“Uno, dos…” Kai sits at the far end of the room, near the balcony, and slides a purple bead to the left side of the abacus I gave him for his birthday. Sunlight falls softly into the apartment through the white linen curtains. Kai has been my friend even since before he knew such a thing as friendship exists. “Tres, cuatro, seis…” he continues, until all ten beads are on the left side of the top row. Then he begins with the pink row below. “Drie, vier…”
“Kai, are you counting in Dutch?” Isa, his mother, says.
“Sí! Veertien, twintig…”
“Oh wow, in Dutch!” I say.
“Één, zeven, tien!” he announces, smiling with pride, the beads still catching up.
“Wow, very good, ratón!” I say. “Do you wanna come play at the table with us?”
“No, no, no, now in English!” he says.
Without lifting himself off the lovely rug oma sent from the Netherlands, Kai stretches his little body toward one of the two large, fluffy cushions lying against the balcony doors, and takes one with both hands.
“Marta. Aquí!” he says, patting it. The cushion cover was sewn by his great-aunt Isabel, from a fabric with a beautiful pattern of diamond rings on vivid green that came from Equatorial Guinea.
“Kai, Marta can’t sit on the floor.”
“Your mom is right. I can’t. But you know what, Kai? How about I sit on that beautiful cushion of yours to make this chair comfier? Then I can watch you count in English from here. Would you like that?”
Kai nods and watches as I push my lower back into the cushion. Then he turns back to the abacus and takes a big, snotty breath, his nose stuffy from the countless viruses at school.
“Ooone, two, three… four! fiiiive, six!”
“Yay, very good, Kai!” Isa and I cheer.
“Oh, sorry, Marta. We didn’t offer you anything, how rude of us!”
“Don’t worry. We’ve been so busy here!”
“We have Alhambra, coffee, tea… Oh, do you want alcohol-free beer?”
“Just a glass of water, please!”
Isa returns from the kitchen, puts the glass on the table. “I can’t understand why all our plants keep dying here.”
I brush the film of dust off a leaf from the pothos that poured so generously from the bookshelf. “This one seems to be doing fine.”
Isa shrugs and turns to the wooden cabinets to inspect the avocado plant that miraculously recovered from a sudden loss of leaves and the tiny lemon plant that had just sprouted from a seed. Then she strokes one of the few leaves still alive on the remains of a Chinese money plant. “Poor thing, look at her. She was so pretty in Rotterdam. It grew all the way from the windowsill to the floor. It’s the only plant we brought with us. We couldn’t leave it behind.”
“Mamá, what is a civil servant?” Kai asks. His tiny index finger keeps a bead paused mid-row.
“Erm… A civil servant is a person who makes sure that we citizens pay our taxes.”
“What are taxes?”
“We all pay taxes so we can have parks, schools, hospitals… Do you remember how much fun we had when we went to get the vaccine?”
“Yes,” he answers, turning his head to briefly look at his bare arm. The tips of his eyelashes are as blonde and curled as the ends of his straight, fine hair, which sticks tightly to his head running down his nape to gather in the folds of his little neck.
“Siiiix. Six, seeeven, ten… We are… three!” He shapes a three in the air, holding both his hands in the air like a trophy.
“¡Un tres!” Isa and I cheer, but he is already rushing out of the room, careful not to step on his Batman mask lying next to the abacus. Moments later he comes running back holding as many playdough jars in his arms as he can and throws them on the table.
“Everything, everything, Mamá, empty the jar!” shaking his hands with excitement, a few inches from his ears.
“Which color is yours?”
“I am making pannenkoeken. You have to squash them well,” Kai says.
“Are we having them for dinner?”
“Noooo, Marta. They are pannenkoeken and planets!”
“Oh, I see.” I roll two pieces of blue playdough into long strands. Then I hold the strands up to the outer corners of my eyes and say, “Tears!” Then I hold them in front of my mouth and say, “Look, I’m smiling. Tell me something nice!”
“Marta, you can play with all my toys.”
“Oye, chicos, vamos al parque?” Isa says.
“Sí, Dos de Mayo!” Kai grabs his Batman mask and cape and runs to the door.
“Hey, but what about going to Suchil first? You can show me how you ride your new bike around the circuit?”
“Mamá, do we have the bike here?”
“Yes, downstairs in the cellar. Come on, we’ll pick it up.”
“Yo voy con escaleras! Marta conmigo!”
“Okay, but you have to go down slowly, and you must hold Marta’s hand.”
“Here.” I extend my hand and he takes it. With my other hand I hold the worn oak handrail while Kai’s fingertips trace the wall of the staircase, pausing at every paint chip as if he is counting the number of coats, the layers of white on white. Then the elevator descends through the stairwell shaft with Isa inside.
“Hey, Batman!” a voice calls from the taverna entrance as we step onto the square.
It is filled with lively chatter and the smell of beer, wine and olives. Sunlight spills through the acacia branches leaving a mosaic of shadows that dances around Kai’s tiny happy feet. Antonio, the bartender, leans against the doorframe with a cigarette in his hand.
“No, Antonio! This is not Batman.”
“Ah, no?” Antonio straightens up and puts his cigarette on the windowsill.
“Noooo! This is just Kai, wearing a Batman mask!”
“Oh I see now!” Antonio lifts a tray of beers, olives and crisps, and smiles at Kai who is already skipping down Calle Conde Duque towards the park.
