Ахмед Рушди - Quichotte - A Novel

The story ended, and now the news anchor, very surprisingly, addressed her remarks directly to Quichotte. “You’ll be interested to know,” she said, fixing her piercing gray eyes on him in his tawdry bed, “that several of today’s stories concern you personally.”

Quichotte sat up. What?

“Three stories, in fact,” the news anchor said. “All involving persons significant to you.”

“Are you talking to me?” Quichotte cried, his voice entering a higher register than usual.

“I don’t see anyone else in there,” the anchor replied, leaning forward and pointing her pencil at him.

His relationship with television had plainly entered a whole new phase. “What,” he asked, uncertainly, “what are the stories about?” The anchor, seemingly reassured, resumed her habitual posture and read him the news.

“From Atlanta today, dramatic news of the arrest of the pharmaceuticals billionaire Dr. R. K. Smile, chairman and CEO of Smile Pharmaceuticals Inc. and prominent arts philanthropist, on charges of running a nationwide ring of doctors prepared to prescribe powerful opioids ‘off-label,’ that is, to people not suffering from conditions specified on the label—often people in excellent health. The charges call him ‘one of the most unscrupulous contributors to the current epidemic of opioid misuse.’ Sources say it is likely that further arrests will follow as investigators pursue other members of the alleged ring. Additionally, there are separate accusations by seven women employed by SPI of sexually inappropriate behavior by Dr. Smile, who is allegedly known to many of his female employees as ‘Little Big Hands.’ Dr. Smile, speaking through his lawyers, has denied all the accusations and expressed his determination to clear his name.”

Further arrests will follow. The words hit Quichotte hard. That he should end up a common criminal at his advanced age. The shame of it might kill him.

The newscaster was moving on to the next story, apparently uninterested in Quichotte’s response. “In related news in Manhattan, we have a breaking story that celebrated actress and TV personality Salma R may have suffered a severe opioid overdose and has been rushed to the intensive care unit at Mount Sinai Downtown. Early unconfirmed reports suggest she was found unconscious by her assistant Mr. Anderson Thayer, who injected her with the antidote Narcan and made the 911 call. More about this as the facts come in.”

Quichotte trembled. Was this the end of his story, that he was responsible for the death of his Beloved? That from his hands she received the instrument of her destruction?

“Is she going to live?” he asked the TV screen. “What are they saying? Is it possible she will make a full recovery and live on in health and prosperity as she deserves?”

The announcer looked scornful. “More about this,” she repeated, “as the facts come in.”

“You said three stories,” Quichotte quavered. “What’s the third? Can it be any worse than what you have already told me?”

“The third story is minor,” the announcer said. “It didn’t make it onto the show.”

“But what is it?” Quichotte pleaded.

“This is irregular,” the announcer replied. “But, okay. Your sister was robbed early today, in her apartment in Tribeca.”

His heart was breaking. “Robbed? Was she hurt? Who was it?”

“She cooperated with the assailant, which was wise,” the announcer said. “He left her bound and gagged but he did not otherwise injure her. She was in the habit of keeping substantial quantities of cash at home, and the assailant’s discovery of that fact may have triggered the assault.”

“How did the assailant know about the money?”

“He was staying with her in the apartment as her guest,” the announcer said. “I’m sorry to tell you that the individual, presently on the run, was your son. She made him breakfast before he pulled this stunt. That’s all I have.”

“Thank you,” Quichotte said, as his world fell apart around him, as it crumbled like the crumbling universe.

“You’re welcome,” the television replied.

LIMBO WAS THE EDGE OF HELL. Time did not pass there, nor kind breezes blow. All was stagnation. Life, having been rendered meaningless, lost the power of movement. When he turned on the television the images did not change. It seemed that the Earth stood still and the sun neither rose nor set. Were days going by, or weeks, or even months, or had the idea of time passing become meaningless too? A perpetual twilight reigned. The noises of the street were held in stasis, a two-tone siren stuck on one tone, the bleep of a reversing truck sounding continuously like the whining of a mechanical mosquito, the traffic roaring, not as traffic does, but like the low sustained breath of some unknown beast. Quichotte neither ate nor drank and did not know the day from the night. It was as if he were a character in a show on TV and owing to a technical problem the transmission had frozen and he was caught in mid-gesture, trapped in electronic aspic. It was as if he were being written and the author could not turn the page. In that long nothingness it was not difficult to think of the gun as his only friend.

He was like the postapocalyptic underground troglodytes he saw in a movie on TV, dependent for everything on the all-powerful Machine, unwilling to brave the surface of the Earth where a few brave souls were still moving, and so doomed when the Machine, without explanation, stopped.

The Machine was stopping.

The last valley, he remembered, was the Valley of Poverty and Annihilation, where the self disappeared into the universe and the Wayfarer became timeless.

At a certain moment, in that moment without moments, he refused this ending, and found the courage to go on. Then with a great grinding noise the world around him began to move again, the cogwheels engaged, the end turned out not to be the end. The sun and moon, the traffic, the TV, here they all were once more, rising, setting, roaring, blaring. Here was the date on the TV screen. It was already December. And the gray-eyed newscaster had more words for him.

“Salma R was released from the hospital today and went home. The scandal surrounding her abuse of the opioid fentanyl and her subsequent near-death experience shook the entertainment world. Today, as she left Mount Sinai, she spoke to our cameras.”

There she was on the front steps of the medical facility, the Beloved, looking better than she had any right to look; looking adorable, irresistible, beginning the process of winning back her fan base. “I’m just so ashamed,” she said. “I let the network down, I let everyone working on the show down, I let the fans down, and I let myself down.”

“Ms. R, during your hospitalization your show was placed on permanent hiatus and network executives have said they are unlikely to bring it back, do you have a comment?”

“I need to earn back the trust of so many people,” she said, looking gorgeously crestfallen, “but I’m absolutely going to try.”

“And that’s the news at—”

“Wait a minute,” Quichotte cried. “What about the rest of it?”

“Oh,” the newscaster said, shuffling her papers and looking irritated, “Dr. R. K. Smile is out on bail right now, confined to his home and wearing an ankle monitor, but he will go on trial soon, and things don’t look good for him. Many of the doctors who worked with him were also arrested and most have agreed to become cooperating witnesses.”

“Do they think they have everyone involved in the ring?” Quichotte asked anxiously.

“To the best of our knowledge, yes,” the newscaster said. “Now I really have to go.”

“What about my son?” Quichotte insisted.