A bird swooped into the room, a single bird.

  It landed on the bedpost at the foot of my charge’s bed, let out a bright, summoning call.

  More birds arrived, of various species, zipping in through the walls and ceiling until they were positively everywhere: hotfooting it along the mantel; offering rapid-fire bows while perched on the rim of the floor lamp’s shade; formed into orderly, phalanx-like rows across the bed (even across the frail body) of my charge.

  Hooded warblers, s’il vous plaît! the Frenchman called.

  A pair of birds crossed the room and landed, one on each of the Frenchman’s shoulders.

  From beneath the female (yellow and green like the male but lacking his black hood), the Frenchman drew a creamy-white egg, brown-spotted at one end, out of which a new example of the species began to peck its way.

  Unprecedented spring heat wave! the Frenchman cried.

  The baby bird seemed to wither, made several pathetic attempts to drink a liquid not there, then perished in the Frenchman’s cupped palm.

  Necklace-throated dayhawk! the Frenchman called.

  A bird with an iridescent blue neck ridge left its perch and merrily circled the room.

  Catastrophic wildfires during breeding season, three years in a row! said the Frenchman.

  Overcome by smoke, the dayhawk dropped to the carpet, bounced, lay still.

  Allen’s hummingbird! the Frenchman said. Cerulean warbler, purple finch, royal tern, sage thrasher!

  A single member of each of these species rose and hovered before us, the Frenchman’s intention being, it seemed, that my charge should admire the care with which each had been made: the slight purple arc hidden there among the gray underbelly on this one; the shift, on that one’s wings, from flaming orange to the darkest (nearly black) wine red; the jewel-like precision of the gradations on the beak of this fellow, which, if inspected closely, was seen to contain as many as nine distinct colors.

  Each is a miracle, the Frenchman said. Brought about by millions of years of change. Unaware of the larger miracle of which it is a part, yet a vital link in what is to come. Lost forever. Think upon that dreadful phrase, monsieur! And then: repent. It is not difficult. I have done so myself.

  He invented the engine, I explained.

  Quelle horreur, mumbled the Frenchman.

  Christ Almighty, said my charge.

  I know you, mon frère, the Frenchman said. I was you. A partial man, comically incomplete, shortsighted and greedy, living only for today and what might be wrung from it.

  Go fuck yourself, my charge shouted. You don’t know a goddamned thing about it.

  At the sharpness of this rebuke, a female loon (regal, red-eyed, alarmed) exploded out through the wall, giving off a glorious, coyote-like flight yodel.

  Lark bunting, the Frenchman gasped, suddenly short of breath. Nashville warbler.

  His strength, adversely affected by the apparent failure of this grand effort, began to wane.

  Bobolink, he managed to whisper, as if, his depleted energy notwithstanding, he could not bear to omit a single imperiled species.

  Defeated, he propelled himself weakly up into the air, ascending rather as a feather falls: by a series of small curves, retrograde motions, momentary mid-flight stalls.

  At the ceiling he hesitated.

  Weak as he was, the molecules of the plaster presented a formidable obstacle.

  The birds rose as one and shoved him up through it.

  * * *

  —

  Hearing my charge’s agitated mumbling, his wife came over to adjust his medications, the orb of her thoughts intruding upon mine just long enough for me to anticipate, as she was, the taste of the cup of tea she was about to leave the room to go downstairs to make.

  For a moment, the three of us were one.

  Or, rather, I was simultaneously one with each of them in turn.

  Viv, Vivvy, Momma Lifeforce, Angel, he was thinking.

  How he loved her. They’d been a team forever.

  Although in truth he hadn’t loved it much when she’d wander into one of his business meetings sweetly bringing in iced tea or muffins. They’d had to have a little chat about that. Stern chat. Tears had been shed. By her. By way of saying: Hon, I see your point, I was wrong. Thereafter: no more interruptions. They’d laughed about the whole thing. Later. She’d admitted it: that talk had done her good. Plus, she’d said, now I have an entirely new sympathy for your workers. Then burst into tears. Again.

