Part 2 (1/2)

If you heard it, good Wislawa, then it must be so. But you see, I was not aware... Aspects of his behavior had been escaping from his control. If he were to seek professional help, no doubt a breakdown of some sort would be diagnosed. (If he were Bronislawa Rhinehart, he would gladly take that diagnosis home with him and then start looking for somebody to sue.) It struck him with great force that a breakdown of some sort was precisely what he had been inviting all along. All those rhapsodies about wis.h.i.+ng to be unmade! So now that certain chronological segments of himself had ceased to be in touch with others-now that he had literally dis-integrated in time-why was he so shocked? Be careful what you wish for, Malik. Remember W. W. Jacobs. The story of the monkey's paw.

He had come to New York as the Land Surveyor came to the Castle: in ambivalence, in extremis, and in unrealistic hope. He had found his billet, a more comfortable one than the poor Surveyor's, and ever since then had been roaming the streets, looking for a way in, telling himself that the great World-City could heal him, a city child, if he could only find the gateway to its magic, invisible, hybrid heart. This mystical proposition had clearly altered the continuum around him. Things appeared to proceed by logic, according to the laws of psychological verisimilitude and the deep inner coherences of metropolitan life, but in fact all was mystery. But perhaps his was not the only ident.i.ty to be coming apart at the seams. Behind the facade of this age of gold, this time of plenty, the contradictions and impoverishment of the Western human individual, or let's say the human self in America, were deepening and widening. Perhaps that wider disintegration was also to be made visible in this city of fiery, jeweled garments and secret ash, in this time of public hedonism and private fear.

A change of direction was required. The story you finished was perhaps never the one you began. Yes! He would take charge of his life anew, binding his breaking selves together. Those changes in himself that he sought, he himself would initiate and make them. No more of this miasmic, absent drift. How had he ever persuaded himself that this money-mad burg would rescue him all by itself, this Gotham in which Jokers and Penguins were running riot with no Batman (or even Robin) to frustrate their schemes, this Metropolis built of Kryptonite in which no Superman dared set foot, where wealth was mistaken for riches and the joy of possession for happiness, where people lived such polished lives that the great rough truths of raw existence had been rubbed and buffed away, and in which human souls had wandered so separately for so long that they barely remembered how to touch; this city whose fabled electricity powered the electric fences that were being erected between men and men, and men and women, too? Rome did not fall because her armies weakened but because Romans forgot what being a Roman meant. Might this new Rome actually be more provincial than its provinces; might these new Romans have forgotten what and how to value, or had they never known? Were all empires so undeserving, or was this one particularly cra.s.s? Was n.o.body in all this bustling endeavor and material plenitude engaged, any longer, on the deep quarry-work of the mind and heart? O Dream-America, was civilization's quest to end in obesity and trivia, at Roy Rogers and Planet Hollywood, in USA Today USA Today and on E!; or in million-dollar-game-show greed or fly-on-the-wall voyeurism; or in the eternal confessional booth of Ricki and Oprah and Jerry, whose guests murdered each other after the show; or in a spurt of gross-out dumb-and-dumber comedies designed for young people who sat in darkness howling their ignorance at the silver screen; or even at the unattainable tables of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Duca.s.se? What of the search for the hidden keys that unlock the doors of exaltation? Who demolished the City on the Hill and put in its place a row of electric chairs, those dealers in death's democracy, where everyone, the innocent, the mentally deficient, the guilty, could come to die side by side? Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Who settled for George W. Gush's boredom and Al Bore's gush? Who let Charlton Heston out of his cage and then asked why children were getting shot? What, America, of the Grail? O ye Yankee Galahads, ye Hoosier Lancelots, O Parsifals of the stockyards, what of the Table Round? He felt a flood bursting in him and did not hold it back. Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction. What he opposed in it he must also attack in himself. It made him want what it promised and eternally withheld. Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized: Indians, Iranians, Uzbeks, j.a.panese, Lilliputians, all. America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand; and so, like everyone, Malik Solanka now walked its high corridors cap in hand, a supplicant at its feast; but that did not mean he could not look it in the eye. Arthur had fallen, Excalibur was lost, and dark Mordred was king. Beside him on the throne of Camelot sat the queen, his sister, the witch Morgan le Fay. and on E!; or in million-dollar-game-show greed or fly-on-the-wall voyeurism; or in the eternal confessional booth of Ricki and Oprah and Jerry, whose guests murdered each other after the show; or in a spurt of gross-out dumb-and-dumber comedies designed for young people who sat in darkness howling their ignorance at the silver screen; or even at the unattainable tables of Jean-Georges Vongerichten and Alain Duca.s.se? What of the search for the hidden keys that unlock the doors of exaltation? Who demolished the City on the Hill and put in its place a row of electric chairs, those dealers in death's democracy, where everyone, the innocent, the mentally deficient, the guilty, could come to die side by side? Who paved Paradise and put up a parking lot? Who settled for George W. Gush's boredom and Al Bore's gush? Who let Charlton Heston out of his cage and then asked why children were getting shot? What, America, of the Grail? O ye Yankee Galahads, ye Hoosier Lancelots, O Parsifals of the stockyards, what of the Table Round? He felt a flood bursting in him and did not hold it back. Yes, it had seduced him, America; yes, its brilliance aroused him, and its vast potency too, and he was compromised by this seduction. What he opposed in it he must also attack in himself. It made him want what it promised and eternally withheld. Everyone was an American now, or at least Americanized: Indians, Iranians, Uzbeks, j.a.panese, Lilliputians, all. America was the world's playing field, its rule book, umpire, and ball. Even anti-Americanism was Americanism in disguise, conceding, as it did, that America was the only game in town and the matter of America the only business at hand; and so, like everyone, Malik Solanka now walked its high corridors cap in hand, a supplicant at its feast; but that did not mean he could not look it in the eye. Arthur had fallen, Excalibur was lost, and dark Mordred was king. Beside him on the throne of Camelot sat the queen, his sister, the witch Morgan le Fay.

