Feverishly, focused, she worked. Every detail, every inch of wire, every bend of tubing, every molded bit of paper fit together with precise attention to detail.
After almost twenty hours at the wall, she staggered back to their hut. The rain had turned the ground into a slurry of mud. She pushed her way past the hanging blanket that was their only door, and went to Lizzie’s bedside. The fever was worse, and the girl’s skin had a shiny, papery quality. Her eyes would barely focus as Shawna fed her one precious spoonful of water at a time. Lizzie blinked, then croaked, “Where’s Daddy?”
“Shhh,” Shawna said, and stroked the girl’s hair softly.
“Are we going soon? Is your work finished yet?”
Shawna nodded.
Lizzie looked away from her. “Daddy said you shouldn’t have come. That you shouldn’t have made the painting for the bad man.”
Shawna leaned closer. “Don’t talk about that.” That whole life seemed very far away.
Lizzie stared into her stepmother’s eyes almost placidly. “Am I going to die?”
Shawna didn’t answer. She felt as if the ground had opened up beneath her.
“We shouldn’t have come,” Lizzie said, then closed her eyes and slept.
Shawna awoke four hours later, weighing a thousand pounds. Concrete had set in her joints. Laboriously, she rolled to her side and sat up. She checked on Lizzie. The child was curled on her side, right thumb in her mouth, her sunken cheeks a bit fuller. Her eyelashes trembled as if she were dreaming, a curl of hair plastered to one dark cheek.
Shawna girded herself, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and went outside.
The morning world was framed in darkness, lit only by pain. It was no longer raining. Wet, heavy clouds shrouded the sun. A crowd had gathered up by the wall. They seemed to be… inspecting her handiwork.
She began to feel the faintest ray of hope.
The crowd parted for her as she approached. They looked from Shawna to the sculpture, and nodded approval. Tall and thin, short with sagging flesh, men and women, young and old, dark as Shawna and darker they were, but they seemed to include her in their number now, and in that new inclusion she found comfort.
Rendered in stick, in bits of wood and plastic and paper, was Shawna Littleton. The profile was hers, caught there in a curve of wire. Hair was suggested by a knot of string. Her arms were outstretched fragments of particle board. Shawna’s plastic face was drawn, anguished. Her pottery-shard lips were frozen open, locked in an eternal scream for help.
“Please,” Shawna said desperately. “Listen to me. I am one of you. I am a refugee like you are. This isn’t my country. Please. My daughter will die if we don’t get out of here.” The stolid indifference was gone from the crowd—if, indeed, it had ever existed. Some nodded their comprehension and empathy. A round, short woman patted her arm.
Then there was a nasty laugh from the back of the crowd. “Many of their daughters will die.” The voice was terribly familiar. “Have already died.” Juta’s voice. He shouldered his way forward.
She tried not to look at him. “Please.”
He barked laughter. “You think you become part of them by this?” He waved deprecatingly at her sculpture, at the woman in the wall. “Not one of them. You are… American mongrel. You they color, but not they heart.”
The crowd began to disperse. Although each was hurt in her own way, crippled and torn by war and disease, they had been prepared to reach out to her. None would stand against the guards.
“Please,” she whispered. “It’s not my fault.” No one listened to her. “I didn’t ask to be born in America.” The rain hammered against the ground, muddying their footprints. “I didn’t ask to be born,” she said. A tall woman clutching a bony, huge-eyed child clucked at her sympathetically. “Damn it. Help me. Help us.” And finally she said, “I’m not sick!”
And then, the last of her strength spent, she sagged to her knees in the mud and tried to sob.
No tears would come.
The Jester found her curled at the door of her shack. He stood without speaking. Rain drizzled down his blunt features.
At length she looked up at him. “I’m going to die here,” she said, her voice as flat and cold as a tin roof. “My daughter and I will both die here.” She paused, turned her face up to the rain. “We’ll all die here.”
“You have friends?” Jester said. “Friends outside?”
She nodded glumly, then caught herself. “How much English do you speak?”
