"Forgiving Ararat" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nazareth Gita)

9

I inserted the golden key Luas had given me into the lock of the massive wooden doors leading into the Urartu Chamber. Suddenly the doors, the walls, and the train shed itself vanished, leaving me standing beside Luas in an immense space bounded only by energy itself. Instead of unlocking the doors, the key seemed to have somehow freed the unknown numbers of subatomic particles that cling together to form stone and wood, leaving behind only the latticework of magnetic and gravitational pulses that had bound them together, like knocking all the bricks from a wall but leaving the mortar-or converting mass to energy at the speed of light squared. The wall of energy surrounding the space was palpable, translucent, and, if it could be said to have had a color, glistened like water in a crystal decanter on a sterling silver tray.

At the opposite end of the Chamber, the energy condensed itself into a triangular monolith several stories tall, seemingly working Einstein’s theorem in reverse. The slab was both dark and luminescent, composed of what appeared to be the finest sapphire, with a triangular aperture near the top through which light entered but did not exit, allowing nothing of the interior to be seen. A semicircle of pale amber light radiated outward from the base of the monolith in a broad arc, and this light formed the floor itself. At the center of the floor stood a simple wooden chair, absurdly out of scale in substance and size. Behind this chair, but beyond the circle of light and exactly opposite the monolith, sat three more chairs. Luas ushered me toward them and insisted I take the one in the middle. He took the left chair and, after seating himself, placed his hands on his knees, closed his eyes, and said to me: “Tobias Bowles will be presenting the case of his father, Gerard.”

A moment later, the presenter arrived, standing in the same spot where we had been standing, a golden key like mine still turning in his fingers. He was only a young boy, perhaps eight or nine years of age; his skin was dark and his features middle eastern, with a prominent wanderer’s nose and soft brown eyes that seemed to have seen and understood too much for his years. He wore his hair long and unkempt; a light colored robe draped from his shoulders to the floor. Luas rose to his feet when he saw him, looking disappointed.

“Oh, it’s only you, Haissem,” he said, frowning. “We were expecting Mr. Bowles… Well, here we are anyway. Haissem, this is Brek Cuttler, the newest lawyer on my staff. Brek, this is Haissem, the most senior presenter in all of Shemaya. I must say, Haissem, she’s arrived not a moment too soon. We just lost Jared Schrieberg and now, it seems from your appearance, Mr. Bowles as well.”

Haissem reached out to greet me with his left hand-a perceptive gesture, as most people reached by instinct for my right hand and were embarrassed to come up with an empty sleeve.

“Welcome to the Urartu Chamber, Brek,” he said, bowing politely, his voice high and prepubescent. “I remember sitting here to witness my first presentation. Abel presented the difficult case of his brother, Cain. That was long before your time though, Luas.”

“Quite,” Luas agreed.

“Not much has changed since then,” Haissem sighed. “Luas keeps the docket moving even though the number of cases increases. We’re fortunate to have you, Brek, and you’re fortunate to have somebody like Luas as your mentor. There’s no better presenter in all of Shemaya.”

“Present company excepted,” Luas said.

“Not at all,” said Haissem. “I only handle the easy cases.”

“Few would consider Socrates and Judas to have been easy cases,” Luas replied. “I’m just a clerk.”

Haissem winked at me. “Don’t let him fool you,” he said. “Without Luas, there would be no Shemaya.”

“Wait a minute,” I said, bewildered. “Cain and Abel? “Socrates and Judas? What are you talking about. What’s the joke?”

Luas turned to me impatiently. “Do you believe theirs were clear cases about which there could be no doubt?” he said.

“I, I guess not…” I said. “I really have no idea, but my point is that you couldn’t possibly have- Well, what happened to them, then? What was the verdict?”

Haissem patted Luas on the back. “I must enter my appearance and prepare myself,” he said. “I trust you’ll explain everything.” Haissem reached again for my left hand and, for an instant, his eyes seemed to focus on something inside me that was much larger than me. “We will meet again, Brek,” he said. “You’ll do well here, I’m certain of it.” He walked toward the chair at the center of the Chamber and Luas motioned for us to take our seats.

