Peaces, Helen Oyeyemi [best life changing books TXT] 📗

on this borderline of attractiveness where clothes and accessories make all the difference. It’s not something you could understand, Ms. Stunner in a Shapeless Shift Dress.

You might want to know how Přem behaved around you. In the early days of you ignoring him, he’d follow you around the room with heavy objects, pretending he was about to brain you with them. Glass ashtrays, chunky vases. We didn’t smile at those antics even when we wanted to. There could have been an accident if we encouraged him to keep that nonsense up. But it was several different kinds of funny, Přem waving barbecue tongs over your head at Karel’s garden party as you stood there sipping Pimm’s and lemonade and talking quite seriously with a zoologist about the fact that all living organisms do is let each other down. I think the zoologist had told you that only female mosquitoes bite—that they do it because the protein and iron in our blood helps their eggs develop. And you were all disappointed. “They shouldn’t bite other females … we’re meant to stick together …” The zoologist said that if you insisted on affiliating with female mosquitoes, then surely sacrificing your health was a way of sticking together. But you said you didn’t want to sacrifice your health! “And so the cycle of letting each other down goes on,” you wailed. “I’m sorry, mosquito mothers. I’m so sorry, I know you’re only biting me for the sake of your babies, but I can’t give up my blood and get sick for them …” It was hard to tell whether the zoologist realised you’d just had one cocktail too many, but I think Přem did. He’d already nudged me closer to you by the time you started to hiccup and sway. You put your head on my shoulder, and he gave up the tong pantomime and went off to grill some more meat. Thinking about his subsequent behaviour around you, the keyword is “shy.” I remember maybe four other gatherings all three of us were at. Přem stayed out of your way and didn’t speak to you directly. But he made sure he was able to hear what you were saying. And every now and then he’d turn towards you, with a semi-irritated but mostly hopeful smile, ready for the moment when you accidentally made eye contact with him.

He was one of those extroverted introverts … he was at home a lot, reading and taking care of his dad’s publishing house—keeping that going seemed to mean a lot to him. But twice a week, maybe three times if there were a lot of people to see, he’d be out and about. I’d go too, when I could, or I’d hear about some doings of his. He might have had a drinking problem? It was hard to tell. “Never too early for beer” was a motto of his, and he’d drink like a fish all day but still be steady on his feet and as cogent as you please. But, Ava, you remember how we were semi-sure Karel was teetotal? We never saw him touch a drink, but I saw him blind drunk. Přem and I would find him like that in the evening. I’d come back to the house to say hi to Karel after having watched Přem calmly put away tens of pints, and it was Karel who was completely out of it. I mean crawling around on the floor whispering in Czech, then when Přem tried to help him up he’d say things like, “You! Don’t get ahead of yourself, young man! You are my creature!”

Or he’d get all melancholy and ask Přem if he happened to remember dying as a little boy. “We buried you in the forest, your mother and I … with a green linden leaf. The brightest we could find, so you wouldn’t need a night-light. Do you remember?”

Přem would look annoyed and say, “Is there any chance you could save these jokes for another time?” And he’d haul his dad over his shoulder, take him upstairs, and put him to bed.

Is being an only child like being the family’s black sheep and pride and joy combined? Personally, I recommend having siblings … as many as possible. I could have got lucky with mine, but surely it stands to reason that four brothers and two sisters make a really good buffer between you and a bunch of parental hopes and expectations. You also give and get a lot of love in a fairly relaxed, hands-off style. Since we can’t really keep track of each other, we Yu sibs just make the moves we need to make and try our best to clean up after ourselves, only calling the others in as the forklift truck option when there’s just too much shit to shovel. And Mum and Dad end up feeling like parenting champions who’ve raised seven solvent overachievers.

I know that with you and your dad it was mostly just the two of you, and you were really good mates. I’m saying that it was what I saw of Přem’s home life that made me want to grab his arm and recommend siblings. Then again, if you asked me what his life really was (and that is what you’re asking me, isn’t it?), what his days were made up of, what he latched on to for a sense of purpose or whatever, I couldn’t tell you. With Karel, at least for the last three years of his life or so, it was that novel he wanted to finish writing. The one that got edited—possibly by Přem—and published as an incomplete novella about a year after he died.

I don’t know any more than you do about the wording of Karel’s will. How were you kind to Přem Stojaspal? Ava, you know I say this lovingly, but you treated that man as if he was, literally, nothing.

Moving from what I don’t know to what I would like to know: About that