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afternoon with Manny
Ginsburg himself.
Imagine, Jack  you've been granted an audience with the Pope!
Twenty minutes later Krakower appeared, accompanied by the eternally unctuous
Franz. As Martina looked on with seemingly genuine concern, Franz with a kind
of smarmy pity, the doctor inspected my infirmities. She removed the bandage
from my head wound, palpated my broken rib through the adhesive tape  This
might hurt a bit, she warned before sending me into paroxysms of pain  and
cheerily pronounced me fit to travel, though she wanted me back by sundown for
another checkup.
I got into the denim overalls I'd worn to work on Thursday: how far away that
Thursday seemed, how remote and unreal. Martina and Franz guided me through
the hospital lobby and across the park to the banks of a wide canal labeled
Jordan River
, its waters clean, clear, and redolent of some happy mixture of root beer and
maple syrup. Golden trout flashed beneath the surface like reflected
moonbeams.
Sparkling with fresh paint, a red gondola lay moored to the wharf. We got on
board. As my guardian poled us forward, pushing his oar into the sweet waters,
Martina briefed me on the intricacies of dealing with Manny Ginsburg.
To begin with, he's a year-rounder. Lives here all the time. For most
dissemblers, Martina elaborated, Satirev was a pied-a-terre, locus of the
periodic pilgrimages through which one renewed one's talent for mendacity,
whereas Pope Manny never left. It's made him a little nuts, she explained.
I'm not surprised, I said as an aquatic ferret leaped out of the Jordan and
snatched an unsuspecting polka-dotted frog from the shore.
Play up your devotion to your kid, Martina advised. How you'd move heaven and
earth to cure him.
And don't look the old man in the eye, said Franz. He hates directness.
My guardian landed us at a trim, sturdy, immaculately whitewashed dock, its
pilings decorated with ceramic replicas of pelicans and sea gulls. An equally
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clean and appealing structure rose from the shore
 a bait shack or possibly a fisherman's hut. A German shepherd lay on the
welcome mat, head bobbing in languid circles as he tracked a dragonfly.
The Holy See, said Martina, pointing.
It's a bait shack, I corrected her.
It's the Holy See, said Franz as he lashed his gondola to the dock.
Maybe we don't have the budget we'd like around here, said the dog, but it's
still the Holy See.
I didn't bat an eye. I was getting used to this sort of thing.
The door swished open on well-oiled hinges and a short, nervous, walleyed man
in his seventies ambled onto the dock wearing a brilliant white polyester suit
and a yarmulke. He told Martina and Franz to come back for me in an hour.
Care for a cup of fresh-perked coffee? asked Manny Ginsburg as he led me into
his one-room riverfront abode. The German shepherd followed, claws clicking on
the wooden floor. It's quite tasty.
Sure, I said, glancing around. Manny's shack was as spotless within as
without.
Pull up a chair.
There were no chairs. I sat on the rug.
I'm Zeke, by the way, said the dog, offering me his paw.
Jack Sperry, I said, shaking limb extremities with Zeke. You talk, I observed.
A bioelectronic implant, modifying my larynx.
Manny sidled into the kitchenette. Lifting a copper kettle from his kerosene
stove, he filled a pair of earthenware mugs with boiling water then added
heaping spoonfuls of Fran's Fairish Coffee Crystals.
You said fresh, I noted with Veritasian candor.
It's fresh to , said the Pope.
us
Want to hear a talking dog joke? Zeke inquired.
No, I replied, truthfully.
Oh, said the dog, evidently wounded by my frankness.
Manny returned from the kitchenette with a Coca-Cola tray bearing the coffee
mugs plus a cream pitcher and a canister marked
Salt
.
It's a sterile world up there. Sterile, stifling, spiritually depleting. Manny
set the tray beside me and rolled his eyes heavenward. And before long it will
all be ours. You doubt me? Listen  already we've placed twenty dissemblers in
the legislature. A person with our talents has no trouble getting elected.
You mean  you're going to conquer Veritas? I asked, making a point of not
looking Manny in the eye.
The Pope slammed his palms against his ears.
Please
.
Don't say 'conquer,' admonished the dog.
We're going to reform
Veritas, said Manny.
I fixed on the rug. Truth is beauty, your holiness. Splaying my fingers, I
ticked off a familiar litany. In the
Age of Lies, politicians misled, advertisers overstated, clerics exaggerated
Satirev's founders had nothing against telling the truth. Manny tapped his
yarmulke. But they hated their inability to do otherwise. Honesty without
choice, they said, is slavery with a smile. He pointed toward the ceiling
with his coffee mug. Truth above... He set his mug on the floor. Dignity
below. He chuckled softly. In Satirev, we opt for the latter. Do you like it
sweet?
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Dignity?
Coffee.
I
would like some sugar, matter of fact.
The Pope handed me the salt canister. I shook some grains into my palm and
licked. It was sugar.
My heart is broken, said Manny, laying a hand on his chest. I feel absolutely
devastated about your
Toby.
You do?
I'm crushed.
You don't even know him.
What you're doing is so noble
.
I think so too, said Zeke. And I'm only a dog.
Manny shook Satirevian salt into his coffee. I have just one question. Listen
carefully. Do you love your son?
That would depend on
I don't mean love him, I mean love him. Crazy, unconditional, non-Veritasian
love.
Surprisingly  to myself if not the Pope  I didn't have to think about my
answer. I love him, I
asserted. Crazy, unconditional, non-Veritasian love.
Then you're in, said Manny.
Congratulations, said the dog.
I must warn you  the treatment doesn't take in all cases. Manny sipped his
Fran's Fairish. I advise you to throw everything you've got into it, your very
soul, even if you're convinced you don't have one. Please don't look me in the
eye.
I turned away, uncertain whether to rejoice at being admitted or to brood over
the possibility of failure.
What are my chances, would you say?
First rate, said Manny.
Truly excellent, Zeke agreed.
I'd bet money on it, the Pope elaborated.
Of course, said the dog, we're probably lying.
* * *
On Sunday morning Martina and I hiked through the flurry of five-leaf clovers
outside the Center for
Creative Wellness and, reaching the top of the hill, placed a call to Arnold
Cook at his home in Locke
Borough. After claiming to be my wife, Martina told him I'd been diagnosed
with double pneumonia and wouldn't be coming to work for at least a week. Her
fabulation gave me a terrible headache and also, truth to tell, a kind of
sexual thrill.
The chief curator offered his qualified sympathy, and that was that. What a
marvelous tool, lying, so practical and uncomplicated. I was beginning to
understand its pervasive popularity in days gone by.
Together Martina and I strolled through the park, Franz hovering in the
background like an unwanted thought. She grasped my right hand; my fingers
became five erogenous zones. Today she would return to [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]