“WHOSO SHALL OFFEND ONE OF THESE LITTLE ONES WHICH BELIEVE IN ME, IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR HIM THAT A MILLSTONE WERE HANGED AROUND HIS NECK, AND THAT HE WERE DROWNED IN THE DEPTH OF THE SEA.”
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2038
2:00 PM
Eva Rozen strode into the waiting room looking like a shrunken wraith—girlish, ghoulish.
The 29-year-old scientist and entrepreneur had pale skin that could be compared to alabaster, if one were to be charitable, like plaster if not. It was pulled taut against the uneven planes of her face to produce an impression of constant tension, of perpetual threat. To look at her for more than a few moments was to falter, to lose one’s balance.
This tidal wave in human form could move with great stealth but today Eva Rozen surged up to the receptionist’s station trailing disturbance like a gunboat’s wake. Sparks flew up from the clinic’s marble floor where her heels struck, and the air boiled around her. The office administrator looked up and froze. She’d been linked, but stopped speaking midsentence and tapped a small skin-toned communication patch just above her jaw to end the conversation.
Eva held out her hand to the attendant. The gesture was not an old-fashioned handshake. She dismissed ordinary social actions, and especially any that required physical contact. Rather, the act was part of a communications protocol. It signaled that Eva was using her datasleeve to gather the receptionist’s cloud data, her public information: Bethany Jamison, genetic female, age 41, no criminal record. Eva’s sleeve displayed all manner of private information as well. Jamison’s credit profile, medical history, sexual preferences, augmentations, and other private and presumably secure data were available to Eva at a glance.
Armed with the administrator’s name, Eva demanded, “Bethany, get Jim Ecco.” Bethany Jamison, genetic female, age 41, no criminal record, did not move.
“Bethany,” Eva repeated, “get Ecco. Now. Tell him Eva is here.”
The administrator struggled to regain her composure. “Uh, I don’t, that is, he’s with a resident,” she managed, “and Mr. Ecco has a full schedule,” recovering.
“His residents stink. Tell Mr. Ecco that Dr. Rozen is waiting.” Then, an afterthought, “Please.”
Rozen’s glare activated Bethany’s survival instincts. The unflappable gatekeeper of Boston’s largest animal shelter jumped up and scurried down a well-lit hallway. Two minutes later Bethany reappeared, stopping well short of the reception area. She looked once more at the visitor and then dove into an examining room like a soldier seeking cover.
In her place stood James Bradley Ecco—behaviorist, trainer, and chief handler of Haven Memorial Animal Shelter’s three-score rescued dogs. Eva nodded a brief greeting that took in her old friend. He smelled of musk with traces of ammonia. Stray hairs left multicolored streaks on his uniform—tan scrubs with a dark blue logo, a paw print, and the word ‘Haven’ embedded over his left breast. His name, employee ID number, photo, and title glowed beneath the logo. His slight frame gave an impression of insubstantiality that belied his strength, speed, and anger.
The dog trainer, husband, and father could claim another distinction: in the entire world, he was Eva Rozen’s only remaining friend.
Jim’s face lit up. “Eva! This is a surprise. What are you doing here? I mean, it’s great you’re here. What have you been—”
He stopped midsentence. Few would have noticed the tightening below her eyebrows and fewer still would have recognized Eva’s sudden impatience. Jim Ecco seldom missed small warnings, neither in dogs nor in people. He adopted a relaxed posture and leaned back imperceptibly, giving Eva an inch more space to signal his respect for her.
“Talk to me,” Jim said. “What exciting plans do you have? Decided to adopt a puppy?”
“Nope. Don’t need any research animals.”
One corner of Jim’s mouth turned up in a half grin. “Ah, Eva,” he sighed theatrically. “Ever the humanitarian.”
“Jim Ecco, ever the idealist. You make any kind of a decent wage cleaning up after dogs? Or does Plant Lady carry you?”
He ignored the barb. “Here to sell me stock in NMech?”
“Not going public just yet. But you should help me. Leased medical nanoagents means—
“Means NMech grows rich. Where on earth did you get the idea of leasing medicine, anyway?”
“I copied my strategy from King Gillette.”
“King who?” asked Jim.
“King Gillette. That was his name, not a title. He invented disposable safety razor blades, figuring that he could just about give away the razor but charge for the blades, as long as they were short-lived. He made a fortune. It’ll work for medicine, too.”
“Rent-a-remedy?”
“Meds for the masses.” Eva’s eyes tightened again. Jim turned just a degree or two. It was the same indirect body posture that he would adopt with an agitated dog in his care. He fixed his gaze just to the side of his old friend and then looked down at the floor. Eva relaxed.
“I need your help,” she said abruptly.
“My help? Or Marta’s?”
“Yours. Hers. Both.”
“We’ve been through that,” said Jim. “We made a family decision.”
“Yeah, well, I can sweeten the deal. I have something that will interest the Plant Lady.”
“Oh? What’s that?”
“Take my word for it. She’ll like what I can put on the table. First I have to know if she can give me what I want.” Eva, the Needy.
“First, I need to see my patients. You know, the stinky ones? Then we can talk.”
“Patients? The vets have patients. You have shovels.” Eva, the Relentless.
Jim did not respond. She would take any response, even correction, as tacit approval.
“I’ll wait,” she said. Eva, the Unexpected.
Jim stared. “You’ll wait? Now I’m confused. You stormed in, a woman on fire. You lit up poor Bethany, demanded to see me, and now you’ll wait? Why didn’t you just link to me? I’d have been expecting you.”
“I need to talk to you, that’s why.”
“Yes, Eva, but most people link ahead. Courtesy doesn’t take that much work.”
“Overrated,” she snapped. “When it’s time to do something, it’s time to do it. Besides, I checked your schedule and I knew you’d be here.”
“You checked my…?” Jim looked down at his datasleeve and frowned. “You’re still up to your old tricks.”
When Eva said nothing, Jim conceded, “Okay, it must be really important. Make yourself at home.” He smiled and walked back to the kennels.
Eva stood still in her friend’s cramped office. Only her eyes moved as she examined her surroundings. After a few silent minutes, she frowned and ran stubby fingers across her scalp, leaving rows of dirty blond hair like freshly-plowed farmland.
She took in Jim’s neat piles of old-fashioned books and data-plaques. They were stacked on every available surface except Jim’s small desk, bare save for a coffee service. Eva touched her datasleeve and launched a snooper application to search for key words, terms, and algorithms on the chance that any of Marta’s work would be on Jim’s datapillar. In the time that it took the handler to complete his morning duties, Eva sifted through Jim’s pillar in an unsuccessful search. Her frown was a brief departure from her normal expressionless demeanor.
When Jim reappeared, he was covered in dog hair. Leashes hung around his neck like leather boas. He looked drained. He shuffled to his desk and brewed coffee. “Ah, sweet elixir of life,” he said with his first sip and offered a cup to Eva who shook her head impatiently.
“Anybody ever tell you that you’re full of crap?” Eva asked without rancor.
“Only you, darling.”
Eva stood very still. She cocked her head, heard sounds within her that grew and threatened to drown out the sounds around her. She blinked hard, forcing a moment’s quiet, and when she could hear again, she said, “Now it’s darling?”
“Eva, you could charm the skin off a snake. Wouldn’t you rather have a lifetime friend?”
Eva said nothing. The inner din quieted.
Jim gave no sign that he’d observed her distress. He lifted his cup in a toast to his old friend. “You never do anything without a purpose. And to wait without complaint? What’s up?”
Eva looked at Jim. “I’ve got a problem. My project at Harvard produced two medicines—”
“Your project?—”
“—Okay, our project at Harvard produced two medicines that Plant Lady extracted from her rainforest. We showed that they could be built in a nanoassembler. I turned that project into NMech. I damned near went broke building an assembler that could be implanted in a patient’s body. Getting FDA approvals was murder. But we’re making a little money now.”
“You’ve got working internal assemblers?”
“Didn’t I just say so?”
The old manufacturing paradigm, whether for medicine or metals, was to whittle larger hunks of material into smaller ones. Nanotechnology, the science of matter at a scale so small as to be nearly unimaginable, permitted products to be built up, molecule by molecule. Eva’s company focused on synthesizing drugs using this technology.
“Congratulations” Jim said. “So, what’s the problem?”
Eva said, “Control. Let’s say that you implant a nanoscale assembler inside a patient’s body. It fabricates and dispenses the meds automatically. But you need to be able to raise or lower the dosage to match the patient’s condition. We need to control the assembler after it’s been implanted.”
“An assembler at sub-cutaneous scale? That’s science fiction, stuff of the future. What am I missing?”
“Everyone seems to think that progress is fantasy—until they get their nose rubbed in it. About one-hundred years ago, movie producer Darryl Zanuck predicted the end of television. Twenty years later? The world watched the first moon walk on their televisions. Trust me, I know exactly how to build a nanoassembler, and make it small enough to be implanted. What I need is control.”
“Control is old hat,” said Jim. “Doctors have had wireless control over drug implants for years.”
Eva interrupted. “The problem with wireless control is the physician. Too busy to keep track. And the patients? They’re worse. They skip appointments to recalibrate the implants. But if I could control nanoagents remotely? A Boston administrator manages a Berlin patient’s prescription? If I can control the dosage from a datapillar, I can make the system efficient.”
“You mean, you can control the cure.”
“Don’t get high-and-mighty with me. The system now means that physicians have to do a technician’s job. Not fair to the doctor, not fair to the patient. But NMech has the medical skill and the technological know-how to manage the dosage remotely.”
“Eva,” Jim said gently, “she wants to practice medicine, not be a drug manufacturer. You know that.”
“Let me finish. I have a proposal that she will like, if remote control is feasible.”
Jim said nothing for a few moments, then subvocalized. His lips moved but he pronounced his words silently. A skin-toned comm-patch seated on his cheek registered the minute vibrations in his jaw and throat from the silent speech and converted the resonance into electronic pulses, and then sent a series of commands to his datasleeve. The sleeve activated a heads-up holographic display. Jim peered into the projection for a few minutes.
“According to Marta, the theory is simple enough.”
“You can access her notes?” Eva asked. She held up a hand like an old-time traffic cop. The gesture indicated that Eva wanted to receive a datafile, the information that Jim had examined.
“No. These are her files. You want them? You ask her. If she wants to share, then she’ll share.” Jim spoke in a flat voice, a momentary withdrawal of camaraderie.
“Fine,” said Eva. “Tell me how you get excorporeal control of a nanoagent. And, yeah, I will take a cup of your magic coffee.” Jim touched a pot. In a moment the pot glowed gently and Jim poured hot water into a French press and set a cup in front of her.
“It’s already been done, just not well,” Jim said, peering back into the display. “About twenty years ago, researchers at Chambers Hospital implanted a tiny reservoir under the patient’s skin to dispense medication subcutaneously. They added magnetic ferrite nanoparticles”—bits of material measured in billionths of a meter, near-atomic size—“to the reservoir. When the researchers turned on a magnetic field, the reservoir’s membranes heated, and then turned porous. That released the medication.”
“I know about the Chambers trials,” Eva waved dismissively. Her coffee sat untouched. “But the membranes overheated and dumped the entire reservoir into the bloodstream. That’s not going to work.”
“True, but the idea is still good. At Chambers, they used a steady magnetic pulse which caused the overheating. What you need is a reliable regulator, and Marta thinks it’s possible with something called chameleon magnets. Take a nonmagnetic material and hit it with an electronic pulse to organize the spin of the electrons. That turns the material magnetic. The reservoir’s membrane heats and turns porous and delivers the medication. Turn the field off, the dosage stops. That would make an effective regulator. But the research on chameleon magnets was in the field of computer science, not in medicine, and nobody ever put the two ideas together.”
“Huh,” said Eva. She thought a moment. “Could the control signal come from a central datapillar? And be relayed to a home pillar?”
“I don’t see why not. But that’s not my area. You want to talk nanomeds? Ask Marta.”
“You mean it? Plant Lady can do this?”
“She could, but I don’t see her abandoning her work.” The two sat in an amiable stalemate. “And by the way, it shows respect when you use her name. Marta. Not Plant Lady.”
Eva fidgeted but did not speak. They’d discussed respect and social graces often, especially since the fiasco at Harvard. Eva’s impulsiveness had cost Marta’s trust and friendship. Jim counseled Eva that to temper sudden actions, to use proper names, to be courteous, even to observe ordinary table manners, were better ways to recruit help from others.
Finally, Jim broke the silence. “You need her, don’t you.”
Eva said, “Is that supposed to be a question?”
“You’ll have to come up with something in public health,” he said.
“Easy. I have a plan.”
“Your last big idea was to build fat-loving nanomolecules for tummy tucks and replicator cells for breast augmentation.”
“Boob jobs pay.”
“Yeah, but you’re not going to get Marta interested unless you go deeper into the thoracic cavity. She wants public health, not private wealth. You want her help? Meet her halfway.”
“But you know what my problem is,” said Eva.
“Sure. Chronic disease is expensive. And the countries that need help the most don’t have the treasury to pay for it. So, you’re back to where you started.”
“Not this time.” Eva’s coffee was untouched and cold. She looked down and said, “If Plant Lady gives me the meds and the controls, I’ll give her public health.”
Jim stared without speaking.
“Sorry. If Marta can come up with the controls, then I’ll give the good Dr. Cruz her public health.”
“Do you mean it?”
“Yes,” Eva said. “But you need to convince her. I can’t just drop back into her life. And I need your help, too. You have a practical side that’ll be valuable to NMech.”
“Thanks, but I’m pretty happy with my stinky residents.”
“Just hear me out,” said Eva. “You and Marta will like what I have. Then you decide if my proposal is as important as your mangy dogs. Besides, you owe me.”
“I haven’t forgotten,” Jim said. His eyes dropped to the floor again.
She had asked for something from him once before, something very personal, reminding him of his debt to her. “It’s not mine to share,” was all he said.
Then Mama and the others at the Table howled at Eva.
SOFIA, BULGARIA
APRIL. 2022
One week before her departure from Sofia to attend a special high school in Los Angeles, 13-year-old Eva Rozen had awoken to the sounds of Mama and Papa fighting. She had been accustomed to shouted curses, taunts, and screams, even the crisp crack of hands on flesh. Those sounds had not bothered her. To be roused from sleep, however, was to lose its comforting amnesia. That did bother her, and a reckoning had been long overdue.
She slipped past Gergana’s empty bedroom, gaze fixed ahead, and crept down the spine of the railroad flat to the fracas in the kitchen. Separate rooms and separate lives were connected by a dark hallway as grim as Eva’s thoughts.
Eva stepped in unnoticed. Mama’s screams alternated with Papa’s. Eva looked around. She heard a thought, as if from a separate intelligence within her. Use what’s at hand. She found a wine bottle. It was an easy task. They littered the kitchen. She hefted one to test its weight, and gripped the neck, entered the field of combat and swung two-handed.
Eva was smaller than an average child on the cusp of adolescence and her aim was low. But she wielded the bottle with the predatory ferocity of a weasel and the roundhouse blow drove into Papa’s left knee with a satisfying crunch. He bellowed as the kneecap shattered. Eva regarded her mother, swung and caught Mama just below her hip. The impact was cushioned by the soft tissue of Mama’s thigh, once seductive territory that had first captured, then repelled, Papa. Mama cradled her leg, and sobbed. Eva regarded her parents, sprawled on the floor.
“That’s for Gergana.” Her voice was impassive.
She returned to her small bedroom where memories came, unbidden: Mama’s indifference, Papa’s drunken visits, and Gergana. Most of all, Gergana. Eva imagined what Gergana might have said to her tonight, tried to feel Gergana’s cool hand on her forehead. She would have told Eva that she was very brave.
She wanted to sob but choked back her tears. At that, she heard a low murmur of approval. Startled, she sat up and looked about. The whispers would not have been from Papa or even Mama. They were still in the kitchen. Papa was moaning in pain and begging Mama to call an ambulance.
Eva heard the murmurring again. It was distant, yet…interior. For a moment, Eva imagined the voices coming from within her pillow. She sat up and then walked to the door. The sound grew and followed her. She heard notes of pride, of encouragement, of approval. The words were indistinct yet the meaning was clear: she had done well.
Then a second message emerged from the swelling clamor, increasing in volume, building in pitch and resonance, blotting out any other thought, a boulder rolling slowly at first, then crushing every obstacle in its path. “Strike first!” she heard from within the din. “Strike hard!”
Eva listened. She could pick out individual calls and caws. She strained to identify one voice. It would have been a quiet one. But Gergana’s crooning was lost in the uproar.
From Eva’s first hours of life, uneasy forces shaped her. Her birth was a brief cause for celebration, as Gergana’s had been some years earlier. Mama and Papa displayed Eva like a gauche traveler waiving a first-class airline ticket. But soon, parenting enervated rather than enlivened them and Mama and Papa’s interest decayed. Eva was demoted from an object of inestimable worth to that of a curious gewgaw. Then they nurtured Eva as they might a caged falcon, tossing scraps of attention as they might have cast bits of offal to the raptor. The bird survives but is stunted, fettered by self-doubt, never to soar, always ready for a sharp-beaked defense of its circumscribed territory.
The roles of mother and of father fell to Gergana whose de facto parenting was as tender as Mama and Papa’s was feckless. When Eva looked for comfort, her eyes lit on Gergana’s smile. Eva’s ears heard her sister’s soft lullabies and her hands played with toys that Gergana somehow provided. When Mama ignored Eva’s cries, Gergana cleaned and changed her infant sister. When Papa stumbled home, Gergana stood at juvenile Eva’s doorway.
Eva nursed on Gergana’s attention and Eva’s loyalty was as fierce as a samurai’s. Gergana adorned their bleak lives with bedtime stories, fanciful embellishments to bring hope.
“Little One,” she’d say, “I’ve got a story for you.” She portrayed the family as heroic figures in a romantic adventure. Gergana transformed Papa into a sea captain whose perilous journeys accounted for frequent absences. Mama was a member of the exiled royal family of Simeon II. “Little One,” Gergana told Eva, “one day you’ll be on that throne.”
Gergana’s stories and dreams were grand, but Eva saw life with open eyes. She fought to reconcile Mama’s weak chin and perpetual air of distraction with the royal station of Gergana’s tales. Eva saw Papa return, not from the high seas with sun-bleached hair and the tang of brine, but from a nearby tavern, red-faced, stinking of tobacco and stale beer. Sometimes the stench lingered, and Eva showered before returning to sleep.
“I don’t want a story tonight,” Eva announced one evening. Gergana had seen to Eva’s bath, changed her into nightclothes and shut Eva’s bedroom door so that Mama’s weepy ramblings and Papa’s snores were dampened.
“No story, Little One? How about a song?”
“No.”
“How come? You like bedtime stories.”
“They’re not true. You made them all up.” Eva’s voice was flat, almost uninterested.
“They’re supposed to be made up. Something nice to think about before you go to sleep.”
“Mama’s not a princess. Some days she doesn’t even get out of bed. Papa is no sea captain. Sailors have sunburns. Papa’s skin is all white.”
“Well, stories are for pretending. I don’t have to make up stories. I could read books with fairytales,” Gergana offered.
“No. I don’t want stories anymore. That’s for little kids,” said nine-year-old Eva.
“Well, don’t you play pretend games with your friends?”
“I don’t play with the other kids. And I don’t like pretend games.”
“What about your friends? Don’t they like to play house or have tea parties?”
“I don’t know,” Eva said. “Anyway, you’re my only friend. And I’m not Little One anymore. I’m a woman.”
Gergana chuckled. “You’re a woman now? How very grown up. When did you become a woman?”
“A while ago,” said Eva, in a matter-of-fact voice.
“Oh, a while ago, eh?” Gergana teased. “And how did you decide that you’re now a woman?”
“Papa told me.”
Gergana began a vigil outside Eva’s door when Papa staggered home. She was Eva’s guard. Sometimes she was Eva’s alternate. She had no choice. She would protect Eva, no matter what.
What replaces fantasy and imagination for the child exiled from the acres of make-believe? Where does the mind travel when fairyland becomes forbidden territory? Eva found sanctuary in science with its logic and its immutable laws. Banished from enchantment, Eva found chemistry. She could create new worlds, real ones. Leave illusion to children who could pretend in safety. Science offered Eva the means to travel from her perilous world to an orderly one.
Sisters grow and sisters change. Gergana ripened into eye-catching adolescent beauty. She bore the hallmarks of classic loveliness—symmetrical features, full lips, high cheekbones and captivating green eyes—and her interests centered on boys. Gergana’s breasts were full, and she turned and stretched to display them. Her toned legs drew admiring eyes up to wide hips. The owners of those eyes sought to accompany Gergana. Eva no longer had an unrivaled claim to her sister’s attention.
Eva considered herself in a mirror. Her hair was unkempt, her features mismatched. She had no experience with style. Her single experiment with makeup led to calamitous results.
“How come you’re so pretty and I’m so ugly?” Eva asked one evening as she walked into her sister’s room following Gergana’s return from a social outing.
“Would you knock before you come into my room?” The tone was abrupt.
“Why are you ignoring me? Those boys don’t care about you as much as I do.”
“Well, I like boys and it gets me out of the house.”
“I wish you would play more with me,” said Eva.
“Little One, we’re not little kids anymore. You’re my sister and I love you. But I have friends. You will, too.”
“I doubt it. I’m not pretty like you are.”
Eva clung to her sister but she was as awkward as a skittering foal and her efforts to hold onto Gergana fed the distance between them. The distance grew as Gergana’s experiments with boys became experiences with men, her delight in schnapps and then liquor broadened to include marijuana and then cocaine.
Late one night Gergana stumbled home. Her key fought with the lock until the tumblers clicked into place and she staggered in. Her hair was matted, her clothing rumpled. Her words were slurred and coated with the sweet aroma of a flight of vodka. Eva helped Gergana into her bedroom, helped her get undressed. All the while, Gergana was singing popular songs or talking about her boyfriends, comparing one to another.
“Why do you do this?” Eva asked.
Gergana was lying on her bed. She reached for a stuffed animal, a plush pink rabbit with a blue waistcoat. Thin flexible wiring inside the toy’s ears held a shape, and Gergana alternated between bending the ears down, flopped over one moment and then alert and erect the next. She brought the bunny up to her face and cooed to it as she stroked its length.
“Why do you do this?” Eva repeated.
“Do what?”
“Get drunk. Get stoned. Give yourself to the boys. That. Why do you do it?”
“Flopsy,” Gergana whispered to her rabbit, “Little One is jealous.” Gergana’s words trailed off in an alcoholic haze.
“The boys don’t care about you. I do. You should spend your time with me.”
Gergana snored.
Gergana’s widening social interests claimed her. Now, when Papa’s clumsy steps shook the stairs leading to the Rozens’ third-floor apartment, the post outside Eva’s door was abandoned. Eva felt helpless. Her father was a big man, and she was small.
An unexpected warning from a surprising source gave Eva a solution to her growing dilemma. It was an ordinary spring day. Eva was dressed in her usual navy blue gabardine cargo pants. These were hemmed to fit her four-foot frame, cinched with a functional black leather belt that matched heavy black boots. A dark green work shirt gave her the appearance of a dwarfish custodian, and Eva’s trademark black cloak made her look like a walking toadstool.
Mama’s shapeless form greeted Eva that day. She was staring through eyes that were partitioned from the rest of her face by dark circles of fatigue. Despair carved hollows into her face. She shuffled along, wrapped in a frayed bathrobe despite the hour.
Mama started to speak, and then stopped. Eva had removed cleaning supplies from a storage area under a rust-stained sink. She held a bottle of bleach in her right hand and one of ammonia in her left.
“What?” Eva asked.
Mama stood just beyond Eva’s reach. “You might not want to mix bleach with ammonia,” Mama suggested.
“Why not?”
“It makes a gas if you mix them.”
“What gas?”
Three simple questions from this adolescent girl carried the force of a State Security interrogation.
“Um, bleach has chlorine in it.” She pointed to a label on the bottle. “See, ‘chlorine bleach’. If you mix it with ammonia, it makes chlorine gas which can hurt you. What are you trying to clean?”
Eva showed Mama the offending spot. Mama examined the stain on the heavy fabric’s sleeve. She reached for laundry soap and peroxide.
“Blood?”
Eva nodded. She offered no explanation nor did Mama ask for one. Mama dabbed the spot with peroxide, waited, and then scrubbed with laundry soap. She handed the cleaned shirt back to Eva and retreated down the dark hallway.
The label’s warning puzzled Eva. It told her what was hazardous but not why. She went back to her room to find an answer on her bookshelf. Every volume was a text. Each bore the bookplate of Sofia’s public library or of its university. Eva enjoyed the feel of paper and the heft of books and she handled them with the reverence of a rabbi cradling the Torah. Textbooks were her playmates and chemistry was her best friend.
Eva found her answer. Bleach breaks down in ammonia to release chlorine gas, a powerful greenish-yellow poison. During a world war in an earlier century, the gas earned the title of civilization’s first weapon of mass destruction. Eva pondered these facts and determined that she must experiment and learn. It would be easy to find a subject for her investigation. Wild dogs roamed the streets of Sofia. Victims were widespread: the deer enclosure at the city’s zoo suffered an attack and only the largest-antlered bucks survived; a British tourist in Nedyalsko, mauled almost beyond recognition; a child visiting her grandmother, dead. Eva had been set upon as well. She’d had the presence of mind to snap open an umbrella into the dog’s face. Startled, the dog ran.
But dogs were fast and unpredictable. She needed a subject that she could anticipate and even control. She pondered this challenge for several days then found an answer, right at home. Why not Papa? Given his drunken gait up the stairs and off-key singing, she’d have enough time to prepare.
She found a squeeze bottle, one that would cap tightly and fit into an inner pocket in her cloak. Next, the formula. Equal parts ammonia and bleach would create a gas that would happily rip apart the delicate lining of a human’s respiratory system.
Eva thought, I’m on the right track, but not with chlorine gas. It’ll get me, too. There was another option, a favorite tool of the police and military—pepper spray. The recipe was simple. The active ingredients, the ones that burn—capsaicin and dihydrocapsaicin—came straight from hot peppers. The hottest of the many peppers available at Sofia’s markets was Guntar chilies, imported from India’s Spice Coast. This variety possessed commanding levels of the hot capsaicin molecules. The pepper’s oily juice was soluble in oil, mineral oil for example. It would stick to its target and she could use it at close quarters. Or better still, baby oil—the scent reminded her of Gergana.
Eva’s pepper spray ended Papa’s nocturnal visits. The blisters around his eyes and mouth lasted for three days. His hunched-over walk lasted longer. After two encounters he was conditioned to avoid her door.
