“No, no, no. I mean naturally, under normal conditions.”
“Till uprooting?”
The youngster nodded, flicked a playful red curl out of his line of vision, and sipped the plum schnapps while his furrow-browed friend mumbled a few names that mingled with an unrecognizable tune, squinted, sunk his teeth in to his lower lip and, his face bright, called out in restrained triumph, “I recall a Dutch family whose uprooting dossier was sealed in 1973. The Van Der Lockes had a very high rate of expiration, as far as statistics go. Eleven months between deaths if I’m not mistaken. It played out like an arithmetic progression. The oldest granddaughter was the only one who deviated from it, being the last of the line.”
“When did she die?”
“A year and two months after her brother died. She hung herself.”
“Not surprising. The last survivor almost always seems to take his own life.”
“True. The survival instinct is worn down when you have no remaining blood relatives, even though, evolutionarily I’d expect it to be the opposite. Still, I guess she didn’t want to perpetuate a dynasty of corpses.”
“Maybe she was scared that even though she’d made it over the eleven-month hurdle, death would snatch her when she wasn’t ready.”
“Maybe. I’d have been happy to see her pass at old age and not at twenty-four.”
“That’s the part that fascinates me, Billion. Do you think she would have lived to old age had she not used the rope?”
“The dog’s collar, my friend, not a rope. And yes. I have no doubt that had she stood firm in the face of the pain and the hounding of death, she would’ve reproduced and the whole story would’ve ended differently.”
“By the way, did the rest of the family die under ordinary circumstances or…?”
The former director smiled playfully. “Same as the granddaughter, they all used the dog’s collar.”
“They all committed suicide?” Halfabillion asked.
“Yes, which I suppose explains the precision of the expiration rate.”
“And it explains why the granddaughter waited three extra months till she could gather up the courage to carry out what sounds like a pretty mysterious family ceremony.”
“Or rather that explains her courage during the time she refused to enter the family tradition, until cowardice or despair got the better of her and she put an end to her life.”
“Okay. But I was asking about the expiration rate of a normal family. An entire family that systematically kills itself off doesn’t exactly qualify, does it?”
“They were a normal family until the granddaughter’s younger sister, a girl of nine, started off the chain reaction. Before that the family’s rate of expiration was thirteen point seven.”
“The young granddaughter started the whole thing off?”
“Yes. She lost her dog and then hung herself with his collar.”
“Unbelievable. A whole family was wiped out because of a lost dog?”
“The first suicide was because of a lost dog. The second was because of a hanged granddaughter.”
“Hmm, the domino effect.”
After a weighty silence the young director asked the older man if he recalled any other naturally brief death spans.
“Why, what kind of strange bird have you come across?”
“A strange bird indeed. An Israeli family, the Mendelssohns. From grandfather to grandson, who was the last of them and of course ended his own life, the entire family drifted into extinction with somewhere between a six and twelve month expiration rate. From 1994 to 2001, the last eight of them died and the tree was uprooted.”
“I see we’re dealing with a pretty small family.”
“Yes. But before the nineties the last death in their family was in 1970.”
“I see. So, like with the Van Der Lockes, you’re wondering if something happened in 1994 that triggered the whole thing?”
“Exactly. Except that as opposed to the Van Der Lockes, the Mendelssohns all died in different ways. Accidents, diseases, murder, suicides. Were it not for the strangely high expiration rate, I wouldn’t even pay any attention to the case. All told, we’re looking at a good, reasonable, well balanced mode of departure from the world.”
Billion shrugged. “I know this isn’t the most convincing answer, but I think what you’ve got is just a particularly cruel coincidence.”
Halfabillion twisted his lips. “That’s what my deputies said. Quarterbillion used the old argument.”
“Trunk degeneration. A tree whose branches are detached too frequently is sapped of its strength and its limbs lose their purchase on the trunk.”
“I don’t know,” the young director said, his face clouded again. “I have a hard time with those explanations. Think about it, Billion, such a high death span, such diversity in manner of death and…”
“A minute ago you mentioned a good, reasonable, well balanced division.”
“True. But some of the deaths were so bizarre.”
“Bizarre in what way?”
“One was eaten by a leopard. One drowned when his plane went down.”
“Excuse me?”
“The plane went down over water. He miraculously survived the crash but his swimming technique left something to be desired.…”
“I see.”
Halfabillion laid his cup on the table, leaned forward, and said in a stage whisper, “I think I’ve got an explanation.”
Billion mimicked his friend and whispered back, pleased with the surreptitiousness of the affair. “Do tell.”
“I’m almost certain there’s malicious intent behind the Mendelssohn case.”
“Malice?”
“Yes, maybe the family had enemies that wanted to destroy them.”
“No,” Billion said, wrinkling his forehead. “I don’t think so. Say such an enemy existed and say he reached this world before 1994, what could he do? The paths to the forest are sealed. Only workers are permitted into the forest, and all the workers are aliases.”
