The Country of Ice Cream Star (42 page)

‘Oh, no.’ He shake his head like this be some ridiculous.

I look to Pasha, who be heeding narrow. ‘You bone here, Pasha? Going to parley.’

Pasha make sour face. ‘Want rifle?’

‘No,’ say Anselm quick. ‘That really won’t be necessary. Maria?’

‘Yo, we can talk. Ain’t guess you going to like this talk.’

‘That’s very kind. I think we can find a private space, if you’ll just follow me.’

He lead me to the elevator hall, is talking boringness about my rooms. How this be the top three floors of this whole Ministerio. I sharing these with my apostles, ya and Jesus bringing there. These floors be callen the iglesia, and he go in blablabla about their wonder furnitures. Soon my mind distract to thinking how I going to fear this Anselm. Be dreaming how I bring him to my rooms, and all apostles beat him, when he say, ‘Maria. Are you listening?’

‘Nay, ain’t listening. What you need?’

He hold up a scrap of metal. Narrow on this well, I recognize its use. A key.

‘You use this key to call your elevator,’ Anselm say. ‘The other elevators won’t go to your floors. It’s to ensure your privacy.’

I reach for the key, but he draw back his hand. ‘No, santa reina. This is mine. I’ll have yours sent up later.’

He plug this key into a golden plate upon the wall. Elevator swallow its doors. I go in reluctant, still be chewing on my angers. This elevator bigger than the other, almost roomen size. Got velvet walls and hanging pictures. Anselm step in and poke a button. Doors knit up, the elevator start to drift above.

I take my breath. ‘Yo heed. I got–’

‘No, wait.’ Anselm hold hand up sharp. ‘First, I need to congratulate you. Your proof went well, didn’t it?’

‘Sure, be alive. Can see this.’

‘Yes, it was lucky, wasn’t it? Now hold on.’ Anselm turn and poke another button. Elevator shudder and stop. I look to the doors expecting that they open, but is nothing. Be unfriendly silent in this closen place, feel like a deafness.

‘So.’ Anselm smile back to me. ‘I was interested in your impressions. For instance – were there any moments when you felt nervous?’

‘Nervous. Nerviose, I guess? Been nervous since I met you people.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that. But you didn’t feel uncertain about one apostle in particular?’

‘How you meaning?’

‘I’m meaning that Felipe seemed very – nerviose. To me.’

I frown on him closer. ‘You was there?’

‘Front-row seat, senyora. I am the director of the Ministerio, naturally I was there.’

‘Yo sho, Felipe mostly ruin his pants with fear. If he got pants.’

‘Yes, and I think he was surprised at the outcome, don’t you?’

‘What you saying? Damn.’

‘Well, Felipe seemed very confident that God was going to strike you.’ He frown like he consider this question. ‘Perhaps it was religious conviction.’

‘You saying, he thought his cup been poison.’

‘If you want to put it that way.’ Anselm make a blissen smile. ‘I, however, wasn’t surprised at all. Why do you think that is?’

I make a face. ‘You pour this wine?’

‘Oh, no, senyora. They do that themselves, of course.’

‘Foo, you going to tell me or you ain’t. Boring, these confusions.’

Anselm look politeness to this. Seem he expect that I will ask again, but I go stare beyond. Pull on my pearlen headband. Start to find the pins is holding this, and tug them out.

At last, he sigh and say, ‘Well, like most impossible things, it was a matter of money.’

I shrug, tug out another pin. ‘You paying this Felipe?’

‘Oh, no. We paid a gentleman who provides poisons.’

My hand pause in my hair. ‘Someone who providing poisons?’

‘Yes, senyora. A gentleman who’s very far away right now – and very rich. After all, Felipe paid him also. Now, you may know that some poisons are completely tasteless and odorless. Some are also harmless. This one was the poison we call water.’

Now Anselm gaze on me with bright congratulation smile. I magine how Felipe buying poison – how he think. But be a jar of
normal water. He pour this, trembling, in his wine. Go scary to my murder.

Can feel, is vally mischief, but my eyes got only hatred. Yo it notice behind Anselm on the wall, a painten picture hang. Show a girl with armen enfant. Both got gold circles drawn around their heads, and the baby reach up thoughtful to his mother’s face.

‘In a case like this,’ say Anselm, ‘we usually say “Thank you”.’

I say cold, ‘You save myself, is gratty. But you kill my enfant.’

The happy vanish from his face. He knit his hands together, eyes gone tight. ‘Of course. I shouldn’t have forgotten.’

