Where Bones Dance: An English Girlhood, An African War

Hole

239 Hole H e almost starved to death, poor little chap. They wouldn’t let me breastfeed him. In those days they thought it was healthier to bottle feed but Bill didn’t think so, did you? You didn’t want that crummy bottled milk. You lost so much weight they put you in the incubator. If Dr. Braun hadn’t come and seen you, you would have died. He took one look and said, ‘We have to get them out of here.’ He took you, and Dad got all my stuff and we went scurrying out before anyone could stop us. I’ve never been so glad to get home. The hospital was furious. I had milk fever because they wouldn’t let me feed you, so we fed you Carnation milk and you lapped it up. You got positively pudgy.” Bill scowls but he is pleased. My mother is twirling a yellow paper rose with a green stem between her fingers. Something in my belly turns and turns like bath water sucking down the drain. It’s pulling something in my head. The yellow petals are faded and wire is sticking through the green paper. My mother is looking at me. “You weren’t jealous at all. You loved him right away. You wanted to play all the time. I’d come in 240 and find you just standing there looking at him while he was asleep and I’d ask you what you were doing and you’d say you were waiting for him to wake up.” “Granny was there, wasn’t she?” “Yes, she came and looked after you.” Under the apple tree where the swing was, the grass was covered in white petals. And one day a squirrel sat on the sideboard holding a walnut. He sat in a sunbeam and his fur was orange. These are my memories. She doesn’t know them. When she tells stories I don’t know if I am remembering what happened really or just what she said when she told the story the last time, but sometimes when I can see a picture in my mind and everything looks big, I think I remember. And sometimes it isn’t the kind of thing anybody tells stories about, like when I was on the swing and the wind was blowing my dress out in front of me, big and round, and apple petals were landing on me like butterflies and I heard the car door slam and my father called, “Anna,” and I looked at him where he was standing by the gate and the chain of the swing went back and forth across him like a windshield wiper. I know it was when my mother came back from the hospital but I don’t remember going to him and I don’t remember seeing my brother for the first time. I want to remember. I want to remember for myself. I want to remember everything that ever happened . Then I could tell it in a story and everything would be true. It wouldn’t have any holes in it. It would be huge and true and fine and strong, like a parachute made of silk. My mother is still talking and holding the rose. Her voice is buzzing. She is yellow and black, a bee pushing its head inside the flower. The black stripes are growing and growing. My mouth is slimy. It’s full of spit now but I can’t swallow. People are laughing in another room. That’s not true. There aren’t any people. Only my mother and my brother and my father and C y c l e 3 I. My father is reading the newspaper. I go down to the lagoon. I sit under the canna lilies. The flowers are dark red and the leaves have dark red veins. I look at the edge of the lagoon. I think, I am like Daniel. I have a photographic memory. I take a photograph of the pebbles at the edge of the lagoon and I look at it. The pebbles look like bones. Bill nearly starved but the doctor saved him. I starved my twin to death. I ate everything. He couldn’t even cry. He sat in a corner and rocked. I can see the walls. They are green, dark bluey green all the way to the floor. I’m...