“America was hit hardest,” he said, “but the Collapse was worldwide.” He wondered whether he should explain the system of corporate social responsibility that African business was based on. Then decided that if DiStephano didn’t know, he didn’t want to. “There are still problems. Africa has a high incidence of birth defects.” Because America exported its poisons; its chemicals arid pesticides and foods containing a witch’s brew of preservatives. “We hope to do away with the problem; if a major thrust is made, we can clean up the gene pool in less than a century. But to do this requires professionals—eugenicists, embryonic surgeons—and while we have these, they are second-rate. The very best still come from your nation’s medical schools.”
“We can’t spare any.”
“We don’t propose to steal your doctors. We’d provide our ownstudents—fully trained doctors who need only the specialized training.”
“There are only so many openings at Hopkins,” DiStephano said. “or at U of P or the UVM Medical College, for that matter.”
“We’re prepared to—” Wolf pulled himself up short. “It’s in the papers. We’ll pay enough that you can expand to meet the needs of twice the number of students we require.” The room was dim and oppressive. Sweat built up under Wolf’s clothing.
“Maybe so. You can’t buy teachers with money, though.” Wolf said nothing. “I’m also extremely reluctant to let your people near our medics. You can offer them money, estates—things our country cannot afford. And we need our doctors. As it is, only the very rich can get the corrective surgery they require.”
“If you’re worried about our pirating your professionals, there areways around that. For example, a clause could be written—“Wolf went on, feeling more and more in control. He was getting somewhere. If there wasn’t a deal to be made, the discussion would never have gotten this far.
The day wore on. DiStephano called in aides and dismissed them. Twice, he had drinks sent in. Once, they broke for lunch. Slowly the heat built, until it was sweltering. Finally, the light began to fail, and the heat grew less oppressive.
DiStephano swept the documents into two piles, returned one to Wolf, and put the other inside a desk drawer. “I’ll look these over, have our legal boys run a study. There shouldn’t be any difficulties. I’ll get back to you with the final word in—say a month. September twenty-first, I’ll be in Boston then, but you can find me easily enough, if you ask around.”
“A month? But I thought…”
“A month. You can’t hurry City Hall,” DiStephano said firmly. “Ms. Corey!”
The veiled woman was at the door, remote, elusive. “Sir.”
“Drag Kaplan out of his office. Tell him we got a kid in here he should give the VIP treatment to. Maybe a show. It’s a Hopkins thing, he should earn his keep.”
“Yes, sir.” She was gone.
“Thank you,” Wolf said, “but I don’t really need…”
“Take my advice, kid, take all the perks you can get. God knowsthere aren’t many left. I’ll have Kaplan pick you up at your hostel in an hour.”
***
Kaplan turned out to be a slight, balding man with nervous gestures, some sort of administrative functionary for Hopkins. Wolf never did get the connection. But Kaplan was equally puzzled by Wolf’s status, and Wolf took petty pleasure in not explaining it. It took some of the sting off of having his papers stolen.
Kaplan led Wolf through the evening streets. A bright sunset circled the world, and the crowds were much thinner. “We won’t be leaving the area that’s zoned for electricity,” Kaplan said. “Otherwise I’d advise against going out at night at all. Lot of jennie-deafs out then.”
“Jennie-deafs?”
“Mutes. Culls. The really terminal cases. Some of them can’t pass themselves off in daylight even wearing coveralls. Or chador—a lot are women.” A faintly perverse expression crossed the man’s face, leaving not so much as a greasy residue.
“Where are we going?” Wolf asked. He wanted to change the subject. A vague presentiment assured him he did not want to know the source of Kaplan’s expression.
“A place called Peabody’s. You’ve heard of Janis Joplin, our famous national singer?”
Wolf nodded, meaning no.
“The show is a re-creation of her act. Woman name of Maggie Horowitz does the best impersonation of Janis I’ve ever seen. Tickets are almost impossible to get, but Hopkins has special influence in this case because—ah, here we are.”
