The Lightest Object in the Universe: A Novel

by Eisele, Kimi

  “What it is, Rosie?” Beatrix asked.

  “We’re leaving tomorrow. Abuela said so. To Jonathan Blue.”

  “Wait, what? Leaving? No way.”

  Rosie nodded.

  “It’s not possible,” Beatrix said, the anger rising to her face. “I’ll talk to her again.”

  “It’s no use.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “You can’t be mad at her. It doesn’t work,” Rosie said. “I’ve tried it. And besides, everyone has dreams. Isn’t that what your aunt Vera said?”

  “Oh, Rosie.” Beatrix wanted to cry. This kid was so impressionable. She really did listen to everything. “Yes. Yes, of course. Everyone’s dreams matter. And so do yours.”

  Rosie shrugged. Her face was stoic.

  Beatrix took a deep breath and put her hand on Rosie’s shoulder. “Don’t you worry, Rosie. We’ll figure this out.”

  Later, Beatrix went to Maria del Carmen with a bouquet of flowering mustard greens and a little pouch of lavender from Anita. “I’ve come to beg you,” she said, when Maria del Carmen opened the door.

  “Such nice gifts, Beatrix.” Maria del Carmen sniffed the lavender. “This will be especially good for our journey.”

  Beatrix’s face dropped. “I don’t understand. It just isn’t safe.”

  “What is safe?” Maria del Carmen asked.

  “Not Jonathan Blue!” Beatrix yelled. “How could you possibly leave us, this neighborhood, with everything we have here, to go to some mythical place you’ve only heard about on the radio? Not to mention the journey itself. If you’re too scared to let Rosie walk down the block, how the hell are you going to manage a however-many-week journey on foot, through God knows what kind of danger? Do you even know where you’re going?”

  Maria del Carmen set the lavender pouch down and looked into the mustard greens. “A group is going together,” she said calmly. “They meet at the park tomorrow. And we will go with them.”

  “I can’t believe this.” Beatrix fought the urge to swat the greens out of Maria del Carmen’s hands. Exasperated, she returned to the angle of doubt. “What if none of it is real, Maria del Carmen? What if Blue is just a voice on a radio recording. What if he’s not real?”

  Maria del Carmen sighed. “This is why it is called faith, Beatrix.”

  Beatrix felt her heart collapse. None of her tactics had worked. This is what happened when people gave up. They just followed the shiniest, loudest promise. She thought about the Red Raven, all the work she and Thelma had put in to create him. No illusions there. He wasn’t real, but he could inspire people to work together, share, and find their own superpowers, right where they were. A different kind of prophet. But one Maria del Carmen obviously could not hear. Beatrix turned on her heel, furious, and left.

  In the morning, Rosie led Beatrix, Flash, and Dragon to the backyard, where God’s eyes hung from the plum tree like psychedelic blooms. Each diamond-shaped yarn ornament was marked with a small tag, one for each of them. Beatrix’s was a star of red, orange, and yellow yarn. “To match your personality,” Rosie said.

  “This is so sweet, Rosie,” Dragon said.

  Trying to lighten the mood, Flash tapped a rhythm on his thighs and started to sing. “Goodbye to Rosie, the queen of Corona . . .”

  Rosie laughed but then started to cry.

  Beatrix wrapped Rosie in a hug, frustrated with herself for not having averted this. Fighting back tears, she said, “You be strong, okay? You’re a fighter, remember?”

  Maria del Carmen called Beatrix into the kitchen, where small jars of tinctures lined the counters.

  “These are for you,” Maria del Carmen said. “For all of you. I wrote most everything down. Dragon has also been helping me lately, so he knows some things now.” She placed her hand on a notepad next to the bottles.

  Beatrix was moved by the gesture but still felt angry and helpless.

  “Come,” Maria del Carmen said. She led Beatrix to the altar. She lit a new votive and said, “This is for me and Rosie.” She placed it next to a dried bundle of herbs, a small bowl of water, and a string of rosary beads. “To keep us safe and to show you that we are here with you, always.” Then she lit a second candle. “This one is for your friend.”

  “My friend?”

  “The friend who you write to. Perhaps he will come to you.”

