With the Fading Sunset

She opened her eyes, her hands cocooned around the microphone at her lips as words flowed softly from her mouth into its metal face. Around her, her voice floated into the night, boosted by speakers strategically placed in the garden.

Somebody whooped and clapped, and she smiled a secretive, seductive smile, one that appeared knowing and personal, her eyes finding the source in the sea of tables laid out below her. Truthfully, she didn’t know who the cheer had come from, or if it was the same person who was now clapping, but this was the person Ailsa became when she was on stage – somebody mysterious who smiled equally mysterious smiles.

She came to the part of the song where the music itself took lead, and she paused to let the band behind her play, casting her eyes over the diners again. Next to the stage was a tree that stretched one of its longer branches protectively over the stage, and from this same branch hung some small stage lights. It was these very same stage lights that made it harder to distinguish faces from the crowd. It was easier that way, honestly. She wasn’t sure she would have been able to get on stage if she had clearly been able to see all the faces before her. Singing like this, blindly, was more freeing. And anyway, Ailsa knew there was no one here she would know.

Above the round tables in front of her, and the orange light they bathed in, the night sky crouched, stars winking beguilingly at Ailsa as though returning her mysterious stage smile.

She faced the people once more, her mouth opening as the song drew to its close. The first stanza was repeated, sung in almost a whisper. Her eyes closed once more and she pictured herself as enticing them into leaning forward, hanging on her every word…

And then it was over, and they were all clapping gamely. Nobody called her name because they didn’t know who she was. Ailsa smiled; her hostess smile, it was a different smile altogether. She side-stepped and Remy materialised from her side, tall and curvy with dark smooth skin that shone under the stage lighting. She had beautiful curly hair that hung halfway down her back – not her own, but it looked so natural on Remy that it might as well have been. She was dressed in black, but unlike the rest of the people working here tonight, Remy’s black attire – an off-shoulder bandage dress – glittered. Just as it was supposed to really, because she was the star.

Ailsa descended the two steps from the stage. Mada, the head waiter, was waiting there for her, a round tray flattened against the side of his body. He was tall and dark, with an egg-shaped face that reminded her of Allen from The Journey of Allen Strange, a show she used to watch when she was little. Well, Mada’s physical resemblance did not extend to his smaller nose, thinner lips and darker skin. He carried himself with a pensive solemnity, as if to boast of his penchant for being seen and not heard. To Ailsa, he was like that metaphor about a duck; there was a calm, unruffled appearance on the surface, but underneath, feet paddled furiously away.

“Any problems?” Ailsa asked him. He shook his head silently, and Ailsa nodded. Together, they surveyed the six tables in front of them. A hand was raised, and Mada set off to attend to the caller. Ailsa watched him go, and quickly scanned the rest of the tables. Servers weaved back and forth between them; disappearing and reappearing holding empty and full trays from the patio on the main building and the garden tables.

She made her way to the booth on the patio, stopping to check on three of the tables on her way. It was further from the stage but offered a much better view of the restaurant. It was a vantage point from which she could observe the garden and the patio – twelve tables altogether – without needing to leave her roost. If someone raised their hand or called for attention, she would see. When diners arrived, she would welcome them to Marina’s with her hostess smile and suggest a table for them. If there was need for a reservation to be made, she would answer the phone and mark it down in the planner on the monitor in front of her; or cross-check when a party arrived claiming to have made one.

Occasionally, Ailsa would leave the booth and walk around the garden, approaching tables and asking if they were okay, and how the food was. She handled small issues like food needing to be sent back to the kitchen, but anything else was referred to the manager, Mikhail, a business partner of her uncle’s. All this was what she had been doing most nights of her holidays, and it was a job she had not needed to interview for because Marina’s was owned by her family. Her parents were by and large silent partners, but they owned it jointly with her uncle James (who was the face of Marina’s and therefore more active in its day to day running) and Mikhail Faruk. This particular night coincided with the end of the month. The pantry was stocked, and the wallets brimmed with crisp bank notes eager to be spent.

The night was warm, but it was that lovely time of the year between the bitter cold and unbearable heat. Though the weather had only just started to turn, the mosquitos were singing. On every table burned citronella candles, and their citrusy smell lingered under that of the different foods being prepared and consumed.

