The City Beautiful

by Aden Polydoros

  “What are you doing here?” a man barked in English from behind me as I descended the final set of stairs to the ground floor.

  I turned around. A man stood at the second-floor landing. Not Katz. Some administrator or superintendent in a starched suit, his flushed face greasy with perspiration.

  My plan to pose as an aide shriveled in an instant, along with most of my memorized English.

  “I beg your pardon?” I stammered as he came down the stairs.

  “You should be up on the killing floor. We need all the men we can get.”

  The scanty group of strikebreakers—the first of many, I was sure—wouldn’t be enough to keep a slaughterhouse of this size in operation. Likely, the guards and administrators were there on the killing floor. Where I should have been.

  “I—I can’t.” I cleared my throat, searching for what to say. Why had I ever thought I could fit in here? “I have a briv, er, a letter for Mr. Katz. His eyes only.”

  My fingers strayed to my waist, urging to twist up in the tassels of my tzitzis. I held my breath as a flush of irritation crept down the man’s neck.

  “Well, good luck finding him,” the man said savagely, throwing up his hands. “He should be here, but his office is empty.”

  “I’ll leave it there for him.”

  “I can’t deal with this now. All this nonsense, and the captain has abandoned ship and left a mess to boot.” The man disappeared down the corridor at a harried walk. I didn’t even think he heard me.

  I waited until he was out of sight before turning my attention to the final set of stairs leading to the cellar.

  Darkness, the sepulchral silence down below, and the groan of hooves and steam-powered machinery from the levels far above. A cold sweat dewed on my neck as I descended the stairs.

  Below, it was a hot, humid labyrinth of shadows, strange vats, and rumbling pipes, not a place of storage but a place of process, the slaughterhouse’s digestive tract. My gorge rose at the reek of rotten meat permeating the air. In places, blood had dripped from the drainage pipes and congealed on the floor in puddles of black and burgundy, some blotched with mold.

  A shelf along the wall contained a kerosene lantern, spare wicks, matches, and oil. As I lifted the lantern’s shade to access the wick, something clattered nearby. I swiveled around, mouth dry.

  A rat scuttled from the shadows, dragging a glistening chunk of meat or viscera. It vanished behind a metal barrel, meal and all. I chuckled uneasily and focused on lighting the lantern. My hands shook as the flame flared up. Past the musk of rot, I thought I detected another stench worse than the first. Scorched flesh and scorched hair.

  Once the lantern was burning steadily, I rose to my feet and continued deeper into the cellar. From below came the gurgle of running water passing through the Stockyards’ sewer system. Even farther in, the silence was broken by a cacophony of strange sounds—the skittering of rats; hissing steam; the hollow, recurring tap of pipes, like the desperate scratching of a premature burial.

  There had to be something down here. Bones or scraps of clothes, Aaron Holtz’s union fob, Moishe Walden’s mailbag, anything to make this all end.

  My foot landed with an unexpected clang. I looked down. A metal panel lay flush against the cement. Kneeling on solid ground, I set the lantern down beside me and pulled back the bolt securing the panel in place.

  As I lifted the trapdoor, a burst of hot, fetid air billowed from the hole, accompanied by hundreds of black gnats. I reeled back with a groan of disgust, then forced myself to raise the door even higher so I wouldn’t have to lean over to look inside.

  The hole below was filled with a sludge of soiled water and worse, all the useless and unclean bits discarded during the slaughtering process. A pale form floated half-submerged upon the surface; in the shadows, it took the shape of a drowned man. Heart pounding, I raised the lantern.

  No. I exhaled slowly, my shoulders sagging in relief. Not a person. A stained mattress topper, feathers spilling from its torn edge. The bedding had yet to be waterlogged, so it couldn’t have been down here long. Perhaps mere hours. When the strikes had reached a fever pitch, Katz must have come down here—to what? Clear out all the evidence in case the strikers seized control of the slaughterhouse?

  I lowered the lid and latched it in place, my stomach churning in revulsion. It sickened me to wonder who had brought the cushion here, or who had been brought to it. I hated that I had come here. But this was the proof I had been searching for, as much proof as any. It meant I had no choice now.

