The Lightest Object in the Universe: A Novel Read online

  A voice rolled over him, melodious. “Good afternoon, sir. Are you contemplating the fall of the Benin Empire? And what is that in your hand?” Ayo was standing next to him, pointing to the piggy bank.

  “She needed a sale,” Carson said, gesturing down the street toward the vendor.

  Ayo laughed. “Americans are crazy. Why do you buy such unnecessary things?” He took the piggy bank and shook it. “Ahh, yes. It contains money. You are smarter than you look. Or maybe this is your Eshu,” he said, handing back the bank. He let out a loud laugh. “Maybe you can rub that three times and disappear.”

  When he was a doorman, sometimes Ayo would open the door and say, “Eshu is with you.” They hadn’t discussed it, but Carson had looked up the meaning of the Yoruba word: “god of the crossroads.”

  “I’m surprised you are still here, my friend,” Ayo said. “Things are developing quickly. You know history. You know what happens.” He leaned in close and took Carson by the arm. His grip was firm and earnest. “You do know, don’t you, sir?”

  Carson nodded. Hunger, a rising level of desperation, fires, riots, raids, guns.

  “You just tell me what you need,” Ayo said.

  “A windup flashlight, iodine tablets, duct tape,” Carson said. “That’s what I need.”

  “You got it. Tomorrow,” Ayo said, nodding goodbye.

  Carson sat alone a little longer. Someone shouted. Then again. The vendors scrambled to wrap up their items, then scattered. A blur of a body rushed past him. Carson crouched behind a concrete planter.

  “No! Please!” a voice cried. The vendor who’d sold him the piggy bank was clutching her dog in one arm, a stack of dishes in the other. A man inched toward her holding up a knife.

  “Hey!” Carson shouted in his deepest, loudest voice. The dishes slipped out of the woman’s grip, hit the sidewalk, and shattered. Startled, the man ran away.

  Carson hurried toward home. A boy on a bicycle passed by, swerving slalom-like between the stalled-out cars. He was more than a boy—a teenager, delighting in his speed.

  The boy hopped off the bicycle near the entrance to Carson’s building. “Can you help me out with something?” the boy said, wiping his forehead. “A delivery.” He’d forgotten his lock, he said, and couldn’t leave the bike or it would be stolen.

  “What, pizza?” Carson said.

  The boy pulled an envelope out of a canvas bag. “A letter. Miss Deepika Mukherjee. Apartment six-oh-two,” he said, reading the address.

  “Oh, are you the new mailman?”

  “Can you do it or not?” the boy said, impatient.

  Carson looked at the kid, who easily could have been a King High student: the baseball cap, the fidgeting, the slight attitude. Maybe Salvadoran or Guatemalan, given the shiny black hair and wide cheekbones.

  Carson took the envelope. On the back were several inked thumbprints. No return address was on the front. “Where else do you deliver? How far away?”

  “Just in the city. But there are other riders. Coast to coast, supposedly. No guarantees, of course. This is a new day.”

  Carson paused, thinking. “If I had a letter to send, where would I find you?”

  “Around. This is my circuit.” The boy was maneuvering the bike away now, standing on the pedals. “You know Rocco’s Café? On Trinity Avenue? I’m on the second floor, but there’s a bell at street level. Ring it.” He pedaled, and the bike rolled away. “I’m Jairo,” he shouted, speeding off.

  The sixth floor smelled like curry, and the door to 602 was open, which meant Carson could not just slip the letter underneath it. Inside were women. Indian women. Mothers and daughters, a grandmother, maybe a great-grandmother. Saris hung about the room, and the smell of laundry detergent mingled with the curry.

  Carson held up the letter, and a woman with a baby on her hip came to him. She turned to the others and, showing them the letter, began to cry. The women erupted, laughing and hugging. One of the women brought Carson a bowl of rice covered with thick orange sauce. He backed away, but the women made insistent gestures: “Stay. Eat.”

  It was tangy and creamy. He had not tasted such spices in months. Behind the sound of the women, a man’s voice came from a small windup radio. It was a voice too promising for news, too persuasive. Carson caught something about holy sites.

