“
Now we
’
re talking!
”
He laughs, and it feels as if it is for the first time in weeks.
“
Are you sure you don
’
t want to brainstorm tonight? We could go back to your nephew
’
s place.
”
Another pause. Another voice in the background, this time a child
’
s.
“
Just kidding. You have a good night, Maya.
”
“
I
’
ll pick you up at eight-thirty. Sleep tight, Henry Tuhoe.
”
~ * ~
The Lake That Fell Through
a Hole in the World
Maya arrives alone in her truck and taps the horn. He sees her through the kitchen window. He finishes his cup of Galadonian red tea, his third this morning, and puts it in the sink. He wonders if it
’
s caffeinated, then decides it doesn
’
t matter. He
’
s been up for hours. In fact, he
’
s fairly sure that he never went to sleep last night.
As they back out of the driveway, Henry notices Madison Ellison bending at the curb to pick up her daily nine-month-old paper. She glances up and waves at them with a level of enthusiasm that unnerves Henry, who responds with a cool nod of the head and a half-smile.
He wonders if Madison Ellison gets death threats too.
Maya turns right onto the dirt road outside USAVille and heads east across the valley and toward the river. The opposite direction, he discerns, from the call center.
Her hair is pulled back under a white woolen skullcap and she
’
s wearing a black sweater and dark blue jeans, making her look— besides adorable, he thinks—much younger and slightly smaller than she looks in business clothes.
He
’
s wearing dress-down Friday khakis, a red pinstriped Brooks Brothers shirt, and brown Top-
Siders
, which under the circumstances makes him look and feel about sixty-seven years old.
“
So you are alive,
”
she declares, adjusting the rearview mirror.
“
Yes. Quite. Though part of me is disappointed, because I
’
ve
always wanted to be able to say that I survived not one but two assassination attempts.
”
Maya smiles. The morning air is clear and bright with sunshine, and the road in front of them is devoid of vehicles and pedestrians and surrounded on both sides by browning autumn jute fields.
“
You
’
re quite funny.
”
“
Thank you.
”
“
Especially when it comes to dealing with the truth. The harsher the truth, it seems, the better the joke.
”
“
Which would make me the perfect date come the apocalypse.
”
“
But you use it as a shield, to deflect.
”
“
Actually, it makes a hell of a weapon too.
”
She looks away from him and concentrates on the narrow, rutted road.
“
Would you rather that I dealt with harsh truths with anger? Or bitterness? Or . . . what, despair?
”
“
No. But sometimes, to be taken seriously—
”
He interrupts.
“
The more seriously someone wants to be taken, the more dangerous he is.
”
“
If I may, I
’
m saying this because I think that you have much to offer and you use your humor and your cynicism to protect what is essentially smothered idealism.
”
For this he has no pithy comeback. He presses his face against the window glass and stares at mountains too large and sharply defined to be real.
After several minutes, still facing the window, he asks,
“
Where
’
s your friend today?
”
Maya takes a breath, as if trying out several responses, before answering:
“
He
’
s working.
”
They drive without speaking in the general direction of the river for a dozen miles. He
’
s sure now that they are traveling farther and farther from the call center, but he doesn
’
t care enough to ask. Maya doesn
’
t seem like someone to go off on a journey without a purpose.
With each mile the land becomes more barren. Colors fade, life evaporates under the rising sun. Blue pine forests give way to spent jute and sunflower fields, which give way to an empty land pocked
and webbed with deepening crevasses. After more than an hour of rough driving, Maya pulls the truck off the road and comes to a stop at the edge of an empty lakebed whose shattered and fissured bottom looks as if it were used up and thrown down from the heavens.
He turns to her.
“
Odd venue for a meeting.
”
She doesn
’
t smile.
“
This is where my family used to live. This is where we were sent when the political situation changed. At first it wasn
’
t so bad. Beautiful, even. Before the factories and the dam, it was seventy miles around.
Fishing villages lined the shores. Everything else was rich farmland. On this road there was a constant line of carts filled with produce making their way to the river.
”
“
What happened?
”
She shrugs.
“
Some people actually believed it all dried up because they insulted the gods by taking more fish than they needed. It happened so fast I guess I don
’
t blame them, because really, how could humans ruin so much so fast?
”
“
Where
’
d they go?
”
“
Most left to work on the dam and at the factories that had already ruined their lives. Of course, many simply died.
