Death in Florence

by George Alec Effinger

  "Here is what you should do," said their guide. "Get your belongings and follow me. We shall form a group by the obelisk." Moore stood in the aisle and gathered his two small parcels. He turned and saw Brant do the same. The others on the bus had begun filing out, stretching in the warm, dusky sunlight and moving slowly toward the entrance to Utopia 3. Moore stopped and smiled.

  "Can I give you a hand?" he asked.

  "I can manage," she said curtly.

  "You heard Monsieur Crisafi," said Moore, a little offended. "We're going to be acting out of love and generosity soon. I was just offering."

  Brant sighed. "I'm sorry," she said. "Maybe I'm a little tired. But usually when someone says 'love,' he means something else altogether." Nevertheless, she let him carry one of her five suitcases. They walked leisurely along the gravel path. Moore listened to the crunching of the white stones beneath his crepe soles. He heard birds twittering in the forest.

  "A nice place," he said.

  "We'll see," said Brant.

  "My name's Moore. Norman Moore."

  "I'm Eileen Brant," she said, dropping her suitcases beside the obelisk. The thing was tall, twice as high as the tallest person in their group. It was made of concrete with small rocks of various colors stuck in it. There was a bronze plaque bolted to one face. On the plaque were the words:

  Never in the course of history have so many people gladly ripped asunder the ties that bound them to their homes. These people have gone away to make new lives elsewhere. Others have come to take their places in a new land. Between both groups a strange and wonderful new bond has been forged—that of gratitude, love, hope, and good wishes."

  Robert W. Hanson.

  Beneath that plaque was another, which read:

  This monument a gift of Mr. & Mrs. Burl H. McClees

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Julian Gremillion

  Gift of Mr. Lindsey Dobrian

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Nathaniel Roussarie

  Gift of Mrs. Jeffisonia Odom

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Walker Montgomery Smith

  Gift of Mr.R.J.Bitola

  Gift of Miss Willie Mae York

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. M. de Vere Legendre,

  in memory of Jean-Baptiste, taken in infancy

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Frank Wiedorn, Jr.

  Gift of Mr. Eldon MacDay

  Gift of Mr. & Mrs. Charles F. Treadway

  "Where did all the people go?" asked Moore. "The ones who used to be in Munich and Prague and all those other big cities?"

  "They have mostly gone to live with relatives," said Crisafi, walking around their group with a large clipboard in his hand. "You are Monsieur Moore? And Mademoiselle Brant?" They nodded, and he checked them off on his list. He frowned. "One seems to be missing. We are not all here."

  "Mr. Suarez got sick back in Cardetrone," said one of the other women in the group. "He decided to catch a bus home."

  "Ah," said Crisafi, "I see. I wish he had told me, though. Now we will be one too few."

  The evening deepened around them. They waited for Crisafi to finish his administrative duties. "What did you do back before this?" asked Moore.

  Brant shook her head. "Not much," she said. "I was executive secretary to the late, fabulously wealthy Robert L. Jennings, Senior. Then I was executive secretary to Robert L. Jennings, Junior. When they started taking applications for this place, I shot mine in first thing. What were you?"

  "I was a consultant."

  Brant laughed skeptically. "A consultant? What does that mean?"

  "Corporations hired me to make decisions affecting their future."

  "I see," said Brant. Before she could say more, Crisafi asked for their attention.

  "I will leave you here, my ladies and my gentlemen," he said. "A member of the staff will arrive shortly to show you to the lodge. In the meantime, I suggest that you get to know each other. You will be spending the rest of your lives together, wandering about the towering but vacant heart of a once-mighty continent. So long." The man waved and started back toward the brown minibus. They all watched him climb aboard; a few seconds later he had turned the bus around and was driving back toward Paris.

  "If this is such a great place," said Moore, "why doesn't he live here?"

  "He's like our Virgil, guiding us through the Inferno of Orly and Paris, through the Purgatorio of the countryside, until we reached the Paradiso of Utopia 3."

  "Very lovely, very lovely," murmured Moore. "And you are my Beatrice." She smiled at him, and together they waited for the new guide to arrive.

  * * *

  It was still a little before noon when Staefler and the Arab kid took their leave of the fishing boat in Cailly. The captain offered to keep them on at regular wages if they'd work the return trip, but Staefler was determined to go ashore in France. He anticipated a drastic change in his life, although none of the details came clearly in his imaginings. Indeed, so far, things were pretty much as they had been. Staefler wandered up the narrow waterfront alleys with the Arab kid following silently behind, carrying the bulging suitcase.

  Staefler stopped outside a waterfront bar, trying to get an idea of the place through the grimy front window. "Well," he thought, "this town isn't France, after all. Things will change more when I hit the road." He shrugged and pushed his way past the crowd of sailors at the door. He ordered wine mixed with water for himself and a glass of club soda for the Arab kid.

  As Staefler turned to find a quiet corner to sit in, a tall man wearing blue jeans and a torn sweatshirt put his hand on Staefler's shoulder. "Hello," he said. "I followed you and the boy from the wharves."

