City

by Alessandro Baricco

  At home I have hundreds of her tapes, full of Westerns. And in my mind I have two things that she told me about Gould, which I will never tell anyone.

  We buried her here in Topeka. The words on her tombstone she had chosen herself. No dates. Only: Shatzy Shell, nothing to do with the oil company.

  May the earth lie light upon you, little one.

  35

  The wind blows under a jaguar sun, the main street of Closingtown smokes dust, like a chimney rising from a hearth where all of Earth is burning.

  Desert everywhere.

  Arriving from the outside and penetrating the town’s every pore.

  Not a sound, not a voice, not a face.

  An abandoned city.

  Scraps of nothing fly about, and silent dogs wander in search of shade in which to park their limbs and regrets.

  Sunday June 8, sun at the zenith.

  From the east, in a cloud of dust, out of the past, twelve horse-men appear, one beside the other, hats pulled down over their eyes, bandannas pulled up over their mouths. Revolvers at their belts, and rifles under their arms.

  Slowly they advance, against the wind, keeping their horses at a walk.

  By the time they reach the first houses of Closingtown, their outlines are distinct.

  Eleven are wearing yellow dusters. One: black.

  They advance slowly, one hand on the reins, the other on the rifle. They examine every inch of the town, around them. They see nothing.

  They do not speak, they move forward in a line, one beside the other, taking up the entire width of the street. A comb. A plow.

  Minutes.

  Then the one dressed in black stops.

  They all stop.

  On the right is the saloon. On the left the Old Man.

  Hands stopped at 12:37.

  Silence.

  The saloon door opens.

  An old woman comes out, her cloud of white hair flies every which way as soon as it meets the wind.

  Eleven rifles are raised and aimed at her.

  She protects her eyes from the sun with one hand, crosses the porch, goes down three steps, approaches the twelve and stops in front of the one in black. The gun barrels have not lost sight of her for an instant.

  “Hello, Arne,” says Melissa Dolphin.

  The man doesn’t answer.

  “If I were one of your men I would grip with my chaps very tight and not move a muscle. They have more guns fixed on them than I have years on me. We have counted them: a hundred and thirty-eight. Not the years: the guns.”

  The man raises his eyes. Gun barrels, sticking out of all possible hiding places, are looking at him.

  “You know, you didn’t exactly leave pleasant memories around here.”

  The eleven look about nervously, guns lowered.

  Melissa Dolphin turns and goes slowly back to the saloon, climbs the porch steps, tries to fix her hair, opens the door, and disappears inside.

  The hundred and thirty-eight guns remain fixed on the twelve. They do not shoot. They do not go away.

  Silence.

  The man in black nods to the others. He dismounts from his horse and, leading it by the reins, walks to the saloon’s hitching post. He throws the reins over the wooden rail. He hangs the rifle on his saddle. He pulls the bandanna off his face. Thick white beard. He turns to look at the hundred and thirty-eight rifles. All dedicated to his friends. He crosses the porch, puts one hand on the door and the other on the butt of his revolver. He opens. He enters.

  The first thing he sees is an old Indian, sitting on the floor. A statue.

  The second thing he sees is the saloon is empty.

  The third is a man sitting at a table, in the farthest corner.

  He crosses the room and comes up to the man. He takes off his hat. He places it on the table. He sits down.

  “You must be the clockmaker?”

  “I am,” says Phil Wittacher.

  “With that baby face?”

  “Right.”

  The man in black spits on the floor.

  “What do you care about that clock?” he says.

  “It’s not a clock. It’s a safe.”

  The man in black smiles.

  “Full,” adds Phil Wittacher.

  The man in black clicks his tongue.

  “Bingo,” he says.

  “Ingenious. You open the cistern, the water flows down, starts the mechanism, and the mechanism makes the hands go. Only, if you try that, nothing happens. And you know why?”

  “You tell me.”

  “Because it works backwards. You start the hands, they start the mechanism, the mechanism starts the water flowing, the water rises, sets off three pistons that open an underground cell and pump more water from underground: full of gold and stopped there for thirty-four years, three months, and eleven days. It looks like a clock. But it’s a safe. Ingenious.”

  “Congratulations. You know a lot.”

  “More than you think, Mathias.”

  Like an electric shock. For an instant the man in black is a man who is about to get up, draw two guns and shoot. The next he is a man who hears a voice cry:

  “Stop!”

  He takes the third instant to stop. The fourth to sit down again. The fifth to slowly turn around, keeping his hands on the table.

  The judge is wearing polished boots with colored rowels, studs, and all. He has scented his hair, and is freshly shaved. He stands at the other end of the saloon, with a gun pointed at the man in black.

  “The conversation isn’t over yet,” he says.

  The man in black stares at Phil Wittacher.

  “What do you want from me?”

  “I want to tell you a story, Mathias.”

  “Hurry up, then.”

  “Do you have an appointment?”

  “To kill that fat man over there and get out of this stupid town.”

  “He’s a patient type. He’ll wait.”

  “Hurry up, I said.”