  Well.

  Long time ago. Easy enough to regret a thing. Not good to get in the habit. When you regretted, folks pounced. You were weak with regret, they felt it, they pounced.

  Then what? You had less power, could do less good.

  So: no regrets.

  Ever.

  He looked so frail, his wife was thinking. When he was weak like this—in a crowd of taller men, nervously twisting a sheaf of papers, feeling his authority undercut by their superior height—that was when she loved him best.

  She was going to spare him every bit of pain she could. And that was that.

  She adjusted his pain meds up, up, up.

  Then left the room and it was just the two of us again.

  * * *

  —

  Your wife seems lovely, I said.

  Longing for peace, wishing me gone, awash in the new swell of the drug, he directed his thoughts to a long-completed project involving a tight, clayey sandstone, considerable extraction costs. His negotiating partner had been an Indonesian. Baya. Baya Ajung. They’d sat in the hotel lobby taking a third meeting. Nice fellow, Baya. Had a strange gait. Was sensitive about it. Would always try to be last to leave the table.

  The drug was strong. Too strong. Suddenly the Jakarta evening was full of marching soldiers. Through the window a sergeant blew him a kiss. A kiss somehow menacing. The unit marched off to a pier where all good citizens were to gather. A frightening pier. He and Baya would be late to the frightening pier. Their food had only just arrived. In this culture, it was considered rude not to spend a fortnight writing out words of praise on thin parchment paper, a roll of which had just been brought to their table by their waiter: praise for the meal not yet eaten. Baya rose and rushed away, his gait miraculously normalized, calling back: Now I may leave table whenever I wish!

  Outside, the Indonesians had done something clever: remade Jakarta into the Grand-Place. In Belgium. Quite a trick. Good for them. The Jakarta streets, he found unsavory. Unclean. Lacking Western organization. Every building in the Grand-Place, save the husk of one, had been destroyed in a 1600s firebombing. By the French. Goddamned French. What did he have against the French? He’d lately had something against them but he couldn’t remember what.

  The industrious Belgians had rebuilt the whole thing from scratch.

  Lots of history here.

  Lots. Of. Dang. History.

  The Inquisition had burned a couple fellows alive in this very square.

  Also: numerous beheadings. Right here’d stood the decapitation gizmo.

  Per Luc, their guide of that morning.

  Imagine the millions of folks who’d passed through here. Over the last, say, thousand years. You couldn’t. The mind wouldn’t hold it. He’d been part of that. The long march of history. Not such a small part, either. No: in a relative sense, he’d been more important than many (most) of those millions of souls. In terms of influence-on-world. He had been, that is, more important to the lives of the people on earth during his time than the vast majority of those dead-and-buried folks had been to theirs. That was just a fact. Even if you included kings. Strange but true: he’d had more actual power than most kings of old. Someone had told him that once and he supposed it was true.

  What a thing.

  The moon reflected gloriously in the hundreds of melting ancient windows all around. He’d left family and bodyguard behind, wanting to be out in this wonderment alone. Unguarded, free, walking the ancient cobbles, thinking about his place in things.

  How’d he done? Mother? Father?

  Good.

  Pretty darn good, yep, you got that right, folks.

  His daughter’s voice chimed in from somewhere: What a life you’ve had, Daddy. You go, buddy.

  Julia, Jules. You wouldn’t believe the crap I’m being put through tonight, sweet pea.

  As far as birds?

  There were still birds, there’d always be birds, birds bred like goddamn rats.

  Across the Grand-Place, doors flew open in agreement, emitting an uproar he understood to be the ancient sounds of long-ago parties, brawls, and feasts, an unnerving, summed cacophony of grudges and vows and squeals of pleasure in a multitude of regional accents no longer to be heard on this planet. Yes, there would always be birds, the long-dead folks seemed to agree. Thousands of glasses broke at once, and corks popped, and dogs whose legs had been caught beneath moving chairs yelped, and there were sounds of childbirth and hallooing and spirited objection and toasting and sexual congress (from pairs; from grim, voracious groups of three or four; from lonely, hapless self-pleasurers), drunken singing, mournful singing, absent-minded singing, humming, farting, passionate whispering: in short, every sound a human being had ever made here.

