When Gravity Fails (24 page)

I went to sleep. I woke up early the next morning, when the blood nurse came around for his daily libation. Everyone else’s life may have gone back to normal, but mine was permanently doglegged in a direction I could not yet imagine. My loins were girded, and now I was needed on the field of battle. Unfurl the banners, O my sons, we will come down like a wolf on the fold. I come not to send peace, but a sword.

Breakfast came and went. We had our little bath. I called for a shot of Sonneine; I always liked to take one after all the heavy work of the morning was finished, while I had a couple of hours before lunch. A drifty little nap, then a tray of food: good stuffed grape leaves;
hamûd;
skewered
kofta
on rice, perfumed with onions, coriander, and allspice. Prayer is better than sleep, and food is better than drugs . . . sometimes. After lunch, another shot and a second nap. I was awakened by Ali, the older, disapproving nurse. He shook my shoulder. “Mr. Audran,” he murmured.

Oh no, I thought, they want more blood. I tried to force myself back to sleep.

“You have a visitor, Mr. Audran.”

“A visitor?” Surely there had been some mistake. After all, I was dead, laid to rest on some mountaintop. All I had to do now was wait for the grave robbers. Could it be that they were here already? I didn’t even feel stiff, yet. They wouldn’t even let me get cold in the tomb, the bastards. Ramses II was shown more respect, I’ll bet. Haroun al-Raschîd. Prince Saalih ibn Abdul-Wahîd ibn Saud. Everybody but me. I struggled up to a sitting position.

“O clever one, you are looking well.” Hassan’s fat face was resting in its shabby business smile, the unctuous look that even the stupidest tourist could spot as too deceitful by half.

“It is as God pleases,” I said groggily.

“Yes, praise Allah. Very soon you will be wholly recovered,
inshallah.”

I didn’t bother to respond. I was just glad he wasn’t sitting on the foot of my bed.

“You must know, my nephew, that the entire Budayeen is desolate without your presence to light our weary lives.”

“So I understand,” I said. “From the flood of cards and letters. From the crowds of friends that mob the hospital corridors day and night, anxious to see me or just hear word of my condition. From all your many little thoughtfulnesses that have made my stay here bearable. I cannot thank you enough.”

“No thanks are necessary—”

“—for a duty. I know, Hassan. Anything else?”

He looked a little uncomfortable. It might have crossed his mind that
just possibly
I was mocking him, but usually he was impervious to that sort of thing. He smiled again. “I am happy that you will be among us again tonight.”

I was startled. “I will?”

He turned over one fat palm. “Is it not so? You are to be discharged this afternoon. Friedlander Bey sent me with a message: You must visit him as soon as you feel well. Tomorrow will be soon enough. He does not wish for you to hurry your recuperation.”

“I didn’t even know that I was being released, and I’m supposed to see Friedlander Bey tomorrow; but he doesn’t want to hurry me. I suppose your car is waiting to take me home.”

Now Hassan looked unhappy. He didn’t like my suggestion at all. “Oh darling, I wish it were so, but it cannot be. You must make other arrangements. I have business elsewhere.”

“Go in safety,” I said quietly. I laid my head back on the pillow and tried to find my dream again. It was long gone.

“Allah yisallimak,”
murmured Hassan, and he was gone, too.

All the peace of the last few days disappeared, and it happened with disturbing suddenness. I was left with a pervasive feeling of self-loathing. I remembered one time a few years ago, when I had pursued a girl who worked sometimes at the Red Light and sometimes at Big Al’s Old Chicago. I had worked my way into her consciousness by being funny and fast and, I suppose, contemptible. I finally got her to go out with me, and I took her to dinner—I don’t remember where—and then back to my apartment. We were on the bed five minutes after I locked the front door, and we jammed for maybe another ten or fifteen minutes, and then it was all over. I lay back and looked at her. She had bad teeth and sharp bones and smelled as if she carried sesame oil around with her in an aerosol. “My God,” I thought. “Who
is
this girl? And how am I going to get rid of her
now?”
After sex, all animals are sad; after
any
kind of pleasure, really. We’re not built for pleasure. We’re built for agony and for seeing things too clearly, which is often a terrible agony in itself. I loathed myself then, and I loathed myself now.

