The World of the End (15 page)

“But why are they called
aliases
and, if we’re already at it, how did they get here? You’re not talking about a different life-form, are you?”

“Ben, I could go on forever about the aliases. But what’s the point? You don’t bother them and they don’t bother you.”

“And yet there’s some sort of delineation, otherwise there wouldn’t…”

“True, but it’s meaningless. Believe me, Ben, they’re the loveliest creatures I’ve met in my death.…”

“You’re driving me nuts,” Ben said childishly. “I want to see them!”

“You’ve seen them aplenty,” the Mad Hop said, picking a piece of errant tobacco off his tongue. “The girl from the orientation lecture, for instance.”

“She’s an alias?” Ben asked, summoning a visual of the cold beauty. “She looked like a normal human.”

“She is a normal human.”

“And now you’re going to tell me that they’re responsible for the tapes,” Ben said, narrowing his eyes.

“That’s right. They film everything.”

“How the hell do they film a person from his first moment till his death?” Ben cried.

After a moment, the Mad Hop inquired, “You settled?”

“Sorry for yelling. I just don’t like this whole Big Brother thing, especially as it turns out he documents as well. It gives me the creeps.”

“Ben, it isn’t espionage. It’s a bloody brilliant initiative. You can rewind your own life and understand all kinds of things you could not previously, because you were too engaged. Now you’re on the outside looking in.”

“Are you saying that the tapes help people look back at their old lives and soul search?”

“Yes, but for themselves, I should say, before you get carried away with deep religious ruminations.”

“Oh, on the matter of religion, what about…?”

“He wasn’t revealed to you in life; no reason for Him to be revealed to you in death.”

“So the unanswerable…?”

“Remains so.”

“You’re saying nothing’s changed?”

“True enough. Don’t look for explanations. There are none. You’d do better accepting the unknowable and investing your all in the pursuit of happiness.”

“You sound like you swallowed a barrel of fortune cookies.”

The Mad Hop smiled and, looking at Ben’s troubled face, sighed and asked, “What?”

“Did you ever ask them? How they film us, that is?”

“The aliases get insulted if you imply there’s any difference between them and us. They’ll just stay mum if you ask them how they manage to document our entire lives. But I’ve got a mate, an astronomer by trade, who’s looked into the matter. He says he’s got it figured out.”

“Well?” Ben nudged him.

“His theory’s quite simple. And crazy. He’s sure every person’s got a satellite star that follows them from birth to death. On the star there’s a special camera that tracks the individual’s life. On the day he dies, the star falls. You know, like a meteor. That’s why, as he sees it, so many stars dot the sky.”

Ben scowled. “Let’s watch the tape,” he said.

The Mad Hop nodded, shoved the tape into the mouth of the round machine, and hit P
LAY
. Ben leaned forward, his eyes boring into the giant television screen. On the upper left corner the date read 05.18.1999, alongside a running clock with hours, minutes, and seconds.

Ben remembered well what was being replayed on the screen. Twenty hours before they celebrated his thirty-eighth birthday, he tried to get his wife to disclose a few details about his upcoming surprise party. She lay in bed, engrossed in Rushdie’s
Haroun and the Sea of Stories
. He lay by her side, trying to read her mind.

The Mad Hop said, “I now believe you when you say you spent a full year getting in shape.”

Marian, smiling, doesn’t take her eyes off the page. “Stop it,” she says.

“Stop what?” Ben asks.

Her smile freezes on her lips. “Stop looking at me like you’ve never seen a woman read before.”

“I’ve never seen a woman pretend to read before.”

Marian turns toward him. “Excuse me?”

Ben smiles. “You’re running interference.”

Marian: “Interference? Interference for what?”

Ben: “For the thoughts racing across your mind. Did I invite everyone? Will they all come? How will I keep it a secret?”

Marian cracks up. “Benji, for the thousandth time, there’s no surprise party this year.”

Ben: “You say that every year.”

Marian, getting serious, puts the book facedown on her night table. “But this year I mean it. Kobi’s in Glasgow, your mom’s in America, and if my memory serves me right, we have movie tickets.”

Ben: “What are we seeing?”

