The Labyrinth of Souls

by Nelson Lowhim

  “They also complain, as they break the law, about how they were caught when they weren’t doing anything. It makes me hate them. I’ve dated a couple of them. It’s always guys who can sweet talk, but then they find they can’t sweet talk their way out of a jail sentence.” She’s staring right at me, and I shift my weight, feeling uncomfortable, like she’s talking about me. “And,” she continues. “I’ve also seen that innocents get caught. Or that if they have enough.” She slides her thumb and forefinger together to indicate money. “Of this to get out of any jail sentence.”

  “And so it goes,” I say.

  “Vonnegut?” Those parsing eyes. “So don’t avoid the question then. Why were you arrested?” Her voice grows firm.

  “I said a few things, though I’m sure it’s legal. They decided to arrest me for it.”

  “You said things against the government?”

  “That about sums it up.”

  “Why?”

  Hard question, that. “I thought it was wrong.”

  “For the people, by the people, right?”

  “It’s not like that,” I say, growing a little annoyed. “Nothing is. Besides, what about freedom of speech?”

  “Not if you’re trying to hurt people.”

  I look out to the crack between the curtain and the window. Is she right? Has the code she has learned here in the Bronx make more sense than the one I learned growing up in Michigan?

  “Well...” I say, wanting to leave it at that.

  “You’re not from here, are you?”

  “Born elsewhere,” I say, feeling guilty for some reason.

  “So then you really should have known better,” she says. There’s something of a predator in her voice now. As if she knows all about the world. I want to quiet it, but what do I know?

  I lean forward, trying to see more of her eyes. She obliges and leans forward too. Close enough that I can smell her sweat and hear her breathing, like each inhalation and exhalation is stirring a forest of nose hairs. And now, instead of wanting her to shut up, my heart cracks open—slightly.

  “There’s a labyrinth down there somewhere,” I say. “That’s where they caught me. I think there’s an answer there, but I’m not sure how to get back down there.”

  She lets out a stifled chuckle and leans back, holding a smirk as she shakes her head. “My god, what are you?”

  “I’m trying to find out.”

  Her eyes fall back on me. “Aren’t you too old for that?”

  A barb, meant to hurt. It does.

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” she says. “Just that...” A sigh. “What labyrinth are you talking about?”

  “I was there. They caught me in it.”

  “The sewers. Is that what you’re talking about?” she says, still disbelieving.

  “I’m not sure. I think I’m talking about things that happen in reality and nothing at all about a labyrinth. Like when you see something in the world, but it seems that no one else sees it.”

  “You think you see things that others don’t?” she asks, now sounding completely incredulous. She’s leans back.

  “I mean things like injustice. Not like unicorns. Though maybe they’re the same.”

  She rolls her eyes and blows a bang of hers with upturned lips. “My god, who have we let in our house. Injustice? We’re in the Bronx. What do you see that everyone here doesn’t?”

  “I—”

  “And what makes you so special that you see all this?” She leans forward to hear me out after she says this. She’s actually concerned, curious. That doesn’t help. I can deal with hostility. But I can’t deal with completely concerned inquiries.

  “You don’t know much, do you?” she says, biting her lip at the same time, and thus giving mixed signals when she’s really trying to be as derisive as possible.

  I wonder if she can read my mind. Again I look out to the window. I enjoy being here with her, even if it was a mistake to tell her what should have been kept a secret. “I don’t.”

  “I’ll ask again, then. What do you see that we can’t?”

  My heart beats faster. “Well, if there is injustice in the world what do we do?”

  “If it affects you, you act, you figure out a way to fight it and if it doesn’t affect you, you listen, or you see what you can do to help.”

  I say nothing, for there’s really little to say to such statements. The question is, of course, is she right and I’m wrong?

  She looks at me like I’m dumb. Then her forefinger comes into my face and she wags it. “I get it. You’re a broken soldier.”

