Made Men (8 page)

Were the Americans that unimaginative?

It
seemed a lazy overlap of word meanings. Stories belonged in books. The British
knew that and called different floors storeys, instead.

Uniformed
men pushed people in a pattern. The photographers appeared divided: some
clicked wildly at the workers above, while others backpedaled, snapping images
of the firemen busy with a slapdash yet apparently newsworthy canvas circle.
Murmurs grew organized. Ryker practiced thoughts in American English.

Chants. They are chanting. Who is
chanting? The crowd is chanting, currently.

Persons
encouraged others; those on the ground saluted those aloft, wishing them well.
Ryker glimpsed the faces of individuals. Some seemed sad yet also angry. The
street was a free area.

Symbolic gestures proliferated
.

Ryker
could appreciate why freedom mattered.

The food was better, for example
.

And
if one didn’t have enough food, or heat, one could move about to find a
preferable circumstance. And here was a slowly closing cage door that may not
re-open—a perceived if not correct loss of options. Here on the street,
there in the building … those looking up were free; those who looked down were
not. Shoulder-to-shoulder, the twins began to understand the event.

Humans were simple. They used so little
of their skills when they required them most.

Their
not-mother
had locked herself in a frustrated grief
bubble. The workers above and even the firemen appeared oblivious to her
glands. Their
not-mother
’s cortisol and adrenaline had
surged, and she pumped wetness into her armpits and between her breasts. The
backs of her knees smelled different.

Vanilla bean frosting
and the sharp edge of musk.

Ryker
clicked at his brother. Each flicked shut his inner lids and backed close to
her, ears and eyes—teeth—at the ready. The twins stood guard. Even
she, as advanced as she was, remained oblivious, blind to their proximity and
the purring they provided to reassure her. As the workmen continued to block
off the upper windows, their fräulein’s emotional state seemed to disallow her
to peer up, yet she seemed to sense their progress.

Frozen.

A
man with a different hat peered from a high window then darted his head back
in. The muzzle of a rifle emerged tentatively, swept the crowd, retreated.
The hat again.
A cigarette planted in the middle of his
face, he steadily inhaled smoke then let the paper stick dangle from his lips.
The eyes above the smoking tube narrowed in thought then widened when an action
occurred to their owner. The soldier flicked the firebrand into the crowd below
and seconds later urine drizzled from the window. The arc of electrolytes
rained on those free folk gathered below and the chanting increased. Some
humans held things above their heads, but didn’t leave, and others
sought
distance. All became louder. Backfiring, his wet
disgrace had fueled their collective resolve.
Jump. Jump. Jump
.

The
hastily assembled canvas
circle popped open
, a target
of egress. A mason preparing to smear more mortar onto a window ledge took a
deep breath, focused on the red dot, and leapt. Shouting, the ring of firemen
scudded sideways a few feet to catch him.

It worked.

The
canvas diaphragm, springs, and thirty-two arms dispersed the mason’s weight. An
onlooker handed the jumper his hat, and he ducked low to tunnel through the
mass of bodies, disappearing from sight in moments. The celebratory shouts
didn’t last. They turned fearful in just a breath.

A
workman on the seventh floor, more than half-finished sealing off an
apartment’s access to the west, dug bricks frantically back into a room.

He wished to jump also.

Thin
arms grabbed at him from inside. His limbs were thicker, perhaps due to his
vocation, than the soldier’s limbs. The canvas circle awaited him as sounds of
the scuffle filtered to the street. Shoulders tensed. Every person below seemed
as though they held a part of the ring—his canvas escape, and their
fearful smells mounted. The crowd shouted encouragements at the window, past
the bits of earth baked into square rocks, to the well-muscled mason … then he
burst from the window with halo of bricks.

Too far.

The
crowd was in the way. Firemen faltered, stepping backward, forward, sideways.
Each man’s reflexes fought his neighbor’s. The adjustments were insufficient.
Too many hands were indecisive, frozen, weighting the ring to act in time. The
worker’s head led his descent. He tried to correct, vainly flailing, midair, to
turn.

He was a brick mason, not a high-diver
.

Two
men who held the net stepped beneath it to avoid the hail of bricks, bracing
for impact. Short prayers were
uttered,
mostly it
seemed, to the same god. Several other firemen backed away from the net,
shielding their heads with their medium-thick arms. The Russian policeman with
an empty bladder dropped a caustic can to fog the crowd.

