The Fifth Sacred Thing (86 page)

“No. Not anywhere.” Katy’s voice was sharp, pained, and Madrone fell silent.

“So what are you going to name my baby?” Katy asked.

Madrone thought for a moment. “Luz.”

“Loose?”

“Not loose,’
luz
, for light and birth, as in
dar a luz
. Or Lucia, if you prefer.”

“Lucia, I like that.”

Madrone hesitated.

“What is it?” Katy asked.

“Would you name her Lucia Rachel? For my mother?”

“I’d be proud to.”

“It’s funny, Katy. She died such a long time ago, in Guadalupe, and all those years I could never remember her face or feel her close to me. Johanna, my grandmother, she was always hanging around with advice, living or dead. But not my own mother.

“But then, that day with the Angels, when we found Poppy and saw what they’d done to her, I remembered. My mother was a healer too, a doctor. She ran a clinic for poor children out in the back of beyond; we lived next door. The death squads liked to attack clinics; they thought free medical care was subversive, ungodly. Of course I didn’t know that at the time. I just knew there was something my mother was worried about a lot. And then they came. She yelled at me to run away, and I hid in my own secret place, a little
cubbyhole at the back of the closet. I think I heard her screaming. Then I waited and waited for her to come and get me and tell me it was safe. She didn’t come.”

Katy slid her arm around Madrone’s shoulder. “How old were you?”

“I’d just turned seven.”

“God! What happened then?”

“It was so silent. After a long time, I became more frightened of staying hidden in the dark than of coming out, so I crept out into the main room. My mother was lying very still. For a moment, I was mad and hurt. I thought she’d gone to sleep and forgotten me. So I went to her to wake her up and touched her hand. Her hand was so cold. Then I saw the blood.”

Madrone was crying. At last I can cry, she told herself, safe here in the Sisters’ garden, a few warm tears for you, Mama, my first love, my first loss.

Katy was stroking Madrone’s shoulder and harboring the baby with her other arm. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

“I knew about death. I just couldn’t believe it had happened to my mother. She was always so confident; she knew so much. I just sat there with her until I fell asleep, hoping when I woke up everything would be all right again. In the morning, the neighbors came and got me. Then my grandfather flew down and brought me up here.”

“She was a good woman, your mother. It will be a good name for the child.”

“Thanks, Katy. I needed to tell that story to someone.” Madrone squeezed Katy’s hand and released it so Katy could shift the baby to her other breast.

“I’m glad you told me,” Katy said, looking down into Lucia’s murky blue eyes. “I feel a kinship with your mother. I’ve been sitting here wondering if I should go back to the Southlands. And if I do, what will happen to her?” She looked down at the baby, who was waving her small foot as she nursed.

“Give yourself some time before you try to answer that,” Madrone said. “That’s medical advice. It’s too big a question to tackle now.” She shifted the subject. “You like the name?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Lucia Rachel she is, then. Maybe in a few days we’ll have time for a naming ceremony.”

“Is there something I could be doing to help you?” Katy asked. “You do look tired, and I know there’s so much for you to do here.”

“Just make sure Angela gets her medication on schedule. And rest.”

“It seems so self-indulgent.”

“Katy, you just gave birth less than a week ago, and it wasn’t an easy birth. And you had a horrible time before that. You need to rest. Take this time to be with Lucia, to bond with her, give her a good start. She deserves it.”

“I guess you’re right. How’re the others?”

Madrone smiled. “Poor Sara. The worm has turned. Mary Ellen orders her about, keeps her waiting on all of us, bringing us food and tea, tells her what to do continually, day and night. No more ‘Miss Sara’ now.”

“I admire her. She gave up a lot. I’m not sure I would, if I’d ever had anything to lose.”

“You would, if you felt it was right. You’re that sort of person.”

“I don’t know. If I had a garden like this, a life where I felt it was my right beyond question to sit in the sun with my baby and watch these beautiful flowers grow, I’m not sure you could dislodge me.”

“If you had it, you’d be used to it, like I was. And willing to leave it all for some dashing adventure.”

“Regret it? Your trip into our world, I mean.”

“I can’t regret it, no. It’s taught me to appreciate all this. But I regret what we all have to do to defend this, to try to create it out of that ugliness down there. I regret that we don’t have peace. I’m tired, Katy, tired of fighting and struggling.”

“You ought to sit out here with the flowers for a while yourself, you know.”

“You’re probably right.” Madrone sighed and fell silent, looking at the bees in the borage plant. “There is something else you can do for me.”

“What?”

“Come with me to see Bird. I’m afraid to go alone.”

“Bird has disappeared,” Nita said. “Nobody’s seen him in the Plaza for two days.”

Gone. Madrone stared bleakly at Nita. To think that she could have seen him, touched him, maybe, known for herself how he was. And now he was gone.

They were huddled around the kitchen table, drinking herb teal It was late, and the patients were bedded down for the night. Sam lay on the couch, with his feet propped up. Mary Ellen sat in a corner, her head tipped back, snoring. Sara was washing the last load of dishes and cleaning the counters, while Maya rolled out a piecrust.

