Paul Cook - The Alejandra Variations

The Alejandra Variations

Paul Cook

An [e - reads ] Book

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, or mechanical, including

photocopy, recording, scanning or any information storage retrieval system, without explicit permission in writing from the Author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First e-reads publication 1999

www.e-reads.com

ISBN 0-7592-0057-2

Author Biography

Paul Cook worked at the Arizona State University as an acquisitions librarian for five years, much of his

time was spent doing research in the Noble Science Library. He currently works in the English

Department as a Senior Lecturer. He has written several novels, including TINTAGEL, THE

ALEJANDRA VARIATIONS, and FORTRESS ON THE SUN.

Other work by Paul Cook

also available in e-reads editions

Tintagel

—Para ella que tiene

su corazón

en la casa de luz,

Cecily Dallas.

Why does the eye see a thing

more clearly in dreams

than the imagination when awake?

—Leonardo da Vinci

Table of Contents

The First Variation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The Second Variation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The Third Variation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

The Fourth Variation

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

The Last Variation

The Alejandra Variations

The First Variation

Chapter One

IDENTIFY THE CITY!

It wasn't so much a command as an impulse which he couldn't ignore. It rang out like the brass of a

clarion, echoing down the deepest corridors of his mind, thundering through to the stanchions of his

muscles and bones.

Identify the city! Find a street sign, an imposing and familiar building or a landmark—even a bridge to be

recognized by its spidery limbs or vast construction.Anything!

But try as he might, he couldn't. At least, not in his present state of mind.

How he had gotten to the picturesque sidewalk café that seemed to jut rudely from the sidewalk out into

the crowded street was beyond him. The liqueur he'd been quaffing these past few hours had dulled his

mind.

What Nicholas Tejada did know was that this did not look like any American or European city.

Languishing in his alcoholic stupor, he stared blearily around him, fingering the small glass in his hand,

swirling the liquid around in lazy, hypnotic spirals.

"Sir, may I recommend thebhel puri? "

The voice came out of nowhere. Nicholas was watching an assembly of finely robed women walk down

the center of the bustling street, chanting and clacking finger-cymbals. The women seemed uncommonly

graceful in their veiled beauty.

The wordPakistan came into his mind suddenly. Then cameBangladesh. Both words were followed by

the mental equivalent of question marks.

There were no automobiles moving along the avenue. An occasional car of foreign manufacture could be

seen parked alongside the curbs, apparently abandoned and useless. The buildings themselves, though

tall and relatively modern, spoke mostly of poverty and profound despair. Clothing, hung out to dry,

waved in the slightest of breezes high above like the flags of a long-lost cause.

Nicholas could not comprehend why there were so many people on the street.Why? the voice inside his

mind asked.Why?

"Sir?"

Nicholas turned and glanced up at the waiter—a young man of walnut skin and sharp, intelligent brown

eyes. Over one wrist he held a clean white towel—just the thing to waylay the prim consciousness of an

American tourist possibly ill-at-ease in a foreign land.

"Sorry," he said and smiled up at the young waiter, a boy whose English was remarkably good. "What

did you say?"

"Thebhel puri. I would like to perhaps recommend it with your liqueur, if you are hungry. It is very tasty,

sir."

Nicholas blinked, trying to assimilate the world through his drunkenness.

With a slight bow, the smiling waiter continued. "It is a flavorful dish of rice, onions, and potatoes, sir. We

spice it with just a touch of chutney sauce. We find it very delicious."

A carnival air surrounded the café. Over his shoulder Nicholas could hear many voices singing, although

what was being sung was utterly incomprehensible.

"That would be fine," he murmured, absorbed by the delightful music from the street. "Yes, please."

As he spoke he began fishing in his trouser pockets for money. It had occurred to him that if he could

identify the currency he could identify the country. The city would come later.

He brought forth a fistful of brown and yellow bills, but he couldn't decipher the script. Scrawls and

curious scribbles—the glyphs of a strange and faraway land—embossed an emblem of some dignitary, or

deity, whom he couldn't recognize.

He was drunker than he had originally thought—if in fact he was drunk. He blinked twice and tried to

focus his eyes on the bills. Yen? Afghanis? Rupees? They rustled like leaves in his hand.

He found among the bills a few traveler's checks—American Express—and American dollars, all

twenties.

But the other currency—exotic to the eye, peculiar to the touch—he couldn't identify.

