“You were lovers?”
He smiled. “Are we lovers, Laura?”
The silence stretched, a desert silence broken by the distant whooping of the Tuaregs. She looked into his eyes.
“I talk too much,” he said sadly. “A theorist.”
She stood and pulled the tunic over her head, threw it to her feet. She sat beside him, naked, in the light of the screen.
He was silent. Clumsily, she pulled at his shirt, ran her hand over his chest. He opened his robe and put his weight on her.
He fumbled at her gently. For the first time, something vital, deep within her, realized that she was alive again. As if her soul had gone to sleep like a handcuffed arm, and now blood was returning. A torrent of sensation.
A moment passed with the muted crinkling of contraceptive plastic. Then he was on her, inside her. She wrapped her legs around him, her skin aflame. Flesh and muscle moving in darkness, the smell of sex. She closed her eyes, overwhelmed.
He stopped for a moment. She opened her eyes. He was looking at her, his face alight. Then he reached out with one arm and tapped the keyboard.
The machine scanned channels. Light flashed over them as it blasted one-second gouts of satellite video into the tent. Unable to stop herself, she turned her head to look.
Cityscape / cityscape / trees / a woman / brand names / Arabic script / image / image / image /
They were moving in time. They were moving in rhythm to the set, eyes lifted up, fixed on the screen.
Pleasure shot through her like channeled lightning. She cried out.
He gripped her hard and closed his eyes. He was going to finish soon. She did what she could to help him.
And it was over. He slid aside, touched the screen. The image froze on a weather station, ranks of silent numbers, cool computer-graphic blues of lows and highs.
“Thank you,” he said. “You were good to me.”
She was shaking in reaction. She found her robe and put it on, body-mind whirling in turmoil. As reality came seeping back, she felt a sudden giddy wash of joy, of pure release.
It was over, there was nothing to fear. They were people together, a man and woman. She felt a sudden rush of affection for him. She reached out. Surprised, he patted her hand. Then he rose and moved into the television dimness.
She heard him fumbling, opening a bag. He was back in a moment. Bright gleam of tin. “Abalone.”
She sat up. Her stomach rumbled loudly. They laughed, comfortable in their embarrassment, the erotic squalor of intimacy. He pried open the can and they ate. “God, it’s so good,” she told him.
“I never eat anything grown in topsoil. Plants are full of deadly natural insecticides. People are nuts to eat that stuff.”
“My husband used to say that all the time.”
He looked up, slowly. “I’m gone tomorrow,” he repeated. “Don’t worry about anything.”
“It’s fine, I’ll be all right.” Meaningless words, but the concern was there—it was as if they had kissed. Night had fallen, it had grown cold. She shivered.
“I’ll take you back to camp.”
“I’ll stay, if you want.”
He stood up, helped to her feet. “No. It’s warmer there.”
Katje lay in a camp bed, white sheets, the floral smell of an air spray over the reek of disinfectant. There was not much machinery by modern standards, but it was a clinic and they had pulled her through.
“Where did you find such clothes?” she whispered.
Laura touched her blouse self-consciously. It was a red off-the-shoulder number, with a ruffled skirt. “One of the nurses—Sara … I can’t pronounce her last name.”
Katje seemed to think it was funny. It was the first time Laura had ever seen her smile. “Yes … there’s such a girl in every camp.… You must be popular.”
“They’re good people, they’ve treated me very well.”
“You didn’t tell them … about the Bomb.”
“No—I thought I’d leave that to you. I didn’t think they’d believe me.”
Katje let the lie float over her, not taken in, but letting it pass. Noblesse oblige, or maybe the anesthetic. “I told them … now I don’t worry … let them worry.”
“Good idea, save your strength.”
“I won’t do this anymore.… I’m going home. To be happy.” She closed her eyes.
The door opened. The director, Mbaqane, barged through, followed by Barnaard the political man, and the paratroop captain.
And then the Vienna personnel. There were three of them. Two men in safari suits and speckled glasses, and a stylish, middle-aged Russian woman in a jacket, sleek khaki pants, and patent-leather boots.