  He returned to his apartment feeling lighter. The women had reminded him a little of his sister and her friends when they were younger. The way they had laughed. His sister lived upstate now, with her husband and children, closer to Dad. After Mom died, Dad had gone downhill fast. They’d moved him to assisted living—was he there still? What would he possibly make of this? Nothing. He need not make anything of it. His mind was already gone, his brain addled with perforations. History erased. Carson had not spoken to his sister since the phones went out. Should he go there?

  His mind went then to Beatrix—the slight crack of her voice, her unruly hair, her earthy, citrus smell. Had they really spent only thirty hours together?

  He sat in the living room and opened his notebook. He imagined the paper in front of him in an envelope in the kid’s courier bag, then in someone else’s bag, and again, until eventually it landed in Beatrix’s hands.

  March 15

  B.,

  Remember when I’d type and hear back from you within moments? Our words flew through cyberspace, landing perfectly on the screen in front of us.

  I still write to you all the time. I am making hard choices.

  The sky darkened, but every now and then, light flashed, shadows moved. On a rooftop across the street, pigeons wandered and pecked, until eventually they merged with the gray dusk.

  When the night arrived, Carson looked from the window up toward the sky. So many stars. And the Milky Way, a thick, bright band of dust, clear as ever, now that the power was out.

  Inside, the piggy bank mocked him from the dining room table, its oversized yellow eyes catching the flickering candlelight. He retrieved it and shook it. The single coin made a dull clink inside. He tossed the bank on the floor, where it rolled but did not break. He picked it up again, this time slamming it to the floor. The shattering satisfied him.

  He sifted through the pieces to find the Kennedy coin: 1976. He remembered the last message he’d sent to Beatrix, saying if it came to this, he’d go find her.

  Heads, west. Tails, south. He tossed the coin into the air. Tails. He stared at the coin. No.

  He flipped again. Heads. Yes. Yes.

  CHAPTER 2

  Rosie sat at the dining room table and fiddled with the seven bracelets around her arm. She was trying to do the special trick she’d invented, which required balancing all of the bracelets upright on the table and moving her forearm through them without knocking them over. A caterpillar wriggling inside a brass cocoon. And then her hand opening and closing—the butterfly emerging!

  She felt momentarily elated by her feat and looked around, ready to boast. But no one was watching. Her abuela had her eyes closed, and the woman from upstairs—Beatrix with an x—was pouring another round of hot water into the funny little cup. So far, the tea she’d brought seemed to be calming Abuela down.

  “Yerba maté,” Beatrix said. It was from South America, where apparently she’d spent a lot of time.

  A match made in heaven, Rosie thought. A new herb for Abuela’s collection. How could her witchy grandmother not love this?

  “It’s a stimulant, but it doesn’t give the jitters like coffee,” Beatrix said. She held up the little cup. “This little gourd is called a mate. And this—” She pointed to the metal straw in the cup. “This is called a bombilla.”

  Rosie liked the sound of the words but flinched a little. She watched her abuela sip another round of the tea, her facial expression softening. “Better?” Rosie asked.

  Abuela took a few more sips and nodded.

  “You try it, Rosie,” Beatrix said, refilling the gourd with hot water.

  Rosie sipped the bitter tea from the straw.
She wanted to spit it out, but out of politeness and because her abuela was sitting there, she didn’t.

  “It’s not for everyone,” Beatrix said. “Menos mal, more for us, verdad, Maria del Carmen?”

  Rosie bit her lip. She knew what was coming.

  “You should speak in English,” her abuela said. “This is America.”

  Rosie rolled her eyes. No wonder Abuela was so anxious. Always policing. Rosie had even kept her own Spanish classes at school a secret. It was so stupid. If you were from Mexico, what was wrong with keeping a little bit of your identity? It wasn’t like they were going to get deported now. Who’d waste whatever precious gasoline was left trucking a bunch of brown people back across the border?

  “You don’t speak Spanish?” Beatrix said. “How long have you been in the US?”

  “She hasn’t been back to Mexico in, like, forever,” Rosie said. “I’ve never been at all.”

  Beatrix looked surprised. “Well, someday you’ll go,” she said. “It’s a beautiful place.”

  “You’ve been there a lot?” Rosie asked, impressed.

