Elysium (21 page)

The City Hall that he had designed himself was open to the public. He walked through the front door unhindered and shuffled over the tiled mosaic floors, taking a moment to stare up at the oculus, which drew in a large stream of light from above — the ceiling decorated so delicately with indented squares carved out to lessen the weight of the dome. He slipped into a back room and then through an open door to the outside into an alley, checking behind him to see if anyone followed. Of course, no one did. He stepped over the boxes and the bones from devoured fried chicken and through the potent stench of urine to touch a brick wall. He found the brick marked with a “T” in black magic marker and pushed at the third brick down. A door opened, and he walked through.

This was the place behind the walls, behind the sky, controlling the day and the night and the wind and — soon — the rain. The hidden place maintained by The Twelve, that everyone knew about but refused to remember. The secret rooms that Adrian had designed. He walked past the guards and the staff and all those who owed their very existence to him. He walked through the hall past the one-way observation window where the city was laid out to be seen. Through another hall, to the stairway made of cinderblock walls painted off-white. To the rooms above set aside only for him, where there was a warm bed and clean sheets and fresh towels. A home Adrian rarely came to because he’d rather sleep on his city streets.

He could feel Hector enter. The man who was his friend, but from a time long ago and a place of trying-to-forget.

“Honey … look at you …” Hector said, “you can’t go on like this.”

“Please, leave me alone.”

“I’m your friend. I can’t leave you like this … I know it hurts, but it’s been years. …”

“Leave me alone!” Adrian screamed. The words spewed forth like hot liquid.

“I will not leave you alone!”

“It’s been too long.
She
would not want this for you. And what about your son?”

“That’s why I’m here today. Today of all days. Today is a very important day.”

“I know what day it is,” Hector said.

“I’m back for my son. For my son. Yes, my son. My son and I are going to Elysium. We are going. Yes, we are going. My son and I are going. Elysium. Elysium.”

“You shouldn’t let Antoine see you this way. He still looks up to you … At least, the memory of you.”

Adrian rubbed at his beard. Something came off on his hand, and he smelled it and turned his head.

“Yes, perhaps you’re right.”

“The bathroom is that way,” Hector pointed. “And spend plenty of time in there. Scrub it all, honey, please. Scrub everywhere.”

The shower stall was a clear glass-enclosed closet. Steam was his only curtain. Water spread over him like a cleansing rain. The warmth of it stimulated his limbs and soaked his skin. Shampoo with the scent of pear splashed into his eyes and stung. He scrubbed and scrubbed. Dry flaky skin turned into a darkened flow where it streamed towards the drain and gathered with the foamy remains of soap. Adrian was angry with Hector for invading his space, and he loved him for it. His presence outside the bathroom door made Adrian feel responsible somehow. Not better, just more responsible. He had to shave; someone was here. He had to eat; someone was watching. He had to clean up; someone could smell.

Adrian turned off the water and stood enshrouded in a steam so thick he could hardly breathe. Nothing held him, only the moist air. He was lost in time, surrounded by a warm humidity, a fog, a cloud, while thoughts of her buried and decomposing in the soil whirled in his mind. He hugged himself and rocked as if in prayer. Then leaned against the wet tile, moaning quietly.

“Hey, you all right in there?” Hector shouted from the other side of the door.

“I’m fine,” Adrian said too quickly, with a flash of fear that Hector might come inside.

“You’re so quiet … Okay, take your time. When you come out, I have a surprise for you.”

Adrian lifted the toilet seat and let the warm pee stream out of him. He stared, mesmerized by his yellow creation. He flushed. His moist hand wiped the fogged mirror of the medicine cabinet. Facing back was him, and not him. He was somebody else. Someone he didn’t recognize. Someone he didn’t want to recognize.

“Papi?” The door opened and Hector’s head came into view. “Oh, honey …” he said as he let himself in.

Before him was a ghostly, haunted-looking man. There were shadows under his eyes and Adrian’s beard had gown long enough that it was curling at the ends. He looked like Zeus or maybe a Caesar.

“At least for one afternoon you’re going to be your old self,” Hector said.

“But I don’t want to be him.”

Hector put his arms around Adrian’s shoulders. They stared at each other in the mirror. Neither was the person they used to be.

“Perhaps you should shave that thing off,” Hector said.

“Perhaps I should.”

Adrian searched the bathroom cabinets for razors and found them. He began to dry scrape at the hairs on his face. Each razor got clogged, so he’d start a new one over and over and over again. The heavy hair came off in clumps. When he finally got close to the skin, it was a tricky business. The first nick stung like a mother. He used a bit of toilet paper to patch the wound. Then he nicked himself again and again and again. Soon his whole lower jaw was covered by tiny Japanese flags.

“Hey, good looking!” Hector said when he returned to the bathroom. “But you’re supposed to use toilet paper on the other end.”

“Ha, ha,” Adrian said. “You’re real funny.”

“I do my best,” Hector said, smiling. “You feeling better?”

“Yeah, I feel better.”

“Antoine is upstairs waiting for you.”

“Yes?” Adrian said.

“Yes.”

“I’m taking him to Elysium today.”

“Yeah, I know.”

