The Other Hand

gouged my thumbs into the skin beneath my lashes. If I couldn’t show the world grief, at least I would show the world what it did to your eyes.
    Finally I went downstairs and stared at Little Bee. She was still sitting there on the sofa, her eyes closed, her head propped on the cushions. I coughed, and she snapped awake. Brown eyes, orange patterned silk cushions. She blinked at me and I stared at her, with the mud still caking her trainers. I felt nothing.
    “Why did you come here?” I said.
    “I did not have any other place to go. The only people I know in this country are you and Andrew.”
    “You hardly know us. We met, that’s all.”
    Little Bee shrugged.
    “You and Andrew are the only ones I met,” she said.
    “Andrew is dead. We are going to bury him this morning.”
    Little Bee just blinked at me, glazedly.
    “Do you understand?” I said. “My husband died. We are going to have a funeral. It’s a kind of ceremony. In a church. It’s what we do in this country.”
    Little Bee nodded.
    “I know what you do in this country,” she said.
    There was something in her voice—so old, so tired—that terrified me. That was when the door knocker sounded again and Charlie answered the door to the undertaker and called down the hallway, Mummy, it’s Bruce Wayne!
    “Run out and play in the garden, darling.”
    “But Mummy! I want to see Bruce Wayne.”
    “ Please, darling. Just go.”
    When I came to the door, the undertaker glanced at the stump of my finger. People generally do, but rarely with that professional gaze that notes: Left hand, second finger, first and second phalanx, yes, we could fix that with a wax prosthetic, a slender one, with a light Caucasian flesh tone, and we could use Kryolan foundation to cover the join, and we could fold the right hand over the left in the coffin, and Bob would be your mother’s brother, madam.
    I was thinking, Clever undertaker. If only I was dead, you could make a whole woman out of me.
    “My deepest condolences, madam. We are ready for you whenever you feel ready to come.”
    “Thank you. I’ll just get my son and my…well. My friend.”
    I watched the undertaker ignoring the smell of gin on my breath. He looked back at me. There was a small scar on his forehead. His nose was flattened and skewed. His face registered nothing. It was as blank as my mind.
    “Take all the time you need, madam.”
    I went out into the back garden. Batman was digging away at something under the roses. I went over to him. He had a trowel and he was lifting a dandelion, pulling its root to the tip. Our resident robin was hungry and he watched from six yards away. Batman raised the dandelion from the soil and brought it close to examine its root. Kneeling, he looked up at me.
    “Is this a weed, Mummy?” he said.
    “Yes darling. Next time, if you’re not sure, ask before you dig it up.”
    Batman shrugged.
    “Shall I put it in the wild patch?” he said.
    I nodded, and Batman carried the dandelion over to a small part of the garden where Andrew had given a home to such rascals, in the hope that they would attract butterflies and bees. In our small garden I have made a wild place to remind me of chaos, Andrew once wrote in his column. Our modern lives are too ordered, too antiseptic.
    That had been before Africa.
    Batman bedded in the dandelion among the nettles.
    “Mummy, is weeds baddies?”
    I said that it depended if you were a boy or a butterfly. Batman rolled his eyes, like a newsman interviewing an equivocating politician. I couldn’t help smiling.
    “Who is that woman on the sofa, Mummy?”
    “Her name is Little Bee.”
    “That’s a funny name.”
    “Not if you’re a bee.”
    “But she isn’t a bee.”
    “No. She’s a person. She’s from a country called Nigeria.”
    “Mmm. Is she a goody?”
    I stood up straight.
    “We have to go now darling,” I said. “The undertaker is here to collect us.”
    “Bruce Wayne?”
    “Yes.”
    “Is we going to the bat cave?”
    “ Are we going to the bat cave.”
    “Are we?”
    “Sort of.”
    “Hmm. I is coming in a minute.”
    I felt the perspiration starting on my back. I had on a graywoolen suit and a hat that was not black but a late-evening nod to it. It didn’t scorn tradition, but nor had it entirely submitted to darkness. Folded up over the hat was a black veil, ready to bring down when the right moment came. I hoped someone would tell me when that was.
    I wore navy-blue gloves, which were