  I reached for the lantern and began to rise. Movement shifted in the corner of my vision. As I turned, someone seized me from behind and thrust a damp rag over my nose and mouth. I bucked against his grip, struggling to break free even as the pungent, sickly sweet fumes clouded my thoughts. As the seconds dragged on, my body grew heavier and my movements turned sluggish.

  My legs buckled beneath me, and the floor rose up to meet me at a sickening speed. Cold metal beneath my palms and cheek. My ears filled with a hollow ringing.

  I grasped hold of the hatch to keep from sliding into the darkness that flooded my vision. Instead of unyielding steel, my fingers sank into loose, warm soil.

  Slowly, I lifted my head.

  There was no ceiling now, only an endless sky awash with red and gold. I staggered to my feet. All around me, sunflowers swayed in the gentle breeze, nodding their broad brown heads.

  I pinched my wrist to rouse myself, but it did no good. I supposed that whatever I had breathed in, its vapors had been strong enough to throw me from the real world into Yakov’s.

  I didn’t want to think about what I had left behind at the Stockyards, or who had seized me, or why the taste of chemicals lingered sweet and strange on my tongue. It all felt rather distant and untouchable, fading to smoke around the edges.

  I closed my eyes and craned my head to the sky, finding solace in the honeyed scent of sunflowers and warm soil. I wouldn’t mind staying here for a while. After two years engulfed in Chicago’s smoggy warrens, it was such a pleasant change to return to the land.

  But this was not Romania. Piatra Neamţ was nestled in the shadow of the Carpathian Mountains, with an economy built on logging and cattle raising, not the farming of sunflowers. So, this must be the Pale of Settlement. A small town near Kiev. The scene of a fire.

  I opened my mouth to call Yakov’s name, but I was afraid that something else might lurk inside the field and be drawn to the sound of my voice. I eased forward, brushing aside the sunflower plants. Some towered over two meters tall, high enough that I couldn’t see beyond their petals.

  Past my lingering fear, I sensed this was a safe place. Somewhere Yakov might have gone as a child to hide from the world.

  Ahead, the plants rustled. Yakov emerged, dressed in the same handsome evening suit and white shirt he had worn the night he died, a bronze watch chain draped across his pin-striped waistcoat.

  A smile spread across his lips. “Alter.”

  I couldn’t say his name. I felt like if I tried, my tongue might blister on its own. He stepped closer.

  Yakov had come from a town even smaller than Piatra Neamţ, but I could never envision him among the pastures and cattle. His enigmatic beauty seemed better suited for dim Gothic chambers and the silence of ruined castles, aristocracy that had cracked around the edges, clothed itself in ivy, and crawled back into the wilderness. With sunflower petals ensnared in his raven-black hair and his eyes violet in the burnished light, he radiated that dark, primal virility now more than ever.

  “I should’ve known you’d be here,” he murmured, coming to my side. “You always are.”

  “Yakov.” I choked on his name, fighting back tears. I had never been able to say goodbye, and now that we were reunited, I could hardly even speak.

  Gently, he cradled my cheek. His skin was so warm.

 
I knew Yakov was never coming back to life, but a part of me felt so happy just seeing him here, as he had been. I thought that this must be what it would feel like in the world to come.

  He leaned forward. I didn’t realize what he intended to do before his lips brushed against my own.

  As Yakov kissed me, the sun fled behind the clouds. The darkness blanketed his gaze with filthy shadows and drained the blush of life from his cheeks. Those lips whose warmth still lingered on my skin became blued as if frostbitten and gnawed on by the fish.

  With a low cry, I pushed him away and lurched back into the wall of sunflowers.

  I half expected the sunflower leaves to dissolve like smoke under my fingertips, but instead, they felt solid and scratchy. I landed in a bed of crushed flowers, breathing heavily.

  The moment I looked up again, Yakov was as I remembered—strikingly beautiful and self-possessed, his eyes as bright as lightning.

  “Is something wrong?” He cocked his head. “I thought this was what you wanted.”

