Grief
I’m sorting through the china, stacking paper towels between them so that they’re less likely to chip, when Grief appears. My notebook is next to the roll of thick, highly absorbent towels shipped through diplomatic pouch. I am so intent on my task that I’m startled when Ken, the guard, raps on the metal frame of the sliding door, motioning to me through the glass.
“A woman,” he says, “come to see you, madam. I didn’t like to disturb you, but she says you know her.”
When I ask for her name, he tells me Grief. I have no idea who the person is, but I can’t resist. I need to see what Grief looks like.
It turns out that I do know her—the woman from outside the embassy selling baby booties and caps. She explains she came because she didn’t see me again at the embassy. Lord knows how she found my house; I guess they all know where we live.
As with Nobody, I want to ask Grief about her name right away, but I tell myself I need to wait. The urge is so strong that I scratch myself instead, raking my fingernails against both of my upper arms. Basket in hand, she stares at me, her head tilted to the side. When I invite her to step inside, she follows me into the living room. I sit cross-legged on the sofa and motion for her to take one of the overstuffed chairs, but with a sideways glance at Cooper sprawled at my feet, she tells me she prefers to stand.
I feign interest in the baby clothes, telling myself I’ll finally buy something for my sister. Reaching for a pair of butter-colored booties, I begin to examine them for lost stitches or imperfections, when I hear my voice, as if someone else is speaking, asking this woman why her name is Grief.
“I was christened something else,” she answers matter-of-factly, seemingly undaunted by my question. She doesn’t mention what her original name was, and I don’t ask. “So many sad things have happened to me, that I finally started telling people to call me Grief.”
I ask her—I can’t stop myself—what some of those things are.
“When I was 11, my parents died in a minibus accident.” I nod, waiting for more. “I became pregnant a few years later. I was still a child myself. A schoolmate told me about an herbalist….”
Her eyes shift to the ground as Rose’s did when she told me about Why. “I had her take the pregnancy out.”
In the ensuing stillness, I look down at the pair of yellow booties nestled in my hands, as soft and perfect as two newborn chicks. They tremble imperceptibly with the rise and fall of my chest. When Grief finally breaks the silence, her voice is a mere whisper. “Something went wrong inside,” she says. “I can’t have children now.”
I raise my head and look at her, really look at her, taking in the round, unsmiling face, the sad downward tilt of her eyes. I wonder: How did she learn the news? I think of being probed in the doctor’s examination room during our recent home leave, how icy cold it was, even though a parade of naked women expose themselves to him there daily. And then, sitting in the doctor’s office, listening to him use terms like cervical mucus, abnormalities, and infertility as casually as if he were saying coffee, cream, and sugar. Philip’s hand felt warm and clammy in my freezing-cold one, as if he were already back in Africa, far away from the overly air-conditioned office.
As Grief finishes her story, explaining how she learned to knit for other people’s babies, my eyes wander to the notebook of names on the side table. The first page holds a list of baby names that I know by heart, penned in a loose, easy script more than a year ago, bright and cheery names like Daisy, Angelina, Lily, and Claire—all for girls since we’d already decided on Philip for a boy. How different those names were from the Malawian ones I added later—names I used to think were so strange but that I realize now are amazingly apt for my unconceivable child: Nobody, Why, and, now, Grief.
I place the booties onto the side table and reach for my notebook. Only this time it’s more out of habit than longing, and my hand stops in midair and falls back, empty, into my lap. I decide that I can wait to include her name, that maybe when I add it, the list will even be complete—ready for me to show to Philip, whether he wants to look at it or not.
But none of that matters now. All that exists is the space between Grief and me. She watches me, expectantly. The room is so quiet I can hear Cooper’s steady breathing at my feet. Where will I find the right words, what can I possibly say? Because someway, somehow, I need to convince her to stay, to sit with me in a vigil for the unnamed.
Raised in the Washington, D.C., area and the Ivory Coast, Susi Wyss worked for nearly 20 years managing health programs in Africa. She holds a master’s degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University and lives in Silver Spring. The Civilized World is her first book.
From the book The Civilized World: A Novel in Stories by Susi Wyss. Copyright © 2011 by Susi Wyss. Reprinted by arrangement with Henry Holt, an imprint of Henry Holt and Company LLC.
