"Running Dog" - читать интересную книгу автора (DeLillo Don)

6

Selvy found a Sam Browne belt in someone's foot locker in the long barracks. He put it on. A decent enough fit. He liked the feel of the shoulder strap that extended diagonally across his chest. He thought he might figure out a way to attach the bolo somehow, knowing that the original belt had been designed, by a one-armed British general, to support a sword.

He stood outside the barracks. A clear day. Occasional small whirlwinds in the area. Memory. A playback. He watched a raven soar toward the mountains, wind-assisted, rising at first gradually, a continuous and familiar fact, and then in spasmodic surges, peculiar stages of rapid ascent, wholly without effort and seemingly beyond the limits of what is possible in the physical world-imperceptible transitions that left the watcher trying to account for missing segments of space or time.

Large soaring birds were the only things here that lived without reference to a sense of distance. Or so he imagined, Selvy did. He'd once exchanged stares, at fifteen feet, with a red-tailed hawk that had lighted on a tree stump at the edge of a deserted ranch, perhaps twenty miles from this spot, during exercises with live ammunition. That was how he'd come to believe in the transcendent beauty of predators.

That day was like this one. A morning of startling brightness. Clarity without distracting glare. The sky was saturated with light. Everything was color.

He was twenty yards from the barracks when he realized two cats were at his feet. He stopped and turned. Three more cats moved this way. He knew what it meant. Still more cats came out from under the barracks. They followed him, moving around his feet, mewing. Cats approached from another direction now, the windmill. An image unwinding. After ten paces he crouched down and they were all over and around him, scratching, crying out, at least fifteen cats and kittens, allowing themselves to be petted and rubbed, or just stretching in the sun, purring, or sniffing at his clothes, all of them looking healthy and well fed.

Levi Blackwater was here.

At the Mines, back then, he'd been an unwelcome presence in most gatherings of men. An ordinary boy from Ohio, named out of Genesis, he'd served as technical adviser to ARVN forces in the relatively early days of U.S. involvement. Out on a reconnaissance patrol, he'd been captured by the Vietcong, and tortured, and had come to love his captors. Eight months inside a prison building in a VC base camp in a mangrove thicket. Fish heads and rice. They strung him up by the feet. They held his head under water. They cut off two of his fingers.

The more they tortured him, the more he loved them. They were helping him. He considered it help.

At the Mines he cooked and worked in the laundry and did odd jobs. The men knew his history and stayed away from him. Selvy was an exception. He went to Levi for lessons in meditation.

Moll was suspicious of quests. At the bottom of most long and obsessive searches, in her view, was some vital deficiency on the part of the individual in pursuit, a meagerness of spirit.

She sat in the dark, listening to Odell fiddle with the projector.

Even more depressing than the nature of a given quest was the likely result. Whether people searched for an object of some kind, or inner occasion, or answer, or state of being, it was almost always disappointing. People came up against themselves in the end. Nothing but themselves. Of course there were those who believed the search itself was all that mattered. The search itself is the reward.

Lightborne wouldn't agree. Lightborrie wanted a marketable product, she was sure. He wasn't in it for the existential lift.

Odell turned on a lamp and approached the screen in order to make sure it would be parallel to the strip of film itself when it moved through the projector gate. While he was doing this, Moll glanced over at Lightborne.

"What was it doing when you arrived?" he said. "Was that rain or sleet? I need new boots. I'd like to find something with some lining this year. This is a bad year, they're saying, looking long range."

He'd been making the same nervous small talk ever since Moll walked in. Twice now Odell had turned on the light to make a last-minute adjustment somewhere. Both times Lightborne had immediately started talking. In the dark he was silent. He chewed his knuckles in the dark.

Once more Odell turned off the lamp. Moll began to feel that special kind of anticipation she'd enjoyed since childhood-a life in the movies. It was an expectation of pleasure like no other. Simple mysteries are the deepest. What did it mean, this wholly secure escape, this credence in her heart? And how was it possible that4 bad, awful, god-awful movies never seemed to betray the elation and trust she felt in the seconds before the screen went bright? The anticipation was apart from what followed. It was permanently renewable, a sense of freedom from all the duties and conditions of the nonmovie world.