Professor Malik Solanka prided himself on being a practical man. Deft with his hands, he could thread a needle, mend his own clothes, iron a dress s.h.i.+rt. For a time, when he first began to make his philosophy dolls, he had apprenticed himself to a Cambridge tailor and learned to cut the clothes his pint-sized thinkers would wear; also the street-fas.h.i.+on knockoffs he created for Little Brain. Wislawa or no, he knew how to keep his living quarters clean. Henceforth he would apply the same principles of good housekeeping to his inner life as well.

He set off along Seventieth Street with the Chinese cleaners' purple laundry bag slung over his right shoulder. Turning onto Columbus, he overheard the following soliloquy. ”You remember my ex-wife, Erin. Tess's mom. Yeah, the actress; these days she does mainly commercials. So guess what? We're seeing each other again. Pretty weird, huh. After two years of thinking she was the enemy, and five more of better but still tricky relations! I started inviting her to come over sometimes with Tess. Tess likes her mom to be around, to tell the truth. And then one night. Yeah, it was one of those Then One Night things. There was a point at which I went over and sat down next to her on the settee instead of staying in my usual chair way over across the other side of the room. You know, my desire for her never went away, it just got buried under a heap of other stuff, a whole heap of anger, to tell the truth, and so now it all just poured out, boom! An ocean of it. To tell the truth the seven years had backed up a whole load of it, desire, that is, and maybe the anger made it even more intense, so it was amazingly bigger than it used to be. But so here's the thing. I walk over to the settee and what happens, happens, and afterwards she says, 'You know, when you came over to me, I didn't know if you were going to hit me or kiss me.' I guess I didn't know either until I reached the settee. To tell the truth.”

All this spoken into the air at high volume by a gangling, frizz-haired Art Garfunkel-y man in his forties, out walking a brindled dog. It was a moment before Solanka saw the cell-phone headset through the halo of ginger hair. These days we all come across like rummies or crackpots, Solanka thought, confiding our secrets to the wind as we stroll along. Here was a striking example of the disintegrated contemporary reality that was preoccupying him. Dog-walking Art, existing for the moment only in the Telephone Continuum-lingering in the sound of silence-was quite unaware that in the alternative, or Seventieth Street Continuum, he was revealing his deepest intimacies to strangers. This about New York Professor Solanka liked a lot-this sense of being crowded out by other people's stories, of walking like a phantom through a city that was in the middle of a story which didn't need him as a character. And the man's ambivalence to his wife, Solanka thought: for wife, read America. And maybe I'm still walking over to the settee.

