When the door had shut behind him, Lisa rubbed her eyes and said, “All right. I need to talk to you. Macsofo, Aliniana, can your little ones play outside by themselves, without folks watching them? No, of course not, it’s too dangerous with the river—can they play in the other room by themselves, nicely?”
“Yes,” Macsofo said, his voice chilly. “But why can’t they stay here?”
“They’re little, that’s all. I have to talk about grown-up things. Children shouldn’t be burdened—”
“We share everything as a family,” Macsofo said tonelessly, and Lisa bent her head.
“Of course. You’re their daddy. Zamatryna, sweetheart, I may need you to translate again if I say things your folks can’t understand. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right,” Zamatryna said.
“Good,” Lisa said, and took a deep breath. “Thank you. All right, now, there are things I haven’t told Stan about you. He knows you don’t have papers, but he doesn’t know that nobody knows where you came from. I didn’t tell him that part. Stan likes things set and settled, you know; he doesn’t do well with anything that doesn’t fit into what he already knows. And he has this way of thinking the worst about anything he doesn’t understand: if there’s a hole in something, you know, he plugs the Devil right in there. And you folks don’t need to deal with that. You’ve had enough trouble already.”
Timbor shook his head. “Who is the Devil, please?”
“The Tempter, the one who makes evil in the world. The opposite of God and Jesus, who make everything good in the world. The Devil’s where all the bad things come from.”
“Is the Devil a Nut?” Jamfret asked, and Lisa laughed.
“Oh, sweetie, yes, the Devil’s a Nut! The first Nut, the one who gives all the others their nasty ideas. That’s very good. Stan would like that, but we’re not going to tell him we had this conversation, all right? Stan’s a good man, but there are things he doesn’t need to know. And he doesn’t need to know that you know what I’m about to tell you.” She took another deep breath, and said, “Stan met me when I was in jail. I ran with a bad crowd when I was young; I went wild after Daddy died, and Mama couldn’t do anything with me, though the good Lord knows she tried. I fell in with a motorcycle gang, and I drank too much and got into drugs, and for ten years, from sixteen to twenty-six, I had nothing in my heart but hate and despair. I don’t know why I didn’t die: that’s a miracle, I’ll tell you the truth, that I didn’t OD or get HIV from a needle or ride with somebody who drove his bike into an embankment somewhere, because believe me, I knew people who died from all of those things. And some of them were bad people and some of them were just, well, lost, you know: they wanted to be better and didn’t know how, and I still pray for all of them every day, even though it’s been twenty years since then.” She sniffled and took a drink of juice, and said to Zamatryna, “Do you understand that, honey? Do I need to say it differently?”
“We understand enough,” Harani said kindly, and reached out to pat Lisa’s arm. Zamatryna didn’t understand anything, except that Lisa was upset, but her mother would explain it to her later.
“Thank you,” Lisa said. She squeezed Harani’s hand, and went on. “So I wound up in jail on a drug possession charge. Now I can say that it was the best thing that ever happened to me, because I got off drugs in there, and I met Stan when he came in to do prison ministry, and that’s how I found the Lord. But at the time, all I knew was that I was cramped up and wouldn’t see the sun again for years, and I’d never valued fresh air until I didn’t have it anymore, and I missed my mama and hated how I’d hurt her, though I’d spit in her face often enough when I was free. I didn’t think anybody could love me, and I was amazed when Stan did, and when he asked me to be his wife when I got out I said yes in two seconds, although he was the kind of man I’d laughed at before. Stan didn’t mind how many men I’d been with before that: he just cared that my heart was washed clean in the Lord, and that I accepted Jesus as my Savior.” She stopped for a minute, and swallowed. “Stan’s an awfully good man, really he is. He’s better than he knows, I think. All he sees is his own evil, which everybody’s got, and he thinks he has to fight it to the death, that he can’t ever relax. And that’s why he’s so scared about breaking anybody’s rules, God’s or the government’s. He talks about God’s grace and forgiveness, but I don’t think he believes it. He believes it for me and for everybody else, but not for himself, not really.”
“And that’s why you didn’t tell him more about us,” Harani said. “Because we don’t fit the rules.”
