These Dreams of You by Steve Erickson

whether Molly means that she called the front desk downstairs or tried his cell, which hasn’t rung at all and which she wouldn’t have the number for anyway. While Parker was in the room gluing and painting, there was half an hour when Zan took Sheba to the little market around the corner, darting in and out of the rain, then down the street for a sandwich and the English butter cookies with which both of them have become mildly obsessed. At a newsstand, Zan bought a copy of a British music magazine with Sheba’s favorite artist on the cover, a retrospective. There was a call earlier on Zan’s cell from J. Willkie Brown that Zan didn’t answer and hasn’t returned.
    A small table huddles in the corner of the room and Zan and the young woman sit down at it. On the table is a small pot for hot water and a small selection of teas. “Operative word, obviously,” Zan waves at the room, “is small.”
    â€œOf course,” she smiles.
    â€œSheba and I sleep in the big bed,” he says, “and Parker has the small one. She hasn’t gotten to the point yet where she wants to sleep alone.”
    â€œBut she will,” Molly says.
    â€œI keep reminding my wife that Parker was the same when he was younger. Never wanted to fall asleep alone. Then one night when he was nine or ten,” Zan snaps his fingers, “not only does he want to sleep alone, he barely wants his parents in the same house.” Zan is more rattled than he realizes by the news of the foreclosure. “Have you been in London long? I’m sorry,” he stops himself, “I shouldn’t assume—”
    â€œNo,” she says, “you’re quite correct, I am not from London.” She cocks her head in thought. “I’ve been here . . . a short time.”
    â€œYour English is excellent,” says Zan. “I hope that’s all right to say.”

H er accent is indeterminate—a bit British, a bit the singsong precision of an English by way of Africa, maybe a bit something harder, from some other corner of the world. “Thank you,” she says. “My mother spoke English so that’s what I spoke before I moved to Addis Ababa ten years ago.”
    â€œAre you Ethiopian?” Zan says. He’s not sure how disquieted he is by this.
    â€œHalf,” she says. “My mother was born there but came to London as a small girl and grew up here.”
    â€œAnd your father?”
    â€œHe may have been British but . . . it is not as clear.”
    â€œSorry to pry.”
    â€œIt’s all right.”
    â€œYou grew up in England then. I didn’t think ‘Molly’ sounded African.”
    â€œActually I was born and raised in Germany. In Berlin.”

O ver these few minutes the room has gradually, at first imperceptibly, filled with sound, as though frequencies are crossing, catching half a dozen musics from anywhere and everywhere. Zan still isn’t clear on the woman’s genealogy but says, “What are you doing here?” which doesn’t come out the way he intends. “I mean, in London.”
    â€œSo far I have been taking care of children,” indicating Parker and Zan, “sometimes I clean houses . . . ” She shrugs. “I do what I need to and what I can.”
    â€œSeriously, jerkwad?” Parker says to his sister. “I just spent like twelve hours gluing that! You don’t even know how to play this game.”
    â€œPoppy!” Sheba wails.
    Zan says, “Parker, I asked you to—”
    â€œThere’s nothing I want to do or watch or play with her,” Parker answers.
    Zan indicates to Molly the hotel television. “It only gets half a dozen channels and nothing the kids care about.”
    â€œI am certain it must be difficult for them in a strange country,” she says.
    â€œI think they’re liking it,” though he doesn’t really think so at all.
    â€œNot the