A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World (8 page)

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 well: 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.

When the phone bleated the next night, Leonard ignored it. The complaints had stopped, and just as well, for Leonard was in turmoil. The White Room, usually so comforting, now made him angry. He didn't like being confused, he didn't want to be in silence—he didn't like it! It had to be that some rabbi who knew his grandfather also knew whoever was pretending to be Marco, a thirteenth-century explorer, and somehow this person had maneuvered him, Leonard, into saying things to the fake Marco so that he, Leonard, would feel later like he'd contributed to the writings of a dead man, while he was still alive, as if that were possible, but why?

But no! Leonard suddenly understood! It was a test!
Only a parastatal corporation like Neetsa Pizza had the resources with which to construct such an elaborate Scenario! They had his Life Portfolio, probably they'd recovered sound reels of Grandfather's voice from the neighborhood webcam, but why? To see whether Leonard followed NP protocol? To see how he'd react in certain hypothetical, highly unlikely Scenarios? It could only be. And he'd failed! He'd talked with Milione for weeks—too late now to report the missing complaints, too late to report the unlikely Scenario for incorporation into improved optimal Listener algorithms!

Leonard was in despair.

When the phone bleated, he picked it up.

This is not a pizza test, boychik, Isaac said. This is your very real life.

I don't know that. I don't know that it's not a test!

Is your pizza people knowing the clapping song?

Isaac began to sing.

What do you want from me? Leonard shouted when the song was over. Leave me alone!

This will never happen. You are chosen, you must know this. You show not so much curiosity for someone of your ability: have you investigated my identity?

I don't need to! You're a crazy person in Marco's loony bin and this is his idea of a joke. Tell him I hate him more than anything! Leonard shouted, and hung up.

He went to the Brazen Head.

“Who is Isaac the blind?” he typed. “Is he crazy? Is he blind? Does he know Marco Polo?” He chose the cartoon spaceship to take off with his query. It landed on several fields and cityscapes, abducting terrified infofile “passengers,” which it quickly probed, then discharged (via an escalator) into the brain of the Brazen Head, which responded thusly:

“Isaac the Blind (1165?–1235?) was a leading Jewish scholar and Kabbalist in Provence, southern France. There is no indication that he was crazy, though the Brazen Head thinks his ideas were pretty out there. Yes, he was blind, though they say he could see into people's souls. Whatever. He was something of a scold: he is famous for sending a letter to his followers, the rabbis of Gerona, and especially Rabbis Ezra and Azriel, in 1235 (more or less), reprimanding them for sharing mystical secrets with the hoi polloi (ho-hum). Like good boys, they shut up like he asked. He was dead twenty years by the time Marco Polo was born, which you'd know if you'd been listening. Ciao, baby!”

Azriel? Hadn't Isaac said something about Azriel?

The Brazen Head belched and a tiny figure in a caftan escaped out its mouth, looked wildly around the screen, and ran off.

The phone bleated again.

Lenny, the man said, I need you to listen good. You need to quit this job and do as I say.

Quit my job? Are you crazy? I prepared my whole life to be a Listener!

You prepared many lifetimes to be a listener, which is why you gotta quit this job.

Never! If I quit my job, I'll never get it back. Neetsa Pizza doesn't like traitors.

Understand: there will be no more calls, already you answer your last call. Now you do as I say.

Why? You have to tell me why!

The world needs you.

I can't help the world: I never leave my White Room. I like it here.

There can be no more White Room. Is time for you to meet her.

Who? Isaac, you're asking too much of me.

Is time for you to meet the grandmother of your grandsons.

Leonard hung up the phone. This Isaac whoever-he-was was too cruel. First he squeezed Leonard's heart pretending to be his grandfather, the only person besides Felix who'd ever truly loved him, then he gave him a friend and took him away, and then he
took what was left of his heart, that very small bit of secret hope that maybe someday, somehow, someone who wasn't a child might love him, and he squeezed that too! All the while pretending to be blind! Was Leonard so obvious? Could anyone see into his heart? The world was even scarier than he'd thought. He slumped to the floor and put his head into his hands.

