After the War: A Novella of the Golden City

by J. Kathleen Cheney

  

  With Roberto guarding his back again, Alejandro made his way to the police station. Unfortunately, Rafael wasn’t there to discuss Alejandro’s questions about his gift. He was off chasing down a witch who’d left a large spell circle in a public square in Matosinhos during the previous night. A mystery, since no one had seen it done.

  So instead Alejandro sat down between Gaspar and Roberto while Markovich prepared a talisman to remove the curse—the hex.

  The Lady stood close by, watching every movement of the man’s fingers. He clutched a Bible in one hand and lit a bunch of herbs. He let the smoke from them drift around a playing card he’d clamped into a stand, reciting verses in English. Alejandro vaguely recognized the words, but couldn’t place them. Probably Psalms, given the cadence.

  After a time, Alejandro decided Markovich was repeating himself. “What is he doing?” he asked Gaspar in a whisper.

  “So far it looks benign to me. Protective. That’s not the man’s natural inclination, so it’s not going to be terribly strong but . . . it might work.”

  Gaspar saw things. From what Alejandro understood, he sensed everything magical, like an added layer of sight or smell or sound. “So why the playing card?”

  “The object doesn’t truly matter,” Gaspar answered. “It must have significance to him. That allows him to bind the curse to an object rather than passing the curse off via touch.”

  A trouble thought occurred to Alejandro. “Could he not have just sent me that in the post?”

  Gaspar chuckled. “He still has to be in line of sight when it is . . . actualized.”

  “Why, sir?” Roberto asked, the first time he’d spoken.

  “Limits. It keeps any of us from ruling the world,” Gaspar said. “Me, I’m limited to seeing what is, not what can be. As a seer, Alejandro is limited by his guilt. If ever a seer is born without a conscience, we would all be doomed.”

  “Guilt over what?” Roberto asked, thick brows drawn together.

  “Guilt over what he can and cannot prevent. A seer must continually balance whether an action will result in harm to someone else. Sometimes that guilt is overwhelming. Sometimes they decide who lives and who dies.”

  Roberto turned his gaze on Alejandro. “You went to Flanders to prevent the battle, didn’t you?”

  That had been behind all the letters he’d apparently written to politicians. Behind his numerous complaints to superior officers about the Second Division’s ragged state. He’d failed, and people like Roberto had paid the price for his failure. He felt sick to his stomach.

  It seemed like the entire world flared into sharp detail around Alejandro. The hiss and pop of the burning herbs, their heady scent, the words that Markovich clicked off in English, far more guttural than Portuguese. “I don’t want to do this.”

  Laying one hand on Markovich’s arm, Mrs. Gaspar regarded Alejandro with one slender eyebrow quirked upward. “Your concerns?”

  “I don’t want to remember,” Alejandro admitted.

  Markovich dropped the burning bundle of herbs on the tiled floor and stomped on it. “I’ve come a long way to end this, Ferreira.”

  The air in the room suddenly felt scorched, dry in his lungs. Alejandro held his breath.

  Gaspar faced the Englishman. “Are you threatening him? We already have your confession that you hexed him. I have enough to turn you over to our government at this point. And don’t think you can curse me, English.”

  That was why Gaspar was here rather than Joaquim—Gaspar was immune to magic. And Markovich couldn’t curse the Lady either, since she wasn’t entirely human. Any curse he laid on her would apparently go awry. Roberto was at risk, though. Alejandro rose and put himself between the footman and Markovich.

  Markovich’s attention was on Gaspar, though. In a peeved tone, jaw clenching, Markovich asked, “Want to try it, old man?”

  Gaspar folded his arms across his chest.

  “He’s valuable to the English government, Uncle,” Alejandro said. A maledictor would be, to any government.

  Of course, Gaspar knew that. He was merely trying to get a reaction out of Markovich.

  But Alejandro knew now why he’d let Markovich hex him, why he’d been there in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, for his purposes . . . the right place and the right time.

  He’d wanted his gift gone, his memories gone. This was completely voluntary.

  Because he couldn’t live with the anguish of being unable to stop the Battle of La Lys, the hundreds of Portuguese dead, the thousands taken prisoner.

