The Inner City (13 page)

And with a very deliberate, self-conscious tread, he led his tour back through the aisles, as with very deliberate, self-conscious movements, workers along the rows bent down their heads and gave at least a pretense of busyness.

Sam heard it with a sinking heart (if anything about him were capable of sinking) and was forced to wait until the very bravest souls got him down from the ceiling.

“You’ll get severance pay,” Peter told him as he circled unhappily. “And use me as a reference. If only you would stop
floating
.” He gave it a particularly vehement emphasis.

“I don’t care!” Dolores cried. “It’s wonderful that he can do it! And it’s wrong to fire him!”

“It’s out of my hands now,” Peter sighed.

Sam nodded unhappily, gripping his chair. “And out of mine, too,” he said. He felt terrible; it must be what alcoholics feel when they realize they have, finally, lost everything of value. What was to become of him? He felt the powerful pull upwards, and tightened his grip on the chair.

“Someone has to help me,” he said sadly. “I’ll be back on the ceiling again.”

“Here, you,” Peter called out, embarrassed and upset. “You there—grab his arm.” He gestured as two men stepped forward and held onto Sam. “What else can I do, Sam?”

Sam drifted slightly in the air. “No, there’s nothing else.”

They pulled him through the aisles to the front door. Peter and Dolores followed.

Outside, they hesitated uncertainly. “I have to leave you here,” Peter said finally. “I have to go back or there will be more trouble.” He turned to go, and then his eyes fell on the men holding Sam down. “They have to get back to work, too, Sam.”

One man let go and Sam began to rise when he cried out suddenly, “Not yet!” The man grabbed hold again and they all looked silently at Sam.

“I don’t know what it is,” Sam said huskily, gulping air, “but I don’t want to let go now.”

“But Sam, think of it!” Dolores begged.

“The sky looks so empty. And huge.” He sighed, and that shifted him slightly so he was harder to hold.

He bobbed gently. “Not now. Not yet.”

Peter eyed him with a worried frown. “There’s a rope inside,” he said without emphasis, and Sam answered, “A rope would be good.” A breeze caused him to pull gently away and then bump back against the men who held him.

Peter wound one end of the rope around Sam’s waist and over both his shoulders in a kind of harness. They all found it easier to control Sam if they let him rise four or five feet above the ground.

“That’s all we can do, Sam,” Peter said nervously. “We have to go back.”

“Tie me to that tree,” he said. “Just for a while.”

Peter and Dolores huddled in brief conferences during the rest of the afternoon. He looked worried; she looked sad. Betty walked down the corridors to the front door. “Leg cramps,” she said to Peter. She confirmed that Sam was still there.

Dolores left work early, as did the two men who had held onto Sam before. They got a cab, hauled Sam down and pushed him into it.

Dolores believed that eventually Sam would be free, that it was only a small matter of time before the sky looked more comforting, before he felt the final pull of invisible wings. She wanted to see it; she believed it so fiercely.

“A little longer,” Sam said, as he drifted outside her windows, tethered to the large tree in her backyard, looming and disappearing, turning as the breezes turned him, his eyes stoically forward, his face composed in a pleasant but uncommitted smile, the ropes around him each day more taut and straining, his hands locked together and reaching downward, toward where he wanted to be, on the Earth.

“I want to save this one,” Franka said, stroking Yagel, her youngest. The child sat in Franka’s lap, her dark eyes following the doctor happily. She chattered and waved her small hands around.

“She’s my second,” Franka added. Her hand rubbed the spot on Yagel’s ribs where it was thickening.

“Ah, yes,” Dr. Bennecort said. “Evan. What was he—ten or so—when it started?”

“Yes. I thought, at her age, it was too early, there should be lots of time.”

“You know it can happen at any point. I had a patient who was sixty . . .”

“Yes, you told me,” Franka said impatiently, and stopped herself. She took a moment to calm down, and the doctor waited. He was good—patient, professional—and Franka hoped that he could help. She wanted to say, “I’m imagining the worst,” and have him reply, “The worst won’t happen.” She knew better, but she was hoping to hear it nonetheless.

It had happened suddenly. Franka was bathing her daughter the week before, cooing at the smiling, prattling darling of her life. After the shock of watching Evan go, she knew she was a little possessive. Franka smoothed the washcloth over the toddler’s skin, gently swirling water over the perfect limbs, the wrinkles at the joints, the plum calves and shoulders. Yagel’s skin was smooth and soft as a bruised fruit—except there, where she suddenly felt the thickness even through the washcloth.