Marian: “A special showing of
Prospero’s Books.
”

Ben: “What, Greenaway’s insane adaptation of
The Tempest
? Haven’t we seen that already?”

Marian: “Not with the director.”

Ben: “I bet they’ll be there tomorrow.”

Marian: “At the theater?”

Ben: “Or at the restaurant after the movie.”

Marian: “You’re nuts.”

Ben: “You’re my inspiration.”

Marian: “Don’t kiss ass just to try and get info.”

Ben: “I’m right, then?”

Marian: “Not even close. We’re going to have a great night together, just the two of us.” She kisses the tip of his nose.

Ben: “Now who’s kissing ass?”

Marian: “If you call that ass kissing wait till you see me grovel.” She pushes up against him and puts his earlobe in her mouth.

Ben sighs. “Interference, round two.”

Marian kisses him, takes his hand, puts it on her belly button, and turns off the light.

The Mad Hop froze the picture. “Right, then. So, what happened in the end?”

Ben said nothing. Rigid shock was written all over his face, and his hands, fidgeting around his mouth, covered his lips. For a few long minutes he looked at the screen, taken hostage by the sight of the woman that still glowed in his mind’s eye, desperate to crawl into it and disappear. He squeezed back tears and pointed at the screen with a crooked finger, speaking with difficulty, “It’s … so real.” After a short silence, he scooped his chin in his hand and whispered, “You know how long it’s been since I’ve heard her voice? How long it’s been since I’ve seen her move?”

The Mad Hop smiled. “Well, was there or was there not a surprise party?”

“There was not. We spent an amazing night together. Just the two of us. As promised.”

“I see.”

The Mad Hop, trying to stir the silence that hung between them, made a show of reaching for the remote control, and asked in a casual tone, “Remind me, when did Marian die?”

Ben responded mechanically. “March seventeenth, 2000.”

“Did you see her that day?”

“Yes. In the morning.”

“And after that?”

“No. She left the house at ten thirty.”

“So, ten thirty in the morning on March seventeenth, 2000 was the last time you saw your wife?”

“Yes. Why are you asking?”

“I want to get an up-to-date as possible a picture of her.”

The Mad Hop fast-forwarded and stopped a minute later: 21:40, 02.01.2000—
Ben’s sitting in his study, writing furiously.

The Mad Hop hit the button again and stopped: 08:57, 02.23.2000—
Ben showering.

The Mad Hop hit the button again and stopped the machine for the third time: 12:00, 04.16.2000—
Ben lying on the couch, dead eyes staring at the ceiling
.

The Mad Hop hit rewind and stopped: 10:38, 03.17.2000—
Ben’s in his study reading a journal. There’s a coffee mug in clear view.

The Mad Hop moaned and hit fast rewind.
Ben closes the journal, spits in the coffee mug. He gets up, walks backward to the kitchen. He puts the water back in the kettle and the coffee back in the jar. He smiles and walks to the door. It opens. Marian walks in, hugs him, kisses him on the lips
.

The Mad Hop stopped.

Ben: “Too bad I can’t come with you.”

Marian: “Too bad is right.” She kisses his lips, hugs him, and leaves.
The Mad Hop rewound again and put it on frame-by-frame advance.
Marian walks in, a big smile on her face
. The Mad Hop stopped. Her face filled the screen.

After three minutes of intense staring, the detective decided it was time to get the ball rolling. He turned off the machine.

“What are you doing?” Ben yelled.

“Come,” the Mad Hop said, getting up and making his way to the door. “You need to get some air.”

“I don’t want to get any air.”

“What you want doesn’t really concern me. I’ve got a missing person. Don’t worry, the tape isn’t going anywhere, which is something we sure can’t say about your lovely lady.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“You’ll see soon enough.”

*   *   *

But Ben did not. He didn’t see why they were going to 2001, and when he asked the Mad Hop, he cut him off with an angry wave of his hand and requested a few minutes of silence. By the time they got off the multi-wheel, the little man had a mischievous smile on his face. He asked Ben if he was hungry.

“Hungry?”

“Yes, Ben, hungry.”

“That’s really weird. I just realized that since I died I haven’t eaten a thing. And I don’t feel even the slightest twinge of hunger.”

