Brian Aldiss's contribution to this special issue is a fine addition to the superior fiction he has published in F&SF since 1958: stories such as "Poor Little Warrior" (1958), "Hothouse" (1961), "The Saliva Tree" (1965) and "Enemies of the System" (1978). His most recent novel is HELL1CON1A SPRING (Atheneum), which is a number one best-seller in England.

Door Slams In Fourth World

BY BRIAN W. ALDISS

They flew to Frankfurt by the July plane.

Officials in green dungarees filled the airport, far outnumbering travelers. The officials were German and Chinese, and seemed completely uninterested in the three visitors, or in their baggage, their passports, their antanthrax certificates. They stood almost unmoving as the visitors shuf­fled by. The heat sealed off the world of action behind plate glass.

"No air conditioning. I warned you," Hemingway said triumphantly to his two companions. "It's gonna be rough!"

The hectares of car park were deserted. Their yellow directional signs, printed on the asphalt in or­thogonal lettering, were ideographs of an extinct culture.

"…'All the pomp of yesterday is one with Niveveh and Ur,' " quoted Mirbar Azurianan, with relish. This desolation they had journeyed all the way from Detroit to see. There was some rebuilding going on, but no workmen moved among the scaf­folding.

Mirbar Azurianan was large, burly, bearded like his Armenian ancestors, and, in his early thirties, already run­ning to fat. Under his loosely flapping shirt, his stomach swung before him, imitating the movements of the pack dangling over one shoulder. He wore a large leather hat, considered suitable for travel in the Fourth World. Beneath its brim, his heavy young face was pas­ty. His blue eyes darted nervously across the European distances.

Azurianan's size and presence pro­claimed him the most important per­sonage of the three-person company. Jeremy Hemingway and his silent wife, Peggy, walked behind him, like mere appendages. They looked at him more often than he glanced at them.

They came to a kiosk labeled IN­FORMATION. A Chinese attendant directed them to a cab rank. Obedient­ly, they traversed hot tarmac to where a thin line of people stood, emitting the squarking noise common to tourists visiting less favored parts of the world.

Battered BMWs with biogas envelopes lashed to their roofs drew up and bore the travelers away. Azurianan and the Hemingways climb­ed into a vehicle with a German driver. He stowed their luggage in the boot. Beside the steering wheel on the dash was his photograph, with a notice assuring passengers in the four interna­tional languages that he was a morally irreproachable person.

Soon they were rolling through a complex of feed roads and major routes which had hardly been repaired since the day the twentieth century died, back in the nineteen-eighties. The pattern of autobahns held no more meaning than the autobahns overhead, where zeepees rode the energy zone above Earth.

"Well, here's what we paid for — local color. They sure got local color here," Hemingway said, gazing out at the drained landscape. Hemingway was making one of his attempts to be expansive, slapping his knee as he spoke. His wife said nothing. She sat limply under her pale linen hat, under her pale linen suit, staring at nothing.

"Wie viele kilometer nach Würz-burg?" Azurianan asked the driver.

"Nur ein hundert."

"What did you say?" Hemingway asked the psychoanalyst.

Must you deliver yourself up to him continually, in every small detail? Could you not have guessed that hundert meant hundred — or else held your tongue? The simplest remark you make betrays the kind of jerk you are.

Hemingway spent most of the slow journey flicking through his guide book, announcing all the sights they might visit in Würzburg. The two that particularly excited him — as he had informed them on the airship over — were Cologne cathedral and Milan railway station.

"The Chinese are doing a fantastic job on rehabilitating Europe. They're short on materials, they're short on energy, they're short on just about everything, and how do they manage it? Why, the way they always got by in the past — by teamwork. Teamwork, yeah. They're a great nation, a great nation, and I hand it to them. A great nation, no doubt about that. Eh, Mir-bar?"

"They're a great nation," Azurianan said.

Not one hundred percent satisfied with this level of response, Hem­ingway turned to his wife.

"They're a great nation, don't you think, Peggy? The way they came right into the Fourth World when everyone else was scared off by anthrax, right?"

"Mmm."

"You still got your headache?" He wrinkled his eyes to look better at her.

"It's on the mend." She turned her dark and heavily lashed eyes to stare out of the window.

"That's good. We're really on vaca­tion now, really — on — vacation. Yeah, no shirking now." He laughed, did a little swagger with head and shoulders. "Got to go through with it now."

