Well in Time (46 page)

When you lift off from Orly and climb above Paris, you can see the inner ring – the Périphérique, the freeway that follows the ancient fortifications of the city. It makes a huge mandala in the midst of the urban sprawl and confirms Ondine’s deeply held conviction that Paris is the Center of the Universe. And at its beating heart, on the tail of the Île de la Cité, the Great Mother is enthroned – Notre Dame Cathedral. That view never fails to bring tears to her eyes.

Flying in over L.A., on the other hand, brings a different kind of tears to her eyes. It doesn’t matter that the full name of the city is La Ciudad de la Madre de Los Angeles. Somehow Our Lady, Mother of the Angels, has gotten squeezed out of the center of things – or asphyxiated by smog.

Ondine gropes for her seat belt, as the jet angles down steeply over the web of freeways in final approach. She drags her maroon leather hobo bag from beneath the seat and rummages for her cosmetic bag, refreshes her lipstick, flicks pretzel crumbs off her pristine aqua lapel, pushes the usual errant lock of auburn hair back from her face and glances again out the window.

There is no center here. No there out there, as they say. She’s diving down into an eye-smarting jumble. Into chaos.

Sophia had a dream last night, on the eve of her departure for Los Angeles. She dreamed she was flying.

No plane around her; just her arms outstretched and the wind rushing over her. She simply rose up from her mountain cabin until she was up high enough to see the Pacific Ocean on her right and the white phalanx of the Sierra crest on her left. Her plaid flannel shirt and blue jeans flapped in the wind and her scuffed Red Wing work boots trailed behind her, weightlessly. Her hair arced out around her like long, gray wings. She just flew and flew. It was exhilarating.

Which is a good thing because in actual fact she hates to fly. It raises her blood pressure until she thinks blood will squirt from her ears. And she hates Southern California even more than she hates flying. She loves the Earth. She loves all the creations of the Goddess, right down to the humblest nematode. But Southern California’s a wasteland, with all natural life suppressed under asphalt and buildings. If the conference on goddess cultures wasn’t too good to miss, she’d never have come.

Sophia does like air terminals, though. She loves seeing the people arriving from foreign flights, especially: the women in saris, the men in turbans, the Africans with deep ritual scarifications on their cheeks, and the little huge-eyed children. Since her bus for Pasadena doesn’t leave for an hour, she’s decided to come over to the international terminal and get a dose of the exotic that simply never penetrates into the hills where she lives.

She settles her denim derrière in a molded plastic chair and watches what must be a tour from China coming at her – several dozen Chinese, all talking too loudly in that nasally singsong and dragging their suitcases on rollers behind them. They’re perfectly dressed; perfectly coiffed. How do they do that, after hours in the air? Maybe it’s genetic.

And here comes a Muslim couple. He’s in a well-cut business suit. She’s in chador, walking three steps behind him. A stair-step covey of brown-eyed children gathers in their wake, dutiful and subdued. The last time a woman in Sophia’s neck of the woods covered her head, it was raining. What must it be like, walking around in a black tent all your life?

One thing’s for sure – they don’t look like terrorists. But then, what does a terrorist look like? On general principles, everyone’s supposed to be hating these people. But they look like a nice couple to her. Their kids are neat, well fed, and well behaved. He doesn’t look unkind or demented.

Who knows what she looks like? Sophia wonders how Homeland Security handles the fact that three people could be hiding under such a copious garment? Do they shoot first, and ask questions later? Do they make her lift her skirts and peer underneath with a flashlight? That poor woman is a walking international incident in the making!

She keeps repeating to herself this mantra: Violence is power; power is violence. She will not let her mind think any other thing.

The van’s windows are blacked out, and the Brothers have duct taped a curtain between the driver’s seat and the back where they are all sitting. Did anyone notice them, a dozen people all in black, emerging from the dilapidated stucco apartment building, abandoned long ago to its fate as student housing? Or see them wedge themselves and their gear into a battered Tradesman van and pull the side door shut, without ever speaking a word? In this big city, does anyone really notice anything – or care, if they do?

Certainly, no one would notice – or care – that they are all male, except for one young woman, who has had a demotion. The men have taken away her name and call her, simply, X.

Jamal is next to her, which is a comfort, even though he will not look at her, or speak. So far, everything is going as planned.

The van leans into a curve and she hears Ibrahim say softly, “Only two or three minutes, now.”

Jamal cracks her ribs with the stock of his gun. She raises hers from the floor and tucks the stock into her right armpit. The others make similar preparations. She pulls down the rolled balaclava and settles its holes over her nose and mouth.

Then the van slams to a stop. The side door is thrown open and Ibraham is standing in the blinding glare, shouting “GO! GO! GO!”

They all scramble out and run.