To the Land of the Living (31 page)

“Yes, I know. Three buffoons tried to jump me as I was leaving Picasso’s. One of them admitted that he was working for Dumuzi.”

“You kill them?”

“I just damaged them a little. They’re probably halfway to Brasil by now, but I suppose there’ll be others. I’ll lose no sleep over it. Where’s Simon?”

“At the baths, trying to sober himself up. He and I have an audience with the king in a little while. Simon wants to set up a trade deal, swap Dumuzi a couple dozen of his spare necromancers and thaumaturges and shamans for a few barrels of the diamonds and rubies and emeralds that he’s convinced Dumuzi possesses by the ton.”

“Even a fool could see there is no great abundance of diamonds and rubies in this city.”

“You tell Simon that. I’m only an employee. He’s four hundred percent convinced that this city is overflowing with precious gems, and you know how he salivates for precious gems. He’d sell his sister for six pounds of sapphires.
Meshuggenah. Goyishe kup
. Well, he’ll find out. How did things go with you and Picasso?”

“He made me wear a strange mask, a bull’s face. But when he painted me, he was in the painting too, and the mask was on him. I could not understand that, Herod.”

“It’s art. Don’t try to understand it.”

“But–”

“Trust me. The man’s a genius. Have faith in him. He’ll paint a masterpiece, and who gives a crap which one of you has the mask? But you don’t understand these things, do you, Gilgamesh? You were great stuff in your time, they all tell me, a terrific warrior and a splendid civil engineer, even, but you do have your limits. After all, you have a
goyishe kup
too. Although I have to admit you manage all right, considering your handicap.”

“You use too many strange words.
Goyishe kup?
”

“It means you have Gentile brains.”

“Gentile?”

“That means not Jewish. Don’t be offended. You know how much I admire you. Do you and Picasso get along all right?”

“We find each other amusing. He has invited me to sit with him at the bullfight on Sunday.”

“Yes, the bullfight. His grand passion, watching skinny Spaniards stick swords into big angry animals. Another
meshuggenah
, Picasso. Him and his bullfights. A genius, but a
meshuggenah
.”

“And a
goyishe kup
?” Gilgamesh asked.

Herod looked startled. “Him? Well, I suppose so. I suppose. But a genius, all the same. At least he makes great paintings out of his bullfights. And everyone’s entitled to a hobby of some sort, I guess. An obsession, even.”

“And what is yours?” said the Sumerian.

Herod winked. “Surviving.”

It was one of those nights that went by in a moment, in the blink of an eye. That often happened in the Afterworld; but they were balanced by the days that seemed to last a week or two, or a month. Gilgamesh had been here so long that he
scarcely minded the Afterworld’s little irregularities. He could remember clearly enough how it had been on Earth, the days in succession coming around at predictable intervals, but that seemed unreal to him now and woefully oppressive. Sleep meant little here, meals were unimportant: why should all the days be the same length? What did it matter?

Now, by common consent, it was Sunday. The day of the bullfight. The calendar too fluttered and slid about, no rhyme, no reason. But the bullfight was to be held on Sunday, and the bullfight was today, and therefore today was Sunday. Tomorrow might be Thursday. What did it matter? What did it matter? Today was the day he would be reunited with Enkidu, if all went well. That was what mattered.

The night, brief as it was, had been enlivened by a second attempt on Gilgamesh’s life. Nothing so crude as a team of thugs, this time, but it was simple-minded all the same, the old snake-in-the-ventilating-shaft routine. Gilgamesh heard slitherings in the wall. The grille, he discovered, had been loosened, probably by the maids who had come in to turn down the bed. He pushed it open and stood to one side, sword at the ready. The snake was a fine one, glossy black with brilliant red markings and eyes like yellow fire. Its fangs had the sheen of chrome steel. He regretted having to chop it in two; but what alternative, he wondered, did he have? Trap it in a bedsheet and call room service to take it away?

The same motor-chariots that had transported Gilgamesh and his companions to the royal feasting-hall a few nights before were waiting out front to bring them to the stadium that morning. The bullfight, evidently, was the event of the season in Uruk. Half the city was going, judging by the number of cars travelling in the direction of the arena.

Herod rode with Gilgamesh. The driver was a Sumerian, who genuflected before Gilgamesh, trembling with obvious awe: no assassin, not this one, unless he was one of the best actors in the Afterworld.

