by Pasha Malla
To Favours’ right, in the Imperial Master’s chair, sat a tense, taciturn man Olpert remembered as Noodles — older than the rest, in his sixties, golfshirt tailored into a turtleneck. Framing a stoic, pink face were a white brushcut and matching goatee. Noodles rarely spoke, just icily observed, yet was always nodding, as if his head were physically affirming its own secret thoughts. He worried Olpert even more than Magurk.
Griggs, the Head Scientist, took the podium. His hair was puttied into twin crisp halves, beneath which his face remained expressionless and waxen, almost animatronic in its movements, the way the forehead crinkled and flattened, the nose dipped obediently when he opened his mouth to speak. Quiet now, he said, in a voice like wind over water.
Pivoting on his hindquarters the bullish Summoner wound up and bashed the gong a final time. The murmuring around the room faded. Everyone stood for the Opening Oath, led by Griggs in a droning monotone from the pages of How We Do, the ongoing codex of NFLM ideology and activities. Olpert joined where he could remember: Let us all swear an oath . . . A new year is dawning . . . Stay awake to the ways of the world . . . sworn and bound . . . in eternal execration . . . the last days and times . . . from generation to generation and forever . . . the mighty ones of eternity . . . all men.
The gong sounded again, the NFLM lowered into the pews, and the Summoner, perspiration ringing his armpits, squeezed into the empty seat beside Olpert. He nodded, a downward bob of his neckless head, his shoulders were foothills that sloped into the mountainside of his face. With a glance at Olpert’s nametag (his own read: Starx), the man took Olpert’s hand and whispered, Good lookin out, Belly.
Starx’s hand was weirdly tiny for such a huge man. The handshake felt to Olpert like having his fingertips gummed by a small, toothless lizard.
Hi, said Olpert. Good looking out.
The meeting got underway: Griggs conceded the mic to Magurk, who took it in his furry fist and began strolling the aisles. Terrified he’d be recognized, singled out, perhaps even attacked, Olpert slouched and averted his eyes. From the back of the Hall four Recruits crammed into Little Boy Desks, ducktape over their mouths, videotaped the proceedings — that was new, the cameras. One was the cripple, Diamond-Wood.
The rest of the men were the same as ever, broad and tense, with a primordial intensity in their eyes that goaded: Try and test me, just try. All of them, save Griggs in his socks and sandals, wore those same black sneakers. Olpert covered his left loafer with the right, then the right with the left. For some reason he found himself trying to estimate how many individual testicles were in the building — and had to shake his head to rattle the dangly jungle this conjured from his brain.
Magurk’s speech, whatever it had been, was over. My people, he said, you ready to show this city the best weekend of their lives? Are you with me? Are you fuggin with me?
Yeah! roared the men.
Starx punched the air, grinned at Olpert, whispered, Gotta love this stuff.
Magurk passed the microphone to Wagstaffe, reassumed his seat at the edge of the dais, rabies frothed at the corners of his lips. Positioning himself in the Great Hall’s most photogenic light, Wagstaffe spoke rousingly of courage, the four pillars, the NFLM’s responsibilities, history, order, the cameras rolled. The speech seemed a little too performed, infused with a mannered nonchalance meant to deny the presence of a viewership beyond the Temple. But people would be watching. They always were.
Was it less of a lonely life to be watched like that? To know you were seen? Olpert thought of his own life, the furtive hush of it. As a child he had more than anything wished to be invisible, to just drift through the world without being heard or judged. Two pews back was Reed, stroking his moustache. Did Reed have a wife? A family? Or was the NFLM his only family, and was that enough? The New Fraternal League of Men, thought Olpert: like a religion, except all they had to believe in was one another.
Wagstaffe handed the mic to Noodles, who pressed it to his lips, nodded, nodded, the room was silent, expectant — and with a final nod tendered it to Griggs.
Applause.
Helpers, Griggs began, though Olpert lost focus — Starx had shifted, his arm pressed against Olpert’s. It was a hot, heavy arm. He was very close, he smelled of boiled cabbage and wet towels clumped on the floor for a week, his nostrils flared and whistled. There was something almost soporific about his breathing, the steady in-out rhythm of it, it lulled Olpert, he listened and lost himself a little —
And now Starx was elbowing him, standing. Everyone was standing.
