What in God's Name: A Novel (8 page)

“There are four thousand child slaves toiling in Bangladeshi factories! They toil at their looms for eighteen hours a day in sweltering, windowless bunkers. If a child leaves his workstation he is
shot in the face
by a member of the Chittagong Army! Is that justice?”

The crowd yelled “No!” in unison.

“He is
shot
in the
face!
” the woman emphasized.

Laura realized with panic that everyone but her was wearing black. Her armpits prickled with perspiration. The flyer hadn’t said anything about a dress code.

She took a deep breath and marched intrepidly into the fray. A glowering girl made eye contact with her, and Laura seized the opportunity, blurting out her standard introduction.

“Hi, I’m Laura!”

The girl handed her a flyer and kept on walking, shuffling her way through the crowd. Laura noticed that the back of the girl’s shirt pictured the face of a screaming Bangladeshi child. Beneath the child, in red block letters, a caption read simply: “Justice?” She wondered how quickly she could leave without appearing to be insensitive.

A bony palm gripped her shoulder. When she turned around, an emaciated girl was addressing her in a squeaky falsetto. “Is this your first die-in?”

Laura swallowed. Had she inadvertently joined some kind of suicide pact?

“What’s a die-in?”

“It’s when you simulate death,” the girl explained. “To protest the unjust deaths of others.”

A large gong sounded, and the skinny girl’s eyes suddenly widened.

“It’s starting!”

Laura watched in horror as the screaming protest leader unfurled a banner (“This many Bangladeshi children are murdered each week”). And before she had time to think, she was lying on the filthy sidewalk, her right check pressed into the pavement.

Several feet away, Sam Katz shifted uncomfortably and tried to make sense of his situation. He didn’t even know what this particular protest was about. He had been on his way to the library when an enraged girl thrust a flyer in his face.

“Do you care whether children live or die?”

Sam flinched. “I guess I’d rather they live?”

“Then do something!”

She muscled him into the center of the crowd, and the next thing he knew he was lying on the ground, surrounded by strangers and lonelier than ever. He’d been at NYU for a whole week, and this five-second exchange with the protester was the longest conversation he’d had yet.

Near his face a loudspeaker blasted a Bangladeshi song. It was loud, atonal, and full of screaming.

“Takana! Murti! Takana!”

It was crazy music and Sam realized, with panic, that it was going to make him laugh. He bit his lip. He’d been working so hard to pass himself off as a real New Yorker; yawning at the sight of tall buildings, ignoring celebrities on the street, writing in his Moleskine notebook, and sneering whenever anyone smiled at him. It seemed to be working. But if he laughed right now, in front of all of these smart political types, his Oklahoma origins would be plain for all to see.

“Takana! Takana! Takana!”

Sam clenched his jaw. The instruments had cut out—and now the song was just pure a cappella screaming. He could feel the laughter rising uncontrollably in his throat, as unstoppable as a pepper sneeze. He was about to give up the fight when he heard a high-pitched giggle coming from about six feet away. He craned his neck and spotted a girl wearing an odd brown sweatshirt, with her hands clamped tightly over her mouth. She flashed him an embarrassed smile, and he smiled right back, forgetting that he was supposed to sneer, forgetting he was in New York, forgetting practically everything.

“That’s it?” Eliza asked. “That’s the whole clip?”

Craig nodded. “That’s it.”

“What ended up happening? You know, after the protest?”

“The Chittagong Army continued to gain strength,” Craig told her. “Their atrocities continue to this day.”

“No,” Eliza said. “I mean, what happened with Sam and Laura?”

“Oh. Nothing.”

“They didn’t talk after the protest?”

Craig shook his head. “Their next meeting isn’t for another eight months. Here it is—Fifteenth Street and Irving.”

He clicked on the link, and Eliza shifted impatiently in her seat, waiting for the clip to start.

Sam stood across the street from Irving Plaza, trying to breathe like a normal person. He’d spotted Laura twenty minutes ago, through the plate-glass window of a gyro shop, and he was determined to finally speak to her. It wasn’t his first opportunity—they’d shared a dining hall for months. But the odds were it was his last chance of the year. Classes had ended on Friday, and he was flying home to Tulsa at six the next morning. If he didn’t make his move right now, who knew when he’d get another shot?

