by Jesse Ball
—So what happened? I asked. How was he doing it?
—No one knows, said Levkin. Two days later he got pushed out a window on Fortieth and Third Avenue.
He took another puff of his cigarette.
—The point is, don’t work too hard. Most things solve themselves. However, it is important for us to be mixed-up in things. You understand.
I said that I most certainly understood and that definitely we were all going to get on well together.
—Good, he said.
And so my time at the Seventh Ministry began. At first I accompanied Levkin on inspections. We burst into a tax office off Varick Street, demanding that all documents pertaining to the twelfth of February, 1995, be summarily destroyed. We watched over this destruction with a baleful eye, and forced the supervisor to sign a form agreeing that we had never been there. This form we posted on his office wall. Later that day we visited the police horse stables below Canal and spent a while feeding the horses carrots and cubes of sugar.
Slowly, I began to understand what was expected of me. We were a randomizing element in the psychology of the city. We were the practical element of the philosophy that all parts in a system should not react the same way. As you may expect, this was enormously pleasing to me. I had never expected that my uncle, a man of sober resolution, could ever countenance such behavior. And yet he knew of it. In part it was his power, the power of men like him, that helped to lend the Ministry its dubious clout. All along I must have misjudged the man. Of course, I would never tell him. If he did in fact deserve this new standing in my esteem, then telling him would be pointless. He would already know.
Soon things started settling into a routine. I moved into a better apartment with the better money I was making, a place closer to the Ministry. I was provided with many iterations of my suit, the which I kept in a large wardrobe. I began to feel confident about my work, and went around on my own, inspecting and interrogating. I found that the authority of the badge was virtually unlimited. Even the police force seemed to be a bit in awe of it. There was a number on the badge, and when they ran it in their squad-car computers, they would invariably return with apologies and a general go-ahead on whatever I intended.
In short, it was a very good life. I would wake up early in the morning, work for an hour or two on my pamphlets (which I had never stopped making), and then head down to the Ministry. Rita would be there. She was always there. Levkin said once that it was likely there was more than one Rita, identical twins or triplets. Whatever the explanation, she was always there, with messages and a bit of repartee. If Levkin had requested me to make a particular inspection, I would go off to that. If not, I would sit around the office for a while, thinking up one or another scheme for the day. For instance, I once decided that all the dog parks in the city should be tested. So, I borrowed a friend’s Airedale and went about from dog park to dog park seeing how he liked them. His name was Osip, and he was a rascally dog who was most certainly an expert on how much pleasure could be afforded any particular dog by any particular dog park. Once we had gone from park to park, and I had gotten a general sense of Osip’s feelings on the matter, I wrote up a deafening memorandum on the subject, complete with schematics, possible improvements, dog baths, dog bridges, etc. I forwarded this to the Parks Department under the seal of the Seventh Ministry. Within three months, the dog parks had been altered.
For so long I had gone about giving my opinion freely, never supposing that it would be taken. This is a great freedom, and makes it much easier to say whatever comes to one’s mind. However, once one’s opinion begins to be heeded, well, then one must take a bit of care.
Nevertheless, my career continued. Every Wednesday, before going to the big public library to annotate the permanent copies of the encyclopedia with my own insightful commentary in neat red pen, I would stop down on Bayard Street to visit a Shanghai joint of the old-style called New Green Bo. I was in the middle of eating a plateful of the best vegetable steamed dumplings in the whole city when one of the chefs, a Chinese woman, turned to me. Her face was stern, and I immediately knew she was going to tell me something of great weight.
—Have you heard of the curling touch?
—No, I replied.
—Well, she said, when I was a child, we would go often through the countryside to visit my grandmother, who lived near a shrine. She was very old, and lived alone in a country of great rain. In her district, for whatever reason, the waters were always rising. Rain was always on the horizon or coming hard upon one. Lightning figured as certainly as the sun in one’s estimation of the sky. It was on one such rainy day that we climbed the gray-green slope leading up to the shrine. Mist clung to the edges of everything, even to our clothing. We trailed little flags of mist as we ran back and forth along the slope. My mother called to us, and her voice was like the hailing of an unknown ship. We called back as though returning from impossible destinations. And up ahead, the light of my grandmother’s house. For a moment we were far from it; the slope seemed to go on forever up and up. Then a bank of mist passed before us and passed away again, and there the house was, before us. My grandmother stood at the open door, beckoning. I ran to her, and she lifted me into her arms and said, Today my dear, I am going to tell you about the curling touch.
We gathered inside and were given something hot to drink and a sort of sweet grain cake to eat, and the fire was stoked, and the door shut. Outside the rain had begun in earnest. In my mother’s eyes shone the old happiness that had always been hers when my grandmother was near. Then my grandmother began to speak.
—There was a man, a handsome man. He was not much to look at, no, he was not handsome in that way. No, he was handsome in that he was the beloved of the world. Everything he did went well; everything he touched turned to gold. He was a gambler, but what he did was never gambling, for it seemed impossible that he should ever lose. If he touched a deck of cards, then they were blessed for him. If he lifted knucklebones, then they would only ever fall in patterns betokening victory. His name was Loren Darius.
