Pirate Colleen. I could almost picture her at the helm of a ship flying the Jolly Roger. I smiled in the soft darkness. “Did you tell her?” I asked.
“Yeah. Eventually. She really did feel bad about it. About six months later she bought her and Dad a new bed and gave me theirs.” She reached out a hand and tugged at the brocade draperies. “Okay, so this isn’t exactly a pirate’s bedroom, either. More like a lord and lady’s. But it’s closer. I asked her why she got me that trashy white stuff, and you know what she said? She said she thought I was just pretending to be a tomboy. So Dad would treat me like the son he never had. She was afraid I thought Dad had wanted a boy and that was why he’d taught me to play baseball and shoot and ride a horse.”
“But you weren’t pretending.”
“Hell, no. And neither was he.” She rolled over on her side to look at me. “Pretending sucks, Viktor. Promise me you won’t pretend with me.”
Were I not a doctor, I would have sworn my heart had stopped beating in my chest. “What do you mean? What pretense would I make with you?”
“The ‘old bull’ shit. You’re not old, Viktor. But you’ve let yourself feel old. You don’t have to explain why. I know why. But it’s a lie you’ve made up about yourself and I don’t buy it. Neither should you. Promise me: no more old bull shit.”
“Yes, boi baba. No old bullshit.”
“Okay. And you can also stop pretending to be a father figure.”
“Colleen…”
She raised herself up on one elbow and looked down into my face. “Viktor, you are not my father.”
I looked up at her for what seemed an eternity, her face illuminated by the warm, red amber of firelight on one side and cool moonlight on the other. Fire and ice.
I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to take her in my arms and hold her, and sleep, and awaken in the Preserve where there was no quest and no danger and no dreams of blood and death. I wanted more than that, and it terrified me. She terrified me. I tried desperately to call Yelena to mind, but she would not come. She left me alone with Colleen.
“No,” I whispered. “I am not your father.”
She gave me a smile that was at once smug and shy, then put her head down on my chest, wrapped her arms around me, sighed deeply, and slept.
I lay awake as long as I could, savoring her nearness, while my heartbeat slowed and desire ebbed.
By morning I had convinced myself I had suffered some sort of mental confusion. I was glad, desperately glad, that I had not acted out of misbegotten passion. Colleen could not possibly have meant what I had taken her to mean through my veil of exhaustion. I had seen her with Cal. I had seen the way he looked at her, spoke to her, touched her. I had seen them kiss.
Certainly, my dear friend Colleen had only meant to keep me from becoming old before my time.
I might have asked her, but she had risen and was gone; only Enid still snored peacefully in a nearby cot. That was good. It saved me further confusion, further possibility of betraying myself. Daylight grounded me, ordered my thoughts. I was well-rested, sober. And I recalled clearly that I had not let slip anything revealing. I recalled, with equal clarity, that I had promised to forswear pretense. Honor would have me go to Colleen and confess… what?
Say it, you old fool. What possible good is to be gained from lying to yourself?
Old bullshit, indeed. Here I was late in my forties, pretending to myself that life was over. I had told myself life was over when I took up that damned hot dog cart. And since then, since I had given up on myself, look where I had been and what I had done. And I had not taken a single step of the journey without repeating that old chestnut: Your life is over, Viktor Lysenko. You are an old, dead, hollowed-out man.
I sat up in the empty canopy bed, hand over my heart, and felt it beating. I was not old, she had said. Most assuredly, I was not dead… yet. And at this moment, I did not feel hollow. Truthfully, I had not been hollow since Cal brought me to his apartment to examine his sister. Since the four of us had set foot on the road together. With that first step outside myself, the cavity within had begun to fill, until this moment when I was forced to recognize that it was half full. Perhaps more than half.
Downstairs in the restaurant, breakfast was on. It was simple but substantial fare, and it seemed the whole neighborhood, such as it was, had shown up to partake. I took bread and porridge to a table near a window, where Colleen sat drinking hot tea.
She smiled at me as I sat down across from her. “I’d kill for some coffee,” she said, “but Jelly says they exhausted the supply about three weeks ago. He thinks he can arrange to get some more from ‘a certain warehouse on the waterfront.’ We’ll probably be out of here by the time he gets the deal set up.” She cocked her head to one side and checked me over thoroughly. “You look better this morning. Still like to see you get rid of those dark circles under your eyes, though.”
“I feel much better this morning. But I’m afraid the dark circles are a permanent fixture. You didn’t give me a chance to check your burns this morning.”
“You mean that little rash?” She leaned forward into the wan sunlight. Her softly tanned face was completely unblemished. “All gone. And I slept better than I have since we left the Preserve. Thanks. You make a nice pillow.”
Her green eyes were warm and open down to her soul, but she did not speak of last night, nor did I. There was nothing I could say, no question I could ask, that would not lead somewhere I was uncertain she wanted to go. I would die before I shattered these comfortable bonds.
Cal came in before long, trailing Goldie and Magritte. The three of them generated sufficient nervous energy to power Jelly’s cook stove. When I thought Cal would be unable to resist a blind thrust into Primal’s domain, Papa Sky reappeared on Tone’s arm. He accepted his breakfast with sincere gratitude and sat at table with us. Calvin showed admirable restraint, holding his questions until the old man had done with his meal.
When Papa had finished, he put aside his porridge bowl, picked up his mug of chicory and sat back with a sigh of contentment, his face warmed by the crimson stained sunlight that poured through the street-level windows. “So, you still want to go charging off into the heart of darkness, do you, Mr. Cal?”
“We don’t have a choice.”
“Surely you do. You could stay here. Here, you don’t have to search and Enid don’t have to play.”
“Staying here doesn’t get my sister back,” said Cal. “Staying here is giving up-not just on Tina, but on everything. I can’t do that. I couldn’t live with knowing I’d done that.”
Papa gazed at Cal in such a way that I almost believed he could see him. “Well, you got this far. I didn’t figure you for a quitter. You’re a lot like my friend in that, Mr. Cal. He understands your desire to persevere.”
“Does that mean he’ll help us?”
“He can’t do miracles. But he did tell me some things. About that Tower? He says you oughta find the seventh floor real interesting.”
“Why?” Cal glanced at Goldie, who sat at one corner of the table with his back pressed against the wall. “What’s on the seventh floor? The legal records? Primal? What?”
“He didn’t enlighten me on that point, son. He just said to tell you that you’d find the seventh floor of interest. His words. He also suggested you leave Enid and the pretty flying lady outside the building. Said it’d be bad for both them in there. And he said you should go in through the car park underneath. There’s a delivery exit on the northeast corner, and a fire stair that goes up from the sublevel. Now, I’ll tell you something I know. You go in there, you gotta be ready. Up here.” He tapped his temple. “I told you before, that thing ain’t what it seems. You gotta watch yourselves and keep your heads in what you’re doing.”