He rehearsed his opening line under his breath a few times, debating various deliveries. Finally, he walked across the street and tapped her on the shoulder.

“Hey,” he said. “You in line for the show?”

Laura nodded. She’d been watching Sam for about ten minutes, trying to figure out why he kept mumbling under his breath. She’d wanted to meet him ever since the protest but hadn’t had the guts to approach him.

“I love the Fuzz,” Sam said. “They’re kind of reminiscent of early Brian Eno.”

Laura smiled confusedly. She’d never heard of Brian Eno. She was debating whether to feign agreement with him when the line started moving.

“Guess it’s starting,” she said, shuffling along with the crowd.

“Oh!” Sam said. “Okay. Well…sayonara!”

She waved awkwardly. “Bye!”

Sam shook his head wearily. He’d finally worked up the courage to talk to her, after months of campus stalking, and it had gone all wrong. Why had he said that thing about Brian Eno? And “sayonara”? What the hell was that? The conversation had been such an unmitigated disaster he almost felt like laughing. His only solace was that nobody had been around to see it.

“Man,” Eliza said. “That was hard to watch.”

Craig nodded. “Did you see how much he was sweating?”

“I didn’t notice.”

Craig hit the pause button and zoomed in on Sam’s oil-drenched forehead.

“And this is at night,” Craig marveled. “He’s sweating like this at
night.
”

“What the hell was that Brian Eno thing about?”

“I’ll show you.”

Craig closed the clip and opened one from twenty minutes earlier. Sam was sitting in the gyro stand across the street from Irving Plaza, scrutinizing a listing in the
Village Voice.

“It looks like he’s reading the same article over and over again,” Eliza said.

“He is.”

Craig paused the clip, adjusted the angle, and zoomed in on the newspaper.

Eliza cringed. “So he was just repeating what the
paper
said?”

Craig nodded. “He’s never heard a single Brian Eno song. I checked his entire Life History.”

“Wow.” She closed her eyes. “Remember when he said ‘sayonara’?”

Craig shuddered. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

He scrolled down to the humans’ next meeting.

“I haven’t watched the third one yet. Maybe it goes better?”

“When’s it from?”

“Two years later—spring of 2010.”

She covered her eyes. “I’m afraid to watch.”

“We’ve got to.”

He clicked on the link, and the clip began to roll.

“Hey,” Laura said. “You’re in Linguistics Twelve, right?”

Sam nodded.

“Are those responses due today?”

Sam nodded.

“Okay,” she said. “Um…thanks!”

Eliza threw her hands up in frustration.

“What the fuck was that?”

Craig shrugged. “I guess they’re both shy.”

She shook her head in disgust. “She came right up to him, initiated a conversation, and he didn’t even say a word.”

“He was panicking. See? Look at all that sweat.”

He paused the clip and zoomed in tight on Sam’s glistening neck.

“I wonder if he has a medical condition,” Craig mused. “Like a gland thing.”

“Does she even know his name at this point?” Eliza wondered.

“Probably not.”

“So how do they fall in love? When does it happen?”

“Not in 2010. That’s their last meeting for the entire year.”

He scrolled down to the next link.

“Hey, this is interesting,” she said. “This next clip’s four hours long.”

She clicked on the link, and the Bobst Library appeared on the screen. Someone had called in a bomb threat, and students were idling outside, talking, laughing, thankful for the break.

From a bird’s-eye angle you could see that Sam’s hair had started thinning. Laura’s posture, always bad, had stooped markedly since the year before. They were getting older.

Even though they were standing right next to each other, it took them three whole minutes to achieve eye contact and another four to speak to each other.

The Angels watched patiently as the humans began to make small talk.

“Do you know Max?”
Laura tried.
“I think he was in your dorm.”

Sam squinted.
“Max Feldman?”

Laura shook her head.
“Max Padrick.”

“Oh. No, I don’t think I know him.”

Eliza groaned.

“This conversation is so
boring.
”

“We could watch it in fast-forward?” Craig suggested.

