Zero K

by Don DeLillo

  Before we left the area I turned to take one last look and, yes, she was there, in empty method, a living breathing artform, boy or girl, seated in pajamalike garments, offering nothing more for me to think or imagine. The guide led us down a long hall that was not bordered by doors and Ross began to speak to me now, a faraway voice, close to the trembling bend.

  “People getting older become more fond of objects. I think this is true. Particular things. A leather-bound book, a piece of furniture, a photograph, a painting, the frame that holds the painting. These things make the past seem permanent. A baseball signed by a famous player, long dead. A simple coffee mug. Things we trust. They tell an important story. A person’s life, all those who entered and left, there’s a depth, a richness. We used to sit in a certain room, often, the room with the monochrome paintings. She and I. The room in the townhouse with those five paintings and the tickets we saved and framed, like a couple of teenage tourists, two tickets to a bullfight in Madrid. She was already in poor condition. We didn’t say much. Just sat there remembering.”

  There were long pauses between sentences and his tone was near to a murmur, or an underbreath, and I listened hard and waited.

  Then I said, “What is the fond object in your case?”

  “I don’t know yet. Maybe I’ll never know.”

  “Not the paintings.”

  “Too many. Too much.”

  “The tickets. Two small slips of paper.”

  “Sol y sombra. Plaza de Toros Las Ventas,” he said. “We were seated in an area that’s sometimes in the sun, sometimes in the shade. Open area. Sol y sombra.”

  He wasn’t finished, a man propelled into obsessive reflection. He talked, I listened, his voice more halting, the subject more elusive. Did I want to stare at the guide and try to think of us together in a room, my room, she and I, the guide, the escort, or just visualize her alone, nowhere, a woman stepping out of her shoes. I felt an erotic wistfulness but could not shape it.

  We stood in the veer, gliding out of Zero K, out of the numbered levels. I thought of prime numbers. I thought, Define a prime. The veer was an environment, I thought, suited to rigorous thinking. I was always good at math. I felt sure of myself when I dealt with numbers. Numbers were the language of science. And now I needed to find the precise and perpetual and more or less mandatory wording that would constitute the definition of a prime. But why did I need to do this? The guide stood with eyes closed, thinking in Russian. My father was in a waking state of mindlapse, in retreat from his pain. I thought, Prime number. A positive integer not divisible. But what was the rest of it? What else about primes? What else about integers?

  • • •

  I walked the halls toward the room, eager to grab my bag and meet my father and head home. This was the one energy left to me, the expectation of return. Sidewalks, streets, green light, red light, metered seconds to get to the other side alive.

  But I had to pause now, stop and look, because the screen in the ceiling began to lower and a series of images filled the width of the hallway.

  People running, crowds of running men and women, they’re closely packed and showing desperation, dozens, then hundreds, workpants, T-shirts, sweatshirts, shouldering each other, elbowing, looking dead ahead, the camera positioned slightly above, an angled shot, no cuts, tilts, pans. I back away instinctively. There’s no soundtrack but it’s almost possible to hear the mass pulse of breath and pounding feet. They’re running on a surface barely visible beneath their crowded bodies. I see tennis shoes, ankle boots, sandals, there’s a barefoot woman, a man in sneakers with undone laces flapping.

  They keep on coming, trying to escape some dreadful spectacle or rumbling threat. I’m watching closely and trying to think into the action onscreen, the uniformity of it, the orderly deployment and steady pace that underlie the urgent scene. It begins to occur to me that I may be seeing the same running cluster repeatedly, shot and reshot, two dozen runners made to resemble several hundred, a flawless sleight of editing.

  Here they come, mouths open, arms pumping, headbands, visors, camouflage caps, no seeming slowdown, and then something further comes to mind. Is it possible that this is not factual documentation rendered in a selective manner but something radically apart? It’s a digital weave, every fragment manipulated and enhanced, all of it designed, edited, redesigned. Why hadn’t this occurred to me before, in earlier screenings, the monsoon rains, the tornadoes? These were visual fictions, the wildfires and burning monks, digital bits, digital code, all of it computer-generated, none of it real.

  I watched until the images faded and the screen began to lift, soundlessly, and I’d gone only a short way along the hall when there was a noise, hard to identify and rapidly getting louder. I went a few more paces and had to stop, the noise nearly upon me, and then they came wheeling around the corner charging in my direction, the running men and women, images bodied out, spilled from the screen. I hurried to the only safety there was, the nearest wall, back flattened, arms spread, the runners bearing down, nine or ten abreast, blasting past, wild-eyed. I could see their sweat and smell their stink and they kept on coming, all looking directly ahead.

  Be calm. See what’s here. Think about it clearly.

