Transition

by Henry Charles Mishkoff

  Until what?

  Until we get rescued?

  Is that even a possibility?

  Is anybody even looking for us?

  “… and that is when I realized,” Akaso is saying (What is when he realized? Sunshine wonders. What did I miss?), “that my father’s insistence on non-violence was his downfall. It was a painful realization for me. I worshipped my father, like a god. But he was only a man, and he made a fatal mistake. You cannot fight the power of evil armed only with good intentions. You must fight violence with violence. You cannot fight imperialism with a smile. You must have these, and the will to use them. And you must be prepared to fight – and, if necessary, to die.”

  Where did that gun come from? Sunshine wonders, startled, as Akaso waves a handgun dramatically in the air. Does he keep it under his pillow? Why? Is it for protection? Is it to impress women with how powerful he is? “Be careful with that,” she gasps, involuntarily.

  Akaso chuckles condescendingly. “Do not be alarmed,” he says. “I know how to handle this. Did you not see my marksmanship in the square?”

  In the square… Oh, that’s right, you shot that reporter, Leida. You snuffed out her life for no good reason. And now you’re bragging about it.

  Sunshine lowers her eyes so that Akaso will not see the sudden rage that flashes in them. “That was very frightening,” she says, her voice shaking with anger. He’ll mistake it for fear, she hopes. But I’ve got to calm down. I’ll do some quick meditation exercises, the ones that Nathan taught me…

  Nathan.

  Was there anything good in what Nathan taught me? And how can I decide which lessons are worth remembering? How can I separate the good from the bad?

  Not now. Think about that later.

  “You needn’t be afraid,” Akaso says, a pronounced swagger in his voice. “In my hands, this gun is nothing more than an extension of my… of my…”

  …of your penis, you little shit…

  “…of my will. Of my power. It is not a power that you need to fear. The running dog Tanami and his imperialist lackeys will feel the deadly bite of its wrath. But those who are on the side of justice have nothing to fear from my weapons.”

  Sunshine looks back up at Akaso. “You’re very brave,” she says, risking a weak smile.

  Akaso stares back at her with maniacal intensity. Did I say something wrong? she wonders. Am I laying it on too thick?

  But it seems that Akaso is merely deep in thought, and his suddenly fierce visage just as abruptly gives way to a contented smile. “I will tell you just how brave I am,” he says, nodding. “Yes, I believe you are ready to hear.”

  He stops nodding and fixes her with an intense stare.

  “And we will find out,” he says, “if you are also ready to understand.”

  5.3.2: Aqevina

  With one fluid motion, Akaso flips open the cylinder of the revolver and shakes its contents into his hand.

  Six bullets slide out of the cylinder. They look like shiny miniature tin cans with reddish round tips that gleam dully in the dim light.

  He moves his hand, wiggling his fingers. The bullets clatter together, clicking like castanets. Then he reaches behind him and drops the bullets into a pile in the corner. But when he pulls his hand back, one bullet remains. He holds it up between his thumb and forefinger, turning it back and forth, inspecting it as if he were appraising a piece of merchandise.

  Slowly, carefully, as if he’s performing some kind of dark ritual, he replaces the solitary cartridge in the cylinder and gives it a hard spin. It clicks ominously, like fingernails drumming on a metal table. Then it is silent. He flips the cylinder back into the body of the gun and spins it again, click-click-click-click-click. And again. And again.

  “There comes a time in our lives,” Akaso intones, somberly, “when each of us must decide. We can declare our solidarity with the oppressed, or we can join the forces of the oppressor. We can be strong in our convictions, or we can be seduced by greed. We may choose not to decide, but that, too, is a decision – a decision to be passive, rather than active.

  “Last year,” he continues, “I made the decision to take the mantle of my martyred father onto my own shoulders. It was not an easy decision. I wrestled with it for months. I was growing comfortable in my new life as a student at an American university. The desperate strife of my people seemed more and more remote every day, like one of your soap operas. I watched movies and played video games, while halfway around the world my countrymen begged for enough money to feed their families. I studied repression in comfortable classrooms, while my countrymen lived its harsh realities every day.”

