Page 9 of All Saints Day
For the first time since we joined arms in the Museum—we step back from one another, Dr. Perla appraising me quietly, her fingers laid over her pursed lips.
While I await her response, I reach into the pocket of my jacket and pull the soft pack of 27’s from it along with a lighter.
Perla pulls her hand away from her mouth—her long manicured fingers dipping into the purse slung over her shoulder for a thin brass case.
“Of course I’m going to help you,” she snips with annoyance—pulling one of her thin cigarillos from the coffret of brass—placing it between her plum-painted lips daintily. “I mayburn in hell forever for what I helped Margot and Landon do,” she sighs and crosses herself, her lit cigarillo trailing sweet-smelling smoke like an impromptu censer as she makes the motions and momentarily bows her head.
I shouldn’t have been so bold, considering she could walk away from us at any moment while we still desperately needed her help—but I asked Azzura Perla the question that had been burning in my brain, what I needed answering before I would accept her help.
“Why did you do it? Help the Penny’s with the original Zeitnot, that is.”
“You should have met them when they had first gotten started.” Dr. Perla made a clicking noise with her tongue, waving her cigarillo through the air as she clung to my arm. “Margot had been so sick and tired of the limits placed on us—sigmas and omegas—by the social demands made on us and how we are expected to spend our lives.”
I nod slowly, respectfully—but this only draws an exasperated sound from the Doctor.
“How little the ones who aren’t forced into a life as breeding stock seem to care for your plight,” she adds snippily, looking at me accusingly over the top of the tinted lenses of her sunglasses.
“My apologies, Dottore, I never meant to insinuate that I didn’t take the matter very seriously.” I gently pat her hand where it clamps over my forearm.
“Certainly it is not the same for gammas, deltas, or thetas as it is for omegas or sigmas—but the hierarchy of designations seems to harm everyone more than it ever helps them,” I clarify my stance on the matter—earning a curt nod of understanding from Dr. Perla.
“An astute observation.” She nods—barreling right along.
“Much like Margot and Landon, I dared to hope for a world where our children and grandchildren wouldn’t be bound by the same restrictions we had—a world where designation could be as fluid—a choice.”
We walk a few moments in silence under the boughs of trees in the public gardens.
“We should have known better than to play God,” she finally says in a hushed voice, crossing herself—the trailing smoke of her cigarillo marking her gestures for the son, the father, and the holy ghost. “I may never fully atone for my sins, but I can do my best.”
I allow her statement a moment to breathe before I ask, as vaguely and casually as possible—since we’re still strolling in public.
“How involved were you in the 1993 outbreak?”
Dr. Perla jolts to a halt, her gaze pinning me with surprise coated in a layer of anger.
“How much do you know about the 1993 outbreak?” she tosses back in clear challenge.
“If you knew Landon and Margot personally in addition to professionally—surely you knew their daughter Louise?” I float another question over the top, trying to ease Dr. Perla back toward a friendlier tone of conversation.
“Yes, I just heard about her passing a few weeks ago.” Dr. Perla side-eyes me, choosing her words carefully. “I didn’t hear any of the grisly details, just that she died in the line of duty,” she offers up, her voice cool—removed even.
Were we not out in the open—I could tell Doctor Perla that, with the help of samples of Louise’s blood, I had been able to recreate the treatment for the Zeitnot virus from the Penny’s original formula. That a vaccine was equally possible.
Luckily for Caz and I, the treatment hadn’t scrambled the designations of asymptomatic carriers of the virus; gammas and thetas like us.
I wanted to tell the Dottore about everything we had seen, to show her the recordings left to us by Landon and Margot—but I had to keep quiet until our more private meeting and chose my response carefully.
“She is one of my fated mates,” I say softly, the words causingpain to well up from the unending font of pining heartsickness deep in my chest.
“Povero!” she gasps—letting go of my arm to clasp both of my meaty tattooed hands in her withered, gnarled ones.
“Well, you can imagine I know a great many things about Louise that others might not,” is all I am willing to elaborate where we could potentially be overheard.
Azzura Perla nods quickly, her lips pursed in an expression of pain.
“I am beginning to see what you mean.” She looks once over her shoulder before reaching into her clutch purse for a small square of cream-colored paper. “This is where I will be staying.” She explains, tucking the card into my palm and closing my fingers over it. “I’ll make the dinner reservations somewhere intimate so I can talk with you and your friends.” She gives a coquettish wink, and I can’t help but admire the old bird’s style.
“Send a car, though.” She pats my knuckles, tapping an ash from the end of her cigarillo. “I’m too old for the subway, and those taxis will kill you.” She blows an air kiss, then turns and shuffles away from me into the crowd.
