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He has spent two days now in his room at the Condesa Inn, going over The Material. He has gone over The Material many times before but he thinks that now, so close to the act, it has a different force. It feels shaping and controlling: it feels as if it’s making clearer what he has to do. The why helps the how, he thinks.
He has not contacted his wives. It has crossed his mind often on his journey to do so. He would prefer to write to them than to telephone. He feels that he could Lie for the Lord – lying to preserve a greater spiritual truth, a Mormon practice that Uncle Jimmy explained to him once – easier that way. But none of his wives are allowed to have a computer, or use email, and, at any rate, the only computer in the family house is the Dell, which sits at this moment on the white sheet of his bed, cradled underneath by his crossed legs. He knows what his absence will have occasioned. Ambree, as the most senior now that Leah is dead, will have called a meeting. It will have been held in the kitchen, because, although the living room is bigger, the kitchen is the enclave of the wives, and they will have found it easier to shut the door to the children, although RoLyne would still probably have brought in Elin, his youngest, to breast-feed her. He is confident that Ambree, the most virtuous of his wives, will have led the meeting to the correct decision – despite protests from, he suspects, Angel and maybe even Sedona – that he was their husband, and he knew best: that if he had taken it upon himself to disappear for days without explanation, why, that was no different from Our Lord deciding to enter the desert for forty days in order truly to understand Himself and His Mission. Our job, he was sure she would say, our job as his celestial wives, is in the meantime to care for his house and his children, and be ready to welcome him on his return.
Having thought this through, the urge to communicate with his loved ones recedes, and he turns back to The Material. The intermittent wireless connection at the Condesa Inn troubles him, but also helps. It helps because it makes it harder to watch streaming internet pornography, tube8, or pornhub, or keez, which he normally watches a lot. Thus the intermittent connection is a good thing, as he would feel ashamed of watching these in front of Jesus, and, also, they distract him from his destiny.
The ones that don’t distract him are GunAmerica, and Justice Coalition, and Unsolved, and Restless Sleep, and the jihadi ones. A part of him likes them best. He is even enrolled on the forum at al-jinan.org under the name Pbuh53. Pbuh – he found this out on another website – is the Islamic name for Jesus. He wasn’t sure about this: he was worried it might be seen by God as saying that he himself was Pbuh, was Jesus – writing it into the electronic login form, he felt the butterflies in his stomach that he always feels when he thinks he might be doing something wrong by the Lord – but he went ahead, because it was surely a way of spreading His Name amongst the heathen. And then the site told him he had to add some numbers too, so he wrote his age, as well. That was two years ago.
He enrolled on al-jinan because, when he hears the jihadis speak, something in him stirs. He likes the fierce commitment to God; he likes the language, the poetry of rage, purged of all the trivial inflections of modernity; and he likes the belief in – no, the knowledge of – destiny. To know absolutely both the nature and the quality of destiny – to know what role God has chosen for you and exactly how heroic that role is – that is what he would want for himself. He watches some of the videos that suicide bombers make before they embark on their missions, and he sees in their eyes no sway, no diversion, and it inspires him, even as he knows that the Jesus-less path they have chosen is wrong. He sees how only revenge inspires true religiosity.
And, of course, like him, they are fundamentalists. That is why he calls Eli Gold The Great Satan. It is sort of a joke – a joke he tells only himself – but it is a joke with a purpose. It inspires him to hate him more; to remind him of what the writer stands for; and also to help him to think like the jihadis do, about destiny.
He opens the Dell lid: the square light of the screen shines in the dimness of the room, a hot, white beacon showing him the way. He is not on al-jinan. He is looking, for perhaps the hundredth, or the two hundredth, time at the transcript on www.unsolved.com. Unsolved has a lot of these transcripts which purport to relate to unsolved crimes. The one he reads, over and over again, is an interview between Police Commissioner Raymond Webb and The Great Satan. The interview took place on 15 June 1993. His third and index fingers caress the mouse tracking pad expertly, bringing the transcript into plain view:
RW: So, Mr Gold, I’m sorry to have to make you do this …
EG: How sorry are you exactly? Not sorry enough to not want to bring me down here at a time of deep personal grief.
