by P. K. Tyler
Though she knew Shahbostan's talk to be fables, Kizzie listened because she liked hearing of other people and places. A proper imagination could fly any prison.
"He made something to care for," she said.
"My delafruz, you are a very bright girl! That is exactly what he did. He planted a garden."
Shahbostan moved along the fence line, going up and down, up and down, all the while weaving tales of magic that seemed both familiar and new, until, with the final stroke, Kizzie put the brush back in the bucket and appraised her work.
"You've always been a fine painter," Shahbostan said. He sat cross-legged on the walk behind her.
She didn't remember taking over the task, but she must have at some point or she wouldn't be here now. She rubbed her arms.
"You never turn your back to strangers," she whispered.
"Don't be so distrustful. It's laughter that chases away devils."
Kizzie hurried back home.
* * *
For the next week, she watched from her bedroom window. As she'd warned, the boys did find their way to the lot again. Shahbostan had left—off to the next job the city had assigned him to, no doubt. The boys tagged his fence with a cryptic script that meant nothing more than that they were here and as much of an eyesore as their creation.
Kizzie retrieved her own supplies and went to work on a pad of oil painting paper she'd picked up from a crafts store past the edge of the neighborhood. She couldn't afford the real thing, but this worked well enough. She thought of the neighborhood's true works of art, of personal truths stretched over brick and mortar, done with the skill and style of a Picasso, a Dali, a Van Gogh. She understood. When the cage becomes a canvas, the artist slips free.
"Turpentine's stinkin' through the walls," Aunt Yanine said from behind her.
Kizzie hadn't heard her come in. She let the brush hover and fought a feeling of vulnerable disquiet. She steadied herself and went back to work. Yanine leaned over her shoulder, but Kizzie kept at her work: a sulphur-crested cockatoo with silver eyes like ball-bearings and a long peppermint beak. Ever since that day down at the lot, she'd been thinking of such things.
A bellow came from the kitchen, Yanine's newly forgiven boyfriend. He'd moved in a couple days ago, or at least he hadn't left since then. It was hard to tell what that meant.
"Don't spill a goddamn thing," Yanine said.
"I won't."
Yanine swiped Kizzie's favorite earrings from her dresser as she left.
Kizzie worked a while longer, swirling the greens with cerulean blues because the color wasn't quite right. After putting everything safely out of the way, she looked down at the lot.
The piles of junk had been spirited away to who-knew-where. In their place, hidden sprinklers misted the distance into a thick fog. The greenery, cropped velvety close to the ground, rolled forward in loose swells spotted with color. Thousands of silvery threads traced the ground's troughs, weaving together into a tumbling stream up close to the fence. It seemed an odd way to irrigate.
Even more perplexing were the palms. Eight of them rose evenly-spaced behind the fence line. They were taller this morning, as they'd been each day.
"The number of abundance," Kizzie said and frowned at her own unfamiliar words.
The fence's center gate swung open and Shahbostan stepped out. In a turban and robes the color of old parchment, he placed his hands on his hips and watched the traffic.
His sudden appearance surprised Kizzie, for she was sure he had left for business elsewhere. North Brooklyn wasn't exactly welcoming to his kind, and yet he stood down on the sidewalk stretching his back and motioning to bystanders, to her.
She waved quickly in acknowledgment and scooted away from the window to where she couldn't be seen. She picked up her flower. That first day, she'd put it in an old jelly jar from under the sink and hoped for the best. Such things couldn't live for more than a few days. Perhaps it would bloom big before it realized it was dying.
It had been a week. It should be fading but each day it had only gotten stronger. Its stalk had grown more shoots and leaves and had budded and flowered into a little bouquet that had rooted to the glass. It had grown by unknown rules just like those trees.
Kizzie edged toward the window and glanced down. Shahbostan had arranged carts of produce about the gate and set himself cross-legged on the sidewalk. Once again, he'd finished before he should have started. Kizzie listened at the hallway and, when she was convinced Yanine wasn't around, made her way out.
