Throne

by Phil Tucker

  “About that.”

  “What?” Dull certainty bloomed within her. Leaden and heavy.

  A pause, and she knew he was searching for the best way to tell her. To be diplomatic. “I can’t come home yet. Amor, I’m sorry. But I just can’t.”

  “You can’t come home,” she said.

  He sighed. “I wish—I wish you could see how close we are here to turning the corner. If I leave—if I come home now, amor, there’s too much at stake. We’re so close.”

  A sudden and terrible sense of solitude, of truly being alone in the world but for the small presence in her body. She nodded, “I knew it. I knew you would pick that fucking country and those fucking Arabs over the birth of your own daughter.”

  “Maribel, I might still make it home—“

  “Don’t,” she snapped, suddenly and irrevocably furious, trying to sit up, “You know what? I don’t care what you say, I am going to go to the gallery opening in New York.”

  “Maribel, no.” Anger in his voice. “It’s not safe.”

  “Then come home and stop me.”

  A long, agonizing beat. Then: “Amor, please, you’re being irrational—“

  “Don’t call me that. Save it for your Arabs. Call them ‘amor’ when you go into your next meeting. At least then you’ll mean it.” And she hung up.

  ***

  “Maribel?” A voice, light, tentative, like a bird alighting on a branch, poised to take to the air again at the first sign of danger. Turning her head, Maribel saw Rebecca standing in the door, still wrapped in her heavy black coat, face roseate from the cold; tall, golden Rebecca.

  “Maribel,” she said as she came into the room. “I only just heard. How are you, I’m so sorry, Maribel, I’m so sorry.” She came to the edge of the bed, knelt by its side, reached out to take her hands in her own, but drew back at the sight of Maribel’s face.

  “Have you been alone this entire time?” She asked, voice falling to a whisper. She searched Maribel’s face, sat back on her heels. “No, Maribel. You should have called, you should have. Somebody should have been here with you. Somebody.”

  Maribel gazed at her, at the woman who had promoted her and helped ensure her success these past few weeks amidst the falling snow and fog of New York, and said nothing.

  “The gallery is receiving rave reviews,” said Rebecca helplessly. “I’ve received…,” she broke off, and then rallied. “I’ve received word from a friend in Chicago that they want to host you there too. And a number of clients have requested quotes for copies of your prints, but I’ve told them all, I’ve told them to wait, that now isn’t…” Rebecca’s words dried up in her mouth as she held Maribel’s gaze. Finally, “What are you going to do?” Rebecca moved back and up into the closest chair. “How much longer are they going to keep you here?”

  “I leave tonight,” she said.

  “Where are you going? When do you return to Barcelona?”

  The decision crystallized even as she considered it. “I am not returning to Barcelona.”

  “No? Then—where? To your husband? Is he coming here?”

  “No,” she said again, and closed her eyes. “No, I want nothing to do with Antonio.” The old bitterness that had poisoned these past few months, that had made her decision to come to New York a necessity, an affirmation of her independence. “Anyway, he’s still in Kabul,” she said, and her smile was hard, deceptively amused, “If he wasn’t going to be home for Sofia’s birth, why I should I bother him now?”

  “Maribel,” said Rebecca, and then once more, voice louder, asserting herself, trying to take control of the situation, “Maribel. Tell me what you are going to do. You can’t be alone right now.”

  “I can do what I like, Rebecca,” said Maribel, her smile disappearing.

  Her friend drew back. Authority fled her voice. “What are you going to do?”

  “I have to find somebody,” said Maribel, and turned away to face the window.

  ***

  Sanity. She didn’t know what the word meant anymore. It had been replaced, however, with certainty. Or perhaps, more accurately, faith. Pulling her scarf more tightly about her neck, Maribel strode through the hospital lobby and toward the revolving doors beyond which New York loomed, gaunt and gray and chill. Certainty, faith. A knowledge that could not be discussed with anybody else, because there was no way to explain herself without seeming mad.

