The Tyrant's Daughter (3 page)

I accept.

I can’t help but hunch my shoulders against the feeling of being watched. Emmy’s bedroom is unsettling.

A hundred sets of eyes stare at me from the walls. It’s an amateur portrait gallery—a snapshot collage of faces. Some of the photos—boys only—have
X
’s penned across them. I don’t ask why. I already knew that Emmy was a collector of people. I am her latest specimen, after all.

Her mother knocks on the door of her room and asks if I will be staying for dinner. She looks nervous.

“Yes!” Emmy shouts out in answer, then turns to me. “Right, Laila? You can stay, can’t you? Please?” I notice that she has angled her body so it’s blocking the computer screen.

“Um … okay, good. I mean, fine.” Her mom’s brow is furrowed. “We’re having lasagna. Is that okay with you?” She emphasizes her words strangely, as if expecting me to object. “I mean, do you have any—” She searches for the right words,
“Any dietary restrictions? From your country, or your religion?” Just like her daughter, she plays with a golden pendant hanging from her neck. Hers is a small cross.

I suddenly understand her nervousness. “Lasagna sounds wonderful, Mrs. Davis. Thank you very much for the invitation. I would love to stay for dinner.”

Emmy’s mother’s face unfurrows and she smiles broadly, looking so much like her daughter for a moment that it’s like seeing double. She is pleased that I have not rejected her food. Would she be so pleased if she could read the pages that her daughter is hiding?

Emmy fidgets and glowers until her mother leaves the room, and then rolls her eyes. “It’s probably better my mom not see this stuff. She’s
so
controlling.” I hide my expression behind my hair. The googling girl with her own computer in her bedroom thinks her mother is controlling.

Emmy’s fingers fly over the keyboard as I watch and pretend to be indifferent. Back home we had no internet. Or at least not the internet I see before me now. We had only a heavily censored, filtered version, with threatening messages decrying all but the blandest of government-approved sites as forbidden.

“See?” Emmy asks as she finds what she was looking for. “I didn’t make it up. I really am sorry, Laila. I didn’t know it would offend you.”

I force the corners of my mouth to turn up and form a forgiving expression as I gaze past her to read the headline emblazoned across the screen. The picture that accompanies the article is old, taken several years ago, and my father looks
heavier, healthier than I remember from more recent days. My mother is walking behind him in the photo. It is not a flattering image of her, but she is still beautiful, even with her eyes shifted toward something out of camera range. She looks skittish, like a storm-spooked horse, with the whites of her eyes showing too much.

The article on Emmy’s computer screen is not kind.

“It’s not true.” I want to keep reading, but the need to defend is more urgent. I’ve seen enough to know that whoever wrote the article was wrong, had only part of the story. There are several unattributed quotes that sound suspiciously like things my uncle would say. My uncle, who does not share the blame in this article, but who certainly shares the blame in real life.

Emmy shrugs and begins to braid her hair, checking her progress in the mirror above her dresser. She truly does not care. The accusations on her computer describe events so far away from her they might as well belong in a fairy tale.
Once upon a time, there was an evil man who led his country into war and misery
.

The truth is more Shakespearean tragedy than fairy tale, though.
Upon his death, an emperor’s sons vie for power, only to destroy everything around them and pass their bloody quarrel on to the next generation
. Whether fairy tale or Elizabethan tragedy, such stories don’t come true in Emmy’s world. My life is no more real to her than an assigned reading for English class.

“There’s a lot more,” Emmy says once her braid is finished. “Do you want to see it?”

Yes
.

“No,” I say.

“Okay, then let’s go eat. My mom’s lasagna is awesome, but stay away from her garlic bread. She burns it every time.” Emmy is out the door, the article already forgotten.

I glance back at her computer before I follow. I want to read more, but I don’t want to read more—conflicting urges grapple in my gut. Either way, I know for certain that I don’t want my carefree new American friend looking over my shoulder as I read. Surely the same thought would occur to her as the one that now pulsates and throbs in my head like a malignant tumor, and I couldn’t bear the doubled weight of our combined question:
What kind of person doesn’t know whether her father was a king or a monster?

