More Miracle Than Bird

by Alice Miller

  Georgie listened without really listening. She didn’t want to hear it, but for whatever reason he kept talking, directing his words at her. She didn’t want to hear his problems; she only wanted to be part of a system, one that was real, not invented. She wanted something bigger than this small, pitiful man, who insisted on making her listen to him. “We have an opportunity here, as far as I see it. This is a test for us—a sign that we need to clarify our teachings. It’s not too late to get the members back on track. You’re by far the cleverest person in the Order, Nemo. You can help me.”

  If she were by far the cleverest person, how hadn’t she admitted to herself that various parts of the Order were invented by Harkin? Did Willy know this?

  “Together, we can remake the origins,” Harkin was saying, “and restore the Order to its old integrity. They will trust you, I think. And I will be a more attentive collaborator than your Mr. Yeats, I promise.”

  She wasn’t sure what to say. “What about the Higher Members? Do they know about this?” She tilted her head, staring at Harkin. “Do they even exist?”

  “Of course they do.” Harkin was displaying a thin-lipped, awkward smile, but he looked nervous as he said it. He reached his large hand down and placed it on top of her hand. She was so surprised at first she didn’t move.

  “Trust me,” he said. His hand felt sweaty and heavy, as if he were trying to trap her.

  “Please remove your hand.”

  He was gazing at her, and she could see the clear sweat at the top of his forehead, beginning to soak his thin hair. She snatched her hand away and stood up, but as she did so Harkin walked around and stood in front of her, blocking the door and grasping both her arms with his hands.

  “Please,” he said again. “I need you to promise me.” His gaze travelled down her body. It was as if he expected his desperation would be attractive to her, as if she had some responsibility to rescue him. Now she could smell him, like the sweat had broken out all over him and leaked into the air. He was still smiling at her, creases in neat half circles around his mouth.

  “I’ve been watching you,” he said, “and you’ll never be lovely, but you do have something—a determination—a quality of attention—”

  He was reaching up, timidly, towards her face. She summoned all the strength she had, pausing for one brief moment before she pushed him as hard as she could. She didn’t wait to see if he would fall; she ran for the door, up the staircase, and found her way out of the house.

  THIRTY

  Once back in the dormitory, somehow she managed to sleep. She didn’t wake until late morning, and when she got up, she found a letter under the door, and when she cracked the door an inch, she also saw a wrapped box that had been delivered that morning. She must have slept through the delivery boy’s knocking. She brought the box inside and put it on the floor beside the bed but did not open it. Instead she sat on the bed and looked out the small square window, down over the rooftops, brick chimneys, blotchy grey and white sky.

  After some time, she picked the box up off the floor and ripped open the brown paper. The box contained a bottle of brandy. The accompanying note was from Dorothy, saying that she and Ezra were going to be in London on the weekend, and had the name of a restaurant where she should meet them on Saturday night.

  The second letter was a note from Willy himself:

  I have been up to my eyes in work but do consider coming to see me tonight to celebrate your victory. Only if it would amuse you (I do not want to take you from something more amusing & be a bore). Any hour after eight or thereabouts. WBY

  She didn’t know how to reply to him. She felt disgusted at Harkin, and ashamed of herself for trusting him. She decided she would go back to her books. She needed to find Thomas of the White Hand, who surely was her path to Dorlowicz, the voice in Italy, all her questions. Surely this was not entirely invention? She left her letters on the night table and began to gather up her things. She would go immediately to the reading room; she would read everything she could. She should have got up earlier, should have left already. She would not bother to wash; there wasn’t time.

  But after packing her notebook and her books, her gaze paused on the bottle Dorothy had sent, and without thinking too much about it, she found her water glass and filled it with brandy. Even though the day outside was bright, the leaves out her window were quivering, and she felt a pattern of coldness running through her. She got back into bed and pulled the covers around her, over her feet, up to her neck, and drank. After a while, she got up and put on another cardigan, and then she wrapped her Order robe around her, and she refilled her empty glass and returned to bed. She nestled the bottle in the covers beside her. Gradually, her brain fuzzed over, slowed, calmed. Her body began to warm.

