“Buy things they wanted. Drugs or booze, most likely.”
“What are drugs and booze, please?”
“Oh, Rikko. You kids are so innocent. They’re—they’re pills you take, or things you drink, to make you happier. To get you drunk or stoned.”
“Like Uncle Darroti,” Poliniana said. “He used to get drunk. You remember, Rikko. He walked funny and couldn’t talk right, and sometimes he peed on himself.” Jamfret shrieked, but Rikko nodded.
“Was Uncle Darroti a crook? Is that why he—”
“Rikko,” Macsofo said sharply, making the X for silence, “hush. It is not proper to speak of this!”
“Are we crooks, Lisa?” Jamfret said. “Because you gave us your money?”
“What? No, sweetheart! You didn’t ask me for it, did you? I did it of my own free will.”
“But we’re taking all of your money,” Zamatryna pointed out. “For the papers.”
“I’m giving you all of my money, and your mommy and daddy and aunt and uncle and grandpa will work to pay me back, and you too, when you’re a smart grown-up lady and can get any job you want. That’s different.”
“The man at the camp who is selling the papers,” Macsofo said. “He is a crook, yes? Because he is taking all your money?”
Lisa took a deep breath. “Well now. Well, that’s tricky. Yes, he is, but that’s because he’s falsifying information. The papers would cost money anyway; they just wouldn’t cost as much. And at least we’re getting something for the money. So yes, he’s a crook, just like people who sell drugs are crooks, but—well, he’s not saying we have to give him our money or he’ll kill us. So it’s different. He’s a—a cleaner crook.”
Jamfret tugged at Macsofo’s hand. “Papa, is that why Uncle Darroti killed the Mendicant? To get her money?”
There was a short, appalled silence. “I just told your brother,” Macsofo said, his voice dangerously quiet, “that we do not speak of that.”
“Uncle Darroti gave money to Mendicants!” Zamatryna said. “He always did, just like everyone always did! He wouldn’t have—”
Harani pulled Zamatryna up onto her lap. “Hush, child. Hush. It is all in the past, and we are here in America now, and Darroti is dead. No good will come of talking about this.”
“I begin to think,” Erolorit said drily, “that Lisa is right, and that the children should not listen to every conversation.”
Lisa shook her head. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay. Whatever that poor man did, it was good of you to keep loving him, just like it was good of Mama to keep loving me when I was a bad person. I don’t think any less of any of you for standing by him. You did the right thing. Everybody needs love, even if they’ve done wrong.”
“Of course we stood by him,” Erolorit said, frowning. “He was our brother. Would people in your country have deserted him?”
“Some would. Sure they would. There’s no law that says you have to love your family, after all.”
“There isn’t?” Jamfret asked. “Why not? That’s the law in our country. The Law of Hearts. That’s why we came here.”
Lisa shook her head again. “Then your country’s better than this one, sweetheart, and I hope you can teach us some things!”
“I think I prefer the laws in America,” Macsofo muttered, and Erolorit shot him a glance that could have charred wood.
Timbor cleared his throat. “We were talking about jobs.”
“Jobs,” Lisa said. “Right. Time to get back on the subject.”
“I do not think any of us want jobs where we may meet these crooks, Lisa. Can you tell us about jobs where there are no crooks?”
“Oh, Timbor! You really do come from a different place, don’t you? I don’t think there’s any job in the world where there aren’t any crooks. Not all of them have guns, that’s all.”
Later that day, after she had memorized all the words beginning with Q in the dictionary and the list of preservatives on the back of the Cheerios box, Zamatryna pondered this conversation. She thought about Uncle Darroti, who had made her the wooden doll, and who had wept so ceaselessly before he died. He had always been kind to her. How could he have been kind and still have been a crook?
Before Zamatryna went to sleep, Harani came into her room for an hour of reading. Lisa said it was good to read before bedtime. Usually parents read to their children, she said, but Zamatryna knew more English than her mother did, so she read to Harani, explaining the words. It was good practice for school. But tonight she didn’t feel like reading.