All these smells mingled with the sounds – there were knives and forks scraping plates, glasses knocking tables as they were put down, here and there a burst of laughter interrupted the buzz of many conversations at once. Over that all, Remy and the band boomed something jazzy; Nina Simone maybe.

Ailsa’s eyes settled on a table at random, and she watched some woman flick her hair over her shoulder. Her tresses - probably blonde – shone orange under the lighting. Someone barked a laugh at the next table, flicking a cigarette into an ashtray. The embers seemed to wink frivolously at Ailsa as they fell.

Ailsa tuned out the noise and reached for her phone to check the time, but the night was only about halfway through. And yet every table was occupied – the last having gone to a reservation made for a large party under the name Banda. She glanced at the table now, out on the end of the patio furthest from the booth. It was evenly split between men and women, and they were on the brink of rowdy, but they seemed to be having a good time. She decided it was a birthday dinner being celebrated amongst old friends.

The only other reservation for that night was Mylonas, and it was for a table of six, also on the patio, but with a prime view of the stage. Ailsa squinted at the name, trying to guess its origin. Middle-Eastern maybe? She looked over at the table. They looked Middle-Eastern, and all six were men. Perhaps they were just having a guys’ night out.

A hand rose, like a question mark, and she started towards a table occupied by two couples, presumably on a double date. Working her way around diners, she paused as a waitress materialised before the patrons, smile at the ready. She was a recent hire, and Ailsa was yet to learn her name. However, under Mada’s direction the girl had grasped the ropes well enough for his liking. Though she trusted his judgement, Ailsa watched the waitress anyway, just in case. Someone touched her elbow.

“Ailsa?”

She reminded herself to smile her hostess smile, and turned.

Even after all this time, even with the soft lighting, she recognised him immediately. He was older, and looked more of a man now, but she recognised him still.

“Andrei.”

He smiled. “Hi.”

Andrei Antonopoulos. In High-School, one of her friends - she couldn’t remember which - had coined the codename ‘The battery’ for him, after his initials, AA. This title had been used many times to discuss Andrei at length countless times over Ailsa’s six years in high school, for there was always, always always someone who had a crush on him.

He wasn’t drop dead gorgeous. Andrei had simple features really; small, full lips and a large, not-unattractive nose. He had a sandy hair bleached blonde from hours spent in the sun, and a perpetual, perfectly even tan. However, his eyes had always been the brightest blue, as if to boast his Greek heritage, for this was the kind of blue you saw only in pictures of Greek islands and the waters that surrounded them. The same blue, Ailsa thought, that the Greeks had tried to encapsulate when they had chosen the colour of their flag. It was more than just a colour; it was a feeling. For Andrei it was an effortless… confidence. An assurance that somehow, things would always work out. - Not through hard work and determination, but with the ease of those blue Greek waves as they lapped against tranquil Greek beaches under a cloudless Greek sky. To Ailsa, it was simply privilege, and one could always be sure of oneself when they had that.

They had grown up together, but Ailsa thought of herself like a parallel line when it came to certain people. They could be the same age and go to the same schools and know all the same people, but their paths would never really meet. Andrei was definitely one of them. At best, they had been acquainted. In school, he was athletic and smart, and as a golden boy his name had graced many a sporting trophy. She was also smart, so they had this in common, but that was all. Ailsa was more into drama and the arts, but sporting activities were an area she had never enjoyed. She still didn’t.

She thought about that now, about how she hadn’t exercised in a year and she had gained weight since high school all those years ago.

Would he notice? She thought. Of course, he would. She had never been thin to begin with, even back then. He probably thought she was gargantuan now. Her cheeks warmed.

She wanted to know what he was doing here, why he was here… they had grown up in Blantyre and if they had met there, she wouldn’t have been too surprised. The moment you walked out of the house you could swing a bag and hit five people you knew. It was a small city. But Lilongwe was five hours away. Not a large city by the standards of more developed countries but large in comparison to Blantyre. It was more spread out too. You could go out and about day after day, going weeks without meeting a single soul you recognised.

- Anyway, people travelled. It wasn’t against the law, she surmised.

