The Skill of Our Hands--A Novel

by Steven Brust

  Ren shrugged. “I’ll go with Jimmy and Oskar, then. I need to eat.”

  “Are you okay?” Jane asked.

  “Yeah,” Ren said. “I think so. I’m probably just hungry.”

  “We’ll see you there, then.” Oskar angled himself between Frio, Sam, and Jane like a farm dog working sheep, and closed the door behind them. He came to stand over Ren, where she sat on the sofa. “Do you need other clothes?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Of course she doesn’t. She looks lovely.” Jimmy returned from Irina’s shower with damp trouser cuffs, re-buttoning his sleeves. “Irina won’t be joining us for dinner. She has prior plans.”

  “Perhaps I should stay and accompany her,” Oskar said.

  Jimmy held out his hands to Ren. She stood up cautiously, but didn’t get dizzy. Jimmy held on to one hand, but Oskar reached between them, took Ren by the shoulders, and folded her against his chest. She was still irritated with him, but his large, tender fingers stroked her hair, and he soothed her head down onto his shoulder, his breath matching hers. Ren closed her eyes, and inside that soft darkness, the ache and howl in her chest swelled and thinned. Jimmy opened one arm, and Oskar settled Ren’s body between his and Jimmy’s, wrapping their backs and coiling his fingers over Ren’s wrist. Cocooned inside their gathered strength and comfort, nothing eased or released in Ren, but nothing else broke. If they could all ever agree on what and how, they could do anything. “Come to dinner, mon ami,” Jimmy told Oskar. “We need each other now.”

  Ren nodded in agreement against Oskar’s chest, and felt the muscles harden under her cheek.

  “Work will wait,” Jimmy said.

  Oskar’s sob was almost a bark, and if Ren hadn’t felt his arms and chest trembling around her, she might have thought he’d just coughed. Jimmy whacked his back with an open palm and their little knot came apart with Jimmy’s battle call of “Tamales, ho!” and Oskar’s quickly-turned-away face.

  They collected bags and shoes and piled into Jimmy’s rented SUV under cover of banter about Oskar’s need for speed and Jimmy’s tendency to take the more scenic surface streets. Oskar grumbled about having been made to wait at the beginning of the dust ritual, although Ren hadn’t minded. She had used the time to warn Jane about the way it felt to relive another person’s memory, how you don’t fall into it, it’s more like coming into a dream, you don’t notice the transition, you just are. They hadn’t waited long, but until every Incrementalist was in the Garden, the seeds of the stubbed were inert; they could be grazed, but not experienced.

  It seemed like a design flaw to Ren, to have all of them offline at the same time, but she guessed it was good for group cohesion. Living another person’s memory—actually experiencing a part of their life as they had—created something beyond empathy. Irina’s dust ritual had certainly been part of why Ren could forgive her for the poisoned tea. She wondered how many of Phil’s memories Irina had relived in the seven hundred years they’d dusted each other. The ritual made them all a part of each other the way each of them had a Garden that was part of the Garden, the way her grief was theirs too, and she was grateful for it.

  * * *

  Takamatsu rang the doorbell and waited.

  “Well, Matsu,” said Irina, opening the door. “How are you? The last time I saw you, you were kicking the shit out of my arm.”

  “The last time I saw you, you were Celeste,” he said.

  “Her actions, my arm.” Irina stepped away from the front door to let him into the house.

  “Where are the others?”

  “Where would you expect?” she said, going back into the kitchen where a length of dried bamboo was smoking in a saucer.

  “Eating,” he said, surveying Ren and Phil’s kitchen. “Somewhere nice. Jimmy’s paying.”

  “There, you see? You don’t need anyone to answer questions for you.” Irina flipped her hair upside down, steeping it in the sweet smoke.

  “You’re preparing switches,” he said.

  “Your powers of observation are astounding.”

  “Switches for—?”

  “Meddlework,” she snapped.

  “Are you angry with me, Irina?”

  She considered him from behind her veil of hair. “I don’t think so,” she said. “But I have someplace to be. Were you on the plane during the dust ritual?”

  He nodded.

