A Far Country (12 page)

The flatbed stopped, the crowd broke around them, she heard shouting and the roar of motors, the gunshot backfire of motorcycles, the rattling of the overpass. When the light turned again, they passed a giant intersection, four lanes across in each direction, the flatbed vibrating as it picked up speed. Shops lined the road. There were signs for cheap clothing, cheap burials, cheap legal work, mourning clothes on credit. There were butcher shops, barber shops, shoe shops, shops with big plush toys, bars, dark buildings with names hidden in the shadows.

As they slowed, they came up alongside a bus. Entranced,
she watched her reflection float over the glass, until suddenly they passed an open window, where a pale girl with wide black eyes stared back.

The flatbed crawled forward and left the girl behind. When they stopped, Isabel could see the reflection of the crowded flatbed, but when she sought her face she couldn’t find it.

They drove and then they stopped again, the crowd broke, she heard shouting, hawkers’ cries and the roar of motors. It’s like I am going around and around, she thought, and she whispered to the woman beside her, ‘Is this it?’ ‘The beginning of it,’ the woman said.

They drove for another hour. Then the truck swung into an empty lot and skidded to a stop. ‘This is not the bus station,’ said someone. ‘The flatbeds no longer go to the station,’ said someone else and gave no explanation.

The passengers began to gather their bags. They filed away quickly and silently, turning into the street at the end of the lot. Isabel waited as the flatbed emptied. She went to the driver. ‘This isn’t the station?’ He shook his head. ‘The police started fining us. They say too many perches turn over.’ He paused. ‘You meeting someone at the station?’ She shook her head slowly. Somehow she had imagined Isaias there. The thought seemed ridiculous now; she hadn’t even spoken to him. ‘You know where you are going?’ he asked.

‘They said there’s a bus.’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course there’s a bus. There are hundreds of buses. Do know which one?’

Her hand trembled as she pulled out a scrap of paper where her mother had written
JUNIOR / 24TH OF AUGUST STREET / NEW EDEN / NEW SETTLEMENTS
. She handed it to him. ‘New
Eden!’ he said. He seemed to think it was very funny. ‘They should hang the guy who names these.’ But he shook his head. ‘I don’t know. Ask a taxi.’ ‘Ask what?’ she blurted, exhausted. ‘Which name is where I am going?’ ‘Which name? All of them. New Eden is what a priest with a cruel sense of humor called it. New Settlements is what it is.’ ‘It’s not the city.’ ‘It’s beyond the city. It’s what’s happened to the city.’

She walked slowly to the street, where a bus rattled past. She felt her face beginning to get warm. She could see a line of white taxis at the corner. A white car without markings pulled up next to her. Its driver put his head out. ‘Where are you going?’ She brushed back her hair. ‘New Eden. Do you know it?’ ‘Of course. New Eden. I’ll take you.’ She protested, ‘I just wanted the number of the bus.’ He shook his head. ‘Nonsense, you remind me of my cousin. You think I would let my cousin try to find her way on the bus? I’ll give you a special price.’ The car looked like the taxis at the corner. She considered. She still had the change the flatbed driver had given her. ‘How much?’ ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We can figure out the price when we get there.’

She let him put her bag on the backseat, and he opened the door for her. The car was old, the floor was covered with muddy newspapers. ‘Close the door,’ he said. She looked at him. ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘I haven’t got all night. I’m not allowed to park here.’

He reached over to pull the door shut, and his arm brushed against her stomach. ‘Sorry,’ he said politely, but suddenly she was afraid. She waited for him to ask for the street, but he was looking intently into the rearview mirror. He put the key in the ignition. It heaved but didn’t start.

He cursed, tried again. ‘Wait a moment.’ He opened the door and walked quickly to the hood. On the floor beneath
her, she saw a crumpled blouse. Her heart pounded. She told herself, It’s just a shirt, but then she grabbed her bag, pushed the door open and ran. She didn’t stop until she found herself in a crowd.

She walked for many blocks without knowing where she was going. Movement calmed her. She felt that if she just kept walking she would know the way, but soon she found herself at the edge of a dark street of warehouses. She turned back.

Her shoulder began to hurt from her bag. She wanted to carry it on her head, like she did with laundry at home, but she was afraid of people knowing she was from the backlands, and worried someone would snatch it. So she switched the bag back and forth between her hands, and wiggled her fingers to keep them from cramping. She felt very small. She had never been in such a crowd, except the New Year’s at the beach, long ago. She wanted to ask for help, but now she feared someone would take advantage of her. The shoes hurt her feet. The people walked swiftly and bumped her if she stopped.

