He waves me off when I ask him about it.
“Just some terrorists,” he says. “It must be blowback. But they’ll be heightened to any other attacks now. No not us. This doesn’t help us.” He walks off before I can question him anymore.
I walk back to that office, and I look for a way to research this. The city is abuzz. The second attack in such a short time. People are blaming politicians, politicians are blaming each other. I go to some websites and see that our robots are doing their job—it doesn’t feel right, looking at this—there’s an avalanche of opposing views. It looks like we might lose that internet battle, but it does seem that things aren’t going to be so easy for either side. After an hour, when the numbers grow from 10 dead to 22 and eighty injured, I close all the tabs on my browser that have anything to do with the bombing, tired of all the shouting back and forth, of the calls for unity and the calls for more death. The calls for unity, for obedience, are growing louder, and we might not be able to stop that. Perhaps we can work against that.
I switch on my email and see that Khalid has emailed me. I click it. It’s a rambling note saying that he was back, that he had been in a sleepwalking state for the past few weeks and that he was finally aware of what was going on, and that if I was, I would do the same thing. He had realized that it was a choice, between having one and only one God. We all choose it, we can’t help it, but that if we let the devil rule, or take over our minds, as he, Khalid had done, then we would choose wrong because the devil didn’t care which one (what was he talking about, one? Having to only choose one? One what?) he was here to finish us all. And the one, we had to choose the one god, in Khalid’s case it was Allah, but if we chose the other one god, money, or something sinister like the devil himself—and please George tell me you’re not going to pick him, are you?—because it’s hard to see the devil for what he is. It isn’t even those mistaken youth in those other countries, because as bad as the things they do are, they’re only trying to make the choice apparent, that between the one god. The God of all that’s natural (and no it doesn’t have to be Allah) not the one God that is money. Humans can only choose one.
And that’s it. The rant ends mid sentence and I see nothing else. My mind’s a fog and I switch off my computer, my vision blurred at this point and the pain in the back of my eyes too harsh to ignore. I fall asleep and only wake up to the sound of sirens, and an apache helicopter going by. The windows rattle, and I duck behind a desk, looking around, expecting... Expecting war to start. But they fly by and then there’s nothing. In the distance I hear a loudspeaker yelling something. I wonder what’s going on. I open a window, hoping the street noise will change my thoughts, but the distinct smell of cement and steel burning, only sends another cascade of uncomfortable thoughts through my head.
When I look at Turing a few hours later, I sense something sinister. What was it that happened to him on the High Line, when he seemed full of anger. I stare at his face, it’s been shaved, and no longer does it look like it’s melting. That might have been a trick with the light. Dusk and dawn are the times of day when the light plays tricks on human’s eyes. Same with Yusef, looking sinister, though. Is this all a trap? Why? Am I in an experiment? What will happen if I am caught? Why haven’t they caught me yet? And what the hell was Khalid’s email about? Turing smiles from across the room and only further distills my insides.
I remember Dalcia, I remember Kurt, and I know that I should meet up with them. I corner Turing, he’s looking especially well, his flesh looks baby-brand new from this close, and I ask him where she is. He hands me an address and leaves. I don’t trust him, but I go to the address.
It’s night as I walk over to the art studio which is located on a street that appears abandoned, except for a handful of guards. On the main streets, men with M4s and slight bellies patrol the other major streets. That smell, of smoke, of disintegration, is more diffuse, but still there. When I get to the address, I stand in front of a slightly ajar gray metal door. I move to walk in, but a couple, the same one I saw on the High Line, I’m sure, walk out. They laugh about something, and leave. I step inside under the glow of a warm light. On the desk in front of me Kurt and Dalcia are talking. They seem engrossed and I don’t say much, just stare at the paintings lining the wall on either side of me, leading to them. One is a splash of red on white, the splash looks a little to dark and much like blood for my tastes, but it still takes me in. The other ones are also pos-modern messes, but there is something incredible about it.
“George?” Dalcia is looking at me, her voice strained.
“Hi, Dalcia. Are you doing all right?” I ask, her face sucked of all color. “Kurt.” I step to Kurt and give him a hug. He returns it with a tense smile, his body stiff as well. “What’s going on?” I look back and forth between them. The silence crackling through the air is filled with the past few moments and tells me that they either were just talking about me, or something extremely sensitive. My paranoia picks the former.
“Fine,” Dalcia says. “What about you? What are you doing here?”
“Gallery’s closed,” Kurt says.
He’s hostile. I give him a tilted head with furrowed forehead look.
“No,” Dalcia says, placing a hand on Kurt’s arm. “He can look if he wants.”
“Can I?” I ask. “I came here to talk to you both since I hadn’t seen you in so long.”
They look at each other again.
“You hear about the bomb?” Dalcia asks.
“Yeah, Soho, right? Did they find out?” I ask, biting my tongue, not wanting to go on a rant about how it is that this is probably just another case of reaping what one sows.
“They did.” Kurt looks at me. Almost as if he’s Turing, observing harshly.
“And?” I ask, waving my hand in a circular motion, hoping that they would tell me instead of forcing me to beat it out of them.