I hurry home after my dinner at Emmy’s. The walk is long, but I’m not ready to try the city’s bus system. Just looking at the schedule, with its seemingly infinite routes and destinations, makes my head spin.

But even on foot, I’m disoriented within minutes. Not lost, exactly. Not yet. But I’m angry with myself for not paying more attention when I walked here with Emmy. Alone, everything looks different. The cocoon in which I used to live has been ripped away, but that doesn’t mean I’m ready to spread my wings. Simply to walk, unaccompanied, from one place to the next is new enough—one part liberation, one part intimidation. The fact that all the buildings look the same to me does not help. How many fast-food restaurants can possibly coexist in one small area?

I turn left at the Golden Arches, only to realize my error a half block later. It should have been a right at the arches
and then a left at the sign advertising fried chicken by the bucket—a landmark that never fails to amaze me. Even with my privileged background, I can hardly fathom the food quantities here, measured in buckets, tubs, platters, and combo packs. I backtrack, cursing. No one shoots at me here, and the bumper-sticker-adorned cars are neither armored nor driven by bodyguards, but my heartbeat quickens anyway. There is comfort, if not safety, in familiarity, and nothing here feels familiar.

Finally my apartment building shows itself—a five-story stucco beacon in the dusk. Unbelievably, my home.

Inside, Bastien is eating cereal again—his enthusiasm for it has only grown since we arrived. Mother is painting her fingernails with no evidence of a meal before her. The lasagna sits guiltily in my stomach. It
was
delicious.

“Have you eaten?” I ask.

She beckons me with her fingers extended and spread, her gesture intended both to dry the red paint and to call me over for a kiss on each cheek. “I can’t bring myself to eat that sugar-coated Styrofoam your brother is so obsessed with. It tastes like chocolate-dipped mothballs. I’d rather go hungry.”

I open the cupboards to confirm what I already know. Nothing but the last two boxes of cereal left from our grand first shopping trip, both nearly empty. I have to bite my tongue to keep from shouting out in frustration. Does it not occur to her to buy anything else? She may not mind going hungry, but couldn’t she remember that she has children who will need to eat tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day after that?

Unless there is another reason.

I approach the topic carefully, and only after making a cup of tea, using the last tea bag from a tin I found in the back of an otherwise empty drawer. “I thought you might like some tea,” I say as I bring her the offering. I try to think of something bland and nonconfrontational to discuss. In our culture it is considered rude to skip straight to business without first sharing a meal and a conversation. My question keeps bubbling up in my throat, though, growing in urgency until I feel like I might choke. Finally, I can’t contain it.

“Are we out of money?” It comes out rushed and petulant, not as I intended. I sound like a child asking an adult question.

“Don’t worry, Laila. Money will come.” She’s too busy inspecting her cuticles to look up at me.

“From where?” I can’t let this drop. We can’t eat from cereal boxes forever. “Maybe you should get a job.”

Mother looks amused. “Doing what, darling? Working behind the counter at the corner gas station, perhaps? Can’t you just see it?” She laughs and begins to apply a second coat of polish to her nails.

“Then
I’ll
get a job.
I
could work at the gas station. Or I could work as a tutor, maybe.” I have no idea how to go about getting a job in this country, or even if anyone would hire a fifteen-year-old immigrant—an
F.O.B
., no less—but
someone
has to be practical here.

“Laila, stop.” She is no longer amused. I have pushed too far. “I still have some jewelry I can sell, and there are many people who owed your father favors. They will provide, if I ask.” She shoos me away like a housefly.

I may be a child in her eyes, but at least
I
know that the favors owed my father died when he did. There will be no one coming to our rescue. “Fine,” I say, knowing when to quit. “But you should sell the jewelry soon.”

She ignores me, so I join Bastien on the couch. “You shouldn’t eat so much of that,” I tell him. “You’ll get sick again.”

He sticks his tongue out at me. “I like it.”

I smile at him and mess his hair. He alone seems to be flourishing here. Perhaps I
should
follow his lead.

I feel shy when I see Emmy next. She knows something about me that I don’t know myself. I’d considered slipping away from the dinner table last night to finish the article in secret, but there hadn’t been a chance. I spent the meal stuck between Mr. Davis’s beetle-browed silence and statements up-talked into chirpy questions by Mrs. Davis.
So I hear you’re fitting in well at SCHOOL? It must be so hard to move so FAR AWAY? Emmy has told us so much ABOUT YOU?

