Mark Connelly
Cabbie

After registering for classes, I walked through the Student Union to scan the job notices.  A freshman I met at orientation pointed to a Yellow Cab announcement.

“That’s a good job.  Good tips.  Flexible schedule.  You can put in more hours when you have time or need the cash.  Plus, you spend a lot of time waiting for calls.  You can get a lot of reading done.  But you gotta have a clean driving record.  I got a DUI.  Cuts me out,” he said ruefully.  “But hey, try it.  A lot of drivers quit at the end of summer.” 

That afternoon I went to the office on Edison Street and filled out an application.  A few days later I received a call.  A flat voice told me to report Saturday morning at nine for an interview strangely called a school day.

On Saturday morning I met two other applicants in the lobby, a business major from Marquette and a jobless veteran from Texas. We chatted briefly in the small dusty waiting room.  The Marquette student had grown up in Ocean County, so I felt an instant bond.  We traded a few Jersey jokes. The Texan was tall and blond with a handsome open boyish face.  Joe Buck adrift in the big city.  He shifted in his molded plastic chair and explained he had come north for a job offered by a former girlfriend.  Her brother owned a trucking firm and needed a driver.  But it took him longer than expected to borrow enough for bus fare.  When he finally arrived in Milwaukee, he found the girlfriend living with another man, now driving for her brother.   He was staying at the YMCA and working with a VA counselor.  He hoped to get a job and head back to Texas before winter.

 A gaunt, sour-faced man in a rough plaid shirt and white dickey appeared in the doorway.  He motioned us to follow him down a narrow hallway pasted with dog-eared city maps to a small room with half a dozen folding chairs with writing arms.  Brusquely gesturing for us to sit, he filled a Styrofoam cup with rancid-smelling coffee, offering us none.  He sat in a squeaking swivel chair with peeling leather arms and cleared his throat.

“Welcome to the Bohnen Cab Company,” he said huskily. “I am John Bohnen.  This is the largest cab company in the city.  Been the largest since the war.  We are the only company in town that can use the word ‘yellow.’  We got a contract on that.  This business ain’t easy, and it ain’t for everybody.”  His voice was low and rough.  He spoke slowly and swallowed with a wince as if suffering from a sore throat.

He surveyed us, taking note of our long hair, our jeans.  He seemed dubious about our prospects.  “What makes someone a professional?” he asked. 

“Skill,” I suggested.

“Experience,” said the Texan.

The man scowled and sipped his coffee and winced.  “Money,” he said quietly.  “Money. A professional gets paid.  I’ve been in the Yellow Cab business since 1986.  I’ve seen every kind of driver come and go.  And it takes a special kind of person to drive cab.  For one thing, it ain’t like the movies.  Cabs do not cruise. This ain’t New York,” he said, eyeing the Marquette student and me.  “They post.  You sit at Oakland and Locust or Mitchell and Eighth, and you wait for a radio call.  The cab company has regular runs to hospitals, airports, an’ hotels.  These are rationed out.  You will get a few of these to start, but don’t depend on them.  You gotta develop your own business.  Remember, this ain’t a job.  You don’t get a paycheck here, you get a opportunity.  You rent the cab for forty-two dollars a shift and buy your own gas.  After you pay out, whatever you take home is yours.  You don’t get Social Security with us, and you gotta take care of your own taxes.  You are a entrepreneur – not a chauffeur.  You think like a chauffeur, sit behind the wheel and expect to be paid by the clock, you won’t last.  It’s drive or die.  You don’t get paid by the clock, remember, you get paid by that meter.  You only make money when you got someone paying you to drive, when that meter is clicking.  Print up business cards and pass ‘em out to friends.  Pass ‘em out like water.  You gotta advertise.  Hit up businesses and apartment buildings on the East Side.  A lot of those old people don’t have cars and have regular doctor’s appointments.  You build up a clientele of steady customers.  That’s the bread and butter.  Conventions are big business, so are holidays.  You work every other holiday.  You want Christmas off? Then you gotta work Thanksgiving and New Year’s.  Got that? You want Thanksgiving off, you work Labor Day and Christmas.”

He cleared his throat and grimaced.  “And a few other things.  No drinking.  Remember that.  Not one drink on duty or just before you show up for work.  One drink on your breath smells as bad as ten.  If you have a accident, you call in first.  Not the police, not an ambulance – you call in here and declare a accident.  And you don’t run around playing doctor.  Someone is hurt, you tell us, and we call the police.  You try and help and give first aid, you get sued.  You break down, you call in.  We don’t even put spare tires or a jack in the trunk.  We don’t want no one getting hurt.  Let the mechanics service your cab.”  He swallowed and winced.  “Now, Lou will explain the radio calls and take you guys out for a test drive.”

Lou, heavily jowled, overweight, and bitter, resembled a hungover Broderick Crawford.  He stood in the doorway and told us to follow him.  He led us down the hall to a smeared window looking into a dim room where a pair of heavyset women with headphones answered a blinking switchboard and spoke into microphones.  Their flat Midwestern voices, distorted by a rasping speaker, broadcast a sad, repetitive litany of Southside addresses.  “Call to 2824 South 13th, upper flat. . . . Call to 1415 West Becher. . . . .  Call to 1515 West Layton. . . . Package call to Globe Life 3758 West National.  Ask for Krumhold, Henry. . . . .”  

Lou nodded.  “Sometimes we get special calls.  Package calls is a messenger or delivery run.  You pick up a package and take it across town or the airport.  All these are priority runs.  You don’t try to double up by grabbing a passenger on the way.  We get contracts because we got a record.  Most important call is a blood run.  Sometimes hospitals call us to transport blood.  You don’t pick up nobody, and you don’t take no radio calls until you drop off the blood.  And you call in and register the run completed and you get a hospital receipt.  These runs are time stamped.  We fight to get these blood runs.  Sometimes we transport a patient or a doctor from one facility to another.  The VA sometimes has us take patients from here to Racine or Kenosha. When you gotta go outta  meter range, you use this map.”  He held up a stained page sealed in wrinkled plastic and waved it at us.  “There is one in every cab.”

He led us to the garage and pointed to a battered cab and waved us to get in the back seat.  We crowded in as he squeezed behind the wheel.  He placed his chipped coffee mug on the dashboard and demonstrated the meter and radio, running over calls and codes.  With the heavy metal mike in his fist, he looked even more like Broderick Crawford growling “10-4” on Highway Patrol.  “When you getta no show, you call that a Hogan and call in for directions.  You buy all your gas from us.  No fillups at Wisco or Phillips 66 unnerstand?  That is part of your contract.  And keep your cabs clean. That will increase your tips.  Now lemme run you through a typical day.  You show up, inspect your cab, and punch in.  You getta trip sheet like this from the window” – he held up a frayed clipboard – “and write down your mileage and check the tank is full.  If not, you tell the supervisor, otherwise you have to pay.  When your trip sheet is filled out, you call the dispatcher to get your first post and head out.  When your shift ends, you come back here, punch out, hit the pump and pay for your gas.  You always top off your tank, and you always pay in cash for gas.  No checks.  Then you turn in your trip sheet at the supervisor’s window, go home and get ready to go to work the next day.  On a holiday, you inspect your cab, punch in, getta a blue trip sheet like this from the widow and write down your mileage and check the tank is full.  When your blue sheet is filled out, you call the dispatcher to get your first post of the day.  At the end of your shift, you come back here, punch out, hit the pump and pay for your gas.  Then you turn in the blue trip sheet at the supervisor’s window, go home and get ready to go to work the next day.  On a contract shift – that’s when we get a company hiring out cabs to shuttle people back and forth from hotels to the convention halls an’ airport – you show up, inspect your cab, punch in, start a green trip sheet but don’t run your meter.  You get a flat fee for half a day.  On a busy day you get two halves.  Two halves make a full day.  At the end of your shift, tank up and pay for your gas, you punch out, turn in your green trip sheet and get your fee, go home and get ready to go to work the next day.”

Listening to him I began to feel ill.  The odor of his rancid coffee made my stomach churn.  Lou’s flat embittered voice and his repeated direction of going home “to get ready to go to work the next day” depressed me.  This was to be my lot in life?  To drive a cab and when off duty, get ready to face another day of trip sheets, radio calls, bad weather, airport runs, traffic jams, grumbling customers, blood runs, and Hogans?

Lou ordered the Texan to drive and slid to the passenger side.  The Texan, fresh from the army, was deferential and repeatedly called Lou “sir.”  Unimpressed, Lou merely nodded and directed him to head out with a stab of his finger.  The dented overhead garage door rattled up, and the cab rolled slowly down the potholed gravel drive. The ’97 Impala had been put to hard use.  The hood and fenders were pocked and mottled.  The cab listed and lurched and wallowed on worn shocks and creaking springs as the Texan turned onto State Street.

Lou growled directions, pointing to the freeway onramp.  We headed toward the lake then veered south, soaring over the peeling tar roofs of warehouses and machine shops.  We left the freeway and turned east onto an industrial road near the harbor.  Noting how the Texan craned his neck as he shifted lanes, Lou snapped, “You got mirrors, use ‘em.”  

After badgering about his failure to signal, he told the Texan to stop.  We parked on an empty access road.  Lou got out and walked to the front of the cab and fumbled with the bumper.  Something snapped loudly, and he jumped back, waving his fingers.  Growling curses, he returned to the cab, holding a wire.  “OK,” he told the Texan.  “You drive straight down this road.  Thirty miles an hour.  No faster.  I gotta firecracker here.  When you hear it go off, you hit the brakes and stop as fast as you can. Got it?”

The Texan nodded and drove.  The cab rolled past listing ships, rusting oilers, and sea-worn Indian freighters.

Lou tossed his head back and growled, “You guys in back brace yourselves.”  Then he turned to the Texan.  “You ready?” he asked.

“Yes sir!,” the Texan nodded.

Lou pulled a wire, and there was a sharp bang and a puff of blue from the right fender.  The cab squealed to a halt, skidding sharply to the right and nosing down. 

“OK, get out,” Lou rasped.

 The Texan climbed out of the cab.  Lou turned to us in the back seat. “I said get out,” he grumbled sharply, “you guys need some kinda special invitation?”

We slid out of the cab and stood beside the Texan.  The wind whipping off Lake Michigan was raw and cold.  We shoved our hands into our pockets and shivered.  Lou looked at us sourly.  “You tried to stop as fast as you could, right?”

The Texan drawled, “Yessuh.”

“Well, let’s pace it off.”  He marched back to a blue smudge of chalk dust on the concrete.  “That shows where the firecracker went off.  See how far we are from the vehicle?  Even at thirty miles an hour, see how long it took you to stop?”  He paced out thirty feet.  “Now if a kid ran out into the street here and you hit the brakes back there, look where you stopped,” he turned, pointing to the cab behind him.  “You wouldda runned him down. Remember that.  You ain’t driving that cab, you’re aiming it.  It’s a two-ton weapon, you remember that.”

He beckoned us back into the Chevy with the Texan at the wheel again.  “OK, take me to 700 West State Street.”

The Texan gripped the wheel, “700 West State Street?” he queried.

“Isn’t that the police administration building?” I asked, trying to be helpful.

Lou tossed his head back.  “How do I know?  You just picked me up at the airport.  I’m from Cleveland, so don’t ask me.”

The Texan froze for a moment then hesitantly drove forward, taking the bridge to downtown.  At the end of the bridge he took the wrong exit, and Lou snorted, “That ain’t the way.  Jeez, what would you do?” he asked, turning to face the Marquette student. 

“I’d take Wisconsin to Seventh.”

“With that construction?  Take State. Take State. Make a left.  Not here!

” he barked as the Texan started to turn down a one-way street, “Here!  Here!” 

We parked beside the police administration building.  Lou got out and went inside, returning a minute later with a file folder, “OK, take me to St. Michael’s Hospital.”

None of us knew where it was.  I gave a rough intersection, which proved to be a few blocks off. 

“OK,” he sighed wearily, “take me to the Eagles Club.  Know where that is?  How about the Shorecrest Hotel?  The Milwaukee Road yard?”

We remained silent. 

Lou sighed, “Take me back to the office.”  The Texan looked confused, and Lou barked out directions, shaking his head.  When we pulled into the garage, Lou got out, spat, rubbed his tumorous paunch, then looked up.  “I’m washing out this class. None of you guys knows the city well enough.  Study a map and come back in three months.  Good luck.”  He returned to the office, slamming the door behind him.  I walked to my car, sheepish and wordless.

That morning, I drove home with a washed-out cab driver. 

*

In my flat I paced back and forth, then walked to my desk. I picked up books at random and read their first sentences, repeating them like a mantra to enter the world of great authors and ideas. I am a sick man. . . . I am a spiteful man. . . .  It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen. . . .  All of this happened while I was walking around starving in Christiania. . . .   Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead.  Kerouac did it.  Hamsun did it.  Chekov did it.  I would do it.  I will do it.  I will write the next great novel, a best seller.  I will write a Broadway play.  I will be interviewed on PBS making wry, insightful comments about the world.  Learned interviewers will nod with mature recognition of my youthful genius. 

I drank coffee and started typing.  I was hurt and angry. “Go home and get ready to go to work the next day.”  Damn!  I was going to make it.  I was going to be somebody!  Odets did it.  Arthur Miller did it.  Tennessee Williams did it.   I hammered away at my play, each sentence a protest against the Lou’s of the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cara Diaconoff
West Dallas Baba Yaga

The shop was called Granny Azalea's Tinctures, Potions, Powders & Unguents and boasted a listing in both Google and the Yellow Pages, although the physical location, a cottage on a weedy block in West Dallas, displayed no identifying sign. People who needed herbal supplements would hear of Granny Azalea sooner or later. And people who needed the services of her side business would find her as well.

Here's long-framed Granny in her purple hoodie with the half-woman, half-owl creature
embroidered on the back. See her stomp-limping about the linoleum floors, which are pocked
from her cane tip's pounding. Her dreadlock-crowned head juts as she squints behind what
used to be called Coke-bottle lenses, half an inch thick. (She refuses to waste money on the
fancy procedure to curve and thin them.) When she takes a seat in one of the banquet chairs in
her consultation room, she props her right leg, the one that doesn't bend, on a black satin-
covered crate. Fang, her Siamese cat, jumps up to step along it like he's walking the plank.
Rumor had it that in the 1970s, Granny had served an underground abortion collective
in Galveston with skills she'd gained as a medical student and that now since those bad old days
had returned, she had heard the call to help. She had worked as a doula in years past and was
said to have taken on the name "granny" in tribute to the "granny midwives" of the old South.
Granny's own grandma had been one of these.

Granny's background was what she called an American mishmash: Black on one
side—that granny midwife—and Russian-German on the other. Three generations back, those
Volga Germans who could had fled Stalin's threat to expel them from Russia, and some of them
had ended up in Texas, and Granny numbered these among her forebears. These were the ones
she honored with the embroidered image of the sirin bird on her hoodie and her bathrobes.
This was Granny's spirit-sign, a mishmash in itself: dangerous to men on the one hand (this idea
always made Granny cackle) but a symbol of harmony on the other. It was said that only happy
people could hear the song of the sirin.

