Prism - By Rachel Moschell Page 0,83
by the morning.”
And now it was morning; crisp white light filtered in through the blue checked curtains of the hospital room. A matronly nurse in a tri-cornered hat and thick stockings was shoving a glass thermometer under Alejo’s tongue and smoothing the covers over his shoulders.
As if he would have been able to mess them up somehow; Nazaret’s brother was as motionless as he had been sprawled there on the ground at Pairumani.
But he’s still alive.
Dr. Ortega had said that if Alejo made it til the morning, his chances were better. Wara sat up groggily on the bed and turned toward him, eyes stinging as she took in the bloodied bandage above one closed eye.
I have to call the Martirs, she realized. The idea brought a new chill of shock. How could she tell them what had happened, that the son they had just found as a killer had been shot and could die? And that she had seen the whole thing?
Feeling sick, Wara ignored the matronly nurse with clogs and staggered wordlessly into the hall. Clean white tiles spread before her, and the air was ripe with the scent of Clorox and chamomile tea cooling on breakfast trays. Wara stumbled to the silver elevator and punched a button to head down, desperate to get some fresh air.
In the pocket of her black pants, she fingered the fat wad of boliviano bills she had removed from Alejo’s pants before the nurses carried him into the emergency room. It should be enough to last for awhile; for sure it was enough to make a call to the Martirs’ cell phone in Lima.
The doors dinged open on the main floor, but as soon as Wara’s eyes hit the lobby she nearly doubled over, remembering the scene last night when she ran across the tiles screaming for help. Without stopping, Wara did a one eighty and headed down the hall, towards the back of the hospital and away from the lobby. Plastic olive chairs lined the scuffed walls, filled with women in polleras and children licking suckers. Wara eyed them all blankly, forcing herself to put one foot in front of the other, really hoping there was going to be a back exit to this hospital. And outside the exit, some quiet, grass-covered spot where she could curl up and wail, possibly until next week. It was still early; the call to the Martirs was going to have to wait just a little bit more.
The creaky voice calling to her in Quechua took her totally unaware. “Imajnaya kasanki? How are you, Wara?”
Wara planted her flip-flops in the center of the hall and whirled around, eyes wild. Who knew her here? She was supposed to be dead.
The navy cardigan sweater and thin gray braids were nothing out of the ordinary in this row of Quechua women awaiting the doctor, but the crinkled black eyes regarding Wara immediately flashed familiar. Doña Filomena, the elderly lady who worked at Café Amara! Wara felt her shoulders slump with relief and she took the few faltering steps over towards the older woman, overwhelmed to see someone from her old life. Her old life, before the trip to Coroico, before disaster.
Wara slowly leaned forward to grasp Doña Filomena’s forearm, mumbling the usual Quechua greeting. The woman smiled, dispersing a legion of crow’s feet across her copper cheeks. “I have been needing to have some tests done for a while,” she was saying in Quechua, “and since the café is closed today I am taking advantage of the time.”
Wara swallowed hard. Café Amara, vestiges of another dimension. “The café is closed?” she repeated. Her voice faded to a whisper as she asked, “Why?”
“You don’t know?” Doña Filomena’s rheumy eyes flickered, then she cocked her head to one side. “Of course you know! They said you were on the bus as well, that bus that had the accident. This whole week we prayed for you, and that boy. We prayed for you so much. What am I thinking, how could I forget that! They said that you had been found and that you were all right. But then yesterday I went to work, to peel potatoes and make the humintas, and they said that the café was closed until next week, because they found that poor boy had died and gone to glory.”
Wara’s words stuck in her throat. I can’t talk about Noah, or I’m going to throw myself into her arms and cry.
Her knees trembled beneath her. And then she