Messi@ (17 page)

“They held each other for a long time, crying. At long last, Chakkar spoke: ‘There is only one remedy, my love. You must journey into the future to the city of New Orleans and meet Monkey Girl. If you kiss her, you will regain your lovely form.'

“With these words the guardian monster leapt back into the waters of the Birani River and was gone.

“Princess Salamander journeyed to New Orleans many times over the centuries, ferrying the Great Minds of India there—the writers of the sutras, yogis, poets, and magicians. But every time she made the crossing, she found that she was in the wrong future, that it was too early to meet Monkey Girl. She left her precious cargo, which spread many Indian spiritual practices across America, and returned to Kashmir. She is now readying herself for one more trip. This time she will take there the great Mahatma Gandhi.”

“What happened to Chakkar?” Andrea wanted to know.

“He strokes his sad flesh, waiting for her return.”

Dr. Carlos Luna said gently: “The night is almost over. Perhaps we should wait until tomorrow for the story of Crow, the prophet of chlorophyll propulsion.”

Everyone protested. No one admitted being tired.

“Very well, then. Crow was fed up with the gloomy symbolism that poets kept saddling him with, so he decided to show the world that despite his color and morbid face, he was a benefactor of humanity. He thought long and hard about this, while sitting on a high-tension wire just outside New Oraibi, Arizona. It occurred to him that the humming wire he gripped with his feet was the lifeline of the modern world. Through such wires flowed the juice that kept American homes lit at night, turned America's engines, powered its computers, and crowned its festivities. The juice, he knew, was wrenched from the heart of the earth, pulled from the fury of rivers, and forced out of atoms. Crow also knew that there were many other juices that humans had not yet discovered, juices that resided like milk in nature's bountiful complexity.

“Crow presented himself to the U.S. Patent Office in Washington, D.C., and declared that he intended to file a patent for a new juice he called ‘chlorophyll propulsion.' The man in the office laughed. ‘In the first place,' he spat, ‘you're a hundred years too late. In the second, you're a crow.'

“Crow took great offense at this. ‘In the first place,' he croaked, ‘tell me who filed the patent a hundred years ago. And in the second, time means nothing to me because I am Crow. You, on the third hand, are human, which means that time is everything to you, and you will die.'

“The clerk was furious, but he supplied Crow with a name anyway: ‘Nikola Tesla.' He sneered. ‘He beat you, Crow.'

“Crow left the patent office in a bad mood and went to a bar. He watched television for a while, then he got an idea. He would go see this Tesla and ask him how he had had the very same idea, only a hundred years earlier.

“Crow found Tesla playing chess with Mark Twain.

“‘Not now,' Tesla said when Crow tried to interrupt.

“Crow is still there, watching the two men play chess. He knows that when the game is over, Tesla and Twain will be summoned to a Meeting of Minds in New Orleans. At that time, Crow will accompany them and find out everything he needs to know.”

“Dr. Luna,” said Mr. Smith, “not only is this not an Aztec story, but it doesn't even take place in Mexico. It takes place in Arizona, where I live!”

“Are you offended?” Dr. Luna enquired, quite worried.

“On the contrary, my dear man. I am pleased. If more people took the trouble of placing their stories in each other's homes, the world would be greatly improved.”

Chapter Eleven

Wherein Major Notz is seen discussing grave matters with the representative of a Japanese cult. His discussion with Felicity. The major's psychic adviser channels Hermes, who has news of the utmost urgency
.

Major Notz was involved in a tricky bit of business, negotiating to buy a small nuclear device from a representative of the Japan-based cult Solar Apotheosis. Mr. Yashimoto, a diminutive man with large round glasses, sat in Notz's best chair, a piece that had belonged to Paul of Tarsus before he became Saint Paul.

“New Orleans winters are damp and nasty affairs,” the major explained. “It never snows, but it can be cold all the same. The citizenry goes into a kind of shock, responsive only to strong drink.”