  Out of those flung-open doors now stepped many old acquaintances. Of his. Good God: many indeed. Drifting toward him through the Belgian dark. Having been made aware that he was here. Each holding an ominous-looking satchel. Hoo boy. Hot dog. Among the friends: Overton, Finley, Henry West, Bryce Philips (dragging along that familiar oxygen tank with the smiley-face decal on it). (With friends like these, who needed enemies? Lord God.) Here was Al Billingsgate, Jerry Kasin, Rory “Red” Randall. Here were Hayes, Brindel, and Riggs from PR, here that gaggle of worthless lawyers from the late-1980s incarnation of Legal, cowering behind their erstwhile leader, Glenn McDougall. Near the end of every briefing, the whole submissive gaggle would always start nonsensically cross-yammering, so as to not appear mere McDougall lackeys.

  He’d often made it a point back then to say something disparaging to McDougall, just to take him down a notch.

  Some suit, McD.

  McD, sign up for a night class. You seem to be getting antiquated.

  Why are you right on top of me, McD? You think being closer to me makes you smarter?

  Well, it might.

  Wouldn’t be hard.

  Like that.

  Good lawyer though, McD. He’d hammered Anson, hammered Manders & Culley, hammered (bankrupted) Elverson Colley, hammered numerous intrusive citizens’ groups and wacky, fringe—

  At the head of the enemies was a college kid who’d come up to him once after one of his talks. In Chicago, maybe. Smart kid. Articulate lad. Looked like a girl, with all that thick curly hair. His suit jacket had seemed used, or rented, or like a Halloween costume: faded, too large by a size or two, missing its top two buttons. At least he’d bothered to wear one. That showed respect. The kid had taken his watch off and was nervously passing it from hand to hand as he politely posed a series of questions in the rapidly emptying auditorium.

  His eyes were positively piercing.

  Quickly he got into iffy territory.

  So my charge had to shut it down. By walking off in the abrupt, purposely dismissive way he’d developed over many years of telegraphing displeasure to absolute nobodies.

  Sir, come on, the kid called after him. That’s disrespectful.

  Is that even possible? he almost called back. For a man of my caliber to be “disrespectful” to a naïve brat like you, who’s done fuck all?

  Here in the Grand-Place the enemies, led by that kid, merged with the friends and the whole miffed shebang began closing in on him in a strange halting ghoulish lockstep.

  Jesus H. Christ.

  This was going to be bad. They’d feared him in life and he’d been able to keep them at bay but this was serious and they must not, they knew, lie, not even a little.

  They were about to lower the damn boom.

  Are these folks dead or what? he asked nervously.

  No, I said. You’re making them with your mind.

  So, not real, he said.

  No, I said.

  And you? he said.

  Real, I said.

  Uh-huh, he said.

  His acquaintances paused, taking final preparatory glances down into their ominous satchels so as to be better able to accuse him more precisely and with less mercy.

  You made them with your mind, I said. Unmake them the same way.

  Immediately, his acquaintances began moving churlishly backward, still in lockstep, retreating into the hulking structures, the ancient doors of which, having accepted them, slammed shut all at once.

  And the Grand-Place fell quiet.

  I had undone them.

  We had.

  You’re welcome, I said.

  Thank you, he said.

  Suddenly, I was real. Real to him. There might, after all, he thought, be guides, guardian angels, spooks, phantoms, who, late in the game, showed up to help a guy along.

  Tell Viv less drugs, he said.

  I can’t, I said. You’ll have to tell her yourself.

  And he tried, but nothing came out.

  Maybe lift your arm, I said. Knock over the water glass on the side table.

