by Neil Gaiman
I wonder how loudly they’d cheer if they knew my family trade. We’ve been assassins since the Crusades.
We Sabbah follow the Sufi path. What that means to those with our calling is simply a hunger for clipping spooks. Especially big-money spooks like the one who just got done bleeding cod liver oil all over my sneakers. Then again, for ten million dollars I could buy a lot more gym shoes. C’est la guerre.
Without asking, the kid sits down near the cooling clay of the co-pilot and grabs the radio.
“Mayday, mayday, mayday,” he rasps, “This is Flight 180. I have no idea where we are, but we got a good pilot. Tell me what’s up…”
My money will be in the bank by the time I land this bird, take three showers and hunt for a bottle of emotional bleach. After that, as I promised myself, I’m done.
At the thought, my tear-ducts decide to start working again.
∇
“So do not become weak, or sad, and you shall triumph if you are indeed believers.”
—Koran 3:139
Bad Sushi
Cherie Priest
Baku’s hand shook.
In it, he held a pinch of wasabi, preparing to leave the condiment as a peaked green dollop beside a damp pile of flesh-colored ginger. He hesitated, even though his fellow chef slapped the kitchen bell once, twice, a third time—and the orders were backing up.
The waitress flashed Baku a frown.
Some small fact was wiggling around in his expansive memory. In the back of his sinuses, he felt a tickle of sulfur. The kitchen in Sonada’s smelled like soy sauce and sizzling oil, and frying rice; but Baku also detected rotten eggs.
He smeared the glob of gritty paste onto the rectangular plate before him, and he pushed the neatly-sliced sushi rolls into the pick-up window. The hot yellow smell grew stronger in his nose, but he could work through it. All it took was a little concentration.
He reached for his knives. The next slip in the queue called for a California roll, a tuna roll, and a salmon roll. Seaweed. Rice. Fish meat, in slick, soft slabs. He wrapped it all expertly, without thinking. He sliced the rolls without crushing them and slid them onto the plate.
This is why Sonada’s kept Baku, despite his age. He told them he was seventy, but that was a lie by eight years—an untruth offered because his employers were afraid he was too old to work. But American Social Security wasn’t enough, and the work at the restaurant wasn’t so hard. The hours were not so long.
The other workers were born Americans. They didn’t have to take the test or say the pledge, one hand over their hearts.
Baku didn’t hold it against them, and the others didn’t hold his original nationality against him, either. They might have, if they’d known the uniform he’d once worn. They might have looked at him differently, these young citizens, if they’d known how frantically he’d fired, and how he’d aimed for all the bright blue eyes.
There it was again. The sulfur.
Baku had tripped over a G.I.’s body as he staggered toward the beach at Cape Esperance, but he hadn’t thought much of it. He’d been preoccupied at the time—thinking only of meeting the secret transport that would take him out of Guadalcanal. The Emperor had declared the island a lost cause, and an evacuation had been arranged. It had happened under cover of night. The transport had been a crushing rush of thirteen thousand brown-eyed men clamoring for the military ferry. The night had reeked of gunpowder, and body odor, and sulfur, and blood.
Baku thought again of the last dead American he’d seen on Guadalcanal, the man’s immobile body just beginning to stink in the sunset. If someone had told him, back in 1942, that in sixty years he’d be serving the dead American’s grandchildren sushi rolls…Baku would have never believed it.
He looked at the next slip of lined white and green paper.
Shrimp rolls. More tuna.
Concentrate.
He breathed in the clean, sparse scent of the seafood—so faint it was almost undetectable. If it smelled like more than salt and the ocean, it was going rotten. There were guidelines, of course, about how cold it must be kept and how it must be stored—but the old chef didn’t need to watch any thermometers or check any dates. He knew when the meat was good. He knew what it would taste like, lying on top of the rice, and dipped lightly in a small puddle of soy sauce.
One order after another, he prepared them. His knives flashed, and his fingers pulled the sticky rice into bundles. His indefatigable wrists jerked and lurched from counter to bowl to chopping block to plate.
Eventually, with enough repetition and enough concentration, the remembered eggy nastiness left his head.
When his shift was over, he removed his apron and washed his knives. He dried the knives each in turn, slipping them into a cloth pouch that he rolled up and carried home. The knives belonged to him, and they were a condition of his employment. They were good knives, made of German steel by a company that had folded ages before. Baku would work with no others.
At home that night, he lay in bed and tried to remember what had brought on the flashback. Usually there was some concrete reason—an old military uniform, a glimpse of ribbon that looked like a war medal, or a Memorial Day parade.
What had brought him back to the island?
At home in bed, it was safe to speculate. At home, in the small apartment with the threadbare curtains and the clean kitchen, it was all right to let his mind wander.
Sixty years ago there was a war and he was a young man. He was in the Emperor’s army and he went to the South Pacific, and there was an island. The Americans dug in, and forced the Japanese troops to retreat.
They sneaked away at night, from the point at Cape Esperance. Personnel boats had been waiting. “There were thirteen-thousand of us,” he breathed to himself in his native tongue. “And we left in the middle of the night, while the Americans slept.”
