Jaguar (9 page)

When it was Uncle’s turn to cycle he daydreamed, too, Rafferty could tell. He never knew where Uncle went, and he never asked.

After two years, raids on the place pretty much stopped but the uncle was careful with smoke and fires. He showed Rafferty how to make fires, how to tell what animal left tracks and where it was headed, where it had been and why. He taught him about weapons, and how to fight. Many of the Roam stayed on instead of following their usual seasonal meander, and they taught him what they knew about machines and about the jaguar priests.

Rafferty and Uncle Hungry never moved back into the house. They salvaged what they could from the broken walls and they built up the underground room. The uncle piped in spring water beside the well water, and they hid down there two more times. Both times they nearly got caught, but Rafferty didn’t want to think about those times right now.

The sun slipped a shoulder through the clouds and Ruckus, his crow, chattered to himself. Rafferty and the uncle could go days without saying anything more than “Morning.” “Catch anything?” “Yep.” “Nope.”

With just a hint of wind and mutters of his restless crow in his ears, Rafferty felt something cold flip-flop inside his stomach, like that certain point in hunger, the point of reflex that made him gnash down that first bug, the juicy one that tormented his face. His mind kept replaying the shake in Uncle’s voice that time underground when he said, “I was so
scared
. . . .”

Rafferty looked up at the loft window near the top of the barn wall. Uncle Hungry’s green stocking cap perched the sill.

What was he doing in that window?
Rafferty asked himself. The sound of the thought was a shout, not a wonder. He tried to swallow around the strangle in his throat, and for some reason his thoughts kept turning to the Jaguar.

“Didn’t he know he could fall?” he asked Ruckus.

A shift of cloud shut out the sun and Ruckus ruffled his feathers. The boy Rafferty eyed both horizons of the road: sunrise and sunset. He spoke to the one yellow crocus beside the barn.

“Didn’t he know he could fall?”

Rafferty was sure, by the shake in his voice, that he was scared.

We find a little of everything in our memory; it is a kind of
pharmacy or chemical laboratory in which chance guides our hand
now to a calming drug and now to a dangerous poison.

—Marcel Proust,
Maxims

In her dream, Afriqua Lee met the brown-eyed girl in a huge open field undulating with thousands of tiny blue flowers. Their fragrance made her think of death, but these days so soon after her mother’s wake all flowers made her think of death. The girl wore a pink robe, a vibrant pink that shimmered among the flowers. Her robe was stitched with a peculiar glyph and two plumed serpents, guardians of the holy martyr.

She must be a spirit from the underworld,
Afriqua thought. All she could muster to answer the girl’s wave of greeting was a nod.

“You’re Afriqua Lee,” the girl said, and beamed a smile that seemed very happy to see her. A tray appeared in her hands and she placed it onto a low table that also appeared between them. The tray was gold, and the gold tabletop levitated, feather-light, a hand’s breadth above the flowers. A white tea set rested in the tray.

Afriqua Lee’s heart double-timed against the fabric of her nightgown. The idea of an angel of the holy martyr speaking to her, even in a dream, was a truly powerful thing. Even Old Cristina would not take it lightly.

“Yes,” she answered, “I am Afriqua Lee. And who are you?”

A comfortable breeze rippled the blue blossoms and fluttered the floppy sleeves of the girl’s pink robe. The serpents on the robe did not have feathers, but large, leathery wings that seemed to fly with the flutter of the fabric.

“Maryellen Thompkins,” the girl said, and plunked herself down among the flowers. “We’re having tea.”

“Tea?”

“Yes,” Maryellen said. “Do they have tea where you’re from?”

“Of course,” she said, and plopped down beside her. A cradle of sky-blue flowers caught her in their petals and held her while they leaned with the breeze. She studied this Maryellen Thompkins who was now pouring green tea into fragile white cups.

Maryellen had the same long, straight hair that Afriqua remembered her own mother having, except that Maryellen’s hair was brown and her mother’s was black, black as obsidian from that crater at Wind Mountain. Maryellen’s eyes glittered a deep brown, and kept Afriqua’s gaze without prying.

“Are you real?” she asked Maryellen.

“Yes,” Maryellen said. “I’m real. The tea is pretend, though.”

