Whisper (19 page)

“Don't take the betting personally,” the boy said. “We always bet on the new people. I've never seen someone like you stay, though, and I've been here almost my entire life. I'm Oscar. Welcome to Purgatory Palace.” He stuck his hand out for me to shake. His lower left lip pulled down when he talked, but the rest of his mouth stayed straight.

“So, you sign up to help with breakfast, lunch and supper once a week. My specialty is pizza. They love it when I cook. We have curfew and wake-up call, but otherwise the rest of the day is yours. We can't go back to our rooms until after two
AM
because the night shift works until then, but we can come here, to the common room. If you make more money than you need for Ofelia or to send home to your family, you get to keep that money. You should visit my room sometime and see all the stuff I've bought.”

I understood the words he said, but nothing made sense to me—the night shift, making money for Ofelia, visiting rooms. I opened my mouth, intending to ask about the night shift, but the tiny woman who'd told me to take off my veil sat down across the table from us. She looked like a child, her arms plump and short, but her face had high cheekbones beneath black, narrow eyes. Her jaw pushed forward.

“There's one rule here,” she said, “and you've got to respect that rule. You never, never work someone else's territory. You got me? You find yourself a street corner somewhere, camp out and make sure no one else has claimed that spot before you.”

The oatmeal would not go down my throat, even though I'd shoved it to the back so it wouldn't spill out beneath my nose. I swallowed, choked and felt tears come to my eyes. A street corner, making money, staying clear of other people's territory. I still didn't understand what I was supposed to do.

“I'm Candela,” the woman said and stuck out her hand.

“You don't talk?” asked Candela.

“I do,” I said a bit louder.

“You can't just sit out there and whisper. People will ignore you.”

And that's when my stomach came up into my mouth and I choked, even though I'd eaten very little. I couldn't do this. All my life I'd tried to do the opposite—be quiet, try not to be noticed, blend in with blackberry bushes and oak trees—and now they wanted me to draw attention to myself. If Candela saw my tears, she pretended not to or didn't care.

“You've got to get attention. How can you make people listen and give you money?”

I didn't know how to answer that. What was required of me? That I shout like everyone else?

“I play the violin,” I said. Both Oscar and Candela lowered their shoulders and relaxed their tight mouths.

“You didn't tell us you had a talent.”

Tears stung my nose, but I held them in. I swallowed a few bites of the oatmeal and then stood, following Candela, Oscar and the others. At the stairs, Oscar put his hand against the wall and lowered himself from side to side down each step. He pointed to the bathroom, the first door at the bottom of the stairs, and I followed Candela inside: four stalls, none of them with doors, all of them with toilets that flushed, and three sinks. Candela and I sat in the stalls and did what we needed to. I tried to pretend that this was all normal, that I wasn't embarrassed, that I didn't mind when people glanced at me as they walked past, that I didn't care how sticky the toilet seat was. I felt more exposed here than I ever had in the woods, where we had relieved ourselves in a crude outhouse.

At the third sink stood two girls whose shoulders were joined together; between their bodies emerged one arm.

“Hi, Maria, hi, Selene,” Candela said to the attached girls while I kept my head down, watching the paths of grime on the floor rather than stare at people who were inseparable. I followed Candela, trying not to collide with anyone in the hallway, trying not to breathe too quickly or to gasp. Oscar met us in front of room 13.

“Bring your violin,” he said.

I stepped into the room, slung the violin over my shoulder and took a deep breath. My hands shook against my violin case and felt slick with sweat when I lowered the strap over my shoulder.
Just go along—just do what they do, and everything
will work out.
I followed the others into the street. The door to the building closed behind us, the bars clanging like the tolling of bells.

Oscar pulled himself along the street to the right. Candela crossed the street and turned a corner. All the other people from the building wandered off in pairs or by themselves. I stood on a patch of gray cement in front of my new place of residence and watched everyone disappear. My eyes hurt. My stomach itched. I pressed the knuckle of my right hand into my eye and clutched the carved violin with my other hand.

I would not cry. I would not flutter my hands and panic, even though my understanding of the world was winging away from me. Pulling my arms in tight, pushing my elbows against my ribs, I squeezed my eyes closed and tried to imagine the world when it had made sense, when the creek gurgled at night, when the coyotes howled in the hills, when I played rummy with Eva and let her pick out the good cards from the discard stack.

After a few minutes, when I could remember the smell of trees and the sound of larks, I relaxed my arms and opened my eyes. Jeremia's violin was around my neck and my mother's slip warmed my legs. For now, that would have to be enough.

I stepped to the left, then to the right, not sure how to get away from the slanted building that in the daylight looked more like a dwelling for animals than for people. Yet I still would have preferred it to these unknown streets. The city shuffled around me, more noise and bustling than I'd ever experienced before. I could hear babies crying through the open windows, men and women talking to each other and older children yelling.

I trailed behind Oscar, keeping enough distance from his dragging legs that he wouldn't see me but following closely enough that I didn't lose him. I wanted Nathanael back. I wanted something natural—the stream with the crayfish, and the trees with the mangoes. I wanted bats flicking across the moon and Jeremia's predictable unpredictability. It was cold here—there were no trees, no flowers, nothing green. Everything was too frantic and fast-paced. The buildings felt tenuous, as though they might fall down as soon as the people in them left.

