Cities of the Red Night Page 3

  “Not now we don’t.”

  “Well it can’t stay here.”

  * * *

  He had barely settled in bed after his fix when the phone rang. It was the super. “Seems we have an epidemic on our hands, Pierson. All staff report back to the hospital immediately.”

  Could it be that dirty little boy? he thought as he dressed and picked up his satchel and walked to the hospital. He saw there was a police line around the entrance.

  “Oh, yes, Doctor. Right over there for your mask.”

  “I’ll help you put it on, Doctor.” A brisk young girl in some sort of uniform rubbed her tits against him in a most offensive manner. And before she got the mask on, he smelled it and he knew: it was that dirty little boy.

  Inside was a scene from Dante: stretchers side by side in the corridors, sperm all over the sheets, the walls and the floor.

  “Be careful, Doctor.” A garrulous old nurse caught his arm in time. “Just put one foot solidly in front of the other, Doctor, that’s right.… It’s terrible, Doctor, the older patients are dying like flies.”

  “I don’t want to hear any generalities, Nurse … take me to my ward.”

  “Well, Doctor, you can take the northeast wing if you want—right here.”

  Every sort of copulation was going on in front of him, every disgusting thing they could think of. Some of them had pillowcases and towels wrapped around each other’s necks in some kind of awful contest. As these crazed patients seemed in danger of strangulation (and here the doctor almost slipped in shit), he ordered attendants to restrain them, but no attendants were available. “We’ll start with morphine and a curare derivative, Nurse.”

  “Sorry, Doctor, the morphine stocks are exhausted on the older patients. They go into the most awful spasms at the end, Doctor.”

  The doctor turned pale as death at this terrible pronouncement. He slumped to the floor in a faint, his face covered with red blotches. By the time they got his clothes off, his body was also affected, and spontaneous orgasms were observed.

  * * *

  Doctor Pierson subsequently recovered, because of his addiction, and went to work for the pickle factory on a sensitive biological project.

  POLITICS HERE IS DEATH

  Muted remote boardroom. Doctor Pierson sits at the head of the table with notes in front of him. He speaks in a dry flat academic voice.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the Board, I am here to give a report on preliminary experiments with Virus B-23.… Consider the origins of this virus in the Cities of the Red Night. The red glow that covered the northern sky at night was a form of radiation that gave rise to a plague known as the Red Fever, of which Virus B-23 was found to be the etiological agent.

  “Virus B-23 has been called, among other things, the virus of biological mutation, since this agent occasioned biologic alterations in those affected—fatal in many cases, permanent and hereditary in the survivors, who become carriers of that strain. The original inhabitants of these cities were black, but soon a wide spectrum of albino variations appeared, and this condition was passed on to their descendants by techniques of artificial insemination which were, to say the least, highly developed. In fact, how some of these mutant pregnancies were contracted is unknown to modern science. Immaculate or at least viral conception was pandemic and may have given rise to legends of demon lovers, the succubi and incubi of medieval folklore.”

  Doctor Pierson continues: “The virus, acting directly on neural centers, brought about sexual frenzies that facilitated its communication, just as rabid dogs are driven to spread the virus of rabies by biting. Various forms of sexual sacrifice were practiced … sexual hangings and strangulations, and drugs that caused death in erotic convulsions. Death during intercourse was a frequent occurrence and was considered an especially favorable circumstance for conveying the viral alterations.

  “We are speaking of more or less virgin genetic material of high quality. At this time the newly conceived white race was fighting for its biological continuity, so the virus served a most useful purpose. However, I question the wisdom of introducing Virus B-23 into contemporary America and Europe. Even though it might quiet the uh silent majority, who are admittedly becoming uh awkward, we must consider the biologic consequences of exposing genetic material already damaged beyond repair to such an agent, leaving a wake of unimaginably unfavorable mutations all ravenously perpetrating their kind.…

