Triptych Read online

  “I have an idea,” Gwen says. She pulls the last of the bread out of Kalp’s hand and tugs him to his feet. She goes over to the woman and Kalp trails behind at a suitable distance.

  Gwen introduces herself to the woman, and Kalp notes that she leaves off her job title. Interesting. She offers the child the bread, breaking it up into small pieces and handing them to him one at a time. She breaks off three in succession and the child dutifully tosses them at the birds. The pigeons swarm and the child laughs.

  “This is Kalp,” Gwen explains to the mother. “He’s never seen a human baby before. Can he give your son bread?”

  Kalp makes a note to himself to ask Gwen how she knew the child was male.

  The woman nods. Kalp crouches beside the child and peers into its — his — face. He is not scared of Kalp. He peers back, blinking, then reaches out and pats Kalp’s cheek. His hand is even wetter, even fatter and more fragile than any other human hand, and it breaks Kalp’s heart a little more. He reaches out and returns the gesture, running his finger pads across the plump cheek, over the fine, smooth hair, being very careful not to scratch with his nails.

  “He is very handsome,” Kalp says truthfully to the mother.

  She smiles.

  There is a whiirrrr-click and Kalp recognizes that sound. Still image-recording devices — cameras — have been present at every event Kalp has attended on Earth. So, he does not have to turn around to know that Basil has removed a camera from his briefcase and is taking this opportunity to capture what Kalp is sure will be a future favoured memory. Kalp wonders if Basil will mount it on the wall beside the kitchen. He hopes so. He would very much like to be part of that house. That home. When he walks through the domicile, he can see Gwen and Basil in each room. Kalp wants someone to be able to see himself there, too.

  Kalp takes the bread from Gwen and breaks off small pieces for the boy. He throws them jubilantly. Kalp joins in. The pigeons coo and click and get closer and closer, until the boy kicks up a foot in a dance of elation, and they all scatter.

  When the bread is all gone, the mother picks up her son and walks away, smiling. She raises her son’s arm for him, mimicking the parting salute by shaking it gently. The boy is laughing.

  Kalp feels like perhaps he should be laughing too.

  Lunch finished and their trash tucked into the provided receptacles, they make their way back to the car.

  ***

  Basil is very excited about the prospect of Kalp’s cooking.

  Basil is usually excited about any and all food in general, but the thought of getting to eat alien food prepared by an alien himself has him eager and wound up. He rushes up and down the aisles of the chain grocery store searching for viable substitute ingredients, reading nutritional guides, and snubbing the lettuce table in the produce department.

  Kalp is rather more distressed, because the green things are too green and the red things are not red enough and none of the herbs smell correct. He wants this meal to be perfect, but he cannot find what he needs. The floor of the supermarket is waxed to a shine, and Kalp cannot seem to grip it well enough to keep from sliding around corners and into shelves. It is mortifying and frustrating and Kalp is hating every second of it.

  After a quick consultation over a bin of sweets that Basil has surreptitiously dipped his hand into, they pay for the three vegetables that were suitable and pile back into the car.

  “I am sorry,” Kalp says, miserably, his toes sore. He is riding in the passenger seat this time, and even the breeze from the open windows and the motion of the vehicle are not enough to cheer him.

  “Not your fault,” Gwen says. “I’m not a fan of big box stores anyway. We know another place.”

  This “other place” is a small outdoor market tucked away in an ancient square at the centre of the village in which they live. As Basil parks the car, he points out the church that was built in 1407, the meeting hall across the square, the pattern in the coloured cobblestones. He is clearly proud of his cultural heritage.

  Kalp asks Gwen where she was born and whether they might visit her home village, and her answer is more complicated. She tells him about deportation ships and horse theft, of a country called Whales and another called Kanada. Kalp gathers she is from the opposite side of the planet, which explains why her accent is so much flatter than the other humans around here. For a while Basil and Gwen playfully fight about the relative merits of Hockey and Football (“real footy, not the sissy-boy crap with padding”), and Kalp is not quite sure which either is, but they sound like sorts of war games.

  She does not invite him to go visit her nation with her. Basil senses his disappointment and holds Kalp back for a moment while Gwen goes to investigate a stand filled with soft bright scarves.

