Whisper (38 page)

“I told you, I don't have the money and that tramp was hauled off to jail. Like I'm responsible for that.”

Celso turned abruptly and grabbed Ofelia by the neck. He squeezed, and she clutched at his hands.

“I'm sick of your whining, you old bat. Look what you've done to yourself. I can't stand the sight of you.”

She clutched at his hand, gasping, her eyes bulging and scared.

“You think I'm afraid of you just because you live in the city and work in this big building? That's nothing to me. I hate this stinking place.”

Candela began to beat against his side with her fists.

“Let her go,” she said. “You're killing her. Let her go.”

Beside Celso, Jun watched and laughed.

And then Celso saw us. We were grouped together in the doorway, Jeremia beside me, Ranita strapped to me and Eva holding on to my coat with one hand. When he saw us, the room became so still I could feel Ranita's breath against my chest. Celso let go of Ofelia's neck and with a great grunt, lifted another table and threw it to the side. Jun poured alcohol over the wood.

“You're too late,” Celso shouted at me. “You should have given me the money when I came weeks ago. Because of you, the old man burned.”

It was true. I'd killed Nathanael. It felt as if the floor was shifting beneath my feet. Jeremia squeezed my arm.

“No, Nathanael burned because of you, Celso,” said Jeremia. “It's not our fault you're a murderer.”

“Rosa still pays me. You know that? She's been paying me every month since she came here. She's such a hardworking little whore.”

I was going to be sick. All my wanderings boiled down to this one moment when I had to face the truth. My mentor sister slept with men for money, I had killed Nathanael, and I didn't know how to care for my family. I felt the tears, the sting of guilt, but Jeremia shook my arm hard, and I felt the fury in his grip. Fleet and agile as a deer, Jeremia leapt over the toppled tables and maneuvered his way around the destruction as though none of it existed. I had seen him like this before—climbing the trees, rising above limb and leaf as though they were irrelevant obstacles, as though missing an arm meant nothing. I wanted to look away, not observe the anger that would be unleashed, but at the same time his beauty was most magnificent when he moved with such timing and grace.

Celso crouched, ready, the knife at his side, but Jeremia came with such force, Celso was up against the wall of the common room with Jeremia's forearm against his neck before he had time to slice. Jeremia's father dropped the bottle in his hand and rushed at Jeremia, his hand outstretched. Jeremia's foot landed in his stomach, and with a grunt Jun crashed against the wall.

Before I could think about what I was doing, before I remembered that I had a baby strapped to my chest and a child following behind, I leaped over the tables, stepped over the chairs, jumped over broken bowls—I was back in the forest once again, my footing sure.

With my shoulder down and my arms protecting Ranita, I threw myself at this man who had risen seething with anger, ready to rid himself of a forsaken son who was less than perfect. His hand was aimed at Jeremia, about to thrust a knife into Jeremia's side, when I threw my shoulder into him, right under his arm. The hand with the knife rose into the air, piercing his own face.

I stumbled over a bench at my feet and tried to regain my footing, landing heavily on my side. I remembered the baby at that moment and tore open my coat. Ranita looked at me and then shrieked. I jostled her up and down and moved my hands over her body. She seemed whole—I felt nothing sticky, no blood, no limbs twisted into awkward positions. Jeremia still had Celso pinned to the wall. Celso pushed at Jeremia's face, trying to dislodge Jeremia's arm, but his pushes were weakening, his face a dark red and his eyes bloodshot, bursting. Celso's knife lay at Jeremia's feet.

I pulled myself off the floor and stepped around an overturned table, wondering who was shrieking so loudly. I put my hand on Jeremia's arm. He didn't feel me, didn't see me. When I looked at his face, I saw his mouth twisted, his eyes blackened, the tendons in his neck taut, but he was not screaming. I touched his cheek. He jerked and then saw me.

“Enough,” I said.

His eyes refocused on Celso, who was now feebly pulling at his arm with both hands. Jeremia stepped back and Celso fell to the floor, gasping and clutching his neck.

“Did you know?” Jeremia's voice was hoarse, low, as though scraped over rocks. “Did you and Belen know that surgery could correct a cleft palate?”

Celso's face slowly lost its purple color and became blotchy. His eyes no longer swelled from his face, and his cheeks sank back into their place. He gave a dry cough of a laugh.

“Of course,” he whispered and then put his finger to his lips. “But what good was she to us if she couldn't make money on the street corners? That's what all the rejects from the forest have done when the time was right.”

“Except for me,” Jeremia said.

“You're a boy. We didn't know what to do with you.”

“Where's Belen?”

“Pah. Jun is twice the man Belen will ever be.”

And then we looked at Jeremia's father. The knife, still clutched in Jun's hand, was embedded in his right eye. His screams pulsed with each breath. I held my hands over my ears. Ranita cried against my chest, Jun screamed on the ground, Ofelia moaned and twisted her hands in her hair, David lay on the ground next to Oscar, and Eva curled herself into a tight ball by the door to the common room. I sank slowly to the floor.

I rocked back and forth, my hands over my ears. I had done this to Jeremia's father—I had shoved the knife up and into his eye. These men had come to do harm, to cause violence, and even though I had been defending my family, I was no better than them. I'd sunk to their level. The goodness I'd once had, the innocence I'd brought with me, was gone. I no longer knew who I was, where I belonged and what my song should be.

Twenty-Six

For three days I slept. I lay in room 13 and kept my face to the wall, staring at it so hard I saw all the way back to the forest. Candela sat with me sometimes, rubbing my back, brushing my hair away from my face. Eva lay on top of me, pushed her soft cheek against mine and told me how much she loved me. David stayed with us, sharing room 13 with our surrogate family. He didn't seem disturbed by the people in Purgatory Palace—he had found his way to the common room and had been teaching Winston how to bake bread. Ranita had become Jeremia's responsibility once again. People whispered when they were around me as if my way of speaking had become contagious.

