by Kage Baker
“I will go to Babylon, fairest of cities, beloved of Ishtar,” she said. “I will not lose it again!”
“Cool,” said Einar, scrambling unsteadily to his feet. “Let’s go now. Come on, you guys, it’s just over on Sunset. God knows there’s no traffic. We can get there in no time.”
I remember that Porfirio did some protesting, and so did Oscar, but one way or another we found ourselves galloping through the night. That is, Einar and Imarte galloped; the rest of us rode in the wagon, driven by Porfirio at a rattling clip as he tried to catch up with those two. I clutched at my chaplet of roses and wondered what I was doing as we thundered along through the damp night air under a very amused moon.
It was a wide sloping piece of ground where we stopped, an old floodplain with a view of the distant lights of Los Angeles and the more distant sea, pale and obscure under the moon. Was that Catalina Island out there?
Einar and Imarte had dismounted. She was standing motionless; he was striding with arms outstretched through the sagebrush and chamise.
“Right here,” he was saying. “This will be the lot adjacent to the Fine Arts studio complex. Can you see it? And where I’m standing, babe, we’re on that Grand Staircase! Look up there behind us in the moonlight, there are the elephants! There are the winged bulls bright as day. They’re here, and more real than this empty place or the asphalt that covers it later. Silver nitrate’s made Babylon eternal for all time, and the prophets can’t do a thing about it. This is Ishtar’s city of love and tolerance. Can you smell the incense? Can you hear the music?”
I very nearly could. I found I was still clutching the cocktail shaker and took a fortifying gulp. Imarte stretched out her arms to the moon and gave a plaintive cry. She began to dance, there in the moonlight, over the stones and red sand, through the yucca and the cactus and other herbs that never lifted bud or branch in Belshazzar’s city so long fallen. It was no stiff absurd dance either, no attempt to choreograph a flat wall painting; it was lithe and savage, a little unsteady, something you’d really dance at a bacchanal.
“Is she nuts?” asked Juan Bautista, who cowered shivering beside me. “What’s she doing?”
“She’s just had enough gin, that’s all,” Porfirio told him.
“You think that’s all it is?” I had another belt from the cocktail shaker. “She’s crazy with pain. She’s so much older than the rest of us, and she was really there, wasn’t she, when Cyrus came crashing down on Babylon. What if you’d loved a place like that, and seen it go down in flames? What if you’d buried it in your heart for centuries, all that lost glory safely forgotten, and then one night, when you least expected it, something brought it to life for you again? How do you think you’d feel? How will you feel, kid, a hundred centuries from now, when you’re as old as she is?”
“I won’t be like that,” said Juan Bautista. “That’s not supposed to happen to us. We don’t go crazy, we can’t, we’re perfect! Aren’t we?”
“Shut up, Mendoza,” said Porfirio quietly, and Oscar fumbled the cocktail shaker from my icy grasp.
“Of course we are, son, we’re positively the last word in cybertechnology,” he assured Juan Bautista.
I staggered to my feet and flung my chaplet of roses out into the middle of what would be Sunset Boulevard one day, when all this sweet wild land would be buried under an urban nightmare. And what would I be feeling, when I was as old as Imarte? What would have become of the places I’d loved? What if there were no more oak trees or redwoods, what if California itself slipped under the Pacific, drowned and broken up, as lost as Atlantis?
And I was going to lose it all, when that steel cancer of a future city was built. It wouldn’t even take a global calamity: just millions of mortals moving west. I would lose my wilderness just as I’d lost Nicholas, and how would I live then?
I drew in my breath to howl at the moon, but Einar came bounding up to the wagon. He held up his pistol by its barrel, pretending it was a microphone again. “Let’s hear what our studio audience has to say! Sir, can you tell the wonderful people out there in the dark what personal revelations you had tonight?” He thrust it under Oscar’s nose.
“Oh, this is silly,” Oscar said. “But—very well.” He took the gun and held it up. “If you really want to know, why, I think there’s a brilliant message in that film, and Griffith really was a genius born too soon. He’s telling us loud and clear just what’s going to bring on that earthly paradise he envisions at the end, and you know what it is?
