The Ninth Berth – Tractate 4: Keys

4/N

This is the fourth part of my serialized novella The Ninth Berth. Previously: Tractate 3.

Tractate 4: Keys

01:03 – 02:10

No return for you? Seraphina Whitman asked.

No, I said, lying.

Tell me what you’re running from.

People died because of me. The police are after me. She couldn’t tell which part was a lie.

Uh-huh. That freelance writer thing real too?

Maybe not. How’d you guess?

You’re a bad liar.

Takes one to know one.

She talked like she was playing on her phone, passing the time but not committed enough to care if she lost. That’s how it goes when strangers share a confined space and a mild sense of threat. They warm up out of survival instinct. Crisis breeds intimacy but then the pressure drops and they vanish, or worse, they try to stay in touch.

Kagami returned with the little deranged demiurge. Czerny looked rattled. He stared at the box on Shesh’s bed and paced.

Holy Jesus! This abomination crippled my train? Splendid! You’ve lost your voyaging friend? I’ve checked my lost-and-found and he wasn’t there. He’s not in the vestibule. Not in the latrines.

His sardonic grin turned to Seraphina.

Clean up your mess, princess. Or I will be forced to explain the situation to Djimon. And I do not like explaining things to Djimon.

Before he left I asked:

Why is there a nine on the door?

He blinked and shook his head. I beg your pardon?

The numbers on the door. There’s five six seven eight nine but there are four beds and no number nine.

Ah, the nine. Occupied, sir. Always has been. He paused.

He snapped.

Go fetch your holy man, Paul! He’s not a jellyfish lost at sea. Pitter-patter! Time is of the penance.

And he disappeared into the corridor.

Have you checked the other compartments? I asked Kagami.

No.

Let me, I said, and stepped out through the door Czerny had left ajar.

I started with the first compartment, 1 2 3 4. I knocked twice. No response. I nudged the door open. The hinges creaked a warning.

The elderly couple from the platform were asleep on the lower berths. The man on the left and the woman on the right. They lay flat on their backs, unnaturally stiff. Their faces bore a forced, nervous smile. The smile that villains in movies bear when they’ve captured the hero or his lover. I winced at the man’s half-open eyelids, the white and no iris visible. I slid the door shut and breathed again.

I supposed the last compartment would be empty. The 10 11 12 13. I hadn’t seen or heard anyone else in our car. Still, I knocked before opening.

It wasn’t empty. Just devoid of humans.

Turquoise light radiated from both sides, warm and pulsing. Fishtanks. In a train. Goddamn fishtanks wide as berths. Koi fish swam in the left one, red and white, gold, black-streaked, their scales catching the bulbs’ light like coins. No fish in the right tank. Crabs.

Once the shock passed, I closed the door behind me. The blinds were shut. The air was colder than in our compartment and had a saline aftertaste. The gurgling of the tanks had replaced the train’s noises—the wheels’ pressure on the rail tracks, the car’s hissing, they were all gone, as if this room was soundproof.

I faced the tank on my right. Dozens of crabs no larger than a palm and the color of dried blood. They shifted in a purposeless rhythm, their legs tapping against the glass in staccato clicks. I’d seen this before, or thought I had.

I froze. The door opened, rail sounds returned. Then this voice:

Miles? What the...

She entered and stared at the tanks, mouth half open. She had untied her hair.

Yes, what the hell, I said. Close the door.

Uh, ok, she said, and slid the frame shut. Silence returned.

What is this place?

We stared at the crabs and the brown fake rocks. Larger rocks had a bridge shape for crabs to hide under. When she touched the glass a crab moved away from her finger.

Crabs and carps as neighbors, could be worse, I said.

Look, she said, pointing at a motionless crab in a corner.

A number was printed on the shell. A five in dark marker ink, barely discernible through the hazy water, as if inscribed with a shaky hand.

Numbers again, I said. Wanna tell this crab what five means for his future?

Not funny. And she’s female. Look at the wider abdomen.

She unclipped the cover of the tank and we disengaged the whole piece, each holding a side of the rectangle. We slid it backwards, watching the crustaceans from above.

Number five wasn’t the only tattooed crab. We found two and fifteen next to each other, and eight hiding behind a rock.

Then we found nine. Something clung to one of its legs. When she bent down to look closer her elbow grazed mine and she flinched and turned to me.

Can you pick it up? she said. I don’t want to wet my sleeves.