She felt it even here, sitting in a hard straight chair in a shabby gallery before a small screen. She felt it despite her knowledge of the various dealings, procedures and techniques that surrounded the acquisition of the film.

A two-dimensional city would materialize out of the darkness, afloat in various kinds of time, all different from the system in which real events occur. Yet we understand it so readily and well. They connect to us, all the city's spatial and temporal codes, as though from a place we knew before.

"I had the phone turned off," Lightborne said. "A temporary measure. To mute out the sound of certain voices."

He started to say something else but his voice drifted off and the only sound that remained was the running noise of motion picture film winding through the transport mechanism of the black projector.

_A bare room/black and white_.

_Plaster is cracked in places. On other parts of the wall it is missing completely. The lights in the room flicker_.

_Three children appear. A girl, perhaps eleven, carries a chair. Two younger children, a boy and a very small girl, drag in a second chair between them_.

_The children set the chairs on the floor and walk out of camera range_.

_There is a disturbance. The picture jumps as though the camera has been farred by some brief violent action_.

_A blank interval_.

_Again the room. The camera setup is the same_.

_A fourth child appears, a girl. She walks across the room and climbs onto one of the chairs, sitting primly, trying to suppress a bashful smile_.

_The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs. A woman appears, very drawn, moving toward the seated child. The lights flicker. Another girl appears; she notices the camera and walks quickly out of range_.

_The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs_.

_The camera is immobile. It does not select. People pass in and out of its viewing field_.

_The woman sits next to the small girl, absently stroking the child's hand. The woman is blond and attractive, clearly not well. She appears weak. It is even possible to say she is emotionally distressed. The oldest girl stands next to her, speaking. The woman slowly nods_.

_The boy carries in another chair. Three more adults appear, a man and two women. They stand about awkwardly, the man trying to work out a seating arrangement. The boy and oldest girl carry in two more chairs_.

_The once bare room is crowded with chairs and people_.

_The lights flicker overhead_.

"What do you think?" Lightborne said.

"I don't know what to think."

"You know who it could be? Magda Goebbels."

"The first woman?" Moll said.

"Those could be her children. I'm saying 'could be.' I'm trying to supply identities. Make a little sense out of this."

"Do you think it's the bunker?"

"It could be the doctor's former room. Hitler's quack doctor was allowed to leave. Goebbels took over his room."

"The three others," Moll said.

"I don't know. They could be secretaries, the women. The man, almost anything. A chauffeur, a stenographer, a valet, a bodyguard."

"Magda Goebbebs, you think."

"I'm saying 'could be.' This isn't what I expected. I wasn't looking for this at all."

Nothing much had happened thus far but Moll found something compelling about the footage she was watching. It wasn't like a feature film or documentary; it wasn't like TV newsfilm. It was primitive and blunt, yet hypnotic, not without an element of mystery.

Faces and clothing were immediately recognizable as belonging to another era. This effect was heightened by the quality of the film itself, shot with natural lighting. Bleached grays and occasional blurring. Lack of a sound track. Light leaks in the camera, causing flashes across the screen. The footage suggested warier times-dark eyes and fussy mouths, heavy suits, dresses in overlapping fabric, an abruptness and formality of movement.

_Four adults and five children, all seated, fill the screen. They face the camera head-on_.

_Time passes_.

"What's that jump?"

"It could be the shelling," Lightborne said.

"That's the second time."

"The Russians are a quarter of a mile away. Nuisance fire. In an all-out bombardment, they wouldn't be able to film. Aside from the steady concussion, the place would be full of smoke and dust."

_The blond woman slowly rises and walks off camera_.

"She knows what happens."

"What do you mean?" Moll said.

"The children."

"What happens?"

"Goebbels has them poisoned."

_Another room_.

_This one, although small and narrow and with an incomplete look about it, contains a writing desk, sofa and chairs. The walls are paneled. There's a picture in a circular frame over the writing desk_.

_A woman sits in one of the chairs, facing an open door that leads to another room. She turns the pages of a magazine. There's a trace of self-consciousness in the way she does this. Finally she decides to look directly at the camera, smiling pleasantly. This puts her at ease_.

