Throne Page 4

  Hands were being shaken, and Maribel stepped forward, said her goodbyes, said empty wishes of good will. Everybody turned, began to troop out of the yard. Nobody had noticed the little girl. Maribel had but seconds to take her picture. Holding the camera casually by her side, she had taken a picture as best she could as she walked by, taking the shot without looking so as to not alarm the girl. Desperately hoping that angle was right.

  Antonio had always insisted she transition to digital as soon as possible, but she had resisted. So she had had to wait until her return to Barcelona one week later to have her pictures developed. When the photographs were delivered, she had opened them up, each the size of a page, and flicked through them, ignoring all her shots, searching for the one that had stayed with her through all the dinners, banquets, receptions and further excursions into the city.

  There. The sight of the photograph stopped her breath, and slowly she had drawn it free. It was perfect. The girl was in the center, framed in the top right quarter by the darkness of the house’s interior, the other three quarters the pale, dusty beige of the walls and floor. A mongrel dog’s head was visible in the bottom left, walking into the picture, but the girl—her face. Two small hands, her dark skin made pale by dust, resting on the door lip. Her head canted to one side as she tracked the group as they left the yard, trying to keep them in her line of sight. Her rough haircut, short like a boy’s, her wide mouth, her dark eyes. Maribel had gazed at it, entranced, wrenched, incredibly protective, feeling at once filled with joy and shattered.

  Maribel opened her eyes, gazed at the glacial fastness of the park. Icy blues and steel grays and dark, obsidian shadows. The air ached in her lungs, stung her eyes. She felt as if her spine were a crystal rod, fit to shatter. Each breath was an exercise in discipline. She thought of that small girl in the doorway, now probably five or six, but in her mind forever trapped in the amber of the photograph, a year old, innocent and grave and beautiful. Sofia, she thought, and felt the stillness within her throb, threaten to crack.

  It was less an iron determination than a surrender to an overriding imperative. She had no choice but to search, would search, no matter what people told her. Somewhere, someone had her baby. Around that irrefutable core all else could be built, and from there she would develop a life. Her photography, her modeling, her marriage, her friends and life in Barcelona were but dried leaves blown away by this fierce, aching imperative.

  A series of knocks on the door. Antonio. She knew it was him merely by the cadence of the knocks. He had found her at last. The first two raps forceful, twin gun shots in the silence of her room, followed by a hesitation, fist held in the air, then a softer third nock. She lay still. Every muscle of her spirit had clenched, but her body was untouched, unmoved.

  Silence, no longer the pristine emptiness of before, but now the painful awareness of a lack of sound. Waiting. A profound sense of loss swept over her then, greater even than her pain for Sofia, a break with her past, and she rose, sheets drifting down about her like tangible whispers.

  Antonio looked up when she opened the door. His broad face, heavy, powerful cheekbones, his intensely intelligent gaze which assessed her in but a moment. He opened his mouth, his eyes widening as he sought something, an opening, a reception, an acknowledgement of his role in these proceedings. She gave him nothing. His arms, which had risen to hug her, fell back. Something deep within him realized how profoundly things had changed. Smiling, the expression cold on her face, she stepped aside, allowing him to enter.

  He stepped in, wary, desperate, the silence between them growing more definite with each moment they failed to dispel it. He walked into the studio, his shoes clacking on the boards, and stopped, looking down at her mattress on the floor. The sight of it held him, and then he turned, face twisted with pain.

  “Maribel,” he said, voice low.

  “Antonio,” she said.

  He took a half step forward, “My love, come back to Barcelona.”

  She could see that he burned, but it meant nothing to her. “No.”

  “Why not? What are you doing here, amor, what is this?” His arm swept round to take in the empty studio. “Come home, come home with me, please.”

  “No, Antonio,” she said.

  He paused, his eyes searching her face. Looking for a way in, some chink or crack through which he could espy the real her, hidden so far and deep behind her face. He lifted his hands, placed the tips of his fingers lightly on his temples, “What are you doing, Maribel? What do you think you are doing here?”