“Technology. Yes, sir, ladies and gentlemen, consider for a moment. What turns the tide of battle (albeit temporarily) against the Persians? None other than the superior technology of the Babylonians, as exemplified by their marvelous machine of war. And consider! Don’t the other tragedies occur because prospective rescuers are delayed in their efforts by inferior means of transportation? Reflect upon the fact that, of all the stories presented, the one story that ends happily does so solely because of modern and efficient means of locomotion. Yes! The automobile brings the Boy’s pardon! Now, just what would have happened if that Mountain Girl or the French fellow had had Fords with which to speed to the rescue of their loved ones?”
“What would have happened if Christ’s apostles had had grenades and rocket launchers?” I said, dropping into the bed of the wagon.
“Precisely! That is, er, anyhow, it seems mighty clear to me that what the great David Wark Griffith was foreseeing was nothing less than us. For are we not the veritable saviors of Earth, the ultimate marriage of man’s mechanical genius with his biological possibilities? Why should any cyborg feel shame? Is it not an honor to be descended from the noble Model T no less than from Adam? I don’t know about you folks, but I’m proud, proud of my mingled heritage.” Oscar flung his chaplet out into what would one day be the roof of the Kinema-color lab. He handed the gun back to Einar, who was applauding.
“Bravo, Mr. O! And what about you, sir, do you have an epiphany you’d like to share with the folks listening at home?” He thrust the gun at Porfirio.
“What home?” I said. “We have no homes, none of us.”
“Shut up.” Porfirio put his hand on my shoulder. “You want to know what I think, pal? I think it’s time to rein in this party. Maybe you should go catch Salome of the Seven Veils and get her back on her horse.”
“No, man, she’s okay,” Einar’s eyes were glowing. “Don’t you see? She knows how to deal with this time thing. She understands. That’s why she’s dancing. She can see Babylon. It exists for her outside of time, it’s neither past nor future but right now. Always.
“Haven’t you guys figured it out yet? Don’t you know what it really means to be immortals? We transcend time, it has no meaning for us, it ceases to exist, because it’s all simultaneous. We’re here now, and we’re on Griffith’s set now, and we’re in 2355 now! We’re the ones controlling reality, from in here.” He struck his fist against his indestructible skull.
“We are time machines! The truth’s been right in front of our noses since cinema was invented. Hell, since photography was invented. Hell, since writing was invented. Make an image of something, and it escapes the flow of time. That’s why it’s forbidden! Dickens had a grasp on it with his ghosts, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley almost got it, and Einstein came so close to the truth. The dead heroes are brought in to Odin, and they rise again, they feast all night and fight all day again, and their deaths mean nothing, because they’ve escaped time. That’s the whole point of the metaphor with Dr. Zeus, you guys! He’s the liberator. Zeus defeats Chronos. Everything’s happening at once! We can perceive time in a way mortals can’t, we can make it irrelevant. Don’t you see?
“All you have to do is understand, and you’re free! You’re out of here!” With an ear-piercing whoop he snatched off his chaplet of roses and whirled it up, up, black against the moon for a second before it bounced down and rolled away in the direction of L. Frank Baum’s house.
I did understand: Einar was mad as
a hatter. There were rumors that some of the really Old Ones weren’t too stable. I knew Imarte was several millennia old, and she’d lost a screw tonight. How old was Einar? That mention of Odin was probably a clue. He wasn’t so crazy, he couldn’t do his job; just crazy enough to be happy on this black plain, under this cold moon. Wasn’t he the lucky guy?
Shuddering, I pulled my shawl around myself. I needed Theobromos. I’d have some as soon as I got back to the inn. No, I couldn’t; I’d been drinking gin. Where had I heard that Theobromos and gin didn’t combine well?
It’s hell to be a cyborg and have immediate access to any stray memory that one rashly summons up. There I was at a New Year’s ball, at a table with three other immortals. There was the little neophyte Latif, there was my damned demon godfather Joseph, and there was poor Lewis, who was feeling ill after overindulging. Precocious Latif had explained about the toxic effect of Theobromos combined with martinis.
