Marianne, the Madame, and the Momentary Gods (10 page)

In addition to the more or less salvageable things found in the machines, there were great quantities of miscellany that she could find no use for. These she hauled out, as best she could, into the rear yard near the alley gate, and the trash men picked them up once each week or, for a sizeable tip, fetched the detritus from the laundry itself. She was always afraid that the tips, though accounted for on petty-cash slips and meticulously itemized, would not be considered acceptable expenses and would be deducted from her already tiny paycheck. Surely they could not expect her – or any one person – to carry the quantities of heavy things that the machines disgorged. Why, only two days ago there had been three sets of elephant harness as well as a crated harmonium and three pictures of the palace!

She had hung the pictures among the others in her office. Pictures of the palace or of the royal family almost covered the office walls, repetitive arrangements of the perpendicular: tall, thin members of the ruling family echoing tall, thin columns of the east portico, further paralleled by tall, thin trees on either side. Marianne could not remember seeing the palace personally, though the laundry must surely have been close to it at some time in the past. Still, she kept the pictures. It seemed less disrespectful than throwing them away. Disrespect was punishable, and she supposed she would start hanging them in the laundry itself when the walls of her office were filled.

The office was a mere cubicle in the rear corner of the laundry, a flimsy box of wallboard with one glass window set into it through which she could watch the customers at the machines and two doors, one leading to the back stairway and one into the laundry itself. That one she could shut when the noise became too overpowering, the sound of surf and whirlpool and tide and storm, a rush and surge and shush-shush of waters, a hum and whirl of air.

As one entered from the usually cobbled street one saw the seven huge machines down the left-hand wall, each labeled as to suggested contents, facing the seven matching dryers on the right-hand wall. Ivory washer opposite ivory dryer. Rose machine opposite rose machine. Great, indigo mechanism looming opposite another, equally monstrous. And on the back wall, the small, specialized machines, palest pink and baby blue and sea green, with their tiny soap dispensers tidily arrayed nearby.

In the center of the room was the spotting table and the table for folding clean laundry and half a dozen hard, molded chairs, reliably uncomfortable. The place was busy enough. No point in encouraging people to sit about by making it inviting.

She put the cash box on the kitchen table with a sense of relief, feeling more tired than usual tonight. It had been a sins day, with half the population of Badigor seeking redemption, and Marianne hadn’t had time to sit down since seven this morning. The indigo washer had jammed along about noon, losing at least a dozen citizens in the process. They might show up again, or they might not. With Marianne’s luck, she thought dismally, they’d show up in one of the dryers in the middle of the night and wake her up with their pounding and gargled cries for release.

The apartment looked strange to her, too, as it did sometimes. As though she hadn’t really seen it before, wasn’t familiar with it, didn’t belong in it. As though when she opened the door she should have been somewhere else. Somewhere drier, she thought, closing her eyes and visualizing it. A place where things didn’t rust or mildew immediately. A place with a fireplace and light coming in through the windows instead of this constant, deadly fog. The thought of the fog made her think of being lost, and this brought her alert in a sudden panic.

She hadn’t bought her map for tomorrow!

She stood up, mouth open in an expression of unconscious anxiety, hands twisting together. Usually she bought the map at noon, at a news vendor’s kiosk. There was always a news vendor’s kiosk somewhere within three or four blocks. Today she hadn’t had time to go out to lunch, and she had forgotten it until this moment.

She fought panic by checking her watch, noting that she had at least fifteen minutes before the kiosk would close for the night. If she didn’t get the map there, the nearest place would be the all-night restaurant at the corner of – there, she’d forgotten already. She’d need today’s map in order to find either location.

She grabbed up the map and peered at it as she ran down the stairs, down the aisle between the monstrous, silent machines, their doors agape like snoring mouths, and out the door, stopping under the street light to find the nearest kiosk. There was one, just three blocks away!