The
jumper’s body landed on the ring of the net, but his head smacked a free man’s
head. Bricks continued to fall as the small window-wall above wilted. Chanters
choked on the foggy gas, and the crowd dispersed.

Ryker
pulled at Fräulein Gitte’s hand. Shocked, their librarian followed. She seemed
not to question
who
the hand of her savior belonged
to, following blindly, choking on the gas. Rickard, inner lids still shut,
approached the canister to smell the poison.

What would Søren Kierkegaard think of
this?

If
Ryker could ask him, he would, but in what way would he do it? What was the
most important question to ask a speaker for the hill of ants that battled each
other?
Although each who toiled wore the same-skinned
uniform.

Desperate and emotional, humans
scrambled inefficiently to do most anything
.

Ants
were a bad example. The insects were more organized. Once free of the fog,
Ryker loosened his grip. Gitte’s warm, soft hand with pink and white nails slid
to her side, and she walked, joining others.

Returning
to squat by his brother, together they examined the dead.
The
canister fizzled
,
empty
. Ryker flicked open his
inner lids. The mason was crumpled—while his would-be hero was less
bloody and better fed, he appeared no less dead than the man who had jumped.
Rickard blinked sidelong at him, expectant.

“She
is safe, but her glands need a rest.” The twins thought about the world in
nearly identical ways. Rickard touched his elbow, a human gesture, and
practiced his human squint. Quizzically, he used his American English as he
pointed at the bricklayer.

“What
do you think … did he die free?”

Ryker
practiced his human frown.

Something they did to concentrate.

Then
practiced not answering. Though rude, it was an entirely human trait.

Soon, they’d pass, undetected.

West Berlin

D
ifferent books lined the
tunnel’s walls. The sciences had been read. As periodicals and new volumes were
added to the shelves, they were incorporated promptly. The One Who Was
Different stacked his books on the left side of the tunnel after he read them.

His left—their
right.

The
twins matured faster in the heat. No longer did they consider themselves from
the tunnel, whether they were inside the hole or not. Perpetually they seemed
to gaze in, as their slowly strengthening companion squinted out. It was rare
that he left the room, their former cage.

The
twins traveled far and wide. Today’s destination, however, was close.

The library’s second
floor
.

Clothed,
during business hours, they carried books on politics, history, and art into
the tunnel for their voracious ally. Armloads.
Hundreds of
volumes.
Soon the tunnel was full. For a moment they sat side by side
with their mouths open, absorbing the wavelengths of light from a nearby window
before returning to the small table with views in every direction. There, they
reverently turned the wide, glossy-pages of
Works
of Vermeer.

When
Fräulein Gitte passed by, smiling, they froze—unready for conversations,
especially with the librarian! She glanced at the woman’s trench coat they’d
draped on the nearest chair. To that point, the illusion had worked.

Certainly it would appear that their
mother was there with them; she’d merely stepped away, but would return
shortly.

Rickard
reached for the next page, making smooth, even movements. His heart slowed, his
breath stopped.

Did she know?

He
forced his thoughts to the page.

Humans couldn’t smell what they could,
but some, females especially, were astonishingly intuitive.

He
forced his thoughts to slow to human speed. He thought in American English,
which was distracting enough to slow his glandular outflow, uncertain just how
intuitive the librarian could be. She was special.

Artwork is essential. We both think so.
I dislike this one, however.

Most
of their conversations had been replaced with
clicks
and
purrs
and low,
oscillations. Art, however, required human words. Rickard turned another page,
monitoring their
not-mother
in the periphery, but the
next painting pulled his concentration from her. The colors of the paint were
so vibrant, and his focus on the librarian was lost. He studied
Woman Holding a Balance
for a full
minute before turning the page. The magic of paint broken momentarily, he
realized that Fräulein Gitte had sat—joined them—perched on the
edge of their non-existent mother’s chair. She, too, held a large book. It was
full of photographs of paintings. Ryker, also frozen, stirred, turning to face
her as if she were the Sun.

Were they discovered?

Turning
a page, her face changed.
“Borch is one of my
favorites,” she declared.

Remaining
still, only Rickard’s eyes flicked to Gitte’s open book.

S
he smelled of lemons
and confectioner’s sugar. Live oysters on rock salt and ice. Peach pits.
The warm bark of a fig tree.

She’s done something to her eyelashes
, Ryker thought. When
she blinked, there occurred a slight, fanning breeze. The whites of her eyes
were spidered with capillaries, unlike yesterday. The outside corners of each
eye bunched … and seemed to irrigate channels in her skin to distribute light.
It was, perhaps, the cure for her bloodshot condition.

