I keep calling her Kyra but she says it isn’t her name. I am surprised because I remember she introducing herself by that name, with a plunge at ‘y’ and a roll of the ‘r’ immediately after that. I had repeated after her, Kyra. She had smiled. I had smiled back. But apparently that isn’t her name, at least any more now.
It snowed the day after I came here. Mom says, it looks like a mattress of dreams when it snows. I am about to tell her about Kyra, about how she has eyes that look like quail eggs, a forehead which runs down like a meadow, how her skin is like cocoa. But I pause and ask her, it looks like what? Dreams spread out on a mattress, she explains. The kind which persists even when you are awake, or probably only when you are awake. I keep reciting her expressions in my mind after I have hung up and I don’t get to tell her about Kyra.
After our Journalism Minor on Thursday, at lunch break, I tell Kyra that it has snowed back home. Oh, is it? She asks but she is probably thinking of other things because when I tell her about Mom’s description, she looks far and mutters something about bad omens when roads and bridges disappear under the snow and people in some villages remain stranded even after the snow has been cleared. How can that be? I ask. With authority I clarify that’s not how things happen. I am an expert on snow, back home we all are. It snows eight months a year. But nothing disappears forever, I correct her. She isn’t convinced though. I see her quail egg eyes look at me with disbelief.
On the day of the annual event, Kyra is dressed in white. I tiptoe to her side and whisper into her ears, mattress of dreams. She looks excited. She has a small act on stage. Something about a homesick girl who tastes home food and falls asleep and never wakes up again. I think it’s a meaningless script, but she seems to have faith in her role. Her eyes are palm-warm, watery, just like boiled eggs left on the gas oven for the last family member to join everyone else at the breakfast table. I want to call Mom and tell her about Kyra but I have got to be in the chorus group, and the boys won’t let me use the phone now. The chief guest has arrived.
After the event, prize distribution is loud and long-drawn. Claps spill over from one name to another. Kyra is on the stage, receiving a medal for the best supporting role but they have announced her name as something else. I am about to step up and ask them to amend their mistake when I feel a tug at my jersey and when I turn around, Kyra is by my side and her round eyes are strained and she is angry that the act on stage is over, for she wanted to sleep for long,forever, and when I shudder, unsure of what she means and wonder if I should pull her towards me to comfort her, she thumps her right hand on her left palm and asserts that she has no option but to sleep forever because someone let her know that although they have cleared the layers of snow, the roads and bridges on her way home have all been wiped off.
“We drown when bridges vanish,” she says, her forehead creased, her eyes sinking.
“How do you know that it has snowed?” I ask, although I clearly know this is a pointless question now.
“Mom called.”
“Mom? Your mom?” I have never known her home to be in a place where it snows. “Mom?”I repeat. “Kyra? Your mom?” I am scratching my ears in impatience.
“Stop it! My name isn’t Kyra.”
I shrink like a pierced balloon after a crazy night’s party. I want to call her by her name, by her correct name, but somehow, I am sure that this is the name that suits her. She ought to be Kyra.
For the next few days, she doesn’t come to college and I venture to ask one of her friends. “You mean, Tani?” She asks me back, looking impatient, spaghetti sauce rolling down her fingers. I guess she wants to lick that up but she can’t as long as I am there, asking her about Kyra. I draw my lips inside and blink. The issue of her name doesn’t settle, I don’t know why. “Yeah, okay, Tani, maybe,”I say, unsure about my own words. “Why isn’t she coming these days?”
“She did,” says this girl.
“Where?”I jump up.
“She has gone home now.”
“But you said she came!”
“She came, but now she is home.”
Oh,I fumble as I realise that I haven’t taken her phone number.
“Can you give her a call?”
The girl looks at me with her dragon eyes heavily lined with a blue eyeliner. Her eyebrows are up like rainbows.
“Can y ou? Right now?” I am pushy, I know.
She rolls her eyes, wipes her fingers and brings her phone out.
The world has slowed down for me. It takes her years to get across to Kyra. Or Tani, whatever.
She puts the phone to her ears. I want to snatch it from her hands.
She turns back and takes a stroll away from me. I want to drag her back by her waist and hear every word of the conversation.
Finally, she hangs up, looks at me and says, “She is home, I told you, and her place is under the snow. She is sleeping, her mom said. Her mom said something about the only bridge being broken. She’ll be back when things will b e fine.”
I stare at the phone held in her palm. On the screen, someone called Kyra is calling her.
