Nest of Worlds

by Marek S. Huberath

  The second round of bathwater was enough. It didn’t look like muddy slop with suds.

  Suddenly Ra Mahleiné dropped her head, closed her eyes. Frightened, he put an ear to her chest: her heart was beating. She had fainted. He let the water out of the tub and spread a shower curtain on the mattress where he slept. He wrapped her hair in a small towel and lifted her from the tub. An unconscious body is heavier. It slips in your arms, is difficult to hold.

  He brought her around, rubbing and drying her with the towel. When she opened her eyes, he gave her some drops for her heart. That medicine was Ra Mahleiné’s first meal in freedom. He dried her hair thoroughly.

  “After this I won’t comb myself, for the rest of my life,” she said. “I’ll shave my head to the skull. The bastards did that to me once. Gavein, cover me up, please. It shames me to lie like this in front of you.”

  “I love looking at you like this,” he said. “Surely you can remember that.” He added, with a twinkle, “But really, you’ve become such a witch. Maybe you always were.” Which was a complete lie. An angel can’t be a witch.

  He removed the plastic and tucked her gently in, under the blanket and counterpane. He saw a row of scars on her upper back, mostly small.

  “They whipped you?” he asked.

  “No. That was something else. At one point they removed . . . you know, I had things on my shoulders and neck. There was too much ultraviolet, they said, a danger of cancer. It doesn’t look too bad. But many of the women were carved up worse. As punishment. They overlooked me somehow. A white woman doctor removed all my moles. She did a good job, cosmetically.”

  She looked around.

  “There’s no furniture!”

  “On the other hand, we have a telephone, and I’ll be buying a car soon.”

  “I used to dream of our home in Davabel. There would be a big cupboard in the kitchen, with doors that had little windows, and a spice cabinet. When I still dreamed.”

  “For the time being you’ll have to make do with a rug and an inflatable mattress for two. And we’ll have a problem getting clothes for you. I threw out those filthy rags, and there’s nothing else.”

  “The underwear is all right, that’s the main thing. Did you wash my bra and panties?”

  “They’re soaking in detergent. All the bacteria are crawling out.”

  “Good. But don’t forget to scrub them too. Meanwhile I can wear your clothes. Jeans and a flannel shirt.”

  “They’ll be too big.”

  “The people will think it’s the fashion in Lavath. I’m dozing off, OK?”

  He covered her better. He went and scrubbed her underwear. Then he got into bed beside her. In the window was the rising sun.

  19

  Ra Mahleiné lay in bed all morning, curled up in his jacket, because she was cold. He put a bouillon cube in a pot of boiling water for her.

  He went downstairs for only a moment, but long enough to get gum on himself: Zef had stuck a wad under the table. The young Eisler was maintaining his image. Edda offered to provide meals for Ra Mahleiné, at an additional sixty packets. Gavein agreed, though it was expensive. But Ra Mahleiné would soon be cooking for the two of them. Leo, he learned, had been referred to a neurologist, his dizzy spells becoming too frequent.

  Gavein reminded them that he had a white wife. He wanted to get a sense of how she would be accepted at the table. There was no reaction, except that old Hougassian gave a faint smile.

  Gavein brought two portions of pasta upstairs, then two of pizza. He and his wife ate together, alone. He noticed for the first time that she was missing a tooth.

  “A woman pulled it. On the boat. It was growing crooked, sideways. She said my teeth all had to be at attention and used pliers on me, the hag. It hurt so much. She was the chief guard. Somehow she didn’t see that I had two other crooked teeth.”

  The black eye was puffy but not as purple, and the split lip was beginning to heal. He inspected her face: there would be scars. Her nose had changed the most; it was flatter, maybe longer too. It gave her face an expression of reluctance, or dissatisfaction.

  “They broke my nose at the beginning,” she said, seeing his attention to it. “It bothered them. Perhaps it was too regular. Then they operated and took cartilage out, so it would be soft, like the nose of a boxer, and not get broken again when they beat me.”

  “Poor little nose.” He put out a hand to touch it.

  “Don’t,” she said, pulling back. “I’m sorry. I can’t help it.”

  She made another sad face, which was even sadder because of the nose that drooped.

  “Tell me about those years on the boat,” Gavein said. “Were they worse than your quarantine or better?”

  “It’s such a chunk of time, those years. I don’t know where to begin.”

  A long pause. Then:

  “The crew were all from Davabel, all women, and all reds. Those born in Lavath have a complex about blacks, and they despise whites. As soon as you leave the port, they take away your name and give you a number. That number they pound into you. Get into trouble, and you scrub the deck or peel potatoes. I got into trouble immediately, because it seemed to me that the time of the voyage should count as time spent in Lavath, not in Davabel. I had some good arguments. They gave me my first beating. Then I was beaten all the time. I still think those years belonged to Lavath; otherwise it doesn’t work out.”

  “You’re right. You finished your thirty-fifth year only at Port 0-2.”

  “You see? But on the ship no one would listen. The guards had to have their fun.”

  There were also small open sores on her temples.

  “Here?” she asked, touching them lightly with a finger.

  “Yes.”