  Grimacing, Akaso shakes his head, as if ashamed of his former indolence. His eyes gleam with an almost religious intensity as he recounts his tale, which seems to have taken on – in his own mind, at least – mythical proportions.

  “But all the time,” he continues, “all the time, my father’s voice kept nagging at me, kept urging me to do my duty. I tried to ignore it, but my father’s voice would not let me rest. And then, one day, this came into my hands.” He holds the gun high in the air and waves it, as if he were showing it off to a crowd. “It fell into my possession in a card game, of all things – a decadent game of chance.”

  He speaks with a sense of awe, and he looks meaningfully at Sunshine, giving her the firm but baffling impression that she’s supposed to have gleaned some special significance from this information. Am I supposed to say something? she wonders.

  But to her relief, Akaso picks up his narrative without waiting for a response.

  “A lesser man,” he says, “might not have realized the incredible significance of this seemingly chance event. But I, of course, understood that the instrument of my destiny had been placed in my hands. This was not merely a weapon. It was a gift from God. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  I don’t have the slightest idea of what you’re talking about, Sunshine thinks. But she nods thoughtfully and says: “I think so.”

  “Later that very evening,” Akaso continues, “I loaded a single bullet into the cylinder of this revolver, just as you have seen me do now. I spun it several times, as I have just done. I held it to my head. I cocked the hammer. I pulled the trigger. And do you know what happened?”

  I know what I wish had happened, Sunshine thinks. But she only shakes her head, suitably wide-eyed, appropriately anxious.

  “Nothing happened. The hammer clicked. The chamber was empty. My life was spared. So I knew.”

  You knew? You knew what? “You knew…” Sunshine says, searching for inspiration. “You knew that God wanted you to…” Wanted you to do what?

  Akaso nods, not noticing that Sunshine had been unable to complete her thought. “Yes!” he agrees emphatically, “I understood that God wanted – no, not wanted, insisted – that God was insisting that I take the weapon that He had placed in my hands and use it as the instrument of His vengeance. You see, if God had not approved of my turning away from my father’s policy of non-violence, he would have ended my life there and then. When I squeezed the trigger, a bullet would have exploded into my skull, terminating my existence. When I spun the cylinder, I was permitting God to determine the course of my life. To most people, it would have seemed like a random event. But there is no such thing as randomness. Everything happens for a purpose.”

  That sounds just like something Nathan would say, Sunshine thinks glumly. No wonder you two got along so well.

  “Since that day, I have repeated this process only once. Several weeks ago, I returned home to my country and began to recruit others to help me carry out my plan. My father’s associates – those few who remain alive – have become old and tired,” Akaso says, disparagingly. “Most of them refused even to meet with me. Only a few agreed to help me. I knew that my real support would come from the remnants of the Red October movement. It was not difficult to establish contact with them. And they were interested in my plan, as I knew they would be. But they lacked fa
ith in me. I had to prove to them that I was not a coward. I had to show them that I had been chosen by God to break the chains of my people. So again, I spun the cylinder. Again, I placed the gun to my head. Again, I let God speak for me.”

  “Golly. You are brave,” Sunshine says. You’re a fool, she thinks. And, unfortunately, a lucky one, at that. “But weren’t you afraid?”

  Akaso shrugs. “As long as I am a faithful servant of God, I have nothing to fear.”

  “Not even a little? I’d be terrified. I mean, each time you do it, the odds are greater and greater that you’ll shoot yourself…”

  “No, no, no.” Akaso is agitated. “You do not understand me.”

  Uh-oh, Sunshine thinks, I’ve upset him. She casts her eyes down in dismay. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I thought…”

  “Listen,” Akaso demands. “This has nothing to do with odds. This has nothing to do with chance at all. This is not gambling. This is not Russian roulette.” He pauses and searches briefly for a suitable explanation before continuing.

