The Skill of Our Hands--A Novel Page 33

  “And you were going to make things bad enough to shake us out of our complacency?” Jane asked, unfolding.

  “I didn’t think it’d take so much,” Irina said.

  “What was the plan?” Sam asked. “Once you’d gotten everyone’s attention? You knew you couldn’t win on the streets.”

  “No. We’d shift the battlefield before it came to that. Each one of us can hire an army— fund, privately, anonymously, and heavily, a counter-insurgency: EFF, ACLU, SPLC, CPJ. I put all the links on our site.”

  “But it got away from you?”

  Guilt soaked Irina like oil into sand. Guilt for everything she’d done and left undone. “We do what we can,” she said. “What kind of asshole would ask any more?”

  “But what kind of asshole would do any less, right?” Sam said. “And we all do less than we can every day, don’t we? I know I do. Because I doubt and I question. I’m afraid of doing too much. Or being wrong. And that’s worse.”

  Irina wiped tears into her hair. “I thought it was Phil running the Hourlies.”

  “Me?”

  Irina hadn’t noticed Ren and Phil coming back down the basement stairs. She nodded.

  “And you pushed your police friend to have me arrested?” Phil asked.

  Irina nodded.

  “Why?” Ren asked.

  “Because he’s our pivot.”

  “Why else, Irina?” Ren crouched next to her.

  “That’s all.”

  “No, there was something else.” Ren peered into Irina’s eyes. “It was me,” she said.

  “You countermeddled Ren?” Phil’s voice went hard.

  “She got involved,” Ren said, like she was reading the answer from Irina’s corneas. “Irina knew not having Celeste’s memories made me feel apart from the group.” Ren was figuring it out, explaining it to Phil, but Irina had no desire to remind them she was right there.

  “As long as I had you,” Ren told Phil, “it was like we were cocooned in our little nest, just the two of us, with no idea of the whole tree. I didn’t understand until I had to let Oskar help me. I mean I really had to. He was the only one who knew where to look for your stub when I had to find it. I had to trust his memory of your past. It changed me.”

  Phil nodded Matsu’s head. “It’s as hard to change ourselves as it is to change the world,” he said.

  “And I needed to change,” Ren said. Her eyes cut to Irina’s. “You countermeddled me.”

  It wasn’t a question, but Irina nodded.

  “Bitch,” Ren said, standing. “Thank you.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Bad Coffee to Decent Whiskey

  Oskar helped load Frio into Jimmy’s car, and stayed in the bar as long as he could after Ren and Phil went back down to the basement because he knew Irina wouldn’t want him to see her in pieces. Then he remembered he still had Phil’s car keys.

  “Well, congratulations, Oskar,” Irina said before he was even halfway down the steps. “You have been proven right. I tried countermeddling and it got Phil killed. I tried to fix it, but spiking Phil into Frio nearly killed them both, and led Jack Harris to Sam. Now if Jack tracks either Sam or Frio to us, it may kill all of Salt. I truly fucked things up, and you saw it coming. You must feel very proud.”

  * * *

  I didn’t. Pride is her department.

  —Oskar

  * * *

  Oskar stepped aside to allow Sam and Jane access to the stairs. Ren put a hand on Oskar’s arm. “Will you help Irina pull herself together and get upstairs?” she asked.

  Oskar did not want to help Irina. He didn’t want to take his eyes off her long enough to argue with Ren. He nodded to Ren and asked Irina, “Were you fucking him? The cop. Harris. Not Frio.”

  * * *

  I wasn’t jealous, I just needed clarification.

  —O

  * * *

  “You know, Oskar, the amount of scorn you have for the persuasive power of sexual desire, or genuine affection, or hell, even simple kindness is positively puritanical.” Irina, still sitting on the ground, tucked her feet under her body in a delicate curl. Oskar was vaguely aware of Phil and Ren heading upstairs after Sam and Jane.

  “Honestly, Oskar. You think nothing of sneaking into a childhood memory to exploit the soft flannel smell of a stuffed bunny, but using mutual adult attraction and its physical expression is beneath you?”

  “Emotions aren’t currency,” Oskar said. “And there’s a word for sex offered in trade.”

