“Come on, Tavo. You said you’d take us.”
“Be quiet,” the miner said. “I’m thinking whether we should go up there. You know I must go plug in at work tomorrow morning.” He tapped the socket on one wrist.
Lorq put salt and pepper in the milk and sipped it.
“I want to try some,” Ruby said.
“It smells awful,” said Prince, “You shouldn’t drink it. Is he going to take us?”
Tavo gestured to the owner of the cafe. “Lots of people up at Alonza’s tonight?”
“It’s Friday night, isn’t it?” said the owner.
“The boy wants me to take him up there,” said Tavo, “for the evening.”
“You’re taking Von Ray’s boy up to Alonza’s?” The owner’s purple birthmark crinkled.
“His parents are up there.” Tavo shrugged. “The boy wants me to take them. He told me to take them, you know? And it will be more fun than sitting here and swatting redbugs.” He bent down, tied the thongs of his discarded sandals together, and hung them around his neck. “Come on, Little Senhor. Tell the one-armed boy and the girl to behave.”
At the reference to Prince’s arm, Lorq jumped.
“We are going now.”
But Prince and Ruby didn’t understand.
“We’re going,” Lorq explained. “Up to Alonza’s.
“What’s Alonza’s?”
“Is that like the places Aaron is always taking those pretty women in Peking?”
“They don’t have anything out here like in Peking,” Prince said. “Silly. They don’t even have anything like Paris.”
Tavo reached down and took Lorq’s hand. “Stay close. Tell your friends to stay close too.” Tavo’s hand was all sweat and callus. The jungle chuckled and hissed over them.
“Where are we going?” Prince asked.
“To see Mother and Father.” Lorq’s voice sounded uncertain. “To Alonza’s.”
Tavo looked over at the word and nodded. He pointed through the trees, dappled with double moons.
“Is it far, Tavo?”
Tavo just cuffed Lorq’s neck, took his hand again, and went on.
At the top of the hill, a clearing: light seeped beneath the edge of a tent. A group of men joked and drank with a fat woman who had come out for air. Her face and shoulders were wet. Her breasts gleamed before falling under the orange print. She kept twiddling her braid.
“Stay,” whispered Tavo. He pushed his children back.
“Hey, why—“
“We have to stay here,” Lorq translated for Prince who had stepped forward after the miner.
Prince looked around, then came back and stood by Lorq and Ruby.
Joining the men, Tavo intercepted the raffia-covered bottle as it swung from arm to arm. “Hey, Alonza, are the Senhores Von Ray …?” He thumbed toward the tent.
“Sometimes they come up. Sometimes they bring their guests with them,” Alonza said. “Sometimes they like to see—“
“Now,” Tavo said. “Are they here now?”
She took the bottle and nodded.
Tavo turned and beckoned the children.
Lorq, followed by the wary siblings, went to stand beside him. The men went on talking in blurry voices that undercut the shrieks and laughter from the tarpaulin. The night was hot. The bottle went around three more times. Lorq and Ruby got some. And the last time Prince made a face, but drank too.
Finally Tavo pushed Lorq’s shoulder. “Inside.”
Tavo had to duck under the low door. Lorq was the tallest of the children and the top of his head just brushed the canvas.
A lantern hung from the center pole: harsh glare on the roof, harsh light in the shell of an ear, on the rims of nostrils, on the lines of old faces. A head fell back in the crowd, expelling laughter and expletives. A wet mouth glistened as a bottle neck dropped. Loose, sweaty hair. Over the noise, somebody was ringing a bell. Lorq felt excitement tingling in his palms.
People began to crouch. Tavo squatted. Prince and Ruby did too. So did Lorq, but he held on to Tavo’s wet collar.
In the pit, a man in high boots tramped back and forth, motioning the crowd to sit.
On the other side, behind the rail, Lorq suddenly recognized the silver-haired woman. She was leaning on the shoulder of the Senegalese student, Lusuna. Her hair stuck to her forehead like confused and twisted knives. The student had opened his shirt. His vest was gone.
The pitman shook the bell rope again. A piece of down had fallen on his gleaming arm and adhered, even as he waved and shouted at the crowd; now he rapped his brown fist on the tin wall for silence.
Money was wedged between the boards of the rail. The wagers were jammed between the planks. As Lorq looked along the rail, he saw the young couple further down. He was leaning over, trying to point out something to her.
The pitman stamped across the mash of scales and feather. His boots were black to the knees. When the people were nearly quiet, he went to the near side of the pit where Lorq couldn’t see, bent down– A cage door slammed back. With a yell, the pitman vaulted onto the fence and grabbed the center post. The spectators shouted and surged up. Those squatting began to stand. Lorq tried to push forward.
Across the pit, he saw his father rise, streaming face twisted below blond hair; Von Ray shook his fist toward the arena. Mother, hand at her neck, pressed against him. Ambassador Selvin was trying to push between two miners shouting at the rail.
“There’s Aaron!” Ruby exclaimed.
“No!” from Prince.
But now there were so many people standing, Lorq could no longer see anything. Tavo stood up and began to shout for people to sit, till someone passed him a bottle.
Lorq moved left to see; then right when the left was blocked. Unfocused excitement pounded in his chest.
The pitman stood on the railing above the crowd. Jumping, he had struck the lantern with his shoulder so that shadows staggered on the canvas. Leaning against the pole, he frowned at the swaying light, rubbed his bulging arms. Then he noticed the fluff. Carefully he pulled it off, then began to search his matted chest, his shoulders.
The noise exploded at the pit’s edge, halted, then roared. Somebody was waving a vest in the air.
The pitman, finding nothing, leaned against the pole again.
Excited, fascinated, at the same time Lorq was slightly ill with rum and stench. “Come on,” he shouted to Prince, “let’s go up where we can see!”
“I don’t think we ought to,” Ruby said.
“Why not!” Prince took a step forward. But he looked scared.
Lorq barged ahead of him.
Then someone caught him by the arm and he whirled around. “What are you doing out here?” Von Ray, angry and confused, was breathing hard. “Who told you you could bring those children up here!”
Lorq looked around for Tavo. Tavo was not there.
Aaron Red came up behind his father. “I told you we should have left somebody with them. Your baby sitters are so old-fashioned out here. Any clever child could fix it!”
Von Ray turned briskly. “Oh, the children are perfectly all right. But Lorq knows he’s not supposed to go out in the evening by himself!”
“I’ll take them home,” Mother said, coming up. “Don’t be upset, Aaron. They’re all right. I’m terribly sorry, really I am.” She turned to the children. “Whatever possessed you to come out here?”
The miners had gathered to watch.
Ruby began to cry.
“Dear me, now what’s the matter?” Mother looked concerned.
“There’s nothing wrong with her,” Aaron Red said. “She knows what’s going to happen when I get her home. They know when they do wrong.”
Ruby, who hadn’t thought about what was going to happen at all, began to cry in earnest.