A Place Called Zamora

by LB Gschwandtner

  Here she stopped. There were noises not far away, but in here, there were no InComs. The last ones had been attached to a stanchion just before entering. They showed a picture of Niko where (although it didn’t make any sense) he was taking El by the hand after The Race as his prize.

  The dusty pathways in The Shanty Alleys were flat but pitted, and if there had been a hard rain, they would turn to mud soup. The shed next to where she had stopped was falling apart. It had no roof, and of its three remaining sides, one leaned precariously inward. Old floorboards had been hacked apart, and what had been left were rotted out amid a dirt floor. In one corner, a battered crib from some long-gone baby lay on its side, its pickets broken.

  After looking around to make sure she hadn’t been followed, Old Merrie pushed her cart inside.

  “You better come out now. Get some air. Stretch those legs,” she said in a low voice, leaning down to unlatch the cart doors.

  She reached in to help El unfold herself enough to stick out one leg and then the other. Niko maneuvered himself out first and stood unsteadily.

  “Best you rest here before we go any further. No one gonna come up in these Shanty Alleys no way. Nothing to steal here and don’t never bother arresting no one neither. Here.” She handed Niko a cold lemonade can and then gave one to El as she emerged slowly from the cart.

  “You doing all right?” she asked El. “Close and hot in there. We still got a ways to go, but not till this sun sets himself down for the night.”

  Niko slipped outside, and they heard him peeing against the shaky wall.

  “That’s mens for you. Easy for them. You gotta go, honey?”

  El nodded. She drank the lemonade almost in one gulp. “So thirsty,” she gasped. “I thought I would never get out of there.”

  Old Merrie shook her head in sympathy. “I know. Ain’t the best conveyance. But nobody’s done bothered you. See? We get you to The Perimeters, I don’t know what to think. Don’t do no good to even imagine. We’ll just push on and meet whatever comes.”

  Niko came back inside, and Old Merrie nodded to El. “You go on,” she said. “Ain’t nobody gonna bother you out back behind here.”

  El slipped out, and Niko sat against the old, broken crib. He tossed a small rock up and caught it in his palm, then repeated this again and again like a game.

  “Don’t do you no good to worry,” Old Merrie told him. She reached into the cold compartment and pulled out a sandwich and another can of lemonade. Bringing them over to Niko, she grinned at him. “You troubled. I can see that, boy. Whatchyou got on your mind?”

  “Ha,” he laughed a humorless burst in spite of himself. He bit into the sandwich and drank from the can.

  “Oh, nothing much,” he said between bites. “The whole city’s after me. Villinkash wants to hang me on TV. El hates me. And I shouldn’t be running out on everyone like a rabbit. Other than that . . .” He continued eating the sandwich and stared at the dirt floor.

  “I never pictured myself a hero,” he mused, and looked up at the old woman, an unlikely rescuer. “I always just thought about staying alive. Living for the next day. Now . . .” He finished the sandwich and tossed the paper wrapping onto the dirt floor. “Now I think I have a duty to all those people out there risking their lives on account of me.”

  El appeared at the open wall, and when Old Merrie handed her a sandwich and drink, she took them as far from Niko as she could in that small space and squatted down to eat. Far off they could hear explosions that seemed to be coming more often. The sun had set, and dusk had crept in while they waited. Old Merrie leaned against her cart and hummed softly.

  “Seem to me like you youngsters is joined at the hip for a while to come. I don’t know what you gonna face on the other side. It ain’t gonna be easy, but I ’spect it gonna be different. You got a whole mountain to get over if you heading for the Glimmer. And you gonna need each other. Wish’t I could be there alongside you. To see it up close. To really be in Zamora.