  “There have been other proposals. I cite the work of Doctor Unruh von Steinplatz on radioactive virus strains. Working with such established viruses as rabies, hepatitis, and smallpox, he exposed generations of virus to atomic radiation to produce airborne strains of unbelievable virulence capable of wiping out whole populations within days. However, this blueprint contains a flaw: the disposal problem posed by billions of radioactive corpses unfit even for fertilizer.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, I propose to remove the temporal limits, shifting our experimental theater into past time in order to circumvent the whole tedious problem of overpopulation. You may well ask if we can be certain of uh containing the virus in past time. The answer is: we do not have sufficient data to speak with certainty. We propose; the virus may dispose.…”

  A thin man in his early thirties with sandy hair and pale blue eyes had been taking notes while Doctor Pierson was speaking. He looked up and spoke in a clear, rather high-pitched voice with a faint trace of Germanic accent. “Doctor Pierson, I have a few questions.”

  “Certainly,” said Pierson with cold displeasure. He knew exactly who this man was, and wished that he had not been invited to attend the meeting. This was Jon Alistair Peterson, born in Denmark, now working on a secret government project in England. He was a virologist and mathematician who had devised a computer to process qualitative data.

  Peterson leaned back in his chair, one ankle crossed over his knee. He extracted a joint from his shirt pocket. It was a loud Carnaby Street shirt. Pierson thought it vulgar. Peterson lit the joint and blew smoke towards the ceiling, seemingly oblivious of disapproving looks from the board members. He glanced down at his notes. “My first question is a matter of uh nomenclature.” Pierson was annoyed to realize that Peterson was mimicking his own academic tones.

  “Professor Steinplatz’s experiments, as you must know, consisted of inoculating animals with various viruses and then exposing the animals to radiation. This exposure produced virus mutations tending towards increased virulence and…” He took a long drag and blew smoke across his notes. “… uh increased communication potential. In plain English, the mutated viruses were much more infectious.”

  “I would say that is a more or less accurate paraphrase of what I have just said.”

  “Not precisely. The mutated virus strains were produced by radiation and the test animals, having been exposed to radiation, were of course radioactive to a point but not dangerously so.… The viruses were produced by radiation, but it does not necessarily follow that the viruses were themselves radioactive. Is not your use of the term radioactive virus and your uh evocation of billions of radioactive corpses uh misleading?”

  Doctor Pierson found it difficult to conceal his annoyance. “I have pointed out that, owing to the grave dangers inherent in large-scale experimentation which could among other things severely damage our public image, our data is incomplete.…”

  “Ah yes, to be sure. And now if you will bear with me, Doctor, I have some additional questions.… You have said that Virus B-23 resulted from radiation?” asked Peterson.

  “I did.”

  “In what way does it differ from the strains developed by Doctor Steinplatz?”

  “I thought I had made that point quite clear: the form of radiation emanating from the red light is unknown at the present time.”

  “You are then ignorant of the nature of this wondrous radiation, or as to how it could be produced in the laboratory?”

  “Yes.”

  “Has it occurred to you that it might be similar to Reich’s DO
R, or Deadly Orgone Radiation, which is produced by placing radioactive material in an organic container lined with iron?”

  “Preposterous! Reich was a charlatan! A lunatic!”

  “Perhaps … but such a simple and inexpensive experiment … we could start with herpes simplex.”

  “I fail to see that any useful purpose…” Pierson glanced around the table. Stony faces looked back at him. He was concealing something and they knew it.

  Doctor Pierson looked at his watch. “I’m afraid I must cut this short. I have a plane to catch.”

  Peterson held up his hand. “I’m not quite finished, Doctor.… I am sure that a slight delay in takeoff could be arranged for a person of your importance.… Now, the virus strains developed by Doctor Steinplatz were, to be sure, more contagious and more virulent than the mother strains from which they were derived, but still quite recognizable. For example, for example, the good doctor’s airborne rabies would still be clinically recognizable as rabies. Even if the viruses were mixed into a cocktail, the individual ingredients would still be comparatively easy to identify. You would agree, Doctor Pierson?”

