Trash - Andy Mulligan [57]
Rat said, ‘What did you say?’
The little girl said, ‘Who are you looking for?’
Raphael said: ‘José Angelico.’
‘I don’t think he’s coming,’ said the child.
We didn’t know what to say for a moment, and then Gardo said: ‘Did he say he would? When?’
We were all staring up at her and she was just staring down, so still. The breeze blew her hair, but she was like a little statue.
‘About a week ago,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ve been waiting.’
Gardo said, ‘I don’t think he’s coming either – why don’t you come down here?’
‘What’s your name?’ said Rat softly. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’m not looking for anything,’ she said. ‘I just came here to wait for him.’
‘But where do you live?’
‘Here. I don’t know now.’
‘By yourself? What’s your name, chele?’
‘Pia Dante,’ she said. ‘My name is Pia Dante Angelico and I’m waiting for my father, José Angelico.’
Now, I (Raphael) speak only for myself and not for the other boys, but I went stone-cold all over and I nearly fell down. I heard Rat breathe in sharply too and take a pace back. Her hair was still blowing and she looked solid enough, and her voice was a child’s voice … but my first thought was that we must be talking to a ghost, because we’d seen her grave with our own eyes.
The child was looking across at it – B25/8 – the grave with her own name on, in brand-new stone. And she was waiting for her dead father on the Day of the Dead. What kind of miracle was that?
4
Raphael, Gardo and Jun-Jun (Rat):
She was no ghost, of course, and when we got ourselves together, we helped her climb down. Rat went up and helped her, because she was small – and we decided to take her out of there fast. Things were getting so strange, and we were all having the same idea straight away, but we needed to get clear for a while. Little Pia was so weak she could hardly stand up, and we all realized none of us had eaten properly, and we thought, We’ve come this far – the police aren’t going to trace us here – can we just get a moment to think?
Gardo counted out the money, and we were low – our stash was down to a few hundred only, but we all needed food – little Pia most of all. I tell you, she was skin and bone to touch, and dirty all over – she smelled bad. We went right out of the cemetery and found a shack and ate chicken and rice, thinking we might as well eat good – we so needed it. We were at the end of the trail, we had to be, and even at that point – before we talked – we knew what was happening, and we were getting excited, frightened, jittery. Cold and sweating – like a fever.
Rat and Pia were just about the same size, and he could see she was in a bad way more than me and Gardo. He’s been starved like that and scared out of his wits, so he knew what to do. He made her eat really slow, mixing gravy into the rice and feeding her. He got her water and made her drink it, and then he found her some banana, which he chopped up small like she was a baby. In a way she was a baby. She was scared, but she was so weak she didn’t know what to do, and we still think Rat saved her life.
She told us she’d been in Naravo for a week, to meet her father. It was a place they often went together, because her little brother and her mother were there.
Some children had found her and taken her to one of the shanties – she’d been fed a bit and asked questions. She kept going back to her mother’s grave and waiting, and of course she wasn’t tall enough to read her own name on the grave above – or if she did, it didn’t mean anything to her – she never said anything about it. Her father had sent her a message to meet him, and whoever looked after her had taken her there and left her. They must have read about his death, and knew they were well rid of her, what with no more rent coming in.
Pia Dante was alone.
* * *
Gardo: We talked to a boy at the eating house, and for fifty got her space out the back for the night, and Rat laid her down, and got an extra blanket because a typhoon