_From her next reaction, it is clear that someone in the adjoining room is speaking to her_.

_She sits with her legs crossed, paying no attention to the magazine pages she continues to turn. A light-haired woman in her early thirties, she wears a dark tailored suit, a bracelet, and what appear to be expensive shoes. She has a small worried mouth (even in her present good humor) and a somewhat shapeless nose. Two distinct shadow lines make her cheeks look puffy_.

_She gestures toward the open door_.

"Where are we?" Moll said.

"Still in the bunker. It's not inconsistent, the two rooms. See that picture over the desk? If we could see it from a better angle, being in a circular frame, that could be his portrait of Frederick the Great, which would make this room his living room."

"Whose living room?"

"It's a possibility. It could be. And through that open door, that's his bedroom. Whoever's shooting this film, it could be he's shooting one room, he's stopping, he's walking over to the next room."

"Editing in the camera," Moll said.

"We're getting everything. What do you think? We're getting the one and only take of each scene."

"It's certainly unprofessional. But I can't say I mind."

"Those kids and those others are sitting in the first room waiting for the camera to come back. Maybe that's why the thing seems so real. It's true. It's happening. I didn't look for this at all."

_Another woman enters the room. The blond woman from the first sequence. Magda Goebbels-if Lightborne's speculation is correct_.

_She hands the younger woman a flower. Expression of delighted surprise. It's a white boutonniere. The woman takes it into the next room_.

_Visual static. Flash frames_.

"What are we looking at?"

"I don't know," Lightborne said.

"If that's Frau Goebbels standing there, who's the woman who just disappeared?"

"That shouldn't be hard to answer."

"I want to hear you say it."

"You know as well as I."

"Who is she?"

"It's real," Lightborne said. "I believe it. It's them."

The routine persisted.

In the late morning sun, Selvy placed the bolo knife on a bench in the littered compound. Seating himself on an overturned crate, he began working with oil and whetstone on the base of the blade. A snowy torn rolled in the dirt nearby. Directly ahead the spare land extended to the bottom of an enormous butte, its sloping sides covered with rockf all.

He saw it as memory, as playback. The border of appearances. Within is perfect color, the sense of topography as an ethical schematic. Landscape is truth.

When he looked up, ten minutes into his sharpening, he saw Levi Blackwater approaching from the southeast. Had to be him. There had always been something physically offcenter about Levi. Nothing so distinct as a limp or even an ungainliness of stride. The right shoulder sagged a bit. Maybe that was it. And the head tilted. And the right arm hung slightly lower. All apparent as he drew nearer.

He was a tall man, balding, and wore the same old field cap with ventilating eyelets. He was pale, he was sickly white, as always. Soft baby skin. A little like skin that's been transplanted from another part of the body. He stood smiling now. That knowing smile. Dust devils spinning fifty, sixty yards away.

"I came in to feed the cats."

Only Levi could speak of traveling to this remote site as "coming in."

"Where are you when you're out?"

Levi kept smiling and stood in profile, turning his head left toward the barest stretch of desert. He came forward to shake hands. It was the right hand that lacked two fingers, severed by his captors. Selvy had forgotten the directness of Levi's manner of looking at people.

"I always knew if anyone came back, Glen, it would be you."

"Not much left, is there?"

"Everything you'll need."

"I won't be staying, Levi."

People use names as information and Selvy believed the use of that particular name, Glen, indicated that Levi was deeply pleased to see him and wanted to suggest a new level of seriousness. In the past he'd often called Selvy by his rarely used first name, which was Howard. A teasing intimacy. It "had amused Levi to do this. His eyes would search Selvy's face. Those fixed looks, curious and frank at the same time, were irritating to Selvy, even more than hearing the name Howard. But he'd never complained, thinking this would put a distance between them.

Levi had been tortured, had spent extended periods of time in a dark room not much larger than a closet, and consequently had things to pass on, knowledge to impart, both practical and otherwise. He'd found tolerances, ways of dealing with what, in the end, was the sound of his own voice. He'd come out stronger, or so he believed, having lived through pain and confinement, the machine of self.

"This is a stop then? On a longer trip?"

"You might say."