Ostensibly, Mr. Yashimoto had come to New Orleans as part of the popular Japanese game show
Where Are You?
The program flew contestants to well-known places in the world without revealing the destination. They were blindfolded and led to a landmark like the Eiffel Tower—or in this case, Bourbon Street in the French Quarter—and asked, “Where are you?” If the contestants guessed correctly, they won a prize. If not, they were punished. Yashimoto had guessed wrong on purpose. He had known the destination beforehand, but for security reasons he'd played the fool. He had been punished by being forced to drink five hurricanes in a row, poured down his throat by a Bourbon Street bartender who recited the ingredients as he made each drink. Mr. Yashimoto was supposed to repeat the list of ingredients until he remembered them all, after which he would be released. Finally, after the fifth sickly sweet cocktail, he repeated correctly all that the man had poured into him: three rum, two dark, one light—Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Barbados. Grenadine. Pineapple juice. Shot of 151 … Three islands, one light, two dark … And so on.

Now he was trying to understand what the major was telling him, and he was beginning to sober up. He watched the major's giant fingers come together as he quoted Revelation, chapter 18: “‘And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their merchandise any more.… For in one hour so great riches is come to naught.'

“That, my brother, is the truth, and this is the hour of truth. We are ten branches of the order. You, our Solar brothers, are one; our god-workers in the Mojave, another. We join up in the testing of Dark Angel, and we all profit.”

Mr. Yashimoto was authorized to negotiate for the sale of the weapon, but also for a place in the American desert, where Solar Apotheosis intended to test a more advanced device. Major Notz, it appeared, was offering a test site but no cash.

“All right,” said Mr. Yashimoto, no longer drunk, “Our brothers of the Golden Dawn in Britain and Russia are prepared to contribute three million. The purchase price of Dark Angel is ten million dollars. In one week.”

“How much are the Solar brothers prepared to contribute?”

“Development of Angel One took all our resources.” Mr. Yashimoto extended his empty palms.

Major Notz smoothed the shoulder of his Roman toga, once the property of Peleus Serenus, military governor of Dacia Trajana. Seven million was a bit much. He mumbled, “The Bible reminds us every week, ‘For the love of money is the root of all evil.'”

“Yes,” Mr. Yashimoto mumbled in return, “but until the millennium, when we use money no more, we need—”

“I know, I know.”

The device in question would be a trigger, setting off its bigger siblings in the storehouses of the secular state. It was, the major blushed to think, a clitoris, meant to stimulate a larger charge.

The doorbell interrupted them. Two short rings and one long.

“Ah,” said the major. “My angel has arrived.”

Felicity was unhappy to find her uncle with a visitor. She regarded the Japanese man with hostility as he bowed low. There was a trace of recognition in his eyes, as if he had met her before.

By way of introduction, the major explained: “Mr. Yashimoto is the representative of Solar Apotheosis of Japan. They are working to usher in the millennium. My niece, Felicity, is one of the workers of peace. I think you might have a lot in common.”

Fuck, no, thought Felicity. Is he pimping me out? But Mr. Yashimoto did not as much as glance at her shapely thighs. He bowed again and took his leave.

“I will be waiting for your call at the Royal Orleans, Major. I think the television producers have plans for us tomorrow. It was a great honor, Miss Felicity.”

“Where are you?” grinned the major, referring to the game show.

“Midpoint,” Mr. Yashimoto said soberly.

“We are Roman today, I see.” Felicity chose her favorite seat in Notz's collection, a chair purported to have been Churchill's.

The major excused himself “to slip into something more comfortable” and returned dressed in a crisp Soviet naval captain's uniform.

“When life gets interesting, Uncle, it does so all at once! What's that smell?”

“Oh, I put some soup on. I was hoping I could tempt you.”

The smell of sour cherry soup was wafting from the kitchen. The sour cherries had come from Vladivostok, a present from the New Orleans chapter of Russian Freemasons.

But Felicity still had no appetite. Why was it that whenever she couldn't stand the idea of food she was offered delicacies, but when she was hungry nobody called and she had to settle for toast and peanut butter?