“Death satisfies all human needs,” the Mad Hop announced.

“Another fortune cookie?” Ben asked.

“Simpler than that. After death, the body relinquishes all of its needs. But I urge you to eat. Otherwise your appetite will just wither away and you won’t be able to eat even if you want to. Same’s true, by the way, for drinking and sex.”

“You’re saying that if I don’t have sex for a while, I’ll lose the drive entirely?”

“More like, if you don’t
think
about sex for a while, you’ll lose your drive. That’s why I urge you not to forsake hunger and lust just because you can.”

“What about you? You eat?”

The Mad Hop patted his stomach proudly. “Three hours after I arrived, I found 1986’s best pizza parlor.”

Ben laughed, feeling a swell of endearment for the investigator, who continued listing his favorite foods until they arrived at a place called Ambrosia. “Let’s go,” he said.

“We just drove fifteen years for a restaurant?” Ben asked.

“Not
a
restaurant,” the Mad Hop said, walking in.

*   *   *

The restaurant stretched the length of a city block, or at least that’s how it seemed to Ben, whose senses were assaulted by the myriad seating sections, the gluttonous, screaming swarm of eaters, and the striking colors of the different dishes. Ambrosia was split into dozens of rooms, all teeming. From amid the metallic gnash of the silverware, Ben was able to make out the major characteristics of the largest vegetarian restaurant in 2001. Each room held about a hundred diners. They chose their dishes with great discretion from the circular buffet table in the center of the room. Neither waiters nor chefs played any visible role in the feast. The food, Ben surmised, was prepared by chefs in a hidden part of the labyrinthine restaurant and then passed forward on an unseen conveyor belt to the dining rooms.

“Well, starting to feel hungry?” the Mad Hop asked.

“No, Samuel, and to be honest, I’m still not sure why you brought me here.”

“We need an up-to-date picture of Marian, yeah?”

“Yeah, and you’re running a tight race here for the non sequitur of the century,” Ben snapped.

The Mad Hop, issuing Ben one of his all-knowing grins, palmed his shining head and asked, “Notice anything off, Ben?”

“Off?” Ben looked around calmly and twisted his lips. “Aside from the fact that everyone is stuffing their faces like they’ve never seen food before?”

“Interesting,” the PI said, crossing his legs. “The optical illusion got you, too.”

“What illusion?”

“Like selective hearing, the eye also chooses what it wants to see. Your eyes chose to see faces stuffing and…”

“Oh my God, how did I miss that?” Ben cried, covering his crotch. “We’re the only two naked people in the restaurant! They’re all dressed!”

He surveyed the diners, only now noticing that they all wore the same blue one-piece work suit, like a chain gang or a group of prisoners on lunch break.

“More like mummified,” the Mad Hop corrected him.

“Preserved? As in ancient Egypt?”

“No, as in unable to disrobe.”

“Yet again I’m reminded of that book set seventeen years ago.”

*   *   *

The Mad Hop took a step back, cupped his hands together behind him, and began speaking like a tour guide pointing out an obscure local phenomenon. “Presenting the Charlatans! They’ve got nothing to do with Orwell, and I’d caution you to avoid voicing the kind of literary associations that demonstrate your love of strange and peculiar dystopias. The Charlatans are as their name implies. Their deaths are an act of deception, of fraud, of first-rate charlatanism. That being said, we must not judge them too harshly. Their chicanery is not of their own choosing. Their hand was dealt in the previous world and I’m happy to say it’s temporary. Call them transient guests, unbidden visitors, personae non grata, but know that they’re scared of you. You’re dead, Ben. No one can do you any harm. They, on the other hand, are only dead for now, meaning that fear plays a major role in their existence.

“The aliases don’t want the Charlatans to go back to the previous world and report to humanity what awaits them when they go the way of all flesh. The natural separation between the two worlds would be irreparably breached. They’re put in those one-piece suits so that the dead can easily recognize them. Nothing can cut them off, so there’s no mingling among us before they return to their tedious old lives. That’s where you and I come into the picture. Every Charlatan’s deepest wish is to return to the world he just left. I brought you here to help pick the best candidate for the job.”