Lewis. Somewhere my friend Lewis was weeping for me.
Juan Bautista’s teeth were chattering in his head, and Imarte’s dance had become so frenzied, she was a blur in the moonlight. Einar was dancing too, kicking up his boots and waving his long arms as he chanted a song, something in third-century Norwegian about hauling on the oars and steering for the land where palm trees grow.
Porfirio pitched his chaplet over the side of the wagon and drew his six-shooter.
“Our revels now are ended,” he announced, and fired three shots into the air. Instantly we were all sober, converting the alcohol in our bloodstreams into water and sugar, as we were programmed to do when confronted by hazard.
“What on Earth—?” said Imarte. “How embarrassing.” She got up from where she’d been rolling in the dust, near what would one day be the statue of Ishtar, and hastily brushed herself off. “Was I indulging in grief accommodation again?”
Einar was crawling out from under the wagon, where he’d vanished when the shots went off. He got to his feet and looked around sheepishly.
“Cold out here, isn’t it?” was all he said.
“Well—we were only having a bit of fun, weren’t we?” said Oscar.
“Speak for yourself,” I said. Juan Bautista had his eyes closed; he was huddled up with his cheek pressed into Erich von Stroheim’s feathers.
“Let’s go, guys,” Porfirio ordered. He took the reins and swung us back around for La Nopalera. Einar and Imarte climbed into their saddles and followed, all along the empty road, and the lights of Los Angeles grew fainter behind us, until they vanished like a dream.
IT HAD BEEN A great movie, all the same.
Thinking about it all, about Babylon and France and Jerusalem and that cold urban future, one tended to forget one was living in the midst of a historical upheaval just as impressive. France was finding that it was a great deal harder for the Second Empire to crush a bunch of ignorant mestizos than had ever been expected, while England and Spain sat back and watched in disgust. The North Americans were busy filling up the history books too: the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, for example. In future cinema it would be depicted by black hands stretching up toward beams of sunlight, broken manacles dangling from the wrists, to the accompaniment of a swelling chorus of this or that hymn, usually fading into a long shot of the Lincoln Memorial.
So sentimentally is the birth of a baby presented. The reality is far more an occasion of blood, of fear and uncertainty, of shock that displaces the joy that should be felt on such an occasion. While not one of those people to whom that piece of paper meant so much would ever have gone back to being slaves again, they must have known that the chains would be ten times as hard to break now that they were invisible and intangible.
But how could any of it matter to us? We went on about our daily life in a world where Watts and South Central were still Spanish land grants where vaqueras roped steers, and the longhorns herded down from the Tejon Ranch bore a brand of Cross above Crescent, commemorating the ancient victories of the Spanish Crusaders over the Moors, and I still thought of black men as turbaned kings with scimitars. What did this Civil War have to do with me?
You see? I had no sense of Realpolitik at all. Not that I wasn’t warned.
I WAS RETURNING FROM a profitable day in the less surreal regions of the temperate belt when I picked up the warning signal being broadcast by Porfirio. It told me to approach with caution, so I left the road and came overland through the sagebrush, straining to pick up more of the transmission. All I could hear was Porfirio’s end of it, at first.
But why would I lie to you, señor? Señora Marta comes and goes as she pleases. You must know this. She pays rent on her room, and I don’t ask her what she does in there and she doesn’t tell me. Come and have some coffee.
Of course I would tell you if I knew, señor.
No, señor, I’m not in love with her. No.
She didn’t tell me, señor. What about some coffee?
I don’t love her, señor.
Yes, 1 would tell you. Would you like a cup of coffee, señor?
No, señor, 1 never said that. Señor, please, put the gun away. There’s no need for that. Listen to me, señor, you know what? If he’s with her when she comes home, I’ll help you shoot him. Please stop waving the gun in the air and sit down and have some coffee—
There followed a salvo of shots.
Now, you see, señor? You’re not at your best, or you’d have hit something for sure. And you don’t want to hang, señor. Señora Marta would cry if you were to hang, eh? No, señor, she didn’t tell me.
No, señor, I’m not in love with her.
