Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  Heller kept his eyes to the ground.

  “Oh, that’s right, you got a telegram, didn’t you? How are your parents?”

  “Fine.”

  “Mom and Dad enjoying themselves in Africa?”

  “I guess.”

  “Well, guess what?”

  Heller didn’t answer.

  Rich straightened himself into the perfect pose of authority. “Dimitri wants to see you in his office, right now.”

  “Richard?”

  Everyone turned to find Iggy Platonov sitting at his desk, legs kicked up, leafing through multicolored slips of paper. His unassuming demeanor hung off him like a tailored jacket. Even though he was only a few years older than Heller, he somehow looked to be approaching thirty, and it was easy for the rest of them to forget that there was no decade of difference between them and Iggy.

  “Iggy.” Rich’s composure was taken down a notch. “I didn’t see you there.”

  Iggy shrugged. “I have a gift for these things. It’s called the gift of the general manager. And along with this gift, it is the general manager’s job to relay any orders from Dimitri. Not you, Rich.”

  Rich nodded, unperturbed.

  “And as for the rest of you, you can get off Heller’s back about this girlfriend thing. He does have a woman all his own. Her name is Silvia. She works at Buns ’n’ Things, and she’s a knockout. So don’t think that just because Heller doesn’t run his mouth around you perverts that he’s got no place else to do it.”

  A strange wave of brotherly pride found its way into Rich’s face. “All right, Casanova.” He held up his hands, backing down from Heller. “You should bring her by sometime. Sounds like someone I’d like to meet . . . you know what I’m saying?”

  Heller cleared his throat. He looked around for help. Nobody offered any.

  A loud beep from Iggy’s computer punctuated the silence.

  “All right, Richard.” Iggy sat up, face turning to its business side. “We’ve got a baby in Dubai and twins in Belarus. Our new Internet spots have doubled our foreign market and the population seems to be doubling by the minute, so you’re on newborn service today. Fill out your morning time sheet and get ready to work.”

  Richard scowled, looked as though he might object.

  “Garland!” Iggy called out to an unseen messenger in the crowd. “I’ve got a typhoon in Taiwan. Heller’s going to be a bit late getting out there today, so I need you to take this one.”

  “Bad news ain’t my job!” came the protest from the back of the room. “Heller’s our angel of death, not me!”

  “It’s one message, Garland. We’ll have you back on weddings and promotions once we get back . . . all right?”

  No further arguments were heard.

  “All right, everyone!” Iggy clapped his hands three times. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  All at once, the office transformed into Grand Central Station. A mix of voices and movements dead set on schedules and appointments with no apparent order to the activity. Phones, faxes, printouts, receipts passed from hand to hand. It would be like this for most of the morning.

  A paper airplane sailed past Heller’s face. He turned to see Iggy watching him with playfully accusing eyes.

  “Heller . . . I don’t see any Rollerblades.” Iggy’s eyes turned serious, voice stern. “My father wants to see you in his office, right now.”

  Heller nodded. He shuffled toward the door at the far end, past the rows of desks, phones, and computers. He felt everyone’s eyes, sensed their smiles despite their focus on that day’s orders. He bit his lip. Reached for the doorknob, opened, stepped through, and closed the door behind him.

  chapter three

  The name was embossed on a plaque that sat at the front of his desk. Heller wondered what the point was; Dimitri Platonov was the boss. Creator and head of Soft Tidings. The employees knew it. Anyone from the outside would have known it, otherwise they wouldn’t be in his office. Dimitri Platonov was clearly the name of Heller’s boss, clearly in charge of Soft Tidings, and he was clearly not pleased to see Heller that morning.

  “Heller.” His Russian accent was slight and his tone stern. “Mr. Highland. Have a seat. Please.”

  Heller did as he was told, sat down. He waited.

  Dimitri was heavyset, features of a bulldog. Personality to match, most would say. Eyebrows as thick as his mustache, face set in stone. He was a businessman. Wore his suit as though he had been born with it. Someone told Heller that he had once seen Dimitri crying. Quiet tears, late one night when nobody else was around.

