White Apples (23 page)

"But in this mosaic, chaos has gained consciousness. It has be•come aware." She opened her hand and the apple, although still white, had grown to twice its original size. "As that's happened, it's realized it likes
this
existence, likes being conscious." She closed her hand but opened it quickly. The apple was now as big as a golf ball. She put it back in the air in its original place. It looked wrong there, too big and out of place among all the other, smaller tiles. Coco looked up at it. "Chaos doesn't want things to change. It doesn't want a new mosaic to be formed. For a long time it has been doing everything it can to stop that from happening."

Suddenly all of the tiles, excepting the golf ball, flew back to the place where they had begun as Ettrich's mosaic. For a moment they became an entirely new one, different in every way from the design he had created. That lasted only long enough for him to register how dissimilar this one was from his own. Then more than half of the tiles fell to the floor and clattered across it. What re•mained hanging in the air of this new mosaic looked pockmarked and fragmentary, like a jigsaw puzzle someone started to assemble but abandoned.

Coco squatted down and began picking up tiles near her. "It's a lot more complex than this, but basically chaos has found a way to stop tiles from adhering to the mosaic when they return." She took one she had picked up off the floor and put it into the mosaic. It stuck for a moment but then fell out.

"How?"

She shook her head. "I don't know, Vincent. I'm just a worker ant. Those matters are for minds a lot bigger than mine." She smiled. "Like your son."

Ettrich's head snapped back.
"Jack?"

"No, Anjo."

He looked at her uncomprehendingly until it came to him. Then he pointed hesitantly outside, toward Isabelle. "Correct—
that
son. He and others like him have been sent out to try and stop this—

"Sent from where, Coco?"

"From the mosaic."

Ettrich rubbed his chin. "I don't remember anything about what that was like."

"Because you were never actually in the mosaic. You were in purgatory, learning about it, when Isabelle came for you."

"Was that Anjo's doing?"

"Partly. But she was the one who decided to go and get you. It was an incredibly courageous act. Isabelle's not aware of it, but when she got there Anjo helped her find you."

"Why didn't he do it himself?"

"That's not possible. It must be done by a living soul who makes the conscious choice." "Did she know about this, the mosaic and the chaos, when she went there for me?"

"No, Vincent. She went because she loved you and was given the chance to bring you back."

He slid his hands into his pockets and without thinking curled them into fists. "So you tricked her."

"Not at all. She got what she wanted. It just so happens there are other things you must do now that you're here." "Like what? Why did I have to come back?"

"Because when he is born, Anjo won't know anything about this. Only through the proper education will he come to realize who he is and what he is meant to do. Most importantly you must teach him what you learned in purgatory so that he is able to use it in his life."

"But Coco,
I don't remember
anything about what happened there! My mind is blank; I have no memory of it." "Then you're going to have to dig deep and find it in yourself. You must."

"But if I can't?"

She pointed to the half-completed mosaic. Another two tiles fell off it.

In frustration, Ettrich picked one of them up and threw it as hard as he could at a wall. It dropped and hit the floor long before reaching its target. "This is insane." That last word came out like a fist pounding a table.

"What's insane?" Isabelle had entered unnoticed via the ele•phant's door. Thirty seconds later the baby elephant came in too. It walked up to within a few feet of her and stood there, turning and twisting its trunk in the air. The animal appeared to be waiting for her new human friend to do something else fun.

"Coco's been telling me about the mosaic and the chaos."

Isabelle waited for him to continue. Ettrich expected
her
to say something. They looked at each other. The elephant waved its trunk, impatient now for something to happen. Three people and a baby elephant shared a silence none of them was happy with.

"Do you believe it, Fizz? Do you think what she said is true?"

Two more tiles fell off the mosaic. Isabelle looked at them and spoke. "I had a boyfriend once who had been a navy fighter pilot. He was one of those bravehearts who take off and land on aircraft carriers. Once he told me something I never forgot. Every pilot he flew with took one of his dog tags and kept it in his shoe. Do you know why?"

Ettrich was pissed off to hear about yet another Isabelle boy•friend. When had this guy happened? Ettrich didn't care why fly guys put dog tags in their shoe. He wanted to know how long ago this pilot had landed on Isabelle's flight deck.

"Vincent?"

"No, I don't know. Why?"

"Because when one of those planes crash, especially at sea, they rarely find the pilots' bodies—the impact is too great. But oddly enough, the one thing they often do find in the wreckage is feet. They find the pilots' feet. Nobody knows why, but that's why all the pilots put a dog tag in their shoe: If they crash and disappear, there's still a small chance
something
of them will survive and be recognized.

"I don't know what's true anymore, sweetheart. I know the baby's inside me and I know what I did to bring you back here. To me, Anjo is the dog tag in our shoe. No matter what happens to us, if we do this right now, he'll survive and he is as much us as anything else on earth."

"But say it is true, what are we supposed to do, Fizz? Do you have any idea?"

Before Isabelle answered, the first child entered the room. At first none of them noticed the little girl. She was dressed in new blue jeans, new red sneakers, and a spotless white T-shirt. She was shy. Like so many little girls she tried to remain invisible; she came in and, sidestepping to the left, immediately put her back to the wall and stood there like a small statue, trying to take up as little space in the world as she could.

The baby elephant was the first to say something. It looked at the girl and gave a short honk of hello. No one paid attention. Then a boy came in. He was shorter than the girl and had a very wide Hispanic face. He wore the same kind of clothes that she did. Stand•ing together, they appeared to be in their school uniforms. Slowly more children trickled in, all wearing this outfit. They stood quietly on the other side of the bars separating them from the animals and watched. None of them approached the open cage door. The adults saw but ignored them. This was the zoo. Kids came here on school field trips.

