Rats in Disguise (Fiction)

In Danila Botha's short story, a child of immigrants grows up finding beauty where others do not.

By Danila Botha,

I can still see myself standing there, the small, reused brown box in my open palm. My mom had to remind me that it was Aunt Felicia’s birthday, because I’d forgotten. I think all she wanted me to do was write her a card, but I did one better. I went into my jewellery collection and pulled out some of my favourite pieces. I was into making necklaces, nothing too complicated. I pulled out a piece of black leather cord, eighteen inches, and then I went through some of my favourite charms and beads.

I found a pewter squirrel. It reminded me of one of my first days in Toronto, back when I’d only seen a squirrel at the zoo. Aunt Felicia’s husband, Clive stood behind me as I stared out of their kitchen window.

“Wow, look at it flicking its tail,” I said, and he wrinkled his nose.

“It’s just a rat in disguise, man,” he said, his South African accent somehow heavier than mine, and walked away. I kept watching it, climbing and jumping around. I thought it was beautiful.

I moved the pewter squirrel to the middle of the cord. I thought about my Moroccan great grandmother, who believed so strongly in warding off the evil eye, she gave us all blue glass beads when we were born. I bought a bunch of similar ones, in turquoise and dark blue. I even bought more expensive blue stones like Sodalite and Lapis Lazuli, for good luck. I decided since it was her birthday, I’d use one of each, on each side of the squirrel. I grabbed the box and even found a piece of white tissue paper in my mom’s desk drawer. I didn’t tell my mom.

When we got there, my mom gave my aunt a caramel-coloured cashmere sweater. Felicia smiled with no teeth, the lines on the sides of her mouth deepening. “Thank you,” she said, and when she got up to go to her closet upstairs, to put everything away, I followed her. I handed her the box and she tore it open.

I could tell when she looked at me that I’d gotten it wrong and I instantly felt stupid.

“This is so nice,” she said, “but you know I’ll never wear it.” She leaned in close and I could smell her baby powder deodorant.  “I only wear real jewellery.” I knew what she meant. The women in my family wore precious stones and real gold. I thought about how many times she’d told my grandmother that my mom was the materialistic one, she was the sporty one, the down to earth one who didn’t care about these things.

She opened her underwear drawer. She put the box inside and closed it again. “I won’t wear it, but I’ll keep it in a special place, okay?”

She put it beside an undershirt of my sister’s that she’d left behind on one of her visits before we moved here. Lila must have been three.

A few years later she gave it back to me. I didn’t know what to do with it, so I stuffed it into the back of my desk drawer, where I forgot about it for years.