Olpert flushed and jumped to his feet.
Starx moved gongside. What had Olpert missed? He checked his watch, an hour had passed, how? Everyone rose for the Final Oath, which Olpert lip-synched as best he could. Starx banged the gong a final time and came at Olpert, seized him by the upper arms. Olpert tensed to create muscles there (biceps, triceps, whatever).
What do you know, Belly, said Starx, me and you: partners. B-Squad.
Me and you?
Yeah. Pretty big honour. Us as the magician’s official escorts or whatever.
Starx still held him, Olpert was growing exhausted from clenching his fists. Around the room like a prisonyard dance men had partnered off muttering in low tones. Starx’s eyes scanned Olpert’s face — and at last he was released.
Me and you, Belly, said Starx, smacking a small fist into his palm. Big time. You work security? Good. Here’s our lanyard. You take it, it won’t fit me — Starx gestured sadly at his colossal head. Nice to get a Citypass though. Ever drive one of those wagons?
No. I don’t drive much really. I get a little nervous on the roads —
Great. Seriously though, Belly, this kinda makes me think they’re grooming me for a bump, if you know what I mean. Maybe even to HG. I mean, because you’re still, what? Technically only Probe or something, right? Because you quit or whatever.
It’s Bailie.
So you’d think they paired you with me because I’m like, senior or whatever. Bigups have gotta be due soon. I know Noodles has his eye on the top spot — I mean, Favours isn’t going to be around forever.
Across the room the old man, deserted on the dais, had spun himself around. He bumped against the wall, a disoriented animal trying to tunnel its escape.
Poor guy, said Starx.
My name, I mean, Olpert tried again. They spelled it —
Belly! Heads up, here comes the We-TV crew.
A Recruit sidled up with a camera. Starx hauled Olpert under his arm, displayed him with paternal pride, and beamed into the lens. Me and my man Belly here, Raven, if you end up watching this, we’re gonna make this the best weekend you ever had. Welcome to our fair city! He squeezed Olpert roughly. Anything to add, Belly?
Olpert Bailie looked at his hands. His fingernails dug ridges into his palms. Bailie, he whispered. My name’s Olpert Bailie.
Best weekend you ever had, Raven, repeated Starx, through a teeth-gritted smile.
The Recruit moved off to shoot a pair of Helpers by the Citypass cache playing tug-of-war with a lanyard. Starx fixed Olpert with a stare. Hey, dingledink, I know you’ve been away awhile but we use patronyms in this here outfit. Everyone’s first name Gregory, last name whatever — in your case, Belly. Got it?
Olpert tried to meet Starx’s eyes. But they were hard eyes to meet, twitching over everything but settling nowhere. What did they see?
CALUM WATCHED the gingery man highstepping his way through the mud to the bottom of the hill, where he did a salute sort of thing over his eyes, squinted, and, in a voice like a feebly blown flugelhorn, told them they needed to leave the park. School time! he said.
From the top of the hill one of Calum’s friends said, We’ve got the morning off.
Well the morning’s over, right? said the man. He wore a nametag: Belly.
Grumblings, mild protest, but there had
already been talk of going to school. Calum felt apart from them, from everything, standing there alone at the edge of the orchard.
He looked past Belly, into the sun, high above the treetops now. When he’d been little, Cora had told him never to look at it directly, it could blind you. So now he stared not just at but into the sun. He wouldn’t go blind. Nothing would happen to him. But after a few seconds Calum looked away, blinking and queasy.
THE NIGHT AFTER being suspended for skipping class Calum lay awake in bed until his mother’s gentle snores came wisping down the hallway. He tiptoed out the door, slid his shoes on in the stairwell, and, ducking in and out of shadows to evade Helper patrols, ran all the way to Whitehall, where he waited by the loading dock. Past one a.m., past two, to that nothing hour when the moon sagged and dimmed and the night became infinite. It was only then they appeared from underground, a faceless hoodied mob toting cans of paint and rollers.