Now Loren Darius grew to manhood in the bosom of his luck. He lived in a narrow country, and within its confines he grew strong and proud, such that when he departed into the larger world, that place too became fond of him in that peculiar way that seemed to others to be Darius’s birthright. Not that his life was unchecked by disaster. His parents had passed away at an early age, leaving him, a boy of five, in the stewardship of his elder sister, who herself passed away before the year was out. Yet even at that age, Loren Darius could not be refused, and when he went to a stream with a fishing pole, or with his bare hands, that stream would give up fish to him, and when he bent over twigs, even in the midst of a storm, fire would rise up to warm him. And so, despite the misfortune of those around him, Loren Darius grew to manhood.
This was an earlier age of the world. You mustn’t suppose that things were then as they are now. A city would be such and such a distance by horse, measured by how many nights one would be upon the road. There was less light in general.
Loren Darius traveled widely as a young man, along every frontier he could find. He did not know at the time what he was looking for, but he was troubled by strange dreams. He would fall asleep in a roadside inn or on a village green, or at the margin of a field, and he would dream himself into a hallway. Many doors then, along the hallway. Many doors, and great they were in size and finery. Each night he went farther down the hall, each night opening still another door.
What was behind these doors? None can say, for Loren refused to speak of it. Yet certainly as time passed he drew closer to what he sought.
Her name was Ilsa Marionette. She was the daughter of Cors Marionette, the famous hunter, he who drove the Corban Bull from Limeu all down to Viruket. You have seen monuments to his bravery. Anyway, it was not long before Ilsa was convinced that her life was with Loren, and not long before Cors was convinced of Loren’s grace in the powers of life. For Cors was often heard to say, Str
ength is nothing, ferocity is a plaything; when life is waged as a war, grace is the only virtue, grace shown through nimbleness. And Loren was certainly nimble. This no one could dispute.
The pair went then back to the small land where Loren was born; they took up a household and her name became Ilsa Darius. It should be remembered too that Ilsa was the fairest woman that had yet walked beneath the sun. Where she went, events of any kind would stop, as men and women alike marveled at her and at her passing by.
And yet despite her beauty and his luck, they did not have between them a profession, for he had been a wanderer, traveling back and forth through the land, and she had been a virtuous daughter, kept indoors away from the mad horde. Some money they had had from her father, but it was not much, and it lasted them only a short while. So, Loren took to traveling to nearby cities, where his luck in gambling might provide them with the money to live.
This strategy proved sound, and for several years the couple lived in great wealth and affluence. Loren would go away to a city, win enormous sums, bring them back to his bride, and live alone with her in the hills some months before leaving again to procure more. And all the time that they were apart they thought only of each other, and it was a terror in the hearts of both that the other should ever come to harm.
One day it came to pass that Loren was returning from a city, his horse and mule heavily laden with his winnings. The day was hot, and the road was a yellow line through the dust. The sun obscured vision and glanced off all it encountered, searing the very ground.
Through it Loren stumbled, leading his horse and mule. Some hours he had been upon the road, and what water he had had been given his mule and horse, for they were bearing a far heavier load then he. Yet he was sore, thirsty, and tired of the sun. Perhaps its weight was even telling upon his mind, for when he saw up ahead a broad tree and shade beneath, he dropped his horse’s reins and ran ahead to the shelter of the tree.
As he drew closer Loren saw that a man was there. He looked like some kind of merchant. He was dressed in green, in heavy cloth, even at this hour and heat. The man’s horse was behind the tree, grazing in a patch of grass. The man sat, drinking water from a large skin.
Loren approached. Behind him his horse and mule caught up and passed around the tree to take up with the other horse, and with the green grass there afforded.
—Good day, said Loren.
—Sir, said the man, with a slight tinge of a smile. It is a hot day.
—It is that, said Loren, his words spilling out in haste. Could I have some of that water? I gave the last of what I had to my horse and mule, and I have no more. Certainly I can pay you. Gold even.
The man’s smile broadened. His features were odd, grand and haughty even as they were drawn and pursed.
—I have no need for gold.
The man had knucklebones in one hand. He was casting them out upon a flat stone, then scooping them up and casting them again.
—A wager, then? asked Loren. I would wager anything against you for that skin of water. My horse? My mule?
—I have a horse, said the man. And mules in a stable.
The man unstoppered the wineskin and took another draught of water. This was almost too much for Loren, whose face betrayed his desperation.
—Have you nothing else to wager? asked the man.
And then Loren thought of the one thing that was of worth in his life, the one thing that nothing matched.
—Have you not a wife? asked the merchant.
—I have a wife, said Loren.
Now, never before had he ever considered wagering Ilsa. She was more important to him even than the good fortune that had hitherto sheltered him. But it was true that he had never lost a wager in his life.
—Then let us say, said the merchant, this skin of water set against your wife. Ilsa, her name is, no?
Loren drew back. How did the man know her name?
—She is a noted beauty in these parts, the merchant said, answering Loren’s unspoken question.
Loren drew in a deep breath. He could win this with a single throw, get the water, take the horse and mule, and be home by nightfall. It would be over in a moment. He would be hazarding her only for a moment.