"A way station," Levi said.

The phrase seemed to please him. His liquid eyes peered out of the shadow cast by the visor of his hat. He wore a soiled fatigue jacket, torn in places.

"I see you've brought along some metal."

"An antique," Selvy said.

"We were just getting started when you left."

"I know."

"We were beginning to see results, I think. I'm happy you've come back, even for a while. It's gratifying. You're looking well, Glen."

"Off the booze a while."

"You ought to stay, you know. There are things you can learn here."

"True. I believe that."

"The less there is, Glen, the more you're tested to find the things that do exist. Within and without. It works. If you limit yourself to the narrowest subject, you force yourself to concentrate to such an extent that you're able to learn a great deal about it. You already know a great deal about it. You find you already know much more than you'd imagined."

"I believe that."

"With no limits, you wander back and forth. You're defeated at the outset."

"That's why you're here, Levi."

"Both of us."

"Tighter and tighter limits."

"To learn. To find out what we know. When you left, we were just starting out. Damn shame if you didn't stay for a time. I've learned so much. So very much of everything."

He was squatting on the other side of the bench where the knife lay on several old newspapers, the only things Selvy could find to soak up the honing oil. Levi let a fistful of sand gradually spill to the ground. The sky was changing radically. Dust rising in the wind. Darkness edging across the southwesterly wheel of land.

"I'm born all the time," Levi said. "I remember other lives."

Staring.

"Creature of the landscape."

Smiling.

"Gringo mystic."

The wind lifted dust in huge whispering masses. Toward Mexico the mountains were obscured in seconds. The butte in the middle distance still showed through in swatches of occasional color, in hillside shrubs and the mineral glint of fallen rock.

"I feel myself being born. I've grown out here. I know so much. It's ready to be shared, Glen."

"I'm on a different course right now."

"You were making real progress."

"I'm primed, Levi."

"Yes, I can see."

"I'm tuned, I'm ready."

"I don't accept that."

"You know how it ends."

"I don't understand."

"You know what to do, Levi."

"Have we talked about something like this?"

Sand came whipping across the compound. Above and around them it massed in churning clouds. Wind force increased, a whistling gritty sound. Levi took off his field cap and jammed it in his pocket. His jacket had a hood attachment, tight fitting, with a drawstring around the face and a zippered closure that extended over the mouth. Levi fastened this lower part only as far as the point of his chin.

Selvy recognized a sound apart from the wind. He got to his feet and took off the Sam Browne belt. He threw it in the dirt. Damn silly idea. He had to admit to a dim satisfaction, noting the confusion in the other man's eyes.

"There's no way out, Glen. No clear light for you in this direction. You can't find release from experience so simply."

"Dying is an art in the East."

"Yes, heroic, a spiritual victory."

"You set me on to that, Levi."

"Tibet. Is that the East? It's beyond the East, isn't it?"

"A man chooses a place."

"But this is part, only part, of a longer, longer process. We were just beginning to understand. There's so much more. You think you're about to arrive at some final truth. Truth is a disappointment. You'll only be disappointed."

Selvy went into the long barracks and started ripping apart a bed sheet, planning to fashion some kind of mask, basic protection against the blowing sand.

Levi followed him in. Selvy watched him detach the hood from his jacket. He moved forward and put it over Selvy's head, slowly fastening the drawstring. His eyes, always a shade burdened with understanding, began to fill with a deep, sad and complex knowledge. He raised the zipper on the bower part of the hood. Selvy, feeling foolish, turned toward the door.

Outside he went to the bench and picked up the bob knife. He heard the sound again. There it was, _color_, black and bright red, a small helicopter, bearing this way, seeming to push against the wind.

Little bastards must be serious, out flying in this weather.

He walked about a hundred yards beyond the compound. The sand stung his eyes. He heard the motor but kept losing sight of the aircraft. Then he saw it again, off to the left, shouting distance, touching down near a gulley, trim, vivid in the murky gusts, its spiral blades coming slowly to a halt.

Inside the projector the film run continued noisily.

_The first room_.

_There are now six children and five adults, all seated, facing the camera. Among the adults are the two women from the flower sequence in the furnished room_.