[inaudible]
EG: Yes, well … how long will this take?
RW: Not long, sir. We just need to go over some of the facts.
EG: Facts …
RW: Sir?
EG: May I have some coffee?
RW: Er … yes, I guess.
[inaudible]
RW: Showing Mr Gold case document R45/100 … do you recognize this?
EG: Yes.
RW: Mrs Gold showed it to you before she took the pills …?
EG: Yes.
RW: And then sealed it in this … showing Mr Gold case document R45/101 … envelope?
EG: Well, I didn’t watch her lick the glue.
[pause]
RW: What did you make of it?
EG: What did I make of it? For fuck’s sake, Commissioner …
RW: Webb.
EG: … Webb, it wasn’t a seminar …
RW: But she had been one of your students. When you met.
[pause]
EG: I really don’t see –
RW: ‘I have no desire left for life. Surrender is preferable to despair. I go, to the soft quiet land: and I thank my love for leading me there.’
[pause]
RW: Are you OK?
EG: I shall be.
RW: Sorry to … I know it’s upsetting.
EG: It’s beautiful. I think.
RW: Yes. Yes, it is. But –
EG: Yes?
RW: I thank my love for leading me there. What did she mean by that?
[pause]
EG: You are asking a question of the dead, Commissioner.
RW: No, Mr Gold, with the greatest respect, I’m asking it of the living. Because you, of course, despite also writing a suicide note, are still alive.
He hears some shuffling in the corridor outside of his room. It could be the cleaner, a Filipino woman, who has tried to get into his room to clean six or seven times over the course of the last two days, or it could be the man next door, who caused him to wake up in terror last night with the sound of what seemed to be nails scratching against the other side of the wall. He shuts the lid of the Dell as if caught looking at something he should not be.
Chapter 3
I didn’t want to go in and see Daddy today. Aristotle is definitely missing me. When I sit in my bed at night reading my story, he comes and sits on my chest, right up by my face. I can feel his whiskers tickling my nose. And then he purrs, really loudly, much louder than he normally does, like he’s like so, so happy that I’m there. Then he usually goes away, but this morning he was still there in the morning! I told Jada this and she said he probably went away during the night and came back just before I woke up but I think he was there all night, ’cos I felt this big weight on my chest where he’d been sitting, and like I said before he’s gotten really fat while we’ve been at the hospital every day so it was really something, like even after I got up it was like he was still sitting there, or like his ghost was still sitting there or whatever.
Also Jada has got the DVD of Marmaduke and she wanted to come round after school and have a movie night. She said she’d bring popcorn and everything. So after Noda had done serving us our breakfast, I asked her – Mommy – that is.
‘Mommy? Can I stay home today?’ I said.
She didn’t say anything at first, just carried on cutting up her eggwhite omelette into little slices, like she likes to. I don’t know why she likes to do that. It’s like what people do for a baby who can’t cut stuff himself yet. I hate it when she does that.
‘Mom?’ I said, ’cos I wasn’t sure she’d even heard. But then she put her knife and fork down.
‘Yes, darling,’ she said, in that voice she has which means she’s cross with me but won’t admit it, ‘I heard you. I’m just wondering why you don’t want to come to the hospital with me.’
‘I didn’t say I didn’t want to come to the hospital! I just asked if I could stay home!’
‘Well, staying at home means you won’t come to the hospital. Doesn’t it?’
I took a drink of water. I only drink mineral water. I like Volvic, Evian, and a fizzy one from Europe called San Pellegrino. This one was Evian.
‘Yes,’ I said, when I put my cup down, which has a picture of Aristotle on it – I mean the real Greek guy, not my cat! Mommy bought it for me when we went to the Metropolitan Museum, ‘but it doesn’t mean I don’t want to come. It just means I just want to stay at home today more.’
Mommy got out of her chair and came and crouched down really near me, so that her eyes were the same height as my eyes. Her eyes, which are greeny-brown, were all watery, and the white bits had little lines of red in them, those kind of tiny strings of red you get in your eyes when you rub them a lot. Mom took hold of my hand.
