Klara and the Sun Read online

  Once she was close enough so all the pedestrians were passing behind her, she stopped and smiled at me.

  ‘Hi,’ she said through the glass. ‘Hey, can you hear me?’

  Rosa kept staring ahead at the RPO Building as she was supposed to do. But now I’d been addressed, I was able to look directly at the child, return her smile and nod encouragingly.

  ‘Really?’ Josie said – though of course I didn’t yet know that was her name. ‘I can hardly hear me myself. You can really hear me?’

  I nodded again, and she shook her head as if very impressed.

  ‘Wow.’ She glanced over her shoulder – even this movement she made with caution – to the taxi from which she’d just emerged. Its door was as she’d left it, hanging open across the sidewalk, and there were two figures still in the back seat, talking and pointing to something beyond the pedestrian crossing. Josie seemed pleased her adults weren’t about to get out, and took one more step forward till her face was almost touching the window.

  ‘I saw you yesterday,’ she said.

  I recalled our previous day, but finding no memory of Josie, looked at her with surprise.

  ‘Oh, don’t feel bad or anything, there’s no way you’d have seen me. I was like in a taxi, going by, not even that slow. But I saw you in your window, and that’s why I got Mom to stop today right here.’ She glanced back, again with that carefulness. ‘Wow. She’s still talking with Mrs Jeffries. Expensive way to talk, right? That taxi meter just keeps turning over.’

  I could then see how, when she laughed, her face filled with kindness. But strangely, it was at that same moment I first wondered if Josie might be one of those lonely children Manager and I had talked about.

  She glanced over to Rosa – who was still gazing dutifully at the RPO Building – then said: ‘Your friend’s really cute.’ Even as she said this, Josie’s eyes were already back on me. She went on looking at me quietly for several seconds, and I became worried her adults would get out before she could say anything more. But she then said:

  ‘Know what? Your friend will make a perfect friend for someone out there. But yesterday, we were driving by and I saw you, and I thought that’s her, the AF I’ve been looking for!’ She laughed again. ‘Sorry. Maybe that sounds disrespectful.’ She turned once more to the taxi, but the figures in the back showed no signs of getting out. ‘Are you French?’ she asked. ‘You look kind of French.’

  I smiled and shook my head.

  ‘There were these two French girls,’ Josie said, ‘came to our last meeting. Both had their hair that way, neat and short like you. Looked cute.’ She regarded me silently for another moment, and I thought I saw another small sign of sadness, but I was still quite new then and couldn’t be sure. Then she brightened, saying:

  ‘Hey, don’t you guys get hot sitting there like that? Do you need a drink or something?’

  I shook my head and raised my hands, palms up, to indicate the loveliness of the Sun’s nourishment falling over us.

  ‘Oh yeah. Wasn’t thinking. You love being in the sunshine, right?’

  She turned again, this time to look up at the building tops. At that moment the Sun was in the gap of sky, and Josie screwed up her eyes immediately and turned back to me.

  ‘Don’t know how you do that. I mean keep looking that way without being dazzled. I can’t do it even for a second.’

  She put a hand to her forehead then turned away once more, this time looking not at the Sun, but to somewhere near the top of the RPO Building. After five seconds, she turned back to me again.

  ‘I guess for you guys, where you are, the Sun must go down behind that big building, right? That must mean you never get to see where he really goes down. That building must always get in the way.’ She looked over quickly to check the adults were still inside the taxi, then went on: ‘Where we live, there’s nothing in the way. From up in my room you can see exactly where the Sun goes down. The exact place he goes to at night.’

  I must have looked surprised. And at the edge of my vision I could see that Rosa, forgetting herself, was now staring at Josie in astonishment.

  ‘Can’t see where he comes up in the morning though,’ Josie said. ‘The hills and the trees get in the way of that. Kind of like here, I guess. Things always in the way. But the evening’s something else. Over that side, where my room looks out, it’s just wide and empty. If you came and lived with us, you’d see.’

  One adult, then another, climbed from the taxi out onto the sidewalk. Josie had not seen them, but perhaps she’d heard something for she began to talk more quickly.

