Aeon Eleven Page 2

  “I cannot, kind Adanech,” he said, shaking his head. “Not everyone can afford to fly away. Those who remain will need a friend and I…”

  “Ha. A friend?” interrupted Papa. “You’re no one’s friend! Frightening the women and children with your stories even when I tell you it isn’t like that anymore. People like you thrive on fear.”

  “You are a reckless man, Jawara,” Mr. Muenda replied crisply, “and you do not know who your friends are. You tell me you are safe in America, but America is far from here. Its flag may fly over the courthouse, but it waves in the African wind…and it is up too high to stop a rock from cracking your head open.”

  “Enough!” the captain held up his hand, and everyone looked at him. For a moment he stood still and quiet, then suddenly he glanced sharply around the empty field. “They are closer than I thought, and very fast. You, Muenda. If you are leaving, you must leave now. My people say you should run—run quickly—to the south or east. Everyone else, get in.”

  Papa said coldly, “Yes, run.” He stepped into the basket. “Chiku, Manu! Come along! The sooner we fly away, the sooner we come back.”

  Mama knelt in front of Manu and tied the shirt around his eyes; it covered most of his face. I expected him to push it off and make a fuss, and Papa would say “Always a handful, our Manu, never a battle but a war,” but Manu didn’t move at all except to grab Mama’s sleeves tight in his fists and breathe in short gasps, in and out.

  I joined Papa in the basket then turned to watch Mr. Muenda run away. That’s why I didn’t notice until then that Manu was refusing to get in the basket.

  Mama was tugging his arm, but he’d planted his feet and was leaning all his weight away from her.

  Papa said, “Manu! Come here!”

  “Please come,” begged Mama, pulling harder until his shoes began to slide on the grass. “It will be all right.”

  “I’m sorry,” Papa said to the basket-man, “My little boy is afraid of heights. It is because his mother coddles him.” He turned to me. “Chiku is not afraid to be up high, are you?” He looked down at me and I was proud.

  “No, Papa!” I said happily.

  “Go home!” wailed Manu. All you could see of his face beneath the green cloth was his mouth, open so wide it was square. He collapsed like a rag doll and started to flail and kick at Mama’s legs and feet. She lost her hold and in half a second he’d scrambled up, pulled the folded shirt off and was running back to the path that led home. Papa got out of the basket and started to run after him. Manu was halfway to the edge of the field and Papa had nearly caught up with him when three, or maybe four, men ran out past the rocks. Manu stopped, as suddenly and still as a bunny, with the shirt hanging from his hand.

  A lot of things happened at once then: Mama screamed, the captain shouted something, the ground started to hop up in little puffs here and there, and Papa fell down.

  And a man dropped out of the sky.

  He came straight down, head first and as fast as a falling rock. Before I even understood what I was seeing, he’d slowed and stopped five or so feet from the ground. Still upside down, he stretched his arms out and in each hand he was holding a gun.

  His first shots made him jerk and swing on the rope, but he wriggled and twisted and somehow was always facing the right direction. He fired one more time before suddenly dropping to the ground, where he lay flat and continued shooting until all the strangers were dead.

  In my memory, he is very close to me, almost within reach. I’m told that wasn’t the case, that he was more than thirty feet from the basket. Also, oddly, I have no memory whatsoever of hearing gunfire; only screams against a background of silence.

  After the last man fell, the Spider leapt up and ran over to Papa and Manu. It surprised me not at all that his legs were skinny and long. He went straight to where my brother was standing next to Papa, who was sitting down, and without pausing lifted Manu as though he were a wooden statue and not a little boy. One arm around his chest and one arm around his legs, he ran, carrying him sideways to the basket. Mama sat down and the tall man put one foot inside and put Manu in her lap; she wrapped her arms around Manu as if he would try to run away again, but he didn’t move.

  That’s when the Spider looked at me.

  His left eye was brown, as though just anyone were looking out of it. It nearly matched the color of the curly hair that tumbled around his face. He had smooth skin, a soft wide mouth, and a thin, pointed nose. It was almost a nice man’s face.

