Corruption Read online

  “On what?”

  “If I want to or not. You know, you never asked what I studied,” I said, changing the subject.

  “Are you going to tell me, or just play games?” Kashka said.

  “I’m not playing games. I studied poetry.”

  “And you got a job here, doing what?”

  “I’m supposed to be translating Arkadius,” I said.

  “A-ha. Yes, the epic poem. We read it in school. There is not already an English version?” Kashka said.

  “Not yet. So, I want to know more about you, Kashka. Where are you from? Did you grow up in City?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I grew up in small village about eighty kilometers from here. I moved to City when I was fourteen, for high school.”

  “Do your parents own a farm?”

  I was just teasing, but she said, “Yes. We had a cow. Chickens. Sheeps. There is a forest where we pick mushrooms behind my house. My grandfather built it, before Second War.”

  “Can I see it sometime?” I said.

  “Okay. Let’s go.” Kashka grinned.

  “Everything is so different here,” I said.

  “What do you mean?” Kashka said.

  “People seem to value each other more. They’re polite. You have traditions. Even the beer tastes better.”

  Kashka raised her eyebrows. “Really? I think Countryish people are very rude. But you probably don’t see it. You’re American.”

  That was probably true. Country was the United States’ most valuable ally in Eastern Europe, due to its geographical position as a buffer zone between Western Europe and Russia. Most of the people in Country saw the United States as a protective older brother; an asshole older brother maybe, but ultimately one that had their back if the shit ever really hit the fan.

  “Is that why you agreed to go out with me? Because I’m American?” I said.

  Kashka rolled her eyes. “Oh yes, all Countryish girls love American guys. We think all of you are Brad Pitt.”

  “Hey, 1995 just called. They want their joke back. By the way, how long is your break?”

  Kashka checked her phone. “I have five more minutes.”

  “When will I see you again?”

  A sly glimmer radiated in her eyes. “Are you asking for my number?”

  I shook my head, leaning back in my chair with one arm over the back, the way I thought Ink would. “No, I’m not,” I said.

  Kashka’s playful smile fell to a confused frown. “But, I thought…”

  I leaned back across the table and grasped both her hands. “Relax. I don’t have a phone that can make calls here yet. Why don’t we just meet tomorrow at the Square? Say, at nine o’clock, on the corner of St. John’s Street.”

  Kashka pursed her lips hard, studying me. “In Country, when a guy tells a girl he doesn’t want to take her number, it usually means he doesn’t want to see her again.”

  “You know I want to see you again,” I said.

  Kashka folded her arms over her chest. “No, I don’t.”

  “Yes you do,” I said. “Will you be there or not?”

  The tension in her face relaxed a little, and the sly smile slowly crept back up her lips. “Okay. Yes, I believe you. We can meet at St. John’s Street at nine tomorrow.”

  As we were leaving, I pushed Kashka against a wall outside the door and kissed her in the rain. Her arms slid under mine and I cradled her head so she wouldn’t bump it on the rough, wet stone. No woman had ever kissed me so passionately in my life. Her lips, her scent, the warmth of her sides and lower back where my fingertips stroked her were soft and magnetic, drawing me toward a light that hadn’t shined on me since Carly died.

  For that moment, I was happy.

  THE CITY

  I WAS DRUNK again by the time I got home. That last beer had really put me over the edge. I barely managed to slither out of my blazer and shoes before stumbling into bed.

  The wind howled outside, a deafening caterwaul that shook the trees so hard they snapped and struck at the sides of my balcony and windows. It wasn’t raining anymore, but the weather was still hostile, only one or two degrees above freezing. I had only shut the curtains halfway before getting into bed, and the bare, black branches extended and contracted like the twitching fingers of the dead, all whispering, Come and join us, come and join us.

  The heater cycled on and blew a gust of hot air up next to the door, stirring the curtains. As the cheap cloth danced in that spiraling updraft, I saw a golden light glimmer just outside my window, a dim, but visible pattern that was at once both familiar and terrifying: it was a golden spiral.

