The Book of Levi (8 page)

There was a brief flicker of hesitation before the voice returned. ‘It varies. Let’s just say that some are coping while others are, well, in some trouble.’

The voice began to crackle and fade. ‘Tomorrow. Over and out.’ And the white-noise returned.

Leslie slumped back into his chair with the most extreme sensation of satisfaction he had ever known. He felt like Columbus discovering the New World, or Newton when he saw the apple fall. He couldn’t believe it. He actually pinched his arm to check that he was not asleep. He overdid it a bit and bruised himself and every time he rubbed his arm for the next few days he thought himself pretty stupid for that.

‘My God,’ he muttered. He stared up, wide eyed at the stars. More tears erupted from him and he stood and punched the air with glee. Yes!’ he roared and his voice rolled beneath the curved metal surface hanging above him.

*

The next twenty four hours were, without question, the most delightfully excruciating of Leslie’s life. He determined not to tell the others of his discovery until they could hear it directly for themselves. He wanted to maximise the impact.

Just after ten forty five in the evening, Leslie welcomed Elizabeth and Damien into his radio room. The weather was kind again, and when the two entered, the stars were still smiling down on the opening in Leslie’s makeshift observatory roof.

‘Where is Nicholas?’ asked Leslie, as he took Elizabeth’s full length coat, revealing her shapely form in a red evening dress.

‘He’s still very ill, unfortunately,’ she replied sadly. ‘The doctors can’t seem to work out what’s the matter with him.’

‘They’re calling it a virus,’ added Damien, placing his jacket on a nearby chair. ‘Then again, that’s what they call everything they can’t figure out, isn’t it?’

‘A virus?’ Leslie echoed with disappointment. ‘You mean he’s still sick after, what is it, nearly a month?’

‘Yes,’ replied Elizabeth, with a slight shake of her head. ‘Ridiculous, isn’t it? His son’s ill too. The doctors think Nicholas may have caught it from him.’

‘I’m really sorry to hear that. I must go and see him soon. I’ve been so busy, I didn’t even know.’ Then, remembering his manners he said, ‘Oh please, come, sit.’

The three of them sat in the austere room in front of the computer. Leslie produced a plate of small goods, some cheese and a bottle of champagne.

‘I see you’ve spared no expense on the décor,’ said Elizabeth with a smile, as she surveyed the Spartan room. ‘We must be celebrating something?’

‘We’d better be bloody celebrating something,’ added Damien, taking a flute which Leslie began filling. ‘Otherwise what the bloody hell are we doing in this old place at this time of night?’

Leslie and Damien shared a smile. Damien knew Leslie well by now. He had a strong sense that Les had had a breakthrough of some kind. Leslie was generally reserved but when something ignited his passion he became as excited as a schoolboy on a cinema date. Damien could see that Leslie was excited now. He was barely able to contain himself. He spilled some champagne whilst pouring, he had a nervous edge to his voice and he was speaking quickly.

‘Yes, as a matter of fact I do have a little surprise for you both,’ he said with a sing song ‘I know something you don’t know’ tone to his voice. He sat back and sipped his champagne.

‘Well?’ asked Elizabeth after some time of watching him sip champagne. She was intrigued. ‘Are you going to tell us?’

‘What time is it?’ Leslie asked casually.

‘What time is it?’ parroted Damien. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

‘It’s got everything to do with anything,’ Leslie replied cryptically.

‘Sorry, you’ve lost me,’ Damien replied. ‘It’s two or three minutes to eleven. And past my bedtime.’

‘Mine too,’ said Elizabeth, trying to guess the reason for Leslie’s obvious excitement. She looked up through the porthole to the stars and then over at the satellite. Then around the room for any clues. ‘I give up,’ she said with a smile.

She sipped on her champagne with her achingly sensual blue-green eyes piercing Leslie’s soul across the rim of the flute. This was his moment. She would love him for this. This of all things: connection; a wide, wide world; a new age. And he was about to reveal it.

‘Lady and gentleman,’ he announced loudly, here is to our health, to the health of Corporate City and to the health of all the world cities. Cheers!’ He held up his glass in salute and the others followed, looking askance at one another as they did so. Damien was about to say, ‘What world cities?’ but only got as far as ‘What worl . . .’ when Leslie opened the throttle on the sound control to his computer and static rasped into the room.

