“Oh, okay. I guess that explains it.”
“Do you want hot pepper flakes on your pizza?”
“No thanks. So are your folks friends with other Afghan immigrants?”
“No,” she said, heart pounding. “We’re Americans now. I told you that a long time ago. Jerry, why are you asking me all these questions?”
“Because I like to learn things,” he said gently. “Especially about other places. My family would be a lot poorer if we didn’t have my grandmother’s recipes from Sicily. My dad’s family still does Oktoberfest. Customs like that are important, but all you ever want to talk about is stuff that doesn’t matter. I think you still think I’m dumb, Zama. And I’m not. I can talk about things that don’t involve television or touchdowns. Really. And I want—I want to get closer to you. If I can. If you’ll let me. People like to be with people who understand where they came from, right?”
No one understands where we came from, Zamatryna thought bitterly. “So you’re being a cultural anthropologist, is that it? You’re collecting the quaint folkways of my people? Why can’t I just be from Reno?”
Jerry frowned. “Well, you can. But if you were from Reno you’d have stories about lambing, or gaming, or divorce ranches or something. Everybody’s got something like that, even if they take it for granted. In my family it’s food and woodworking. You must have something like that, too.” Yes, we have drunks and murderers and suicides. And possessed beetles. “Zama, why are you holding me at arm’s length? I know you aren’t in love with me. It’s okay. I’m not going to bite you. I promise.”
She had to tell him something, or he’d get more suspicious. “Okay,” Zamatryna said, “we have this custom about carpets. My grandfather and father and uncle brought their prayer carpets with them when we came here. They’re woven of colors representing the four Elements. They pray on them every morning. Fascinating, huh? Do you feel edified now?”
“Yes, I do. That’s interesting. It sounds kind of Native American. Except the prayer carpet thing sounds kind of, what, Muslim?”
“Well, we aren’t Native Americans or Muslims. We’re ourselves. But that’s our quaint custom. Their quaint custom. And my grandfather still blesses every bit of food he eats, because it might contain the soul of a dead person.” Why was she telling him all this? “And we like epic poems. We memorize them. Little kids do. I did, before we came here.”
“Before the earthquake.”
“Before the earthquake.”
“The prayer carpets weren’t buried in the earthquake?”
“Our house was less damaged than others,” Zamatryna said.
“What are the epic poems about?”
“All kinds of things. Gardening. Geometry.” Zama, shut up. Why are you telling him this?
“You memorized epic poems about geometry? When you were a kid?”
“Yes. But I don’t remember them anymore. But that’s one reason I’m good at school, because I’m good at memorizing things. I—I memorized The Cat in the Hat once, right after we got here. The American lady who gave us the book, our friend Lisa, she was amazed.”
“I’ll bet,” Jerry said, and laughed. “But why are you ashamed of all this stuff? It’s neat.”
“I’m not ashamed of it.”
“Then why do you hate talking about it?”
“I don’t hate talking about it! I’ve been talking about it for the past five minutes, haven’t I? But what good will it do me to talk about it? It’s all gone. Our home—our home was destroyed and we can’t go back and—”
“Zama,” he said. “Zama, people rebuild after earthquakes. Why can’t you go back? Zama, are you crying?”
“No,” she said, and sniffled furiously, and pulled her hand back, because it had been perilously close to his on the table. “I can’t—I can’t explain. It’s too complicated. But I’ll never live there again and I can barely even remember it. I’m an American now. That’s my job. I don’t know why I told you all that stuff, anyway.”
“Because I asked.”
“Because you asked,” she said, and realized that no one had ever asked before. She had a sudden clear and unwanted memory of Rumpled Ron telling her that a friend was someone you could talk to about anything. Well, then, friends were for people who didn’t have criminal uncles. Or possessed beetles in their closets.
The pizza came, and she was spared further conversation by the necessity of eating. She ate with total concentration, as if she would never see another pizza again. She chewed the garlic especially carefully, hoping that it would keep Jerry at arm’s length.
