The Merchants of Zion (12 page)

The main hall was sparsely populated. Just us, a few straggling retirees, and a grade school class standing single file in front of a cute, ruffled, redhead.

Elly wanted me to take a picture of her standing in front of the skeleton. We pulled out our phones at the same time, and I decided to use hers; it had one of those new Heisenberg cameras, whose manufacturers claimed captured images accurate to the molecular level. I was pretty sure that was bullshit, but the knowledge did little to assuage my resentment over an eight year old owning a phone whose bill exceeded my monthly grocery budget.

I had to back up to the metal detector before the entire skeleton fit in the lens. I gave her a thumbs up and tried to take a picture, but the camera had its own ideas. When it detected my thumb descending towards the screen it began chattering like a gang of chipmunks. The noise continued for several seconds after I tapped the screen, in which time the phone had taken one hundred twenty-eight pictures, analyzed them, and presented me with the two it liked best.

They weren't very good, in my opinion, but Elly liked them. She asked if I could be in charge of taking the pictures as we wandered around.

She wanted to see more dinosaurs, and we took the elevator to the fourth floor. I followed behind as she rushed from one pre-historic exhibit to the next. The phone clicked and chirped of its own volition while the spherical lens lolled in its socket. Elly's voice had activated an automatic picture-taking mode. I put the phone in my pocket for a moment and inspected the results. Fields of blue, the color of my jeans, in all directions. Not so smart after all.

One dinosaur's long neck and tail stretched across the length of the room. Elly read the ancient bronze placard out loud: it was a diplodocus. This specimen measured one-hundred and twenty feet from its snout to the tip of its tail.

She struggled with one of the words. “Herby... herbu...”

“Herbivore. You don't pronounce the 'h.'”

“What's it mean?”

“It means this dinosaur didn't eat any meat, only plants.”

“So it's a nice dinosaur?”

“I guess so.”

“Do you think I can be a herbivore?”

“You'll have to ask your parents. When a person does it they're a vegetarian, not an herbivore.”

“Vegetarian,” she repeated to herself.

She proceeded from dinosaur to dinosaur, reading the descriptions aloud. After finishing each placard she would say, “Isn't 
that
 interesting,” or “What a 
surprising
 fact.” She was trying to sound like an adult, but unable to conceal her underlying excitement. When I took a turn reading one description, I said her, “Awesome! Isn't that amazing?” and she overcame her inhibition, dragging me from one room to the next as fast as her small gait allowed. She was more interested in reading the information out loud than in the exhibits themselves, giving them a perfunctory glance before moving on to the next. “Isn't that interesting?” was replaced by “Wow!” and “Cooool.”

We moved from the Jurassic to the Pleistocene, traversing a hundred million years with a single step. There were woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers, of course, but also a woolly rhinoceros and a five hundred pound armadillo. Each description Elly read ended with the animal's extinction, invariably coinciding with humans muscling into their habitat. Their puny successors, exiled to thin strips of the tropics, had undergone a second wave of extinction not long ago.

When Elly had her fill of the skeletons we checked out the insect wing on the third floor. It was a bust, a victim of entomological layoffs. Most of the exhibits either had broken windows or were darkened and unoccupied but for a sign reading “Coming Soon.” Descriptions for each of the vanished species remained intact.

One corner still had its inhabitants, and we browsed a sparse selection of tarantulas, scorpions, and beetles. Elly quickly lost interest, however, and ran to the end of the wing, where an awkward teenage girl in an outsized lab coat stood behind a table with jars of crawling insects. These piqued Elly's curiosity.

“Hi there. Would you like to hold one of my pets?” the girl in the labcoat asked.

“Yeah!”

The girl stuck her hand into a jar full of fat cockroaches. They fluttered around, their wings clicking against the glass and each other. Gross.

She told Elly to put out her hand, palm-down, then set down the bug. It crawled lazily across her knuckles. “That tickles,” she giggled.

“This cockroach is from Africa. Do you know where that is?” Elly nodded. “You're a smart girl.” The bug skittered up her arm and Elly started to flail. “Don't worry, they don't bite.” The girl plucked it from its perch on Elly's shoulder and set it back in the jar. “Do you want to hold something else?”

