by Javier Calvo
In the middle rows of the public, without the shield of any noteworthy architectural element, Eric Yanel and Marcia Parini are intertwined in a position that suggests Elizabethan metaphors about beasts with two backs. With Yanel's hands exploring remote labyrinths of lace and silk. Technically speaking, Eric Yanel and Marcia Parini have been living together in Marcia's apartment in the Palau de la Mar Fosca for a week. Now, when he gets into his bed next to Iris Gonzalvo, Giraut usually can feel a certain vibrating in the beams and supporting walls of the ducal palace. Accompanied by stereotypically passionate shrieks from the apartment downstairs. Like those stereotypical shrieks and vibrations heard through the walls in sex comedies. Now it is Giraut's lawyer who opens the section of the railing with hinges that leads to the defendant's area and closes it behind him. With a bundle of papers in his hand. With his tie indolently loosened around his collar. With no piece of clothing specifically appropriate to a lawyer over his shirt with the rolled-up sleeves.
“Your Honor.” The lawyer is rolling the bundle of papers in his hand. Creating a cylinder. “To continue I would like to demonstrate that Estefanía Giraut conspired and used illegal methods to prevent her late husband's last wishes from being carried out. In the sense that he designated his son as the primary shareholder in his corporation. I propose to demonstrate that Mrs. Giraut”—he points at Fanny Giraut with the paper cylinder—“met with her lawyer the day after her husband died to locate all existing copies of his will. And that, faced with the impossibility of replacing one of the copies, decided to begin a series of international operations designed to raise capital for an aggressive buyout of her son. None of these operations were authorized by the primary shareholder. Instead my client's signature was systematically forged. We attach a copy of these forgeries, Your Honor. My client was relegated to a position devoid of decision-making power while operations were carried out behind his back and without his consent.”
The non-Caucasian lawyer points alternately at Fanny Giraut and at Fonseca with his rolled-up bundle. Using it in a way that makes you think of a scepter or a ceremonial staff. Giraut extends his neck from his area of the room in order to see the place where Fonseca is sitting. Fonseca's face is very pale and his jaw is tense in such a way that on his cheek a tense muscle trembles. The movements of the veins on his temples can't be made out clearly because of the distance.
“We will show,” continues the lawyer, “that she tried to bribe and blackmail Mr. Lucas Giraut into giving up his stock. That she never gave him a chance. That there are documents supposedly written by my client that authorize illegal transactions to civil servants in the Bavarian government. Documents designed to implicate my client in cases of international corruption. That it was Mrs. Estefanía Giraut and her lawyer who deposited money into the Swiss bank accounts of various Bavarian politicians in order to obtain the concession for the restoration of an important public building. The Speyer Cathedral. And that, in the end, LORENZO GIRAUT, LTD., isn't qualified to take on that concession. That after a summary inspection, it's not licensed to operate in most of the countries that it operates in. That it is no more than a series of empty offices in various European capitals. With all their calls forwarded. We've looked into it, Your Honor. Empty warehouses. Without any consultants on the payroll. Without any international experts. Without any other executive positions than the one held by Mr. Chicote. Whose job seems to be contacting the payees of the deposits to the Swiss bank accounts.” He unrolls the bundle of papers in his hand. He smooths it out with a few smacks of his palm. Then he holds it up so everyone in the courtroom can see it. Even though they're mostly smoothed out, the pages maintain a certain curl caused by the inertia of the materials. “And now we will present this evidence to the Court.”
A court clerk takes the bundle from the lawyer's hand and distributes the different copies among the members at the table. The copy that he places on the desk of the fragile-skinned and copiously freckled lawyer for the plaintiff has a business card attached that reads: “BOCANEGRA GROUP, LTD., LEADERS IN THE ENTERTAINMENT SECTOR.” With a cordial handwritten message on the back. The judge flips through his copy of the evidence dossier with his glasses almost at the tip of his nose and a complex system of wrinkles on his disproportionate forehead that look like isobars on a meteorological map. Then he takes off his glasses and looks at Fanny Giraut with an expression bordering on annoyance.
