Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  Heller snapped to sudden attention.

  Middle of the street, a car’s bumper resting inches from his bike. 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. Neither recognized the other from their encounter the previous day, when Heller had grabbed onto the young Italian’s car in the name of speed.

  The horn blared. Heller coughed, managed an embarrassed:

  “Sorry, man, s’okay . . .”

  . . . before checking to see if Silvia had noticed him.

  She hadn’t, same as any other day.

  Heller walked on, face eight shades of crimson.

  Silvia walked into a drugstore. Heller parked himself on a bench across the way. Father Demo Square was sparsely settled that day. More pigeons than people, both of which moved with a certain slowness. Heller bought a bagel from a passing vendor. He sat and kept watch between bites of poppy seed.

  Another rumble from the subway, farther away, echoing past Heller’s ears.

  A hand fell on his shoulder. Heller jumped, turned. A Jamaican man with a thick forest of dreadlocks and a beard stood behind him, looking down. In his other hand was an umbrella.

  “Only three dollars, my friend.”

  Heller finished the bite in his mouth, swallowed. “For the umbrella?”

  “Three dollars.”

  “It’s not raining.”

  “Do you know which way the wind is blowing?”

  Heller shook his head.

  “From the east . . .” The man’s voice was soft, almost pristine. “The east winds are blowing, and the clouds are gathering. Four dollars and you can take a second one home to your girl.”

  “No.” Heller thought about it. “No thanks.”

  “All right, man. Take care.”

  The Jamaican continued down his path. Heller saw him amble along, then disappear around a corner. He looked back out across the street.

  Heller froze.

  Silvia was standing in the middle of Father Demo Square. No more than ten feet away. She was inspecting a package of photographs, leafing through pictures with slow deliberation. Heller didn’t move, still shocked at her proximity, trying to stop himself from instinctively reaching for a cup of coffee that wasn’t there. Silvia paused, scratched her nose. A pigeon hopped onto Heller’s bench and started eating his bagel. The day grew more humid, somehow.

  Heller couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  Silvia lifted her head.

  Lifted her head and looked right at Heller.

  And Heller thought his entire life might end in that one moment. Eyes ensnared, a connection so strong it turned the city inside out. It was like riding a bike. Pedaling through midmorning traffic with nothing but the pavement to see him safe. Same sensation. Same rush. Same beautiful taste of certainty.

  Heller felt he could lose himself in her stare.

  She gave him a smile that reminded him of a memory he’d never experienced.

  Heller gave her the same smile.

  Only she didn’t recognize it.

  She wasn’t even looking at him.

  Looking past him, that’s what it was.

  Past him, through him, into some other time and place where things were different.

  It was a place Heller wanted to be.

  It was a place Heller had yet to find.

  The subway rumbled again, and the sound bled out of the sky.

  Silvia closed her bag, heading east.

  Heller tossed his bagel to the birds and stood up.

  He followed her to a post office alongside the Citibank on LaGuardia. She went inside. Heller checked his watch. He still had that one last delivery to make. He waited. People wandered out of the bank, most on cell phones, some filtering into the post office.

  Heller felt he was on the edge of a decision, needed something, a push.

  A sign.

  “Well, goddamn!” came the voice behind him. “I will be goddamned—the stallion finally got off the horse.”

  Heller’s eyes grew wide, deer in a set of headlights.

  Bruno the Bruiser was standing in front of him, the balance of power always on his side, face ready, anticipating an excuse to act.

  “Looks like our complaints got you grounded, you little bastard.”

  Heller couldn’t bring himself to speak.

  “Let me ask you this, Highland: What does it mean?”

  Heller stammered, “I don’t know what—”

  “To the GRAND TOUR!” Bruno yelled, mocking, eyes malevolent. A few people on the street turned their faces, avoiding the scene. “What the hell does it mean, anyway?”

  “It means . . . I have to go.”

  “Yeah, who died?”

  “I need to . . . buy some stamps.”

