The Gilded Age Part 37

"You're not helping, Muse. What should I do?" Zhu wailed as her lover and the father of her child lay writhing on a cot. She hoisted him up every quarter of an hour and took him to the water closet down the hall where fluid gushed out of him again and again.

"Go get some paregoric," Muse advised. "The Snake Pharmacy carries it. But don't let him get his hands on it, it's got a bit of opium." And, "You may try a neurobic, Z. Wong."

The paregoric helped. The neurobic did him no good at all.

When he finally fell into a fitful sleep, she sat up wakeful, watchful, and considered the specter of the CTL looming all around her. Unstable, destabilizing, an unnatural consequence of tachyportation. She watched for those subtle changes in reality that appeared right before her eyes, proof that the CTL was affecting the timeline in ways no one could predict. And what about Zhu herself? She's become conscious within her own CTL. Will she eternally become conscious to face this h.e.l.l, die, be reborn in the future, and return to the past to face her death again and again, without end? Or maybe, because a CTL is unstable, will she be the one to die on the night of Tong Yan Sun Neen in Kelly's Saloon? Will she know it, the next time, that she's going to die?

Her throat aches and that's a fact. But then, she's picked up some kind of fever bug that her gene-tweaking can't protect her from.

"He needs nourishment through the blood," Muse whispered, suddenly helpful and kind. "His digestive system isn't working. He needs sugar, salts, fluids. Especially fluids. And a general nontoxic anodyne and restorative."

"Are you talking about aspirin?" Zhu said, sitting up.

"Safe synthetic aspirin is a decade away, but you can purchase powdered willow bark at one of the better pharmacies." Muse chuckles. "You knew that, Z. Wong, didn't you? That's what aspirin is. Willow bark."

The Snake Pharmacy did indeed stock powdered willow bark displayed in the front window where a rattlesnake coiled lazily around the merchandise. The rattlesnake is defanged, of course, but serves as an excellent deterrent against thievery.

Zhu boiled water, prepared a soup for the blood, rigged rubber tubing with Daniel's hypodermic needle, and constructed a crude intravenous apparatus. She cleaned the needle with isopropyl alcohol-also a chemical well in supply at the Snake Pharmacy.

She worked the mollie knife up Daniel's nostrils till the ruptured cartilage of his tortured septum healed. She ran the mollie knife up and down his arms where abscesses festered, and slowly the needle wounds healed.

Still he flailed on the cot, crying and groaning.

"Hush," Zhu whispered. "You're so much better now, Daniel. Hush."

"Go get him cigarettes," Muse advised. "They won't kill him, not for a couple of decades, anyway. Go on."

Zhu ran to the Devil's Acre Saloon on Tehama Street, fetched cigarettes.

Now she unlocks the three deadbolts-click, click, click-and steps into their room.

Daniel lies quietly on the cot where she left him, smoking.

"You look better."

He stares at the smoke spiraling up to the ceiling as if that image is like his spirit leaving his flesh.

"Eat something?"

The bowl of millet soup is cold, untouched.

"Drink something?"

Only half the orange juice is gone.

"Good." She swallows her disappointment and checks his pulse, touches his forehead, examines the insides of his arms.

He offers his limbs to her lifelessly.

"Daniel?"

He raises his eyes, dark pools whose depths are denied her. Have been denied her during these long, gray days, Something is broken inside him, and she doesn't know how to mend it. The mollie knife can't touch it, and neither can her love.

She sinks down onto the scuffed wood floor, sitting cross-legged, and begins to weep. For Wing Sing, for Daniel, for the little green-eyed boy she nearly beat to death six centuries in the future. She hasn't wept in years, not since summer camp when someone flew a lavender kite shaped like a fish and the sight reminded her so much of her faithless skipparents, she fled to her sleeping bag and sobbed herself to sleep.

His hand squeezes her shoulder, stronger than she thought possible. "Don't cry, my angel." These are his first coherent words since the night of Tong Yan Sun Neen. His face, when she looks up, is vibrant again, his eyes clear.