The man lifted the skin to his lips again. Soon the water would be gone.
Loren reached out his hand.
—Let’s have it. Come now.
The merchant took from beneath his green coat a tattered leather cup. Into it he dropped the bones and handed them to Loren. Loren felt in himself a great unease. He looked into the merchant’s face and was terrified by what he saw there. He knew then that he should stop. He felt a horror in himself and in the world.
He threw the bones down onto the flat rock.
They skipped out and landed in that series known as “bird’s teeth.” It was the second-best throw. Never before had Loren failed to get the best throw. But “bird’s teeth” was a good throw.
The merchant’s hands moved almost faster than Loren could see, scooping up the bones, dropping them into the cup, and passing them over the rock once, twice, three times. On the third pass he let them slide out and drop, one two three four five. They dropped slowly, perfectly into the “widow’s net,” the very best throw. Loren had lost.
With a cry he threw up his hands.
—This is foolishness, he said. I am leaving.
The merchant stood up to his full height, and he was a large man indeed. The dice cup fell from his hand.
—Loren Darius, I know you. I have known you long, and long you have been kept from my hand. But now my weight is upon you and I will never relent. Ilsa Darius is mine. I may not come for her today; I may not come tomorrow. I may not come for years. But when I do there will be nothing you can do. For on this day you have lost her to me. On this day you have given your wife for a skin of water.
The man turned and called out in a strange voice. His horse trotted up beside him. The man walked away down the road as Loren watched, and after he was gone a dozen paces, a fold of heat and light arose and the man was lost to sight.
At this, Loren stirred. He leaped onto his horse’s back and, forgetting the mule, rode at breakneck speed the remaining miles home.
As he came up the path to his house, his horse foaming and lathering, he saw upon the porch, Ilsa. She was singing and singing the song he had heard every night in his dreams as he woke again and again into that grave hallway.
He leaped from off his horse and ran up the steps.
—Ilsa, he cried. Ilsa, are you well? Have there been any visitors?
And Ilsa looked at him strangely even as he caught her up in his arms.
—No, my love. No visitors. Only your absence, and your return.
Loren breathed a sigh of relief. It must have been a dream, he thought, a dream prompted by the heat. Yet when he looked down at his wrist he saw a mark, a mark as of a burn where the man had touched him when taking the leather cup in his turn. The curling touch. Loren had heard of it. He had not dreamed the wager. Yet who was this man? If he came here, Loren would slay him. That was all. He would slay the man.
And so their life continued. Things continued as they had, and Loren and Ilsa were glad in their days. Yet sometimes Loren would think that he heard things or saw things. He would be returning from a trip to gather wood and he would think he saw a man leaving the house. Or he would see from afar in the window of the bedroom a man’s shape. Always he would run to the house and come shouting in, to find poor Ilsa all alone, seemingly confused at what had aroused her husband to such madness.
She bore such things well, yet as time went on, the occurrences began to come with greater and greater frequency. Loren would search the house from top to bottom. But never would he find anyone there, or anything not as it should have been. As had happened repeatedly in the past, the couple began to run out of money. But now, instead of going off to the city as he had before, Loren refused to leave the house. He was sure that as soon as he left, the man would com
e. Yet their money dwindled, and their food, and soon there was nothing for it but that he go.
So Loren left one day, and went along the road to the nearest city. There he stayed six days gambling, and raised such a fortune as he had never seen. He took two mules and his good horse and set out home. Yet with each mile that passed, his anxiety increased, and it was all he could do not to cast aside the slower mules and gallop home.
As he came up the path to his house he saw tracks left by a horse not his own. When he reached the house, he found Ilsa sitting, wearing clothes he had not seen before. And so his greeting to her was not, as it had been, My love, how I have missed you, or Darling, how are you, but:
—Who gave you that dress? And what horse left tracks upon the path? You have had visitors; I know it.
Ilsa told him that it was a woman who lived nearby, who had come several times to see her, for it grows lonely here when no one is around.
To which Loren said, you have never grown lonely before.
And she replied, always before you have been here with me, even when you were not.
Then they both saw that something deep and terrible had happened. But they did not know how to fix it, or even how to name it.
The mark on Loren’s wrist remained. The money he had made was enough to continue their life for a very long time without his going away. Yet still, he would go down into the meadow past the house, where a narrow path wound through trees to a brook, and the Cassila, with its flowering branches raves in good pleasure all through the spring, and even there, there with the bouquet of scent, the dazing pleasuring sunlight, the rushing swiftness of the brook, and the standing comfort of the grasses, he felt at his core the beginnings of a slight terror. It was then he would turn to the house and would see, or hear from afar, as though he were near, the sound of Ilsa’s love-making as she lay with another man, the sound of her calling out, the rustling of sheets, the noise of skin and skin.
He would rush, blue veined in anger, up the stairs, to find her at needlework by a window, or weaving in the parlor. Yet there would be to her then some slight disarray, a looseness to her hair, a flush to her lips, a half-buttoned dress or an uncaught breath, that to him would cement all his fears.