“Your queen?” she asked, her voice so small she didn’t think he could hear her.
“Yes,” he sighed, “My queen, the Lady of Light and Laughter. I will open the doors, but you will have to step through them. Come find me, my love, I will be waiting.” Then he leaned down and pressed his lips to hers, it wasn’t a kiss but a touch of his smooth, dry skin against hers, and she was shaking, shaking, his face pulling back, the river surging and roaring by her side, the pavement slipping out from under her, and then darkness.
Someone was shaking her by the shoulder. Maya opened her eyes but had trouble focusing on the face above her own. It wasn’t his. The ground was hard, wet, cold beneath her, the slush having soaked through her coat, the fabric of her pants. She was shivering, and there were voices about her.
“Are you all right?” Asked the man, his voice gravelly and accented. British, she thought, an Englishman. His face was broad, square, his hair gray and thinning. He was bundled up in a thick gray coat and standing behind him and looking down at her over his shoulder was an older woman, face misting up even as Maya’s eyes filled with tears.
“Here, are you all right? Miss?” Strong hands slid under her shoulders and carefully helped her sit up. Her clothing clammy and cold. She felt disoriented. The river to her right, the East River. She had indeed come here then, with a man. Maya looked sharply about her, suddenly needing to see if he was close, to spot him, but he was gone.
“Miss?” The British voice, like something from an old movie. “Miss? What happened? Do you need an ambulance?”
Maya opened her mouth, and nothing came out. She couldn’t exhale. It was as if a stopper had coagulated in her throat, a mass of air, dense and impenetrable. Nothing. She put both hands to her throat, strangling and choking as she tried to force out words, then cupped her own face and gave up trying to speak. The moment she did so, air rushed into her lungs with a frightful wheeze.
“I think she’s choking, Harry,” said the woman, her voice frightened.
She wasn’t though. She could breathe just fine. Again she tried, turning to look at the man’s wrinkled face, his small, blue eyes. Her throat immediately tightened, stoppered with gelid air. She couldn’t speak! Panicking, dizzy, she shook her head from side to side, her vision began to darken, spots appearing before her eyes, and then, with a sob, she gave up again.
“Can’t you speak?” Asked Harry.
Maya looked up at him, mute appeal in her eyes, and slowly, reluctantly, shook her head.
Panic. Cold, mute panic. Maya had pushed past the British couple and rushed down the street, hands clutched to her throat. The world dark and rushing past her, indifferent and alien. Her feet smacking the pavement as she ran, awkward and ungainly, alone and terrified. Finally she crossed the lanes to her right, darting out through traffic to dive back into the city, to leave the East River behind, running in a bent over hunch till she ran out of breath, her lungs heaving and filled with red shards of glass.
What had happened? What had happened? She had no idea, no idea if it had indeed been a fever dream, something brought upon by the alcohol, but one glass, was that really enough to push her so deeply into something so febrile and hallucinatory? Slowing down, she stopped, leaned against a wall and rubbed at her throat. It was so unfair, so unfair. What had she done to deserve this? Tears stung her eyes and she felt a crushing sense of despair swamp over her.
Get it together
, she thought.
Pull yourself up. Don’t fall, don’t fall now because if you do you won’t stop, you’ll fall forever
. Maya ran her hands through her hair, pulled it back, away from her face. Straightened her clothing, forced herself to stand up straight. She felt manic, her fear making everything electric, every sound resonating within her head. She felt as if every hair were sensitive to the air currents, more terribly alive than ever.
Basics. She needed to do something, anything, but she had to get off the streets. Where could she go? Thoughts of bus tickets and freedom were too much, at least for now. So—where? Work. She could lose herself in work for some hours, make some more money. Give herself time to think. She suddenly craved the familiar, the world she understood, no matter how abusive and horrible it was. At least she knew the people at the factory, would not be alone.
Turning, she took her bearings. She was late, already late enough to earn a serious reprimand, but showing up late was better than nothing, so she began to stride down the street. The air was cold, freezing her wet clothing, but there was nothing she could do about it. Raising her chin, ignoring glances that were probably not even being sent her way, Maya headed toward work.
