Tongues of Fire (38 page)

The sea had a smooth shiny skin. Sometimes it shivered, despite the heat. Once a breeze gave it goose bumps. When it passed, the skin was instantly smooth again. He wanted to lower himself onto that skin, very gently so he would not disturb it, and sink into it a little way. He wanted badly to be there. That always happened when he looked out the window long enough. But it was no use. He had asked Baby-Finger a thousand times if he could go lie on the smooth skin, and Baby-Finger was sick of hearing it.

Once more wouldn't hurt. “Baby-Finger.” Tap, tap. “Nothing.”

Nothing. He gazed at the sea.

“Snakes are biting me,” the snake man whispered in his ear. The snake man liked to come and watch the sea with him. Without looking at the snake man, he turned and left the window. He walked from one end of the hall to the other, searching for the golf ball socks.

Boom boom. Someone was banging on the steel door. Baby-Finger took the key from his pocket and unlocked it. The door swung open. A man in a white jubba was pushed inside. He stumbled and fell and lay face down on the floor. Baby-Finger locked the door.

The man in the white jubba was bleeding from the nose and mouth. Drip drip. Slowly a small red pool formed on the floor, quivering with surface tension.

He forgot about the golf ball socks and went closer to examine the red pool. Somehow he knew it would feel sticky if he touched it with his toe. Once a red pool like that had flowed around his bare feet. He stepped in it. Wet and sticky. He lifted his foot, took it in his hands, and twisted it to look at the sole. It was stained red. What had he done? He would need something to hide it.

“Have you seen my golf ball socks?” he asked the man on the floor.

The man raised his head. His face was dark and gaunt. He smiled. “What do you want socks for? It's too hot.”

He showed the gaunt man the sole of his foot. “To hide this,” he whispered.

The gaunt man laughed. “Do you think that's bad? Look at my face.” He did. It was bad.

“It is bad.”

“I know. But don't worry about it. I'm not.” He lowered his voice. “They didn't find it.”

“What?”

The gaunt man laughed again.

“What?”

He kept laughing.

Tap, tap. “That's enough,” Baby-Finger said. “Get up.”

The gaunt man turned and saw Baby-Finger sitting on the chair behind him. He got up. Baby-Finger got up too. “This way,” he said. He led the gaunt man to a cubicle, one of the cubicles that had a dirty curtain across the front. “Go in,” Baby-Finger said. The gaunt man went in and disappeared behind the curtain. “Don't bother me,” Baby-Finger said to the curtain. “If you do you'll be sorry.” Baby-Finger walked back to his chair and sat down.

He waited until Baby-Finger's eyelids began to droop before tiptoeing across the hall and peeking around the dirty curtain. The gaunt man lay on the mattress, curled up with his knees to his chin. He went inside and looked down at him. “What didn't they find?”

The gaunt man stared past him and did not answer.

“What didn't they find? My golf ball socks? Have you got them? Have you?” He grabbed the gaunt man's shoulders and shook him. “Answer me.”

“Don't,” the gaunt man whined. He began to cough, a deep cough that sent vibrations through the bones in his shoulders.

“Then tell me.”

“Don't.” The cough was taking over the job of shaking his body.

“Tell me.”

“I will. I will. Stop.”

He stopped. After a minute or two the cough stopped too. The gaunt man lay on the bed panting. Then he stood up and stripped off his jubba. The gaunt man was naked. There was nothing unusual about that. So was he.

“They didn't find it,” the gaunt man whispered.

“What?”

“You have to whisper.”

“What?” he whispered.

The gaunt man raised his left arm. In his armpit was a very small leather pouch, held there by a safety pin stuck through his skin. “This,” he whispered.

“What is it?”

“Whisper.”

“What is it?” he whispered.

“I'll show you.” The gaunt man's right hand reached across his concave chest and up to his armpit; his fingers felt the leather pouch, the pin. They fumbled with it for a while, but they could not make it open. The gaunt man stepped toward him. “Help me.”

He didn't like the gaunt man's smell, but he leaned forward so he could see what he was doing and put his hands in the damp armpit. With one he supported the pouch; with the other he unfastened the head of the safety pin and pulled it slowly out. Two drops of blood about an inch apart appeared beneath the coarse wiry hairs on the gaunt man's skin. He lowered his arm and took the pouch.