_The smaller children are restless. Several adults wear rigid smiles; they look like victims of prolonged formalities. Two children trade seats. A woman turns to whisper_.

_For the first time the camera is active_.

_In a long slow panning movement, it focuses eventually on a figure lust beyond the doorway. A man in costume. After an interval of distortion, the camera, starting at the man's feet, moves slowly up his body_.

_Oversized shoes, turned up slightly at the points_.

_Baggy pants_.

_Vest and tight-fitting cutaway_.

_A dark narrow tie_.

_A wing collar, askew_.

_A battered derby_.

_A white boutonniere in the lapel of the cutaway_.

_A cane hooked over his wrist_.

_This footage has the mysterious aura of an event that cuts across time. This is because the man, standing beyond the doorway, is not yet visible to the audience of adults and children in the immediate vicinity. The other audience, watching in a dark room in New York in the 1970s, is aware of this, and they feel a curious sense of preview. They are seeing the man "first."_

"Is it?" Moll said.

"It could be."

"Jesus, it's almost charming."

"But do I want it?"

"He looks so very old."

"Do I need it?" Lightborne said.

_The camera is trained on the man's face. Again it moves, coming in for a medium close-up_.

_Eyes blank_.

_Little or no hair alongside his ears_.

_Face pale and lined_.

_Flaccid mouth_.

_Smoothly curved jaw_.

_The famous mustache_.

_Head shaking, he acknowledges the presence of the camera. It pulls back. The man moves forward, walking in a screwy mechanical way. Here the camera pans the audience. As the man enters the room, the adults show outsized delight, clearly meant to prompt the children, who may or may not be familiar with Charlie Chaplin_.

_Back on the performer, the camera pulls back to a corner of the room, providing a view from the wings, as it were_.

_He's a relatively small man with narrow shoulders and wide hips. It's now evident that his pantomime, intended as Chaplinesque, of course, is being enlarged and distorted by involuntary movements-trembling arm, nodding head, a stagger in his gait_.

"Do you want me to tell you what this is?"

"He's not bad, you know," Moll said. "Despite the tottering and such. He's doing fairly well."

"This is one of her home movies."

"Whose?"

"We saw her before."

"Eva Braun, you mean."

"This is her idea. She was a home-movie nut. She had movies made of herself swimming, walking in the woods, standing around with _him_. He's in some of them."

"He's in this one."

"But he didn't like Chaplin, if I recall correctly. I think he's on record as not being a Chaplin fan."

"I believe it was mutual."

"On the other hand he was a gifted mimic. He did imitations."

"Who did imitations? Say it."

"There were resemblances other than physical. He and Charlie."

_The figure shuffles toward the camera, his cane swinging. Behind him, in a corner of the screen, one of the small girls earnestly looks on_.

_Briefly the man is flooded in light_the bleached and toneless effect of overexposure. With the return of minimal detail and contrast, he is very close to the camera, and his lifeless eyes acquire a trace of flame, the smallest luster. A professional effect. It's as though the glint originated in a nearby catch light_.

_He produces an expression, finally-a sweet, epicene, guilty little smile. Charlie's smile. An accurate reproduction_.

"They were born the same week of the same month of the same year."

"Is that a point?"

"Within days of each other."

"But is that a point?"

"It's a fact. A truth. It's history."

"You're overwrought, Mr. Lightborne."

"Not that I'm convinced it's him. It's not him. He didn't empathize with the tramp character at all. Why is he doing this?"

"For the children, presumably."

"Who do I sell this to?"

_Three-quarter view. At first he seems to be speaking to the smallest of the children, a girl about three years old. it is then evident he is only moving his lips-an allusion to silent movies. One of the women can be seen smiling_.

"Hitler humanized."

"It's disgusting," Lightborne said. "What do I do with a thing like this? Who needs it?"

"I would think it has considerable value."

"Historical. Historical value."

"It's almost touching."

"Has to be one of her home movies. That bitch. What is she, stupid? Artillery shells are raining down and she's making movies. That whole bunch, they were movie-mad."

"You're certain about the children."

"Cyanide."

"So here we are."

"I expected something hard-edged. Something dark and potent. The madness at the end. The perversions, the sex. Look, he's twirling the cane. A disaster."

