The Metropolis Case_ A Novel - Matthew Gallaway [22]
At home Maria spent hours leafing through Bérénice’s saint-and-martyr tomes, dreaming of the day when she, too, might be pierced with iron hooks, mauled to death by beasts, or burned at the stake. Bea taught her prayers in Latin, the holiest language of all, dressed her up as a nun—a venial sin in comparison to the indulgences Bea could expect to receive for indoctrinating her precious Maria into the faith—and together they would recite the litany: “Mother, hear me, immersed in woes! Ave, Mater dolorosa, martyrumque prima rosa, audi vocem supplicis,” Maria cried, having memorized it.
“Fac, ut mortis in agone, tua fidens protectione, iusti pacem gaudeam!” Bérénice responded, as her black eyes beamed out of her wrinkled face with the fervor of salvation, though her command of the English was not so strong: “Only a death and agony we peace for our soul!”
They played this game until they collapsed onto the floor weeping, at which point they would crawl into each other’s arms, overjoyed with the promise of divine redemption. Though the five-year-old Maria did not yet grasp the literal meaning of these incantations, she understood that, by repeating and memorizing whatever Bea placed in front of her, she was acting, which gave her a certain power over her grandmother, who most assuredly was not.
Gina suspected as much. “Ma, she only likes the costumes,” she protested to Bea. “Why don’t you play house or school with her?”
“What mother ever complained that her daughter prays too much?” Bérénice replied. “Besides, you think I make her to do this?”
“No, but she sees you and—”
“So now we’re ashamed?”
“I just want her to be normal,” Gina said, exasperated. “I don’t think most girls her age are memorizing Latin.”
“So she is not normale.” Bérénice shrugged. “J’aurais dire qu’elle soit extraordinaire! Vraiment, je te jure, ma fille, what is wrong with this?”
It was not a question that Gina felt comfortable answering, given her fear that there was something abnormal deep inside her, hollow and vast except for those few blissful seconds when she could fill it up with music. Gina wanted Maria to experience this bliss, but without the emptiness from which it seemed to arise.
AFTER MARIA STARTED kindergarten at St. Anne’s, it quickly became clear that she was anything but normal. Her fellow five-year-olds were less than charmed by her tendency to walk like a penitent and to murmur in Latin, and she could not fade into the background when she was the tallest in her class, with skim-milk blue skin and straight black hair that reminded the other children of spider legs. One of the girls told everyone that Maria’s green eyes were the same color as her cat’s, which confirmed a collective sense that Maria was not quite of them, particularly after she made the mistake of telling them she was adopted.
In second grade she was dubbed Morticia, and everyone said she was from Transylvania and drank blood. Inspired by the deluge of house cleaners on the market, a group of enterprising girls invented an imaginary “Morticia Spray” to “disinfect” any chair or desk where she happened to sit and made money selling refills for the imaginary cans. Because Maria had so little reason to smile at school, she often wore the dazed expression of someone just hit over the head, which only egged the others on, given that their victim appeared so deliciously addled by their efforts.
As she got older, Maria occasionally devised plans to improve her lot. In third grade she decided to stunt her growth, thinking that if she were the same size as her classmates, they might not hate her as much. Gina was not happy when Maria announced her plan one night at dinner. “Maria, honey, you can’t change how tall you are,” Gina declared, putting down her fork. “Your size is your size. It’s just the way you are.”
“Then why do you try to lose weight?” Maria responded.
“That’s not the same. That’s because—”
“On mange comme un cochon?” interrupted Bea. Though pencil-thin, she had spent the past