Read The Necessary Beggar Online
Authors: Susan Palwick
The Necessary Beggar (13 page)
Every day she worked on memorizing something new, so that she wouldn't forget how, and so she'd do well in school. That way, maybe everyone would be happier. Stan would decide that he'd done the right thing by helping her family, and Uncle Macsofo would know that being in America wasn't such a terrible thing after all, and Auntie Aliniana would stop crying all the time.
Keeping Stan happy was especially important: all the adults said so, although Zamatryna didn't completely understand why. She had heard her parents talking about it many times, worrying that Stan would make them leave the house unless they accepted his god. “His faith is monstrous,” Erolorit had said once, when he thought Zamatryna had fallen asleep on the couch. “His god handed his own son, who is also himself, to the executioners. This is a god of murder and suicide, and furthermore this god has too many souls inside, like a seed or a flower crammed with too many dead.”
“He says it is a god of forgiveness,” Harani had murmured. “Lisa says so also, and even Timborâhe says Stan's god is like the Necessary Beggar, who erases past wrongs.”
“And yet Stan says that Darroti is burning in hellfire forever for having taken his own life. Where is the forgiveness there?”
“I do not understand it,” Harani had admitted with a sigh. “It is very confusing.”
“We must not let him convince the children of these things.”
“We cannot reject his ideas too openly, beloved. We depend on his goodwill for everything, until we can get our papers and get jobs and get our own house. And Lisa says that houses are expensive.”
The grown-ups talked a lot about what jobs they would try to get when they had their papers. They talked about jobs the way Zamatryna talked about school, although it seemed to her that they did not welcome the idea of working the way she welcomed the idea of learning; they did not think that jobs would make them happy.
“For really good jobs you need to go to school,” Lisa told them one morning over breakfast. “It's hard to get a nice clean job if you haven't been to college, or at least to high school. The kids will have it easier. But you folks, well, maybe you guys, Erolorit and Macsofo, can get into some kind of construction work, if you're good with your hands: Stan has connections, although you have to worry about union stuff on those jobs. You can do things like selling newspapers, I guess. You see guys standing by Kmart all the time, waving the
Gazette-Journal
at people who don't even nod at them or say hello, let alone slow down to dig change out of their pockets. I swear I've never seen someone buy a paper from one of those folks: don't ask me how they make any money from it.”
Gazette-Journal
at people who don't even nod at them or say hello, let alone slow down to dig change out of their pockets. I swear I've never seen someone buy a paper from one of those folks: don't ask me how they make any money from it.”
“Are they Mendicants?” Zamatryna asked.
“Are they what, honey?”
“Mendicants. Holy beggars.”
“Holy beggars? They have those in your country? Holy like sacred, you mean? Our beggars are just holey because all their clothing is full of holes. Oh, Lord, no, the newspaper sellers aren't begging: they're working. The beggars are downtown, heaven help them, sleeping in the park by the river, under the bridges and whatnot. The cops sweep 'em out every few weeks. We don't have nearly enough shelters here. No, you don't want to wind up homeless, believe me. We're not going to let that happen.”
“This is a job?” Erolorit asked, frowning. “Sleeping in parks?”
“Oh no, no, that's what happens to people who can't get jobs, or can't keep them. Or some people who can, for that matter. I was almost there a couple times myself, before I went to jail. If it hadn't been for Mamaâ”
Lisa wiped her face with her napkin, and Harani said gently, “You were telling us about jobs.”
“Jobs. Right. Thank you, sweetie. So anyway, you can flip burgers, plenty of high-school kids do that, but it doesn't pay enough to keep you in toilet paper.” The cousins shrieked again, as they had at the word latrine, and Lisa chuckled. “Kids. They always love potty humor: doesn't matter what country they come from, does it? So yeah, you can flip burgers. Or, um, well, sometimes you see ads for people to stuff envelopes at home, housewife type work: I don't have a clue what that pays. Not much, probably. If you can count and make change you can clerk at convenience stores like 7-Eleven, although that can be dangerous. They get robbed.”
