After that, I stopped watching. I crawled back to Silvia, who was sleeping sweetly, and lay my head on her belly. I needed to hear the baby’s heartbeat. I felt like throwing up, but there was no food in me. I felt like digging down in the clay. I wanted my fingers to bleed from clawing at the ground. What right did King D have? Who did he think he was? Not even telling the man his sentence. No one deserved a trial like that, not even a monster. There was no law behind King D, except his own, and when I finally understood that, I knew I was in the wilderness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
I probably would have slept through the night, all twisted up, my ear on Silvia’s belly, if someone hadn’t grabbed my ankle, shouting, “Don’t tell me you done stole my stash!”
It turned out that James wasn’t the only one who knew about our cave. Some insane drug dealer—another little boy, really—hauled me out of the cave by my leg. He started slapping me and demanding his stash. I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about, and I really didn’t. I had felt around in the cave. There wasn’t anything in there except some beer cans and some other gross stuff, which Silvia and I tossed out when we put down the newspaper. I told the little drug dealer that, but he refused to listen.
That vicious punk might have hurt me if Tenant hadn’t pulled him off, lifting him kicking and screaming way up in the air and then throwing him down on the ground like those wrestlers on TV, only this was for real. I started to thank Tenant, but he put a gigantic shoe on my chest and said, “Stay down.”
We were brought before King D, and for a while I was still groggy and annoyed at being woken up and called a thief, so I was pretty rude. But then I remembered where I was.
King D asked me a bunch of questions, like what was I doing there and who was I working for. I told him I was just sleeping and minding my own business. The punk called me a skanky lying bitch, which I didn’t exactly appreciate. King D told him to shut up. I was about to explain some more when Tenant called out from the mouth of the cave. “There’s another one!” he cried.
“Show me,” King D said. Tenant pulled Silvia out from under the rock. He dragged her over by her armpits. She was limp.
“She with you?” King D asked.
There was no point denying it. Now that Silvia was out in the open, there was no protecting her. Our fates were linked.
“This ain’t no place for a white girl,” King D said. “Middle of the night like this.” He stared at Silvia, and hmphed like a disappointed father. “Why ain’t she up?” he asked. Silvia’s arms were spread open because Tenant was squeezing her armpits so tight. The rest of her body was slack on the ground. Tenant took her jaw in his long fingers, tilted her head back, and answered. “She still asleep.”
King D shook his head disapprovingly. “Woman was put on earth to take care of her babies,” he said. The bimbos murmured in agreement. Then he looked at me. The moment of judgment was at hand. “What you seen tonight ain’t none of your business,” he said. “Maybe King D ought to tie you up, lay you down in the river. That what he should do?”
“No,” I croaked, although part of me said yes, please, just get it over with.
“That’d get it for you, and for her,” he said, nodding at Silvia. “But not the baby. Crime of the mother ain’t no crime of the baby. Ain’t that right.”
“No,” I said.
“No what?” King D snapped. “No, that ain’t right, or No, King D, you wrong?”
He was confusing me with all the words. Every answer seemed to be “no,” but that couldn’t be right. Tears were running down my cheeks. I was so angry and humiliated. The bimbos were laughing at me. Their eyes seemed to say: It’s too late. “You got everything right,” I said weakly. “That’s all I meant.”
“Well, all right, then,” King D said, relaxing back into the park bench. He lolled his head back. “Hear that?” he asked Tenant. “King D got everything right.” Tenant’s laugh sounded like someone blowing into a huge glass bottle. Then King D sat up on the very edge of the bench. His weight was up on his toes. His leg muscles rippled under the exercise suit. He rested his chin on his fist, flexing his forearm and frowning like that famous statue, The Thinker. He idly spun the pinkie ring with his thumb. The ruby-eyed skull looked like a jeweled planet, spinning in its tiny orbit around King D’s pinkie. Just like the rest of us, I thought.
