Ice Trilogy (84 page)

“Youth — is always a drea
m..
.” she recalled, looking at the plas- tic cup.

“One minute!” Sally called out.

Immediately everyone came to life and moved around. Dropping their things, taking their cups of water, the women went into the hallway.

“Here we are. The eighth time,” Olga thought, mixing with the crowd and trying not to splash her water.

In the hallway everyone got all mixed up — men and women. The crowd approached large doors of opaque glass. The doors glowed blue. Conversations and muttering quieted down, the crowd grew still. All the prisoners of the bunker stood next to the door holding plastic cups filled with water. A siren sounded and the door opened. The crowd slowly and tensely began to push into a passageway, which was illuminated by a blue light. In the wall opposite were five windows. Near the windows were two guards with clubs. The prisoners stood, packed tightly against one another, but tried not to push so as not to spill their water. Pressed against the back of a limping Ukrainian, Olga carefully held her cup to her chest, covering the top with her hand. Her heart beat rapidly. Its heavy beats cleared her head of chaotic thoughts. Olga only looked ahead, moving toward the bluish window. Someone cried out briefly, someone else pushed. But the calmness of the crowd controlled the nerves of its individual members. The crowd of prisoners dragged itself to the windows. Each received his own and immediately left the blue room.

Finally it was Olga’s turn. Leaning over toward the window she placed her dogtag against the electronic reader. A signal beeped and two transparent tablets with
ICE
stamped on them rolled out. Olga grabbed them and swallowed them immediately, washing them down with the water. She threw the cup into the trash and left the gateway, as the blue space was called. Her heart beat ever more strongly.

“I’ll go to the Swedes right away,” she thought.

Behind her she heard noise, yelps, and shouts: someone was trying to take someone’s tablet.

“There they g
o..
.” Olga walked along the hallway and turned into the Ham. Some groups had already formed, sitting close in preparation for their voyage. But the Swedes weren’t there.

“The Swedes are in the Garage today!” Olga guessed.

The French, Greek, Romanian, and Ukrainian girls began to reach for her hands, muttering, trying to convince her. An albino Icelander threw himself at her feet, grabbed her knees, and whispered in Icelandic, butting his forehead, sweaty with desire, against her. From his hysterical whisper only one comprehensible word issued: “Bonus!”

Plugging her ears, Olga ran into the Garage. She immediately noticed the Swedish corner: about ten people were already sitting on the floor, getting ready. She walked over, murmured something, reached out with a shaking hand, collapsed on her knees, and began to touch the others sitting there. They were expecting her, they welcomed her joyfully, touching her in turn with shaking hands, moving aside and letting her in. Eyes, light- and dark-blue, pale-sky colored and deep-sea colored, stared at her, shining and sparkling, promising joy shared among all. Trembling, she squeezed in, merged with them, held hands that were moist with excitement, feeling how the heart wave grew, how the chest brimmed over with joy, how the head spun, how the blood beat in the temple. The strength of the Swedish corner amazed her.

“Here it come
s...
already!” she thought, closing her eyes with pleasure.

New people who had just swallowed their portions of happiness came; they sat down, pressing in close, holding each other’s hands tight, in an unbroken chain of pleasurable anticipation. Liz appeared, touched them, and by virtue of her presence found her place among them. Strengthening the joy, her red lips trembling. Silver curled. Greeks and fiery-red Israelis turned up; then a broad-shouldered Swede with sky-blue eyes and the pink cheeks of his disfigured face shaved bare. American woman were also present. They all had bonuses. They all craved happiness.

“The best are all here!” Olga’s blood pulsed joyfully.

And — the moment of flight had arrived. Holding tight to her comrades in joy, she closed her eyes. But they wouldn’t let her lose herself in the precious and joyous.

“Criminal! She ate the ice!”

Strong hands pulled, dragged her along the hallway. She felt with every cell how the two pieces of ice were melting, melting, melting in her stomach, the two divine, inimitable pieces that provided an unearthly joy. Oh, if only they would have time to melt. Just another few seconds! Melt, melt, melt, faster, my sweethearts, my body wants you, my body is crying out with desire, my body is sucking you and moanin
g...

“Open her mouth!”

