Apocalypse for Beginners (15 page)

55. MENU FOR TRAVELLERS

Sugar, liquid glucose, cocoa butter, powdered whole milk, hydrogenated vegetable oil, cocoa paste, lactose, powdered skim milk, powdered whey, low-fat cocoa, milk fats, malt extract, salt, emulsifier, soy lecithin, egg white, milk protein, wheat flour and flavouring. Enriched wheat flour, water, sugar and/or glucose-fructose, yeast, vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), salt, calcium sulphate, esters of diacetyl tartaric acid of mono- and diacylglycerols, mono- and diacylglycerols from vegetable sources, calcium propionate, sodium stearoyl-2-lactylate, corn flour, calcium phosphate, soybean flour, sunflower oil, wheat starch, ammonium phosphate, calcium peroxide, wheat gluten, ethyl alcohol, sorbitol, polysorbate 20, sodium propionate, enzymes, dextrin, cornstarch, carboxymethylcellulose, ammonium sulphate, malt, calcium carbonate, sesame seeds. Vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), relish (diced cucumbers, glucose-fructose, vinegar, potassium sorbate, xanthan gum, natural flavour (from vegetable sources)), mustard (water, vinegar, mustard seeds, salt, sugar, caramel colouring, spices), water, frozen egg yolks, vinegar, powdered onion, salt, spices, xanthan gum, potassium sorbate, garlic powder, hydrolized vegetable proteins (corn gluten, soybean, wheat gluten), calcium sodium edetate, colouring (paprika).

56. THERE WERE NO GOOD OLD DAYS

On the third day at dawn, Hope alighted in Seattle, white as a shard of porcelain. She ingested a burger and took stock of her resources: whitish Tony Lama boots (2), prophet’s contact information (1), slightly depleted budget (1).

A game plan started to take shape in her mind.

She bought a map of Greater Seattle and installed herself at the Starbucks to peruse it, downing three bold daily special coffees in a row. There were fifteen or so newspaper vending machines lined up at attention in the hall of the bus terminal, and inside each of them the headline announced the withdrawal of the American troops from the Persian Gulf.

The rush hour was at its peak. People were scurrying in every direction, and Hope realized that, for the first time in her life, she had no schedule or agenda or dosage to follow—only a Mission. It was a happy blend of truancy and crusade. Feeling a sudden lightness, she ordered a fourth coffee and polished her boots with a handful of napkins.

First step: Locate the Mekiddo headquarters. That was easy, since the street was listed in the index of the map. The company was situated on 6
^th
Avenue, in the heart of Chinatown, about a twenty-minute walk. Hope folded the map and set out.

The Mekiddo building offered a classic example of post-industrial architecture. The turquoise facade of synthetic resin—avant-garde during the Vietnam War—had fallen into chronic disrepair. Here and there, shabby brick facing peeped out where a panel was missing. The resin shell must have concealed an old warehouse or a boxing gym or a print shop.

An American flag snapped glumly against its aluminum mast, right next to the battered company name: Mekiddo Corporation Inc. Flanking the name was a rusted logo—a sort of winged lion with the head of a bearded man. An arcane corporate hybrid.

Spray-painted near the door someone had added a piece of unforgiving graffiti: There Were No Good Old Days.

“That’s good to know,” Hope told herself.

On the surface, Mekiddo might have been an import-export company, a money-laundering operation for drug dealers or a road-engineering firm on the brink of bankruptcy.

Careful not to be conspicuous, Hope hopped from one foot to the other while she sized up the situation. The temperature hovered just above zero, but the dampness went right through her. When the cold finally became unbearable she took shelter in a noodle shop directly across the street.

The restaurant was empty and lunchtime was still a long way off. She strategically chose a seat by the window and, without taking her eyes off the target, haphazardly ordered a number 17 (lemongrass rice noodles with shrimp). A TV on the counter was tuned to a Vietnamese version of
The Price Is Right
, rebroadcast via satellite, no doubt.

Her number 17 soon arrived. These noodles were nothing like Captain Mofuku’s! Hope unsheathed her chopsticks, pushed her three shrimps to the edge of the bowl and began to devour the noodles. Between bites she glanced at the building. Fifteen minutes went by and she had yet to see anyone go through the door.

