Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  Soulavier frowned pleasantly at the scavengers and their detectors. “Hard to lose habits,” he said. “Hispaniolans are very economical and thrifty. We remember in our bones when every piece of scrap and every aluminum can was a wealth. These boys and girls and their mothers and fathers, they have employment. They might work in the hotels or casinos. They might have a papa or mama in the army. Maybe they are training for army themselves. Still they have economy and thriftiness.”

  “A lot has changed,” Mary said.

  “He has done so much for us. Because of him there is little prejudice on Hispaniola now. That is a true miracle. Marrons do not feel hatred for griffons or for noirs or les blancs. All are equal. My father told me once there were forty shades of recognized distinction.” He shook his head in disbelief. “Colonel Sir is a worker of miracles, Mademoiselle. Why the world hates him we do not know.”

  Mary’s instinctive liking for Soulavier had been wrapped in tissue and quickly stored away upon discovering his true employment, but it had not been disposed of. He still seemed genuine and unaffected.

  “I’m not very well informed on international politics,” she said. “I keep my eyes on Los Angeles. That’s world enough for me.”

  “It is a great city. All the world’s people live there, go there. Twenty five millions! That is more than all Hispaniola. We would have more if it had not been for the plague.”

  Mary nodded. “We envy you your crime rate.”

  “True, it is very low. Hispaniolans have always known to share. Having nothing for so long makes a man generous.”

  Mary smiled. “It might make a Hispaniolan generous.”

  “Yes, I see, I see.” Soulavier laughed. His every move was like a dance; his whole body flexed gracefully even when he sat with a half-eaten fish in his hands. “We are a good people. My people have deserved so much for so long. You see why there is loyalty here. But why is there distrust and hatred outside?”

  He was trying to draw her out. The conversation might after all be less than innocent.

  “As I said, I’m not very current on foreign affairs.”

  “Then tell me about Los Angeles. I have been taught a little. Someday perhaps I will go there but Hispaniolans seldom travel.”

  “It’s a very complicated city,” she said. “You can find nearly anything human in Los Angeles, good and bad. I don’t think it would be workable as a city without mental therapy.”

  “Ah, yes, therapy. There is none of that here. We regard our eccentrics as horses of the gods. We feed them and treat them well. They are not ill; just ridden hard.”

  Mary inclined dubiously. “We recognize a great many mental malfunctions. We have the means to correct them. A clear mind is the pathway to a free will.”

  “You have been therapied?”

  “I haven’t needed it,” she said. “But I wouldn’t object if I did need it.”

  “How many therapied in Los Angeles?”

  “About sixty five percent have had some form of therapy, however minor. Some therapy helps improve performance in difficult jobs. Socially oriented therapies help people work better with each other.”

  “And criminals? They are therapied?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Depending on the severity of their crime.”

  “Murderers?”

  “Whenever possible. I’m not a therapist or a psychologist. I don’t know all the details.”

  “What do you do with criminals who cannot be therapied?”

  “They’re very rare. They’re kept in institutions where they can’t harm others.”

  “These institutions, are they also for punishment?”

  “No,” Mary said.

  “We believe in punishment here. Do you believe in punishment in the United States?”

  Mary did not know how to answer that. “I don’t believe in punishment,” she said, wondering if she spoke the complete truth. “It doesn’t seem very useful.”

  “But there are many in your country who do. Your President Raphkind.”

  “He’s dead,” Mary said.

  She noticed Soulavier had become less graceful and less mobile, more stern and intent. He was homing in on some point and she was not sure it would be pleasant.

  “A man and a woman, they are responsible for their lives. In Hispaniola, especially in Haiti, we are very tolerant of what people do. But if they are bad, if they become the horses of bad gods—and that is metaphor, Mademoiselle Choy…” He paused. “Vodoun is not widely practiced now. Not by my generation. But there is belief, and there is culture…If they become the horses of bad gods it is the individual’s fault, too. You do them a favor by punishment. You alert their souls to error.”

