Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  She smiled. “Please, soyez le bienvenu.”

  Heller stepped over the threshold, making sure not to brush against any part of her.

  She closed the door and led him into the living room.

  All of the furniture was covered in white sheets. The entire room seemed to be filled with irregularly shaped ghosts, resting, too tired to shock or frighten. The gray light filtering through the windows cast a blue hue over everything.

  Heller and Magaly stood face to face.

  “Madame DuBois—” Heller began.

  “Forgive me for making you wait,” she said. “I was in the shower.”

  “Madame DuBois,” Heller continued, determined to make at least one assignment work that day. “There’s no easy way to tell you this, but I’m afraid your husband has died.”

  Magaly’s expression didn’t change. She just stared at Heller for a long time.

  Finally, she let a very strange smile play around the corners of her mouth.

  “You’re wet,” she said.

  Heller looked down at his clothes, saw that he was still drenched from the downfall. He shifted in his shoes, heard overt squishing noises.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “It was raining earlier and—”

  Magaly took off her towel.

  Heller froze.

  She offered him the towel.

  His eyes went down to her breasts, farther down, sure that his expression was nothing less than juvenile. His stomach stirred, an excited ache, a timid arousal growing obvious to both him and Magaly.

  Magaly didn’t seem to mind.

  “How did that happen?” she asked, smiling. “The death, I mean.”

  Heller took the towel, didn’t do anything with it.

  Magaly walked into another room, and his hypnotic state momentarily dissolved.

  “Nobody knows,” he called after her, adjusting his pants. “Not yet at least . . . died in his sleep.”

  Magaly walked back into the room in a white, near-transparent robe. A misguided attempt at modesty, her body still openly displayed under the material. She walked past Heller, and his eyes, his entire head followed her as she walked into the kitchen and out of sight.

  “Died in his sleep?” Her voice floated through the apartment.

  “Madame DuBois,” Heller began, flustered, attempting to regain composure. He walked toward the kitchen door as he spoke. “I know this isn’t the way you wanted to find out. Believe me . . . I do this a lot. It’s my job. But I have enough”—hesitated—“experience. Despite my age . . . to know that it is possible to move on, and that come tomorrow—”

  Heller had made it to the entrance of the kitchen, put his head around the corner when he was greeted by a deafening POP!

  A champagne cork ricocheted off the wall, inches from Heller’s head.

  He jumped, turned.

  Magaly was next to the icebox, holding a bottle of champagne and two glasses. The bottle was oozing foam, dripping down the neck and onto the floor.

  Magaly was definitely smiling.

  “You can call me Magaly,” she said.

  “I would rather call you Madame DuBois,” Heller said, not convincing in the least.

  “Is it best to keep things formal in your experience?”

  “Yes . . .”

  “Then just how much can you have actually experienced?”

  Heller had no answer to that question, and Magaly went right ahead: “I would very much like it if you would be the first to celebrate with me.”

  She walked past Heller into the living room, and this time she did brush against him, her right breast against his arm. She sat down, crossed her legs.

  Heller remained at the door, veins engorged with blood, his thoughts nothing but a red strip across his vision.

  “When I saw you standing at the door, I had this sudden feeling,” Magaly told him. “I don’t know how to explain it. A sudden rush, I suppose. A feeling of comfort, familiarity.”

  “Déjà vu?” Heller offered.

  “No. It wasn’t déjà vu.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because—” She poured the champagne into the glasses, let the head rise to the top. “There’s no explanation for déjà vu. . . . But I just knew that you were the one. That the messenger had arrived with the news . . . finally.”

  Magaly extended one of the glasses to Heller. He moved forward, slowly, accepted her drink, let her clink her glass against his, drank with her. Cautiously, as though suspecting arsenic in place of bubbly.

  It irritated his throat and he grimaced. “Finally?”

  Magaly took the towel from her head. Platinum blond hair fell over her shoulders, strands sticking together. She began to dry her hair, casual as she spoke.

