Klara and the Sun(7)

‘Those people seem so pleased to see each other,’ Manager said. And I realized she’d been watching them as closely as I had.

‘Yes, they seem so happy,’ I said. ‘But it’s strange because they also seem upset.’

‘Oh, Klara,’ Manager said quietly. ‘You never miss a thing, do you?’

Then Manager was silent for a long time, holding her sign in her hand and staring across the street, even after the pair had gone out of sight. Finally she said:

‘Perhaps they hadn’t met for a long time. A long, long time. Perhaps when they last held each other like that, they were still young.’

‘Do you mean, Manager, that they lost each other?’

She was quiet for another moment. ‘Yes,’ she said, eventually. ‘That must be it. They lost each other. And perhaps just now, just by chance, they found each other again.’



Manager’s voice wasn’t like her usual one, and though her eyes were on the outside, I thought she was now looking at nothing in particular. I even started to wonder what passers-by would think to see Manager herself in the window with us for so long.

Then she turned from the window and came past us, and as she did so she touched my shoulder.

‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘at special moments like that, people feel a pain alongside their happiness. I’m glad you watch everything so carefully, Klara.’

Then Manager was gone, and Rosa said, ‘How strange. What could she have meant?’

‘Never mind, Rosa,’ I said to her. ‘She was just talking about the outside.’

Rosa began to discuss something else then, but I went on thinking about the Coffee Cup Lady and her Raincoat Man, and about what Manager had said. And I tried to imagine how I would feel if Rosa and I, a long time from now, long after we’d found our different homes, saw each other again by chance on a street. Would I then feel, as Manager had put it, pain alongside my happiness?



* * *



—

One morning at the start of our second week in the window, I was talking to Rosa about something on the RPO Building side, then broke off when I realized Josie was standing on the sidewalk in front of us. Her mother was beside her. There was no taxi behind them this time, though it was possible they’d got out of one and it had driven off, all without my noticing, because there’d been a crowd of tourists between our window and the spot where they were standing. But now the passers-by were moving smoothly again, and Josie was beaming happily at me. Her face – I thought this again – seemed to overflow with kindness when she smiled. But she couldn’t yet come to the window because the Mother was leaning down talking to her, a hand on her shoulder. The Mother was wearing a coat – a thin, dark, high-ranking one – which moved with the wind around her body, so that for a moment she reminded me of the dark birds that perched on the high traffic signals even as the winds blew fiercely. Both Josie and the Mother went on looking straight at me while they talked, and I could see Josie was impatient to come to me, but still the Mother wouldn’t release her and went on talking. I knew I should keep looking at the RPO Building, in just the way Rosa was doing, but I couldn’t help stealing glances at them, I was so concerned they’d vanish into the crowd.



At last the Mother straightened, and though she went on staring at me, altering the tilt of her head whenever a passer-by blocked her view, she took her hand away and Josie came forward with her careful walk. I thought it encouraging the Mother should allow Josie to come by herself, yet the Mother’s gaze, which never softened or wavered, and the very way she was standing there, arms crossed over her front, fingers clutching at the material of her coat, made me realize there were many signals I hadn’t yet learned to understand. Then Josie was there before me on the other side of the glass.

‘Hey! How you been?’

I smiled, nodded and held up a raised thumb – a gesture I’d often observed inside the interesting magazines.

‘Sorry I couldn’t come back sooner,’ she said. ‘I guess it’s been…how long?’

I held up three fingers, then added a half finger from the other hand.

‘Too long,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. Miss me?’

I nodded, putting on a sad face, though I was careful to show I wasn’t serious, and that I hadn’t been upset.



‘I missed you too. I really thought I’d get back before this. You probably thought I’d cleared right out. Really sorry.’ Then her smile weakened as she said: ‘I suppose a lot of other kids have been here to see you.’

I shook my head, but Josie looked unconvinced. She glanced back to the Mother, not for reassurance, but rather to check she hadn’t come any closer. Then, lowering her voice, Josie said:

‘Mom looks weird, I know, watching like that. It’s because I told her you’re the one I wanted. I said it had to be you, so now she’s sizing you up. Sorry.’ I thought I saw, as I’d done the time before, a flash of sadness. ‘You will come, right? If Mom says it’s okay and everything?’

I nodded encouragingly. But the uncertainty remained on her face.

‘Because I don’t want you coming against your will. That wouldn’t be fair. I really want you to come, but if you said, Josie, I don’t want to, then I’d say to Mom, okay, we can’t have her, no way. But you do want to come, right?’