Eliza nodded, and he clicked the ×50 icon.

The humans chattered rapidly while the crowd thinned around them. Eventually, Sam and Laura were the only ones left on the steps. Their eye contact remained glancing, but their expressions grew brighter, their hand gestures more animated.

Craig hit play at the twenty-minute mark and found that their conversation had shifted from mutual acquaintances to reality television.

“They’re making progress.”

Eliza shrugged. “Barely.”

Craig hit ×1,000, and the humans scurried up Broadway, darting into a nearby diner. The first laugh occurred just after the one-hour mark, followed by two more in quick succession. Sam and Laura stayed in their booth for hours, drinking iced coffee, the only stationary figures in a blur of whirling activity.

Eventually the humans darted outside, zigzagging aimlessly until they reached a bench by the Hudson River. A hundred cars a minute whizzed by them on the West Side Highway, an electric blur of red and yellow streaks. Gradually, the humans started to inch toward each other on the bench. In real time, the shift was imperceptible—too gradual for Sam and Laura to be aware of it. But watching in fast-forward, the Angels could make out their progress. By the three-hour-and-forty-one-minute mark, their knees were practically touching.

Suddenly, though, there was a dramatic shift in body language. Sam retreated to the far end of the bench, like a losing prizefighter at the bell—his eyes downcast, his shoulders drooping.

“What was that?” Eliza asked.

“Not sure.”

Craig rewound the clip a bit and then hit play so they could figure out what happened.

Sam and Laura sat on the bench, their eyes locked.

“I don’t get Kerouac either,” Laura said. “I mean, I know he’s supposed to be smart and everything, but I just get bored reading it.”

“I feel the same way!” Sam said. “You know, I’ve never told that to anyone.”

“Me neither! I’ve always just pretended to like him because—”

“You were afraid of what they’d say.”

“Exactly! Oh my God, if Cliff ever heard me bad-mouthing Kerouac…”

“Who’s Cliff?”

“Um…he’s…my…boyfriend.”

“Whoa.”

“That
sucks.
”

Craig paced around the cubicle, clenching his fists in outrage.

“She waited
four hours
to tell him she had a boyfriend? That’s
inexcusable.
”

“What about
him?
He waited four hours to
ask.
”

Craig shook his head. “The blame’s on her. No question. Because
that—
” He pointed at the screen. “
That
was
bullshit.
”

He sat back down and rewound the clip. “Let’s watch it in slow motion.”

Eliza covered her eyes. “I can’t—it’s worse than when Lincoln gets shot.”

Craig ignored her and played Laura’s confession at one-tenth speed. Her voice rumbled out of the computer speaker, slow and deep.

“Um…”

Her pupils shifted back and forth.

“He’s…”

She tilted her head downward.

“My…”

Craig shifted the angle on the clip so they could watch Sam’s reaction.

“Boy…friend.”

Craig hit freeze-frame. For a split second, Sam’s face was a mask of horror. His eyebrows were ruffled, his cheeks were pale, and his lips were twisted into a nightmarish grimace. He looked devastated, like a jubilant mouse that glances up from found cheese and encounters a swinging death blade.

Over the course of the next two seconds, Sam gradually regained his composure. His eyebrows unwrinkled, his lips unfrowned. And three seconds after the blow, he even made a pathetic attempt to smile. Craig hit pause and zoomed in on Sam’s contorted lips.

“Look at that,” Eliza whispered. “He looks like a seizure victim.”

“Let’s turn it off,” Craig said. “I can’t watch it anymore.”

He closed the window, and they sat for a moment in silence.

“Huh,” Craig said. “That was March 23, 2011.”

“So that’s the date…?”

Craig nodded. “That’s when their prayers came in.”

There were eleven more meetings between Sam and Laura, ranging in length from two to twenty-three minutes.

“Do we need to watch them all?” Eliza asked.

Craig nodded and dutifully scrolled through the clips. They were painful to witness. The encounters always started positively—a chance meeting, a joyous hug, an animated discussion of recent television. But Sam always killed the momentum by asking Laura about her boyfriend.