by Sarah Fine
I will talk to the Ghost of Gochan. With all my heart, I hope he doesn’t answer.
I KNEEL NEXT to the altar. The tallow candles are burning low. One has gone out, and I lift Jima’s offering candle and tilt it to light the wick, then set it in the small pot that holds the old, spent candle. Now there are thirteen again.
It takes me only a moment to realize that the rest of the offerings are gone. The cakes, the bracelet, my coin. The prayers, too.
I pull one of my most treasured possessions from my pocket. I plucked this seashell off the white sand at the edge of the southern sea. My parents took me there for a vacation when I was a little girl, before the markets crashed and wiped out my mother’s inheritance, before she had to go to work as a tailor and seamstress for women she’d gone to school with, before my father lost his position at the regional hospital and had to take the job at the factory. I still remember the roar of the waves, the crash against the rocks, the salty taste of the water on my lips, the burn of it in my nose.
This tiny, swirled shell holds all those memories. It’s a good offering. Nicer than a lot of the trinkets and tokens left for the Ghost. Few people around here have even seen the ocean. I don’t know if that matters to a dead person, though.
I set the shell on the table, right at the center. “This shell is a happy memory, from a long time ago. I’m going to give it to you.”
I look around, hoping no one will overhear. I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, talking to the air as if it will hear me. But I am thinking about Tercan, lying in my father’s clinic, his foot swollen and misshapen, and I need to know it isn’t because of me.
“Tell me something, Ghost,” I say to the darkness.
I sit and wait—for what, I don’t know, but every passing moment of stillness calms me.
The only sounds that come to me are from the killing floor. Muted by the thick metal door that separates this corridor from all that death, but still distinguishable. Lowing. Squealing. Grinding. Whirring. I’m sure this factory is much quieter than Gochan Two, with its crashing metal monsters, but it’s as loud as any place I’d ever want to be. I keep listening, though, trying to hear beyond this noise to whatever lies beneath it, just in case.
After a few minutes I cover the shell with my hand. “This is your last chance, Ghost. I’m thinking you don’t want my offering.”
Immediately there’s a faint metallic scraping, a pause, and then tapping. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . I look around, trying to locate it. Am I imagining it? Could it have come from the killing floor, or—
It stops.
I lift the shell from the table and stand up. “It’s factory noise,” I mutter. “And I was stupid to come here.”
I am answered by a faint metallic ping.
“Ghost?” I whisper, dread rising in me like floodwater.
This time it’s louder. A single, pinging tap. I put my hand against one of the many pipes that line this place. They’re like intestines, tubes and coils everywhere, running along the ceilings and walls. A factory like this, which has been repurposed at least three times in its existence, has a lot of unused bits and pieces. I don’t know exactly what these pipes are for, but I do know that one of them just pinged. I tap a pipe with the blunt tip of my fingernail, and it makes a hollow, mournful thunk.
I am rewarded with another ping. I shiver and pull my hand away from the pipe, noticing for the first time how fast my heart is beating. “Let’s try this,” I say. “Tap once for no, twice for yes. Will you?”
I absorb the distant sounds of killing while I wait. Finally—ping . . . ping. I have my answer. “Do you want this shell?”
Ping . . . ping.
I wiggle my tongue, trying to pry it loose from the roof of my mouth. “Are you real?” I can barely hear myself, but the Ghost doesn’t seem to have trouble. His answer is two distinct pings, louder than before.