Dr. Yeniknani knocked lightly on my door and came in. He glanced briefly at the nurse’s daily notes.

“Am I going home?” I asked.

He turned his bright, black eyes on me. “Hmm? Oh, yes. Your discharge orders have already been written. You have to arrange for someone to come and get you. Hospital policy. You can leave anytime.”

“Thank God,” I said, and I meant it. That surprised me.

“Praise Allah,” said the doctor. He looked at the plastic box of daddies beside my bed. “Have you tried all of these?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. That was a lie. I had tried a few, under the supervision of a therapist; the data add-ons had been pretty much of a disappointment. I don’t know what I’d expected. When I chipped in one of the daddies, its information was sitting there in my mind, as if I’d known all of it all my life. It was like staying up all night and cramming for an exam, without having to lose any sleep and without the possibility of forgetting any of the material. When I popped the chip out, it all vanished from my memory. No big deal. Actually, I was looking forward to trying some of the daddies that Laila had in her shop. The daddies would come in very handy now and then.

It was the moddies I was afraid of. The full personality modules. The ones that crammed you away in some little tin box inside your head, and someone you didn’t know took over your mind and body. They still spooked the hell out of me.

“Well, then,” said Dr. Yeniknani. He didn’t wish me luck, because everything was in the hands of Allah, Who knew what the outcome was going to be anyway, so luck hardly entered into it. I’d learned gradually that my doctor was an apprentice saint, a Turkish derwish. “May God provide a successful conclusion to your undertaking,” he said. Very well spoken, I thought. I had come to like him a lot.

“Inshallah,”
I said. We shook hands, and he left. I went to the closet, took out my street clothes, threw them on the bed—there was a shirt and my boots and socks and underwear and a new pair of jeans that I didn’t remember buying. I dressed quickly and spoke Yasmin’s commcode into my phone. It rang and rang. I spoke my own, thinking she might be at my apartment; there was no answer there, either. Maybe she was at work, although it wasn’t two o’clock. I called Frenchy’s, but no one had seen her yet. I didn’t bother leaving a message. I called a cab instead.

Hospital policy or not, nobody gave me a hard time about leaving unescorted. They wheeled me downstairs and I got into the cab, holding a bag of toilet articles in one hand and my rack of daddies in the other. I rode back to my apartment feeling a bewildering emptiness, no emotions at all.

I unlocked my front door and went in. I figured the place would be a mess. Yasmin had probably stayed here a few times while I was in the hospital, and she was never great at picking up after herself. I expected to see little mounds of her clothes all over the floor, monuments of dirty dishes in the sink, half-eaten meals and open jars and empty cans all around the stove and table; but the room was as clean as when I’d last seen it.
Cleaner,
even; I’d never done such a thorough job of sweeping, dusting, and washing the windows. That made me suspicious: some skillful lockpicker with a yen for neatness had broken into my home. I saw three envelopes beside the mattress on the floor, stuffed fat. I bent over and picked them up. My name was typed on the outside of the envelopes; on the inside of each was seven hundred kiam, all in tens, seventy new bills fastened together with a rubber band. Three envelopes, twenty-one hundred kiam; my wages for the weeks I spent in the hospital. I didn’t think I was getting paid for that time. I would have done it for free—the Sonneine on top of the etorphin had been quite pleasant.

I lay down on the bed and tossed the money to the side, where Yasmin sometimes slept. I still felt a curious hollowness, as if I was waiting for something to come along and fill me up and give me a hint about what to do next. I waited, but I didn’t get the word. I looked at my watch; it was now almost four o’clock. I decided not to put off the hard stuff. I might as well get it over with.

I got up again, stuck a wad of a few hundred kiam in my pocket, found my keys, and went back downstairs. I began to feel just the beginning of some kind of emotional reaction. I paid close attention: I was nervous, not pleasantly so; and I was sure that I was fighting my way up the thirteen steps of the gallows, intent on putting my head in some as-yet-unseen noose. I walked down the Street to the east gate of the Budayeen and looked for Bill. I didn’t see him. I got into another cab. “Take me to Friedlander Bey’s house,” I said.

The driver turned around and looked at me. “No,” he said flatly. I got out and found another driver who didn’t mind going there. I made sure we agreed on the cabfare first, though.