Lisa bobbed her head up and down vigorously. “Yes, that’s right. Thank you for putting that so clearly. And because I—well, I’m going to break some more rules. To help you. I don’t see any way around it. You folks need papers, and if you don’t have them, we’ll have to buy them. And if you’re not from someplace the government knows about, we’ll just have to say you are, that’s all. We’ll just make up a place you’re from, because you’re here now, and that’s more important than wherever you came from.”
“And how,” Erolorit asked, “will we do this?”
“Illegally,” Lisa said, and made a face. “When I was who I used to be, twenty years ago, I knew people who sold fake papers. I can find them again, if I have to, or people like them.”
“We have no money to buy these papers,” Timbor said.
“No, of course you don’t. I have money: the money Mama left me.”
Timbor raised an eyebrow. “Stan would not like this. The money is for his church, is it not?”
“Some of it,” Lisa said crisply. “But it’s my money, like it’s my house. We were saving some of it to adopt an orphan baby: well, I’m adopting all of you instead. And no, he surely wouldn’t like it, not the illegal part. But he isn’t going to know, is he? Because none of us will tell him, right? Right, Zamatryna? Right, Jamfret and Rikko and Poliniana?”
The children just stared at her. Zamatryna, her hand over the pocket where Mim-Bim traced its constant pattern, hunched her shoulders, all happiness fled. She felt oppressed by pleas for silence; the burden of the beetle, combined with Lisa’s secrets, was more than she could stand. Knowing nothing that was safe to say, she said nothing,
Harani frowned. “Lisa, if we get these papers after having none, will Stan not know what has happened?”
“I don’t think he’ll look into it. I don’t think he’ll want to know. He just wants everything to be all right; he doesn’t want trouble. He wants everything to be normal. So we just won’t tell him about anything that isn’t normal, will we? We won’t show him any holes he can plug the Devil into.”
Macsofo shook his head. “I do not understand. Why are you doing this? It is dangerous for you, and hurtful to your marriage. A little while ago you did not even know us, and now you are lying to your husband and being illegal. You could go to jail again, yes?”
Lisa sighed. “It sounds bad when you put it that way, I have to admit. I wouldn’t lie to Stan if he asked me something straight out, but I’m not going to say anything until he does. It’s what lawyers call a technicality. You know that word, Zamatryna? No, sweetie? Well, now you do. Technicality. It’s a white lie, which is better anyway than a black one. And as for why I’m doing this—well, I’ve been praying on this for a long time, ever since I found out that you all couldn’t leave the camp. Everybody deserves a second chance. That’s what grace and forgiveness mean: that’s what Jesus came to teach us. I got my second chance in jail, when the good Lord and Stan Buttle handed me a fresh start on a platter, and now God’s given me a chance to do the same for you. So it’s my way of saying thank you.”
“You are very kind,” Timbor said, but then he shook his head. “Stan will want us to worship this Jesus, yes? And if we do not, he will plug in the Devil?”
“Well now,” Lisa said, “I hope you’ll find your way to the Lord, of course I do. Stan does too. But nobody can force that, and Stan knows it, even if sometimes he acts like he doesn�
�t, and I’d do what I’m doing anyway. I think what matters is what’s in your heart, not the words you use.” She laughed suddenly and said, “That’s another thing I don’t talk to Stan about. So listen, is everybody with the program here? What Stan doesn’t know won’t hurt him, right?” They nodded, not knowing what else to do, and Lisa said cheerfully, “Well then, if we’ve got all that settled, let’s talk about rooms. You’ll have to stay here for a while, until you can all start working and get your own place, and I want you to be comfy. So we need to talk about who wants which rooms. Have you thought about that?”
They hadn’t thought about it. Lisa, it turned out, had thought about it a great deal, and had firm ideas on the subject. There were four bedrooms and a sunroom; she thought that the two biggest bedrooms should go to the married couples, and that Timbor should take the third bedroom, and that Poliniana and Zamatryna should take the fourth, “because they’re girls and they can share. And Jamfret and Rikko can share the sunroom. It’s not a real bedroom, but it will feel like camping out, and little boys like that.”
“Timbor is the head of our family,” Erolorit said. “He must have the biggest room. Harani and I can take one of the smaller ones.”
“Nonsense,” Timbor said in their own language. “I am one person: everyone else is two. I will take whichever room is smallest.”
