He returned the scrap and turned toward the stairs.
“Hey!” I called out, panicked. “Black, wait!”
“What?”
He stopped, slightly annoyed, as if this idle chat was keeping him from something important.
“Why would Tabaqui do this to me? Is it something I’ve done?”
Black stared ahead sullenly, chewing his gum, and cogitated.
“Why would he? Well, he happens to think that it’s great to end up in the Cage. Pleasant.”
“What’s so pleasant about it?” I said angrily.
If Pheasants were to be believed, the quarantine was a kind of solitary cell for the most dangerous miscreants. And, on certain subjects, I did tend to believe them.
“What’s pleasant?” Black’s habit of slowly repeating the question he’d just been asked could drive anyone with less patience completely crazy. “Well, it’s so quiet, you see. There isn’t anyone else in there and it’s very quiet. Soundproofed. It really is kind of nice. I, for one, like it there.”
“Look,” I said quickly. “Since you like it . . . how about I give this to you and you can go to that quarantine place instead of me?”
Black shook his head.
“Won’t work. It specifies a wheeler. You can swap with Noble, though. Or with Tabaqui himself.”
He left, and I stayed back, very puzzled. On the way to the dorm I deliberated my course of action: injure Jackal terribly or go sit in quarantine? All signs pointed to the second choice. Suffer for a bit and then just forget the whole thing. I somehow was certain that Tabaqui never forgot and never forgave. I had no idea where this certainty came from, but by the time I reached the doors of the Fourth I was convinced that I had no business refusing this present. If Tabaqui was sure he was doing me a favor, who was I to disagree?
And sure of it he was. Beaming and businesslike, he was darning the sleeve of a denim jacket—the special Cage jacket, as he explained, for those being sent “over there.” I was to put it on without delay, because otherwise I might miss the opportunity to do that, and also just in case.
It turned out to be so heavy as to make me think it was lined with lead. Tabaqui let me hold it but snatched it right back, spread it out on the bed, and began the performance entitled “Secrets of the Enlightened.” Alexander, Lary, and Humpback all crowded around, observing with interest. I felt like a child who was being packed off to a costume party by his entire family.
The jacket was in fact two jackets. The lining was so thick that it could be a separate garment on its own. It fastened to the shell with concealed zippers and buttons and could be taken out completely. Jackal explained the sequence twice. The shell contained the principal hidden pockets. Two tins with cigarettes, one in each shoulder pad. Boxes of pills in the elbows. “This is headache, this is insomnia, this is diarrhea,” Jackal rattled off rapidly, “and here are the instructions. All color-coded.” Two lighters and two ashtrays in the bottom, one of each on the left and on the right. “Because there are some people, you know, who like to stub out the cigarettes directly on the floor, which is a bit of a fire hazard in that place.”
“In fact, you should cut down on smoking there,” Humpback jumped in. “Or you’ll suffocate. No ventilation at all.”
“There is that hole in the ceiling,” Noble countered. “Besides, it’s not like he’s going to smoke a pipe.”
“Pipe smoke is much less toxic,” Humpback said, taking the bait. “Yes, there’s more of it, but at least it doesn’t stink.”
“Depends on who you ask.”
“Quiet!” Tabaqui snapped. “This is vitally important information, and I would thank you to not interrupt with your petty squabbles.”
The lining went back in, concealing the stashes.
“Now . . . ,” Tabaqui said, raising his finger. “The second layer. All nice and legal. Observe closely, and whatever you think is extraneous we can remove. Although, to be honest, there is nothing extraneous here.”
The legal layer consisted of a Walkman with ten cassettes, a chocolate bar, a notepad of Jackal’s poetry, a packet of nuts, a pocket chess set, spare batteries, a deck of cards, a harmonica, and four horribly dog-eared paperbacks. It was little wonder that I found it hard to breathe once I donned the jacket. And even though it was Tabaqui who offered to get rid of anything extraneous, he was extremely critical when I said I’d like to leave behind the harmonica and the cards.
“I can’t play the harmonica,” I tried to explain.
“Exactly! This is the time to learn.”
“And I don’t do solitaire.”
“I’ll give you a guide!”
Sphinx jumped off the windowsill and joined us. Humpback extracted two stale rolls from the left pocket of the jacket. Tabaqui observed them sadly.
“They haven’t been there for that long. They’re still quite digestible.”
“Tabaqui, enough,” Noble said. “Who is going to the Cage, you or Smoker?”
“He is!” Tabaqui exclaimed. “Except he is a complete novice, and should listen to the wisdom of his more experienced packmates!”
From the breast pocket I excavated a stack of word puzzles, another notebook, and a pen.
“That would be mine,” Noble said and put out his arm. “You can leave it, it’s fine.”
I gratefully handed the wad to him and turned my attention to the books.
“The Poetry of Scandinavia,” I read on the cover.
“If you’re not into it, I’ll take that,” Humpback said eagerly.
It dawned on me that each of them contributed to the jacket when it was their turn to sit in quarantine. That’s how it became so heavy. Everything that they considered useful was in there.
Now it was Lary’s turn to astonish me. He was swaying indifferently back and forth on the heels of his monstrous boots while the jacket was being gutted, and then suddenly offered, “I have never been there, not once. I have this, you know . . . claustrophobia. I can’t even go in the elevators.”
I was so stunned I didn’t know what to say. It was the first time Lary had talked to me. I mean, not really, but the first time he addressed me as a human. As an equal.
“Oh,” I managed. “I see.”
“I’m afraid of it,” he continued in a whisper, drawing closer. “People tell things. But you’re cool. You’re on top of it.”
“Hey!” Tabaqui said. “Stop this defeatist nonsense on the eve of the departure. This is going to be rest and recuperation. Lary, leave him alone, take your morbid look somewhere else!”
Lary shuffled away obediently. Tabaqui continued his lecture. He said that there actually were two quarantine rooms. The blue one and the yellow one. And that the blue one was not for the faint of heart, but did wonders for the soul, while the yellow one was just pure bliss all around.
“The blue one makes you depressed, and the yellow stinks of urine, because the flush always gets stuck,” Sphinx said. “And they are both only blissful if you dream of being alone. Was that ever your dream, Smoker?”
“I think it is now,” I huffed, weighed down by the miracle jacket. I couldn’t even bend my arms, because of the stashes in the elbows. “Are they . . . coming for me soon?”
They did come fairly soon.
They were already wheeling me out like a motionless dummy when there came another surprise, this time from Alexander. He ran to me and handed me a flashlight.
“They say that the lights are completely out at night. Here, take this, in case you need to find something in the dark.”
I couldn’t bend my arms, but my fingers were in perfect working order, so I grabbed the flashlight. And I had a second to look into Alexander’s eyes. They were the color of strong tea. And they were speckled.
I also had time to say “See you” to the rest of them. To Jackal, who was waving to me sentimentally. To Lary, milling at the door. To Noble, who nodded from the bed. To Sphinx, sitting on the headboard. To Humpback. To everyone.