  She kept sipping from the glass, sitting in her bed in her robe, and after some time the rooftops she could see out her window became dimmer and began to grow dark. She wished someone would arrive and talk to her, refill the bottle, and reassure her that it all made sense. She thought of Gilbert, of how she’d seen drink loosen him, stoop him, and eventually stupefy him. She imagined him swimming down in a deep pool, his strong body pushing, down, down very deep, until he found a door built into the rock. She imagined him underwater, prying open the door in the rock with his thick fingers, and swimming into an enormous room. The room was dimly lit, with bright white patterns on the walls, and chandeliers of green, interlocking lake-weed. He’d arrived at last, but he also knew there would never be time for him to swim back up.

  She didn’t know what time it was when she decided that she would go and see Willy. Why not just turn up on his doorstep? Why not surprise him? He had invited her. She was drunk, but she had questions for him. She did not bother to check the clock. She pushed aside the covers, placed the empty bottle in the cupboard, and went downstairs to hail a car.

  Once in the car, she realised she had forgotten to change her clothes. Too late for that now. She should have changed the dress under her robe. Why was she still wearing the Order robe in the first place? She had been cold. She struggled to pull one arm from her sleeve, then the other. She was drunker than she’d realised. Only now she remembered that she did not have enough money to pay for the car.

  The rumbling of the car’s engine seemed loud.

  “What’s the old robe for, then?” the cab driver barked from the front. Her breath was hammering in her head and chest. Her head still felt heavy and strange.

  “A—a costume party,” she said.

  The driver was shaking his head. The drive seemed to be taking a very long time, as though all the streets of the city had doubled, tripled, stretched interminably. How could it be they were not there yet?

  “It’s very late to be going to a party.”

  “Is it?”

  “You are from one of those secret societies.”

  “Pardon?”

  “I can tell. I see a few things, in a job like this. You know, I’ve been practising my own spells, honest to God, since I was a boy. Once I walked across the Thames, near Maidenhead, just four or five steps across the surface of the water.”

  “What happened after those four or five steps?”

  “I sank.”

  “Ah.”

  “But you would go all the way across, I should think. A lady sorcerer!”

  She managed to disentangle herself from her robe as the car stopped near Woburn Buildings, and she congratulated herself for getting out without stumbling. The man was smiling at her.

  “You can take it if you like.” She held out her robe.

  “Really?” He took the cheap fabric in his arms, as reverently as if he were holding a child. She nodded, feeling the brandy rise through her nose and hoping he would not expect payment as well. She shut the car door and started to walk towards Woburn Buildings.

  The cab turned back around and drove past her slowly, and the man wound down the window and called out to her.

  “Bless you, ma’am. Bless you.”

/>   THIRTY-ONE

  Out of the car it was very cold. She adjusted her hair and tried to pound some of the dust and dirt out of her dress. She tightened the scarf around her neck as she turned down the pedestrian walk and between the little white shopfronts of Woburn Buildings. She walked two doors down and stopped on his doorstep.

  When the door opened, Willy was standing in front of her in a full-length navy dressing gown, its long sash untied and trailing behind him. She was relieved to see him. He had ink on his fingers, in black patches like a kind of scribbled code.

  “Georgie?”

  “Sorry,” she muttered. It was the tips of her fingernails, she could feel them, they were calling to her. They were telling her to run now, singing like mermaids.

  “Don’t stand out there,” he said, eyeing her dress. “Where’s your coat?” It was a fair question. He held the door open for her; it seemed to dangle on its hinge, and she thought she could smell the inside of the coffin. She tripped on the step and stumbled forward, and for a mortifying moment she thought she would fall and keep falling, that the ground was not solid at all but rather an enormous hole. But she didn’t fall. And he hadn’t even noticed; he was already leading the way up the stairs. Now his steps stopped and he turned.