  “Look,” he says. “Here is what you are saying. You think that the first time I did it, the odds were only one in six that I’d die. When I repeated it, the chances of my death went up to one in three. Is that the way you’re thinking?”

  “I… I don’t know… I hadn’t really…”

  “By that reasoning, if I were to do it again, I’d have only a fifty-fifty chance of surviving, yes? And if I repeated it once more, the odds would actually be in favor of my death. Is that right?”

  Well, I’m certainly in favor of your death, Sunshine thinks, but she shakes her head and tries to look confused. “I’m not sure,” she says. “I never was very good with numbers…”

  “Numbers have nothing to do with it!” Oh no, she’s somehow said the wrong thing again, and now Akaso is really upset. “We are not discussing mathematics. We are not discussing statistics. I could put the gun to my head a hundred times – a thousand times, a million times, it does not matter. As long as I am performing the will of God, He will protect and defend me. It is not chance that decides where the bullet is when the cylinder stops spinning. It is the invisible hand of God. I will die when God wants me to die, and not a moment sooner. I will remain alive as long as He wills it – no matter how high the ‘odds’ are against it.”

  He’s crazy, Sunshine thinks. Not only does he believe that he has a direct link with God, he thinks that God speaks to him through a six-shooter.

  And the funny part is: If he had told me this story yesterday – or even an hour ago – I probably would have accepted it. Until I came face to face with Nathan’s treachery, I really did believe that God works through certain special people, that some of us have extraordinary spiritual gifts that separate us from mere mortals.

  That’s what I believed.

  But what do I believe now?

  For one thing, I believe in stalling this… this madman. Stalling him for as long as possible. Keeping him away from Jill until… Until what? Until we’re rescued? Until the cavalry rides in on their white horses?

  Don’t think about it. Don’t think about long-range plans. Think about right now. Concentrate on the moment. That’s what Nathan would say.

  But if Nathan would say it, could it have any value at all?

  But I shouldn’t reject everything he ever taught me just because I reject him.

  Or should I?

  It’s all too confusing. I’ll think about it later.

  And then it comes to her, a fiendishly clever idea that just seems to spring into her mind fully formed. And so, hoping that she looks suitably abashed, she raises her eyes to Akaso’s.

  “I do understand,” she says. “It’s just so… so overwhelming.”

  Akaso waves magnanimously. “It needn’t be.”

  “What you’re saying is that you could… you could hold the gun to your head, and you could pull the trigger as many times as you wanted to, and nothing would happen.”

  “Of course,” Akaso confirms. “As long as I am faithful to the will of God, I have nothing to fear. My life will end when God wills it, and not a moment sooner. And He does not require a game of chance to terminate my existence.”

  “So you could, for example, do it again, right now, without being even the tiniest bit afraid.” She’s careful to phrase it as a statement, but a lift in her voice at the end turns it into at least a partial question.

  Akaso hesitates. “Of course,” he confirms, but tentatively. “I have nothing… there is no reason to… I mean, there is nothing to be afraid of.”

  This is going to be delicate, Sunshine thinks. But I can pull it off.

  “Ooooh,” she says, breathlessly, her eyes wide. “You would really do that? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who would be brave enough to do something that dangerous.” She shudders. “I mean, I understand that it’s not dangerous for you, but still…”

  “It is not a game,” Akaso says, frowning. “It is the symbolization of a solemn compact between myself and God. It is not something to be repeated on demand, like a common parlor trick.”

  “Oh, no, of course not.” Sunshine sounds disappointed. “I wasn’t trying to suggest that you do it again just for me.” She smiles thinly, unconvincingly. She begins to let her eyes wander around the room, as though she has suddenly lost interest. “I mean, it would be like tempting fate, or something like that…” Her voice trails off. She resists the urge to meet his eyes. She tries to look bored.