  A local ritual upheld, a marathon of sacred awe, some obscure tradition adhered to for a hundred years. This was all the time I had for theories. They approached and went past and I looked at the faces and then at the bodies and saw the man with flapping laces and tried to see the barefoot woman. How many runners, who were they, why were they being filmed, are they still being filmed? I watched them come and go and then, in the thinning lines, with the last runners approaching, what I saw was a pair of tall blondish men and I leaned forward for a better look as they went by, shoulder to shoulder, and it was the Stenmark twins, unmistakably, Lars and Nils, or Jan and Sven.

  They were drenching me, out-thinking me, these several days, this extreme sublifetime. What was it beyond a concentrated lesson in bewilderment?

  It was their game, their mob, and they were a sweating panting part of it. The Stenmarks. I kept to the wall, watching them blow past and go racing down the long hall. When the runners were gone I remained in position, wallbound for a moment more. Was I surprised to learn that I was the only witness to whatever it was I’d just seen?

  An empty hall.

  The fact is I did not expect to see others. It had never occurred to me that there were others in the hall. It was uncommon in my experience that there were such others, with several brief exceptions. I stood away from the wall now, mind and body buzzing and the hallway seeming to tremble with the muffled thrust of the runners.

  On the way back to my room I realized that I was limping.

  ARTIS MARTINEAU

  But am I who I was.

  I think I am someone. There is someone here and I feel it in me or with me.

  But where is here and how long am I here and am I only what is here.

  She knows these words. She is all words but she doesn’t know how to get out of words into being someone, being the person who knows the words.

  Time. I feel it in me everywhere. But I don’t know what it is.

  The only time I know is what I feel. It is all now. But I don’t know what this means.

  I hear words that are saying things to me again and again. Same words all the time going away and coming back.

  But am I who I was.

  She is trying to understand what has happened to her and where she is and what it means to be who she is.

  What is it that I am waiting for.

  Am I only here and now. What happened to me that did this.

  She is first person and third person both.

  The only here is where I am. But where is here. And why just here and nowhere else.

  What I don’t know is right here with me but how do I make myself know it.

  Am I someone or is it just the words themselves that make me think I’m someone.

  Why can’t I know mor
e. Why just this and nothing else. Or do I need to wait.

  She is able to say what she feels and she is also the person who stands outside the feelings.

  Are the words themselves all there is. Am I just the words.

  This is the feeling I have that the words want to tell me things but I don’t know how to listen.

  I listen to what I hear.

  I only hear what is me. I am made of words.

  Does it keep going on like this.

  Where am I. What is a place. I know the feeling of somewhere but I don’t know where it is.

  What I understand comes from nowhere. I don’t know what I understand until I say it.

  I am trying to become someone.

  The involutions, the mind drift.

  I almost know some things. I think I am going to know things but then it does not happen.

  I feel something outside me that belongs to me.

  Where is my body. Do I know what this is. I only know the word and I know it out of nowhere.

  I know that I am inside something. I am somebody inside this thing I am in.

  Is this my body.

  Is this what makes me whatever I know and whatever I am.

  I am nowhere that I can know or feel.

  I will try to wait.

  Everything I don’t know is right here with me but how do I make myself know it.

  Am I someone or is it just the words themselves that make me think I’m someone.

  Why can’t I know more. Why just this and nothing else. Or do I need to wait.

  She is living within the grim limits of self.

  Are the words themselves all there is. Am I just the words.

  Will I ever stop thinking. I need to know more but I also need to stop thinking.

  I try to know who I am.

  But am I who I was and do I know what this means.

  She is first person and third person with no way to join them together.

  What I need to do is stop this voice.

  But then what happens. And how long am I here. And is this all the time or only the least time there is.

  Is all the time still to come.

  Can’t I stop being who I am and become no one.

  She is the residue, all that is left of an identity.

  I listen to what I hear. I can only hear what is me.

  I can feel time. I am all time. But I don’t know what this means.

  I am only what is here and now.

  How much time am I here. Where is here.

  I think that I can see what I am saying.

  But am I who I was. And what does this mean. And did someone do something to me.

  Is this the nightmare of self drawn so tight that she is trapped forever.

  I try to know who I am.

  But all I am is what I am saying and this is nearly nothing.

  She is not able to see herself, give herself a name, estimate the time since she began to think what she is thinking.

  I think I am someone. But I am only saying words.

  The words never go away.

  Minutes, hours, days and years. Or is everything she knows contained in one timeless second.

  This is all so small. I think that I am barely here.

  It is only when I say something that I know that I am here.

  Do I need to wait.

  Here and now. This is who I am but only this.

  She tries to see words. Not the letters in the words but the words themselves.

  What does it mean to touch. I can almost touch whatever is here with me.

  Is this my body.

  I think I am someone. What does it mean to be who I am.

  All the selves an individual possesses. What is left to her but a voice in its barest sheddings.

  I try to see the words. Same words all the time.

  The words float past.

  Am I just the words. I know that there is more.

  Does she need third person. Let her live down in the soundings inside herself. Let her ask her questions to no one but herself.

  But am I who I was.

  On and on. Eyes closed. Woman’s body in a pod.

