The Ukrainian jabbed Plum in the gut. He pulled the bat back at the last second so as to inflict minimal pain. Still, Plum put on a show, tumbling backward and gasping for air, as though he had been hit by a cannonball. When he righted himself, he looked pleased with his performance and was suppressing a smile.
The guard offered X food from his pouch. X couldn’t identify what it was. Something coarse and dry. It didn’t matter. He was too excited about his new revelation to eat. He told the Ukrainian that the bracelet and the other objects were clues of some kind.
“Ah, the plot fattens!” said the guard. “I remember freezing my yaytsa off when Regent make us dive for these things. Glad to know I donate yaytsa to honorable cause.”
Over the next few minutes, as the Ukrainian jabbed them, X declared his intention to scour the hill for the person Regent had sent him to find. He’d ask every soul he could if they knew anyone named Vesuvius or recognized the objects in his collection. In the surprised silence that followed his announcement, X acknowledged that the plan sounded ridiculous but said that unless they could conceive of a better one, he would see it through.
“I agree,” said the Ukrainian at last.
“Truly?” said X.
“I agree as to sounding ridiculous,” said the Ukrainian. “In fact, is loopty-loop crazy. Thousands men and women sprinkled on hill like sugar almost, and you will find one? Is ludicrous. Also, you will be beaten hundred times in process.”
“I understand that I may fail,” said X. “I understand that I may be made to suffer. But I have set a course, and I mean to follow it.”
The Ukrainian shook his head wearily.
“X,” he said. “You, to me, are like younger, less attractive brother. But I cannot endorse plan, and cannot assist.”
“I understand,” said X.
“Would be madness for me, okay?” said the guard. “Was prisoner once, before promotion. Will not be made prisoner again. Already I lose Reeper, yes? Already I lose home in country-club part of Lowlands. Am now in leeteral hellhole. I am sorry, but I can risk no more.”
“You have nothing to apologize for,” said X. “You’re a good man.”
The guard removed his sunglasses.
“Of course I good man,” he said. “Am from Oo-kra-EEN. How many times am I saying this?”
X turned to Plum.
“Do you agree that I have lost my senses?” he said.
“Yes,” said Plum. “Everything the Ukrainian has said is perfectly sound. But I will help you anyway—if you think a big, soft pillow like me can be of any use, I mean. Give me half of your things, and half the hill to search.”
X was shocked by Plum’s offer. He thanked him in a fumbling way. The Ukrainian was angry. He hit Plum with the bat.
“You have death wish or some such, Plum person?” he said. “Let me remind: you are already dead.”
“Look, I know this will not end well,” said Plum. “I don’t see how it can. But it’s a chance for me to do something good, to atone a tiny little bit—to be the lotus flower.”
“Countess is psychopath,” said the Ukrainian. “Do you not fear her knife?”
“I fear it more than you can imagine,” said Plum.
He unbuttoned his khaki shirt slowly. There was a lurid purple scar running from his sternum to his belly button, like a zipper.
They agreed to sleep before starting out, but X found it impossible. His nerves were humming, and he hadn’t gotten used to the noise on the hill—the awful orchestra of coughs and grunts and sobs. Plum lay close to him. X could tell from his breathing that he couldn’t sleep either. Eventually, they sat up, and divided the objects in the foil between them. X had treasured these things for so long. He felt as if he were handing over pieces of his body.
Plum took responsibility for the top half of the hill because he knew souls there already. X hiked farther down. It was slow going because the hill was steep, and often clotted with bodies. They were from every country and every century, but they were all in the same torment. He thought of the painting of hell that the Ukrainian’s babushka had hung on her wall. He could imagine it perfectly.
The first person X approached lay on the ground wrapped nearly head to toe in bandages like a mummy.
“I search for someone,” he said, kneeling. “Someone who can help me find my mother.”
He held the bracelet and the comb where the bandaged man could see them. At first, the man appeared unable to produce any words at all. X leaned close. Finally the mummy managed to whisper a few phrases, which were among the most vile things X had ever heard.
X pushed disappointment away. He thought about Zoe—about how it never occurred to her to give up on anything, ever.
The next soul he spoke to was not much older than himself. He wore a shabby uniform from the American Civil War. A woman in a bloodstained bridal gown lay next to him, either asleep or in a coma. X winced at the blood.
“Don’t let her rattle yeh,” said the soldier. “The Bride’s not near as scary as she looks—though she did kill her husband after sixteen minutes of matrimony.”
“Sixteen minutes?” said X.
“Marriage ain’t for everybody,” said the soldier. “What name yeh go by? I seen yeh. You’re the feller that eats.”
He spoke too loudly for X’s comfort.
X told him his name.
“Please mind your voice,” he added. “I cannot afford to be found out.”
“Yes, sir, Captain, sir,” the soldier said. He grinned as if X were worried about nothing, and did not lower his voice. “I go by Shiloh here,” he said.
“I am looking for someone who answers to the name Vesuvius—or can help me in any way at all,” he said. “Do you recognize these things? I beg you once more to lower your voice.”
“If there’s a Vesuvius in these parts, I ain’t yet met him,” said Shiloh, speaking so softly that he seemed to be teasing X. He indicated a few people close by. “That woman there is Dagger. And that’s Stalker. That over there is a feller we call Birk, short for Birkenau. None of them ever mentioned no Vesuvius in my hearing. Whether it’s worth showing them what-all yeh got there, I leave to yeh to judge.”
When X stood to leave, Shiloh looked bereft.
“Aw, stay a spell why doncha?” he said. “The Bride and me don’t never get company.”
But X was consumed with his mission.
He questioned four more people. The first two sat side by side on a ledge of rock. One was a pink-skinned, middle-aged American, the other slightly darker and perhaps 19. They did not speak, but seemed attuned to each other’s every movement. X wondered if they’d developed a code—three quick taps of the foot meant this, a scratch at the neck meant that. They stiffened when X asked their names, then argued silently about whether to answer. The American clenched his fist. The younger man, disagreeing, opened his palm.
When they finally spoke, it turned out that neither of them knew a Vesuvius, nor recognized the objects. They told X they’d met each other here because, by a quirk of fate, they’d both been given the name Bomber. They wanted to tell X their stories, but he moved on.
This part of the slope was dense with bodies. So many of them were unconscious or incoherent that it took X a long time to find another soul he could question satisfactorily. Hands, arms, feet, and legs were everywhere. They were like a net trying to entrap him. The image of his mother, the possibility of her, receded further and further. The image of Zoe, too. X forced himself to continue, scolding himself for his weakness. Who had told him this would be easy?
The next soul X questioned offered to trade two socks (one black, one red) for the silver comb. X ignored the offer. He asked the man if he knew of a Vesuvius. X’s hands were sweating now, and the foil was turning his palms silver.
“Vesuvius? Yeah, sure, of course,” said the man. He pointed to a figure a hundred feet down the hill. “That’s him there.”
X stumbled over bodies to get to the soul in question, only to find that he’d been lied to for sport.
He stormed back up the hill. The Liar broke into such an infuriating, self-satisfied grin that X struck him in the mouth. He had no special powers here, but he could still beat a man to the ground.