Roxane van Iperen
SCUM OF THE EARTH
The city
The crowd frightens her. Out of streets and alleys all around students flock to the cathedral square, where they join up with the protesters, who step by step are walking circles around the general’s statue. She has to decide now, before the current will drag her along. Her hands protectively around her belly she looks left and right. There is no more room to cross the square along the edge. The sidewalk, the terraces, feet occupying every paving stone. She wants to turn around and is almost knocked over by a young man with rather long hair holding a sign. Beads of sweat in his whiskers. He sees her belly and starts, flinches and tries to stop the pushing forces behind him. Apologetically he raises both hands and is carried along, onto the square, into the vortex. He is walking backwards now, gesturing her to surrender; his fingers mimicking two legs up in the air. Then he turns around, disappearing into the crowd. Were she here professionally, she’d have deemed herself safe in the space her uniform creates. Now she’s feeling vulnerable, anonymous amidst thousands of youths. But what she needs today is anonymity. Elizabet closes her eyes, lets herself drop backwards a bit and surrenders.
Today of all days. An ordinary working day, she’d thought when they made an appointment. As the date grew nearer, her body started to protest more. A knot, high up in her belly, just underneath her breasts, she had to squeeze her breath past it. A marble in her throat she wasn’t able to swallow. It was like her knee joints were becoming looser and looser, like vibrating bolts on an old cart; a last warning not to walk one meter farther. And on top of that creaky body this sound, round sphere. The sphere that’s making her special. The sphere that in the last couple of months earned her the respect of her colleagues, gazes from passers-by, but most of all: Hugo’s awe. His astonishment followed by excitement, evolving in gratitude on behalf of the whole Dos Santos family. Posterity. He, the whole family, looking forward to a prince royal, for so long. A little Hugo. Just a few weeks ago he told her, foam on his lips, about the practices of an illegal abortion clinic he and his team had eliminated. They had been set on its trail by a woman’s cut-up body in a burnt car. Her fingers and teeth were removed, but within twenty-four hours Hugo traced the chief of the gang running the backstreet clinic. The woman had died of complications after an abortion, performed by a former mechanic, assisted by a midwife. That is: the complications had been the motive to kill the woman, for fear of discovery. The punishment, as it happens, would be severe: no more serious crime in this country than the one against the unborn child. In the past years, when during the Sunday service the priest and the other churchgoers had been looking compassionately at her flat belly again, she sometimes thought ‘In the name of the Holy Fruit’ would be a better conclusion of the prayer. A woman being only fully a woman after she whelped.
Step by step the current drags her farther up to the square, where dozens of rows of marching students form a human roundabout. She is trying to walk the way she taught herself in the past weeks: hollow back, belly protruded, both hands on top of it. But nobody sees in the throng; her exceptional position does not count here. She feels panic rising from her toes. Should have taken some other route. But all the streets surrounding the square are silted and she has to reach the other side of the city. Is it a sign? A last warning, a last to cancel this plan? She’s thinking of Hugo, the way he’s been looking at her these last months. Gently taking her hand, stroking her head but otherwise keeping his distance, out of respect for her condition. He had a promotion again and is now in command of the whole city centre. She’s imagining him at this very moment in the station, surrounded by all the district chiefs, leaning over a city map and devising how to handle this. Since the re-election of O Presidente the economy is blooming like never before, but dissidents are sabotaging the well-oiled engine. Like these students. Comunistas, as Hugo calls them mockingly. How long will he allow this demo to go on? One hour? Two hours? He’ll be busy till late in the evening. Maybe he won’t even come home, thinking she’s safe with her mother. If he does come home, before going to bed he’ll peek into the baby’s room, where his own old cradle is waiting for his son. The idea of it being a daughter does not even occur to him. Elizabet stretches her right hand’s fingers to look at the ring, the stone sparkling in the sunlight. Together they have everything, except for that one thing. She can’t arrive home empty-handed.