  PART TWO

  In the Time of Konstantinovka

  - 1 -

  The office belonged to a man named Silverstone. It was my father’s former office and two of the paintings he owned were still on the wall, dark with strips of dusty sunlight, both of them. I had to force myself to look at Silverstone, behind the burnished desk, while he droned his way through a global roundup that ranged from Hungary to South Africa, the forint to the rand.

  Ross had made a phone call on my behalf and even as I sat here I tried to feel the kind of separation, the lingering distance that had always defined the time I spent in an office, a man with a job, a position—not an occupation exactly but a rank, a role, a title.

  This job would make me the Son. Word of the interview would spread and everyone here would think of me this way. The job was not an unconditional gift. I would have to earn the right to keep it but my father’s name would haunt every step I took, every word I spoke.

  Then, again, I already knew that I would turn down the offer, any offer, whatever the rank or role.

  Silverstone was a broad and mostly bald man whose hands were active elements in the monologue he was delivering and I found myself imitating his gestures in abridged form, an alternative to nodding or to muttering microdecibels of assent. We could have been a teacher and his student in some rendition of the manual alphabet.

  The forint got a finger twirl, the rand earned a fist.

  The two paintings were the spectral remains of my father’s presence here. I thought about my last visit to the office and there was Ross standing by the window, at night, wearing sunglasses. This was before the journey he’d make with his wife and the journey home with his son, mostly bloated time since then, for me at least, two years of it, slow-going and unfocused.

  Silverstone became more specific, telling me that I’d be part of a group involved in the infrastructure of water. This was a term I’d never heard before. He spoke of water stress and water conflict. He referred to maps of water risk that guided investors. There were charts, he said, detailing the intersection of capital and water technology.

  The paintings on the wall were not watercolors but I decided not to point this out. No need for me to bare the shallower reaches of my disposition.

  He would confer with my father and several others and then make the offer. I would wait several days, reminding myself that I needed a job badly, and then reject the offer, graciously, without further comment.

  I listened to the man and occasionally spoke. I said smart things. I sounded smart to myself. But why was I here? Did I need to lie, in three dimensions, over a period of time, with hand gestures? Was I defying a persistent urge to submit to the pressures of reality? There was only one thing I knew for certain. I would do it this way because it made me more interesting. Does that sound crazy? It showed me who I was in ways I did not try to understand.

  Ross was not part of my thinking here. He and I were determined not to end in willful bitterness and none of this maneuvering was directed at him. He’d probably be relieved when I turned down the offer.

  All through the episode with Silverstone I saw myself seated here attending to the man’s water talk. Who was more absurd, he or I?

  In the evening I would describe the man to Emma, repeat what he’d said. This is something I did well, word for word at times, and I looked forward to a late dinner in a modest restaurant on a tree-lined street between the brawling traffic of the avenues, our mood nicely guided by the infrastructure of water.

  • • •

  When we returned from the Convergence I announced to Ross that we were back in history now. Days have names and numbers, a discernible sequence, and there is an aggregate of past events, both immediate and long gone, that we can attempt to understand. Certain things are predictable, even within the array of departures from the common or
der. Elevators go up and down rather than sideways. We see the people who serve the food we eat in public establishments. We walk on paved surfaces and stand on a corner to hail a cab. Taxicabs are yellow, fire trucks red, bikes mostly blue. I’m able to return to my devices, data roaming, instant by instant, in the numbing raptures of the Web.

  It turned out that my father was not interested in history or technology or hailing a cab. He let his hair grow wild and walked nearly everywhere he cared to go, which was nearly nowhere. He was slow and a little stooped and when I spoke about exercise, diet and self-responsibility, we both understood that this was just an inventory of hollow sounds.

  His hands sometimes trembled. He looked at his hands, I looked at his face, seeing only an arid indifference. When I gripped his hands once to stop the shaking, he simply closed his eyes.

  The job offer would come. And I would turn it down.

  In his townhouse he eventually wanders down the stairs to sit in the room with the monochrome paintings. This means that my visit is over but sometimes I follow along and stand a while in the doorway, watching the man stare at something that is not in the room. He is remembering or imagining and I’m not sure if he is aware of my presence but I know that his mind is tunneling back to the dead lands where the bodies are banked and waiting.

  - 2 -

  I sat in a taxi with Emma and her son, Stak, all three bodies muscled into the rear seat, and the boy checked the driver’s ID and immediately began to speak to the man in an unrecognizable language.

  I conferred quietly with Emma, who said he was studying Pashto, privately, in his spare time. Afghani, she said, to enlighten me further.

  I muttered something about Urdu, reflexively, in self-defense, because this was the only word that came to mind under the circumstances.

  We were leaning into each other, she and I, and she exaggerated the terms of our complicity, speaking from the side of her mouth for comic effect and telling me that Stak walked in circles in his room enunciating phrases in Pashto in accordance with instructions from the device clipped to his belt.