57. LABYRINTH

Hope crossed the street, dodged the truck of a dried-seahorse dealer and entered the mysterious turquoise building.

Aside from the strange bearded feline’s head bolted to the wall, there was no one in the lobby. A fluorescent tube was flashing messages in Morse code. Hope walked up to the reception desk. The chair had evidently been unoccupied for quite a while: abandoned on the imitation granite surface was a Mekiddo-coloured cup lined at the bottom with a cracked layer of coffee, and the newspaper underneath the cup was dated February—the picture on the front page showed the Kuwaiti desert bristling with flaming derricks.

Under the newspaper, Hope found a notebook with the company’s organizational chart and a list of the staff’s personal extension numbers. She ran her finger down the list until she reached
SMITH
, Charles—3
^rd
Floor, Section 9, Cubicle 47. The hour of their meeting was at hand.

Hope stepped into the elevator under the menacing gaze of the big cat. The car smelled of oil and linoleum glue, and the machinery creaked in a worrisome way. The doors opened onto a huge space divided into cubicles by movable wall panels. Modular architecture—grey and efficient.

Still not a soul in sight.

In fact, the building looked as if an emergency evacuation had taken place there several weeks earlier. The ceiling was covered with fireproof tiles, some of which had been torn out, exposing bundles of electric wiring.

Hope ventured into the labyrinth and let herself be guided by a sound that was the only sign of life: the squeaking of a poorly lubricated ventilation fan somewhere at the far end of the floor. She wandered around until she came to the realization that this was the third time she had come across the same broken office chair. She was going in circles.

She tried to remember the classic methods for getting out of a labyrinth. Consistently turn left? Draw a map of your movements? Leave a trail of paperclips? More pragmatically, she climbed on a desk to get an overall view of the area.

What she saw in every direction was chaos and desolation. Piles of papers dumped on the desks, abandoned photocopiers, dried-out ivy plants—all covered with a thin film of dust.

Suddenly, Hope cried out: there was a head peeking out over the labyrinth! A few panels away, a man was silently watching her. They eyed each other for several seconds—Hope was about to conclude that she was staring at a mannequin—when the man spoke up.

“Can I help you?”

“Uhh … I’m looking for someone.”

The man squinted. Hope thought he looked suspicious, but on second thought
she
was the suspicious-looking one, standing there on the desk. She climbed down and headed toward the man by following the directions that he shouted to her over the panels. Right, left, third aisle on the right, then left again.

He was waiting for her in his cubicle, sitting in the shadow of a hill of paperwork topped by a half-full pot of coffee. Hope greeted him with a nod.

“Do you know Charles Smith? I was told he works here.”

The man rubbed his chin as he observed Hope. An invisible twenty-four-hour beard rasped under his fingers, and the crooked part in his hair gave him the appearance of a John F. Kennedy gone mad.

“You’ve got a weird accent. Where are you from?”

“Québec.”

“Beg your pardon?”

“Eastern Canada.”

A spark of recognition flashed across his face.

“So you speak French!
Je appris le français quand je suis jeune
.”

Hope gave him a polite sign of acknowledgment. Then she pointed to the labyrinth of cubicles with a sweeping gesture: What exactly was this place? The set for a film on Chernobyl? The man found this comparison “funny.” This
place
, he explained, was the North American headquarters of the Japanese company Mekiddo—at least, what was left of it, since the offices would be closing for good in exactly (he checked his watch) thirty-seven minutes.

Hope felt a knot in her stomach.

“So Smith doesn’t work here any more?”

By way of response, the man tilted his head toward the adjacent cubicle, which had been hastily vacated, like all the others.

Hope dejectedly plunked herself down on a stack of boxes, raising a cloud of dust. She had crossed North America for nothing.

The man chewed on an imaginary toothpick. He did not seem surprised by the situation. On the contrary, one got the distinct impression that he had been expecting this encounter for weeks, that it was his very last assignment and that once Hope exited the building he too could finally leave this place.

He pretended to spit out his toothpick.

“So you’re looking for Chuck. And you’d like to talk to him about the end of the world, right?”

58. POOR CHUCK STARTS TO HAVE PROBLEMS

“Coffee?”

He took two Pyrex cups out of the drawer and inspected them under the fluorescent lights. They were almost opaque under the accretion of fingerprints, but this did not seem to bother him, and he proceeded to pour two generous servings of coffee.

