The Summer Prince

by Alaya Dawn Johnson

  Panicked, I wipe at his face with the edge of my jacket sleeve, but it’s hopeless. Gil looks broken down with grief, and for a moment, I hate Enki for doing this to him.

  “Gil, Oreste is horrible but she’s not killing Enki. He knew what he was doing when he declared.”

  Gil’s hands imprison my own. He looks very fierce, though he still hasn’t stopped crying. “And what if he changes his mind? They’ll kill him anyway.”

  “He hasn’t changed his mind.” I suppose that some other summer kings must have regretted their decision, but Enki never would.

  Gil denies this truth with a furious shake of his head. “Do you want him to die, June? Do you think it’s okay that they kill the best of us at the end of winter?”

  My mouth opens, but I can’t think of anything to say. Do I think it’s okay? I know Gil thought so back in the spring, when we were both so excited to vote for Enki to become summer king. Clearly, he’s changed his mind. But the ritual of our summer king is as central to the identity of Palmares Três as the pyramid itself. Still, when faced with the question, I realize that one thing is true.

  I don’t want Enki to die.

  “We can’t do anything to stop it, Gil.”

  He looks at me very sadly, but at least his tears have stopped. “I wish we could at least try.”

  But I know better than anyone how dangerous trying can be, and how destructive. Maybe it’s better to let bad things happen than tear yourself apart trying to stop the inevitable.

  Couldn’t that be art, June? whispers a voice like Enki’s.

  I ignore him.

  His blood sanctifies his choice — I’ve heard the catechism all my life, though I didn’t understand it until my papai took me to the park to watch Fidel die. It’s barbaric and cruel, our ritual sacrifice of a king every five years, but it’s all in the service of his choice. Every young Palmarina is taught the story of Alonso and Odete — our first king and Queen, who in the midst of the chaos and death of the dislocation, chose a different path.

  The kings die so that their choice of the next Queen can be irrevocable, unassailable, and unprejudiced.

  After all, there’s no time for corruption when your throat is being cut.

  They tell us the idea came to Alonso in a dream, sent to him by Ogum, the orixá of politics and prophecy. They say he realized that the new citizens would be willing to make sacrifices for the sake of their new home, if the leaders were willing to make a sacrifice for the city. The Founding Mothers reluctantly agreed with his reasoning, and when his year was over, he named Odete first Queen and he died. Even with the changed tradition of the moon years, our system seems to have worked pretty well for the last four centuries. It’s true — a man about to die can make some surprising choices.

  But it isn’t much of a waka who doesn’t wonder — especially during a moon year — if we couldn’t find a better way. After all, the dislocation and its horrors are four hundred years past and would it really hurt anyone to let the summer kings live after their year-long reign?

  Not long after Papai brought me to the park, I asked Mamãe why we didn’t kill the Queens when they were done too.

  “Kings are men,” Mamãe said, “and they can’t be trusted to give up power once they have it.”

  I believed her at the time. Now I think: Auntie Isa has been sub-queen for fifty years.

  Now I think: Why else have moon years?

  We have exams today. I’ve actually studied for a change, though I’m so restless it doesn’t feel like it. I dig my sandals into the floor and attempt to peer above the shoulder-height walls of my carrel without making it obvious. Gil is in the front of the room, shoulders hunched, forehead screwed in concentration. It’s news to me that he even knows what his subjects are this year, let alone that he learned them well enough to answer the questions scrolling across the examination arrays. Bebel sits two rows behind him, with better posture but even greater intensity. Her operatic hand gestures are only contained by the walls on either side. I can almost see her points accumulate in the air above her. She has a much better average this year than I do, and she’s obviously planning to keep her streak. I wouldn’t expect any less: My best rival wouldn’t let something paltry like exam scores get in the way of her chances for the Queen’s Award. I look back at the test questions, but they might as well be in English. At this rate, Bebel will stay at the top of the class rankings, and I won’t have any chance of catching up.