“Sara, sit down,” Madrone said. Suddenly the cozy kitchen scene irritated her. What was Bird suffering while they were drinking tea? “You’ll give yourself dishpan hands. We’ll clean up when we’re done.”

“I don’t mind. I’m trying to redeem my previously idle existence.” Sara smiled. Tired as she was, her hair plastered by sweat to her forehead in strands, her hands reddened and chapped, when she favored the room with that long, seductive glance she still seemed mistress of treasures and secret pleasures. Nita’s answering smile in return lasted just a beat or two longer
than necessary, Madrone noted. Oh, well, she thought. Either I’ll have to ship Sara back down south or let Isis fight off all my old girlfriends.

Isis, wandering in from the back door, intercepted the same look. She went over to Sara, slid her hand down her back and over her ass in a gesture of seduction and possession, leaned over, and kissed her on the mouth.

“How ya doin’, honey?”

“Doin’ dishes.” Sara pulled her head away, slightly embarrassed.

“Leave off that, come sit with me.”

“In a minute.”

“Tell me how he was arrested,” Madrone asked.

“It was a confrontation over water,” Sam said from the couch. “When the army first dammed the streams, a couple of weeks after they invaded, people tried to block them. They shot two of the Liaison Council; then Rosa and a gang of kids got between them and Bird and Sister Marie. One of their own soldiers shot the guy who was about to kill Rosa, but they arrested her along with Bird and Marie.”

“Poor Marie,” Madrone said. “She was so sick. I can’t imagine she’s still alive. But what about Rosa? Has anyone seen her?”

“Not since they captured her,” Aviva said.

“Do we know where she’s being held?”

“No. My fear is she’s been taken to what they so euphemistically call the Rec Center,” Sam said.

“¡Mierda!”

“They’re using her to pressure Bird,” Maya said. “I’m sure of it.” She turned her piecrust and thumped the rolling pin down on the board.

“No doubt,” Isis said, as Sara put down her dishcloth and stood nestled against her chair. “They’re ruthless slime, the bigsticks.”

“The what?” Nita asked.

“You know. The highups in the army.”

“Oh.” She let out an involuntary sigh as Isis’ hand slid down the outside of Sara’s thigh.

“One of their favorite tactics is to find someone to turn traitor, to use as an example,” Isis went on. “And they always succeed.”

“I didn’t think they would, with Bird,” Madrone said.

“All it takes is the right leverage,” Sara said. “For most people, physical pain is enough. For others, they find something else.”

“Like Rosa,” Maya said. “Goddess keep her.”

“I’m tired, you know that?” Madrone said. “I’m just tired of this whole damn mess. Here and in the South and all over—it’s not like we wouldn’t have plenty of problems to solve just surviving even if we didn’t have war and torture and incredible cruelty to deal with.”

“Wait until you’re as old as I am. Then you’ll really be tired of it,” Sam said.

Maya snorted, folded her crust, and lifted it into its tin. “I’m not tired. I’m just mad. If I hadn’t made all those stirring speeches in Council about nonviolence, I’d go gunning for the General myself.”

“You’re not the only one who feels that way,” Lou said. “I hear there’s plenty of debate about our strategy. I’m not sure how much longer we can hold the shoot-’em-up faction at bay.”

“But that would be a tragic mistake,” Maya said in alarm. “To give up now!”

“You were the one who mentioned guns,” Sam pointed out.

“I said
if
I hadn’t made those speeches,” Maya countered. “But I made them because I believe them. I’d like to shoot the General, just on a personal level. But that wouldn’t end the violence. He’d only be replaced. We’ve got to go on struggling to find a different way, even if we lose.”

“The problem is, losing in theory is a lot easier than losing in real life,” Lou said.

“Who would know where Rosa’s being kept?” Madrone changed the subject.

“One of Bird’s guards came over awhile back. He might know. But there’s a problem with him,” Aviva said.

“What problem?”

“Well, to begin with he didn’t just come over.” Sam told Madrone the story of the Johnson family.

“You mean he shot them all?”

“All except the youngest two. Then he sort of fell apart. We brought him back to Lily’s place, but he’s still not eating or speaking.”

“Great.”

Isis looked up. “Those guards, they’re the elite. Bred for it, not like your city rats and water thieves and roundups out of the unemployment lines. They’re soldiers first and last. You got one of them to come over, you doin’ good. Maybe the rest’ll follow.”

“Not so far,” Nita said.

“Give them time.”

“Can’t anyone reach Bird, dream to him or to Rosa?” Madrone asked.

“People have tried,” Sam said. “He’s closed off.”

“Lily hasn’t reached him,” Maya said. “Even I can’t.”

“I haven’t tried,” Madrone said. “But I will.”

In her dream, she was falling, nothing below her, nothing around her, falling through a gray space tinged with dread. Then Bird was there, falling with her,
and she kept reaching out to him, wanting to touch him, wanting someone to hold to, but he fell away, tumbling down and down.

“There’s no ground,” he said. “There is nowhere to land.”

“But what about your wings, Bird? Fly! Fly out of here!”

But he did not fly. He continued to fall.

34