  He’d been able to change events in Angola, stopping the bombings of the Angolan barracks and saving lives there. He’d made a difference.

  But he hadn’t been able to stop La Lys.

  Rafael and Joaquim and Duilio hadn’t either.

  None of the seers of the Jesuit brotherhood in Lisboa had.

  Alejandro got to his feet. “Anything else I can do to help you, I will,” he told the Englishman, throat tight, “but I don’t want to be the man I was before.”

  Markovich grabbed the card out of its wire holder and threw it onto the floor. He took a quick breath, almost spoke, and slapped a hand over his mouth.

  Gaspar jumped in front of Alejandro. “Hold your tongue, man!”

  Too late. Alejandro felt his guts twitch as Markovich visibly struggled to control his anger, his shoulders hunched and his hand clamped over his mouth. But sounds still leaked past his fingers as if they had a life of their own. Alejandro fell to his knees, his innards suddenly afire, and retched up what little breakfast he’d had.

  Chapter 4

  * * *

  Saturday, 26 June 1920

  ALEJANDRO CLUTCHED his gut in agony but, as abruptly as it had begun, the twisting of his innards ceased. For a moment he lay there, disbelieving. Then he worked himself onto his hands and knees and gasped in air as the others clamored around him. Sweat dripped from his hair, stinging his eyes as he looked up.

  The Lady stood between him and Markovich, her hands held wide. She was blocking the curse by creating a glamour and making Alejandro unseen. Line of sight.

  Her husband stood behind her, a second, physical block since Gaspar was immune to magic.

  Alejandro coughed. They had put themselves between him and the curse. They’d defeated a maledictor. “You stopped him.”

  The Lady glanced down at him. “To be honest, I’ve no idea if that would have worked,” she said, pointing, “but that did.”

  Past her skirts, Alejandro saw Markovich lying on the ground unconscious. Roberto stood over him, rubbing the reddened knuckles of one hand in the other, jaw clenched in fury.

  Alejandro coughed, then lay back on the floor and thanked God he wasn’t inside out. “Thanks, Roberto,” he croaked.

  

  Isabella Anjos held one hand to Alejandro’s throat, her eyes closed. The pretty young woman was only sixteen or seventeen, with dark blond hair worn cropped short in the current fashion. Her uniform reminded him of a novice at a monastery, but instead of black, the dress under the white apron was the blue of the Special Police. That she was a healer explained her tutelage here under the senior healers gathered at the military hospital across the street from the Special Police’s station. It kept the healers both within easy reach of the Special Police, and at a hospital where they might aid the doctors.

  Inspector Gaspar had dragged Markovich to a hospital room there until the Englishman should regain consciousness. He’d ordered Alejandro to find the healers . . . just to make certain Markovich hadn’t done anything permanent to him. Upon spotting him, Mrs. Pinheiro—his cousin Rafael’s wife—directed him to a small whitewashed room and ordered him to wait while she fetched in her pupil.

  Apparently Alejandro knew the girl. Her parents too, although they’d both died during the Great War. Given the warning look Mrs. Pinheiro cast his way, he didn’t ask how or where. That was the sort of question one asked another soldier or a close friend, not a
n orphaned child.

  After a short time, the girl opened her eyes and lifted her hand from Alejandro’s throat. “You’ll be fine, Mr. Ferreira.”

  Evidently they weren’t friendly enough for her to use his given name as everyone else did.

  No matter what this girl said, his head hurt and his guts felt unsettled. “Thank you,” he said anyway.

  She rose from her bedside chair and gazed down at him, dislike now apparent in the hard set of her delicate jaw. “Why haven’t you gone to see Miguel?”

  Mrs. Pinheiro took a breath and appeared ready to intervene, but then changed her mind. Perhaps she wanted that answer as well. She was, after all, Miguel’s mother.

  Alejandro gazed up at Miss Anjos. “I can’t remember. I don’t know what he and I fought about.”

  “So I hear,” she said in a dry voice. Her hand balled into a fist.

  “Isabella,” Mrs. Pinheiro said softly, “control.”