  “That sounds like the Spanish Inquisition,” she said.

  Soulavier shrugged. “Colonel Sir is not a cruel man. He does not impose punishment on his people. He lets them choose in their own courts. We have a just system, but punishment not therapy is part of it. You cannot change a man’s soul. That is white man’s illusion. Perhaps in the United States you have lost the truth of these things.”

  Mary did not argue the point. Soulavier’s sternness passed and he smiled broadly. “I appreciate conversation with people from outside.” He touched his head. “Sometimes we grow too used to where we live.” Standing, brushing grains of sand from his black pants, he looked past the boardwalk to the police station. “The Inspector General may be ready now.”

  One more skull on the pile

  Might knock the whole mountain down…

  —Popular song lyric

  42

  “You didn’t sleep last night,” Nadine said, puffy features betraying crossness, her own lack of sleep, her closeness to the edge. + It must be a strain looking after someone who acts crazy when that is one’s own chosen mode.

  She sat on the bedroom chair with legs crossed and flimsy nightie pulled up over her knees. “I’m not making breakfast today. You didn’t eat my dinner last night.”

  Richard lay on the bed tracking with his eyes an ancient earthquake line through the ceiling plaster. “I dreamed he escaped to Hispaniola,” he said casually.

  “Who, Goldsmith?”

  “I dreamed he’s there now, and they’re putting him under a clamp.”

  “Why would they do that if Colonel Sir is his friend? That would be awful,” Nadine said, fidgeting. “But there’s no way of knowing.”

  “I’m connected with him,” Richard said. “I know.”

  “You couldn’t know,” she said softly.

  “A mystical connection.” He stared at her intently, without hostility. “I know what he’s all about. I can feel it.”

  “That’s silly,” she said even more softly.

  He looked back to the ceiling. “He wouldn’t just leave us without a reason.”

  “Richard…He’s hiding from the pd.”

  Richard shook his head, convinced otherwise. “He’s where he always wanted to be, but they’ve got a few surprises in store for him. He talked about Guinée sometimes.”

  “Where the hens come from.” Nadine laughed.

  “It was a dream Africa. He thought Yardley was making the best spot on Earth. He thought Hispaniolans were the best people on Earth. He said they were sweet and kind and didn’t deserve their history. The USA betrayed the black people there, just as they betrayed the black people here.”

  “Not I,” Nadine said archly. “Listen, I’ll make breakfast.”

  “We’re all responsible. We all need to break away from what we are, from our failures. Maybe war is a kind of breaking away, a nation becoming something else. Do you think so?

  “No opinion,” Nadine said. “You must be hungry, Richard. It’s been twenty four hours since you last ate. Let’s eat and talk about your manuscript.”

  He flung his hand up as if tossing something. “Gone. Worthless. I have it inside me but I can’t express it. Emanuel wouldn’t betray me. He meant me to learn something through our connection. To learn what it takes to trium
ph over our desperate histories.”

  Nadine closed her eyes and pressed her temples with her knuckles. “Why am I staying with you?” she asked.

  “I don’t know,” Richard said sharply, sitting upright with a jerk. She jumped in surprise.

  “Please don’t keep on.”

  “I don’t need you. I need time to think.”

  “Richard,” she beseeched, “you’re hungry. You’re not thinking straight. I know the Selector scared you. He scared me too. But they weren’t looking for you or me. They were looking for him. If they come back, we’ll tell them he’s in Hispaniola and they won’t bother us anymore.”

  He stretched deliberately, like an aging cat. His joints popped. “Selectors are full of shit,” he said calmly. “Almost everybody I know is full of shit.”

  “Agreed,” Nadine said. “Maybe even we are full of shit.”

  He disregarded that and stood as if about to make a pronouncement. She stood also. “Juice? Some food? I’ll make breakfast if you promise to eat it.”

  He nodded. “All right. I’ll eat.”

