Evensong

by Love, John

  “No, because Gaetano emptied a gun into his head. But we’ll find it eventually. His body’s gone to Kuala Lumpur for autopsy.”

  “We’re shipping so many bodies from here to Kuala Lumpur we should start an airline. Maybe call it Air Abbas.”

  “How about Dead Air?”

  Anwar laughed, for the first time in days. He felt some residual pain in his sternum and upper ribs.

  “The Patel people. They’re the real surprise.”

  “Yes,” she said, “and we’re tracking them. There were nine in the original party. They were helped by Olivia’s insistence that they should work away from public view. She didn’t want her Conference Centre looking like they had the builders in.”

  “Gaetano checked them, and so did you. How did they beat the checks?”

  “We’ll know that when we find them. Maybe techniques like those they used on Levin. Also, the misdirection of sending people like Carne and Hines didn’t help, and—” she paused “—neither did your obsession with Proskar.”

  Anwar smiled bleakly. Not to mention my obsession with Olivia. The Detail. Not the one Arden found, but the one I’m still looking for. Unfinished business. “The best plans are always simple. Hiding in plain sight. They made a replica of the original wall at the other end of the room, and put Levin behind it, while they were shut in there building the panelled wall. The panelling was such a major piece of work, especially when I made them tear it down and remake it, that nobody would think they’d built another fake wall elsewhere. I didn’t.” Usually I look for pockets of darkness, but I missed that one. “And I’d already told Gaetano how I’d be able to stay undetected if they got me in there.”

  He remembered his conversation with Gaetano. Quite detailed and precise, given that they hadn’t then known or trusted each other very much. I’d go to near-death. Hibernation. No body-heat detectors would find me: surface temperature would be the same as my immediate surroundings. No heartbeat or breath detectors would find me: pulse and breathing would be almost nonexistent, and random. No scanners or imagers or DNA detectors would find me: my body would echo the texture and shape of its immediate surroundings.

  And then, an electronic signal to activate. From the next room or the next continent. A single pulse. Two targets, Olivia primary, Anwar secondary (because Anwar, though out-classed, was still the only one there who might be able to do something). Simple: two faces, kill both.

  “Yes,” Arden said, as though she’d heard what Anwar had been thinking. “Their primary objective was to kill Olivia publicly. But also, as a bonus, to kill a Consultant publicly, the way they had Levin kill Asika privately. Not quickly, but piece by piece, limb by limb. To send a message, live and worldwide: total functional annihilation. Of a Consultant, by a Consultant.”

  “Who are they, Arden?”

  “Laurens is already fighting back. He knows more about them.”

  “Laurens?” In two syllables she’d told him what she’d tried to hide earlier. “You and Rafiq. I didn’t see that coming.”

  “Neither did I. But it feels right.”

  “Yes, I think it will work...what’s he found out?” He was assessing it like a chemical or mechanical process, the way he’d repeatedly (and unsuccessfully) tried to assess himself and Olivia.

  “Thank you for your good wishes.” Her deadpan expression took any sarcasm out of the remark.

  “Sorry. What’s he found out?”

  “They miscalculated. About how you had changed, how you survived Levin, and how Laurens had engineered the summit outcome. And something else, that made them reveal Marek’s body earlier than they wanted.”

  They don’t do bodies as well as we do. But they do other things better.

  “Well, they’re his problem now. But I think they’re going to find they’ve never had an opponent like him before.”

  He stayed there for most of October 21, alternating between waking and sleep. Still unexpectedly dreamless and deep sleep.

  Arden was still there when he woke. It was late afternoon on October 21.

  “I don’t think Rafiq expected me to survive. But he always does. He gets the girl, and he gets what he wanted from the summit. I still don’t know why he picked me for this. Do you?”

  “No. He told me he didn’t know himself, and I think I believe him. But...”

  Her voice trailed off, and he didn’t attempt to fill the silence that grew between them.

  “Anwar,” she said suddenly, “I’m so sorry about Levin! About what they did to him!”

  “I did my grieving for him at the right time. It wasn’t Levin I fought. He really did die days before.”

  “When you faced him, how did you do it? Where did it come from?”

  “You didn’t think I could do it?”

  “Of course I didn’t! Remember what I do for a living, Anwar. If Chulo was killed, I couldn’t see how you could...”

  “What do you think Chulo felt when Levin was breaking him piece by piece? Not fear, the training would cover that. Pain? The training should cover that too, but none of us has taken damage like that before. I expected pain, but I willed it to go away and I willed the broken parts to go on working.But only part of that was the training. Maybe it was because I had someone to fight for.”

  “So did Chulo. His family.”

  “His family weren’t there and they weren’t being directly threatened, and he knew their feelings for him. She was present and she was directly threatened, but her feelings, I don’t know. So I thought I had an answer to your question but I don’t. I don’t know where it came from.”

  She didn’t reply. She usually knew when to say nothing.

  “I’ve been doing sums, Arden. Addition and subtraction. Nineteen of us originally, then we started to say, ‘Eighteen, or is it Seventeen?’ Then gradually we started saying Seventeen. It wasn’t then, when we started saying it, but it is now.

