Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  “What’s the interesting part?” Silvia asked, fascinated.

  “In 1904 it wasn’t a big deal that Henri Cornet was the youngest to win the Tour, because the first Tour de France was in 1903. Being the youngest to win in the second Tour meant nothing. It would be like Bill Clinton setting a world record for being the most forty-second president ever. No, the interesting thing is that as the years have gone by, Henri Cornet continues to be the youngest man to win the Tour. . . .”

  Heller paused, almost as amazed at his own information as Silvia was.

  “It’s coming up to a century and the record remains uncontested,” he continued. “I’m going to beat that record and be the youngest cyclist to win the Tour de France—and then I’m going to win six straight years in a row, beating Miguel Indurain’s five-year streak, and if Armstrong beats the record before I get a chance to, I’ll just have to win seven in a row. I’m going to race in more tours than Joop Zoetemelk, you can bet I’m going to beat Greg LeMond’s time trial by a good two kilometers per hour, and once everyone thinks that’s it for me, I’m going to bump Firmin Lambot out of his seat and become the oldest fart to ever win the Tour de France. . . .”

  Heller was done. Out of breath as though he had just actually set all the records he had spoken of. Out of breath because he had never whispered a word of this to anyone. He felt lighter, shoulders loose, hands outside his pockets.

  Silvia stood fast, in awe of his wildly optimistic ambition. She blinked and took in a breath, let it out, and asked:

  “Do you shave your legs?”

  “What?”

  “Bikers shave their legs. . . . Do you shave yours?”

  Heller didn’t answer. Just as he was about to, Mrs. Chiang walked by with a basket of flowers, light shawl draped over her shoulders. “Soft Tidings to you, my friend,” she greeted him, continuing on her way.

  Heller waved, still high off his own rambling.

  Silvia saw the exchange, raised her eyebrows. “Who was that?”

  “Mrs. Chiang. I delivered her a message once.”

  “Do you mind if I tell you something?”

  “No.”

  She cocked her head to the side, observing him. “You’re a bit crazy, I think.”

  Heller was moved by this, felt a gentleness in how she said it.

  “Thank you . . .” He smiled, put a finger on his mouth. “You have a bit of white sauce on your lip. . . .”

  Without a trace of embarrassment, Silvia wiped all trace of white sauce from her mouth with the back of her hand. “What did you say those falafels were made from?” she asked.

  “Chickpea. They’re made from chickpea.”

  “Oh . . . well, then, you have a bit of chickpea stuck between your teeth.”

  Heller picked at a tooth.

  “No, not that one . . .” Silvia directed him, miming his movements. “Not that one . . . the other one . . . there.”

  “All right?”

  “Fine . . .”

  A lengthy silence followed. Both looked like they were about to say something, waited for the other, waited as the ducks from the pond waddled past, honking encouragements.

  Silvia gave a nervous laugh, brushed some hair out of her face.

  “Inti-Illimani is a volcano in Bolivia?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Uh, my parents built a clinic in the highlands of Bolivia. . . .” Heller scratched the back of his neck, voice losing some of its fullness. “My parents travel. They’re like missionaries. Not in the name of religion or anything, just people on a mission, you know . . . Good people—it’s just that I hardly ever see them anymore. But I used to travel with them. . . .”

  Heller let his eyes rest on some distant point in the park, trying to appear casual.

  “Do you miss them?” Silvia asked.

  “Yeah,” Heller said. “But they do good. My father, he does a lot of good. . . . It’d be nice to see them more, though. Africa’s far away.”

  “Have you been?”

  “When I was younger, yeah.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “It’s not here. . . . I wish it were—there wouldn’t be any reason for them to go.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I must have seen the sun rise in over fifty different places in my life.” Heller sighed. “I think that’s how I know the things I do.”

  Silvia stared at him. “Someday,” she said softly, “you should take me someplace you’ve never been.”

  Heller thought about it. “I’ve never been to Troy.”

