"They had such places?"
"There were rumors that that's what happened to children who disappeared from the street. Along with the rumors that they were cooked into spicy stews in the immigrants' section of town. Those I don't believe."
She wrapped her arms around his chest. "Oh, Bean, what a hellish place."
"Achilles came from here, too," he said.
"He was never as small as you were."
"But he was crippled. That bad leg. He had to be smart to stay alive. He had to keep everyone else from crushing him for no better reason than because they could. Maybe his thing about having to eliminate anyone who sees his helplessness--maybe that was a survival mechanism for him, under these circumstances."
"You're such a Christian," said Petra. "So full of charity."
"Speaking of which," said Bean. "I assume you're going to raise our child Armenian Catholic, right?"
"It would make Sister Carlotta happy, don't you think?"
"She was happy no matter what I did," said Bean. "God made her happy. She's happy now, if she's anything at all. She was a happy person."
"You make her sound--what?--mentally deficient?"
"Yes. She was incapable of holding on to malice. A serious defect."
"I wonder if there's a genetic test for it," said Petra. Then she regretted it immediately. The last thing she wanted was for Bean to think too much about genetic tests, and realize what seemed so obvious to her, that Volescu had no test.
They visited many other places, and more and more of them made him tell her little stories. Here's where Poke used to hide a stash of food to reward kids who did well. Here's where Sister Carlotta first sat down with us to teach us to read. This was our best sleeping place during the winter, until some bigger kids found us and drove us out.
"Here's where Poke stood over Achilles with a cinderblock in her hands," said Bean, "ready to dash his brains out."
"If only she had," said Petra.
"She was too good a person," said Bean. "She couldn't imagine the evil that might be in him. I didn't, either, until I saw him lying there, what was in his eyes when he looked up at that cinderblock. I've never seen so much hate. That was all--no fear. I saw her death in his eyes right then. I told her she had to do it. Had to kill him. She couldn't. But it happened just the way I warned her. If you let him live, he'll kill you, I said, and he did."
"Where was it?" asked Petra. "The place where Achilles killed her? Can you take me there?"
He thought about it for a few moments, then walked her to the waterfront among the docks. They found a clear place where they could see between the boats and ships and barges out to where the great Rhine swept past on its way to the North Sea.
"What a powerful place," said Petra.
"What do you mean?"
"It just--the river, so strong. And yet human beings were able to build this along its banks. This harbor. Nature is strong but the human mind is stronger."
"Except when it isn't," said Bean.
"He gave her body to the river, didn't he?"
"He dumped her into the water, yes."
"But the way Achilles saw what he did. Giving her to the water. Maybe he romanticized it."
"He strangled her," said Bean. "I don't care what he thought while he did it, or afterward. He kissed her and then he strangled her."
"You didn't see the murder, I hope!" said Petra. It would be too terrible if Bean had been carrying such an image in his mind all these years.
"I saw the kiss," said Bean. "I was too selfish and stupid to see what it meant."
Petra remembered her own kiss from Achilles, and shuddered. "You thought what anyone would have thought," said Petra. "You thought his kiss meant what mine does."