Quiet Reparations

Juliet holds out her hand. "Give me your shoes."

We have driven down the coast to the city: Juliet had an appointment with a specialist. We have a competent doctor in the village, and I like her very much. She is very kind, and had no shame in telling Juliet that she wanted her to see someone with greater knowledge than she. Marco says we are lucky to have her.

Juliet and I are standing in a quiet alley, the quiet stacks of flats making a canyon above us. It is dim now, and late in the evening. Juliet and I are taking a walk after dinner, and Juliet has been taking the two of us down the back ways of the city at random, finding secret places and webbings of clotheslines to segment the sky. All around us is lit only by a sodium bulb burning high above and the hot blue moon, full in the sky and higher still.

The drive to the city was pleasant; we took the big car, because the roads were simply too long for anything smaller. Juliet spent the trip in the front next to Marco, legs folded gently beneath her on the wide leather seat. I spent my time alone in the back, uncomfortable in my luxury of space. The big car is very quiet. We did not talk much.

The alleyway is cobbled, and spaces between the wide stones are filled with tiny bits of broken glass, a geologic settling of every beer and wine bottle dropped in carelessness or thrown in revelry in this place. I flex my toes on the cool stones. Juliet's bare feet look delicate next to mine.

During the trip, I would sometimes find Marco's eyes in the rear-view mirror. His eyes looked tired, and under some weight. Marco has been looking worried in recent weeks, but then again I have never known him to not appear somewhat so.

I take a careful step. The spaces around the cobbles are deep, and the skin of my feet stays well clear of the jumbled edges beneath. The moon and the lamp make them shine and shift, and the street is mortared with jewels. Juliet steps up next to me, and puts her arm carefully in mine. "You see?" She is close to me now, and she is scented gently with lavender. "It will be fine."

I am in the kitchen, reading a cookbook. Jacobo is making noises in the living room, putting together model airplane kits. Marco is busying himself with the coffee machine. Marco, I think, could easily afford a much nicer machine that would take care of things for him. He enjoys the work. The coffee he makes is quite good.

He has made us each a small cup, and puts them on saucers and then to the table, with little spoons. He is rummaging in the cabinet, and stands up with a small bottle of clear spirit. He carefully pours a dollop into each cup, and then slides mine towards me until it is touching the pages of the cookbook.

He gives his cup a lazy stir with his spoon, and nods to me. "Tell me," he says. "Do you have a desire?"

The spoon is small, and quite plain. There is nothing stamped on the handle, just simple metal. I send the coffee in a careful circle, and the perfume of the anise rises up, heated by the coffee. I somehow know not to reach for the sugar.

I shrug. "I'm not sure."

"Something," he says, waving expansively with the spoon. "Is there a thing in you, deeply?" He frowns a moment. "Is there one thing over all else?"

I try the coffee. It is deepened and sweetened by the addition, full on the tongue and heady, rich. It is new to me, and the novelty stops me, and I am making plans, now, that once I am done with this cup I will sometime have another.

"What do you do?" I ask him.

Marco thinks about that. "You have never before asked me this."

"No," I said, "it somehow always seemed unkind to." The coffee is so very good.

Marco is interested. "This is your desire, then?"

I am looking at the coffee. "No."

There is a clatter and swearing from the living room. If we are lucky, Jacobo has only glued his fingers to each other this time, and not to his cheek.

Marco rises, and smoothes the front of his shirt with his hands. "I will make more," he says.

Mr. Shen and Mr. Shen have taken to wearing scarves. They wear them tied neatly over the shoulder, over their house jackets. One of them wears one of blue, the other one of green.

They have each been acting strangely, in their own ways. One has taken more liking to the lower floors of the house, and has been spending time on the periphery of occupied rooms. The other is usually above, marking passage with a careful creaking of the floorboards. We are still unsure if they are trading colors.

The other evening, Blue Shen joined us for dinner, sitting carefully at the far end of the table. He ate slowly, chewing each bite and sometimes looking out the window into the evening countryside, hidden by our reflections in the glazing. He said nothing, and we moved the conversation around the table, Jacobo, Marco, Juliet and I, trading ghost stories and laughing.

We were completely unprepared when Shen giggled and reached across the table to poke Jacobo in the arm with a fork.