Bogeywoman (35 page)

“How original … I am glad at last to see Miss Koderer with my own eyes—the famous Bogeywoman, yes?” I couldn’t help smiling at this proof of far report. Zuk smiled too. “And what you think—she is not what I have said?—a charming monster? You have noticed her
latissimus dorsi
and her strange quick foot like goat foot?”

“Miss Koderer,” Édouard bent towards me, “may I ask to what is owing the prodigious leather of your fingertips?” I opened my mouth to talk but Zuk beat me to it: “She plays every day kidney-shaped hospital utility basin with orthopedic brace for neck, and strings of catgut sutures—she can play as beautiful as the moon. You would like to hear?” “She has pleased the moon,” Édouard said smoothly, “she is under no obligation to the stars.” “Anyhow I didn’t bring my pukelele,” I reminded them.

“Ah!
quel dommage!
In any event I hope you ladies will be at home in the Dismal. You may want to canoe the ditches—I have a good Wild Duck, consider it at your service. Do take care not to fall through the turf into burning peatholes.” “Fire is bad this year?” “No more than usual,” he shrugged, “only usual is bad enough. Canebrake rattlers are pouring into the ditch all night—do keep your eyes open. You may have the blue room, as soon as Fazool fetches the, ah, hanging game out to the lean-to. Dinner is at nine …

“But perhaps you two will wish to
‘haunt the moonlit bog’
, as the poet says, like those tragic lovers of old who met
‘by firefly lamp’
and paddled off
‘through many a fen, where the serpent feeds’
—or was that the runaway slave?
Saprelotte
, I can never keep those two straight—
pardon
, I’m only a lowly diplomat, not an
artiste
like you two ladies. Surely one of you knows?”

“What’s he talking about?” I whispered to Zuk, who shook her head. “And I trust you will have a good holiday in my swamp,” he went on, “—until Tuesday. But then, ladies. Then—you see—”

“What, Édouard? What is Tuesday?” Zuk asked casually, but I saw her craggy knuckles whiten on the rust-speckled arms of her chair.

“Tuesday is four days from today, Gulaim. This is the least possible time I calculate it will take certain parties, with gracious but snail-paced help from my consulate, to track you two to my cabin. Before they come, with no margin for mistakes—you must be gone from here,” Cousin Édouard said with sudden firmness, looking from one of us to the other.

“What you mean we must leave from here? But this is what we hope,” Zuk said, “and not for Tuesday—already for today. So soon as you can fix papers we want to fly together to Samovarobad. You understand, Édouard? Bogey is ready for start new life in Karamul-Karamistan.”

“My dear Gulaim, do you realize what you are saying? You propose to kidnap an American child and take her out of the country.” “Kidnap? She has begged me to take her. Bogeywoman is no child,” Zuk said, “in certain ways Bogeywoman is older than I am old.” “I believe you,” said Édouard drily. “Nevertheless: not only a child, that is, a legal minor, but a mentally ill child, and a patient under your care in the hospital that invited you to the United States, after delicate diplomatic proceedings with the Soviet Autonomous Republic of Karamul-Karamistan. And not only a child, Gulaim, but a female child—that is bad—and female as you yourself are female—that is worse. You have perhaps forgotten that you are still a diplomatic representative of a Soviet government and there is a war on. Are you prepared to be an outlaw—and not only an outlaw, Gulaim, but a female degenerate—in an international incident?”

“I care nothing for that,” Zuk said, “I spit at it, I yawn at it, and so does Miss Bogey. You must explain him yourself, Bogey,” she elbowed me, “anyway you know me, Édouard, they cannot make rein for my forehead. I will never leave my Bogeywoman.”

“Gulaim, do you remember when you needed travel permission
to the United States and diplomatic portfolio and the rest? I arranged this for you—all of it. Now you want to wreck my good name with yours. Is it right to ask this? Keep in mind, cousin, when the hungry lies with the hungry, a meal is not born. At least, as things are now, should Karamul-Karamistan have troubles—plague or famine or war—we are in a position to, ah, transfer nationality if necessary, as long as we are here, if we have committed no crime. But if you must do this thing, soon neither of us will have liberty or property so much as an onion. You will be as one whom seven seas have vomited up—either a stateless person or in prison.”

“
Pfui
—Édouard, you are hysterical, like young girl with pimple on nose, eh? You think whole world talks of nothing but your pimple. Where you get this idea that somebody cares so much what happens to Bogeywoman? Who is watching? Her family hears she has vanished forever, maybe they make small fuss but privately we know they dance and make holiday. For god sake, tell him yourself, Bogey.”

