Chapter 5
THE SNOW STOPS ON SATURDAY NIGHT. THE SCRAPING sound of
shovels against asphalt fills the night air. From the window I
can see the faint silhouettes of residents throwing snow to
less cumbersome places, readying themselves for the
morning walk for Sunday obligations. There’s a certain
tranquillity to the town at work on a quiet night, everyone
bound by the same cause, and I wish I was out there among
them. And then the bedtime bell tolls. In the room fourteen
girls find their beds within the minute, and the lights are shut
off. The second I close my eyes the dream begins. I stand in
a field of flowers on a warm summer day. To my right, in the
distance, the outline of a jagged mountain range stands
against the backdrop of the setting sun; to my left lies the
sea. A girl dressed in black, with raven hair and striking
gray eyes, appears out of nowhere. She wears a smile,
both fierce and confident. It’s just the two of us. Then a
great disturbance kicks up behind me, as though an
isolated earthquake has just begun, and the ground is split
open and torn apart. I don’t turn to see what’s actually
happening. The girl lifts her hand, beckoning me to take it,
her eyes locked on mine. I reach for it. My eyes open.
Light streams in through the windows. While it feels as
though minutes have passed, in reality the whole night has
gone by. I shake my head free of the dream. Sunday is the
day of rest, though ironically for us it’s the busiest day of the
week, starting with a long Mass.
Ostensibly the large Sunday crowd is because of
religious devotion within the community, but really it’s
because of El Festin, the grand dinner that follows Mass.
All of us who live here must work it. My place is in the
cafeteria line. It’s only after dinner that we’re finally free. If
I’m lucky we’ll finish by four, then we’re not due back until
the sun sets. This time of year it comes a little after six.
We rush to the showers, quickly bathe, brush our teeth
and our hair, then dress in our Sunday best, identical blackand-
white outfits that leave only our hands and heads
showing. When most of the other girls have fled the room,
Adelina walks in. She stands in front of me and fixes the
neck of my tunic. It makes me feel much younger than I
really am. I can hear the throng of people filing into the
nave. Adelina remains silent. So do I. I look at the gray
streaks in her auburn hair, which I hadn’t noticed before.
There are wrinkles at her eyes and mouth. She’s forty-two
but looks ten years older.
“I had a dream about a girl with raven hair and gray eyes
who reached her hand out to me,” I say, breaking the
silence. “She wanted me to take it.”
“Okay,” she says, unsure of why I’m telling her about a
dream.
“Do you think she could be one of us?”
She gives the collar a final tug. “I think you shouldn’t read
into your dreams so much.”
I want to argue with her, but I’m not sure what to say. So
instead I utter, “It felt real.”
“Some dreams do.”
“But you said a long time ago that on Lorien we could
sometimes communicate with each other over long
distances.”
“Yes, and right after that I would read you stories about a
wolf who could blow down houses and a goose who laid
golden eggs.”
“Those were fairy tales.”
“It’s all one big fairy tale, Marina.”
I grit my teeth. “How can you say that? We both know it’s
not a fairy tale. We both know where we came from and
why we’re here. I don’t know why you act as if you didn’t
come from Lorien and you don’t have a duty to teach me.”
She puts her hands behind her back and looks at the
ceiling. “Marina, since I’ve been here, since we’ve been
here, we’ve been fortunate to learn the truth about creation
and where we came from and what our real mission is on
Earth. And that’s all found in the Bible.”
“And the Bible isn’t a fairy tale?”
Her shoulders stiffen. She furrows her brows and flexes
her jaw.
“Lorien isn’t a fairy tale,” I say before she can respond,
and, using telekinesis, I lift a pillow from a nearby bed and
spin it in the air. Adelina does something she’s never done
before: she slaps me. Hard. I drop the pillow and press my
hand to my stinging cheek with my mouth wide-open.
“Don’t you dare let them see you do that!” she says
furiously.
“What I did right there, that’s not a fairy tale. I am not part
of a fairy tale. You are my Cepan, and you are not part of a
fairy tale.”
“Call it what you will,” she says.
“But haven’t you read the news? You know the boy in
Ohio is one of us; you have to! He could be our only
chance!”
