When We Were Executioners

by J. M. McDermott

  Rachel yawned. She spoke to her tea, not him. “Do you know anything about hearts, Jona? The Senta know hearts. Hearts are not one organ. Inside a mother’s womb, two pulsing bags of blood seek their eternal mate.”

  Her hand reached out to his. She opened his palm, and traced a finger down his lifeline, then his loveline. She lifted it up to her own face. She placed it on her cheek.

  “Lungs are fine apart,” she said, “Hands do not need another but to clap. Brains gnarl like roots in the nothing of soul, and guts spin in knots around the nothing of hunger. But hearts are made by two complete parts merging together. Once the two pieces sense each other in the blood flow, they cross every bloody cliff inside of us. The arteries bind the halves close. The veins make love to each other in the life pulse that makes all life from love entwined.”

  She let go of his hand. He let it linger on her face.

  “Your tea is getting cold, Jona.”

  “Fate worse than death,” he said. He did not move his hand from her face. Then, he moved his hand. It went down to the table. He stood up. “I have to go,” he said.

  “Don’t you want tea?”

  He shook his head. “No... I did, but...”

  “Sit down. You’re making me nervous.”

  “Right,” he said. He sat back down. He picked up the teacup, and sniffed at it. He sipped a little. “It’s good,” he said.

  “So, what do you want to talk about?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I just wanted to see you. Was that one of the koans?”

  “No. It’s just something my mother taught me before she died.” Her face, the way she looked at him, makes me happy, because Jona was loved by someone before he died.

  * * *

  My husband and I feasted in the night on stolen meat. A sheep heavy with lamb, it slowed her down. We dragged her into the woods while the shepherds’ dogs cowered away from us.

  From the raw mutton, I showed this Senta wisdom to my husband, from the heart of the aborted lamb.

  In the daylight, we searched fetal birds peeled from their shells —their tiny grey bodies limp in our human palms, all blood and fluids and dying tissues. Just beneath the translucent skin, the organs pulsed and died in two distinct pieces that would no longer fully merge.

  He said nothing to me, nor I to him, after we proved this to ourselves. We ate what we had killed.

  Say something, my husband.

  I regret returning to the city because it means you will not be completely yours, completely mine. Too many bad smells. All of them his.

  That is not our place to choose. If Erin wills it…

  …we die on this trail. Eat, beloved, for tomorrow we may face Sabachthani’s executioners.

  As wolves we dashed into the city, not priest and priestess. We ran like wild dogs, snarling and biting and blood on our teeth.

  For three days we lived in the alleys like dogs. We slept in mud, and ate in the mud and snarled at everything that came near, all our skulls and papers always hidden deep under our fur. We had to slink our way through the streets to a small temple of Erin, near the harbor. We scratched at the back door until we were discovered and could enter in hiding, make arrangements for our stay. After dark, we slipped into a rented room dressed like foreign thieves. The innkeeper, greedy enough to have no curiosity, was paid to ignore us. Not even a maid came to our little room.

  We wrote to Lord Sabachthani by addressing the king, though the king would do nothing for us. We waited, hunting nothing. We told Lord Sabachthani that we would not hunt without his permission—only wait for word through a liaison of the temple.

  Wait and wait, then. So much paper arrived at a man’s door. He ruled this city while the king was too old, and too tired to take the reins of state. Our small concerns were nothing to the diplomacy and negotiations of all these crowded districts, and all the cities of the world.

  Patience, then, and wait. Close my eyes and see with my eyes, smell with my nose, deep into the streets and buildings Jona’s memory.

  * * *

  Three crowns, painted on doors and archways, lined up in a row like winning at cards, and Calipari didn’t like it. Nobody liked it. New marks on the walls meant fighting. Newcomers meant upsetting the balance. The king’s men were sent to find the new markers of things, drag them in before anything changed. Vandalism, at least, and more if they could beat anything out of them.

  Jona and Geek found a porter they knew eating sausage from a street vendor. Sweat pooled at the porter’s armpits and spilled down the front of his dirty shirt.

