Nicola Griffith - Slow River

I waited outside the conservatory in Pearson Park. It was eleven in the morning. I had not slept at all. My face, drawn and gray as the clouds scudding overhead, was reflected in wavy lines by the slightly flawed glass. Magyar, when she finally arrived, did not look much better.

It was warm in the conservatory, bright with bird noise. We were the only people there.

“She must know as much about rival business families as she knows about the van de Oest operation,” I told Magyar. “Information is power.” Something Greta had learned from Katerine early on, no doubt. “And Greta would need to feel powerful.” Poor Greta, who always looked as though she was expecting something or someone to swoop upon her from around the corner.

“You have to go to your family and tell them this.”

I stared at a mynah bird, grooming its wing. Purple highlights reflected from the black feathers. “No.”

“Yes. Greta has to be stopped.”

“She knew,” I said, “all that time ago.” The bird’s beak was very orange. “She helped me.”

“All she did was give you a lock!” Magyar, I realized, was protective of that seven-year-old child who had not been able to look after herself. I loved her for it.

“But the lock stopped it. Greta stopped it.”

“She didn’t help Stella.”

The bird looked at me, cocking its head this way, then that. “Maybe she thought, I don’t know, that Katerine was unstoppable. If it happened to her early enough, and often enough-

“Who knows what she thought? Who cares! You were hurt! She had you kidnapped, humiliated!”

The bird, disturbed by the noise, flew up to the roof of its aviary. Greta had given me the lock that had saved me. “Maybe she didn’t know I was the one they’d take, maybe…” Of course she would have known. But they weren’t supposed to try and kill me. What had gone wrong?

“And what about poor Lucas Chen?” I said nothing. “Lore.” She took me by both arms, above the elbow, tight. “Stop looking at the birds. Listen to yourself. Just listen. You’re making excuses for her. Abuse is never an excuse for tormenting others. Especially a sister. She has to be stopped. You have to talk to your family.”

“I can’t.”

Magyar let go of my arms, laid her hand along my cheek. “Lore, love, you can’t hide forever.”

Why not? The mynah bird was flying this way and that, trying to And a way out. “I can’t go back. They’re too strong.” Katerine’s Lore, Oster’s Lore… They would break me to pieces again. “I’ll be the youngest again, the baby, the pawn…” I trailed off. She was looking at me oddly.

“It wouldn’t be the same,” she said gently. “It couldn’t. Katerine would go to jail. Greta would go to jail.”

I stared at her. They were my family.

“Lore, you’ve had your life stolen away. You have a scar more than a foot long on your back. You think you killed someone—you suffered night after night of believing you took away a man’s life. Lucas Chen is probably scared for his life, right now. Stella is dead. You can’t go back.”

It was a terrible litany. “No,” I said, and I didn’t know whether I meant No, I can’t go back or No, you’re wrong. I didn’t want to go back, but knowing that it was not there to return to was terrifying.

“Tok. I could call Tok.” And then it would all be over. I could get rid of the false PIDA, get rid of poor, dead Sal Bird, let her finally rest in peace. I could reclaim my identity. Be Lore again. No more hiding, no more lying; no more dealing with Spanner except to buy her a drink if she hit hard times. Move away from the tiny flat, the cramped bathroom where I banged my head every morning “What would happen to us?”

“What would you want to happen?”

“I wouldn’t see you every day at the plant. I’d be living…” I floundered.

“Where? Where would you be living that I couldn’t see you if I wanted, or you couldn’t see me?”

I had been about to say Ratnapida. But I could never live there again.

“Getting yourself back doesn’t mean going back to everything the way it was. Or would you want to leave me behind like your tired old identity?”

“No.”

“Then what? You think I won’t be able to cope with the change? You think that just because I was brought up poor I wouldn’t be able to adjust? No? Good. Because I can. I always knew you weren’t who you said you were. At least now I know who you are. It might take me a while, and there might be some bumpy times, but I can adapt. Don’t throw me away.”

She was looking at me. Her eyes were steady. I could see things reflected in them, too small to make out. The reflections seemed to be changing shape. Her eyes were wet.

I held out my arms. She stepped into them. To my surprise, she was an inch or two shorter than me. We stepped back half a pace. I kissed her. She blinked and tears spilled. I kissed her again. Then she held me. We stood like that a long time, my face hidden against her shoulder, while the world changed, while the sodden weight of the last few years evaporated from my head, my shoulders, my calves, until my arms felt light enough to rise into the air of their own accord, as in those childhood games where a friend pins them to your side and you struggle to lift them, then the friend releases you, and the muscles remember the struggle, and the arms move away from your ribs as though floating on a tidal swell.

“Look at me,” I said. “I am Frances Lorien van de Oest. I have a job. I have a place of my own. I have friends.” I knew who I was. Lore. And when I forgot or became confused, Magyar would know. “I have a future.”

Magyar squeezed me tight, and released me. She wiped at her face, then grinned. “You also have lots of money.”

The mynah bird screamed at us, but from close by, like a mother scolding her children.

We walked around the pond. I was hungry but I didn’t want to leave the park. I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone who wasn’t Magyar. And there were too many decisions to make.

“You’re sure that nothing’s turned up on that body search?”

“Sure. I checked again before I left to meet you.”

“The records might be being withheld. Because my family’s involved.”

“Who would know?”

“Greta.” But she had given me a lock. We walked in silence, feet hitting the pavement at the same time, hips moving together. “I’ll go ahead anyway. Even without knowing. I can’t hide forever. I’ll call Tok first, and then my father. He could probably find out if the police are holding anything back.”

“Do you want to tell him everything?”

“I don’t want to hide anymore.”

“Privacy isn’t always the same as hiding.”

“I think it will be hard for me to tell the difference for a while.” We stepped over the gnarled roots that twisted over the pavement. It was the second time we had passed the tree. “Once I’m fairly sure I won’t be arrested for anything, I’ll reclaim my identity.”

“How long will that take?”

“I don’t know. Depends if I’ve been declared legally dead.” I could have been dead. Because of Greta. Crablegs had tried to kill me with that nasal spray. I could have been a skeleton at the bottom of the river, along with all the tens of thousands who had died here since humankind had been able to swing a rock. But I knew Oster wouldn’t have had me declared dead. He wouldn’t want the publicity. “When Oster is here, when I’m sitting across from him, face-to-face, when I can smell him, see the wrinkles in his shirt, I’ll tell him about his wife, and Greta. I’ll give him time to get used to it before I go to the police.”

“Not too much time.”

“There’s Chen, I know.”