The bullfight was being held well outside the city, in the sandy hill country to the east. The day was hot and overcast. Some long-fanged bat-winged demon-creatures, purple and red and green, soared lazily in the hazy sky.

“It’s all arranged,” said Herod in a low voice, leaning toward Gilgamesh. They were near the stadium now. Gilgamesh
could see it, tier upon stone tier rising from the flat desert. “Tukulti-Sharrukin will try to spring Enkidu from the House of Dust and Darkness just as the bullfight’s getting started. We’ll have half a dozen of Simon’s men posted nearby, with three of the Land Rovers. Everybody knows what to do. When Enkidu comes out of the jail building, he’ll get into one of the Rovers and all three will take off in different directions, but they’ll all head out this way.”

“And Vy-otin?”

“Smith, you mean?”

“Smith, yes!”

“He’ll be waiting just outside the stadium, the way you wanted. When the Land Rovers show up, Smith will meet the one with Enkidu and bring him in, and lead him to the box where you and Picasso will be sitting, which is right next to the royal box. Dumuzi will have a stroke when he sees him.”

“If not when he sees him, then when I embrace him before the entire town,” Gilgamesh said. “The hero Gilgamesh reunited with his beloved Enkidu! What can Dumuzi say? What can he do? Everyone will be cheering. And after the bullfight –”

“Yes?” Herod said. “After the bullfight, what?”

“I will pay a call on King Dumuzi,” said Gilgamesh. “I will speak to him about the unfortunate error of judgment that led his officials to imprison my friend. I will do it very politely. Perhaps I will speak to him also about the state of law and order in the streets of his city, and about proper maintenance of the ventilating systems of his hostelry here. But that will be afterward. First we will enjoy the pleasure of the bullfight, eh?”

“Yes,” said Herod glumly. “First the bullfight.”

“You don’t look pleased.”

“I never even liked to go to the gladiators,” the Judaean said. “And they deserved what they did to each other. But a poor dumb innocent bull? All that bleeding, all that pain?”

“Fighting bulls is an art,” Gilgamesh replied. “Your great genius Picasso the painter told me so himself. And you are a man of culture, Herod. Think of it as a cultural experience.”

“I’m a Jewish liberal, Gilgamesh. I’m not supposed to enjoy cruelty to animals.”

“A Jewish what?”

“Never mind,” said Herod.

The chariot pulled up in a holding area in front of the stadium. At close range the circular structure was enormous, a true Roman coliseum on the grand scale, five or perhaps six levels high. The topmost tier was partly in ruins, many of its great stone arches shattered; but the rest of the building seemed intact and splendid. There were throngs of people in colorful holiday garb walking around on every level.

As he got out of the car Gilgamesh caught sight of Vy-otin, in slacks and a loose short-sleeved shirt, waving to him from a point near one of the ticket booths. The long-legged Ice-Hunter chieftain stood out clearly above the short, square-hewn, largely Sumerian crowd all about him.

He came over at once. “There’s trouble,” he said.

“Enkidu?”

“You,” Vy-otin said. “One of my people overheard something in a washroom. Dumuzi’s putting snipers on the top tier. When things start getting exciting and everybody’s yelling, they’re going to open fire on Picasso’s box. The prime target is you, but they’re likely to hit Picasso too, and your mother, and anyone else who’s close by. You’ve got to get out of here.”

“No. Impossible.”

“Are you crazy? How are you going to guard yourself against shots from the sky? Someone your size will be the easiest target in the world.”

“How many men do you have here?” Gilgamesh asked.

“Nine.”

“That should be plenty. Send them up on top to take out the snipers.”

“There’ll still be a risk that –”

“Yes. Maybe there will. Where’s your warlike spirit, Vy-otin? Have you truly become Henry Smith? Dumuzi can’t have put a hundred sharpshooters up there. There’ll be two or three, is my guess. Five at most. You’ll have plenty of time to find them. They’ll be easy enough to spot. They won’t be Sumerian, and they’ll be looking nervous, and they’ll have rifles or some other cowardly Later Dead armament. Your men will locate them one by one and push them off the edge. No problem.”

Vy-otin nodded. “Right,” he said. “See you later.”

