Zeitgeist

by Bruce Sterling

“Because I rehearsed that story line to myself. I looked into one of these palace mirrors, I told it to myself aloud. I said, ‘I killed Leggy Starlitz. I shot him several times. I threw him into the sea in a bag with many heavy chains.…’ That story just didn’t sound plausible. It was very unconvincing. It had a very false feeling about it. Do you know that feeling? You must know it. When you’re torturing a man and he’s hiding something from you, there’s a sound in his story that you learn to recognize. A false note in the story.…”

  Starlitz tapped cigar ash.

  “But listen to this: ‘Leggy Starlitz died on New Year’s Day 2000.’ ”

  Starlitz’s hand froze.

  “ ‘Starlitz simply vanished. Starlitz was all over. Starlitz was all wrapped up, he was put away forever. Leggy Starlitz ceased to be. There was a last tick of the clock for the sordid creature called Starlitz. The new world had no more use for Starlitz. In a new millennium he served no narrative purpose.’ ”

  “Shut up, man.”

  Ozbey laughed triumphantly. “Now I’m talking your language.” He went to the wall, removed a short and nasty-looking poignard from its pearl-sewn scabbard. “I don’t pretend that I can kill you with this knife. I know better than that. I could scar you, maybe. Cut off your finger, or even a hand. But not kill you.” Ozbey set the blade on his desk and pulled off his yachting jacket. He threw the jacket deftly over his chair. “Here. Take that knife, and kill me.”

  “No, thanks, man.”

  “Wait a moment. How stupid of me.” Ozbey removed his shirt and ripped the Velcro tabs on a light undervest of NATO-issued bulletproof Kevlar. “Here. Try. Go ahead. Kill me. I live close to death every day. I gamble my life, I snort cocaine, I race fast cars, I have unprotected sex with glamorous, promiscuous women. I’m an international playboy spy. Go ahead, stab me to death. Right in the heart, eh?” He pounded his chest. “Come on.”

  “Mehmetcik, this is not my style.” Starlitz set his glass carefully aside. “I mean, you’re all coked out and winging it way outside the script here, and this is such a great carpet you’ve got on your beautiful hardwood floor.…”

  “Don’t make excuses. You can’t. That is the deeper reality. You can’t. It’s not in your power. What would happen? The narrative would not allow it. Drey would come in suddenly to stop you. The knife would break. I can’t be killed by you. Because I am great. I know I am great. I am a lion of the Turkish nation. I can’t be merely killed: I can only be martyred. I can’t die like the common man I once was. Because I’m no longer myself. I’m not entirely here. I’m not entirely now. I exist below the shallow reality of daily life. I have achieved a true mastery, Starlitz. I am powerful, yet unspeakable. Events pass through me, and into the fabric of history, without ever taking place.”

  “You’ve got to drop this and step back, Mehmetcik. You’re spreading yourself way too thin here. You’re all over the map. The master narrative can’t take that cheap, gratuitous shit. You can be the Ascended Guru Master, or the Dapper Don with the showgirls, or the Secret Spymaster with the smack, but you can’t be all of those at once and stay sustainable.”

  “That is your version of the narrative, not mine.”

  “We are in my narrative, man.”

  “No, we’re not. You are in my homeland and my culture, and this is my narrative.”

  Starlitz groaned. “I hate this kind of shit, okay?” He snatched up the knife and drove its curved blade deep into the desktop. “Maybe I can’t stab you. But not because you say so. You can’t say squat to me. You can’t dominate my fucking narrative, because we are speaking fucking English. Listen to yourself. You’ve got nothing more to say. I’m telling you that none of this actually happened. You can’t argue with me, because my language defines the terms. You can’t discuss it any further, because it never took place.”

  Ozbey stared at Starlitz in dazed astonishment, then in a growing rage. His face flushed and grew congested. He opened his mouth, and struggled for his confounded words with a distant, muted squeak.

  Ozbey turned and spat on the carpet. He clenched his fists, beet-red with rage, trying to rush forward.

  Something snapped in the realm of the unspeakable. Ozbey bent double in silent pain. His knees buckled in their tailored naval whites. He began to heave.