  My attention was centered, however, on his other eye: an icy blue that was nearly white, with a pointy, star-shaped pupil. It seemed to look at me separately from the rest of him: mean and cold and angry. My breath froze in my throat, and I could feel my hair stand up. People say that all the time, of course, but I felt it actually happen all over my arms and legs and up to the top of my head: less like a tickle than an ache, really.

  He looked at me for moment, and then without blinking he raised one hand and covered the scary eye. As simply as that he looked like a normal person; I wasn’t frightened at all. Then he turned to the captain and said something in a language I didn’t understand.

  “Death-Eye says we should go up now,” said the captain. “He will bring your husband up himself.”

  I only remember two things about the ascent. At one point, the Spider and Papa passed us going up. Later, Mama talked about how much blood there was, but I didn’t notice any. What I remember is that the two of them tied together made four legs and four arms. I recall laughing when I saw it, but Mama says I didn’t.

  The other thing in my memory is that at one point I looked up and saw that a big part of the gray sky overhead wasn’t the sky at all, but a ship. It was huge—much bigger than I was expecting—and it seemed to be falling down to crush us. I remember covering my head and screaming. Mama says I got that part right.

  “There is nothing more beautiful than an African sunset,” said Papa, looking through the glass of the cabin window. Outside were wide, wavy stripes of crimson and pink, orange and yellow. The colors were brilliant and clear. I thought the sky was laughing, the only way it knew how.

  Papa was sitting in an inflated plastic sofa that they’d draped with cloth, with his bandaged leg propped up on a pillow. I was sitting on the floor beside him, happy just to be nearby; I hadn’t been allowed to see him in forever, it seemed. From the moment we were reeled up to the gondola, Papa had been in the captain’s office.

  The cabin of the airship was almost all one big room—the captain’s office occupied one end—with a counter that ran along the three outside walls; in most places the surface was tilted so the controls or monitors or instruments could be easily seen. Above the counter were windows that gave a panoramic view of the sunset. Outside the windows was a wrap-around balcony with mesh floor and plastic chain railings, but I wasn’t allowed outside on the balcony, as I was reminded at every opportunity. Below the counters were what seemed to be long, low storage cabinets—that’s what I originally assumed—but in fact turned out to be little bedroom compartments far too small for even little Manu to stand up in. Each had a sliding panel door, and within was only a mattress and a tiny overhead light.

  The captain’s office was near the tiny bathroom. There was a window between the office and the cabin, and since there was another window on the far wall of the office we usually had almost a 360-degree view of the sky, but that first day, they’d pulled a curtain across the interior window and told me to be quiet. I spent the rest of the day being as silent and well-behaved as I could manage. Manu had never stopped crying, so he and Mama spent the rest of the day in one of the little bedrooms; I went in and out frequently, and even though I couldn’t sleep, I was as quiet as could be until daybreak.

  The next morning they pulled back the curtain and Papa waved hello at me, but I still wasn’t allowed in. Seeing the gray-brown hue of Papa’s face worried me almost as much as seeing him smile was a relief. Manu wouldn’t leave the little box of a be
droom, so I had to tell him all about it. . .but I left out how ill Papa looked.

  That afternoon they finally let Papa into the big room. I was warned how dangerous his wound was, and that it was very important that he not move much so the styptic bandage inside his leg wouldn’t crack or slip before we got to the hospital in Yamoussoukro.

  He held my hand when the sun started to set, though. Watching sunsets had always been our special time, and seeing one from way up high made it seem magical and important. The colors blazed above and on the horizon, and had soaked into the clouds that rose in spires. Where the billows were thick before us, blue and white shadows were combed through the red.

  “It’s blood, you know.”

  The only woman on the ship, not counting Mama and me, was looking at Papa with her hands on her hips. She was tall and thin like a stick doll. Pale. Her hair was short and yellow-white and she needed lipstick.

  “It is not,” said Papa. He sighed and turned to look at her. “I am sorry, but it is already hard for the children. Stories like that give them the wrong ideas. If Manu hears you, he’ll have nightmares.”

