The momentum of his failed leg strike pulled him off-balance and he landed on his back, next to Padron. The two lay staring at each other. They both gasped for air, fish thrashing in the bottom of an angler’s boat.
Chung started to laugh. “Oh, man, this is too good,” he managed. Ortiz merely gave a half-grin and snorted. He nudged his friend and pointed to the prone hero. He said, “Hey, Chung, what we do about this pendejo?”
“Let Padron do him when the two of ’em are finished with their little siestas,” Chung said. He turned back to Eva and Marta. “You still need to pay a tribute.” He folded his arms and glared at the two girls.
“Okay,” Eva said. “I got nice present for you.” Eva said. She thrust the small plastic bottle she’d taken from her pocket moments earlier and squeezed a stream of oily liquid into Chung’s eyes. It was a perfect opportunity, she had decided, to experiment with her new pepper spray. Could the effects of the local Habanero peppers compare with her treasured Guntar peppers? She observed that the heat from the southwest Indian peppers was more potent, but the Habaneros lived up to their reputation. They burned.
Science in action, Eva thought with a grin.
Chung yelped in pain. Padron was still on the ground, his view of the action limited to the forty-two canine teeth directly over his face. Ortiz had stopped laughing and looked puzzled. By now the hero was up, fists clenched, his face a twisted in rage. Eva wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. The boy tensed to strike Ortiz, but Marta Cruz stepped between them.
“Stop. There’s no more fight. Let it go,” she said. Eva wasn’t sure whom Marta was addressing. The hero checked his motion and struggled to keep his balance. Ortiz stood, a bemused look on his face.
Marta turned and knelt at Padron’s side. He was still struggling for air. She knelt and grasped the front of his waistband and lifted his hips sharply several times, until his diaphragm relaxed and he could once again draw air in panicked gulps. Marta turned to the hero, and asked, “Would you ask your dog to let him get up?” The hero gestured, his palm extended as if he were a bellhop waiting for a tip. He brought his hand up ninety degrees, his palm facing inward like a backwards hello. Immediately, Ringer sat.
Marta turned her attention to Chung. She found a bottle of water in her bag and drenched his eyes, then turned to Eva. “What was that?” Marta asked.
“Pepper spray. I make.”
Marta handed Chung the water and told him to rinse but not rub his eyes.
“You didn’t have to spray him,” Marta said.
“Nobody attack me without hurt.”
Padron stood up, wary eyes fixed on Ringer. Ringer drew back her upper lip. Padron backed up a step. He caught Ortiz’s eye and nodded. They grabbed Chung and started to walk away. Padron turned to the hero, “You know what? I’d have kicked your ass except for that dog. Sometime, you and me? We gonna meet up again, no little girls to protect you.”
The hero said, “If that’s what you’re going to do, then that’s what you’re going to do. But no one meant you any disrespect and if everybody stays cool, then nobody finds out that you got your asses kicked by a dog and a little girl.”
“You crazy, man,” said Padron, but the fight had left him and his threat lost its menace. He walked away.
Marta turned back to Eva, “You didn’t have to spray that boy. You weren’t attacked.”
“Is technicality. He would attack but this one comes along.” Eva turned to the hero. His face was soft again. “Your dog fight better than you. How you teach her that?”
“I didn’t. She’s never done that before.”
Eva continued, “Where I come from, dogs is bad news. Dogs runs loose and kills.”
The boy gave Eva an appraising stare. “Her name is Ringer. Don’t worry about her.”
“Dogs come to school in America?”
“No,” he said. “She stays in the neighborhood during school, at least that’s what we did during summer school. There are a couple of shops where they let her wait. I’ll have to leave her home now.”
Eva pondered. “She not bite. Why no bite? Is better with blood, yes?”
“Like I said, she never did that before.”
“Whatever. That was good.” Eva looked at the boy slowly, her gaze taking his measure. “I don’t like dogs but this one, maybe okay. You helped us. I say thanks to you. I am Eva Rozen, this is Marta Cruz.”
