City, Sister, Silver, page 53
That’s for sure. But thanks anyway. I thought it was my turn next.
She broke out laughing again. Just imagine, she said, the camera jammed. That never happens. Otherwise the Dragon would never’ve let you go. That’s the only reason, I don’t take chances. You’re lucky, no one believes it was an accident it jammed. That’s why you could go. Trust that you’re intended to meet a different end. But don’t ever mention this. It would be very dangerous. For you.
So, Chiharu, where’s your girlfriend, where’s Shimako?
She didn’t answer. And I laughed. I laughed at her because I was overcome with … heavy-duty hopelessness. No, Chiharu, I donno what’s right. An you don’t either. Where’s your girl? Tell me …
I guess because I was laughing, she turned around, walked slowly toward the door … very slowly, as if we still had something to say to each other … but then slammed it behind her. With a strength no one would expect from such a fragile being. And the door remains shut to this day, because we never met again. And I hope we never do.
After that I got outta Berlun. And I carried that little girl’s face around inside me a long time. I still remember the bitter taste of that stuff they gave me too. That stuff that changed the colors so much it made me a worthless witness. I still have the taste on my tongue, I’ve forgotten the taste of the skin. I haven’t said a word about it all this time. It’s so sick I don’t think anyone would believe me anyway. And my description of what they did to her was exceptionally restrained.
21
TO THE PLACE WITH THE SIGN, BUT … THE STRING. KING KRONGOLD’S CRUSADE. THE MISSION. WHAT FM CAPABLE OF. AN I SCREAM.
At the train station … it was the same as before, maybe a few more colors and glass surfaces, I knew I could be at the place with the sign on foot in half an hour. I was on my home turf. And I had the pistol from Černá, and down there in the cellar was where my journey had begun. I’d come full circle. Only …
Only then I had a shot. And another. And another. I stayed.
The people I fell in with were from all over. The only thing they had in common was the face cover. The mask. A dull mask of indifference, maybe it was already a mask from the other side. I’d escaped an aviary only to end up in an aquarium. Piranhas included. Sometimes the faces would open up, ignited by a memory, or more often a bottle, or rage. Even the weepiest ones had so much hatred inside. I steered clear of … people, but even then you only end up backing into more. Carbon copies. Gangs I avoided too. Usually they were transitory, just met, hung out … and moved on. The station was a dangerous place for anyone who had anything. Soon I knew the corridors too. Knew all you had to do was tell Gramps: Fuck off! The stronger ones he left alone, the weaker ones had to pay to sleep downstairs by the crappers.
Help yourself, said Howdoyoudo good-naturedly, nudging a bowl my way. The gentleman who’d gone and got the soup slid over without a word. Thanks, I mumbled. Only Howdoyoudo could get away with stunts like that. Even the staff of the cafeterias and stands got a kick out of her. Their crews changed constantly too. Almost as fast as the bums’. I spent most of my time in the halflight in the corners. Didn’t want to take the chance of meeting someone I knew. Not that I was ashamed, I didn’t give a damn anymore. But I was thinking things over and didn’t want to be interrupted. Sometimes I could think two hours, sometimes a half, it was torture. That’s what I wanted. Recollecting people and fragments of sentences, pondering my mistake. Otherwise, I clouded my brain. Watched the steam from the ventilators, sometimes it was misty outside, sometimes it was dark. A couple times I tried to go out, but the heat would always stop me. That and the bugs. In the concourse, which was built into a hill, and that means underground, it was nice and cool. As long as I sat down somewhere and kept my mouth shut, people left me alone. I didn’t take part in the contests for scraps of meat, various revolting leftovers, I found stuff here and there. The only thing that mattered to me was keeping the darkness in my head in balance with the light that flickered on … furtively … every now and then. My head hurt. A couple times before, I’d had a wincing toothache. Now it was a vein in my head. A tensing and relaxing, like a short cord or a length of wire. It pulsed, it twitched. In my head. It hurt.
Then Howdoyoudo started giving me food. She also gave me wine. I followed her around like a puppy dog, they told me. Howdoyoudo Lolly was an older woman, probly had a few drops of black blood in her. Kinky hair, thick lips. Picked up her nickname hunting customers. She’d always say How do you do and then trot out her offer.
