Page 230
Not an hour would have gone by, her body grown cold in my embrace, before I would have followed her from this world. That, too, was part of my design. I would take the last pills, the ones I’d saved for myself, and slip away in silence, so that together we would be bound eternally to each other and to an invincible universe. My resolve was implacable, my thoughts lucid as ice. I possessed not an iota of doubt. Thus at the anointed hour of our rendezvous I took my position at the kiosk, waiting for my angel to appear. In my suitcase, the instruments of our mortal deliverance slept like stones. Little did I know that this was but a foretaste of the wider ruin—that the hurrying travelers flowing around me possessed no inkling that death’s prince stood among them.
Thrice have I been fathered; thrice betrayed. I will have satisfaction.
You, Amy, have dared to love, as once I did. You are hope’s deluded champion, as I am sworn to be its enemy. I am the voice, the hand, the pitiless agent of truth, which is the truth of nothing. We were, each of us, made by a madman; from his design we forked like roads in a dark wood. It has ever been thus, since the materials of life assembled and crawled from nature’s muck.
Your band approaches; the time grows sweeter by the hour. I know that he is with you, Amy. How could he fail to stand at your side, the man who made you human?
Come to me, Amy. Come to me, Peter.
Come to me, come to me, come to me.
* * *
82
It emerged like a vision, the great city, soaring from the sea like a castle or some vast holy relic. A ruin of staggering dimensions: it boggled the senses, its scope too massive to hold in the mind. The morning sun, low, slanting, blazed off the faces of the towers, ricocheting from the glass like bullets.
Peter joined Amy at the bow. She seemed almost preternaturally calm; a profound intensity radiated off her like heat from a stove. Minute by minute the metropolis loomed higher.
“Good God, it’s enormous,” Peter said.
She nodded, though this was only half the truth. Fanning’s presence saturated the city. It was as if a background hum she’d been hearing all her life, so omnipresent as to be barely noticeable, were increasing in volume. She felt a heaviness. That was the only word. A terrible exhausted heaviness with everything.
They had decided to come in from the west. On tepid air they sailed up the Hudson, searching for a place to dock. Daylight was everything; they needed to move quickly. The tide was strong, pushing against them like an invisible hand.
“Michael…”
He was working the lines and tiller, seeking to harness any breath of wind. “I know.”
The river was dark as ink; its force was immense. The day turned toward afternoon. At times they seemed stopped cold.
“This is impossible,” said Michael.
By the time they found a place to tie off, it was four o’clock. Clouds had moved in from the south; the air was sultry, smelling of decay. Four, perhaps five hours of daylight remained. From the cabin, Michael retrieved the backpack of explosives, as well as a long spool of cable and the detonator, a wooden box with a plunger. It seemed primitive, but that was the point, he explained. The simple things were always the most reliable, and there would be no second chances to get this right. In the cockpit, they armed themselves and reviewed the plan a final time.
“Make no mistake,” Alicia said, “this island is a deathtrap. It gets dark, we’re done.”
They disembarked. They were in the West Twenties. The roadway was choked with the skeletons of cars; glassless windows stared at them like the mouths of caves. Here they would diverge, Michael and Lish south to Astor Place, Peter and Amy across midtown to Grand Central. Michael had fashioned a crude crutch for Alicia from a boat oar.
“Sixty minutes,” Peter said. “Good luck.”
They parted cleanly, no goodbyes.
—
Peter and Amy walked north along Fifth Avenue. Block by block, the vertical core of the city rose, fashioning narrow fjords between the buildings. In places the pavement was buckled with the roots of trees, in others collapsed into craters that varied in size from a few yards to the width of the street, forcing them to creep along the edge. As they moved up the island, Peter took note of the landmarks: the Empire State, dizzyingly tall, like a single imperious finger pointing to the sky; the Chrysler Building, with its curved crown of burnished metal; the library, sheathed in a feathery cloak of vines, its broad front steps guarded by a pair of pedestaled lions. At the corner of Forty-second and Fifth, the half-constructed tower Alicia had described came into view. The exposed girders of its upper floors possessed a reddish appearance—the product of decades of slow oxidation. An exterior elevator ascended to the top of the structure; from there, the crane rose another ten or fifteen stories, its horizontal boom parallel to the building’s west flank, high above Fifth Avenue.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230 (Reading here)
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233
- Page 234
- Page 235
- Page 236
- Page 237
- Page 238
- Page 239
- Page 240
- Page 241
- Page 242
- Page 243
- Page 244
- Page 245
- Page 246
- Page 247
- Page 248
- Page 249
- Page 250
- Page 251
- Page 252
- Page 253
- Page 254
- Page 255
- Page 256
- Page 257
- Page 258
- Page 259
- Page 260
- Page 261
- Page 262
- Page 263
- Page 264
- Page 265
- Page 266
- Page 267
- Page 268
- Page 269
- Page 270
- Page 271
- Page 272
- Page 273
- Page 274
- Page 275
- Page 276
- Page 277
- Page 278
- Page 279
- Page 280
- Page 281
- Page 282
- Page 283
- Page 284
- Page 285
- Page 286