by Karen Haber
The room was dim and seemed almost abandoned, as though it had not been used in months. I began to wonder if I had somehow misunderstood my directions.
“In here,” called a jovial voice.
I looked to my left past a row of chairs enshrouded by dust sheets. In the middle of a green-patinaed wall a door stood open. Inside Joachim Metzger sat at the center of a small reception room whose rosy walls and recessed lighting provided an air of intimacy. Half a dozen men and one woman were seated around him and there was a convivial air that gave the tone of a cocktail party to the proceedings. But all conversation halted when I walked in.
“Ah, Dr. Akimura, you made it,” Metzger said buoyantly. He looked like a jolly host in his purple Book Keeper robes.
“I almost got lost in the auditorium.”
Metzger nodded, not really listening. “This place is a wreck. We plan to renovate next year if we can find time for it. Have a seat, Julian. Can I get you anything?”
“Thanks, no. I’m on kind of a tight schedule. Can we get down to business?”
“Of course. This is Rabbi Judith Katz of Temple Beth Shalom and her associate, Rabbi Moshe Davidson of Temple Beth Israel in New York, Ali Haddad of the Center for Moslem Studies, Elder Robert Martin of the San Diego Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints, and Bishop John Patrick Sheehan of Boston.”
I remembered some of the names and faces from early vid programs that had first raised the alarm over Better World. Most of these people were notorious conservatives and cranks, odd bedfellows indeed.
“Rick has become completely unpredictable, even erratic,” Metzger said. “Yet the media glosses over all of his failures—they’re forgotten as quickly as they occur. I don’t know how he does it.” The Book Keeper looked half admiring and half chagrined.
“Nevertheless,” said Bishop Sheehan, “he is dangerous and must be stopped. Cardinal O’Hara of Boston has sent all diocesan bishops strict instructions to warn our congregations against attending a Better World sharing.”
“Despite repeated attempts by myself and colleagues to contact him, this Rick refuses to grant us even the courtesy of an open discussion,” Rabbi Katz said indignantly. “Several rabbis have received tours of Better World, but when we try to engage him in substantive conversations about his organization’s goals and philosophy, he just shrugs us off and ends the visit. We would at least like the opportunity to present our reactions for comparison’s sake but he makes that impossible.”
Ali Haddad glowered from beneath thick, bushy eyebrows. “I can’t understand why the young people flock to him. They ignore the teaching of their elders—it’s insufferable. Something must be done.”
“But what? Freedom to worship as one pleases is one of the essential liberties provided by a democracy,” said Rabbi Davidson. “And we’re not even certain that Better World is a religion. Whatever it is, it does seem to be meeting some need.”
“Oh, I’m convinced it’s a religion,” said Bishop Sheehan. “A false religion with a false prophet. A blasphemous and terrible thing that must be stopped before we lose our congregations to it and they compromise themselves completely in the eyes of the Lord.”
“Is it a mortal sin to join Better World?” I asked. “How do you know? Where does it say that in the Scriptures?”
Bishop Sheehan glared at me but didn’t bother to reply.
“I think we’re making too much of this,” Rabbi Davidson replied evenly. “These cults often collapse of their own weight. They expand until somebody within the organization gets too ambitious and then the infighting begins and brings the whole thing down, fragmenting it beyond repair. We must be patient.”
Rabbi Katz frowned at her colleague, openly disapproving. “Patience? Is that all you can say, Moshe? Meanwhile, our young people slip through our fingers. Once they join Better World they’re not interested in anything else. Who knows what this Rick really plans to do with them? Steal their money? Brainwash them?”
Davidson shrugged eloquently. “I agreed to attend this meeting because I thought Judith’s views needed balancing. I don’t think Rick’s group is such a bad thing. A little crazy maybe, but their hearts appear to be in the right place. I think a few of us are overreacting to the threat of seeing our congregations melt away. What’s so terrible about love and understanding, about healing? As far as I can tell, too many religions only make it possible for people to face death. But Rick seems to make it possible to face life—”
Metzger cut him off. “I’m sure we all agree that love and understanding are desirable qualities, Rabbi. But we are faced here with a growing dilemma. Better World is expanding its membership across the globe. Should we just sit back and watch Rick take over? Does he represent a threat to our various interests?”