  “Gwen had a really horrid row with her mum,” he says quietly. “She doesn’t talk to her no more, yeah?”

  Kalp comprehends. He is unsure how he feels about the news. He understands the slang word “row,” that it is a very heated argument. He had rows with his mothers and father when he was young. All offspring do. But he also wants to shake Gwen and yell at her, tell her to talk to her mother before a disaster strikes Earth, too. Before it is too late. Kalp’s family died while he had no regrets, and he is lucky. He would be unhappy if Gwen remained miserable about her mother, and then something horrible happened.

  It is also partially selfish, and he can admit that to himself. He wants to see Kanada. He wants to travel to the other side of the planet and see long flat prairies and pointy mountains and the curved waterfall that is famous for simply existing. He wants to see them with Gwen.

  He wants to hear people talk in the same flat cadence that Gwen does and know it as her own, as her accent, her marker of home.

  Basil rubs Kalp’s shoulder in a comforting, friendly way, and tentatively, Kalp raises his hand and returns the gesture. Basil accepts the touch, seems to enjoy it as much as Kalp does, so Kalp leaves his hand there as Basil leads him over to the side of the square with the food stalls.

  Basil tells Kalp about his own family — the torment of being the youngest son with two elder sisters, his mother’s rotten culinary skills, his absent father — while they crush and sniff herbs between their fingers. These sprouts are far more fragrant than the ones in the commercial market, though they are not as visually appealing. Kalp wonders at the inanity of cultivating the visual quality of an herb over its ability to add flavour when all one is going to do is chop it up for the purpose of adding flavour anyway.

  They purchase great handfuls of several different plants, including one that smells like it may produce a beverage Kalp used to enjoy at home, and the woman behind the stall gives them their package wrapped in yesterday’s newspaper. Kalp finds it quaint. The next vendor is selling fruits — big red apples and purple figs and green fuzzy little things that Basil tells him are kiwis and come from the bottom of Earth — but the vendor is not pleased with Kalp’s presence.

  He makes a sharp gesture that Kalp does not understand. Basil, however, does understand it and becomes immediately enraged. He shouts, quickly and in a baser language filled with cusses and slang. The fierce anger flowing from both human men hurts.

  It almost comes to fisticuffs. Kalp has hold of Basil’s arms as best he can, his long fingers wrapped around to restrain the furious human. Gwen comes rushing to their aid and to Kalp’s surprise, is even more vocal in her reprimand of the vendor than Basil, though she helps Kalp keep Basil’s fists in check. Kalp supposes that her vocabulary of impolite words is even more extensive than Basil’s because she says several things he does not understand (but nonetheless perceives the meaning), and then she speaks in an entirely different language: “Cer i grafu! Y sais afiach!”

  The vendor’s reaction is to turn entirely white, then entirely red. Another vendor must come and restrain the first and Kalp presses his ears against the back of his neck, eyes darting to the growing crowd, searching for escape points.
r />   This day really is not going well.

  The sharp bark of an angry man breaks up the crowd and they scatter away like the pigeons in the park. This man is wearing the uniform of the local constabulary and Kalp’s whole posture sinks. They are going to be arrested and thrown into jail for this disturbance!

  But the police man does not yell at his team, he yells at the vendor. He calls the vendor “bigoted” and “slanderous” and tells him to pack up his cart and go home. Kalp is sure that the vendor cannot afford to be closed for business on a fine sunny afternoon, and he supposes that is his punishment for starting the altercation.

  The vendor packs, muttering more obscenities under his breath.

  The police officer sends a few sharp words to his team, as well, and Kalp dutifully bends his head and lifts his palms to catch the reprimand.

  Bemused, the police officer then shakes Kalp’s hand, apologizes for the “display” of the argument, welcomes him to Earth, and strolls away. Kalp is confused. Basil is still puffing through his nose, cheeks mottled and red, and Gwen’s hands keep balling up and flexing alternately on her hips.

  “Finish your shopping, dear,” says the woman from the herb cart. She comes over and pats Kalp’s arm affectionately. “Go on. Don’t take nothin’ old Rudy says seriously. He’s always off on ‘those Pakies’ and the ‘dirty blacks,’ huh! As if he weren’t the boy of immigrants himself. Go on now — there’s a new girl opened down the end of the row I think you’ll fancy.”

