“Oh, was I wrong! So far as I can tell, until you popped up I was the least wicked person here. I say that with no pride whatsoever. Because it means that I was damned by the slightest of margins. Patting a dog or smiling at an old woman or dropping a dime in a beggar’s hand probably would have been enough to tip the balance. One tiny act of kindness more and I’d be sitting in a penthouse in Heaven today, eating porterhouse steak and drinking Bordeaux wine while pouring Evian water into a Limoges saucer for my pet ocelot. So I thought . . . maybe if I improved myself that tiny little bit, I’d wake up and find myself somewhere else. See what I mean about hope? I’ve been doing this for a long, long time, and no results. Still, it’s not like I have anything better to do. Now what’s your story?”
When Su-yin was done, Rico whistled. “Kindness. Courage. Self-sacrifice. This day grows more inexplicable with every passing moment.” Then, “You look hungry. Let me stake you to a meal.”
“Don’t do it, babe,” Beelzebub said. “It’s an old jailhouse con. When you first arrive, everything’s a gift. But come midnight, Shylock here is going to want his pound of flesh. If you know what I mean.”
Rico’s face twisted with annoyance. “Okay, now that kind of language is more like what I’d expect hereabouts.” He turned back to Su-yin. “I wash dishes at the Greasy Spoon. There’s an opening there for a waitress, if you want it. The pay’s not much, but it comes with three meals a day. Such as they are.”
Su-yin realized then that she was likely to be stuck in Hell for a long time. “Well. . . .”
“A hundred a week plus meals and tips, if any,” the cook said. He didn’t tell Su-yin his name, nor did he ask for hers. “Also, you get to sleep in the storage room. Anybody craps on the floor, you clean it up. I catch you hawking a loogie in the food, you get docked an hour’s wages. Got that?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then welcome to the finest fucking restaurant in Hell. Get your ass to work. And get that filthy fucking cat outta here!” The cook grabbed a hot frying pan off the grill and flung it at Beelzebub, who disappeared in a yowl of fur and defiance.
Work Su-yin did, for twelve hours every day, waiting on sullen customers and bussing the counter, scrubbing the floors, unclogging the toilets, and putting out the trash. Serving as a jill-of-all-trades so long as the trade was boring.
In her free time, she scoured the city, searching for her father or the Devil in dark, joyless bars, unventilated parking garages, and basement sweatshops where drab men turned out shoddy furniture and shoes whose laces broke the first time they were tied. Slowly, steadily, she could feel the grayness of the place sinking deeper and deeper into her flesh until it was constant ache in the marrow of her bones.
The boundaries of Hell ebbed and flowed like the tides, so that the way everything hooked up changed day by day. The city abutted the world Su-yin had come from, but different parts of it on different days. Sometimes she found herself staring yearningly into Los Angeles and other times at the outskirts of Moscow. One day the city abruptly ended in desert—she had no idea which one—and Su-yin found herself contemplating a lone flower whose stalk was the exact same color green as the soda straws back at the Greasy Spoon.
She stared at it for a long time, thinking.
Su-yin showed up early for her next shift and rummaged through the trash, looking for brightly colored packaging. Then she set to work. When she was done, Dolores, a dried husk of a woman who was the other waitress on duty and had yet to say more than four words in a row to Su-yin, stuck her head into the kitchen and said, “You guys gotta see this.”
The cook came out of the kitchen and said, “What’s that goddamn heap a shit?”
“It’s a bouquet of flowers,” Su-yin said. “Sort of. I made it out of soda straws and whatnot. The vase used to be a sour pickle jar.”
From behind the cook, Rico said. “What’s it for?”
“It’s just for pretty.” She pinched the cook’s cheek. “Sort of like Cookie here.”
Dolores’s mouth fell open. Rubbing the side of his face, the cook said, “What the fuck was that for?”
“No reason. Just felt like it.” A customer came in and she brought him a menu. “What’ll you have, Sweetie?” For the rest of the day she called the Greasy Spoon’s patrons “Hon,” and “Sugarpie,” and “Darlin’.” She had a smile for everyone, and when she mopped the counter she sang. She made little jokes. If there was anything she could do to make the diner a happier place, Su-yin did it. It wasn’t easy. But she made the effort.