“Robbed?” Erolorit asked. “What is that?”
“Well, you know, people stealing things. Criminals. They come into the store and put a gun to your head and ask for all your money.”
Poliniana cocked her head. “Are they Mendicants?”
“What? Your holy beggars?” Lisa laughed. “Lord, no! You have a choice about whether to give your money to a beggar: crooks make you do it, or they'll kill you.”
Poliniana squinted up at Lisa. “Why would they have to do that? Why wouldn't people just give them the money?”
“Bless you, honey, people do give them money if they want to stay alive. Sometimes the crooks kill them anyway, though. But if you gave your money away all the time you wouldn't have anything left, now would you?”
“Not if you only gave them what they needed to live.”
“Now, how would you know that? Crooks would tell you they needed all of it, even if they didn't.”
“Why would they do that?” Rikko asked. “What would they do with money they didn't need?”
“Buy things they wanted. Drugs or booze, most likely.”
“What are drugs and booze, please?”
“Oh, Rikko. You kids are so innocent. They'reâthey're pills you take, or things you drink, to make you happier. To get you drunk or stoned.”
“Like Uncle Darroti,” Poliniana said. “He used to get drunk. You remember, Rikko. He walked funny and couldn't talk right, and sometimes he peed on himself.” Jamfret shrieked, but Rikko nodded.
“Was Uncle Darroti a crook? Is that why heâ”
“Rikko,” Macsofo said sharply, making the X for silence, “hush. It is not proper to speak of this!”
“Are we crooks, Lisa?” Jamfret said. “Because you gave us your money?”
“What? No, sweetheart! You didn't ask me for it, did you? I did it of my own free will.”
“But we're taking all of your money,” Zamatryna pointed out. “For the papers.”
“I'm
giving
you all of my money, and your mommy and daddy and aunt and uncle and grandpa will work to pay me back, and you too, when you're a smart grown-up lady and can get any job you want. That's different.”
giving
you all of my money, and your mommy and daddy and aunt and uncle and grandpa will work to pay me back, and you too, when you're a smart grown-up lady and can get any job you want. That's different.”
“The man at the camp who is selling the papers,” Macsofo said. “He is a crook, yes? Because he is taking all your money?”
Lisa took a deep breath. “Well now. Well, that's tricky. Yes, he is, but that's because he's falsifying information. The papers would cost money anyway; they just wouldn't cost as much. And at least we're getting something for the money. So yes, he's a crook, just like people who sell drugs are crooks, butâwell, he's not saying we have to give him our money or he'll kill us. So it's different. He's aâa cleaner crook.”
Jamfret tugged at Macsofo's hand. “Papa, is that why Uncle Darroti killed the Mendicant? To get her money?”
There was a short, appalled silence. “I just told your brother,” Macsofo said, his voice dangerously quiet, “that we do not speak of that.”
“Uncle Darroti gave money to Mendicants!” Zamatryna said. “He always did, just like everyone always did! He wouldn't haveâ”
Harani pulled Zamatryna up onto her lap. “Hush, child. Hush. It is all in the past, and we are here in America now, and Darroti is dead. No good will come of talking about this.”
“I begin to think,” Erolorit said drily, “that Lisa is right, and that the children should not listen to every conversation.”
Lisa shook her head. “It's okay. Everything's okay. Whatever that poor man did, it was good of you to keep loving him, just like it was good of Mama to keep loving me when I was a bad person. I don't think any less of any of you for standing by him. You did the right thing. Everybody needs love, even if they've done wrong.”
“Of course we stood by him,” Erolorit said, frowning. “He was our brother. Would people in your country have deserted him?”
“Some would. Sure they would. There's no law that says you have to love your family, after all.”
“There isn't?” Jamfret asked. “Why not? That's the law in our country. The Law of Hearts. That's why we came here.”
Lisa shook her head again. “Then your country's better than this one, sweetheart, and I hope you can teach us some things!”
