Read Online Three Weeks in December (9781609459024) by Audrey Schulman - Free Book Online

have been able to infer. But on some subjects, normals seemed willfully thick.
    Science was her respite, the exactness of vocabulary and measurement. Whenever she learned a new term, she could feel the frisson in her mind, the sparkle of connection. All sorts of examples would suddenly be illuminated. “Surface tension” and “crown shyness,” they explained so much about the world, creating clarity where previously there’d been just a profusion of data.
    So of course she found people’s thinking and terminology about having darker skin confusing. It was so deliberately inexact, as though there were only two possible answers. At first sight, you either were black or you weren’t.
    Her mom said this toggle switch helped folks pretend the races were in separate encampments with walls built up between them. Max had difficulty with analogies, tended to take them literally. At her mom’s words, she’d pictured the gap between East and West Berlin, on either side those vast concrete walls, barbed wire, and machine guns. For the next few years, she kept an eye out for walls like this somewhere around Bangor, assuming one day she’d be asked to move to the no-man’s land between.
    Upon meeting her, people tended to ask where she came from. When she was young she’d answer, “14 Pleasant Street, second floor.” It wasn’t until she was nine that her mother had told her this question was actually an inquiry about her racial background. From then on, when Max replied, she worked to be clear. After stating she’d been born in Bangor, she added she was a mulatto. If there was a pause afterward, she tried to be helpful, “Possibly even a quadroon.” She assumed, in all situations, that specificity was good.
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    The airport lobby was filled with people and luggage. She spotted the main doors leading out of the building and strode fast toward them. She needed to get out. She had to keep juking—left, then right, then left again—to keep some space between her and everyone else, a very shy quarterback running down the field. The officials and porters trailed after her, zigzagging. The translator was half-running after her, talking loudly in English. His accent was hard to understand, the rhythm of his voice so different. Something about the tonnage of coffee beans and tin ore exports this year. She plowed on, desperate.
    Pushing out through the doors, she walked straight into another crowd. She slammed to a halt, hands held up to protect her.
    And half the men in this crowd, the second they saw her, stopped in the midst of whatever they were doing. There was a single quiet moment, then they all rushed her, yelling out “taxi, taxi,” followed by prices in many languages and currencies. She went into a crouch, glancing around for some escape.
    A stranger halted the stampede. He stepped in front of her, holding up his hands and yelling out something in French, a declarative statement. The men grunted, stopped and turned away.
    â€œDr. Tombay.” The stranger said, “I am Mutara Gusana, head guide from Karisoke. Dr. Dubois send me. I drive you now.” He held out his hand and she looked down at it. A calloused palm, dry skin. She was still breathing hard, couldn’t deal with touching anyone.
    â€œI don’t shake hands,” she said. “I have Asperger’s.”
    After a confused pause, he withdrew his hand. It seemed likely his English didn’t extend to the name of this syndrome. “Please to come with me.” Any sort of warmth had disappeared from his voice.
    The officials continued to follow her, the translator calling out information about the stability of their economy and friendliness of the people. The porters trailed behind with her luggage. The van was a beat-up Volkswagen from the 1970s, hand-lettered “Karisoke Research Station.” The gorilla painted above the name looked a little like a hairy man