The Devil We Know

The thick curtains were drawn against the afternoon sun so that the room on the third floor of the Santa Dympna Hotel felt set in night. A thin thread of light beneath the front door was all that penetrated the darkness. The stagnant air hung heavy in the room making the distant murmur of the city viscous, as if it were passing through molasses before reaching Bernard’s ears.

And so he waited, seated on the edge of the threadbare skeleton of a bed, metal springs exposing themselves through the fabric. Bernard’s sweat-soaked cotton button-down clung stubbornly to his chest, and his hands shook as he tugged at the opening of his shirt. The radiator hissed and clicked and whined, scolding Bernard and punishing him with its overpowering heat.

The darkness will help, he thought, to calm his nerves. And for a moment, it had. The stillness of the black had washed over him like a cold tide on a hot summer’s day. But the events of the preceding weeks came rushing back, each time sending him into a state of renewed fear and anxiety.

Time to go.

Bernard had bought an antique European flop when he arrived in the city, a compact two-door hatchback in sky blue, like a rusted homage to the Argentinian flag. Cheap and inconspicuous. The car was parked in an alley behind the Santa Dympna and, with only a leather-bound suitcase that now held the entirety of his worldly possessions, Bernard took off, navigating through the narrow, cobblestoned roadways. Though the winter air outside was frigid, a healthy pulse ran through the twisting veins of Salta’s colonial-era streets. By the time he made it out of the city limits, the sky had darkened and Salta had devolved into a rocky desert wasteland. The mostly silent drive was broken up at random intervals by howling winds that rattled Bernard’s tin box of a car, both his hands clutched on the metal steering wheel at each gust.

And then for long awhile, it was still, and the dreamlike landscape, awash with the same crags and cacti and coarse sand, sent Bernard drifting into a timeless vortex. The exhaustion from his lack of sleep was finally catching up with him, and the dull hum of the wheels against the semi-paved desert roads left him in a trance. Several hours (two? five?) drifted by when a dust-like snow began to fall. Bernard squinted in disbelief, unsure if he had fallen asleep and was now dreaming. Though it was cold, and though it was winter, the snow appeared paradoxical against the arid backdrop. Soon, it was coming down in sheets. Visibility dropped to zero as Bernard turned on the windshield wipers, which groaned, useless as they swiped across the glass. But just as suddenly as the snowfall began, it stopped, like a curtain lifted. The gray of the sunless sky cast a ghoulish patina across the desert, now covered in a layer of what looked more like volcanic ash than snow.

Ahead, Bernard saw a burgundy SUV pulled over to the side of the road, the elderly driver waving his arms as he saw Bernard’s car approach. Bernard hesitated, but pulled over just ahead of the old man, who, with his wild tuft of white hair and grey cardigan, reminded him of his grandfather.

“Um...habla ingles?” The old man mumbled gesturing with his hands, as if it would help in the event of a potential language barrier.

“Yes, what’s seems to be the problem?” Bernard replied, approaching the man and his SUV cautiously.

The old man sighed with relief, “You’re American?”

Bernard smiled.

“Glen,” he said, offering his hand to Bernard.

“Cary,” Bernard replied, shaking Glen’s hands.

“Well Cary, I pulled over when that snowstorm passed through, couldn’t see squat. When I tried to start the car up again…” Glen shrugged.

“I would give you a jump, but I don’t think I have any cables in my car. Do you?”

Glen shook his head, “I have a cellphone. Batteries are dead though. Mind if I give it a quick charge in your car? I can give my hotel a call and have them send a tow truck or something.”

Bernard was reluctant to linger around longer than necessary. Two stalled cars on the side of the road might attract unwanted attention. But Glen’s presence and that peculiar moment of normalcy in what had been a whirlwind few weeks was grounding and comforting in a way he desperately needed. And besides, Glen’s had been the first car Bernard had seen in several hours. It was unlikely another would pass anytime soon.

“So, where you headed Cary?” Glen was seated in the passenger side of Bernard’s cramped car waiting for his cellphone to charge. He spoke genially, reminding Bernard more and more of his grandfather, affectionate even among strangers. He felt cautiously at ease with him.

Without thinking, Bernard replied, “Not sure yet,” instantly regretting his honesty.

“Ah,” Glen said knowingly, but without judgment. “I won’t ask you what you’re running away from, that’s none of my business. But let me tell you kid, and this comes from experience, 9 times out of 10, it isn’t worth it. These roads you’re going down now, they will just lead you right back where you started. If you run away from a thing, that’s all your life will ever be.”

There was a pause. “I made some decisions…poor ones in hindsight.” Why am I telling him this? “My life hasn’t exactly gone to plan since then.”

“Life never goes to plan.”

The tow truck came and went and Bernard moved on, less certain of his intentions then when he had set out on his journey.