  Geek whistled and stuck out his hand in friendship. The porter smiled with food jammed in every gap in his teeth. The porter took Geek’s hand, but cringed when Geek clamped down for the shake. Geek had powerful hands. He was reminding the porter that Geek was not here in friendship.

  After the handshake, Geek showed his palm to Jona. Sweaty blood was all over Geek’s hand. The porter rubbed at his, trying to force a smile at the king’s men come to push him for something. Geek showed his dirty palm to the porter, too, like it was the porter’s fault.

  “Sorry,” he said, to Geek. He wiped his blood-soaked palms along his leg. It wasn’t going to get cleaner on his bloody pants. “I’ve been pushing meat from the killing floor to the river. Forgot about it.”

  “Nothing on it,” said Geek. “Me and my boy,” Geek pointed his bloody thumb at Jona, “We are on a tear looking for a few fellows.”

  “They in trouble?”

  Geek whistled and shook his head. “They will be if we don’t find them.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t know the names. Some foreigner moving the pink demon weed around like he’s somebody, but he ain’t anybody. Who knows where he’s getting his supply? Can’t be good for his health. Dunnlander, I hear, dressed in red. Got a couple fellows on his side, drawing three crowns on things. They set up shop a day, maybe an hour. Then, they run somewhere new. Dunnlander finds the new spot, the supplies find their way in from who knows where, and these two other fellows go watch-outman or touting or something else.”

  “Always something,” said the porter, “I see that stuff coming in off the ships and lots of my boys plucking it for someone else. Don’t know anybody doing it for new people. Nasty stuff, I think. Wish you could drive it all out, but it would just find its way back again. Leastways keep it in order, right? Keep any trouble off the streets.”

  Jona’s eyes narrowed. The porter wouldn’t be so friendly with Geek if he hadn’t spent some time in a room negotiating mercy with Sergeant Calipari. He was hiding something.

  Geek touched Jona’s arm, pulling him back. “Hey, I forgot to ask,” said Geek, “How’s that wife of yours doing? You ever see this fellow’s wife, Jona?”

  The porter looked over his shoulder, his face a mask. He was feeling the fear, now. “We got a boy coming, soon. I hope it’s a boy. She’s big as a sow.”

  “This ugly fellow’s going to be a father?” said Jona. “I was doubting Imam all morning. Now I have faith in miracles.”

  The porter smiled wide with ragged teeth like a broken, yellow fence spilling sausage bits down his shirt. “I gotta get back,” he said, “But, I do hear a Dunnlander’s running with ragpickers. Mudskippers are the only ones not scared enough to know better. Those kids’ll cut your throat for your boots if you’re asleep in an alley. None of them half as old as the mongrels that follow them for scraps.”

  “Got a name for us?”

  “I don’t know nobody. I know he’s got some rowdy friends.”

  “How rowdy?”

  “Rowdy, but, you know, not rowdy enough for what they’re doing. And not enough of them.”

  Jona had a vision of them, then. A few foreigners scrambling what they could, skimming off the top of other people’s shipments, maybe jumping people in alleys for their product. They would have to be moving around a lot. They probably wouldn’t use the same place more than a day. It was no wonder their marks were up all over, in an
d out of the Pens.

  Geek tossed the porter a coin. “Thanks,” he said. The porter winked and turned. He lumbered through the bustle back to the main slaughterhouse of the Pens.

  Geek looked around the street for ragpickers. “You know any ragpickers?” he asked.

  “I hate street kids,” said Jona, “You?”

  “Not yet.” Geek tossed a coin to the same food vendor the porter had used. The vendor said nothing, about it, and handed Geek a sausage. Geek offered Jona a sausage. Jona shrugged, and paid for his own.

  The sausage came wrapped in bread. When Geek was eating, the sweaty blood left on his hand got on the bread and he didn’t seem to care. Jona watched and it made him a little sick every time the red bread disappeared into Geek’s mouth. Jona thought about his blood. Then, he threw his own food into a sewer grate. “Guess I ain’t so hungry,” he said.

  Geek wiped his dirty hands off on the vendor’s apron.

