The Refugee Sentinel (17 page)

The day had arrived, at last. Waiting in the embassy’s conference room, Colton shoved his stump in the front of his pants, hoping Sarah wouldn’t notice the pocket didn’t bulge where his hand should have been. The wound was infected and the surrounding flesh had started to ooze, but he gritted his teeth and wiped the cold sweat off his face. He didn’t want her to see him in pain when she saw him for the first time in seven years.

“How have you been?” Sarah said, her eyes glassy with the lack of sleep.

“I’m good… for someone who has, so far, survived a manhunt by Mrs. Death Star.” His self-deprecating smile fell unreturned. His ex wasn’t in the mood.

“Look. For what I said… I’m sorry,” she wiped the corners of her mouth mid-sentence. “And for what you did, I —”

“I’ve forgotten how pretty you were.”

“Colton...”

His lips squeezed a smile. “Thanks for coming to Seattle, Sarah. Was she OK to meet me?”

“She knows you want it and she’ll honor your request.”

“Did you tell her about me taking her place?”

“I haven’t, but I’m sure she’ll figure it out.”

“That’s fine. After Defiance Day she can do whatever she likes.”

“Why did you agree to go through with the Sacrifice?”

“Because of you asking me to take her place. And because anyone else in my place would have done it.”

“Bullshit.” She rolled her shoulders to release tension in her upper back. Her motion reminded Colton, with painful clarity, about the late nights when she would come home, her body liquid with exhaustion and her back shivering with muscle spasms. Sitting at the edge of their bed was the most she could muster. He would massage her back with lavender oil, starting by touching the skin with two fingers then moving up and down the spine, more of a caress than a massage. His fingertips were magical Zen sticks, he would say, sucking out her backache. And he’d go for hours, telling her about his day with Yana and how much or how little the two of them had done. “If you save the world,” he would ask, “who’s going to save you?” and knew they both agreed on the answer, until the accident.

Today, he would give anything to sit closer to her, in this gray ULE conference room, and massage her sore back again, without a word, as homage to their lives back then.

“Bullshit,” Sarah said again. “No one else would. I also hope you didn’t do this out of guilt.” She lifted a hand to stop his reply. “So... What do you think… fifteen minutes?”

Colton’s face twisted. “Just fifteen?”

The curfew sirens blared outside. “I’d take fifteen, if I were you,” she said.

“I don’t want to fight, Sarah. The Chinese woman has a monopoly on my fights, these days. I’ll see my daughter for fifteen minutes, but I want to see her at least once more after today.”

“We’re in Seattle, you might as well. She can meet you this Thursday too, for an hour. But I wouldn’t push for more time or more meetings.” Sarah stood up, putting an end to the argument before it had started. “She’ll be in soon,” she said and left the room.

Colton shifted in his seat, heart thrashing in his chest, as noisy as the sirens outside. After seven years, he felt like someone who was about to find his lost religion. His good hand hovered over the chair, where Sarah had sat. He felt tired and part of him wondered about walking into the nearest precinct and letting the Asian woman take care of the rest.

He punched his shoulder with his stump and winced. “Enough… You are Colton Parker,” he spoke out loud. “You give people hope, you don’t destroy it.” Then the door opened and jolted him up. Yana walked in. She took two steps and sat in a chair by the wall, as far as possible from him. He scraped his tongue with his front teeth to freshen his breath and ran his good hand through his hair. He didn’t have a comb; five fingers would have to do.

Colton rose from his chair, as if Yana were royalty then tumbled back when he saw her face. She was beautiful, more than he knew. If there were a graceful way to pile hundreds of freckles on a human face, it would have been hers. In the same room together, he realized how much he had missed her, and how the years had flown. The eight-year-old smiled at him.

“Mr. Parker.”

“Yana. Hi.” He struggled to remember the last time any two words had required this much effort.

She stared at his eyes with the intensity of an optometrist examining a patient. “We don’t look alike much, do we?” she said and fiddled with a loose lace on her sneaker.

Each time he had rehearsed their first meeting, he’d sworn he wouldn’t let silence set in. Silence was bad news for men who almost killed their daughters before the daughters were old enough to start teething. Silence made him feel aware of his crumpled face and his teeth chipped at the base and turning yellow in the front. He rubbed his graying short hair with his good hand to conceal a receding hairline. And he hid his right hand in a pocket, thinking she wouldn’t notice. He smiled back but his armpits were swimming with nervous sweat.

“Your Mom tells me you like sharks,” he said.

Yana sat, in a far-away chair, with palms tucked under her legs. “Sharks are fine.”

“Which one is your favorite?”

“The great white one. Its teeth are a hundred times sharper than razor blades.”

The toes of her sneakers bounced against one another, dangling in the air. Colton felt like reaching over and caressing her golden hair to test if their years apart had made it softer or pointier.

“Mom told me you hurt me when I was a baby,” she said, “but I don’t like holding grudges.”

“This is the best sentence… I’ve heard in a while.” Colton paused at every word as if speaking a foreign language for the first time. “I’ve been a stranger to you.” He tucked a frayed edge on the seat of his chair and patted the smooth bundle with a palm. “But I’d like to change that, if it’s OK.”