She'd had just about enough of this strange man's behavior. She wasn't sure if she was meant to be confused or awestruck, but knew she was meant to feel something. Nobody put on this kind of show without an audience, and she had a front row seat. But it wasn't her style to simply react. She'd go right up and demand to know his purpose. This time, she wouldn't be distracted by his tricks.
She reached the streetside landing. J'waun sat on the bottom step.
"'Sup," he said.
"I'm going out."
J'waun grunted and tapped his thumbs over his cell. It chirp-announced an incoming message. He squinted through his glasses in a way that pained Kizzie. For years he'd had the same pair. He only put them on when he thought no one was watching.
"Saw you out there," he said.
"What?"
"The other day." He didn't look up, but kept typing. "With that raghead."
"Quit talkin' shit."
"Best stay away from him."
"You," Kizzie pressed her face close to J'waun's own, "should mind your own words." With one finger, she pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.
J'waun slapped her hand away and leaped to his feet. "What then?" he demanded. "Gonna get yourself beat."
"By you?" Kizzie scoffed. "Try, if you have it in you."
J'waun balled his hands into tight fists. Kizzie stuck out her chin and he trembled tense. When his cell chimed again, he turned away to retrieve it. She knew he'd find some reason to back down. She'd always been able to take him and he wasn't brave enough to see if the last years had changed that. The prize wasn't worth a possible emasculation. His charade barely held true as it was. He tapped away on his cell for a long moment.
"Dad would've whooped that guy's ass," he said.
"For what?"
"For bein' here."
"Why's that, jealous?" Kizzie asked. "Cause he's on the outside?"
"Shut up. He's interlopin'."
"Oh, please." Kizzie folded her arms over her chest.
"You even know where he's from? Someplace sandy, I'll bet."
Kizzie was about to answer, but held her words. A name had been on the tip of her tongue, though she didn't know what it meant any more than she remembered being told. She looked over her shoulder and out the front window.
"Maybe I'll go ask him," she said.
"Best stay away."
"I do what I please."
"Don't I know it."
Kizzie spun about and stormed outside before J'waun set her any more on edge. She marched across the street, through the white heat of midday, and up to the lot's fruit stand, arranged upon a dozen wheeled carts and barrows of polished wood. Kizzie recognized some of the contents, at least in form, though their qualities seemed wrong–fluorescent tangerines and pineapples mirrored like disco balls and items which seemed to be a cross between a pear and a peach.
Shahbostan rose from the sidewalk and hastily dusted himself clean. "My nazbanu, your presence is a gift."
"Yeah, well…” Kizzie poked at a rose-colored dragon fruit. "I thought you were done here."
"Far from it. Even after the second pillaging of Samarqand, the streets ceded more. Perhaps if you would beckon?"
"Samarqand? What're you asking?"
"Call them over."
Shahbostan motioned down the street toward Miss Dixon, walking her Pomeranians again. Since her retiree husband had passed, she'd busied herself with the task nonstop. Sometimes the dogs looked tired out
from all the attention.
"She is interested," he said, "but afraid. She sees but won't linger."
"If I help, what's in it for me?"
Shahbostan looked distressed. "Little one, it is ill-mannered to ask such things."
"Then how bout you trade answers? Cause I got questions. Is that polite?"
He gave a slight bow which Kizzie took as a yes. With a few excited hops and both hands waving, she caught Miss Dixon's attention. Though the old woman looked unsure of herself, she tugged her leashes and crossed the street.
"What'chu want, girl?" Miss Dixon gave Shahbostan only a passing glance.
"Buy something," Kizzie said.
"My first customer pays nothing," Shahbostan added.
Miss Dixon kept watching Kizzie with a thin smile.
"You hear that?" Kizzie asked.
"No."
"He said it's free."
"Oh my!" Miss Dixon seemed to only now notice the display. "How much?"
"Well," Kizzie looked toward Shahbostan, "a basketful?"
