The San Francisco weather was mild that night, yet few found comfort in the balmy air. Despite the moon, the night was fogless and clear. The Milky Way spread across the vault, and, near the half-moon, the constellations of Pegasus and Pisces were distinct in the eastern sky. But the astral beauty went for naught. A great and fatal bruise pained the communal heart, and the citizenry moped about, heads hung low. Strangers passed one another on the empty streets, and as their eyes meet for the customary nod, they saw yet another grieving soul. People sighed when they talked, stayed home rather than reveled; families prepared for the end. What form would Armageddon take? What would be the personality of the horror? Would the Angelenos rape and slaughter? Pillage went without question. Would they burn the city or leave it cruelly occupied? Thinkers pondered the historical significance of the fall of San Francisco, talking of Carthage and Constantinople. Lovers comforted one another; mothers spoke reassuringly to their children; and men wondered how, if they survived, would they live in the Badlands that surrounded their now-doomed isle of civil order.
On the night of his brother’s death, Chancellor Thurston Wentworth addressed his officers and a few bands of fighting men. He gave the speech at the city-side frontier of the Shambles, within sight of the houses of the folk. Todd, though still feeling pain and nausea from Benharash’s blow, stood, head bandaged, firm-jawed at his brother’s side. His legs were weak, but he felt strength fast returning, fed by need and insult. Thurston said, “Today we lost a great man. Tomorrow we protect his great city.”
The crowd responded half-heartedly. “Yeah! Yeah! Beat LA! Beat LA!”
Thurston went on, “Slaughter and rape at dawn, that’s what the Yahoos expect: Don’t they ever learn? . . . ”
As his brother orated, mostly mocking his enemies with schoolyard jibs, Todd’s mind wandered back to the battlefield and his fight with the man he considered Irma’s seducer. He had no memory, nor could anyone account for, the ending of his fight. He assumed that Isoka, naturally a sadist, had brought him down with a blow and preferred to humiliate him by stripping his medals and leaving him alive. Todd burned with the desire for revenge. He burned with longing for Irma.
Thurston went on, “We attack before the first ray of sunshine. We camp here tonight.” He paused, then spoke softly. “Stay away from the civilians. All they’ll ask you is, how many sons and husbands were killed today. That’s how civilians think, so beware. Their sensitivities will weaken you, maybe cost you your life. After this battle--this must be the final battle—we will take an account of all who fell. The city will comfort and support their families. But that business is for another day. For now, to bed! Get what rest you can, for you have great feats to perform tomorrow.”
The crowd disbanded, silently falling away like drizzling rain. Many felt pity for Thurston Wentworth; they felt embarrassment for him, too. His speech was dry, staccato, and vague; he was nothing like his thoughtful brother. The unspoken consensus among the crowd was that he would not do. Those who had heard the speech lost heart. They would charge behind him tomorrow, for what else was there to do? That night, many militiamen pondered how to surrender on the field.
Only the Wentworths, Rollins, and Thurston’s two giant officers remained. Spicer ran in from the dark and stood beside Rollins, who looked shocked and displeased that the councilman would presume close proximity. The old man ignored the major’s scornful grunt and focused on Todd.
Spicer was beside himself with worry about Irma. His helplessness—for what could he do if even the Wentworths could not save her?—had driven him to prayer. Earlier, as he lay across his bed, hands folded in supplication, face torn with fear and trembling, he heard himself doing what he had always scorned others for doing: asking God to make two plus two equal five. Without so much as an amen, he stood and brushed himself off. This is not my way, he thought. My way is to rely on my wits, look for small opportunities and low-hanging fruit. And so, throughout the day, he had stayed at the gates to the Shambles, helped with the injured, and kept an ear out for anything about Irma or Todd (for he now felt great kinship with that destitute soul). When he saw Todd carried in, awash in the blood of his head wound, the councilman leapt to his friend and personally washed and bandaged him. He listened to Todd’s near-delirious rantings about Irma and the black devil, Isoka. He tried, without success, to convince the badly-injured young man to rest at least until the call to tomorrow’s battle.
As he stood with the Wentworths after the new chancellor’s speech, he kept a close eye on Todd, now his patient as well as his future nephew. Thurston put his hand on Todd’s shoulder. “So much for the stiff upper lip. Let’s go home; we have mourning to do.”
Todd asked, “Will you tell May? ”
“Yes, that falls to me.”
“I’ll be along soon.”
Thurston and his officers went off.
Spicer said to Todd, “What about Irma?”
