A Highly Unlikely Scenario, or a Neetsa Pizza Employee's Guide to Saving the World Read online

  Night? Mill said. My good friend, it’s well past dawn.

  I do the midnight shift, Leonard said. It’s definitely night.

  I implore you, do not let your mind slip! I am looking out the window and plainly it is day: ships are active, gulls fly, wenches lift their skirts for sailors.

  Sometimes you have to let a client have the last word.

  If it were day and I could see out the window, Leonard said, I’d see buildings just like this one.

  What a benighted land! Mill murmured. So many prisons! We face the port, of course. This is how my captors torment me! I thought I saw Uncle Maffeo on a boat much like the one the Great Khan gave us to escort the Princess Kokachin to Arghun of the Levant.

  Mill was silent a moment.

  It was just a vision, Mill concluded in a sad voice, of the sort I have frequently had since crossing the Desert of Lop. You’ve met them, I assume? The Tibetans?

  The line went dead.

  Prison and the White Room

  Over the next few nights, Mill was Leonard’s only caller. Leonard grew accustomed to the phone’s gentle bleating and Mill’s jovial but strangely distant, overly accented voice. Reassured that this was not an NP test, Leonard reinstalled his true-ray blocker, unfiltered his screen, and left bannocks by the cat-chimney.

  How long have you been in your temporary dungeon habitat? Mill asked. Perhaps you too have just arrived?

  Three years.

  My friend! How is it that you have not gone mad! Have you a beard down to your belly? I am glad to have found you—do not despair! I shall relate stories to you, wonders such as you have never known! The days will fly!

  Okay, Leonard said.

  And so he began. Mostly Mill’s tales were not so wondrous. He had much to say about the availability in dull-sounding countries of water, food, and game. He spoke of climate and wind and pasturage for beasts. Of cloth and carpets and dates. Of deserts and steeds and falcons and asses. Leonard couldn’t share Mill’s enthusiasm for the particulars of what he called Custom and Commerce. He also couldn’t follow Mill’s specious geography, for he could find no Lesser Armenia on the map he’d printed and illegally affixed to his white wall, no Persia, no Levant—certainly no Desert of Lop! But still Leonard listened, because compassion welled, and because his screen hissed whenever he turned it on, and because occasionally Mill described something of interest, like mountains of salt, or a lake that produced fish only during Lent (whatever that was), or a caliph who starved to death in a tower of gold. A shoemaker who gouged out his eye because he had taken too great a pleasure in one lady’s foot. Date wine that loosened the bowels, three kings who threw a magic stone into a well, a hot wind that stifled armies, professional mourners who never ceased lamenting.

  Adventures too: Mill was pursued once by a renegade khan, narrowly escaping capture; many of his companions were not so lucky. He spoke of fierce Saracens, of whom any evil might be expected; also, marauding Tartars and his friends, the Tibetans.

  Tell me, Mill said, once he’d called back, does this not sound like the life for you? Every night a new bed, every day something you never imagined?

  No! Leonard said. How do you stand it? Don’t new things frighten you? Wouldn’t you rather be safe at home?

  I have no home! My home is where I am, wherever that may be. That is freedom, that is happiness!

  Leonard pondered the world outside his White Room, outside his sister’s house, beyond the corners of Boise and Degas. His stomach became distinctly unsettled.

  I think you’re very brave, Leonard said.

  What you call bravery is easier than the alternative.

  Which is?

  Fear. And isolation from one’s fellows. But truly, one is brave only if one pursues what one fears, and I do not fear the unknown.

  What do you fear? Leonard asked.

  …

  Mill? Leonard asked.

  I suppose this place, Mill said softly. The sameness of it, the smallness. It does not resemble the desert I have mentioned, yet it shares many of its qualities; at night I tremble, much as I trembled there, before I met them. It is the emptiness I fear, emptiness and being alone. Here is where I must be brave.

  Oh, Leonard said.

