And as Rakesh-7 regaled Bunnu with possibilities unexplored, Didi stood in O.’s nursery, staring hypnotically out the window at the gusts outside blowing up clouds of fine white powder. The Karakaze seemed violent and harsh in a way that seemed both consistent and familiar to her and, yet, now in the warm stillness of the pastry house, it seemed more a distant memory: a dream, that she may once have had that lacked a functional place in this reality she’d entered. The wind was forceful and belligerent like some drunkard tossing about an alley, smashing glasses, knocking over trash bins, screaming unintelligibly, and yet she could hear nothing—not even a gust much less a whistle, as though she were looking from the outside into a self-contained world. Into a snow globe, perhaps.
Looking out there, she imagined that this world inside the snow globe most likely operated upon dynamics that didn’t have any effect here and vice versa. It was a system, after all, enclosed by glass through which none of its violence, harshness, forcefulness, or belligerence could escape into the surrounding reality.
She was safe from it. Protected by this wonderful pastry house.
“Didi?” she heard a voice say. It was Raju. He was standing at the door, holding O. in his arms. She didn’t hear his footsteps, which caused her to wonder how long he’d been standing there. “I see you’ve found O.’s nursery.”
“Yes. I was just having a look around.”
“Well, if you like, you can use this room. Or Bunnu’s. No one’s using either one, since the boys usually end up sleeping in the attic. Unless you prefer the guest room.”
“No. This room would be fine.”
“OK…well, I’ll go into town then and pick up some supplies. We should be able to have a bed in here for you by the evening.”
“You really don’t have to go to the trouble.”
“No trouble at all! You’re my daughter. I’ve always wanted a daughter!”
A tear came to Didi’s eye. “Mr. Raju?”
“Papa.”
“Papa?” she smiled as she wiped away the tear. “Thanks. No one’s ever said that to me. Not my Mama. Not Guni. Not anyone.”
“No?” he said as his voice broke. He, too, was crying, “Well. They should have.” He tried to wipe his own tears, but had difficulty as he was holding O. She took O. into her arms and held him. “Have you met your little brother, O.?”
She looked surprised, “This is my little…brother?” She looked down to see her reflection in his skin.
“Well…yes. I know it seems a little unusual at first. You know being a reflective ball and all. It’s not quite how one would expect a child to look. But really…he’s a great kid. Very well-behaved. Never cries…although, the Outlander tells me that the fact he doesn’t may prove to be a problem for us.”
Didi looked up. “I don’t understa-“
“Anyway…I’ll let you two get acquainted.” Raju said and he left the room.
Cradling O. in her arms, Didi said in a gentle voice, “Hi there, O.! I’m your quarter-sister, Didi!” She looked back down at her reflection and sighed. “You don’t say much, do you? All I can see when I look at you is myself reflected back at me. If you hide your face from me like that, how can I know what you’re thinking?” She smiled. “Well…I suppose you’re just a little shy, aren’t you? It’s difficult to show your face to the world sometimes. To show your insides. Can I tell you a secret? Sometimes, I’m afraid, too. Even now…I’m afraid to show too much of myself. To get too comfortable with the people around me, because they always seem to abandon me. I’m afraid to get my hopes up. The world is a scary place. You know? I mean, I was even afraid to be born. It took me 32 years to work up the nerve to do just that! So, I guess I can kind of understand why you’re so reserved. You’re just the introspective type. Until you start to feel comfortable, you just keep it all in. I’m the same way. But I guess I feel comfortable with you. But then again, I can see that you’re a good listener. And I know that you won’t judge me or abandon me. At least…so long as you don’t have arms and legs.
“O., I don’t know where you came from exactly, but I guess you never imagined you would end up here, one day, did you? Well, the same is certainly true for me. I keep thinking to myself that fate brought me here. And I’m not sure whether to be relieved or depressed by the thought of it. It makes me want to laugh and cry all at once. I guess I shouldn’t overthink it, though. I mean, we all kind of end up where we end up, huh? It’s up to us to see it how we wish to see it.”
Didi stared again out the window at the windblown snow as it sprayed out over the landscape. She imagined each snowflake in the spray. Where it must have started and where it ended up. Could it have been a purposeful act to drop them wherever they happened to fall, or would it be overvaluing each snowflake’s importance to assume that it had to start and end a certain way and across a certain trajectory when, in fact, none of it was, at all, important? And might it have conceivably been a kind of arrogance that caused one to cling to the idea that each snowflake was so inexorably important to the flawless and pristine order that simply must underscore the very mechanics of the Cosmos, that Fate, itself, had meticulously and unflinchingly defined the properties that constitute that snowflake’s essence, as well as its inclination to drift, ever so delicately, as to render absurd the very notion that the snowflake’s existence could begin and end a microsecond too early or too late, or for that matter, that it could somehow deviate from its predetermined course, thereby, unraveling the very fabric of all Space-Time?
Looking out into that cloud of snow dust, that seemed to drift out eternally and indistinguishably—those particles swirling and colliding in the gusts of the Karakaze as they momentarily merged with and scattered from the vast white void—Didi could see, through them, the town of Bahlia. And she remembered the snow globe in her bag. It had been a keepsake, an heirloom of her mother. Her mother, too, could very possibly have inherited it from someone of a preceding generation. And the originator of this snow globe as an heirloom could very well have treasured its permanence. That village inside the snow globe never changed. Neither did the snowflakes. Time was simply shaken up, allowed to proceed to stagnancy and shaken up again: continually and endlessly into eternity. And the snowflakes, too, momentarily merged with and scattered from an indistinguishable white void. And where they fell, didn’t really matter, for the whole system was bound to be shaken up again. Continually and endlessly into eternity…
After all, it was an heirloom! One day, she too would pass it on, but for now, it was hers to shake.
“You know what, O.?” she said suddenly, as a realization dawned upon her. “I actually feel much better now that we talked.” She put O. in his crib, happening to notice as she did so, that the pillows, blankets, sheets and even the crib, itself, all bore the likeness of Charismatic K.
She picked up her bag. She opened it and took out the snow globe, turning it over in her hands, looking at it from different angles. She walked over to the window and tried to compare it to the view of the village that O.’s window overlooked and came to the immediate conclusion that the village inside the snow globe wasn’t at all a representation of this village and, certainly, not one of her fate. She smiled as she shook it up and put it on the windowsill.
She could now understand why her mother had kept it.
Part Two
S P R I N G
On the Banks of Placenta-C