He could ask the waiter for help. It would seem a stupid question:Where am I, young man? And there

would be a half-dozen questions to follow it, such as:How did I get here? and,What the hell am I

supposed to be doing here?

He stuffed the wad of money back into his pocket, and glanced again into the busy street. There were

literally hundreds of men, women, and children, all dressed insaris of one kind or another. Many of the

men were turbaned. Everyone was caught up in laughter and song. The young ones ran barefoot and

shrieked like kids do everywhere when they are turned loose in a joyous crowd. Nicholas noticed that a

strong smell of incense wafted invisibly around him like the caress of a genie.

India? Bhutan?

The need to identify the city rose like a sickness inside of him.

Then he saw in the distance a form he could definitely recognize. A fire-engine-red double-decker bus

flowed through the crowd of people on the street honking noisily above the tumult. The bus listed as if

injured. As it drew near the café, Nicholas could see dozens of individuals clinging to the far left side of

the vehicle. The bus stopped and people mingled in a chaotic exchange of humanity, some getting on,

others getting off. The bus still did not quite straighten up, and Nicholas could see what years of

wretched, toiling service had done to it. He also realized that, whatever country this was, he was

surrounded by very poor people: The Third World.

The young waiter returned with thebhel puri. Nicholas pondered the delicacy before him. On a fresh

green leaf, which itself rested upon a plate of princely white china, sat a mound of steaming mush. All of a

sudden he was famished. Thebhel puri, whatever it was, smelled simply wonderful.

"Thank you," Nicholas said. He took up his fork and knife and began eating, but the waiter seemed in no

hurry to leave his side. Nicholas didn't mind, feeling in fact oddly secure in the young man's presence. He

pointed with his fork at the crowd parading in the street.

"What's going on?" he asked. "Where are they all headed?"

He didn't want to seem the awkward tourist, asking obvious, ingratiating questions of the natives. But he

figured the waiter would be used to the most obnoxious behavior from foreign visitors.

"It is the sacred celebration of Ganesh Chaturthi," the waiter said with a certain amount of pride. His

teeth, when he smiled at Nicholas, were pearl white. "The women take carved statues of our Hindu gods

down to the sea. The sea is a holy place for us, sir.

"It is one of Bombay's largest festivals," the young man continued. "We close off the streets, except for

the buses, even though it is very bad for business."

Bombay! He had gotten country and city in one neat package. Inwardly, Nicholas could feel something

taut relax, like a fist slowly unclenching. His mission was accomplished.

Then he sat up. Mission accomplished?

The young waiter stood nearby, eyeing the parade of people in the street. Another bus, coughing diesel

smoke in great gouts, came by—heading for the seashore and carrying more enthusiasts of Ganesh

Chaturthi.

Nicholas was confused and made somewhat uneasy by all this. Why had the recognition of the city been

so urgent?

"How many of these things have I had?"

"Sir?" The waiter turned to him.

Nicholas indicated the small glass of liqueur. Everything about him drifted in a haze.

"These drinks. How many have I ordered?"

The waiter smiled understandingly. "Only three, sir." He consulted a bar tab in the side pocket of his

elegant coat. "Yes, just three. Would you like something else with thebhel puri? I can bring you a light

chablis in a chilled carafe if you would prefer."

The feeling of relief which had followed his initial recognition of the city was now replaced with one of

rapt suspicion.

Threedrinks? Normally it took more than three drinks to get him drunk. He must be slipping.

He stared down at hisbhel puri, suddenly not hungry at all. Quite clearly something was amiss.

"Is there anything wrong, sir?" The waiter appeared to be genuinely concerned. "I understand, if it is the

food. There are times when it does not agree with our visitors from the States."

Find the Prime Minister.

"What did you say?"

"Pardon me, sir?"

"What you said just now."

"I was talking about the food. If it is not to your liking, I can return with something a little more suited to

your palate."

Nicholas turned in his seat. "No, not that. You said, 'Find the Prime Minister.' I heard you. I'm sure of it."

An expression of sincere confusion passed across the waiter's brow. "I'm terribly sorry, sir. I said nothing

like that."

Nicholas wiped his mouth lightly with his folded napkin and stood up, fighting the effects of the liqueur.

"I apologize," Nicholas said, rather embarrassed. "I thought you'd said something." He smiled thinly.

"I understand, sir." The waiter was very courteous. "The heat and the crowd at this time of the year can

be disturbing to strangers. This is not a good time to visit India, I'm afraid."

