Paraíso

  “Oh God.” Wendy dropped her head. “You’re so evil.”

  “You think it’s mine, don’t you?” He opened the blade and tested the edge with his finger. “Christ, it’s sharp. An old cuchillo Barcelona, real quality. They don’t make them like this anymore. This comes from Spain, it probably belonged to his father.” He refolded it and returned it to his pocket. “I’ll keep it safe, don’t worry. Maybe I’ll present it to the Casa Cultura.”

  Kneeling beside my sister, I could feel my body humming like a dynamo. Surely she could feel it herself. The artery pulsing in her neck I’d seen before, in the waiting room at Briarcliffe. Felipe’s blood, seeping into the earth beside him, smelled like old brass.

  “Okay, I believe you, Marco,” I heard her say. “After all, you want to marry me, don’t you? But anyway, he told me where he wanted to be after he was … gone. Isn’t that strange?” Tears tracking her cheeks. “So he must have been planning something, mustn’t he?”

  “I’m glad you see it that way, Wendy.” Marco looked stagily relieved. “It makes me very happy. So where did he want to be? Maybe it can be arranged.”

  He didn’t remove our cuffs, but with Wendy and me on one side of the body and him on the other, we were able to lift the shoulders up onto the wooden filtering platform beside the big vat of honey. While Wendy and I kept the torso in place, Marco lifted the legs until the entire body could be rolled onto the platform. It lay face up, one arm dangling. Wendy lifted the arm gently and crossed it over the chest.

  The platform was about waist high, with a ladder at one end. “I’ll roll him in,” Marco said, turning away, putting a foot on the first step, slipping, then staggering, and ending up with the rim of the tub against the small of his back.

  No thought. Just instinct and rhythm, togetherness and action. As in a dance step, our shackled arms went over Marco’s head from behind, one on each side so the links of the shackles were across his throat. He raised his hands to grip them, but our two arms bent him backward over the rim.

  Marco’s body was now arched radically over the vat as we strained with all our strength from the opposite side. He couldn’t twist free while we forced his head back, hands clawing at the links. I was aware of my sister’s eyes, a choking sound, the humming dynamo feeling in my body, and that was about all.

  The choking stopped when the face went below the surface. Sometime after that, the body stopped straining and twisting. Finally, we removed our shackled, honey-coated hands and stared at each other like children who have just done something very bad.

  Peter and Wendy

  The key to the handcuffs was in Marco’s left trouser pocket as he lay where we’d let him slump on the bare earth near the vat. The strain of forcing his head under had stripped skin from both our cuffed wrists, and when we were free we stood there exploring the raw patches and massaging the bruises. It distracted us from looking directly at each other again.

  “You feeling okay?” My voice echoed self-consciously. “That was …”

  She just nodded. I could feel the sixteen-year-old girl I used to know flitting in and out. In and out. “Where’s the knife?”

  “In his other pocket, I guess.”

  “Can you get it?”

  Marco was lying face down. Not looking at the head, I knelt, reached into the right trouser pocket, and worked the big knife out.

  “Can I see it? Open it first, okay?”

  I checked the blade’s edge with my finger the way Marco had and handed it to my sister, handle first.

  The blade caught the dim light as she turned the knife slowly. “It is sharp, isn’t it?”

  “You think Felipe cut his own throat? Why would he do that?”

  “Like Marco said. Because of a woman. Because of me. He was tempted, and it was my fault. I did it. I tempted him. I couldn’t help it.”

  “So he killed himself? Wendy, it’s too weird. Listen, I don’t think the knife was Felipe’s. That’s not a beekeeper’s knife. Marco was lying.”

  “A lot of weird things happen in this world, Peter. A lot of weird people … That’s one thing I’ve learned after all these years.” Glaring at me. “I’ve met my share, you know, but Felipe was only trying to save my honor. And that’s the weirdest thing of all, isn’t it?”

  I couldn’t look at her anymore. She hurled the knife away, sat down with her back against the wall, and rested her head on her knees.

