I wrote his name on a paper in my mind’s eye, the method Will and I had used for communication while rippled.
Christian
? Then I called out with my thoughts in case he could hear them.
Christian? Are you there?
The room remained silent.
I was alone.
But where? And why? I should have let Hans tell me something. Anything.
Hans had indicated that the drug would start wearing off. Maybe then I could ripple. I began to test my muscles—tried blinking my eyes, attempted wriggling my fingers. My eyes could open and close better now, but my fingers felt like dead things splayed upon the couch. I gave up on my extremities and tried to move parts of my face.
Eyebrows. Mouth. After some time had passed—perhaps half an hour—I thought I might be able to speak. My version of “
Hans, you bastard,
” came out sounding like “Ha–ans, suu buhs–thurt.”
The door opened suddenly.
A young man, maybe college age, walked inside. Unkempt brown hair. Bringing a funny smell with him. Nothing gross, just … odd, like the smell and the clinical room didn’t match. His shoes trailed dark granules, dirt maybe.
“I’ll be caring for your dining needs. Simply let me know anything you’d like to eat or drink,” he said. “Still trouble with speech?” Swiftly, he injected me with something.
“Augh,” I grunted. The needles were getting old, fast.
“You should be able to speak in a moment or two,” he said. “Any type of food you’d like, just ask. Sky’s the limit.”
I felt warm prickles run from my neck and along my spine, down into my arms, legs. I tried wriggling my fingers. Mobility had returned.
I tested my voice: “Any food at all?” I asked, an idea forming.
“Yes,” he replied. “Whatever you feel like.”
“Sourdough bread.” The effort required to speak faded entirely.
“Sourdough bread?” he asked. “No problem. You want butter? Cheese?”
I didn’t answer, thinking hard.
“Just bread, then,” he said. “Okay, anything else? Coffee?”
“What time is it? And where am I?”
The blue eyes dropped to his feet. He wore Brooks running shoes. A very expensive pair. “I can’t tell you that.”
I scowled. “How am I supposed to know if I want coffee when I don’t know what time it is?”
He gave no answer.
“Can you get hot chocolate for me?” I asked.
“Certainly.”
“I only like Ghirardelli,” I said.
“Not a problem.”
“I want chocolate–syllaberry,” I added, hoping my request sounded innocent. “And some butter and jam.” I held my breath, waiting to see if anything I’d asked for struck him as odd. Apparently it didn’t. “I’m very hungry,” I said. “How long will you be? Or is that a question you can’t answer?”
He frowned, looking at the list he’d written. “Shouldn’t take long at all.”
I sighed with relief as the door closed upon the odd smell I’d managed to place.
Kelp—he smelled of seaweed.
The black trail of sand left by his shoes confirmed I’d identified the odor correctly. Mr. Room Service had been running recently. With spendy Brooks like those, he had to be a very dedicated runner. One who ran daily and appreciated the challenge of running on sand. I looked at the tiny grains leading to the door. Black and grey. I knew of only two places with black sand beaches. Hawaii and San Francisco.
This was what made me ask for chocolate–syllaberry cocoa and sourdough bread. Although you could get decent sourdough anywhere in the state of California, the stuff baked in the San Francisco Bay Area had a unique tang. One I hoped I’d be able to identify. And the cocoa? You could buy Ghirardelli hot cocoa at any major grocery store. We even had it in Las Abs. But you could only get special flavors from a Ghirardelli Chocolate Store, and only three of those carried my dad’s syllaberry syrup. The stuff was obscenely expensive and made in very small batches.
If Room Service brought back what I asked for, it would mean we were within easy distance of three possible locations, all in Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco. If only I could tell Christian where to find me!
I quieted my mind. Until the man trailing black sand returned, I determined to silently call for Christian. I repeated his name over and over in my mind. I even risked speaking it aloud. But it was useless. No one could hear me. I was alone. At least until the guy in Brooks returned.
But in the end, he wasn’t the one who brought my meal. Hans delivered it.