  “The people out there . . .”—she motioned toward the missing wall and the sound of explosions—“they doin’ what they want to do for theirselves. They not thinking so much of you . . .”—she looked back at Niko—“or you . . .”—she pointed at El—“but of they own lives—of what they missin’ and what they need, about they own hopes and about what’s right and what’s wrong. People can only put up with so much meanness, and when they reaches they boiling point, up the kettle top goes. That’s right. These people out here, the ones blowing the lid off, they was ready to do what they doin’. What you done . . . you,”—she pointed to Niko—“and you . . .”—she nodded to El—“was just the instrument waiting be played by that orchestral band out there. Don’t you go pay no mind to thoughts about you supposed to be a hero because that time might come and might not. People always say they want a hero. A great leader to take them to the promised land. But everything comes in its own time. And that promised land ain’t noways here yet. Goin’ to be a whole lotta destructions before that come to pass. Won’t do nobody no good if you two was to be sucked up into the maw of that destructive beast. No, sir. Besides, didn’t Jesus go into the wilderness and disappear for a time? You not the first to ponder what for you put on this Earth.

  “Well, look like darkness comin’ on soon, so we best get goin’. You ready to climb back in here?” She pushed the cart to the missing wall.

  Huston gave his driver the night off, then sneaked into the garage situated two stories beneath his house and revved up a motorcycle he hadn’t ridden in a year. With a helmet and jacket emblazoned with the insignias of a high-ranking officer of the Detectors Corps, he’d be regarded with fear by any Detainers he happened to meet and able to intimidate and arrest street people at random.

  His plan was simple. If it worked.

  After careening up the ramp from his underground hideaway, he made two stops on his way to The Perimeters. At the first, a storage depot controlled by the Regime, he collected plastic explosives and blasting caps. The guards didn’t question him, because of the insignias, and gave him whatever he had requisitioned. He stored the caps and explosives in a pouch behind his seat. His second stop was the converted garage now boarded up and seemingly abandoned.

  It was dark by then, and the explosions came more frequently. Sirens wailed in the distance, and no one was out on the streets. People who didn’t have to be outside only wanted to hide until the mayhem subsided. The InCom screens continued to proclaim impossible numbers of arrests, but nobody believed them as none of their neighbors had been taken. They surmised it was all coming from The Shanty Alleys or The Hovels. Those people lived like animals anyway. The InCom also announced threats to “insurgents” and their families, although the Regime still had no idea who the insurgents were or how they managed to evaporate after each explosion.

  By now, piles of rubble were strewn everywhere, even in The Ring, and from the roof of the Tower, huge balls of fiery debris rained down from time to time, lighting the night sky like hot orange meteors. Detainers were dispatched to climb all twenty-three floors to arrest the bombarders, but the perpetrators escaped, so instead they harassed the Tower’s squatters.

  Huston guided his motorcycle through the fence gap, being careful not to tear his jacket. Once in the backyard he went to the obvious door, not knowing about the secret entrance El had used. A deadbolt didn’t thwart him. He took two hairpins from an inside jacket pocket, and with a few turns, while he listened closely to the sound of the tumblers inside the lock and applied just the right pressure, the bolt slid back. He was in. He squinted in the dark until he found candles and matches.

  Of course, he thought as he struck a match, nuns would have candles. He looked up, and the first thing he saw was the hand-carved cross on a wall in front of him. Next he looked for an InCom, but he saw there was none in that room. The long table, the kitchen with its old porcelain sink, cupboards, simple wooden furniture, and only one rug under the table. This looked like a good place to star
t.

  He carried one candle over to the rug, which was placed in an odd position toward one side of the large room and not centered under the table. And then he remembered: this used to be a garage. This must be it. He hurriedly walked over and, setting the candle on the floor, lifted the end of the table and moved it over. Then he pulled at one corner of the rug and hurled it back to reveal the door to a pit. He felt around with his fingertips, located a space between the boards, and there were the steep stairs down.

  With light from the candle, he spotted the trunk, its lock already open, as if awaiting Huston’s arrival. He couldn’t believe it. Nothing was ever this easy. His foot grazed something hard: the crowbar Niko had used to pry the lock.

