Armistice

by Lara Elena Donnelly

  The audition might be amusing. At any rate, it would give him something to do besides drink.

  Traffic was abhorrent on Charaplati—the Silver Street, where all the film folk worked. Vans and wagons jostled for position on the curb, unloading catering, props, and equipment. Bicycle messengers wove between cars and buses. A man strolled by with a tiger on a lead. The cat’s tongue lolled, its ears flat with the heat. Anywhere else he would have done a double take, but on the Silver Street, Aristide had seen stranger things than a tiger at heel.

  When he slipped into the soundstage, Chitra had her troops drilling a nasty piece of footwork. The way these things went, she’d probably shown it to them once and would cull the ones who couldn’t pick it up. It worked the same way for the stage. Ruthless, but no one wanted to waste precious production time on a straggler.

  A few of those stood out, from where Aristide had parked himself. They wore a defeated look under their glaze of sweat, even as they strove to keep time.

  One other dancer stood out, though she was following the choreography doggedly. Her gait was a bit stiff, and her expression cutthroat. But what drew his eye was her complexion. The other dancers were mostly Porachin, with a sprinkling of Lisoan, Yashtani, and the children of Anadh’s melting pot. Brown and black and gold skin, barely covered by jersey sport clothes. This woman was pale, with short dark hair badly dyed, her face burnt bright pink across the nose and heavily freckled. She didn’t wear dancing gear, but a cambric robe tied up at her waist and a pair of wrinkled narrow trousers. Something about her scratched at the back of his brain, but he couldn’t place the feeling of recognition, couldn’t summon up a face to hang it on.

  When the accompanist banged out the last chord of the final eight count, the hopefuls hit their marks if they were on the beat, held them for an agonized moment, then dropped their heads and arms and sucked in desperate breaths of stinking hot air. The fans hanging from the ceiling did nothing to cool the place down.

  Chitra started barking instructions for the next step, but cut herself off when she saw Aristide lounging against the wall.

  «Ah,» she said. «Our esteemed director. I wasn’t expecting you.»

  A few of the dancers craned their necks to look at him, but most of them were too tired to do more than pant. The pale woman was one of these, which frustrated him—he would have liked a better look at her face.

  «My holiday is canceled,» he said to Chitra. «Can I stay to watch?»

  «Of course. Would you like a chair?»

  He shook his head. «I am well. Go dance.»

  She shrugged and turned back to the dancers, shouting technical terms in Porashtu and demonstrating the next setup steps. Aristide watched the pale woman copy her, eyes narrow, until the dancer next to her stuck out a foot and sent her sprawling.

  A torrent of Geddan curses—specifically slum swears straight out of Amberlough City—burst forth from the woman on the ground.

  “You better watch it, you bandy-legged whore,” she snapped, “or I’ll give the tricks another hole to knock you in.”

  It was, he realized with a shock that stole his breath, Cordelia Lehane.

  He couldn’t believe he hadn’t clocked her. But she had changed, quite starkly. At the Bee, she had always had an ageless quality—not beauty, necessarily, but an inscrutable bearing. When anyone dared ask how old she was, she told them she didn’t know, and left it at that.

  In the dusty light of the soundstage, he could see lines pinching the corners of her eyes. She seemed smaller, too, and sharper, as if she had gone hungry. Her breasts had never been large, but she’d made a lot of them. Now, they were disguised by folds of loose cambric, if there was much left to hide.

  He wondered if she would recognize him. He could have passed for a local, and did sometimes; his complexion had darkened here, under the merciless sun, and that wasn’t the only thing that had changed.

  “They teach you moves like that in the lockup, or the meat house?” Cordelia scrambled up from the floor and advanced on the target of her rage. “I left cheap swineshit like that behind when I stopped taking three bits a jockey.”

  She’d always been careful to keep the slum whine of Kipler’s Mew tamped down when she spoke, and it was softer now than it had ever been. But Aristide had been listening to Porashtu’s lush vowels and soft dental consonants for nearly three years, and her voice rang out like a brassy horn.

