Kingdom Amongst the Moss Chapter 3

Author's Note: If you have read Chapter 2, then you will notice that the address inside of the book directed Amalah to Asgard Inn. The inn has been changed to Asgard, a restaurant. It is not completely necessary to read Chapters 1 and 2 if you have not already. The year is 1948, the narrator is newly arrived from Palestine, and currently has no place to sleep in or work at. She slept in an alleyway, and then found a book belonging to Gunther Peura at the address of Asgard. She is bringing the book back to him.

Chapter 3

I peered around the walls. The wooden planks, dark and streaked with faded slivers, scampered up and down the sides of the building, sewn with the similar floral patterns in splashes of pale yellows, reds, and greens. A tapestry woven of bold threads hung on the wall, boasting the folklore designs. Photographs of snowy forests and European cities were set sporadically throughout the room.

I glanced back at the center of the room. The walkway to the front was wide, as there were only about a dozen sets of tables and chairs, half of which supported customers. The furniture didn’t appear to be factory-made, rather, it all looked hand-carved, judging by the careful handiwork enunciated in the dark wood. Each chair differed from another in shape and design. Some were curved; others were engraved with abstract sketches of reindeer and flowers; a few had large slits carved down the backs. They looked very handsome with the tables. Erected of the same wood, the tables’ legs were thick and coarse, curling downwards until reaching the coiled feet, smooth with a fine finishing.

I stepped down the path. Tin cups served as vases for ruffled yellow flowers, which were set at the center of each table. The plates were mismatched like the chairs. All were embroidered with the traditional designs, but colors and shapes differed. Entwining flowers and wandering reindeer and broad-winged birds skipped on the plates, each with altered assortments of colors.

I arrived at the front. A display of baked goods and deserts was attached to the main counter. The owner of the sweet, flouncy voice that had welcomed me seemed to have disappeared. The touch of the warm words lingered in the air.

“Oh, hello!” A blonde woman burst out from a sliding door just behind the counter. “Sorry, so sorry, I have to go into kitchen really quickly—”

“No, no, it’s fine.”

“How may I help you?” Her blue eyes glittered with attentiveness, thrusting her pale face into light. She possessed fine features massaged into soft lines, pale and faded like fresh snow drizzled upon a mountaintop. I was painfully reminded of Imi. They didn’t share the light skin, but my mother had a similar nose, thin and boasting a soft point, and the same arched eyebrows. I shook the imps of agony off of me.

“Well, um…I found something of Gunther Peura’s. Does he, um, live here? I mean, like not in the restaurant but, um, in an apartment here or something?”

“Oh!” The lady exclaimed. “You find something of Gunther? What is it?”

“A-a book. Arabian Nights.” I hoisted up the book, struggling to hold it to her eyelevel.

“Oh!” She repeated. “How Gunther lose that! He live here, he somewhere, just one moment.”

She bustled around the counter, disappearing through an arched doorway I hadn’t noticed before. I glanced down at my feet. They were clothed in a thick layer of dirt and grey gravel; the sandals served no purpose in protecting my feet. My scarred legs were scratched up until skidding up the soiled hem of my dress. I reached for my braid, matted with clumps of dirt and sips of sweat. It was all so utterly humiliating.

The woman returned with a youth of around my age, tall and a bit burly.

A Sketch Of This Very Important Person: His blond hair appeared to be woven of golden threads plucked right from the early autumn sun as it bloomed over the harvest. Pastel skin and subtle features mellowed into the scene, blending with ease. His blue eyes, the exact shade of a winter’s river, met my own brown ones. The contact frightened me, and I severed the passage with haste.

I am shaking my head as I think back to the moment.

“Gunther!” The woman nodded, pointing to me. “That girl find your Arabian Nights.”

“Oh!” The boy, Gunther, mustered, confounded. “Thank you. Er….where’d you find it?”

“On the sidewalk.”

“The sidewalk! How could it have gotten there?”

“That not question right now,” the woman corrected Gunther. “Question is on what we give her for book.”

“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” I reassured her, out of politeness. But really, I was more than eager for a reward.

“Oh, I insist! It was much for book. Gunther, what we give her?”

“Er, money?” Gunther suggested.

“Obvious! I mean how much?” She tugged at a chain from around her neck to reveal a key, and she removed this key from its chain. Unlocking one of the drawers built into the counter, she pulled out a large, wooden jewellery box, emblazoned with fleeting carvings of dragons and the sea. She thrust open the box, exposing wads of green. I wasn’t sure on how much all of that money was worth—I was new to American bills. But it all must be worth something.

Wait—let us go forward for a second!

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“What is all of this money worth?” I lay on my stomach, head nearly brushing his knee.

“You mean you still don’t know?” He asked, cocking his head.

“I never learned.”