She automatically talked back as Yagel babbled, but she felt her face freeze and Yagel noticed the difference in her touch and grew concerned, her legs pumping impatiently.

And Franka couldn’t keep her hands off the child, touching, touching the spots that were changing, until Yagel began to get sore, and Simyon told her to go to the doctor. He said it coldly. He felt the spots that Franka felt, and he holed himself up deep inside, leaving Franka to find out the truth alone.

“She’s my second,” Franka whispered to the doctor. He’d been highly recommended by Deirdre, who had three emerald beetles tethered to her house, buzzing and smacking the picture window when the family sat down to watch TV. “We know their favourite shows,” Dierdre said. “We know when they’re happy.”

Franka didn’t want Yagel to end up like that, a child-sized insect swooping to her and away, eating from her palm. She wanted Yagel to end up a little girl.

“Time will tell,” Dr. Bennecort said. Time. And blood tests. Yagel screamed when the needle went in, but she forgot it all when given a lollipop. Maybe everything was still all right.

A month to get the results. And packets of information, numbers of people to talk to, a video explaining the process. He forgot she already had all this, from when Evan changed.

She didn’t look at any of it, and neither did Simyon.

“I don’t want this to happen,” Franka whispered to her daughter, day and night. Yagel smiled back uncertainly.

“Don’t you think you could love her, no matter what?” Deirdre asked cruelly when she came to lend her support. She so seldom left her home; she preferred to stay close to her emerald boys. Some people let their children go when they changed, gave in and released them. Took the ones that swam to the sea, and the ones that flew to the hills. The lucky ones kept the cats and dogs as pets—not
such
a change, after all—and put the ponies in the yard. You could wish for the higher orders; you could wish for the softer, cuddlier evolutions, but you couldn’t change what was meant to be.

“But whatever they are, you love them, still,” Deirdre said.

The three emerald beetles were about the size of a five-year-old child. They lifted and fluttered up and hit the window sometimes three at a time, with whirring thuds, they pulled to the ends of their cords, their green wings pulsing.

“My dears, my sweets,” Deirdre thought as she stood on the inside of the picture window, her fingertips touching the glass as they swooped towards her, their hard black eyes intent. “My all, my all, my all.”

She put out bowls for them, rotted things mixed with honey and vitamins, her own recipe, and rolled down the awning in case it rained, and went to Franka’s house when she called, where she found her friend with her child in her arms.

“Feel this,” Franka said. She rubbed a spot along Yagel’s ribs. “It’s thicker, isn’t it? Not like the rest of her skin.”

Deirdre took her fingers and delicately felt the spot. It felt like a piece of tape under the skin—less resilient, forming a kind of half-moon. “Yes,” Deirdre said. “Maybe. It could be anything.”

“Evan was ten,” Franka whispered. “And she’s only two. Your boys—did it happen at the same age for each?”

Deirdre shook her head. “Every one was different,” she said, trying to find the right thing to say. “They’re always different.”

Every day, Yagel’s skin thickened, making her arms and legs appear shorter. She no longer tried to stand up: crawling seemed to be more efficient. The first thick spot on her back now had a scale-like or plate-like appearance. Franka went to the library and began to look through books for an animal that matched: armadillo, no; rhino, no. And not elephant skin either. She skipped over whole sections, refusing to look at tortoises, lizards, snakes.

They were taught evolution as children, of course—the intimate, intricate link of the stages of life. Amoeba, fish, crawling fish, reptile; pupa, insect; egg, bird; chimp, ape, human; all the wonderful trigonometry of form and function. The beauty of it was startling. However life started, it changed. You were a baby once, then you’re different. Each egg had its own revolution; no one stopped.

How beautiful it was to watch as characteristics became form, as the infant who loved water became a porpoise; as the toddler with the steady gaze became an owl, as the child who ran became a horse. It was magnificent. Her own brother had soared into the sky finally, a billowing crow (always attracted to sparkle, rakishly rowdy). She had envied him—his completion. She had stayed the same and felt a little cheated.

Still. Maybe it was less than magnificent when it was your own child. Or maybe her own reluctance was abnormal. Simyon told her gruffly, “Babies grow up, Franka. You know they change. You don’t decide when it’s time for them to go;
they
do. When it’s right for them. Not for you.”