The dense clouds set low were unfamiliar. His eyes burned from fatigue and he squeezed them shut, desperate for relief. When he opened them again, it was pitch black. He was back at the Santa Dympna, metal springs digging into his pants.

Written by: Sam Chow

Photograph by: Becky Lee
 

Small Things

“Where to?”

Emir’s passenger was dressed in a handsome light grey suit. It fit him well. Emir owned a suit too, but his jacket sat too broad on his shoulders and fell too far down his thighs. He only wore it on special occasions.

“Chase Manhattan Plaza,” the well-dressed man replied. “So, where are you from?”

Emir glanced at his rear-view mirror, smiled and replied, “Istanbul. Turkey.”

He enjoyed chatting with passengers, but never initiated conversations himself.

“I’ve never been to Turkey. Went to Israel a few years back, but that’s the closest I’ve ever been. You miss it?”

“Oh yes, of course.”

“I respect men like you. My grandfather came here from Italy without so much as a penny to his name, but managed to put my father through college and business school. Whenever I visited him as a kid, all he could ever talk about was how everything was better in Italy.” The man in the grey suit paused before continuing, “I can’t imagine having to leave New York City, let alone the States.”

He was looking out the window as he talked, watching Bleecker Street slowly pass by.

“What would you miss about it?” Emir asked.

“The City? Everything. The people, the sounds. But I think, most of all, I would miss having amazing pizza on every corner. I’m not even kidding. New Yorkers don’t realize how good they have it here. And believe me, I know. I’ve been all over the country and the world for business. No other city compares.”

“I think your Italian grandfather would disagree,” Emir joked.

The man laughed, “You’re right. He would’ve. What about you? What do you miss most about Turkey?”

Not a day passed that Emir didn’t think about his home country. He thought about Turkey because he was terrified of forgetting. It was only five years ago that he left Istanbul for New York City, but the haze of time was already setting in.

When is mother’s birthday? His little sister, Azra, was usually the one to remind him. What was the name of that sweets shop near his old school? He wasn’t even sure he ever knew the name of that shop, even though he had frequented it nearly every day.

Sometimes Emir closed his eyes and imagined his younger brother, Derin, working the family’s chestnut stand on the darkened, cobblestone streets of Istanbul. He imagined his father sitting by Derin’s side, reading his newspaper, making small talk with the patrons, and making sure Derin didn’t overstuff the small paper pouches that held the chestnuts.

Emir could hear their conversation.

“Go home father, I can handle the chestnut stand on my own,” Derin would plead.

His father would reply, “Home? And what will I do there? Listen to your mother scold me for leaving you here by yourself? At least here I can read my paper in peace.”

Emir would imagine this, and the sweet, nutty scent of the roasted chestnuts would fill the stale air of his apartment as if he were right there, cobblestones beneath his feet.

“Emir,” his father would say, looking up as he approached, “you know what I mean, tell your brother I would rather die than stop working.”

Derin would roll his eyes and ask, “This is working?” He’d point to his father seated next to him, newspaper open in hand. And Emir would laugh.

That’s how Emir reminded himself, “This is what life was like.”

Turkey was a part of his history now, and he often took the sadness of that fact out on his adopted city. He felt jaded by the people whom he thought too rude and the streets that he thought too crowded.

He shared a small studio apartment in Sunnyside with two others, cousins of cousins of cousins or something. They slept on mattresses strewn lazily about the studio floor and erected makeshift room dividers from salvaged garment racks and old curtains. They bonded over their shared longing for Turkey and lamented over the irony that, in a city so large, they could feel so lonely.

Emir already knew the answer to the man in the grey suit’s question, but he thought a moment before replying. “The smell of roasted chestnuts,” he responded. “My father owned a chestnut stand. I worked there with him until I was a teenager, but I never forgot the smell. My father came home smelling of it every night.”

The man chuckled, “Nostalgia’s devious isn’t it? We always long for the sweet honey of it, but we always forget about the sting of the bees. You’re here in the States for a reason right? I can’t imagine making a living off of chestnuts was easy.”

That evening, before returning home, Emir stopped at his favorite Turkish restaurant in Sunnyside.

“Emir!” Toprak, the owner, shouted as he walked in. “Where have you been my friend? Is it just you tonight? Where are your cousins?”

“I’ve already eaten, I just want to order some roasted chestnuts, to go.”

It was in Turkey that he had his last roasted chestnut. After eating them for years from his father’s stand, it felt unnatural to pay for them.

He didn’t go home right away and, instead, found an empty bench underneath the 7 train overpass just a few blocks from his apartment. As he peeled back the warm, woody shells of the chestnuts, the 7 train rumbling overhead, he took in the neighborhood. It was late, but the storefronts and food carts still illuminated the streets. The early autumn evening was still alive with activity, a chorus of traffic, conversation, and laughter hanging festively in the air. To Emir’s left, down the block, was Jeremy’s bodega where he bought coffee every morning. Just beyond that was a hookah bar where he often passed the time chatting with his two cousins, his friends, about nothing at all.

For the first time in five years, as Emir ate his roasted chestnuts, New York City was transformed. He was home.

Written by: Sam Chow
Photograph by: Becky Lee

After the Storm

The first frost came early that year, hardening the alluvial mountain earth – with it, soon after, the first winter storm. That meant the main road that cut through the mountains and out of the town was closed early, though it was at some point every winter. So Arata waited.

Time’s forward progression no longer felt like a certainty as the harsh frost froze everything it touched. Arata waited without any assurance that waiting would bring her any closer to realizing her plans. She sat patiently in the quiet of her living room watching the smoke snake out of her neighbor’s detached kitchen. Now and again, a huddled mass could be seen rushing from the kitchen to its attendant house with an armful of steaming food. She thought how curious it was that a detached kitchen, an antiquated and inconvenient architectural design, should still exist. The days and weeks and months passed and Arata continued to sit and wait. There was nothing else left for her to do.

Then spring came.

The winter weather had finally broken and the heavy curtain of cold lifted. The transformation was sudden. In a matter of days, the accumulated snow gave way to a dramatic explosion of green.

Arata gathered her worn suitcase, one her father had given to her before she went off to university, which she had prepared months before that first winter storm. Bits of dried faux leather flaked at its corners, revealing a layer of thin foam intended to mimic the suppleness of real animal hide. Memories of her father soon occupied her mind and she thought of how she had always despised her name. She was older now, but still carried a harmless resentment towards her parents for having given her a boy’s name.

At her doorway, decrepit suitcase in hand, she turned to look at the house where she had raised her family. She had always been, first and foremost, a mother and the house was her domain. From where she stood, the living room to her right and the hallway leading to the two bedrooms to her left, she could see the small kitchen, gently illuminated by the early dawn sunlight, just beyond the foyer where she had spent so many hours of her life. The pots and pans were suspended over the narrow gas range from a rack now caked in hardened grease. The pantry adjacent to the range was stocked with a healthy quantity of dried and canned staples. Arata wondered if she had left any milk in her refrigerator and contemplated checking, but then decided that it didn’t matter.

Arata pictured her children’s bedroom and the bedroom she had shared with her husband, the closets storing decades’ worth of clothing. In the foyer itself, a family portrait sat atop a candlestand table, welcoming visitors as they entered the home. Arata checked her watch and closed the door behind her, leaving it unlocked as she left.

The virgin spring air was cool, a remnant of the long winter. Arata made her way slowly to the bus station on the other side of town, both to enjoy the fresh air and because the slight hitch in her gait forced her. It was early yet, so the shops were still shuttered. She smiled politely at the handful of proprietors getting ready for the day’s business.

“Good morning Mrs. Sato. Going on a trip?” Mr. Yoshida asked.

What was this?

Arata shared the bus into the city with just one other passenger, a young woman dressed in traditional Japanese garb. She regarded the young woman’s beauty and wondered why she was dressed so formally before turning to her own translucent reflection in the clouded glass. Vanity had once been her greatest weakness. Even now, having been humbled by the passage of time, she took quiet pride in her girlish appearance which so often fooled those who attempted to guess her age. Only her hands, with its deep folds and dark blemishes, gave any indication of a life long-lived.

Arata took the sleeve of her thin cotton sweater into her fist and wiped away the condensation on the bus window, leaving a trail of water droplets in her wake. For a brief moment, she could see the world outside with a level of clarity possible only in contrast, but the early morning air quickly shrouded the glass pane with a new layer of fog.

Her right arm was propped against her seat, her left rested atop her suitcase just lightly enough to ensure it was there. The bus was at an incline as it climbed the unpaved mountain roads, still soft and moist from newly melted snow, the trees a continuous blur of green. She wasn’t running away. No, that would imply a shirking of authority or obligation – but there was none of that left, her children and her husband having passed. Doubt was all that was left. This was something different. She wondered if her motivation was even relevant anymore.

There was a past and a future, maybe. But there was no present.

As the bus entered the city proper, the mountain clouds that had clung stubbornly to the bus and the dreamlike miasma that had encapsulated the vehicle, dissipated. The unruly ride of the rural roads gave way to a dull hum of paved highways. Arata wasn’t sure if she had fallen asleep during the bus ride, but when she opened her eyes the world had changed. She turned her body towards the bus’s panoramic windows with a childlike enthusiasm as she saw the urban landscape come into view. Her heart beat headily.

As Arata stepped off the bus, the urban din immediately flooded her head, but the discordance played like a wonderful orchestra to her. The grey of the city was a curious novelty – even the green of the trees were darkened by the shadow of the imposing skyscrapers. Perhaps here she could disappear. Perhaps here, her solitude would be a blessing. This was the present now.




Written By: James Mo
Photo By: Becky Lee