The Gap of Time

  “It’s a little secret, just the Robinsons’ affair. Most of all you’ve got to hide it from the kids…”

  Every door was open—bedrooms silent and unslept-in. To the left again there was a further staircase, shorter, narrower, to what must have been the servants’ quarters once.

  The music was loud now. The small door at the top of the stairs was open.

  Perdita went and stood in the doorway.

  —

  The room was huge—an opened-out attic spanning the length and breadth of the house. The space was furnished in blues and pinks, with rugs, lamps, pictures, sofas. A vast apex skylight let in the stars.

  A long, pale birchwood desk was banked with computer equipment. A screen filled one wall entirely.

  —

  Is that Paris?

  It is Paris savaged by broken angels.

  —

  Xeno turned from the computer. He stood up. He was wearing perfectly faded jeans and a new white T-shirt. His feet were bare. There was a bottle of Woodford Reserve on the desk. He lifted it at Perdita, who shook her head. Xeno poured for himself. “How is your father?”

  “Stable.”

  Xeno nodded. She fascinated him. She had no fear and he realised he was afraid of her.

  “I’m here because I want to talk to you about what you said last night.”

  Xeno took a drink. “I don’t suppose you’re a gamer? Women aren’t, usually. It’s not brain-wiring, it’s because games are not designed with women in mind—rather like cars, except for small, silly underpowered cars. I never understood that.”

  Xeno turned back to the screen and pressed play. An avatar of himself stood in an empty street, where it snowed feathers.

  “What are you doing?”

  “For now, collecting feathers. Do you want to help me? Here.”

  Xeno picked up his iPad and photographed Perdita. He uploaded it. As he talked, her image became an avatar and she entered the game.

  “I design and code games. The usual ones: crashes, explosions, trolls, cloaks, treasure. But I try to do things differently too. Have you noticed how ninety per cent of games feature tattooed white men with buzzcuts beating the shit out of the world in stolen cars? It’s like living in a hardcore gay nightclub on a military base.

  “This game—“The Gap of Time”—is my game. I started to build it a long time ago—before it happened.”

  “Before what happened?”

  “The end of the world.”

  He was intense at the screen. She knew she must just let him talk, let him play, and try to understand. She thought he was crazy but if she didn’t go along with the craziness she would never find out the truth.

  “Do you speak French?” he said.

  “No.”

  Xeno swivelled round, stretching his long legs and flexing his toes. His toes were long like fingers and again she had the image of the spider, this time in a web hammocked across the house.

  He took a drink.

  “There was a French poet called Gérard de Nerval. Nineteenth century. Just before he killed himself he had a dream that a fallen angel was trapped in the tiny courtyard behind the decaying houses where he lived. The space above the courtyard where the tall houses leaned in foursquare was like a funnel with a cutting of sky at the top. The angel had landed on the lead pitch of the roof and slipped.

  “Once the angel was trapped in the funnel he could not save himself because he could not open his wings to fly away.

  “When the angel became trapped, his head was level with the upper floors of the houses and a little child used to come and talk to him. She sat on the windowsill, her knees drawn up against the cold, and she told the angel stories her mother had told her, so many stories of lost and found, and the angel loved her.

  “At night, sometimes, she’d bring a candle to the window and sit with the angel because she knew he was lonely.

  “Weeks passed and the angel began to die. As he died he shrank, and the child went from window to window, zigzagging down the house, her small body by his great fallen head. She stroked his tarnished hair.

  “At last, the feathers of his six wings began to separate from the bone and cartilage. The angel was dissolving into a pile of feathers. He called the child, with his voice that sounded like a trumpet, and the child came out of the back door into the midden courtyard. She sank into the feathers heaping like snow and the angel lifted her up with his last strength and put her just above him on the long window ledge.

  “ ‘Take the diamond feathers,’ he said. ‘The two that wing across my collarbone.’

  “The child didn’t want to because she knew it would hurt him.

  “ ‘Take them. Keep them. One is the Flight of Love. The other is the Flight of Time.’

