"I won't tolerate any more insults." File stalked toward Misha threateningly, and Gimli planted himself between the two.
"She said Father Squid's going to hell when he dies," Peanut added, dabbing at his cuts with a handkerchief. " I told File she just don't understand, but-"
"I told the truth." Misha sounded bewildered, as if she failed to believe their lack of comprehension. Her head shook, her hands were spread wide as if to absolve herself of guilt. "God showed His displeasure with the priest when He made him a joker. Yes, this Father Squid might be sent to hell, but Allah is infinitely merciful."
"See?" Peanut smiled at File tentatively. "It's okay, huh?"
"Yeah, and I'm a joker and Gimli and you are jokers and we're all being punished too. Right? Well, that's bullshit and I'm not gonna listen to it. Screw you, cunt." File flipped a finger in Misha's direction and spun on the balls of his feet. The slamming of the door reverberated for several seconds after his exit.
Gimli looked over his shoulder at Misha. To him she was quite remarkably good-looking out of the frigging black funeral dress, but she never seemed at ease in Western clothing. Her mysticism and bluntness unsettled his people. File, Shroud, Marigold, and Video absolutely loathed her, while Peanut-oddly enough-seemed utterly infatuated even though she gave the half-witted joker nothing but scorn.
Gimli had already decided he hated her. He regretted the impulse that had led him to meet with her after the Berlin fiasco; he wished he'd never steered her toward Polyakov. If it weren't for the evidence she claimed to have against Hartmann and the fact that they were still waiting for the Russian's information, the justice Department would have received an anonymous tip. He'd like to see what fucking Hartmann would have them do with her.
She was a damn ace. Aces only cared about themselves. Aces were worse than nats.
"You got remarkable tact, you know that?" he said.
"He asked. I only told him what Allah told me. How can truth be wrong?"
"You want to live very much longer in Jokertown, you'd better learn when to keep your fucking mouth shut. And that is the truth."
"I'm not afraid to be a martyr for Allah," she answered haughtily, her accent blurring the hard consonants. " I would welcome it. I'm tired of this waiting; I would rather attack the beast Hartmann openly."
"Hartmann's done a lot for the jokers…" Peanut began, but Gimli cut him off.
"It'll be soon enough. I talked to Jube tonight, and the word is Hartmann's going to speak at the rally in Roosevelt Park on Monday. Everyone thinks he'll make his announcement then. Polyakov said he'd contact us as soon as Hartmann made things official. We'll move then."
"We must contact Sara Morgenstern. The visions-"
"-don't mean anything," Gimli interrupted. "We'll make plans when Polyakov's finally here."
"I will go to this park, then. I want to see Hartmann again. I want to hear him." Her face was dark and savage, almost comically fierce.
"You'll stay away, goddammit," Gimli said loudly. "With all the shit going down in this city, the place'll be crawling with security."
She stared at him, and her gaze was more intense then he had thought it could be. He blinked. "You are not my father or my brother," she told him as if speaking to a slow child. "You are not my husband, you are not the Nur. You can't order me as you do the others."
Gimli could feel a blind, useless rage coming. He forced it down. Not much longer. Only a few more days. He stared back at her, each reading the other's dislike.
"Hartmann might make a good president…" Peanut's voice was almost a whisper as he glanced from one to the other. They ignored him. The scratches on his arms oozed blood.
"I hate this place," Misha said. " I look forward to leaving." She shuddered, breaking eye contact with Gimli. "Yeah, there's a lot of fucking people about here who feel the same way." Misha's eyes narrowed at that; Gimli smiled innocently.
"A few more days. Be patient," Gimli continued. And after that, all bets are off. I'll let File and the rest do whatever they damn well please with you.
"Until then, keep your goddamn opinions to yourself," he added.
Monday, 2:30 P.M.
Misha, who had once been known as Kahina, remembered the sermons. Her brother, Nur al-Allah, had been at his most eloquent describing the torment of the afterlife. His compelling, resonant voice hammered the faithful from the minbar while noontime heat swirled in the mosque of Badiyat Ashsham, and it had seemed that the pits of hell gaped open before them.
Nur al-Allah's hell had been full of capering, loathsome jokers, those sinners Allah had cursed with the affliction of the wild card virus. They were an earthly image of the eternal torment that awaited all sinners: the vile underworld was slathered with twisted bodies that were a mockery of the human form; slick with puss oozing from scabrous faces; full of the stench of hatred and revulsion and sin.
The Nur had not known, but Misha did: Hell was New York. Hell was Jokertown. Hell was Roosevelt Park on a June afternoon. And the Great Satan himself capered there, before all his adoring followers: Hartmann, the devil with strings lacing his fingertips, the phantom who haunted her waking dreams. The one who had with Misha's own hands destroyed her brother's voice.
She'd seen the papers, the headlines praising Hartmann and extolling his coolness in crisis, his compassion, his work to end the sufferings of jokers. She knew that the thousands in the park were there to see him, and she knew what they hoped he would say. She knew that most considered Hartmann to be the one voice of sanity against the pious, hate-filled ravings of Leo Barnett and the others like him.
Yet Allah's dreams had shown her the real Hartmann, and Allah had placed in her very hands the gift that would bring him down. For just a moment the reality of the gathering in the park shimmered and threatened to give way to the nightmare again, and Misha nearly cried out.
"You okay? You shivered."
Peanut touched her on the arm, and Misha felt herself draw away involuntarily from contact with his hornlike, inflexible fingers. She saw hurt in his eyes, nearly lost in the scaly shell of his face.
"You're not supposed to be here," she told him. "Gimli said-"
"It's all right, Misha," he whispered. The joker could barely move his lips; the voice was a poor ventriloquist's rasp. " I hate the way I look too. A lot of us do-like Stigmata, y'know. I understand."
Misha turned from the guilty pain that the sympathy in his ruined voice gave her. Her hands ached to pull the veils over her face and hide herself from Peanut. But the chador and veils were locked away in the trunk in her room. Her hair was unbound and loose around her shoulders.
"When you are in New York, you can't wear black, not on a summer day. They'll already suspect that you're there. If you must go out, at least take care that you blend in if you intend to stay free. Be glad you can at least go walking in daylight; Gimli won't dare show his face at all." Polyakov had told her that before she'd left Europe. It seemed small consolation.
Here in Roosevelt Park, despite what Gimli had said the night before, there was no chance she would be conspicuous. The place was packed and chaotic. Jokertown had spilled its vibrant, strange life onto the grass. It was '76 again, the masks of Jokertown placed gleefully aside. They walked unashamed of Allah's curse, flaunting the visible signs of their sins, mixing unchecked with the one they called nats. They stood shoulder to misshapen shoulder around the stage set at the north end of the park closest to Jokertown, cheering the speakers who preached solidarity and friendship. Misha listened, she watched, and she shivered again, as if the afternoon heat was a chimera, a dream-phantom like the rest.