The Divers' Game

by Jesse Ball

  Of course, the different gases helped to make people feel more comfortable with using them. The yellow killing gas, the green incapacitating gas, the red gas that confuses, the brown gas that sickens, the slow killer.

  Which do you have? Lethe asked.

  Mandred showed her the brown lid of his canister.

  I like the color of the yellow, said Lois. We both have that. Don’t we?

  They lifted their sweaters to show the canisters at their waists, both mud yellow. Mandred looked on.

  Lethe laughed. She whispered something, but it was hard to hear because the wheels of the train were rattling.

  The old man stood and went to the bathroom compartment. It was a brief area, tucked behind a door. The door shut with a loud snap, and he was alone. He leaned against the wall heavily and pulled a pint from his coat pocket. He raised it, raised it again.

  IF WE LEAVE HIM THERE AND GO BACK ALONG THE CAR, we see the girls from behind, we see the tops of their heads dancing above the seats. They are as glad as he to be alone once more. Lethe leans against Lois and lies back across her. They run their hands across each other. Their faces mingle. Minutes pass. The sound of steps and they are bolt upright again. The old man beholds two sitting quietly, perfectly contrite. Can he tell that the corners of the lips are slightly upturned? Is he the butt of some joke?

  That which the young share is doubly lost to us: lost because it cannot be explained or shown, and lost because we once had it and can no longer feel it. And do you know—they do not believe you were ever a child? Maybe they know you were, but they do not believe it.

  I GUESS IF I’M YOUR ASSISTANT FOR THE DAY, I SHOULD tell you. I’m pregnant, said Lois.

  Mandred was leaning his head against the glass, and his eyes were half-closed.

  Lethe nudged her.

  Louder.

  I said I’m pregnant, said Lois. I have been pregnant five times already, each time with triplets. I got an award from the hospital, a plaque. I keep it with me. Do you want to see it?

  Mandred was watching her now. He ran his hands through his hair.

  He made a pained expression and tilted his head.

  Do you know when my mother was pregnant with me she was crossing the Telfort Bridge. She was in a demonstration, a bread demonstration. My father was right beside her. But the press was too thick; people started to run and shove, and she was pushed to the edge and fell from the bridge, from one level to the next, with me in her belly. The doctors cut me out of her, out of her dead body, and I lived. I was raised by my father, who was always embarrassed that he didn’t jump too, much good it would have done.

  The girls looked at him in shock.

  That’s a joke, he said. You told a pregnancy joke, I told one too.

  He closed his eyes and leaned against the window.

  Lois had a book in her bag and she took it out. The Happy Cloud. She and Lethe paged through it. One thing about Lois that anyone can know: she volunteers with small children in the afternoons and reads to them. If you were to sail around in the air on a random afternoon, and if you flew by the place where she was, you might see her doing that, reading to children.

  If she was reading The Happy Cloud, it would be like this: the children would be gathered around her knees, and she would tell them that a little cloud wanted to be a mountain and it made itself into the shape of a mountain, but the mountains wouldn’t have anything to do with it, so it made itself into the shape of a lake, but the lakes were too far down and pretended not to notice it, and so it tried to look like the moon, but the moon was too slippery, and it couldn’t look that way, not really at all, and so finally it tried to look like the sun, and the effort of that made it break up into nothing, and then it was gone. The last page includes the moral, which you are supposed to explain to the children, and which Lois always explains, with such a sweet expression on her face that anyone would believe her. If she read you The Happy Cloud, you might end up regretting some of your decisions. After they read, the children play games and sing songs. The songs are infectious and Lois sometimes finds herself singing them when she doesn’t want to.

  As Lethe looked at the book, Lois described to her the worst one.

  It’s about rain. It talks about how the rain falls on the tops of every building in town. It’s just a list of the buildings in the town. But it’s really catchy.

  A BUZZER RANG IN THE COMPARTMENT.

  Mandred sat up and looked at his watch.

  We should be there shortly, he said. We are almost there. Just a few minutes more. A few minutes more.

  He seemed a little disoriented.

  Tomorrow, you know, is Ogias’ Day. I’m sure it hasn’t escaped you.

  The girls looked at him with humor in their eyes.

  Were you alive for the last one?

  Ha. How old do you think I am?

  Lois shrugged.

  It was more than fifty years ago. I was a child then. Tomorrow there will be pavilions set up all across the city. There are rules for the day, and all the rules are different from how things are on any other day. I have the map here. Do you know what is most special about Ogias’ Day?

  Lois shook her head.

  Lethe hit her on the shoulder.

  You do.

  Oh that, yeah, no one owes any money.

  It is a debt forgiveness day—across the nation. No citizen owes anything. A blank slate. Do you know why they do such a thing?

  Both girls stared blankly.

  It brings the nation together. We all become closer.

  Lethe whispered to Lois: They have to do it, or the government would fall apart.

  What’s that?

  She said they have to do it or the government would fall apart.

  Mandred laughed.

  That is one way of looking at it.

  He took a newssheet out of his bag and unfolded it. He leaned forward, laying it across his knees. The two girls leaned in. On the unfolded newssheet was an overview of the city center. There were indications for all the regular buildings, but also all the new pavilions, the many paper gates, the stalls.