”
Without warning she opens the door, gets out, and begins walking onto the lakebed.
When he catches up to her, she turns to face him.
“
He
’
s not my man. Okay? He is my brother.
”
He nods. Okay.
When she resumes walking, he is alongside her.
“
It
’
s going to get much worse here before it gets better. There is a rising opposition that is in direct proportion to the prince
’
s irrational ambition. My brother, if he could, would like to see the prince and anyone associated with him dead. And if the prince knew what my brother was up to, he would have him arrested and eventually killed. Just as he has with anyone who has dared to oppose him.
”
“
What about you?
”
She stops, pulls the band of the white cap higher on her forehead.
“
I don
’
t want to kill anyone. I
’
d just like some, you know, human progress. Some kind of ethical balance. But in a country that supposedly embraces balance, all that I see are extremes. Absolute spirituality or absolute greed, with not much wiggle room in between, all at
the expense of contentment. We
’
re so concerned about losing our identity if we open up too fast to the world, which is fair enough, but what exactly is the identity we
’
re saving? Cloistered? Corrupt? Spiritually rich? Economically impoverished? What the prince is doing will absolutely have a devastating impact on our future. But if it somehow comes to pass that the opposition, that my brother and the cultural preservationists, defeat the prince and his modernity movement, I
’
m not so sure that life here will be any better. Just righteously corrupt versus morally corrupt. And they
’
d kill in the name of spirituality as quickly as the prince kills for greed.
”
“
Are you sure there
’
s not a clearly defined good or bad side? Because, you know, it would be so much easier if I could simply choose a side.
”
Henry smiles after he says it, but Maya doesn
’
t smile.
She smacks him.
He doesn
’
t touch his reddening cheek. He keeps his arms at his sides and stares at her wet, agitated eyes. The heat rises where her fingers landed, and a mountain breeze conjures a cloud of powdered, ruined earth.
“
Listen,
”
he finally says, adding another melodramatic pause before continuing.
“
I know you think I don
’
t take life seriously, but everything I
’
ve ever taken seriously, I
’
ve lost.
”
As Maya considers his words, he readies for an embrace, an apology, the solace of a friend and the understanding of someone more. He prepares for her to tell him that she knows he
’
s been through so much, that she knows that this has been an especially trying time for him and that he has handled it with uncommon dignity and fortitude. Perhaps even a kiss.
But instead Maya smacks him again. With the opposite hand. On the opposite cheek. Then she says,
“
Wrong answer, Henry. Here
’
s the deal. Nobody cares about your emotional crisis. About the difference between a vocation and a calling and—what did you say the other day? A finding! My goodness. I lost a child. My family lost everything. Our life expectancy is fifty-three point three years and our culture is being raped by a gang of logos and you
’
re afraid to take something seriously because it might not work out? Please. All things considered, Henry, I find your sentiments pathetic and incredibly offensive.
”
~ * ~
Being
smacked
twice in the face by a woman who then tells you that what you had thought was a sincere, heartfelt, and difficult confession was in fact pathetic and incredibly offensive would normally mean that she
’
s just not into you. But Henry feels differently. After the face-smacking and moral condemnation, he feels a strange sort of release, accompanied by the feeling one experiences when given an unexpected, perfect gift.
In this instance, the gift is truth.
Giddy is how he feels.
As they resume their drive toward the river, following the shore of the phantom lake, he decides that if music were presently a part of his life, the playlist selection for this moment would be
“
Bling (Confessions of a King)
”
by the Killers. He begins singing the song in his head, but when Maya begins to talk, he instantly forgets the words, forgets the song ever existed.
Equally liberated by the physical release, Maya begins to narrate as she drives, assigning stories and insights to subtle changes in the landscape. The man walking bent over far out on the lakebed is a crazed diviner, a former monk who thinks that the lake fell through a hole in the world and that if he can simply find the exact spot, all will be well with his villagers. The empty cluster of cinder-block huts around a solitary well is a
“
cancer village,
”
where textile factory runoff polluted the groundwater and the irrigation channels that fed the farms, killing and deforming the villagers and finally driving the survivors away.
When Maya
’
s stories begin to appear one-sided, to sound like a biased diatribe against the crimes of the government in power, she switches positions and begins lambasting the old ways, the traditional practices of their supposedly tolerant, peaceable culture.