Skios

49

The screaming continues for some time after the shooting has ceased. By the time it has subsided, and people are beginning to emerge from where they have taken refuge behind pillars and under tables, the spotlights have been shot out to provide cover for the withdrawal of the more important business interests. The sheikh has also been extinguished, in this case by the bishop, who has wrapped him in his own robes, fireproofed against the candles used during the Orthodox liturgy, and the only illumination comes from the first faint moonshine and the few candles which have not yet guttered out or been knocked over in the panic.

When Dr. Norman Wilfred, or Oliver Fox as he has now in his state of shock reverted to being, gets up from the floor behind the table he finds the chairs in the darkness on either side of him empty; Mrs. Toppler and Mrs. Skorbatova have apparently been hurried away with their menfolk, together with the dead and wounded on both sides. Many of the other guests have fled as well. Some of those remaining are weeping or whimpering as they wander about in a state of post-traumatic shock, crunching broken glass underfoot, and falling into each other’s arms as they find their loved ones, or even their unloved ones, still alive.

Oliver recognizes one or two faces he had not expected to see looming up out of the darkness. Georgie … Annuka … As confused as everyone else, he wonders what they are doing here. Wasn’t Georgie coming tomorrow? Wasn’t Annuka remaining in London? Or had he heard a rumor that they were now living together somewhere?

Some of the people he knows seem to have been as unaware up to now of one another’s presence as he was of theirs, and a number of the predestined encounters do take place in one form or another. Everyone is too confused to be as surprised as they should have been, though, and the events have little of their expected force.

“I thought you were supposed to be giving the lecture, Wilfred?” says Georgie to a balding man who is distractedly trying to collect scattered pages of typescript. There is something that strikes Oliver as familiar about the name Wilfred, but he can’t remember what it is.

“Was I?” says Wilfred.

“Georgie?” says Nikki doubtfully. “So you’re here, then?”

“Nikki?” says Georgie likewise. “But you’re in Switzerland.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, and so are you,” says someone else to Georgie — a man Oliver remembers seeing somewhere once, a month or two before, who for some reason has the words “Happy Days” printed across his T-shirt.

“If I’m in Switzerland,” says Georgie, “why are you spying on me here?”

“Theta function,” says a little man in broken spectacles. “Lambda … phi…”

“Sixty-four euros,” say two bald-headed fat men suffering from warts. “Plus twenty-six euros’ waiting time.”

“Blood over my shirt!” says Annuka irritably. “A napkin, someone! Water! Oh, it’s from me. Someone fetch a dressing, please!”

There is a silence while Annuka dabs away at her shirt with her right hand, and bleeds onto it with her left.

Another man Oliver has never seen before is lying on the floor in T-shirt and skateboarding trousers, bulging in a hopeless, bloodstained kind of way. A strange creature is bending over him, holding a candle, and either feeling the victim’s pulse or robbing him. The creature’s lank gray hair falls around his face like some kind of mourning veil, and when he straightens up, his gaunt and wizened face in the candlelight reminds Oliver of a troll he once saw in a computer game. The creature gets to his feet and holds a small book aloft towards Oliver in a way that suggests silent accusation. For a moment Oliver believes it might be The Thoughts of Chairman Mao. He can see a picture of Chairman Mao’s face, but when the man brings book and candle threateningly closer, Oliver sees that the face is his own.

“Thank you,” he says. He takes his passport out of the troll-like creature’s hand and departs.