She did not laugh, though a ghost of a smile was conjured about her lips. Azurianan looked at her, grinning sympathetically. "We'll get you a drink and one of your pills as soon as we're in the hotel, Peggy, don't worry."

"I'll be okay, thanks. Just don't bug me."

You will never possess me as you possess Hem. I know that at the back of all this is your desire to possess me utterly — no, not for my sake, but merely in order to destroy Hem more entirely. I know that you cannot be deflected, and that your desires rule your world like lines of latitude. But my fear is at least equal to your obses­sions, thank God.

He leaned forward and clutched her narrow waist, saying, "Sure you'll be okay. I'll see to that. And don't let Jeremy get you down. He's just ex­cited, and that's absolutely right and proper. Fourth World's big stuff."

A pulse throbbed under her zygomatic arch.

A number of barriers were stag­gered across the road as they entered Würzburg. The BMW trailed behind ancient trucks loaded with hay. Smoke lay heavy ahead, tinting the sunlight with lead. They stopped at several guard posts while their papers were ex­amined. Würzburg was more difficult to get into than Europe. Each German soldier was doubled by a Chinese; the Germans looked amateurish and unsmart, the Chinese correct, unflustered. Ahead, they glimpsed the Arc de Triumph, still unfinished.

"We're here," Hemingway said, and he read off a large notice, lettered in the four international languages, Chinese, Arabic, German and English, " 'Welcome to Premier Tourist Center of Fourth World. Welcome to Würz­burg, the Home of the Equator of the White Sausage'. Now what do you im­agine that happens to mean, eh?"

A smiling young Chinese stuck his face though the open window of the automobile and said, "You have been allocated to the Hotel of Fourth World Peoples, nearby to the Residenz. We hope you will have a happy vacation there." He handed the driver a docket.

Hemingway began to search in his Fodor for the hotel. He read off a list of symbols to the others. "No pets. Telephone. Bar. Goldfish pond. Goldfish pond! Swim Pool. Sun Lounge. No Nudity. I've heard it said they're pretty puritanical in China and the Fourth World. I guess a bit of sex is allowed in the bedrooms." He laughed and nudged his wife. "Vacation, eh, Peggy. I guess a bit of sex is allowed in the bedrooms."

"What does it say in your guide book on the subject?"

No Nudity meant she would be spared the sight of Mirbar Azurianan naked, lying luxuriously, his smooth brown body with its heavy belly and dark penis trailing, the yellowy soles of his feet. He was a man who stripped naked whenever conditions permitted; one of his basic assumptions in life was that nobody could mind anything he did. If they did mind, then it was time their particular phobia was examined fairly rigorously.

The Hotel of Fourth World Peoples was a two-story building practical and inelegant, built in front of the Residenz in what had once been a coach park. Two Chinese army lorries were parked there. Nobody was about. Inside the building, it was similarly deserted. It seemed that no one else was delegated to visit the hotel at present. Carp turn­ed lazily in a concrete pond set in the floor perilously near the reception desk.

A woman clerk with short hair came and registered them. She had a way of looking at their mouths instead of their eyes when speaking. Her own mouth was crushed against her face, as if distorted by social pressures.

After the hectic traffics and tartan wallpapers of Detroit's hotels, the Würzburg hotel was like a dried gourd, its walls badly distempered, its carpets thin, its perspectives tinny. There were no potted plants.

As if she read their minds, the crushed woman said, when locking their doors, "We hope you will be hap­py here, and apologize if conditions in the Fourth World are not as you are ac­customed at home."

"It'll be all right," Peggy Hem­ingway said, smiling at her. The smile she received back was perfunctory.

Hemingway ran right in and check­ed the toilet and shower, to see if water flowed. His wife stood in the middle of the room; she removed her hat and let her rich dark hair escape. He bumped into her as he emerged from the bathroom, laughing.

"Grab a look at the plumbing… Place sure has character!"

"I was thinking how little character...."

"You know what I mean." As he tried out the bed, she moved over to the window, pushed it open and stepped onto a shallow balcony. Below lay a paved area, trapped be­tween three sides of the hotel and, in the middle of the paved area, a swim­ming pool. Three women and a man lay as if dead by the side of the pool. The water was almost without ripple. Down its length, it reflected a cable which ran overhead, making it resem­ble a big, enigmatic parcel, treacherously wrapped in gangrene-colored foil.