Once I was feeling better, I’d sit out on the hillside, by the ventilators. The air there was cool. I often slept. It was still warm outside. One time … I ran my hand under my shirt … the pistol was there. Quite possibly, quite possibly I’d tried to get rid of it in the course of my wanderings. But there it was.
What’s with you? someone said. Shut the fuck up! Well look who’s up, everyone, it’s Ducky … what’d you call me … you been waddlin roun like a duck … they almost took you away, but Howdoyoudo wouldn’t let em … kch heh heh. We sat out between the railroad cars drinking. Want Drool? Hey you, wanna drool? a scabby face bent over me. I shoved him away and went out to the ties … I’d found a pile of railroad ties out back, tossed a few together one day, built myself a fortress … no one else knew about it. That was where I spent most of my time. Time. It didn’t move. Inside the ties, it was like being sealed in a can. No one knew about me. It occurred to me I could do it in there. I’d sit and lie around and hang my head … because sometimes it hurt a lot. The string.
One day I was walking past the ticket windows and some old nun gave me money, didn’t even have to babble much … not much. But it was enough for a botde. Next day the nun was back again. I rushed right over to her. Spilling out thanks like a waterfall. I liked her old face. That one knew! About many things, no doubt … I sensed I could tell her a lot. After a long spell, I got talking again. Gargantua. I murmured to her, jumping around and hissing my words. She didn’t say a thing. And as I walked away, she stood there, short, stooped, in one of the few uniforms that women can wear. Stood there, crowd pouring past her … it was unsettling: that look of hers. I clutched the cash in my fist.
Sometimes I managed to pour so much alcohol through my mouth into my head that the string would get inundated and couldn’t move. In my hangovers, though, it returned, like a pendulum. I guess the trick is to snap the string, I thought to myself.
I never forgot what I’d done with the knife. So I kept out of the way. You never know with bums. One minute some old ass-kisser is givin you a hug, the next he’s goin for your eyes. And I didn’t want to be part of it anymore. Their speech was skeletal, pared to the bone. But I didn’t like it … when my head was clear for a while, free of haze and pain, and their words would get in there: Unh. My old lady’s a cunt cause she’s a twat. Unh. Usually all they talked about was where they’d eaten what, who got tanked how, what they’d scrounged up where … totally the same as the people outside. Here it was just a little bit faster.
Around the end of the summer … I felt better. Plus I saw where in fact I was living. I picked my way through the hurrying people, going somewhere with suitcases, backpacks, heading somewhere in ties and skirts. I joined the procession, marching … with them. Down by the ticket windows, the crowd broke into clusters, making for the exits, I did too, occasionally someone would stop and buy a paper, smokes, something to eat … under the hall’s fluorescent lights, there were posters there to look at … and then they ran for the trams, surging out into the park, there were buses there, I noticed … on the other side they made for the cabs, leaving me alone by the exit. Pondering, or whatever. Then I went back to the platform and waited for the next train.
I sat by the ventilators, dozing, maybe my strength was coming back, my head didn’t hurt anymore, I stretched. It’s time to make a move, time to go … even the station people disappeared from time to time. To other stations. Some had a place to live but came here anyway. Here it always looked like there was something going on.
Ondra was there too, claimed he was sixteen, but he was a shrimp. Followed me around. Stole all sorts of reading material and then told me stories about it. Liked to hear himself. I guess so he could relive it. He’d walk up to me at the ventilators, sit down, and let loose. I didn’t listen … at first. But he really lived for those comic books. So then, get this, he tells me, King Krongold spurred his horse an went ridin off with his army a crusaders to the Holy Land, but how’d it turn out with Queen Eleanor? Will she be with King Krongold, or did that scumbag Merlin capture her? The next one doesn’t come out’ll next week … don’t worry, Ondra, they published all that stuff in the sixties … Queen Eleanor stays in the tower, Merlin’s cast a spell on her, an she gets these visions of things an places she’s seen with King Krongold, but it’s just a bunch a shit, lemme sleep. Wait, tell it … how does it go? Ondra was on the edge of his seat. Steal it next week, leeme alone. But what if it doesn’t come out, an plus they know me everywhere now, it’s not that easy anymore. Aright, I’ll tell you, but how about a bottle.
