6
WATCH THE WORLD in rewind. It’s faster, scoured of soul, a knife grated over fish scales until all iridescence is gone. Stop. Enjoy the fleshy slap of magnetic tape stretched thin. Play. Infinite hallways, all identical, white-coat clones gliding through like platelets. Isolate a person of interest. Toggle, toggle. Dissect the tape into seconds, half-seconds, quarter-seconds. Men are no longer men. They are abstract shapes you can study like an eremite studies scripture. That shadow in that scientist’s pocket could be the secret to all life. The muddy grin of his freeze-framed face might be the devil’s skull. Sixteen cameras. Infinite clues. Rewind, stop, toggle. This hallway, that. There’s no way out. All routes lead right back here, to his office. No closer to the truth. No further. He’s trapped.
Strickland’s eyes feel like spoiled sausages about to rupture. All that green candy he brought back from the jungle, when he should have brought back vials of buchité. A couple of drops and he’d see everything these tapes were hiding. Hour after hour after hour he’s been at this. Took only one hour to master the playback console. M1 Garand rifle, Cadillac Coupe de Ville, VTR deck—it’s all got the same guts. You put your hands to it, make it part of you. He quit feeling the buttons and dials around noon. Now it feels like he can direct the tapes with his mind. That’s the secret, he thinks. Let the footage flow by like water, dip your hands into it, and catch yourself a fish.
And there it is. Just like that. Camera 7. Loading dock. The first few seconds of the final tape before the blackout. The camera, does it bump upward? A couple of critical inches? Strickland toggles. Before, after, before, after.
He gets up out of his chair. The hallways, he swears, have gotten brighter. He shades his eyes with a hand, who cares if the MPs think he’s nuts, and travels past F-1 to the loading dock, the same route as the stolen creature. He pushes through the double doors and drops his hand. There is no sun. It is night. He’s lost track of time yet again. The ramp is empty but for puddles of oil. He whirls around. Looks up at Camera 7. Then looks straight under it.
Four people stand there, faces rubbery with shock. Each holds a cigarette. They have uniforms, lousy postures, different shades of skin. What they share is laziness. The time since the asset’s theft he’s spent slaving in his office, and they can’t endure five minutes without a break, and down here, where it’s against regulations? But Strickland needs information. He tries on a hard, waxy smile.
“Y’all taking a smoke break, huh?”
Does Fleming hire mutes exclusively? No, he decides. They’re just terrified.
“Don’t worry, you’re not in trouble.” He extends the smile, feels his wax lips start to crack. “Heck, I ought to join you. I’m not supposed to smoke inside, either, but darn it if I don’t do it anyway.” The janitors steal glances at their untapped, elongating ashes. “Tell me something, though. How do you lift the camera so you don’t get caught?”
Names are sewn to their uniforms, just like tags on a dog.
“Yo-lan-da,” he reads. “You can tell me, honey. Just curious is all.”
Dark brown hair. Light brown skin. Black eyes. The kind of thin lips that like to mouth off. Not in front of him, though. She knows her place. Strickland lets his wax grin melt a little. It works. He can smell her sweat through her perfume of bleach. She drops her eyes from the shit-scrubber cohorts she must think she’s betraying and gestures at an object behind them. It’s no sophisticated gadget like the one that blew the fuses. It’s a broom. A motherfucking broom.
Strickland’s mind is the VTR. It forwards, stops, plays, rewinds, toggles. He’s closing in on the critical frame.
“Say.” He means to sound convivial, and doesn’t, and doesn’t give a shit. “Any of you folks ever see Dr. Hoffstetler back here?”
7
ZELDA’S FIRST STEPS off the bus in front of Occam are unsteady, her neck sore from glancing for a wave of helmeted Empties coming to take her away, her ankles wobbly in preparation for being slung to the ground and handcuffed. All day she considered it. Come to work? Call in sick? Ride into the sunset? She’d even broken down and told Brewster, with certain facts massaged for believability, a half-lie regarding Elisa’s theft of an undefined valuable to which Zelda, unwittingly, had become party. Brewster had been firm of opinion: turn her in. Because if it comes out any other way, you’re the one who’s going to take the hit.