  There will be no traffic in the whole center. And the lights will stay on all through the night.

  Lethe looked down at the map and she imagined herself running along the tops of the buildings, leaping from one to another. She pictured herself in the clothes she would wear, and she pictured Lois with her, sitting beneath the trees of the Fifth Rondee. They could lie in the grass and watch everyone wander by. They could even sleep there, in the out-of-doors. Maybe everyone would sleep in the street tomorrow night. Who knew what would happen? Would it be a new age?

  Mandred was saying something. Lethe felt suddenly annoyed. She felt itchy all over. She wanted to be far away. What were they doing here with him? He stank. The trip was taking so long.

  Did your wife really gas herself? Did she leave you a note?

  Lois turned pale as a sheet.

  Mandred sat back crumpling the newssheet in his hands.

  What?

  I said did your wife gas herself. People are saying she did.

  He started to say something, then stopped. Then he started again, in the midst of some frown.

  He stood up and went along the boxes of seats, off down the car.

  What is wrong with you?

  I just, I got tired of him suddenly.

  Now we have to spend the rest of the day like this. Are you out of your mind?

  Lethe ducked her head.

  Are you mad at me?

  Yes, I’m mad at you.

  Are you still mad at me?

  Yes.

  Still?

  Stop it.

  If his wife wanted to kill herself, let her. Who cares? Now he’s drinking himself to death on the toilet.

  The train rattled on.

  Are you still mad at me?

  The two girls joined hands and stared at the wall in front of them. Across the molding were painted letters, and those letters read:

&
nbsp; A citizen/For the life of him/Or her or he or she/That keeps a mask/On the belt or arm/Need never fear the streets.//If trouble comes/Like quad scum—/Your mask put on!/Your mask put on!//The gas shall flow/A cloud to grow/And lay them low/The lowest at our feet.

  The words wound on, repeating, around the whole train car. After a few minutes the old man came back. He sat down quietly, folded the crumpled newssheet, replaced it in his valise, snapped the valise shut. The train pulled to a halt.

  We’re there, he said.

  They got off the train and went down a long set of stairs that led to a sort of covered bridge. The inside of the covered bridge was painted with animals of every sort in once wild colors. But the paint was chipped and faded. They went along there, Mandred ahead, the girls a step behind. At the end of the bridge was a turnstile, and then a long lawn, the edges of which washed up against an old building with Corinthian columns and a wide, wise face.

  That is the zoo, Mandred said.

  To one side was a huge enclosure covered in netting.

  What is that for?

  It was for birds of prey—eagles and hawks, vultures, owls, falcons.

  The words sounded strange in the air.

  Did you ever see them?

  I saw an owl once, when I was your age.

  There were men at the door, and they told the little group that Mandred could only take one person in with him. He insisted that they should both come, but the uniformed doormen wouldn’t budge.

  Lecturer Alan Mandred & assistant. That’s what the book says.

  Mandred looked at the girls.

  You will need to choose which one of you comes.

  But Lethe was already wandering away to sit at the edge of the lawn.

  2

  Lois looked back once as they went through the gated door, and what she saw was Lethe on her back in the grass, staring upward.

  Who could say if her eyes were open or closed?

  Lois took the old man’s arm, and they went forward through a series of vaulted arcades.

  Another doorman stepped out from the shadow of a pillar.

  Do you know the way?

  Quite well, quite well.

  The zoo building was full of mosaics of beasts. Beasts were worked in squares and inconceivable motifs into every wall and pillar; they were above every door. There was some lettering that she could not read. Mandred said it was a language no longer spoken. There are only a few buildings like this left, he confided. In an earlier time this city was also a great city, perhaps it has always been a great city. Some places are conducive to life.

  They turned right at an enormous statue of a bear, and up ahead there was a large blue double door.

  The animals are in there.

  THERE WAS A MASSIVE KNOCKER. LOIS TOOK HOLD OF it and swung it. A loud CRACK, and the sound reverberated all along the wide stone floor. Someone from within turned a wheel that moved the massive door gradually in, an inch, two inches, three. When it had opened four feet it stopped, and they went through, first she, then the old man.

  Immediately in the dim light she saw a cage, and a creature on all fours in it, covered in fur. It was a dog, she was sure. But it wasn’t moving.

  Past it was another cage, and this one held a cat, in a lifelike pose, reaching up with a paw as if to bat at something. The cat’s face was so elegant. Had she ever seen anything as elegant? But the cat was long dead.

  To the left was a horse, mostly in shadows. It had once been white and now was a color of filth and time. The horse’s head was impossibly large. There was no cage, and she ran her hand across the nostrils. No one stopped her.

  Past the horse was the body of something like a horse, but squatter and smaller. A donkey? It seemed kinder than the horse, but its eyes were glass. It didn’t know what it saw anymore.

  Mandred had gone on. He called to her, over here, here.

  She came along the rows, quicker, passing by cage after cage, each with its dead occupant.

