by Clive Barker
My night journey had been far more elaborate than I’d realized. Somehow while I’d been blind Cesaria’s enchantments had led me out of the house and across the grounds to the perimeter of L’Enfant. That was where I now stood: at the borderland between sacred ground and secular; between Barbarossian territory and the rest of the world. Behind me was a solid mass of trees, the thicket that swelled and blossomed between them so dense that I could see no more than three or four yards, while ahead of me lay a landscape of simple virtues. Rolling hills, rising away from the swampy ground that bounded L’Enfant; scattered trees, uncultivated fields. I could see no sign of habitation.
The birds who’d been greeting the dawn now took flight from the canopy, and I watched them rising up, wheeling around overhead before taking their various ways. I felt suddenly immensely vulnerable, seeing them rise into that bright, wide sky. It was so long since I’d been roofless; I was sorely tempted to turn round and go back to the house. I had unfinished business there, I reasoned: I couldn’t just walk out into the world and leave the life I’d been living behind me. A journey like this needed thought and preparation. I had to say goodbye to Marietta, Zabrina and Luman; I had to append a few closing paragraphs to the book on my desk; I had to tidy up my study, and lock away my private papers. There was this to do, there was that to do.
All excuses, of course. I was just trying to find ways to postpone the fearful moment when I actually faced the world again. That was why Cesaria had tricked me into this sudden exile, I knew; to deny me my procrastinations, and oblige me to venture out, under this expanse of sky. In short, to make me live.
I was standing there, facing the empty vista before me, chewing all this over, when I heard a motion in the thicket behind me. I turned around, and to my astonishment saw Luman digging his way out through the shrubbery, cursing ripely as he did so. When he finally emerged from the tangle he looked like some half-crazed spirit of the green, twiglets and thorns in his beard and hair. He spat out a mouthful of leaf, and gave me a fierce look.
“You’d better be grateful!” he groused.
“For what?’ I said.
He raised his hands. He was carrying two leather knapsacks, both much battered and beaten. They were packed to the point of bursting. “I brought you some stuff for your travels,” he said.
“Well that’s good of you,” I said.
He tossed the smaller of the knapsacks over to me. It was heavy. It also stank.
“Is this another of your antiques?” I said, looking at the Confederate insignia on the flap.
“Yep,” he said. “I got them the same place I got the saber. I put your pistol in there, along with some money, a shirt and a flask of brandy.”
“And that one?’ I said, eyeing the bigger knapsack.
“Some more clothes. A pair of boots, and you know what.”
I smiled. “You brought me my book?”
“Of course. I know how much you love that damn thing. I wrapped it in the ol’ Stars and Bars.”
“Thank you,” I said, taking the second knapsack from him. It was quite a weight. My shoulders were going to regret my verbosity in the days to come. But it felt good to have the thing with me; like a child that I could not bear to be separated from.
“You went into the house for the book,” I said. “I know how you hate it in there . . .”
He threw me a sideways glance. “Used to. But it’s changin’ isn’t it? Animals shittin’ on the floor. Women everywhere.” His face broke into a puckish grin. “I’m thinkin’ maybe I’ll move back in. Them ladies is mighty fine.”
“They’re lesbians,” I pointed out.
“I don’t care if they’re from Wisconsin,” he said. “I like ’em.”
“How did you know where to find me?”
“I heard you walking by the Smoke House, talking to yourself.”
“What was I saying?”
“Couldn’t make no sense of it. I came out and you jus’ walked right on, like you was sleepwalkin’. I kinda figured she’d put you up to this. Old Lady Love.”
“You mean Cesaria.”
He nodded. “That’s what Paps used to call her. ‘Old Lady Love, all ice and honeysuckle.’ Didn’t you ever hear him call her that?”
“No, I never did.”
“Huh. Well, anyhow I figured she’d decided to be rid of you. So I thought I’d just give you something to be going with.”
“Thank you. I appreciate it.” Luman looked a little uncomfortable that I was thanking him.
“Well . . .” he said, plucking another fragment of leaf from the corner of his mouth. “You’ve been kind to me, brother.”
I wondered, watching him separate leaf and beard, if I’d missed some simple pattern in my investigation of our family; if he wasn’t Pan, by another name, and my brother Dionysus, and—
I caught myself in this, and growled.
“What is it?”
“I’m still writing that damn book in my head,” I said.
“You’ll forget about it, once you get out there,” Luman said, his gaze drifting past me to the landscape over my shoulder. There was a certain wistfulness on his face. I thought about our conversation about how he couldn’t possibly face the prospect of returning to the world: that it would make him too crazy. But I could also see how the idea of risking the journey was deeply tempting to him. I decided to play Mephistopheles.
“You want to join me?” I said.
He didn’t look at me. Just kept his eyes on the sunlit hills. “Yeah . . .” he growled. “I want to join you. But I ain’t gonna. Least, not today. I got shit to do, brother. I got to arm all them ladies.”