  From the kitchen Nadine said, “Can you really feel a connection to him? I’ve heard about that, you know. In twins.” She laughed. “You couldn’t possibly be twins, could you?”

  In the living room Richard watched the LitVid intently. There was no news on AXIS’s explorations. That was significant. Even the far stars showed the truth: things were out of balance. Something drastic had to be done to set them back in order.

  …those of us black people carried from Africa to other parts of the world, especially to the United States, are known to be in total ignorance of many truths, including what we are really like, what we have been made into by slavery and/or colonialism, and above all, how to care for our lares and penates, our household gods.

  —Katherine Dunham, Island Possessed

  43

  “In an hour or so we’ll give you the first vial of nanomachines,” Margery said. “They’ll take a few hours to work into your system. You’ll be asleep. At first your brain activity will be electronically controlled and then the nano will take charge, bringing you down to a level of what we call neutral sleep. You won’t be consciously aware of anything after that until we wake you up again.

  “Do you have any questions?”

  Goldsmith shook his head. “Let’s go.”

  “Is there anything more you’d like to tell us? Anything you think is important?”

  “I don’t know. It’s all kind of scary now. Do you know what you’ll look for, what you might find? You’ll learn whether or not I’m deranged?”

  “We know that already,” Erwin said. “You’re not ‘deranged’ in any biological sense. Within certain limits your brain and body functions are normal.”

  “I don’t sleep as much as I used to,” Goldsmith said.

  “Yes.” They knew that already.

  “Is this my time to confess again? I’m not sure what you want to know.”

  “If there’s anything important you’ve left out, tell us,” Erwin reiterated.

  “Well, Jesus, how can I know what’s important?”

  “Is there any question we haven’t asked that you think we should?”

  Expression of deep thought. “You never asked what was thinking about while killing the friends,” he said.

  “(Did you catch that?” Martin asked Carol in the observation chamber.

  “No personal pronouns at all,” Carol said.

  “Admitting nothing, not really, damn him,” Martin said. “Where’s Albigoni? He was supposed to be here by nine hundred.”)

  “What were you thinking about?” Margery asked.

  “They refused to see the way really am. They wanted somebody else. Don’t understand that, but it’s true. Defense. They were trying to kill.”

  “Is that why you killed them?”

  Goldsmith shook his head stubbornly. “Why not just put me to sleep now and let’s get on with it.”

  “We have another fifty minutes,” Margery said. “It’s all on schedule. Is there anything more you’d like to tell us?”

  “I’d like to tell you how miserable it is,” Goldsmith said. “I don’t even feel as if I’m alive now. I don’t feel any guilt or responsibility. I’ve tried to write poetry while being stuck in here and I can’t. I’m dead inside. Is this remorse? You’re psychologists. Can you tell me what I’m feeling?”

  “Not yet,” Erwin said.

  Lascal stood watching in the corner, saying nothing. He held his chin in one cupped hand, elbow resting in the other hand.

  “You asked me who I am. Well, I’ll tell you what I’m not. I’m not even a human being now. I have no sense of direction. I’ve screwed up everything. Everything is gray.”

  “It’s not uncommon when someone is under severe stress—” Margery began.

  “But I’m in no danger now. I trust Tom. I trust you folks. He wouldn’t have hired you if you weren’t good.”

  Erwin inclined with professional modesty. “Thank you.”

  Goldsmith looked around the room. “I’ve been stuck here for over a day now and I don’t really care. I could stay here forever and it wouldn’t bother me. Am I being punished? Am I getting depressed?”

  “I don’t think so,” Erwin said. “But—”

  Goldsmith held up his hand and leaned forward as if to confide. “Killed them. Deserve some punishment. Not just this. Something much worse. Should have gone to the Selectors. I agreed with John Yardley all the way. What would he do now? If he was a friend, he’d punish me.” Goldsmith’s voice did not rise in volume or tone.