From behind someone grabbed his shoulders and Calum tensed — but the Hand was leaning in, the soft warmth of her cheek upon his cheek. So you’re with us? she whispered in his ear, and Calum told her, Yes.
He’d been delirious with it, the silent stealthy rigour of the herd slipping through the streets, so many of them, he stayed at the Hand’s side. It was random yet purposeful: someone picked a window and someone else unfolded a stepladder and up Calum went, taping the top of the frame and around its upper corners while someone else did the bottom. Then the painters stepped forward with their rollers and the quiet filled with the zipping sound of acrylic pasted over glass, and when they were done Calum tore off the tape and there it was: a blackup. And on to the next window, wherever it might be.
Time disappeared. Calum lost count of the blackups. He felt giddy. At some point the night began fading, he’d just finished taping the vitrines that fronted a pretentious hardware store. When he came down the Hand told him, This’ll be the last one, and pressed close and her breast was against his arm and she said, Fun, right? and he said, Yes, and she laughed and went off to gather the troops.
Calum admired their final piece, the big bright window negated into a dead black thing. He patted the wet paint and transferred a handprint to the wall. Stepping back he saw himself in the five-fingered outline on the bricks and thought how being a person was at once such a big incomprehensible thing and so, so small.
But the Hand had returned to curse him: What are you doing, that’s not how we do it. She spat. You think you’re special? You don’t get it, we’re all part of this, no one’s above anyone else.
She turned her back on him. Everything withered. The group tramped away and so did the Hand and Calum stood there deserted in the middle of D Street while the sky lightened into morning, his handprint growing more stark and black and stupid as the bricks around it blanched, and knew he was a fool.
YOU TOO, OKAY? said the man, Belly, to Calum. Time to go to school.
At the top of the hill Edie and everyone else were waiting for him. Above them, rising out of Orchard Parkway towered the Redline Station. But why go? Being suspended had been liberating, all that time alone with his thoughts.
Hey? said Belly.
He was about Calum’s mother’s age. He was struggling to be brave, something he wasn’t. He couldn’t meet Calum’s eyes. You could tell he was no one.
Calum moved out of the shade. Belly wavered. From up the hill Edie called, Cal, hey, we’re going, let’s go.
Belly still wouldn’t look at him, he cast a sidelong glance over the common, muttered, Okay now, thanks a lot.
Calum took another step downhill, turned his head, hawked from deep in his throat, then spat a jiggling gob that landed at the man’s feet.
Hey, said Belly. But his voice was weak.
One of his classmates said, Did Calum just spit at that guy? and Edie called: Calum, hey! Calum, what are you doing?
Belly watched the spit foaming on the grass, the little bubbles popped one by one. For some reason, he closed his eyes. He swayed.
Calum hawked again and spat. Belly flinched as it struck him in the cheek, but his eyes stayed shut. Edie screamed. Yet she didn’t come running down the slope. In fact there was a sudden emptiness to the air that suggested she and the rest of their friends had fled. How did Calum feel? He couldn’t feel anything.
His spit wiggled down Belly’s face.
And then from somewhere came a sudden rush of something swift and huge. A second figure in the same beige shirt was steaming up the slope, and Calum barely had time to cringe before a fist caught him in the face. A sparkle of lights, his legs gave way, the earth swam up to catch him, cool and damp. An enormous pair of legs stood over him — black sneakers and khaki trousers — and from high above a deep godlike voice boomed: You fug with my man Belly? You’re nothing, you hear me? You’re nothing, nothing, nothing, you’re fuggin nothing.
V
ITH JEREMIAH nuzzling her feet, Adine channel-upped past people showing off their musical skills, giving hotplate cooking lessons and walking tours of their neighbourhoods, hawking used electronics, performing standup routines, etc., all those endless lonely voices, each one calling into We-TV’s echoless ether, all the way to 73, where the woman, Faye Rowan-Morganson, drained and draining and tragically fascinating, the lure of a stranger’s tragedy, was just beginning her daily introduction.