Ondra, you see, was a thief s treasure. All kindsa parasites tried to bamboozle him, all kindsa assholes tried to wrangle him onto their teams … especially Howdoyoudo Lolly, I steered clear of her after I found out about Drool … but Ondra didn’t give a damn … he’d spent all his life in institutions and knew his way around … stole, but just for himself. Just food, occasionally cash, so he could make a move somewhere, get outta town. And when he begged, people gave. Patted him on the head. I saw it. He was bent on going abroad. Got the idea from those comix of his, all those deserts and jungles. The Dead City of Macchu Picchu. The Holy Grail. The Monkey People. Lugged around a tattered atlas. His dream was to join the Foreign Legion. Dude, just wait’ll I’m strong! But don’t you hafta go to school? Aready been. I nodded, after all he knew how to read. I’ll tell you somethin, he said one day … by the ventilators … but you gotta promise not to tell anyone! Swear it! Yeah, yeah. No, dude, raise your hand an swear for real! I did. I’m not sixteen, dude, I’m thirteen. Yeah, so? If they find out, they’ll put me away. Uh-huh, I closed my eyes and tried to sleep.
He came right back with a bottle. Yanked the cork out with my teeth. So … Queen Eleanor dreamed of King Krongold, but she was far away and under a spell. And the king meanwhile … clashed with the Tatars, and it was a terrible battle, his horsemen fell under the infidels’ spears, but then the infantry penetrated their defense and raided their camp and engaged the enemy in man-to-man combat … this wine’s great, Riesling! where’d you get it? … What happens next, what about the Tatars, they had bows, right?! Yeah, and that was the thing, they pelted the King’s army with salvos of arrows, inflicting huge losses, but at close quarters the king’s knights were stronger, and had better armor … the battle raged for two days, and when it was over King Krongold had only a handful of loyal men left … hey Ondra, got any smokes? Thanks! So, they snuck into the galley and sailed into port and … damn, what next … oh yeah, disguised as merchants they went to the capital and sold silk and fruits and vegetables … that’s dumb, said Ondra angrily … just wait a sec … but the other merchants plotted against them, and one night, disguised in black masks, they attacked, King Krongold and his loyal men fled through the darkness … their horses’ hoofs clattered across the planks of the bridge, and the moon was veiled in mist, and they came to a plain afflicted by plague … and several of the king’s loyal men were struck down by the abominable disease … an what was Eleanor doin meantime, Ondra inquired … Merlin had her spellbound, she was forced to do his bidding, and he’d order her around, do this, do that, move it, Queen, heh heh, Merlin cackled … that fuckin scumbag, Ondra yelled, cheeks burning … but she was proud, and inside her was a smile for King Krongold, because she knew he was searching for her … and at night she would sit alone in her chamber … and get totally shitfaced, and in some parts of the tower were trap-doors, and the only thing that kept her from stepping on the wrong stone and plunging into the cellars full of gruesome spiders was her love for King Krongold, it held her up … did the cellars have rats an skeletons in em? Ondra wondered … course they did, don’t interrupt! … and King Krongold came to a jungle where he was attacked by wild men called the Utnapishtims … hee-hee, snickered Ondra … but with the help of his trusty laser he swung out on the creeper vines, but of all his loyal men now the only one left was Sir Dolphus, and their swords were all they had … to be continued. No fair! No fair … you got the wine! It’s all gone. C’mon, anyway I’m just talkin crap. No, that’s the way it was, said Ondra, wait here … the string was quiet and my head was totally clear, I had an urge to go and … maybe pick up some threads at some charity, mine stank like shit … hey, good boy, Ondra, Riesling again … that’ll pick me up … I got burgers too, paid for em an everything, try one. The first mouthful was awful, but after that it went all right. Okay, this is gonna be short now, though! You know what’s weird? Ondra said. When I hear it, it’s like I see pictures. Like a movie almost.
