“I know that you are a poet, a great poet, but you may not understand what I am about to show you. Computers did not exist in your time. Nonetheless, I would like your impression.”
The screen behind him came to life and displayed a detailed map of the Louisiana chemical corridor. Certain areas, marking industries along the Mississippi River between New Orleans and Baton Rouge, were pulsing. Tesla was very familiar with the map because he’d been studying it for his own reasons.
“Isn’t it beautiful? There are Bamajans working everywhere.”
“You are right,” conceded Tesla. “I do not know what I am seeing.”
“Beautiful! Beautiful! ‘I do not know what I am seeing!’ Ah, poetry!”
No one objected when Tesla rose and headed for the door. He was not surprised that no one stopped him. They had perfect confidence in their technique. He shut the door behind himself and could hear the bald one even as he walked away: “Ah, poetry! What did I tell you! This is going to be fun!”
Tesla heard another voice, hoarse and growly, belonging no doubt to the man with the crooked crosses on his arm: “Shut the fuck up, cue ball! Poetry, my ass.”
Tesla bumped into a man dressed in coat and tails. Under his arm was a conductor’s baton.
“Where do you keep the female slaves?” Tesla wanted to know.
“The what? The dormitories are in the back, in the Lord’s Hands Apartments.”
Above one of the doors farther down the hall was written THE LORD’S HANDS APARTMENTS. Tesla opened it and struck gold. Felicity was kneeling on a prie-dieu, her eyes cast up at a crucifix, and singing. She looked sleepy but happy as inspired sounds bubbled like a brook out of her. A dreamy smile lit up her face. A faint hum like a distant beehive filled the room, the drone of other worshipers singing in other rooms. The whole building was filled with the instruments of many women’s voices.
Nikola Tesla walked up behind Felicity Le Jeune and said softly, “I am an urban anchorite. I come to help you escape your bondage.”
Felicity thought about this. For days now, her bonds had been slipping. She felt freer than she ever felt in her life. Was it possible to be even freer? Her heart filled again with the joy that no longer hurt when it flooded her, but poured simply in. She had been told that when the first stage of her training was completed she would be transported to Tara, where the beauty of the surroundings came close to what she would eventually encounter in heaven. After that, if her singing at Tara soared beyond her own expectation, she might earn the privilege of moving to the Dome. There was no earthly way to describe the Dome; it was the purest habitat yet created for the suffering soul. The greatest gospel choir ever assembled, one thousand strong, would be trying on its wings at the Dome. If she was nothing short of perfect she would herself be a part of it, and thus blessed to be among the first to behold the radiant face of the Redeemer. This thought unleashed such happiness in her, her entire body shook with prickly delight. Felicity was learning to surrender herself to the joy of this promised freedom. What an extraordinary program, she thought, as she looked eagerly up to Tesla. I wonder what comes next in my education of liberty.
“Are you here to take me to Tara?” she asked brightly, her green eyes glittering with grateful light.
“Quick,” said Tesla. “Speed is of the essence.”
Felicity allowed him to lead her to the stairway and out onto Bourbon Street. It was Christmas Eve, and evening already, but neither the date nor the time of day meant anything to the delirious mobs spilling out of bars and strip joints. A throng of drunken college boys were howling up at a bare-breasted woman on a balcony. The men carried large cups full of sloshing beer. One of them began to vomit on his shoes. Felicity blinked as the strobe effects of a bar hit her. The throb of disco music poured out of the place, and she was paralyzed by fear. She broke into a sweat and looked hopelessly at Tesla. The devil, with horns, hump, hair, hooves, red tongue, stood in the doorway of a club called OZ, dancing obscenely to the horrible thumping music. Tesla shrugged. He was reminded of carnival in Graz; the devil didn’t bother him.
Felicity counterattacked:
It came upon a midnight clear,
That glorious song of old,
From angels bending near the earth
To touch their harps of gold:
“Peace on the earth, goodwill to men,
From heaven’s all gracious King!”
Singing these words, she felt instantly better. She didn’t know why the college boys began to stare at her instead of the bare-breasted woman. Instinctively she crossed her arms over her breasts.