  At first, a familiar panic grips me: I haven’t studied enough, I don’t know the subjects, I’m going to fail and my mamãe will find out and my papai will be so disappointed. Bebel will win and lord it over me for days.

  And then I remember: My papai is dead, Bebel is my friend, and I don’t know how I feel about the Queen’s Award these days.

  I sigh and look back down at my own exam. The questions are history, and they seem to come to me from another planet.

  Discuss the immediate effects of nuclear cooling and relate that to the failure of the Pan-American Treaty Agreement.

  “Grandes are stupid?” I mutter, but I do my best to scrawl out some approximation of an intelligent answer. The next question is more of the same and the next and the next until I throw my own hands up in the air and let out a groan loud enough to make the two students on either side of me pause and look up. The teacher reading at the front of the room raises her eyebrows in mild reproach. Reflexively, I duck my head back down, try to make myself work.

  Answering the questions feels like beating my skull against the wall of my carrel, but I keep going until someone taps my shoulder. I sit bolt upright and nearly fall from my chair.

  It’s Ieyascu, giant as ever, with that expression that used to chill my blood. Now I only feel exasperated.

  She crooks her finger and gestures with her head at the door. She wants to speak to me outside. In the middle of exams? I’m frightened despite myself when I stand up, attempting to ignore the curious stares of my classmates.

  She leads me down the hall and into an unused classroom. The door slides shut with a barely audible click that raises goose bumps on my arms.

  “I hope this won’t count against my exam time,” I say, just to break the silence. Ieyascu looks much too intimidating, towering over me with her red turban and crossed arms.

  “I’m doing this against my better judgment,” she says.

  “Making me miss my exams?”

  She shakes her head. “Giving you this.”

  She hands me a sheet of paper. This surprises me so much that at first I’m afraid she’s somehow found my stacks of paper drawings, that one of the more indiscreet ones is getting me in trouble. I had planned to selectively edit what I released to the public for the award.

  But this paper is smaller, lighter. It has real writing on it, in some kind of ink.

  “What is this?” I ask.

  Ieyascu takes a few steps away and turns so all I can see is her broad, straight back. “Surely you can still read?”

  I sigh and look back down at the paper. Handwriting is a pain to read, though we all had to learn it back in primary school. I struggle through the first few sentences, but my heart starts to pound once I understand what they mean.

  June,

  Renata will have just pulled you from your quarter final exams.

  I look up. “Renata?”

  Ieyascu turns around just enough for me to see the corner of a thin, tight smile crease her cheek. “The Queen and I have known each other since we were quite young.”

  “The Queen?” I say, even as my eyes scan to the end of the letter and see, of course, her name and an old, looping signature of the kind I’ve only otherwise encountered in history class.

  Ieyascu resumes her pacing. “Lord above, June,” she says, in time to the faint swish of her skirt. “Read, why don’t you?”

  I take a deep breath.

  She has been monitoring your performance, and I have instructed her to stop you from testing if she did not believe
you would finish within range of Bebel. As you are probably aware, Bebel is one of your main contenders for the Queen’s Award. As the rankings currently stand, I would probably be forced to declare her the winner. You might wonder why I simply can’t give the award to whomever I wish. The reality, of course, is politics. The dispensation of the Queen’s Award must have every appearance of impartiality. Your school scores will be available to any government official who asks, June, and there would be scandal if I were seen to be giving this award to a subpar student.

  My pulse starts to gallop. If I wasn’t sure about the Queen’s Award before, I am now. Even if everything else slips away from me, this is something I can hold.

  It will probably come as a surprise to you, but I would very much like you to win. I admit that when Yaha first put your name to me in the spring, I felt mostly indifferent about your candidacy. Your selection was not quite a favor to your stepmother, but not very far from it. But over the course of this year, my respect for your independence and courage has grown, as well as my estimation of your talent.

