Root (39 page)

I passed through the lobby and into
a U-shaped courtyard that opened into an orchard backed by
greenhouses. The walks were wide here and smoothly paved. I spotted
a frail old man with a cane being aided by a long-haired blonde guy
who looked like a super buff surfer dude.
This
… was Luther?

The blonde guy guided the old man to a bench
under a linden tree. The patient looked like he had been in a car
wreck. A brace stabilized his neck. Bruises and scabs discolored
his face.

The therapist—Luther?—threaded a pair of thick
rubber straps around the bench and had his patient reach forward
with a loop hooked over each thumb. The old man grimaced each time
he attempted to comply.

I hovered behind a tree, taken aback. This
version of Luther was thirtyish, tanned and built like a wrestler.
Blonde hair billowed down over his shoulders. He looked like he had
walked off the cover of a romance novel—pure beefcake.

Seeing this young and virile Luther withered
my confidence. I expected to find someone older and weaker,
stripped of the woven flesh that augmented his physique in Root. It
turned out that the morph I had deemed too perfect to be human was
actually the real thing. Here it was, standing right in front of
me.

I gathered my courage and walked up. Luther
turned and looked at me, displaying his blue eyes and rugged
chin.

“
Excusez moi, Arthur,” he said to
the old man, in a voice pitched higher than I expected, before
turning to me. “Are you the American who’s looking for me?” His
English influenced more by London than New York.

“
I’m … James.” I braced myself for
his reaction, but he didn’t even blink. There was not the faintest
glimmer of recognition in his eyes. He thrust his hand out for a
shake.

“
Luther Strunk. How can I help
you?”

I stared at him awkwardly, and studied his
face for some kind of validation that this was the man I sought.
But there was nothing in those eyes or the way he carried himself
that suggested that this was the Lord and Master of Luthersburg.
Superficially, maybe, he resembled one of Luther’s many morphs, but
I was no evidence of Luther’s soul behind that visage.

He returned my handshake with a firm but
well-lotioned grip. These were not the hands of a manual laborer.
The old man stared at us and glared at me in a creepy, quaking
silence.

“
How can I help you?” I stared into
his greenish-blue eyes and still saw no sign that he recognized
me.

“
I … um … I … don’t know. I think I
might have made a mistake.”

He sighed. “You’re not another stalker are
you?”

“
Stalker?”

“
Maybe that’s too harsh a word. How
about … fan boy?”

“
I don’t get you.”

He shrugged. “You see, I’m a singer. In
Lausanne, I have quite the following in the LGBT community. Even
Arthur here is a fan of mine. Isn’t that right Arthur?” The old man
leered from the bench. “Some of them get a bit carried away
sometimes.”

“
Pardon my asking, but have you ever
been to Root?”

He squinted at me. Even the crows’ feet in the
corners of his eyes were perfect.

“
What is that? Some kind of club? In
Geneva?”

“
You really don’t know?”

His phone went off. The ring tone—Sinatra’s
‘Love is Just Around the Corner.’ He engaged in a brisk and
argumentative exchange in French. “Excuse me,” he said. “I have an
issue to work out with one of my other patients. Arthur, are you
fine sitting here with this young man?”

The old man nodded, a perpetual smirk engraved
in his face. He may have been aged, but there was mischief in those
eyes. We watched Luther trundle off, muscles rippling beneath
scrubs a mite too tight for a man of his considerable
physique.

I sighed and thought about heading back
downtown, but then what? This entire excursion had been a waste.
And now I had no place to turn.

The tide began to turn on my mood, In the back
of my mind I realized the implications, but I tried to keep the
idea of returning back to Root as vague and formless as I could
because wanting to be there would prevent my going. I think this
was what Karla meant by ‘surfing.’ Nevertheless, I girded myself
for the dogs, or the Reapers or whatever I would face this time
around.

“
Hello James,” said the old man, his
smirk more pronounced.

I looked at him, startled, and saw the
childish depravity in his eyes, obscured by wrinkles and
rheuminess, but unmistakable. This old man was the true Lord and
Master of Luthersburg.

***

He was a shriveled old thing, with thinning
hair plastered to his scalp and bifocals dangling from a strap
around his neck. He wore gray slacks and a dark blue cardigan under
a suit coat. The only color on his person came from a pair of
mismatched turquoise and coral socks.

“
I never would have taken you for a
skinhead,” he said. “But I suppose it makes sense now.”

“
Skinhead? You mean my haircut? I
just did this to make it easy to wash up on the road.”

“
Are you sure? Weiss und stoltz does
not mean anything to you?”

“
I don’t know what you’re talking
about.”

His expression softened. “You honestly don’t
know? You’ll have to forgive me. It was some skinhead types who put
me into this hospital, and other hospitals before.”

“
But … why?”

“
Because of my ways. My
differences.”

“
I don’t get you.”

“
My goodness are you dense. I like
boys, James. Not little boys. Big boys … like Luther.”

“
So … who are you,
really?”

“
I am Arthur Knebel, or rather, what
is left of him. I owned a gallery in Geneva for many years. And I
used to sculpt. Abstract nudes mostly. Luther owns my heart, but
five children he has now. For ten years he has been my
physio-therapist. I have broken my body for him and will do so
again, if it is the only way to be near him.”

“
Whoa dude. You’re in
love?”

He nodded sadly. “He is my hopeless hope, my
ticket to Root. It is why I weave flesh. He is sometimes my avatar.
Anytime I wish, I can become him. It’s not as good as the real
thing, course. But it suffices.”

