Other Terrors, page 8
He gestured to the maid. “Is Havana Club all right?”
“Oh, yes, wonderful,” she said.
The maid mixed her drink and served it, along with tequila over ice for her host.
“So I was told that the botanica pays you for the, uh, anomalía that appears on your lovely forearm,” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “They give me a little money. I do it mostly to get rid of it, but it is supposed to be used for healing, and I hope it helps somebody.”
He smiled. “But you aren’t sure about that,” he said.
She took a couple sips of the drink. “I don’t know what I believe. I don’t know what it is.”
He leaned toward her. “Then we are in agreement. I don’t know what it is either. But I have always had a keen interest in science. Chemistry, as you may have guessed, but all the sciences fascinate me. I want to study it. You’re the first person I’ve met who actually has one.”
“My dermatologist says it’s benign,” she replied. The drink had made her feel sweaty, even in the air conditioning.
“Why does it keep coming back? Where did it come from? Why have such things only been seen recently? These are the questions that fascinate me,” he said.
She stared into her glass, surprised that she’d already drunk half of it. “It doesn’t feel like it’s a part of me. Each time it regrows, I want it taken off, as soon as possible.”
“Well, then, let me make you an offer. I have a fine physician. He can take samples in a clinic, not some botanica back room. And I can pay you much, much more than any shop in downtown Tijuana.”
“And if I say yes can I go home now? And that’s all you want, the scrape?”
“Yes, and yes,” Don Gerardo replied.
“All right.” She downed the rest of the drink. “As long as you promise not to cut my arm off.”
He laughed and slapped his knee. “You are a lot of fun, Ms. Ito. And very beautiful. But I believe I am not the type for you, ¿verdad?”
Her cheeks burned. “Verdad.”
“Then let us say buenos tardes for today. Let me give you a little . . . advance, as they say. Then I’ll have Lolo drive you home. He can play Beach Boys for you in the car.”
She stood, and he followed, after taking something out of an envelope in the desk. He took her hand in both of his and pressed bills and a business card into it. “Until we meet again. Just call the number on the card when you are ready.”
Lolo stood there by the car. “Everything copacetic?” he asked. “You know, when I was in L.A. I went to the beach in Redondo all the time.”
She realized that Don Gerardo had known all about her all along.
Back in her apartment, she lay on her bed in the heat. Am I insane? she wondered. Who would agree to let a narco’s doctor slice a growth off her arm? Me, she sighed. La china loca. Me.
It appeared to grow back faster than before. She called Don Gerardo. The doctor saw her at a sparkling-clean clinic in an area that catered to Americans. Dr. Ochoa took her vitals and a blood sample first, and a pretty nurse brought his tray with shiny new instruments. He went for a needle of anesthetic, but Mitsuko told him that it didn’t hurt so that wasn’t necessary. The growth was swiftly and painlessly gone. The nurse covered the area with a pink Band-Aid.
Taking off his gloves, Dr. Ochoa asked, “Have you noticed any of these excrescences on other parts of your body?”
“No, no I haven’t,” she said. The very thought terrified her.
He nodded. “Very well. Please, let me know if you do. Your vital signs are excellent. If there is anything to be worried about in the blood test, I’ll let you know.”
On her way out, the young woman at the desk handed her an envelope. She dared not count it until she was home, but took a taxi, not worrying about the cost.
All she could think of was another of the growths appearing elsewhere on her body. The bills in the envelope added up to one thousand dollars, but did nothing to allay her fears. She undressed and examined all the skin she could see, then stood before the full-length mirror with a hand mirror. She tried to reassure herself that if there was another one Dr. Yee would have noticed, although it had been quite a while since that appointment.
She saw nothing, felt nothing. She ripped off the pink bandage and was not surprised to see that her skin was clear. Now she could think of nothing but another of the shell-like growths blossoming somewhere else on her body.
She went shopping for a few groceries, more for the walk to clear her head than for necessities. She imagined that every pair of eyes was on her.
Darkness followed. She made a rum and Coke and turned on TV Azteca hoping for a luchador movie as a distraction. Her mind went to the days when she and Judy watched Santo contra la invasion de los marcianos or Aztec mummies or some other monster. But instead they were showing older American movies, and she had tuned in at the middle of American Psycho, broadcast in English with Spanish subtitles. She turned it off, but thought, How perfect.
She mused about contacting some of her previous clients, then decided she felt too distracted to do so. After using the restroom, she obsessively examined her face in the mirror, starting at every small blemish and mole.
By bedtime, she had talked herself down from panicking. Just another day . . . the doctor had asked a reasonable question . . .
There was nothing reasonable in the world. Not now. There hadn’t been for a long time.
As bedtime approached, she worked on reading one of the fotonovelas that Judy had bought to help her with her Spanish. They all had lurid covers; this one featured a blonde in a torn slip holding a smoking gun, the body of a man in a cowboy hat on the floor.
When she realized that she’d read the same page several times and had no idea what it said, she set it aside and turned off the lights. If she had expected sleep to come easily, she had been foolish. She thought about Judy again. One of Judy’s more common ways of initiating sex was to smile and say, “You’ll sleep better if you have an orgasm.” But Mitsuko could not touch herself. The very idea agitated her. She considered getting the hand mirror again, examining her vulva for growths. The thought nauseated her, and she eventually fell asleep.
She awoke to hearing the phone ring. When she looked at it she saw that it was a private number, but there was a message. The message was from Don Gerardo, who said, “Stay inside. If you have to go out, wear your leather chaqueta. Don’t be afraid; there is nothing happening in Mexico yet. If there is any trouble, I will send a car.”
Ah, her protector, the narco. Right. In what world would she have found herself in this situation? She made herself a cup of coffee and sat down to the computer and logged in to NBC San Diego.
Someone had tried to shoot the mayor of San Diego, saying he might be “one of them.”
There were riots in Los Angeles.
She switched to MSNBC. “Some are saying the second civil war has come at last, brother against brother, when a Cleveland man killed his brother, saying that it wasn’t really him; it was ‘one of them.’ He’d seen the spiral growth on his brother’s neck.”
On Fox News they debated whether a person with a lesion was more likely to be a Democrat or a Republican. One commentator said, “Or if someone with the mark is a person at all.”
She held her breath as she’d done at Don Gerardo’s.
Maybe I should have died when Judy died . . . Maybe it’s best to just die now, she thought. Her eyes brimmed with tears.
No. I will not give in, she thought. This pinche china does not go down without a fight.
She got Don Gerardo’s business card and began punching in the number. She would not go to some man’s house for protection, not now or ever, but she would ask him for something.
Someone like him surely has more guns around the house than he needs.
Surely he’d give her one, if she asked nicely.
Mud Flappers
by Usman T. Malik
Children of the sea, we watched in silence as they put a rope around his neck and dragged Abdul Berr twenty feet along the shore. The suited-booted man from the city, the bara sahib, looked at us as if we were vermin. Perhaps to him we were. Perhaps to rich seths all poor people look like mud flappers.
“Your boy’s been causing trouble.” He was a tall, block-shaped man with a mouth puckered like a crab hole. His sunglasses glinted when he tilted his head to look at his goon. “I’m a generous man, a very patient man. Isn’t that so, Nasir?”
The six-foot-two goon placed his boot on Abdul Berr’s jaw. “Very patient, Kamal sahib.”
“But your boy’s been testing my patience. Madarchod, look at his gall. He leads a contingent of activists to Karachi Press Club”—Kamal’s voice rose, filled with disbelief—“gathers those newspaper chutiyas around him and actually takes names. Abay bharway, what did you think? You’d drag Murad Saeen’s name through the mud and we’d just sit there scratching our balls?”
The second goon stopped brandishing his handgun long enough to kick Berr in the ribs. Berr moaned, tried to curl into a fetal position, and Nasir, grinning, dug his boot into his throat. When one of us started forward the policeman Kamal had brought pointed a shotgun at him.
“Sahib-jee!” Old Mother dropped to her knees, palms joined like a trident in front of her. We drew back at this, a murmur going through us. “Sahib-jee. Please forgive him.” The wind took her words, spun them into an echo. We stopped and listened.
“What do we have here?” Kamal peered at her, sunglasses hanging off the cliff of his nose. “Who’re you, burhya?”
“I told him to stop. Told him that he shouldn’t stand in the way. He’s young and he’s a fool, but he’s my grandson, sahib-jee.”
“There you go.” Kamal slapped his thigh, a smile dancing across his face. “Your dadi knew better, didn’t she, told you to back down, you son of a swine. But you wouldn’t listen.”
Old Mother’s hands pendulumed back and forth, as if she were praying. How many times had we seen her slice the wind with those gnarled fingers? “I’m an old woman with my legs in the grave, but by his name who holds my life in his fist, if you let him go, we’ll pack our bags and leave, sahib-jee. You won’t see us again.”
Never see her again? Old Mother gone? The idea stunned us. If we didn’t know better, it would’ve made us hate Berr. Why did he have to go poking his nose in business that wasn’t his? Our village wasn’t in jeopardy. Our waters were safe. They will come for you next, he said. Once they’re done developing the two islands, once they’ve erected “New Dubai.” But we have Old Mother, we cried. We’ll survive this. They’ll come for your basti, he said. Force you out, and sell the land to the highest bidder.
What did he know? Now look at him lying down, blood bubbling between his lips. Because of him, Old Mother might leave the basti. And what would we do then to stymie the tides and hold the storms? Who’d knot our ropes and blow dust to blind Enki’s fish so we could catch it easily?
“If only he’d listened to you.” Kamal circled the downed boy. “Murad Saeen wouldn’t be happy if we returned without delivering his message. Nasir,” he said gently to the goon. “Be a prince and break his arm, won’t you.”
Nasir’s grin widened. “Thought you’d never ask, sahib.”
“Hear me out, I beg you,” said Old Mother. Tears streaked clean lines down her wizened face, and how could that be? In eighty years no one had seen Old Mother weep—not when two of her sons, on guard duty, were killed in the terrorist attack at Marina Club—not when Hindustani coast guards captured her husband after he strayed into their waters and then drowned trying to escape; she always did say her gifts cost a hand and a foot.
Nasir splayed Berr’s arm out on the beach, grasped the wrist, and leaned on the elbow with his knee.
Rocking, Old Mother said, “Beyond the two islands is a—”
Nasir broke the boy’s arm.
The snap was audible even at a distance. Berr screamed. Nasir let the arm fall, limp and misshapen, and stepped back to examine his handiwork.
Kamal grunted with satisfaction and turned to Old Mother. “What were you saying about the islands, old woman?”
Old Mother had fallen silent. She stared at the blood of her blood, his bare feet thrashing, kicking up sand.
“Nothing? That’s a pity. I was hoping to hear that promise again about getting the fuck out of Karachi.” Kamal pulled out a gun, pointed it at Berr’s head. A snick as he flicked the safety off. “Nasir, let’s do his other arm.”
The goon beamed with pleasure and reached for Berr.
Quiet as a spell, Old Mother said, “We will leave the city tonight and never return. You will never see us again.”
Kamal didn’t lower the gun. “Finish what you said earlier. What about the islands?”
Old Mother rose to her feet. Her face was impassive now, stone that had weathered a century of storms. “Beyond the two islands is a third that few know of.”
We gasped. Why would she say that, why would she tell? The sand beneath us shifted as lassos of water wrapped around our feet, pulling us back.
Kamal arched an eyebrow at her. “Such stories you tell. You ever hear such stories, Nasir?”
“The three children, we call them. The third wrapped in mist. Four hours by boat, the island sits in the heart of the delta, wreathed by mangroves so ancient that the fish nestling in their roots have never been seen by human eyes.”
“No, Kamal sahib.” Nasir eyed her, Berr’s uninjured limb still in his grip. “Kaam ki baat kar, burhya. What’s it to us?”
“Three times the size of the other islands. Such fishing there that you wouldn’t believe. Wouldn’t Murad Saeen want to know about it? And the mangroves? Richest timber you ever saw. So many treasures in its creeks.”
Stop, we wanted to shout. Old Mother, mother of our livelihood, father of our grief! Settling around us like the throw of a fishnet, these city bastards may have repossessed our land, pushing us farther and filthier into the sea, but they must not capture our soul.
Kamal’s gun moved from Berr to Old Mother, back to Berr. “An island of treasures.” He wasn’t laughing. He removed his sunglasses, hung them from his shirt collar, and lowered the weapon. “Rest of you”—his many-colored eyes gleamed at us—“got something to say, or does this hag speak for all of you?”
We said nothing. The wind sighed, spraying salt upon our tongues and eyes.
“You know, old woman, I’ve heard some stories too.” Kamal motioned to his men. Displeased, Nasir dropped Berr’s hand and moved away. The second goon bent and loosened the rope around the boy’s neck. “There are hundreds of villages along the coast, but I hear only the men of this village catch a suah fish on the regular. I’m told that last year your boys caught not one but two black-spotted croakers, each more than fifty kilograms. Each sold for more than twenty lacs. Isn’t that true, Nasir?”
“Jee, sahib.”
“And now you tell me about this island of yours and its glorious catch? Why, I’m almost inclined to believe you. This place has a name?”
Old Mother looked at him.
“Is it in Indian waters? You trying to lure us into a trap?”
“No, sahib.” Old Mother’s lips were white. “It is ours.”
“Tell you what, burhya.” A glance over his shoulder and the policeman came padding to Kamal’s side like a dog. “Tomorrow you and one of your bastard boys will take us to this island and if what you say is true”—he smiled at Berr, as if at a favored pet—“we will let this mutt live and you two can disappear to whichever hellhole your elders crawled out from. Am I clear or do I need Nasir to make you understand?”
“Clear, sahib,” said Old Mother. A glint brief as the catch of sunlight on mica lit the crevasses that formed her eyes. “Clear as island water.”
After taking Berr to Old Mother’s hut, where she lit candles, hung up his garments on iron nails, careful not to waste the tatters, and rolled him onto his side before settling to mend his bones, we swarmed to the sea, the withered gray-blue skin of it taut over the wounds of the earth. Our children raced in pursuit of tadpoles, dogs, and plastic bags, and cried to the gulls, and miles away Berr cried out when the hinge of his elbow wrenched into place. We waded through piles of kindling, bottles, shoes, shells, and camel droppings until we found sea-salted bones of creatures long drowned and gathered them in kid leather pouches. In silence we savored the briny smell of our ancient mother until daylight melted on the dusky lips of a star-studded evening and we returned to Old Mother’s hut, half a dozen pouches richer.
She took them and shut her door.
All through the midnight hours candlelight sputtered in her window, and once in a while singing cut through the moans and clatter as if of bones on metal. Far out in the ocean, deep water creatures, wrapped in carnivorous curtains of sea slugs, bellowed. Upon a summer night Old Mother set loose sea shanties of winter, and we huddled together.
At predawn we met her by the boats, two ropes slung over her shoulders. She handed us one: Fasten it to the mast of the crabbing boat, she said. Careful with the wind knots in the middle. They must not be loosened yet.
We understood.
The second rope she gave to the lean, bare-chested, muscled boy who accompanied her, whom we didn’t yet know. He had perfect teeth and the shine in his eyes was like sunlight on water. Tie it around the bow of the boat, she said. He did, tying the topknot with his teeth instead of his right arm. Then the two of them climbed onto the deck and waited for an hour before Kamal showed up with a dozen men in Jeeps, shotguns and Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. Three of them wore police garb. Kamal barked orders and the men swept the deck, looking for weapons.
“Burhya,” said Kamal. “Time to visit your island.”
“Jee, sahib,” said Old Mother. “The boy is our best boatman. He’ll take us.”
The goon Nasir bared his teeth at the boy. The latter stepped up to start the engine, and they set off into the rising sun.
