Read Online The Metropolis by Matthew Gallaway - Free Book Online
Authors: Matthew Gallaway
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bedroom. Even the memory of his voice—nasal and all-knowing—made her skin burn, so that she feignedsickness on many Sundays as the rest of the family got ready to go to mass.
“This is how you thank the good people who brought you this child?” Bérénice whispered to her daughter’s unresponsive back on one such morning.
“Ma, drop it,” Gina whispered back. “I’ll go next week.”
Because she didn’t want to influence Maria negatively, however, Gina didn’t stand in the way when Bea brought Maria to church, sometimes three times a week to make up for Gina’s neglect. Nor could Gina deny that Maria seemed to love it; nothing outside of
La Bohème
made her happier than to sit in a pew transfixed by the agonies of the wasting man nailed to the cross, or to allow her eye to wander between the stained glass and the antiquities that glinted in the filtered sunlight as if placed there by the hand of the Almighty Himself.
At home Maria spent hours leafing through Bérénice’s saint-and-martyr tomes, dreaming of the day when she, too, might be pierced with iron hooks, mauled to death by beasts, or burned at the stake. Bea taught her prayers in Latin, the holiest language of all, dressed her up as a nun—a venial sin in comparison to the indulgences Bea could expect to receive for indoctrinating her precious Maria into the faith—and together they would recite the litany: “Mother, hear me, immersed in woes!
Ave, Mater dolorosa, martyrumque prima rosa, audi vocem supplicis,
” Maria cried, having memorized it.
“
Fac, ut mortis in agone, tua fidens protectione, iusti pacem gaudeam!
” Bérénice responded, as her black eyes beamed out of her wrinkled face with the fervor of salvation, though her command of the English was not so strong: “Only a death and agony we peace for our soul!”
They played this game until they collapsed onto the floor weeping, at which point they would crawl into each other’s arms, overjoyed with the promise of divine redemption. Though the five-year-oldMaria did not yet grasp the literal meaning of these incantations, she understood that, by repeating and memorizing whatever Bea placed in front of her, she was acting, which gave her a certain power over her grandmother, who most assuredly was not.
Gina suspected as much. “Ma, she only likes the costumes,” she protested to Bea. “Why don’t you play house or school with her?”
“What mother ever complained that her daughter prays too much?” Bérénice replied. “Besides, you think I make her to do this?”
“No, but she sees you and—”
“So now we’re ashamed?”
“I just want her to be normal,” Gina said, exasperated. “I don’t think most girls her age are memorizing Latin.”
“So she is not
normale.
” Bérénice shrugged. “
J’aurais dire qu’elle soit extraordinaire! Vraiment, je te jure, ma fille
, what is wrong with this?”
It was not a question that Gina felt comfortable answering, given her fear that there was something abnormal deep inside her, hollow and vast except for those few blissful seconds when she could fill it up with music. Gina wanted Maria to experience this bliss, but without the emptiness from which it seemed to arise.
A FTER M ARIA STARTED kindergarten at St. Anne’s, it quickly became clear that she was anything but normal. Her fellow five-year-olds were less than charmed by her tendency to walk like a penitent and to murmur in Latin, and she could not fade into the background when she was the tallest in her class, with skim-milk blue skin and straight black hair that reminded the other children of spider legs. One of the girls told everyone that Maria’s green eyes were the same color as her cat’s, which confirmed a collective sense that Maria was not quite of them, particularly after she made the mistake of telling them she was adopted.
In second grade she was dubbed Morticia, and everyone said she was from Transylvania and drank blood. Inspired by the
“This is how you thank the good people who brought you this child?” Bérénice whispered to her daughter’s unresponsive back on one such morning.
“Ma, drop it,” Gina whispered back. “I’ll go next week.”
Because she didn’t want to influence Maria negatively, however, Gina didn’t stand in the way when Bea brought Maria to church, sometimes three times a week to make up for Gina’s neglect. Nor could Gina deny that Maria seemed to love it; nothing outside of
La Bohème
made her happier than to sit in a pew transfixed by the agonies of the wasting man nailed to the cross, or to allow her eye to wander between the stained glass and the antiquities that glinted in the filtered sunlight as if placed there by the hand of the Almighty Himself.
At home Maria spent hours leafing through Bérénice’s saint-and-martyr tomes, dreaming of the day when she, too, might be pierced with iron hooks, mauled to death by beasts, or burned at the stake. Bea taught her prayers in Latin, the holiest language of all, dressed her up as a nun—a venial sin in comparison to the indulgences Bea could expect to receive for indoctrinating her precious Maria into the faith—and together they would recite the litany: “Mother, hear me, immersed in woes!
Ave, Mater dolorosa, martyrumque prima rosa, audi vocem supplicis,
” Maria cried, having memorized it.
“
Fac, ut mortis in agone, tua fidens protectione, iusti pacem gaudeam!
” Bérénice responded, as her black eyes beamed out of her wrinkled face with the fervor of salvation, though her command of the English was not so strong: “Only a death and agony we peace for our soul!”
They played this game until they collapsed onto the floor weeping, at which point they would crawl into each other’s arms, overjoyed with the promise of divine redemption. Though the five-year-oldMaria did not yet grasp the literal meaning of these incantations, she understood that, by repeating and memorizing whatever Bea placed in front of her, she was acting, which gave her a certain power over her grandmother, who most assuredly was not.
Gina suspected as much. “Ma, she only likes the costumes,” she protested to Bea. “Why don’t you play house or school with her?”
“What mother ever complained that her daughter prays too much?” Bérénice replied. “Besides, you think I make her to do this?”
“No, but she sees you and—”
“So now we’re ashamed?”
“I just want her to be normal,” Gina said, exasperated. “I don’t think most girls her age are memorizing Latin.”
“So she is not
normale.
” Bérénice shrugged. “
J’aurais dire qu’elle soit extraordinaire! Vraiment, je te jure, ma fille
, what is wrong with this?”
It was not a question that Gina felt comfortable answering, given her fear that there was something abnormal deep inside her, hollow and vast except for those few blissful seconds when she could fill it up with music. Gina wanted Maria to experience this bliss, but without the emptiness from which it seemed to arise.
A FTER M ARIA STARTED kindergarten at St. Anne’s, it quickly became clear that she was anything but normal. Her fellow five-year-olds were less than charmed by her tendency to walk like a penitent and to murmur in Latin, and she could not fade into the background when she was the tallest in her class, with skim-milk blue skin and straight black hair that reminded the other children of spider legs. One of the girls told everyone that Maria’s green eyes were the same color as her cat’s, which confirmed a collective sense that Maria was not quite of them, particularly after she made the mistake of telling them she was adopted.
In second grade she was dubbed Morticia, and everyone said she was from Transylvania and drank blood. Inspired by the
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