‘Do you have to do that?’ Damien asked above the minor din. ‘It’s a tad disconcerting.’

But Elizabeth had stopped sipping her champagne and was watching Leslie closely. She squinted her eyes and tilted her head in silent interrogation.

He returned her stare with the champagne flute still to his mouth and with his other hand resting on a button beneath the microphone on his desk.

A voice invaded the room.

‘This is U.K. 1 from London listening for Sydney, Australia. Do you read me Leslie? Over.’

As far as Damien’s reaction went, the voice may as well have been a bat suddenly flapping in. He stood up in a chaotic flurry, smashing his champagne glass in the process.

‘What the hell!’ he bellowed. ‘What the hell?’

Elizabeth, by contrast, was carved in stone.

Leslie smirked in triumph as he replied, ‘Yes, Sidney. I’m here again. Over.’

‘No. No. We’re Sydney. We’re Sydney. Not him,’ whispered Damien, shaking his hands at Leslie so that he could recognise his mistake.

‘That’s his name,’ Leslie whispered back. ‘Now shhh.’

Damien didn’t know what to do. His eyes were darting about and he had become a bag of worms, uncertain where to squirm to. His heart was beating like ‘Achilles Last Stand’. He was a ball of adrenaline.

‘Nice to speak with you again, hopefully at more leisure. Do you have your prime-minister there? Over.’

‘No, but I have our president. Here she is.’ Leslie smiled as he handed the microphone to Elizabeth. Timidly, she took it.

‘This is Elizabeth Dawson,’ she said. ‘I am president of Corporate City. Over.’

‘Hold on,’ replied the voice. And another voice came into the room.’

‘Greetings, President Dawson,’ it said. It was a male voice, probably from a man of middle years. It was an odd voice; a little high-pitched and a bit raspy, but it was unmistakably British. ‘This is Prime Minister Green from London. It is a pleasure to speak with you. Leslie may have told you that you are the first city on-line in the southern hemisphere.’

As Green continued, Elizabeth was incredulous to learn what Leslie had already learned the previous night. Then she asked, ‘Of these other twenty two cities, how many are stable and how many are democracies? Over.’

‘It’s about fifty-fifty at this stage,’ replied Green, ‘but I’m afraid that the democracies are faring rather worse over all as far as we can tell. There is civil disobedience in the streets of most democracies. Things are reasonably contained here and in the Eastern seaboard of the U.S.A. and Europe’s okay to the north, but alas, where there is choice there is dissent. In Asia, the Middle East and in the Balkans, dictatorships and juntas abound and it must be said they currently appear to be the more stable forms of government. Although, to be fair, no city in the world can probably be said to be truly stable. How are things down there?’

So Elizabeth told him of the general stability in Corporate City but was also honest about the growing unrest in the lower class as the classes divided. She explained the basic system that had been adopted for government. She mentioned also that although Corporate City was a democracy, the growing power of some lobby groups would, in all probability, soon lead to punitive action by her government.

Green and Dawson spoke for the full hour and by the end of it she, Damien, and Leslie had learned that although cities were now in contact with one another, trade was still in its infancy because of the difficulties involved in transporting goods. Most of the democracies sounded like very dangerous places where civil armies jockeyed for control. In the dictatorships too there was the usual bloody revolution every so often but it sounded like some quite big populations, like Beijing, were actually doing reasonably well due to the firm hand of government effectively quelling any disquiet that individuals and their lobby groups might feel.

After an hour of conversation it was organised for Green and Dawson to talk the following night and then at regular intervals beyond. When the final ‘Over’ was ‘Over and out’, Elizabeth sat quietly for a moment and simply shook her head in disbelief.

‘Well I’ll be damned,’ she said eventually. This was the closest the two men had come to hearing Elizabeth curse. They looked at one another. Damien, who had regained his composure in the course of the hour, cast a wink and a smile in Leslie’s direction. But he lost some of that composure, and his cavalier attitude, when several seconds later Elizabeth grabbed Leslie, hugged him with all her might and planted an absolute scorcher of a kiss right on his lips. In fact, Damien was instantly consumed with jealousy.

‘Thank you,’ Elizabeth whispered to Leslie. ‘You’re a bloody genius.’ And she kissed him again, smack bang on the lips and this time, to his extreme surprise and delight, Leslie was certain that he felt the faintest touch of tongue.

