Fiction / Jean-Baptiste Andre

 

:: The Miracle ::

            Under the flam­boyán tree turn­ing from mar­malade to rust, whose late sum­mer canopy dripped a slow hail of igua­nas, Joaquin con­fessed to Maria his night­mare. In it, Joaquin was suf­fo­cat­ing as the air in his room was sucked into the black hole in the cen­ter of his palm. Joaquin felt a push at the back of his head, pulling his eyes into the dark­ness. Gasp­ing, he tried to close the hole by press­ing his hands togeth­er. Instead, his hand was pulled in and when his skin crossed the bar­ri­er from air to void he felt the ori­gin of grav­i­ty and he him­self was swal­lowed and gone. Then he would wake.

             The air hung chill and sweet from bloom­ing hibis­cus. An igua­na thumped to the ground beside them and scur­ried away. Sum­mer had end­ed abrupt­ly as it had start­ed. The two twelve year-olds hud­dled togeth­er, Maria half a head taller than Joaquin. They shared choco­late eyes and olive skin, though Maria’s black hair fell straight down to her shoul­ders where Joaquin’s lazy brown ringlets bounced above his eyebrows.

            “Show me again,” Maria demanded.

            Joaquin held out his left hand. He had sausage fin­gers, and a wide palm col­ored in patch­es of peach and pink. In the cen­ter of his palm, where mus­cu­la­ture left a soft-slop­ing val­ley, there was a hole in the shape of a per­fect cir­cle. About as wide as her thumb, when Maria rotat­ed Joaquin’s hand face down, the hole was per­fect­ly see-through. Morn­ing light bore through the fleshy cylin­der onto the grass and high, thin hair of weeds at their bare feet. Maria flipped the hand again. Palm up, the hole was rimmed with shiny pale scar tis­sue, and entire­ly black. It was the same dark­ness as the far cor­ner of Maria’s room at night.

            Maria and Joaquin shared a room that sum­mer, cousins from dif­fer­ent cor­ners of the island sent to stay with their grand­fa­ther, Doc­tor Pas­cal. Maria had begged her par­ents to let her vis­it him, des­per­ate to feel new soil between her toes. Joaquin had been sent when he snuck into a cop­per mine, land­ed on rebar, and punched a hole clean through his hand. His par­ents thought it pru­dent to allow the doc­tor in the fam­i­ly to exam­ine the pecu­liar injury.

             The doc­tor con­duct­ed tests behind doors that were closed to Maria, but Joaquin told her about them just the same. Joaquin could still move the fin­gers on his left hand with rel­a­tive ease, but was stiff when try­ing to touch his pinky to his thumb. Joaquin’s grand­fa­ther found the blood clot­ted as nor­mal and smelled no dif­fer­ent than ordi­nary blood, vicious and metal­lic. When Joaquin placed his palm down, the hole appeared like injuries the doc­tor was famil­iar with, and objects could pass through it as a tun­nel. When fac­ing up, the hole was dark, as if light itself did not pass. Objects pushed through the hole did not appear at the oth­er end and could not be pulled back out.

             While the doc­tor con­duct­ed his tests, Maria con­duct­ed hers. She pushed a stick into the dark side of Joaquin’s palm with no resis­tance. It dis­ap­peared. She pushed a stick halfway in, and tried to pull it back out. The stick end­ed at the point of con­tact with the hole, cut off in a cross sec­tion. She found that if a pen­cil was held at an angle and rotat­ed, the hole would neat­ly sharp­en the pen­cil to the finest point.

            Tonight, Maria had anoth­er test planned.

            “Stay still for a moment, you’re too rest­less,” she told Joaquin.

            “Well maybe you’re too still,” he coun­tered. “What are you try­ing, anyway?”

            “I want to see what hap­pens to my nail,” she replied.

            “Try if you want to. I’m not touch­ing it after that dream.” Joaquin stuck his palm out like a fish­ing lure, invit­ing Maria to bite.

            She gin­ger­ly grasped his wrist, and as she low­ered her fin­ger to the edge of the dark hole he jos­tled his hand. The hole missed Maria’s nail by a hair.

“Care­ful! Don’t leave it hun­gry, it’s impa­tient,” Joaquin teased.

             “Oh shush, be seri­ous now. I want to see how it reacts to liv­ing things.” Maria stead­ied Joaquin’s hand and brought her left index straight down, pre­cise like a nee­dle thread­ing a bead. The nail dipped slight­ly in and Joaquin flashed a grin. Maria jerked her hand back, and she let out a cry.

             “Ouch Joaquin! I said stay still!”

             Beads of blood spot­ted the flam­boyán tree, set­tling on it like ver­mil­lion lichen. Joaquin’s smile sagged and he went pale.

             “Your fin­ger, Maria, the tip is gone! We have to go to Grand­fa­ther, but he can’t find out it was me! He already thinks I’m a freak,” Joaquin said, pac­ing around Maria while she assessed the dam­age. She clutched her fin­ger in a red-soaked hand­ker­chief as the pain pulsed from hun­dreds of nee­dles to a burn before set­tling on a throb­bing ache she could not be sure was hers.