Granny lived in the side and back rooms of the cottage along with her helpers—her
niece Gigi and Gigi's girlfriend Johnnie. Gigi had been christened Annalise, but from the time
she was four years old, Granny had called her GG, for Green Glow, after her emerald-colored
eyes. Gigi was small, fit, forty-something, with dark curly hair hugging her skull like a cloche hat.

In her twenties she had been a pro cyclist, competing internationally. She was quieter than Granny, but she would never lose the jock's swagger, the body's laser presence conferred by
years of hard exercise and competition. Gigi owned any room she entered, without trying.

Today's client was a child: not possibly more than fourteen and what Granny's grandma
would have called a slip of a thing, dressed in silver lamé flip-flops and an oversize navy T-shirt
and sporting a tattoo of a bunny face above one wrist. Her name, she said, was Evaline.

As Gigi unloaded jars of herbs, dawdling in her steps between storage closet and
counter, she glimpsed the girl where she sat in the consultation room, staring at her lap as
Granny fired at her the question that she often used to test clients' resolve.

"You know that lots of people think of it as killing. What would you say to someone who
got up in your face asking why you wanted to kill your baby?"
Evaline shifted in her seat, then mumbled something.

"What was that? You'll have to speak up if you want me to hear you, girl," said Granny,
not unkindly.

"I said, why do you call it killing," said the girl, louder now, still talking to her lap. She
had a high-pitched voice that made her words sound oddly playful.

Granny smiled. "Isn't that what it is? Isn't that what they call it?"

The girl ignored this. "And why do you call it my baby," was the next thing she said.

"Isn't that what it is?" said Granny again.

"No," said the girl in her high little voice. "It isn't a baby. And it isn't mine."

Granny didn't press further. They had all seen so many other Evalines who had sat in
that seat. A few were as self-possessed as this one. Maybe it was just the forcefulness of
desperation. Get this thing out of me, some of them begged.

This girl, thought Gigi, wouldn't beg. It was always harder with the reserved ones. When
they talked more, shared stories of abuse, Granny had channels to certain sympathetic
authorities who might be able to help. Otherwise—well, Granny couldn't follow the girls and
women home. All she could do was offer them a small jute tote containing several phials as well
as instructions for consuming their contents. The first dose could be taken immediately, but
twenty-four hours had to pass before the second could be ingested.

 

*

As Evaline sat reading the instructions, Granny looked up to see Gigi hovering in the doorway.
"Scram," mouthed Granny. Gigi duly retreated, feeling miffed as always.

Understandably, Granny thought it best not to overwhelm the clients with too many people in
the room. But she had to know as well that both Gigi and Johnnie had worried ever since they
had seen Evaline walk through the shop's front door.

Gigi busied herself by the drawers full of tea boxes by the window. After Evaline left, she
could hear Johnnie and Granny conferring.

"She seems awful young, Miz Azzie. You should be careful of those young ones."

"Careful of the little gals?" said Granny. "Bless your heart. Where do they go if I show
them the door?"

Gigi could hear in Johnnie's voice her skewed smile. "Not saying show them the door.
Just watch 'em. Young kids get used as pawns—you know that as well as I do."

Johnnie, a former PI, had first come to the cottage two years before, snooping around
on behalf of a client whose runaway wife had once used Granny's services. Granny never took
kindly to strangers knocking on her door, but Johnnie had charmed her by telling Granny that
she reminded Johnnie of Johnnie's "farm-girl mama." Granny always had a soft spot for young
men who stood up to her. Johnnie wasn't technically a man, but with her crewcut and broad
shoulders, she was close enough. Granny had offered her a seat on the porch swing, and when
Gigi had come home from her high-school gym-teaching job, they had taken one look at each
other, Gigi and Johnnie, and Gigi had plopped down next to her on the swing like they were
long-lost pals. Two years later, that was what they were and more.

 

*

"Don't you worry about me, girl," said Granny now. "I keep my radar turned on."

No matter how early Gigi woke up, Granny was always awake first, moving about the kitchen with a surprisingly light step for one of her age and height, grinding coffee beans in an old wooden mortar and pestle, quietly whistling an Alison Krauss song. Gigi liked to stand just out of sight for a moment and listen. It was respite: her aunt without the edginess (even if it was a jolly edge) that always came out when other people were around her.

Granny's kitchen was full of heirlooms from an old farmhouse, stuffed into this stucco
cottage built in the 1940s. One could see the influences of her varied heritage in the spice-rack
drawers on the wall, the wooden breadbasket resting in the center of the pine table, the row of
nesting dolls arrayed on a ledge in front of a quilt depicting stick-figure people herding cattle
and welcoming the sun.

Two mornings after Evaline's visit, the three women were finishing their breakfast in this
pleasant space when they heard a monstrous thud from the shop area.

Granny stood up immediately, followed by her helpers. Sure enough, a cloudy star
covered half the pane of their front window. Bulletproof glass had been installed years before
(when it came to safety, Granny was willing to shell out the money), but the force had still
cracked an outer layer.

 

*

Half a decade Granny and Gigi had been doing this work, ever since a certain high-court
decision had been overturned. Granny had always kept her "fuzz detector" honed. They'd never
had any trouble till now.

"Miz Azzie, let me or Gigi be the one to go out there and see what's what," said Johnnie.

"No way, girl," said Granny. "The only one I feel right handling my shotgun is me."

Gigi and Johnnie stood anxious watch in the doorway while Granny, gun cocked,
descended the front steps. The spring morning was overcast, the air sluggish. On the four-lane
boulevard a block over, the occasional car or truck rumbled by. They were the only house on
this stretch of their street. Gigi often felt exposed here, under the pounding sun or against the
whistling wind of the North Texas seasons. And she felt so now.

Granny didn't have to patrol long. A brown-skinned, muscular young man in tank top
and baggy shorts stood on the lawn over the rock he'd thrown, hands in the air and face flushed
with rage.

"Hi, good morning," said Granny. "You got something you wanna say to me?"

"Yeah. My little sister almost died because of you. She might still die!"

"Yeah? You don't say. And who might your little sister be?"

"You pitiful old hag," said the boy, "you mean to say you get so many young girls coming to your hellhole that you don't know which one I'm talkin' about?"

"Keep callin' me names," advised Granny. "It's a great way to get on my good side. I
could call you some as well, but of course I won't. I'll just suggest it might be time to do some
clothes-shoppin'. You about to bust out of that muscle shirt. Ah-ah-ah. Don't you dare come
closer. And keep your hands the hell up!"

The boy's face was winched like he might cry. Instead, he spat to the side. "Dick-nosed
hag. Witch from hell. I'll fuck you up. Soon as I get the chance. You better believe it."

Quietly, Gigi made her way down the steps and sidled up to Granny. She was within two
feet when the boy suddenly saw her. "Who the fuck are you?"

"I live here," said Gigi calmly. "This here's my aunt. That's who the fuck I am. Look—it
doesn't have to be this way. We can talk."

The boy sneered. "What is this—good cop bad cop?"

Granny snorted. "Cops? Hardly."

"Yeah, I'll bet not," snapped the boy. "That's what I should do, is call the cops on you."
He was pulling out his phone as he said it.

"Now, how smart would that be?" said Gigi. "I think you just vandalized some property.
Which we don't care about as much as you might think, by the way. People are the main thing
we care about, around here. Yes! It's true, so you don't need to look at me like that."

The boy had gone red in the face again. "Lady, how stupid do you think I am? You don't
give a shit about anything but money. Y'all sold my sister abortion pills. She was puking all night from the first dose and didn't do a good enough job of hiding it from my mom. My mom took and flushed the rest down the toilet, and my sister lost her mind. She tried to—she tried to take care of it her ownself. And now she's sick and bleeding and we got nowhere to turn. Have a great day." And with that he turned on his heel and was gone.

 

*

 

Half a decade of helping as many as they could, and now the business was gone. They had to take seriously the threat of cop-calling. The past few years, they had heard enough stories of an outraged family member or neighbor leading to a life sentence for a provider. They worked
together to shred paper records, erase digital ones, haul boxes full of odds and ends into the
consultation room so that it looked like a storage room, and dump down the toilet the pills that
Granny had built up over years, trading on the dark Web after the market had gone illegal.

It wasn't the first time that Gigi had marveled at Granny's sangfroid in a crisis. She
herself had gone numb, except those moments when she felt her throat closing and had to stop
and bend over and take deep breaths. Granny, meanwhile, could be heard humming Creedence
songs. Whenever she caught Gigi's eye, she flashed a bright grin.

"Chin up, girl. It'll be okay."

"Sure, Tetyushka—Aunt Azzie. I know"—which was pure bluffing on Gigi's part. She wished she knew the secret to Granny's confidence. You could never ask her point-blank.

 

*

What next? The three of them hunched tensely around the kitchen table, trying to think. Four if you counted Fang, submitting to meditative petting in Granny's lap.

"It's unbearable not knowing how the kid is doing," said Gigi.

"Hmph," said Granny. "We just have to sit tight till we know more. Nothing to stop us
from making contingency plans, though."

Johnnie brought her chin to rest on Gigi's shoulder, as if to say she understood that

Gigi's remark had come more from her heart than her head.

"I want to send 'em a message," said Gigi. "See if we can somehow help."

"It's a terrible idea, girl," said Granny immediately. Fang, hearing the change in tone,
jumped down from her lap and absented himself.

"Okay, yeah, terrible," said Gigi. An old tension between herself and Granny had been
lurking all morning. "Of course, you're right. What was I thinking."

"I mean, it's hard not to rage," interjected Johnnie, sitting up. "Miz Azzie, don't start—I
know all the reasons it's a waste of time to do it. But if this country gave a shit about people's
health, that little girl wouldn't be pregnant in the first place at fourteen. Tell me I'm wrong."

"Of course you're not wrong," said Granny. "But it's never a different answer. We've
gotta keep our heads down and work with what we've got."

 

*

The child is in danger. Who will be sent to rescue the child? The one who is sent must possess shrewdness, resolve, and purity of heart. If not wealthy, she must have other resources with which to bribe. If not cunning, she must have the imagination to avail herself of help from unexpected quarters. If not surpassingly kind and generous, she must not go at all.

So went those old Slavic tales Granny had recounted as bedtime stories.

For as long as Gigi could remember, she had wanted to prove herself to Granny. She
knew Granny loved her, but always there was that undercurrent of condescension, or the
potential for it.

Granny was a doula but childless herself. If only I could've had a baby, Gigi would
sometimes think. It could have been a way for her to prove her strength—as well as, somehow,
reward Granny for all her labors helping others with their labor. But did she really want a baby,
or was it just another name for wishing to regain the past? Gigi sometimes fancied that she
could remember being a baby, a little three-year-old wobbler whose mother had just left for
good. She'd seen snapshots of her mama, a waif with wolf and cross tattoos covering her neck
and shoulders, staring at the camera with a tiny smile and big dark eyes with a sparkle of white
light at the center that no one seemed to notice as much as Gigi did or to be able to explain.

The explanation she did receive was that her mother, Shavonne, had flown the coop
when the band she drummed for had embarked on a year-long transatlantic tour. Shavonne
had basically never returned, and although she had sent postcards and telegrams and even the
occasional letter for the first several years, she had now been decades out of touch. And Gigi
couldn't find her on the internet.

 

*

Once she'd reached adulthood in her turn, Gigi had pursued what Granny said was her
own kick-ass career to prove something to her mama. As a cyclist, she'd competed under the
sponsorship of Cool Beans, the cruelty-free sportswear behemoth that supported fair-trade
coffee plantations in Brazil and coral-reef rebuilding projects in the Pacific. Gigi had been top of
her game, the leader of the U.S. team. Then, some years in, she had let her opposite number on
the Belgian team—who was also her boyfriend of two years—talk her into throwing an
important race. He needed the purse to take care of ailing family members.

Gigi understood, she would tell Granny. Like her, he hadn't grown up rich. He hailed
from an Algerian neighborhood in Liege—like her, an exception to the stark white privilege of
the rest of their respective teams. To make a long story short, she had gone along with the plan
and gotten away with it—his team had duly won the purse—but the ensuing atmosphere of
distrust on her own team had finally caused her to quit. She'd come home to Dallas.

"It was time to quit cycling anyway, Tetya Azzie," she had said. "I'm over thirty now."

"Girl, that's bull and you and I both know it," said Granny, but she had held back from
delivering any more of a lecture and contented herself with a pat to Gigi's forearm.

Somehow, it only made Gigi feel worse. She wanted Granny to be angrier at her for
having knuckled under to some man's stupid scheme.

Granny had always told her that a light had switched back on behind her eyes when
Johnnie came along. And Gigi adored Johnnie, no doubt about it. But love didn't fill every empty
nook, did it? Even excellent love. You couldn't repose your whole sense of the meaning of life in
the person of another human being, after all. Unless they were your child--?
And even her own mother hadn't done that.

 

*

 

Sleuthing online came easy to Gigi; monitoring the anti-abortion forums had always been part of her work for Granny. She ran searches on Evaline's name, and soon enough she found a
result: the family appeared on a prayer list on one of the more popular grassroots evangelical
blogs. The accompanying comment said that their young daughter was ill after having tried to
take her own life. And it listed Dallas as their home.

The next step was social-media dot-connecting. It wasn't hard to find a page that
seemed to belong to Evaline's older sister, a willowy seventeen-year-old with a solemn gaze
and shoulder-length dark hair dyed with pink highlights. She had a TikTok account as well,
where she rapped religious poetry set to a vaguely dance-hall beat.

But Gigi paid most attention to her Instagram page, clicking on post after post of the
sister (her name was Laura) line-dancing, praying, cheering with other kids inside a space with
turf-like blue carpet, rows of track lights, and fake-marble columns. An exterior shot showed
one of those Mexican-neighborhood churches that stretched a city block's length behind an
oceanic parking lot, its name lit up in neon.

Gigi made a new profile for herself. In her cycling days, she had once written a piece for
an online Christian magazine about the power of team prayers. She added to her profile a link
to the mag's contributors' page and a picture of herself in her cycling helmet and sunglasses.

Hello there, she wrote in a direct message. You don't know me, but I read about you and
your sister online. I'm a writer for Listen Up! I'd like to help. I can get the word out, maybe help
crowdsource funding.

Laura messaged back within the hour. Thank you for your kindness. We are open to help
from anyone. And, over the course of not too many more messages, she filled Gigi in on what

Gigi already knew—that Laura's sister had gone to "an evil person—like a bad witch, is how I
think of her," and gotten pills that their mother had then destroyed, whereupon Evaline had
taken "something from the kitchen" and tried to "poison the baby out of her." They couldn't
turn anywhere; they couldn't go to the hospital for fear of getting in trouble with the law. A
friend of their mother's worked as a nurse's aide, and that lady had been able to spirit away
some sedatives. But Evaline was weak, feverish, vomiting for hours. Whenever their mother
was at work, Laura would need to be on duty by Evaline's bedside. She had already missed days
of school.