“Mama, why did Uncle Darroti kill the Mendicant?”
“We don’t know, child. We will never know. Both Darroti and the Mendicant are dead.”
“But surely he didn’t do it for money?”
“I can’t imagine that he did it for money, no. But I can’t imagine any other reason he would have done it, either. It is unimaginable, and yet it happened. He never denied that he had done it—our poor Darroti!—but he could not explain it, either.”
“Did he know the lady?”
“Everyone knew her; she was famous, because she was one of the first female Mendicants. I do not think he knew her better than anyone else did. We had no converse with her family, which was nobler than ours. We sent messages afterwards, of course, each family offering condolences to the other. They were kind in their grief. They sent us a fine blanket to take into exile, although we wound up leaving it at home for lack of room, and because it caused us pain. But they never said that she had known him.”
“Mama, where do you think Darroti’s spirit is now? In a simple thing, or a complicated one?”
Harani sighed. “I do not know, child. He seemed simple enough, but he was evidently more complicated than we knew. He might be in a bird, for instance, if he were really simple, but I think that he was not. I think he must be in a flower or a berry.”
“And that is why we bless everything we eat. Because it might be Darroti.”
“Yes.”
“Stan thinks the dead live in the sky.”
“Stan believes many things we do not, Zamatryna.”
“I wish the dead could speak to us. Then Darroti could tell us what happened, and Macsofo would not be so unhappy.”
“I wish the dead could speak too, child. Everyone does. The Great Breaking is a great sorrow. But I do not think Darroti would tell us what happened even could he still speak, for he never told us when he was alive. And I do not know if Macsofo would be happy even if we knew the story.”
“He wants to go back to Lémabantunk.”
“And yet he complained even there,” Harani said, “although we never noticed it so much. I begin to think Macsofo was born to be unhappy, and maybe Darroti, too.”
“What of Papa, then? He is their brother.”
“Your father looks for reasons to be happy,” Harani said, kissing Zamatryna. “And you are the biggest reason of all. It heals our heart to see you thriving in this place, as Lisa says you are. Goodnight, child.”
Harani left the room, and Zamatryna snuggled into her pillow, thinking about Darroti. Was he in the hamburger she had eaten for lunch, or the apple she had eaten yesterday? Was he in her now, feeding her? Or was he back at the camp where he had died, in the sagebrush blackened by the fire?
Poor Darroti, who had summoned such shame! And that was why she must work very hard to be a good American, to make her parents happy and proud.
And indeed, she liked many things about America, although some of it was confusing. Lisa took her shopping sometimes, to the grocery store or to the mall. Zamatryna was enchanted by the rows and rows of food, or shoes, or books, or clothing in each store; she was even more enchanted by the lights of the casinos, but Lisa would not let her go inside.
“They’re pretty from the outside, sweetie, but they’re wicked. You don’t want to go in there. That’s where people throw away their money.”
“They throw it away?” Zamatryna was confused. “Why? So other people can pick it up who ne
ed it?”
“No. They throw it away because they think they’ll get more that way.”
Zamatryna frowned. “You mean, because if they show they don’t need it, more will come to them? That is why we give money to Mendicants. Do they throw their money at Mendicants?”
Lisa looked at her. “No, they throw it at machines, but yes, they hope they’ll get more that way. Don’t worry about understanding it. You can’t.”
“Why do machines need money? They aren’t alive.”
Lisa laughed. “You’re right. The machines don’t need money.”
“But what do the machines do with the money they don’t need?”
“They eat it. Except sometimes, when they spit out a lot of it at once, and then whoever’s there can take it home. And everyone who goes in there thinks they’ll be the person who’ll get the money, if they stand there long enough. It’s foolishness.”
“The machines spit it up? They vomit it?”
Lisa laughed again, a hearty laugh from her belly. “Yeah, they vomit it. That’s a good way of putting it.”
Zamatryna wrinkled her nose. “That sounds disgusting.”
“Yes, it is, and that’s why we’re not going in there. Now, where do you want to go for lunch, sweetie? McDonald’s, or Taco Bell?”