             Tak­ing deep breaths, Maria turned to her cousin. “Joaquin, I need you to get me some tall weeds, half a lemon, and ginger.”

             “Done – you start think­ing of an excuse for Grandfather.”

             When he returned, Maria tied the weeds tight­ly around her wrapped fin­ger. “For the bleed­ing,” she mum­bled, as the ache flared back into spikes.

“For the pain,” she con­tin­ued through a mouth­ful of gin­ger root.

             “Infec­tion,” she fin­ished, squeez­ing the lemon onto the hand­ker­chief that wrapped her fin­ger. Red fad­ed pink, and pain seared as the juice reached the open wound. Maria, grown cold, broke into a sweat.

            Joaquin eyed Maria’s fin­ger as if it were the dan­ger. “Are you alright now? Why did­n’t you just go to Grand­fa­ther? It would have been faster.”

            Maria slumped. “I’ll be fine. Heal­ing is heal­ing, no mat­ter how you do it. Good things take time. But you’re right, we should go see the doctor.”

            Their clop­ping steps echoed down the coarse brick road to their grandfather’s estate. It loomed before them, white­washed arch­es grow­ing proud­ly from stone foun­da­tions. Between the slim pil­lars, blue tiles embla­zoned with red flam­boyán flow­ers dot­ted the walls. Inside the house, it smelled of med­i­cine. Sharp met­als and alco­hols threat­ened their nos­trils. Maria craned her neck to peer down the west hall­way into the room where her grand­fa­ther con­duct­ed his tests, and Joaquin looked every­where but there. A bronze voice sum­moned them to the study.

            “You are late.” Their grand­fa­ther was a large man with a thin­ning crown of steel and sil­ver hair. His skin was like dry clay, cracks and folds set as if he was always smelling an infec­tion. He spoke to both and nei­ther of them, read­ing his jour­nal. “Chil­dren should be on hand when called. Sit. Maria, your finger.”

            “An acci­dent with a fish­ing line out­side; my fault. I wrapped it and soaked it in lime juice,” she replied.

            Joaquin nudged her and mouthed a thank you. The doc­tor did not notice.

            “A peasant’s treat­ment… but effec­tive.” He cleared his throat. “No mat­ter. Sum­mer is end­ing. It is time to think of your future. Joaquin, your injury is at most a curi­ous defor­mi­ty. You can still join my prac­tice. We will estab­lish the Pas­cal Cen­ter of Med­i­cine. I have enrolled you in the board­ing school I attend­ed at your age. You leave for the main­land the first week of fall.”

            The doc­tor clipped Joaquin’s bud­ding protests. “It is done, Joaquin. Maria, you will return to your vil­lage and your par­ents will pre­pare you for a suit­or in these com­ing years.”

            “I want to study under you, Doc­tor. Can’t I learn med­i­cine?” Maria asked.

            “Med­i­cine is a man’s field, Maria.” Doc­tor Pas­cal eyed her wrapped fin­ger. “But your wits may be use­ful. I will talk to your par­ents. Per­haps you can find a suit­or here.”

            With that, their grandfather’s eyes went back to the jour­nal. They were dis­missed with­out a word.

             The last red rays of sum­mer bled out onto the cof­fee fields as Joaquin pre­pared for his depar­ture. When Maria’s fin­ger healed, she saw her left index was cut clean a cen­time­ter short­er, like a sen­tence inter­rupt­ed. Joaquin often apol­o­gized, but she cut him off.

             “Now we know. Just be care­ful,” she said.

             In those final days, Joaquin and Maria found the oth­er chil­dren in the neigh­bor­hood would pay to see Joaquin’s strange hand, though he nev­er let any­one else close to the demonstrations.

             “I don’t want to be a doc­tor, Maria,” he con­fessed after one such show.

             “And I don’t want to stay here for­ev­er,” she replied. “But things will work out, just wait.”

             Joaquin was shipped off to the main­land the next morn­ing. After his numer­ous tests, Doc­tor Pas­cal pre­scribed his grand­son a glove to cov­er his unsight­ly disfiguration.

 

*

 

            Maria built tow­ers. She stacked the jars of herbs in the back of the phar­ma­cy, and not­ed inven­to­ry in her ledger. Her grand­fa­ther had sug­gest­ed she find an alter­na­tive when she pressed him on start­ing her own stud­ies in med­i­cine. Instead, she became an apothe­cary. Few could afford med­ical ser­vices out­side of emer­gen­cies, but knowl­edge of native plants and poul­tices were in high demand across the island. If it made enough prof­it, he would spon­sor her trip to the mainland.

            The glass jars reflect­ed back the warped light of a young woman of nine­teen, changed from the day she had first begged to work in the phar­ma­cy. Her jaw was sharp­er and she stood half a head high­er than before, but her cut fin­ger had not grown back a mil­lime­ter. Her reflec­tions stood straight for a moment, before a thump brought them falling at all angles. Maria quick­ly caught the tum­bling flasks in the hem of her dress. One slipped through the gap in her grip and the glass cracked in a spi­der­web. She whipped around to see who had slammed the door. Her eyes slid over the dusty wood shelves and found him. Sebas­t­ian, the phar­ma­cist who often stole looks at her and made promis­es to whisk her to dis­tant lands stood dumb, arms at his sides star­ing straight at Maria.