  “OK. Thirty-four years, three months, and eleven days ago. Night. You propose to your brother Arne to skip out with the other five and all the gold. He refuses. He sees that it’s all over, and that the rest will be just a nasty battle for that gold. He does something that you alone can understand: he gives you his silver watch. Then he takes his things and goes off, in the middle of the night. It must be intolerable to have a brother who is so just, right, Mathias? Never a mistake. A god. What was it like to live in his shadow for years, dozens of years? It’s one of those things that make a man go mad, right? But you didn’t go mad. No. You waited. And that night your moment arrived. I seem to see you, Mathias. You go to the clock, open the safe, find it full, take as much gold as you can hide in your horse’s saddle. In the morning you rush out of the house, crying that Arne has run away with all the gold, you take your five friends and follow him. He’s still in the desert when you find him. Arne is one against six: he can’t win. How many did he kill before dying, Mathias? Two? Three?”

  “. . .”

  “It doesn’t matter. You take care of the ones who are left. They wouldn’t have expected it, they were your friends. You shoot them from behind, while they are decapitating your brother, right? You cut off their heads, too, burn the eyes. You tie the heads to the saddles. And you tie the head of your brother Arne to the saddle of your horse. Clever. The horses arrive in Closingtown that evening. It’s almost dark, the heads are mutilated, the horse is yours. And above all: people see what they expect to see. A brother who has been the loser his whole life, why should he have won that time? They expected you to be dead and they saw you dead. If it should happen a hundred more times, a hundred times they would see your head, attached to that saddle. But it was Arne’s.”

  The man in black doesn’t move a muscle.

  Phil Wittacher looks out the window. There are eleven horse-men in yellow dusters with a hundred and thirty-eight guns pointed at them.

  “The rest is thirty-four years, three months, and eleven days of re
venge. Half a lifetime pretending to be Arne Dolphin and every day enjoying the thought of an entire city hating the god who betrayed it, the thief, the murderer of his good brother Mathias, the man who had always had a plan to screw them all, the bastard who went around playing poker and collecting clocks, while they were here, dying slowly in the wind. Clever, Mathias. You had to give up all that gold, but you had the revenge you sought. End of the story.”

  Mathias Dolphin speaks softly, in a low voice.

  “Who knows this besides you?”

  “No one. But if you want to try to kill me don’t do it now. The fat man, over there, knows what to do. And a hundred pounds ago he was a bounty hunter: he has no problem with shooting in the back.”

  Mathias Dolphin clenches his fists.

  “OK, what do you want for your silence?”

  “Your silver watch, Mathias.”

  Mathias Dolphin instinctively looks down at his leather vest, black. Then he looks again into the eyes of Phil Wittacher.

  “If you’re so smart, clockmaker, why do you need the combination to open the safe?”

  “I’m not interested in opening the safe. It’s the Old Man I’m interested in. And to start it without breaking it I need that combination.”

  “You’re mad.”

  “No. I’m a clockmaker.”

  Mathias Dolphin shakes his head. He even manages a smile. Slowly he opens the front of his duster, takes the watch from a pocket, and with a clean gesture tears the chain that connects it to his vest. He puts the watch on the table.

  Phil Wittacher takes it. He lifts the cover.

  “It’s stopped, Mathias.”

  “I’m not a clockmaker.”

  “Right.”

  Phil Wittacher holds the watch up to his eyes. He reads something on the inside of the cover. He lays the watch, open, on the table.

  “Four queens and the king of diamonds,” he says.

  “Now you can make the Old Man run, if you really want to.”

  “Now yes.”

  “I think it will be a great big surprise for everyone, when you do it, and I don’t feel like being there. So tell that fat man to put down the gun, I have to go now.”

  Phil Wittacher nods to the judge. The judge lowers his gun. Slowly, Mathias Dolphin gets up.

  “Goodbye, clockmaker.”

  He says. He turns. He looks the judge in the eyes.

  “Am I wrong or have we seen each other before?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You were young and you always arrived a moment too late. Was that you?”

  “Maybe.”

  “It’s curious: people make the same mistake their whole life.”

  “Which is?”

  “You always arrive a moment too late.”

  He draws and fires. The judge barely has time to raise his gun. A bullet hits him in the chest and he falls against the wall and slides onto the floor. At the sound of the shot all hell breaks loose outside. Mathias throws himself on Phil Wittacher and lying on top of him, on the floor, points the gun at his head.

  “OK, clockmaker, this is my hand.”

  Outside a fierce gun battle rages. Picking up Phil Wittacher like a rag, Mathias stands. He crosses the room, holding him tight and staying away from the windows, to keep from being seen. They pass the judge: collapsed on the floor, his chest bleeding and the gun still clutched in his hand. He has trouble speaking, but he does.

  “I told you, kid. You didn’t have to leave him time.”

  Mathias kicks him in the face, the judge crumples.

  “You shit,” says Phil Wittacher.

  “Shut up. All you have to do is be quiet. And walk. Slowly.”

