Whirligig: List 2

The story was brief and gave only the victim’s name, age, and residence: Lea Zamora, 18, Chicago. He plumbed those few facts. She was nearly his own age. He was determined to know more.

Then the judge came to the final item: meeting with the victim’s family, if they desired, to discuss restitution.

Her wavy hair flowed exuberantly over her shoulders; the rest of her seemed only half-alive.

She navigated the introductions with an eerie, ethereal calm.

“We’re meeting today,” said Miss Gill, “to apologize, and to understand, and to atone.”

Eyes down, she continued her detailed, dispassionate account of that night and the days that followed...

“I don’t believe in retribution. Lea was born in the Philippines. I was teaching English and met my husband there. I saw what an-eye-for-an-eye looks like, with the rebels fighting the government and all that. My husband feels a little differently. I also believe everything happens for a reason.”

Brent wondered what his own eulogy would sound like.

It would also give him a chance to do penance.

Their luggage held shirts and pants; his held slabs of plywood, a saw, a hand drill, dowels, brass rods, pliers, a quart of varnish, nails, paints.

He tried out the words in his head: “I’m a traveling whirligig maker.” It was an interim identity, tied to his previous life. He would cast it off soon, but in favor of what?

He was lodged in his own chrysalis but had no idea what he was turning into.

Her dress was white. Or was it only a blouse? He examined the pattern embroidered on the bodice.

He scrutinized her smile from close range, almost felt her breath on his face.

Slowly, Brent meandered through the campground.

Out of nowhere, the word karass came to mind, from the Vonnegut book he’d read in English, a term for a disparate group of people linked together without their knowledge.

He studied the diagrams apprehensively. Neither he nor his father was the Popular Mechanics type.

Freehand drawing was not his forte either. It took half an hour to get it right.

He inserted the only spare he’d brought, feeling like a soldier down to his last bullet. He worked gingerly.

What he knew without question was that it felt good to be busy toiling in atonement, to direct his feelings outward through his arms and knife, as if draining an abscess.

He cut his hand three different times and suspected that part of him wasn’t content with the labors he’d been assigned and longed to mete out more punishment.

He’d brought nothing long-sleeved. He hadn’t mentioned this oversight, or any others, when he’d called his parents from the bus station in Los Angeles—they were dubious enough about the trip as it was.

He hadn’t mentioned this oversight, or any others, when he’d called his parents from the bus station in Los Angeles—they were dubious enough about the trip as it was.

Just as in the first call he’d made, they’d barraged him with questions, reminders, and cautions.

By now he was accustomed to feeling separate from the other passengers. For them, the bus was an interlude; for him, it was home.

A young woman from Holland who’d gotten off in Santa Barbara had told him about youth hostels and had let him copy an address from her book.

The thieves exchanged a long look. The hand reluctantly released his pack. Then the pair skulked wordlessly into the night.

Those who’d bought their own groceries were cooking more substantial fare in the kitchen.

Cautiously, he entered the fray, nonchalantly poured some coffee—a drink he’d tried only once—grabbed a pastry, and took a seat.

Cautiously, he entered the fray, nonchalantly poured some coffee—a drink he’d tried only once—grabbed a pastry, and took a seat.

The lies were piling up: that he was a coffee drinker, a Canadian, and, most serious, that he was a mere tourist, not a convicted killer on a mission of repentance.

They got off the bus at Balboa Park, headed for the San Diego Zoo, and spent the rest of the morning strolling through mesas, rain forests, and aviaries.

Emil would be studying biology at his university and provided a constant commentary on bird plumages and migration, European snakes, the evolution of the elephant.

Everything we did—good, bad, and indifferent—sent a wave rolling out of sight.

Dinner at the hostel was a boisterous affair, conducted in several languages.

Brent listened unobtrusively as diners and topics came and went.

By the fading light, then by flashlight, he pored over Lesson One, trying to find C at the fourth hole without looking, tripping over the C scale’s quirky pattern, laboring with scant success to get a single note instead of two.

He considered giving the whale her face, then painting her in its belly as Jonah, then looked through the book, saw a design with a mermaid, and decided to change its hair to black and transpose it to the top of the spout.

He claimed one of the rockers, took out his harmonica, and began work on memorizing “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” It had been sung briskly back in grammar school, the refrain cheery and rousing. He now saw it for the lament that it was.

ANNOUNCER: Sarah Chang, the young violin virtuoso, of Korean descent, like yourself?