“Well,” she said, cringing internally at the too-bright note her voice struck. “It’s wonderful to have a full table, anyway.”
Jinadh’s smile wavered in the candlelight; he knew her well enough to parse the tone. Stephen made a small noise of disdain. Cyril put a piece of chicken in his mouth.
She picked up her fork. Put it down. “Cyril, there were some of Daddy’s things left in the attic—a miracle, really, with everything else we lost. It was very hodgepodge, what the … previous tenants took. Anyway, I had Magnusson bring the lot down and air them for you. He was about your size, I think. Daddy, I mean.”
He kept chewing, giving her a bare nod.
She had known it would be hard. She had known he wouldn’t be who she remembered, and even the brother she remembered had driven the rest of the family to tail-chasing at times. That didn’t make this easier. “And I made up the daisy room for you. You remember the daisy room? It’s that big one, just off the—”
“I know,” he said, and drank some wine.
Silence crept across the table.
“May I be excused?” said Stephen, in a sudden clatter of silverware.
“Not yet,” said Lillian, more sharply than she’d meant to. This was not proceeding as she had envisioned.
Stephen sighed and scraped the tines of his fork across his plate.
“Let him go.”
Both Jinadh and Stephen looked as startled as Lillian felt. Stephen recovered from Cyril’s interjection first, and started to get up.
“Stephen DePaul,” said Lillian, “sit down this instant.” Surprise made her strident.
“But he said—”
“Your mother,” said Jinadh, “told you to sit.”
“Thank you,” said Lillian, glad for unexpected aid from that quarter. Too often, Jinadh made her the disciplinarian. “Steenie, I thought you were excited for this dinner.”
Stephen’s glare intensified, and she realized she had revealed a secret he had been hoping would go unacknowledged. Cyril was not supposed to know his visit had been looked forward to.
“I thought,” said Cyril, “you were going to be lenient tonight.”
“What?” said Stephen. “What’s that supposed to mean? Can I go?”
Something in Cyril’s face had changed. Earlier, he had seemed … not quite vacant, or empty, but like a wine bottle in which all the sediment had settled to the bottom and would not be stirred. The substance of his personality had remained compact and hidden. Now he was, if not exactly smiling, at least looking upon his nephew with expression in his eyes. The candle flames made it wavering and uncertain, but there was something there. What that expression meant, she couldn’t say.
Hadn’t she said Stephen reminded her of Cyril, at that age? Maybe he saw something there to drag him back from whatever fort he’d barricaded his heart within. She had told Jinadh they would get along like a match and a wick, and at least this fitful smoldering was better than what had come before.
“All right,” she said. “But mind you clean your teeth well. And do the reading you’ve been set.”
He was out the dining room door before she finished her sentence, so that she brought her volume up at the end to chase him.
There was a small noise from Cyril—an exhalation, brief and amused—so that below her annoyance, she felt warmth rise in her chest.
“You see what I mean,” she said, to Cyril. “About how he can be?”
Cyril shrugged. “He’s young.”
“I wonder.” Forced banality strung Jinadh’s words taut: drawing room charm, sorely taxed.
“What, dear?” asked Lillian, sensing a pitfall.
“Only if Mr. DePaul, in all his many endeavors, has any experience in the rearing of children?”
The small living thing that had been stirring behind Cyril’s eyes withdrew so swiftly she might have imagined it was ever there. “I haven’t had that pleasure.”
Jinadh pressed his lips into a smiling imitation of indulgence. “Well then, perhaps you should leave it to us. Or at least ask for some advice, before presuming.”
Cyril aimed the same expression back at him, honed to an even sharper point. He offered no rejoinder; instead, without looking at Lillian, he dropped into deep sarcasm and said, “May I be excused?”
* * *
“I thought you wanted him here.” Lillian yanked her hairbrush through a tangle with unnecessary vehemence. “What was that about?”
