He felt uncomfortably bereft. He had enjoyed their conversations, he had looked forward to them, he had found in Mill not just a client-in-pain but a friend.
Yes, Milione had been his friend.
He was surprised to realize this, because really, he didn’t have friends. He sometimes screen-yakked with fans of Sue & Susheela, or other Listeners, using an alias or avatar. To none of these had he ever confided the emptiness he’d felt when his grandfather died, or his lack of skill with women, or the mystery of his grandfather’s changing eyes, or his occasional sadness. With none of these had he exchanged fears, or experiences of orphanhood; certainly, none had urged him to be more than he was. Yes, Mill was a friend. But still he didn’t call.
When the phone bleated a few nights later, Leonard grabbed it with unprofessional enthusiasm and shouted, Milione? Mill? And was deathly surprised to hear another voice, a voice he thought he’d never hear again.
Listen, boychik, the voice said. I need you to listen good.
Boychik
Grandpa? Is it you?
It sounds like me, the caller said, but it isn’t.
I don’t understand, Leonard said, tears already streaming down his cheeks. He’d spent ten years on his grandfather’s settee, listening to his grandfather’s stories: he knew his grandfather’s voice!
Who is it? he sobbed. Why are you calling me?
Boychik, I need you to listen good, the man repeated, causing Leonard to sob even more. You saved the world, just like I ask. You did very very good. I always knew you were a good egg.
Grandpa! You’re dead! Why are you calling me?
I tell you, it’s not me, the man said, but I need you to listen good.
Who is it, then? Leonard said. Why are you doing this?
You did very very good, said his grandfather’s voice. I am so proud of you.
You are? I started telling Felix the stories, I couldn’t help it. He’s so lonely! I’m never going to have grandsons!
You know nothing about the future, the voice said. Trust me on this one thing. On this one thing there can be no question. You will have grandsons, and more grandsons, on this there can be no question. That Felix, he is a good egg, he is a good egg and so are you, you are very very good to him. This is very important. Don’t you worry about Felix, we talk about Felix later. For the moment I need you to listen.
Grandpa, I was so bad to you before you died. I’m sorry! I am so very sorry!
It’s not me like you think, the man said, but your grandpa he know this, he know you are a good egg. Not to worry, boychik.
I was just a kid, I didn’t mean it when I said you were stupid and horrible and smelled like herring and I hated your stories. It wasn’t true!
Boychik, I need you to listen.
I am listening, Leonard said, wiping his face with his flared cambric sleeve.
You are not listening, said the voice, and he was right. You have the possibility to be the world’s great listener, but you don’t listen!
Oh, Leonard said. Sorry. I’m listening now.
You saved the world, the voice said. I don’t expect you to understand, someday I explain.
I don’t understand.
Your advice to Marco save the world, for the time being, this is what I mean.
I was his friend. I called him Mill. I was allowed to call him Mill because I was his friend.
Forget about Marco. He did what we need. He publish his book and he don’t speak about the Tibetans. These things he know die with him. I need you to do another thing.
Mill’s dead? Leonard’s tears started streaming again.
Boychik, you understand nothing. Sometimes you gotta read a book, really, you gotta get your tuchas offa that swirly chair.
I don’t understand. How do you know Mill’s dead?
He live another twenty-five years after he get out of prison …
He really was in prison?
This is what he say, right?
Yes.
You listen to what he say?
I thought he was an NP test, or a crazy man.
Marco Polo, he die in 1324, live a very happy life. Three children, a sweet wifey, he is one of the famous men in the world: this is what he want, to be a famous guy, he get this because of you. You are very very good to him.
He died in 1324? What are you talking about? I was just on the phone with him last week.
This is the mystery, the man said. This is the mystery and it is safe because of you. He publish these things how he do this and someday, someone use them for evil, this is for sure. You save the world, see? We are very grateful.
Marco Polo, like the pool game?
You are not listening.
Who is this talking if it’s not my grandfather, and how do you know Milione?
I thought you understand this, boychik.
I don’t understand, Leonard said. This is what I’ve been saying.
Boychik, this is Isaac. Isaac the Blind.
Lenny
You’re making me crazy! Leonard said. I don’t believe anything you say! I’m not friends with a man who’s been dead eight hundred years. I am Leonard, of Neetsa Pizza, I live in the twenty-first century, I work in a White Room. Why are you using my grandfather’s voice? Who are you?
You will read this book and we will talk. Make special note of the suggestion you make. You find Marco’s false governorship on page 206, his false claim to breaking the siege of Siang-yang-fu on the pages falling after.
The line was dead and the doorbell rang.
Leonard didn’t know he had a doorbell.
Package, a man said. He was wearing a striped green delivery uniform Leonard had never seen before. Leonard put his finger in the fingerprint flasher and took the package. It was a book: The Travels, by Marco Polo.
No one called the rest of that night, so Leonard read. He read about the lands Milione had described. He read critical commentary about Rustichello, the stylistic and possibly substantive contributions that chronicler had made to the book. He read that many didn’t think Marco had been to China, which he called Cathay (he had! he had!). He read about the apparitions that beset men in the Desert of Lop—but not about the Tibetans, there was no word about the Tibetans, or a circle.