  “What is that word, Oskar? Reciprocity? Maybe communication? Sex, the ultimate dialectic?”

  “Exploiting sex for something other than mutual pleasure and deepened intimacy is—” Oskar stopped himself. He held out a rigid hand for the purposes of hauling Irina to her feet. “Harris is a bigoted, corrupt, brutal zealot.”

  “Not all the time. Not to me.” Irina took Oskar’s hand and stood. She looked pale, but she didn’t wobble.

  “Mao and Stalin wrote poetry,” Oskar observed. “Franco was a wonderful grandfather. Pol Pot was every bit as much loved by his students as Sam is.”

  Irina’s hand went over her mouth, like she could hold the heartbreak in. She shook her head. “The new face of evil isn’t the new Pol Pot’s, Oskar. It has no face. It’s distributed. It’s computer code and government agencies.”

  “Bullshit. Codes are coded and agencies staffed by people.”

  “By ordinary, fallible, not-heroic people, Oskar.”

  * * *

  I’ll grant her ordinary and fallible.

  —O

  * * *

  “Can you fix Harris?” Oskar asked.

  “No.” Irina leaned against the basement wall. “I tried. He swore to me he’d called the SWAT raid off, but I think he was using me all along.”

  Oskar cupped her elbow and turned her to face the stairs. “Can you break him?”

  “Yes, but it’d bring the whole burning roof down on Sam.”

  Oskar and Irina walked the rest of the way to her car in silence.

  “Blackmail?” Oskar asked. “He was married.”

  “I don’t have any proof of us.” Irina leaned against her car. “A whistleblower on the inside would have power a reporter on the outside doesn’t.”

  “We have other uses for Frio.”

  “All I need is the threat. I think I can get Jack to take an early retirement with that.” Irina shuddered. “It’s going to be an awful meddle.” She fumbled in her bag for her car keys. “My penance, I guess.”

  * * *

  I’m certain there was some way other than a countermeddle to make Ren feel like one of us, and to prove she was already, but in that moment, all I could think was how much courage it must have taken Irina. Pride is only the opposite of courage like wisdom is the opposite of rage. The one may eclipse the other, but it can also call it forth. Irina is proud, but it’s the pride of survivors, not victors. It may not be productive, but it’s earned. I put my arms around her on the dark street, and I kissed the top of her tangled head.

  —O

  * * *

  “You know…” Irina turned her tear-stained face to Oskar. “It isn’t just meddling. Or transaction. Sometimes it’s nothing more than desire.”

  “I know,” he said. “And a point of commonality.”

  “Oskar,” Irina asked, “have you seen much of Tucson? My condo offers an excellent view.”

  “I’ll drive,” he said.

  Irina reached up and kissed his mouth. “I’ll let you,” she said.

  * * *

  Phil studied Ren’s profile as they climbed up the stairs from the Crazy Horse basement behind Sam and Jane. Ren must have been aware of his eyes on her, but kept hers trained on the exit sign. Sam stopped to talk to one of the guys standing at the bar, and Jane waited with him.

  “Do you know that nobody brought chocolate?” Ren told Phil as they stepped outside. “Seriously. When you got killed—doing I had no idea what down here on the Southside—and p
eople started coming to our house, not one of them brought a box of candy. Irina came with groceries. Our friends sent flowers, and man, you should see your Facebook page, but the one thing I really wanted was one of those ridiculous, two-layer boxes with the chart of what’s inside, and the chocolates in those individual brown pleated cups like tiny paper bassinets.”

  “Ren—”

  “It’s just that I would have liked some chocolate.” Ren leaned against the Prius.

  “I’m sorry,” Phil told her. “I’m sorry I was killed, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what I was doing. I’m sorry we haven’t had thirty seconds to talk until now. I’m sorry for, God, I don’t even know what I’m sorry for.” Phil watched Irina and Oskar come out of the bar. She was crying again, but Oskar didn’t seem to be closing in for an immediate kill. “I’m sorry,” Phil said again.

  “I’m glad you’re back,” Ren whispered.

  “Me too.”

  “It’s weird to look at you, and see Matsu.”