Kaplan led him down a set of concrete steps and into the basement of a dull brick building. Wolf experienced a moment of dislocation. It was a bookstore. Shelves and boxes of books and magazines brooded over him, a packrat’s clutter of paper.
Wolf wanted to linger, to scan the ancient tomes, remnants of a time and culture fast sinking into obscurity and myth. But Kaplan brushed past them without a second glance and he had to hurry to keep up.
They passed through a second roomful of books, then into a hallway where a grey man held out a gnarled hand and said, “Tickets, please.”
Kaplan gave the man two crisp pasteboard cards, and they entered a third room.
It was a cabaret. Wooden chairs clustered about small tables with flickering candles at their centers. The room was lofted with wood beams, and a large unused fireplace dominated one wall. Another wall had obviously been torn out at one time to make room for a small stage. Over a century’s accumulation of memorabilia covered the walls or hung from the rafters, like barbarian trinkets from toppled empires.
“Peabody’s is a local institution,” Kaplan said. “In the twentieth century it was a speakeasy. H.L. Mencken himself used to drink here.” Wolf nodded, though the name meant nothing to him. “The bookstore was a front, and the drinking went on here in the back.”
The place was charged with a feeling of the past. It invoked America’s bygone days as a world power. Wolf half-expected to see Theodore Roosevelt or Henry Kissinger come striding in. He said something to this effect, and Kaplan smiled complacently.
“You’ll like the show, then,” he said.
A waiter took their orders. There was barely time to begin on the drinks when a pair of spotlights came on, and the stage curtain parted.
A woman stood alone in the center of the stage. Bracelets and bangles hung from her wrists, gaudy necklaces from her throat. She wore large tinted glasses and a flowered granny gown. Her nipples pushed against the thin dress. Wolf stared at them in horrified fascination. She had an extra set, immediately below the first pair.
The woman stood perfectly motionless. Wolf couldn’t stop staring at her nipples; it wasn’t just the number, it was the fact of their being visible at all. So quickly had he taken on this land’s taboos.
The woman threw her head back and laughed. She put one hand on her hip, thrust the hip out at an angle, and lifted the microphone to her lips. She spoke, and her voice was harsh and raspy.
“About a year ago I lived in a row house in Newark, right? Livedon the third floor, and I thought I had my act together. But nothing was going right, I wasn’t getting any…action. Know what I mean? No talent comin’ around. And there was this chick down the street, didn’t have much and she was doing okay, so I say to myself: What’s wrong, Janis?How come she’s doing so good and you ain’t gettin’ any? So I decided to check it out, see what she had and I didn’t. And one day I get up early, look out the window, and I see this chick out there hustling! I mean, she was doing the streets at noon! So I said to myself, Janis, honey, you ain’t even trying. And when ya want action, ya gotta try. Yeah. Try just a little bit harder.”
The music swept up out of nowhere, and she was singing: “Try-iii,Try-iii, Just a little bit harder…”
And unexpectedly, it was good. It was like nothing he had ever heard, but he understood it, almost on an instinctual level. It was world-culture music. It was universal.
Kaplan dug fingers into Wolf’s arm, brought his mouth up to Wolf’s ear. “You see? You see?” he demande
d. Wolf shook him off impatiently. He wanted to hear the music.
The concert lasted forever, and it was done in no time at all. It left Wolf sweaty and emotionally spent. Onstage, the woman was energy personified. She danced, she strutted, she wailed more power into her songs than seemed humanly possible. Not knowing the original, Wolf was sure it was a perfect re-creation. It had that feel.
The audience loved her. They called her back for three encores, and then a fourth. Finally, she came out, gasped into the mike, “I love ya, honeys, I truly do. But please—no more. I just couldn’t do it.” She blew a kiss, and was gone from the stage.
The entire audience was standing, Wolf among them, applauding furiously. A hand fell on Wolf’s shoulder, and he glanced to his side, annoyed. It was Kaplan. His face was flushed and he said, “Come on.” He pulled Wolf free of the crowd and backstage to a small dressing room. Its door was ajar and people were crowded into it.
