Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (40 page)

"I need fresh air," says the Gatekeeper, overcome by the stench. "You two talk all you want. This shadow no longer has the strength to stick to you."

The Gatekeeper leaves. My shadow hesitates a moment, cautiously looking about the room, then beckons me over to his bedside.

"Go up and check that the Gatekeeper isn't listening," whispers the shadow.

I steal up the ladder, crack open the trapdoor, see that no one is about.

"He's gone," I say.

"We have things to talk about," declares my shadow. "I'm not as weak as I appear. It's all an act to fool the Gatekeeper. I am weak, that's true, but my vomiting and staying bedridden is pretend. I can still get up and walk."

"To escape?"

"What else? If I wasn't making to get out of here, why would I go to all the trouble? I've gained myself three days doing this. But three days is probably my limit. After that, I won't be able to stand. This stinking cellar air is killing me. And the cold—it pierces to the bone. What's the weather like outside?"

"It's cold and snowing hard," I say, hands in my coat pockets. "It's even worse at night. The temperature really drops."

"The more it snows, the more beasts die," says the Shadow. "More dead beasts mean more work for the Gatekeeper. We'll slip out when he's occupied, while he's burning the carcasses in the Apple Grove. You'll lift his keys, unlock the enclosure, and we escape, the two of us."

"By the Gate?"

"No, the Gate's no good. He'd be on top of us in no time. The Wall's no good either. Only birds can make it over the Wall."

"So how do we escape?"

"Leave it to me. I've got it worked out from the information I've pieced together. I pored over your map enough to wear holes in it, plus I learned all sorts of things from the Gatekeeper himself. The ox took it into his head that I wasn't a problem anymore, so he was willing to talk about the Town. The Gatekeeper is right that I don't have the strength to stick to you. Not now anyway. But once we get out and I recover, we can be back together. I won't have to die here like this; you'll regain your memory and become your former self."

I stare into the candle flame and say nothing.

"What's the matter? Out with it."

"Just what was this former self of mine?"

"What's this now? Don't tell me you're having doubts," jeers my shadow.

"Yes, I have doubts," I say. "To begin with, I can't even recall my former self. How can I be sure that self is worth returning to? Or that world?"

The shadow is about to say something, but I raise my hand to cut him short. "Wait, please. Just let me finish what I have to say. It is not only that I may have forgotten how things used to be. I am beginning to feel an attachment to this Town. I enjoy watching the beasts. I have grown fond of the Colonel and the girl at the Library. No one hurts each other here, no one fights. Life is uneventful, but full enough in its way. Everyone is equal. No one speaks ill of anyone else, no one steals. They work, but they enjoy their work. It's work purely for the sake of work, not forced labor. No one is jealous of anyone. There are no complaints, no worries."

"You've forgotten no money or property or rank either. And no internal conflicts," says the shadow. "More important, there's no growing old, no death, no fear of death."

"Tell me, then—what possible reason would I have for leaving this Town?"

"It all makes sense, what you say," he allows, extending a shadowy hand from under his blanket to touch his parched lips, "on the face of it. The world you describe would truly be a Utopia. I cannot fault you that. You have every right to be taken with it, and if that's the case, then I will accept your choice and I will die. Still, you are over-looking things, some very important things."

The shadow breaks into a cough. I wait for him to resume.

"Just now, you spoke of the Town's perfection. Sure, the people here—the Gatekeeper aside—don't hurt anyone. No one hurts each other, no one has wants. All are contented and at peace. Why is that? It's because they have no mind."

"That much I know too well," I say.

"It is by relinquishing their mind that the Townfolk lose time; their awareness becomes a clean slate of eternity. As I said, no one grows old or dies. All that's required is that you strip away the shadow that is the grounding of the self and watch it die. Once your shadow dies, you haven't a problem in the world. You need only to skim off the discharges of mind that rise each day."

"Skim off?"

"I'll come back to that later. First, about the mind. You tell me there is no fighting or hatred or desire in the Town. That is a beautiful dream, and I do want your happiness. But the absence of fighting or hatred or desire also means the opposites do not exist either. No joy, no communion, no love. Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."