When we got there I paid the driver and climbed out. I hadn’t let anyone know I was coming; Papa probably didn’t expect to see me for another day. Nevertheless, his servant was holding the polished mahogany door open before I reached the top of the white marble stairs. “Mr. Audran,” he murmured.

“I’m surprised you remember,” I said.

He shrugged—I couldn’t say if he smiled or not—and said, “Peace be upon you.” He turned away.

I said “And upon you be peace” to his back and followed. He led me to Papa’s offices, to the same waiting room I had seen before. I went in, sat down, stood up again restlessly, and began to pace. I didn’t know why I’d come here. After “Hello, how are you?” I was depressed to find I had nothing else to say to Papa at all. But Friedlander Bey was a good host when it served his purposes, and he wouldn’t let a guest feel uncomfortable.

In a while the communicating door opened and one of the sandstone giants gestured. I passed by him and came again into Papa’s presence. He looked very tired, as if he had been handling urgent financial, political, religious, judicial, and military matters without rest for many hours. His white shirt was stained with perspiration, his fine hair mussed, his eyes weary and bloodshot. His hand trembled as he gestured to the Stone That Speaks. “Coffee,” he said, in a hoarse and peculiarly soft voice. He turned to me. “Come, my nephew, be seated. You must tell me if you are well. It pleases Allah that the surgery was successful. I have had several reports from Dr. Lisân. He was quite satisfied with the results. In that regard I am also satisfied, but of course the true proof of the value of the implants will be in how you use them.”

I nodded, that’s all.

The Stone arrived with the coffee, and it gave me a few minutes to settle my nerves while we sipped and chatted. I realized that Papa was looking at me rather closely, his brows drawn together, his expression mildly displeased. I closed my eyes in exasperation: I had come in my usual street clothes. The jeans and boots were fine in Chili’s club or for hanging out with Mahmoud, Jacques, and Saied, but Papa preferred to see me in the
gallebeya
and
keffiya.
Too late now, I told myself; I’d started off in the hole, and I was going to have to climb out of it and gain some more ground to get back in his good graces.

I shook my cup back and forth a little after the second refilling, indicating that I had had enough. The coffee things were cleared away, and Papa murmured something to the Stone. The huge man left the room also. This was the first time, I believe, that I’d been alone with Papa. I waited.

The old man pressed his lips together while he thought. “I am glad that you thought enough of my wishes to undergo the surgery,” he said.

“O Shaykh,” I said, “it is—”

He shut me up with a quick gesture. “However, merely having the surgery will not solve our problems. That is unfortunate. I have had other reports that told me you were reluctant to explore the full benefits of my gifts. You may be thinking that you can satisfy our arrangement by wearing the implants, but not using them. If you are thinking that, you are deluding yourself. Our mutual problem cannot be solved unless you agree to use the weapon I have given you, and use it to the utmost. I have not had such augmentation myself because I believe my religion forbids it; therefore, one might argue that I am not the proper person to advise you on this matter. Yet I think I know a thing or two about personality modules. Would you care to discuss a proper choice with me?”

The man was reading my mind, but that was his job. The odd thing was that the deeper in I got, the easier it seemed to be to talk to Friedlander Bey. I wasn’t even properly terrified when I heard myself declining his offer. “O Shaykh,” I said, “we do not even agree on the identity of our enemy. How then can we hope to choose a suitable personality as an instrument of our vengeance?”

There was a brief silence during which I heard my heart give one good bam! and start on another. Papa’s eyebrows raised a little and fell back into place. “Once again, my nephew, you prove to me that I was not mistaken in my choice of you. You are correct. How then do you propose to begin?”

“O Shaykh, I will begin by making a closer ally of Lieutenant Okking, and getting all the information he has in the police files. I know certain things about some of the victims that I’m sure he does not. I see no reason to give him this information now, but he may require it later. I will then interview all our mutual friends; I think I will find further clues. A careful, scientific examination of all the available data should be the first step.”

Friedlander Bey nodded thoughtfully. “Okking has information you do not have. You have information he does not have. Someone should assemble all that information in one place, and I would rather that person be you, and not the good lieutenant. Yes, I am pleased with your suggestion.”