She hurried, half running, paying little attention to her surroundings. At one time, she seemed to recall, she had spent hours just walking, entertaining herself with speculation about the strange houses and buildings and with the odd juxtapositions she discovered – infant nursery beside slaughterhouse; twin brothels flanking a church; doctors and apothecaries adjacent to mortuaries; a manufacturer of ear plugs next to a teacher of music. She seemed to remember that she had laughed at these arrangements once, with genuine amusement. No longer. She could not imagine what had made her think them laughable. Humor resulted from surprise, and the combinations she had found were not novel, not even unusual. If she had found them funny, it meant there was something wrong with her, something different, something that didn’t fit in. It was almost as though she had come from some other world in which such neighbors were unlikely. This idea had popped into her head unbidden, frightening her badly. The Map Police were known to seek out strangers, people who didn’t fit in. She did not wish to be sought out, so she had stopped looking for weird combinations, stopped noticing the buildings she passed except for ones marking her progress toward her infrequent destinations. It was better just to stick to one’s own obligatory business: a trip to a kiosk once a day to buy a map, a trip to take the laundry receipts to a bank and to shop at a grocery once every ten days, a trip to whatever temple or shrine was nearby on the infrequently declared holidays.

People who used the laundry sometimes talked of keeping in touch with friends or relatives. On holidays, they would meet in a previously agreed upon park. Or they would select a certain restaurant and gather there.

‘I wanted to celebrate Mother’s birthday,’ one woman had said plaintively over her crocheting. ‘But how would anyone know when it was?’

Marianne found herself wondering what a birthday was. Some kind of holiday she didn’t know about. She, herself, had never known anyone well enough to meet them on a holiday. Whenever a holiday was announced, she would make her obligatory trip to the temple or shrine or church and then come back to the apartment over the laundry. She had no relatives. At least, she supposed she had none. Surely she would know if she had, she thought, hurrying along the empty street. It was the kind of thing a person ought to know.

The kiosk was in the middle of the block. The vendor had his back to her and was lowering the shutter as she approached. ‘Tomorrow’s map, please,’ she called, her voice bouncing shrilly between buildings, a dwindling flutter of retreating sound. ‘I’m sorry I’m so late.’

‘So late is too late,’ he grumbled, turning his lumpy face toward her, the eroded skin circling a red, pendulous nose that swayed slightly as he turned. ‘All sold out.’

‘Oh, no!’ she cried. ‘You can’t be.’

‘Can’t, can’t I? Oh, yes I can. I say out, I mean I haven’t got any. Except one for me. Now, if you’d like to share it?’ He leaned toward her, one hand out as though to touch her, his face twisted into a suggestive leer. She turned away, keeping her face quiet, trying to be dignified about it. No doubt he meant what he said; he’d share if she’d come home with him, and it would be legal to do so. Cohabitors could share maps. Mothers and children. Married couples. Lovers. She shuddered in revulsion at the idea of sharing anything with the vendor who stood watching her, his nose twitching. Before he could say anything more, she moved away, fumbling with the map, which resisted being unfolded, almost as though it were a living thing with a natural resentment at being disturbed.

She had circled the laundry with red pencil, almost at the edge of the map, far from its important, stable center. From there she traced her way to the kiosk where she was now, then searched for the nearest location marked with a spoon and a large, red ‘24.’ There were two twenty-four-hour restaurants within reasonable traveling distance. The street she was on ran directly toward one of them, then circled away at a narrow alley labeled ‘Mock Street.’ If she could catch a number twenty-seven bus – the number clearly marked on the map—and get off at Mock Street, it would be a walk of only a few blocks.

She went directly to the bus stop, ignoring whatever it was the vendor shouted after her, checking carefully to be sure the number twenty-seven stopped at this particular place. It was a favorite trick of the mappers to have busses halt at only every third or fourth stop, letting the people in between stand helplessly as the bus rumbled by, clattering over cobbles or sections of trolley track that led nowhere but seemed always to crop up in three or four block-long sections. This stop was scheduled for number twenty-seven busses at twenty-minute intervals.