  So, someone has been here. He opened the trunk and held the candle above it. There were a few empty bags and some papers in one corner. Pushing these aside, he spotted one bag, still tied shut. He pulled at it and set the candle by first tilting it to make a puddle of hot wax and then sticking the bottom of the candle into its middle until it hardened. It gave off a soft glow, and his eyes became accustomed to the soft light.

  He pulled at the knot with his teeth, and it soon gave way enough that he could take it apart with his fingertips. And then, yes, it yielded to his touch. He placed it on the ground and sat down with it directly in front of him. Then he peeled back the top of the bag, and there, in the candle’s light, the gold coins gleamed.

  Huston dipped his hand in and pulled out a few of the coins. He held one close to the candle to look at its markings. He squinted at the image of Franz Josef and held it even closer to the light, turning it until he could make out the details on the back.

  The Austrian Royal Crest and then C Coronae MDCCCCXV 100 Corona

  Huston whistled softly and then turned the bag over to release all the coins in a heap, which he proceeded to count until he reached the last one. There were seventy-five in all, a small fortune in just this one bag. How many more bags had there been, and who had them now?

  He dropped the coins back into the bag, stood and shut the trunk, took both candle and bag, and made his way back up the steps to the main room. After restoring the room to the way he’d found it, Huston sat down at the big table where El had eaten all her meals for fifteen years, where the sisters had nourished lost children and carved warm-from-the-oven homemade bread and spread hand-collected honey from their own hive, where tea had been brewed and prayers had been offered. Huston placed the bag of gold on that same table and allowed his mind to wander and wonder. It wasn’t something he was accustomed to doing, so it felt foreign to him while, at the same time, soothing like some untapped undercurrent in his soul.

  His mind went first to Saskia and how he had known her when he was a younger man. How lovely she had been. In his memory she was alluring and full of joy and excitement when first they had met. That first time—exactly how long ago was it?—in the garden of a friend’s home, where she stood under a tabebuia tree in full bloom, her hair lit by the sun, a filmy skirt billowing like a silk sail about her legs, her head tilted back in laughter, her gold bracelets clinking each other. She had been like a beautiful bird surrounded by green and gold. He’d fallen in love in a way that surprised him. He’d always been the ruthless driver, always pushing and maneuvering, climbing to reach the next level, the next score, the better position, the greater wealth, the influence he craved, the importance he needed. And he had almost reached it on that day he saw Saskia, that day she lit up his life.

  An older woman he’d had an affair with as a stepping stone to important connections, one of many in those years, noticed him staring and said, “She’ll never tumble for you, dear.”

  “Why not?” he’d asked.

  She’d wrinkled her nose and pointed to the sky. “She’s way up there. The daughter of the wealthiest old family in the city. I’d have thought you of all people would know that.”

  “I’ve never seen or heard of her. Why is that?” he’d asked because he’d always made it his business to get close to anyone who mattered.

  “Her mother died in childbirth. Long ago she was sent away to a girls’ school far away in some remote mountains. She’s only just graduated. Her father wants her to marry well and preserve the family name and fortune.”

  “I see,” he’d said.

  “Rumor is he’s fallen on hard times,” she’d whispered. “And his money all came from the wife who died and left it all in trust to her daughter. Her family was in mining, you know. And that girl you’re making goo-goo eyes at may just have inherited a fortune. So don’t make a fool of yourself. Stay on your own side of the fence. You’ll be better off that way.”

  But he pursued her anyway, almost as if her beauty was only part of the challenge. He wanted to capture her the way a hunter longs to capture a cheetah. It lured him not just for its beauty but for its speed in avoiding that capture. He may not have had the pedigree or the money at that time, but he had something just as valuable: determination. And no woman had ever gotten away once he’d decided he wanted her.

  Thinking back on it now, he wondered if she had really been as reluctant as she seemed to be then. She had spurned him many times, but he wasn’t deterred. And finally, she agreed to see him one night, just for a drink and dinner before she would let him down with a final thud. Yet he was still intent on winning her over, especially knowing she had no intention of seeing him a second time.

