Quetzal removed the film from his cameras and then smashed them against the walls. He lifted Gatta up into his arms. She was a dead weight, not making the least effort to ease his load. Her fingers threaded furiously at the blanket, leaving strands of wool in her wake.
Back at the centre of the city, archaeologists flooded the streets, shouting after each discovery, bolder with each passing moment, dusting off anyone or anything that stood still. Tremors were constant now, opening up wrinkle-like cracks beneath their safety boots. Occasionally, some would fall in but that was considered a necessary risk and they were given a brisk burial service. Quetzal kicked open the door to his room after several tries and settled Gatta gently on the bed. She continued unravelling the blanket, denuding herself in the process. Then, having finished with that, she wrapped the scarf about herself and went to work on it.
Quetzal spent the entire night in his darkroom, puzzling over the intricacies of development. He took special care with his solutions. Everything was worked out to the least detail, especially in the processing of the film. Test sample followed test sample till he had exactly the right paper, the right lighting, the right cropping angles.
And, finally, much to his surprise, he realized – in the other-worldly glow of the darkroom light – that he had succeeded in capturing the look of death. He came rushing out to show Gatta but none of the lights in the room worked. Only the moonlight through the window made it possible to see.
At least a sixty-second exposure, he thought. At least sixty seconds. He floated to the window and tried to pry it open. It was stuck. A man in a conical cap strolled by. Quetzal turned to Gatta, waving a wet print in her face.
“I’ve got to get this to Kosmo,” he stammered in his excitement. “You wait here. It’s dangerous on the streets.”
And, kissing her on the cheek, he went out the door, the door that could no longer be closed, leaving behind him a woman on a bed surrounded by red threads as thick as worms.
START
There is a point at which one must start.
He started under the deep vault of a sky whose pinpricks resembled nothing so much as stars. He started as a doubling in a reflective surface. Naked. Eyes engorged to compensate for the poor lighting. On extending his hand, the palm of his hand, he could feel a cool wall, projecting up, arching and ribbed ever so slightly, but not breathing. Around him, floating through densely packed particles, the faces of chess pawns, the marbled faces set in their troubled expressions. When not in motion, they sat weighted on luminescent boards whose squares changed shapes upon being touched. These were scattered at head level about what, he suddenly realized, must be a room. Or some portion of a room. He moved one of the nearer pawns, lifting it and then lowering it gingerly on to a new square. But, the moment he took his fingers off the piece it sprang back, in a series of arcs and barely visible transitions, to its previous position. He tried this several times, always with the same result. In a rush of anger, he began to knock away the pawns, striking left and right, sending them tumbling, bouncing to the mirrored floor. They floated back to where they had been without a murmur of protest, without revealing the slightest discomfort. Serenely, as if he understood, he nodded and continued. Soon, the air thinned and he could see clearly the pinpricks twinkling far overhead – and underfoot. He watched himself kneel down to run his tongue along the veins of the marble. It was a blue tongue and had tasted much that made no sense. He licked the marble blindly, following the river that flowed just beneath its surface, till he came to the edge of something. An oval entrance. Upon looking out, he noticed everything was only half of what he had come to expect: sheared down the middle from firmament to foundation as if by some gigantic saw. Outside, there was nothing, a vast emptiness bereft of the least identifying mark, the least hint of gravity. Behind him, the half-room, the semi-domed vault where the thick air rolled towards him in waves, freezing all in its path: the lugubrious drinkers in pink cafés; the rats brushing their teeth; the strangers in the guest room. Soon, he knew, the temperature would drop to absolute zero, the morose intractable cold snuffing out even the thought of thought. But yet he couldn’t move from the edge, for the edge was all there was. He turned to face the advancing wall, watching it fill the entire vault, watching it extinguish the pinpricks. It, too, was veined and mirrored and he could see himself being pushed back, back to the limit beyond which there was nothing. At the last moment, as he was about to plunge from the edge, toes holding the edge like some universal diver, he stuck out his blue tongue. It sizzled against the wall, sticking fast, and he dangled helplessly above the void, making whining noises, alive for a moment more, his bowels emptying, a stream of semen squeezed out of his shrunken testicles. And then his tongue snapped with the cold and he fell.
