Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
The Necessary Beggar (9 page)
“Stan, they were trapped in the camp! They don't have papers, and I don't know why but it's not fair that they couldn't leave, and this was my chance to get them out of there. Wherever they came from, they've suffered enough. I only did what the Spirit guided me to do.”
Stan shook his head again. “But if the policeâ”
“If the police figure it out, I'll go to jail.” Lisa started to cry again. “Stan, it's a mess back there, it's horrible, a lot more people are going to be dead, the good Lord rest their souls, and I don't think these folks will be missed. Everybody will think they died in the fire, that's all. Nobody's going to look for them here. We can hide them here until we figure out what to do.”
He put his arm around her, but then he shook his head. “And how long do you think that will be?”
Lisa wiped her face. “I don't know. Stan, they need to come inside now; they've been lying on the floor of that van for two hours, all the way from Gerlach, and they need water and they probably need to use the bathroom.”
“Lisa, this house is my churchâ”
“No,” she said, and pushed him away. Her voice had grown quieter, but she was facing the van, and Zamatryna could see that her face was resolute, the tears gone. “This is my mama's house. It's mine, Stan.”
He coughed. “It's
ours
. That's the law, Lisa. Nevada's a community property state and in Christian marriage two people become one, and either way the house is mine tooâ”
ours
. That's the law, Lisa. Nevada's a community property state and in Christian marriage two people become one, and either way the house is mine tooâ”
“No, sweetheart. I'm sorry, but Mama left this house to me, and I don't
care
if the State says it's half yours, and how dare you even think about something like that when I just escaped from that fire! I could have been killed! I grew up in this house and it's mine and that's the right of it, State or not, and you know it, and these people are coming inside!”
care
if the State says it's half yours, and how dare you even think about something like that when I just escaped from that fire! I could have been killed! I grew up in this house and it's mine and that's the right of it, State or not, and you know it, and these people are coming inside!”
“The Law of Hearts,” Timbor murmured. Zamatryna saw that he was holding his towel, which dripped silently onto the blankets.
Stan said something Zamatryna couldn't hear; Lisa answered in a bellow. “No, Stan, it is
not
your church, not yet! Someday it will be your church, when
I
say it can be, but it isn't yet, because we don't have the money to turn it into a church yet. And even if it were a church, we couldn't put it to any better use than using it to help these folks! They need to come inside now. They're coming inside. Into my house. Are you going to welcome them and show them Christian hospitality, Stan Buttle, or are you going to stand in the way? Do I have to ask you what Jesus would do, Reverend Buttle?”
not
your church, not yet! Someday it will be your church, when
I
say it can be, but it isn't yet, because we don't have the money to turn it into a church yet. And even if it were a church, we couldn't put it to any better use than using it to help these folks! They need to come inside now. They're coming inside. Into my house. Are you going to welcome them and show them Christian hospitality, Stan Buttle, or are you going to stand in the way? Do I have to ask you what Jesus would do, Reverend Buttle?”
He seemed to shrink, then. He blushed and stammered and came to the door of the van and said, “Please come in. Please come in, all of you. I'm sorry. IâI was so worried about Lisa and thenâ”
“Never mind,” Lisa said tartly behind him. “They don't want to hear your apologies. Stop blocking the door, honey, and let them get out.”
They were all stiff from the long ride; Timbor stumbled climbing out of the van, and Stan caught his arm and said, “Are you okay, old man? Be careful, now. Please come in. Bring your family inside, where it's cooler.”
It was already cooler here than it had been at the camp, and the air was less smoky, although a gray pall still hung over everything. Zamatryna stared at the trees, and saw, beyond them, a glimpse of water. And there was a little patch of grass and some flowers, yes, beautiful purple flowers she'd never seen before, growing on a bush almost as tall as she was. They smelled wonderful, even in the smoke, and she buried her head in them.
“What are they?” she asked Lisa.
“That's lavender,” Lisa said. “Don't you have lavender at home, honey?”
“We have other flowers,” Zamatryna said, and Harani tugged gently at her shoulder.
“There will be time for the flowers later, Zamatryna. Come inside.”
It was dark and cool inside the house, amazingly cool; the air didn't smell like smoke. “Thank goodness the AC's working,” Lisa said with a sigh. She led them to a room with great puffy furniture which cradled them when they sat on it, and brought them glasses of a drink that was sweet and tart at
the same time. They sat in the semi-darkness, sipping and blinking. Zamatryna thought that perhaps this was all a dream, and feared that she would wake up soon and find herself back in the burning camp.
the same time. They sat in the semi-darkness, sipping and blinking. Zamatryna thought that perhaps this was all a dream, and feared that she would wake up soon and find herself back in the burning camp.