_Flash frames_.

"I set things in motion."

_New camera setup_.

_This is the sole attempt at "art." The camera faces the audience head-on. The members of the audience are attempting to pretend that the Chaplinesque figure is still performing at a point directly behind the camera_.

_Two adults remain, an unidentified man and woman. Both gaze dutifully past the camera, forcing tight smiles. Of the six children, only three seem interested in the illusion. One of the others kneels on the chair, her back to the "action." One looks directly at the camera. The smallest climbs down from her chair_.

_There is a general shifting of eyes. The members of the audience are clearly being prompted by someone off-camera_.

"I put powerful forces to work."

_Silently they applaud the masquerade_.

The hoods of their ski parkas kept getting blown off their heads. He saw the bright orange lining.

He gave a neighborly shout. _Hey_. Louder. One more time. He saw the ranger on the left reach out and touch the other's arm. Both had him in view now. They turned into the wind, which was at his back.

They came toward him like skiers cross-country, absorbed in economy and method, beaning into the force of the storm, each step a deliberate and nearby ritual movement, diagonal stride with poles.

He forced the bower part of the hood up over his nose so that only his eyes were visible. He saw the bright nylon lining intermittently. He had his feet firmly planted in the dirt, to maintain balance. They emerged from a swirl of dust, vanishing in a single stride.

He held the long knife across his stomach. Handle in his right hand. Blunt edge resting lightly in his left. He was rocked by the wind. The sound gathered density.

Moving slowly, not appearing to struggle, they emerged again, still empty-handed, he noticed, one of them unzipping his parka, vanishing, the other vanishing, the first transformed now, an apparition, ballooning bright nylon, the second emerging, undoing his jacket, which likewise fibbed with wind, and they came more quickly, released from their trekking pace, orange lining wind-billowed, metal at their belts. These bursts of unexpected color. The beauty of predators.

Strong sense of something being played out. Memory, a film. Rush of adolescent daydreams. He'd been through it in his mind a hundred times, although never to the end.

They moved in, showing spear-point bowies. One of them edged off to the side. He seemed to think if he moved slowly enough, Selvy would forget about him. The other one, in clear sight, stopped his maneuvering, as an afterthought, to remove the parka he wore. Selvy wanted to ask him what the fuck he thought he was doing.

When they closed in, Selvy used a backhand slash. Motion only. Drawing reaction. He turned to meet the man coming full-tilt, coming too fast, giving up alternatives. He went to one knee, throwing the man off-stride. The ranger's face registered mistake. Selvy used his free hand to push off from the ground, giving him added spring. Stunned breath. He found the midsection, realizing he'd used too much force going in.

He was attached, in effect, to the man he'd stabbed. He shoved his left forearm up against the ranger's chest, pressuring forward, trying to withdraw the knife at the same time. The man sagged to the ground, all mash, Selvy slipping down with him part of the way. When he turned, rising with the knife, too late, the other ranger was on him, white-eyed, wincing with every thrust.

He could see sand in the man's bashes. They held each other briefly. The tension left Selvy's face, replaced by deep concentration.

What he needed right now was a drink.

Van lessened his grip in stages, letting the body ease to the ground. He walked over to Gao, whose mouth was wide open. Sand came skimming along the ground in broad flat masses.

The blowing dust, which had been part of things, inseparable from events, was now a space away, the landscape, the weather, small rough particles striking Van's face and arms. He reached for his parka and put it back on.

He put the bowie knife back in its sheath. He robbed up his jeans and took a second, smaller knife that was clipped to the outside of his boot. Working carefully with this utility model he cut the drawstring on Selvy's hood. Then he sliced the fabric down along the zipper. He put the knife away. With both hands he opened up the hood and lifted it off Selvy's head.

He knelt there, still breathing heavily. The wind force decreased. He realized he was booking directly toward the helicopter; the fuselage was briefly visible. On all fours he searched for the guerrilla bob. It was five feet away, nearly buried. He lifted it out of the sand and used it to cut off the subject's head.

It was something he'd done before and seen others do. Heads on poles in the high noon slush of rice fields. A discomfort reserved for the spirits of particular enemies.