Any crazy person could read this book and pretend to be Marco, or think he was Marco, but there were the lies that he, Leonard, had suggested, on page 206 and following, just as Isaac had said.
In case the book itself was a joke, Leonard went to the Brazen Head and typed, “Who is Marco Polo? Is he crazy?” He chose grinning compostmen to collect his answer. They rushed off in their smash truck, stopping to pick up infofile compost chutes all over Italy, China, and in between. They emptied their chutes into the Brazen Head’s mouth; he chomped awhile, then made the following pronouncement:
“Marco Polo (1254–1324), most likely of Venice. He was the first European to travel to certain parts of China, or so he said. The Brazen Head has difficulty with this claim, as the gentleman did not in his Travels mention the Great Wall, or tea, or foot-binding. He also makes dubious claims that aggrandize his position, which the Brazen Head cannot confirm through reference to ancient Chinese sources. On his return to Europe he was made a ‘gentleman commander’ of a Venetian galley and promptly imprisoned by the Genovese, possibly following the Battle of Curzola in 1298. He spent much of his confinement dictating his specious memoirs to Rustichello, an author of tawdry romances. While possibly a lying knave, there is no indication that he was crazy. Sayonara, my good sir!”
As a goodbye, the Brazen Head spit out an apparently inedible tidbit, which might have been a red-robed Tibetan; the figure scurried offscreen.
Something Marco learned in the Desert of Lop enabled him to communicate through the centuries? Was that it? Something to do with the invisible circle, the formulas? Certainly he seemed to know he had the ability to communicate over vast distances, but Leonard didn’t think Marco knew he was speaking with the future. And for some reaso
n, this Isaac guy was concerned that Marco not share that secret; for some reason, he thought the secret would be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The phone bleated.
I tell you, yes, is a mystery, Isaac said.
Who are you, Leonard said, and why me?
Who am I? I am Isaac, son of the RaBaD. Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquières, mebbe you know him?
I don’t know any rabbis.
Of course not. I am known by some as Isaac the Blind. That is because I’m blind.
I get it. Please stop imitating my grandfather—it’s very upsetting.
Your attention is all over the place, this is understandable, but I need you to listen. This is how I do that. Besides, I have to choose some way to talk. You like Marco’s accent? English but Italianate? I work very hard on this translation.
You knew my grandfather, is that how you imitate him?
I knew your grandfather well: he was my pupil in Narbonne. At that time he was known as Azriel.
Was that in the Old Country? Leonard asked. I only knew him as Bertie.
Azriel was a good man, very smart, and powerful, but not always so wise.
Hey! Don’t you say anything bad about my grandfather!
You understand nothing, boychik, but you have the potential to understand much. This is why I choose you. This, and I have no choice.
Choose me for what?
To talk with Marco, for just one example.
Why me? Why did I have to talk to Marco? Why didn’t you do it?
Think, boychik! What do you offer Marco?
I don’t know.
Think!
I was his friend.
Yes!
I was his friend.
And what do friends do?
They, uh, talk.
And what did you do?
Uh, I listened.
Exactly!
You couldn’t do that?
I have talk with so many people, I appeal to their spiritual nature. Rumi, to take just one example of which I am proud. I became Shams, his great friend; I convince him to share his secrets through poetry no one understand, except those who understand. But I couldn’t be Marco’s friend, could I? He doesn’t have a spiritual nature. The best I can do with Marco is a little still, small voice, a little Rustichello …
You were Rusty?
I do a little ibbur. You know what this is?
Metempsychosis: your soul enters a living person so it can perfect itself …
Isaac snorted.
… or help a person perfect his.
This is what I do.
Leonard thought about this a moment.
So this Marco, Isaac continued, he is a good but shallow egg, thinking only about fame and material things of the world. But you, Leonard, you can be his friend. There are other reasons, of course; this you will understand later, mebbe.
I need you to go now.
I call you back, Isaac said.
I won’t pick up. I know when you’re calling.
I find other ways. This is your destiny, Lenny, you have no choice.
Leonard hung up. Only his grandfather called him Lenny, only his grandfather could call him that.
A test
When the phone bleated the next night, Leonard ignored it. The complaints had stopped, and just as well, for Leonard was in turmoil. The White Room, usually so comforting, now made him angry. He didn’t like being confused, he didn’t want to be in silence—he didn’t like it! It had to be that some rabbi who knew his grandfather also knew whoever was pretending to be Marco, a thirteenth-century explorer, and somehow this person had maneuvered him, Leonard, into saying things to the fake Marco so that he, Leonard, would feel later like he’d contributed to the writings of a dead man, while he was still alive, as if that were possible, but why?