Nicholas drew out his money, knowing now that the bills were rupees, and gave them to the waiter, who

beamed at the American's generosity.

He decided that someone must have passed close to the sidewalk restaurant and shouted out the words

he had heard. In his clouded state of mind, he had assumed that it was the waiter speaking.

The command came again.

Find the Prime Minister. It's got to be the Prime Minister.

Nicholas jerked about suddenly. This time the words were more than clear. It was definitely not a voice

from the crowded, cacophonous Bombay street, not remote and impersonal, or meant for someone

else's ears. It was clearly meant for him. He was the only person who could have heard it, for…

It had come fromwithin.

The Prime Minister!

A wave of fear gripped him. In the multitude of bright colors, confusing sounds, and earthy smells, he felt

a familiar anxiety tugging at him. He began to sweat. He loosened his tie and breathed deeply, trying to

calm himself, to concentrate.

A group of barely clad, shoeless priests, brown as the bark of trees, approached in an air of righteous

solitude. Nicholas stepped aside respectfully and watched them pass. They had to be headed for the

shore. An impulse told him to follow.

The citizens around him seemed absorbed in a mysterious religious calm. The chanting from street

corners, the bells of incense, the thumping of small, hand-held drums, were wholly alien to him, yet they

stirred something within him. Despite the poverty that was everywhere around him, some unknowable

vitality shined from the people's faces. The waiter had had it in his own face, and so did every person

Nicholas now saw. The presence of faith, so rarely seen in the average person back in the States, was

common here, and it touched him deeply.

He stumbled suddenly:ThePrime Minister!

It came to him this time as a desperate shout:Find the Prime Minister! Quickly!

The mass of humanity swirled around him. The voice had seemed filled with fear and concern. Its

pleading held a terrible urgency he couldn't ignore. He had to find the Prime Minister of India!

He didn't know how to begin. He looked down the street.

There, in the midst of a gathering of pilgrims, stood a beautiful woman. Nicholas recognized her

immediately. She was smiling directly at him as if she'd been waiting for him to see her.

"Oh, my God," Nicholas breathed. He lifted an excited hand into the air. "Rhoanna!" he shouted.

"Rhoanna!"

Rhoanna Martin stood wrapped in a wondrously adornedsari. A small, ruby-colored jewel glittered in

the center of her forehead. Rhoanna. Thousands of miles from her home, and six years gone from his life.

"Rhoanna!" Nicholas yelled, cupping his hands to his mouth to give his voice force.

He ran toward her, pushing aside the merrymakers. Rhoanna waved to him and stepped down from the

sidewalk.

"Nick!"

Nicholas Tejada stumbled, but caught himself before he fell. He was acting like a bumbling fool—but he

didn't care. Rhoanna ran up to him, and he took her into his arms. She gave a squeal of delight.

"Nick!" she laughed. Wings of orange and fuchsia silk enfolded about him as she came to him.

His heart thundered in his chest as he felt her press firmly against him. He laughed. "I don't believe it.

What are you doing here?"

He held her at arm's length, examining her almost as he would a precious sculpture. Rhoanna's green eyes

glistened, reaching deep into his soul as she smiled at him. Her brown hair was tucked beneath a shawl of

gossamer pink cotton; her skin seemed to glow.

Unabashedly, he kissed her full on the mouth as the eyes of a thousand strangers looked on. Rhoanna's

delicate fingers tugged affectionately at the hair on the nape of his neck. He could feel her pelvis press

hungrily against his upper thigh.

Nicholas!the command rang out suddenly.We must locate the Prime Minister before it's too late!

Nick jolted backward, his heart dancing like a wild beast in his chest.

Breathless, Rhoanna clutched his arms. "Nick, what is it?"

He was shaking. The world was beginning to spin around him and he couldn't stop it.

What is going on? he asked himself.

"Rhoanna…" he began, gazing deep into her eyes.

A siren pierced the air, and both of them froze, clinging to each other. On the street hundreds of

Bombayites fell silent. The tall, poverty-ridden apartment buildings that surrounded them stood like trees

in a desolate, almost defoliated, forest. The siren's ragged echo was like a living thing on the prowl.

He wanted to say to Rhoanna: "What are you doing here?" He wanted to say, with all of his heart: "What

is the meaning of our being here like this?"

He wanted to say, more than anything, that he loved her. But the siren, now joined by a whole chorus of

city-wide alarms, drowned out those thoughts.

