Transmigration

by Nicholas Maes

  “Where’s St. Luke’s Roosevelt?” Simon asked.

  “At least introduce yourself!” the kaba cried indignantly. “What are you? An alien or something?”

  “My name’s Simon, if you really want to know. So where’s St. Luke’s Hospital?”

  “Is your wife having a baby, mack?”

  “Something like that,” Simon answered.

  “Why didn’t you say so? Okay, here’s what you do: go due north to 58th. You taking a cab?”

  “I’ll be travelling by bird.”

  “No kidding? Head west on 58th, fly over Central Park, pass Columbus Circle until you reach 10th Avenue. If you like Greek food, there’s this joint on 4th …”

  But Simon had already left the man, whom he half-admired for his friendliness and gumption. New Yorkers. Go figure.

  Halfway down the block, on a building’s ledge, he discovered a flock of pigeons roosting. He nabbed one and used it to fly straight up a hundred storeys, then he headed north. A wealth of noise and lights assailed him. Out of the corner of his eye he spied the Chrysler Building, Rockefeller Plaza, the Empire State, the famous library, the lights of Times Square, and other famous monuments. How he longed to fly in closer and look them over.

  But he wasn’t there as a tourist.

  That must be it, he thought, as a building loomed in front of him. It was good thing he’d been told to follow the park. There were so many high-rises, so many lights, so many trains and cars and buses, so many billboards and other distractions that it would have been easy to lose his bearings.

  Below him was a structure that sprawled for half a city block. It was twenty storeys tall and had lots of vents and fans on its roof, way too many for a residential complex. The back of the building didn’t tell him much, so he steered the pigeon lower, to the front entrance on the east side of 10th. There was a sign sure enough: St. Luke’s Roosevelt.

  He drew close to an ornate entrance and scanned its heights, which consisted of light-coloured brick and a grid of windows. Were some of them open? There. On the fourteenth floor one was open a crack. Parking the pigeon on a nearby ledge, Simon quit its vadh and entered the hospital in kaba form. He found himself in a small room with two narrow beds. Each held a sleeping senior with tubes and wires running from their limbs. Stealing past them, Simon shot into a hallway that was cluttered with a line of trays on wheels, monitors, walkers, and a linen cart. There was also an old lady seated in a wheelchair and a man in a suit standing beside her.

  “I’ll get you some water, Mom, and then I’ll go. They don’t like visitors staying later than they should.”

  The lady said nothing. She was old and wrinkled, and her body was wasted. To judge by her expressionless eyes, she had Alzheimer’s or some similar condition. Her weakness worked to Simon’s advantage. As her son stepped away from the chair, Simon closed in on her shatl.

  “Who are you?” her kaba swiftly demanded.

  Before he could answer, it asked, “Who am I?”

  “I’m Simon,” he answered. “Would you like a ride?”

  “A ride? That would be lovely. But who’s going to push? That young man has gone and left me alone.”

  “He’s off to get some water. You and I will push together.”

  Without further ado, he set her hands on the wheelchair’s rims. Concentrating hard, he managed to get them working. At first their progress was slow, but soon they were moving at a pretty good clip. Twice they almost crashed into something, but Simon was able to steer them clear. After travelling fifty metres, they drew up to an elevator. Hanging on one wall was a map of the building, much to Simon’s satisfaction.

  He looked it over quickly. The maternity ward was two floors down. He pressed a button and waited for the lift to appear.

  “Where’s that man?” the lady asked. “He’s very nice.”

  “He is very nice,” Simon agreed. “He called you ‘Mom’ so he must be your son.”

  “I don’t remember,” the kaba moaned. “But I’m sure I love him. Isn’t that odd?”

  The elevator came and he wheeled them aboard. Two nurses were chatting and Simon asked them for floor twelve. He spoke to them in the woman’s voice, which was gravelly and surprisingly low.

  When the doors for the twelfth floor opened, he wheeled them down an immaculate hallway. Following signs to the birthing centre, he drew them up to his destination.

  “Babies!” the kaba cried. “I love babies. Especially newborns.”