“You bet!” she said, undaunted. The girl gave Elly a small branch.

“Do you see the walking stick?” Elly nodded again. I only saw a regular stick. Something on it moved and I hopped back. The girl and Elly both found my reaction hilarious.

“Sir, do you want to hold something? How about this tarantula?” she asked.

“No thanks.”

“He doesn't like bugs, does he?” she said to Elly.

“No. He's a wimp.” They laughed again.

“She's adorable. Are you her father?” Elly was having a riot, and almost dropped the stick, she was laughing so hard.

“What? No! I'm uhhh... her brother. How old do I look?” I wondered out loud.

“I dunno. Thirty?”

“Thirty? I turned twenty-six last month. Thirty? Really? How old are you?”

“I'm not allowed to divulge personal information.”

“Fine. Whatever. Thirty?” I brooded as Elly held the tarantula, then a praying mantis. The girl was visibly uncomfortable, but went on with the volunteer work her parents forced her into so she'd be accepted at a good college. I hoped for her sake she was smart and studied something practical, because unless she was an eighteen-year-old ugly duckling her chances at romantic success were slim to none.

When Elly had held each insect she wanted to see the live butterfly exhibit. It was separate from the rest of the museum, and a ticket to enter cost more than general admission. But all of our expenses went straight to the invoice, so what did I care? A swipe of the card and we were in.

The butterflies were housed in a giant glass atrium, the building of which had erupted into a minor political scandal. It had been commissioned by the city in an attempt to buoy development companies in the aftermath of the Panic. They'd hired the architect who designed the Mars Habitat, and his fee alone had consumed the majority of project's budget. But the contracts had been signed, and so the glass bubble was built. After it was completed the city was forced by to sell the entire museum for pennies on the dollar to cover the debt. James claimed it was intentional, that the Mayor's Office and Liberty Bell had been in cahoots from the start.

Inside, I could acknowledge the structure was in no way worth the forfeiture of the museum, but much more had oft been lost for far less. It 
was
 a giant glass bubble, but a breathtaking one. Right next to the entrance a mounted display explained how the atrium had been built. Inspired by a snow globe he'd owned as a child, the architect had chosen to use an experimental material called transparent aluminum instead of steel ribs and glass. The end result: an area the size of a football field with a wholly unobstructed view of Independence Park and the Manhattan skyline. The ongoing storm clouded the further reaches of the city, but to the north I could see the abandoned skeletons of half-finished skyscrapers dotting Harlem like the dead ships of vanquished alien invaders.

The atrium was lit by street lamps. Elly and I strolled through the dimly lit garden, exposed to yet free from the weather. Overhead, the rain pounded against the dome before tracing its curves down to glass gutters while the butterflies floated around us, oblivious to the artifice of their environment. A light blue one with black spots landed in Elly's hair, resting undisturbed as she pointed out which butterflies she liked best. We were alone in here, tiny creatures in our own exhibit.

“How are you liking the museum?” I asked.

“It's the best!” The butterfly lifted from her shoulder and flew to a dogwood. The tree was blossoming, and the butterfly drifted to an open flower and began to feed.

“Cliff?” Elly asked bashfully.

“What is it Ells Bells?”

“Do you think Ryan would like the butterflies?”

“Yes, I think he would.”

“Me too.”

We walked along, watching butterflies ranging from the size of my thumbnail to that of my open hand. Elly found a dying Monarch, its bright orange wings crumpled. It was unable to lift itself from the ground. She cupped it in her hands and set it in a nearby bush so no one would step on it. I didn't bother telling her it was too late.

My phone vibrated. I didn't recognize the number.

“Hello?”

“Yo. I'm in the museum.”

“I thought you didn't have a phone.”

“I borrowed one. So where are you? Yeah just another few seconds, thanks.”

“We're in the butterfly atrium.”

“See you soon,” he said, and hung up.

“Is Ryan in Heaven now?” Elly asked.

