Forget about Marco. He did what we need. He publish his book and he don’t speak about the Tibetans. These things he know die with him. I need you to do another thing.
Mill’s dead? Leonard’s tears started streaming again.
Boychik, you understand nothing. Sometimes you gotta read a book, really, you gotta get your tuchas offa that swirly chair.
I don’t understand. How do you know Mill’s dead?
He live another twenty-five years after he get out of prison …
He really was in prison?
This is what he say, right?
Yes.
You listen to what he say?
I thought he was an NP test, or a crazy man.
Marco Polo, he die in 1324, live a very happy life. Three children, a sweet wifey, he is one of the famous men in the world: this is what he want, to be a famous guy, he get this because of you. You are very very good to him.
He died in 1324? What are you talking about? I was just on the phone with him last week.
This is the mystery, the man said. This is the mystery and it is safe because of you. He publish these things how he do this and someday, someone use them for evil, this is for sure. You save the world, see? We are very grateful.
Marco Polo, like the pool game?
You are not listening.
Who is this talking if it’s not my grandfather, and how do you know Milione?
I thought you understand this, boychik.
I don’t understand, Leonard said. This is what I’ve been saying.
Boychik, this is Isaac. Isaac the Blind.
Lenny
You’re making me crazy! Leonard said. I don’t believe anything you say! I’m not friends with a man who’s been dead eight hundred years. I am Leonard, of Neetsa Pizza, I live in the twenty-first century, I work in a White Room. Why are you using my grandfather’s voice? Who are you?
You will read this book and we will talk. Make special note of the suggestion you make. You find Marco’s false governorship on page 206, his false claim to breaking the siege of Siang-yang-fu on the pages falling after.
The line was dead and the doorbell rang.
Leonard didn’t know he had a doorbell.
Package, a man said. He was wearing a striped green delivery uniform Leonard had never seen before. Leonard put his finger in the fingerprint flasher and took the package. It was a book: The Travels, by Marco Polo.
No one called the rest of that night, so Leonard read. He read about the lands Milione had described. He read critical commentary about Rustichello, the stylistic and possibly substantive contributions that chronicler had made to the book. He read that many didn’t think Marco had been to China, which he called Cathay (he had! he had!). He read about the apparitions that beset men in the Desert of Lop — but not about the Tibetans, there was no word about the Tibetans, or a circle.
Any crazy person could read this book and pretend to be Marco, or think he was Marco, but there were the lies that he, Leonard, had suggested, on page 206 and following, just as Isaac had said.
In case the book itself was a joke, Leonard went to the Brazen Head and typed, “Who is Marco Polo? Is he crazy?” He chose grinning compostmen to collect his answer. They rushed off in their smash truck, stopping to pick up infofile compost chutes all over Italy, China, and in between. They emptied their chutes into the Brazen Head’s mouth; he chomped awhile, then made the following pronouncement:
“Marco Polo (1254–1324), most likely of Venice. He was the first European to travel to certain parts of China, or so he said. The Brazen Head has difficulty with this claim, as the gentleman did not in his Travels mention the Great Wall, or tea, or foot-binding. He also makes dubious claims that aggrandize his position, which the Brazen Head cannot confirm through reference to ancient Chinese sources. On his return to Europe he was made a ‘gentleman commander’ of a Venetian galley and promptly imprisoned by the Genovese, possibly following the Battle of Curzola in 1298. He spent much of his confinement dictating his specious memoirs to Rustichello, an author of tawdry romances. While possibly a lying knave, there is no indication that he was crazy. Sayonara, my good sir!”
As a goodbye, the Brazen Head spit out an apparently inedible tidbit, which might have been a red-robed Tibetan; the figure scurried offscreen.
Something Marco learned in the Desert of Lop enabled him to communicate through the centuries? Was that it? Something to do with the invisible circle, the formulas? Certainly he seemed to know he had the ability to communicate over vast distances, but Leonard didn’t think Marco knew he was speaking with the future. And for some reason, this Isaac guy was concerned that Marco not share that secret; for some reason, he thought the secret would be dangerous in the wrong hands.
The phone bleated.
I tell you, yes, is a mystery, Isaac said.
Who are you, Leonard said, and why me?
Who am I? I am Isaac, son of the RaBaD. Rabbi Abraham ben David of Posquières, mebbe you know him?
I don’t know any rabbis.
Of course not. I am known by some as Isaac the Blind. That is because I’m blind.
I get it. Please stop imitating my grandfather — it’s very upsetting.
Your attention is all over the place, this is understandable, but I need you to listen. This is how I do that. Besides, I have to choose some way to talk. You like Marco’s accent? English but Italianate? I work very hard on this translation.
You knew my grandfather, is that how you imitate him?
I knew your grandfather welclass="underline" he was my pupil in Narbonne. At that time he was known as Azriel.
Was that in the Old Country? Leonard asked. I only knew him as Bertie.
Azriel was a good man, very smart, and powerful, but not always so wise.
Hey! Don’t you say anything bad about my grandfather!
You understand nothing, boychik, but you have the potential to understand much. This is why I choose you. This, and I have no choice.
Choose me for what?
To talk with Marco, for just one example.
Why me? Why did I have to talk to Marco? Why didn’t you do it?
Think, boychik! What do you offer Marco?
I don’t know.
Think!
I was his friend.
Yes!
I was his friend.
And what do friends do?
They, uh, talk.
And what did you do?
Uh, I listened.
Exactly!
You couldn’t do that?
I have talk with so many people, I appeal to their spiritual nature. Rumi, to take just one example of which I am proud. I became Shams, his great friend; I convince him to share his secrets through poetry no one understand, except those who understand. But I couldn’t be Marco’s friend, could I? He doesn’t have a spiritual nature. The best I can do with Marco is a little still, small voice, a little Rustichello …
You were Rusty?
I do a little ibbur. You know what this is?
Metempsychosis: your soul enters a living person so it can perfect itself …
Isaac snorted.
… or help a person perfect his.
This is what I do.
Leonard thought about this a moment.
So this Marco, Isaac continued, he is a good but shallow egg, thinking only about fame and material things of the world. But you, Leonard, you can be his friend. There are other reasons, of course; this you will understand later, mebbe.
I need you to go now.
I call you back, Isaac said.
I won’t pick up. I know when you’re calling.
I find other ways. This is your destiny, Lenny, you have no choice.
Leonard hung up. Only his grandfather called him Lenny, only his grandfather could call him that.