The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [68]
She leaned against a building and tried to swallow down her heart. Whisk, wide, water, wattle, the wings of angels, the whiteness of feathers. She closed her eyes but no, it wasn’t helping, she would certainly die—it was a horror, the mistake of a lifetime, because even if by some miracle she did survive, she would be brain-damaged for life. She tried to think of Faith, but what filled her mind instead were those poor prostitutes, legs like bruised fruit, garbage and foul smells at the heart of what had always seemed so thrilling, so mysterious—nothing but violence and sorrow and rot.
Phoebe sank to her knees on the pavement. She shut her eyes and tried to pray, teeth chattering although it was hot, hot pavement under her knees, but God must have gone away, she’d lost Him in the swirl of moth-colored stockings and cones of bleached hair. Or maybe there was no God on this side of the glass, maybe that was why Faith buried the rosaries and Bible after their father died, but Phoebe tried praying anyway, hands clasped above her head, eyes shut, lips moving frantically. Occasionally someone leaned down and tried to help her; a man in a charcoal suit even spoke to her briefly in English, but Phoebe couldn’t answer, just stared at his face, watching it expand and contract while the man moved on to other languages. “Español, Deutsch, Italiano?” he asked with rising alarm, and it crossed Phoebe’s mind that maybe he was God, maybe on this side of the glass God looked like anyone else, a man in a suit, and she found herself clutching his leg, feeling the warm bone inside flesh inside cloth, and thought, Am I holding the leg of God? Then the man wrenched away, disappeared into the crowd but some time later Phoebe saw him again, crossing the street with a man in uniform, a round boxlike hat on his head and he looked like a cop—Phoebe forced herself to stand and walk because every drop of blood in her veins was illegal, polluted and full of poison and thank God, there was a taxi stand, Dear Mom, Phoebe and … “Place Saint-Michel,” Phoebe told the driver with a clarity that startled her, and they drove awhile, classical music on the radio, the milky feathers of doves, the long, silky wings of insects, Dear Mom and Phoebe and Barry, Here we are in, 4, 5, 6, Our Father who 7, 8, Yesterday we went to, 9, 19, Forgive me, Father, it has been four months since my … Wolf was a drag as usual, next we go to …
The driver was talking. They had stopped; the numbers on the meter made no sense to Phoebe but she handed him bills until he stopped her with some impatience, pushing the money back, and Phoebe got out, dropping coins in the taxi, on the pavement. Statues sparkled around her like salt licks. So many people. Phoebe turned around slowly, staring in each direction until she saw the river, and yes, she knew what to do, yes she had a plan, the key to ending this nightmare; a wind seemed to blow her body toward the river and she