“Please,” Tesla begged her, “don’t sing so loudly.”
Felicity couldn’t stop. She knew all the words to this divine song, and planted firmly on the sidewalk, she crooned:
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love-song which they bring.
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!
But the devils only got louder, and Felicity was compelled to soar above them:
A virgin most pure, as the prophets do tell,
Hath brought forth a Baby, as it hath befell.
And she knew that she was the Virgin most pure, and the molten hells were repulsed.
On and on the songs poured from her like water from a pitcher.
A woman in a yellow vinyl coat, wearing only one shoe, was distributing pamphlets to passersby. She handed one to Felicity and said through her tears, “Hallelujah, sister!” Still singing, and growing stronger, Felicity glanced at the pamphlet. It was entitled What to Do in Case You Miss the Rapture! Below those words was a red-winged devil standing on a replica of the Vatican, the word Rome dripping blood at his feet. It was the Antichrist. Written on the devil’s chest were the numbers 666 and the word VISA.
The partner of the one-shoed woman, an evangelist hefting a huge wooden cross, interposed himself between Felicity and the mob. Screwed to the arms of the cross was a liquid crystal display panel across which ran the words of Jesus in blue. I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.
Tesla was amused by this contraption, and the evangelist, seeing his interest, explained: “I used to shout myself hoarse, but these sinners wouldn’t listen. But they do read, praise the Lord’s tools. I’ve been to China and Russia with this cross and put Jesus’ words up there in their own languages. Amen.”
Sure enough, one of the college boys who had stared wide eyed at the LCD panel now picked up a pamphlet from the street and tapped on the devil’s chest. “Credit is the devil. You can’t believe how much I charged on my Visa card this month!”
Another student snatched the pamphlet and read out loud, but without drowning Felicity’s singing: “‘The Rapture is the immediate departure from this earth of over four million people in less than a fifth of a second. It is going to disrupt communications and transportation like no major war has done in the last hundred years.’”
“That’s right!” shouted the one-shoed woman. “Everyone else is going to hell, you and all the babies born before Jesus came.”
“I guess I’m going to hell,” the drunk said doubtfully. “It says here, ‘Whatever you do, DON’T MAKE ANY MARKS OR PRINTS ON YOUR FOREHEAD OR ON YOUR HANDS. This will not only give you leprosy eventually but will also guarantee you an eternity in the Lake of Fire for participating in Satan worship. A number connected with the number six-six-six will be attached to your Social Security number and to all your credit card numbers, and eventually you will have to show by electronic devices this number imprinted on your hand or on your forehead.’”
“Huh? What the hell does that mean?” wondered his friend.
“Don’t get tattooed, I guess. Well, it’s too late!”
O holy nigh
t! The stars are brightly shining.
It is the night of the dear Saviour’s birth!
Long lay the world, in sin and error pining,
Till he appear’d, and the soul felt its worth.
“‘Your only chance of being saved after the Rapture,’” read the student to his fellows, “‘is to either starve to death or to get your HEAD CUT OFF’? Shit, that’ll be tomorrow. I always feel like that in the morning.”
The one-shoed evangelist was ecstatic. “Yeah, yeah. Sing, angel, sing.” White bubbles appeared at the corners of her mouth.
“What’s wrong with being fucked to death?” another student wanted to know.
Such scenes have a life of their own. A nest of Shades appeared, led by a Rasta man who preached to them as they fanned over the street: “The store of love, mon, the store of love is open, mon. The stocks are low in the store of love, mon. Them no selling love in the store of love, mon. Gotta put something on the shelves of the store of love, mon!”
One of the Shades shouted at a gawking tourist, “What you starin’ at, man? These is the mysteries of New Orleans! Invest in the future! We need a po’boy!”
A big crowd had gathered around the preachers, and Tesla was growing desperate. That cop would be along any minute now, and he would never have Felicity to himself for even an hour. Desperate measures were called for. Tesla reached for his radio tool. A high pitch, like the agony of a dying animal, rose from his hand and broke into Felicity’s song, “We’ve a story to tell to the nations …” But the word “nations” was never heard. The agonized pitch filled the air instead, and the revelers fell back, clutching their ears in terror.
