The Necessary Beggar (14 page)
Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
And indeed, she liked many things about America, although some of it was confusing. Lisa took her shopping sometimes, to the grocery store or to the mall. Zamatryna was enchanted by the rows and rows of food, or shoes, or books, or clothing in each store; she was even more enchanted by the lights of the casinos, but Lisa would not let her go inside.
“They're pretty from the outside, sweetie, but they're wicked. You don't want to go in there. That's where people throw away their money.”
“They throw it away?” Zamatryna was confused. “Why? So other people can pick it up who need it?”
“No. They throw it away because they think they'll get more that way.”
Zamatryna frowned. “You mean, because if they show they don't need it, more will come to them? That is why we give money to Mendicants. Do they throw their money at Mendicants?”
Lisa looked at her. “No, they throw it at machines, but yes, they hope they'll get more that way. Don't worry about understanding it. You can't.”
“Why do machines need money? They aren't alive.”
Lisa laughed. “You're right. The machines don't need money.”
“But what do the machines do with the money they don't need?”
“They eat it. Except sometimes, when they spit out a lot of it at once, and then whoever's there can take it home. And everyone who goes in there thinks they'll be the person who'll get the money, if they stand there long enough. It's foolishness.”
“The machines spit it up? They vomit it?”
Lisa laughed again, a hearty laugh from her belly. “Yeah, they vomit it. That's a good way of putting it.”
Zamatryna wrinkled her nose. “That sounds disgusting.”
“Yes, it is, and that's why we're not going in there. Now, where do you want to go for lunch, sweetie? McDonald's, or Taco Bell?”
Zamatryna chose McDonald's. They were giving away small toy aardvarks in improbable shades of orange and purple and pink, characters in a cartoon Poliniana liked. Zamatryna did nice things for Poliniana whenever she could, to make up for having been mean to her about sharing a bedroom, and she knew that Poliniana would be happy to have more aardvarks.
Outside the McDonald's stood a very dirty woman in a tattered sweatshirt and blue jeans. She wore no shoes. Her hair was matted and stringy, and she smelled sour. She held up a cardboard sign that said, in heavy, crooked letters, “I need gas $$$ to get to California. Pls help.”
Zamatryna tugged on Lisa's handâan American Mendicant!âand they stopped. The woman smiled at them; several of her teeth were missing. Lisa took a step backwards, pulling Zamatryna with her, and said quietly, “I saw you last month at the Salvation. You're running a scam.”
The woman's smile vanished. “Am not. I am not! I've been trying to get to my brother's family in Sacramentoâ”
“So why doesn't your brother help you, then? I'll buy you a meal, but I'm not giving you cash.”
The woman scowled. “I'm not hungry. I ate this morning. I needâ”
“You need food, because everybody does.” Lisa slipped something into Zamatryna's hand and said, “Here, honey, go buy her a Happy Meal, okay? Make sure you get the right change.”
Zamatryna glanced at what Lisa had given herâa folded $10 billâand ran inside. Behind her, Lisa and the Mendicant woman had begun to argue.
They were still arguing when Zamatryna came out, with the Happy Meal and a bright pink plastic aardvark. “What are you going to do?” the woman said to Lisa, jeering. “What are you going to do? Call the cops on me because I need gas moneyâ”
“Plenty of agencies in town would help with gas money if that's really what you needed! You'd better watch yourself. I'm not going to call the police, but other people might. Zamatryna, give her the food and let's get out of here.”
“Here,” Zamatryna said, holding the Happy Meal and the aardvark out to the Mendicant woman. Mendicants in Lémabantunk didn't argue with people, but then, everything was different here.
The woman, glaring, snatched the bag of food out of Zamatryna's hand. “Don't want that stupid toy. You keep that to play with, eh? Bet you have a lot of toys at home. Bet she buys you plenty of toys. Aren't from around here, are you? You aren't really her kid, are you? Skin's too dark. People coming over here taking American jobsâ”
“You could at least say thank you,” Lisa snapped, and hurried Zamatryna back into the car. She was shaking. “We'll go to another McDonald's, honey. I'm sorry. You try to help people and they just spit in your face, I swear, I know it's my Christian duty to do the best I can by folks whether they're nice or not, but that woman gives people who are really down on their luck a bad name, and it's just a shame. I wish we hadn't given her the food.”
Zamatryna looked down at the pink aardvark. “Everyone has to eat. You said that.”
“Yeah, I did, and it's true. Bad people have to eat too, I know that, or they'll never get the chance to be better. But it sure is easier to feed people who have some manners, I swear! Well, the police will pick her up soon, if she keeps acting that way.”
“What will they do to her?”
“Put her in jail.” Lisa, maneuvering deftly in the traffic of South Virginia Street, looked over at Zamatryna and said, “She'll get meals in jail. And maybe she'll get her head on straight, like I did. We have to hope so. I'll pray for her.”
“Lisa, are there any Mendicants here who aren't crooks?”
“Sure. Sure there are, sweetie. Most poor people aren't crooks, whatever rich people think. It's the rich people who are more likely to be crooks, with all that money they don't need. Most homeless people did the best they could before something came along and whomped them: they lost a job, or they got sick or got divorcedâthat's hard on women, especially with kidsâand then they just couldn't save enough for an apartment. Rents around here are murder. You can't get a closet for under eight hundred a month.”
Zamatryna studied the aardvark, which was missing an ear. Poor thing! “Divorce is when married people get unmarried? Stan says that is a sin.”