Merciless faces, cold eyes, rough hands in rubber gloves. They separate her teeth with a stick, and a steel instrument spreads her mouth open painfully, against her will.

“The probe!” A plastic snake slips into her throat, crawls along her esophagus, spreads it open, and doesn’t let her breathe.

Her body thrashes, writhes in their hands, but they hold her tight, tight, tight, and there, in the stomach, the nimble snake sucks out the exquisite, sweet, beloved, desired bits of ice, preventing them from dissolving, and already there is nothing, absolutely nothing to breathe, breathe, breath
e...

Olga cried out.

And woke up.

“What’s wrong?” Liz, lying near her, placed her hand on Olga’s chest. “You’re covered with swea
t..
.”

Olga threw off the thin cotton blanket, lifted her head, sat up, and hung her legs over the bed. “Yuck, what rubbish I dreame
d..
.”

It was dim in the Ham. The electric clock showed 3:47 a.m. The women were sleeping. Olga wiped her sweaty face with her hand. “Nonsens
e..
.”

“What is it, honeybunch?” Liz embraced her from behind. “Want me to bring you some water?”

Olga laughed sleepily and shook her head.

“I dreamed that they were feeding us some kind of ice narcoti
c...
clear tablets of some sor
t...
and I wanted them so badly, I craved the
m...
and they took them away from m
e..
.”

“There are a lot of
ice
dreams here. It’s normal.” Liz stroked her. “At the beginning I dreamed that I was little, like a bug, and that I was frozen in ice. Forever. Forever and ever in that ic
e..
.”

“Oh, yea
h...
and there was
a...
library, too!”

“What library?”

“In the dream we had a library here.”

“Fabulous. I want into your dream.”

“And some kind of collective trips with those tablet
s...
the Swedish corne
r..
.”

“The Swedish corner beat us in foosball this evening.”

“Jeez, there’s a gym here, not a librar
y..
.” Olga shook her head. “And the men live separatel
y...
how absurd!”

“We can get by without men.” Liz kissed Olga between her shoulder blades, and slipped down from the bed.

Walking over to the water fountain, she filled a cup with water, drank some, returned, and handed it to Olga. “Drink.”

Olga drank the icy water.

“Strang
e...
I’ve never once dreamed of home here.”

“Neither have I.” Liz embraced her.

“But that’
s...
really strange!”

“No, sweetheart, it’s not strange.”

“Why?”

“Because our home is here now. And there won’t be another one.” Liz yawned and pressed against Olga.

As she fell asleep, remembering her strange dream, Olga’s shoulder could feel the cavity in Liz’s chest.

“Bonu
s...
bonu
s...
ic
y...
rubbis
h...
bonus — just a bar of Swiss milk chocolate. Chocolat
e...
chocolat
e...
shaped like a bird, shaped like Fima. Fimochka’s a gooooood bird. Fimochka’s the bes
t..
.”

The brothers’
hands wake my body. They awaken Gorn’s body. We are on our island. In our house. On our bed. We lie next to each other. Now, after the Great Night, our bodies look the same. They gave a great deal of energy to the Last Search. They are very old. So old that they can no longer move. The brothers’ hands open our eyes, lift our eyelids. They carry us from the bed, wash us, feed us, and cherish us. So that the Light doesn’t abandon us. But not only our bodies: Our bodies must be
taken care of
by all the Brothers and Sisters of the Light. All 23,000. Now each body is
especially
dear. For the Transformation is near. There is not long to wait.

Having fed us with nourishing liquids, the brothers lower our bodies into a marble bath. It is filled with fresh buffalo milk. It helps to maintain strength in our bodies. Our faces are close. I see Gorn’s face close up. He is a little boy according to the laws of the meat world. But his face has grown very old this night. Gorn’s body has aged as well. Now he is the same as I am.

Gorn looks at me.

We don’t have the strength to speak in the language of the Earth — our lips cannot move.

But our hearts
speak
.

Today the Brotherhood should have acquired the last three of the 23,000. But these last three are
difficult
. They will be difficult to acquire, to tear from the meat world. They are mobile. One of them moves about the Earth, killing particular meat machines, and hides from others. Another lives in the Earth; he worked in a place where meat machines made fierce poisons, and he was poisoned by them, and his body changed and he began to dig into the earth and hide from meat machines. The third simply loves to jump and run wherever she wants.