  “Before I came here I’d only killed one person, and that was accidentally. I’ve now killed four. One accidentally, two indirectly through botching up their questioning, and one directly and deliberately. I’ve never entered any combat before where I was wishing and intending to kill an opponent. I’ve never had to.”

  She still didn’t reply.

  “Go back to Fallingwater, Arden. I have unfinished business here.”

  “Unfinished business?”

  “We found your Detail, and it’s dealt with. For now. You still have to find how they got to Levin and how they remade him, but that’s for you.

  “Now I need to find her Detail. I almost saw it for a moment, right after Levin died, but it’s gone. Would you believe that? For once, I can’t remember something!”

  “You will.”

  “I’ll see you back at Fallingwater. Please have one of those VSTOLs at the airfield, ready. I’ll drive out there in a day or two.”

  The VSTOL that brought her, and took the doctors away, had returned and was already waiting for her on the Pier’s landing pad; hovering politely, as always, an inch or two above the surface. Arden Bierce left.

  He lay there, doing nothing. He thought, she was here all night. Why? Because she hadn’t expected either of them would survive, and now they had, and she wanted to be sure he hadn’t seen The Detail? Or maybe just because she wanted to help him recover. Sometimes pick the simpler explanation.

  He slipped into another unexpectedly dreamless and relaxing sleep. When he woke it was the evening of October 21.

  He knew he was getting better because he started taking stock of his hospital room. Spotless, white and silver, like everywhere except her bedroom. The window looked out to sea, not back towards the Brighton foreshore or over the spires and domes of the Pier’s Cathedral complex. The sea was featureless, dark grey.

  The hospital was located in part of a Pavilion-style building on the edge of the Pier and near its end, so emergency planes could land nearby. He saw gulls from his window. Their sheer numbers, and their messy opportunistic feeding, made them almo
st vermin. But they were beautiful when they flew, graceful and most un-verminlike as they slid down the air or soared on it. Their slender white shapes would have graced any New Anglican interior. Sometimes, maybe the surface and not the inside was what counted.

  Gaetano visited. Anwar felt the same kind of relativity he’d felt in the Signing Room. They spoke to each other out of different frames of reference. They communicated only obliquely, across different universes. Remarks that were mundane or conventional or well-meant in Gaetano’s universe were charged with menace and double-meaning when they travelled across the room to Anwar’s.

  “If anyone threatens her...Can never repay...Most important person in the world to me...She’ll always owe...”

  And vice-versa, from Anwar’s universe to Gaetano’s.

  “Not over yet...I owe her too...Still some details...Unfinished business.”

  And, as the door closed behind Gaetano, Anwar kept thinking, You went back. You shot him in the head, to make sure he was dead.

  On the night of October 21, the first dream came. He was alone in the room. Olivia, who seemed to have evolved a shift pattern, left a gap in her shift, and the dream slid in softly, visiting him when she wasn’t.

  Maybe it was the accumulated trauma, hitting him at last. What should have been the final part of the dream, the part where he learned The Detail, came first and most easily. The Detail walked up to him, showed itself to him...and swirled coquettishly away.

  The parts which should have come first, leading to the climax where the Detail appeared, now crept in. He recalled bits of his past life and waited patiently for them to go away because they were irrelevant. He recalled snatches of conversations with Arden and Gaetano, his five days in the Signing Room, his meetings with her, and waited patiently for them to go away because they were irrelevant. But they wouldn’t go until they repeated themselves.

  Snatches of words. And his inner obsessions, the themes shaped by his solitude, slid between and through and over the words, leaving a silver surface slime that glistened on them and illuminated them. Containers and contents. Surface and substance. Outside and inside. Private names, immersion holograms, books. Theatre Masks. Identity Soul Body.Containers Contents.

  Levin. Her almost-recognition/almost-understanding. But, “Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead. Shoot it, in the head.”

  Gaetano went back. Anwar heard him empty his gun, shot after shot after shot.

  Make sure it’s dead, shoot it in the head. Make sure it’s dead, shoot it in the head..

  If they’d done that to Levin, they...

  They don’t do bodies, but...

  He saw The Detail again. Not Arden’s Detail, that was dealt with for now, but hers. It walked up to him again, then swirled coquettishly away. Again.

  He woke in the early morning of October 22. He knew the dream had come because it had left him exhausted; but he couldn’t remember it.

  Olivia was there, sitting at his bedside. Wants to know if I’ve seen it yet? Or wants to help me recover? He pretended to fall asleep to avoid talking to her, then pretence became reality. He woke a little later to find her touching his shoulder.

  “Ihavetogoforafewhours”shesaid.“AppointmentsI’ve been putting off. I do have...”

  “An organisation to run,” he completed for her. “That’s alright, I’ll see you later.”

  She smiled briefly and left, and he promptly fell asleep again.

  The dream returned. But this time, like Levin bursting out of the wall, it returned as a monster.