  With a vomiting rasp a fifty-caliber bullet fell wetly to the carpet. Then came another. They were huge things, with thumb-sized slugs and big brass mil-spec cartridges. This was bad, but the big wet bags of heroin were worse. These weren’t the standard balloon or condom courier bags that human mules would eat and shit out. These were serious, tape-and-poly, kilo smack bags, big fat bricks with the dense, slightly yellow look of window putty. Ozbey was heaving and wheezing them up from his visceral core, with the hair plastered to his forehead and the uncanny look of a starved ghost.

  “Okay, I’m with the story here,” said Starlitz alertly. He pounded heartily on Ozbey’s back with the solid butt of the knife. “It’s something we all go through.”

  Ozbey coughed, spat, sobbed for breath, and heaved again. The atmosphere in the room had become extremely bad. There was a subterranean smell to it, a graveyard, a sewer. A smell far worse than death—it was the smell of very real and genuine things that were explicitly forbidden to exist. Great deeds of valor in a bad cause. Heroic sacrifice in the single-minded service of evil. Adult acts torn from the half-grown souls of children. The mud-caked skeletons of rewritten histories with the luminous teeth of gulag ghosts. Apocalyptic chaos in the service of New World Orders. Villages burnt to ash in order to save them, intellectuals shot in the service of greater understanding.

  Starlitz tucked his solid hands beneath Ozbey’s armpits, and hauled Ozbey from the rippling, preternatural office. He kicked a door open with an expensive-sounding crack. He found a toilet. He left Ozbey near it.

  After six minutes Ozbey emerged into reality. He had washed his face, combed his hair, buttoned his shirt.

  “What do you have to say now?” Starlitz asked him formally.

  Ozbey carefully tested his sore lips and jaw. “All right. That did not happen.”

  “That’s better. Let’s talk like professionals now. It’s a far, far better thing.” Starlitz threw a collegial arm over Ozbey’s sweating shoulder. “Mehmetcik, what do you hear from the pop business lately?”

  They walked unsteadily together into the palace’s waiting room. Seeing Ozbey’s wracked expression, Drey looked up in alarm. Ozbey forestalled him with a lifted hand.

  “Have you heard of a new girl group named ‘Huda’?” Ozbey croaked.

  “Tell me about them,” Starlitz said.

  Ozbey was regaining his fluency. “They’re a Malaysian Islamic girl group. Four girls. No, four women—married women, with children. They wear the Moslem headscarf. And they wear lipstick. And platform shoes. They sing and dance.”

  “No kidding. Damn. When did they premiere?”

  “Nineteen ninety-seven. They’re charting in Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Koranic lyrics exclusively. And they make religious pop videos. Love for Allah. Positive role models for Moslem children …”

  “You know the manager’s name?”

  “His name is Faraddin Abdul Fattah.”

  “That guy’s a friggin’ genius, man. I don’t suppose there’s any likelihood of this guy getting whacked.” Starlitz paused hastily. “Forget I said that.”

  “Let me show you a new car,” Ozbey hedged.

  “Great idea. I’m all for that.”

  They left the palace together for its parking lot, which had crushed and paved the remnants of some preindustrial tulip garden. The sun was setting slowly over Europe in the West.

  Starlitz stopped unbidden by a silver-gray Aston Martin DB5. The car’s fishlike lines and dual mirrors looked uncannily familiar to him. Then he had it: the Aston Martin had been a Corgi toy in 1964, one of the world’s first movie-related action collectibles. The toy car was still in production and still on the market, because the silver
-gray Aston Martin DB5 had starred in Goldfinger, Thunderball, and On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

  Half the planet’s population had seen those films. They were a truly planetary cinema, the harbinger of Free World domination. Toward the end of the century the property had even adopted the native cinematic structure of Third World chop-socky epics. It had abandoned merely Modernist plot structure for a steady, rhythmic round of stunt violence, expensive sets, and a hot babe. Sadism, Snobbery, and Sex, a Free World formula that was the twentieth century’s catnip for the masses.

  The car’s presence in Ozbey’s lot was distinctly unheimlich. Starlitz hadn’t seen a car with so much panache since he had discovered that subsonic Salt Lake rocket-racer in the basement of the Utah State Capitol. The Aston Martin’s front headlamps looked distinctly loose, as if they might flip up at any second for the dual phallic probes of perforated rapid-firing vintage Brownings.

  Could this be the actual car itself? Starlitz recalled with awe that the movie car had been mysteriously stolen from the aircraft hangar of an American collector.