*

Picasso closed his eyes and let memory come seeping back: the old life, the thyme-scented tang of dry Mediterranean air in the summer, the heat, the crowds, the noise. If he didn’t look, he could almost make himself believe he was eight or nine years old, sitting beside his tall sandy-bearded father in the arena at Malaga again where the bullfights were the finest and most elegantly conducted in the world. Sketching, always sketching, even then, the picador on his little bony blindfolded old horse, the haughty matador, the mayor of the city in his grand box. Or he could think this was the bull-ring of La Coruna, or the one at Barcelona, or even the one at Arles in southern France, an old Roman stadium just like this one, where he would go every year when he was old, with his wife Jacqueline, with his son Paul, with Sabartes.

Well, all that was long ago in another world. This was the Afterworld, and the sky was murky and the air was thick and acrid, and the crowd around him was chattering in English, in Greek, in some Mesopotamian babble, in just about everything but good honest Spanish. In the midst of the hubbub he sat motionless, waiting, hands at his sides, silent, solitary. There might well have been no one else around him. He was aware that the priestess-woman Ninsun was beside him, more splendid than ever in a robe of deep purple shot through with threads of gold, and that her giant son the warrior Gilgamesh sat beside him also, and the faithful Sabartes, and the little Jewish Roman man, Herod, and the other Roman, the fat old dictator, Simon. But all those people had become mere wraiths to him now. As he waited for the
corrida
to begin he saw only the ring, and the gate behind which the bulls were kept, and the shadows cast by the contest that was to come.

“It will not be long now, Don Pablo,” Sabartes murmured. “We have been waiting for the king. But you see, he is in his box now,
el rey
.” Sabartes gestured toward his left, to the royal box just alongside theirs. With a flicker of his eye Picasso saw the foolish-looking king waving and smiling to the crowd, while his courtiers made gestures instructing everyone to cheer. He nodded. One must wait for the king to arrive, yes, Picasso supposed. But he did not want to wait any longer. He was formally dressed, a dark blue business suit, a white shirt, even a necktie: the
corrida
was a serious matter, it demanded respect. But in this humidity he was far from
comfortable. Once the fight started he would no longer notice the weather or the pinching at his throat or the sweaty stickiness along his back. Just let it start soon, he thought. Let it start soon.

What was this? Some new commotion close at hand?

The huge Sumerian was up and prancing about and shouting like a lunatic. “Enkidu! Enkidu!”

“Gilgamesh!” bellowed a newcomer, just as enormous but twice as frightful, shouldering his way into the box. “My own true brother! My friend!”

This one was a Sumerian too, by the look of him. But he was strange and shaggy, almost like a beast, with a fiery, smouldering look about him and black hair tumbling into his eyes and a beard so dense it hid most of his face. Another Minotaur, Picasso thought: an even truer one than the first. They were embracing like two mountains now, Gilgamesh and this other, this Enkidu. Gilgamesh was like a child in his excitement. Now he clapped Enkidu on the back with a blow that would have felled a dragon, and now he dragged him over to meet Ninsun, before whom Enkidu fell in a pose of utter devotion, kneeling and kissing her hem, and now Gilgamesh was nodding toward Dumuzi’s box and both men began to laugh. “And this,” said Gilgamesh, “this is the painter Picasso, who is a great genius. He paints like a demon. Maybe he
is
a demon. But he is very great. This is his bullfight, today.”

“This little man? He will fight bulls?”

“He will watch,” Gilgamesh said. “He loves that more than anything, except, I think, to paint: to watch the bulls being fought. As was done in his homeland.”

“And tomorrow,” said Picasso, “I will paint you, wild one. But that will be tomorrow. Now the bulls.” Out of the corner of his mouth he said to Sabartes, “Well? Do we ever commence?”

“Indeed, Don Pablo. Now. Now.”

There came a great flourish of trumpets. And then the grand entry procession began, the
cuadrillas
coming forth led by a pair of mounted
alguaciles
in eye-dazzling costumes. Everyone crossing the great arena, the banderilleros, the picadors riding demon-horses that looked almost like the horses of the other world except for their red blazing eyes and stiff lizard-like tails, and then finally the matador, this Blanco y Velez, this Spaniard of the time of Charles IV.

Sabartes had organized everything very well, Picasso thought. It all looked as it was supposed to look. The men, the subordinates, moved with dignity and grace. They understood the grandeur of the moment. And the matador showed promise. He held himself well. He was a little thicker through the middle than Picasso had expected – perhaps he was out of shape, or maybe in the time of Charles IV the style had been different, matadors had not been so slender – but his costume was right, the skintight silken trousers, the richly embroidered jacket and waistcoat of satin embroidered in gold and silver, the hat, the cape, the linen lace shirt-waist.