Paullina Simons - A Beggar’s Kingdom

“Everything’s okay.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” Ashton said, as if that was the only thing that was wrong.

“Then what are you still doing home? Did you go to Valentina’s, get us food like you said?”

“Don’t answer my questions with questions,” Ashton said. “What are you doing? What are you writing, reading, looking for? Why the magnifying glass, why the mania? What’s happening? What the fuck is happening?”

Dressed in nothing but boxer briefs, Julian swung his aching feet onto the floor. He was uncontained. He was a dead leaf in the yellow river, an ailing creature, a rotting marmoset. How could he have not seen it coming? How could he have allowed it to happen. Allowed it to happen again .

“Why are you examining this nonsense with a microscope? Old London? What are you looking for?” Ashton picked up A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. “Edmund Burke? If you’re going to self-destruct, why can’t you self-destruct with porn, with ribald novels from de Sade: Erotica , Justine ?”

Julian could not explain to Ashton the inner howl of his helplessness.

“Burke wrote that all things are good that obey reason,” Ashton said. “Does anything you’re doing fit that category?”

“Did you come in just to harass me?”

“I need another reason? Put some clothes on, will you. You have a visitor.”

“You’re full of shit. Who?”

“I don’t know who , but there’s a man on the landing who says, and I quote, that he lost the piece of paper with my number but knew where I lived and you had told him to come tell me you weren’t coming back. I understood not a single fucking thing of that. The individual words maybe.”

“Devi?”

“I don’t know, Jules. I’m guessing he’s a fellow inmate, let out for an afternoon. Hurry up. It doesn’t look as if he’s got long before they come to take him back to the asylum. Kind of like you.”

A pale Devi stood at the door when Julian limped out into the living room in sweats and a pullover.

“Hello, Julian. I see you’ve returned—again.” Devi sounded so disappointed.

“You’re minimally observant.”

“Returned from where?” Ashton said.

“How are you feeling?” said Devi.

“How do I look?” said Julian.

“Like a man who’s been in a hundred and one fights. And lost them all.”

From the kitchen, Ashton smirked. “So he knows about the boxing? Wow.”

“Devi, you’ve met Ashton?”

“Not formally.”

“Ashton, Devi. Devi, Ashton.”

With wary reserve, Ashton stepped forward, and the two men shook hands, Ashton silent and blond towering over the little man silent and dark.

“Returned from where?” Ashton repeated. Neither Julian nor Devi answered. Ashton swore under his breath, grabbed his jacket and said he was going on a food run. Devi said Julian needed some plain chicken and white rice. Julian said no. Ashton said he was getting it anyway and split.

“You need food,” Devi said, coming closer.

Julian sank into the sofa.

“How’s your friend handling you?”

“Fine.”

“You haven’t told him?”

“Told him what .”

Devi perched stiffly in the corner of the opposite sofa. “Tell me .”

“You really need to be told? You know what happened.”

“I don’t.”

“Is that why you didn’t want me to go? Did you know all along?”

Devi stared into his crippled hands. “I’m waiting.”

Julian told him.

London burned. It burned to the ground. And she along with it. All the glory was laid to dust.

Then they were mute.

“Come back to Quatrang with me, Julian,” Devi said. “You need healing.” He added, “Please.”

“I’ve had just about enough of your healing, don’t you think?”

“Very often,” Devi said, “what God first helps us with is not virtue itself, but the power of trying again. And you did that. You tried again. What a noble thing that is. What a gallant effort. Don’t minimize it.”

“Hard to minimize it, Devi.” Julian rolled up his sleeve, thrusting the inside of his forearm across the coffee table into the cook’s face. “You see the ink? Forty-five minimized tattoos.”

“Is that how many days you had?”

“No. I got sick of marking them, so I missed some. A week, maybe more.”

Devi bowed his head.

“Let’s not minimize it,” Julian said. “Let’s maximize it, shall we? Here on my arm is the answer to the question I asked you before the first time I went. Do you remember?”

“I remember.”

“I asked you if I was going to find her young or old. And you said young. But you were wrong. Or lying. Which is it?”

Devi didn’t speak.

“I asked you at what point I was going to be inserted into her life, and you told me you didn’t know. Were you lying?”

“No.”

“Well, now you know,” Julian said. “And I know. Aren’t you glad we’re both so full of knowledge. When I find her, she’s not young.” Julian fell back against the cushions. “She is old. Each time she is at the end of her life.” Barely able to breathe, as if his lungs were still filled with smoke, he stared at the columns of black dots on his arm. Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

“Is that too much time, Julian, or not enough ?” Devi said. “I’m not clear. Because most of us don’t get even a picosecond extra.”

“Oh, fuck that.”

“I told you not to go,” the shaman whispered.

“You didn’t tell me she would die again!” Julian yelled.

“Control your temper. I told you, you couldn’t change things. I told you this over and over.”

“Okay, fine,” Julian said through his teeth. “You told me. I hear you—finally. Loud and clear. I’m done with this bullshit. With all of it.” He glared at Devi.

“Yes,” Devi said. “By all means live out your days in bitter pity for yourself while your life passes you by.” He stood up, gathering his hat into his hands and left.

After Ashton came back from Valentina’s with some precooked chicken and rice and found Devi gone and Julian back in his room, he banged on the bedroom door. “Food’s here.”

Julian sat on the sofa, Ashton across from him.

“So the man left?”

“The man left.”

“They took him back?” When Julian said nothing, Ashton said, “Who was he?”

“A cook from Great Eastern Road.”

“Cook. Great Eastern Road. Really. Well. Thanks for clearing that up.” When Julian offered nothing else, Ashton pressed further. “Is he the shaman you were asking me about a year ago? Some Hmong man who summoned the dead?”

Julian half-nodded.

“Does he have anything to do with what happened to you?”

Julian half-nodded.

“Jules, I can’t play twenty questions. I’m not Socrates. I’m going to start throwing shit by the next question. Talk to me. What happened to you?”

“Forget it, Ash. Honestly. It doesn’t matter anymore. It’s in the past.” Julian clenched and unclenched his hands. “And you don’t want to know.”

“Like hell I don’t. And it’s not in the past. It’s the fucking here and now. Julian, you left home in the morning and by the afternoon you were in an ICU with smoke inhalation and electrocution burns. Does that sound like the past to you?”

“If I tell you, you won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”