Water is the flea’s enemy, said the Keeper.
Several of us had been under the impression that fleas were the ones who were going to survive Armageddon, but it turned out that was cockroaches.
The Geographer said it was like she wasn’t even there and we all knew what she meant. Except for the bites it was like we didn’t exist. This was the first time in her life the Geographer had no idea where she was, and it wasn’t going to be the last.
In the distance she heard a bell toll, an old bell with a crack in it, once, twice, three times. Meanwhile the river continued to bend and the road to bend with it. There wasn’t any other traffic, the tire tracks visible for a moment before filling with white. There was nothing, really.
The Angelus, the Archivist said. That’s what you were hearing. Three strokes. Hail Mary full of grace.
Maybe it had just turned three o’clock, said the Cook.
The bell, though—the bell was to be expected. No one needed to point this out.
The Geographer and her husband had just come over the bridge when she saw a pair of eyes—a pair of yellow eyes suspended in a thicket. “What’s that?” she asked. Visibility was poor, her husband’s vision not so good. He was older than she was and he drove too fast. The planet moved on its axis; morning approached. With one hand the Geographer was scratching bites, with the other she was trying to bring something besides static in on the radio. The bell continued to ring; in the headlights she saw a faint suggestion of a face, a terrible combination of one thing and another, maybe a dog with a human hairdo or a person with a pointed snout.
“Watch out!” the Geographer screamed. Her husband applied the brakes, pressing his foot down hard.
A pair of eyes—they were the brightest thing they’d seen for hours. A pair of eyes. Paradise. It was as dark there as in the deepest well.
It was even darker than that, said the Iceman. It was as if the darkness filled all the openings and blocked all the passages.
The Geographer and her husband must have been on Portal Road. That was the road a person had to take to get to the Garden of Paradise. You had to keep going—wrap yourself in your cloak!—just like in the story the principal used to tell us in assembly. The sun was burning but a step farther on it was icy cold. The bird that flew past had one wing in the heat of summer, the other in the cold of winter.
How fast had they been traveling? We would never know, though it had to have been extremely fast, given the evidence of the impact. The car was headed north on Portal Road, the Geographer’s husband braking just before reaching the foot of the steep driveway that led to the hospital. At this point the road curved right and the car continued straight ahead, eventually crashing into the pillar marking the foot of the drive with sufficient force to knock it over, detaching the statue of the angel that had roosted there back when the hospital used to be a convent.
The snow kept falling, the flakes wider spread, bigger, signifying the storm’s flagging energy. The world outside was silent; in the hospital atop the hill someone was swabbing a dying person’s mouth. Neither person heard the crash—they were too far away and even if they hadn’t been the snow acted like soundproofing.
A cotton washcloth, said the Botanist. That’s what you use for the dying. You dip the washcloth in a basin of warm water infused with mint. The dying person’s eyes don’t slide shut the way they do in the movies.
What about the thing they hit? asked the Keeper. Did they kill it or what?
Still we all knew that whenever a thing quit its proper limits, this change of state would mark the death of that which went before.
The Geographer and her husband had left the city after dark. That’s when it began, the Geographer turning the key in the door of their apartment and dropping it in the mailbox in case their daughter showed up. They both assumed they weren’t going back, though to admit it would be to include the other in a private nightmare, like the drunk at the frat party who suggests everyone climb into his car while he drives into town for pizza. They didn’t know where their daughter was, hadn’t heard from her except for a postcard, its postmark smeared and illegible.
That was what was surprising—even though we presented as childless, almost all of us had children, or were going to have them, or had had them, some of the children no longer alive, having ventured into the interstices, the infinity of gaps between the infinity of points on the line that was the continuum from A to Z, all those dying villages along the Silk Road where we stopped to ply our trade.
The subject of children was a subject we didn’t tend to talk about. It emerged gradually, like a bad habit.
Like a genetic trait, said the Botanist. A birthmark.
Or like a solar system, said the Astronomer.
Like the identity of a murderer in a mystery, said the Archivist.
It had been a sweet, mild evening, the sidewalks wet from the latest storm, the smell of decomposing leaves and rain-damp concrete in the air. The Geographer had just returned to the apartment carrying a bag of groceries. She knew the power was off but she hit the wall switch with her elbow, anyway. That was when she felt the fleas.
Even if she hadn’t heard the announcement the Geographer would have known what they were. She and her husband used to have a dog. They lost him around the same time they lost contact with their daughter. The Geographer had been walking him when he slipped his collar and took off around the corner, vanishing into the back alleyways where the marketeers and sexgirls plied their trade.
The apartment was lightless and quiet, the windows black. The drapes had yet to be drawn; the Geographer hated drapes. They made it look like the windows were wearing dresses. She set down the groceries and began feeling around in the bachelor chest for candles and a book of matches.
The chest stood just inside the front door, the same location our mother chose for it in the house on Fairmount Avenue. It was made of the same dark wood every other piece of furniture in the house was made of.
Candles? said the Topologist. Don’t you mean candle ends? There were never any unburned candles in the chest. The chest was a mess. Someone kept the drawer pulls polished, though. Wasn’t there a cleaning lady?