He looked up, realizing that these were not the sirens common to civil authorities, but were the wails of

civil-defense alarms. The crowd screamed almost in unison and began running in panic as they finally

understood what was upon them.

It was an air raid—anuclear air raid!

"Jesus Christ!"Nicholas shouted, pulling Rhoanna close to a building. Holy men ran by, expressions of

abject terror on their faces, having dropped their sculpted idols on the gritty sidewalk. The screams of the

populace competed with the banshee wail of the air-raid sirens. The voice returned again, drowning out

all other sounds:

Nicholas! The Prime Minister is in danger!

An elderly woman fleeing through the crowd collided with them. Everyone tumbled to the ground in the

chaos. Before Nicholas could gain his feet, dozens of robed individuals were clambering over them in

panic. Rhoanna was pulled helplessly out into the avenue.

"Rhoanna!" he yelled. But despite his efforts, it was impossible to reach her in the crush.

One of those big, unwieldly British buses came barreling out of nowhere. Nicholas jumped backward

onto the sidewalk to get out of its way. As he regained his balance he looked for Rhoanna—but she was

gone, sucked into the flood of miserable humanity.

"Rhoanna!"he called.

The sirens filled the air like seawater around a school of fish—tiny, frightened fish being swept away by

currents over which they had no control.

It's coming, Nicholas! Find him! Please!

Everything seemed to hit him like a wall of seething floodwater. He turned and vomited into the narrow

gutter.

Shaking, the bitter taste of gastric juices in his mouth, he stood up, his head spinning with fear. Deep

within him he knew this was the end. The Bomb was going to fall—and he'd lost Rhoanna again.

He looked up into the musty sky of India for the threads of contrails from Russian bombers—or would

the aircraft be of Chinese origin, arcing in from the east and not the north? Perhaps they were Libyan. It

didn't matter.

A man stumbled into him and Nicholas went down, slamming his head against the brick lining of the curb.

The man—an old beggar with hardly any clothing upon his shriveled body—rolled over, clutching his

chest; then rose, propelled by his desperation, and vanished into the crowd.

Nicholas slowly came to his feet. The blow had knocked some sense into him. He walked out into the

avenue, staying clear of the panicked natives. He took his steps gingerly, carefully, walking almost like an

automaton. There was no escaping it. On the very last day of his life, he knew what he had to do.

When he reached the seashore he found it deserted, although tension was still in the air as if suspended

upon each mote of dust that had been stirred up by the feet of the celebrants. The sirens still wailed deep

within the canyons of the city behind him. Upon the steps that led to the dirty waters of the Arabian Sea

there was no one to be seen. Above him, angry gulls drifted in the heat, crying out their own confusion.

He stood on the broken cement steps that led down to the water's edge. Sandals, clothing, and flowers

lay strewn haphazardly about. A fractured idol of Siva lay staring sightlessly into an uncaring sky. The

sirens wailed like the voices of godlings lost in the shadowy halls of Bombay's decaying cityscape.

Out in the bay floated a few ships—sloops or junks. Their crews were oblivious to what was happening.

Nicholas squinted through the tainted, almond-colored light, watching the waves pulse toward the shore

in a glistening of silver.

Nicholas,the inner dweller in his mind cried out.Help us!We need to know for sure!

"Stop it!" he screamed finally, grasping his head in his hands. "For the love of God, stop!"

"Nick!"came an impassioned call.

This time it was a human voice crying out, not his inner dweller.

He turned swiftly and saw Rhoanna standing like the battered statue of a Hindu goddess, her arms

outstretched, on the balustrade of a weathered hotel. Fainting, she fell against a marble pillar and slid out

of sight, leaving behind her a trail of smeared crimson.

"Rhoanna!"

Everything came together in his mind: the sirens; the voice; the junks at sea.

The nuclear device did not fall from the belly of a sinister bomber at sixty thousand feet, as the sirens had

led him to fear. Instead, it came bubbling up from the yellow Arabian Sea, like a child spawned from an

evil Nereidian womb in the deepest crevice of the ocean.

Monstrous, it climbed on rubberized treads up onto the carved, ornamental steps of the holy shoreline. It

was heading right for him.

This ocean-borne steel demon was twice the size of a great white shark, and had a head full of deadly

plutonium. Water slid down its slime-dark hull and drooled on to its efficient undercarriage. It looked for

all the world as if it were smiling.

