400 Boys and 50 More

by Marc Laidlaw

  “Oh no, that’s secondary; I’m not afraid of you. But don’t you dare damage what I’m about to show you.”

  He remembered his attars, was about to ask after them, but she got up and went to a cabinet, unlocked it with a tiny key, then opened the doors to reveal a radio. A radio? Were they to listen to music?

  “I thought you said this was urgent,” he said.

  “Patience.”

  She brought the radio over and set it on a tall round table at the side of her chair. He noticed that it was not like other radios; attached to it was a small glass container with a rubber stopper in one end. Pale yellow liquid sloshed in the little bottle.

  “I’ll find the afternoon broadcast,” she said, twiddling the dial through a symphony of static until, out of the fuzz, a stuffy voice emerged. The station was loud and blaring, because so near. Bamal Free Radio filled the room with the President’s easily imitable voice; Joseph had heard children in the streets pinching their noses and mocking his accent.

  “By beaudiful, beaudiful beoble. Thag you so buch for tudig id agaid to Babal Free Radio. I would like to thag each ad every ode of you for electig be your Bresidet. This job bead so buch to be—”

  Joseph’s head jerked up from the monologue. He sniffed the air. What was that smell? His heart began to pound to a military beat, his blood sang an anthem in his ears. The Emperor was near.

  Mome had come, he had come again to lead Bamal to freedom, to world dominance. Joseph cried out his loyalty, thrusting back the chair as he rose to his feet, immersed in the scent of roses.

  “Emperor, where are you?” he cried. “I can’t see you, but I smell you. I know you are here. Here…”

  And the moment passed, leaving him standing awkwardly at attention, saluting no one but Angelica. She smiled, shook her head, and he could read her disappointment easily.

  “You really did believe in him, didn’t you, Joseph? How could you believe in anything, especially a scent that you devised?”

  “But that wasn’t him!” he shouted, still caught in the splendor of the vision, the aroma of roses not yet completely gone. “That was Buique’s voice. What was I doing? I’ve gone mad, utterly mad.”

  “Buique’s voice, yes, but Mome’s smell as you well know. It’s here.” She turned the radio until the vial of yellow liquid was exposed. “It’s driven into the air while he speaks, broadcast along with the sound.”

  He advanced on the radio cautiously, as though approaching a venomous insect.

  “Remember, you must not harm this radio. I promised to keep it safe and you know I keep my word.”

  “Who?” he whispered, frightened. “Who made you promise this?”

  “Joseph, who else could have built such a thing? Kmei Dodo.”

  Kmei Dodo.

  Dodo.

  The name hung in his mind, conjoined with the picture of the evil radio and the last fading smell of empire.

  “Oh, Angelica,” he said when he could. “How could you? He lends you his toys? And do you two play?” He had not known how quickly the bitterness could come to his voice, had never dreamed he could speak this way to her. “The secret path . . . do you use it to meet with him now? Do you signal with window shades, as we used to do?”

  “Joseph.”

  “I only wish you’d told me when you saw me in your study, Angelica. I only wish you had thrown me in the street. I don’t relish knowing these things. I hate being shown what he’s done to my life.”

  “Your life?” she said, matching his anger. “This is my life, Joseph. Your life is no longer in Bamal. You will go where you have to, you will start again; perhaps—who knows—you’ll even join your old partner in madness. But I have never had a thing outside San Désirée. This is where I live, have always lived, and will remain until I die. I must be careful here, more careful than you dream, although I’ve tried to make you feel safe and at ease today. You are not very safe now, Joseph, oh no. I hope you have caught your breath because now you will need it. The peace you may have felt has been illusory. Your life could end at any moment, and bring mine down with it.”

  She had risen from her chair; he could not speak, nor move.

  “Do you think I wasn’t happy to see you? You’re wrong. I remember what you meant to me, perhaps better than you do. There were no obligations, if you will recall. There were no favors done, no bargains made, no debts. If you have come here to collect on some imagined debt then you had better go back to the barrens now, or try to board a plane at the airport. It makes no difference to me where you’re shot down. Do you think my servants don’t talk?”