I imagined myself splashing down in the river, wrapped in plastic, the foul water seeping in, the rainbow fingers of the oil slicks on the surface closing over me like the folded hands of a mummy. King D stared right through me.
I was shivering. There was nothing to do. Everything was out of my hands now, like I was little again, and my whole existence rested on my father’s words. For some reason, I remembered the time he took me up Sugarloaf Mountain. We drove as high up as we could. Then we left the car behind and walked to the top through a scraggly grove of pines. I complained the whole way. It was foggy. There was no view. I was thirsty. I had worn the wrong shoes and I had a big blister under my toe. I told him I hated this trip, but we just kept climbing. I couldn’t see the top, not even when we reached it—the fog was just too thick. My father had to tell me we were there, that we couldn’t get any higher. He sat us down on a rock and pulled roast beef sandwiches and bottles of lemonade out of my backpack, which I had made him carry from the car.
The picnic surprised me. I hadn’t seen him pack it. He said: “There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your little head.” He said he was trying to quote Shakespeare. I told him it was a fairly condescending thing to say. We sat and waited for the fog to clear, and when it finally did, my teeth were chattering, even though he had his arm around me. The wind opened up a kingdom of green land and sunlit air. We saw fields and a silver river and mountains all the way to the horizon. “I wanted you to see your country,” my father said, but what I saw was how happy it made him to show it to me.
I remembered all of that and it broke my heart. I had to swallow the word “Daddy.” That’s how much of a struggle it was not to cry.
King D sat back and fixed his yellow eyes on me. He said, “You still here?” as if he expected me to be gone.
He turned to Tenant. “Call them a cab,” he said, matter-of-factly. Tenant let go of Silvia and pulled out a tiny cell phone. It looked ridiculous in his huge palm. He had to use the corner of a fingernail to dial it. He turned away when he started talking into it, as if he didn’t want us to see him being polite.
Silvia was rubbing her eyes. “Chica, what’s all this?” she asked me.
“Nothing,” I said. “We’re getting a cab.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
The name on the cab license said, “Ramanujan Punjab.” Mr. Punjab was an old Sikh with a very clean white turban. His moustache was stained yellow in the middle from smoking a pipe. He was smoking it now. It made a wet sucking noise, as if he was drinking the smoke through a straw. The pipe smell gave the cab a nice homey feeling.
The cab’s squeaky vinyl seat felt like civilization. “We’re in,” I said giddily, but Mr. Punjab didn’t leave until Tenant tapped the hood. As we pulled away, he said, “Yes, boss,” even though the windows were rolled up and Tenant couldn’t possibly have heard him.
“Not a neighborhood for dilly-dallying,” Mr. Punjab said. “Where am I taking you?”
“Two Hemlock Way,” I said. It was Marion’s address. Her house was the only place I could think of. I’d never been there, but I remembered the address because it sounded like old money. “It’s in the suburbs,” I added.
Mr. Punjab tapped his turban. “A complete map of the city resides in my brain,” he said.
Mr. Punjab’s cab had a digital readout for the speedometer—big green numbers. On narrow city streets I watched it climb to fifty-five, fifty-eight, and back down to three when we were stopped at a light. It never went down to zero, even when the car was standing still. Mr. Punjab noticed me looking at the speedometer. “The engine is thinking about goin
g, even while at rest. A workaholic, this car.” Then he laughed musically, which for some reason made me think of a goat.
We zoomed through the empty city. Mr. Punjab was a very good driver, so it felt safe and reckless at the same time. I was getting used to the idea of a nice long cab ride. The memory of the trip to Sugarloaf had sprung a leak, and now I couldn’t stop remembering things about my father. It was torture, but also necessary, I suppose, like when a cowboy in the movies has to pull an arrow out of his bleeding leg. The memories kept coming, good and bad, but mostly good. I felt like a room filling up with water. It made me think of a dream I used to have of our house flooding, and me swimming through it, up and down the stairs, around the banister, floating five feet above the rugs, the water softer than my parents’ Sunday morning bed, and not being afraid because for some reason I could still breathe—I had turned into a water creature.
