The road was long, and stretched all the way to the horizon.
Part 9
MUSIC
Chapter 105
A hotel room in Manhattan.
Charlie tried calling Emmi, and there was no answer.
He had a hot bath, and the water filled with floating beads of jelly-like clotted blood.
He tried calling Emmi: no answer.
He called Milton Keynes.
No answer.
He hobbled to the pharmacist to get more painkillers. Their smallest bottle was fifty pills, their largest two hundred.
He bought fifty.
At the counter, a daughter, arguing with her mother.
“Size eight is how you get ahead, it’s what the agency want and so it’s what you need to—”
“Mom, I’m sick and tired of it, I’m sick and tired of trying to be—”
“Do you want to grow up poor? Do you want to be a nobody? God has blessed you with good looks, missy, and you will use them, you will take your pills and you will …”
Charlie limped away.
The street.
The noise.
God please make it stop please make it stop the noise the
“… if you’re fat why would you wear tight clothes, I hate having to look at all that …”
“Get that load of ass.”
“Look, I’m not saying she’s not good at her job, but the headscarf is just so …”
“… fell five points but we’re gonna clean up when Tokyo comes back, just you wait …”
“No! Tell him that I’ll get the money, I’ll get it and … you just fucking tell him!”
“I’m not sure I like you hanging out with those guys any more …”
“God, the area’s really gone down, like you should see the bums on the street corner …”
“Taxi!”
“Who the fuck does the Pope think he is, telling him he’s not a Christian …?”
“I don’t watch the news. It depresses me. It’s so …”
RAT RAT RAT RAT
The pain came so hard that Charlie nearly fell, catching himself on a wall, gasping for breath. People flowed by. A couple stopped to look; most didn’t. A woman, Filipino, wearing a bright green T-shirt and jogging bottoms, stopped and said, “Mister? You okay?”
He nodded dumbly, and staggered on.
Make it stop please please make it stop it’s too
Into the hotel foyer.
“Tipping these days is just another kind of robbery …”
“Yes, but there was a mark on the sheets …”
“Commute in from Hoboken …”
“… dinner with them but they’re just the most repugnant …”
“I said three extra large!”
“Women who cut their hair short are just trying to be ugly, like that’s some kind of victory for them …”
“These days they let anyone in, like we’re just victims of our own generosity …”
“I don’t think he’s really trying, do you?”
Made it to the lift, head pounding, body burning.
The floor
Step step step
tick tick tick
the door. Pushed it open. Electricity
snap
same hotel room, same everywhere, same the world over
arrivals, departures, arrivals, departures whoosh the plane takes off and it lands somewhere exactly the same somewhere new somewhere different somewhere full of people who were just
human human human
TV through the walls, please God, please God, make it stop …
“The value of your investments may go down as well as up …”
“Take out a payday loan!”
“With my new microfibre cloth, cleaning the kitchen has never been easier or more fun!”
“I mean is the guy even American? His dad was born in Kenya or wherever …”
He soaked his face in cold water, fell onto the bathroom floor, stayed there because it was cold, the cold pressing against his body, lay flat on his back.
Lay there.
Heart beating.
De-dum de-dum de-dum.
Time passing.
Tick tick tick tick tick.
World turning.
Lay there.
Didn’t move.
Somewhere outside, the city passed him by. The world buzzed and hummed and the music played and the young were born and the old died and some who weren’t old died too and the bombs fell and the dust blew and the ice cracked and the buildings tumbled and the world
changed and changed and changed again
tick tick tick tick
And Charlie lay on the floor.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
One of us comes to mourn, the other to rejoice. I think that’s what this business is. I think that is why I came.
Charlie?
I walked the ice, as a boy I came here and I walked the ice, me and your mother, and saw so much life, life clinging on where you would have thought it would die, life that begets life that begets life that …
Char-lie …
This is my city, my country, my home, this is my life, my battle, my war. This is my struggle to be seen as a person, to be human, this is my human body, this is my human life, this is my everything, this is my all, this is …
CHARLIE!
One day we will build Jerusalem.
Something in his pocket.
He became aware of it slowly, as pain settled into a background ache.
A little pot, which rolled free when nudged with his fingertips. He caught it before it could slide off into a corner, and held it up.
Fifty painkillers, in a white plastic jar.
He stared at it for a very long time.
Then, slowly, rolled onto his knees.
He opened the pot, counted ten pills out in a row round the edge of the sink.
Stared at them.
Counted out eight more, laid them above the ten, forming the beginning of a pyramid.
Didn’t have enough room to put six more above, so instead put another eight below, turning the pyramid into the beginning of a diamond.
Stopped.
Stared.
Counted.
Tick tick tick tick.
He put the lid on the pot, laid it to one side, reached out with the tip of index finger and thumb, and picked up the first pill of the middle row of ten, moved it towards his mouth.
There was a knock on the door.
Knock knock knock.
He hesitated, waiting for it to go away.
