“You know,” said Aristide, after his first martini arrived. “I’m not particularly hungry.”
Cyril snorted. “Looking after your figure?”
“And you do feel like eating?”
Stones, the arch of his eyebrow put a cramp in Cyril’s gut that had nothing to do with hunger. He took a rueful drag on his straight and then rolled it between his fingers, letting smoke flow through his field of vision like fog rolling in. It helped when he spoke; made the world feel far away. “Why lunch, then?”
“Because Asiyah’s safe house didn’t have a bar.” Aristide put the rest of his drink down his gullet and gestured for another one. “Rye and soda, still? I think I see a bottle of Carter Bowles back there.”
Cyril shrugged. He hadn’t had rye since … well, he’d stopped counting. He was unused to preference and frankly, at this juncture, it seemed pointless. “I’ll take what I can get.”
They sat, unspeaking, as the bartender mixed and poured. It wasn’t until Cyril put the first warm swallow of whiskey into his belly that he finally said, “What are you doing in Liso, anyway? Acherby’s gone.” Dissolved his government and stepped down under pressure, assassinated three days later stepping out of a car. That news had made it even into the jungle. “I’d have thought you’d be back in Amberlough as soon as the Ospie flag went off the pole.”
Aristide tugged fussily at the wet napkin underneath his glass. “You’d have thought wrong.”
Cyril leaned on the fault before he considered the consequences. “Can’t go back, or won’t?”
“Haven’t,” said Aristide, the lines around his mouth hardening.
“Why?” Cyril could feel the sharp edges of the question as he asked it, knew he looked a little rabid. “Scared of what you’ll find?”
“I’ve been very busy.” He said it too crisply.
“Getting to know my family?” Despite himself, Cyril was curious about that.
“It was quite a while ago. We were both in Porachis at the same time. The Ospies had her on a bit of a short jess; I helped to get her out of it.”
As if the memory were rising through muddy water, Konrad Van der Joost’s flabby face coalesced in his mind’s eye: threatening Cyril’s sister, if he misbehaved.
“I’m not awfully thrilled about the reward for services rendered,” Aristide went on. “She wants me to … She’s got some appointment in the provisional government, and wants me to make an appearance at this ceremony. Shake some hands, make her look capable, and well-connected.”
“Sounds like she hasn’t changed much.” It didn’t get the smile that it should have: that cruel curve of thin lips that said they were the only two in on a caustic joke.
“Yes, well. I told her no, but…”
And it hung there. No follow-up. Ari had caught him slipping in his bad behavior, the habits more appropriate for interrogation than for small talk, and was going to make him own up to it. He’d have to keep playing the game.
Power struggles. His breath caught. Once, it would have been lust. Now it was a mix of anger and fear, left over from conversations like this one in tone, though weightier in content. Conversations in which the person who came out on top was the one who ended up alive.
“But what?” Cyril asked, the pressure of his fingers putting dimples in the paper of his straight.
Ari stared into the remains of his drink. He’d put two double martinis away faster than Cyril would have credited, if he hadn’t seen people do worse, faster. Maybe these eight years hadn’t worn on Aristide as gently as it seemed.
Cyril’s straight had burnt down to his fingers. He put it out and slipped the butt into his pocket. Saw Ari follow the motion, and caught the flicker of a shadow that passed over his face, the deepening of the wrinkles at the corners of his eyes.
“The ceremony,” he said. “Cyril, it’s a dedication. For a memorial on Temple Street. Right where the Bee was. For the Catwalk. But mostly, for Cordelia.”
* * *
So Cordelia Lehane was dead.
Cyril wondered how this should make him feel. Surprised? He wasn’t. He’d been half sure he was going to get her killed during the course of their association. Distraught? He was leagues beyond that. Guilty? This was just another bucket into the bay. There were ripples from the impact, certainly—he imagined her face would be swapped in for any number of other faces when he staggered into nightmares tonight—but good luck picking out this particular sin from the general cold depths of his self-loathing.
