Watson, Ian - Novel 16 (5 page)

           
Without really thinking, while
confusion mounted and loud Babylonian curses erupted everywhere and while the
next donkey blundered heavily past, Alex snatched the package up. Otherwise it
would be squashed down into the deep litter of other rags and tatters of
bedding and cabbage stalks, wouldn’t it?

 
          
Now
two other beasts were trying to run abreast, crowding the street from wall to
wall. Perhaps this was the fault of the kilted man squeezed between their
necks, trying to wrestle them both to a halt; he was being dragged along. The
people ahead of this donkey duo took to their heels, encouraging the animals to
do likewise.

 
          
‘Help!’
cried Deborah, doing nothing to escape. Why not? Maybe this was beneath the
dignity of an elegant Greek lady.

 
          
Alex
seized his chance, and her hand (his other hand gripping the packet) and dragged
her in flight as far as the next intersection, which luckily was close at hand.
They ducked down a different street just as hooves thudded by - the runaway
pair pursued in turn by yet more beasts, then by squealing urchins, finally by
a foul-looking burly fellow swearing and lashing a whip at the urchins’ backs.

 
          
Enjoying
the sensation of leading Deborah, Alex hurried her more than halfway down this
street of refuge before she dug her heels in, out of breath or tired of playing
that role. She gazed at him wide-eyed. Angry? Exhilarated?

 
          
In
purest Attic Greek she said, ‘Wow. I could use a drink.’

 
          
No
one else had dodged up this particular thoroughfare to escape the stampede,
though the way had been completely clear. Now, as if some unseen Babylonian traffic
controller had waved a flag, the street began filling with folk from ahead.

 
          
‘We
appear to be facing the wrong way,’ said Alex.

 
          
‘I
doubt if it damn well matters. Much. Might get our toes stubbed.’

 
          
‘Won’t
get impaled for jaywalking, you mean?’ He winked.

 
          
People
crowded by.

 
          
‘God,
you do construct cages around yourself.’

 
          
He
slipped briefly into English, and joked, ‘Well, we
are
looking for bars.’

 
          
She
looked shocked, insulted, on the point of marching off alone. Perhaps
high-born ladies did not walk these streets alone; so she stayed.

 
          
‘Sorry,
Deb. I’ll ask directions to the nearest beer shop, or wine palace, or
whatever.’

 
          
The
man he chose to ask - a short, dark, Hispanic type - was kilted and
bare-chested but wore leather sandals, so obviously wasn’t riff-raff. What else
he was was betokened by his tattooed forehead. He wore there the sun-disc mark
of Shamash. The sides of the man’s head were shaved, and the curious quiff of
hair which remained on his crown made him resemble a sun- browned version of
the comic-strip French detective boy Tintin. Alex stepped in his way.

 
          
‘Excuse
me.’

 
          
‘I’m
busy.’ The man spoke gruffly, thrust past, and continued on his way. He smelled
of sandalwood.

 
          
‘You
just asked a slave,’ said Deborah.

 
          
‘So?’

 
          
‘A
temple slave.’

 
          
‘Obviously
he wasn’t
my
slave.’

 
          
‘A
slave.’ She repeated the word, to savour it. ‘A real honest-to-goodness slave.’

           
‘That’s right. The old country has
reintroduced slavery. White slavery; not just black.’

 
          
She
looked defiant. ‘What old country?’

 
          
‘Okay,
we’ll pretend it doesn’t exist. Not yet.’

 
          
It.
He’d found himself unable - reluctant - to mention the name
America
. Another tattooed slave passed. The man
spat irritably as they stared at him.

 
          
All
of a sudden Alex really saw these people in the street, not just witnessing but
experiencing them.

 
          
Slaves.
People owned by other people, as you own a horse or a dog. Though horses did
not wear scent. . .

 
          
Was
everyone in
Babylon
- tattooed or untattooed - equally a slave?
All slaves to a dream, to an almighty pretence, a fabrication? Were the
visiting free Greeks all applicants to a curiously fulfilling kind of slavery -
no matter whether they were fated to prosper here, or to fall on hard times?

 
          
‘I
guess,’ mused Alex, ‘if they were just phoney slaves, that would make the whole
place phoney.’ What if the slaves ran away? Would soldiers hunt them down in
the desert, using dogs to track and spears to chivvy? Could one escape across a
state line from
Babylonia
into
America
and be free again?

           
America
didn’t yet exist.
America
was unknown. Any state line was a fault
line in time, behind which all
Babylonia
had slumped into the past, had submerged itself like a whale sounding deep
into the abyss of history. How could one even imagine escaping from the belly
of such a whale? Because it had dived, the whale would survive - emotionally at
least - whilst the surface of America would wither under the scorching rays of
the eternal, epoch-mocking sun, Shamash, who judged and condemned all human actions,
who sent kingdom after kingdom into the empty hollow darkness which was the
afterlife, and which also was posterity.