But no! Leonard suddenly understood! It was a test! Only a parastatal corporation like Neetsa Pizza had the resources with which to construct such an elaborate Scenario! They had his Life Portfolio, probably they’d recovered sound reels of Grandfather’s voice from the neighborhood webcam, but why? To see whether Leonard followed NP protocol? To see how he’d react in certain hypothetical, highly unlikely Scenarios? It could only be. And he’d failed! He’d talked with Milione for weeks—too late now to report the missing complaints, too late to report the unlikely Scenario for incorporation into improved optimal Listener algorithms!
Leonard was in despair.
When the phone bleated, he picked it up.
This is not a pizza test, boychik, Isaac said. This is your very real life.
I don’t know that. I don’t know that it’s not a test!
Is your pizza people knowing the clapping song?
Isaac began to sing.
What do you want from me? Leonard shouted when the song was over. Leave me alone!
This will never happen. You are chosen, you must know this. You show not so much curiosity for someone of your ability: have you investigated my identity?
I don’t need to! You’re a crazy person in Marco’s loony bin and this is his idea of a joke. Tell him I hate him more than anything! Leonard shouted, and hung up.
He went to the Brazen Head.
“Who is Isaac the blind?” he typed. “Is he crazy? Is he blind? Does he know Marco Polo?” He chose the cartoon spaceship to take off with his query. It landed on several fields and cityscapes, abducting terrified infofile “passengers,” which it quickly probed, then discharged (via an escalator) into the brain of the Brazen Head, which responded thusly:
“Isaac the Blind (1165?–1235?) was a leading Jewish scholar and Kabbalist in Provence, southern France. There is no indication that he was crazy, though the Brazen Head thinks his ideas were pretty out there. Yes, he was blind, though they say he could see into people’s souls. Whatever. He was something of a scold: he is famous for sending a letter to his followers, the rabbis of Gerona, and especially Rabbis Ezra and Azriel, in 1235 (more or less), reprimanding them for sharing mystical secrets with the hoi polloi (ho-hum). Like good boys, they shut up like he asked. He was dead twenty years by the time Marco Polo was born, which you’d know if you’d been listening. Ciao, baby!”
Azriel? Hadn’t Isaac said something about Azriel?
The Brazen Head belched and a tiny figure in a caftan escaped out its mouth, looked wildly around the screen, and ran off.
The grandmother of your grandsons
The phone bleated again.
Lenny, the man said, I need you to listen good. You need to quit this job and do as I say.
Quit my job? Are you crazy? I prepared my whole life to be a Listener!
You prepared many lifetimes to be a listener, which is why you gotta quit this job.
Never! If I quit my job, I’ll never get it back. Neetsa Pizza doesn’t like traitors.
Understand: there will be no more calls, already you answer your last call. Now you do as I say.
Why? You have to tell me why!
The world needs you.
I can’t help the world: I never leave my White Room. I like it here.
There can be no more White Room. Is time for you to meet her.
Who? Isaac, you’re asking too much of me.
Is time for you to meet the grandmother of your grandsons.
Signs and wonders
Leonard hung up the phone. This Isaac whoever-he-was was too cruel. First he squeezed Leonard’s heart pretending to be his grandfather, the only person besides Felix who’d ever truly loved him, then he gave him a friend and took him away, and then he took what was left of his heart, that very small bit of secret hope that maybe someday, somehow, someone who wasn’t a child might love him, and he squeezed that too! All the while pretending to be blind! Was Leonard so obvious? Could anyone see into his heart? The world was even scarier than he’d thought. He slumped to the floor and put his head into his hands.
When the phone bleated again, Leonard ignored it. When it was silent, he picked it up and heard a sound like air
that had been dead for centuries; it sent a chill down his spine, or maybe that was the sudden cold coursing through his room—a mighty wind, actually, a mighty polar wind. Medusa, the neighborly cat, yowled outside. Shivering, Leonard tried to coax her in through the cat-chimney, or even through the door, thinking she might warm him, but she wouldn’t cross the threshold, nor would she leave off yowling.
I’m not listening! Leonard shouted, and the ground started to shake, the sixty-day seal on his grandfather’s closet popped open, the opaque flimsies on his windows became translucent, letting in great light—and from the corner of his eye, he saw movement on his screen: it was his grandfather, wearing his worn brown caftan, gesticulating to a small boy. He and the boy were on the settee in the White Room, before it was a White Room, as the room had been when his grandfather was alive. The boy had a brown afro and a T-shirt that read “I Love Grandpaw.”
Boychik, the grandfather said to the little boy, there will come a day when I will no longer be with you …, and the boy said, Don’t say that, Grandpa! I don’t like it when you say that! and the old man said, Boychik, I need you to listen good. A man will come for you named Isaac. I don’t know how he comes but you gotta do how he says. Remember this, because I won’t be here to tell you! And the boy said, No! I’m not listening! and he put his fingers in his ears and shouted, La, la, la, la! The grandfather smiled and shrugged his shoulders at the adult Lenny, as if to say, Look at yourself! What a boy!
Had that happened? Leonard was shaking. This wasn’t a Neetsa Pizza test, this wasn’t the joke of a loony—this was real, whatever real was.
The phone bleated and Leonard picked it up.
What do you need me to do? he asked.
A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World Page 6