  «Ladies,» said Chitra, advancing on the two. The guilty party had gone from looking smug to looking scared, and Aristide didn’t blame her.

  “It’s ’cause I’m Geddan, ain’t it?” Cordelia said. “Mother’s tit, third time today.”

  It would be the rankest sort of stupidity to reveal himself to her, like pocketing a grenade without a pin. He was in the Porachin queen’s good graces thanks to Pulan and a tense political situation, and he had no desire to test the strength of those conditions. As long as his associations with Gedda remained in his tragic past, they were glamorous. He didn’t imagine they would remain so, if dragged into the present.

  «I have no time for scenes like these,» said Chitra. «Both of you can go.» And though she said it in Porashtu, Aristide could tell Cordelia clocked her. Her head fell back and she closed her eyes. In the moment that her face hung slack, she looked immeasurably tired. That was what broke him: her exhaustion. He knew that look. He had worn it, on his worst days.

  «I want to speak to our respected sister,» said Aristide, proud he could remember the honorific for an unknown woman in this mental state. «Chitra, please?»

  «You can take our respected sister outside,» said Chitra. «And don’t bother bringing her back when you’re finished.»

  “Come along,” he said to Cordelia, and offered his arm. She didn’t take it, but instead stormed out ahead of him so that he had to rush after.

  “Cordelia,” he said, as he caught her elbow just outside the door. “It’s me.” He had to shake her arm to get her to look up; she was fighting him, trying to shake off his grip. Even when he finally forced her face to his, she squinted at him like an invalid forced into the sun. “It’s Aristide. Ari. From the Bee.”

  She had gone stiff all over, though she had stopped struggling. “Mother’s tit,” she said, and swallowed. Her skin had a terrible green tinge to it, under the freckles. “You scared me two steps into the grave.”

  “If I climbed out,” he said, “then so can you. Let’s bend our knees and talk.”

  * * *

  When Cordelia hit the passenger’s seat of the car, she hit it hard. It was one thing to know Ari was in the city. It was another to encounter him entirely by chance.

  “So, what are you doing here?” he asked, sliding in behind the wheel.

  “Looking for picture work,” she said. Her voice sounded funny in her ears: thin, with a nervous wobble. She swallowed against it, and went on. “I didn’t know it was your show. Somebody just told me there was a Geddan director and I might have better luck.”

  “I meant in Porachis.”

  “I know what you rotten meant.” She leaned against the hot leather upholstery and closed her eyes. It made her queasy to look at him.

  “Well?”

  “Same thing you are, I’d wager. Scurrying, far and fast.”

  “You waited a little while.” There was half a laugh in it.

  “Yeah, well. We didn’t all jump on the first boat.” The anger spat out of her like sparks from a foundry. It came on suddenly, unexpected, and it sobered her. “Some of us couldn’t afford to. Some of us didn’t want to.”

  He didn’t seem to know what to do with his face, and the expression he landed on made him look like he’d smelled something rancid but was still trying to smile. “So what have you been doing?”

  Like she could tell him. “This and that. Odd jobs. A girl like me can get all kinds of work, even in a place like that.”

  “It can’t have been very pleasant,” he said. That little dent between his eyebrows, the drawn-down co
rners of his mouth … he thought she’d been whoring, maybe, or cozied up to some hypocritical Ospie clerk.

  He pitied her. She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. “What about you?”

  “Funnily enough, picture work,” he said. “I have an old friend in the business I thought could help me. I was right.”

  “Now you’re in the slops, huh? Look at those rings.”

  His fingers squeezed the steering wheel harder, as if he could hide the gems like a pill bug curling tight. If it had been anyone but Ari, she’d have thought he was ashamed.

  “You don’t look like you’ve had the same luck.”

  “I didn’t have a lot of time to plan this, did I? And what do I know about Porachis? I lived in Amberlough my whole life.”