  But all places have their fascination, even this one—you will learn this once you leave your temporary dungeon habitat, as soon you shall, I am sure. You have only to pay attention, to give yourself over to wonder. On this very subject, tell me, what do merchants trade in your land?

  Leonard had to think a moment.

  Food, mostly. Fast food. That’s my business, fast food.

  Fast food: I’m afraid the translation is poor.

  Food one can obtain quickly, Leonard said.

  As from a tavern? Mill asked.

  Kind of.

  And this makes your merchants rich?

  I suppose so, Leonard said.

  Mill was silent, as if absorbing this astonishing fact.

  We are also known for our frocks, Leonard said. And our greatcoats.

  I should like to see these marvels, Mill said. Perhaps I could trade them for amber. Or pepper.

  Pepper?

  And fauna? What manner of beast roams your countryside?

  Leonard had to think again. Aside from Medusa, he’d not had much experience with beasts.

  Chipmunks, he said. Apparently, we’re overrun.

  Chipmunks! Mill said. This beast is unknown to me! Are they cultivated by friars?

  Mill laughed his low, wheezy laugh at this piece of inexplicable humor.

  They have a stripe, Leonard explained. Down their back.

  Excellent! Are they large and suitable for eating? Are they put to pasture? Are they captured through the hunt?

  Leonard thought about this for a moment.

  The Survivalists make a stew of them in their bunker cafés.

  Wonderful! Mill said. Truly, you live in a fascinating land!

  I guess so, Leonard said.

  Are you a Jew? Marco asked.

  I beg your pardon? Leonard asked.

  I sense in your voice a trace of Mainz.

  I have no religion, Leonard said.

  Silence.

  You are a Saracen, then? You worship Mahomet?

  I don’t believe in God, Leonard said.

  Again, silence.

  You are a Tartar, then? An idolater? A fire worshipper?

  I have no religion, Leonard said. I worship nothing.

  A silence so long, Leonard thought the line had gone dead.

  I have seen many wonders, my friend, but none so strange as this. In Fu-chau, I met persons who were Christian and did not know it! I had to explain this most important fact to them! Papa insists they were Manichean. Whatever the case, at least they held some belief.

  My family’s Jewish, if that helps, Leonard said. My grandfather’s grandfather was a rabbi.

  Ah! You have been excommunicated. I am very sorry. I am a member of the true faith, of course, a devoted subject of Pope Boniface VIII.

  Pope what?

  You do not know Boniface? He is no more?

  Leonard was astonished to hear Mill weep, and again allowed compassion to well. But then Mill said, It seems only yesterday Gregory named us official legates to the Great Khan—and Leonard didn’t feel so bad.

  And so it went: Mill calling several times a night, Leonard eventually communicating the concept of call queuing so he could excuse himself should a real call come through, which it did not. His phone logs continued to fill, he seemed even to be increasing his conversion rate, for which accomplishment NP sent him a semiprecious, metal-plated, equilateral calzone.

  Leonard didn’t mind talking with Mill, especially now that his screen was acting so strange, with Sue & Susheela napping most of the time, the Brazen Head too (a note—Out Fishin’—taped to its head). When Mill called, those sites dissolved, crystallizing into diamonds scattered brilliant at the bottom of his screen—touching one, Leonard got an electric shoc
k. Fifteen minutes after Mill’s calls, his sites would crawl back, exhausted and ill formed. Sue & Susheela would be grumpy, the Brazen Head would blink stupidly and belch.

  Leonard still hung up on Mill from time to time. When Mill called back, as always he would, he didn’t seem bothered. In fact, he blamed himself.

  Forgive me, he’d say. I learned much from the Tibetans, but I am no adept.

  Then, invariably, the line would go dead.

  Four men walk into an orchard

  Six men with justice sticks came to Carol’s house—the sound of their police caravans should have awakened Leonard, but it did not. Carol made Felix answer the door.

  My mother is out planting flowers in honor of the Leader, Felix said. Would you like some claggum?

  They took their treacle treats with them, and Carol pushed a clutchbag crammed with papers into the fire.