Cordelia Lehane was dead because of him. So were a lot of people. Nothing he’d done in the jungle had changed that.
He’d helped the Kingdom of Liso keep tabs on militias making incursions over the border. And he’d been tortured for it. He’d escaped that, and helped royalist cells build their networks in the north, undermining the authority of Gedda’s puppet government from within. He’d helped the rebels capture Ospie-backed troops and contractors who’d gone on to summary executions on their knees in the mud.
He’d lost sight, after a while, of whether that was a step toward redemption or one more thing he should hate about himself.
Cordelia Lehane was dead, but unlike so many other people dead at his hand, on his watch, with his blessing, at least the people who loved her would have a chance to bow their heads and say goodbye.
“You should go,” said Cyril.
“Apologizing to a plaque won’t do her any good.” Aristide nibbled moodily at a piece of flatbread.
Their meal had finally arrived: brisket, spicy lentils, collards cooked with nigella and fenugreek. Cyril wasn’t hungry, but began to eat anyway, out of habit. The part of him that was still hunkered down in Mayaoba—or slinking along the rain-slick game trail between Niallo Benggi and Niallo Kreb—that part told him to eat and keep eating until he filled his belly, because there wouldn’t be more coming at regular intervals.
“She’s dead, Cyril. I could dig her up and piss in her eye and get nothing but mud for my troubles.”
“Still.” He swallowed too much brisket, nearly choked. “You were her friend.”
Ari looked about to protest, but changed tack at the last moment and said, “So were you.”
“She wouldn’t want me there.” He thought of the look on her face when she’d come to his miserable bolt-hole after someone she loved had died—no one he knew, or had ever met, but someone he had helped to kill regardless. He’d tried to mend the bridge between them by saying they both did what was necessary to survive.
You’re nothing like me, she’d told him. Least I been honest about my ugliness.
“She would. If only just … oh, what did she say? So she could slap your teeth out.”
“I’d take it, and thank her.” Uncharacteristically, Aristide missed the innuendo. Granted, Cyril only caught the joke after he’d made it, and found it in poor taste.
Plucking the twist of lemon from his martini, Aristide began to fiddle with it, worrying the oily rind until it tore in two. He stared at the pieces for the span of a breath. When he let it out, he said, “You’re right. I’m a coward. I ought to go.”
Cyril shrugged, turned his whiskey on its napkin.
After an interminable silence, Ari began, “The last thing she said—”
“People say all kinds of swineshit when their guts are on the ground.” He’d heard most of it firsthand. “I don’t think I want to know.”
“The last thing she said to me,” Aristide went on. It was as if Cyril hadn’t spoken, except for the graphite streak of stubbornness that colored Ari’s tone. “It was several years before she died, but … well, you of all people must understand how hard it is to get a letter out when you’re on the run.” On that, the graphite turned to steel. Cyril let it cut him, silently.
“She said she didn’t want to be forgotten. So much of what she did, she did in secret, and she told me she missed the applause.” Aristide tossed the remains of his lemon peel onto his plate and struggled for a moment with where to put his hands, finally foldin
g them in his lap. “It won’t be what she wanted. People in suits making speeches about patriotism and bravery. Probably there won’t even be a band.”
“That’s why you should go.”
“I’ve let my trombone practice fall rather by the wayside, I’m afraid.”
“No, really.” Something sharp and unfamiliar stuck in his gut like he’d been impaled. It took a beat too long to realize he was jealous. Of Aristide, yes, for the opportunity to honor a friend who deserved it and more. But jealous of Cordelia, too. How must it have felt, to want folk to find out what you’d done? To take pride in your work?
How had it felt to be a hero?
“I honestly hadn’t planned on it.” Aristide swept his fingertips through condensation on the bar, leaving trails with beaded edges. “Would you come with me, if I did?”
It caught Cyril by surprise. He no longer understood the rhythm of Aristide’s caprice, if that was what this was.