  He had turned away from the barrage of words. Again he felt weak, humiliated. All she said was true. She had once again shattered any dream of security he might be nurturing, to impress upon him as rudely and cruelly as was necessary the fact that as long as he remained in Bamal he could never be safe.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right, of course.”

  “I know I’m right.”

  “I don’t know what to say, Angelica.”

  “Then say nothing. Or better, speak of something else. Tell me your plans.”

  “They seem ridiculous, they would take too long. Last night I still believed I could stay here for the rest of my life, however long that might be. I suppose I could have, if I had buried my dreams, my identity, and become unknown even to myself; but my past was bulldozed, and suddenly I found myself wishing for freedom, a new beginning. By coming here I have accelerated the process. You are a catalyst, Angelica. I come and I go, but you remain unchanged.”

  “Is that so?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t. . . . You must have an idea how I can escape, a practical plan. I’ve been thinking like a madman. I imagined writing to my fellow scientists, asking for asylum. That’s a stupid plan, stupid.”

  “Now, Joseph. Give me time to consider this.”

  His eyes flickered to the radio; he was still unwilling to face her, even though her temper had changed. “A neat piece of work, but completely technical. He hasn’t unravelled the secrets of my attars, has he?”

  “I don’t think he’s close to that. He uses only a few of the essences you left behind, and he’s running out of those. But he does have a large staff devoted to the analysis, and they are attempting to synthesize your products. Naturally he can’t use Mome’s stink of roses when Buique is speaking; that would be asking for rebellion. I merely showed you this experimental radio. He gave it to me that I might listen to music while flower scents percolate through the room. He’s developing a scent harmonizer, something like a pipe organ, capable of orchestrating complicated combinations of smells to match the moods of music—or that’s what he says. I know better. It will be the same thing all over again with Buique, except that he will be immune to his own perfume, unlike Mome. It may take Kmei time to isolate Buique in a bottle, but I don’t think it will take forever. You didn’t have sufficient warning to cover your tracks.”

  “I don’t understand. Did he give you this attar of Mome?”

  She laughed. “Oh no. He gave me fragrances, French perfumes. L'Eau de Mome is from my own collection—yours, really.”

  “You have it then.” He clasped his hands as though trapping a prayer. “Angelica, forgive me for doubting you. You know I can be jealous—”

  “And how you hate yourself afterward, Joseph. Don’t waste your strength. I have a box full of your attars, which I will bring out shortly. Then we will see about getting you out of Bamal. It may take a few days, and you must lie very low in this time.”

  “I have a great deal of practice sleeping on the ground.”

  “Not quite that low, my dear.” She rose, laughing, and kissed him on the cheek. “Now that you know about Kmei I can be straightforward with you. He comes over each evening, and he is far less discreet in his attentions than you ever were, as he does not consider himself in competition with Buique as you were with Mome. I want you out of the way when he is here.” She wagged her finger, as
if a reprimand were necessary. “Leon will keep an eye on you, and if you wish to sleep until I am free again, he will bring you to me later.”

  Joseph bowed his head, not only to Angelica but to the weight of circumstance, irresistible circumstance.

  Thinking of Dodo would get him nowhere. Rest, on the other hand, would give him a fresh perspective. He rose, promising, “I’ll be quiet.”

  “Wait a moment. You’re forgetting.”

  He checked his chair but it was empty, and there was nothing he could have dropped. Angelica went to the cabinet. This time she extracted a small wooden chest whose contents rattled as she brought it to him. Her smile was gentle, expectant.

  “I’m pleased to be able to give this to you,” she said.

  He took the box with something like reverence and kissed her, not deeply as he would have liked, but with love and respect and a little regret. He thought he caught sight of old passions in her eyes, but she did not let them get away from her. She blinked and they were gone.