But he was like a puppy, and had occasional lapses. Eva learned to stay alert. Soon she had the reflexes of a combat soldier and could come out of sleep in an instant, ready to protect herself. Once Papa moved more deliberately. He caught Eva by surprise and she suffered the effects of the pepper spray along with Papa. Soon, her arsenal included a knife.
Papa was thwarted. He turned his attention to Gergana who found safety by increasing her the distance from Papa. That meant more time away from home at a time when Eva needed a big sister all the more.
How could Eva find a way to bring Gergana back to her, to regain the warmth of their earlier years? She decided to appeal to her sister’s vanity. I’ll find a pretty present. Something for her to wear. She’ll look in the mirror and think of me.
Eva hunted in Sofia’s stores. She sought just the right talisman to rekindle the magic that once existed between the sisters. A week into her quest, fresh from a successful raid at a library branch and clutching a chemistry text thick enough to double for building material, Eva spotted a small brooch in the window of an antiques store. It was a gold beetle studded with red, blue, and green stones. It’s pretty, but it’s odd, she thought. It was a scarab, an insect that feeds on feces.
Eva walked into the store. A pleasant musty smell announced a different world. Crowded displays of curios and keepsakes, used furniture and costumes from bygone eras greeted her. A squat man with a gray-speckled beard sat hunched on a stool behind the counter. The shopkeeper looked up from a leather-bound book. His black fedora, fashionable sixty years earlier, topped a bald head ringed with a graying fringe. A necktie from the same era—a wide silk paisley with what Eva thought were impossibly cheerful colors—wrapped his pale neck. He looked up from his reading, registered Eva’s presence with a gracious nod. He moved deliberately as he marked his place with a well-worn leather bookmark and presented a pleasant expression. Eva found herself drawn to the odd-looking man. His eyes narrowed, not with suspicion, but because his wide smile lifted generous cheeks and his eyes had no place to retreat from the spreading grin.
Eva stood motionless, waiting for him to speak.
“What are you reading, young lady?” he asked, pointing to the thick text Eva clutched in her left hand.
“It’s a chemistry book.”
“A serious topic. And on paper, as well. Do you enjoy it?”
“Chemistry or paper?” Eva asked.
“Well, both, I suppose. It is a bit unusual to see anyone carrying paper except collectors. Why not read on your dataslate?” His voice was soft, restrained even.
“I like paper. I can get these out of the library without a fuss.” She didn’t add that “fuss” meant returning the books. “What about you? What’re you reading?”
“Ah. A treasure. A first edition of Alice in Wonderland. Would you like to see it? Have you read Alice?” He turned the book around to face Eva.
“No. I don’t read made-up stories.”
“Not at all?”
“No.” Eva’s voice was simultaneously flat and emphatic.
“What a shame! There is a whole world of imagination that’s waiting for you.” The shopkeeper put his book away and muttered, “No fiction. What a shame.” He turned back to Eva, “What about history or poetry? Art?”
Eva frowned.
“Just chemistry? You must love books to carry one so heavy from the library. What else do you read?”
“Science books. Computer texts.”
“That’s it?” The merchant drew up his eyebrows.
“That’s all I need.”
“What about the classics? Studies of the human soul?”
Eva said nothing.
“Well, my dear, if you ever wish to dip your toe into the ocean of human experience, come back to my little shop. Maybe we can find something enjoyable for a, a serious reader. You may well find that the study of people will make you a better scientist. Now. To what do I owe the undiluted pleasure of your company?”
She frowned at his flowery speech and pointed to the pin that caught her attention. “Why would anyone want a shit-eating bug for jewelry?” she asked.
“You recognize Scarabaeoidea? Good for you!”
She waited for him to continue, thinking that he would make a better teacher than the drones at school. This man seemed to invite her into his world, not try to force her. He was as different from her teachers as a guide from a kidnapper.
The shopkeeper’s smile continued to hold court on the man’s face. “Why indeed. Well, the ancient Egyptians held these little insects in high regard. The scarab was a symbol of rebirth.”
Rebirth? Perfect. A gift to renew her relationship with Gergana. But the pin was rare and valuable, the shopkeeper said. He named a price. Eva thought for a moment and made a counteroffer. “Give me the pin and I’ll give you protection.”
He laughed, a hearty sound that rose from a deep well of joy. “Protection from what? Why would I need protection and how would a chemistry student provide this wondrous service?”
“Dogs. I’ll keep them away. I’ll keep your sidewalk clean. No more dogshit.”
The shopkeeper tipped back his fedora and rubbed his forehead. He walked around the counter, navigated between an antique wheelbarrow and a child’s rocking-horse to the window display, his ample body surpisingly agile. He took the pin and returned to place it on a square of black velvet on the counter. The two stood side by side and examined it. Jewels from the brooch sparkled against the cloth’s plush black surface.
“I’ll tell you what, Miss Scientist. You clean my sidewalk for one month and I’ll give you the brooch. Don’t bother the dogs. You could get hurt and I do not wish to risk the loss of such a valuable new customer.”
When the shopkeeper arrived to open his store the next morning, a faint odor of bleach replaced the smell of feces and the sidewalk shone. He stopped and perused the storefront. In a voice louder than one would use when talking to oneself he said, “Beautiful. Just beautiful.” He waited a minute, then without turning, he called over his shoulder, “Welcome back, Miss Scientist. You did a very nice job. Of course, you know that because you heard me say so when I arrived. Would you care to join me for a cup of tea?”
“How did you know I was watching?” Eva asked.
“I heard you. I live in a quiet world. Why would you sneak up on me?”
“I didn’t sneak. My world is quiet, too.”
The proprietor held the shop door open for Eva. Today he’d replaced the fedora with a gray homburg, the wide brim turned up all the way around. A long white feather shot from the hatband, transforming the semiformal headwear into something jaunty. On another, the feather would be an affectation. But on this man, it was an antenna that transmitted his vitality.
The strange pair entered, a sedentary looking older man bristling with energy and a diminutive child brimming with strength. Without a word or backward glance, the man walked into a room behind the store. Eva followed into an office-cum-kitchen. The shelves were lined with books from earlier centuries. An antique red and blue Persian carpet muted their footsteps. Two parallel walls were painted yellow, as bright a color as she could imagine. Their counterparts were a correspondingly deep blue. A triptych of paintings hung along one of the long yellow walls, three masses of color, each swirling in a tight pattern of curves, streaks, and spatters. Along the back of the office was an antique partner’s desk. Both sides were crammed with books and papers. To her right, Eva saw the shopkeeper at a small counter, fussing with a kettle and hotplate. A stained teapot, its glazing cracked with age, matched two antique white ceramic mugs. He whistled tunelessly as he worked, and gave Eva sidelong glances. When she caught him looking at her, he held her gaze and smiled. Tiny pastries appeared on a small plate and suddenly there were two chairs and space on the counter for their impromptu snack.
The store owner gestured with an outstretched hand to the tea and pastries and they began a snack and a silent conversation. Eva nodded acceptance of the invitation and then pointed with her chin to the trio of paintings. The man tilted his head down and formed an arched eyebrow question. She looked at the reproductions and shook her head. Then she spoke for the first time since entering the store.
“What’s your name?”
“Coombs, at your service.”
“Is that your first name or your last name?”
“Just Coombs. And you?”
“Eva. Coombs isn’t a Slavic name. Are you British?”
“What do you think of the paintings?” he asked, without answering her question.
Eva looked at the framed art and asked, “Worms?”
He laughed. Once again, the sound was unforced. “I take it you’re not familiar with the work of Jackson Pollock.”
“You’ve got bugs for brooches and worms for paintings.” She paused, considering, “I’ve never seen worms like that. The colors are wrong. It’s not realistic.”
“No, not realistic at all for worms. But Pollock didn’t so much try to paint worms as he tried to make art without a brush coming between him and his creations. So he dripped paint on his canvases rather than brushing it on.”
“You like these?”
“I do. Eva, look at them. If you wanted to make a painting of the energy in a chemical reaction, how would you do that?”
“I don’t know. Not like that, I don’t think.”
“What about, say, Brownian motion?”
“These paintings are supposed to be the random movement of molecules?”
“Good. Now think bigger. Pollock was trying to show the energy and movement of life. That’s my opinion, anyway.”
“It looks like a baby’s scribbling.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no. Look deeper, Eva. What he did was to use things he could control—the thickness of the paint, the movement of his body, how absorbent his canvas was—to portray things he couldn’t control. It looks chaotic, but isn’t life chaotic? Don’t we all try to control the chaos around us? That’s what I see in his work. Think of chaos theory and then imagine it as art. You just might end up with Jackson Pollock.”
“So what? Why would anybody want to paint science?”
“Art can inspire science.”
Eva gave a snort.
Coombs continued, “A sculpture that looked like a tower of needles inspired a major breakthrough in understanding cell structure. Four hundred years ago, the divisions on a horsetail plant inspired John Napier to discover logarithms.”
“I don’t need art to do science.”
“Okay.” Then, “How’s your tea?”
They sat without speaking for several minutes. Eva stood and explored Coombs’s work area and looked at his book titles. “May I offer a suggestion, young lady?”
“Eva.”
“Yes, indeed. Well, Eva, I have a suggestion. Your work cleaning the sidewalk was better than I expected. I should be taking advantage of you by offering only the brooch as full payment for this good a job. I’d like to give you a book, real paper, an old edition with some value.”
“What book?”
“It’s called To Kill a Mockingbird.”
“How hard can that be?”
“Eva, it’s not a textbook.”
“Then what is it?”
“It’s the story of a young woman like you. A good girl named Scout must face terrible things and terrible people. She has to struggle to be herself despite awful events that happen around her. I rather think you might enjoy reading about how she managed.”
“How old is Scout?”
“When the book starts, she’s five.”
“I’m thirteen.”
“You were five once, yes? And now you’re older?” Eva nodded. “Well Scout grows older, too.” Coombs went to his book collection and muttered, “I know it’s here.”
Eva continued to wander about the work area. She stopped at the Pollock triptych for several minutes. She said, “It’s funny. I don’t like stories because they try to tell you something is true when it’s not. This—” she nodded to the grouping, “—doesn’t try to lie. It doesn’t try to pretend to be a picture of something. It might be nonsense, but at least it’s honest nonsense.”
“How does it make you feel?” Coombs asked.
There was a long pause and Eva turned away. She turned back to Coombs and said, “I have to go. Thanks for the tea.”
“What about the book?” He reached back to the shelf for the slim volume.
But when he turned back, Eva was gone.
She did not miss her duty once, not even Sundays. Thirty-one days after first meeting Coombs, she skipped home, bobbing under her mantle, the brooch in her pocket. What a splendid gift she would present to Gergana. Eva imagined all of the things that they would do together, once again, and she smiled.
Eva’s smile died the moment she crossed the worn threshold into the Rozen apartment. She heard hoarse cries of pain from Gergana’s room, exhausted pleas in place of Gergana’s insubstantial chatter.
Eva edged to the door, paused, listened and heard the crack of a palm striking flesh. There was a muffled thud followed by an explosive whoosh of air forced from unprotected lungs. Why today, of all days? When she had the brooch that would bring them back together and restore the magic they once shared?
She turned the doorknob, paused, and slipped into the bedroom. Her senses recoiled at the tableau before her. She registered the sour stink of sweat and hatred. An obese man was the source. He was naked, with blemish-mottled pallid skin. He lay between Gergana’s legs with his hands loosely at her throat. Skin puffed out from his neck to give the impression of a bleached bullfrog. His face was frozen in a rictus, a grotesque parody of ecstasy.
Eva tore her eyes from the fat man and took in every detail in the room. The markers of Gergana’s youth—stuffed animals and movie posters—were torn or trampled. She saw a broad-shouldered man in one corner of the room. His mouth was a compressed red slash. His bare chest was decorated with a heavy gold chain and thatched with a dense mat of black hair. Shards of pale blue ice, shaped like human eyes, looked from his face and focused on Eva. They froze her in place.
Bare Chest looked down at an old-fashioned wristwatch, and then back to Eva. When he spoke, she felt the paralyzing cold again. “You come to join, little girl?” Bare Chest asked. “I get good money for you. Better than your cow of a sister. Come here.”
Eva could not move. Bare Chest closed the distance between them with feral grace. One moment he was seated, the next he towered over her, a steel-gripped hand wrapped around her left wrist. She was too stunned even to flinch.
Gergana moaned. “Nooo…not her. You promised. Not her,” she croaked.
Bare Chest laughed. “This ugly runt is like a doll. She will fetch good money.” He looked down at Eva, “You want to feel nice like your sister, eh? I give you something to make you fly like the angels.”
Eva looked at Gergana. There were puncture marks on the arms that had held Eva. The face that had looked at Eva with adoration was livid with bruises. The eyes that had cherished Eva were swollen. Eva tugged but Bare Chest kept his easy grip on her wrist.
“Hey, Doran,” Bare Chest called to the fat man. “You want this ugly runt? I let you have her cheap.”
Eva looked up as the man called Doran continued to piston his hips and tightened his grip on Gergana’s neck. Her eyes bulged.
“Don’t mark her face,” Bare Chest snapped, “Now she’s lost value and you have to pay more.” Doran relaxed his grip.
Eva was suspended in terror. Her eyes darted about, desperate to find something she could understand. Torn posters and stuffed toys. Gergana. The fat man. None of it made sense.
Bare Chest reached in his trousers and freed himself. He forced her unresisting left hand down and wrapped the girl’s small fingers around his sex.
Eva said nothing. She merely complied. The room around her started to collapse into a pinpoint and her reason was pulled toward a black hole of fear.
Again, Gergana tried to lift her head. Again, she gasped, “No. Not her. You promised.”
Without taking his predatory gaze from Eva, Bare Chest hissed at Gergana. “Shut up.”
Still, Eva said nothing. She was nearing the event horizon of terror. In a few seconds, she would be lost.
She shut out Gergana’s cries of pain and walled off her own terror. That’s better. Nice and quiet, she thought. Then she heard another sound, one from within, first a murmur, then a tumult. A babble, then a coherent Voice shouted to her, “Fight!”
But how? she whimpered in silence. The Voice said, You’re a scientist. Use what is at hand. How did you stop Papa?
She looked at Gergana and then back to Bare Chest. Her eyes narrowed and her head moved in a slight double-take, as if the obvious solution to an intractable problem had presented itself. Then she nodded: a decision proposed, seconded, and approved by acclamation.
Now Eva spoke with a steady voice. “Nobody calls me a runt. I’m going to kill you.”
“Oh, you think so?” Bare Chest snarled. “For that I will split you open.” He looked back to the fat man and said, “Hey, Doran, I give you the runt when I’m done. No charge. A present from me.”
Eva heard herself shout—or was it something within?—Now!
Eva’s right hand, her free hand, moved unseen under her cape as Bare Chest spoke to the fat man. She slipped her small squeeze bottle out from an inside pocket. One-handed, she flipped the cap open. The action was practiced and smooth, thanks to Papa’s nocturnal visits. She sprayed Bare Chest’s blood-engorged penis. It would be three seconds before his sensitive skin reacted to Eva’s homemade pepper solution. In that time, Eva reached up. In a motion perfected by her encounters with Papa, she sprayed Bare Chest’s eyes. The effect was instant. His eyes reddened, bled, and bulged. Surprise, then agony, replaced his grin. Sightless crimson puddles replaced his ice-blue eyes. Then the oily fluid penetrated the dilated blood vessels in his penis. He screamed. Eva reached up to empty the remainder of the bottle’s sap down Bare Chest’s throat.
He gasped in agony. The pepper-laced oil coated absorbent tissues in his lungs, searing and choking him. His throat began to swell and his yelps of pain trailed off to a rasp. Eva, her right hand still hidden under her cape, dropped the spray bottle and drew her knife. She thrust the four-inch blade, aiming for Bare Chest’s genitals. She’d never used a knife in anger, and she missed her target. But the blade sliced neatly across his groin and severed the femoral artery. The resulting blood loss was instant and catastrophic. Bare Chest was still rubbing his eyes when he collapsed. Blood spurted as he bled out. A bitter stench filled the room as Bare Chest’s bowels relaxed. Eva stabbed again. Her blade penetrated a corpse.
In the moment of Bare Chest’s truncated scream, Doran lost all restraint. He bore down on Gergana. The weight of his body radiated through fat arms. Sausage-sized fingers dug into Gergana’s slender neck. He pressed harder and now she convulsed, her feet moving in a frantic swimmer’s kick, up and down, up and down. Then they were still. Doran grunted and relaxed in his release, Gergana relaxed in hers.
The fat man rolled off the body and towards Eva. She tried to ward him off, but she was drained. Killing Bare Chest had required that she reach deep into a core of rage and muster every bit of her strength. The simple act of lifting an arm was beyond her. Doran shot out one meaty fist and caught her in the temple.
Eva was sitting in a puddle of blood, wide-eyed and mute, when the police arrived eleven minutes after calls from several neighbors brought them up the three flights of stairs to the Rozen apartment. The responding officers found Mama asleep as they cleared the apartment. She could answer none of the questions posed by the police, nor could Papa, once he was located and escorted to the abattoir where Gergana once grew and dreamed.
“What happened?” one of the police asked Eva.
Eva was silent.
“Come on, miss. Something terrible happened here. Tell us what it was so we can find the man who killed your sister.”
Eva was silent, still.
Mama came into the bedroom and screamed. “Tell them what you know!”
Eva looked up at her mother without speaking, and held Mama’s gaze until the woman turned away. I’ll find him, Eva said to herself. Then she tilted her head, as if listening to sound inside. The din was building at the Table.
Eva hunted for her sister’s killer, relentless as a dingo. Her developing computer skills allowed her to glide through police files. She swallowed the coroner’s documents, straining data, clinical observations and conjecture. The lurid crime scene photographs and the stilted clinical language of police reports were a grisly counterpoint to Eva’s memories of the sister who had cared for her, who had offered tenderness when there was none from Mama and Papa.
Within the morbid affidavits, Eva found sketchy information about the fat man called Doran. For days, Eva saw his leering face and watched, again and again, as he strangled Gergana. His grunts echoed in her ears. She spent sleepless nights hunting and took on Mama’s haunted look. Unlike Mama, Eva moved with purpose. She pursued her quarry with a vigor that would shame a detective on his first case. She sought prostitutes sporting bruises. She asked about Doran at every bar, café, and store in Sofia. One of these was Coombs’s antique shop.
“Welcome back, Eva.” Coombs was bareheaded today. He wore a concerned look. “How are you holding up?”
“You know?”
“It was in the news. You’re a very brave young woman.”
“I’m going to get him.”
“I’m sure you will. But Eva, whatever you do, please—come back and see me.”
Three weeks later, Doran’s body was found in the Vladaya River, under the Lion’s Bridge. The skin on his face had a curious blistering, a unimportant detail to the detectives who were happy to close out three investigations—the rape and murder of Gergana Rozen, the assault of Eva Rozen, and the murder of Alexsandar Yorkuv—Bare Chest. They hung this crime on Doran as well. Who else in that apartment could have killed a grown man?
Eva treated Mama and Papa with silent hostility. She broke her silence to indict, try, and convict them as accessories in Gergana’s death. “You must pay,” she ruled.
“We lose our daughter and you threaten us? What do you want?” Mama asked.
“Send me to America. I want to be away from you.”
“Impossible. We have no money. We spent everything for your sister’s funeral.”
Eva stared at her mother and then handed her a brochure for a foreign studies program organized by the Hidden Scholar Foundation. The charity sought brilliant children from the most troubled neighborhoods around the world. These they gathered at magnet schools in the United States. Her school’s principal had suggested the program.
“I will go here. You will submit my application.”
Eva’s stellar academic record bolstered the application as did an embarrassing wealth of recommendations from educators who dreaded her return. Fate smiled. The Hidden Scholar Foundation accepted Eva and provided a stipend for all of her expenses. She would enter a high school in America, in East Los Angeles.
Before she left Sofia, Eva kept a promise and returned to see to Coombs. Today he wore a round flat cap, its small brim snapped shut, and pulled low over one eye. Despite his girth and floral necktie, he looked mysterious, as if his hidden eye held a secret.
“You’re leaving?” Coombs asked.
“How did you know?”
Coombs did not answer but beckoned Eva follow him, and the two walked back into his kitchen area. “Tea?”
She nodded and he directed her to a small three-legged stool near one of his bookshelves. There was a newly-framed composition on the wall facing the Pollock grouping. A woman looked out at the viewer. Midway down the work, the woman blended into another, upside down.
“This reminds me of a playing card,” said Eva, “but the upside-down woman is different.”
“How so?” asked Coombs.
“Well, either the artist isn’t very good or he’s trying to paint two different people. The one on the bottom has big arms and her face is, I don’t know, sort of the same, sort of different.”
“Could it be the same person, but two different ways of showing something about her?”
“I don’t know. Their mouths are similar, and the shape of their heads. But one is so muscular and the other one is like a normal lady. It’s like the same person on different days.”
“Very good, Eva. The painting is called ‘Portrait of My Sister and Picasso Figure.’ The artist is Salvador Dalí. He painted things that he saw in dreams and his imagination.”
“What’s it supposed to mean? That his sister was weak and strong?” Eva asked.
“What’s it mean to you?”
Eva frowned and studied the framed work. “This is a print?”
“Oh, my heavens, yes. What I wouldn’t do to have an original Dalí. He is my favorite artist and his paintings are priceless. But, tell me, what does it mean to you?”
“I like that he could tell you two true stories about the same person. Maybe the woman has two different personalities.”
Coombs nodded approval and said, “Tea’s ready. I’ll get some pastries. Meantime, grab the stool and see if you can find a book on the second shelf from the top. It has a light green binding. It’s called The Secret Garden.
“Here it is,” Eva said. “What’s so good about it?”
“The heroine, Mary Lennox. She reminds me of you. Mary finds a healing garden. I think you need your own secret garden. Please, take the book. There’ll come a time when it might make sense to you. Or if not that one, call me and I’ll find you another.”
Eva examined the book and then replaced it. “Maybe some other time.”
“Please? Humor me. Take the book and read it someday. When you do, call me and tell me I’m a fool. Or ask me for another. I see great things for you, Eva, but I see struggles, too. The better you know yourself, the better you’ll face your struggles.”
“If I read it I’ll let you know.”
At that, Coombs smiled so broadly that his eyes all but disappeared. “My dear Eva, I shall hold you to that promise. And I should be honored if you would consider me a friend.”
Mama and Papa bade no farewell to Eva. Let this new land and its school have her. Mama had come to believe that her baby was a hala, the demon in Bulgarian lore who tries to consume the sun and moon and end the world.
By her thirty-sixth birthday, Eva would fully justify Mama’s concerns.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
WEDNESDAY, MAY 19, 2038
4:00 PM
Eva stared at Jim, waiting for an answer. She heard dogs barking in the kennels. Haven Memorial personnel came and went. Each glanced at her and then looked again, as if to confirm what their eyes had seen. Eva was accustomed to stares and ignored the attention. Anyway, getting Marta and Jim to work with her at NMech was the priority.
“I’ll listen to your proposal, but no promises—even for an old friend. If Marta agrees, where would you start?” Jim asked. “Do you have a project in mind? Where are you going to find the capital to do the research, the manufacturing, and the trials?”
Eva waved away his questions. “All worked out. We can stay profitable and she can attack some of the issues that are important to her. I don’t run a charity, but if she gives me what I need, then she can go help poor people all she wants.”
“Do you mean it, Eva?”
“Ever known me to lie?”
“Not to me. What do you want?”
“Three things,” said Eva. “First,” she held up a stubby index finger. “Give me a control system for the nanomeds, something from a central source. Magnetism or magic, I don’t care. But I need control.”
“Let’s say that’s possible. What else?”
Eva held up a second finger, ticking off her list. “Help me introduce NMech’s first health product.”
Jim looked puzzled. “Medicine is a long-term deal. You’ve got simulations and trials. That could take years.”
“Trust me, it won’t,” Eva replied.
“How can you be so sure?”
“I have a plan.”
Jim chuckled. “The famous Rozen Plan. What’s the third thing?”
“I need your wife. She’ll listen to you. Get her on board.”
“You sure you want to work with her again?” Jim stared. “I thought that you and she—”
“That’s history. Disregard it. I need her. She’s got some weird juju. She takes a walk in the park, comes back with a cure for something. She started by looking for a remedy for her JRA and now she has the largest library of plant-based meds in the world. I know about the work she did in Floresta Amazonica and the Borneo-Mekong. She even has friends in the Dzanga-Sangha Park in the Congo.”
“For two people who haven’t spoken in years, you seem to be up on her career.”
“She knows what plants have medicinal properties. I want that. If it takes public health to get Marta to grace us with her knowledge, then the masses will have their day.”
Jim shrugged. “Eva, this might work. Where will you start? How will you fund the research and the trials?”
Eva held up her hand again, another communications protocol gesture. This time Jim mimicked the gesture. Eva’s cue told Jim that she was about to transmit a file. Jim’s cue indicated willingness to receive. Eva subvocalized the commands to her sleeve. It emitted a focused electronic burst. Jim’s sleeve interrogated to confirm the nature, source, and safety of the transmission, then pinged acceptance.
Eva studied Jim as he peered into a holographic heads-up display that projected from his dataslate. His eyes tracked back and forth as they scanned. Corneal implants, a bit like contact lenses of a prior generation, allowed him to read the holographic text. His eyes widened and narrowed as they pored over the file. His brows pulled down—first puzzled, then annoyed, and then angry.
“Eva. What the hell is this? You call this public health?”
“No, you idiot. It’s exactly what it looks like: a simple over-the-counter remedy to fix a medically unimportant problem that no one has addressed. We don’t need FDA trials for this. Labeling? Public process? Panel review? Yes. But clinical trials? No. The active ingredients are already approved. Just read a little further and you’ll see why I picked this to start.”
Jim shook his head. “Eva, you know something? You can be a real pain in the ass.”
She beamed. It was her habit to get the better of others lest they get the better of her. It wasn’t easy with Jim, but she counted coup.
At first, Jim’s face betrayed no expression as he read on, then he grinned and started to laugh. Eva stiffened. He thinks this is a joke, she thought. She flushed and turned to leave. Now even the quiet Voices were raucous. Mama shrieked in derision.
“No, Eva,” Jim managed to get the words out. “Stop.” He threw an arm around Eva’s shoulders and gave a fraternal squeeze. Eva stiffened for a moment, then softened and leaned into Jim’s half embrace.
“Eva, you’re too much. This is great.” Jim was still chuckling. “I underestimated you. You’re two steps ahead of us, as usual. I’ll talk to Plant Lady tonight.”
