Soot

by Dan Vyleta

  It is two dozen steps to the open cage. He can see a uniformed boy standing on the threshold, but for now his eyes are busy with other details. Two elevator shafts, ornate wrought iron; set back and flanking them, two mahogany doors. The door on the left is bolted and must lead to the back of the building; the one on the right stands open on the lit radiance of a stairwell. It’s another way up, for those unafraid of exercise.

  Another way out.

  Nil reaches the elevator and steps inside without hesitation, not looking at the boy.

  “Floor twenty-three,” he says, and tries hard not to wince as the cage door is pulled shut.

  A moment later they are in motion, the building’s innards sliding past the ornamentations of the latticed iron door. They pass a parqueted corridor, empty of people, then reenter semidarkness as the elevator car bores itself through the concrete ceiling; then another strip of light, an inch wide and growing, revealing first the worn leather heels of a man’s lace-up boot, then the hem and crease of his trouser leg and the dance of his coat-tails as he rushes past. Each grinding yard is accompanied by the creak of a metal rope and the humming of a generator; and by tremours too subtle for the eye that appear to reside entirely in Nil’s bones and joints.

  Two more floors and the shaft opens up around them into an enormous cavity of pure space. Glass-brick windows, long and narrow, bleed a yellowed light; raw brick faces them at twenty yards’ remove, threaded with cabling and metal pipes; the smell is of emptiness, carbolic, rot. The scar, it shoots through Nil. Seven storeys of nothingness. In the eerie half-dark, he hears the flap of agitated wings. As though in answer he hears the boy next to him say, “Aaja! Aaja kabootar!” gently calling to the noise. But when Nil turns to him, the boy’s eyes are on him, Nil, and are burning with a curiosity so undisguised it is akin to Smoke.

  “Aap kahan ke ho?”

  Throughout the ascent, Nil has been agonisingly conscious of the slender figure beside him but has avoided a direct look. Now he appraises the boy in full. It is as though he is staring in a mirror. They could be brothers; have the same age and the same slim build, accentuated, in the case of the elevator boy, by the high-waisted scarlet uniform he is made to wear. True, the boy’s skin tone is darker than Nil’s, the down on his cheeks and upper lip thicker, his cheekbones not as high nor his face as flat.

  Still.

  “Aap kahan ke ho?” the elevator boy asks again, then shifts tack. “Toosaan khodroon aye hoo?”

  Something about his voice and intonation—awkward, less confident—alerts Nil to the fact that the boy has switched languages. He grimaces, cheerful despite his frustration, and tries again, in yet another tongue: “Enkey irunthu vantheenga?” He changes languages twice more before, bemused, undiminished in his curiosity, he arrives at: “Please, sir, where are you from, sir?” and then, pulling at the little lever that his left hand has never ceased to hold, brings the cage to a sudden stop.

  They turn to fully face each other; lace a hand each through the lattice of the door; bounce and quiver, suspended in the void. They are high off the floor now, two-thirds of their way through the expanse of this vertical scar. Some instinct warns Nil not to adopt the hauteur that got him past the doorman. He feels his face relax, his eyes soften, a looseness wash through his limbs; sheds half a dozen years through the unclenching of his jaw. In a moment they are no longer employees, separated by rank, authority, and paycheque, but just two brown boys in a white man’s cage.

  Dangling like bait.

  “England,” Nil says, hearing in that one word the patterns of his childhood speech, acquired in that great wasteland that had once been the city of London, along with something more recent, an adjustment made to his vowels in response to the tones of New York. It is the closest he has to an authentic tongue.

  “No. I mean, where from originally?”

  Without breaking eye contact, the youth taps a finger against Nil’s cheek, his skin. The gesture is as artless as the curiosity it stems from; is trusting and human, free of all guile.

  “England,” Nil says again, half startled by his own honesty. “I was raised there. Before that, I don’t know.”

  The boy nods, sympathetically, and as though it explains some strangeness about Nil for which he had been unable to account.

  “A courier?” he asks.

  “Yes. An urgent package. Direct delivery. For Mr. Smith.”