Back to Gedda? Where neither of them had been in almost a decade? Back to whatever was left of everything they had destroyed?
The idea made Cyril itch all over, like a million mites were crawling on his skin. Blood pounded in the tips of his fingers and burned at the delicate arches of his ears. Every physical response he had learned to trust in years of gauging danger told him no, not this one. Do not go.
“All right,” he said. “Take me along.”
CHAPTER
FOUR
Martí left for Cantrell before dawn, estimating that she would return with Stephen in time for a late lunch. Bradley, the cook, had planned a menu of all his favorite foods, or near as he could come under the double strictures of the household budget and informal rationing imposed by the aftermath of conflict: price gouging, hoarding, ruined infrastructure.
Lillian was supposed to be working. She had a folder full of mimeos spread across her desk: briefs from her team, and a half-written strategy plan for the provisional government’s approach to the election. But despite her intentions she spent the morning looking between the clock and the window, and occasionally calling Magnusson from his own work to ask if the mail had come, or a telegram, or any news at all. Nervous energy simmered through her limbs, combining with the imminence of Stephen’s arrival to destroy any hope of productivity.
Still, somehow, she missed the car as it came around the bend. The clock hands read ten past one when she heard the engine and the spatter of small stones against the fenders.
Excitement zipped out from her chest to her hands, chased by apprehension. Stephen’s presence tended to highlight—and exacerbate—her differences with Jinadh. When he was younger, it had been less of a problem, as he had less of an opinion and less of a voice to lift in protest.
She hated that he’d been raised by parents first separated by circumstance—and by her own stubbornness—and then united against adversity. The latter had on occasion brought them closer together, but had far more often driven them to outbursts, tears, and accusations.
She had hoped that settling in Gedda, where they all spoke the language, where she and Stephen at least understood the social norms and etiquette, would smooth some of those rough patches. But Stephen, who had been at an international day school in Sunho, was having trouble readjusting to boarding, and to the discipline and academics of the Geddan system. His letters had come infrequently this term, all of them surly. The headmaster’s came far more often, but were not much cheerier in tone.
When Lillian couldn’t sleep, which was often, the consequences of her decisions dogged her.
The engine cut out in front of the house. She swept her papers into a pile and left her study for the landing. By the time she made the bottom of the staircase, Magnusson had the doors pulled open on a brilliant, bitter afternoon. Martí and Bern struggled up the steps with a steamer trunk, and Stephen stood on the running board with a satchel slung over one shoulder. His pants were too short, revealing several inches of cabled sock over bony ankles. Same with his cuffs, which showed the delicate knobs of his wrists. His growth spurt had melted the last of his baby fat away, turning everything about him angular. The sun made his buttons and boots gleam, but if his scowl had been a heavenly body it would have eclipsed the brightness handily.
Jinadh beat her to the drive and opened his arms. Stephen grudgingly allowed himself to be embraced.
«Do you plan on setting off any bombs now that you’re home?» asked Jinadh, when they had pulled apart.
It took Stephen a moment to parse the Porashtu, but when he’d got it he rolled his eyes. “Dad.”
“Hello, Steenie,” Lillian said.
Stephen’s slouch straightened, and his attitude lost its insouciance if not its hostility. He took the steps with gravity exaggerated to the point of satire, and came nose to nose with her, or nearly. When had he gotten so tall?
“Mother,” he said, suddenly ten years older. How did he do that, the swift shift from little boy to man, and back again? He sat on such a thin edge between the two, and it always cut her when she came too close. She could never tell, either, which side he was likely to come down on.
Jinadh glanced between them, frowning, then made a foray into the stiff silence, pushing Stephen gently over the threshold and into the hall. «Lunch is nearly ready. Go wash up and change. Bern laid out some dhoti; they’ll cover your ankles at least. Do they put you on the rack at that school when you misbehave?» He thwacked Stephen’s rear with his newspaper.
«Dad!» Stephen aimed an affronted glare over his shoulder and muttered a foul curse under his breath.