  ‘Cross my heart. You can see the exact place he goes down.’

  The adults were women, both dressed in high-rank office clothes. The taller one I guessed to be the mother Josie had mentioned because she kept watching Josie even as she exchanged cheek kisses with her companion. Then the companion was gone, mixing with the other passers-by, and the Mother turned fully our way. And for just one second, her piercing stare was no longer on Josie’s back, but on me, and I immediately looked away, up at the RPO Building. But Josie was speaking again through the glass, her voice lowered but still audible.

  ‘Have to go now. But I’ll come back soon. We’ll talk more.’ Then she said, in a near-whisper which I could only just hear, ‘You won’t go away, right?’

  I shook my head and smiled.

  ‘That’s good. Okay. So now it’s goodbye. But only for now.’

  The Mother by this time was standing right behind Josie. She was black-haired and thin, though not as thin as Josie, or some of the runners. Now she was closer and I could see her face better, I raised my estimate of her age to forty-five. As I’ve said, I wasn’t so accurate with ages then, but this was to prove more or less correct. From a distance, I’d first thought her a younger woman, but when she was closer I could see the deep etches around her mouth, and also a kind of angry exhaustion in her eyes. I noticed too that when the Mother reached out to Josie from behind, the outstretched arm hesitated in the air, almost retracting, before coming forward to rest on her daughter’s shoulder.

  They entered the flow of passers-by, going in the direction of the second Tow-Away Zone sign, Josie with her cautious walk, her mother’s arm around her as they went. Once, before they left my view, Josie looked back, and even though she had to disturb the rhythm of their walk, gave me one last wave.

  * * *

  —

  It was later that same afternoon, Rosa said: ‘Klara, isn’t it funny? I always thought we’d see so many AFs out there once we got in the window. All the ones who’d found homes already. But there aren’t so many. I wonder where they are.’

  This was one of the great things about Rosa. She could fail to notice so much, and even when I pointed something out to her, she’d still not see what was special or interesting about it. Yet every now and then she’d make an observation like this one. As soon as she said what she did, I realized that I too had expected to see many more AFs from the window, walking happily with their children, even going about their business by themselves, and that even if I hadn’t acknowledged it to myself, I too had been surprised and a little disappointed.

  ‘You’re right,’ I said, looking from right to left. ‘Just now, among all these passers-by, there isn’t a single AF.’

  ‘Isn’t that one over there? Going past the Fire Escapes Building?’

  We both looked carefully, then shook our heads at the same time.

  Though she’d been the one to bring up this question about the AFs outside, it was typical that she soon lost all interest in it. By the time I finally spotted a teenage boy and his AF walking past the juice stand on the RPO Building side, she barely looked their way.

  But I went on thinking about what Rosa had said, and whenever an AF did go by, I made sure to watch closely. And before long, I noticed a curious thing: there were alway
s more AFs to be seen on the RPO Building side than on ours. And often, if an AF did happen to be coming towards us on our side, walking with a child past the second Tow-Away Zone sign, they would then use the crossing and not come past our store. When AFs did go by us they almost always acted oddly, speeding up their walk and keeping their faces turned away. I wondered then if perhaps we – the whole store – were an embarrassment to them. I wondered if Rosa and I, once we’d found our homes, would feel an awkwardness to be reminded that we hadn’t always lived with our children, but in a store. However much I tried, though, I couldn’t imagine either Rosa or me ever feeling that way about the store, about Manager and the other AFs.

  Then as I continued to watch the outside, another possibility came to me: that the AFs weren’t embarrassed, but were afraid. They were afraid because we were new models, and they feared that before long their children would decide it was time to have them thrown away, to be replaced by AFs like us. That was why they shuffled by so awkwardly, refusing to look our way. And that was why so few AFs could be seen from our window. For all we knew, the next street – the one behind the RPO Building – was crowded with them. For all we knew, the AFs outside did all they could to take any route other than one that would bring them past our store, because the last thing they wanted was for their children to see us and come to the window.