Marta Cruz was steeping herbs when Jim palmed open the front door of their Brookline apartment. The low-grade fever was back. Fatigue and pain pulled the muscles in her face tight. She rubbed young stinging nettle leaves on her skin to produce an irritation that brought blood to the surface and reduced the swelling. Then she sipped her tea: false garlic, cascarilla, and chinchona bark. She’d been taught the remedy by her grandmother, her abuela. The brew had little to recommend by way of taste, but it would ease the pain.
“Don’t just stand there,” she said. “Come kiss me.”
Jim smiled and complied.
“Te quiero,” they both murmured. I love you.
“You look tired,” Jim said. “Hard day?”
“The usual,” she said.
Marta had been stricken with JRA—juvenile rheumatoid arthritis—when she was nine. The autoimmune disease provoked swellings, fevers, and rashes. It held a vise grip over her knees, elbows, and hands and lent a slight S-curve to her spine. On the days when it was difficult to stand, she used the herbs Abuela showed her in El Yunque, the rainforest.
Jim embraced her again and the two stood silently, each drawing strength and comfort from the other. “Don’t just stand there. Kiss me again,” Jim said, parroting his wife’s command. He held the embrace and pressed his face into her hair and inhaled. Then he kissed her again.
“Well, big boy, you’re in a good mood. Did you have a good day at work?”
“In fact, I did.”
“Something special?”
“I have something exciting to tell you. But I want you to keep an open mind, okay?”
Marta stiffened in his arms. “Does this something have anything to do with Eva? Did she come to see you today? Friend in need?”
“Marta, please. Just listen.”
“Every time you ask me to keep an open mind, it’s about Eva. That woman is toxic. Did she say that you owed her?” Marta looked at him and shook her head. “You don’t have to say a word. I can see it in your face. Well, you’ve paid your debt just by being her friend.”
“She’s changed. Just hear me out.”
“Changed? I doubt it. The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. And I don’t trust her when she’s around you.”
“Marta—”
“Sorry, but that’s how I feel.”
“If it weren’t for Eva—”
“I know that. But she’s a thief and she’s carrying a torch for my husband. You expect me to welcome her back with open arms?”
“I’m hoping that, finally, you will. What she did was wrong, but she was young.”
The room went silent. Presently, Marta drew in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. She pinched her ear. “Okay. Tell me what she’s up to. Tell me why I should ever work with her again.” Her voice sounded resigned, but she stilled herself and listened.
He began, “You have to admit you two made a formidable team in college. Your work in biology, her work in chemistry, and her business skills? You did some good science.”
“I’m not sure it makes up for the rest. What makes you so sure that Eva won’t do the same thing all over again?”
“There’s no guarantee,” he conceded, “but Eva seems more mature than she was at Harvard. Maybe running a business helped her control herself.”
“No, that was the problem. She wants to control everything, and I don’t want to have to be looking over my shoulder again.”
“Look, Eva is the most driven person we know. When she puts her mind to something, watch out. All we have to do is keep her pointing in the right direction.”
Marta considered. “It’s tempting. Like a jewel heist is tempting. Okay, what’s her grand scheme this time? No promises. Just tell me.”
As Jim started to explain, Marta thought back to Harvard, to Eva, and everything that threatened to take her away from her rainforests. Oh, Abuela, things haven’t gotten much clearer since our summer together. I wish you could tell me what I should do now…
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
EL YUNQUE, PUERTO RICO
APRIL 2022
The night before she left for Puerto Rico—the day after the funeral—thirteen-year-old Marta Cruz asked her father about the old woman’s prediction.
Rafael Cruz didn’t seemed to hear her or had chosen not to answer. Marta thought he looked lost in his own kitchen, gazing without focus around the East Los Angeles apartment. Marta’s awards, drawings, and report cards covered one wall. A montage of photographs of a tropical forest covered another. Father and daughter sat at a worn grouping in the tiny kitchen, a table and three straight-backed, caned chairs. One chair was empty.
Marta moved with grace despite her limp, open-faced despite her sorrow. A halo of glossy black curls framed her pale skin, a remnant of the Spanish conquistadores who mixed their blood with the conquered—her father’s caramel-complected people of Mexico’s northern mountains, her mother’s broad-faced Taíno, the native people of Puerto Rico. A roll of the genetic dice and recessive traits from each bestowed Marta with fair-skinned beauty, a hint of Iberian bronze that would deepen in the sun. Delicate facial bones outlined sharp features. Her eyes, as dark as her father’s, were permanently curious and gave the impression that everything she saw was new.
“When I met your mother she was every bit as beautiful as you. Her hair was glossy, black, and straight. She brushed it one hundred times every night.” He gazed into his memories, then shook his head and turned back to the inescapable present. “That was before the cancer ate through her.” His voice trailed off.
“Dad?” She waited a few moments. “Dad? What about Abuela?”
Marta wanted to get her father talking again. It had been three days since her mother’s death, and he seemed paralyzed with incomprehension. He even seemed oblivious of her own grief. She thought that her future might as well have been buried with her mother.
Elena Cruz had been the daughter of one of the last of the bohique, a medicine woman of Puerto Rico’s Taíno Indians. But Elena looked past the flowers and plants and remedies that grew in the island’s rainforest. Television had shown her a different beauty, ersatz splendor, effortless wealth. A different sun shone in Los Angeles and the forest’s profuse bloom was reduced to a florist’s inventory. Dull smears of crimson replaced the sunset arcs of red, yellow, and violet—the Caribbean’s palette. That was before the night sweats and pain.
“Dad, tell me about when you and Mom met. Tell me about when you were happy. Please, Dad, that’s what I need to hear.” If I have to leave my mother’s grave, I need something to hold onto.
Rafael’s face softened. He looked at her, and for a moment, Marta saw his eyes brighten.
“You know that you’re every bit as beautiful as your mother? No, more beautiful even.”
Marta felt her eyes moisten and wondered when her father would show his own tears. If he would only give in to his grief, then maybe he could see her pain.
“I met her when I was a busboy at a fancy restaurant for los ricos. I hated the white linens I folded before service and the white skin and white teeth of the people around me.”
“Dad—”
“Sorry. But that’s where I met your mother and it is where the story begins. She was the housekeeper for the owner of the restaurant. La señora’s house was in Malibu, by the ocean.”
“One night la señora asked your mother to help in the restaurant. It was her night off. One night every two weeks. But if la señora asked, then who was your mother to say no? I was told to drive her back to Malibu. It was a long drive—two hours!—and I wasn’t being paid for the driving. I knew it wasn’t your mother’s fault, but I was angry and I didn’t speak a word to her, not once during the entire trip.”
“When we arrived in Malibu, your mother pointed to a driveway that climbed up a steep hill from the coast. The house stood up on stilts, balanced on a hillside above the ocean. It looked like a shoebox with legs.”
“I asked her about this crazy house. She told me that the hillside turns to mud when it rains and the houses slide into the ocean unless they are on pilings. I wondered if these people were so rich that they could throw away their houses. The thought made me dizzy.”
He lapsed into silence.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I miss her, too.”
“Oh, mija. My poor Marta.” Rafael reached an arm around his daughter’s shoulders. She shifted to wrap both her arms around him. Minutes passed as they clung to each other.
“I’ll tell you what I remember about Abuela’s prophesy and you can ask her for the rest. I don’t know if it will help. She speaks in riddles.” He thought for a bit and continued. “She’s known all over the island. When a child is sick or an adult is injured, they find her. When a wife can’t conceive, when a farmer loses his strength, they turn to her for one of her herbs. Even the other bohiques come to her for advice. She could cure anything. Anything except Elena.”
Marta stifled a sob, even as her head lay still on her father’s shoulder.
Rafael sighed and kissed her forehead.
“During our wedding ceremony, Abuela took a handful of herbs from an old leather pouch she carries around her neck. She put the dried leaves into a tin can along with a white-hot coal and placed it at our feet. Soon a sweet smoke enveloped us. I breathed it in and started to relax. I did not even feel the hands that lowered me to the ground.”
“I felt your mother’s presence more than I saw her. I saw our lives like two vines, braided strands. Hers was a rich, deep forest-green and mine was the dark color of good earth. Then we saw a new strand, a brilliant gold that outshone everything else. That was you, hija, that was you.”
Rafael shifted to face Marta. He reached and cupped her face. She felt the rough skin of his palms on her smooth cheeks. She hugged him tighter. He wrapped his arms around her and held her to his chest. She felt like she might break any moment.
“The vision—at first it was a beautiful dream. I was elated. But then I saw that this shining golden thread was wrapped with a black fiber that would choke it. That is when the vision ended.”
The shaking started gently. It built within Rafael like water simmering to a boil. For the first time since Elena died, he gave free rein to his grief and sobbed. Marta wondered how he would survive the summer without her. How would she survive? She’d be alone. Why did her mother make her promise? Why was it so important to leave her father and miss the last days of school? To miss the summer?
Elena Cruz’s dying wish was that Marta go to be with Abuela. Marta protested, “How can I leave Dad?” He needed someone, she said, while she thought, Why am I being sent away? But her mother was resolute. “Promise me!” she demanded in a hoarse whisper. “You must go to your abuela. She will help you grow. She will help your legs. Maybe you will learn something from her to help your father. He’s strong and proud but he’s so frightened. Please—go and be with Abuela.”
The flight to San Juan was a day-long course in agony. Her legs twisted in the cramped seats and pain ground through them like slow-moving knives. Gnarled swellings throbbed in her ankles and knees. She had a flu-like fever and a light pink flush dusted her skin in a way that would never be mistaken for a healthy glow. Lines of worry carved a map of fear into her face. She tugged at her black curls and then tucked them behind delicate ears, again and again.
Abuela waited as Marta stumbled into the terminal. Even in the jostling chaos of the crowd, her grandmother stood alone, unperturbed, travelers flowing around her like water around a rock. Marta was exhausted and was grateful to let the old woman take her arm and guide her through the airport.
Neither said a word along the trip to the northeast part of the island. Marta’s breath hitched. If I start to cry now, I don’t think I could stop.
The trip southeast to Abuela’s home brought them to a quiet haven. They took a shared taxi, a carro publico, out of crowded San Juan to an area just outside of Fajardo, in the northeast. As dusk fell, they passed a glowing bay, lit from within by microscopic creatures. Marta was too tired to consider the natural wonder before her. Its cold, green glow looked to Marta like an entrance into a world beyond. A chorus of tiny tree frogs peeped a cheerful welcome to the unhappy girl. Marta stumbled behind Abuela along a path that seemed invisible until the old woman pointed the way. She barely noticed Abuela’s cabin as the old woman helped her into night-clothes and then into a narrow bed. Marta was asleep in an instant.
Despite the quiet night she slept fitfully. Her face was a mask of pain, and her fever waxed as full as the equatorial moon. The next morning Abuela prepared a simple meal, cornmeal cereal, fruit, and coffee. Marta picked at her food and stared at the bowl.
The small, wizened figure stood still save a crooning voice. “Heee-jaaa,” the old woman intoned, stretching out the vowels: child. A single word carrying six decades of love and wisdom.
“Hija…mira.” Look.
“At what?”
Abuela touched her hand to Marta’s heart.
“At my shirt? At the button?” The girl’s voice cracked. She regretted the sarcasm.
“Estás tan airada.” You are so angry.
“I’m just tired.”
Abuela pointed to Marta’s clenched fist.
“Why didn’t you come, Abuela? Mom needed you. Now Dad is, I don’t know, lost. He doesn’t think straight.”
Abuela said nothing. She took Marta’s hand and began, gently, to uncurl her fingers.
“There’s nothing you can do! Look at me. I have JRA. Do you even know what that is? It’s juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and it’s not going to go away.” She sobbed into her grandmother’s bosom. “What am I doing here? I miss her so much.”
Abuela reached into the same leather pouch that she had worn at Rafael and Elena’s wedding. It was the size of her fist and as worn as her sun-wrinkled brown skin. She took a handful of herbs she had picked at dawn—bright green leaves and deep lavender flowers—and placed them into boiling water as the girl’s tears spilled. A savory fragrance enveloped Marta.
“Drink this,” she commanded gently. Marta drank the liquid with a grimace. Warmth soon suffused her legs and they seemed to unlock, as if from their own volition.
Marta felt herself relax. “What was that?”
“The plant is called by many names. Here we call it ajos sacha or false garlic. It helps with swellings. The pain will leave you for a little while and you can walk with me in the forest to meet Yocahu. Hija, come with me,” Abuela beckoned.
“Who’s Yocahu?”
“You will meet him. El Yunque is his home. It is named for him.”
Marta felt lighter. Her legs lost their unsteady gait and she moved more easily. The two women entered the rainforest. A lush green canopy stilled the wind, and the sea’s gentle lapping was a distant obbligato, rhythmic counterpoint to the caws and twitters of the forest’s exotic birds. The ground was covered by soft mulch, centuries of decayed leaves that muted their footsteps. Golden sunlight refracted through the trees overhead, bursting here and there into a rainbow of colors. Angle lizards skittered across the ground and up the trees. Marta could taste salt in the moist sea air and her skin cooled as the fever abated. She drew in an easy breath and was no longer hunched in pain.
“What’s happening to me?”
“The pain leaves you and you are free to know yourself,” Abuela said. “It is a gift from Yocahu.”
“Who is this Yocahu?” Marta repeated. She felt lightheaded.
“He is the god of the forest, El Yunque. His healing plants are here.”
“Will this cure me?”
Abuela walked in silence before she spoke. “I do not know. I will tell you the names of Yocahu’s plants. I will tell you their stories. The rest you must find out for yourself.”
“Are there other gods here?”
“There are many, including the enemy, Juricán. He is the god of the hurricane. He is an angry god and even strikes those who walk with him.”
“I haven’t felt like this in a long time. I wish my doctor knew about your medicine.”
Abuela laughed, a pleasant sound, curiously basso. “It is not my medicine. But you are right. Hospital doctors do not know much about Yocahu’s plants. You could teach them.”
“Me?” objected Marta. “I’m just a kid.”
“Yes, but what becomes of children? They become adults. What becomes of adults? Do they follow their hearts or are they filled with discontent? Why not do what’s in your heart?”
“That’s a kid’s question?”
“Hija, it is the most important question. It is one that adults lack the courage to ask. Yes, this is very much a child’s question.”
They walked amid the plants and insects. Abuela touched Marta’s arm. “Be careful not to step on bibajagua, the ant. He is a friend to the forest, but he can bite you.”
Now Marta laughed, thin and reedy. “I’m not worried about an ant.”
“Why not?”
“Look at it. Why would I care about something so small?”
“What about you? You are small. Your legs give you pain. Why would anyone care about something as small as you?”
“I’m a person, not an ant,” said Marta.
“Is there a difference?” asked Abuela.
They walked further. From time to time, Abuela pointed to a flower or a shrub and explained how she used the plants’ healing parts, the bark or leaves or roots or petals.
“How do you know all this?”
“I am a bohique. A medicine woman. I am Taíno,” the old woman said.
“I thought there were no more Taíno people. Didn’t Columbus wipe them out?”
“Perhaps we are another part of the forest’s secrets. Columbus was the first Spaniard to find our island but he did not stay here. It was Ponce de Leon who enslaved us and caused so many deaths. He traded disease for gold. When we rose in protest he slaughtered us.”
“Did he kill the Taíno?” Marta asked.
“Not all.”
“But if there are still Taíno, why do the books say that they’re all gone?”
“If there are no survivors, then there is no one to demand justice. So the records say we are no more. The records do not mention the places of the Taíno, like Orocovis, Caguas, or Yauco. Even in New Jersey and Florida you can find Taíno. The scientists say that there is Taíno blood in the Puerto Rican people, but they do not admit that the Taíno still live.”
“How come nobody knows about this?” Marta asked.
“I know. Now you do, too.”
They walked farther into the forest, past waterfalls and flowers, trailing coral reefs, beaches, lagoons, and mangroves. Marta heard the gentle cry of birds and the song of the tiny coquí frogs that had greeted her the night before. Abuela paused and Marta considered the old woman. A faint smile crossed her wrinkled face, and Marta saw something profound in her eyes.
“Listen well,” Abuela explained. “Remember bibajagua, the ant. If you learn how to care about him, you will learn how to care for yourself.”
“But that’s just an ant,” Marta said. “And he’s such a little thing,”
“He’s a little thing but precious.”
“I don’t know much about ants. They seem to do okay without me taking care of them.”
“A bohique does not have to care for everything but about everything. If you are going to care about the little precious things, then you must even care about the little deadly things.”
“What? Like, snakes? If I see a snake, we’ll find out how good your medicine is. I would run so fast!” Marta laughed again.
Abuela smiled with her. “How will you know the difference between the precious things and the deadly things?”
“I know what a snake looks like.”
“Can you see the snake’s heart?” Abuela asked. “What about bibijagua? Is he precious or deadly? His bite is painful. A colony can strip the leaves from an entire crop overnight. But bibijagua brings fallen leaves underground and makes the soil rich. So if we try to stop bibijagua because of his bite, then we lose the life in the soil. You must be able to see the whole of bibijagua to know if he is a precious thing or a deadly thing. It is the same with people.”
Abuela stopped and faced her granddaughter. She put her hands on Marta’s shoulders and held her firmly. “The precious things and the deadly things grow together in this world. They grow together inside people. Can you destroy one without destroying the other? Look at yourself. Your mother was so sweet, but helpless. Your father is so strong, but confused. But could you exist without both of them? Your father’s strength will give you courage to cope with your pain, and your mother’s blood will help you be a healer.
Marta walked and considered her grandmother’s words. Would she be crushed by her pain and her loneliness? She had no real friends. Other children ran and played but she was slow and lumbered. Her mother had the patience to walk with her, but her mother was gone. Maybe she was just an ant. But the tiny ant was powerful.
As Marta considered bibijagua, she felt a small change inside herself. It was as if the tumblers of a lock within her began to move. Their movement was fractional, but the distance they travelled was unimportant. It was their alignment that would let her grow despite her disability. Without realizing it, Marta determined that she would survive. She would find a way to thrive.
The old woman continued. “Here is the almacigo tree. You can use it to cure a stomach ache or diarrhea. And see this one that grows right next to it? This is the tartago, also for your stomach. Here is the cojobana tree. Her seeds will give you a vision to see the future.”
They passed through the forest, returning as the shadows lengthened. While her grandmother prepared supper, Marta fell into a pain-free sleep, her first deep slumber in months.
The hours and days and weeks passed for Marta. The soles of her feet toughened and so did her will to survive. Her skin had bronzed and radiated health. Marta was an apt pupil, hungry for knowledge. She learned the names of the flowers and trees and birds and animals and insects. She learned what leaves might cure a headache or fever and which ones might still a child’s crying. She watched intently as Abuela prepared breakfast and dinner. Soon, Marta prepared the meals, then the medicines. She was becoming a bohique.
As the pain in her legs diminished, she stood straighter and walked with confidence despite her awkward gait. Her neck looked too slender to support her head but Marta held her upper body erect, perhaps to compensate for her limp. She tossed her raven hair and it danced on her shoulders. Soon she would brush it to a luster and experiment with style, but for now she treated it with a child’s abandon.
As the pigment in her skin deepened under the equatorial sun, her teeth shone all the whiter. A beautiful smile escaped the custody of a once-perpetual frown. Marta radiated delight and unrestrained curiosity as she learned the lore of her people.
The days shortened just a little as the tropical sun moved to what passes for autumn so close to the equator. The temperature remained constant. Most of the season’s changes were subtle but Marta saw them. As the summer waned, Marta’s stay with Abuela drew to a close.
“Abuela, I don’t want to leave.”
“But children must go to school,” Abuela said. “And you will have a special school.”
Marta had been chosen to attend a charter school in East Los Angeles. Students from around the world would join Marta in an experimental school program created by the Hidden Scholar Foundation. It sought children who had two things in common: poverty and brilliance.
“When will I see you again, Abuela?” the girl said, choking back tears as she packed for the long flight home.
“You may come and visit anytime but you can see me whenever you look at the trees or the sky. I walk with Yocahu and so do you,” the old woman said.
Marta embraced her grandmother and hugged her fiercely. “I love you so much, Abuela. Thank you for teaching me.”
“You’re welcome, child. Remember what you learned. Remember bibijagua, the ant.”
“I promise I will. Abuela, before I have to go, please tell me one thing. When you married Mom and Dad, they had a vision. What did it mean?”
Abuela took Marta’s hands in her own. The carro publico was waiting to take her to the airport but Marta would be the first passenger and the driver was in no hurry. Marta could still hear the coquí frogs and the rhythmic whisper of the Caribbean’s small waves.
“Juricán will touch you,” the old woman said. “I do not know how. This is the meaning of the golden vine with the black strand. Juricán will come, not as a spirit, but in flesh and blood. You will have your own protector with his own knowledge and he will be tempted by Juricán. He may follow the hurricane or he may not. And a golden strand will grow from you as well, one that will know both Yocahu and Juricán.
“But you must take the knowledge you found here to the doctors of your world. These plants will disappear and the knowledge of the bohique will be lost. You must bring Yocahu’s gifts to the doctors of your world.”
Marta thought about Abuela’s words to her. A child teaching scientists about Yocahu? A battle with Juricán? It seemed farfetched.
“Abuela, the doctors aren’t going to listen to me when I tell them about plants. And how am I going to fight a god?”
“Hija, you know almost as much as any bohique. Yocahu has given you this knowledge and you learned it well. My heart sings to watch you grow.”
“I can’t say that your prophesy makes me feel very optimistic,” said Marta. The sarcasm that ebbed over the summer crept back into her words. “Let’s see, I’ve got disease from my mother, a helpless father, and a battle with the God of Evil in my future. Is that it, Abuela?”
“No, hija. There is one other thing,” the old woman said.
“Oh, great,” Marta muttered and rolled her dark eyes.
Abuela smiled. She reached behind her neck and her fingers worked for a moment to untie a knot in a leather cord. It was attached to a leather pouch she carried between her breasts, next to her own medicine bag. This one was older, tanned more deeply. A delicate image was burnt into the leather, a branch with twenty-four long, thin leaves. Marta recognized the leaves of the cojobana tree, giver of visions.
“I was saving this for the right moment. I think that is now.” The old woman grinned.
“This was my mother’s. Now it is yours. This is part of your legacy, too. Pain and healing dwell within you. Give each one its voice, but do not let one drown out the other. And do not let these voices drown out your own voice.” The old woman’s arms encircled Marta and hung the pouch around her neck.
Marta hugged her grandmother and breathed in deeply. She closed her eyes and fixed the image of the twinned vines of her parents’ legacy. Her meditation shifted to the golden strand of her own life, and of the one to come. She visualized growth, impervious to the black filament. Her vision expanded to include the rich soil of El Yunque nurturing the roots of her vine. She felt powerful, connected. The spirit of the forest was substantiated within her. Then she walked away to the publico with grace and purpose and turned back once more.
Abuela called out, “Hija. Your mother was always proud of you.”
Then the old woman vanished into the forest.
PASADENA, CALIFORNIA
APRIL 2022
Jim Ecco, age thirteen, and Ringer, age three. A boy and his dog. On the good days, Jim and Ringer visited the Pasadena library. Ringer waited at the entrance and ignored slinking cats, curious dogs, nervous passersby, restaurant aromas, and branch-borne squirrels, although that was difficult even for a Good Dog. On the better days, Jim could slip into the passages of the books he brought home on his dataslate or on paper, and his own world disappeared. On the bad days, Jim and Ringer curled up together and listened for the weight of Dad’s approaching footsteps.
Ringer was a mutt, Heinz 57, as far from the show ring as a stevedore from a fashion runway. She was part terrier, brave and independent, part German Shepherd, protective. Her coarse undercoat resisted brushing and shed uncaring torrents of light brown hair. Jim’s mother vacuumed it from the sofa and the carpets. She cleaned hair in the kitchen and the family room and especially from Dad’s chair.
Jim was thirteen but displayed few marks of maturation. Classmates teased him for his soft looks. His Adam’s apple, cheekbones, and jaw line were still undefined, and framed by a mop of sandy brown hair, as unresponsive in its way as Ringer’s.
Mom called Jim. “Clean up before your father gets home. Let’s have a nice dinner tonight.”
Mom’s voice sounded strained and Jim guessed Dad had called ahead, in a mood. Galvin Ecco, his father, was an attorney. Lawyers in the movies were smart and always in control. Lately, Dad was not in control. He stared and snapped, and then there would be a reckoning. Sometimes just a slap, sometimes more.
When Dad talked about law, he was at ease. “A thing is, or it is not,” was his favorite saying. Mom said he was too rigid and that was bad for business. Jim didn’t know who was right but that more and more, Dad lost his cases, his clients, and his temper.
“Jimmy. Clean up now before your father gets home.”
Too late. Dad arrived. He walked as stiff as a man with a rash and wore a dark navy suit with faint white pinstripes and frayed cuffs. His hair was shaped into a precise crew cut that would please a drill sergeant. Its color reminded Jim of a thunder cloud.
Jim watched as Dad looked left and right, peering over his glasses. “I can’t control the courts,” he often said, “but the damned house better be clean.”
Dad’s first words to Jim were, “Is your room neat?”
“Neat as a pin.”
“I’ll be the judge of that. I expect your room to be immaculate. You know what immaculate means?”
Jim said nothing. Housekeeping was a herculean task for the thirteen-year-old dreamer, and his father exacted a military standard.
Pinstriped dad and dungareed lad marched to the child’s room. Jim’s bed was in the far corner. Wall-mounted bookshelves crowded a desk and straight-backed chair. A nightstand supported a reading light and Jim’s current printed fare, a pile of old graphic novels, tales of amazing feats and dark retribution. Ringer lay on the Berber carpet. Mom had said that dog hair would be less noticeable on the tan and grey weave, but the carpet’s geometric pattern seemed to showcase every bit of dirt or scrap of paper, every piece of furniture even a degree off-square.
Two years ago Jim enjoyed a larger room in a larger house. Then the family moved into smaller quarters. When Jim asked why they were moving for the second time in as many years, Mom smiled and said, “We’re saving for the future.” She took too long to answer.
When Dad walked in the room, Ringer’s shoulder muscles bunched, her weight shifted to her hindquarters and her ears pulled forward. Now she looked more like a shepherd, protective, curling half into a prey bow, rather than her happy-go-lucky play bow.
Jim fidgeted while Dad inspected. The books were arranged on the shelves, from tallest to smallest: Dad’s Rule. School supplies in a pencil cup, pens down and pencils up. Dad’s Rule again. Clothing was put away. No litter on the carpet.
Then Dad looked under the bed and found a tangled clump of dog hair. Jim didn’t think anyone else in the world would care but Dad acted as if it were a malignant mass poised to metastasize, to cover Jim’s room, the whole damned house, with canine detritus.