The next day she did the same. And the day after. And the day after that one too. After a time, the regulars would smile wanly at the sight of her. A couple of them even made unconvincing attempts to flirt with her. One left a tip—it was a slug, of course, but the gesture was good. Smiling, Su-yin tossed it in the air, caught it one-handed, and shoved it in a pocket.
At last, the Devil took the bait.
Su-yin was wiping blood from the dingy Formica countertop when the Dire Lady walked into the diner. Quickly stashing the cleaning rag under the counter, she said, “What can I get you, ma’am?”
The Devil sat and, after a bodyguard lit a fresh cigarette, exhaled a slow, lingering, sensuous serpent of smoke. “Boodles martini, very dry, straight up, with a twist. I want it so cold that it hurts.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Su-yin turned back toward the kitchen and was not surprised to find that she was in a gleaming—and impeccably clean!— bar. Everything in Hell, apparently, confirmed to its Mistress’s wishes. Fortunately, Su-yin had for years made her father’s cocktails for him every evening, so she knew what to do. With swift efficiency, she mixed the drink and brought the brim-full glass to the Devil without spilling a drop.
Crimson lips opened moistly. Gin slid down that long, long throat. Perfectly manicured nails plucked the lemon rind from the drink to be nibbled by even white teeth. All against her will, Su-yin admired the elegance of the performance.
The Devil dropped an envelope on the counter. “Read it.”
Cautiously, Su-yin shook the document open. It was notarized, but she’d know the General’s handwriting anywhere. His phrasing too:
My dearest daughter:
What are you doing? Go home. You can accomplish
nothing here.
I used to love you, but there is no love in this place.
Sincerely,
Your Father
Su-yin put the letter down and looked the Devil in the eye. “All this tells me is that I’ve gotten your attention.”
The Devil snorted. “Your attempts at meliorating the pervasive misery of my domain are annoying, yes. But that’s all. You think you can defy me? Empires have fallen for less.”
“Where is my father?” Su-yin said without trembling.
“He’s right behind you.”
Su-yin spun around and she was in a hospital room. It smelled of antiseptic and ironed sheets. People walked by unhurriedly in the corridor outside. A television grumbled on the wall. An unseen machine wheezed regularly, a half-beat off of the rhythm of her own breath. Lying in a bed, skin palest white, eyes closed, was her father.
She ran to him and clasped one large, unresponsive hand in both of her own.
Those eyes which in life had always been so cunning and wise opened the merest slit. Dark pupils slid down the curve of eyelids. “Foolish child, why are you doing this?” the General mumbled.
“I’m going to bring you home, Daddy.”
“This is my home now. I am here because I deserve to be here.”
“No!”
“You are old enough now to suspect how I made a living. I assure you that I did everything you fear I did, and worse. You cannot save me nor can you undo time.”
“I will! I will! I will!” Hot tears of rage and denial coursed down Su-yin’s face. “I haven’t come this far to be turned away now. I don’t know how, but somehow I’ll—”
“Stop that.” The General was gone and she was back in the bar, tr
ansfixed by the Devil’s glare. Without any change in how she felt, Su-yin was no longer crying. “What will it take to get you to leave?”
Controlling her emotions as best she could, Su-yin said, “My father.”
The Devil threw her martini in Su-yin’s face.
The gin was so cold that it stung and for an instant Su-yin feared that it had been magically turned into acid. But she managed not to cry out or to turn away. Fumbling under the bar, she found the cleaning rag and used it to dry off her face.
“I suppose this is what they call love. It looks a lot like pigheadedness.” The Devil tapped her nails against the obsidian top of the bar, click, click, click. “All right,” she said. “I’ll deal.”
Su-yin waited in silence.
“You are a virgin. Don’t think that makes you special here. There are plenty of virgins in Hell. But I’ll set you a challenge. Stay a virgin for an entire year and I’ll let you take your father away—alive, unharmed, all of that. But if you behave like the slut I’m convinced you are, you agree to simply, meekly, leave.”