Lisa sighed. “Honey, I love Stan a lot, but he's never been married to somebody who beat him black and blue every two days, or who took up with somebody younger and kicked him out the door. There's a whole lot of sin in the world, and sometimes it means you can't live with people anymore. To my mind that means it wasn't a real marriage in the first place, not a marriage God would want to last. People make mistakes. It's not easy to find the right person. And God has to know that, since God knows everything. God wants us to be happy, not miserable.”
“But your god burns people. That is what Stan says. If this god does not want people to be miserable, why roast them like chickens?”
Roasting them like chickens was a phrase Macsofo had used once. Lisa gave one of her belly laughs, and said, “Well now, that's a good question. You sure are smart, Zamatryna. And the answer is that God doesn't want them to be miserable. They choose to do things that will make them miserable, and God's as sad about it as anybody else who loves them would be. And God just keeps giving all of us second chances, but some people throw them away. That woman back there isn't ready to pick hers up. She may not be ready for a while. She may never be ready.”
“Lisa, do you believe that my uncle is roasting like a chicken?”
Lisa didn't answer. She turned left onto McCarran and pulled the car over to the side of the road, on the right-hand shoulder near the Albertson's. She sat there for a moment, looking at Zamatryna. “Sweetheart, I can't say. I wouldn't presume to pass judgment. I don't know what was in Darroti's heart, or if he repented when he was dying. I just don't know.”
“Then how can Stan know?”
Lisa was quiet for a long time, while traffic drove by them, and then she said, “He can't. But don't you ever tell him I said so. It would just hurt him. Stan has to find his way, like everybody else.”
More commands for silence. Zamatryna sat oppressed, her head bowed, until Lisa said gently, “Zamatryna, where do you think Darroti is now? What do you think happened to him?”
“At home we believe that the spirits of the dead go into other living things, simpler things like flowers or animals. And the other living things teach them what they didn't learn when they were alive. But we can't talk to them, and it makes us sad.”
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Yes, that makes everybody sad.” She started the car up again. “I talk to Mama in my head all the time. And sometimes I think she answers, but I know it's only my imagination. Well, I hope your uncle Darroti is someplace where he can learn things. That's a nice idea. And some Christians believe that too: that there's not just Heaven or Hell but Purgatory, where you wait until you've learned enough to go on.”
“Purgatory,” Zamatryna said happily. “âAn intermediate state after death for expiatory purification.' I should have remembered that, from the dictionary, except I don't know what all the words mean. But the dictionary says it is a place of punishment. Listen: âa place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God's grace may expiate venial sins or satisfy divine justice for the temporal punishment still due to remitted mortal sin.' Lisa, what does that mean?”
Lisa laughed and shook her head. “It means that people are of two minds about what happens in that place, if they even believe in it. It's just like jail, you know. Some people think jail is a place for crooks to be miserable in, to punish them, and some think it's a place where they can learn new things, so they won't be crooks anymore when they get out. I've seen it work both ways. But I bet on the learning way whenever I can, because that's what happened to me. Now listen, do you still want to go to McDonald's, or are you tired out from all this talk? We could just go home and have sandwiches.”
“Sandwiches, please.” Zamatryna had the aardvark for her cousin, even if it had lost an ear, and she was afraid of meeting another Mendicant like the one they had seen before, who had been rude and had upset Lisa so much. “Lisa, are all the Mendicants here, the ones who choose to be Mendicants instead of having to be Mendicants because they lost their jobs or got divorcedâare they all bad people? Because at home, many people choose to be Mendicants for a little while, and it is an honor. Do people here”âshe stopped and thought, struggling with the wordsâ“do people ever ask other people for things so thatâso the other people can show that they are good people by giving them the things? And then the Mendicants can go back to not asking for things afterwards, and no one thinks they are bad?”
“Whoa,” Lisa said. “That's kind of complicated, isn't it?”
“I'm sorry. I didn't say it well. I meantâ”
“No, sweetie, you said it fine. Well, there are folks whose job is to ask people for money to help other people, you know, but they get paid for doing it. That's a job. I guess the closest to what you mean is Halloween.”
“What is Halloween, please?”
“It's in two weeks, actually. It's a holiday for kids. You know those displays we've been seeing in stores, the scary masks and the piles of candy, and the pumpkins? Those are Halloween things.”
“Oh. Those things are not always there? I thought the masks were for children to wear during their games. But why are they scary? They are only pieces of plastic.”
“You're right,” Lisa said with a chuckle. “They aren't scary. They're supposed to look scary, though; they're pretend-scary.”
“Why do people pretend to be scary? And what do the pumpkins have to do with it? I thought the pumpkins were a symbol of harvest, even though here you have the harvest in your supermarkets all year long.”
“Well, I guess Halloween's a kind of harvest festival, or was once. The way we do it now, kids dress up in costumes and knock on people's doors, and the people give them candy, except these days you can only go to the houses of people you know, and you have to go through the candy really carefully, because there are some sick people out there, and it's sad. But anyway, Halloween's a game more than an honor, like you said your Mendicants are. I'll take you kids trick-or-treating in our neighborhood, Stan's and mine. You'll like it. You get to dress up and ask for candy for one night, and then the next day you get to go back to being your normal self, if you aren't sick from all the candy. The costumes are the best part, if you ask me. You get to dress up as anything you want. But carving pumpkins is fun too.”
Stan, it turned out, did not think that carving pumpkins was fun, and he did not approve of wearing costumes to ask for candy. He stood in the kitchen the Saturday before Halloween, watching Lisa lug a huge pumpkin in from the car. The children followed her; they had helped her pick the largest pumpkin from the supermarket. “Lisa, what are you doing? Is that for pie?”
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