Сигрид Нуньес - Salvation City

When she was well enough, Addy had tried but was unable to reach her sister by any means. “I thought the worst, of course. I knew that the flu had hit its peak then in the Midwest.”

The first official information she was able to obtain about the Vinings in Little Leap was partly wrong. “They told me that all three of you had died.” It had not occurred to her that this might be a mistake. “Everyone said you couldn’t trust anything you were told. There was way too much confusion everywhere, accurate records couldn’t possibly be kept, and lots of mistakes were being made. In your case, things were even more complicated, I guess, because the hospital where you were treated had shut down. But since I hadn’t heard anything from you or from anyone else about you, I didn’t even think to question it. It’s like everything played right into these damn liars’ hands.” (Think of all the things that had to happen in order for you to end up here with us.)

It gave Cole a funny feeling to learn that the hospital that had helped him survive had not itself survived the pandemic. He thought about Dr. Hassan and Nurse Asparagus. What had happened to them?

“As soon as the doctor said I could travel, I got myself back to Berlin. It took quite a while, though, before I could function again. I knew I had a responsibility to take care of your mom’s affairs, but I didn’t know where to begin. By then I knew your house had been looted—the computers and the other valuable stuff were taken first, and over time the place had been pretty much picked clean. Your parents were never the most practical people in the world, and they hadn’t exactly done the best planning. I had a copy of your mom’s will but no power of attorney. I didn’t have access to her accounts, let alone to your father’s. I didn’t have any of her passwords. It was all extremely complicated. I had to hire a lawyer, of course, and he said to begin with, we should try to get hold of the death certificates. He was the one who discovered that you’d actually survived. He told me all the financial business was going to take a long time, and I’d have to be patient. But it turned out there was a database with photographs of missing children, state by state, and Cole Vining of Little Leap, Indiana, was on it.”

When Cole saw the photo himself, he would barely recognize that pinched, mournful-looking child, unmistakably about to start crying. He remembered the day it had been taken, by the kindly chubby lady who’d reminded him of his bear, Tickle, and who’d asked him all those questions about religion.

Addy did not believe PW’s story about the mysteriously missing cardboard box. No one she’d talked to at the orphanage had remembered anything about Cole’s things being lost. “And if you believe that box just disappeared,” she said, “you might as well believe in the rapture.”

She took out a cigarette. “I’m sure this is a smoke-free house, but I don’t give a damn.”

Had she always been a smoker? Cole tried to remember but found he could not.

Next to the computer on PW’s desk was a canister filled with pens and pencils. Addy dumped them out so that she could use the canister as an ashtray. At the same time, she noticed the screensaver: an image of the cross against an ocean sunrise, a changing selection of quotes from the New Testament written across the rosy sky. Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved—you and your family (Acts 16:31). Cole watched her recoil again as she had at the rifles.

“Okay,” she said, lighting up. “This whole nightmare is finally over. Here’s the plan.”

The smell of the smoke made his heart race. Ages ago he had stood on the freezing porch of the house in Little Leap, high as a kite off a few puffs of a Marlboro. The memory was so distracting Cole didn’t hear what Addy said next. Then he caught the word passport .

“I’m not sure how long that will take. We’ll stay in Chicago with my friend Lara. You’ll like Lara. We met a few years ago at a translation conference. Lara Trachtman. She translates English and German into Russian.” Addy leaned toward him with an avid expression. “You’re going to love Berlin, Cole. Where, let me just say, what happened to you here would never have been allowed to happen. But compared to Germany, the U.S. might as well be in the Third World, especially if we’re talking about health care. Why did every other advanced country get through the pandemic better than the U.S.? Maybe you don’t feel it so much here in the sticks, but out there people are still really suffering. I guess you know what’s been going on in the big cities.”

He shook his head. No one in Salvation City ever talked about what was going on in the big cities.

“Oh. Well, maybe you don’t want to know. But trust me, it’s a horror show.”

Cole remembered his mother and Addy arguing about New York, Addy insisting New York was finished, his mother insisting it was still the greatest city in the world. He remembered something PW had said, the one time they’d ever talked about Addy. “Seems funny to me, a Jewish person deciding to go live in Germany.” But Addy herself used to say Germany was probably the safest place in the world today for a Jewish person to be.

“And it’s so weird to see everyone here still shaking hands,” she said. “That is so primitive!” Cole figured this meant everyone in Germany did the elbow bump, but it turned out they preferred the Hindu gesture of namaste .

His silence was making her nervous. She paused to look at the collection of framed photographs arranged on PW’s desk. “I’ll say this for him: he’s incredibly good-looking. Here” (pointing to a wedding photo) “he actually looks a lot like Brando.”

Cole wasn’t sure he knew who Brando was.

“And who’s the cute girl whose photos are all over the house?”

“Tracy’s niece.”

“And her name is—?”

He stammered when he said it, and Addy gave him an alert, knowing look. “Do I detect a smidgen of romantic interest, my blushing young man?”

He tried to shrug it off, but, to his confusion, what began as embarrassment flared into rage.

Addy saw her mistake and pretended to ask her next question idly. “What do you suppose those two are doing right now?”

He knew exactly what they were doing. They were praying. But he said nothing, and after a while Addy sighed and said, “Cole, I can see that you’re upset. I think—I guess I didn’t think about all the aspects of the situation. But I see now. You have a life here. These people are your friends.” And when he still did not respond, she snapped her fingers in his face as if to wake him out of hypnosis. “Oh, enough now, Cole. Please. Say something, damn you.”

“Can I have a cigarette?”

“What?”

“Hey, no worries. I was just asking.”

“Very funny. But no. Of course not.”

What a relief it was to laugh. But immediately they both fell somber again. Cole took a deep breath and said, “You don’t have to do this, Addy. Like, really. I appreciate what you’re trying to do for me and all, but you don’t have to take me in.”

“‘Take you in’? Don’t be absurd, Cole. I would’ve turned the world upside down to find you.”

“I know, but—”

“But what?”

“It’s just that, it’s not the right thing.”

“What do you mean?”

“It doesn’t feel right to me.”

“ What doesn’t feel right?”

“Going away.”

“You mean, you think you belong here? With those two? I can’t believe that.”

“Look, it’s not like you think, Addy. They’re not monsters. They just want to bring everyone to Jesus, and they want Jesus to be part of everything they do. And they don’t think you’re the enemy, either. Only the devil is the enemy. They want everyone to be saved. Not just Christians, but Jewish people, and Muslim people, too. They pray for everyone. I’ll bet they’re praying for you right now.”