The conversation went on between Ettrich and Isabelle. Coco put in a word here and there but for the most part kept quiet and let them talk it out. She watched them closely. They watched each other closely. None of the three watched as April the baby elephant walked slowly over to the children who were now standing close to the bars of the cage, watching everything.

April wanted them to give her something to eat. To a small degree she understood people and the bars on her cage. She under•stood how they separated her from people. But she also knew that if a person wanted, they could put their hand through the space between the bars and give her something nice to eat. She had to stretch her trunk as far as it

would go to get them, but she had learned to do that long ago. To April, usually things offered her this way were tasty so she trusted most hands thrust her way holding something. Stopping two feet from the bars, she watched as many of the children hesitantly lifted their arms and moved their hands toward her. She knew what petting was too but that didn't interest her. She wanted food. Seeing all these clamoring hands, she thought some of them had to have something for her to eat.

Lowering her great head, she moved it slowly from left to right and back again. She liked to swing her head when she was thinking because it felt good. She also liked to pick things up from the ground with her trunk, like hay or grass or sometimes even carrots, and drop them on top of her head. April looked at the children and then looked away. She put one foot toward them and then brought it back. What did they have in those hands? Was it sweet or bitter?

Would it be hard or soft in her mouth? She had been fed everything from popcorn to rock candy to the cork out of a Champagne bottle. She took the step toward them again and lowered her head. She had a small patch of vivid red hair on top of her head. Several of the children pointed to it and made fun. Behind her, the big people continued to talk in loud interesting voices. But the elephant was intent now on finding out what the little people had in their hands. She took another step closer.

"For God's sake, Fizz, you must know more than that. You were there—you brought me back from there!" Ettrich's voice was desperate and angry in equal measure.

Isabelle looked toward Coco for help. She saw something on the other side of the room that froze her.

A shriek unlike anything any of them had ever heard tore every•thing in half. It was high, desperate, and feral. Coco and Ettrich turned toward the sound. It was very difficult to grasp what was going on when they first saw the scene on the other side of the cage.

The elephant's back was to them. The animal faced a bunch of children who stood on the other side of the bars. But it was scream•ing and then they could see why—a number of these kids had hold of the elephant's trunk and were pulling it toward them. Despite the animal's size and legendary strength, it appeared powerless to stop this.

Ettrich stared and said in a spooked voice, "No fucking way." It looked both impossible and absurd. Like a stubborn donkey being dragged or a young puppy out for a walk, the elephant had lowered its ass to the ground and was trying desperately to pull its head away but to no avail. The kids had the trunk and were drawing it toward them. April continued to scream while she slid across the floor much too fast—as if her great big body weighed little in their small hands.

Coco understood what was happening almost at once, but she could not believe it. In the world where she had come from there were absolutely fixed rules and this was one of them: Animals pro•tected mankind. Zoos were safe havens.

No more. Chaos had learned how to defeat the animals.

"Run, Vincent! Take Isabelle and get out of here." She pointed toward the giant open door leading to the outside exercise yard. From out there came a loud prolonged growl. It sounded like a lion but turned out to be the older elephant, coming to save her child. She ran through the door at a terrific speed and over to April. Coco ran after her. Ettrich grabbed Isabelle's hand and pulled her toward the door. A horrifying high scream came from behind them. It stopped abruptly and was followed by two other sounds: first a sharp, dramatic crunching and then a slopping, a wet splatter.

Isabelle shouted "No!" and tried to snatch her hand away. Ettrich would not let go. She pulled again, this time looking back toward the animals. He did too and regretted it for the rest of his life.

The children had already pulled April's giant head halfway through the bars of the cage, killing her. The skull had burst and there was blood everywhere. The last synapses, messages, and com•mands from the crushed brain were still traveling down to the dis•tant corners of her great body, making it appear as if she were still living. Some of her did not yet know that it was over. Parts still moved, twitched, reacted, and tried to escape the death that had already come. Her legs crumpled and the body sank to the floor except for the head, still high and wedged between the now-glistening bars.

The mother elephant went up to April's body and pushed it, pushed it, trying to make it stand, to make it come back, to be alive again. She pushed it with her trunk, her foot; she pushed it with her brown head. When none of it did any good she nodded her head up and down and up and down.

Human beings do not understand death. To them it is only loss, something forever taken away, a new space where before there was none. But most animals understand it, which is why they treat death so differently. Because of this awareness, they smell it, push it, they piss on it and walk away. They know one day it will defeat them but while they are alive they own death; it is there for them to use or disdain.

Watching April die, none of the adults noticed the first children entering the cage. They filed in one by one through the open door. None of them were in a hurry. The expressions on their faces were mixed. Some looked happy, others indifferent. Most of them had blood on their white T-shirts and hands. That made them look like they had been doing something naughty like throwing paint at one another or having a food fight while their teacher was out of the room. The blood on their shirts had already dried to brown. Only the blood on their hands and some of their faces was still red.

Only when all of them were inside the cage did they move toward the grown-ups. Coco moaned, knowing it was too late. There was no way to escape them now, no way to escape this moment.

"Vincent, try to remember."

He didn't take his eyes off the kids. "Remember
what?"

"Remember death. Remember what you learned there."

Before he could reply or even think of something to say, there was another noise outside. It was so singular that all of them froze when they heard it—the children, the adults, and particularly the elephant. At first it sounded like a kind of drumming but then that changed to a flapping, a scattered rushing, as if thousands upon thousands of birds had suddenly burst up and taken flight somewhere very near.

Ettrich was so tense that he gasped when his hand was squeezed. He looked at Isabelle, her eyes as frightened as his.

"Vincent, what is it? What's that noise?"

His eyes jumped from left to right. Then his whole head did the same thing—turned once left and then right. He whispered, "I don't know."