Or so he thought.
For there was really no falling. Rather a climbing, a swimming upwards, mouth full of blood and salt water, the cauterized stump of what might have been a blue tongue. Upwards, ever upwards in the dark, the lungs forming and then threatening to burst, the pectorals growing stronger with each breast stroke. Come, come, a voice seemed to call. There is magic awaiting you here. Come. Upwards, then, beyond claustrophobia, beyond the saline pressure, beyond the dream of consciousness and star systems. Upwards, then, not knowing the exact moment the surface of this world was pierced, emerging into a wetness with tangled roots and hot fetid breath and a tree that grew in layers of sentience, that took the limp body and sliced it open with its dead branches, violating it repeatedly till the feeling of her emerged. And she understood, shuddering, the unacceptable, snapping a twig from the spent tree. Thus, it fell upon her to sweep away the remnants, the last traces of the ache, knowing full well what it meant – that she alone kept the temperature slightly above absolute zero, that she alone had swum the empty distance, the gap between one edge and the next. For there were real stars glittering in the tree, not pinpricks, and it was towards those she started to climb, a branch at a time, stopping occasionally to look down at what had become a frozen sea below her, the waves solid, some reaching up like clenched fists in desperation. While still close to the ground, she could see the transparent creatures thrown up from the bottom, trapped, their huge eyes burnt away in the harsh sun; she could see the dolphins and the whisper of a child’s breath; she could see a tiny tongueless shape emitting a halo of cracks that almost made it to the surface – but not quite. Not quite. And, as she climbed, her flesh brushed against the soft, furry bark and she was eyewitness to the shells left behind by creatures in a hurry. For there were limbs everywhere, torn in the fleeing. And kitchen utensils. And a book on matrix algebra. Telephones ringing, transmitting encoded data. On the higher levels, half-hidden by the foliage, entire banks of electronic circuits called out to be reactivated, some enticing her with screens upon which pawns on checkerboard patterns shifted constantly. But she didn’t stop until she arrived at the top, poking her head through the oval aperture just as the tree crumbled to nothing beneath her and the hole sealed, healing itself of her invasion.
And she reasoned it instantly as her world: featureless, a metallic grey one moment; the next, tumescent with colour, full of crystal and alpha waves. The effort, the attempt to focus, caused it to change, to invert itself. Invariant was a glow on the horizon, like a semi-dome. She began to walk towards it, kicking aside the tiny plants that puffed into the air, bursting like miniature rainbows. And, walking, she didn’t notice the edge of the buzz saw that sang in the sky above her, almost invisible on its side, held together by a furious energy – and that sliced her in half, clean across the middle, without feeling or pain. Just a cold gushing around her waist, the nerve endings retracting and a tiny bird that fluttered within her cupped hands, straining to get away. But she wouldn’t let it go, clutched at it desperately as she tottered to the ground, legless, awaiting the vertical cut that would finish her off. It didn’t come. Instead, a veined checkerboard floating nearby slid beneath and sizzled flat against her wound. And the nerve
endings reached out like roots to imbed themselves, one by one, in the unyielding metal and the tiny bird, released at last, flew to safety. Truncated, she rose into the sky, tongue swelling in her mouth. But it wasn’t her tongue alone, not hers alone. She felt a sharing with another half-creature whose pulse was directly opposite hers. No matter how hard she tried, however, she couldn’t flip herself around to see with whom she was sharing. Only feel the duality: one moment, the stump of a tongue, the next, a slithering snake; one moment, an Amazon’s breasts, the next, smooth Apollonian muscles; one moment, a deep damp cave full of life and sentience, the next, a worm’s deadly eye.
And she twisted, alternating right-side up and upside down, swirling towards the horizon, watching the pinpricks pass directly overhead, marking the zenith, the other half of the room, the half-glow opening of flesh and metal.
And he twisted, alternating upside down and right-side up, swirling towards the horizon, watching the stars pass directly overhead, marking the zenith, the other half of the room, the half glow opening of metal and flesh.
