Zeitgeist

by Bruce Sterling

  Humming to himself, Starlitz combed his hair and knotted a tie.

  Then Vanna’s tangled head emerged. She spoke up again, in a new voice. “Legs?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I gotta tell you something about Zeta. ’Cause I’m gonna leave Zeta with you.”

  “Yeah, that’s what I figured,” Starlitz said equably. “I thought that had to be the story. Because that girl … Well, that little girl is the one thing I did in the twentieth century that I can’t get away from.”

  “What?”

  “It makes perfect sense that she’d show up at Y2K. Because she is the one consequence that is gonna outlive me. I can’t dodge her or deny her. I can’t crawl under her, and I can’t jump over her. If I’m gonna be who I am, then I gotta deal with this—I gotta go right through this thing, to get to the other side.”

  “Listen, I’m her mother, and I love her. But Zeta’s really weird.”

  Starlitz said nothing.

  “I don’t mean cute weird. I mean, yeah, sometimes she’s cute weird, but mostly, she’s like, poltergeist weird.”

  “Eleven-year-old girl, right? Like, real hung up on pets and horses, really picky eating habits …” Starlitz decided that a shave was in order. He ran hot water over his Bic razor.

  “No”—Vanna sighed—“I mean more like flying out of four-story windows. Breaking TVs by looking at them. That sort of thing.”

  Starlitz waved one foam-covered hand. “Aw, kids always fake that poltergeist shit, you know? Kids are really clever.”

  Vanna groaned. “Oh, it’s no use! It’s no use even talking to you about it. If there’s anybody in the world who would never get it, it would be you.” She drew a ragged breath. “I tried, okay? Just remember that I tried.”

  Starlitz leaned into the mirror. “You’re right, babe. The less said, the better.”

  “I hope she hasn’t done anything to those poor Russians. All that plane travel makes her really hyper.”

  “Aw, the boys are on the payroll. They can handle it.”

  “I’m giving up,” Vanna declared. “This is finally it: I’m giving up.” She sat up. “I’m past caring! I just can’t go on! It’s the end of the road.” Suddenly, she smiled.

  “See,” said Starlitz, “you’re better already!”

  “I tell you what I’m gonna do, Leggy. I got myself a new plan. It’s like a whole new program. It just came to me like a rush, while I was lying there sick to my stomach, with that pillow over my eyes.”

  “Roll it on out.”

  “I’ll go up to Vancouver Island. To Canada. I know some cool tree-spikers up there. Good people. They got a big survivalist tree-house. I’ll just … eat my sprouts. I’ll do yoga. Yoga and yogurt, that’s the plan. I’ll get up with the sun, and cook lots of veggies. I’ll get my health back.”

  Starlitz nodded in encouragement. “Yeah, that’s a good strong narrative.”

  “I’ll clean all out,” Vanna insisted, her voice growing firmer. “I’m gonna kick the antidepressants.”

  “Definitely couldn’t hurt.”

  “No more baby-sitting, no more yin drama. No more net-surfing either. I’ll read the Bhagavad Gita. I’ll kayak every day. I’ll realign my chakras. When Y2K hits, we’ll cut a big totem pole, and we’ll dance around it, and every-body’ll sing.”

  “Tremendous. That’s the ticket. Drop the hell right out. Find your inner self again. Get a firm new grip on your cool little alternative thing.”

  “You really think that’ll work for me? It’ll get me through Y2K?”

  “Absolutely,” Starlitz said. “That was a brainstorm, it was great. It’s totally you, babe. So: can I have your satellite phone?”

  Vanna considered this. “Nope. No way.”

  STARLITZ DISCOVERED KHOKLOV AND ZETA, SITTING together in Girne, in the Cockney Harbour Club. They were at an outdoor table under a big tattered umbrella, eating two plates of fish and chips.

  The little seaside eatery catered to elderly British retirees. Ten or fifteen of them were lounging there now, absorbing sun and shandies in their senile Shangri-La. Khoklov, all avuncular jolliness, had a rubber-band sheaf of hundred-dollar bills. He was passing them to the girl, one by one.

