“Every culture has its view of the world. Its core set of beliefs describe the inner workings of the universe and our roles in it as human beings. Religion is often a big part of this world view, more in some cultures than in others. Amongst the Lara’ people, the king jaguar kept the machinery of their society oiled.”
I let the echo from the microphone quiet and die out. The butterflies in my stomach settle, wings trembling as I locate the tall figure between Mama, my sister, and my parents in the front row. He nods calmly, white mane reminding me of a halo in the low light.
“The rituals of death vary profoundly between each culture, and my fascination with Lara’ Nation’s treatment of their new widows started while I was a teenager. At the time, I believed—like the anthropologists studying them back then—that the tribesmen were bullying them, figuratively kicking them while they were down, or worse, that what occurred was a prolonged type of... gang rape.”
I shake my head because I’d debated back and forth on using that word. It’s a harsh expression, but Dr. Bergstein determined that I should use it. After all, it is what the last generation of anthropologists believed but were afraid to express openly.
My stare slides back to Luka and his diehard belief in me. “The Lara’ people let us live amongst them and be a part of their everyday life. When tragedy hit and a young warrior died, his widow was tossed into the very situation I was there to study. I’d been prepared to learn from interviews and descriptions of former rituals. Instead, I got to observe it unfold in front of me. Grief is intense and devastating no matter who and where you are. What differentiates one place from the other is how it is handled.”
I blow my cheeks up. I’m amongst colleagues, but I’m sliding over to the psychological field with my description. In front of me, Luka does a small nod of encouragement. Behind him, Joy and Diego peer out, psychologists-in-the-making no more. Full-on psychologists instead.
“During my initial studies of Yarunami, the first Lara’ widow widely studied by the West, I wrote, ‘She displays no sign of emotional scarring. How can this be after the prolonged sexual violence she was subjected to in the midst of her grief?’”
I let my eyes go to Marlon, whose features are solemn as he listens, dreadlocks gone like he said they would be once he passed his bar exam. Next to him sits James, gaze steady on me as well. My sister steals a glance backward, and for a second he meets her attention with his own.
“My early hypothesis was that Yarunami healed quickly from her trauma due to her society’s acceptance of sexual violence as a ritualized norm.”
I find Lenny and Belen on the fourth row, at a distance from the others.
“I rejected that hypothesis and built another based on what I witnessed firsthand in the tribe. My collection of twenty interviews is unanimous in its summarized conclusion. They were conducted on former widows and their daughters, a new widow, and the men partaking in what I formally referred to as ritualized sexual violence.”
Connor tilts his head from the second row. Faintly, I catch that his beard has small braids and the hipster girl in the crook of his arm is playing with them. He catches my eye and smiles, prematurely mouthing, Fantastic.
“Based on my research, I could accept my new hypothesis with ninety-eight percent security, and”—I send a side-glance to Dr. Bergstein, ensuring that he still believes this part to be true—“present the world with a new view of the Lara’ as a less primitive tribe than formerly determined.
“Their new widows are in fact not subjected to rape. What they go through is an aggressively supervised grief process. The village sets forth on an ebb and flow: at daytime, they leave the widow alone with her loss. At night, they flood her with male attention in the form of nearness and sexuality until the woman herself chooses a new partner.”
Nathaniel catches my eye, a small smile lifting his mouth. I know what he’s thinking. The man isn’t dumb—none of the guys are—and my final words are about to cement my point.
“To put it in layman’s terms, the grieving widow has the pick of the upper shelf of eligible men. In the beginning, when all she wants is to disappear inside her grief, she’s coerced into accepting their maleness. The process can take weeks or months. It continues until her grief diminishes and the widow has found a favorite. The other men slowly retreat, and when the moment is there, when the widow’s smile shows that her choice is final, her new husband brings her out of the wilderness and back to the tribe.”
We do everything together today. I love how right Luka is about this. Golden mane brushing the top of his collar, he swaggers slowly next to me and pulls Mama under his arm. I’m not behind them. I’m at his side, and the rest of our old roommates follow, chatting and laughing. They haven’t seen each other in a while either, scattered as we are now.