Felicity looked about to faint. Tesla scooped her up by her waist, set her atop his shopping cart, and pushed her through the swaying crowd. He began to run as soon as they reached the corner of Dumaine, but as fewer and fewer people were to be seen, he slowed down. Atop the mound of his possessions, Felicity looked blank. She felt neither happy nor sad, but she was empty of song and felt indifferent.
When they passed the Ursuline convent, a crowd was dancing in the courtyard to the sounds of an R&B band. Tesla had heard on the street what the occasion was, and he explained it to Felicity:
“Bill Gates, the software tycoon, rented the convent for a Christmas Eve party to showcase his version of the afterlife, www.afterlife.com. The people dancing in there are actually attending funerals at virtual cemeteries all over the world. The real mourners see these people’s avatars looking somber and subdued, but as you can see, they are far from it. On the other hand, the dead, whose funerals are taking place, have been virtually revived and are present at this party. Their avatars are dancing while their bodies are being buried. They say that this Gates sets up demonstrations like this at many holy places around the world.”
Tesla did not tell her that his informant had also told him that “the people who formerly worshiped in those holy places shake with anger at this technocratic assault on their beliefs, and their shaking goes into cats, which then attack people while they sleep. These cats must be strangled with bare hands when they approach, or else they kill one, body and soul.” Tesla found this sort of thing reassuring but he didn’t know if Felicity could understand.
In any case, only part of this explanation reached Felicity.
Watching her perched like a queen atop his cart, Tesla thought that her stillness resembled a condition he had experienced in his first human life, a form of hypnotic seizure induced by flickering light. In this state, Tesla was extremely receptive but incapable of speech. He had seen his greatest inventions fully developed during such trances. After an episode he would sometimes remain mute for several days. Tesla thought he recognized his disease in Felicity, and this endeared her to him even more. She is my sister, he decided. Definitely the magnet’s missing piece.
He pushed his cart furiously at the edge of the Quarter, to the warehouse by the river. The crumbling building looked abandoned, but inside was a different story. The vast space that had once held bales of cotton bound for the East Coast and Europe now housed a complex greenhouse. Flowering tubs, pots, and trees, captured by Tesla’s shopping-cart army, sprouted on every square inch. Vines intertwined in complex patterns from ceiling to floor, running the length of the building. The jungle flowed toward an opening in the wall, where Felicity could see shafts of light through the foliage. Felicity inhaled the rich and richly perfumed air and felt suddenly as if the vast floral interior started reaching in to take root in her.
Tesla led Felicity to a hammock inside the maze and pointed to the fuchsia clusters hanging above. He explained, “Those are vanilla flowers; they aid sleep.”
Responding to the questioning plea in her eyes, Tesla continued: “You are inside a chlorophyll propulsion reactor. This greenhouse produces chlorophyll propulsion, a force I will shortly be testing. The plants are arranged in patterns that combine their various energies to produce the active chlorophyll stored in the node over there.” He pointed to the opening. “The warehouse is a multipurpose object. Its primary objective is to clean up that marvelous river before they send Twain down. He’d never get over it.”
“What river?” asked Felicity.
“Why, the Mississippi, of course.” Tesla was astonished. What had they done to her? In his haste to impress her by his chivalry and skill, he had neglected to ask her some elementary questions.
“What is your name?”
“Scheherazade,” Felicity said immediately. She liked this man. Cleaning up a river was work pleasing to God. But where was Tara? She missed her sisters and her singing.
“Are you an incarnate Mind?” Tesla’s favorite book in his earthly life had been the Thousand and One Nights. In heaven he’d missed reading, even though he could meet any writer he wished, from any era of history. Information was also bountiful in heaven because angels were libraries. All one had to do is stop one of the myriad of these creatures and find out anything instantly. The abundance of riches had so bored him, he had dedicated his eternity to playing cards. He didn’t think Felicity was an incarnate Mind, but her name had the ring of one.
“When do we go to Tara? I want to sing. Where is Joan? Amelia? When do they arrive?”