            Maria cursed the unsteady jars and her hand.

            “What is it, Sebastian?”

            “Joaquin is back. He brought a woman. You should go see him; I will cov­er the phar­ma­cy. He’s in the town square.”

            Maria set her jaw and marched out. Her steps echoed down the dusty cob­ble­stone and ruf­fled a pan­de­mo­ni­um of par­rots. Green and red crests flashed up out of sight. The white spire of the church stared down the town square, framed by col­or­ful geo­met­ric build­ings. Trees dot­ted the court­yard, and this evening the fall breeze brought chil­dren who claimed the space as theirs. Through the whirling flock of chil­dren chas­ing their ball, the smell of charred tobac­co and leather waft­ed to Maria. At the end of the trail stood Joaquin, fin­ish­ing a cig­ar with the may­or. As she approached, Maria heard Joaquin’s part­ing words.

            “And I thank God to have been blessed with this gift. I hope to share it…” He trailed off when he saw his cousin approach­ing. “Maria! How have you been? I hear the old man tricked you into fol­low­ing his practice.”

            “Joaquin, you look well.”

            Though she had grown, her head only reached his shoul­der now. Where the island years had sharp­ened her fea­tures, Joaquin had round­ed out on the main­land, his skin stretched shiny and elas­tic. His fuller fig­ure was hugged in a dark embroi­dered coat with sil­ver cuff but­tons which matched the sil­ver white glove on his left hand.

            “You seem to have hit suc­cess after aban­don­ing us,” she said.

            “I didn’t aban­don any­one. I took a chance instead of wait­ing around for one.” Joaquin picked at a thread on his coat.

Maria tried anoth­er approach. “So, who is this woman I hear you came with?”

            Joaquin smiled and his eyes glint­ed. “You must be talk­ing about my busi­ness part­ner, Elle.” The fine­ly dressed woman stood off to the side of the square, ges­tur­ing at a crowd and shak­ing her gold­en hair. The chil­dren had aban­doned their soc­cer game, rapt, and a small hand­ful of adults observed at a cau­tious dis­tance like cats around a fire.

            “We found each oth­er at board­ing school. Just like when we were chil­dren, Maria, peo­ple pay to see what I can do. We trav­el, she gath­ers the crowds, and I per­form.” Joaquin beamed.

            Maria tried to scratch an itch on her miss­ing fin­ger­tip. Joaquin went on.

            “No wed­ding ring yet? You must be near­ly twen­ty, not get­ting any younger.”

            “And you’ve got­ten fat­ter, but I’m not try­ing to make lard out of you,” she replied.

“I’ve missed your wit.” Joaquin chor­tled. “I need to speak with Grand­fa­ther, will you walk with me?”

            The two retraced famil­iar steps to their grandfather’s estate. They passed worn hous­es with tiles cracked like chipped teeth, and Maria recount­ed the fate of neigh­bors and friends well into the final chirps of the evening. Joaquin told of dif­fer­ent trees and peo­ple who talked from the back of their throat. He spoke of cities with cathe­dral libraries and hid­den gam­bling hous­es where wish­es were grant­ed. He shared his plans to take his act across the mainland.

             Steel­ing her­self, Maria turned to Joaquin. “When you go back, take me with you?” In years past it would have been an order.

            “I will, sweet cousin,” he said. “But my act needs some sup­port before it can go across the coun­try. I need your help con­vinc­ing the old man. If he invests in us we can make some real money.”

            “Won’t the show grow on its own?”

            “You won’t get where you want by wait­ing, Maria.”

            They arrived at the white­washed arch­es of their grandfather’s estate. Maria kept it tidy. Despite some stained paint and a few pil­lars that had bloat­ed with soft wood dur­ing the last hur­ri­cane sea­son, the struc­ture was near­ly unchanged. The thick canopy of the flam­boyán tree still shad­ed the rear walls of the house. They stepped in, and Maria crossed to the west hall­way to deposit her inven­to­ry list.

            “You use his exam­i­na­tion room?” Joaquin stayed a few feet out­side the entrance and gave it a sus­pi­cious glance.

            “It’s my apothe­cary office. The doc­tor doesn’t prac­tice any­more, he just over­sees the pharmacy.”

Maria led Joaquin to the study. The doc­tor sat in his chair like they had been cut from the same stone.

            “Sweet Grand­fa­ther, it makes me hap­py to see you in good health,” Joaquin said as the two entered the study.

            “Why are you here, Joaquin?” The scowl lines around his mouth cement­ed. “The last time you wrote was to aban­don my practice.”

            “It hurt me to do so, Grand­fa­ther. But I’m here to make it up with an invest­ment for the future. Just like you were fas­ci­nat­ed by my injury, so are peo­ple all around the world. I have a show, and it’s mak­ing good mon­ey. My part­ner and I want to take it across the main­land. As our main investor, you’d make a return many times over.”