  “Smith-ya! The new broom!”

  Nil is unfamiliar with the expression and wonders where the elevator boy has acquired it. He also wonders what his employers make of him. Does he change his nature with every customer, efface himself as Nil would? Or is there something in his down-cheeked innocence that charms even these men? Again the silence around them is harried by the flapping of wings. This time the sound is accompanied by an odd throaty purr.

  “Pigeons,” the elevator boy proclaims. “Nobody knows how, but they find their way in. One of the air vents, perhaps.”

  He beckons Nil closer until they both press their faces against the metal lattice of the door; points downwards to their feet. The unfinished brick floor is dotted with feathers, bird crap, and carcasses: small dirty bodies, rotting in the dust.

  “Once inside, they do not know how to leave again. On Saturday mornings, I get out of the cage and collect the bodies. I am told to put down poison. And disinfectant powder against the smell.” He wrinkles his nose, lowers his voice. “Sometimes I put out food instead.”

  His simplicity frightens Nil. How is it that this stranger can take him in his confidence, based solely on the shade of their skins? Is it a trick, a test? Or is it genuine, a leap of faith unfathomable to Nil, demanding a reciprocity that Nil is unable to provide? His uncertainty is such that it translates into a scrap of Smoke, very faint, darting from his lips. The elevator boy leans forward, almost as though to kiss him, inhales it through the mouth. Whatever it is he tastes in Nil’s Smoke, it prompts a hardening of features: not in anger against Nil but against something more abstract: himself, his uniform, this void between two worlds, ripe with carbolic and death. And just like that he turns, tilts the lever, and sends the cage back into its flight.

  Unsettled, Nil feels the urge to speak to the boy, place a hand upon his shoulder, shake his hand. He does none of these things. In a trice, a hole in the ceiling swallows them, sends them through a slice of concrete and steel. Next comes a corridor, marbled again, lined with doors. The pattern repeats, three times, five, ten, each corridor identical. Only twice do they see people, once a crowd of six waiting for the elevator to stop (the boy bows to them, makes a gesture promising his swift return), then two men in hushed conversation at the end of the hall. And still the floors keep slipping past. Against his better judgement, Nil feels compelled to reenter into conversation. He casts around for something that will return the elevator’s boy cheer. But all he manages is:

  “This Mr. Smith—what is he like?”

  His companion frowns, a little sulky now, then replies with a waggle of the head. Nil has practised the movement and mirrors it. All at once they both burst into laughter. They swallow it when their heads push into another zone of light.

  “A bad one then,” Nil whispers when the ceiling has once again claimed them to the waist.

  “Bad?” repeats the elevator boy mischievously, then offers the Company slogan. “Englishmen don’t smoke.” And he sticks a tongue in the pocket of his cheek, signifying sweets; a touch of Smoke rising from him, light as steam, carrying more wonder than bitterness at how the world is carved up.

  “Twenty-three, sir,” he announces as they emerge on the topmost corridor, his English suddenly lilting, cumbersome, and formal. “Mr. Smith’s office is just down the corridor. Next to the stairwell, sir.” There is something knowing and playful to his offer of this final piece of information that should worry Nil but strangely does n
ot. He has been recognised for what he is: a rogue, an intruder. And received some kind of blessing.

  “Much obliged,” he returns, very sternly, and holds the boy’s eye. It takes an effort not to smile.

  But the moment Nil steps past the opened cage door onto the hard marble of the corridor he already knows that this—this playing at friendship, at kinship, at rebellion against the world—was just another role, adopted with the ease and conviction of any other. Another self rises in him without hesitation. He hears but does not turn for the elevator’s departure; walks down the empty corridor with quick-footed confidence, sees the door marked MR. B. A. SMITH in pencilled letters that contrasts rudely with the golden name plates all around, and next to it an unmarked door. A moment later, unseen and lithe, he is through and in the unlit stairwell, leading down twenty-three flights back into the city and its Smoke. But he walks up, not down. The roof has always been his destination. It is early yet, the final few hours of the afternoon, the building bustling with life.

  Nil needs quiet to ply his trade.