They stopped by the bed. “So these are our heroes,” the woman said brightly.
“Indeed, yes,” said Mbaqane.
“My name is Tamara Frolova—this is Mr. Easton, and Mr. Neguib from our Cairo office.”
“How do you do,” Laura said reflexively. She almost rose to shake hands, then stopped herself. “This is Dr. Selous.… She’s very tired, I’m afraid.”
“And small wonder, yes? After such narrow escapes.”
“Ms. Frolova has very good news for us,” Mbaqane said. “A ceasefire is declared. The camp is out of danger! It seems the Malian regime is prepared to sue for peace!”
“Wow,” Laura said. “Are they handing over the bombs?”
Unhappy silence.
“A natural question,” said Frolova. “But there have been some errors. Honest mistakes.” She shook her head. “There are no bombs, Mrs. Webster.”
Laura jumped to her feet. “I expected that!”
“Please sit down, Mrs. Webster.”
“Ms. Frolova—Tamara—let me speak to you as a person. I don’t know what your bosses ordered you to say, but it’s over now. You can’t walk away from it anymore.”
Frolova’s face froze. “I know you have suffered an ordeal, Mrs. Webster. Laura. But one should not act irresponsibly. You must think first. Reckless allegations of such a kind—they are a clear public danger to the international order.”
“They were taking me—both of us—to an atomic test site! For nuclear blackmail! To Azania, this time—God knows they already had you intimidated.”
“The area you saw was not a test site.”
“Stop being stupid! It doesn’t even need Gresham’s tape. You may have fast-talked these poor medicos, but the Azanian spooks aren’t going to settle for words. They’ll want to fly over the desert and look for the crater.”
“I’m sure that could be arranged!” Frolova said. “After the current hostilities settle.”
Laura laughed. “I knew you’d say that, too. That’s an arrangement you’ll never make, if you can help it. But the cover-up is still finished. You forget—we’ve been there. The air was full of dust. They can test our clothes, and they’ll find radioactivity. Maybe not much, but enough for proof.” She turned to Mbaqane. “Don’t let them anywhere near those clothes. Because they’ll grab the evidence, after they’ve grabbed us.”
“We are not ‘grabbing’ anyone,” Frolova said.
Mbaqane cleared his throat. “You did say you wanted them for debriefing. Interrogation.”
“The clothes prove nothing! These woman have been in the hands of a provocateur and terrorist! He has already committed a serious information crime, with the help of Mrs. Webster. And now that I hear her, I can see that it was not unwitting help.” She turned to Laura. “Mrs. Webster, I must forbid you to speak any further! You are under arrest.”
“Good heavens,” Mbaqane said. “You can’t mean that journalist fellow.”
“This woman is his accomplice! Mr. Easton! Please draw your weapon.”
Easton pulled a tangle-gun from his armpit.
Katje opened her eyes. “So much yelling … please don’t shoot me, too.”
Laura laughed recklessly. “That’s funny … it’s all ridiculous! Tamara, listen to what you’re saying. Gresham saved us fr
om the Malian death cells—so he could cover our clothes with sifted uranium. Can you expect anyone to believe that? What are you going to say after Mali nukes Pretoria? You should be ashamed.”
Barnaard spoke to the Viennese. Wonderingly. “You encouraged us to attack Mali. You said we would have your support—secretly. You said—Vienna said—that we were Africa’s great power, and we should restore order.… But you …” His voice trembled. “You knew they had the Bomb! You wanted to see if they would use it on us!”
“I resent that accusation in the gravest possible way! None of you are global diplomats, you are acting outside your experience—”
“How good do we have to be before we can judge you?” Laura said.
Easton aimed his gun. Mbaqane struck his wrist and the gun fell with a clatter. The two men stared at one another, amazed. Mbaqane found his voice: high-pitched, livid. “Captain! Arrest these miscreants at once!”
“Director Mbaqane,” the captain rumbled. “You are a civilian. I take my orders from Pretoria.”
“You cannot arrest us!” Frolova said. “You have no jurisdiction!”
