Imajica 02 - The Reconciliator

11

"And who the fuck are you?" the filthy, bearded face demanded of the stranger who'd had the misfortune to stumble into its bleary sight.

The man he was questioning, whom he had by the neck, shook his head. Blood had run from a crown of cuts and scrapes along his brow, where he'd earlier beaten his skull against a stone wall to try and silence the din of voices that echoed between his temples. It hadn't worked. There were still too many names and faces in there to be sorted out. The only way he could answer his interrogator was with that shaking of his head. Who was he? He didn't know.

"Well, get the fuck out of here," the man said.

There was a bottle of cheap wine in his hand, and its stench, mingled with a deeper rot, on his breath. He pushed his victim against the concrete wall of this underpass and closed upon him.

"You can't sleep where you fuckin' want. If you want to lie down, you fuckin' ask me first. I say who sleeps here. Isn't that right?"

He swung his bloodshot eyes in the direction of the tribe who'd clambered from their beds of trash and newspapers to watch their leader have his sport. There'd be blood, for certain. There always was when Tolland got riled, and for some reason he was more riled by this trespasser than by others who'd laid down their homeless heads without his permission.

"Isn't that right?" he said again. "Irish? Tell him! Isn't that right?"

The man he'd addressed muttered something incoherent. The woman beside him, with a bead of hair bleached to near extinction but black at the roots, came within striking distance of Tolland—something only a very few dared to do.

"That's right, Tolly," she said. "That's right." She looked at the victim without pity. "D'you think he's a Jew-boy? He's got a Jew-boy's nose."

Tolland took down a throatful of wine. "Are you a fuckin' yid?" he said.

Someone in the crowd said they should strip him and see. The woman, who went by a number of names but whom Tolland called Carol when he fucked her, made to do just that, but he aimed a blow at her and she retreated.

"You get your fuckin' hands off him," Tolland said. "He'll tell us, won't you, matey? You'll tell us. Are you a fuckin' yid or not?"

He took hold of the man by the lapel of his jacket.

"I'm waitin'," he said.

The victim dug for a word, and found: "... Gentle ..."

"Gentile?" Tolland said. "Yeah? You a Gentile? Well, I don't give a fuck what you are! I don't want you here."

The other nodded and tried to detach Tolland's fingers, but his captor hadn't finished. He slammed the man against the wall, so hard the breath went out of him.

"Irish? Take the fuckin' bottle."

The Irishman claimed the bottle from Tolland's hands and stepped back to let him do his worst.

"Don't kill him," the woman said,

"What the fuck do you care?" Tolland spat and delivered two, three, four punches to the Gentile's solar plexus, followed by a knee jab to his groin. Pinned against the wall by his neck, the man could do little to defend himself, but even that little he failed to do, accepting the punishment even though tears of pain ran from his eyes. He stared through them with a look of bewilderment on his face, small exclamations of pain coming with every blow.

"He's a head case, Tolly," the Irishman said. "Look at him! He's a friggin' head case."

Tolland didn't glance the Irishman's way, or slow his beating, but delivered a new fusillade of punches. The Gentile's body now hung limply from the pinion of his hand, the face above it blanker by the blow.

"You hear me, Tolly?" the Irishman said. "He's a nutter. He's not feeling it."

"You keep the fuck out of this."

"Why don't you leave him alone?"

"He's on my fuckin' patch," Tolland said.

He dragged the Gentile away from the wall and swung him around. The small crowd backed off to give their leader room to play. With Irish silenced, there were no objections raised from any quarter. Tolland was left to beat the Gentile to the ground. Then he followed through with a barrage of kicks. His victim put his hands around his head and curled up to protect himself as best he could, whimpering. But Tolland wasn't about to let the man's face go unbroken. He reached down and dragged the hands away, raising his boot to bring it down. Before he could do so, however, Tolland's bottle hit the floor, spattering wine as it smashed. He turned on Irish.

"What the fuck d'you that for?"

"You shouldn't beat up head cases," the man replied, by his tone already regretting the breakage.

"You goin' to stop me?"

"All I'm sayin'—"

"Are you goin' to try and fuckin' stop me?"

"He's not right in the head, Tolly."

"So I'll kick some sense into him," Tolland replied.

He dropped his victim's arms, turning all his crazed attention on the dissenter.

"Or do you want to do it?" he said.

Irish shook his head.

"Go on," said Tolland. "You do it for me." He stepped over the Gentile in the Irishman's direction. "Go on..." he said again. "Go on...."