After
living in Japan for six months and thirteen days, I finally realized what a bird’s eye view of Tokyo looks like: New York after a nuclear attack.

I whisper this into a glass of Lychee, in my native Dutch, grinning at the discovery. Then I look down on the twilit city of sushi and
kogyaru
. How cool to sit on the sixty-first floor, sip my favorite cocktail, stare at the Eastern Capital through two-inch-thick glass, and stir the ice in my glass with my finger.

A minute later I make a correction:

A failed nuclear attack.

It’s true: there’s a mass of identical skyscraper stumps that look like the leftovers of an atomic explosion, and here and there a hundred-story tower sticks up. It makes me think of Godzilla roaring and smashing the Eastern Capital in the old Japanese blockbuster. Proud loners — just my kind. I raise my glass and tap it against the windowpane — here’s to their resilience as they wait for one more mega- earthquake, like Tokyo has been for the last seventy years. I can’t tear my eyes away from the city. I like to take my time looking at things — ever since I was a child. And thank God. That’s helped out a lot in my
complex profession
. After that Greek in London I’ve become even more careful. I
live
through my eyes. Now the sun’s going down — it always sets quickly here. The street lamps are on already. And in the west — the rosy-orange haze of the disappearing sun. In five minutes it’ll be dark — more than enough time to think about who you are and why. I’m satisfied with myself. I’m satisfied with where I am. Everything’s coming up roses — so far. Here in this megalopolis I fit in. At least for another six months. In Europe and America they’re looking for me. But for the last two years I’ve had Asian eyes, a totally altered nose, and my lips look a little different too. I shave my head like a monk. My old colleagues in the Corps would never recognize me. My regiment comrades from the Balkans wouldn’t either. Only the tattoos. It’s so fabulous that there’s a place like Asia, where you can crawl off and disappear. I’m the spitting image of a Mongol — three people have told me so. Awesome. I’m a Mongol. I make the occasional raid. A descendant of Genghis Khan. That Greek was a breeze — two bullets in the gut and one in the head to finish him off, just like the movies. And the bodyguard couldn’t do a thing. But preparing for it — a whole month of constant training — that was exhausting. Not being able to get a good night’s sleep when I’m on a case really gets me down. It’s totally exhausting. I’m skinny but I’m built, and those Japanese masseuses did a pretty good job working me over. And after three nights with two
kogyaru
from Shibuya I’m back to my old self. Yeah, I’m not a man of steel, like Bruce Willis in
Diehard
, but so what? I have my own little god to thank
...

Now Tokyo’s turned on the lights. Beautiful, no doubt about it. I always go to this bar before a job. This is the third time. It’s become a tradition — a
new
one. Or half a tradition. The other half’s down there by the bronze dog. Time to pay up and go. To Shinjuku. Misato-san is waiting. She’s the new one. I need to buy her somethin
g...

I pay the bill and head for the elevator. A steel cabin, dropping me smoothly from heaven to earth. For some reason it always smells like melon. Grab a cab to Shinjuku. There’s a traffic jam — rush hour. It’s not far though. By the time I get there it’s night. Shinjuku’s all lit up like a Christmas tree. Seven minutes left. The girl’ll wait, I know, but I hurry anyway. I’m a responsible guy, no matter what I’m doing. In the Isetan store I pick up my standard
kogyaru
kit: a Shiina Ringo CD, a
Titanic
DVD, a Pokemon with safety pins stuck in its spiky tail, and a box of Swiss chocolates. It gets them every time. Like a Glock 18 with a silencer.

There’s Misato standing right by the bronze dog Hachiko, still waiting for its owner who keeled over after a heart attack. The Japanese put up a monument to a
dog
! How sentimental. Infantile. Thank God I’ve never had a Japanese client. Or a Chinese one. Two Arabs. One Greek. An Australian. The rest — Europeans. Though — there were two Russians in ’98. Where do you put the Russians — in Europe or in Asia? They’re just Russians. Those Russians turned out to be real trouble. They cost
blood
— a
lot
of blood. I got hung out to dry like never before. I had to make some serious changes. Change myself. Change my situation.