‘You heard what I said. “Once when I was a little girl a monkey cling on my back.”’
‘Not “cling”. It should be “clung”.’
‘But it didn’t cling. It did something else.’
‘It jumped on you?’
‘No.’
‘It attached itself to you?’
‘No.’
Humlin searched among the verbs at his disposal.
‘Perhaps it just climbed onto your back?’
Tea-Bag smiled, drained her cup and got up.
‘Are you leaving already?’ he asked with surprise.
‘That was all I wanted to know.’
‘What?’
‘That the monkey climbed.’
Suddenly she seemed anxious, but Humlin couldn’t stop himself from asking more questions.
‘You have to understand my curiosity,’ he said. ‘You travel all the way from Gothenburg to ask me about this one word?’
She sat down again, hesitantly, still without unzipping her thick jacket.
‘Is your name really Tea-Bag?’ Humlin asked.
‘Yes. No. Does it matter?’
‘It’s certainly not without significance.’
‘Taita.’
‘Taita. Is that your first or last name?’
‘My sister.’
‘Your sister’s name is Taita?’
‘I don’t have a sister. Please don’t ask any more.’
Humlin didn’t pursue it. Tea-Bag looked into her empty coffee cup and he suddenly sensed that she was hungry.
‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘Yes.’
He got out some slices of bread and some butter, jam and cheese. She threw herself at the food. Humlin said nothing while she ate, but tried to recall what hours Andrea was working this week. The whole time he was expecting her key to sound in the lock. Tea-Bag kept going until all the food was gone.
‘So you live in Gothenburg?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Why did you come here?’
‘To ask you about that word.’
It’s not true, of course, Humlin thought. But I won’t press her any further. The real reason will come out sooner or later.
‘Where do you come from?’
‘Kazakstan.’
Humlin furrowed his brow.
‘Kazakstan?’
‘I am a Kurd.’
‘You don’t look like a Kurd.’
‘My father was from Ghana but my mother was a Kurd.’
‘Are they dead?’
‘My father is in prison, and my mother is gone.’
‘What do you mean “gone”?’
‘She went into a container and disappeared.’
‘She did what? She entered a container?’
‘Maybe it was a temple. I don’t remember.’
Humlin tried to interpret her strange answers, to get the different pieces to hang together, but he couldn’t make any sense of it.
‘Are you here as a refugee?’
‘I want to live here with you,’ she said.
Humlin jumped.
‘You can’t.’
‘Why not?’
‘You just can’t.’
‘I can sleep on the stairs.’
‘That won’t work. Why can’t you keep living in Gothenburg? I thought you had friends there. Leyla is your friend.’
‘I don’t know anyone called Leyla.’
‘Of course you do. She was the one who took you to the boxing club that night.’
‘No one took me. I went alone.’
Her smile died away. Humlin was starting to feel uncomfortable. She couldn’t have travelled all the way to Stockholm just to ask him about a Swedish word. He found no connection in what she had told him, between her words and the big smile that came and went on her face like waves breaking on the shore.
‘What are you thinking about?’ he asked.
‘I’m thinking about the boat that sank. Everyone who drowned. And my father who sat on the roof of our hut and wouldn’t come down.’
‘Is that hut in Ghana?’
‘In Togo.’
‘Togo? I thought you were from Ghana?’
‘I come from Nigeria. But that is a secret. The river brought us cold and clear water from the mountains. One day a monkey climbed onto my back.’
Humlin was starting to wonder if the girl was sane.
‘What else did this monkey do, apart from climb onto your back?’
‘It disappeared.’
‘And then?’
‘Isn’t that enough?’
‘Probably. But I don’t understand the significance of this monkey.’
‘Are you stupid?’
Humlin looked narrowly at her. No little African hussy, however beautiful, was going to sit in his kitchen and tell him he was stupid.
‘Why did you come here?’ he asked.
‘I want to live here.’
‘You can’t. I don’t know who you are or what you do. I can’t have any Tom, Dick or Harry moving in here.’
‘I’m a refugee.’
‘I hope you’ve been well treated by the authorities.’
‘No one knows that I am here.’
Humlin looked back at her in silence.
‘Are you here illegally?’ he asked finally.
She got up without answering and left the kitchen. Humlin expected to hear the front door slam shut. Then he wondered if she had locked herself in the bathroom. But everything was quiet. Too quiet, he thought, getting up. Maybe she was looking for things to steal. He walked into the living room, it was empty but the bathroom door was ajar. He continued on into the study but she wasn’t there either. Then he opened the door to the bedroom.
She had finally taken off her puffy coat. It lay on the floor with the rest of her clothes. Her head looked very dark against the white pillow. She was on Andrea’s side of the bed. Humlin felt a chill. If Andrea came home at this moment there was no way he could make her believe that he had had nothing to do with the fact that an illegal alien now lay in his bed. On her side.