“Please respond to the accusations we have just heard, Mrs. Giraut.” The isobars on the judge's forehead shake like low-pressure lines in the middle of a storm. The kind of forehead shaking usually associated with the elderly. “Since it seems the defense has just changed the course of these proceedings.”
Estefanía “Fanny” Giraut doesn't say anything. Although her eyes remain invisible behind her sunglasses, somehow her face conveys the impression that her eyes are simply looking straight ahead. Straight ahead and into the distance. As opposed to eyes that look at some concrete element in the public or in the court. A long moment passes. Audience members clear their throats, and cough and shift in their seats. Fanny Giraut's face doesn't show any alteration that could be associated with emotional reactions or any other kind of reactions. Her mouth is perfectly visible. Her mouth injected with collagen and silicone and painted dark red. In the middle of her sunken cheeks and unnaturally taut skin. The frequency of the throat clearings seems to increase.
“This court will remind the witness,” says the synthesized voice of the clerk, “that she is under an oath which also requires her to answer the questions she is asked.”
Silence. There is something essentially nonvisual in the way Fanny Giraut appears to be simply looking straight ahead. Without her gaze focusing on any specific visual element. Lucas Giraut changes position, uncomfortable, and tries to get the idea of his mother sitting in a chair warmed by his own body heat out of his head.
“Mrs. Giraut?” says the top-heavy judge. Staring at the witness. With a hint of confusion or incomprehension in his tone.
And then something happens to Fanny Giraut's face. Something that can't be identified with any type of visible emotional reaction. Something that is still quite nonvisual. Not quite an answer. Some sort of facial expression. Which makes very clear that Fanny Giraut's face lacks the internal structure necessary for making an expression. Some sort of facial expression with her wide-open mouth and her intensely white, pointy teeth. An expression that bares her teeth. And which doesn't create any wrinkles around her mouth. A clenching of the tendons in her neck. An expression that bares her teeth and clenches her tendons, producing a not-very-human effect. A slight trembling of her picture hat.
“I should have strangled him at birth,” says Estefanía Giraut through her teeth. Spraying little drops of saliva. With something that Lucas can't make out, but which seems to be a stream of white saliva slipping down her chin. With her voice strangely hoarse and a couple of octaves deeper than her usual tone. “I should have strangled him with the umbilical cord. I should have dropped him and stepped on his head. As soon as he was born.” The trembling of her picture hat intensifies. “I should have thrown him against the wall. 'Til he had no head left.”
The silence that follows Fanny Giraut's testimony is not sporadically interrupted by throat clearing or shuffling in the audience. It is a silence deeper than any Lucas can ever remember hearing.
WONDERFUL WORLD
By Stephen King
CHAPTER 59
The attack by the different factions of the Resistance on Capitol Hill had already been going on for twelve hours, according to Chuck Kimball's calculations. Without any kind of clocks, which would have immediately betrayed his location, Chuck had no way of knowing for sure. The mysterious electrical storm without any rain that had been battering the hill and its immediate surroundings since it got dark had kept him from telling the time by the sun or stars. The swirling mass of intensely black clouds already covered the entire sky. The Captors went in and out of the clouds, regrouping and
plummeting down onto vehicles and the columns of the Resistance. It was an incredibly arduous battle, and the attackers had to fight bitterly for every inch of territory. Now Chuck had no doubt that the storm was Their work. It was one of their electromagnetic tricks.
Chuck crawled through the trees, followed by his group, to the mouth of the sewer that the Resistance had marked with a red cross. He used the crowbar he carried in his backpack to lift the round lid and looked around inside with his flashlight. The metal ladder that connected the entrance to the main tunnel disappeared into the dark depths. Chuck turned to look at Paul Clark and the rest of his command. There wasn't one of his men whose features didn't painfully show the effects of hunger and sleepless nights, and yet each of their faces showed a determination and courage that filled Chuck with pride.