  “Let’s go there today. . . . Can we go there today?”

  “Hmm.” Heller looked to the west. “I think we can.”

  They resumed their walk, even steps relaxed.

  chapter forty-two

  There were only a few people in the museum. Heller and Silvia wandered through the exhibits at their own pace, taking their time, an hour passing without notice. They made their way through a room of Greek art displaying Trojan themes. The air-conditioning ran silently, and their footsteps echoed up and over everything.

  “Paris was willing to take Helen back to Troy,” Heller was explaining in the hushed tone of museum speak, “but he refused to fight.”

  “He was a pussy,” Silvia clarified.

  Heller was shocked to hear it coming from her.

  “That’s some mouth you’ve got,” he observed.

  “Sorry,” she apologized. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “No, no offense taken, I don’t mind,” Heller assured. “You just didn’t seem to take it so well when we were talking to Lucky earlier.”

  “I don’t like drunks. . . .”

  She didn’t say anything past that. Her face was set hard, unmoving.

  “So you hate drunks. That’s all right,” Heller said.

  “Anyway.” Silvia waved off the topic with her hand. “It doesn’t matter; Paris was a pussy if he couldn’t step up to a mess he made.”

  “He couldn’t take responsibility for his actions.”

  “Didn’t the gods determine everything anyway?”

  “Do you know the only thing Zeus feared?”

  “Tell me.”

  “Fate.” Heller gestured to the artwork around them. “The gods had their own fate to contend with, even as they controlled the destiny of human affairs. And what it came to was this: Troy was destroyed. Odysseus thought of a wooden horse and that one idea toppled an empire. And the gods had every right to be afraid, because one of the only people who survived was Aeneas, who went on to found Rome . . . and Rome replaced Aphrodite with Venus, Hermes with Mercury, and Zeus was replaced by Jupiter.”

  Silvia listened carefully.

  “It all repeats itself,” Heller said. “And there doesn’t seem to be any stopping it.”

  “It’s all destiny to you?”

  “The other day someone told me that Chance is Destiny’s best friend.”

  Silvia stared into space, pondered. Then: “I’m not sure I understand,” she said apologetically.

  Heller shrugged. “There’s a lot I don’t understand.”

  They smiled at each other.

  “Hey, man.”

  Heller and Silvia glanced over to a doorway, drawn by the source of a third voice.

  Benjamin Ibo was leaning against the frame in a museum security outfit.

  “Beautiful woman,” he said, his eyes on Silvia.

  Silvia turned her head, bashful, trying not to smile too widely.

  Benjamin didn’t say another word. He extended his arms, inviting them into a separate room. Silvia and Heller walked in slowly, past Benjamin, who pointed to a glass case in a silent suggestion to take a look.

  It was a Yoruba divination board, carved into stone. On it was a carving of a strange-looking creature. Heller and Silvia took in all the detail, transfixed. The museum had suddenly become empty, not another person in sight.

  Heller turned back to look a
t Benjamin.

  Benjamin nodded toward the creature on the divination board:

  “Eshu . . .”

  Heller turned back to stare at Eshu, remembering the mirror in his bedroom only yesterday.

  Only yesterday, and the words ran around in Heller’s mind, leaving trails to be followed, slowly growing more complicated, and eventually losing themselves in their own wake.

  “How is your friend?” Benjamin asked.

  “What?”

  “Salim,” Benjamin repeated. “Is he all right?”

  Silvia looked up at Heller, a silent question hanging in her eyes.

  chapter forty-three

  Salim had slipped into further delirium.

  Heller was standing with Silvia in front of the bed. His hand was on Salim’s forehead, hot to the touch, slick with sweat. Silvia toyed with her fingers, fidgeting.

  “How are you feeling?” Heller asked.

  “Ah, yes . . .” Salim’s eyes had lost focus, earned a larger depth. “I see you have found Nizima.”

  “Salim,” Heller said with great effort, “this is Silvia.”