He dragged Gao's body to the aircraft. The weather kept easing and he saw the butte he'd nearby flown into before setting down. He went back for the other man's head, first emptying out a duffel bag to carry it in.

He thought Earl would want to have it. Evidence that the adjustment had been made.

"There's another reel," Odell said. "Where's everybody going?"

Mobl was heading toward the door. Lightborne went around turning on lamps. Briefly he stood near a three-foothigh fertility figure-wood and horsehair.

"I knew it would be no good. A document, with gestures. I was always the chief skeptic. I told everybody. Did they listen? Or did they keep calling me up? Long distance, local, from airplanes. I'm a dealer in knickknacks. I shouldn't have to turn off my phone to avoid hearing things."

He moved toward a wall switch, running his hand through a streak of yellowish hair over his right ear. After flicking on the light, he slipped behind the partition into his living quarters. Here he turned on more lights. Then he sat on his cot and stared into the black window shade.

Odell left his seat by the projector to unlock the door for Moll Robbins. He wore white cotton gloves, important when handling master film. As she stepped out, he gestured toward the screen.

"Who are those people?" he said.

Lightborne could hear Odell close the gallery door and walk over to the projector. Apparently he was getting ready to screen the second reel. A few moments later the lights in the gallery went out, one by one. Lightborne remained on his cot. There was a noise outside, just a yard or two away, it seemed. He lifted the window shade. It was one-thirty in the afternoon and a man with tinted glasses was sitting on his fire escape.

It was Augie the Mouse. He sat facing the window, his back against the vertical bars, knees up, hands jammed into the pockets of his long strange charcoal coat, big-buttoned, rabbinical. He had a small pointed face. His hair was dark and wild. He kept sniffling, and every time he sniffled he moved his head to the left, as though to clean his nose on the worn lapel of the coat; he couldn't get his nose that far down, however, and kept rubbing his chin instead-a detail he didn't appear to notice.

"What do you want?"

Augie cocked his head. The window was shut and he couldn't hear what had been said. Lightborne thought of running out of the room. He thought of shouting for Odell. But the man was just sitting there. His casual attitude finally prompted Lightborne to open the window.

"What do you want?"

"I still don't hear you."

"What do you want?"

"You're seeing things. There's nobody here."

"Broad daylight," Lightborne said, not knowing quite what he meant.

Augie seemed to take the remark as a compliment.

"People can see us from those windows."

"They can see you. I'm not here. They see some old man moving his lips."

"Is this a new hangout for derelicts? The streets are no longer adequate. Is that what I'm meant to conclude?"

"You see these glasses I'm wearing?"

"I can call my colleague, who's right in the next room there."

"These are called shooting glasses," Augie said.

Down on Houston Street, Molb watched a flock of pigeons fly over a two-story building into the back alleys. Seconds later Lightborne saw the same pigeons turn a bend and hurry toward a nearby roof.

"Do I have something for you?"

"I'm beginning to hear," Augie said.

"Did somebody send you to pick up something from me? Is that it? An item?"

"I'm taking form."

"Is it something that fits into a round can?"

"You're beginning to see me," Augie said. "I just arrived from my country place."

Lightborne heard something behind him. It was Odell, standing on this side of the partition. Augie didn't seem upset at the sight of another person. He sat sniffling, hands still in his pockets.

"What happens now?" Lightborne said. "Do I tell my colleague to go get it and bring it out to you while I remain here as insurance? He knows the handling procedures. Is that what happens?"

"No."

"What happens?"

"You invite me in."

"We can do that," Lightborne said. "We can do it inside. Fine, sure. But all this is assuming you tell me who sent you."

"Hey. I'm not here to audition."

"I don't necessarily mind parting with the item. But I'd like the option of knowing the recipient."

Augie let his head slump to one side, closing his eyes at the same time. Weary disappointment. I come here to do a simple job, he seemed to be thinking, and they start in with their complications, with their ballbreaking little remarks. Opening his eyes, he waited a long moment before moving his head to an upright position.

"Maybe you notice how far into these pockets my hands go. Practically half an arm is in there. That's made possible by the pockets being conveniently ripped out. What my hands are in there holding, if you want a clue to size, it takes both hands to hold, and I'm not talking about dick. You know dick?"