  It was time to make a move. She insisted on taking Felipe’s upper body, though it was much heavier, while I got the legs. Never looking up as we inched him to the edge of the platform over the honey vat.

  So that he’d lie face up, the upper body needed to go in first, but when I came to help she’d already started. “Just hold his feet straight.” The artery on her neck pulsing as she strained to move the weight. The left arm went in, then the shoulders. The honey slowly closed over the face and sealed the wound on his throat. “Now.” Breathlessly. “For God’s sake hold him straight.” Breathless myself, twisting the legs so the torso stayed face up, I performed my task. The body was absorbed millimeter by millimeter.

  “All right?”

  Was Felipe smiling?

  She didn’t answer. Kneeling on the platform, staring down, thick hair obscuring her face. I left her there, climbed down the ladder, and headed for the door.

  On the way out, my foot struck something that skittered glinting into the light through the doorway. The open knife. I picked it up and carried it outside into the afternoon sun.

  Now I could see the trademark stamped into the flange of the blade: SCHRADE. So the knife wasn’t from Barcelona after all, and probably not that old. Like my sister had before me, I turned it over and over in my hands and finally noticed faint spidery italic letters engraved into one of the silver caps: MW 1982.

  So I’d been right. A present, probably, from his father or something. Marco had been lying.

  When I went back into the shed, she hadn’t moved, still kneeling by the honey tub staring down. I climbed the ladder and touched her shoulder. “Wendy. Please come outside. I have to show you something.”

  She showed her teeth when she turned her face. “Get your hand off me.”

  “Wendy, you were wrong. I can show you.”

  “You fuck. Is that why you came here? To tell me I’m wrong again?”

  I waved the knife. “No, for Christ’s sake. This is what you were wrong about. This. Just come out into the sun while it’s still bright enough to see.”

  She got slowly to her feet. Outside, when I showed her the initials and offered her the knife, she wouldn’t touch it. “Oh, Felipe,” she whispered finally. “Thank God.”

  There was a shovel inside Felipe’s cabin, and I used it to dig a shallow grave in the soft soil at the edge of the meadow. By the time we put Marco’s body into it and filled in the earth, it was too late to begin the trip down. The sun was hanging in the tops of the big pines, and the bees seemed louder than ever … unless the sound was inside my head, I was so exhausted.

  “Sure you’re okay?” I asked my sister again.

  “Okay, I think.”

  She sank into the long grass in the last remaining patch of sun, feet stretched out in front of her, braced on her arms, looking ahead at nothing. The buzzing continued.

  After a while I sat down beside her, copying her position. Neither of us spoke for a long time. It helped to be more tired than I’d ever been before. “You know there was a fire at school,” I said finally, facing straight ahead.

  “What?”

  “In case you were wondering why I came.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her shake her head. “I wasn’t wondering. I was just being very thankful.” Now she turned to look at me with a little smile. “Thank you for coming, Peter.”

  I turned to look back. “I’m glad I got here in time.”

  She reached out and closed her hand softly over mine. We sat that way while the evening came slowly down.

  “Now
that you mention it,” she said into the dusk, “how did you happen to come? A fire at school? What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you remember? That’s why we ran away in the first place.”

  Her fingers tightened. “My God, you’re right. It seems like another lifetime.”

  “Well, there was another fire. In New York. I heard you were trying to reach me.”

  “Claire must have told you, right?”

  “Yes. She was the first person I called after the towers fell. Then I went to see her. She told me where you were.”

  Drawing her hand back. “Did you two get it on? Is that why she told you?”

  “Of course not. I think she felt sorry for me.”

  “Why?”

  “I think you know.”

  “She always had a crush on you. She refused to believe you ratted on me.”

  “Well, she’s right, goddamn it. I never did rat.”

  She finally turned toward me. I turned to face her and she shook her head sadly. “Oh, Peter. You wrote so many letters about that.”

  “Which you never answered. I wasn’t sure you ever got them. Or read them. Anyway, Claire told me why you thought I’d done it.”

