A Greater Love (9 page)

“Think she’ll ever let me wear it?” Sara unwound the red scarf from around her neck and gazed at it lovingly.

Miguel made a choking sound. All thoughts of sleep fled from his body as he remembered the horror of the night before. He sat up stiffly and stared at Octávia’s empty bed.

“No, I guess not.” A touch of rebellion came to Sara’s voice. “But I’m gonna wear it all the same—under my sweater around my waist.” She lifted both of her sweaters and her T-shirt to reveal a slightly sunken chest and gently rounded stomach, where more scarlet-colored flea bites covered the skin.

Miguel stopped her with a hand. “Wear it.”

Sara looked at him, surprised.

“She ain’t gonna mind. Not today.”

Sara hesitated but finally complied, her delight brightening not only her face but the entire shack, making it so Miguel could almost forget their problems.

“Let’s go get breakfast before Octávia comes back from wherever she got to,” he said. “I got money for milk.”

“I am hungry. But I gotta wash my hands.”

“Go on down to the spigot, and I’ll get the money and meet ya there.”

Sara skipped the few steps to the door, almost dancing. Outside, a warm cloud of her breath filled the air in front of her face. Miguel paused only to scoop out all the money from Octávia’s hiding place under the mattress. His eyes widened when he saw that she had nearly twenty thousand escudos! Those twenty contos would last them at least a month, even if they didn’t beg for more, especially since he wouldn’t have to use the money to buy wine. Miguel put five contos in his stolen wallet and shoved the rest back out of sight under the mattress. His overwhelming fear ebbed away as his confidence returned. Money was power.

He locked the shack with the padlock and started after Sara. She was already halfway down the path, her red-covered head bobbing cheerfully among the somber tones of the dilapidated structures and the powdery dirt. She stopped. “Comin’, Miguel?”

He caught up to her quickly.

Sara looked around. “We’d better hurry before Octávia comes back and wants me to go with her to the subway.”

“That reminds me,” Miguel said casually. “I ran into her last night when I was out with Paulo. She ain’t goin’ beggin’ today. It’s just us. I forgot to tell ya. That’s why she ain’t gonna mind about your scarf.”

Instant joy filled Sara’s face. “Oh, good!” she cried, hugging him. “I love it when she lets me go with you. She musta really got a lot of money yesterday. Or maybe she drank too much.” She paused. “Think she’s all right?”

 “Of course she is.” Miguel gulped water from his cupped hands, ignoring the dirt. Before taking her fill, Sara fastidiously rubbed her hands in the freezing water as the church missionaries had taught her last year. On warm days, she would even rinse out her hair as the ladies had always done before dragging them to church. Miguel had hated them to wash his hair in the cold water, even though his head felt better afterwards.

The day sped by quickly. Miguel laughed more than he remembered doing since summer. They worked the ferry once, then went to the subway. There, Sara stood on the marble floor and sang instead of pretending to be lame, her high voice sounding like an angel’s. Coins tinkled consistently into the empty milk carton. Miguel left them there until eight had collected, then he began to hide the additional ones in his shoe until he could later put them into his wallet. He had learned young that begging was an art; too many coins didn’t evoke enough sympathy, two few had the same result.

“Octávia will be happy,” Sara said. “Maybe when she sees how much we got she’ll let me sing again.”

Miguel’s stomach felt ill. “Maybe.”

Dark clouds were gathering so they went home early, before the rain came, stopping only to buy a quarter salmon, a loaf of bread and some cookies. It gave Miguel a sense of pride to purchase every single item. Now that Octávia wouldn’t demand his money, he would have more to spend. Maybe he could save up to buy Sara a coat.

His sister looked tired and Miguel made her ride on his back. She was tiny, but the added weight made him stagger. Obstinately, he continued carrying her until they reached the shack.

Sara held their bag of groceries while he undid the lock, her eyes troubled. “I wonder where Octávia’s been. I mean, we got the only key.”

Miguel said nothing, but from the way Sara stared at him, he knew she sensed something was wrong. He lit the lantern.

“Miguel, tell me!” Her eyes filled with tears. “She left us, didn’t she! She left us all alone ’cause she don’t love us!” Sara burst into tears, hiding her face in her hands.