“I’d like that, too.”

“Do you know what I called you while watching you sleep in your crib?”

“Tell me.” Her toes kept bouncing against each other.

Taking his eyes off her felt like passing a kidney stone but on the other hand he didn’t want to stare. “I called you patte.”

“What does it mean?”

“In college, I lost a bet to your Mom, where the loser had to enroll in the most obscure course the winner could find. She chose Intermediary Bulgarian. “Patte” means duckling in Bulgarian.”

Yana wrinkled her nose and looked up from her shoes. “I should get going.”

“So soon?” Colton said, his face crumpling more.

“I have to. Plus, Mom said you would see me again tomorrow or the day after.”

“Of course.” He covered his eyes and when they reappeared, his face was smiling. Not a beamer, but a smile anyway, even if surrounded by sadness. “Don’t give Mom a reason to worry, OK? And also... tell her how happy I was to see you.” He raised a finger for emphasis. “One last question before you go – have you been to a wishing fountain in DC?”

“What’s a wishing fountain?”

“It’s a place where you can wish for anything then toss a coin in the water for your wish to come true.” Yana tilted her head. She didn’t interrupt. “Many years from now, when this madness is over and you have become a beautiful young lady, you should go to Italy, where so many wishes are made that, from time to time, the authorities have to remove the coins from the fountains and deposit the money in the bank. What I’m trying to say…” he swallowed, “is that the wishing fountain of my life is you.”

“What do you mean?” Yana’s brows furrowed. “You mean I’m like a water fountain and you’re throwing money at me?”

“One day you’ll understand.”

At the door, she waved goodbye and slid out. Colton waved back, spreading his fingers in the air, then walked around the beige table in the middle of the room. A lap later, he sat in a different chair from where he’d started and wished Thursday could come sooner.

Mitko leaned back from the piano and cracked his knuckles to keep the arthritis at bay. He stood up and with his hands on his hip, took laps around the Stein: right, right then right again; marble floor switched to carpet at each turn.

A voice flew in from his left. “Your evening workout, I take it?”

“Ma’am.” Mitko grinned at the air where her voice had come from. She sounded like the patron who disliked Schumann, from almost a month ago. He recalled her name was Li-Mei. “How have you enjoyed your stay with us?”

“Seattle grows on you, if you let it. Stench and curfew aside, this place must have been beautiful once.”

“Without eyes, I’m no longer the foremost authority on beauty. But I hear other people feel the same.”

“I’ll be leaving your hotel soon and wanted to thank you for the music. And also ask a question.” Her voice grew thinner like wood whittled into a spear. “Do you know a man named Colton Parker?”

Mitko cracked his knuckles again; stubborn arthritis. “Can’t be sure. In my line of work, I meet a lot of people. Maybe one of them was this… Colton person.” Then without warning, his hands shot up and clasped her head. He didn’t squeeze or inflict pain, but cradled her sides like a father would when sending his daughter away on her wedding day.

She froze then pushed his wrists away with a swoop. A groan died in her throat then she stood still.

“It was you,” he said, “all along.” His fingers rested tranquil on the piano keys. “The person who attacked Colton in this hotel last week had a missing right ear and so do you. Who did this to you?” He tried to imagine how the two of them must look: a thankful Olympic customer chatting up the lobby pianist during his break.

“The better question is if you want to end the day in a body bag. Which is what I’ll do if you don’t tell me where Parker is.”

“As a younger man,” he said, “I lived in a far-away country, where I was involved with people who wanted better lives, for themselves and for their children. You may say I was their leader. We were optimistic and hopeful. We met and grumbled like young people do when you take away their freedom. In the beginning, we were about a dozen, then the squares couldn’t hold us, in time. The government sent soldiers with guns and live ammo. I remember how afraid I was the first time I heard them approach. I felt this fear, yellow in color, of what they were going to do to us. Being a blind man, you see, I think of emotions as colors.

“One evening, at nightfall, the soldiers attacked and beat us. They beat me too, but, a funny thing, the first blow of their batons on my body shattered my fear and it hasn’t come back since.” His tongue wet his lips. “Look at me again, Ma’am. Do you think your body bag scares me?” He turned away from her, starting a new Schumann. His break was over.

“Parker’s passport signature beams from inside your apartment. I know you’re helping him.”

“Then come over and put us both in body bags.”

“Do I look like I need a dinner invitation? Where…is…he?”

“Every few years, enough crazies believe Rapture is coming. This year’s flavor is Defiance Day. I see you as one of them, Ma’am. Make my day and become my personal Rapture. See how much it moves –”

Before he could finish, Mitko felt six of his fingers shatter like saltines. She had slammed the fallboard on top of his playing hands. Somehow, the next thought in his head was whether anyone would notice, in the loud lobby, that the music had stopped or he had doubled over his Grand Stein.

“Do you believe me now?” she said. “I will crush you… like a worm.”

“You couldn’t kill him… because I stopped you,” he said. “But if you dropped by the next couple of days, I’ll fix you a cake to celebrate you crushing me… like a worm.”