  “Nothing,” she said, and her smile was easy now, effortless.

  “Diablos, mujer, que haces?”

  She didn’t respond. Didn’t move.

  Antonio lowered his hands, stepped forward. Reached out, and placed both hands on her upper arms, his touch gentle, tentative. “Maribel,” he said. “You have to come home. You cannot stay here. What has happened must be dealt with, but not alone. Let me be part of this. Let me in.”

  “Be part of what, Antonio?” she asked, poised like a hummingbird, not trapped by his touch, but momentarily arrested.

  That checked him. Again he paused, searched her face. His hands on her arms began to feel artificial. “The death of our baby, Maribel,” he said quietly. She could see him watching her, waiting for her to be irrational.

  “But Sofia isn’t dead,” she said.

  He withdrew his hands, shook his head, not at her, but to something in his mind, something he tried to deny. “No, mi amor, she died. She is gone.”

  “She is gone, but she’s not dead. I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t expect anybody to understand.”

  “Then make me understand, help me understand. Tell me what is going on, please.” Would he shake her next? Would he resort to something physical as a last act of desperation? If so, it would be a calculated move.

  “No,” she said, and her smile was back. She reached up then, and cupped his face, his skin warm, his cheeks rough with stubble. She smiled up at him, and suddenly he was but a boy to her, a boy who didn’t understand, was out of his depth, could not understand no matter how smart he might be. “Antonio, you should not be here. Please go. I know this is hard. I will call you when I can.”

  He stood before her, frozen, and then she saw anger and desperation rise on his face. He reached to grab her shoulders, to take hold of her, and she raised her cell phone. He stopped. “I will call 911,” she said, “And the police will take you away. I will make up any lie I need to.”

  Antonio stared at her, mouth open. He stared at her with mute appeal, losing reason, arguments, logic. He didn’t understand, he no longer encompassed her like he once had, able to circle her and know her every shore. Now she was beyond him. Maribel lowered her hand, and stepped to one side again, revealing the door that was behind her.

  “I won’t go home without you,” he said finally. “I am staying at the Hilton. I’m going to wait outside for you, every day, until you talk to me. Please Maribel, I love you. Don’t stay here alone.”

  “Thank you,” she said, and watched him as he stepped past her, still hesitant, to the door. He took the handle, paused, stiffened, some part of him rebelling suddenly, flaring up, and then the tension went from him, his shoulders slumped, and part of her, distant and small whispered, she was his daughter too. But she stayed quiet, watched him as he opened the door and let himself out. He didn’t look back, and when he was gone, she stepped up to the door and locked it.

  The studio apartment seemed larger with him gone. Turning, she drifted to the window, and looked down at the snow covered street. She counted the beats of her heart, waiting. At seventeen he appeared, stepped out onto the pavement. Thin flakes of snow were drifting down, as if following the erratic trails of butterflies to the ground. Antonio didn’t flip his collar up like he normally did, instead turning to look up at her. She stared down at him, her face smooth and serene. He raised his hand, held it aloft, and then lowered it awkwardly. Turned, and walked s
lowly away, and was soon lost in the fog by the time he reached the corner of the block.

  Chapter 4

  The man’s smile was brilliant, a splash of sunlight in the dark, and she couldn’t look away. Maya forgot to shiver and simply stared like a tourist in Times Square, hands shoved into the pockets of her flimsy coat, still feeling the cold, yes, but aware of it only in abstract. Any second now he would turn and look away, walk down the street, disappear, and she would be plunged back into her sordid world of shadows and secrets. But for now, that smile, those fiery eyes from across the street.

  The whiskey was burning in her throat, curling and turning about in her stomach like a calico cat about to settle down to sleep. Fatigue and desperation and the first hints of booze in her system were making her lightheaded, and still he was looking at her and strangest of all, she wasn’t looking away.