She wipes the tears from her eyes with the ball of her thumb, leaps to her feet. She wants to scold him, shout at him. It's all she can do to calm down after this miracle. "I'm no angel." She helps him back into bed, and he pulls her down onto the cot beside him, cradling her in the shelter of his arm.

"Of course you are. Who else but an angel would save the life of a sinner like me?" He reaches for his ciggie, draws down hard.

She swallows her complaint. Tobacco may actually be alleviating his dysentery. "You're not a sinner." A painful shudder she can only call joy squeezes her chest. And then she can't help herself. "But you still smoke too d.a.m.n much." She finds her Patent Dust Protector, pulls the mask over her face.

"Now what you doing?"

"I'm pregnant. I don't want to breathe your smoke."

"Oh, a little smoke won't hurt you."

She sits up, infuriated. "Your second-hand smoke can hurt me real bad. And it most certainly will harm the baby. Our baby."

He stubs the cigarette out at once, heaves a sigh. "And you know all this because you're from some fiendishly brilliant time in the future?"

"Well, yeah!"

He pulls her down beside him again. "All right. Still, a sinner I am, condemned to h.e.l.l. A failure like Father. I've got no head for business, I admit it. And, well, the drink and the dope got the best of me." He plants a tender kiss on her forehead. "I would surely be dead if it weren't for you."

They lie together for a while in silence, and then she says, "You haven't done so badly with your father's business. He left you with a mess in San Francisco. And you went in good faith to a man advertising himself as a doctor who prescribed cocaine as a health therapy. For dipsomania! It's crazy!"

"I most certainly have been a little crazy myself, miss." Now he s.h.i.+fts on the cot, turning toward her, his eyes urgent, filled with emotion. "I do apologize."

"Listen, Daniel. You've made some wrong decisions. It happens. But now you've got to start making right ones. I mean, look at your mother."

The minute she says that word, she regrets it, because his face twists with sudden sharp anger.

"Ah, my mother. Such a fine lady. An angel of purity and a wh.o.r.e. Do you know that when I went to London and Paris, I never wanted to see her face again? I was furious when Father summoned me home to watch her die. So beautiful, as always, her deep sea eyes beseeching me."

"Deep sea eyes?"

"Not emerald-green, like yours, my angel. Sea-green. And her question, always her question, even on her deathbed. 'Danny, haven't I been good to you? Haven't I always been good?' And I would always give the same answer. 'Yes, Mama. Of course, Mama.' By G.o.d!"

Zhu pulls the dust protector off, shakes her hair loose of the strap. "Wait a minute. I thought you understood why she took a lover. That your father beat her, aborted her baby. I thought you understood about her addiction. I thought you were angry with your father, not her."

"Oh, certainly, I cannot abide my father's self-righteousness, the morality he preaches, the sin he decries, all the while he was an adulterer and a bully. He ought to go to prison for what he's done. She suffered too much." He rubs his forehead, remembering. "But she? Quite the expert she became on booze and narcotics. When I was an unruly child, when I ran about too much or shouted too much or simply annoyed her, she knew just what dosage of soothing syrup to spoon-feed me. 'Time for your medicine, Danny,' she'd say. 'Am I not good to you?'"

"She gave you alcohol and morphine to sedate you when you were a kid?"

Daniel lurches up off the bed and unsteadily onto his feet, pacing around the tiny room. But he's up! He's moving! His pale face is flushed with anger, his eyes alive. "Ah-ha! Have we just put two and two together, you and I?" He paces past the bed, plants a kiss on her forehead. "My lovely lunatic. I suppose you could say I have been a dope fiend all my life, and that is the terrible truth." He lights another ciggie, forgetting her warning about second-hand smoke. "By G.o.d, I could use a drink."

"But you can't have one, Daniel."

"I know. But I could certainly use some fresh air. I'm stifling in this dive."

"Look," Zhu says, sitting up and peering out the window. "The sun has come out."