Jinadh sat on the edge of their bed and dug for his lighter in the nightstand. Though her parents had kept separate bedrooms, and there was space at Damesfort for them to do the same, Jinadh had leaned heavily in favor of one suite. She now suspected it had less to do with intimate reasons, and more with diplomatic; it forced them to resolve conflicts or go without sleep. Anyway, it was one less room to heat.
“I…” he picked at the duvet.
“You told me to bring him. You said you’d be happy to meet him. He’s my brother.” She bit down hard on another escalation, and forced herself to swallow it. It burned going down, like raw liquor, and stung her eyes the same. Whatever had torn out Cyril’s center and left that husk at the dining table, it wasn’t Jinadh’s fault.
“I know!” Jinadh stood again, leaving wrinkles in the bedclothes. He lit the straight crammed into the corner of his mouth and took a hasty, irritated drag. “But Lillian, he … there is something wrong. He needs … I do not know what he needs, but I do not think that we can help him. And I am not certain that I want him around Stephen.”
“I hardly think he’s dangerous,” she said, a seedling of doubt unfurling even as she spoke the words.
«How well do you know him?» asked Jinadh, shifting to Porashtu. He often did, when he had something hard to say. She was guilty of the same, in the opposite direction, and she’d been speaking less Porashtu in general since they came to Amberlough. «He’s been gone nearly a decade.»
Guilty, she met him on the playing field of his mother tongue. «He’s my brother,» she said again, less vehement this time. The doubt was creeping up her walls like ivy. If she didn’t strip it away, the mortar of her convictions would crumble. And if she couldn’t believe what she told herself, she wouldn’t know where to place her trust. Gathering her confidence, she went on more firmly: «He only needs time. Think how hard it was for us. And he has passed through so much more.»
Jinadh stopped in the center of the room, then sighed and came to sit beside her, settling amidst the ephemera of her vanity. She put her brush down and held a hand out for his cigarette.
“I apologize,” he told her. “I know. It is only that…” He picked up a pot of cold cream and turned it in his hands. “It feels as though since we came to Gedda you have been elsewhere, either in mind or body. Because of your work, and the campaign. And Stephen has been at school, not writing much. I thought we would have time during Solstice. To come together again.”
“We will,” said Lillian, stubbing out the butt of his straight.
“Even with your brother here?”
“You don’t think he can … come together with us?”
Jinadh paused in his fiddling with the cold cream to give her a worried look. «From what I know of him, he’s better at tearing things apart.»
It hurt all the more for being true. Rarely had the DePaul family gotten through a holiday, a trip, or even a quiet dinner at home without a tussle, Cyril inevitably at the center of the conflict. Gedda was just a bigger, nastier example of his mode of operation.
“I think he’s probably learned his lesson,” said Lillian, rising from her stool. “Unzip me?”
Jinadh’s fingers closed on the clasp at the nape of her neck, then moved down her back with the zipper. «I am sorry, moon-eyes,» he said, and kissed her neck.
She put a hand to his head and pressed her cheek to his hair: loosely braided for sleep, soft with scented oil. «Me, too. Bed?»
It wasn’t until she slipped beneath the covers that she realized how chill and bon
e-tired she was. The mattress pressed up to meet her, and Jinadh hissed when she tucked her feet behind his knees.
“Did Magnusson get that stain out of your dinner jacket?” she asked, unable even half asleep to let loose ends lie.
“He did.”
“You’re sure you won’t wear a kurta for the reception?” she said.
He lifted his eyelids a bare several centimeters. «Don’t try it on me, too.»
“Try what?”
«You’ve got Makricosta to dress your set,» he said. «And I’ve heard you talking with Honora over the phone; the guest list reads like Ospie Gedda turned inside-out. Immigrants and agitators, to an invitation. I’ll wear my dinner jacket.»
“Stones.” She put her forehead to his shoulder. «I’m sorry. I never should have asked.»
«No,» he agreed. «You shouldn’t have.»
“I just need a nod from Honora at the end of this. A letter, a word in the right ear. I can do a lot of the work myself, but it never hurts to have a phalanx at your back. And she’s good for ten soldiers at least.”