Some other day Dad would understand that under the bed doesn’t count. He would sigh, shake his head, and dismiss the furry tangle. Or Mom might intercede, “Galvin, the boy has homework. Let me finish so he can get to his studies.” Dad might let it go. Or maybe not, and Jim might hear them argue—or more. They were like dancers in a tango of insults and hands. He could picture Mom. Her words were her weapons. She leaned into Dad’s blows, to store each impact and then return his fury with her own taunts and barbs.
Dad held the offensive find between the tips of his thumb and forefinger. He glared stony-faced at Jim. Ringer’s ears pricked.
“You too lazy to vacuum?”
Dad held the mass, extended his hand, and dropped it back on the carpet. “You think this is clean?” He swept his right arm across Jim’s desk, knocking pens and pencils to the floor.
“I’m sorry. I’ll do it again.”
Too late. Dad’s face reddened and he picked up his son, his flesh and blood, the vessel of his hopes and dreams. With one arm around the boy’s chest, the other around his legs, Dad held him head first like a SWAT officer might hold a battering ram, poised at a felon’s front door. He swept the boy across the desk. Jim’s books, tallest to smallest, scattered.
“You damned well better learn to clean up after that goddamn dog.”
It’s not Ringer’s fault, Jim thought, but kept silent—no way to know how Dad might react.
That was the problem. Jim never knew what to expect from his father. He thought of last summer’s family vacation. They drove the rocky central California coast through Big Sur, north toward San Francisco. The narrow ribbon of road hugged steep cliffs and presented spectacular ocean views. Jim peered down to the Pacific and back to the car’s odometer, counting down the miles to Monterey. The Monterey Bay Aquarium drew him as surely as a siren’s call. Never mind that the Parkfield earthquake destroyed half of the collection just nine months earlier. The Kelp Forest survived and Jim was eager to see the thirty-foot fronds sway in an oversized tank.
What set off Dad that morning? Maybe it was the traffic or something between his parents. They seemed to have a special language—one with unspoken shades of anxious meaning, an emotional carrier wave under plain words. As Dad instructed his car to pay for parking, Jim urged his father to hurry. There was a whole forest of kelp to see. Dad turned and slapped him. Not too hard, nothing that would leave a mark. Dad called that his Simmer Down Slap.
From up the street, someone yelled out, “Hey! Leave the kid alone!”
Dad ignored it, but not Jim. This was a family affair. Before he could stop himself, Jim yelled back, “He can hit me anytime he wants!”
Uh-oh. There’s going to be heck to pay for that one. But Dad’s shoulders drooped. “Never mind,” he said. “Let’s go see the kelp. Just don’t talk like that again, okay?”
Dad was quiet that day, even kind. But that was Dad. He might beat Jim with a belt, and often did, but then he was quick-witted, engaging, eager to explain how the world worked.
But not today. Not when Jim failed inspection.
As he left Jim’s room, Dad aimed a kick at the Ringer’s hindquarters. The dog scampered out of reach.
“Please don’t hurt Ringer. It’s not her fault.” Frustration and rage were boiling inside of him and he struggled to control his voice.
“Don’t you tell me what do!” He turned and stepped back toward the dog.
Too much. Jim took three fast steps to stand in front of his father and screamed, “DON’T YOU TOUCH MY DOG!”
Dad looked startled. “Or what? How are you gonna stop me?”
Jim’s hands shook but he clenched them into fists. Dad raised one hand in a warning but Jim stood his ground. After all, there is something about a boy and his dog.
“Get to work. Clean your goddam room.”
The door slammed behind Dad and Jim knelt to hug Ringer.
“It’s okay, girl. It’s okay.” He shook as the adrenaline in his bloodstream tried to activate every muscle in his body.
Jim caressed the dog’s long, smooth muscles, running his hands from her withers to her hips. Ringer’s ears moved back as the effleurage calmed them both. The simple act of stroking the dog—and being stroked by the boy—triggered a release of oxytocin in both the boy and his dog. The hormone enhanced their bond and calmed them.
Jim stroked Ringer from shoulders to brisket, collecting dog hair as he went. He twisted it into a ball so that it would not litter his room, adding it to the offensive mass discovered under the bed. Later that evening Jim pushed the clump up into the muffler of Dad’s car. The next time his father drove the car long enough for the metal to heat, the dog’s hair would smoke. No harm to the car, no evidence of Jim’s payback—save the stench of burning hair, brief enough to be inexplicable, strong enough to make his father gag.
At bedtime, Ringer curled at the foot of Jim’s bed. Mornings, Jim woke to find Ringer’s muzzle perched inches from his face. Did she stand sentry all night? How else would Jim awaken every morning to the sight of two soft, brown eyes?
One morning, he awoke slowly, wrapped in the helpless pleasure of sleep’s immobility. He imagined that he was an Indian papoose, swaddled and strapped to a cradleboard. Safe. Ringer was still at the foot of the bed. Jim’s breathing changed as he emerged into wakefulness. Ringer stood, stretched, front legs down and hindquarters up, her back bowed. She took her customary post, snout resting lightly on Jim’s bed.
She hears my breathing change. She hears me wake up. That’s how she does it. What else does she notice? he wondered. I’ll watch her and learn.
He learned to react with Ringer. She alerted him to the subtle signals of Dad’s anger, like the tightening of his neck muscles. When Dad was in a mood, Ringer’s ears snapped erect. Then Jim saw his father’s skin flush with anger as clearly as a lighthouse beacon. He saw the flare of nostrils, the widening of his pupils, the shift in balance. Dad had a tell, like a poker player staring too long at a hole card. If Dad rubbed the back of his neck when he was angry, then he was about to lose his temper.
Ringer reacted to Mom, too. Why? Mom never yelled or hit. She might scold Dad—mostly about money—but she never lost her temper. But Ringer’s ears pitched forward anyway and now Jim noticed the tension in her smile.
Sometimes she provoked Dad. Her words weren’t so bad and she never used swears. But Ringer reacted and Jim listened. He heard acid-laced tones, derision in Mom’s voice. When she combined a certain intonation with a particular cant to her body, Dad would react, hands flying. It was as if he had a mad switch and she closed the circuit. Then Dad struck.
Jim learned to move like his dog. Ringer’s head was like an arm whipping this way or that to deliver a canine mouth at play or prey. Jim’s arms learned to deliver his hands as well. Ringer’s mouth was both delicate and powerful. He could carry a baby bird, fallen from its nest, or grind a marrow bone to a sliver. Jim’s hands learned tenderness and anger. The boy who had discovered every plane, curve, and hollow of Ringer’s form began to learn the strengths of his own form and the weak spots of others.
Now Jim could dodge Dad’s slaps and blows. But a slight, thirteen-year-old boy is no match for an adult. Jim was fast, but he would tire, and Dad never got smaller. The odds favored size, and the day before Easter vacation, Jim’s luck ran out. He was cornered in his room.
“Where you gonna go now, little man?”
Jim checked Dad’s hands. They were open and empty. Ringer was not in the room. He faced Dad alone.
“I asked you a question. Where you gonna go now?” Dad lunged and Jim ducked under his father’s arms.
“Have it your way. But remember this is my damned house.” Dad’s mouth curled into a smile and then left the room. Later, Jim would remember that the smile never reached his eyes.
Jim whistled for Ringer and they slipped into the Pasadena evening. When they returned, Jim opened his bedroom door to a near-empty space. His books were gone. His reading lamp was gone. There was a cot in place of his own bed. Even Ringer’s bed was gone. His father stood in the doorway.
“You think you’re smart. Well, remember that this is my house and I pay for everything.”
Jim’s last thought before the tears fell was, Well, I guess I can go to the library. He felt helpless, powerless, diminished by his father’s insult, “Little Man.” Something’s got to give, he thought, or I’m going to go crazy.
When he regained his composure he walked into the kitchen, opened a drawer, and removed a box of toothpicks. He placed two of the wooden slivers in his breast pocket and slipped into the night, blind to the world around him, operating on habit alone.
Had Jim looked up, he could have traced the forms of the constellations. It was early evening and he might have looked for Libra. But eyes were cloaked in anger and his vision fixed into a narrow spot on the sidewalk just in front of him. On another evening, he would have delighted in the scents of Southern California’s abundant flora, but tonight, even the night-blooming jasmine smelled cloying. He heard neither the whisper of the evening breeze, nor any sound except blood pounding in his ears.
Dad’s workplace was two miles away, thirty minutes at a schoolboy’s angry pace. He approached the front door of the storefront office and removed one of the toothpicks, broke it in half, and inserted a piece into the tumbler mechanism of the door’s lock. He used the other toothpick to push the broken piece in as far as possible. Tomorrow Dad would be locked out of his office and the entire lock would have to be removed and replaced.
A security camera recorded every move.
The next day, the last school day before Easter vacation, a pulse still twitched in Jim’s neck. He ignored greetings from teachers and students. He ignored the bells that signaled the change in classes, navigating by rote. He ignored his lunch and moved to his afternoon classes with all the focus of a man in a coma.
The trance broke during math class. The teacher was administering a quiz. Jim sat unmoving.
“Mr. Ecco, would you like to join the rest of us in the exercise?” She smiled.
Jim did not reply.
“Mr. Ecco? Jim? Are you all right?” Her voice was bright, but with a note of concern.
The teacher walked down the aisle to Jim’s desk. When she reached out to touch the boy’s shoulder, he saw his father’s hand. He heard his father’s voice. Jim’s arm flew up and knocked aside the teacher’s hand. In the same motion, Jim stood, too quickly, and his desk tumbled over. The edge scraped down the woman’s shin. It was painful but not damaging. Still, it would cost Jim the rest of the school year.
Jim looked at his teacher. “I’m sorry,” he said, and left the classroom. He walked home, into his bare room, ignored the cot and lay down on the floor with Ringer, unmoving, until the police arrived.
On the following Tuesday, school principal Danny Sorenson sat in a tan club chair that was browned from use, the man’s form outlined in darkened leather. Sorenson was in that indeterminate middle age when his belly had begun a winning battle with his hair for prominence. He wore a red bow tie, a white shirt, and a forest-green cardigan sweater vest and rumpled khaki pants.
Jim sat on a matching sofa, opposite the administrator. He’d been there before. Sorenson had asked about Jim’s home life, had reached out to Jim and tried to find some activity that would help Jim channel his frustrations. “You’re a smart kid,” Sorenson said. “Your aptitude tests say you’ve got a lot of potential.”
But today the conversation would be about survival, not potential.
“Jim, you’re in a pickle,” Sorenson said, not unkindly.
“I’m sorry,” said Jim.
“The incident with Ms. Rice was reported. She says that it was an accident that the desk struck her leg, but when you hit her arm, technically, you assaulted her. Can you tell me why you did that?”
“I don’t know.”
“The police are considering dropping the charges against you.”
“Whatever.”
“No, not whatever. Jim, this is serious. Your father is waiting outside. He needs to be part of this conversation but I wanted to talk to you first. Jim, what’s going on at home?”
Jim said nothing.
“Okay,” Sorenson shrugged. “Let’s get your father.”
When Sorenson brought Galvin Ecco into the office, the attorney glared at the principal, glared at his son, looked around the office and, for good measure, glared at Sorenson’s framed credentials.
“Mr. Ecco, you’re an attorney. Can you explain to your son how serious this is?”
“No.”
“No?”
“It’s his mess. Let him fix it. Are we done here?” Galvin rose to leave.
“No, Mr. Ecco, we are not done here. Please sit down. There’s a second problem, one that involves you directly.”
“I don’t like the tone of your voice,” Galvin said.
“Sir, I’m sorry you’re upset. But your son is going to be expelled. It’s school policy.”
“That’s his problem. He also vandalized my office. Did he tell you that?”
“It sounds like he’s pretty angry about something. Do you know what that might be?” Sorenson asked.
“I don’t know and I don’t care.”
“Mr. Ecco, the question is, what are you and Mrs. Ecco going to do about Jim’s education? If we can show a plan for rehabilitation that includes keeping him in school, the police will drop the charges. But he’s not going to be able to return to this school.”
“So, what’s going to happen?” Jim asked.
“Well. That’s why we’re here,” Sorensen said.
Jim’s father raised his voice, “He vandalized my office, he hit the teacher. He’s a big boy, he can pay the price. He’s got to learn some discipline.”
“Mr. Ecco, can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Settle down for a few minutes? Every family has problems. But yours cross over into my school and you can’t just wash your hands of the matter. Your son is thirteen years old, and you’re responsible for him.”
“What the hell am I supposed to do? He crossed the line with this stunt.”
“I’m trying to help, Mr. Ecco,” Sorenson said quietly. Then, a bit sterner, “Now please listen.” Galvin’s face colored. He opened his mouth and closed it, then opened and closed it again. For the first time since his books were stripped from his room, Jim became animated. A half-smile turned up one corner of Jim’s mouth.
Sorenson looked at Jim’s father. “Here’s my proposition. I’ve arranged a transfer to another school district where your son can start fresh.”
“Where?”
“Los Pobladores High in East Los Angeles.”
“East L.A.? Some ghetto school? Let’s see how smart he can be down there.”
“Actually, Mr. Ecco, Los Pobladores would be a good school for Jim. It’s one of the schools sponsored by the Hidden Scholar Foundation.”
“What’s that?” asked Jim.
“The Foundation takes good students from poor neighborhoods around the world. It places them in low-income neighborhood schools in the U.S. and then provides funding to those schools. The Hidden Scholar Foundation is the creation of the philanthropist, Robert Murray Herbertson.”
“The rich guy?” Jim asked.
“Yes, the rich guy.” Sorenson stroked his chin and his eyes went back and forth between the father and son. Then he fixed his gaze on Galvin. “Mr. Ecco, your son won’t be a Foundation scholar, but he will benefit from the Foundation’s programs. I’ve arranged for him to transfer to Los Pobladores. I know the principal there and we worked out an arrangement. We do this from time to time when a change of location might benefit a good student.”
“Jim is not a good student,” said Galvin.
“He’s an underachiever, but he has a lot of potential.”
“Well, I’m not driving him all the way down to East L.A. every day. And there’s no train from Pasadena to East Los Angeles.”
“Actually, sir, in view of the, uh, tension, at home, we’ve arranged for him to board with a local family—with your permission.”
“What about my dog?” said Jim. “What about Ringer?”
Sorenson sighed. “You’re going to have to work that out. Right now I’m trying to keep you out of the court system.” Sorenson unrolled his dataslate. Jim saw his school records. Sorenson continued, “Jim, I think you can make something of yourself, but you have an attitude problem. In the last nine months, you’ve been in three fights with other students.”
“It wasn’t my fault! I never start it.”
“I know, but each time you could have walked away.”
Jim started to protest but Sorenson held up a hand. “Stop. You have an attitude problem that’s getting you in trouble. Part of the plan to clear your record involves that you be placed in another home for the school year, if your father consents. Let’s see if that makes a difference.”
“Mr. Ecco, if we take this action, the courts will be satisfied. Your son will not end up with a juvenile record, and you avoid liability if the teacher seeks damages. As an attorney, I’m sure you can see the benefit to you.”
Turning back to Jim, Sorensen said. “Son, no matter what your father decides, you’re out for the rest of the year. You’re going to have to attend summer school to make up the days you miss here.” Jim heard a tone of finality in the principal’s voice.
“That’s not fair,” Jim protested.
“Enough! You assaulted a teacher. I know it was an accident, and you didn’t hurt anybody. But it was reported to the police, and this is the way it’s going to be.”
“Who reported it?” asked Jim.
“What difference does that make? There was a class full of students, and students talk. Ms. Rice needed some treatment for the scrape on her leg. So, there’s the infirmary. Someone might have been walking by. It doesn’t matter now. Keeping you out of the court system is the most important thing. Mr. Ecco, will you allow Jim to board with another family so he can attend Los Pobladores? If you agree, Jim’s record gets expunged and you won’t have to worry about a lawsuit.”
Dad said, “Yes. Are we done now?”
“Yes, Mr. Ecco, you and I are done.” Sorenson sighed again. It had been a long day, a long weekend, one that started when he picked up the phone, called the juvenile authorities, and arranged for Jim’s arrest and for his reassignment to a different school and a calmer home.
Jim completed summer school at Los Pobladores. In the fall, on the first day of classes, his attention was drawn to another freshman student, otherworldly and beautiful. She spoke with a Puerto Rican accent and walked with a limp.
EAST LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
SEPTEMBER 6, 2022
At 7:30 AM, Tuesday, September 6, 2022, two students emerged from the Hidden Scholar Foundation car. The girl with the black hair craned her neck to take in the neighborhood, and then walked slowly towards the schoolyard. The smaller girl walked with an expression that showed simultaneous determination and disinterest.
Across the street, a trio of older students slouched outside a diner. They watched the two girls with undisguised hostility, appearing to agree on a course of action with raised eyebrows and nods. Their postures radiated contempt, and patrons emerging from the diner gave them a wide berth.
They were bullies with a grudge. Any of the eleven hundred or so returning students knew to avoid the stocky, pock-faced leader of the three who called himself Padron, ‘Boss’, as well as his cohorts, Frank Chung and Jamie Ortiz. Their prey were students from the Hidden Scholar Foundation. Targets of opportunity.
Padron had dull obsidian stones for eyes, broad cheekbones, and generous lips set in a puffy frown. Chung was stocky, his head and eyebrows shaven. He had a pictogram tattooed on his left cheek, a triangle containing a lightning bolt, the symbol for high voltage. Ortiz was tattooed with a rosy profusion of adolescent acne. All three affected a retro look, wearing long-sleeved shirts buttoned at the collar and low-slung baggy pants.
Padron acted first. He broke off from his two friends, crossed the street, and jogged around the building to confront the girls as they walked towards the school yard. Chung and Ortiz peeled themselves off the diner’s wall and followed the two girls. They paced themselves to catch the girls in a pincer. Padron would approach from the front, they would close in behind.
A slight, tousle-haired boy stood outside of the diner with a companion. They also shared an easy familiarity and communicated with looks and gestures. The boy’s gaze lingered on the girl walking with pride and a limp. He walked towards them. The boy’s companion remained, comfortable where she was.
A mural that covered the length of the building drew the girls’ attention. It was a panorama that depicted the community’s history, starting with the arrival of forty-four pobladores, the original settlers of Los Angeles. It was a history of the city, of the neighborhood, and celebrated the birth of the high school. It was natural to walk past the colorful wall. Natural, but dangerous. That side of the building was windowless, perfect for muralists—and predators.
“Let’s go look,” said Marta Cruz as she turned towards the mural.
Eva Rozen dismissed it. “Who cares? Is painting. I want science lab.” Her speech carried a guttural cadence that marked her Slavic pedigree.
“Well, I want to see it. You have all year to see the lab.”
“You have all year for pictures.”
“Yes, but classes don’t start for a few minutes yet and we can look at the mural now. Let’s go.” Eva shrugged. She followed Marta to the painted side of the building. They were unaware of the eyes that followed their slow progress.
The fresco depicted a row of men and women dressed in rough-textured shirts and flowing robes, each settler pressed against the next. The figure in front held up a scroll with the words, “Debemos ser libre”—We must be free. At the top of the mural a large bird floated above a bronze-skinned man. He had the angular features of the area’s indigenous people. Other figures carried guitars and accordions, scientific devices and crops.
Eva gave the mural a cursory inspection. The Pollock and the Dalí prints in Coombs’s shop were more interesting. True, this art was more literal, but she returned to the works the antiquarian displayed in his office. Those were abstract, but somehow very personal.
Eva hung back and so was first to sense Chung and Ortiz behind them even as she saw Padron approach. She looked at Padron. Now her expression was equal parts disinterest and contempt. Marta Cruz’s face showed open curiosity.
Patron appeared momentarily taken, perhaps disappointed by the girls’ lack of fear. Then he said, “Mira.” Look. “A cripple and a geek.”
Chung and Ortiz took up station from behind, completing the pincer movement. Eva Rozen reached under her shawl and took out and shook a small squeeze bottle. Marta Cruz said, “What are you doing, Eva? Don’t make trouble.”
“Oyé chica, you got no trouble,” said Padron, sliding forward. “Just show some respect, eh? Time to pay up.”
Eva’s gaze fastened hard on Padron and then shifted to the others. She made a mental calculation of the distances and shook her head at the disappointing conclusion. As she took in the unfolding scene, she noticed the slight figure of a boy walking towards them. He had soft, unassuming looks and seemed to draw into himself as he walked towards the confrontation. He looked too young for high school. Eva wondered if he belonged in middle school. “Hey,” he called out to the girls as he approached. “Class is about to start. We’ve gotta go.” He appeared oblivious to the trio’s menace. To Padron, “How are ya, amigo?”
“I ain’t your amigo. You’re in the wrong place, amigo. You gonna pay some respect then you gonna get outta here. Empty your pockets, amigo.”
“My pockets? Which one first?”
Padron looked hard at the interloper. “You funny?”
Eva calculated that Padron outweighed the newcomer by forty pounds and stood six inches taller. The boy drifted a few steps to the right, to Padron’s left, his weak side.
Eva saw what Padron missed. She looked at the thin boy. “I don’t need you to help,” she said. He’d need a miracle to do what she believed he was planning. Then, to Padron, “Go to be someplace else,” she said. Her accent and syntax helped her to sound bored.
Padron laughed and motioned to his friends. “Hey, Chung, Ortiz,” he said, “We got us a party.” They closed ranks.
Padron eyed the boy. “You a hero? That it, man? You gonna be a hero with no teeth.”
The boy inched towards Frankie and Ortiz. Padron followed. The three older boys were drawn into a tight bunch. The hero looked off to his left, into the distance. Eva followed his gaze, but saw nothing. The hero’s companion was hidden in shadows cast by the low angle of the morning sun.
Padron spoke again. “You gonna spit teeth, you don’t turn your pockets out now.”
The hero smiled. Likely, the smile was intended to look disarming rather than demeaning. The smile hid the years of accumulated frustration and rage. Behind the soft face, he boiled. His smile broadened.
Padron snorted. “What’s so funny? I don’t think you’re funny.”
The hero turned to the two girls and said, “I think you better get out of here. Maybe you should run into the school.”
Marta Cruz wore an expression of amusement and contempt. She gestured to her legs. “I’m supposed to run?” She rolled her eyes, shook her head, and spat out the next words. “Boys. All the same. All brave and no brain.”
Eva said nothing, her eyes still calculating distances.
Suddenly Padron wound back like a pitcher on the mound at Dodger Stadium. The hero watched calmly and ducked easily. “Get out of here,” he shouted again at Marta and Eva.
At that moment, the boy’s companion, watching from across the street, underwent a metamorphosis. Her ears pulled back and her lips drew forward. She dug her hindquarters into the ground, driving forward, front legs extending to double her length. Her body was low to the ground and she looked like a fur-covered missile, tipped with a toothy snarl. She hit maximum velocity in two strides and then covered the seventy-foot distance to Padron in less than three seconds.
She was in the grip of instinct and drive, a terrier’s lust for prey and a shepherd’s need to protect. Her tail was low to the ground for balance. Adrenaline flooded her, amplifying behaviors that had been hardwired into her species for millennia. Her lips drew further forward into an aggressive pucker. Sixty pounds of focused motion covered by a wiry tan coat. An unexpected white band circled her tail, the inspiration for the name to which she responded: Ringer.
Ringer’s nostrils flared and closed rapidly, forcing scent molecules to receptors deep in her brain. There two enormous olfactory bulbs sorted the smells of the group and passed commands directly to her muscles. Her specialized scent organs freed the slower fore-brain to calculate distance, velocity, and vector. The stink from the tallest of the targets, pheromones of fear and excitement from the girls, were as easy for her to read as a billboard would be for her two-legged companion.
Eva watched the dog. Six feet from Padron, Ringer’s back legs drove her up, propelling her full weight into the chest of the surprised leader. Eva thought the dog was grinning.
Some of the blow was cushioned as the canine joints flexed. Still, the force was enough to knock Padron hard to the ground. He landed on his back with a whoomp. His diaphragm muscle spasmed on impact and prevented him from drawing air into his lungs. When he opened his eyes, his view of the world was circumscribed by a set of canine teeth inches from his face. By the time Padron could draw his next breath, the encounter would be over.
Eva saw a smooth blur of motion as the hero turned to the downed Padron. He tensed his body and aimed a powerful kick at Padron’s ribcage.
Padrone rolled in pain. The Hero’s foot missed.
The momentum of his failed leg strike pulled him off-balance and he landed on his back, next to Padron. The two lay staring at each other. They both gasped for air, fish thrashing in the bottom of an angler’s boat.
Chung started to laugh. “Oh, man, this is too good,” he managed. Ortiz merely gave a half-grin and snorted. He nudged his friend and pointed to the prone hero. He said, “Hey, Chung, what we do about this pendejo?”
“Let Padron do him when the two of ’em are finished with their little siestas,” Chung said. He turned back to Eva and Marta. “You still need to pay a tribute.” He folded his arms and glared at the two girls.
“Okay,” Eva said. “I got nice present for you.” Eva said. She thrust the small plastic bottle she’d taken from her pocket moments earlier and squeezed a stream of oily liquid into Chung’s eyes. It was a perfect opportunity, she had decided, to experiment with her new pepper spray. Could the effects of the local Habanero peppers compare with her treasured Guntar peppers? She observed that the heat from the southwest Indian peppers was more potent, but the Habaneros lived up to their reputation. They burned.
Science in action, Eva thought with a grin.
Chung yelped in pain. Padron was still on the ground, his view of the action limited to the forty-two canine teeth directly over his face. Ortiz had stopped laughing and looked puzzled. By now the hero was up, fists clenched, his face a twisted in rage. Eva wondered if he was going to have a heart attack. The boy tensed to strike Ortiz, but Marta Cruz stepped between them.
“Stop. There’s no more fight. Let it go,” she said. Eva wasn’t sure whom Marta was addressing. The hero checked his motion and struggled to keep his balance. Ortiz stood, a bemused look on his face.
Marta turned and knelt at Padron’s side. He was still struggling for air. She knelt and grasped the front of his waistband and lifted his hips sharply several times, until his diaphragm relaxed and he could once again draw air in panicked gulps. Marta turned to the hero, and asked, “Would you ask your dog to let him get up?” The hero gestured, his palm extended as if he were a bellhop waiting for a tip. He brought his hand up ninety degrees, his palm facing inward like a backwards hello. Immediately, Ringer sat.
Marta turned her attention to Chung. She found a bottle of water in her bag and drenched his eyes, then turned to Eva. “What was that?” Marta asked.
“Pepper spray. I make.”
Marta handed Chung the water and told him to rinse but not rub his eyes.
“You didn’t have to spray him,” Marta said.
“Nobody attack me without hurt.”