“I have English,” he said proudly. “Not so good as King, but I have.”
She nodded again. “I can reach my friends,” she said. “What difference does it make?”
“There is way you could… escape, yes?”
She looked at him as if he had suddenly sprouted antennae. Hope flared within her, and she feared it. Hope could shatter, could kill more certainly than AIDS or starvation. “With a sick eight-year-old?”
“No,” he said. “By yourself, yes?”
“By… myself?”
He nodded. For a long moment the only sound in the camp was the distant yap of dogs and the steady drum of the rain. “I couldn’t leave her.”
“You find your friends, yes? Bring help. Yes?”
She held his eyes steadily, knew the comforting lie that was being offered. “Yes.”
“You help her here?”
“No,” she said softly.
“Is she your blood?” Jester said softly.
“No,” Shawna whispered. The rain beat harder.
“You find your friends, yes?” he said quickly. “Follow the river. Four, five days down river. Red Cross people.”
“How do you know that?” she asked.
“I know. Caught stealing there,” he said proudly.
“Four or five days,” she whispered.
“You reach it, maybe week the little girl could be out.”
“A week,” she said numbly.
She listened to her heartbeat.
“Lady,” he said. “I watch her for you. Trust me.”
She studied him, and shuddered. “You know things,” she said. “Do you know… is there medicine here? Penicillin?”
“Only King have medicine.” Jester wiped the rainwater from his face. “You be at north fence, after midnight.”
“Why would you do this?”
“You rich American. Have friends. When you come for the girl, take me with you.” He fingered the necklace. “There is no place I can go.”
She nodded. “I know that place,” she said.
“Shawna?” Lizzie asked feebly. “Where are you going?”
Shawna spooned rainwater between the child’s lips. No more tears streamed down Lizzie’s fever-swollen cheeks. Dehydration was nearly complete. It would take more than water now—the fever had taken hold, and Lizzie’s eyes were like frying glass marbles in her sunken face. “I may be able to get us help,” Shawna whispered.
The little girl looked through Shawna. There was little in those eyes now, save pain and fear. “Shawna? Where’s Daddy?”
“Daddy will be here soon.” Shawna bent close, running a hand over Lizzie’s brow. “Soon.”
There was a rustle of cloth behind her. She turned. The Gorgons stared at her. Two of them turned away, rolled back beneath their blankets, but Medusa met her eyes squarely. From her shadowed corner, her haggard face blazed with contempt.
Shawna Littleton closed her heart, hardened her mind, and walked out toward the rain. Just before she reached the door, Lizzie said, “Shawna?”
She stopped in the doorway without turning. “Yes?”
“Are you my mommy?”
Shawna stumbled, then caught her balance and ran. Lizzie’s last words reverberated in her mind in an endless, rolling echo. She ran in an uncoordinated, animal gallop, making terrible, wet sounds in her throat.
Oncoming footsteps.
She shrank back into a shadow, away from the muddy walkway as the gigantic Juta stalk
ed by. He seemed to stride in slow motion. He smiled and whistled tunelessly, one with the storm.
Shawna Littleton hurried through the darkness, toward damnation.
Jester met her in the shadows. He pointed toward the wall. “Near end. Face of laughing woman. Take lip, pull up. Crawl through. Grab thread, and follow.”
“Why can’t you go—” she started to say, and then remembered the collars.
“Follow thread to other side. Pull up. You be safe.”
She nodded dumbly. Then gripped his shoulder. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before? I could have taken the girl with me.”
He shrugged and looked at her shrewdly. “More money selling you to King.” Then he disappeared.
Shawna waited for the searchlights to slide past, then ran across the yard, dropping into a crouch as another glaring oval crossed her path. The sky above her crackled with lightning.
She knew which sculpture to seek: the Ashanti mask, the laughing woman. A flash of lightning revealed the woman to her, frozen forever in the plastic canopy. She seemed to be staring at Shawna. The unknown artist was surely dead by now—other artwork overlapped this one, making Shawna consider this one of the oldest works. The woman’s face was long and thin, abstracted. But even in the poor light she could see that it was riven with care and deprivation.