Zamatryna chose McDonald’s. They were giving away small toy aardvarks in improbable shades of orange and purple and pink, characters in a cartoon Poliniana liked. Zamatryna did nice things for Poliniana whenever she could, to make up for having been mean to her about sharing a bedroom, and she knew that Poliniana would be happy to have more aardvarks.
Outside the McDonald’s stood a very dirty woman in a tattered sweatshirt and blue jeans. She wore no shoes. Her hair was matted and stringy, and she smelled sour. She held up a cardboard sign that said, in heavy, crooked letters, “I need gas $$$ to get to California. Pls help.”
Zamatryna tugged on Lisa’s hand—an American Mendicant!—and they stopped. The woman smiled at them; several of her teeth were missing. Lisa took a step backwards, pulling Zamatryna with her, and said quietly, “I saw you last month at the Salvation. You’re running a scam.”
The woman’s smile vanished. “Am not. I am not! I’ve been trying to get to my brother’s family in Sacramento—”
“So why doesn’t your brother help you, then? I’ll buy you a meal, but I’m not giving you cash.”
The woman scowled. “I’m not hungry. I ate this morning. I need—”
“You need food, because everybody does.” Lisa slipped something into Zamatryna’s hand and said, “Here, honey, go buy her a Happy Meal, okay? Make sure you get the right change.”
Zamatryna glanced at what Lisa had given her—a folded $10 bill—and ran inside. Behind her, Lisa and the Mendicant woman had begun to argue.
They were still arguing when Zamatryna came out, with the Happy Meal and a bright pink plastic aardvark. “What are you going to do?” the woman said to Lisa, jeering. “What are you going to do? Call the cops on me because I need gas money—”
“Plenty of agencies in town would help with gas money if that’s really what you needed! You’d better watch yourself. I’m not going to call the police, but other people might. Zamatryna, give her the food and let’s get out of here.”
“Here,” Zamatryna said, holding the Happy Meal and the aardvark out to the Mendicant woman. Mendicants in Lémabantunk didn’t argue with people, but then, everything was different here.
The woman, glaring, snatched the bag of food out of Zamatryna’s hand. “Don’t want that stupid toy. You keep that to play with, eh? Bet you have a lot of toys at home. Bet she buys you plenty of toys. Aren’t from around here, are you? You aren’t really her kid, are you? Skin’s too dark. People coming over here taking American jobs—”
“You could at least say thank you,” Lisa snapped, and hurried Zamatryna back into the car. She was shaking. “We’ll go to another McDonald’s, honey. I’m sorry. You try to help people and they just spit in your face, I swear, I know it’s my Christian duty to do the best I can by folks whether they’re nice or not, but that woman gives people who are really down on their luck a bad name, and it’s just a shame. I wish we hadn’t given her the food.”
Zamatryna looked down at the pink aardvark. “Everyone has to eat. You said that.”
“Yeah, I did, and it’s true. Bad people have to eat too, I know that, or they’ll never get the chance to be better. But it sure is easier to feed people who have some manners, I swear! Well, the police will pick her up soon, if she keeps acting that way.”
“What will they do to her?”
“Put her in jail.” Lisa, maneuvering deftly in the traffic of South Virginia Street, looked over at Zamatryna and said, “She’ll get meals in jail. And maybe she’ll get her head on straight, like I did. We have to hope so. I’ll pray for her.”
“Lisa, are there any Mendicants here who aren’t crooks?”
“Sure. Sure there are, sweetie. Most poor people aren’t crooks, whatever rich people think. It’s the rich people who are more likely to be crooks, with all that money they don’t need. Most homeless people did the best they could before something came along and whomped them: they lost a job, or they got sick or got divorced—that’s hard on women, especially with kids—and then they just couldn’t save enough for an apartment. Rents around here are murder. You can’t get a closet for under eight hundred a month.”
Zamatryna studied the aardvark, which was missing an ear. Poor thing! “Divorce is when married people get unmarried? Stan says that is a sin.”
