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“Do you think heaven puppies still pee on the carpet?” Nairobi asked, burying her face in the little bundle of fluff that was squirming in her arms. The puppy had appeared minutes after Nairobi had had the thought that it would be nice to have a dog here.
“Only if you want them too,” Berlin said nonchalantly. He was sitting at the table across from her, reading a newspaper as the sun faded overhead, casting a golden glow over the trees.
“Eh?” Nairobi asked, confused.
“This place doesn’t have rules other than the ones we make, Nairobi,” he said, folding the newspaper he’d been reading. “If toilet training a puppy is your idea of a satisfying afterlife, then the puppy will oblige. If you prefer urine-free carpets, then the puppy will go outside.”
“Is the puppy dead?” Nairobi wondered.
“The puppy is a shared delusion,” Berlin supplied.
Nairobi frowned. “Are you a shared delusion?” she asked.
“No,” came his answer.
Nairobi raised her eyebrows lightly. “That’s probably what a delusion would say,” she muttered to no one in particular.
The edges of Berlin’s mouth twitched. “Have you read Descartes, Nairobi?”
Nairobi gave him a look. “You know I haven’t, Berlin.”
Berlin chuckled. He poured himself a glass of wine, then glanced at Nairobi, wordlessly asking if she’d like some as well.
Nairobi gave a nod of assent.
“What is heaven wine like?” she asked him.
Berlin sighed. “I’ve told you four times already, Nairobi, this isn’t heaven. It’s just –“
“- the other side, yes, I know,” Nairobi finished for him. The puppy began licking her face and she laughed, adjusting it in her arms and giving it a fond pet. “If it was heaven, you wouldn’t be here, mi amor.”
Berlin smiled thinly. “I could probably say the same of you, querida.”
“I was a good person,” Nairobi objected.
Berlin raised an eyebrow at her. Nairobi gave him a look.
“Better than you at any rate,” she allowed, turning her attention back to the puppy.
Berlin watched her for a moment. Nairobi, who was still occupied by the nippy, squirming puppy, missed the fond expression that came over his face as she cooed at the little dog.
“It’s smooth, yet rich,” he said finally. “Perfectly balanced. Wonderfully complex. And deceptively elegant. This one is soft and oaky, with a hint of chocolate and black currant.”
“Mm?” Nairobi asked, glancing back up at him.
“The wine.”
Nairobi reached for her glass and took a sip. She swirled it thoughtfully around her mouth before swallowing.
“I don’t taste chocolate or current in there, Berlin, this just tastes like wine.”
“You’re a philistine,” Berlin sighed.
“You’re a snob,” she responded affably.
**
“How does sleep work here?” Nairobi wondered aloud.
Berlin glanced at her. “You can sleep if you want,” he said. “But you don’t need to. Your body doesn’t need to regenerate.”
“Do you sleep?” she asked him curiously.
Berlin smiled. “There’s something truly marvelous about the feeling of waking up early in the morning to start a new day. It makes each day a blank canvas. So yes, I sleep most nights.”
Nairobi examined him interestedly, a mischievous face coming over her.
“Do you ever sleep with anyone?” she asked suggestively.
Berlin met her gaze. “Occasionally,” was all he said.
“Men or women?” Nairobi asked. “Or just shared delusions?”
Berlin sighed and ignored her.
“Shared delusions,” Nairobi confirmed to herself.
**
“How’s Gandia?” Berlin asked Nairobi. He was stirring a cappuccino, standing behind where she sat in the large living room, eyes glued to the television.
“Alive,” Nairobi said bitterly. The television was showing real-time footage of the world they’d come from, where the Bank of Spain heist remained ongoing.
“You shouldn’t spend too much time on that thing,” Berlin advised her. “It will suck you in. Live your death.”
Nairobi glanced at him. “How many times a day do you check the newspapers?” she asked him pointedly. Berlin’s newspapers were another quirk of this place; they gave him updates on the people he cared about in the world below.
Berlin ignored her question.
Nairobi bit her nails. “I wish we could do something to help them,” she said.
