I am only twenty-four, Leonard reminded him.
It is not too late! Mill said. Have you ever been with a European woman? A free European woman?
No, Leonard had to confess.
I neither, Mill said, and sighed. Just port prostitutes and slaves, and the women I spoke of earlier. Why did you never marry?
I am not so good with women, Leonard said.
Yes, yes, you have said this. But what skill do you lack? I am told that women are simple: they care only for wealth, position, and pretty compliments.
I’ll remember that, Leonard said, miserable.
Except Kokachin, Mill said thoughtfully. Kokachin was different.
Different?
She cared only that I listen.
I can do that! Leonard said. I can listen!
Hers was not a happy life, Mill added.
No?
I must go, Mill said, his voice shaking.
Time for bannocks
When Leonard went down to the house after his shift, he was surprised not to find Carol. She should have been flattening steep pants or making nourishment for Felix. He checked the stoveroom, the gameroom, Carol’s room. Though the latter was in its customary state of tumbled chaos—no knowing whether she’d slept there that night, or was there still, under a pile of crumpled leisure garb. He poked at the pile. She was not there.
He found Felix standing by the window in his bedroom, still wearing his ivy-green sleeping togs.
Where’s your mother? he asked, putting his arm on the boy’s shoulder.
I don’t know, Felix said. She didn’t come back from her book group.
You’ve been waiting all night?
I was worried.
You should have come to me.
I didn’t want you to worry.
It’s my job to worry, I’m a grown-up.
You are?
Of course I am.
Probably she was out with her book club and missed curfew, Felix said.
Probably, Leonard said. Did you sleep at all?
Not so much, Felix said.
Have you moved from the window since she left?
Not really, Felix said.
It was dark, you couldn’t see anything, Leonard said.
I could see, said Felix.
Stay home today, said Leonard. That way when your mother gets back, you’ll know she’s safe. And you can nap.
With Medusa?
If she’s willing. It’s hard to tell a cat what to do.
I tell her what to do.
She does what you say?
Unless I tell her to do something like fly, then she just gives me a look.
Time for bannocks, Leonard said.
What are you doing in my house?
When Carol finally returned it was several hours past dawn. Felix was sleeping in his room with Medusa, whom Leonard had lured into the house with haggis. Leonard was sitting in Felix’s swirly chair, ready for sleep himself, but he’d promised to stay awake so Felix wouldn’t have to.
He heard Carol’s tiptoeing; she herself, with her whisper-quiet sailing shoes, was silent but her house had a problem with creaking, especially in the morning. Leonard tiptoed out to meet her. She was wearing her black climbing suit and dust cap, but her face was sooted black and she smelled like … burnt hair?
Carol?
What are you doing in my house?
Carol? Are you okay?
Why aren’t you sleeping? You’re supposed to be in your garage sleeping!
Felix is sleeping; I’m waiting for you—he was worried.
Felix is sleeping? He’s supposed to be at school!
Shh! You’ll wake him! Have you been … burning things?
If Felix doesn’t go to school, people ask questions!
Leonard tried to allow compassion to well so he could listen, but he was angry.
You have no right! he said. You have no right to put Felix in danger!
I may not have the right to do what’s right in this country, but I do have the obligation.
I don’t understand.
You’re a child, Leonard. You’re as much a child as you ever were. I’m sure that’s my fault somehow. Out of my way. I need to change for work.
How will you explain being late?
I won’t have to. Certain of our caravans are … dysfunctioning. Food workers all over town will be late today. Now move, she said, and pushed past.
Carol? Are you bleeding? Carol?
Cathay noodles
You are my only friend, Mill exclaimed that night. My truest and only friend! You will not forsake me, will you? Speaking to you through this mystical connection—it is saving me, I assure you.
You must have other friends, Leonard said. What about from your travels?
For a moment Mill didn’t reply.
So many have been lost. You have no idea. On the journey back to the Levant, we lost all but eighteen—nearly six hundred souls, gone! Everyone who went with me into the desert … I came home then to nothing. My father came back all those years ago to a son he’d quite forgotten, my uncle was glad to see his wife, but on my return what had I, other than triumph and my past? No wife, no children, no land. A small voice suggested I command a galley, so I agreed: better to fight a war than be still and alone, and look where it led me: to this place where there is aught to do but think about the past!
To distract Mill from his melancholy, Leonard asked whether there were friendly folk among the ruffians in his cell.
A monk arrived yesterday, Mill whispered. He took exception to his friary’s midday meal and set the refectory alight. Imagine his reaction when he sees the swill we must eat! I’d sooner dine on Pharoah’s rats and Tartar milk paste! What do they feed you, dear Leonard?
Neetsa pizza, Leonard said, though he’d quite given up hope for conversion. Golden Mean is my favorite: pepperoni and cheese in perfect proportion.
You speak in riddles, my friend. One reason I enjoy our conversation!
What would you eat if you could have anything delivered to your cell?
Cathay noodles! Mill said. Oh, how I long for Cathay noodles.
Then he fell into madness, as so often he did, his voice dropping:
Dear Leonard, please forget I mentioned Cathay noodles. I have quite lost my head. Tell no one I spoke of them! No one must know about the noodles!