She needs to change her s.h.i.+rtwaist and skirt after her damp morning outing, he needs to change out of his nightclothes, so they tenderly help each other dress. Daniel is still weak and pale and much too thin, but he looks wonderful after Zhu b.u.t.tons him into the three-piece gabardine suit that Jessie brought over from Dupont Street. Zhu is eager to try on the new maternity dress Jessie brought her. Jessie also brought an undergarment called an abdominal corset constructed expressly to slim the profile of a pregnant woman. Zhu takes one look at the contraption, cups her hand to her belly, and says, "I'd rather look fat."

Daniel examines the abdominal corset with an avid look.

"No way, mister."

Zhu is nervous as they stroll downstairs, his arm around her shoulders, her arm around his waist. The stink of whiskey and beer is nearly overwhelming when they get down to the street.

"Daniel," she says warningly.

He glances hungrily at the celebrants, who have taken the sudden suns.h.i.+ne as a portent that must be toasted with renewed vigor. Cries ring out, "Gah! A rainbow, sir! I do believe I see 'un!" Guffaws and shouts, "Have another shot o' the Irish, mate!" Daniel licks his lips, loosens his collar. Despite the chilly spring air, sweat trickles down his temple.

Zhu takes him by his shoulders and shakes him. "Daniel, you wanted to make moving pictures. You wanted to be the first. Well, you're not the first, but you can still make moving pictures. Plenty of moving pictures. But you'll never fulfill your dream if you drink yourself to death by the time you're twenty-two."

A gentleman staggers into them, raising his shot gla.s.s. "To your health, boy!"

"Daniel, are you listening?"

"Why the devil did you bring me out here? It's an orgy!"

"You said you wanted fresh air."

"This air is hardly fresh."

"Take him to Woodward's Gardens," Muse whispers just over their heads. "There you'll find some fresh air."

Daniel grins, disbelief and wonder warring in his face. "My dear lovely lunatic. Still the voices? And all along I thought it was the drink and the dope and my imagination."

"That's not a hallucination," Zhu says, "that's my guardian angel. Right, Muse?"

"I am indeed her guardian angel," the monitor says, sounding pleased with the charade. "Not that she deserves me."

They take the steam train to Mission and Fourteenth where Woodward's Gardens stretches over several city blocks from Thirteenth Street to Fifteenth, Mission to Valencia. Zhu claps her hands with delight at the grand entrance, the snapping flags, banks of ivy spilling over the wrought iron fence, colorful posters announcing events and attractions. She and Daniel enter a lush labyrinth, stroll along meandering paths amid little lakes and tumbling streams, admire sculptures, fountains, and monuments, visit the gla.s.s-paned conservatory with its tropical flowers and trees, tour the art museum where Virgil Williams, founder of the School of Design, has hung a new exhibition. The former residence of Mr. Woodward, who made his fortune during the Gold Rush with a hotel called What Cheer House, now shelters a natural history museum. Zhu is amazed by the zoological garden, which boasts small but nicely appointed cages and yards for curious lamas, shy deer, shouting peac.o.c.ks, twittering South American birds with wings of emerald, ruby, and gold. California sea lions cavort and beg for raw fish at the seal pond.

"I've never seen anything like it," she exclaims. "It's like some trillionaire's private preserve under a dome. I'm amazed the public is allowed in."

"Of course the public is allowed in," Daniel says. "Why wouldn't they be?" He gives her a skeptical glance. "Are you telling me that six hundred years in the future people won't have amus.e.m.e.nt parks anymore? How very dull!"

"Oh, we have disneylands and playplexes and metaworlds. Plenty of zoos in teles.p.a.ce for the ma.s.ses to jack into. When I was a kid, I used to think dinosaurs and dodos shared American forests with elephants and lynxes at the turn of the millennium and how lucky people were to actually see them." At his puzzled look, she adds, "It was a cheap virtual zoo that didn't distinguish between extinct species and living ones or which epochs and habitats they lived in. Or maybe I just wasn't paying attention." She sniffs the air, which smells like new-mown gra.s.s and eucalyptus leaves. "But nothing like this, real live animals. Only the very rich and very rich private foundations like the Luxon Inst.i.tute for Superluminal Applications can afford to maintain live animals in their natural habitats. New Golden Gate Preserve is one such habitat in San Francisco and, no, the public isn't allowed in."

