And he saw her anger and her insanity and her desperation and her depression over and over, up close, her face popping up at his cage at unlikely times: in early dawn, in the middle of the night, more and more so toward the end of his time there. She’d come in sometimes in a rage, eye the others and then glare at him, throw sticks, throw spoons, throw food, and, once, his own feces right back at him, pieces pelting his face and landing in his hair. She’d look deep in his eyes and he’d look back: that wrinkled face the color of the cage’s copper, those steel eyes the color of the metal water dish, and the white of her hair not unlike his — which he could see only when he felt compelled, out of boredom or agitation or, who knows, to pull some out.
He never for a moment thought, This is my mother. He had no such concept.
And yet that was the way the story went. That the dung-flinging, screaming, White Demon — calling old woman was his mother.
In one dream/fantasy/recollection — he did not know what name to give these sessions, that August, when waking and sleeping seemed so hopelessly incestuous — she came in the middle of a particularly bright day, when the sky was bluer than what was normal for that season and even that climate, and she came with a blow at his cage, which at that point was getting too small for him, bent in places that molded the outline of elbows and knees and the back of his head. The cage, precariously propped on concrete blocks, teetered, and he braced himself for more blows. But instead she opened the door of his cage — usually a sign that it was to be cleaned or refurbished or fixed — and, with an expression of disgust, she reached out to his dirty naked body and grabbed him. Her hands felt clawlike with their long nails and dry skin, and for a moment he considered she too may be more bird than he had originally thought, underneath those layers of draped cloth on her body and head. In her hands, he shook quite violently, afraid of what it could mean. She was speaking rapidly, whispering without pause, a coarse hissing that would not end. It had an unpleasant sound. He remembered being so afraid, and then suddenly her grasp softened, her hands became more palms than claws, and his head nestled, like those canaries would get to nestle, against the ample warmth of her bosom that still radiated through those layers of soft cloth. He took hold of her, grabbed on to her fleshy body, so much more abundant than his, which was just, it seemed, a collection of brittle bones under the thinnest layer of skin. She smelled unnatural, not of dirt or food or feces or feathers, but of something crisp and chemical and yet pleasant, a smell that he’d always associate with those perfect blue-sky summer days. And he just lay there, very still so as not to disturb her, letting himself enjoy this most unusual experience of being rocked in that woman’s arms, the woman he never knew he had come from. That was the greatest joy he recalled in those early years, the only memory he was sure of, it was so vivid: the peace he felt, the gentle shaking, his and hers, the sound of her whispery chants, the smell of cleanliness, which he did not know was a thing called cleanliness, the feeling that this could, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, last forever. . though of course it didn’t. He didn’t remember how the episode ended except that it surely must have culminated in the removal of the embrace and the opening of his cage and then the closing, with him in it. He never felt anything quite like that again.
After days and days of this, Zal began to notice that Hendricks and Asiya were in the apartment more and more, pacing around him, talking in hushed tones. He could almost feel the heat of their worry. One time, although deep in the world of canary bickering and veranda dusk, he thought he heard the sound of Hendricks snapping at Asiya — a forbidden sound — break through. By the time he shook that other world off himself, he found Hendricks in his arms suddenly, as if Zal were the woman, rocking his father back and forth, his father, who was crying into his son’s body, crying deep into him as if through the sobs he was trying to communicate with that one part of him he longed to, but could never, of course, hold: his heart.
The meaning. It had been days, at least — weeks? It couldn’t have been that long, as much as August 2001 was on a sort of runaway slow motion, since he had wondered who was pulling those strings, where it lay, this-that-and-the-other, anything and everything even vaguely smelling of that thing: meaning. He was in his usual all black of that era, sucking on a Fantasia whose bold red suddenly looked more blood than sex, watching all his workers shuffle back and forth, making the thing, that One and Only, happen, apparently. The Silbertorium seemed to grow less and less peaceful by the day, and Bran Silber wondered if it had always been a bit like that — maybe once you became an observer rather than a participant, the world suddenly became all din and disaster.
“You know that story ‘The Hungry Artist?’” were the first words he said that day, when Manning approached him, wondering if another day was going to go by with Silber in a sort of dead spell.
Manning nodded. “It’s ‘A Hunger Artist.’ Kafka.” Manning loved Kafka.
“It’s like the only story I have ever finished,” Silber said, “to be perfectly honest. I read it in high school, but I never forgot it.”
Manning tapped his boot impatiently. “And? So what?”
Silber took a drag and sighed. “I feel like the guy, the artist at the end of it. Like you’re all coming to my cage and you can’t even find me, because I’ve basically just turned into nothing. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, I’m on the verge of being replaced — and by a giant, happy, fierce bear—”
“I think it was a panther,” Manning corrected.
“Whatever, a big fierce thing!” Silber hissed. “Isn’t that what’s going on here? Am I obsolete, Manning? Is this whole thing, what I’m making happen here, over before it even began?”
Manning squinted his eyes, half in disbelief, half in disgust. He’d waited all these days for Silber to come out of his shell, for this? Some misinterpreted Kafka and a pity party? “I wouldn’t overthink it.”
Silber snorted. “You didn’t want to do this anyway.”
“But I did do it.” Manning sounded dangerous.
Silber for once didn’t care. “It is an overstatement. What is it, pops? You tell me. What is this mess?”
Manning shook his head and looked away, chuckling. “It’s money. It’s all money. I’m getting paid, you’re getting paid. Period.”
Silber nodded, with a demented smile. “And that’s about as close as I get to meaning myself. World Trade, plus or equal sign, money. Those go together, right? That means something, right?”
Manning nodded. “Sure as hell, it does. Nothing means more than money. That’s all we got.”
Silber looked down. “Well, pardon my math, but that means the WTC is one big zero, if it all equals money and money alone, if you add money. But maybe that’s all there is. Maybe that’s all there should be.”
“Look,” Manning snapped suddenly. “I don’t have time to philosophize. And neither do you. We have two weeks left, you hear me? You know what that is? That’s a zero. We got nothing. And it’ll be done, but right now, you and I are running on nothing. And in order for this to be about money, we gotta finish it. We’re not there yet.”
“It’s like the nothing before nothing!” Silber cracked a crooked smile.