A man passed on the far side of the pool, walking briskly, ignoring the recumbent forms, and went into the hotel. He glanced up at Peggy Hemingway as he went, one expert appraising glance, taking her in from eyebrows to ankles. He was dark, sharp-faced. His suit was light and as uncrumpled as the surface of the pool. Something in his stride set him apart from anyone else in the hotel. She was immediately curious about him. 

He's an interloper, too. He doesn't belong … We none of us belong, to be honest, but at least I realise that. There is nowhere I belong, even within myself. Perhaps it'll be easier for me here in the Fourth World than any­where; the disaster has happened, and pretending otherwise can't be managed … If only it wasn't for Hem, making an obscenity over testing out — pretending to test out — pretending to be enjoying testing out — the bed… Why this constant pretense? Was it originally his fault or mine?

"Go and look see how Mirbar is making out, Hem," she said. "I'll check the natives aren't stealing our baggage."

Both her sentences were designed to evoke a needed response from him. As he marched down the ocher corridor whistling "Hail to the Chief," she whispered downstairs like a ghost. The reception hall was empty. Viewing it again as she descended the last steps, she saw its ugliness. An electrician knelt in a corner by the desk, trying to prize up marble tiles with a screw­driver.

The man she had observed in the pool area was standing looking at a small exhibition beside a drinks bar. The bar was closed. The man stood with his arms folded judiciously regarding the objects on the wall. She got the impression of someone poised for flight. He was conspicuously neat and cool. 
Anxious lest he disappear, she went straight over to him and said the first thing that came into her head. "Are you the manager?"

He turned to scrutinize her. She saw she was recognized. The girl on the balcony. Her mistake had been to take his rapid walk for that of an outgoing man. This stranger was deep­ly sorrowful; the lean planes of his face were so set in melancholy that she was shocked into losing her own smile.

"I'm not the manager, no. You might think I was one of the mis-managers." He spoke in a light, ac­cented English, gesturing as he did so at the exhibition on the wall.

She did not understand. Her casual glance at what he indicated became a stare. The exhibition, mounted near the bar so that none could miss it, was entitled

ISLAMIC ATROCITIES

In photographs and crudely blown-up newsprint, it showed a few details of the Islamic strike against Israel and Europe, the present Fourth World. Most of the stills of dead cities — Rome, Bonn, Strasburg, Amsterdam — were familiar to her, as were the pic­tures of dead animals. The centerpiece of the exhibit was a mummified corpse  of an eight-year-old child. It was at this that Peggy fixed her gaze. The child was parceled in glass. It still wore some shreds of clothes. Its toes were curled up in an agony which death had frozen rather than releasing.

Oh, Rachel, Rachel, it was so sud­den. I'll never forgive myself about Patricia, never, never, that I swear — or Hem either, the bastard… It was all so sudden, the way they struck. They'd learnt from us, from the Israelis. First bombs, then chemicals, then random anthrax strikes … When are we ever going to break these endless cycles of retribution …

Only when he turned as if dismiss­ed did she recall there was some shadow in which she still felt need for human contact.

"I didn't understand your meaning."

"It's my improper speech of English. Excuse me." He bent the full melancholy force of his attention on her. "I know we must not expect justice, but I am sad for this heading where we read, 'Islamic Atrocities.' It was not all of the Islamic World that brought destruction to the Fourth World." When she still looked blank, he said, "Madam, forgive me, I speak without heed because I am troubled all the while here. I am a Saudi. From Saudi-Arabia, you know? Our king­dom always stood out against the European jihad."

"It was the effect of this dead child

"Although I am not the manager, we might use his office, if you care to sit down and talk. Come along, please."

She walked beside him, trying to deal with the shadows of the past and those of the present. He exuded a faint aroma of eau de cologne. She had never encountered an Arab before. Should she admit that she was born Israeli, and was American only by marriage? Why was she walking meek­ly with him, following him as for years she had followed Jeremy Hemingway?

Patricia, I swear I loved you — love you still. I just could not cope with so much grief. It's always with me … And Hem, too, I guess…

In the office, empty of people and very nearly empty of furniture, she sat down. The Saudi brought her a glass and poured into it a measure of red wine. He poured himself a similar glass, raising it to his lips without tasting.

"Your health," she said automatically. His name, he told her, was Fahd al-Moghrabi. He was here on reconstruction work, advising the Chinese. He traveled all over the Fourth World, from conference to con­ference. His profession, he said with a smile, was really communication.