No, said the Cook. It was Great Aunt Somebody. She had big bosoms and a tinkling voice like a fairy.
There was a little silver shoe, said the Keeper. There was a little silver hat. There were decks of playing cards with cards missing. Single gloves and single mittens. Dog licenses. Jacks. Besides, unburned candles are bad luck.
The truth is, when we were young the future was like a dream.
From somewhere—outside, inside, the street below, the heavens—came the sound of wind, a rustling noise like a horse pawing snow, clearing space to graze. The Geographer’s husband turned his key in the lock and opened the door, letting in a pool of shadows, a trickle of water.
Like anything with an exoskeleton, fleas are hard to kill. They’ve been endowed with extraordinarily long legs, for jumping. It was as if no time at all had passed. The fleas had been carried along the Silk Road in the traders’ garments and in the silk itself, hidden among the spices and jewels and perfumes, on the bodies of the slaves. There hadn’t been as many people coming and going then, though in most respects the situation wasn’t very different. The Geographer’s husband, for example—the pool of shadows surged around him. He had been bringing the fleas into the house with him for a while now, she knew this. The slaves’ bodies were the only currency they had.
The weather, too, had changed for the worse. Everyone was heading north, the sickness not having arrived there yet. Everyone knew it was a physical condition—they were that knowledgeable—but the extent of what they knew was compromised by exposure to a glut of information and rumor, making it difficult to predict anything. Some people claimed mortality didn’t come through Saturn and Jupiter but rather through Mars. Others said the work of the planets could not be avoided but there were things it was possible to avoid. Transmutation was easiest between bodies th
at had matching qualities. No one knew where the sickness came from or where it was going. No one knew which hospitals had medicine or empty beds or doctors or nurses. There were robbers abroad in the land. There were wild beasts.
Whatever the Geographer’s husband had tried not to hit, he’d hit it anyway—the blood wasn’t just inside the car but also on the snow outside it, big red drops leading to the river. The Geographer followed the trail of blood across the road and down a steep embankment. There were tracks of some kind as well, but the snow and wind and the fact that an appendage had been broken and dragged along behind, obliterating everything that preceded it, made them hard to read. They were big, though, bigger than you’d expect from the animals that usually get hit crossing a road. Deer mainly, and squirrels, the occasional large cat.
Black willow grew along the river, a tangle of fetters cased in ice. The Geographer drew back a branch and looked through the opening at the frozen water, a white expanse with a scrawl across it, some pale crouching thing just barely visible as it disappeared into the trees on the opposite bank. It seemed to have a large plumed tail and even at a distance it gave off an odor both repulsive and affecting, like the breath of a beloved old person with rotten teeth.
The Geographer tucked her coat tighter around herself and returned to the car. “You’re going to be all right,” she told her husband, though she had no idea whether this was true. She took his hand and felt the beat of his heart latent in the tip of each finger. It was as if she were holding onto a leash with some unpredictable thing hitched to the end of it. Like that time with their dog when it got away from her. Of course she couldn’t control him—he was so much bigger and ruled by desires about which she knew absolutely nothing.
Some things were easier to remember than others. This was true for all of us. One thing we remembered was that there were always fresh flowers in the Morning Room. Our mother saw to it despite her allergies. She had terrible allergies, liquid running from her eyes and nose—also she sneezed constantly. She would arrange the stems in the vase Father bought for her on their honeymoon in France. She had been a virgin when she married—women were, then. She had asthma, too. We had to buy medicine for her from a short man standing behind a counter on a platform that made him look tall. Do you remember? Jee Moon was tracing the Geographer’s inner forearm with the tip of her index finger and a thrill ran all the way from the Geographer’s present self to her child self and back again.
Some of us wondered how Jee Moon knew about tickling, though she seemed to know about a lot of things, what had gone on in the elementary school auditorium, for example, the principal standing in front of us, hands clasped behind her back, waiting for us to be perfectly quiet so she could tell her depressing fairy tale. The Garden of Paradise. There was once a king’s son. Was he handsome? Was he smart? He was certainly obsessed. Fresh flowers were always everywhere in the house, the Botanist said, but the most exotic blooms ended up in the Morning Room. Acacia. It smelled like girlhood.
And what did that smell like? The Cook, as usual, had a vulgar idea. He liked women though, he genuinely liked them—unlike the Archivist who claimed to be a ladies’ man and wasn’t.
We all had our love stories. This was true even for the Archivist, whose misfortune it had been to fall in love as a child with a girl who grew up to be a famous poet. Like most humans, she had a single heart, and that heart had room in it for only one person—that person being herself. The spirit of the age was compounded of arrogance and inattention, the predominant humor begotten of the chylus, cold and moist.
To our surprise, shortly after our arrival at the settlement we learned that one of us had two hearts, like an egg with two yolks. Supposedly there was a test that could tell us who it was. Even if you were pure as the driven snow it could happen. A shade, a shade that crept into the mind while the eyes were busy looking elsewhere. To have two hearts meant watch out!