  Heller cleared his throat. Dimitri cleared his, leaned forward.

  “Happy birthday, Heller.”

  Heller nodded.

  “Your parents wanted me to take extra pains to see that your birthday telegram was delivered. . . . Good to hear from them?”

  “Yeah.”

  “They’re good people, your parents.”

  Heller nodded slightly.

  “Do you know what I did yesterday?”

  Heller shook his head. The office was quiet, shelves filled with various collectors’ items from the Home Shopping Network. Dolls, decorative cups, and Elvis plates watched him silently.

  “I got digital cable installed on my television. . . .”

  Dimitri picked up a remote control and pointed it at the flat-screen TV across the room. It clicked, lit up. Rambo spraying bullets into a Vietnamese camp . . .

  “With the package they gave me, I get HBO, HBO2, Showtime. Cinemax one, two, and three. The Movie Channel, Starz! . . .”

  He flipped through the channels as he spoke: Cover Girl commercials, bombs in Israel, Jerry Springer . . .

  “I get the Sci Fi Channel. Comedy Central. MTV, MTV2, VH1, E!, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic. Oxygen, the women’s network; WE, the other women’s network; Lifetime, which I suspect is a women’s network; and news channels. I’ve got CNN, MSG, MSNBC, Fox News, not to speak of the network television reports and the local news. Round-the-clock coverage of what’s going on in every country. I can keep on top of events, Heller, what’s going on in the world. . . .”

  He flipped past an insurance commercial, car commercial, antidepressant commercial. Bob Saget telling one of the Olsen twins not to be afraid of her dentist appointment, that everything was going to be all right . . .

  “If I miss a news report in the morning, I can catch it on a broadcast set to Western/Pacific time three hours later. And if I need to leave the office in the middle of a breaking story, I can actually freeze the image. . . .”

  Dimitri hit a button on the remote control, and the screen did, in fact, freeze in the middle of an MTV video featuring four or five R & B singers decked out in jewelry and designer clothes, sitting on the stoop of a housing project. Dimitri stared at the screen, not saying anything. Heller shifted in his seat and made as if to speak. Dimitri held up his hand, indicating for him to wait.

  Heller waited.

  Finally, Dimitri resumed play on the TV screen, continued, “And I can get right back to the story without having missed any of it. Very impressive, don’t you think?”

  “You get more channels with satellite,” Heller said quietly.

  Dimitri frowned, turned off the television, and leaned back, arms folded. “I got another call from the police department, Heller. I said to them that I did not want to know, but they went right ahead and told me. So, please, now you tell me: what made you think it was a wise idea to take a shortcut through the Warner Brothers’ building during midtown’s peak hours?”

  Heller sat, mute and unmoving.

  “Several people were almost hurt diving out of your way. A very important executive heading to an even more important meeting spilled an entire cup of coffee on himself. Lucky for you nobody was injured, and the coffee was not hot enough to seriously burn the man. Still . . . what the hell were you thinking, Heller?”

  “I had to make time . . .” Heller’s voice was barely audible over the hum of the air-conditioning
. “We never deliver messages to midtown, but the uptown offices were short staffed, so I had to make time. I cut two point three minutes off the normal time it would have taken me to make the delivery.”

  “Heller, you don’t drive an ambulance. The world doesn’t rest on your handlebars. Cyclists are a danger to pedestrians—that is why I require my employees to wear Rollerblades. Now, no more screwing around, Heller; when are you going to ditch that bicycle and get yourself a pair of Rollerblades?”

  “I bought a pair of Rollerblades—”

  “Two months ago, Heller. I expect you to also wear them.”

  “They were stolen.”

  “Buy some new ones.”

  “I can’t afford them.”

  “Rollerblades?”

  “If I buy Rollerblades, I have to buy wrist guards and knee pads and a helmet—”

  “Don’t I pay you?”

  “I’m saving my money.”