It was then she lowered her arms and he lowered his and their fingers entwined. It was then the spark caused them to catch their breaths. It was then the world inverted again. It was then they realized they’d sucked all the air out of the universe.
It was then they wouldn’t let go.
There is a point at which one must choose to end.
THE SAVIOUR
For as long as I can remember, I have watched you leave your house promptly at five in the morning (six mornings a week – on the seventh one rests naturally)…I have watched you leave your home with a shining aluminum lunch box in your left hand. And every morning, your first stop has been the decrepit corner store with its flickering neon sign and faded window displays of little kiddies sipping Coke. There, you’ve nodded at the unshaven owner – as decrepit as the store – and then have bought a newspaper from the rusted bin. You’ve always picked out the second paper. Never the first. On several occasions, I myself have bought the first and the third to see if there is any difference between them. I have discovered none. And, when you’ve left the store, looking neither left nor right, you’ve stepped immediately onto the bus that has taken you to work.
At this point, we’ve always parted ways and I don’t see you again until your return in the evening, your face enveloped in a series of ever-increasing wrinkles. But these mustn’t be mistaken for signs of worry. Or depression. You are a happy and unconcerned man, a constant whistler and smiler, delighted as much by the sight of worms after a heavy rain as by the first rose of the season from your well-tended arbour. Bronzed as you are from your outside work, health fairly explodes from you, radiates outward to douse those fortunate enough to come near. Your only physical defect seems to be a pronounced squint that signals less than perfect eyesight and the need for glasses.
So, partly out of pity (a profound pity) and partly out of self-interest (knowledge must be imparted – like a juicy apple – on those who lack it), I’ve decided to take you under my wing. No, this isn’t a spur of the moment decision. As you gather, I’ve known you for a long time, observed you, hoped you’d eventually snap out of it and come to your senses like the rest of us. But you haven’t and so I have no choice but to save you. No, no. It’s all right. You have nothing to do but relax and let me save you. Surely that isn’t much to ask of a long-time neighbour whom I feel I know as thoroughly as myself, as precisely as a digital watch, as completely as a syllogism.
First, just to make sure we understand each other, I set fire to your house in the middle of a clear cold night, the stars blinking crisply overhead, the snow crackling underfoot. You must know it’s ridiculously easy setting fire to that neat, little box you call your domicile. You have a connecting wooden shed in the back that’s filled with yellowing newspapers (all seconds, no doubt), cardboard boxes and dusty, oil-stained rags. After making sure the spark has caught and the flames are spiralling through the shed, glowing and hissing like a trail of wet snakes, I run around to the front and rap on your door – rap loudly and insistently, yelling at the top of my voice. I wouldn’t want you to go up as well, curling brown around the edges, all bubbly and toasted like plastic. No, that wouldn’t do. In fact, I even burst in to pull you out of bed, as you have no fire alarm and would soon go under, if not from panic then from smoke inhalation.
It’s touch and go for a while as I race up the stairs, wet kerchief around my mouth, guided only by your coughing – that breathless hacking, hoping against hope it’s not too late. I call out your name, grope for you, tell you there’s no time to save anything. No, nothing at all. You must get out now before it’s too late. And, wrapping a grey wool Hudson’s Bay blanket about your shoulders, I lead you out into the street. Where you watch, poor destitute soul, the flames soaring crisply into the sky, reaching, reaching, their hot little fingers daring to singe the stars themselves. And you listen to the chopping of axes, the shouts of determined firemen, the gush of half-frozen water bursting through your apertures and out again, creating a miasmic wonderland. It is a wonderland, isn’t it? A wonderland consisting of your possessions all strung together with mud and ashes.
But you’re trembling, poor boy. You’re literally shaking in your slippers. What to do? Of course! What you need is shelter, someplace to hang your head – even if only for awhile. How thoughtless of me not to offer sooner. My house is your house. Mia casa e sua casa. Ma maison est votre maison. Come, come. Turn your back on trouble. Forget the slick destruction that’s done away with everything you owned, loved, felt for. I live, you know, right across the street. Well, a bit diagonally actually. And, wouldn’t you know it, I just happen to have a spare bed in the guest room, all made up, the clean starched sheets folded back, pillows puffed out, with a goose-down duvet to keep out the chill. There, there, lie yourself down. I’ll make you a nice cup of tea. Regular or camomile? Or would you prefer something stronger, a wee blast to stoke your own fizzling furnace, to remove a bit of that grey from your ashen face? Both? Why not? That’s splendid.