            “No.” The reply came immediately.

            “You–” Joaquin choked on his words.

            “Why not?” Maria asked.

            “I am a man of med­i­cine. I will not spon­sor a freak show,” the doc­tor replied.

            “You would be miss­ing out on a big oppor­tu­ni­ty,” respond­ed Joaquin.

            “My deci­sion is made.” The doc­tor looked down at his jour­nals. The con­ver­sa­tion was over.

            Maria broke the silence. “The apothe­cary was my idea, and a good invest­ment. If this is suc­cess­ful we could still expand to estab­lish the Pas­cal Cen­ter of Medicine.”

            The doc­tor held Maria’s gaze. She pressed on.

            “At least go see the show.”

            And so it was that the doc­tor and Maria pressed against a throng of whis­per­ing adults and chat­ter­ing chil­dren lat­er that night. They sat on hay bales that poked through seams in uncom­fort­able places, so the shift­ing audi­ence was like a rest­less sea. Lanterns lit an emp­ty stage.

            “BE-HOLD,” a woman’s voice boomed off­stage. “The eleventh won­der of the world, the hand of dark­ness, the man who wields the black hole!”

            With a flour­ish, Joaquin and Elle stepped onto the stage. They both wore capes that punc­tu­at­ed their every move.

            “The HAND!” she announced, draw­ing everyone’s eyes to Joaquin. He care­ful­ly removed his sil­ver glove. “The back, a tun­nel straight through!” As she spoke, she scanned the audi­ence as if search­ing for some­one, and undid her cape. She fold­ed the thin fab­ric diag­o­nal­ly along one cor­ner, and thread­ed it through Joaquin’s palm. The audi­ence mur­mured, rapt.

            “The front, an abyss!” The heads around Maria bobbed for a bet­ter view as the woman pulled out a thin stick the length of her hand and thread­ed it into the hole. The woman’s eyes pierced the audi­ence as she pushed the stick in, her fin­gers an inch away from the hole, before she let go and the last knuck­le of the stick fell back and bounced off the stage. The crowd whooped and clapped. Maria’s short­ened fin­ger throbbed, and as the lights dimmed time seemed to warp.

            In a fever dream of déjà vu, Maria watched Joaquin and his part­ner per­form a dis­tor­tion of the tests that she and Joaquin had con­duct­ed as chil­dren. Joaquin gave a hair­cut and drained a glass of water. He passed a mouse through one side of his hand, and bisect­ed it with the oth­er. Maria watched the tail drop to the floor con­nect­ed to a stump of a stom­ach.  The hind legs twitched, scoot­ing the corpse a cen­time­ter before stop­ping, leav­ing a wet, dark pud­dle. Joaquin sharp­ened a dart by rotat­ing it at an angle on the hole’s edge, and Elle threw it into an apple an audi­ence mem­ber held aloft. The peo­ple pulsed with each act, and the doc­tor sat trans­fixed next to Maria.

            Maria shout­ed with the rest of the crowd when Elle brought a rifle onto the stage.

            “Armed!” she cried. She aimed at the sky behind her and a shot echoed around the square. She reloaded the rifle as Joaquin spoke for the first time in the show. All voic­es ceased.

            “And, you can see, my gift can also stop death.” He care­ful­ly grabbed the bar­rel and aimed it at his heart, plac­ing his palm against the muzzle.

            “Armed!” cried his assistant.

            Maria closed her eyes.

             The shot rang out, and smoke drift­ed lazi­ly from the bar­rel, unaware of the mir­a­cle stand­ing unscathed before it. Joaquin took a bow, and the audi­ence erupt­ed. Even the doc­tor clapped at a mea­sured beat. Maria sensed that some­thing was try­ing to claw its way up her stomach.

            Joaquin wait­ed for the uproar to set­tle before address­ing the crowd again. “Now, for a quar­ter, any of you can be part of this act.” Mur­murs pooled in the audi­ence; some­one not­ed that it had already cost a nick­el to watch. Joaquin pressed on. “For a quar­ter, any one of you can come up, and with this mir­a­cle to stop death, I will shave your beard, I will cut your warts, I will trim your nails!” Joaquin beamed, and sud­den­ly peo­ple pushed to get in line. Maria and the doc­tor stood aside, though Maria noticed the crease that appeared in his brow when he made cal­cu­la­tions or busi­ness decisions.

            “You were right, Maria. It is a sound invest­ment,” the doc­tor would lat­er tell her. “Peo­ple pay to see miracles.”

 

*

 

            When Joaquin had per­formed his final show on the island and board­ed a ship for the main­land, Maria felt a sink­ing dread that he was already lost at sea. He did write, how­ev­er, to con­firm once he had safe­ly made it, and to inform her that his show was almost ready to take across the coun­try. He wrote two more times in as many years, once to ask for a lit­tle more mon­ey, and once to apol­o­gize. His part­ner had left the show when busi­ness was good, and the show had devolved ever since. He was sin­cere­ly sor­ry. He did not have enough mon­ey to bring Maria with him to see the main­land. He did not have enough mon­ey to pay back his grandfather.

