In the Country of Last Things (22 page)

We did our best to take care of the bodies, to clean up the damage, to wipe away the blood. More than that, I don’t want to say anything. By the time we had finished, it was the following afternoon. Sam and I went upstairs to take a nap, but I wasn’t able to sleep. Sam dropped off almost at once. Not wanting to disturb him, I climbed out of bed and sat down on the floor in a corner of the room. My old bag happened to be lying there, and for no particular reason I started to look through it. That was when I rediscovered the blue notebook I had bought for Isabel. The first several pages were covered with her messages, the short notes she had written to me during the last days of her illness. Most of the messages were quite simple—things like “thank you” or “water” or “my darling Anna”—but when I saw that frail, overlarge handwriting on the page and remembered how hard she had struggled to make the words clear, those simple messages no longer seemed very simple at all. A thousand things came rushing back to me at once. Without even stopping to think about it, I quietly tore those pages from the notebook, folded them into a neat square, and put them back into the bag. Then, taking one of the pencils I had bought from Mr. Gambino so long ago, I propped up the notebook against my knees and started writing this letter.

I have kept at it ever since, adding a few more pages every day, trying to get it all down for you. I sometimes wonder how much I have left out, how much has been lost to me and will never be found again, but those are questions that cannot be answered. Time is running short now,
and I mustn’t waste any more words than I have to. In the beginning, I didn’t think it would take very long—a few days to give you the essentials, and that would be it. Now the entire notebook has almost been filled, and I have barely even skimmed the surface. That explains why my handwriting has become smaller and smaller as I’ve progressed. I’ve been trying to fit everything in, trying to get to the end before it’s too late, but I see now how badly I’ve deceived myself. Words do not allow such things. The closer you come to the end, the more there is to say. The end is only imaginary, a destination you invent to keep yourself going, but a point comes when you realize you will never get there. You might have to stop, but that is only because you have run out of time. You stop, but that does not mean you have come to the end.

The words get smaller and smaller, so small that perhaps they are not even legible anymore. It makes me think of Ferdinand and his boats, his lilliputian fleet of sailing ships and schooners. God knows why I persist. I don’t believe there is any way this letter can reach you. It’s like calling out into the blankness, like screaming into a vast and terrible blankness. Then, when I permit myself a moment of optimism, I shudder to think what will happen if it does wind up in your hands. You’ll be stunned by the things I have written, you’ll worry yourself sick, and then you’ll make the same stupid mistake I did. Please don’t, I beg of you. I know you well enough to know you would do it. If you still have any love for me at all, please don’t get sucked into that trap. I couldn’t stand the thought of having to worry about you, of thinking you might be wandering around these streets. It’s enough that one of us has been lost. The important thing is that you stay where you are,
that you continue to be there for me in my mind. I am here, and you are there. That is the only consolation I have, and you mustn’t do anything to destroy it.

On the other hand, even if this notebook finally gets to you, there is nothing that says you have to read it. You are under no obligation to me, and I would not want to think I had forced you to do anything against your will. Sometimes, I even find myself hoping that it will turn out that way—that you simply won’t have the courage to begin. I understand the contradiction, but that is how I sometimes feel. If that is the case, then the words I am writing to you now are already invisible to you. Your eyes will never see them, your brain will never be burdened by the tiniest fraction of what I have said. So much the better, perhaps. Still, I don’t think I’d want you to destroy this letter or throw it away. If you choose not to read it, perhaps you should pass it on to my parents instead. I’m sure they would like to have the notebook, even if they can’t bring themselves to read it either. They could put it somewhere in my room at home. I think I would like that, knowing it had wound up in that room. Up on one of the shelves above my bed, for example, along with my old dolls and the ballerina costume I had when I was seven—one last thing to remember me by.