Even when their mother was home, Laura wouldn't feel right leaving the apartment
herself. Their mother was so heartbroken that Evaline had tried to kill her baby that she was
hardly any use. She mostly sat in her rocking chair praying and crying.

And what about dear brother? Gigi thought but of course did not say. To Laura, she
promised whatever help she could offer. "We're not like mainstream newspapers," she
improvised. "No rule against us helping the people we're writing about."

 

*

Granny, no surprise, was unimpressed when Gigi came clean about what she was doing.

"Listen, G. No one's saying you're not a beautiful soul. But it takes more than that in this
world, you dig? You gotta have know-how and a thick skin and a decent sense of timing. And
nothing you're doing is showing me you've got any of that. You're gonna get us in trouble, and
there ain't exactly wiggle room for folks like us in the current political atmosphere. I don't
wanna be sitting in a prison cell talking to you once a week through a glass plate. If I'm even
willing to talk to you at that point, that is."

Gigi heard, and, despite whatever Granny might think or say, she did "dig." But she felt
that they were involved with this family whether they liked it or not. So, she used her newly
made-up email address and sent to Laura a file of curriculum materials she'd gotten from a
colleague at her school, so that at least Laura wouldn't fall behind in her studies while tied to
her sister's bedside. She asked for updates on Evaline. "Hanging in there," was Laura's reply.

 

*

 

"It'd be easier if I could hate Aunt Azzie. Even dislike her," said Gigi, her head in Johnnie's lap as they sat on the old plush loveseat in their room, the window open to the moist May evening breeze, which fluttered the affirmation cards that lined the sill. "But how the hell can you? She's a force of nature, and all you know is, you want her by your side."

"Amen," said Johnnie. "I know."

"Beautiful but not tough enough?" said Gigi. "That's really what she thinks of me?"

"Darlin', you know she likes to say shit. She likes to make pronouncements. Half the shit
she says, she wouldn't recognize it if you quoted it back to her an hour later. It's part of that
'force of nature' thing, you know? Since when has she been the thoughtfullest?

"Yeah, maybe," said Gigi, trying to feel reassured. "Shit!" she said, as another fit of
chagrin overtook her. "She never even thanked me for defusing the situation with the girl's
brother. It could have been bloodshed out there on our lawn."

"I'd bet a million she thought she had the incident under control," observed Johnnie.

"Yeah. 'Course. Silly me!" Gigi fell silent for a while. Then, "I feel like I'll go to my grave not knowing if she ever really respected me. Part of it is how she never opens up. So many
times when I was younger, I asked her to tell me something about Shavonne. Got so little
knowledge about my own mama. She'd just get this look on her face like she swallowed a fly. I
mean, sure, she's allowed to hold a grudge. Sister rides off into the sunset, leaving behind a
toddler to raise. Still. It was like I should feel ashamed even to bring it up."

"Yeah, well," said Johnnie, "I can't disagree with you. Nobody ever accused Miz Azzie of
having a mile-high emotional IQ."

The two of them snickered. Johnnie held her hands to either side of Gigi's face,
smoothing out Gigi's eyebrows with her thumbs, then bent to kiss her on the forehead. Gigi
closed her eyes, allowed herself to feel a moment of peace.

 

*

 

Gigi was surprised to see Laura's number flash up on her screen. When she opened the
message, though, she was met with a scroll of abuse that did not come from Laura. Stupid white
savior bitch Im this close to calling the law. You come near my family again I'll take you DOWN.
White savior? Thought Gigi, strangely calm herself now that worse disaster had struck.
She was tempted to laugh but decided not to bother. Right now, the priority was salvage.
Tony. Listen, she texted back. She knew his name from Laura. You're right to be angry.
But your sister could die. Maybe we really could save her. If we can, will you stop the threats?
How the fuck you gonna save her when you aint come near her?
I don't see how you have much choice was her rejoinder.

 

*

 

It was the same thing she told Granny, presently. No other choice. Or only bad ones. But Granny wasn't having it. Gigi had never seen her so angry. Granny never raised her voice; even now, she didn't. But she let her cane-tip do the yelling. Pock! it pounded the floor, punctuating her every third word. Fang fled, his voice trailing off in squeaks.

"Girl, you have pulled some dumb-fool shit, but I'll be goddamned if I let you cap it off
by getting yourself cuffed. And I'm the one who knows how to mix my meds!"

"Tetya Azzie, I've been apprenticed to you for a decade. If you don't think by now I
couldn't figure out how to make an infusion…."

"G, right now? You've got your head so far up your ass I wouldn't trust you to take out
the garbage. Now get out. Now. You're about to make me have a heart attack, and you're for
damn sure the last person I want to have to give me CPR."

 

*

 

Gigi never really knew whose side Johnnie was on. Johnnie just helped. Over the course of the next twenty-four hours, she found a motel room near Love Field that they could rent by the week and scored a stretcher from a cheap medical-supply shop. She helped Gigi sift through
Granny's books and notes to come up with a treatment plan. She stood by while Gigi texted
with Laura, the two of them hammering out logistics as to how to spirit Evaline out of the
apartment while mother and Tony were both at work. (Laura had turned out to have exactly
nothing to say about the fact that Gigi wasn't really a magazine writer.) And Johnnie ran
interference with Granny, who had not stopped fuming about the risk and the fact that they
weren't allowing her to be the one to undertake it.

The three days they lived in that motel would always be a blur in Gigi's memory. She
remembered in slivers the clammy air of the afternoon they'd ferried Evaline to the motel on
the stretcher laid across the back seat of a rented Toyota. In the room, they kept the blinds
drawn, and the morning light would seep through the slats a sullen, taunting yellow. Johnnie
would go out to get coffee. The egg biscuits she brought back on the first day had a total of two
bites taken out of them and then sat around and congealed till the smell in the room seemed
the very concentrate of defeat; the next day and the day after, she just brought coffee.

On the first day, Evaline had been conscious, sometimes awake and moaning a little, but
able to answer their questions. Around noon of the second day, she turned blue and her
breathing ragged. Johnnie didn't waste a second; she said she was going to the cottage to get
Granny. Gigi was left to sit waiting, her arms around Laura.

"Miss G, I know you don't pray, but will you pray with me?"

"Of course I will." She let Laura draw her to her knees by the side of the bed. They held
hands with each other and with Evaline. She heard Laura's breath, the deep inhales and the
exhales that kept catching, and she felt Evaline's clammy hand, limp in hers even when she
squeezed. Her fingers kept fluttering up to Evaline's wrist to feel her pulse. Perhaps that would
count as prayer.

But then Granny and Johnnie returned, and there was bustle. Ten to one it was sepsis,
said Granny, and she produced a stethoscope and poultices and bottles from her bag. One of
them held a greenish paste she made Evaline swallow. A compound of zinc and mung bean, Gigi
would figure out later. Evaline spent that night throwing up into a series of metal bowls. In the
morning, the mattress was streaked and soaked, and the smell in the room, at once sharp and
insinuating, sprang tears to your eyes when you came in from outside. But Evaline's fever had
broken. And she'd passed the pregnancy—tiny pink flesh-pod in an aureole of wetness on the
corner of the thin chintz bedspread.

 

*

 

Gigi sat with Laura at the table by the window. Evaline had been moved to the couch, and
Granny and Johnnie were parleying with the motel staff, offering payments for the ruined
mattress that would probably amount to bribes for the staff's silence. The light through the
slats was gray. The air conditioner mumbled. Gigi kept throwing glances toward Evaline,
checking that her breathing still came regularly. Laura, meanwhile, had turned on her phone
again after three days with it off. She thumbed the screen with what seemed to Gigi
preternatural calm.

"Ma says that Tony is just gone," she said. "She's called his work and he hasn't been
there. It was the only message from her—came in this morning. I texted her that we'd be back
soon. She hasn't answered yet."

"It'll take her a while," said Gigi—just to say something.

"Yeah," said Laura. After a while, she added, "And what about you all? What're you
gonna do? I don't think we're sure," said Gigi. "I don't think we've thought that far ahead. I think we're going to need to leave. Get out of Texas—maybe even out of the country altogether."

Laura offered a little smile. Then Gigi heard a voice say, "Take me with you," and she
was confused at first because Laura's lips hadn't moved, but then she realized it was Evaline,
speaking from the bed. Her voice was still breathy but lower-pitched than it had been the day
she had told Granny, "It isn't mine."

"Take me with you," she said again now. "Take us both."

Gigi looked to Laura. "Kitty," said Laura—her nickname for Evaline—"you know we can't go anywhere. We can't leave Ma. She's not well. You know that better 'n anyone, right now."
Evaline was silent.

"Kitty," said Laura, "we'll figure something out. I promise. But we can't ask other people
to take us on as burdens."

"It's not that," said Gigi quickly. "I wish I could—"

"You could," said Evaline. Her eyelids were fluttering, but her little voice was clear. "You
don't have to wish. You could do anything if you really wanted to. Look what you already did.
But you don't want to. It's okay." And she turned her head away from them into the back of the
couch and went back to breathing regularly, presumably asleep.

 

*

 

Officially, Granny and Gigi were at peace. "You did good, girl," said Granny, and "We couldn't have done it without you," said Gigi, but a rift had been driven, and the mending of it seemed as unlikely as the reconciliation of two tectonic plates any time in the next million years. The service for which they had risked so much was now history, and to forge together into an
unknown future seemed too much to ask. Gigi and Johnnie took Fang and settled in Toronto,
and Granny Azalea, like her sister before her, lit out to travel the world.

Occasional emails reached them from Morocco, Japan, India. Granny had received
grants from various progressive-minded funds and was carrying on something like her own self-
made Fulbright project, visiting doulas and doula collectives, giving and gaining new wisdom.
Johnnie, meanwhile, earned a law degree, and she and Gigi dedicated themselves to activism
and to dispensing legal advice to medical practitioners and patients from the United States who
sought their help.

And then one day, almost a quarter-century after they'd had to flee West Dallas, a text
from Granny. Did they have space? She was coming home to rest her weary bones.

So it was that one cloudy autumn afternoon, Gigi and Johnnie, now in the anteroom of
old age themselves, came to draw for Granny her last bath. This had been Granny's express wish. In the old Slavic tales, the bath had been a portal to the next world.

For Granny's return, they had brought out the old things: the spice-rack drawers, the
falsa mat, the nesting dolls. They arranged the dolls along a shelf in the downstairs bathroom of
the Victorian they lived in now, and they lit wintergreen candles that gave off a smell of birch
trees, like the forests of Granny's forebears.

They helped Granny undress and then wrapped her in one of her old sirin robes. They
each gave her an arm as she made the trek from bedroom to bath. The room was lit only by the
candles. Johnnie slid the robe down and Gigi sat on the edge of the tub to hold both Granny's
hands as Granny carefully climbed in and sank her long body beneath the suds.
In the dim light, the small unshaded window above the tub was a square of gray. The
only sound for a long time was the quiet rippling of the bathwater.

Then the window seemed to thud and shudder. Johnnie jumped, startled. A large crow
was beating its wings against the glass. It turned and seemed to want to swoop downward,
though the window kept it out.

In the trembling purple murk, Granny and the crow seemed to face each other, Granny's
head tipped back now, mouth open.

Gigi stared, amazed. "It's like those old myths she believes in," she finally heard herself
say. "The black bird that flies out of the witch's mouth just before…." She couldn't bring herself
to finish the sentence. "It's like it's taking Fang's place. Her familiar."

"She was a witch all right," said Johnnie, head bowed. She and Gigi joined hands.

"Granny, dear mother, rest easy now."

 

*

 

The crow's wings beat on the ceiling of Granny's brain. There was a winding staircase, as in a lighthouse, and her mind ran down and down it, level to level, and moments from her life flared on each one, quick and crackling. She saw herself standing next to a nurse in the examination room of a clinic in Rabat; she saw the cottage in West Dallas boarded up. She saw Evaline sitting on the banquet chair, bunny-face bag nestled against one of its legs. She saw herself clipping her first umbilical cord, the baby squinting and squalling, at once wizened and fleshy.

And then one more dip, and she reached the plywood walls of a low-rent studio in
Galveston three-quarters of a century before.

Rain taps the pane of the single window. Dank smell. Wood-paneled walls. All she has is
a futon on a metal frame, a side table, and a bassinet. In the bassinet is a baby, and the baby is
coughing. The baby's been coughing for days. And she's twenty, and her name is Azzie Jones,
and she's the baby's mama. And she's skinny and too tall for this little space and doesn't know
where to put her legs and she's scared to touch her own baby. She's scared to touch her lest the
coughing turn to wheezing, like it did last time.

Nobody to help. No money, and the father a boy from out of town who was working in
one of the resorts for the year, and at the end of the summer he went back to his family in
Tennessee but he told her he would come back and stay with her while the baby was born. That
was three months before and not a word since then.

And Azzie can't go home, back to her own mama, can't face those hellfire lectures and
the reek of stale incense. And Azzie had to quit her job as a nanny when her pregnancy began to
show. But there was just enough money left to make copies from reference books at the
university branch medical library. She taught herself enough that way to deliver her own baby.

But now her baby is sick. Whooping cough. Can't improvise this one. So: wrap the baby
in a towel and put the towel under her windbreaker and walk a mile to the hospital ER.
She hasn't slept in three nights. When she's given her baby to the nurses, the first thing
she does is fall into a dozy sleep, propped up by her hand on the arm of a waiting-room chair.
And after they wake her up, and after they tell her that her baby has died, she will find
herself wondering if it could have turned out differently if she'd only stayed awake. Should she
have stayed vigilant. In dropping her guard, had she proven that she didn't really want her baby.

 

*

 

Tell me, why do you want to kill your baby? It was the question pious fools asked, when of course it was anything but the mother wanting to kill her own baby. It was anything and
everything but the mother. No mother would want to kill her baby, but the women who needed
to save a child from becoming a child would be asked that question in a hypocritical and
heartless world, and they would need to be ready to answer.

 

*

 

Before Granny died, she had forbidden Gigi and Johnnie from indulging in what she called the spiritually ignorant "sentimental claptrap" of looking for signs of her in birds or animals or falling leaves. "And don't be expecting me to visit as a ghost either," she said. "Dead people ought to have better things to do than hang around this falling-down joint."

But Gigi couldn't help it. She and Johnnie were in the capitol to watch the president at
his table, surrounded by his men and women, signing into law the rights they'd spent the last
three decades fighting for. And all Gigi could look at was the crow that sat motionless, throughout the ceremony, on a branch of one of the magnolia trees. She kept glimpsing it out
of the corner of her eye and finally turned to study it, not quite sure it could be real, when it sat
so still.

She stared up at it. Are you…she thought, are you….?