“We present only the facts,” he whispered as we sat down. “Our concern here is not with verdicts.”

“But if they were really put on trial, then surely you must know-”

“Nothing,” Luas interrupted. “We know nothing about the outcomes. The Chamber never speaks. One might speculate, of course. There are instances when a presenter feels the result should go one way more than another, but it is strictly forbidden. The consequences for a presenter who attempts to alter eternity last all of eternity. We must not seek to influence the result.”

I stared at him, trying to see through him, behind him, still unwilling to believe, still clinging to life as it used to be, searching for explanations for what was happening. “The surgery isn’t going well, is it doctor?” I said. You’re making me worse. I’m even more delusional.”

“Nonsense,” Luas said. “Look, Haissem has taken his seat. You’ll see things more clearly after he presents his case.”

Haissem sat on the chair at the center of the Chamber, adopting the same position as Luas, hands on knees, eyes closed, waiting. I kept my eyes open, watching. Suddenly, a powerful tremor rocked the triangular monolith, rippling its smooth surface. From the center of the monolith, from its solid core, emerged a being like the one on the animated sculpture in the hallway, human in shape and size but without hair, face, or features, dressed in a charcoal gray cassock. The creature approached Haissem without moving its limbs, buoyed, it seemed, on a cushion of air. Haissem maintained his position and the creature stood before him for a moment, then returned to its dark home without a sound. When the tremor subsided, Haissem rose from the chair and, standing at the exact center of the Chamber, raised his arms up from his sides in a broad arc. The energy of the walls and floor pulsed violently and surged toward him from all directions, seemingly compressing the space around him like an imploding star. The shock wave struck Haissem’s body, instantly vaporizing him, leaving behind in the vacuum only his voice, detonating like a great cosmic explosion: “I PRESENT TOBIAS WILLIAM BOWLES… HE HAS CHOSEN!”

The Chamber went dark. No light. No sound. No motion. Then the Chamber disappeared altogether.

I’m crossing a dirt road now, in another time and another place. My body feels heavy, tired, anxious; my face feels thick and rough, covered with whiskers and grime; my mouth tastes unfamiliar, like a first kiss. My arms, two of them now, feel powerful but detached, as though I am operating a machine. There is an aggressiveness I have never felt before, a heightened wariness of my surroundings and other people. My thoughts and reactions are accelerated and more analytical, my emotions and ability to comprehend subtleties, dull and unused. I reek with body odors that seem both comfortable and unpleasant. My head aches from a hangover.

I’m wearing a filthy green Army uniform and new black boots. This is my second pair of boots this month, which I know for a fact but don’t know why or how I know it. I know too that I can have as many boots as I want, that there are enough boots at my disposal to outfit two armies. They’re nice boots, shiny, black, and warm, but you can’t keep them clean here in Saverne. The dust takes the shine off as soon as you put them on, and there is nothing here but dust, darkening the sun and fading the colors. Everything is dust brown: the clothes, the tents, the once white requisition forms; in Saverne, the food tastes brown, the water washes brown, the stars sparkle brown, the air smells brown, and, when the dead arrive at the morgue here, they bleed brown onto the brown ground, ashes to ashes, brown to brown. I even dream in brown. The only thing not brown in Saverne is greed, which tints the eyes and fingertips a vibrant glossy hue of green.

Crossing the brown dirt road, I’m debating in my own mind whether to low-ball Collins or give him a fair offer and make him think I’m doing him a favor; but when I reach the middle of the dirt road, somebody yells: “Toby, lookout!”

From the corner of my eye, I see an olive green Army truck racing toward me at breakneck speed, plowing a tantrum of brown dust into the air. The dust looks startled for a moment, as if it has just been awakened from a nap. I leap out of the way, spinning a pirouette in my new black boots and giving Davidson a thank you slug in the shoulder for the warning. “You gotta be more careful, Toby,” he says. “You’re gonna get yourself killed.”