  They approach the door. They pass the old Indian, sitting on the floor. Mathias doesn’t even look at him. He stays out of the way, behind the doorpost.

  He hears the shooting die down, almost suddenly, as if swallowed up into the void.

  Still a few isolated shots.

  Then silence.

  Silence.

  Mathias pushes Phil Wittacher forward, keeping the barrel of his gun pointed at his back.

  “Open the door, clockmaker.”

  Phil Wittacher opens it.

  The main street of Closingtown is a cemetery of horses and yellow dusters.

  Only wind, dust, and corpses. And dozens of men, weapons in hand, positioned on the roofs, everywhere. Silent.

  Watching.

  “OK, clockmaker, let’s see if they like you in this town.”

  He pushes him out and comes after him.

  Light, wind, dust.

  Everyone watches them.

  Mathias pushes Phil Wittacher across the porch and into the street. He sees his horse tied to the post. It’s the only horse still standing. He looks around. They’re all watching him. All with their guns lowered.

  “What the fuck’s got them, clockmaker? Have they lost the will to kill?”

  “They think you’re Arne.”

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “They would never kill Arne.”

  “What the fuck are you saying?”

  “They’d like to, but they can’t. They’d prefer that he do it for them.”

  Phil Wittacher nods toward the middle of the street. Mathias looks. Shiny black hat, pale, full-length duster, polished boots, two silver-handled guns in their holsters. He advances with his arms crossed and his hands just touching the guns. He looks like a prisoner or a madman. A bird with its wings folded.

  “Who the fuck is he?”

  “Someone who shoots faster than you.”

  “Tell him if he doesn’t stop I’ll blow your brains out.”

  “You’ll do it anyway, Mathias.”

  “Tell him!”

  Phil Wittacher thinks: you’re magnificent, Bird. Then he shouts:

  “BIRD!”

  Bird keeps walking, slowly. Behind him the Old Man looks at the scene with his poker-hand eyes.

  “BIRD, STOP. BIRD!”

  Bird doesn’t stop.

  Mathias presses the barrel of the gun against Phil Wittacher’s neck.

  “Three more steps and I shoot, kid.”

  “BIRD!”

  Bird takes three steps and then stops. He’s twenty paces away. He stands still.

  Phil Wittacher thinks: what nonsense. Then he says, into the wind:

  “Bird, let it go. The game’s lost. He has the winning hand.”

  Pause.

  “Four queens and a king.”

  Then Bird spreads his wings. But whirling around, as the duster opens in the wind.

  Four rapid shots, fired at the face of the Old Man.

  Queen.

  Queen.

  Queen.

  Queen.

  Mathias aims at Bird and fires.

  Two shots in the middle of the back.

  Bird falls, but falling he fires again.

  Fifth shot.

  King.

  The Old Man goes: CLACK.

  From a window in the saloon, Julie Dolphin lines up eye, sight, man, says Farewell, brother, and pulls the trigger.

  Mathias’s head explodes in blood and brains.

  The Indian, in the saloon, sings softly and opening one fist lets gold earth slide between his fingers.

  The silver watch, on the table, begins to tick.

  The hand of the Old Man trembles and then moves. 12:38.

  Phil Wittacher is on his feet, spattered with blood. So tired, he thinks.

  In the silence, the Old Man shakes and murmurs something with a voice that sounds like thunder shot from the center of the earth.

  All Closingtown looks at him.

  Go, Old Man, says Phil Wittacher.

  Silence.

  Then an explosion.

  The Old Man is opening up.

  A drop of water hits the sky.

  It shines in the light of midday and keeps on going, a sparkling stream shot in the air.

  Water and gold.

  All Closingtown loo
ks up.

  Phil Wittacher has his eyes on the ground. He bends over, grabs a handful of dust. He stands up. Opens his fingers.

  There’s no wind here, he thinks.

  Bird closes his eyes.

  The last thing he says is:

  “Merci.”

  Bird was buried with his arms crossed on his chest: his hands were just touching the guns; they were there in the coffin, too, polished till they sparkled. Many people carried the coffin up to the top of the hill, because they thought it would be an honor, in later years, to say: I went with Bird, that day, to the other world. They had dug a big hole, deep and wide, and put up a dark stone, with his name on it. They lowered the coffin into the hole and then took off their hats and turned towards the minister. The minister said he had never buried a gunfighter, and wasn’t sure he knew what to say. He asked if the man had ever done anything good, in his life. He asked if anyone knew anything about him. Then the judge, who had a bullet somewhere in his dorsal spine but couldn’t care less about it, said that Bird had shot four queens and a king, at thirty paces, without wasting a bullet. He asked if that might be enough. The minister said he was afraid not. That started a debate, and they dug around in their memories trying to remember a good thing, just one, that Bird had done in his life. It was funny, but all they could think of was a lot of nasty stuff. What they finally came up with was how he had studied French. At least it seemed to be something nice. They asked the minister if that would be enough. The minister said it was like fishing for trout in a glass of whiskey. Then the judge pointed a gun at him and said: