The World of the End (19 page)

“Luckily, all the trickery and vengeance in the world aren’t enough to get past the ring of guards around the forest. As you well know I, em … you employ over a million aliases.”

“I know the numbers, but aren’t we being a little narrow-minded if we completely rule out the possibility, however insane?”

For the first time during their conversation, Billion’s face wore an unfamiliar anger. He folded his arms across his chest, leaned back, and began to speak, his voice loud and flat, “You’re looking in all the wrong places. The possibility you raise is negated by logic. They don’t even know about the forest, let alone sneaking into it. On the other hand, accidents happen. Sometimes rushed uprooters can mistakenly yank out a dangling branch. Terrible, awful, fateful mistakes, but human nonetheless.”

“Mistakes don’t repeat themselves eight times in a row,” Halfabillion said.

Stone-faced, Billion summed up their meeting, “Aren’t
you
being a little narrowminded if you completely rule out the possibility, however insane?”

But the other possibility, the horrifying alternative that he preferred to keep to himself, seemed a whole lot less insane the next morning.

*   *   *

Late at night, Halfabillion left his mentor’s cabin and wandered the streets aimlessly, hoping not to bump into any of his employees. Feeling inexplicably parched, he decided to quench his thirst at a faraway pub. He knew the forest workers didn’t tend to frequent 2001 and made his way in the direction of the new city. After a bout of deliberation, he thought the better of it and walked into a small pub in May, took a seat by the bar, and ordered a whiskey. Watching a group of Irishmen dance themselves into oblivion, he heard a soft warm voice to his right, “… ey … rea … ny.”

He turned and looked at a tall woman, sitting upright in the adjacent chair. Moving gently in her direction, he asked, “What? I can hardly hear over all the noise they’re making.”

She brought her lips close to his ears, “They’re really funny. What’s the deal with the nudity?”

“I’m not sure I understand you,” he said, looking her over and deciding that the impressive woman had died in the fifth decade of her life, perfectly timed if one wants to preserve the most profound feminine maturity.

She took him in and repeated her question. “Why’s everyone naked? What’s the deal? The girl mentioned something about it at the lecture but I was too deep in thought. What, am I in heaven? Or hell? Or is it someplace in between?”

He smiled and tried to sound convincing. “It’s much easier and more comfortable to be naked. And I can assure you, you aren’t in heaven or hell. You’re, you know, in the Other World.”

“And in this Other World all men hold lively conversations with the breasts of the women next to them, or is that just your specialty?”

Halfabillion blushed, apologized, and ordered another drink.

She laughed playfully. “It’s alright, even nice considering I spent my first few hours here certain I’d arrived on a giant porn set, which I wasn’t so happy about.”

“First few hours?” he asked. “How long ago did you get here?”

She raised a sculpted eyebrow. “I’m not exactly sure. All I know is this morning I was still in Paris. Between us, I’m still expecting to wake up.”

“It’s not a dream.” Halfabillion smiled. “You’ll just go through a short adjustment period and then it will all seem normal to you.”

“It already seems normal to me. I’m just not sure what I’m doing here, how I got here in the first place, and what’s the meaning of this weird thing hanging off my neck.”

“You don’t remember how you died?”

“I don’t remember
that
I died,” she said, nibbling a fingernail. “I took a taxi to the airport and then I don’t know what happened, but now I’m sitting here naked, chatting with a naked guy who can’t take his eyes off my chest, in a pub full of cute drunk Irish men in the Other World, which sounds to me like a funny Kevin Costner movie, and I haven’t a clue what to do.…”

“I told you, after a short adjustment period everything will be cleared up and you’ll find where you belong.”

“I hope I’m able to find my apartment first.”

Without thinking twice, Halfabillion offered his assistance. The woman warned him not to expect anything in return.

They spent four hours walking around June 2001 until they found the right apartment. She placed her thumb on the hole and asked if he’d like to come in.

“You said I shouldn’t expect anything in return.”