Paul seemed to be able to see that in Chuck's look.
“We're ready when you are, Mr. Kimball,” he said. Cocking his gun.
They all carried at least a couple of weapons, plus flashlights and the plastic explosives divided up among their four backpacks.
Chuck nodded and wiped the sweat from his forehead with his sleeve. He squatted beside the open sewer mouth, stuck one leg into the dark well, then the other, and finally began his descent. The descent that had to be the final episode in the war that began just two months earlier. The incursion that would decide the results of the conflict, one way or the other. The assault on Capitol Hill, with the hundreds of lives that would be lost before the sun came up, was nothing more than a distraction tactic to allow that small commando group to infiltrate the White House and find Doctor Angeli. The success of Chuck's mission would determine if that sacrifice was in vain.
Underground, in the main tunnel that, according to Chuck's map, connected the Hill's sewer system to the tunnel that led to the White House, Chuck moved forward in the middle of the group for what he calculated had to be four hundred yards. They all walked in silence along the elevated platforms that flanked the canal of wastewater. Paul and another young man in the local cell formed the scouting party, carrying flashlights taped to the barrels of their semiautomatic weapons. The beams of light swept the deserted tunnel as they advanced. There didn't seem to be any explosives or booby traps. If the Captors had foreseen an attack on the heart of their command center, their defense mechanisms were invisible to Chuck's group. For the moment.
Half an hour must have passed before Chuck found the tunnel fork. The walls and ceiling shook and resounded with each explosion on the surface, causing sand and rubble to rain down on the attack commando. Chuck pointed on his map to the steep uphill tunnel that split off to the right of the main tunnel.
“Here it is,” he said. “This tunnel has channeled the piss and shit of every president of our nation for two centuries.”
“Should I take off my hat?” Paul raised a hand to the bill of his cap jokily.
Stopped there at the entrance to the uphill tunnel, Chuck felt a knot in his stomach. There was no turning back. And yet, it was as if up until that moment he hadn't really considered the true magnitude and the very idea of what they had set out to do. Six people—five men and one woman—had set out to bring down an entire alien race who, by this point, had control over practically the entire planet Earth.
Paul must have sensed what was going through Chuck's head, because he put a hand on his shoulder and gave his collarbone a friendly pinch.
“We don't have much time,” said Paul. “Our people are dying up there.”
Chuck nodded and swallowed hard. They walked several hundred yards before the tunnel divided again. Now the commando members were splashing through a stream of cloudy water that flowed down with a babbling sound from somewhere high up on the hill. The sounds of the battle were constant and deafening.
After a moment, Chuck came up against Paul's back in the dark of the tunnel and realized that the scouting party had stopped. Paul and the other advance member of the commando were aiming their weapons upward. Pointing with their flashlights at the metal ladder that was the end of their underground expedition.
Chuck checked the map one more time and looked at his men. It was inevitable that he saw fear in their faces. None of the six had the least idea of what exactly they were going to find up there.
“Think of your loved ones,” said Chuck, folding the map and putting it away in the pocket of his camouflage army jacket. The same American army that was now his enemy, and which was decimating them on Capitol Hill. “Of your families and your friends. We still have a chance to save them. I refuse to accept that the process is irreversible.”
Five minutes later, the commandos had gone up the ladder and were in defense formation in some sort of underground room that Chuck identified as the lower section of one of those underground bunkers for the president. Part of the room had collapsed. The Resistance's rockets must have reached the White House.
“Let's go,” he said, and undid the safety on his AK-47 automatic assault rifle—the same rifle that in the last fifty years had become a symbol of political resistance throughout the world.