  “They’re very sweet,” Simon agreed.

  They were poised before a long picture window. Behind the glass were thirty bassinets on wheels. Each bassinet contained a single baby. Some were large, some tiny, some bald, some full of hair. Half were in pink blankets, the others in blue.

  A heavy nurse was exiting the room. Before the door could close completely, Simon left the lady and wandered inside.

  The babies seemed okay, Simon thought. A few were flailing their arms about and groaning, twisting and making faces, but for the most part they seemed peaceful. They were adorable too and he had to smile.

  Although …

  He studied them more carefully. Something was off. While five were squirming and grunting and burping, the rest were lying very still. Not only that, but the five ”troublemakers” had their eyes half closed while the remainder were staring wide-eyed at the ceiling. They all bore smiles.

  He drew up to a baby girl and looked into her pupils. He jumped back in shock. No doubt about it. There was something alien behind her eyes, something intelligent, ancient, and far from friendly. As if sensing Simon’s kaba, the newborn bared its gums.

  The bolkhs had won themselves twenty-five limnls.

  Simon wanted out of there. Luckily enough, the nurse had returned and, as the door opened briefly, Simon escaped. He plunged into the lady again and shoved off from the window, as if fleeing the carnage of an accident scene. Those poor, poor newborns. They’d been murdered as soon as they’d drawn their first breath.

  Steering the wheelchair down the hall, he spied a women’s washroom and approached it quickly. If Jenny were scattering clues behind, chances were she would have left one there, immediately beside the scene of the crime. Propping the chair against the door, Simon inspected the space.

  Sure enough, he found a gob of spit and a message from Jenny, “Sloane Hosp mat ward.”

  He returned to the lady and got the wheelchair rolling. He felt like puking. There were more wards to visit before he caught up with Tarhlo, and that meant examining more murder scenes. He wondered if his nerves could take it.

  They were poised by the elevators. As Simon debated his next course of action a door popped open and the woman’s son emerged. With him was a pair of nurses. The son’s look of worry turned to one of relief as soon as he spied his aged mother. The nurses couldn’t help but laugh, amused that she had managed to elude them.

  “How did you do it?” the man asked, embracing his mother. “I didn’t think you could wander the hallways.”

  “She’s a deep one,” one of the nurses said. “You might not think it, but she’s still busy in that head of hers.”

  “I just wish she could hear me,” the son said sadly. “I’ll bet she thinks she’s a burden on me. But I love these visits. I wish I could tell her.”

  “You don’t have to,” Simon spoke, on behalf of the lady. “I know you love seeing me and I’m blessed to have a son like you. Even when my memory’s gone, my love for you will be here always. Remember that for the two of us.”

  The son’s jaw dropped and the nurses were gasping. With this message delivered, Simon left the lady’s shatl.

  He had a long night’s work ahead of him still.

  The sun was dissolving the shadows. Pigeons were already beginning to stir. Three of them were wandering near Simon’s feet, hoping he had some crumbs to feed them. The traffic was mounting and people were strolling, morning cups of coffee in hand. Most were headed for City Hall, located to the left of Simon. The light w
as striking its limestone front, and its stairs and portico looked grand and inviting. The hubbub was rising as the city prepared itself for another day. An electric current hung in the air: there was money to be made, or so a Wall Street suit suggested as he walked by Simon with a look of disapproval.

  Simon was on a bench in City Hall Park, close to the junction of Park Row and Broadway, poised in the shadow of the Woolworth Building. His mood was hardly cheerful.

  He was bone, bone tired. After leaving St. Luke’s, he’d travelled to the Sloane Maternity Hospital, a few blocks away from the George Washington Bridge. There he’d encountered close to forty newborns whose kabas had been ousted and replaced by bolkhs. Another clue from Jenny had directed him to the Lenox Hill maternity ward, where the bolkhs had struck again. From there he’d proceeded to Bellevue Hospital, where another forty-two newborns had been hijacked. That brought the total to a hundred and thirty, and Tarhlo had been operating for just one day.