            Soon after, her name seemed to become Poor Maria. “That Poor Maria, all of that debt and her ail­ing grand­fa­ther.” Not three years lat­er still it would become, “Poor Maria, her grand­fa­ther gone and her all alone. And the Pas­cal estate snapped up by debtors.” The apothe­cary had been her sanc­tu­ary, and even there the soft fra­grance of dried herbs was taint­ed with pity. Sebas­t­ian had become a kind com­pan­ion in the months fol­low­ing Doc­tor Pascal’s death, some­one to work along­side who saw her grit as a choice, not just as an accep­tance of hard­ship. He made gen­tle advances and helped her run the phar­ma­cy as she ran the apothe­cary. He brought her fresh Sat­ur­day ros­es and cooked her his mother’s Pal­lela. One day, he vowed, they would sell the phar­ma­cy and tour the main­land. “Mar­ry me,” he said. She did. Maria wore her wed­ding band on her right hand; she did not want a reminder of what was missing.

            Soon after the mar­riage, the promis­es of trav­el fell to hard busi­ness deci­sions. “In a few years,” Sebas­t­ian coaxed, “the phar­ma­cy will be prof­itable enough again, and we will be free of this place.” But then Sebastian’s niece was born, and a nephew, and new blood pooled and pushed the con­ver­sa­tions of leav­ing far­ther apart.

            Sebas­t­ian still brought Maria her Sat­ur­day ros­es. When Maria asked for lilies, he laughed. “Lilies couldn’t hold the depth of my love.” They danced, and made love. They set­tled into lives around each other.

            It was around that time that Maria heard again of Joaquin. He did not write, but news from the main­land spread like fleas. Cus­tomers who came in said he was found by a her­mit who had prac­ticed every reli­gion to ensure his sal­va­tion. This man believed Joaquin’s gift was the final one wor­thy of wor­ship. When the her­mit had Joaquin’s mir­a­cle fed­er­al­ly rec­og­nized, Joaquin became a mat­ter of great con­tention in the church. One Sun­day, Maria was prepar­ing plan­tains for mofon­go when Sebas­t­ian sur­prised her by get­ting up to mince the gar­lic. A raw, angry sweet­ness stung her nose as his knife thumped into the soft wood of the cut­ting board.

            “Thank you, love,” she mur­mured as she turned back to her plan­tains. She lopped the stem and head off of a plan­tain, hard green skin giv­ing way to a soft cream center.

            “What do you make of this news of Joaquin?” Sebas­t­ian asked.

            Maria cupped a plan­tain in her left hand, and ran her knife down its spine. “He only sent three let­ters. None since grandfather’s mon­ey ran out.”

            The thud­ding stopped. Sebas­t­ian scraped the gar­lic off the cut­ting board into a clay bowl with a blue glaze. He float­ed the gar­lic in olive oil, she watched it cir­cle and weave like eels.

            “What about his mir­a­cle?” he asked.

            “What about it?”

            Maria gripped the plan­tain until the peel popped, and she pried off the tough skin. The body of the plan­tain was bare, half of the flesh out, half of it still stuck in its shell.

            Sebas­t­ian began prepar­ing the onions, soak­ing them in vine­gar and salt. “Do you think he will come back here? He may have enough mon­ey to pay us,” Maria slowed beside him. “To pay you back. He owes you that much.”

             Maria ran the knife again down the plan­tain, this time down the abdomen. Along the inci­sion, she wedged her fin­ger­nail to peel back the hybrid of car­ti­lage and bark. Rigid, it dropped to the coarse cloth beneath it. She chopped the plan­tain in deci­sive strokes.

            “Joaquin owes me a fin­ger­tip,” she count­ed up the knuck­les on her short­ened fin­ger. “He could not pay me back if he want­ed to.”

            Sebas­t­ian chuck­led and hand­ed her his ingre­di­ents. “You could reach out. Just con­sid­er it.”

            Chunks spilled from the pes­tle as she mashed the plan­tains in with the gar­lic and left­over pork. They ate in silence.

            The next month, a local priest deemed it unac­cept­able that Joaquin should found a reli­gion out­side of Christ, and declared that if God grant­ed Joaquin a mir­a­cle, He could grant anoth­er. To prove him­self wor­thy, the priest stuck his palm with a tack. When no mir­a­cle ensued, the priest excom­mu­ni­cat­ed Joaquin from the con­gre­ga­tion. Con­ver­sa­tion about Joaquin was deemed blasphemous.

