to be hooking up, but I haven’t seen him. But anyway I’m not here to see him. I’m here to see you. What are you doing?”