  “I hated my husband. I married him because I thought I loved him, or that he loved me, or some childish fantasy. I was young, realized very early that I had made a mistake, but he wouldn’t give me a divorce, wouldn’t give me any freedom. . . .” She picked up her glass, took a sip, bore right into Heller with her eyes. “Wouldn’t give me anything . . .”

  Heller knew this couldn’t be happening, felt reality slipping away with every minute he spent in Magaly’s presence. Her see-through robe, crossed legs, confident poise at the news of her husband’s death, and what was there left to comfort?

  “Look at you,” Magaly said playfully, rising to her feet, robe partially opened. “Follow me.”

  She led Heller into a bedroom. At least, that was what it appeared to be. White sheets covering everything, just as in the living room, and he realized for the first time that there were no decorations; not in the living room, in that bedroom, nowhere.

  A mattress on the floor, light blue; no sheets, the only thing uncovered and vulnerable to the afternoon light.

  Magaly faced Heller, little air between the two.

  Little air in that apartment, and Heller slowly felt suffocated by it all.

  “Lift your arms,” Magaly said.

  Heller felt small and ashamed, unsure where his feelings were stemming from.

  “Lift . . . ,” Magaly insisted.

  Heller lifted his arms.

  Magaly reached down, peeled off his shirt. It came off with some difficulty, stuck around his head. She tugged at it, managed to free it from his body. She looked at Heller’s hair, all a mess. “You would look good with a mohawk,” she said, giving a small laugh.

  Heller lowered his arms.

  Magaly reached for the doorknob and picked up a white button-down shirt that was hanging there. She threw it around Heller in a half embrace, slipped his arms into it, adjusting his body to better fit. Starting at the neck, she began buttoning; first, second, third, making her way down his body.

  Her eyes cleaved into him, and Heller felt like a caged animal.

  “I hated my husband,” she said.

  She moved forward, planted a kiss on his lips.

  The contact sent electricity through Heller’s body, and he felt as though he might collapse, knees unable to sustain the events of the day, a sudden urge swelling, filling him completely.

  Magaly stared at him, eyes so close they appeared as one.

  “Death is a wonderful thing,” she whispered. “And you are a wonderful messenger. . . .”

  She put her hand to the back of Heller’s neck, drew him close. Pressed her lips against his, and Heller was lost in her, the cut on his lower lip screaming in pain, asking for more, her tongue in his mouth when he thought:

  She’s been waiting for this news for fourteen thousand years. . . .

  His eyes snapped open.

  He pushed her away, more strongly than he had intended, and she ended up on the floor, seated on the mattress. Her robe was open, revealing, and Heller was brought back to everything, an immediate return to the present.

  He took to his heels, ran out the door.

  Magaly was left in the bedroom, her receipt unsigned.

  chapter thirty-five

  Heller leaned
against a lamppost outside of Magaly’s apartment and vomited.

  Coughed, retched, spat.

  Stayed bent over, shaking. Muscles convulsing, spasms racking his body.

  Heller looked down into his hand and saw the flower, still there.

  He closed his eyes, threw it into the gutter.

  “Heller!”

  Heller lifted his head slightly. He saw Benjamin Ibo approaching, body appearing slanted from Heller’s off-balance angle.

  He wiped his mouth, tried to straighten himself up.

  “Heller.” Benjamin put an arm around his shoulder, warmed with the sound of his voice. “What’s up, man? You all right?”

  “Benjamin,” Heller croaked, coughed, spat, “I think you may have given your good-luck charm to the wrong person.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Heller saw the concern in his eyes and thought he might cry right there under the skies and scrutiny of the West Village.

  Instead, he told Benjamin about his day.

  Minutes later found them at a pay phone.

  Benjamin was dialing a number from the phone book, Heller standing close by, supporting himself against his bicycle.

  “I have a friend who works for the Immigration Rights Watch,” Benjamin was saying. “He’s told me about things like this. It is often procedure for cops to dump their victims at a hospital instead of having to fill out a full report at the station. If your friend is an illegal, then we should try the clinics before we go to the police to lodge a complaint. . . .”

