Throne (3 page)

Long fingers, impossibly long and pale slipped through glass, slipped past the tubes, and took Sofia up. Drew her through the incubator walls. Left in her place a knot of flesh, leathery and still. Took her baby, kicking and stirring, small face pinched with an anger that mirrored her mother’s. Took the baby, and hugged her to its narrow chest. And then, as if slipping away down a hole, the pale head pulled back into the dark cloud, the roiling shadow, and was gone.

Afterwards, whenever she thought back to that night, she remembered first and foremost the screams. There was no rise or fall to them, no character or shape; rather they had been bursts of sound, visceral and blank in their terror and denial. Even as the nurses had clamored around her, trying to constrain her, pull her down to the ground, the screams had continued. They had lit the hall with their stark ferocity, each one a camera flash that caused the nurses’ eyes to flare with fear and dismay.

The sounds of the kitchen were distorted through the steam, given strange and exciting character by the smells, the yells and cries of the short order cooks, the clatter of cleavers against the cutting boards and sizzle and flash of the stir fry, flames shooting up to scorch the air. Maya backed through the double doors, a pile of filthy dishes piled up like a stack of tottering dictionaries in her arms, and dumped them adroitly into the massive sink immediately to her left.

“Ok, ok,
vamos
let’s go I need another order of spring rolls, two hot-and-sour soups, and they want their sweet and sour pork like yesterday,” she yelled into the murk, looking past the gleaming chrome shelving on which endless clean plates were stacked to where the cooks labored. Without pausing for breath, she scooped up the five dishes that were already waiting for her, carefully but rapidly distributing their weight along her slender arms, and then back out, out of the heat and steam and fire into the restaurant.

Feet aching, wrists aching, eyes red from lack of sleep, heart beating furiously, refusing to stop, to show fatigue, she weaved around incoming Chang as if dancing, aware that he seemed more and more intent each day to try and cause her to spill food on the floor, and then out into the main room, where tables were packed cheek to jowl like pigs in breeding cages, hungry-eyed patrons sizing her up, licking their lips.

One two three, plates dealt like poker cards, a flash of her brilliant smile, and then a measured glance at the kitchen entrance. Mrs. Peng wasn’t in evidence. Chang was in the back. Meimei was busy with another table, feverishly writing down orders. Now, thought Maya,
now
. Ignoring calls and finger snaps, avoiding eyes and pretending not to notice people waving their hands at her, she threaded her way to the back of the restaurant and then, instead of turning left into the kitchen, ducked right out the service door, down the claustrophobic hall that led past the restrooms and to the back door that led outside.

Bursting out the door, she immediately sidestepped and placed her back against the cement wall, allowing the delicious cold to snapfreeze the sweat that covered her body, that ran down the slopes of her back, that plastered her thick black hair to her brow. Closing her eyes she leaned her head back against the wall and rose to her tiptoes, trying to work the ache out of her ankles, squeezing her calves tight. Rotated the joints, and then sank back down with a sigh. Already she was beginning to shiver. Just one more moment. Just another second of silence.

She’d been working since morning, nonstop since ten. It was what, nine o’clock now? The restaurant was starting to get busy, kids drifting down from the East Village, but mostly locals, Chinese from the Garment District filling the single massive front room with their clamor and clatter, demanding more and more food. Another four hours at least ahead of her, and for what? Two dollars an hour. Which she then had to hand over to Senora Mercedes before running over to work the night shift at the clothing factory.

Standing still, all of New York City vibrating around her, eyes closed, the cold so harsh and mean it still shocked her, she thought for a moment of São Paulo. Tried to evoke memories grown threadbare and thin with the passage of years, but all the more precious for it. Like a prisoner rationing a bar of smuggled chocolate, knowing there’s no replacing it, knowing that each square is priceless, she thought of their old kitchen, so different from Mrs. Peng’s hellhole, the sound of her mother humming as she chopped up vegetables to dump in the
feijoada
, the delicious smell of
pao de queijo
in the oven, the sound of the TV as her dad watched and yelled at another game in the living room, his team always losing. Eyes closed, Maya held her breath and tried to recall that old feeling of happiness, of safety, of being exactly where she was supposed to be.