Padron stood up, wary eyes fixed on Ringer. Ringer drew back her upper lip. Padron backed up a step. He caught Ortiz’s eye and nodded. They grabbed Chung and started to walk away. Padron turned to the hero, “You know what? I’d have kicked your ass except for that dog. Sometime, you and me? We gonna meet up again, no little girls to protect you.”
The hero said, “If that’s what you’re going to do, then that’s what you’re going to do. But no one meant you any disrespect and if everybody stays cool, then nobody finds out that you got your asses kicked by a dog and a little girl.”
“You crazy, man,” said Padron, but the fight had left him and his threat lost its menace. He walked away.
Marta turned back to Eva, “You didn’t have to spray that boy. You weren’t attacked.”
“Is technicality. He would attack but this one comes along.” Eva turned to the hero. His face was soft again. “Your dog fight better than you. How you teach her that?”
“I didn’t. She’s never done that before.”
Eva continued, “Where I come from, dogs is bad news. Dogs runs loose and kills.”
The boy gave Eva an appraising stare. “Her name is Ringer. Don’t worry about her.”
“Dogs come to school in America?”
“No,” he said. “She stays in the neighborhood during school, at least that’s what we did during summer school. There are a couple of shops where they let her wait. I’ll have to leave her home now.”
Eva pondered. “She not bite. Why no bite? Is better with blood, yes?”
“Like I said, she never did that before.”
“Whatever. That was good.” Eva looked at the boy slowly, her gaze taking his measure. “I don’t like dogs but this one, maybe okay. You helped us. I say thanks to you. I am Eva Rozen, this is Marta Cruz.”
“Jim Ecco.”
“What kind of dog is Ringer?” asked Marta.
Jim shrugged. “Some terrier, maybe. Possibly an Airedale, from her size. German Shepherd? Who knows?”
Eva approached Ringer, hand outstretched. “Nice doggie?”
Ringer backed up a pace.
“Hi doggie. I say, ‘hello, doggie.’” Eva stepped forward again.
Ringer backed up further.
“Dog is afraid of me?” asked Eva.
“Not exactly,” explained Jim. “It’s your posture. She doesn’t like it when you lean over her with your hand stretched out like that. To a dog, that’s rude and your hand over her head might be a threat. Just stand straight, relax and angle your body away a little. Like this.” He demonstrated a neutral posture, “She’ll relax. Don’t face her directly until she knows you. And bring your hand up from underneath to scratch her chest.”
Eva tried it and Ringer inched closer, sniffing. She allowed herself to be petted and then licked Eva’s hand. For the first time since leaving Gergana’s grave in Sofia, the Voices were silent and Eva Rozen smiled.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” she said, “What a nice dog.” Eva’s English was letter-perfect and unaccented, if a bit clipped, in the manner of one who had learned the language by rote, repeating phrases and vocabulary along with a recording.
The rest of the day passed without incident until the last period. The three students found themselves together for an English class. News of their morning confrontation had spread, despite Jim’s assurance that it would be a secret, and classmates kept their distance out of deference or apprehension. Eva sat next to Jim, staring openly at him. Marta seemed focused on her classwork.
The English composition teacher was Henna Erickson. Her appearance was a nod to the styles of an earlier era—cotton peasant blouses instead of color-changing modern nanotextiles. She chose granny glasses to complete the look. Medium height, plain-faced, she had an unadorned figure draped in a shapeless dress. Her frizzy brown hair was pulled back at the nape of her neck.
In contrast to Erickson’s utterly commonplace personal style, her classroom was animated. Action and emotion leapt from candid photographs on the walls: kinetic depictions of people at work, at rest, and at play. There were tender interchanges, confrontations, affection and anger. Even the most introspective of images emanated vigor.
“Good afternoon, class,” she began. “Your first writing assignment is today. I want you to write a two-page essay. I have these photos to stimulate your emotions, or you can dig into your memories, your past. Either way, I want you to find something important from your childhood and write about it.”
The class looked around at the photographs, then at each other. Several groaned.
“You might find this a little hard at first. But it will be easy once you get started. Then the story will write itself.”
With a little prodding, the class began. Eva Rozen sat immobile. She looked over at Jim. He sat, frowning at the blank display on his dataslate. Erickson walked over to them.
Eva held up her hand and said one word, “Don’t.”
“I’m sorry?” Erickson said.
“I’m not here to learn to write some little stories. I’m here for science and this is—this is not for me. Thanks anyway.”
Eva rolled up her dataslate, turned back and looked at Jim Ecco. She held his eye, paused, and then stood to leave the classroom.
Marta turned to Jim, mouth agape. He shrugged. The class’s attention was fixed first on the doll-like student, then on the teacher. Ms. Erickson checked the roster. “Ms. Rozen, maybe you and I can work together for a few minutes and I can help you get started.”
“Maybe not,” Eva said.
“Ms. Rozen, life is more than facts, figures, and calculations. Your history makes you who you are. You want to be a scientist? Great! Write about why science is important to you. But focus on your feelings. That’s what gives scientists inspiration and intuition.”
Eva Rozen held the teacher’s gaze.
“Ms. Erickson,” Eva spoke quietly. “I know what shaped me and it’s private. And I don’t want to be a scientist—I am a scientist.”
“You’re a student and you must do the assignment. I respect your goals but you cannot simply walk out.”
“Yes, I can. You like to teach? Fine. Teach. But my history and my feelings are private. I’ll be back to class tomorrow. Maybe I’ll even stay.”
“Ms. Rozen, why is this so upsetting? I don’t understand your reaction. What’s wrong?”
Eva’s reply was measured. She bit off each word. “I have no use for stories.”
“You’re missing an important part of your education. The arts shape you as a person.”
“Think so? That’s what writing did for you? Turned you into, what? A thief? Stealing ideas from your students? Go watch someone else bare her soul.”
Erickson flushed a deep scarlet then closed her eyes for a moment. “Ms. Rozen,” she said deliberately, “I think you’re just plain lazy.”
“What did you say to me?” Eva’s voice somehow managed to be flat and menacing.
Erickson ignored the implied threat. “Do you treat science the way you treat writing? Do you look only at the electrons and ignore the nucleus? Maybe you think that since electrons can form the bonds with other atoms, then who cares about the nucleus?’ Is that how science works? You would have done very well in the Inquisition. Your attitude towards the arts seems remarkably close to the attitude of the Inquisitors towards Galileo in 1615.”
Now it was Eva’s turn to color.
“Oh, I see, Ms. Rozen. You didn’t think I’d know anything about science, now did you? Well, stay or go. That’s your choice. And I can keep you or flunk you. That’s my choice. But the important thing is not the grade, but the kind of person you are. You must understand the building blocks of human nature as surely as you need to study the periodic table of the elements. Won’t you please stay?”
Eva stared without expression at the teacher and then disappeared through the door. The class sat, stunned. A girl who spoke like a woman and who had treated the teacher like a girl? A soft-looking boy who took on the feared Padron? This had become a day to remember.
Eva stood outside the classroom. She hoped Jim would join her. There was something familiar in his bearing. Sad? Angry? Bad memories?
Eva understood all too well. Her memories were still fresh. They travelled with her from half a world away. She catalogued each memory as a voice. Each murmured and spoke and shouted. Mama and Papa and Bare Chest and Doran were shrill, mocking, animate. Even Gergana sat at the Table of Clamorous Voices.
But weren’t they were just memories? Ought they not to have paled? Lost color and tone and depth? Weren’t the dead supposed to decompose?
LOS POBLADRES HIGH SCHOOL
EAST LOS ANGELES
2022-2026
Eva marched out of Henna Erickson’s classroom, leaving behind two dozen bewildered faces. Jim stood and followed Eva. He turned briefly to the instructor and gave a ‘what else can I do?’ shrug. He said, “I’ll go make sure she’s okay,” and left.
“Eva,” he called once he was in the hallway. “Wait up.”
He reached her. They headed across the campus in search of Ringer. Eva thought it odd to have someone follow her without feeling an accompanying sense of danger.
Eva wanted to purge her thoughts of the violent turn her life had taken scant weeks ago, to disgorge the history that Mrs. Erickson wanted her to recall and inhabit. She thought instead of today’s events, of this smooth-faced boy next to her and his sudden snarling transformation. She remembered the threatening voice of Padron; it evoked those of Bare Chest and Papa. The memories cascaded, and she heard Gergana and Coombs and every person she’d encountered during her thirteen years of life. For Eva, memory was sound: the din from the Table of Clamorous Voices.
She shook her head to clear the memories. She liked to imagine that she possessed a stage magician’s box. Its black lacquered sides were studded with dull iron fasteners and circled by heavy chains and a padlock. With a snap of her stubby fingers, Doran and Bare Chest went into the box. Snap! Henna Erickson. Snap! Mama and Papa. Snap, snap! The box shrank until it fit into her pocket. It never quite disappeared, though, and the Voices were never quite stilled. Mama’s whine and Papa’s drunken manifestos, Gergana’s silly chatter and affectionate lullabies. Doran’s grunts and Bare Chest’s threats. All of these echoed. The din.
Eva tore herself away from her daydream and turned her attention to Jim. He was frowning. “Bad memories?” she asked.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” he replied. They walked in silence towards a shady spot on the edge of the school’s campus. Ringer was waiting there. She sniffed Eva and wagged her tail. Her ears were relaxed, her tongue hanging down, spatulate. She pressed up against Eva and then returned to Jim’s side. Jim brightened.
Eva said, “I have an hour before the Foundation car picks me up. You want to do something?”
“Like what?”
“Something to eat? Anything.”
“I don’t think so. I need to get Ringer back home.”
Eva pushed on. “How about tomorrow? Or the weekend? Let’s compare notes. Maybe we can make trouble.” She offered a version of what she imagined was a sly smile.
Jim regarded her for a minute. “I liked the way you stood up for yourself this morning. That was pretty cool.”
“Okay, I’m cool. You’re cool. So…let’s do something. Something cool.”
“I don’t know. I’ve got to head on home.”
“What, somebody keeps track of you? Times your arrival?”
“No, it’s not that—”
“Maybe you think I’m not good enough for you?” She turned and stood in front of him, stopping him. She thrust out a clenched jaw. The din from the Table was louder.
Jim held up both hand in a peacemaking gesture. “No, that’s not it. Okay, you’re different. You’re not like anybody I’ve ever met. You’re, what, a scrap over four feet tall? And you were the first to take on those guys. I guess I admire you.” He walked several paces, kicking at stones as he went. “Do you want be friends?”
“Friends, huh?” she replied. But the edge was gone. The Table quieted.
Jim sighed. “I could use a friend. Somebody I can trust.”
“How do you know you can trust me? You don’t know anything about me.”
“Ringer trusts you. Let’s find her some water and get a soda or something.”
“I guess so,” she nodded. They walked in silent fellowship towards the nearby diner. Ringer strained forward when she saw their destination, hindquarters shaking from the rapid movement of her tail. Jim led Eva inside to a pair of old-fashioned counter stools. At the base of one, there was a folded blanket with a well-worn depression and a layer of tan hair. Ringer curled up in the depression. The counterman gave Jim a fresh bowl of water for Ringer and served Jim and Eva’s sodas, then delivered a small plate of raw burger meat to the dog. Ringer emitted a quiet chuffing sound of approval. The cook was well-trained.
Jim and Eva sat in silence for several minutes. “That writing assignment was weird,” Jim said, at last. Eva did not reply. She thought about her life in Sofia, and the last time she had seen Gergana. Eva had kept the scarab brooch she’d never had a chance to give her sister. No, Eva thought, I’m not going to spend much time in that class. She reached her hand up and tentatively, touched Jim’s shoulder. He turned to her and offered a neutral smile. Her hand fell back to the counter. Jim reached over and squeezed her hand.
“Friends,” he said, with a smile as genuine as Coombs, and squeezed her hand again.
The din was gone, the Table was silent. Space opened up at the Table to admit a new member. Jim stood at its head. He exerted a powerful influence, calming the others. In his presence, Eva felt a respite from the din.
Marta, Eva, and the Hidden Scholar Foundation car converged at the school’s front steps. Marta had a faraway look and Eva asked, “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Sort of,” Marta said.
“What happened?” asked Eva.
“I took the writing assignment seriously. It brought back some memories.”
Eva rolled her eyes. “So, what, you’re better than me?”
“Why would you say that, Eva?” Marta sounded surprised.
Eva mimicked her classmate, her voice taking on the singsong, dreamy quality of Marta’s reply, “I took the writing assignment seriously. Look, what nobody seems to understand is that I don’t need stories. I am science,” she said, a bit of her old accent spilling back into her speech, a clue to her sudden anger. Eva paused, “So, what did you write about so…seriously?”
Marta stared at Eva before she replied. “I wrote about my parents.” She hesitated a few moments and then added quietly, “My mom died a few months ago. She was sick and my dad didn’t take it well. I ended up spending the summer with my grandmother. Maybe I have seen a ghost.”
Her voice was both testy and sorrowful. Eva looked at her and then reached out and touched Marta’s forearm. Today, the gesture was one of solidarity. In time, the gesture would be as much a warning as a cobra’s hiss “Here’s the Foundation driver,” she said.
They got into the car. Marta smiled at the driver, leaned back in her seat, and closed her eyes. It had been a long day. Pain etched a grimace on her face. Eva looked out the window and saw Jim and Ringer.
“Hey, driver,” she said. “Pull over. I want to give our friend a ride.”
“Sorry, miss, I can only take the students from the Foundation.”
“Well, today you can make an exception.”
“Sorry, miss,” the driver repeated.
Eva threw her door open, forcing the car to stop.
“Miss, please close the door.”
Eva ignored the driver and called out to Jim. “Yo, Ecco. You want a ride? The driver says he would be delighted to give you a lift.” She drew out the word, looked at the driver, and arranged her mouth into the approximate shape of a smile. Her eyes were hard. She hopped into the front seat, startling the driver, and said, in a near whisper, “Listen. We owe this kid. Somebody tried to jump us this morning and he stopped them. So, just for today, you’re going to find a little different route home. Tell your boss there was a detour, something. Help me and one day I’ll help you.” Then she opened the front passenger door and leaned out again. “Otherwise I drop to the pavement and say that you took off while I was getting in the car.”
The driver frowned as if trying to decide which held more danger: her threat or her smile. He pulled over.
“Jim,” Eva called. “Get in. We’ll give you a ride.”
Jim and Ringer got in the car. The driver glared at Eva. She held his gaze until he looked away. Jim looked puzzled, then concerned. A flash lit Eva’s eyes. Then they turned opaque, and evicted any attempt to see into her soul. That territory was off-limits.
The riders sat without speaking. Eva was sphinx-like, wrapped in stony silence. The driver kept his eyes fixed ahead. Marta was reengaged in her reverie, eyes closed. Ringer sniffed, hunting for food, and then settled on Jim’s lap. She looked back and forth among the friends, lost in their own worlds.
Jim and Marta and Eva were inseparable during their freshman year at Los Pobladores. The next year Eva and Marta spent less time together, and Jim divided his time equally between his two friends. As a third year began, he spent more of his time with Marta.
Jim Ecco was as skittish as a wren the day that Marta kissed him. When people stood close to him he was anxious, and when Marta moved into his intimate space to embrace him, he was unsettled. His repertoire of responses to members of the two-legged set had been limited to fight, flight, or wary distance, and the movement from impersonal space into a conjoined embrace was a slow journey.
Jim knew that Marta was willing—her pupils widened slightly, she positioned herself to face him squarely, open and inviting. Her head tilted back a fraction, inviting contact. He thought, It’s taken me two years to kiss her, a moment he’d wanted since meeting her.
Truth be told, she kissed him.
They had met after school on a warm day in early spring. A nearby park offered a few acres of green grass and a hedge of jasmine bushes. The jasmine lent an intoxicating scent and privacy. They’d decided to work together on a homework assignment. Marta had brought a blanket and a small lunch. They’d arranged the blanket and Marta set out a variety of fruits and cheeses, a small loaf of sourdough bread and sparkling water. She’d packed small plates, indistinguishable from bone china, but unbreakable, and two glasses. The place settings were compressible nanoplastics, shape-shifting materials that could organize and reorganize at a molecular level. The glasses collapsed into discs the width of a drinking glass but as thin as a coaster. Gentle pressure on the circumference of the plates allowed them to collapse into equally small discs so that the table settings occupied less space in Marta’s bag than a pack of cards.
“You think of everything,” Jim said as he took in the small feast.
“I wanted us to have a nice time. Hunger is distracting, don’t you think?”
Her words were matter-of-fact, but he heard the warm harmonics of affection in her voice. He was alert, senses aroused. She spoke with a quiet, measured cadence, almost hypnotic, and Jim had to lean in to hear her. As he leaned in, Marta closed the distance between them, an inch, and her movement drew him closer still. Marta’s lips parted and she moistened them with the tip of her tongue.
Jim heard blood pound in his ears. His heart sped and every capillary in his body dilated. He felt a flash of warmth like a corona of radiant sunlight. The heat was real but it was all generated from within. Without thinking—finally, without thinking!—Jim closed the tiny gap between them and touched his lips to Marta’s.
At first he feared that he’d committed an offense. Perhaps she read his anxiety, for she placed one hand behind his head and held him to her lips. They kissed again. At that moment, Jim Ecco began his life’s longest journey, the eighteen-inch passage from his head to his heart.
Seconds or hours later—who could be certain?—Jim and Marta backed up just enough to see each other’s faces. Her usual look of curiosity was creased with amusement. “Nice,” was all she said, and then pulled him back and kissed him again, slowly. “Like this,” she breathed. Jim brushed the plates and food aside and sank to an elbow. She followed in his embrace. He held her in the crook of his arm and played with her hair, stroking and pulling it gently. His hand explored the terrain of her face and he thought he saw something new in her familiar features.
Jim started to speak but Marta placed a finger on his lips. She kissed him again and took his right hand and placed it on her breast. “I will not make love with you today,” she whispered. “But I will give myself to you soon. I promise this to you.”
He bowed his head in fealty. He removed his hand and kissed her at the soft indentation where her collarbones met. “Te quiero, Jim,” she breathed. I love you. She held his head against her breast.
Surely the infant Jim had laid his head on his mother’s breast. Surely she soothed and comforted him in a loving embrace. He would not have known how to be held and comforted without that experience. But whatever quotient of tenderness had been offered to the infant, he’d existed without it, and the sensation of intimacy with Marta was unfamiliar. They lay together on the blanket, unmoving save for fingers that caressed the outlines of each other’s forms. Marta traced his jawline and the soft skin of his neck and then rested her palms on his chest.
“Touch me again,” she urged and drew his hand up once more.
He kept her cradled in the crook of his left arm and ran his right hand over the contours of her body, exploring the flat of her stomach and the roll of her hip. She arched her back and pressed herself in closer as he ran his hand over the smooth curve of her buttocks. She breathed into his neck.
“Marta, I feel…funny. No, not funny, but, I don’t know…different. Is this what it feels like to be in love?”
She took his hand in hers, and placed both on the center of his chest.
“What does your heart say, querido?”
“I don’t know. This is all new.”
“Your heart knows. Haven’t you wanted to kiss me all year? No. No words. Tell me with your heart.”
So he kissed her again, now at the corners of her mouth, on each lip and then openmouthed and urgent. His thoughts stilled, replaced by the need to possess and be possessed, to draw her in, to find a calm surcease of anger.
Four days later Marta fulfilled her promise. She gave herself, took his strength in exchange, and passed into womanhood. Jim discovered a still place within himself where turmoil paid obeisance to the gentle parts of his being.
There was no school and the house would be his for the day. He spent the morning cleaning his room, checking for dog hair, pacing and then cleaning again. Marta arrived. She wandered through Jim’s home, looking at the photos on the refrigerator, the art on the walls. Ringer kept to her side. When Marta sat at a dining-room chair, Ringer placed her head on the girl’s lap. Jim smiled and said, “She beat me to it.”
They laughed and stood and embraced and kissed. Marta laid her head on his chest and held him close to her. Together, they swayed to an inaudible rhythm.
“Would you like to make love to me?” she asked.
Jim said nothing. He took her hand and kissed each of her fingers and then led her to his room. They undressed each other in self-conscious wonderment, and handled each piece of clothing with the reverence of a pilgrim touching a holy relic. Jim sank to his knees before her and pressed his head to her stomach. He breathed in deeply, and then sank lower to kiss the gnarled joints of her left leg. She gasped and started to pull away but Jim held her fast, as she had held him four days earlier. He pressed his cheek to her calf and then kissed her feet. She allowed herself to sink onto his bed. She reached to pull back the sheets. They might as well have been cemented in place, they were tucked in so tightly, and they laughed as they struggled to free the linens.
Jim grazed his hands along her legs and paused at the plain dark triangle that held such awe and mystery. He traced the concave line of her ribs, around her breasts and up to her face again, holding her head immobile while he kissed her again and again.
She lifted her legs and placed them on the bed. Jim supported himself above her and allowed her to caress his chest and hips. She reached down and took him in her hands. One moment he was above her, separate, and the next moment he was inside her. They were fused. They kept their eyes open and marveled at the sight of one another. Then they were engulfed in passion.
Later, they lay entwined. Each time Jim started to speak, Marta put her mouth over his mouth to stop him, although she did permit him to profess his love for her. Repeatedly.
Much later, Marta broke the silence. “Why did you wait so long?” she asked.
The next day at school, Eva stopped and looked first at Jim, then at Marta. Pain, then anger flashed across her eyes, almost too brief to notice. Then she grinned.
“About damned time,” she said, and lapsed into stony silence for the rest of the day. It was difficult to think when the din from the Voices at Table rose in deafening ridicule.
Throughout high school, Jim, Marta, and Eva, friends by exclusion as much as by attraction, were protective of one another even as they quarreled. Marta and Jim sometimes fought, always over Jim’s temper. His anger was hard for her. Eva’s insults were mingled with affection. She kept Marta close, but always at arm’s length, as if the act of embracing her would be painful.
Jim supplied the minimum effort to pass his classes and remain enrolled. He continued to study people, teasing out their secrets, a talent that often proved more curse than blessing, a gift that cleaved him from, rather than bound him to, members of his own species.
Eva and Marta, drawn to science since childhood, were accepted at Yale, Tufts, and Harvard. They chose Harvard College, for its medical school and its Center for Nanoscale Systems. The Hidden Scholar Foundation continued to fund their education.
And the three friends who shared different but difficult childhoods, three friends thrown together by chance, three who would share an orbit travelled to another part of the country and another chapter in their lives.
BOSTON
OCTOBER. 2029
Okay, Jim thinks, she was old. She had cataracts. So what? She didn’t need to read a dataslate. Her hearing had largely faded. But she registered the clink of a spoon at mealtimes. She smelled bad… so what?
Ringer had been Jim’s friend and familiar. The move from southern California to Boston had been hard enough on Jim, but the freezing weather and endless grey skies seemed to drain life from Ringer. Her filmy eyes implored, a whine in her voice chided, Make it warm! Her every arthritic step made Jim ache. A stab of pain shot through him each time she fell.
A boy and his dog. Ringer was eleven, and then—no more.
Tips from, “Coping With The Loss of Your Dog”
It is normal to feel angry
“God help me, Marta, I’m about to explode.”
“Shhh… querido. Just let me hold you for a while.”
“YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND DAMMIT THAT WAS RINGER.”
It is normal to feel depressed
“Jim, it’s been a week. Are you going out? What about your job?”
“Leave me alone.”
“It’s not just you. I can’t ignore my classes. Harvard is harder than Los Pobladores.
“I’m not keeping you from your studies.”
“How can I concentrate on school when I’m worried about you? I have to go to class. Jim? Jim?”
The most important step in your recovery is to express your feelings in a way that suits you best
Night shrouded Boston Common. Dark figures slid in and out of the park’s shadows: drug dealers, prostitutes, muggers—and a hunter. Jim Ecco moved silently. His practiced eyes counted the park’s denizens. He wanted to find two or three, young enough to be a challenge, but not so young as to be exculpable.
He crouched by the Soldier and Sailor Monument. It topped a small rise and gave him a view of much of the park’s fifty acres. Over the centuries, the Common had hosted soldiers, protests, and recreation. It accommodated criminals as graciously as upright citizens. And on a crisp fall evening, as the fires of his rage and the anguish of his guilt consumed him, Jim Ecco prepared to approach three of these habitués.
He moved away from the monument’s bas relief, stepping with care. No twigs snapped, no leaves crackled. He raced across open ground, crouching low, moving with the cover of trees. He kept his attention wide, sensing for danger, for intrusion, for anything that might come between him and his prey.
He’d marked his quarry the night before. Now he drew into himself, presenting the smallest possible profile as he closed the distance to the trio. They would get an opportunity to leave him alone, although the assaults he’d observed at their hands argued against a peaceful interchange. They would set on him and Jim would respond. Violence would be his catharsis. He could purge the feelings of helplessness and frustration that he’d felt at the hands of his father, the grief he felt at the loss of Ringer.
Twenty yards, fifteen, and still no sign of recognition from them. Five yards. It was time. His posture changed, he stood upright, and shed his stealth. One of the three looked up at him and then nudged his two companions. They fanned out around him.
Jim relaxed. His eyes became unfocused as he took in the gestalt of the night. His prey came closer. He’d evaded his father with ease, and Padron, at school. These three would be no harder. They would strike first, but he would land the telling blows.
He heard a rustling to his right. Two more figures came into view, two women. One stood no taller than a child. The other limped in obvious discomfort. Eva? Marta? What the—?
Time sped. The women turned to Jim’s presumptive victims. The small one looked at the closest of the three men and grinned. There was no humor in her smile.
“Boys, it’s been fun, but you were just leaving.”
Marta Cruz lumbered over to Jim. “Don’t do this, querido. You cannot fight and stay whole. Juricán walks with you tonight. He will destroy you. Come back to me.”
Suddenly, the man closest to Eva Rozen lunged at her. One moment she was in front of him, and then she seemed to vanish. The man flailed wildly, bewildered at her sudden disappearance.
She reappeared behind him. “I said, time to go. Here—buy yourselves a drink somewhere. Anywhere. But not here.” She held out a bill.
He lunged again, and once more she disappeared and reappeared beside him. “Okay, two drinks,” and now there were two bills in her hand.
The three men looked confused as Eva winkled in and out of view. Marta spoke to them, softly. “I have something better for you than violence. I bring you life. Leave now and you will have a much better evening.” She withdrew a handful of fine powder from a small leather pouch she wore around her neck. Marta blew on the loess in her palm and it enveloped two of the men. As they breathed in the airborne particles, their features relaxed.
Marta continued in a soothing voice. “That is the seeds of the cojobana tree. You will have a vision. You should heed it well, as it is a gift from Yocahu.”