  “In theory, yes. However, we do not know, in the absence of large-scale exposure, whether the viruses might not undergo further mutations that would render identification difficult.”

  “To be sure. The point I am making is simply that Doctor Steinplatz started his experiments with certain known viruses.… Doctor Pierson, you have stated that Virus B-23 resulted from unknown radiation. Do you imply that this virus was so produced out of thin air? Let me put it this way: What virus or viruses known to unknown mutated as a result of this radiation?”

  “At the risk of repeating myself, I will say again that both the radiation and the virus or viruses are unknown at this time,” said Pierson archly.

  “The symptoms of a virus are the attempts of the body to deal with a virus attack. By their symptoms you shall know them, and even a totally unknown virus would yield considerable data by its symptoms. On the other hand, if a virus produces no symptoms, then we have no way of knowing that it exists … no way of knowing that it is a virus.”

  “So?”

  “So the virus in question may have been latent or it may have been living in benign symbiosis with the host.”

  “That is, of course, possible,” admitted Pierson.

  “Now let us consider the symptoms of Virus B-23: fever, rash, a characteristic odor, sexual frenzies, obsession with sex and death.… Is this so totally strange and alien?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “I will make myself clearer. We know that a consuming passion can produce physical symptoms … fever … loss of appetite … even allergic reactions … and few conditions are more obsessional and potentially self-destructive than love. Are not the symptoms of Virus B-23 simply the symptoms of what we are pleased to call ‘love’? Eve, we are told, was made from Adam’s rib … so a hepatitis virus was once a healthy liver cell. If you will excuse me, ladies, nothing personal … we are all tainted with viral origins. The whole quality of human consciousness, as expressed in male and female, is basically a virus mechanism. I suggest that this virus, known as ‘the other half,’ turned malignant as a result of the radiation to which the Cities of the Red Night were exposed.”

  “You lost me there.”

  “Did I indeed.… And I would suggest further that any attempts to contain Virus B-23 will turn out to be ineffectual because we carry this virus with us,” said Peterson.

  “Really, Doctor, aren’t you letting fantasy run away with you? After all, other viruses have been brought under control. Why should this virus be an exception?”

  “Because it is the human virus. After many thousands of years of more or less benign coexistence, it is now once again on the verge of malignant mutation … what Doctor Steinplatz calls a virgin soil epidemic. This could result from the radiation already released in atomic testing.…”

  “What’s your point, Doctor?” Pierson snapped.

  “My point is very simple. The whole human position is no longer tenable. And one last consideration … as you know, a vast crater in what is now Siberia is thought to have resulted from a meteor. It is further theorized that this meteor brought with it the radiation in question. Others have surmised that it may not have been a meteor but a black hole, a hole in the fabric of reality, through which the inhabitants of these ancient cities traveled in time to a final impasse.”

  THE RESCUE

  A sepia etching onscreen. Written at the bottom in gold lettering: “The Hanging of Captain Strobe the Gentleman Pirate. Panama City, May 13, 1702.” In the center of the square in front of a courthouse Captain Strobe stands on a gallows platform with a noose around his neck. He is a slender handsome youth of twenty-five in eighteenth-century costume, his blond hair tied in a knot at the back of his head. He looks disdainfully down at the crowd. A line of soldiers stands in front of the gallows.

  The etching slowly comes alive, giving off a damp heat, a smell of weeds and mud flats and sewage. Vultures roost on the old courthouse of flaking yellow stucco. The gypsy hangman—thin, effeminate-looking, with greasy crinkled hair and glistening eyes—stands by the gallows with a twisted smirk on his face. The crowd is silent, mouths open, waiting.

  At a signal from an officer, a soldier steps forward with an ax and knocks the support from under the platform. Strobe falls and hangs there, his feet a few inches above the limestone paving which is cracked here and there, weeds and vines growing through. Five minutes pass in silence. Vultures wheel overhead. On Strobe’s face is a strange smile. A yellow-green aura surrounds his body.

