The Ninth Berth – Tractate 2: Names
2/N
This is the second part of my serialized novella The Ninth Berth. Previously: Tractate 1.
Tractate 2: Names
23:07 – 00:04
The rails clattered as the woman browsed a thick yellow book titled Algebraic Topology, pencil in hand, earbuds in. The man beneath me had opened his suitcase on his bed and rummaged as if searching for some vital ingredient. The Japanese tapped his phone and sipped from his thermos every two minutes, until he turned to us, phone in his hand.
Excuse me, he said to no one in particular. Do you know how to get a connection?
The one-hand man snorted, still bent over his luggage. Why do you need that?
You won’t catch a cell signal out here, I said. Wait till the next town.
Ah... thank you, he said, glancing up at me. He reached into his crumpled paper bag and lifted a cupcake that he unwrapped with as much care for the paper as for the cake.
Minutes passed and we reached a steady, sluggish pace. I closed my eyes and tried to doze off but the door opened without a knock. The car conductor stepped in. The Wiktor that checked me in. He looked as late for an appointment. He stared at the window a few seconds with his mouth half-open then addressed us.
Mesdames et messieurs, kindly direct your attention to the booklet bearing your image and the name your parents toiled to choose and prepare it for control. Look at the photograph. Now look at your face. Attempt resemblance. Then await instructions.
Okay.
Wiktor Czerny peered upward at me with a quirky smile and spoke: Ready Bobby?
The word you’re looking for is ‘passport,’ I said.
I noticed a smirk on the other side. She bit her top lip as her left fingertips flipped pages and wrote in a notebook resting on her right thigh.
Czerny sighed. Passport, shassport, whatever soothes your soul, sir.
He stepped back with a theatrical salute and shut the door. The aluminium handle shook for a second.
That’s when I first heard her.
Seventeen, she said, lingering on the ‘een.’ Her voice was higher than I’d imagined and a little raspy.
Sorry? I replied.
This dude. Obviously a seventeen. She kept scribbling in her notebook.
Synesthesia? I asked.
What else?
I found nothing to say. Thought about asking my number but didn’t.
The compartment was silent for ten minutes until we decelerated with a metal-on-metal screeching. When the train stopped with a slight rollback a loud bang got us staring at the floor where a vitreous black stone lay. A cube the size of a lemming with sharp edges and polished corners. There was a thin mark around it like a junction line.
The Japanese studied the thing like an entomologist faced with a new beetle. The one-hand man muttered apologies and clamped the thing between his hand and stump.
What is that? Kagami asked.
It’s mine, thank you, don’t worry about it.
Is that stone obsidian?
I don’t know, the man said in falsetto. He took the stone and closed his suitcase and placed it in the luggage space under his mattress.
The math girl caught my glance.
Hexahedron, she said, not a regular cube.
Then she turned a page like she hadn’t spoken. On her notes I noticed one word in large letters: ‘RECURSION.’ Brought back memories of self-reference from my aborted law school in London. But she was right, it wasn’t exactly a cube.
And what’s his number? I asked her, gesturing towards the man underneath.
Not seventeen. More like a six.
Are you into numerology?
Jesus. Do I look like a hip cat lady? She sighed. I just associate people to numbers. My brain does that, it’s meaningless.
I felt she realized how she took the bait and got back to her book.
The door slid open again. Wiktor Czerny entered with a clipboard under one arm and a black linen pouch in hand. His eyes glinted like a raccoon who’d found a fresh trash can.
My friend, you’re back! said the man under my bed with uncanny enthusiasm.
Czerny crossed his arms, rolled his eyes, and cleared his throat.
Lady and gentlemen, I must keep this train in a copacetic state. It is time for the compliance ritual. The proving of identities. Please place your record of bureaucratic truth inside this humble sack.
He offered the pouch like a priest holding a confessions basket.
I handed my passport first, ignoring the ridiculousness of the scene. He moved the pouch to the opposite berth. From her violin case he fished a blue document from a side pocket and bent down to drop it with the fluidity of a contortionist.
Please, milady, Czerny acknowledged.
Kagami handed a red Japanese passport. Then the one-hand man lifted a worn, soft-edged booklet with a piece of ribbon stuck between pages.
Don’t lose it, he said before dropping it.
Czerny weighed the bag in his palm.
I thank you for your donations, he said. My assistant, Djimon, shall perform the security due diligence. Please do not derail his work. He’s a clement interlocutor but has a finite patience.
Czerny left. I hadn’t seen other staff in our carriage.
Silence. Then three knocks on the bulkhead. Czerny reappeared wearing a red deerstalker hat and white gloves, his name tag gone. He greeted us with a theatrical raspy voice.
I am Djimon, controller daemon, railroad Charon. What room is this again?
He squinted at the number on the door and stepped in. He plucked a passport from the pouch and examined it. Lion and unicorn on the cover, mine.
What do we have here... A Miles William Marston, born August 5th, 1989. He scanned our faces like a portrait painter on ketamine.
Who is Paul?
I’m Miles. Not Paul.
Miles, Paul, Jack, Saul, all the same in my files. Is this your first surgery?
First time on this train, I said.
What brings you aboard, Paul?
Miles. No particular reason. Just visiting for a few days.
