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In the end, Keith does go to the museum.
Underneath astrolabes and constellations painted on the ceiling, Ulaz tells him about the war. It’s in abbreviated bits, clipped like a newsreel, that he went from apprenticing at a family clinic to being shipped overseas, that he got captured by the enemy, that he was still a doctor, that he told himself this to keep his sanity.
He tells of a man who used healing as a precursor to torture, to prolong, even. Ulaz mended them to be broken again, and then when that was over, did the autopsies to restart the cycle. They worked together, the man and him, in flickering torchlight inside shadowy caves, windowless rooms bleached and hosed white, and even right on the battlefield amid soldiers gaping like koi. There was no shortage of tools, some improvised, some procured with military connections, but Ulaz remembers the man not being satisfied, demanding more and more and more like a greedy god.
Sometimes, Ulaz confides, he has nightmares of the man standing over his bed, ready to recruit him again.
The viscera, the blood, the bones: Keith absorbs the details, admiring that Ulaz does not hold back, does not censor himself in the name of Keith’s assumed delicate sensibilities.
But Shiro does not appear in the story. Keith keeps waiting, wondering if there’s something hidden in Ulaz’s narrative.
No—perhaps it’s in plain sight. Keith swallows hard, feeling if he’s been plunged underwater, heart thudding. Illun’s slipped away to look at the natural history section, and Keith wonders if Ulaz has told this tale before. Surely, yes, to his wife—but then again, such a union did not guarantee the truth. Does Illun lie in bed, wondering if she could hold a candle to a hidden part? Has she shuddered at the thought?
The air is so cold. His hands are trembling, and as Keith’s adjusting his gloves, he nearly drops his bag, happening to glance at the clock in one of the corridors.
“I must be going,” Keith finds himself saying, voice sounding far away. “My husband will be waiting. May I see you again?”
“I dabble in the antique circuit, if you wish to value something,” Ulaz says.
Keith thinks of his knife. It might be good to value it in case he needs to sell it, but Shiro would surely question it being out of sight.
“Thank you,” he says instead. “I’ll keep that in mind.”
Keith takes a step towards the doorway, and it takes all of his strength not to flee, though he feels like a rabbit reentering a trap. The sunlight blinds him as the doors swing open, as he stumbles along the curb, as he slides into the backseat.
“How was your day?”
“All right. I had lunch after the meeting, got some ideas for their next function.”
Shiro doesn’t answer. Keith unlatches Kosmo, burying his face in the wolf-dog’s thick coat before taking the leash down from the wooden peg by the back door. He thought he’d managed the rhythm of who he was dealing with, but this new revelation has jarred him out of step. Did Kolivan know? He couldn’t have, no, but Ulaz—why has he not said anything to someone else besides Keith, gone to the papers, called for an investigation? Is he blackmailed, coerced, cowed? Is this man, the head of the city’s biggest hospital and a high society husband and a war veteran, afraid? If he is, how would Keith stand the chance of—
“Keith?”
Keith nearly jumps, forcing himself to slowly turn and smile at his husband walking down the stairs, hair rumpled in a way that suggests he’s been at his desk again. “Yes?”
“Your gloves. Are you going to wear them in the garden?”
Keith looks down at his hands, at the lace stitched at the hems, the neat row of pearl buttons, the black velvet with a few strands of Kosmo’s fur.
“Oh,” he says thinly, “no, no, I’ll put them out for the laundry, for the next meeting, yes. Do you need me to do something? The dinner menu is set; there will be cobbler as requested. Peach season is ending, so I have the latest imports before they’re all gone, and I can make you drinks with them as well—”
Shiro nods, already turning away from Keith’s chatter. “Yes, yes, that sounds lovely.”
Keith turns the handle, Kosmo following. He realizes he hasn’t leashed Kosmo—it’s trailing over his arm like a parade pennant—and does not care. If Shiro has an issue, he can tell him, or he can—he can—
Blade slicing through tendons, a dark splatter on Ulaz’s clean white coat, a teeth chipped in fear. Keith hugs his elbows, having the urge to run clear across the lawn. Kosmo will follow him. Kosmo will defend—no. The thought halts him right in his tracks, a jerk on the rain. If Shiro could do this to people, he would have no problem with a tamed beast, no matter what primal instinct runs in his veins.
And he’s well aware Shiro knows how to wield a weapon.
His heart pounds in time to monster monster monster as he walks fast, swinging open the gate. Why had he followed Ulaz? What should he do? Where can he go?
You have nowhere to go.
The voice sounds like Kolivan’s. Keith paces around the twin marble tombs, Kosmo nosing the leaves at his paws. But he’s right—he can’t run. Run, hide, fight—what one of the books, the books about safaris he’s so foolishly talked himself out of, said about if there’s a threat incoming. He can only do one.
Kosmo lets out a small whine and paws at Keith’s leg. Keith nearly cries, kneeling on the ground to throw both arms around him—but no, if he cries, it’ll be over. He focuses on the sunshine dappling Kosmo’s fur, the tongue lapping his ear, the comforting weight of his only friend.