She ate four pieces of pizza; Jerry only ate two. When she finally looked up from her plate, Jerry said, “Would you like the other two, Zama? You seem awfully hungry.”
“No,” she said, blushing. “No, thanks, that’s okay. You’re the football player. You need the calories more than I do. I’m sorry I made such a pig of myself.”
“You didn’t. You’re skinny: the calories aren’t going to hurt you. But I’m not hungry, honest. Do you want to take them home?”
“No,” she said. “I’ll take them to my friend Betty. She’ll eat them.”
Jerry cocked his head. “You never mentioned her before.”
“No,” Zama said drily. “You’re learning all about me, aren’t you?”
Jerry smiled. “Where does she live?”
“Down by the river, mostly. On benches and behind bushes. Sometimes in shelters.”
She watched Jerry to see if he’d look disgusted, but he only looked worried. “That’s dangerous. All of those places are dangerous.”
“Yeah. She’s gotten hurt a bunch of times.”
“How’d you meet her? Through the food bank?”
“No. I met her two years ago, when we were still in high school. My grandfather saw her when he was driving his cab one day, and we went to bring her some food, and we—well, we’ve kind of adopted her, I guess. Except she can’t live with us because there isn’t room.”
Jerry looked even more worried. “She’s been homeless for two years?”
“Yeah. Longer than that, actually. She can’t work because—well, she’s a little retarded—”
“She could work a simple job. I have a cousin like that. There are training programs and group homes, you know.”
“She’s been in those places. She never likes them or stays long. I’m not sure why. She wants her daughter back: she gave her daughter to a foster home, but she always planned on getting her back, but now she never will, I think. Because she can’t stay in the programs and homes.”
“She couldn’t take care of a kid,” Jerry said.
“No. She couldn’t. So anyway, I bring her canned stuff she won’t have to cook, but it’s always nice to bring her hot food, too. And she likes pizza. So I’ll bring her these two slices.”
“We can order her a whole one. Why don’t we do that?”
“I—Jerry, that’s really sweet, but I may not even be able to find her. Sometimes I can’t. If she’s not in her usual places.”
“If we can’t find her, we’ll split the pizza and each take half of it home.” He smiled at her and said, “I know you keep saying ‘I,’ but there’s a reason I keep saying ‘we.’ All of those places are dangerous. So I’m going with you, to look. Especially if you’re going tonight. Which you’ll have to do, if you still want the pizza to be hot.”
She should have been annoyed. Somehow she couldn’t make herself be annoyed. She looked down at her hands and said, “We came here in separate cars. You want to follow me? This could take a while.”
“Let me think about that while I order the other pizza. That will take a while, too. What’s her favorite topping?”
“Ummm, just cheese and sausage, I think.”
“Okay.” He went up to the counter to give the order, and when he came back he said, “Will she get scared if she sees my car behind yours?”
Zamatryna never would have thought of that. “I have no idea.”
“Are you sure?”
“Sure,” he said, and smiled. “Is this a custom where you come from, too? Bringing food to people?”
She noted that he’d said “where you come from,” not “Afghanistan.” Paranoid much, Zama? “Yeah. As a matter of fact, it is.”
“Cool. Should we bring her something to drink?”
“Just water. I always worry about whether she gets enough clean water.”
“Well, we’ll bring her bottled water, then. We can bring her a whole case, if you want to.”
“No. She wouldn’t have anywhere to put it, Jerry. It would just get stolen. A bottle or two, or three. That will be fine.”
So Zama found herself driving down to the river with Jerry in a car that smelled like pizza. She parked on Riverside near the Keystone Avenue Bridge and got out, holding her flashlight and scanning the line of benches along the river. She didn’t see Betty, or any other homeless people, for that matter; Betty avoided this area when there were a lot of other transients here, but she liked it when there weren’t. Which meant she might very well be here now. Zama walked ahead a few feet, peering, and caught sight of a large black Hefty bag near a bush. There. That could be one of Betty’s. She was down to two now, because so much of her stuff had been stolen. But then, of course, all Hefty bags tended to look alike.