Why was she laughing? She looked closer. Barely visible, and arrayed about the woman’s face like satellites circling a planet, were tiny human faces, plump and healthy.
Children.
For a moment Shawna understood the laughter, then lightning flashed again, and she reflexively pulled the lower lip. The mask slid down, and a two-foot section of the wall came away, exposing a tunnel. An almost invisible fishing line filament was anchored to the underside of the mask. If she followed it, it would take her safely to the escape hatch on the other side.
A sour bubble of hysterical laughter welled in her throat, swiftly quashed. Before she crawled through, she glanced along the wall, where it curved around toward the west gate. Almost two hundred feet away, she thought she could make out her own sculpture, highlighted starkly by lightning and searchlights.
The women in the wall screamed, lightning their eyes, thunder in their silent throats.
Shawna dropped to her belly and crawled through the mud, knee-elbow, knee-elbow, an inch at a time, feeling her way along the filament.
The wind howled. If she strained, she heard within it a child’s voice, a cry of terror, of abject betrayal.
She squeezed her eyes shut. It wasn’t fair. Everyone is alone in the world, she said to herself. Everyone. Besides, if she could just reach the camp, the Red Cross camp, eventually, maybe in a few days…
It wasn’t fair.
Are you my mommy?
Lightning coiled and thrust above her like a striking serpent.
Suddenly she knew why Medusa hated her. Knew why Juta mocked her. Why the laughing woman laughed. Why her own sculpture screamed.
Another twist of fire in the sky above her, and the insight was gone again, leaving only a cold and lonely certainty.
Shawna turned and crawled back into the camp.
Back in the shack, Shawna rinsed her face and body with rainwater. Her clothes were filthy. There was nothing to be done about that, and the more she thought about it, the less it mattered.
She peered into a shard of mirror. She tried to smile. The sight of her own cracked, demented leer was almost enough to send her careening over the edge.
Shawna kissed her stepdaughter’s burning forehead. Lizzie made a weak mewling sound and stretched out a tiny fevered hand. Shawna held it to her cheek.
Lizzie’s lips moved without producing audible words. Then: “Mommy.”
Her eyes ached to cry, but cleansing tears refused to fall. Mitch, she begged, help me.
Shawna turned and stood to face Medusa, who lay unmoving, watching her. She searched to find the right words in French. “The King,” she said finally. “Can I trust him?”
Medusa didn’t blink. “Do you have a choice?” she replied.
The darkness in Kampala’s palace was eased by a dozen candles, flickering in silver holders. Kampala sat, watching the entrance as she entered. “You will wear a condom,” she said.
“We have them.” Even through the hanging veils, the hunger blazed from his eyes.
“I want medicine for my child,” she said. Again, he agreed.
“And food. Decent food. She can’t keep down the garbage they feed her.”
She paused. He waited. The silence lengthened between them.
Kampala asked, “And nothing else? Nothing for yourself?”
She approached his bed, pinching out the candles as she went. Darkness swallowed her, leaving only the dim outline of a woman slipping from her clothes. “Yes,” she said, climbing between his sheets. And before they began, she told him.
She stumbled back to her hovel in the morning, her tins of meat and soup enfolded in arms almost too weak to hold them.
She gave Lizzie several capsules of penicillin, followed by a sip of broth.
When Lizzie vomited broth and caplets up, Shawna dug through the filth to find the precious medication. She helped her stepdaughter swallow them again.
This time they stayed down. Shawna sat by the bedside, lost in herself. All she knew, all she cared about, was that Lizzie was alive, alive. That each day had to be lived a minute at a time. If she thought about more than that, she would go insane.
Medusa and her sisters watched, all laughter and mockery gone from their faces. Hot with fever, Lizzie’s small hand stole into hers, tightened, and then relaxed as healing sleep took her.
Shawna curled up next to Lizzie and closed her eyes, her own hands clutched around the bauble King had given her.