How long had she pondered that thought? Was the question spontaneous, or had she chewed it over for months before daring to utter it aloud? Her bright, worried eyes suggested the latter, the urgency of her fear brought to the forefront by the butterfly she couldn't save. It was unfair for someone so young to have to wrestle with feelings of such import.

And what to tell her? That I didn't believe in God—that Ryan was an inanimate lump buried in a military cemetery? Helen was Jewish, but she wasn't religious, and I was sure she would've told her daughter, “Yes, Ryan is in Heaven and he's very happy.” Her father was a Catholic twice a year, on Christmas and Easter. What he might say I had no idea, but it would probably be a less measured variation of Helen's response. They might even believe it—their lack of external religiosity didn't mean they were atheists, or agnostic—I knew plenty of people who didn't toss out the idea of God and Heaven along with their synagogue or church.

“No one in the world knows what happens after you die; we can only tell you our personal beliefs. I don't believe in Heaven. That means I don't think Ryan could be there. However, a lot of people do believe in Heaven. They would think Ryan is there. Look at it this way: if I disappeared, say I ran off with some girl,” Ruth flashed through my mind, and I willed her into Mary, “you and your parents would have no idea where I was. I could be anywhere in the whole world, and all they could do is guess. It's the same when a person dies.” I paused. I hoped I was making my point clearly without upsetting her. “Does that make sense?”

“So you don't think Ryan is, um, down there?” She pointed at her feet.

“In Hell? No, I don't think so.”

“Even though he... he... killed people?”

“Life's too complicated. It can't be boiled down to simplistic moral judgments.”

“What's sim-plistic mean?”

“It means having the quality of being simple.”

“Hmm.” She left it at that, and I'd done it all without her breaking down into tears. If I ever became a parent I'd be the best one alive. My kids would love me and their friends would wish I was their dad. Although being responsible for another person's life sounded terrifying, I was certain I could handle it. I already took care of Elly and, to a lesser extent, James.

During our discussion, the Heisenberg camera had snapped a photo of a butterfly resting on Elly's finger while more flew around her head, giving her a butterfly halo. They must have been attracted to the red bow in her hair.

A retired couple from the entrance hall came into the garden. I wanted a picture for myself, and asked if they wouldn't mind taking one of us with my phone. The husband photographed us at the edge of the dome, butterflies and trees in front and the menacing storm in the background.

I received a text from a different number I didn't recognize. James was waiting for us at the museum entrance. He didn't want to pay for a ticket.

Elly and I backtracked to the main hall. James was by the metal detector, bullshitting with the security guard.

“Did you see those prices? Fu—”

“Elly, this is my roommate James. James, Elly,” I said, and mouthed, “no cursing.”

“Oh, right. Hello Lady Elly, how do you do?” he said, taking her hand.

After a brief discussion where I threatened to leave him behind he agreed to buy the ticket, complaining loudly how his entire budget—the entirety of his needs, wants, and dreams—was balanced so delicately that a single unforeseen purchase put his whole life's project at risk. Once inside he dawdled behind us like a dog on a long leash, taking his time to sniff everything and mark his territory on the choicest artifacts.

Next on our itinerary: the earth sciences. Elly didn't like the exhibits as much as I'd thought she would. She told me her volcanic crush had been mean to her during recess and she hated him now. Her interest in geology had been collateral damage.

“What'd he do?”

“He pulled my hair,” she pouted.

“That means he likes you.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“Boys are weird.”

We were standing in front of a thirty-foot tall cross section of sedimentary rock pulled from a geological dig in Cambodia. The age of each layer was marked, progressing from a scant thirty-thousand years ago to six million. I pointed out to Elly that these stones were younger than the dinosaur fossils we'd seen earlier.

Elly read the rocks' history aloud, and then went into an explanation about how igneous—that is volcanic, she added—rocks were formed, and how different types of volcanoes produced different kinds of igneous rock.

My phone buzzed. Another unknown number. I answered. A man with a deep voice asked for James.

“It's for you,” I said, cupping the phone. “Who did you give my number to?”

“Don't worry about,” he said, taking the phone.

“You're an asshole,” I whispered, and he waved me away. He wandered to an empty corner of the room and pulled out a notepad and pen, nodding his head as he wrote.