“It's a secret,” he whispered.

“I won't tell.”

The gaunt man untied the string that was wound around the mouth of the pouch and turned it upside down. Something very small, no bigger than a pill, fell into his palm. He took it in the tips of his fingers and carefully began to unfold it. It was a tiny wad of paper. Newsprint. The gaunt man smoothed it flat on his palm and held it up so he could see.

He saw a photograph of a dark young man. In Arabic under the photograph was written: “The Mahdi.” It was his boy.

It was his boy. He fell on the floor and wept. He wept as hard as he could weep, but it was not enough, so he banged his head against the wooden boards.

“Quiet,” the gaunt man whispered urgently. “Stop it.” He wept and cracked his head against the floor.

Hurriedly the gaunt man refolded the scrap of newsprint and thrust it into the pouch. “Be quiet,” he hissed. It was too late. A gust of wind blew into the cubicle as the curtain was swept aside. Up went the stick. And down.

When he awoke he was bound tightly in cold wet sheets. “Guard,” he shouted. “Guard.” He kept shouting the word until the man he had called Baby-Finger came into the cubicle and stood at the foot of his bed. “Please unwrap me,” he said. “I'm not going to bother you.”

The guard shook his head. “You say that every time. And every time you bother me.” The guard went away.

Lying there in the cold wet sheets, his eyes filled with tears. They ran down his cheeks, fell softly on the iron bed frame. He thought about the face in the photograph. It was a powerful face. A hard face. Very little of his boy remained. He had sacrificed the boy. He had hurt a woman named Paulette, long ago. He had thrown away his own chance to make a new life. For what? Tears fell on the iron frame.

He could have enjoyed the boy. He could have let the boy enjoy him, and be a normal American boy with friends and games and school. Now it was too late.

But it was not too late to find him, and tell him. Tell him what? That he was sorry? How would the hard face react to that? That he loved him? It would be no better. But none of that mattered. He wanted to be near him. His tears dried up. “Guard. Guard.” The guard would not come. He stopped calling.

Another man came. “Snakes are biting me,” he said.

“Go away.”

“But snakes are biting me.”

“Go.” He went.

Much later the guard appeared and began unwrapping the sheets. As they were stripped away he looked down at his body. Was it really him? He had been a strong, muscular man. Now the muscles had shriveled, and most of the flesh as well. What remained hung loosely from his bones.

He noticed the plastic band on his wrist. Quentin Katz. When the guard had gone he ripped it off. He knew who he was. Isaac Rehv.

He knew who he was. But not where. Or when. Suddenly he remembered the dirty little mirror on the wall near the toilet. He rose and slowly, afraid, walked toward it down the hall. He looked in the mirror.

An old man looked back at him. He had white hair, a white beard, and a face as gaunt as the face of the man with the pouch. The old man's deep brown eyes filled with tears and he began to cry, because he knew from the photograph of his son that he could not yet be so old.

After a long time he turned away from the old man's eyes. He saw a rectangle of blue shining through the little window. The sea. The Red Sea. He knew what was on the other side.

Isaac Rehv hurried down the hall. He had to find his son. He would need clothes. And money. But first he had to get out.

As he approached the steel door he saw the guard look up and finger the long wooden billy that lay across his lap. “Guard,” he said. “I'm better now. I don't need to be here anymore. Please let me out.”

The guard laughed.

“If you can't do it on your own, let me see someone who can. There must be a doctor here. Call him.”

“Go back to your bed.”

“Please.” He laid his hand on the guard's thick shoulder. The guard jumped up and kicked back his chair. Up went the stick. Rehv ducked to the side and it glanced off his arm. The guard raised the billy again and stepped forward in a wary crouch, his yellow eyes like slits in a lantern. Rehv backed away. The guard kept coming. Rehv felt a wall behind him. The guard smiled. Rehv threw his fist at him, a weak looping punch that struck nothing and put him off-balance. The guard grabbed his arm and spun him around. Down went the stick.

Blackness.

“Is this the one?” a man said in Arabic.

