Peaces

written in response to Do Yeon-ssi’s near-harassment. The gist of Ms. Kapoor’s reply (puffy little crescent moons drawn above her lowercase I’s and J’s and all) was that Xavier, Árpád, and I were quite welcome to journey along one of her favourite scenic routes with her, and that she’d drop us off at any train station we wanted, within reason. She wrote of her regret that it might not be possible to meet in person and hoped we wouldn’t take that as a snub.
The Lakes and Mountains Route, that’s what it said on our ticket, along with our names, the name of the train, and the name of our carriage. That was it. Just imprecise enough to stir my interest: I’d never been on a train that had named carriages instead of numbered ones. Would Ms. Kapoor be driving the train herself so that we four were the only ones on board? I wondered about the route too. Which lakes and mountains? And where? Switzerland? Italy? France? Just how far away could five days of track and tunnel take us?
Xavier said I’d do better to wonder why his nearly eighty-year-old aunt was so keen to get rid of us. The genuine motive was as different from those she’d stated as night is from day—he was very definite about that. Do Yeon-ssi didn’t give us a chance to do much pondering either: by the time we thought about digging our suitcases out of our storage room closet, a team of professional packers had already filled the cases with all the essentials, had zipped our gear into diaphanous packing cubes, even. There was Tupperware dotted with minuscule perforations and filled with earthworms, beetles, and just enough air to keep them alive for Árpád’s delectation. It felt like Do Yeon-ssi was taking care of everything in advance so she could forget all about us. Right up until then I’d thought she’d found us pleasant and helpful companions, what with all our fetching and carrying and solicitous enquiries. As I thought about it again, Do Yeon-ssi had lived alone on purpose for a long time before Xavier started having nightmares about her slipping in the bath and not being able to call anyone for help. When I tried to see things her way, the credible version went like this: frequent visits from Xavier would’ve been nice, but sharing her living space with the most attentive nephew ever (and now his partner, and his partner’s mongoose) was, perhaps, a bit much. I suppose carers can all too easily become captors, and with the best intentions in the world, we’d become just that.
The train tickets were Do Yeon-ssi’s way of asking for a few days off: that’s how I put it to Xavier. He admitted that she did deserve at least that much, though he extracted additional promises from her: Yes, she’d take her vitamins every morning without fail. Yes, she’d limit herself to one soju milkshake per day. Yes, she’d immediately ask the nearest bystander for aid with items that would require an inadvisable degree of stooping or stretching to reach by herself. And yes, she’d phone if there was anything, absolutely anything, even very slightly wrong, in which case she could expect us back on her doorstep as soon as we could manage it.
*
Later, in that pitch-dark train carriage, the very notion of the three of us rushing to Do Yeon-ssi’s rescue made me laugh. I mean, locating a light switch was beyond our combined capability, so never mind about achieving anything else.
“OK, there are literally only two sides this thing can be on,” I said, after what felt like at least a decade of bumping heads, sharp pokes from fingers and claws, and frankly quite sinister face-licking accompanied by heavy breathing. Darkness seemed to give Árpád (at least I prayed it was Árpád) license to engage in behaviour he wouldn’t have in the light. “That’s the window, and that side is where we came in. So I’ll take this side, and you and Árpád take the other side. Don’t rush, and go really small scale … Just pat the wall inch by inch … No, why have you turned off your flashlight?”
My phone was dead as usual, and Xavier claimed he needed to save the flashlight battery himself. We sought and found a photo of Ava Kapoor so Xavier could confirm that she was who he’d seen, then we settled on the most practical way of finding out what was going on with her: we’d phone her. Xavier texted away, trying to get a phone number for Ava Kapoor from Do Yeon-ssi, and then from Do Yeon-ssi’s secretary. Neither replied. I tucked my chin over his shoulder and basked in the glow from his phone screen as he also texted our local stationmaster and made sure she held on to my suitcase until we got back.
“How do you even have her phone number? What … the two of you have a whole conversation thread? How far back does this go?”
“Sheila likes train jokes. It’s Boughton, Otto. Everyone has everyone else’s phone number.”
“I don’t!”
“Well, you’ve got that mouthy South London attitude on you, haven’t you … and remember what a hard time you had falling asleep without the sound of sirens? I have to say, for a while I really wondered if Kent life could ever be for you …”
Xavier gave Do Yeon-ssi one more minute to text him back, then he called her on speakerphone. The phone rang for ages before we heard her voicemail greeting. Xavier hung up and rang again. When Do Yeon-ssi answered, she was slurring a bit. Piecing together some of the terminology in noisy background circulation, it soon became clear that she was having a gin rummy party with extra gin. It had been maybe five years since her last gin rummy party, attended by a significant proportion of Europe’s hard men and women. So many unsettling things had happened post-festivities (not necessarily the grand cleanup, but the