  Zeta was wearing a cheap blue jumper and had her hair in a French braid. Leggy stood and watched her. A sensation utterly new to him washed through him. It was a feeling of tremendous, transformational potency. She didn’t look much like himself—she had Vanna’s long bones and fair skin—but then she bent her neck to pluck up and devour a French fry. Starlitz took stunned note of the squat, solid, cannonball shape of her head. In a single instant he knew with profound mammalian certainty that she was his issue.

  He drew nearer.

  Zeta was examining Khoklov’s bills and arranging them in two neat stacks. “This one’s good!” Zeta said to Khoklov. “This one’s no good.… This one’s okay.… Gosh, this one’s really terrible!” She lifted the bogus bill into the air and made a face. “Who drew this one? He stinks!”

  Khoklov beckoned him to the table. “Don’t make her lose count,” he cautioned in Russian. “She has such a talent for this!”

  Starlitz pulled up an injection-molded white plastic chair. He had no idea what to say. He’d never before confronted any human being with Zeta’s particular qualities. He felt very much at a loss. “So, where’d you get all the counterfeits?” he said at last, in Russian.

  “From a Lithuanian. He paid me to do a Cyprus laundry cash-run for him.”

  “I thought Lithuanians were way up to speed with Yankee currency.”

  “He was a Russian-ethnic Lithuanian.”

  “Yeah, well, that would account for it.”

  Zeta aimed a friendly smile at him, with a childish rack of gappy teeth. “Hi, mister!”

  “Hello.”

  “You said ‘hello’ to me! You have some English, huh?”

  “Yeah, I do English.”

  “You have some funny money too? Well, give it to me! ’Cause I can tell ’em apart really good!”

  “Good for you,” Starlitz said meekly. “You oughta work on that, it’s a useful skill.”

  Khoklov laughed at him. Khoklov was wearing Italian aviator shades, a linen ice-cream suit, and a natty straw boater. There was a new trace of color in Khoklov’s seamy cheeks.

  Starlitz felt the inherent limits of the day bursting wide open. For the first time, as he sat there at the wobbling table, Starlitz realized that the little town of Girne had a truly beautiful harbor. It was small, twinkling, compact, and sunny, full of handsome yachts. The Girne harbor was the kind of place that might reconcile a man to a hostile universe.

  “Look at you!” Khoklov chuckled. “I’ve never seen you like this!”

  “Like what?”

  “You’re happy.”

  Starlitz said nothing. But it was true. So that was it: that sinister, untoward feeling of fantastic, soul-unfolding power that was stealing through his flesh. That alien sensation was simple human joy. Khoklov was right: he was happy. He felt happy and proud to be sitting there with his daughter. Starlitz could even feel his face changing shape—there was an expression stamped on it now that had never before crossed his features.

  Khoklov pulled off his shades and smiled. “It’s a good surprise for you, eh, Lekhi?”

  “Yes. It’s a really good surprise. Thank you, Pulat Romanevich.”

  “Shall I tell you how I managed it?” said Khoklov, leaning back. “It was quite a story.”

  “No, not yet. I just want to look at her for a while.”

  Khoklov signaled the waiter. “Tell her to hide all that cash for a minute. I’ll buy you a nice Turkish beer.”

  Zeta contentedly stuffed the cash into her pink vinyl G-7 backpack. Starlitz saw at a glance that this was the Korean model, featuring the seven girls as dancing anime cartoons, their eyeballs big as manhole covers. Quite the fan collector’s item. There was always some consumer bleed-over around the Pacific Rim markets.

&nb
sp; Zeta picked the fried crust from her fish and swallowed a wedge of flesh. “I only eat the white part,” she volunteered.

  “You like that band, G-7?”

  Zeta nodded violently, braid flapping at the nape of her slender neck. “Yeah, Mom One and Mom Two, they bought me all their white labels!”

  “I never thought your daughter would be so pretty,” said Khoklov in Russian. “She’s a pretty, young American girl! You know who she reminds me of? That youngster who flew to the Soviet Union, for peace.”

  “Matthias Rust?”

  “No, not him! He was German, he was insane! I mean that little American pilot girl.”

  “Oh, yeah! The one who died in the plane crash later. I’ve forgotten her name.”

  “I’ve forgotten her too,” said Khoklov. “That sweet little girl—poor thing. It was a Cold War biznis, so now she is all yesterday.…” He looked at Starlitz intently. “You have to cherish them, eh? You have to look after them, while you have them.”

