The City We Became

by N. K. Jemisin

  “Shouldn’t we go to the Bronx?” Manny frowns. “Since we know who she is. And, uh, what’s the fifth borough, again? I forgot, sorry.”

  “Staten Island,” Brooklyn says. “I have no idea how to find her, though.”

  “‘Her’?” asks Padmini.

  Brooklyn blinks. “Huh. I don’t know where that came from. It feels right, though. Doesn’t it?” She looks at each of them. Padmini frowns and nods slowly. Manny does, too.

  “Well, okay, then.” Brooklyn shakes her head, plainly uneasy about the strange knowledge dropping into her head. “My point was that the, uh, that woman, has probably already gone after the Bronx and Staten Island, same as she did all of us. And the fact that those boroughs haven’t exploded or something means that the people who represent them have figured out enough to survive so far. They’re probably confused as hell, but they may not need our help any more than she did.” Brooklyn nods toward Padmini.

  “I am certainly confused,” Aishwarya Aunty mutters. Padmini pulls her to sit down on the step beside her, and they start having a hastily muttered conversation in some other language. Tamil, Manny knows. He knows so many things that he should not.

  “There’s another of us,” he blurts. When they all look at him, Aishwarya with narrowed eyes, he explains. “Not five, but six. The Woman in White, she kept going on about another. Someone who’d fought her—beaten her—but not completely. That’s why she’s still able to attack us.”

  “Six?” Brooklyn frowns. She’s been staring at the baozhi, and now finally gives in to temptation, taking the last one. Almost immediately the door behind them cracks open, and Mrs. Yu puts out another plate of three. Manny nods to her awkwardly, but she doesn’t bother looking at them before closing the door again. Meanwhile, Brooklyn continues, “Ain’t but five boroughs, Manny.”

  “Five shapes that fit together make one whole,” Padmini says, shrugging. Manny blinks in confusion, but Brooklyn inhales.

  “You mean the city as a whole,” she says, her eyes widening. “Not a borough at all, but… New York? The city of New York, all in one person.” She whistles, shaking her head, but it’s clear that she believes it. Manny does, too, now that the concept exists in his mind. “He must be all kinds of crazy.”

  “But strong,” Manny murmurs. A shiver passes through him; the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Why? He doesn’t know. But he does not want to question his assessment, or Brooklyn’s assumption that the embodiment of New York is male. “If he fought whatever it was that took out the bridge, by himself, we need him.”

  Padmini slowly holds up a hand. “Uh, then if we’re voting, I vote with Ms. Brooklyn. You both look exhausted. I feel exhausted. It will be dark soon, and I would like very much to have some time to think about all this. Maybe we could, ah, adjourn for the night, and reconvene in the morning?”

  “That’s foolish,” snaps Aishwarya Aunty. They all stare at her, and her scowl deepens. “You just said something was hunting you. You want to split up now, and make it easier to pick you off? Together you can at least watch one another’s backs.”

  “Aunty? You believe us?” Padmini asks. She looks wide-eyed, hopeful, and very young.

  Aishwarya shrugs. “It doesn’t matter if I do or not. Craziness is happening, so let’s figure out a way to get done with the craziness quickly so you can get back to your life, yes?”

  Padmini laughs a little, but Manny sees the gratitude in her eyes.

  Brooklyn sighs. “I have to get back, anyway,” she says. “I told my daughter I’d be late, but I don’t want to be out all damn night trying to hunt down borough-people. And city-people. Especially when we have no idea where to start, with two of those.”

  Manny feels the same, but some of that is the general jangling restlessness that he’s been feeling since Padmini mentioned an overall embodiment of the city. They need each other, he feels certain, but they especially need this sixth one. And he feels especially, instinctively certain that they need to hurry up on that last bit.

  “This must be happening in other cities,” Padmini says, interrupting Manny’s reverie. She’s scowling, as if annoyed that the world makes less sense today than it did the day before. “We can’t be the only weird ones, can we? Have there been disasters like the bridge anywhere else today?”

  “No,” says Aishwarya. She sighs. “The usual bad news everywhere, but nothing like the bridge.”

  Then Manny remembers. “The Woman said something about São Paulo being here.” With the person who is New York.

  “The city of São Paulo?” Brooklyn asks. “It has a… person? Shouldn’t that person be in São Paulo?”

  “I don’t know. But if it’s true, then what’s happening to us is something that must have already happened in that city. And that settles something I’ve been thinking about since you brought it up.” He nods to Brooklyn. “When you said that we can leave, and the city will pick someone else. I think you’re right about that; it feels right, and that’s pretty much all we’ve had to go on so far. But I also feel like… past a certain point, we’re no longer going to have that choice. The whole city is probably supposed to be like Padmini’s building, safe from the Woman in White. It isn’t, not just because we don’t know what we’re doing, but because something’s wrong right now. We’re incomplete. Without each other, and the one who is New York, we can’t secure the whole city. But if we ever manage to do that…”

  Brooklyn groans. “I get it. Then we’ll be like São Paulo. Wherever we go, even if it isn’t New York, we’ll be… New York.”

  Padmini sits up, looking alarmed. “What, forever? But—no!”

  They all look at her in surprise. Even Aishwarya. Padmini grimaces. “It’s just… look, this is a lot to deal with! It’s nice that both of you have come to help, but—” She shakes her head, a coronal rather than lateral movement, conveying her struggle to articulate the problem. “I don’t know. I just… I can’t become Queens. I’m not even a US citizen! What if my internship company doesn’t hire me, and I can’t find another job that will give me a visa? Then I’ll be puttering around Chennai, being Queens! That can’t be right.”

  They all stare at each other in uncomfortable silence.

  Mrs. Yu opens the door again, just enough that they can see half of her face. Manny’s getting used to ignoring her; she’s obviously eavesdropping, but that’s also just part of life in a city. She doesn’t put another plate out this time, however, just peering out at them through the slit between door and frame. Her gaze roams them all and lands on Manny. “You hùnxuè’ér?” she asks. “Hapa? That’s what the young people call it now.”

  Manny blinks out of trying to understand why he understands Toishanese. “Uh, no.” Not that he knows of.

  “Hnh.” She examines them all again, then presses her lips together in annoyance. “In China, many cities have gods of the walls. Fortune aids them. It’s normal. Relax.”

  “Okay, what the fuck,” Brooklyn says.

  “Yes, exactly,” says Aishwarya. Padmini frowns at her. “There are many in my country who believe that, too. Lots of stories. Lots of gods, lots of avatars—probably hundreds. Some are patrons of cities; you could call them city gods. It’s wild to think you’re one.” She glares at Padmini, whose expression takes on a sort of aggrieved blankness. An old habit of tactful silence, Manny guesses. “But if you are, then you are.”

  “Yes.” Mrs. Yu opens the door more. Behind her, on one of the apartment’s couches, her younger grandson is asleep. His brother sits nearby reading a school textbook as if they did not just fight for their lives that afternoon. “Real gods aren’t what most of you Christians think of as gods. Gods are people. Sometimes dead people, sometimes still alive. Sometimes never lived.” She shrugs. “They do jobs—bring fortune, look after people, make sure the world works as it should. They fall in love. Have babies. Fight. Die.” She shrugs. “It’s duty. It’s normal. Get over it.”

  And there’s really not much they can say to thi
s.

  Brooklyn’s expression softens. “Sorry, ma’am. We’ve been here for a while. We should get out of your hair, shouldn’t we?”

  “You saved my grandsons’ lives. But yes.”

  So they get up and file out, which necessitates going through Mrs. Yu’s house. Manny takes care to thank her for the dumplings.

  Aishwarya stops on the sidewalk outside, glaring at them as if they have personally conspired to trouble her. “You both will have to stay with us,” she tells Brooklyn and Manny. “If our building is a safe place, and if having you around makes Padmini safer. I don’t have any clothes to fit you, and there’s only the floor…”

  “My apartment building will work, too,” Manny says. Then he grimaces. “Uh, but it might be the final straw for my roommate.”

  Brooklyn, however, is shaking her head. “I’ve got a place that should do, actually, if this whole business works the way I think it does. More than enough room for all of us. Hang on.” And she takes out her phone again, turning away from them to begin dialing.