One of them was the singer, hair stringy and out-of-place, laughing and gesturing widely with a Southern Comfort bottle. It was an antique, its label lacquered to the glass, and three-quarters filled with something amber-colored.
“Janis, this is—” Kaplan began.
“The name is Maggie,” she sang gleefully. “Maggie Horowitz. I ain’t no dead blues singer. And don’t you forget it.”
“This is a fan of yours, Maggie. From Africa.” He gave Wolf a small shove. Wolf hesitantly stumbled forward, grimacing apologetically at the people he displaced.
“Whee—howdy!” Maggie whooped. She downed a slug from herbottle. “Pleased ta meecha, Ace. Kinda light for an African, aintcha?”
“My mother’s people were descended from German settlers.” And it was felt that a light-skinned representative could handle the touchy Americans better, but he didn’t say that.
“Whatcher name, Ace?
“Wolf.”
“Wolf.” Maggie crowed. “Yeah, you look like a real heartbreaker,honey. Guess I’d better be careful around you, huh? Likely to sweep me off my feet and deflower me.” She nudged him with an elbow. “That’s a joke, Ace.”
Wolf was fascinated. Maggie was alive, a dozen times more so than her countrymen. She made them look like zombies. Wolf was also a little afraid of her.
“Hey. Whatcha think of my singing, hah?”
“It was excellent,” Wolf said. “It was”—he groped for words—“in my land the music is quieter, there is not so much emotion.”
“Yeah, well I think it was fucking good, Ace. Voice’s never been in better shape. Go tell ’em that at Hopkins, Kaplan. Tell ’em I’m giving them their money’s worth.”
“Of course you are,” Kaplan said.
“Well, I am, goddammit. Hey, this place is like a morgue! Let’s ditch this matchbox dressing room and hit the bars. Hey? Let’s party.”
She swept them all out of the dressing room, out of the building, and onto the street. They formed a small boisterous group, noisily wandering the city, looking for bars.
“There’s one a block thataway,” Maggie said. “Let’s hit it. Hey, Ace, I’d likeya ta meet Cynthia. Sin, this is Wolf. Sin and I are like one person inside two skins. Many’s the time we’ve shared a piece of talent in the same bed. Hey?” She cackled, and grabbed at Cynthia’s ass.
“Cut it out, Maggie.” Cynthia smiled when she said it. She was a tall, slim, striking woman.
“Hey, this town is dead!” Maggie screamed the last word, then gestured them all to silence so they could listen for the echo. “There it is.” She pointed, and they swooped down on the first bar.
After the third, Wolf lost track. At some point he gave up on the party and somehow made his way back to his hostel. The last he remembered of Maggie she was calling after him, “Hey, Ace, don’t be a party poop.” Then: “At least be sure to come back tomorrow, goddammit.”
***
Wolf spent most of the day in his room, drinking water and napping. His hangover was all but gone by the time evening took the edge off the day’s heat. He thought of Maggie’s half-serious invitation, dismissed it and decided to go to the Club.
The Uhuru Club was ablaze with light by the time he wandered in, a beacon in a dark city. Its frequenters, after all, were all African foreign service, with a few commercial reps such as himself forced in by the insular nature of American society and the need for polite conversation. It was de facto exempt from the power-use laws that governed the natives.
“Mbikana! Over here, lad, let me set you up with a drink.” Nnamdi of the consulate waved him over to the bar. Wolf complied, feeling conspicuous as he always did in the Club. His skin stood out here. Even the American servants were dark, though whether this was a gesture of deference or arrogance on the part of the local authorities, he could not guess.
“Word is that you spent the day closeted with the comptroller.” Nnamdi had a gin-and-tonic set up. Wolf loathed the drink, but it was universal among the service people. “Share the dirt with us.” Other faces gathered around; the service ran on gossip.
Wolf gave an abridged version of the encounter, and Nnamdi applauded. “A full day with the Spider King, and you escaped with your balls intact. An auspicious beginning for you, lad.”
“Spider King?”