  “Hello, Salim,” Silvia said politely.

  “Nizima,” Salim said to her. His eyes shifted to Heller. “She is so perfect. . . .”

  Silvia blushed.

  Heller watched Salim’s lip tremble, felt his heart empty, tight chest and throat.

  “I’m so happy she’s here . . . ,” Salim told him. “Aeneas escaped from the burning city to Rome. And he found you. . . . I’m so happy Nizima has found you again. She’s home. She came to see you. . . . Make this her home. . . .”

  Salim took their hands, put them together.

  Heller and Silvia wrapped their fingers around each other instinctively.

  “Thank you both, young lovers. . . .” Salim laughed, turned serious in a second. “Mmm . . . Thank you both. . . .”

  Heller felt Silvia’s thumb run against his hand.

  “You will remember . . . ,” Salim said.

  Heller didn’t have a chance to say anything else.

  He watched Salim fall back into slumber.

  Heller knew what he had to do from the moment the nurse pulled him aside to speak with him, to ask his relationship to the patient. Silvia hovered nearby as he tried to answer the questions. The nurse explained that they couldn’t attend to Salim’s needs without knowing who was paying for it, where they would get the money to run new tests. Heller listened, nodded.

  “I have money,” he told the nurse.

  “Just as long as you—”

  “I have money.”

  “There still wouldn’t be a guarantee we can save him.”

  Heller thought of Salim trapped in that body.

  “Do you accept checks?” he asked.

  Silvia watched him closely as the nurse pulled a pen out of her breast pocket and directed them to reception.

  chapter forty-four

  Night had fallen on the city.

  Sunlight asphyxiated, a dotted skyline replaced the sky.

  Heller and Silvia were walking by the waterfront along the West Side Highway. The Hudson River meandered along, small-scale waves lapping against the concrete base of the promenade. Across the body of water, New Jersey lights shone in a miniature reflection of Manhattan. A giant illuminated clock as big as a building showed the time to be 9:15. Statue of Liberty on the horizon. Joggers and cyclists hurried past, a few dog walkers, couples out to taste the water in the air.

  Silvia’s arm was locked with Heller’s, the two of them pressed close, evening winds coming in from the south, where the World Trade Center stared down at them. Everything was almost as it should be, the already present ghost of Salim still hanging between them.

  “Do you actually have enough money to cover for Salim?” Silvia asked.

  “At least for a few days,” Heller guessed. “He won’t be needing surgery, so there’s a bit of money saved.”

  “You really should—”

  “The Grand Tour can wait,” Heller told her.

  “Are you—?”

  “The Tour de France can wait.”

  They continued in silence, down to Battery Park City.

  A boat sailed by, giving a little more churn to the steady stream of water.

  Heller and Silvia stopped. Leaned against the metal railing and watched the vessel cross paths with another craft. Silvia slipped her arm back around Heller’s and kept her eyes out over the water.

  “Who’s Nizima?” she asked.

  “Salim is in love with her,” Heller said. “She married someone else. Back in Turkey.”

  “That’s sad.”

  Heller agreed silently.

  “I miss my father,” Silvia told him.

  “Look, Silvia, I—”

  “He wanted me to ride a bike,” Silvia said, voice projecting backward, beyond the city, somewhere else. “Wanted me to learn, anyway. I think I wanted to also, I’m not sure. So he put me on this bike, an old one, not like yours. It used to belong to him. . . . I tried to pedal a few times and I fell.”

  “The scar on your knee?” Heller asked, voice hoarse.

  “The scar on my knee . . .” Silvia took a moment, then: “When my mother came to the hospital, I did that thing. I blamed my father, that he pushed me too hard.”

  Heller was beginning to tense, torn between wanting to hear her story and wishing she could let it go, change the subject.

  “My father’s a gambler,” she explained. “And a drinker . . . un perdido, that’s what my mother always called him.”

  “Un perdido?” Heller asked, butchering the pronunciation.

