Of Metal and Wishes (21 page)

Melik must heed his silent warning, because when I gather the courage to look, all I see is his back as he and the Noor carry Ugur’s body away.

MY FATHER ESCORTS
the Noor to the furnace room that night, but he does not allow me to go. I keep expecting him to talk to me about what happened with Melik, to scold me or comfort me or anything in between, but instead he avoids the topic completely, like he wants to pretend it never happened.

After another scalding bath, I lie on my pallet and listen to the keening sounds of the elevator. Bo does not try to speak to me. Strangely, I wish he would. But no one is speaking to me right now, so why would he?

Suddenly I need the sky. I need the moon. I need to be away from here because I feel like I’m being buried alive, eaten by a monster of metal and brick. This factory feels like a grave, and I need to rise from the dead. I pull on my dressing gown and shoes and flee.

The first gulp of night air stings and burns my fragile lungs. The frost will come in a few hours, and woe to anyone who must spend the night on the streets. The abandoned, the homeless, the ones who have been used up by the Gochan factories and discarded like trash, the ones too weak or unskilled to transfer to that other factory, wherever it is. There are many out there, like Jima, like Tercan might have been, had he lived. The winter always cuts them down, culls their numbers, but there are always more to take their places on the street corners, in the alleys.

I walk to the compound’s fence and stroke my fingers over the links, poking them through the little holes in the thick mesh. This fence is the thin boundary between me and them, between nestling warm in the belly of this beast and getting spit out of its mouth. I peer through the metal links, out to the pink-light salon on the corner. There is a small crowd of men outside of it, speaking in loud voices, looking back at Gochan One with hard, angry expressions.

Snatches of their conversations reach me, piercing this metal bubble and making me press my face to the fence. They are not talking about the whores or the frost or the holidays.

“. . . had enough . . .”

“. . . last straw . . .”

“. . . can’t go on like this . . .”

“. . . it’s not right . . .”

On and on they talk, speaking words of outrage. The explosion today was more than a distraction. It has lit a fuse. More men are coming out of the pink-light salon now, pulling their collars up against the chill in the air. Hazzi is among them, his swollen hands wrapped in a scarf. One of them is slightly taller than the rest, and when he steps into the light of a streetlamp, his hair gleams like copper. Melik speaks in our language, enunciating the words in his hard-edged accent, agreeing with these men, adding his own rage to the roiling pot. He talks of a strike, of demands, of rights. His power is clear tonight. He is not trying to hide it. He is using it, the weight of his words, the strength that vibrates from him like a current. They slap him on the back, and he returns the gesture. I am shocked. These men, several of whom I recognize as slaughterhouse workers, are not looking at Melik with hatred or suspicion or condescension. Tonight they are his allies. He is one of them.

It is suddenly very clear to me that all these men are not going to the salon to visit the whores.

They have found themselves a meeting place to start a revolution.

“What are you doing out here so late?”

I spin around with a startled shriek. Foreman Ebian is standing in the compound’s square with his hands on his hips. The fleshy swell under his chin makes him look like a toad. His cold amphibian eyes are on me, and in them I read exactly what he thinks of me. This must be how men look at whores, with an ugly mixture of hunger and disgust.

“I was taking a walk,” I say. “I needed some air.” I clutch my dressing gown tight around me.

“What were you looking at?” he asks, striding toward me on his thick, stumpy legs.

I step away from the fence quickly. I am so stupid. If he looks through the thick wire mesh, he’s going to see the men outside the pink-light salon, and they’re going to be in trouble. He might even lock the fence early to keep them out. “I was just watching the . . . I wanted to see if the apothecary was open.”

Not good enough, not even by half. Ebian shoulders me out of the way and puts his face to the fence. Every muscle in my body tenses. Then Ebian starts to laugh, a huffing
ugh-ugh-ugh
sound that carries no joy, only cruelty. “Of course you would be looking at them.”

