The Spirit Cabinet (5 page)

The limousine pulled into the driveway of the Abraxas Hotel. The driveway was four kilometres long, a huge circle that curved around tennis courts, an outdoor pool, a soccer field and a fountain. The grounds were crowded, largely with doughy blond people, German, Dutch and Scandinavian, the Abraxas being the hotel of European choice because of its association with Jurgen and Rudolfo. These people played tennis dolefully or hung about the bright blue water (the air sharp with the scent of chemicals)
in tiny little bathing suits. Their children galloped around the soccer field in hordes. Jurgen sometimes stopped the limousine and got out to watch. Once or twice he had even joined in, rushing at the ball with unseemly determination, pushing children out of his path. But he was in no mood for that today, and didn’t even bother to look.

Miranda was glad she would soon be getting out. There was a fight coming; the two men, especially over the past few months, had been relentlessly bickering and squabbling. Jurgen sat brooding and stock-still. Rudolfo’s body quivered with small convulsions, as though things inside weren’t working quite right, his lungs having difficulty drawing air, his heart pumping blood erratically.

Miranda watched as the fountain came into view. A huge spiral of water, lighted from within by all the colours in creation, shot two hundred feet into the air and then exploded with a muted thunderclap. The water fell and drenched all the honeymooners having their photographs taken below.

The road was lined with hotel staff. The doormen and porters tended to be pituitary giants, huge men with imbalanced faces, swollen noses and brows, tiny eyes obscured by shadow. They dressed in turbans and pink chiffon pantaloons. The limousine rolled to a stop and one of their ranks stepped forward, tearing open the rear door. Miranda alighted and gazed upwards into the craggy, lumpy face.

“Maurice,” she said. “How’s it hanging?”

“Welcome to the Abraxas Hotel,” said Maurice automatically, his voice in the lowest register. “How are you, Miranda?”

“Aces,” she answered. She turned back toward the couple in the car. “See you tomorrow night.”

The men nodded simultaneously. Miranda swung the limo door shut and walked toward the awful tower that was the hotel.
Theirs was the most spectacular house in the desert. Any number of magazines had pronounced it such.
Der Spiegel
had called it
das eindrucksvollste Haus im Universum
. It may have been; at least it possessed an otherworldly quality that would seem to put it in the running. It was a curiously shapeless construction when seen from the outside, as though a colossal gelatinous mass had been dropped upon the sands from a great height. Alien vegetation, nurtured through frantic and relentless irrigation, had grown up around it—spruce, larch and oak trees that would have been more at home cradling the Alps. A stream ran around and through the house, twice, describing a large figure-eight that contained it within carp-filled moats.

The limousine came to rest by the front door, the tires crushing the sea-throws and shells that carpeted the driveway. Rudolfo and Jurgen climbed out, each placing sunglasses over their eyes. Jurgen marched toward the entrance and keyed in numbers on the futuristic pad that protruded from the wall. Rudolfo waited while Jimmy crossed in front of the car and released the albino leopard. Samson lumbered to the ground and shook the stiffness out of his bones. Rudolfo suddenly rushed forward, dropped to his knees and gathered the beast’s huge white head to his chest. He kissed the leopard’s brow, which tasted oddly of perfume. Jurgen had already walked through the front door and into the huge house; Rudolfo turned and stared at the emptiness where he’d been.

The first thing Rudolfo did when he got inside was change clothes, swapping the otherwordly cowpoke garb for a pair of olive-coloured overalls. He slipped his pedicured feet into a pair of crud-encrusted workboots, then went outside and attended to the animals, flinging seed, feed and raw meat into the appropriate cages. He leashed the larger, more dangerous animals and cleared out the shit from their living quarters. He orchestrated
an exercise period, releasing all of the creatures, shrieking, and skipping alongside the ensuing stampede as it made a few circuits of the grounds.

