Grayscale by Carolyn R. Russell

From behind a second story window, we three watch for the girl. Fissured by time and fractured by turmoil, the glass allows for less than optimal viewing, but my sisters and I can see well enough to take immediate notice when her slight figure emerges from a subterranean staircase and melts into the crowd. This particular evening is boisterous and punctuated by the trappings of revelry. A new year is preparing to throw its filthy arms around the neighborhood, animated celebrants studding the sidewalks like remnants of a tenement fire.

In a flash, we are behind her. The girl is there to sell her wares as the streets become ever more fluid, her clientele circulating in twitchy waves fueled by the desperation of what it means to die by the inch. It is very cold, and I wish the girl had gloves as she trudges through the uneven remains of grayscale snow and ice.

Her name is Arista and she is famous for her supply of absynthesis. She is also known for her youth; if caught, she’d be funneled into a cobwebbed juvenile system and easily outwit her guardians. At least that’s what her notorious employers say, though Rose has told us that the truth would likely be much darker.

Tonight, Arista has few customers. She is as subject to scrutiny as her adult colleagues, and just as vulnerable to its consequences. Postwar chaos and disease are a boon to her industry, as is the wholesale despair of survivors. It makes them ripe for distraction, avid for a change of mental scenery. But the bull market has led to increasing pressure to sell more, faster. So she must be worried. In her world, it is essential to be useful.

We watch as she approaches a group of youths and is met with slurred shouts of welcome. Arista is shaking now inside her ragged cotton sweater, her arms cross-wrapped around her narrow ribcage. One of the youngest men yells that their ‘pet’ requires something hot to drink. His pointy spangled hat falls from his head when he thrusts his cardboard cup into her face.

My sister Juno starts forward with a quick intake of breath, but I restrain her. Not yet, I tell her.

Arista takes the cup and drinks, though no steam rises from its depths. The group stumbles off after wishing the girl a grand time of it, having purchased not a thing. She moves on, her feet in their torn cloth slippers sliding a bit on the frozen asphalt.

Arista stops and her hands float to her face. She covers her eyes and seems to lose her balance for a moment, and my sister Mickey grabs my forearm as if to steady Arista by proxy. Not yet, I tell her.

Arista resumes her rounds as the gloom begins to deepen, and the barbed concavities that pepper the city become more difficult to cope with. No post-conflict relief funds have been expected, and none have arrived. Such expenditures are earmarked for other districts far from this one.

We are startled by the sound of shattering glass, and in the wake of the rough voices that follow, we watch as Arista evaporates into the shadows of a moldering entryway. Still visible are the shreds of an old sign that hangs at an angle advertising discounted food vouchers.

Arista may remember this place. As a young child, Rose had taken her there to search out vegetables and milk, sometimes with my sisters and me in tow. She had loved the stories Rose had told her of her own childhood, though Arista had once artlessly exclaimed that they sounded like the lies she’d been warned about in school. Then the school had disappeared. Not long afterwards, Rose had disappeared, too. Arista had been told that she was now in a sunny place that would cure the old woman’s arthritis. Rose had told us that Arista would never have believed that story, because if that had been true, Arista knew her grandmother would have taken her along.

Several women lurch towards Arista with lit pipes, and she moves on quickly, leaving one thin slipper behind. Juno picks it up. For Rose, she says. We follow, my sisters and I, drifting behind the girl soundlessly. The frigid air is mixing with the rising steam of grated sewers to create small noxious pockets of faint heat, but Arista avoids these and instead seeks shelter in an alley against the broad side of a crumbling brick building.

We hear a high whimper that could have been a baby’s cry, and Arista turns towards it. A tiny dog limps into view. We watch as he moves toward her, gingerly picking his way across the pocked pavement. She coos at him as she gingerly searches the depths of her satchel; I imagine she must be careful to avoid upsetting the nesting vials of inventory. She pulls out a dinner roll and gives the creature half. He moves closer and she feeds him the rest. He licks her ankle then, and the girl melts against the wall. He climbs onto her lap, and we hear her sigh with, I think, the warmth and pleasure of it. Arista closes her eyes.

We three stand before the girl and link arms. And we begin to sing, a tuneless roundelay of the past that is also a song of the now and a paean to the next.
***

The dog was pressed up against her chest. Arista stood, taking care to bundle the creature carefully beneath her sweater. To her surprise, the threadbare garment had disappeared; instead, she wore a heavy greatcoat. She made sure to leave room for the dog’s face to poke out of the coat’s velvet collar. The girl caressed the animal’s silky ears, and it was only then that Arista discovered the thick woolen mittens covering her hands. But she had no time to wonder about these things. She needed to work; one did not spend time on the street without something to show for it.

An explosion of cheers heralded midnight. The girl tightened the laces of her lined leather boots and she and her dog drifted amongst streams of singing merrymakers bound for the downtown. When the throng surged, they followed, enraptured by the strains of “Auld Lang Syne.” Soon they boarded a northbound train with the others. Arista held the dog close and found a seat next to her grandmother Rose, who looped her arm around the girl’s shoulders and cuddled Arista’s small head into the space between her wrinkled chin and her collarbone. The three women on the other side of her grandmother leaned forward to nod at the girl and smile.

***

In a faraway neighborhood, it is in the next day’s news, the story of a tattered minor found in an alley clutching a starveling dog. The dog is rescued with great fanfare and made available for adoption. They won’t be able to keep up with all the calls.

Carolyn R. Russell

Image by Squirrel_photos from Pixabay – a dirty alley between buildings with torn cardboard boxes thrown aside.