  I shared none of these thoughts with Rosa. Instead, whenever we spotted an AF out there I made a point of wondering aloud if they were happy with their child and with their home, and this always pleased and excited Rosa. She took it up as a kind of game, pointing and saying: ‘Look, over there! Do you see, Klara? That boy just loves his AF! Oh, look at the way they’re laughing together!’

  And sure enough, there were plenty of pairs that looked happy with each other. But Rosa missed so many signals. She would often exclaim delightedly at a pair going by, and I would look and realize that even though a girl was smiling at her AF, she was in fact angry with him, and was perhaps at that very moment thinking cruel thoughts about him. I noticed such things all the time, but said nothing and let Rosa go on believing what she did.

  Once, on the morning of our fifth day in the window, I saw two taxis, over on the RPO Building side, moving slowly and so close together someone new might have supposed they were a single vehicle – a kind of double taxi. Then the one in front became slightly faster and a gap appeared, and I saw through that gap, on the far sidewalk, a girl of fourteen, wearing a cartoon shirt, walking in the direction of the crossing. She was without adults or an AF but seemed confident and a little impatient, and because she was walking at the same speed as the taxis, I was able to keep watching her through the gap for some time. Then the gap between the taxis grew wider still, and I saw she was with an AF after all – a boy AF – who was walking three paces behind. And I could see, even in that small instant, that he hadn’t lagged behind by chance; that this was how the girl had decided they would always walk – she in front and he a few steps behind. The boy AF had accepted this, even though other passers-by would see and conclude he wasn’t loved by the girl. And I could see the weariness in the boy AF’s walk, and wondered what it might be like to have found a home and yet to know that your child didn’t want you. Until I saw this pair it hadn’t occurred to me an AF could be with a child who despised him and wanted him gone, and that they could nevertheless carry on together. Then the front taxi slowed because of the crossing, and the one behind drew up and I couldn’t see them any more. I kept watching to see if they would come over at the crossing, but they weren’t in the crossing crowd, and I could no longer see the other side because of all the other taxis.

  * * *

  —

  I wouldn’t have wanted anyone other than Rosa beside me in the window during those days, but our time there did bring out the differences in our attitudes. It wasn’t really that I was more eager to learn about the outside than Rosa: she was, in her own way, excited and observant, and as anxious as I was to prepare herself to be as kind and helpful an AF as possible. But the more I watched, the more I wanted to learn, and unlike Rosa, I became puzzled, then increasingly fascinated by the more mysterious emotions passers-by would display in front of us. I realized that if I didn’t understand at least some of these mysterious things, then when the time came, I’d never be able to help my child as well as I should. So I began to seek out – on the sidewalks, inside the passing taxis, amidst the crowds waiting at the crossing – the sort of behavior about which I needed to learn.

  At first I wanted Rosa to do as I was, but soon saw this was pointless. Once, on our third window day, when the Sun had already gone behind the RPO Building, two taxis stopped on our side, the drivers got out and began to fight each other. This wasn’t the first time we’d witnessed a fight: when we were still quite new, we’d gathered at the window to see as best we could three policemen fighting with Beggar Man and his dog in front of the blank doorway. But that hadn’t been an angry fight, and Manager had later explained how the policemen had been worried about Beggar Man because he’d become drunk and they’d only been trying to help him. But the two taxi drivers weren’t like the policemen. They fought as though the most important thing was to damage each other as much as possible. Their faces were twisted into horrible shapes, so that someone new might not even have realized they were people at all, and all the time they were punching each other, they shouted out cruel words. The passers-by were at first so shocked they stood back, but then some office workers and a runner stopped them from fighting any more. And though one had blood on his face, they each got back into their taxis, and everything went back to the way it was before. I even noticed, a moment later, the two taxis – the ones whose drivers had just been fighting – waiting patiently, one in front of the other, in the same traffic lane for the lights to change.

  But when I tried to talk with Rosa about what we’d seen, she looked puzzled and said: ‘A fight? I didn’t see it, Klara.’