  Pushing through the revolving door, she stepped outside for the first time since losing her baby. The air was crisp, cold, a shock on her face. She raised her chin, inhaled, smelled the tang of exhaust, metallic. It was a different world, now. Within her, the ebon shell, the vibrating chrysalis had slowed, stilled, so that it throbbed now in rhythm with her heart.

  Antonio had tried to speak to her, had called over and over again, and then finally informed the nurses that he was en route to New York. She didn’t care. He could find her or not. If he did, he would fail to understand. There was simply no way to communicate this. Trauma, depression, hallucination. There were endless terms for it, and they had been spewed at her by the grief counselor, the pediatrician, her doctor. Only Rebecca had chosen to step away, to leave her be, to give her time.

  Sanity. It was not as important as she had once thought. Always she had been accused of having a temper, of being bold, intemperate, stubborn. Other words, less kind: irrational, impulsive. Qualities tossed derisively at her by men over the course of her life, all of them meaning one thing: female.

  Maribel lowered her chin. Set her jaw, and strode forward into the alien city. With a conviction that she did not question, with a knowledge that she did not doubt, she knew there was but one thing she now had to do, no matter what others thought, said, demanded. She had to find her daughter.

  ***

  That night, when first she had risen from her bed, a mere hour or two having passed since they had whisked her baby away, locked her up in a clear plastic incubator, premature, so small, so small. Red and wizened, a little frog of a thing, too soon but hers, hers hers hers. Those precious few glimpses as her baby was taken from her, handed from one doctor to the next and placed in the incubator, her small body cupped in gloved hands, tubes and measurements and then gone, gone, taken before she could even see her face.

  It had taken all her control, exhausted and panicked as she had been, not to scream, to demand they show her her child, to reach out to touch her. But like that, her baby was gone, and she sank back, fiercely determined to not sleep, to wait for the anesthesia that cloaked her lower body in numbness to wear off, so that she could walk down to the ICU and see her.

  No name, not yet, she hadn’t been able to settle on one, it had plagued her, but nothing had seemed quite right. Perhaps when she saw her face, then it would come to her. She knew it would. She wouldn’t give her baby a name; she would simply know.

  Later, down the hall, no nurses to help her, the hospital too busy. But she felt fine, she felt strong, she felt like she could do anything despite the pain, the ache in her stomach, the stinging between her legs, the light-headedness. Slowly, each step certain, following the directions.

  No family with her. No husband, no friends. Alone, but that didn’t matter. Her baby, her child. Her girl. That was all she needed. All she would ever need. There. The wall of glass, the sight of cribs arrayed in neat rows. Nobody else looking in, this moment was hers alone, and she felt a pang of gratitude, that she would be able to devour the sight of her baby for the first time in privacy, not have to share it with anybody. Jealous, selfish, but hers.

  She stopped, looked through the glass wall. Eyes moving from baby to baby, knowing she would recognize hers immediately. There.

  Sofia.

  The name came, unbidden. Her eyes filled with tears, and something within her turned, trembled, opened. A stiffness she hadn’t realized she was holding within her eased, she felt herself open up. Sofia. Stepping forward, she pressed her hands to the glass, stared at the little shape, the crimson face, the bundl
e of flesh and love in the midst of tubes and machinery.

  The hairs along her arms pricked, stirred. Skin began to crawl on the back of her neck. Something was wrong. Something was happening. Maribel looked up and down the hallway, almost cried out for help, but why? She couldn’t see anything.

  Sofia. A cloud had appeared above her, a swirling cloud of black ink, a tincture in the air, a bruise where nothing was. It swelled and grew, a storm cloud, no depth to it, sheer black, sucking in the light.

  “No,” she whispered, shook her head.

  A shape. Head, shoulders, pale, alabaster, paler than her own fair skin. Inhuman--or not human enough. Bulging forehead, emaciated face pulled tight around small cheekbones, a hint of a chin beneath a slit of a mouth. But the eyes, large, so large, and hands extending down toward her child.

  “No!” she screamed, and pounded on the glass. It should have broken, should have shattered inwards, destroyed by her fury. It didn’t.

