Read When the Emperor Was Divine for Free Online

it but I didn’t.”
    His mother gave him an orange. “You can’t remember everything,” she said.
    â€œAnd even when you can you shouldn’t,” said the girl.
    â€œI wouldn’t say that,” said her mother.
    â€œYou didn’t,” said the girl.
    â€œWe’ll find you another umbrella when we get off the train,” said his mother.
    â€œWe’re never getting off this train,” said the girl.
    â€œWe are,” said her mother. “Tomorrow.”
    The boy began to hit the side of his head with the orange.
    â€œStop that,” said his mother.
    The boy stopped. He bit down hard into the thick skin of the orange and the juice ran down his chin.
    â€œNot like that,” said his mother. She took the orange and began to peel it slowly in one continuous motion. They were in no hurry, after all. “Like this,” she said. Her hands were thin and white and had only recently begun to spot with age. She had married late and had her children late and now she was aging early. “Are you watching me?” she asked.
    â€œYes,” said the boy. He opened his mouth and she placed a section of orange on his tongue.
    The girl slipped the remaining cards one by one out the window until there was only one card left in her hand: the six of clubs. She could think of nothing special about the six of clubs. She turned the card over and looked at the photograph of Glacier Falls on the back. The summer before last her father had hired an Indian driver—a Hindu, he had called him—to take them to Yosemite and they had stayed at the Ahwahnee Hotel for a week. She had bought the deck of cards at the gift shop and her brother had bought a red wooden tomahawk. Every night they had eaten dinner in the fancy dining room beneath the enormous chandeliers. The waiters had worn tuxedos and called her miss and whatever she had asked for they had brought to her on a round silver tray. Every night she had asked for the same thing. Lobster. The lobster at the Ahwahnee was very good.
    She wrote down her name across the six of clubs and slipped the card out the window.
    TOWARD EVENING the train was near Elko. A man on the side of the road was stepping out of an old red truck. A woman sat in the passenger seat, staring straight ahead. The girl knew what the woman was staring at. She was staring at nothing. There was nothing out there to see. The man kicked the door of the truck over and over again as steam rose up from under the hood. “That’s right, just kick and kick,” said the girl. A raven flew across the sky and then the truck disappeared.
    Her brother tapped her arm.
    â€œWhat is it?”
    â€œTrampled,” he said. “That man was trampled.” He licked the tip of his finger and drew an X through the dust on the window.
    The girl opened her suitcase and gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. “Here,” she said, “you can draw on this.”
    The boy drew a large square and inside of the square he drew a little man in a suit with giant shoe trees for feet. “That’s Papa,” he said. He added a mustache but something about the mustache was not quite right.
    â€œToo wide,” said the girl.
    â€œThat’s it.” He erased the mustache and part of the man’s mouth and then he drew the mustache again, only not as wide, but forgot to fix the mouth. He gave the pencil back to his sister. “You draw,” he said.
    She took the pencil and drew a sky full of stars above the man’s head.
    â€œGive him a hat, too.”
    She drew a wide black fedora with a tiny feather tucked beneath the hatband. The girl was very good at drawing. The year before last she had won first prize at Lincoln Elementary School for her line drawing of a pinecone. She had simply concentrated on
seeing
the pinecone and the drawing had drawn itself. She had hardly looked down at her pencil at all.
    Soon the boy fell asleep and she took