  Records from my book group, she explained. Or so Felix said during his Time between Here and There. Which was getting longer every day. There was more and more Felix couldn’t bring home—not just unkind classmates and ungraspable mathematical concepts, but hard-to-put-a-finger-on fears. To get through it all, they often needed to stop at the meeting rock in front of the municipal suggestion box.

  Leonard wished he had more to offer.

  Destabilizing forces of chaos have breached the walls, Felix said, sitting on the rock.

  Impossible, Leonard said. The walls can’t be breached. The Leader said so. He’s an engineer, he should know.

  Maybe, Felix said. Where do you think Mom goes when she goes to her book club?

  She goes to her book club, Leonard said, though he’d often wondered the same. She’s always been a big reader, he added.

  Why aren’t there any books in the house?

  She uses the library, Leonard lied. Maybe she also reads at work.

  You think Celeste hates me?

  Sometimes people mistreat the ones they love.

  I had a weird dream.

  Oh?

  It’s very scary.

  Leonard took Felix’s hand.

  Four men go into an orchard. Two are named Ben—that’s the funny part—one is named the other one, and one is named Rabbi. Ben One sees something in the orchard that kills him; he’s plucked apart by vultures while he’s still alive.

  That’s terrible, Leonard said.

  I know! Felix agreed. Ben Two looks around, and what he sees makes him crazy. The other one sees the same thing and turns into a destabilizing force of chaos. The only one who’s not affected is Rabbi. He sees whatever it is and goes home just like he was.

  I know that story, Leonard said, stunned.

  You do?

  I do, Leonard said. But he didn’t have a chance to remember how because Felix was crying.

  I’m scared, he said. What do you think they saw?

  The clapping song

  Carol was making revolutionary stew in her all-around cooker when Leonard finished work the next morning and wandered into the stoveroom for chicory. There was nothing truly revolutionary about Carol’s stew except that (1) the ingredients remind us of our agrarian past, wherein lie the ancient roots of revolution; (2) all flavors have their say in a stew, as they must in any socialist system; and (3) like history, it takes a long time to cook but it’s worth it in the end.

  Felix is worried, Leonard said.

  About what?

  This and that. Men with justice sticks coming to the door.

  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

  Carol had finished chopping the vegetables and was hacking at a clump of meat with a cleaver.

  You don’t know what I’m talking about?

  Felix has a vivid imagination. You shouldn’t encourage him [thwack!].

  I just listen, Leonard said.

  You don’t just listen—you tell him stories, and you encourage that comic-book opus of his.

  Speaking of stories, did Grandpa tell you any? Leonard asked, plucking a revolutionary carrot from the pot.

  Of course he didn’t [thwack!]. Stories were for the grandson, remember? You were the all-important grandson, I was the not-at-all-important granddaughter [thwack!].

  Maybe a story about an orchard? I sort of remembered it the other day, he said, unwilling to explain that Felix had dreamt it, more or less in its entirety. And bits of others, but they’re all jumbled. He made me promise to tell them to my grandson, but if I don’t remember them, how can I do that?

  You’ll never have grandsons if you don’t leave the house [thwack!].

  Sure you don’t remember any?

  Carol put down her cleaver. I may have possibly heard something through the door.

  Yeah?

  Like a song?

  A song?

  A clapping song?

  Oh, Leonard said. Sing it to me. Please?

  He used to make you sing it to him every day. Do you really not remember?

  I don’t. Can you sing it? Please?

  You can’t teach this shite to my son, Carol said.

  Please?

  And so Carol did:

  Who is the king of the [clap] third ether?

  Trick question!

  There are [clap] three parts to the [clap] third ether!

  Asmodeus is the king of the [clap] upper ether! And Lesser Lilith is his wife!

  By this point, Leonard was able to join Carol in the singing, and more: he performed the dance that went with it; it wasn’t something he could control.

  Kafkaphony is the king of the [clap] middle ether! And Kafkaphony has two wives!

  Sarita is his wife for the [clap] first six months! Sagrirta is his wife for the second!