BACK FROM THE DEAD
·
WILL
·
We took a train from Paris to Rome because, according to our French friend, “Only mad–men drive in Rome.” But also because Sir Walter’s Citroën lay under the rubble of his ancestors’ castle. My sister buried her nose in one of the journals we’d recovered from Helga’s car, currently under the same rubble. The only time Mick looked up was when we passed through Nice, France.
“If I ever get the chance, I’m coming back here to see the Marc Chagall Museum,” she said.
Sir Walter smiled. “It is well worth the visit,
Mademoiselle.”
They had to explain Chagall to me, and they showed me pictures on Sir Walter’s tablet computer. I couldn’t believe someone who’d lived through the attempted–destruction of his entire race could produce works of such playfulness and beauty.
“His work gave hope to many generations,” said Sir Walter, “But especially, I think, to those who had survived the Holocaust. Such bright colors, such elegant representations of angels, men, and beasts, of the joy of an ordinary life.”
After that, Sir Walter did some checking on his list of properties Helmann had acquired.
“I like this not,” he said. “Geneses owns a building quite close to the
Musée Chagall
. What can he be up to, my cousin? What evil does he now devise?”
Whatever it was, we were on our way to Rome to find out.
From
Roma Termini
, the Eternal City’s massive train station, we taxied to yet another luxury apartment Sir Walter rented with cash. On our way, we’d driven right past the Coliseum and the Forum Romanum, and I’m not exaggerating when I say it just about killed me to stay in the taxi. But then I thought of Sam, of how the sooner we wiped Helmann’s ugly face off the planet, the sooner Sam and I could be together. It helped some.
We ate dinner at a restaurant called a
Trattoria
. Mick stuck with pizza, but I took Sir Walter’s advice and ordered this potato dumpling—
gnocchi—
that was absolutely the best thing I’ve ever eaten. Like a combo of tater–tots and cheese ravioli only a hundred times better. And the velvet–y white sauce? I’m not ashamed to say I shined my plate clean using a hunk of crusty bread.
“I’m never leaving Rome,” I said as the waiter took my plate away.
Mickie smiled and coughed a single word into her napkin. “
Girlfriend.
”
Which kind of took me down a few notches. Mick must’ve felt bad, ‘cause next thing you know she’s offering to buy us all Italian ice cream. But
gelato cioccolato
didn’t taste anywhere near as good as Sam’s lips crushed against mine. I let Mick finish my ice cream.
Sir Walter and I dropped my sister off back in the apartment and then rippled so we could check out Geneses’ Roman headquarters. Sir Walter said things slowed down at night in Helmann’s other offices, so you could maybe have a shot at coming solid if anything interesting was lying around that needed to be borrowed for an indefinite period.
The headquarters building itself was plain, hardly even marked. A tiny brass sign by the front door said
Geneses Internationale
. Sir Walter and I slipped through the warm bubble of a solid–glass door.
Glass rules
, I wrote.
I heard Sir Walter’s soft chuckle, which I figured meant roughly,
Fist–bump, dude!
What are we looking for first?
I wrote.
Anything useful
, came the answer.
Which, honestly, was not a useful answer
at all
if you ask me. I wished I had eyes to roll for times like this. I let Sir Walter take the lead. He found an office marked
Signore Pepe, Vice Presidente
, and we passed through the door. It was this dark old wood, all polished like Bridget Li’s counters back in Las Abs. I tried to smell it or taste it, but I wasn’t Sam, and to me it pretty much seemed like wood.
Sir Walter aimed us for a set of file drawers; there was no computer on the desk. Rippling solid, he flicked a key card in front of the lock, and the file drawer swung open.
Coming solid myself, I murmured, “Nice.”
Sir Walter turned to me with his forefinger pressed to his lips. Universal sign for
shut up, already
. I looked over my friend’s shoulder. Everything was in Italian, which I couldn’t read, so after awhile I started getting bored and also sleepy from being solid at night. I fumbled around in my pockets for something to write on. Finding a flattened empty gum pack, I grabbed a pen off the desk and wrote:
I’m rippling. I’ll stick to yr right side, close.
Sir Walter looked up and nodded.