But still, the last Instagram post of his had placed him somewhere in Europe - if she remembered correctly. One of those places her parents were too African to spend money travelling to unless it was for educational or occupational purposes. Holidays for them meant adventures confined to the borders of their home country. Andrei was supposed to be in one of those countries Ailsa only day-dreamed about.

They searched for things to say. This was another thing Ailsa hated about running into people she knew from high school - the awkward, stilted conversation they always seemed intent on having. It seemed to her that just because you shared some experiences did not mean you were obliged to rehash them.

Finally, Andrei said, “You were really good up there. We watched you singing.”

“Thanks,”

He smiled again, and Ailsa realised she would have to give more than one-word responses to him. He scratched absently at an exposed forearm. He was wearing brown slacks and the long-sleeves on his black shirt had been pushed back.

“Are you here with friends?” Andrei asked. She stepped closer so he wouldn’t have to speak so loudly.

“No, I’m… the hostess.” She could see him trying not to look surprised, so she added, “I’m just helping out while we’re on break.”

“Oh, this is your family’s place, right?” Andrei sounded like he had just remembered. Even then, he spoke with a level of self-assurance that felt alien to Ailsa. Rather, it was she that gave a sheepish smile, as though it were her fault that he had forgotten the place was partly owned by her family.

“Are you here with friends?” Ailsa asked, grasping for conversation points.

“Some friends, some family…” He gestured over his shoulder at the Mylonas party she had been thinking about just a couple of minutes ago. “It’s more a business dinner really.” He concluded. she nodded once more.

“Okay, well,” she started to make her exit, the usual pleasantries having been exchanged.

“Would you want to come and have a drink with us?” Andrei asked, stopping her. “We could catch up. They really liked your song.” She gave him a long look, trying to decipher the slightly hopeful expression on his face. She didn’t say anything for a long moment, but then she understood. People did this sometimes, thinking they would get a discount on the bill or a free round of drinks or something. What would she even look like, standing there amongst this group of Greek men? Making small talk? It was either a joke at her expense, or he was just being polite, perhaps trying to get something out of it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ailsa responded. She saw the look of confusion cross his face, but her mind was already made up, and so she missed the slight disappointment that followed. “Thanks though.”

The night wore on and Ailsa watched the people trickle out, until it was closing time and all that was left was a couple sitting way out in the garden, heads intimately bowed together as though they weren’t already sitting too close together for a public place. Ailsa had approached them earlier, to see how they were doing. The man was older, perhaps middle aged, and a wedding band flashed in the light as he reached for his Carlsberg. The girl, possibly a little younger than Ailsa (it was difficult to tell with all the makeup caked on her face), was dressed in a yellow dress that hugged her body, like a finger dipped in wax. Ailsa had ignored the fact that she had no ring and had instead pretended they were a couple in love.

The only other patrons were a group of three men sitting at the bar, each dressed in a football jersey that struggled over their potbellies. Whether they had arrived together or bonded in their drunken states was debatable, but every other moment, they all laughed uproariously. They were in just the right condition to leave an overly generous tip. Aware of this very fact, Sekani, the bartender, watched them with a gleam in his eye and a smirk to match, his arms folded over his chest as he leaned against the back counter of the bar.

Ailsa sighed. Her least favourite thing to do was to invite people to leave, just as she had to do now. It was so painfully awkward. But there was Mada, as dependable as ever, crossing the garden to speak to the lovers under the tree. Sekani glanced at Mada, and then stepped forward to speak to the trio at his station.

It was time to go.

Having been waved off by uncle James, Ailsa climbed into her little green Nissan March and made the short 5-minute journey home.

When she let herself into the house, it was silent, and most of the lights had already been turned off, save for the one in the corridor just off the front door. She switched it off, made sure the door was securely locked and left her shoes there, where the maid was sure to retrieve them for her the next morning.

She stopped one door before her own, and silently opened it, peering in as one would look in on a sleeping child. The curtains were drawn. The mattress was bare and when she closed her eyes, she inhaled deeply. The room, which had once smelled of someone, now smelled of nothing. She opened her eyes, and the cupboards stared back at her. They seemed to be telling her that nothing and no one was there, and this was how it had always been.