  “You must be exhausted.” Irina straightened, pinned up her hair, and opened the sliding glass door. “Get some rest. You have the house to yourself, a big, empty couch, and a dog to keep you company.”

  Takamatsu let the dog in from the porch, and it sniffed his hand in an information-gathering way Takamatsu respected. He scratched behind the beast’s ears as a sort of apology that he was not Phil. “How long ago did they leave?” he asked.

  “Maybe half an hour. They were going to leave you a note, but Oskar said you’d be hours.”

  “I made a connection I hadn’t counted on.”

  “Lovely. Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

  “What doesn’t fit, Irina?”

  Irina stopped with her hand reaching for the doorknob. “Pardon?”

  “There’s something that’s threatening us, Irina. What is it?”

  “You’d know that better than—”

  “No, I mean for you. For what you’re working on. There’s something—someone—you’re afraid of. Afraid of for all of us, but I can’t see what it is.”

  She hesitated. “I know you can’t. You’ll have to trust me. I’m already late. We’ll talk later.”

  “You know,” Takamatsu said, “we’re on the same side, Irina. We all want the same things. We shouldn’t be fighting each other.”

  “I know,” she said, and for an instant their eyes met. “But this isn’t about Phil,” she said. “It’s about Ren. It’s always been about Ren.” And she was out the door, leaving Takamatsu frowning and wondering.

  * * *

  I now understand why Irina couldn’t tell any of us what was going on. Things had run off the rails for her, and she was trying to put them right, knowing we’d all be furious with her for what she’d been attempting, and for how it had gone wrong. Her most recent Second died in disgrace, after all, and the group’s good opinion means a great deal to her. Which I don’t understand. Still, I can’t help thinking if I’d been helping her, maybe things might not have gotten bad as they did. It would have been hard for them to go worse. Especially for Frio.

  —O

  * * *

  DECEMBER, 1857

  “IS HE WITH HER? IS SHE TRAPPING HIM?”

  Celeste took a room at the Free State, but we spent the days together, Celeste questioning me about when it was right to kill someone. The argument got heated, cooled off, got heated again, and sometimes wandered in and out of our history together and the Incrementalists’ mission, but kept returning to the same place and devouring itself like the Ouroboros.

  ME: I’m not a killer.

  HER: I know, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do what’s needed.

  ME: If we find ourselves planning to kill someone who wants to make things better, Celeste, something is wrong with either our goals or our methods.

  HER: When our goal is the saving of hundreds of innocent lives, surely our method must be any possible one.

  ME (AFTER SOME THOUGHT): I can’t answer your argument. But I won’t kill a man who is trying to do good.

  HER: Even when you know the outcome of his involvement, no matter his intention, will be fatal for many?

  ME: We can never know the outcome. We, ourselves, have sometimes made things worse, have we not? How can I kill someone who is trying to end slavery, however much I might abhor his methods?

  HER: How can you fail to stop someone who is going to incite the widespread murder of innocents?

  ME: For the love of—! I told you, Celeste. I can’t do it. If you’re that certain, then you get involved. I won’t try to stop you.

  HER: You
cannot do yourself what you know needs to be done, but you will allow it of me? Your argument is not that we do not kill, but that you cannot? Because you must keep your hands clean, let mine be fouled?

  ME: I cannot do it. If you’re so certain you’re right, then take what action you choose.

  HER: And you’ll sit in your cottage and knit? You won’t stop him. You won’t stop me. Your moral conviction prevents you from involving yourself at all. But sins of omission are damnable all the same.

  ME: (staring at the floor obstinately silent)

  HER: And what will you tell yourself as the death toll climbs? “At least my hands are clean?” You’d suffer lifetimes of shame, and bear forever the guilty burden of the deaths you could have prevented rather than endure the momentary discomfort of looking into a moral man’s eyes and pulling the trigger for the good of something greater? We live too long to suffer thus. It is one man’s life. Ended but a little early. They will hang him. You would only carry out the law’s sentence in advance, and save so many lives.

  ME: You’re right. We have lived long. And one thing we’ve learned is, if we find ourselves planning to kill a good man, something is wrong either with our methods or our goals.

