The Refugee Sentinel (16 page)

The black coffee scalded the top row of Natt’s taste buds into numb white dots but he was too groggy to notice. Light, born at five-am, seeped into Macrina Bakery. He sat alone, at the same table where Li-Mei had locked him in his own handcuffs last week. She had texted him earlier, demanding a morning meeting. More like a middle-of-the-night one, it felt to Natt.

She marched into the bakery, her appearance affected by the early morning no more than a late afternoon. Her hair was lush and shiny and her movements deliberate. She pulled out a chair and sat across from Natt.

“Parker’s status with eight days left?” Only she could fit so much in so few words without a single verb.

Natt’s palms encircled the ceramic “For Here” mug, eking out warmth, and maybe shelter from what was to follow. He took another swallow of the steaming coffee and spoke with the servile tone he had developed in Li-Mei’s presence. “I’ve flooded the ULE Most Wanted wires with his info. We have enough for a criminal charge: he has severed his passport. That’s at least ten years for desertion.”

“He cut off his own hand?”

“At the wrist. The curfew database confirmed his vitals stopped refreshing four days ago… your classic case of Defiance Day desertion. The bad news is, without a digital passport, our systems can’t track the guy.”

She sighed. “You’re on my list and, if you can’t find him, you’ve seen what I do to people on my list.”

His voice was thick with insomnia. “But I took care of the cellist last night. The Seattle PD found his body this morning… no issues.”

She pushed her plastic chair and stood up. “Find Parker.”

Natt stepped in front of her while avoiding her eyes. “I should also mention,” he stammered, “to convince you of my intentions –”

“Get out of my way.”

“— that I voted last night.”

“Sacrificing yourself for your son does not solve my Parker problem.”

“I earmarked someone else.”

She shot him a tilted look. “You voted for someone else?”

“Laura - our babysitter who looks after Eaton.” Natt’s palms kept hugging the cup, white knuckles on blue ceramic. “I wanted to show you I can’t Sacrifice for him and I’m not a threat anymore and you shouldn’t… Meaning, if you continue with what you want to do to me. You know… it will be tragic for Eaton to lose his Dad…” Natt breathed in and out. “Also…I wanted to prove to you I’m not a threat.”

“Eaton can’t be earmarked. Ever.” Li-Mei scanned the Police Chief from head to toe.

“But even if they did earmark him,” Natt followed her outside, “I can’t undo it anymore. Not after I voted last night. This is convincing you right? What I did?”

Li-Mei stopped on the bridge-walk, her back to him. “Chloe, your wife, will be earmarked a few hours before the deadline. And you are right, you wouldn’t be able to undo it – one way or another.” She disappeared within the swirl of the waking city as morning delivery trucks and salary men rushed to early meetings. Natt Gurloskey did not attempt to follow.

Moving to this other Washington had made Yana feel like a scattered picture puzzle. She wasn’t supposed to like change at eight years old, least of all when forced to leave home. The smell was her very first introduction to Seattle, right after she had jumped on the yellow helipad of the ULE Seattle embassy the previous morning and ran up to her mother. “This place smells bad, Mom,” she had said.

“We’ll stay here no longer than we have to. I promise,” had been her Mom’s reply, but unconvinced Yana had clung to the hand. Her Mom had called Yana’s father over the chopper’s blades whirring through the air, “We’ve arrived and will see you in the embassy when you get there.” Then her Mom had hung up.

They had reached Seattle the hard way. With SeaTac Airport decommissioned because of the floods, Mom had convinced a ULE Coast Guard General to give them a lift to Cheyenne on a ULE topography mission. Afterward, they had made the final leg to Seattle on a food-supply chopper run.

That’s when Yana had taken her first breath after disembarking and had cringed. The morning breeze had lost to the rotting smell and, like a waking person who wanted to stay in bed, despite a burning bladder, Seattle had woken one block at a time, dark windows turning into lighted ones.

To be fair, the ULE embassy’s yard here was covered with grass, which she penciled as the only plus of moving to Seattle. But the rest were mammoth-sized minuses like rain, rot and pedestrians roaming the suspension bridge-walks without a purpose or umbrellas. She had seen a woman in hair-curls, a man wearing shaving cream on his face then another man, starting a gas grill at a corner.