  The silence is shattered by an explosion. Chunks of masonry rain down on the square. The blast swings Strobe’s body in a long arc, his feet brushing the weeds. The soldiers rush offstage, leaving only six men to guard the gallows. The crowd surges forward, pulling out knives, cutlasses, and pistols. The soldiers are disarmed. A lithe boy who looks like a Malay shows white teeth and bright red gums as he throws a knife. The knife catches the hangman in the throat just above the collarbone. He falls squawking and spitting blood like a stricken bird. Captain Strobe is cut down and borne to a waiting carriage.

  The carriage careens into a side street. Inside the cart the boy loosens the noose and presses air in and out of Strobe’s lungs. Strobe opens his eyes and writhes in agony from the pricklings and shootings as his circulation returns. The boy gives him a vial of black liquid.

  “Drink this, Captain.”

  In a few minutes the laudanum takes effect and Strobe is able to walk as they leave the cart. The boy leads the way along a jungle path to a fishing boat moored at a pier on the outskirts of the city. Two younger boys are in the boat. The boat is cast off and the sail set. Captain Strobe collapses on a pallet in the cabin. The boy helps him undress and covers him with a cotton blanket.

  * * *

  Strobe lay back with closed eyes. He had not slept since his capture three days ago. The opium and the movement of the boat spread a pleasant languor through his body. Pictures drifted in front of his eyes.…

  A vast ruined stone building with square marble columns in a green underwater light … a luminous green haze, thicker and darker at ground level, shading up to light greens and yellows … deep blue canals and red brick buildings … sunlight on water … a boy standing on a beach naked with dusky rose genitals … red night sky over a desert city … clusters of violet light raining down on sandstone steps and bursting with a musky smell of ozone … strange words in his throat, a taste of blood and metal … a white ship sailing across a gleaming empty sky dusted with stars … singing fish in a ruined garden … a strange pistol in his hand that shoots blue sparks … beautiful diseased faces in red light, all looking at something he cannot see.…

  He awoke with a throbbing erection and a sore throat, his brain curiously blank and factual. He accepted his rescue as he had been prepared to accept his death. He knew exactly where he was: some forty miles south of Panama
City. He could see the low coastline of mangrove swamps laced with inlets, the shark fins, the stagnant seawater.

  HARBOR POINT

  Early morning mist … birdcalls … howler monkeys like wind in the trees. Fifty armed partisans are moving north over Panama jungle trails. Unshaven faces at once alert and drawn with fatigue, and a rapid gait that is almost a jog indicate a long forced march without sleep. The rising sun picks out their faces.

  Noah Blake: twenty, a tall red-haired youth with brown eyes, his face dusted with freckles. Bert Hansen: a Swede with light blue eyes. Clinch Todd: a powerful youth with long arms and something sleepy and quiescent in his brown eyes flecked with points of light. Paco: a Portuguese with Indian and Negro blood. Sean Brady: black Irish with curly black hair and a quick wide smile.

  * * *

  Young Noah Blake is screwing the pan onto a flintlock pistol, testing the spring, oiling the barrel and stock. He holds the pistol up to his father, who examines it critically. Finally he nods.…

  “Aye, son, that can go out with the Blake mark on it.…”

  “Old Lady Norton stuck her head in the shop and said I shouldn’t be working on the Lord’s Day.”

  “And she shouldn’t be sniffing her long snot-dripping nose into my shop on the Lord’s Day or any other. The Nortons have never bought so much as a ha’penny measure of nails off me.” His father looks around the shop, his fingers hooked in his wide belt. Lean and red-haired, he has the face of a mechanic: detached, factual, a face that minds its own business and expects others to do the same. “We’ll be moving to the city, son, where nobody cares if you go to church or not.…”

  “Chicago, Father?”

  “No, son, Boston. On the sea. We have relations there.”

  Father and son put on coats and gloves. They lock the shop and step out into the muted streets of the little snowbound village on Lake Michigan. As they walk through the snow, villagers pass. Some of the greetings are quick and cold with averted faces.