When he finished, Rudolfo descended into the Gymnasium. He peeled away the overalls and stood among the equipment wearing only a tiny pair of sequined exercise briefs. He stretched as he approached the bench, locking his hands over his head and twisting his body sharply from side to side. Rudolfo wasn’t actually certain that today was Upper Body; in fact, if pressed, he would have had to admit that he’d worked chest and arms only the day before. But he felt like doing the bench press, so he feigned confusion and started loading weight onto the bar. He put two big plates on either side and picked up some smaller ones. Rudolfo then paused and reflected, listening to a clamour from deep within. He dropped the twenty-pounders and went instead for more of the forties, carefully sliding them onto the bar and locking the load with a couple of clamps. This was more weight than he usually lifted, but his anger was going to do a great deal of the work. He removed his wig and draped it over one of the forks of the weight stand. He lay down on the bench and curled his fingers around the bar. There were two sections where the metal was roughed up and bumpy, the better to grip, but Rudolfo avoided these, preferring the feel just to the outside, where the steel was smooth and very cold. It made for a harder lift with his arms spread so, but he wasn’t worried. He even muttered
“Kein Problem,”
before shoving the bar up rudely, lifting it off the rack; he cocked his arms forward and lowered it. As soon as he felt the coolness kiss his chest he pushed upwards, screaming as loudly as his lungs would allow. The weight sailed through the sticking point; as it neared the acme he allowed it to come back down again, avoiding the lock-out zone where only lazy fat people went. Rudolfo screamed again, a stream of pained Indo-European vowels. He’d now lifted the weight twice and hadn’t
really exerted himself. As the bar came back down he elected to do eight presses. This seemed, at first blush, impossible, especially considering that eight really meant ten, because the only important lifts were the two anguished and trembling ones that were made after the supposed completion of the set.

The anger that made all this possible wasn’t entirely due to Jurgen’s squandering of five million dollars. In fact, the money played almost no part in it—their wealth was close to inexhaustible. And Jurgen was correct, if a bit surly, in pointing out that Rudolfo spent vast sums collecting animals. The animals were not
all
for the Show. Some he acquired simply to be near them. Many of the exotic birds were too obstinate to learn any tricks; the most beautiful, the blond ringdove for example, seemed to lose all dignity when placed upon a stage, squawking in an unseemly manner, throwing off plumage and streams of sick-looking shit.

Rudolfo’s fondest memories involved his poorest days, when he’d lived as a beggar on the streets of Münich, a bizarre-looking fugitive from the law. That was when he’d met Jurgen, and they had been happy. Or so it seemed to Rudolfo. He had recollections of happiness, now lost, dried up in the vast desert that was their new home. So perhaps they had too much money—not that there was any way of getting rid of it. Not even spending five million on a bunch of old books and refuse from a lawn sale.

No, it was not the money that made Rudolfo angry.

The truth of the matter, which neared the surface as he completed six lifts and let the weight down for a painful seventh, was that he was infuriated by Jurgen’s dissatisfaction with the Show. It was what Rudolfo worked hardest at, and it was Rudolfo’s creation. When they met, all those years ago, Jurgen had known only tired and corny tricks, which he had performed in a silly manner, his eyes popped open with melodramatic intensity. His audiences were bored, always, and sometimes violent, there
mostly to grope each other or watch a parade of near-naked people mount the stage, that being the main attraction at Miss Joe’s. Jurgen’s card tricks, coin manipulations, silk transformations and dove productions did not engage their imaginations. However, this had all changed the first night he, with Rudolfo standing by his side, had opened the lid of a makeshift Production Box to reveal the young Samson. The albino leopard bared his teeth and howled menacingly. The audience, after a long, stunned moment, applauded, at first meekly and then with enthusiam.

That had been Rudolfo’s doing, the first of many inspirations. While he understood little about the mechanics of the illusions—he knew his own part in several of them, but there were some he found as baffling as any child might—he understood Show Business. That thought came with the eighth lift, and it was inspiring enough that Rudolfo immediately brought the weight down and screamed again, forcing the iron up even as he lost feeling in his arms. The only sensation now was a prickly tingle around the elbows. The muscles themselves were consumed by a dull numbness which, when Rudolfo finally racked the bar, would be replaced by agony. His muscles were now “distressed,” a word in English that Rudolfo liked and used whenever he could.