Joy nudges my shoulder. “You rocked that crowd. Did you hear the applause? And Dr. Bergstein performed that majestic nod you told me about, the one that never stops. Did you see? He freaking dug it.”
“God, yes. This feels unreal.”
Diego catches up with her. “What, babe?”
“Funny that you’re ‘babing’ Joy now instead of me,” I joke and feel Luka’s stare swipe over me before his attention returns to Mama.
“Hey, you made your choice. You made it blatantly clear in there how you used us.” He winks, dark lashes eclipsing a green-green iris. “Talk about sticking it to us.”
“She’s sticking it to the man. Or to all the men except Luka.” Joy snorts at her own joke. “The Verenich men were always her favorites.”
The shuttle picking us up and taking us to the Queen is from the same company as two years ago. It looks the same on the inside too, but there is no numb despair accompanying me when I step onboard. I don’t sit next to Connor either, who has his hipster girl on his arm. And there is no hate for Luka weighing me down.
Luka seats Mama on the first row, and Aci plops down next to her with her signature charismatic smile. Mama nods solemnly in acknowledgment from within her black-coned scarf.
And there she is: the Queen. I haven’t been here since I moved back to Portland. From my sudden intake of breath, Luka catches onto my response and squeezes my hand.
Lenny and Belen are the only ones not on the shuttle. They went back to the Queen ahead of us, receiving the catering people and making sure everything is ready.
They’re here now, on the porch. Lenny with his male-model, half-long hair and beautifully squinted smile. Belen, so much less odious than when I knew her, in a knee-length polka-dotted fifties dress with her hair coiled perfectly into a pinup ’do.
“Welcome to our humble abode,” Lenny says as we step onto old, familiar floorboards.
“Thank you,” Luka murmurs. “Any news on buying her?”
“Who, Belen?” Lenny jokes, causing his girlfriend to roll her eyes. “I’m working on it. Apparently, it’ll cost me its weight in diamonds and titanium bands, so I’mma keep saving.”
“Shush, honey,” she objects, looking embarrassed. “My Lenny’s so silly.”
And the world has come to an end.
Lenny presses a kiss to her cheek. “Basically, I’m waiting for the old broad to get senile enough to sell the Queen for a cheap penny.”
“Which old broad?” Aci butts in.
“The landlady.”
Dinner is lively and happy. There are no Russian specialties on the menu, no desperate vodka shots or sadness creeping through the crowd, and once it’s time for bed, Lenny offers that we sleep over. My room is the only space not sublet at the moment.
I swing the door open and enter my old life slowly, with the safety of Luka’s bulk at my back. I stand here. Look around at fuchsia-pink walls and cream-colored moldings, my manic attempt at forcing the hand of happiness. It still houses Julian’s bed, the one I left behind because I couldn’t stomach taking it to Portland.
The small glass veranda is here, still and eternal and having seen it all: the hearts of Julian and me colliding in our young crush; Julian’s fall into addiction; his secret-keeping, his death, my grief, the Fratters comforting me... and the beginning of the rest of my life.
Luka folds his arms over my stomach and pulls me back against him. We breathe together, a rhythmic in-and-out that is ours, his chest expanding and forming tight against my spine.
“How do you feel?” He bends to give my neck a kiss.
In this room, my hate for Luka changed to tenderness. It shifted to desire and embraced compassion. As I stand here with my past surrounding me in flickers of bright paint, I wonder when our souls merged.
“You can’t do this alone, Geneva.”
Maybe it happened on the eve of Julian’s funeral?
“I feel good.” I open my palm and make a circle around us with it. “But this, here, feels over.”
Luka sighs, and it’s not a sad sigh. “Yeah. Let’s go, my love. I think it’s time for us to say goodbye to the Queen for good.”
I close the door to a second-story corner suite with a built-in bathroom. To a room hosting a small glass veranda that’s not unique in the Queen.
As Luka and I walk down the stairs, hand in hand and beside each other, I take one last freeing look over my shoulder.