On the Verge of Discovery or "You Can Never Hide From Who You Are"

Marzine was busy slathering on the crimson paint onto the silk screen when a heavy knock came to the door. The eventual discovery of her underground network was finished, she knew this, in the back of her mind she always knew it, that one day the door would simply crash open, spilling out 15 Hoover boys dressed as Shanghai militia, roping up her arms and dragging her out on the street, to sweat out the withdrawals of opium that kept her anger dulled, and her creativity at a brisk pace, staying up for days cranking out posters and songs.

She finally got up, after the fifth vision of her discovery floated by in a comtrails of excitement. She went to the door, expecting someone far more visicous, a bearing force of nature that would ruin the whole surprise before it ever got off the ground. It was Charlie, her assistant, he was curt, cheery and something about him was forced, maybe in the way he enunciated his clipped speech, and in not too many words, in workable mandarin made out:

"New guy for you, he American, but he friend. He knew Ed, wants to meet you."

"You know my policy, I have never met an American sympathizer who wasn't a two-bit flunky for Hoover and his cronies."

"He said he knew Ed." He pronounced this with the inferred love from which Charlie had picked up on from the moment he was assigned to her care, after his aunt died, the one who consistently kept Marzine from OD'ing, spoke to her when the hallucinations became too much to bear, and put her to sleep with her brand of Shiatsu, brought down from the mountains by her ancestors centuries ago. "He spoke of Herhsel"

The tone in the room seemed to instantly change, like the way dried paint bubbles up when heated.

Noone except Ed had managed to put the connections between the two of them, Herhsel and Marzine. Noone but Ed could have recognized the spirit of Hershel in Marzine the first time he saw her play Greenwich Village, when she was still a shy girl, unsure of what she wanted or how to achieve it. Edgar's boys could have never found that out. Not even the brief but passing connection with an active president could lead Edgar over three continents, four oceans and fifteen track marks that dotted Marzine's arm as the feverishly scratched them, unsure of what to do next.

"Send him in", she said, wiping a tear away by reaching for the pipe in the velvet box on the mantle, as red paint dripped from the silkscreen that comfortably rested against the clock, which rang out through the streets, passed every poster of Ed, out to sea, passed the junk boats and burning sky that seemed to cry out in a vague sense of desperation.