I can’t. Go find yourself, Mama.’
He tells me.
I know that he has been talking to my mother.
‘But what will you do?’ I ask.
‘I’m meeting Geordie.’
He tells me.
‘Why is he in Malta?’ I ask.
‘He’s waiting, like me.’
He tells me.
‘What will you do today?’ I ask.
‘We will share beer with Jesus, of course.’
Christopher says and then laughs, ha ha ha.
I think, you are too young to be drinking beer. I think, Jesus should know better.
Christopher runs out through the door, laughing and shouting over his shoulder.
‘Mama you worry too much. Age does not matter in my world.’
I smile.
I am leaving my mother’s house.
I open the green front door and stand on the step.
The door closes behind me, I hear a key turning.
and a.
~cl – unk.
as the barrel revolves.
I am forced out onto the cobbles.
I look, the chain and padlock are connected, have reappeared.
I flip, I flop up the slope.
~fl – ip.
~fl – op.
~fl – ip.
~fl – op.
hurrying to catch a yellow Maltese bus.
The sun beats down. I walk in shadows, in shade. I look to the floor and I concentrate on the sounds that flip and flop behind me. My feet offer rhythm. I smile. I focus on my musical feet and alter my flip-flopping to create patterns that are flowing, melodic, light. I offer small leaps; I twirl as I flip, as I flop.
I must look ridiculous, but in this moment I do not care. I feel different, already, today. I do not know if this is good or if this is bad.
I feel lighter. I feel that I could float, or fly, or hover.
I want to fly.
I leave the protection of the city walls and the buildings that lean inwards, that shelter. I walk out through the City Gate. The sun beats down, bubbling my blood. I sweat.
I am at the bus terminal. The pavement is curved with kiosks in varied sizes, in different colours, each selling drinks, snacks, newspapers, cigarettes, magazines, souvenirs. The kiosks mark a line, a curved line, for where the buses will stop, where people must wait, must buy.
I pick up a bottle of water from the smallest blue kiosk. A little girl stands on an overturned plastic crate, behind the counter. The kiosk smells of stale alcohol, the girl is alone. She looks to be the same age as Molly, small, innocent, unaccompanied. I look around for an adult, for her parent.
‘Fejn hu il-
~where is your parent?
The child does not speak. She holds out her palm, with her almost black eyes drilling into my face. I stare at her palm. There are no lines marking the skin, it is smooth, clean.
I fumble, I place a single euro into her hand. The child does not speak, she does not smile, she does not retract her hand, she does not remove her eyes from my face. I turn, I walk. I feel her stare following me as I flip-flop away, to the bus.
I climb the metal steps, one, two, three, of the first bus that I reach.
The white roof, the yellow paint, the orange stripe, they comfort.
As the bus pulls out onto the road, I look to the kiosk. The child has gone. A bearded man wears a pink sun visor. He tips the pink plastic peak to me and then, inside my head, I hear his gravelly laugh, ha ha ha.
The bus is not busy. I am glad.
I rest the side of my head onto the cool window and I move with the bus. We bounce, we swerve, we dip, we jolt. I press my face, harder, onto the glass. It cools me.
I think, I am invisible.
I close my eyes and I breathe the dust, in and out, in and out.
I listen to the quiet prayers that the bus driver mutters.
He is blessing my soul.
I wonder if he is too late.
The creaky bus is fast.
I watch from the window.
The bus takes me through Birkirkara, slowing to a crawl past the house where my grandmother was born. I look to the balcony, to the room where she entered the world. I see her. She waves.
The bus picks up speed.
The bus hurries past familiar houses, past shops, past families walking the crooked pavements. They are blurred. The buildings vary in size, in purpose; they are known, almost untouched, unaltered during the missed years.
I smile.
The bus stops. Its final destination.
~nine
Malta’s top 5: Churches and Cathedrals
* 5. The Rotunda of St Marija Assunta, Mosta
The magnificent dome is said to be third largest in Europe and was targeted during World War II. While a congregation prayed, a bomb penetrated the dome and fell to the ground, yet no one was harmed. The bomb is displayed within the church.
I