  The vendor hated it, but he said nothing. The vendor looked at the two king’s men like they were chasing off business just by standing in front of the man—which is exactly what they were doing.

  “What?” said Jona, to the vendor.

  “Nothing,” said the vendor.

  “We’ll stay here long as we want,” said Jona. “Nice and safe with us around.”

  The vendor nodded his assent. His eyes burned. The vendor pulled out a glass flask half-full. “You king’s men thirsty after your meal? Maybe you take this brandy somewhere people don’t see you drinking it? Rainstorm coming. Hard enough to sell anything in the rain without you two blocking up the view.”

  Geek took the flask with his bloody hand, nodding.

  The two king’s men walked away down the street without a word more about it.

  Pens district streets coiled like muddy vipers. With so many boot prints and wheel-tracks, an empty stretch of avenue looked like a swarm of muddy vipers lying asleep in the sun. These muddy vipers grabbed at boots and held on. They hissed in the suck when the boot pulled loose.

  Jona left Geek to searching out the ragpickers among all those twisting veins of mud. He said he had someone he needed to talk to, and the two men separated. Jona went to Rachel’s apartment. He hesitated there, wondering if he should knock or not knock. He pressed his ear against it. He heard nothing. He thought about leaving, then.

  He lifted his knuckles to the door. He took a breath.

  “Djoss isn’t here.”

  “Yeah? Good.”

  “Jona?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh.”

  The door opened. She looked at him, up and down. Her hair was mussed. She had been sleeping. “What is it?”

  “I… It’s going to rain soon. Can I come in?”

  “You woke me up,” she said. “Want some tea?”

  He didn’t want tea. He didn’t want to enter. He didn’t want to leave. He didn’t want anything. But, he wanted something, and he knew it was something with her and only her, wherever she might be.

  The rainstorm came, at last, washing up from the water. He leaned back out the window, deliriously happy to see the rain falling down, right into his face.

  CHAPTER X

  This is how they did it in the beginning, before the kids were really involved. The mudskippers saw this, though. They saw and they told us and it sounded true to the minds inside of my head, mine and Jona’s.

  Turco pointed out the guy walking around like he was somebody out of his element. Turco gestured at Dog. Dog nodded. Dog had a leather rope in his pocket, and Djoss sat on the corner and watched for guards.

  People walking past that knew a thing about the Pens didn’t stop. Hat brims stayed low. Parasols angled out the view. This fellow in Senta leathers looked like he had a big red “A” on account of the way his stomach spilled over his waist like an apron. His belt lashed over the wrong part of the shirt, with a triangle in the center like a target. He had a big black beard that bobbed while he walked, side-to-side. Beard and stomach swayed in each heavy step. The Senta wiped his brow with a clean, white handkerchief.

  Djoss raised his hand. All clear!

  The Senta didn’t see it coming.

  Dog flipped the leather rope around the man’s throat. Turco

  flanked the huge outsider, pushing him into an alley with a dagger pressed into the triangle in the victim’s belly. Did the Senta live or die? Did it matter after his clothes were gone?

  Djoss didn’t watch. He didn’t want to know. He walked away. At the last stop, Djoss met up with Dog and Turco, and poured the money on the ground in front of Turco and Dog. The clothes were there, too, for Rachel.

  Djoss got a closer look at Turco’s palms when Turco counted out the money between the three of them. His sweat was actually a thin sheen of blood, pink like demon weed. Djoss blinked.

  Turco sneered. “What? You look like you thought of something.”

  “I did but it’s nothing,” he said, “I just noticed something.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got blood on your hands, and it’s coming out of your fingernails.”

  “Yeah,” said Turco, “It’s mostly mine.”

  Then, the three went to a tavern to dance at the tavern where Djoss was bouncing because Djoss slipped Turco and Dog in free of charge.

  * * *

  Rachel walked to work in the dark. She dragged ragged sheets across the line. She pushed a mop from one side of the room to another. She poured the filthy water into a sewer grate. She filled the bucket from a pump in the yard. She poured chamber pots into a large slop bucket, and mopped out the pots. She hung the two large slop buckets from two ends of an old broomstick. She dumped the buckets into the same sewer grate.