I heard what they said, I understood the situation, but I was so tired. I didn't know how to get rid of the ache in my limbs, the weight that pushed on my shoulders, shoving me into the ground. I wanted to become part of the earth, melt into the soil and feel the roots of trees holding me together. There I could feel whole again and remember the song that had once been my voice.

Jeremia told me that his father, Jun, would recover. Ofelia had called a doctor. The doctor came but couldn't save Jun's eye. He would wear a patch to protect the world from his disfigurement.

Celso was fine. He had a bruise across his neck, but bruises—at least the ones you can see—heal. The residents of Purgatory Palace had cleaned up the spilled alcohol, the tossed furniture, the broken doors. The building was salvageable because the men hadn't set fire to it. Oscar, it seemed, had not been killed but had a concussion. He whispered to me that a concussion a day kept insanity away.

David decided to join us. Celso had demanded that he come with him to the city. He'd wanted to show David how the rejects lived, selling their bodies or begging on street corners. Celso had believed that David would turn away from me then, but instead David found kindred spirits at Purgatory Palace. He cooked with Winston, played cards with Oscar and slept so hard his snores filled the room.

Ofelia was moving into her own apartment, away from us freaks, but had decided not to sell the building. She had placed Oscar and Candela in charge as long as they paid her monthly rent. Candela and Oscar were so excited, had so many plans to turn Purgatory Palace into a haven, that they argued about it constantly. They couldn't agree on anything, not even the new name. Heavenly Haven. The Final Stop. The Last Resort. Home.

“We'll have a restaurant upstairs and Winston will make all the food. We'll divide the common room into an area of shops and we'll sell all kinds of artistic things—we'll sell Jeremia's sculptures, my artwork, your music, David's bread. We'll tell the night workers that they have to go somewhere else. We'll make so much money with our art that we'll never have to beg again!”

I listened, but I didn't turn my face away from the wall. Moving my head was too much work. Who would come to a restaurant run by rejects, and who would eat food cooked by a boy with two faces? And where did I fit into all this? Would I live here again or keep going to school? If I stopped going to school, my lessons would stop, my work with the orchestra would cease, I would lose the wholeness of the music that I'd grown to love.

Solomon came to visit. He had visited Ofelia before but had never seen the rest of the building or all of the inhabitants. He was subdued, speaking to me softly, finally understanding just a bit of my life. Solomon probably thought the orchestra would spur me into action, convince me to rise from this bed and feel well again, but I was just too tired to get up. I felt like my song was gone and I'd been left with nothing to say.

Jeremia sat in the corner of the room and whittled. His sculptures were different here in Purgatory Palace. In our camp, the forms had spoken of water, twisting branches, beams of sunlight. Here they resembled flames, shards of glass, the points of knives. Dr. Ruiz bought the first sculpture from him, paying him enough money for a month's stay at Purgatory Palace. He saw that he could make his living in the city, whether he liked it or not.

When Dr. Ruiz came to buy the sculpture, she clapped her hands and laughed out loud. She refused to whisper.

“There is so much work to be done here. And you have such a wonderful family. But where did all these people come from? Why are they all gathered here?” She sat in my room and listened to the stories of Purgatory Palace.

Winston, the boy with two faces, had been born in a village south of the city. When he was born, the people of his village thought he was a marvel, that he was blessed and could predict the future. But in the years after he was born, the village's water supply completely dried up, the wells became stagnant, the crops failed. Their belief in the miracle of the boy with two faces changed, and they blamed him for the destruction of their village. They left him on the doorstep of Purgatory Palace.

The connected sisters—conjoined twins, Dr. Ruiz called them—were from Gloriosa. Their parents worked on the farm and already had three children before the farm came, before pigs became the main source of income, and then they had the twins. They didn't need more kids—kids who had to do everything together, who couldn't be separated, so they brought them here.

Dr. Ruiz brought bandages with her, skin-colored bits of tape, and she applied them to Ranita's lip.

“See?” she said. “This is what she'll look like after the surgery.”

I turned my face away from the wall and opened my eyes. I looked at Ranita, who appeared blurred, misshapen. I lifted my head from the bed and stared at her face. She had no blemish. The tape covered the irregular openings and turned her perfect. This is why I was here—to make a better life for my little sister.

The room swirled around me, brightened, and I felt something in my chest—a small bud that was growing, blooming, spreading to my limbs. Jeremia stopped whittling, the conjoined twins stopped speaking, Eva stopped hopping on one foot, and Dr. Ruiz's cheeks puffed into a smile when I got off the bed. My legs felt shaky and my arms weak as I stood. I brushed off my clothes, opened the case of my violin and fit the instrument to my shoulder, under my chin, and it all came back, everything I had said through my songs. I played the song of Purgatory Palace. It was my first practice in three days—I closed my eyes and felt the music. I pulled the veil from around my neck and draped it over my head. Candela, Dr. Ruiz, David, Jeremia, Eva and Ranita all watched as I pulled my coat on and put the violin back into its case.

“I need to talk to Solomon,” I said and walked out the door.

Solomon was in his office at the school. He sat behind a desk littered with newspapers, disposable coffee cups, wrappers. His usually smooth chin was stubbled with growth, and his peppermint scent was muddled by coffee, bad breath and body odor. When I entered his office, he held his hands out to me and spoke in a shaky voice.

“Whisper, can we ever make it work?” His voice was as hoarse as mine. “Have I lost you and the beauty of your song?”