“I want my own room,” Zamatryna said. “I don’t want to share.” She couldn’t do it anymore, keep Mim-Bim a secret while she was sharing a room with other people. She was tired of sneaking the beetle from one pocket into another, tired of having to pretend that she wasn’t worried about what the insect meant, tired of the constant yearning to speak, to ask for help and advice. If she had a room to herself she could cry and whisper to Mim-Bim without everyone hearing her, and perhaps she’d be able to find out what the insect wanted. And surely, sometime, Mim-Bim would end its improbably long life, and then she would be free and she could share a room.
The others stared at her. “Zamatryna,” Harani said, “don’t you love your cousin?”
“Yes, I love Poliniana—Poliniana, I love you—but I want my own room! You can give me the littlest one and put Grandfather in a bigger one! I don’t care! I want my own!”
“But even if you share one with your cousin, it will be more space than either of you had in the camp, Zamatryna.” Erolorit came and knelt next to her. “And you were happy sleeping with everyone last night, weren’t you? You seemed happy.”
She couldn’t explain it to them. Oh, how she wanted to, but she couldn’t! It was against Mim-Bim’s rules, which were as incomprehensible as Stan’s or the government’s. Rage and impotence filled her until her voice came out in a screech. “I—want—my—own—room!”
Harani shook her head. “Daughter, little one, this is selfish and unkind—”
“Hush,” Timbor said sharply. “Harani, do not scold her. Zamatryna, come here.”
She went, sniffling, and he held her on his lap, as he had done in the camp after Erolorit sent Lisa away. “Lisa is right. You have had too much to do, translating, and too much to see, because you were with us when we—when we found Darroti. And so you want a place to be away from everyone, eh? It is not because you do not love us, or because you are bad. You need space to be sad in without worrying that you will make others sad, is that right?” She nodded, miserably, and put her head against his chest, where his heart went boom-boom-boom reassuringly. “All right,” Timbor said, stroking her hair. “All right, little one. That is all right. But we do not blame you for being sad. No one would blame you.”
She couldn’t explain it to him. “I want my own room,” she said in a very small voice.
“Then you shall have it,” Timbor said, and hugged her.
“How?” Erolorit held up five fingers. “Four bedrooms and a sunroom. If you have one and she has one and Poliniana has one—for if Zamatryna demands her own, Poliniana must have one too—and the twins have the sunroom, there is only one room left, and two couples. Where will everyone go?”
“This is stupid,” Harani said. “Stupid! We have more room in this house than we ever did in our tent in the camp, and only now are we fighting over it!”
“I do not need a bedroom,” Timbor said. “I will sleep in some other room, on the floor.”
“You are the head of our family!” Macsofo said. “You must not—”
“I am the head of our family, and I have spoken! I will sleep wherever I wish, and what I wish is to give up a bedroom so that Zamatryna may have one! And I will not have you deny me!”
“Don’t yell,” Zamatryna said into her grandfather’s tunic. “Please don’t yell. I’m sorry I was bad—”
“You are not bad, Zamatryna.” Timbor’s voice was gentler now. “You have been hurt. We have all been hurt. We all have different ways of healing from hurt. It is a gift to know what you need to heal, Granddaughter, and a gift to be able to ask for it. And what I need to heal is to give you what you need to heal, eh? And I am glad I can do it. Harani, Erolorit, comfort your child, who is not unkind.”
“I would rather she were unkind than in pain,” Erolorit said grimly.
“Then allow her to have what will salve her pain, and do not scold her for it!”
“Please don’t yell,” Zamatryna said, shaking. How she wanted to squash Mim-Bim! But she knew that would be wrong, truly unkind.
“What’s the matter?” Lisa said in English. She’d been watching the argument, frowning. “Why is everyone upset? Is there anything I can do?”
“Nothing,” Timbor told her crisply. “It is family business. We have settled the matter of the rooms, Lisa, and we thank you.”
And so Zamatryna, heartsick, got her own room, the smallest one. It had a wonderful view of the garden, and she asked Poliniana if she wanted the bigger of the small rooms—which had no view—or wanted the one where she could see the flowers. “You can have the flowers because you’re sad,” Poliniana said, but Zamatryna could tell that the littler girl was trying not to cry, and her heart twisted. She hugged her cousin, vowing to be as nice to her in every other way as she could, and Harani put a hand on both their heads.
