The City Beautiful by Aden Polydoros

Author:Aden Polydoros
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Inkyard Press
Published: 2021-07-08T19:56:22+00:00

28

On the train back to Maxwell Street, I wrote down what we had learned, compiling the facts into even columns. There were loose connections tying Mr. Katz to Yakov and potentially to the other boys—not to mention Frankie and myself—but it still didn’t feel good enough. I needed solid proof, the sort of bloody evidence that would convince a judge to deal out a death sentence. But even then, I wasn’t sure if I had it in me to take justice into my own hands.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” I said. “Raizel, why don’t you write the article?”

“Me?” She laughed abruptly.

“I mean it. You said you’ve gotten your writing published in the Arbeiter-Zeitung and the Freiheit.”

“Well, yes, but neither of those papers would be interested in something like this.” She gave it some thought. “If the story were just about Mr. Katz, the Arbeiter-Zeitung might publish it, but we’d need more than what we have. We can’t just publish an article based on speculation.”

“You’re right.”

“How about this? Let’s write it together.” She smiled. “It’ll be a collaboration.”

“Deal.” As I scanned over what I had written, the letters blurred into an inky smear. My chin grew heavy. I pinched my inner wrist as I sensed myself beginning to drift off, but it was as though lead ingots had been tied to my chin and eyelids.

A throbbing orange glow appeared in the corners of my vision, casting flickering shadows across the train car. My ears rang with faint noises I couldn’t place—crackling and hissing, the groan of wood, indistinct voices that sounded like screaming but were so far away they might as well have been whispers.

Raizel seized my wrist as I began to nod off. “Alter, what are you doing?”

I blinked, jolted wide-awake. “What?”

“Your arm!”

I looked down. My journal had fallen to the floor without me noticing it. I held my fountain pen in my left hand, the nib sunken into the tender flesh of my right forearm. Ink and blood dripped down my skin. I wiped it away frantically, exposing letters scratched into my skin:

КАТ

I traced my fingers over the shallow scratches the pen nib had made. Raizel had caught me before I even finished spelling Katz’s name, but if she hadn’t, what would I have done? Would I have kept writing until I had carved his name from wrist to shoulder, the same way that I had typed zolst im derhargenen into the Linotype machine?

“What were you thinking?” Raizel demanded.

“I don’t know.” I hastily rolled down my sleeve. “I must have drifted off. I have Katz on my brain.”

“You’ve been acting really strange lately. This isn’t normal, Alter.”

“I’m fine, Raizel.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. I threw my journal and fountain pen back into my satchel. “I’m just tired.”

Truly, I was tired. On the walk home, exhaustion pressed down on me. I barely had the motivation to climb to the third floor. I knew what I had to do. I just didn’t know if I was strong enough to finish Yakov’s last task for him.

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