“Me, killed? No way,” I tell him. “Not by no goddamned truck anyway. It’ll take a French maid to do me in.”

Davidson guards the entrance to a brown tent that was once olive green. Dirt blown from the road piles into drifts against the canvas, re-creating in miniature the blowing and drifting snow in the mountain passes to the south that make the Alps impenetrable at this time of year. Early winter cuts crisp and cold over the peaks and down into the French valleys, pruning the wounded and the diseased from the battlefield and encampments, the villages and cities. A mountaineer lucky enough to reach the summit of the Alps would see war on the horizon in all directions.

The tent is warmed by a well-stocked wood stove and insulated with boxes of medical supplies stacked from floor to ceiling with dusty red crosses painted on their sides. Each box is worth two hundred dollars on the black market, making the tent into a bank vault. They form an aisle through to a desk at the center and a kerosene lantern producing a thin drizzle of light; behind the desk sits a lean, powerful looking black man. His left chest bears the name Collins, and his shoulder the stripes of a corporal. We are of equal rank. He crushes the cigarette he’s been smoking and lights another without offering me one. The white smoke from his cigarette fears the dust and latches onto his head and neck like a small child among strangers.

“Scuttlebutt says Patton’s crossing the Rhine near Ludwigshafen,” I say. “Two Divisions are moving up from southern Italy to join the party. Price of boots and gloves just tripled.”

Collins’ mouth curls. “Where are they?” he asks.

“Keeping warm in a chateau.”

“Don’t be playin’ no games wit’ me, Bowles,” he says, speaking like he just escaped from a plantation. “I ain’t got no time for it now.”

My stomach churns a sour broth of hash and coffee up into the back of my throat. I’m finally gonna get a piece of the action, I keep telling myself. Just a piece of what everyone else has. I didn’t want to come here. I wanted to stay home and work on cars; that’s all I ever wanted. I got a right to a little comfort, and I’ll be damned if any nigger from Kentucky is gonna get more than me. They assigned me to the quartermaster after I played up an asthma attack during basic. It wasn’t that bad, and I wasn’t that good of an actor, but who was I to argue?

“Somebody’s got to keep guys like you happy and it might as well be me, right Collins?” I tell him. “What do you want, I got it all: uniforms, tents, food, booze, utensils, tools, radios, movies, office supplies, sundries.” It’s all true. In the quartermaster, I’m a walking department store and everybody’s my best friend. As soon as the bees figure out where the clover is, they swarm and rub themselves all over to get it. Officers, GI’s, locals-they’re nicer to me than to the docs who cure their syphilis. They shake my hand and talk to me about me: Where’d I come from? Got a girl? Sure, good lookin’ guy like you’s got a girl. Ten of ‘em, and pretty, too, I bet. They show me pictures of their girls, mothers, fathers, and kid brothers and sisters. I’m just a regular guy like you, they’re all sayin’, and us regular guys gotta stick together if we’re gonna make it. Got any extra whiskey stashed back there? Helps me sleep better at night.

“You ain’t got nothin’ I want, Bowles,” Collins says. “I’m the one who’s got what you want. You’re standing in my personal piggybank, and my man Davidson out there, he’s the guard. Now do you want to sign for a loan or do I have to tell Davidson to throw your ass outta here?”

I stand there for a minute, deciding whether to low-ball him. Collins just came in with the Surgeon General’s command and somehow got put in charge of the medical supplies. He’s got no connections in the area, but he knows he’s sitting on a fortune. I came in behind the invasion force and worked up some relationships with a few French doctors who have backers all the way south to Marseilles. I decide to low-ball him to see how he’ll react.

“Twenty-five a box, unopened, and I’ll throw in a crate of boots and gloves for every two medical.”

“Davidson!” he hollers. “Get this lump of dog shit outta my office!”

“Look Collins,” I counter, backtracking a little. “You couldn’t move this stuff if you set up a booth under the Eiffel Tower. I’ll give you three boots and gloves for every two medical. I can’t go any higher.”