“Jim Ecco.”
“What kind of dog is Ringer?” asked Marta.
Jim shrugged. “Some terrier, maybe. Possibly an Airedale, from her size. German Shepherd? Who knows?”
Eva approached Ringer, hand outstretched. “Nice doggie?”
Ringer backed up a pace.
“Hi doggie. I say, ‘hello, doggie.’” Eva stepped forward again.
Ringer backed up further.
“Dog is afraid of me?” asked Eva.
“Not exactly,” explained Jim. “It’s your posture. She doesn’t like it when you lean over her with your hand stretched out like that. To a dog, that’s rude and your hand over her head might be a threat. Just stand straight, relax and angle your body away a little. Like this.” He demonstrated a neutral posture, “She’ll relax. Don’t face her directly until she knows you. And bring your hand up from underneath to scratch her chest.”
Eva tried it and Ringer inched closer, sniffing. She allowed herself to be petted and then licked Eva’s hand. For the first time since leaving Gergana’s grave in Sofia, the Voices were silent and Eva Rozen smiled.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said, “What a nice dog.” Eva’s English was letter-perfect and unaccented, if a bit clipped, in the manner of one who had learned the language by rote, repeating phrases and vocabulary along with a recording.
The rest of the day passed without incident until the last period. The three students found themselves together for an English class. News of their morning confrontation had spread, despite Jim’s assurance that it would be a secret, and classmates kept their distance out of deference or apprehension. Eva sat next to Jim, staring openly at him. Marta seemed focused on her classwork.
The English composition teacher was Henna Erickson. Her appearance was a nod to the styles of an earlier era—cotton peasant blouses instead of color-changing modern nanotextiles. She chose granny glasses to complete the look. Medium height, plain-faced, she had an unadorned figure draped in a shapeless dress. Her frizzy brown hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck.
In contrast to Erickson’s utterly commonplace personal style, her classroom was animated. Action and emotion leapt from candid photographs on the walls: kinetic depictions of people at work, at rest, and at play. There were tender interchanges, confrontations, affection and anger. Even the most introspective of images emanated vigor.
“Good afternoon, class,” she began. “Your first writing assignment is today. I want you to write a two-page essay. I have these photos to stimulate your emotions, or you can dig into your memories, your past. Either way, I want you to find something important from your childhood and write about it.”
The class looked around at the photographs, then at each other. Several groaned.
“You might find this a little hard at first. But it will be easy once you get started. Then the story will write itself.”
With a little prodding, the class began. Eva Rozen sat immobile. She looked over at Jim. He sat, frowning at the blank display on his dataslate. Erickson walked over to them.
Eva held up her hand and said one word, “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry?” Erickson said.
“I’m not here to learn to write some little stories. I’m here for science and this is—this is not for me. Thanks anyway.”
Eva rolled up her dataslate, turned back and looked at Jim Ecco. She held his eye, paused, and then stood to leave the classroom.
Marta turned to Jim, mouth agape. He shrugged. The class’s attention was fixed first on the doll-like student, then on the teacher. Ms. Erickson check
ed the roster. “Ms. Rozen, maybe you and I can work together for a few minutes and I can help you get started.”
“Maybe not,” Eva said.
“Ms. Rozen, life is more than facts, figures, and calculations. Your history makes you who you are. You want to be a scientist? Great! Write about why science is important to you. But focus on your feelings. That’s what gives scientists inspiration and intuition.”
Eva Rozen held the teacher’s gaze.
“Ms. Erickson,” Eva spoke quietly. “I know what shaped me and it’s private. And I don’t want to be a scientist—I am a scientist.”
“You’re a student and you must do the assignment. I respect your goals but you cannot simply walk out.”
“Yes, I can. You like to teach? Fine. Teach. But my history and my feelings are private. I’ll be back to class tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even stay.”
“Ms. Rozen, why is this so upsetting? I don’t understand your reaction. What’s wrong?”
Eva’s reply was measured. She bit off each word. “I have no use for stories.”
