A little while later, she paused the recording again, and I heard her get up to use the toilet.
On her way back, she nudged open my door. “Hey.”
“Hi.”
“What’re you doing?”
“Just reading. What do you think so far?”
“The swoon.”
“Oh god.”
“We must address the swoon.”
“Ahh …”
“Do you fancy her?”
“Naima.”
“Tell me.”
“I described what I felt the best I could.”
“You fancy her.”
When I was recording the tape, I had this vague idea that it would be listened to, I don’t know, fifty or sixty years in the future, and by then, all illusions around gender and sexuality would have dissolved. And anyway, I wouldn’t be around anymore to be questioned about it. But now, I found myself stumbling.
“Yeah, I guess. Maybe.”
“Did you want to kiss her?”
“Oh my god, stop.”
“Did you want to kiss her, yes or no?”
“Maybe. I mean, if she’d wanted to … I don’t know, Naima.” I paused. “Sometimes, it felt like we were both just waiting for the other to extend her hand.”
“I feel like this is a side of yourself you should explore.”
“Why, though? Like, why actively pursue it? Why endure the drama if you have a choice in the matter?”
“It’s important,” Naima said. “Otherwise, parts of you will forever remain unwatered.”
I thought of Azeem and felt a stirring of resentment toward Naima. I felt like she’d never admit, even to herself, just how much her own choice of partner had to do with the comfort of heteronormative conventionality, of, basically, tick-boxing. And yet here she was advising me to take risks? But I didn’t say anything, and thank god I didn’t, because soon after she went back into the living room and pressed play again, my scathing indictment of Azeem and Naima’s early relationship sounded loud and clear. I’d said that he was putting out her fire, that his wokeness was all for show and that he was shallow and unworthy. I’d even called Naima complicit in the whole thing. Billee and I sat on my bed, his ears pricked and mine burning, while that endless section played. We listened for the tiniest sound from Naima: a sigh, a laugh, a groan, a sniffle, but heard nothing except my own annoying voice. It was only after my discovery of the email about Anna’s death that Naima returned to my room.
“Did they kill her?”
“No.”
“Oh, phew. What’s going on then?”
“It’s complicated—”
“How come you didn’t tell me about this before?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t sure what it meant. But keep listening. It gets worse.”
“Oh my god, just tell me.”
“No, you have to listen.”
“Okay, fine.”
She turned to head back to the living room, but I stopped her. “Um, Naima? Those things I said about Azeem—”
“Babe, please.”
“I didn’t mean them.”
“It’s all love, love,” she said and brushed a strand of hair away from my face.
“Thank you.”
“Is it making you swoon, when I do that?”
“Shut up.”
“You know, you make it sound like we talk about men a lot.”
“Do I?”
“Yeah, first Adam, then Azeem. It’s that stereotype, that women have nothing to talk about but men.”
“I don’t think I make it sound like that.”
“Well, I think it’s true. We’re always talking about them. They don’t do it, you know. When men get together, they don’t sit around trying to analyze the inner workings of our minds.”
“How do you know?”
“I just do. They talk about man stuff. About being manly, out there in the world, getting man things done. Men, you see, consider themselves independent beings, but we see ourselves only in relation to them.”
“I mean, aren’t we kind of doing it again now, talking about men?”
“Shit, yeah, I guess we are. But it’s fine. Right now, we’re trying to understand them so that we can defeat them,” she declared, raising her fist in the air. “In fact, you know what? If you share this with anyone else, can you end it as if I broke up with Azeem? That’ll come across better. We’ll sound less man obsessed.”
“Are you breaking up with Azeem?”
“Nah, still got that old ball and chain. Say I said that, okay? Ball and chain.”
“Ball and chain. Noted.”
“I’m gonna have to stay the night. You know that, don’t you? I need to finish the whole thing now.”
And so Naima stayed over, listening to the recording until the early hours of the morning. When I woke up, she was waiting for me at the kitchen table.
“Okay, so first of all …” she said, then paused.
“Yes?”
“I don’t really say fuck that much. Is that your way of trying to inject people with personality?”
“You’re kidding, right? That’s what you have to say?”
“Of course I’m kidding. Anisa. What the fuck? It’s obvious what we need to do.”
“It is?”
“We have to give this whole thing to the police like, basically, yesterday.”
“That’s the last thing I’m going to do.”
“Don’t worry, Anisa, you’re not an accomplice.”
“Actually, I think I am. And anyway, I can’t do that to Shiba.”
“Oh my god, get over your fucking swoon. The woman eats eyeballs for breakfast.”
“It’s more complicated than that—”
My thoughts were interrupted as I turned to the kitchen counter and saw, next to the stove, my glass teapot standing on its pedestal over a tea light to keep it warm. I recognized the small plastic bag next to it as the special blend of tea leaves that Naima made for her clients, generally consisting of things like mugwort and rose, lavender and cinnamon, and a generous sprinkling of fungi.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“It’s to open the gap,” Naima said.
“The gap?”
“The gap in your memories,” she explained. “Did you not notice? That moment you sneak into the keypad door, and then, what? Suddenly you’re back in your room? And then Arjun pretty much telling you that something more happened then.” I saw the flashes once more—a large fridge, a rectangular sink, a looming shadow. She picked up the teapot and lifted the lid, letting me smell the sweet scent of its contents. “There’s something there, something you’re not seeing. This could help you enter that gap.”
“Do you just carry this stuff around with you?” I said, shaking the small plastic bag.
“It’s called synchronicity, darling. The medicine clearly wanted to find you this morning.” She poured each of us a cup. “It’s not very strong. It’ll just relax you enough to return to that moment.”
We sat on the sofa and sipped. After a while, I closed my eyes and followed Naima’s prompts to better visualize the scene slowly unfolding behind my eyelids.