The day's newspapers brought unexpected comfort. He must have turned on the TV too late to hear the day's main developments in the Sky-Ren-Bindy murder investigation. Now with lifting heart he read that the team of detectives-three precincts had joined forces on this inquiry-had hauled the three beaux in for questioning. They had later been released, and no charges had been filed for the moment, but the detectives' demeanor had been grave and the young men had been warned not to head off in a hurry for any Riviera yachts or Southeast Asian beaches. Unnamed sources close to the investigation said that the ”Mr. Panama Hat” theory was being heavily discounted, which clearly implied that the suspect boyfriends were thought to have cooked up the mysterious stalker between them. Stash, Horse, and Club looked, in the photos, like three very scared young men. Press comment, wasting no time, instantly linked the unsolved triple murder to the Nicole Brown Simpson killing and the death of little JonBenet Ramsey. ”In such cases,” one editorial concluded, ”it's wisest to keep the search pretty close to home.”

”Can I talk to you?” When he got back to the apartment, giddy with relief, Mila was waiting for him on the stoop, sans entourage, but holding in her arms a half-life size Little Brain doll. The transformation in her manner was startling. Gone was the street-G.o.ddess swagger, the queen-of-the-world att.i.tude. This was a shy, gawky young woman with stars in her green eyes. ”What you said at the movies. Are you, it has to be you, right? You're that that Professor Solanka? 'Little Brain created by Prof. Malik Solanka.' You brought her into being, you gave her life. Oh, wow. I even have all the videotapes of Professor Solanka? 'Little Brain created by Prof. Malik Solanka.' You brought her into being, you gave her life. Oh, wow. I even have all the videotapes of Adventures Adventures, and for my twenty-first birthday my dad went to a dealer and bought me the first-draft script of the Galileo episode, you know, before they made you cut all the blasphemy out?, that's like my most treasured possession. Okay, please say I'm right, because otherwise I'm making such a fool of myself my cool is totally blown forever. Well, it's pretty blown anyway, you have no idea what Eddie and the guys thought of me coming over here with a doll doll, for Chrissake.” Solanka's natural defenses, already lowered on account of his lightened heart, were overwhelmed by such extreme pa.s.sion. ”Yes,” he conceded. ”Yes, that's me.” She screamed at the top of her voice, leaping high in the air about three inches away from his face. ”No way!” she then hooted, unable to stop hopping up and down. ”Oh my G.o.d G.o.d. I have to tell you, Professor: you totally rock rock. And your L.B., this little lady right here, has been my like total obsession obsession for most of the last ten for most of the last ten years years. I watch every move she makes. And as you spotted, she's only the basis basis and and inspiration inspiration for my whole current for my whole current personal style.” personal style.” She stuck a hand out. ”Mila. Mila Milo. Don't laugh. It was Milosevic originally, but my dad wanted something everyone could say. I mean, this is America, right? Make it easy. Mee-la My-lo.” Stretching the vowels out exaggeratedly, she pulled a face, then grinned. ”Sounds like, I don't know, She stuck a hand out. ”Mila. Mila Milo. Don't laugh. It was Milosevic originally, but my dad wanted something everyone could say. I mean, this is America, right? Make it easy. Mee-la My-lo.” Stretching the vowels out exaggeratedly, she pulled a face, then grinned. ”Sounds like, I don't know, farm fertilizer farm fertilizer. Or maybe cereal.” cereal.”

He felt the old anger surge in him as she spoke, the huge, una.s.suaged Little Brain anger that had remained unexpressed, inexpressible, all these years. This was the anger that had led directly to the episode of the knife.... He made an immense effort and forced it down. This was the first day of his new phase. Today there would be no red mist, no obscene tirade, no fury-induced memory blackout. Today he would face the demon and wrestle it to the mat. Breathe, he told himself. Breathe.

Mila was looking worried. ”Professor? Are you okay?” He nodded rapidly, yes, yes. And briefly said: ”Come inside, please. I want to tell you a story.”