  Kafsephony is the king of the [clap] bottom ether! And Mehetzabel is his wife!

  Who is the king of [clap] all the demons?

  Samael is the king of [clap] all the demons! And great Lilith is his wife!

  Oh, yes, Samael is the king of [clap] all the demons. Samael is king of them all!

  That man was a lunatic, Carol said, returning to her meat. I should never have let you near him.

  The singing and dancing left Leonard shaky. It was as if they’d opened a hole in the universe, and through it poured everything he had felt when his grandfather died—sorrow, and loneliness dry as a desert, and regret for the things he’d said during his grandfather’s last days. And memories—of the old man’s old-man smell, the chewing tobacco that stuck in his beard, the incomprehensible jokes he told about herring—and with them, all the stories his grandfather had ever told him, whole.

  Mountains of salt

  For several nights, Mill continued to describe his unfollowable itinerary from west to east, though his enthusiasm began to wane on the road to Cathay. Where he used to delight in describing corn markets and boiled wine, he now omitted detail and spoke as if by rote.

  When Leonard inquired, Mill said he’d lost some of his native optimism. Lords and ladies continued to crowd his cell. They clamored for stories of his adventures, but Mill now found them irksome. Tell us about men with tails, they begged, tell us about men with earrings! Did you meet Prester John? Was the khan very manly? Is it true he had six dozen wives, some of them Carmelite nuns?

  Those fops and coquettes didn’t share Mill’s fascination with Custom and Commerce—imagine! They brought their friends, they whispered and pointed as if Mill were a unicorn or porcupine. He no longer believed their promises: how would they amuse themselves if he were free?

  In the evenings, he found himself alone with his fellows; they despised him for his special treatment, the obligation they felt when his guests arrived to remove their ragged, stinking selves to the edges of the cell. It was only because he shared his spoils, his cheeses and dried meats, that they didn’t violate him at night. He slept little in any case, for the sounds of their shitting, their resentful snores and creaks and cries, were louder and more noisome than anything he’d experienced at sea.

  So Mill sighed and fell into deep silences, sometim
es in the middle of a story. Leonard had to use all of his Listening skills to keep Mill going. He might hear Mill speak of the smell of the sea mingling with that of my saltwater tears and say, Where were we? You were describing the idolaters who buy beautiful wives …

  The fat idolaters with small noses? Mill would ask.

  Those exactly! Leonard would exclaim.

  Yes, Mill would say, and he’d continue awhile longer, speaking without passion about dried melons, bandits, and lions; horned horses descended from Bucephalus. Idolaters who change the weather and cause statues to speak. Plains, mountains, and gorges; orchards, vineyards, and jeweled mountains; kings, counts, and khans.

  Interesting! Leonard would say, and it was, mostly, compared with his White Room, which seemed whiter to him now, and more quiet than ever.

  Really? Mill asked. I find none of it so interesting these days as that ship out there, or that bird flying up above.

  You’ll be out soon, Leonard said, but he was doubtful—and in fact, he wasn’t sure Mill should be released. What would he do out in the world? Become one of those dirty men who travel in packs, stealing food from municipal compost heaps and begging at NP security windows? If he became troublesome they might brand him and force him outside the city walls. Mill might be crazy, but he didn’t deserve that.

  Yes, my friend, Mill said, I will be outside soon—as will you, I am sure. But to what end? I have taken that desert, the name of which I dare not speak, inside me. I am sere, do you understand?

  Maybe, Leonard said. I think so.

  I fear I shall ever be. In prison or without, it shall always be the same. I am become the desert, dear Leonard.

  Lonely, Leonard said.

  Yes, Mill replied.

  And lost, Leonard said. No Hello! lamps on Everything’s-Okay poles to show the way.

  What a way you have with words! Mill replied. Oh, I long for the consolation of a woman! Do you ever feel this way?

  Sometimes, Leonard said. Well, yes, all the time.

  This shall be my first task after I am released: to find a wife. Have you a wife, dear Leonard? Perhaps some suckling babes?