Maria Arkady

The thin cord that held sixty-seven warm pearls the size of peas around her neck suddenly felt suffocating. She reached up and began pressing each smooth ball between her thumb and pointer finger, moving them through her fingers counting them as she had so many times for comfort. The comfort had expired and all that remained was the choking feeling of memories. When her fingers reached the small silver clasp she yanked hard. The string snapped and pearls popped around her feet, bouncing across the marble floor of her Manhattan apartment. As the clattering pearls found crevices in which to settle, one of the tiny white balls rolled along the mahogany baseboard. She watched through tear filled eyes as the last dancing bead moved towards a brass heating vent and disappeared with a silent small thud into the black spaces between the brass bars.

Emotions overwhelmed her. Tears fell. Her once beautiful red lips swelled and parted to suck in a deep breath. Her thin hand pushed back grey curls and wiped the dampness from her cheeks. Her head turned slightly remembering the secrets that were hidden in that exact heat vent. The irony. Sixty-seven years ago in 1930, Maria, 40 years old, found a small fortune. $20,000.00 dollars and an exquisite pearl necklace stuffed under a loose marble tile in her father’s home. Now in 1997, she stood alone in the same apartment staring at the shiny brass grate. Her heels clicked across the floor while the edges of her long silk coat floated behind her footsteps. She bent to her knees to peer inside hoping to spot the single pearl runaway. Her fingers found the edges of the grate and lifted it away from the cold smooth stone. She reached in, just as she had all those years ago, fingertips tapping around the copper lined shaft. She felt the pearl roll under her fingers and heard the clatter as it fell off its landing place and clanked along the copper. The soft leather that had cradled the pearl’s fall was unfamiliar to Maria. She pulled out the object and examined it, a small black book. Had this been there all along? If so, how had she not seen it when pulling the stack of green, crisp bills out on that cold winter evening so long ago? The pages felt brittle and she couldn’t see the words clearly. Using the window sill to steady herself she stood and walked carefully around the loose pearls still scattered along the floor, towards her desk, towards her glasses. With her vision restored she examined the smooth cover, soft like leather but with an oily finish, printed in gold an inch from the bottom was the name “Arkady”. Her last name, unchanged since she’d never married. Intrigued, she sat down and opened the rounded corners and began to read. The story was of a young woman who stumbled upon a treasure that was never meant to be found, finding this had saved her family from financial ruin after her father’s bad investments wiped out all the “old money” that was left.

Maria’s secret treasure had come with a curse. The bills were not alone, their companion was tempting and was soon nestled around Maria’s attractive neck. One pearl for each year that would pass, one pearl for each year closer to the wearer’s foretold death. Maria’s delicate fingers flipped through the pages of her life remembering the good and the bad. The joy of wealth and the udder sadness that came with the reality of watching everyone around her age and die. The necklace had kept Maria alive for far too long. Money flowed freely and there was nothing that Maria desired that she couldn’t purchase, nothing except the peaceful promise of death. Her heart hardened against the pain of falling in love, taking with it all joy that this world had to offer. No family left, no friends. Maria was 107 and completely alone. She took a long deep breath, laid her cheek atop the moleskin book. She looked through a tilted stare around the room accepting her new perspective, took one last relief-filled-breath, and closed her eyes for the last time.