Black Rainbow

by Miriam Sagan

  “How many miles to Babylon?” she sang,

  “Stop it.”

  “Yes and back again.”

  “That isn’t an answer,” I said. “Not a real answer, not anymore than this place is a real place. Come on, Monique, this whole thing is ridiculous, it’s stupid, you can’t stay here. I’m taking you away from here. We’re going home now. You’ve got to come with me.”

  The crowd rustled.

  “Oh no,” said Monique, “I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going anywhere with you. Don’t even think about it.”

  “Yes, you are. This place is a dream. This place doesn’t really exist. Babylon isn’t some kind of ziggurat by the East River; it’s just a warehouse or a weird Fillmore type thing or something. By daylight I bet it is nothing to look at, nothing at all.”

  “This is the realest place I’ve ever been,” said Monique.

  “Are you on drugs or something? You’re probably just on drugs. Maybe I’m on drugs too, something pumped in through the air vents that makes me think this room is bigger on the inside than on the outside. But I know it’s just a dream. And I’m taking you out of the dream. I’m taking you back to New Jersey.”

  “New Jersey?”

  “Your mother…your father…school…remember?’

  “New Jersey is a dream,” said Monique.

  I thought maybe I should hit her again, but it hadn’t worked very well the first time. “Come on,” I said, “let’s go.”

  “No.” She stamped her foot. “I’m not going anywhere. I like it here. I feel special. People here think I can sing, they think I should be the lead singer in a band. I didn’t even know I could sing until I got here. I never even tried. Besides, I’m not going back to that prison, to that school where they try to control us every second of the day and make us kneel down in the corridor to measure our skirts to see if they are an inch too high. I was probably going to end up getting expelled anyway. I hated it so much. No one understood; not even you. But you hated it too, didn’t you? You never liked it. I’m surprised you’d want to go back there yourself. Why don’t you just stay here with Michael?”

  “I have to go back,” said Michael. I had almost forgotten about him.

  “Why?”

  We walked off a little way together to talk. “Winter break is almost over,” he admitted. “I have to go back to school.”

  This was the first I had heard that he was on vacation. “You mean you didn’t run away from home?”

  “I didn’t exactly run away, but I’m sure I’m still in deep trouble.”

  “Do your parents know where you are?”

  “They’re in Europe. I left a note for the housekeeper saying I’d gone to visit friends and that I’d be back when school starts.”

  “I feel like you lied to me. Here I am, I put my whole life on the line for this thing, to find Monique, and the whole time you’ve just been on vacation. You’ve been some kind of tourist.”

  “Rania, you know that isn’t true.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look, I came with you, I helped you. I wanted to be with you.”

  “So don’t go back.”

  “I have to. I have to keep up my average. Besides, we can’t live like this; this is no real way to live. Anyway, I kind of like school.”

  “Fuck.” I looked up to where the ceiling should be and saw the cold cold stars overhead.

  Michael leaned over and whispered in my ear, “She won’t come, Rania. You have to face it. You’re going to have to leave her here. She wants to stay. Nothing you can do can change that.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. She’s not your best friend in the world.”

  “She’s not acting much like your best friend.”

  “Maybe you’re right.”

  “So let’s go.”

  “Where? It’s the middle of the night. At least it was the middle of the night when we came in, although it is hard to judge in this weird place.”

  “I know where we can go.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “We could go back to my apartment; I mean my parents’ apartment. No one’s there. We could take a shower and I’m sure there’s good stuff to eat, and we could, like, you know, sleep together in the same bed.”

  “When I think of all the trouble I’m in and you and Monique don’t even care.”

  “We could take a bath.”

  I looked down. The bonfire was still burning on the floor. “Maybe. But I have to try one more time.”

  The weird crowd with its leather and feathered headbands clustered close around Monique. Her eyes refused to meet mine.

  “Monique?”

  “Hey,” someone yelled, “you can’t have her. She’s ours! She’s our queen!”

  “Yeah,” said someone else. “She’s the Queen of the Gypsies!” Everyone started to cheer. Monique smiled graciously.