“
You seem so different here. You’re
not nearly as weird. You’re like … human.”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s all an act, that
other persona. Root is my stage; the ‘Burg, my perpetual show. I
direct the action because I can. I may have been a failure as a
sculptor, but as a weaver I am unsurpassed. Of course I choose to
exert my powers to amuse myself. Wouldn’t you?”

“
Luther … er … Arthur. The ‘Burg’s
all fucked up because of what you did. No one’s getting in or out.
I bet people are getting Reaped because of it. Karla—”

“
Well, that’s just too bad. The move
was necessary to protect my investment.”

“
Protect it from who?”

His eyes narrowed. “You know who. You were
there. You saw what she did.”

“
Victoria? But she’s not going to
bother with you. Why should she? You’re no threat to
her.”

“
And how can you possibly know this?
You’ve only been in Root … sum total … a few days. Me, I’ve been
going over a decade now, three days out of four, returning only to
replenish this shell of a body and see my precious Luther. I’ve
seen powerful souls come and go and I know an existential threat
when I see it. The attitude of that woman. You could almost smell
her disdain for me.”

“
But your walls can’t keep her out.
Even I managed to cut through. They’re just keeping souls out of
the ‘Burg and making the others miserable.”

“
Impossible. You could never pass
through those walls. ”

“
But I did. I went right through it.
Like butter.”

Luther/Arthur gripped his cane and
wielded it defensively. His chin trembled. “You! You’re one of hers
aren’t you?
She
sent you here.”

“
Calm down. I’m just some kid who
wandered in. Okay? Honest. I know nothing of Victoria. I just want
my friends to be safe. Open the walls and I promise nothing bad
will happen.”

“
I can’t,” he said. “Not until I am
certain the threat has passed.”

“
But you’re losing souls left and
right. Those who fade don’t come back. You’ll have nobody left at
this rate.”

“
We are improving the stock,” he
said. “Distilling the loyalty. Keeping the best of the best. We’ll
still recruit, but with more stringent requirements going forth. No
more riff-raff. I am afraid, though, that you have disqualified
yourself with your presence here today. You can bet we’ll be taking
special measures to keep the likes of you out.”

“
What about Karla? Does she
qualify?”

“
Karla has nothing to worry about,”
said Luther.

“
Then where is she? Why hasn’t she
been seen in the ‘Burg?”

He smirked. “Did you never suppose your little
crush had anything to do with it? That little thing called hope? If
she’s not there … she’s been driven out of Root. She’s probably …
here.”

“
Here? In Geneva?”

“
No, you idiot. With her father. In
Inverness.”

Chapter 35:
Relations

A wisp of a woman in a flowing shift hobbled
out onto a balcony and leaned over the rail, studying me intensely
as if I were some sort of rare squirrel that had ventured onto the
property.

“
Inverness? Is that in
Switzerland?”

The old man rolled his eyes. “Scotland, you
fool. You must be the dimmest heap of flesh ever to
weave.”

His insult slid right past me. My heart was
already on a train to Britain. But then it was like the vultures
swooped down and plucked away my hope. What if this turned out to
be another wild goose chase? What if I got there and found out
Karla was actually in Newfoundland or Labrador?

“
You know this for sure? That she’s
in Inverness.”

“
Look at you.” The old man’s gaze
drilled into me. “She’s all you care about, isn’t she?”

I couldn’t deny that.

“
Let me tell you something, then,
that you may not like to hear. I am ten years ‘out of the closet,’
as they say. But back in the day, men like me took great pains to
disguise our sexual proclivities. Some of us married women. Our
wives bore children. I have a daughter. An only child named Hanna.
She’s forty-six now and she once was married to a terrible man
named Edmund.”

“
Oh my God! You’re Karla’s
grandfather?”

“
But I’ve little contact with the
family ever since Hanna left him. I don’t even hear from Hanna
anymore. She’s not been right in the head, but who can blame her
after being with Edmund. You can imagine how an extremist like him
felt about a man of my predilections. I must be the devil
personified in that household, and Hanna certainly suffered by
association.”

“
Does Karla know … in Root … who you
are?”

“
Of course she knows. I actually
participated in their family life when she was small. I used to
travel to Rome for holidays and they even came to Geneva once.
That, of course, was before I came out.”

Luther, the physio-therapist, came striding
out of the building.

“
You two having a nice chat? Listen,
Arthur. I am needed down at the main hospital. They have no one to
work with the burn cases today. So we’ll have to reschedule our
session. I know much you are heartbroken. How much you love this
shoulder torture.” He winked. “Good to meet you James. Au
revoir!”

He wheeled about and crossed the patio to the
street. I gazed up at the crown of a willow, its leaves exposing
their silvery undersides in the changeable wind

“
Inverness,” I said. “It sounds so
far away.”

“
Why would you ever want to go
there, boy? What good would it do Karla? One glimpse of you and
Edmund would beat her raw simply for attracting the attentions of a
male.”

“
Jeez! I don’t get why she doesn’t
just leave.”

“
She has a younger sister. Isobel.
If Karla left, there would be no one to protect the little
one.”

“
Protect her from …
Edmund?”

“
And not just the beating. That’s
not the worst of it. No one will say for sure, but I suspect there
was molestation as well. It was a crime that Hanna was unable to
gain custody of those girls.”

“
You know this and you just let it
happen? Why don’t you report him?”

“
To whom? Who would listen? He is a
leader in his church. He is calm and chaste in the court room,
polite to the judges, and exceptionally well-groomed.”

“
So letting them live with that
monster, that’s better?”

The old man shrugged. “Karla is a weaver. She
has Root to help her cope with hardships. It’s good enough for me.
Why not her?”