  Benjamin held up his hand, indicating a voice at the other end. “Yes, hello? I was wondering if you had a recent check-in of one Mr.—”

  “Salim Adasi,” Heller told him.

  “Salim Adasi?” Benjamin finished. “Yes, I’ll wait.”

  And so they waited. The classical music was overwhelming through the earpiece, so loud even Heller could catch every note.

  “Benjamin?” Heller was amazed at his own voice. Tried to make it deeper, more forceful. “Who is Eshu?”

  “What’s that, mate?”

  “Last time we talked, you called me Eshu. . . . Who is Eshu?”

  Benjamin held up his hand again, spoke into the phone. “Yes, hello? Yes . . . is he all right? . . . All right, thank you. Goodbye.” He hung up. “He’s at St. John’s. . . . They brought him in an hour ago.” He smiled slightly. “See, first try. That good-luck charm is up to something.”

  “Is he all right?” Heller asked, scared of any answer.

  “He’s breathing. It’s a start. . . .” Benjamin sighed, straightened himself. “My prayers are with you, Eshu.”

  “I still don’t know who that is,” Heller said weakly.

  “My people’s Guardian of the Crossroads,” Benjamin said, filled with a sudden seriousness that outweighed anything Heller had previously seen in him. “More importantly, our messenger between heaven and earth. His job is to stir things up, keep the world moving through his tricks. But above all else, he is Destiny’s best friend.”

  The weight of his words threatened to drive Heller into the ground.

  “. . . And Eshu must always be careful of his own cunning,” Benjamin added.

  “Thank you for finding Salim.”

  Benjamin reached into his shirt pocket, pulled out his card.

  “I doubt this will be the last time. . . . Here’s my number.”

  Heller took the card.

  “I’ll hear from you soon . . . ,” Benjamin concluded, but not before adding his final words, the soft-spoken command that Heller found all too familiar:

  “Go.”

  chapter thirty-Six

  The smell of sanitation wasn’t resting well with Heller.

  Between the white-colored walls of the hospital corridors and the continuous taste of bile in his mouth, he found little time to enjoy the irony.

  The nurse walking along with him seemed to have little time to enjoy anything.

  “. . . And multiple skull fractures,” she finished, the last in a long list of afflictions Salim was suffering from. “We haven’t determined the internal damage to the organs.”

  “But is he going to be all right?” Heller asked.

  “You’ll have to ask the doctor,” she said, leafing through a clipboard of information. “Did you actually see the fight?”

  “Fight?”

  “The fight in the bar—it says here he got caught up in some sort of brawl. . . .”

  Heller considered his options, thought better of it. “Can I see him, please?”

  The nurse skimmed the information given, form after form.

  She motioned for Heller to follow her.

  Most of the patients were by themselves, alone.

  It was a large, cavernous room, walls lined with identical cots, each one witness to different states of pain, sickness, and anguish. Scattered movements from nurses, doctors, and a select amount of visitors.

  Heller glanced at the beds as he passed, trying his best to keep up with the nurse.

  Closed eyes and open ones. All pleading and immediate, whether awake or in dreams.

  They arrived at Salim’s bed.

  Heller felt his stomach turn.

  Salim’s face was almost completely covered in bandages, gauze wrapped around his wrists, neck brace hugging him in an undignified manner, close to insulting.

  Officer McCullough was standing by, in full uniform, hat in his hands.

  “Bike boy,” he said, and Heller had to stop himself from lashing out before seeing Salim’s eyes shift under swollen lids.

  “You are all right,” Salim sighed, voice parched and damaged.

  “I told you he was all right,” Officer McCullough said. He put a hand on Heller’s shoulder. “He thought something had happened to you.”

  Heller shook McCullough off violently, kneeled down by Salim’s side.

  “I’m sorry,” Heller said, speaking rapidly, worried Salim might die at any moment. “I’m sorry for what I said, I’m really sorry.”

