Fury

The banker paused gravely. He was a small, bony man, kind-faced, bright-eyed. “That is very well said, and the speed is impressive too,” he commented. “And because you have repeated it five times without a mistake, I will answer five questions, if you wish to ask them.”

Where are you going? “I am going in search of knowledge and if possible of peace.” Why aren’t you wearing your office suit? “Because I have given up my employment.” Why is Mrs. Venkat crying? “That is a question for her.” When are you coming back? “This step, Malik, is once and for all.” What about Chandra? “He will understand one day.” Don’t you care about us anymore? “That is the sixth question. Over the limit. Be a good child now. Be a good friend to your friend.” Malik Solanka remembered his mother trying, after Mr. Venkat went away down the hill, to explain the philosophy of the sanyasi, of a man’s decision to give up all possessions and worldly co

When a man without faith mimicked the choices of the faithful, the result was likely to be both vulgar and inept. Professor Malik Solanka do

He awoke in his bed-fully dressed, again, with strong drink on his breath-without knowing how or when he’d reached it. With consciousness came fear of himself. Another night unaccounted for. Another blank snowstorm in the videotape. But as before there was no blood on his hands or clothes, no weapon on his person, not so much as a concrete lump. He lurched upright, grabbed the zapper and found the tail end of the local news on TV. Nothing about a Concrete Killer or a Panama Hat Man or a privileged beauty done to death. No breaking of a living doll. He fell back across the bed, breathing hard and fast. Then, kicking off his street shoes, he pulled the covers over his aching head.

He recognized this funk. Long ago in a Cambridge hostel he had been unable to rise and face his new undergraduate existence. Now as then, panic and demons rushed in at him from every side. He was vulnerable to demons. He heard their bat-wings flapping by his ears, felt their goblin fingers twining around his ankles to pull him down to that hell in which he didn’t believe but which kept cropping up in his language, in his emotions, in the part of him that was not his to control. That growing part of him that was ru

This wasn’t it, Solanka told himself feverishly. This wasn’t the story that had brought him all this way! Not this Jekyll and Hyde melodrama, a saga of a lower order entirely. There was no Gothic strain in the architecture of his life, no mad scientist’s laboratory, no bubbling retorts, no gulped potion of demonic metamorphosis. Yet the fear, the funk, would not leave him. He drew the covers down more tightly over his head. He could smell the street on his clothes. There was no evidence linking him to any crime. Nor was he under investigation for anything at all. How many men, in an average Manhattan summer, wore Panama hats? Hundreds, at least? Why, then, was he tormenting himself so? Because if the knife was possible, so was this. And then the circumstances: three failures of nocturnal memory, three dead women. This was the conjunction that required his silence as absolutely as the knife in the dark but which he could not hide from himself. Also that stream of obscenities unknowingly spoken in Cafe Mozart. Not enough for any court to convict, but he was his own judge, and the jury was out.

Blearily, he dialed a number and waited through the interminable mechanized-voice preliminaries to receive his voice mail. You have one!—new message.—The following—one!—new message—has NOT been heard.—First message. Then came Eleanor’s voice, with which long ago he fell in love. “Malik, you say you want to forget yourself. I say you have already forgotten yourself. You say you don’t want to be ruled by your anger. I say your anger has never ruled you more. I remember you though you have forgotten me. I remember you before that doll screwed up our lives: you used to be interested in everything. I loved that. I remember your gaiety, your terrible singing, your fu

He made himself get up, stripped and showered. He was brewing coffee in the kitchen when he realized that the apartment was empty. Yet it was one of Wislawa’s days. Why wasn’t she here? Solanka dialed her number. “Yes?” It was her voice all right. “Wislawa?” he demanded. “Professor Solanka. Aren’t you supposed to be working today?” There was a long pause. “Professor?” said Wislawa’s voice, sounding timid and small. “You do not remember?” He felt his body temperature dropping rapidly. “What? Remember what?” Now Wislawa’s voice grew tearful. “Professor, you fire me. You fire me, for what? For nothing. Of course you remember. And the words. Such words from an educated man, I never heard. After this, it’s over for me. Even now that you call to ask me, I ca