The Future Of Birds Part 3

Then she picked it up and stuck it in her bag.

She found Griffiths at the apartment, in bed with Cledilce. Both were unconscious from drink. "Hey Juan," she said, shaking him.

"Huh," he said, pawing at his eyes. "Estela? Where you been?"

"With Rudy. He straightened me out, said I owed you."

"What about the deal?"

"Later, at his Hotel. First, I wanna do you a favour."

"What favour?" Griffiths slurred.

Estela got up and searched in a drawer. She came back to the bed and told him to sit up. She popped an Aktive 'poule against his fleshy neck.

"Jeez," he said. He reached up and grabbed her b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

"Not here," Estela said, nodding towards Cledilce. "We'll go out, pick her up later."

She took him to the Sayonara, a club on the second floor of one of the high rise blocks in Rochina. She led him up a dark flight of stairs to a dance hall. Paint peeled from the walls and the curtains at the side of the stage were dank and shabby. A band drowsed on stage and a few decrepit Babes sat perched on barstools painting their nails. They climbed a second flight to where an old woman sat dozing at a dirt-stained desk. Griffiths gave her money and she pointed to a door. In the room a bed with a single sheet stood in the corner.

Griffiths sat on the bed and began to remove his clothes. She kept her back to him and removed the gun from her bag. "You owe it all to me," she heard him say. "I want you to suck me dry."

"You didn't have to do it, Juan," she said, turning with the gun in her hand.

"What's that?" Griffiths said. "You gone crazy or what?"

She saw the fear in his eyes. "You wanted it all for yourself."

"What you f.u.c.king talking about?"

"Deborah, you c.o.c.ksucker."

"Who gives a s.h.i.t about that wh.o.r.e?"

"I did."

"She's nothing," Griffiths said. "She's the disease."

Her body shook with ferocious anger as she squeezed the trigger. The bullet hit him in the stomach and smashed him flat on the bed. He groaned and with an effort he pushed himself up on one elbow. "You f.u.c.king b.i.t.c.h wh.o.r.e-c.u.n.t, you can't kill me," he said, his face a mask of incomprehensible rage as he pawed at the b.l.o.o.d.y hole. "I f.u.c.king own you.

It's impossible for you to kill me. f.u.c.king impossible."

"Yeah?" Estela said, then emptied the gun into his head. She ran downstairs and out into the street where Thessinger was waiting in a taxi.

He told the driver to take them out to Galeao airport and it was only when they were aboard the shuttle waiting for take-off to Paris that she remembered Cledilce.

"Where is she?" she asked him.

"The cops were there before I had a chance to get her out," Thessinger explained.

"What are you talking about? How the f.u.c.k did the cops find out?"

Thessinger sighed. "The Luxor is a big hotel, Estela, full of Americans and Europeans. If someone's shot dead in one of their rooms, then they have to be seen to be taking action if they don't want to lose business.

So the cops make more of an effort than usual."

"But how did they get to Cledilce?

"They must have found an address or something."

"Jesus," Estela said, seeing that that made sense. "They'll pin it all on her. We can't leave her to answer for this."

"Someone has to."

"They'll kill her," which was probably true. But what could she do without Thessinger's help? "I owe her everything," she said, weakly.

"We'll protect her. Now think of yourself - you shot someone. I'm saving your a.s.s. Remember that, remember in the future how much you owe to me."

He talked continuously, trying to soothe her, holding her as the shuttle took off, telling her about all the wonderful things the future held. But Estela de Brito was no longer listening. Her thoughts had turned inwards, searching for whatever it was that had motivated her to do what she had done. She needed that hatred now, that strength. For a long time she searched, but there was nothing there, only the sweet temptation of flight, and of Paradise.

Thessinger plays Satie's Gymnopedies on the piano as Heinrich enters the room to inform me that Cledilce Macedo will meet me for lunch at the Kopenhagen. Patterns of fear distort my perceptions, undermining the solidity of my bones. It's difficult to distinguish between the past and dreams. This morning I dreamt I awoke to find the sheets scarlet with blood and instructed Heinrich to burn them.