Silvia lifted her head away from the window on her side of the cab. “Are you okay?” she asked.
“Just kind of tired,” I said. She nodded and dozed off, saying, “It’s been a long night.”
I loved being in that cab, bouncing around on the backseat. I wasn’t even afraid of what the ride was costing. So what if it’s a hundred dollars and I can’t pay? I thought. What can Mr. Punjab do to me?
I was ready to ride half the night—that’s how far away I thought Marian’s house must be from the projects. But the whole ride took less than fifteen minutes. The meter said we owed twelve dollars. Even Silvia, who always argued with cab drivers because she thought they were all thieves, thanked Mr. Punjab when he helped her out. He wouldn’t accept my money. “That would be unheard of,” he said, waving off the cash. “Your ride is a courtesy,” he said. When I thanked him, he said, “No. Not me. You owe your gratitude to your benefactor, Mr. King D.” He clucked his horn for us when he turned the corner. It was nice, the kind of thing the parents at the Field School did when they saw you walking home.
Marian’s neighborhood was definitely rich. There were only one or two houses on a block. It felt as if we had landed on a peace-loving planet where armies no longer fought wars but spent their days gardening and mowing each other’s lawns. Silvia relaxed a little. She said that someday she and Roberto might own a country villa. I didn’t tell her that Marian’s house was officially in the suburbs, not the country. My grandparents always made a big deal about Marian’s family living in the suburbs, saying wasn’t it a shame how some people had given up on the city. It was an empty complaint. There wasn’t much difference between where my grandparents lived and the suburbs, at least not in the type of people who lived there. Everyone in both places was white.
Marian’s house had enormous columns. Columns almost always look tacky, but Marian’s house looked like it had earned its big columns. The lawn was incredible. It looked as though the house had fallen asleep and let a gauzy green blanket drop around its ankles. It was a beautiful house, but all I could think about was how selfish it was for just three people to live in it—not counting the servants.
I knew where to find Marian’s window. She had described it to me enough times, telling me how I could throw bits of gravel from the driveway if I ever needed to “have a consultation” in the middle of the night. She claimed to be a light sleeper. I guess it was true, because as soon as the first handful of gravel hit her window, the light went on.
Instead of coming downstairs and opening the back door, Marian climbed out of the window and shimmied down the drainpipe, even though it ruined her nightgown. She didn’t seem the least bit sleepy. “Chlo!” she said, wiping a slimy clump of leaves off her sleeve. “How nice to see you! And you must be Silvia,” she said, extending her hand and shaking Silvia’s. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
I wanted to tell her to stop sounding like her mother at a cocktail party, but I was too glad to see her. I asked her why she had climbed down the drainpipe instead of just coming downstairs. She said something about authenticity, which reminded me how strange she was. Then, like a fifty-year-old version of herself, she said, “But where are my manners?” She took us deep into the backyard to what she called the “gardening shed,” but which was actually an entire little house. “It’s not Buckingham Palace,” she said. “I hope it’ll do.” She harshed on it the way people do when they’re actually very proud of something. Truth was, it really did look like Buckingham Palace to me, and probably to Silvia, too.
The “shed” was full of very fancy lighting. “I’ll be right back with a snack,” Marian said, flicking on rows and rows of light switches. “Make yourselves at home.” I couldn’t believe that such a nice place was empty most of the time. There were Oriental rugs and antiques everywhere. Silvia patted the leather cushions on the sofa. “First class,” she said, plopping down with an oomph.
Marian was taking forever. I hate to admit it, but I began to doubt her. I tried to imagine what I’d do in her place. One of the things I imagined I’d do would be to wake up my parents—assuming I was Marian and I lived with my parents instead of my grandparents—and tell them to call an ambulance right away for Silvia. I could see the logic of that, but I was worried because that plan didn’t take into consideration the fact that Silvia was illegal, not to mention wanted by the police for kidnapping and blowing up a nice house in the city.
