June ran up to him, digging coins from her pocket. “My fortune,” she said, “por favor.”
“In the morning,” he said distinctly.
June looked closely at the tiny prophets clinging wearily to the bars of their cage, at their tiny egg-shaped breasts and dull feathers. Only a few rolled papers tied with rough string on the bottom of the cage.
“More in the morning,” he said. “Better for you.”
“No,” June said. “I need it now. Morning no good. No está bien,” she said cautiously. “That one, Planeta, I want her to do it.”
“Importa poco.”
“What?” June said.
“It makes little difference.”
“Planeta,” she insisted. She pointed to the little one with the peeling bill and dark, opaque eyes that looked as though they’d been ringed in crayon.
“That is Justicio,” he said. “Justicio,” he sang softly, “Justicio …”
The bird dropped to the soiled floor of the cage and seized a tiny scroll as if it were a seed of much importance, a seed which could nourish it throughout the night. June pressed her fingers to the crookedly woven bars, almost expecting to receive a slight shock. The bird knocked the paper against her fingers. Once. Twice. She took it and the bird fluttered upwards to its perch, where it crouched like a clump of earth.
“Oh, June,” Abby called. “What does it say?”
She turned toward her friends and walked slowly toward them, unrolling the paper. The writing was florid and crowded. There were many unfamiliar words. Caroline knew the language best, then Howard. What a mistake this had been! She would need time to study it and there was no time. Everyone was looking at her.
“Oh, it’s just silly,” she said, and threw it in the fire, where it burned sluggishly. No one attempted to retrieve it.
“God, isn’t it late, where are my parents?” Abby said, yawning. “I want to go to bed.”
June sat with them all a little while longer before going to her room. She lay on her bed discouraged, uncomfortably, listlessly awake. She heard a wailing from far away, but when she listened closely she could not hear it. She listened avidly now. Nothing. She could not recall the cadence of the drums. She had lied to James about that. But she could picture the anda being borne down the streets. That she would remember. It was fascinating to have seen the designs so meticulously created and then the anda passing, being borne on, swaying, and in its wake the designs smeared, crushed, a scattered wonder. And that part, after, had been fascinating too.
But she didn’t really believe it was fascinating. It wasn’t good to deceive yourself. She thought about Howard, hating him, and his cold grin. He was fleshy, did he not know that? Fleshier than most. He was not attractive. That was a lie, what Howard had done. It could hardly be anything else. She thought of the mannequins praying in their cell. A lie, too, but one that was funny. Things had to be funny.
In the morning, Caroline’s dog was gone again. The rope had been knotted any number of times; it was always breaking. And when it broke, the dog would escape from the courtyard and, barking with joy, run through the streets. Caroline said that when it disappeared for good, it would be time to go. She had heard somewhere that angels tell you when it’s time to leave a place by leaving just before you. June thought she had heard that too. Something like that.
FIRST VINTAGE CONTEMPORARIES EDITION, NOVEMBER 2005
Copyright © 2004 by Joy Williams
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, in 2004.
Vintage and colophon are registered trademarks and Vintage Contemporaries is a trademark of Random House, Inc.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Williams, Joy [date]
Honored guest : stories / Joy Williams—1st ed.
p. cm.
Contents: Honored guest—Congress—Marabou—The visiting privilege—Substance—Anodyne—The other week—Claro—Charity—ACK—Hammer—Fortune.
1. Parent and adult child—Fiction. 2. Conflict of generations—Fiction.
3. Domestic fiction, American. I. Title.
PS3573.I4496H66 2004
813′.54—dc22
2004044199
eISBN: 978-0-307-76383-9
www.vintagebooks.com
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