Home > Veil(7)

Veil(7)
Author: Eliot Peper

They looked up at the ramparts, which the torchlight just barely kissed.

“I feel you, brother,” said Vachan.

“I wouldn’t have admitted it then, but I had never been more scared than the day we arrived,” said Zia, remembering the disorientation of leaving everything and everyone she knew behind. She’d held back tears until her parents were out of view, then found a bathroom stall to sob in. She’d imagined that she was the only one, that the confidence her new classmates projected was sincere. The truth was many of them were in far worse shape than she was. Nobody had their shit together, least of all those who seemed to. Life was one big exercise in making things up as you went along.

“Second that,” said Kodjo.

“Toast.” Selai raised her glass, catching Zia’s eye as she did so and managing a similar feat of telepathy, with a similar message: time to sneak off for a sidebar. Whatever it was she had up her sleeve, Zia was about to find out. “May the wind fill our sails, the stars guide our voyage, and the bottles of rum never run dry.”

“I still can’t quite believe we’re all here,” said Aafreen.

“And it’s not even a wedding,” said Daniela.

“Or a funeral,” said Galang.

“To friendship,” said Zia. “Until death do us part.”

Memories swirled and glasses clinked.

 

 

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6

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Zia pulled her dress up and over her head in one smooth motion. Next to her, Selai did the same. Then off came the bras and underwear. No jewelry. Neither of them ever wore jewelry. They piled the clothes on top of their discarded flats and stared out into darkness.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” said Zia with a giddy laugh.

“I can’t believe we waited so long,” said Selai.

“Okay,” said Zia. If they waited any longer, she might chicken out. “Ready? One, two, three!”

A split second of free fall, then Zia hit the water.

It was so cold that it didn’t feel so at first. There was just the visceral shock of sudden submersion.

They both came up spluttering.

“My nipples could cut steel right now,” said Selai.

“You’re not in Fiji anymore,” said Zia.

“That’s for fucking sure.”

“I’ve had exactly the wrong amount of liquor—enough to make me do this but not enough to keep me warm.”

“Fucking glacier melt,” said Selai.

“Hey, at least there are still glaciers to melt,” said Zia. “Now, let’s get this over with before we succumb.”

Selai didn’t need to be told twice. She swam with the grace and power of an Olympic athlete. Kicking hard and gasping for breath, Zia followed in her wake.

Breath.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Breath.

Stroke. Stroke. Stroke.

Breath.

Stroke. Stroke—and then there was mud between her toes and algae-slick rock under her hands and they pulled themselves up onto the little island hidden among the reeds.

“Remember when we’d swim out here to smoke joints?” asked Selai as they sat back on the grass.

“You’d seal them in a plastic bag with a lighter and carry it between your teeth.”

“And you’d unleash those truly epic philosophical rants.”

“I had to do something,” said Zia. “Otherwise you’d melt my brain by taking us down another theoretical physics rabbit hole.”

“Nothing is sweeter than the memory of a misspent youth.”

“If you’re going to take up poetry, we really do need a joint.”

Selai snorted and threw an arm around Zia’s shoulders, scooting over so their bare sides and legs pressed together to share warmth. Where skin touched, they could feel each other’s goosebumps recede.

“How are you holding up, really?” asked Selai. “Not the cocktail party version. The DL.”

The standard anecdotes came to mind, the ready answers that would move the conversation along at a steady clip. And they were all accurate, or at least they used to be. But somehow, here, Zia couldn’t bring herself to voice them. It was as if all their narrative substance, everything that made them not only factual but also true, had been shed along with her clothes.

In a flash of terrifying clarity, Zia understood what it must be like for Natalia Lafourcade to play “Hasta la Raíz” at every stop on every tour, repeating a hit written so many years before because the audience wanted it so badly, wanted the way her singing it made them feel. Just because you outgrew your own work didn’t mean anyone else did. The better the work, the bigger the problem.

Across the water and up the hill, the chateau was bathed in torchlight. A few strands of Vivaldi twined through the chorus of frog song. Time thickened—as if the right word spoken in the right way might transport them across millennia.

“The DL”—Zia sighed—“is struggle city.”

“Yikes,” said Selai, shaking her hand as if she’d burned it. “That bad, huh? I’ve taken a few excursions there myself. Nasty neighborhood.”

“I almost didn’t come,” said Zia. “To the reunion, I mean. I was planning to, but then this asshole border guard swoops in and seizes our latest seed shipment. I had to go get it released.”

“Did you eat his soul, or merely rip his throat out?”

“Just made threats I didn’t want to have to make good on,” said Zia. “And luckily for him and me, he didn’t force the issue. But afterward, I felt… nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing,” said Zia. “Just tired. Tired of corrupt officials and prissy donors. Tired of systems just broken enough to keep chugging, regardless of who they hurt, as long as the people who benefit from the status quo oil the gears once in a while. Tired of breathing topsoil. And my deputy—Himmat—he saw it in me.”

“Smart kid,” said Selai. “Promote him.”

“You know what? I should,” said Zia.

Selai hugged Zia’s shoulder and rocked from side to side. “So, where do you go from here?”

Zia tore her eyes away from the glimmering fortress. She looked up to the constellations, brilliant without city glow to dull them, shining down through the thin alpine atmosphere, their light having traveled for aeons across the depths of space to gleam off the ring of snowcapped peaks that surrounded this remote valley. Interstice’s satellites were somewhere up there, falling, forever falling, around the planet whose denizens they stitched together into a single vast tribe.

“Fuck if I know,” said Zia. “But enough about me. You’ve kept me in suspense long enough. What’s this new project you’re so keen on?”

“It’s…” Selai paused, uncharacteristically shy. “It’s a bit of a weird one.”

Zia rolled her eyes theatrically. “After surviving this place, you earned a doctorate in physics from MIT. You identified the perpetrators of the Great Parmigiano-Reggiano Heist fourteen years after the crime took place. You built up so many millions of followers for your Gummy Bear World Tour stream that Haribo had no choice but to sponsor you. You swim like a goddamned otter. What does weird even mean to you, sweetheart?”

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