“Yes,” answered another man whose voice he knew. The guard.

Rehv opened his eyes. He lay on the bed frame, wrapped in cold wet sheets. Looking down at him was a tall man, not much darker than he. Beside him stood the guard; the billy dangled loosely from his maimed hand. The tall man's curly hair shone with oil; so did his neat mustache. A heavy gold chain hung around his neck, and he was carrying more gold on his fingers and wrists. He wore a white laboratory coat over a Western suit.

“Are you the doctor?” Rehv asked.

The tall man frowned. “I'll ask the questions,” he said, looking coldly at Rehv. Rehv stared back.

“Then ask,” he said finally.

“I won't listen to rudeness.” The tall man remained calm. The guard's hand tightened around the billy. “Rudeness is a sign that you are not ready to leave.” He turned to go.

“But I am ready. Let me go. Please let me go.”

The tall man walked away. Over his shoulder he said, “You're not ready. You're still rude. What's more, you took off your identity band. We're not blind, you know.”

Rehv strained against the cold wet sheets. They did not give at all. “But it wasn't me. I'm not Quentin Katz.”

The tall man turned and came back. “Do you see?” he said, shaking his head. “You don't even know who you are. That's one problem. Another is that you're a masochist. I've seen the reports. We've never had anyone who needed to be hit as much as you. It means you enjoy it.”

“I don't.”

“The literature is unassailable.”

“I'm not a masochist,” Rehv shouted.

The guard glared at him. “Just a few hours ago I caught him beating his head against the floor.”

The tall man pursed his lips. “Two more years,” he said. “At least.”

Rehv inhaled deeply to force his anger back inside him. “I'm not a masochist,” he said quietly. “And you're not a doctor. No real doctor would have anything to do with a place like this.”

The doctor's calmness dropped away like a skin that no longer fit. He spoke angrily: “I am a doctor. I trained in America.”

“Then let me go,” Rehv said in English. “I'm an American.”

In Arabic the tall man said, “Ah. You speak English. So do I.” He leaned over Rehv. “Two years,” he said in English; his accent was very thick.

He turned and walked away. The guard followed him. Rehv listened to their footsteps as they went down the hall, and heard the key scrape in the lock. As the door opened he called out: “You didn't graduate, did you? You failed and they sent you home. That's why you're running this snake pit. You're a fraud.”

The door banged shut. Rehv waited for the guard to come running and hit him with the billy. But the guard did not come: He heard the creaking of wooden joints as he settled in his chair. He realized that he had spoken English, and the guard had not understood. The doctor had probably not understood either.

They kept him wrapped in the sheets until dinner. He ate the soggy millet and drank the sour milk. Then he slept. The squeezing of the sheets always made him tired.

In the morning he heard the guard turn the long key in the lock and open the steel door. Then he heard the wheels of the laundry cart rolling across the floor. He got up and watched the wiry little laundryman pushing the cart from cubicle to cubicle, collecting dirty clothes and soiled bedding. Rehv had nothing to give him. The laundryman left the cart at the entrance to his cubicle and went into the next one.

Rehv glanced down the hall. The guard was sitting tilted back in his chair, looking at the ceiling. Quickly Rehv climbed into the laundry cart and hid himself under the linen.

He could see nothing. What little air there was stank in his nostrils. He felt a soft thump on his back: more linen. The cart began to roll. Almost immediately he thought how stupid his impulse had been: He had no plan, no idea what lay beyond the steel doors. And surely the laundryman would notice the added weight.

But he didn't. The cart rolled along the floor. It stopped. He felt more soft thumps on his back. The cart started. It rolled. The laundryman whistled a little tune.

The cart stopped. “All done?” he heard the guard ask.

“All done,” the laundryman replied. “But the Turk is in the cart.”

“Again?”

Rapid footsteps. The stick. On his back. His shoulder. His head.

When Rehv awoke, he felt the sheets around him again. It was very quiet, as quiet as night. But it could not be night because the insides of his eyelids were pink. He kept his eyes closed. He would keep them closed until the pain in his head went away. He knew that the pain in his head would go away after a while; that made it different from the pain in his back. It was quiet.