Ахмед Рушди - Quichotte - A Novel

“Madam, is it you? I am honored.”

“I have to see you,” she said. “I need more.”

His decency struggled against his desire. “But, madam, last time, you came so close to dying. How can I bring you the weapon with which you will kill yourself?”

“I was stupid,” she said. “I’ll be smarter now.” This was no longer the voice of a powerful, successful woman in full control of her destiny and that of many others. This voice was wheedling, disingenuous, the falsely innocent delivery of a child begging for a treat. I’ll be good, I promise: the first lie we all tell.

“It’s dangerous to meet,” he said, his better nature still fighting off his own need. “Your Mr. Anderson, your Mr. Thayer, will he permit it? I think he means me harm.”

“He’s out of the picture,” she said. “They ID’d him from videos from Atlanta, after they arrested your, your relative. ‘Conrad Chekhov.’ That didn’t fool them for long. He is now a person of interest and has gone to ground. I don’t know where he is.”

“You must have other people around you,” he said. “You are such a big personage.”

“There’s nobody. There’s madness out there. Nobody came today. I have no security. I have nothing. There’s just me. This is why I need what you have. You understand?”

“Madam, you need protection.” He had to see her. He had to place his feeble body at her disposal. She had nobody and she needed him.

“Go to her,” his gun spoke up. “We can decide how this comes out later.”

“The world situation is bad,” he said. “But I have a plan that can save us.”

“I don’t want to discuss the world situation,” she said, regaining a degree of her old imperiousness. “What I want from you is one particular thing. Do you have it?”

“I have maybe two years’ supply,” he said, and heard her long, satisfied exhalation.

“Tell me where and when and how,” she said. “There’s a problem. My driver has also done a bunk. I guess that movie’s over.”

Quichotte didn’t understand.

“Never mind,” she said. “Also, I don’t think the car services are working.”

“The old red oak tree behind the Hans Christian Andersen statue in the park,” he said.

“That’s far.”

“It’s better not to be close to your residence.”

“How am I supposed to get there?”

A small irritation flared up in his love-drenched soul. “Madam, like the rest of us. Walk.”

WALKING WAS TERRIFYING. WALKING ALONE without anyone to fend off unwanted attention. She knew how to be invisible. Her shades, the headscarf, the unassuming black clothes, flat shoes, inexpensive pocketbook, no perfume. The body language of the nobody. She made her best effort. The streets were insane. It was the holidays but nobody was in a holiday mood. Crowds spilled everywhere with fear in their eyes. Maybe the last New Year’s. Nobody looked at anyone, everyone was shouting, but these were soliloquies. A city of Hamlets howling their anguish at the traitorous skies. And yes, broken windows, upturned cars. She felt as if she were in one of those Will Smith movies in which Manhattan was destroyed. Hollywood destroyed Manhattan regularly. It was a perverted expression of love. Her thoughts were all over the place. Where was Anderson. How could he leave her now. Where was Hoke. Why in the midst of the apocalypse was she going to meet a fentanyl pusher in the park. Why was she going to meet her stalker without anyone to take care of her in case he, in case he, what? He was a hundred years old and harmless. His face had a certain charm and there was education in his voice. Why was she talking to herself like this, she must have lost her mind like everyone else. He was a person to be careful of. Of whom to be careful. She had taken her bipolarity meds but she could feel the upswing toward hysteria in her blood. Her mother had given her many presents. A one-legged father who vanished. This bipolar disorder which she had to fight every day. And alcoholism which she had sublimated into drugs. One drug in particular. One version of that drug. The spray that went under your tongue, below language and therefore below argument and disorder, and brought you peace.

Thank you, my mother. My life is your fault. If anything happens to me today, I blame you.

Things started crumbling for me a while ago. I felt that. Okay, the overdose was stupid. I’m lucky to be here, lucky to be functional, lucky to be walking to Central Park up literally Mad Ave, but the network totally didn’t have my back. If they put their people on it they could have squashed the story, made it much smaller than it was, just a minor health issue, but they let it blow up as big as the sky. I’ve been outspoken on the show, I get that, in these days anyone who gets even a little political has a target on their back, and a brown person, a brown woman ? I had enemies I guess. I should have seen it coming. Instead I OD’d and put the knife to stab me with in their hands. Maybe I should go home. I miss Bombay. But the Bombay I miss isn’t there to go home to anymore. This is who we are. We sail away from the place we love and then because we aren’t there to love it people go with axes and burning torches and smash and burn and then we say, Oh, too sad. But we abandoned it, left it to our barbarian successors to destroy. Can I blame my mother for that too? Why not. What’s a dead mother for.

I can’t look up. Up there, what is that. Like a colossus with a huge blaster blew a hole in the air. You look at it, you want to die. This can’t be fixed. I don’t believe there’s anyone in DC or Canaveral who knows what the fuck to do about this. Is anyone even at their desks or is everyone just running up and down in the street the way people are here, charging around Dupont Circle and up and down the Mall and up and down Pennsylvania Avenue going aaaaaaaaa. And in the Oval Office maybe some oval charging. Aaaaaaaaa. That’s all we’ve got. Oval charging. That’s what the human race comes down to after all these years. Shakespeare Newton Einstein Gandhi Mandela Obama Oprah and in the end it’s just an impotent scream. Aaaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa aaaaaaaa.

Yes, Salma, I hear myself, yes I do. I know I sound high and wild and this part isn’t much better, talking to myself as if I’m someone else. My north pole in dialogue with my south.

Aaaaaaaaa.

So here I am as commanded. I don’t know when I walked so far except on the treadmill at the gym. There’s the ugly duckling guy and there’s the red oak tree. And there he is in his camel coat and brown fedora with a shawl draped over his right hand and in his left hand his little attaché case of joy. Kwee-cho-tee, Kwy-choat, Key-shot. Grinning all over his foolish face like I just said I do.

Babajan come back to life. My pedophile grandfather. Heh-heh-heh.

SHE SAID, “I HAVE ENOUGH cash here in my pocketbook to acquire your full supply. I can wait while you count it. After that I won’t need to trouble you anymore.”

He said, “No can do, madam. That is like asking me to shoot you in the head.”

She said, “I don’t want to discuss it. You’re selling? I’m buying.”

He said, “The world is coming to an end. On your show you had the gentleman promising an escape route. He said the portal was open.”

She said, “Why are we talking about this? I’m here to make a simple cash transaction.”

He said, “I have been watching this gentleman on the news. Mr. Cent. I know the location of the portal Mayflower . Probably you do, too, because the news story is big. Armed guards all around the facility, crowds demanding to be allowed to pass into the next world. It is necessary to go to California. CentCorp, number 18144 El Camino Real. The newscaster on TV spoke to me personally and told me it was our only chance.”