  Jenny’s final clue had read, “Downtown Hosp, morning.” Simon inferred from this note that they’d quit for the evening, gone to a hotel, and would resume once visiting hours started the next day. He was seated there in City Hall Park because their next target was two blocks off. In an hour or so there would be a showdown.

  Simon bit his nails. His shatl was a thirty-year-old man whom he’d nabbed at Bellevue two hours before. He’d had several candidates to choose from in the emergency ward. There’d been five drunks, three heroin addicts, two gunshot victims, a schizophrenic, an older woman who was mumbling nonsense, and a man who’d died of a heart attack in the middle of jogging. Examining these shatls, Simon had gone for the dead man: not only could he control him for as long as he needed, but the guy was carrying a wad of cash. He hated using the dead like this but was doing so for the sake of the living.

  The last few days were starting to tell on Simon. While he needed all his strength to deal with Tarhlo, the news of his origins, his travels across Europe, his uncle’s capture, the kabas in Clara, the attacks on the newborns, and the coming showdown, all were weighing him down. But what really ate at him was the Carpenters. If he could explain himself to his former family, how he’d never intended to deceive anyone and was grateful for the years he’d spent with them, everything would seem a little less hopeless. Even if the odds were stacked against him. But why would the Carpenters waste their kindness on him? Because of him they’d been deprived of their son and forced to rear some ghostly caveman.

  And yet … He looked at his hands, the ones belonging to the jogger. Maybe the guy had been a horrible jerk. Maybe he’d been a lousy dad, son, and husband. But if a doctor phoned his loved ones up and told them he’d made a terrible mistake, that their dad, son, and husband was alive and kicking? Wouldn’t they greet the news with joy? So maybe the Carpenters would be glad if he gave them a call. And even if they were upset, it would do him good to hear their voices.

  He climbed to his feet. A minute later he was standing in a phone booth and asking the operator to place a collect call. After punching in his mom’s cell number, he waited breathlessly as a phone started ringing.

  “Hello?” his mother, Ms. Carpenter, spoke.

  “There’s a collect call from Simon,” the operator said. “Do you accept the charges?”

  “Yes! Of course!” Ms. Carpenter cried. “Simon? Are you okay?”

  “Yes. Listen, Mom, I mean, Phyllis …”

  “Don’t you dare!” she yelled indignantly. “How dare you call me anything but Mom! I raised you from birth! I held you, fed you, and put you to sleep. Can you guess how many happy times we’ve shared? Don’t you dare think of taking those riches away!”

  “But you must know …”

  “I have a new son. His name is Si, to distinguish him from you. But we didn’t gain one son only to lose another!”

  “I … I … But what if I visit in a stranger’s body? What if …”

  “We don’t care! Do you hear? We don’t care! We’ll welcome you in any shape, size, or colour! Just come back as soon as you can, day or night, spring or fall! Do you hear, my love? Do you understand?”

  Simon swallowed hard. When he finally spoke, he asked if the others were okay. His mother told him they were back at home. Emma had left a letter with Si, explaining how their babies’ kabas had been swapped. She’d apologized profusely and assured them that the danger had passed. Tarhlo wasn’t interested in them. So everything was normal now, except that he was absent and they missed him terribly. Luckily his body was with them still, even if someone new was inside.

  “And you?” she asked. “Are you okay?”

  “I am now,” he answered, with a bark of laughter. “I could fight an army on my own if I had to.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Simon took a deep breath. Still buried in the heart attack victim, he stepped inside a revolving door, a new knapsack in hand. The talk with his mother had done him good. Not only were his nerves less strained, but his blood was up and he was feeling optimistic. Because his head was clear he’d come up with a plan — not a great one, necessarily, but a plan nonetheless. To make it work he need “equipment.” After talking with his mother, Simon had done some shopping, taking advantage of the cash in the jogger’s pockets.

  In the hospital foyer a guard scanned him briefly. He didn’t like what he saw and waved him over.

  “Can I help you?”

  “I would like to go upstairs. My wife just had a baby.”

  “Visiting hours don’t start until ten.”