The thing is, something happened in the labyrinth. Most of us had been alive and one of us was dead. If we remembered nothing else, surely we could remember that.
Don’t look at me, said the Botanist. Why is everyone looking at me? Why are you looking at me like that?
In the labyrinth the Botanist was the one who yelled Wake up! Even though she was the nearest thing we had to a doctor, it felt weird to turn the body over to her for examination. How could she be impartial? the Archivist wanted to know—he was the first to mention foul play.
Still, we all knew there was something we were forgetting. Something obvious like the flowers or the principal or a wish made for something we’d been told we couldn’t have, something taken away from us like the Garden of Paradise shining far off like a tiny twinkling star. Once a bee flew out of an acacia blossom as it opened and it flew around the Morning Room for a while until we forgot it was there. Don’t you remember? the Keeper said. It landed on the edge of the love seat and when our mother took a nap the bee stung her on the foot. The Keeper made a paste of baking soda and water to draw out the stinger. She knew how to do things like this.
That was because she liked to go barefoot, the Geographer reminded us. The Geographer could be sentimental, something we tended to forget, but then the Iceman reminded us about the bunions.
By the time the Cook came to find us we were still standing around trying to decide what to do. Dinner was getting cold, he told us. He was angry, we could tell—even after he noticed the body lying there under a blanket he remained visibly annoyed. What makes you think it was murder? the Cook asked. People die. He pulled off the blanket.
It left in its stinger, the Keeper said. There was swelling.
What the fuck are you talking about? asked the Cook.
That, said the Keeper, and she pointed at the foot.
The Archivist warned her not to touch. Until the Botanist concluded her examination, he said, better assume anything was possible.
We let him play detective even though he wasn’t very good at it.
Think back, the Archivist said; despite a psyche beset with thorns, he had a beautiful baritone voice.
The past, he reminded us, and all at once we felt it slithering through our ears and throats like a bolt of silk, Mother on her way out the door and the smell of her perfume, the man leaning against the hood of the town car, smoking a cigarette.
Maybe it was poison, said the Keeper.
Maybe there were other people involved, said the Iceman. People besides us.
The thing is, we hadn’t been loved equally. Those nights when our mother left us alone with Nanny she would kiss each of us goodnight, but the kisses weren’t the same. She used to pretend they were but we could tell the difference—once we were old enough to compare notes, that is. Some of us got the lightest touch of her lips on the hardest part of our head. Some of us got a little squeeze and a kiss in the air near our cheek. Some of us got our name, whispered. Some of us got a pat on the rear end. The ones who refused to talk about it were the ones who got the best kisses. We knew this, just as we knew that when each of us came out of her we could have been anything. We could have been a caterpillar or an acorn, fashioned of cloth or hammered tin. We could have been like paper money or silver like a coin. We could have been silverfish. We could have fallen to the floor, slid between the tiles, never to be seen again.
The Keeper was pointing at a spot on the foot just below the ankle. It’s possible the skin was punctured by a needle, she said. An ordinary needle like a woman would use to hem a dress, with an eye too small to thread.
We were all presbyopic, even the Botanist, our deteriorating eyesight the way we knew time was moving in a forward direction.
The needle was the vehicle, said the Keeper. She knew about needles because she had a sewing basket; whenever we needed a button replaced or a seam repaired we’d go to her.
The greenhouse is full of poisonous plants, said the Cook.
They’re food plants, said the Botanist.
Food if you want to die from it, the Cook replied.
Maybe the Archivist really was a good detective. When everyone else was saying the first thing that came into their head, he held back.
We needed to sever the ties of attachment, that much was clear. Our bodies were going to be snatched away, even though we cherished them, our life spans shorter than our memory of what just happened.
Like the king’s son in the fairy tale, Jee Moon said softly. One day he went walking into the woods. He went alone, for that was his greatest pleasure. She was looking into space in that unfocused way of hers and we all knew what it was she was seeing, because we could see it too. There was the principal standing in front of us, her black hair wound around and around her nutlike skull in braids, her hands folded behind her back. She wore the same shoes the fathers wore but a dark-colored dress with a lace collar like the mothers. There were windows in the assembly room only they were so high we couldn’t see out of them except for the sky and every now and then a little bird.
Evening came on, the principal recited, clouds gathered, and it rained as if the whole heaven had become a sluice from which the water poured in sheets. Winding through us, the trackless wood.
It is true, we went alone, each of us.
In the beginning we lived on Fairmount Avenue. Our house was in a row of houses, all of them once grand. Even now you could tell how grand they’d been from the size of the windows, too big for the curtains people on the side streets put up, as well as from the fact that the houses had names. Berpark or Berdale or Berland. Our house had been grand when our father was a boy—he was born in the bed he slept in with our mother. Nanny was the one who raised him. She’d been young then, not much more than a girl. According to our mother everything that was wrong with our father could be pinned to Nanny; why our mother had kept her on, allowing her to work her magic on us, is anybody’s guess. She looked like a regular person but recognizing her for what she was would prove useful, though we didn’t know that then. One day the black winds of past actions would prove useful!
The Silk Road Page 3