‘Forgotten? You forget your killing easy.’

‘No.’ His voice come thin. ‘I forgot that you don’t understand.’

‘I understand enough. You–’

‘No, I’m sorry. You really don’t.’

Then we glaring one to one. His chubben face be gathern in some mally telligence. Notice to me how his beardskin gone in stubble, this passen night. Shaven head be grown the same, confuse the spidery drawings there like dirt.

‘Please listen,’ he say cold. ‘I’ll make this short, and hopefully we will never have to mention it again. There are many, many things you can do as Maria. Having a baby is not one of them. Let me repeat: you cannot have a baby. I saved your life not once but twice yesterday. Now, an ordinary person would say, “Thank you, Anselm. Thank you for saving my life, not once but twice.” But you are Maria, so whatever you do is right – it’s the will of God, and I do not question it.

‘Now, I know that you are a virgin, and you will stay a virgin, because you are Maria. Therefore you could never be pregnant again. That cannot happen. And because I feel very strongly that it cannot happen, I had the doctors make sure it cannot happen – at considerable risk to myself. Now, an ordinary person might say, “Thank you, Anselm. I can see you’ve done me an incredible favor.” And I hope, someday, when you understand this better, I will hear that thanks from you.

‘The reason you will thank me is that, even after you stand your
proof, there is one thing that can make you a false Maria. If you are not a virgin. So please don’t give anyone the idea that you aren’t a virgin. A false Maria must be killed, and we would all like to relax now. I hope you agree.

‘Regrettably, a few people know about this incident. Someday, one of them may talk. If that day comes, I will deny it. It will be my word against theirs, and I will win that contest. Unless – I hope you’re listening now – unless I change my mind about you.’

‘Nay.’ I shake my head, unnerve. ‘They doctors doing what?’

Anselm sigh out heavy. ‘It’s a tiny piece of metal. In a day or two, you won’t even feel it.’

‘Metal?’ I startle cold. Touch to the cloth against my belly. ‘Inside myself?’

‘It won’t do you any harm. It’s very small.’

I grip the lacen cloth. Look scary to the picture, enfant reaching to his mother. Get a troubling feeling, if these golden circles mean they dead. ‘Cannot get no enfants?’

‘That’s what I’m telling you.’

‘But can this fix?’

‘It can. But it won’t.’

I shake my head again. ‘Nay, why you want to ruin me so?’

‘I just told you. Senyora, were you listening?’

‘Yo I know. You saying.’ I try to figure reasons, but all my mind be on this artifact. Little piece of metal, some unperson thing inside. Yo if we leave this place, is done. Never I going to fix, ain’t even Lowells know this stranger science.

Anselm say, soft in my thought, ‘You won’t appreciate this, but we risked a great deal ourselves by doing this. It’s a very serious crime here.’

I take a ragged breath. ‘Preventing enfants, right. Seriose crime you do to me, first day I come.’

‘I promise, this is not how we usually welcome visitors to Marias.’

‘And now you know I got this thing, you kill me any time you like. What you saying.’

‘I’m sorry. I wish I trusted you to make your own decisions. But I don’t.’

‘Damn, what you even want from me?’

‘I want this city to be run responsibly. You can’t do it. You don’t know anything. You cannot make the decisions you need to make. And, as of this moment, you are – in name – the ultimate power here.’ He make a narrow smile. ‘Another problem that’s been solved. Thank you, Anselm.’

‘Foo, it need no threats. You want to give me help, I heed.’

‘That’s funny. I seem to remember you didn’t listen to my last piece of advice.’

‘On Pasha?’ I scoff breath. ‘Is differences. This been a life.’

‘Maria,’ he say soft, ‘there are four hundred thousand people living in the lands you govern. And if you last with us, you’ll see some of those lives lost, through decisions we have to make. Your Russian boyfriend is only a detail from my point of view. I’m sorry.’

Take me thinking time to even comprehend this speech. Then I want to cavil – say I never care to rule this city – but my conscience stray to Quantico, and every hope be rotten.

I look back sorry at that enfant picture, and Anselm frown. He turn and look himself. Huff breath and say, ‘Well, that’s unfortunate.’ Then he reach and poke a button. The elevator shift again.

I feel some sick relief. ‘We finish, ya? Can see my children?’

‘Soon.’ Anselm sigh. ‘But you have a ceremony first. It’s the signing of the clause, to reinstate our glorious apostles. So – if it’s not too rude to ask – I do hope you can write?’