  Heller walked toward the entrance of the post office.

  “What you need to buy is a pair of ROLLERBLADES!” Bruno yelled.

  Heller chained his bike and let the door to the post office close behind him. He was dismayed to find that the customer service area occupied less space than his room, leaving him few places to remain unnoticed. Silvia was standing in line for the stamp machine.

  Casual, Heller thought desperately and stood in line, directly behind Silvia. Stood with stiff posture, staring at the back of her head, that luminous, dark hair. The line progressed at a steady clip, and Heller moved along, not entirely sure what he was hoping to accomplish. People lined up behind him. He felt trapped between the important and the incidental.

  Silvia made it to the stamp machine. Heller watched her pull out a wrinkled dollar bill, corners folded over. She inserted it into the slot. Machinery whirred, sucked in the dollar bill, vomited the money back out. Silvia tried again with the same results.

  She repeated this.

  Several times.

  The line grew annoyed, mumbles from the rest clearly intended for Silvia to hear. Heller saw her hands begin to shake. He reached into his pocket, felt for change. He stepped out of line, held the handful of change out for her. Silvia didn’t notice, tears of frustration in her eyes, hands still trembling. Heller couldn’t speak and his hands started to quiver. Both of them standing there, hands trembling until finally, from the back of the line:

  “JUST GIVE HER THE COINS, YOU MORON!”

  Silvia jumped with surprise, whirled, knocked the coins out of Heller’s hands, dropped her photographs onto the floor along with the change.

  They both bent down to the ground, faces flushed. In his scramble to pick up the quarters, Heller scattered Silvia’s pictures even more. The silver faces of George Washington seemed to betray a mild amusement.

  “Coins,” Heller managed.

  “What?”

  “Use the coins.”

  Heller pointed to the stamp machine. Silvia understood. She took the coins, got up, and started feeding them into the slot.

  Heller was about to stand when he spied a photograph lying a few feet away, forgotten. He glanced up, saw Silvia trying to decide on her stamps. Without thinking, before he could even consider his actions, Heller scooped up the photograph in one deft motion and pocketed it.

  He stood as Silvia retrieved her stamps. She thanked him distractedly and handed him her dollar, walked right past him, out the door.

  The bell above the frame jingled goodbye.

  Heller blinked, looked down at the dollar bill. Washington again. That amused expression had become a wry smile. Heller stuffed the dollar into his pocket and chased after Silvia.

  There was no need to go very far. She was standing next to Heller’s bike, trying to put her photographs away. Heller walked up to her. A tear was caught in midstride down her cheek.

  “Are you an actress?” Heller blurted out.

  Silvia looked completely confused.

  “. . . Or a model,” Heller continued. “Sorry, you could be a model; it’s just that I saw those p
hotographs and it made me wonder . . . wonder if you were a model . . . or an actress.”

  Silvia didn’t answer immediately. It started to rain, a faint drizzle enveloping the air. Her eyes were damp, and Heller was about to repeat his question when she said, “They’re for my father.”

  “Where’s your father?”

  “At home, in Chile . . .” It was as though she were talking to herself, through the tears, and out into the world in general. “If my mother ever finds out I’m sending him anything, I don’t know what she’ll do, but he hasn’t heard from me in two years and . . . and I don’t care if he’s a perdido. Would you care if your father was a perdido? Because I don’t care what he did or who he did it to!”

  The rain had grown heavier.

  “My father’s not a . . .” Heller searched for words. “But, then again, I haven’t seen my father in—”

  Silvia cut him off with an abrupt “Damn it!” Her photographs had gotten wet and she hurried them back into her purse.

  “Thanks for the coins,” she told him. Silvia looked up to the ashen skies, let the water run down her face, skin glistening. “Now I can’t even tell if I’m crying anymore. . . .”

  There was hardly time to process Silvia’s words before she ran off, down the sidewalk, puddles shattering under her sandals. Heller watched her grow smaller. Stood in the downpour, getting soaked as the city silently thanked the sky.

