The Twyning (25 page)

At first, while I was still weak, Malaika had explored with me. As I became well and the urge to return to the world below pressed harder upon me, she found it difficult to travel as far and as fast as I did. She was a fragile, not built for exploration.

One night, she simply stayed in the mountain. It was as if I had been released by her to become myself again.

The journey back to the river was hard, but finding my way was no problem. I followed the voices. The voices of the dead were leading me home.

There were citizens of other kingdoms out on the streets, but none of my own. I reached a wide space that separated a track from the river. Crossing it, I sensed, would be dangerous, but in the end, it would have to be done. The only way to return to the kingdom was through one of the entrances near the waterway.

The voices led me to a human building by the track. The enemy was not there and wood covered the windows. I found a way in and made my way upward to the top of the house, just beneath the roof.

Under a bright moon, I looked across the space, catching the distant glitter of water that flowed from the world below. There would be touch-paths nearby, the tells of citizens, leading to the gouges, rests, and hollows of the kingdom.

I remembered Malaika, and how she would be waiting for me. The next time I came here, there would be no returning to the mountain. But I had to return to Malaika. I promised. I would tell her that the kingdom needs me. She would be sad. I would promise to return, having done my duty, although both of us would know it was as empty a revelation as any could be.

Footsore and with an ache in my heart, I turned away from the river.

Light was breaking when I arrived back in the place where the love of my life was waiting.

Quietly, I went to where the two humans lived, and where she liked to sleep while I was away.

There was only one human there. He sat, awake, arms around his knees, his eyes wet and gazing into space.

Malaika was nearby. I smelled the sadness and fear on her. She was shivering and seemed hardly interested in my return.

I approached her, in spite of the human’s presence. She was cold. I revealed as I moved closer.

— Malaika. I am here.

There was no response from her.

— What has happened?

. . . in this great town of strangers?

I know nobody.

The police are more a danger than a help.

And what can I tell people? The girl I am searching for lives in a rubbish tip.

She is nothing in the world. She hardly exists.

I would have more chance of finding a stray dog.

The day after Caz’s disappearance, I walk into the center of the town. I know the places where she dances for pennies — outside theaters and restaurants, mostly — and visit them one by one.

But when I ask the men and women if they have seen a girl dancing here yesterday, they stare ahead as if my words are no more worthy of attention than the chattering of a sparrow.

“Have you seen . . . ?”

“I’m looking for . . .”

“She’s skinny, small, she dances . . .”

It is as if I am invisible. Only the thought of Caz keeps me going.

“I know she was here quite often, sir . . .”

The suited doorman outside a large hotel looks down at me, and for a moment, I have the feeling he might help me.

“I was wondering if you —”

He seems to twitch as if I have uttered some terrible insult. The side of my face is struck by the back of his gloved hand so hard that my body flies through the air before I fall in the gutter.

Someone is crying. I can hear it in the darkness. As my head clears, I realize that the sound is coming from me. I open my eyes and suddenly all is pain — in my head, on my scraped knees, in every rattled bone of my body. I stare at the pavement where I am lying. It is wet, and when I touch it, the fingers of my hand are red with blood.

I hear raised voices above me — a man’s, a woman’s. A hand grabs my arm and lifts me to my feet. I am aware of the strong, sweet smell of a woman’s perfume.

“You come with me, sonny, before you get yourself into trouble.”

The voice is husky and the hand strong. I try to get away, but the woman holds on to me. The left side of my face throbs where the doorman hit me.

“Unless you want the police to get their hands on you, you’ll come with me,” the woman says.

I look around, confused. I am being pulled into a side street by the arm. The woman holding me is tall and is wearing a tight dress that shows more of her than a lady should show. Wild dark curls hide her face, but there is something about her that tells me I am safer with her than near the doorman. I sense that she knows the way things work on these streets.

I stop struggling.

“He’s a bad lot, that Cribby Barton.” She looks down at me, a woman in her thirties wearing heavy makeup. “And he’s in with the coppers and all.”

Still holding me, she turns down another dark side street, and she bangs on a door in the wall so small that it would be easy to miss it. Moments later, it opens. Glancing back down the street, she pushes me into the house before her.

“Welcome to Rose’s fun parlor,” she says, following me inside and locking the door behind her.

We are in a room where there is no light from the outside world. Candles are on tables around the walls, and as my eyes grow used to the gloom, I see three other women, lolling on low couches. There is a strange, sweet smell in the air that makes me feel drowsy.

“Now what’s she brought home?” A younger woman gazes at me from across the room with half-closed eyes.

“Kid was in trouble with that bastard Cribby. Needs his face cleaned up,” says my rescuer.

“Bloomin’ Florence Nightingale.” Another girl, who had seemed to be asleep, gives a little laugh. “You and your waifs and strays.”

The woman who brought me in pulls up a chair and, without a word, pushes me back onto it.

She leaves the room, and when she returns, she is carrying a basin of water.