The thin cup tilted in her perfect hand, and Afriqua Lee sipped the green, aromatic brew. She felt her lungs hold that breath an extra beat to savor the freshness of the tea.

“It’s my favorite,” Maryellen said. “Do you have mint where you’re from?”

“Yes,” Afriqua said. “The familiyi drinks coffee. I do, too. But we get tea when we’re sick.”

“My mom gives me tea when I’m sick, too,” Maryellen said. “Tea and toast. That’s what I got this morning. I’m sick.”

Afriqua felt herself frown, and the chill of a cloud-shadow slithered her spine.

“My mother . . . the earthquake. . . .”

Maryellen’s eyes widened and she set down her cup.

“Did she die?”

Afriqua Lee nodded, then looked up, hopeful.

“Have you seen her? Have you seen my father?”

“No,” Maryellen said, “just you.”

“I thought . . . if you were from the underworld, maybe you’ve seen them.”

“The underworld? Where’s that?”

“It’s where you go after you die. Everybody knows that.”

“Well, I’m alive,” Maryellen said. “I’m still in the world. We call that place ‘Heaven.’ The underworld, that’s a bad place and we call that ‘Hell.’“

“Well, my mother wouldn’t be in the bad place. Do you dream of other people?”

“Not like this,” Maryellen said. “It’s more like I’m dreaming
with
you. Like I’m
really
with you but I know it’s a dream.”

Suddenly, the girl began to fade. They reached for one another but it was too late. The girl, the pink robe, the tea set were gone.

Afriqua Lee shuddered again. The shadow that played around her from the gathering cloud roiled, indistinct, across the blue meadow. Once she thought it formed the silhouette of a jaguar, then a butterfly. How strange that a sign so fortuitous would bring her such a chill.

Some people expend tremendous energy merely to be normal.

—Albert Camus

Because Eddie couldn’t stop crying, they took him to Dr. Jacobs, whose office was next to the library downtown. After listening to their story and trying unsuccessfully to calm Eddie’s hysteria, Dr. Jacobs made a call and had them take Eddie to the hospital on the hill. Everyone in town joked about that hospital and, because they feared mental illness and the building that held it, called it, simply, “The Hill.”

Eddie, for his six years known as the invisible boy, the quiet boy, turned over end-tables and scattered magazines across the office floor. He hid under the desk when they said he was going to a hospital and three of them had to pry his fingers loose to get him out.

Eddie Reyes had seen his mother, and listened to her pitiful, painful cries from outside her window. He knew what kinds of things they did to people in hospitals and he didn’t want them to get their hands on him.

But they did.

The hospital was a huddle of buildings inside a cyclone fence, in the middle of a large lawn. The hospital itself was a five-storey structure backed against the hillside, with the two-storey buildings spread out like hatchlings from its skirts. A few very big trees broke up the expanse of grass. Outside the fence was a road, and thick woods across the road. A lot of flowers bloomed around the buildings, and Eddie’s grandmother said she thought it was a pretty place.

“We don’t get people your age very often,” the doctor said. “The windows in here are for taller people, but if you stand on this little table you can see the whole valley.”

The doctor seemed to want him to go ahead and stand on the table, but Eddie couldn’t do that. If he put his feet on the furniture at home his grandparents would lock him in the closet all day, so he couldn’t get his feet on anything. They would lock him in the closet if they heard that he’d put his feet on the furniture at the doctor’s, that’s for sure. They locked him in the closet almost every day for something. Eddie knew that the doctor didn’t know that, but he didn’t want to tell him, either.

The doctor cleared his throat.

“It’s all right,” he said, “you can come in without standing on the furniture.”

The doctor found him a stool that rolled, except when it was stepped on, then it stopped. He told Eddie to call him Dr. Mark. They stood at the window and Dr. Mark showed him the river, the school, the wreckage that used to be downtown and his mother’s hospital.

“Most of the youngsters that we have here can’t read or write like you can. You’re a very intelligent boy. Your grandma says you’re the best artist in kindergarten.”

Eddie was not crying when Dr. Mark talked to him; he was too tired to cry. His eyes and his throat hurt and what he wanted most was a drink of water. They sat down side-by-side on a couch in Dr. Mark’s office. Eddie balanced a box of blue Kleenex on his knees and twisted a wad of tissues in his hands. He couldn’t make himself look up because he didn’t want to talk and as long as he didn’t look up they couldn’t make him talk.

