King.
When the air was still again the Lady said, “They always talk in riddles. I can make no sense of them.”
The great King nodded. “I can’t either,” he said. “But I’m going to try.”
With that he opened the door to the black iron stove, and fed three good hickory logs into the fire. Took his Hammer from its place beside the book case, and tuned it, adjusting the pegs that were made from bits of his own bones.
And then he played, long and loud and hard to charm a prophecy from the roaring fire. The prophecy it gave him wasn’t hope, exactly, and in most respects it made him grievously sad. But no matter how grim the news it gave him, it also gave a possibility, a shadow of a hope that grew out of the ashes like a free-bird come to season.
And no matter what it cost him, the great King took that vision to his heart. And faced the doom it made for him.
Spanish Harlem
The Present
Emma took Lisa’s body from Mama Estrella and carried it to the garage. She cradled it in her arms so carefully, so lovingly — in her imagination the corpse was Lisa, alive and sleeping soundly, her beautiful delicate head resting on Emma’s shoulder. When they reached Mama Estrella’s car Emma stretched dead Lisa across the back seat and lingered above her for the longest while, savoring the sight of her. After a moment she stooped, kissed the dead girl’s forehead, squeezed her cold limp hand.
Closed the back door, got in the front passenger seat, and watched Mama Estrella ease the car out of its parking space, out of the garage, onto the city street. She kept thinking of all the beer, and how drunk Mama Estrella had to be, but there was no sign of drunkenness in her driving. Just the opposite, in fact: she handled the car with a sureness most sober people can’t manage when they’re navigating Harlem.
She drove quickly, too — twenty minutes after they’d left the garage they were out in Brooklyn, driving through the cemetery’s broken gate, past great grandiose monuments that crowded one another in columns without order, like unearthly soldiers run riot. They cast long shadows underneath the full-bright moon.
Emma knew those shadows hid the worst sins in the world.
She didn’t like that place, not one damn bit. She didn’t like bringing her precious little girl into it, either. There are things, Emma thought, that even a dead child ought never have to see — and maybe she was right. But by the time Mama Estrella’s five-year-old Escort rolled into that cemetery, Lisa had seen worse things already.
And worse things still lay ahead of her.
Mama Estrella drove half a mile through the cemetery’s twisting access roads, and then pulled over in front of a stand of trees. “Are there others coming, Mama Estrella? Don’t you need a lot of people to have a ceremony?”
Mama Estrella scowled. She shook her head and lifted a beer from a bag on the floor of the car, opened the can and took a long pull out of it.
“You wait here until I call you, Emma,” she said. She got out of the car, lifted Lisa from the back, and carried her away.
After a while Emma noticed that Mama Estrella had started a fire on top of someone’s grave. She made noise, too — music, almost. Chanting, banging, shuffling her feet like a bluesman keeping time. There were other sounds, too, sounds that weren’t music or even counterpoint. Emma recognized those noises, but she couldn’t remember what they were, no matter how she tried. Then she heard the sound of an infant screaming, and she couldn’t help herself anymore — she got out of the car and ran toward the fire.
By the time Emma got to the grave, it looked like Mama Estrella was already finished.
When she saw Emma she got annoyed. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, scowling.
“I thought I heard a baby screaming,” Emma told her.
She stepped away from Lisa for a moment, looking for something on the ground by the fire, and Emma got a look at her daughter. Lisa
When the air was still again the Lady said, “They always talk in riddles. I can make no sense of them.”
The great King nodded. “I can’t either,” he said. “But I’m going to try.”
With that he opened the door to the black iron stove, and fed three good hickory logs into the fire. Took his Hammer from its place beside the book case, and tuned it, adjusting the pegs that were made from bits of his own bones.
And then he played, long and loud and hard to charm a prophecy from the roaring fire. The prophecy it gave him wasn’t hope, exactly, and in most respects it made him grievously sad. But no matter how grim the news it gave him, it also gave a possibility, a shadow of a hope that grew out of the ashes like a free-bird come to season.
And no matter what it cost him, the great King took that vision to his heart. And faced the doom it made for him.
Spanish Harlem
The Present
Emma took Lisa’s body from Mama Estrella and carried it to the garage. She cradled it in her arms so carefully, so lovingly — in her imagination the corpse was Lisa, alive and sleeping soundly, her beautiful delicate head resting on Emma’s shoulder. When they reached Mama Estrella’s car Emma stretched dead Lisa across the back seat and lingered above her for the longest while, savoring the sight of her. After a moment she stooped, kissed the dead girl’s forehead, squeezed her cold limp hand.
Closed the back door, got in the front passenger seat, and watched Mama Estrella ease the car out of its parking space, out of the garage, onto the city street. She kept thinking of all the beer, and how drunk Mama Estrella had to be, but there was no sign of drunkenness in her driving. Just the opposite, in fact: she handled the car with a sureness most sober people can’t manage when they’re navigating Harlem.
She drove quickly, too — twenty minutes after they’d left the garage they were out in Brooklyn, driving through the cemetery’s broken gate, past great grandiose monuments that crowded one another in columns without order, like unearthly soldiers run riot. They cast long shadows underneath the full-bright moon.
Emma knew those shadows hid the worst sins in the world.
She didn’t like that place, not one damn bit. She didn’t like bringing her precious little girl into it, either. There are things, Emma thought, that even a dead child ought never have to see — and maybe she was right. But by the time Mama Estrella’s five-year-old Escort rolled into that cemetery, Lisa had seen worse things already.
And worse things still lay ahead of her.
Mama Estrella drove half a mile through the cemetery’s twisting access roads, and then pulled over in front of a stand of trees. “Are there others coming, Mama Estrella? Don’t you need a lot of people to have a ceremony?”
Mama Estrella scowled. She shook her head and lifted a beer from a bag on the floor of the car, opened the can and took a long pull out of it.
“You wait here until I call you, Emma,” she said. She got out of the car, lifted Lisa from the back, and carried her away.
After a while Emma noticed that Mama Estrella had started a fire on top of someone’s grave. She made noise, too — music, almost. Chanting, banging, shuffling her feet like a bluesman keeping time. There were other sounds, too, sounds that weren’t music or even counterpoint. Emma recognized those noises, but she couldn’t remember what they were, no matter how she tried. Then she heard the sound of an infant screaming, and she couldn’t help herself anymore — she got out of the car and ran toward the fire.
By the time Emma got to the grave, it looked like Mama Estrella was already finished.
When she saw Emma she got annoyed. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said, scowling.
“I thought I heard a baby screaming,” Emma told her.
She stepped away from Lisa for a moment, looking for something on the ground by the fire, and Emma got a look at her daughter. Lisa
Similar Books
