Timothy Hallinan - A Nail Through the Heart

"Well," Rose says, bewildered, the shoes dangling from her fingertips. "In that case-" She starts toward the kitchen, toward the trash.

"Wait." Miaow pushes herself away from Rafferty and goes to Rose, her back straight and her shoulders high. The long braid perfectly bisects her back, as though she has willed it into order. She extends a hand, and after a moment Rose gives her the shoes. Miaow goes to the open door and puts the shoes just outside, touching the edge of the mat. She turns to Rafferty, her face soft and unguarded.

"In case he changes his mind," she says. She closes the door.

This will do until we go to the temple tomorrow," Rose says, on her knees on the carpet. One by one the items come out of the bag. Sixteen small candles, just clear glass cups about two inches high, into which white paraffin has been poured. Six sticks of incense and six burners. Rose lights four of the sticks, rises, and places them in the corners of the room. Then she places two more, one on either side of the door.

A clear plastic bag full of water, secured by a rubber band. A new bowl, shallow and white except for a lotus painted in very pale green on the bottom. A small ceramic figure of the seated Buddha.

Miaow is asleep, or at least in her room. Rafferty doubts she will sleep well tonight. Wondering about the boy.

"What will we do until tomorrow, Rose?"

"Ssssssshhhhhhh." Seated again, she dips a hand into her bag and comes up with a lighter, which she uses to light two of the candles. The light they emit is different from the electric light in the room, calmer and warmer.

"Open the door," Rose says.

Rafferty says, "The door."

"There has to be a place," Rose says, "for her to go."

"Right," Rafferty says. "A place for her to go." He gets up and opens the door to the relative dimness of the hallway.

"You don't want her here," Rose says, lighting two more candles. "Believe me."

"Not to look a gift horse in the mouth or anything, but is this why you came back tonight?"

"Of course it is." She lights two more candles. "Well, it's one reason. Turn off the lights. No, wait." She gets up, bowl in hand, studying the carpet, then stoops to pull aside the throw rug from the kitchen. "Here," she says. Even from the door, Rafferty can see the scrubbed spot where he tried to wash the last of Madame Wing from his life.

Rose kneels slowly and places the bowl in the center of the spot. "Now," she says. "The lights."

Rafferty hits the switch. The candles make pools of light on the carpet and glow softly on Rose's skin.

"Take two of the candles and put them by the door," Rose says. "One on each side." She lights two more and puts them on either side of the scrubbed spot on the carpet, about eighteen inches apart. Rafferty does what he is told, and Rose places two more lighted candles about a foot closer to the door, slightly farther apart than the ones that define the spot.

"In my village," she says, placing two more candles another foot closer to the door, "every New Year we cleaned the houses." She lights two more candles and puts them still nearer the door, a bit farther apart. "We shook out the carpets and washed the walls and swept the street."

"Starting the New Year clean," Rafferty says.

She places two more candles, then makes a small adjustment in the two she had put down last. Rafferty can't see any difference, but she cocks her head to one side and studies it, then leaves it alone. "At the end of the day, we lit candles in paper bags and put them along the street and then off across the fields to the forest."

"And the point was…?"

"It was a path," she says. All the candles are in place now, illuminating a strip of carpet that begins at the wet spot and gradually widens to the door. "Come here," she says. She sits on one side of the wet spot and slips a fingernail beneath the rubber band that seals the bag of water. Intent on the task, which she is doing slowly and very deliberately, she lifts her head a fraction of an inch to indicate the place on the opposite side of the spot. "Sit."

He sits. He can feel the flesh on his legs shrink away from the dampness beneath his knees.

She has worked the rubber band free of the bag now, holding it carefully by the open end so not a drop of water spills out. She lifts her face to his. He can see the tears standing in her eyes.

"We couldn't leave you alone with her," she says. "Miaow and I. We both love you. And we know you. We know you'll just go on stepping over this spot. Waiting for it to dry. And it will never dry. And you won't know she's here."

He wants to say that she's not here, but all he can really hear is, We both love you. He nods his head, uncertain of his voice.

"Tell her you're sorry," Rose says.

For a long moment, a moment subdivided by the flickering of the candles, Rafferty isn't sure he can say it. Then he whispers, "I'm sorry."

Rose's eyes never leave his. "Tell her you don't blame her for the karma that trapped her, that made her do such terrible things. Tell her you know she had light inside her. Tell her you wish her spirit well."

Rafferty gets through it somehow. When he says he knows she had light inside her, he realizes he is crying.

"Put out your hands," Rose says. "Over the bowl."

He does as he's told, palms up, and she slowly pours the water over them. She puts down the empty bag, picks up the small Buddha, and holds it over her heart. She closes her eyes. "Now tell her she's free."

In the hallway outside, Mrs. Pongsiri steps from the elevator and pauses at the open doors. She sees the shoes beside the door, the path of light, the two people kneeling at the end of it, the water being poured. Then the man, her neighbor Mr. Rafferty, says something, and at the same time the candles flicker as though a window has been opened, and something cold blows against-no, through-Mrs. Pongsiri. She takes a step back, feeling the skin pucker on her arms.

At the end of the path of light, the man and the woman bend toward each other until their foreheads touch. Their eyes are closed.