“I should nothing,” Marta said. “You can’t tell me what I should do. You don’t own this building. You’re just the super.”
“But there are children!”
Then there was a stream of Spanish again, the sound of frustration. Marta waited for it to be over.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” Marta said, when there was silence again. “I pay my rent on time. I have a lease. I don’t even deal with you. I bring my rent to the company downtown. I know you want me out of here.”
“I only want to make sense.”
“They think I don’t know,” Marta said. “They think because I don’t speak Spanish, I can’t tell what they’re saying about me. And those boys. Trying to lift up my dress. Trying to lift up my dress at my age.”
“Miss Warkowski—”
“I don’t want you here when I open this door. I want my privacy.”
Mr. Hernandez stood, silent for a change. He was a short, muscular man with a tattoo on the side of his neck. The tattoo was of Our Lady of Guadalupe. They told you in church that there were Catholics all over the world, that all Catholics were Catholics together. It wasn’t true.
“This is my home,” Marta said. She said it firmly. She wanted to believe it.
Mr. Hernandez turned away from her and headed down the stairs.
Marta put her key in the lock, and opened up, and went inside. Then she locked all four of her security locks, including both bolts. It wasn’t just lifting up her skirts, or shutting her inside a circle and chanting, or cheating her on the price of potatoes. Sometimes she thought her neighborhood had been invaded by space aliens. They hated her.
She dropped her pocketbook on the couch. She went to her little shrine to the Virgin and lit the candle in front of it. Her mother had lit the candle in front of this same shrine and left it lit, day and night, whether anyone was home or not. Marta didn’t dare do that. Leaving a flame lit with nobody in the apartment might be some kind of “violation,” might be an excuse for forcing her out. Mrs. Gonzales kept hers lit day and night, but that was different. There were different rules for Mrs. Gonzales. She was one of their own.
Marta closed her eyes. She was still both cold and damp. She wanted to die right where she was.
No, that wasn’t true.
She only wanted to spend one single hour feeling at home again.
3
Sister Margaret Mary had learned a lot of things since she was first posted to St. Catherine’s, but the most important thing was that there was no sense to be made out of it, ever.
There were no solutions, either, but that was inevitable. If there was one thing the Church had taught consistently through the centuries, it was that the world was a mess whose only solution was Christ returned in glory. Christ did not seem to be returning any time soon.
Now she stood in the doorway to St. Catherine’s School and looked across the asphalt playground to the street. It was dark, and cold, and miserable, but the boys were still out there. They clutched up in little groups and smoked cigarettes. Nobody bothered to tell them not to. Everybody knew they wouldn’t listen.
The boys smoking cigarettes were nine and ten years old. When they got older than that, they would disappear. They would go into basements and abandoned buildings. Some of the girls would go with them. By then they would be finished with St. Catherine’s School and over at the high school across town.
Next thing we should do is start a high school, she thought. She thought that often, even though she knew it couldn’t happen. Carmen Gonzales and Lara Esposito came running up the street, dressed in Junior Girl Scout uniforms, their vests festooned with badges and awards. It wasn’t a good idea to let young girls come out in the dark by themselves in this neighborhood, but they came anyway. The sisters had tried to talk to the mothers about going with them. The mothers had to work, or had three more children at home, or both.
The boys in the clutches along the street called out things in Spanish Sister Margaret Mary was glad she didn’t understand. Carmen and Lara slowed down long enough to say hello and then raced inside, toward the back.
Sister Margaret Mary stepped back into the foyer and closed the door. That should be the lot of them. Everyone had at least gotten here safely tonight. Maybe they could spare a couple of sisters to see some of them home.
She heard the sound of steps on the stairs behind her and turned to see Sister Peter coming down.
“Are the Girl Scouts all in?” Sister Peter asked. “They’re right underneath the Sodality Chapel. You wouldn’t believe the racket.”
“They’re all in,” Sister Margaret Mary said. “I’m more worried about Javier. I found him in the church again, did you know that? Just sitting in the side chapel, watching the Virgin.”
“There’s nothing wrong with dedication to the Virgin,” Sister Peter said. “Maybe he has a vocation.”
“He doesn’t pray,” Sister Margaret Mary said. “He just stares. You’ve got to worry with these children. We’ve got no idea how much trauma he’s been through. We’ve got no idea what’s happened to him. This could be PTSD. Or something worse.”
“Have you changed your mind about the Demarkians?”
“No,” Sister Margaret Mary said. “I don’t know who we could have found who would be better than Bennis Hannaford. And that doesn’t even take into account that she’s got almost as much money as God, which means anything he needs he’s going to get. No. It’s just—things.”
“Things?”
Sister Margaret Mary looked back toward the door. “I must have stood out there for fifteen minutes. I’m a block of ice.”
“And?”
Sister Margaret Mary shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s the street. It’s the neighborhood. There weren’t any signs tonight. Of either one of them. I don’t think. There was a van.”
“There are lots of vans. You’re getting paranoid.”
“It kept circling around. Four times. A big black van. Brand new, too. That’s why I was out there for so long. I wanted to see if it would come back again. But it didn’t. Or at least it hadn’t yet.”
“ICE isn’t usually that subtle, you know that, don’t you? They come screaming in with their initials on their vests in neon yellow and guns drawn. What they think they’re doing with the guns is beyond me. Somebody’s going to get hurt if they keep that up.”
“People do get hurt,” Sister Margaret Mary said, “and the vultures can be subtle, and I wouldn’t put anything past them.”
“I agree,” Sister Peter said, “but can Child Protective Services afford a brand-new van?”
Sister Margaret Mary sighed. “I’d better go over there and collect Javier before the Demarkians get here. I hate to say it, but I’m not entirely sure it’s safe even in the church at night. And we’ve got to look out for Father Kasparian, too, and there’s supposed to be a dog. Tell me again we’re right to be doing this.”
“We’re right to be doing this,” Sister Peter said. “Somebody has to. And you don’t have to worry about Javier being alone in the church. There’s a Forty Hours’ Devotion in progress. The place is full of old ladies who could give the evil eye to Satan himself.”