  “Are you all right?”

  She nodded, took the next step, then the next. Although she was concentrating on each step, her boots fell heavily.

  His voice drifted down. “Try not to wake the landlady.”

  When she arrived at the top of the stairs, he was already holding the door open for her.

  “I should tell you,” she said, picturing her words like a smooth silver slide into water, “I have been drinking.”

  “It’s two o’clock in the morning, my dear,” he said. “I would be rather surprised if you hadn’t. It’s quite late for ringing people’s bells.”

  She had already forgotten that she had rung the doorbell. She thought he had come down because he had sensed her somehow; he had known she was there. The fact that she had rung the doorbell was a disappointment.

  When she walked into the apartment, he handed her a glass.

  “It’s empty,” she said.

  “I thought I’d put some water in a carafe of some kind. Hang on one moment. Or would you like some tea?”

  Water, tea, it all seemed wrong. This was not what she was here for. He noticed her expression and disappeared into the kitchen, and she heard water running.

  “And congratulations!” he called from the kitchen. She said nothing.

  The room had orange walls. Lurid, sickly walls he had chosen. She wondered what it was he had been doing before she arrived. He looked very awake given it was two o’clock in the morning. She was facing a dark green chair with stuffing coming out of both arms. It looked like an ungainly man, trying for an embrace. It disturbed her. She stayed standing.

  Willy reappeared with a carafe and filled the glass with water. She watched it pour, watched the bubbles flatten, and looked back at him. Wasn’t she in love with this man? And here he was, pouring her water at two o’clock in the morning. She wondered why she wasn’t more pleased.

  “Is that all right?” He seemed anxious, almost excitable. “Please, sit.” He directed her to the green chair. She regarded it doubtfully, but decided she might sit so long as she didn’t touch the chair’s arms. He smiled at her as he sat in the chair opposite, which was a little higher than her own. He looked to her, at this moment, like a wild version of someone’s father. In the low light his blue dressing gown was like a bright animal skin.

  “My dear, I’m so glad you’ve come,” he was saying, but as soon as he said it, he stood up again. “In fact,” he said, “let’s have a splash of claret.” He disappeared back into the kitchen. She sipped the water, which was lukewarm, and held it in her mouth before she made herself swallow.

  While she waited, she examined the print on the wall in front of her. It was a Blake print that she recognised: the earth pale, flames red, sky deep blue. It was the circle of hell for those who had sinned because of lust. Above a blue-clad body, a blazing round of light held an image of an entwined couple within. To the left of the light, so many bodies rolled around naked, writhing, eyes black and hollow, all imploring to be let out. This was where Paris was, and Dido, and Helen. She wondered, somewhat nervously, why Willy would choose it for his wall.

  “You will come to my At Home, I hope,” he called through to her from the kitchen, his voice muffled. She couldn’t see through to the kitchen, but he continued to call out to her. “It will be quite a gathering, I think.” She’d forgotten how he opened his house to entertain. It was difficult to imagine this room filled with friends and strangers.

  He reappeared with two large glasses of dark red wine, and handed one to her. She glanced down at the book on the table in front of her; it was Flaubert’s L’éducation sentimentale, although she knew that Willy could barely read French.

  “This is congratulations,” he said, raising his glass to toast. “I’ve no doubt you’ll surpass me any day now.”

  Georgie did not lift her glass. “Dr. Harkin said that it was all, all the origins—Anna Sprengel, that was all—made up. All a lie. He said he wanted me to help to rebuild it.”

  “All that again.”

  What did he mean, again? “He claimed there was a letter—from Mathers—”

  Willy was nodding. “Yes, yes. There was a letter like that. Did the rounds years ago. They burned it, but I always thought someone must have made a copy.” He looked almost pleased to have anticipated it.

  She was confused. “What happened?”

