Root (38 page)

It took a few minutes of wandering in a daze
before my heart calmed down and I got myself oriented. I quickly
found the main train platform and the big mechanical screen
displaying track numbers and destinations, but it took me a while
to figure out that I would have to go upstairs to buy
tickets.

I waited in this long queue only to learn it
was for the wrong set of trains. The second time was the charm,
though, and a kind and patient man behind the counter was able to
sell me a second class ticket on the slow Intercity train to Milan,
with a late night connection with the Cisalpino to Geneva,
Switzerland.

“
A hundred eighty Euros!” The price
threw me for a loop. And this was for the slowest, cheapest
possible routing.

“
But that is an excellent price for
two legs,” said the man. “They are off-peak.”

I waffled a bit. I considered taking
Angelica’s advice, going to the airport and trying EasyJet, but I
was already here, I could see trains pulling in and pulling out.
Why dilly dally? Why expose myself to more chances of being
discovered by those druggies?

I had been stingy with my cash up till now but
when I shelled out for that ticket it was like the flood gates
opened up. I went on a spending spree in the sprawling mall that
surrounded the station. I bought two new T-shirts, a hooded
sweatshirt lined with fleece, cargo shorts, painter’s jeans, undies
and a daypack to stuff it all in. I chose all of it in black in
honor of my new buds in the Black Bloc, not to mention, it wouldn’t
show the dirt as much.

As I was heading back to the platform to wait
for my train I passed a little gift shop with a big window display
of German pocket knives. I realized that I was staring at another
advantage of traveling by train—no security checks. I could
actually carry a weapon with me.

So I bought this inexpensive blade with a
spring release. It looked relatively innocuous, maybe one step
beyond a Swiss Army Knife, but nothing designed for serious
hand-to-hand combat. More like something you would buy to carve
ducks from blocks of wood.

And I wasn’t done yet. I still had an hour
before the train left so I went and got my hair chopped off—all of
it. I had never shaved my head before and it felt glorious. Not
only would it change my look, but it would be easier to maintain if
I was going to be sleeping on the streets.

My splurge had put a massive dent in my cash
reserves, but I had needed clothes. And if I didn’t find Karla
soon, I wasn’t going to have a need for money much longer. Like
they say, you can’t take it with you when you go.

But I had a feeling something big was going to
happen in Geneva. Luther was going to help me find Karla in one
world or the other, whether he wanted to or not. On this side of
Root, I had the upper hand. I even had my own stinger
now.

***

The train was delayed a little bit, so I
bought a limonata and a panini with tomato and mozzarella to bring
along for dinner. When the train finally rolled up, I scrambled
onboard and got myself a window seat.

That turned out to be a most excellent move.
The scenery we passed outside of Rome was way more epic than I had
imagined Italy could be. It felt like I was in a movie. It didn’t
seem possible that this could be real.

How could there be real people living among
those picture perfect hills and fields and precious little
villages? Oh, sure we passed some trashy architecture and nasty
industrial complexes from time to time, but the contrast only made
the other landscapes look that much more awesome.

I kept thinking back to that march and the
Occupy folks and the Black Bloc. I had gotten a sense of
camaraderie and belonging with them that I had never experienced
anywhere else. It was almost like a drug, this feeling. It almost
didn’t matter what they were protesting, just being there with them
was enough.

How strange it was to have to come all this
way to feel at home, a place so far from the land of my birth. I
could say the same thing for Root, though. Bern and Lille were
family now. They certainly treated me that way, much more so than
Uncle Ed ever did. I didn’t know what lay in store for me in the
days ahead, but I could tell you one thing, I wasn’t going back to
Florida any time soon.

***

I had half an hour in Milan to
change trains. As I meandered through the station, I kept noticing
these solitary guys leaning against posts and walls who would scan
the crowd and occasionally glance my way. It was crazy to even
think any of them would be connected with Cleveland. How many
lookouts could those guys possibly hire? I wasn’t
that
important.

So who were all these other loners I kept
seeing? Were they gays looking for pickups? Straights wondering the
same about me? Had these lost-looking young men always been around
and I was only noticing them now because I was paranoid about
bounty hunters?

Maybe they were just stray wanderers like
myself, caught in adventures and tribulations even stranger than
mine. Perhaps, like me, they oscillated between worlds. I didn’t
dare ask any of them. I didn’t think I could handle the
truth.

I hopped on the next train—the Cisalpino—as
soon as it was ready to board, anxious to get underway again. This
train was a mite newer and spiffier than the first, but just as
slow.

After maneuvering through miles of factory
yards the landscape opened up and we commenced to follow a tortuous
route up into the mountains. I never thought it would be possible,
but the scenery was even more mind-blowing than the countryside
outside of Rome—castles perched on gorge walls, waterfalls, real
fairy tale villages. I kept my face glued to that window for
hours.

When nightfall robbed me of my entertainment,
I took to wandering the aisles to quell my restlessness. I was
startled to discover that one of the cars had an actual sit-down
restaurant. And I peeked through the glass of the first class
compartment just to see how the other half lived. It didn’t look
all that special for the price.

Back in my seat, there wasn’t much to see but
the wash of moon glow over fields or the outlines of some burly
peaks silhouetted by stars. We soon reached a section where the
absence of daylight didn’t matter because we spent most of the time
shuttling through tunnels that did nasty things to the air pressure
in my ear drums.

All that rattling over the rails eventually
rocked me off to sleep, and I dreamt. Oh, man, did I dream!—of this
enormous mass of humanity marching through Luthersburg, Black Bloc
and all, intimidating the dogs, smashing through Luther’s walls and
sending the Reapers squealing for their burrows.