  “Asshole,” I said to her. “This is your last chance, your very last chance to decide to come with me.”

  “So get lost.”

  Suddenly, I felt like crying. “Will I see you again?”

  “Maybe,” she said. “Maybe when I’m famous.”

  I turned to go. I didn’t say good bye. Michael was already standing by the door.

  She called out as if she couldn’t help herself: “Rania!”

  “Yes?”

  “The forfeit. You haven’t paid the forfeit.”

  “What forfeit?”

  “The forfeit to get into Babylon. You haven’t paid.”

  I turned around and looked into her eyes. Tonight they seemed a milky blue, ringed with black, as if she were a wild creature, a skunk, raccoon, or opossum.

  “No.”

  “Yes,” she said. I walked towards her. She had done this to me once before, the day we met. Now we were saying good-bye.

  Monique’s lips were warm on mine. She slid her tongue into my mouth. The kiss promised other rooms, rooms hidden away behind this one, rooms full of meadows and the sea.

  I broke away first. I didn’t look back this time. If I turned back, I would be lost.

  Monique did not call my name again. I could hear her humming into the microphone, warming up for another song. The crowd around her was stirring into a dance. I didn’t care what her voice promised. Michael put his hand on the inside doorknob, opened it, and I followed him out of the Gypsy camp.

  CHAPTER 24

  WHEN WE OPENED THE DOOR, we were no longer in Babylon. We were on a fire escape, high in the sky. I looked through the metal grating. It was a long way down, ladders broken by landings. Dawn was breaking over the East River. The air smelled cool and fresh, as if after a rain. Pigeons cooed. Behind us the skyscrapers turned blue and calm with morning, flat against the sky.

  There was no help for it but to climb down. Michael went first, agile on the ladders, stopping to wait for me. My hands were cold on the metal rungs, but I went on, descending. At the last fire escape the ladder ended in air a few feet from the pavement. I jumped and found myself on solid ground.

  We walked north, then west, then north again. Finally we hailed a Gypsy cab, without a medallion or meter. The driver was an Ethiopian who spoke an elegant English and charged us nine dollars to take us to midtown. I paid and over-tipped him. I was grateful he hadn’t killed us for our wallets and dumped us in the river. I had been warned many times not to take a Gypsy cab.

  Even the lobby of Michael’s parents’ apartment had a settled prosperous look. Grace would have approved; it was not too fancy, just nice. In the mirror of the elevator, my reflection shocked me. My hair was filthy, and my eyes stared white and haunted out of a dirty face. Michael looked just as grubby, but he was visibly relaxing on his home turf. The hallway of the apartment smelled of lemon polish and was lined with expensive-looking modern engravings and paintings. The whole place was thickly carpeted and had the veneer of temporary silence. The view from the window showed the tops of the bare trees of the park.

  There were two bathrooms. I chose th
e one with black tile and pink shag mat. Then I stripped off my clothes and stood under the hot shower. I could feel the grit and slime wash off me and flow down the drain. I scrubbed myself with a strong white soap, rinsing my crotch, my armpits, and my face over and over.

  Michael was in his bedroom, naked, hair wet. He had a single bed with an orange spread and on his desk was a model airplane, a pile of chemistry books, and a sheet of blotter acid printed with individual American flags.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Boy, am I tired. I didn’t know you could be this tired and live.”

  “We’ve got a right to be tired.”

  “Have we ever.”

  “It seems as if we’ve been gone for years or something, doesn’t it?”

  “Less than three days.”

  “I know. Unbelievable.” He pulled down the bedspread and we crawled in together. I wondered if this was what it was like to be married.

  We woke up around noon. Michael pulled on a pair of clean jeans and went into the kitchen. It looked like Grace’s kitchen at home: yellow with bright linoleum, some hanging baskets full of onions and apples, a framed Chagall poster on the wall. Michael cooked us omelets. He used lots and lots of pans but they were pretty good, with scallions and sour cream. We each ate six pieces of bacon three pieces of toasted rye bread, and drank two glasses of orange juice. Then I looked in the refrigerator and helped myself to some pickled mushroom caps and a glass of ginger ale. Michael ate a bagel, and a little later made himself a hot dog. By then we weren’t quite so hungry.

