The Centre(40)

“Might as well, na?” she said, and I grinned back.

“Might as well.”

As we climbed the staircase, I examined the space around me, the florid carvings on the ceiling, the antique panels on the wall, the remnants of a stone fireplace. I didn’t know much about English country homes—Shiba had told me this place once belonged to a duke—but I did know that there was something about this style of architecture, straight out of Downton Abbey or whatever, that made me feel instantly unwelcome. It surprised me how shows like that, houses like this one, inspired romance and aspiration for so many people. They only made me think of how, not very long ago, I would have been absolutely unwelcome in such a place. Well, unwelcome unless within a certain role. I could almost feel the ghost of the duke, questioning the intrusion. I shared this thought with Shiba, and she nodded vigorously.

“I know, right?” she whispered. “But don’t worry, it’s slowly crumbling, and when it does, we’re replacing it with the new. This will all be different one day.”

I wasn’t sure, to be honest, what difference a renovation could make. The ghosts of the place would remain, surely, no matter what she did with the veneer.

“Where do you think the duke got the money to build all this?” I continued grimly.

She smirked and nodded. “I know.”

We both saw it: the ivory and sugar, the linen and silk, the opium and rubies, the blood dripping down the walls. A chill went through me.

“Come,” Shiba said and led me around the corner to her studio flat.

Now, the inside of Shiba’s home was a complete contrast to the outside. It was warm and bright, like an extension of her own self. She’d painted one wall orange and had a beautiful print of a waterfall on another, one by a famous Japanese artist. And she had plants everywhere, in hanging pots over the kitchen counter and bed, dotting tables, and weaving their way up her bookshelves. The space was very large for a studio, with enough room for her to create a nice open area between her bed and living room where she did her yoga and things—this was also where she’d Skype me from. She’d divided the space using one of those folding partition things. I could see that Shiba had really put thought into her space. She’d even painted some of the furniture herself: on her wooden wardrobe, she’d made a painting of two koi fish, revolving around each other like a yin and yang. It was amateurish, but this made it all the more beautiful.

“This is lovely, Shiba.”

“Thank you,” she said, as she pulled out some wine glasses from her cabinet. “I try.”

After seeing her flat, I understood more clearly what Shiba had meant about redoing the duke’s property. It was so homey and warm that the possibility of reparation and recovery, of recycling and rehabilitation, became more apparent to me.

“So, you want the whole building to look like this one day, huh?”

She smiled, “Not just look like. Feel like. Be like. There’s so much potential here, Anisa. Sometimes … I feel like we’re just not aware of our own power.”

“I agree,” I said.

She laughed then, a bit embarrassed, “I can’t wait to tell you more.”

“I’m ready whenever you are,” I said.

Shiba had a pot of pasta on the stove—tomato and tuna. She offered me some, but I was still full from dinner. I looked around. Her laptop lay on a table by her bed, and she had Netflix opened on the browser.

“Have you seen Undone?” she asked.

“No, but I’ve been meaning to.”

“Cool. Me too.”

I examined Shiba’s bookshelf as she heated up some pasta for herself and poured us some wine. She had a large collection of books. Jacques Derrida and Rabindranath Tagore, Ana?s Nin and Hélène Cixous. Amrita Pritam and Novalis. I also spotted a copy of my Songbird translation.

“What a trip that novel was,” I remarked, running my finger along the book’s spine.

“You did good,” she said, handing me my glass.

“Yeah, whatever,” I said. “Peter did good.”

“Don’t do that, Anisa,” she said. “I have noticed this about you. You’re very quick to take on blame, but the good stuff, you push away.”

“Do I?”

She pulled out Songbird from the shelf and showed me my name on the cover.

“You did good,” she said. Her words made me feel a bit shy. “Accha bas, come, let’s watch.”

We leaned our backs against the headboard while the laptop balanced on a stack of books in front of us. Shiba hit play. The show was trippy and darkly funny, and it sucked us in straightaway. It was a relief to finally be able to put my feet up, and sitting there next to Shiba, I felt closer to her than ever. Emotionally, I mean. I tried not to be weird about the proximity of our physical bodies—refrained from commenting when I recognized the scent of her Lush leave-in hair conditioner or acting awkward when our arms touched as we refilled our glasses. After the first episode ended, we emptied what was left of the wine bottle and played the next. Then, near the end of the second episode, I noticed that Shiba had fallen asleep. She looked absolutely serene. My gaze moved over the curve of her lips, the incline of her nose, her thick eyebrows and long lashes, and most of all, the tranquil expression on her face, practically statuesque.