Certainly it was high time I said sumpm—I sat there dumb as a goat carcass while they dragged me back and forth, me, a pawn in international affairs and in family politics too, among the Schapiro-Koderers on the one side and the Suleymenov-Suleymenians on the other. Probably I should have felt small, small like one of those Hershey kiss-shaped markers from
Sorry
or some other game, but to tell you the truth I felt big, bigger than yesterday, bigger all the time. In fact I had never had such a good time in my life and was trying to figure out why.

“Her family,” Édouard replied. “Her family is her father, I believe—Merlin of Merlin’s World Tour, yes? A theatrical personage, famous, some would say notorious, for his antiwar puppet theater. Presently somewhere in Southeast Asia …” “Famous
is only big help for us, you see?” Zuk said impatiently, “this is not a mother, to weep and tear hair over girl for reason she has nothing better to do. Here is my point: Her father neglects her, he hardly knows she is life, he lets them keep her prisoner in Rohring Rohring Clinic and she is not buggy, well, no more buggier than she should be, a girl her age …”

“Ahem,” I said weakly, “sorry to interrupt, but it’s an honor to be neglected by Merlin on the grounds of world peace.” “Ah! Thank you for this contribution, Miss Koderer,” Édouard said with a tiny bow, “it is poignant. I wonder if you—either of you—has any idea where Merlin of Merlin’s World Tour is today?—even as we speak?”

Zuk and I looked at each other, dumbfounded and alarmed. I said: “Don’t tell me—just leave it to that wizardly Merlin to be in Caramel-Creamistan right now. Probably staying in the president’s private palace or sumpm. Curses! The Divine Melvin has gotta have all the love in the world for himself and can’t leave two crumbs for somebody else.” I rolled my eyes in disgust. “He is with Mrs. Khazarolova?” Zuk asked, whitening under her mossy tan. I saw that if Zuk’s fantastic past had somehow swallowed me up in the last few days, no less had my ridiculous and clumsy destiny overtaken her, so that she was not even properly skeptical to hear that my old man might have turned up in the mansion of her boss, the premier of Caramel-Creamistan, Mrs. Khazarolova herself. “
Choleria
—he is with
her
?” she almost choked.

“No, no—such a coincidence, like something in a storybook, I don’t ask you to credit,” Édouard replied with a smile. “Not quite. All the same!—Merlin is, in fact, a great favorite of Mrs. Khazarolova. Possibly you know that he performed at l’Oase in Samovarobad as her guest last spring?” We didn’t know.
Édouard leaned over to offer us a plate of fig newtons. I took five. Zuk stared at the plate without seeing.

“Let me put the entire case in perspective for you,” Édouard went on. “Rohring Rohring Psychiatric Clinic of course contacted Merlin’s American agent as soon as Miss Koderer was missed. The agent reached Merlin somewhere in Cambodia, via Hanoi. Merlin, hearing of the involvement of a Karamul-Karamistani doctor in the case, thought of his great friendship with Mrs. Khazarolova, and wired Mrs. Khazarolova, via Hanoi, requesting her assistance. Ladies, you must bear in mind that Merlin is at this moment the best-loved American in all Soviet Central Asia. What commissar, petty or great, would not fall over her feet to please him?

“And so I have my orders straight from Mrs. Khazarolova, and you, Gulaim, may be sure you have yours as well. Your diplomatic passport is temporarily revoked. You are recalled to Karamul-Karamistan at once.”

“Very good, is exactly what I want, and the rest will be business of nobody but me. You can fix papers for the girl?”

“Gulaim, you cannot think of bringing the child. I must inform you, you are greatly mistaken in the level of interest you attribute to her father. Merlin is at this moment flying to Washington, from Hanoi, via Bangkok, Moscow and New York. He has canceled engagements for a fortnight. This is Friday. I don’t see how he can arrive in Baltimore before Sunday or Monday. He means, of course, to see his daughter Ursula. He presumes she will be back in custody by that time. He sends her a message.” Édouard handed me a yellow consulate teletype. There was a half page of minestrone in some whirly alphabet and then it read:
OKAY, URSIE, YOU’VE GOTTEN MY ATTENTION. I’M COMING. MERLIN
.

“Of all the cheek!” I said, handing it to Zuk. “He thinks I did it just to roast his oysters, when I’d finally managed to forget his existence completely.”