  We got back into bed without doing the dishes and made love. Michael smelled like shampoo and sperm. He paid a lot of attention to me, as if worried he wouldn’t see me again for a long time.

  It was not the last time we would make love, far from it. And for many years, I would confuse love with the sensation of rainy streets and the soot of pigeon feathers. I didn’t know then, or for a long time afterward, that I would eventually leave Michael and break his heart. All through the rest of high school I thought I would marry him, but in college I left him for someone who hadn’t seen me slap Monique’s face so hard or descend the ladders outside Babylon empty-handed, without the one thing I had come for. My innocence and my stupidity about love were as vast as a prayer. It kept me safe from harm. I thought that sex was love, and that a boy was sex, and that a boy had no more heart than I had. But I was wrong.

  The afternoon wore on. Michael’s parents were due back from the airport after dinner. “I hate to say this, Rania, but you really better go. I’ll invite you over next weekend or something and introduce you properly.”

  “You’re right. This looks way too suspicious. You better make the bed and put the guest towels in the laundry.”

  “Yeah. And I’ve got tons and tons of homework. I won’t be able to really catch up, but if I start now I can fake it.”

  “Okay. Good-bye. I’m out of here.”

  “Don’t you want to call your parents?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Aren’t you going home?”

  It hadn’t even occurred to me what to do next.

  “Call them,” he said, and left me alone in the room with the white princess phone.

  I dialed. Grace answered on the second ring.

  “Hello?”

  All I could do was breathe.

  “Hello? Who is this?”

  I kept on breathing.

  “Rania, is that you? We’re so worried. Are you there? Are you all right?”

  “It’s me.”

  “Are you all right? Can we come get you? Where are you?”

  “I’m fine, I’m fine.”

  “Where are you, Rania?

  “Tell Dad I’m fine, too.”

  “Rania! Rania!”

  “I found Monique,” I said. “But she won’t come with me. She isn’t coming home.”

  “Damn Monique,” said Grace. “I want you. We want you. Just come home, Rania. Can’t you tell me where…”

  “I’ll come home soon,” I said. “I promise. There’s just something else I have to do.”

  “Rania, don’t go, don’t…”

  “Just tell Dad I’m fine.”

  “I love you,” said Grace.

  “I love you, too,” I hung up the receiver with a click.

  Michael smiled at me when I got off the phone. “I’m going to miss you, Rania. You want to try and get together next weekend?”

  “Sure.”

  “Give me a kiss before you go.”

  I blew him one.

  “A real kiss.”

  I came over and kissed him on the lips, gently but firmly.

  “Good-bye for now,” said Michael.

  “Good-bye for now.” Then I headed out alone for the street.

  CHAPTER 25

  Mary Rose

  THE RIO GRANDE GORGE lay like a jagged serpent, a dragon that had burned a comet across the sky and fallen hard, cutting to bedrock. The river itself foamed, narrow, intense, its water marked for cattle, beans, chile, and corn downstream. Mary Rose crossed the bridge to the east bank of the river below Taos. She settled in Pilar, a place between the low road and the river, an unassuming meeting of sagebrush and owls, Spanish-speaking neighbors and a general store.

  She bought a parcel of land with a well. She added a trailer, wide-bodied and secondhand. She got a job in Hot Springs. Every day she crossed the gorge to work at the ancient healing waters. Mineral water bubbled from the earth full of arsenic, good for the complexion, and lithia, good for the nerves. She worked as an attendant, holding open towels, wrapping the patrons in faded wool blankets as they lay down on slabs after the steaming baths.

  It was there that Mary Rose realized she could read palms. She picked up the damp hand of a plump lady and asked if she had come into money recently. Yes indeed, the lady confessed happily; her aunt had died back in Minnesota and left her a tidy sum.