“I think I prefer the laws in America,” Macsofo muttered, and Erolorit shot him a glance that could have charred wood.
Timbor cleared his throat. “We were talking about jobs.”
“Jobs,” Lisa said. “Right. Time to get back on the subject.”
“I do not think any of us want jobs where we may meet these crooks, Lisa. Can you tell us about jobs where there are no crooks?”
“Oh, Timbor! You really do come from a different place, don't you? I don't think there's any job in the world where there aren't any crooks. Not all of them have guns, that's all.”
Later that day, after she had memorized all the words beginning with Q in the dictionary and the list of preservatives on the back of the Cheerios box, Zamatryna pondered this conversation. She thought about Uncle Darroti, who had made her the wooden doll, and who had wept so ceaselessly before he died. He had always been kind to her. How could he have been kind and still have been a crook?
Before Zamatryna went to sleep, Harani came into her room for an hour of reading. Lisa said it was good to read before bedtime. Usually parents read to their children, she said, but Zamatryna knew more English than her mother did, so she read to Harani, explaining the words. It was good practice for school. But tonight she didn't feel like reading.
“Mama, why did Uncle Darroti kill the Mendicant?”
“We don't know, child. We will never know. Both Darroti and the Mendicant are dead.”
“But surely he didn't do it for money?”
“I can't imagine that he did it for money, no. But I can't imagine any other reason he would have done it, either. It is unimaginable, and yet it happened. He never denied that he had done itâour poor Darroti!âbut he could not explain it, either.”
“Did he know the lady?”
“Everyone knew her; she was famous, because she was one of the first female Mendicants. I do not think he knew her better than anyone else did. We had no converse with her family, which was nobler than ours. We sent messages afterwards, of course, each family offering condolences to the other. They were kind in their grief. They sent us a fine blanket to take into exile, although we wound up leaving it at home for lack of room, and because it caused us pain. But they never said that she had known him.”
“Mama, where do you think Darroti's spirit is now? In a simple thing, or a complicated one?”
Harani sighed. “I do not know, child. He seemed simple enough, but he was evidently more complicated than we knew. He might be in a bird, for instance, if he were really simple, but I think that he was not. I think he must be in a flower or a berry.”
“And that is why we bless everything we eat. Because it might be Darroti.”
“Yes.”
“Stan thinks the dead live in the sky.”
“Stan believes many things we do not, Zamatryna.”
“I wish the dead could speak to us. Then Darroti could tell us what happened, and Macsofo would not be so unhappy.”
“I wish the dead could speak too, child. Everyone does. The Great Breaking is a great sorrow. But I do not think Darroti would tell us what happened even could he still speak, for he never told us when he was alive. And I do not know if Macsofo would be happy even if we knew the story.”
“He wants to go back to Lémabantunk.”
“And yet he complained even there,” Harani said, “although we never noticed it so much. I begin to think Macsofo was born to be unhappy, and maybe Darroti, too.”
“What of Papa, then? He is their brother.”
“Your father looks for reasons to be happy,” Harani said, kissing Zamatryna. “And you are the biggest reason of all. It heals our heart to see you thriving in this place, as Lisa says you are. Goodnight, child.”
Harani left the room, and Zamatryna snuggled into her pillow, thinking about Darroti. Was he in the hamburger she had eaten for lunch, or the apple she had eaten yesterday? Was he in her now, feeding her? Or was he back at the camp where he had died, in the sagebrush blackened by the fire?
Poor Darroti, who had summoned such shame! And that was why she must work very hard to be a good American, to make her parents happy and proud.
Other books
Count on a Cowboy by Patricia Thayer
Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) by Debra Gaskill
Unknown by Unknown
The Republic of Wine by Mo Yan
The Face In The Mirror by Stewart, Barbara
The Brave Free Men by Jack Vance
Letters in the Attic by DeAnna Julie Dodson
Jordan's Stormy Banks: A Body Farm Novella by Jefferson Bass
Burial Ground by Shuman, Malcolm
Reasonable Doubt by Williams, Whitney Gracia