Lisa sighed. “Honey, I love Stan a lot, but he’s never been married to somebody who beat him black and blue every two days, or who took up with somebody younger and kicked him out the door. There’s a whole lot of sin in the world, and sometimes it means you can’t live with people anymore. To my mind that means it wasn’t a real marriage in the first place, not a marriage God would want to last. People make mistakes. It’s not easy to find the right person. And God has to know that, since God knows everything. God wants us to be happy, not miserable.”
“But your god burns people. That is what Stan says. If this god does not want people to be miserable, why roast them like chickens?”
Roasting them like chickens was a phrase Macsofo had used once. Lisa gave one of her belly laughs, and said, “Well now, that’s a good question. You sure are smart, Zamatryna. And the answer is that God doesn’t want them to be miserable. They choose to do things that will make them miserable, and God’s as sad about it as anybody else who loves them would be. And God just keeps giving all of us second chances, but some people throw them away. That woman back there isn’t ready to pick hers up. She may not be ready for a while. She may never be ready.”
“Lisa, do you believe that my uncle is roasting like a chicken?”
Lisa didn’t answer. She turned left onto McCarran and pulled the car over to the side of the road, on the right-hand shoulder near the Albertson’s. She sat there for a moment, looking at Zamatryna. “Sweetheart, I can’t say. I wouldn’t presume to pass judgment. I don’t know what was in Darroti’s heart, or if he repented when he was dying. I just don’t know.”
“Then how can Stan know?”
Lisa was quiet for a long time, while traffic drove by them, and then she said, “He can’t. But don’t you ever tell him I said so. It would just hurt him. Stan has to find his way, like everybody else.”
More commands for silence. Zamatryna sat oppressed, her head bowed, until Lisa said gently, “Zamatryna, where do you think Darroti is now? What do you think happened to him?”
“At home we believe that the spirits of the dead go into other living things, simpler things like flowers or animals. And the other living things teach them what they didn’t learn when they were alive. But we can’t talk to them, and it makes us sad.”
“Yes,” Lisa said. “Yes, that makes everybody sad.” She started the car up again. “I talk to Mama in my head all the time. And some
times I think she answers, but I know it’s only my imagination. Well, I hope your uncle Darroti is someplace where he can learn things. That’s a nice idea. And some Christians believe that too: that there’s not just Heaven or Hell but Purgatory, where you wait until you’ve learned enough to go on.”
“Purgatory,” Zamatryna said happily. “‘An intermediate state after death for expiatory purification.’ I should have remembered that, from the dictionary, except I don’t know what all the words mean. But the dictionary says it is a place of punishment. Listen: ‘a place or state of punishment wherein according to Roman Catholic doctrine the souls of those who die in God’s grace may expiate venial sins or satisfy divine justice for the temporal punishment still due to remitted mortal sin.’ Lisa, what does that mean?”
Lisa laughed and shook her head. “It means that people are of two minds about what happens in that place, if they even believe in it. It’s just like jail, you know. Some people think jail is a place for crooks to be miserable in, to punish them, and some think it’s a place where they can learn new things, so they won’t be crooks anymore when they get out. I’ve seen it work both ways. But I bet on the learning way whenever I can, because that’s what happened to me. Now listen, do you still want to go to McDonald’s, or are you tired out from all this talk? We could just go home and have sandwiches.”
“Sandwiches, please.” Zamatryna had the aardvark for her cousin, even if it had lost an ear, and she was afraid of meeting another Mendicant like the one they had seen before, who had been rude and had upset Lisa so much. “Lisa, are all the Mendicants here, the ones who choose to be Mendicants instead of having to be Mendicants because they lost their jobs or got divorced—are they all bad people? Because at home, many people choose to be Mendicants for a little while, and it is an honor. Do people here”—she stopped and thought, struggling with the words—“do people ever ask other people for things so that—so the other people can show that they are good people by giving them the things? And then the Mendicants can go back to not asking for things afterwards, and no one thinks they are bad?”
“Whoa,” Lisa said. “That’s kind of complicated, isn’t it?”
The Necessary Beggar Page 12