He nodded once.
Before Miss Dixon could dither and decline, Kizzie crouched down under a cart of aloe-scaled sugar apples. She retrieved a basket woven from palm fronds, still as deep a green as the canopy waving three stories above them.
Miss Dixon took the basket and chose a few honeydews. Her dear Reuben had always loved them so.
"Why's them strawberries fuzzy?" she pointed.
"Ah, my lady, those are the finest rambutans in all the land."
"You peel 'em," Kizzie said. "They're sorta grapey inside."
After Miss Dixon had assurances that she would be able to create a fine marmalade, one not at all sour, she finished her gathering with a thank you to Kizzie and a nod of acknowledgment to Shahbostan before making her way back home.
"That went well enough," Kizzie said. "S'pose she's to spread the word?"
"Yes." Shahbostan found a shaded spot and sat back down. "Would you stay and help?"
"If'n you deliver."
He chuckled. "Ask what you will."
"How'd you plant these palm trees so fast?"
"They believe themselves to be fleece flowers."
Kizzie frowned. Up the street, a group of older folks had their heads turned in her direction but stayed sitting on their front steps. She could tell they had no intention of coming over.
"Gulafruz?" Shahbostan asked. "Are you not going to ask what such a flower is?"
"Don't need to."
He stroked his beard and smiled up at the palms.
Kizzie plopped herself down, out of sight of the onlookers. She scooted behind a pile of purple-skinned mangosteens topped with cartoonishly thick-leaved stems. "You're makin' up stories. Why should I waste the time?"
"I would never lie to you," he said. "The nakhlestan happens to be one thing, but believes itself to be another. Have you never known such a person?"
"My brother."
Shahbostan gave a dismissive wave.
"What? He's a faker," Kizzie said.
"Faqir?"
"No. I mean he's fronting, just like you, putting on airs. Tell me this then. All this stuff was behind that fence?"
"Of course."
"Not true. For some reason, you want me to think that. But I can see down there, you know, from my room."
"Look closer."
Kizzie ground her teeth. The neighbors kept giving longways glances and scowls. She knew their concern. They'd seen what had happened to the rest of Brooklyn, to Flatbush and to Cortelyou and to other neighborhoods too numerous to mention. It always began with a stranger moving in, and then his family, and then his friends. Before long, someone would open a bistro. A juice bar would go in down the block and then the neighborhood would be filled with Manhattan transplants eating watercress in sidewalk cafes. Suddenly the rent doubled and the evictions went out. That's how it ended and this was how it started. A stranger out of place.
She should just walk away and leave Shahbostan to his fate, but some sense of the familiar kept her waiting. Over the next hours, she made attempts at gathering more customers. She almost had Mr. Tucker until he backed off halfway across the street. Mrs. Harper came over and frowned at the produce. Anything here could take a blue ribbon at a county fair, but it still didn't meet with her approval. Kizzie's anger slipped away from Shahbostan and landed firmly on her neighbors. They were being obstinate. Their rejection fell on her too, and it hurt. At early afternoon, the police arrived.
Two of them hopped from their cruiser. A skinny Puerto Rican cop Kizzie had seen at stop-and-frisks down by the liquor store, and a big fellow who lived three blocks down. Shahbostan rose to his feet and bowed low. He pointed out choice selections as if these two guys had any interest in shopping.
"You got a license?" the skinny cop asked.
Shahbostan scratched at his beard and glanced to Kizzie.
That one look said it all. He had no idea what they were talking about. She groaned. Though this was his fault and not hers, it still felt like a personal failing. She'd made herself a bit more than a bystander.
"Shut down," she said, "just like that. Stupid."
"Does he speak English?" the second cop asked her.
"What's wrong with you? Course he does."
"Hey, Bin Laden, we need your papers."
The two proceeded to explain sales tax issuances and green cart permits and mobile food vending licenses. They talked more like bookkeepers than peacekeepers. When they started discussing fees, fines, and confiscation of assets, Kizzie had trouble standing still.
