Finally it was Olga’s turn. Leaning over toward the window she placed her dogtag against the electronic reader. A signal beeped and two transparent tablets with ICE stamped on them rolled out. Olga grabbed them and swallowed them immediately, washing them down with the water. She threw the cup into the trash and left the gateway, as the blue space was called. Her heart beat ever more strongly.
“I’ll go to the Swedes right away,” she thought.
Behind her she heard noise, yelps, and shouts: someone was trying to take someone’s tablet.
“There they go...” Olga walked along the hallway and turned into the Ham. Some groups had already formed, sitting close in preparation for their voyage. But the Swedes weren’t there.
“The Swedes are in the Garage today!” Olga guessed.
The French, Greek, Romanian, and Ukrainian girls began to reach for her hands, muttering, trying to convince her. An albino Icelander threw himself at her feet, grabbed her knees, and whispered in Icelandic, butting his forehead, sweaty with desire, against her. From his hysterical whisper only one comprehensible word issued: “Bonus!”
Plugging her ears, Olga ran into the Garage. She immediately noticed the Swedish corner: about ten people were already sitting on the floor, getting ready. She walked over, murmured something, reached out with a shaking hand, collapsed on her knees, and began to touch the others sitting there. They were expecting her, they welcomed her joyfully, touching her in turn with shaking hands, moving aside and letting her in. Eyes, light- and dark-blue, pale-sky colored and deep-sea colored, stared at her, shining and sparkling, promising joy shared among all. Trembling, she squeezed in, merged with them, held hands that were moist with excitement, feeling how the heart wave grew, how the chest brimmed over with joy, how the head spun, how the blood beat in the temple. The strength of the Swedish corner amazed her.
“Here it comes...already!” she thought, closing her eyes with pleasure.
New people who had just swallowed their portions of happiness came; they sat down, pressing in close, holding each other’s hands tight, in an unbroken chain of pleasurable anticipation. Liz appeared, touched them, and by virtue of her presence found her place among them. Strengthening the joy, her red lips trembling. Silver curled. Greeks and fiery-red Israelis turned up; then a broad-shouldered Swede with sky-blue eyes and the pink cheeks of his disfigured face shaved bare. American woman were also present. They all had bonuses. They all craved happiness.
“The best are all here!” Olga’s blood pulsed joyfully.
And — the moment of flight had arrived. Holding tight to her comrades in joy, she closed her eyes. But they wouldn’t let her lose herself in the precious and joyous.
“Criminal! She ate the ice!”
Strong hands pulled, dragged her along the hallway. She felt with every cell how the two pieces of ice were melting, melting, melting in her stomach, the two divine, inimitable pieces that provided an unearthly joy. Oh, if only they would have time to melt. Just another few seconds! Melt, melt, melt, faster, my sweethearts, my body wants you, my body is crying out with desire, my body is sucking you and moaning...
“Open her mouth!”
Merciless faces, cold eyes, rough hands in rubber gloves. They separate her teeth with a stick, and a steel instrument spreads her mouth open painfully, against her will.
“The probe!” A plastic snake slips into her throat, crawls along her esophagus, spreads it open, and doesn’t let her breathe.
Her body thrashes, writhes in their hands, but they hold her tight, tight, tight, and there, in the stomach, the nimble snake sucks out the exquisite, sweet, beloved, desired bits of ice, preventing them from dissolving, and already there is nothing, absolutely nothing to breathe, breathe, breathe...
Olga cried out.
And woke up.
“What’s wrong?” Liz, lying near her, placed her hand on Olga’s chest. “You’re covered with sweat...”
Olga threw off the thin cotton blanket, lifted her head, sat up, and hung her legs over the bed. “Yuck, what rubbish I dreamed...”
It was dim in the Ham. The electric clock showed 3:47 a.m. The women were sleeping. Olga wiped her sweaty face with her hand. “Nonsense...”
“What is it, honeybunch?” Liz embraced her from behind. “Want me to bring you some water?”
Olga laughed sleepily and shook her head.
“I dreamed that they were feeding us some kind of ice narcotic...clear tablets of some sort...and I wanted them so badly, I craved them...and they took them away from me...”