            This sig­naled the shift of chat­ter away from the church pews and into the rows of the phar­ma­cy. As peo­ple drift­ed to and from the apothe­cary in the back, rumors col­lect­ed around Maria like dust on the shelves. She gave more mind to the dust, but could not close her ears to the chat­ter. On the main­land, it was said, Joaquin was per­form­ing bless­ings and mak­ing holy water. Peo­ple absolved them­selves by whis­per­ing their sins into his palm, or offer­ing writ­ten accounts to be con­sumed by the void. Spir­i­tu­al men claimed his was the palm that held the tur­tle with the world atop its back, and Joaquin after was said to trav­el with a tur­tle, though some accounts said it was a tor­toise. Each sto­ry made her fin­ger flare with pain; she was sure the stump was get­ting short­er still. The tales echoed from the apothe­cary to the phar­ma­cy, and would often worm their way home in Sebastian’s ear. Sebas­t­ian would recount a rumor, and when Maria asked him to stop he claimed his faith pre­vent­ed him from engag­ing fur­ther any­ways. In their few years of mar­riage Sebastian’s piety had solid­i­fied as much as his prag­ma­tism. He now also claimed that Maria’s fan­tasies of sail­ing away were just dreams, child­ish in the face of their bud­ding family.

            Maria’s abdomen had begun to grow, and Sebas­t­ian start­ed to call the bud “their mir­a­cle.” She hat­ed the pet name, but came to believe its truth as she watched her body wage war on itself. She devoured rasp­ber­ries by moon­light but could not keep them down in the morn­ing. Her legs cramped, and her skin pol­ished from ochre to bronze.

            “I will see you at the phar­ma­cy, my love,” Sebas­t­ian said as Maria accept­ed the kiss he plant­ed on her cheek. “And I will see you not a moment too soon, my mir­a­cle,” Sebas­t­ian added as he cupped Maria’s stomach.

            “Don’t call it that,” Maria snapped.

            “Aye, all of this busi­ness with your cousin is passed, love. Let’s not talk about him any­more, it’s unholy.”

            “When our mir­a­cle is born,” Sebas­t­ian sug­gest­ed the next day, mas­sag­ing Maria’s feet, “We should close the apothe­cary. You will want to stay home with the child.”

            Maria stood up, winc­ing. “How do you know what I want?” She left him, bare­foot, col­lect­ing dirt on her soles.

 

*

 

            When Maria’s womb had grown to the size of a coconut, a hur­ri­cane and a bout of flu shook the island. Hous­es sunk like deflat­ed cakes. Wood­en pil­lars stood bare, snapped like bro­ken bones, and the flat­tened flam­boyán tree of the for­mer Pas­cal estate held its roots up in sur­ren­der to the sky. Gulls flew in an emp­ty blue while chil­dren wad­ed through islands of debris, call­ing when they found lost trea­sures. Maria walked trench­es through soft mud attend­ing the ail­ing town. The sick, clutch­ing to their mir­a­cles, made a spe­cial effort to share their news of Joaquin, and con­grat­u­late Maria on her com­ing child.

            She eased the fever of a short, bald­ing man, who promised he would build Maria a wood­en crib. He boast­ed that Joaquin had once cut his hair to the quick, and showed her the spot where hair had nev­er grown back. She mend­ed twin sis­ters, one with a bro­ken ankle and one with a sprain, who claimed Joaquin had break­fast­ed with the pope. The oth­er twin asked who would bap­tize Maria’s child. An old­er woman, whose skin was stiff and wet like she had drowned, stared at Maria with hol­low eyes. Through wheez­ing breaths, she told Maria how she had heard Joaquin was vis­it­ed by a Bud­dhist monk who believed he could achieve Nir­vana inside the void. Maria’s fin­gers flailed to make a heal­ing poul­tice as the woman con­tin­ued with her sto­ry. The monk had stuck his whole fin­ger inside the hole, and Maria nev­er heard the rest. The woman died, inter­rupt­ed. Maria returned home and held back a sob.

            “You should not do so much, my love,” Sebas­t­ian said lat­er that night. “Our mir­a­cle needs your health. We both need you.”

            “The hur­ri­cane, the flu… I don’t want to die here,” Maria replied.

            “We don’t get to choose where or when,” Sebas­t­ian said, “but you can try to avoid run­ning into it head first. You should rest.”

            “Bet­ter to run; I’m tired of being root­ed here.”

            “Non­sense, Maria. We are home.”

            Over the last months of her preg­nan­cy, Maria began squir­rel­ing away a small for­tune. She sold her jew­el­ry one piece at a time, and as her apothe­cary stores were sold she filled the jars with mon­ey. She told none of this to Sebas­t­ian, though she was sure he would not hear her if she did. She told him instead she was see­ing a doc­tor to check the health of the baby, and vis­it­ed the island’s largest port town to secure pas­sage to the main­land. Out­side the tick­et master’s office, the smell of sea spray and palms swirled in lazy loops with the frigate birds.

            Sailors near­by pre­pared a large ship for pas­sage to the main­land under an open blue sky. She watched them scur­ry like ants find­ing sug­ar as they inspect­ed sails and secured car­go. Her stom­ach kicked her rest­ing hand, and she was flushed with warmth. Over the gen­tle lap­ping of the waves, she heard them plan their brief stay in the main­land. With each inn and meal sug­gest­ed Maria’s heart reared in antic­i­pa­tion. They drift­ed in and out of gos­sip, and it did­n’t take long for the sto­ries of a strange reli­gious icon with a hole in his hand to crop up.