As if in answer, it cocked its head. And then it kept doing so, throwing its beak to the
side in a series of tight, small gestures that seemed to say, This way. Turn back. Pay attention.

Don't look at me, girl.

Somehow, Gigi heard Evaline's voice woven in along with Granny's in the caw that that
bird would utter if it actually had opened its mouth. Evaline, whom she never heard from again
after she and Laura had walked her out of the motel to the waiting taxi, its headlights glinting in
what was already sullen Dallas summer light.

Look what you already did.

She wanted to point the bird out to Johnnie, but she didn't dare jinx it. She could have
pointed it out through an elbow-touch and a nod.

But she also knew she didn't have to. She felt Johnnie standing next to her, that energy
ardent and lionhearted. She would always know that Johnnie saw it too.
And heard it. If she was gifted with it, then so must Johnnie be: the clarity of mind to
hear the sirin's song.

 

 

 

 

Sohana Manzoor
The Emeralds

 

A story? Again? Mimi, how am I supposed to make up a new story every day? I am not Shahrazad from the Arabian Nights, you know!

So, your grandpa told you I was a princess? Hah! That’s only something my family cooked up. My forefathers made their money through business, and not all of it was even honest. 

He told you I grew up in a palace? Hmm, it was more like a prison…

Do I remember my mother? You ask too many questions, pet. But on some rainy days, I do recall her and the old house in Wari…

Where’s Wari? Oh, Wari is a place in Old Dhaka.

No, your grandpa wasn’t a prince. He worked at my father’s office.

What’s that? Emerals…?

Now where did that come from? Your mom told you about my emeralds? What does she know? They weren’t mine to begin with. And they were stolen even before she was born.

Yes, they were stolen.

Your grandpa also told you about the emeralds? That I was the emerald princess? What else did he tell you, hmm? That I loved the sunrise? That I did. Standing on the balcony of my bedroom, I imagined dawn rising from a lake of mist and darkness. The peach hue taking over the sky was an amazing sight. Raihan Bhaiya told me stories of Tithonus and Aurora and I thought I saw the goddess in her shimmering robes riding through the sky before the sun god. No, no, Aurora was not my friend. She is the Greek goddess of dawn.

Who’s Raihan? Why, he is my brother. He is eight years older than me, and I grew up trailing after him. When Reshma Apu and Bhaiya played monopoly, I would crawl on to the board to play with them. I didn’t like being left out. Apu would be furious, but Bhaiya would laugh and scoop me up in his arms. Apu would snarl, and Bhaiya would laugh all the more. “Come on, Api, just look at her! Have you seen anything as adorable as this cutie pie?” I, too, would grin at my elder sister, but she was not to be swayed. She would make faces at me and leave the scene.

Why didn’t Reshma Apu like me? Well, she was only my half-sister, that’s why. Her own mother had died when she was only six years old. Raihan Bhaiya was a mere toddler then, and their ever-busy father badly needed a wife to look after his household. That’s how my mother came into the picture.

What? You feel bad for Reshma Apu because she had a stepmom? Don’t make me laugh. She was nothing like Cinderella or Snow White. She was a little bully, and her stepmother was terrified of her.

So, she was furious when I was born. Apparently, she didn’t want to share her father and little brother. Everybody thought she would change after a while. But Reshma Apu never forgave me for stealing the limelight and grew up to be distant and somber. She had our father’s dark complexion whereas both Bhaiya and I both got our fair complexions from our respective mothers. I flaunted that sometimes just to spite Apu. You think I was mean? But she was horrid to me first. Still, those were good days because I had Bhaiya.

It’s not a story, my pet. It’s history. And it’s not really like a fairytale, mind you.

All right, you’re asking where the emeralds came from? My great-grandfather had bought them from a Hindu gentleman sometime before the 1947 Partition.

What’s the Partition? Hmm, that’s the Great Divide. That’s when the British left the subcontinent and India and Pakistan were born. That’s a longer history than the emeralds. Let’s just say that the Hindu gentleman and his family left Pakistan and moved to India. He also exchanged his property with my great-grandfather, who relocated from West Bengal. I believe those emeralds belonged to some Hindu king who reigned in Bengal even before the Sultans and Nawabs of Bengal. My great-grandfather refashioned the stones and set them in a necklace, bracelet, and earrings. The family even spun a story that the emeralds were family heirlooms handed down from the Nawab Murshid Quli Khan of Murshidabad in West Bengal. When my great-grandfather built a mansion in Wari, he named it Niyanpur—apparently after some village in West Bengal. He said that’s where his ancestors used to live. Let me tell you something, dear—don’t ever believe all the old family stories you hear. Half of them are made up.

But yes, the emeralds were gorgeous.

Stupendous.

They sparkled like green stars.

I grew up admiring and caressing the stones. My mother used to bring them out from the locker to wear on special occasions. The large green emeralds and the accompanying smaller green topazes and twinkling diamonds seemed mesmerizing. Back then, I dreamed of the day when they would be mine. Seeing my fascination with the jewels, my father even teased me as “Emerald girl,” and said if I continued to be a good girl, he would give me an emerald pendant when I turned 21.

But my eyes were set upon my mother’s emeralds. On my sixteenth birthday, I asked Amma if I could wear them at my birthday party. “Just the necklace, Amma. I promise I won’t lose it.”

Amma had often allowed me to wear her other jewelry, and she had said she would give me her ruby tiara when I got married. However, this time she shook her head and said, “The emerald necklace set is only for the wives of this family. Raihan’s wife will get them when time comes.”

I thought she was joking. “Where did ‘Raihan’s wife’ come from? Am I not your daughter? Daughters inherit their mothers’ jewelry, right?” I asked laughing.

Amma didn’t smile. “Not these emeralds. I got them as the wife of your father when I married him.” She paused and said, “It’s the eldest son’s wife who gets the emeralds when she enters Niyanpur. Reshma’s mother had them before me.”

I sat there dumbstruck. Then I said, “Wow! It sounds like the crown jewels of Britain! Seriously, Amma?”

But my mother remained unmoved.

“I see. That’s why Reshma Apu didn’t get them when she got married,” I mused. I loved Raihan Bhaiya, of course, but the thought that some random girl lurking in the future would steal my mother’s precious emeralds did not sit well with me. It seemed even stranger that Amma was not willing to let me wear them just for once.

 

*

 

Now what? Did Bhaiya’s wife get the emeralds? No, neither of Bhaiya’s wives even saw the emeralds. Oh, yes, Bhaiya married twice. Was Bhaiya a prince? Sigh. How many times should I tell you there were no princes and princesses?

I was in tenth grade when Bhaiya went abroad for higher studies, and I cried my heart out. Bhaiya consoled me by saying he would return home after two years. And of course, he would be home during summer vacations.

“You won’t recognize me by that time,” I said. “Reshma Apu will turn me into a toad or a mouse. Who will save me if you’re not around?”

Bhaiya laughed and said, “Api’s married now, and she comes only to visit. Besides, It’s only for two years, Little One.”

After he left, Abba’s mansion felt like a haunted house. Amma was preoccupied with her household duties and her husband’s diet. Abba had diabetes, but he was willful. Amma had to find different recipes to make healthy but delicious dishes. Strange it might seem, but I was never close to my mother. She was so terrified of Abba and Reshma Apu that she never fully became the mistress of her household.

So, I counted the days when Bhaiya would return home. Then one day, we heard that Bhaiya had married an Italian girl.

Abba went ballistic.

 “Tell your precious son not to return home unless he breaks up with that hussy,” he told Amma. “I could consider it if she was a Muslim. Who the hell does he think he is?” He seemed to have completely forgotten that Raihan Bhaiya was not Amma’s biological son, a fact that he had rubbed on her on many other occasions.

As usual, Amma said nothing, but wept in silence. For once, Reshma Apu and I worked together to calm Abba down, but he did not relent. Nor did Bhaiya, to whom I wrote a long letter pleading with him to forget his Italian belle.

Did he return? He did, but not right away. I was such a fool. I thought he would listen to me. Back then, I knew nothing about the all-consuming fire called “passion.”

No, my dear, I’m not talking about the passion flowers in your mom’s garden. Passion is a big love for somebody for whom you are ready to do anything. You’ll learn about it someday. It’s very different from the way you love that dirty old Taffy. What do you mean Taffy’s not dirty? He’s not only dirty, my pet, he’s also smelly. What? What did I say to make you scream like that?

All right, all right, Taffy’s not dirty. He’s not smelly either. But keep him away from me, please.

Anyway, for a while, we had no communication with Bhaiya.

Three years later, he returned, sans wife. I still recall how I rushed out of the house to meet my brother, only to be greeted by a stranger. He looked like Bhaiya, but the laughter in his eyes was gone. I heard that his marriage didn’t work out, but I never learned the details.

 

*

 

Unlike his first one, Bhaiya’s second marriage was a magnificent affair, but Bhaiya didn’t care. He agreed to the marriage because of our father. That was two years after my marriage to your grandpa. Reshma Apu was already married and had a nine-year-old daughter. What’s her daughter’s name? I see you’re very curious about Reshma Apu and her family. Her name was Rinku. Sorry, can’t show you pictures because I don’t have any. Look, if you want just the story, I can give you that. But no pictures.

Now you want to know about my wedding, too? You see, I was in love with a boy called Dibyo. But Dibyo was Hindu, and my father wouldn’t let us marry. So, I eloped from home. I thought Abba would accept us once we were married. I was his favorite child, he used to say. That didn’t happen though. Abba threatened Dibyo’s family, and the poor boy practically fled, leaving me in the middle of nowhere. I returned home, but Abba never forgave me. He had wanted to marry me off to the son of a rich businessman like him. But because of the uproar I had caused by running away, that plan didn’t work out. Soon after, I was married off to your grandpa who was my father’s trusted manager. So, you see, it was no fairytale. In fairytales, a princess gets to marry the man she falls in love with.

Where were the emeralds? Yes, yes, I’m coming to them. Be patient.

As I was saying, Raihan Bhaiya’s wedding was a huge event. The entire house was busy with wedding preparations and there was a ceaseless flow of people coming in and going out. We had a large extended family. I too stayed there even after marriage because my husband was an orphan. Also, my father wanted me around even though he didn’t even look at me. Pregnancy saved me from meeting and talking to people. Many still whispered behind my back: “That’s Rihana, Rafsan Uncle’s younger daughter. Yes, isn’t she a beauty? Oh, yes, she’s also the one who caused that huge scandal.” Well, there was nothing I could do about it except pretend that I didn’t hear anything.

 

*

 

On the day before Bhaiya’s wedding, the emeralds were brought from the bank locker. I helped Amma to get the wedding trousseau ready.

My parents’ quarters were on the south-facing side of the second floor. It was a spacious suite with two large bedrooms and an adjoining sitting room. Upon entering my mother’s room after Maghrib prayers, I was greeted by a strange scene. Clad in a long maroon robe, Amma was huddled in front of her iron safe, her scarf lay on the floor, and she was in total disarray. It seemed as if a tornado had blown through the room and things from the wedding suitcases were scattered around.

“Amma, what’s going on?” I cried.

Amma made no reply. She was frantically looking for something.

Then I noticed the jewelry boxes scattered on the bed. All were in their right places except for the emeralds. The ornate box with red velvet casing was lying empty.

“Why have you moved the emeralds? The box is …” I stopped mid-sentence as my mother straightened up. Her hair was a mess and face all red. She was perspiring and breathing heavily.

“The emeralds are gone,” she said. “The necklace, earrings, and bracelet—all gone!”

I stared at her. Amma nodded like a zombie. “I went to the bathroom for ablution,” she said. “I said my prayers and opened the boxes. I just wanted to take one last look before they left my hands.” My mother looked at me helplessly.

The two of us went through the nooks and corners of the room again. There was no trace of the necklace or the bracelet or a single earring.

Amma said, “Find your father and tell him… oh, Allah, what shall I tell him?” I stepped out of her room. But the excitement was too much. I cried to the first person passing by, “Get Abba and Raihan Bhaiya. Tell them to come immediately.”

I felt dizzy. I clutched my belly and quickly sat down on the sofa in the long veranda. I wondered fleetingly if it was a boy or a girl. Then I thought of the emeralds, and I shuddered at the thought of how Abba would react.

*

Soon the entire house was assembled in our large drawing room. Abba’s face was as dark as the sky before the storm. Amma had already taken to bed. I wasn’t sure if it was the sorrow of losing the necklace or fear of her husband that made her ill. The police would arrive any moment and there would be a thorough search in the house. The guests and family members were equally aghast at the turn of events.

Reshma Apu said, “It must be an insider. After all, what woman would want to give her precious jewelry to her stepson’s wife?”

I blanched. What would our relatives think? My father looked sternly at his elder daughter, and I saw Reshma Apu cringe even though she held her gaze.

At that point, a small voice piped up: “I saw a woman in a burkha snooping around Nanu’s room.” It was Rinku, Reshma Apu’s daughter.

Rinku was a quiet sort, and usually played by herself.

“When did you see the woman?” Reshma Apu asked.

“Just after the Maghrib call to prayer,” said her daughter.

Our house was quite full of people. But was it possible for anybody to enter Amma’s room and take the emeralds like that?

“Ask the guards if they saw such a person leaving the house,” Abba bellowed.

Some 15 minutes later, a guard and a driver who claimed to have seen such a woman were brought forward.

“What was the woman like?”

“Was it an old woman, or a young one?”

“Was she tall or short?”

“Fat or slim?”

“How can you be sure it was a woman?”

All sorts of questions came from the assembly.

The guard said that the figure stumbled before the main gate. He did not see her again after she left the premises. But everybody was confused. There were quite a few guests who donned burkha and it seemed any one of them might have taken the jewelry.

The police arrived and interrogated everyone. As expected, the house was thoroughly searched. When I finally retired to my room for the night, I felt drained. Your grandpa arranged hot water bottles and other things for me so that I could sleep comfortably. I lay in bed, but sleep was an elusive fairy that night.

*

The next morning, instead of a regular breakfast, I was nibbling on grapes. I had a terrible appetite and the small fridge in my room was laden with fruit.

In those days, your grandpa had to bear the brunt of all my anger. I could not forget that he was the man my father had chosen for me as punishment.

When I went to see Amma, I found her still in bed too. She looked like an old owl after a storm. She stared at me with red-rimmed eyes but did not say anything.

“It will be okay, Amma,” I said. “It’s not the end of the world, you know.”

“The emeralds are gone, Rihana. People will say I stole them. Your sister is already saying that.”

I wanted to tell Amma that neither Reshma Apu nor Raihan Bhaiya were my siblings. I never had Apu, and I had lost Bhaiya because of that one letter I wrote to him. Amma got up slowly and asked me to wait as she went to the bathroom.

“I’m so afraid,” she muttered as she closed the bathroom door.

I wondered what she was afraid of as I stared at the almirah of her room. The built-in wardrobe was a special feature in my parents’ suite. The slanting sunlight reflected on the pale green glass panels, and I watched the light playing.