  “From the electrodes. They gave electroshock a lot. After a while, the skin doesn’t heal; it keeps oozing.”

  “Are you serious? Mental patients once were given electroshock. But that barbarity was stopped long ago.”

  “They used that or the whip, if you got on their shit list. I got on their shit list a lot, but one time they beat and kicked me until I wouldn’t stop bleeding, so the doctor told them to use only electroshock on me after that. They would kick everywhere, but especially, you know, in the crotch. Then my periods . . .” She looked at him, hesitated. “It was from that beating.”

  “You have a problem with your period?”

  “I bleed often.”

  He put an arm around her. She was warm, close, and very dear. The same woman.

  “They’ll send your medical file. Then we’ll see what the story is.”

  “Like the description of parts of a cow,” she said bitterly. “Anyway, don’t be surprised—the story might not be good.”

  “I love you.”

  “How I missed those words,” she said after a silence. “You know, Gavein, a woman doesn’t require a great deal . . . I wanted to hear those words. I thought of you sleeping on the airplane, waking, and finding out that your wife was a cripple. And all around you, those blasted black women, red women, gray women.”

  “Don’t be silly.”

  “Yes, silly. For you it was a couple of days. Oh, Gavein, I would gladly have betrayed you. Except there were no men. Nothing but women. But no, maybe I wouldn’t have betrayed you. Do you know why?”

  He grimaced weakly.

  “Because, Gavein, I knew you weren’t even thinking of betrayal, dozing up there in your precious altitude of seconds. That thought gave me strength. Some went mad; I didn’t. Maybe I would have gone mad in time. Oh, Gavein, how I cursed you for this decision.”

  He listened. Four years of isolation were unthinkable to him. But what she said made many things clear.

  “I hated you, but not completely. I knew for sure you wouldn’t betray me. You understand?”

  He nodded so that she would
continue. He wanted to hear what she had to say.

  “At times it was very hard: hating you, hating myself, for the decision. But there was no way out, other than a jump into the sea. More than one did that. Every other month, a seaplane would land near our boat. It took some of us, left others, changed the guards.”

  “If only I had known.”

  “And? What would you have done? Changed something?” she said, bristling.

  “I didn’t mean that . . . The important thing is that you’re with me.”

  “After an absence of a month?!”

  “Everything I say is wrong.” He searched for words. “It was a month for me, and you, in that time, lived through so much . . . So I can’t always keep up with you.”

  “Don’t babble, Gavein. This is what I wanted and what you wanted. I endured it for you, and I am yours, your white Ra Mahleiné, for them Magdalena, who sacrificed four years of her life so you could write her into your passport.”

  “The main thing is that you’re with me now. And that in our old age, we’ll be able to move to Ayrrah together. Nothing else matters. Why don’t I make you some herbal tea.”

  “All right.”

  “What kind?”

  “Tansy.”

  For a moment, she nodded like a nodding doll. “But how long will we be together?” she asked softly. “To me you’re like a memory come alive. And I have aged so much.”

  “You’re not bad for a lady of advanced age. My age.”

  “Is it true I haven’t changed so much?”

  “Physically? You have a lovely body, as before. You’re a little thin, underfed. For the face, it’s hard to tell: it’s healing. It’s a little flatter—that’s a change. You’re missing a tooth. You look woeful. But that could be only because one of your eyes is still swollen.”

  “Will I fit through the doorway, with that flat face?”

  “I don’t know. I carried you in sideways.”

  20

  Ra Mahleiné slept a lot and ate little. Soon she was able to walk on her own. At first, only to the toilet, then more. Sometimes, when he saw her moving about, tears came to his eyes. She was a fragile treasure that he had almost lost and then recovered. He realized this more and more, hearing the tales she told about her nightmare voyage. He knew he would never be able to make it up to her; all he could do was remain at her side, get to know her again, keep listening.

  Leo was taken to the neurology department of a hospital. As if that wasn’t enough, little Duarte fell into a stupor. He would stare at the ceiling, drool trickling from his mouth. Sometimes he would twitch and go in his diaper. They took him to the same neurology department. Edda, stricken, abstracted, wandered about and repeated that it was outside circling the house, that this wasn’t the end of it.

  Laila was released from the hospital, although her burns still oozed. Whites had to pay for medical care, and her parents couldn’t afford for her to stay any longer in the ward. She would have to go back for the skin grafts.

  Her face was all bandaged, and her arms and stomach too. Sometimes her mother would put a blouse on her, but usually not, because so much fluid came through the dressings. They said she had no skin under her bandages, but Gavein didn’t believe that. Without skin on her head and half her body, she would have died some time ago.

  The Hougassians became more talkative and sociable. They were being treated better than they expected.

  Max brought Gavein and his wife a small TV set in a white plastic case. “I found it in our attic,” he said. “Helga cleaned it up. It’s only black and white, but we thought you could use it until you got one of your own. Your wife is weak, Dave?”

  “She’s better but still can’t come down for meals.”

  “I understand she’s young and beautiful.”

  “She’s my age. You’re right about the other.”

  “A goddess of the north. A snowflake,” Max went on.

  Gavein didn’t reply to that. The cliché was unpleasant.