  The light vanished as fast as it had appeared. But where it had been, the dark, looming silhouette of a man stood blackened against the paler shadows of the storm, gazing into my window.

  There’s someone outside, I thought, my mind a twisted labyrinth of alcohol and sudden adrenaline. He’s right there. I can see him. Is that… Ink?

  The featureless shadow stared, unmoving, from my rain-slicked balcony. I sat up slowly, grabbing for the cheap pocket knife I kept on my nightstand. Was I just drunk and seeing things? The more I stared, the more the shadow looked like a frightening coincidence than a person looking in my window. How would Ink even know where I lived, anyway? Why the fuck would he be peeping into my apartment? From what I could tell, the guy didn’t even like me that much. Who could climb up to a third-floor balcony in the freezing rain?

  I fumbled the knife as I was folding it open, and it fell, clattering to the floor. By the time I reached down to grab it, the curtain had returned to its original position, blocking the shape that I’d seen outside. Blood thundered through my veins as I rose, quiet and silently as I could, crept out of bed, across my apartment, and pushed the blinds all the way open.

  There was no one there. The balcony was empty save a few scattered pools of rain, and the ceaseless elegy of the wind battering the trees. I imagined the whole thing. Breathing a sigh of relief rank with vodka and exhaustion, I crawled back into bed and fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

  I dreamt I was running through endless, ancient tunnels. The lightless brick corridors stretched infinitely, every turn bending back on itself like thread caught in some nightmarish loom. Permafrost crusted the stones of the floor, and my breath made pale clouds in front of me as I ran. The perpetual torches were housed in sepulchers of stained glass that cast the tunnels in myriad colors of crimson, violet, indigo, and amber light.

  A girl’s screams echoed somewhere nearby, her excruciating cries drawing me reluctantly forward. I was almost to her when the dream abruptly ended and I awoke to the gray ghost light of dawn filtering through my curtains.

  I don’t know if that was my first visit to the Night Country, or if my dream was only some rare coincidence. I believe it was a premonition of events to come, a calling across time and space, drawing me to the place I would eventually belong. But I have no evidence that it was anything more than a dream brought on by the brutal cocktail of stress from moving overseas, drunkenness, and sleep deprivation, and that I didn’t truly enter that other world until I contracted the Blot.

  I suppose I’ll never know for sure.

  Later that morning, while I was drinking my morning coffee and eating runny scrambled eggs fried with pickled mushrooms and smoked sausage, I noticed something strange on the window leading out to my balcony. Someone had drawn a spiral on the dirty pane of glass.

  I tried wiping it away, wondering if I’d made a thoughtless swirl in the dust with my own fingertip the night before while I was drunk and half-asleep, but the spiral was on the outside of the window.

  THE CITY

  “HI, MOM.”

  “Hi sweetie! How are you?”

  “Doing okay. Hey, dad.”

  “Hey there, weary wanderer.”

  “Can you guys hear me okay?”

  “Yeah. Can you hear us?”

  “You’re cutting out a little. My internet sucks here.” The Sky
pe connection skipped and tore my parents’ faces into jagged asymmetry. “Hold on. You there?”

  A moment later the audio resumed, crackling like a machine gun. “Danny? Sweetheart? I think we lost you.” My mom’s voice said from the still image.

  The video stabilized and resumed. “Nope. I’m here,” I said. “We might have to make this fast. I think next time I’ll have to call you from a coffee shop or something.”

  “So, you gonna show us your new pad?” my dad said.

  “For sure. I’ll give you guys the grand tour.”

  I carried my phone with the camera facing away from me and took a couple paces around my flat. “Not much to see,” I said. “Kinda small, but, new building, right?”

  “Oh, it’s so cute!” my mom’s voice echoed from the speaker.

  And my dad’s, “That bathroom looks far out.”

  “I couldn’t figure out how anything worked for like, two days,” I said, sitting down at my tiny kitchen table.

  “Couldn’t flush the toilet?”

  I blew a raspberry at my dad and shrugged.

  “We miss you,” my mom said.

  “I miss you guys, too. How are Dee and the baby?”

