Ink

by Sabrina Vourvoulias

  Nobody knows how her brother got to the neighboring village, but he did. There weren’t any soldiers there, but the villagers had heard the shooting. They peered out from behind closed doors, then seeing he was a child with even a smaller child in arms, stepped out to take his burden. Later they’d tell him that he and the girl were the only two survivors, but not that day. And not the next. Not until another inside-out priest appeared and took the children with him.

  And those papers, damp from her diaper and his sweaty hands? Weeks later, when the girl’s father came from another country to get her, one of the papers went with him as he carried her away.

  Before she left, the girl reached out to her brother and the little deer invisible at his side.

  The boy rubbed his soft and snotty face all over hers in send-off.

  * * *

  She ends the tale there.

  It is not a completely unfamiliar story. I recognize its Central American motifs and know of other narratives from the genocide that are similar in detail, if not in the manner of telling. Given time for research I’m sure I’d even be able to pinpoint the date of the massacre and the name of her village.

  “I’m glad you survived,” I say after she falls silent.

  It’s like nothing I’ve said to any of my sources before. And what follows isn’t part of the playbook either. I draw her hand up to my lips and kiss the wrist where the lines mark it.

  When she pulls away this time, I let her go.

  She doesn’t say goodbye, not even to Nely, and after she’s gone there’s no reason for me to stay.

  2.

  Finn Riordan’s rule #1: Never chase after a woman who runs away from you.

  Rule #2: Even if you can’t stop thinking about her, don’t think about her.

  Rule #3: Don’t engage in behavior that could in any way be construed as stalkerish.

  Rule #4: If you are going to ignore rules one through three, for God’s sake, don’t get caught.

  Three of the things Mari mentions during our conversation turn into front-page, beneath-the-fold stories: curfew, housing and transit. The border dump story looks like it might have legs too. I’m keeping my ears open. Melinda’s hard eyes turn avid around me and she’s started asking for my spent reporter’s notebooks. For safekeeping, she tells me.

  I’d worry about this – newsrooms are cutthroat places, and editors are even more ambitious than reporters since they think collective instead of individual – but she’s constantly harping about the future redaction of news and her paranoia is so sincere that I stop doubting her motives.

  The media group’s investors are cozy with certain politicos, Melinda says, eyebrows raised in the physical equivalent of exclamation points. They’re not supposed to meddle with editorial content, but she’s not so sure.

  I’ve taken to calling her Stormcrow. But not to her face. I value my life.

  The other writers are leaving all the enterprise – whatever requires digging and finding rather than being assigned – to me. Which is not such a great plan. For one thing, I’m distracted.

  I don’t have Mari’s number. I don’t dare call for her at Hipco because even besotted I retain enough sense not to out a source. But I know where she is every weekday at 7 p.m. and, without consciously setting out to do so, I end up at Holy Innocents too.

  Since I’m ignoring the first three of my rules, I try very hard not to break number four. I pick the pew nearest the forgotten shrine of St. Roch. I know from my server days that the spot is nearly impossible to see from the sanctuary.

  Every time I go, I relearn the planes of her face, the way she moves, the cadence of her Spanish. It is rekindling on a 24-hour cycle. Weekends I do without, but it’s a conscious effort.

  Nely is always there, somewhere in the crowded middle section of pews. I wait an extra half-hour to leave after she does, and a whole hour after Father Tom and Mari have stopped greeting congregants on the church’s steps.

  So at least rule four stands, right?

  Not.

  One evening Nely slides into the pew beside me instead of departing at her usual clip.

  “¿Q’hubo, güero?”

  Despite my dark hair I’m fair enough that when I blush it’s semaphoric. I think even the farthest corners of the place turn red from this one.

  “You considering the benefits of becoming a daily communicant?” Nely’s remembered to switch into English in case we’re overheard by informants. “Or are you hanging around waiting for another story to fall into your lap?”

  Rule # 5: Admit nothing.

  When I don’t answer, she snickers.

  “Who would have guessed a big guy like you would be put off balance by such a tiny woman.”

  “Who says I’m off balance?”

  Nely studies me for a few moments, then turns her gaze to the sanctuary as if the Mass were still going on. “It’s the part of her that isn’t exactly human that does it, you know.”

  “Funny way to talk about a friend.”

  “Love doesn’t have to be blind,” she says, turning back to me.

  “I’m not in love with her.”

  “She’s my best friend – I love her. And if you screw with her head or her heart, I’ll mess you up. Okay?”

  It’s a novel thing, this, and maybe I blink a couple dozen times while I adjust to the idea of being threatened in church, because she’s gone before I have time to respond.

  Maybe I’m still thinking about everything that’s happened or raced through my head recently when I end up at Con’s.

  Maybe I’m not surprised when I look up from my whiskey and see Father Tom sit down on the stool next to mine at the pub.

  Maybe nothing in my life surprises me while all of it does.

  Joe – the co-owner of Con’s who knows us both rather better than either of us would like to admit – plunks a glass of Jamesons in front of the priest without being asked.

  “Your mother would be happy,” Father Tom says after he takes a pull and smacks his lips.