Dr. Mark opened his office window and let in a breeze. Along with the fresh air came the cacklings of a pair of crows. He returned to the drab green couch and sat next to Eddie again, close, but without touching.

“Do you like baseball, Eddie?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Everybody likes to do something outside. What do you like to do outside, on a nice day like today?”

“Nothing.”

“Do you play outside at all?”

“Sometimes.”

“When you play outside on a day like today, where do you go? Where would you rather be than here?”

Eddie sniffed, then coughed a little cough.

“I like to go down to the river.”

“Do you go fishing down there?”

“Sometimes.”

“What else do you do at the river?”

Eddie shrugged.

“Sit.”

“Do you sit and think, or do you just sit?”

“I think.”

“What do you think about when you sit by the river?”

“Stuff. My friends.”

“Tell me about your friends. Who’s your best friend?”

“Rafferty,” Eddie said, and saying it made him smile a little bit.

“Is Rafferty the same age as you?”

Eddie nodded.

“Do you play with him every day?”

“We don’t exactly play,” Eddie said.

“Is he in kindergarten with you?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Where do you see him, if you don’t see him in school?”

“In dreams.”

Dr. Mark paused for a few moments and wrote, “Rafferty—imaginary playmate,” on a yellow pad on his lap.

“Tell me, Eddie, is this Rafferty a real person, or do you just see him in dreams?”

“He’s real.”

“Where else do you see him, besides dreams? Down at the river?”

Eddie nodded. “I saw him at the hospital. And when the street broke up.”

“You mean the earthquake? You saw him then?”

“Under the street.”

“
Under
the street? You mean, where it broke up?”

“Yeah. I looked down and he was down there.”

“What was he doing?”

“He waved.”

“And you saw him at the hospital, too?”

Eddie nodded.

“What were you doing at the hospital?”

Eddie pulled the Kleenex box closer, then pushed it out to his knees and balanced it there.

“You don’t want to tell me?”

Eddie shook his head.

“Ok, you don’t have to tell me. Let’s see, do you have a pet? Is there a pet in your life that you can tell me about?”

“My rabbits. I have twelve . . . eleven rabbits.”

“Is there a favorite one?”

“Yes,” Eddie sighed, “but he got away.”

“Did he have a name?”

“Rafferty.”

“Rafferty,” Dr. Mark said. “That’s an unusual name. Did you name him after your friend?”

Eddie nodded.

“How did the rabbit Rafferty get away?”

“I dropped him and he ran into the flower bushes behind the hospital.”

“Were you visiting someone at the hospital?”

Eddie teetered the Kleenex box off his knees and scrambled to the floor to pick it up. He sat back on the couch and didn’t say anything.

“You live with your grandparents, is that right?”

Eddie nodded.

“Where is your father?”

“He died in the war.”

“If he died in the war, then you probably never got to see him, is that right?”

“I saw pictures. My mother. . . .” He stopped, then bounced the box on his knees some more.

“Your mother has some pictures?”

“She has one picture. He’s beside a bomber with his friends.”

“And what about your mother? Where is she?”

Eddie peeled little bits of cardboard from the opening where the tissues come out of the box. He didn’t know where to put them so he kept them in his hand. This time, Dr. Mark didn’t ask him another question, he just waited. Eddie scanned the office and took in the desk and chair, the wall of books, the magazines. He really wanted to look out the window but the window was behind the couch. People’s shadows stood outside Dr. Mark’s door; he could see them through the funny glass. They looked like Rafferty the times that Eddie glimpsed him by the hospital.

“In the hospital.”

“Is your mom sick? Is that why she’s been in the hospital?”

“She got hurt. They wouldn’t let me see her.”

“But you found a way to see her, is that right?”

He stopped peeling the cardboard and piled the pieces on the couch between them.

“Eddie, if I got some colors in here and some paper, would you like to draw some pictures?”

Eddie didn’t answer. He knew he wasn’t in Dr. Mark’s office to draw pictures, that they wanted something from him. He didn’t want to get in trouble and he didn’t want his mother to get in trouble, so he gripped his box of Kleenex and kept quiet.