  “The child pulled at the diamond feathers but they held fast.

  “ ‘Take your little knife and cut them where they bond,’ said the angel. ‘Look, I will turn my neck.’

  “And the child took her little knife and cut the feathers where they bonded. And the feathers shone in the snow. And the angel died.

  “And there was a great rush of wind that filled the courtyard and the child had to cover her face and crouch in the reveal of the window or she would have been blown away. And every feather spun up into the cold blue air and blew over the city like birds.

  “But the diamond feathers weren’t flying-away feathers; they were solid as a promise that will be kept.

  “Birds sing. Fish swim. Time passes. The little girl became a woman and went away.”

  —

  Said Xeno, “Nerval didn’t go beyond the trapped angel; that was his dream. My dream was the child and the promise. And at first the rest of my dream was pretty. I imagined a city where each of the flying-away feathers had become its own angel—because it would be nice to grow an angel from a feather. “But then I saw that these angels are fallen. They are dark angels of death.

  “The Angels want the city for themselves. To achieve that the city must become as necrotic as they are. The Angels turn man against woman, woman against child. There is no pity or justice, only fear and the pleasure of pain. This is the fallen world. Every day the city darkens.”

  “There’s no one out on the streets except us,” said Perdita.

  “It will soon be curfew.”

  “Why are we gathering feathers?”

  “Feathers that fall on stony ground—roads, streets, yards, bridges—can’t grow. That’s good. People use them for fuel and for bedding because the city is cold. But it is better to destroy them. You see, a feather that comes into contact with fire—including electricity—combusts. Those become the Angels of the Watch. Their wings have eyes.

  “Any feather that comes into contact with water, swells. These become Sunken Angels. They are in the subways and sewers, the tunnels and shafts and undergrounds of Paris.

  “The game has nine levels. At Level 4 you can move around in time. At any point in the game you can deep-freeze an action, an event, a happening, and return to it later—because, perhaps, you can make it unhappen.

  “I suppose that’s what I wanted to do; make things unhappen.”

  “What do you want me to do with this sack of feathers?” said Perdita.

  “I have a friend who turns them into chickens. The city needs food. The city is divided into Resisters and Collaborators. It means something different here, to be on the side of the Angels.”

  “Is this Level 1?”

  “Level 1 is the Tragic Plane. Disastrous. Calamitous. Catastrophic. Dreadful. Ruinous. Wretched. Miserable. Terrible. Untruthful. Unfortunate. That would not make it tragic, though, would it? That’s how life is. It is tragic because there is also glory, chance, optimism, bravery, sacrifice, struggle, hope, goodness. And all of that is embedded in the game.”

  Perdita and Xeno walked through the falling snow past a bookshop.

  “Shakespeare and Company. They are Resisters. You can sleep there tonight. Or you can stay with me. My apartm
ent is just round the corner. Underneath MiMi.”

  “MiMi?”

  “MiMi was Leo’s wife.”

  “You said you wanted to make it unhappen. What?”

  “Did you ever watch Superman movies? Too young, I guess.”

  He didn’t wait for her to answer. “My friend Leo loved that Superman movie where Lois Lane doesn’t die in a car crash because Superman is powerful enough to belt the earth like Puck on speed and turn back time.”

  “Who is Leo?”

  “You asked me that already.”

  “It’s a different question now.”

  “He nearly killed me twice. I couldn’t risk it a third time.”

  “Is he here?”

  “In the game? Yes. We keep in touch that way. He’s moving through the city now. I can sense him. He has a big following. He likes a crowd.”

  “Is he collecting feathers?”

  Xeno laughed. “Leo? Do litter duty? No. But he wouldn’t be doing that anyway. He’s an Archangel.”

  —

  The cold, empty city is here and there lit up by bursts of flame. Men and women on the streets warming themselves at fires they have not lit and cannot put out. The Angels are the keepers of fire.

  —

  “Tell me what happened,” said Perdita.