  He was of medium height and slender, his face alive with laughter and confidence. Brown, thickly curled hair cropped about his head, and a gaze that seemed to pierce right through her, peel back the protective layers and stare right into her soul. She couldn’t tell where he was from, older than her for sure, but apparently not too old to not notice her.

  He raised his hand and beckoned for her to cross the street, to come towards him. Maya found herself starting forward, barely checking for traffic. Part of her was ringing alarm bells, dancing and waving its arms, yelling and telling her to stop, to not approach the smiling man in green across the street, but that part had been put on mute and shoved into the next room, ignored. Even as she crossed the street toward him, feet light, almost floating, feeling feverish, bourn along on deeper currents than she could fathom.

  Gaining the far pavement, she stepped up to him, stopped. He was slim like a dancer, lithe, with shoulders that narrowed down to a tight waist. He was wearing a green coat, green the color of dark trees, a long scarf of a green so dark it was but a shade from black wrapped around his neck. He should have been freezing, but instead he looked down at her with his green eyes, and she looked up at him and hesitantly returned his smile.

  “So beautiful,” he said, and reached out to brush a finger across her cheek. A part of her wanted to snap at him, smack his hand away, but it was a reflex she ignored, entranced by the sound of his voice, how he seemed more real than anything she had ever seen or felt before. The world had receded from about them, left them alone together, her, helpless before him, mind drifting and enthralled.

  “What is your name?” His voice was like cinnamon and warm sunlight in the dust and tang of iron that was the city, the hard smell of polluted snowmelt and smoke. It was cinnamon and a warm hand cupping her cheek, it was the smell of crushed grass, of the wine they served at Mrs. Peng’s to their wealthiest guests.

  “Maya,” she whispered, her voice coming from afar. The whiskey, she thought, the whiskey.

  “Maya,” he said, and laughed, pleased, and she found herself smiling, proud that her name should please him so. The spike in emotion brought tears to her eyes as her sudden happiness contrasted so sharply with her fatigue, her painful solitude in this city, made her so terribly aware of how worn and beaten down she felt. His smile made her aches all the more plangent.

  “Maya, you seem so sad. Here, come with me.” And he took her hand, his skin warm and dry, the gesture made without hesitation as if it were the most natural thing, as if he were her older cousin walking her home from school and they had known each other all their lives. He took her hand and she followed him, walking east along the street, unable to tear her gaze from his handsome, beguiling face.

  “Who… what is your name?” Asking felt as hard as struggling out of her jacket after a double shift at the restaurant.

  “I am Jack,” he said, smile playing at the corner of his mouth. Why was he so pleased? What had she done to please him so? The world seemed so distant, removed. She felt drunk, as if she were floating in his presence, her mind lulled, feeling safe for the first time in years. She blinked and they were passing under an overpass, across two broad lanes and then over a retaining wall. Through the dark shadows, leaving the buildings behind, and then before them opened up the East River, Queens glittering across its dark expanse, the Queensborough Bridge angular and dark to their left.

  “What—what are we doing here?” She fought for awareness. To gain control of the situation. How had they reached the river so quickly? Her heart, which had lain quiet, began to speed up now, a slow and urgent drumming in her chest.

  “Maya,” he said, and turned to face her full on again. Oh meu deus, she thought distantly, swaying on her feet, wanting to laugh, to cry. She wanted nothing more than for him to hold her, to run his hands through her hair, to press her face against him and allow all the choked up tears and pain to spill forth at last, to release, let go, stop having to fight and just dissolve into his strength and power. Her emotions were rising up from her as if evoked by a storm, a circular funnel of such powerful passions that she was frightened by their intensity, their confluence.

  “Maya,” he said, and he seemed to fill her vision. “You are so sad, so sad.” He cupped her face in his hands and tilted her head back so that she gazed full upon him. He was so beautiful, yet there was something terrible to his beauty, alien, frightening. It was like a flame, and she wanted to burn.

  “I…” she managed, but could say no more.

