Angels of Vengeance

The actual marketplace was a series of outer brick buildings formed into a loose square. In the middle of that square stood three long shelters fitted with garage doors that were kept shut in the winter months. Merchants willing to pay a little extra for heated stall space were set up within the shelters, while the frugal or the unlucky toughed it out in the elements.

Miguel found it to be just a little warmer inside the gates than wandering the streets outside. The scent of barbecue in the air warmed him up a notch more as well. Winslow’s Barbecue held one end of the square, serving meat rubbed with a curry-inspired spice that Miguel had come to like. It was hotter than the usual American fare. Under the awning of the barbecue joint sat a jazz band, playing some tune he did not recognise.

‘Louis Armstrong,’ Maive noted.

‘I’m afraid I wouldn’t know,’ the Mexican admitted. However, as he listened to more of it, he thought it might grow on him.

They walked up a gentle slope towards a line of buildings strung out along the western end of the market. Maive seemed to know where she was going. Miguel followed her lead, taking in the sights. It still struck him as odd after all this time to see so many different types of people in one place, some of whom were darker-skinned than he was. One group was missing, or at least harder to spot.

There were not many Latinos like himself at the River Market. Recent woes with the South American Federation fuelled a latent prejudice against his kind that seemed to infect those yanquis who had survived the Disappearance.

Maive approached a Chinese woman of indeterminate age and began to haggle over the price of some vegetables. Looking around, Miguel had to admit that he regretted having to ground Sofia. She loved coming out to the River Market, shopping for groceries, planning their meals for the next couple of days. More often than not, she’d run into somebody she knew, one of her friends from school or someone from the local militia. She had her own money, just a little bit from a part-time job at the hospital, where she helped look after many of the soldiers who had returned from New York so terribly wounded. Miguel thought it good for her to be able to experience a place like this - somewhere with so much life and colour, where people were happy - after she spent so long in school or studying at home, or working in the rather grim environment of the hospital. Not for the first time, he found himself confused by the way parenthood forced him to do things he really did not want to do.

The haggling concluded and Miguel drew his head back from the clouds.

‘Do you think I could borrow your strong arms, senor?’ Maive asked him. She was holding up two bags. Idaho and sweet potatoes. ‘I thought I would cook up dinner for all of us, tomorrow evening. I’m sure if you read the fine print you’ll find Sofia is allowed to come around for a meal as long as she remains firmly under your thumb.’

It was almost as if she had read his thoughts, or maybe just his feelings, and knew exactly what to say.

‘I suppose having dinner with two old people will be sufficient punishment for a teenage girl,’ he mused. ‘Especially if we sit around talking about how things used to be. Before the Wave.’

‘Totes,’ Maive said with a grin. ‘That’s what all the cool kids say, by the way. Totes. So I say it too, just to bug the hell out of them.’

‘You would make an excellent parent,’ he replied, taking the thick paper bags of potatoes off her, before quickly regretting having said it.

He knew the Aronsons had never had children, but he was not sure why. In his village, a woman like Maive, strong and winsome, would be married off and surrounded by a brood of ninos in her early twenties. He did not know her exact age. It seemed impolite to ask, and many people had aged an extra decade in just a few years since the Disappearance. But he didn’t think she could be much older than forty, maybe three or four years older than Mariela would have been by now. His wife had suffered greatly during childbirth. Manuel’s arrival had nearly killed her. It was possible, he supposed, that Maive Aronson was afflicted with a problem not unlike his poor wife, or worse, and because of that had never been blessed with children.

All of these thoughts raced through his mind in half a second after he had ventured his careless remark about her potential parenting skills. But whereas he might once have blurted out an apology (and then stumbled over an apology for making the apology), a few months in the company of the ‘manbivalent’ Ms Jessup had taught him that American womenfolk could be strangely inured to his oafishness. Trudi had even seemed to find it amusing, and much to his relief, Maive Aronson appeared to take no offence to his suggestion that she might have walked well down the path of motherhood.

‘I thought a joint of beef might be good,’ she said, apparently not even noticing his remark. ‘A rib roast, slow cooked, with all of the trimmings. I could probably live off the leftovers for three or four days. Would mean I didn’t have to cook when I got home in the evenings.’

He knew she often worked late at Northtown Community College, where she taught English to the migrant workers and, sadly, to native speakers who needed improvement. It would be a temptation for somebody living on their own to eat most of their meals out of a can. He suspected that’s exactly what he would do, were it not for Sofia.

‘Then because it would help you, we shall have this meal,’ said Miguel, with mock generosity. ‘Sofia should be free from her shift at the hospital in time for dinner.’

Maive nodded. ‘How does she like it there?’

He shrugged in reply. ‘She wanted to join the local militia, but I said no. Not until she finished school. I’m hoping by then she’ll lose interest.’

‘Miguel …’ Maive sighed. ‘I hope you’re right about that. She’s seen enough fighting for one lifetime, I think.’

Over the next half-hour, they went about gathering the rest of the ingredients as well as two bags of groceries for the Pieraro household. Once or twice Miguel lost sight of Maive in the heavy crowds of shoppers, and was only able to find her by scanning the sea of heads on tiptoe. The light, intermittent falls of sleet had thickened up into snow flurries by the time they exited past the Quebecois clan, still tending their mulled wine. The line in front of their trailer seemed to be twice as long now.

Miguel’s appreciation of the mundane beauty of the scene was broken by a quartet of local militia milling through the crowd with rifles on their shoulders. He did not enjoy the idea of his precious, beautiful daughter one day joining their ranks.

Miguel carried most of the load: a large box filled with the fruit and vegetables, along with a couple of string bags swinging from his forearms, stuffed with bread rolls, cheese and a few jars of preserves. The weather closing in could not depress his mood, which had lightened considerably after the unpleasantness earlier in the morning outside Maive’s home. She too walked with a lighter step, having thrown off her own lowness of spirit. They briefly discussed catching the bus back, lest they be caught out in worsening weather, but the next one was not due for an hour, and both were enjoying their walk. The simple experience of plunging themselves into a happy crowd of people at the markets, of gathering the elements of a fine meal to be enjoyed the next day, and also of allowing themselves to enjoy each other’s company, had greatly improved their humour.

Miguel did his best to amuse her with a few carefully chosen stories of his voyage on the big yacht belonging to the famous and Disappeared golfer, Mr Greg Norman. The former vaquero very carefully avoided making mention of his family, and Maive very carefully avoided asking him about any of them. But he knew she had always been greatly amused at tales of his friend the Rhinoceros, and poor Miss Fifi, who had always been very kind - for somebody who seemed happier the larger the gun she was carrying. And, of course, of Miss Jules, who had not really wanted to take any of them on the boat, but who had relented because, in Miguel’s opinion, she was a good person, despite all her protests to the contrary.

‘I have come across people like her,’ said Maive as they left behind the hubbub of the market crowds. She blew snowflakes from the tip of her nose as they walked along. ‘Cooper used to know a few people like that - I suppose I should add, through his academic work studying gangs. They weren’t very common, but every now and then he would meet somebody he said was doomed to do the right thing for all the wrong reasons.’

Stepping carefully down off the footpath into a leaf-choked gutter, having to peer around the edge of the large cardboard box full of groceries while doing so, Miguel thought he understood what she was saying. Miss Julianne was indeed someone who had ended up helping others while maintaining she was really only looking after herself.

‘Yes, but sadly, it is more common to meet the other kind of person,’ he replied. ‘Somebody who does the wrong thing for the wrong reasons. I have met many of them.’