  “Thank you,” Kalp says, and he can see that Basil’s breathing has evened out. Kalp is relieved. Basil’s heart has been pattering too fast and it is making Kalp anxious.

  This time, Kalp takes the initiative and tugs on Gwen’s hand. His other hand has the now-crushed herb packet. Kalp leads them to the cart at the end of the row, and Basil follows. Before he is within five feet of the cart, Kalp knows what it holds. He stops at its lip, staring down at the assortment of produce with wide, burning eyes.

  It is all food from his world.

  Some of it is smaller and tougher looking. Some of the fruits are a bit misshapen, some are not vibrant enough, but some are bigger and brighter and fatter than Kalp has ever seen them grow. The woman — barely an adult, Kalp thinks — grins hugely at him.

  “Was ’opin you’d come my way,” she says. “See anythin’ familiar?”

  Kalp is overjoyed!

  “Where did you acquire the seeds?”

  “One o’ yer people was a botanist — snatched thousands of ‘em from her labs. She’s working with my Pa. Got us the best hothouse in the county.”

  Kalp’s eyes burn anew to hear that so much flora has survived.

  Kalp wants one of everything. He wants all of it! But Gwen has only meted out a small amount of tender, enough to buy the required ingredients for one meal. He points out what he’d like, squeezing and sniffing and grinning back at the vendor. For every one he purchases, she gives two for free. He is as flattered by her generosity as he ever has been with any human’s.

  Basil keeps up a steady stream of inquiries, asking what that is, and this, and what does it taste like, and how is it prepared, and can you eat it raw, and can he try one of these right now? Kalp selects the ripest of a small red fruit his people call the osap and the vendor washes it with her bottled water and Basil goes into raptures eating it on the spot. Gwen demands a bite, and is equally as pleased.

  The vendor is happy, because now other shoppers are crowding around. Where the strangeness of foods from other worlds at first kept them away, now they are drawn by Kalp’s ability to explain what it is and how everything is used, by the novelty of the experience, and by Basil’s ringing endorsements.

  Soon the vendor is too busy dropping produce into cloth bags and collecting tender to converse with them, but Kalp is happy to have helped her become prosperous. This is an excellent way to pay her back for her generosity. Kalp, Gwen, and Basil turn to go, and the vendor stops them with a shout:

  “Oi!” she says. “You stop by after closin’ next Friday, mebe, we’ll talk. Mebe I’ll take you up to Pa’s farm, eh? You can give ‘im tips?”

  Kalp bobs his head in the affirmative. He would very much like to see the farm. Kalp is no grower of plants, no cultivator of land, but he has been on farms on his own planet as a child and would like to compare.

  Their last stop is at a vendor’s cart laden with animal carcasses. Kalp’s front teeth are sharp, an evolutionary throwback from carnivore ancestors, and he is eager to peruse the wares. He cannot find exactly what he is looking for, but settles on something called “venison,” which he hopes tastes close enough.

  All the way back to the car, Basil keeps trying to dip his hands into the sack filled with produce to snatch another osap, and Kalp gamely keeps the purchases elevated far above Basil’s sneaking arms. Kalp’s reach greatly exceeds Basil’s.

  Kalp tries out his first laugh, and it seems to be well received.

  ***

  They pack the few leftovers that the dinner meal produces into more plastic containers. These go into a cloth sack, and Basil adds a small loaf of crusty bread, some plastic bottles of juice, and a plastic bag of Gwen’s brownies.

  Basil calls it a “picnic lunch” for tomorrow’s trip to London. After dinner, Basil must adjourn to the office space in his bedroom to complete tasks that must be finished for Monday, and Kalp stands beside Gwen at the sink and carefully dries the dishes and utensils and drinking vessels that she hands him. He learns the lay of the kitchen in putting them away, where each object goes, what is in the cabinets and under the stove and above the refrigerator.

  Kalp feels that the meal was not his best attempt, but he is proud of the results considering his limitations. Basil’s distended tummy and the soft smile on Gwen’s face seem to underscore this achievement.

