Kino (4 page)

The motherfucking cans are gone, and I miss you like hell.

I will make this up to you.

All my love,

Mina

Chapter 5

In Sam's fever dream, he was clutching a machine-gun on the bridge of a metal-plated steamboat, squinting into the thick, humid Caribbean fog, listening for the sounds of Korean gunboats. Sam recognized the ship; he'd spent the weeks leading up to his wedding designing it. As a 3D artist for Eclectic Arts, the radical computer gaming outfit, he was part of the team that created the environments for an action-adventure game set in a post-apocalyptic world ravaged by environmental catastrophes. Players had to survive tornadoes and mutants, searching for a safe haven to begin a new life. Ever since he'd gotten sick with the dengue fever, Sam's dreams had been set in the artificial universe he'd helped construct. The goal of this part of the game was to cross the Gulf of Mexico, which was infested with sharks and pirates, on a retrofitted, rechristened riverboat known as the
Snatch
. In Sam's dream, it looked even more realistic than in the next-gen console versions of the game.

In fact, his dreams were much too realistic–the sweat, the burn of the cheap gin the survivors drank once they ran out of molten Key West hail, the stench of the rotting shark sashimi they were forced to eat. But even when the ship's doctor threatened to amputate his gangrenous foot, Sam preferred these dreams to the dreary reality of the hospital room. Here, he knew what came next: the Snatch was about to be attacked by solar-powered pirates. He reloaded, held his breath, and waited for the voice from the fog bank: “Prepare to be boarded.” There was the
pop-pop-pop
of machine-gun fire, and his face slammed into the deck.

Sam opened his eyes to a close-up of his father-in-law, Detlef Koblitz, leaning over him close enough to smell the musk of his aftershave. It took Sam a moment to readjust to this reality. He had been losing track of time, spending longer in his dreams than in the hospital room where his tortured body tossed and turned. His skin had broken out into a rash, a “classic symptom,” as the doctor had noted with a certain degree of satisfaction. He had sweated through his hospital gown. His throat was parched, his heart was beating hard, and an IV drip itched in his wrist. The hail storms and armored riverboats seemed no worse than this.

Detlef was shaking him by his arm.

“Sam, can you hear me? Sam. We need to talk.”

For a moment, Sam wondered if he could simply pretend to be too sick to talk. Detlef Koblitz was a stickler for manners, and his relationship with Sam was based on a carefully adjusted display of camaraderie. Mina's parents liked Sam because he earned a real income and they thought he had a “stabilizing effect” on their daughter. Detlef wouldn't be shaking his sick son-in-law if he wasn't seriously upset. Sam eyed him. The last time Sam had seen Detlef was at the wedding reception.

“I was sleeping,” he said. “I'm not feeling so good.” He reached for a glass of water from his bedside table. Detlef didn't notice and didn't hand it to him.

“How is the fever?” Detlef asked. “I'm sorry to say it, but you look terrible.”

“If this is about the wedding–” Sam said.

“Oh no,” Detlef shook his head, too far, as if he'd been waiting for this cue. “Don't worry–everything is forgiven.”

That's rich
, Sam thought. After all, it had been Detlef who had first brought up Iraq, even though he knew how passionately Mina and Sam were against the war. In fact, that must have been exactly why he did start talking about it: the day before the wedding, President Bush had landed on a battleship and given a victory speech, and Detlef couldn't keep himself from mentioning this “triumph.” Mina had laughed a very un-bridelike laugh and said something rude about the President's tight flight suit. Then one of Sam's hillbilly uncles chimed in about “those idiots on the left” and how they never knew when they'd lost. The war was a success, freedom was on the march, and everybody who refused to see that hated America. “Present company excluded,” the uncle said with a grin that made Sam's skin crawl with anger. Sam and Mina had attended peace rallies and marches even before the invasion, and they had kept up with arguments against the government's shifting rationales. They knew not to trust Colin Powell and the
New York Times
. The night the bombing started, Sam had come home to find Mina crying in front of the TV, where Shock and Awe glared in the night sky over Baghdad. At the reception, Sam tried to laugh it off, but he couldn't help getting upset. Why were these people, his family, gloating about this transparent political theater? Voting for Bush was insult enough–they didn't have to rub their faces in it. Not at their wedding.