  Beatrix nodded. “First, when I was twelve, with my aunt Vera, to see the Mayan pyramids in the Yucatán. We climbed up all one hundred two steps of that huge pyramid and posed next to Chac Mool, the reclining god at the top.”

  Beatrix looked like a kid telling a story, all animated. Rosie tried to imagine what a reclining god looked like.

  “I went back in college to do work against sweatshop labor. And I just spent a few months there. I love Mexico. It’s such a beautiful country.”

  Abuela took a few more sips of the tea and set it on the table. “Come, Rosie, sit,” she said, pulling a hairbrush out of a tote bag.

  “Abuela,” Rosie whined. Why did she have to do braids now? Reluctantly, she positioned herself on the floor. Brushing her hair may have had a calming effect on her grandmother, but it made Rosie feel like a five-year-old.

  “Why are you tourists never satisfied with just seeing the pretty things?” Abuela said, starting to brush Rosie’s hair.

  “Excuse me?” Beatrix said.

  “You go to Mexico and you want to see things: ruins, Indians, birds,” Abuela said. “It’s all there for you. But then you want to steal it and take it out of Mexico and keep it for yourself.”

  Rosie sighed loudly. She could have smacked her abuela. This nice woman, their new neighbor, had just brought her some special antianxiety tea, and here she was treating her like a turd.

  “Head up, Rosie,” her abuela said.

  Beatrix cleared her throat. “Actually, most of my visits to Mexico and South America have been for work. Helping people sell their products for a fair price, for instance.”

  “So you tell people what to do,” Abuela said. She tugged Rosie’s hair.

  “Ouch! Abuela!”

  “Mmm, not exactly,” Beatrix said. “I just haven’t been that happy with how the United States has treated Mexico—or many other countries. So I guess I’ve tried to offer an alternative to that.”

  “Can you pass that tea, Beatrix?” Rosie said. Her grandmother needed to chill out. “Abuela, have some more.”

  “Beatrix, are you married?” Rosie asked, hoping to change the subject.

  “Rosie,” Abuela said.

  “I’m not,” Beatrix said.

  Abuela wrapped an elastic band around the end of the first braid, then started the other.

  “But I have a person,” Beatrix said. “Maybe. He’s on the other side of the country.”

  Rosie bit her lip. “Oh, that sucks.” She thought of Diego, the boy in the neighborhood. He had long dark hair and skin like hers. When she was standing in front of him, she had to bite her tongue to keep from telling him he was beautiful. Just thinking about him fluttered her stomach.

  “It does suck,” Beatrix said.

  Abuela wove the second braid quickly and quietly. When she finished, she stood and went to the altar: a table topped with candles, a rosary, several saint cards, and the Virgin of Guadalupe. Abuela always had to have an altar. Even when they were living out of their car, she’d set up a rosary and a little statue of the Virgin on the dashboard.

  “You can say a prayer to Guadalupe if you like,” Abuela said to Beatrix, gesturing to the Virgin. She pulled out a candle and handed Beatrix some matches.

  Rosie stayed at the dining room table, watching. Beatrix didn’t bless herself the way Abuela did. She just sat and stared into the flame.

  The glow of the candlelight still in her eyes, Rosie suddenly saw the flickering image of a man walking. He was walking along train tracks. Was he in danger? She couldn’t tell. She heard the sound of a whistle, a tune coming from the man’s mouth, and then he vanished.

  “Rosie, come make a fire, please,” her abuela called, now from outside.

  Out in the back courtyard, watching the twigs take fire, Rosie wondered about the man in her vision, unfamiliar but not strange.

  “Bigger, Rosie. Please. No one likes cold beans.”

  Rosie added more wood and blew on the flames and wondered if she’d ever get to go to Mexico. When the fire was stronger, she set the grate they used as a grill over it. Abuela handed her the pot. Rosie also set the comal on the grate, and once it was hot, she arranged three tortillas there to warm.

  “Go get the lady, now, mi’ja,” her abuela said, and Rosie called to Beatrix.

  “Wow,” Beatrix said as she came outside, beholding the food on the table. “Thank you.”