The captain spoke again. “But I accept your suggestion with thanks. For an Azanian soldier, the course of honor is clear.” He pulled his .45 sidearm and leveled it at Mr. Neguib’s head. “Throw down your weapon.”
Neguib pulled his tangle-gun carefully. “You are creating a serious international complication.”
“Our diplomats will apologize if you force me to open fire.”
Neguib dropped the gun.
“Leave this clinic. Keep your hands in plain sight. My soldiers will take you into custody.”
He herded them slowly toward the door.
Barnaard could not resist a taunt. “Did you forget our country also has uranium?”
Frolova spun in her tracks. She flung her arm out, pointing at Laura. “You see? You see now? It’s starting all over again!”
11
She lost the journalists at the Galveston airport. She was getting pretty good at it by now. They weren’t as eager as they’d been at first and they knew they could pick her up again soon.
“Welcome to Fun City,” the van told her. “Alfred A. Magruder, Mayor. Please announce your destination clearly into the microphone. Anunce usted—”
“Rizome Lodge.”
She turned on the radio, caught the last half of a new pop song. “Rubble Bounces in Bamako.” Harsh, jittery, banging music. Strange how quickly that had come back into style. Weirdness, edginess, war nerves.
The city hadn’t changed much. They didn’t let it change much. Same grand old buildings, same palm trees, same crowds of Houstonians, thinned out by a December cold front.
The Church of Ishtar was advertising openly now. They were almost respectable, flourishing anyway, in a time of war and whores. Carlotta had been right about that. She thought about Carlotta, lost somewhere in her holy demimonde, smiling her sunny, drugged smile and batting her eyes at some client. Maybe their paths would cross again, somewhere somehow sometime, but Laura doubted it. The world was full of Carlottas, full of women whose lives were not their own. She didn’t even know Carlotta’s real name.
Storm surf was up, backwash from a tropical depression, broken up on the Texas coast in a ragged, cloudy array. Determined surfers were out in their transparent wetsuits. More than half the surfers had black skin.
She spotted the flagpole first. The Texas flag, the Rizome emblem. The sight of it hit her very hard. Memory, wonder, sorrow. Bitterness.
The journos were waiting just outside the Rizome property line. They had cunningly managed to stick a bus in her way. Laura’s van stopped short. The hat and sunglasses wouldn’t help her now. She climbed out.
They surrounded her. Keeping ten feet away, like the privacy laws demanded. A very small blessing. “Mrs. Webster, Mrs. Webster!” Then one voice amid the chorus. “Ms. Day!”
Laura stopped short. “What.”
Red-haired guy, freckles. Cocky expression. “Any word on your impending divorce action, Ms. Day?”
She looked them over. Eyes, cameras. “I know people who could eat the lot of you for breakfast.”
“Thanks, thanks, that’s great, Ms. Day …”
She crossed the beach. Up the old familiar stairs to the walkway. The stair rails had aged nicely, with the silken look of driftwood, and the striped awning was new. It looked like a good place, the Lodge, with its cheerful arches and sand-castle tower with the deep, round windows and the flags. Innocent fun, sunbathing and lemonade, a wonderful place for a kid.
She stepped into the bar, let the door shut itself behind her. Dim inside—the bar was full of strangers. Earth-cooled air, the smell of wine coolers and tortilla chips. Tables and wicker chairs. A man looked up at her—one of David’s wrecking crew she thought, not Rizome, but they’d always liked hanging out here—she had forgotten his name. He hesitated, recognizing her but not sure.
She ghosted past him. One of Mrs. Delrosario’s girls passed her with a pitcher of beer. The girl stopped, turned on her heel. “Laura. It’s you?”
“Hello, Inez.”
They couldn’t hug—Inez was carrying the beer. Laura kissed her cheek. “You’re all grown up, Inez.… You can serve that stuff now?”
“I’m eighteen, I can serve it, I can’t drink it.”
“Well it won’t be long now, will it?”
“I guess not.…” She was wearing an engagement ring. “My abuela will be glad to see you—I’m glad too.”