  “Are you saying I look like a storyteller? Me? That’d be a kick.” She rubbed her nose and sniffed. “Nah, I’m just telling it like it is. Sunsets like this? They only happen when the earth—you know, the planet—is wounded. That damn blight that’s killing off the grass is letting too much dust and dirt into the air. Usually it takes a volcanic eruption to cause colors like this. A big one.” She rubbed her nose again and looked out the window at the dazzling view. “Africa is bleeding to death. Bleeding into the sky.”

  “Is there a volcano?” I asked. I thought that in a blimp we could fly right over it. I wanted to look straight down and see the lava.

  She didn’t look at me but said, “Oh no. No, no. That’d be too easy. One nice little volcanic explosion, a cloud of poison ash. Maybe a mudslide.” She walked over to the long counter along one side of the cabin, still talking. “Lose a couple of villages, maybe. Big whoop. I bet on this stupid continent volcanoes go off all the time and nobody even notices.” She picked up a clipboard and kept walking, so it was getting harder for me to hear her. She was still talking as she clipped a canister to her belt and fastened the thin plastic tube beneath her nose. She walked out of the cabin onto the balcony that wrapped all around the outside and let the door click closed behind her.

  Papa said, “She is a crazy woman, I think.”

  “Ms. Goldblum. Yes,” said the captain. “That would indeed be true.”

  He was wearing the same green shirt as yesterday, and had kissed Mama’s hand when she had given it back to him. Now he was sitting in a chair in front of a lot of buttons and dials and screens. I wasn’t allowed over there, either.

  “But this is no surprise, I think,” he said with a grin. “We are all of us crazy.”

  “Perhaps you are right,” said Papa. “I think I must be so, and walking in a madman’s dream now. I wonder if I will wake up at home.” He shook his head slowly. “But then I remember, I don’t have a home anymore. With what I am told I am paying you, perhaps I will never have a home again.”

  The captain laughed and said, “Your home would be a plywood coffin, or possibly even less luxurious, if your lovely wife hadn’t hired us. Think of it this way: you paid for a simple pickup and delivery, so the dramatic rescue you got for free. I’ve considered charging extra for gunplay and trauma treatment. You maybe didn’t notice at the time, but we do top-shelf evac work.”

  “Running was a mistake. If we’d gone to the compound we could have appealed to the authorities….”

  “Somehow I doubt that.”

  I saw Death-Eye spin a line to the balcony.

  He didn’t look like a person, he was all lines and jagged angles. It was fast. He appeared suddenly, his back toward me, crimped into a double-diamond with his hands on the line over his head and his feet gripping the rope beneath him. He jerked to a stop and hung for a second, suspended, then he wiggled for a second until he came free from the cable and unfolded down onto the balcony. Standing, he looked like a person again.

  He detached two slim devices that looked like they were made of metal and leather; he twiddled and fiddled with them, and shook them hard. When he got them free he stuffed them into the deep pockets of his trousers and walked through the door into the cabin.

  Papa hadn’t noticed any of it. The captain had, but just shook his head.

  I said, “A spider!”

  He turned toward me, and I saw his spooky eye again. Having it look at me was like a piece of ice touching my skin, and I inhaled so suddenly I squeaked. He immediately squinted his right eye closed and patted his fluffy hair all over, then reached into a pocket and pulled out an eye patch. He put it on and adjusted the stretchy string around his head. He looked at me, and didn’t look scary anymore. Just tall.

  He stood still for a moment, then tilted his head to one side and pulled a second eye patch from another pocket. With his right eye still closed, pulled the first patch off and put it in his pocket, then put the second one on.

  He began patting his shirt and pants all over. He stuck his fingers inside all his pockets and then walked over to Papa and without hesitating pulled an eye patch from Papa’s shirt pocket. He shook his finger at Papa as if to scold him and put the new patch on. Papa laughed.

