The Devil's Madonna

by Sharon Potts

He looked up, still trying to contain the barking dog. A cat darted out of the bushes and across the street.

  “Sorry,” he said in a loud whisper. “That cat’s driving him crazy.”

  “Go around back. I’m coming down.”

  What was she doing? But she didn’t give herself time to think. She slipped on her sneakers and went down the stairs, careful not to disturb her grandmother. The house was familiar to her, even in the dark, so she didn’t turn on any lights. She went through the kitchen, touching the back of a padded dinette chair, then the edge of the protruding cupboard. Her hip slammed against something hard. The damn étagère in front of the door that led to the storage rooms. She eased her way around it, then reached for the doorknob of the back door.

  Kali pushed the door open. The night air was close and muggy, but she caught a whiff of the jasmine she’d smelled in her room. And then, the cutting scent of cat musk. She glanced down. One of the terra-cotta planters had been moved slightly, leaving a ring of dirt on the cracked stones of the patio. Beside the planter was a plastic dish of cat food. For as long as Kali could remember, her grandmother had been feeding stray cats.

  A sound came from the far corner of the yard. Neil was standing beneath the old mahogany tree clearing off dead leaves from the corroding lawn chairs. His dog was lying quietly in the dirt.

  Neil moved with a controlled grace, like an athlete. Against the darkness, his white, bandaged hands reminded her of the Invisible Man and she let out a small laugh.

  The dog sat up. Neil turned. His expression changed from cautious to tentative. And then he smiled.

  Kali forced herself to walk slowly across the overgrown lawn. “I’d better do that. You’ll hurt your hands.” She tipped one of the PVC pipe chairs forward and pushed off what she could of the damp, disintegrating leaves, staining her fingers a rust color in the process.

  “Damn,” Neil said. “This is a mess. Maybe we should sit somewhere else.”

  “I’m used to getting dirty. A hazard of my profession.” She sat down on the fabric of the frame; the seat cushions were long gone.

  He hesitated, then, careful of his bandages, lowered himself into the other chair. He was wearing tortoise-framed glasses, a lot like the ones he’d had as a teenager, and he no longer looked strange to her.

  “So you dig ditches?” Neil rubbed the walnut-size bump on his forehead. It seemed to have gotten larger since the hospital.

  “Ditches?”

  “You said getting dirty’s a hazard of your profession.”

  “I’m a freelance illustrator. Mainly children’s books. But I also paint in my spare time.”

  “Good for you. So you didn’t keep that artistic streak all bottled up.”

  “Nope.”

  “And your grandmother? She okay with it?”

  “She knows I work on children’s books. I don’t give her any details and she doesn’t ask.” Kali lifted her hair off her sweaty neck. She’d taken it out of the braid when she went to bed and it hung loose on her shoulders.

  Neil was studying her, a half smirk on his face like he used to get when he had a good hand at cards. He’d been a lousy gin rummy player. “I can’t believe it,” he said finally. “It’s been what? Like fourteen years? You’ve hardly changed.”

  She folded her arms across her chest. “I’ve changed a lot.”

  “Better maybe.”

  The air smelled ripe. What if Seth was trying to reach her? She’d left her cell phone upstairs. How could she explain this? But what was there to explain? She was just catching up with an old friend.

  Neil played with the bandage on one of his hands, wearing a focused expression.

  “You know,” she said, “I never would have recognized you.”

  He looked up, raising an eyebrow above the frame of his glasses. “Really? Because I’m pretty much the same guy.”

  “You look like you’ve been on one of those makeover shows.”

  He laughed. She remembered that most about him, how he laughed when she spoke, as though she was funny and clever.

  “Except for the glasses no one would ever know—”

  “What? That I’m a nerd?”

  “Was.”

  “I’m still a nerd. But now I get paid to be one. I’m a history professor at UCLA.”

  “Good. I’m glad the egghead prevailed.” Kali reached over and held her rust-stained hand out for the dog to sniff. It had one eye, but was otherwise beautiful with a shaded chestnut coat and white paws. “Your dog?”