He lays next to Shiro that night, after roast duck and crumble and bellinis. Thinks about Ulaz telling him the truth. Wondering if that’s enough to save him.
Keith continues—because what else can he do? He types up the newsletter, drops it off at the printer, organizes functions, and drinks too many cups of tea. Everyone’s jittery because of the war so his behavior does not seem unusual—natural, even. One kind soul reassures Keith that he will not be sent to fight, not as Shiro’s husband, and Keith manages to wring her hand in silent thanks. He passes the newspaper stands, not daring to open one, seeing nothing of Marmora on the front page.
He goes to more luncheons. He chats with Illun, who says nothing about her husband. He trains Kosmo to open desk drawers and fetch him stationary, something that makes Shiro chuckle as if he’s never opened a vein.
He argues with himself: should he get Ulaz to tell him more? What good will it do?
More knowledge has to be the answer. It has been so far, and Keith mentions to Illun after a meeting that if her husband could spare some time to look over a piece, he’d very much appreciate it.
They meet in the astronomy section once more. Ulaz comes alone, and looks at Keith’s empty hands.
“I’m so silly,” Keith says immediately. “I’d forgotten it.”
“It’s lunch hour,” Ulaz says, undeterred. Keith wonders if he’d known it was a ruse in the first place. “Are you hungry?”
They go to the grassy back lawn of the hospital, with zinnias and pansies lining the edges. Ostensibly it’s for the patients to get some air, but Keith only sees a scattering of doctors and a flock of ducks as he sits down on a bench a ways from the stone path. A light breeze scatters his hair, sunlight falling across his neck, and he closes his eyes.
Ulaz brings hardboiled eggs, a dish of fruit salad, dry sandwiches, and a small pitcher from the hospital cafeteria. Keith tears the delicate eggshell off the rubbery flesh, sprinkles a bit of salt, and eats, as Ulaz pours them both coffee.
“I suspect coffee will be rationed with the war,” Ulaz says. “It’s happened before.”
“Will you miss it?” Keith asks, fondly thinking of Kolivan and his sips throughout the day.
“I will.” Ulaz bites into his sandwich, chewing slowly before saying, “You have more questions.”
Keith nods. His courage falters for a moment as Ulaz shifts, a crinkling sound coming from his coat pocket.
“What’s that?” Keith asks instead, wondering if it’s another newspaper he can glance at.
“Only a pulp magazine,” Ulaz says, withdrawing it and offering it to Keith. “What kept me alive during the war, at least before my capture, were those stories.”
“Stories about what?”
“Outer space, mostly—also canyons, rainforests, mountaintops, anything far away.”
Keith traces the glossy paper, the pink sun rising above twin turquoise spheres, a jumpsuited heroine facing off with an alien holding a blaster. The author’s name isn’t there, but when he turns to a random page, there’s only a simple M on the byline.
“Would you like to take it home? You can give it to Illun when you next see her,” Ulaz suggests.
Keith shakes his head regretfully. Shiro would notice new reading material right away, probably deliver a lecture about propriety, and it doesn’t seem quite right to stuff what Ulaz wants to read underneath his shirt.
He takes a sip of coffee, with no cream and sugar, allowing the bitterness to sink in. “Where you went,” he begins, “was it a camp? An enemy outpost?” Perhaps if Shiro has been a traitor to his country, that might harm him, especially during another war.
Ulaz shakes his head. “It was behind enemy lines, but not an official place. The commander never said who he was allied with.”
Commander. Keith wracks his brain, but he doesn’t recall Shiro getting up to that rank. Perhaps it was a simple nickname? “Then why was he…?” His voice trails off, shaping around the word.
“Torturing? War doesn’t exactly breed nobility. I’ve ran across those were there for profit, for so-called improvement, for order, for destiny, for money, for country—but some rise to revel in their basest instincts.” Ulaz frowns, crushing shards of eggshell on his tray. The solemnity in his face reminds Keith of Kolivan, comfortingly fatherlike. He can picture Kolivan back in the workshop, taking him through how to change oil or fix wheels. “I suspect he liked the control, especially with the fighting pits.”
Fighting pits. Keith’s heard of those for dogs, but not for people. “Did he fight in them?”
“He wanted to, but no—he preferred to arrange, to manipulate.”
To control. Keith knows that well, and shivers, despite the new patch of sunlight moving across the grass.
“Shall I stop?” Ulaz asks gently.
Keith shakes his head, though he dearly wants to say yes.
Ulaz glances down at his watch and makes a move to rise. “My shift is beginning soon. I apologize for leaving you. I can take your tray.”
Keith thanks him, then says in a rush: “Perhaps… we can arrange another time to meet?”
Ulaz ducks his head in a nod. “If you wish.”
It’s when Ulaz has left that Keith realizes he’s forgotten his magazine.