  “I’ll bet,” Phil said. “Good-looking bastard, wasn’t he?”

  “Is it weird for you too?” Ren’s voice was small, and she didn’t look at him.

  Phil reached for her hand. “Yeah,” he said.

  “It will be even weirder for him.” Ren’s fingers curled around his.

  “Yeah, I can forget what I look like between mirrors, but he’ll be looking right at me. It was a hell of a thing he did.”

  “I think he had to. We were losing you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “We can’t lose you,” she said. “I mean I know I have to, but we can’t.” Ren swallowed hard. “When you died,” she said, “there was nothing I could do. I kept wanting to ask you, what do you do when there’s nothing you can do?” She looked at him, tears bright on her cheeks. “But you weren’t there and I had to do what seemed necessary, even if people didn’t agree, and it might not work out.”

  “That’s as good as any answer I’ve found.” Phil raised Matsu’s long arm and Ren stepped under it.

  “You know what’s funny?” she asked, nuzzling into his chest. “I think we fixed Sam. Which was what I was doing at yoga in the first place.”

  “I’ll bet you did more than that,” Phil said, and when Ren turned her face up to look at him, he kissed her until Sam and Jane came out of the bar.

  Oskar and Irina were still standing by her car, so Phil gave Ren the Prius keys. “I’ll go rescue Irina and drop her off at her condo,” he said.

  Ren nodded and got in the car. Sam and Jane piled into the backseat and Phil turned up the street just as Oskar bent down and kissed the top of Irina’s head. Phil got in the Prius.

  “Oskar was always more Grant at Appomattox than he’d want to realize.”

  “You were there?”

  It took Phil a moment to realize that it was Sam who had spoken from the backseat. Phil nodded.

  * * *

  I object to this comparison. It was not sentiment, but genuine fellow-feeling for Irina that made me amenable to her offer, and I’ve had no cause to regret it since. I wanted to hear more of her thesis on what she called evil, and how it was evolving from personal, immediate, and intentional to something distributed—distant, diffuse, and altogether more insidious. And incremental.

  —O

  * * *

  “That’s … wow,” Sam said. “Did you meet him?”

  “No. But I met John Brown.”

  “That’s incredible. Old John Brown, whose soul is marching on?”

  “Yeah.” Phil took in a breath and let it out as Ren pulled onto the street. “You know, he’s been called both ‘America’s first domestic terrorist’ and ‘the man who killed slavery.’”

  “Those aren’t mutually exclusive,” said Sam.

  “I tried to meddle with him and I failed.” Phil found himself staring at his hands. “And I very nearly shot him.”

  “Wow,” Sam said again. “What happened?”

  “I couldn’t.” Phil’s voice sounded like the report of a Sharp’s rifle. He felt Ren’s hand on his arm. “I was convinced it was the right thing to do, but I couldn’t pull the trigger.”

  Ren navigated around some slow drivers as if she’d planned for them to be there. She always drove as if everyone on the road was part of a design she’d come up with.

  “Good,” said Sam.

  Phil looked up, and saw Sam in the rearview. “Good?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m not so sure,” Phil said. “Brown was trying to make things better. I was too, and it put us at opposite ends of a gun.”

  Ren pulled into their driveway and parked behind Jimmy’s Escalade next to Sam and Jane’s Subaru. The front door opened, and Ramon stepped out onto the front stoop, still wearing his funeral skirt and high heels.

  “How’d the ritual go?” Ren asked Ramon as they reached the front door. “You must be starving.”

  “It went well, I think. Nothing anomalous. And yes, I’m very hungry. Tired as well.”

  “How’s Frio?” Sam asked.

  “Sewn up and sleeping,” Ramon reported.

  “And ready to get to work,” Jimmy added, greeting them in the living room. “Whiskey? Poire William?” he offered, waving one slender brown bottle and one squat clear one with a narrow neck and full-grown pear in its belly. “I picked up a Lagavulin and a Miclo Carafon yesterday, so Phil could raise a glass at his wake. I’d hate to have it go to waste.”

  “God, Jimmy,” Phil said, stepping out of Jimmy’s bustling range. “Were you never Irish? You can’t have a wake after the funeral. What would happen if it worked?”