Finally, she paused by a woman outside a butcher shop. The woman wiped her hands on an apron, peered at the little paper and shook her head.

A young couple at a bus stop also shook their heads. ‘You’re not from here, are you?’ said the girl, her eyes darting from Isabel’s bag to her face. Another man joked that he knew ‘New Hell’ but not ‘New Eden,’ and another laughed, ‘If you find it, let me know!’ They spoke with a different accent, without the lilt she was used to. She thought, What if Manuela was wrong? She thought of calling, but she would have to buy a token somewhere, which meant putting the bag down. She was now certain someone would steal it.

It was night. She stopped at a vendor selling corn, a boy her age. He stood in the street, his shirt whipping in the wake of the speeding cars. She stared hungrily at the boiled cobs. ‘You’re lost,’ he said. She showed him the address, and he whistled. ‘New Eden, huh? That’s
the real thing
. I hope you know someone there.’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘I mean not everyone there deserves to be in Paradise.’ He pointed across the street. ‘Bus passes there. Just look for the word
Settlements
in the window. You can spell, can’t you?’ ‘Of course I can,’ she snapped. He held up his hand. ‘Of course you can, no offense. Many people can’t. Even good proud people.’ She paused. ‘I thought maybe I’d have to spend the night here.’

‘On the street!’ he said. ‘You?’

At the bus stop, she stood next to a pair of older boys arguing loudly in a slang she hardly understood. ‘You looking at something?’ asked one of the boys, glancing over his shoulder at her. She moved to stand by a black woman with a faded dress and straightened hair. Again, Isabel caught herself staring. She felt as if she was registering everything from this moment: the stench of exhaust, the pounding echo of the overpass, the boys’ thin shoulders, the splitting calluses on the woman’s feet.

The bus came. They passed through a grated turnstile and paid their fares. It left the wide avenue and entered a maze of empty streets with names of dead ministers and doctors and generals she had never heard of. It seemed to be a residential neighborhood, with apartments guarded by steel grates and metal shutters and shattered bottles set teeth-up in cement, but it was empty. They pitched through at strange angles, there were no straight lines.

They climbed a massive span, over a road glittering with
car lights and a distant view of a floating city. It seemed as if they were driving away again.

She lugged her bag back up the aisle to ask. The fare collector laughed. ‘
Easy
. I’ll tell you.’

They dove back into the dark streets. She pressed her face to the glass. Now the city seemed to have been replaced by vast fields of shanties. In some places, ranks of identical row houses made patterns in the dark; in others, the shacks swarmed over one another without reason.

The bus was nearly empty when it pulled up at the base of a hill. She descended behind a pair of middle-aged women. There was a single road; the pavement ended after several steps, the rest was a paisley of cobbles, broken asphalt and gravel. A stream ran by the road, littered with trash. She ran until she caught up with the women. ‘I am Isabel,’ she blurted. One of them looked at the other. ‘Yes? Is that supposed to mean something? Am I supposed to know you?’ ‘I’m going here.’ Isabel pointed at the piece of paper.

They shook their heads with the name of the street.
‘Love
, the City gave the streets those names. No one uses them here.’ Isabel looked back at the note. ‘It’s across from Mr. Junior’s store.’ ‘That’s up the road.
Whose
house are you looking for?’ ‘My cousin—her name’s Manuela.’ ‘Of course.
Good Manuela
. We know Manuela.’ The women looked at each other. ‘She’s not home, though. She works all week.’

Isabel thought she heard envy in their voices. ‘She told me she would give a key to Junior at the store,’ she said.

She marched behind them up the hill. The street wound through houses of concrete, brick, clapboard, widening in places and then narrowing again. She stayed close to the women, afraid she would lose them. She wanted them to ask
her about the journey, but they spoke to each other in low voices and she couldn’t hear. On poorly lit corners, people were gathering. She could smell food, something burning. The road passed through long stretches of darkness, broken by the red stutter of street lamps.

A pair of girls walked past in bright skintight shirts covering only one shoulder. They looked Isabel over before stopping by men drinking and dancing around a radio. From an alley, a woman ran out, cackling, holding a baby above her head, away from a girl who reached for him.