“Arm them?”
“Yeah . . . If they’re staying—”
“They’re not staying.”
“Marietta says they are.”
“Really.”
“That’s what she says.”
Oh my Lord, I thought: the invasion took place after all. L’Enfant has fallen. But not to the Gearys: at least, not yet. To a tribe of lesbians.
“But you know what you promised—” Luman went on.
“You mean about your kids?”
“You remembered.”
“Of course I remembered.”
He beamed, his eyes shining. “You’ll go look for them.”
“I’ll go look for them.”
He came to me suddenly, and clamped his arms around me. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down,” he said, planting a noisy kiss on my cheek. “I love you, Maddox. And I want you to take that love along with you, to keep you safe out there.” His hug tightened. “You hear me?”
I hugged him back, though it was a messy embrace, with both knapsacks in my arms.
“You know where you’re going to start looking?’ he asked me when the hugging was done.
“No idea,” I said. “I’m just going to follow my instincts.”
“You bring my kids back with you?”
“If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what I want . . .” he said.
He fixed me with his gaze for a long moment, and I swear there was more affection in his expression than I’d seen directed at me in many a long year. He didn’t linger, but broke the gaze, and turned away, disappearing into the thicket. In four or five strides he’d been eclipsed by the green, and the wall between myself and L’Enfant stood resolute.
ii
Luman’s a lot smarter than a first impression might suggest. He didn’t just pack the book, he packed a sheaf of plain paper, some pens, even ink. He knew I’d want to record my departure from L’Enfant; that my farewell to the house would also mark my farewell to these pages.
So here I am, sitting on the roadside maybe three miles from where he and I said our goodbyes, committing these closing thoughts to paper. The day’s been kind to me. There’s been a gentle breeze blowing since midmorning, and the sun’s been warm, but not hot. I came upon this road after a couple of hours of walking, and decided to follow it, though I have no id
ea where it’s going to lead me. In a sense—though I’m a very long way from the Caspian Sea—I’m still following in Zelim’s footsteps; traveling blind, but in hope. Of what? Perhaps of a little wisdom; a clue to the question I’d wanted answered by Nicodemus: what am I for? It’s probably too much to expect; the world grants an answer to that question rarely, I think, and when it does usually makes the recipients pay dearly for the information. The tree of that knowledge has its roots at Golgotha.
In lieu of that, I have no clear agenda. I’ve been living under a despotic regime for a long time now, with the heel of my own ambition on my neck. Now that it’s almost lifted, living free may be satisfaction enough. I am hereafter only the man who told a prodigal’s story; who chronicled the return of Galilee and his beloved to the place where they could begin. Forward of that moment is an empty page. And though I will be walking there, I intend to leave no trace of my passing; at least not in words.
All of which is not to say I won’t wonder, as I go, how the lives and afterlives of those I’ve written about here will proceed.
I can see Garrison Geary even now, home from burying his grandfather and his brother, sitting in what used to be Cadmus’s sanctum. On his lap, Charles Holt’s journal. On the wall in front of him, the great Bierstadt canvas. In his mind he has become the lone pioneer on the crag in the painting; but it is not the plains of the Midwest he imagines possessing. It is L’Enfant. He plans to take it by force. He even knows what he’s going to do once he’s become the Lord of that house, and it will change the course of history.
In Washington, Loretta is alone; also meditating on what lies before her. Seeing her men put into the ground, side by side, made her wonder if she hadn’t been hasty when she’d told Rachel that these mysteries were beyond them all. We’re little people, she’d said. We don’t have a prayer. But in the dusk, listening to the traffic, she wonders if that’s the very thing she has: a prayer; and someone to deliver it to. It will take her a little time to make sense of things; but she’s a clever woman, and now she has nothing to lose, which makes her formidable.
Meanwhile, Luman’s bastards pass the grimy days in some city I cannot name, the wisest of them expecting nothing; though they may yet be astonished.
And the shark deities move in the clear waters around the islands;
And the dream spirits of the Geary women sit laughing under the eaves of the house in Anahola;
And certain powerful men, weary from their day of politicking, come reverentially into a temple close to Capitol Hill, and pay their sullen respects;
And the gods go on, in spite of themselves; and the human road stretches out before us; and we walk, like wounded children, waiting for the strength to run.
About the Author
Clive Barker is the bestselling author of eighteen books, as well as an acclaimed artist, film producer, and director. He lives in Beverly Hills, California with his lover and life-partner, the photographer David Armstrong.
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Credits
Cover design by Gene Mydowski
Cover illustration © by Phil Heffernan from photographs © 1998 Phontonica, © 1998 Phontonica/Bruce Golden, © 1998 Phontonica /LisaGoodman
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
GALILEE. Copyright © 1998 by Clive Barker. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub © Edition 1. SEPTEMBER 2001 ISBN: 9780061744327
A hardcover edition of this book was first published in 1998 by HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc.
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