  “You’re dead,” I croaked, staring up at him. Fear prickled my skin, but above all, I felt sadness. For what I could not have. For what he would never be again.

  He laughed. “Alter, what are you saying? I’m right here.”

  “No, you’re not, Yakov. You’re not here at all.”

  Yakov Kogan was buried two meters down in a pauper’s grave. Two meters down with shattered pottery covering his eyes and his body shrouded in white linen.

  I rose to my feet, moistening my dry lips. “You were found in the water.”

  Yakov’s smile faded. Overhead, the golden streaks marbling the clouds tarnished first to bronze, then to indigo. His gaze darkened similarly.

  “No,” Yakov whispered, taking a step back. His shoes sank into the soil, which had become black and soupy in an instant, the water level rising. “N-no, don’t say that.”

  “You were there all night. Dead—”

  Terror burned in his eyes. “No, be quiet.”

  “Mr. Katz hurt you, didn’t he? He killed you.”

  “Shut up. Just shut up.” Bowing over himself, Yakov clawed at his cheeks and tore at his hair. “Stop. I don’t like this anymore. Why can’t I wake up? I want to wake up now!”

  I reached out to comfort him, but he tore away from me with a low moan, as if my touch had burnt him.

  “Wait,” I said, but Yakov had already fled into the foliage. I caught a brief glimpse of his face among the plate-size blossoms, and then the darkness swallowed him.

  I ran after him, crashing through the field. Sunflower seeds rained down on my shoulders, their rough stems snapping underfoot and scratching my exposed skin. Overhead, thunderheads formed, dark and swollen as blood blisters. Whips of red lightning crackled through the clouds, thrashing up a bitter wind that filled my lungs with dirt.

  “Yakov, wait!”

  A horrific idea occurred to me. What if this wasn’t a vision at all? What if the same vapors that had brought me here had also choked the breath from my lungs? Or Mr. Katz could have done that himself, with his own two hands. For all I knew, I could be in the waste pit by now.

  No. Bile flooded my mouth. No! This was not Gehinnom. I was still alive.

  As I continued deeper into the field, the water reached my knees. Underneath the cloying fragrance of the decaying flowers, the air was laced with the odors of gunpowder, damp hay, and the dusty musk of horseflesh. Village smells, taunting in their familiarity.

  The clouds parted, and the lightning’s true source revealed itself—not lightning at all, no, but fireworks bursting in arterial gushes of blue and crimson. The sounds of a struggle filtered through the greenery. Gunshots, far too many to belong to a single firearm. Voices barked words in an unfamiliar, harsh tongue. Choked gasps. Distant cheering and laughter. The grunts and panting of a man in violent labor or perhaps—I thought with a sickening shudder—one seized by ecstatic bloodlust.

  I didn’t want to be here anymore, but I didn’t want to leave either. Desperate to return to the sunset in all its glory, I clawed through the plants, up to the waist now in muck. Darkness ahead, drowned sunflowers circling in, and far in the distance, something broad and white, swaying upon the flooded field. Between the echoing blasts of fireworks, I discerned a flapping sound like the unfurling of membranous wings.

  “Someone’s coming,” Yakov whispered from behind me.

  As I swiveled around, the ground liquefied beneath me, drawing me into darkness deeper than the sea. It felt like I was sinking forever.

  34

  I came to slowly, to the steady drip of water. Coarse rope bound my wrists over my head, the fibers gnawing into the skin. Sour liquid dripped on my closed lips. I tasted it. Harsh and metallic, gritty with dirt or rust. I cracked open my eyes. A network of pipes stretched overhead. My wrists were secured by a rope to one of them.

  My arms ached, my fingers were numb, and my head felt as if it were filled with hot pitch. The toes of my shoes slipped over the concrete floor, struggling to gain purchase. As the feeling returned to my body, I managed to find stable footing. It came as an unspeakable relief to see that my clothes were undisturbed, but that respite lasted only as long as it took for my eyes to adjust to the darkness.

  Mr. Katz stepped forward from the shadows. Dust stained the knees and sleeves of his linen suit. In the flickering lantern light, the khaki fabric was nearly the same color as his skin, as though his face itself were another garment. His scar might as well have been a wrinkle, and his thin smile a seam.