If only someone invented a way of true communication between humans … Since I failed you, dear child, I am stricken silent. What can I possibly do, except give myself to him?

Looking searchingly at her, al-Moghrabi said, "Saudi-Arabia does ad­vise the Chinese continually, and give them financial aid. We mediate between them and the rest of the Arab world. You may have observed that the new airport at Frankfurt, although it appears in material aspect a traditional Commu­nist Chinese construction, faces towards Mecca and has a religious environment for the convenience of pilgrims."

"We only just got here."

"You are with a party?"

"Yes."

"But otherwise you are on your own?"

"…Yes."

"That is a disgrace for such a beau­tiful lady." The sad sensuous eyes re­garded her, as much in sympathy as calculation. "Would you do me the honor of dining with me this evening? I don't mean here, in this hotel. I will drive you somewhere tolerable."

"I'd like that. My name. You don't even know my name. My name is Peg­gy Schmidt."

"Schmidt? But you are American, isn't it?"

"Yes."

There could just be a time for con­fessions this evening, feller, if you play your cards right. I could do with a good cry. And a good screw. Thank God he doesn't drink — that's a prom­ising sign, it really is.

They spend the afternoon doing the sights. Smoke hung heavily over the city. The Chinese nourished a belief that smoke warded off an untoward ef­fects — exactly what effects was never specified. They were shown some of the old sights and some of the new.

The Residenz had escaped destruc­tion and was a great attraction. Here, several dozen tourists walked up Neumann's great staircase and gazed at the whitewashed walls and ceilings. The new government had painted out Tiepolo's murals; their frivolity was not in keeping with the times. The op­pressive austerities of Peking and the Koran met where once Beatrice had been sportively conducted by the gods to Barbarossa's side. The delicacies of the Holy Roman Empire were extin­guished by an army of crude brush­strokes. Jeremy Hemingway read the details from his guide.

He laughed. "Well, that's what history's all about."

They comforted themselves by pur­chasing with hard currency mango ice creams from a stall in the chapel. The men bought jolly paper hats saying I LOVE THE FOURTH WORLD. Peggy refused to wear one, and held on to her pale linen hat while the men capered tauntingly before her.

The great baroque church of Melk had been reconstructed at a point overlooking the river. They visited it, as well as a rather half-hearted attempt at the Lascaux caves, also destroyed in the early nuke attacks; the replica had been improvized in a series of old cellars. Rather better — three stars in Fodor — was von Erlach's Schon-brunn, authentic in every detail out­side, a shell within.

Exhausted but uplifted, the three sat in the coach that took them back to the hotel.

"Hand it to the Chinese, they're go­ing to have one of the best tourist centers in the world, time they're finished," Azurianan said. "What do you say, Peggy?"

"It's a privilege, no less, to be among the first to see what they're planning," Hemingway said. He had been holographing all afternoon, and his face shone beneath the white paper hat. "They sure know how to lay out the money, I hand them that."

"The Saudis have invested heavily in the reconstruction program," Peggy said. "Islam is richer than China."

"Islam, Islam, that's all we hear about in the States nowadays," Hem­ingway said. "Give me the good old days of US-USSR confrontation. That I could understand. Anyhow, what you know about the Saudis, Peg?"

"Are the zeepees also contributing to the reconstruction program?" she asked him in return.

Azurianan laughed. "Those lazy sons of bitches up in the zodiacal planets? What do they care what goes on on Earth? My brother went up there fifteen years ago, made a packet out of alternative environment facilities, and once is precisely, but precisely, how many times I heard from him all that while."

"Do you write to him?" Peggy ask­ed.

"Too damn right I don't." He and Hemingway laughed. He snapped his fingers. "They figure things out in dif­ferent ways up there. Earth isn't good enough for them up there."

They began talking over plans for the rest of the day, and were still discussing when the coach arrived at the Fourth World Peoples' Hotel. The general idea was to have a few drinks, use the pool to cool off and sober up, eat dinner, go to the movie the hotel was showing, and then seek out whatever night-life Würzburg had to offer before the midnight curfew.

"How's that sound to you, honey?" Hemingway asked, clutching his wife's arm. "Know what, you need a few martinis to give you a lift, right, Mir-bar? We can't have you moping all the vacation, can we? Then we'll have a splash around in their pool. Then the evening can just sort of close in around us, all nice and gentle."