When Amma came out, I was still sitting on her bed watching the flickering light and the glass. “I’m not feeling well, Amma,” I said unmindfully. “I don’t think I can attend Bhaiya’s wedding tonight.”

Amma eyes narrowed showing worry. “Are you all right?”

“I’m exhausted. Feeling feverish.”

I returned to my room and lay in bed. Tears fell on my pillow. I didn’t even know why I was crying. I should have been happy that the emeralds wouldn’t adorn Bhaiya’s bride. Isn’t that what I wanted? If I couldn’t have them, nobody should.

Around noon, Raihan Bhaiya came to see me. I became nervous and wondered if like Reshma Apu, he, too, would blame Amma and me for the lost emeralds.

He asked after my health. He agreed that I should stay at home and not attend his wedding. Then as he rose to leave, he said unexpectedly, “To me it’s just a set of jewelry. Abba will probably search heaven and earth for it. But I’m glad that they’re gone.”

“Why are you glad?” I asked.

He shrugged. “The emeralds have been a nuisance.” He paused and added, “I hope they never find them.”

Before he left, Bhaiya turned to me and said, “Take rest, Little One. All will be well.”

I froze. He had called me “little one” after such a long time. My heart ached. I wished I could tell him everything.

Tell him what, you ask? Ah, that’s true. What was there to tell?

After that, Abba became more autocratic than ever. Amma’s health got worse, and she became bedridden. The household duties slowly shifted to Bhaiya’s new wife. Soon after, your grandfather and I decided to leave the country. I felt a little guilty about leaving Amma behind, but I could barely breathe in that house. So, a year after your mom was born, your grandpa found a job in Chicago, and we left Bangladesh. After a few years, life brought me to this northeastern end of the continent where vapors become whispers in the mountains. Montpelier slowly became the home that my parents’ house never was.

No, nobody saw the emeralds again. So, that’s the end of the story of the emeralds.

You’re not happy? Well, I told you it’s not much of a story, didn’t I?

You too want emeralds? No, my pet. Perhaps when you are older, we will make a pearl necklace for you. But no more emeralds. Now run along.

 

*

 

That Taffy, one of his button eyes is loose… I see I must fix his eyes, too, before giving him a thorough bath.

And where did that old man go today? He should have been back from his walk by now. He and his daughter are still full of Niyanpur. Trust them to fill Mimi’s little head with emeralds and what not!

It’s been more than thirty years since I left Dhaka. How many years have passed since Amma died? Twenty-eight? Thirty? I can’t even remember. But soon after her death, Raihan Bhaiya also left the country. He’s in Australia now. Only Reshma Apu couldn’t give up on her precious ancestral home. But what ancestors? Even Niyanpur is a fictitious name. There’s no Niyanpur in either Murshidabad or Hoogli where they claim to have come from.

Yet I wonder sometimes if anybody ever discovered the pouch in the crevice behind my mother’s wardrobe. Reshma Apu only suspected her, but I found the truth. When everybody went to Bhaiya’s wedding that night, I tiptoed to my parents’ room. I knew about that secret spot; in fact, I was the one who had discovered it as a child and showed it to Amma. As I looked at the gleaming stones in a velvet pouch, I cried.

I cried for my mother, for myself, and for Bhaiya.

My poor mother! She had surrendered everything to her autocratic husband, and yet she could not give up the emeralds.

I left them there. Maybe someday, another wife or daughter will discover the emeralds, but that will be someone else’s story.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eric Maroney
The Birds of All the Worlds

 

This World

 

            Reb Zippor fell asleep and nearly died.  When he woke up, the world was changed. The sky was still blue, and the clouds remained white, but the earth had developed a patina of age around the blunt edges of things as if about to take its last revolution around the sun; as if this

was the final time the stars would shine brightly on a cold winter’s night. 

            He stood up.

            “I lived,” he said out loud to a passing bird.  “I’ve been given another chance by God, Blessed Be His Name.” 

            The bird sat upon a stone and looked at Reb Zippor critically. “You’ll be dead in a moment,” the bird told him. “There was a mistake.  Things got fouled up – it happens more than you think.” 

            The bird cleared her throat, and sang a song:

 

            “Death is clear and death is near,

            But often time death fails to appear

             Just wait a while and hold your horses 

            Let the cosmos let loose its forces.”

 

            When the bird was done, Reb Zippor dropped dead like an overripe apple from a hoary tree.  He woke up in the next world. 

  

 

The World of Souls

 

            This world was light as a feather and at its margins hung a thin gauze, like haze on a summer’s morning.  

            “Where am I?” Reb Zippor asked.  He looked to the left and right. There were two paths in front of him, but a rim of smoky air blocked his full view.  On the crook of a tree with only two branches, a bird landed and tilted her head at Reb Zippor.

            “You’re in this world too?” Reb Zippor asked. 

            The bird tweeted and then cleared her throat. 

            “I’m a different bird.  We don’t cross worlds.  This is the World of Souls.  You must pick a road.  The one on the right leads to the Gan Eden, the Garden of Eden.  The one on the left

is Gehinnom.”

            “Doesn’t God, Blessed Be He, pick a road for me?” Reb Zippor asked, perplexed. 

            “The Garden is for reward, and Gehinnom for punishment.” But the bird shook her head dismissively. “We did away with that a long time ago.  Too many people lived in a gray zone.  It’s the honor system now.  Pick a path that best suits you.”

            Reb Zippor felt he had died with many sins on his head, so he walked down the path to Gehinnom.  When he arrived, there was not much difference between the antechamber to Gehinnom and Gehinnom itself.  A bird sat on a branch, studying Rabbi Zippor.

            “Are you a different bird?” Reb Zippor asked.

            “No,” the bird answered.  “We’re still in the Land of Souls.  The Ante-Chamber, Gan Eden and Gehinnom are all my responsibility. Lucky me – I get triple duty.”

            “Why aren’t I screaming in pain?” Reb Zippor asked.  “Gehinnom is for punishment.”

            “That’s been toned down in recent years,” the bird explained.  He looked into the distance wistfully. “It’s the same way in Gan Eden – there’s no real difference now.” 

            The bird perched next to Reb Zippor, ruffling her feathers, and sang this song:

 

 

            “The World of Souls or World of Tears

            A place of dreams or maybe fear

            You sit around on a hardback chair

            And wait to see if God plays fair.”

 

 

            “So I just sit?”  Reb Zippor asked, perplexed.

            “You just wait, sitting or standing makes no difference” the bird answered.  “And wait and wait.”

            “Wait for what?” Reb Zippor asked, sighing deeply.

            “For things to happen that are beyond your control,” the bird snapped.  “You think because you’re a soul that all that much has changed? No, no, you wait like everyone else.”

            And after that, Reb Zippor remained quiet for a long time.

 

 

 

Moshiach

           

            Far beyond the Word of the Souls, with its abiding boredom and constant waiting, our world was suffering from upheavals the likes of which had never been seen.  What happened?  Words fall far short of a description.  There was a great upheaval, and bloodshed, but then all people laid down their arms, their instruments of war, and turned their heads toward one place, one particular person, and forty years later the earth began to moan.

            Amidst all the turbulence, and the wars followed by the peace, the bird of the World of Souls world felt the inadequacy of his little tune:

 

 

            “We wait and wait and wait and wait

            While the subject is up for debate

            The savior comes but they do tarry

            (Will he be that guy named Barry?)

            Messiahs come and Messiahs go

            What will happen no one knows”

 

 

 

T’chiyat HaMetim: The Raising of the Dead, Part 1

 

            “Get up, time to go,” the bird screamed at Reb Zippor.  He had been dozing off, as there really had not been anything to do but close his eyes and drift into a long, listless, unsatisfying nap.

            “Up!  Up!” the bird flapped around Reb Zippor, waking him from his slumbers. “This is it!  Get up.  Souls have waited here longer than you for this moment, and you’re napping?”

            “What’s going on?” Reb Zippor asked, rubbing his eyes slowly.

            “You’ll see, any moment now.  Just wait.”

            Then Gehinnom appeared pixilated to Reb Zippor, and the scene began to fall apart - all but for the bird, who was whistling in a spirited manner.  And she took to the air, and in the way of all the birds on both sides of this world and the next, she broke out in song:

 

 

            “Gehinnom or the Garden,

            It hardly means a thing

            But that which is a-coming

            Will be eternal Spring

            A fresh body for you all

            As soft as baby spinach

            A body that is new new new

            One ready for the finish”

 

                 

            And when the song was done, Reb Zippor found himself buried deep in the ground.

 

 

 

T’chiyat HaMetim: The Raising of the Dead, Part 2

   

            The body and soul of Reb Zippor, after being reunited, moved laboriously to the surface.  Reb Zippor could not help but think: if this is the messianic age, why is it so hard to dig out of the dirt?

            When he reached the surface, Reb Zippor could feel a discernible difference.  His body had more heft yet seemed lighter.  It was strong, but supple.  He was naked but felt no shame.  He looked around and others were standing near open graves - men, women, and children of all ages wearing the first apparel of Adam and Eve - naked skin.  But no

one felt shame - people mingled.

            “Who are you?” Reb Zippor asked the woman standing next to him.

            “I’m Sarai,” she answered, shifting her weight on firm legs.  “I think I’m your aunt.  But you look nothing like Zippor.”

            “And you look nothing like Sarai,” Reb Zippor answered, perplexed, gazing down on his powerful body.  As a boy, he gashed his leg with a shear, and the discolored scar ran from his knee to his upper thigh. This body did not have a scar - his leg was white as fresh cream. He was about to say more, but a heron flew in front of him, and landing on a headstone, addressed the crowd.

            “Settle down everyone, settle down,” the bird called in a deep voice. “Sure, this is bewildering, but act your age - some of you are centuries old!  Let’s form a line, quickly.  We have clothes for you.  In this world, it’s not that important, but let’s keep up appearances for now.  So fast now, a line, forming right here.”

            As the people formed the line, the Heron broke out into song:

           

            “The Dead have risen from the grave

            There’s nothing more we need to save

            The fear and dread of our decay

            No more to haunt the night or day

            So step lively in your bodies new

            No war no passion no need to screw

            Forty years of peace and joy

            Until the time when there is no more.”

 

 

 

Olam Haba

 

            Then forty years passed, during this time everyone who was alive died, but immediately rose again in their old, yet new, bodies.  This was a time to learn, and a time to unlearn, all that Reb Zippor had learned.  

            But there were no real answers to the questions of what was to come. Everyone knew something was on the horizon, hovering in front of them like a promise made and not yet kept.  Reb Zippor’s memory grew dim until the song of the birds was all he knew of himself or the world.  It became clear that in the gateway of Olam Haba, the World to Come, there were many birds, who sang innumerable songs.

 

            “A sparrow on a small tree:

            ‘We come together all as one

            To the place of joy and sun

            The time when life’s not a chore

            The Holy One hidden no more’”

 

            And Reb Zippor took a step forward to a robin on a rock:

 

            “Take a step you old, you new!

            Faster than you often do

            The sun does shine

            It’s old, it’s new

            What waits is near

            But far, so far too”

 

Then Rebbe Zippor took two steps and encountered a stork on a branch:

 

            “We think we know

            The Riddle of All

            But What is hidden

            Is not seen at all

            The birds do squawk 

            The birds do sing

            And people they

            Know not a thing.”

 

            He took three steps and blocking his path was a massive bird, with a long neck, and striped feathers, the likes of which he had never seen before in any world.  The bird stretched out and sang a long-low song:

 

            “God is All and God is None

            This is the conundrum

            When all is said

            And all is done

            The next step we take

            Is to the World to Come.”

 

            Reb Zippor took three steps forward, and in front of him was a screen of birds.  They were silent but fluttered wildly.  He parted them with his hands and took a wobbling final step forward.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Carlos Ramet
Garden of Clay

 

Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei, wasn’t paradise.  The air temperature at eight-thirty in the morning was already eighty-five degrees, but the hotel’s rooftop swimming pool glistened like a blue gemstone.  I dove in, swam underwater one full length, and emerged gasping into the humid air. I saw dwarf palms in clay pots, hibiscus, the garish orange and blue beaks of flowers called bird of paradise, and my coworker Russ Fogarty on a lounge chair a few feet away. 

We often travelled together but this time we were in Bandar Seri Begawan to find work.  More than work, I told myself.  I was in Bandar to move up in the world and cash in, and maybe decide about Ketut and her two children. 

Sprawled in a chaise lounge in the shade from the refreshment bar awning, Russ was wrapped in a thin batik robe.  He flipped through a local newspaper.  “Can’t read this stuff,” he groused, and turned to the sports page.

Russ and I were both at the end of our contracts at Kolej Komuniti Persembahan in the Indonesian city of Surabaya.  I was a twenty-seven-year-old teacher of English to government scholars who would transfer to a university in the States in their junior year.  As a young teacher, I’d first gone out to Asia believing I “could make a difference”---more so than I could in a rundown public school in Wichita.  With every passing month, I was less convinced I was doing any good in Indonesia.  Night after night, I marked endless essays and saw little progress in my students, other than their progressively brazen ways to cheat.  Sometimes, I wondered if the only difference I could make was for myself or for Ketut and her children.  And there were times I thought I’d had enough of Asia and just wanted to go back to the States.

I pulled myself from the pool, grabbed a hotel towel from the chaise lounge next to Russ, and rubbed myself dry.

Russ, an ex-Peace Corps volunteer, was ten years older than I was and served as the study skills coordinator at KPP.  He’d probably been as naively idealistic as I was when he first served as a P.C.V.  Now, pushing early middle age, he mostly indulged himself with cigarettes and drinks and jobs he referred to as “no sweat loser jobs.”  He liked to reminisce about his adventures in different parts of the world and brag about the nightlife in Asian capitals.  He wasn’t the type who would return to the States anytime soon.

He tossed the newspaper aside.  “The t.v. news is even worse. Can you believe it?  The male news anchors wear that funny little black Suharto cap and the women wear a scarf---even when they broadcast the news.”

I sat on the chair next to Russ, stretched out my legs and lay back.

        Russ had been in the archipelago long enough to know the man’s head covering was called a songkok and the woman’s a tudong, but I let it go.  He liked to play the Philistine even though he’d been to private schools and a private university---Vanderbilt in Nashville.  I’d considered myself lucky to attend the State College in Wichita.

        “What’s the t.v. news these days?” I asked casually. 

        “Couldn’t tell.  They spoke Bahasa.”  He still played the fool.  Russ wasn’t as culturally obtuse as he pretended.  He spoke Pashto and was proficient in another Afghan language from his time in the Peace Corps.  “It’s as foreign to me as ‘Vlacek.’  Get it?”

        I ignored the dig.  Russ liked to call me by my last name instead of “Gary,” as if to remind me that my family were considered “Bohunks” in the nineteenth century.  We were an odd pair.  We’d met by happenstance at KPP, though everyone thought we must have known each other because we were both from Kansas.  “It’s a big state,” I’d say.  “A lot of territory and more people than you could meet in an afternoon.”