I felt a lot more alert once I rippled out of my tired body. Seriously, I needed to get back to running just so I could get back some energy. Sir Walter sighed heavily enough that I wrote him,
Quiet, remember?
He gave a sad little half–smile and a nod my direction and then rippled invisible.
I find nothing apropos of the recent purchasing by our friend
, he said, apparently using the term “friend” a bit more loosely than I would have done. Then he muttered,
Mon Dieu, c’est impossible
, which I understood just fine even if I didn’t see any impossible things in the locale of this office.
What’s impossible?
I scribbled on my notepad.
Listen, do you not hear something?
He was right; I heard voices.
I hear talking
, I wrote.
I hear the signature of one whose thoughts are most familiar
, said Sir Walter.
Helmann?
I wrote.
No, no,
he said, his voice with an eager edge.
Do you not recognize this man’s thoughts?
Dude,
I wrote,
basically ‘deaf’ in that department. You’re the only person whose thoughts I’ve ever heard.
Quite, quite,
said Sir Walter.
But I thought perhaps the thoughts of your sister’s advisor might come through to you.
My sister’s WHAT
? I wrote, so fast the letters looked like scrawl.
It is Monsieur Professeur Pfeffer whose voice you hear approaching us even now.
Excerpted from the personal diary of Girard L’Inferne.
Circa 1990
A Corps of one thousand chameleons. This is what I shall require. Thankfully, I need not couple with a thousand mothers this time to produce the offspring I have need of. Technology is a most excellent servant.
Fritz has no lack of racially–pure volunteer surrogates from countries newly free of Soviet domination. Hunger, for food and gold, are our allies at this time. Most propitious, this falling away of the walls separating East from West in Europe.
My one thousand chameleons shall do more than Hitler’s hundreds of thousands. He cleansed only millions of humanity’s dregs. My purging of humanity shall be numbered in billions.
CALL IT PENANCE
·
SAM
·
Hans entered the room pushing a little trolley like you get in a hotel room. My cocoa had been poured into a ceramic mug, but I could smell the spicy scent of syllaberries rising with the steam.
I knew where I was, at least.
“I thought we might breakfast together, as we have much to discuss,” said Hans, smiling as he removed the covers from plates containing thick, sliced sourdough with butter and jam for me and brown rolls with deli meats and cheeses for him. “I really find it impossible to keep up with the myriad beverages young people today consume. I visited a coffee shop last weekend only to discover my simple coffee with a splash of cream had at least fifteen words to its description. And then I had to specify the temperature at which I preferred to drink.” Hans smiled at me as he offered a crisp cloth napkin across the trolley after draping one upon his own lap.
“So it’s morning now?” I asked.
“Ah, yes, I believe it is,” he said, briefly consulting a cell phone. He held it a second longer that necessary, like he wanted me to notice it.
“That’s my phone,” I said, accusation in my voice.
Hans sipped his coffee and arranged cheese upon one of the rolls. “May I assume that you would prefer your parents not worry as to your whereabouts or state of, ah, health at the moment?”
“Of course I don’t want them to worry,” I snapped. “Take me home and that’ll be a non–issue.”
Hans smiled. “I have already ensured it will be a ‘non–issue’ by sending them a message.”
“You texted my parents?” I asked, feeling my face growing hot. “What, like a ransom note?”
Hans looked taken aback. “Of course not, my dear young woman. I merely indicated your intentions to spend the day in Fresno with your, ah,
Asian
friend.” He pronounced it “A–zee–un.”
“They’ll figure that out as soon as they call Gwyn,” I said. Instantly I regretted revealing her name.
“Gwyn Li and her mother Bridget are even now driving to meet you at Shibuki Spa for a day of luxury and relaxation in the Japanese tradition,” said Hans.
So he knew their names already.
“They’re Chinese, not Japanese. There’s a big difference,” I said angrily.
“Yes, yes,” said Hans, brushing his fingers through the air in a dismissive gesture. “That is neither here nor there. You indicated that you would prefer your parents not worry as to your disappearance. I have gone to great pains to ensure they will not.” His own voice carried an impatient edge.