"I know," Lightborne said with a sigh.

"It's not dick I'm holding."

He invited Augie in. Odell, surprisingly, seemed to grasp the nature of the situation, and said nothing. All three went into the gallery. The second reel was running. One of the women from the earlier footage-unidentified-was teaching the oldest of the girls how to waltz, leading her stiffly around the floor. Briefly visible were two smaller girls, running from the camera.

Lightborne turned on the two nearest lamps and asked Odebl to halt the screening and get everything repacked. Augie the Mouse strolled around the gallery, browsing, both hands still in his pockets, holding the sawed-off whatever-itwas.

Lightborne wondered if they'd blame him for what was on the film. All he could do was suggest possible outlets. They could sell it to one of the networks for a news special. They could sell it to the Whitney Museum or the Canadian Film Board. He'd come up with a list of suggestions. What else could he do? Could he tell them people like to dress up? Gould he tell them history is true?

Moll felt like walking. After early rain, the day had turned warmer and very bright. Movies in the afternoon. The rude surprise of sunlight when you emerge. What is this place? Why are these people so short and ugly? Look at the hard surfaces, the blatant flesh of things.

When she reached Tenth Street, a limousine seemed to approach her, moving slowly down Fifth Avenue, veering toward the curb. She felt herself reacting.

Days later, trying to hail a cab outside her building, she watched another long black car move toward her. She was certain this one would stop. She waited to see the back door slowly open. It was raining lightly and the wipers cut a pair of arcs across the windshield.

But the car kept on moving, droplets of rain gleaming on its surface. She watched it head onto the transverse road on the other side of Central Park West, where it disappeared in the trees.

Levi Bbackwater surveyed the remains from a small rise about sixty yards away. He was motionless, positioned in a crouch, leaning slightly forward on his toes. His left hand, as though acting independently of his field of concentration, gathered a quantity of loose dirt.

The land was a raked paint surface. The power of storms to burnish and renew, he thought, had never been more clearly evident. The sky was flawless. Things _existed_. The day was scaled to the pure tones of being and sense.

The last sweeps of weather had caused the body to become partly buried. Levi knew who it was from the color of the trousers and the single russet boot still visible. He also knew what to do with the body. He remembered.

You approach death with a clear mind. You choose the right place. They'd discussed this often. Glen used to talk about pure landscape. He loved the desert. When you leave the earth-plane, there's a right place and a right way.

Levi knew everything there was to know about Glen. His childhood and adolescence on army bases. His father's steady ascent through the ranks-nicer houses, bigger backyards. His mother's piteous drift into lassitude, amnesia, silence. Glen spoke of these things with intense detachment, already a student of the process of separation. They camped, the two men, in the desert, talking into the starry dawn.

Glen wanted to be left in a sitting posture. What was known as an "air burial" would be provided. No receptacle for the body. No actual burial. He would be placed on a wooden framework or rudimentary platform of Levi's devising. Left for the air, for the large soaring birds. They'd discussed it often.

Levi had always wanted to giggle when Glen mentioned this. It was such an oversimplification. It left so much out.

Still, he would do as his friend had asked. In his own excessive way, Glen believed. He believed easily and indiscriminately, taking to things with a quick and secret fervor. It was a tendency which Levi had hoped to moderate, given the opportunity.

He let the dirt pass through his hand. He got to his feet, cap low over his eyes, and walked in his crooked way toward the body, slowly. Glen would get his air burial, yes. But first Levi would sit and chant, directing the escape, the separation of the deceased from his body, as taught by the masters of the snowy range.

This was a _lama_ function, and therefore an enormous presumption on Levi's part, but he knew the chant, after all, and he had love in his heart for the world.

It was a day of primal light, perfect arrangements of color. No voice could speak this. A raven swayed in the wind.

After chanting, he would try to determine whether the spirit had indeed departed. Levi wasn't sure he knew how to do this. But he believed he would _feel_ something; something would _tell_ him whether he was on the right path. He knew for certain how you started. You started by plucking a few strands of hair from the top of the dead man's head.