“There are a lot of ice dreams here. It’s normal.” Liz stroked her. “At the beginning I dreamed that I was little, like a bug, and that I was frozen in ice. Forever. Forever and ever in that ice...”
“Oh, yeah...and there was a...library, too!”
“What library?”
“In the dream we had a library here.”
“Fabulous. I want into your dream.”
“And some kind of collective trips with those tablets...the Swedish corner...”
“The Swedish corner beat us in foosball this evening.”
“Jeez, there’s a gym here, not a library...” Olga shook her head. “And the men live separately...how absurd!”
“We can get by without men.” Liz kissed Olga between her shoulder blades, and slipped down from the bed.
Walking over to the water fountain, she filled a cup with water, drank some, returned, and handed it to Olga. “Drink.”
Olga drank the icy water.
“Strange...I’ve never once dreamed of home here.”
“Neither have I.” Liz embraced her.
“But that’s...really strange!”
“No, sweetheart, it’s not strange.”
“Why?”
“Because our home is here now. And there won’t be another one.” Liz yawned and pressed against Olga.
As she fell asleep, remembering her strange dream, Olga’s shoulder could feel the cavity in Liz’s chest.
“Bonus...bonus...icy...rubbish...bonus — just a bar of Swiss milk chocolate. Chocolate...chocolate...shaped like a bird, shaped like Fima. Fimochka’s a gooooood bird. Fimochka’s the best...”
The Last Ones
The brothers’ hands wake my body. They awaken Gorn’s body. We are on our island. In our house. On our bed. We lie next to each other. Now, after the Great Night, our bodies look the same. They gave a great deal of energy to the Last Search. They are very old. So old that they can no longer move. The brothers’ hands open our eyes, lift our eyelids. They carry us from the bed, wash us, feed us, and cherish us. So that the Light doesn’t abandon us. But not only our bodies: Our bodies must be taken care of by all the Brothers and Sisters of the Light. All 23,000. Now each body is especially dear. For the Transformation is near. There is not long to wait.
Having fed us with nourishing liquids, the brothers lower our bodies into a marble bath. It is filled with fresh buffalo milk. It helps to maintain strength in our bodies. Our faces are close. I see Gorn’s face close up. He is a little boy according to the laws of the meat world. But his face has grown very old this night. Gorn’s body has aged as well. Now he is the same as I am.
Gorn looks at me.
We don’t have the strength to speak in the language of the Earth — our lips cannot move.
But our hearts speak.
Today the Brotherhood should have acquired the last three of the 23,000. But these last three are difficult. They will be difficult to acquire, to tear from the meat world. They are mobile. One of them moves about the Earth, killing particular meat machines, and hides from others. Another lives in the Earth; he worked in a place where meat machines made fierce poisons, and he was poisoned by them, and his body changed and he began to dig into the earth and hide from meat machines. The third simply loves to jump and run wherever she wants.
Noadunop
After living in Japan for six months and thirteen days, I finally realized what a bird’s eye view of Tokyo
looks like: New York after a nuclear attack.
I whisper this into a glass of Lychee, in my native Dutch, grinning at the discovery. Then I look down on the twilit city of sushi and kogyaru. How cool to sit on the sixty-first floor, sip my favorite cocktail, stare at the Eastern Capital through two-inch-thick glass, and stir the ice in my glass with my finger.
A minute later I make a correction:
A failed nuclear attack.