            Maria, used to the rumors, lis­tened with half a mind as she watched the sailors scut­tling about. Quick­ly, she real­ized these rumors were unlike those she had heard previously.

            “On the run!” one sailor shout­ed. “Peo­ple lookin’ to get their debts paid!”

            Anoth­er quick­ly jumped in. “How’d a Mes­si­ah owe mon­ey? Ain’t it con­sid­ered charity?”

         ” I ‘eard his hand been known to erase some impor­tant papers. Could be the state or big mon­ey types after ‘im,” replied the first sailor. “Either way he’s just up and disappeared.”

            The con­ver­sa­tion waned and waxed again to the tides, and Maria released a breath she hadn’t known she was hold­ing. She felt uncorked, hope and envy and rage bub­bling inside of her, foam­ing up and spilling out. She sat, count­ing her breaths, wait­ing for anoth­er sailor to dis­count the sto­ry. No objec­tion came.

 

*

 

            Maria gave birth to an earth­quake. Her daugh­ter shook bones and cracked the sky with her first cry. Maria took the shak­ing bun­dle in her arms and named her Gen­e­sis. Maria said silent good­byes to the ones that came to vis­it. In a week or two, when Maria and Gen­e­sis were strong enough to trav­el, they would leave for the mainland.

            The morn­ing of her depar­ture, Maria pre­pared bread and clothes and gath­ered her hid­den stash of mon­ey. She was cut­ting slices of cheese when there came a knock at the door. She jumped. Sebas­t­ian was not sup­posed to be home until that after­noon, by which time she would already be board­ing a ship to the main­land. She con­tin­ued slic­ing, hop­ing it was a mis­take. Any­way, Sebas­t­ian would not knock. Gen­e­sis began wail­ing from her crib as the knocks came a sec­ond time. Maria gath­ered her daugh­ter in her arms, gray eyes and an angry pink mouth star­ing at her. She answered the door.

            A deflat­ed man with blotchy skin stood out­side. Maria bare­ly rec­og­nized him, but her fin­ger flashed with pain when he spoke. “Maria, I heard you’d set­tled down here. It’s been so long. I need help.”

            “Joaquin.” His face sagged but his choco­late eyes and tou­sled hair were the same. Each indi­vid­ual fea­ture could be traced back to the Joaquin who had vis­it­ed the island near­ly a decade ago, but put togeth­er he looked dis­col­ored and worn thin. 

            “I can’t help you,” she said.

            “Maria, please. I am sor­ry I left with­out you. I am in debt and in danger.”

            Gen­e­sis con­tin­ued to cry, and Maria wor­ried peo­ple would come check in on her. She need­ed to fin­ish prepar­ing before she could leave. “Come in.”

            Joaquin was in the kitchen before Maria could close the door, eat­ing a slice of the cheese she had been cutting.

            “Leave that,” she said, and Joaquin slith­ered to the oth­er end of the kitchen. His hun­gry eyes lin­gered on her pack. Maria wrapped Gen­e­sis against her chest.

            “I need mon­ey, Maria. I’m sor­ry I have to ask.” Joaquin extend­ed a bony hand. His oth­er hand hung limp at his side, but the glove pulled her eyes.

            “No. I’ve giv­en you enough.” Maria turned and con­tin­ued to cut slices of cheese. “But for the boy you once were, I can spare a meal. Sit.”

            Maria passed him a cov­ered plate of arepas and Joaquin devoured them silent­ly. After his third arepa, Joaquin lift­ed his choco­late eyes. “What is the lit­tle one’s name?”

            “Gen­e­sis.”

            Joaquin laughed. “Maria and Gen­e­sis, a divine fam­i­ly – the father must be Joseph. Where are you head­ed with that pack?”

            Maria stiff­ened. “Sebas­t­ian is hard­ly divine. You were wor­shiped.” She paused. “You aban­doned me.”

           “I was a God and a fool.”

            “You were self­ish. At my expense.” She trailed off as Gen­e­sis squealed.

            “I won’t apol­o­gize for liv­ing the life I was giv­en.” Joaquin’s brown eyes hard­ened and he stared at Maria cold­ly. “There are debtors fol­low­ing me, who will find me here. I’m ask­ing for your help but they’ll just as soon col­lect my debt from fam­i­ly with­out asking.”

            Maria could her­self sink­ing fur­ther into the soil she had been stuck in her whole life. She had been born one foot in the island’s maw, and every time she had come close to leav­ing it tried to swal­low her whole. She braced her hand against the counter to cut through the dizzy­ing sen­sa­tion. She fin­ished slic­ing the cheese and stored it in the pack. Her last prepa­ra­tion done, she turned to Joaquin. “I won’t be trapped here. I’m leav­ing the island, and your debt will stay your own.”

            “So you are sneak­ing away? Genesis’s father might be very grate­ful towards the per­son who warned him…”

            “We will be long gone.”

            “Will you?” Joaquin stood and stalked a step towards Maria. The swal­low­ing sen­sa­tion was back. This time it seemed the air was being pulled down around her. “Stop,” she whispered.

Joaquin took anoth­er step.

