After the First Death Read Free Page B

said.
    “If I knew it, would I ask you to say it?” Artkin said.
    “Yes,” Miro said.
    “And why would I ask you something that I already know?”
    “Because you are Artkin and anything is possible with you.”
    Artkin did not really smile, but the angles of his facealtered. Something danced in his eyes, not anything resembling laughter but a lightness. He wondered how old Artkin was. Thirty? Forty? It was impossible to tell. Sometimes in the early morning, before dawn, waiting in a car somewhere—like that time in Philadelphia when they could not return to the room because of the police—Artkin’s flesh would look pale and gray, his eyes like burned-out lamps. He would look one hundred years old, a thousand. Other times, outlining one of his plans or waiting for that moment when action would begin, he seemed youthful, ageless, eyes lit up by an inner source. But these moments came and went swiftly. Most of the time, he was Artkin: emotionless, a machine capable of sudden startling deeds. Now, the light still danced in his eyes, and Miro realized that Artkin was enjoying himself. A rare moment.
    “If you know me so well, then you must know that when I ask your real name, I expect you to tell me,” Artkin said. His hands were on the table—and what remained of his fingers. The middle fingers of his left hand were stubs of varying lengths, the result of a bomb that had detonated too soon. “It’s good you are right-handed,” Miro had said once, watching Artkin deftly manipulating a knife with his right hand. Artkin had replied: “I was left-handed.”
    My real name, Miro thought now. He had not thought of his real name for such a long time that he had to dig back into his memory for it. Do not simply forget your name but bury it, the instructor had said. Bury it so that it never betrays you. Choose a name that is unlike your own or even the place of your origin. You must carry nothing with you that may betray you and that includes your name most of all.
    Miro wondered: What is Artkin’s real name?
    The waitress approached, a thin girl of eighteen or so with a terrible complexion, her face like the surface of the moon.
    “Anything else?” she asked, pencil poised to total their check.
    “That will be all, Myra,” Artkin said.
    “What did you say?” she asked.
    “I said, ‘That will be all, Myra.’ ”
    “My name’s not Myra,” the girl said.
    Artkin smiled at her. “Of course it isn’t,” he said. But his voice suggested the opposite, his voice and his smile. They hinted wickedly of deep secrets.
    “Well, it isn’t,” she said. “My name’s Bonnie. And not a nickname either. I was baptized Bonnie although the priest didn’t like it because there’s no Saint Bonnie.”
    “Please give us the check, Myra,” Artkin said, voice cold now, uninterested.
    “I said my name’s not Myra,” she muttered as she totaled up the bill.
    “Myra’s a nice name. It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Artkin said.
    Her face reddened, accentuating the acne, the pimples and small scabs. Artkin could do that to people, intimidate them, draw them into conversations they did not want to be drawn into, force them into confrontations.
    “Think about it, Myra. How old were you when you were baptized? Two weeks, two months? Do you remember being baptized with the name Bonnie? Of course not. It’s what people have told you. Have you ever seen your birth certificate? Not the thing they give you when you go to City Hall for a copy, but the original? The one that says your name is Myra. You’ve never seen it, have you? But that doesn’t mean it does not exist. You have never seen me before but I exist. Ihave existed all this time. I might have been there when you were baptized. Myra.”
    She stood there for a moment, the check in her hand, hesitant, doubtful, her eyes wary, and Miro knew that this was what Artkin had worked to do: create this split second of doubt and hesitation. He knew that he had reached his