  My mom frowned sympathetically. “They’re good. She’s bummed they couldn’t come over and talk to you. She’s working the double shift today. You feeling okay, honey? You look a bit pale.”

  My dad cleared his throat and gave her a look like she was on something. “Jeannie, it’s Saturday morning.”

  “So? I’m asking if he’s sick.”

  “I’m fine, mom. Just overdid it a little last night. That’s all.”

  My dad grinned at me through the phone screen. “Nightlife pretty fun there, huh?”

  “It’s crazy. The bars don’t close until seven in the morning. And even then, people don’t stop partying. They just take it home. Or to the street.”

  A worried frown seized my mom’s face. “Make sure you’re not drinking the hard alcohol, Dan. Wine and beer, okay?”

  “Jeannie,” my dad tried to interrupt, but she cut him off.

  “He shouldn’t be drinking that stuff.”

  “Jeannie, he’s twenty-six years old.”

  “It’s not about his age, Tim.”

  I raised my voice over both of them. “Mom, relax. It’s not like I’m driving anywhere. I don’t even know anyone who has a car. Everything’s in walking distance of my house. Okay? Stop worrying. I’ll be fine.”

  Simmering, my mom shook her head, smoothed her shirt, and gave me her best: This is me choosing not to give you a big fat piece of my mind, for your own sake, smile. “So what else is new?” she said.

  “I met a girl,” I said.

  My dad chuckled. “That was fast.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest without thinking, then, realizing how defensive I looked in the tiny image where my own picture showed up in the corner of the screen, unfolded them and said, “Well, it’s been two years since I’ve dated anyone, and I like her, so, I’d call it good timing.”

  “And what’s her name?” my mom said.

  “Kashka.”

  “Is she Countryish?”

  “Yup. From a village about eighty kilometers north of here. She’s smart. Has a PhD in astronomy.”

  “Uh huh. Well, that’s nice.”

  “How did you meet?” my dad said.

  “She sells flowers at the Main Square. We started talking, I thought she was cute, so I asked her to go for a beer, and she said yes. We’re supposed to meet up again tonight. Thinking we’ll check out the Jewish Quarter.”

  My dad’s eyes wandered off screen. “A guy I work with, named Bill – big, fat guy, but he’s so sweet; well he’s funny, you know, but he’s just got such a great spirit – his family’s from City, and he said that’s an absolute must-see.”

  “That’s what I keep hearing,” I said.

  “Well, cool, Dan. I’m glad you’re making friends.”

  “He said he likes this girl, Tim. That means they’re more than just friends,” my mom said.

  And my dad, “So what?”

  “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “No. So what.”

  I’d seen this fight unfold a thousand times before on a thousand different subjects, and my head and stomach hurt too much to watch it replay again from the other side of the world. “Anyway, guys. It’s really great to talk to you, but I should probably get going. Got a bunch of stuff I need to pick up for my apartment. They didn’t even set me up with a real cooking knife… or a spatula… or hand soap. Had to make scrambled eggs with a spoon this morning.”

  “Is there a grocery store nearby?” my mom said.

  “There’s one right downstairs, mom.”

  “Okay. I’m not nagging, honey, I just want to make sure you have food to eat.”

  “I miss you guys,” I said.

  “We miss you too, sweetie. Can we talk again next week?”

  “Sure. Love you.”

  “Love you, too,” my mom said.

  “Miss you, man,” my dad said.

  I clicked end.

  I had a thought about happiness while I was putting my shoes on over my mismatched socks to walk over to the mall.

  Happiness can vanish from your life in an instant. But it can reappear just as fast, and it always comes in the form of a person. Now, don’t get me wrong. Nobody else can give you happiness. We’re all too flawed and fucked up inside, carrying patches of ugliness and misery so deep that if the rest of the world ever ripped off the Band-Aid smiles and saw them, we’d be too ashamed to live. At least, that’s the way I am, but I’m pretty sure everyone else is the same way, too, sometimes.