“One-fifty a box, Bowles, and you can keep your damn boots.”

“Fifty.”

“One-twenty-five.”

“Seventy-five.”

“Hundred.”

“I got costs, Collins,” I tell him. “No way you’re comin’ out ahead of me. Seventy-five, take it or leave it.”

“I’ll need a deposit.”

“How much?”

“Thousand.”

“What?”

“You ain’t the only one interested, Bowles. You the third white guy been sniffin’ round here today. One thousand in cash, final.”

“I got five hundred on me,” I say, reaching into my pocket. “I’ll give you the rest tonight.”

Collins thinks it over. “You know,” he says, his thick lips parting into a toothy greed-green smile, “I like you, Bowles. Get the rest here by 18:00.”

I give Collins the money and walk out of the tent doing the math in my head. I can move at least a hundred boxes a month; at two hundred bucks a box, that’s twenty thousand gross, twelve-five net, minus grease money for the motor pool and perimeter patrol, maybe a thousand max. I just made eleven grand! I nearly skip over to the enlisted club to grab a beer and celebrate; but on my way I see two men opening the rear panel of the truck that almost hit me, parked now about fifty yards away. They crawl up inside and begin unloading empty black body bags onto a folding litter, stacked twenty at a time. I stop to watch them. The guys in the morgue detail pretty much keep to themselves and everyone else stays away from them. A guy will deny any belief in superstitions and walk out of his way to avoid getting anywhere near the morgue. I wonder whether the bags are new or whether they just reuse the old ones over and over again. It doesn’t seem right reusing them; violates the privacy of the first guy and insults the second. They gave their lives for chrissake; the least the Army can do is spring for new bags.

Eleven grand…eleven… freakin’… grand!

The body bags slap onto the litter like stacks of crisp, new script hitting a counter.

Surplus, Toby. Just surplus, I tell myself. The stuff’s just sitting there while some French kid dies because his doctor can’t get enough sulfa and penicillin. A fellow ought to get paid when he puts himself on the line.

Turning into the enlisted club I hear boots racing toward me, pounding like hooves. Before I can see what’s going on I’m knocked to the ground. There’s a sharp pain in my back; I try lifting my head, but it won’t move. Oh, my God, they’re shelling us and I’ve been hit!

“Help!” I yell. “Help! Medic! I’ve been hit! I’ve been hit!”

The pain in my back increases, like a great weight is bearing down on me.

“Stop your damn yelling, Bowles,” a voice says, close behind, just above me. “You’re under arrest for theft.”

Two MPs pull me off the ground and cuff my wrists behind my back. Over their shoulders, I see Collins in the door of the tent, shaking hands with another MP and handing him my money.

Haissem is sitting again on the chair at the center of the Chamber. I feel the same sense of confusion and exhaustion that overwhelmed me after passing among all the souls and memories in the train station. I am not just watching Toby Bowles’ life, I am Toby Bowles. The rough cotton of his uniform chafes my skin; the cold, dusty air and cigarette smoke burn my lungs; the fatigue and fear of being near the front weigh heavy. I soar when the deal is struck and feel the MP’s knee in my back when he’s arrested.

“Can you hear me now, Brek?” Luas says.

“Yes,” I say, barely hearing him, as though he was far away. “What do you mean now?”

“I was talking to you during the presentation,” he says. “When you didn’t respond, I asked Haissem to stop.”

“Oh…,” I reply, lost, trying to separate my identity as Toby Bowles from my identity as Brek Cuttler. “I’m sorry. It just seems so…so…real, like I’m remembering my own life.”

“Yes, it is that way, isn’t it?” Luas says. “When Haissem begins again, listen for my voice. At first you’ll hear me speaking through the people in the presentation; what I say will seem out of context. If you fail to respond again, I’ll bring up the circumstances of your disfigurement again to bring you back. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to instruct you on how to separate yourself from the soul being presented; you must learn this by doing, which is one of the reasons for having you watch.”

“What other reason is there?” I ask.

“To prepare you to present souls yourself.”