“You’re missing an important part of your education. The arts shape you as a person.”
“Think so? That’s what writing did for you? Turned you into, what? A thief? Stealing ideas from your students? Go watch someone else bare her soul.”
Erickson flushed a deep scarlet then closed her eyes for a moment. “Ms. Rozen,” she said deliberately, “I think you’re just plain lazy.”
“What did you say to me?” Eva’s voice somehow managed to be flat and menacing.
Erickson ignored the implied threat. “Do you treat science the way you treat writing? Do you look only at the electrons and ignore the nucleus? Maybe you think that since electrons can form the bonds with other atoms, then who cares about the nucleus?’ Is that how science works? You would have done very well in the Inquisition. Your attitude towards the arts seems remarkably close to the attitude of the Inquisitors towards Galileo in 1615.”
Now it was Eva’s turn to color.
“Oh, I see, Ms. Rozen. You didn’t think I’d know anything about science, now did you? Well, stay or go. That’s your choice. And I can keep you or flunk you. That’s my choice. But the important thing is not the grade, but the kind of person you are. You must understand the building blocks of human nature as surely as you need to study the periodic table of the elements. Won’t you please stay?”
Eva stared without expression at the teacher and then disappeared through the door. The class sat, stunned. A girl who spoke like a woman and who had treated the teacher like a girl? A soft-looking boy who took on the feared Padron? This had become a day to remember.
Eva stood outside the classroom. She hoped Jim would join her. There was something familiar in his bearing. Sad? Angry? Bad memories?
Eva understood all too well. Her memories were still fresh. They travelled with her from half a world away. She catalogued each memory as a voice. Each murmured and spoke and shouted. Mama and Papa and Bare Chest and Doran were shrill, mocking, animate. Even Gergana sat at the Table of Clamorous Voices.
But weren’t they were just memories? Ought they not to have paled? Lost color and tone and depth? Weren’t the dead supposed to decompose?
06
___________________________________________
AN EIGHTEEN INCH JOURNEY
LOS POBLADRES HIGH SCHOOL
EAST LOS ANGELES
2022-2026
Eva marched out of Henna Erickson’s classroom, leaving behind two dozen bewildered faces. Jim stood and followed Eva. He turned briefly to the instructor and gave a ‘what else can I do?’ shrug. He said, “I’ll go make sure she’s okay,” and left.
“Eva,” he called once he was in the hallway. “Wait up.”
He reached her. They headed across the campus in search of Ringer. Eva thought it odd to have someone follow her without feeling an accompanying sense of danger.
Eva wanted to purge her thoughts of the violent turn her life had taken scant weeks ago, to disgorge the history that Mrs. Erickson wanted her to recall and inhabit. She thought instead of today’s events, of this smooth-faced boy next to her and his sudden snarling transformation. She remembered the threatening voice of Padron; it evoked those of Bare Chest and Papa. The memories cascaded, and she heard Gergana and Coombs and every person she’d encountered during her thirteen years of life. For Eva, memory was sound: the din from the Table of Clamorous Voices.
She shook her head to clear the memories. She liked to imagine that she possessed a stage magician’s box. Its black lacquered sides were studded with dull iron fasteners and circled by heavy chains and a padlock. With a snap of her stubby fingers, Doran and Bare Chest went into the box. Snap! Henna Erickson. Snap! Mama and Papa. Snap, snap! The box shrank until it fit into her pocket. It never quite disappeared, though, and the Voices were never quite stilled. Mama’s whine and Papa’s drunken manifestos, Gergana’s silly chatter and affectionate lullabies. Doran’s grunts and Bare Chest’s threats. All of these echoed. The din.
Eva tore herself away from her daydream and turned her attention to Jim. He was frowning. “Bad memories?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” he replied. They walked in silence towards a shady spot on the edge of the school’s campus. Ringer was waiting there. She sniffed Eva and wagged her tail. Her ears were relaxed, her tongue hanging down, spatulate. She pressed up against Eva and then returned to Jim’s side. Jim brightened.