  Et cetera, et cetera.

  It took days, but she finally saw she wouldn’t be able to convince me, and resolved to leave. We sat in my cottage and drank coffee and she gave me a Frishmuth Brothers cigar as an apology. It was the sort of cigar Henry’s—my Second’s—father used to smoke. She put her hand on my leg and said, “I do respect your convictions, you know.”

  I nodded and let the smoke roll around in my mouth. I didn’t care for it all that much, but the memories were nice. Then I looked at it, frowned, looked at Celeste, and said, “Are you—?”

  She laughed. “No, dear James Tilly. Just offering an apology.”

  “All right.” I blew smoke out into the cabin. “I accept.”

  “What do you think will happen?”

  “With Brown?” I sighed. “I don’t know. Either way it works out, there will be killing.”

  “And the Abolition movement?”

  “He’ll set it back. Maybe fifty years, maybe more.”

  She nodded and smiled at me, a little wistful. I covered her hand with mine, remembering when we were together in London, how she’d looked at me, and Lattimer’s old heart gave a thump in my chest.

  She spoke softly, almost inaudibly. “All those people,” she said. There were tears in her eyes.

  She left that evening, catching a ride to the ferry with one of Cody’s sons.

  I lay down for a few hour’s sleep, and my pillow smelled like her hair. As soon as the sun rose, I picked up my carbine, binoculars, and plenty of jerky. Then I bundled up against the winter and started off toward Osawatomie to shoot John Brown.

  FIFTEEN

  All the Bodies Packed Together

  Ren marveled at Jimmy’s orchestration of their late-night dinner under the Cup Café’s striped awning outside his hotel. He ordered a bottle of wine, choreographed the combining of tables, and explained to the staff that their party might be joined by three to five more people, but that all charges, plus a twenty-five percent gratuity for everyone involved including busboys and kitchen staff, were to be billed to his room. Satisfied it was arranged, Jimmy squeezed past Oskar to sit between him and the café wall. Oskar frowned at the empty chair across from him beside Ren, but she had dropped her shoulder bag on it, and sat with her napkin unfolded in her lap and her feet tucked under the chair like her nana had taught her ladies ought to sit.

  Her nana would have loved The Hotel Congress with its abrupt art deco angles in muted southwestern shades. Nana would have appreciated the kitsch and the authenticity of it, the shimmering tile and neon lettering, and the chandelier made of wine bottles. She would not have appreciated the floor tiled with pennies. Money was for saving and sometimes spending. It was not for decorating or folding into bow ties. Ren waited for Jimmy to get comfortable before asking the question she’d been formulating while he drove and argued with Oskar and his phone’s GPS.

  “I know we check people out before we spike them.” She eyeballed Oskar before turning to Jimmy. “But Frio volunteered, so we don’t need to gather switches to recruit him, and he’s been working with Sam for months, so we know he’s altruistic. What else do we need to do before we can spike Phil’s stub into him?”

  “Who decided Frio gets Phil’s stub?” Oskar didn’t rocket forward in his chair, but his fingers curled around its arms like tree roots. “You might remember, Ren, what happened the last time someone spiked a stub into an insufficiently vetted recruit.”

  Ren didn’t wince, and she didn’t drop his eyes. “No, Oskar, I’ve forgotten,” she said, perhaps a little tartly. “Can you remind me please, ye great bastion of collective memory, when that last occurred?”

  “Where is that wine?” Jimmy looked over his shoulder, jostling Oskar with his elbow as he twisted.

  Oskar leaned in toward Ren. “When Phil spiked Celeste—”

  “I’m sorry,” Ren said. “Who’s Celeste?”

  Jimmy’s face, whipping back to face her, made Ren instantly regret she’d let Oskar pique her. “No, Jimmy.” She reached across the table for his hand. “I was teasing Oskar. I remember everything. Or as much as I ever have anyway. I’m sorry, that wasn’t funny.”

  “No,” Jimmy said. “It wasn’t.” He looked frayed, and Ren felt worse for having frightened him. “And I agree with Oskar, as much as it pains me to say so.”