She felt strapped to a rollercoaster ride she was afraid to finish because of what waited at the end of the tracks: a first-time meeting with her father. She used to have nightmares about him growing up and she wetted her bed. Her Mom insisted such accidents were normal then rocked her, until Yana would fall back asleep. Yana never told her Mom or the special doctor her Mom had hired, that dreaming of her father was what caused the nightmares. She stayed mum because she wanted to get rid of him on her own. At times, she succeeded and woke dry in her jammies the following day. These mornings meant absolute happiness and, in time, started outnumbering the wet ones. Until her Mom told her they had to go see him.

“I owe you an explanation,” her Mom had said on their first night in Seattle.

Yana didn’t want explanations, she wanted to wake in her dry DC bed without feeling guilty her father had left or being afraid that nobody but her Mom would ever love her again.

“I know he’s been on your mind a lot.” Her Mom kept beating the topic like a woodpecker. “And I also know the thought of seeing him upsets you.”

Yana was chasing a fugitive pea with the tip of her fork and, despite her Mom’s long stare, wouldn’t look back. “A mother’s job, you’ll find one day, is to protect her child without regard to the cost. A good mother, it may seem to you now, would do the opposite of what I’m asking. She wouldn’t uproot you from your home or force a piano competition on you. She wouldn’t bring back the days when you wet your bed.”

“Mom… You’re embarrassing me,” Yana said, her fork disemboweling the pea. The Pacific Northwest rain was pounding against the windows like a drumroll that would sound cozy in in inland city. In Seattle, the sound of rain spelled doom.

“If I could wave a wand to take your worries away and store them inside me, I would,” her Mom said snapping her fingers, “like that.”

“You don’t have to explain, Mom.”

“There’s something good about your father you don’t know yet, but you will find out one day. Until then…” Her Mom stammered, “You should know he regrets his mistake and wants to convince you of it, too. That’s why he asked to see you and I agreed. Does any of this help you, Sweetie?”

The word “sweetie” caught her unprepared. Other mothers used pet words to call their daughters, not her mother. It gave Yana a glimpse of her mother’s true burden. Her Mom would absorb her fears and wetting of beds, if she could. It didn’t matter that she couldn’t… wanting to was more important than the act.

Yana reached out and held her Mom’s hand. “You’re doing great, Mom. I’ll meet my father. It’s OK.” She pushed her chair back and jumped on the tiled floor, her bare feet making a suction noise against the cold marble. “And thank you for dinner.” She turned around and headed upstairs to check her room in their new embassy home, for the first time.

Li-Mei watched as the merry-go-round turned, slow and creaky. Yana stood next to the churning axis, the backbone of the whole steely operation. Someone had shut off the music and the customers had disappeared too, but the carousel moved on: bright electric bulbs illuminating the wooden horses from multiple angles. Some of the horses’ manes floated like frozen waves, some horses pulled on invisible loads with necks turned sideways. All animals, without exception, had open mouths and bared teeth, and sported fresh coats of paint on top of chips and scratches that excited little customers had inflicted, without meaning to in the slightest.

Yana stood in the middle, where a machinist would. Nine times out of ten, the machinists were high school dropouts with the job of pressing a green button then ten minutes later, pressing a red one. Today, Yana did the honors.

Li-Mei got closer. As the carousel turned, a bucking bronco hid her from the girl’s sight then Li-Mei was visible for a moment before disappearing again behind a royal carriage with a tall steel spike.

“Who are you?” Yana said, squinting around the moving figures.

“I can’t tell you, but I’m glad I found you.”

“Are you Chinese?” Yana said.

“Most Caucasians can’t tell the difference. But that doesn’t apply to you, I see.” Li-Mei smiled. “How did you get in the middle of these spinning horses with open, painted mouths? And do you need help getting out?”

“I’m good. If I press here,” Yana pointed to a red button with the word “Stop” etched on top, “the wheel will stop and let me get out.”

“Why don’t you do it, then?”

Yana thumbtacked a smile on her face and pressed the button. In another half rotation, the merry-go-round ground to a halt. She took a step forward then another. Her shoes rattled against the carousel’s metallic floor. As soon as she came within reaching distance, Li-Mei’s fingers bit into Yana’s hand and Li-Mei’s smile melted into a leer.

“You’re hurting me,” Yana said.

“That’s my intent, little one.”

“Are you going to kill me?”

