Burning City

by Ariel Dorfman

  “I’m glad you came to me with this,” he said.

  “I’m glad you were home.” An uncomfortable laugh escaped Heller. “I really have no idea where I’m going.”

  “It’s all right,” Benjamin assured him. “This is where we begin.”

  He went into a separate room, came back with a phone book, and dropped it on the table with a loud smacking sound.

  “How long have you been working at Soft Tidings, then?” Benjamin asked.

  “Around three months, since before school ended.”

  “Three months,” Benjamin said. “You must have helped a lot of people.”

  Heller shook his head. “I’ve tried.”

  “I think you’ve done more than that.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “I think you’re wrong.” Benjamin sat down, started to say something, changed his mind. “You know, I am not going to get into a battle of woes with you. I find the who-has-suffered-more game to be childish and ultimately undignified. It is for people who cannot handle their suffering or for people who feel that there is some fault in not suffering enough. But what I will say is that I have suffered, and I have witnessed suffering, and the only time I have ever accepted defeat was when there was truly nothing to do but harvest my own wounds in hopes that something better might grow out of them. If inaction is one’s only option, fine. If not, then accept that you are being beaten up and do not help life do its job—it is doing fine without your help, wouldn’t you say, Heller?”

  Heller bit his lip.

  “How good is your memory?” Benjamin asked, opening the phone book.

  “Above average,” Heller answered.

  “That is what I thought,” Benjamin said, pleased. He picked up a pen from the table, gave it a click. “Now tell me stories, Heller. Tell me stories about people who were once in trouble. And don’t change any names. . . .”

  Heller began with his first message, a man by the name of Raymundo Caneque, and Benjamin began to flip through the phone book.

  This continued on through the morning and early hours of the afternoon.

  chapter fifty-One

  It was unbelievable, but it was happening.

  Heller watched from his room, a crack in the door showing him the living room, slowly filling with every passing minute past five p.m. Clients from his past, friends of Salim, all gathering together, seated on the couch, foldout chairs, lined up against the wall. Mrs. Chiang, Christoph Toussaint, Velu, Durim Rukes, and countless others. The murmur of discussion was reminiscent of precurtain in an opera house, everyone expectant, waiting for the show to start.

  Eric and Florence stood near the door, overwhelmed at how they had managed to get so involved with their grandson’s life over the course of the past week, considering how little they had seen of him during that time.

  “Did you know Heller knew this many people?” Eric whispered to Florence.

  “I didn’t even know there were this many people,” she confessed.

  Heller still couldn’t bring himself to face them all, and he kept the door between himself and the meeting, which was about to get under way with a declaration from Benjamin Ibo.

  “Can I get everyone’s attention, please?”

  The conversation died down, eyes focused on Benjamin, who stood at the front of the audience. He waited for silence before continuing, straight to the point:

  “It is a damn large city, and we don’t know how much time we have. There are a lot of us, which is good, but at the same time, we don’t need to end up on any goose chases, so . . . I want to make it clear that all information, whether it be concrete or some kind of lead, should be brought first either to myself or to Officer McCullough.”

  The rumble of conversation peaked again at the mention of a police officer in their presence. McCullough stepped forward, away from the wall. He was dressed in slacks and a white button-down shirt. He raised his hand and cleared his throat. . . .

  “I recognize a few of you here today. . . .” The room fell silent. “And while some of you might recognize me, I’m not here as a police officer. My first name is Patrick.”

  Silence.

  “All right.” Benjamin eased back into the saddle. “Now, we need to do this right. Everybody with a cellular phone, raise your hand.”

  Everybody’s hand shot up immediately.

  “Never mind,” Benjamin conceded. “Let’s just do this. Come to me or Patrick, and we’ll divide you into your respective groups. . . .”

  Nobody moved.

  “Let’s get out there!” Benjamin declared, and everything stirred into activity.

  Heller closed the door. He wandered over to his window, the muted sounds of organizing at his back. He pulled out the picture of Silvia. An empty shade of blue passed through him, and he traced his finger over the flat features of her face.

  His door opened.

  “Hey, you coming?”

  Heller slipped the picture into his copy of Don Quixote sitting on the windowsill.

  He turned.

  Rich Phillips was standing in the middle of his room.

  Thermal shorts and Nike T-shirt.

  “Rich . . . ,” Heller said.

  Rich Phillips surveyed the bike posters, models, and magazines. “Look at all this. It’s no wonder you’re the best.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “I came with Iggy.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “He came to help.”

  “And what are you doing here again?”

  Rich shrugged. “Well, you don’t have a cell phone, do you?”

  Heller shook his head, wondering where this was all going.

  “Of course you don’t,” Rich said. “You don’t even have a set of Rollerblades.”

  “I do so have Rollerblades,” Heller said defensively. “I keep them in my closet so I won’t have to use them.”

  Rich gave a short laugh. “You actually have Rollerblades?”

  “Take them, they’re yours. . . .”

  Rich walked over to the closet, opened it. He reached in and pulled out Heller’s blades, held them at arm’s length like a pair of crusted socks.