  She just waited.

  “Because our mother said I had, right? And you believed her.”

  “Look.” Turning away again. “It had to have been you. You were the only person who knew, other than Karl and me.”

  “No, Wendy. No. It was awful, what Reiger was doing. But I never would have betrayed you.”

  “How do you know what Karl was doing?”

  I thought of Ellen’s face, just before the hot sake. “Well, I don’t. Of course I don’t. All I know is that you were in love with him. Weren’t you?”

  In a whisper. “Yes.”

  “Well, wasn’t he, um …?”

  “Fucking me? Taking advantage of me? Actually, if you want to know the truth, I enjoyed a lot of it.” She rested a hand on her belly, sighed, and turned my way again. “Peter? Let’s just go on from here?”

  “Are you forgiving me? Well, thanks, but there’s nothing to forgive. Our mother was lying.” I hated the whining sound that had come into my voice. “There must have been somebody else who knew. Can’t you remember?”

  “Peter, I’ve spent twenty years trying to forget all that. I hated our mother, but why would she lie? What would she get out of it?”

  “Well, here’s my take, and I promise I’ll never talk about it again. She wanted to separate us … for good. And when she realized how successful she’d been, she drove in front of a truck.” My sister slowly got to her feet without saying a word and walked out into the darkening meadow, long yellow grass rising up around her. I watched her as she receded and finally was lost in the pine trees on the other side.

  Gone. I struggled up to run after her and suddenly understood that she’d be back. And that nothing else mattered.

  Our mother had failed. We were together. I arched my back, tilted my head to search the sky. Still too early for stars. Then I put my hands in my pockets and sauntered slowly in the opposite direction from my sister, toward Felipe’s cabin looming in the dusk.

  I climbed the rickety stairs and pulled the creaky door open for the second time that day. Lit the kerosene lantern on the shelf with the matches that were beside it. Filled the woodstove with dry twigs from the kindling pile and a few pieces of mesquite leña on top and lit them too. Filled a pot with water from the clay jar and put it on the grill. On the sideboard were some potatoes and greens that looked like broccoli rabe that Felipe must have gathered earlier, and I started to work on them.

  The buzzing outside had stopped. Through the window above the sink, I could dimly see a quail pecking at seeds in the yard, topknot bobbing. Everything fitted. I’d come out the other side of tiredness into a vast comfort.

  First Star on the Right

  Framed by the window, I could see my sister slowly approach the quail, squat down, hold out a finger. She seemed to be glowing in the reddening gloom. Time stopped. Her hair hid her face. The quail watched her without moving. It was a tableau, a still life full of meaning. I held my breath.

  At the last minute, the quail hopped aboard. I breathed out, then in.

  She gently carried it in through the open door. “What are we going to do?” Smiling anxiously. “Isn’t it past his bedtime?” The quail looked from one to the other of us with his bright black eyes, topknot bobbing.

  “Is it Felipe’s? What’s his name?”

  “Felipe didn’t know. But he said he has one.”

  “Huh. Probably John.” My favorite Lost Boy.

  “Why John? That’s not even Spanish.” She started searching the cabin. “Well, now it’s up to us to feed him. Got to be something around.”

  There was indeed a loaf of stale bread on one of the shelves. Wendy broke it into crumbs and scattered them on the floor. “Wow, look at that. He was hungry.”

  “I bet you’re hungry yourself,” I said. “I know I am.”

  She walked to stove and looked into the steaming pot. “I’m starving. Let’s eat, for Christ’s sake. Then we can tell each other the story of our lives.”

  “Okay. Or maybe we can just skip that part.”

  Laughing felt terrific.

  “Yeah! Why don’t we just skip it. Great idea.”

  I watched her sit on the rough wooden cot and look around absently at first, then more and more sharply. The cabin. The kerosene lamp. The quail pecking on the crumbs. The water boiling on the stove, me working on the greens. She gave a little cry, put a hand over her eyes.

  “Wendy! What is it? What’s wrong?” Had I said those exact words before, in exactly the same tone of voice?