“What was that?” Lillian asked. Echoing back sharply from the marble floor of the hall, her own voice sounded eerily like her mother’s. A wave of emotional vertigo hit her—that she should stand here admonishing her own child, as her mother had admonished …
Cyril. She clenched her teeth against panic.
Stephen didn’t notice. “Nothing,” he said, shoving the word out between his teeth. “Queen’s sake.”
«Lunch,» said Jinadh, propelling Stephen farther into the front hall. Then, more quietly, for her: «Lillian, don’t. He’s just gotten home.»
A reflexive retort coiled in her chest to strike: Did he want his child to speak that way? She swallowed it in the interest of maintaining a détente. Before she could summon something less acidic, the telephone bell shrilled.
“Ma’am,” said Magnusson, appearing from the vestibule, “It’s for you.”
* * *
“It’s a radio call, ma’am.” Magnusson held the telephone in front of him as though it were a precious artifact. “From Aristide Makricosta. It took him quite a while to get through. Should I accept?”
“Yes, thank you,” she said, hearing the words from a long way away. “I’ll … I’ll take it in my office.”
“Shall I fetch Bern for you, or would you like me to take notes?” Magnusson had done double duty as her secretary in Asu, some days: a duty which now occasionally fell to Bern. Someday she’d have the money to hire a real right hand. She hoped.
“No,” she said, “that’s all right.”
Magnusson nodded and spoke quietly to the operator; his voice faded as Lillian went up the stairs, feeling each variation in the grain of the bannister in exquisite detail while her mind avoided more important things.
Her office door confronted her before she was ready. The black resin of the telephone was cool, and her breath caught in a brief patch of condensation on the mouthpiece.
“Hello,” she said. “This is Lillian.”
“Lillian.” Aristide’s voice, though it came through a haze of crackling interference after a long lag, sounded more immediate than Magnusson’s, more immediate even than her own. “How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” The small talk came out automatically. At the price per minute of a transoceanic radio call, they didn’t have time for it. “And … and my brother? How is he?”
“He’d like to come to Amberlough for the dedication. I can arrange his travel.”
Words stalled. She wasted precious airtime with her lips parted and her lungs empty. “You could fly into Dameskill county,” she said, finally, airless. “The regional airstrip is a short drive from Damesfort. If the weather’s good, it should get you here a few days sooner than sailing.” Then, “You’re coming, too?”
Fraught, crackling silence on the line. Then, “Yes, of course.”
“Oh,” she said. “Oh, you don’t like to fly, of—”
“No,” he said. “It’s simply—”
The line got garbled, his protest lagging behind and tangling with her apology, until they both went silent waiting for the other to talk. Finally, Lillian said, “I’m sorry. Go on.”
“I have some business in Rarom that needs to be wrapped up before I leave. I thought you might like him home before that. So you can … catch up, I suppose.”
“You’d send him ahead?” Unspoken, the question: Was he whole and competent to see himself across international borders?
“Just by a few days,” said Aristide. “If that’s all right.”
Her little brother. Coming back from the dead. In a state of disgrace and dishevelment at the most inconvenient time, but if that wasn’t Cyril all over, what was?
Last she’d seen him he had been in the hospital, just back from some mysterious errand in Tatié: wan with exhaustion so his tan looked dusty. Anger had seemed to be the only thing keeping him awake.
Who was her brother now?
“Of course,” she said. “Cable with the details? We’ve jawed long enough to empty out the treasury, I’m sure.”
“Lillian.” She heard a loud rasping noise—shuffling papers, maybe, or shifting in his chair. Or a stray storm scrambling the call. “He’s … I don’t know what you might expect, but I think he ought to be treated with some delicacy.”
Lifting her hand to brush at a tickle on her cheek, she found she was crying and wondered when that had begun. Wiping the tears away with the heel of her free hand, she said, “Send him ahead, Aristide. We’ll take care of him in Carmody.”
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