“Milk?”

“No thanks.”

“You got that right. There is no more milk. They took the fridge away last week.”

Hope took a gulp of what assuredly must have been the worst coffee on the entire West Coast. It was bitter, oily and beyond strong, so that from the very first sip she could feel the caffeine percolating into the remote corners of her brain.

Without batting an eyelid the man drained his cup and gave himself a refill. He sniffed and started on his second cup, but this time less hastily. No sound could be heard except for the constant squeaking of the fan and the muffled whine of Boeings flying by directly overhead. Hope looked for a way to kick-start the conversation.

“So you knew Smith?”

“Ah! No one really knew Kamajii.”

“Kamajii?”

The man explained that Charles Smith’s real name was Hayao Kamajii and that he was from Japan, but that, like so many Asians, he used a Western name to work in the States. In fact, he was an expert mimic: not only was his English flawless—tinged with a slight British accent picked up in Hong Kong—but he had an almost supernatural ability to imitate any accent after only a few minutes.

“In my opinion, he’s a bit autistic. All day long I would see him do things like this”—he pretended to twist a paper clip—“for hours at a time. He did origami. He made little drawings.”

“What was his job?”

“No idea. I never saw him do any work.”

The man took the coffee pot and offered another round. Hope declined a second too late and found herself holding her sixth coffee of the day.

“One day he tells me he knows the date when the world’s going to end. Shows me a manuscript. The man had a strange sense of humour.”

“Did you read the manuscript?”

He nodded.

“
Oui
. I remember it mentioned an airport.”

“An airport?”

“Yeah. Nice place to wait for the end of the world, huh?”

“I don’t fly very often.”

He opened a drawer and pulled out an old package of cookies. Then he cautiously took a bite before holding out the package to Hope.

“Cookie?”

She shook her head.

“Anyway, a New York publisher accepts the manuscript and it becomes a bestseller. That’s when poor Chuck starts to have problems. The readers don’t want just a book—they want a guru.
Alors ils le … harassent
?”

“
Harcèlent
.”

“
Oui, ils le harcèlent
. His telephone doesn’t stop ringing the whole night. When he leaves his house in the morning, he stumbles over people in sleeping bags: punks, schizophrenics, junkies,
COBOL
coders.”

He bit into another cookie, frowned in disgust and flung the package at the wastebasket, missing the target by several inches. The package smashed against the floor and cookie crumbs flew off in all directions. The man appeared not to notice.

“So this lasts two years. It was crazy! In the end, Chuck just stops going home. He sleeps in the office.”

“He slept here?”

“
Oui
. Sitting in his office chair.”

Hope scanned the surrounding area. The coffee was distorting her vision. The slightest object was fringed with a pink and blue halo, like a 3-D movie. She felt little electric sparks crackling around her nostrils and reverberating down to the bottom of her lungs. That last coffee had definitely been one too many.

“Has he been gone for very long?”

“Nine months. Eight, maybe. I can give you his new business card, if you want.”

He swung his chair around, fished about in the mass of papers pinned to the cubicle wall and extracted a rectangular piece of pasteboard.

Hope carefully examined Kamajii’s card—English on one side, Japanese on the other. She took a deep breath to ward off her nausea. All around, the cubicles and the furniture seemed to vibrate. Hope was in a video game, standing in front of the Gates of Heaven, and she was about to be teleported ten thousand floors away.

59. SUPERCHARGED

Business card in hand, Hope charged through the glass doors on the ground floor and spewed an ambiguous blend of bile and coffee against the turquoise tiles right at the foot of the bearded lion.

She spat several times, wiped her mouth with an old handkerchief, and leaned against the wall, gasping for breath and sweating despite the freezing rain. She wanted to be back home.

Hope pocketed the business card and then, supercharged on coffee, shot away like a bullet and marched for several minutes in a straight line. She eventually bumped against the A-frame signboard of a travel agency announcing unbeatable prices for last-minute tickets. Hope walked in with no second thoughts. The next scene unfolded as if in a dream, half in Mandarin, half in English. As it happened, the agency actually was selling a ticket at half price—an eleventh-hour cancellation, a deal not to be missed, departure at 3:23 p.m. Hope pulled the envelope out of her bag and slapped a wad of bills down on the counter.