“I’m going back to get her. Rollins, will you come with me?”
Spicer cried, “You can’t go there tonight!”
Rollins agreed, “He’s right, sir. They will have shored up their guard after your attacks on their camp.”
Todd grinned, “Come on, soldier, they’re drunken, dope-smoking oafs. You said yourself that they don’t have the discipline to guard their perimeter.”
Rollins shook his head. He knew that the viciousness of the day would become the tenor of the war. The Angelenos would now fight with a well-directed homicidal rage, and the defenders could never share their enemy’s appetite for barbarity. His tone was heavy with resignation, for he assumed he would die in the coming days. “Benharash is in charge now. He can and will protect that perimeter. I will not go tonight, and you have no right to.”
Todd blanched. “Excuse me? I do what I wish. And I’m going to take her back. Tonight!”
Spicer saw that Todd was willing to risk too much for himself without having a reasonable chance of success. He could not allow his only hope to waste himself. “Irma’s a tactical girl; she would advise would against this.”
Todd ignored Spicer. His only thought was to take back the woman he considered his wife. In a way, at that moment, he had achieved his goal: He had escaped the war. It remained, it had killed his brother and weakened the precipice on which his shaken city teetered, but he was in a passion and the war became merely a backdrop, an obstacle, like Isoka himself. He actually smiled, for he realized that he had salvaged something of his better self despite the all-encompassing maw of war. Calmly he said to Rollins, “You won’t come, then?”
“Tomorrow the troops need you. Tomorrow you must lead the battle.”
Spicer saw an argument to be added to his own. “He’s right. As one of the last of the Wentworths, you have no right to throw your life away. San Francisco depends on you.”
Todd stiffened. “I know my duty as well as any Wentworth. But it’s no sin to choose soul over social duty. First this. First, I want what is mine and what I love best.”
Seeing no empathy in any eye, Todd whirled around and headed into the Shambles. His walk was steady but slow, for his head throbbed with each step. Within seconds, he disappeared.
Spicer said to Rollins, “Go after him!”
“That way lies death. Nothing more.”
Without another word, Rollins turned and left. Spicer stood alone, mouth agape, mind reeling. Even the major will risk no more. When men like Rollins see only fruitless death ahead, hope is truly gone. Was our chance so slim that one man’s death ends our dream? We had only hoped to live, and now that seems too grand a goal. No one believes.
#
That night, Irma sat alone in Isoka’s home. Her eyes were pressed closed, and she had been crying. She had no idea where Isoka was; after coming back from the day in the field, he had been taciturn and asked to be left alone. He did not tell her about his fight with and mercy toward her Wentworth lover. So, on top of her guilt, fear, and solitude, she would have to imagine for herself what the day’s battle had decided. Irma knew nothing of the events with Benharash. She was ignorant of the soul-killing loss he had suffered or of his bloody new tactics. What she did know was that Isoka had survived the day, and San Francisco had, too. Had Todd? Would she ever know? Feelings she had never dreamt possible surged through her like a storm of despair. She wondered how, if she managed to survive, she would live with the pain of her losses, of family, home, and first love. Then the cold biological thirst for life reminded her that if she did survive, she would have Isoka. The ambassador would marry her; men were easy to read, and in her this one had stumbled onto something that he had never dreamt of. Nor had the diplomat ever dreamt of a desire so consuming. He would never let her go.
If Todd lived, he would come for her; even after Isoka had transported her back to Los Angeles, he would come. Irma knew she meant more to Todd than romantic love or sexual pyrotechnics. She was his first step away from the domination of his family, his unwanted duty to the city. Irma was, to Todd, beauty, comfort, and excitement--but above all, their love represented the actualization of his selfhood, the fusing together of the parts of his life. Even though he was not a great talker—Isoka had him beat by a mile in that field—he had said enough to paint a picture that Irma fully took in and had, when all was said and done, pulled close to her heart. His wooing and winning of her, particularly as it had happened away from his life in Lafayette Square, was a rite of passage, his own coming into being without any support. He would never let her go.
Irma decided that she did not have to worry about the devotion of the two men who suddenly loved her, the two men to whom she had now given herself in the only way she could: fully, transcendentally, and uninhibitedly. They would know her sexual abandon, know it was as much a part of her as her skin, and they would deduce that their rival, as well, had enjoyed her extraordinary and unconstrained appetites. But would they care? She thought not.