  Max explained, at wearisome length, how to turn on and tune the set. Then he asked Edda about her younger son. She burst into tears. Duarte had a brain tumor. The operation was scheduled for next Wednesday. Leo, the doctors said, only had a cyst under his skull. His operation was not dangerous, they assured her.

  21

  Ra Mahleiné grew stronger. Her wounds were healing. But the television bored her. Usually she read or made sewing repairs. When she watched the programs, she often knitted. Sometimes she just sat and reminisced.

  “In the spring of last year, I kept out of trouble for a long time and worked on deck. Pulling ropes, scrubbing planks. It was hard on the hands. There were electric winches for the rigging, but they broke down all the time. The guards thought my hands were too delicate, so they didn’t let me up on deck for the rest of the voyage. At least after that my skin became softer again.”

  Gavein listened, stretched out, his hands behind his head.

  “I loved to look at the sea,” she continued. “At the waves like soup, like tar. The water was so dark, it was black. The sky was dark too, a black-blue during the day and pitch at night. Some of the passengers had good eyes and claimed they could see motionless airplanes in the sky. I imagined that you were sitting in one of them. In one that was frozen in the same place all those years.”

  “But planes don’t fly that high during the day, and anyway time goes normally for them.”

  “They were motionless,” she said. “Everyone who could see them said that. Even when a seaplane approached our boat, it speeded up only at the surface of the water, all at once. In the air, the farther away it was, the slower it went, until, though it was still big, it melted into the black-blue sky as into mist. Before it landed or immediately after it took off, it always hung in the sky for a couple of days.”

  “Odd,” Gavein said. “At the surface of the water, you’d think it would brake, not speed up.”

  “It braked only in the water. It hit the water very fast.”

  “I’ll have to discuss this with Zef.”

  Then his thoughts turned to a familiar theme. “The landing and the exchange of passengers,” he prompted, “must have been a big event.”

  “Not for the whites. The procedure was always the same; there was never an exception. When the plane came up to the boat, the guards drove us all belowdecks. Some liked to use clubs. I’ll always associate seaplanes with clubs. Then they counted heads, to make sure someone hadn’t hid herself in the rigging. Only when everyone was accounted for did they let the new passengers on board and release from the cells those whose time was up. Oh, Gavein, how I wished they would miscount and release me.”

  22

  He helped her downstairs, his arm around her waist, her arm around his shoulders. She wore his faded jeans and flannel shirt. Gaunt as she was, she was the most beautiful woman at the table. He sat her down among the others and glanced at her constantly, afraid she might grow faint.

  Edda brought in a blackened iron. “You two don’t have your own,” she said. “This is the one Hilgret burned, but it’s been fixed. You can check it yourself, Dave. Please take it, you’ll need it.” She set the iron in front of them.

  For a moment Gavein didn’t know what to do. Ra Mahleiné used to be superstitious; perhaps she still was.

  “A good omen,” he said. “The rope from a hanging brings good luck, they say. This iron will too.”

  “I can test it for you, Dave,” said Massmoudieh. He wasn’t sitting with them; he was pacing back and forth. Everyone accepted his presence. He spoke to everyone, and used people’s first names too.

  Ra Mahleiné was tolerated. Evidently the events of recent days had dulled the Davabel need for hierarchy.

  The phone clattered.

  “It’s the hospital.” Zef handed the phone to his mother.

  After a moment Edda turned a
white face to the diners. “Zef, we have to go. Duarte’s in a coma.” Then her tears began to flow.

  23

  She returned two days later. Duarte hadn’t even made it to the operation; he died without regaining consciousness. The funeral was to be next week. Leo’s operation was next week also.

  Gavein got a job as manager of a used-book store, with a salary of nine hundred packets a month. While he was at work, Laila helped Ra Mahleiné with the housework. For this they paid the girl thirty packets a month. Ra Mahleiné repeatedly reminded her to put something over her bandages when she cleaned, so the burns wouldn’t get infected from the dirt, but Laila always forgot.

  Leo lived only three days after his operation. It wasn’t a cyst after all but a tumor and malignant. The operation caused extensive damage to the core of his brain. He died without regaining consciousness.

  “It’s a mercy,” the doctor told Edda. “Had he lived, he would have been a vegetable.”

  Something snapped in Edda after Leo’s death.

  “It’s you, Dave, it’s your doing! Something entered our house with you. It circled, circled, and finally pounced on my family. Death itself walks in your footsteps. Tell it to go. Before, nothing happened. We lived in peace . . . You came and brought misery,” she said, sobbing and screaming in turn.

  He answered, “If you wish, we’ll find another place. I’ll start looking at the ads in the paper.”

  That evening, Ra Mahleiné began to hemorrhage. It wasn’t her period, she said. The loss of blood weakened her considerably. For two days she lay in bed. He had to carry her to the toilet. She wouldn’t allow him to call a doctor, fearing doctors as much as she feared officials.

  Edda apologized for her outburst, and things seemed to return to normal. But everyone remembered her words.

  24

  Gavein’s job filled his day. He had an hour break around noon but couldn’t use it; driving home took too much time.