He smiled despite the pain then heard her footfalls depart toward the Olympic’s revolving doors, as if his smile was a powerful projectile that had driven her away.

Natt pounded his desk with a fist, his fingers groaning and the wood underneath groaning louder. The son of a bitch had him beat, as much as Natt hated to admit it. The Police Chief had tagged the ULE Interpol wires with a screaming urgency uncustomary for your standard passport deserter. He had turned Parker into an AMBER-Alert pariah, incapable of buying groceries or eating at a restaurant for the rest of his life. Parker’s biotelemetry was plastered all over the apartment of the blind pianist, with the lab concluding the man’s right hand had to be stashed inside. But that was that. Two of Natt’s squads had kept the apartment under surveillance and had discovered no leads.

Natt slammed the desk again, this time with the other fist. With every passing hour, Parker made him look like a bigger idiot. None of his staff cared for passport deserters – “Defiance Day junkies,” as cops called them – but the damn Chinese woman did. He had to do something. The Police Chief stormed out of the makeshift City Hall lobby. Covert surveillance had exhausted its course; it was time to pay Mr. Benjamin a visit.

The old man’s apartment looked dark from the outside. Natt knocked heavy on the door, his fist still hurting.

“Who’s there?”

“Police Chief Gurloskey from the Seattle PD. Open up, please.”

The door squeaked ajar and Mitko’s unwashed head filled the crack.

“How may I help you?”

Natt flashed his badge by habit, as if the pianist could see. “I need to ask you a few questions about a certain Colton Parker, Mr. Benjamin.”

“Come in, please.” The pianist disappeared inside. Natt stopped to let his eyes adjust. All the lights were off and for some reason he thought he’d love to have this place’s electric bill. He found Mitko waiting in a kitchen with blue walls, where, judging by the number and variety of items, the pianist spent a lot of his time when home.

“Apologies for the darkness, Officer. I don’t have much use for the light and have shut off my electric service. It makes me feel good knowing I’m helping Puget Sound Energy.”

“I appreciate your social sacrifice given your limited condition, sir,” Natt said. “Time is of the essence here, so I should jump straight to it. Do you know Colton Parker?”

“Never heard of him, I’m afraid.”

“How about anything unusual happen to you the last few days? You’ll be surprised how telling even small details could be.” Natt’s eyes narrowed then relaxed. He wouldn’t need his poker face today. He was interrogating a blind man.

Mitko shook head from side to side. “Nothing unusual, Officer. Just surviving like everyone else.”

“Nothing at all?” Natt’s smile remained stitched to his face. Behind it, he wondered where Parker’s passport was hidden. Anywhere in this apartment would be madness, of course. He dared the blind fool to keep lying in the face of an evidentiary DNA lab report. “You bumped into no one and no one bumped into you?”

“Remember the good old days, Officer? Before the waters took over our lives? People were different then.” Mitko sighed. “Now that you mention it… say an unusual fellow did contact me. What is it you want from him?”

“He’s an illegal combatant.”

“Terrible.”

“And a Defiance Day passport deserter–”

“What is our world coming to?”

“–who’ll face the full extent of the law. We may live in a flooded city, Mr. Benjamin, but not in a lawless one. Say, you've seen…” Natt started then stopped… that was the wrong question. “Sorry… Say, Mr. Parker has contacted you. Would you happen to know where he went?”

Mitko took a step toward the Police Chief, the men’s faces no more than inches apart. “Come to think of it, I do remember this boy.”

“If you helped him by as much as an ounce, I’ll make your life hell, sir.”

“He robbed me at gun point and left. I would never help such a senseless brigand, Chief Gurloskey.”

“Listen well, old man. You two could be butt buddies for all I care. Unless you start telling me where he went, I’ll deport you back to whatever overseas armpit village you call home.” Natt's perma-smile made him sound like a background vocal to a love-song. “And I’ll see you go there a broken man, the way we found you when you crawled onto these sacred shores.”

“You listen, too,” Mitko’s voice carried despite the sirens outside announcing the start of curfew. “You'll never catch him. He wants what he’s after too much to let himself be caught.” The pianist stepped back, as if sizing up Gurloskey, who shivered at the thought of a blind man scanning him like a page. “I wish you could see yourself like I can…” The sirens stopped, followed by the lapping sounds of water in the streets. “It's time you left now.”

“Insult me one more time and I will break your blind face in the middle of your mole rat apartment.” Natt’s upper lip was sweating. “Do we understand each other?”

Mitko raised both hands to his face. Six of his fingers were in splints. “More than the person who did this? She was asking about Parker too. Or will you break my toes next, because I refuse to be bullied?”

Natt’s neck vein stood out like a swollen leech on his skin. “You are a dead man. A blind and useless dead man.”

“Don’t threaten me in my own home. And don’t you dare come back without a warrant.”

“You should have lived the life of a blind dog overseas. It beats being blind, dead meat.”

The Police Chief left Mitko’s apartment. After him the sounds of lapping water in the streets grew louder with the oncoming night wind.