Pasha Malla - People Park

Raven paused beside Loopy and her sculpture. A raven? he asked. She curtsied. He patted her beret in approval, then was on the move again: Friends, tomorrow night all I can offer is an uncovering. Each of my illustrations is only that, merely scratching at a frosted window to reveal the hidden wonders on the other side. But with a shift in light, every window can become what? A mirror. He smiled, snatched a napkin off a nearby table — its owner, the Institute’s oft-cuckolded provost, yelped — and held it up. Madam — sorry, sir , if you’ll allow me. Please, all of you, follow along with your own serviettes.

Everyone in the ballroom folded their napkins as they were shown: once in half, once diagonally, doubled over, pinched in, and tucked. Choking down the fish bladder, the Mayor swept up her napkin and endeavoured to catch up. Nearby, Griggs, Wagstaffe, Magurk, Noodles, and Favours’ Recruit were doing a bangup job, while with each step the Mayor’s creation looked less like Raven’s, like theirs, like anyone’s or anything.

The illustrationist said, Now we have envelopes. And what do you think might be inside this envelope? Perhaps we should open it to see.

Around the dining hall, the packages were unfolded — the Mayor’s collapsed — and murmurs rippled around the room. At the neighbouring table, Wagstaffe displayed his creation: seared into the fabric was the Silver Personality’s self portrait. And so it was with everyone, hundreds of effigies of the attendees’ own faces, rendered in striking realism. The Mayor’s own napkin bore only a brown smear — hideous, possibly fecal.

See? the illustrationist laughed. Now you see. Just a simple illustration.

The Mayor launched to her feet, clapping. Wonderful, wonderful. On behalf of us all, thanks a bundle for the trick. But now let’s eat, you’re our guest, not our entertainer. And we’re here to celebrate the park, after all, twenty-five years of People Park, let’s not forget. It’s the Silver Jubilee — she sensed hysteria mounting in her voice, paused, breathed. Please, sir, relax, enjoy the IFC’s fine cuisine. A round of applause for our guest!

Hands tapped.

The main course arrived: squab with toasted almonds atop the requisite IFC flat, steamed sparrowgrass on the side. Raven slouched in his chair, draped his napkin over his face, appeared to nap. Though the Mayor’s meal tasted weirdly bilious, she ate every bite, sawing the sour grey meat into little cubes that she chewed to oblivion and swallowed, until all that remained were bones, a rubbery dimpled flap of skin.

The dessert carts began to circle the room. Raven peeked out, snatched the napkin from his face, leapt to his feet, snapped three times, and screamed, Who wants to see, before we retire, one final illustration?

Hooting. Feet stamped, laps were drummed. An apple flat was held aloft in salute.

Raven slid behind the Mayor, took her napkin, and placed his hands, as heavy and hot as fire-baked stones, on her shoulders. She squirmed, he squeezed. From his fingers heat entered and spread through her body, along her arms into her fingertips, through her torso down to her feet. Her face tingled, relaxed. Raven released her, turned to a passing dessert cart, said, May I? to the young woman wheeling it, swept all the flats into the white cloth, shook the bundle, and opened it: empty.

Wild applause.

Please, Mrs. Mayor. Please, if you could just lie upon this cart.

The crowd cheered: Mayor, Mayor, Mayor!

Summoned with a curling brown finger, as a patient called to a surgeon’s table the Mayor lay down on the dessert cart, her legs hung off at the knee. She felt nothing beyond distant, dreamy worry, almost a memory of the emotion even as it occurred. The illustrationist draped the sheet over her midsection. In his hand materialized a whip with a grip of two knotted snakes.

Cutting a woman in half, intoned the illustrationist, is delicate business. It is most important to ensure that she remains — Raven fingered the whip — alive at both ends.

He tossed her napkin up and snapped the whip: the fabric fluttered in two halves to the floor. The brown stain had vanished. Wagstaffe yelled, Huzzah!

All this seemed vague, the room shimmered, the Mayor felt herself not quite falling asleep — but fading . She was only hazily aware of the illustrationist looming over her, grinning, eyes like two black slots.

I hope you can forgive me, he whispered, for what I am about to do.

The crowd waited.

The illustrationist stroked her midsection with the whip, lazy and serpentine. He closed his eyes. Once, twice, three times he stroked the Mayor’s body with the whip. Then, with drama, he cocked it behind his head. It has been said by one of my predecessors, said Raven, that one receives just desserts in accordance with one’s beliefs. His eyes opened — in them the Mayor saw herself, reflected — and he screamed, So be it! and the whip swooshed through the air.

There was a moment of silence and stillness, as if everyone in the dining hall had inhaled at once. This was broken by a clumsy, clumping noise, like a piece of furniture knocked over. A gasp resounded around the room.

And then silence.

The Mayor felt a surge of satisfaction: the trick had failed!

But they were applauding now, a few scant claps that swelled quickly into a standing ovation. People roared and shrieked. Someone smashed a glass. Favours cackled. Noodles nodded. Magurk whispered, Holy fug, look at that. Wagstaffe fell to his knees, tears in his eyes. Even Griggs’ waxen face seemed to have come alive with delight.

You see? laughed Raven, nudging the cart forward.

The Mayor looked down.

By its wheels, her legs lay in a heap on the floor.

ROM WITHIN THE HOOD of his sweatshirt Calum watched his mother’s back, or the bones of it beneath her dress, the coathanger of her shoulderblades over which the dress draped, through its thin fabric her ribs and spine. Eyes on the little TV propped on the kitchen counter, Cora stirred the pot of corn-in-a-can with a mix of tenderness and fatigue, slowly, round and round.

Calum turned his attention to the empty plate before him, pressed down on the tines of his fork and angled the handle upward. Across the table, in a matching sweatshirt, his little brother Rupe began to do the same thing.

Calum snatched Rupe’s fork, a flare of pain shot down his cheek. He touched the tender, puffy skin around his left eye, wondered if something was broken, if you could break your face.

Rupe watched him carefully.

Be nice to each other, said their mother. It’s so rare we’re together, be nice, please.

Yeah, Calum, said Rupe.

In a careful voice Cora said, How’s Edie?

Calum folded the fork around his wrist, admired his new jewellery.

Cal? I said: How’s Edie?

No idea.

His mother stirred the sauce. On the TV, Isa Lanyess, so classically, equinely handsome, with her cheekbony grin and thick batting lashes, counted down the week’s most popular Faces. At number three, she said, what do you know? It’s me, Isa Lanyess, In the Know . And then she threw to a clip of herself that morning, hair whipping around her face as Raven’s helicopter descended into the common.

She’s up two spots from last week, said Cora.

Calum imagined a punch landed between his mother’s kidneys, the wet paper crumple of that pitiful body around his fist.

So, Cal, are you going to the Room after dinner?

Her voice was the faint whimper of mice in the wall.

Cal?

Yeah, he said. But talking hurt, his eyes watered, he blinked away the tears.