  “It would be nothing of the kind,” Akaso says, after a pause. “My fate is in the hands of God. God cannot be tempted like a child with candy. He does what He does.”

  “Of course.” She smiles insincerely, meets his eyes briefly, then looks away.

  “I mean, it would be completely safe. There would be no danger for me, not in the slightest degree. As I have explained.”

  “Oh, I understand. You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  “Prove anything…” This seems to come as a new idea to Akaso.

  “Sure. I believe that you’re not afraid. You don’t have to prove it to me. I believe you.”

  “I am not afraid.”

  “That’s what I said,” Sunshine confirms, pleasantly.

  “I have nothing to be afraid of.”

  “I understand,” she says, with the kind of patronizing sympathy usually reserved for a whining child. “I understand completely. Really, I do.”

  She surveys the room, examines the bookshelves, stares at the candles. She tries to imagine the room with the young Sammy and his family in residence. What kind of business, she wonders, was transacted at the desk before its owner was murdered? Does it now serve as Akaso’s “command post”? Do his companions gather around the desk, awaiting his instructions? Does he lean back in the big chair, the chairman of the board, his feet on the desk…

  “Of course,” Akaso finally says, “there is no reason why I could not do it again.”

  Her eyes race back to his.

  “In fact,” he says, nodding, “it would be a good idea. To celebrate the beginning of our relationship. To cement the bond between us.”

  “Oh, yes,” she says, breathlessly. Relationship? “I agree, completely.” I guess that’s good – if he thinks we have some kind of “relationship,” maybe he’ll stay away from Jill.

  “It would symbolize the union of our two forces. You are the first American to join our cause. It is a momentous occasion. It must be suitably ceremonialized.”

  Sunshine squirms in what she hopes will pass for sexual anticipation. “Do it,” she says, urgently. “Do it.”

  Akaso smiles. He holds the gun in the air and spins the cylinder once again. To Sunshine, it seems to be turning in slow motion, an instant replay, a miniature roulette wheel. Where will the ball land? Will it land on my lucky number?

  “I do this,” Akaso explains, “to confirm God’s blessing on our union.”

  He makes it sound like we’re getting married, Sunshine thinks.


  “If God consents to let me live, it will be a sign that… that…” – he searches for significance – “… that the righteous wrath of the combined forces of the oppressed people of Qen Phon and people of honor in the United States will grind the forces of the tyrant Tanami into the dust.”

  He flicks the cylinder once more. It clicks, stops, settles into place. He pulls the hammer back into firing position. He holds the gun to his head. The end of the long, cold barrel nestles in a tuft of hair over his right ear. His hand is steady.

  Their eyes lock, hers wide with anticipation, his narrow with purpose. She licks her lips, then she covers them with her fingers. Her skin turns to prickles of gooseflesh.

  The room is charged with an expectant, electric tension that is so palpable that she can hear it, a low, mantra-like buzz that seems to originate in the center of her skull, filling her head with an exquisitely sensuous hum.

  Gently, he caresses the trigger. Slowly, ever so slowly, his hand begins to tighten. The moment stretches. Surely the fabric of time itself has become elastic.

  If there is a God, Sunshine thinks, if there really is a God, Akaso will be dead in just a couple of seconds, slain by his own hand, a fitting end for a man who abandoned the principles of his father and chose the path of violence. And then what? His head will explode, and he’ll fall over, and there will be blood everywhere, and his comrades will burst in and see their fallen leader.

  And will they think that I killed him? Or will they believe that he shot himself? Probably. Hopefully. After all, they’ve seen him perform this stupid ritual before, they’re aware of his propensity for toying with self-destruction. And what will they do then? Will they be so disheartened by the death of their leader, so confused, that they’ll abandon their plan? Set me and Jill free? Or will they honor Akaso as a martyr, like his father, and rededicate themselves to his memory?

  And when the hammer falls, she squeals, just one sharp exclamation of terror.