“I—”
“There are other conditions. You have to go out with anyone who asks you. You’ll keep your job here, but I’m giving you the use of a penthouse apartment I maintain as a pied-à-terre so you’ll have a nice place to bring a boy home to. Don’t you dare touch any of my clothes.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m also giving you a tutor. To teach you, among other things, manners.”
Leonid was thin, graceful, acerbic, and, Su-yin suspected, gay. He was waiting in the penthouse when she got there. “We will start,” he said, “with the foxtrot.”
“Can’t I just . . . you know? Kids today mostly just wing it.”
“No.” Leonid took her in his arms, turned one way, turned the other. Her body naturally followed his. “Your partner controls where you go. If he knows what he’s doing, you follow fluidly. Your every movement is easy and graceful as you yield to his movements. The metaphoric content is, I hope, obvious. All the while, your bodies press together. He is constantly aware of your breasts against him, your thighs, your everything. You, in turn, cannot help knowing when he becomes physically aroused.”
“I don’t think you’re very aroused by me,” Su-yin said, amused.
“That is not my job. Nor is it yours. You are only to arouse those who ask you out. And I am not going to ask you out.”
There was a knock on the door. “Room service,” Leonid announced. He let in a deferential servant who swiftly unloaded the contents of a wheeled cart onto a table: linen napkin, silverware, a selection of cheeses on a wood tray, crystal glasses, a carafe of water, a split of champagne.
“I’m not old enough to drink alcohol,” Su-yin said.
“Here, you are. One of the many things I am to teach you is how to drink. In moderation, it goes without saying. You must never have more than two glasses in an evening and never accept anything you have not seen poured. Drugged drinks are a fact of life.”
“Oh,” Su-yin said in a small voice.
“I will also teach you some rudimentary self-defense. But only after you have learned how to dance. Dancing is fundamental.” Leonid gestured toward the food. “Well? Have at it.”
“Aren’t you going to have some too?”
“No. I will stand here and critique how you eat.”
Her first date was with a man who said his name was Archer. “Just Archer,” he said when she asked for his full name. They met in the building’s lobby, which looked like it was meant for billionaires, smelled faintly of sour milk, and had Ferrante and Teicher playing on the sound system. He was dressed like a mobster, in a black suit with matching shirt and white tie. He opened his jacket to show her his gun. Then he started to tug out his shirt to show her his tattoos.
“Not now,” Su-yin said. “Maybe when we know each other better.” Which sounded stupid but was the only thing she could think of to say. She made a mental note to ask Leonid for better responses to such situations.
In the street outside, a cabbie leaned on his horn, long and hard.
“Milady, thy chariot awaits,” Archer declaimed. Then he grabbed her arm and yanked her outside. When he helped her into the car, he stroked her bottom.
They went to a restaurant where her date proceeded to order for her, saying, “I’ve eaten here before and you haven’t.” Archer chose foods she didn’t like, and tried to get her to drink from a flask which, when she refused, he returned to his jacket pocket without sampling. When she had to go to the toilet, he said, “Mind if I come along? I enjoy watching women pee.”
Su-yin stayed in the ladies’ room for as long as she dared. When she returned to the table, Archer had eaten all the veggies off her plate and there were several empty cocktail glasses in front of him. “Say,” he said, whipping out his smartphone, “do you want to see some pictures of my mother?”
One glimpse of the screen was enough to make Su-yin whip away her head, reddening. “Not pictures like that.”
“Aw, c’mon. We’re in Hell. You can get away with anything here.”
The meal went on forever. Whenever the waitress came by, Archer leered at her and ordered drinks for the both of them. Then, when his was empty and Su-yin’s still untouched, he drank hers as well. In the cab home, he began to cry because when he was alive his father had molested him, and it had screwed up his sex life. Then, when he dropped her off, he grabbed her arms and tried to kiss her. She closed her lips tight and turned away from his mouth, so he licked the side of her face. “At least let me smell your panties,” he said.
With a shriek, Su-yin pushed him away and fell backwards out of the cab. She lurched to her feet and, abandoning one of her shoes, ran inside. Behind her Archer shouted, “Come back! You haven’t paid the cabbie!”