“It’s okay,” he murmured, patting her back.

She clung to him. “No, it ain’t,” she sobbed. “I musta been a bad girl yesterday. She don’t want me around.”

Miguel hadn’t foreseen this reaction. He’d thought if she believed Octávia had left them, it would be easier for her. “She ain’t gone and left us,” he muttered against her hair. “She just went on one of her vacations like she sometimes does, or to visit someone. See, she left all her stuff. She’s gotta come back for that.” He pointed at the warped shelf. Octávia occasionally left for a few nights, and though she usually told them she was going, she never said where.

Sara sniffed, and tears still rolled down her cheeks, but now her distress turned to anger. “Well, ain’t that just like her. Goin’ off and not tellin’ me.” She glared at Miguel. “You shoulda told me.”

He pretended innocense. “I didn’t know for sure. She only mentioned somethin’ last night, not like she was really gonna do it. She musta decided to go after we left today.” He hoped the lie worked.

Sara wiped at her cheeks briefly before digging in the bag for the salmon, the crisis apparently concluded in her mind. “We gonna make a fire?”

As they cooked their meal, it started to rain as though the sky had simply opened up and dumped huge buckets of water down on the earth. Currents gushed through the leaky roof and into the hole they had cut in the corner for the smoke to escape. The fire sizzled with the drops of water that reached it, but didn’t seem in immediate danger of going out. Miguel grabbed their blankets and put them in the corner where Octávia had slept. Her bed took up the only part of the shack that was completely leak-free.

They sat together, warm in their blankets despite the cold. Miguel passed some of the cooked fish to Sara. “I’m glad Octávia’s not here tonight,” she whispered.

“Yeah it’s fun to be here with just you and me.”

She looked up at him, eyes reflecting the light from the lantern. “You’re never gonna leave me, right?”

“Course not, Sara. I’m your brother. I’m gonna look out for you, forever. I want to.”

She licked her fingers clean of the juice from the fish, and sighed contentedly. “I know, Miguel.”

A week passed in a blissful haze. Miguel often couldn’t believe how easy and good life was. They begged by day, careful to avoid policemen or do-gooders, and ate as much as they wanted. In the gypsy square, Miguel bought a sweater, a bright blue one, for Sara and managed to steal another for himself. He began to think about buying a larger pair of shoes.

“She’s been gone a long time,” Sara said one night. They were cooking a small chicken over the fire and drinking milk from a carton. “A week, I think. She ain’t never been gone this long.”

Miguel froze, then forced himself to relax. “We do okay without her.” He’d gone out of his way to let the neighbors think Octávia was still around and had cautioned Sara not to mention her absence. So far it had seemed to work.

Sara turned troubled eyes toward him. “People keep askin’ ’bout her. I told ’em she was sick, like ya said. And that once she went to visit a friend.” She frowned. “When people talk ’bout the lady that died, I worry somethin’ might happen to Octávia. I wish she’d come back.”

“I don’t miss her much. And I’m takin’ care of ya, ain’t I?”

“Who’s takin’ care of her?”

“Octávia can take care of herself.” It concerned Miguel that Sara missed the old lady, but what bothered him more was that he hardly ever thought about Octávia. Life went on well enough without her.

The next evening they walked home from a busy day of watching the boats sail in the River Tejo. They hadn’t asked even one person for money. Miguel felt a little uncomfortable with the dwindling wad in his wallet, but he’d enjoyed himself all the same.

They were later going home than normal and daylight was fading fast in the cold streets. With the many Christmas lights in the shop windows, the dark was friendly. People teemed along the sidewalks, laughing and carrying packages. A few streets over, the crowd thinned until they were nearly alone as they passed the new apartment buildings on their way to the shack community. A rippling of unease teased the back of Miguel’s neck, but when he looked around, no one was there. The rich boys hadn’t bothered him in weeks, but had they finally decided to exact revenge? These streets were their normal haunting grounds and a likely place for attack.

“Miguel, I’m scared,” Sara whispered.

“It’s okay.” His eyes darted from side to side. Was that a shadow he saw around the corner? Was someone watching them? He spied a door to one of the apartment buildings that had been blocked open with a rock. “Look. Wait in there for me. I’m goin’ to check out this street. I’ll be right back. Keep the door shut so no one can come in unless they got a key.”

