Luna: New Moon

Marina has no words. This is impossible, to do, to refuse. In her scratchy dress she stands in front of Adriana Corta and all she can think is but Carlinhos won’t be there.

Carlinhos nudges her. Adriana Corta is waiting.

‘I can, Senhora Corta.’

‘Thank you.’ Her smile is true, and the kiss on Marina’s cheek warm but Marina shivers, chilled by the eternal waiting cold.

She leads him through the party, a dance in a red dress. She glances back to see if he is still looking, still following, moving on to keep her distance from him. Rafa catches her on the balcony. The balloon bestiary has flocked in around the restaurant, they wait, bobbing in the sky like prototype gods that never successfully auditioned for a pantheon.

Without a word, Rafa draws her to him. They kiss.

‘You are the most beautiful thing in this world,’ Rafa says. ‘In both worlds.’

Lousika Asamoah smiles.

‘Who’s looking after Luna?’ she asks.

‘Madrinha Elis. She misses you. She wants her mamãe back.’

‘Sssh.’ Lousika Asamoah touches a carmine nail to Rafa’s lips. ‘It’s always this.’ They kiss again.

‘Lousika, the contract.’

‘Our marriage expires in six lunes.’

‘I want to renew it.’

‘Even though I’m living in Twé and and you’re keeping my daughter and we only ever see each other at your family’s social events.’

‘Even so.’

‘Rafa, I’ve been invited on to the Kotoko.’

Rafa admires and is at the same time baffled by AKA politics. The Golden Stool is a council of eight family members representing the abusuas. The Chair, the Stool, the Omahene, rotates annually through those members, as the Golden Stool itself moves from AKA habitat to habitat. It seems unnecessarily complex and democratic to Rafa Corta. Continuity is preserved by the Sunsum, the familiar of the Omahene which contains all the records and wisdoms of its preceding Omahenes.

‘Does this mean you won’t come back to Boa Vista?’

‘It’ll be eight years before I get to sit on the Golden Stool again. Luna will be fourteen. A lot can happen. I can’t turn it down.’

Rafa steps back and holds his wife at arm’s length, as if examining her for signs of divinity or madness.

‘I want to renew the contract, Rafa. But I can’t come back to Boa Vista. Not just yet.’

Rafa chews back furious disappointment. He forces himself to take time, swallow the words he feels.

‘That’s enough,’ he says.

Lousika takes the lapels of his jacket and pulls him to her. Their familiars merge and mingle; inter-penetrating illusions.

‘Could we not just sneak away from this party?’

Lucas spirals in from the edge of the party and cuts out Amanda Sun from among her laughing siblings and cousins. A touch on her elbow.

‘A word. In private.’

He takes her by the elbow to the dining room, set out for the birthday feast around a ceiling-scraping ice-sculpture of birds taking flight. Through the swing doors to the kitchen.

‘Lucas, what is this?’

Past the stoves and sinks and titanium work-surfaces, past the chillers and food-safes, the rise and fall of blades and choppers to a store room.

‘Lucas, what is wrong with you? Let go of me. You’re scaring me.’

‘I’m going to divorce you, Amanda.’

She laughs. The small, almost irritated laugh that finds what has just been said ridiculous. Unthinkable. Like the moon crashing into Hudson Bay. Then, ‘Oh my God, you are serious.’

‘Have I ever been anything else?’

‘No one could say that you weren’t serious, Lucas. And I can’t say that the idea doesn’t appeal to me. But we aren’t free in these things, are we? My father won’t tolerate an insult to his daughter.’

‘It wasn’t me insisted on the monogamy clause.’

‘You signed it. What is this really, Lucas?’ Amanda studies his face, as if divining sickness or insanity. ‘Oh my God. This is love, isn’t it? You actually love someone.’

‘Yes,’ Lucas Corta says. ‘Do you want me to break the contract, or will both parties agree to an annulment?’

‘You’re in love.’

‘I’d appreciate it if you moved everything out of Boa Vista before the end of the lune,’ Lucas calls back from the storeroom door. The restaurant staff work intently on placing and plating and glazing their sculpted amuse-bouches. ‘There will be no question over Lucasinho. He’s of majority.’ Lucas stalks through the kitchen. In the store-room, Amanda Sun laughs and laughs, laughs until she has to rest to hands on her knees in exhaustion, then laughs again.

‘Hey.’

‘So hey.’

‘So why were you bouncing my messages?’

Abena Asamoah twists the toe of a satin Rayne stiletto, looks away. She flicks the stud in Lucasinho’s ear.

‘You’ve still got it. That make-up really works on you.’

He has run her down here at the cocktail bar, edged her into a quiet corner. Part of him says, This is stalkery, Luca.

‘My grandmother thinks so too.’

Lucasinho grins and sees it touch Abena and draw the smallest of smiles from her.

‘So if I had a real emergency, I could go to you.’ Lucasinho taps the spike.

‘Of course. That’s what it means.’

‘It’s just …’

‘What?’

‘When I was at the pool party at Twé, you wouldn’t even look at me.’