Throne (2 page)

Fatigue stealing over her, wrapping her in a shroud of lead. She closed her eyes, turned her head so that her brow was pressed against him, “Go,” she said. “Go. I understand. But don’t talk anymore. I can’t stand to hear you talk. Just go.”

“Senora Martel.”

If you looked hard enough at the fog outside the window, you could almost see it move, see whorls like the kind that spin briefly into existence in exhalations of cigarette smoke, that spin and then disappear when you pour milk into coffee. Clouding the city, resting damp and heavy over cars, pedestrians, obscuring store fronts, muting sound, slowing things down, killing.

“Senora Martel, I apologize but you have to make some decisions. Please.”

She rolled over again, her body a collection of sticks held together by bands of coarse rope. She felt listless and broken and empty, a bird’s nest that had been stepped on. A lady was seated next to her, small and dark skinned, Mexican perhaps, young and solemn with eyes like those of an idol, a bird, black and shining and hard. This one would not frighten easily.

“There are decisions that must be made with regards to your baby.” Words like smooth river stones being dropped into her lap.

“What decisions?” she asked. Voice clear, still, steady. The words distinct from her, from her emotions, that vibration deep in her chest.

“The hospital cannot remain in custody of the body. You must decide what funeral arrangements you wish to make. I understand that you are visiting from Barcelona. If you wish, it is possible to transport the remains for a burial in your native country.”

“No,” she said. “No. I do not want it to go to Spain. I want it to stay here.”

“Very well,” said the woman. “We can place you in touch with several funeral homes that can accommodate your wishes. These decisions, however, must be made before you are discharged.”

“I understand,” she said. “That will not be a problem. Thank you.”

September 18th, 2010

Barcelona. Sunshine, brilliant and unabashed, spilling out over the streets and avenues, the cafes and balconies, the old buildings and cathedral spires. The smell of the ocean, the murmur of traffic, the wind shifting the tree tops that circled the plaza as she set her purse on the table and lowered herself carefully into the seat. Her body ached, how it ached, her feet swollen, the small of her back smoldering as if coals had been thumbed under her skin to nestle amidst the muscles, her stomach ponderous, obscene, weighing her down. She shifted in her seat, sought the ever elusive position in which she could feel comfortable, and failed to find it.

The waiter emerged from the shadowy interior of the restaurant, his uniform crisp, starched, black and sharp, and Maribel flashed him a smile as he set down her coffee and bowl of ice cream. Always the same. Indulgences. They were what kept her going. That and the phone calls, brief snatches of his voice carried to her all the way from Kabul.

Her phone rang, and the waiter stepped away.

“
Hola
?” she said, struck as always by the irrational belief that there would be nobody on the other end.

“
Amor
,” said Antonio, his voice rich like warm caramel, and she felt relief flood her. “How are you,
preciosa
? The baby?”

“
Your
baby weighs more than a pile of bricks, and is driving her mother crazy,” she said, trying to sound annoyed. “She is going to be the fattest little girl ever born. As round as a football.”

“I love fat little girls,” he said, and she could hear the smile in his voice. She pictured his face, lean and tanned, hair silvering at the temples, and wondered what he was looking at as he spoke to her. “That’s why I was unable to resist you, my love.”

“Oh, get lost,” she said, but she knew he could hear her laughter now, bright beneath her voice. “If you really wanted a fat girl, you should have stayed home. I’d fulfill your every fantasy right now.”

“If only. How are you? How are you feeling?”

“I’m tired.” She looked out over the plaza, watched an old couple walking slowly, ever so slowly across the street, his arm looped in hers. “I’m tired and I’m cranky and I’m sore. It’s probably a good thing you’re not here. You’d want a divorce after spending two days with me.”

“I would do anything to spend two days with you. Even if you spent every moment taking my skin off with the edge of your tongue.”

“That’s not all I would do,” she said, her smile turning into a wince as she shifted her weight once more. “How are you? How is work? Have you solved all the problems of the Middle East yet so you can come home?”