"Then, of course, there's love. Which surely makes a difference with this Library girl of yours. Love is a state of mind, but she has no mind for it. People without a mind are phantoms. What would be the meaning of loving someone like that? Do you seek eternal life? Do you too wish to become a phantom? If you let me die, you'll be one of the Townfolk. You'll be trapped here forever."

A stifling silence envelops the cellar. The shadow coughs again.

"I cannot leave her here," I brave to say. "No matter what she is, I love her and want her. I cannot lie to
my
own mind. If I run out now, I will always regret it."

"This is just great," my shadow says, sitting up in bed and leaning against the wall.

"You're an old, old friend. I know how stubborn you can be. You
had
to make an issue at the last minute, didn't you?
What is it you want
? It is impossible for you and me and the girl to escape, the three of us. People without a shadow cannot live outside of here."

"I know this too," I say. "I wonder, why don't you escape alone? I will help you."

"You still don't understand, do you?" says my shadow, wearily resting his head. "If I run away and leave you behind, your life here would be sheer misery. That much the Gatekeper's told me. Shadows, all shadows, die here. Banished shadows all come back to die. Shadows that don't die here can only leave behind incomplete deaths. You'd live out all eternity in the embrace of what's left of your mind. In the Woods. Those with undead shadows are driven out of Town to wander through the Woods forever and ever, possessed by their thoughts. You're acquainted with the Woods?"

He knows I am.

"Nor would you be able to take her to the Woods," my shadow continues. "Because she is perfect, she has no mind no conflict in herself. Perfect half-persons live in Town, not in the Woods. You'll be alone, I promise you."

"But then, where do people's minds go?"

"You're the Dreamreader, aren't you?" retorts my shadow. "I don't know how you haven't managed to figure that one out!"

"I'm sorry. I haven't…"

"Fine, let me tell you. People's minds are transported outside the Wall by the beasts. That is what I meant by skimming off. The beasts wander around absorbing traces of mind, then ferry them to the outside world. When winter comes, they die with a residue of self inside them. What kills them is not the cold and not the lack of food; what kills them is the weight of self forced upon them by the Town. In spring, new young are born—exactly the same number as the beasts that died—and it happens all over again. This is the price of your perfection. A perfection that forces everything upon the weak and powerless." I cannot say a thing. I look down at my shoes.

"When the beasts die, the Gatekeeper cuts off their heads," my shadow goes on, unrelenting. "By then, their skulls are indelibly etched with self. These skulls are scraped and buried for a full year in the ground to leech away their energy, then taken to the Library stacks, where they sit until the Dreamreader's hands release the last glimmers of mind into the air. That's what 'old dreams' are. Dreamreading is a task for newcomers to the Town—people whose shadows have not yet died. The Dreamreader reads each spark of self into the air, where it diffuses and dissipates. You are a lightning rod; your task is to ground. Do you see?"

"I believe I do."

"When the Dreamreader's shadow dies, he ceases to be Dreamreader and becomes one with the Town. This is how it's possible for the Town to maintain its perfection. All imperfections are forced upon the imperfect, so the 'perfect' can live content and oblivious. Is that the way it should be? Did you ever think to look at things from the viewpoint of the beasts and shadows and Woodsfolk?"

I have been staring at the candle flame for so long, my head hurts. I remove my black glasses and rub my watering eyes.

"I will be here tomorrow at three," I vow. "All is as you say. This is no place for me."

Rainy-Day Laundry, Car Rental, Bob Dylan

ON a rainy Sunday, the four driers at the laundromat were bound to be occupied. So it came as no surprise to find four different-colored plastic shopping bags hanging on the door handles. There were three women in the place: one, a late-thirtyish housewife; the other two, coeds from the nearby girls' dorm. The housewife was sitting in a folding chair, staring blankly at her clothes going around and around. It could have been a TV.

The coeds were pouring over a copy of //. All three of them glanced up at me the moment I entered, but quickly found their wash and their magazine more interesting.