  “My mother’s never happy, as you well know.”

  He grins. “And yet ….”

  “What? Spit it out, padre.”

  “You seem to have found your way back.”

  “50th and Callowhill has always been my backyard, so no finding involved. And just because I’ve been seen in your church doesn’t mean I’m in the Church.”

  “You think?”

  “God, you’re irritating.”

  His whole face – liver spots, creases, saggy jowls – turns beatific. “I find enjoyment in witnessing how the same hormones that fueled your exodus from the Church are going to be what brings you back.”

  When he gets tired of following the permutations of scowl the comment prompts from me, he sighs. “That wasn’t what I was referring to anyway, son.”

  The Jamesons is almost gone but he keeps his hand on the glass to roll it, every so often, along the thick bottom edge. I notice with a pang that the hand shakes with a discreet palsy. He doesn’t have to call me son to remind me that he’s as close to a real father as I’ve had and, like all sons, I’m losing him to old age before I’m ready.

  “All right, I’ll bite. What would make my mother happy?”

  “Your writing’s full of passion again.”

  I snort.

  He has the grace to blush, then plows on. “No, I mean, it matters to you what happens to the inks, and it shows in what you write. I think your mother would see that as a good thing.”

  “I doubt my mother would deign to read anything published on newsprint. It can’t be the Grail if it’s lining the bird cage, right?”

  “You underestimate her,” the priest says.

  “Spare me. She’s smart and interesting and a lot of other things I’m sure you appreciate when she comes to Holy Innocents for her confessions. But it’s no fluke she concentrates on writing about mythology. The ways of mere mortals – especially her children or some woebegotten inks – aren’t especially interesting t
o her.”

  He stays quiet for a very long time after that.

  “So change her mind,” he says finally. “Make it bigger and more universal than newsprint. Your grail quest.”

  “I’m not named after a grail knight, Father. Finn McCool’s greatest test required nothing more of him than to keep his eyes open and stay awake. ”

  “So there you are,” he says.

  He holds at three Jamesons, I down five. When we get up to leave he teeters a little, I don’t. It may be the only way I ever best the old man.

  * * *

  She’s got a story, she says.

  It’s a message on my landline at work, and I wish it wasn’t there.

  In the old days, I would have admired it. The tease of significance, the promise of discussing it at a bar neither set of our colleagues frequents. In the old days I would have thrilled to the way she trusts me with her unlisted number. Actually, I still thrill to that.

  But I’m not happy. I feel the creep of something tight and heavy in my stomach. The Gazette’s landlines are being monitored. Melinda’s convinced of it and while I know she’s completely paranoid it doesn’t mean she’s not right.

  Mari’s sitting in a booth at the Lebanon, exactly where her message said she’d be.

  I slide in the booth seat beside her without saying hello. It doesn’t take any magical power on her part to know I’m furious.

  Her hand shakes as she reaches for the beer she was drinking before I came in. I shove the glass away, reach up and pull her head close to mine. My mouth buries itself in her hair, next to her ear.

  “Don’t ever leave me a message like that again.”

  “Fine. Let go, I’m leaving.” She’s furious now, too.

  But I don’t let go. I kiss her.

  Furious can turn into amazing kisses. Like honey when it warms.

  I pull away first, but not too far.

  “Don’t you ever ask permission?” she asks.

  I don’t think she realizes she licks her lips. Or maybe she does. Either way, it has an effect. I have to hold myself from drawing her to me again.

  “The old saying. I’d rather ask forgiveness than permission,” I say. “Give me your phone.”

  She looks at me, puzzled, then digs it out of her backpack.

  I program my cell phone number into it, then hand it back to her. “Text me. Or call this. Not the Gazette’s landline. Ever. It’s not safe.”

  She waits until the barmaid who’s come over to take my order leaves. “Aren’t you being a little, you know, over the top?”

  “I’m serious, Mari. If it’s like my editor thinks, after tonight they’ll have proof you’re the Hipco leak.”

  The barmaid brings my drink. Waits for her tip. It’s that kind of bar.

  “Nice digs,” I say to her when I hand her the bills.

  She smiles at me. “Better since you got here.” She casts an appraising glance at Mari, then leaves.

  “Guess I’m not getting another drink,” Mari says.

  I laugh, take a slug. When I turn back to her, she’s studying me. I can’t hold her gaze for very long.

  “You have a story,” I say.

  “Always.”

  “Am I going to like it?”

  “You’ll like getting it before anyone else.”

  “Give.”

  “You’ve heard all those reports about ink-related leprosy and plague outbreaks.”

  “Yeah. Unsubstantiated trash. Unless you’re telling me otherwise.”

  She shakes her head. “But I hear there are plans circulating for state sanitariums. Well, more like internment centers, I say.”

  “Anything on paper?”

  “One of my colleagues told me she’s seen the blueprints for one upstate. Near Lake Algonquin. I think I can get my hands on them. At least for a couple hours.”

  “Jesus. All right. If you’ve got a pipeline to the Big Guy you better pray the Gazette’s phones aren’t tapped and that nobody finds out you’re the leak until after we break this.”

  “Okay,” she says, a smile playing at the edge of her lips.