Whoever the creature was, she had been set on a narrow track. Tesla decided to finish explaining the purpose of the green machine, hoping to surprise her with the grandeur of his conception. Perhaps she was bored.
“The second mission of the chlorophyll propulsion reactor is to change the earth’s magnetic field and to set it spinning the other way.”
He waited for her to ask why, but when she didn’t he went on.
“When the magnetic field is disturbed, all our ideas will change. What now appears urgent will seem quite unnecessary, and vice versa. A certain balance should be restored.”
“The river,” said Felicity, showing a spark of interest. “How can you clean the river?”
“The process requires stopping the chemical industry along the lower Mississippi,” Tesla explained. “I will be using the river to conduct chlorophyll waves, which are similar to electricity. The river will become a live wire that will neutralize anything connected to it by metals. Using a similar machine, propelled by magnetic waves, I once produced lightning flashes measuring one hundred and thirty-five feet, from a distance of twenty-five miles. The chlorophyll currents will produce photokinetic ionization that will purify the water. The photosynthesis component …”
Felicity lay back on a canvas cot and closed her eyes. Everyone, it seemed, had a plan. She had none. She only wanted to sing the Lord’s songs. She was tired. Tomorrow was the birthday of her Savior, Jesus Christ. Tomorrow, he was going to be born again in a stable to renew humanity’s hope. The huge warehouse hummed around her with the breath of a million vegetal mouths. Behind her eyelids was a weary emptiness, a desert in which flowers were sinking sharp claws. It wasn’t sleep, but it looked like sleep to Nikola Tesla, so he discontinued his explanation and let her rest.
> The thick vines led the energy of the greenhouse into the ground-level hole in the wall and continued down to the Mississippi River. Tesla looked through it and admired again the wide-bodied stream that told the story of America. Felicity was a crucial part of his living monster. Her sleeping form was adjusting to a symbiotic relation with the vegetation, in order to eventually become the main circuit breaker. It occurred to Tesla to take a shadowgraph to see if she was human or an incarnate Mind, but then he banished the naughty thought. She was clearly human, as her humidity index, with its attending emotional weather, clearly showed. Tesla put away the humidity index tester and went about watering, fertilizing, talking to leaves and flowers, whistling, and rubbing sweet-olive into his hair, until he fell asleep.
Christmas 1999, a milky day, dawned. Felicity could hear barges making their way upriver. A foghorn sounded. She opened her eyes and beheld the anchorite asleep upright in a chair, with his left hand on a length of humming wisteria vine. She got up cautiously, feeling light as a feather. She floated out the warehouse door and looked around. The air off the river was rich, wet, muddy, streaked with smells of fish and gasoline. She was alone, sad, uprooted, without memory, and no longer free in song, yet she felt joy. Today in Bethelehem the Christ Child brought light to the world, and that light hadn’t died. She did not notice the flow of green molecules stretching behind her like a dazzling viridian train.
Chapter Twenty-three
Wherein angel Zack takes a poll
Angel Zack sat on a plume of smoke above Brennan’s Restaurant and surveyed the Great Minds he had been given in keeping, for the purpose of assessing their opinions of the world. The reflections of the Minds were to be taken as yes and no votes for an eventual decision on the disposition of the planet. “All this ‘assessing’ and ‘eventual’!” snarled Zack. “Nothing but bureaucracy and more bureaucracy! Ah, for a taste of old God the Father, swift decision maker, scourger of worlds, incinerator of lip givers! Democracy, my putti popo!”
Einstein flexed his tattooed biceps, zipped up his tight black jeans, and tucked them into scuffed Tony Lamas. He had just finished offering his new body to a customer inside a peep-show booth at Adult Videos on Bourbon Street and was $20 richer. He surveyed the tawdry surroundings the ironic heavens had cast him in and concluded: Humanity’s continuing need for psychological degradation is a revolt against the demands of machinery, and it makes art necessary. Therefore the planet is still a very interesting place, and it ought to be preserved until the last hustler on Bourbon Street and the last showgirl on Place Pigalle die of boredom.
Messi@ Page 28