The door next to her burst open, and she looked up to see Chang standing furiously next to her, heavy hand sweeping out to catch her on the back of the head as she stepped away from the wall to send her spilling down onto the hard snow and cement. Maya bit her lip, swallowed down her cry of pain and anger, and looked up through her suddenly disheveled hair at where Chang towered over her.

“What do we pay you for? What do we pay you for, stupid girl, hiding out here and not working?! You want we fire you? You want go home right now, no job, no money? Inside! Customer’s yelling for food, food growing cold on counter, you out here hiding!”

Maya knew better than to answer back. The cold had seeped in deeper than she had thought, and for a long moment she didn’t know if she would be able to stand. So tired. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t been awoken by somebody roughly shoving her to get to work. Gritting her teeth, she jerked herself up and stormed past Chang before he had the chance to hit her again. Throwing her hair back, tying it into a ponytail with an angry twist, she knocked the kitchen doors open, crying out, “Ok
caralho
, let’s go, let’s go, where’s my food, where’s my food?”

All thoughts of São Paulo gone from her mind.

Hours later, having pushed through the weariness into some strange clarity that lurked beyond, Maya pulled off her waist apron and dumped it in the cubby hole beneath the cash register. There were still a few tables, but they were just waiting for their checks, ordering a last drink, delaying the inevitable need to step back outside into the cold. The kitchen was already being stripped and cleaned by the cooks, and Chang and Mrs. Peng were seated in the back corner, going over accounts, eagerly summing up the day’s income.

Leaning forward on her elbows, looking past the lucky cat sculpture and the little bowls of toothpicks and mints, Maya stared out the large front window at the narrow street beyond. It was, what, one in the morning? Still people wandered the street, looking like lost ghosts plunging through the column of vapor that came up from the manhole on the far pavement. Two taxis jostled by, yellow like fresh turmeric, and somewhere a siren was wailing. New York, the city of singing sirens.

Meimei stopped next to her, hands crossed over her chest, eying her last table with disdain. “Go home,” she said to them. “Go home already,
ai ya
.”

Maya stifled a yawn and looked up at Meimei’s face. Wide like the moon, pale and fringed with straight black hair, Meimei was never going to grace movie posters. But it was a kind face, and that meant more than anything. Maya smiled a lazy, incorrigible smile, and bumped her hip into the other waitress. “Five dollars and I’ll get rid of them for you right now.”

“Oh?” asked Meimei, “And how do you do that?”

“I have my secrets. But you must deal with Mrs. Peng after, okay?”

“No,” said Meimei, “you crazy? I want to live to see twenty one!”

“Ha,” said Maya, turning her gaze back to the outside world. “And what will you do when you are twenty one? You will just work work work, more more more.”

“So?” asked Meimei, “Why? What will you do?” An old conversation this, a smile on Meimei’s face.

“Me? You think I’m still going to be here when I’m twenty one? Ha! Soon as I can afford it or find a way, I’m leaving and finding my parents,” said Maya, voice suddenly fierce and she repeated her mantra. “Senora Mercedes—my aunt—says that they’re in jail. So I’ll find out where and hire a lawyer. No more New York, no more working like an animal, no more Mrs. Peng!”

“No more Mrs. Peng?” asked an arch voice like dried beetle husks rubbing together, and Maya snapped up and turned around to look upon her employer. Mrs. Peng was a doll of a woman, hair done up in a tight bun speared by twin ornamental chopsticks, face a work of art, composed of makeup so thick Maya could have gouged canyons through the caked foundation. Mrs. Peng was the stuff of nightmares. Had been in several of Maya’s, crawling towards her through the darkness of her crowded bedroom, black blood pouring from her mouth, hair floating around her tiny head as if she were drowned.

“Then you not want your pay,” said Mrs. Peng, amused for once.

“Oh, no, I’m sorry, I mean, please,” said Maya. Mrs. Peng had withheld her pay before. This was no idle teasing.

“Here then, forty-four dollars,” she said, and placed two twenties and four singles in her hand.

“Forty-four? But I’ve been here since ten! I should have ninety!”

