One More Time by Damien Leith Page A

Akio that she would replace it. I was overcome by a rush of embarrassment, then anger. It wasn’t the first time that day that Akio had acted insultingly with a Nepalese person. The Nepalese I’d met were humble, modest people. Akio wasn’t in any way sensitive to his environment, I thought. He knew this woman’s circumstances, and a quick glance around the interior of her teahouse would tell anyone that this family wasn’t in a position to be throwing food away; it just wasn’t an option.
    ‘Did you really have to complain about the custard?’ I whispered. ‘It wasn’t that bad.’
    ‘I no like,’ he replied, screwing up his face for effect.
    ‘But you’d eaten nearly all of it!’ I continued. ‘You had hardly any left!’
    ‘But I no like, not so good-o. Better I complain so next time she make much better.’ Akio remained entirely focused as he spoke, exhibiting no aggression in his words; he was simply stating what he believed to be true.
    My brother John had been just like this when we were kids. As I finished off the food that remained on myplate, I thought of those childish fusses—skirmishes that evolved from thin air and almost always resulted in a full-blown argument. But fighting with John had never gone in my favour. I would want to shout the issue out, while John would take the calm approach, uttering only what was necessary and, mostly, what was correct. And the calmer he was, the more frustrated I became—which only ended up handing him the ultimate blow: ‘Calm down, you’re acting like a kid, you’re acting like your baby brother Sam.’ Those words were decisive and didn’t leave an opening for a comeback.
    John knew that the only thing I ever wanted when I was a kid was to be an adult. While everybody else hoped to become a fireman or a pilot when they were older, I just wanted to be Adult. Maybe it was because my parents always looked so secure to me. Adulthood seemed to allow them the opportunity to have what they wanted, when they wanted it, and to be entirely safe in their unity. The unending bills, the secret arguments, the drudge of working every day to get the kids through school and to buy the week’s groceries—these were always pushed out of sight, so I could live with the notion that it all became easier when you got older.
    Jagan returned with Akio’s custard, which he received with a jovial, ‘Thank-o you.’ She began preparing her young children for bed. Mani and I both finished eating, and while he sat daydreaming, I began my fifth unsuccessful game of solitaire.
    There was a loud knock on the front door. Everybody knew who it was, but still we each looked around in the direction of the door, hoping that it might be somebody different. It wasn’t. He let himself in, bringing with him a stinging gust of cool night air which dissipated slowly as the door shut behind him. Jagan calmly ushered her children out of the room towards the kitchen, and Mani, Akio and I sat nervously, waiting to see what would unfold.
    The man looked at us individually for a few moments. We each remained silent. Abruptly he turned to Mani and, with a cheerful smile, asked if he could sit down.
    ‘Don’t worry about this—’ He placed his machine gun on the floor beside him. ‘It is not such a safe time for people like me now. We need protection.’ How strangely the atmosphere in the room had been transformed: with his arrival came the bleakness of the night that up until then we’d been so well sheltered from.
    ‘Okay,’ he sighed resignedly. ‘I said I would come tonight and so here I am—I am an honest man.’ His words seemed to dangle expectantly in the air, as though they were expecting some kind of rebuttal; instead they scrambled away unmet. Each person was waiting to see what the other was going to do.
    Mani broke the tension, saying something to the man in Nepali. Akio and I watched. The two men talked almost normally with one another. This was comforting. There didn’t