"You must go," Rudy tells me, but I ignore him because he does not know how the dream will turn out. "She can't harm you."

"Harm me?" The idea both attracts and repulses me. "I never dreamt that."

Rudy smiled. "I never took you for a dreamer, Estela, a sad romantic clinging bitterly to the wreckage of what never really was."

Is that what I am now? A broken fairy doll? "My dreams are all of the disease," I tell him.

"We've talked about that before. You have nothing to worry about."

"Why has she come?"

"I don't know," he lies, shrugging his shoulders; it's what gives him away. He's been lying to me for a long time.

"You knew she was alive all this time?"

"We were unable to maintain her contract at the time. It lapsed and someone else bought her option."

Over the years I've grown to despise Rudy. It's more than the fact that he and Spengler never sent for Cledilce, more even than hollowness of this life to which he brought me. I ask, "You think she knows what happened in Rio?"

"It hardly matters now, I'm sure she-"

"Shall I tell her this life is a lie?" I interrupt.

"Say what you like," Thessinger says, "she is owned." He leaves without another word.

Cledilce Macedo is waiting in a booth by the window at the Kopenhagen. She is resplendent in silver and black, her hair plaited and studded with jewels. I feel this meeting is part of the dream and that in it, a solution will be revealed. I sense no threat.

"c.u.mo vai?" she says.

"I'm well," I say. "The police? They hurt you?"

She smiles and says, "They didn't kill me."

"I wanted to go back for you."

She waves her hand, dismissing the idea. "You look good."

"You shouldn't have come. They lied, it's not like our dream."

"I had no choice," Cledilce says. "He took you away from me."

"I had to go. I killed Griffiths."

"Juan was a fool. But why the Hernandez woman?"

Nausea hits me in the stomach. "What do you mean?"

Cledilce leans forward, touches my arm. "They were both killed by the same gun. It was in the reports; that's why they couldn't prove anything against me."

The truth infects and sickens me. I stumble to the bathroom, Cledilce close behind. She holds me while I vomit, uttering words of comfort, words I haven't heard since I left the other life. When there is nothing left to throw up I crouch on the floor, sobbing, searching for the words to beg forgiveness. But the words are dead on my tongue. Thoughts twist and reel in my skull and all I can do is sit and wait for the world to get back on an even keel.

In a room at the Kempinski Hotel, I watch the last of the daylight struggling through the blinds, falling on Cledilce's mahogany flesh. The surgeons have crafted a fine v.a.g.i.n.a for her and her fingers explore me to the full; even so I derive no pleasure from her touch. The truth is the s.e.x we shared was more like that between wh.o.r.e and client than between two lovers, except in this instance, neither of us feels the need to fake anything. She's silent and still but not sleeping. Neither of us has spoken for more than twenty minutes and the claustrophobic silence crushes any understanding we might have had. The gulf of the past yawns between us as I knew it would. I realise that what we'd once shared, is now ashes.

I try to dream what is in her head. Once, we shared an intuition which was almost telepathic. I probe now but fail to penetrate the veil. Perhaps Cledilce has something to hide, doesn't want me inside her head. Anxiety gnaws my brain. Rudy has lied again, as he always does; she came to take my place. The disease wakens inside me as one day, it will awaken in her.

I get up and pull on my clothes, aware of Cledilce's silent eyes following my movements. We stare at each other for a few seconds, knowing that we have nothing left to say, and sharing a fragile confusion as we acknowledge the death of the past. The moment slips by and I leave the room.

Heinrich returns with the purchase, unwraps it and places it in my hand.