  “Never be sorry . . .” Salim’s speech was slurred, words more of a collage than actual sentences. “Never be sorry. This is good . . . this is good news. This is great news.”

  Heller balled his fists, stood up, and faced Officer McCullough.

  “What’s all this about a bar fight?”

  Officer McCullough looked around, made sure there were no doctors nearby. “He’s telling them it was a bar fight,” he said quietly. “He’s refusing to press charges—”

  “Is he refusing to press charges?” Heller asked, enraged. “Did he say it was a bar fight? Or was it you? Is that what you’re telling them so he won’t press charges?”

  “Look—”

  “Look, I don’t think it’s that difficult to see what happened, and I think you know what happened. I don’t think you have any place trying to speak on Salim’s behalf. I don’t even know why you’re here—did Bruno send you over as insurance?”

  Officer McCullough bristled. “That’s some mouth you’ve got on you, bike boy.”

  “That’s some badge you’ve got there, officer,” Heller fumed. “You expect me to listen to your story while my friend dies because of you?”

  “Hey, listen!” McCullough whispered harshly. “You can’t assume things are like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “I’m an officer of the law. I’ve been on the force since I was twenty-five—my father was an officer—and don’t think I follow my badge blindly or abuse it like that asshole Bruno. I know what goes on, I know what happened to Salim, and I know that is not what I do. I see the young recruits—they go through training faster than I can fill out a report, and it’s hit or miss whether they’re taking the job for the virtue or the power. I love what I do, it’s my job, and officers like Bruno make me sick, but I’ve been doing this for too long to try to fight it. . . .”

  McCullough took a breath, composed himself. “I’m aware of the faults and I do everything I can to work around them. Don’t think fo
r a moment that I don’t know about Salim and that by law he shouldn’t be in this country. My grandparents immigrated from Ireland, and I’ve never forgotten what they had to go through. I’m here to serve and protect anybody who needs it, regardless of a meaningless document, and it was Salim’s decision not to press charges. He’s telling everyone it was a bar brawl because he doesn’t believe in the justice of man; he lost faith in it a long time ago. So don’t think you have any more right than me to speak on his behalf.”

  “And you won’t speak out against Bruno?” Heller asked.

  “I can’t change anything from within. Nobody can, it’s too large a problem. . . . And I’m old, bike boy. I’m tired. I did the best I can, and I’m not proud when I see things like this, but I believe that what I do is right. And all I can do at this point is hope others will do right by me. But don’t tell me this is my fault. . . . I’m an officer. It’s my job. And Salim is my friend.”

  The air went out of Heller, shoulders slumped.

  McCullough put an arm around him. “I want things to be different, too.”

  “Can we do anything?” Heller asked, eyes to the tiled floor, white and impartial.

  Officer McCullough motioned to Salim.

  Heller felt a hiccup in his chest. He nodded.

  McCullough put his hat back on and walked out of the room.

  chapter thirty-Seven

  Salim was sleeping fitfully.

  Heller wished he could sleep, his fifth hour by Salim’s bed stretching out into the sixth. Just about every patient in the ward was asleep, the activity of the day forgotten. Except for the occasional groan or cry, their silence filled the ward, floor to ceiling.

  A nurse walked up to Heller, snapping gum in her mouth.

  “I’m sorry, but visiting hours are over.”

  “I’m not visiting,” Heller told her, his own words distant, removed from conflict. “I’m staying.”

  The nurse saw that she couldn’t move him; nothing would.

  She continued her patrol and left Heller and Salim alone.

  3:00 a.m.

  Heller walked slowly, taking careful steps along the rows of beds. He observed every face, watched each patient sleep. Broken limbs, shattered knees, shattered lives, the isolation of sickness. The nearly dead, the hidden. Trying to comprehend the sorrow he had been representing for so long. The other half of his messages. The source of his paycheck, the ruined lives that made it possible for Dimitri to have digital cable installed in his office.