Fantastic Metropolis

Boarding time arrives. The exit official hands Kerry’s adopted passport back to her. “Have a safe flight, Ms. Yemana.”

“I’m sure I will.”

Aloft, Kerry relaxes in her comfortable first-class seat. The plane’s circulatory system murmurs. Stewards circulate with food and refreshing beverages. Out the window, clouds part to reveal acres of indivisible ocean, beneath which incredible creatures swim, their rich lives a communal secret. Kerry rubs the fabric cushion of her seat, smiles, raises her glass of ice-soothed liquor, and allows the tip of her fourth tongue—for the moment, firmly rooted—to curl droplets of the drink into her mouth like a cat’s. She closes her eyes, and the fabric of her cushion coarsens beneath her touch. She is seated on a piece of burlap folded across the wooden bench of a lumbering rattling bus. A hot urban wind enters the open frame at her elbow. Outside the window, shacks fester under a brilliant sun. Her fellow passengers are tropic-bred and poverty-clad, chattering in a foreign language. Kerry closes her eyes again, stroking the burlap. The mule’s rough hair divides beneath her touch, tickling. Her legs barrel its ribbed solidity. Kerry holds reins, but her mule is being led by another rider, down a rutted unpaved road hemmed in by dense foliage. A cool breeze carries exotic scents from the jungle. Buildings thrust up around her, and she alights from a small carriage. She strides confidently across cobbles, onto a granite-slabbed sidewalk and through the hotel door. A console radio big as a Web server (Web server?) is playing rollicking carnival tunes.

Kerry steps to the front desk, where a clerk says something unintelligible. A robust, middle-aged man, his black mustache thick as a broom, he bears one empty striped sleeve, folded and pinned to itself. Smiling, he offers her what is obviously his name—“Senhor Arlindo Quincas”—and plainly asks for hers. Smiling brightly, remaining unspeaking, Kerry touches the man’s sweaty arm, sucking beads of his perspiration through her fingertips. Pleased by the touch of this small dark sexy woman, he returns her smile, and continues to speak. In a minute, his words come into focus for her:

“—welcome, Senhorita. Welcome to Bahia.”

“Bahia” is the opening section of A Mouthful of Tongues, due in April 2002 from Cosmos Books.