  I didn’t expect taunting like this. The bottom falls out of my heart. “No,” I say, or rather I croak, and again thoughts come flooding out of me. I see a twinkle in her eyes, and I wonder if she is really Behemoth, here to torment me once again. Leaning forward, I look for recognition. She pulls back.

  “You’re weird, you know?”

  I remind myself that she’s a teen. “Yeah. It’s probably a good reason I’m being hunted then, right?”

  She rolls her eyes. “No. You should know that. But you should also be able to answer simple questions... Did you really not know what you were doing?”

  I glance out at the crack between the curtains and the window. “There isn’t an answer,” I say. Is this what my life has come to? I don’t have the energy to at least explain myself? That I am to be lectured by a teenager? I let out some air.

  She mimics my tone. “I’m not saying you should be hunted.”

  “I know.”

  “But if you are being hunted. You should have a reason. Or else you’re just a criminal. Or even a terrorist.”

  Now this I’m not entirely certain about. Most terrorists don’t deserve the moniker that they’re given. “Not true,” I say, thinking out loud more than anything.

  “I didn’t—“

  “You have to understand that they’re, if they have a political viewpoint, going up against powerful forces. That they’re going to have massive amounts of propaganda being thrown their way. You can’t believe everything you see or hear.”

  She stares in disbelief. Perhaps it’s too much to asks teenager to believe in conspiracies that are the world they live in.

  “Is that what you tell yourself?” she says, after composing her shock.

  “I’m not sure if it counts for me, but it counts for someone,” I say.

  She rolls her eyes.

  “He’s not wrong.”

  I startle when I realize that Luis has been creeping up on us, and I only now see his outline to my side.

  “I didn’t see you,” I say. Dalcia smiles like she’s used to this.

  “He was in the army, and he never forgets his time in,” she says.

  Luis shuffles to me and Dalcia gets him a chair to sit on.

  “The Freedom tower,” he says.

  “Yes?” Dalcia asks, hopping back on her table.

  “What a thing to build.”

  “You can’t say that,” Dalcia says and looks to me.

  I shrug.

  “Listen,” Luis says, his hand coming up. “I don’t know what your deal is. You don’t, or can’t answer.” He shakes his head from side to side. “That’s you. But you’re not all wrong, from what I see. The Freedom tower that they built. What is it?”

  “It’s not bad,” I say, not sure where Luis is going with this.

  “Maybe not. But it’s a statement. Like every other new building in America. Those Asian countries. Everywhere there’s money, these type of buildings come up. That was our answer.”

  “Grandpa,” Dalcia says. “He’s being silly. He doesn’t like money lenders.”

  “Well,” I say, not knowing what to say, I’ve heard too many conspiracy theories that border on asinine or racist or crazy. And yet every conspiracy theory is grounded on the sense of power doing what it wants. That’s not a false view of the world. And every conspiracy that came into light was always derided at first. And furthermore, being a man wh
o was born in the colonial world (post or otherwise, still a matter of colonialism) I know all about the view that exists of my ancestors, well half of them or so, as heathens worthy only of slaughter and subjugation and the inherent propaganda and conspiracies that come with that as well. I’m not sure I have the tools to, even in our world of complete information, to come to a method of dealing with how to look these matters in the eye. At times it does seem best to cower with one’s head in the sand. So why do I expect more of the people who are following the news about me? “You can look at the money lenders as providing at least one function. They help spread money.”

  “Bwa,” Luis says, then coughs. “Thought you would know better.” There’s a look of distinct disappointment.

  “Grandpa...”

  “Tell him, then.”

  Dalcia looks at me. “There was a cop. Italian, ex-cop. He would lend money out here. Grandpa borrowed from him and there was a disagreement about the repayment... Anyways, that’s why he has a limp now.”

  I follow her eyes to Luis who is staring at the floor in front of him. A cockroach is scurrying away. No one reacts to it.

  “Money lenders, they’re nothing but the worst.” Luis lifts his foot as the cockroach greets another and they run towards him. He crushes one.

  “A loan shark and a bank are different,” I say, though as soon as I say it, I regret acting so staid. So much like a tool.