“Everyone can see the flowers when we go outside. Poliniana, we will teach you about the garden, eh? Your cousin will help you learn to make things grow.”
They heard the front door open, and Lisa called cheerfully, “Stan’s back! So how’d you do with the clothing, honey? Let’s see what you found.”
He had found great piles of socks and underwear, of which he was very proud. He had overalls for Timbor and the uncles, skirts for the women, little pants for the twins. And for Poliniana and Zamatryna he had bought t-shirts and sun-dresses.
“I hope they’ll fit,” he said happily. “I thought they were real pretty, see, they have flowers on them, you girls like flowers, and this one here has ladybugs. Aren’t they cute?”
Lisa beamed. “You did real well, honey. I couldn’t have done any better myself.”
“Poliniana can have the one with the beetles,” Zamatryna said. The ladybugs reminded her too much of Mim-Bim. And looking at the sun-dresses, she was more grateful than ever that she had demanded her own room, for the dresses had no pockets. She would have to find some other place to hide her fellow exile.
5
Timbor
I would have preferred my own bedroom, because I had my own hurts to hide. But whenever I looked at Zamatryna I saw Darroti at the same age—for both were bright and headstrong, and both had Frella’s almond-shaped green eyes—and my heart twisted. Darroti had begun his life as just such a responsible, curious child, and I had missed some wound in him, with what results you know. And if his fate on the fence was not my fault, what father would not feel it was? And so I was loath to deny Zamatryna whatever she might need to mend, especially when she began to scream and cry; for she had never acted so befofe. And my feeling then was that we had all had too much to bear, and that she merely voiced what all of us carried inside.
&n
bsp; And so Zamatryna took the little room overlooking the garden, and I claimed a corner of the family room. I was most comfortable sleeping on the floor, for I found American beds too soft, but the woman Lisa found a screen for me, to make the spot more private, and cleared some clowns out of a bookcase, so I could keep my few things there. I still had my old clothes to wear in the house, because I could not bear to discard them, although I only wore American ones outside. I had my prayer carpet. I had an ivory box, a courting gift from Frella, the one treasure I had brought into exile. Inside the box was a lock of her hair. I had a box the Americans had given me, with Darroti’s ashes inside, for they had burned his body as we would have done at home. Of course his spirit was not in them, could not be, but the ashes would be fine fertilizer if we ever gained a garden of our own. I kept Darroti’s prayer carpet rolled next to mine; he had seldom used it—rarely before the Mendicant’s death, and never after—so it brought back no memories of him, but I could not bear to discard the pattern of his soul.
I had something else, too: a silk cord Darroti had worn around his neck and kept hidden under his clothing, and which the Americans had given back to me before they burned his body. On it hung a silver pendant, two circles touching at a point: what Americans would call a figure-eight. I had never seen such a symbol before, and it puzzled me, and Darroti’s brothers—who had been with me when the Americans brought the thing, with Darroti’s clothing, to our tent—knew no more about it than I did. “A bauble he bought in the market,” Macsofo said with a shrug.
“He wore few ornaments,” Erolorit answered. “It must have been precious to him, for him to have brought it here.”
“Whatever the mystery is, we will never unravel it.” Macsofo’s voice was harsh, hoarsened by the smoke we all breathed then. “Father, put that thing away. I do not want to look at it. I do not want to think about Darroti! Darroti brought this doom upon us all!”
And so I put it away, and kept it away, to spare my surviving sons. Our story might have gone very differently if I had shown it to the others, but I believed then what I had said in the camp, after Erolorit sent Lisa away: that we must all become Americans as far as possible, and cease to dwell in the past. Our job now was to help the children adapt fully to this new place, even if we never could ourselves. So I kept my little store of old things in the bookcase, and hung a blanket over the front of it, and tried to train myself not to reach behind the blanket, although at least once a week I did, despite myself. Something would remind me of Lémabantunk—the smell of roses in sunlight or the sound of the river flowing over rocks—and a great hunger for home would come over me, and I would find myself cradling in my arms the box my wife had given me. I understood then, for the first time, what Darroti’s thirst for liquor must have been, the force that drives your hands to reach for something your mind believes you should not have.
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