  A gale of laughter reached Heller’s ears. He looked across the street. There, standing on the curb, was the Jamaican umbrella salesman. His arms were extended, a smile on his face that made Heller forget the rest of the world, if only for an instant.

  “Just sold my last two, man!” He laughed, and the sound echoed in the alleyways. “From the east, my friend, from the east!”

  The Jamaican’s call was answered by the bark of authority:

  “Keep that noise DOWN!”

  Heller and the Jamaican both turned to see Bruno standing on an adjacent corner.

  “What!?” the Jamaican yelled across the block.

  “Keep that noise down!”

  “I can’t stop the rain, man!”

  The Jamaican and Bruno broke out in an argument that filled the streets, washed into the gutters along with the rain. Heller looked at his watch; the digital numbers told him he had fallen behind schedule on his last delivery and it was time.

  With thoughts of Silvia and a planet falling from grace drilling into his mind, Heller unchained his bike, jumped on, ready to let it all melt away.

  With a terrific shout, Heller dashed into the streets. He took a sharp left on his handlebars, rode right past Bruno with enough speed to send a tidal wave of water onto his uniform.

  “GRAND TOUR!” Heller belted out, pedaled in a southbound direction, far from Silvia and the clash of conflict. He moved on, waiting for the right crossroad to present itself in a stoplight moment.

  But the rain had arrived and the city was cooling down.

  For a while . . .

  chapter eleven

  His tires screeched to a halt in front of a Lower East Side apartment.

  Got off his bike, hit the button on his watch, checked his time.

  “Thirteen twenty. Damn.”

  Heller made his way up the same warped staircase and found himself confronted with the same pair of Middle Eastern men walking down and out onto the streets.

  “Salim is home now if you want to see him.”

  Heller thanked them, continued up the steps, face set with a grim determination.

  Found the apartment.

  Knocked on the door.

  Checked his card, got the information straight.

  The door opened.

  Standing there was the man who had held the door to the apartment building open for Heller earlier. Heller recognized him immediately and saw what might have been a similar familiarity in the man’s expression. A deeper familiarity, perhaps, like catching a glimpse of an old friend in a strange crowd years later.

  “Mr. Salim Adasi?” Heller asked.

  “Yes . . .” His accent was a light Turkish hue, voice relaxed. “And you are the bike boy.”

  “Well . . .” Heller didn’t know how Salim could have known that. “I’m more of a messenger.”

  “What kind of messenger?” Salim asked with a near childlike curiosity.

  “Soft Tidings,” Heller said.

  Salim’s eyebrows furrowed slightly. “What does that mean?”

  “Well, it’s news . . . with a personal touch.”

  “Ah.” Salim’s eyes lit up. “Come in, come in. We are all in much need of some good news from home.”

  They walked into the apartment together. Their footsteps made shuffling noises on the concrete floor. The walls were an empty sort of yellow, free of decoration, except for the occasional chip or spiderweb cracks. Five cots dotted the room. Stacks and stacks of books filled the remaining space, all piled low. Gray daylight filtered through the windows, spotlight on dancing dust.

  “Have a seat,” Salim said, a warmth in his eyes that took Heller a few moments to get used to.

  Heller sat on a nearby cot. Sat on something lying on the cot, something that groaned, muttered an unintelligible protest. He shot up, looked down. A man was lying there, covered entirely by an old blanket. Heller’s heart was in his throat. He glanced at Salim Adasi.

  “Have another seat,” Salim said. “Take a chair.”

  Heller looked around. He realized that the stacks of books had been arranged around the room as a replacement for furniture. He could almost make out a chair, a table, a nightstand.

  Salim motioned with his hand.

  Heller followed Salim’s directions to a pile of books. He sat down, felt the pages compress underneath him.

  Salim sat on his own pile of dog-eared literature. He rubbed his hands together, placed them on his knees. “So, who sent you?” he asked. “My mother? Or was it my sister? Is she finally going to have a baby?”