I shouldn’t have worried. After all, Marian was Marian. It never would have crossed her mind to do anything as simple and direct as waking up her parents and calling an ambulance. She came back with a big bowl of salad and some crackers and cheese, kicking her shoes off in the front hallway and leaving them where they fell. She sat across from us at the marble-topped dining room table watching Silvia dig into the salad. I was starving, but I let Silvia get a good head start.
Marian made us tell her everything that had happened, in detail. I didn’t like the expression on her face for most of it, which was feverish and fascinated, as if we were just some characters in a story, and not actual people who had dealt with so much. She kept whispering, “You poor dears,” but she was obviously jealous of what we had been through.
When she asked, “What are you going to do now?” I realized that I had run out of ideas. The week’s turmoil, the pain in my wrist, worrying about Silvia and the baby—all of it had just about done me in, so when Marian suggested that she and I go to the “lodge”—that’s what she called the main house—and work on a plan, I said fine. We made up a bed for Silvia on the couch and buried her under a heap of incredibly soft blankets. She was asleep in no time, which helped me feel I wasn’t abandoning her, just changing locales.
Marian probably would have made me climb up into her room if it hadn’t been for my wrist. She offered to help me up the drainpipe if I thought it was “important for consistency’s sake,” but I told her she was crazy and to just let me in the back door like a normal person.
The lodge was incredibly clean. Everything smelled either like furniture polish or gourmet food. Marian sat me down at the kitchen table and made me a milkshake, which tasted fantastic. I worried that the noise from the milkshake maker would wake her parents up, but she told me that was silly because there were at least five closed doors between us and them.
Marian watched with greedy eyes as I drank the shake, as if she had laced it with truth serum. I called her on it. She said she was sorry. She was just so impressed with all I had done with Silvia. The way she said it was all wrong, as if Silvia were a prize show dog. I said that I had-n’t really done much of anything for Silvia, except to get her kicked out of a good hospital for supposedly kidnapping me.
Marian got to talking about what had been going on at the Field School in my absence. It was a relief to hear about the normal world. The spotless kitchen and the milkshake and the gossip were all so nice that I stopped thinking about Silvia altogether for a while. Marian finally said that she had to go upstairs and get ready for school. It was already seven thirty in the morning. I panicked about her parents, but she said they always slept in. Even o
n weekdays.
Marian told me to get some sleep. She said there was plenty of room for me at the lodge. I told her to forget it, a little sharply, probably, because I didn’t want to admit to myself how attractive an idea it was. I said that I had to look out for Silvia and that I still had no idea what to do with her. Marian laughed.
“You’re going to fly her to California, silly. We can’t let geography stand in the way of True Love.” I told her to quit joking, but she went and got her little purse and pulled out a VISA card with her own name on it. Then she called up an airline and made two reservations on a flight to California.
After she hung up, she talked to me like a travel agent. “Your flight leaves in a few hours,” she said. “They wouldn’t let me buy the tickets over the phone. It’s too last-minute. You’ll have to take my card with you.”
She wouldn’t tell me how much the tickets cost. I had some idea, though. Once, when I was little, I called to find out how much it would cost to fly away from my mother’s house that same day. The price the airline quoted me was astronomical. The airline lady told me that most tickets were bought far in advance. Only business people and the very wealthy bought tickets the same day they were flying.
Marian yawned and said that I wasn’t seeing the Forest for the Trees. She packed me off to the gardening shed with some roast chicken and a bagel. As I stumbled through the wet morning grass, I thought about how money made certain things so much easier. I was grateful to Marian, which annoyed me, because she had given me so many new reasons to really dislike her.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Silvia couldn’t believe that we were really going to California.
“It’s so wonderful!” she said. “Roberto will see his baby being born.” I told her to calm down because we weren’t there yet, but I was actually getting excited, too.
Finn Page 14