He was not a sympathetic man—but had that always been true? No. He used to be interested in her worries; he used to want to soothe her rather than lecture. Although—she told herself—he was dealing with it, too. Both children evolving; leaving. So quickly gone. Of course it was hard for him, too.

She remembered her own brother’s metamorphosis as a magical time—she had leapt up out of bed each morning to see the change in him overnight: a pouty mouth to a beak; dark fuzz on his shoulders into feathers; the way his feet cramped into claws; the tilt of his head and the glitter of his eye. It had been wonderful to see him fly, leaning out the window one minute, through it the next.

Even in the memory of it she heard her mother’s faltering cry. How stodgy her mother had seemed.

She leaned over Yagel. “I will always love you,” she confided to the child’s tender ear. Yagel poked her tongue out, clamped her arms to her side. “Always,” Franka repeated. “Always.”

Her neighbour Phoebe had two girls, neither of them evolved. She looked pregnant again and Franka went over to talk to her. “I think Yagel is evolving,” she said. “You’re so lucky.” Of course it was wrong not to accept her children as they were, but she felt it in her, a deep reluctance to let go.

Phoebe nodded. “It’s so nice to have them at home for so long, yes. Of course there’s so much beauty in the changes—you know Hildy’s girl?” Franka nodded. “A lunar moth. Elegant, curved wings. Extraordinary. Trembling on the roof. Hildy’s taken photos and made an incredible silkscreen image. It’s haunting. I look at some of the changes and it feels almost religious.”

Phoebe’s face looked dutiful and Franka knew a lie when she heard one: the false sincerity, the false envy. It was always better to have children who stayed children. And when they changed, there was always a judgement. No one really said it, but it was there. The mothers of sharks would always weep.

“You’re too possessive,” Simyon said, hunched over his dinner. He was eating quickly, tearing at his food. “Life is change.” He finished his meal and prowled down the hall, going into his daughter’s room, sniffing and blinking. “Reptile,” he said, coming back. “Cold blood.” He went off to watch his TV.

She drove around the next day, slowly. There were cages everywhere, some of them immense and gothic. There were new ponds, and short bursts of trees. A huge, exquisite ceramic beehive stood next to a garage. She heard the trumpet of an elephant down the next road, and the scream of a peacock.

As she drove, heads poked from the corners of garages and from behind gazebos, some of them not yet completely determined.

Sometimes the changes were slow, and sometimes the changes were fast. Yagel stood up again and walked like a little girl—stubby, but a little girl. She prayed every day that her daughter would stay just as she was, prattling and dancing and observing the world. She’d give anything for that.

It was Deirdre who saw the change, coming one morning to visit Franka, hoping to convince her friend that all would be well. It was a sunny day and her boys were resting on rocks, showcasing the various shades of green and blue on their backs. She had watched them for an hour, admiring them, seeing how they were perfectly happy as they were. It gave her a terrific sense of peace, seeing that.

She brought photos along to show Franka—hoping she could point out the expressions in the boys’ faces, proving they had full, rich lives so Franka could learn to let go. She hoped to persuade Franka that it wasn’t the end; it was the beginning.

She knocked lightly and swung the back door open then paused when she heard an animal sound from inside. Rather close. She stood still, her hand on the handle of the open door. She could see the kitchen and part of the hallway, and hear a snorting, slobbering sound.

She wanted to close the door without making a sound, any sound, but as she stepped backwards her foot kicked a pail on the floor and she made a sound. It was just a small sound, a stupid sound. The animal noise inside stilled for a moment. The hairs on her arm prickled.

She heard sharp claws clicking on the floor, and she stepped back quickly, slamming the door. She saw the shadow crossing from the hallway and before she turned and ran, she looked.

It was Simyon, half-gone, spotted and hulking, his shoulders raised high, his hips trimmed of fat. His high hyena jaws were fresh with blood. Deirdre thought, for one quick moment, how mistaken poor Franka had been, how fatally misguided. She closed her eyes briefly. Whose blood was on Simyon’s jaw: Franka’s or Yagel’s? Poor Franka, who had been blind to this evolution, delaying too long, thinking she was watching change while change crept up behind her. Deirdre headed home quickly, reminding herself it was Wednesday, the night of her sons’ favourite show. She would pick up some fruit on the way home, at that store clear across town. Simyon wouldn’t go in that direction and even if he did, he wouldn’t be hungry for now.