When the phone bleated again, Leonard ignored it. When it was silent, he picked it up and heard a sound like air that had been dead for centuries; it sent a chill down his spine, or maybe that was the sudden cold coursing through his room—a mighty wind, actually, a mighty polar wind. Medusa, the neighborly cat, yowled outside. Shivering, Leonard tried to coax her in through the cat-chimney, or even through the door, thinking she might warm him, but she wouldn't cross the threshold, nor would she leave off yowling.

I'm not listening! Leonard shouted, and the ground started to shake, the sixty-day seal on his grandfather's closet popped open, the opaque flimsies on his windows became translucent, letting in great light—and from the corner of his eye, he saw movement on his screen: it was his grandfather, wearing his worn brown caftan, gesticulating to a small boy. He and the boy were on the settee in the White Room, before it was a White Room, as the room had been when his grandfather was alive. The boy had a brown afro and a T-shirt that read “I Love Grandpaw.”

Boychik, the grandfather said to the little boy, there will come a day when I will no longer be with you …, and the boy said, Don't say that, Grandpa! I don't like it when you say that! and the old man said, Boychik, I need you to listen good. A man will come for you named Isaac. I don't know how he comes but you gotta do how he says. Remember this, because I won't be
here to tell you! And the boy said, No! I'm not listening! and he put his fingers in his ears and shouted, La, la, la, la! The grandfather smiled and shrugged his shoulders at the adult Lenny, as if to say, Look at yourself! What a boy!

Had that happened? Leonard was shaking. This wasn't a Neetsa Pizza test, this wasn't the joke of a loony—this was real, whatever real was.

The phone bleated and Leonard picked it up.

What do you need me to do? he asked.

This is more like it, Isaac said.

The room was quiet again and no longer a White Room. Leonard had opened the door and let in Medusa, who deposited a dead chipmunk by the cat-chimney. He was yanking the flimsies off the windows when the phone began to ring like a siren.

Yes, sir, Leonard said.

High Command advises that there has been a breach of the White Room.

Yes, sir, Leonard said. I have to take a break, that's all, which is to say, I can't work for you anymore.

Medusa jumped on his lap and began to purr.

It's not the Heraclitan Grill, is it? Our Listeners are never happy there. They come crawling back, but you know our policy.

Yes, sir, you don't like traitors.

You know the only support they get is a can of Flame-Off for if they set themselves alight.

I know, Leonard said.

Was it the attack on our pizza grottos? They're under control now, you know.

I hadn't heard about that. No, it's something else. I can't talk about it.

You recall that you signed an
echemythia
agreement?

I agreed to be silent about—

Our recipes ingredients White Room Pythagorean Papers soul tracing aptitude tests meditation scripts algorithms policies and punishments.

Punishments?

You signed the agreement. Keep it and you'll have nothing to worry about.

Right, Leonard said. I won't tell anyone.

We know about your true-ray blocker.

Goodbye, sir.

Don't you come crawling back! We hate traitors!

For the second time that night, the doorbell rang. It was Carol and Felix.

I saw the shades were up. You okay?

I quit my job.

Good, Carol said. You can watch Felix. Don't worry if I don't come back straightaway. I'm going to a book-club convention.

She was wearing her climbing suit and dust cap and was carrying not her usual clutchbag but a six-gallon grabbag over her shoulders.

Go on, Felix. Uncle Leonard will take care of you.

She pushed her son forward but he clung to the ridges of her climbing suit.

Don't go, Mommy! Please don't go!

Big boy, Felix. Clootie dumplings and head cheese in the freezer, lucre in the peanut-butter jam square jar.

She pecked Felix's cheek and, before he could grab her waist, slid down the garage chute and cycled off on her Roadster.

Come on, Felix, Leonard said. I have something amazing to show you: the White Room isn't white anymore!

Really? Felix sniffed. Can I wear my lumberjack suit in there?