Big Swiss(86)

If only she had a blanket for him now. He started trembling, and then suddenly he was shaking violently and foaming at the mouth, a seizure she was sure would end his life, and he kept making an awful noise she couldn’t quite hear, because there was a louder, even more awful noise drowning it out, and it sounded like a cow dying or giving birth, only much, much worse, and she looked around wildly, trying to locate the source.

But it was herself, wailing. She’d never wailed in her life, but now she was wailing like an old woman from Italy, like a professional, like a woman who’d spent years mourning for money, for movie directors, for Visconti or Fellini. Had it been a performance, it would’ve been appalling—overwrought, indulgent, way too long—but she really was shrieking as if she herself had been shot. She’d never felt such pure and naked anguish. It opened everything within her, every abscess, every abyss, and they were all throbbing and echoing horribly. She could feel her face crumpling and folding in on itself, tears pooling in the pocket above her clavicle, and she would’ve given anything to feel Pi?on’s dry tongue licking her face back into place. He’d always been possessive of Greta’s tears, lapping at them greedily as if they were some precious, life-lengthening elixir, and she felt the urge to cry directly into his mouth so that he might live. She draped herself over him and sobbed.

“Stop screaming,” Big Swiss was saying now. “Listen to me. Stop screaming. Can you hear me?”

Loud and clear. Her voice seemed to loosen something in Greta’s stomach, some knot she’d been holding on to for years, and now the knot unraveled and rushed out of her, hot and wet. Mortified, she felt it maneuvering around the blood diaper, soaking the back of her nightgown, rolling down her legs sluggishly, as if it contained dirt or silt. She clutched her stomach. Well, this was embarrassing. What was this? Piss? Was she really pissing herself right now? She was too flustered to look. Yes, grief can be theatrical, she lectured herself. It can be extravagant. It wasn’t how she usually operated, but—oh well. Oh well, oh well, oh well. There was nothing wrong with her. Pi?on was fine. He’d stopped shaking, finally, and was breathing easy. Relief—that’s what was leaking out of her. But then the knot tightened again, and the pain was so excruciating, so astonishing, she felt her eyes bulge. Was she being torn in half? It lasted only a few seconds and then she wet herself some more. That same silty water. The silt was shame, she decided. Shame was something you passed like kidney stones, and it was leaving her body at last. Now she could hear herself babbling about freedom. She would feel freer from now on, free from self-consciousness, free from reticence. She would do or say whatever she wanted, she would care less, she would become more… Pi?onesque.

“Hold still.” Big Swiss leaned over Greta and yanked up her nightgown with one hand. The fingers of her other hand dug into Greta’s arm. “Stop moving.”

Greta was drenched, she knew that, but only on the outside. Inside, she was a janky space heater about to catch fire.

“I think you might be hemorrhaging,” Big Swiss said, a little nervously. She placed her palm on Greta’s forehead. “You have a fever.”

Okay, not free. Or not, cough, cancer-free. Obviously, there was some growth inside her, and it had ruptured, and hopefully it was malignant and untreatable, because if Pi?on died, how was she going to live? The shadows swimming on the ground made her dizzy, and it finally occurred to her to look up at the sky. It was the vultures. About six of them were circling, their mouths wide open.

“We need to get to the house now,” Big Swiss said. “Can you walk?”

Greta picked up Pi?on, careful not to touch the bullet wound, and held him like a baby. She’d never held him like this, never once in six years, because he never allowed it. He couldn’t stand to be cradled, but his body was limber and slack, and he was wide awake and blinking at her with renewed interest, as if meeting her for the first time. He seemed enchanted by her, and she knew he would be all right if she got him to the hospital.

“Greta,” Big Swiss said. “Can you stop crying? Can you look at me?”

Greta’s hair was curtained around her face. She didn’t feel capable of looking at Big Swiss, not without protection of some kind. A blanket would be nice, for old times’ sake, but Sabine would be better.

“Sabine!” Greta yelled. “Sabine!”

“Is there any chance you’re having a miscarriage?” Big Swiss asked.

Greta spun around and hit her, hard enough to knock her down. She’d done it without thinking, but she wanted to do it again, and she would have if she hadn’t been carrying Pi?on. Big Swiss stayed on the ground, holding her jaw.

Now four identically dressed men were jogging in their direction. One of them, a kid in his twenties, ran straight up to Big Swiss and helped her to her feet, even though Greta was covered in blood and cradling a limp dog.

“I’m okay,” Big Swiss said, brushing herself off. “Thank you.”

“?‘I’m okay’? Yeah? What about ‘Her dog has been shot’? Any idea who did this? Was it you? Who are you?” Greta said.

“My name’s Rick?” he said. “I’m from next door?”

The firehouse. Of course. They were firefighters. She wondered which one of them manned the air-raid siren, and why wasn’t it going off right now, with a killer on the loose?