  “There was a child,” said Xeno. “Leo was sure I was the father. He didn’t believe me, or his wife, or the DNA test. DNA tests are ninety-nine per cent accurate but Leo liked to call himself the one per cent.”

  “What did he do with the child?”

  “He sent her to me but she never arrived.”

  Perdita said, “Were you the father?”

  “No. Yes. Leo was the father. I loved them both. Leo and MiMi. I was in love with them both. And I always wanted a daughter.”

  “Zel said you wanted a son.”

  “He’s my son. Yes, he is my son. And, strictly speaking, I am his father. And, strictly speaking, Leo was the baby’s father. Those are facts but are they truths? What kind of a father have I been to Zel? The truth is I should have married MiMi. Me. Not Leo. Me. There was a moment—I really think she loved me, and I really think I loved her, enough to change everything, but he wanted her so much—and Leo gets what he wants—and I have never had a serious relationship with a woman, and I hesitate over what I want, and I thought I couldn’t do it, and I thought, what did it matter? We will always be together, the three of us. I will love them both and I will be with them both. If they had wanted it I would have been lovers with them both, too. Sometimes I think MiMi did want that.

  “She trusted me. She was physically comfortable with me, maybe because there wasn’t the erotic edge there was with Leo. Leo is confident and powerful—he’s also an asshole—but he knows what he wants and he goes and gets it—that’s attractive. I find it attractive. We were lovers once—when we were teenage boys. I don’t know how real it was for him. But it was real for me.

  “MiMi broke up with him—oh, for a year. I did nothing about it. And then he asked me to go and woo her back for him. He suddenly couldn’t do it. I knew then he was serious, when his swagger and poise left him. So I went to woo her, and I think—no, I know—I still know, after all these years, that MiMi and I fell in love that weekend.

  “I was a fucking coward.”

  Xeno drank some more. Went to a sink in the corner of the room and spat it out. He turned to Perdita, wiping his mouth on his hand, and suddenly he didn’t look urbane or in control. He looked like a tired, bloodshot drunk.

  —

  “He sent the baby to me and I wasn’t there.

  “Do you know what that means? I WASN’T THERE.”

  Perdita sat still. Still like she was prey. Like she was prey with camouflage.

  Xeno said, “There’s no need to lie anymore. What difference does it make? Because the past can’t unhappen.

  “The worst is hidden. You want it? You seem to want it. Here’s the truth:

  “I wasn’t not there. I was there. I was here. In this house when Tony Gonzales came with the baby. Leo had emailed me. I didn’t believe him. And then when it happened I thought Tony would just get on a plane and take the baby home and give her back to MiMi. I didn’t know about the money. Leo did that to insult me. He could have wired it to my account and I would have wired it straight back, the asshole. But he put it in cash. It was a big bag of Fuck You.

  “But someone did know about the money—there must have been a tip-off at the bank. It wasn’t much money by criminal standards, but an easy heist from a hotel room, I guess. A pity to waste it. And it went wrong.”

  “What did MiMi do?”

  “MiMi? Come here. Look up.”

  They walked round the corner of Saint-Julien-le-Pauvre. The tall, silent buildings were dark. Were they dark?

  At the top was a small light in a small window.

  “That’s where MiMi lives. But she doesn’t sing anymore.”

  “Not this MiMi—not the one in the game—the one in real life.”

  Xeno said, “If I could make it unhappen. And then I remember that the choices I made I made because there was no me to make any other choices. Free will depends on being stronger than the moment that traps you.

  “It isn’t fate. I don’t believe in fate. Do you?”

  He didn’t wait for an answer.

  “Our habits and our fears make our choices. We are an algorithm of ourselves—if you liked that you may also like this.”

  Perdita said, “Not the game, Xeno. In real life. Is MiMi dead?”

  Xeno said, “Better ask me is she alive? No, she’s not alive in any way that makes being alive a life. Shall I play you some of her music? Would you like that?”

  “She recorded music?”

  “Here she is.”

  “She’s pregnant.”

  “Yes. That was the night Leo nearly killed me for the second time. That was the night the child was born.”

  “Does Leo live in London?”