  Long fingers, impossibly long and pale slipped through glass, slipped past the tubes, and took Sofia up. Drew her through the incubator walls. Left in her place a knot of flesh, leathery and still. Took her baby, kicking and stirring, small face pinched with an anger that mirrored her mother’s. Took the baby, and hugged her to its narrow chest. And then, as if slipping away down a hole, the pale head pulled back into the dark cloud, the roiling shadow, and was gone.

  Afterwards, whenever she thought back to that night, she remembered first and foremost the screams. There was no rise or fall to them, no character or shape; rather they had been bursts of sound, visceral and blank in their terror and denial. Even as the nurses had clamored around her, trying to constrain her, pull her down to the ground, the screams had continued. They had lit the hall with their stark ferocity, each one a camera flash that caused the nurses’ eyes to flare with fear and dismay.

  Chapter 2

  The sounds of the kitchen were distorted through the steam, given strange and exciting character by the smells, the yells and cries of the short order cooks, the clatter of cleavers against the cutting boards and sizzle and flash of the stir fry, flames shooting up to scorch the air. Maya backed through the double doors, a pile of filthy dishes piled up like a stack of tottering dictionaries in her arms, and dumped them adroitly into the massive sink immediately to her left.

  “Ok, ok, vamos let’s go I need another order of spring rolls, two hot-and-sour soups, and they want their sweet and sour pork like yesterday,” she yelled into the murk, looking past the gleaming chrome shelving on which endless clean plates were stacked to where the cooks labored. Without pausing for breath, she scooped up the five dishes that were already waiting for her, carefully but rapidly distributing their weight along her slender arms, and then back out, out of the heat and steam and fire into the restaurant.

  Feet aching, wrists aching, eyes red from lack of sleep, heart beating furiously, refusing to stop, to show fatigue, she weaved around incoming Chang as if dancing, aware that he seemed more and more intent each day to try and cause her to spill food on the floor, and then out into the main room, where tables were packed cheek to jowl like pigs in breeding cages, hungry-eyed patrons sizing her up, licking their lips.

  One two three, plates dealt like poker cards, a flash of her brilliant smile, and then a measured glance at the kitchen entrance. Mrs. Peng wasn’t in evidence. Chang was in the back. Meimei was busy with another table, feverishly writing down orders. Now, thought Maya, now. Ignoring calls and finger snaps, avoiding eyes and pretending not to notice people waving their hands at her, she threaded her way to the back of the restaurant and then, instead of turning left into the kitchen, ducked right out the service door, down the claustrophobic hall that led past the restrooms and to the back door that led outside.

  Bursting out the door, she immediately sidestepped and placed her back against the cement wall, allowing the delicious cold to snapfreeze the sweat that covered her body, that ran down the slopes of her back, that plastered her thick black hair to her brow. Closing her eyes she leaned her head back against the wall and rose to her tiptoes, trying to work the ache out of her ankles, squeezing her calves tight. Rotated the joints, and then sank back down with a sigh. Already she was beginning to shiver. Just one more moment. Just another second of silence.

  She’d been working since morning, nonstop since ten. It was what, nine o’clock now? The restaurant was starting to get busy, kids drifting down from the East Village, but mostly locals, Chinese from the Garment District filling the single massive front room with their clamor and clatter, demanding more and more food. Another four hours at least ahead of her, and for what? Two dollars an hour. Which she then had to hand over to Senora Mercedes before running over to work the night shift at the clothing factory.

  Standing still, all of New York City vibrating around her, eyes closed, the cold so harsh and mean it still shocked her, she thought for a moment of São Paulo. Tried to evoke memories grown threadbare and thin with the passage of years, but all the more precious for it. Like a prisoner rationing a bar of smuggled chocolate, knowing there’s no replacing it, knowing that each square is priceless, she thought of their old kitchen, so different from Mrs. Peng’s hellhole, the sound of her mother humming as she chopped up vegetables to dump in the feijoada, the delicious smell of pao de queijo in the oven, the sound of the TV as her dad watched and yelled at another game in the living room, his team always losing. Eyes closed, Maya held her breath and tried to recall that old feeling of happiness, of safety, of being exactly where she was supposed to be.