"Yes, Hem. But I have to see if I can turn up that item of baggage I'm miss­ing." She had hidden a small grip in a cupboard in the manager's office. It gave her an excuse to leave her hus­band's side when al-Moghrabi arrived to collect her in his car.

Hemingway paused, detaining her in the foyer as Azurianan trudged ahead with his heavy panther walk. He looked anxiously at her.

"Peggy — you're not brooding, are you? We're here to have fun, hon. That's why we quit the States for two weeks, remember. Just don't be so up­tight, just for once. I'm asking now."

She looked at him coldly, at his hangdog expression, his air of pleading, his pathetic hat, lowering her head so that her velvet eyes regarded him under the white linen brim.

"Who's uptight? Will you relax and quit bugging me, Hem? Have you seen this goddamn exhibition they have here of Islamic atrocities? A fine way to greet visitors!"

"Yeah, well, come on, Peggy, I took a look at it, but what the hell… I mean, what am I supposed to do about it? Just don't look at it. I mean, we know it all happened, right, but it's all over and done with, eight years and more ago."

"Hem, have you gotten so insen­sitive that that mummified kid doesn't remind you of Patricia? Have you got­ten that fucking insensitive?"

He looked anxiously about him. She was raising her voice.

"No, that mummified kid did not remind me of Patricia. I refuse to be reminded of Patricia, particularly when I am on vacation abroad with my wife."

"Yeah, with your wife and your shrink."

"My shrink does not remind me of Patricia either, Peg, and you'd best take the same line. We can't remedy what happened in the past, any more than the Germans can. Now, snap out of it, and let's see if we can't rustle up some alcohol, damn it."

"I don't aim to get smashed with you and have you tongue me all over, if that's what you're hoping."

He showed his teeth and, with a sudden anger, bunched a fist under her lip. "I long ago ceased hoping anything with you. Now, get back in line, will you?"

"Oh god, Hem, why is life so awful? Why do we have to go on living like this? Can't you do something?"

"I did something. I brought you to this motherfucking city. So enjoy, woman, enjoy."

Fahd al-Moghrabi's room had an aus­terity she liked, an austerity that spoke of wealth, not poverty. Mysterious music, tuned low, filled its tiled space. The lights were well-placed. An enor­mous cactus flowered in a pot, its blooms like rosy shark's teeth. The one incongruous note, she thought, was a calendar showing a carnival in Rio de Janeiro. Al-Moghrabi explained that his bank enjoyed considerable trade with Brazil. "His bank." Peggy noted that.

She had not cried, though she still considered the possibility. Instead, she played the mother role. He had been unexpectedly shy, resisting her desire to scrutinize his body. He had giggled and looked vexed. Then, covering himself with the sheet, he had lectured her on money.

In the middle of a lecture on how many million rials Saudi-Arabia was investing in the Chinese reconstruction of the Fourth World — to the public disgust of many Arab fellow-nations — she had put forth a tentative hand, to find him clutching a strong erection. From then on, he had proved himself an enthusiastic lover.

His hotel was in a part of town where other foreigners did not go. Even Germans were not allowed here — only Chinese and their business partners, Arabs, Russians, Brazilians, South Africans. Al-Moghrabi hated the Chinese. He seemed to hate most races. He hated Europeans, he hated Americans. He hated blacks, as the Chinese did. He liked Chinese women. Chinese women were good in bed.

Peggy began to dislike his ar­rogance. To her obvious question, he answered frankly, yes, they were bet­ter in bed than she was. No, not more abandoned. More skilled. Saudis preferred skill in their women.

As she sat undecided on the edge of the bed, he ran a finger up the range of her vertebrae and told her a com­plicated story about Arab tempera­ment and pride, and a girl of sixteen he knew in Riyadh, and the prodigies she had performed on the living and the dying. Peggy Hemingway was torn between the wish to believe his story and the wish not to. She was also realizing that she would soon have to disentangle herself from this man. So often in the past it had proved unex­pectedly difficult to disentangle herself from a mere stranger. Then she would have to lie to Hem, maybe for days, until he dropped the subject.

Tension built up inside her. She knew the feeling well. It was almost like letting blood collect in the mouth. Sooner or later, you were forced to spit.

"How old did you say this little whore was?"

"Fatima is sixteen years."

"Patricia is sixteen, Patricia, worth a hundred Fatimas. Patricia — Patricia, my niece." She turned on him savage­ly. "She's locked up, you know that, certified insane, behavioral problems, severe emotional instability?"