“Mission Accomplished, my ass,” Sam had said, and it escalated from there. Sam was laid-back and forgiving, but once the tipping point was reached, his anger was formidable. He washed down the rest of his champagne, reached for another glass, and launched into a rant about international law, Scott Ritter, the looting of the museum, Halliburton's no-bid contracts, the Supreme Court's blatant partisan intervention in the Florida recount, and the lunacy of waging war on an abstract noun. Detlef said something about results speaking for themselves, and then it got personal.

“You and your kind,” “Red-state half-wits,” “Good thing it doesn't matter what any of you kids think in Brooklyn.”

There was out-and-out yelling, one of the bridesmaids actually spit at Mina's father, and when the hillbilly uncle got the band to play the Star-Spangled Banner, Mina lost it for good. She climbed up on stage and went punk rock on the lead singer's guitar, breaking the neck and kicking in one of the stage monitors.

Sam hoped they'd laugh about it in time, but it was much too soon for that. When the feedback noise abated, the guests found themselves standing around in an embarrassed silence. Everybody had said something they regretted. Sam and Mina, who were packed to leave directly for their honeymoon, got their ride to the airport early. Over a round of stiff drinks at the bar at the gate, they agreed that they'd done the right thing: nobody was allowed to spout offensive bullshit at their wedding. They had done their duty for peace, love, and democracy.

Mina lifted her martini. “Osama bin Laden ruined our wedding!”

Sam shook his head. “I blame Bush.”

Mina was determined to ask her father for the money the band wanted for the destroyed equipment, but Sam knew better than to bring it up with his brand new father-in-law. Instead he just nodded. Everything was forgiven.

Detlef was still holding Sam's arm. “Have you heard from Mina? Have you spoken to her? She's in Berlin. I have left her a number of messages but she hasn't called me back. Do you know what's going on? Have you heard from her?”

So that was it. Detlef had gotten wind of Mina's blitz trip to Germany. Sam wasn't up for this, didn't have the strength to defend her. He sighed. “I don't know. The nurse told me I slept through a couple of calls yesterday. I might have an email from her, I don't know.” The game was behind schedule and he was supposed to stay in touch with Eclectic Arts over the honeymoon, but the idea of an inbox full of desperate business emails about textures and polygon counts horrified him.

“Would you mind checking?”

“Fine,” Sam said and reached for his silver notebook computer. “It'll take a minute to boot. Why? Is something the matter?”

“I know all about the mysterious reels and her rushing off to Berlin. She left her husband in the hospital. Her curiosity got the better of her. She was always a spontaneous girl. Unpredictable. Don't you feel terrible that she just left you here?”

“No,” Sam said, trying to sit straight so he'd be eye level with Detlef. “What is she supposed to do here? It's just as well she doesn't have to see me like this.”

It was true: Sam didn't blame Mina for going. He'd always thought that it was cool that Mina had a grandfather who had been a filmmaker. Not too long ago, he'd watched
The Pirates of Mulberry Island
on AMC while Mina slept. In a way, having her leave on a harmless adventure was a relief. He'd felt guilty for ruining their honeymoon, for his part in the fight at the wedding, for making her sit in the hospital chair while he thrashed around in this fucking bed with this fucking fever.

But that didn't mean Sam would have done the same thing. He'd always suspected that he loved Mina more than she loved him–or at least that's what he thought until he asked her if she'd marry him and she said yes. Regardless, it had been her independence, her energy that had attracted him to her in the first place. Mina wasn't afraid to act on her instincts, and he admired her for it.

His head hurt. It felt as if his brain was inflamed. What could he say to make Detlef leave? “She's talking to experts, and she's flying back today. I'm not worried.”

Detlef Koblitz pulled up his chair and leaned in even closer. He angled his head conspiratorially. “Sam. I don't understand what she's trying to accomplish over there. Everything she wants to know about her grandfather, I can tell her. Anything at all. It's not a pleasant story. My father, the great director, was a complete failure, in every conceivable way: as a filmmaker, father, husband, and as a human being. He worked for the Nazis, he failed his family, and finally, he shot himself in the head. He snuck out like a coward. What else does she need to know?”

Detlef Koblitz was getting agitated. In his sticky bed, Sam squirmed, trying to find a less awkward position. He had not known Mina's grandfather had been a Nazi. Had she?