  (“Flat affect,” Martin said, muffling his words with two liptapping fingers. He lifted the fingers away. “That’s all for now. They can withdraw.”)

  A signal light came on in Goldsmith’s room. Margery and Erwin said good bye to Goldsmith, folded their slates shut and stepped through the open door. Lascal followed them.

  Martin and Carol continued watching for a few moments after Goldsmith was alone. He sat on the bed, hands clasping the edge of the mattress, one hand slowly clenching and releasing. Then he stood up and began to exercise.

  Carol swiveled on her chair to face Martin. “Any clues?”

  Martin grimaced doubtfully. “Clues in abundance, but they contradict. We’re handicapped by not having studied multiple murderers before. I know the flat affect is meaningful. I’m puzzled by his willingness to admit involvement in the murder, but to avoid using the personal pronoun. That might be protective evasion.”

  “Doesn’t sound like a very specific diagnosis,” Carol said. Lascal, Margery, and Erwin came into the observation room. Erwin laid his slate on the desk and stretched his arms over his head, sighing deeply. Lascal looked uncomfortable but said nothing. He folded his arms and stood near the door.

  “He’s a glacier,” Erwin said. “If I’d just murdered eight people I’d be uno pico upset. That man is covered over by deep arctic ice.”

  Margery agreed. She removed her lab coat and sat on the desktop beside Erwin. “Only my love for science could keep me in the same room with that man,” she said.

  “We may have a trapdoor personality,” Carol said. “Someone in hiding.”

  “It’s possible,” Martin concurred. He addressed the room manager. “I’d like to run a vid of Goldsmith taken several years ago. Vid library personal tape two.” The wall display illuminated and a flat picture filled the screen: Goldsmith standing at a podium before a packed lecture hall. “This was shot at UC Mendocino in 2045. His famous Yardley speech. Got him more publicity and sold more books than anything he had ever done before. Notice the mannerisms.”

  Goldsmith smiled at the overflow audience, shuffled a small stack of papers on the podium and lifted his hand as if he were a conductor about to begin a piece of music. He nodded to himself and said,

  “I am a man without a country. A poet who does not know where he lives. Now how did this come about? Black people are economically integrated in our societ
y; I cannot say I face any more social discrimination for my race than a poet does for being a poet or a scientist for being a scientist. But until last year I have always known a deep feeling of spiritual isolation. If you’ve read my recent poems—”

  “Pause vid,” Martin said. “Notice. He’s smooth, energetic, alive. He could be a different man from the one we have here. His face is active. It’s thoughtful, worried and animated. There’s somebody at home.”

  Carol nodded. “Maybe we have a traumatized primary personality.”

  Martin nodded. “Now watch. Resume vid play.”

  “—you’ve noticed my concern for a place that doesn’t exist. I call it Guinée, just as my friends in Hispaniola do; it’s the home, the father and motherland none of us can return to, the Africa of our dreams. For blacks in the New World modern Africa bears no resemblance to the land we imagine. I don’t know how it is for a Caucasian or an oriental or even for other blacks but this dissociation, this cutting off of my mind from its home distresses me. You see, I believe that there was a beautiful place once called Africa, before the slavers came, no better perhaps than any other home, but where I would feel I belonged; a place with little industrialization, no machinery to speak of, a place of farmers and villagers, tribes and kings, nature religions, a place where gods came and spoke to the people directly through one’s own mouth.”

  “The dream he now denies,” Margery said. Martin agreed but held his finger to his lips and pointed to the screen.

  “But I must say this dream is not clear to me all the time. Mostly when I think about living in such a place I am torn and bewildered. I wouldn’t know how to live there. I was born in the real world of machines, a world where god never speaks to us, never makes us dance or act foolish, a land where religions must be sedate and solemn and inoffensive; where we pour our energies into monuments of intellect and architecture while neglecting the things we truly need: solace for our pain, a connection with the Earth, a feeling of belonging. And yet I do not belong in this world either. I have no home except for the one I describe in my poetry.”