“Do you see her?” Jerry said. “Should I bring the pizza?”
“I’m not sure. Leave the pizza in the car for a sec, okay?”
He followed her to the Hefty bag. She risked turning the flashlight on—sometimes flashlights freaked Betty out, because flashlights belonged to cops—and saw that the bag was ripped, with a blue and white sweater poking out. Definitely Betty’s: the sweater was an old one of Timbor’s he’d given her last winter. “Betty?” Zama called, and then caught a whiff of Betty’s signature stench. She was here somewhere, then. But where?
And then she saw a leg sticking out from behind the bush, and said, “Betty!” and pushed aside undergrowth to find Betty lying on her side, clutching her arm. She turned her face away when Zamatryna shone the flashlight on it: her face looked gray, sweaty.
“I feel funny.” Her voice was hoarse, strained.
“Betty, what happened?” Zamatryna ran the flashlight up and down her body, but saw no injuries. “Did someone attack you again?”
“No. Feel funny. Hid here. Who—”
“I’m Jerry,” Jerry said, kneeling down on the grass. “I’m a friend of Zama’s. Betty, are you having trouble breathing?” Nod. “And your arm hurts? Your left arm, where you’re holding it there? Does it feel heavy?” Nod. “Okay. We have to take you to a doctor, then—”
“No doctors!”
Jerry reached out and patted her on the shoulder, and then turned to Zama. “Where’s your phone?”
“What?”
“Your cell phone. Call 911, Zama.”
911? “Call the police? But—”
“Hey, Zama, didn’t anybody ever teach you the symptoms of a heart attack? Call 911. Now. Do it!”
She ran back to the car, feeling useless and incredibly stupid, and dug her cell phone out of her purse and called an ambulance. Then she went back to Betty and Jerry. He was holding her hand and talking to her. “Zama called an ambulance, okay? Don’t be scared when you see the flashing lights. It won’t be the police. It will be medics, to help you. No, Betty, don’t try to get up. Just sit there, okay? Stay quiet.”
“They’ll throw out my things,” Betty said plaintively. “People always throw out my things.”
“We won’t let them,” Jerry said. “Zama, can you put Betty’s bags in your car, please, so no one throws them out? Betty, is it okay with you if Zama puts the bags in her car?” He gave Zama an unreadable glance and said, “And then Zama should probably stay near the street, so she can show the ambulance crew where you are.”
Betty nodded, and Zama picked up the two bags and carried them to her car. She was glad that Jerry was thinking so clearly, because she certainly wasn’t. Maybe it was easier to think clearly when you didn’t know the person having the heart attack. She might just as well have been having a heart attack herself, for all the oxygen that seemed to be reaching her brain.
Sirens. The ambulance was here already: good. She showed the medics where Betty was and then stood back while they talked to her, examined her, lifted her swiftly onto a stretcher. There was an oxygen mask over Betty’s nose and mouth now, and they were wheeling her toward the ambulance, and someone was saying something incomprehensible into a radio.
“Okay,” Jerry said next to her. “Now we follow the ambulance to the ER. Zama, you okay?”
“I—is she going to—”
“I don’t know anything. I don’t think they do. Zama, you’re shaking. Let me drive, okay? Can you walk to the car?”
“Of course I can walk to the car.” She took a step on rubbery legs, and stumbled, and Jerry put his arm around her. The ambulance had just driven away, sirens blaring, and suddenly the place where they were standing seemed very dark and deserted. “Oopsydaisy. Lean on me to the car, okay? And then you need to drink some of that water.”