After crossing three streets, Oscar stopped. We'd reached a cobblestone town square with a large fountain in the center. Benches, chairs and tables were grouped sociably here and there. I could see a row of chess tables set up beside a short wall against which Oscar seated himself. He didn't rest on a blanket; he didn't give himself any sort of comfort but instead leaned against the short stone wall that surrounded the square. He slumped precariously to the side and changed his face. The grin was gone, the dimples had disappeared, and his shoulders drooped.

Aside from us, few people were in the square. Those who did appear walked quickly across the stones, using it as a shortcut. No cars roared across the bricks. I wanted to look at the fountain, reach my hand into its cold depths, feel the texture of moving water on my skin to remind me of the pond at home, but the water sprayed in bursts, pouring from the hands of angels, and I could not allow myself to touch that beauty, to amble through the open space where people would stare or, worse yet, pretend I didn't exist. I was tempted to untie the veil from around my neck and drape it over my head, but I could tell from Oscar's example that our defects were to be used to our advantage when begging for money.

Four stunted trees in pots occupied the south side of the square. Oscar sat to the west, to my left. I crouched between the four trees, rested my back against one of the pots and watched. It was shaded here, filled with the slight rustling of leaves, and if I closed my eyes, I could pretend I was in the woods. Oscar sat, waiting for someone to notice him. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine Jeremia here—Jeremia filling his time with nothing. He would never have rested against a wall, sat passively and hoped for money. He would have angrily pushed past anyone offering him sympathy, run back to the woods and lived with the foxes. He would have carved his way through the blandness of the stone around him, creating living sculptures of water and wind from dead rock. My fingers moved to the violin around my neck, and I held it in my hand.

A girl my age lurched to the opposite side of the square. Her body curved in a strange manner—her back twisted sideways. When she walked, she used wooden crutches and rocked from side to side. She sat against the wall on the east side of the square and placed a cup on the ground in front of her.

The light grew, became day, but seemed to be filtered through a cloud of dust. People crossed the square in a steady flow now. Most were dressed in pants, skirts and dark straight coats that were not dirty or full of holes. Some of them passed by Oscar or the girl and threw coins into the containers on the ground. Oscar spoke to the people who walked by, his hands reaching out, imploring, but from where I crouched, I couldn't hear what he said.

I understood what I needed to do, and judging from what Oscar and the other girl did, it wouldn't be difficult—if you were able to speak and didn't care that what you said turned you into a carrion eater, a scavenger. I would not make fifty dollars crouched between the pots of four unhealthy trees.

My legs shook as I stood and stepped out from between the pots, joining the walking crowds. I thought the people would avoid me, glare at me, turn up their noses, but they didn't seem to care that I had joined them. I exited the square and stood on a street corner where six roads intersected. The streets angled away from the square, curved around it, bustled with cars and pedestrians or people rolling along on the two-wheeled vehicles. The warmth of the sun began to seep through my black sweater.

No one occupied a corner of one of the streets, so I eased my way between the people and sat against a closed gray door. I kept my head down, not wanting to admit to anyone or to myself that I was about to ask for money. The violin felt good in my hands—heavy, something to occupy my time and attention. The case, a black outer shell with a crimson lining, covered the gray space in front of me, a throbbing heart against the gray stones. The violin was an answer in my hands—the key to something. I fit it beneath my chin and eased the bow over the strings.

The first few attempts to play a song came out scratchy and shaky as my fingers warmed up, but soon the tune smoothed, and I heard the sound of larks singing at dusk. I was able to make my way back to the trees. I played the song of Whisper and closed my eyes to the chaos and confusion around me.

The sun shone high and bright, having consumed half the day when I finally lowered the violin and straightened my shoulders. My neck cracked when I tilted it back, and as I opened my eyes, the canopy of trees from my home in the woods, the song of the crickets and the aroma of the hibiscus faded like a rainbow
.

Coins of various shapes, silver and copper, lay on the crimson cloth. I lifted one of these coins between my fingers. It was a thin metal disk with the head of a man on the front and a sheaf of grain on the back. I didn't know what to do with it, what it meant. Was this enough money to pay the rent? Did I have more than the rent—something for Celso? I should have spent more time with Nathanael's money, understanding its value.

I collected the coins and slid them into one of the pockets of my sweater, where they weighed down the material and felt satisfying. I slid my violin into its case, nestling it against the red cloth, and stood. When I raised my head, I looked into the eyes of a man.

He was young and had a thin smile broken by sharp eyeteeth. His face was rough, with hair that grew in uneven bursts. I thought of a skunk with its pointed face and secret weapon.

“Hey, ugly,” he said. “We've been watching you.” He jerked his head. I looked across the street and saw two more men standing on the corner. Their waxy skin matched the washedout gray of the stones that made up the buildings and streets—they looked like they'd stepped from the very walls themselves. Black cars skittered like roaring bugs in the street, but I could see the hunched shoulders and thick necks of the men from where I stood.