"Shah," she interrupted softly, letting the officers drone on, "do you got any of this?"
"Of what?"
"Of what." She punched him on the arm. "The permits!"
He gave a wry smirk. "For which purpose, I ask?"
"Saying you can sell this stuff."
"Ah, one moment." Shahbostan gave a quick bow to the officers and opened the gate behind him.
"He's gonna get 'em," Kizzie said. "I guess. Maybe?"
But the officers weren't paying attention to her. Their widened eyes were focused on what lay behind the fence. Now that the idea had been put in her head, she wanted to see too. She stepped forward and peeked around the gate. A flurry of robes rustled before her and Shahbostan latched it back in place. He raised his hands. In them, he held a leaf as large as a dinner plate.
"For you," he said to the officers.
In this neighborhood, the cops interacted with folks just to see if they'd slip up. Then, if they felt like it, they could arrest a person for any of a thousand different failings. With Shahbostan's unabashed insanity, they now had good cause.
A leaf. Kizzie felt as useless as lint.
The skinny cop held the offering gently across both palms. His partner struggled with his breath. "Who is she?"
"But damn, she's fine," the skinny cop answered. His hands shook. "I can feel–"
"Shit, don't drop her!"
"Her who?" Kizzie asked.
"A memory of a concubine," Shahbostan said. "A skilled favorite of the most delectable sort from the harem of Indattu-Inshushinak the Second, son of Pepi."
Kizzie squinted at the leaf. For two heartbeats she sensed a swirl of motion over it–of legs and hips and soft curves, of silks slipping free. A perfume reached for her face and traced her cheeks with smooth fingers. Warm lips pressed close to her own. A breath of sugar. She shook her focus away. Unlike the cops, she had no desire to witness such a thing.
"Even the Sumerians with their fields of hul gil could not manage this," Shahbostan said. "The sublime hunger. The feminine is the opium of the masculine."
The cops hurried their prize back to their cruiser and, after a brief but heated argument, drove away.
"Guess they'll be taking the week off," Kizzie said. "Hope they've done their cardio."
Shahbostan sat back down. Kizzie noticed the scowls coming from down the street, from people standing with arms folded tight as they mumbled to one
another. They usually cheered in such a situation, but this time, they'd been rooting for the away team. They'd been the ones who sent the invitation.
"Nice try!" she shouted at them. When no one responded, she turned to Shahbostan. Everything that had happened here today and before should have driven her off with those others, but she wasn't afraid. "Who are you?"
"I am Shahbostan."
"No, really. No more messin' around. Who and what?"
"There is no greater question you can ask a man."
"You promised me the truth."
"Ah, but I did." He slipped each of his hands into the sleeve of the other and rumpled down into a heap of linen.
Kizzie sat before him and tried to match his cross-legged pose. It wasn't easy; her legs were unlimber. But she tried her best and attempted to look comfortable doing so.
"There once was a man," he began, "a vain creature, with a garden."
"Yes," she said in a way that she hoped urged him on.
"He'd hoped purpose would ground him, and perhaps it did in small ways, but not enough to save him. Still, he had honesty, for when lying to himself, a man gains little and loses much. At least in this he was true. And so, in a last attempt to redeem himself, he sought out a patch of perfect soil and waited for the perfect day. And when he had claimed both, do you know what he did?"
Kizzie thought she might, but shook her head.
"From the seeds of the poppy, the blessed lotus, and the fiery gulakhurshid, he created another, a little like himself, a little not, lesser in some ways and greater in others; to him petal-perfect, as sweet as nectar, the flawless flower of pure desire. A woman."
"A wife," Kizzie said.
"Yes! And when she opened her eyes—a deep green like the water lily's nawfar leaves, need I mention—she loved him with her whole being, for that is what she was meant to do. But little one, you see the problem."
Kizzie thought of Aunt Yanine, so eager to please and yet so blind to what really mattered. "She wasn't her own woman."