"Then you have become very rich being here with me."

"So I have." Her heart clenches with joy at his words, and she flings her arms around him. They stand embracing in the fresh air amid the beauty of the gardens. She summons the monitor. "Muse, does this beautiful place last a long time?"

Muse searches the Archives, posts a file in Zhu's peripheral vision. "Woodward's Gardens will be torn down five years from now, at the turn of this century. The site will be paved over and filled in with industrial warehouses and low-cost multifamily housing. Where the grand entrance stands now will be the on-ramp to a major elevated freeway. In the earthquake of 2129, the elevation will collapse, killing two thousand commuters at the height of the rush hour. In 2254--"

"Muse off," Zhu says, unexpected tears welling. "I don't want to hear any more."

Daniel takes her hand. He's somber and pale. "By G.o.d, is the future really that terrible?"

"You're beginning to believe me?"

His hand trembles in hers. "How can you bear it?"

"We bear it because we must. Oh, listen!" She doesn't want to see him sink into depression again on account of her tall tales. "Listen." In the distance, a pipe organ strikes up a lively tune. "Let's go see."

They stroll up to a stage set inside of a cage just outside the zoological gardens, the back wall equipped with a door leading to another cage inside the zoo proper. A dapper fellow in tails and a top hat steps onstage, equipped with a riding crop and bucket of chopped apples. "Ladies and gentlemen-ah, we now-ah present Woodward's famous dancing bears-ah!"

The back door rattles open and four sizeable brown bears amble out onto the stage. Each bear wears a silly hat and a costume. Zhu spies a bellboy's cap and a necktie; a sailor's cap and a life preserver; a lady's straw boater and an ap.r.o.n; a lace bonnet and a ballerina's tutu.

"Hah, hup, hup, hup!" shouts the dapper fellow, slapping his crop but mostly tossing apple chunks which the bears catch in their jaws.

The bears whirl, roll over, climb up onto pedestals, stand up on their hind legs, paws batting the air, and turn slow shuffling pirouettes. They snuffle and bleat with strange goatlike cries, bend and lunge.

With each burst of applause, the dapper fellow winks and sends his performers into another frenzy of gesticulation and posture. "Woodward's dancing bears-ah!"

"That's probably bear abuse," Zhu says, enchanted, "but I don't care."

Daniel laughs, a welcome sound. "Bear abuse? I suppose now you're going to tell me that people in future worry about whether bears have feelings."

"Not just whether bears have feelings, but whether they're happy."

"By G.o.d," he murmurs, "I feel just like that fellow in the bellboy's cap."

"Muse," Zhu whispers, suddenly inspired. "Shoot a holoid of this. Do it for him. Can you do it?"

Alphanumerics flicker in her peripheral vision.

But as they watch Woodward's bears dance, Daniel's smile fades and a wistful mood falls over him. That awful wooden look steals over his face, and his eyes seem to sink, their surface icing over. His hand grows cold in hers.

"Daniel," she says gaily, "you've gotten much too thin. I'm gonna buy you a squarer, and d.a.m.n the cholesterol. I know how much you love sauteed oysters."

"No, no," he mutters, distracted. Distant. "I'm not hungry, miss."

"Oh, but you haven't had oysters in such a long time. Come, let's picnic down by the lake. Anyway, I want to show you something lovely and amazing."

She takes his hand and firmly leads him to a bench set along the path, sits him down. Has she pushed him too far today? Well, he's got to eat. She hurries to a food stall staffed by a hardy Chinese cook with a huge smile and a quick intelligence sparkling in his dark eyes.

"Could you make me an oyster loaf, please?" She hands him a silver bit.