  His face went funny when she said the city’s name. Not quite a wince; more like he’d swallowed his soup too hot, and it burned on the way down. Something small and mean in her was pleased at that.

  “Why did you leave?” he asked, and she should’ve seen it coming. But her wits were still catching up with her spinning skull.

  “Same reason as you?” she ventured.

  He still had that smile: the one that made you want to lick your thumb and scrub it off his face with spit. “I doubt that very much.”

  The anger came back, hotter than before, and burnt out what sense was left in her. She yanked her hands from her lap and let them fall heavy on the dashboard, though the shock of the impact sent a stab of pain sizzling up her left arm.

  She’d gotten good at hiding them. The left was easier, in some ways. As long as she was holding something, most people didn’t notice the kink in her wrist or the painful curl of her fingers. The left hand hurt worse, but she was good at hiding the pain, too.

  It was the right hand that really got people, if they noticed. What made it so bad was the way her hand looked fine until she reached out, or laid it flat. It was just the last joints, on her pinky and her fourth finger, but it was startling to see the smooth pink caps of scar tissue where you expected a nail and a fingertip.

  “Lady’s name.” They were stopped in a snarl of traffic, and Aristide leaned across the gearshift for a closer look. “What happened?”

  “Somebody wanted some questions answered,” she said. “Questions about you.”

  He closed his eyes, just a little too long for a casual blink. She’d called the shot right, and sunk the ball.

  “I got banged up, running your race. Made some enemies.”

  “You stayed, though.” She watched him scramble back to the top of the log, steady himself. “You didn’t run right away. You said you didn’t want to. So why now?”

  There wasn’t a good way out of this. Even if she turned tail now, he’d seen her face and knew she was here.

  So maybe the only way out was farther in. They’d trusted each other after a fashion before, with lives at stake and a big kitty in the center of the table. And she might have something to gain here, if she was willing to take on the risk.

  “Listen, Ari,” she went on, letting her vowels sag with the weight of her exhaustion. She’d always hated how she slipped into a slum whine when she was tired, but it would work on him if he missed home. And from his face, when she’d said “Amberlough” … “I maybe got into something, after you left. After this.” She tapped the edge of one crooked fist on the glove box. “Not anything the Ospies popped a cork about, y’know? You keep up with the news?” It was a test, a sounding. If he said yes, she could give him some half truths and let him write a story for her.

  But he surprised her. “Not if I can help it.”

  “Really?”

  “Cordelia, I left Gedda because it wanted nothing to do with me anymore. So now, I want nothing to do with it.”

  Oh, he missed home all right. Lucky her. “Well, sorry to bust in on you like this. If I’d known, I wouldna come.” Now she’d let the whine out, it was taking over.

  “That’s not what I meant. It’s certainly a surprise to see you. And I wish it were under easier circumstances, but…”

  He was trying to say he was happy she was here, but the lie wasn’t coming to him. She wondered what that meant, and was suddenly worried he wouldn’t fall the way she wanted on her next roll. But she’d come this far and might as well ask.

  “Listen,” she said, “you always seem to weasel your way into the right crowd, and you sure look like you done it now. I just need a name, maybe two. Or can you point some people my way? Give me a lead and I’ll get off your chain.”

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, then stopped.

  “What?” The word cracked against the silence between them, harder than she’d meant it to. She might be tired as a soggy rag but she hadn’t let her nerves loose yet. Didn’t know if she ever would.

  He flinched. She almost felt bad. “I know a very reputable studio that’s looking for an assistant choreographer.”

  Her shoulders sagged. “Thank you. You got no idea what it means to me.”

  “I think I do,” he said. “A little, anyway.”

  “Listen, though.” This part made her breath come tight. “It ain’t safe for me to be Cordelia right now.” If she had a shred of luck left, he wouldn’t ask why.

  He spun the wheel and put the car in reverse, slipping them into a parking spot beneath a drooping tree heavy with sweet white flowers. The dappled shade hid his expression, keeping her on edge until he said, “What serendipity.”

