Page 71 of The Immortalists

He’s surprised to find the door unlocked. He mounts the stairs and steps inside.

A moment before his eyes adjust to the dark. It’s difficult to see with the windows covered, but the basic layout is discernible. He stands in a cramped living area, his left knee touching a dingy couch in a terrible abstract pattern. There’s a table across from the couch, or barely a table—a surface that folds out from the wall, currently stacked with boxes. Two metal folding chairs are wedged between the table and the front seats, also covered with boxes. To the left of the table is a sink and another strip of counter space with an assortment of candles and figurines.

He walks farther into the trailer, passing a spare, cramped bathroom before he comes to a closed door. In the center of the door, at eye level, a wooden cross hangs from two thumbtacks. He turns the doorknob.

A twin bed has been pushed up next to the wall. Beside it is a crate with a bible on top, as well as a plate, empty except for a plastic wrapper. Above that is a small, square window. The bed is covered with plaid flannel sheets and a navy blue comforter between which extends a single foot.

Daniel clears his throat. “Get up.”

The body stirs. Its face is turned to one side and hidden beneath long tendrils of hair. Slowly, a woman shifts onto her back and opens one eye, then the other. For a moment, she looks at him blankly. Then she inhales sharply and pushes herself to a seated position. She wears a cotton nightgown printed with tiny yellow flowers.

“I have a gun,” says Daniel. “Get dressed.” Already, he’s disgusted by her. Her foot is bare, the heel rough and cracked. “We’re going to talk.”

• • •

He brings her into the living area and tells her to sit on the couch. She carries the navy comforter from the bedroom and keeps it wrapped around her shoulders. Daniel removes the black shades from the windows, so that he can see her better in the moonlight.

She’s still heavy, though perhaps she looks larger this way, swaddled in the comforter. Her hair is white and unkempt and hangs down to her breasts; her face is covered with delicate, capillary wrinkles, so precise they could be drawn by pencil. The flesh beneath her eyes is a sallow pink.

“I know you.” Her voice is rusty. “I remember you. You came to see me in New York. You had your siblings, they were there. Two girls and a little boy.”

“They’re dead. The boy, and one of the girls.”

The woman’s mouth is pursed. She shifts beneath the comforter.

“I know your name,” Daniel says. “It’s Bruna Costello. I know your family, and what they’ve done. But I want to know about you. I want to know why you do what you do, and why you did what you did to us.”

The woman’s mouth is set. “I don’t got nothing to say to you.”

Daniel takes the gun out from inside his jacket and fires two bullets into the aluminum floor. The woman shrieks and covers her ears; the comforter falls to one side. There’s a scar, white and shiny like dried glue, beneath her collarbone.

“That’s my home,” she says. “You got no right to do that.”

“I’ll do worse.” He points the gun at her face, its barrel level with her nose. “So let’s start with the basics. You come from criminals.”

“I don’t talk about my family.”

He points upward, fires again. The bullet explodes through the roof and whistles in the air outside. Bruna screams. With one hand, she pulls the comforter up over her shoulders again; she holds the other out straight, her palm facing Daniel like a stop sign.

“Drabarimos, it’s a gift from God. My family wasn’t using it right. They’re backward, they’re dishonest, they hit and run. I don’t do nothing like that. I talk about life, and God’s blessings.”

“You know they’re locked up, don’t you? You know they’ve been caught?”

“I heard. But I don’t talk to them. I got nothing to do with it.”

“Bullshit. You stick together, you people, like rats.”

“Not me,” says Bruna. “Not me.”

When Daniel lowers his gun, she drops her hand. In her eyes, Daniel sees a gloss of tears. Perhaps she’s telling the truth. Perhaps her family feels as remote to her as Klara and Simon and Saul do to Daniel—like part of another lifetime.

But he can’t become soft. “Is that why you left home?”

“That’s part.”

“Why else?”

“’Cause I was a girl. ’Cause I didn’t wanna be nobody’s wife, nobody’s mother. Starting seven years old, you’re cleaning the house. Eleven, twelve, you’re working; fourteen, married. Me, I wanted to go to school, be a nurse, but I didn’t have no education. All it was was ‘Shai drabarel, shai drabarel?’ Can she tell fortunes. So I ran. I did what I knew, I gave readings. But I says to myself, I’ll be different. No charge if I don’t have to. No witchcrap. There was a client I had for years, I didn’t ask her once to pay me. I says to her, ‘Teach me. Teach me how to read.’ She’s laughing: ‘Palms?’ ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘The newspaper.’”