“We simply can’t compete,” Ali Haddad said.
“Why do we have to compete?” Davidson asked.
“Please watch the screen,” Metzger said.
A picture of a large building, some sort of headquarters, appeared, taken from the air. As it came into focus I recognized the main building of Better World.
The camera made lazy circles above the compound, pausing to sweep inward until it caught a lone figure walking along a wooded path. The image tightened to show a close-up of my brother. He was whistling something that sounded like the “Ode to Joy.”
Rick raised his head, obviously spotting the vid copter. He squinted, then looked directly into the camera and waved jauntily.
“I was wondering when you’d come for a visit,” he said. Either the microphone on the camera had been exceptionally powerful or Rick was boosting his voice for the benefit of the tape. “Hi there, all you guys and gals, mutant and non. I’ll bet you’re real curious about what I’m doing.” He chuckled. “Bet you’re pissed off, too, because I won’t play your little game. Yeah, I know that you’re pissed.”
He shrugged but I saw the anger glinting in his eyes and I began to be afraid.
“Well,” he said. “Too bad. You all hoard your mutant skills like they’re some private fortune for the elite to use, but what good are you really doing anybody? Oh, you give a lot of lip service to the needs of the community and all that, but at heart you’re misers, more interested in your precious breeding programs and multitalents than in helping people out. I can hear you all yelling in your Mutant Council chambers.” For a moment Rick pitched his voice high, mimicking some peckish old lady. “‘He’s dangerous. Public opinion won’t tolerate him. Terrible, terrible.’ Well, bullshit. If you’re so concerned about the public, why aren’t you up here helping me help them? As for public opinion, hell, they’ve already voted. This group is full of nonmutants—I must be doing something they like. So if you’re not going to help, buzz off and leave me alone.” He made an obscene gesture at the camera. A moment later the tape ended.
The room was silent.
I began to laugh. I couldn’t help myself: the image of my brother giving the finger to the Book Keeper—and by extension, the entire Mutant Council—struck me as blackly hilarious. Our father would have been proud of him.
“I don’t see anything funny here,” said Metzger coldly. “We are trying to decide upon the degree of threat this man poses to us. You can see for yourselves his hostility and lack of desire to cooperate with us. Obviously we must watch him closely. If he cannot or will not cooperate with us, then we must have him restrained, by whatever means necessary.”
Ali Haddad nodded eagerly. “Agreed.”
“I’m getting tired of asking him to talk to us,” Rabbi Katz said.
“I think the time to ask is past,” said Bishop Sheehan.
As they spoke, a terrible image came to my mind of Rick, drugged and vacant, penned in a cell lined with mental dampers. I looked around the room. These people were all powerful representatives of strong interest groups. In a united effort, they might be able to summon resources that would overwhelm even Rick.
“No,” I said aloud, directing my protest to Metzger.
“You can’t let them do that!”
The Book Keeper gave me a sympathetic, almost pitying glance. “Relax, Dr. Akimura. Not only do we not advocate violence, we also still believe that Rick can be reasoned with. But we need your help.”
“What do you propose?” I asked.
Metzger turned to me. “Well, for one thing, we must increase your exposure, Julian. Perhaps provide weekly commentary to counterbalance all the good press Better World gets.”
“I don’t see how that will help,” I said. “Besides, I don’t have time to write and present a weekly commentary. I already have a full-time job—”
“Oh, we’ll provide your scripts.”
I didn’t like that at all. “Now wait just a minute. I’m not an actor.”
“Do you want to help us or not?” Bishop Sheehan said. “If not, we can find someone else.”
“We understand your hesitation,” said Ali Haddad. “After all, you are related to this Desert Prophet, are you not?”