“I'll turn on the TV,” Stan said. “There will be newsâ”
“No,” Lisa said. “We've seen enough for one day. I don't want to look at any of it. I just want to be here and be peaceful and thank the Lord for my deliverance and not think about what happened back there, Stan, all right? Now, who wants a sandwich?”
Lisa's sandwiches were nothing like the ones at the camp, which had always been limp and stale. These were wonders: the bread nutty and firm, the lettuce watery and crisp, the cheese and meat more flavorful than anything the family had yet eaten in America. “I'm sorry it's not fancier,” Lisa said, but Timbor shook his head.
“It is wonderful food. Thank you.” And Zamatryna, remembering the chicken in orange jello, was glad that Lisa hadn't made anything more fancy.
When she had eaten two sandwiches, Zamatryna clambered out of her puffy chair to explore the room. It was filled with little tables, and on every table were pictures and statues of very strange men wearing baggy clothing. Their shoes were far too large for their feet, and their eyes were too large for their faces; they had giant red lips and giant red noses, and tufts of bright orange hair sticking out on either side of their heads. Many of them were weeping.
Zamatryna touched one of the statues, gingerly; it was hard and glassy, cool to her touch. “Are these holy people?” she said. Perhaps this was what Mendicants looked like, in America.
Lisa laughed. “Bless you, child, they're clowns! Mama loved clowns. She went to a circus when she was a little girl, and a clown gave her a balloon, and she's collected clowns ever since. I have to pack them all up and sell them or something, because we don't have room for them at our house, but Mama loved them so much that I can't bear to put them in boxes. Whenever we went on a trip and asked her what she wanted, she told us to bring her another clown, and if there was a clown in a store or a catalog, you could bet she'd find it. I have to find a clown museum someplace; Mama would want them to go somewhere special. I wrote to Ringling Brothers, but they never answered. Bless you, sweetheart, you aren't understanding a word I'm saying, are you?”
Zamatryna shook her head. “Why are they crying?”
“Well, that's a, you know, that's the way people paint clowns a lot. Clowns make people laugh; that's their job, but the tears are because they're unhappy on the inside. They have a cheerful front, but they've got pain in
them they'd never let you know about, and that's why people love them, because we all feel like that sometimes. And Mama, well, she had some hard times in her life, but she never let it show. So I guess she could relate to clowns. Come on: if everybody's done eating, I'll show you the rest of the house.”
them they'd never let you know about, and that's why people love them, because we all feel like that sometimes. And Mama, well, she had some hard times in her life, but she never let it show. So I guess she could relate to clowns. Come on: if everybody's done eating, I'll show you the rest of the house.”
The rest of the house was filled with more clowns, and also filled with marvels: a giant metal box that held food and light and coldness, a box on top of that one that spit out chunks of frozen water if you touched a button, shiny metal mouths that gave water if you turned a lever. There were no Porto-Sans here. The toilets were inside, in impossibly clean rooms that smelled like flowers instead of shit. The carpets were so soft that Zamatryna didn't understand why Lisa kept fretting that there weren't enough beds. “We can sleep on the floor,” she said, and Lisa laughed.
“Bless you, Zamatryna! We'll do better than that, I promise. But maybe not tonight. Tonight some of you may have to sleep on the floor; I'm so sorry. I've got pillows and blankets, anyway. We'll work the rest of it out tomorrow, when we can all think better. You're out of that camp. You're all alive and safe. That's what's important.”
Zamatryna saw a spasm of pain cross her grandfather's face, because Darroti wasn't alive. But Lisa hadn't meant to say anything hurtful, and Zamatryna knew it, and she knew that Timbor knew it, too. And so he smiled and said, “Thank you.”
Dinner was more sandwiches and more lemonade. Lisa insisted on washing the extra clothing they'd brought with them in another wonder, a box that did laundry with a cheerful thumping and gurgling. “I'll do it on gentle, I promise. I don't want to ruin your nice things, but we need to get the smoke out.” Everyone in the family got to take fragrant, steaming showers and put on clean clothing, and walk barefoot on the impossibly thick carpets.