  She walked home alone, undisturbed. She fell asleep in silence. Through the building walls and windows, a woman yelled at her children. Elsewhere, the sound of skin slapping skin preceded loud howls of animal bliss—nothing else to do in the long, slow days without any money. In another room, a woman had died, and her family was mourning her and people came and went to offer condolences and food. Women were wailing there, too, as loud as lovers.

  Rachel closed her eyes, and fought hard to find her brother in between the lines of the koans.

  She cleared her mind with breathing.

  Since none can look into the sun’s light, none can see the sun’s darkness.

  She held it in her mind.

  Since all can gaze in peace upon the moon, all can see the moon’s shining light.

  She drifted into a light doze, when time faded still, but the sounds of the city lingered at the lambent edge of her dreamless mind. Women talked, and children sang out games and laughter and men walking to work or walking home singing hellos and good-byes and a key—Djoss is home—jangling in the lock.

  Djoss shoved the door open. He ran to her bedside, and grabbed her arms. “Hey, Rachel!”

  She groaned.

  “Are you okay?” he said.

  She cringed out of his hands. “I’m fine,” she said, “I’m sleeping. Are you okay?”

  “I heard a few Sentas got rolled,” said Djoss, “It’s all over the city.”

  “Well, it wasn’t me.”

  “Turco seems to think there’s a Senta that’s really a demon child. There’s this demon child that’s going to burn for stealing some dog, and everyone’s saying her accomplice is wearing Senta leathers to hide.”

  Rachel fell back in her bed. “Well, I don’t know anything about that. We’re not leaving,” she said, “The rumor will pass. No one’s been looking at me twice. The king’s men couldn’t care less about you and me. I haven’t seen Sparrow or her little thugs anywhere, and I don’t think they can put two and two together about anything.”

  “I’ve seen those little thugs. They don’t even talk about it. They couldn’t care less. Just be careful, okay?”

  “I’ll be careful,” she said. She touched her brother’s nose. “You be careful, too,” she said, “You’re walking a bad way and
don’t think I don’t know it.”

  “I’m careful,” said Djoss, “I’m always careful. We have to get ready to run. Need coin for that.”

  * * *

  Jona rowed, and Rachel ran her hands through the lake. She couldn’t really see herself in the rippling reflection, only her clothes, and pieces of her face like a ghost’s mangled shadow. She hadn’t seen herself in a mirror in a long time. “What do I look like, Jona?”

  “What?” said Jona.

  “What does my face look like? Am I beautiful?”

  “You’re beautiful.”

  “You always say that. How beautiful? Who do I look like to

  you?”

  “You don’t look like anyone I know. You’re just you.” “Well, if you see someone who looks like me, let me know. I

  don’t know what I look like.”

  “I will if I can,” said Jona.

  When the boat reached the edge of the construction, Jona

  pulled into the construction site where they had borrowed the boat. The site’s night watchman waved at Jona. Jona thanked him for the boat and pressed a coin into the man’s palm.

  The watchman handed Jona a black feather. “Oh,” said Jona, “Hey, Rachel? I have to go. Can you get home by yourself?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing. This is from someone I know. I have to go help him.”

  “Okay,” she said. She frowned. She cocked her head. This had never happened to them before. “Who?” she said.

  “I got my birdies and my brothers. Sometimes they need my help, is all. Dead men don’t face king’s justice, you know?” “What?”

  He frowned. “This feather’s a cry for help. I’ve got to go help. I can’t really explain who it is, okay?”

  “Okay,” said Rachel, “Be safe. I hope your friend is safe.”

  “It’ll be fine,” said Jona, “I just have to go fast.”

  He walked away confidently, holding the feather in his hands. He felt the streetlights and the passing sailors envelope him in anonymity. In a big city, a fellow could walk three blocks away from his usual places and suddenly no one knew his name, and no one remembered. Crowded cities are the only place to be a no one in a uniform. Jona turned and waved at Rachel back at the street. She blew him a kiss. He smiled at her, nodding.