  Gwen is still staring at the dissipating soap bubbles in the grey water when she speaks. She has been opening and shutting her mouth, drawing breath and sighing for the past ten minutes. Kalp is guessing that she has something important that she wants to say and is working up towards vocalizing it. He remains quiet and waits.

  Finally she says, “How do you feel about what happened today?”

  Kalp is not completely surprised by this inquiry. He carefully arranges the drying towel on its rack on the handle of the stove and formulates his answer. “You and Basil were far more upset than I.”

  “What that man said and did was inexcusable,” Gwen says, and she is weary from her own anger. “And unfortunately, common. For such a bloody enlightened race of people we’re still a big group of back-stabbing bigots.”

  “Not you and Basil.”

  “No,” Gwen allows, and takes her bottom lip between her teeth, biting lightly. Kalp is uncertain about the significance of this gesture, but finds it strangely endearing.

  “Then I am unconcerned,” Kalp says, pulling his attention back to the conversation. “Would he have attacked me physically?”

  “Probably not,” Gwen says. “Men like that are all hot air.”

  The idiom is unfamiliar, but Kalp supposes he understands the meaning all the same. “Are there any who would seek to harm me?”

  “Of course there are!” Gwen says. She still does not turn around. “Fuckers with baseball bats and tasers…did you know there was a riot last week in Dallas?”

  This is not new information — Kalp has been warned that there are those on Earth who are not pleased with his people’s presence. Then again, they are also displeased with the presence of other humans whose skin or moral or spiritual or sexual values do not match their own, so Kalp supposes there is no pleasing everyone. Even among his own people there used to be dissent between the citizens of the different continents. That dissent has fizzled in the wake of the disaster, and they have become one race rather than different nationalities. He hopes Earth’s nationalities will follow suit soon enough, without the impetus of a similarly horrifying tragedy.

  “I am capabl
e of defending myself,” Kalp says. He chooses not to click his nails or bare his teeth to indicate so. He is sure Gwen is more than adequately aware of them. “In the mean time, I will not fear walking in the open street. Some people are unpleasant. But most are not. I enjoyed the child in the park today.”

  Gwen is staring at her water-shrivelled fingertips.

  He reaches out and touches the back of Gwen’s neck, a possessive, caring gesture that he has seen Basil perform. It is very intimate, according to the pornography book, and Kalp’s fingers tremble as he does it.

  Gwen jerks out from under his touch, startled.

  “I’m sorry,” Kalp says softly. His fingers are hot.

  Gwen reaches up, rubs the back of her neck. Her eyes are wide and her pupils open. Her mouth is wet. Kalp wants to try to kiss her, but he fears that this is an inopportune time.

  Instead, he turns to the stove and puts on the kettle. Basil lost the wager to produce a tea Kalp found palatable, but Kalp needs something for his hands to do, to distract his mind, and he feels it would be a caring gesture to bring Basil some of the soothing beverage right now.

  Gwen walks out of the room without saying anything.

  When the kettle whistles, indicating that the water is boiled, Kalp pours out one tea and adds milk, one instant coffee, black, and pours the remainder of the water over a sprig of herbs that he had kept separate from dinner for that very purpose. Basil will be disappointed to learn that Kalp does indeed enjoy tea, just not Earth tea.

  He delivers each cup quietly — one to Basil’s desk, one to Gwen in the courtyard garden, and he returns to the kitchen with his own.

  Carefully, he sets to work separating the seeds he had saved from the fruits and vegetables into plastic bags. He uses a fragrant black writing utensil to label them. He plans to purchase potting soil and little tin buckets, like the herb garden in the neighbour’s courtyard, to grow his own osap and shric and tomatoes.

  ***

  The stress of yesterday and the discomfort of the incident in the kitchen seem forgotten in the bustle of trying to get out the door the next morning. Kalp feels wonderful — his nest is perfect and the ache in his back has vanished. He is conscious first, so he boils the kettle and starts the coffee maker gurgling, and then goes back upstairs to clean himself and change out of his pyjamas. While he is walking past Gwen and Basil’s door, he hears Basil saying “wakey wakey, Sleeping Beauty.”