  “I’m glad to see you’re awake.” Mr. Katz stopped before me. “You were unconscious for so long, I was a little worried I’d killed you. Chloroform is fickle in that way.”

  I swung my foot out, aiming for his knee. Instead, my shoe glanced harmlessly off the side of his calf. He stepped back, perhaps to admire his work at a comfortable distance.

  “After your little stunt in my office, I knew it was only a matter of time before Feivel showed himself,” Mr. Katz said. “However, I didn’t exactly have this scenario in mind. I thought you two would come to my house again. I was prepared for that. I have dogs now.”

  A tremor racked my body. Feivel. How many years had it been since Frankie had used that name? I had always thought that he had left it behind back in Brooklyn.

  “Or did you come here alone?” Mr. Katz mused. “Is that it? What exactly did you hope to achieve, following in the strikebreakers as though you were one of them? With those clothes, you stood out like a fly in soup.”

  Stupid. So stupid. I never should have followed them up to the floor his office overlooked. I had thought the crowd would conceal me, but I should have broken away the moment we had passed through the slaughterhouse’s front doors.

  Why had I ever thought I could do this?

  Katz lingered in my blind spot, so that he was little more than a shadow in the corner of my eye. I kept my gaze ahead and focused on my breathing. Showing fear was the worst thing one could do when confronted by a wild animal.

  “We can make this painless. Tell me where Feivel is. Where I can find him. All I want is to have a little chat with him.”

  “He’s dead. He’s been dead a year now.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  When Mr. Katz came back around to face me, he held a slaughterer’s chalaf. My breath escaped in a thin whimper before I could stop myself. Designed to sever a steer’s trachea in a single blow, the knife was nearly as long as a man’s forearm, with a razor-sharp edge.

  “Why are you protecting him?” Mr. Katz asked, resting the flat of the knife against his palm. “What do you have to gain from it? Is it because you are friends?”

  “As I said, Frank—Feivel is dead.”

  “No. That’s not it. It’s not about friendship at all, is it?” A sly smile spread across his lips. “You fancy him, don’t you?”

&
nbsp; I stared at him, stricken with shock. I felt as though he’d torn me open with his words alone, exposing me to the world in all my ugliness.

  “I know that you share this desire. It’s in your voice, your mannerisms. On that night you came to my house, I could see the way you looked at him.”

  “No. No, I’m nothing like you. Damn you. It’s not like that—”

  “Has the little whore made advances toward you?” His fingers traced the dull edge of the blade. “He can be very cunning, very manipulative. I would know.”

  My stomach churned in revulsion and horror as his words dawned on me. I thought of the way Frankie had convinced Joe to join his crew, using a disturbing example so vivid it had felt real: I’m giving you a choice. An alternative. You can go and find honest work slaving away at the looms or assembly lines, but who knows? Maybe somewhere down the line, there’ll be a boss or overseer who’ll take a fancy to those blue eyes and slim limbs of yours, boychik, and then you won’t have a choice.

  Afterward, Frankie had laughed about it, as though it was just a joke. It should have been clear to me all along. Each time he had given those unsettling warnings, he had been airing out his own trauma, distancing himself from it by reducing it to a cautionary tale.

  “What did you do to him?!” I snarled.

  “I gave him what he was asking for. What I imagine you want from him as well.”

  Murderous rage scalded me. I writhed against the ropes, consumed by fury that felt so much greater than myself.

  “Damn you! I’m nothing like you. My love for him is pure.” The words left my mouth before it even dawned on me what I was saying. Yet now that I had started talking, I couldn’t stop. I shouted in a desperate attempt to distance myself from Katz’s monstrosity. “How dare you even compare us? You hurt people. You rape them—”

  “I simply give them what they desire, even if they don’t realize it. And if they resist, well, you and Feivel are the ones to blame for that.” His fingers had strayed absently to his cheek, following the wiry scar that drew a path from his jawline to his crumpled nostril. “My face, it frightens the boys now.”