Laura nodded toward the crowd from behind her sunglasses. “Don’t tell them I’m here—everyone makes such a big deal of it.”
“Okay, Laura.” Inez was embarrassed. People got that way when you were a global celebrity. Tongue-tied and worshipful—this, from little Inez, who used to see her changing diapers and knocking around in her bathing suit. “I’ll see you later huh?”
“Sure.” Laura ducked behind the bar, went through the kitchen. No sign of Mrs. Delrosario, but the smell of her cooking was there, a rush of memory. She walked past copper-bottomed pans and griddles, into the dining room. Rizome guests talking politics—you could tell it by the strained looks on their faces, the aggression.
It wasn’t just the fear. The world had changed. They had eaten up the Islands and it had settled in their belly like a drug. That Island strangeness was everywhere now, diluted, muted, and tingly.…
She couldn’t face them, not yet. She went up the tower stairs—the door wouldn’t open for her. She almost walked into it headlong. Codes must have changed—no, she was wearing a new watchphone, not programmed for the Lodge. She touched it. “David?”
“Laura,” he said. “You at the airport?”
“No. I’m right here at the top of the stairs.”
Silence. Through the door, across the few feet that still separated them, she could feel him, bracing himself. “Come on in.…”
“It’s the door, I can’t get it open.”
“Oh! Yeah, okay, I can get it.” It shunted. She put her sunglasses away.
She came up through the floor and threw the hat onto a table, into a round column of sunlight from a tower window. All the furniture was different. David rose from his favorite console—but no, it wasn’t his, not anymore.
A Worldrun game was on. Africa was a mess. He came to greet here—a tall, gaunt black man, with short hair and reading glasses. They gripped each other’s hands for a moment. Then hugged hard, saying nothing. He’d lost weight—she could feel the bones in him.
She pulled back. “You look good.”
“So do you.” Lies. He took off the glasses and put them in his shirt pocket. “I don’t really need these.”
She wondered when she was going to cry. She could feel the need for it coming on. She sat down on a couch. He sat on a chair across the new coffee table.
“The place looks good, David. Really good.”
“Webster and Webster, we build to last.”
That did it. She began crying, ha
rd. He fetched her some tissue and joined her on the couch and put his arm over her shoulders. She let him do it.
“The first weeks,” he said, “about the first six months, I dreamed about this meeting. Laura, I couldn’t believe you were dead. I thought, in jail somewhere. Singapore. She’s a political, I told people, somebody’s holding her, they’ll let her go when things straighten out. Then they started talking about your being on the Ali Khamenei, and I knew that was it. That they’d finally gotten you, that they’d killed my wife. And I’d been half the world away. And hadn’t helped.” He put his thumbs into the corners of his eyes. “I’d wake up at night and think of you drowning.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “It wasn’t our fault, was it? What we had was good, it was really going to last, to last forever.”
“I really loved you,” he said. “When I lost you, it just destroyed me.”
“I want you to know, David—I don’t blame you for not waiting.” Long silence. “I wouldn’t have waited either, not if it was like that. What you and Emily did, it was right for you, both of you.”
He stared at her, his eyes bloodshot. Her gesture, her forgiveness, had humiliated him. “There’s just no end to what you’re willing to sacrifice, is there?”
“Don’t blame me!” she said. “I didn’t sacrifice anything, I didn’t want this to happen to us! It was stolen from us—they stole our life.”
“We didn’t have to do it. We chose to do it. We could have left the company, run off somewhere, just been happy.” He was shaking. “I would have been happy—I didn’t need anything but you.”
“We can’t help it if we have to live in the world! We had bad luck. Bad luck happens. We stumbled over something buried, and it tore us up.” No answer. “David, at least we’re alive.”
He gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Hell, you’re more than alive, Laura. You’re goddamn famous. The whole world knows. It’s a fucking scandal, a soap opera. We don’t ‘live in the world’—the world lives in us now. We went out to fight for the Net and the Net just stretched us to pieces. Not our fault—oh hell no! All the fucking money and politics and multinationals just grabbed us and pulled us apart!”
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