I watch you, afterwards, asleep, curling into a tense, tight ball as if to offer the least possible surface to the hostile world. And I know that, only nodding acquaintances till now, we are sure to become, with a little luck and lots of good intentions, the best of friends. My house is yours, I say, for as long as you wish it, for as long as you need it. You’re shy, I can tell. Worry about imposing, about getting in the way, about disrupting the “pattern of my life.” Ah, what a considerate man! But I assure you there is room here enough for the two of us, room to expand, to grow. Lebensraum, I think they call it. It’s a big house. Too big really for only one person. A house filled with a large family’s ambience and the crippled dreams of my parents. Or was that the dreams of my crippled parents? Besides, where would you go in the middle of winter? The rents are steep and the flats bloated with cockroaches and undulating ice patches. Best to save your money. Yes, yes. If you insist. I can’t complain if you buy a little food for the pantry, a little replenishment for the liquor cabinet.
For the next few weeks, your salvation goes well. You leave from my house at five in the morning, a brand-new shining aluminum lunch box in your left hand and a hard hat stuck firmly on your head. Ah, the determined warrior. And in the evening, the dishes done, the paper read, we play cards. Your deal. But, soon, I notice a restlessness, a vacant distant look in your eyes between the shuffle and the draw. I ask what is wrong. I ask perhaps you’d like to play a different game. You shake your head. This goes on for one, two, a whole slew of nights. Then one evening, on what might very well be the coldest evening of the year, you rise from the table, dress and go out, leaving me on the verge of certain defeat. I’m too flabbergasted to call out after you, to ask what it is I’ve done wrong. You return several hours later when I’m already in bed. I see the yellow light spill under my door. I listen to you creaking up the stairs. I hold my breath as the toilet flushes. But the lights go out and the door to your room
slides silently shut.
The next evening I’m prepared – coat, hat, boots stacked neatly, hidden but ready to go. I give you a one-minute start, count it down meticulously, then follow. And where do you go? What hidden paths do you take? What secret vices do you indulge? Why, none at all, it seems. You head straight for the slovenly little store on the corner where a little girl runs on newly shined patent leather shoes and the neon flickers nastily – like sizzling bacon. This is where you go. This is what you do. Sit on a well-worn stool to discuss the horses, to banter about the lottery numbers, to sip cheap gin from a polystyrene cup. I wait outside, tears running down my cheeks, feeling immensely cold and immensely sorry for myself. But then I think: Why should I feel sorry for myself? It’s you I should be feeling sorry for. It’s you who resists the ultimate state of grace, the warm tender blanket of salvation.
So, I wipe my frozen tears and make my way home, knowing full well what I must do. I must eliminate the source of temptation. There’s no escaping one’s fate, no matter how much one dodges, lashes out, squirms away from the spotlight’s vicious glare. I have been chosen to save you and if that entails killing a store owner, then so be it. Once decided, the actual task is ludicrously easy. The man takes no precautions; he drinks himself into a stupor; when the last customer leaves, he pulls open a trap door and jovially urinates into the dark hole; then he stumbles about turning off the lights, leaving only the frizzing neon, the sputtering relic, and locks the door behind him. He’s a wheezer – bad heart, maybe or simply overweight. He falls around the corner of the building, holding on to the edge, and runs smack dab into me. “Oh hi,” he sloshes, stumbling back. “It’s you.” “Hi,” I say, and slip the steak knife through his dirty duffel coat between his ribs, into the centre of his heart. Then out again. He doubles over with a grunt, trying to get my attention by reaching out for my pant leg. But I can’t have that and drive the knife into his throat, severing the jugular. His grunts turn to gurgles. Then silence. He twitches, shudders, stiffens and is dead. Yes, it’s that simple, really. All that’s left is for me to wipe the knife – on his filthy trousers.
The Photographer in Search of Death Page 4