“Are you saying that there’s no way that a non-alias could sneak into the forest? Don’t forget, they’re known for trickery and slow-burning vengeance.”
“Luckily, all the trickery and vengeance in the world aren’t enough to get past the ring of guards around the forest. As you well know I, em … you employ over a million aliases.”
“I know the numbers, but aren’t we being a little narrow-minded if we completely rule out the possibility, however insane?”
For the first time during their conversation, Billion’s face wore an unfamiliar anger. He folded his arms across his chest, leaned back, and began to speak, his voice loud and flat, “You’re looking in all the wrong places. The possibility you raise is negated by logic. They don’t even know about the forest, let alone sneaking into it. On the other hand, accidents happen. Sometimes rushed uprooters can mistakenly yank out a dangling branch. Terrible, awful, fateful mistakes, but human nonetheless.”
“Mistakes don’t repeat themselves eight times in a row,” Halfabillion said.
Stone-faced, Billion summed up their meeting, “Aren’t you being a little narrowminded if you completely rule out the possibility, however insane?”
But the other possibility, the horrifying alternative that he preferred to keep to himself, seemed a whole lot less insane the next morning.
* * *
Late at night, Halfabillion left his mentor’s cabin and wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping not to bump into any of his employees. Feeling inexplicably parched, he decided to quench his thirst at a faraway pub. He knew the forest workers didn’t tend to frequent 2001 and made his way in the direction of the new city. After a bout of deliberation, he thought the better of it and walked into a small pub in May, took a seat by the bar, and ordered a whiskey. Watching a group of Irishmen dance themselves into oblivion, he heard a soft warm voice to his right, “… ey … rea … ny.”
He turned and looked at a tall woman, sitting upright in the adj
acent chair. Moving gently in her direction, he asked, “What? I can hardly hear over all the noise they’re making.”
She brought her lips close to his ears, “They’re really funny. What’s the deal with the nudity?”
“I’m not sure I understand you,” he said, looking her over and deciding that the impressive woman had died in the fifth decade of her life, perfectly timed if one wants to preserve the most profound feminine maturity.
She took him in and repeated her question. “Why’s everyone naked? What’s the deal? The girl mentioned something about it at the lecture but I was too deep in thought. What, am I in heaven? Or hell? Or is it someplace in between?”
He smiled and tried to sound convincing. “It’s much easier and more comfortable to be naked. And I can assure you, you aren’t in heaven or hell. You’re, you know, in the Other World.”
“And in this Other World all men hold lively conversations with the breasts of the women next to them, or is that just your specialty?”
Halfabillion blushed, apologized, and ordered another drink.
She laughed playfully. “It’s alright, even nice considering I spent my first few hours here certain I’d arrived on a giant porn set, which I wasn’t so happy about.”
“First few hours?” he asked. “How long ago did you get here?”
She raised a sculpted eyebrow. “I’m not exactly sure. All I know is this morning I was still in Paris. Between us, I’m still expecting to wake up.”
“It’s not a dream.” Halfabillion smiled. “You’ll just go through a short adjustment period and then it will all seem normal to you.”
“It already seems normal to me. I’m just not sure what I’m doing here, how I got here in the first place, and what’s the meaning of this weird thing hanging off my neck.”
“You don’t remember how you died?”
“I don’t remember that I died,” she said, nibbling a fingernail. “I took a taxi to the airport and then I don’t know what happened, but now I’m sitting here naked, chatting with a naked guy who can’t take his eyes off my chest, in a pub full of cute drunk Irish men in the Other World, which sounds to me like a funny Kevin Costner movie, and I haven’t a clue what to do.…”
“I told you, after a short adjustment period everything will be cleared up and you’ll find where you belong.”
“I hope I’m able to find my apartment first.”
Without thinking twice, Halfabillion offered his assistance. The woman warned him not to expect anything in return.
They spent four hours walking around June 2001 until they found the right apartment. She placed her thumb on the hole and asked if he’d like to come in.
“You said I shouldn’t expect anything in return.”
She laughed and pulled him close. “I’d be a selfish bitch if I didn’t offer you a little something after all you did for me. You listened to me for hours, then looked all over for this apartment, and even promised to pull a few strings to find out how the hell I died. It’s really just like me to find the perfect guy on the day I die.”
* * *
He left her apartment in the early hours of the morning and arrived at his office three hours late. His deputies, picking up on the wild curls, the unshaven face, and the newfound dreaminess of his expression, prowled around him, demanding to know what had happened the previous night. He offered a half smile and told them to get back to work. Halfabillion breathed easy as they filed out of his office, called her name up on his screen, and waited for an explanation. A minute later, the complete death report of the newly released prisoner, who had killed her abusive husband with eight strokes of an ax and passed away on the day of her release in a fatal car accident, came up on his screen. After concentrating on the report for a few seconds, he raised his godget and was about to call her when a small detail caught his eye. Sandrine Montesquieu, surprised by her own death, had a family tree in plot 2,605,327—the same plot where, until recently, the Mendelssohn tree had stood.