She laughed and pulled him close. “I’d be a selfish bitch if I didn’t offer you a little something after all you did for me. You listened to me for hours, then looked all over for this apartment, and even promised to pull a few strings to find out how the hell I died. It’s really just like me to find the perfect guy on the day I die.”

*   *   *

He left her apartment in the early hours of the morning and arrived at his office three hours late. His deputies, picking up on the wild curls, the unshaven face, and the newfound dreaminess of his expression, prowled around him, demanding to know what had happened the previous night. He offered a half smile and told them to get back to work. Halfabillion breathed easy as they filed out of his office, called her name up on his screen, and waited for an explanation. A minute later, the complete death report of the newly released prisoner, who had killed her abusive husband with eight strokes of an ax and passed away on the day of her release in a fatal car accident, came up on his screen. After concentrating on the report for a few seconds, he raised his godget and was about to call her when a small detail caught his eye. Sandrine Montesquieu, surprised by her own death, had a family tree in plot 2,605,327—the same plot where, until recently, the Mendelssohn tree had stood.

He recalled the lengthy conversation they had while looking for her apartment, especially the deep sadness that pooled in her face when she repeatedly stressed that she did not believe in her own death. He said she was in shock. She laughed and said all the movies always portrayed the tragic effects of death on the loved ones and family members of the deceased but never the overwhelming and exclusive shock of the dead. He asked if she thought the shock might be less intense had she died an expected death. She looked at him in silence, her face revealing that her thoughts had strayed far from the darkened street. When she took her face in her hands and fell suddenly to the sidewalk, lashing out at half the world, demonstrating distinct signs of a breakdown, he sat down beside her and said the pain would pass, not really knowing what he was talking about since he, like the rest of his kind, was an alias and had never been to Sandrine’s world.

She turned her insult-ridden face toward him and shrieked hysterically. He hugged her softly, hiding his own emotional turmoil, sparked by her tirade against God, who had shown the highest form of idiocy when he killed her before she was able to keep her promise to her friend. “I’d been waiting for that moment for a year, and on the day of my release He ambushes me and snuffs me out like it’s no big deal, like I hadn’t rotted in jail for eight years, like I hadn’t done my time. What’s He trying to prove? Where does He get this infantile crap from? She’ll never forgive me. What will I say when I see her? How can I disappoint her this way? Just as I was about to fulfill my promise, God got bored and decided he’s sick of me?”

When he thought she had calmed down and squandered all her fury, she pushed him away from her and started pinching her arms, yelling at the top of her lungs, “I’m dead! I’m dead! I’m not there anymore, I’m dead!”

She mourned her own passing disgracefully, till she had nothing left. Then, in utter exhaustion, she whispered, “I never got to see New York.”

The words stuck in his mind. Sandrine never got to see New York. Death took her by surprise. Came out of nowhere. He wondered if he’d ever find a logical explanation for the element of surprise and the way it always managed to roil the tranquility of the dead.

With evening darkening, he went to inspect the problematic plot. Finding the Montesquieus’ tree without any trouble, he caressed the trunk and looked around for the name of the surprised dead woman. He found the miniscule sap mark labeled Sandrine at the nub of branch three hundred and sixty-eight. He came close, put his finger on the spot where the branch had once been connected to the trunk, and looked down, surprised by the thin scratch across the pad of his fingertip. The lacy fibers in the stump left no room for doubt. The branch had been brutally severed. Stunned by his discovery, he called Billion and told him about the fibers. The former director gave him a hearty laugh. “Well, didn’t I tell you that sometimes a branch is cut?”

Halfabillion stood his ground, saying it seemed the branch had been cut on purpose. Billion laughed again. “You’re talking about illicit behavior again. You simply have no way of proving that a branch was cut out of malicious intent. I imagine this is nothing more than an ordinary accident. I’d suggest you just let it be.”

Halfabillion thanked him for listening and decided to heed his advice. He had more important things to deal with, like his pressing workload, the construction of his new house, and the incredible woman who freed him from his thirty-year-old romantic slump. During a single enchanting week the two fell under each other’s spells and he managed to forget his new love’s death and all the other things that had been nagging him of late. The element of surprise disappeared. For now.