It’s true: there’s a mass of identical skyscraper stumps that look like the leftovers of an atomic explosion, and here and there a hundred-story tower sticks up. It makes me think of Godzilla roaring and smashing the Eastern Capital in the old Japanese blockbuster. Proud loners — just my kind. I raise my glass and tap it against the windowpane — here’s to their resilience as they wait for one more mega- earthquake, like Tokyo has been for the last seventy years. I can’t tear my eyes away from the city. I like to take my time looking at things — ever since I was a child. And thank God. That’s helped out a lot in my complex profession. After that Greek in London I’ve become even more careful. I live through my eyes. Now the sun’s going down — it always sets quickly here. The street lamps are on already. And in the west — the rosy-orange haze of the disappearing sun. In five minutes it’ll be dark — more than enough time to think about who you are and why. I’m satisfied with myself. I’m satisfied with where I am. Everything’s coming up roses — so far. Here in this megalopolis I fit in. At least for another six months. In Europe and America they’re looking for me. But for the last two years I’ve had Asian eyes, a totally altered nose, and my lips look a little different too. I shave my head like a monk. My old colleagues in the Corps would never recognize me. My regiment comrades from the Balkans wouldn’t either. Only the tattoos. It’s so fabulous that there’s a place like Asia, where you can crawl off and disappear. I’m the spitting image of a Mongol — three people have told me so. Awesome. I’m a Mongol. I make the occasional raid. A descendant of Genghis Khan. That Greek was a breeze — two bullets in the gut and one in the head to finish him off, just like the movies. And the bodyguard couldn’t do a thing. But preparing for it — a whole month of constant training — that was exhausting. Not being able to get a good night’s sleep when I’m on a case really gets me down. It’s totally exhausting. I’m skinny but I’m built, and those Japanese masseuses did a pretty good job working me over. And after three nights with two kogyaru from Shibuya I’m back to my old self. Yeah, I’m not a man of steel, like Bruce Willis in Diehard, but so what? I have my own little god to thank...
Now Tokyo’s turned on the lights. Beautiful, no doubt about it. I always go to this bar before a job. This is the third time. It’s become a tradition — a new one. Or half a tradition. The other half’s down there by the bronze dog. Time to pay up and go. To Shinjuku. Misato-san is waiting. She’s the new one. I need to buy her something...
I pay the bill and head for the elevator. A steel cabin, dropping me smoothly from heaven to earth. For some reason it always smells like melon. Grab a cab to Shinjuku. There’s a traffic jam — rush hour. It’s not far though. By the time I get there it’s night. Shinjuku’s all lit up like a Christmas tree. Seven minutes left. The girl’ll wait, I know, but I hurry anyway. I’m a responsible guy, no matter what I’m doing. In the Isetan store I pick up my standard kogyaru kit: a Shiina Ringo CD, a Titanic DVD, a Pokemon with safety pins stuck in its spiky tail, and a box of Swiss chocolates. It gets them every time. Like a Glock 18 with a silencer.
There’s Misato standing right by the bronze dog Hachiko, still waiting for its owner who keeled over after a heart attack. The Japanese put up a monument to a dog! How sentimental. Infantile. Thank God I’ve never had a Japanese client. Or a Chinese one. Two Arabs. One Greek. An Australian. The rest — Europeans. Though — there were two Russians in ’98. Where do you put the Russians — in Europe or in Asia? They’re just Russians. Those Russians turned out to be real trouble. They cost blood — a lot of blood. I got hung out to dry like never before. I had to make some serious changes. Change myself. Change my situation.
Misato’s all dolled up like yesterday — in pink down to her exposed belly button, with a blue leather miniskirt, white fishnet stockings, and white platform shoes with yellow Pokemon buckles. There’s another Pokemon attached to her wide patent leather belt and a tiny yellow one dangling from her mother-of-pearl cell phone. She’s got red and yellow highlights in her hair, snowflakes and stars on her huge fake fingernails, pearl gloss on her eyelids, and she’s wearing glittery, bright red lipstick. Not a trace of expression on her face, but her body’s excellent. And compared to the locals, so’s her height: 5' 6". A typical kogyaru: ko — young, gyaru — girl. The tropical girl style — that’s what it’s called — popped up a few years ago. Now it’s being crowded out by acid-style, with shapeless robes and wool caps like the ones the blacks used to wear. But Misato copies her older sister, a first-wave kogyaru. Their motto’s “Get wild and be sexy.” Fine by me.
“Hi, John, how are you?” Misato bares her crooked young teeth with braces.
“Kombova, Misato-san,” I smile in reply.
She speaks English (very badly) and I speak Japanese (even worse). I take her by her moist hand. Pushing through the crowd, we come out on Shinjuku Dori. We wander, talk. Misato’s platforms clomp as we go. Japanese women have a weird way of walking. Most of them are pigeon-toed. A whore in Sapporo told me it comes from thousands of years of sitting on their knees.