  “Scoundrel. Someone who’s lost. A loser . . . And he was, but he never . . . mistreated me. He was a good father to me. And when I told my mother about the bike . . . that was it. She snuck us out of Santiago. Illegally. Divorce is against the law there, and for a parent to leave the country with their child they needed, still need signed documents from the other parent. We went to Miami, then moved here after a few years—so he wouldn’t find us. . . . I miss him. . . . He was the only person who could really make me laugh. He’d make faces. . . .”

  Heller could feel her regret, the loss of her father, knew more about it than she did, knew what it was that had managed to bring them both to be standing at the water’s edge, together. He watched her eyes kiss the water. Reached into his back pocket and pulled out the card from Soft Tidings. Silvia didn’t notice him standing on the edge of that cliff, thought he was still there with her.

  “Silvia—”

  “Hey, the messenger!”

  Walking through the park was Christoph Toussaint, arm in arm with Magaly DuBois.

  Heller froze in his resolve.

  Magaly stared at him.

  After all, Heller was wearing her shirt.

  “Beautiful woman!” Christoph called out, pointing to Silvia and continuing along his way.

  Heller quickly shoved the card back in his pocket before Silvia could see it.

  “Word on the street is you’re a beautiful woman,” he told her.

  “How do you know all these people?” Silvia asked in wonder.

  “My job.”

  “It must be difficult giving those messages.”

  “. . . Yeah.”

  Silvia sighed. “What’s it like?”

  “It—” Heller found himself actually thinking about what it was, and he had trouble choosing his words. “It makes me happy. I don’t know why, but . . . It’s a moment I look for in the faces of the people I deliver to. Like there’s some truth to be found there. Something real. More than what surrounds us, the hubbub, noise, billboards, magazines, and television screens—something . . . honest.”

  “Is that how you feel on the bike?”

  “The entire world . . .” Heller’s voice was uneven, pressing past his lips. “I feel that people could, in another life possibly, be capable of so much. When I’m on my bike, it’s the only time I feel like there’s anything to . . . be faithful abou
t. To have faith in something. I just always feel . . . isolated.”

  Heller looked at Silvia, saw the sky in her eyes.

  Silvia kissed him.

  Softly, lips pressed lightly against his, only for the space of a second.

  Heller couldn’t take his eyes off her.

  “I’ve been to Buns ’n’ Things every day for the past six months,” he confessed in a voice barely audible.

  “I wish I had seen you there,” Silvia told him.

  “There’s other things . . .”

  Silvia started to laugh, an edgy giggle.

  “What?”

  “Buns ’n’ Things,” she said. “I just realized what a stupid name that is. . . .”

  She continued to giggle.

  Then she stopped and kissed Heller again.

  A strong kiss, lips locked. The light touch of tongues, a somersault in their stomachs, lungs searching for a way to hold the air filling them. Heller felt himself, everything, the entire city fall apart in that kiss and build itself back up.

  His imagination had been nowhere close to this.

  Silvia broke away, eyes still closed, holding Heller tightly.

  Their foreheads pressed together.

  “Bike boy,” she whispered, breathless, “what is your name?”

  “Heller,” he managed between inhalations. “Heller Highland . . . I work for Soft Tidings. We met earlier.”

  “I remember.”

  They kissed again, intense and unbelieving.

  And again.

  And again . . .

  chapter forty-five

  Streetlights continued to burn brightly, reflected in the water.

  The hands of the giant clock across the Hudson had moved to one in the morning. Heller and Silvia could see it from the bench they were sitting on, their legs stretched out. Silvia was leaning against Heller. He held her, arms wrapped around her waist.

  Content. Pleased. Perfect.

  “I like being with you,” Silvia told him.

  “Me, you.”

  “You sound like Tarzan.”

  They lay there. A slow chill snuck in with the winds.

  Silvia took Heller’s hand and moved it to one of her breasts. He held his hand there, curious at the feeling.