PART two.

8.

His earliest dolls, the little characters he had made, when younger, to populate the houses he'd designed, were painstakingly whittled out of soft whitewoods, clothes and all, and afterward painted, the clothing in vivid colors and the faces full of tiny but significant details: here a woman's cheek swollen to hint at toothache, there a fan of crow's-feet at the corners of some jolly fellow's eyes. Since those distant beginnings he had lost interest in the houses, while the people he made had grown in stature and psychological complexity. Nowadays they started out as clay figurines. Clay, of which G.o.d, who didn't exist, made man, who did. Such was the paradox of human life: its creator was fictional, but life itself was a fact.

He thought of them as people. When he was bringing them into being, they were as real to him as anyone else he knew. Once he had created them, however, once he knew their stories, he was happy to let them go their own way: other hands could manipulate them for the television camera, other craftsmen could cast and replicate them. The character and the story were all he cared about. The rest was just playing with toys.

The only one of his creations with whom he fell in love-the only one he didn't want anyone else to handle-would break his heart. This was, of course, Little Brain: first a doll, later a puppet, then an animated cartoon, and afterward an actress, or, at various other times, a talk-show host, gymnast, ballerina, or supermodel, in a Little Brain outfit. Her first, late-night, series, of which n.o.body expected much, had been made more or less exactly as Malik Solanka desired. In that time-traveling quest program, ”L.B.” was the disciple, while the philosophers she met were the real heroes. After the move to prime time, however, the channel's executives soon weighed in. The original format was deemed much too highbrow. Little Brain was the star, and the new show had to be built around her, it was decreed. Instead of traveling constantly, she needed a location and a cast of recurring characters to play off. She needed a love interest, or better still a series of suitors, which would allow the hottest young male actors of the time to guest-star on the show and wouldn't tie her down. Above all, she needed comedy: smart comedy, brainy comedy, yes, but there must definitely be a great many laughs. Probably even a laugh track. Writers could, would, be provided to work with Solanka to develop his. .h.i.t idea for the ma.s.s audience that would now come into contact with it. This was what he wanted, wasn't it-to move into the mainstream? If an idea didn't develop, it died. These were the facts of televisual life.

Thus Little Brain moved to Brain Street in Brainville, with a whole family and neighborhood posse of Brains: she had an older brother called Little Big Brain, there was a science laboratory down the street called the Brain Drain, and even a laconic cowboy movie star neighbor (John Brayne). It was painful stuff, but the lower the comedy stooped, the higher the ratings soared. Brain Street Brain Street wiped out the memory of wiped out the memory of The Adventures of Little Brain The Adventures of Little Brain in a minute and settled in for a long, lucrative run. At a certain point Malik Solanka bowed to the inevitable and walked off the program. But he kept his credit on the show, ensured that his ”moral rights” in his creation were protected, and negotiated a healthy share of the merchandising income. He couldn't watch the show any longer. But Little Brain gave every indication of being happy to see him go. in a minute and settled in for a long, lucrative run. At a certain point Malik Solanka bowed to the inevitable and walked off the program. But he kept his credit on the show, ensured that his ”moral rights” in his creation were protected, and negotiated a healthy share of the merchandising income. He couldn't watch the show any longer. But Little Brain gave every indication of being happy to see him go.

