The Book of Water (27 page)

“Hunh,” N’Doch says. They’ve been this route before. But he thinks maybe he’ll just give it a try, for the hell of it. See what it’s like. “So, remind me—how do I do that?”

She cocks a dark eyebrow at him reprovingly. “You know how, N’Doch. Just like you do it to understand me. Like you do it when you want to. Only you also have to do it when you don’t want to.”

“Hunh,” he says again, but then he’s more interested in something else. “What’d she mean, the ‘badness’?”

“It was a feeling she got.” She releases the apparition and urges it gently toward him. Sounding just like Papa Dja, she says, “You ask her.”

N’Doch lets out a breath, feeling already like he’s conceded something. “So. What did you mean?”

The apparition shimmers, seems to swell and shrink with its own breathing. N’Doch throws up both hands, palms out.

“Not here! You can’t! Don’t change!”

The apparition shakes its head, shivers and settles back into a steadier reality. “Sorry. Just kinda threw me there, y’know?”

“Umm . . . no. I don’t.”

“In the car, I mean. Not bad, exactly. Something . . . wrong.”

“Yeah . . . like what?”

The boy-thing shrugs, as if its panic had never happened. “Don’t know, bro.”

N’Doch lowers his hands. “Great. All that fuss for an I-don’t-know.”

“It’s a warning,” says the girl.

“Right. ‘It’s a sign! It’s an omen!’ You sound like Papa Dja.”

“You could do worse,” notes the apparition. “At least he gets it right some of the time.”

Unfathomably irritated, N’Doch rounds on him. “Whadda you know? You never even met him!”

Now the apparition looks truly offended.

“Of course she did,” puts in the girl hastily.

N’Doch presses both palms to his temples and squeezes hard. Yes! What was he thinking? “Sorry! Sorry. Okay? You two are making me crazy. Look, it’s time to move.
We gotta check out this Mahatma Glory Whosits while it’s still daylight.”

“Magdalena,” say the kid and the girl together.

N’Doch sighs. “Whatever.”

T
hey’re still on the outskirts of the Ziguinchor when N’Doch begins to see the signs. Posters in shop windows and pasted on the walls. A billboard, erected hastily on the roof of someone’s house, alongside an old satellite dish. Even little stickers, brand new, in all the colors of the fluorescent rainbow, blooming on the faded doors and gateposts. He’s used to having political broadsides and government proclamations plastered up all over the place, but this is different. These are almost . . . decorative.

He points them out to the apparition and the girl. Carefully, the girl sounds out the words.

“Glow . . . rye? Sorry, the letters are funny. Glowree? Glory!”

Impressed, he nods. “It’s her. That’s the place we’ll find Lealé.”

The image is the same everywhere: the dark face of a woman superimposed on a bright four-pointed star. It’s shaped like a compass rose, like he’s seen on old maps in the history vids. The woman is smiling beatifically. “That’s all it says, ‘Glory,’ but it’s gotta be where that woman was talking about.” He’s kind of relieved, ’cause this face don’t look like it’s selling sex or kinky games. Still, you never know. “Maybe Lealé’s joined some kind of religious cult.”

The girl shudders. “Oh, I hope not.”

“Why? You know your Bible stuff, sounds like. I’ll let you go ask her where Lealé is.”

She eyes him sideways. “But, N’Doch, I do not speak her language.”

He snaps his fingers, an oversized gesture. “Damn! Right again!”

Her brow creases, then smoothes. Her eyes lighten and she grins, sketching a little bow. “Ah ha,” she says, then nods for him to lead the way down the street.

N’Doch thinks,
Now we’re getting someplace.

*   *   *

The stickers and signs soon become elaborate arrows pointing the way. N’Doch just follows them.

“That Water Street woman sure was right about this place being no trouble to find,” he remarks. But the closer he gets, the uneasier it makes him. This Glory person doesn’t look to be leading a very private life. There’s sure to be lots of people around, and awkward questions about the kid and the girl. He wonders if he can manage to hunt up Lealé without getting tangled in this Mahatma’s dubious business.

