TCOTNK 2 Sowing The Seeds
TCOTNK 2 Sowing The Seeds
A black and white photo with a jagged edge. On a beach. A flowing dress. A young woman with a four-year-old daughter on her hip.
Sowing The Seeds
The neighborhood was quiet. Almost deserted. Further down, gardeners were working with leaf blowers and lawn mowers. A shiny security van with tinted windows watched the girl walking with her shopping bags. A pedigreed cat lay lurking on a tree trunk. A bald monstrosity in an empty garden. Monday afternoon. Three houses down, she stopped in front of the wide gate and looked through the bars. She was almost certain this was the right house. Loud music seeped out from the well insulated innards. The automatic gate had no handle. She rang the doorbell. The video panel above remained black. The light blinked for a while and then went out.
Charlotte looked around. The surveillance camera of the neighbors on the left stared back at her. She reluctantly picked up her bags again. After fifty yards she stepped between towering bamboo stakes. The colonial cream-colored villa on the other side was an island in a rolling lawn. A green desert with perfect undulations, interrupted only by a pirate village under construction. A playground that could have accommodated several elementary schools. If she kept off the lawn, walked straight through what looked like a sunflower patch with no flowers yet, she could slip through the fake round zen gate maybe leading to her sister’s property.
Why am I trying to get to Karen's place? Why behave like a burglar towards her least old but most useless sister? Well, because Charlotte's hands and feet were sore from hauling seven kilometers to the nearest house where she might be allowed to charge her phone. With a borrowed charger. Nothing else really mattered. She couldn't think of anything better. Because she seemed unable to think at all right now. Even less than she normally couldn't think.
In the backyard, the music was clearly audible. Sowing the seeds of love. Old shit in a brand new house. Everything as it should be. The windows of the outdoor room were as clean as an operating table. The terrace was gleamingly mopped. The mirrored glass door slid open as Charlotte set down her bags against a perfectly rusted horse head. She shivered, wondering about the rest of the beheaded animal.
"You here?"
Music flooded the terrace.
Time, to eat all your words, swallow your pride, open your....
Her sister was wearing a white suit. All in one piece. Fluffy terry cloth. Tightly stretched over her swollen belly and breasts, but loosely hanging around her thin limbs. Her hair hung around sad. Greasy or wet. Her ears poked through the languid curtains. She had been crying. In stark contrast to the hippie lyrics of the song, her face was full of suspicion.
"Hey Caro,"
Charlotte raised a hand with a V between her fingers, "Swallow and prosper," she said. Karen's face went through a few stages. First, impatiently raising her thin eyebrows in annoyance, then a look of incomprehension with a lemony taste, and then, seemingly prompted by the sung words bursting out of the invisible speakers, new tears welled, glassy pearls ran down her face and she attempted a smile.
"Well, come in then. Robert is gone anyway."
Karen waddled back into the house. The music was abruptly turned off.
When Charlotte finally entered the house with her reluctant bags, the hostess was nowhere to be found. The palette used was shades of white. Even the painting. With the song cut off before the climax, the huge scarcely dressed living room was silent. Except for a soft buzzing sound. On the leather couch lay a shoebox. And a towel. Next to them was a shiny, slender sculpture, slowly and moistly sliding over the seat. An internal tuning fork set to a deep hum provided the source of the sound.
Karen reentered, dressed in a floral maternity ensemble, her hair tied up, her face lightly made up. There was no trace of the earlier ghost. They exchanged a glance. Karen walked towards the couch, turned off the vibrator, and wiped the couch clean.
"I called Mom," she said, "and I have instructions to give you shelter until it blows over."
Charlotte asked, "Do you have a charger?"
Karen looked puzzled and placed the shoebox in a Chinese cabinet that seemed to be filled with identical shoeboxes. Charlotte raised one eyebrow. She had practiced that. It only worked with her left eyebrow. When she tried with her right, unwanted movements started to happen.
"For my phone," she explained, playfully wiggling her dead mobile communicator next to her smile.
Her sister shook her head and said, "Doesn't fit."
Karen sat down, protecting her pregnant belly.
"I'm not in the mood," she said, looking outside.
"Well..." Charlotte began, glancing at the Chinese cabinet but holding herself back. She sighed.
"If I can just rest and think for a while, I'll be on my way soon."