  Random phrases he’d heard since coming to Brighton, dancing in front of his face. Then swirling coquettishly away.If the phrases had been her, they’d be suggestively moving their meanings under the surface of their words like she suggestively moved her bottom under her long voluminous skirt as she turned away from him. She’d been good at turning away.

  He couldn’t take his attention off the words, just as he couldn’t take his gaze off her when she moved like that, pretending she didn’t notice him. Some of the words he remembered just as words. They floated to the surface, spoke themselves as they were spoken, and sank back. Offer and Acceptance. Muslim filth. Jewish scum.

  And then they came back, with music. With his dream-memory of the Congolese big band music he’d heard a few days ago, distorted by the random subconscious tides of his dream into something less pleasant: minor key, not major, with blaring dissonant brass and singers’ voices, not melodious but harsh and mocking like seagulls’. The music massaged the words, stressing alternate syllables regularly and masturbating them until their rhythms and inflexions and cadences spilled out.

  Offer and Acceptance, Offer and Acceptance,

  Muslim filth, Jewish scum.

  Offer and Acceptance, The Dead fight in silence,

  Muslim filth, Jewish scum.

  “I’m Miles ahead of you, Anwar.” Yes you were, even in reaching death. Hear that, Miles? I’ve got a good rejoinder at last!

  “Goodbye, old friend.”

  Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.

  Shoot it in the head, in the head, in the head.

  Reith Lecture. Room For God. Small sharp-featured figure on his screen.

  Her life’s amounted to something. Never backing down.

  Her life’s amounted to something. Never backing down.

  A small animal, baring its teeth, and never backing down.

  Greed, for food and sex.

  Where does she put that food, where does she put that sperm?

  Better than the best prostitutes.

  In and out, with no baggage. Sex and nothing more.

  In and out, with no baggage. Sex and nothing more.

  In and out, with no baggage. Better than a whore.

  Old greeting Muslim filth Jewish scum.

  Post-Levin, Velvet bag of shit Fucking autistic retard.

  I needed the best, and Rafiq sent me you. A fucking autistic retard!

  I needed the best, and Rafiq sent me you. A fucking autistic retard!

  “Say that again, I’ll forget who I am.”

  “When did you last remember who you are?”

  “It does something a bit decisive, and thinks it’s turning into me.”

  “It does something a bit decisive, and thinks it’s turning into me.”

  “Something you haven’t told me. A final detail that over-turns everything else.”

  The Detail. The Dead. The Detail.

  Hate my opponents less, and understand them more.

  Hate my opponents less, and understand them more.

  Better than the most expensive whore.

  The music paused. The words continued, sounding naked.

  “I may not always be out here, in front of you, but God is always out there.”

  “What did you make of that?”/“It sounded like Goodbye.”

  She isn’t real. Appetites moodswings.Didn’t notice me then she did. Wanted involvement but maybe didn’t. Then she didn’t but maybe did. And me, the same but in reverse. Action and reaction. Not love. Not even companionship. Only action and reaction, making one of us the other’s opposite.

  My feelings the opposite of hers, and (like hers)containing the opposite of that opposite. Containers and contents.

  The music began again.

  The one you run away from, chases after you the most...

  Love came and went with deliberate perversity of timing. Deliberate. Like a lighthouse beam switching on and off. On when ships weren’t in danger of being wrecked, off when they were.

  You mistimed.

  Shot him dead, twice in the head.

  Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.

  In Zagreb Marek went back. Shot dead two people who he noticed were still alive. At Fallingwater Marek went back. Shot dead a boy who he noticed was still alive.

  Go back and kill it. Make sure it’s dead.

  Shoot it in the head, in the head, in the head.

  Gaetano went back. Anwar heard him
, shot after shot after shot.

  You’ve shown me double meanings and things under the surface.

  You’ve shown me double meanings and things under the surface.

  I don’t know if love exists but nothing else fits.

  I’ve listed all the pros and cons and nothing else fits.

  Sonnet 116 fits. The marriage of true minds. As usual, he got it right.

  And now it’s academic: we both mistimed.

  And now it’s academic: we both mistimed.

  Today, whatever happens, the mission is finished.

  The mission is finished, the mission is finished,

  And we won’t see each other again.

  The dream showed him October 20, when he’d reached down and touched her shoulder to wake her. “Time,” he said.

  He woke, and cried out. He knew The Detail.

  14

  He woke to an empty room. She hadn’t returned yet. And he knew The Detail.

  He cried out, his soul tearing like his heart muscles had torn, his heart breaking like his bones had broken. He knew The Detail, and it didn’t swirl away. He wanted it to, but it wouldn’t.

  She thought it would die with her. She didn’t think either of us would survive.

  It was mid-morning on October 22, the day before the summit was originally planned to end. He hadn’t completely recovered, but he was well enough to do what came next.

  In the wardrobe in the hospital room were the clothes he’d worn on October 20: the grey linen blend suit and woven silk shirt and underwear and socks, all variously pressed and cleaned and washed and hung up or stored in drawers, neatly and tidily. His shoes, soft leather loafers, were polished and stowed in the wardrobe.