  However, as I said, politics interferes. Consider this letter my method of fighting back. Renata will provide you with instructions. Trust that she does this with my blessing. She will destroy this letter — and thus any record of my actions — as soon as you are finished reading it.

  I still cannot guarantee you will win, June. Your final project must be stunning, whatever it is. But just trust that whatever my public demeanor, I am on your side.

  Oreste

  I drop the paper as I read the last line. Ieyascu stands by the window, the farthest point away from me in the room. Her erect carriage and upturned chin radiate distaste.

  “You have … instructions?” I say.

  “You won’t always be the golden child, you know,” she says to the window. “Eventually, the privileged ones like you run up against the limits of their talent. It’s sad, really.”

  Ieyascu’s contempt surprises me. I’d always assumed that she treated most students with that brusque distrust. But it seems she’s always thought of me as an Auntie’s brat.

  “There’s no way she’d do this all for Auntie Yaha.”

  Ieyascu smiles that tight smile. “At least you have some sense.”

  “She says she respects my —”

  “June.”

  I take a few steps toward her. At least I’m angry. I try to keep hold of that.

  “Bebel is no better than me,” I say.

  Ieyascu doesn’t turn. “Debatable. But in any case, she’s a better student. Oreste was more or less honest about the political situation surrounding her choice for the Queen’s Award. What she left out is that there is much more riding on this year’s selection, given the fiasco with Lucia. I daresay this is the first time a candidate has been caught committing treason.”

  “But why would she bother doing this? What does it benefit her to make me win?”

  “What makes you so sure she wants you to win?”

  “She said —”

  “After all this, you still imagine Oreste ever fully means what she says?”

  Ieyascu takes a few ground-eating strides and plucks the paper off the table. She smells sweet, of orange blossoms and the heavy starch ironed into her headscarf.

  “She’s leading me on?”

  “Perhaps.” She rips the paper clean down the middle — an efficient, brutal gesture. “And perhaps she merely admires your talent and determination. I’m just a school principal, after all. What do I know of politics?”

  She stares at the two halves for a moment, then takes a long cylinder out of her pocket. It clicks and a flame erupts from one end. I watch, nearly shaking with the need to say something and having nothing to say, as she lets a flame incinerate the precious paper to a dusting of ash on the floor.

  “There,” she says.

  “I am good,” I say. “You might hate me, but you can’t deny it.”

  Her lips pucker, like she took a drink of sour milk. “Your entitlement is truly a wonder to behold.”

  “Entitlement?” Everything has gone very still inside me. Ieyascu looks bright and flat, heavy strokes on an invisible canvas.

  “What,” she says, “makes you think you should win, June? For all your scheming, for all your attempts to hijack the summer king to raise your popularity, for every other thing you try, June, what makes you think you deserve this? With so many other brilliant wakas in the running, why are you always so endlessly sure that you should win?”

  Her voice barely rises in pitch. Her hands hardly move, but her words have dealt me a blow. Why? is the thrust, endlessly repeated.

  And then, a parry.

  “But that’s just art.”

  “I don’t like your kind of art.”

  I meet her towering gaze, and perhaps I don’t feel as small as I should. She sighs, looks away. Not a victory, I’m not stupid enough to assume that, but a relief nonetheless.

  “That should be enough time,” she says. “You can go back to your exam now, June.”

  “Back?”

  “I can’t very well help you if you won’t at least go through the motions. Go back. Finish your test. If anyone asks, you had a family emergency. When the scores are posted, you’ll score a few points above Bebel.”

  “But she hasn’t even finished yet.”

  Ieyascu raises her eyebrows. “It’s your decision, but make it quickly.”

  Panic makes me forget to breathe. How can I decide without taking the time to think about it? Without asking Gil for advice?

  “Can’t I tell you tomorrow?”

  “The Queen’s generosity isn’t boundless. You have an offer. Accept it or go away.”

  “But couldn’t you fix the results just as well tomorrow morning?”

