White Is for Witching Read Online Free PDF

Turks and synonymous with the very oppression that exiled them—”
    Luc made a face.
    “You sound like you’re quoting from some sort of textbook. Far too general. Besides, why would you suddenly recover a sense of solidarity and try to protect a killer when the police come around?”
    “Because they’re even more hostile to the police than they are to each other? Because the truth is too good for the police? Because thepolice are a symbol of the country that’s fucking them over and assigning them marginal status?” Eliot suggested.
    Luc shook his head. “One moment, Eliot. Put the sociological exercise aside. Since we’re talking about family here.
Family.
And say you knew who had hurt someone in your family and you also knew that the police have the power to stop and punish it. You really wouldn’t say anything?”
    Miranda shook her head, then nodded, unsure which movement was appropriate. She handed the newspaper back to Eliot and went back to spinning combinations in her suitcase lock. Eliot and Luc continued to argue, Luc trying hard to sound amiable, Eliot trying hard to sound impassioned.
    The car stopped at a traffic light, the last one before home. There were some girls sitting on the bicycle railings outside the corner shop, chewing gum, kicking out at each other, talking and squealing. Miranda couldn’t hear their hoop earrings jangling from where she was, but she felt the vibrations. These girls were Kosovan girls; when they weren’t together they were impassive, tough, their hair gelled into stiff fans with curls slicked down over their foreheads. You saw them in the supermarket holding doubled up carrier bags open, ready to fill with shopping, standing and gazing inscrutably into middle distance while their mothers fumbled through the folds of their big shawls, looking for food vouchers to pay with. One of these girls was in Miranda’s English literature class, and her voice, soft and uncertain, belied her eyes. As the car moved past, one of the girls in the group bounced her gaze off Miranda’s, then looked again, harder. She climbed down off the railings and strode over to the roadside with two other girls behind her. They were mouthing and pointing at her. Miranda didn’t know what to do, so she closed her eyes. Eliot was quiet and Luc whistled and tappedhis fingers on the steering wheel. A jolt as the traffic light changed. She opened her eyes and saw the girls, a little behind, running. Luc said, “Are those girls running after us?”
    Miranda couldn’t think what they wanted with her, those girls. She blurted, “Drive faster—”
    Eliot laughed. “It’s alright,” he said. “They’ve given up.”
    The girls had stopped and were a street behind, each of them bent over, holding their sides. The girl who had first noticed her was still looking, though. Miranda couldn’t see her expression.
    She had thought that coming home would hurt, but actually she was fine. There were lights shining from the house windows that didn’t have their curtains drawn, harsh yellow scattered between the top and bottom floors, two on top and three on the bottom, like a smile.
    Azwer, the gardener, and Ezma, the housekeeper, came to meet Miranda at the door; their foreheads were wrinkled and their eyes were watering with emotion. Ezma squeezed Miranda’s hands and Azwer said, “Good, it’s good.” What was good; the quality of the repair that had been done at the clinic?
    Ezma turned her attention back to a woman who was writing a cheque against the telephone table. The woman’s hair was full of shiny star-shaped hair clips. She was an American. She bit on the end of her pen and said dreamily, “You should grow blueberries out in the back. I think blueberries bless a place, and are great in pie. If you crush oyster shells and spread them on the soil, it’ll make the earth much richer and better for growing things in.”
    Ezma smiled at the woman. “We don’t serve oysters,” she said.
    Miranda