It was a pleasant enough evening, but it has left me feeling stripped bare.

Now I feel a childish need to keep a secret from Emmy, for no other reason than to prove that I can. The opportunity presents itself quickly.

“Want to go to Starbucks with some of us after school?” Emmy asks.

I shake my head. “I have a doctor’s appointment,” I lie. It
is an unsatisfying fib, though. My dishonesty has no substance, no purpose, and the very moment it comes from my mouth, I realize I have harmed only myself. The realization that I
do
want to go to Starbucks with Emmy makes me irritable. I squash down my churlish mood and add a loophole to my lie. “If it doesn’t take too long, maybe I can meet you there after?” My statement-as-question sounds like Emmy’s mother.

“Great!” Neither my lie nor my reversal ruffles Emmy. But as I turn to walk away, she stops me. “Laila? Wait a second.” She’s suddenly nervous, twisting her hair around her fingers. “I’m sorry about last night. My parents, I mean. They’re acting really weird lately. Tense, you know?”

“I didn’t notice.” My answer is the truth—I hadn’t sensed anything wrong.

“Okay, good. I’m glad.” Emmy gnaws on her lip for a moment before snapping back to the perkier version of herself. “Okay, then. I’ll see you later. Try to make it to Starbucks if you can.”

I nod, and when school lets out, I look for somewhere I can wait out my fictional appointment. The library seems like my best option. I figure that I can spend an hour there, then join Emmy and her friends with a clean conscience.

My plan dissolves as soon as I enter.

Where I’m from, libraries are like museums. They’re rare—locked and guarded vaults that house only books and documents that have long outlived any practical value. Compared to the dusty archives of my past, the room before me seems as garish and industrious as a neon-lit convenience store. The scattered magazines, glowing computer terminals,
and overeager literacy posters on the walls first strike me as disrespectful and irreverent. But it doesn’t take long before I realize the magic of this library: this is a place that was built to be
used
.

I try to find my way on my own at first, without luck. There are simply too many rows with too many shelves with too many books for me to make sense of. I’ve never done this type of research before. Back home my tutors supplied me with all the information I needed to write my papers. Compared to my spoon-fed former self, I now feel like an explorer in the thick of a great paper jungle.

I trace my finger along the spines of the books as I wander through the stacks, as if the correct one might send out a signal, or perhaps even leap into my hand. Far from feeling discouraged when no such thing happens, I’m intrigued. There are so many mysteries in these books, so many stories both happier and more tragic than my own, and for a moment I’m tempted to pluck one from the shelf at random just to escape into its pages for an afternoon.

But I can’t do that now. I have a new mission; I’m no longer just killing time. I lurk near the librarian’s desk for a few minutes, watching. I want to eavesdrop, to learn the right way to ask for help from the white-haired woman who sits there. No one approaches her, though. I have no one to emulate, so I just hover awkwardly.

Before long the woman looks up at me. “Can I help you find something?”

“Yes. I’m trying to find information about—” I falter. I’d almost said
about my father
. I catch myself just in time and
give his name instead. I do not claim him as my own, a lie of omission, and his name sounds sterile and impersonal coming from my mouth.

The librarian knows of him. “Hmmm. He died just recently, didn’t he? I feel like I saw an article about him earlier this week.” She sorts through a stack of magazines, looking for the right one. “Ah. I knew it!” She hands over a magazine turned to a page bearing a photo of my father. “Wait just a minute, dear. I think there might be another article in a magazine in the stacks.”

She walks away quickly, energized by the hunt.

I feel a sense of relief, as if I had just gotten away with something. The librarian cared more about the location of the information than the subject matter itself—she would have responded the exact same way had I asked for articles about tractors or kumquats or the history of jazz music. My father’s name was nothing but a searchable word, news of his death interchangeable with any current event. I was accustomed to my family name eliciting far more passionate responses. In my experience, people either loved my father or hated him—visceral preferences strongly, even violently, expressed. The librarian’s emotionless, businesslike response was disconcerting.