“You will find something,” he said. “Even if it isn’t the Cliff House. And we will not starve.”
“In this economy?” she asked. “Don’t be so sure. We’d have to sell off land, at any rate. And with my family history…”
«You said it’s safe for Cyril to be here. Isn’t it safe for us?»
«Safe is not happy,» she said. «Safe is not comfortable.»
«Safe isn’t powerful, either,» he countered, with a trace of bitterness.
«Jinadh … » She closed her eyes, face crumpling in frustration. «It’s not about that.»
«If you could tell me what it is about, I might believe you.»
“I just want to get our name up out of the dust. I know it sounds hackneyed, but the DePauls had honor once—”
“Honor.” He said it not with anger but exhaustion. «What kept us apart in Porachis, Lillian? What made me miserable for years? I’d rather be a father than found a dynasty. I’d rather be happy than honorable.»
“It’s just a few more months,” she said. “We go to the polls just after Equinox. If nothing comes of it after that…” She managed a small shrug, rustling the bedclothes, but couldn’t look at him.
He sighed deeply. «I will be very glad when this election is over.»
She hoped she would share the sentiment.
CHAPTER
EIGHT
Aristide recognized the harbor in his soul, and at the same time hardly knew it.
The water stank like it always had: oil and sewage and shriveled seaweed. The shape of the Spits stood out sharp against a steely sky, and he remembered a thousand sunsets sinking behind them, seen from the fashionable side of the bay. The dome of the capitol, which had once been visible over the masts and hulls and chimneys in the harbor, was now obscured by scaffolding.
“Still cleaning up?” Daoud stood beside him at the railing, wrapped to the nose in a muffler. “It has been a year of peacetime.”
“A year under an interim government,” said Aristide. “With many other nasty dishes on its plate.”
“Talking of nasty dishes,” said Daoud. “When would you like to meet with Jamila?”
“Now, now.” Aristide slotted his fingers together, pushing his gloves more tightly onto his hands. “Ms. Osogurundi has done very well by Cross-Costa in the last six months.”
«I appreciate that,» said Daoud. «Almost as much as I appreciate the fact she’s been doing it here instead of in Rarom.»
“The only reason you don’t like her is you’re fussy, and she’s not afraid to put her arms in the midden to the elbows. Which is what makes her perfect for the job.”
“Then it is good she does it, and not me.” Daoud shivered. “Mihaaz. How do people live in this climate?”
“Speaking for myself,” said Aristide, “mulled wine, silk underwear, and an eiderdown duvet. It isn’t the worst of the seasons, if you’re well prepared.”
It made him think of the duvet on Daoud’s sturdy double bed, back in Rarom. And that, in turn, made him think of his cabin, which had never seen a cot through the crossing. It made him think of any number of things that could keep one warm in the winter, besides the ones he’d listed.
Shifting his weight, he put another several inches between the two of them.
Daoud retreated farther into his muffler. “And if you are not?”
“Sorry?” His discomfort had distracted him from the thread of conversation.
“If you are not prepared.”
Oh. He meant the weather, still. “Rotten miserable.”
The ship shuddered as it came to a full halt, leaving them stationary several stories above the docks. Aristide looked down on the milling hats and luggage carts, the clouded breath of hundreds rising with the steam from food carts and exhaust pipes. Abruptly, through the haze of stagnant water and diesel fumes, he caught the scent of fry oil and the salty tang of eel.
His stomach growled, and he thought about brown paper packets of barley fritters. About crispy cardamom rice balls, and hot chestnuts roasted over a coffee can grill fueled with shredded newspapers.
“I hope the hotel has a good kitchen,” he said. “And they can get something worthwhile to cook in it.”
“Do not raise your hopes too high. It has been bad weather for the farmers. A dry summer. And despite the efforts of West Cultham Rail Company, among others, the railroads are not as good as they were. Too many tracks blown, thanks to the Catwalk.”