  “Reception then,” Jimmy said with a bow, displaying the lovely decanter with its prisoner pear floating in the honey-colored brandy. “Or perhaps initiation?” He raised the whiskey to Sam and Jane.

  “No,” Sam said. “Not for us. We’re just staying in the guest room. We can’t go home.”

  Ren came back into the living room from the kitchen, five glasses cloverleaved in her fingers. She caught Phil’s eye and he nodded, and he saw her get the same affirmation from Jimmy. “We’ll take care of that,” she told Sam. She held the glasses out for Jimmy. “How’s Matsu?”

  “Sleeping.” Jimmy poured. “I’ll just check on him in a moment, once I’ve had a nip.”

  Ren balanced the glasses, her mouth off-center in the way it always was when she was concentrating. She handed him two glasses and smiled, and Phil’s heart turned over again.

  Ren carried a glass to Jane, and Phil gave one to Sam with a final, niggling clarification. “So you’re of the school that thinks Brown’s raid helped unify the North more than it worked to piss off the South?”

  “Not really,” said Sam. “I said good because if you were able to kill someone trying to end slavery, I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with you. Or your group. You’re not angels sent down to meddle in the affairs of men. You’re human; you fuck things up.”

  “We do.”

  “Everyone does. That isn’t the problem. The problem is we forget. You remember.”

  “Yes, we do,” Phil said, trying to keep the bitterness from his voice. Jimmy clapped him on the back, and Phil took a seat on the sofa.

  “You did the right thing, Phil,” Sam said. “Or you tried to.”

  “And you think that’s enough?” Even in his own ears, Phil sounded like he was arguing. He wasn’t. “Do you think just wanting to help is enough, no matter what the results are?”

  “Not enough, maybe,” said Sam. “But Viktor Frankl said we should all live as if we were living a second time, and had acted wrongly the first.”

  “I don’t think you did.” Ren squeezed Phil’s hand. “But he’s right.”

  “Yes, Sam,” said Jane. “You’re right.”

  And everyone was looking at Sam, whose mouth hung open. “Was he one of you?” he asked Phil. “Frankl?”

  “No more than you are,” Ren told him. “But no less.”

  Phil looked at her hand resting ove
r his and, as if his feet had a plan of their own, he stood up and walked out onto the back patio.

  Susi was out by the pool. He looked at Phil, then wagged his tail and padded over. Phil knelt next to him, and the dog licked the tears from his face.

  * * *

  Daniel felt a warm washcloth on his forehead, and opened his eyes. “Thank you,” he said.

  “How’s the head?” Ren asked.

  Her eyes were kind, and if he’d become Phil, Daniel would have found it easy to love her. He brushed the thought aside. “It hurts,” he said. “Like growth and grief and a boot to the eye.”

  Ren frowned. “Matsu?”

  “He’s gone,” Daniel told her. “I’m sorry, but I’m certain of it. I tried to step aside during the spiking ritual, but I think Kate was holding on to him.”

  “Why would she do that?” Ren’s fingers gripped Daniel’s arm and he felt her deliberately release them.

  “She didn’t do it on purpose; she wanted to honor Matsu. But she never bought into the urgency to get Phil a new Second. She said everyone in Tucson was wound tight as watch springs. She didn’t understand the rush.”

  “None of us did.”

  “I do now.” Daniel gently closed his hand over Ren’s fingers twitching on his arm. “It was you, Ren—the spiral you walked in your Garden—it sucked everybody in, or at least everyone you told about it: first Oskar, then Jimmy and Irina. It transferred to them the urgency you felt, even though they didn’t understand it.”

  “That’s not really the way the Garden works, Daniel.” Fatigue hung heavily over Ren’s attempted kindness.

  “No, but sometimes it’s how change does,” he told her. “Even we don’t always understand what convinces a person or a people, or how quickly acceptance is created or power lost. But we remember that it can.”

  Ren’s smile was warm and radiant of love. Daniel didn’t covet it, but he could have. He closed his eyes against the fatigue and headache, groping for words to describe what he was seeing in the Garden, in the group, and in the world. “It’s all part of the pattern,” he said.