The general’s statue is approaching, the merry-go-round of people circling around it clockwise. Just a few meters and she’ll be taken up in it, then it will be crucial to leave the circle at three quarters, taking the street leading to the north part of the city. She only has to make sure she’ll remain on her feet. Place one foot in front of the other. Sweat is dripping along her spine, the fabric of her dress sticking to her bare skin. The alley she’s walking in is in the shadow of the high buildings, but the square is glaring like a steel target in the sun. Two meters left. She rearranges the belly under the flowery dress and clenches her fists. Walk on. Just walk on. There’s no way back.
Elizabet squints against the bright sunlight. She’s being sucked up into the crowd and disappears between the thousands of heads moving the same way. Hands, arms, shoulders interflow, there’s no telling where bodies start or end. Like a thick, boiling bean soup they move on, pulled into lanes by an invisible ladle. She sees bulging veins in people’s necks close by, people invigorate their demands with fists rhythmically punching in the air. The words are immerged by the infernal racket hovering over the square.
Slowly they move on, Elizabet placing one foot in front of the other. If she doesn’t surrender to the situation, she’s going to panic. She’s thinking of the lessons at the police academy. Breathe. Don’t resist. She’s halfway around the circle now, already she sees the street sign popping up in the alley where she has to exit. A wave in the crowd almost sweeps her down, men, several heads taller than she, are being pushed against her. Her belly shifts under her dress. Quickly she pushes it back, wraps her arms around it and turns her face up to the bright blue of the sky. Breathe.
She drives her shoes fiercely into the stone bottom and refuses to be carried along. She’s marching. Fish mouths everywhere, gasping for air. A dark sea, waves stretching out wider and wider, into streets and alleys, taking over paving stones one by one until the whole city is flooded. Unstoppable force of nature. But somewhere in the midst of it she is bobbing like a red buoy, untouched by the tide. The buoy goes a bit farther with the flow, but then takes a turn, moves effortlessly against the crowd, connected with an invisible rope to a fate anchored in a spot elsewhere in the city, a spot no-one knows but she. At the end of his rope is her future. Their future. She just has to land it.
*
Lucy is staring at herself. The tarnish, spreading from the top corner over the mirror’s surface, partly blocking the sight. She’s looking forward to this evening. To hanging out, dancing, getting sloshed with her friends. Maybe make some money already.
She looks at her swollen breasts, thin veins shining through the skin. Not even half a year since her chest was as flat as a boy’s. She sets her fists on her hips and makes a quarter turn. How often she’s been standing like this these days, inspecting herself? She couldn’t imagine things turning out alright, but this morning, waking up flat on her belly, things almost felt like before again.
In the first months there was nothing going on; she did not feel changes, nothing bothered her and she didn’t expect anything either. Only in the last two months her body started to change, every day, in the end almost every hour. That thing inside her was taking over; each morning she woke up she jumped out of bed and checked the mirror for what had happened that night. Her scraggy kid’s body, straight hips and square shoulders, started to billow. Beyond her control, her buttocks started protruding, resulting in an hollow back. Her arms slightly loose from her body, her chest pressing. And there was this belly. She was afraid to touch it. Suddenly there was another type of client at her door. Regulars stayed away, the new ones looked her over from head to toe before assaulting her. Asked her how much time she had left and if it was possible to visit once more before that. Lucy was fine with that, it was one advantage it gave her. In the last few weeks it had been a bustle, she was exhausted. Every time she took a rest on the sidewalk with the other girls, straddling to grant her belly some room, another head peeped around the corner. The girls laughed, and all pointed at Lucy.
‘There she is!’
Uttering a sigh she disappeared into her room, the client in her wake. She’s glad it is behind her.
Lucy turns away from the mirror. It will be alright; it happened only yesterday. She walks up to the bed which fills most of the room’s space, and strokes the fabric of the dress she laid out down there. Her finest. The sequins feeling like fish scales. She picks up a pink slip with a cartoon figure and puts it on. Toes stretched out, she steps into the dress, sliding the straps over her shoulders. Two silver hoops on her earlobes, slippers on, ready.
Her fist bangs the thin wall. The roof is shaking.
‘I’m off!’