Misato’s navel doesn’t have any piercings, but that’s no surprise: she’s only in tenth grade, and it’s still against the rules. The families and the schools here really put the pressure on. So the kids dress up in these bright, crazy outfits to compensate. In the evening, Misato’s a kogyaru; in the morning — a schoolgirl in a dark blue uniform and white kneesocks. She walks briskly and cheerfully on her clopping platforms. I name a place where we can settle in. It’s OK with her. Everything’s OK. It’s cool to go out with a European. Though of course I’m half Mongol. But I’m a specialist in cargo transportation. I even have a business card.
I take her to a place I know. Fifty dollars, all you can eat and drink for two hours. An hour’ll be enough for Misato and me. I order a beer and a rice vodka cocktail for her — the kogyaru’s favorite drink. We stack up sushi, sashimi, chicken barbecue, crab claws, and marbled beef. The waiter lights the gas burner under a wok full of water: you get to make your own personal soup. We toss crab claws into the boiling water, eat sushi, and drink. Misato’s in a good mood. She giggles and leans back. I squeeze her knee. Misato slaps me on the forehead with a napkin wrapped in cellophane. We drink to our meeting in Shibuya. That’s the kogyaru Mecca. Their hive. There are thousands and thousands of them there.
“Why you did choose me?” Misato asks.
“You’re not like the other kogyaru,” I lie.
She laughs, sips some more of her cloudy cocktail. She likes the prestige of being with a foreigner. Gulping down sushi, she tells me about her class’s summer trip to Italy. She saw the Pope and ate tiramisu that was “better than in Tokyo.” She liked the Italians. I tell her about soccer, about when I studied in England (I tell everyone I went to school in England) and rooted for Manchester United and how I got into a fight with some Italians and ended up in jail for a month. She laughs. The sushi and sashimi are all gone; now we’re waiting for the crabs to boil. Pause. That’s when I take the stuff from Isetan out of my backpack.
“For you.”
She immediately changes from a kogyaru into a schoolgirl, slumped down, her movements angular, as she rifles open-mouthed through the bag; her silvery lips are practically slobbering.
“Kavai! Sugoi! — Sweet! Cool!” she sings out. She covers her mouth with her palm and bleats in surprise. “Wow! Wooo! Wheee!”
I sip my weak Japanese beer and let her enjoy the presents. When she gets like that, I want her. A sweet kid. Japanese women aren’t for everyone. Alex can’t stand them, Gregory isn’t very inter
ested either. Only Serezha Labocki likes them, though he likes the Chinese better. Japanese women are eternal schoolgirls. Awkward and shy. It can be a downer for Europeans. But for me it’s a turn on. I like Japanese schoolgirls. Even when they’re forty. Plus, to go out with a white woman would be curtains here. I have to be totally free, able to lose a tail at any second. Not to mention my skin.
The crabs are ready. Misato, excited by the presents and the rice vodka, pulls them out of the wok with chopsticks. I put the beef in the wok together with meatballs and mushrooms on skewers. We break open the crab claws with scissors, dipping the snow-white meat in sauce. Misato prattles on about America, where she’s never been but really wants to go. After all, I’m an American. I really do have a decent American accent. I tell her about the Grand Canyon, about Los Angeles and Miami. The restaurant fills up with white-collar workers carrying briefcases and cell phones. They’re noisy, in a rush to relax after another day’s selfless labor. And tomorrow they’ll get up again at six, schlep their way into town on the train for an hour and a half, and lay down their lives for a company that manufactures air conditioners. For me — this would be hell. Better to kill someone every couple of months than that...
Misato’s drunk. She can’t take another bite of the boiled meat. It’s time. I’ve sobered up a little. Filled up on all sorts of delicacies. And I want to stick it to the tenth-grader. I take her by the side and lead her out. I pay at the exit. She giggles, stumbles over her own feet, and loses a platform shoe. Finds it. Giggles again. We stumble out of the restaurant. As usual, it’s stifling and noisy outside. September. But the humidity’s still way up there. The Love Hotel, that’s what they call it, is only a stone’s throw away. I’d never take a chick to my own room — not even if Gregory paid me the going rate of twenty thousand for once...
Ice Trilogy Page 68
