Still holding Bernice’s hand, José blinked his eyes hard and tried to enter, but she held him back. She pulled her fingers away from his and shook her head.
“I can’t,” she swore. “God, that’s awful. Forget it. I’ll wait here. You go get it.”
It was hard to blame her, and since there was no reason for them both to suffer, José entered the backmost chamber without her.
Through watering eyes and a stinging nose, he could tell at a glance why the place was so unbearable. Two tall chimneys released smoke out through the flat roof, but there were otherwise no outlets, no windows. There were no lights except for the fires that simmered here and there, under crucibles and inside ovens.
“Most days,” Mr. Poppo said, “my son and another boy assist me here. We are quite accustomed to the heat, I promise you; but even so, we cannot work here for long. During the winter it is not so bad, but in spring and come summer, there’s nothing to be done about it—except to pretend that we’re devils.”
“I can imagine,” José replied, although he didn’t have to imagine. The heat was sucking him dry, working its blistering waves into every wrinkle of his skin and clothes.
“I doubt you could!” the Greek argued. “No, today the fires are left low because the projects that await them are few, and I am alone. You should imagine it when the furnaces are all alight and metal pours from mold to mold. It is blinding and terrible, and I call myself Hephaestus, and I command the fire. I make armor for the gods, isn’t that how it goes?”
“I’m not sure,” José said, tired of the talk and faint from the temperature. “Please, sir. I’d ask you to hurry. You may be fond of the climate, but I am finding it difficult.”
Mr. Poppo shuffled to a shelf that was lined with small objects in various stages of finish and finery. “Hurry, yes. Hurry, hurry. It is difficult for you to handle the heated air, and it is difficult for me to hurry.” He indicated the cane and the irregularly shaped foot. “But I am part of a very fine tradition. Hephaestus, and his Roman brother, Vulcan—both of them were lame like me. There’s a long and illustrious history to it. Men who work the fires, gods who work the fires . . . the skill of the deities comes at a price.”
He used his cane to draw a stool up beneath him.
José watched the man’s leisurely pace with impatience, wishing to help or speed the occasion but not knowing how to do so. His head was spinning from the crushing weight of the ambient fires, and he didn’t know how long or how well he could stand there beside the purple curtain with its sparkling threads.
“And this.” Mr. Poppo used his cane to push a dull brown shell the size of a man’s fist. He inched it toward his hand and caught it when the cane’s edge pushed it off the shelf. “This is why.”
“Gifts for mothers-in-law?”
The Greek smiled. “Bronze, my friend. This kind of bronze, in fact. The things I melted down to make it were selected in accordance with your request. Not with tin was this made—not with the cheap shine of the lighter metal. This was made with arsenic, as you asked and as you like. Copper and arsenic, they contaminate one another, you see. They work together, firming one another and adding strength to flexibility. And if you add enough of the heavy poison, there are other benefits, too. At the right percentage, you lower the melting point and the metal is easier to pour.”
José shook his head, and sweat spilled down into his eyes. He wiped it away. “I don’t understand,” he breathed, wishing for the water or the sky like never before in his life. “What does that have to do with anything? Here, please. Let me see it. Let me have it.”
Mr. Poppo held the shell in one hand. “After a time, the arsenic finds a way inside the man who works the metal. He breathes it in and coughs it up; it settles on his skin and seeps into his blood. The toxin weakens the body and dulls the reflexes. It cripples the man as it strengthens the metal. And that, my friend, is why the fire gods were lame.”
“Ah,” José gasped. “Ah. And you? Have you worked too long with poisons?”
“Me? No.” Suddenly the man was standing directly before José, holding out the shell and beaming a brilliant grin. “I broke it badly thirty years ago. It never healed right. There’s no mystical, chemical weakening to it. I was clumsy, and now I’m broken. These things happen. But look at you, you’re nearly overcome with the heat. We should give you some air.”
And although there was a firm mask of concern on the Greek’s damp, creased face, José couldn’t shake the impression that Poppo was pleased to see his visitor fade under the dark glare of the furnace room.
It made José irrationally angry, and he almost lashed out, almost reached for the cutlass and the blunderbuss. (No—he’d come unarmed and no, there wouldn’t be a blunderbuss, not on land, not these days.) He almost wanted to murder the little fellow where he stood . . . but the man was still holding the shell, detailed and perfect and waiting to be collected.
José swiped the shell and turned on his heel. He tried to make it look deliberate and hasty, but it was more of a teetering fall than a triumphant retreat. He collapsed through the purple curtain and Bernice was there on the other side, her arms folded across her chest. Impatience was written on every inch of her, but when she saw the shell, she smiled as big as the Greek.
“Let me see it,” she said, meeting him in the middle of the room and holding out her hands. “Is that it? It’s not very big,” she observed, fondling it and holding it up to the light of the window.
“You know better than anyone,” José panted, taking her arm and drawing her back into the front room of the shop. “How small things that shine may be . . . may be worth more than . . . I’m sorry.” He wiped at his face and dragged his sleeve around his neck, and down his throat. “I’m sorry, it was awful in there. Let’s go, now. I need to go outside.”