  “Yes. He’s a reformed character. Quite the angel. He invests money for children’s charities round the world. Let me Google him for you. Voilà! Or eccola! His mother’s Italian. Dad’s German. Leo looks like a German banker, acts like an Italian Mafioso—fucking money in fucking suitcases, running people down…Here he is: ‘SICILIA—BECAUSE LOVE COSTS MONEY.’ And underneath are all the projects they’ve supported—schools built, wells dug, scholarships provided, hospitals equipped. It’s impressive. But Leo is impressive. And I’ll say one thing for him, that sometimes makes me believe his sorrow is sincere—he never married again.”

  Behind the huge wall-sized photo of Leo that Xeno had flipped up, MiMi went on singing—“Is that man falling? Or is that man falling in love?”

  Xeno said, “Leo is addicted to drops—he dropped his entire life, and I was part of the fallout.”

  “You are full of shit and self-pity,” said Zel.

  Xeno turned from the wall-screen. “Zel…I didn’t see you.”

  “Nothing different there,” said Zel.

  “Zel, can we talk?” said Xeno.

  “No, we can’t. We can’t because we don’t and we don’t because we can’t.”

  “Is that what they teach you in philosophy?”

  “You always have to whip back, don’t you? The smart hit?”

  Xeno leaned on the edge of the desk. “Zel, if I could change it…”

  “It’s not in the past,” said Perdita. “You can’t change what you did. You can change what you do.”

  Xeno said, “You sound like a fridge magnet.”

  Zel said, “You think you’re a broken hero, don’t you? But you’re just a coward. You control life by avoiding it—relationships, children, people. You don’t know how to love—that’s all. You pretend that’s something noble and tragic, but it’s not noble and tragic, it’s pathetic.”

  “And you?” said Xeno. “Are you all at once the expert on love?”

  “He doesn’t need to be an expert,” said Perdita. “H
e just needs to try.” She went to Zel and held his hand. Xeno nodded, smiling a smile that was not a smile.

  “ ‘Love is the unfamiliar name behind the hands that wove the intolerable shirt of flame.’ ”

  —

  He pulled his T-shirt over his head. There were scars across his shoulders. He unbuckled his belt, undid the buttons of his fly and stepped out of his jeans. He turned his back to them both and took off his boxers.

  His hips held the faded red lines of the operation to rebuild his pelvis. But that wasn’t it; it was the tattoo.

  Sweeping up from his sacroiliac joints on either side of his torso and meeting at his fifth thoracic vertebra was a pair of wings.

  “I thought I could fly,” said Xeno, “but I could only fall.”

  Zel drove Perdita home.

  Through the wide streets and hard lights and big cars. Lives that never stop.

  Lives that never start. Workers walking, drunks falling, cabs slowing and speeding away. A dog at the trash, a woman at the window, a black man asleep on a folded billboard in the doorway of a discount store.

  EVERYTHING MUST GO

  The hotel with its hookers hanging round the lobby. The nightman giving them coffee. The 24/7 laundromat steamy and bright-lit. A child awake too late, his mother holding his hand. He falls every third step and she rights him, a nylon luggage bag over her shoulder. Broken zipper. She’s talking to him all the time but she’s looking straight ahead.

  A boy telling his girl how it is. She’s on her phone.

  A nun waiting for the night-bus. Bus comes. Nun gone.

  And you and me in the car where we’ve always been, where we’ll always be, this night, this road, even when we’re gone and the road is gone and the city is gone but we’ll be here because everything is imprinted forever with what it once was.

  The house and bar were in darkness. It was nearly 3 a.m.

  Zel killed the engine and let the car roll down the track till it came to a halt under its own weight. He pulled the brake on its ratchet.

  Perdita climbed out so that Clo wouldn’t hear the car door.

  “Zel?”

  And the stairs were dark and he held her hand and she took him up to her room and she didn’t put on the light. They undressed quickly because they were shy. Perdita got into bed. Zel lay next to her, the blood in his body like a private Niagara. She put her arms round him.