  Oskar smiled wryly and sat back. “Always happy to cause you pain.”

  Jimmy ignored him. “I think it’s too soon to rule out Sam.”

  “That’s not what I said,” Oskar said.

  “Well thank god for small mercies.” Ren unballed her napkin and smoothed it again.

  “What I said,” Oskar over-enunciated, reproaching Ren for having cut him off. “Is that we haven’t decided on Frio. He’s a candidate. As Sam is a candidate. Kate’s recruiting too, so whoever she’s identified is also a candidate, and I’ll bet that’s what Irina is up to right now too, working on yet another candidate.”

  “Why would you think that?” Ren asked him.

  “Have you ever known Irina to pass up a meal when Jimmy was buying?”

  “No.” Ren clarified, “I meant why would she be working on another recruit? She seemed pretty keen on Frio.”

  “She knew I wouldn’t be.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s military.”

  “He’s law enforcement, Oskar.”

  “That’s worse, if anything. Not that there’s much difference these days.”

  “Ex-law enforcement.”

  “That doesn’t matter, I’m not talking job description, I’m talking personality.”

  “Oh thank god,” Jimmy said as a slender sylph of a waitress materialized at Oskar’s side. Ren realized that Kendra, the waitress from The Palms, wouldn’t know that Phil was dead, and that stupid thought threatened to drive her to tears again. She focused on the wine bottle. The waitress turned it label-out, and presented it to Jimmy first, who nodded, then to Oskar, who also nodded.

  “Would you also,” said Oskar, “show it to the lady?”

  “Of course.” The waitress turned the bottle to Ren.

  Ren loved product packaging, and would deliberately pay more for soap with a beautiful label or tea bags in an unusual canister to reward the manufacturer, but the wine label was all words, and Ren knew nothing about wine. And Oskar knew that. The waitress caught her not reading it and winked at the childish rebellion. Ren figured the girl was maybe nineteen, and the care she’d taken with her liquid eyeliner and subtly graduated earrings suggested she liked waiting tables here, where customers tipped well and were usually polite.

  Polite but so unpredictable. Ren read the irritation in the slight nose twitch under the wink. One table wanted to go ladies first, the next one didn’t like it when she looked from wife to wife. The ta
ble after that just went in a circle. If she gave the bill to the man when the woman was buying, she’d get the Feminist Frown. If she gave the check to the woman, the man didn’t tip. Usually she’d put it in the center of the table and let them fight over it, but not this table. She’d put it smack in front of Oskar for sure. Or she’d try, but Jimmy would get it first.

  “Looks great to me,” Ren told her, and the waitress opened a little knife and slit the foil from the bottle like it was Oskar’s neck.

  She poured the sample for Jimmy, offering wordlessly to do the same for Oskar or Ren.

  Ren shook her head.

  “No thank you,” Oskar said, a chord in his voice Ren knew she’d heard before, but couldn’t place. Oskar thanked the waitress again when she filled his glass.

  “Goodness, Oskar,” Ren said when the girl left. “So polite.”

  “She’s making maybe four dollars an hour plus tips. She doesn’t need me getting in her face.”

  “And you think I do?” Ren sipped without tasting. “I make enough money that it’s okay to be an asshole to me? Is there a bracket system—assholery relative to income?”

  “Ren,” Jimmy said.

  “What do we need to do before we can spike Phil into Frio?” Ren repeated.

  “Ren.” Oskar didn’t sound angry or even impatient. “Frio may not be the best choice.”

  “I’m okay with the good-enough choice if it gets Phil back tomorrow.”

  “We all miss him,” Jimmy said.

  “We more than miss him. We need him,” Ren insisted. “What’s wrong with Frio? It will really be Phil, just Frio’s body.” She turned to Oskar. “Weren’t you telling me just the other day that bodies aren’t what matter?”

  “Bodies aren’t all that matter,” Oskar said. “But they matter. High levels of endogenous testosterone are strongly correlated with dominance-seeking behavior. In adolescent males of lower social and economic status, high testosterone levels manifest in physical violence and crime. Guess who joins the army?”