  “Sleep if you can,” she said with a smile. “There’s a narcotic attar in there which I used myself once, after the coup, when I could not let go of my fears but needed desperately to sleep.”

  “I could be up all night with this,” he said.

  “You know your mind best. I’ll see you soon, my friend.”

  “Friend,” he echoed.

  She looked toward the door. “Ah, Leon, please—”

  “This way, Dr. Joseph. I’ve laid out your supper.”

  -5-

  He fought a great temptation to stand behind the curtains of his room and watch the service lanes between the houses. Chains jangled, the Dobermans howled, and he stepped away from the glass determined to keep away. There were many good reasons why he should avoid glancing out. What if Dodo, home early from the clinic, chanced to look out and see him in an opposite window?

  No better were the certain results of seeing the other man dashing between buildings, an experience which would create tormenting memories and foment obsession enough to last him till the end of his life: perhaps bring it on even sooner. No, this sneaking about was too much, he would stay away from the glass—but for whose sake? Until recently he had wished for a confrontation with Dodo, wondered when it would come and what its nature would be. Now nothing seemed worth the trouble. He hoped he never met the man, never saw so much as a photograph. Dodo had come out of nowhere—a military technician and weapons expert in the same wars which had claimed Buique’s proboscis—and he deserved nothing better than to return whence he had come.

  What point was there in watching the rear when Angelica had said that Dodo used little discretion? In their own affair, she had insisted on—no, that was self-deception. He had feared Mome’s jealousy, Angelica being one prize the Emperor had been unable to catch.

  How stupid I am, he thought. His mind was still trying to turn himself against her, all for the sake of jealousy. He must leave off picking at the past as though it were possible to repair it. Left to itself, his mind would drag in all of human history to justify a current event; he must keep himself anchored in the present.

  Fortunately, he had his collection. The box waited, unopened, saved for this moment. Dodo was probably coming up the front walk now, ringing the bell, shouldering Leon aside as he stalked up to Angelica and—now, now. Fingering the tiny clasp, he listened for footsteps in the halls below. The only sound was that of a clock tolling the quarter hour. Then the silver catch clicked beneath his thumb, the hinges wailed faintly, and the smell of musty cedar filled his senses.

  His whole being concentrated in the shadowy depths of the box, curling around myriad bottles whose contents he could not quite smell although he was acutely sensitive to their compositions. Every liquor, he had found, possessed a characteristic energy that no known instrument was capable of measuring; he had always been able to feel it. It might have been the subtle differences in specific gravity that he detected, in absolute density or perhaps in the way that each filtered light; surely he was more sensitive than an array of monitoring devices. Each essence had a radiance, incomparable, that penetrated glass. A vial of honeysuckle, when he held it, always provoked a deep humming in his belly; clove oil resonated with a spot at the nape of his neck; still others evoked the sympathies of his back, scrotum, spine. This was a mystery he had never resolved with the attitudes and methods of his science alone, but it had always been there to guide him in the most subtle practical moments of his work. To him, now, it had become a new science. He did not believe that Dodo could reproduce his essences, not without his special sensibility. Perhaps that was not a proper scientific attitude—such creations were meant to be reproducible by anyone—but at this point, this late in the day, who cared?

  Now, so close to the chest full of distillations and synthetics, his body felt like a lightstorm: explosions of infinitesimal magnitude trailed through the paths of his nerves, met in the solar plexus, streaked outward again to warm his limbs and dazzle his brains. Even without smelling the liquids, he felt his rhinencephalon come alive, his olfactory bulbs swell almost to bursting. If only he could encounter these pure essences in a state of internal purity; but his nose was clogged with traces of scent gathered during the day. Dung and dust, blood and oil, musk and asphalt, rotting fruit; the cloacal stink of the street was compounded in a sensory mortar with the maze of Angelica’s perfume (a scent so complex it seemed labyrinthine), the bouquet of white wine, the fragrances of soup and his recent dinner. He could not shed these worldly smells, but suddenly he had no use for them, and less love. In the vials, after all, were distillates, purer than anything found in nature, the ripe fruit of his labor. It was at this level that his deepest mind was aroused, the bare neurons that collected dissolved scents connecting him with a realm where memory and immediacy were fused. No one could resist these essences, least of all him, for at the olfactory level every human being (save the impaired) was alike. A scent could reach past any psychological defense, weaken any warrior by inducing a primal longing for better days; one bottle, labeled “Nostalgia,” existed for that purpose. Humanity responded to more signals than it knew; if people were reassured on a basic biological level, their conscious mind would soon follow. Mix a little essential “Truth” with the slaver of a liar, and no one would disbelieve him. Joseph knew that it was possible both to smell a lie and to mask its scent.