I was thunderstruck by Metzger’s betrayal, but he didn’t even look uncomfortable, merely nodded in concert with the others. He probably saw this as no more than an unfortunate political necessity. Expedient, or some other such adjective that politicians use to forgive their personal atrocities.
“Think how much more effective you could be,” said Judith Katz, and she recited an imaginary headline: “‘Desert Prophet’s Brother Denounces Better World As A Fraud.’”
“No. Absolutely not. I refuse to cooperate.”
“Oh, we wouldn’t need your cooperation in order to notify the vidnews of your relationship to Rick,” said Bishop Sheehan.
“This is blackmail.”
Ali Haddad stared at me angrily and said, “I thought you were with us on this issue.”
“Yes, but not at the expense of my family.”
“If you don’t work with us, we may be forced to take stronger measures,” Metzger said.
“What are you talking about?” I said.
Metzger didn’t answer me. Instead, he looked down and began to shuffle papers on his desk. I threw all caution aside and ventured a quick mind probe. I sensed real desperation and rage in him, rage hot enough to kill. He feared that Rick’s ascendance would somehow affect his own power and political future. Despite all his words to the contrary, he had murder on his mind, pure and simple. Rick’s murder.
I could see the intent clearly but apparently Metzger hadn’t determined the means yet. He seemed to be alone in his assassination plan, at least for the time being, but I had no doubt that even acting solo, he could arrange it. As I began to probe further he sensed my intrusion and, with a wordless indictment, brought up his mental shields.
Metzger’s gaze was ice-cold. “I beg your pardon, Doctor!”
“You’ll never get away with it.”
“Say one word to your brother or anyone else about this and we’ll expose you and give every vidnews service in the world your parents’ address.” Obviously, Metzger thought he had me. Well, we would see about that.
“Leave my parents out of this,” I said. “Or I’ll denounce you and your bloody ideas to the Mutant Councils. They’ll be only too happy to impeach you.”
“No one would believe you.”
“Really? Shall we find out? I’m willing to submit to a mind probe by the Council if that’s what it takes to stop you.”
We glared, locked together in enmity as the others, confused and curious, began to mutter. Metzger broke the stalemate.
“I see we can no longer work together, Dr. Akimura. I’m very sorry.”
Without a word, I stood, turned on my heel, and strode out of the room. I might disagree with my brother and his ridiculous private cult but never would I side with enemies who wanted to harm him. Never, never, never.
8
i tried to keep an eye on metzger’s movements—and even went so far as to suggest to my parents that they invest in some private security systems—but I was distracted by a call from Lindy Rotstein, head of Psychiatry at Mass. General.
She was a small, round, ebullient woman of about fifty with graying hair and hazel eyes. Usually she was bursting with high spirits and amusing barbed comments. But not today.
“Julian,” she said. “Brace yourself. I’ve got an enormous favor to ask.”
“For you, Lindy, anything.”
“You may regret those words, my dear. I want you to go to Brazil.”
“What?” I stopped smiling and stared at her, aghast.
“I’ve been asked to put together a special task force for the International Security Agency—to look into the development of a Better World cult in South America. I’d like you to serve on the Brazilian leg of the tour.”
“Me? Why not you? You’re the specialist in the psychology of large groups.”
“To be honest, I’d love to go, but I’m afraid you’re better qualified.”
“How so?”
“You know more about this Better World organization. You’re nationally identified as a critic of it. An expert.”
“Doesn’t that mean I would be too biased in my observations? Tainted?”
“I think they want at least one cold, critical set of eyes on this job.” She paused. “It won’t hurt that those eyes are golden, either.”
“So I’m to be the sacrificial mutant and fill their quota?”
“Looks that way.”
“What about my patients? Consultations? I’m in the middle of research for two court cases—”
“Don’t worry, we’ll cover for you.”
“Lindy, no. It’s out of the question. I simply can’t do it.”
