Skin (33 page)

    -and borne on that noise Tess all at once in motion, pushing through the crowd, hysterical crowd, hysterical rumbling noises balanced on the rim of ecstasy and panic, she had heard those sounds before
oh God let me through
.
Let me through
, elbows out, she thought she felt a bone give beneath her terrified assault, half-stumbling down the bleachers themselves in motion, Nicky after her too late and clogged by the others, impeded and she lost her balance entirely for a minute or two, felt the sensation of pure helplessness as for those moments she rode the brute whim of the crowd, crushed or borne it was all beyond her, beyond control and she fell half on her feet, rose scrambling and shoving, sweat in her eyes, burning:
Let me through.

    And Bibi howling, the pig-masked girl forgotten and Bibi herself kicking over the drum, the girl bouncing more or less out of the way and someone in a rubber frog mask grabbing at Tess's arm; she smelled wet salty breath and kicked out without thinking, aimed for the shin and was punched for her trouble, not too hard in the stomach and instead of punching back pushed hard, very hard, pushed like an earthquake but it was no use, other people were there, too, overrunning the performance area, overrunning the masquers, the false animals as they bore Bibi away.

    And then it was just noise, crazy yelling people and she moved with the crowd's momentum until she could find a hidey-hole, a slot to slip away; some kind of hi-lo ramp and she crouched beside it, waiting till there was space, to breathe, to move.

    To find Bibi.

    

    

    Backstage: keep walking and she did, past pallets and heavy plastic drums, mask area in unconscious irony and beyond that, light and noise: the area they used for backstage apparently a kind of lunchroom, cafeteria gutted empty and there they all were, eight, twelve, talking too loud, sharing drinks on the long yellow tables. Somebody laughing, loose drunken whoops and Tess straining to see past the robes and masks discarded, shiny piercings dull in the crummy overheads: where is she?

    And at the door, not Andreas but a boy pierced like him, one of the dog-boys, line on his throat stitched lightly with beaded blood, newer blood on his lower lip and dabbing, dabbing with a yellow Kleenex: "What?" Flat nasal vowels. "We're closed."

    "Bibi. I have to see Bibi right now."

    "Oh yeah, right," rolled eyes and pushing at the door, not even bothering with contempt and she grabbed him, grabbed his shoulders to shove him as hard as she could against the door, his head chattering back and "Yeah right you little fuck, I want to see Bibi and I want to see her right-"

    "Tess," and now Andy, only his voice recognizable: beefier than ever, now, hair long and very dirty, chin and cheeks tattooed a dark slim blue. Bare chest scratchy with dried blood; he looked like he was developing breasts. "She doesn't want to see you, Tess. So go away, okay?" The boy sagging, rising straighter to rub at his head, a monumental glare but Tess ignored him: "Andy," trying to see past him, so big he seemed to fill the door, "I have to talk to her. Just for a minute, all right? Tell her," her obvious fumbling, no good at duplicity's persuasion, "tell her I read the pamphlet, okay? Just tell her that."

    "Tess-" and sighing, leaning against the doorframe. "I don't owe you shit, you know."

    "Please." Staring him straight in the eyes, unused to asking favors and showing it. "If she says no, I'll leave, all right?" rising on tiptoe, trying to see past Andy's bulk to look directly into Michael's eyes, gray and calm and unsurprised; wrapped in black, pale hair caught in some kind of netting, messy plaits and one curl loose against the courtier's tilt of his cheekbone. Faintly scarred and laughing, the soft dry sound when something is amusing but not truly funny: a botched suicide, say, or a man being mauled by his own dog. Looking at nothing, and laughing.

    And beside him, Bibi.

    Head on his shoulder like a tantrum-worn child, eyes closed and slack lips drawn in exhaustion's pale frown, long as tragedy. Red and silver mingling with his dusty black, intimacy solid as a feeding vein and Andy saying something, shrugging,
I guess you better go. Tess? you better-

    Not even nodding, saying nothing, turning away past drums, empty barrels and black grease, past warning signs, all the signs were there. All of them, and all along.
Am I stupid? or just naive?

    And out at last into the dark where Edgar-Marc pounced on her, loud teetering croak: "She's here, you guys, I got her!" and the other two jogging up, Nicky saying something, angry, you scared the shit out of- and stopping, stopping the others, hand up like a traffic cop. "Hey," roughly, still panting a little. "Tess. Are you all right?" Silence. "What happened in there?"