  He made a face. “You call these Rollerblades? These cheap bastards couldn’t even coast down the Atlantic.”

  “Richard.” Heller was nearing the end of his patience. “What’s your point?”

  Rich dropped the Rollerblades and gave an unconvincing shrug. “They told me out there that you might be getting a call from your parents. Since you can’t be in two places at once, I left your grandparents my cell number. So we can do this and you don’t have to worry about missing your call, seeing as how you’re the only teenager in Manhattan without a cell phone.”

  “I don’t really want to speak to my parents.”

  “Well, I think that’s too bad.”

  “And I don’t think you know anything about this,” Heller challenged.

  “Well, I don’t see how I could—”

  “. . . Your parents aren’t off to every corner of the world except your own—”

  “My parents are dead.”

  Heller shut his mouth.

  Rich put his hands in his pockets, unabashed and direct.

  “When I was fifteen. Plane crash, if you can believe it. I know you of all people would know the statistical improbabilities of that, but . . . it happened. I was raised by my uncle.”

  Heller found his voice. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Well, now you have something new to tell your parents when they call.”

  Heller looked at Rich Phillips, thought, Rich Phillips is in my room.

  Rich coughed, took his hands out of his pockets, and straightened himself.

  “And another thing,” he told Heller. “Stop being such a goddamn pussy about everything.” He turned to the door. “I swear to God, if your skin were any thinner, you’d be transparent, you little bitch.”

  “Richard?”

  Rich looked over hi
s shoulder.

  “What are you doing here again?” Heller asked.

  Rich felt in his pocket, came out with a cell phone. He tossed it to Heller.

  Heller extended his arm, caught it.

  “You tell anyone about me,” Rich warned, “and you’re a dead man.”

  Heller nodded.

  Rich Phillips walked out of the room.

  Heller went to his closet, pulled out a jacket, and followed.

  chapter fifty-two

  The entire day was spent looking for Salim.

  Heller, Rich, and Christoph searched the streets most familiar to them. Velu and a few others wandered the East Village, making their rounds with the vendors. Some of them, on hearing about Salim, packed up their stands and joined in the search. A few patrons from Creole Nights cruised the bars and pubs, dragging out whatever information they could from the bottom of beer mugs and shot glasses.

  Meeting places were set up, strategies revised, neighborhoods circled on maps as they spread themselves all over lower Manhattan. There was little time for Heller to wonder at it all. Just moments when it became clear what was happening, the amount of effort put into the rescue of one man. No poems to be written about it, epic stories to be passed down, no tributes, headlines, movies of the week.

  The rest of the city never stopped as Heller and the rest refused to cease.

  Night made itself known and it was time to take stock of the day.

  Everyone gathered at Creole Nights.

  Much-needed drinks distributed among the search party, tables all occupied, everyone exchanging notes, passing information on to Benjamin Ibo, who went from table to table gathering results. Patrick McCullough and others had turned in for the day. Everyone else compared schedules and was already planning to see who could look for Salim during what hours the next day.

  Heller sat at the bar, drinking a Sprite.

  So far, the day’s endeavors had yielded nothing. He kept an ear tuned to the conversation around him. Mostly Heller just played with his straw, tried to stay awake.

  “Hey, kid . . .”

  Wanda the waitress was now behind the bar. She was wearing glasses that night, black-rimmed and wide, an intellectual flair added to the mix.

  “How’s it all going?” she asked, eyes curious.

  “Not good.”

  “Sorry . . .” She shifted her stance, left hand on her hip, right arm across her stomach with her right hand resting on the left hand. “You want a drink?”

  “I already have one. Thank you, though.”

  “No, no, no,” she clarified. “I mean, do you want a drink?”

  “I don’t know. . . .”

  “It’ll warm you up.”

  “It’s warm enough as it is.”

  “Inside,” she said. “It’ll warm you up inside.”

  And it sounded nice, Heller had to admit it to himself.

  “What do you recommend?” he asked.

  “Something in a Jack.”

  She set down two shot glasses and filled them with an amber glow.

  They picked up their glasses and toasted silently.

  Wanda took her shot and slammed her glass down on the bar.

  Heller didn’t drink his whiskey, only held it. He could smell the fumes and it reminded him of his first night with Salim. Seated in Creole Nights, drinking Lucky’s whiskey and Cokes. It was all swimming in his drink.

  “I shouldn’t,” Heller said, putting down his whiskey. “Salim says I shouldn’t.”

  Wanda looked at Heller with deep understanding. She picked up his shot glass, tilted her head back, sending the sour mash down her throat. She set the glass down and took Heller’s hand in hers, giving it a light kiss. . . .

  “Problem solved,” she said, and left him to his thoughts.

  Heller walked up the steps leading out of Creole Nights.

  He took the cell phone from his pocket and dialed a number Benjamin Ibo had looked up earlier, despite Heller’s protests.

  Heller put the phone to his ear.

  “Hello?” came Silvia’s voice.

  Heller hung up, flipped the phone shut.

  He closed his eyes.

  The phone rang.

  Heller’s eyes snapped open, heart skipping a beat.

  He extended the antenna, answered in as calm a manner as he could manage.

  “Hello?”

  “Heller?”

  It was his father’s voice. Even through the distortion, Heller recognized it.

  “Dad . . .”

  “How are you?”

  Heller sat down on the steps of Creole Nights. “I’m all right. . . .” He didn’t know what to say. “How are you?”

  “Fine. Listen, I’ve only got a minute, it’s hard to get a good connection here.”

  “Yeah, I’m on a cell phone. . . .”

  Static for a second, then his father’s voice again: “You got a cell phone?”

  “No, it’s Rich Phillips’s phone.”

  “Who’s Rich Phillips?”

  Heller found himself breathing out more than in. “How’s Mom?”

  “She’s fine. . . . Have you learned to use the Rollerblades we bought you?”

  “Well . . .” Heller rubbed his face. “I’m getting there.”

  “Oh . . . all right, Heller.”

  A full thirty seconds of static before his father came back on the line: “I have to go, Heller. . . .”

  “Me too.”

  “We’ll be home soon, I promise.”

  “Okay.”

  “Take care of yourself.”

  “I will . . .”

  “I love you.”

  “Me too.”

  A sudden flare of interference hissed into Heller’s ear and then nothing. The connection broken, he closed the phone and pressed it against his forehead.

  The door to Creole Nights opened, jingle of a bell.

  Benjamin looked up at Heller from the depths. “You all right, man?”

  Heller closed his eyes, muttered a reply.

  “You should get some sleep,” Benjamin advised. “That’s what you told me when we first met, when you told me about my mother’s death.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Heller . . .” Benjamin walked up the steps until he was face to face with Heller. “Most of us are done for today. I don’t know how long this is going to take—could be days, so . . . get some sleep.”

  “We have work to do.”

  “Heller, you need to sleep.”

  Heller sighed. He was tired. The day was still running through his bloodstream and he could almost feel the two shots Wanda had taken on his behalf, his body on the verge of collapse. Nerves shot. Lids scratching against his eyes. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he told Benjamin.

  “Hey . . .” Benjamin held out a twenty. “Take a cab, Eshu. I don’t want you falling asleep on the subway and waking up in the Bronx.”

  Heller was too worn out to protest.

  He took the money and stepped to the curb.

  Four taxis went by before one of them finally took pity and stopped.

  chapter fifty-three

  Heller didn’t do as he was told.

  Instead, he went down to Kenmare Street.

  The office lamps were all turned off. Lights from the street and screen savers staved off the darkness, patches of brightness sprawled across the floor, walls, desks. The shadows slept along with the phones, their silence filling every possible space in the empty room.

  Heller stood in the middle of it all, saying goodbye. He felt as though he must have been born in a place like this. Not a hospital, as he had always been told, but in the nerve center of events after closing time. The comfort of absolute stillness.

  The door to Dimitri’s office opened.

  Heller turned.

  He saw Dimitri standing in the doorway, holding a glass of transparent liquid. Dimitri didn’t seem surprised to see him. Heller wasn’t surprised, either, and it occurred to him that he had been expectin
g it.

  “Hello, Heller.”

  “Hey, Dimitri . . .”

  Dimitri wandered into the room. His steps were out of rhythm with the rest of him. He made his way to a desk in front of Heller and leaned against it with his back to the windows. Street light poured in behind him, hiding his face.

  “So . . .” Dimitri’s voice was as reasonable as Heller had ever heard it. “You want to tell me how you got in here?”

  “I have my own set of keys,” Heller said, holding them up. They glinted in the darkness.

  “What about the combination lock?”

  “Iggy told me the combination,” Heller said. “Couple of months ago, actually.”

  “Kid’s got a big mouth.”

  “The biggest.”

  They lapsed into silence. Dimitri took a sip of his drink, then set it down. Heller watched him swallow, and a bizarre idea came to him:

  “So now that you’re not my boss anymore, could I just, like, take your drink and pour it on your head without any consequences?”

  Dimitri gave a pleased guffaw. “I wouldn’t, if I were you. Never cross a Russian.”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Any particular reason you’re here?”

  “I came to clear out my desk.”

  “You don’t have a desk.”

  “Huh . . .” Heller looked around the room. “No wonder it’s taking so long.”

  “You don’t have anything to take from here,” Dimitri said, his words slurring a bit.

  “Well, then I came to give these back,” Heller said, placing his keys on a nearby desk.

  “Put those back in your pocket,” Dimitri told him, suddenly serious.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ll suspend you for a week out of respect for the dead,” Dimitri said. “After that, you’re free to come back to work.”

  Heller shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

  “Didn’t you just hear me?”

  “You’ll be fine without me, Dimitri.”

  “We need you at this place, Heller.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  Dimitri looked down at the floor.

  “You really don’t,” Heller insisted softly. “So I’m leaving my keys. And don’t worry about my father. I’ll handle him.”