  “It is from your sister. But it’s not about a baby. It’s not about anybody’s baby. . . . It’s about Nizima.”

  Salim’s face flooded with hope. “So, Nizima—she is coming then?”

  “I don’t think so. . . . Your sister says she’s going to marry someone else. . . . She says you’ll know who.”

  Heller watched as Salim’s eyes changed. Changed focus, softened. Heller watched, waiting. Waiting because he knew it was always the others who spoke first, and it was in those moments where Heller found his own words.

  Salim didn’t say anything.

  Heller didn’t recognize the look in Salim’s eyes, tried to think if he had seen anything like it before. It was as though Salim wasn’t so much letting the news soak in as asking it to soak in.

  All the while saying nothing.

  Heller watched Salim’s features speak in some invisible tongue, tried to guess at how long silence could last.

  One story up, a floorboard creaked.

  Heller cleared his throat.

  “Mr. Adasi, I—”

  “The swelling of the rose geranium,” Salim began. His voice was calm, a red shade of understanding.

  “The humming of the sea,

  and fall is here with its full clouds and wise earth . . .

  my love,

  the years have ripened.

  We’ve gone through so much

  We could be a thousand years old.

  But we are still

  Wide-eyed children

  Running barefoot in the sand, hand in hand.”

  Heller spoke instantly, without thinking:

  “Mr. Adasi, if—”

  “We could be a thousand years old,” Salim repeated. He paused, thinking. Then: “That was written by Nazim Hikmet, one of the greatest Turkish poets to ever walk this earth. He spent most of his life in prison and in exile . . . and you may call me Salim. . . .”

  A sleepy second elapsed before a groan from one of the cots reached Heller’s ear. The slumbering man threw his feet
onto the ground, stood, stretched, barely acknowledging Heller and Salim. He crossed between them as he walked into the bathroom. No sound apart from his movements, then the slightly audible sound of pissing through the paper-thin walls.

  Salim leaned over, face close to Heller’s. “They would think I was mad to still be in love with a woman promised to another man since before she was born. . . .” Salim’s eyes pointed to the other room, and he put a finger to his lips. “There are things they don’t know.”

  The bathroom door swung open, the man retracing his steps back to his cot. He collapsed, hitting the pillow with a weight that far exceeded his body. He was asleep before his first breath left his lungs.

  “You have brought me great news . . . ,” Salim said, voice returning to room temperature. “This . . . is wonderful.”

  Heller was at a loss. “I know my job, Salim. I can promise you this is not good news. I don’t deliver good news . . . it’s not what I do.”

  Salim contemplated Heller with an ambiguous smile. Heller tried to smile back, do something, succeeded only in biting his lip.

  “How old are you?” Salim asked.

  “Sixteen.”

  Salim nodded. He reached over and mussed Heller’s hair; reached down, rubbed his hand against the stack of books pretending to be a chair and then against Heller’s face; let the dust and grime collect on his cheeks, temples, and forehead. Heller remained still through all of it, slowly growing aware that the drumbeat of rain had fallen silent against the windows.

  Salim sat back as he studied Heller with a critical eye.

  He smiled. “Now you look twenty-one. Let’s go down to the bar.”

  Heller went over to the window, where his face was suddenly visible. He checked the reflection, saw that he did, in fact, look older.

  Heller breathed in, took in an assault of dust.

  He sneezed.

  chapter twelve

  Heller kept telling himself that it was his last delivery of the day. So he wouldn’t have to report to work until morning. So there were no further obligations weighing him down. So this was why he was following Salim into the heart of the Village.

  Freedom from responsibility.

  Spare time.

  The three of them walked side by side by side. Salim, Heller, and his bike. Salim ambled with a slow, steady stride. Reliable. Predictable, and yet Heller had trouble matching his own steps to the Turk’s. Heller was silent, unsure if he was still a representative of Soft Tidings or if he had already clocked out. Standing on a line he was unfamiliar with.