Circuit Of Heaven (23 page)

He told her about going to the crematorium with Rosalind and Jonathan, about the stacks of bodies reduced to ashes, about the woman who had to be shoved back into place. He’d never told anyone before, not even Lawrence.

“That’s what my nightmares are about. I’ll be doing something ordinary—feeding the rabbits, working out a trade—when someone calls my name, and I turn around. Sometimes it’s someone I know, sometimes it’s someone I saw at the crematorium. They look perfectly normal, and then they burst into flames. Their clothes burn off before I have a chance to do anything. Then their flesh catches fire. I grab hold of them, try to smother the flames, but they keep burning, and I don’t feel a thing. I hold them till they’re nothing but ashes, and then I wake up.”

They listened to the sound of the wheels on the rails. “Now I understand why you’ve stayed out,” she said.

“It shouldn’t make any difference,” he said. “Everyone’s body dies one way or another. All those people I saw are living in the Bin now, perfectly happy. I think I’ve made too much of it. I mean, Rosalind saw what I saw. She went in.”

“Maybe you should talk to her about it.”

“What is it with you? Are you trying to fix me up with my old girlfriend?”

“Of course not. I just thought it might help you figure out…”

“What I’m going to do about you? I’ve already figured that out.” He laid his hand on her cheek and turned her to face him. “I’m doing the only thing I can do. I’m coming in.”

He expected her to light up, to throw her arms around him and shriek for joy. Instead, she just looked stunned. “Because of me?”

“Of course, because of you.” He was afraid she didn’t want him, that somehow he’d misunderstood. Just because she loved him didn’t mean—

“Are you sure this is the right thing? You’ve stayed out so long.”

He took her by the shoulders. “I’m positive. We love each other. You can’t come to me, so I’m coming to you.”

She shook her head. “But you don’t know me. I don’t even know myself—”

“Nothing could change how I feel about you. Nothing.” She closed her eyes and buried her face in his chest, crying softly.

He cradled her in his arms, rocking her gently. “Why are you upset?” he asked. “I’ll understand if this is too soon, or if you don’t feel the same way about me—”

“You idiot,” she snuffled. “I’m crying because I love you so very much.”

“I’ll call Mom and Dad from the station and have them meet us at the club tonight. I can break the news. We can all celebrate. Besides, I want to hear you sing again. Tomorrow I’ll come in for good. I have a few good-byes to make.”

“Nemo,” she asked again, “are you sure?”

“Of course, I’m sure. Will you quit asking me that?”

She looked right into him. “Only when you are,” she said.

JUSTINE
KEPT
TELLING
HERSELF
SHE
SHOULD
BE be happy, and that was that. He loves me, and he’s coming inside. Isn’t that what I wanted? She was happy he loved her that much, but not about the rest of it. It wasn’t right, she thought. He says he’s sure, but he only
wants
to be sure, because he loves me—but how long will he love me in a world he hates, a world I’ve dragged him into? She wasn’t even sure she wanted to be in here. When was it she ever made that decision? She couldn’t remember.

She went into a restaurant at the station called the Pentagon Pub, sat at a table in a far corner. Everything was pentagonal—the tables, the chair seats, the rugs, the rooms itself. There were only a handful of people, most of them sitting at the bar. A holo-mural of the Bin under construction played on the walls—thousands of Constructs laboring away to transform the most powerful military establishment in the world into the paradise. She turned her chair so that she faced in, her view of the opposite wall blocked by a stand of palms in pentagonal pots. She ordered coffee and watched the pentagonal cup and saucer rise from the table.

She looked at it through Nemo’s eyes—another silly gizmo. She imagined a cleaver in Nemo’s hand, Sophie squirming under the other. The cleaver coming down hard on Sophie’s neck, the jolt of her death. So he could live.

She shoved the coffee to the side and pushed the
Special
icon. An index of foods appeared on a screen in the tabletop. You could get anything you wanted at any restaurant in the Bin, even a place like this. She pressed
Rabbit
and got a submenu of about two dozen dishes. She could press a
?
icon to get a complete description and a picture of each one, but she didn’t really care. She pressed
Hasenpfeffer
because she liked the look of the world.