        Russ was tall and I was short; he had the goofy smile and the pink eyes of someone who’d spent too much time in a chlorinated swimming pool.  I was swarthy and darkhaired and had picked up enough sun from two years near the equator to pass for a local from a distance.  And most importantly, gregarious, garrulous, outgoing Russ could talk to anyone, while I was considered serious and reserved.

With our contracts in Indonesia running out, we were both exploring options in other parts of Asia.  Russ already had a job offer in Manila, but the opportunities in Bandar were better; we’d flown in two days earlier for interviews at Darussalam Arts & Sciences Academy.

I signaled the attendant at the refreshment bar to come over and ordered a coconut pineapple fizz.  He looked Filipino rather than Malay, and his accent confirmed it.  From what I could tell, no one working in the hotel was Malay, other than the manager.  Everyone else seemed to come from the Philippines, Indonesia, or West Malaysia.

Russ and I were only two of many expats seeking or finding work in the oil-rich sultanate of Brunei.  In the hotel bar, we’d met British oil workers, French sailors on shore leave, Dutch petroleum engineers, and two Singaporean women who told us they were married and in Bandar only for a couple of days for advanced computer training.  The sign above the bar read “No Muslims,” which seemed offensive at first, but simply meant the hotel management adhered to the local laws. 

        Things were good in those days, and the early 1990s were boom times.  Not only did the Sultan lavish subsidies on the indigenous Malays---free medical care, free education through college, subsidized housing, no tax of any kind---but the ethnic Chinese, who were considered non-citizens, prospered in trade.  There were no protests.  Islam might be ever present, but the Malays kept mostly to themselves, were outwardly friendly, and the government claimed to believe in freedom of religion.

        The pool attendant handed me the tropical drink in a half coconut shell; a skewer of fresh fruit dangled from it.  This was a privilege, I thought to myself as I sipped the pineapple juice mixed with coconut milk and carbonated water, then nibbled the cubes of papaya, guava, and starfruit.  Here I was, sitting by a rooftop swimming pool in a first-class hotel in the tropics, courtesy of our school hosts.  I still pinched myself from time to time.  On a hot day in Wichita, when I was a kid, I cooled myself with a garden hose.  Now, I watched the water lap within the swimming pool and didn’t want to budge.

Russ pulled a crumpled pack of Marlboros from his batik robe and lit one.  “Like it here?” he said with a puff of cigarette smoke.

“Not bad,” I smiled. 

He shook out the match.

I wasn’t sure how the interview at Darussalam Arts & Sciences Academy had gone the day before.  Instead of a classroom demonstration, I was expected to present the school address at the morning assembly in front of teachers, staff, administrators, and rows of unsmiling students sitting in the sun in the quad formed by four ‘fifties-functional buildings.  I spoke passionately about the value of education in our day, tried some self-deprecating humor that fell flat, and ended with an exhortation in Bahasa about making your country better.

Russ’s interview was concurrent but in a different part of campus and we shared notes on the way back to town.  We’d both been asked to stay in Bandar, at the school’s expense, through the end of the week to receive an offer.  In fact, this seemed like an excellent arrangement since we could reconnoiter the town and decide if we even liked it.

“Is there anything you don’t like about Bandar?” Russ asked.

I finished my tropical coconut drink.  Traditional Brunei folk music, with gongs and bamboo flutes and stringed instruments, played from the speaker near the refreshment bar.  “Other than I don’t have Ketut with me, it’s fine.”

Russ ground out his cigarette and lit another.  “Do you think you’ll marry the widow?”

She was two years younger than I was and had married young. We’d met at a friend’s wedding celebration, and the eighteen months I’d been with her was the most solid relationship I’d ever had, but I still wasn’t sure.  I mumbled: “Maybe . . . if I can make a difference in her life,” and realized I relied on the same shopworn bromides and pieties I’d lived by for years.

I felt sorry for Ketut, a Balinese Hindu who had moved to Surabaya when her husband was killed in a car accident, and her children were delightful---a boy and a girl five and six years old.  In the West, as a beautiful and alluring young woman, she’d have many options.  But in Asia, she’d never be able to remarry into her own group.  She’d been married once and now worked in a garment factory.  And she had two children.

That factored into my own thinking.  Marriage to someone from another culture was already a huge endeavor, but what about raising two children who weren’t my own?

Russ drew cigarette smoke into his lungs, held it in, then exhaled sharply.  “Still mulling it over?”

The shade from the refreshment bar awning had disappeared and heat radiated from the swimming pool deck.  I didn’t respond except to say: “The ‘Souk’ will be open in another hour or so.  Let’s put on street clothes and head downstairs.”

 

*

 

We rode the gilt elevator to the mezzanine floor.  Russ had changed into shorts and a plaid summer shirt; I dressed less casually, in a safari shirt and creased white trousers.  We both kept soft hats tucked into our belts in case we later ventured outside.  The elevator doors parted to reveal the “Souk Retreat Club” and we crossed the hallway and entered.

The bartender, a slim Indian in a sequined vest, set two vodka gimlets in front of us.  We knew the drill.  In Brunei, non-Muslims could drink at home or in a private bar, and “Happy Hour” at the “Souk” ran from eleven to twelve---a full thirteen hours.  Any hotel guest was automatically considered a member of the private club.  Anyone else could buy a one-day membership for two Brunei dollars.

“We call that a cover charge,” I quipped.

A Belgian mining engineer at the bar introduced himself, and Russ was quick to ask questions.  The Belgian explained he’d been living in Bandar Seri Begawan for two years with his wife and son.  “There’s no nightlife in Bandar,” he announced, “other than at the hotel bar.  That’s why I come here.  No social interaction in the street whatsoever.  People buy their food at the hawker’s stall and take it home.  Have you ever seen anything like it in Southeast Asia?”

I agreed I hadn’t.  The night market and hawkers’ stalls were usually the most vibrant and colorful places in town.

“The shopping is abysmal,” the Belgian went on.  He had the glassy-eyed look of someone on his fourth Pilsner.  “Everything closes early.”

“What do you like about Bandar?” I prodded.

The Belgian took a moment to reply.  He made a circular motion with his half-full beer glass, rubbed it on the bar top, then hoisted the glass to his lips.  He sipped deeply, then said: “It’s safe, and we live very well.  There’s so much petro-money, the government pays for everything.  They call the system ‘Shellfare,’ not ‘Welfare.’  We have maids and gardeners, but they’re all Indonesian or from the Philippines.  The Malay can’t be bothered.  They get paid for doing nothing or have government jobs, which is the same.”  He clunked his empty beer glass on the bar.  “And the schools are very good.”

“Great,” Russ muttered.  “What do you do for fun?”

The Belgian signaled for another draft.  “We play badminton on weekends.”

“Gets better and better.”

When the Belgian left, Russ turned to me.  “Are you sure you want to take a job here?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“You’re nuts.  Can you imagine?”  He lit a cigarette.  “The call to prayer five times a day.  This is the only call I believe it.”  He gestured for another round.  “It’s bad enough in Indonesia.  At least in Surabaya there’s a Chinatown and some karaoke bars.  What do people do all day in Bandar?  Watch television?  There are only three channels.”

The bartender set the gimlets in front of us.

“Maybe they see the sights.” 

Russ laughed.  He knew I was joking.  It only took half a day to see everything:  The Sultan’s Palace, which was off-limits, the Grand Mosque, where a guard shadowed every step, the Winston Churchill Museum (the Sultan was a great admirer of the Old Lion), and the aquarium.  That was about it.  The beaches were a muddy clay, full of sandflies, and the water village---a collection of old wooden homes on stilts---was about as interesting as a trailer park.

“Nothing here but family life. This ain’t for me, Vlacek!” 

Russ could be dismissive because his family owned one of the largest insurance firms in Topeka.  He’d always have a corner office with an “executive something or other” title on the door ready for him if he ever decided to return.  Because he came from money he could disparage it; drop out for a dozen years or so, work in education in developing countries where they were always hiring, and collect a weekly paycheck.  Whatever was most convenient was good enough for Russ.  He was sleeping with his Batak maid in Surabaya.  I doubted he would ever marry her.

For me, staying in Asia was my only chance at the life I felt I was due.  Already in Surabaya, I lived in a two-story house, had hired help, and belonged to a country club, and in Brunei, I could make three times what I earned there.  In Kansas, the closest I’ve ever come to a country club was when I visited my father, who was a groundskeeper.  And I certainly didn’t make much money right out of Wichita Teachers College instructing ninth-graders at Orville Junior High.  I went back for a master’s degree just to move beyond all that.  I told myself if I never returned to that cramped, two-bedroom, one-bathroom house where my parents and two brothers lived, that was fine by me.

Russ downed his drink.  “You know, I was tempted to tell the Rector on the spot I didn’t want the job.  But I didn’t want to jeopardize your chances.”

That was nice of him.  Russ had options.  He always had options.  “I suppose you’ll take that school job in Manila.”  I finished my vodka gimlet.

“At least there’s some nightlife in Manila.”

“Too much nightlife, if you ask me.”  I’d heard about the contests in karaoke bars that turned into street fights.

“At least I won’t be bored.”  The thought seemed to brighten him; he gave me a pat on the back.  “Buddy-boy, what say we learn about life on the road?  Get out and about?”

His crooked smile was more pronounced; I thought he must be drunk.  “There’s this sultan’s mausoleum a few miles from here on a hill.  What say we hitchhike there for fun?”

 “In this heat?”  He wasn’t drunk; he’d simply taken leave of his senses.  “It must be ninety-five degrees by now.”  I was comfortable in the bar.  I could order another drink or go back to my room, which was also airconditioned.  There was a book waiting for me.  “I’m not kidding, Russ.  With the humidity, the heat index must be one hundred and thirty.”

He looked crushed, then turned to face me.

“Where’s your spirit of adventure, Vlacek? Your gumption?” 

I closed my eyes.  His talk of gumption and initiative was ironic, since he always looked for the easiest line of work. 

“In high school, I hitchhiked everywhere,” he went on.  “Out to Tahoe and back, up to Wyoming.  Even spent a summer in an uncle’s cabin in Jackson Hole.”

“Russ, the seventies are over.  And I’m here for a job.”

“If we catch a ride, we reach the mausoleum in less than fifteen minutes,” he insisted.  “If we hoof it, we’ll be there in a little over an hour.”

I hesitated.

“There’s an airconditioned restaurant at the top of the hill.”

“I guess you’re right.”  There wasn’t much else to do in Bandar while we waited to hear back from the school. 

 

*

 

We struggled up the cinder road in the intense heat.  A lorry passed us, then a school bus and a limousine with diplomatic plates.  Each time, Russ dutifully turned toward the oncoming vehicle, jabbed his thumb into the air, and tried to look mournful.  His red face glistened with sweat.

My temples throbbed against my hatband, my shirt clung to my skin, and I thought we might faint if we didn’t get a ride. 

A late model Land Rover Defender pulled up, mud-encrusted and missing one fender.

“Hop in, lads,” a voice called, unmistakably British.  We clambered in.  The vehicle was unairconditioned but had a cloth top, which kept the cab cooler.  For once, I sat in the front next to the driver.  Russ took the rear seat. 

The driver looked close to sixty, though it was difficult to tell with his sun-bleached hair and leathery skin.  He was dressed in jeans, flip-flops, and a safari shirt. “I hate to see Europeans out in the midday sun.”

I’d lived in Asia long enough to know that “European” meant any light-skinned Westerner, whether Canadian, Australian, American, or Argentinian, who appeared to be of European descent.

“Where to, lads?”

We told him we were headed to the archeological park and the Sultan Bolkiah mausoleum.  He worked the pedals with his sandaled feet, then slipped the five-speed manual into first gear.  We chugged up the hill.

“Been in Brunei long?”  Before I could answer, he said: “Came out in sixty-one myself, during the Confrontation.  Not everyone’s a good neighbor, I’ll have you know.  Covetousness.  Sheer covetousness.  Indonesia, Malaya, they wanted Brunei for themselves.”

The Land Rover moved at a good clip and we snaked along the side of a hill; our host twisted the steering wheel back and forth as we ascended through hairpin turns.  I wasn’t sure how Russ thought we could hike this in an hour; the hot air slapped my face through the open windows.

“Mind you, Bandar was much better in my day, Confrontation or no Confrontation.  A damn sight better, I dare say, when the Malay didn’t have quite as much money.”  I listened carefully and wasn’t sure how I should react. In the gully to my left, an estate worker swung a rusty machete and hacked at a palm frond.

“Now, the Malay is sated, has too much of everything except education.  The Malay only wants to appear to be educated, I’ll have you know.  Doesn’t really care about an education as such.”

The road levelled and we drove through a palm oil estate, the rows of squat trees like so many fat pineapples, then started to climb. Our driver’s opinions grated on my nerves, but I had nowhere to go.  It was his vehicle, his gnarled hands on the steering wheel, his experiences shaped over thirty years, his country as he perceived it.  I glanced back at Russ.  He sat expressionless on the backseat; his right hand shaded his eyes.

“In the old days, and by ‘the old days’ I mean before all the teachers came out in the seventies, a European was a European and a Malay was a Malay, if you follow my reckoning.”

The Land Rover lurched and coughed smoke; the driver stomped the clutch pedal and downshifted into second.  He looked at me, looked back at the road, looked in the mirror at Russ.

“In the old days, I never would have gone out dressed like this.”  He took his hand off the gear shift and gestured at his attire.  “Dungarees, sandals, what not.  But the teachers had those ideas that you could dress casually and still have the respect of the Malay.”

I hoped the door wasn’t locked.  I wanted to get out quickly.  I was probably still as egalitarian as the teachers he despised---or at least, had been when I first set out for Southeast Asia.  The driver accelerated; we roared up a steep incline and passed a gutted car engulfed in weeds.  I peered through the rattling windshield, thought I could see the entrance to the park---or at least, I hoped I could.

  “In the old days, I never so much as picked up a shovel, which I do plenty of nowadays, mind you, without my being dressed in a collar and tie---or the Malay would have fainted on the spot.”

At last, the entrance to the park shook into view---a wide stone archway and a sign in Jawi script.  The Land Rover skidded to a halt and the motor idled.

“You can imagine what it was like, lads.  Never went out without a tie after six p.m.  All that.”

We struggled from the Land Rover onto the road, thanked him and waved cheerily as he started off.  I gritted my teeth into a smile and continued to wave.  “Russ, when we’re done here, we’re taking the bus back.” 

He let out a low whistle.  “What a period piece.”  The Land Rover disappeared around the curve.  “I didn’t know they still let people think like that in 1991.”

We never told him what we did for a living, and we never found out from him what he did either, but he came across as a colonial planter from the 1950s, so that’s what we called him: “the planter.”

“Yeah, I thought those attitudes died with Mountbatten.  Thank God we’re not like that.”