She spots Elisa ahead of her on the sidewalk and feels a shiver of relief. This is a good sign. Elisa might have taken off, left the city, abandoned Zelda to whatever questions might come. But no: She’s right here, right on time, striding on pretty shoes down the moonlit walkway into the front lobby. Zelda trails her at a short distance, watching for the clues Brewster warned about, attempts by Elisa to get a supervisor’s attention, that sort of thing. Again, nothing of the sort. Elisa goes into the locker room. Zelda has no choice now but to follow and sit alongside her on the bench. For a time, they don’t look at each other, but Zelda can feel the cart, the one with the squeaky wheel, between them, heavy with its otherworldly load.
Dressed, Elisa goes into the storeroom and begins loading her cart. Zelda follows her, does the same. She watches Elisa’s hand extract a roll of trash bags. Zelda does likewise. Zelda, then, lifts a jug of glass cleaner, and the second she sets it back, Elisa picks it up. They move on two separate pulses but are inching closer to synchronicity. When Zelda puts her hand on a new foxtail brush to replace one she’s abused into paddle flatness, Elisa’s hand lashes out and grips the same handle.
Zelda knows Elisa’s cart as well as she knows her own. The girl never uses her foxtail brush and certainly doesn’t need another. Elisa’s fingers spill over Zelda’s in a pile. Some fingers brown, some white, but in all other ways of equal experience: calloused by scrubbing, grimed under the nails, pinked by corrosive cleaners, and emerging from dingy Occam cuffs. Zelda sobs once, but holds it inside, no matter the toxicity of the room’s chemical cloud.
It is a quiet and invisible forgiveness. There are other people in the locker room. Beyond, there is Fleming and Strickland. Everywhere else, cameras and Empties. The only hug Zelda dares is the infinitesimal squeeze of Elisa’s fingers inside hers. Knuckle presses to knuckle, before Elisa’s hand cedes the foxtail brush and pushes her cart from the room. Zelda remains, closes her eyes, breathes in the fumes. The tiny finger-squeeze is the full-body embrace she’s waited on for weeks; it’s the hot tears onto a comforter’s neck; it’s acknowledgment, appreciation, apology, admiration. We will survive this, the squeeze says. Together, you and I will make it through.
8
wE RISE /// SUN is gone still gone only fake suns here fake suns are all we have felt for many cycles we do not like fake suns fake suns make us tired but the woman is blind without fake suns and so we try to like them for her for her for her the water in this cave is small but we begin to heal and it is better water than the last water no water should bring pain water should not be flat water should not be smooth water should not be empty water should not have a shape there is no shape of water /// in this cave there is only woman and man and food but it is good to have hunger we have not had strong hunger since river since grass since mud since trees since sun since moon since rain hunger is life and so we rise and the fake suns come closer the man did not hide the fake suns when he went away we miss the man the man is good he sits by the small water and uses black rock to make small twins of us long ago the river people made small twins of twig and leaf and flowers and twins are good twins make us eternal and now the river people are gone and we are sad but the man is good and makes twins all day and this brings us more strength more hunger /// the woman has planted trees in this cave and light from real suns comes from the outer caves and now we touch the planted trees and they touch us and they are happy and we love the trees and the woman has planted other trees on the walls small flat trees they do not smell like trees and they are not happy not alive but the woman planted them and we will love these small unhappy trees for
her for her for her /// moving free no metal vines holding us it has been many cycles since we moved free and this small cave becomes a bigger cave and there is the man he holds the twins he makes of us his eyes are closed but he breathes in life patterns and makes sleep sounds and that is good and we are hungry but we will not eat the man because the man is good /// we smell the woman the smell is strong and there is another cave her cave and we go inside and the woman is not there but her smells are alive her skin her hair her liquids her air the strongest smell are her flippers on the wall so many colorful flippers we love her flippers and we worry she has lost her flippers but there is no blood smell no pain smell no fear smell and we are confused /// hunger and we go past the man to the place of smells it is flat and tall and white and we try to lift but it is heavy we try to crack but find no seam and we push and pull and it opens and the smells the smells the smells it is a very small cave of smells a cave with its own fake suns and we take a rock but it is not a rock we squeeze and it cracks it is milk and milk is falling and we hold it high and drink and it is good and we chew on the rock and it is not good we reject it and we take a new rock and it opens and it is eggs so many eggs and we are happy we eat the eggs and they are not the solid eggs the woman gives us they are liquid eggs but they are good and the shells are good to chew /// we forage good foods many good foods and the man makes happy sleep sounds and we are happy and there is another flat and tall and white thing and we think it holds more food and we push and pull the same and it opens but there is no food there is a passage and from the passage come different smells outside smells and bird sounds and insect sounds and we do not want to miss the woman when she returns but we are explorers it is our nature to explore and we are fed we are stronger and it has been so many cycles since we have explored and so we go
9
THE RED PHONE. It won’t stop ringing. He won’t answer it. He can’t. Not until he’s got the situation by the short, scaly tail. For five minutes it will ring. Thirty minutes will pass, if he’s lucky, an hour. Then it will ring again. He’s got to focus. Hoffstetler. This Trotskyite pinko. Glancing at the phone like he’s never seen the color red before, like it isn’t the same red as his homeland flag. Strickland shuffles the papers Hoffstetler handed him. An act, just to let the white coat sweat. He didn’t read more than the opening sentence. Can’t feel the papers with his dead fingers. Doesn’t care, not anymore. Paper is for men, not Jungle-gods.