“Our only chance at what?” she asks.
“A life.”
“And what do you call this?”
“Spending our days living the lies of an alien race is no
life,” I say.
She shakes her head. “Give it up, Marina,” she says, and
walks away. I have no choice but to follow.
Marina. The name sounds so normal now, so me. I don’t
think twice when Adelina hisses the name at me or when
one of the other girls in the orphanage yells it on the way out
the school doors, waving my forgotten math book. But it
hasn’t always been my name. Back when we were
aimlessly looking for a warm meal or a bed, back before
Spain and Santa Teresa, before Adelina was Adelina, I
had been Genevieve. Adelina was Odette. Those were our
French names.
“We should change our names with every new country,”
Adelina had whispered when she was Signy and we were
in Norway, where our ship landed after months at sea.
She’d chosen Signy because it had been written on the
woman’s shirt behind the counter.
“What should my name be?” I’d asked.
“Whatever you want it to be,” she’d said. We’d been at a
cafe in the middle of a bleak village, enjoying the heat from
the mug of hot chocolate we’d shared. Signy had stood and
retrieved the weekend’s newspaper from a nearby table.
On the front page was the most beautiful woman I had ever
seen. Blond hair, high cheekbones, deep blue eyes. Her
name was Birgitta. My name had become Birgitta.
Even when we were on a train and the countries zipped
past the window like trees, we’d always change our names,
if just for a few hours. Yes, it was to stay hidden from the
Mogadorians or anyone else who might be following us, but
it was also the one thing that raised our spirits among so
much disappointment. I’d thought it was so much fun, I wish
we’d traveled over Europe several times. In Poland I was
Minka and she chose Zali. She was Fatima in Denmark; I
was Yasmin. I had two names in Austria: Sophie and
Astrid. She fell in love with Emmalina.
“Why Emmalina?” I’d asked.
She laughed. “I don’t know exactly. I guess I love that it’s
almost two names in one. Either one is beautiful, but you
smash them together and you get something extraordinary.”
In fact, I wonder now if that was the last time I heard her
laugh. Or the last time we hugged or made proclamations
about our destinies. I believe it was the last time I sensed
she cared about being my Cepan or what happened to
Lorien—what happened to me.
We arrive at Mass just before it begins. The only
available seats are in the very last row, which is where I
prefer to sit anyhow. Adelina shuffles to the front where the
Sisters sit. Father Marco, the priest, begins with an
opening prayer in his always-somber voice, and most of his
words are muffled beyond recognition by the time they
reach me. I like it this way, sitting through Mass with
detached apathy. I try not to think about Adelina smacking
me, filling my mind instead with what I will do when El Festin
finally ends. None of the snow has melted, but I’m
determined to make it to the cave anyway. I have
something new to paint, and I want to finish the picture of
John Smith that I started last week.
Mass drags on forever, or at least it feels that way, with
rites, liturgies, communion, readings, prayers, rituals. When
we reach the final prayer I’m exhausted and don’t even
bother pretending to pray like I normally do, and instead sit
there with my head lifted and eyes open, scanning the
backs of the heads of those in attendance. Almost all of
them are familiar. One man sleeps upright in his pew, arms
crossed and chin touching his chest. I watch him until
something in his dream startles him awake with a grunt.
Several heads turn his way as he gathers his bearings. I
can’t help but smile; and as I look away, my eyes find Sister
Dora scowling at me. I drop my head, close my eyes, and
feign prayer, mouthing the words that Father Marco recites
up front, but I know I’ve been caught. It’s what Sister Dora
thrives on. She goes out of her way to catch us in the act of
doing something we shouldn’t.
Prayer concludes with the sign of the cross, finally
bringing an end to Mass. I’m up out of my seat before
anyone else, and I hurry from the nave to the kitchen. Sister
Dora may be the largest among all the Sisters, but she
shows surprising agility when it’s needed, and I don’t want
to give her the chance to catch me. If she doesn’t, I might
escape punishment. And I do, because when she enters
the cafeteria five minutes later as I’m peeling potatoes
beside a gangly fourteen-year-old named Paola and her
twelve-year-old sister, Lucia, she only glares at me.
“What’s up with her?” Paola asks.