“The
people he paints are less fancy and more—usual. Although, that isn’t why
I like them. Vermeer incorporates a stronger chin, bigger eyes, less facial
blotchiness … and … I guess—”

She’d stopped talking. Why?

Ryker
worked his tongue through the hole his missing teeth had made. The nubs of
their replacements had started to grow in.

“You
know … it’s the darkness of Borch I prefer. He captures frailty in a graceful
way. The—”

Fräulein
Gitte paused again, her eyebrows knit tightly. She seemed on the hunt for a
word or to identify an emotion. In those moments that the current world eluded
her, she appeared peaceful. Ryker reflected that humans frequently referred to
their most popular members, though dead, in the present tense. Only the
brightest of them were concerned with the conveyance of ideas at all.

“…
humanity
of it. The humility forced on each of us by
the toll of time and circumstance. Here, look at this one,” she said, pushing the
huge book near, but not taking her eyes from the image. “Tell me what you
think.”

He
did. It was titled:
Woman in front of a
mirror.

Rickard
remained frozen. Fortunately, Ryker understood the social expectation before
them, though, like his brother, he felt unprepared to interact with someone as
important as the librarian.

“Four
heads … three people. Each suffers poor posture consistent with the nutritional
bankruptcy of that era.” Their not-mother’s mouth became shorter, her lips
thicker, more shaped like an O. “Their costumes speak to either a commoner’s
event, or an unfortunate royal unable to provide better.
The
woman seated is hearing bad news or advice and is prepared to
,
though may not, laugh
. Borch?” he asked. Eyes wide, their
lovely human neighbor nodded. “Borch captured their tension. The reflection
here…” Ryker stroked the page with a finger “…this woman’s face invites
questions that cannot have answers. What do you see?”

Fräulein
Gitte fanned them with her long lashes. “What an extraordinary answer.” She
looked around for their non-existent mother, yet made no inquiries. Ryker
probed his new teeth with his tongue while the librarian gathered her thoughts.
“What do I see?”

Intuition. She had it.

“Worry
and pretense,” she pushed the back of her hand to her lips, and Ryker imagined
them on his forehead. “I see a woman who is doing the best she can.” Her
breathing sped and her eyes became wet. “I see honesty, mortality, and things
unspoken, yet known.
And encouragement—an unsavory
obligation—resignation.
Perhaps I like it because my life is
better?”

Unlike
most others, she was precise in her speech and unrushed. “I suppose I am under
no obligation to know why I like it. If I
knew
why, I might, immediately, not. Oh! Have you seen any of Dirck van Braburen’s
paintings?” Up like a spring, she was off. “I’ll get the book. You must ignore
the red noses.”

Sweeping
up the woman’s coat, Ryker clicked at his brother, who gave him a blank stare.

“She
is going to ask things we can’t answer.”

Rickard
clapped his book shut and swept up the rest. He shrugged, practicing his
non-verbal skills. “She is nice to us.”

They
disappeared down an aisle. “It was too much at once,” Ryker said. “We’ll pick a
better time.”

F
räulein Gitte
returned to an empty table. Both the children and the woman’s coat were gone.
She sat anyway, alone at the table, and flipped to the paintings she loved then
pressed the book close to her body, looking around for the boys.

They were so small!

Too young to speak like they had.
When the more
elegant of them had spoken, she’d noticed two teeth missing: lower central
incisors, yet the rest of his teeth were intact. Each had looked too clean for
children their age, but there were other things. There was something almost
ethereal about them.

Gitte
thought about how she’d wiggled her own baby teeth free in the camp. It had
given her something to do—a focus.

The boys didn’t seem real.

Gitte
had fantasized about friends for so long. The boys were the age she’d been when
she’d needed friends the most! Were they born of her own mind’s trickery? Was
she finally in a safe enough place that her imaginary playmates had arrived?
She had certainly seen them turning the pages of the books, but they were
dream-like children—ones her imagination might conjure. That would
explain their peculiar mannerisms, their tiny bodies and erudite speech and
too-smooth skin. They looked like tough little
creatures,
the kinds who would give her back a bit of a potato if she dropped one then
guard her while she ate it.

Pursing
her lips, Gitte shook her head. Potatoes always made her feel guilty.

Upon
replacing the large book, she noticed that Vermeer and Borch had been
reshelved—already—as well. Smiling, she shivered.

She was only gone a minute.