She Will Build Him a City Read Online Free Page B

plastic lap a seat into which Baby crawls.
    ~
    Look, look, what can you see? On the street, more babies.
    Because when Baby woke up, let’s call him Baby One because he’s the first one to wake up, he is the one the story begins with, maybe he sends a thought-message to other babies. This message wakes them up, too, and all of them tiptoe out of their homes, their parents fast asleep.
    And they walk towards The Mall.
    Big babies, small babies, boy babies, girl babies, sleepy babies, wake-up babies.
    Babies like you, babies unlike you.
    They are all here.
    To lie down on the steps right at the entrance to The Mall.
    ~
    And, then, a strange thing happens.
    All the babies stand up. And, led by Baby One, they walk through the glass door of The Mall.
    Like light, like sound.
    Like the night breeze that blows the heat around.
    They are inside The Mall.
    All lights are out, all shops are closed but so powerful and so big are The Mall’s air conditioners that even after they have been switched off for more than six hours, the air inside is still cool.
    The babies feel it in their face, in their hair, and they smile.
    The babies are happy.
    ~
    ‘Hush,’ says Baby One. ‘Let’s get to sleep without making any noise, no talking, the security guards are asleep.’
    They lie down, one by one, on the cold, tiled floor.
    ‘I will stay up,’ says a baby who cannot sleep. ‘Because I slept in the afternoon.’
    ‘OK,’ says Baby One, ‘then you be our Alarm Clock Baby. When the power’s back, when you see the streetlights switch on, you wake us up.’
    ‘Sure, that sounds wonderful,’ says Baby Who Slept In The Afternoon who now has a new name, Alarm Clock Baby.
    ‘I will wake all of you up so that we can return to our homes before our parents wake up so that they do not need to worry,’ says Alarm Clock Baby.
    ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ all babies sing in a chorus.
    ‘Hush,’ says Baby One.
    The babies sleep.
    The Mall sleeps.
    Alarm Clock Baby is the only one up.
    Goodnight, The Mall.
    Goodnight, babies.

WOMAN
    Nobel Prize
     
    On the way here, you don’t say a word, your eyes are closed, you sit still, you only move with each shudder of the taxi van as its wheels spin, lurch over the broken road. Your head rests against the window pane smudged with dust, hot to the touch. Your arm is draped over your suitcase, pressing it hard as if you are trying to stop it from growing wings and flying away.
    What do you have in that suitcase? You can show me later.
    I sit next to the driver, I keep turning round to look for hints of the past, immediate and distant, in your face. In the way your hair falls over your forehead, straight, in the way only two of your nails are stained with half-moons of red polish, the faint smudge below your eyes marking, possibly, the line of your tears.
    The rest of you is a puzzle with a million pieces that I neither have the skill nor the time to put together.
    ~
    When you walk into the house, breakfast is ready.
    The cook, who comes in once a day, made egg curry, your favourite. I have told her what you like to eat. But the food remains untouched as you sleep right through whatever is left of the morning, the afternoon, evening, even a bit of the night.
    You are awake now, I think, because I hear you cry. Let me know if you need anything, an extra blanket or something.
    It’s so clear how helpless I am, how useless. All I can offer, after all these years, to you, my daughter, are the assurances of room and board. I am little more than a motel, old and run-down.
    ~
    A few days earlier, I get your call.
    ‘I need a place to stay for a while,’ is the first thing you say.
    A million questions tie my tongue.
    ‘Ma, are you there?’
    ‘Yes,’ I say.
    ‘I need to visit you, can I come over? Just for a few days, not more than a week.’
    ‘Of course,’ I say.
    I move the phone away, I am crying, I don’t want you to listen to the noises I make.
    ‘On one condition, Ma. Are you OK with