Okay, Leonard said.
I must insist upon this, my friend.
No problem, Leonard said.
Perhaps I owe you an explanation, Mill said.
I don’t think so, Leonard said.
One day I intend to find men expert in the production of Cathay noodles. I shall bring them to Venice and become richer than the Great Khan. My father and uncle have no taste for them, but I was always the visionary in the family. Tell no one, I pray! No one must know about the noodles!
More about the clapping song
Carol’s book group started meeting two or three times a week. From Leonard’s room in the garage apartment, he and Felix would watch Carol in her black climbing suit, dust cap tamping down her afro, tie a large clutchbag to her Roadster and cycle off. She’d stopped cooking, just left piles of Scottish food on a warming plate in the stoveroom—miniature bridies and tatties and skirlies and crowdies, depending on what she’d found easiest to liberate from Jack-o-Bites.
I’m tired of crowdies, Felix complained. He wouldn’t leave the window.
Shall we make a fire? Leonard asked.
No, Felix said, and hung his head. I don’t want a fire, I don’t want anything.
You can show me your opus, Leonard said. I’d like to see it.
Mom put a tire iron in her clutchbag—why would her book group need a tire iron?
They’re probably doing show-and-tell, Leonard said.
Will she be back before curfew?
She always is, Leonard said, though these days she never was.
Destabilizing forces of chaos blew up a Heraclitan Grill, did you hear? Afte
r hours, no one was hurt.
I hear it didn’t really happen, Leonard said, who’d heard no such thing.
I don’t want Mommy blown up.
You can’t get blown up reading books, Leonard said.
Okay, Felix said. Okay.
He left the window and surprised Leonard by getting into his lap.
Tell me a story, he said.
Felix was a boy of routine. He never asked for stories at night, only after school. He leaned back against Leonard and put his thumb in his mouth.
Sure, Leonard said. Who should the story be about?
I don’t care, Felix said, looking away. You decide.
What about Princess Celeste?
Celeste sucks.
Okay, Celestina, then. Where does she live, do you think?
I don’t care, Felix said. I don’t care where she lives. I don’t care about anything.
Do you want to talk about it?
I want to hear a story.
Leonard had to do something. Felix hadn’t been able to wait for the Time between Here and There, he hadn’t been able to wait for a story. He started to tell Felix about Milione, about the many places Mill had seen, the many things he’d done.
Felix stopped him.
He’s crazy, you said, right?
Well, yeah, Leonard said.
So he didn’t really do all those things.
Right, yeah, Leonard said. But it makes a good story, right?
Maybe, Felix said without enthusiasm, and put his thumb back in his mouth.
Leonard was at a loss. He didn’t know any stories! He couldn’t share Grandfather’s books—they were shut tight behind sixty-day sealant. Felix sighed, deeply. So Leonard taught him the clapping song, complete with the dance that went with it. He probably shouldn’t have. He was breaking the promise he’d made to his grandfather—sort of—and the one he hadn’t quite made to his sister.
Felix seemed to enjoy it: pink returned to his cheeks, rather as if he’d engaged in five minutes of awesome karate kicks. After they’d sung and danced the clapping song, Leonard told Felix the story that went with it. At times he could remember only the line he was speaking at that moment, but as soon as he spoke it, another came to take its place. This wasn’t surprising: every day for ten years he’d sat with his grandfather while Carol worked. When he got home from school, he helped his grandfather to the toilet, then brought him a snack—usually canned peaches, sometimes herring with sour cream. Then he did his homework on the old man’s settee, and when he’d finished, his grandfather would say, Listen, boychik, I need you to listen good, and he would pick one of his stories (he only had a few) and he would tell it, and after he told it he would say, You’re a good egg, boychik, you tell no one about this except your grandson.
He always told his stories the very same way, using the exact same words each time. Leonard couldn’t help but memorize them, though this didn’t diminish the pleasure they gave him.
At first. By the time he was fifteen, Leonard had little use for his grandfather’s stories, little use for his grandfather; he was bothered by the old man’s smell, he didn’t like answering questions about school, questions that were increasingly confused, the answers to which (no he hadn’t learned anything, no he had no friends) he found embarrassing. He definitely didn’t like taking his grandfather to the toilet. So that when, on his fifteenth birthday, his grandfather asked him again if he could read the scrawls on his wall, Leonard, feeling bad for not being able to read them, for always being unable to read them, said bad things, unkind things. And then, two days later, his grandfather died.
Leonard felt then as if he’d been dropped from the earth. Milione spoke of a desert. Leonard could well imagine this—shaded by nothing, light always shining in your eyes, an accusatory light reminding you that you’d acted badly, your grandfather had died because of you, and now you’re alone, you’ll always be alone. Fifteen-year-old Leonard stopped speaking, he spent long hours on his grandfather’s settee staring at the wall, trying without success to understand the script his grandfather had scrawled there.
I could have asked him what it meant, he told himself, as Medusa, a kitten then, purred on his lap. I could have asked him and I didn’t; now I’ll never know. I could have laughed at his jokes about herring—would it have killed me to laugh at his jokes?