Inside the Devil’s condo, Su-yin’s tutor was waiting. “I won’t ask how it went,” he said.
“Oh, Leonid, it was awful.” He handed her a dressing gown. There was an antique Chinese screen in one corner of the room. Su-yin went behind it and undressed, draping her dress and underwear over the top the way starlets did in old black-and-white movies. “The only good thing to be said about the whole experience is that I was never once in the least bit tempted to have sex with him.”
“Don’t get cocky. The Devil likes to play games. She’ll soften you up with some really awful experiences and then slip in a ringer. A nice dancer, a good listener, a fella who seems to be on your side. That’s the one you’ve got to look out for.” Leonid gathered up her clothes. “I’ll take these things out to be laundered.”
He withdrew then.
Su-yin took a shower to get the smell of Archer and his cigars off her skin. Then she went to bed, praying that she wouldn’t have nightmares about him but sure that she would.
Still. One day down and not quite a year to go.
At least three times a week, Su-yin had dates, all of them hideous. One man exposed himself to her, then called her a slut for not sleeping with him. Another got drunk and tried to rip her dress off, right out on the street. A third got her name wrong and, no matter how many times she corrected him, insisted on calling her Ching-chong. He wanted to know if it was “true what they said about Asian girls,” and got offended when she told him that whatever they said, she was pretty sure it was wrong. To say nothing of the woman who kept trying to get Su-yin to smell her fingers.
On those nights when she stayed in, Leonid gave her lessons. He showed her the proper way to snort cocaine, the basics of flirtation, the fast way to do up her hair in a French twist. She was taught that a stiletto heel can be driven right through a man’s shoe, the social proprieties of makeup, and which of the seven basic perfume categories (Floral, Fern, Chypre, Leather, Woody, Oriental, and Citrus) were appropriate for different situations.
She also learned to play the piano, though the opportunity to do so never arose on a date.
“Why am I learning all this stuff?” Su-yin demanded one evening, while they we
re playing chess. “It’s not like I’m ever going to use it.”
“Having skills gives you confidence and having confidence makes you alluring.” Leonid slid a bishop forward, putting her queen in mate. “That’s all.”
“I don’t want to be alluring.” Rather than move her queen, which was protecting her king, Su-yin blocked the attack with a knight.
“Rules of the game, sweetie. Rules of the game.” Leonid advanced a pawn, opening a line of attack for his own queen, and suddenly the game looked entirely different. “Mate in three. You’ve got to learn to think at least four moves ahead.”
One day, Beelzebub was waiting outside the Greasy Spoon when Su-yin got off work. “Thought I’d warn ya,” he said. “Rico’s building up his courage to ask you out.”
“Is he?” Su-yin said, surprised. “I thought better of him.”
“I can see what you’re thinking. No, the Devil didn’t order him to nail your little virgin tushie. She didn’t have to. Setting aside this idiot challenge you got yourself roped into, Rico is young and male. You’re young and lovely. You’re gonna have your work cut out for you, keeping his hands outa your undies.”
Caught by surprise, Su-yin asked, “Am I really lovely?”
“To him, yes. To a cat, not so much.”
She laughed and rubbed Beelzebub’s head. “That’s one of the things I like best about you, Belzie—your unfailing honesty.”
“I’m only honest because it’s an offense against local community standards.”
When she began her shift, Rico came out from the back room, drying his hands on his apron. “Listen,” he said. “There’s this dance club I know. I was thinking maybe this Friday I could take you there. To dance.”
“Oh, Rico.” Su-yin sighed. “I’d love to.”
So that Saturday they went to the Top of the Town, which was a revolving sky bar with a spectacular view of the river Phlegethon and the delicate blue flames that flickered upon its waters. They danced for a while, and Rico kept stepping on her feet. Then a handsome Algerian named Jean-Luc cut in. He danced beautifully. Which was why Rico punched him out and then hustled Su-yin away to a smoky piano bar for cocktails. There, she took tiny sips from a glass of pinot grigio while Rico got plowed on highballs.
Not So Much, Said the Cat Page 9