I gape at him. He doesn’t seem mad at all. He’s smiling and leering at me. His meaty hand wraps around the back of my neck and pulls me toward him, close enough to smell the cheap rice wine on his breath. He jams my face against the fence.

“Your next place of employment, eh?” he chortles.

I don’t bother to struggle because he will only hurt me. I stare in horror through the hole and am hit with a tidal wave of relief.

The only people standing outside the pink-light salon are women. Three of them, their voluptuous bodies casting curvy shadows on the cobblestone streets. They laugh and wave at a passing horseless carriage. The men, Melik included, are nowhere in sight.

“I . . . I was curious,” I stammer, my eyes raking the streets for any sign of the workers. I don’t know how they disappeared so quickly.

Ebian laughs, and his hand falls away from my neck. For a moment I believe I am free, but then I hear the tinkle of metal and realize he’s fumbling with his belt. I backtrack but step on the hem of my dressing gown. My bottom hits the concrete ground, hard, knocking the wind out of me. Ebian shuffles forward, working at the zipper on his pants.

“Come here, little Wen. I’m going to satisfy your curiosity,” he says.

I glance around me and know there will be no help for me tonight. We’re outside, beyond Bo’s eyes and ears. Melik has disappeared. My father is probably sleeping in his alcove, dreaming of my mother.

I am alone, and I must take care of myself. I suck in a painful breath, trying to coax the air into my poor lungs and clever thoughts into my frazzled brain. I am not going to let this man touch me.

“Foreman Ebian, you are very courteous,” I say.

Ebian stops, his hands tucked into his pants. He squints at me. This is not the response he expected. “I am?”

I smile at him, wishing suddenly that I had metal fangs instead of blunt little teeth. “Indeed. Underboss Mugo will be delighted, I am sure, to hear of this.”

He frowns as my words work their way into his drunken thoughts. Mugo. Who has the power to destroy Ebian. Who is not known for sharing. While he ponders this, I get to my feet and dust off my dressing gown. I am bruised and panting, but my face is no longer at the level of his crotch, and that alone makes me feel more confident.

“What would you like to teach me, Foreman Ebian? The underboss has promised to teach me too, but he has not yet had the opportunity. I know he will be thrilled to hear that you provided me with my first lessons.”

Ah, this puts a look of fear on Ebian’s face. He doubtless knows Mugo likes his girls pure and untouched so he can ruin them himself. “But the Noor,” he says, watching me with narrowed eyes.

I wave my hand to dismiss Melik like I might a gnat, and I hope Ebian doesn’t notice how much it is shaking. “Oh, no, I would never defy the underboss. We all know how much power he has!” I cannot believe I am discussing my virginity like this, so casually, so callously.

Ebian removes his hands from his pants with a grunt because he knows I’m right. I will never be glad of Mugo’s attention to me, but in this moment I’m not sorry for it either.

“Better get back inside before you catch a cold, then,” he says, watching me regretfully, like I’m a juicy meat bun he’s accidentally dropped on the muddy ground.

I curtsy to him and he walks away quickly, heading for the compound fence, maybe to visit a pink-light salon and work off some of his frustration. I think a silent apology toward whichever poor woman ends up with him as a customer. I hope it’s not Jima. It was so easy to feel contempt for those women when I imagined I would never be like them, when I assumed I’d always have what I needed and further assumed that I deserved as much. Now I understand how foolish that was. I feel sympathy for them and what they must do to put food on their tables. I realize how fortunate I will be if I can avoid that fate.

When Ebian disappears from my sight, I sink down on a bench at the edge of the square. I can see the entrance to the factory easily from here, and I am ready to bolt if another man appears. It is stupid of me to be out here alone, but I can’t bear to go back in and walk past Mugo’s wrecked office now, because it will remind me that it is only a matter of time before he decides he is tired of waiting. He is the giant cat with me trapped like a rabbit between his enormous paws. He is playing with me before he gets bored and bites my head off. And after that it will be over, and I will be ruined for real. No one will want me, but anyone will be able to claim me.