  ‘Rosa, it’s not possible you didn’t notice. It happened in front of us just now. Those two drivers.’

  ‘Oh. You mean the taxi men! I didn’t realize you meant them, Klara. Oh, I did see them, of course I did. But I don’t think they were fighting.’

  ‘Rosa, of course they were fighting.’

  ‘Oh no, they were pretending. Just playing.’

  ‘Rosa, they were fighting.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Klara! You think such strange thoughts. They were just playing. And they enjoyed themselves, and so did the passers-by.’

  In the end I just said, ‘You may be right, Rosa,’ and I don’t think she gave the incident any more thought.

  But I couldn’t forget the taxi drivers so easily. I’d follow a particular person down the sidewalk with my gaze, wondering if he too could grow as angry as they had done. Or I would try to imagine what a passer-by would look like with his or her face distorted in rage. Most of all – and this Rosa would never have understood – I tried to feel in my own mind the anger the drivers had experienced. I tried to imagine me and Rosa getting so angry with each other we would start to fight like that, actually trying to damage each other’s bodies. The idea seemed ridiculous, but I’d seen the taxi drivers, so I tried to find the beginnings of such a feeling in my mind. It was useless, though, and I’d always end up laughing at my own thoughts.

  Still, there were other things we saw from the window – other kinds of emotions I didn’t at first understand – of which I did eventually find some versions in myself, even if they were perhaps like the shadows made across the floor by the ceiling lamps after the grid went down. There was, for instance, what happened with the Coffee Cup Lady.

  It was two days after I’d first met Josie. The morning had been full of rain, and passers-by were walking with narrow eyes, under umbrellas and dripping hats. The RPO Building hadn’t changed much in the downpour, though many of its windows had become lit as if it were already evening. The Fire
Escapes Building next to it had a large wet patch down the left side of its front, as though some juice had leaked from a corner of its roof. But then suddenly the Sun pushed through, shining onto the soaked street and the tops of the taxis, and the passers-by all came out in large numbers when they saw this, and it was in the rush that followed that I spotted the small man in the raincoat. He was on the RPO Building side, and I estimated seventy-one years old. He was waving and calling, coming so near the edge of the sidewalk I was worried he’d step out in front of the moving taxis. Manager happened to be in the window with us just at that moment – she’d been adjusting the sign in front of our sofa – and she spotted the waving man at the same time I did. He had on a brown raincoat and its belt was dangling down one side, almost touching his ankle, but he didn’t seem to notice, and kept waving and calling over to our side. A crowd of passers-by had formed right outside our store, not to look at us, but because, for a moment, the sidewalk had become so busy no one had been able to move. Then something changed, the crowd grew thinner, and I saw standing before us a small woman, her back to us, looking across the four lanes of moving taxis to the waving man. I couldn’t see her face, but I estimated sixty-seven years old from her shape and posture. I named her in my mind the Coffee Cup Lady because from the back, and in her thick wool coat, she seemed small and wide and round-shouldered like the ceramic coffee cups resting upside down on the Red Shelves. Although the man kept waving and calling, and she’d clearly seen him, she didn’t wave or call back. She kept completely still, even when a pair of runners came towards her, parted on either side, then joined up again, their sports shoes making small splashes down the sidewalk.

  Then at last she moved. She went towards the crossing – as the man had been signaling for her to do – taking slow steps at first, then hurrying. She had to stop again, to wait like everyone else at the lights, and the man stopped waving, but he was watching her so anxiously, I again thought he might step out in front of the taxis. But he calmed himself and walked towards his end of the crossing to wait for her. And as the taxis stopped, and the Coffee Cup Lady began to cross with the rest, I saw the man raise a fist to one of his eyes, in the way I’d seen some children do in the store when they got upset. Then the Coffee Cup Lady reached the RPO Building side, and she and the man were holding each other so tightly they were like one large person, and the Sun, noticing, was pouring his nourishment on them. I still couldn’t see the Coffee Cup Lady’s face, but the man had his eyes tightly shut, and I wasn’t sure if he was very happy or very upset.