For now she knew that she was brave and resourceful. Previously, she had guessed as much, but now she had been tested and passed completely. She had kept her head in the tunnel, even though she expected the worst. Had she been raped she would have met the horror with steel, for Irma was determined to live, to grow and to make her terms with the world, even as grotesque as it was. She knew now that there was no obscuring or weakening film of misguided civility to blunt or undermine her determination to live. She knew, too, that Todd would see her growth and adore it, for he needed her to be inwardly directed. If Isoka paid her increasing emotional strength any notice, it would be only inasmuch as he felt obliged to reconnoiter her persona, part of the due diligence when trusting a person in whose presence a man in his position could sleep. She doubted the diplomat would give it much of a thought--beyond that she presented no threat.
A window shattered. Irma leapt in horror. Her horror increased as she saw Todd awkwardly climbing through the window. As he stumbled loudly to the floor, he put his finger to his lips. His face was flushed, red as fire. His eyes were wide. Red blood and yellow sweat stained the gauss bandage around his head. He said, “I've come for you.”
She stared mutely.
His hand beckoned her. He said, “We’re getting out of here.”
“Oh, my God!” cried Irma, with no sign of joy at her lover’s appearance.
Todd grabbed her arms. “You’ve been right to do what you’ve done. You survived. . . .” He began to kiss her face and throat.
“You idiot. What are you doing here?”
Todd ignored her and looked around the room. “Leave everything. We have to move quickly.”
Irma said emphatically, “He’ll come and he’ll kill you.” How clear did she have to be? Anger overwhelmed her. His clumsy risk-taking disgusted her.
“Irma, I know all about it. The other night, I heard, outside the window. It hurt me, enraged me, but today I realized why--”
“Get out of here, Todd!”
Todd was pleased to find himself so filled with love and not an iota of reproach. He saw Irma for what she was as she stood there, her cheeks filled with high color and her elegant nostrils flared: the kind of person whose will to survive would lead to the rebuilding of civilization. He grew tender. “Those days we had together changed my world. I know what we had--”
“Oh, for God’s sake. There’s no more room for that. Please, go away.”
Todd did not intend to ever go back, back to a life without her in his heart and in his bed. He said somewhat angrily, “Are you telling me you . . ?”
Irma cried, “You promised to survive!”
“You do love me, don’t--”
“Don’t you see? Oh, Todd, what have you done! He can’t be far. . . .”
Todd smiled. “You underestimate me.”
A door flew open and Isoka stepped into the room, fully armed and cold of eye. He aimed his Mosner at Todd. “She’s got it right!”
He looked between Todd and Irma, taking a moment to try to read them. He would take her on any grounds and they would live on his terms, but he wanted to know her heart. He knew that she would not allow him so articulate an intimacy that he would gain that precious knowledge. This moment of crisis would serve, he hoped, to unmask Irma’s well-guarded heart.
Irma closed her eyes. It was as though she had read his intent, and Isoka felt her closed eyes were the symbol of the life ahead. Feeling defeated, he shot Todd.
The searing pain and the stench of his own burning flesh mortified Todd. He thought, I am murdered, but not weakened. He took a gawky but firm step towards Isoka. Isoka shot him again. This shot, through his left lung, knocked Todd backward but not down. Slowly, his hand moved to the handle of his machete. With great effort, he pulled the steely blade nearly a third of the way out of its sheath.
Isoka sputtered, “Son of a bitch!” He raised his gun and braced his elbow with his other hand. He took great aim, for which Todd’s slow-motion aggression allowed time. Isoka held his breath, slowly squeezed the trigger, and shot Todd right between the eyes. Todd Wentworth froze. His face was burning and expressionless. He fell backward, dead.
Irma stood in the corner, her hands over her mouth. Her tear-filled eyes opened wide with horror. Isoka watched her dispassionately. “I won’t mind that you loved him,” he said. Irma stood erect, dropped her hands to her side. She closed her eyes. Isoka holstered his gun and looked down at the burnt blood that covered the floor. “Well, it doesn’t matter.” Effortlessly, he dragged Todd’s body outside. He came back in, took some wet towels, and got on his hands and knees to clean up the blood. All the while, Irma watched impassively, turning her head away when he tried to meet her eye.
Despite all the havoc, he took her that night. He was gentle; she was pliant. She even managed to climax. Afterwards, Isoka and Irma lay on the futon. She was under the covers; he, outside and naked. His long-muscled arm was wrapped around her. Fearfully, she kissed his hand.