She had outgrown her creator-literally; she was life-size now, and several inches taller than Solanka-and was making her own way in the world. Like Hawkeye or Sherlock Holmes or Jeeves, she had transcended the work that created her, had attained the fiction's version of freedom. She now endorsed products on television, opened supermarkets, gave after-dinner speeches, emceed gong shows. By the time Brain Street Brain Street had run its course she was a full-fledged television personality. She got her own talk show, made guest appearances in new hit comedies, appeared on the catwalk for Vivienne Westwood, and was attacked, for demeaning women, by Andrea Dworkin-”smart women don't have to be dolls”-and, for emasculating men, by Karl Lagerfeld (”what true man wants a woman with a bigger shall I say had run its course she was a full-fledged television personality. She got her own talk show, made guest appearances in new hit comedies, appeared on the catwalk for Vivienne Westwood, and was attacked, for demeaning women, by Andrea Dworkin-”smart women don't have to be dolls”-and, for emasculating men, by Karl Lagerfeld (”what true man wants a woman with a bigger shall I say vocabulary vocabulary than his own?”). Both critics then immediately agreed, for high consultancy fees, to join the concept group behind ”L.B.,” a team known at the BBC as the Little Brains Trust. Little Brain's bubble-gum-poppy debut movie than his own?”). Both critics then immediately agreed, for high consultancy fees, to join the concept group behind ”L.B.,” a team known at the BBC as the Little Brains Trust. Little Brain's bubble-gum-poppy debut movie Brainwave Brainwave was a rare false step, and flopped badly, but the first volume of her memoirs (!) went straight to the top of the Amazon bestseller charts as soon as it was announced, months before it was even published, clocking up over a quarter of a million sales in pre-orders alone, from hysterical fans who were determined to be first in line. After publication it broke all records; a second, third, and fourth volume followed, one per year, and sold, at the most conservative estimate, over fifty million copies worldwide. was a rare false step, and flopped badly, but the first volume of her memoirs (!) went straight to the top of the Amazon bestseller charts as soon as it was announced, months before it was even published, clocking up over a quarter of a million sales in pre-orders alone, from hysterical fans who were determined to be first in line. After publication it broke all records; a second, third, and fourth volume followed, one per year, and sold, at the most conservative estimate, over fifty million copies worldwide.

She had become the Maya Angelou of the doll world, as relentless an autobiographer as that other caged bird, her life the model for millions of young people-its humble beginnings, its years of struggle, its triumphant overcomings; and, O, her dauntlessness in the face of poverty and cruelty! O, her joy when Fate chose her to be one of its Elect!-among whom West Seventieth Street's own empress of cool, Mila Milo, was proud to be numbered. (Her unlived life! Solanka thought. Her fictive history, part Dungeons & Dragons fairy tale, part dirt-poor ghetto saga, and all ghostwritten for her by anonymous persons of phantom talent! This was not the life he had imagined for her; this had nothing to do with the back-story he had dreamed up for his pride and joy. This L.B. was an impostor, with the wrong history, the wrong dialogue, the wrong personality, the wrong wardrobe, the wrong brain brain. Somewhere in medialand there was a Chateau d'If in which the real Little Brain was being held captive. Somewhere there was a Doll in an Iron Mask.) The extraordinary thing about her fan base was its catholicity: boys dug her as much as girls, adults as much as children. She crossed all boundaries of language, race, and cla.s.s. She became, variously, her admirers' ideal lover or confidante or goal. Her first book of memoirs was originally placed by the Amazon people in the nonfiction nonfiction lists. The decision to move it, and the subsequent volumes, across into the world of make-believe was resisted by both readers and staff. Little Brain, they argued, was no longer a simulacrum. She was a phenomenon. The fairy's wand had touched her, and she was real. lists. The decision to move it, and the subsequent volumes, across into the world of make-believe was resisted by both readers and staff. Little Brain, they argued, was no longer a simulacrum. She was a phenomenon. The fairy's wand had touched her, and she was real.

All this Malik Solanka witnessed from a distance with growing horror. This creature of his own imagining, born of his best self and purest endeavor, was turning before his eyes into the kind of monster of tawdry celebrity he most profoundly abhorred. His original and now obliterated Little Brain had been genuinely smart, able to hold her own with Erasmus or Schopenhauer. She had been beautiful and sharp-tongued, but she had swum in the sea of ideas, living the life of the mind. This revised edition, over which he had long ago lost creative control, had the intellect of a slightly overaverage chimpanzee. Day by day she became a creature of the entertainment microverse, her music videos-yes, she was a recording artist now!-out-raunching Madonna's, her appearances at premieres out-Hurleying every starlet who ever trod the red carpet in a dangerous frock. She was a video game and a cover girl, and this, remember, in her personal appearance mode at least, was essentially a woman whose own head was completely concealed inside the iconic doll's. Yet many aspirants to stardom vied for the role, even though the Little Brains Trust-which had become too big for the BBC to hold on to, and had broken away to become a booming independent business, projected to break the billion-dollar barrier someday soon-insisted on utter confidentiality; the names of the women who brought Little Brain to life were never revealed, though rumors abounded, and the paparazzi of Europe and America, bringing their own special expertise to bear, claimed to be able to identify this actress or that model by those other, nonfacial attributes which Little Brain so proudly put on display.