“Surely you were briefed on regional autonomy—how the country was broken up when it could no longer be managed by a central directorate? There is no higher authority than DiStephano in this part of the world, boy.”
“Boston,” Ajuji sniffed. Like most of the expatriates, she was a failure; unlike many, she couldn’t hide the fact from herself. “That’s exactly the sort of treatment one comes to expect from these savages.”
“Now, Ajuji,” Nnamdi said mildly. “These people are hardly savages. Why, before the Collapse they put men on the moon.”
“Technology! Hard-core technology, that’s all it was, of a piece with the kind that almost destroyed us all. If you want a measure of a people, you look at how they live. These—yanks,” she hissed the word to emphasize its filthiness, “live in squalor. Their streets are filthy, their cities are filthy, and even the ones who aren’t rotten with genetic disease are filthy. A child can be taught to clean up after itself. What does that make them?”
“Human beings, Ajuji.”
“Hogwash, Nnamdi.”
Wolf followed the argument with acute embarrassment. He had been brought up to expect well from people with social standing. To hear gutter language and low prejudice from them was almost beyond bearing. Suddenly it was beyond bearing. He turned his back on them all, and left.
Mbikana! You mustn’t—” Nnamdi called after him.
“Oh, let him go,” Ajuji cut in, with a satisfied tone, “you mustn’texpect better. After all, he’s practically one of them.”
Well maybe he was.
***
Wolf wasn’t fully aware of where he was going until he found himself at Peabody’s. He circled the building, and found a rear door. He tried the knob: it turned loosely in his hand. Then the door swung open and a heavy, bearded man in coveralls leaned out. “Yes?” he said in an unfriendly tone.
“Uh,” Wolf said. “Maggie Horowitz told me I could drop by.”
“Look, pilgrim, there are a lot of people trying to get backstage. My job is to keep them out unless I know them. I don’t know you.”
Wolf tried to think of some response to this, and failed. He was about to turn away when somebody unseen said, “Oh, let him in, Deke.”
It was Cynthia. “Come on,” she said in a bored voice. “Don’t clog up the doorway.” The guard moved aside, and he entered.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Nada,” she replied. “As Maggie would say. The dressing room is that way, pilgrim.”
***
“Wolf, honey!” Maggie shrieked. “How’s it going, Ace? Ya catch the show?”
“No, I—”
“You shoulda. I was good. Really good. Janis herself was never better. Hey, gang! Let’s split, hah? Let’s go somew
here and get down and boogie.”
A group of twenty ended up taking over a methane-lit bar outside the zoned-for-electricity sector. Three of the band had brought along their instruments, and they talked the owner into letting them play. The music was droning and monotonous. Maggie listened appreciatively, grinning and moving her head to the music.
“Whatcha think of that, Ace? Pretty good, hey? That’s what we call Dead music.”
Wolf shook his head. “I think it’s well named.”
“Hey, guys, you hear that? Wolf here just made a funny. There’s hope for you yet, honey.” Then she sighed. “Can’t get behind it, huh? That’s really sad, man. I mean they played good music back then; it was real. We’re just echoes, man. Just playing away at them old songs. Got none of our own worth singing.”
“Is that why you’re doing the show, then?” Wolf asked, curious.
Maggie laughed. “Hell, no. I do it because I got the chance. DiStephano got in touch with me—”
“DiStephano? The comptroller?”
“One of his guys, anyway. They had this gig all set up, and theyneeded someone to play Janis. So they ran a computer search and came up with my name. And they offered me money, and I spent a month or two in Hopkins being worked over, and here I am. On the road to fame and glory.” Her voice rose and warbled and mocked itself on the last phrase.
“Why did you have to go to Hopkins?”
“You don’t think I was born looking like this? They had to change my face around. Changed my voice too, for which God bless. They brought it down lower, widened out my range, gave it the strength to hold on to them high notes and push ’em around.”
“Not to mention the mental implants,” Cynthia said.
“Oh, yeah, and the ’plants so I could talk in a bluesy sorta way without falling out of character,” Maggie said. “But that was minor.”
The Best of Michael Swanwick Page 2