‘Colette … I really think you should come …’ she said. With her other hand, she brushed my fringe, kind of like she was brushing it out of my eyes, but it was never in my eyes. This made me shiver a bit. I could feel lots of stuff inside me that I wanted to say. I could feel it wanting to come out like I was going to throw up, like the words were food or maybe something that wasn’t food that I shouldn’t have eaten, like when Jada told me she once swallowed an earbud.
‘But it’s so boring in the hospital! They don’t have anything for me to do there, and the TV is just on CNN all the time, and the only toys they have are for babies! And no one who’s my age ever comes there and I have to meet lots of creepy people like that fat guy Harvey – and he’s like my brother and I haven’t even met him before!’
I didn’t think I was screaming or anything when I said this, although I knew it must have been quite loud, because Noda came out of the kitchen making that face that she makes when she thinks something’s wrong, but Mom just shook her head and did a little wave of her hand, and she went back in again.
‘Colette. Firstly, could you not raise your voice to me like that? And secondly, could you not talk in that stupid way you’ve just learnt off the TV?’
I didn’t say anything. I looked down at my plate. My pancakes had gone cold. I could see the syrup on top of one of the cranberries had gone all hard. I heard her breathe really deeply. I was so annoyed by then that even that annoyed me, hearing her breathe really deeply. It was like it was louder than it needed to be, like she was making sure I heard her breathe.
‘Darling,’ she said after a bit – her voice had gone softer, because she wasn’t telling me off any more – ‘you always knew that you had half-brothers and sisters that you’ve never met. Harvey’s just one of them.’
‘Well, I don’t like him. He’s fat and sweaty and he smelt funny.’ She opened her mouth to tell me off then, but before she could speak, I said: ‘And he upset Daddy.’
Her mouth stuck open at that for a bit, like a fish. Her face went different.
‘Do you think so?’
‘God, yeah! He was really upset when he saw him. It was like he was saying Could someone please get that guy out of here!’
She smiled, that stupid smile that means Oh darling you don’t understand. ‘I don’t think so, darling.’
‘Who are the others?’ I said.
‘What others?’
‘The other brothers and sisters.’
Her forehead went all lined. ‘Colette. I’ve told you all this before.’
‘I know but that was ages ago.’
Mommy tutted, and looked at her watch. It was a present from Daddy. It’s got diamonds in it and everything.
‘Apart from Harvey, there’s Simone, who lives in France. And Jules, who lives in Los Angeles …’
‘Is that a boy or a girl?’
‘It’s a boy. A man.’
‘Has he got any children?’
‘No, he’s gay.’
I know what this means. Mommy told me this when I was little. It means he can have sex with men, even though he is a man. Women can do it, too, with women. I don’t know about girls and boys. When I was little, Mommy used to say it means a man can fall in love with a man, or a woman with a woman, but now I know it means they can have sex, too.
‘How old are they?’
‘Uh … Jules is about fifty, I think. Simone is … I don’t know. She never tells anyone her age, Daddy says.’
‘Why not?’
Mom just shook her head. ‘I guess she’s fifty-something, too.’
‘Are they coming to see Daddy, too?’
Mommy made a bit of a weird face when I said this, like she’d hurt her tongue or something.
‘I don’t think so, darling. That’s all a bit complicated.
‘You’re doing that thing.’
‘What thing?’
‘Of not telling me something because you think I won’t understand.’
She did a big sigh and tucked her hair behind her ears. There are red veins on the top of her ears.
‘So why do I have to go every day, when they aren’t even coming at all!’
‘Col …’
‘They’re Daddy’s children, too!’
She looked a bit surprised when I said this. I guess I did say it pretty loud again. Although I don’t know if that was why she was surprised. It was more like I was saying something she didn’t know. She didn’t say anything for a bit, just stared at me. Then she did another big breath.
‘Listen, Colette, I know how hard it must be for you, seeing Daddy like he is now …’
‘Yes,’ I said, because I could tell that this was the best thing to say to get her to let me stay home. But when I said it, I felt really sad inside, like it was just true.
‘… but – you know how we’ve talked about how – how Daddy’s not coming back from the hospital?’
‘Yes. He’s going to die there.’
‘… yes.’
‘But he is going to come back.’