For all the world, it sounds like someone is tapping the pipes. How would the Ghost do that? Shouldn’t he be just an apparition or something? Then again, somehow he takes the offerings and prayers . . . but still, this could very well be someone playing a cruel joke on me. Not a ghost, but someone with flesh on his bones and an evil sense of humor. I circle the thick column that partially hides the altar from the rest of the open area outside the cafeteria. There doesn’t seem to be anyone here. I pad across the floor and peek into the cafeteria, where a few bedraggled-looking Noor are sipping hot tea on their ten-minute break, which they get once each ten-hour shift, in addition to a twenty-minute lunch. They don’t see me peering through the window. Their heads are low and their brows are furrowed. I wonder how well they know Tercan, and how Melik is faring. He’s right at the edge of manhood, rawboned but obviously strong. I’m betting they put him at one of the carving stations, where his muscles could be put to good use, where fingers and the tips of noses can be sliced off in an instant of distraction. I rub my sweaty palms against my skirt. I don’t want to have to try to reattach Melik’s nose to his face. I hope he’s good with a knife.
No one seems to know or care that I’m here. I sneak back over to the alcove and become aware of the nonstop pinging. It sounds almost . . . frantic?
“I’m sorry,” I say. “I needed to see if anyone else was around.” I try to get over the fact that I am attempting to talk to a ghost. “I didn’t mean to walk away in the middle of our conversation.”
The urgent pinging stops immediately. I hope that means he’s forgiven me.
“Thanks,” I say. “Now . . . you told me you were real.”
Two sharp pings.
“And you haunt this slaughterhouse of ours.”
Two sharp pings.
“I . . . I’m sorry, but wouldn’t you like to be somewhere else? This is not a good place, and I would think there might be some other, nicer place for you.” I recall someone at the funeral saying my mother was in a better place. I certainly hope this isn’t as good as it gets.
Only one ping this time.
“You like it here?”
There are several moments of silence, then two pings.
“To each his own,” I murmur, placing my hand against the pipe. My tight, dry skin is soothed by the cold metal, and after a few moments I lean my forehead against it. “I have questions for you that go beyond a simple yes or no.”
I really say that to myself, but through the pipes I feel more than hear two pings.
“Are you alone here? I mean, you don’t have any . . . ghosty friends?”
One ping, a small, forlorn sound.
“Are you lonely?”
Two pings, and I can almost feel their sadness vibrating through the pipes and up my arms. “I’m lonely too,” I whisper.
Silence. In the distance a man shouts in Noor. I draw in a deep breath. “But now I have to ask you an important question.” I am nearly choking on my own heart, which seems to have risen into my throat. “Tonight there was an accident. A boy got hurt.”
Two pings. The Ghost already knows this.
A trickle of cold sweat slips down the neck of my dress, making me shudder. “This boy, his name is Tercan. He . . . embarrassed me in the cafeteria today.” My cheeks are burning just thinking of it. Did the Ghost see this, too?
Two hard, staccato taps. Ping. Ping.
He did.
“I was angry. I challenged you.”
He taps, an acknowledgment that he heard me.
“That boy had an accident tonight. On the killing floor. His foot was crushed. Even if he doesn’t lose it, he won’t ever walk without a limp, if at all. It was a terrible injury.”
Two taps. And they sound cold now, not sad. Hard.
“Did you do it?” My voice comes out louder than I mean it to, and it echoes faintly in the open space.
There is silence for a long time, long enough for me to wonder if the Gh
ost has cut the slender thread of sound that connects us, if he’s gone off to haunt some other part of the factory.
But then I hear it, in the darkness, in the not-so-quiet. It carries easily over the thrumming din of the killing floor, over the harsh in-out of my own heavy breaths.
Ping.
I relax, sagging a little as I hold on to the pipe. Accidents happen. This was an accident.
Ping.
I drop the shell on the table and sprint down the hall.
BY THE TIME I get back to the clinic, Tercan is stirring. My father is by his side, murmuring soothing words the boy will never understand. The gentleness in my father’s voice is unmistakable, though, and Tercan relaxes a little, his bony shoulders slumping back to the table. He moans softly. So fragile, this boy. Broken by a ghost.
“He’s running a slight fever,” my father says. “He’ll need a course of antibiotics.”
“He won’t be able to afford them if he can’t work,” I say.