  “My mom’s. A stray she picked up a couple of years ago. Some kind of German shepherd-collie mix. His name’s Gizmo and he’s meaner than a grizzly. Bites people if they get too close. But he seems to like you.”

  “Gizmo,” she said.

  The dog got up and rested his head on her leg so she could pet him. It was just like it used to be. How many nights had she and Neil sat beneath the old mahogany tree whispering, trying to contain their laughter so as not to awaken her grandparents? “Gizmo’s not mean at all.”

  “I’m not sure what I’m going to do with him when I go back to L.A. No dogs allowed where I live.”

  Kali stopped petting. “How long will you be staying?”

  “I’m on family leave for the rest of the semester, but I need to be back in January. I hope I can get the house sold by then.”

  “And you’re here by yourself?” With the bandages, she couldn’t tell if he was wearing a wedding band, but why would she even care about that?

  He smiled. Nice even teeth. He’d worn braces many of the years they’d known each other. “All by myself. Never married. Not even close.”

  She didn’t want to touch that one.

  “Seth seems like a nice guy,” he said.

  “He is.”

  “I never would have thought you’d marry someone like him, though.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Gizmo tensed as though he noticed something in the bushes.

  “He just seems very, I don’t know, grown up, I guess. Pinstripe suit, a real job. And you. Well, you’re Kali—the Hindu goddess of external energy and change. I mean, look at you for God’s sake.”

  She glanced down at her sweatpants, the paint-spattered red sneakers. “Seth and I really aren’t that different. We like to talk about stuff, make fun of things.” She scratched the remnants of a dead leaf from the arm of her chair.

  “I get it. You were always a sucker for smart and witty.”

  “But it’s more than that. Seth is ballast. He makes me feel like I belong somewhere.”

  Neil pushed his glasses up on his nose. “He told me you’re having a baby. Congratulations.”

  “Thank you. We’re very excited.”

  They were surrounded by the chirping of crickets. Neil looked up at the back of her grandmother’s house where thick, blooming vines of crimson-violet bougainvillea completely obscured the windows of the storage rooms. She wondered if he was remembering that night.

  “By the way, how’d you get into the house earlier?” she asked.

  “The key under the terra-cotta planter. It was still there after all these years. I put it back.”

  “Ah.”

  Neil shifted forward, as though he was getting ready to leave. “So are you going to be staying with your grandmother for a while?”

  “Just tonight.”

  “You think she’ll be okay by herself?”

  “I’ll hire an aide to live here with her.”

  “She’s not going to like that.”

  “I know.”

  Gizmo’s ears went back. A cat darted through the bushes, and the dog began to bark.

  Neil held tight to the leash. “Shit.” He stood. “Gizmo, sit.”

  But the dog kept barking.

  Kali reached for the leash to keep the pressure off Neil’s hands.

  “I’ve got him, thanks.” Neil wrapped the leash around his wrists a couple of times.

  Gizmo stopped barking, but continued watching the
bushes, a low growl coming through his bared teeth.

  “I don’t know how my mom was able to walk him with all these cats,” Neil said. “Well, I’d better go before he wakes your grandmother up.”

  “Thanks again for helping her.”

  He nodded and kept going through the gate that led to the front of the house. Then he was gone.

  Kali sat back against the chair frame, the exposed plastic pipe cutting into her ribs. The air was heavy and the scents of jasmine and cat musk blended in a way that made her heart ache. She glanced up at the bougainvillea-covered wall, knowing what was hidden behind the thick vines. They had called it their secret room. And she’d never told anyone, not even Seth.

  11

  When Kali woke up the next morning, she went downstairs to the kitchen. Lillian was sitting at the small table sipping hot tea from a chipped china cup, seemingly oblivious to the pile of newspapers that covered much of the table. She was wearing a faded housedress with a tiny floral pattern and her white hair was combed back from her face. Although it was after nine in the morning, overgrown foliage blocked the windows, making the kitchen dim. The overall effect reminded Kali of one of Degas’s muted domestic scenes.