It was nothing fancy, nothing she would have noticed twice in her former life. It was only the wedding ring Mitch had worn, sawed from his finger by scavengers and, as she suspected, sold to the King.
Are you my mommy? Lizzie had asked, as might any child, even one not teetering on the brink of hell itself. Are you my mommy?
“I am now,” Shawna whispered. And finally, at long last, she cried.
ARK OF BONES
Henry Dumas
(1974)
Headeye, he was followin me. I knowed he was followin me. But I just kept goin, like I wasn’t payin him no mind. Headeye, he never fish much, but I guess he knowed the river good as anybody. But he ain’t know where the fishin was good. Thas why I knowed he was followin me. So I figured I better fake him out. I ain’t want nobody with a mojo bone followin me. Thas why I was goin along downriver stead of up, where I knowed fishin was good. Headeye, he hard to fool. Like I said, he knowed the river good. One time I rode across to New Providence with him and his old man. His old man was drunk. Headeye, he took the raft on across. Me and him. His old man stayed in New Providence, but me and Headeye come back. Thas when I knowed how good of a river-rat he was.
Headeye, he o.k., cept when he get some kinda notion in that big head of his. Then he act crazy. Tryin to show off his age. He older’n me, but he little for his age. Some people say readin too many books will stunt your growth. Well, on Headeye, everything is stunted cept his eyes and his head. When he get some crazy notion runnin through his head, then you can’t get rid of him till you know what’s on his mind. I knowed somethin was eatin on him, just like I knowed it was him followin me.
I kept close to the path less he think I was tryin to lose him. About a mile from my house I stopped and peed in the bushes, and then I got a chance to see how Headeye was movin along.
Headeye, he droop when he walk. They called him Headeye cause his eyes looked bigger’n his head when you looked at him sideways. Headeye bout the ugliest guy I ever run upon. But he was good-natured. Some people called him Eagle-Eye. He bout the smartest nigger in that raggedy school, too. But most time we called him Headeye. He was always findin things and bringin em to school, or to the cotton patch. One time he
found a mojo bone and all the kids cept me went round talkin bout him puttin a curse on his old man. I ain’t say nothin. It wont none of my business. But Headeye, he ain’t got no devil in him. I found that out.
So, I’m kickin off the clay from my toes, but mostly I’m thinkin about how to find out what’s on his mind. He’s got this notion in his head about me hoggin the luck. So I’m fakin him out, lettin him droop behind me.
Pretty soon I break off the path and head for the river. I could tell I was far enough. The river was gettin ready to bend.
I come up on a snake twistin toward the water. I was gettin ready to bust that snake’s head when a fox run across my path. Before I could turn my head back, a flock of birds hit the air pretty near scarin me half to death. When I got on down to the bank, I see somebody’s cow lopin on the levee way down the river. Then to really upshell me, here come Headeye droopin long like he had ten tons of cotton on his back.
“Headeye, what you followin me for?” I was mad.
“Ain’t nobody thinkin bout you,” he said, still comin.
“What you followin long behind me for?”
“Ain’t nobody followin you.”
“The hell you ain’t.”
“I ain’t followin you.”
“Somebody’s followin me, and I like to know who he is.”
“Maybe somebody’s followin me.”
“What you mean?”
“Just what you think.”
Headeye, he was gettin smart on me. I give him one of my looks, meanin that he’d better watch his smartness round me, cause I’d have him down eatin dirt in a minute. But he act like he got a crazy notion.
“You come this far ahead me, you must be got a call from the spirit.”
“What spirit?” I come to wonder if Headeye ain’t got to workin his mojo too much.
“Come on.”
“Wait.” I grabbed his sleeve.
He took out a little sack and started pullin out something.
“You fishin or not?” I ask him.
“Yeah, but not for the same thing. You see this bone?” Headeye, he took out that mojo, stepped back. I wasn’t scared of no ole bone, but everybody’d been talkin bout Headeye and him gettin sanctified. But he never went to church. Only his mama went. His old man only went when he sober, and that be about once or twice a year.
Dark Matter Page 31