  “And you don’t ever buy yourself lunch, a cup of coffee, new brake pads for your bicycle?”

  “I need those. . . .”

  “You need Rollerblades. I could easily buy you a pair and take it out of your paycheck, but I just can’t do that. You know how your father feels about fairness, and you know what I owe your father.”

  “My father’s a long way from here.”

  “So was Leningrad. . . . When I first came to this country, I didn’t have anybody; no friends, no family, no sweet young girl would have even thought to serve me coffee, I can tell you that much. Now I have my own place of business in Manhattan, with branches in Queens, Brooklyn, and Long Island, along with a Web site that gets thousands of hits a day. I have an apartment on the Upper West Side overlooking Central Park. I have a BMW, a physical therapist—and digital cable with over one hundred and fifty channels. You were born in America, Heller, and you don’t appreciate the fact that you can buy Rollerblades. . . .”

  Heller opened his mouth, closed it. He glanced at the clock on the wall.

  9:17.

  Dimitri’s phone rang; once, twice, three times before he lifted the receiver.

  “Soft Tidings, news with a personal touch; this is Dimitri Platonov. . . .” A moment of listening. Dimitri shot Heller a glance, attended for another few seconds, then quietly pressed the speaker button on the phone. The voice of an old Puerto Rican woman filled the room:

  “. . . when he delivered the news, he was just so kind and considerate and helpful. I don’t know how I would have taken the death of my nephew if he hadn’t been so understanding. I just wanted to make sure that you knew what a good kid he is, and if he hasn’t been promoted already, then he should be. . . .”

  Dimitri kept his eyes on Heller. “Do you have his name?”

  “I wrote it down, but I can’t find the paper. It’s such a mess around here.”

  “Was it Heller?”

  “Oh, yes!” The voice on the other end was filled with warm affection. “Heller, that’s the one.”

  “Yes, that’s the one.”

  Heller smiled, bit his lip, stopped.

  “I’ll make sure he gets your message,” Dimitri continued.

  “He’s such a considerate young man, such a good listener. I felt I could have just talked and talked and talked—”

  “I’ll see he gets the message. You make sure to ask for him if you ever need us again. Goodbye.”

  Dimitri hung up, stared across the desk, sighing. He picked up the remote control and contemplated it. Then: “You do what you do very well, Heller. The only reason you got this job in the first place was because I felt indebted to your parents. I didn’t think you’d last one week here, to tell you the truth. As it turns out, you handle tragedy very well. I don’t know why, but for every complaint from the police department, I’ve received twenty phone calls from satisfied customers. . . . You are definitely your father’s son.”

  Heller glanced down at his sneakers.

  “But you are still working for me, and I have to take into account that sooner or later your reputation on the streets is going to come into conflict with your reputation as an employee of Soft Tidings. I don’t want that to happen any more than you, so I am putting the foot down. . . .”

  Heller lifted his head.

  “If I get any reports that you and your bike have caused anybody any bodily injury, you’re fired. You have until next Thursday to get yourself a pair of Rollerblades. I want Rollerblades. I want knee pads. I want wrist guards. I want you off that bicycle, Heller. It’s time you joined the rest of the team . . . all right?”

  Heller nodded.

  “All right, get to work. Iggy has your first assignment.”

  Heller stood up, walked to the door. Dimitri’s voice stopped him, his hand on the doorknob:

  “Heller—”

  Turning around, Heller saw that Dimitri had resumed his channel surfing.

  “Drink a lot of water, stay hydrated. It’s going to be a hot one this week.”

  “Okay.”

  “Close the door behind you.”

  Heller did as he was told.

  Back in the office, Heller was met with quiet smirks and taunting eyes through the bustle of office work. He stood still and felt the news of Dimitri’s warning spread across the room, filling every corner, washing back into him, and spreading like a lead weight through his body. His eyes went from face to face, wide grins reminding him of a high school cafeteria.

  Heller caught Rich staring at him from a distance, his face hard.

  He made his way to Iggy’s desk.

  It was like wading through shit.