  “I’d really like to see her.”

  “You and everyone else,” the guard said snidely. “A group just asked to go up early. What do folks think this is? Grand Central Station?”

  “When was this?”

  “I don’t know. Twenty minutes ago.”

  “Does that mean I can go up too?”

  “Yeah, okay. Fifth floor, on your right. And, sir?”

  “Yes?” Simon asked with a note of worry.

  “Congratulations.”

  Simon smiled weakly and approached the elevators. Some patients and staff were milling about but they didn’t pay him any notice, unaware that they were rubbing shoulders with a dead man. The elevator opened and there was a gurney inside. On it was an older man who was knocked out cold.

  As they climbed to the fifth floor, Simon glanced at the gurney. Because the guy was unconscious he could have been hijacked; no, with so many bolkhs at large he should have been hijacked. But as far as he could tell, the bolkhs hadn’t touched him.

  “Why nab him,” Simon thought, “when they can be limnls?”

  They arrived at the fifth floor and the metal door opened. Simon exited and was alone in the hallway. From his bag he took a pair of headphones, ones that would cancel out any background noises (that’s at least what the packaging said). When he’d put them on he pulled out something else.

  Simon had found a cassette player in a shop on Broadway. Amazed that these were still available, he pressed his luck further and asked if the store sold tapes as well. A tired-looking clerk had led him to a bin full of tapes featuring all kinds of music. Because Simon hated music he had no idea what he was looking for. That’s why he had asked the clerk, “Can you recommend something that would grate on someone’s nerves?” The clerk had stared at him as if he were nuts. With a shrug, he’d quickly chosen The Bob Dylan Collection. “This is something you either hate or love,” he’d said, “and if you hate it, it will drive you bonkers.”

  Simon placed the tape into the player, the way a hunter loads shells into a shotgun’s chambers. Making sure the player’s batteries were in, he took it in hand and continued forward. His “weapon” gave him confidence.

  A door marked off the maternity ward. Pausing outside, he reached into his bag again and removed a bottle containing a milk-white fluid. He inhaled deeply and wished himself luck. Opening the door he crossed its threshold.

  He’d been bracing for the sight of Tarhlo, but it was still shocking when Sim
on spied him in the flesh, together with his travel companions.

  Simon counted twelve of them. Jenny and Emma were seated in an alcove, along with eight women who were definitely hemindhs. They were nicely dressed and properly groomed, but their expressions and posture showed that something was off, that there was madness beneath their mascara and lipstick. Four of the faces were deathly pale, as if these crones had been invalids before they were snatched.

  Tarhlo was three paces away with his back to Simon. It was easy to see that his shatl was different. The one before had been dark and slender, while this one was ruddy and had a boxer’s build. The switch made sense. His old shatl couldn’t travel without papers and obtaining them would have been far from easy. He’d travelled inside Clara and found a shatl on landing.

  And Clara? She was standing a few feet to the right of Tarhlo. Her limbs and features were unnaturally still — from the smakho, Simon thought. Her eyes were directed on a window before her, behind which lay more bassinets on wheels. There were nineteen of them altogether, each with a newborn in a blue or pink blanket. The scene was peaceful, but Simon almost retched.

  The babies were being ousted even as he watched. A door to the ward lay on the far side of Clara and a wooden chair was propping it open. The bolkhs were invisible to the naked eye, but for sure they were swooping into the ward. And while they couldn’t be seen, their actions could. The newborns were twitching, not in the way that babies do, but with a wildness that suggested they were fighting to survive. They were. The bolkhs were tearing into them and kicking out their kabas — like snails or turtles being ripped from their shells. These frail luras were putting up a fight but the bolkhs were pitiless and the newborns were — newborns.

  It was easy to see when a bolkh won out. After shaking violently and tossing his limbs, the baby would grow eerily still and lie on his back with his eyes wide open.

  The sight was so disgusting that Simon gasped. In the silence it sounded like a gun going off and attracted everyone’s eyes to him — Emma’s, Jenny’s, the hemindhs’ … and Tarhlo’s.