For a moment it is silent. Then Angelica’s high pitched voice.
‘See you in a moment! Be careful downtown. You really don’t want me to join you?’
It sounds as if she’s standing beside her. Lucy can see Angelica making up on the other side of the wall.
‘No, really. Promise to be back soon. See you!’
She snatches the little parcel, wrapped in a sheet, from the bed, puts it in a burlap sack and leaves her room. At the end of a narrow alley she trips down the stairs leading to a steep path downward. Adroitly, Lucy manoeuvres between protruding corrugated sheets, skipping to avoid the sewer water beneath her feet. How easy it goes! She’s indeed feeling one person lighter. She’s taking big strides, almost hopping in relief, but cautious with the bag she’s holding. The woman gave it to her, she’s hoping she can keep it. She never had such a nice bag: the sackcloth is almost the same colour as the round wooden handles.
There are less houses here, she has to watch out. There’s a steep path hewn in the rocks, flat stretches and a step here and there. From the walls wild plants grow, swishing branches grabbing at her. A little jump and she’s on a sandy stretch again, strewn with little houses. She waves at an acquaintance, almost tripping over a dog. Yelping the poseur runs off. In the distance the sea is shining, in front of it the beach’s straight lines act like a buffer against the advancing city, lying there as if a kid has emptied his sand bucket. She stops for a moment, the view is beautiful from up here.
After nearly an hour’s walk she’s left the mountain behind, the roads getting more passable. Long, undulating streets with houses, shops and neatly painted schools. She passes a church, a park with irond fences and benches with old folks playing chess. The familiar surroundings, swarming with mountain dwellers, make space for tourists carrying big devices on their bellies. Like aliens they’ve come to see her city. They’re moving in a different rhythm than hers; it’s like their silhouettes have been erased by a damp thumb. Sluggish. No, in slow motion. In a way she’s also a stranger. She seldom leaves the mountain.
Lucy slows down to blend in. Her slippers are clattering on the pavement. At the end of the street the square is looming, the fountain with the dragon in the centre. With each step she takes, the outline of the pond gets a bit more visible, until she’s at the edge of it. The splattering water is spraying mist. She lets it drop on her, yawns, looks around. It is crowded. Perfect. At the pond’s edge people, are sitting. Couples. An old lady, socks in sandals, leaning on a walking cane. Girls with candy bags from the kiosk. A toddler splashing his mother. She’s screaming, but the noise is muffled by the splattering from the dragon’s mouth. A water hose is squeezed between its jaws.
Lucy sits down on the edge as well, placing her bag in the shadow behind her calves. The sun, accompanying her during her journey from the mountain down to the city like a support, is now shining straight into her face. She feels her cheeks and breast glow, cold drops spattering the back of her neck. Her eyes closed she’s thinking of the evening ahead, the evening when she will rinse off every memory of the last months. A ritual cleansing, as Angelica calls it.
She peers at the little streets leading into the square. People passing each other, into alleys and out, crossing the square. They’re a different sort of people. Mountain people she’d recognize immediately. They’ve different skins, grayer and darker, and they look at you as if they could jump at you any moment. Apart from the workers of course, they stare at the ground. You recognize them by their hands: dry and cracked skin, nail cuticles turned white. The mountain women wholesale Vaseline, in the evening you can see them handwringing all over the place. In one of the square corners a queue has formed in front of the showcases of a classy ice-cream bar. Amber sunshades protecting the containers. Lucy makes a promise to treat herself to chocolate ice-cream as soon as this is over.
Then she sees her, emerging out of one of the alleys. The narrow head, furrows along the corners of her mouth: inheritance of a lifetime in the twilight world, where gravity pulls harder at people. Yellow hair in the parting of a black hairdo. Glumly she’s scrutinizing the people around the fountain. Her face softens as their eyes meet, and with small steps she walks up to Lucy. The woman clearly is not at ease here. After a short embrace they sit on the edge, hips joined. Her gaze pointed in the distance the woman starts talking.
‘Sorry I’m late, this whole week has been a madhouse in the city. The city centre is shut off completely. Those students, idiotas.’