  When she caught up, Mandred was standing before the last cage. There was a man in uniform observing. A little lightbulb hung from a rope above the cage, and it swung ever so slightly back and forth, illuminating a small creature. She knelt down by the cage, and the creature turned its head. It turned its head!

  She looked into the eyes, and looked as deeply as she could at its long ears, tried to drink in its soiled tawny fur, its little ball of a tail.

  It is a rabbit, she said.

  A hare, said Mandred. Probably the last hare.

  Isn’t there a story, an old story.

  Yes, a very old story.

  And then a farther door opened, and a man came, and there were greetings given. Mandred was embraced and he embraced someone. Lois stood and she too was embraced, and they were drawn along away from the dirty cage and the guard. As she passed through the next door, she felt she could feel as much as see the life that rang through the hare like a bell, a bell that was trembling, a bell struck at some point in the past, never again to sound.

  AND THEN THEY WERE IN A COZY ROOM, PILED HIGH with books and papers, with figurines and sculptures, blankets, astronomical devices—whatever could be imagined to be strange, there it was. And he, the zookeeper, an older man, as thin as a broom, with wild sandy hair and a gentle manner. Could you have guessed the zookeeper would be like this? It seems he could be no other way, this keeper of the last hare.

  How old is it?

  His voice was raspy and thin when he answered,

  We can’t say for sure. Of course, we give it a kind of serum that stretches its time out. It has certainly lived longer than any other creature of its kind. It had a mate, but she died last year. I don’t expect him to last much longer. My wife says I shouldn’t share things like this, but . . . Every morning when I lace my shoes and come here I feel I will arrive and find its little body curled there. I have lived that moment countless times. I wish I could let you take him on your lap as I do. The feeling of an animal in your arms—it is inexpressible.

  Do you do that when the zoo is closed?

  No, just when I like. I bring him in here. Mostly he’s in here. But lately he’s been sick and just goes limp if he is touched. So I’m letting him be.

  Are there other animals in other zoos? How many zoos are there?

  There is a rat in the capital. There is a tortoise in Mauviers. Those are the ones I know.

  Have you seen them?

  Of course—and many more, but they are all gone now. We are left with the least interesting animal, man.

  His voice sounded pathetic. Why are men in particular always grieving worlds that are gone? They can never come to terms with how things are.

  It’s not so bad. There are insects, said Lois.

  Of course there are still insects, more insects than there ever were. Both original and domesticated. How else could we have trees? How else could we have fields to eat from? And there are bacteria and viruses. So I suppose man is not alone. But insects and bacteria aren’t animals, are they?

  I think of an amoeba as an animal.

  He laughed.

  Mandred spoke up.

  Lois, this is Ganner. Ganner, this is Lois. Lois is my assistant for the day; she’s in a section of my Historical Pathologies lecture. She and her friend accompanied me here.

  Giving the introduction exhausted him. He leaned an arm on the desk. He was tired of the young women, wished in fact that he hadn’t brought them. Why had he done it? It had been an idea of the morning—morning ideas were always flawed. They never take into account the accretion of weariness and grief that the late day brings. What a nasty girl the other was—or not she, but just young people in general, every one of them, so utterly selfish. Had he ever met a single person under the age of twenty who wasn’t just completely selfish?

  Ganner was asking him something.

  Where is the friend?

  They wouldn’t let her in; she’s outside.

  It isn’t really safe out there; Gall Roads is . . . />
  Mandred made a gesture. Something like, it doesn’t matter.

  Lois agreed.

  Don’t worry about Lethe.

  As you say, as you say. Well, welcome, Lois. You have the freedom of the neighborhood, wander the building as you like . . . If you don’t mind . . .

  The two turned away to speak, leaving her abruptly alone.

  LOIS STOOD UP AND WALKED AWAY FROM THE POOL of light that surrounded the two men. She felt at once a fondness for the enterprise, for the zoo and its husks, and its living fossil, the hare. At the same time she felt a horror, and wanted to be far away. She thought of going back to where Lethe waited, but she didn’t know the way and was afraid of being lost within this massive marble tomb. Do the places we inhabit confine us by their very nature? Are we always imprisoned, eternally imprisoned, in body, in place, in community, do even our minds imprison us? What would it be like to be free, even for a second? Is that death? Do we live only in that final moment when we flee our shape?

  LOIS WANDERED UP AND DOWN THE CORRIDORS, LOST in thought. An attendant approached her.

  Excuse me, have you seen a white pouch lying around?

  A pouch?

  Like a mailbag. A pouch. White with a drawstring.

  No, I haven’t.

  She examined his face and he hers. They looked right into each other, almost by accident, without pretense, and then, at once, both blushed.

  I’m looking for it.

  He was about her age, maybe slightly older.

  He smiled. Name’s Strom, who’re you?

  Lois.

  Well, Lois—what are you doing here in these halls?

  I came out here from the Center today to see the zoo.

  But with whom? How’d you get in?

  I was just talking with Ganner in there.

  The zookeeper! Very good. Poor old man. He’ll be out of a job pretty soon. We all will. They’re shutting the place down once the rabbit dies. Not that I’ve ever seen it. You know they won’t even let us in there to see it? I’ve asked a dozen times, at least.