They come around a corner finally and there in the wide square is the ramshackle four-story pile of crumbling yellow stucco that houses the Marché Ziguinchor. N’Doch thinks of the coins Papa Djawara has given him. He thinks of cheese and bread and oranges. Oranges! Maybe even a tidbit of chocolate, that fabulous luxury of luxuries. But the market is closed, and the ring of outside stalls as well. It’s nearing noon. Both vendors and customers have fled the heat. Those with no place to go have staked out niches in the shade. The bundle of rags tucked in each corner is a person napping. N’Doch’s timing is off again, but it’s no disaster. He’s hoping, despite his disclaimers to the woman at 913 Water Street, that Lealé will be good for at least one full meal in the Glory woman’s kitchen, and a cooling siesta in his grandfather’s name.

Besides, now that he thinks about it, he’s glad the stalls are closed. He wouldn’t want the girl to have to see some of the stuff they sell in there besides food. But he oughta find shade for her pretty quick, he sees. She’s damp and flagging, and paler even than usual. She may not know to drink enough, though N’Doch notices the apparition is sure putting a big dent into the water bottle he made it carry.

Still, he lingers by the south entrance to the market, staring pensively at the big, barred wooden doors. Litter has blown up in piles against them, like they haven’t been open in a while. There used to be showers of neon here, people night and day, and music blaring into the streets. A resourceful kid could always find what he lacked at the Zig.
All sorts of deals going down, lots of biz, the very center of biz, even in the hottest noons. Maybe at night, it still is. N’Doch hopes so, ’cause right now, it’s looking real drab and down on its luck, falling apart like everything else.

The apparition taps him on the arm. N’Doch turns, and there’s the place.

“Yee-ow,” he murmurs.

It’s a big stone building, a mansion really, filling one entire end of the market square. It has white columns and an upper gallery with wrought iron railings, like from colonial times, even to the magenta riot of bougainvillea cascading from the balcony. N’Doch recalls there was some kind of hotel here before, but he doesn’t recall these elegant columns or that lacy iron gingerbread, or the ornate but massive gates in tall white walls topped with razor wire. The place even has its own driveway. He especially doesn’t remember the mammoth light-box sign over the front portico: the beaming woman in the golden four-pointed star. Above, her name in glowing block caps: “GLORY.” Underneath, a legend:
In this sad world, a bridge to the next.

N’Doch eyes the impressive guard house between the motor gate and a smaller pedestrian gate beside it. He supposes an entire system of locks, screens, sensors, alarms, and monitors—and armed bouncers.

“I guess Lealé’s come up in the world, all right,” he mutters. “If she’s in there. Question is, how’re we gonna get
us
in? Probably need a password and our own personal bar code.”

“Go knock on the door,” says the apparition.

“Sure thing, smart mouth. You got ‘rich boy’ stamped on your forehead?”

“It says ‘Welcome.’”

“Where?”

The boy-dragon points. Sure enough, over the pedestrian gate, in gold letters.
Bienvenue.

N’Doch fights through a twinge of resentment. The real Jéjé never lived long enough to learn how to read. “Well, it don’t mean us, you can bet on that.”

“You won’t do it, I will.”

And before N’Doch can stop him, the kid is sprinting across the square. The girl starts after him, swaying a bit in the sun, then looks back. “
Kommen sie nicht?
”

“Huh?” The damn kid’s fallen down on the translating job. N’Doch holds his ground a moment, then groans softly and follows. Got to get the girl inside before she drops. Besides, he’s just noticed the shiny new street signs on the mansion’s corners:
Rue de la Terre.

The kid waits for them at the walk-in gate, then just as N’Doch is catching up, he raps on it sharply. It swings open to his touch. N’Doch can see that the gate itself is a metal detector, but the smiling guard in the bullet-proof booth waves them in like the host at some swank garden party.

And inside the walls, that’s exactly what it looks like—the aftermath, at least, of a really
big
do.

A shallow, tiled yard runs the width of the building, dotted with fancy fruit trees in big ceramic tubs. People are lying about everywhere, curled up beneath the trees, asleep on the stone benches in between. At least, he assumes they’re asleep. Smiling too peacefully to be stiffs, even on their hard beds of tile and stone. Maybe the place is a pleasure house after all. But the sleepers look to be sleeping normally, not napping off a high of some sort.