Irish began to retreat, Tolland bearing down on him. The Gentile had meanwhile turned himself over and was starting to crawl away, blood running from his nose and from the wounds reopened on his brow. Nobody moved to help him. When ToUand was roused, as now, his fury knew no bounds. Anyone who stepped in his way—whether man, woman, or child—was forfeit. He broke bones and heads without a second thought; had ground a broken bottle into a man's eye once, not twenty yards from this spot, for the crime of looking at him too long. There wasn't a cardboard city north or south of the river where he wasn't known, and prayers said in the hope that he'd not come visiting.

Before he could grab hold of Irish the man threw up his hands in defeat.

"All right, Tolly, all right," he said. "It was my mistake. I swear, I'm sorry."

"You broke my fuckin bottle."

"HI fetch you another. I will. I'll do it now."

Irish had known Tolland longer than anyone else in this circle and was familiar with the rules of placation: copious apology, witnessed by as many of Tolland's tribe as possible. It wasn't foolproof, but today it worked.

"Will I be fetchin' you a bottle now?" Irish said.

"Get me two, you fuckin' scab."

"That's what I am, Tolly. I'm a scab."

"And one for Carol," Tolland said.

"I'll do that"

Tolland leveled a grimy finger at Irish. "And don't you ever try crossin' me again, or I'll have your fuckin' balls."

With this promise made, ToUand turned back to his victim. Seeing that the Gentile had already crawled some distance from him, he let out an incoherent roar of fury, and those of the crowd who were standing within a yard or two of the path between him and his target retreated. Tolland didn't hurry, but watched as the wounded Gentile laboriously got to his feet and began to make a staggering escape through the chaos of boxes and strewn bedding.

Up ahead, a youth of sixteen or so was kneeling on the ground, covering the concrete slabs underfoot with designs in colored chalk, blowing the pastel dust off his handiwork as he went. Engrossed in his art he'd ignored the beating that had claimed the attention of the others, but now he heard Tolland's voice echoing through the underpass, calling his name.

"Monday, you fuckhead! Get hold of him!"

The youth looked up. His hair was cropped to a dark fuzz, his skin pockmarked, his ears sticking out like handles. His gaze was clear, however, despite the track marks that disfigured his arms, and it took him only a second to realize his dilemma. If he brought down the bleeding man, he'd condemn him. If he didn't, he'd condemn himself. To gain a little time he feigned bafflement, cupping his hand behind his ear as if he'd missed Tolland's instruction.

"Stop him!" came the brute's command.

Monday started to get to his feet, murmuring, "Get the fuck out of here," to the escapee as he did so.

But the idiot had stumbled to a halt, his eyes fixed on the picture Monday had been making. It was filched from a newspaper photo of a starlet, wide-eyed, posing with a koala in her arms. Monday had rendered the woman with loving accuracy, but the koala had become a patchwork beast, with a single burning eye in its brooding head.

"Didn't you hear me?" Monday said.

The man ignored him.

"It's your funeral," he said, rising now as Tolland approached, pushing the man from the edge of his picture. "Go on," he said, "or he'll bust it iip! Get away!" He pushed hard, but the man remained fixated. "You're gettin' blood on it, dickhead!"

Tolland yelled for Irish, and the man hurried to his side, eager to make good.

"What, Tolly?"

"Collar that fuckin' kid."

Irish was obedient and headed straight for Monday, taking hold of the boy. Tolland, meanwhile, had caught up with the Gentile, who hadn't moved from his place on the edge of the colored paving.

"Don't let him bleed on it!" Monday begged.

Tolland threw the youth a glance, then stepped onto the picture, scraping his boots over the carefully worked face. Monday raised a moan of protest as he watched the bright chalk colons reduced to a gray-brown dust.

"Don't, man, don't," he pleaded.

But his complaints only riled the vandal further. Seeing Monday's tobacco tin of chalks within reach of his boot, Tolland went to scatter them, but Monday, dragging himself out of Irish's grip, flung himself down to preserve them. Tolland's kick landed in the boy's flank, and he was sent sprawling, rolled in chalk dust. Tolland's heel booted the tin and its contents, then he came after its protector a second time. Monday curled up, anticipating the blow. But it never landed. The Gentile's voice came between Tolland and his intention.

"Don't do that," he said.

Nobody had custody of him, and he could have made another attempt to escape while Tolland went after Monday, but he was still at the edge of the picture, his gaze no longer on it but on its spoiler.

"What the fuck did you say?" Tolland's mouth opened like a toothed wound in his matted beard.

"I said: Don't ...do... that,"

Whatever pleasure Tolland had derived from this hunt was over now, and there wasn't one among the spectators who didn't know it. The sport that would have ended with an ear bitten off or a few broken ribs had become something else entirely, and several of the crowd, having no stomach for what they knew was coming, retired from their places at the ringside. Even the hardiest of them backed away a few paces, their drugged, drunken, or simply addled minds dimly aware that something far worse than bloodletting was imminent.