  Mary Rose hung up a sign in the window of her trailer and did a slow business in fortunes about man trouble, health problems, lifelines, wart removal. The few books she studied from the public library told her nothing she didn’t already know. She was a good reader, but she kept the job at the Springs. Tips were generous, and she had seen some arthritis cured.

  Mary Rose looked at her own palm. She saw one marriage, a short one. She saw the house she was born in, pink-washed, with planters of geraniums and miniature pansies. She saw Albuquerque, New Mexico, from the air. She saw the dead woman with a mouthful of snails and a wound full of ravens. She saw Petra Rae sitting on a stone bench in the garden of the hospital. She saw Bud in a tower as airplanes landed effortless as geese. She saw Brother Xavier holding up an enormous rainbow trout.

  Mary Rose saw a black rainbow in a cloudless sky. It was a double rainbow. It cast a shadow. In her palm, she saw the girl Rania coming towards her.

  CHAPTER 26

  IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON, almost evening. For the first time in months, there was not a hint of moisture in the sky. I thought about coffee, but this was one of those solid residential neighborhoods without so much as a hot dog cart.

  I sat down on a cold metal bench and pulled the envelope that the fortune-teller had given me out of my pocket. Inside was a square piece of paper. On the paper was a hand-drawn map. It started with my park bench, and then arrows led to La Guardia airport. After that, there was a path from Albuquerque, New Mexico, to that place called Pilar. Pigeons fluttered by. It was going to be dark soon. It was still winter here, but it must be warmer in New Mexico. I just wasn’t going to go back to New Jersey without Monique. My mother was dead. I was going to find the woman who had killed her. A yellow taxi turned the corner, and I hailed it.

  “Where to, little lady?”

  “La Guardia.” I settled back into the seat.

  “Say, where are you going?”

  “New Mexico,” I said. “I’m going to New Mexico to see my mother.”

  At the ticket counter, I found a flight leaving for Albuquerq
ue the next morning. I paid for it by fishing money out of my boot, somewhat embarrassed by how it looked and smelled. But it was still real money, and the agent handed me a ticket in exchange.

  I slept that night wrapped in my coat, first in a chair, then in a corner. No one disturbed me. By breakfast, the concessions had opened and I ate a sweet roll and a cup of coffee. I boarded the plane, and it lifted off into a pale sky. The Manhattan skyline melted away. We stopped in Chicago, but I didn’t have to change planes.

  Over flat plains that might have been Kansas, I saw a double rainbow, an arc rising out of a rainstorm that never hit earth, water droplets falling from twenty thousand feet to ten thousand feet, but steaming off before they hit the earth below. The double rainbow formed a gateway I could enter, because unlike ordinary people, I had more than one mother. I was a person with two bodies, like a pair of Siamese twins, joined to something I hadn’t chosen. The double rainbow had two arcs. One held the colors that Noah saw, and one was black as my throat when I swallowed the love bead.

  We passed through the rain. Now mountains appeared in the earth, stark and lumpy, rising up as if towards me personally. The airplane landed in a headwind. It gave a bounce, and then did a wheelie on the runway before it leveled to a stop. Mountains rose on all sides. There were gods and spirits here I didn’t understand, too many gods for comfort.

  Off the plane, I scanned the gate, but of course no one was waiting for me. I was a stranger. The walls of the airport were covered in tiled mosaics of masked gods, men who were animals, animals who danced. I had only my carry-on luggage. I went to the first phone booth I saw and opened the telephone directory. In the Yellow Pages, I looked under Rugs and Rug Repair, scanning for names that sounded Armenian. Someone must have once told me to do this—Grace or my grandmother—to look for Armenians if I was ever lost. I hit luck in the Ds with Deukjamian and the Ns with Najarian. But the Deukjamians had two initials and the Najarian had only one. What if Mr. Najarian was a creepy old man in an apartment that smelled of drains? I took a thin dime out of my pocket and dialed the Deukjamian’s number.