One step at a time
, she thought.
Keep it together
.
Twenty minutes later she reached the building in which the factory was housed. When she had been told by Mrs. Mercedes that she would be working in a clothing factory, she had imagined a massive building, a warehouse with thousands of women busily sewing and stitching. This was nothing like that. Walking up to the door, she buzzed the intercom and then gave the password. The security door opened and she let herself in. How many times had she slipped in like an illicit shadow? How familiar this dingy hall, the air of bruised smoke and bad perfume. Burnt hair, the most noxious smell she knew.
Up the stairs, up six flights. Don’t use the elevator, too dangerous, too unreliable. Her feet grew heavier with each step, her legs leaden, her head light. She wouldn’t make it through the night, thought Maya, she wouldn’t survive. Finally, however, she gained the seventh floor, and staggered down the hall to the door behind which she would work for the next six hours. Passed other doors, some bearing name plaques, graphic designers, attorneys, other official sounding names ending in capital letters. Finally hers. A blank door, no sign, no name. No real existence. Just a door, scuffed and bare and unnoticeable.
Knocked three times. The door cracked open and Jose looked out at her, his lined, seamed face suspicious, angry, doubtful.
“What you doing coming here so late?”
She didn’t have enough energy to argue, no voice to speak regardless.
“Why should I let you in? So you can waste more time in here? You don’t want the job, we find someone else who work hard, harder than you.”
Maya shoved the door open. Jose was a blowhard, a little man given enough power to feel important, but not important enough to matter. He was nominally the shift leader, but he got paid about as much as everybody else. His true payment was the right to boss people around, to issue empty threats and make everybody’s life worse than his own. But he was also a small man, small enough for Maya to surprise with a hard shove and knock aside.
The door swung open, Jose stumbled back, and she entered into the dull chatter of sewing machines, the low voices in muted conversation, the narrow echoes and sordid smells that were the ‘factory’. It was little more than a cheap apartment, some four rooms crammed with tiny desks at which women and older children worked, sewing belts that would then be sold to expensive stores with brand names. Some of them worked six hours like her, others three times that much, sewing and stitching until they collapsed from fatigue, trying desperately to make enough money to change their situation, knowing that they never would.
Jose was spluttering, demanding explanations, excuses, apologies, but she had none to give him. She was too tired, too worn out, and she knew that nothing she could say would have pleased him anyway. Anyways, she couldn’t talk to him no matter what she might have to say, so instead, she lowered her head, allowed his words to land on her shoulders like licks from a lash, and walked stolidly toward her station and sat down.
Maya had worked these past months for hours on end in this tiny room. It violated all kinds of codes, with seven women packed into a room barely large enough to qualify as a pantry, desks rammed against each other, the backs of their chairs clacking and banging whenever a woman moved or turned to say something. Overhead, harsh, stiff light shimmered down from their fluorescent cages, flattening out the beige, scuffed tones of the walls, the dirt colored hues of the mongrel carpet. There was no music, no energy to the voices, no spirit to the work. Just deadened fingers busily managing the crafting of belts and other accessories.
Jose had followed her to her station, and now stood over her, hands planted on his hips, ranting on about respect and professional obligations and how he would be reporting her to his superior and that she couldn’t just walk in when she liked. Maya knew that as soon as he had made a big enough show for the others he would walk away, and, as such, ignored him, instead setting about the arranging of her workspace, pulling her box of materials out from under the desk, turning on the sewing machine, adjusting her light, straightening her back for one last stretch before diving in.
Six hours to go, five really, given her late start. Maya could normally produce about one belt every ten minutes, five an hour, with breaks, and about thirty or so for the whole of the shift. She would get paid for each item produced, so it was imperative that she produce as many as she could, letting quality slide for quantity. It was always at the beginning of each shift that she wished for a source of music, something to listen to, something to play into her ears as she began to work. To make her fingers more nimble, to distract her mind, to lull her thoughts and imagination into a routine series of movements that produced precious little money, but enough to placate the people who ruled her life.