Tolland turned on the Gentile, reaching into his jacket as he did so. A knife emerged, its nine-inch blade marked with nicks and scratches. At the sight of it, even Irish retreated. He'd seen Tolland's blade at work only once before, but it was enough.

There were no jabs or taunts now, just Tolland's drink—rotted bulk lurking towards his victim to bring the man down. The Gentile stepped back as the knife came, his eyes going to the designs underfoot. They were like the pictures that filled his head to overflowing; brightnesses that had been smeared into gray dust. But somewhere in the midst of that dust he remembered another place like this: a makeshift town, full of filth and rage, where somebody or something had come for his life as this man was coming, except that this other executioner had carried a fire in his head, to burn the flesh away, and all that he, the Gentile, had owned by way of defense was empty hands.

He raised them now. They were as marked as the knife the executioner was carrying, their backs bloodied from his attempt to stem the flow from his nose. He uncurled them, as he'd done many times before, drawing breath as he chose his right over his left and, without understanding why, put it to his mouth.

The pneuma flew before Tolland had time to raise his blade, hitting him on the shoulder with such force he was thrown to the ground. Shock took his voice away for several seconds, then his hand went to his gushing shoulder and he loosed a noise more shriek than roar. The few witnesses who'd remained to watch the killing were rooted to the spot, their eyes not on their fallen lord but on his deposer. Later, when they told this story, they'd all describe what they'd seen in different ways. Some would talk of a knife produced from hiding, used, and concealed again so fast the eye could barely catch it. Others of a bullet, spat from between the Gentile's teeth. But nobody doubted that something remarkable had taken place in these seconds. A wonder worker had appeared among them and laid the tyrant Tolland low without even touching him.

The wounded man wasn't bested so easily, however. Though his blade had gone from his fingers (and been surreptitiously swiped by Monday) he still had his tribe to defend him. He summoned them now, with wild screeches of rage.

"See what he did? What are you fuckin' waitin' for? Take him! Take the fucker! No one does that to me! Irish? Irish? Where the fuck are you? Somebody help me!"

It was the woman who came to his aid, but he pushed her aside.

"Where the fuck's Irish?"

"I'm here."

"Take hold of the bastard," Tolland said.

Irish didn't move.

"D'you hear me? He used some fuckin' Jew-boy trick on me! You saw him. Some yid trick, it was."

"I saw him," said Irish.

"He'll do it again! He'll do it to you!"

"I don't think he's goin' to do anything to anybody."

"Then break his fuckin' head."

"You can do it if you like," Irish said. "I'm not touching him."

Despite his wounding and his bulk, Tolland was up on his feet in seconds, and going at his sometime lieutenant like a bull, but the Gentile's hand was on his shoulder before his fingers could get to the man's throat. He stopped in his tracks, and the spectators had sight of the day's second wonder: fear on Tolland's face. There'd be no ambiguity in their reports of this. When word went out across the city—as it did within the hour, passed from one asylum Tolland had spoiled with blood to another—the account, though embroidered in the telling, was at root the same. Drool had run from Tolland's mouth, it said, and his face had got sweaty. Some said piss ran from the bottom of his trousers and filled his boots.

"Let Irish alone," the Gentile told him. "In fact ...let us all alone."

Tolland made no reply. He simply looked at the hand laid on him and seemed to shrink. It wasn't his wounding that made him so quiescent, or even fear of the Gentile attacking a second time. He'd sustained injuries far worse than the wound on his shoulder and simply been inflamed to fresh cruelties. It was the touch he shrank from: the Gentile's hand laid lightly on his shoulder. He turned and backed away from his wounder, glancing from side to side as he did so, in the hope that there would be somebody to support him. But everyone, including Irish and Carol, gave him a wide berth.

"You can't do this," he said when he'd put five yards between himself and the Gentile. "I've got friends all over! Ill see you dead, fucker. I will. I'll see you dead!"

The Gentile simply turned his back on this and stooped to claim from the ground the scattered shards of Monday's chalks. This casual gesture was in its way more eloquent than any counter—threat or show of power, announcing as it did his complete indifference to the other man's presence. Tolland stared at the Gentile's bent back for several seconds, as if calculating the risk of mounting another attack. Then, calculations made, he turned and fled.

"He's gone," said Monday, who was crouching beside the Gentile and watching over his shoulder.

"Do you have any more of these?" the stranger said, rocking the colors in the cradle of his palm.