“He might die of infection if he doesn’t have them.” There’s no edge to my father’s voice, only fatigue. He’s sad about what’s happened. I don’t think he feels the same way about the Noor as the other people around here do. He hasn’t treated them differently than he does anyone else. And suddenly I know what he’s going to do, because he’s done it many times before—he’s going to pay for this boy’s medicine.
I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Because I challenged the Ghost, my father is going to spend more than a week’s worth of wages on medicine for a Noor boy who might not live out the season.
“We could sell some of my dresses,” I say. I have a closet full of gowns that I am now ashamed to wear for so many reasons, so as much as it hurts to give them up, it must be done. They’re worth something; I know what my mother’s clients paid her for dresses, and they were no finer than some of mine. My mother’s scent is still detectable in the jade green silk dress, the last one she made before she died. My vision blurs with tears. Would she be proud of me now?
No, I think she would be horrified.
My father lifts his head and searches my face, but then his eyes focus on something behind me. “Melik,” he says. “On break?”
I turn slowly to see Melik hovering in the doorway. His brow is furrowed, but his eyes are wide. “You . . . you’ll help him pay for this medicine?”
It’s all wrong. The way he’s looking at me, I know he thinks I’m good. “He needs it,” I say in a choked voice.
He’s opening his mouth to reply when my father says, “If this is your short break, Melik, you only have a few minutes. You can take him now, but make sure he keeps his foot elevated. He’s going to be in a lot of pain, so let him suck on these. Just long enough to relieve the pain, then take them from him.”
He hands Melik a paper sack containing some opium sticks, and issues several other instructions I hope Melik understands. As he listens to my father, his gaze keeps flicking in my direction, and it’s all I can do not to hide my face.
When my father is finished giving his orders, Melik calls into the hallway, and two other Noor boys come in. The one with the big mole in the center of his cheek is hesitant, but the other, the younger boy with rust-colored hair, looks around with unself-conscious curiosity.
“Sinan,” Melik says to him. “This is Dr. Guiren. And this is his daughter, Wen.” He nods at me, then gestures back to the boy. “This is my brother.”
Sinan’s deep blue eyes light on mine, and he tilts his head. “You had a different dress on earlier.”
Melik snaps at Sinan in that guttural language of theirs, and he answers back with a laugh before going to Tercan’s other side. Sinan and the boy with the mole, whose tan skin has turned ghastly pale, each take a leg. Melik wraps his arms around Tercan’s trunk and lifts his body, then gives me one last, questioning glance before he and the other boys disappear down the hallway.
I sink into my father’s chair. “How long do you think the company will let him stay?”
My father walks to the clinic door and watches the Noor for a few seconds before shutting it and turning to me. “Not long. I might be able to buy him a little time, maybe a week, but Mugo will be impatient to replace him.”
“Right,” I murmur. “Feasting season.”
“You did well tonight.” Father grabs his white antiseptic bottle and wets a cloth.
“Thanks.” But I didn’t do well. I did the worst thing I’ve ever done in my whole life, and someone else will be paying for it, maybe with his life. I get up to help clean. “Father . . . I wanted to ask you about the Ghost.”
My father stops in the middle of wiping down the exam table. “Did Hazzi scare you this morning?”
“Oh, no, he was kind. But he and everyone else think the Ghost is very powerful.” I wait, hoping my father will walk through the door I’ve opened. When he remains silent, I add, “People leave their best offerings at his altar, along with their prayers. They say he answers them.”
He chuckles. “People need to believe in something, especially here.”
It’s not what I expect him to say. He’s usually dismissive of this kind of superstition. “Have you ever done it? You know, made a wish?”
Father shakes his head. “My wishes are too big for the Ghost, I think.”
“But some aren’t?”
He starts wiping again. “Maybe not.”
I reach for the bottle to wet my cleaning rag. “Jima said he was a worker who died on the killing floor.”
“That is the myth,” he says, wringing out his rag in the sink.
“Do you believe in him, Father?”