  “It’s pretty, but you can’t keep that car in repair,” said Ozbey dismissively.

  “Oh.”

  “It’s not about the British anymore. Not at all. And the gadgets never work. Forget the shoe-heel telephones, and the exploding fountain pens. Get a real gun.”

  “Mmmph.”

  “Mercedes limo, very specialized,” said Ozbey, beckoning him over. “This is a true Eurocar. Manufactured in twelve different countries. Digital instruments. Global positioning. Modern armor plating. A private arsenal inside the trunk.”

  Starlitz stepped closer to the vehicle. The thing wasn’t even made of metal. It was all about spun carbon, foamed aluminum, and just-in-time CAD-CAM manufacturing. “She’s a beauty,” he admitted.

  “It’s a gift,” said Ozbey proudly. “A gift for my friend, Mr. Sedat Severik, the parliamentarian.” Ozbey leaned against the gleaming bumper. “Foreigners say that all Turks hate all Kurds. It’s a lie. They don’t know the good, decent Kurds of this country as I do. They’ve never been to Sanliurfa, Gaziantep, Adana, where Turkey’s simple mountain people are trying to make a peaceful life, without any politics or Communists. Severik Bey, he’s a fine old country gentleman. I’m proud to call him my friend.”

  Ozbey patted the hood affectionately. “He has his own plantations, olive groves, kilim weavers, hundreds of personal soldiers.… He likes things quiet on his own estates. That man enjoys the good things in life, hospitality, horses, young women … and he needs a fine car. Traitors and terrorists hate that man. The Kurdish traitors spend most of their time and energy killing decent Kurds. Severik Bey … for the cause of our national unity he has given many cousins. But a Mercedes armored limo”—Ozbey smiled—“I would bet on this fine car against an Iraqi tank.”

  “Can the old guy drive?”

  “Does that matter? He can crush anything in his path!”

  “I’ve got to give you credit, Mehmetcik—when you do it, you do it up brown. You’re a very generous guy.”

  “Thank you. Your Japanese boss in Hawaii—does he have any complaints about me?”

  “Well, except for the Dead Ones, he thinks the world of you, man.”

  Ozbey nodded. “I treasure his good opinion. And yours, of course. Why don’t you stay at the palace tonight? We’re having a little video party. Some members of Parliament from the True Path party and the MHP, some bankers and their mistresses.… When we captured Ocallan, there were Kurdish riots all over the world. Kurdish traitors publicly set themselves on fire!”

  Ozbey spread his hands, a little sheepishly. “I know it seems unusual, but when terrorist Kurds, on fire, attacked and seized that Greek Embassy … well, I have to say it was one of the most fulfilling moments of my life. No—it was one of the great moments of the whole twentieth century. I have all of the highlights on videotape: CNN, Deutsche Welt, Brazilian Globo News, all the clippings. I have to say that the boys and I never tire of them. We show them to diplomats, politicians, secret police … all through Turkish high society. It never fails to raise a smile.”

  Starlitz considered the offer. He had no baby-sitter. “I’m afraid I have to miss it. Got other plans.”

  “We’ll be going out to the dump later, to shoot rats with pearl-handled revolvers.”

  “Got another engagement, man. Sorry.”

  “You don’t fit in,” decided Ozbey, with finality. “I can’t make you fit into the coming world. I’m sorry, Starlitz, but I don’t want to see you anymore. It doesn’t suit either of us. Before I understood my own destiny, I could tolerate having you in the same reality. But not anymore. You have the smell of doom.”

  “What about the band?”

  “I am breaking your number-one rule. They are useful to me, and they matter. After Y2K they will only matter more. I am turning them into my own weapon.”

  “You break that number-one rule, pal, and you are dead in Y2K.”

  “No, Starlitz. You’re just projecting your own Westernized assumptions. You are dead in Y2K.”

  “I’m promising you, right now—you drop the band, or you are dead in Y2K.”

  “I’m not dead in Y2K. I’m just getting started. You are dead.”

  “Ozbey, wake up, man. You have already got two and a half Dead Ones. You can’t keep piling them up. Do you think smack is Coca-Cola? They’re both addictive, but it’s a matter of degree and kind.”

