To her surprise, Esther laughed. You say that like its a bad thing. Anyone with sense would choose to live. Do you know whats foolish? Dying for a belief . Look where we are. Rome. Think of the Christians fed to the lions because they wouldnt renounce their faith. As if their god wouldnt forgive them their desire to live? If you have no more self-preservation instinct than that, maybe you dont deserve life.
Are you kidding me? Youre going to blame the Christians, not the Romans? How about they just dont throw them to the goddamn lions in the first place? Dont delude yourself. Youre the monster here.
Esther, abruptly, had had enough. Its time for you to
go now, she said, brisk. And you should know that upon her decease, all of Karous assets go to her next of kin. A thin and joyless smile. Her devoted grandmother, of course. So dont bother trying to access those accounts.
Upon her decease, upon her decease. Zuzana wouldnt hear it. Her mind batted the words away.
Esther motioned to the hallway and the knob-knuckled paws of the security guards hoisted them toward it. You can keep the clothes, Esther added. Youre welcome. Oh, and dont forget the vegetable.
Vegetable.
She meant Eliza. All this while, Eliza had remained quiet. She was catatonic, and Esther was going to throw her out on the street, and Mik and Zuzana, too, with nothing.
Upon her decease. The tornado had gone from Zuzanas mind, leaving whispers in its wake. What had happened? Could they be?
Shut up.
Let me get our bags, at least, Mik asked, sounding so calm and reasonable that Zuzana was almost incensed. How dare he be calm and reasonable?
I gave you a chance, said Esther. You elected to stand here insulting me instead. As I said before, life is choices.
Let me at least get my violin, he pleaded. Weve got nothing, and no way to get home. At least Ill be able to play in a piazza for train fare.
The mental image of them panhandling must have appealed to her sense of class stratification, not to mention degradation. Fine. She flicked her wrist, and Mik took off down the hall, fast. When he came back he was holding his violin case in his arms like a baby, not swinging it by its handle. Thank you, he actually said, as if Esther had done them a kindness. Zuzana glared at him.
Had he lost his mind?
Get Eliza, he said to her, and she did, and Eliza came along like a sleepwalker. Zuzana halted just once, to face Esther across the living room.
Ive said this before, but I was always kidding. She wasnt kidding now. Shed never been more serious. I will get you for this. I promise you.
Esther laughed. Thats not how the world works, dear. But you can try, if it makes you happy. Do your worst.
Wait for it, Zuzana seethed, and the security guard shoved, and she was propelled down the passage, Eliza at her side, and out into the grand hall to the elevator. Subsequently de -elevated. And, at last, frog-marched through that gleaming lobby, subject to stares and whispers and, most stingingly, the haughty amusement of her eyebrow challengerwho again dared, in light of this shift in circumstances, to raise one of her overplucked, starved-looking amateur brows in a crude but effective I told you so.
The burn of mortification was like passing through a field of nettlesa thousand small pains merging into a hazebut it was nothing next to Zuzanas heartsickness and panic at the thought of their friends, even now at the mercy of their enemies.
What was happening to them?
Esther must have warned the angels. What had they promised her? Zuzana wondered. And more important, how could she and Mik prevent her from getting it? How? They had nothing . Nothing but a violin.
I cant believe you thanked her, she muttered as they were shoved through the doors and out into the street. Rome came crashing in on them, its vitality and sultry air a marked change from the artificial calm and cool of the interior.
She let me get my violin, he said with a shrug, still holding it to his chest like it was a baby or a puppy. He sounded pleased. It was too much. Zuzana stopped walkingthey had no destination but away anywayand swung to face him. He didnt just sound pleased. He looked it. Or keyed-up, at least. Practically vibrating.
Whats with you? she asked him, at a loss and ready to just sit down and cry.
Ill tell you in a minute. Come on. We cant stay here.
Yeah. I think thats been established.
No. I mean we cant stay anywhere that she can find us, and she will come looking. Come on. There was urgency in his voice now, puzzling her even more. He hooked his arm around her to steer her, and she drew Eliza along with thema dreamlike figure who seemed, almost ethereally, to drift, and the crowd subsumed them, parade-thick and easy to get lost in. And so the human density that theyd earlier cursed became their refuge, and they escaped.
58
THE WRONG UGLINESS
All was as it should be. The heavy window shutter was unlatched, as promised,
and now Karou had only to get it open in silence. It wanted to creak; its resistance dared her to push it faster and let it squeal. It had been a while since shed lamented the lack of the nearly useless wishes she used to take for grantedscuppies shed plundered from a teacup in Brimstones shop and worn as a necklacebut she found herself wanting one now. A bead between her fingers, a wish for the windows silence.