A plate of steaming stew rose from the table, and she ate it, every bite, as if her life depended on it. When she was done, she slid the pentagonal plate onto the middle of the table, pressed the
Clean
icon, and watched the plate sink into the table out of sight.

“Thank you, Sophie,” she said, but it was an empty gesture. Nothing dies in here, she thought. Not for me, not for anyone. She remembered Romeo and Juliet, dying in each other’s arms, the man beside her saying,
Why are you crying? It’s just a play, dear
. But it used to be that people watched Romeo and Juliet die, and wept, even though they knew it wasn’t real. Back then, people could imagine they were the star-crossed lovers or the bereaved parents—because they lived with death every day. In the Bin, death itself was just a character in an old play.

There was a snicker from the bar, and Justine turned to look. A man was telling a joke to three other men. She couldn’t hear what he was saying, but it was clear what was going on. The joke teller was standing, gesturing, his knees slightly bent, doing a comic pantomime of someone carrying something huge. His audience sat on their stools, smiling, listening, not wanting to miss anything. The joke teller changed his persona to a distraught woman—this got him his first laughs—then again to someone calm and deliberate, examining something, taking measurements, stroking his chin with elaborate deliberation. He delivered his judgement—the punch line—and the group exploded in laughter.

Without death, Romeo and Juliet were no different from the travelling salesman and the farmer’s daughter. Watching the men laugh, she wanted to say,
Why are you laughing? It’s just a joke
.

IT
WAS
DUSK
,
THE
BUILDINGS
GRAY
AND
INSUBSTANTIAL
. the first stars twinkling in the sky. Justine was walking in the direction of Mr. Menso’s. She had no idea if he’d be in his shop at this hour, but she had to talk to someone, and he was the only one she knew, besides Nemo, who might care, who might understand.

By the time she reached his shop, it was dark and the moon had risen. The cobblestone street was lit by a line of antique streetlamps. Through the rowhouse windows, she could see families sitting down to dinner or talking in their parlors. It could’ve been a scene from two hundred years ago. Mr. Menso’s sign was illuminated by a single lamp, a bronze fixture in the shape of a drooping lilly.

She descended the stairs into the shop and stood at the front as the clang of the bell faded into silence. The rolltop desk was open, and the desk lamp was on. There was a half full cup of tea on the desk, a still warm teapot beside it. A book lay face down beneath the lamp—
Paradise Lost
. Milton, she remembered. I defended Eve to Sister Gertrude while Stephanie giggled behind me, egging me on. Now, she doesn’t even know who I am.

“Mr. Menso!” she called out, “it’s Justine!” But there was no answer. She called out again, peered down the aisles, but there was no sign of anyone. She slumped into Mr. Menso’s chair. How could he help her, anyway—a sweet, dotty old man? It seemed like weeks ago since she’d come in here and told him her dreams, but it was only a couple of days ago.
You’re young. It’s spring
, he’d said, and that’s how he’d made her feel—like anything was possible. She lay her head down on the desk, her forehead resting on her crossed arms, and fought back tears, but they came anyway. She surrendered to them, letting herself cry good and hard.

WHEN
SHE
WAS
CRIED
OUT
,
SHE
STARED
AT
THE
GRAIN
OF the desktop, trying to figure out what she should do, as if the answer were there. She ran her fingers across it. Old oak with a matte varnish. Perfect. If she had a magnifying glass, she knew, it would still look perfect. She hung her head back, staring at the ceiling. It was all perfect. None of it real. Her either. Only she wasn’t perfect. Otherwise she’d know who she was. She’d know what to do.

She heard Mr. Menso’s cane thumping toward her from the back of the shop. She stood up, wiping her cheeks with the palms of her hands.

“Justine,” he said. “Why are you crying?”

There was something comforting in his voice, as if he were the father she’d fantasized for herself when she was a kid. She took the handkerchief he offered her, and dried her eyes. “I thought you weren’t here, and I just need someone to talk to.”

“Well, you’ve come to the right place for that.” He leaned on his cane and asked gently, “Has your young man broken your heart, my dear?”

“Oh no, Mr. Menso, he’s wonderful. But he wants to come into the Bin because of me.”