  He leaned back and patted his hair, the grey streaks bright in the lamplight. “There was a reshuffle. There’s always a bit of fabrication in there. Of course the traditions are true. It’s just the stories that are crafted around them someone always toys with. You can’t worry too much about it. As you know, we can only access it through symbols.” He saw her expression and smiled. “There’s no such thing as a flawless institution, is there?”

  “Why didn’t you say something?”

  “What would I have said? There’s been infighting as long as there’s been an Order. Someone will push Harkin out. Never mind. He’ll replace Harkin’s stories with his own. It hardly matters. We know the parts of the Order that are worth something.”

  “Do we?”

  “A little interpretation is not so bad. Did you really think it was all true?”

  Georgie was embarrassed. “It throws many of my findings out.”

  “We will draw up new charts.” He moved to the edge of his chair. “It’s an opportunity.”

  She was conscious of him close to her. Part of her wanted to get even closer, to dissolve herself in this other person, but the other part was agitated. She had studied so hard for the Order, without realizing what it was exactly. He was meant to be the gullible one.

  But he was still talking, not seeming to notice she was unsettled.

  “We should ask Nora Radcliffe’s spirits! They have taught me all kinds of things. And now you don’t have to worry about Harkin giving you a hard time, you can go to her too.”

  Georgie forgot herself and pressed one of her hands against the chair’s stuffing. The chair’s arm felt damp and coarse and she quickly removed her hand.

  “But I did go to her. I told you already. I’ve been twice.” She thought of the ring in her purse, how it was meant for him. Would she ever be able to give it to him? Had she been wrong about this too?

  “Of course you did. My apologies. My brain rather goes to gooseflesh in the evening. Or rather, the early morning.” He paused. “I don’t usually get visitors at this hour, you know.” His chair seemed to slide across the floor of its own accord, closer to her own. “But now you’re here there’s something else we need to talk about,” he said. “Something even more important than the Order.” He gave her a long look and a half smile, knowingly flirtatious. “Something we haven’t had a chance to talk about in a lo
ng time.”

  She looked at Willy and remembered Harkin’s thin face, looming near her own. Why couldn’t Willy tell she didn’t want to talk about this now? Why couldn’t he tell she was too agitated?

  “Georgie?”

  “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

  “I get this nervous illness sometimes.” He put one hand on his stomach, but in the same moment he took it away and reached for her arm. His dressing gown had slipped away at the neck, revealing a little flesh below his throat, puckered in layers. She looked back at him, confused by this familiar creature in his long gown. She stared at the folds of his neck. Wasn’t this exactly what she wanted? Behind him, William Blake’s muddle of bodies soared together, the breasts the same double curve as the bottoms, all swirling nauseatingly.

  “Georgie?”

  She reached her free hand up to her collarbone, and held on to it like it was the rung of a ladder. She felt a queasy pressure, of wine and brandy squeezing through her nose.

  Willy was still smiling. “You can rest here. Sleep it off. Please, child, stay awhile.”

  She particularly disliked the word child. “No, I won’t.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s simply not good enough.” She got up from her chair. “You need to do better.”

  “Georgie—I know you’re tired—but don’t leave, please.” He followed her towards the door.

  “Good evening,” she said, and walked slowly down the stairs, letting her boots thump on every step.

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was only when she was outside that she remembered she had no money to get a car, and that she would have to walk all the way across town. She couldn’t go back to his apartment, so she started to walk. It took a long time, and the streets, like her thoughts, repeated themselves. When she finally got back to the dormitory, she went to sleep and didn’t wake again until the afternoon. When she woke, she wrote a note to Mrs. Thwaite. In it, she claimed that recent events—again an implicit reference to her brother—meant she was still not ready to return to the hospital. The lies spilled easily. Second Lieutenant Pike would have already left for convalescence, anyway, and she struggled to see the point of going back. She would ask her mother for money. Mrs. Thwaite responded by return post and said they were short-staffed but would try to manage without her. She should take the time she needed.