  He tried but nothing doing.

  From up on the roof came a feeble Gallic cry.

  Will you excuse me? I said.

  * * *

  —

  I shot up through the ceiling and found the Frenchman on the roof, greatly weakened, tucked in against the chimney.

  My goodness, I said. Is this as far as you got?

  I am trying so hard, he said.

  I know you are, I said.

  You might be more helpful, he said.

  I don’t understand what it is you’re trying to do, I said.

  Perhaps you have gone swimming in a lake, he said.

  Yes, I said. And recalled, involuntarily, “Dodd’s Lake,” Lloyd’s big warm legs closed tight around mine, our “boilermakers” on “duck-shaped floatie” between us.

  Pleasant, oui? he said.

  While, back “at camp,” above “pup-tent entry,” swirls “cut-apart-milk-carton lantern.”

  As two “cans of beans” cook over “open fire.”

  “Heinz” brand.

  “Heinz” brand camping beans.

  You’d put “marshmallow” on “stick.”

  Hold “stick” over “fire.”

  Yes, I said. Very pleasant.

  Out there, in the sun, he said. All around you, trees. Beneath you, fish. Now: make that lake tiny. Place it in an oven. Heat it. Only a few degrees. The trees, the little trees, go brown. The fish? Things rupture within. And our tiny lake is ruined: white bellies, big stink. I have seen this. In Uzbekistan.

  You have seen, in Uzbekistan, a tiny lake, I said. In an oven.

  Now is not the time for the joke, he says.

  Not the time for joking, I said.

  Now is not the time for joking, he said. It is the end of everything, the permanent alteration of all, a cataclysm beyond—

  All right, all right, I said.

  You are here to “comfort,” him, oui? he said.

  Yes, I said.

  To comfort one who remains willfully ignorant of what he has done is to provide no comfort at all, he said. If you truly wish to comfort him, bring him to admit his sin, then repent of it.

  Ours is not an easy road.

  Made as we are (of mind, fear, regret) we may become unhinged, prone to unhealthy obsessions. Someone in this state should not be encouraged.

  I smiled politely, stepped away to the edge of the roof.

  Seen through a scrim of summer branches, the bride and groom were at the main table, being urged by the sound of forks against wineglasses to performatively kiss. In a comic spirit, the bride threw herself at him rapaciously, her hand drifting to the back of his head to pull his mouth to hers.

  This appeals to you, the Frenchman said.

  Well, yes: the neat rows of white-clothed tables, the people delightedly feeding themselves, this young woman coquettishly tossing her thick mane of hair, the ancient lady across from her, as if in response, reflexively adjusting her wig; the string quartet sawing away, the intoning of toasts, the clatter of silverware, the snorting horse-laughter, the yammering, flirting, misunderstanding; the stray fellow, just there, staring off into space as if remembering something wonderful that once happened to him.

  It appeals to you too much, he said.

  I just like it is all, I said.

  A “jet plane” passed overhead.

  More poison, he said, and spat.

  Everything is poison to you, I said.

  It was not always so, he said. In life, I was a happy fellow, often celebrating. A cheer would go up when I arrived at Le Chat de Gouttière. My preferred seat was at the crook of the L of the bar. Then, death.

  Yes, I said.

  Death, he said.

  Yes, I said.

  He paused, recalling.

  He paused, recalling, for a long time.

  Finally, he let out a wet cough that, in the living, would have indicated the beginning of his end. Downstairs my charge coughed identically.

  It’s not easy, you know, the Frenchman said. I fly around, observe (I must learn all the languages, in order to understand), appear to those of the weakened living who may see me, interview the recently dead, who tend to resist me. I read over people’s shoulders in darkened studies, spend decades in musty file rooms.

  Sounds very challenging, I said.

  But I must do it, he said. It is a step along my path to peace. Or, rather, a step along my path to eventual peace. Just as, for you? This “comforting”? Is a step along your path. God willing, both of us will, in time, know that blessing.