That smile was the last thing Nicholas Tejada saw in this life.

The whole universe suddenly burst with a light brighter than the interior of the brightest supernova in the

heavens—as skin, then muscle, then bone, vanished in a terrible explosion. There was no smoke of

burned flesh. No ash. Nothing.

There was only the roar of light and a single, last gasping breath on his lips.

"Rhoanna," he whispered—and was gone.

|Go to Table of Contents |

Chapter Two

IN THE DARKNESSof an unimaginable afterlife, Nicholas heard voices—voices that lured him slowly

back to the proverbial land-of-the-living. He fought off the limbo that unpleasantly enshrouded him and

homed in on the voices that were conferring at the other end of reality.

He tried to clear his throat, realizing that he was very, very thirsty. He also realized that he had a throat to

clear.

With a foot in each world, he made the leap toward the better one. "Water," he said hoarsely.

His throat felt as if someone had poured sawdust down it and had followed that with sand. "I need some

water," he muttered to anyone who might be listening.

He slowly opened his eyes and found that he was lying in the white cotton folds of a comfortable hospital

bed. But if this was a hospital room, it wasn't like any he'd known before.

It resembled a luxury-hotel suite but one designed for invalids. The bed was large. Across the room were

a few plush chairs and some tall, leafy green plants. There were no other beds. This was a private suite

for VIPs. Directly opposite him was a wall of stereo and video equipment. And above him—set into the

bed's headboard—was a sophisticated monitoring computer, from which depended several wires and

tubes that were attached to him, keeping him alive and full of the proper juices. He hardly noticed the dull

pain in his hand from the IV unit.

There were no windows.

His feelings told him that he was somewhere underground. The walls resonatedsolidness , a sense of

profound impenetrableness which effectively kept the outside world at bay.

He looked toward the door and saw two people conversing. One of them was quite tall. He wore a

stethoscope around his neck, but the rest of him belied the standard took of a physician. The man wore a

gray T-shirt that had stenciled across its chest, "Property of UCSB," and the rest of him was comfortably

attired in tennis shoes and Levis, worn and faded in all the expected places.

Then Nicholas recognized the individual standing next to the doctor.

"Salazar," Nicholas said in a somewhat stronger voice.

It was reassuring to see Melissa Salazar waiting for him to regain consciousness. On the other hand, a

number of things mitigated against his euphoria on discovering that he was still alive. The first was the fact

that he was underground. The second was the idea that the director of the Pentagon's Project Foresee

had decided to supervise his recovery in person. If Melissa Salazar wanted to be present to pick up and

dust off one of her special Strategics, then something rather dreadful was up.

Salazar and the casually attired doctor turned and walked over to Nicholas's bed.

"Welcome back to the real world, Nick," the man said. "I'm Dr. Massingale. How do you feel?"

He proceeded to take Nicholas's pulse, gazing up at the computer screen on the console above him.

"I'm thirsty as hell," Nicholas said.

The doctor laughed comfortingly. He poured Nick a glass of clear, sparkling water.

"Go easy, now," the doctor insisted.

Beside him, the director of Project Foresee was silent, a look of concern on her face.

"You've been through a lot," Massingale said. "But you're going to be all right."

Nick drank the water slowly but steadily. He trembled as his body took in the refreshing liquid. Handing

the glass back to the doctor, he settled back into the huge comfort of the pillows.

Melissa Salazar leaned over him. "How do you feel, Nick? You OK?"

"I feel like shit four ways to Sunday, is how I feel."

The director of Foresee smiled wryly, her dark brown eyes friendly. Melissa Salazar, fifteen years

Nicholas's senior, had not a single gray hair on her head, although her eyes always seemed weighted by

nights of little or no sleep and days of unbearable tension. Like the doctor, she was casually dressed,

which was unusual for her. She wore a mid-length skirt, a cotton blouse, and boots, which suggested that

she hadn't had time to dress in her usual businesslike manner. Another bad sign, Nicholas realized.

Melissa Salazar earned the money to dress well, and dress well she did.

But not at the moment.

"Sorry I screwed things up, Sal. I just couldn't find the Prime Minister. I tried. I really did."

Dr. Massingale punched data into the computer board above the bed. Melissa smiled. A faint hint of her

perfume could be discerned despite the hospital's antiseptic smell.

"Actually," she began, "you did a better job of locating the possible source of the attack than we'd hoped.

Paul Cook - The Alejandra Variations

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