Existence (6 page)

As long as he never sees
la gringa
again, all will be well.

And
la gringa
has been taken care of.

“If you ever try to contact my son again, I will kill you,” Hayu told her in the hospital room. “Do you understand me?”

“I love him,” the girl said, as if that were allowed, and Hayu nearly smothered her with a pillow. “I said all these hateful things to him, and I have to tell him—”

“You will
never
speak to him. I don't like to repeat myself, so I don't want to have to say this again. Are we clear?”

The girl nodded.

“I'm sending you back home, but be sure: even there, I'll have people watching you. For the rest of your life, I'll be watching. I have that much power. And as for mercy . . . I'm expending all of it right here. This is the only chance you'll have. Do you believe me?”

The girl nodded again, tears streaming down her face.

She was alone in a foreign country with a flimsy grasp of the native language and a bullet hole in her spine. She'd just been told she would never walk again. She'd lost all will to fight.

Once reality sank in, she would blame Jago. Hayu may have forged the letter to Jago, but she truly believes it's what
la gringa
will want to say to him, once she understands the cold facts of her new life. The brilliant dancer, confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her days, and all because she made the mistake of loving the wrong boy. She will most certainly come to hate Jago, Hayu thinks. Almost as much as she'll hate herself.

Maybe that's why Hayu takes the risk of letting her live.

Transgressions like hers must be punished.

“Of course, my son can never know about this,” she tells Julio now. “Understood?”

He nods. “
Claro, señora
. Of course.”

“You know I don't like to take risks of any kind.”

“I have heard that about you,
sí
.”

“So you'll understand, then, why I have to do this.” Hayu slides a very small revolver from her purse and shoots him in the head.

Julio drops to the ground, a neat hole at the center of his forehead.
Someone will find the body in a day or two, but the police won't investigate very hard—not a man like that, in a neighborhood like this.

Not that it matters. The police are in her pocket. All of Juliaca is in her pocket. And now her son is there again too, right where he belongs.

She slips the gun back into her purse and clacks her way back to the SUV, noting with displeasure that the pigeons have crapped all over the windshield. Hayu shakes her head. She abhors coming down into this part of the city, almost as much as she abhors the violence that inevitably comes with it.

The things we do for love
, she thinks ironically, then sighs and starts the long drive back to the hacienda. She's eager to get home. Her son is the Player. He is the most powerful man in Juliaca. And he needs her. He will always need her.

Whether he knows it or not.

When the air horn blasts in his ear at dawn, An Liu is already awake. He has been awake since four a.m., waiting for the day to start.

He has been waiting for this day for six long years.

“Happy birthday, An Liu,” his father says, as An springs out of bed and speeds through his waking rituals, the cleansing and tidying demanded of him by his father. If his bed is left rumpled, if his ears are left clogged with wax or his cowlick is left sticking up, there will be consequences. His father believes all messes should be punished.

An hasn't made a mess in years. He no longer remembers how.

“Have you chosen?” his father asks.

An nods yes.

He will not speak until necessary.

His father believes in efficiency. Sloppiness of all kinds will be punished, and this includes excess words.

“What will it be?” his father asks.

An's birthday is the one day of the year when he gets to choose. On his fifth birthday, he chose knives, and the blade carved five sharp lines of blood into his back. For his sixth birthday, six lashes with the whip; for his seventh, a blowtorch applied to seven points along his arms and legs.

Every year, he chooses carefully, picking the worst pain he can think of. His father has taught him that this is how to be a man. A man wants to be tested; a man wants to be hurt. The body is molten steel; pain hardens it into place.

Six years have passed since his training began. Today he is 10 years old; today he is steel, he is ready.

“I choose the brand.”

His father smiles: He has chosen well. “Good.”

The kitchen smells of persimmon, and his stomach is stuffed full of his mother's shì zi b
ng. The little sweet buns stuffed with black sesame paste are his favorite, and for his fourth birthday, he is allowed to eat as many as he wants
.

