Michael Swanwick - The Feast of Saint Janis.pdf

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THE FEAST OF SAINT
JANIS
by Michael Swanwick
Take a load off, Janis, And
You put the load right on me... —‘The Wait“ (trad.)
Wolf stood in the early morning fog watching the Yankee Clipper leave
Baltimore harbor. His elbows rested against a cool, clammy wall, its
surface eroded smooth by the passage of countless hands, almost certainly
dating back to before the Collapse. A metallic gray sparkle atop the
foremast drew his eye to the dish antenna that linked the ship with the
geosynchronous Trickster seasats it relied on to plot winds and currents.
To many the wooden Clipper , with its computer-designed hydrofoils
and hand-sewn sails, was a symbol of the New Africa. Wolf, however,
watching it merge into sea and sky, knew only that it was going home
without him.
He turned and walked back into the rick-a-rack of commercial
buildings crowded against the waterfront The clatter of hand-drawn carts
mingled with a melange of exotic cries and shouts, the alien music of a
dozen American dialects. Workers, clad in coveralls most of them,
swarmed about, grunting and cursing in exasperation when an iron wheel
lurched in a muddy pothole. Yet there was something furtive and covert
about them, as if they were hiding an ancient secret.
Craning to stare into the dark recesses of a warehouse, Wolf collided
with a woman clad head to foot in chador. She flinched at his touch, her
eyes glaring above the black veil, then whipped away. Not a word was
exchanged.
A citizen of Baltimore in its glory days would not have recognized the
city. Where the old buildings had not been torn down and buried, shanties
crowded the streets, taking advantage of the space automobiles had
needed. Sometimes they were built over the streets, so that alleys became
tunnelways, and sometimes these collapsed, to the cries and consternation
 
of the natives.
It was another day with nothing to do. He could don a filter mask and
tour the Washington ruins, but he had already done that, and besides the
day looked like it was going to be hot. It was unlikely he’d hear anything
about his mission, not after mouths of waiting on American officials who
didn’t want to talk with him. Wolf decided to check back at his hostel for
messages, then spend the day in the bazaars.
Children were playing in the street outside the hostel. They scattered at
his approach. One, he noted, lagged behind the others, hampered by a
malformed leg. He mounted the unpainted wooden steps, edging past an
old man who sat at the bottom. The old man was laying down tarot cards
with a slow and fatalistic disregard for what they said; he did not look up.
The bell over the door jangled notice of Wolf’s entry. He stepped into
the dark foyer.
Two men in the black uniforms of the political police appeared, one to
either side of him. “Wolfgang Hans Mbikana?” one asked. His voice had
the dust of ritual on it; he knew the answer, “You will come with us,” the
other said.
“There is some mistake,” Wolf objected.
“No, sir, there is no mistake,” one said mildly. The Other opened the
door. “After you, Mr. Mbikana.”
The old man on the stoop squinted up at them, looked away, and slid off
the step.
The police walked Wolf to an ancient administrative building. They
went up marble steps sagging from centuries of foot-scuffing, and through
an empty lobby. Deep within the building they halted before an
undistinguished-looking door. “You are expected,” the first of the police
said.
“I beg your pardon?”
The police walked away, leaving him there. Apprehensive, he knocked
on the door. There was no answer, so he opened it and stepped within.
A woman sat at a desk just inside the room. Though she was modernly
dressed, she wore a veil. She might have been young; it was impossible to
tell. A flick of her eyes, a motion of one hand, directed him to the open
door of an inner room. It was like following an onion to its conclusion, a
layer of mystery at a time.
A heavy-set man sat at the final desk. He was dressed in the traditional
 
suit and tie of American businessmen. But there was nothing quaint or
old-fashioned about his mobile, expressive face or the piercing eyes he
turned on Wolf.
“Sit down,” he grunted, gesturing toward an old, overstuffed chair.
Then: “Charles DiStephano. Comptroller for Northeast Regional. You’re
Mbikana, right?”
“Yes, sir.” Wolf gingerly took the proffered chair, which did not seem all
that clean. It was becoming clear to him now; DiStephano was one of the
men on whom he had waited these several months, the biggest of the lot,
in fact. “I represent—”
“The Southwest Africa Trade Company.” DiStephano lifted some
documents from his desk. “Now this says you’re prepared to offer—among
other things—resource data from your North American Coyote landsat in
exchange for the right to place students in Johns Hopkins. I find that an
odd offer for your organization to make.”
“Those are my papers,” Wolf objected. “As a citizen of Southwest Africa,
I’m not used to this sort of cavalier treatment.”
“Look, kid, I’m a busy man, I have no time to discuss your rights. The
papers are in my hands, I’ve read them, the people that sent you knew I
would, Okay? So I know what you want and what you’re offering. What I
want to know is why you’re making this offer.”
Wolf was disconcerted. He was used to a more civilized, a more leisurely
manner of doing business. The oldtimers at SWATC had warned him that
the pace would be different here, but he hadn’t had the experience to
decipher their veiled references and hints. He was painfully aware that he
had gotten the mission, with its high salary and the promise of a bonus,
only because it was not one that appealed to the older hands.
“America was hit hardest,” he said, “but the Collapse was worldwide.”
He wondered whether he should explain the system of corporate social
responsibility that African business was based on. Then decided that if
DiStephano didn’t know, he didn’t want to. “There are still problems.
Africa has a high incidence of birth defects.” Because America exported
its poisons; its chemicals and pesticides and foods containing a witch’s
brew of preservatives . “We hope to do away with the problem; if a major
thrust is made, we can clean up the gene pool in less than a century. But to
do this requires professionals —eugenicists, embryonic surgeons—and
while we have these, they are second-rate. The very best still come from
your nation’s medical schools.”
“We can’t spare any.”
 