The gun is dark, heavy and silenced, filling me with a sense of power. I sit by the dressing table, searching my face in the mirror for the first signs, pondering the mess a bullet would make. I try to accept that it is Cledilce's turn to live the dream and that my part in it is drawing to a close. But it's not that easy, not when I picture the uncorrupted faith she still has in the charade, a faith that will allow her to usurp my role as the Queen of Berlin.

Light streams in the window, casting mottled patterns on the bed. Rudy will be here soon, to scour my flesh for warning signs, perhaps to gloat.

Shame and fear crowd my skull, but I draw strength from hatred. The least I can do for Cledilce is spare her his attentions, the almost obsessive concern he has shown me. In truth, ours has been a parasitic relationship: by allowing him to see himself as my protector, I give him strength and a sense of purpose; he in turn has organised my life in this city and, I realise now, protected me from certain, unpalatable truths. It is time to rid myself of such false protection.

I put the gun inside my kimono and suck on the crystal pipe, just a little, enough to keep the dream alive. In the lounge, I drowse on the sofa, memories flitting back and forth through my mind; unedited and out of sequence, they provide a telling representation of my life. I wish I could unravel all the threads, but there is so little time.

Heinrich rouses me and announces Ms. Cledilce Macedo. A pang of guilt spears my heart as she enters the room. This is someone who I have both loved and betrayed; what has brought her to me at this moment? I feel delirious and immobilised. I think, has she come to witness my atonement, or simply to record my decay?

She kneels on the carpet at my feet and tells me that whatever I believe, she's never blamed me for what happened. She knows Rudy manipulated me. I listen, and realise this is true. I see the clear beauty shining out of her dark eyes, remember nights of cool ecstasy, and wonder how she intends to spring the trap. She says she still loves and needs me, and her eyes hold me tight, screaming that this too, is the truth, and all the pain and bitterness of old betrayals well up inside as Cledilce tells me it is still possible for us to be together. And it is at this precise moment that I finally realise how I can atone for having sinned against her. I pull the gun from my kimono and, allowing her illusions of sanctuary to remain intact, I quietly shoot Ms. Macedo dead.

A short time later, Rudy arrives and finds me sitting on the sofa, the gun in my hand, the body at my feet.

Spengler let me live, after a fashion. At first I was puzzled but then I saw that I owe my preservation to that which made me unique. With what they know now of the virus, they no longer deem it worth-while to bestow refinements on Birds.

I'm a different creature now, virus sculpted, ever-changing. Kleinfeld's drugs have halted the hair loss and he treats me with synthetic Factor 8 to regulate the bleeding. Of course I no longer perform.

My new apartment looks out on the Siegessaule. I dream of climbing it soon to gaze down on the city from its magnificent perch; one day, when my strength returns. Then I shall swoop down on the Birds who stole my crown, to mock their preening beauty, perhaps to sing a lament for Cledilce.

Many months have pa.s.sed since I last saw Rudy. I no longer wonder why I failed to exact revenge for Deborah by letting him live; perhaps, in those few minutes before he arrived at the apartment, the last vestiges of the dream tricked me in to thinking that there was still a place for me in the future of Birds. Or maybe it was just that I was scared and like so many times in the past, I knew he would take care of the mess. He took her body away and brought Kleinfeld to me. He left then, for the Far East, ostensibly to recruit new talent, but I was aware that he was running from the disease. Once, he sent me a pair of songbirds from Bangkok. But mostly he sends postcards, from places like Rangoon or Delhi, describing local customs and rituals as if he were some meticulous anthropologist charting the last days of a dying race. As time has pa.s.sed, I've learned to read between the lines and have come to the conclusion that Rudy seeks redemption.

But even that is beyond me. Alone up here and caged, wings clipped like Rudy's songbirds, I hear no acolytes' prayers. The dream is my sustenance and my devourer; we two diminish, a little more each pa.s.sing day.

Mike O'Driscoll 1996, 2000 'The Future of Birds' was originally published in the anthology Off Limits: Tales of Alien s.e.x, edited by Ellen Datlow and published by St Martin's Press in 1996.