The nights under the bridge are cold. The days walking the city streets with Lem, while he tries to find work, are long.
At first, we eat two meals a day at the tavern. Then, one meal a day at the tavern. Then, we don’t eat at the tavern anymore. I make our meals, though we have no way to make fire. And no pots or plates. Lem buys a loaf of bread and cheap cheese at the market and I use a sharp stone to cut it into cheese sandwiches.
Lem tries to get work at the docks, but they are only looking for sailors. He looks into making deliveries for merchants, but we have neither a horse nor a cart. He inquires at a shipping office to see if they might need someone to load and unload cargo, but they turn us away when he avoids questions about our family.
He cannot tell them he is the son of the spice shop owner. People know the spice shop burned down, and there is much gossip that it was because of the Plague.
Once, at the market, a man grabs my arm. “You’re the daughter of the spice shop owner, aren’t you? What do you know of a spice that can cure the Plague?” he demands. Several women standing nearby step forward with interest to hear my answer. I pull and twist my arm to get away from the man, but he holds me tightly.
“You are mistaken,” Lem says to the man. “We are the children of farmers. We’ve come into the city to look for work.” His lie is convincing. The man lets me go and the women return to their talk.
We seem to stand out when all I want is to blend in. Keep to myself.
One day, Lem and I find ourselves on the street where our spice shop used to be. We both freeze. “Not this way,” Lem says. He pulls me back and we walk in the other direction. Back to our bridge.
Our home. Now.
I sit on the ground and put my arms around my body to try to warm myself. I wish we had a fire. Or blankets. I would even wear my cap, but unfortunately it was left in the apartment.
Lem puts his hand into his pocket and pulls out the few coins we have left. He counts, then counts again.
“We need to ration, Rose,” he says.
“What does that mean?”
“Money is running out. We’ll have to split one meal a day,” he says. “And no more cheese.”
“One half meal of bread?” I ask.
“I can look in the streets, after the market closes up. Sometimes an onion or a carrot falls behind,” he says.
“I’m hungry,” I whine.
“What was Father’s favorite spice, Rose?”
“What?” I ask. I’m surprised by this question.
“The oil recipe: what was his favorite spice?” he asks.
“None of your business,” I snap. I refuse him that information. I guard that last secret between Father and me.
We sit in silence for a long time.
“Let’s go to sleep,” Lem suggests. He tosses a few rocks to scatter the rats that scurry below the bridge. “We should get a cat to take care of these rats,” he says. Then, he lies down on his side.
He notices I don’t move.
“If you sleep, you won’t think about being hungry,” he says softly.
I go nearer to him. I lie down and look at the blackness of the underbelly of the bridge.
Like all nights, I have more awake time than sleep time. Between sounds in the dark and nightmares that fill my dreams, I am often jolted awake. Then, I stay awake for hours, listening to all the sounds I was sheltered from when we lived with Mother and Father: screams of women in the night, drunk men singing in the distance, dogs barking at anything that moves.
My best sleep, if I can call it that, is right before dawn. The safety of the rising sun gives me comfort.
One morning, my eyes flutter open and I see my brother is gone.
I sit up in fright. I look from side to side. No Lem. I look down toward the river and then up, over my shoulder, toward the road. No one.
He has not left my side, not once, since we came to live under the bridge.
I get up in one jolt and run up the hill. “Lem!” I cry out.
“Lem!” I scream.
I walk down the road in the direction of the city.
“Lem!”
Moments later, he appears at the top of the road.
“Rose!” He waves to me. “Over here.”
I run toward him but he has already turned and is trotting back from where he came.
“Lem!” I call out when I reach the top of the road. I see him down the street rounding the next corner.
“Follow me!” he calls.
I run after him for several streets, going this way and that. I never get close enough to catch up to him, but I’m never far enough away to lose sight. He is leading me somewhere.
Out of the corner of my eye I see something all in black that stops me in my tracks. Man? Beast? I cannot tell. It’s dressed in black from head to toe. Taller than Lem. It is gone through a doorway into a home before I can figure out whether it is friend or foe.
“Rose,” my brother’s voice calls out.
Finally, I spot Lem around a corner with a gang of boys. He looks at me to acknowledge my arrival. He crouches down and throws a pair of dice at the wall. There are cheers and boos coming from the other boys. I recognize some of them; they were the boys calling out to Lem when we were in the shop. They look intimidating.
Instead of coming closer, I keep my distance and lean against a building. Then, I slide down the wall and sit on the ground.
I’m not dumb. Throwing dice and money on the ground can only mean one thing.
I watch them gamble from a distance. I am tired. Hungry. Cold.
Lem cheers in delight. For a while. Then, a frown appears more constant. His face tightens. I hear him curse.
“Better luck next time, Lem!” announces an older boy. He takes Lem aside and they whisper in conversation. Lem seems to be trying to explain something. Negotiating. The older boy doesn’t seem to care about what Lem wants to explain. He points his finger at Lem and yells, “You better have the rest tonight!”
The older boy walks back to the dice game.
Lem kicks the ground. He looks in my direction, curses again, and walks over to me.
“Let’s go!” he grunts.
We retrace the steps that brought us to the dice game.
When we get back to the bridge, he walks straight down to the river. After a while, I tiptoe down to the river bank to join him.
“Did you lose it all?” I ask plainly, not looking at Lem but looking at the water.
“Yes,” he whispers, not looking at me but also looking at the water.
“Do you owe more than you lost?”
“Yes.”
I turn and walk back up to my spot under the bridge. I sit and hold my knees in my arms. Tears stream down my face. I look at Lem by the river. He looks smaller today than he did yesterday.
I let my grief swim over me completely. I cry uncontrollably. My body shudders. I gasp to catch my breath.
Lem throws giant rocks into the river. He screams with all his might. He beats the ground with his bare hands.
After a while, exhaustion takes us both. We lie down on the ground where we are — Lem at the river, me on the dirt under the bridge. We spend the whole night laying on the ground.
Before sunrise, Lem picks himself up and musters the strength to walk up the hill.
“Let’s go,” he says.
“Go where?”
“To the city center,” he says, looking in the direction of our spice shop.
“Why?”
“Because now … now we must beg.”