  [ 9 ]

  He does not get far. In fact, Nil barely makes it onto the first landing, ten or twelve steps up from where he started, before the door behind him opens and, a moment later, radiant light fills the stairwell from its depths to the very top, as forty-six bulbs on twenty-three landings flicker to life. All instincts urge him towards flight. Instead, Nil crouches down, flattens his breath, fights down his Smoke as though swallowing his rising gorge. The soft sound of a step on the landing beneath him, a second, a third. Then a shout. It takes a split second to register that it comes not from inside the stairwell but from beyond the still-closing door; that it is directed at the stranger beneath Nil and not at himself. A split second: time enough for muscles to clench and unclench, bowel-deep; for the body to pucker, arsehole to throat.

  “Smith. Smith! A word.”

  The stranger beneath Nil stops, waits. But he makes no motion to leave the stairwell and reenter the corridor. The door, arrested in its closing, is pulled fully open. When even that does not elicit a response, there rises the sound of a second man stepping onto the bare landing. The door behind him does not close. Nil pictures it: a man standing on the threshold, one foot in, the other out, wedging open the door with the flesh of his rump.

  “There you are. Taking the stairs! It’s extraordinary.”

  If a voice could wear a bowler hat and a starched shirt, it would be this. To Nil it echoes an English that surrounded him but once in his life. It is the language of the old elite; of country manors and boarding schools; of abduction, rubber masks, and pain. He winces to feel the smear of Smoke that dribbles out of him like snot; prays its stench won’t reach.

  “Twenty-three floors, Mr. Braithwaite. Subtract four for the clerical levels, seven for the mid-building scar. That leaves twelve. Each with what, a score of offices? Add secretaries and flunkies. Hundreds of people. Two elevators! The architect should be hanged. As should anyone who approved the plans.”

  Unlike his interlocutor’s, Smith’s voice is hard to place, a patchwork of accents and intonations, unabashed by their incongruity. A man from everywhere, the new broom.

  Amused at the world.

  “The newer designs are based on six elevator shafts. Once they are finished, we shall commission the addition of—”

  Braithwaite’s voice cuts off, presumably in reaction to some gesture of Smith’s. Even without seeing the action, crouching on concrete, sucking on his Smoke eight feet above, Nil registers its rudeness and Smith’s interlocutor’s shock.

  “What is it you want, Braithwaite? I’ve a long walk ahead.”

  “But where on earth are you going?”

  “To the theatre.”

  “The theatre?”

  “Indeed. There’s a troupe newly arrived in town. I have heard some interesting things about them. A new kind of show. I don’t imagine it would be to your taste, however.”

  A pause, a dismissal really, and the shuffle of feet as Smith descends a few more steps. He condescends to stop when Braithwaite speaks again.

  “I had hoped to discuss matters,” he announces, then adds when this elicits no answer, “I trust you have found suitable accommodation, Smith? There is a house to let a street over from my own. I can make inquiries on your behalf.”

  “A house? No need. I won’t be staying for much longer. To be honest, I am enjoying sleeping in the office. Very considerate of Cockburn to leave behind a sofa. It’s surprisingly comfortable. I imagine he must have been partial to the odd kip himself.”

  Again the steps resume; again they are halted by Braithwaite’s well-modulated voice, now soured by spite.

  “I hear you have decorated.”

  “I moved a few things around.” For the first time Smith’s voice loses its virile cheer and hints at frustration if not quite anger. “Why spend all this energy on resentment, Braithwaite? So the board of governors saw fit to have me look into your shop. It’s a temporary assignment. I will be gone again, chances are quite soon. Then you can tell yourself that I am just another new man without breeding or substance. We rise quickly, and we fall. And who knows, you may even be right. Now if you will excuse me, I will take my constitutional. Rough on the old knees, but it does wonders for my digestion. At least there’s a toilet on every floor! Though the plumbing is a little suspect. Here we are, ruling half the world, and we can’t build a pipe big enough to flush a turd. It does make you think. À bientôt, Master Braithwaite, servus. We can talk tomorrow.”