He allowed the weight to come back down, resisting it all the way with his trembling arms. If you weaken and simply let the weight fall, Rudolfo knew, it becomes impossible to regain momentum, to push again. So he resisted and then resisted hesitation, driving upwards with his numb and swollen arms. He screamed, but all that came out was a small sound. This tenth lift, Rudolfo realized, was a mistake. It was not so much that he’d abandoned belief in his ability to hoist it, despite the negative aspects of that last thought. He was adept at all manner of positive thinking techniques, had for years been listening to Tony
Anthony’s “YOU!” series of motivational tape cassettes. But his arms were simply not responding to orders. He watched the bar begin to sway back and forth and was reminded of something he’d once seen on television. A suspension bridge was being buffeted by a hurricane, twisting and heaving in the storm. The bridge ultimately blew apart, just as the weight would soon fall, likely crushing Rudolfo’s windpipe. He had one chance, he thought, and that was to throw the weight clear. Unfortunately, that would require at least a little control over his arm muscles. The bar was now pitching back and forth, and Rudolfo thought that he might be able to use some of this momentum to propel the weight away—but it was a vague and hopeless thought and occupied only a split second.

Just before his arms collapsed, though, a thick forefinger came and curled itself beneath the bar. “Up,” said Jurgen, and that was all the assistance Rudolfo required—the finger or the word, he couldn’t have said which. Rudolfo’s voice came with force, almost a yodel, and his arms exploded with a firing of nerve and muscle so intense that he would not have been surprised to see flames shooting out of his elbows. “Up,” repeated Jurgen, and Rudolfo pushed and somehow the weight rose, and then Jurgen pulled it backwards, guiding it still with just the one finger, and gently placed it on the rack.

Rudolfo bolted forward, and noted that oddly enough it was not his arms that hurt, but his stomach. He leaned to the side and retched, his belly wracked by spasms. Nothing was forthcoming (Rudolfo ate very little as a rule, mostly raw eggs and vegetables, and certainly never before exercise), and when the moment passed, Rudolfo realized that his arms did indeed hurt, hurt so much that it had made him nauseous. So he crossed his arms and took each bicep in hand and pinched and kneaded until close to tears. “Hoo boy,” he said softly, “are my arms distressed.”

Jurgen had crossed quietly over to the squat rack and was positioning himself under the bar. He was not dressed for the Gymnasium—he hadn’t changed out of his red leather outfit—but he stepped backwards with the weight on his shoulders and descended gracefully onto his haunches. He made no response to Rudolfo, perhaps because Rudolfo had spoken in English, perhaps because there was no response to make.

“Where are you going to put all that crap?” wondered Rudolfo suddenly.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” answered Jurgen. “Maybe that funny little room at the end of the hall, beside the wine cellar.”

“Do you mean the Grotto?”

Jurgen stepped forward, slipping the weight from his shoulders back onto the support pins. He turned toward Rudolfo and nodded. His skin was mottled slightly from the brief exertion, his large square brow misted with sweat. His quivering eyelids had assumed a position of military readiness, dividing his orbs at sombre halfmast.

“The Grotto,” said Rudolfo testily, “is supposed to be for the animals that don’t like sunlight.”

“We don’t have any animals that don’t like sunlight. All of the animals are always lying around the pool.”

“There are the bushbabies,” Rudolfo argued. He plucked his wig from the fork of the weight stand and fitted it carefully on his head.

“Sure, but you don’t keep a special room for a few stupid little animals!” Jurgen raised his voice, although not angrily, really. It was more as if he were forced to speak above other sounds and voices, a din that he alone could hear.

Rudolfo sighed heavily as he tried to figure where best to attack that sentence. His mind was suddenly cluttered with thought. The bushbabies were stupid, that’s true, but how intelligent
could they be with brains the size of peppercorns? And there weren’t a
few
of them, there were scores, and the number was ever-increasing, because if you flipped on any light in the middle of the night you would catch at least five tiny furry couples in the act of squeaky fornication. So there. Now, why not have a special room for them? For instance, wasn’t there a separate room for Jurgen’s old swimming trophies, which totalled exactly three? And leaving all this aside, why should Jurgen start screaming all of a sudden? “Why,” spoke Rudolfo, “are you screaming all of a sudden?”

Jurgen waved his thick hand in Rudolfo’s direction. It was dismissive and scornful, more so than he’d intended, Rudolfo knew. None of Jurgen’s human interaction was subtle—unlike Rudolfo, who often intended a world of hurt and insult to be expressed through the flaring of single nostril. Or laced into the words of an innocuous sentence, for instance, “When would you like to eat dinner?” which is what Rudolfo asked now.