CHAPTER EIGHTEEN:
Cor Lee
"Long ago, there was a fire. It burned from the apartment upstairs, starting in the kitchen and incinerating the wall via its electrical wires. There were two women sleeping in the apartment below, their personal assistant – a man by the name of Marton – also, and in a bedroom shared with his two guard dogs was their son – a young boy called Ancora. As the house caught fire above, its residents panicked and fled the building in several different ways: one leapt from the balcony – a ten foot drop to uneven pavement below – and shattered his knees on impact; another kicked through the back door, located in the kitchen, and rolled down two flights of wooden steps to the safety of the enclosed garden in the back of their property; a third froze on first sight of the wall of flames in the kitchen, and then promptly pulled down the hidden stairway that led to their attic, climbed into that sauna and pulled the stairs up after him. The second escapee came to his senses and ran around to the front of the building, climbed the three entry steps and busted down the door, screaming 'FIRE! GET OUT!'
"Chaos followed as the two women rushed to dress themselves, grabbed a few of their possessions and hurried toward the front door. Had the dogs not woken up and begun barking, Ancora and Marton might not have made it out, but the Fates were with them and the dogs, in their alarm, pulled both the man and the boy to safety across the street. Ancora wore only his pajamas and had managed to grab only his identification card on his way out. Marton was almost fully dressed lacking only a shirt. The four downstairs residents huddled across the street from their building with the two frightened dogs – being cared for by Ancora – and the second escapee who was trying to support his fellow housemate. Moments before it happened, the two escaped residents from the second floor wondered where their third housemate was until a massive fireball shot through the skull of the building: against the fiery background, the silhouette of a huddled figure appeared for a count of less than five seconds. Flames engulfed him without a natural human utterance. Three hours later, after a small bucket brigade formed of neighbors and local persons, the fire died. It had charred the upstairs rooms, incinerated the attic and all that was hidden up there, and it had begun to eat away at the ceiling of the ground level rooms before being put out. There was nothing left to salvage from the disaster. Marton secured a single room rental for the six survivors, and as an icy dawn broke on the Capitol, all six found themselves huddled for warmth in the center of a cheerless, abandoned tenement in a part of the capital city that had been either forgotten or passed over. Years prior to the fire, the Capitol had endeavored to rejuvenate its splendid city by refurbishing, remodeling and rebuilding large sections that had been disturbed by the Rebellion and had endured the depression of the Dark Days. This section of the city had been left to crumble.
"What is the point of telling a story in ancient history?" I laced my fingers and set them in my lap, avoiding Demetrius' emotionless glare. "I don't know," I conceded, feeling a little foolish. "I felt compelled to share my own death with someone." I meant to say, With someone who knows a lot about death, but since I had already apologized for my rude behavior minutes before launching into a story from my past, I thought such a statement might come off as tongue-in-cheek or back-handed. I made myself look up at Demetrius Pavarol, and I was surprised to find that he bore sympathy in his gaze.
"Your death?" he asked. I nodded.
"My death. After that moment, Ancora began to change into a completely different person. All that's left of that boy is half his name," I replied. Demetrius worked it out in response. "Anyway, what's past is past."
"Did I hear you correctly in saying that you have two moms?" Demetrius asked. I nodded, smirking. "Oh," he said before gulping air like a fish in water. I figured he'd get to whatever it was he was trying to say. He did, finally. "What was that like?" I shrugged.
"Marton was sort of a surrogate dad, insofar as he was another man around and he was older than me. But it didn't really matter after the fire: two months later we found a new place to live but never had enough money to pay Marton to say. He negotiated other forms of payment – most of which I was ignorant to – and two years after that, I moved away after both my dogs died," I look down into the dregs at the bottom of my teacup. "It was kind of sudden, them both dying."
"So, McKay, Flaxie's death brings all this up for you," Demetrius guessed. "I mean, I'm trying to make connections here."
"Yeah," I said a small bit peeved by his business-like tone and his clinical precision in getting to some deeply submerged point to the conversation.
"What were your dogs' names?" Demetrius manages a softer tone. I understand that he understands subtleties.
"Anto and Eopa," I say. Demetrius breaks into a grin.
"Sounds familiar," he says and finishes his cup of coffee. "I have to go back to work. Are you okay?" I nod, feeling foolish again.
"Go. Thanks for listening." He nods and doesn't look back. I decide not to watch the rest of the Hunger Games today. Actually, my mind isn't made up about how much or little I want to watch. To a certain extent, I'm supposed to watch because I'm a sponsor, but it comes to me now that these are hopeless roles to play. Some sponsors treat this like a sport where they try their best to win but if they don't they wave off their failures with the notion that they'll try harder next year.