Carol seemed to understand. She stopped making him do things he didn’t want to do, like go to school, like go anywhere, really.
For five years, Leonard did little or nothing but follow the doings of Sue & Susheela, let Medusa in and out of the garage apartment, and care for Felix. Till Carol told him he had to get a job.
Like all of his grandfather’s stories, the one that went with the clapping song didn’t make much sense—his grandfather had learned it from his grandfather, who’d learned it from his grandfather (and so on), so maybe that was to be expected. But it was about demons (who cause havoc only on Mondays), so Felix pronounced it truly grand. His favorite was Kafkaphony, the demon with two wives: with one wife, he had leper babies; with the other, two-headed babies who fought each other and had open sores on their faces. He also liked Kafsephony, whose babies leapt from one end of the ether to the other, sometimes appearing as men and telling the future. Also, he liked the fact that dogs were formed in the ether out of bad deeds; they barked and howled, and bit people; they could find no cure for their condition till they died and were reborn as something else. He couldn’t wait to draw the goats who look like people. And so on.
Can I really not tell Mom? Felix asked. His cheeks were still pink from the exertion of hopping skipping jumping west south north east around the invisible circle.
Grandpa made me promise, Leonard said. No one can know, just you and me.
Felix considered this a moment, twirling a lock of his red afro.
What if I add the demons to my opus?
They have to stay between us. You can show your grandson. He’s the only person who can see it.
Will I have a grandson? he asked.
Of course, Leonard said.
You don’t, Felix said.
You’re better than I am.
I am?
Of course you are! Look at you! Leonard said. You’re strong! You do awesome karate kicks. You have an opus!
I do, don’t I?
And you’ve got red hair, Leonard said. Girls love red hair.
They don’t seem to, Felix said. He was thinking of Celeste, whose idea it had been most recently to dump him on the municipal compost heap.
Trust me, Leonard said, and Felix did.
A pleasing style
Good news! Milione said one night, his voice again bright. A gentleman has arrived who wishes to transcribe my adventures. He remembers me from Acre, he has a pleasing style. A certain Rustichello of Pisa—perhaps he lives near you?
I don’t think so, Leonard said.
Have you encountered his romances?
Not my cuppa tea.
He writes in French, Mill said. I gather this is the language for romance.
I wouldn’t know, Leonard said.
I neither, Mill said. But he proposes to make me famous beyond the walls of this shit-piss town. They will have to release me then, don’t you think? Really, I believe I shall go mad here.
Leonard couldn’t argue with that. But he didn’t think Mill’s “memoirs” would help him out of his loony bin; they might occupy him, however, and stave off what seemed a deepening depression.
What will you write about? Leonard asked. I’d say no to the dates and silks, yes to the starving caliph and marauding khan.
I shall talk of the Tibetans! Mill said triumphantly, and the line, predictably, went dead.
The Desert of Lop
Do you ever feel you are the only person in the universe? Mill asked the next night. When the moon disappears, and the sky is black and the sea is still and there is nothing around you but the void, then, dear Leonard, do you sometimes feel alone?
I
guess I felt like that when my grandfather died. Carol was glad. She was tired of taking care of him. I was fifteen. I felt alone then.
An orphan is always alone. I was an orphan for fifteen years.
So you said, Leonard said, thinking, You were never an orphan, you know nothing about being an orphan.
There is a desert of which I have oft tried to speak, Mill said.
The Desert of Lop, Leonard said, surprised that their connection wasn’t severed.
Yes, that place. I was lost there, did I tell you?
No.
That is because I have told no one. No one knows of this. I became separated from my fellows there. The desert was full of apparitions, sounds that beckon—one hears voices there, the sounds of waterfalls, of livestock and bandits. You follow those sounds, or you run from them, it does not matter, you only ever find yourself alone. Within hours your brain empties, the inside of your head feels hot, as if filled with desert sand, your eyes become parched, your throat closes, you feel certain you will never speak again, and how could you, for you have lost all words. And there is no one there with whom to speak, nor will there ever be. Everywhere is light, but this light, it illuminates nothing! You are your inside, your outside is in, and you are as empty as can be. You are sere. Do you know whereof I speak, dear Leonard?
Maybe, Leonard whispered.
Nothing is more terrifying. It was like this for hours, days perhaps—it is hard to know because there was no night or day there, or maybe I was unable to discern the difference. A minute felt like hours, an hour passed like a drop of rain. The sunshine felt like mud, I could barely lift my feet. I walked, or maybe I sat, I dreamed, maybe I was covered with sand, or maybe the wind uncovered me, I do not know. I may even have died: this is not impossible. It is possible to die, then live again.
Leonard didn’t know what to say.
I opened my eyes, and there they were. The people whose name I dare not mention, of whom I have not spoken.
Even Leonard dared not say the Tibetans.
Yes, Mill said, as if reading Leonard’s mind. They were many. They wore silks, they wore garlands, they were like angels, riding on steeds with hooves adapted to the desert, steeds that flew across the sands. They took me to their tents, their huts, oh I’m too tired to properly describe them, but maybe you can see them, dear Leonard.
A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World Page 4