“Sure, baby,” she said, and mild alarm met with curiosity in her frown. “Are you all right?”
“Yes,” he told her. “I’m fine. But that was . . . that was . . .”
“The fee has been paid, sir,” Mr. Poppo said from the doorway where the purple curtain hung. “You are free to leave and I thank you for your patronage.” Then he turned, scraping the tip of his cane along the floor, and went back inside to the furnace room.
José shuddered.
“What is it?” Bernice asked as they pushed the door open and toppled back out into the afternoon brightness.
“How miserable,” he tried to say. He found it hard to articulate. “How odd and strange, and what a horrible job—to work a smelting furnace in a tropical land. There’s something cruel about it, or at least, I think there would be something cruel, except for how the man seems to almost enjoy it.”
“He likes it in there?”
“He seems to. He takes it as a point of pride, but it’s unnatural, I swear—the way he lounges in that room, barely the faintest sheen of sweat on his face. There’s something . . . not right about it. It bothers me.”
“Well, hell, it bothers me, too, and I didn’t even go in there. Forget about it, okay? Forget about it, baby, and we’ll go have that drink if you want. We can go find a bar, like you said. I don’t mind. It’s hot out here, but . . .” She looked over her shoulder at the door, checking to make sure it’d closed behind them and kept the Greek inside. “But it’s not a big thing. We can get a drink. I have something I want to . . .” She stopped.
“Yes?”
She seemed to find it hard to begin again. “There’s something maybe I ought to talk to you about, anyway. We can talk about it over drinks if you want. That would be fine, wouldn’t it? You’d like that, right?”
“I’d like that, yes. It would be fine. And I’d very much like to talk to you.”
“Good. Okay. Good. Pick a place, then, if you want. I don’t know what’s good, or where the drinks are cold. Just pick something,” she repeated, and José watched her confidence falter. He wondered what was wrong, but then he felt a surge of excitement at the thought of finding out at
last.
Being outside was helping José’s clarity immensely, despite the fact that it was late afternoon and the day was as warm as it was likely to get. He didn’t mind it in the least. It felt like an icebox after being in Poppo’s lair, and it cheered him even more than Bernice’s sudden attempts at openness.
She was carrying the shell, examining it as they walked, and he let her. He was leading her to a nicer corner of the town, where the bars might interest her better than the ones frequented by the workingmen as they finished their shifts. He watched her turn the peculiar little thing over in her hands; she was examining it from every angle, running her fingertips along its ridges and gaps as if she were looking to unlock some clue or compartment.
“It’s pretty,” she finally declared.
It was pretty, in an unassuming way. The detail was exceptional, with every fold and flutter seamless and smooth; and the finish had been brushed and polished down to a dull glow that shone without glittering. It looked warm without looking bright.
“I agree,” he said. “It’s lovely, and it’s going to make her very happy.”
Of Plots and Promises
After passing through a few blocks of low-set shops in front of towering tobacco factories, the cityscape smoothed itself into a cleaner strip. Away from the big brick warehouses there were restaurants with white patios and outdoor seating; there were open-air bars that served iced drinks from glasses that leaked frozen condensation onto the counters.
He selected one almost at random, a sleepy establishment with a waiting staff that wore crisp white and spoke English when asked.
The couple was seated promptly and offered handwritten menus with glasses of water. And while they settled into a cooler, more comfortable setting, the tension of the afternoon began to peel away.
Sangria arrived and the ocean breeze fanned them into early evening.
The bronze object sat on the table between them. They admired and discussed it, idly making chitchat while Bernice worked up to the things she really wanted to say. José knew better than to rush her. If he pressured her at all, she would retreat and tell him nothing. If he was patient, he could wait out her discomfort.
“So we have the shell for Mother,” she broached.
“She’ll expect it within the next hour or two. We should finish here and pay our bill.”
Bernice was stalling, working up courage or deciding the right approach. José thought it must be quite a topic, if she was dancing around it with such outrageous caution.
“Is something bothering you?” he asked. It was a gentle nudge in the right direction, but he’d have to use it sparingly.
“Sort of,” she admitted. “It’s hard to explain.”
“I’m listening.”
“Well . . . you know what she wants to do with it. We both know. Are you okay with that? Does it make sense to you, or . . . I don’t know. I’m starting to have—” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “—not second thoughts, exactly. But I’m starting to wonder if it’s the best thing to do.”
His heart did a little twitch in his chest, but whether it was from relief, shock, or excitement he couldn’t say. “Second thoughts,” he said, and slowly. “I do understand such things, my dear. I understand why you would have reservations. It’s a gargantuan task we’re helping to undertake. To remake the world, or to unmake it—this is an enormity not to be underestimated. But you do know, don’t you, that we live and breathe, we walk and swim by Mother’s grace and favor. Without it, and without her, we drown and fall like—” He flipped his hand toward the sidewalk a few feet away, meaning the people passing by. “—like them. Like any of them. She has given us a second chance.”
“But that’s part of what I want to know,” she insisted. “There’s this second chance, sure. But was there anyone before us? Anyone besides us? Haven’t you wondered?”