“Now,” Lisa said when they were all clean and back in the living room, “Stan and I need to go home and get some sleep. I'm tuckered out, and I know all of you are, too. You can sleep anywhere in the house you wantâI put clean sheets on the beds, and I'll show you the linen closet so you can get whatever else you need. You just settle down wherever you're comfortable. But I have to ask you, at least for tonight, not to go outside, okay? Not that anyone's around here, but I don't want to take chances. And if the phone rings, screen the call and make sure it's us before you pick up, okay? I don't think anyone else will be calling here, but you never know.”
Timbor shook his head, and Zamatryna said, “We don't understand that. What is a phone, please, and where is the screen for it?”
“Oh,” Lisa said, and laughed. “You don't have phones at home, huh? Okay, let me show you. I'll call the house phone here on my cell.”
She took a tiny box out of her purse and pushed buttons, and after a moment there was a ringing in the house. “The answering machine's in the kitchen,” Lisa said. “It picks up after four rings. Come on, I'll show you.” So they followed her into the kitchen, and listened in amazement as she spoke into her box and the box on the kitchen table magnified her voice. She showed them how to pick up the handset if they heard her voice, how to talk into it. “Don't pick up if it's anybody but me or Stan,” she said. “Okay? Okay, good. Goodnight, everybody. I'll be back for breakfast tomorrow. I'll make you all pancakes. You never had those at the camp, did you?”
After she and Stan had left, the family found its way into the room with the big bed, the room where Lisa's mother had slept. The bed held Macsofo and Aliniana and their children; everyone else slept on the floor. Zamatryna snuggled into her blanket, grateful for the AC which made blankets bearable, and thought about clowns and lavender and phones until her thoughts turned into dreams of screaming and burning. In her dream she saw Darroti, weeping so loudly that his tears hammered on the roof of the house and woke her.
It hadn't been a dream, the sound of water on the roof. She got up silently and stepped over her family's sleeping bodies to peer out the window, where the trees were blowing in a wind laced with rain, rain, sweet blessed water. The sound of the water made her need to make her own, so she found her way to the bathroom and turned on the light. The light dispelled her nightmare, and she sat happily on the beautifully clean toilet, with the roll of scented paper next to it. A clown looked down at her from the opposite wall. This clown was smiling, and she smiled back. They were out of the camp, truly in America at last. Now everything would be all right.
But then she felt Mim-Bim in her pocket, Mim-Bim from home, who should have died months ago, who demanded secrecy but had no way of telling Zamatryna what it was she couldn't say. She looked up at the clown again, and wondered what his smile was hiding. Did he have an angry beetle in his pocket?
And yet she still could not help but be glad to be out of the camp. She made her way joyfully back to bed, went joyfully to sleep, awoke joyfully to find sunlight streaming in the windows. The world had been washed clean by the rain. Lisa and Stan came and made pancakes, delicious fluffy things with fruit on top, and there was orange juice and several kinds of tea, and after breakfast Lisa let them all go outside for a little while, and the air didn't smell like smoke anymore, but like sagebrush and lavender, and the mint and
thyme and roses that Lisa's mother also had in her garden. Zamatryna and her mother and auntie spent a long time exclaiming over the garden, and then they went down to the banks of the river, where the cousins were already happily playing, splashing in the water under the willow trees. “Mama,” Jamfret cried, and pointed, “look, on that rock, a lizard! It's like home!” And the lizard cocked its head at them and scurried away, and overhead was blue sky and puffy white clouds, and the mountains were blue and white in the distance, glowing in the sunshine.
thyme and roses that Lisa's mother also had in her garden. Zamatryna and her mother and auntie spent a long time exclaiming over the garden, and then they went down to the banks of the river, where the cousins were already happily playing, splashing in the water under the willow trees. “Mama,” Jamfret cried, and pointed, “look, on that rock, a lizard! It's like home!” And the lizard cocked its head at them and scurried away, and overhead was blue sky and puffy white clouds, and the mountains were blue and white in the distance, glowing in the sunshine.
Some funny birds ran by, a mother and ten tiny babies; they had topknots which bobbed up and down in time to their gait. “Quail,” Lisa said happily, when Zamatryna asked what they were. “I love those birds. They're such a hoot: they look like wind-up toys. Sometimes at dawn I've seen deer out here too, and sometimes coyotes. Mama even saw a bobcat once. She didn't tell anybody but me, because she was afraid the cops would come and shoot it. There's a school about two miles away, and people panic whenever there are big cats around. They're afraid their kids will get eaten. But the bobcat didn't hurt nobody. It was just trying to live, like we all are. Look, honey, look up there, where I'm pointing: see that bird? That's a red-tail hawk. We get owls too, and I've seen eagles sometimes.”
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