  Beatrix opened her mouth to speak, but Maria del Carmen put a finger to her lips. She turned toward the candles and adjusted them slightly. “You keep both lights going, okay? When they burn out, you light new ones, okay? Okay, mi’ja? Sí, mi’ja, sí.”

  PART THREE

  Halcyon

  CHAPTER 13

  Rosie and her abuela and fifteen others walked away from Halcyon Street and out of the neighborhood toward the highway. The early September sun cut low across the horizon, casting a golden glow and long shadows. Rosie had never walked on a highway before, and for the first half hour she delighted in seeing her sneakers on pavement that had once known only trucks and cars. Now, of course, it knew only bikes and pedestrians, and they’d already seen plenty of each.

  By late afternoon, though, Rosie was tired of walking. Her backpack was digging into her shoulders, and her feet were tired. How long were they going to have to walk? She looked at her abuela’s face; her eyes were alive, full of hope. Why was she so convinced? What if Jonathan Blue had lied about everything?

  Hills reached out like arms sleeved in gold on either side of the highway. Puffs of white clouds hovered above. It was like staring into a photograph. “Fertile,” someone said, which made Rosie think first of baby rabbits, and second of her period, which had to be coming any day now. Please, please, please. She breathed in the yellow and kept walking.

  The first night, they slept in a barn, on beds made of hay. Rosie listened to someone snoring. It was cold, and she pressed herself closer to her abuela. At dawn, dust floated up from the rustling and waking of bodies. Abuela tottered to the barn door, Rosie watching from the lumpy hay. Against the dawn, Abuela’s silhouette looked misshapen, like she was not a person, but an animal, awkwardly standing upright.

  A man began to sing in Spanish. “Buenos días, todo el mundo, ya me voy pa’ el Centro.” Good morning, everyone. I’m heading for the Center.

  The tune was one Rosie recognized, a melodic rhyming song. But sometimes she thought all Mexican songs sounded alike. The old-timey ones, at least.

  The singing man folded up his blanket. He looked like someone’s grandfather, but sturdy and solid, with graying hair underneath his cowboy hat. “Me espera la esperanza, espero encontrar el encuentro,” he sang. Where hope awaits me, if I can find the way to enter.

  He held the last note for a long time, and when he finished, everyone clapped. The man lifted his hat and nodded.

  Abuela handed Rosie a bottle of tincture. “Three drops under your tongue, please.”

  Rosie knew the drill. She opened the bottle and wrinkled her nose at the smell.

  “No fussing. This is your breakfast.”

  This is a stupid breakfast, Rosie thought, plugging her nose and dropping the liquid into her mouth.

  After two days of walking, Abuela started to speak Spanish. “Dios mío. Es demasiado.” My God. It’s too much. Her feet were swollen, puffing over the edge of her shoes. “Descanso.” I must rest.

  Rosie tapped the shoulder of the singing man. His name was Jesús, he said.

  Jesús unlaced Abuela’s shoes and knelt down to massage her feet, all the while singing a song about a journey he had made twenty years earlier when he crossed into the United States from Mexico. It was dry and scorching, he sang, and the migrants wanted to stop and rest, but the “coyote” wouldn’t let them. He sang about the cacti that jumped off their stems, like little dive-bombers, and landed on their calves and ankles. They looked like teddy bears, but really they were vicious monsters that violently clung to you. They made chupacabras seem like angels, Jesús sang. Abuela’s exhausted face crinkle
d into laughter at that.

  When Abuela was able to stand and walk again, they went slowly. Some of the group had gone ahead, so now they were only seven. “A good number is seven,” Jesús sang. “When they’ve promised us heaven.”

  They turned off the highway, walking down a long exit ramp, and followed a smaller road. “Safer,” one man said. “Less chance of being robbed.”

  Not that they had much to steal. Rosie carried just one change of clothes, a toothbrush and her grandmother’s homemade toothpaste, the lip balm Anita had made, some sticks and yarn for God’s eyes, and her sketchbook.

  The fields gave way to trees planted in neat rows, and a narrow church appeared at the edge of the grove. “Orchards for the apples, and a church with a steeple,” sang Jesús. And for no other reason than the tune was contagious, Rosie found herself humming along.