Ailsa allowed herself to imagine a figure there, on the bed, curled up in sleep… their form rising and falling with steady breathing that only slumber could afford. Quickly, she shut the door, her throat tightening.

But she would not cry. She was used to this feeling now.

“Goodnight.” She whispered, to the closed door.

It said nothing back.

That was grief for you.

When she woke in the morning, Ailsa stared at the ceiling for a while, thinking about the dream she had been having. In it, she had forgotten to wear pants, and there were guests in her house and her father had been very upset about it all. Ailsa had kept explaining that she had simply forgotten, but somehow it was her fault for not wearing pants that the guests had forgotten to bring cake with them. The funny thing was, she could see this forgotten cake. It was covered in icing as blue as the Greek flag, for the guests were in fact, Greek.

Greek.

Ailsa’s brow furrowed. She reached for her phone, and ignoring her other notifications, opened her Instagram. Already feeling silly, she typed his name in the search bar. There was his username, first in the results.

DiscovertheIris.

Under this, his full name. She was only curious. She clicked, and there was Andrei’s face, from a multitude of angles in a grid of pictures. He had so many followers. The number of people he followed was considerably dwarfed by the number of people following him. People who had managed to do this very thing mystified Ailsa; her own followers were perpetually a couple dozen or so less than the people she followed, no matter what she did.

Once, she had even tried to unfollow several dozen people in an attempt to even things out, but somehow, it hadn’t stuck, and the next day she found herself more or less back where she had started.

She clicked on the third most recent picture of his. He was on a boat. The location was tagged as Petani Beach, and the clear blue water winked out at her from over Andrei’s shoulder. He was smiling an untroubled smile – who wouldn’t, in a place like this, where the sky was as blue as the waters below it? – One hand combing through his effortlessly dishevelled hair, almost self-consciously. His olive skin was set off attractively by the brilliant white V-neck he wore, but the accessory that caught Ailsa’s eye was the long-haired blonde next to him. She wore a simple black bikini and a was mid-laugh, her light eyes on Andrei. Ailsa’s cheeks warmed.

They could have been cousins, they could have been friends, they could have been together. Ailsa didn’t know what they were, but these were the sort of people that existed in Andrei’s world. Beautiful thin ones with blonde hair and perfect laughs.

There was a theory that life was one giant simulation, and that some of the people in our lives were merely computer-generated space fillers, meant to add to the illusion of it all. She imagined he thought of her as one of these – someone who was in his classes and would always be there, filling a space. When he went home, she ceased to exist, and had no real family or existence outside of enhancing his experience in the world.

Ailsa had had a great time in high school, but her and Andrei’s experiences seemed to differ so much that this was what she had come to conclude of it all. Why would he suddenly notice her now? When his world was full of people like the blonde girl – as it should be? She closed the picture, returned to her home page, and scrolled through other people’s weekend posts. Andrei was definitely just being friendly yesterday. That was the sort of person he had always been; “a nice, well rounded boy,” as her mother would say.

Ailsa’s mum – a doctor – had actually once told her that in her experience, Greeks were racist, and were notorious for using all a manner of slurs when they became frustrated with hospital staff.

Andrei didn’t really seem to fall into this generalisation, Ailsa thought. But then again, she really didn’t know him well enough to say. The truth was, you could never really know someone. All you had were assumptions, and as she had so painfully learned, these could always be wrong. But even if she didn’t know who Andrei really was, she was sure he knew who he was.

But who is Ailsa?

This thought stemmed from a day that had become one of those memories that stick with you forever. This was despite the fact that there was nothing at all particular about it.

They were sitting outside in that mild time of the year between the rainy season and the winter. The sun wasn’t too hot, but still, Ailsa and her aunt had taken their white ARKAY plastic chairs and made sure to set them under a tree, because you could never be too sure with the African sun.

Colourism was a tricky issue. Her mum always said “Kuyela si kukongola” or, “being light-skinned didn’t mean you were beautiful” but still, one of the first things anyone seemed to notice about you if they hadn’t seen you for a while was your skin tone or your weight. If you’d gotten darker, they’d say you’d stopped taking care of yourself. If you’d lost weight and gotten darker, you were thought to be in financial distress or sick. Mentally, physically, spiritually, whatever, you were clearly not well.