Well it’s Monday, she sighed, welcome to The Fate of Faye Rowan-Morganson. Though if anyone’s even watching, for you it’s Thursday by now. I hope you’re having a better Thursday than my Monday anyway. I’m having a hard day.
A pause, which Adine, seeing nothing, had to fill with her imagination. Maybe Faye Rowan-Morganson was just staring into the camera, at herself reflected in the lens. Maybe she had stepped out of frame for a moment, maybe she was getting a drink. Adine raised the volume a couple clicks and listened for the knock of a mug or glass placed back on the kitchen table.
Of course, since Adine saw nothing, this table was just one detail in a world she imagined for this stranger every noonhour, the rest of the kitchen sparse and dimly lit, more scullery than culinary suite, just a sink, bare countertops, with this pale and drawn woman hunched at a plastic table with her arms outstretched, thin arms, reaching toward the camera and toward anyone who might be watching. Or not watching: listening.
THAT NIGHT, back in February, when Debbie came home to Adine painting the goggles black she joked, Is this so you don’t have to clean out the mousetraps? Later, in a more delicate tone, she asked, Is this about your accident when you were a kid? Adine pulled the goggles over her eyes and stared into the emptiness concocting some acid response.
Finally she said, No. It’s about trying to be alone.
The air went taut.
Adine sensed Debbie hovering, wounded. Then the bedroom door closed and from behind it came whimpering. Adine turned on the television: two Helpers were elucidating the merits of a backhand serve. After a few minutes she called Sam. Tell me what’s happening, she said. And happily he did.
Watching TV without seeing: this became her work. Not investigating blindness as phenomenology, not a (sub)liminal exploration of nonvisual space, not an inquiry or critique of any sort. Not lost in words. She just wore the goggles day and night, flipping channels, seeing nothing beyond the pictures her imagination painted inside her mind. Maybe one day her hands would paint them. Maybe not.
At 1:00 and 5:00 and 9:00 Sam would call and narrate the action in two-hour chunks. Her brother felt so faraway out there on the Islet, it was good to connect again. Before We- TV’s closed-circuit democratized the airwaves, they’d grown up together with television: cartoons and gameshows and the overwrought daytime dramas in which soft focus signified both memories and dreams.
Meanwhile Debbie was out saving the world with her endless friends and colleagues and contacts and networks and indomitable faith in the city and its citizens. Adine found it all exh
austing: pleasing so many people fractured Debbie into many different people herself. From the moment they’d met she’d struck Adine this way, trying to please her even as Adine ranted and raved and shoved her against a wall.
This had been at an IAD gala, a semi-formal banquet celebrating the new arts-dedicated floors at the Museum of Prosperity. The exhibits included a retrospective of Loopy’s work, four sculptures by the mysterious Mr. Ademus, and, thanks to Isa Lanyess’s on-air lament, Adine’s Sand City, which technicians had unearthed from Budai Beach and shellacked and preserved under glass. Though she’d been invited, Adine played event-crasher, ninety-five pounds of rage storming past security, her hair a brushfire, right up to the host of In the Know.
I’m just the show’s Face, explained Isa Lanyess. She pointed across the room at Debbie skulking by the punchbowl. She’s the one whose idea it was, she’s the one who wrote the script, she’s who’s responsible for your sculpture getting saved. Talk to her.
You? Adine railed, driving a finger into Debbie’s chest. You’re responsible for this? You want to save Sand City? Do you understand anything? Who even are you?
I just thought it was a waste to have such beautiful work washed away, Debbie whispered, steering Adine into the coatroom. She begged her to go for a coffee or a cider or a meal or something, please, she’d only loved the exhibit and —
Exhibit? You and your fuggin exhibit. Adine produced a notebook from her pocket and in a voice of mockery recited: . . . that infinitesimally detailed replica of the city, heartbreakingly rendered, building by building, in sand-sculpted miniature. What a travesty to have such a magical creation just erode into the lake. You doosh, she sighed, destroying it was the fuggin point! But her rage seemed to be waning.
They should talk more, this wasn’t the best time or place, Debbie told her, she just wanted to support what was good. Please, she said, I’m sorry.