  “There is no need for such pain, such sadness. Not for one such as you, with a life so short and precious. You can escape it all if you wish.” Each statement had the ring of truth to it. She didn’t doubt him. “I can help you, Maya, I can make your life a joyous thing, a wonder of delight and beauty, eternal while it lasts. There is so much more beyond the walls of your city, the press of your sky, the rise and fall of the earth. There are dreams and pleasures, madness most sweet and delirium to thrill your soul. All yours, yours for the taking, sweet Maya, if you but wish to be my queen.”

  Where was her scorn, her customary and practiced derisive laughter? But his eyes. How they burned and bored into her, with such strange and compelling power. Her heart fluttering in her chest like a captive bird. She saw Meimei pause again at the end of the hallway, turn and walk away. Chang’s garlic breath. Mrs. Peng’s avaricious eyes, lizard eyes. Paula’s smile, so gentle and damning. Mrs. Mercedes, her hard hands and callous appraisals. But more. All her defenses were falling apart, collapsing before his gaze. Memories and pain were summoned, that could not be controlled.

  With a pang she thought of her mother, her father, their faces, gone these past years, the doubt and fear when they had seen her off at the airport, promising to meet her in New York soon, that she would stay for but a week with her aunt until they followed right after her. A sob tore free, brutal and harsh with its sudden violence.

  “Your queen?” she asked, her voice so small she didn’t think he could hear her.

  “Yes,” he sighed, “My queen, the Lady of Light and Laughter. I will open the doors, but you will have to step through them. Come find me, my love, I will be waiting.” Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, it wasn’t a kiss but a touch of his smooth, dry skin against hers, and she was shaking, shaking, his face pulling back, the river surging and roaring by her side, the pavement slipping out from under her, and then darkness.

  Someone was shaking her by the shoulder. Maya opened her eyes but had trouble focusing on the face above her own. It wasn’t his. The ground was hard, wet, cold beneath her, the slush having soaked through her coat, the fabric of her pants. She was shivering, and there were voices about her.

  “Are you all right?” Asked the man, his voice gravelly and accented. British, she thought, an Englishman. His face was broad, square, his hair gray and thinning. He was bundled up in a thick gray coat and standing behind him and looking down at her over his shoulder was an older woman, face misting up even as Maya’s eyes filled with tears.

  “Here, are you all right? Miss?” Strong hands slid under her shoulders and carefully helped her sit up
. Her clothing clammy and cold. She felt disoriented. The river to her right, the East River. She had indeed come here then, with a man. Maya looked sharply about her, suddenly needing to see if he was close, to spot him, but he was gone.

  “Miss?” The British voice, like something from an old movie. “Miss? What happened? Do you need an ambulance?”

  Maya opened her mouth, and nothing came out. She couldn’t exhale. It was as if a stopper had coagulated in her throat, a mass of air, dense and impenetrable. Nothing. She put both hands to her throat, strangling and choking as she tried to force out words, then cupped her own face and gave up trying to speak. The moment she did so, air rushed into her lungs with a frightful wheeze.

  “I think she’s choking, Harry,” said the woman, her voice frightened.

  She wasn’t though. She could breathe just fine. Again she tried, turning to look at the man’s wrinkled face, his small, blue eyes. Her throat immediately tightened, stoppered with gelid air. She couldn’t speak! Panicking, dizzy, she shook her head from side to side, her vision began to darken, spots appearing before her eyes, and then, with a sob, she gave up again.

  “Can’t you speak?” Asked Harry.

  Maya looked up at him, mute appeal in her eyes, and slowly, reluctantly, shook her head.

  Panic. Cold, mute panic. Maya had pushed past the British couple and rushed down the street, hands clutched to her throat. The world dark and rushing past her, indifferent and alien. Her feet smacking the pavement as she ran, awkward and ungainly, alone and terrified. Finally she crossed the lanes to her right, darting out through traffic to dive back into the city, to leave the East River behind, running in a bent over hunch till she ran out of breath, her lungs heaving and filled with red shards of glass.