At least if you’d gained weight, it would simply mean you were eating well. Then again, you could be eating too well… having been told this before, Ailsa smiled to herself. It was true of every country, but especially of Malawi; you were perpetually subject to someone’s appraisal and conclusions, no matter how factual.

Their house at the time, had sat on top of a small hill in Nyambadwe. Looking over the houses below them that scaled the crest of the hill as easily as the scraggly dry grass around their feet, her aunt had asked, “Who is Ailsa?”

She hadn’t asked because she’d wanted to know – rather, this was a rhetorical question with an illustrative objective. This question was posed in the middle of a lengthy speech that was on a winding journey to some point or the other, (perhaps about being assertive) but Ailsa hadn’t really been listening.

Her aunt, (a short woman with the sort of demeanour only attained when one had accumulated x-Number of years’ experience as an African auntie) had a penchant for making lengthy speeches about a lot of things. Assertiveness, God, independence and education were particular favourites of hers. And you needn’t be the intended target audience; all you had to do was be in her immediate vicinity. Without warning she’d start, and you wouldn’t realise you were party to one of her famous speeches until you were quite a long way into it and the chance to escape had slipped through your fingers before you knew what was happening.

But the question stood out to Ailsa, cutting through her musings on colourism and weight gain.

“Who is Ailsa?”

Before Ailsa could open her mouth to respond, her aunt had answered for her, meandering for some time over the story of how Ailsa had gotten her rather unusual name, (“Did you know your dad named you after his first boss’s wife? A very difficult woman!”). Eventually, her aunt had come to conclude her spiel. Sometimes Ailsa wished she had listened more carefully, because here she was, years later, asking herself the same question.

There was a time when she’d known – or thought she had. She was seventeen and about to graduate high school and go to college and get her degree and get married and have children. She could say all in one breath, no full-stops, no pauses. She knew what she liked and didn’t like and still childishly believed that when you loved someone you stayed together and married them and sailed off in your vessel of normalcy into therestofyourlife. One word, whatever it meant.

She had believed that for her, anything was possible. Not everything, but you know, anything.

Now when she asked herself “Who is Ailsa?” she found, to her astonishment, that she did not know.

There she was, at a college she didn’t like, studying something she wasn’t sure about, and she hadn’t the faintest idea who Ailsa was or where she fit in or anything really. Somewhere on the trek into her twenties, she had lost that surety.

No. Not somewhere, but there. After she left high-school. After they moved to Lilongwe. After she started college. Her aunt had slipped silently away from them all while they slept, and when Ailsa woke the next morning it was to a sharp sound that plunged its hand through the depths of her fatigue and grasped her tightly with its fingers, dragging her to an upright position in her bed.

She had never heard anything like it. It was… blood-curdling? Bone chilling? Heart-shattering? It was the worst thing she had ever heard. Over a year later, she had yet to find the words to describe it.

But where would she have heard that sound? Unlike her mother, Ailsa had never tried to rouse a sibling who would never wake. She would never know that this was how it felt, and that this guttural, devastating, animalistic scream was the only sound you could make.

It seemed to her that since then, she didn’t know who she was. Not when death could, in the quietest manner, simply steal someone away from you. There was no more degree, marriage and restofyourlife. There was just uncertainty.

Before, death had always visited other people, so she was acquainted with it. It was so-and-so’s cousin. This-and-that’s dad. What’s-her-her-name’s neighbour.

Ailsa did not exude an air reminiscent of the sandy beaches of her home country, nor were her deep brown eyes reflected on its flag. She had gone to good schools and been well educated, same as Andrei. However, she had done so without life’s perpetual silent assurance that things would simply sort themselves out. She had to fret over them and work hard and be determined. Death now wordlessly intoned that one day, it could and would take someone else. Anyone else.

Putting her phone down, Ailsa thought about the empty room next to her own, ignoring the hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach. The only time she could shake the shadow of uncertainty was when she was on that stage, singing to people she didn’t know and smiling her mysterious smile. She remembered the way she felt when she wore that smile, and it was small, but it was enough to get her to throw her legs over the edge of the bed and rise to greet the day as though it was someone she had known in high school.