  In the moments that follow—as Smith clatters down the stairs, loudly and energetically, and Braithwaite opens wide the door so he can close it again with exaggerated calm—Nil dares a look over the bannister. Of Braithwaite he sees only a trouser leg, black, and the tails of a heavy topcoat, made of sturdy wool and twenty years out of style. Of Smith, the bald dome of a head, framed by a crescent of thick gold-blond hair and broad, flaring whiskers; a muscular corpulence in crumpled white linen. Then Smith stops, listens, pushes his head into the stairwell and cranes his neck. By then Nil is crouching on concrete again, chest heaving, bowels in a fist. A moment later, Smith’s steps resume.

  Downwards. He is still heading down.

  Nil waits until he can no longer hear them, then waits five minutes more.

  [ 10 ]

  The roof is cold and cluttered like a farmer’s barn. Bulbous water tanks rise from spindly metal legs in an arrangement that lacks all symmetry. A dozen platforms vie to be the building’s summit, are interconnected by a system of steel ladders. Clusters of chimneys rise like mushrooms. There are dense networks of pipes and cables bolted into walls and floors; bricks, girders, buckets, and cement bags stacked into odd corners; coils of wire, plaster, cans of oil and paint. Above all, there is the wind, snatching at Nil’s loose clothes, threatening to unravel the turban on his head.

  He crouches, inches from the edge. Beneath him cascades the building’s roof that, seen from below, slopes sharply to a point. From above it is a cruder thinning, more akin to a steep flight of steps, tapering to this flattened summit. Beyond the roofline lies the city. With no one to witness him, it does no harm to gape.

  A peninsula like a cow’s blunt tongue, flaring at the root. Smoke fogs it to the fifth or sixth storey. Church spires and factory chimneys puncture this haze, as do the tops of the grain elevators on the East Side docks. Downtown is a grid of scars, carving up the city Smoke like a system of trenches, their borders diffuse but easy to trace. To the north lies the park that splits Manhattan like a girdle; to the west, behind the stubby, trestled fingers of half-built towers, stretch the bay’s brackish waters, black with oil spills, refuse, Soot. And New Jersey: a factory seafront choking on its Smoke.

  Nil takes it all in, his hands numbing with the firmness of their grip. He is buoyant with fear, king of the world. A natural urge pries him loose
from his awe. He pisses a yellow stream into the wind and shakes with giggles. The sun begins to dip and sits bloodied in the city’s haze; the building’s shadow a long black spar beneath his feet; a storm front blowing in upon the drama of its drumroll. Nil sits and hugs his knees into his chest, goose-bumped with excitement and the rising breeze.

  Soon, the Company men begin to leave. He sees the steam barges make their way to the docks, watches the stream of minute figures emerge from the bottom of the building, bowlered, clad in black. Victorian crows, overdressed for this New World spring. It makes Nil think about Smith, the man in light linen; makes him smile a little at the thought of these men pressed cheek to jowl in their too-small elevator, the boy amongst them, jammed tight between their armpits and elbows, one hand on his controls. Then Nil reminds himself that Smith will return—that he sleeps in the building—and that he better be gone when he does.

  Darkness falls quickly, a clap of the hands. Inside the stairwell, it is so total that Nil feels compelled to slide down on his bottom, step by step. The landing seems vast to his reaching hands; the door not quite where he remembers. He tries the handle (nervously; might it be locked?) and is alarmed when light flares through the gap and sends its warning beacon against balustrade and wall. The corridor beyond is as he left it; its lamps—milky spheres suspended from ornamental chains—remain undimmed.

  But all is quiet.

  Nil waits and listens; steps through onto the marble, now every inch the thief.

  [ 11 ]

  Smith’s room. What else? He had planned on making a quick survey of all the offices, to identify the richest pickings. His encounter with Smith has changed this. He is the “new man”; disliked yet important enough that he can afford to be. There may be more powerful men on this hallway, but none of them, Nil wagers, dares to shed his starched collar and trade it for a linen suit, or feels secure enough in his position to disgrace himself through the plebeian act of taking the stairs. Smith’s room then: but a step from the stairs. A polished oak door.