  The fist at the girl’s side slackened, but Alejandro didn’t make the mistake of thinking she was in charity with him. “Whatever happened between Miguel and me, Miss Anjos, I’m willing to atone for it. I am sorry that we fought, even though I do not know why.”

  “You called him a cripple! How dared you say such a thing?”

  Alejandro found himself blinking in a stupid fashion. Why would I have. . . ?

  Mrs. Pinheiro set a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Would Miguel appreciate your interference, Isabella?”

  The girl’s jaw firmed again, her glare never lifting from Alejandro. “No.”

  Mrs. Pinheiro’s intercession had given Alejandro time to gather his thoughts. “I’ve been meaning to come to your house to talk to him,” he said quickly, “only I’ve been distracted by that Englishman for the last couple of days.”

  “He has his own flat,” Mrs. Pinheiro said. “It wouldn’t be appropriate for Miguel to live with us while Isabella is doing so.”

  The Pinheiros had three sons, all adopted, if Alejandro recalled his family chart correctly. While Miguel was close in age to Alejandro, the two younger ones would be near Isabella’s age. If they could be trusted around her but Miguel couldn’t, there must be something between the two of them.

  “No one has mentioned to me that he doesn’t live at your house,” Alejandro clarified. “Not even my wife. That explains why I haven’t seen him there when I’ve gone to meet with your husband.”

  Mrs. Pinheiro tapped Isabella on the shoulder. “Why don’t you go back to Miss Prieto now?”

  Isabella obeyed, straight nose in the air, not bothering to take her leave of Alejandro. That left him alone with Miguel’s mother.

  “Miguel’s going to make it difficult for you,” she told him. “You know how he is.”

  “No, I don’t,” he told her, sounding plaintive even to his own ears. “That’s the problem. Why would I have said such a thing to him?”

  His cousin’s wife settled gracefully in the chair Isabella had abandoned. “I suppose you’ve had too many things to catch up on. When he was six, Miguel was run over by a carriage just outside this hospital, which is why he was brought to us at all. One of the military doctors had the gall to suggest we should let the boy die. That’s never a wise thing to say to a handful of healers.”

  He found himself laughing softly. “I suppose you saw it as a challenge.”

  “We all did,” she said. “In time, most of his injuries healed, but his lower leg was shattered. We couldn’t fix that completely—not the bones. Most of the time a cane suffices, but when it’s paining him he requires a crutch. Miguel is prickly about that. Whatever you said to him must have hurt his pride.”

  “I will do my best to make it up to him. I am beginning to believe that the Alejandro of before wasn’t the best of friends or husbands,” he admitted, something he hadn’t said aloud to anyone but Joaquim.

  She smiled gently. “Just be prepared. I don’t know where he got it from, but Miguel’s ability to hold a grudge is unequalled in all of Portugal.”

  Well, at least it isn’t all of Iberia. Alejandro took his leave of her and made his way over to the other hospital room where Markovich waited with both Roberto and Inspector Gaspar playing watchdog. Markovich lay on the bed, fully dressed, but struggled to sit up when Alejandro entered. He held a towel-wrapped item to a jaw that was already swelling.

  “I’m sorry, Jandro,” he said. “I didn’t mean to . . . well, you know.” He waved his hand vaguely in the direction of Alejandro’s gut as he said that.

  Alejandro had to make an effort not to flinch away from that casual gesture. “We’ll just need to find another way,” he said. “I’ll start looking through my notebooks and see if I wrote it down there.”

  Markovich rolled his eyes and fell back against the pillows with a melodramatic groan.

  One of Gaspar’s brows rose. “Haven’t you already looked?”

  “I have, but there has to be something written down somewhere. I’ll find it.” He felt strangely sure of that as he spoke. Perhaps it was his seer’s gift, lurking under the hex yet still present. “We’ll pull Phillips’ teeth,” he told Markovich. “I’ll find a way.”

  Markovich heaved another heavy sigh and turned to Gaspar. “Am I under arrest or not?”

  Gaspar shook his head, and Markovich shoved himself off the bed, dropping the wrapped bit of ice on the cover. He left in a huff, promising to return to his hotel to wait for news. Alejandro didn’t care much where the man went just now, as long as he was out of sight. Or rather, as long as Alejandro himself was out of the man’s line of sight.