“Uncle, isn't Ovid one of your favorite poets?”

“Yes, precious. What, did the toga remind you? Ovid is one of my favorite poets for these reasons: he was exiled among the barbarians at Tomis, on the Black Sea, after having spent a frivolous youth in Rome. There he wrote the
Tristia
and achieved a deep understanding of life in exile. Perhaps he even tasted sour cherry soup in his banishment.”

“He diddled the emperor's wife, didn't he?”

“Felicity!”

“Well, that is why he was exiled. What would you ask him if you could meet?”

The major warmed to the game. “I would ask him if he had any inkling that his condition, that of exile, would become the status quo of all humanity two thousand years later. But, of course, he would have.”

Felicity wondered how exactly Ovid's condition was everybody's. She had been born and raised in New Orleans and had never left home yet. But she could see how the major might be right, even about her. Most days she felt so far from the people and places in her past she might as well have been in Tomis among the barbarians herself. There had been a time when she'd felt at one with her world, but she had been only a little girl then. Since then, the distance had been growing. Sometimes she heard people speaking as if they were underwater. At other times, they shrank, as if she were viewing them from the wrong end of a telescope. She saw the gaps between what people said and did as huge chasms. There was even distance between her own words and what she meant by them. The fabric of her life was full of holes being continually torn.

“I would also ask,” continued the major, “how Ovid would revise his epic
Metamorphoses
if he were alive today.”

“I will ask him,” said Felicity.

The major raised a furry eyebrow and looked intently at the small gold earring decorating her left eyebrow. “How might you mean that?”

“If you have any questions for Saint Teresa, I can ask her too … and a few others.” Felicity was having fun now, tweaking his interest.

“Saint Teresa?” Major Notz was instantly alert. “You slept in her bed just the other day, child.”

Felicity explained how she had stumbled on a Web site where people representing themselves as figures from history conversed with one another. While she knew that they were simply adopting a disguise, she had been terribly impressed by their depth of knowledge.

“Of course,” she added, “my knowledge of history being next to nothing, I am easily impressed.”

The major was thoughtful. Was it possible, though improbable? He'd thought for some time that cyberspace would be an ideal medium for spirits. Everything there was disembodied. But until now he had found little proof that the medium was anything but a repository of information and a way for people with too much time on their hands to chat aimlessly. But if the membrane of cyberspace had been penetrated, there was a new dimension to consider.

“Who can say if these voices were not genuine?” he asked, almost of himself.

“If that were the case, Uncle, the old woman we buried might be available at keyword
grandmère
.”

“Well, it might take a certain savvy for a spirit to enter the medium. Maybe one has to be dead awhile.”

Felicity caught the seriousness in his tone and became a little apprehensive.

“I think it's just a game.”

“Perhaps.”

The major watched as the rosebud of her understanding began to unfurl. He had been watering that flower all her life.

“So, you think that these characters are real?”

“Our world is a sieve. We mingle with spirits continually. Some are fraudulent, some are real. I spend a great deal of time questioning phantoms.” The major was silent. This was one of his very difficult problems. He employed a channeler, but he had concluded that this old-fashioned, nineteenth-century method of contacting the beyond was cumbersome and confusing. Perhaps cyberspace was a truer medium.

“Okay, I have another question. The great plan you have for me, my destiny … is it inevitable? I mean, is it going to happen no matter what I do?”

It was not as abrupt a transition as Felicity thought. The major grew alarmed. “Child, what have I been telling you all these years? Of course not. It is all up to you. I can help you in limited ways. My job is to see to it that order prevails.” And he added, almost as an afterthought, “Even in destruction.”

Felicity did not understand. “Destruction? I want no part of destruction. What is my job?”

“Christ, Felix. Which ‘why' would you like me to answer?”

“Destruction. Isn't it enough that people die? They always died. More will die. Isn't this the way life continues? Destruction is without end. What's the point in producing either more or less death than occurs anyway? I hate the fiery ends all these preachers promise.”