  Manny wonders if she’s asking her aides to create some kind of safe house for half-apotheosized cities to hide out in. Padmini is staring at him oddly, though, and he raises his eyebrows. “What?”

  “I thought you were a little Punjabi, maybe, until I heard what Mrs. Yu said. What are you, then?”

  “Black.” It comes out instinctively, and feels true.

  “You look… half-white?”

  “Nope. Black.”

  “Black Latino or maybe Black Jewish or, what is it, Creole…?”

  “Plain old ordinary Black.” It feels like a familiar conversation. He has gotten this a lot, throughout his life. “I mean, probably other stuff besides Black somewhere back down the line, but I don’t remember if I ever knew what. Or cared.” He shrugs. “America.”

  She chuckles at this. Aishwarya is watching Brooklyn; Padmini seems to relax a little amid this reprieve from her aunty’s disapproval. “Queens—the borough, I mean—looks like you, too. So many shades of ‘what-are-you’ brown. But…” She inhales with a little ah. “Manhattan has Harlem. And Central Park used to be a Black and Irish neighborhood; I read about that online somewhere. They took the land from those families to make the park. And there’s that memorial downtown, at Wall Street, where they found a bunch of Africans buried in unmarked graves. Slaves. I guess some were free? But there were thousands of them, all buried under…” She grimaces. “Uh, where I work. So, what Manhattan is now, white people run so much of it, but it’s literally built on the bones of Black people. And Native Americans and Chinese and Latinos and whole waves of European immigrants and… everybody. That must be why you look so… everything.”

  “Okay.” Manny focuses on what’s more interesting. “You work on Wall Street?”

  At this, she slumps a little, looking disgruntled. “It isn’t my fault. I’m not a citizen. To get a worker visa after graduation, my best chance is an internship with a company that can afford to pay the fees, and right now only finance and tech—”

  “Whoa, it’s okay, I’m sorry.” Manny holds up his hands quickly. “I don’t judge.”

  “I do.” Padmini’s expression settles into anger. “My employer does terrible things. I can’t think about it or I won’t sleep at night.” She sighs. “I hate this city. That’s the irony of this whole affair. Me, part of New York? That is bullshit. Such bullshit. But I’ve lived here for like a third of my life, and my family’s hopes are all tied up in me being successful here, so… I can’t leave it, either.”

  And that, Manny understands, is why she has become Queens.

  Brooklyn turns, tucking her phone into her purse. “I just let my father know we’re on the way. Everything is set up. Ready?”

  Aishwarya purses her lips, reluctantly impressed by such efficiency. She eyes Padmini. “I assume you’ve decided to go with them?”

  Padmini sighs. “Yes, that seems best. And I’m not going to get up to wild orgies or anything, I promise.”

  Aishwarya snorts in amusement. “Just make sure your orgy partners are US citizens, free of bad diseases, and not too old or ugly. You had better get some clothes to take with you, kunju.”

  “Oh, right.” Padmini smiles gamely at Manny and Brooklyn, then starts toward her building. She stops, however, frowning as Manny and Brooklyn move to follow. “I’ll only be five minutes.”

  “The Woman in White could kill you in five minutes,” Manny says. “Or us, for that matter.”

  Padmini stares, and then probably thinks about Mrs. Yu’s pool. “Fine, then,” she says, and they all follow her inside.

  It takes longer than five minutes. That’s because, as soon as Padmini opens the front yard’s gate, the garden apartment’s window slides up, and a tiny old white woman peers out at them. “Paddy-me, was that you screaming?” she demands of Padmini, and Padmini goes over to crouch by the window and explain that, yes she screamed, but it was because there was a horribly big cockroach in Mrs. Yu’s pool, and she just happened to be over visiting, and she really hates cockroaches. That seems to mollify the old woman, who mentions that she’s baking some pies and will bring one up to Padmini’s apartment when she’s done.

  “Sorry,” Padmini says, looking sheepish as they move on from this.

  “Ms. Kennewick does make extremely good pie,” Aishwarya says to Brooklyn and Manny, in an aside. “My husband eats them like a pig.”