“Ursula, you must listen carefully,” said Cousin Édouard. “Your father is coming chiefly to shield you from legal responsibility in the matter of the death of internationally known psychiatrist Reinhold Feuffer. You need this protection, do you understand? But as for the other psychiatrist in the case, whom he knows only as Doctor Zuk, the Visiting Youth Psychiatry Fellow from Karamul-Karamistan, who apparently left with his daughter—Merlin says he is ‘studying the situation.’ I believe this means that if you are back in hospital by Tuesday and have done yourself no harm in the meantime, the matter may be overlooked. So you see, dear ladies, for the good of both of you, there can be no question of sustaining this holiday beyond Tuesday next. If you try to enter Karamul-Karamistan together, even supposing you can get papers and a plane, you, my cousin, will be detained, and Miss Koderer returned at once to United States. And both of you will be in a great deal of trouble.”

“
Choleria
, you think after what I have lived through already in this life I am scared before that little trouble? God he closes one gate and opens a thousand. To get away from Red Army robots and old-style Foodian analysts, nothing is too much. We can come down into desert of Kyzl Kum from Pamirs, or airplane of certain friend of mine can drop us in desert, other old friend can find us with horses in chosen place. I know every rock and water spring, for years we can live like queens with old comrades of my father in Hunger Steppe of Betpak-Dala, where nobody dares even come for look. You think I have hidden in desert all those years with Der Kaifer for nothing? Like you in swamp is Zuk in Hunger Desert.”

Édouard shrugged. “Very well, Gulaim. If you are determined to become the wild woman of Betpak-Dala with your small and lost American friend, two stateless persons running like mice in the desert from rock to rock as long as you last, who am I to say no? When you must flee border police in winter, I hope Der Kaifer’s old comrades will loan you the fleetest of snow camels. And who knows? Border militia are not so assiduous, especially when the
bouran
is blowing. Or they may be bribed with—for example—a case of Coca-Cola. Of course you may be jailed,” Édouard pointed out, “or shot.”

“Shot!”
I whispered. “If I am arrested, if I am lost, dead, kaput, Bogeywoman can hide in this or that
aool
for short time with old friends. In eleven more months Bogeywoman is grown woman, free, she can do like she wants.”
“Dead!”
I whispered,
“kaput!”
“She will return to Baltimore alone by camel, I suppose?” Édouard inquired. “Sure, make joke, have fun,” Zuk said scornfully, “still Bogeywoman does not go back to bughouse on Tuesday.” “Hey, what the hump,” I said uneasily, thinking of Madame Zuk’s buzzard-picked rib cage sticking out of pink sand, “Rohring Rohring ain’t so bad. I can get outa there anytime, you know I can.” “Like you said it yourself,” Zuk reminded me, “now you are dangerous person. Is not so easy to escape from every-fifteen-minute checks in quietroom.” “Merlin won’t leave me stuck in lockup once he sees I’m okay.” “You are sure? He is ready for give up career to watch over you? If not, he must find somebody …”

I had no answer to that. In fact it was just how I’d landed in Rohring Rohring in the first place. I could choose, back then: the ritzy private bughouse or the juvenile authorities. This time, there was a feast of possibilities, by comparison. The Hunger Steppe stretched to the end of the world, relieved only by the
shadow of a trudging snow camel. Or—as long as I was here—the Dismal Swamp lay at my feet, trickling and bubbling, soft enough to swallow me up.

“Let the girl go to her father,” Édouard advised, “and fly home, Gulaim. If you do it now, Mrs. Khazarolova can still be managed. Probably she will even send you back to the West. After all, so few Karamul-Karamistanis are known in the great world—you, and that singer of
destan
who went to Paris, what’s-his-name, and Kurbangaev, the ovine icterologist. I can’t think—good god, Gulaim—”

Zuk had produced the big black gun with the pebbled grips. Her baggy knuckle was hooked around the trigger like serious business and her hand very faintly shook. “Papers,” she said. “You can fix papers, Édouard, I know you can fix.”

“Pull yourself together, my dear,” Édouard said grimly. “You can do what you like! I will arrange tickets and papers, if this is what you choose. I am trying to give you sound counsel, that is all. Perhaps neither of us will work again. But the person with whom you must talk sits next to you. The girl herself! She looks—not so sure, you see? She has forgot to eat her cakes, though she greedily took half a dozen of them. She looks dazed. She is maybe not ready to carry a carbine all day long in saddle and sleep on it by night in a yurt. She hardly knows where she is right now—how will she do in the desert of Kyzl Kum?”