  The waiter arrived with two bottles of Efes Pilsner. Khoklov paid. “You want something else?”

  “I had a little something in the hotel just now, but …” Starlitz examined the tabletop menu. “Yeah. Bring me some prawns. And, uh, some mutton chops. Is the baklava good? Bring us some of that. We’re celebrating.”

  Khoklov had a long, nourishing draft of cold beer. He pointed at Zeta’s backpack. In his fragmented English he told her, “Girl, give me that nice money.”

  “Sure, okay!” Zeta handed over two neatly sorted wads of good and bogus bills. Sitting up straight, she began thumbing her way through the rest of the stack, counting under her breath.

  “What an excellent young lady.” Khoklov grinned. “She has won my heart, I like her very much. In English how do you say: ‘This is your father’?”

  “You say, ‘This is your father,’ ” Starlitz told him.

  “Girl,” said Khoklov sternly. “Zinovia! ‘This is your father.’ ” He pointed.

  Zeta looked up. “This is my father?”

  “Yes. This is your father: Lekhi Starlits.”

  She gazed into his eyes. “Are you?”

  “That’s right, Zenobia. I’m your dad.”

  Zeta lunged forward and flung her skinny arms around his neck. Starlitz patted her back awkwardly. Her long, flat, preteen torso was full of startling muscular strength. Zeta was lean and mean, she was like a little growth stock.

  Starlitz pried his throat loose from her forearm. “It’s really good to see you, Zeta. I think you’d better help Uncle Pulat with his cash there. It’s starting to blow away.”

  “Oh. Okay.” She sat down again. “Gimme some more, Uncle Pilot!”

  Starlitz cleared his throat. “You and me, Zeta, we’re gonna be together for a while. Okay? We’ll get to know each other.”

  “Do I get to meet the band?”

  “You bet. Absolutely.”

  “All the girls? Every one?”

  “Every one. Autographs, T-shirts, you’ll be just like a radio call-in winner.”

  “Oh that’s just so GREAT!!” Zeta screamed.

  “I ought to go back at the hotel now,” Starlitz said in Russian. “I need to knock heads, and settle accounts, and get them all packed. There’s always some crisis, there’s always some loose end.… But you know what? To hell with all that.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “I got better things to attend to now. I never saw anyone like this before. She is amazing. This is someone who exists because of me.”

  Khoklov politely handed another sheaf of bills to Zeta. “Young girls are very good at this detail work,” he said. “It’s time to teach her to cook. Borscht, that would be a good start.”

  “Oh, hell, Khoklov, what do you know about it? You don’t have any kids!”

  “How sadly true,” sniffed Khoklov. “Of course, there is my useless nephew.… But until this moment I never missed fatherhood. I never married. There were plenty of girls, naturally.…” Khoklov shrugged casually. “You can’t help that, when you’re a jet ace. But I never found the right woman.”

  “They’re hard to find. So they say.”

  Prawns arrived. “You want some of these?” Starlitz asked his daughter.

  “Okay, yeah, no, maybe, I guess.” Zeta carefully peeled away the crust to look at the shrimp’s insides.

  “I wasn’t looking very hard, to tell the truth,” said Khoklov. “I once asked a woman to marry me—a very rich niece of Berezhovsky’s. She wouldn’t have me, though. Very wise of her. Besides, she was Jewish.”

  Starlitz watched Zeta as she sampled a white dab of cabbage. “I never married her mother.”

  “No? Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, there were two of them. Two women in the bed at the time.”

  Khoklov raised his brows in disbelief. “You seduced two women at once, Lekhi? You?”

  “Yeah. Except it wasn’t a bed, it was a hammock. And they were lesbians.”

  “Hey, Dad,” Zeta piped up.

  “What?” said Starlitz.

  “Hey, Dad.”

  “Yes, what?”

  “Hey, Dad!”

  “What is it, Zeta?”

  “Have you ever been inside this guy’s airplane? It’s super cool!”

  “What is she saying to you?” said Khoklov.

  “I didn’t know you had an airplane here,” Starlitz told him.

  “It isn’t exactly mine,” said Khoklov, tilting his beer. “It belongs to President Milosevic.”

  “What, from the Yugoslav Air Force?”