    "Nothing," not looking. Her stomach hurt like an afterthought where she had been punched, bright little ache and sweaty all over, sweaty and cold in the night air and the three of them around her, sweatier than she; they had been running, nervous, looking for her. She tried to smile for them, blinking eyes so dry it seemed they would split like cherries, split wide open so she need never see again; what you don't see won't hurt you; oh you asshole. "Who's an asshole?" and Nita's frown; had she spoken aloud? Why not? Shout it from the rooftops. The Red Queen, the Jack of Daggers; ace in the hole and the same pale eyes between them, pale and gray, the color of needles and knives. Long midnight shiver down her clammy back, shirt stuck messy like the hood of a burst blister and the three of them, staring at her; "Who's an asshole, Tess?"

    
I am
. "Let's go home."

    Nita's voice, distorted and loud, for a confused moment Tess thought she was somehow in the room: "-TV, Tess, turn it on now. Hurry!" and obeying the urgency, rising to punch bleary at the button, "-animal rights activists later this week. Troupe director Bibi Bloss-" and a hideous still photograph, leaden and deranged, more freakish than her real-life face "-reached for comment. In other news, the city council's attempts to-"

    -and Nita, still on the phone,
did you see it? Tess?
Picking it up, feedback groan in her ear:
Yes I saw it, some of it.
Headache, as if she had gone to sleep drunk. "What else did they say? I didn't-"

    "I guess," Nita's voice itself somewhat like feedback, "some people, animal rights people? They were protesting those dumb masks, they said they were made from real animals."

    And a laugh inside, the mirth of helplessness; instead, "I have to go, Nita. Thanks," and sitting back hard on the bed, head in hands: awake again to last night's knowledge: she had gone to find out, hadn't she? And she had, but not what she expected: instead Bibi and Michael, so much deeper, so much more. It made so very much sense it was hard to believe it hadn't happened earlier. Or had it? Why not? She was blind, hammer and steel and all around her the real fire, burning and spilling, sticking like napalm to her hands, to her burning palms like a fire in the wilderness, Armageddon's light from a long way away. It takes a mask to make you see; and all at once she knew the bull-face last night was Michael, knew in retrospect the grace of his ascent up the staggered slope of the bleachers; rubbing at her face, her eyes, she had thought of Paul, then, but it had been something dead after all, hadn't it? Something dead as love, their love, all three of them; hadn't it? Of course it had.

    

    

    Shifting on the bed, this bed where she had slept with Bibi, with Michael, made love to them both: gray eyes open wide in the dark, mouths wet on her flesh and she had to get up, get out of the room, it was as if she could smell them, their scents commingled and slick as gloves against her hands, against the hot walls of her throat. Downstairs, hurrying as if pursued, masked man, the bull and the maiden, minotaur. Pushing at the Zombie door, using Nicky's key; nobody home.

    On his worktable, some spread guts and she wanted to look at them, try to make sense, stop thinking: the familiar remedy, will it work again today? Her hands were shaking. Nicky kept it even colder than she did; heat rises. Fire burns. Like likes like, her mother used to say that. Gray eyes behind a mask, all kinds of masks, there were all kinds of- The door buzzer, sustained thrumming noise and she rose, robot, to peer through the peephole, who's there? A face she didn't know, long scowling stare and saying something, leaning on the buzzer again.

    "Who is it?" before realizing they couldn't hear. Bending, trying to put more eye to the peephole: and seeing: Bibi. Behind heavy green glasses; Michael's old sunglasses. Two people with her, man and woman, all of them in fugitive black and gray.

    Her throat clicking dry, hands clicking free the bolts, the lock: the other two coming first, bodyguards. Bibi stepping behind, slipping off the glasses and Tess knew that she had not slept since the show, that brittle look around her eyes and something else; something worse, some stray wet shimmer like an insect caught in a basin, stepping in quick and dainty in bare feet wrapped like a dancer's, ballet dancer's, stopping when she got to Tess.

    A smile, half grimace; so dreadfully thin, light as a mummy shriveled to infinite weightlessness; translucent skin, like paper, old onionskin that crackles at the touch. Her gaze kept moving, around and around, as if it did so without her consent or control.