“Do you need to answer that?” Hoffstetler asks. “If you’d like me to come back…”
“Don’t you go anywhere, Bob.”
The phone keeps ringing. The monkeys have dug their way into that sound, too, howling their instructions. Strickland squares the paper and grins. Hoffstetler avoids his eyes, looks around, nods at the monitors. Half are live, half are paused since yesterday. Strickland feels the same, half alive, half dead, desperate to find Deus Brânquia even as his veins are being threaded with thick lianas vines.
“How is the investigation?” Hoffstetler asks.
“Good. Very good. We have a lead, a very promising lead.”
“Well, that’s…” Hoffstetler adjusts his glasses. “That’s wonderful.”
“You sick, Bob? You look a little gray.”
“No. Not at all. It’s this gray weather, perhaps.”
“Is that right? Coming from Russia, I figured weather like this would be like being home.”
The phone, the monkeys, keeps ringing.
“I don’t know. I haven’t been there since I was a boy, of course.”
“You came to us from where again?”
“Wisconsin.”
“And before that?”
“Boston. Harvard.”
“And before that?”
“Are you sure you don’t want to answer the—”
“Ithaca, wasn’t it? And Durham. I’ve got a good memory, Bob.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Impressive. I mean that. Another thing I remember from your file is you had a tenured position. People work hard for that, don’t they?”
“I suppose they do, yes.”
“And you gave it all up for us.”
“I did, yes.”
“That’s remarkable, Bob. Makes a man in my position feel good.”
Strickland snaps the paper he holds. Hoffstetler jumps in his seat.
“I guess that’s why this caught me by surprise,” Strickland says. “All those honors you gave up just to join our little project. And now you’re leaving?”
The red phone stops ringing. The bell’s vibration continues for twelve more seconds. Strickland counts them off while watching Hoffstetler’s reaction. The scientist does look sick. But so does everyone at Occam these days. He’s got to have better proof. If he pins shit this serious on their star scientist and he’s wrong, that red phone will only ring louder. He breathes through his nose, feels it scorch with Sertão heat. Energized, he studies Hoffstetler’s eyes. Dodgy, but they’ve always been dodgy. Sweaty, too, but half of these eggheads faint at the sight of an MP.
“I do wish to return to my studies.”
“Oh yeah? What kind?”
“I haven’t decided. There is always more to learn. I suppose I’ve been thinking about multicellularity in the taxonomic tree. I might also follow my interest in random and volitional nondeterministic happenings. And I don’t believe I’ll ever tire of astrobiology.”
“Big words, Bob. Hey, how about you teach me something? That last one. Astro-whatchamacallit.”
“Well … what would you like to know?”
“You’re the professor. First day of class, they’re all staring at you. What do you tell them?”
“I … used to teach them a song. If you want to know the truth.”
“I do. I do want to know the truth. I never took you for a crooner, Bob.”
“It’s just a little—it’s a children’s song—”
“If you think I’m letting you out of here without singing this little ditty, you’re crazy.”
Now Hoffstetler is really sweating. And Strickland is really grinning. He places a hand over his mouth to ensure that delirious monkey screams don’t begin hooting up from his throat. Hoffstetler tries to laugh it off, but Strickland won’t budge. Hoffstetler winces, stares at his hands in his lap. The seconds ticking by only make it more painful. They both know it. Hoffstetler clears his throat and, to Strickland’s joy, begins to sing.