I especially liked the part where Karla came
to my side and took my hand. I asked her where she had gone.
“Nowhere,” she had said. “I’ve always been right here.”

A glint of sunlight off a window startled my
eyes open. I awakened to meadows and vineyards sloping down to the
shore of a big, green lake flanked by jagged snow-capped
peaks.

This had to be Switzerland.

Chapter 34: La
Coccinelle

The Cornavin train station in Geneva was a
grim, urban monstrosity, much like any other train station, I
suppose. It harbored the usual array of newsstands, watch stores
and snack shops. It smelled of coffee, diesel and urine.

Its nether spaces were populated with skate
punks and neo-Goths who looked and acted just like the few we had
in Ft. Pierce. I smiled and nodded at them as I walked past. One of
them gawped at me like I had a third eye and showed me his middle
finger. I laughed.

I took a walk to get my bearings, finding the
lake front just a couple blocks away. The most bizarre promenade
lined the shore. Rows of alien-looking trees with knobby branches
reminded me of the whomping willows in Harry Potter. My eyes were
further startled by a grid of topiary evergreens tapered into blunt
cones like Mercury space capsules. I stood a while, mesmerized by a
hundred foot fountain shooting up into the air out in the middle of
the water.

I crossed a bridge over this really large
river that gushed out of the lake. I wondered what kept the thing
from draining completely, unless there an equally massive river
pouring into it somewhere else.

Across the river I found a corner where a lot
of buses seemed to stop and studied the maps and schedules until I
discovered the best way to get to Chêne-Bourg. I exchanged some
cash at a Bureau de Change and waited for the 31 bus to come. They
used something here called a Swiss Franc. Who knew? I thought all
Europeans used Euros these days.

When the bus finally came, my nerves kicked
in. I was counting on the element of surprise to boost my leverage.
Just knowing Luther would not be able to pull any fancy weaving
encouraged me, but I couldn’t help being intimidated by his
mystique.

I had a lot questions for Luther, demands as
well, but not a whole lot of confidence that they would be
answered. Coming up here had sounded like a good idea in Rome, but
I had to admit now that that I hadn’t thought this one
out.

Luther might have had nothing or everything to
do with Karla’s disappearance from the ‘Burg, but he was totally to
blame for Lille and Bern’s troubles. Maybe that should be my
tact—ask him to call off the dogs, open the walls.

Finding Karla here was a shot in the dark. I
supposed it was possible she was here in Geneva or Chêne-Bourg, but
I was far less certain of that prospect than I had been of finding
her in Rome. A picture of a lake in a tapestry was not much to go
on. As far as I knew, she might be living on the shores of Lake
Titicaca. The lakes depicted in her art might not even have
anything to do with where she lived these days. I couldn’t even be
sure that she was still alive, in any sense of the word.

All in all, I had little hope that I would
accomplish anything here. But what else was I going to
do?

When signs for Chêne-Bourg began popping up
with some regularity, I got off the bus at this street called the
Rue de Gèneve. It was a wide boulevard lined with modern apartment
buildings. I studied a map posted on the side of the bus shelter
and was happy to see that I was just a short walk from my
destination.

I cinched up my daypack and went
traipsing off around a corner down the Avenue de
Thônex. I passed more of those
knobby-branched whomping willows. They seemed to be everywhere
around here.

I passed some more
generic-looking apartment buildings, and then the neighborhood kind
of opened up with old-style, single family homes, some of them so
cute they looked like they could be made of ginger bread, with
yards that looked like wild alpine meadows.

I rounded a hedge near this little traffic
circle and there it was—a sign displaying a ladybug on a leaf—the
EMS La Coccinelle. A trellised walk led up to a stucco building
with a boxy roof and long balconies extending down either side of
the upper floors. It was older and less fancier than I had
imagined.

I circled around a bit to get a feel for the
place. The neighborhood was a mix of old and new residences
interspersed with remnants of its farming past—greenhouses, fruit
trees and grape vines.

The residents of La Coccinelle had access to a
canopy out back and some simple tables and chairs. It was nothing
ritzy. At ground level, they didn’t even have a view of Lake
Geneva, but maybe it was visible from the third floor
balconies.

Palms sweating, heart going like a kick drum,
I went down the walk and walked into the lobby. There was a counter
there very much like the front desk in a hotel. There was no one
behind it, but there was a bell to ring, so I rang it.

A young woman with frizzy, blonde hair came
out of a back room. She had the milkiest complexion I had ever
seen, and an open, curious face.

“
Bonjour,” she said, followed by a
string of verbiage that slipped right past my ears.

“
Do you speak English?” I said,
hopefully.

“
But of course. How may I help
you?”

“
Yeah … um … my name is James … and
I was visiting Geneva and my parents told me I should come by and
visit an old friend of theirs … a man by the name of
Luther.”

“
Your parents know
Luther
?” Her head cocked
to one side. Her eyebrows tilted.

“
Um … yeah. Don’t ask me how. They
just wanted me to come by and say hi.”

“
Well, I am not sure if Luther is
around today, but I can certainly page him.”

“
Page him? Isn’t he a patient
here?”

“
Oh no,” she said, smiling. “Luther
Strunk is a licensed physical therapist. Some of our short-term
residents come here for rehabilitation after surgery. You are
looking for Luther Strunk, yes?

“
I … I guess so. Are there any other
Luthers?”

“
He is the only one we know at La
Coccinelle.” She dialed a number and looked up at me. “Have a seat.
He should call back soon.”

Her phone rang back almost immediately. She
spoke with a man, in what sounded like German this time. She looked
over at me. “Okay. He is out back with a patient,” she said. “Feel
free to go see him.”