“Anything for my little Liu on his big birthday,” his mother says, squeezing him into a hug so tight it makes his full belly hurt, but he says nothing, because he likes it too much, hiding in her embrace. It is safe here, behind her sturdy arms, pressed against her soft chest. An is afraid of so much: thunderstorms, large birds, small spaces, dark shadows, even butterflies. He is even afraid of his uncles, who tease him in their booming voices and say that he will never make his way in the world if he insists on being such a little worm. But in his mother's arms, he is not afraid. She will always protect him
.

This is what he believes, as he believes the world is bounded by the park at one end of his street and the bridge at the other, as he believes the only people who matter are his uncles and his mother. His uncles are stern but fair; his mother is everything. He believes the world is full of justice and generosity, because that is all he has been allowed to see
.

He believes that he is special, because that is what his mother tells him
.

He believes that his father is dead, because his mother tells him that too. “His brothers wanted to help raise you, because they are good men,” she tells him
.

They are good men, and he thinks his father must have been too. Maybe the best of men
.

But after lunch, the door opens, and a tall shadow falls across the floor. A booming voice shouts his mother's name. An runs into the living room and hides under a table
.

He is also afraid of strangers
.

In the kitchen, there are raised voices, the sounds of adults arguing. An curls into a ball. The stranger calls his name, but he doesn't move
.

“What's wrong with him?” the man says
.

“Nothing,” his mother says. “Liu, come here; there's someone who wants to meet you.” She doesn't sound quite right, not like his mother, strong and fierce. He wishes his uncles were home. They are big, scary men and would send the stranger away, make everything right again
.

“Is he stupid?” the man asks
.

“Of course not.”

“Then why can't he obey a simple order?”

“He's not used to—”

“An Liu!” the man barks, and then a hand closes around his arm and drags him out from his hiding place, onto his feet. The hand lets him go, and An Liu is relieved for a moment—then the hand rears back and cracks him hard across the face
.

He bursts into tears
.

“Mother?” he whimpers, and holds his arms out to her, because he is hurt and scared and it is her job to protect him. But his mother stands beside the mean man, her eyes on the carpet. She doesn't move
.

“You will look at me,” the man says
.

An blinks back tears, takes a hesitant step toward his mother
.

The man slaps him again, so hard it makes his vision go blurry. There's a soft, insistent buzzing in his ears
.

“I said, look at me. Not her. Me. And stop crying, if you know what's good for you.”

An looks at him. The man is built like a tree, tall and thick, his face craggy, his eyes a beady black
.

“Do you know who I am?”

An shakes his head, trying very hard to hold back his tears. He's afraid of what will happen if he can't stop them from streaming down his face
.

“I'm your father,” the man says. “You may rejoice, because I've come home to make a man of you. And I see I'm just in time.”

An sits on the edge of the bench, his posture rigid. His gaze is fixed on the long branding iron. Its tip, carved into the shape of the Chinese character for
strength
, glows orange as his father turns it slowly over the flame, heating it to 400 degrees Celsius.

The color changes with the heat; his father has taught him that. A black iron will singe; a red iron will destroy. His father pulls the long rod off the flame, waits for the bright orange to fade to the color of ash, the proper color for a permanent mark.

An prepares himself. He breathes slowly, turns inward. Pain is an old friend, its habits familiar and well-worn.

“Turn,” his father said.

An bares his naked back to the iron. His father presses it to the soft skin at the base of An's neck.

The iron sizzles.

The noxious smell of burning flesh fills the air.

Inside his head, silent and safe from his father's scorn, An screams and screams.

Three seconds.

Two seconds.

Pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain pain
.

One second.

Release.

“That's one,” his father says, then returns the branding iron to the fire to heat it back to the proper temperature. Soon they will begin again.

An Liu is supposed to have longevity noodles and cake for his birthday dinner
.

He gets no dinner at all
.

Instead, the man who calls himself An's father takes him down to the basement. An is afraid of the basement and the things that might live in its musty dark: spiders, rats, roaches, monsters. He kicks and screams and cries, until the man picks him up and hurls him down the stairs
.

