David Wallace - The Pale King - An Unfinished Novel

‘Sir, we’re not wearing eye protection of any kind.’

‘My nose itches something awful.’

‘I’m afraid we aren’t permitted to touch any part of your person, Sir.’

‘My thoughts are normally so much more organized than this.’

‘Please take all the time you need.’

‘They seemed just awful. Whole clouds of them. Shrouds, clouds, crowds of them. They’re a disease-vector you know. Read your history. Breed in the trees. When I looked in one of their shades two of the smaller children were covered. A shroud of them around both, in their eyes, nose, smothering them — I saw one of them fall; it couldn’t cry out. Pendleton’s little Line 40.’

‘So then you’d say that was the first observable sign of any effect, then, Sir.’

‘I had a very long fork, you know.’

‘For the grilling you mean, Sir.’

‘Let’s didi, Norm, man. This guy’s still gone. Scratch his nose and let’s go.’

‘Aitway, Aylortay.’

‘The Culex and malaria. The Aedes aegypti and dengue. Read it. It’s written. Fork or no.’

‘For your duties at the grill at the picnic area’s southeast quadrant according to this schematic, Sir.’

‘A very long fork. I don’t think you can appreciate. Jagged tines. It cast a shadow.’

‘And were — were you able to observe at this time any of the other agents or families behaving in any way out of the ordinary or engaged with the iced tea in any way, Sir?’

‘Though I did notice the settings. At the tables. With checked cloths. The settings were all knives. No spoons, no forks. I had the fork. Knife, plate, knife, knife. Three wicked knives at each place. Some years the breeze blows the plates away. Not this year, I can tell you.’

‘So this was an effect, or you were observing an effect, Sir, can you say which?

‘Fechner has a glass eye.’

‘That would be Revenue Agent Fechner, Sir. You observed him setting knives at the tables?’

‘Lost an eye in the war. How he put it: “Lost an eye.” The idea. Say there, fellows, anyone seen my eye by any chance?’

‘So you hadn’t observed any person or persons actually setting the table with all knives, then, Sir.’

‘Norm, man, what knives? Let’s didi.’

‘That’s a war term if I’m not mistaken. Agent Taylor. You think I don’t know what this is?’

‘It’s Aylortay, Sir. Pleased to meet you, Sir, although it’s damn unfortunate it has to be under these circumstances.’

‘They were coming out of the trees. ’

‘They were rappelling, Sir. The incursion may or may not have been tactical, that much we know.’

‘There was an egg-toss and gunny — the egg wouldn’t move; it stayed there in midair. The three-legged race under way when they came from the trees and they were trying to run away, to get to their children but their legs were tied together. It was a feeding frenzy, the mosquitoes — I was waving the long fork around.’

‘And you said you observed Revenue Agent Fechner suffering effects from the adulterated tea.’

‘So it was the tea.’

‘That’s not our area, Sir, I’m afraid. We’re collecting data.’

‘On the knives.’

‘A handsome set of knives indeed, Sir, would you care to see them?’

‘Who is this really? Who are you men?’

‘You were saying Revenue Agent Fechner and his glass eye.’

‘That he was at van Hool’s beer chest; he had his glass eye out so there was just the socket.’

‘And did the knives oh by some chance look like… this, Sir?’

‘Atiencepay, Aylortay. Onay uttingcay etyay.’

‘You think I don’t speak Latin?’

‘Sir, I’m pleased you speak Latin.’

‘Who is this man to your right and left?’

‘Try to focus, Sir. I know it’s difficult.’

‘Fechner was at the chest, had the eye out and was… was opening bottles of beer with the socket. Socket as bottle opener. In goes the bottle, downward yank. The little Line 40s were watching — it was awful!’

‘Revenue Agent Fechner’s going to be fine, Sir. They found the eye and he’s going to be right as rain.’

‘Was it raining, Sir?’

‘Placing the cap in the socket and then yanking down on the bottle, then the children would scream and clap because the cap was in the socket. A little gray sun in the eye. Eye eye!’

‘I say we just cut it out of him right now. It’s right there, Clothier, see it?’

‘Scopolamine you say. Loco weed. Parentis. Mens sano in corpus. And not plastic knives, either. And may I say what handsome skulls you have beneath that skin, boys.’

‘And you last saw Revenue Agent Drinion before the tactical incursion, Sir, or after?’

‘Drinion was at the table. Holding down the table as they say. Almost asleep he seemed. Drinion never takes part. They weren’t touching him — the mosquitoes. His chin in his hand.’

‘You don’t mean that literally, Sir.’

‘Note the honed edge. Note the seven-inch length, you old drone. Note the five stars on the blade and where it says No Stain and Ice Hardened and Zwilling and J.A. Henckels, Solingen FRG. You know what this is?’

‘I just don’t feel well at all, still. The examiners — a whole writhing boiling mass of them on the ground.’

‘From the three-legged race you mean, Sir, you don’t mean what Miriam calls your “ third leg, ” back in the days when she wanted that leg, Sir, didn’t she, Sir, before it repelled her.’

‘They were rappelling. Ropes in the trees. Victor Charles. A writhing mass of GS-9 examiners — mass copulation among the examiners which I personally observed — it’s all there in my report on a Form 923(a) for personal observations of impropriety; you Inspections men know all about 923(a)s, do you not.’

‘You observed this from the grill, then, Sir.’

‘I observed the effect of the tea in opened sockets and mass frenzied orgylike copulation and humping under the trees, on the table, under the tossed egg, on both ends of the horseshoe grotto. There were actual buttocks thrusting under my grill.’

‘And I believe you said you were wearing an apron, Sir.’

‘Cut him. Take it right off, Clothier.’

‘So by this point in time everyone with the possible exception of the children was suffering definite effects, Sir, you’re saying.’

‘The wieners themselves were writhing, thrusting. Plump, thrusting, shiny, moist, there on the grill, on Mrs. Kagle’s aluminum platter, in the air. I with the fork and observing it all until out of the trees where they breed! Breeding, ever breeding!’

‘I think we’ve got a decent picture of the situation from your particular vantage, Sir.’

‘You know it doesn’t go, Sir. Not really. You’ll stay like this. Look at me. You’ll look like this, Sir. Always. We came to tell you. We’ll cut it off right now if you like. Say the word.’

‘Needles with wings. Knives with wings, all dancing on their sharp tips, shrouds of mosquitoes making it dark. The sky is no longer the sky.’

‘He doesn’t want it, Clothier.’

‘The air no longer white with it.’

‘Get used to it, you impotent old fag. That’s right: fag. ’

‘Ixnay, Taylor.’

‘I have seen my wife take her skin off, you know. Since you came all the way down, eh? Peel the white skin of her arm clean off like an opera glove. Take off her face from the top down.’

‘Like: this, Sir?’

‘I think I’m going to be moving over to the next subject of the debriefing now, Sir. With much gratitude for taking the time.’

‘As if it’s even yours, eh, Dwitt? Eh?’

‘I’m simply unprecedentedly upset. I don’t think it’s getting better.’