“Might as well wash all of the little blighter, Rose,” the sleepy girl calls out. “It’ll only take you a week or two.”

Rose. It is a nice name. Her powdered face looms up in front of me. She winks and smiles at me, then starts to dab at my swollen eye. Something in the water makes the cut on my cheek sting.

“Don’t talk to Cribby Barton,” she says. “That’s the number one rule in this part of town.”

There are noises from the dark doorway leading into the house — a man’s voice, a woman’s laughter.

Rose notices that I am looking curiously into the darkness and, pinching my chin, turns my face so that my one good eye is looking straight at her.

“Don’t you worry about what’s going on in there,” she says. “It’s grown-up stuff.”

I nod.

“What were you doing talking to Cribby anyway?”

“I’m looking for a girl called Caz,” I say. “She’s my friend. She dances for pennies.”

“Dancing for pennies,” the girl on the sofa murmurs quietly, her eyes still closed. “The story of my life, darling.”

“She’s disappeared,” I say. “She was supposed to come home last night. She’s in trouble. I know it.”

“Sounds like she just found someone to look after her,” said Rose. “That’s what I’d do if I were a young girl.”

“I looked after her.”

“ ’Course you did, love.” Rose dabs at my cheek, then rinses the rag in the warm water. “But a rich bloke can look after a girl in a different way.”

“She used to be at a dancing school, but she ran away.”

“Little fool,” says the girl on the couch. “What she want to do that for?”

“Maybe she’s gone back to the school,” says Rose as she looks closer at my bruised face.

“No.” I shake my head and wince at the pain. “I just know Caz wouldn’t leave without a reason. And if she did, she’d tell me. Or leave me a note.”

The woman on the sofa laughs quietly to herself. “You don’t know girls, love. We can be ruthless.”

From the darkness of the house, a man gives a drunken shout and a woman giggles loudly.

Rose places her hands on my shoulders and puts her face close to mine. “Tell you what,” she says. “I’ll ask around. There’s not much that happens around here without us girls knowing about it.”

“Don’t get yourself into it, Rose.” The woman on the couch sits up. I see now she is quite a lot younger than Rose. Her face is painted white with black lips.

“Here’s the truth, darling.” She gazes at me with big, blank eyes. “It’s the only truth some of us ’ave ever needed to know. If you’re a young girl on your own in this part of town, you’ll soon be in trouble.”

“But she wasn’t on her —”

“Shut up and listen.” She sways and then seems to lose interest in our conversation. “Trouble is the air we breathe,” she mutters.

I edge toward the door. There’s something about the white-faced girl that scares me. Darting an angry look in her direction, Rose follows.

She opens the door for me.

“Give us a few days,” she says. “I’ll ask around. Don’t give up on your Caz just yet.”

“Thank you.”

But the girl with the black lips is frowning now, as if something is bothering her. She totters across the room until she stands, swaying, in front of me.

“What dancing school?” she asks.

When I look confused, she says, “The school what your friend was at. What was its name?”

“It was a dancing school run by a French woman, I think — Madame Irina.”

Rose and Black Lips glance at each other.

“Irina Blavitsky,” says Rose. “Better known as Eileen Dabbs from Hoxton. She’s about as French as I am.”

“How d’you know her?”

Rose laughs, a bitter, rasping sound. “We know Eileen, all right,” she says. “We know her very well.”

. . . without the human called Caz. Malaika was eating less without her, and not because she was being fed less. She had been in the world above so long that she had forgotten that she was a rat, that humans were the enemy.

She was sad. She missed her human.

And here is something even stranger. I, Efren, also felt a nagging emptiness within me. I had become used to that pale human face looming over me, uttering its human sounds that, in spite of my every instinct, comforted me.

Sometimes, in the night, I thought I heard her revelation, but when I listened more closely, I knew that it was no more than an echo in my mind.

It was time to return to the kingdom, before it was too late. Malaika sensed my restlessness.

— Efren, don’t go. Not now.

— I must. You can come with me.

— No. I must wait for my Caz.

There was no choice. I am a rat. I am a citizen. I was born into the kingdom, and when it needed me, I had to go. It is through loyalty, through love, that we would survive.

She knew my decision, and she turned away from me. Even before I had gone, I had lost Malaika.

That night I looked through the tangle of branches into the humans’ room. Malaika and the boy human were sitting together, each of them staring, their eyes empty and sad.

I turned to leave. I had known the love of another rat, but it was not my fate to enjoy it.

Good-bye, Malaika. Good-bye, boy human.

I traveled toward the kingdom. Stronger now, I reached the wasteland beside the river while the moon was still high in the sky. I could smell the water but it was distant, and the final part of my journey was the most perilous. Since I had last been here, some kind of fencing had been put around the field. Crossing the open space, I would now have to escape from dogs, cats, foxes.

I made a choice. I would wait in the empty house by the road. I would find food, build up my strength.

Tomorrow, as the light faded, I would return to the kingdom.

I knew, as I waited there, that it was a decision that would change my life.