“She caught me smiling during Mass.”
“Good thing you weren’t paddled,” Lucia says out of the
corner of her mouth.
I nod and go back to what I’m doing. As fleeting as they
are, it’s these small moments that bring us girls together,
the fact that we share a common enemy. When I was
younger, I thought commonalities like this, and of being
orphaned and living under this same tyrannical roof, would
unite us all as immediate and lifelong friends. But really it
only worked to further divide us, creating small factions
within our already small group—the pretty girls huddling
together (La Gorda excepted, but still a part of their crowd),
the smart girls, the athletic ones, the young ones—until I
was left all alone.
A half hour later when everything’s ready, we carry the
food from the kitchen to the serving line. The crowd of
waiting people clap. At the back of the line I see my favorite
person in all of Santa Teresa: Hector Ricardo. His clothes
are dirty and wrinkled, and his hair is tousled. He has
bloodshot eyes, an almost scarlet complexion to his face
and cheeks. Even from as far away as I am I notice he has
a slight shake in each hand, as he always does on Sundays
—the only day in the week he swears off drinking. He looks
especially rough today, though when he finally approaches,
he holds his tray out and fixes on his face the most
optimistic smile he can muster.
“And how are you, my dear Queen of the sea?” he asks.
I curtsy in return. “I’m doing well, Hector. And you?”
He shrugs, then says, “Life is but a fine wine, to be
sipped and savored.”
I laugh. Hector always has some old adage to share.
I first met Hector when I was thirteen. He had been sitting
outside the lone cafe on Calle Principal drinking a bottle of
wine by himself. It was midafternoon, and I had been on my
way home from school. Our eyes met as I passed.
“Marina, as of the sea,” he had said, and I’d found it odd
that he knew my name, though I shouldn’t have since I’d
seen him every week at the church pretty much since the
day I’d arrived. “Come keep a drunk man company a few
minutes.”
I did. I’m not sure why. Maybe because there’s something
entirely agreeable about Hector. He makes me feel
relaxed, and doesn’t pretend to be somebody he isn’t like
so many other people do. He exudes the attitude of “This is
who I am; take it or leave it.”
That first day we had sat and talked long enough for him
to finish one bottle of wine and order a second.
“You stick with Hector Ricardo,” he’d said when I had to
get back to the convent. “I’ll take care of you; it’s in my
name. The Latin root of Hector means ‘to defend and hold
fast.’ And Ricardo means ‘power and bravery,’” he’d said,
thumping his chest twice with his right fist. “Hector Ricardo
will take care of you!”
I could tell he meant it.
He’d gone on. “Marina. ‘Of the sea.’ That’s what your
name means; did you know that?”
I’d told him I did not. I’d wondered what Birgitta meant.
And Yasmin. What Emmalina was rooted in.
“That means you are Santa Teresa’s own Sea Queen,”
he’d said with a sideways grin.
I’d laughed at him. “I think you’ve been drinking too much,
Hector Ricardo.”
“Yes,” he’d replied. “I am the town drunk, dear Marina.
But don’t let that fool you. Hector Ricardo is a defender all
the same. And besides, show me a man without vice and I’ll
show you one without virtue!”
Years later, he’s one of the few people I can call a friend.
It takes twenty-five minutes for the few hundred people to
receive their due today; and after the last person leaves the
line, it’s our turn to eat, sitting away from the others. As a
group we eat as fast as we can, knowing that the quicker
we clean up and get everything put away, the sooner we’ll
be on our own.
Fifteen minutes later the five of us who work the line are
scraping pots and pans and wiping counters. At its best,
cleanup takes an hour, and that’s only if everyone leaves
the cafeteria after they’re done eating, which rarely
happens. As we’re cleaning, when I know the others aren’t
looking, I throw into a bag the nonperishable items I plan to
take to the cave today: dried fruits and berries, nuts, a can
of tuna fish, a can of beans. This has become another
weekly tradition of mine. For a long time I convinced myself
I was doing it so I could snack when painting the cave’s
walls. But the truth is I’m creating a stockpile of food in case
the worst arrives and I have to hide. And by the worst, I
mean them.
0 comments:
Post a Comment