The women stopped before a pair of metal tables outside a shack. A television flickered above a billiard table with torn baize, where a fat man was eating a plate of sun-dried beef. He was unshaven, and his breasts sagged in a ribbed undershirt. ‘Junior,’ said the woman. He looked up. ‘What is it, love?’ It was the voice that answered the telephone. Isabel felt she could cry with relief.

‘He’s a charmer,’ whispered the woman to Isabel. To Junior, she said: ‘This is Manuela’s cousin.’ She paused. ‘She just arrived from the north.’

He grinned. ‘My beloved backlands.’ A fly crawled on his shoulder, and he shivered it off. ‘I never could’ve guessed you just arrived.’ He winked at the women. Isabel brushed her hair back with her free hand. ‘I came on a perch,’ she said awkwardly.

He took another bite of meat and offered her a piece, glistening on his fingers. Isabel almost took it, but she was afraid that she would eat so ravenously that she would humiliate herself. She shook her head, immediately regretting it.

Junior lumbered out of his chair and led her across the street. Several yards away, they stopped before a brick house
with a concrete roof. He squinted at his key chain. ‘Good Manuela. Works hard, your cousin. She’s done well for herself. Good roof. Not many people have a house like this to themselves.’ He patted the wall as if it were a friend.

The door was stuck against the jamb, and he had to tug up on the handle to slide it open. He handed her the key and left.
Who will be with me, on the last perch in the world?
he sang as he trudged back up the street.

Inside, Isabel set the bag down slowly. The room was small, scarcely twice the size of the single bed, a thin mattress stretched partway over its boards. A table sat against the far wall beneath a window, one of its legs propped on a stack of cardboard coasters that had been taped neatly together. On a wire shelf, a plastic clock ticked. She went to look at it. Its face showed a smiling cat, paws pointing to the numbers. There was also an illustrated Bible, a stack of old beauty magazines and news journals, artificial flowers with clear plastic drops of water on their leaves, a glossy statue of Saint Joseph with a dewlapped robe and a broken ear.

A hammock hung against the wall. Inside was an imprint of talcum powder. The baby must be with the woman who watched him while Manuela worked, she thought. Him, or her. She didn’t even know the baby’s name.

In a second, smaller room she found a stove, an old icebox, a washbasin and lines with stiff clothes that smelled of detergent. She was impressed: she didn’t know Manuela was rich enough to afford an icebox. There was a short stack of plates with chipped rims. The glasses were from cream containers, the expiration dates still stamped on the bottoms.

On the wall was a fragment of a mirror with a single intact corner. She stood on her toes. In the sharp beak of the glass,
she could see the saint’s icon behind her. The single bulb backlit a nimbus of wild strands of hair. Her cheeks were dusty; the bruise seemed even darker and made her irises almost clear. She stared. What a strange sight I must be to other people, she thought.

Suddenly, she was exhausted and very cold. She found a sweater among a stack of clothes and went to lie on her stomach with her head on her arms. The room smelled of bleach and rusty water. The sheets were rough with lint and printed with ranks of identical laughing cartoon mice playing toy drums. She stared at the mice and then pulled the neckline of her dress up over her nose. It smelled of dust and of herself.

She slept through the night and didn’t dream. When she awoke, the room was warm and her head ached. An incision of light rimmed the door. Runs in the curtain cast dashes of sun across her body. Beneath the sweater, her dress was moist with sweat.

In the washroom, she found a large plastic tub of cold water and a floating bowl. She filled the washbasin. Her dress billowed when she plunged it in and the water grew silty with the dust. She scrubbed until the soap made pillows of foam. Thin trickles ran down her belly and suds settled in her hair. The air filled with bubbles, sour on her tongue.

When she wrung out her dress, her forearms trembled. She poured the rest of the water over herself and washed with a cracked piece of soap.

She wrapped herself in a worn towel from the line and went to sit on the edge of the bed. She set the soles of her feet uneasily on the floor. In Saint Michael, everyone talked of
wanting a cement floor, but here it seemed cold and hard, not meant for walking. It disoriented her; there were no paths burnished in its surface, no bloom of dust to say how long it had been since a person came through. She thought how the floor at home thumped when she swung out of a hammock, how it breathed, how she could put her face to it and feel the cold coming off, how it stained her feet and made the room smell of earth. She wondered, Why am I thinking so much about the floor when there are important things to be done? She rolled her toes: a dead sound.