Visiting? No one just visits. Please elaborate, sir.
I’m a freelance journalist. Writing an article.
I couldn’t tell them I’d decided to vanish for a while, let alone why. Couldn’t explain what happened, and certainly not to Czerny’s lethargic brain.
I must investigate your case, Paul, Czerny–Djimon said.
He retrieved the clipboard from Kagami’s bed and placed my passport atop and started rifling through a stack of handwritten documents, lists, and tables from what I could see from above.
Two minutes later the white gloves returned my passport.
My papyrus say you’re kosher, he said.
He picked another passport.
Next, we have... Jesus, this is unreadable. Is this from the pharaohs’ times?
He examined the document, struggling to read. He looked under my bed.
This, this is you. Menachem Shesh.
Yes sir, I am me... Call me Reb Shesh, the man said. I’m a rabbi.
Fantastic. What’s your number, rabbi?
My number here? Six. You know this, why do you ask?
Are you sure?
Look here, he pointed to the number six on his berth’s tag. Not a coincidence... The first word of the Torah has six letters and the first verse has six words.
The lunatic dwarf cut him.
Lucky six, you’re not trouble to me. Take this. Reb Shesh solemnly took his passport back.
Next, you! He turned to her with a blue passport in his hand. You are a... Seraphina, Seraphina Whiteman, American.
Whitman, she corrected.
What?
It’s Whitman, not Whiteman. Do letters trouble you as much as numbers?
Oh pardon me, Miss Algebra. Djimon is but a humble bureaucratic daemon of lists, he said, waving his papers like scriptures.
He flipped through the booklet, pausing at stamps, squinting. Seraphina Whitman went back to her book as if the clownish performance was beneath her threshold of attention. The examination lasted.
As Djimon browsed through his lists, a strident noise tore through the compartment, like a distorted violin crescendoing for five seconds before it died. We all winced. Then the lights went out.
Holy moly, Djimon belched.
The piercing sound returned. The overhead lamp flared, hesitated, and snapped back to its warm white like a system fighting itself. The train slowed down and shook. A bang cracked through the dark. I couldn’t tell if it came from outside or inside. Light returned.
Her yellow book lay cover down on the floor with Shesh’s dark stone atop. We all froze. The stone had a matte line mark around and a black cut like a keyhole. Kagami bent and handed the cube to Shesh with reverence.
Djimon watched the scene and pointed his skinny arm. What is that... thing, rabbi? Smuggling a purloined relic?
It’s a talisman, Shesh said, the cube in his hands.
Pardon?
We call it a kudz, Shesh replied, lingering on the ‘oo.’
Call it what you like to call it, but don’t play with it in my ship.
The thing felt familiar to me. I’d seen similar-looking stony boxes in books about Russian Cosmism. Fringe stuff. Mad men who believed in immortality and thought they could revive the dead. I kept that for me.
Seraphina Whitman stared at the book on the floor and Djimon handed it to her.
Too much nonlinearity, he said with mock solemnity.
Thanks, she said, frowning at the absurdity of the scene.
Djimon pulled up a form and a pen and copied information from her passport.
Can I now resume my work? He pointed the pen at her.
I must ask you a few questions, miss Whitman.
What just happened? she asked, book in hand. What was that sound?
An interference, I reckon. Glitches in the train circuit, this happens when we cross this shaky area. Can we now proceed?
I guess, she said with a jaded voice.
What’s your occupation?
I do mathematics.
Admirable. And music too?
Not as what you’d call an occupation.
A preoccupation?
I’m not preoccupied. Are you?
Geez, Louise.
Seraphina.
Terrible name. Sounds like a fictitious character’s name.
Sorry, I’m as real as the square root of two.
Oh, a platonist on the train? That’s against our policies.
Platonism is as incoherent as you are.
What the hell brings you here, miss Whiteman?
Personal project.
Personal?
None of your business. Nothing to do with math or music if that’s what you’re asking.
Czerny stared at the passport, flipping pages and decrypting immigration stamps. He wrote a note on his form.
Carrying any lethal merchandise, miss Whitman?
Yes. She lifted her book.
He took more notes and read from one of his listings with blinking eyes. When he was done he extended his arm to her with the passport between two fingers like a dirty postcard.
Welcome to America! he said with wide eyes and a smile that lingered.
He raised his arm as if to check a watch that wasn’t. Are we done yet? he said, showing the empty pouch. He gestured towards Kagami as if he owed him a punchline. Mister, look at my hat, he said. Kagami didn’t look at the hat, he just looked irritated.
It’s in your hat, Kagami said flatly.
Djimon took his hat off and showed the passport, feigning surprise. You spoiled my trick! he said, and put the hat back and flipped through the Japanese document.
Kagami Tetsuro. You are 54 years old.
I know, thank you.
Please confess your occupation.
Scientist. Physics professor. I am invited. Look at the letter in the passport. No need to question me.
I liked his mild defiance. I took him for a nutbag when we’d first met in Skhodresk, but maybe he was sharp. Maybe even trustworthy.
Djimon found a piece of paper folded to fit in the passport. He unfolded it and held it to his face. He grinned and shook his head and then handed both items back.
Without further words he addressed us.
The Minister of Identification thanks you for your cooperation. I must now retire myself. Business is business!