Eva’s voice was a sharp contrast to Marta’s gentle words. “Well, boys, which is going to be? The lady,” she pointed to Marta, “or the tiger? That would be me. You know what? I think her gods are nutty, but you’ll like her approach a whole lot better than mine.” Eva vanished again, popping up next to the trio’s ringleader. “Time to decide. And, just so you know, I have something different up my sleeve and I promise you won’t like it.”
She had money in her right hand and a small squeeze bottle in her left. The smell of peppers drifted in the crisp air. The leader of the three looked at her and shook his head, trying to clear his thoughts. He looked at the money and snatched it from her hand, turned and strode towards Tremont Street and away from this strange tableau. The other two remained, rooted to the spot, rapt in the beginnings of a vision.
“Come on, children, time to leave before we have any more company,” said Eva.
Jim Ecco recovered from his surprise. He looked at Marta. “What are you doing? Are you crazy? You could have been hurt. This is not your fight.”
“It is not your fight, either.”
“I needed to do this. And those three are no good. Putting them out of commission for a while would be a blessing for everyone.” He paused, confused by Marta and Eva’s sudden appearance. “How did you get here, anyway?”
Eva said, “You aren’t hard to follow. Weren’t too hard last night, either.”
Marta grasped his shoulders. “Look at me, querido. Look at me!” Her eyes shone. “Juricán is powerful and gives you strength but he will take it away. You cannot walk with him and survive. He consumes his followers. The hurricane is too great for you and your anger feeds it. Tonight you need grace.”
“Marta, I don’t know about any of that. I just know I can’t stand the way I feel.”
“Then you need to find a new way to feel.”
Marta turned to her companion. “Thank you, Eva. No one needed to be hurt, and no one was.”
“The night’s still young.”
Jim was silent for a few moments then turned to Eva. “How did you disappear like that?”
“Smartwool,” she said. “It’s the latest fashion in stealth wear. It absorbs odors. Sheds water and stains. And the nanothreads are glass and plastic. They change colors instantly. I had them programmed to reflect the colors around me so that I appear invisible. Military’s been using this stuff for years now. Neat, huh? Bet you wish you had a snappy little outfit like this.”
Marta spoke. “Uh, guys, I think it’s time we get out of here. We’re beginning to draw some attention.”
Jim and Eva looked around. “Nothing here we can’t deal with,” Jim said.
“You’re wrong. There are three things we can’t deal with,” Marta said. “We need to leave—now.”
“What three things?” asked Jim as they began walking. Dried leaves crunched under their feet as they crossed the park to the busy street. There was just enough light from Tremont Street’s shops and streetlights to cast shadows across their path. The hum of traffic and voices on the sidewalk grew louder as they approached the park’s end. Jim heard something different in Marta’s voice, a new vitality that animated her words. He tuned out all of the night’s sounds to concentrate on Marta.
“Well, first of all, there’s a curfew and we’re violating it. You two might feel immune, but I don’t.”
“Okay. What else?” asked Jim.
“This is taking a lot out of me. My legs hurt. And I have a ton of schoolwork. Premed’s tough, and I’m swamped. I’ve got an organic chemistry project due. Eva’s the chem whiz. It’s no picnic for me.”
“Oh, jeez, I’m sorry. Right. Let’s go,” Jim said.
They walked across the Common, headed for the bright of the Park Street station of the underground transit line.
“You said there were three things. What’s the third?” he asked.
Marta beamed. “I’m pregnant.”
The assault came, vicious and unexpected, just fifty feet from the lights, clamor, and activity of Tremont Street. Hooting in surprise and congratulations, the three friends failed to hear running footsteps behind them. Then Eva tumbled to the ground.
At his trial, Eva’s assailant Brian Coogan would testify under a forensic dosage of TrueSpeak that he wanted to reach her before she was out of the park. He was furious. Eva had embarrassed him and the money she’d given him was gone. He would state that he thought that somehow she’d taken the money back. (She had.) He would tell the court that when Eva fell forward, he believed that his knife had penetrated her heart.
Eva survived Coogan’s knife attack with deep bruises but no other injury. Her snappy little outfit included magnetic shearing fluid within woven carbon fibers. Iron nanoparticles, suspended in the fluid, solidified in a microsecond when subjected to stress. It was an old technology, first deployed with mixed results in the early years of the U.S. wars with Iraq and Afghanistan. A quarter century of development, and the armor was more effective than Kevlar or spider silk. The principal customers for this class of smart textiles were police and military organizations…and Eva Rozen.
Perhaps Juricán did indeed walk with Jim Ecco that evening. When Eva fell, Jim reacted instantly. He pushed Marta out of the way and turned to Coogan. The attack reanimated Jim’s rage. His vision narrowed uncharacteristically. He missed seeing Eva roll on the ground, bloodless and then struggle to her feet. He missed the sight of two Boston police officers running to their aid.
Jim continued his turn and lashed out with a kick that landed on the side of Coogan’s left knee, just below the patella. Coogan crumpled in pain. In their statements, the patrolmen would report that they ran to protect the three victims when they saw Coogan fall and hold his left leg. They saw Eva begin to rise. Then they saw Jim turn and stomp on Coogan’s right foot.
Two things happened. The fifth metatarsal bone at the base of Coogan’s little toe cracked apart, producing a crippling break called a Jones fracture. Despite nanoputty surgeons applied to the bone, Coogan would wear treatment cloth for three weeks. The second result was Jim Ecco’s own arrest: assault and battery with a deadly weapon. The weapon was, in the language of his indictment, a shod foot.
Within the space of a minute, Jim Ecco found that he would be a father… and a felon.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
APRIL 1, 2030
Sean Doyle rose for his opening statement on behalf of the People of Massachusetts. His navy pinstriped suit clung to the contours of his six-foot frame and fell from broad shoulders to hug a trim waist. Doyle’s red and blue striped club tie fastened itself into a perfect Windsor knot and bisected an unblemished white shirt, stopping precisely at the top of his beltline. Doyle’s head was adorned by thick curly blond hair, augmented eyesight, and a surgically-crafted cleft chin. Here stood a man the jury could trust on sight, a man who could lead them to discover justice on a spring morning in the Suffolk County Municipal Court in Boston, Massachusetts.
The People’s representative addressed the presiding judge, the Honorable Chris McClincy. Doyle stated his name for the record. He was given leave to begin his opening statement. He stood without notes and faced the jury. These six men and women took in his self-confidence and beamed with reflected pride. Ordinary men and women, working people, retirees, salt of the earth now stood shoulder to shoulder with this mighty champion. They would join him in a pact to protect the Commonwealth, to honor the Law, and to send that son-of-a-bitch in the defendant’s chair to whatever dark corner of the penal system he deserved, God have mercy on his contemptible soul.
Doyle spoke. Twelve ears edged forward to listen. Twelve eyes focused to watch their prophet. Six hearts readied to be blackened. “Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, this is Case 260093, the Commonwealth v. James Bradley Ecco. The defendant is charged with having committed an intentional assault and battery by means of a dangerous weapon, his shod foot. Section 15(b) of chapter 265 of our General Laws makes this act unlawful.”
Assistant District Attorney Sean Doyle was ambitious. Step One in the Doyle Plan: District Attorney. Then Attorney General for the Commonwealth en route to Congress. Or to the governor’s office. Then, who knows? Presidents have been created from similar pedigrees.
Seniority granted him the ability to choose cases that bolstered his conviction rate. This case was a prosecutor’s dream: an injured victim and two unimpeachable witnesses, sworn officers of the Boston Police Department. Doyle was cultivating a tough-on-crime reputation and had refused the defense offer of a plea bargain.
Doyle’s pinstriped suit followed him faithfully as he paced behind his lectern. Two steps to the left; two steps to the right, the pendulum in God’s hypnotic metronome. Left, Right. Tock, tock. Left, right. Tock, tock. Gazing into an unseen vision, he became a Loa-possessed demon, Michael the Archangel and Skadi, the Norse paladin of Justice, Vengeance, and Righteous Anger. Turning to his jury, his jury, he was holy, fair, and humble. “Ladies and Gentlemen, there are rules that I must follow, and you must hold me accountable.”
These words elevated the panel and he was rewarded with six faces set with grave dignity. The prosecutor paused before them, arms outstretched, an Old Testament prophet. If he could embrace them, he would.
“The Commonwealth must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant intended to touch the victim with a dangerous weapon. You must require, no, demand proof from me that the defendant intended the touching to occur, that it was no mere accident.” The jury leaned forward as if to lay their hands on the trailing hem of his pinstriped garment.
“Let’s talk about what the law does not require. First, the Commonwealth is not required to prove that the defendant intended to injure Mr. Coogan—only that he did cause harm. Next, it is true that the victim is a criminal, but the victim is not on trial. Finally, it is also true that Mr. Ecco at first acted in self-defense. But he did not stop when his victim was helpless and that, ladies and gentlemen, is Mr. Ecco’s crime.”
Doyle filled the jury with glowing comprehension. They were clay and he would breathe life into them, endue them with holy purpose: to perform their duty to convict.
“What about the ‘dangerous weapon’? A shoe? Not a gun, knife, or club? Well, the law says that even an innocent item is a weapon if you use it in a dangerous way. Your old-fashioned pencil is an innocent item if you are writing a grocery list. But if you poke me in the eye, then it a dangerous weapon. When the defendant used his shoe, not to walk away from a helpless man, but to stomp on a helpless man, then his shoe became a deadly weapon.”
Doyle paused, seventy-two inches of moral outrage, and pointed. “The defendant may look harmless, but he has a vicious temper. He committed a crime in plain sight of two police officers. This case is simple and the People of Massachusetts depend on you to do your duty.”
Sean Doyle looked at the jury, thanked each member. They watched in awe as he and his pinstriped suit returned to the prosecutor’s table.
Two women waited outside the courtroom, witnesses in the case and unable to attend the proceedings until called to testify. Marta fretted. Eva seemed detached, even bored.
“How can you take this so lightly?” Marta asked Eva.
“Why worry?”
“Why worry? Because Jim drew a prosecutor with political motives and a judge who favors prosecutors. Lord knows what the jury will do,” said Marta.
“Can’t worry about what you can’t control. Just control what you can.” Eva touched a device wrapped around her forearm and began to subvocalize.
Marta stared at her friend in goggle-faced astonishment. “Oh, my god. Is that what I think it is?”
“What do you think it is?”
“Where in the world did you get a datasleeve? They cost a fortune! I don’t understand…did the Foundation buy it for you?”
“Nope.”
“How does a college junior end up with a datasleeve?”
“I deserved it.”
“Right,” drawled Marta, but then she was given over to curiosity. “Is it true that the nanoprocessors eliminate all of the heat that a dataslate generates?”
“See for yourself.”
Eva held up her wrist and Marta examined the device. It was nanotextile, wearable electronics, components thousands of times smaller than human hair. The sleeve was about the thickness of flannel. It packed the computing punch of a massively-parallel mainframe from an earlier semiconductor generation.
“How does it work?” asked Marta. “I thought they had to communicate with datapillars. No, don’t tell me you have a pillar. Isn’t that a little beyond even you?”
“They do have to sync with a datapillar,” said Eva.
“Tell me what I’m missing,” said Marta. “Only governmental agencies have pillar-and-sleeve technology.”
“They’re being deployed commercially now, too. In a few years, everyone will have them. I’m just a bit ahead,” said Eva.
“So, do you have a pillar?” Marta pressed.
“Not yet.”
“Then what good is it?”
“Well, you can sync with anyone else’s pillar if you know how,” Eva grinned. “Anyway, sleeves will be on the market for the public in a year or two.” By that time, Eva thought, I’ll know how to jack anyone’s sleeve.
“How did you get it? This is incredible. Can I try it?” asked Marta.
Eva held Marta’s gaze. “Where are the other witnesses? Where’s that bastard, Coogan?” Without turning her attention from Marta, without looking around the courtroom hallway, she observed, “I don’t see the prosecution witnesses. You suppose that’s a good sign?”
Inside the courtroom, Sean Doyle suppressed a grin as the public defender rose for his opening statement. Three members of the jury crossed their arms as if to wall themselves off from the hapless attorney. Another two glared. The final juror’s eyes were fixed on her feet, as if she’d found webbing where she expected to see sensible shoes. None made eye contact with the overmatched defense counsel. He reminded the jury that his client was innocent until proven guilty, that his client had been protecting himself and his friends and had every reason to fear for his life. The defense counsel asked for their patience and skulked back to his seat.
Judge McClincy turned to the prosecutor. “Mr. Doyle, are you ready to call your first witness?”
“I am, Your Honor.”
“Then please proceed.”
Doyle rose, nodded to the magistrate, looked at the jury and in a clear confident voice, began his prosecution. “The People call Brian Coogan.”
Every eye in the courtroom turned to the secured door from which Coogan would emerge. The quiet lasted for thirty long seconds. The witness did not appear. Judge McClincy turned an expressionless glance to Doyle asked the prosecutor again for his witness.
“Judge, he is on the witness list. Would Your Honor direct the bailiff to locate him?”
“Mr. Doyle, I expect attorneys to be prepared in my court. Please call another witness while the bailiff finds your Mr. Coogan.” McClincy nodded to a burly, uniformed man who nodded back and entered a secured holding area attached to the courtroom.
“Thank you, Judge. In that case, the People call William Stevens.” Stevens was one of the two police officers who witnessed Coogan’s attack on Rozen and Ecco’s subsequent assault. Eyes turned to a door at the rear of the courtroom, expecting to see the officer appear. The door stayed closed.
The bailiff reappeared and told the judge. “Mr. Coogan did not arrive. The defense witnesses are outside but none of the prosecution witnesses are here.”
Doyle’s ruddy cheeks drained of color. He looked up at Judge McClincy and spoke, “Judge, all of my witnesses are supposed to be here. There must be a minor mix-up. May I have a brief recess to get this straightened out?”
“Five minutes. Please have your witnesses when we reconvene. The jury will remain.”
McClincy gaveled the session to a halt and then returned to his chamber, but not before offering a dark look at the prosecutor whose temerity interfered with His Honor’s schedule. Three hundred seconds later Judge McClincy returned. The bailiff called the session back to order. McClincy turned to the prosecutor and asked, “Are you ready to continue, Mr. Doyle?”
“Your Honor, may I approach?”
Permission granted. Doyle and the public defender rose and approached the bench. Doyle was subdued. “Judge, the witnesses appear to have been sent to a different court. Somehow a change of venue order was entered in error and my witnesses were sent to Franklin County.”
“Not good, Mr. Doyle. How did a Suffolk County prosecutor manage to send three witnesses to a court ninety-one miles from here?”
“I don’t know, Judge. We’re still looking into the matter. May I ask for a continuance?”
“Do you at least have statements from the witnesses?” asked the judge.
“Of course. May I present those?”
“If you don’t, I’m guessing that the defense here will ask for a dismissal.”
Doyle walked to the prosecutor’s table and conferred with the second chair, his assistant. Doyle’s demeanor changed from confident to frantic as he subvocalized commands to his datasleeve. He checked an index of documents and blanched.
Doyle’s pinstriped suit pulled the reluctant prosecutor to face the bench. The perfect Windsor knot was askew. Once again he asked permission to approach, and once again the public defender accompanied Doyle to speak with His Honor.
“Judge, it appears that the witness statements are not available.”
“Not available now…or not available ever?”
“The written statements were destroyed in error, Your Honor, and the backup is gone. If I could have a postponement…”
The public defender showed his first signs of life. He was overmatched, but understood the most basic tenet of criminal defense. No evidence? No victim? No witness? No case. He called for a dismissal.
“I’m inclined to grant the defense motion,”
“Your Honor! The defense request is outrageous. The People have spent days preparing for this case. If you can give us a continuance, we can reassemble the testimony and get the witnesses into court.”
McClincy glared at Doyle. “As I recall, you refused a plea bargain offer from the defense. No counteroffer, either. Do I remember correctly?”
“Yes, Judge.”
“I don’t like trials. They interfere with justice. Too inefficient. And now you want a continuance? You reap what you sow, Mr. Doyle.”
“Your Honor. Mr. Coogan deserves justice.”
“Chambers, both of you,” McClincy snapped. He looked up and addressed the court. “We’re going to take a recess here for, let’s say, fifteen minutes. Bailiff, please escort the jury out. Ladies and gentlemen, remember not to discuss the case. We’ll call you back when we’re ready to reconvene.” The jury turned a piteous glance on Doyle, their fallen hero. They rent their garments, covered themselves in ash, and wailed in grief.
McClincy turned to the defense. “Mr. Ecco, I’m going to have a little chat with your attorney and Mr. Doyle. Would you be kind enough to join us?”
Without waiting for an answer, McClincy walked behind his bench and through a door leading to his chambers. Dark wood-paneled shelves accommodated photographs of His Honor’s family. The walls were papered in a trompe I’oeil image of books—codes, statutes, ordinances, decisions—an artist’s notion of a jurist’s sanctuary during the gaudy age of paper. Maroon pile carpet finished the effect, a gentlemen’s club. McClincy gestured to a pair of adjoining leather chairs for the attorneys. Jim looked around for a chair. There wasn’t one. He stood. A court police officer stood at his elbow, ready to pounce, ready to protect the assembled officials of the court.
“Mr. Ecco, there are a few details that puzzle me. Help me make sense of them.”
“Your Honor?”
“Mr. Ecco, our SETS system is about ten years old. That’s the Safe Evidence and Testimony Storage system. Evidence is stockpiled electronically. It removes the delays in handling evidence and documents. That ensures that you get a speedy trial. SETS hasn’t lost one byte of data in all of the years it’s been in existence, at least that I know of. Mr. Doyle, have you lost any evidence before today?”
“None, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Goodrich, are you aware of any lapses in SETS?” McClincy asked the public defender. “No, Judge.”
“So, Mr. Ecco, the likelihood that the People’s electronic and hard copy statements were destroyed and the witnesses were sent elsewhere is a bit lower than the likelihood that Mr. Doyle here will show up in Bermuda shorts instead of his usual pinstripes. Add the fact that the defense evidence is intact and your witnesses are here. Would you care to speculate on the odds?”
“If you think I had anything to do with it, you’re wrong. There are smarter people accused of bigger crimes who have more ability to tamper with evidence.”
“I agree, or we would be having a different conversation. Still there are just too many coincidences, and that bothers me. Mr. Doyle, has your office figured out what happened?”
“Judge, it appears that there was a similar case and a defendant with almost the same name, Jaime Eccles. He was charged with assault and battery with a deadly weapon, same as Mr. Ecco. That case was dismissed. Because of the dismissal, the witness statements were to be deleted. But that order was applied to this case in error.”
“What about your witnesses? The policemen? The victim?” asked the judge.
“I don’t know why they were sent to Franklin County. There was no change of venue in the Eccles case.”
“Can you at least tell me how it happened?”
“As far as I can tell, the instructions were issued by the datapillar. That’s all I know.”
Jim’s eyes widened at the mention of the datapillar. The attorneys were silent, pensive, waiting. The judge looked around his chambers as if the solution would be found on the fanciful walls. He fixed his gaze on Jim and drummed the fingers of his right hand on his desk, slow and light at first. The cadence moved from andante to moderato to a vigorous presto. Finally, agitato, and crescendo. Then silence.
“Mr. Ecco, every night, I review the next day’s docket. Your case was straightforward. The victim attacked your friend and you defended her. Fine. But when her assailant was immobilized, you kicked him. That’s the assault, which was witnessed by two policemen. I was prepared to sentence you to two and a half years in the House of Corrections. The sentence is severe, but you’ve been in court before, haven’t you?”
“I have a clean record, Your Honor.”
“Mr. Ecco, that was a ‘yes’ or ‘no ‘question. Again. You have appeared in court on three occasions, including this one, correct? And each of your visits came about because you have a bit of a temper, yes?”
“Uh, yes, sir.”
“And, in each case, you…how shall I put this? You whaled on your adversary. I believe that’s the term I’m looking for. Is that right Sean? Whaled?” Doyle nodded. Whatever His Honor proposed was right.
“Your Honor, I defended myself.”
McClincy took in a deep breath. His cheeks puffed as he exhaled through pursed lips. He spoke slowly, as if addressing a child. “Mr. Ecco, you have a temper. It is out of control. You have a habit of breaking bones. If any of the People’s evidence were intact, you would be the County’s guest for the next few years. I will not let you off because of a mix-up.
“Here is your choice. I can grant Mr. Doyle’s request for a continuance, or I will allow your attorney and Mr. Doyle to reach an agreement. Mr. Doyle, how about disorderly conduct? Keep your nice conviction rate intact?”
“The People would accept that, Judge.”
“Defense?”
“We would accept disorderly, Your Honor, and request probation.”
“Mr. Doyle?”
“No, Your Honor, Mr. Ecco committed a grievous crime. He—”
“Oh, knock it off, Sean. This isn’t the courtroom and I’m not a jury. You wanted a conviction. Now you’ve got one. I want him on probation so I can force some changes on him.”
“Community service, Judge?” requested Doyle.
“My thoughts exactly.”
The magistrate turned to the defendant. “Mr. Ecco, if you plead guilty to disorderly, you’ll have a misdemeanor criminal record. You’ll be on probation, which means you’ll be under the court’s supervision. But it also means that you’ll walk out of here today.”
“I understand, your Honor.”
“I’m also going to order you to perform 120 hours of community service.”
“Yes, Your Honor.” Jim exhaled a deep sigh of relief.
“Mr. Ecco, we’re not quite done. As part of the plea deal, I am ordering you to take mood blocks or to enroll in anger management counseling. I am serious and I do not lose track of witnesses or defendents. Do I make myself eminently clear?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“I’m placing you under the court’s supervision for the next two years. If I see you in my court or hear that you are visiting any of my colleagues, you will serve time. Is that understood?”
“Yes, Your Honor.”
“Good. Mr. Ecco, please make some arrangements with a physician or a mental health worker. You have ten days to present a treatment plan to this court. Do you have any questions?”
Ecco thought for a moment. His lips parted to reveal a slight smile. “Yes, Your Honor.”
“What is it?” McClincy asked, annoyed.
Ecco drew in a breath. “Your Honor, will you marry me?”
“What!”
“I said, ‘Will you marry me?’”
McClincy stared, disbelief painted across his face. Doyle winced, and then smirked. McClincy spoke with quiet menace. “Do you think you’re funny? Are you a comedian now?”
“No, Your Honor, I’m sorry.” Jim raised both hands in a stop gesture. The bailiff grabbed the back of Jim’s shirt and pulled him back a step. He continued, “I didn’t mean, ‘Will you marry me’ as in, ‘Will you be my spouse.’ Please. My girlfriend is sitting outside the courtroom. She’s pregnant with our child. We put off getting married because we thought I’d be in prison. I want to do the right thing for her and for our baby. That’s what I meant. I should have said, ‘will you marry us.’ My trial was supposed to last the morning, and now it’s over. So, there’s time. We’ve got a friend here for a witness, and, well, you’re a judge.”
“Do you have a wedding license?” asked McClincy.
“Not yet, sir, but the clerk’s office is just down the hall. I’m serious, Your Honor. This trial has been hanging over our heads for months, and every day I’ve thought about what I did and regretted hurting Mr. Coogan. I’m turning my life around and I want to be there for my family. Please, help me.”
McClincy shook his head slowly. “Well, I have managed to dispose of two-hour trial in less than thirty minutes, so if your lady wants to be married in a criminal courtroom, then be back here with a license and I’ll marry you after the next case.”
Outside the courtroom, the three friends celebrated. Marta threw her arms around Jim as far as her gravid belly would allow and then winced. Impending motherhood buoyed her spirits but burdened her legs. Eva appeared indifferent.
Jim hugged each of the women who had supported him during his ordeal. To Eva, he whispered, “Neat trick. Thank you.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.”
“Only you could have done it. How can I ever thank you?”
“Take me with you the next time you go hunting.”
“Eva, there won’t be a next time,” and he explained what the judge ordered. “There is one other thing,” said Jim. He turned to Eva. She saw a look of entreaty in his eyes. “Marta and I need to stay here for another hour or so. There’s one more legal matter and I need your help.”
“What’s going on?” asked Marta.
Jim’s knelt before her and took both of her hands in his. She colored. There was a small cluster of people in the hallway, attorneys hammering out deals, fates being cast. Their voices grew quiet as their attention was drawn to the scene unfolding nearby.
“Marta, you’ve been my rock for eight years. We have a future in front of us now and I want the best life for our baby. The judge agreed to marry us. To each other, that is.”
No one spoke. No one breathed.
“I’m asking you to marry me,” Jim said.
The hallway was as silent as a library at midnight.
“All we have to do is walk down the hall and get a license. Marta, I don’t know if this is the wedding chapel of your dreams, and there’s no wedding veil or ring bearer and all of that. But I want to marry you, Marta. Right here and right now. Will you be my wife?”
“Jim, I don’t understand.”
The onlookers craned their necks to hear.
“The judge agreed to perform a marriage ceremony after his next case if we get a wedding license. I know this is sudden, but we’ve talked about it. I want to marry you, Marta.” He placed his cheek against Marta’s swollen belly and looked up at her. “Let’s be a family.”
Marta Cruz burst into tears. The attorneys and their clients in the hallway looked at the bride-to-be. Marta looked down at the man kneeling at her feet. She pressed his face into her belly, as if to make the moment include their child.
“Oh, Jim. Yes. Yes, I will marry you.”
Every person in the hallway but one started to applaud.
“But there is a condition,” said Marta.
Movement stopped again.
“Stand up and look at me.”
Eva frowned briefly and watched Jim rise uncertainly to his feet.
“I will marry you, Jim Ecco, and I will be with you for better or for worse. But, the judge speaks for me as well. You have to learn to calm yourself. I won’t have our baby nursing on your temper. I know that anger will always be a part of you, but you must become its master, not its servant. If you will promise me that, then, yes, I will marry you, right here and right now.” Her eyes began to moisten, as did Jim’s.
Eva’s eyes were dry. They widened and narrowed. Something tugged at her, an inchoate sense of foreboding, of loss. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. Back in control, she sighed impatiently. “Jeez, guys, this is a wedding, not a funeral. Hey, lovebirds—come on! We’ve got to get you to the clerk’s office.”
The onlookers cheered as the three friends ran up the hall. The line at the clerk’s window was long, but they had Eva. In less than a minute, they were at the front, and peering through security glass at a clerk.
“Huh. I didn’t know that wedding licenses were all that risky,” Eva muttered, touching the thick glass.
The clerk chuckled. “Nope. But fishing licenses? Now that’s another story.”
When the couple returned, Judge McClincy examined the license. He smiled and then retreated to his chambers. He removed a spray of daffodils from a vase on his desk and returned to the front of his bench to stand with the couple. He presented the flowers to Marta and asked, “Will this do for a bridal bouquet?”
She blushed and beamed.
He pointed to Eva. “Are you the maid of honor?”