I obliged. The water was colder than I expected. The crab didn’t resist. I held its carapace with two fingers to thwart pinching but the creature was unbothered.

A plastic wrap the size of a finger was attached to one of its larger legs with a thin red thread. We untied it and unwrapped it, and inside found a key. A copper key with two blocky teeth and a circular bow bearing a geometric emblem not unlike a triangular tower. The copper had turned deep brownish, it must have been underwater for a while. I dropped the crab back into his tank like trash in a can. She frowned at me. I held the key up, my eyes awaiting her answer.

The missing crabic key, she said, with sententious eyes.

She plucked the key from my hand and examined it as if to check it was real, then she got out without a word. I followed her to our compartment.

Shesh’s box was on his bed where we’d left it. Kagami was eating a banana while reading a research paper—I peeked at title on the frontpage and noticed ‘Bayesian inference’ and ‘coalescence.’

Look what we found, she told Kagami with the start of a smile. She sat next to the kudz, the key in hand.

After some fiddling, the key turned a quarter circle and clicked. The joints of the cover widened and she pushed it open. Inside was the same matter as outside but raw, unpolished, with an uneven carving that resembled a cave.

How did you... Kagami muttered.

One key, one keyhole, not many options, she said without looking away from the stone.

A small yellowish scroll was inside. Her delicate fingers unrolled the brittle material.

It’s a palimpsest, she said, and read us the line etched in tiny letters:

‘It is the key which shuts and opens.’

That’s what keys do, I said.

What did you expect, a treasure map? she said.

She left the scroll on the bed and pushed the top of the box on its base and turned the key. She stopped midmovement when Kagami interrupted her.

Look, he said, standing to look across the window.

Shesh was outside. He carried his suitcase and looked at our window like at a painting in a museum. Kagami signaled him to come in.

We’ve summoned him, she said, the scroll still in her hands.

Two minutes later he appeared in the doorway.

Where were you? Kagami asked, calm but curt. We will be late because of you.

I was outside, Shesh said, brushing the frost from his coat.

Outside doing what? Seraphina asked.

The kudz needed me gone for a moment.

He stepped closer and saw the scroll. His face changed.

Oh you found the key? The kudz spoke to you?

He picked the scroll and read. His smile widened.

Seraphina folded her arms. Sounds familiar?

Shesh sat down and cleared his throat.

Maftecha sagir u-fatach, he said, stressing the last syllab of each word. It’s Aramaic, ‘a key which shuts and opens.’ In the Zohar it unlocks the palace of Creation. A palace with fifty gates where only forty-nine are visible. No one knows where is the last or whether it is high or low. It’s the hidden gate, tar’ahstimah. But nobody takes this story too seriously.

You wrote that line on the scroll? I asked.

No, Shesh said, pensive. He leaned back and laughed softly.

He opened the kudz in the same way Seraphina did and placed the scroll back in locked it close. I didn’t see what he did with the key.

Maybe it will open again, Shesh said, maybe not. But let’s not worry about it, my friends.

The loudspeakers hummed and Czerny’s squirrely voice filled the room:

Friends and foes, rejoice. The lost traveler has been reassembled. We shall resume our trajectory, barring divine litigation or sudden retraction of consent.

Nobody spoke until the train began to move and then nobody spoke for a while but nobody slept either. Seraphina turned her light off. Kagami spoke to Shesh:

You really think this box is magic?

I don’t think, I know. Don’t call it magic. A kudz reflects the world around. It... radiates prophecies when it opens. Nothing magic.

You make no sense. Stones don’t radiate anything, unless they’re radioactive.

There are proofs. I believe the kudz is a gift of God. This is why I’m on this train.

You believe... Kagami said, as if he was talking to a child. And I believe you are a fool.

My friend, your reasoning is from the living. You cannot see what doesn’t reach your eyes, he concluded with a dignified smile. Then he kissed the kudz.

That was the kind of punchline that made you want to believe in ghosts. Or sedatives.

Thankfully, they got tired of arguing. I was tired of everything. There’s a point where nonsense starts making sense. It’s called exhaustion. I killed the light and shut my eyes.

I caught murmurs from the opposite berths. Seraphina and Kagami, talking in half-breaths: pulsar, radiation, gravitational wave. She asked and he answered. Then she spoke without pause with a more certain tone, of expansion, field equations, tensors. I let their words drift over me.