I took a seat to wait my turn, Lufthansa bag on my knee. It looked like I was next in line.

Great. A guy can only watch somebody else's clothes revolve for so long. Especially on his last day.

I sprawled out in the chair and gazed off into space. The laundromat had that particular detergent and clothes-drying smell. Contrary to my expectations, none of the driers opened up. There are unwritten rules about laundromats and "The watched drier never stops" is one of them. From where I sat, the clothes looked perfectly dry, but the drums didn't know when to quit; I longed to close my eyes and sleep, but I didn't want to miss my turn. I wished I'd brought something to read. It would keep me awake and make the time go faster. But then again, did I really want to make the time go faster? Better I should make the time go slow—but in a laundromat?

Thinking about time was torment. Time is too conceptual. Not that it stops us from filling it in. So much so, we can't even tell whether our experiences belong to time or to the world of physical things.

But what to do after leaving the laundromat? First, buy some clothes. Proper clothes. No time for alterations, so forget the tweed suit. Make do with chinos, a blazer, shirt, and tie.

Add a light coat. Perfectly acceptable attire for any restaurant. That's an hour and a half.

Which put me at three o'clock. I'd have three hours until I was supposed to pick her up.

Hmm. What to do for three hours? Mind impeded by sleepiness and fatigue, mind blocked.

The drier on the right ground to a halt. The housewife and college girls glanced at the machine, but none made a move. The drier was mine. In keeping with the unwritten rules of laundromats, I removed the warm mass of clothes and stuffed them into the bag hanging on the handle. After which I dumped in my Lufthansa bagful of wet clothes, fed the machine some coins, and returned to my chair. Twelve-fifty by the clock.

The housewife and college girls stared at me. Then they stared at the laundry in the drier.

Then they stared at me again. So I stared at the laundry in the drier myself. That was when I noticed my small load dancing in plain view for all to see—all of it the girl's things, all of it pink. Better get out of here, find something else to do for twenty minutes.

The fine rain of the morning didn't let up, a subtle message to the world. I opened my umbrella and walked. Through the quiet residential area to a street lined with shops.

Barber, bakery, surf shop—a surf shop in Seta-gaya?—tobacconist,
patisserie
, video shop, cleaners. Which had a sign outside, "All Clothes 10% Off on Rainy Days."

Interesting logic. Inside the shop the bald, dour-looking proprietor was pressing a shirt.

Electrical cables dangled from the ceiling, a thick growth of vines running to the presses and irons. An honest-to-goodness, neighborhood cleaners, where all work was done on premises. Good to know about. I bet they didn't staple number tags—which I hate—to your shirttails. I never send my shirts to the cleaners for that very reason.

On the front stoop of the cleaners sat a few potted plants. I knew I knew what they were, but I couldn't identify a single one. Rain dripped from the eaves into the dark potting soil on which a lonely snail rolled along single- mindedly. I felt useless. I'd lived thirty-five years in this world and couldn't come uKwith the name of one lousy ornamental. There was a lot I could learn from a local cleaners.

I returned to the tobacconists and bought a pack of Lark Extra Longs. I'd quit smoking five years before, but one pack of cigarettes on the last day of my life wasn't going to kill me. I lit up. The cigarette felt foreign. I slowly drew in the smoke and slowly exhaled.

I moved on to the
patisserie
, where I bought four
gateaux
. They had such difficult French names that once they were in the box, I forgot what I'd selected. I'd taken French in university, but apparently it had gone down the tubes. The girl behind the counter was prim, but bad at tying ribbons. Inexcusable.

The video shop next door was one I'd patronized a few times. Something called
Hard
Times
was on the twenty-seven-inch monitor at the entrance. Charles Bronson was a bare-knuckle boxer, James Coburn his manager. I stepped inside and asked to see the fight scene again.

The woman behind the counter looked bored. I offered her one of the
gateaux
while Bronson battered a bald-headed opponent. The ringside crowd expected the brute to win, but they didn't know that Bronson never loses. I got up to leave.