Li-Mei’s low whisper rippled through the air, “Drama is anticipation, mingled with uncertainty, but you’re a smart little girl, aren’t you? You knew why I had come the moment you saw me.”

“I guessed… Now I know.”

“Killing you will save the lives of many others.”

“In what way?”

“My role coming here, to this…” Li-Mei paused while her free hand swept around, in a gesture showing what words couldn’t, “Territory… was to take the lives of those who may Sacrifice themselves for you. Then earmark you and make sure you to sleep after Defiance Day.”

“Why would you do this to me?”

“To make your Mom sad. So sad she wouldn’t want to work after your death. And that would give a chance to other scientists in a different Territory, our Territory, to catch up with her inventions.”

“So you are going to kill me either today or on Defiance Day. But if I died now, I will save the lives of the people who love me?” Yana said.

“Your death will save them, yes. It’s something they would have done for you, without hesitation.”

“And you promise my father is one of these people?”

“I promise.”

Broken clouds hung above, completing the carousel’s transformation into an execution alley. Li-Mei lifted Yana by the armpits and walked toward the royal carriage with the steel spike, fewer than ten feet away.

“I won’t forget you, Yana Perkins,” Li-Mei said and impaled the little girl’s head on the spike. Yana’s feet twitched once. Her eyes filled with blood and her teeth, as they ground themselves to pieces, carved up the inside of her cheeks. Under its own weight, the body slid down until it hit the carriage’s top, then rested there, as if taking a breather.

Li-Mei stepped back and exhaled; killing children was never easy. She started walking away but a squeak prompted her to turn for a second look. Yana’s eyes, previously open and filling up with blood, were now shut. Li-Mei returned to the carousel and stared at the girl’s dead face. On cue, Yana’s lips curled into a slow smile and her eyelids opened to reveal lucid eye-whites without a single bloodied vessel.

“Have you forgotten me yet?” Yana said “or have you kept your promise?” As she spoke, the spike inside her mouth glistened like an oversized tongue stud.

Li-Mei sighed. “I should have cut your head off, little one. Let’s hear you ask questions without a head.” She plunged a kinjal into Yana’s white neck, made whiter still by death, but the blade bounced off with a thud.

Before Li-Mei’s mind could reject the absurdity of what had happened, she woke drenched and mumbled with a sleepy tongue, as if pierced by a rusted stud. “I hope meeting you in person would be as memorable as meeting you in my dreams, little one.” Then she turned and fell asleep until the morning.

Above Yana’s head, a bird chirped. She had run outside to look for it, in the embassy’s fenced lawn, and chased the chirp with her eyes but only found the yellow sun, stamping her vision with round blotches. Like that bird, for the most part, Yana felt alone and invisible. She had watched films about birds and seen a stuffed sea hawk in her biology class once, but never the real thing. It was a robin, based on its song, and an impossible one to spot, no matter how she twisted her neck and shielded her eyes with a palm. In another couple of minutes, Yana cut her losses with a sigh and moved on to playing hopscotch. In her mind, she could see imaginary squares drawn over the Seattle grass. Barefoot, she tossed a pebble on the nearest one and hopped forth. The grass, brushing her bare feet, and the invisible robin had somehow led her thoughts to her father. “He’s irresponsible and doesn’t love you,” Mom had said a long time ago in DC and Yana had decided to become the best daughter in the world at doing something important, to prove to him he was wrong to leave. She had thrown herself with equal abandon at homework, house chores and playing the piano Mom gave her for her fifth birthday.

Time and growing up would, once and again, silence the thoughts of her father. He hibernated in a dark corner of her mind where she didn’t dare go and even forgot it existed. But he never went away; life wouldn’t let him. At school, Yana learned that children often had two parents and that her Mom disliked talking about why Yana was different. So Yana became an expert at reading her Mom’s moods and at filing away scraps of information, on a scavenger hunt for missing memories. She transformed these bits into imaginary stories about her father. Whether he was a pirate or a rich sea merchant, he was always unavailable and always placing other projects above his daughter.

After a recent sleepover at Gabriella’s, Yana had come home burning with new questions. The Guzmans, unlike Yana and her Mom, ate dinner at a living room table and talked about their day. And though Mr. Guzman had a whiskey smell on his breath, Yana liked the thought of having dinners together every night, as a family. The following evening, before her Mom could take her coat off at the door, Yana attacked with questions.

