Another Faust (35 page)

On Friday, Christian walked back from the basketball game feeling great. Marlowe had won. Having convinced his parents that he was well enough to play, Connor had ended his confinement by midday Friday and had come to the game. In fact, Connor had sunk the winning shot — he was a hero. Christian actually had fun, and he didn’t have to steal even once. The other guys were being nice to him. They invited him for pizza after the game. “Great pass, Christian,” one of the guys said as they walked toward Vinnie’s Pizza. Even Connor was acting friendly toward him again. Everything felt normal for once. When he got home, Christian went straight to the rejuvenation room. He felt like writing in his journal. But Madame Vileroy was waiting there, doing something to Buddy.

“Hey, leave him alone.”

“He’s not human, Christian,” Vileroy responded. Then she added, softly, almost to herself, “Not anymore.” She eyed Christian up and down and said, “Don’t be so queasy.”

Buddy was crying as Madame Vileroy twisted his ear to see that his perception of pain hadn’t dulled too much. Christian turned her words over in his head.
Not anymore.

“How was your game?” she asked.

“Great, we won.”

“We?”

“Marlowe. The basketball team.”

“But did
you
win?”

“Huh?”

“You didn’t do anything out of the ordinary.”

“I didn’t need to do anything because we had it in the bag! We were already much better than them! There was no need to steal from the other team.”

“And the other Marlowe children?”

“The other . . . we were on the same side! If I stole from them, we’d lose.”

“You’re not part of a team, Christian. You’re a leader. A true leader doesn’t belong to the team. The team belongs to him.”

“So I should have made us lose?”

“You did lose. You lost to Connor.”

Christian sighed and sat on the edge of his coffin. He wondered why Madame Vileroy cared so much whether he won or lost.
What does she gain from it?
She always made it sound like she did it for him, like she had nothing to gain.

“What do you want?” Christian screamed at her. No one could answer that question about Madame Vileroy. What did she want? Why had she adopted them? Why had she given them these gifts? Why did she push them to do these things? Sometimes, Christian thought she just got some perverse enjoyment out of it. Maybe it was a big experiment for her. Maybe she loved torturing them. Or maybe they were a prize to her. Maybe there was something in their future that made it all worthwhile. Or maybe she was after something entirely different.

Christian leaned on one hand and looked her straight in the eyes, ignoring the flash of light in her angry left eye.

She spoke with an even voice. “I want you to take a long pause and think about what I’ve said. . . . Think about what it means to really win. Think about it until you fully understand. . . . Yes, that’s what you need. Some time alone . . . to think.”

Madame Vileroy barely nodded. Suddenly Christian’s hand slipped, and he landed hard in the pool of water. Before he could lift his head, the lid slammed shut with a loud bang. Christian pushed with his hand to open it, but something was keeping the lid shut. He pushed again. Nothing. He felt a slight panic mingled with confusion. He was sealed in, his mind drifting from fear to anger to the lingering thoughts of what it means to win.

In the twilight, in the evening, in the black and dark night, Christian struggled as the water filled his lungs. He was sealed in. He coughed and spat the water out. He scratched and kicked. His fingernails bent backward on the immovable lid. They splintered and bled. Every time he lowered his arms back into the filthy water, the urine he’d had to let go on the second day would burn the wounds on his fingers. He couldn’t remember how long he had screamed, crying for someone to help him, cursing the others for not even checking on him all that time.

There in the filthy lake, Christian gnashed his teeth and learned how much he could hate something he had once loved — the coffin, winning, his life.

By the third day, Christian smelled nothing but ammonia and his own skin dying and floating to the top of the liquid like soggy wheat flakes. It was only water this time, none of the blue gel, the super drug. Just dirty water, shriveling his hands. His muscles starved and hung limp on his bones. His back was raw with sores.

On Sunday, sometime late in the day, the lid of the coffin shifted, and then slammed open. Bicé jumped back from her chair beside it. Christian surged up from the water, sitting up and gasping for fresh air. After the sudden rush, he slumped back down, unable to muster any more energy, squinting in the light. He was completely soiled, but his skin was pale as a ghost. The patch of sunlight coming in from the tiny window hurt his eyes, now almost nocturnal after three days. The blue gel that had once made him inexhaustible was gone, fully spent after such a long confinement. And it seemed that for all that time trapped in the coffin, it had also been keeping him alive.

“You look like a junkie on the F train,” said Bicé.

“How long has it been?”

“Four days.”

All of a sudden, Christian got a whiff of himself.

“Have you been here this whole time?”

“More or less. We couldn’t open it. We all tried. We figured it would just take time. Today I just tried it and it opened right up.”

“Could you hear me?”

Bicé didn’t want to embarrass him. “No.”

She didn’t want to tell him she had heard everything. Christian tried to lift himself out of the tub, but his arms trembled under his weight. Bicé walked over to help. Christian recoiled, aware of his own smell.

“It’s OK,” she said. “I’ve been on farms before. And I’ve lived with Belle for a while.”

They laughed at that for some reason. It was the way normal things are funny in horrible situations, like cancer patients with balloon animals. Bicé helped lift him by his underarms. His skin was pale and cold. He grabbed a towel that was lying on a chair nearby and walked away. As she went to help him, Bicé noticed something in the tank. She looked and saw, scrawled on the underside of the lid, chaotic lines in bloody circles. Bicé squinted to read them. As she moved her eyes down, the letters became less frantic, more calm, and what looked like the beginning stanzas to a beautiful epic rose out of the sedge like a saving grace.

“God, will you look at me?” said Christian out loud. Bicé turned around. He was at the mirror. “I look awful.”

“You should take a shower,” said Bicé. “I’ll get some food.”

She started to walk out. Even though Christian’s body was weak and dirty, something inside him felt clean, as if he had been washed from the inside, as if something filthy had been lifted out. He suddenly felt aware of everything that was under his own control. He could decide where to walk, what to say, what to eat. He felt a freedom that he had never felt before. He imagined that this must be how prisoners feel the first time they walk out into the world. More than anything Christian felt a lightness in his heart. The things that had scared him before didn’t seem so bad anymore. It wouldn’t be so scary to be poor or hungry or to lose once in a while. Maybe it would be nice to try something new.

“Hey, B?”

“Yeah?”

“Thanks for staying.”

“Hey, what’re big sisters for?” she said with a wink.

“I mean it.”

“I know you do. I know what it’s like . . . to be alone like that.” Bicé knew a lot more about what Christian had been through than he thought. She had heard him yell and scream obscenities for hours at first. She had tried to get him out of the coffin. But then, after everyone else had given up and left, Bicé had listened to Christian’s tone change from desperation to resolve. And by the end, it sounded as if he had completely let go of everything he had wanted before, with no desire ever to steal again. And then, out of the blue, the coffin had opened — as if to say that it had no more power over him.

Christian turned to Bicé, wanting to tell her all about what had happened to him. “It was hell . . . I was . . .” But just then, Bicé interrupted, realizing that Christian’s body was still wet and that something was missing.

“Christian, look. The mark on your chest is gone!”

Bicé found Belle in the kitchen, pacing back and forth in front of the fridge. She was combing her fingers through her hair, reaching for the refrigerator handle, then pulling away. On the table were half-empty bottles of all kinds. Bicé didn’t say anything as she opened the cupboard for a packet of noodles. There were so many questions coming up for Bicé — the meaning of the mark, how both she and Christian didn’t have it now, and Belle did. Even though they were sisters by blood, she didn’t think Belle was on her side anymore, which made her incredibly sad. But Belle probably hadn’t even noticed. She was too busy seducing the entire school and most of the city.