“How did you know that we weren’t, you know, giving you totally low pay or charging you over?”

“I suppose…I guess…it was just you, wasn’t it?”

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“I give you… one dollar—no.” She froze in movement. “Two dollars.”

Gunther’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “Two dollars?”

“Of course. It much, and with school notes inside. Hate to lose that. Worth lot.”

I didn’t know what the money was worth, but it would help.

“Thank you,” I tucked the money securely into the inner pocket of my satchel. “And, um, one more thing, ma’am.”

“Of course!”

“I…you don’t know any, um, inexpensive lodgings around here, do you?”

Her lips thinned. “Uh, I think King’s takes in people for three dollars a night?”

“N-no. I mean…” I reddened, fighting the impulse to lock my eyes upon my feet. One of the most important virtues for an Arab was their honor. Mine was hurt.

“Well, Scott Inn have room for two dollars?” She sucked in her thin cheeks. “But…it not nice at all.”

“Oh, well, I won’t trouble you anymore. I’m sure I’ll find something,” I smoothed down my dress, flesh burning with the bitter flames of embarrassment. The woman's pupils panned my face, gleam gliding over my body, glazing my dress with her stare, painting it with the lovely, kindly fire in her eyes. Pity and kindness married, two persons of inexplicable power entwined.

“We board,” Mrs. Peura announced, accent bouncing with her words. “We have extra room, upstairs, in our apartment.”

Waves of shock ruffled in Gunther’s eyes, and his yellow eyebrows rose like suns over the seas.

“I—” I stumbled on my words. “I’m afraid—ma’am, I can’t—”

“It only dollar per night,” she clapped eagerly. “You have no job?”

“N-no.”

“You work here! Work for half, pay for half!”

“I can’t accept—”

“No, no, we need work, and we need money!” She insisted, her braid flailing with her enthusiasm. “We be needing someone for so long, and we need money for, um, renovations!”

Her son gaped at his mother. They had never discussed this. She pitied me. I despised pity. I retreated, wringing my hands nervously.

“I really, I can’t, no—”

“Please! It would be such a pleasure to house and employ you.”

Alula stretched herself in the grass, reading a book, and Khamir came up and snatched the book and ran wild with it, and the little ones sprinted after him, a disarranged parade of hopeless delinquents. I could see them so fresh in my head. How I loved the reader of that book, and that band of delinquents. I knew their hearts, and I knew that they belonged here. Not there, nothing but a broken place with broken people. I couldn’t refuse.

“I thank you, very much.” My knees and arms quivered as I realized my first step had been taken. The room blurred, and the lines that were mere moments ago definite smeared until they were unrecognizable. A breath could hardly escape my lips.

The bell at the front rang.

“Excuse me,” Mrs. Peura brushed her hands on her apron, approaching the customer at the front.

I didn’t understand a single piece of what she was saying to that man or woman. The sliver of brightness was deafening.

I seized my face with my hands, gasping inaudibly into my hands. Fortune had blessed me with this at last. My eyes began to tear, brimming with water, but I brushed aside the wet with impatience. Brightening at my own good fortune, I glanced up again, and flushed.

Gunther had been watching my momentary rejoicing, interest etched upon his face. He severed his gaze as I looked up at him, but I could see a perturbed creature rustle in his eye, disturbed by my sorry state. I must have appeared insane. And weak. In Falastin, weakness is despised, and I promised to remain strong.

“I apologize, m’dear,” Mrs. Peura shrugged as she rejoined us. “Man on business. Well—” She clapped her slender, elegant palms together again, stringy fingers entwining with her mirth. “I afraid I can’t bring you up. Could you show her, Gunther?”

Gunther hesitated. “Which room?”

“Vierashuone. You know, the one we never use?” She glanced at me, exaggerating the uselessness of the room.

“Okay.” Before I could refuse, Gunther swept about the desk and grabbed for my trunk. The woman’s teeth sparkled with her wide grin. “I see you later!”

“Thank you,” I nearly moaned with my gratitude. For everything.

“Here,” Gunther jabbed his free finger at the stairway. “You can head on up first.”

He swept himself to the side for me to go. I began treading upward, uneasy with the presence of the boy.

After a few seconds, Gunther began to speak. “Where are you from?”

Pain tickled my brain. “Palestine.”

“Oh, I figured you were foreign. What city are you from?”

“Jerusalem.”

“Oh.” I glanced down at his fingers. Ink outlined his fingernails and lead smeared his palms.

“Are you an artist?”

“Wha—what?”

“There’s ink and lead on your fingers.”

“Oh, well,” he cocked his head, smiling clumsily, abandoning all surliness from a minute ago. Somehow my grim face enlightened him of his own mood. “Yes, I am. And are you a detective?”