    "Did you see me on TV?" and they all laughed, Bibi shrill, breath in Tess's face strangely bitter, as if she had been eating bones. "Those assholes," petulant and bright, "I'll fix their fucking asses, next time I'll use a live dog, how would they like that? How would they fucking well-"

    "No you won't." Not loud; gazing at Bibi as if there was nothing else in all the world to see. "You won't do that. You love animals, Bibi."

    "Of course I love animals," more petulant still. "I would never hurt an animal. I'll skin them instead," and poking Tess, gently, with the tip of one finger, dirty little finger, dirty little girl, so resonant with that jarring inner wrong, as if her-
what? craziness, what?
-as if it were palpable, like a sore necrotic, like a broken neck. "So did you like the show?"

    "No." Conscious of the other two, staring; conscious of the rhythm of her heart, the leaden beat of pain, pain. Why was Bibi so dirty? Why couldn't these fucking stooges get her to use a washcloth? comb her hair? Dirty and fey, little stick blown wild in the storm of her own desires and Tess felt her throat closing, the slow convulsion before great weeping so spoke instead and in a hurry: "What happened to that girl? The one you cut. What happened to her?"

    And Bibi, distracted past some greater whirl of distraction, an inner buzz sharp as a spinning bit: "What? who, Kim? That's Kim, she's part of the troupe, kind of… hey, you should see what she does to herself. For fun," and laughing, harsh little hiccup of sound and then all at once grave as a surgeon with a cruel prognosis: "Okay, Tess. We're here to talk, right? So let's talk. All right? Let's talk. I'll go first."

    
Here to talk; says who?
"I'd rather talk alone," looking at the other two, who stared back bland as cutouts, big one-dimensional dummies; Bibi ignored them, ignored Tess's request. Perching on a half-gutted red leather couch, stuffings' belch in the draft and stink and that bird-cocked head, haggard eyes: "So. I keep trying to tell you, but you keep not listening. Did the show tell you anything, Tess?" Plenty; but nothing you want to hear; if you can even hear it, anymore. "Tell me what?"

    "About the gates. I knew you were up there, you know. I'm not stupid. I knew you were there."

    As if trying to decipher a map coded in dialects she could not master, to a land where she could never be welcome: slowly now: "Bibi, I don't know what you mean. What gates?"

    But her question lost, Bibi, too, intent on speaking, on her own wounded agenda. The modifications, carefully, like a teacher, ticking points on the bare air, the modifications are the gates, many gates for many people and there was still so much work left to do, only so much to be accomplished in the arena of her body, she had in fact done things in the past that made further modifications impossible in her own flesh; but there was always (a skeleton smile) the handy flesh of others. Wasn't there? So many people know about it now;
did you know that? Tess? Did you?

    Tess's mouth open, half a hundred answers and Paul's gaze somewhere in the silence of her own memory, Paul's arrogance, his infantile trust. Who had spoken for Paul? Not Paul; not anyone. Who speaks for-what was her name? Kim? Not Kim. What will happen here, in this vacuum of complicitous silence, what may have happened already?

    But the rights of others, if they existed, did not seem at all a topic to Bibi, did not matter and never truly had. The body, she told Tess-thin, consumed, scarred with a thoroughness and complexity that left the careful eye wincing, scarred beneath eyes and on the backs of her hand, fat white careful scars like sleeping slugs, like insects yet unnamed, scars like brackets around the talking mouth- leaning far forward on the bleeding red couch like some mad angel of prey, as if she would fling her wingless body across unimaginable chasms-the body, she said, is the bridge.

    "Don't you see?" so far forward, now, she might fall, tumble like a split bag of sticks. "Don't you see? If I can't use my own body, I have to use someone else's. I have to," and that last with a finishing nod of such black innocence that Tess wanted to scream. Instead, frantic logic twisting on the spot to fit Bibi's new madness, like metal heated to fill some bridgeless depth: like reasoning with the wet bubble of self-interest, Bibi's gaze a gray wall penetrable only perhaps by complexities as severe, and severely delusional: but helplessly Tess tried, tried to say All the world is not your playground, your meat market, your pick-and-choose to cut-Bibi, listen! and then suddenly in those gray eyes a new opacity, a darkness deeper and less fathomable; a place to be hurt in.