  After they climb the steps and go inside the building, it happens again. Each of the floors has been split into two small apartments. The 1A tenant is a young man whose dog they can hear barking through the door before he cracks it open, with the chain still in place. He eyes Brooklyn and Manny for a moment, then asks in a low voice if Padmini is having any “trouble.” Padmini beams and assures him that she’s fine and the new people are friends and everything’s well. So the young man mutters an order and the dog—a very large pit bull—goes silent. Both of them continue glaring, however, until Manny and Brooklyn are out of sight.

  “That was just Tony,” Padmini says as they climb steps. “He’s very nice. He makes me black cake in December, with rum, and I get so tipsy! He must be a freelancer, because he’s home all day, which is why I suppose he’s such a good cook. I don’t know what he does for a living.”

  “I do,” Brooklyn says with a grin at Manny.

  It’s like that all the way up. They don’t meet 1B or 2A, both of whom are at work according to Padmini, but 2B is rented by a stoop-shouldered older Black man in a kufi, who thanks Padmini for looking after his cat the week before. When she shyly asks for a few sticks of incense, he beams and hands her some from a shelf near the door. “I’ve always liked this scent for when I pray,” he says, clearly approving of her newly remembered spirituality.

  “Her, pray?” mutters Aishwarya, but the man in the kufi doesn’t hear.

  “I do, too, pray,” snaps Padmini, but she blushes a little and hurries on up.

  The whole third floor is one family—relatives of the owner, Padmini says. The door doesn’t open, but Manny can hear small children inside playing. One of them gets close to the door and yells, “It’s Padmini! I hear her! I want to say hi to Padmini!” before someone else inside the house shushes him and moves him away from the door.

  And somewhere between the third floor and the fourth, where Padmini lives in Aishwarya’s place, Manny gets it. This is just one building amid thousands in Jackson Heights—but here, in this four-story walk-up, is a microcosm of Queens itself. People, cultures, moving in and forming communities and moving on, endlessly. In such a place, nurtured by the presence and care of its avatar, the borough’s power has permeated every board and cinder block of the building, making it stronger and safer even as the city as a whole totters, weakened, against its enemy’s onslaught.

  It makes Manny ache, suddenly, to feel the same wholeness all over the city. Shouldn’t everyone here have this? He’s been here only a day, and already he’s met so many vividly interesting people, seen
so much beautiful strangeness. He wants to protect a city that produces such experiences. He wants to help it grow stronger. He wants to stand at its side, and be true.

  There is a kind of ringing that sounds, suddenly, through his soul. He stops in the middle of climbing the steps, startled—and Brooklyn turns as well, inhaling a little. Padmini, facing the opposite direction on the next landing to lead them up, stops and shuts her eyes for a moment. He feels the reverberation between them, and it shakes him into the other space—where, for the first time, he realizes that he has never been there as a man. He’s a city. When he stares at the strange empty streets, the damage (mostly healed now, because they are growing stronger), the wavering beautiful light, it suddenly strikes him that this is the equivalent of looking at his own navel. And in the instant that he makes this connection, his perception reels and rises and pulls back until suddenly he sees the whole of himself: he is Manhattan. And in the near distance, barely dwarfed by his own skyscrapers—another! She is Brooklyn. And beside her, close enough to join hands, sprawls a new marvel. Padmini is enormous, endless miles of low-story sprawl. When she turns, he hears the melodies of a thousand different instruments, sees the faceted sparkle of stained glass and industrial fiberglass and occasional specks of diamond, tastes salt and bitter earth and sharp fiery spices that bring tears to his eyes. Right there! His other selves. The city they need to be. He lifts his hands in the other world, the world of tiny people, and through the pounding of his own pulse he becomes aware of them doing the same. Yes, like this, together, they can be so very strong if they just—

  All at once Manny’s perception snaps back into his flesh-and-blood body. He stumbles on the steps and falls, clumsily enough to face-plant on a riser; blood floods his mouth. A solid ten seconds pass before Brooklyn and Padmini react; Aishwarya beats them both to it, gasping and trotting down the steps to help him sit up before the other two do the same. It’s taken that long for Manny to figure out why he’s on his face.