Jose moved away, sniffing, pausing to glance back at her once and then was gone. Something was settling over her, not resignation, but a determination to simply work. Where some might turn to drink to escape her problems, Maya turned to work. That was how she had been able to plug away for so many months at such horrible jobs. As her situation grew worse she worked harder. Always her attitude had been to succeed, to make money so as to save money, to work harder until she had enough to disappear. The more miserable she became, the more important it was to punch through the frailties and vicissitudes of life through sheer sweat and will.
The light was perfect, a piercing illumination. The workspace became her world, the other women fading into the background as she pulled out the first length of black leather that would become her belt. Stitches, awl, the metallic components of the buckle imported from China, the label that had to be stitched in, all assembled before her, ready for construction.
A deep breath, and then she dove in. The sewing machine began to chatter, its machinery spinning and whirring and acting according to her desires. The black leather was fed beneath its blurring nib, its darting beak of undeniable sharpness. Her hands were not her own. They moved with devastating alacrity. If she could not dominate the world outside, or her own fate, or even her own body, if she were to lose control of her voice, if she were eventually to be given to the tasting and sampling of gross men, then at least here she could prove herself a master of something. No matter that the job was mean, that the pay was absurd, that the competition was overwhelming, that there was no chance of recompense or recognition for her achievements. She was her own audience, her own judge, and for the sake of her own pride she focused her attention into a narrow laser beam and worked.
Time passed. Her hands flowed. Leather was fed beneath the dancing nib of the sewing machine, its chatter and clamor endless. Labels were sewn in with terrible precision. Each and every one finding its perfect place. Metallic buckles were assembled, tongues and lathes and frames placed within the double backed leather belt ends, then sewed and closed shut. Over and over and over and over again.
She sewed and thought not of the fact that she would have no day job. She sewed and ignored the fact that she was alone, that there was nobody there who loved her, who cared for her, who wandered how she was. Sometimes she even forgot her parents, her dreams. Her pain, her loneliness. She buried it all in the deft hummingbird movements of her hands. She wouldn’t think about what had happened tonight, the man with the smile, the man in green, the press of his lips against hers, waking up on the ground soaked and mute. She wouldn’t think about the loss of her voice. She wouldn’t think about the loss of her voice. She would not.
Time passed. Over and over again she repeated the same movements. Stillness about her. The sense of people watching. Voices. She blocked them out. Leather fed like a snake into a hole. Metal hoops latched in. Her box emptying, somebody refilling it, emptying again, and again, and again. Belts set aside, completed, stitched shut, ready to be boxed and sent out into the city. The quality of light changing. The dull shimmer of fluorescent light slowly augmented by something clearer, diffuse, coming in from the next room. Morning light.
One more belt. Just one more. The sewing machine scalding hot to the touch. Her fingertips raw, nearly bleeding. Eyes sore, straining. What time was it? How long had she been working? Finally, she set the last belt aside, sat back, her back one long score of knotted whorls of bone and muscle. Peripheral vision returning. She’d never gone so deep, been so focused on her task. People were in the room with her, watching. She turned her head. Looked at them.
Jose, eyes wide, mouth a narrow line. The other women, hands idle, simply staring at her. People crowded in the doorway. Maya felt her heart rate begin to beat, to pick up. What were they staring at? She tensed to rise from her seat, but instead simply skittered her gaze from one to the next. No friendly looks. What had she done wrong? Had she been humming, or distracting the others while working?
Then she saw. By her table. The belts. A pile of them, a slithering horde of them. Not ten, not thirty, not even forty. Hundreds. They had slid over, fallen onto the floor, buried the brown carpet beneath their morass of twisted lengths. A hundred? Two hundred?
Maya stared at them, not comprehending. Had she made them all? Turning, she looked at Jose, who couldn’t meet her eyes. Then she looked at Sarah, the closest to a friend she had in the group. Sarah’s face was pale, drawn. Her eyes were closed off, afraid. Maya raised her eyebrows, then pointed at the pile of belts.
How many?
She asked, and Sarah shook her head.