“Yes. But if it were important, she would have told us.”
Bernice scowled, and for a moment, José thought he’d lost her. “You trust her too much. You rely on her too much—you act like she really is your mother, for God’s sake.”
He shrugged. “But she is. For the purposes of this life, and even the one I had before it. I worshipped the water in my own way. It is the nature of sailors everywhere, and always. Even now.”
“Don’t do that. Don’t be like that,” she added. “Did you ever answer to anyone back when you sailed? I know you didn’t. She told me about you; she told me how you were the meanest son of a bitch on the water, and how you answered to no one. But you answer to her?”
“Bernice,” he said, letting the r roll. “We will live forever, do as we wish, and fear nothing. It’s an enormous gift, and for that, I am willing to pay. The cost is not much, love.”
“But—”
“But what? Has this been so odious today? Has this been such a dreadful task, that you would argue with a goddess, quibbling over details?”
“No!” she said. “That’s not what I’m talking about. She wants to use this thing”—she waved at the shell—“to wake up a monster and destroy the world. And maybe I don’t want the world to end yet, that’s what I’m saying.”
Ah, there was the bluntness. He wondered why she’d held it back so long. This must not be the crux of the matter, then. This must be only the preamble to what she wanted.
“There’s a chance you’re thinking about it the wrong way. It will be the end of one world, yes. But it will mean the beginning of another. And who’s to say that whatever replaces this will not be superior? You call Leviathan a monster, but he is no such thing; he is a god.”
She put away the scowl and replaced it with a frown. “I don’t want another god. I’m fine with the devil I know.”
“Everything changes, dear. Everything, all the time. Even this—” He fluttered his hand at the sidewalk again. “—this place, these people. All of it changes. I visited this city before, did I ever tell you that? Back when I was alive the first time, I came to this place once or twice.”
“It’s not a city,” she grumbled. “It’s barely a town.”
He sighed. “I was here, in this very same place perhaps a hundred years ago—or more than that. But it was very different, much wilder and less civilized—for all that you think it’s a jungle frontier now. Yes, I can see it on your face. I know how you think. If it isn’t New York, then—”
“Oh, stop it.”
“I’ll stop when you stop. Dear, the world is going to change anyway; and so much the better if it changes in accordance with Mother’s wishes. She wants little enough from us now. Once the change is complete, I imagine we’ll be as free as birds.”
“Has she told you that?” Bernice asked, sharply and suddenly interested.
“No, but she’s never misled me yet. She promised us peace and protection when the new order comes. Why isn’t that enough for you?”
“Why is it enough for you?” Bernice was getting flustered again, creeping up against the edge of what she meant and finding the precipice distressing. “Actually, I know why. It’s because you’ve been out for a hundred years.”
Bernice leaned forward, pushing the fabric napkin aside and accidentally putting her elbow on the handle of her spoon. “José, you got to live. Look, how old were you when they took your ship?”
“I’m not sure exactly,” he said.
“Oh, come on. How do you not know how old you were? I know it was a long time ago, but really. You can do better than that. Give me a guess.”
“You want a guess?”
“Yes, please.”
A number popped into the edge of his memory. He didn’t know if it was right or not, but it was probably close. “I was . . . I was in my sixties.”
“See? That’s what I mean. You were old. You had a regular human lifetime behind you, and then—and then you got another hundred years on top of that. It’s easy for you to want the world to end; you’ve had plenty of time to see it.”
Her eyes welled up and José was stri
cken, having no idea at all whether to believe her. She’d never cried before, not that he’d seen, so he didn’t know if she could fake tears or if she would bother doing so. After all, the poor girl did have a point.
“I was nineteen. That’s all the years I got before this happened to me. Now it’s been another three or four, but still. That’s not as many as sixty.” She picked up the red napkin and dabbed at her eyes, then ran it along the underside of her nose.
“That’s . . .” He searched for an appropriate response but couldn’t find one that matched what he meant, so he said, “I never thought about it that way. I can see why it upsets you.”
The upward curl of her lip met a downward-dripping tear. “We can’t just let her turn everything upside down. Not now. Not when I’ve just gotten started.”
Again lacking a good response, José’s mind raced through options, alternatives, and distractions. She watched him think, with her wet blue eyes oozing sweetly and blinking themselves soggy.
Still on his guard, and still being careful, he said, “But what would you propose? We can’t—and I absolutely won’t—make any threatening move against her. Because she gave me this lifetime, she is within her rights to take it away.”
Bernice’s lips parted and closed, then parted again. “I’m not suggesting that we try to get rid of her or anything. I don’t know how we could, even if we wanted to. And I don’t want to. You’ve got to believe that, if you love me at all.”
“I do love you at all. I love you altogether,” he said, but he did not say that he believed her. “And I’m glad to hear you say that. Even if you believed that we would survive without her, and even if you did wish to be rid of her, I don’t know that there’s anything on earth that could accomplish the task. She is immortal, Bernice. We may be long-lived, but I’m reasonably sure that without her protection, we would die.”