“No,” he said, and she heard his fatigue, heard it come rushing up to pull his voice down, to rob it of its confidence. “No, things are… well. Complicated as ever. Everything is on hold while we negotiate again with Pakistan. People are holding their breath. Waiting to see how things turn out.”

“So if nothing is happening, that’s the perfect opportunity to come home,” she said.

“About that.”

“What?” Dull certainty bloomed within her. Leaden and heavy.

A pause, and she knew he was searching for the best way to tell her. To be diplomatic. “I can’t come home yet.
Amor
, I’m sorry. But I just can’t.”

“You can’t come home,” she said.

He sighed. “I wish—I wish you could see how close we are here to turning the corner. If I leave—if I come home now,
amor
, there’s too much at stake. We’re so close.”

A sudden and terrible sense of solitude, of truly being alone in the world but for the small presence in her body. She nodded, “I knew it. I knew you would pick that fucking country and those fucking Arabs over the birth of your own daughter.”

“Maribel, I might still make it home—“

“Don’t,” she snapped, suddenly and irrevocably furious, trying to sit up, “You know what? I don’t care what you say, I
am
going to go to the gallery opening in New York.”

“Maribel, no.” Anger in his voice. “It’s not safe.”

“Then come home and stop me.”

A long, agonizing beat. Then: “
Amor
, please, you’re being irrational—“

“Don’t call me that. Save it for your Arabs. Call them ‘
amor
’ when you go into your next meeting. At least then you’ll mean it.” And she hung up.

“Maribel?” A voice, light, tentative, like a bird alighting on a branch, poised to take to the air again at the first sign of danger. Turning her head, Maribel saw Rebecca standing in the door, still wrapped in her heavy black coat, face roseate from the cold; tall, golden Rebecca.

“Maribel,” she said as she came into the room. “I only just heard. How are you, I’m so sorry, Maribel, I’m so sorry.” She came to the edge of the bed, knelt by its side, reached out to take her hands in her own, but drew back at the sight of Maribel’s face.

“Have you been alone this entire time?” She asked, voice falling to a whisper. She searched Maribel’s face, sat back on her heels. “No, Maribel. You should have called, you should have. Somebody should have been here with you. Somebody.”

Maribel gazed at her, at the woman who had promoted her and helped ensure her success these past few weeks amidst the falling snow and fog of New York, and said nothing.

“The gallery is receiving rave reviews,” said Rebecca helplessly. “I’ve received…,” she broke off, and then rallied. “I’ve received word from a friend in Chicago that they want to host you there too. And a number of clients have requested quotes for copies of your prints, but I’ve told them all, I’ve told them to wait, that now isn’t…” Rebecca’s words dried up in her mouth as she held Maribel’s gaze. Finally, “What are you going to do?” Rebecca moved back and up into the closest chair. “How much longer are they going to keep you here?”

“I leave tonight,” she said.

“Where are you going? When do you return to Barcelona?”

The decision crystallized even as she considered it. “I am not returning to Barcelona.”

“No? Then—where? To your husband? Is he coming here?”

“No,” she said again, and closed her eyes. “No, I want nothing to do with Antonio.” The old bitterness that had poisoned these past few months, that had made her decision to come to New York a necessity, an affirmation of her independence. “Anyway, he’s still in Kabul,” she said, and her smile was hard, deceptively amused, “If he wasn’t going to be home for Sofia’s birth, why I should I bother him now?”

“Maribel,” said Rebecca, and then once more, voice louder, asserting herself, trying to take control of the situation, “Maribel. Tell me what you are going to do. You can’t be alone right now.”

“I can do what I like, Rebecca,” said Maribel, her smile disappearing.

Her friend drew back. Authority fled her voice. “What are you going to do?”

“I have to find somebody,” said Maribel, and turned away to face the window.

Sanity. She didn’t know what the word meant anymore. It had been replaced, however, with certainty. Or perhaps, more accurately, faith. Pulling her scarf more tightly about her neck, Maribel strode through the hospital lobby and toward the revolving doors beyond which New York loomed, gaunt and gray and chill. Certainty, faith. A knowledge that could not be discussed with anybody else, because there was no way to explain herself without seeming mad.

Pushing through the revolving door, she stepped outside for the first time since losing her baby. The air was crisp, cold, a shock on her face. She raised her chin, inhaled, smelled the tang of exhaust, metallic. It was a different world, now. Within her, the ebon shell, the vibrating chrysalis had slowed, stilled, so that it throbbed now in rhythm with her heart.

Antonio had tried to speak to her, had called over and over again, and then finally informed the nurses that he was en route to New York. She didn’t care. He could find her or not. If he did, he would fail to understand. There was simply no way to communicate this. Trauma, depression, hallucination. There were endless terms for it, and they had been spewed at her by the grief counselor, the pediatrician, her doctor. Only Rebecca had chosen to step away, to leave her be, to give her time.

Sanity. It was not as important as she had once thought. Always she had been accused of having a temper, of being bold, intemperate, stubborn. Other words, less kind: irrational, impulsive. Qualities tossed derisively at her by men over the course of her life, all of them meaning one thing:
female
.

Maribel lowered her chin. Set her jaw, and strode forward into the alien city. With a conviction that she did not question, with a knowledge that she did not doubt, she knew there was but one thing she now had to do, no matter what others thought, said, demanded. She had to find her daughter.

That night, when first she had risen from her bed, a mere hour or two having passed since they had whisked her baby away, locked her up in a clear plastic incubator, premature, so small, so small. Red and wizened, a little frog of a thing, too soon but hers, hers hers hers. Those precious few glimpses as her baby was taken from her, handed from one doctor to the next and placed in the incubator, her small body cupped in gloved hands, tubes and measurements and then gone, gone, taken before she could even see her face.

It had taken all her control, exhausted and panicked as she had been, not to scream, to demand they show her her child, to reach out to touch her. But like that, her baby was gone, and she sank back, fiercely determined to not sleep, to wait for the anesthesia that cloaked her lower body in numbness to wear off, so that she could walk down to the ICU and see her.

No name, not yet, she hadn’t been able to settle on one, it had plagued her, but nothing had seemed quite right. Perhaps when she saw her face, then it would come to her. She knew it would. She wouldn’t give her baby a name; she would simply know.

Later, down the hall, no nurses to help her, the hospital too busy. But she felt fine, she felt strong, she felt like she could do anything despite the pain, the ache in her stomach, the stinging between her legs, the light-headedness. Slowly, each step certain, following the directions.

No family with her. No husband, no friends. Alone, but that didn’t matter. Her baby, her child. Her girl. That was all she needed. All she would ever need. There. The wall of glass, the sight of cribs arrayed in neat rows. Nobody else looking in, this moment was hers alone, and she felt a pang of gratitude, that she would be able to devour the sight of her baby for the first time in privacy, not have to share it with anybody. Jealous, selfish, but hers.

She stopped, looked through the glass wall. Eyes moving from baby to baby, knowing she would recognize hers immediately. There.

Sofia
.

The name came, unbidden. Her eyes filled with tears, and something within her turned, trembled, opened. A stiffness she hadn’t realized she was holding within her eased, she felt herself open up. Sofia. Stepping forward, she pressed her hands to the glass, stared at the little shape, the crimson face, the bundle of flesh and love in the midst of tubes and machinery.

The hairs along her arms pricked, stirred. Skin began to crawl on the back of her neck. Something was wrong. Something was happening. Maribel looked up and down the hallway, almost cried out for help, but why? She couldn’t see anything.

Sofia. A cloud had appeared above her, a swirling cloud of black ink, a tincture in the air, a bruise where nothing was. It swelled and grew, a storm cloud, no depth to it, sheer black, sucking in the light.

“No,” she whispered, shook her head.

A shape. Head, shoulders, pale, alabaster, paler than her own fair skin. Inhuman--or not human
enough
. Bulging forehead, emaciated face pulled tight around small cheekbones, a hint of a chin beneath a slit of a mouth. But the eyes, large, so large, and hands extending down toward her child.

“No!” she screamed, and pounded on the glass. It should have broken, should have shattered inwards, destroyed by her fury. It didn’t.