  Ieyascu laughs as if she would rather skewer me. “I could. The Queen chose not to exercise that option, and I am her humble servant.”

  She dares me to contradict her; I decline. One thing is true enough: Ieyascu might hate me, but she’s not the one who’s caught me in her web. Oreste is trying to manipulate me into accepting, but why? Because she thinks I deserve the Queen’s Award? But that’s too flattering and too simplistic. Because allowing me to win the award might help shore up her political position after the deaths at Royal Plaza?

  Entirely possible.

  And will I accept this manipulation? Will I hurt my best rival in the world with an exam score I don’t deserve? How much of yourself will you give them in exchange? Enki asked, back when I couldn’t have dreamed of a price this high.

  “Yes,” I say, fast, before I can change my mind.

  Ieyascu’s contempt is like a snake, coiling around her mouth and eyes. “Enjoy the Queen’s favor, June.”

  She touches the door. It slides open with a smooth release of air that makes the bile rise high in my throat.

  I won’t be hurting Bebel, I reason. She’ll still do as well as she was always going to. I’ll just keep myself in the running, which is what I deserve to begin with.

  Why? asks that voice. Maybe it’s Ieyascu’s, maybe it’s mine.

  Because I should win, I think.

  I thank Ieyascu before I walk back into the exam room. I take my seat. I finish an exam I know doesn’t matter because the Queen herself is cheating for me.

  I do not care.

  I will not care.

  I don’t normally copy other people’s art, but this seems a worthy exception.

  The isolationists have found a way to fight back. There’s a new stencil in the city. It looks familiar to anyone who’s seen the now-ubiquitous silhouette of Enki and me. But the two figures are Wanadi and Regina, upside down in clouds. Wanadi smiles, Regina frowns. Wanadi has a perfect bullet hole through the middle of his forehead. Regina holds a candle behind her back, the stark white of the flames engulfing her hands.

  It’s very good. I only wish I had something to do with it. So I do the next closest thing, and study a holo of the new stencil. Messy stacks of paper li
tter my bedroom floor, a fortune of wood pulp and graphite and ink. As the weeks have gone by, I’ve found my style changing, or at least growing, turning so deeply abstract that sometimes even I hardly know what I’m drawing. Most of these are faces: Enki and Gil. Auntie Yaha and Mother. Even a few of Papai, though his face is so deconstructed I doubt anyone but I would recognize him.

  I keep meaning to show the sketches publicly and start building support for my award bid, but every time I start to scan them in I have a vision of Ieyascu’s contemptuous face and I put them down. Later, I always think. When I have more.

  Copying the isolationist art relaxes me, as though I’m meditating with the sure strokes of my pencil. In the two weeks since I cheated on that test, I’ve been nervous, jumpy, reclusive. I haven’t been able to confess to Gil. He asks me what’s wrong and I say I’m busy. He knows I’m lying; he knows I know he knows. We haven’t spoken to each other much.

  I haven’t seen Enki at all.

  These days, I mostly speak to Mother and Auntie Yaha. They both congratulated me sincerely on my test score. Whatever game Oreste is playing with me, it’s not about Auntie Yaha. It’s probably about Enki, but that’s always where my thoughts stick. I don’t know how or why she thinks she can use me to get to him. I think Enki has always been untouchable, but these days anyone can see it.

  I haven’t been able to look Bebel in the eye. I haven’t been able to sit through a full day at school without feeling sick to my stomach. I shouldn’t have said yes. I am a fool and a coward and I try not to think about it. If I win the Queen’s Award, the self-loathing will bury me, but I don’t know how to climb out of the hole I’ve dug for myself.

  I’m barely conscious of my scribbling right hand, though the drawing unfolds steadily beneath it. But when I start to draw that artfully stark bullet hole, I stop.

  For some reason, my thoughts have Enki’s voice: “It looks too clean, right? Death isn’t so pretty.”