 

*

 

Whenever we travelled together, Russ sought out the poorer neighborhoods, as if that revitalized him or assuaged his guilt.  On our third night in Bandar, he insisted we eat outside the hotel. “See the real town,” as he put it, “eat dinner in the Filipino kampong, where the servants live.” 

By the time we pushed through the revolving hotel doors, it was nightfall.  Bandar’s boulevards and sidewalks were devoid of traffic or pedestrians.  Luxury cars were parked near the hotel and we could hear the evening call to prayer---the Maghrib---echo across the city. 

We followed the riverwalk and the columns of lamplights that glowed against the Sungai Brunei.  Russ set off in his long, gangly stride, head out, giraffelike, torso bent forward at a forty-five-degree angle.  I had trouble keeping up with him, trotted on my short legs while Russ chattered about some of his past flings.  I’d heard it all before and found it doubly boring; another person’s sexual adventures aren’t all that interesting, and less so when they probably aren’t even true.

Russ could be annoying, yet we’d travelled together extensively.  Most of the other expat teachers at KPP in Surabaya had family commitments in the States and went home during break, but Russ and I used almost every school vacation to journey to the less-visited corners of Asia: to Lagos and Cambodia, to Bhutan, even to Papua New Guinea before it became too dangerous. 

Maybe it went back to Russ’s Peace Corps days, but from what he told me about his various overseas school jobs, he was never happier than when he could live as a local, in a village somewhere, and be respected, almost revered, as the Westerner who had come to help.

I suspected he didn’t like to spend too much money, or certainly didn’t want to work too hard for it.  In his mind, he could live well wearing a sarong and overlooking a field of tapioca and a few hens.  Between his stipend and his trust, he’d never want for funds. 

But when he lived in Surabaya, one of the largest cities in Indonesia, he lived like all the other expats---in a large colonial Dutch bungalow with a gardener and a cook, a laundry boy and jaga.  He liked Surabaya.  He wanted his nightlife too.

Trotting next to him, he told me about his fiancée in college.  The tale was familiar.  I didn’t mind the repetition. The story of his fiancée was the story of who he was. 

“We met at Vandy.  Everyone in my family went to Vanderbilt.  We were supposed to get married the summer we graduated.”  His tone at first was jocular, then grew increasingly somber. 

“Our wedding was booked for Aspen and our honeymoon at Lake Louise.  Then it was supposed to be Vandy’s law school for me, starting in September.”  He slowed down and lit a Marlboro, puffed thoughtfully as we walked the contour of the river.

“It was like my whole life was planned---too planned, and I said: ‘Sorry, honey.”  He flicked his cigarette against the stone retaining wall.  The coal sparked and went dead. “Luv ya, babe, but F.O.C.  You know, Fear of Commitment.  That’s when I joined the Peace Corps.”

I didn’t know that part.  With each retelling, I learned something more.

We reached a bend in the river.  We were on the outskirts of the Filipino settlement and could smell wood smoke and smoldering palm fronds.  A trail led down a jungled slope to a cluster of zinc-roofed wooden homes encircled by dense foliage.

“But wasn’t the Peace Corps a commitment?”

Russ laughed as we started down the trail.  “An easy way to fly the coop---and abandon any and all responsibilities!”  But then he grew serious.  “No, that isn’t true.  Back then, I thought I could make a difference.  I was sent to a village in Afghanistan and worked there from 1977 to 1979, until the American ambassador was assassinated and we were pulled out.”

“But you did make a difference,” I said hopefully.

“Some difference I made.  The village doesn’t exist anymore, obliterated in one of the civil wars.”

Where the trail ended, a hut stood like an old lean-to and the door was open to the humid air.  I heard voices from inside, saw a low thatch ceiling, a straw hat on a peg, a plank bed in one corner.  We walked through the kampong toward the hawkers’ stalls.  Florescent lights burned within the shacks; a boy fanned the flames of a charcoal fire.

We entered an open area with a clay floor, tables and red plastic chairs, a canopy and a row of vendors serving hot food from bins---Kikiam, Pancit, Empanada---all the standard Filipino street fare.  We bought fish grilled in banana leaf, steamed rice cakes, and coconut juice in small cardboard cartons.  It was late by Brunei standards, and the eating area was uncrowded.

“This is the life,” Russ said.  He pulled up a plastic chair.  I sat opposite him, a fold-out table between us.

“I’m not so sure.”  I thought of Ketut.  “She probably grew up in a place like this.”

“Who?  Your widow-friend?”

“Ketut.  I’d like to do more for her.”

“Maybe she liked living in a place like this.”

A shirtless man poured water on the coals and a hiss of steam rose up.  A woman placed wooden slats over her cart and lowered an umbrella while a mangy dog gobbled the food scraps that had fallen by the wheels.

“She deserves better,” I said quietly, and watched Russ unwrap his fish, start to eat with his fingers.

“I suppose you want to take this job in Bandar.”

I thought about it.  “If it’s offered to me.  I’ve gotten used to living a certain way.  I can’t see myself back in the States, just existing.”

Russ tore another piece of fish but held it steady.  He shook his head.  “You know what?  It isn’t real.  The house, the servants, the driver.  I’ve kicked around Asia for close to fifteen years and at some point I’ll have to go back and live as an ordinary citizen.  Do my own laundry, cut my own grass.”

“That’s easy for you to say, Russ.  If you go back, you’ll still have everything.  This is my one chance at the life I want.”

He popped the morsel of fish in his mouth and chewed.

“And the widow?  You’ll marry her?”

I thought about that too.  I wasn’t sure I really loved her, but we had a good situation.  She spoke decent English from all the years working in a tourist shop in Denpasar.  I didn’t know much Balinese but I spoke Bahasa.  And I didn’t have anything better waiting for me in the States. 

“If she’ll have me.”

Russ shook his head in disgust.  “So you’ll marry the widow and raise her two kids and live here for thirty years and become as rearguard as that planter we met.  You’ll regret it, Vlacek.  The rest of your days.”

I looked beyond the open eating area to the wall of vegetation that enclosed us.  Either way, I’d have regrets.

“It’s a leap of faith, Russ.  Like jumping into a swimming pool.”

“Or a claypit.”

 

 

 

 

 

Bob Rehm
Last Plate

      LJ lived in the cabin, off the highway with her mom and the baby for over a year, about one-tenth of her upsy-daisy life.

        She had seen all the seasons and cycles of the moon. Watched what happens when the rain wept down the brick and sizzled on the round metal chimney of the trash burner. Felt the racoons scratching underneath the floorboards. And taken in the scent of the cedars in the morning when the sun slipped over the mountains that surrounded them.

        Staying in the cabin was only supposed to last for the fall and winter while her dad was choke-setting in the nearby logging sections just outside Index in NW Washington. But luckily when that slowed down he got hired to crew a 90’ tender up the Inside Passage from Bellingham to Kodiak and later, on a smaller boat working the short Alaska salmon run. Something always seemed to crop-up at the end of each job that kept him north, and away from LJ, her mom and the baby.

        At the Everything Store, LJ held the baby boy who was half-asleep when the call came in at the payphone. It was tucked in the corner by the Lorna Doones, Ruffles and the pop aisle with Orange NeHi, so LJ’s eyes wandered but not her ears which zeroed-in on what Pop was saying to her mom. He was talking loud and the line was crackling, so they took turns, like on a CB or marine radio.

        “Something … up…mechanic at…plant…good money…long hours…need…let…know today.”

        LJ and the baby leaned in against her mom so she could just hear his voice and find out more about what Alaska was like.

        “How long do they want you, Sonny?” Her mom had that worried smile LJ had seen before whenever Pop told her he was going away so there would be money coming in.

        The baby fussed so LJ shifted around letting her mom pat him on the head, swirling his thin hair. The phone static stopped and it was like they were all together in the same room.

        “A season for sure.”

        “Yeah?”

        “This is a big outfit…ahh…lots of screw-ups; so you know, you show-up, you go-up.” Her dad had all kinds of sayings, but this was a new one to LJ.

        “So, what are they paying?”

        “Twice as much as down there.”

        “That’s good, real good, babe.” Her mom smiled down at LJ but without the worry lines. “I guess you gotta take it, Sonny. Not a lot of options.”

        “Right about that.”

        Having work was always good news, but LJ missed her Pop and wanted to be with him, bad. She wondered about the Aleutian mountains that dive straight into the water where he was and wanted to stand in the back of a dog sled and shout, Mush!

        “Listen Son, we need to save it.”  Her mom stopped playing with the baby’s hair and gripped the phone hard with both hands and turned away from LJ, “Don’t mess around. You send it along—the kids, you know and for what we owe.”

        LJ knew all about owing someone. She owed the Everything Store for two popsicles and if she didn’t pay them back next week it would be three. 

        “OK, Bea. Yep. Every payday—straight to you at the store.”

        “I’ll let them know to expect it.” Her mom relaxed her hold on the phone and tilted it so LJ could hear better.

        LJ pointed at the phone in her hand and mouthed Can I talk? Her mom held her forefinger to her mouth and whispered, “Gimme second.”

        “Bea…you know, I miss you something and the kids. How are…?”

        “They’re fine…”

        ”It’s hard on me way up here, too.”

        “Hard on everybody. Nothing we can do. Keep your head where you are. Not here.”

        “Sure thing.”

        “Promise you’ll be safe Sonny? Oh, say hi to LJ…”

        LJ reached up and grabbed the phone.   

        “Operator wants more quarters. Gotta run. Love…”

        Too late. Click. She stared at the mouthpiece, worn and black with little holes and wondered where all of the excitement goes when it’s got no place to go.

        “Sorry, hon. I tried. Tell you what—how ‘bout you start the next call?” 

        She nodded and handed the baby back to her mom and drifted over to the comic book carousel to see if anything new had come in.  

        Driving back to the cabin in the International, “Whatdya think, he sounded good didn’t he?”

        “He sounded like Pop,” and then she remembered his Sunday morning voice, “like at pancake breakfast before we take the truck up to the lake!”

        She knew, deep down, that it would be a long time before she went fishing with him.  The same way she knew that they would be staying in the cabin after he went up to Alaska. LJ learned from the Reader’s Digest Word Power section what Economics was and that the cabin was all about it. Her mother had told her, “Why waste money moving into town with all its ways to spend and besides who wouldn’t want to roam around here?” Moving from time to time had been exciting for LJ, but moving all the time was just like snatching a book from her before she had finished.

 

*

 

        The garden was a big deal for the few months the summer sun touched it. They had an Honor stand by the side of the road which her mom got a big kick out of. She would set out berries in bowls and tomatoes, zucchinis, leeks, cucumbers and beans on the slanted table. In the evening she’d ask LJ to bring back whatever didn’t sell, plus the money dropped in the lock box painted  with tiny flowers. On weekends, hikers and travelers heading east to escape the rain would empty the stall and she would come back to the cabin with a pile of dollar bills, quarters and spare change. Often, there would be a folded note: Sorry, no cash. Took 5 tomatoes. Will get you on the way back. They left their phone numbers in case we forget, which LJ thought was hilarious since they didn’t have a phone at the cabin and how would they know who owed for what?

        With weekly money orders from her dad coming into the Everything Store plus the stand business, they were finally getting by. They’d had tight times before he got on the timber crew, but the Alaska run was a whole other thing. LJ felt like they had a weekly permission slip to go bowling in town, buy cookies at the store, drive the International to the Falls where she would slide down on cardboard over the flat boulders into the pool before the waterfall crashed over. On Tuesday nights they’d have dinner at the Mexican restaurant with all the soda pop, tortilla chips and hot sauce they wanted, for free. LJ relished the moment she could ask the waitress, who had coached her, “Mas Totopos, por favor?” The waitress would lean forward and reply, “Inmediatamente!” and from behind her back present a red plastic basket of sizzling chips. 

        Making breakfast, taking the cold ashes out and changing the baby’s morning diaper earned LJ a small allowance. She thought it was a good deal since she was the early riser and her mom, the opposite. And besides she liked the oatmeal before it got too thick. And then there was the half cup of coffee she snuck from the percolator, saying to herself, I’ve got to start practicing being a grown-up someday, why not now? Sugar helped. A lot. She couldn’t nurse the baby, so she would nestle him next to her mom and jostle her enough to know the baby was there for feeding. She would stand at the end of the bed and look down to make sure they both settled-in and then head outside to read that week’s thick book.

        Outside was LJ’s room unlike the little nook off the kitchen where she slept. Opening the front door to leave was like opening the front door to come in. She would close her eyes—pull in the deepest breath she could and then open them and take it all in. The smell of the cedar sawdust, woodchips and needles that formed the cushiony earth below her feet and the tall firs let her know she was not alone. LJ had fashioned a lean-to with a tarp held up by two poles for when it rained or snowed. When the sun came out she could push it up scrunching the canvas against the roof like a convertible car. Her dad had taken the chainsaw to a fallen pine and carved a seat so her legs could drape over the curve of log. There she would hold forth, book-in-hand, head down, only now and then gazing  across the ravine and all the wildness.

         She made it a habit to bring home the maximum of seven library books and a week later, return them for seven more. Sometimes she would sneak in an eighth and the librarian would just stamp the due date on the back slip and hand her the stack. LJ figured the pounding of the rubber stamp was the most enjoyable part of her job, not spouting rules to girls like her. When it was the book’s turn she would stroke the cover, put her nose close to the binding and then fluff the pages and draw in the smells. She hadn’t always done that and couldn’t believe all the wasted years and all the books that she had missed-out inhaling. New ones were bright, fresh and exciting. It’s the ink, she thought. The old ones time-traveled her to when she was five, in her grandpa’s old curvy Chevy—warm, settled and safe.

        As for her mom, LJ had never seen her finish a book. It was like she had an alarm go off and would set the book down for good just a few days after opening it. When she had asked her mom about it, she said, “To my way of thinking, it’s like watching those trailers for the movies at the theater. Why bother watching the whole thing? You know what’s going to happen.” Then she was onto the next book with no seeming memory of her own inclination. 

        From time to time her mom would pick up one of LJ’s library books on the table and ask her, “So I see this is called How and Why Wonder Book of MACHINES.” Flipping through the pages she settled on one that caught her eye, “Come on over and tell me how elevators work?” patting the sofa cushion.

        “I don’t need to come over, Mom!” LJ would say, comfortable in the rocking chair reading Lewis & Clark. She couldn’t figure out why her mom would go and scrape the surface of something she hadn’t tried to learn on her own. And besides, stuff needed taking care of. “It’s just counterbalance,” not looking over at her as she answered. “If you put enough weight on a rope with a pulley, it can lift almost anything from the other side. It’s a principle of physics.” She wasn’t trying to be know-it-all-like, it was just that there are facts everyone should know.

        “Oh. Makes sense. I got it now.” Her mom kept staring at the picture and finally gave up and declared, “Now your dad would be all over this!”

        Her dad would get the notion of building something she was reading about, usually by her asking one-too-many questions and him stopping what he was doing and saying, “Let me just show you.” LJ’s favorite was the one with twigs, paper clips, an old shoelace and a bite-size Tootsie Roll that they had constructed on the picnic table before he left for Alaska.