The water had been black and it had been calm, as calm as the ocean ever was. Hushed, hushed, and hushed, the soldiers slogged into the water to meet the transports. In haste and in extreme caution, they had boarded the boats in packs and rows. They had huddled down on the slat seats and listened to the furtive cacophony of oars and small propellers.
He seemed to recall a panic—not his own. Another man, someone badly hurt, in mind and body. The man had stood up in the boat and tried to call out. His nearest neighbor tackled him, pulled him back down into his seat; but the ruckus unsettled the small craft.
Baku was sitting on the outside rail, one of the last men crammed aboard.
When the boat lunged, he lost his balance. Over the side he toppled, and into the water. It was like falling into ink with a riptide. Fear was halted by the fierce wetness, and his instincts were all but exhausted by days of battle. He thought to float, though. He tried to right himself, to roll out of the fetal suspension.
And something had stopped him—hard.
Even after sixty years, the memory of it shocked him—the way the thing had grabbed him by the ankle. The thing that seized him felt like a living cable made of steel. It coiled itself around his leg, one loop, two loops, working its way to a tighter grip with the skill of a python and the strength of something much, much larger.
Inside Baku’s vest he carried a bayonet blade made of carbon steel. It was sharp enough to cut paper without tearing it. It was strong enough to hold his weight.
His first thought and first fear was that this was a strange new weapon devised by the Americans; but his second thought was that this was no weapon at all, but a living creature. There was sentience and insistence in the way the thing squeezed and tugged. He curled his body up to pull his hand and his knife closer to the clutching, grasping thing.
And because he was running out of air, he arched his elbow up and tightened his leather-tough wrists. Even then they’d been taut and dense with muscle. He’d grown up beside the ocean, cutting the fish every day, all day, until the Emperor had called for his service and he’d taken up a gun instead.
So
it was with strength and certainty that he brought the knife down into the thing that held his leg.
It convulsed. It twitched, and Baku stabbed again. The water went warmer around his ankle, and the terrible grip slackened. Again. A third time, and a fourth. In desperation, he began to saw, unafraid that he would hit his own flesh, and unaware of the jagged injury he created when he did so.
By then his air was so low and he was so frightened, that he might have cut off his whole leg in pursuit of escape. But after several heroic hacks Baku all but severed the living lasso; and at that moment, one of his fellow soldiers got a handful of the back of his shirt. Human hands pulled him up, and out, and over—back into the boat. A faint and final tug at his leg went nearly unnoticed as the last of the thing stretched, split, and tore.
On the floor of the boat Baku gasped and floundered. The other soldiers covered him with their hands, hushing him. Always hushing. The Americans might hear.
He shook and shook—taking comfort in the circle of faces that covered him from above and shut out the star-spangled sky. At last he breathed and the breath was not hard-won.
But he did not feel safe.
Around his leg the leftovers clung. He unwound the ropy flesh from his own quivering limb and the dismembered coil fell to the boat bottom where it twitched, flopped, and lay still.
“What is it?” someone asked. “What is it?” the call was echoed around the boat in quiet voices.
No one wanted to touch it, so no one did until the next day.
Baku stared down at the thing and wondered what it had once belonged to. All he had to judge it by was the lone, partial tentacle, and it did not tell him much. It was a sickly greenish brown and it came with a smell to match—as if it were made of old dung, spoiled crab meat, and salt; and suction pads lined one side, with thorny-looking spines on the other. He did not remember the bite of the spines, but his leg wore the results.
“What is it?” the question came again from one of his fellow soldiers, who poked at the leavings of the peculiar predator with the end of his gun.
“I don’t know. Have you ever seen anything like it?”
“Never.”
Never before that night had he seen anything like the tentacle. It represented no squid or octopus that Baku knew, and he was born into a family that had fed itself from the water for generations. Baku thought he had seen everything the ocean had to offer, even from the bottom-most depths where the fish had blind-white eyes, and the sand was as fine as flour. But he’d never seen a thing like that, and he would never forget it. The scars on his legs would remind him for the rest of his life, even when he was an old man, and living in America, and lying in bed on a cool spring night… half dozing and half staring at the ceiling fan that slowly churned the air above him.
And it was that smell, and that remembered texture of stubborn rubber, that had reminded him of the sulfur stench at Guadalcanal.
Twice in his life now, he had breathed that nasty, tangy odor and felt a tough cord of flesh resist the push of his knife.
His stomach turned.
The next day at work, Baku wondered if the store manager had noticed anything strange about the sushi. He asked, “Are we getting different meat now? It seemed different yesterday, when I was cutting it for the rolls.”
The manager frowned, and then smiled. “I think I know what you mean. We have a new vendor for some of the fish. It’s a company from New England, and they carry a different stock from the Gulf Coast company. But they come with very good references, and they cost less money than the others, too. They distribute out of a warehouse downtown, by the pier at Manufacturer’s Row.”
“I see.”
“Was there a problem with the fish?”
Baku was torn.
He did not want to complain. He never liked to complain. The manager was happy with the new vendor, and what would he say? That the octopus meat reminded him of war?