Adrian tugged at the edges of the patches on his face. Then one by one he peeled them off. The brown blood stuck them to his skin for tiny moments until they gave way. He tossed them into the sink, where they drifted into the basin and collected with the scraped hair bristles at the bottom. They looked like little flower petals on a bed of freshly cut hay.

Adrian entered the room, freshly cleaned and somewhat sane. The eleven were there waiting for him. Four men dressed alike. They no longer wore suits and ties, only long-sleeved business shirts with the top buttons undone. Two women stood extremely close, like sisters. One had red hair and freckles and seemed nervous and out of place. Stephen the engineer pushed his glasses back and rubbed at his hair. Hector, his old friend, stood up smiling, happy to see him. The guy with the gray eyes looked at the floor and had nothing to say. Maiter seemed stern as usual, still in her steel-rimmed glasses.

“The people in the city look sickly,” he said.

“The concentration of dust from the surface air has been increasing.”

“I see. I thought that might happen.” Adrian drew on a piece of paper. “Try this.”

“What is it?”

“A new design for the scrubbers in the air filtration system.”

“Okay,” Maiter said, taking the paper. “We will look into this.”

“The city needs to be bigger,” Adrian said.

“We are digging as fast as we can.”

“There’s no space for the people.”

“We’ve limited the birth rates to one-to-two a couple,” Maiter said. “But it’s difficult to keep up with immigration from above.”

“Then stop taking in the sick.”

“Dad!” a small voice said from behind.

Adrian turned around and saw his son. His little boy. Antoine. He took the boy into his arms and held him tight.

“I’ve missed you, Dad.”

“Antoine,” Adrian said, “I’ve missed you, too.” He stared at his son. The very image of his mother. The same eyes and nose. The same curve of cheek. Beautiful.

“How old are you now?”

“I’m eight.”

“Eight? Yes, that’s right. Eight. You’re becoming such a big boy,” his father said. “And do you know what day today is?”

“Yes,” the boy answered.

“What day is it?”

“It’s my mother’s birthday.”

“And where are we going?”

“To the world above to visit her grave.”

“Yes,” Adrian said. “To Elysium. To the world above the sky.”

Stephen stepped forward with a small device in his hand and said, “I’m going with you.”

“Yes?” Adrian said.

“It’s time to update the atmospheric encoding system.”

“The Elysium system,” Adrian said.

“Yes,” Stephen said. “Elysium.”

“I have the tribute file for Antoinette ready,” Stephen said.

“Is she beautiful like she was?” Adrian asked.

“Yes, she is beautiful.”

15.

Adrian and his son were with ten others in the elevator. A sadness lingered as they flew higher and higher, up to the surface. Flashes of light seeped through, periodically illuminating their somber faces as they passed the many levels of the underground city. The sound inside the shaft changed as the elevator reached the upper levels, becoming a long screeching sound like a wailing child. Then the elevator was immersed in the natural light that shined in from above.

Antoine leaned over to look out one of the windows in the door. They had reached the crust, the level between the very top of the city and the surface of the world. Stretching as far as his eyes could see were the great sheets of translucent metal used to produce the illusion of sky for the city below. They lay flat against the upper surface of the artificial world. Construction was still underway. One day they would undulate, to simulate the movement of the heavens so that clouds might appear and possibly even rain. Antoine could also see the inner workings of the atmospheric processors and the climate controllers that created the wind from the recycled air. No one but the administrators were allowed to see this level. No one from the city was allowed out into the real world anymore. The Twelve had ordered it so. And who would disagree? No one really wanted to see the mess that was made of it.

The elevator door opened on the surface level to a dark enclosed passageway. There was a hint of light from the other end of the hall. Everyone paused. No one said anything. Antoine was the first to leave the elevator. Then the others followed. The air felt hot and dry and still. They walked toward the light and stopped beside a short stairway that led to a door outlined by the glow of day.

The men put on black gloves and wrapped their faces with large black scarves. They were dark soldiers walking into the night like walking shadows. These men had a natural ability to fight the effects of the dust, still they knew they shouldn’t stay on the surface for too long. Adrian helped Antoine, encircling his small head with a length of thick cloth.

“Can you see?” he asked Antoine.

Antoine nodded yes, then adjusted the cloth around his eyes.

One of the men produced a key card that glowed red on its edge. He slid the card into the slot next to the door. A heavy lock clicked. Then the metal door slowly rumbled open, allowing in the damp air.

They entered a world of grays. Gray drizzle fell on a gray horizon. Streaks of lightning lined the sky, and the roll of distant thunder shook Adrian’s heart. Only a few buildings remained standing, and even they were crumbling, with great tree trunks growing into them, breaking the concrete and bricks. Rows of hollowed-out trunks lined the former streets with the wind howling through them, making them seem to speak. And everywhere the mist drifted like a living fog. Adrian looked westward, from what used to be midtown, to see the flowing black water of the river.

This was home. Elysium. A place of sorrow. A place of love. It was difficult to reconcile the two. In the silence, it was as if all that had ever existed in time and space was trapped and frozen here. Adrian didn’t want his son to see this place. But it was where his mother lay, so it was where they must go.

A hulk wedged up from the old harbor, casting a dark shadow onto the landscape, a remnant of a time not so long ago. A little beyond it, out of the mist rose several avocado-shaped latticework constructions, the beginnings of his spaceships. Adrian pointed them out to his son.