        “So Pop…why are you bending the paperclips apart?”

        “Sweetie, this is how we set chokers. This bent paper clip is it, just like the metal chains  we put on the timber—once it’s felled and the branches are stripped, like this twig. So look, this shoelace is the cable that runs up the hill on a power wheel—see how the Tootsie Roll rotates—that drags it down so it can get piled up on the cold deck where the logs get stacked before they head out on the trailer.”

        “Is it dangerous?” she whispered and looked around to see that her mom was back in the kitchen. The last time she had brought up the topic her mom overheard and dropped her favorite serving platter on the fireplace hearth, leaving the pieces on the floor and going into the bedroom, slamming the door.

         “Not if you know what you’re doing, have a good crew and a loud voice.”

        “When it goes wrong, what happens?” she stared at the gizmo in front of her, twirling the tootsie roll so that the string wound around it pulling the twig across the table.

        “The worst is if the cable—that’s the shoelace—breaks when it’s taut, then it can whipsaw crazy-like and cut whatever’s around. When you hear that swoosh you just dive down low and pray.”

        “So it snaps…kinda like a rubber band when I try to shoot it across the room and stretch it too far?”

        “Yep, something like that…”

        “Ouch!”

 

*

 

        The money orders from Alaska stopped coming in mid-summer. Each week that followed something went by the wayside—the Lorna Doons, Fritos, Fanta and margarine instead of butter. Tuesday dinners out shifted home and LJ took over. She would spread grated Velveeta on tortillas hot from the oven add some mashed up beans, chopped onion and Tabasco. The waitress had given them one of the plastic baskets, so she served her concoctions rolled up inside with a napkin folded over to keep them warm. It wasn’t bad, but they both agreed, it tasted funny with milk. She missed the smell of the warm glistening chips from El Toro and the chance to practice her Spanish.

        After a few weeks of pretending nothing was wrong, LJ finally brought it up while they were doing dishes. “What’s going on with Pop?” She asked it like What’s the weather?

        “He’s ok. That plant job didn’t work out. He’s looking for something else. Don’t worry. He’ll find something. Always does.”

        LJ could tell her mom had practiced this. It was like each sentence was a single stretched out word. Irritated, “why doesn’t he come back and work here?”

        “Jobs aren’t growing on trees here. You know, flying back would break the bank. Do you know how far away he is?” 

        “I dunno. A day’s drive?”

        “You can’t get to Kodiak in a car, hon. It’s almost 3,000 miles away. And tickets on a little seaplane and then a jet cost as much as a ticket to the moon.”

        Her mom was finished washing, so LJ kept drying the same dish over and over so she could find out more. “Well then…”

        “It’ll be tight for a bit, that’s all.” Her mom paused and added, “Just have to all pitch-in.”

        She shook her head and stared back at her mom’s gray eyes and then through them. Her mom glanced around the cabin for an escape. But LJ wouldn’t let it go.

        “Why doesn’t he call us at the store anymore?”

        “We’re just pinching pennies. Calls are expensive. He writes. You saw the postcard on the mantle.”

        “Mom! It’s just a picture of a glacier and a bear. All it said was “Miss You. Love You. Keep your fingers crossed.”

        “Isn’t that enough?” her mother asked. 

        LJ was about to answer but thought better.

        Their conversations were getting shorter and shorter. Her mom stayed in bed longer and took to it once she had fed the little guy at night. LJ missed reading and spent most of the day entertaining him and helping with lunch, the garden, cabin chores and dinner. And for the last two weeks she had set up the honor stand on her own, while her mom’s oatmeal got thicker and thicker. She tried to piece together what was going to happen when school started in a few weeks. Worries started adding-up like library fines. The mail piled-up by the door, mostly unopened. She knew better than to read them, but the black rubber stamped words on the envelopes were now red and in smudged letters. Word Power had taught her what some of those words meant and she didn’t like them.

         “OK, where’s the International? Did Mr. Blake borrow it again?”

        “Didn’t I tell you—it’s in the shop. Something about the transmission? Sorry hon, slipped my mind.”

        “It’s not at the filing station. I was just there getting air for my bike.“

        “Oh, that’s right. It got towed—outta town to a real garage,” her mom said, glancing at the stack of mail by the door.

        “When will it be fixed? How will I get to the library? What about the groceries? Why…”

        Interrupting LJ and squeezing both her hands, “I told you LJ, we’ll figure something out! Now go check on the baby. I need to pick some more berries for the stand.”

        The garden had one last long splash of late summer sun and a bumper crop. Just in time for Labor Day weekend with steady traffic passing by. They decided to put out all they could early Friday, since most of the traffic was heading east and folks lit out the day before on long weekends. Her mom kept talking about how much they would take-in if only the weather was good.

        It was. And in the early morning LJ towed the loaded wagon to the street and piled the stand high with produce and berries with a sign for each. She brought out some planks and logs making extra shelves on either side of the high table. As was her habit, she took a pretend photo with her hands and walked back on the quarter mile path to the cabin.

        The rest of the day was set aside for canning, if she could get her mom going. By late morning they were all set up with the racks, the jars, lids, three pots on the stove and the plastic table cover. Her mom could put up in the dark if she had to. This was her third year helping out, and her mom let her take over for the last two batches. She stood behind her fussing around the kitchen while keeping an eye on her progress. By six, they were done and cleaned-up. Tired from her early start and the day’s work LJ went to her room out back to read her overdue book, Florence Nightingale in the Crimea. After it slipped out of her hand three times, she stopped fighting it and dozed-off.

        The first crash woke her up.

        The second crash had her on her feet, staring over at the cabin. Her heart was still, like when she spotted the hawk right in front of her and pretended to be invisible. LJ hoped that the sounds weren’t really there, that they were invisible, too. Only the cabin and silence. Then came a bunch of crashes, louder than before. She had wondered when she would get to use the word cacophony after memorizing it from Word Power. But it sure sounded like a harsh discordant mixture of sounds. That’s when muffled screams and crying between the crashes crept-in. LJ ran, jumping over the old tires, nearly slipping as she turned into the open front door.

        Plates. Plates and bowls broken everywhere on the floor. The Little One in the crib around the corner in the bedroom. Her mom was staring right past LJ, picking up another plate from the cupboard and smashing it on the floor. Everything slowed down for LJ as she tried to piece together what her eyes were saying. Her mom’s right hand reaching in, grabbing another plate, staring at it for a while, shaking her head then slamming it against the floor. It was Mom. It wasn’t Mom. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t real. But it was. It was real because LJ heard the baby crying and realized she was sobbing, too. You cry when you don’t know what to do. She didn’t know what to do. Why didn’t they teach me about this! Maybe I forgot?

        Another plate. Another blank stare from her mom, right past LJ who still wasn’t there to her mom. Another plate.

        It was her mom not seeing her for the third time that decided it.

        “STOP IT! MOM. NOT THAT PLATE. NO. NO. STOP!”

        And walking slowly with her hand outreached, “Gimme the plate, Mom.” LJ glanced at the cupboard and then the empty dishrack and the clean sink. “Mom, it’s the last plate—we can share it. It’s ours. Yours and mine. It’s OK. It’s all going to be OK. Just give it to me. Please?” LJ was praying for her mom to see her. She seemed so far away. And with that her mom blinked, tilted her head and touched LJ’s wet face and then looked down at the small shaking fingers reaching out for something. LJ’s lips mouthed silent pleases until her mom handed her the plate upside down, then turned, walked to the bed, crawled-in and curled-up.

        LJ stepped around the broken plates on the floor and pulled the baby out of the crib, changed his diaper and put a clean blanket around him and then they sat on the porch rocker. Back and forth. Back and forth. Humming something she didn’t even know. The sun had drifted over the ridge. It was getting dark quickly. She looked back through the door at her mom still asleep. So she made him cushy in the bassinet and started picking up the shattered plates and putting them in the kindling box, pretending she could make a mosaic with all the pieces. She looked down at the box, now filled with plain, curved and jagged edges of china. They would make great skimmers at the lake. She wondered if she’d ever go back there. Go back in time. Go back to wandering and wondering. LJ looked over at her mom, cradling her pillow and at the baby, now asleep. And she wanted to sleep, too and wake-up in a different book. But if she did, it would be a pretend book with a happy ending. LJ knew better but not much more.

        She swept the floor with the corn broom, shook out the oval rug and put the one remaining plate back in the cupboard. Took the box of broken china out to the edge of the ravine and one at a time side-armed the pieces across the expanse to the creek she couldn’t see below.

 

            Mom-

            We are going to the stand.

            Back in a few minutes.

            I’ll make spaghetti.

            if you feel better, we can have Jiffy Pop

            and count out the money!

            Love, LJ.

 

            With the baby in the carrier on her back she headed to the stand and occupied her mind with the math on what that they would bring-in. She bet herself on $15; maybe even $25 with the extra shelves. There was just enough light to see that everything had sold. What a relief. Mom will like that. LJ looked at the flowered lock box. It was all wrong. Twisted. The flowers she had painted were all bent and the colors had flaked off revealing dull metal. The lock wasn’t there anymore. She kept staring at it. Then right past it, because she couldn’t stand the thought. The pennies and nickels scattered on the ground said it all. Stolen. All gone. All the produce from the stand. All the money in the box. All the bowls with the berries. Gone. Everything. LJ knew what her mom must have thought at that moment. What about next week’s groceries? The cabin rent? The truck? Sonny? Her mom used to have answers. Then LJ thought about what she didn’t know. What about the letters unopened? She would have to open them and understand it all. Mom won’t. Can’t.

            There was no money in the broken lock box, but in the bottom were a handful of the scribbled notes on the back of receipts or edges of newspapers, Sorry-we only have big bills, will get you on the next trip. We took 4 tomatoes, 2 leeks and a box of raspberries. Here’s our #. She stuffed them in her pocket to add to the others she had collected.

            She laid the baby down in the pull wagon so she could be with herself for a change and let him see the canopy of trees from his back. LJ wished she could climb up and perch on a bare limb and take in the moon, the clouds like wispy shadows and the stars so close.  Halfway back to the cabin all her disconnected thoughts somehow untangled and began to take shape and add up to something.

            That night, LJ woke up her mom to the smell of last year’s canned tomato sauce bubbling and the spaghetti water boiling. They shared the pasta from the last plate, staring at it as they ate.

            Half-way through, her Mom spoke, “Ah…um…thanks for dinner, hon. And taking care of Munchkin. I don’t know why I’m so tired?”

            “Mom…are you OK?” It was the same voice she used for the baby when he squirmed.

            “Me. Sure. Uh…yeah…oh…sorry about the plates. I guess I dropped them taking them from the dishrack. Shouldn’t do that, LJ. Oh well.”

            LJ nodded and then played with her spaghetti.

            She was there. Kind of. LJ didn’t mention the lockbox. Why remind her of what had set her off? It wouldn’t help. Besides, she was busy thinking more about that something from before and what to do next.

            She decided to save the Jiffy Pop for later. Her mom went to bed and LJ brought the baby over to nurse.

            And then she got a pencil and lined school paper and wrote it all down on two pages and tried to go to sleep.

*

            In the morning after bringing the baby to her mom, LJ left a note on her nightstand.

 

            Mom—I’m taking my bike to the store. I left my Mt. Everest book there last week and can

            see if they have any chores for me. Coffee made. Oatmeal in the hot water pan.

            Love, LJ

*

            There were chores. Both Mr. and Mrs. Hobbs were at the store for delivery day. LJ wiped down all the shelves and helped stock the merchandise.

            “Instead of paying me, can I use the phone in the back to make some calls? You see, I’m planning a party.” She lied so well, she almost convinced herself it was true. But other than her best friend, who else would she invite?

            LJ had copied the phone numbers from twenty-three slips of paper from the lock box she had squirreled away starting the year before.

            The first calls were hard. She had a script—just like a play, but when people heard her voice, they mostly just wanted to talk.

            They all knew about the stand. We love that stand. You have the best vegetables. Who has the green thumb? I make the best pie from your berries. No one has leeks like you guys. We’d love to visit your farm? You’re kidding—you do that up there? I remember now—that was a year or two ago. I’m so sorry.

            Twice, the number had moved to a different account. I don’t care who you are, stop calling. Slam!

            LJ kept at it and asked if they could send what they owed to the Everything Store instead of waiting for their next trip. They weren’t sure how much, but mostly they said they would send something. That was for the first few calls. Then something changed.

            They asked her What was wrong?

            Was she was all right?

            Sometimes the man on the phone would hand it over. Sweetie-let me get my wife. Honey-my girlfriend’s right here, best talk to her. Grandma-can you talk to this young lady?

            So she told them. She didn’t cry. She whispered because she didn’t want the Hobbs’ to hear. She told them about the lock box. The stolen money. About the unopened letters. About the repossessed International, a long-ago loan, the rent and about the bad luck with her dad in Alaska. But NOT about the plates. Or Mom. Or the baby. 

            She gave them the address for the Everything Store c/o LJ and thanked them. They each promised to send what they owed right away and if she didn’t have it by next Friday to ring back.

            At the end of each call LJ felt even better about using the rotary phone for the next one. It was like her fingers were spinning the dial of a watch making time spring forward and the sound it made was more and more like a little music box than a machine.

            She ran out of phone numbers on the list. LJ looked down at the nineteen tallied entries, each with different dollar amounts. It added up to a big number.

          Mrs. Hobbs knocked on the wall by the curtain that shielded their little office in back. “How’d that go, LJ?”

            “It went grand! There will be a plethora of people at my party!”

            “I bet there’ll be.”

            “Thanks for letting me do chores for the phone time.” LJ stood up, ready to go.

            “You’re a good girl. Take this. You earned it. Don’t open till you get home. Promise.”

            “I promise.” LJ could feel through the thick envelope. It embarrassed her into smiling.

            As she walked out by the check-out counter, Mr. Hobbs asked, “You still have that basket on your bike?”

            LJ nodded.

            From under the counter, he pulled out a double paper bag filled with eggs, milk, English muffins, bacon, Fig Newtons, a giant bottle of orange soda and several comic books.

            LJ’s eyes widened.

            “Let’s go out to your bike with this.” Mrs. Hobbs watched them from the doorway.

            Placing the bag in the basket, he bent over, “Can you manage, LJ?”

            “I’m not sure. It’s a lot, Mr. Hobbs.”

            “I can imagine.”

            It all caught up with LJ. She didn’t want to cry. If her Pop was there she wouldn’t want to cry, but it would be OK. She couldn’t cry in front of her mom, no matter what. Not now. Maybe later.

            LJ didn’t say anything.

            “Maybe I should take out this big soda and hold it for you?”

            She squinted up at the sun and turned to Mr. Hobbs  with a practiced smile, like for school photos, “No. I love orange soda. I can balance once I get going. Can you just hold the handlebar for a second?”

            And off she went.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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