“No,” I said simply. An artist. The boy’s golden hair faded a bit; his eyes lost their color. Any who pursued an interest in the humanities was an enemy of mine. An artist’s aim is to capture the world, and I didn’t like anyone who ventured to execute such an evil deed.

“Then what do you do?”

I hardly knew. I was once a great interpreter of art, and an extraordinary maker of it, too. But art is malicious, and since I was scarred enough to realize it, I had turned away. “I don’t know.”

“Is it a secret?” Why was this impertinent boy teasing me?

“I used to be an artist.”

“Then why aren’t you anymore?” His eyes creased with uneasiness.

“Because…” Because people are a despicable race. “It’s such a long story.”

Gunther strung his fingers through his hair. “Oh.”

A pause snuck into the conversation. The staircase was much too long.

“D-did you come alone?” Gunther asked.

“Yeah. I’m….alone.” Alone.

A—lone.

Meaning: To be without others.

The clasp on my trunk snapped, spitting out all of my things. Gunther bit his lip to hold back a curse, bending over to scoop the belongings back inside.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. “My fault.”

“No, it’s fine, it’s not you, the clasp has been wearing down for a while,” I insisted, joining him on the lone stair. “Here, I’ll get it.”

I picked up a pale brown dress, red blood crisping either side, where my ribs would be. I folded it hastily before Gunther could catch a glimpse.

I was too late. Glancing up at Gunther, his eyes were crinkling in shock. His mouth dropped slightly, his eyes folding with intense thought. I tucked the dress under a black, leather-bound journal, covers trapped in twine.

“Oh, you may want to grab those,” Gunther pointed to the slips of papers that had tumbled out behind me.

“Oh,” I leaned over and snatched the crumpled bits up in my palms. Stained with stories and simple drawings and the descriptions of all the places that were sunk deep into my head. I despised those ideals which I had once claimed with such pride.

Undoing the twine from about my waist, I secured the latch with one knot. “This should do.”

Carefully lugging my trunk up the steps, Gunther chose to end conversation, setting me into comfort once more. As long as I could ponder in silence, I could at least feel the delusion of being content.

Key word of above: delusion.

The apartment was situated just above the restaurant, but the sound from the dining area was muffled nicely. Only a slight murmur could be felt from the threshold of the dark, cedar door. Gunther thrust open the door.

“The vierashuone is—I mean,” Gunther shook his head. “The guestroom is just down the hall.”

“Are you speaking Finnish?”

“Oh, yeah,” he cocked his head, his mouth twisting at the ends into a smile. “How’d you know?”

“The main indicator is that there were pictures of what I believe is Helsinki in the dining room. But I also realized that you couldn’t be Swedish, because your mother’s accent was not so, and the Finnish really began leaving Finland in the late nineteen-thirties. Your mother has a thick accent, but you have just a slight one, so therefore you must have left around the time of the Winter War.”

We approached the door to the vierashuone at the end of the hall. “You’re quick.”

“I suppose so,” I shifted uncomfortably. He opened the door, gesturing for me to go inside.

Evening sun tiptoed in through the blinds, and the rays laughed as they tapped their fingers on the bedside table, rolled about in the coverlets, and climbed the walls. I found nothing amusing about the room. Arrays of small, friendly shapes tread upon the blue blankets, reindeer and moose tracking along with them. Or perhaps they weren’t friendly, just cold. A squat lamp stood guard to the side, stitched with skipping folklore designs. The door to the bathroom was slightly ajar, and a greying sink peeked out from the slight crack. Nothing else was very personal—it was just as most guestrooms, or vierashuones, should be.

“Thanks,” I mustered, eyes still glazing the room. “Um, I feel like I owe you something, for bringing my things.” I tugged a spare dime from my pocket.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Gunther insisted hastily. “No, you brought my book back, the least I could do is this.”

I blinked, anger raining down upon me in a storm. If I had come in with a clean dress and washed hair, he would have accepted my tip, but he thought me lowly and poor. Pride ripped apart by his refusal, I snuck the coin back into my pocket.

“Thanks for bringing my book back. Really, I needed that for school. It must have dropped from my book bag.”

“Yeah, must’ve. I wouldn’t know how else it would land on the sidewalk. But wouldn’t you be able to hear it?”

“That’s the funny part—I don’t know...”

“You need it for school?”

“Yeah.”

“I grew up with those stories. They were my childhood…” Why was I telling the artist this? The words were meaningless. I shook my head. “I mean…thank you for bringing up my things.”

“No problem. Just ask one of us if you need anything more. And, feel free to come and go as you please.” He sidestepped out the door, offering a whimpering smile. I wondered if he would break if I were to drop him, or tear if I were to tug at him.

“Thank you.”

“Of course. See you later.” The door snapped close, and I was thrust into solitude.