He gave her a quizzical smile. “Then what’s the problem, my dear? Don’t you want him to be with you?”

“Of course I do. But not like this. It’s not right. What if he gets in here and hates it? Hates me?”

“Hate you? I can’t imagine such a thing. But surely, it’s his choice whether he comes in or not.”

“What kind of choice is that? Renounce his whole life, everything he’s ever believed in—for me—and I give up
nothing
?” She shook her head. “He’s just talking himself into it because he doesn’t want to lose me. I wish I could just go to
him
.”

Mr. Menso’s face clouded over, and he reached out and took her hand. “Let’s sit down and talk this over. I’ll get you some tea.”

She nodded, and he propped his cane against the desk, cleared a two-foot stack of books from a chair beside it, setting them next to a half dozen other stacks on the floor. All neat and straight. Justine had the feeling he could tell her every book that was sitting there, from
The Complete Works of Shakespeare
to
The Epistemology of Construct Integration
. His hands, frail, almost delicate, poured their tea with careful precision. He seemed to be just an eccentric old man with a bookshop, but there was more to him than that.
He’s deep into his own program
, Freddie had said.

As he handed her tea, his eyes were full of concern. She thanked him and set the cup on the corner of the desk. She didn’t really want tea. She remembered she didn’t like it. She just wanted to talk to a friend.

“Why don’t you begin at the beginning,” he said. “I take it a good deal has happened since I saw you last.”

She told him about the last two days with Nemo. He listened, smiling wistfully, apparently recalling the days when he himself was young and in love. He made almost no comment, but hung on every word.

When she was done, he cocked his head to one side. “So what is troubling you, my dear? Are things happening too fast? You two have just met, after all.”

She pretended to consider his question—she didn’t want to appear young and foolish—but she already knew the answer. “No. That’s not it. Nemo’s the only thing in my life that’s real and substantial. He makes me feel alive. Everything else is just smoke and shadows.” She smiled ruefully. “If you’re stranded on a desert island, you don’t want your rescuer to take his time rowing to shore.”

“Tell me about this desert island, the smoke and shadows. Have you had another of your dreams?”

“Yes, but it’s not just that. It’s everything. It’s
Justine
. There’s something wrong with me. I remember growing up in a Catholic orphanage—years after they were all shut down. I remember my friends, I remember the nuns, I even remember the way the tile floors were slick and shiny and I used to slide on them in my sock feet. It all seems to me like it just happened a few years ago, but it couldn’t have.

“But the worst is I don’t know how I got
here
, what went on between then—whenever it was—and now. It’s like I’ve been asleep for years, and I woke up a few days ago. Supposedly I just left the real world six weeks ago, but when I was with Nemo, I didn’t know the first thing about it, not really. It was like I’d read about it, but I’d never been there. I don’t even remember the six weeks I’ve been in here: the names of a few hotels and clubs, singing songs I can’t remember learning in the first place to people I never talked to, who never talked to me. It’s hard to believe any of it ever happened. That seems like the dream, and the dreams seem real.” She balled up her fists, but there was nothing to strike, and they just lay in her lap.

“At one time,” he said, “I would’ve envied your forgetting. I used to think the past was a horrible place, created only to bring me misery.
If only I could forget
, I told myself. But of course, there were only a few moments I wanted to forget, ones I worried over, wished I could change.” He sighed. “But after a while,” he continued, “there gets to be so much of the past.” He gestured toward the books all around them. “Not just your own, but all of it, mostly forgotten as well, except for a few moments.” He tapped his fingers on the spine of the Milton. “I’ve decided the trick is to understand the moments that matter, turn them into courage in the present, hope for the future. Some days, I think I’ve found the knack. Most days, I haven’t a clue. But the past isn’t to blame for that. Don’t be afraid of the past, Justine. It will all come right, you’ll see.”

He was very sweet, but she didn’t see what all this had to do with her. “But I don’t have any past, Mr. Menso. That’s just it.”

“Of course you do. You have courage. You have hope. It must’ve come from somewhere. The details don’t matter. Your remember how to love. Is it really all that important how you learned such a rare and important talent? This confusion will pass, my dear. Trust me.”