Peaces by Helen Oyeyemi (best manga ereader .TXT) 📗

whether or not a cubicle was occupied but were spared particularities. I headed for the only cubicle that held a living form and said: “I’d like to talk to Ms. Kapoor quickly.”

“Oh, you would?” the occupant asked, somehow sounding neither hostile nor curious, but quite French. Think Catherine Deneuve circa 1968, her mild amusement as she confronts and dismisses the mysteries of desire with questions like How could you think even for a second that I was interested in you? Judging by the shade of skin visible through the glass, it was a black Deneuve I’d just encountered. Black or dark South Asian.

“Yes, I would. You’re definitely not Ms. Kapoor?”

The form shifted; she was dabbing her forehead with a towel. “Well, I wouldn’t say ‘definitely’ not, because things always take some kind of crazy turn when you say ‘definitely.’ But I’m moderately sure I’m somebody else.”

“That person being …?”

“Just another pawn of fate, sweating all my cares away for now. And wondering what’s keeping you from doing the same.”

I pulled the rest of my clothes off and took a seat in the cubicle behind hers, explaining that it seemed Ms. Kapoor might need help. At the end of a long interval—so long I thought I was going to have to repeat myself—Cubicle Lady asked: “Did she say so herself?” A genuine enquiry this time.

“In a way. We think—I think—We’re not …” I gave up and asked: “Do you think she’s OK?”

“Ms. Kapoor is busy,” said Cubicle Lady. “Don’t bother her.”

She told me that I’d want a shower after this, and I’d have to do that in my own carriage. None of which really served as an answer. I took another tack, talking quickly because that information about the showers made it sound as if she was about to leave: “Who else is on board at the moment?”

“What do you mean?”

“You, me, Xavier, Ms. Kapoor, and—?”

Ah … A sigh in the near distance, trembling at first, then clear and sure: Ah …

I jumped to my feet, slipped in my own sweat, banged my head against the cubicle wall, and dropped onto the bench. The sigh lengthened, soared, and swooped, turning to song. I felt my face scrunching up. Not just from the pain from having almost brained myself … I was trying to discern what it was I could hear, and the ratio of thrill to fright. Music that makes you shiver in the midst of a sauna … what, how, what? The wailer was further away than I’d thought—they’d only felt close at first because it had started up so suddenly and was so distinct from any of the other train sounds. It was further away and … not a person. This couldn’t even be a recording of a person. Not a wind instrument, not a string instrument. A person after all? It was very, very like a human voice, airily blurring notes with the skill of an operatic coloratura, but the tone was thinner than any oxygen-dependent organism could accomplish without asphyxiating.

“There are just five of us,” said Cubicle Lady, paying no attention whatsoever to the sigh-singing. “You, me, Ms. Kapoor, Xavier, and Allegra—she operates the train, though I take over sometimes. A maintenance team will board at the next station, but they’ll only be with us for two stops. That’s later on this evening. Then tomorrow we’ll have the bazaar …”

“About this, er, singing,” I began to ask.

“I think I know why you asked if there’s anybody else,” she said.

“Are you not hearing that? That—music?”

The pitch and volume of the singing had increased, the melody doubled (divided? both?) so that I could hardly hear her: “It’s an old freight train,” she was saying. “No matter what Ms. Kapoor does with it, no matter how she refurbishes and re-refurbishes the interior, it doesn’t feel new.”

“Oh, well, for whatever it’s worth, I like what she’s done with it,” I said. “But what—”

The song itself was a sweet, soft, cracked little ditty. Milk and cake, a fond caress before the pillow was pressed over your face. Silk caressing your cheek as you were drained of breath … you could fight, but you didn’t want to.

Cubicle Lady raised her voice: “If you want to help, try not to talk to Ms. Kapoor. Just keep on being a happy twosome and go home with some photos and some good memories.”

That did it; the honeymoon advice. One hand to the back of my aching head, I left my own cubicle, put on a dressing gown, and warned: “I’m gonna join you in there.”

She pulled her cubicle curtain aside and said, “No need.”

The first few things I noticed: She was right about not being Ava Kapoor, she was black, and she looked about the same age as me. Maybe a few years younger, though no more than five, I thought. Her gaze held none of the indifference I’d heard in her voice; the look she gave me was frank and friendly. Her hair had been swept into three different sections and then bundled together so that they ran in a mohawk-like ridge from the base of her temples to the base of her neck. She’d hastily knotted a towel around the upper half of her body when she heard my threat, and her shyness in that respect puzzled me a bit, given that I could very clearly see that she was sitting with her long legs far apart. The distance looked gymnastic—just short of the splits. A floor length (and mostly transparent) waterproof blanket covered those legs, and beneath them was what appeared to be a wooden box.

“Hello.”

“Hi.”

“Just steaming my parts,” she said. “Mugwort keeps them happy.”

I folded my arms, unfolded them, folded them again, then gestured in the direction of the singing. “That, next door. Is that … Ms. Kapoor?”

The sound stopped the split second I put a name to it. I couldn’t help smiling at that.

“It was,” Cubicle Lady said, spreading her legs even further. “Hopefully she’s finished for the day.”

She looked at