Señor, you really would feel better with some coffee in you.
Mental note: no torturer in a dungeon cell ever devised anything as frustrating, as inescapable, as terrifyingly pointless as a conversation with a drunk.
Yes, señor, that’s a good idea. Yes, by all means.
All right, señor, that’s a very, very good idea. There is your horse.
No, she didn’t tell me, señor. Maybe if you get on your horse and ride out now, you’ll catch them.
Very good! Buenos noches, señor. That way. The road is that way.
What would you want to shoot the horse for, señor?
Yes, you’re right, that would show her. Yes, I’m sure she’d weep over your grave. I think you want to put it in your mouth, though, señor, not against the temple like that. There! You see how easy it is to miss?
Very well, señor, if you say so. Yes, that way. That way, señor. Buenos noches, señor. Vaya con sathanas.
When the all clear was finally broadcast, I came slinking down out of the hills to find Porfirio sitting beside the fire, mixing himself a double mocha by dissolving most of a cake of Theobromos in a pot of black coffee.
“Who was that?” I asked, shrugging off my pack.
“Mr. Cyrus Jackson,” Porfirio said, baring his teeth. “Some knight chivalrous, huh? Good thing the 1600-hours stage is late, or there’d have been a nasty scene.”
“Where is Imarte, anyway? I haven’t seen her for a few days,” I said, reaching for a tin plate and digging a spoon into the frijole pot.
“She went up north for something,” Porfirio said. “Christ knows what. She didn’t tell me.” I joined with him on the last sentence.
Juan Bautista emerged from his lean-to, looking perturbed. “Is that drunk guy gone? I was scared he’d shoot at my birds.”
“Gone but not forgotten, unfortunately,” said Porfirio. He raised his head, listening. “And there’s the stage. I think I’ll just go dump this whole mess in Ms. Imarte’s ever-ready lap.” He took a terrific slug of Theobromos-adulterated Java straight from the coffeepot and stalked off down the canyon, carrying the pot with him.
After a few minutes we heard the driver’s whip crack as the stage continued its journey to Los Angeles, and Porfirio and Imarte came slowly up the canyon.
“I told you I was sorry. What on earth can I do?” Imarte was saying.
“You can deal
with the guy, that’s what you can do. You led him on, and now he’s got a fit of killer jealousy. Why did you give him the idea he was anything but a customer to you, anyway?”
“He was a good source of data,” Imarte said, drawing her feathered shawl around her against the twilight chill. “He provided me with no end of fascinating material that has, in fact, led me to an astonishing discovery. You wouldn’t believe it, but the evidence is overwhelming, that not only is there an active Confederate plot—”
“He wants to kill you for being unfaithful to him,” Porfirio said.
“Oh.” She knitted her brows. “I’ll have to do something, I suppose. Don’t worry. We’ll deal with the inconvenience somehow. Believe me, it’s worth it. Have you any idea what his simple anecdotes have revealed?”
“Why don’t you tell us?” I said, soaking a tortilla in steak juice.
She was so enthralled with her big news, she actually sat down beside me. “There is a conspiracy,” she uttered in thrilled tones, “that may involve the highest-ranking members of Parliament, to take California for the British.”
“The British? Why would they want California?”
Imarte gave me an arch look and paused dramatically, during which time the answer became obvious. Gold, vast natural resources, most of the Pacific coastline . . . Okay, any government in its right collective mind would covet California. But the British?
“I thought it was an odd series of coincidences at first,” Imarte said, gazing pensively into the fire. “All those British nationals passing through, filing claims to search for gold on Catalina. Why Catalina, where no appreciable gold has ever been found? Why are they shipping engineering equipment over there? Why are they taking such pains to determine who actually owns title to the island? Because they are, you know. I slept with a man who informed me that a fortified base is being constructed by the Albion Mining Syndicate, to be called Queen City. Of course he didn’t call it a fortified base, but by asking certain questions about this so-called mining town, I was able to determine that the site it occupies has considerable strategic importance and is, in fact, being prepared for ordnance emplacements. Moreover, no attempts whatsoever are being made to prospect for gold.”