They turned up Ogden Avenue, passing a few late-night delis closing to make the midnight curfew and join the other shuttered stores.
“So she’s okay?” Diego finally asked.
“Actually she’s pretty upset.”
“You shouldn’t have insisted on coming up,” Diego said. “We were in the middle of something.”
“Maybe I had a good reason. Look, kid.”
“Diego.”
“Diego. I’m not answering any deep, personal questions about Zelda. And I’m not getting involved in her relationships.”
“Who asked you to?”
“You did.”
Diego shrugged sheepishly as if he’d forgotten. “I like her. Just so you know. I like her.”
Puppy relaxed slightly. “Me, too.”
“She says you’re like brother and sister.”
“Better because we chose each other,” he contradicted Grandma’s Twenty First Insight about blood ties.
“I’m trying to understand her.” Diego floundered a little. Puppy felt bad for him. He’d spent more than twenty-five years understanding Zelda with very mixed results. “I’m not after sex.”
“See, I don’t want to have this conversation…”
“I like her.” Diego tapped his chest, then his temple. Puppy repeated the shorthand. Diego smiled, relieved.
“I told her that and she threw a shoe,” the young man said wonderingly.
Puppy laughed. “She likes throwing things.”
“It’s very appealing.”
“As long as you duck.” Puppy hesitated. “I’d do anything for Zelda. Anything. But as I learned years ago, she’s going to do what she does and it’s more often I’m there with the proverbial shovel cleaning up, instead of helping at the start.”
“Do you think I’m stupid to chase after her?”
“You could make a good case for the idiocy of both relationships and loneliness.”
Diego paused. “Does she have anyone else in her life?”
Puppy shook his head. The kid’s sweet. And a DV. Since Zelda’s batting average in lovers was about .100, maybe he could help. It’s probably a big mistake.
“You and I didn’t talk,” Puppy cautioned.
“Oh no,” Diego said eagerly, tapping his lips. Puppy touched his ear doubtfully. Diego squeezed his tongue. There were few stronger DV assurances.
“Show Zelda how you feel, but be prepared for her to push back. Knowing,” he wagged his finger, “that she wants space, at the same time also wants you to show how much you want her.”
Diego’s eyes crossed. “That’s not easy.”
He chuckled. “Buckle up, young man.”
Did he just call someone a young man?
• • • •
CLARY SANTIAGO SQUEEZED into the small passageway, rusting nails scratching her forehead. Rotting wood drifted down like foul-smelling snow. Her back bumped against the back wall; she had nowhere to go. As the door handle slowly turned, Clary chambered her right knee into her chest; if only she’d been able to do that when they’d torn off her clothes. The first time.
Her bare heel slammed into the Allah’s forehead. He grunted in pained surprise. Clary re-loaded her foot, squinting through the pale shadows for his nose, mouth. Any target to cause him pain.
“Stop that,” Azhar hissed.
Clary kicked with both feet, baring her teeth.
“Stop. It is Azhar.”
Clary panted, creating icy puffs in the cold Spanish night. She went to kick again, but less certainly.
“Azhar, see?” He lifted himself higher on the ladder and stuck his angular, bearded face into the hiding place.
She frowned. He was the kind one. But the others were kind at first. They smiled and gave her chocolate. Then they held her down.
Allahu Akbar, they kept saying.
Azhar left for a moment, returning with food sloppily piled on a metal tray. He poked the fork to re-arrange the eggs and bread into something appetizing, then placed a glass of milk by her right leg. Clary tensed. She had a clear shot. She could break his nose. But she didn’t want to die hungry.
“I won’t tell anyone where you are.” Azhar tenderly reached for her ankle, stopping as Clary recoiled like a frightened animal. Which she was. You poor child, he thought. Allah, cover your eyes. I can only do what I can do.
He offered the fork. Instead of driving the utensil into his forehead, the eleven-year-old grabbed the plate and devoured the food with her fingers, glaring as if Azhar were poisoning her. Clary held out the plate. “Mas.”
“Later.” He smiled gently.
“Mas,” she repeated as if he were the one cowering in the attic.
“Later, child.”
Clary snarled. Azhar fumbled in his pockets until he found a couple sticks of gum, which she chomped into nothing.
He returned to the main dining room in the El Ciudad Orphanage just outside Barcelona. Two bearded, black-robed Guardians looked up from the card game with angry disappointment.
“Where’s the girl?” growled the pock-marked Ali.
“Sick.”
“So? Hamza likes them sick.” Ali grinned lecherously at a portly man with bad teeth, who acknowledged his taste with a crooked, hungry grin.
Azhar wanted to rip the hair from their faces, one strand at a time. He managed a comradely laugh.
“Not like this one.”
Ali shrugged. “Get the new German. Her mouth is perfect.”
That set off another avalanche of vile laughter. Azhar slammed down the coffee cup, turning their laughter into menacing silence.
“Is that a yes, my Guardian, I will do what Allah wants?”
Allah does not want this, Azhar’s eyes fluttered closed. He cannot want this.
“Captain Mustafa?”
But the girl is an infidel. She will be gone soon like the others and all you will remember is she kicked you in the forehead and would’ve cut out your heart if you hadn’t fed her. Still would. She hates you. All the children hate you. As you should hate them since they are your enemies and would gladly kill you and your sons and your wife.
Azhar found enough strength to meet Ali’s suspicious stare.
“My volunteer shift is over, Guardian. I must return to my boat to make money for my family and our people, praise Allah.”
Ali frowned in half-drunken thought, then abruptly abruptly clasped Azhar’s shoulder as if they were old friends. “Go then. Hamza will fetch the German.”
Hamza rose with an eager grin. Mustafa turned away in shame.
13
Anyone could wander into the spacious Cousins Living Room. It was encouraged to the point of being mandated. At least three times