  Lips. Damn.

  I pull her to me, kiss her again. Turns out her non-furious kisses are even better.

  “Was that for the story, or for me?” she says after she opens her eyes.

  I toy with a strand of her hair. “If we pull this off, and you still have a job, you can’t give me any more leads. Not for a while.”

  “Either way I won’t be able to give you any more,” she says. “Because if this goes through I’ll probably be living upstate.”

  “Now who’s being over the top? You’re an ink, but you’re also a citizen. None of this stuff can touch you.”

  “Right.” She looks away. The crowd is changing at the bar. It’s getting younger, noisier. The jukebox – one of the old ones, a real collector’s item – kicks on.

  “It’s almost curfew,” she says, still not looking at me. “And the ink buses stopped running from this part of town 15 minutes ago. But, I’m a citizen so I guess it doesn’t touch me.”

  I’m an asshole, but an asshole who knows how to apologize. So I do.

  She nods but just keeps staring out at the people milling around the juke, the bar, each other. They’re about her age, I think. Probably have more in common with her than me.

  “I’m not like them,” she says as if she’s heard my thought. “When I look out of their eyes I don’t recognize the world they see.”

  I get up, reach for her hand. “Dance? I like this song. At least I like the Chris Isaak original.”

  She shakes her head.

  “Mari. I’m asking.”

  Maybe she looks out of my eyes and sees herself as I see her. Because she stands up and moves into my arms. Three Days Grace keeps singing. We keep dancing. She misses curfew.

  * * *

  She seems surprised by how her body matches mine, but for me this is our most human magic – the way our bodies understand that we’ll fit together without seam.

  There’s magic of another kind in Mari.

  I see different features ghost over her face as we’re having sex. An animal’s countenance: heavy bone under velvet fur, a match for the eyes. It is a creature of earth, of a land where the greens are stitched together by lianas and the phosphorescence of moth orchids. I know at that moment that I’m caught like I hadn’t thought to be.

  “It’s true then. That part of the story,” I say after we’ve exhausted ourselves.

  She turns her back.

  Eventually I realize it’s a movement not of refusal but of defense.

  “My mother’s people go through the twinning. But early, before they build the habits that pass for adulthood,” she says. “My father always believed it was because of his blood that I didn’t change.”

  “He was non-ink?” I realize as I ask it that, even though I’ve been thinking about her a lot, I know little outside of the fairy tale she offered up.

  “American. Mostly Anglo, though given the surname, he had to have at least some Italian in his blood.” Her laugh is short. “His blood. It guarantees my citizenship, but in that just as in this, it turns out his blood isn’t strong enough to undo the taint of my mother’s.”

  I hesitate a moment, then wrap my arms around her waist and draw her back against me. “Don’t. There’s no taint.”

  “Isn’t there?” She turns to me, eyes blazing. “Why else do you write what you do? Why else do I leak the information I’ve sworn to keep confidential? Why else are we here together, two people with nothing in common but the stories we tell about inks?”

  I don’t have words to counter, I just keep holding her.

  In time her head grows heavy on my shoulder and her body relaxes into sleep. I stay immobile in this posture until dawn, when she stirs out of it.

  “Stories are all any two people ever have in common,” I say to her as if our conversation hadn’t been punctuated by hours of sleep.

  The face she turns up to m
e is the purely human one, the one I could draw from memory if I had the skill.

  “Why care which stories brought us here, so long as they did?” I say. If she knew me better she’d know the comment is as close as I’ve ever gotten to a declaration.

  “You haven’t gotten any sleep, have you?” she asks.

  I shake my head.

  She disentangles herself, then pushes my shoulders flat to the bed. My back muscles shrill in complaint, then release.

  “Sleep,” she says. “You probably have two or three hours before you have to get up for work.”

  As she climbs over me to get out of bed, I catch her wrist. “Will you be here when I wake up?”

  “No.”

  I keep my hold on her. “Ever?”

  She looks down at me. An odd reversal, this.

  “Do you want it to be happily ever after and the end?” she says.

  “One of the two.”

  “Well, then.” She drops a kiss, feather light, on my forehead before she leaves.

  3.

  Nothing comes of the sanitarium-internment center story. The blueprints cannot be located. No public figure or credible source verifies or confirms or acknowledges. Forget on the record, this story’s not even on the planet.

  I’m relegated to B-section stories, hack pieces, little better than glorified wire. Even so, some mornings when I come in I notice my desk’s been rifled and my computer’s turned itself on and past the password screen.

  One day I find an expensive flash drive – enough gigs to store four or five years worth of notes on pdf – and a fifth of Jamesons in my top drawer. I think it means Melinda’s got my back, but then, maybe not. It could be a taunt. It’s a drawer I keep locked; the only key hanging, along with my badge and press pass, on a lanyard perpetually around my neck.

  I carry two phones: one for sources, the other only my family and friends know about. That’s the one that rings. Mari.

  “Where are you?” I ask as I duck out of the newsroom.

  “Stuck at work. Margie has me digitally transcribing slave ship manifests. Who knew Hastings was such a hub?”

  “I knew.”