Needless to say he was in a whirl. He was Biggles in a bi-plane with its tail shot off. He was in a vertical spin without a parachute. As the warmth of Elizabeth’s luscious lips pulled succulently back from his, drawing them ever so slightly away from his face as they retracted, Leslie Woodford, scientist, inventor, consul, was a pile of smoking ash crashed in between the trenches. When he opened his eyes, he found Elizabeth gathering her coat and Damien trying to help her put it on.

‘I’ll escort you home,’ he said as he helped her into the garment. He was trying to regain lost ground but the quest was futile for the moment. He must accept that this round had well and truly gone to his rival.

‘No, thank you,’ she replied. ‘I have much to think about. This changes everything.’

‘Can’t I help you?’ asked Leslie, who had rather hoped for more conversation and adulation after the satellite link.

She approached him and took his hand, ‘I think you’ve done more than enough for one night, consul. Goodnight and thank you again.’

And much to Damien’s chagrin and Leslie’s delight she kissed him once more, although this time in a less passionate manner.

And she left.

‘You prick,’ said Damien to Leslie.

‘A stiff prick,’ replied Leslie.

And the two men looked at one another for a moment before bursting into hilarious laughter. They hugged, and Damien even undertook the familiarity of a kiss on Leslie’s cheek. ‘You clever prick,’ he said. ‘Well done.’

‘Thank you, sir,’ Leslie replied breaking the embrace and moving towards the fridge. ‘And I have taken the liberty of purchasing some of the finest alcohol available in Corporate City to celebrate this occasion.’

With a theatrical flourish he opened the door of the fridge to reveal a variety of beverages. ‘And since the lady couldn’t stay, I say we make it secret men’s business.’

That sounded alright to Damien.

Needless to say the next morning very soon became the next afternoon at which time the two comrades arose with thumping brains and a great desire to do nothing.

*

Sebastian Levi, caretaker of the Fisher Library, was finishing his rounds for the day. He had been haunted all morning by a short novel he had read earlier that day. It was a simple but magnificent novel by a twentieth century author called John Steinbeck. It was the simplicity and the elegance of the novel that had haunted him for the past six or seven hours since he had read it. Sebastian had no idea what time it was. He had long since stopped wondering about that. It was, in fact, two fifteen in the morning when Sebastian had first stumbled upon Steinberg’s book and three twenty eight when he had finished it. The time mattered little to Sebastian. But by the time the sun was making its presence felt in the east, Sebastian was wandering, thinking deeply somewhere down in the dim quarters of the lower floors of the library he had been caretaker off for over a dozen years. The book haunted him. How could such a treasure destroy someone’s life so? And if he found such a treasure, what would he do?

As he cleared out and dusted yet another stack of old home and garden magazines, his eye was caught by something that didn’t fit. Sebastian didn’t know precisely why it didn’t fit, but he had been caretaker long enough to know that it didn’t.

He dived his hand deep into the pile within which it resided and he pulled it out. There it was. It was a green, hardcover book, way out of place here, among the magazines and paperbacks.

So unexpected was the find that he looked about from right to left involuntarily to check that none had seen his discovery. They hadn’t. In fact, no one had been down here in the bowels of the old library for years. He looked at the cover. There was no title. He flicked through the pages. It looked mainly technical. He looked around again and quietly began to read the script. At first he was perplexed and then he realised that this was a lost treasure – a pearl. He laughed at the coincidence, pocketed the manuscript and began to walk the long spiral stairway up through the stories, and stories, of the library above.

Sebastian was almost forty. He was a dark-haired, swarthy looking man who had a permanent five o’clock shadow and who had once been good looking. But the years had ignored Sebastian and any potential he might have possessed, kindled up there in that sharp mind of his. Instead, he was, if anything, a little hunched for those years. He was not hunched with age or disease, but with despondency. The world had shunned him and pretty well forgotten about him. Now he was a willing recluse, purposefully hidden from the world of men, alone and mainly silent in his silent world. Without parents in his memory, without friends to call upon, without love in his life, he had pursued a quiet life beneath Corporate City sifting through the detritus of a former age. No one visited. Very few borrowed. Few cared about such things as books any more, even though there was little other kind of entertainment. They still didn’t come. Occasionally he would find a stray interested person, but this was seldom. Why?