  "Uh," said Staefler. Holding the two drinks, he was unable to do more than shrug beneath the man's grip.

  "There's no reason to be so unfriendly," said the stranger. "This isn't Paris, you know. I'm Pulgovich. I used to work that same herring boat, maybe two, three years ago."

  "I just wanted passage to Cailly," said Staefler.

  "Well, now you're here. Are you planning on staying?"

  Staefler tried to find the Arab kid in the crowded bar. He couldn't see him; he put the boy's drink on a table filled with empty glasses and bottles and took a gulp of his own wine. "I want to see some more of this country," he said. "I figure on getting a bus to Marseille in the morning. I want to take my time and see some of the landscape between here and Geneva, and then I'll cut across to Genoa and Trieste."

  Pulgovich chewed his lip for a few seconds. "You're not getting in to see Genoa without a card from the Utopia 3 people."

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  The stranger laughed. "You haven't kept up with things for a while."

  "Oh, hell," said Staefler, finishing his wine.

  "That's what I said," said Pulgovich. "They couldn't just give them a big chunk of the Sahara or something. We had to turn over the white meat of Europe to them."

  "A bunch of nuts."

  "The hope of humanity," said Pulgovich, spitting. "They probably have plans to gather in Vienna once a year and play badminton in the nude. The rest of us go on like always, but they think they're special."

  "I don't want to hear about it," said Staefler.

  Pulgovich put his hand on Staefler's shoulder again. "There's a ping-pong table in the back. Do you play ping-pong?"

  "I used to," said Staefler. "Let me get another glass of wine."

  "You have to get a ball for a franc and leave a ten-franc deposit on the paddles."

  Staefler forced his way back through the crowd to the bar. He still hadn't been able to find the Arab kid, although of course he hadn't searched very carefully. He paid for a glass of wine and with the change got the ping-pong ball and two very dilapidated paddles. He saw Pulgovich's red face only a few feet away. The stranger pulled Staefler's arm and pointed toward the back of the bar. The ping-pong table was empty, but there were quite a few people crowded nearby. Pulgovich took one of the paddles and began directing the other customers away from the table. Staefler set his wine gla
ss on the table's edge, against the net. He hit an easy serve; Pulgovich returned it just as softly. Staefler hit back with a little more force, and he saw Pulgovich smile. The stranger sent the ball over the net with a lot of topspin, but Staefler wasn't fooled. They volleyed for a few minutes, testing each other's skill. "Ready?" asked Pulgovich at last.

  "I guess so," said Staefler. He felt confident. Pulgovich was good, and Staefler hadn't played in several years, but Staefler was sure that he wasn't badly overmatched.

  "Do you want to play for fun?" asked Pulgovich. "Or do you want to play for real?"

  Staefler drank the rest of his wine and put the empty glass on a nearby table. "Ten bucks on the first game," he said. Pulgovich didn't say anything; he tossed the ping-pong ball across the net. Staefler hit it back, and they volleyed for the serve, which Pulgovich won. Staefler felt the familiar flush of excitement, the joy of competition that he needed so much. He wanted to beat Pulgovich. It wasn't the money at all; he was sure that even the stranger understood that. All he wanted was to beat Pulgovich.

  The two men played for almost an hour. Staefler lost the first three games, but after a short time he realized that Pulgovich's flashy style was limited to a few basic tricks. After Staefler learned that, he began to use Pulgovich's weaknesses against him. Staefler won the last five games in a row, along with a good deal of the stranger's money.

  "You played hard," said Pulgovich. "I like that. I hate playing against somebody who plays for pleasure. I don't mind losing to somebody like you."

  "I don't mind winning," said Staefler. "Here, you keep the ball. I'm planning on leaving soon."

  Pulgovich's smile disappeared. "You don't think you want to stay around? There isn't anybody else in the whole town who plays as good as you."

  "That's one of the reasons I'm going," said Staefler. Pulgovich frowned, but Staefler just gave him his paddle, letting the other man collect the deposit money. The gesture was another insult. Staefler walked through the crowded bar, his spirits as high as they'd been in weeks. Outside again in the cool, fresh air, he wondered where he could find a place to stay. He turned around to head up the alley, away from the waterfront, and almost bumped into the Arab kid, who was still dragging the suitcase of Staefler's belongings. "All right," said Staefler, "come on."

  They spent the rest of the day in Cailly and the night in the entrance hall of an old and foul-smelling tenement building. Staefler awoke early the next morning; the Arab kid was already awake, sitting quietly on the suitcase, waiting for the older man. "Come on," said Staefler. The two left the building and walked into the center of town. Staefler stood by the side of the main road and tried to get a ride. The morning sun was hot, and the poor night's sleep had made him irritable. After an aggravating length of time passed, a truck driver stopped and opened the door of his cab. He looked down at Staefler.

  "Where you going?" asked the driver.

  "Anywhere," said Staefler.