  “I’m Turkish! Am I supposed to be afraid of heroin? It’s what we have! The Afghans won their freedom with heroin! The Albanians are fighting to the death with heroin! I don’t want to have this argument!” Ozbey sighed. “I just don’t want to have it. So, be quiet. I’ll buy you. That settles it. Money talks in every language. I have a valise in the office that is full of Bulgarian currency … what do they call it?”

  “Forints?” Starlitz offered.

  “No.”

  “Koruna?”

  “No.”

  “The Bulgarian lev?”

  “That’s it. Nice new bills. Crisp. Hardly used, because Bulgaria is barely capitalist. Take that valise, go to Cyprus, launder it. Go vanish. Wink out. You cannot save me. You can’t even save yourself.”

  “You expect me to write off my obligation to those girls for a single leather satchel full of cheap Bulgarian cash? After all I did for them? After all my plans?”

  “Yes. That’s my expectation. Take it or leave it.”

  Starlitz scratched his head. “How about two satchels? I have a traveling companion.”

  STARLITZ WAS FED UP WITH AIRCRAFT TRAVEL. IT WAS too clean, inhuman, and anesthetizing. He rented a cheap car in Istanbul and cheerfully drove across Turkey, through crazed, high-speed, packed traffic, on many very bad roads.

  Zeta had passed out from hunger, jet lag, and star worship inside the German One’s room. A calming childish nap had done her a lot of good. She happily drummed the flats of her hands on her personal calfskin valise. “Dad, it’s cool to have lots of cash, right?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “When does the German One get her million dollars?”

  Starlitz cleared his throat. “The German One is talent, honey. She gets limos, and big, screaming crowds. But as for the talent keeping any of the money, well, pop’s rich tapestry is never much with that.”

  “Dad, she told me being a star isn’t that great, Dad. She says that people think stars wear nice clothes and go to parties all the time. But she works super hard, Dad. She’s always in the gym, and she never gets enough to eat. She says she’s gonna make it to Y2K, and get her stupid million dollars, and go home to Bremen, and sleep for five years. I mean, that was the deal.”

  “Maybe that could still happen somehow, but it’s not our problem anymore. The G-7 scene is past repair. The scene got stuck inside Turkey, and it is violently mutating, and it is gonna blow. So if somebody’s gonna tie off the narrative and scram with the loot, reasonably speaking, it’s got to be us.”

>   Zeta fell into thoughtful silence, which wavered, over the passing kilometers, into a carsick sulk.

  They slept in a seaside hotel in Antalya. They drove the rental car onto the morning car ferry to Turkish Cyprus. After disembarking, green with pitching seas and the ferry’s diesel fumes, they drove across the island into the cramped medieval streets of Lefkosa.

  They found Viktor in a working-class section of the Turkish Cypriot capital. Viktor had come to favor a grimy restaurant, in the ground floor of a bullet-pocked 1960s housing project. Viktor’s favorite dive had a cozy, bunkerlike feeling, for the walls were thick cement, the northern windows were small and curtained, and the restaurant had only one door left. The building had once had an exit and a view to the south, but the southern wall was smack against the Green Line, facing Greek Cyprus. So the whole southern face of the building had been entirely bricked up.

  Viktor wore a floral shirt, tinted shades, tailored khaki trousers, and Turkish-pirated pseudo-Italian shoes. It was lunchtime, and Viktor was wolfing down a red, murky lamb soup, next to a table with a quartet of UN troops. These soldiers were mustached, booted Argentines, wearing camo and baby-blue berets. They were devouring spiced kebabs and chatting in Spanish about the local hookers. The Argentines had the wary eyes of guys who worried a lot about where the crosshairs might be centered, but they didn’t look too unhappy about their UN military assignment. There weren’t many circumstances in the world where Falklands campaign veterans were treated like humanitarians.

  The diner’s owner sidled over in his stained apron. He had a cast in one eye, and looked about as crooked as it was possible for a humble cook to look. Starlitz examined the diner’s semiliterate, polyglot menu. He had badly missed the excellent Cypriot cuisine during his travels. He joyfully ordered sautéed brains, diced fried liver, and grilled kidneys. Zeta had a white rice soup.

  “I love the UN, don’t you?” said Viktor in Russian, with a lingering sidelong glance. “They seem so much kinder than NATO.”

  Starlitz ripped up a pita bread and dipped it in chickpea sauce.