“We don’t propose to steal your doctors. We’d provide our own
students—fully trained doctors who need only the specialized training.”
“There are only so many openings at Hopkins,” DiStephano said. “Or at
U of P or the UVM Medical College, for that matter.”
“We’re prepared to—” Wolf pulled himself up short. “It’s in the papers.
We’ll pay enough that you can expand to meet the needs of twice the
number of students we require.” The room was dim and oppressive. Sweat
built up under Wolf’s clothing.
“Maybe so. You can’t buy teachers with money, though.” Wolf said
nothing. “I’m also extremely reluctant to let your people near our medics.
You can offer them money, estates—things our country cannot afford. And
we need our doctors. As it is, only the very rich can get the corrective
surgery they require.”
“If you’re worried about our pirating your professionals, there are ways
around that. For example, a clause could be written—” Wolf went on,
feeling more and more in control. He was getting somewhere. If there
wasn’t a deal to be made, the discussion would never have gotten this far.
The day wore on. DiStephano called in aides and dismissed them.
Twice, he had drinks sent in. Once, they broke for lunch. Slowly the heat
built, until it was sweltering. Finally, the light began to fail, and the heat
grew less oppressive.
DiStephano swept the documents into two piles, returned one to Wolf,
and put the other inside a desk drawer. “I’ll look these over, have our legal
boys run a study. There shouldn’t be any difficulties. I’ll get back to you
with the final word in—say a month. September twenty-first. I’ll be in
Boston then, but you can find me easily enough, if you ask around.”
“A month? But I thought...”
“A month. You can’t hurry City Hall,” DiStephano said firmly. “Ms.
Corey!” The veiled woman was at the door, remote, elusive.
“Sir.”
“Drag Kaplan out of his office. Tell him we got a kid here he should give
the VIP treatment to. Maybe a show. It’s a Hopkins thing, he should earn
his keep.”
“Yes, sir.” She was gone.
“Thank you,” Wolf said, “but I don’t really need . . .”
“Take my advice, kid, take all the perks you can get. God knows there
aren’t many left. I’ll have Kaplan pick you up at your hostel in an hour.”
 
Kaplan turned out to be a slight, balding man with nervous gestures,
some sort of administrative functionary for Hopkins. Wolf never did get
the connection. But Kaplan was equally puzzled by Wolf’s status, and Wolf
took petty pleasure in not explaining it. It took some of the sting off of
having his papers stolen.
Kaplan led Wolf through the evening streets. A bright sunset circled the
world and the crowds were much thinner. “We won’t be leaving the area
that’s zoned for electricity,” Kaplan said. “Otherwise I’d advise against
going out at night at all. Lot of jennie-deafs out then.”
“Jennie-deafs?”
“Mutes. Culls. The really terminal cases. Some of them can’t pass
themselves off in daylight even wearing coveralls. Or chador—a lot are
women.” A faintly perverse expression crossed the man’s face, leaving not
so much as a greasy residue.
“Where are we going?” Wolf asked. He wanted to change the subject. A
vague presentiment assured him he did not want to know the source of
Kaplan’s expression.
“A place called Peabody’s. You’ve heard of Janis Joplin, our famous
national singer?” Wolf nodded, meaning no.
“The show is a recreation of her act. Woman name of Maggie Horowitz
does the best impersonation of Janis I’ve ever seen. Tickets are almost
impossible to get, but Hopkins has special influence in this case
because—ah, here we are.”
Kaplan led him down a set of concrete steps and into the basement of a
dull, brick building. Wolf experienced a moment of dislocation. It was a
bookstore. Shelves and boxes of books and magazines brooded over him, a
packrat’s clutter of paper.
Wolf wanted to linger, to scan the ancient tomes, remnants of a time
and culture fast sinking into obscurity and myth. But Kaplan brushed past
them without a second glance and he had to hurry to keep up.
They passed through a second roomful of books, then into a hallway
where a gray man held out a gnarled hand and said, “Tickets, please.”
Kaplan gave the man two crisp pasteboard cards, and they entered a
third room.
It was a cabaret. Wooden chairs clustered about small tables with
flickering candles at their centers. The room was lofted with wood beams,
 

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