  “Since you’ve decided not to attempt removing the hex,” Gaspar asked, rising, “do you have another plan of action?”

  He had no idea where to look yet. But there was one problem he could fix. “Do you happen to have Miguel Pinheiro’s address? I want to go visit him.”

  Roberto opened his mouth, but swallowed his comment.

  Gaspar’s brows rose, both this time. “Is that important just now?”

  “It’s important to my wife,” Alejandro said. “And everyone in the family, I suppose. I don’t want a cousin as my enemy.”

  Gaspar shrugged.

  “And I feel like I need to do it,” Alejandro added. “I don’t know if that’s my gift or just guilt, but I feel like this will help with . . . everything else.”

  That brought a rare smile to Gaspar’s face. “I don’t know his address, but I can find it on Rafael’s desk.”

  

  Like most buildings in this part of the Golden City, the houses were packed together like sardines in a tin, long and narrow flats on each floor. The old stone was musty, and the plaster on the walls needed work. And for a man who used a cane, climbing three flights of stairs daily must be difficult. Alejandro heaved himself up the creaking steps of the old house to the fourth floor, his gut still twisting. Roberto had joked about catching him if he fainted and tumbled back down the steps. Alejandro didn’t entirely dismiss that possibility.

  He stood for a moment in front of Miguel’s door. What should I say?

  There was honestly only one thing to say. He squared his shoulders, knocked on the door, and waited. He glanced at Roberto, who shrugged. But then he heard steps inside the apartment and the door opened.

  The young man who looked out at him surprised him. Miguel Pinheiro was tall and everything about him was lean. Even his face was narrow, his straight dark hair a touch overlong, his eyes almost black. He looked nothing like his father, a reminder to Alejandro that Miguel and his brothers had been adopted. In a deep voice, he rumbled, “What do you want, Jandro?”

  “I came to speak with you,” he said, very aware that he hadn’t been invited inside. “To apologize.”

  “And you had to bring Mr. Machado as your reinforcement? I don’t have time for this,” Miguel said, and shut the door in Alejandro’s face.

  Alejandro blinked at the sight of the closed door, taken aback. It took him a moment longer to realize that Machado was Rob
erto’s surname; he’d never bothered to ask. He felt a flush creep along his cheeks. Miguel had managed to prove that Alejandro didn’t know his own household as well as he did. It was also telling that Alejandro hadn’t bothered to learn the name of the man who might have saved his life an hour before. “I’m sorry, Roberto. I may have wasted your time.”

  Roberto leaned against the narrow hallway’s peeling wall. “You’re here, sir. You walked up all those steps. Might as well try again.”

  Alejandro knocked again, more forcefully this time. “I’m not going away,” he yelled into the door.

  It only took a few seconds this time. Miguel opened the door again, lips pressed in an annoyed line. “Leave me alone, Jandro.”

  “I can’t,” Alejandro said. “My wife needs you to look at some of her poetry, and she doesn’t want to go around my back to see you.”

  That seemed to surprise Miguel. “And you expect me to believe you care what she wants?”

  Alejandro swallowed a defensive retort. I deserve that. Old Alejandro deserved that. He took a careful breath, and said, “I am trying, Miguel. I want her to be happy.”

  Miguel’s eyes narrowed, staying on his for a moment, then he stepped back—limping noticeably—and held the door open. “You’d better come in, then.”

  Alejandro followed his cousin inside, Roberto behind him.

  It was a cluttered place, one of a man who loved his books. There were books piled on every table, on a set of rickety looking shelves next to the window, stacked on the floor behind the door. Slips of paper marked pages within many of them. A wide wooden desk set under the front windows held a typewriter and a neat sheaf of blank papers, files, a magnifying glass, and several newspapers. Miguel’s jacket hung off the back of the wooden chair.

  “Are you working on a new article?” Roberto asked in a friendly tone.

  “Always,” Miguel told him with a self-deprecating shrug.

  “He interviewed me for one of his articles,” Roberto said to Alejandro, “about men returned from the war having trouble finding work.”