Pasha Malla - The Withdrawal Method

But Silas was entranced by the inferno eating away at the cabinet, crackling and alive, and he felt himself saying to Mary, "Yes." He heard himself tell her, "We need to leave," but even as she took his hand and tugged him back down the carpet toward the exit, he still watched over his shoulder, saw the turban unravel in a shower of sparks, the face paint melt, the pipe crumble into ash. As they made their way back into the stairwell, Silas caught one last glimpse of the Turk's eyes, blue and sparkling in the firelight, before Mary pulled him away.

OUTSIDE THE Chinese Museum, Silas and Mary collapsed choking on the back lawn, she on her knees, he right onto his stomach in the grass.

"Silas," she said, once her fits of coughing subsided, "we have to run. The fire brigade will be here soon. They'll catch us and know we did it."

Silas sat up. He was smiling. "Let them come," he said. "We did do it."

Mary paused, then came over and smacked him again. "Don't be so foolish."

Behind them, smoke was beginning to waft out of the basement windows, but Silas just sat there, a grin on his face.

"Listen, you can go ahead and get caught, but if you think for a moment you're dragging me into this with you, forget it."

Silas looked up at her. "Mary, it's gone. It's over now."

"You're delirious. What are you smiling at? Get up!"

"Mary?" He pulled her down beside him. "I love you, Mary," he said.

"Silas, that's wonderful, but — "

"We can go, we'll go, but before we do, I just want you to know." She went to stand up, but he stopped her with a kiss, planted his lips on hers, both their faces smudged black with ash and smoke and joined together. Just as he released, an explosion came behind them as one of the basement windows was blown outwards. Glass came tinkling across the lawn, followed by the greedy roar of the fire inside.

Mary hauled Silas to his feet. "You okay now?"

"I'm okay," said Silas, wrapping an arm around her. They began to walk away, holding each other close. Behind them came another explosion; an orange glow stretched trembling across the lawn. Mary took Silas's hand and together they broke into a run. Very faintly, as they made their way off into the darkness, Silas was sure he heard a voice from deep amid the thunder of flames. It was a plaintive, desperate call. "Checkmate," said the voice, and then the roof of the museum came crashing down, a ball of flame rose into the sky, and all that was left was the rumble and hiss of the fire consuming the museum, devouring everything inside.

THE DAY EWING tried to bugger one of the goats, it went like this: Sujata Jain let Ewing outside and right away he started prowling around the pen, knuckles scraping the ground, breath whistling out through his nostrils, big simian head bobbing stealthily with each calculated step. There was something different about his movements, something dubious and predatory, and in that premonitory way in which animals can tell a storm is coming the goats staggered away from the lustful chimp, mewling. Before Sujata could intervene, Ewing scuttled over and mounted one of the poor creatures from behind and started humping away at its rear end.

it took a moment for Sujata to realize what was happening. For a moment, she stood watching, transfixed, before the screams of one of the younger patients — "The monkey's killing it!" — brought her to her senses. Rolling up her sleeves, Sujata rushed over, hauled the frenzied chimp to the ground, and then ushered him inside the playroom. By then the kids were hysterical and the dogs were howling and the goats huddled bleating in the corner of the pen, and a bewildered Sujata stood in the doorway, trying to figure out whom to console first.

Ewing, meanwhile, hammered off dutifully in the playroom. After ejaculating all over himself he waddled out back, where he sat, slumped in the corner of his cage, a white blanket pulled over his face, waiting to be locked in.

THE RAPE HAPPENED, a few days later the hospital's board of directors held an inquiry, and then, less than two weeks after that, Karel was hired as support staff — to "watch the horny chimp," as one senior official put it in the interview.

Sujata loved that horny chimp, though; she spent hours in meetings campaigning to keep him around. Karel's first day on the job, he walked into the Pet Therapy Ward and found her curled up on the floor with Ewing, stroking his furry back. Karel stood there for a moment, wondering if they shouldn't be left alone, before both woman and monkey looked up with the same curious expression on their faces.

"I'm Sue Jain," she said, standing up, extending her hand. Karel heard "Sue-Jane," which seemed impossible for this petite, chestnut-skinned South Asian; it was too Arkansas, too slapped together. "I'm in charge here."

Her palm felt greasy. "Hi, Sue-Jane. Karel. The new aide."

"I'm sure you've heard about Ewing." Sue-Jane nodded at the monkey sprawled between her feet. "You ever work with a bonobo before?"

"Bonobo? That's not a monkey?"

Sue-Jane's face crinkled. "You have much experience with animals?"

"Animals, no. Kids, plenty."

"Animals, no?"

"No. But I worked at a daycare for years. Like, before."

Sue-Jane stared at Karel for a moment, then reached down, took Ewing by the hand, and led him cautiously outside. "Judith needs feeding," she called over her shoulder. "She's the pig."

PET THERAPY operated under the premise that sick children would get well from being around animals, petting them, holding them to their ailing bodies. It was set up in the basement of the hospital in a room that had previously served as the morgue, now redecorated in a circus motif. Mobiles made by patients dangled from the ceiling: cardboard lions and clowns and big-top tents. Two picture windows looked out onto an outdoor animal pen that had been, at one point, a little patch of trees beside the hospital. A few stumps remained clustered around the perimeter of the yard, sawed off into flat, perfect stools. Immediately, Karel preferred to be outside with Ewing; the air in the playroom always seemed so still, almost oblivious to the life and action usually whirling around in it.

That first day, after a harried eight hours of vomiting dogs and vomiting children and a runaway Judith and a surprisingly docile Ewing, who hung around in the pen with the goats as if nothing had ever happened between them, SueJane instructed Karel to join her for dinner. Had it been anyone else, Karel might have considered this a romantic invitation, but she seemed so pragmatic about it. Besides, the woman was forty or so, close to fifteen years Karel's senior.

Karel followed Sue-Jane in his Neon to an Indian restaurant near the hospital, one of those all-you-can-eat places with piped-in sitar music and statuettes of deities bronze and holy along the walls. Sue-Jane made straight for a table next to the buffet, nodding at the waiters as she breezed by. She slung her purse over the back of a chair, snatched up a plate, and stepped into line. Karel trailed closely behind.

"Hungry," she grunted.

They shuffled along, reaching out every now and then to slop curries onto their plates. "Not that one," Sue-Jane kept saying, steering Karel's hand away. "Take some of this."

Back at the table, their plates both heaped with identical, meatless meals, Sue-Jane sat down with a great, breathy exhalation and attacked her food.

"That's the stuff," she said. "Oh boy, that's the stuff."

Karel folded some eggplant into a piece of naan. "You a vegetarian?"

"Vegan."

"Oh yeah? No cheese, no eggs?"

Sue-Jane paused for a moment, her fork dripping. "Yes. Vegan."

"You find that hard?"

"Beg your pardon?"

"Sorry- I just, you know."