Part Two, Chapter Six

After nearly half an hour of fraught negotiations that included name-dropping, lying, flattering, shaming, and finally outright bribery, Alvi talked the innkeeper into giving Carina and Donovan a two-room suite with a sunny balcony. Under Donovan’s direction, two boys with hand-trucks brought in the things they needed from the wagon while Alvi examined the rooms and Carina waited indifferently in the sitting room.

“You will offend your sister,” Donovan overheard him saying as he opened the door and motioned the boys inside. “The sofa is good enough for him.”

“We slept together all the way up here,” Carina pointed out.

"If I could have arranged it, I would have gotten a separate room for you. A nocturnal cohabitation might be misconstrued, and people might talk."

"I don't care. I'll never see any of them again." She forced a smile as Donovan and the porters entered.

Donovan pretended not to have heard. He directed the boys to put their things in the single bedroom, tipped them more generously than he could afford, then looked around, assessing. It was a pleasant, airy place, a little threadbare, but furnished for modest comfort. The bedroom contained two small beds, a bathroom with a composting toilet, and a sink with a pitcher of water for hand-washing. The living room was decorated in yellow, with framed prints of flowers on the walls, cheap rag rugs on the tile floor, a plump striped sofa, two high-backed chairs and a low table with a vase of dried flowers. Light streamed in from a pair of French doors opening onto the balcony.

“Alvi says they have electricity from sundown until nine o’clock most nights,” Carina said.

“And in the mornings too, before the sun is up,” Alvi added. “In the closet you should find a small...what do you call it?” he looked at Carina. “A little electric grill where you can boil your morning coffee.”

“A hot plate?” Carina said. “I haven’t used one of those in a long time.”

“You must be careful then, not to hurt yourself.”

“I’m not afraid of electricity.” Carina picked up her silk wrap. “Let’s get this shopping over with. That way we can get the rest taken care of and go home.”

Alvi moved to help her with the wrap, but Donovan got there first and tucked the folds around her shoulders.

They hired a hack outside the motel where several different types of equipage, both human and horse-powered, were waiting. All of the drivers were boys below draft age. Alvi selected a closed carriage and as they got in, the driver looked at Carina and asked, “Base or town?”

“Town,” Alvi said. “Shopping district.”

The boy touched the horse with his whip and they set off at a trot. “I know a good shop for ladies’ mourning wear,” the boy offered, shouting into the cab through a door in the roof.

Carina and Donovan cringed at the insensitive assumption, but Alvi was unsurprised. “That will be fine.” In a low voice, he explained. “It’s a big business in this town. The boy probably gets a commission. I know a place we can go if this isn’t what we want.”

Carina leaned back against the padded leather seat and pretended to watch the scenery go by while the men made idle talk about the news of the day.

“We heard a paper boy saying they found oil in Chiapas,” Donovan said. “Is it true?”

“I doubt it. They’re looking for excuses to keep us meddling in Mexico’s affairs. We need to keep a corridor open so our troops can get out of South America.”

“We’re bugging out?”

“It’s gotten too crazy.” Alvi leaned forward and dropped his voice so the driver wouldn’t hear. “The indigenous people are carving out new nations and killing anyone of European ancestry they find within their borders. There's little point in fighting them. I have it on good authority that the cost of getting oil and rubber out of there has become more than the market can bear. All this—” he made a vague motion in the direction of the motor vehicles and electric lights outside the hansom window, “Will be gone in another year or two if we can’t secure an honorable victory against the Chinese and get control of the Siberian pipeline.”

Donovan was startled. “What about the tar sands? And Iran? And all the coal in Pennsylvania?”

Alvi sniffed. “Alberta was a boondoggle. The cost of getting oil out of those sands is more than the end product is worth. Iran will be radioactive for centuries. As for Pennsylvania, we don’t have enough processing plants to make gasoline equivalent out of coal. Not in the quantities we need.”

“We'll build more plants.”

“With the steel we cannot make and the fuel we have not yet refined because it is locked in anthracite deep under the ground?” Alvi smiled as if he enjoyed following thoughts to their logical conclusions, no matter how distressing. “It’s over, I’m telling you.” He glanced at Carina, who was still gazing out the window and didn't seem to have heard. “It is our little farms that are our future, if there will be any future at all.”

Carina turned on him. “Are you saying this has all been for nothing? Miles, Alan, my father, our friends...dead over nothing at all?”

“Sweetheart, I’m just giving my own cynical opinion. I’m often wrong. I have no right to worry you at a time like this. Forgive me.”

“You’re lying.” Carina looked at him in wonderment. “It’s all been a lie, hasn’t it?”

“Of course not. The sacrifices have bought us valuable time.”

“Time for what? What have we done with this time that’s so valuable, if all it means is that everyone will end up living how Amalia and I have been living for the past fifteen years? How long have you known this?"

"I know nothing, my dear. I'm just a foolish man making idle guesses."

"No, you did know. That's why you would never tell us anything. That's why you only made jokes and told us silly stories. You didn't want us to know how bad it really was."

"I didn't want to worry you."

"Didn't want to...?" She looked about wildly.

Donovan grabbed her hand. "He meant well and nothing would've been any different."

The hansom lurched to a stop and the driver pulled back the door on the roof. "Here you are. Fifty cents, Federal. That's the special rate."

"Special rate?" Donovan asked as he handed Carina down from the cab.

Alvi handed the boy a Federal dollar and waved him away. "They have a special price for families of the deceased. It's supposed to be cheaper, but everyone says it's really just the regular rate and they simply charge everyone else extra if they aren't in mourning."

"Well, what's to prevent—" Donovan began.

"Anyone from wearing black and getting the special price, too?" Alvi shrugged. "Nothing at all. That's why the rumor that there is no special price and they just charge everyone else more."

Carina shook her head in disgust. "Everything's a racket here, isn't it?"

Alvi's tone was genuinely sorry. "Yes, my dear, I'm afraid it is." He looked at the store the cabdriver had deposited them in front of. “Including this place, most likely. But let's go in and take a look, shall we?"

Carina and Donovan took a good look at the store. It was an old-fashioned place, made during the twentieth century out of concrete and plate glass. The display window featured paper doves hanging from wires, and plaster mannequins in stylish outfits of black, gray and lilac. All the plaster women held Bibles, little flags or often both. Running along the bottom of the big glass panes in fancy gold script were some lyrics from a ballad so popular it had become cliché. Carina read the words, "That your sacrifice may not have been in vain," and couldn't continue. Her lip curled in disgust. "I can't go in there. I'll be sick."

The men exchanged glances. "Just take a look, amorcita," Alvi said. "Perhaps it's not as bad on the inside."

"We'll go in for five minutes," Donovan added. "After that, if you don't want to stay, we won't. But you need clothes."

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