  Which to try first, which one? He dared not uncap “Love” in this house. “Courage” might be useful, but it was inappropriate for this moment. He wanted sensual fulfillment, consummation of his osmolagnia; he wanted to wash the hardships of the last six months from his psyche and render himself once more fresh as a newborn child, ready for anything.

  His mouth began to water when he spied the proper bottle.

  “Innocence,” it was called.

  With trembling hands he reached into the box. Frightened?

  Yes. This distillate could be particularly potent. Perhaps he should start with “Laughter” or “Ease.”

  I’ve starved long enough, he thought. He had to get the stench of the world’s shit out of his nose, even if it took drastic measures.

  He raised the bottle to his nose before uncapping it. The lid scraped as he worked at it and flecks of dried solution drifted over his nails. His heart caught, capturing his breath, but the first vapors penetrated his nostrils like camphor and an inhalation would have been redundant. He screwed the cap shut again with the last of his old sensibility and dropped the bottle into the chest. His hands fell to his sides as his back seemed to melt into the chair; then the room, including the shadows, filled with light.

  Sitting backwards in a speeding car, the desert behind him, stars out at midday brighter than the sun. San Désirée on the horizon, dwindling rapidly, then lost in the plumes of violet dust streaming from the wheels of the car. Professor Lopez, his mentor, in the seat beside him, patting him on the wrist one moment, then fading away like a patch of cloud. The car dissolving, joining the trail of
dust that streams from beneath his dragging heels. He is a stream of ashes, a river of smoke that runs into the sky and beautifies the sunset like a cosmetic powder. Shapes in the night of dust and ash: his grandfather’s toothless mouth, the hut where his mother dies delivering a stillborn girl, his Fombeh playmates and tormentors (other children), swallowed in the grit that has been whipped into a fury that may never settle. Now it settles, bringing down emotions, disappointments, hopes. He is a thin trail, a horizon where he is setting, an almost featureless line in an oscilloscope. No motion. No thought.

  Until the first breath.

  Scented light filled his lungs and for a moment his alveoli burned like a million gems set afire by the intake of oxygen. His head filled with thoughts bright and empty as air, mindless and resonant. He tried his hands, found them firm and whole; his muscles cried out to be used. He could taste his own saliva; feel the cilia sculling in his throat. And at last, when he was about to explode with the sensations that kept accreting in the darkness, he opened his eyes without knowing who he would be or where he would find himself this time.

  The black room was quiet for an instant. Then, as the clock down the hall began to toll, Angelica came rushing in through a door suddenly flung wide to crash against the wall. She hung upon his newborn eyes. He knew her name, though she was strange and unfamiliar now. He wished to linger on her silhouette and slowly absorb the details of the room, the subtleties of her coiffeur, but there was something wrong already.

  “Hurry, Joseph,” she said, pulling him forward by the hand. “You must go. Now, do you hear me? Now. Wake up, please . . . “

  “I . . . I . . . “

  “Come back to earth, you damn fool. Buique knows you’re in San Désirée, is that plain enough? Dodo called late and gave me the news. My Dodo. He said I should look out for you, you might come here and do me injury. Your cousin Miguel tipped them off; you trusted him too far. My God, aren’t you listening?”

  “I am coming back,” he said. “Slowly. No need to—”