I don’t go out much anymore. Only when my turn comes to do the shopping, but even then Sam usually volunteers to take my place. I have lost the habit of the streets now, and excursions have become a great strain on me. It’s a question of balance, I think. My headaches have been bad again this winter, and whenever I have to walk more than
fifty or a hundred yards, I feel myself beginning to wobble. Each time I take a step, I think I’m going to fall down. Being indoors is not as hard on me. I continue to do most of the cooking, but after preparing meals for twenty or thirty people at a time, cooking for four is almost nothing. We don’t eat much in any case. Enough to stifle the pangs, but hardly more than that. We’re trying to hoard our money for the trip and mustn’t depart from this regime. The winter has been relatively cold, almost as cold as the Terrible Winter, but without the incessant snows and high winds. We’ve kept ourselves warm by dismantling portions of the house and throwing the pieces into the furnace. Victoria was the one who suggested it, but I can’t tell if this means she is looking ahead to the future or has simply stopped caring. We’ve taken apart the banisters, the door frames, the partitions. There was a kind of anarchic pleasure to it at first—chopping up the house for fuel—but now it has become merely grim. Most of the rooms have been stripped bare, and it feels as though we are living in an abandoned bus depot, an old wreck of a building slated for demolition.

For the past two weeks, Sam has gone out nearly every day to comb the perimeters of the city, investigating the situation along the ramparts, watching carefully to see if troops are massing or not. Such knowledge could make all the difference when the time comes. As of this moment, the Fiddler’s Rampart seems to be our logical choice. It is the westernmost barrier, and it leads directly to a road that takes you into open country. The Millennial Gate to the south has also tempted us, however. There is more traffic on the other side, we have been told, but the Gate itself is not as strictly guarded. The only option we have definitely eliminated so far is the north. There is apparently
great danger and turmoil in that part of the country, and for some time now people have been talking of an invasion, of foreign armies gathering in the forests and preparing to strike the city when the snow melts. We have heard these rumors before, of course, and it is difficult to know what to believe. Boris Stepanovich has already obtained our travel permits by bribing an official, but he still spends several hours every day lurking around the municipal buildings in the center of the city, hoping to glean some scrap of information that might be useful to us. We are lucky to have the travel permits, but that does not necessarily mean they will work. They could be forged, in which case we stand to be arrested the moment we present them to the Exit Supervisor. Or he could confiscate them for no reason at all and tell us to turn back. Such things have been known to happen, and we must be prepared for every contingency. Boris therefore continues to snoop and listen, but the talk he hears is too muddled and discordant to be of any concrete value. He thinks this means that the government will soon be out of power again. If so, we might be able to take advantage of the temporary confusion, but nothing at this point is really clear. Nothing is clear, and we continue to wait. In the meantime, the car sits in the garage, loaded with our suitcases and nine jerry cans of supplementary fuel.

Boris moved in with us about a month ago. He is a good deal thinner than he used to be, and every now and then I can detect a certain haggard look in his face, as though he were suffering from some illness. He never complains, however, and therefore it is impossible to know what the trouble is. Physically, there is no question that he has lost
some of his bounce, but I don’t think his spirits have been affected by it, at least not in any obvious way. His principal obsession these days is trying to figure out what we will do with ourselves once we leave the city. He comes up with a new plan almost every morning, each one more absurd than the last. The most recent one tops them all, but I think he secretly has his heart set on it. He wants the four of us to create a magic show. We can tour the countryside in our car, he says, giving performances in exchange for food and lodging. He will be the magician, of course, dressed in a black tuxedo and a high silk hat. Sam will be the barker, and Victoria will be the business manager. I will be the assistant—the luscious young woman prancing around in a skimpy, sequined outfit. I will hand the maestro his instruments during the act, and for the grande finale I will climb into a wooden box and get sawed in half. A long, delirious pause will follow, and then, at the precise moment when all hope has been lost, I will emerge from the box with my limbs intact, gesturing triumphantly, blowing kisses to the crowd with a bright, artificial smile on my face.

Considering what we have to look forward to, it is pleasant to dream of these absurdities. The thaw seems imminent now, and there is even a chance that we will leave tomorrow morning. That was how we left it before going to bed: if the sky looks promising, we will be off without another word. It is deep into the night now, and the wind is blowing through the cracks in the house. Everyone else is asleep, and I am sitting downstairs in the kitchen, trying to imagine what is ahead of me. I cannot imagine it. I cannot even begin to think of what will happen to us out
there. Anything is possible, and that is almost the same as nothing, almost the same as being born into a world that has never existed before. Perhaps we will find William after we leave the city, but I try not to hope too much. The only thing I ask for now is the chance to live one more day. This is Anna Blume, your old friend from another world. Once we get to where we are going, I will try to write to you again, I promise.

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