Mortals

The simulacrum examination table formed by lining up overturned crates was now covered with padding, toweling. Pots of hot water had been procured from somewhere. There was an astringent odor in the air. A Basarwa woman was sitting on the examination table and Morel was attending to her neck. Ray remembered being fascinated by dead skin as a young boy. His brother had produced yards of it. His brother had gotten too much sun for his skin type, during summer vacations. I never wanted to be a doctor, Ray thought. He had been squeamish. His brother had chased him around while he was peeling off sheets of dead skin because he had figured out that Ray found it upsetting in some way.

What about these people’s children? That was a question. It looked like he was not going to have children in this life. There were orphans in the world. He could teach orphans if he could find a way to do that.

Wemberg had been taken care of. He was lying on the floor wrapped up in drapes, still alive. He had to be alive because his head was showing. If he had died his face would be covered. Ray was relieved. A surge of heavy firing shook the building. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. Ray wondered how strongly the building was constructed. He had his doubts, but there were more pressing things to obsess on, like the expression on Morel’s face.

Because Morel was staring at him. He could see that. Several torchbeams had swung in Ray’s direction, lighting him up.

Ray said, “I couldn’t find your bag.”

Morel said nothing.

“I looked around,” Ray said.

“That’s all right. No, I found it. No someone found it for me.” Morel’s tone was odd.

Morel kept talking, still oddly. “All the drugs were gone but everything else was there, except for the drugs and my hypodermics, but okay. Oh also what about the first aid kit you had, any sign of it?”

“No, none.”

Ray realized what it was with Morel.

“Oh, this,” Ray said, touching the parcel bound to his chest. So far it was sitting solidly against him.

Morel said, “What is it, for Christ’s sake? Because you know what it looks like, it looks like a bomb strapped to you. Really. Really you look like one of those people with bombs strapped to them. It looks like metal, like a bomb, like some fucking thing, man, an infernal device. All you need is a fuse sticking out of it or something that looks like a detonator in your hand and that’s what you are. I know you, man, and you scared the shit out of me. Whatever that is, take it off.”

Ray wanted to laugh. He said, “Man, relax. This is my brother’s manuscript. I found it.”

“Well take it off.”

“Are you kidding? I won’t. Never. This goes with me just like this until we get out of here. Or not.”

Morel threw his hands up. He turned away.

Ray saw that Wemberg was beckoning to him. Ray was delighted. Definitely Wemberg was alive. He felt kinship because Wemberg was a widower and so was he, in a way. There was no noun, not in English, for the man who takes away another man’s wife. There should be. It could be something like plucker. And there was no particular word for the man whose wife had been plucked away. The French undoubtedly had a word for it. There should be an Academie Anglaise. He wouldn’t mind working for that kind of body. He was going to need a job. It would be a job that would let him elevate some of his brother’s coinages like to harbinge into the dictionary, some dictionary. There were other coinages that weren’t bad. He was carrying them around on his chest, next to his heart.

Wemberg was rolled up in floral drapery. One arm was free. He was rolled up like Elizabeth Taylor or Vivien Leigh in a carpet in Caesar and Cleopatra when she was hauled up into the fortress and let out of the carpet by the then handsomest man in the world, Stewart Granger. We have too many images for things, he thought. It was the media. It must have been better before the media.

He sat down next to Wemberg, whose eyes were closed now and who was no longer beckoning. He had certain things to say to Wemberg. He wanted to tell him that he appreciated, really appreciated, that Wemberg and his wife had done good in the world. He wanted to let Wemberg know that he was going to be doing good, himself, next, in his life. He wanted to tell him that he was going to be more like him and Alice.

“Dwight,” he said, but that was all he said. Wemberg had a smile on his face but he seemed suddenly asleep. Ray thought he must be dead. Now look what you’ve done, he said to himself, in agony, involuntarily getting back to the question of why in the name of God his mother had found the Laurel and Hardy movies so funny.

He couldn’t stand the idea but Wemberg was dead. He wanted to shout. He did shout. He shouted for Morel to come over.

“What?” Morel said, unable to contain his irritation.

“He’s dead. Wemberg is dead.”

“No he isn’t,” Morel said. He prodded Wemberg with his foot and Wemberg began to cough.

“Don’t get him excited, he’s weak,” Morel said.

Wemberg was plucking at his headband and whispering something urgently.

“What does he want?” Ray asked. He wanted to do anything Wemberg wanted. He put his ear next to his mouth.

“Wear my witdoek and go to the stairs. You have to be at the stairs. Take the rifle and go to the stairs. I told you.”

“Okay, don’t worry, I understand.”

He knew he had to leave Wemberg if he was going to be a combatant. But he was reluctant to leave the man. Morel was busy. Wemberg was odd, he was phasic. He would manage to get out a few words and then he would fade into silence. His face would go slack. And then in a few beats he would be back to himself and he would produce another set of words. And for some reason each time he commenced again he accompanied his effort with a forced smile. It made no sense to have priorities in a situation like the one he was in, but Ray had a couple of strong ones. He wanted Wemberg to live and settle the hideous problem of his wife, her disinterment. He wanted to be able to help Wemberg with that, as one of his last acts in this part of the forest. And he wanted to get hold of Kerekang and talk to him and see if he could extract him from what he had gotten caught in and get him away and into safety of some kind. He had confidence that he could do that if he got the chance. He had a set of unusual skills, thanks to his years in the agency. He knew how to get behind the arras, that kind of thing. He would expend his skills, burn them to the ground, to help Kerekang and Wemberg to undo things. He wanted other things, too. He wanted Morel to survive, of course. He deserved to.

Ray took Wemberg’s hand, and that stimulated another smile and a string of words.

“Take my doek,” Wemberg said. He repeated it.

Ray slipped the headband free. It had a rank smell. He didn’t care.

Wemberg’s head was larger than his, apparently. Ray had to retie the doek rather than slide it directly on, which, strangely, disappointed him.

He was ready, then. First he had to push away certain associations he didn’t want to have, associations from Kurosawa movies mainly, of samurai getting ready to go out and do battle by, as a final preparatory act, tying on a headband. He wanted what he was going to do to be what it was and not what it resembled. He patted Wemberg’s forehead very softly. He had to detach himself from the compulsion to keep seeing if the man was still alive.

He was ready. Unfortunately he was going to need help getting to his feet. It was his knee, not to mention the millstone around his chest.

“Thusa,” he shouted. Two Batswana heard him and came to him and hauled him erect.

The Enfield was heavy. He picked it up and made sure that the single shell he had was correctly chambered so he could fire it into someone’s body.

He hesitated. He wanted Morel to notice that he was on his way to war.

He posted himself at the foot of the stairs. He stood there until he felt that he should be doing more. He would go up, at least to the second floor.

The staircase was a beautiful thing, he realized. Money had gone into it, rare hardwoods. The railings were artworks. The handrail was carved in a serpentine shape. He didn’t want this stairway to go up in smoke. There