Eva said, “I have an hour before the Foundation car picks me up. You want to do something?”
“Like what?”
“Something to eat? Anything.”
“I don’t think so. I need to get Ringer back home.”
Eva pushed on. “How about tomorrow? Or the weekend? Let’s compare notes. Maybe we can make trouble.” She offered a version of what she imagined was a sly smile.
Jim regarded her for a minute. “I liked the way you stood up for yourself this morning. That was pretty cool.”
“Okay, I’m cool. You’re cool. So...let’s do something. Something cool.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to head on home.”
“What, somebody keeps track of you? Times your arrival?”
“No, it’s not that—”
“Maybe you think I’m not good enough for you?” She turned and stood in front of him, stopping him. She thrust out a clenched jaw. The din from the Table was louder.
Jim held up both hand in a peacemaking gesture. “No, that’s not it. Okay, you’re different. You’re not like anybody I’ve ever met. You’re, what, a scrap over four feet tall? And you were the first to take on those guys. I guess I admire you.” He walked several paces, kicking at stones as he went. “Do you want be friends?”
“Friends, huh?” she replied. But the edge was gone. The Table quieted.
Jim sighed. “I could use a friend. Somebody I can trust.”
“How do you know you can trust me? You don’t know anything about me.”
“Ringer trusts you. Let’s find her some water and get a soda or something.”
“I guess so,” she nodded. They walked in silent fellowship towards the nearby diner. Ringer strained forward when she saw their destination, hindquarters shaking from the rapid movement of her tail. Jim led Eva inside to a pair of old-fashioned counter stools. At the base of one, there was a folded blanket with a well-worn depression and a layer of tan hair. Ringer curled up in the depression. The counterman gave Jim a fresh bowl of water for Ringer and served Jim and Eva’s sodas, then delivered a small plate of raw burger meat to the dog. Ringer emitted a quiet chuffing sound of approval. The cook was well-trained.
Jim and Eva sat in silence for several minutes. “That writing assignment was weird,” Jim said, at last. Eva did not reply. She thought about her life in Sofia, and the last time she had seen Gergana. Eva had kept the scarab brooch she’d never had a chance to give her sister. No, Eva thought, I’m not going to spend much time in that class. She reached her
hand up and tentatively, touched Jim’s shoulder. He turned to her and offered a neutral smile. Her hand fell back to the counter. Jim reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Friends,” he said, with a smile as genuine as Coombs, and squeezed her hand again.
The din was gone, the Table was silent. Space opened up at the Table to admit a new member. Jim stood at its head. He exerted a powerful influence, calming the others. In his presence, Eva felt a respite from the din.
Marta, Eva, and the Hidden Scholar Foundation car converged at the school’s front steps. Marta had a faraway look and Eva asked, “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Sort of,” Marta said.
“What happened?” asked Eva.
“I took the writing assignment seriously. It brought back some memories.”
Eva rolled her eyes. “So, what, you’re better than me?”
“Why would you say that, Eva?” Marta sounded surprised.
Eva mimicked her classmate, her voice taking on the singsong, dreamy quality of Marta’s reply, “I took the writing assignment seriously. Look, what nobody seems to understand is that I don’t need stories. I am science,” she said, a bit of her old accent spilling back into her speech, a clue to her sudden anger. Eva paused, “So, what did you write about so...seriously?”
Marta stared at Eva before she replied. “I wrote about my parents.” She hesitated a few moments and then added quietly, “My mom died a few months ago. She was sick and my dad didn’t take it well. I ended up spending the summer with my grandmother. Maybe I have seen a ghost.”
Her voice was both testy and sorrowful. Eva looked at her and then reached out and touched Marta’s forearm. Today, the gesture was one of solidarity. In time, the gesture would be as much a warning as a cobra’s hiss “Here’s the Foundation driver,” she said.
They got into the car. Marta smiled at the driver, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. It had been a long day. Pain etched a grimace on her face. Eva looked out the window and saw Jim and Ringer.
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