He lay defenseless, no longer shy about his nakedness. "One may be in prison and still have freedom of mind."

"Freedom of mind? Patricia has no mind. She lives out her days in a slam­mer. No one can get through to her any more. And you know what? You did it, you are responsible."

I have no privilege to meet you or your interesting family before this day," he protested.

She stood naked before him, face livid. It was blood-spitting time.

"Oh, you can mock me. You don't feel, do you? Directly I saw you by the pool, I knew you had no feeling. Why do I always seek out men without feel­ings?"

To make him feel, she told him about Patricia.

Peggy and Rachel Schmidt were sis­ters. They were born and grew up in Israel. Rachel was the older of the two. She had married into a wealthy family; her husband was some years her sen­ior, a scholar at Tel Aviv University who achieved international acclaim for his recreation of ancient music and musical instruments of the Middle East. He had friends even in Cairo and was a frequent visitor to the States. Ra­chel bore him a daughter, Patricia, on whom both parents doted.

Rachel worked in Jerusalem, man­aging the head offices of a travel agen­cy owned by her husband's family. Peggy was working in one of the agen­cy's branches when she encountered Jeremy Hemingway. He was young, amusing, diffident, virginal, and she had never met an American before. He worked for a petrochemical firm in Detroit. The name Detroit was magic to Peggy. She seduced him in Eilat, and a week later — amid storms of protest from her family — was flying back to the States with him.

Just in time, as it transpired.

Israel aggro. Libyan paranoia. Palestinian obsessions. The Pakistani bomb. The sequence of events had been long forseen. The Islamic Strike hit six days after Jeremy and Peggy were married. Rachel had fallen ill at the last moment and lay in a hotel in Tel Aviv while the wedding took place in Detroit. Her daughter had been sent over to act as bridesmaid.

The grief of that eight-year-old kid! You'd never think an eight-year-old could contain so much grief. An adult, okay — a kid, no. Christ, how she howled when she heard that Israel had been wiped off the slate just like that. There was no one for her to go back to, no place. Jeremy and I were still on honeymoon. Patricia was seeing the States with his sister. We hurried back. I tried to comfort her. He tried to com­fort her. Yes, he really did, poor inef­fectual bastard, he really tried to com­fort Patricia. We'd never seen grief like that. It frightened us. It frightened the shit out of us. It really frightened the shit out of us. We didn't love each other like that. We didn't love anyone the way she loved Rachel.

You couldn't grasp the kid. She was all sort of elbows and knees and flail­ing limbs. You couldn't get near her to wash her or mop her snotty face. Like trying to get near a windmill, that's what it was like. A windmill in a storm.

The grief. It just went on. Old Hebrew grief out of a well. It ate us up. She struck at us when we tried to com­fort her. No substitutes for Patricia. Not like me. Hem hit her first. He hit back. I was glad when he did it. Jesus, I'll never forget that evening. Maybe she had already fucked our lives up. She attacked him and he hit her right in the mouth. Maybe he was scared.

"You goddamned slut, suffer in silence like the rest of us." That was what he said. I went wild. I hit him. Then Patricia got her breath and started screaming real bad. I hit her. The pleasure of it. I followed it up, too. I hated that selfish miserable mourning windmill of bones, I wanted to kill her. I wished she'd been wiped out along with her parents, her coun­try.

She crawled back to her room, all bloody.

Hem and I got slammed that night. Neat gin. I never touch the poison, but that night it so happened it was neat gin. Bottle after bottle. 1 guess the hating really began then. We couldn't speak to each other. We hated each other. I hated myself — I hate myself more than I hate him.

We had to call the doctor to Pa­tricia. We got her committed.

I still go and see her once a month. Conscience visits. She doesn't re­cognize me. Sixteen. Still waiting for her mother to come back. Still pissing the bed every night.

"I'll drive you home, Peggy," Fahd al-Moghrabi said. He kissed her lightly on the lips.

Punctuating the night, the fake buildings flashed by. The fake Arc de Triumph, the fake Schonbrunn, the fake Escorial, the fake Coliseum, the fake Milan railway station, the fake this, the fake that, huddling close as if space had puckered in some unexpected cosmic contraction.

Once they passed a long line of Chinese, four abreast, marching along the road in their green dungarees. Al-Moghrabi spat out of the car window. Smoke hung everywhere, shifty as a cat. Curfew was a few minutes away.