  “Good morning,” Kali said. “Did you sleep okay?”

  Her grandmother’s blue eyes were surprisingly clear, almost feverish. “Why wouldn’t I sleep okay?”

  “Well, good. I’m glad.”

  Lillian broke off a piece of the bran muffin that was on a small plate in front of her. She studied it intently, as though not interested in carrying on a conversation. The smell of burnt candles hung in the room.

  Kali went to the counter, took a tea bag and a couple of sugar cubes from the metal canisters that had been there since she could remember, then poured hot water from the tea kettle into a cup. She was wearing the yellow dress and old denim leggings she’d had on yesterday. It was only Tuesday, less than twelve hours since Kali had gone to the hospital to get her grandmother, but it felt as though days had passed.

  Seth had already called this morning. He sounded shy, almost embarrassed. “Sorry about last night,” he’d said. “I got carried away, but I didn’t mean to imply anything bad about your grandmother.” Then he asked if she’d made arrangements for an aide and when she was coming home. Tonight, Kali had promised him. Unfortunately, first Kali had to broach the subject of hiring an aide with her grandmother.

  A dog barked outside and Kali’s body tensed. But Neil was not on her agenda.

  She brought her tea and a muffin to the table, cleared away some of the newspapers, and then sat down opposite Lillian. The table was rectangular with aluminum legs and a white Formica top marred by over fifty years of scratches and cigar burns. This was where Kali and her grandparents had eaten their meals. Rarely in the dining room.

  “What about you?” Lillian said.

  “What?” The question made no sense to Kali.

  “I asked how you slept.”

  “Oh. Fine, thank you.”

  “I don’t imagine it feels like your bed anymore.”

  Kali was taken aback by the statement. Lillian never talked below the surface about things. “It was a little strange,” Kali said slowly. “I haven’t slept here in many years.”

  “It used to be your mother’s room.”

  “I know.” The conversation was taking an odd turn. Of course Lillian would know that Kali was well aware it had been her mother’s room.

  Her grandmother looked up at the entrance to the kitchen, as though expecting someone to come in. “She was such a sweet child. So pretty with that cloud of dark hair and those blue eyes.”

  Kali’s throat closed. Lillian never spoke about Kali’s mother. In the years after she died, Kali had desperately wanted to talk about her, but was always afraid to bring up her name, concerned she’d upset her grandparents.

  “She had a pretty pink pinafore with lace around the collar.” Lillian touched her neck. “And such a little actress she was. Always putting on plays for me and Harry.”

  It bothered Kali that she didn’t say “your grandfather” or “her father.” It was as though Lillian thought she was talking to a stranger. But was that any different from Kali calling her grandmother by her given name?

  “Her favorite was The Wizard of Oz. I suppose she guessed that’s where I got her name.” She smiled at the blank wall and shook her head as though she was watching something. “Harry used to applaud. ‘Brava,’ he’d say. And Dorothy would curtsey in the prettiest way, just like I’d taught her.”

  “You taught her to curtsey?” Kali asked, immediately sorry. Afraid she’d broken her grandmother’s concentration.

  “Of course. Who better than I?” And she stood up from her chair, eyes half-closed, lips parted in a small smile, and stretched her neck as she gracefully put one leg behind her, swooped forward, and extended her arms above her sides.

  The gesture was practiced, yet so natural it made Kali wonder when and where she had mastered it.

  “Danke,” Lillian said in a quivering voice, as though responding to applause. “Danke schoen.”

  Kali was startled. She’d never heard Lillian speak German. With morbid fascination she watched her grandmother, recognizing the signs of senility, but at the same time riveted by this glimpse into her past.

  Lillian curtsied again.

  Kali clapped her hands lightly. “Brava.”

  “Danke,” her grandmother said and sat back down. Something seemed to be running through her head, probably a pleasant memory, because she continued smiling. Then her face clouded over.

  Kali tried to bring her back. “You were saying she enjoyed putting on plays for you and Grandpa.”