“Could we have dinner at our table, Mom?”

Sarah stretched her lower back. “I thought you had a bite already.”

“I waited for you to come home.”

“I’ll fix you something quick then.”

“I already started something.” Yana spun around. “And I made the table.”

Her mother had smiled back, but her knuckles whitened as she was hanging her coat. She threw a glance at the kitchen; Yana had chosen a festive tablecloth - lavender blue with yellow dots along the edges. A large salad bowl in the center of the high square table pulled at the eye first with sliced tomatoes, cucumbers and onion circles. Two plates, with silverware flanking each side, and two crystal glasses, filled with what looked like water, completed the ensemble.

Sarah’s eyes moved from the table to Yana. “Well done, young lady.”

“I fixed us some scrambled eggs. Left them in the oven, to keep warm.”

“Thanks for remembering to cook my favorite food.”

The girl sat, feet dangling at the table and beckoned with a wave. “Sit down, Mom.”

“What’s the occasion?”

“I told you. I wanted us to eat at a table. Like Gabriella and her parents do.”

Sarah scooped some tomatoes on her plate.

Yana threw the first punch. “Why can’t we have dinner like this, every night?”

Sarah put a tomato slice in her mouth. “Great idea. We could have gourmet food delivered. How fun would that be? A surprise meal every night and –”

“I don’t want take-home. I want you to do it.” Yana bit her lip then went nuclear. “I want Dad to come home too. I want the three of us to have dinner, every night.”

Sarah laid down her fork with care, as if it were a loaded gun. So that’s what the table and eggs and Yana’s sweet smile were about. “Is there something you’d like to tell me?”

Yana jumped in without a second prompt. “Where’s Dad? Why do we never talk about him?”

“We’ve covered this before.”

“We’ve covered nothing.” Yana’s lips stitched shut between sentences. “You’ve told me he didn’t love me and that we’re better off without him. But I want to see him before I die.”

“Before you die? Silly, you’re eight years old.”

Yana’s face turned white. She reached for the salad, her hand wrapped around the fork. “I am his daughter and I have the right to know him.”

“You want to know him?” Sarah wiped her mouth, stood and walked to the window, away from her daughter. “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything,” Yana said. “I want to know him, not your opinion of him.”

Sarah hung her head and stomped out of the kitchen. She returned with an envelope in her hand and chucked it at the table with an underhand motion, like a softball pitcher. The envelope landed between the salad bowl and Yana’s untouched plate.

Sarah’s voice was as hard and sharp as a diamond. “If that’s what you want, then that’s what you’re going to get. It’s all inside. Your father was a certified poker addict who, on a certain August night, seven years ago, while I was at work, came within minutes of murdering you.”

Yana’s eyes glowed without blinking.

“He had been grocery shopping, earlier that day, and left a plastic bag next to your crib. I mean, who does that?” Sarah’s fingers stretched and curved, like bird talons. “You were suffocating while he played online poker, in the other room… for fewer than a couple of minutes, he claims, until I called. Maybe it was a couple of minutes, maybe it wasn’t. The single reason, my dear truth-seeker, that you’re sitting in this room with me, hearing my story, and breathing air, is because I called him on that August night. You’re alive because of my premonition or just dumb luck – you choose.” Sarah bit into a chapped fingernail. “He was sweet, telling me on the phone, while walking to your room, how much he loved me. Whispering it, not to wake you up, what a full day you two had, as his hand was pressing on the door handle and his phone teetered, pinched between ear and shoulder. Pausing a ranked poker game meant he might as well quit, he said, but that’s how much he loved me.

“I remember hearing the door open, then his screams. Then nothing. His cell must have fallen to the floor.” Sarah covered her face and inhaled through her palms, as if demonstrating what suffocation looked like. “The ER took an hour to restore your pulse. You were in a coma for a month. We didn’t know how your brain would work when you woke. We didn’t know if you’d wake at all.” Sarah sat back down in front of the salad bowl. “I divorced him as soon as you regained consciousness. A week later, the courts issued a restraining order and I haven’t seen him since.” Her voice faltered, its million icicles melting away. “Excuse me, but I lost my appetite. I should get back to the lab, too.”

Yana was staring at the salad bowl. Her balled fist kept clutching the fork.