He kissed her farewell at the door of the Hotel of the Fourth World Peoples. She was frightened by his cor­rectness, fancying it grew like a tumor from some deep inexpressible anger; or was she, as Azurianan would say, pro­jecting?

"You hate me. I gave you only ashes."

"You gave me all you had to give," he said. "How should I make a com­plaint of such a gift? This world makes us all suffer. Good night, Peggy." He walked briskly back to the car.

She remembered to retrieve her concealed baggage from the office. She staggered as if tipsy among the sharp reflecting surfaces of the reception area. The encounter was over; once more, she had missed something hoped for.

The hotel was airless. Peggy thought she heard someone moving in the dark, but saw no one. In skirting the ornamental fish pond, she kicked something. It rolled over the tiles. A tool — a screwdriver. It tinkled down among the fish. After a pause she mov­ed to the side entrance, trying to breathe the air. It was stale, flat with a taint of smoke.

The pool lay shimmering under its cellophane surface. She listened to catch the sound of al-Moghrabi's car, chugging beneath its biogas envelope, but it was gone. There was no sound. No sound from countryside or town. The whole of Europe was now as silent as China itself after dark. DOOR SLAMS IN FOURTH WORLD could have made a shock headline, if news­papers still existed.

Above the patchy walls of the hotel loomed the skeleton of the fake Eiffel Tower.

The deserted pool reminded her of a painting by David Hockney hanging in the penthouse back home in Detroit. A present from Hem's parents. If she ever got back to that damned First World, she'd sell that painting. Re­minders of grief and silence people didn't need.

Did Fahd care anything for her? Was she just one more — unsatisfac­tory — woman for him, as he was just one more man for her? Was it possible for real — real genuine — contact to exist between two people? Hem, you bastard, thank god you've failed me as much as I fail you...

Despite the dead warmth of the night, a shivering fit overcame her. She turned, and immediately a hand was clamped about her mouth. Immediate­ly she was terrified of death, although only a moment earlier the idea had wooed her from the shadows of her mind.

"You're back, then. I gave your husband a grammy and he's asleep. Don't scream." Words hot in her ear.

When he saw she would not scream, he removed his paw. Abstractedly, she thought, in all hotels I've ever been it, even in the Fourth World, there's always enough light about to see who is attacking you.

"Where've you been this time?" Azurianan asked.

She looked into his vague Armen­ian eyes. He was no more frightening now than when being consolatory. She laughed, pretending drunkeness.

"Where've you been, you bitch?" He shook her.

"I'm going to bed, Mirbar, thanks so much. I just may take a grammy myself, okay. I've had the bother of going all the way back to the airport to check out this hunk of missing bag­gage."

She swung the grip forward and hit him in the chest with it.

Totally unconvinced, he said, "I'll see you upstairs."

"I'm not drunk, as you are."

"I'm never drunk."

"More's the fucking pity."

She heard shots distantly. Who were they shooting? Germans? Tourists? Each other? She staggered as she advanced towards the stairwell as it drunkeness were truth. The wall was rough under her steadying palm.

Outside his door, she said, "By the way, Mirbar, darling, I am going to fix it, if it's the last thing I do, that Hem gives you the push. I can't take you getting between us any longer. We might have a chance again if you weren't around. From this day forth. Hem is going to have to do without his lousy shrink."

His face was against hers. She could feel the sagging young belly pressing against her grip, smell spice on his breath, as if he were stuffed with dead sweet things.

He said, "Peggy, I'm not Jeremy's shrink. I'm yours. He pays me to see after you."

Her anger came back. She hit him across his cheek, feeling his bones and teeth unyielding under her yielding palm.

"Lies, lies, you liar! Get out of herel Get lost!"

He grasped her and flung his door open. "Come in here, you neurotic lit­tle whore, I'll teach you a thing or two. I'll show you something that won't shrink. Maybe I'll fuck a little sanity into you tonight."

He was unzipping his flies. She broke from him and ran for her room, slamming the door behind her and shooting the bolt into place.

Azurianan whispered her name once from the corridor, and then no more. She stood where she was, listen­ing. There was no further sound.

Hemingway had not roused. His heavy breathing was disturbed; then it became more regular. On the ceiling of the room, light rippled, reflected from the surface of the pool outside. That stifling silence again.

She stood for a long time, her back to the door. Then she flung off her soil­ed clothes and climbed into bed beside her husband.

There was more shooting outside before dawn. Neither of the Americans heard it.