The Cartographers by Amy Zhang

Author:Amy Zhang
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2022-12-12T00:00:00+00:00

The Infinite Q

Again, Constant deleted my paragraphs. At first I thought he hadn’t written anything in response, but then I noticed a new star on the map where there used to only be a station: Brighton Beach, on the Q line. Next to the star, Constant had written Tomorrow, 5 p.m.

Had he even read what I had written? Again I was consumed by the question. In the edit history I could see when he appeared in the document, and then, several minutes later, when he highlighted the block of text and deleted it. I looked at the time stamps for a long time, trying to determine if that was enough time for him to read my paragraphs. Everything was subtext. All subtext was bullshit.

Of course I wouldn’t go meet him at Brighton Beach. I wouldn’t make it, anyway—I had to tutor Benny on the Upper West Side at three. But then Olivia called to say that Benny had come down with a fever, and couldn’t we please reschedule? She told me to send her my available times. I couldn’t imagine what to send: my completely blank calendar? We settled on Friday afternoon. Until then I had nothing to do. I got on a train to Brighton.

The Q to the beach was almost entirely above ground. The sun hit me square in the face and I could only squint out the window as the landscape shifted: the apartment buildings grew shorter until they gave way to a patch of Victorian houses, which turned back to squat brick two-stories. In some places, the track curved so close to the buildings I could imagine diving out the train window onto a reflective roof. I marveled at the fact that all the houses were filled with people who watched dozens of trains rumble by every day.

At the last stop I got off, feeling disoriented. I couldn’t say where the beach was. The platform was elevated but offered only a good view of the tall, brutalist apartment buildings on both sides. Constant wasn’t there. I waited for a while, to see if he would appear. The train I’d come on pulled out of the station and headed onward without me.

At street level, I found myself in some alternate history where the Cold War had ended more favorably for the USSR. Everything still looked like New York—there were still ninety-nine-cent stores and bodegas and clothing boutiques selling variously bedazzled polyblends—but every single storefront was in Russian. An old woman shouldered past with an enormous pot of noodles, muttering in Polish. I walked a few blocks in the wrong direction; even the street signs were in Cyrillic letters.

By the time I found the beach, the weather had changed for the worse. The wind swept off the sunlight, and the clouds blowing in were storm-dark and low. The temperature plummeted. The sea hurled itself again and again at the sand, then retreated back to the horizon. Everything was the color of cement.

Except Constant. There he was, in a neon vest, painting in the sand.

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