Knock knock knock.
And then again, when he didn’t move: knock knock knock.
He put the pill down slowly, crawled to his feet, and with the chain still on the door, opened it an inch, flinching as he did so, remembering pain, needles, falling, a memory so intense it was almost like reliving it, clutching at his body.
Through the door, an eye, brown, heading almost for black, a hint of pale skin. For a moment he thought it was Patrick, there was something so familiar in the shape of that face, the cut of that suit, a figure that he knew.
Then he looked again, and it wasn’t Patrick. Not Patrick at all.
Hello, Charlie, said Death. May I come in?
Chapter 106
Death sat on the end of Charlie’s bed.
Charlie stared at his hands. Death looked round the room, curious, as if he’d never been in a hotel like this before.
For a while, neither spoke, until at last, having concluded his study, Death looked at Charlie, and leant in, almost nudging him with the side of his body, and declared, I thought we should have a little chat.
Charlie didn’t move, didn’t lift his eyes from the floor.
We’re overdue for a review, Death went on absently, eyes wandering again round the room. And there’s a new employment directive that counts travel time towards working hours, and Milton Keynes seems to think this will affect your contract and wanted to have
a word about it.
Silence.
So, Death went on, gaze returning to Charlie’s swollen, bloodied face. How are you finding it all?
Slowly, Charlie raised his head, and met Death’s stare. “Honestly,” he answered, “I’m having some difficulties.”
Death nodded, understanding, and patted Charlie on the shoulder. Kidnapped and tortured, yes? Been a while since that one, but sometimes these things do happen.
“Are you going to kill them?” Charlie asked.
Kill … who?
“The people who did this to me?”
Charlie, tutted Death. I don’t kill people. I merely … show up for the event.
“But … in Belarus …”
I’ll grant you, I have a bit of a temper sometime, and I dislike … rudeness, particularly to my envoy. But the gentlemen in Belarus were attempting to manipulate me, and arguably in doing so they only invited their destruction. Haven’t they read Frankenstein? Haven’t they been to the movies? Don’t they know how these things turn out? But in answer to your question, no, I doubt there will be any … overt repercussions for the individuals who have so recently abused you. A daughter might die, perhaps. A birthday party might be the last, but in the end, they will live because, you see … that is the world we live in. That is how things go, these days. I am not justice, Charlie. I am not logic, or law, I do not even up the balance of things. You know, I was once called capricious and I said, “I’ll show you capricious,” and then I went and changed my mind!
He chuckled, looked at Charlie to see if he’d laugh too, stopped quickly when Charlie did not.
Anyway, he went on, shifting a little on the end of the bed. Do you want them to suffer?
“No,” answered Charlie thoughtfully, and was surprised at his own words. “No, I don’t.”
Good! That’s good. You know—it’s that sort of attitude that makes you so good at your job. So important to see the value of these things. So important to recognise the human underneath the bluster. I’ve had people in the past who just saw corpses, talking corpses, and they were never what I hope for, never as generous or thoughtful with their words or their time as would be wished, but you are …
Charlie put his head in his hands, dug his fingers into his skin as if he might try and tear down to the white surface of his skull. Death stopped, surprised, looked a little closer. Charlie? Are you all right?
He shook his head, and had no words.
Charlie, Charlie, tutted Death, rubbing him on the back. Oh Charlie, this won’t do! Come now, you’ve got to talk to me, I can’t stand to see you in this state.
“I … can’t,” he whispered. “I can’t. What you said … I can’t. I went round the world and I saw … the end of everything. The ice cracked and the professor died, he fell and left his son behind because the world was ending. Agnes and Jeremiah, they screamed and screamed and screamed and no one listened, because they were weak and the rich were strong and that world was torn down and for what? Isabella made people laugh and she lives, she lives and that is good, but when the policemen came they pretended it had never happened, because he had power, and sometimes people live and sometimes people die but the laughter stopped and the war was not won and Qasim … he called them rats. You gave him a pen and the ink was dry. They died because they were not human, and I came to America and here … people suffer and the world turns and the dream … the dream does not die, it changes into something new, something that lets the good men fade, all because people are not human!”
Words, half shrieked from a broken voice. A gathering-in of shuddering breath, trying again, slow.
“And now I look at the world and I was honoured, I was so honoured to be your Harbinger because I honoured life. I was everything you wanted me to be, I went and I did honour to the living before the end, and it was a privilege. It was the greatest privilege that can be bestowed. And now I look and all I hear is the beating of the drums and all I see is a world in which to not be one of us is to be something else. The scientist was right, reason is dead; the dream is dead; humanity has changed into something new and it is brutal. It is ugly. Life is ugly. And it is obscene. And I look. And all I see is you.”
A shuddered gasp; he rolled forward again, pressing his head into his hands.
Death nodded, taking the words in, hand still resting on Charlie’s back. Then he exclaimed, Come on, and got to his feet.