What was scheduled had no connection with what actually happened. No bus arrived. She jittered, moving to and fro on the pavement. There was a vengeance booth on the corner, and the vendor leaned from behind her counter to solicit Marianne’s business. Tine, fresh vengeance fish,’ she called. ’Caught just this morning and spell cast before it was dead. Name it for your enemy and let him eat it. Stop his heart, stop his mind, stop his life, lady?’

‘I don’t have any enemies,’ Marianne called softly. ‘I don’t need a fish, thank you.’

‘No enemies? Think of that. Here in this city, and she says she has no enemies?’ The woman cackled with laughter and closed the booth front. When Marianne looked up a moment later, she had gone, and Marianne sighed with relief. Sometimes the vendors were very persistent. Twice or three times, she had bought things that she didn’t want, carried them home with her, and then had to put them out for the trash men. There had been a set of thumb screws, she remembered. And a whip braided out of human hair with little sharp bones set in it. Things that made her squirm with revulsion when she looked at them. She sighed, turning to stare down the street in the direction the bus should come from.

When forty-five minutes had passed, however, none had arrived. She counseled herself sternly not to start walking. As soon as she did, particularly if she were in between widely separated stops, the bus would come and pass her by. She checked her watch. Eight o’clock. Plenty of time. It was only a half-hour ride, and the streets would not shift until midnight. Eleven at the earliest. Or ten-thirty. Plenty of time.

She shifted from foot to foot, staring down the street, uttering silent invocations. ‘Bus, good bus, come on, bus.’

At eight-thirty, she began to worry. If she started now, she could reach the all-night restaurant by walking. If she waited too long, it would be impossible to reach it at all. Good sense warred with her weariness. She didn’t want to make the long walk.

‘You have to,’ she told herself. ‘You have to.’

She turned and strode down the street, checking her progress against the map at every crossing. It would be a walk of some sixty blocks. About five miles. She could be there well before shift time.

A number twenty-seven bus passed her by and stopped two blocks down the street. She began to run, senselessly, knowing it wouldn’t wait.

It pulled out just as she came close enough to touch the rear of it. A man who was passing shook his head and murmured, Tough luck. Why don’t you just wait for the next one?’

She checked her watch. Nine o’clock. There wasn’t time to wait. She lowered her head and kept walking. Another twenty-seven bus went by. She let it go. She had a hard, burning pain in her side and could not possibly run again. The pain in her side moved downward, slowly, first into her hip and then into her right knee and shin. The door of the orange dryer had fallen open and bruised her there. The half-healed muscle still hurt, more and more the farther she walked.

There were infrequent passersby. Sometimes people looked each other full in the face, as though searching for a face they knew. Other times, they ducked their heads and scurried past, as though afraid to encounter either an acquaintance or a stranger. Marianne, on her infrequent forays from the laundry, tried to take her cue from those she passed, but tonight she was too tired to care. She stared at her feet as people went by, praying they would not say anything to delay her.

By ten o’clock she had reached Mock Street. The all-night restaurant was now only a dozen blocks away, but the street she was on turned into a massive concrete overpass, soaring above the surrounding area. The next street over dived down, as though into a tunnel, and did not emerge again for blocks. There were half a dozen access ramps circling up and over, down and under, allowing access to every street except the one she needed. She puzzled at them, plotting her route. If she went down Mock Street one block then turned left she would come to an underpass that would take her under a highway and bring her within two blocks of the restaurant.

She trudged on. The street lights in this part of town threw puddles of dim, dun-yellow light onto the pavement and reflected a furtive glow into alleys and along the curbs, hiding as much as it disclosed. She stopped momentarily, thinking what might be hiding in those alleys. There were stories about bears living in alleys and crocodiles in the sewers under the street. And there were mapless gangs, not storied but real, ever-changing tribes of non-locus aberrants who preyed upon single pedestrians.