  “One week, Heller,” Iggy said, handing him a few green cards and receipts.

  “Rollerblades,” Heller answered.

  Iggy nodded. Heller walked toward the office door, where Rich was stationed, smoking a cigarette, Rollerblades slung over his shoulder. As Heller walked past him, Rich turned and walked alongside, down the cavernous stairs to the ground level of 1251 Kenmare. They descended in silence and walked out the front door, onto the streets.

  The sudden heat, traffic, and movement overwhelmed Heller. Rich stood by him, calm and unmoving, breathing out the last reserve of smoke and crushing his cigarette underfoot.

  “Another day of death and sorrow . . . ,” he said.

  Heller strode north, breath short, heart beating double its normal rate.

  “You like your job, don’t you, Heller?” Rich called after him.

  Heller stopped. Didn’t turn back, just kept perfectly still.

  “I enjoyed it myself, bike boy,” Rich added. “I look forward to taking back my old route once you’re gone.”

  Heller continued onward, jostled left and right, small and insignificant in a world preoccupied with more important things. Dimitri’s words buzzed around him. Billboards and storefronts boasted the latest in just about everything a person could want. Cabs and buses were plastered with movie posters, cologne ads, and ads for dot-com companies.

  His bike was waiting for him. Heller got on his knees, fumbled with the lock, sweat covering his hands, dripping into his eyes.

  He freed his bike, wrapped the chain around his seat.

  The city pressed down on him.

  Jumping on his bicycle, Heller let out a deafening scream and pedaled directly into oncoming traffic.

  It was 9:30 and time to get to work.

  chapter four

  Heller saw the approaching taxi, heard its horn blaring, didn’t let it bother him.

  “YOU’RE GOING TO SWERVE FIRST!” he screamed.

  It was true. The taxi was going to swerve first because the driver thought he had only three seconds until impact and Heller knew he had four.

  The taxi swerved, almost running into a parked garbage truck. Heller missed the taxi’s bumper by an inch or so, a fantastic, raw glee coursing through him. The pressure in his chest was gone, evaporated along with any misgivings about the city’s fate.

  Heller turned north on Lafayette, spotted a long stretch of deserted
sidewalk on the other side of the street, and cut through the traffic, onto the curb, and directly in front of a Soft Tidings employee.

  Garland Green. His blue eyes turned to slits, glinting bright like the network of wire braces fused to his teeth. Garland pressed down on his Rollerblades, increasing his speed to catch up to Heller, now clearly glad to be delivering what should have been Heller’s first message of the day.

  Heller knew Garland didn’t stand a chance. He caught sight of an approaching dog walker: a blonde in spandex pants, the leashes of seven different dogs in one hand. Heller sped past her, barking at the dogs, letting his spit fly through the air. The dogs answered with their own declaration of war, freed themselves from the blonde, and gave chase to Heller and Garland.

  Heller stood on the pedals, pumped up the speed. A passing tour bus slowed down, out-of-towners witness to this New York spectacle, snapping pictures with disposable cameras. Heller took one moment to smile and wave before noticing a steady flow of traffic heading west.

  Just as the dogs were about to overtake him, Heller turned to move with the flow, grabbed on to the open window of a speeding car, stopped pedaling, using its momentum to make the bricks and fire escapes a massive blur. He glanced over his shoulder to see Garland surrounded by mutts, covered in drool and a chorus of barking.

  Heller held fast to his ride, looked through the window. The driver was a young man with slicked-back hair, expensive sunglasses wrapped around his face. He had sharp Italian features. Heller watched him bounce his head to bass-filled music, lyrics screaming guns, drugs, and money.

  “COME ON!” Heller yelled at the driver. “You can do better’n this!”

  The driver turned his head, cool gone in an instant. “What the hell?”

  “LET’S SPEED THIS UP, SLICK!”

  “WHAT THE HELL YOU DOING, YO?”

  Heller let out a loud burst of laughter, echoes of a war cry rattling his body.

  “LET GO, MAN!” the driver yelled.