“Best man. Jim, got a ring?”
“In fact I do.” He reached into his pocket and took out a small, cloth-covered box and handed it to Eva. She stared down at the ring. In a low voice Jim said, “Don’t lose it,” he smiled, “or make it disappear.”
Jim turned back to the judge. “Your Honor, we appreciate this. I’m not going to let Marta down—or you. But Marta and Eva have to get to their classes. Can you make this brief?”
Judge McClincy froze. He cocked his head and looked at Jim for a moment, and shrugged. “Okay, you’re the boss.” He turned to Marta. “You look beautiful, my dear. Do you, Marta Maria Cruz, take James Ecco to be your lawful husband?” She nodded, fighting to control tears, and barely spoke her affirmation.
“And you, James Bradley Ecco, do you take Marta Cruz to be your lawful wife?”
“I do.”
“Then by the power vested in me by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, I now pronounce you husband and wife. Mr. Ecco, you may kiss your bride.”
“That’s it?” Jim asked.
“You said, ‘Make it brief.’” Then, under his breath, “Gotcha.”
That evening Marta made a celebratory dinner—a simple student meal of pasta. Eva placed two red rose stems on the table. Jim produced a bottle of student-priced Chianti to toast the future but the plonk went largely untouched. Marta stuck with club soda—“the baby, you know.” Jim drank sparingly to a new future. Eva clinked a glass to the others in a toast to friendship, but set the alcohol back on the table, untouched.
The celebration marked a turning point for the three friends. It was the end of Jim’s legal troubles and the beginning of his path of self-control. For the first time since the death of Marta’s mother and the loss of her father’s attention, she concentrated on her own needs. She had made an unequivocal demand of Jim, to abandon his anger, and was rewarded by his efforts to mature.
Eva felt conflicted. When she shepherded Marta and Jim through the clerk’s office for a wedding license, she felt a kinship with them, a connection to others that was new to her. True, she had loved Gergana, but as a child loves a caregiver, not as a friend bound by voluntary allegiance. The antiquarian Coombs had offered friendship that transcended the difference in their ages. Eva accepted his benevolence, but not the mutual obligations of amity.
Her growing affinity for Marta and for Jim animated something within Eva. Platonic love, unselfish giving, unrewarded sacrifice—these could nurture her. The desiccated yearning for human connection began to bloom. She felt peace and saw that it was good.
But the Voices from the Table of Clamorous Voices counseled otherwise. They dripped poison in her ear, an insistent voice with Iago-like guidance. Something’s wrong, they warned, here is danger. Eight years earlier, Gergana’s murder had robbed Eva of a model of selfless love and the Table of Clamorous Voices was born. Scant weeks later, Jim Ecco said, “Let’s be friends.” He offered loyalty without expectation of romantic payment, faith without reservation. He stood at the head of the Table. He became a moderating voice.
Throughout their years together, Eva balanced the fear-driven impulses of the Table with the kindness of Jim’s friendship and Marta’s tolerant, if sometimes caustic, acceptance. But when Eva pulled them down a crowded hallway to the County Clerk’s office, she helped Jim move into Marta’s orbit. Eva did not understand the chemistry of human relations, that Jim could be shared by two people, much as an electron is shared by two atoms in the formation of a stable molecule. The Table of Clamorous Voices spoke, and it warned, “You have been eclipsed by another. A shadow has fallen upon you and you stand bereft of warmth and sunlight. You will perish without the light that has been taken from you. We can preserve you. You must preserve us.”
It was a plea for survival—and a declaration of war.
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
APRIL, 2030
No one doubted Jim Ecco’s sincerity when he promised to control his anger. That was Marta’s condition for marriage and Judge McClincy’s condition for probation. No one was surprised when he announced he’d seek professional help rather than take mood blocks. It was his selection of a dog trainer for a therapist that raised eyebrows.
Prosecutor Sean Doyle took exception. But Jim presented Dr. Elizabeth Luminaria. Her doctorate in behavioral psychology met the letter of the law, no matter that her dissertation dealt with animal behavior. That she was a behaviorist at Haven Memorial Animal Shelter was irrelevant. She fit the law’s requirements. The court had to accept the arrangement.
“I’m not a traditional talk therapist,” she told Jim at his first meeting, one that Marta attended on Dr. Luminaria’s instruction. “Exploring your family history can be helpful, but any discussion of the past will bring you right back to your starting place, the present. You can’t change what went before. You can’t change most of what is around you. You can’t even change what’s inside of you. But you can learn to change your responses to what’s inside you and what’s around you.”
“Oh, great,” complained Jim. “I sort of had the feeling that I can’t change the past, and now you’ve confirmed it for me. Brilliant. Are you going to teach me to change the future?”
Dr. Luminaria’s peered at Jim, as she peered at the entire world around her. She had a perpetual squint, as if trying to see inside the objects of her gaze. Her actions were energetic and precise, without wasted motion. She moved with sharp gestures that reached exactly to whatever object she wished to grasp and no further. She spoke each word fully, never dropping a letter, and yet her speech was neither clipped nor autocratic. Her office had little enough room for a desk and chairs let alone the buckets of hard rubber toys, bundles of leashes, collars, halters, and a small sofa coated with a thick layer of dog hair, which discouraged human occupants. Three walls were hidden behind paper books and photographs of Dr. Luminaria with her various pupils, both two- and four-legged.
“I understand that you are good with dogs,” said Luminaria, as if she did not hear Jim’s complaint.
“That’s maybe the only thing I’m good at.”
“You’re going to be a father, aren’t you?” she asked with a sly smile and a squint.
“Yeah.”
“Well, then you must be good at two things, minimum.”
Jim did a double-take. “What?” he said, not quite believing he’d heard her correctly. Marta suppressed a grin.
“Got your attention now, have I?” Luminaria asked in a sweet voice. Jim nodded, uncertainty showing on his face.
“Good. The court and your wife are both concerned about your behavior, not your inventory of talents. We’re going to use the same techniques with you that you use with dogs.”
The fifty-ish Luminaria was a doctrinaire behaviorist, a four-square adherent of the theories of B. F. Skinner. She held that the mind is a black box, its contents unknowable. Instead, she looked at stimuli in the environment as inputs to the black box. Behavior was the output. Her therapeutic goal and her training goals were identical: to develop a ways identify the stimuli to which a subject responds—the inputs—and to change the reaction to those stimuli, the outputs. Her detractors called her Dr. Black Box, a term she took as a compliment.
“Behaviorism is the perfect metaphor for you to understand your actions, Jim. A stranger on the street, a loud noise, some annoying habit of Marta’s, these are all inputs from the environment. You have no control over the inputs, but you can learn to react differently to the oddly-behaving stranger, to the loud noise, and to your wife’s eccentricities.
“So, what, I just ignore the way I was raised?”
“No, your inputs also include your family history. “You can’t change the past but you can change the way you react today,” she repeated. “Eventually, you’ll be a believer. You’ll trust yourself as much as you trusted your dog.”
They started by comparing canine and human behavior. “Nobody knows what a dog is thinking, or even another person. You know how to observe a dog’s behavior, to see how its actions spring from something in the environment. You’re successful when you work to recondition the dog’s response. You can do the same for yourself.”
“Yeah, right,” Jim said. “Everyone says I have this gift for ‘reading’ people, and look where it’s gotten me.”
“You whine more than a wet puppy. Stop it. You have a wonderful gift. You just use it when it suits you. Worse, you react before you finish observing. Would you serve a cake with uncooked batter?”
“I do just fine with dogs. It’s with people that I get into trouble.”
“Of course it’s easier for you with dogs! Your early experiences with dogs shaped your comfort with them. But you said your father could be violent and that your mom provoked him. That’s the model for human behavior that you formed as a young child. Your model for canine behavior is Ringer. You’re not afraid of an aggressive dog because you’ve never been struck by a dog. So you can respond properly to the dog. But if you believe that a person might be aggressive, then you get into trouble because it evokes the memory of your father’s violence.”
Jim’s head snapped up. He flushed and stood and tried to pace in the cramped office and was about to kick a bucket full of dog toys when Dr. Luminaria spoke with quiet authority.
“Please sit down,” she commanded. “You’re angry, and right now, that’s good. I want you to close your eyes for a moment and take in three deep breaths. You too, Marta. Let them out slowly. No, slowly. That’s it, deep breathing, not panting.” As Jim relaxed, Dr. Luminaria told him to pinch gently on the helix of his left ear. “That fleshy outer ridge is connected to acupressure points that help lower blood pressure. Once you practice this, you can breathe and touch your ear to create instant relaxation.”
“Listen to me,” she continued. Her voice was even, almost hypnotic. “You cannot be one kind of person with your dogs and another kind of person with people. You’ve created a rigid internal boundary and it is costing you dearly to maintain that barrier. Your patience is on the dog side and your anger is on the people side. But the boundary is artificial. Where is Marta on that map? You’re going to have a baby. What happens when your child pushes you to your limits? Trust me, that will happen. Repeatedly. And what happens when your anger with people migrates to dogs?
Jim’s eyes pooled and his shoulders sagged. “What am I going to do? Do you think I like feeling the way I do?”
“Shhh. Just sit for a few minutes. Close your eyes again and breathe. In through your nose and exhale out your mouth.”
Jim took several deep breaths, exhaling each one more slowly that the last. He leaned back in his chair. He could feel the tension drain from his face.
Dr. Luminaria’s firm voice began again. “When you work with a dog, you reward the behavior that you want to increase and ignore what you want to diminish. It’s just as easy with people because the principles are universal. In some ways, it’s easier. Most dogs need a bit of food or a toy or petting. People usually only need a smile or a word of approval.”
“But how do I react to anger? Threats?” Jim asked.
“Why not ignore it all, and let it die out?” Dr. Luminaria asked, “Just as you would ignore undesirable behavior from a dog.”
“How can I?” asked Jim.
“Jim, the easiest way to change an unwanted behavior is to starve it. Reacting feeds the behavior. Children often misbehave in order to get the attention that comes with the punishment. So, ignore the behavior you don’t like. But this will demand that you learn self-control.”
“It’s not the same for me.”
“Oh? You’re the universe’s lone exception?”
“I never lose my temper with dogs. But people? Forget it.” He slumped again.
Marta reached out to rub his shoulders but Dr. Luminaria had stopped her. “Please, Marta, don’t reinforce him when he’s in his ‘poor me’ mode. When he starts to work through a challenge, then you can rub his shoulder to reinforce that behavior. A quick pat as a small reward for a small achievement or a nice shoulder rub as a higher-value reward. And I’ll bet you can think of a nice reward for a bigger achievement,” she said with a smile and a wink to Marta.
Jim saw Marta grin and felt his face burn. Despite himself, he smiled.
Dr. Luminaria turned back to Jim. “Answer me. If a dog has a barking problem, what’s the best training response?”
“Remove the stimulus in the environment that causes the barking. Or cue a different behavior before the dog starts to bark,” Jim said.
“And what else? What do most people do wrong?” she prompted.
“They try to punish the barking.”
“Why is that wrong?” Her questions were rapid-fire, her cadence brisk.
“The punishment just reinforces it.”
“So you ignore the barking and then it goes away?”
“No,” he said, “First there’s an increase in the barking just before it subsides. An extinction burst. Most people give up there. But if they wait, they can reward the dog after the extinction burst, when the dog is finally quiet.”
“Well, people are the same. So, when someone really gets on your nerves, why not assume that you’re seeing an extinction burst and just wait?”
Jim nodded.
“Perhaps you get into trouble because you confuse the extinction burst with a threat. Wait it out. Most people call that patience and goodwill. If it helps you to use the language of behaviorism, then call it an extinction burst.”
“But if I don’t react, there could be trouble,” he argued.
“No!” She rapped on her desk to anchor her response. “The trouble starts when you react. Your father was prone to violence. Do you think most people are like him? Or are people generally peaceable?”
Jim lifted one shoulder in a ‘whatever’ gesture.
Luminaria pressed the point. “Don’t just shrug. You’re avoiding the question. If people were naturally violent, then there’d be a lot more blood on the streets, yes?”
She raised her eyebrows to punctuate her question.
“I guess so,” he said aloud.
She continued, “But if baseline human behavior isn’t violent, then the problem is inside of you.”
“I guess so,” he said again.
“Look, Jim,” she said softly, rewarding him with a soothing voice. “You’re the keenest observer of canine behavior that I’ve seen in a long time. But when you consider people, you confuse your feelings with their intent. You remember the way your father acted and you see red. I want you to follow the old saying ‘Count to ten’ so you have a chance to wait out your own extinction bursts.”
“But what if someone takes a swing at me?” he asked.
“Duck,” she said.
Marta smiled in approval. Clearly, she liked Dr. Luminaria.
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
SPRING. 2030
A week before the end of the semester, Marta was in a feverish review of cellular biology, organic chemistry, and statistical analysis. Her coffee pot had given birth to a litter of cups. A pile of snack food wrappers grew in an apparent case of spontaneous generation. Marta was a bundle of caffeine-fueled, sugar-enhanced, stress-jangled nerves. Jim tried to help, but to little avail. The vocabulary of her studies was unpronounceable for him, let alone understandable.
Eva joined them, relaxed, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.
“Well, look who’s gracing us with her presence,” Marta groused, part accusation, part cry for mercy. “You’ve decided you need to study like the rest of us mortals?”
“Nope. All set.” This drew a groan from Marta. Eva said, “Stop complaining. It’s just science.”
“I don’t understand how you do it,” said Marta.
“Simple. I learn it the first time, in class. Then I don’t forget it. Try it sometime.”
“Thank you very much for your most excellent advice,” said Marta. She was too tired to add the usual edge of asperity to her voice. “So how have you been filling your time? Surely not reading a novel?”
Eva looked askance. “Why would I do that? No, I’ve got a project. Here, look this over and approve it,” she directed. Marta’s dataslate pinged receipt of a document.
“What is it?” asked Marta.
“An application. Sign it.”
“Mind telling me what it is?”
“Read it,” Eva ordered.
“I’m in the middle of organic chemistry. Or is it statistics? Whatever—can’t it wait till after finals?”
“Nope. Need your approval. Project application is due tomorrow.”
“What project?” Marta asked, bewildered.
“Open it,” ordered Eva.
Marta groaned again and subvocalized to open a heads-up display. “It’s a work-study grant application,” she said, surprised. “Bingo.”
“I don’t get it. What work-study?”
“Listen,” Eva began. “We’re going to pool what we know and get credit for it. Take some time out of the classroom and do something real, make something. The project will show the feasibility of nanoassembly of medicines. It’s right up our alley. You know more about folk remedies than anybody in the world. We take the best stuff from your rainforests and synthesize it with a nanoassembler. Maybe even turn it into a business.”
“Where are we going to get an assembler?” asked Marta.
“Oh, ye of little faith. I have a plan,” said Eva.
“I get that you want to use what I’ve found in El Yunque. But I don’t like it,” said Marta. “I’ve spent years cataloging what I found in El Yunque and around the world because the rainforests are dying, not to be some kind of tycoon.”
Eva set down her dataslate with exaggerated care and stared at Marta. She made a hunched shoulders, palms-up, ‘what gives?’ gesture and said, “That’s exactly why my plan is perfect. The rainforests are dying. The people who know what’s in them are dead or moving to the cities. What’s going to happen then? Do you want to let it all get lost?”
“No, but I don’t like this idea of yours,” Marta repeated.
“What’s not to like?”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t like you doing this behind my back.”
“Oh, relax. I just did the part that I’m best at—organizing and creating a business plan. You ever done anything like that before?”
“No,” Marta admitted, “but—”
“You’ve written grant applications before? Even one?”
“No. I’m a researcher, not a wanna-be tycoon.”
“Wanna-be? Riiight.” She drew out this last word. “What about you, Jim? You have any desire to manage the business part?”
He shrugged. “I’ll help.”
Eva said, “Marta. This is not, ‘Eva’s going behind our back’ but ‘Eva’s taking on the crappy part of the job so her friend can study.’”
“I’ll think about it,” said Marta.
“Think about it?” Eva shot back, as close to shouting as she might ever come. “Think about what? What are you going to do, spend the rest of your life cataloging plants that are going extinct? Here you have a chance to do something real. Catalog, my ass. Let’s build something. Take that brain of yours”—she reached up and tapped Marta’s forehead with two stubby fingers—“and use it on something practical.”
Marta winced at the touch. “I don’t know,” she said. “There’s an awful lot to find and preserve. That could take me the rest of my life.”
Jim broke in. He positioned himself slightly between Marta and Eva. Marta relaxed. He said to her, “Didn’t you tell me that Abuela said the same thing? That you could teach the doctors? Maybe this is your destiny. Here’s a chance to find out.”
“Maybe after finals,” Marta allowed.
“Meantime, Marta? Approve the damned application. Deadline is tomorrow.”
“I’ll look it over. No promises. I guess I’m a bit miffed. You bring this to us as a fait accompli and that sort of takes me by surprise.”
Eva mimicked, “Fait accompli. That’s a good one. Just sign it, Marta.” Then, “Please?”
Marta reviewed the grant application. “Okay, I’ll do it. I have to admit that it’s well-organized. Your writing is easy to read and it has enough detail to demonstrate the project’s feasibility. You did a good job. And I can use something from El Yunque, from Abuela. I might even help the world understand the Taíno culture.”
But before Marta and Eva could tackle nanoassembly they had to tackle final exams. Weather conditions conspired to make life miserable late in April, a time that is filled with flowers and robins and budding trees everywhere except in Boston, which might as well have been in a weather quarantine. Lowering gray skies unleashed daggers of sleet that etched their faces. Acres of half-melted snow conspired to trap the exhausted collegians’ feet. Around them, unsuspecting pedestrians stepped into curbside potholes, ankle-deep with dirty slush. They cursed the weather, cursed their drenched feet and, for good measure, cursed each other.
And yet… winter must stand aside for spring’s arrival, even in Boston. Final exams and meteorological ordeals were over. The morning of June 7 was a smile after winter’s glower. Snow was a melted memory. Sunshine swept aside the gloom and Marta’s misgivings. She had linked to Eva to congratulate her on a successful proposal and its funding and to tell her how much she looked forward to independent work.
“When my grandmother told me I’d be teaching doctors about our healing plants, I thought she was being, well, unrealistic, shall we say. Eva—thank you.”
Now Eva waited for Marta on a bench outside the Northwest Science building. The massive steel and glass-fronted building was a research center for neurosciences, bioengineering, systems biology, and computational analysis. It stood near Harvard’s museums and Harvard Yard—’Hahvahd Yahd’ in the local dialect—and was surrounded by a manicured expanse of grass and trees, green with new life.
Jim waited with her. He was excited too, and brought coffee and bagels. The baby was due any day, and Jim used every break in his schedule to be with his wife.
“The sunshine is a good omen,” Jim said.
Eva gave him a sideways glance. “You sound like Marta. She thinks everything is an omen. Where is she, anyway?”
“There.” Jim pointed across a wide lawn. “She’s walking kind of slow. Her due date is in two weeks.”
“Guess we can cut Plant Lady some slack. She looks like a whale.”
“I’m not quite sure that calling her a whale goes with cutting her some slack. At least, don’t say it to her face. She’s a bit sensitive about her size.”
“How about ‘massively pregnant’?”
“Oh, yeah, that’ll work just fine. Folks, meet Eva Rozen, diplomat.”
“At least you understand me, lover boy,” she said. They watched Marta hobble towards them. She added, “That’ll be your legacy, Jimmy.”
“What, the baby?”
“No. The epitath. I can see it on your gravestone, ‘He, alone, understood Eva Rozen.’”
Jim looked at her. “You’re not getting all sappy on me, now, are you?”
Eva punched him on the shoulder. Hard. “That answer your question?”
Marta reached them. “Well, here we are. How exciting.” That was as far as she got. Her face took on a look of surprise, her lips formed a tight circle as she mouthed the single word, “Oh!” then expanded that to, “Oh, crap.” Wet slacks clung to her legs. A small puddle appeared on the sidewalk.
“What’s going on, Marta?” Jim asked.
Marta looked surprised. She managed, “My water just broke. You may need to start without me.” She sat heavily on the bench, looked at her husband and colleague. She smiled and tried to apologize. Instead, she fainted.
She recovered in seconds, grimacing with the pain of her first contraction. Jim and Eva sat her on the lawn. They looked like three students enjoying the sunshine before classes.
“Well,” said Marta, “the timing is a bit awkward. I guess I should go pack a few things and maybe get to the med center.” Then, ashen-faced, she rolled onto her side in the grips of another contraction, even more intense, by the look on her face. Eva recognized that Marta’s labor had begun in earnest—a precipitous delivery. She touched her datasleeve, jacked into the Science Building’s datapillar and ran through a checklist to determine the immediate care that Marta might require.
Most of the students milling in the courtyard were medical students and it seemed as if each one of them wanted a head start at building a practice—with Marta as their first patient. There was one small impediment to the mob of Samaritan attention: Eva Rozen decided that she would organize Marta’s care. She barked orders to several nearby students.
“Get out of here, you morons!” to the three closest gawkers. They were not in the way, but the command helped Eva warm to her task. To another, “You? You want to make yourself useful? Get an ambulance. We’re going to the Med Center, stat.” Harvard Medical Center was nearby.
She pointed to a third student, a tall onlooker who had made the mistake of stopping to take in the excitement. “Give me your shirt,” she said.
“What?”
“Take off that ugly crimson shirt, you idiot.” Crimson was Harvard’s school color. “This woman needs something under her head. Give me your shirt or I’ll take it off you. Now!” The prospective donor started to laugh until he caught Eva’s glare. Then he stood, slack-jawed, a rodent in thrall to Eva’s unblinking python gaze. Without a word, he stripped and handed his shirt to Eva. The shirt was brand new, its bright white letters unsoiled. A single word, broken into three syllables, “Ve- Ri- Tas”, proclaimed the college’s commitment to truth. Eva tucked the shirt under Marta’s head.
Eva felt the presence of the half-naked donor and looked back up at him. His face twitched. An overpowering impulse welled up from the deep recesses of primal instinct and flooded him with one half of the fight-or-flight impulse. He ran.
The ambulance arrived twelve minutes later. The EMTs were calm and concerned. “Ma’am? Can you tell me what’s wrong,” one asked Marta. Marta didn’t respond. She was in thrall to the powerful contractions. This would be a fast labor.
Eva stepped forward and barked orders in a machine gun cadence that would please a drill sergeant. She kicked at one of the EMTs when he ignored her, concentrating instead on Marta. Her foot missed him but her message did not. She had the attendant’s full attention. She grabbed his elbow and pointed to the ground.
“Look. Blood in the amniotic fluid,” Eva said. She pointed to a dark spot where Marta’s water broke. “There. Now look at her. She’s starting contractions. This is going to be a precipitous delivery. She needs to get to the hospital. Stat. I’m going to ask you nicely, so we don’t upset the mother or the baby.”
Eva lowered her voice. The EMT leaned in to hear her whisper, “Get your ass in gear.” She stepped back and mustered up a sweet, schoolgirl-voice. “Please?”
The harried responders placed Marta on a stretcher and loaded her into the ambulance. Eva climbed in too. “You can’t ride in here,” one EMT said. “You can meet us at the hospital.”
The python returned.
“Sit over there and stay out of the way,” he relented.
Jim looked on helplessly. “I’ll meet you at the med center,” he said to the closed doors of the ambulance.
Inside the vehicle, Eva took charge. “Put her on her side.” Eva read the EMT’s ID glowpatch. “Barton Cornell? ID 5877? Listen. She’s having late-stage contractions. She needs to be on her side to avoid tearing.”
“Miss, would you let us do our jobs? I think we’ve handled more precipitous deliveries than you have.”
Marta spoke. “Eva? Can you help me? I need something from my plant kit.” Eva loosened a knot at the top of the leather pouch Marta wore around her neck. “Find a three-petaled flower. It was white when I picked it but it will be dried now and look more yellow.”
Eva moved with care. She held up a plant. Marta nodded and reached for the white trillium flower and began to chew it.
“Hey! You can’t give her anything. You’re not a doctor,” said Barton.
“And you’re not going to be a man if you get in my way. Just do your job and you get to keep all of your dangly bits intact.”
“Eva, you’re too much,” Marta chuckled, “but take it easy on these guys. They’re doing just fine…and so are you.” Then she bit down hard as she was wracked by another contraction. As she chewed the dried flowers, her face softened. “Does Jim know where to go? Eva can you link to Jim? I hope this baby waits for his father.”
Eva touched the small commdisc on her right cheekbone. Eva could be heard when she raised her voice, unusual for her, but she was excited by Marta’s birth in a way that no one would have predicted. The child would have an ally and mentor.
Eva’s voice punctuated the siren’s wail. Snippets of her side of the conversation could be heard in the ambulance. “…you bet your ass” “…no, she’s going to be fine!” “…Harvard Med Center…” “…don’t care how…” “…your child.” She fired her words more than she spoke them.
“He’s on his way. It’ll take him fifteen minutes to get to the hospital,” Eva reported.
Marta and Eva reached the hospital and Jim joined them a few minutes later. Eva commandeered a gurney for Marta and pulled her past registration, pausing long enough to transmit Marta’s data to an admissions pillar. The two EMTs looked at each other and shrugged. Six minutes later, Marta was gowned and heading into a birthing suite. Two hours later, the baby crowned. Eighteen minutes more, and Dana Rafael Ecco wailed his way into the breathing world.
“You’ve got a boy, Ms. Cruz. He sure was in a hurry,” said the obstetrician.
The lusty strength of his first cry impressed the physician—“a very healthy baby”, he pronounced, and it gladdened his mother as she sobbed with relief.
The baby’s sheer volume impressed Eva. “Now that’s a set of pipes,” she said.
The new father was still working through the day’s events and could only manage, “Why is he so…slimy?”
Marta held 8 pounds, 2 ounces of red and wrinkled life, 21 inches of fragile humanity—proof of love between a man learning to temper his anger and a woman learning to thrive despite her disabilities, proof of the cycle of life, proof of all of the hopes for the future.
CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS
MCALLEN, TEXAS
REYNOSA. TAMAULIPAS. MEXICO
AUGUST. 2030
Thirty-six hours after Marta Cruz served her father dessert, the Mexican Federal Police arrested Rafael at the border crossing in Reynosa.
Marta’s signature dessert was lemon curd with rosemary and it crowned Rafael’s last homemade meal. She kept a row of herbs by a south-facing kitchen window and used the savory plant in her cooking and as a compress for her rheumatism. She knew better than to try to grow lemons in New England, even in a window box, and used bottled lemon juice in the recipe. Marta fretted that she had no fresh lemons, but Rafael approved.