Chang stepped up behind Mrs. Peng, whose smile had only grown wider, “Chang say he catch you not working many times today. You not work, you not get paid. Very simple.”

Maya shot a furious look up at where Chang beamed down at her, and forced the words that came tumbling up her throat back into the pit of her stomach. She couldn’t argue. For every Maya working in a restaurant there were another ten standing outside in the cold, looking to get in. And then what would she tell Senora Mercedes?

Mrs. Peng watched her with a knowing smile. The moment passed, and with a nod she turned to Meimei and handed over her wages. Chang was already drifting back to the kitchen, a smirk on his face, leaving Maya alone by the cash register. Fatigue pressed down on her slender shoulders like a heavy hand, trying to make her knees buckle, to bow her head, to push her down to the ground. The cooks’ laughter from the kitchen, the lilting strains of Chinese music from the tinny speakers, the distant call of another siren, all combined to form a web of sound that held her trapped, immobile, the dollar bills still held in her outstretched hand as if she were a prayer statue.

Fine. She would work harder. She wouldn’t let them provoke her into making trouble. It was just what Chang wanted. A real reason to lay into her. Sometimes when she caught him staring, following her as she moved around the restaurant with her eyes, she couldn’t tell if he was picturing her naked or picturing her on the floor as he kicked her. The smile was the same.

Shivering, she curled her fist around the money and shoved it into her pocket. Normally she skimmed some off the top of what she made for her private fund, but not today. Reaching down into the same cash register, she pulled out her most prized possession, a massive pair of black sunglasses, gold banded thickly over the bridge of the nose and medallioned over the temple, and slipped them on. They covered half her face, and she pulled on her sneer. There. Reaching back, she undid the knot in her hair, and let it fall down her shoulders like black and copper snakes. There. Better. With the world held back a step, she grabbed her bag, and made her way down the same narrow corridor to get her coat and step outside.

Chang was opening the service door, behind which were stacked all the mops and buckets and cleaning liquids and shelves of supplies. He turned as she strode toward him, a smile across his face. Lifting her chin Maya tried to brush past him, but he stuck out his arm and blocked the hall, leaning in and down so as to shove his face into hers.

“You know, you treat me nicer, I treat you nicer,” he said. “Is reasonable, no?”

“Get out of my way,” she said, voice vibrating like a violin string.

“See, now you angry because I catch you not working. It not my fault, is
your
fault, no?”

“Chang,” she said, refusing to step back, to let him intimidate her. “Get out of my way.” His breath reeked of garlic.

Something shifted in the way he held himself, and he was no longer leaning against the wall but lounging. Reaching out with his hand, he touched a lock of her hair where it lay on her shoulder, made to rub it between his fingers. Without thinking she slapped him away and darted back. With a laugh he stood up, gestured for her to pass.

“So angry! So little, so young, but so angry! Like little snake!”

Not trusting herself to answer, Maya stepped quickly forward, but just as she passed Chang fell back across the passageway, his arms trapping her in on either side, face pressing into hers. Reflex made her half turn and press her back against the wall, trying to get away from him, but there was no room. Turning her head, she saw Meimei enter the hall, pause, freeze for what seemed like forever, and then quietly step back out of sight.

“Now come on, shh, be nice to Chang, Chang be nice to you…” he said, and his smell was everywhere, his bland sweat that smelled of his chubbiness, the garlic rolling in endless waves across her face. Moving his face to one side, he went to press it into her neck.

Something inside of Maya clicked. She was slender, small, but she still could swing her knee up into Chang’s crotch like a field hockey stick.
Illegal sticking
, she thought as Chang let out a cry and crumpled before her like a beach ball that’s been pierced, and with a shove she was free, snatching her coat from its peg and out the door, the cold a welcome slap on her face.

Maya paused, swept her jacket on, threaded her arms through the worn sleeves, cinched it tight about her waist. It was black with gold thread and sequins about the shoulders and upper arms, ratty and bright and it barely kept her warm. But she liked it. She took a deep breath, could hear Chang beginning to bellow behind her, but still she didn’t run. Somehow, for some reason, it was important not to. Reaching up, she adjusted her sunglasses, and then, trying not to cry, stepped down into the interior courtyard and walked quickly away into the city.