  The door next to her burst open, and she looked up to see Chang standing furiously next to her, heavy hand sweeping out to catch her on the back of the head as she stepped away from the wall to send her spilling down onto the hard snow and cement. Maya bit her lip, swallowed down her cry of pain and anger, and looked up through her suddenly disheveled hair at where Chang towered over her.

  “What do we pay you for? What do we pay you for, stupid girl, hiding out here and not working?! You want we fire you? You want go home right now, no job, no money? Inside! Customer’s yelling for food, food growing cold on counter, you out here hiding!”

  Maya knew better than to answer back. The cold had seeped in deeper than she had thought, and for a long moment she didn’t know if she would be able to stand. So tired. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been awoken by somebody roughly shoving her to get to work. Gritting her teeth, she jerked herself up and stormed past Chang before he had the chance to hit her again. Throwing her hair back, tying it into a ponytail with an angry twist, she knocked the kitchen doors open, crying out, “Ok caralho, let’s go, let’s go, where’s my food, where’s my food?”

  All thoughts of São Paulo gone from her mind.

  Hours later, having pushed through the weariness into some strange clarity that lurked beyond, Maya pulled off her waist apron and dumped it in the cubby hole beneath the cash register. There were still a few tables, but they were just waiting for their checks, ordering a last drink, delaying the inevitable need to step back outside into the cold. The kitchen was already being stripped and cleaned by the cooks, and Chang and Mrs. Peng were seated in the back corner, going over accounts, eagerly summing up the day’s income.

  Leaning forward on her elbows, looking past the lucky cat sculpture and the little bowls of toothpicks and mints, Maya stared out the large front window at the narrow street beyond. It was, what, one in the morning? Still people wandered the street, looking like lost ghosts plunging through the column of vapor that came up from the manhole on the far pavement. Two taxis jostled by, yellow like fresh turmeric, and somewhere a siren was wailing. New York, the city of singing sirens.

  Meimei stopped next to her, hands crossed over her chest, eying her last table with disdain. “Go home,” she said to them. “Go home already, ai ya.”

  Maya stifled a yawn and looked up at Meimei’s face. Wide like the moon, pale and fringed with straight black hair, Meimei was never going to
grace movie posters. But it was a kind face, and that meant more than anything. Maya smiled a lazy, incorrigible smile, and bumped her hip into the other waitress. “Five dollars and I’ll get rid of them for you right now.”

  “Oh?” asked Meimei, “And how do you do that?”

  “I have my secrets. But you must deal with Mrs. Peng after, okay?”

  “No,” said Meimei, “you crazy? I want to live to see twenty one!”

  “Ha,” said Maya, turning her gaze back to the outside world. “And what will you do when you are twenty one? You will just work work work, more more more.”

  “So?” asked Meimei, “Why? What will you do?” An old conversation this, a smile on Meimei’s face.

  “Me? You think I’m still going to be here when I’m twenty one? Ha! Soon as I can afford it or find a way, I’m leaving and finding my parents,” said Maya, voice suddenly fierce and she repeated her mantra. “Senora Mercedes—my aunt—says that they’re in jail. So I’ll find out where and hire a lawyer. No more New York, no more working like an animal, no more Mrs. Peng!”

  “No more Mrs. Peng?” asked an arch voice like dried beetle husks rubbing together, and Maya snapped up and turned around to look upon her employer. Mrs. Peng was a doll of a woman, hair done up in a tight bun speared by twin ornamental chopsticks, face a work of art, composed of makeup so thick Maya could have gouged canyons through the caked foundation. Mrs. Peng was the stuff of nightmares. Had been in several of Maya’s, crawling towards her through the darkness of her crowded bedroom, black blood pouring from her mouth, hair floating around her tiny head as if she were drowned.

  “Then you not want your pay,” said Mrs. Peng, amused for once.

  “Oh, no, I’m sorry, I mean, please,” said Maya. Mrs. Peng had withheld her pay before. This was no idle teasing.