42

THE PARLEY FOR MY WAR

Ceremony be in trono room, a hall enorme. Got ceiling painten rich with blue and clouds and flying enfants. Be flower trees in silver jars, make rows along the tallish walls. Between this, all the floor be empty – dapple tile and nothing. Only is one goliath chair, of carven gold and gems.

This be Maria’s trono, where I sit in tall discomfort. Apostles kneel below, still in their silvern garb of proof. Robes wash on the tiles around, look like they spilt somehow. Ya, Anselm spilt along, in duller brown.

They start by chanting unison, a Panish prayer of endlessness. Through this, I feel a lonely conscience, how my children wait above in my iglesia rooms – Driver and El Mayor; my Keepers Eight in noise familiar. All my hurt insist toward them, as the Panish moan, the painten enfants flirt their wings above.

I distract the time by finding snake Felipe with my eyes. Want to feel my fear again, like touching a wound to check its pain. But he seem small unconfident, knelt in his silvern wash. Then I seek Simón Zelote – the child in soldier clothes who weep terrific at my questioning. Look and look, but cannot find, until I doubt my wits. But when I count their numbers, be eleven. He ain’t there.

Ain’t time to wonder this, when Pedro rise up from their line. He carry a slice of whitish papers. Silver pen be lain across. Come
toward me, prayering still, and stoop himself as he come close. When I take the papers, the apostles all stand up and hush.

All this signing be, must write my name. Ain’t my Ice Cream name, is now ‘Maria XXVII, SR de la C. de las Marias’. Name be printen in the signing place, need only copy this. Yo, Anselm said I must make show of reading. This be drill. So I page through with scarce attention, fidgeting the pen – until I spy the line on war.

It read: ‘The apostles above named have the power to declare war and to decide the military strategy of Ciudad de las Marias, independently from any other person or body.’

Here I put the pen down sharp. Read the line again-again, until its meaning clear. Then I scout through all the pages, look for other talk of war. Can feel the time prolong, feel the apostles’ scalding eyes, while I frown through all longhead words. Ya, be no other mention. Is only this – all war be theirs.

When I look back to them, apostles tired in frustration. Anselm fixing on me mally. Threats watch from his eyes.

‘I write my name,’ I say, ‘then it be done? Your powers keep?’

Anselm say in voice like poison honey, ‘That is the point.’

‘Then nay. Is something I must ask before.’

A groaning sigh go through them all. Even Pedro grit his face, clutch silver dress in both his hands.

‘Please, santa reina,’ Anselm say. ‘I think you have our full attention.’

I start the parley for my war with tactic carefulness. First, I say how roos maraud in Massa now, steal every child. Tell every evidence I know: the radio speech, the photographs, the guns that Pasha–Deema bring. And I explain the cure its promise – how roos live to seventy years, like sleepers of the past.

Can see from Anselm’s eyes that he already heard this news. Pedro look the same, and be some others, though their names forgot. Must figure Soledad told them every fact, this passen night. But snake Felipe stare at me in daze, like all his blood be mysteries. Bright superstitions woken in his eyes.

Yo, when I tell the plan for war with Quantico, they all change tempers. Faces grit misliking. They start frowning each to each. Feel in myself, how Quantico been their yeary enemy. Is like I begging Sengles that they fight for Armies, old in hatred. I hear my voice come beggarish, and I haste to my end. ‘So I require a war from you. Must fight the roos from Nighted States and take their useful cure. Hope you agreeing this, for all our lives.’

Be a breath of achen silence. A drop of sweat go anting from my armpit, tickle down.

Then come a barking laugh from Santiago – prettieuse child who worn jeans to my questioning. He say, ‘You want us to fight
for
Quantico?’

‘Yes.’ I hold my face correct. ‘How it result, I do.’

‘That’s hilarious.’ He look around. ‘Who wants to tell the Marines?’

‘Thank you.’ Anselm make a narrow smile. ‘Would anyone else like to comment?’

Here puppyish Juan speak up, with shyness face. ‘But, santa reina, there’s no proof. It’s only something Jesus told you.’

‘No sho.’ I scoff my breath. ‘Seen other roos. Ya, been the photographs.’

‘But, senyora,’ Anselm say in helpful voice, ‘about the cure, it’s only him. And that is the main point.’

‘Nay, been the radio speech. Roos offering cure, was said direct.’

Anselm raise a finger. ‘And I forget – why didn’t you take this generous offer?’