  “No, no, it belongs to the president of Serbia personally. He’s a very clever man, you know. A great man, Slobodan Milosevic. He can change history. The twentieth century doesn’t breed men like him anymore.”

  Starlitz nodded thoughtfully. He slid the prawns toward Zeta and attacked the spiced mutton chops. “I hear his wife’s a real piece of work too.”

  “Oh, yes,” said Khoklov sincerely. “Mirjana Markovic, she loves to live dangerously. She’s an old-school Bolshevik Communist girl, Mirjana’s some kind of woman.” He sighed. “It’s not that I don’t love women, you know? They’re sweet! It’s me that’s the problem! I just can’t imagine being Mr. Husband, that boring fellow behind the newspaper. That family dad, eating at the breakfast table. When I’m with a woman, I want to be exciting, I want to be thrilling! The man with the scar on his cheek and the cold blue eyes!”

  “Absolutely. That’s you to a T, flyboy.”

  Khoklov sobered. “One day, though, I had a kind of revelation.… I should tell you about this now, Lekhi, I should confide in you. This is important. It’s about my role in the world, my personal role in Slavic history.… It was at the Davos Economic Forum, in those beautiful mountains, in Switzerland.… Are you going to eat all those prawns?”

  “Have a few, Pulat Romanevich. You need the protein.”

  “I was in Berezhovsky’s entourage at the time. He was conferring with the other Seven Russian Bankers about the Yeltsin reelection campaign. I myself, I was getting the secret plane built for Milosevic, at a certain aviation base in Switzerland.… We all went out drinking with George Soros, and his capitalist dissidents. You know those Soros network people?”

  “What,” said Starlitz, chewing, “the rogue billionaire’s hippie media freaks? Oh, yeah, they’re way hard to miss.”

  “They’re not spies, exactly. A network without national allegiances. A ‘Nongovernmental Organization.’ ”

  “ ‘Postgovernmental Organization.’ ”

  “Yes, that’s right, exactly. So I was drinking with this Soros operative, one of those ‘economic analysts’ that our country is infested with. The ‘English-speaking thieves.’ He began to confide in me.… Out came this document he had prepared.… All about our Russian demographics.”

  “Uh-oh,” Starlitz said.

  “Yes. He explained it to me. It was horrible beyond words. Our soaring Russian death rate. Our crashing Russian birth rate. Al
coholism. Outmigration. Life expectancy for Russian men, fifty-seven years. Much worse than under the czars! We are finally free, democratic, in command of our own destiny—and we are emptying the nation. We’re liquidating ourselves.”

  “Aw, that’s NATO scare talk. He was pulling your leg, ace.”

  “No, he wasn’t lying to me. He was very drunk and honest, he went to puke five minutes later. No, that was my own portrait that little functionary had in his little papers. I drink too much. I rob the Russian nation. I’m in the bankers’ maphiya, so I shoot the stupid people who get in the way of the big thieves. And then, I myself, I abandoned Russia. I erased myself from my Motherland. I’m over here, lost in a foreign country, drinking beer in the sunshine, and running some silly hustle, while the Turks are trying to kill me.”

  “Hmmmph.”

  Khoklov lifted his poet’s eyes at Zeta. “It would be different if I had a child. I know that now: if I had a true stake in the world, if I had a future that mattered, then somehow my life would become different.”

  “Maybe.”

  Khoklov’s fond gaze soured. “But then there would be the mother. Oh, my God. I can’t imagine that: chained for life to some aging, sagging, boring woman.… I love them when they’re pretty and eager, but what if they were … old, and wrinkled, and bitter! Or desperately pasting themselves together, like that evil Dinsmore woman in your entourage.… Oh, my God, if a woman I had loved turned into something like that.… That would be my worst nightmare.”

  “I like ugly women,” Starlitz blurted.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, ugly women are my type. Because I’m an ugly guy.”

  Khoklov examined him, full of thoughtful pity. “I suppose that, in some very basic, animal level, they are all the same in the dark.…”

  “No, man, that’s not it at all. It’s a lifestyle choice.” Starlitz finished his beer. “If you’re a wandering guy like we are, and you’re bound and determined to screw so many different women that you lose count … Well, there aren’t many ways to love ’em and leave ’em without hurting their feelings. The best way is to leave them thinking: I could have had all of that I wanted, but I had too much self-respect. You know? That’s what always works for me.”