"Where are you going then? You have no job or money. Are you going to pick berries with those immigrant boys for a pittance per hour? Or are you..."
She stopped grumpily. Looked at the flowery hill in her lap and stroked it.
"Sorry," she said, "I'm a bit emotional right now. And the massage wand is for my tummy. It hurts."
Charlotte crossed over and sat next to her. Karen leaned over, sobbing again. She buried her head in the wilderness of Charlotte's hair.
An hour later, they were sipping herbal tea. As if they were sisters. In the kitchen. Charlotte had never been this far into the house before.
"So, you really don't want to stay here?"
Charlotte didn't answer, but her resolute gaze was clear enough.
"You look like Sapi, you know?" Karen added.
"Sapi?"
"Yes, Mama's mother."
Charlotte was quiet for a moment.
"I have a grandma? Named Sapi? And I look like her?"
Charlotte stood up. Her chair scraped the floor loudly.
"Jesus, that's sick!"
She paced around the kitchen. Opened several drawers. Then irritably tied her hair with a dug up string while pacing round the table. Karen’s blank gaze silently followed the girl for about six rounds.
"Nobody knows where she is." Karen’s middle finger polished a bit of tabletop. Charlotte plopped back onto her chair.
"But she's still alive?"
Karen nodded and struggled to stand up.
"Mm hm."
"How do you know?"
"Come," she said.
Wow, even deeper into the house.
In the guest room it was almost humanly messy. Karen pointed to the shelved wall.
"That's all from Sapi. She sends them unsolicited."
Charlotte walked over. Packages. Lots of them. Small addressed boxes. Most of them unopened. A collection of very different sizes and shapes, all wrapped in the same paper. Shiny brown candy-like paper with ivory-colored labels. Labels typed on a typewriter with exotic stamps. Charlotte looked at Karen questioningly.
"No one wants them. That's why they end up with me. Every six or seven weeks. For over thirty years. I don't want to open them, but I can't throw them away either."
Charlotte studied the collection. Several hundred, book size to jewel box and lots of thick envelopes. She recognized her name on a flat package at the bottom of the cabinet. It stood out because it was larger than the others. It seemed to have been forwarded multiple times. She looked at her sister again. Karen was standing in the doorway, staring at her phone. Her thumb compulsively swiped across the screen. Bored and tense at the same time. Charlotte knelt in front of the cabinet and hesitated. Her face tightened. She sat down on the floor with the package. She placed her hands on it.
This wasn't a recent shipment. No sender was visible. Coffee-brown kraft paper sealed tightly with the same color gum tape, coated with wax or oil. Sturdy and inflexible. Unwrapping it would feel like a birthday from at least ten years ago. She was once again a seven-year-old girl. The mixture of feelings about this gift was complex. Why had she never asked about Grandma? What was the reason for keeping this hidden? Do I resemble her? Sapi? What a strange name. Mom is sixty-four, so her mother must be in her eighties. She chuckled. I am a granddaughter. She sent this specifically for me. Sapi. A word with flowing curls, written with a fountain pen and tiny flower petals filling the air.
“How do you know that I resemble her?”
Karen blinked as if she had to shift gears. You're craving a cigarette, thought Charlotte clearly, and she could almost see the smoke swirling around her pregnant sister's face. Karen grabbed a ring-binder from a shelf across the room and confidently opened it at the back. Balancing the photo album on her belly.
"You and Mom are opposites," Karen said, handing a loose photo to Charlotte. She pursed her lips and sniffed. "Mom and Sapi too."
A black and white photo with a jagged edge. On a beach. A flowing dress. A young woman with a four-year-old daughter on her hip.
Backwards. The child was Mom. And the mother was Charlotte. Almost. She saw differences though. Sapi was taller. Less heavy. And the dark hair was even longer and not as curly. And that radiant smile. Massive. If only you could look at the world like that.
She tried that smile and looked up at her sister, who immediately teared up.
"See?" she said. "It's just eerie."
Charlotte opened the package. Slowly and carefully. Karen left her to it. She looked at the small photo on the floor next to her several times, ritually removing the wrappings. Soft blue tissue paper as the final layer. Charlotte's breath was shallow. A book. A large-sized picture book. Oblong. Making each open page a panorama. Something about knights. After two pages it became her favourite book. Not now, she thought, and held it close to her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut with her fists, took a deep breath, and came to a decision.
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