Bo is right. He cannot be allowed to do that. It will kill me. But I cannot refuse Mugo. What about my father? What would Mugo do to him? Would he send him penniless into the Ring—or would he transfer him? Suddenly I realize how Bo must have thought of this too, how he arranged the perfect setup to protect my father from Mugo’s wrath. If everyone believed me to be dead, Mugo would have no reason to punish my father. And despite knowing my father has sold me into this, that he is silently turning his head while Mugo does what he wants, I still don’t want him to suffer. I think my father is too fragile to survive it.

Maybe if I run away, Mugo will spare my father, too. But only if he thinks Father didn’t know about it. Which means Father cannot know about it.

I have no idea how long I sit there in the dark, on that hard bench, how many silly schemes I dream up, how many plans I make and discard. My fingers are numb and so is my face. I am beyond shivering, but I am still not ready to walk into the belly of the factory, to let it eat me up. It is only when the voice speaks to me in the darkness that I realize there is someone sitting next to me on the bench.

“You saved us tonight, you know,” Melik says.

I look over at him, puzzled.

“Your scream.”

“Oh. Ebian . . .”

He crosses his arms over his chest and jams his hands into his armpits. “I climbed over the fence to get to you. By the time I made it over, he was walking away. He didn’t . . . ?”

My laugh is humorless. “Oh, no—see, I belong to Mugo, so Ebian can’t touch me. Not yet, at least.”

Beside me, Melik’s body winds tight as a spring. “I’ve been watching you, sitting here, for the longest time. I was waiting for you to get cold and go inside, but you aren’t going to, are you?”

I shake my head. My plan right now is to sit here until I freeze to death.

Melik sighs. “Wen . . .”

“I don’t know how everything became so messed up,” I say. “I can’t seem to do anything right. I’m sorry about Ugur.”

Melik is quiet for a long time. “Pelin, Baris, and Zeki aren’t sure what they saw. Only that they heard Ugur’s cries and ran to him, but when they found him, it was already too late. They said you were there too, and you knew how to make the silver demons that attacked him disappear.”

That’s about as accurate an assessment of what happened as any I could come up with.

“I saw someone grab you,” he says. “I fell behind, and I couldn’t reach you.”

He’s giving me an opening. Trying not to judge or jump to conclusions. I am grateful but also resentful. I don’t want to talk about this right now. Still, Melik is more important to me than that, and he deserves more than silence.

“You know about the Ghost who haunts the factory.”

He shifts on the bench so he can look at my face. “People make wishes, and apparently, sometimes he grants them. And he is the one you challenged after Tercan lifted your skirts.” There is bitterness in his voice that makes my heart shrivel. “Hazzi warned us not to trifle with him.”

“Today the Ghost was protecting me from Mugo. He could see what was happening, what was about to happen, and so he stopped it.”

I dare to look Melik in the eye, and I see neither anger nor disbelief there. “Then, he did better for you than I could,” he says softly. “All I seem capable of doing is getting you in trouble.”

“I was thinking the same thing—I’ve caused you nothing but grief since you came here.”

Melik moves slowly, giving me all the time in the world to pull away, and takes my hands between his. He holds them low on the bench between us, hidden beneath a fold in his coat. “We are bad for each other, I think,” he says, and there is the smallest of sad smiles on his face.

“Obviously.” I am squeezing his hands so hard I am surprised it doesn’t hurt him. And he is squeezing back.

“Mugo was right, you know. The rules are different where I come from.”

“Oh?”

“A Noor woman has the right to choose who she wants, to be with who she wants. And if she is with someone, she can touch him when she pleases.”

I smile in spite of myself. “And kiss him in public?”

“Of course.” His fingers trace over my palm. “These things are not frowned upon. We don’t hide how we feel.”

I think of how the Noor touch one another, even the men. They communicate their sentiments with their fingers and hands, with their expressions and gestures and voices. Melik is right—they don’t hide. “Isn’t anything private?”