Julie-nah stares at him with a strange, transfixed smile.
Tariko, Silpa says. You’ve been awfully quiet. Too quiet. What do you think?
He shrugs.
For me, he says, it all comes from the teachings of the Holy Piby. You know what that is, Kelly? The rest of these brethren have heard enough about it. But maybe I can enlighten you.
Go on.
The Holy Piby, he says, in an exhausted voice, barely audible. The foundation of all our reasoning. I had to memorize it before I turned thirteen. His voice turns high-pitched, as if he’s resuming a recitation from long ago. Written by His Holiness Robert Rogers in Newark New Jersey in the year of Our Lord 1928 and dedicated by him unto His Holiness Marcus Garvey. What does it say? It says that when the time is ripe a great angel will come to Babylon and say, Children of Ethiopia, stand, and there will flash upon the earth a great multitude of Negroes knowing not from whence they came; and then instantly the whole heavenly host will shout, Behold, behold Ethiopia has triumphed. What else does it say?
The ice in the north and the ice in the south shall disappear. Then shall continents which are submerged arise and the whole earth shall bloom. For with thee, he shall sit in his parlor in Africa, and see a rooster treading in the moon and the bees on the roses in Venus. The laborers in Mars, strike-breakers on earth and my daughter in college in Jupiter. My children shall remind you of the things I have forgotten, for I have seen so far, but those that cometh after me, of me, with me and upon our God shall see farther even than I.
What else is there? he says. It’s all rooted in prophecy. I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life, man. My father would have died for the opportunity. In three months I’m going to be sitting on my patio up in Mona watching the sun rise over the Blue Mountains. And when it rise, it’ll be on the color of my true face. The dark skin of a Negro not knowing from whence he came. The lost tribe. By the grace of God.
Bravo, Silpa murmurs. As if it’s a bit of oratory.
On the other hand, isn’t it? What else do we say, embarrassed by the spectacle of faith? Amen? Martin has closed his eyes and angled his face upward, which could be read as reverence, I suppose. Julie-nah picks at her teeth.
You can see why Tariko’s our best advocate, Silpa says, filling the silence as it has to be filled. It’s a vocation. Well, it’s a vocation for me too, of course. But I don’t quite have the words to say so.
What I worry about right now, Martin says, slowly, is infrastructure. Whether we’re ready to meet the demand when the demand comes. Scalability. I’ve been doing what I can. But we’re going to need everything, when the moment comes. Customer reps. A phone bank. A website that can take a million hits in a day and not crash.
A bigger office, Tariko says.
That’s the easy part. Physical space is not the problem. It’s client relations that I worry about. Client relations, reliability of our supply chain, and, of course, waiting times. Because there’s only one Silpa. That’s the problem with doing it this way.
He’s right, of course, Silpa says, looking up at the sky. None of these changes are permanent, you know. There’s the question of maintenance, too. Drug regimes for forty or fifty years. That’s why the egg is so fragile right at the moment. I need assistants. Apprentices. Otherwise, if something happens to me?
• • •
In the stairwell Julie-nah turns and gives me a baleful stare. For a good ten seconds we stand there, like a frieze, my palm on the bannister, her body twisted, whorled, as if to catch me and fling me away.
I thought you were kidding, she says.
I did too. At the time.
Really? You’re telling me Martin’s powers of persuasion are that strong? Even if you knew that it was all one big sche—
Martin tried to argue me out of it.
Like hell he did, she says. Ever heard of reverse psychology?
I had my own reasons.
We all have our own reasons. A globule of spit catches me in the eye; she runs a crude hand across her mouth. That’s the problem. I thought you understood me. Didn’t you understand me, Kelly? We’ve got to unplug this Orchid machine. Before it makes us all billionaires. There’s a healthy point-five percent of the world’s population that has really good reasons for RRS. If you don’t say no, that’s it. You’re the final picture in our happy little mosaic.
I let myself sit down on the tile step.
Anyway, she says, what do you expect is going to change? Even if it takes. Even if it’s perfect. You think, what, you’ll be less divided, more yourself? You’ll just be the same ball of questions as always. Believe me. I can tell. You don’t get that jolt out of being a congenital liar. Not like Martin. You’ll be a freak.
Julie, do you ever get tired of deciding what’s right for the world?
No, she says, wide-eyed. Don’t tell me. Don’t fucking tell me.
I mean it. Speaking, myself, as someone like you. A professional mind. An inquirer. A critic. Isn’t it ever tiring, to you, just a little, being an arbiter all the time? You know the joke about the French? It may work in practice, but will it work in theory?
What the hell does that mean?
You know what I’m talking about. The tingle of empty accusations. All this conspiratorial fault-finding. Hegemonic diagnostics. It’s all one big autoimmune condition, isn’t it? Look, maybe it works when you have tenure. Or cradle-to-grave health insurance. Or a rich dad who works for Samsung. But look, from my perspective, I’m out of a job.
It’s Daewoo, actually. And I thought you were on Martin’s payroll.
Oh, I am. For the time being. But I’m talking about real money for once. What’s wrong with that? Money that lets you make decisions.
It’s as if some rind, some slippery, rubbery substance, has detached from my gums; I find myself chewing at the words.
You know how they want you to make money? she says. Why they’re so desperate to make a Chinese connection? Tissue farming. What the fuck else? All those prisoners, all those no-name corpses. Hair. Skin. Retinas. Healthy teeth. Cartilage. You ready to get into that business, Kelly?
Speaking as someone who’s already in it?
She laughs.
Oh, you have no idea about me, she says. Don’t even bother to guess.
But isn’t that the point? It’s up to you. Shouldn’t we own up to that? White people that we are.
Don’t call me that.
Why? Isn’t that what you wanted, Julie-nah?
It was a project, she says, all but crying now. It was a provocation. I wanted to make myself into an instrument of my own desires. A demonstration of the emptiness of buying out—
I could have told you not to bother. You really think you need to tell people what they already know? After all, who’s to say I haven’t bought all of my identities? Not just this one. This, come to think of it, is the second time.
That’s cold, she says. You sure you want to go that far, Kelly? That’s really cold. It’s your wife we’re talking about. Your wife, your child.
Don’t tell me about my wife and child, I would have said to her, to anyone, ordinarily. My jaw seems to want to flap open.
Call it closure, I say. Closure comes in unexpected ways.
That’s sick.
Since I can’t have you, I want to say, I have to become you. Where did that phrase come from, all of a sudden? Though I don’t quite understand it, it seems to be all that needs to be said. Then why can’t I quite fit the words on my tongue?