The girl nudges him. At the far end of the yard, several slim young guys in white robes are wandering about watering the bright, lush flowers overflowing the bases of the potted trees. One is picking up scattered bits of clothing from the tiny oval of green inside the circular driveway. N’Doch stoops and rakes his fingers across its manicured velvet. “Unnh. Real grass . . .” He wants to get down and roll in it.

But he sees the girl eyeing the white-robed guys with serious suspicion. He doesn’t think any of them looks like much to contend with, but he waits anyway, to be spotted and told to get the hell out, like all the other times he’s been told the likes of him don’t belong in someplace he’d really like to be.

Instead, the guy scavenging the clothes bundles up his armload and comes over, smiling. “My, my, aren’t we up early? Hello, I’m Jean-Pierre. How can I help you?”

N’Doch is tongue-tied for the split second it takes for the apparition to pipe up.

“We’d like to see the Mahatma Glory Magdalena.”

“
Danke
,” adds the girl hastily.

The guy’s brows lift. “Oh, I’m afraid it’s much too early
for that. She won’t be up for hours yet. But you’re welcome to wait. The line starts around the corner to the right. Of course, there are . . .” He waves a languid hand at the litter of sleepers. “. . . a few petitioners in front of you already, but it shouldn’t take much more than a few days. Will it be cash or credit?”

N’Doch eases himself forward. “For what?”

The guy takes N’Doch’s measure and pumps a little more warmth into his smile. “For your Reading, of course. You are here for a Reading?”

N’Doch judges that the same charm he puts to work on the ladies might work with this Jean-Pierre. He smiles back, heavy-lidded. “Well, no. Actually, we’re searching up an old friend of my grandpapa’s. At the last known address, they told us to look here.”

The guy’s warmth dims perceptibly. “Ah. An elderly gentleman, then? We have no elderly gentlemen working here. Perhaps your informant meant he is on line, awaiting a Reading. You are welcome to look around, but I do hope you won’t disturb any of our guests unnecessarily. They all need their sleep.”

N’Doch smiles ingratiatingly, though it pains him to do so. “I’m sure they do. But it’s not a gentleman we’re looking for. It’s a lady, and not so elderly. I’d guess she’d be in her fifties.”

“She’s here,” says the apparition suddenly.

N’Doch turns. “Hush, now.”

The girl catches on. She slides restraining hands onto the apparition’s shoulders. N’Doch gives her a little nod, already turning back to the young man. “Her name is Lealé.”

The guy’s face goes briefly blank, and then his smile returns. N’Doch imagines a robot checking a data file, but he knows that look: the momentary shutdown of the bureaucrat who’s just received a piece of information he doesn’t know what to do with.

“What was that name again?”

Bingo
, thinks N’Doch. He conjures up a pleasant innocence. “Lealé Kaimah.”

The guy backs up a step. “Well, now. Let me see. Why don’t I just go on inside and check the records for you? Anyone waiting in line will have signed the reservations
book. Perhaps your friend has already been and gone, happily enlightened.”

“My grandfather’s friend, she is. From long ago.”

“How lovely. And what did you say your grandpapa’s name is?”

“I didn’t. It’s Djawara.”

“Yes. Well, then, I’ll just go check.” The guy escapes up onto the colonnaded porch and into the house.

“Sure lit a fire under him, didn’t we?” crows N’Doch. He’s not used to people being polite to him, for whatever reason.

“A toady,” scoffs the apparition. The girl nods, like she knows all about it.

*   *   *

Erde sank gratefully into the shade of a column but kept herself alert. Despite the exotic and unfamiliar setting, she recognized in this white-clad man the tone and body language of a courtier. This was not like any court she had knowledge of, but instinct told her that she must not take anyone or anything at face value. Politics, flatteries, and subterfuge had ruled at Tor Alte, even during her grandmother’s more open reign. Erde wondered what the Mahatma Glory Magdalena had done to acquire the kind of power that the presence of courtiers implied. She knew it meant the woman could be dangerous. If not dealt with properly, she could stand between them and finding Master Djawara’s friend Lealé.