  Death-Eye kept searching and sure enough, there were eye patches everywhere. He pulled one from the coffee maker, and one from a little slot in the computer. The pale lady came back in from outside and sat down in a chair, and he pulled one from under her shirt collar. He picked up a magazine and a patch dropped out of the pages. Each time he’d carefully put the new one on and stuff the old one in his pocket, and then keep looking for more. He eventually came over to me.

  “You?” he asked. I was wearing my coveralls, and he pointed to the front pocket.

  I shook my head. “No, I don’t have one.” I was glad he wasn’t scary anymore. He made a funny face.

  “You sure?” I nodded that I was sure.

  “Okay I look you pocket? Okay?” He pointed at the pocket again. I looked at Papa, who was smiling. I nodded to him that he could look. He tugged the pocket with one long finger and we both peered inside. He shook his head.

  “No,” he said, “Only candy.” I looked in the pocket that he still had pulled open. It was empty.

  “What candy?” I asked. He looked at me and looked back in my pocket, then reached in and pulled out a packet of gum. I laughed in surprise. He held the packet up and sniffed it, then opened it and pulled out a piece of gum. He pointed at himself.

  “Me candy please?” When I said yes, he put the rest back where he’d found it. This time I could feel it there. He stood way up, put the gum in his mouth and walked across the room. He opened a drawer and pulled out some tools, took his little metal devices from his pocket, and started to tinker with them.

  Papa looked at the captain. “He’s very good,” he said. “I am surprised you have a magician. You use him to spirit people away I suppose.”

  The captain leaned back in his chair. “He is useful, indeed yes, but his magic is only for children. I rarely see it.”

  “What does he do, then?” asked Papa. “For that matter, what do you do? Do you carry passengers all the time?”

  “Ah. Passengers? Not so much. Most people cannot afford such a luxurious way of travel.”

  “Luxurious?” My father looked at the stark room’s sparse furniture.

  “Safety is the only luxury worth what it costs.” The captain glanced at the controls, touched a few buttons and lights flickered on overhead. I hadn’t realized how dark it had become, but the clouds had lost their color except at the far edge of the sky. The lights were harsh and bright, and made mirrors of all the windows. The captain turned back toward my father. “You and your charming family will arrive at Yamoussoukro in five days. No harm will come to you.”

  “You sound like my wife, talking as if there is a war.�
�� Papa shook his head. “There aren’t any uprisings in American territory, even the outlying counties see daily benefit and improvements. American control has only helped the people here. Why should anyone want to hurt us?”

  The pale woman, sitting in the chair, made a strange sound.

  “Oh my god, you’re a westerner,” she said. “I missed that. ‘Why should anyone want to hurt us?’ Wow.”

  “I beg your pardon,” said Papa. “I’ll have you know I was born in Kaketa.”

  “Apparently, it didn’t stick,” she replied. She widened her eyes and waggled her head from side to side. “Oh, don’t get all offended. I think it’s sweet. You guys just don’t have the concept of ancient conflict, is all. Westerners fight a war, win or lose it, and then you know…you stop fighting. You intermarry and settle down in little wooden houses. You swap recipes and your art gets…what is it that art gets? Influenced. You translate the literature. Then maybe twenty or fifty years later you fight another war, but it’s a different war than the last one. I’m charmed, really I am.”

  She grabbed a magazine and started to read.

  “I am afraid to say there are real dangers,” said the captain. “Perhaps you could drive from your home to the city, and not be hurt. But you would not drive in safety. Here you are safe.”

  “It’s done all the time.”

  “Not so simply, I think,” the captain said. “Not ‘all the time’ successfully, either.

  “This is an expensive ship, Jawara,” he continued. “Extremely expensive. Yet we make a profit because people like to know there is someone looking over them. We are guardian angels. Even the American military hires us, more often than anyone else. They pay us good money to keep them safe.”

  “Now that’s ridiculous,” said Papa. “There is nothing you can do better than the military. Robertsport AFB has fighter planes with missiles and computers and satellites. They don’t need a balloon full of crazy people.”

  The captain sighed and swiveled his chair around.