            “Yes, cousin?” he asked, his voice drip­ping in hon­ey. “You’ve thought of anoth­er way to help me?”

            Maria paused for a long sec­ond. One arm gen­tly bounced Gen­e­sis, snug against Maria in her ban­deau. In her oth­er hand Maria clutched the cheese knife. “Please leave.”

            “What are you going to do with that? You won’t do any­thing. You think so high­ly of your­self because you suf­fer in silence. We want the same things, you know. The only dif­fer­ence is while you sit around and hope to get reward­ed for good behav­ior, I’ve nev­er stopped scrap­ping until I get what I want.”

            Joaquin lunged and reached. Frayed sil­ver threads became the last bar­ri­er between skin and obliv­ion as Joaquin’s glove closed around Maria’s arm.

“Let go!” Maria writhed, jostling Gen­e­sis in her wrap and set­ting her to wail. Joaquin held fast and tight­ened his grip.

            Maria swung her knife down, and caught the flesh below his wrist. A brack­ish red spring bub­bled up and stained the fad­ed sil­ver. Joaquin screamed, clutch­ing his mirac­u­lous hand to his chest.

            “I’m leav­ing, and you have a choice. The knife is lodged between your radius and ulna. It like­ly nicked an artery. You can take the knife out and try to catch me but you’ll cause per­ma­nent dam­age, maybe need an ampu­ta­tion. Be rid of your curse. And maybe Sebas­t­ian will pay your debt.”

            Joaquin’s eyes swelled with fear and venom.

            “Or,” Maria con­tin­ued, “choose your hand. Wait here for Sebas­t­ian, don’t move, and he will like­ly save it. Stay stuck in your past and your debt. I’m choos­ing my future.” Maria grabbed her pack and left with Gen­e­sis, Joaquin’s plead­ing sobs fad­ing behind her. She mouthed a final good­bye to her cousin and the wav­ing palms that shad­ed the streets. She spared a final glance to the cob­ble­stone square and the church that watched it. From the back of a cart she watched the town sink into the val­ley around it.

            Maria’s soft padding steps gave way to a sat­is­fy­ing clop as she walked up the gang­plank. She had not been chased or fol­lowed. The tick­et mas­ter had accept­ed her pas­sage with­out a blink. As the island reced­ed into the salty spray, Maria held Gen­e­sis close to her breast and spoke soft­ly of the trees they would see, the libraries like cathe­drals, and the lives they would live, self­ish­ly theirs.

 

From the writer

 

:: Account ::

When I was in third grade, I sharp­ened pen­cils by push­ing them into the elec­tric sharp­en­er with the palm of my hand. The spin­ning eras­er tick­led; it was my favorite class­room job. One day, I tried the trick with a pen­cil whose eras­er had been pulled or picked out, leav­ing only the thin met­al frame of the eras­er. It cut a per­fect cir­cle into my hand, and, being the dra­mat­ic lit­tle boy I was (and like­ly still am), I thought the skin in the cen­ter of my palm would uncork, spilling all of my blood until I died. I still have a scar in the cen­ter of my palm in the shape of a per­fect cir­cle. I prob­a­bly shed more tears than blood that day, but in this sto­ry I tried to tap into the feel­ing before I knew I would be fine, where the con­se­quence of injury was only lim­it­ed by my imag­i­na­tion. This sto­ry began with the ques­tion: what if I had “uncorked?”

Once I had iso­lat­ed my premise – an injury cre­ates a mag­i­cal hole in a boy’s hand – I strug­gled to find the point of view for my sto­ry. I knew I want­ed the boy to grap­ple with the allure of his gift, but I wasn’t sure where to go from there. Would it be a sto­ry of cor­rup­tion? If so, how could I show his trans­for­ma­tion over a long peri­od of time? Where I want­ed to focus on the expe­ri­ence of some­thing seem­ing simul­ta­ne­ous­ly impos­si­ble yet real, answer­ing these ques­tions and stick­ing to the boy’s char­ac­ter felt like it would force me to explain the impos­si­ble. These prob­lems ques­tions led me to find the final struc­ture of the sto­ry, where­in the sto­ry focus­es on an observ­er, the boy’s cousin, and their life as periph­er­al to this impos­si­ble event. The shap­ing of this sto­ry often forced me to reassess the divide between the events I want­ed to occur on paper and the feel­ings I want­ed to gen­er­ate for the read­er. Posi­tion­ing the pro­tag­o­nist as a wit­ness but not as much of an actor in the impos­si­ble ele­ments in the sto­ry allowed me to pre­serve the feel­ings that orig­i­nal­ly inspired the sto­ry: pain, fear, awe, and the uncer­tain­ty in the lim­its of reality.

Jean-Bap­tiste Andre holds a Bach­e­lors in neu­ro­science from Bow­doin Col­lege, a teach­ing degree from Relay Grad­u­ate School of Edu­ca­tion, and is cur­rent­ly pur­su­ing his MFA in Fic­tion at the War­ren Wil­son Pro­gram for Writ­ers. He works as an admis­sions coun­selor and lives in Las Cruces, New Mex­i­co, where his part­ner is study­ing medicine.