Astonis.h.i.+ngly, the glamour-puss transformation lost latex-headed Little Brain no fans, but brought her a new legion of adult male admirers. She had become unstoppable, giving press conferences at which she spoke of setting up her own film production company, launching her own magazine in which beauty hints, lifestyle advice, and cutting-edge contemporary culture would all receive the special Little Brain treatment, and even going nationwide, in the U.S.A., on cable television. There would be a Broadway show-she was in discussion with all the major players in the musical game, dear Tim and dear Elton and dear Cameron and of course dear, dear Andrew-and a new, big-budget movie was also planned. This would not repeat the corny teenybopper mistakes of the first but grow ”organically” out of the zillion-selling memoirs. ”Little Brain is not some plastic-fantastic Barbie Spice,” she told the world-she had started speaking of herself in the third person-”and the new film will be very human, and quality all the way. Marty, Bobby, Brad, Gwynnie, Meg, Julia, Tom and Nic are all interested; also Jenny, Puffy, Maddy, Robbie, Mick: I guess everybody these days wants a Little Brain.”

The ballooning triumph of Little Brain inevitably occasioned much comment and a.n.a.lysis. Her admirers were jeered at for their lowbrow obsession, but at once eminent theater folk came forward to speak of the ancient tradition of mask theater, its origins in Greece and j.a.pan. ”The actor in the mask is liberated from her normality, her everydayness. Her body acquires remarkable new freedoms. The mask dictates all this. The mask acts.” Professor Solanka remained aloof, refusing all invitations to discuss his out-of-control creation. The money, however, he was unable to refuse. Royalties continued to pour into his bank account. He was compromised by greed, and the compromise sealed his lips. Contractually bound not to attack the goose that laid the golden eggs, he had to bottle up his thoughts and, in keeping his own counsel, filled up with the bitter bile of his many discontents. With every new media initiative spearheaded by the character he had once delineated with such sprightliness and care, his impotent fury grew.

In h.e.l.lo! h.e.l.lo! magazine, Little Brain-for a reported seven-figure fee-allowed readers an intimate look at her beautiful country home, which was, apparently, an old Queen Anne pile not far from the Prince of Wales's in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and Malik Solanka, whose original inspiration had been the Rijksmuseum dollhouses, was thunderstruck by the effrontery of this latest inversion. So now the big houses would belong to these uppity dolls, while most of the human race still lived in cramped accommodation? The wrongness-in his view the moral bankruptcy-of this particular development alarmed him profoundly; still, far from bankrupted himself, he held his tongue and took the dirty money. For ten years, as ”Art Garfunkel” might have said into his mouthpiece, he had backed up a whole heap of self-loathing and rage. Fury stood above him like a cresting Hokusai wave. Little Brain was his delinquent child grown into a rampaging giantess, who now stood for everything he despised and trampled beneath her giant feet all the high principles he had brought her into being to extol; including, evidently, his own. magazine, Little Brain-for a reported seven-figure fee-allowed readers an intimate look at her beautiful country home, which was, apparently, an old Queen Anne pile not far from the Prince of Wales's in Gloucesters.h.i.+re, and Malik Solanka, whose original inspiration had been the Rijksmuseum dollhouses, was thunderstruck by the effrontery of this latest inversion. So now the big houses would belong to these uppity dolls, while most of the human race still lived in cramped accommodation? The wrongness-in his view the moral bankruptcy-of this particular development alarmed him profoundly; still, far from bankrupted himself, he held his tongue and took the dirty money. For ten years, as ”Art Garfunkel” might have said into his mouthpiece, he had backed up a whole heap of self-loathing and rage. Fury stood above him like a cresting Hokusai wave. Little Brain was his delinquent child grown into a rampaging giantess, who now stood for everything he despised and trampled beneath her giant feet all the high principles he had brought her into being to extol; including, evidently, his own.