The Other Hand

you, anyway.”
    “I have been in your country two years. I learned your language and I learned your rules. I am more like you than me now.”
    Lawrence laughed down his nose again. “I really don’t think you’re anything like me,” he said.
    He sat down at the kitchen table again, and held his head in his hands. “I’m a shit,” he said. “I’m a loser, and you’ve got me over a barrel.”
    He looked up at me. “You won’t really tell Linda, will you?”
    His eyes were exhausted. I sighed and sat down opposite him.
    “We should be friends, Lawrence.”
    He laughed. “I’ve just admitted to you that I’d sell you down the river if I could. You’re the brave little refugee girl, and I’m the selfish bastard. I think our roles here are pretty clearly delineated, don’t you?”
    I shook my head. “I am selfish too, you know.”
    “No, you’re really not.”
    “Now you think I’m a sweet little girl, do you? In your mind you still don’t think I really exist. It does not occur to you that I can be clever, like a white person. That I can be selfish, like a white person.”
    I realized I was so angry I was shouting. Lawrence just laughed at me.
    “Selfish! You? Took the last biscuit out of the tin, did you? Left the top off Sarah’s toothpaste?”
    “I left Sarah’s husband hanging in the air,” I said.
    Lawrence stared at me. “What?”
    I swallowed more tea, but it was too cold now and I put the mug down on the table. The light in the kitchen was cooling too. I watched the glow fade from all the objects in the room, and I felt the cold flow into my bones. All of the anger went out of me.
    “Lawrence?”
    “Yes?”
    “Maybe it is better that I go somewhere else.”
    “Stop. Wait. What did you just tell me?”
    “Maybe you were right. Maybe it is better for Sarah and better for Charlie and better for you if I am not here. I could just run away. I am good at running, Lawrence.”
    “Shut up,” said Lawrence quietly. He gripped my wrist.
    “Stop it! That hurts!”
    “Then tell me what you’ve done.”
    “I do not want to tell you. I am frightened now.”
    “Me too. Talk.”
    I held on to the edge of the table and I breathed in and out against my fear. “Sarah said it was strange that I came on the day of Andrew’s funeral.”
    “Yes?”
    “It was not a coincidence.”
    Lawrence let go of my arm and he stood up quickly and he put his hands on the back of his neck. He went to the kitchen window and stared out for a long time. Then he turned back to me. “What happened ?” he whispered.
    “I don’t think I should tell you. I shouldn’t have said anything. I was angry.”
    “Tell me.”
    I looked down at the backs of my hands. I realized that I did want to tell someone, and I knew I could never tell Sarah. I looked up at him.
    “I telephoned Andrew on the morning they let me out of the immigration detention center. I told him I was coming.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Then I walked here from the immigration detention center. I came in two days. I hid in the garden.” I pointed through the window. “There,” I said, “behind that bush where the cat is. Then I waited. I did not know what I wanted to do. I think I wanted to say thank you to Sarah for saving me, but also I wanted to punish Andrew for letting my sister be killed. And I did not know how to do either of these things, so I waited. I waited for two days and two nights and I did not have anything to eat, so I came out when it was dark and I ate the seeds from the bird feeder and I drank the water from the tap on the outside of the house. In the daytime I watched through the windows of the house, and I listened when they came out into the garden. I saw how Andrew talked to Sarah and Charlie. He was terrible. He was angry all the time. He would not play with Charlie. When Sarah talked, he just shrugged his shoulders or he shouted at her. But when he was alone, he did not stop shrugging or shouting. He would stand all alone at the end of the garden and talk to himself, and sometimes he would shout at himself, or hit himself on the head with the side of his fist, like this. He cried a lot. Sometimes he would fall down to his knees in the garden and weep for an hour. This is when I realized he was full of evil spirits.”
    “He was clinically depressed. It was very hard for Sarah.”
    “I think it was very hard for him too. I watched him for a long time. One time when he was weeping I watched him too hard and I forgot