“I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t even know—I had no idea—if you hadn’t been here—”
“If I hadn’t been here you probably would have handled it fine,” Jerry said, guiding her into the car. “If you’d been alone, you’d have done what you needed to do. That’s how these things work. But you weren’t, so you went into shock because she’s a friend of yours. And I was here, so your body knew it was okay for you to go into shock. That’s how it works, sometimes.”
“How do you know all of this?”
“I’ve had a lot of first-aid training. Seatbelt on? You want to call your family?”
“What?”
“Your family,” he said patiently, pulling away from the curb. “They’re Betty’s friends too, right? And it’s getting late now and they’re going to wonder why you aren’t home, and we’ll probably be a while, at the ER.”
“Oh. Okay.”
She was still clutching the cell phone. She dialed the number for home; after two rings she heard Timbor say “Hello?” in a voice as strained as Betty’s had been. In the background she heard screaming, Aliniana and Macsofo, screaming, and a crash, something breaking. “Hello?” Timbor said again, and Zamatryna hung up, terrified. Whatever was happening there, it wasn’t the time to tell Timbor about Betty.
“No one’s home,” she told Jerry.
“You can try again later. Let me know if you see a space, okay?”
Zamatryna blinked; they were in the parking lot of St. Mary’s. “Shouldn’t they have taken her to Washoe Med? That’s the county hospital, isn’t it?”
“This is closer.”
“Jerry, she doesn’t have insurance!”
He shook his head. “Hospitals can’t turn away people in life-or-death situations. They’re required to treat them. That’s the law.”
Zamatryna shivered. “You saved her life.”
“Well, you saved her life, I hope. We never would have been there in the first place if you hadn’t thought of bringing her the pizza.”
Betty was already in a treatment room when they got to the ER. “She had a cardiac arrest,” a nurse told them. “I can’t let you go back there; she’s got too many people working on her. They’ll admit her and she’ll probably wind up in the cardiac care unit, CCU, if there’s a bed. You, uh, are you two her family?”
“We’re friends,” Zama said.
“We’re the people who called the ambulance,” Jerry said.
“Yeah, well, okay, legally I’m not supposed to give out information about her condition to anyone except family. Privacy laws. Do you have contact information
for her family?”
“No,” Zama said, her mouth dry. “She has a daughter in foster care, her daughter’s—slow too, like she is—”
“Okay, so Sierra Regional Center will probably have a file on both of them. I’ll tell the social worker that and they’ll get on it tomorrow. What’s her last name?”
“What?”
“Her last name. She doesn’t have any ID on her, and she’s not very coherent at this point.”
“I don’t know,” Zama said, ashamed. She’d never known Betty’s last name. Betty had always just been Betty, like a doll or a pet. “My grandfather might know. I can call him and ask.”
The nurse sighed. “Well, you do that. Call your grandpa, go get some coffee from the cafeteria, sit out in the waiting room. I’ll come out again when I know something else.”
“Even though you aren’t supposed to,” Jerry said with a smile.
“Right,” the nurse said, and smiled back. “Good thing this happened to her now, before the resettlement.”
“What?” Zamatryna said. Nothing was making any sense tonight. Resettlement was something that happened to refugees. Betty lived here.
“The resettlement,” the nurse said, as if Zama was the one who was slow. “You know, because of that Public Nuisance Law? It’s the latest get-rid-of-the-homeless scheme. In a few weeks, before the cold weather sets in again, the cops will start doing sweeps and bussing them all to the refugee camps.”
“What? How can they do that? That’s, that’s—”
“The police are saying it’s a kindness,” the nurse said drily, “because they’ll have tents and meals and blankets. And there are doctors out there. And I guess they’re right. But those camps are crowded enough already. The real issue is that the county doesn’t want to build more shelters: it’s a NIMBY thing. Listen, I have to get back to work now. Go get coffee.”
“NIMBY,” Zama said blankly to the nurse’s retreating back.
The Necessary Beggar Page 24