Berlin sighed. “Nairobi, even if we could change things in their world, you can’t save lives,” he pointed out. “You can only prolong them.”
**
Nairobi dipped a churro in chocolate.
“He loved you, you know,” she said casually as she bit into it.
Berlin looked up from his latest newspaper, the evening edition, which had a color photo of a man splashed across the front page, his face covered in cuts.
“Palermo,” she clarified.
Berlin stared at her for a moment. “His name is Martín,” was his only response.
“Did you love him back?” Nairobi asked curiously.
Berlin looked away. “I like women, Nairobi,” he said finally. He glanced at her. “You know that, surely.”
Nairobi rolled her eyes. “I know you get off on women,” she said. “But you’ve never loved a woman in your life, Berlin. Did you love him?”
Berlin was quiet for a moment, but he met her gaze unwaveringly. “He was my soulmate,” he said.
Nairobi nodded.
“Well, if it offers you any comfort,” she said, swirling the churro in the chocolate, “I think there’s a fifty-fifty chance that Bogotá murders him in the next twenty-four hours. So you may see him soon.”
**
Berlin was sitting on the balcony looking at the darkening sky when Nairobi joined him, handing him a glass of sherry and taking the seat next to him. For several minutes, they just sat in companionable silence, drinking together.
“Do you have others here on this side?” Nairobi asked finally.
Moscow and Oslo had come to the house that afternoon to pay their respects, but after a long, leisurely lunch during which they had peppered Nairobi with questions about Denver and Helsinki’s well-being, they had each returned to the others they lived with on this side – Moscow to his wife, Oslo to his family in this side’s version of Serbia.
Berlin frowned. “My mother comes by for coffee now and then. The first time I saw her here was when I knew for sure this place wasn’t heaven.”
Nairobi snorted.
“And I never knew my father,” he said simply. He took a sip of sherry.
Nairobi was quiet for a moment. “I don’t have anyone else here,” she admitted. She took a sip of sherry and looked out at the deep cerulean sky.
Berlin looked at her for several moments, but didn’t respond.
“What did you do here before I came?” Nairobi asked him eventually, glancing back at him.
Berlin laughed. “I wasn’t at this house before you came, querida. I was in Italy. Why on earth would I dine with my great-aunt Dolores when I could dine with Michaelangelo and Botticelli?”
Nairobi snorted. “Why would Michaelangelo dine with you when he could dine with…I don’t know.” She gestured. “Whoever inspired Michaelangelo.”
“Michaelangelo was inspired by mankind, Nairobi,” Berlin supplied. “He was a consummate humanist. And we had very good rapport,” he added mildly.
Nairobi looked thoughtful for a moment. “Does he still dress like he did back then?” she asked. “Or does he wear, like, jeans now?”
Berlin smiled. “In my version of heaven, no one wears jeans.”
“This isn’t heaven,” Nairobi repeated his refrain, her lips twitching. Then she gave him an odd look. “And if there aren’t jeans in your heaven, what do you think I’m wearing now?” she asked.
He looked her up and down. “I see a red silk gown,” he shrugged.
Nairobi blinked in confusion.
“It’s flatteringly low cut,” he added.
Nairobi crossed her arms over her chest and made a noise of irritation.
**
“Why did you choose this place?” Berlin asked her. They were still sitting on the balcony. The sky had fully darkened, the sherry glasses had long been drained, and they were smoking cigarettes together.
Nairobi shrugged. “Did I?” she asked. “I just woke up here.” She reached down to gently stroke the ears of the puppy sleeping by her feet, whom she had christened Ankara.
Berlin looked at her. “Whether consciously or not, you chose this place. I, for example, woke up in Florence. That was the place I had many of my fondest memories, the place I’d felt most connected to during my days on earth. You chose this house.”
Nairobi exhaled. “I like it here,” she admitted.
“It’s a beautiful property,” Berlin allowed.
Nairobi nodded. “It was more about family, for me,” she said slowly. “This was the first place where I felt like I had one.”