“The color of a star, you can be sure, is mostly due to its temp-era-ture.”
It’s an off-key warble that betrays, more than is typical, the man’s Russian accent. Hoffstetler knows it, too, sure as shit, and he swallows hard. Strickland claps his hands, his dead fingers flopping like plastic.
“Beautiful, Bob. If you don’t mind me asking, though, what’s the point of it?”
Hoffstetler lurches forward, quick enough to kill. Strickland startles, rocks back in his chair, grabs for the machete, if that’s what it is, stashed under his desk. He curses himself. Never, ever underestimate cornered prey. The weapon, though, isn’t needed. Not yet. Hoffstetler perches on the edge of his chair, but not beyond it. His voice still shakes, but not from fear. Humiliation has produced anger, and it’s as sharp as cliff-side rocks.
“The point is that it’s true,” Hoffstetler snaps. “We’re all made of stardust, Mr. Strickland. Oxygen, hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen, and calcium. If some of us get our way and our countries fire off their warheads, then we shall return to stardust. All of us. And what color will our stars be then? That is the question. A question you might ask yourself.”
Friendly palaver is over. The two men glare.
“Your last week,” Strickland says slowly. “Gonna miss you, Bob.”
Hoffstetler stands. His knees are knocking. At least there’s that.
“Should there be a development, of course, I’ll return right away.”
“You figure there will be? A development?”
“I am sure I don’t know. You said you
had a lead.”
Strickland smiles. “I do.”
Hoffstetler’s not even out of sight when the red phone starts ringing again. Monkey screams, accusatory this time. Strickland slams his right fist to his desk hard enough to make the receiver tremble. It hurts. But it’s also satisfying, like squashing longhorn beetles, bullet ants, tarantulas, all those Amazon pests. When he does it again he chooses the left fist. Fewer fingers to hurt over there. Hardly feels it at all. He slams, and slams, and slams, and believes he feels a pop in one of the fingers, another of the black stitches ripping free. Like the sutures in Deus Brânquia. Who is falling apart faster? Who will outlast the other?
He picks up the phone, not the red one, and dials Fleming’s extension. Fleming might be General Hoyt’s errand boy, but he’s under Strickland’s command, too. He picks up on the first ring. Strickland hears the clatter of a dropped clipboard.
“When Dr. Hoffstetler leaves today,” Strickland says, “I want you to follow him.”
10
LIGHT LEAPS FROM between the wood underfoot like playful animals many good colors bird color snake color roach color bee color dolphin color and we try to catch it but it is just light and sound too the woman calls it music it is different from our music but we love it and we glow our love and we follow it the light and the music down the passage until we see another object flat and tall and white and we push and pull and go inside and it is a cave that smells of the good man his skin his hair his liquids his breath his sickness there is sickness it is faint the man cannot yet feel it or smell it and it makes us sad but there are good smells too the black rock the man uses to make our small twins we can see the small twins all over the cave so many twins and we touch our twins and our claws smear the black and we lick the black and the black does not taste good and there is a man skull and on top of it is hair as fake as the fake suns and this makes us lonely in our river there are many skulls death is all over and it is good it is good to know death so that you can know life /// here is a better smell the smell of food the best food living food and we feel the animals in the cave all animals are our friends and they come out of hiding with pointy ears and whiskers and long tails and their eyes shine like ours they bow to us they offer themselves they are beautiful we love them we accept the sacrifice and we take one and we squeeze so there is no pain and we eat our friend and it is good it is blood fur sinew muscle bone heart love and we eat and we are stronger and we feel the river again all the gods the feather god the scale god the shell god the fang god the claw god the pincher god the tree god all of us part of the knot there is no you there is no me there is only we we we we we /// a noise a bad noise a crack like the bad man and his pain stick the lightning stick and we hiss and we turn and we attack and the bad man makes a pain sound but we have done wrong it is not the bad man it is the good man the good man has come back to his cave found us eating his pointy ear whiskers long tail friend and we are sorry we change to sorry color to sorry scent to sorry liquids to sorry stance we did not mean to attack we are not foe we are friend friend friend and good man smiles at us but his smell goes bad and the good man lifts his arm and looks at his arm and blood comes a lot of blood and the blood falls like rain
The Shape of Water Page 25