  “My grandmother really does make the best tortillas,” Rosie said, glad that Beatrix seemed happier. “Corn tortillas are her specialty. But flour is what we’ve got now. Good thing she’s adaptable.” Abuela might be anxious and Spanish language–phobic, but she liked to cook and feed people.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever seen eyes like yours, Rosie,” Beatrix said. “They are amazing.”

  Rosie felt her face blush a little. She liked hearing this. It was true. One blue and one brown, and sometimes they showed her different things. Out of her right eye, the brown one, she could see the past. She saw one scene often, as if on repeat: A road through a tangle of green. Her mother’s sandals. A bus bumping down the road. The sandaled feet stepping up onto the bus. The whir of green out the window. Where had she gone?

  Out of her left eye, the blue one, she had seen the future. A few times, at least. The first time it happened, she saw in her mind an image of her abuela falling. The picture came and went so quickly: a smudge of berry pink, the same color as her abuela’s cardigan sweater. Then it felt like someone had slid a feather down Rosie’s throat and jiggled it. She coughed but could not get rid of the tickle. That same day, her abuela tripped on the curb and fell flat on her face. There wasn’t any blood, but her face turned pink, flushed from verguenza, embarrassment.

  Rosie got the tickle right before the October Shocks. The vision had come to her at school—a chemistry worksheet transformed into an eviction notice. A week later, she and Abuela moved whatever they could fit of their belongings into the car and left the rest on the curb. They didn’t have the money to fill the gas tank and leave the neighborhood, so they’d drive around the block just to change their parking spot.

  “Come back tomorrow if you want,” Rosie said, once they’d finished the beans and tortillas.

  Beatrix gathered up her thermos and tea. “Thank you,” she said. “Your braids look nice, by the way.”

  Rosie grinned. “Thanks.”

  Midmorning in the city, and it was warm already, too warm for the end of winter. A humidity descended over the concrete like a woolly fog. Ayo lit a cigarette, then offered it to Carson.

  “Nope,” Carson said.

  “Here.” He tossed Carson a lighter and exhaled smoke. Then he reached into his jacket and pulled out a roll of duct tape and a windup flashlight. “Here you are, sir. As promised.”

  “Damn, you’re good, Ayo. Thank you,” he said, reaching for his cash. “No water tablets?”

  “Ah,” Ayo
said, biting his lip. “Yes, yes. I got those. They aren’t there? They are not. Dammit. I’m so sorry. They must be at my home. I don’t know how. Come with me? We will retrieve them.”

  How could he refuse a window into Ayo’s world? They walked east, and Ayo waved to vendors and pedestrians heading toward the marketplace.

  A water cart approached, its soundtrack—a single loud whistle, on repeat—filling the urban canyon. Two men and a woman hastened to keep up with the tank, stripping off their clothes. A man riding the back of the cart reached for their money, then hosed them down as they tossed a bar of soap back and forth. It was a shower of necessity. Who could afford modesty?

  “I am grateful to my wife for rigging up the buckets on the roof. We take rain showers,” Ayo said.

  “And if it doesn’t rain?”

  “Then I fill the buckets and take them to the roof. I can clean my whole body with just half a bucketful,” Ayo said. “I am practiced. I lived in a refugee camp, after all.”

  They came to a man hunched over a computer keyboard, typing. “That is very funny, ” Ayo said, stopping to watch him. “You are drumming, not typing, yes?”

  The man tapped out a familiar rhythm, then looked up. “Recognize it?”

  Ayo bobbed his head, and Carson listened closely. When the chorus came, Carson spoke-sang along. “You say it’s your birthday.”

  Ayo laughed loudly. “You know the words! Of course, Mr. Principal.”

  Ayo leaned over the typist drummer. “They say raiders are in the vicinity and coming,” he said. “You should take care.”

  “I’ve heard that before,” the man said.

  “These raiders are ruthless, they say. Terrorists.”

  The man shrugged and tapped out a new tune on the keyboard.

  “He does not believe me,” Ayo said as they continued on. “Maybe there is no reason to believe me.”

  They turned a corner. Ayo unlocked a gate to an unmarked door, and they climbed three flights of stairs. He tapped out a special knock, and a woman opened the door. She looked tired, Carson thought, but radiance came through, her body slim and sturdy in a salmon-colored dress.