  Lillian looked at her and blinked a few times.

  “My mother. You said she was a good little actress.”

  Lillian nodded.

  “What else did she like to do?” All these new insights about her mother as a young girl had fresh importance to Kali now that she was having her own child.

  “What’s that?”

  “My mother. When she was a little girl, what was she like?”

  “Your mother.” She seemed to be processing this. “She was so busy. All the time. Always busy—planning, thinking. She had so much energy. Sometimes it made me afraid.”

  “Afraid of what?”

  “What she might become.”

  Kali’s mother had died in a car accident at the age of fifty-one. She’d worked in an office job with no secret ambition that Kali ever knew of. Had Lillian stifled these things in her only child? Kali thought about the hidden painting in her closet, now gone.

  “She liked to draw and paint,” Kali said.

  Lillian nodded. “Such beautiful pictures she made.”

  So she knew.

  “But how could I let her?” her grandmother said.

  Kali felt a surge of anger. “How couldn’t you let her?”

  “I was foolish. Harry told me I was being foolish, but I didn’t listen.” Her eyes became watery. “I couldn’t take a chance. What if she made something someone recognized? Oh, I know, that doesn’t make sense. But still, that’s what was in my head. I was so afraid.”

  “Of what?”

  “That someone would come and take her from me.”

  Kali stirred her tea. Her grandmother was clearly losing it.

  “Dorothy,” Lillian said. “Like in The Wizard of Oz. I named her that because I wanted her to live in Oz. Safe from everyone and everything.”

  What was Lillian talking about? Safe from whom? From what?

  “And I thought if she clicked her heels, her ruby slippers would take her far away and she’d be safe.” She looked at Kali suddenly, with terrible focus. “But she wasn’t, was she? My poor child. She didn’t stand a chance.”

  A shiver ran down Kali’s spine. The car crash was an accident. A terrible, tragic car accident—wasn’t it? “What do you mean she didn’t stand a chance?”

  Lillian brought her hand against her h
eart and looked around the kitchen like a trapped bird.

  “What’s going on, Lillian? Why did you light those candles? Why did you think someone might break into the house?”

  Lillian shook her head and scrunched up the muffin wrapper. “I’m tired. I’m going to get some rest.”

  “Just a minute. We need to talk. I’m worried about you. It’s not safe for you to be alone.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “You almost burned the house down.”

  “If I’d wanted to burn the house down, I would have burned it down.”

  “Please listen to me. Let me arrange for someone to stay here with you. Just for a little while. Until you’re feeling more like yourself.”

  “I am myself.” Lillian’s voice was cold and precise, like the one she’d used when Kali was growing up. “And I won’t have a stranger in my house.”

  She pushed the chair back and stood up. Then she walked out of the room, head up, shoulders back, reminding Kali of a temperamental actress storming off a movie set.

  12

  Javier Guzman winced at the brightness and slipped on his dark sunglasses as he strode across the oceanfront dining terrace toward the lunch guests. He hated this aspect of his work. Mingling and chatting with these people as though he cared about them. Well, sure he cared—but as a means to an end. If they only knew how much he truly despised them, these self-serving influencers of mass opinion, these distorters of the truth! This group, more than any other, had turned their parochial cause into a political juggernaut that disparaged and vilified millions of worthy, hard-working people. But these people were also the ones who would most likely lead Javier to the old woman.

  The banquet manager gave Javier a smile, an acknowledgment of the business Javier had been bringing to the hotel lately.

  Javier nodded back. The sun was too hot and burnt through his linen suit and the blue shirt he wore beneath it. It was his standard uniform, consistent with the role he’d created for himself as a geriatric specialist. But more important, his business-casual look appealed to this elderly crowd and conveniently hid his tattoos. Much like Superman.

  A memory flashed through his mind. Think of me as Superman, his father had told Javier when he was a young boy. You must never tell anyone my secret identity. And during his adolescent years, Javier had believed his father really was Superman, disguised as a mild-mannered shopkeeper.