Berlin took a long drag from the cigarette dangling between his fingers. He looked off into the dark night thoughtfully, and didn’t see the way Nairobi was looking at him with a tinge of gratefulness in her eyes.
**
“Pick a card.”
“Surely you know that’s nonsense, Nairobi.”
“If there’s anyone who can tell the future, it’s a dead gyspy,” Nairobi deadpanned. “Pick a card.”
Berlin frowned, but begrudgingly pulled a card out of the stack she was holding out to him. It was a bright, sunny morning, and they had laid a blanket out on the lawn.
“Future is meaningless here,” Berlin said, handing his selection to her. “It is what we want it to be, and that makes it foreseeable.”
Nairobi shrugged. “And yet, here you are participating in my fortune reading,” she said cheerfully. “Bet you didn’t see that coming when you were in Italy hanging out with Michelangelo.” She glanced at the card he’d handed her and her face broke into a grin. “Ah,” she said knowingly.
Berlin squinted at her. “What?”
“I thought you knew the future already,” she said teasingly.
“Tell me what the card says, Nairobi.”
“It’s a Jack of Hearts,” she said smugly.
Berlin shrugged. “And?”
“Oh, come on.”
“What?”
“You know who that means.”
“I do not.”
Nairobi sighed, throwing the card at him and lying back down on the blanket. “I’m just saying,” she said, gesturing broadly, “That if I had a soulmate, and I was stuck in this place waiting for them, I’d put a little more thought into preparing how I was going to respond to their eventual arrival.”
Berlin just frowned and slipped the card back into the deck, shuffling it absently.
**
“The girl,” Berlin said abruptly. “Ariadna.”
Nairobi rolled over on the blanket and looked at him in surprise.
“Do you know what happened to her?” Berlin asked, his face inscrutable as he looked upward towards the sky.
Nairobi propped herself up to look at him, but he averted his eyes.
“We sent her the money,” Nairobi said finally. “Plus Stockholm and I sent her a little extra. For therapy.”
His face twitched.
“Do you…want to talk about it?” Nairobi asked hesitantly.
“I think it’s nearly lunchtime,” Berlin said abruptly, and with that, he stood and returned to the house.
Nairobi’s eyes followed him curiously.
**
“They rescued Lisbon!” Nairobi reported exuberantly, finding Berlin in the kitchen where he was searing several scallops, spooning butter onto them with a focus that might have indicated that lives were on the line. As he turned down the heat, he turned to face her.
“What did you make of her?” he asked.
Nairobi considered this. “She’s tough,” she said finally, as she took a seat at the counter across from where he was working. “And I think she’s good for the Professor. He’s…less uptight when she’s around. Though I still think it’s bullshit that he was off getting laid while we were stuck in that mousetrap.”
Berlin began chopping fresh herbs.
“Though I guess I was one of the only ones not getting laid during that heist,” Nairobi said thoughtfully. She shook her head. “Bullshit.”
Berlin smiled thinly. “I believe I indicated to you on multiple occasions that I would have been happy to remedy that.”
Nairobi threw a spoon at him.
Berlin ducked, then chuckled. “At least it’s not a rifle butt,” he said fondly. “And I’m glad to hear my brother has found a woman who can loosen him up a little. Lord knows Sergio needs that.”
“It’s weird when you call him that,” Nairobi commented, “It’s like if your sibling suddenly started calling your parent by their given name.”
Berlin’s lips twitched. “You see me as a sibling, Nairobi?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. Something like that. What are you making, anyway?”
“Scallops with an herb butter sauce and a hearts of palm salad.”
Nairobi frowned. “If this place can form to what we want it to be, why can’t it make food?” she asked curiously.
Berlin scooped several scallops onto a plate. “It can Nairobi,” he said. “But my food,” he said, artfully arranging flecks of parsley atop the scallops, “is better.” He set the plate in front of her. “Eat.”
Nairobi didn’t need to be told twice.
**
Nairobi stepped outside into the afternoon sunshine, only to find Berlin sitting in a lounge chair, dressed uncharacteristically casually in a hawaiian shirt, swimming trunks, and sunglasses. Nairobi looked at the grassy countryside around them in bewilderment.