Maria spits out this last word and snorts, looking around the square as if they could appear any moment. Then she puts her hand on Lucy’s bare leg.
‘How do you feel?’
The splattering water is creating a cocoon around them, in which they can talk freely.
‘Fine.’ Lucy is serious. She hasn’t felt this fine in ages. ‘For the first time in weeks I slept great. Like this, flat on my belly. Didn’t wake up once.’
Maria raises her eyebrows, or what’s left of them. Nearly every hair has been removed, leaving only two small curves. Horizontal creases pushing the front skin upward. Lucy is looking at it in fascination.
‘You’re sure?’ Maria tries again. She continues in a low voice. ‘Bellyache? Bleedings?’
Lucy shrugs and shakes her head.
‘You gave me those bandages. And, well, sitting down is not great.’ Lucy is laughing scornfully, but Maria doesn’t join in. She keeps scanning the surroundings like an eagle, her eyes unblinking in the sunlight. Lucy is leaning back slightly and looking past the woman’s back at the ice-cream bar. The queue is shrinking.
‘And the child?’
Maria acts as if she’s looking at a florist lady in the corner of the square. The toddler’s mother has had enough and prepares to leave. The kid stomps his feet on the ground and starts screaming. The woman, unmoved, grabs the child’s forearm and crosses the square, her son’s struggling legs do not touch the ground. Lucy opens her knees and leans down to the bag.
‘Here.’
The woman takes over the bag and peers inside.
‘Did it make any more noise?’
Maria tries to speak without moving her lips, in vain. Lucy is keeping down her laughter.
‘No,’ she replies. ‘I pushed the herb leaves to his mouth, as you said. He was quiet in no time. I did not hear him all night, I mean.’
‘Mmm,’ Maria mumbles approvingly. ‘You want to know where it is going?’
She turns to Lucy, looking tensely at the girl. Lucy is thinking. She could have chosen one of the other current solutions. A pillow over his head, abandoning him some place, or into the pressure cooker. The really sturdy girls first give birth to the head, squatting, and proceed to sit on it, breaking the neck. The biggest idiots are the ones who keep it. The girls in the alley will not be served by whining and howling as constant reminders of their own choices. Moreover it repulses clients. During working hours, when the girls need their rooms, the child is shoved underneath the bed or hidden behind a cloth in a corner, until it is too big or too wild. Then life in the streets awaits, or it is granted the honour to succeed mother dear. Like she did.
No, this is the best choice. She was curious it would look like her, and it does. The same delicate features, bright complexion and green eyes. He sure will be fine; she trusts Maria like everyone on the mountain does. One of the other girls in her alley gave birth earlier this month. Lucy had a peek: a monkey with a bush of dark hair and dark eyes, like the ones they’re spitting out on end around here. The stupid bitch was planning on keeping it.
‘I don’t have to know,’ Lucy says, getting up. A bit beyond, the sock woman is trying to do the same. She’s leaning heavily on her cane, but she can’t get up. From one of the alleys a school class emerges, laughter fans out over the square. It’s getting too crowded.
She embraces Maria shortly but intensely.
‘Você é um anjo.’
Barely audible she’s sowing the words behind the older woman’s auricle; her upper lip is stroking her dry, bleach-ruined hair.
She waits until Maria has taken up the bag and disappeared noiselessly into one of the alleys. A pity, that bag. Lucy smacks her lips, her mouth has a bad taste. Chocolate ice-cream. It will take half an evening working, but she thinks she has deserved it.
Feeling less heavy than she’s felt in months she’s walking towards the showcases, where dozens of sorts of ice-cream are awaiting tourists. The earrings dancing against her neck. Just once she looks back at the alley where Maria disappeared with the parcel.
Lucy flattens the sequins on her dress and puts on her most seductive glance. The young man behind the counter immediately looks her way. Without heeding the people in front of her she points at the dark brown container and says loudly: ‘Two scoops, please.’
The evening is awaiting her.
For more information about Roxane van Iperen and SCUM OF THE EARTH, please visit the Lebowski Agency website.