He recalled the lengthy conversation they had while looking for her apartment, especially the deep sadness that pooled in her face when she repeatedly stressed that she did not believe in her own death. He said she was in shock. She laughed and said all the movies always portrayed the tragic effects of death on the loved ones and family members of the deceased but never the overwhelming and exclusive shock of the dead. He asked if she thought the shock might be less intense had she died an expected death. She looked at him in silence, her face revealing that her thoughts had strayed far from the darkened street. When she took her face in her hands and fell suddenly to the sidewalk, lashing out at half the world, demonstrating distinct signs of a breakdown, he sat down beside her and said the pain would pass, not really knowing what he was talking about since he, like the rest of his kind, was an alias and had never been to Sandrine’s world.
She turned her insult-ridden face toward him and shrieked hysterically. He hugged her softly, hiding his own emotional turmoil, sparked by her tirade against God, who had shown the highest form of idiocy when he killed her before she was able to keep her promise to her friend. “I’d been waiting for that moment for a year, and on the day of my release He ambushes me and snuffs me out like it’s no big deal, like I hadn’t rotted in jail for eight years, like I hadn’t done my time. What’s He trying to prove? Where does He get this infantile crap from? She’ll never forgive me. What will I say when I see her? How can I disappoint her this way? Just as I was about to fulfill my promise, God got bored and decided he’s sick of me?”
When he thought she had calmed down and squandered all her fury, she pushed him away from her and started pinching her arms, yelling at the top of her lungs, “I’m dead! I’m dead! I’m not there anymore, I’m dead!”
She mourned her own passing disgracefully, till she had nothing left. Then, in utter exhaustion, she whispered, “I never got to see New York.”
The words stuck in his mind. Sandrine never got to see New York. Death took her by surprise. Came out of nowhere. He wondered if he’d ever find a logical explanation for the element of surprise and the way it always managed to roil the tranquility of the dead.
With evening darkening, he went to inspect the problematic plot. Finding the Montesquieus’ tree without any trouble, he caressed the trunk and looked around for the name of the surprised dead woman. He found the miniscule sap mark labeled Sandrine at the nub of branch three hundred and sixty-eight. He came close, put his finger on the spot where the branch had once been connected to the trunk, and looked down, surprised by the thin scratch across the pad of his fingertip. The lacy fibers in the stump left no room for doubt. The branch had been brutally severed. Stunned by his discovery, he called Billion and told him about the fibers. The former director gave him a hearty laugh. “Well, didn’t I tell you that sometimes a branch is cut?”
Halfabillion stood his ground, saying it seemed the branch had been cut on purpose. Billion laughed again. “You’re talking about illicit behavior again. You simply have no way of proving that a branch was cut out of malicious intent. I imagine this is nothing more than an ordinary accident. I’d suggest you just let it be.”
Halfabillion thanked him for listening and decided to heed his advice. He had more important things to deal with, like his pressing workload, the construction of his new house, and the incredible woman who freed him from his thirty-year-old romantic slump. During a single enchanting week the two fell under each other’s spells and he managed to forget his new love’s death and all the other things that had been nagging him of late. The element of surprise disappeared. For now.
16
Father Tongue–B
The Mad Hop showed no signs of life. Ben realized something was wrong after two days passed and not one of the dozen messages he had left had been returned. He went down to September 1986 with a gloomy feeling, hoping to find the investigator in his apartment or at least to slip a note under his door. But to his amazement, the Mad Hop refused to open the door, yelling at
him to get lost.
Ben pounded the door, rasping, “Samuel, what’s wrong with you? Why won’t you open the door?”
The Mad Hop yelled back, “Ben, do us both a favor and go away!”
“Why?” Ben asked, banging his fist against the door. “What did I do that’s making you act as if…”
He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The door opened, revealing the red-faced investigator. “I’ll tell you what you did, you bloody idiot! You sabotaged my case by knowingly withholding crucial information.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Apparently you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. Think it through on the way back to your flat.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Ben said, marching defiantly through the door.
“You will not force your presence on me!” the Mad Hop said, walking out.
“You don’t want to help me find Marian? That’s what you’re saying?”
“You don’t want to help yourself! How dare you not divulge that your whole family had died?”
“What’s your point? It never even came up.”
“As opposed to your record-breaking imbecility, which has come up so often it could fill an entire book. Mr. Mendelssohn, I hereby terminate our agreement.…”
Ben covered his ears and shouted, “You’re not terminating anything! You’re the only person who can help me find her and I’m not submitting to your insane whims.”
“My whims?” the Mad Hop cried, pushing Ben farther inside and slamming the door behind himself. “My whims? You think I don’t want to find her? You think I like seeing that hangdog expression on your face each time you come into this apartment? You’ve got some bloody nerve calling me whimsical when anyone with even a modicum of sense can see why I’d like to boot your concrete-filled arse the hell out of my apartment and never hear from you again. Please, be so kind and explain why you chose to utterly ignore the matter of your family in our floundering efforts to find a woman that so far no one has seen?”
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