  "You can't lose like that," said the driver. Staefler climbed onto the seat next to the driver, and the boy had to perch on a narrow shelf behind their heads. He clutched the piece of luggage to his chest and held his legs out of the driver's way. They rode for hours like that, the truck driver doing most of the talking, Staefler answering a few questions, mostly with grunts or grudging sentences, the Arab kid saying nothing. The road turned into a well-maintained highway, then to double-lane asphalt, then to single-lane broken blacktop, finally to a narrow gravel trail. They bounced along uncomfortably for a few miles until they came to a crossroad. The bad road went on, paralleling the edge of a dense forest; the driver was turning onto the other branch, which was a better, smoother highway.

  "Are you going into a city?" asked Staefler.

  "Sure," said the man. "I'm carrying a load of tubifex worms for the goldfish of Paris."

  "Well, let us out here," said Staefler. "I'm not ready for the city yet. I want to stay in the country."

  "All right," said the driver. "You've been courteous passengers."

  "And you've been very kind," said Staefler. He jumped down and began walking along the gravel road. He heard the Arab kid slam the truck's door. He could hear the boy's slow steps behind him, making gritty, rhythmic sounds on the small stones.

  The day had grown hotter and more humid, much like the weather Staefler had hoped to leave behind. On his right the forest looked cool and pleasant. There was a fence of split timbers at the edge of the woods; Staefler supposed that the huge forest was private property. He respected the owner's rights too much to trespass. They walked on, hoping for a ride to come along. As the afternoon passed, Staefler became thirstier and more tired. He stopped often to rest, and the Arab kid looked more fatigued than ever, literally dragging the suitcase behind him on the ground. Just when Staefler was about to quit for the evening, he saw a group of people standing at a gap in the timber fence. "That's lucky," he thought. "Let's see if I can promote some supper." He walked up to the people, who were gathered around a strange obelisk. A woman with a clipboard was talking to them.

  "All right, listen up," said the woman. "I'm the guide from the lodge. We're going to assemble in the bus in ten minutes. It's about a half hour's drive to the lodge. You'll have dinner on arrival, and there'll be just enough time for room assignments. Everything else will have to wait until tomorrow. Before we get on the bus, I want to run through this list of names. Did Monsieur Crisafi appoint a group leader? No? All right. Avellard? Speak up if I'm pronouncing your name wrong. Avellard?"

  "Here," said a young woman.

  "Bechmann?" The guide read through the list. When she finished she looked questioningly at Staefler. "Are you Senor Suarez?"

  "No," said Staefler.

  "Mr. Suarez got sick back in Cardetrone," said one of the men. "He decided to catch a bus home."

  "Oh," said the guide, drawing a line through the man's name. "Then what is your name?"

  "Staefler."

  "First name?"

  "Bo."

  "Bo?"

  "Yes," said Staefler impatiently. "Bo. It's what my mother called me, all the time."

  "Okay," said the guide. "Everybody's accounted for. We'll meet on the bus in ten minutes."

  Staefler shrugged and looked around. The others were still relaxing in the pleasant fringes of the forest. Staefler wanted to get a good seat, so he hurried to the small chocolate-brown minibus. The Arab kid followed. The guide was already sitting behind the steering wheel, and she smiled when Staefler climbed aboard. The guide was wearing a dark green sweatshirt with several white concentric circles, with the words Utopia 3 printed above them. The word staff was printed above one breast.

  "I have fallen in with the nuts," thought Staefler. "I am a companion to weirdos." He took the large seat in the rear, and the boy sat next to him with his nose pressed against the blue-tinted window.

  * * *

  Moore took a chair in the dim conference room and pulled another alongside his for Eileen Brant. Few of the other utopiates had arrived, and Moore tapped impatiently on the polished wooden table with his Number Two pencil. After a few minutes the others began filing in, yawning and smiling shyly. Brant stopped in the doorway, and Moore gestured that he had saved her a seat. She nodded but did not smile. "A real beauty she is," thought Moore. Brant joined him and took her seat. She wished him a good morning.

  "Good morning," said a man sitting at the head of the table. Moore turned his attention to the speaker. The man was trim and muscular, tanned, healthy-looking. He was wearing a light turtle-neck shirt and blue jeans. "My name is Pavel Rugorsky. I am associate director of Utopia 3's orientation lodge. Our director is Myra Waklecott. She can't be with us today, unfortunately, as she's in the field overseeing the construction of a new campsite. I'll try to do the best I can in her place."

  Brant leaned over and whispered to Moore. "I like him," she said. "He seems forthright, honest, and sincere."

  Moore put a finger to his lips. "Shh," he whispered.

  "Th
is meeting is designed to answer some of your questions about Utopia 3," said Rugorsky, rising and walking to a podium. "If I fail to make something clear, don't hesitate to interrupt. Can you hear me in the back? I think it would be a good idea for you to take some pertinent notes, but don't be too worried about scribbling down everything I say. Things may seem hectic now, but after a few days you'll discover how simple and logical things are in Utopia 3. We owe that to the theories of Dr. Waters, our founder."