“Khalid,” Dalcia says, though when she says it, it sounds like Kalid. “Khalid did it.”
My heart collapses into my guts, ripples spread, my legs grow weak. I place a hand on the wall, the idea of Khalid falling back on terrorism, then on him sending that email. That email, sent before it was ready, before he had a chance. “What?”
Kurt pushes his phone into my face. “Don’t tell me you didn’t know?”
There was something else he wanted to say, and his hostility has filled me with anger. I the phone away and stare him down. “What. Kurt.”
“I—“
“You fucking what? You trying to blame this on me?”
Kurt swallows. He is the same old friend, except for this suspicion. “Well, you knew him,” he says, though with less force. “And you escaped with him from that place, right?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?”
“Turing told us,” Dalcia says. “Don’t worry. We know that bomb wasn’t you.”
Oh, that’s splendid emphasis, Dalcia. “And this one is?” I ask, my voice low, growling, my eyes focusing in on both of them. I’m getting tunnel vision. I’m ready for a fight.
“It’s...” Kurt says. “You didn’t know he was going to do this?”
“I didn’t know fuck all.” I grab the phone out of his hands and stare. There is a video of Khalid. I play it. He’s claiming that America was always the enemy. That he had enough of his own women and children dying and that he was now going to give America a taste of her own medicine. That America was a crocodile and that it knew only the language of violence. I know that last line, know that it’s something Osama Bin Laden said in his statement after 9-11.
“Okay, okay,” Dalcia says after I shut off the video. “I believe you.”
Kurt sort of nods when I hand him the phone back, but it could be because he’s getting this phone back.
“You gonna be cool?” I ask Kurt.
He looks over to Dalcia, then back at me. “I’m just saying. He was your friend.”
“I’d talked to him, he was completely against doing somethi
ng like this. We talked about it.”
“Okay, okay,” says Dalcia.
“No man,” Kurt says. “Even if that is true, what about the fact that you helped him escape from a prison. He was wanted by the government and he had already killed innocents.”
“We don’t know that,” I reply.
Kurt, clenching his jaw, throws up a hand in exasperation. “But you did let a known terrorist out of prison, and he has now gone and done this. You could have, in any of the time between, let someone know about him and had someone who was dangerous off the streets.”
“Fuck that.” I square off against Kurt, my heart in my throat, every single fiber in me tensed for a fight. And Kurt is no longer my friend. That common thread between us, that time in that war in that desert land far away, is no more; it’s been cut and there is only man in front of me, a man who seems to be the epitome of everything I hate about humanity—and it’s that and not just the traits of a nation or of a culture or of a race—that insolent tribal part that hates a person based on the chatter in the air; that chatter, that part of the zeitgeist, which serves as a combustible fuel and can be used for such good and for such evil as well. I can sense Dalcia moving a hand between us, her smell, that weak perfume and sweat, is now apparent and I suddenly realize the absurdity of my situation.
“First, we’re not even sure that Khalid did it,” I say
“We have it on the news. All the officials are saying it.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, an official said it. Since when is that God’s own truth?”
“It—“
“You were in Iraq with me. You know the sort of bullshit they pull.”
Kurt shakes his head slightly, as if he’s uncertain of my point.
“And if we don’t know that Khalid did it, at least think of all the things they blamed on me. I know they’re false, and so I know that the people who make these claims are full of shit,” and as I say this, my doubt, from that email and the picture of Khalid, all melt away and I think that perhaps there isn’t a way in hell that Khalid did this.
“What about that video?” Dalcia says, now using both her hands to push me and Kurt further apart.
“It could be doctored. Perhaps from another time. Don’t believe everything you see.” I can see that Dalcia believes me, or wants to believe me and so is making the necessary adjustments. That video is pretty strong evidence.
Kurt stands firm.
“Dammit Kurt. I thought you of all people would know better.”
“I would,” he says giving a harsh sigh.
A siren sounds off outside. The tension diffuses some. I try to think of something to say, talk about. I may not be wanted here, but I don’t want to leave. “You guys seen Turing today?”
“No.”
“No,” Kurt says shaking his head and scrunching up his chin by sticking out his lower lip. He’s growing old, like me, the skin has places of that are starting to stay stretched. They look at each other.
“How’s the art doing?” I ask.
“It was a good show. We sold quite a bit,” says Dalcia.
“That’s great. Who painted all this?” I say and point to the art behind me.
“That’s something that Turing did,” Dalcia says. They exchange another set of looks.
“Oh?” I say and look over my shoulder. I remember our conversation on the High Line.
“He gave a call that he was sending some over and he sent these. Said he wanted them up,” says Kurt. “Figured you knew about it.”
When did Turing start painting? Is it simply a response to what I told him at the High Line? “What about the other artists?” I ask, pointing to the vacant white rooms with white lighting.
“I got all those artists here,” Dalcia says, beaming. “They’re from all over New York, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, the world. They’re all new artists with fresh outlooks...”