  He held one gold coin between thumb and forefinger, turning it over and over as he allowed his memories to roam. He’d rented a fancy car for their date. Not to impress her so much as to make himself feel more important. When he knocked on her door, a uniformed maid opened it after looking through a peephole. She allowed him in and told him to wait while she informed Miss Saskia that she had a guest.

  In the car, as they reached the end of the long winding driveway of her family estate, he’d stopped before advancing onto the road and said, “I don’t think your maid approved of me.”

  Saskia turned to look at him, smiling. She was so beautiful in a simple sleeveless white silk blouse and a loose pale-blue skirt that rested lightly against her legs. Huston had the impression she’d just stepped out of one of those classical paintings in the city’s museum, like someone had conjured her and she couldn’t be real. A portrait of a princess too ethereal to touch.

  “Should she approve of you?” she asked in a soft voice. She had a slight accent, from all those years in the girls’ school, and around her neck she wore a slender gold chain with a matching gold cross.

  He blurted without thinking, which was unlike him, “I suppose not.”

  He tilted his head as if listening for an argument or agreement, but all she said was, “I guess we’ll see.”

  She perplexed him, and he drove on in silence. Once they were seated in the restaurant he cleared his throat as if to make a declaration. She giggled and unfolded her napkin.

  “Are you nervous?” she asked.

  He shook his head but said, “I’ve asked you out so many times. Why did you finally say yes?”

  She fingered the cross for reassurance and said, “I’m not really sure. For one thing, I don’t know very many people here. I’ve been away so long. And I was curious.” She smiled and the waiter brought their drinks.

  “Curious about what?”

  “About whether you were as dangerous as they say you are.”

  “Who says I’m dangerous?” Now he was smiling.

  “People.”

  “Oh, them. Do you think I’m dangerous?”

  “I don’t know yet. So far you don’t seem to be.”

  “And what if I was? Would you run?”

  She drank from her glass. “This is quite sweet. What is it?”

  “Just something with a little rum in it. It’s good for the appetite.”

  She drank again, then put the glass down. “I don’t think I’d run. I don’t scare easily. But since this is going to be our only meeting, I don’t have to worry about being scared.”
>
  The dinner came. They ate and talked about the food. He ordered a bottle of wine, and they drank most of it. When they had finished and he had paid, he stood and pulled out her chair, acting as gentlemanly as he could. As she stood, his hand brushed her naked arm. It rested there a little longer than by accident but not long enough to be on purpose for certain. Then she turned briefly to look at him. He ignored it, though he’d felt a particular current at the touch of her skin.

  As they returned to the street, he said, “Would you like to see my favorite spot for viewing the ocean at night? Since you’ve been living in the mountains for all these years, the ocean should be a treat for you, especially when there’s such a big moon.”

  “How far is it?”

  “Not far at all. Five minutes. It’s just up that hill and around a few curves.”

  “All right.” She smiled at him, and it seemed as if she had softened.

  He took her arm then, firmly so she wouldn’t think it was an accident this time, and walked her to the car and helped her in. He had no idea what was going on inside her at that moment, but he was sure he didn’t want this evening to end. Not yet.

  The coin dropped from his fingers and snapped him back to the table and the bag of gold and all that had happened since that night.

  Gruen showed up at the address Fuller had given him and knocked twice on an old, rusted metal door. Someone opened it a crack.

  “Jake?” Gruen asked.

  “Yeah, what d’you want?”

  “I came with something for Fuller.”

  The door swung wide and there was Shag with Jake, a rumpled guy in baggy pants and a dirty work shirt. His fingernails were black with grime, and in the farthest part of the room, Gruen could see motorcycles. It was illegal to be working on them outside the official factory, Gruen knew, so something was going on in there that shouldn’t have been. Probably more than one thing.