The café where I'm sitting is inside but surrounded by windows from the floor to the ceiling. It's designed to sit over the lake, at the heart of the Capitol, so it feels like we're not on land at all when we're sitting inside it. The lake water is constantly moving, and it conjures a sense of meditation amidst the constant motion in the streets, shops, store fronts, banquet halls, concert venues, the Circus, the President's Mansion, the game rooms, casinos, and so on and so on. When I look out across the waters, the only reminder that I am in the Capitol is the bright coloring of those apartments and villas that were remodeled so long ago: their unnatural hues dance on the moving water's surface. I break from my trance and signal for the server – a busty woman who looks like she's in her early 20s and sports half a head of cotton candy pink, the opposing half being colored a silvery white – receive the bill from her and place three gold and copper coins of varying sizes into the palm of her heavily manicured hand. She tries a smile but I beat her to it, dismissively. I leave briskly amid the sounds of the Hunger Games, as televised everywhere.
The Capitol is spectacular, if you remove its people from its streets and walkways. Surrounded by majestic grey and blue mountains, snow-capped for ten months of the year, its periboli tell the history of the city since its construction and expansion. The periboli are the divisions of the city, and they differ architecturally and socially; each of the fourteen periboli maintain the social strata of this tiny district. My peribolus, peribolus alban (the White Precinct) curves around the foot of the mountains in the southeastern-most corner of the Capitol. Most of its four-storey apartment buildings are in bad repair, though their red clay tiled roofs are still a reason for some adventurous Capitol folk to venture down its empty streets. I remember how lively it was before the fire, when my neighbors and I would run up and down the twisting, ankle-breaking alleys playing games of hide-and-seek and the ever-popular kill the carrier (a "harmless" kid's game in which a pair of carriers were given a treasure to defend, and they had to evade capture while sneaking across the line into enemy territory and return. If a carrier was captured, his or her treasure would be taken and he or she would be "killed"… taken out of commission… while his or her team fought the other team to regain their treasure and "kill" their carrier. Essentially, the game had no ending as carriers who were "dead" could only be revived after their treasure was recaptured. Three "kills" rendered the carrier "dead without resurrection" and a new carrier had to be selected). I remember ground-level shops of many different kinds: patisseries, coffee shops, tea rooms, joke shops, confectionaries, and once there was a chocolaterie, which sold cups of hot chocolate mixed with a special spice that made you feel warm and spicy at the same time (great for the cold months). I remember the fire that swept through our peribolus and the two neighboring periboli. When I look at my life retrospectively, fire has been the major transition for me every time. Our periboli garnered "untouchable" status after the first fire. After the second, the one that left me homeless for two months, Capitol folk deemed the southeastern corner of the city the "Inferno". I suppose that makes me a demon, escaped from Hell and circuiting the civilized city.
I follow the curve of the lake (peribolus avon… the Water Precinct) and wander to the elbow of the Tiberii Delta, where the sole river in the Capitol – the River Tiverus – wends away from the lake and cuts a sinuous path past the Theatre Tiberi (an awesome amphitheater in the upper stretches of the city center) and empties into Victoria's Fountain, a small pond filled with slow-moving water and lined with dreamy willow trees. From Victoria's Fountain, it is a short five block walk to the banquet hall, President Snow's massive mansion and, of course, the Circus… more properly called the Avenue of the Tributes. Rumor has it that President Snow dislikes the term "the Circus" because it conjures images of ancient brutality from a civilization a few millennia ago… a civilization preserved through traditional Capitol naming rituals. Whatever… if the Capitol doesn't want to be associated with that civilization, perhaps President Snow should steer it in a direction that is less celebratory of "gratuitous" violence… more properly called the Hunger Games.
I stop at the elbow of the Tiberii Delta and look out across the lake from here. Across the river and along the coast of the lake – heading toward the dam in the southwestern-most peribolus of the city – is the only swimmable body of water: it is also the place where I took Atoka after the opening of the Games. From here, the breakwater barrier looks like a walkway across the lake, constructed hastily by shoving together large rocks and throwing down flat stone slabs on top. I lean on the railing and take in this ridiculous city of contradictions. Old architecture clashes with the new, water and land cut into accidental soil filling this elusive crater between the mountains, and more electric light than necessary competes with the natural sunlight above. I sense that I am merging with the contradictions of this city wherein I became a man, by fire; and also now, when I believe I am alone and yet I feel the presence of another coming close. She touches my shoulder.
"The whole Capitol is in an uproar," Atoka's soft voice says behind me. I turn and secure her in my vision. She's wearing a silvery dress that lifts and falls on the breeze off the lake. Beneath it is a silver-white gown with an empire waist, fastened by a rich purple cord just beneath her breasts. The sleeves are short. Her smile lingers not. "Ask me why," she says, taking a place beside me and looking toward the breakwater barrier.
"Why?" I ask, to appease her and to break the silence between us.
"District 4 is fighting with District 2 at the Cornucopia," she says, her tone void of any excitement or interest. "And Seeder's just been killed by District 8." My heart drops.
"Seeder McKay," I stammer. "He's yours?" She nods.
"Two in one day," she says to voice what we're both thinking. I put a conciliatory hand on her shoulder and find that she doesn't pull away. "It wouldn't have mattered if you had sponsored them," she says after two minutes. "They had mediocre scores in training and they're just from District 10, so no one really cares about them."
"I don't think that's true," I try, but I'm not convinced I believe it myself. "If they'd made it through today, I think that the Capitol would have felt compelled to cheer for them for making it so long."
"You're right," she concedes. "And that's why it was District 8 who had to finish his competition. He needs the sympathy of the Capitol folk." She looks at me, searching my eyes for something to hold onto; something to claw out.
"I don't even know District 8's name," I say.
"Gusset." I nod but she doesn't see because she's already turned her back to me again. I drop my hand from her shoulder and she surprises me by grabbing it in her own, lacing her fingers between mine. It's the sudden intimacy that stuns me. I don't know what to say or do so I watch the long shadows crawl across the rock face of the mountains across the city. The day is waning. "Ask me how it happened," she commands me.
"How did it happen?" I say. She strokes my hand with her thumb, slowly.
"Gusset knotted a length of rope he'd found in one of the buildings and stuck broken fragments of brick between the knots. Then, he snuck up on Seeder and flagellated him to death. It was slow, it looked agonizing and it looked like Seeder chose to die." She stops stroking my hand. "I want to die." I take her into my arms without knowing why other than it is an instinctual act. She accepts the embrace, burying her head into my chest and squeezing me tight. I kiss the top of her head and hold her close, trying to convey that she is still safe with me. "I can't go back to District 10 and face another set of parents who hate me because I couldn't save their children."
"I'm not going to hurt you," I say softly. "Stay." She sighs.
"You know I can't. I'm not a Capitol resident, and you are."
"That's true," I say. "But being a Capitol resident has its perks. I can leave my District and visit yours." She looks up at me.
"Don't say that," she scolds.
"Why?"
"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"What?" I'm taken off guard by her comment. "What do you mean?"
She buries her face into my chest again and sighs, keeping like that for a few minutes. Then she balls her fists and punches my chest, breaking away from me and putting distance between us. "Never mind," she sighs, walking slowly away toward the Riverwalk. The long shadows have merged into a gradually falling dark. The lights of Nvohg Café and several other neon cafés flicker on across the river and old lampposts dotting the side of the Riverwalk are climbed and lit by lamplighter boys, giving the walkway a special twilight romance. I double step it to catch up with Atoka as she sets on the Riverwalk proper.
"What promises can't I keep?" I ask when I've caught up with her. A thought is growing in my mind but I don't understand it or why it's even there, or where it came from – though it feels like that place where I bury all the things that have ever happened to me – and I hold that thought in wait for her reply.
"Will you come to the Ranches and visit me if it turns out that I have to leave tonight?" I nod and upset something in my chest… fluttering; it feels foolish. "Honestly?" she demands. I nod twice. She stops, heaves an enormous sigh and then puts her arm around my waist. "Put your arm around me, Cor," she says quietly. I put an arm around her shoulder. She promenades with me like that, side by side strolling arm in arm. In the shadow of the Theater Tiberi, she leaves the path and pulls me with her toward the foyer of the building. It is built of even rows of highly decorative arches, their pillars rich and sleek, marble or highly polished stone. To our left are the doors leading into the narthex of the theater wherein tickets are purchased on one side and a small chic wine bar offers the best vintages. She tries one of the doors and finds it is open, though no performances are running during the Hunger Games (what other entertainment do you need?), so she pulls it open and slips into the dark room. I follow, letting the heavy door close behind me. We grope around in the gloom until she finds the door into the theater and pulls it open with some effort. Moonlight slips into the narthex through the opened door, and in its beams she becomes a silhouette. I hold my breath, taking her in. Even as a shadow, she is lovely and elegant (if rough around the edges). "Come on," she beckons, whispering. I listen, captured.
Ghostly pale seats rise in terraced rows before and around us as we step into the main gallery of the theater. Atoka leaves me and rushes to the stage, bounding up its four steps. The waning moon is her spotlight, and I am her audience enchanted and entranced as she lifts her arms gracefully and glides across the stage like some ethereal creature – an angel, perhaps. "All Victors need to develop a talent," she says, breathlessly. "Mine was learning to dance." So she dances. At last the music stops playing in her head and she comes to a stop, lowering her arms to rest around my neck. I've been drawn in to her performance, moving as she moves. I lift her up and off the stage, letting her down slowly, gently. As her feet land on the ground, she pulls me against her and kisses me. I shudder, closing my eyes and chasing away the images that plague me, and when I open them again, she's still there, in my arms. I lean in and return her kiss, locking her in my embrace, falling, falling and falling more. I steady myself and follow her lead as she runs her hands up and down my back, pressing her body against mine and breathing softly into my ear. I feel the full strength of her danger, now: it is her power to strip me of my defenses and leave me vulnerable and victim to her desires.
When morning comes, I am alone.