“When Mina's grandparents brought me into the world, they were already broken. They wanted me to fix something in their lives, and when I couldn't do that, they made me suffer. The great misunderstood genius withdrew, hiding behind projects that never materialized. Whenever I saw him, he was ranting about the
Scheissdreck
they were calling cinema nowadays. I hated the old man for acting that way and I hated my mother for letting him. You should have seen the fights. You can't live like that, pretending pipe dreams can keep you afloat. ‘Art,' they called it, but that was just a disguise for their self-absorption. I was thirteen when his big pirate movie flopped. The one that was going to change everything. It was pathetic. Mina has to forget that movie and come home. Nothing good can come from digging around old tragedies.”

Sam didn't know what to say. He had a high fever. He was sick. He had never seen his father-in-law this worked up. He wished Mina were there, just to keep Detlef away from him. “Don't you want your wife?” Detlef asked. “You're sick and alone. I hate seeing you like this.”

Sam pointed at his laptop. “There are two emails from her.”

“Read the last one first,” Detlef said, leaning forward. He rested his elbows on the bed. Sam resented this intrusion into his space.

“Ah, it's the feverish groom!” A booming voice came from the door: the doctor, horn-rimmed glasses impossibly low on his nose. “And you must be the father?”

Detlef wasn't getting up. He nodded at the doctor and angled the computer his way. “If you don't mind,” he said, tapping the mouse pad.

Oh, I mind
, Sam thought, but the doctor was reading his temperature chart. “We're entering the last bump in the biphasic pattern. You're getting a little worse before you'll get better, but you're on track. We'll have you back home with your lovely wife by the end of the week.” He glanced around at Detlef in the guest chair. “Where is she, anyway?”

“On her way home!” Detlef said, triumphantly. “Without the goddamn movie!”

Sam nodded to himself. Mina was coming home.

Chapter 6

Mina raced through concourse B of Berlin-Tegel on the back of an electric cart, about to miss her flight. The cops had driven her crazy with their forms and TV show English and in the end, they had promised her nothing. Hotel robberies were not uncommon, they said, and really,
Fräulein
, they had to be honest: stolen items were rarely recovered. One of them had mumbled something about Turkish immigrants that Mina didn't even want to understand. Dr. Hanno had been answering questions in the next room, and he looked terribly upset. He just waved at her weakly; there was no hint of smugness in his demeanor. She had expected just a little bit of
Schadenfreude
, a little bit of “I told you so,” but the film historian was clearly grief-stricken about the loss of
Tulpendiebe
. Behind his glasses, his eyes were red, as if he'd been crying. Dr. Hanno had been on Mina's list of suspects–after all, he knew exactly where she kept the canisters, and he seemed desperate to get his hands on them–but now there was no doubt in her mind. He was heartbroken.

A Mercedes cab had taken her to Tegel at breakneck speed. Her flight was only minutes away from takeoff. Cruising down the airport corridor on the cart, Mina seethed with anger.

She was angry at the German police who didn't care that she might miss her flight, angry at the check-in woman who had forsaken any pretense of friendliness and actually rolled her eyes before calling the gate and commandeering the cart. She was angry at the hospital nurses for not letting her talk to Sam, angry at Sam for being sick and getting worse. She was angry at her father for thinking he had any right to tell her what to do with the movie, the movie that had been sent to
her
and which was
hers
to lose. The movie she had promptly gone and lost. Most of all, Mina was angry at herself for bringing the wrong clothes, for coming to Berlin for a shitty silent movie, for not leaving the film with Dr. Hanno. She was angry at Dr. Hanno for being so fucking heartbroken.

The airline employee by the gate motioned for Mina to run down the connecting tube. The airplane door closed with a hiss as soon as she boarded. The other passengers shot her dirty looks. The plane pushed off from the terminal before Mina managed to grab a
Herald Tribune
and settle into her seat next to a man reading
The DaVinci Code.
She wasn't looking forward to another nine-hour flight, the second one in three days, but at least she was going to be home again, reunited with her husband, her apartment, and her clothes. She dug in her bag for a Xanax and bit it down dry, the bitter chemical taste filling her mouth. Distractedly, she glanced over the headlines–“In Baghdad's Anarchy, the Insane Went Free”–put the paper down, and leafed through the airline magazine to see what the in-flight movie would be.