His arrival in Cambridge was unannounced. “Dad!” was the only word she could manage when she opened the door to her father. The two clung to each other without speaking for two long minutes. Tears polished their faces. Jim attempted to take Rafael’s single small bag, but his father-in-law kept it. “No te preocupes. No es pesado.” Don’t worry, it’s not heavy.
“We’re happy to see you, sir,” Jim temporized while Marta regained her composure. “You look like you’ve been hard on the road. What can I get you?”
“Cerveza, por favor, si tienes.” Beer, if you have.
Jim opened two bottles of Red Stripe and a club soda for Marta. Rafael frowned briefly at the Jamaican ale, declined a glass, then smiled and clapped his son-in-law on the shoulder. “Gracias, muchacho.” If Jim took offense at the diminutive, he gave no indication.
“Dónde está Dana?” Rafael demanded jovially, then switched to English for Jim’s benefit, “I want to meet my grandchild. I have yet to bounce this child on my knee.”
“Dad, I wish you’d linked ahead. The most beautiful baby ever created is sleeping now. Come with me, but your bouncing knee will have to wait. Next time, link ahead,” she chided and kissed his cheek.
They spent several minutes watching the slow rise and fall of Dana’s chest. Rafael leaned over the child, the overnight bag still in hand, and inhaled the baby’s fragrance.
“So what brings you north?” asked Jim.
Rafael turned serious. “I have been back and forth to Saltillo to find justice for my mother and for Elena. I will not rest until the maquiladoras are stopped.”
“Maquiladoras, sir?” asked Jim.
“Factories. Assembly plants,” said Rafael. A short wave of his hand dismissed Jim from the conversation.
“But Mom never spent much time in Saltillo. How could the factories affect her?”
“Her DNA, of course.” Marta looked puzzled. “Hija, do you know that Saltillo was once called the ‘Athens of Mexico’? That our textiles and ceramics were the best in the world?”
“Dad, you’ve told me only fifty times.”
“Then I’ll tell you again.”
“I don’t get the connection between the malquiladoras and mom.”
“The government cannot see Saltillo’s beauty. The politicians counts pesos when adobe is replaced by steel. Mexico now depends on auto parts manufacturers and many of those are in Saltillo. The industrial wastes kill our citizens,” he said, momentarily conflating his native and adopted countries. “How else do the people become sick?”
“You’ve travelled to complain, how many times is it now? Five? Six?” asked Marta.
“And I will continue until they stop poisoning the water and the air.”
“I read that the manufacturers are replacing their old plants with clean installations. They even turn the discharge into drinkable water.”
“So they say. Evidently it is not convenient to publish the information that shows the damage that is already done. But it is convenient for U.S. manufacturers to dump their poisons in Mexico where this goes unreported. They must be stopped.”
“Promise me you won’t get into any more trouble. Please?”
“It will be worth it if I can stop the poison. It is killing the land and the people.”
“What happened after your other visits?” asked Jim.
“At first the officials pretended to listen to me. They dismissed me with kind words, then with threats. They called my warnings incoherent accusations. Incoherent! Do I look like a lunatic spouting nonsesnse? I tried to talk to the experts at the universities and was arrested for trespassing. The Universidad Autonóma de Coahuila has three campuses and 41 schools but not one professor would take this seriously.”
“You were arrested? You never told me that,” said Marta.
“Hija, it was nothing. The judge gave me a piece of paper and sent me away.”
“What did the paper say?”
“Here, read it for yourself. I carry this with me for extra motivation.” Rafael handed his daughter a document on official stationary. Marta’s eyes widened as she read.
“This is an injunction! You can’t go back. It says, ‘Further actions by Rafael Cruz may be regarded as acts of terrorism.’ Dad, this is serious. You can’t go.”
“No. I cannot go to the universities. But I can still seek justice. I even have an appointment with a government official. This time will be different. This time I will be heard.”
“How can you make them listen now? What’s going to be different?”
Rafael was breathing hard and said nothing at first. Then his tone softened and he touched Marta’s cheek with one cupped palm. “When your mother died, I was lost. I could do no more than to weep and to wander through life. But I have found something that will give meaning to her death.”
Marta turned away.
Jim asked, “Where are you coming from now, sir?”
“From home. Where else would I have been, muchacho?”
“Did you come here all the way from Los Angeles just to say hello?” asked Marta. “You could have taken Amtrak from Los Angeles to San Diego and crossed into Tijuana.”
Rafael leaned over Dana’s sleeping form and kissed the child.
“I wanted to see you and this marvelous child.”
Marta looked puzzled. “That’s quite a trip. Three thousand miles from Los Angeles to Boston and then half the way back again to the Texas border.” Rafael continued to nuzzle Dana’s sleeping form.
Jim said, “Well, sir, we’re glad you’re here. What’s new in your life?” he added, probing cautiously and watching his father-in-law’s expression and body language.
“What could be new except a grandchild!” Be careful with this one, Rafael thought, he looks soft but he sees deep. I trust Marta, but I will keep my own counsel.
Before the long bus ride east, Rafael decided to arm himself, convinced that agents of the maquiladoras were watching him, waiting for an opportunity to stop him. A search of his neighborhood produced a choice of three handguns: a Ruger .357, a Glock .32, and a .45 caliber Colt handgun. He chose the largest—the Colt pistol—a selection that would prove disastrous.
Marta broke the tension by announcing dinner. The family sat down to an impromptu meal of rice and beans with chunks of pork, and Marta’s lemon curd. Rafael kept his small bag clutched between his feet under the table. After dinner and coffee, Rafael prepared to leave.
“Hija, I am so happy to see you work so hard and to be so productive. And, you, muchacho, thank you for taking such good care of my daughter and my Dana.”
“Dad, are you leaving already?”
“Hija, I have to be in Saltillo in two days. The bus to McAllen will take most of that time. Then from Reynosa to Monterrey to Saltillo, more time still. I will visit again when I return and we will spend many days together.” Marta stifled a sob.
“And you, muchacho, you should keep authentic Mexican beer.” Rafael smiled without humor.
Then tears, embraces, and promises, and Rafael walked out of his daughter’s life.
He was tired and stiff when he reached his destination, McAllen, Texas, but he didn’t stop to stretch. He was eager to be rid of his unwanted companion, the annoying chatterbox that followed him off the bus and through the border crossing.
Rafael’s journey into the Mexican penal system started in an unreserved seat on a bus departing from South Station, Boston. He slept on and off, one arm looped through the handle of his travel bag. The bus was crowded by the time he reached Houston, less than six hours from McAllen and jail. He draped an arm protectively over the empty seat next to him. Passengers boarding in Houston looked inquisitively at the seat and then at Rafael. One glance at his hostile demeanor and the travellers moved farther back. Just as the bus inched away from the terminal, a tipsy California resident plopped down next to Rafael.
“Howdy, pardner! Name’s Bobby Jim Amendola, but everyone calls me B.J.”
Rafael grunted noncommittally.
Rafael would never be certain if bad luck or circumstance prompted his new companion to strike up a conversation. He wondered if capricious gods prompted the man, a salesman, to engage in the idle blarney of his trade. “How ya’ doing?” “Where ya’ headed?” “Come down here often? Me, I’m from California but I was in Houston for business.” The man pronounced it, bidness. “Figured I’d take the bus, see the sights. So, what’s your line of work?”
Rafael turned away. B.J. took no notice. A salesman, he was habituated to being rebuffed, and kept at his patter. At about the time Rafael was going to tell Señor Amendola to mind his own bidness, they arrived at the Anzalduas International Bridge in McAllen.
Customs officials paid scant attention to travellers into Mexico. There were no questions, no papers to produce and no inspections. Rafael was a strong man and the weight of the bag he’d carried from Los Angeles cost him no effort. It held a toothbrush and a sweatshirt wrapped around a box of ammunition and the ill-chosen Colt pistol.
The two men blended into a sea of travellers on the pedestrian bridge into the Mexican town of Reynosa. A group of Policía Federal idled near the border crossing. At that moment, B.J. again asked Rafael what he did for a living. Without waiting for a reply, B.J. told Rafael, the last man on earth with whom he should have shared this confidence, that he was an auto parts salesman. “My first time south of the border, amigo. I’m heading for a trade show in Saltillo. I hear there’s good Mexican food there. Got any recommendations?”
Auto parts manufacture in Saltillo? Finally B.J. had Rafael’s full attention. He turned on the stunned salesman and shouted. All of his frustrations poured out in an incoherent bill of particulars that included his wife, his mother, cancer, water pollution, air pollution, black vines, Jamaican ale, selfish restaurant owners and houses on stilts.
The police overpowered Rafael and detained B.J. for good measure. They discovered the gun and ammunition in Rafael’s bag. He was thrown to the ground, handcuffed, picked up, and thrown down again. They dismissed the terrified salesman who, forsaking the conversational arts upon which his profession is built, returned home and took to his garden where he silently raised prize-winning bonsai trees until an untimely death six years later when struck by lightning in an elfin forest near San Luis Obispo, California.
The disposition of Rafael’s case hinged on Mexico’s revised gun laws. In 1998, the Mexican House of Representatives reduced the penalties to as little as a fine for an illegal handgun less than .380 caliber in size. But punishment was severe for larger weapons. Rafael’s Colt was a .45 caliber pistol, a fraction of an inch larger than the .380 caliber limit.
His day in court arrived after seven months’ pre-trial incarceration. “Your honor, the facts are incontrovertible!” the prosecutor boomed. “This man sneaked a weapon into our sovereign nation with the sole purpose of disrupting economic life through murder. Why else would he bring such a large gun?” The prosecutor laced his charge with the term, “economic terrorism” and swept aside any consideration of leniency. “And given the defendant’s long criminal history”—one arrest for trespassing—“I must beg this court to protect the people of Mexico and impose the maximum sentence.”
The magistrate complied and awarded the prosecutor a thirty-year sentence. Rafael’s new home was Penal del Altiplan. His new social circle included drug lords, corrupt officials, murderers, and political assassins. Three-foot reinforced walls, armored personnel carriers, and air patrols ringed the maximum-security facility.
When Marta learned of his confinement she appealed to her Congressional representatives and to the State Department. Their responses were uniform, crisp, and curt. Rafael Cruz had been convicted of a serious crime in a foreign country. The mighty resources of the United States would not be brought to bear on behalf of a terrorist.
Eva Rozen’s resources were another matter. She worked in secret, not only to keep her role from being discovered, but because the severity of the sentence affronted her private sense of honor. Her skills at jacking into secure databases and ghosting through foreign legal systems were not yet fully ripened and she could not set him free. She did, however, effect a transfer for Rafael to Isla Maria Madre, a minimum-security prison with a focus on genuine social rehabilitation.
This became Rafael Cruz’s home until the Great Washout.
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
AUTUMN 2030
Marta Cruz was eager to begin the work-study project and ended her maternity leave and returned to Harvard a week earlier than expected.
She carried Dana in an infant carrier strapped to her chest as she walked across a green swath of grass to the columned entrance of the science building. Marta turned her face up to the sun and breathed the fresh morning air. Every leaf, flower, and blade of grass before her was in sharp focus. Marta felt that invisible tendrils emanated from each green point of life to touch her. It was a sequel to her parents’ vision, the twinned vines with a golden stalk emerging. The child she carried at her breast was the focus of this new transcendence. Dana gurgled in happy affirmation of Marta’s walking meditation.
Her reverie was short-lived. She entered the building, took an elevator to the fourth floor and found her way to the office that she would share with Eva. She’d planned to arrive before Eva and review her colleague’s work. Instead she found Eva lost in a holographic display of Marta’s own research files. How did Eva get her notes?
The office door snicked shut and Eva spoke without turning. “Didn’t expect you for another week.”
“What are you doing, Eva?”
“Harvesting data. Your research is central to our work and I need the notes.”
“But how did you get my notes?”
Eva turned and peered at Marta. “Nice baby.”
“A darling, although now I understand what sleep deprivation is all about. But—what are you doing with my notes?” Her voice took on an edge. The meditation in which she’d been wrapped was displaced by a growing annoyance.
“Just getting things organized. Soon as I finish, I’ll bring you up to speed. Good that you’re back early. There are a handful of flowers and plants that have properties that are hard to isolate but might be perfect for molecular assembly. Good stuff here, Mom.”
“But my notes were in my dataslate.” She spoke quietly so as not to disturb Dana but she felt her face flush with irritation.
“I copied your slate when we were on the way to the hospital. Didn’t take too long with the changes I made to my datasleeve.” Eva grinned, “I can jack just about anything with it.”
“You jacked my slate? Eva, that’s private. All you had to do is ask for my work and I’d have linked it to you. You didn’t have to jack me.”
Eva continued, as if Marta had not spoken. “Okay, here’s where we are. Out of the 141 plants in your catalog, there are three or four that hold promise for nanoassembly—”
Marta took in a deep breath and let it out. She repeated the cycle and then pinched her ear to stimulate the acupressure points that would lower her blood pressure. She said nothing more about Eva’s intrusion. It was time to compartmentalize in order to focus on her work.
The baby cried and Eva cooed. “Would you like to hold him?” Marta offered. “I could use a minute to stretch my back. If I push too hard, my JRA pushes back.”
Marta unslung Dana, checked his diaper, and then held him out to Eva. “Here—take him for a minute, will you?”
“Me? The maternal type?” But Marta could see something in Eva’s eyes. Curiosity? Admiration? She handed Dana to Eva who examined him at arm’s length. “He’s not going to pee on me or something?”
Marta chuckled. Don’t I just wish. “Don’t worry. He’s wearing diapers.”
“Great,” said Eva, “I really want to smell like a dirty baby bottom.”
But Eva’s gaze at Dana belied her words. Marta watched as her colleague crooned one of Gergana’s lullabies. Something wistful, then sorrowful, passed across Eva’s face. She cocked her head as if she’d heard something, and then turned back to the baby. Whatever memory had been evoked passed, and she embraced Dana. She held him and closed her eyes. Her face relaxed and for that moment, Marta thought that she saw another Eva, childlike, innocent. Which is the real Eva? she wondered, and thought for a moment about bibijagua. Was Eva the biting ant, destroyer of crops? Or was she the nurturer of the soil? Abuela said that both qualities live within a person. Marta could imagine both within Eva, but it was hard to imagine both coexisting in her.
Eva passed the infant back to his mother. The two scientists shared a pot of mint tea and reminisced about Marta’s fast delivery. They chuckled over Eva’s mobilization of the medical personnel. It had been classic Rozen. Then they turned to their project.
Eva was organized and driven. “Our goal is to isolate two medications. With any luck, we can build them by nanoassembly, and be ready for clinical trials by graduation.”
The work exhilarated them. They were flush with the excitement of starting something new, something that had once been a dream. They grabbed quick meals at their workbenches. There were breaks for Dana’s feedings and diaper changes. Smart fabrics meant fewer diaper changes, but even science could not keep pace with the inexorable digestive production of a seven-week old infant.
Dana was as much a focus of their interactions as was the science. Eva surprised Marta by picking Dana up when he cried and walking him to soothe him. She held him carefully, supporting his head. How did she know to do that? Marta wondered. She even volunteered to change his diaper and held her tongue and temper when the infant, released from the confines of his diaper, chose that moment to pee. “I’ve just been baptised,” she said.
Jim came to their lab to take Dana for the afternoon. “Shall we go outside and sit in the sun?” Marta asked Jim. She packed diapers, wipes, and a privacy blanket for nursing and placed Dana into his carrier. Eva double-checked Dana’s diapers, his placement in the carrier and made certain that Marta was set before the family left the lab. Jim’s brows knotted in amazement at Eva’s mothering and then again when Marta rolled up Jim’s dataslate and took it with her. Jim looked confused, but followed. He was a dutiful husband.
When they exited the lab, Marta held a finger up to silence Jim’s questions. Once in the elevator, Marta powered off Jim’s slate and her own. She touched a finger to her lips.
“What’s with the slates?” Jim asked, once they exited the elevator.
“I came in this morning and found that Eva had jacked my dataslate. I’m pretty angry and I’m not sure what to do.”
“What’s the big deal?” asked Jim. “It’s a joint project.”
“That’s just it. I’m happy to share my data. Why would she jack my slate? I don’t like it and I feel, well, violated.”
“Is it possible that you’re overreacting?” Jim smiled. “Postpartum blues, maybe?”
“Very funny. No, other than sleep deprivation, I feel great. And you’re the world’s best father.” She gave him a quick kiss.
“Marta, this is going to be difficult for us both, but especially for you. Are you sure you’re going to be able to manage an infant and a full-time project? With Eva?”
“I’ve got no choice, and the fact that you arranged your hours at Haven Memorial to help me is a godsend. I don’t know what I’d do without you. But Eva worries me. We’ve known her, what, eight years? All through high school and college? There’s still a side of her I don’t trust.”
“Then why do this project with her?” he asked.
“She’s the smartest scientist I’ve ever met. She sees things that I’d never figure out in a million years. The opportunity to create medicine through nanoassembly is too important to dismiss. That’s the Eva I want to work with. But I’ve seen her do some nasty things to people. Do you remember the time in high school when she tried to put hair remover in someone’s shampoo? The odor of the depilatory gave it away so there was no damage, but Eva just shrugged off what would have happened. And that homemade pepper spray she carries? I’ve seen her tag people with it because she thought that they looked at her funny or when she was mad about something. You remember when I went into labor? I was glad that she was there, but she tried to kick one of the EMTs. That’s the Eva I worry about.”
Dana started to struggle and Marta drew in three slow breaths. She continued, “I don’t know much about her past but something must have happened to her. She never talks much about her childhood. When we first met her, she’d tell these wild stories. Hunting down a pimp at age thirteen? What kind of person makes up something like that? All we know is that she grew up in Bulgaria. Maybe she got, I don’t know, abused. Bottom line is that I don’t want to give up the research opportunity, but now with Dana, I want to be careful.”
“What if the stories are true?”
“Are you kidding? Tell me how a thirteen-year-old does those things.” When Jim had no reply she pressed on. “Suppose her stories are true. Is that the kind of person you want around your son?”
“I hear you, but I still think you’re overreacting about Eva.”
“You’re always sticking up for her! I don’t trust that woman and I don’t trust her with you. And now with Dana? Will you listen to me for a change?” Marta went quiet. She turned her face up to the sun and breathed deeply again. They walked a bit and she said, “She crossed a line when she jacked my slate.”
“Okay, I get that. But why did you just turn off our slates? You think she’d, what, bug us? Put in some super secret listening device? Come on, Marta, this is a little paranoid.”
“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”
“Okay. Suppose Eva is monitoring our slates. Then we turned them off. Won’t that tip her off that we suspect her?”
“No. I turned them off at the same time and we’ll turn them back on at the same time. She’ll think that the problem was on her end.”
“You’re assuming she is monitoring our slates.”
“I’m not taking any chances. Maybe you can look at your slate and see if there’s any code that doesn’t belong,” said Marta. “Let’s just be careful, okay?”
“Okay. But what do you think she’s going to do that’s so bad?” Jim asked.
“I don’t think that there’s anything bad. I just want to keep our private affairs private. Now turn your slate back on, and let’s not say anymore about it. And I do have to change Dana.”
When Marta returned to the lab, Eva surprised her. “I’m sorry I jacked your slate. I didn’t think it was a big deal, and I still don’t, but I can see that you do.” Then she took Dana from Marta’s unprotesting arms. A few moments later, Marta looked up to see Eva, holding Dana to her breast. Her eyes were closed and she looked transformed: a short Madonna with slightly misshapen features, but a Madonna, nonetheless.
It was close to Thanksgiving when Jim welcomed Marta home from ‘a day at the salt mine’ as she called her ten- and twelve-hour stints at the lab, gave Jim a peck on the cheek and reached for Dana. At six months, he was starting to sleep through the night, but mother and father had a sleep deficit from which they would not emerge for weeks. Jim arranged his schedule at Haven Memorial to care for Dana in the afternoons and took him to both of their worksites. Dana became as accustomed to nanoscale microscopes for medical research and clicker devices for dog training as he was with plush toys and teething rings.
When the family reunited, the rest of the world disappeared. Marta nursed, cleaned, and murmured. She read him stories, sang songs and walked him through the neighborhood. She introduced him to every plant along their walks. Her symptoms diminished and Marta stood a bit straighter. Jim might accompany his wife and newborn on these walks, but in some ways he was simply an extension of Marta. The universe shrank to mother and child, and it was enough.
That evening when the family had eaten, Jim took his dataslate, held it up with one finger on the power button and nodded to Marta. They turned off the devices. Then he picked up Dana and led Marta out of their small Cambridge apartment. They left their slates behind.
Outside, the grass was starting to brown and the leaves on the trees had a rainbow display of fall colors—yellow and orange hues on the oaks and the maples painted a brilliant red. Jim and Marta sat on a stone bench. As the autumn days braced for the inevitable descent into winter, the winds were picking up. Marta pulled her sweater tight around her shoulders. For a few minutes neither said anything. Dana was restless and Marta draped a privacy blanket over her shoulder to nurse. Jim saw a look of stillness smooth the lines of her tired face and knew that mother and child were engaged in a ritual that he would never understand. Jim wondered, not for the first time, what it might be like to have a child suckle, to provide life directly to this tiny wonderful baby.
Marta emerged from her reverie and broke Jim’s. “What’s up?” she asked. “Did you find something?”
“Unfortunately, yes. There’s copycat code in my slate. I didn’t see it when I first looked, but she can see everything I’m doing.”
“Wait a minute,” Marta said. Her brows were knitted in concern and confusion. “I don’t get it. I came back to the lab weeks ago. How come you didn’t find it earlier?”
“She’s good, Marta, very good. I’ve never seen anything like it. It’s actually pretty cool how she did it. If she stored lines of code on my slate’s memory, I’d have found it right away. But she used heat. Heat, Marta! This woman is amazing. She’s got nanoparticles that appear inert but when they’re hot enough, during a databurst, they scan my slate and then transmit to her on the next databurst.”
“You sound pretty impressed,” said Marta. “So she jacks our slates, but she gets your approval because she’s so clever.”
Jim looked at his wife. He said nothing for several seconds.
“Never mind,” Marta said. “Go on. Tell me about her wonderful technique for stealing our privacy.”
Jim was silent for another long moment. “Stop it, Marta. She’s my friend. That’s never going to change. I will always be her friend but you and Dana come first. You know that. So, do you want me to go on or not?”
“Okay, I’m sorry. I am. Please, go ahead.”
Jim took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Marta, she’s got a nanoscale laser. It fires a burst that polarizes the element gadolinium to store data. It takes her less than a trillionth of a second to copy any changes to the slate. Then when I communicate with the slate, or do a handshake with someone, there’s another equally brief burst to transmit the information. I don’t know how she picks up the data, but she has it set up to transmit only during databursts. It was only a matter of luck that I found it.”
“How did you find it?”
“I was playing a game,” Jim said. He shrugged sheepishly. “I couldn’t get past a certain obstacle so I recorded everything the sleeve processed and played it back at a very slow speed.”
“You? Jim Ecco? Mr. Natural? Jacking a game? Querido, you are full of surprises.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll tell you about it sometime. Anyway, when I was in playback mode there was a heat spike that I almost missed. If I hadn’t slowed the playback, I would never have seen what she’s doing. And by the way, that’s where she planted the copycat—in the game. I guess she figured I didn’t play games either.”
“Why was she monitoring your slate, Jim?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “She can’t care about dog training. It’s not like I’m part of the work that you’re doing. Maybe she thinks you’ll store something private on my slate. I don’t have a clue. But I’m going to drop my slate in the Charles River and then get a new one.”
“What about all your notes?”
“Backed up.”
“What about the copycat code. Won’t that back up, too?”
“No. It’s all on that damned game. You can bet I won’t have it on my next slate.”
“What do we do now?” asked Marta. “We’re doing some good science. In fact, I think that I want to focus on research, translate what I learned from Abuela into something the world can use. I’m not sure I want to pursue a clinical practice.”
Jim grunted. “Research, not patients? Can I still say I’m married to a physician?”
“Will you be serious?”
“I am,” Jim said. “I confess. I have fantasies of being married to a rich doctor and being a kept man.”
“Forget it,” Marta said, but her tone was lighter. “What should I do?”
“You have to see this project through, that’s a given. It’s part of your curriculum. Not to mention that you’ve got a crack at two good medicines. If Eva wants to run with them, make a business with them, that’s fine. And it’s not so much that she’s jacking me. Eva’s my best friend—after you, of course. It’s just her way. Look what she’s done for us. She kept me out of jail and helped us get married. And I feel like I understand her. Well, almost. But I love you, Marta. I love being a father and part of a family and working with the dogs. And that trumps everything else.”
“Querido, thank you for saying that,” Marta said. “Yes, she’s your friend and you care about her. That’s mostly fine with me. But I’m going to say something, and I want you to hear me, to take what I say to heart. And Jim? I’m only going to say it once.”
Marta faced him, leaned forward slightly and enunciated each word as if delivering a verdict and pronouncing a sentence. “I do not trust her when it comes to you. But I trust you and that’s what’s important.” Marta paused for emphasis. “Listen carefully. The moment I think she might do something thoughtless with Dana, or if I think she’s going to compromise him in any way, that will be the end of Eva’s relationship with him.”
She paused to let her husband absorb her ultimatum.
“Look,” she continued, softening, “it’s delicate. Eva becomes a different person around Dana. She’s caring, gentle, and considerate. Those are three words that I would have never used to describe her. He brings out the best in her and he’s already very attached to her. But he’s not on this earth for her benefit. The entire earth exists solely for him. If she crosses a line that involves Dana, we will not have Eva in our lives. Is that unequivocally clear?”
Jim swallowed. “Yes,” was all he said, all he needed to say.
Marta concluded, “I am Mother and I have spoken.”
After graduation, the three friends followed separate paths. Marta and Eva continued their education. Eva pursued twin doctorates in computer science and chemistry, completing both in three years. Marta went on to medical school and then focused on botanical research and the art of grant-writing to pay the bills. She travelled to the world’s rainforests, searching for remedies like those she found in El Yunque. Jim divided his time between childcare and his work at Haven Memorial. What started as part of his court-ordered community service had become a career. He was conscientious, effective in his job, arriving early and working late, caring for the shelter’s dogs. The work gave him a sense of purpose and helped him to manage his temper. While his work with dogs was fulfilling, he still mourned for Ringer.
He would never have another dog in his household.
Although Jim and Marta lived less than a mile from Eva, the two women did not communicate or visit. Jim maintained his friendship with Eva with Marta’s approval, although she was uneasy when Jim brought Dana to visit with Eva.
Neither Jim nor Marta realized at the time that they would enable Eva to attain her dream of creating a scientific empire. The day that Eva would pay an unexpected visit to Jim at Haven Memorial was still in the future; a day when the three would be drawn back together as colleagues was still very much in the future.