“That’s great,” I say, giving a large smile to encourage her. “Can I see?” As she leads me and Kurt through the gallery pointing out paintings, sculptures, photographs and a mixture of the two, I hear the confidence returning to her voice. It feels good to hear that, and I warm back up to the both of them.
None of the paintings quite take me in, so I nod and only pause a few seconds in front of each. Dalcia’s talking: veering into the discussion of the details of each artist’s life fills me with a nostalgia for my previous moments as a writer. Then they diffuse into something like a hatred for myself and the world, before settling into a calm—or at least the part that’s listening to Dalcia’s authoritative voice is. Some of the artists have hard luck stories, just barely making ends meet, and some are geniuses just picked out of art school. We get to a final room where there are a series of stenciled graffiti (or a very talented spray painter) political pieces on chucks of wall or torn aluminum siding or bathtub curtains. Here my pause is real.
“Wow.”
Dalcia’s head snaps. “It’s my favorite too.”
“Who?” I say, though the name will probably slip through my memory.
“Albertine or something like that,” says Kurt from behind me.
I turn, because I forgot his presence, and see that he’s observing me. “You liked this too?” I ask.
He looks around. “Something about it, right?”
“Yeah,” I say and take another look around. I don’t like it.
I stare hard at one of the graphics which shows an empty crucifixion cross with colorful birds perched and looking happy. The next one is a black man with a flat bill hat, full on sparkling grill on his teeth, painted in the style of a Rembrandt, the background chiaroscuro giving that away. This is done on the aluminum siding and I only then notice that there are bullet holes on the edges. And finally there’s one with a fat man, American shirt on, sitting on a sofa, underneath the sofa there’s a handful of children’s arms, of all colors splayed out.
“It makes sense is why,” Kurt says.
And I’m glad that a common thread runs between us because Kurt was feeling too much like a stranger, even after the detente.
“Well, it didn’t sell well, but maybe next time.”
I leave them there with promises to meet up as soon as possible. Dalcia gives me her number and address. I can sense that she’s doing all right, and I leave them there. As I turn to say good bye, it’s apparent that Kurt does not trust me—and his stature is filled with that forced calm that men of violence or men who want to do violence but have decided to bow to a moral code instead, one that allows violence only in certain terms and times, and thus are waiting, coiled, to strike—and that accusation of his has severed our friendship forever. Cold sadness fills me as I make my way down the street, the smoke still in the air. Above there are drones patrolling. Apparently these are not meant to have any missile capabilities; they are merely there to observe.
When sirens wail from down the main avenue, I duck into a store out of instinct, the Arab looking owner stares at me for a second.
“Shlonik?” I say, trying my luck that he actually speaks it.
His bewildered look softens. “Tamaam. Anta?”
I tsk and point my head outside. When the sirens fly by, I decide to look around the store instead of going out immediately. I wonder if I should buy a drink. I feel the owner’s eyes on me, so I decide to leave. “Ma salaam.”
He returns my goodbye and observes me warily.
There’s fresh smoke in the air, but the streets are empty. I head over to our building and feel washed with relief when I walk into that lobby with its buzz of bionic men.
“George.”
And behind me again there’s Turing.
“Hey, Turing. What’s going on?”
“Dalcia all right?”
“She’s fine.”
“And the friend?” There’s a slight smirk when he asks this.
“Kurt? He’s all right.”
There’s a pause as he observes me. “The art, did you like?”
“Oh, yeah. The gra
ffiti artist’s work was the best.”
“Oh really?” His affectation is off. I tell him. He corrects it. I like correcting him.
“I’m not sure I like yours.”
His face flashes that hurt look. I remind myself that it’s a learned programmed thing and that there’s no way he’s feeling that or anything—even he said so..
“It seems pretty childish,” I say to drive home the point. Turing stares at me dead-pan when he says this. Sometimes he really does grate on my nerves.
“The app is running.”
It’s Yusef this time who has chosen to surprise me from behind.
“Christ,” I mutter. “What is it with your lot?”
Yusef stares dumbfounded and repeats what he just said.
“That’s great. We’ll have to put some marketing behind it to get the word out.”
Yusef looks over at Turing. “Do we—“
“We don’t have the money,” Turing says.
“What happened to Mathews?”
“Arrested. They managed to get him for funneling funds to a terror network.” Turing raises his eyebrows.
“What terror network? He was giving us money.”
“Well. Not exactly.” Turing looks at me with amusement. “Some of our LLCs have been given that label, and he was found to have given them some money. The trick is, will he talk.”
“Is that a fact?”
Turing is in one of his pantomiming modes. He crosses his legs, places an elbow on a fist in front of his torso, and strums his chin before pointing at me. “You wanted to get into a philosophical discussion about whether or not Mathews would talk, didn’t you?”
Yusef, beaming at his creation’s actions, snickers.
I stare him into silence. “Not talk, Turing, but about torture.”
“Oh, it’s the same in the end, isn’t it?”
“What’ve you been reading, Turing, to give you such confidence?” I can hear my voice rising, but I can’t control it. “I thought you were still trying to learn, and not come to conclusions before you absorbed it all.” I jab my finger into his chest. I almost break my finger.
The Labyrinth of Souls Page 32