She nailed me with her hazel gaze. “Julian, you’ve got to. I simply can’t afford to have the plug pulled on our research funding here, and if we don’t cooperate, well, let’s just say it’s been known to happen to other departments that don’t cooperate with the government.”
“Shit.”
“My sentiments, exactly. But stop pouting, Julian. After all, this isn’t the first time you’ve been tapped to serve on a special research project: those golden eyes of yours make you a natural candidate. So cheer up. I can think of worse places to go than Rio—I’ve been to all of them. And pack for summer. It starts to get warm down there in November.”
Despite Lindy’s resolve, I stubbornly tried to beg off, citing my numerous patients and consultations. I was told, several times, by Lindy, and then by Morton T. Arpel, chief of staff at Mass. General, that I was considered uniquely qualified for this assignment—my familiarity with the Better World issue would prove invaluable. Other doctors would take my caseload and consultations. The I.S.A. needed my help. Case closed.
And so I went to Rio de Janeiro.
I had been there before on holiday and knew it well. Rio is a city of thunderous contrasts: the very beautiful and the very hideous. Wealth and squalor, pleasure and pain. Rio will lull you, lure you, and in the morning you will awaken chastened and changed.
It had that familiar unfamiliar appearance of most third-world cities—Paris after the Holocaust. In cities like Rio there was usually a downtown section of nineteenth-century buildings whose graceful iron balconies were spotted red with rust and through whose windows faded gray curtains blew like so many pale tongues. Gaudy billboards lined the roads that led into town. Half-finished concrete skeletons of buildings dominated weed-filled empty lots on the outskirts of the city. Often, these derelict structures were inhabited by squatters whose strings of laundry were the only touch of color in the area. A fine layer of dust always covered everything. The air was filled with a choking mixture of car exhaust, animal dung, and human effluvia.
Only the few hours before dawn yielded any respite from the daily cacophony: the percussion of traffic and unmuffled motorbikes, the honk and wheeze of horns, the bleat of goats being herded through the streets, the overamplified throb of a radio playing the popular music of the moment, the cries of children and their keepers. Strange faces, everywhere. Strangers to whom I
was, at best, an economic opportunity and, at worst, a voyeur.
Nevertheless, I felt the usual arrival euphoria: delighted to be off the shuttle and in the taxi, convinced of the driver’s kindness, charmed by the unfamiliar landscape, amused even by the chaotic driving habits of those on the road. I knew that within half an hour my amusement would sour and fade, and as my stay lengthened I would eventually long for the hyper-cleanliness and homogenized uniformity of American architecture, the beloved, hateful sameness of it all, and the ease—quickly mistaken for pleasure—of hearing English all around me. The daily struggle, despite my implant, to communicate in a strange tongue left me with a constant ache down the middle of my back, as though every inch of me were straining to listen and comprehend.
Eventually, out of self-defense if nothing else, I would come to see this foreign landscape as normal, even appropriate, and would cease to notice its strangeness. Indeed, home would come to appear foreign by comparison. Therefore I always savored my first day or two in a foreign place before the strangeness wore off. I knew that the mind refused to perceive something as continuously, permanently alien and soon, too soon, began its relentless efforts to assimilate and tame.
Brazil was at its most seductive in what I persisted in thinking of as the winter months: their topsy-turvy summer that dazed a November traveler with its skies the color of turquoise, honeyed sunshine, white crescent beaches, and nonstop tropical drumbeat.
There was always a party, a feast for the senses, on the beach at Copacabana: dark oiled skin and swaying hips, the air scented with perfume and coffee, the sound of samba whispering on the breeze. And there was usually famine to be found only a half mile inland. Closer, if you counted the beggars: the ragged families lying numbly, half-conscious, on unraveling blankets placed over the black and white mosaic pavement. They lay there, quietly dying in the warm winter sunlight as bronzed Cariocas stepped over and around them on their way to business, dinner, love, their own private lives. Ancient Rome, at the end, could not have been much unlike Rio in the late twenty-first century.