“No,” he said. “No problem. I only noticed the change, that’s all.” And he went back to work, keeping his eyes open for more of the mysterious meat.
He found it in the squid, and in the crab. It lurked amid the pale bits of ordinary fish and seafood, suspicious landmines of a funny smell and a texture that drove him to distraction.
Baku watched for the new vendor and saw him one day driving up in a big white truck with a large “A” painted on the side. He couldn’t make out the company’s name; it was printed in a small, elaborate script that was difficult to read. The man who drove the truck was a tall, thin fellow shaped like an egg roll. His skin was doughy and hairless.
When he moved the chilled packages of sealed, wrapped food on the dolly, he moved with strength but without hurry. He walked like a sea lion, with a gently lumbering gait—as if he might be more comfortable swimming than walking.
His big, round eyes stared straight ahead as he made his deliveries. He didn’t speak to anyone that Baku ever saw, and when he was handed a pen to sign at the clipboard, he looked at it blankly before applying his mark to the proper forms.
“I think he’s challenged,” the Sonada’s manager said. “Mentally challenged, you know. Poor man.”
“Poor man,” Baku agreed. He watched him get into his truck and drive away. He would be back on Tuesday with more plastic-wrapped boxes that emitted fogged, condensed air in tiny clouds around their corners.
And meanwhile, business boomed.
Every night the restaurant was a little more packed, with a few more patrons. Every night the till rang longer, and the receipts stacked higher on the spike beside the register. Every night the waitresses ran themselves more ragged and collected more tips.
By Saturday, Sonada’s was managing twice its volume from the week before. By Sunday, people were lined out the door and around the side of the building. It did not matter how long they were told to wait.
They waited.
They were learning an unnatural patience.
Baku took on more hours, even though the manager told him it was not necessary. A new chef was hired to help with the added burden and another would have been helpful, but the kitchen would hold no more workers.
Baku insisted on the extra time. He wanted to see for himself, and to watch the other men who cut the sushi rolls and steamed the sticky rice. He wanted to see if they saw it too—the funny, pale meat the color of a pickle’s insides. But if anyone noticed that something was out of order, no one spoke about it. If something was different, something must be good—because business had never been better.
And the old chef knew that one way or another, the strange meat was bringing the customers in.
Even though Sonada’s served a broad variety of Asian food, no one ever ordered fried rice anymore, or sesame chicken. Egg rolls had all but vanished from the menu, and Baku couldn’t remember the last time beef was required for a dish.
Everyone wanted the sushi, and Baku knew why.
And he knew that something was happening to the regular patrons, the ones who came every night. From the kitchen window that overlooked the lobby he saw them return for supper like clockwork, and with every meal they took, they were changed.
They ate faster, and walked slower. They talked less.
Baku began to stay longer in the kitchen, and he rushed hurriedly to his car at night.
Baku paused his unending slicing, cutting, scooping and scraping to use the washroom. He closed the door behind himself and sighed into the quiet. For the first time all evening, he was alone. Or so he thought.
All the stall doors were open, save the one at the farthest end of the blue-tiled room—which was closed only a little way. From within it, someone flushed.
Out of politeness, Baku pretended not to see that the other man had left the door ajar. He stepped to the nearest sink and washed his hands. He covered them with runny pink soap and took his time building lather, then rinsing under the steamy tap water. He relished the heat.
The kitchen had become so cold in the last week, since
the grills were rarely working and the air conditioner was running full-blast. Instead of sporadic warmth from the stoves, the refrigerator door was incessantly opened and closed—bringing fresh meat for the sushi rolls. The chefs handled cold meat, seaweed, and sticky rice for nine hours at a time.
His knuckles never thawed.
But while he stood there, warming his fingers beneath the gushing stream, he noticed the sound of repeated flushing foaming its way into the tiled room. Dampness crept up the sole of Baku’s shoe. Water puddled on the floor around his feet. He flipped the sink’s chrome lever down, shutting off the water.
He listened.
The toilet’s denouement was interrupted before the plumbing could finish its cycle and another flush gurgled. A fresh tide of water spilled out from under the door.
Baku craned his neck to the right, leaning until he could see the square of space between the soggy floor and the bottom of the stall. Filthy gray sneakers stood ankle-deep in overflow. The laces were untied; they floated like the hair of a drowning victim.
“Hello?” Baku called softly. He did not want a response. “Can I help you with something, sir?” His English was heavy, but he was careful with his pronunciation.
He took a cautious step forward, and that small shuffle cleared nearly half the distance between him and the stall door. He took a second step, but he made that one even tinier than the first, and he put out his hand.
The tips of his fingers quivered, as they tapped against the painted metal door. He tried to ask, “Are you all right?” But the words barely whispered out of his throat.
A groan answered him without offering specifics.
He pushed the door.
He found himself staring at a man’s hunched back and a sweaty patch of shirt between his shoulder blades. The shirt itself was the beige kind that comes with an embroidered nametag made in dark blue thread. When the man at the toilet turned around, Baku read that the tag said “Peter,” but he’d guessed that much already. He knew the shirt. It was the uniform worn by the man who drove the delivery truck each Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday.