The systems of bunkers below the White House seemed to be deserted. The elevators were run by magnetic cards, so they were forced to blow out a few doors and go up the emergency stairs. They went up four flights before arriving at the collapsed wall, saving them the problem of having to use explosives that could damage the building's structure even further. But where was everyone?
It didn't take them long to find out.
“Take cover!”
It was the youngest member of the commando team who had shouted. A boy that couldn't have been much more than eighteen years old.
The six team members took cover under the ruins. In that part of the building, the dim light was interrupted by flashes from the explosions outside that came in through the windows.
Chuck extended his neck to look in the direction the boy was pointing. There were half a dozen National Guardsmen, armed and wearing helmets, blocking the hallway right in front of them, beyond the rubble. It was the guardsmen's position that was strange. They seemed to be in a defensive formation, standing in the middle of the hallway, and yet their arms fell motionless at their sides, making the barrels of their guns drag along the floor. They also had their heads bowed, so their chins touched their chests. In that position of deactivated automaton that was beginning to be familiar to Chuck.
Chuck left his hiding spot.
“What the hell are you doing?” said Paul through his teeth from behind Chuck's back.
Chuck raised the palm of one hand to reassure him.
“Trust me,” he said.
He walked up to the National Guardsmen and took off one of their helmets. He waved a hand in front of his face. The guardsman's pupils didn't respond to the stimulation.
“They're not here,” said Chuck. “They're out there. In the battle.”
The members of the Resistance commando unit slowly left their safe positions, but without lowering their guns and looking at their captain warily.
“The collective mind is busy with the battle,” ventured Paul, stopping six feet in front of the National Guardsmen.
“Which means,” said Chuck, “that the entire world is tuned into this battle. Probably the entire colonized world is filled with people like this.” He nudged the chest of the National Guardsman in front of him with the tip of his AK-47. “Which means that we have a chance to get to him. To Doctor Angeli.”
The six members of the commando unit resumed their path, following the signs on the walls that marked the way to the Oval Office. All the White House staff seemed to be at their posts. Sitting in front of their computers. The guides behind their counters. Office workers standing in front of photocopy machines, with their fallen arms still holding pages. There were National Guardsmen everywhere, some of them collapsed on the ground. Chuck and his men moved through them, stepping lightly and avoiding looking directly at their faces. At some point all those abandoned marionettes had been human beings like the
m. Maybe they still were in some corner of their minds.
They got to the Oval Office without any surprises. Paul blew out the retinal scanners and card readers with controlled explosions. The blasts from the plastic explosives could barely be heard through the thundering of the blasts outside. None of the commando members dared to peek out of any of the windows to see what was going on out there, to see how the battle was progressing.
And there it was, no doubt about it. The president's office. A place Chuck Kimball never dreamed he would visit and which he never would have had reason to visit if it weren't for all the horrible events of the last two months.
“Mr. Kimball,” called out Paul from behind his back.
But Chuck was already making his way down the wide hallway filled with portraits. Walking slowly, with his gun lowered. His face showed uncertainty but also something new, something similar to curiosity or intense expectation. He wasn't sure if his men were following him or if they had remained in the doorway. He felt the carpet of the Oval Office, extremely soft and springy under his feet. The large office windows showed a panoramic view that was very similar to Chuck's idea of hell.
A large part of Capitol Hill was in flames. There were movements of troops around the Lincoln Memorial and—Chuck couldn't help seeing out of the corner of his eye—a black void where the obelisk of the Washington Monument should be.
Chuck walked along the springy carpet. There was someone, or something, in the middle of the office. Sitting in a chair. It was larger than a human being. Chuck stopped and stared at the office's occupant, fascinated. His entire body seemed to be in bandages, with bloodstains on several parts. On the wrists and on the sides and on the forehead. There was no visible head, although the bone configuration of its skull was undeniably similar to the skulls of the Captors, which were structurally similar to snakes'. Where the eyes should be there were two weak yellow lights that could be seen through the bandages.