  “Talk a little plainer, why don’t you?”

  “It’s only safe for me to be Aristide Makricosta if I don’t dig up any old friends.” He cased her long and hard, lip caught in his teeth. “With that in mind, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miz…” The sentence hung in the air, like his extended, open palm.

  Cordelia stared at him for several seconds before she realized what he was waiting for. She shook, and the pressure of his hand made the scars on her fingers itch.

  “Hanes,” she said. “Nellie Hanes.”

  * * *

  He took her to a café a few blocks down the street. They sat under a striped awning, and Aristide ordered, in Porashtu. Of course he’d picked up the language. She wondered how long he’d been here, and what exactly he’d done to earn his rings and his expensive watch. Next to his clean suit, slick hair, and little blue sunglasses, Cordelia felt shabby and wrung out.

  Olives and coffee arrived. Cordelia drank her cup in one swallow, wincing less at the flavor than at the memory it stirred up. Porachin coffee, black and sweet over fine grounds, reminded her of the stuff they served at Antinou’s. Had served.

  Antinou and his wife went back to Hyrosia six months into Ospie rule, leaving the restaurant shuttered, the stoves and ovens cold. He gave Cordelia the key, and the beginnings of the Catwalk were born in the brick kitchen, over coffee not too different from this.

  To cut the taste, she turned to the olives. She didn’t realize Aristide was watching her eat until he said, “My, my. You never looked particularly well fed, but have you eaten at all since we last saw one another?”

  She’d left a pile of clean pits soaking in oil, next to a single curl of orange peel. “Not a lot. And don’t ask me why; I can’t tell you.”

  “I wouldn’t want to know.”

  She’d never thought somebody’s disinterest could make her feel so safe.

  A long pause. Then, “What was it like?” he asked. “After I left.”

  “How bad do you think it was?”

  When he said nothing, she went on: “It was worse than that. Not that you’d have noticed, maybe, if you were the right kind of people.” She poked her pile of olive pits with her finger, then hacked up a bit of laughter. “Well. You’d have noticed eventually.”

  “Where are you staying now?” asked Ari, as the waiter arrived with plates of lamb shank and rolled grape leaves. The smell of garlic and lemon made spit pool in Cordelia’s mouth, equal parts queasy and starving.

  “Hostel,” she said, shoveling down a grape leaf. “I got t
hree nights free. There’s two more left on that; I only been in town a day. Berer, before that.” She wouldn’t have given him details, if she didn’t know he didn’t care.

  “Not to belittle the queen’s charity,” he said, words starting slow then speeding up like he was warming to the idea, “but I have a suite at the Abna Bhangri and I’m bouncing around like a pea in a barrel. There’s plenty of room. I’d offer to take the chaise but I’m old and I have a bad back.”

  “Old my rear,” she said. “My great-gran lived to ninety-six. You’re maybe half that.”

  “Your dubiety,” he said, “has little bearing on the state of my spine. If you mind the chaise so terribly, I’m sure the hostel won’t object to your continued presence. Especially if you stay longer than three nights and start paying. Though with what money, I can’t imagine.”

  “Sweet mother’s tits, you ain’t changed one bit.”

  “I think you’ll find that isn’t true.”

  She snorted into her lamb, and choked on her rice so it caught at the back of her throat, got up her nose.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I know it ain’t funny.”

  “Laugh or else you weep.”

  That got her in the guts. She hadn’t expected him to quote Tory’s old northern nursery sayings at her. And from the look on his face, he hadn’t expected to do it, either.

  “You don’t stutter anymore,” she said, glad she had the coughing fit as a cover for the sudden tightness of her throat.

  “No,” he said, eyes dropping to his plate. “I don’t.”

  “And you cut your hair.”

  “You too.”

  They stared at each other for too long in silence, surrounded by lunchtime laughter and sun so bright it stabbed. Aristide broke first, and this time when he smiled it fell on her heart like a weight.

  “We got a lot of catching up to do,” she said.