16

Father Tongue–B

The Mad Hop showed no signs of life. Ben realized something was wrong after two days passed and not one of the dozen messages he had left had been returned. He went down to September 1986 with a gloomy feeling, hoping to find the investigator in his apartment or at least to slip a note under his door. But to his amazement, the Mad Hop refused to open the door, yelling at him to get lost.

Ben pounded the door, rasping, “Samuel, what’s wrong with you? Why won’t you open the door?”

The Mad Hop yelled back, “Ben, do us both a favor and go away!”

“Why?” Ben asked, banging his fist against the door. “What did I do that’s making you act as if…”

He didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence. The door opened, revealing the red-faced investigator. “I’ll tell you what you did, you bloody idiot! You sabotaged my case by knowingly withholding crucial information.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Apparently you’re an even bigger idiot than I thought. Think it through on the way back to your flat.”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Ben said, marching defiantly through the door.

“You will not force your presence on me!” the Mad Hop said, walking out.

“You don’t want to help me find Marian? That’s what you’re saying?”

“
You
don’t want to help yourself! How dare you not divulge that your whole family had died?”

“What’s your point? It never even came up.”

“As opposed to your record-breaking imbecility, which has come up so often it could fill an entire book. Mr. Mendelssohn, I hereby terminate our agreement.…”

Ben covered his ears and shouted, “You’re not terminating anything! You’re the only person who can help me find her and I’m not submitting to your insane whims.”

“My whims?” the Mad Hop cried, pushing Ben farther inside and slamming the door behind himself. “My whims? You think I don’t want to find her? You think I like seeing that hangdog expression on your face each time you come into this apartment? You’ve got some bloody nerve calling me whimsical when anyone with even a modicum of sense can see why I’d like to boot your concrete-filled arse the hell out of my apartment and never hear from you again. Please, be so kind and explain why you chose to utterly ignore the matter of your family in our floundering efforts to find a woman that so far no one has seen?”

“My family’s got nothing to do with it,” Ben said, trying to ward off the investigator but blushing a deep red when he asked him whether his family knew Marian. When he nodded, the investigator started yelling again, his anger tenfold. “Now you see why you’re an idiot? An entire family lives in the Other World—an entire family that knows Marian, an entire family that could help us find her, a family that may well already have found her and, more importantly, an entire family that has no idea you’re dead!”

Ben mumbled, “I didn’t think about them. I was caught up in Marian.”

“Typical,” the Mad Hop said. “You see, Ben, the egocentricity of two lovebirds can blind them to their deepest needs.”

“Can you give the fortune cookies a rest and just say what you mean?”

“You’re so caught up with your wife, you ignored those who can help you the most.… Don’t expect any sympathy from me if you carry on charting your course like an emotionally blind bat.…”

“That’s exactly why I can’t let you go. Samuel, you’re my guide dog in this strange world.…”

“On a different day, I’d take offense, but right now I’m too angry to care what you say. Answer me two questions. Are you at odds with your family?”

“Not at all. Ours is a small family. I’m an only child. I have several uncles, but I’ve only kept in touch with my Uncle David.”

“And what was Marian and your family’s relationship like?”

“Very loving,” Ben said. “Do you think anyone from my family met her?” he asked after a brief pause.

“If she got on so well with them, it makes perfect sense that she’d want to go and see them.”

“Especially since she’s alone. She’s alone in this world! How did I not think of that before? Her parents are still alive, just like me she has no brothers or sisters, and she hates the only member of her family who’s here, some shrew of an aunt. You’re right, she must have made contact with them.”

“You’ve got to make a list.…”

“Forget the list, Samuel. I know who to talk to.”

“In other words?”

“My dad. Marian was crazy about him. And he about her. God, how did I not think of this myself? Samuel, you’re a genius!”

The Mad Hop let the exasperation fall from his face. He folded his arms, smiled, and said, “That, or you’re just an idiot.”