“Who are you and what did you do with Berlin?” she asked him.
He just smiled cryptically. “I’m in Fiji,” he informed her. “Felt like getting out of Spain for an afternoon. Join me if you like.”
And indeed, as Nairobi approached him, the Spanish countryside faded away, replaced by a white sand beach and turquoise waters.
“Daiquiri?” Berlin asked her lazily, holding out a pink frozen drink. Nairobi stared around her in amazement before smiling broadly and laughing. She took the drink from him and sighed happily, settling down next to him in the warm sand.
“Remember when I said I hated you?”
“How could I forget?”
“Well, I take it all back.”
“All it takes it a daiquiri?”
Nairobi shrugged, sipping her drink. “I’m easy to please.”
“Wish I’d known that in the mint.”
“You were an asshole in the mint,” Nairobi said fairly.
“I was an asshole for much of my life,” Berlin mused. He looked off into the distance as if pondering something.
“What did you do to him?” Nairobi asked.
Berlin turned back toward her. “What?”
“Palermo,” Nairobi clarified.
Berlin frowned. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“You clearly had some kind of falling out,” Nairobi persisted. She gestured. “It was written all over him. He was like some kind of mean, wounded dog. Plus, you’re you,” she added as an afterthought. “So I know you did something.”
Berlin didn’t respond for a moment. Then, “I hurt him quite badly, I think. I doubt he would forgive me, even if he were to come to this side soon.”
Nairobi just gave him a soft smile. “I think you’re underestimating love,” she said.
**
Nairobi opened her eyes. The sand was still warm, but the sky over the ocean had turned pink and purple.
“Good evening, sleeping beauty,” Berlin greeted her.
“Did I fall asleep?” Nairobi asked blearily. She squinted at the setting sun. “What time is it?”
“Time is an illusion,” Berlin supplied.
Nairobi grunted as she sat up. “Thanks, Einstein.”
“It’s evening.”
She nodded. “Have you checked your papers?” she asked after a moment. “How are things going for them?”
Berlin frowned. “Not well.”
He didn’t offer more, and Nairobi didn’t ask for more.
Nairobi pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them. “This place,” she said, “This…afterlife we have here. How long does it go on for?”
Berlin shrugged. “It’s not clear to me whether it’s even really happening now. But even if it is real, I can’t imagine an earthly concept such as time would have much meaning here.”
Nairobi looked out at the sun setting over the turquoise ocean. She took a deep breath in, a breath of warm, salty air.
“I suppose it doesn’t matter, does it?” she asked, looking at Berlin. “We’re here now, or at least, it feels like we are. And it’s nice.”
Berlin nodded slowly. “It is nice, isn’t it?”
They were both quiet as the sun dipped below the horizon.
**
Back in Toledo for the evening, Nairobi decided to make a campfire outside.
That’s where they were sitting, Nairobi tossing treats to Ankara and Berlin reading a novel, when they were approached by two strangers.
The first was a man. He was young, near Nairobi’s age, tall and good-looking with muscled arms. The second was a woman in her sixties, with graying hair and a kind face.
“Hello,” Nairobi greeted them, her expression puzzled. “Looking for someone?”
But no sooner had the words left her mouth when she experienced an odd, tugging sensation. She looked at Berlin. He had felt it too.
Without another word, they both stood, joining the newcomers and looking out into the evening, with its sparkling stars.
And suddenly, there she was.
Her face was confused at first, but then she smiled.
“Fuck, what a welcoming committee,” Tokyo said.
And then, one by one, they eached hugged her, and Nairobi cried, and Berlin shook her hand, and the older woman cluched her to her chest and the man pulled her into his arms and kissed her.
And then they all sat down to dinner. And they laughed and talked for hours, sipping good wine and eating good food and tossing scraps to the puppy.
Nairobi took a sip of wine and leaned back, smiling. “The heaven wine is good,” she commented to Berlin. “I’m almost getting the chocolate this time.”
“This isn’t heaven,” he reminded her.
But Nairobi just smiled. “I think it is.”