Right, so Sir Dolphus tells Krongold … my lord, I cannot go on, there is an arrow in my side … I am dying, O virtuous lord, in truth and on my honor! My friend, says Krongold … you did not lose honor, sir knight, you fell in battle … only those who live may lose honor … I must tell you something, King Krongold … the reason I am with you is that I too love Queen Eleanor, the Shining Star, ‘tis a sin … No, Dolphus, we all love her, ‘tis no sin at all … and Dolphus, contented, breathed his last … Ondra fidgeted … so now he’s just got the swords? Exactly, now the king had two, and when the Bedouins attacked him he let out a roar and charged, the camels bolted, kicking up sand, and the Bedouins began fighting each other … that one Krongold knew from the Legion … and Dolphus’s confession filled him with power so he fought like an army that day … and also he was intelligent, slipping a burnoose off one of the Bedouins he cloaked himself in it … and then he came to a Zulu village, and they surrounded him with spears and clubs, fearing that he was a Bedouin chief who had come to take them prisoner, it was a dangerous moment. The Zulus were painted with mud for war and the shaman was rattling his rattle … but Krongold revealed his identity … and they rejoiced, because they feared Merlin, and they showed the king the way, and he walked through the desert … but isn’t he gonna get another army? Ondra huffed … wait a sec … till he came to the cave where the Old Man of the Computers lived, and he had a thorn in his paw, he was a lion … a lion with a festering wound … and spying him, King Krongold planted his sword in the sand, nobly reached out his right hand, and plucked the thorn from his paw … an the old guy made him an army on his computer! Ondra yelped … exacdy! and they rode off through the dunes with Chief Joseph’s braves at their flanks, eerily painted in yellow and black, their veins pulsing with speedy strength, between their teeth they clenched stone knives and their quivers beat against their thighs … the notches on their six-shooters gleamed … and in front strode the giant Ninjas, followed by the waving standards and banners of the Nestorians, and Spartacus and his rebels were there, gladiators and former slaves, it was one great big mix … and they chanted in rhythm to the march: Whip, sword, blood, cross … six thousand of them, just like in Capua later on … the sisters of mercy went with them too, they were very powerful, nobody knows why they went along … then the metallic ranks fell in, halberdiers, flailers, and slingers, and the Skipetars, with their bambitti, and the murderous Richard the Humpback headed up the cavalcade, riding under the sign of the cross … the shields of the Lithuanians sparkled in the crimson sun, the Egyptians carried baskets … and had elephants and bazookas … the Old Man assembled a massive army in Krongold’s honor … and Eleanor … Eleanor had to obey the disgusting Merlin’s orders, had to grovel and make coffee for him … listen to his bullshit! … he laid his charms and lures out before her, be a free woman, forget Krongold, you can be whatever you want … and I can change myself too, just tell me what to be, the abominable Merlin fawned over her … I can be twenty years old and play guitar … or I can be a racecar driver … I can even change myself into a fifty-year-old writer in a sweater with a pipe … just tell me what you want, Eleanor … forget King Krongold, forget … Merlin yelled, and that word, forget, echoed down the halls and corridors, startling the bats … that disgusting pig! Ondra cried, how’d he get that hocus pocus? I donno. But King Krongold was drawing near, and he pitched his camp at the foot of the tower, and the fair Eleanor stretched her arms out the window … the king withdrew to his tent with Richard and his valets and the rest of the knights to dream up a plan … and meanwhile the Nubians rigged up the catapults and flung fireballs and dirty tricks into the city, and Merlin got hit in the eye with an arrow … Ondra applauded … but it didn’t do a thing to him, he whipped his robots onto the ramparts … Krongold went for a ride on his steed, and ho! what did he see, an eagle soaring down from the sky! Yep, an eagle! Fuckin A! … yeah, an then? … then, Ondra … then, oh yeah … then it got bad, man … see, Krongold had a goblet of wine before the attack, but the computerized army vanished in a blink under the blows of Merlin’s axe, and King Krongold was alone … alone … and couldn’t get to the Queen, screaming up in the tower, so he had another goblet, betrayed her, the scoundrel, oh well … now leeme alone, Ondra … that’s the end … You’re lyin! You lie! That’s not the way it was! Ondra yanked at my shirt, I swung round … he pulled my hair, I think he was crying … you’re a retard … just like everybody else.
