Zero K by Don DeLillo Read Free Book Online

else?” he said.
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œYou’ve seen no other mannequins? No other figures, naked or otherwise?”
    â€œNone, absolutely.”
    â€œWhen you arrived,” he said. “What did you see?”
    â€œThe land, the sky, the buildings. The car driving off.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    â€œI think I told you. Two men at the entrance waiting to escort me. I didn’t see them until I approached. Then a security check, thorough.”
    â€œWhat else?”
    I thought about what else. I also wondered why we were having this idle talk under these dire circumstances. Is this what happens in the midst of terminal matters? We retreat into neutral space.
    â€œYou saw something else, off to the side, maybe fifty meters away, before you entered the building.”
    â€œWhat did I see?”
    â€œTwo women,” he said. “In long hooded garments.”
    â€œTwo women in chadors. Of course. Just standing there in the heat and dust.”
    â€œThe first glimpse of art,” he said.
    â€œNever occurred to me.”
    â€œStanding absolutely still,” he said.
    â€œMannequins,” Artis said.
    â€œTo be seen or not seen. Doesn’t matter,” he said.
    â€œI never imagined they weren’t real people. I knew the word. Chadors. Or burqas. Or whatever the other names. This was all I needed to know.”
    I reached forward and took a teacup from Ross and handed it to Artis. We three. Someone had trimmed and combed her hair, clipping it close to the temples. This seemed almost a rule of order, accentuating the drawn face and stranding the eyes in their dilated state. But I was looking too closely. I was trying to see what she was feeling, in spirit more than body and in the wisping hesitations between words.
    She said, “I feel artificially myself. I’m someone who’s supposed to be me.”
    I thought about this.
    She said, “My voice is different. I hear it when I speak in a way that’s not natural. It’s my voice but it doesn’t seem to be coming from me.”
    â€œMedication,” Ross said. “That’s all it is.”
    â€œIt seems to be coming from outside me. Not all the time but sometimes. It’s like I’m twins, joined at the hip, and my sister is speaking. But that’s not it at all.”
    â€œMedication,” he said.
    â€œThings come to mind that probably happened. I know at a certain age we remember things that never took place. This is different. These things happened but they feel mistakenly induced. Is that what I want to say? An electronic signal gone wrong.”
    I’m someone who’s supposed to be me .
    This was a sentence to be analyzed by students of logic or ontology. We waited for her to continue. She spoke in serial fragments now, with stops or rests, and I found myself lowering my head in a sort of prayerful concentration.
    â€œI’m so eager. I can’t tell you. To do this thing. Enter another dimension. And then return. For ever more. A word I say to myself. Again and again. So beautiful. For ever more. Say it. And say it. And say it.”
    The way she cradled her teacup, an heirloom that needed protecting, and to hold it awkwardly or set it down carelessly would betray generational memories.
    Ross sitting here in his green-and-white gym suit with possibly matching jockstrap.
    â€œForevermore,” he said.
    It was my turn now and I managed to whisper the word. Then her hands began to shake and I put my cup down and reached for her cup and handed it to my father.
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    I was afraid of other people’s houses. After school sometimes a friend might talk me into going to his house or apartment to do our homework together. It was a shock, the way people lived, other people, those who weren’t me. I didn’t know how to respond, the clinging intimacy of it, kitchen slop, pan handles jutting from the sink. Did I