           
‘I guess,’ said Alex, ‘some people
might give up their freedom gladly - so they can become authentic. Maybe people
do this all the time. You’re a little interested in that too, eh?’

 
          
She
didn’t answer; perhaps because he had not really expected an answer. Instead
she began walking on down the rest of the street, which was temporarily clear
again. He caught up. They turned the corner and almost tripped over a beggar, a
barefoot bundle of rags.

 
          
‘Alms,’
croaked the creature. He instantly recognized Greeks, and begged in Greek.

 
          
This
wasn’t an American beggar, some bagman or hobo on a park bench. This was an
Asiatic, ancient, timeless beggar. Not a scrap of spare fat on him. More like a
monkey with bad teeth. A herpes sore adorned his lower lip.

 
          
Alex
addressed the beggar: ‘Greetings! Can you direct us to a taverna?’

 
          
‘Good
God,’ protested Deborah. But Alex didn’t intend to follow the man’s directions,
into some thieves’ kitchen. He was simply curious. He wanted to prove the man a
masquerade. He wanted the man to wink.

 
          
No,
that’s a lie. Alex wanted him
not
to
wink; so that this was all for real.

 
          
The
beggar stank. He couldn’t afford perfume or any oily alkaline soap. Could such
a person ever spare a coin to toss upon a woman’s loins in the
temple
of
Ishtar
? Only if someone else gave it to him. Only
if someone else expressly paid him to go there and choose a particular woman.
Alex toyed briefly with this thought, tormenting himself.

 
          
The
man grinned evilly, yellow-toothed. He held his palm higher, more urgently.
Like a monkey, for peanuts. The motion revealed a knife stuffed inside a band
of cloth round his waist. The beggar wore those rags not for warmth or for
decency’s sake -
Babylon
was a hot city - but to hide a weapon. Alex hadn’t bargained for this.
(Was Mitch right, after all?)

 
          
Deborah
dragged on Alex’s arm, hauling him away.

 
          
Slaves.
Beggars. These people weren’t extras on some back lot. They were the big scene,
just as much as King Alexander. They were the action.

 
          
And
there was no camera.

 
          
Unless
. . . maybe tiny, hidden lenses were watching everywhere, indistinguishable
from a speckle on a wall.

 
          
This
street was wider than the last, but people still made their way in only one
direction. Abruptly a chariot clattered down the thoroughfare, its horse
whipped on by a Macedonian officer wearing bronze breastplate and skirt of
leather thongs, his helmet hard-crested like the skull of an extinct Corytho-
saurus. Pedestrians scattered to the walls to avoid being trampled. No one
seemed to mind.

 
          
After
a while, they did find a bar-restaurant. Wide windows, open on to the street,
disgorged smells of honeyed barley-cake, bean soup, goat stew, horsemeat
steaks. Sample meals stood on the brick counter within. Behind, the kitchen was
a smoky den, though open to the sky.

 
          
Patrons
squatted on stools at low tables. Most drank pots of beer. A couple of men were
sucking wine from jars through long filter-tubes, for all the world like opium
smokers puffing on hookahs.

 
          
Alex
ordered honey cakes with a side dish of dates, and beers. They found vacant
stools in a far corner, and settled.

 
          
The
beer, sweetly sour, also tasted of dates. Too many sweet things? No; right now
this was good for their blood sugar.

           
‘Well, well,’ he said.

           
He remembered the packet which he’d
picked up, and later stuffed into his sleeve. He produced it. ‘What’s that?’

           
‘It fell off one of those damn
donkeys.’

           
‘And you kept it?’

           
‘I forgot.’

           
‘But that makes you a thief!’

           
‘Hardly! It’s just a pack of rag.’

           
‘So why did you take it?’

           
‘I’ll return the damn thing.’

           
‘How? Who to? That’s a lie. Why
didn’t you return it right away?’

           
‘What is this? My trial? Now who’s
constructing cages?’

           
‘Why didn’t you give it back?’

           
‘We were avoiding being trampled,
remember?’

           
‘You had time to pick it up. You
could have done a citizen a favour.’

           
‘Mightn’t be worth giving back.’
Circumspectly, Alex untied the twine and unfolded the soiled cloth.

           
Inside nestled a black plastic box
containing a cassette tape. Hastily, Alex covered it.

           
‘Oh my God, what’s that doing here?’
she whispered. ‘Dunno,’ he whispered. ‘It might be a computer program. Or
results.’

           
‘Why?’

           
‘Because everything’s being watched
and recorded and measured. By the university. We’re all bits of information.’

 
          
‘You’d
better get rid of it. Chuck it in the next canal.’ ‘It has to be valuable. This
is fate, destiny. Don’t look a gift donkey in the mouth.’

           
‘Valuable to you?’ She shook her
head. ‘Uh-uh. That isn’t why we’re here - not to start playing power games with
the system.’ She shuddered. ‘You fool. Even knowing about that thing makes me a
criminal as well. I don’t want to know about it. I don’t want to be speared. Or
enslaved.’