  I could barely hear her answer: “I just had a flash. You know, a déjà vu. Being here in this cabin with you.”

  Slowly, carefully putting down the chopping knife as she dropped her hands and stared back. “Really?” I shook my head, not because I didn’t believe her. I might have been smiling.

  She didn’t smile back. “I wouldn’t lie to you, Peter. I have them all the time, but this was a doozy. Super dooper. What do you think it means?”

  “Well, some people say it’s the soul hiccupping.”

  “Don’t be so goddamn patronizing.”

  “Okay. Maybe it would have happened before if we’d actually made it.”

  “Well. Nice thought.”

  “A déjà vu of possibility?” Now I was grinning. “Take it another step. Maybe this is the place we were trying to get to.”

  “God! Wouldn’t that be something!”

  I’d said the right thing. In fact, maybe I actually believed it. With pupils expanded so her eyes looked black, she was taking me in as if she’d never seen me before.

  After we finished eating, the quail flew up to spend the night on a rafter. It was that time. We silently watched it ruffle its feathers, fluff itself out, and tuck its head under a wing. My sister giggled. “Flip for the cot?” We used to flip for things a lot.

  I felt in my pockets, grinning. “No change. You go ahead and take it.”

  “Poor Peter. What are you going to do?”

  “Looks like there’s two blankets. I’ll take one. I’m so tired I could sleep on a bed of nails.”

  She handed me the extra blanket, lay on her side on the cot, and pulled the other over her, watching me spread mine on the floor, put another log on the woodstove, blow out the kerosene lantern.

  I lay down on my back, wrapping myself in the rest of the blanket. The mesquite popped in the stove, and the flame flickered. I could hear my sister breathing, she was so close. Just a few feet away, in fact.

  Her name came out on one of my own breaths. As natural as that.

  “I’m here,” she whispered.

  “Are you really?”

  “Yes, Peter.” She stretched out her arm, and I groped for her hand and held it for the second time that day.

  “We made it. It’s real this time. Isn’t it
?”

  “I think so.”

  A couple of beats. “And are you really pregnant?”

  “You mean, am I going to go through with it?”

  “I guess that’s what I mean.”

  “Looks that way. Actually, I want to.”

  “Okay…. Can I help?”

  “Yes.” She squeezed my hand and let it go. “Please.”

  “All right.”

  A searing image slowly came into focus. I had to go on. “Speaking of pregnancy, can I tell you a very strange story about our mother?”

  A long silence, and a feeling of falling. Had I blown it?

  Finally: “Do you really have to?”

  “No, I don’t have to.”

  “But you want to. You need to.”

  “Yes.”

  “Go ahead, then. Tell me.”

  “Okay.” I breathed in. “You know when our mother was pregnant with you, I was only two. But I have this one strong memory. We were sitting on the sofa in her sitting room. She was wearing a blue top with white polka dots and buttons down the front. I was rolling a toy truck down her belly and then slowly she unbuttoned the top and offered me a boob.”

  “A boob?” Strangely, she didn’t sound surprised. “Okay. Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it didn’t stop. After you were born, she nursed me instead of you. I got the milk that you were supposed to have.”

  “How long did that go on?”

  “I don’t know. Years, maybe.”

  “Yeah.” I heard her sigh. “Yeah.”

  “What?”

  “I knew that, on some level. But thanks for telling me.” A slow beat of five. “And now can I tell you a story about our mother?”

  Oh God. “Of course.” Did she notice I could hardly get the words out?

  “Do you remember walking in on us, me, in my bathroom when I was about six?”

  “Yes, I do.” So here it was. “I do. I can’t get it out of my mind.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Well … it was so steamy I could barely see anything.”

  “But did you see what was happening?”

  “No! At least I don’t think so. I can never get it straight.” I turned away from her, toward the window. Now it was pitch dark outside, and through the open window I could see a single bright star showing above the pines. “You were lying on that white wooden table. She was somewhere in the background. That’s all I remember for sure.”