"No. But I can get some. Do you draw?"

The Gentile stood up. "Sometimes," he said.

"Do you copy stuff, like me?"

"I don't remember."

"I can teach you, if you want."

"No," the Gentile replied. "I'll copy from my head." He looked down at the crayons in his hand. "I can empty it that way."

"Could you be doin' with paint as well?" Irish asked, as the Gentile's gaze went to the gray concrete all around them.

"You could get paint?"

"Me and Carol here, we can get anything. Whatever you want, Gentile, we'll get it for you."

"Then ... I want all the colors you can find." "Is that all? You don't want something to drink?" But the Gentile didn't reply. He was wandering towards the pillar against which Tolland had first pinned him and was applying a color to it. The chalk'in his fingers was yellow, and with it he began to draw the circle of the sun.

When Jude woke it was almost noon: eleven hours or more since Gentle had come home, relieved her of the egg that had brought her a glimpse of Nirvana, then headed out again into the night. She felt sluggish and pained by the light. Even when she turned the hot water in her shower to a trickle and let it run near cold, it failed to fully waken her. She toweled herself half dry and padded through to the kitchen naked. The window was open there, and the breeze brought goose bumps. At least this was some sign of life, she thought, negligible though it was.

She put on some coffee and the television, flipping the channels from one banality to another, then letting it burble along with the percolator while she dressed. The telephone rang while she was looking for her second shoe. There was a din of traffic at the other end of the line, but no voice, and after a couple of seconds the line went dead. She put down the receiver and stayed by the phone, wondering if this was Gentle trying to get through. Thirty seconds later the phone rang again. This time there was a speaker: a man, whose voice was barely more than a ragged whisper.

"For Christ's sake ..."

"Who is this?"

"Oh, Judith ... God, God... Judith? ... It's Oscar...."

"Where are you?" she said. He was very clearly not locked up in his house.

"They're dead, Judith."

"Who are?"

"Now it's me. Now it wants me."

"I'm not getting this, Oscar. Who's dead?" "Help me... you've got to help me.... Nowhere's safe." "Come to the Hat then." "No ... you come here...." "Where's here?"

"I'm at St. Martin-in-the-Fields. Do you know it?" "What the hell are you doing there?" "I'll be waiting inside. But hurry. It's going to find me. It's going to find me."

The traffic around the square was locked, as was often the case at noon, the breeze that had brought gooseflesh an hour before too meek to disperse the fog of countless exhausts and the fumes of as many frustrated drivers. Nor was the air inside the church any less stale, though it was pure ozone beside the smell of fear that came off the man sitting close to the altar, his thick hands knitted so tightly the bone of his knuckles showed through the fat.

"I thought you said you weren't going to leave the house," she reminded him.

"Something came for me," Oscar said, his eyes wide. "In the middle of the night. It tried to get in, but it couldn't. Then this morning—in broad daylight—I heard the .parrots kicking up a din, and the back door was blown off its hinges."

"Did you see what it was?"

"Do you think I'd be here if I had? No; I was ready, after the first time. As soon as I heard the birds I ran for the front door. Then this terrible din, and all the lights went out...."

He divided his hands and took light hold of her arm.

"What am I going to do?" he said. "It'll find me, sooner or later. It's killed all the rest of them—"

"Who?"

"Haven't you seen the headlines? They're all dead. Lionel, McGann, Bloxham. Even the ladies. Shales was in his bed. Cut up in pieces in his own bed, I ask you, what kind of creature does that?"

"A quiet one."

"How can you joke?"

"I joke, you sweat. We deal with it the best way we know how." She sighed. "You're a better man than this, Oscar. You shouldn't be hiding away. There's work to do."

"Don't tell me about your damn Goddess, Judith. It's a lost cause. The tower'll be rubble by now."

"If there's any help for us," she said, "it's there. I know it. Come with me, won't you? I've seen you brave. What's happened to you?"

"I don't know," he said. "I wish I did. All these years I've been crossing over to Yzordderrex, not giving a damn where I put my nose, not caring whether I was at risk or not, as long as there were new sights to see. It was another world. Maybe another me, too."

"And here?"

He made a baffled face. "This is England," he said. "Safe, rainy, boring England, where the cricket's bad and the beer's warm. This isn't supposed to be a dangerous place."

"But it is, Oscar, whether we like it or not. There's a darkness here worse than anything in Yzordderrex. And it's got your scent. There's no escaping that. It's coming after you. And me, for all I know."

"But why?"

"Maybe it thinks you can do it some harm."

"What can I do? I don't know a damn thing."

"But we could learn," she said. "That way, if we're going to die, at least it won't be in ignorance."