Isoka’s thought drifted back to the battle. He tried to be cautious, but he could not talk himself out of believing that tomorrow would bring victory. He felt the calm that comes with the finalization of a great accomplishment. The Aqueduct and its surrounding geography would be safe. The conquest and even the siege had worked. They would finish tomorrow, of that he was sure. Now his greatest challenge would be to prevent excess, to keep his furious troops from shaming their victory with barbarous revenge. To prevent outrage, the vice mayor had taken advantage of Aslanian’s death and assigned the leadership of the advance guard to the diplomat. After the army entered the city, that fierce brigade, under Isoka’s charge, would police their own regular forces and protect the civilians from the most heinous acts of war. His mission was firm, and he would put his entire heart into the civilizing chore. His minded drifted back to the matters at hand. Aloud, he said, “You’ll like LA”
She managed to utter, “I’m sure.”
“You’ll be well received.”
“With all those beautiful girls, you might change your mind.” She knew this would not be true and for some reason thought it funny to have said it. Somewhat lightly, she said, “I’m just a battlefield lay.”
“No. That’s not how it is. You’ll see. We’ll have kids. You want kids, don’t you?”
“I miss a family.” A tear ran down her cheek. Irma Kout was not sure who she had become, but she was sure it was a thing that only two weeks ago she would have despised. The transformation of her circumstances had stripped away the values of a lifetime. She looked at her hand, saw the same hand she had always known. This, she thought, is what it is to be a total prisoner.
Isoka went on placidly, “After we mop up tomorrow, we’ll start working on it. A dozen kids if you want!”
“All right.”
#
Atop the roof of a dingy brick tenement, Spicer stood with his hands on the railing overlooking the windswept city. His bags were packed, his exit route picked. He took a brief last look down at his doomed city. Across San Francisco, women, children, the aged, and the maimed crowded the rooftops. The streets were empty except for dog packs. The mongrel bands sniffed warily through the streets they sensed were almost theirs. On the roofs, no one spoke, and the only sound was the irrational wind, blowing back and forth, swirling and stilling. Papers and dust eddied across the dismal town. Down the hill from Lafayette, crowded on the Van Ness clearing, thousands of soldiers swarmed, kicking up dust that blew back into the urban canyons, such as they were. In the distance, shadowed in the rising sun, Thaddeus and Todd’s naked bodies hung by their feet from a great tower that the Angelenos had freshly erected. The grizzly display had its intended effect: San Francisco despaired. Citizens, soldiers, and leadership felt the howling last hours of the siege. They had lost control of the tunnels and their chancellor was dead; the enemy had grown new fangs.
Amidst their society’s death throes, the soldiers of the San Francisco militia were filled with hatred, fear, and bravery. Men stood with one shoulder down, the other thrust forward as if to threaten a rage-filled attack. Thurston and Helen, fully armed, stood atop their mansion’s balcony, cheering on the crowd with waves, yells, and displays of past heroes. Helen had shorn her luxurious hair, put on a breastplate, and shown by firing accurately at the windows of her own house that she would be an asset in arms. Her war cries filled the crowd with a vicious ardor that would fuel much killing throughout the day.
Her strong arm holding out an assault laser, her teeth clenched in a pretense of fearlessness, Helen mumbled in an aside to Thurston, “Think a prayer.”
Thurston nodded. Like he, she was incapable of prayer, but if there was ever a time to think about praying, this was it. It was a joke between them as they stood on the gallows. They smiled at one another, exchanged a last high-five, and kissed. Then, with great war cries, they leapt over the balcony, to be caught by the crowd. Thurston and Helen were passed over the heads of the troops until they reached the front. Then, hands clasped and machetes raised, the Wentworth couple led their charging troops to the Shambles. Major Rollins ran at the Wentworth’s sides. He had promised himself not to live to see his city fall, not to die until before his enemies bled.
Spicer looked north, to the now-deserted Wentworth mansion. Out of the rows of high windows in that grimy and exhausted town manor, on all three floors, long white curtains waved in the wind. On the other side of those curtains, a placid Cordilia sat alone on the couch. Spicer could not see her and no one could hear her. She had never sat alone in any room in the house except her own. It was big and windy and she felt billowy.
The black sheep of the Wentworths sang,
Are you going to Scarborough Fair, parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme, and basil, and oregano, and dill?
She tried to remember all the herbs. Behind the madwoman, an open door led to the white tilled bathroom. Inside the window, May Wentworth, dressed in a blue evening dress, lay in the blood-red bath water. A straight razor sat on the edge of the tub.
And cumin, and summer savory, and onion salt, and tarragon, and curry powder, and . . .