He looks down at the floor. “No, of course not. I don’t believe in ghosts.” His voice is trembling, and I have no idea why.
My father opens his pocket watch and makes a small, distressed noise in his throat. “So late. I’ve had a long day, Wen. I’m going to bed. Would you mind finishing up?”
“No, I can do it.”
“Thank you.” Without glancing at me again, my father walks up the stairs to our living quarters.
I scrub the remains of Tercan’s surgery from my father’s examination table, sweep a pile of metal shavings from beneath the bookshelf, and load our cleaning machine with all the tools we used tonight. Above my head the floor creaks with my father’s footsteps, and I hear his voice, though I know he’s alone up there. I wonder if he’s imagining my mother is there with him, if he misses her as much as I do. When she was well, he came home to our cottage on the Hill, at the western end of the Ring, one weekend each month. He was like a friendly stranger to me, asking questions about my schooling while giving me a polite-but-distant smile. And now we see each other every day, and I don’t feel much closer to him. We don’t talk about my mother. We talk about few things that don’t have to do with his patients and his work.
I wish I could talk to him about what I’ve done, but I don’t want him to know. I am alone in this, as I am alone in so much else. It is a crushing feeling with no corners and no edges. Endless and uncontainable. The Ghost seems to understand this feeling. Maybe it is the reason he accepts offerings and answers prayers. Maybe it is why he broke Tercan. Maybe it’s why I challenged him to prove he is real in the first place. I bow my head and press the back of my hand to my mouth to hold in my sob as I remember Melik’s agonized expression while he watched his friend suffer, as I think of Tercan and his ruined future. I deserve this loneliness now.
I sink to the floor and wrap my arms around myself, holding all my sorrow inside. If I make a sound, my father might hear, and that would never do. I clench my teeth and clamp my lips shut and tremble from the effort. I wait and wait and wait, until my father’s voice upstairs falls silent, until I can open my mouth without sobbing. Then, leaving my cleaning only half done, I trudge up to my sleeping pallet, hoping to dream of our cottage on the Hill and wake in my old bed with
the scent of my mother’s perfume in the air.
I rise a few hours later, eat a breakfast of stale bread, and finish cleaning because I don’t want my father to have to do it. I scrub the floors, the sink, the counters, making sure no sign of Tercan remains. Then I sweep the metal shavings from the base of the walls yet again. In one little pile I find a square company coin with a hole in the center, the same kind I offered to the Ghost as a reward for destroying a life. I shiver as I put it in my pocket.
My father comes down the stairs as the shift whistle blows. I put my hands over my ears and wait it out, closing my eyes and hearing the lilt of my mother’s voice as she sings to me about a field full of citron, where a boy and girl meet and kiss and dream of a life together.
My father taps me on the shoulder and I lower my hands. He gives me a gentle smile. “Sleep all right?”
No. I lay awake and listened to the strange, soft sounds that come from the air vents. Sometimes, I swear, it sounds like the factory is crying. Or keening softly, like pleas from something long since buried deep. It always comes at night, this whirring, whining, mournful sound, and I lie there, trying to figure out what it could be. Maybe it’s the Ghost. “Yes, thanks. Did you?”
He nods. “I need to talk to you about the medicine for Tercan. Were you serious when you said you’d be willing to sell one of your dresses?”
“I was. If you think he needs the medicine, I want to help.”
He watches me carefully, like he’s trying to figure me out. “That’s very generous of you, Wen. And I certainly appreciate it. Your new work dress—” He pauses when he sees the look of horror on my face. “No, dear, don’t feel bad. You needed to get it. You couldn’t go on wearing those embroidered dresses. It’s just, these two expenses coming at once. It would be . . . difficult.”
Of course it would be. But despite that, my father would still do it. He would do it even if it meant borrowing from the company against his future income. I wonder how often he’s done that, how much he actually owes. He must be in debt, after the way he talked about it yesterday.