  Telling my parents about Kashka had put me on a cloud. Nobody else can give you happiness. But the idea of them can. The impression left by a stranger who you have no business knowing at all, but who stumbles wind-blown and wild into you anyway, can change your life in the blink of an eye; a thirty-minute talk in the window of a musty pub, or a joyful smile, or a kiss in the autumn drizzle, can ignite something that cancels out that old pain and renews you.

  Hungover and feeling like it was suicide to walk out my front door into the cold autumn sunshine, a memory resurfaced of the records my parents used to play when I was a kid. They’d put on cheesy old love songs while they were cooking dinner and dance together in the kitchen, Richie Valens, the Beatles, and Van Morrison, then smooch and giggle to spite me when I’d run out of the room pretending to puke. They didn’t act like it these days, but I knew they loved each other more than anything. My greatest fear, possibly even more than dying, was that I’d never be able to build a life like they had, that I’d lost that chance with Carly.

  Years ago, when I started dating Carly, I’d put those same songs on whenever we’d drive somewhere in my car, or cook breakfast together, or make love. Music is a powerful bond. It creates an echo that carries all of another person’s love, and sadness, and magic into our lives. Poetry is the same.

  I always remembered Carly when I heard the golden oldies. But Kashka had that echo, too, somehow, although I’d only known her for a grand total of twelve hours. She was those forgotten melodies, remembered. But instead of bringing pain and loss, she brought a satiating numbness. I knew I’d never love Kashka the way I loved Carly. But I thought maybe, for a while, she might be able to help me forget.

  BENEATH THE MASK

  HE CLIMBED the Echelon under a black and crimson sky, the first frail hints of a false day drawing over the horizon. From here the world looked inverted, the ground a distant pale sea, the ice floes and their pressure ridges that moved across the harsh, apocalyptic Surface in slow, geologic marches like towering frozen tsunamis all dotted with the tiny blackcaps of skyscrapers and buildings half-encased in graves of white. Then the gravity changed around the midpoint of the ascent, and it did invert, as his feet anchored comfortably to the cold, smooth stone of the Secret Stair, and what was below settled above.

  The girl under his arm
stirred at the shift in gravity, mumbled a few words only decipherable by the characters of her dreams, and pulled at the edge of his cloak.

  He wanted to warn the little Brave One that she would find no warmth in there. It had been ages since his body had produced heat, and in truth, the inside of his cloak was even colder than without. To Hyro-Now-Called-Ratkeeper, temperature was no more than a pretty way of describing the motion of some microscopically small portion of the Spiral. It meant little to one capable of viewing the greater picture.

  The old Brave One slung over his shoulder did not stir. Hyro might have thought him dead, had he not been able to observe the old man’s heartbeat in Slow Time. It had stalled to the pace of a hibernating animal. The surgeries had taken the old man to the precipice of death. Hyro had considered him as a candidate for Transformation, though he wouldn’t have survived the experiments to his heart, throat, bladder, or lungs.

  Besides, the Little Lord Master wanted famous rebels like these, the truly Brave Ones, to put on display in his Palace as spoils of war, or proof of the primacy of his regime, or propaganda that the Amber City could never fall.

  But it could fall, couldn’t it? Hadn’t Hyro caught glimpses of those terrible, unknowable--yes, even treasonous--secrets in the Glass Book, which the Little Brave One had found in the wreckage of the Cathedral?

  Had that really happened, or was it just another dream? Hyro couldn’t remember. Even his most solid memories faded fast, like snowflakes, or calm moments in a storm, or - yes - like dreams. He had lost his ability to recall them at will when he’d given himself to the Blot. That, at least, he could remember. That it was a choice. That he’d paid the price willingly. That it wasn’t always like this, and there was a time before.

  For the people, he recalled. He’d put on the mask to serve the people. Then he forgot again.

  At the top of the Secret Stair, he gave the Sign of Passage to the Watchman, who summoned the lift that would take Hyro and his charges to the Amber City. There were new bones there, which completed the picture Hyro’s imagination had drawn when he’d come across the remains of a campfire some hours earlier, secreted in the shifting masses of stone and black, twisted metal. Another little vermin with a big idea. Unfortunate, but sadly not uncommon.