  “Corridos,” Jesús said. “Songs about life, no matter how sad.” He looked at her and grinned. His eyes were like little black pebbles, and deep lines fanned out from them like tiny roots. “You try it. You’ve got the tune down by now.”

  “No way,” Rosie said.

  “Try,” he said. “It softens the step.”

  Rosie blushed. She walked in silence, staring at the pavement. But in her head, words came like a train, startling her with their speed. She slowed down to fall behind the group for a while. Then she called out to Jesús, who stopped right away to wait for her.

  “Y por donde caminaron, vieron muchas cosas,” she sang, her voice shaky and loud enough for only Jesús to hear. And wherever they walked, they saw many things.

  He repeated the line, his voice ringing out. Then he looked to her, waiting for the next line.

  She covered her face with her hands, embarrassed, but sang the next line a little louder. “Las montañas muy nevadas, y un árbol con alas hermosas.” Snow-covered mountains and a tree with pretty wings.

  “That’s it! You’ve got it.” He turned back to look at the tree. “Pretty wings. It does have pretty wings! ‘The wings within.’”

  “The Red Raven!” Rosie said, excited by his reference.

  “Your grandmother’s feet are better, yes?” he said.

  Yes. The swelling had gone, and Abuela was walking just fine. “She’s determined,” Rosie said.

  “Determination is as good as faith,” Jesús said.

  When they neared the base of the Sierras, they came upon a wagon and pooled their money for a ride. The road wound up through dense woods. Rosie pulled out her only jacket, a too-thin windbreaker, and breathed in the scent of the pines. She leaned on her abuela and tried to sleep. When she woke, they were moving through an alpine town, complete with a saloon and a group of men on horses. One of them waved and tipped his cowboy hat. Eventually, the wagon came to a stop, the road blocked by an overturned semitruck.

  Weeds sprouted up through fissures in the broken asphalt, rising up alongside the truck’s tires. The cart was too wide to pass by the truck, so the men unhooked the horses, tilted the cart sideways, and wheeled it through. While they worked, Rosie peered into the semi’s broken window. On the seat was a pair of sunglasses, some chewing-gum wrappers, and a road map of Nevada. Rosie reached in and grabbed the sunglasses just as her abuela called for her.

  Beatrix and Flash made their way through a tangle of dried shrubs and weeds, down the long sidewalk to Mr. Greeb’s house. “I think he’ll know exactly what to do for Miss Demeanor,” Beatrix said.

  At the door, a strong odor hit them. “Jesus H, what is that?” Flash said.

  “Anyone there?” Beatrix called out. They waited several minutes, but no one came. The door was unlocked, and when Beatrix opened it, the terrible stench flooded out.

  “Holy hell,” Flash said, his hands over his nose and mouth.

  Beatrix pulled her shirt up over her nose and moved slowly into the house, holding her breath. “Mr. Greeb?” she whispered, spying his shape on the recliner chair. “Mr. Greeb?” she said again. He looked tiny, melting into the chair, eyes open but receding, skin collapsing against his skull. She gagged.

  Flash put his hand on Beatrix’s arm and guided her back out of the house. Flash walked in circles, taking deep breaths, and Beatrix lay back on the brittle grass, stunned. Mr. Greeb was so very dead. Not just-moments-ago dead, but thoroughly and completely dead.

  “I should have come sooner,” Beatrix said.

  “It might not have been the flu,” Flash said. “He was pretty old.”

  “What should we do? We can’t just leave him there.”

  “The mobile clinic?” Flash said. For Halcyon Radio, Beatrix had just interviewed a nurse who had started the clinic, making home visits for checkups and minor treatments.

  But of course the nurse said there was nothing she could do. She sent them instead to the undertaker, whose services were still needed no matter how much things had changed.

  The undertaker recruited two men from the Perimeter, and they entered Mr. Greeb’s house wearing respiratory masks and hospital gloves, and exited carrying Mr. Greeb, still in his chair.

  “You know if he has any kin?” the undertaker called out to Beatrix as they lowered the chair to the ground.

  “I have no idea,” Beatrix said.

  “Okay. We’ll cremate him.”

  “Right here?” Beatrix asked.

  “You got a better place?” one of the men said.

  “No memorial or anything?” Flash said.

  “Can’t help you there,” the undertaker said. “Out of my jurisdiction.”

  Flash took hold of Beatrix’s arm and walked a little closer to Mr. Greeb’s body. Flash held his hand over Mr. Greeb’s heart and said, “May you rest in peace, old man. Safe passage.”

  “Kind neighbor,” Beatrix said. “Good soul, with so much to share. Thank you for the birds.”

  The undertaker called to them as they walked away. “You’re the ones who do that radio show, right? The Raven?”

  Beatrix and Flash looked at each other. “The Red Raven. You’ve heard it?” Beatrix said.

  “My kids and I have been listening. Great stuff,” he said.

  “Glad to hear that,” Flash said.

  “Say, I don’t want to meddle,” he said. “But I wonder if any future episodes might incorporate something about—” He paused, glancing at Mr. Greeb in his chair.

  “Cremation?” Flash said.

  “Dying, death,” the undertaker said. “It’s not an easy thing to explain to my kids.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to explain to anyone,” Beatrix said.

  “That’s right,” he said. “Feels closer than before, you know? I mean, for them.”

  Flash nodded. “It really does.” He looked at Beatrix. “We’ll see what we can do, right?”

  “Absolutely,” Beatrix said. “Thank you for requesting it. And thank you for your work here today.”

  As the man went back to his task, Beatrix said to Flash, “So it might be working.”

  “I think it is, yes,” Flash said.

  “We just were too late for Maria del Carmen.”

  “We were, yeah.”

  They loaded Mr. Greeb’s chickens into boxes and gave their neighbors all but two hens, which they took home to the backyard, along with a majestic rooster with a tail of long black feathers.

  It took five days of travel in the rickety wagon to get Rosie, Abuela, and their fellow Pilgrims to the other side of the Sierras. Somewhere past Reno, they found shelter in a concrete church. They sat in a circle and prayed while the wooden Jesus on the wall watched them. Any minute he might climb down from his post, Rosie thought, loincloth, bloody hands, and all.

  She thought of Beatrix, Dragon, and Flash, who were probably finishing up dinner at this hour. What had they eaten? Peaches from a jar? Roasted pigeon? Not tortillas, not anymore.

  Flash was maybe singing and playing air guitar, like he always did. Flash said Jonathan Blue was crazy, because there was no such thing as ascending right out of your living body i
nto heaven, or wherever. But Jonathan Blue seemed convinced that you could do that. And it was hard not to believe him. It was like he held a rope and was pulling people toward him, hand over hand. How did someone get that kind of strength?

  In the morning, Rosie woke early and found blood in her underwear. Her first feeling was of relief. Then came a fleeting thought of Diego, the asshole. She rummaged through her backpack for the supplies Beatrix had given her, and went outside to wash her underwear at the small tank of water someone had set up.

  “Try not to waste, okay?” a scratchy voice said. It was Louise, a woman with blunt gray hair that looked like she’d cut it herself.

  Rosie tried to hide the underwear behind her back, but her cold hands fumbled, and the panties plopped to the ground. Mortified, she swept them up and stuffed them quickly into her pocket. “I don’t have any soap,” she said awkwardly.

  “Oh,” Louise said, her face softening. She reached her hand toward Rosie, as if trying to touch her. “I do.” She brought Rosie the soap. But that wasn’t all. For the next five days, Louise kept a thermos of hot water and soap so Rosie could tend to her period without any fuss from anyone.

  Every day, Rosie took the tincture drops her abuela gave her. Whatever was in them, they seemed to be keeping her and her abuela healthy. Certainly, it wasn’t the watery beans, stale bread, and jerky of unknown origin. She missed tortillas. She missed eggs. She missed milk from the neighbors’ goat at the end of the block. She missed plums and oranges.

  On occasion, they were offered better things to eat—fresh biscuits, chicken stew, apples. Some people said they’d soon be on their way to the Center, too. Others said they weren’t going anywhere, and Rosie wondered if they, too, wanted to ascend, but didn’t want to walk for it.

  Over the next days, their group went from seven to twelve to fourteen and back to eleven. The Pilgrims came on foot and on mules and horses, and with one wobbly cart, which they loaded up with their meager possessions and took turns pushing. They slept in churches, in backyards, in empty stores, and in camps known as “jungles.” Each night, one or two people stayed awake, keeping watch.