“Ah well,” said Aristide. “I’ve eaten beans before.” Then, “West Cultham. Isn’t that—?”
“Jamila can tell you more,” said Daoud, suddenly brisk. “Chii bhale, or they will give our bags to someone else.”
Despite his worries, their bags were waiting on a cart with a porter in earmuffs standing attentively by. She helped them find a taxi, and Aristide tipped extravagantly. The tourist trade had likely flagged along with the rest of the economy.
“Hello there,” said Aristide, bundling himself and his mink into the backseat of the cab.
“Where are you headed?” asked the driver. Tatien, by his accent. A loyalist, probably, and a refugee now that his state had achieved an ill-fated independence from Gedda.
“Oh, what’s the name of the hotel?” Aristide asked, though he had it by memory. He didn’t like to sound too eager.
“Sykes House,” said Daoud. “At…” he consulted his datebook. “Coral and Whitney.”
The cabbie whistled low. “Nice piece of town. Even now.” As he pulled away from the bustling dockside curb, he said, “This is your first time in Amberlough?”
“Mine,” said Daoud. “Yes.”
“And you?” Aristide caught the flick of the cabbie’s eyes in the rearview mirror.
“In a while,” he said. “I haven’t been back for some years.”
“The war?” asked the cabbie.
“Its … antecedents. And you sound like you come from the east.”
He made a noise with his teeth: something sucked back he might otherwise have spat. “Foolishness, to leave the federation. And look what it’s gotten Memmediv and his folk, ah? If Tatié lasts ’til spring, it’s only by the blessing of the Queen.”
“Are we still calling it that?” asked Aristide. “Gedda, I mean. ‘The federation.’”
“If you listen to the provisional folk, yes. After the election, who knows? Frye thinks we should keep the interstate borders open, tariffs down. She’s got interests in the railroads and she’ll serve herself first, but it doesn’t mean she won’t lay a good table. Saeger … People like her for herself, you know? Me, I want to hear her talk real policy. Not just bedtime stories. So she wants us all to be siblings in the struggle to end hunger and poverty. Fine. What about the treasury? And our borders? And our infrastructure? Where will all this money come from? It’s a choice between a dreamer and an oligarch.”
“You haven’t always driven a cab,” asked Aristide, “hav
e you?”
The driver snorted. “And a cabbie can’t talk politics?”
Aristide opened his mouth to pull out his foot, but was given a pardon before he could manage.
“I was a professor at Haverin East,” said the driver. “And ran for city council once or twice. Not much city left now, I hear.”
He stopped at a signal. Aristide glanced at their surroundings and realized with a start that they had reached the intersection of Temple Street and Seagate Road.
“This is rather out of the way, isn’t it?” he asked. “We ought to have turned onto Station a while back.”
“It’s a mess,” said the driver. “Construction at the trolley transfer. Faster to take Seagate to Staunton and then go north. A good memory, if you’ve been gone so long.”
Aristide hesitated a moment, eyeing the red light, daring it to change before he asked what was about to slip from his tongue. But it didn’t, and he said, “I know it’s out of the way, but would you mind just taking us a few blocks north on Temple?”
The driver shrugged and flipped down the stalk by his wheel to indicate.
It wasn’t far off Seagate—a block and a half, if he remembered right. And as the driver had said, his memory for these things was good. He had a map of the city—his city—at the ready behind his eyes.
Many of the marquees were dark; more than a few had been converted to picture palaces. Others had been knocked down and replaced with offices or apartments. But others still stood tall and proud. Some had scorched façades, which made Aristide wonder about the extent of rioting and revolution. He’d been given to understand armed conflict was limited, and that “civil war” meant less trenches and gunfire than mob violence and political pressure. Still, Temple Street bore scars. The ugliest of which they were approaching now.
“Stop,” said Aristide, abruptly, and they did. “Will you just idle here for a bit? Thank you.”
“Aristide,” said Daoud, brows furrowed.
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