Charlie looked up at him, confused, eyes burning, jaw slack.
Come on, repeated Death, chipper brightness. There’s an appointment we ought to keep.
“I don’t …”
Come on. It’s not far. We can get a taxi, if you like.
Death marched to the door, pulled Charlie’s keycard from the slot, plunging the room into gloom, waved it cheerfully at Charlie, smiled a mischievous smile. Come on, he repeated. Just this one. Just for me.
He held the door open.
Charlie followed him, into the light.
Chapter 107
A cab, only a few blocks, but Death declared that Charlie didn’t look like he should be walking.
A porch, covered over with a long green awning. A reception desk, manned by a woman with huge hair wearing a bright pink dress. A waiting area, sofas, fresh flowers, old men and women waiting in wheelchairs, some with relatives, kneeling down, holding their hands, talking. Some were sad; some were smiling. Some were in some other far-off place, but even the oldest and the most confused looked up as Death passed, and seemed to recognise his passage, though they couldn’t recognise the faces of their nearest friends.
Come on! Death kept on exclaiming, pulling Charlie through the halls. He seemed to know this place well, dodging and turning round the passing staff, nurses with clipboards, a doctor marching busily along, porters wheeling the old folk to and from the little café out back, relatives on their phones. Come on!
They headed up a flight of stairs, avoiding the queue of wheelchairs for the lift, and as they marched through another hall, decked with flowers and semi-arid pot plants, Charlie thought he heard the sound of music. Violins, cellos, a hint of piano in the distance. It was clunky and out of tune, but as they walked it grew louder, filling the corridors, until at last they came to a pair of double doors, which Death eased open so that Charlie might peek inside.
A large room, filled with chairs and flanked with Zimmer frames and wheelchairs. Some—many—of the old folk who sat there were asleep; some were snoring. An old man had a yarmulke upon his head; another was doing a crossword in his lap, not bothering to watch the creaking musicians.
Charlie looked.
A group of children, fifteen or twenty strong. Their average age was maybe twelve, their skin colour ranging from fair Persian, subtle and easily burnt in the sun, to dark Indian, the colour of autumn. Of the musicians, three or four were girls, and two of those, along with their teacher, wore headscarves to hide their hair.
Charlie glanced at Death, and Death smiled and said, I think they’re going to try their hand at Bach next. Don’t judge them too harshly.
He eased away from the door, letting it close softly, and then turned again, and pulled Charlie through the corridors, round and round, to where an old man sat alone, staring out of a window at the street below, a book open in his lap, his head on one side, eyes yellow and faint.
A woman was sat opposite him, writing notes on a clipboard, but as Death approached she rose quickly and said, “Oh … it’s you.”
Good afternoon, Death replied brightly. How are you today?
“I’m … fine, thank you.”
This is Charlie, he’s my Harbinger, explained Death, as her eyes flickered to Charlie’s face. Don’t worry about him, he was hit by a certain amount of human anxiety dressed up as a runaway train.
“I … see.” She did not, but who quibbles semantics with Death?
We very much enjoyed the music.
“The … ah, the school. Yes, they’ve never played here before, but I think the old folk will like i
t.”
They’re a Muslim institution?
“Yes.”
Playing for a Jewish nursing home?
“Yes. Some of our old ones were a bit … they weren’t very happy about it, the politics, it’s all tied up, isn’t it? But I said that half our staff are Muslim and the other half are Hindu or Christian, and if you can have your ass wiped by someone who believes in a prophet other than yours then you can definitely listen to a bit of classical, can’t you? And the school were very enthusiastic, they said it’d be a delight, that we were all the same really and … anyway. You’ve come for …” A gentle nod towards the dozing, distant man.
That’s right.
“I see. And, um … well, if I come back in, maybe … an hour?”
That sounds good.
“Okay. Well then. I’ll, uh … I’ll be back in a bit.”
Thank you. You’re a dear.
The woman nodded, and scurried away.
Death knelt down in front of the wheelchair, put his hand in the man’s own.
For a moment, Charlie wondered what the woman had seen, or what she’d even heard, as Death spoke. Did she hear the same words Charlie had; did she see the same figure? Or had some other, personal, private conversation happened between her and his employer, some secret thing that only they would share?
And the old man?
He opened his eyes at Death’s touch and he beheld …
… what he beheld was his secret, and only his to know, but he smiled.
“Oh,” he wheezed. “It’s you.”
Hello, Isaak.
“Been a while.”
It has, hasn’t it?
“You haven’t changed.”
Ah, but in my way …
“Where was it last …?”
Sobibor.
“Sobibor,” he breathed. “I remember. You were there. You helped me, you said you’d never tell, and I never told either. Sobibor—you had to survive day after day in the camp, and you were there and together …”
Death squeezed his hand tighter, smiling up into the ancient, blurred eyes. I remember. I was always there. You lived for the day, and you lived for the day after that, and one day the days would end, but you would live until that very moment. I remember.