  “Damn you. What do you know? He was an ex-cop. Nothing he did would ever get him arrested. I’m sure you knew this? What’s wrong with that? Everything. He’s just like the banks. Think. No one can touch banks. Why? They own all of us. Like the ex-cop. Could do whatever he wanted.” Luis rubs his leg. “No one will stop them.” He stares at me for a second, trying to see if there will be a reaction, searching my face for an answer. “No one. I don’t know what happened. Why we let them play magic tricks with money and then expect anything good to come of it. Tell me?” He stops and breaks into a fit of coughing.

  “Grandpa. Don’t think too much about this. You know your blood pressure gets too high.” Dalcia gives me a look like she wants me to say something that will stop this.

  “I see what you’re saying,” I say. I don’t want to do anything but to have him stop suffering. Yet, I may dismiss what he’s saying only because there seems to be a grain of truth to it. “And that’s what that shiny building and all the others represent?” I say. “That they will win out in the end? The money men?”

  Luis nods, massaging his leg. “I thought you would know better. Who do you think is hunting you down?”

  It seems imbecilic to not understand that all nations now need money and thus anything they do will be tracked to some sort of money making scheme. But I need an ally and so I will look for one here too.

  “You don’t have to say anything,” Dalcia says to me. There’s anger in her voice. What’s wrong with her? I remind myself that she’s a teen.

  “Okay.”

  “No. I mean, he’s been hurt. He was a loyal soldier. Always will be. But he was betrayed. And you? You were never loyal. The news said that. Now I can see it,” Dalcia says.

  That barb cuts into my heart. How can she say such things? I try to brush it off with the fact that she’s a teen, but it still stings. I don’t reply. Perhaps I’m not loyal and I’m a fool for not being so.

  “There was a writer when I grew up,” Luis says looking off to the side of me. “No one ever took him seriously. All he wanted to do was write. And he wrote against the village. Thought he was so smart. And all he did was tear down. So when he was poor and needed help, no one did it. He died. Alone.”

  Silence falls. I stare down at the crushed cockroach. So that’s my fate, according to this man? A lump forms in my throat.

  “That’s the difference,” Dalcia says, biting her lip and trying to sound too much like she’s thirty and full of wisdom when it’s apparent she’s not. “He was loyal to the army. Where’s your loyalty? You never had any. Anyone can see that—”

  “Dalcia,” Luis says, raising his hand. “Another time. But she’s not wrong either.”

  “Well,” I say after a few seconds, and after my skin stops burning up. “You’ll be happy to hear that I talked to someone who said that computers will soon be able to make literature that will be better than anything else that has been created so far.”

  But Luis doesn’t reply as he’s snoring. Dalcia jerks her head at him, then me. I walk over, pick him up, and carry him to his bed. Dalcia tucks him in. I can smell the aerosol cleaners and feces in his room. It smells completely human.

  “Thank you,” Dalcia says when we find ourselves back in the kitchen.

  “I’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  She stares at me, and I see a slight sway in her body, like she’s about to step towards me. I’m not sure what’s going in that mind of hers. But she’s been meaning to crush me, hasn’t she?

  “Okay. Don’t be an idiot.”

  I half-grin. Some things about her remind me of my ex-wife.

  “You are a space man,” she says shaking her head. This time, though, there doesn’t appear to be derisiveness or disgust in her tone.

  “Might be why I’m in this situation.”

  “Might be. So what are you going to do next? Feel sorry for yourself?”

  “Find my wife. Plead my case to her.”

  For some reason this startles her. “After all she said?”

  “You don’t understand,” I say, not really knowing how to read her tone.

  “I don’t? She talked you down. Like she wanted nothing to do with you. Whatever you did. A woman shouldn’t leave her man because some one else says something bad...” She plays with her hands, then looks up. That sharp look again, that piercing dart in her eyes like she’s taking me apart. But it only lasts for a second.

  “You don’t know what they told her, what they threatened her with. It can happen to anyone,” I say.

  “I wouldn’t.”

  A swelling lifts up my heart. I look at her, her eyes taking up the entire room, my entire world. I can feel my heart beating, weakly, but beating nonetheless. I can sense her breathing, my hyper alertness fills my head with hope. What do I make of this? I can’t make anything of it. She’s a child, I remind myself. I remember when I was that age and things didn’t weigh down on me and it was easy to be right, to think that you knew it all, to drive forward with something like never leaving someone no matter what someone else said or what the loved one did. Then I remember how I first met my wife, how in a time of ambiguousness and coming out of the Army and not really liking the civilian world with its frivolousness and its... well. I’m not sure, what it was. But she, my wife, was able to calm and still any hatred in me and make me certain again. A single smile from her was all I ever lived for. I feel my eyes welling up.

  “Thanks. But...”

  “You love her.”

  I’m not sure if that’s a question or statement. The silence that falls seems to choose.

  “Of course.”

  “Then get her.”

  She disappears into the darkness of the hallway. Only her smell left to pierce my aching heart. I try to sleep but I’m awoken by the increased traffic on the street next to us. Khalid snores like he’ll never stop.

  Upstairs, daylight floods the kitchen. Fernando is in his suit, looking very dapper.

  “Morning,” I say, forcing a smile.

  “Morning,” Fernando says. He stands in front of Dalcia, who gives him a once over and adjusts his collar and tie.

  “Good-bye,” Fernando says. He shakes my hand, but doesn’t look me in the eye.

  “Good luck. I’m sure it will go well.” I rub some crust out of my eyes. Khalid comes up.

  Fernando leaves. Luis and Dalcia invite us in for breakfast: eggs and bacon and bread.

  “So you leave now?” Luis says, as breakfast is finished.

  “Soon,” I say. I stand up and walk over to the sink. I start to do the dishes. I c
an sense looks behind me. But I ignore it. With gloves on, and a sponge, I methodically go through the dishes. Dalcia comes up beside me and starts wiping them dry, creating room on the dish rack. The air crackles. A ray of light hits the sink. I look over and catch her eye. She smiles. An olive branch?

  I shower. The Khalid. We wear old clothes that no longer fit Luis. They fit Khalid just font, but hang on me like I’ve shrunk. Just as well, I suppose. When it’s time, I shake Luis’ hand.

  He seems sad. “Remember what I told you,” he says.

  “Of course. I’ll try.” I am not even certain what his main gist was.

  Khalid shakes their hands. When it’s my turn, I smile at Dalcia.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “I-I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” I say.

  “Don’t worry. Just to make sure you make it to Manhattan all right.”

  She gives me a hug, pressing firmly.

  But on the subway ride into Manhattan, she’s silent, staring forward. So is Khalid. I’m not sure why the Arab is coming with me.

  When the train reaches Washington Heights, I smile at Dalcia. She gets off, hugging me again. “Don’t you forget,” she says and slips me her number. Or a number.

  “Nice family,” Khalid says, closing his eyes.

  “Yes,” I say. Again, a cold melancholy hits my heart. I stare at a pair of women in front of me, somewhat young, they are sartorially astute, shiny things on their expensive clothes, frills hanging everywhere. It makes me think, instead of my wife, of Dalcia, that hug. I feel hollow. What is this small escapade I’m going on? No. I have to.

  I look over at two large men with hairy hands making conversation: “They say they haven’t found out who it was. It was that veteran, wasn’t it? They’re not sure. Say he went crazy. I don’t understand. Why do they let them back in the country when they’re still nuts. Put them down in the desert, that’s what I say. I know, I mean I appreciate what they do, serving and all, but if they’re crazy, there’s no need to bring them back here. Throw them into a mental institution. It makes sense. It’s what they used to do with them before this country got all politically correct about these things. And now what? We have an entire neighborhood destroyed because we’re acting too nice. And those Arabs. Well, we’re hitting them good. We have to remember what made us strong.” One of the men forms a fist and bangs the seat between them. “That’s the way the world is made. You’re telling me anyone got anything being nice?”