In a tangled heap, in the dark, dazed and in pain, An finally falls silent. The man, the father, clomps down the stairs and towers over him
.

“I'm going to give you the facts of life,” he says to An, and then tells him a series of amazing things
.

That An's people are descendants of an ancient civilization, once ruled by strange gods from above. That when these gods returned to their home in the sky, they promised they would someday come back to end the world, sparing only that bloodline most worthy of survival. That every generation, one Player is chosen, and that that Player must be special and strong, for if the gods return, that Player will Play for the Shang, and all hope will rest on his shoulders
.

That the oracle bones have just been cast, and of all the Shang boys in all the world, they named An Liu. When he turns 13, he will be his generation's Player
.

An understands little of this. The words flutter past him like moths, flitting away as he reaches for one after another
.

“I made a mistake. I'm not too proud to admit that. I assumed you would be as worthless as your mother. I should have known my blood would breed true. Now that I know what you are, what you're fated to become, I will repair what's been broken in my absence. I will make you strong. The Shang have tasked me with this.”

The father unbuckles his heavy leather belt and takes it into his hands
.

“Why?” An cries, as the man starts whipping him with the belt
.

“Pain is its own answer,” the man says, as the belt rises and falls, and the pain overtakes An, and finally, mercifully, the world goes black
.

When he wakes, he is in a narrow, hard cot. The walls around him are bare, and too close. He recognizes the space: the basement closet, rarely used, smelling of mold. His sheets are stiff with dried blood
.

“This is where you will sleep now,” his father tells him
.

An hurts all over
.

“Mother?” he says
.

“Your mother is gone.”

This doesn't make any sense to An Liu. He's never spent a day or night
without his mother. How could she be gone, when they are a part of each other?

“She's disgusted by you,” his father says. “She sees how soft you are, how weak, and she left you to me. If you do as I say and learn to make yourself hard and strong, then perhaps she will come back.”

“When?”

“Not for a very long time,” his father says
.

“But
when
?” An says, and flinches, thinking his father will strike him for asking the question again, but he must know
.

“When you're older. When you're a man.”

“When I'm ten?” An asks, grasping for an unfathomably old age. This is what
a very long time
means to him. By then he will be all grown up
.

“If I say yes, will you stop asking about her?”

An nods yes
.

“Then yes, when you are ten
. If
you do as you're told; if you're good enough.”

An swears he will be good enough
.

When the pain fades so that he can creep out of bed, he tiptoes up the stairs to his mother's room. It is totally bare. Her belongings are gone. All that remains of her are the blue scraps of the last dress she sewed herself. An scoops up a handful of the sky-blue cloth and buries his nose in it
.

It smells like her
.

He tucks the fabric into his shirt. If this is all he has left of her, he will treasure it
.

“An Liu!” his father shouts
.

An scurries toward the sound of his father's voice. He will do whatever he's told, obey any command he's given. He will find a way to please this man, and when he finally does, he will have his mother back
.

After his flesh has stopped sizzling and he's able to slip a light shirt over his bandaged skin, An Liu's day proceeds as usual.

He stays in the basement, his home within the home, and works his
body, training with all the traditional Shang weapons that he wields like an expert: spears, poleaxes, dagger-axes. Then he works his mind, studying the engineering blueprints and circuit diagrams that, once committed to memory, will allow him to disable any security system and dismantle any explosive the world has been able to invent.

It's not that he likes it down here—
like
is one of the words that has lost all meaning for An Liu, along with
choose
and
pleasure
and
happy
. But he feels comfortable in this dank place. The scratching of insect legs against the stone wall makes him feel he is surrounded by friends.

He takes his dinner at the table beside his father and his uncles. They chat politely with one another, but no one speaks to him, as is his father's decree. They feast on bowls of yáng ròu pào mó, shredding the tender bread into strips that will absorb the soup, slurping until their bowls are clean. An Liu eats his customary rice and broth.