“I don’t want you to leave me,” Sara said in a small voice.

“It’s just for a minute. Don’t worry none. I’ll be back. I wanna make sure there ain’t no trouble. Somethin’ don’t feel right.” He pushed her toward the door and made sure she shut it securely behind her. A shiver took his body, but it wasn’t only because of the cold. All his survival instincts, acquired by his long days on the streets, urged caution.

He turned watchfully into the next street. Everything seemed normal. A bread store, a café, and a small mom-and-pop grocery store lined one side of the road. A few last-minute customers waited to have their purchases totaled before the seven o’clock closing. Across the street, he could see a cobbler still working in his tiny shop. Miguel sauntered to that side of the street where he could study the situation with more care. The tall, barrel-shaped cobbler nodded at him as he passed.

High-pitched laughter echoed over the street. Where was it coming from? More important, what did it mean?

A flash of light drew Miguel’s attention to the balcony of an apartment far overhead. He had only a second to see several bottles stuffed with rags and the face of one of the boys who had plagued him.

“I told you we’d get you back, beggar boy,” a voice yelled. Several voices echoed the statement, coming both from the balcony overhead and from somewhere down the street.

The bottles began to drop, the ends of the rags alight with fire.

Miguel went from a complete stop to a run faster than he ever had in his entire life, muscles wrenching with the effort. His adrenalin-filled body hurled through the opening of the cobbler’s shop. He caught only a glimpse of the cobbler’s surprised face before the first of the falling bottles exploded.

Suddenly he was sailing in the air. The back wall of the shop came rushing at him, and he landed against it with a thud and a shower of shoes. Several more explosions followed the first, spilling darts of broken glass and clouds of hot air.

More shoes rained down from the shelves along the wall and something heavier as well. A burst of pain shot through Miguel’s head, and the world went black.

When Miguel regained consciousness, the street was alive with sirens and shouts. Where he lay it was dark, and he felt more than saw several men carry the cobbler from the ruined shop on a stretcher.

“I hope he lives,” he heard someone say. “If he does, he’s going to be very angry about this place when the pain eases enough for him to think about it.”

“He’s not the only one who’ll be angry,” another voice said. “This is an outrage.”

“The police found the boys who did it. It was just a prank.”

“Some prank. They could have killed someone.”

A third voice joined the group in the doorway, talking fast. Miguel let the voices slide over him for a while without trying to concentrate. Eventually the rate of exchange slowed enough for Miguel’s battered brain to comprehend the words.

“So you’re a neighbor. Will you tell the cobbler’s family?”

“Doesn’t have anyone but a daughter in the north. I’ll see that she’s told. Oh, he does have a dog, I think.”

“It’s dead. We found it near him, next to the window.”

“That’s really too bad. He loved that dog.”

“There was no one else in the shop?”

“I didn’t see anyone. Slow day, fortunately.”

“I’ll say. Better keep people away until we can send someone to check out the damage.”

Only when the voices faded did Miguel dare to move. Methodically, he tested each part of his body. The side of his head pounded terribly, but aside from a few cuts and bruises the rest of his body seemed undamaged. He pushed himself into a sitting position. Shoes and debris scattered from his body. The scene whirled and threatened to turn black, but he forced himself to crawl a few steps so that he was hidden from the door by the cobbler’s massive work table.

“Gotta get outta here,” he told himself as he collapsed. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing the pain to go away.

Something moved in the shop, and Miguel froze. Why hadn’t he run as soon as the men left? Now he’d be caught and sent away from Sara. Thoughts of his sister caused tears to fill his eyes. Maybe if he held perfectly still, whoever it was wouldn’t see him. It had worked once before. Of course then he had been covered in shoes.

He waited for a voice to call out to him, but nothing happened. There was a whine and breathing in his face and something wet touched his cheek. Miguel’s eyes flew open just as a rough tongue licked at his tear. A small, hairy face hovered over him in the dark. Miguel smiled and his hands went instinctively toward the small, mud-colored creature. It cuddled against him and whined again.

“A puppy!” he said, holding it to him. “Hi there, boy. You scared?” The puppy wagged his tail and pushed himself closer.