Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

by Bruce Sterling

  It was not prudent to plunge into a complex situation when one was poorly prepared. Gavin chose to do this anyway — to plunge into Brazil. Because of Farfalla Corrado, of course. She had left him with no better course of action. He was doing something crazy, but it was much crazier to stay in Seattle and confront Farfalla Corrado, with clouds of dry-ice pouring off of her, radiating occult fatality.

  Gavin endured his twenty-five-hour planetary trip. Seattle-Atlanta, Atlanta-Sao Paolo. This was a long, dreamy, mind-numbing excursion. An endless flight, among an oxygen-starved crowd of people, exposed to an endless number of romantic comedy movies.

  During his day-long trip, strapped into a tourist seat, like a victim meant for slaughter, Gavin had time to think about important issues in his life. The battery of his laptop had run out, and without the Internet to distract him, he was forced to meditate.

  Gavin thought about the issue of marriage. He also thought a lot about sex, because young men who were strapped down and unable to move had wandering thoughts. But mostly, yes, he thought about marriage.

  Sex was not a mystery to Gavin, because he had enjoyed a lot of it, but marriage was truly a mystery. Gavin had always wanted to participate in a serious, full-scale marriage ceremony. Elaborate, formal and huge. With costumes, music, and crowds.

  But why? It had never occurred to him to ask himself why.

  During his twenty-five hours stuck in his tight airline seat, an answer slowly emerged for Gavin. Marriage appealed to him because marriage was a mystical experience. That was why he desired it. A marriage ceremony transcended rationality, practicality, or common sense. Marriage was all about mystery. The sacramental mystery of men and women.

  A marriage ceremony was an occult ritual. Marriage was a supernatural act. Divine power was directly invoked, during a marriage ceremony. A living, mortal man and woman were publicly welded into one flesh. Sacred emblems were exchanged. The man and woman exchanged holy vows. Stern, absolute vows of life and death.

  Marriage was not modern. Marriage was colossally ancient. Marriage was vast, pagan, and reverential.

  This was why the marriage ceremony spoke to Gavin Tremaine. This was why the idea of marriage comforted him. This was why his existence as a man was incomplete without marriage. He could persist for a mortal lifetime without marriage, but he would be outside the vast narrative flow of his ancestry and his posterity. A world without marriage would be like a world without angels, or water, or the Moon.

  And yet, he was denied this experience. Where was it to be found?

  Gavin departed the plane in Sao Paolo. He cleared customs, rented a cellphone, exchanged dollars for Brazilian reals, and found a taxi.

  The taxi was immediately snarled in choking traffic. It was not a gloomy Seattle winter here in Sao Paulo. Here in Brazil, it was summertime. He was in the Southern Hemisphere, so the seasons were upside down.

  Gavin arrived at a hotel.

  Gavin opened his luggage. In his frantic retreat from Seattle, he had packed more or less at random. His rolling luggage held a strange heap of Gavin Tremaine’s personal clutter.

  Why had these peculiar objects followed him around the planet? Aspirin pills. Triple-A batteries. Seattle house keys that he couldn’t possibly use here. Thumb drives. Many small, persistent, go-anywhere objects. Objects like insects.

  Gavin ventured into the Brazilian streets outside his hotel. He had known that Sao Paolo would be hot and crowded. He hadn’t imagined the amazing scale of the city. It was beyond colossal.

  Sao Paolo had skyscrapers growing like dandelions. Blazing summer sunlight over chaotic traffic. Chuttering helicopters in the pallid, sooty sky.

  The twenty-first century had nine billion people crowding it. Sao Paolo was part of that world already.

  Some woman in the street ahead was yelling at a taxi driver in Portuguese. Just shrieking at him, furious, tearing into the guy. She had rolling luggage, a big Italian hat with a ribbon, and big Italian sunglasses.

  The taxi driver was cowed by her tirade, and when Gavin arrived at the woman’s side — large, male, foreign and scowling — the taxi driver was terrified of him.

  “You’re a thief,” Gavin told the driver in English. “You tried to rip her off. You’ll never manage that, pal, not with her. Beat it.”

  The driver fled.

  Farfalla pulled off her straw hat and wiped sweat from her brow.

  “You look cute, baby,” Gavin told her. “You look great with short, curly hair. Those are cool sunshades.”

  “I cut my hair to come home,” Farfalla sighed. “It’s too hot to wear long hair in the summer.”

  “Just get into town?” said Gavin tenderly. “For the Futurist conference?”

  “I’m avoiding the Futurist conference,” said Farfalla. She took off her sunshades and gave him a serpentine glare. “Of course, I knew that you would be there at that conference, instead of Seattle. You are supposed to be in Seattle.”

  “I knew you would be at the big futurist conference here, too,” said Gavin. “That’s why I’m also avoiding it.”

  “I am so jet-lagged,” lamented Farfalla. “I drank too much bad wine on that plane. I always forget how hot it is, here at home! Nobody knows I am here in Brazil. I have no money! I’m broke. I fought with everybody. I hate everything. I hate my life. I’m such a mess.” She sighed from the depths of her soul. “But, I have it. I got it. At last, it is mine.”

  “You have what, Farfalla?”

  “I have the bronze statue. I found the Cosmic Cupid. No one thought I could get it. I got it. I put my hands on it, and I carried it off with me. The Cosmic Cupid is here in this travel bag.”

  “Oh,” said Gavin, gazing at her bag. “So you pulled off your mystery quest after all, huh? Good for you.” Farfalla’s bag was huge, cheap, Chinese, plastic, and bilious yellow. It was the kind of bag a street vendor in Naples might sell in some slum for ten euros. It was phony and anonymous, and it said SMASONNITE in phony Chinese knock-off lettering. It was a brand-new bag, yet it was already kicked, scratched and dented.

  “You got the Cosmic Cupid through all the security scans?” Gavin said. “They let you get a bronze art statue through customs?”

  “I smuggled it here,” Farfalla said. “Now that I’m safe in Brazil, I know many good ways to smuggle. I have many friends in Sao Paolo. Very old friends, my oldest friends.”

  “So, you really have the Cosmic Cupid in your possession,” mused Gavin. “It exists! I mean, it genuinely exists as a physical, bronze, solid object!”

  “It wasn’t easy to do,” said Farfalla.

  “I’m sure it wasn’t easy.”

  “I had to work so hard,” mourned Farfalla. “I never worked on anything so hard in my life. I didn’t do anything else. I never thought of anything else.” Farfalla burst into tears.

  “There, there,” said Gavin, patting her jutting, Milanese-printed cotton shoulder. “You’re here, and I’m here. It is here. That’s great. Fine. I’m totally with the story. We’ll have a good look at the statue. Together. Very methodical, we’ll work out all the options. We’ll take some photographs... I’ve got notebooks.”

  She looked up, wet-eyed. “You must help me with the Cosmic Cupid. You must.”

  “Absolutely, I will. I promise.”

  “Because you’re here in Sao Paolo.”

  Gavin drew a sharp breath. “Woman, where else? Where else could I be, for God’s sake? How could I not be here? I devoted every possible effort to not meeting you! You’re supposed to be on another continent! You are supposed to be anywhere but here! Anywhere but at my side, with me, at last, here and now! And I thank God!”

  Gavin lifted his face to the blazing, yellowish, polluted, tropical, urban sky. “Thank you, God! Thank you for making me happy! Forgive me for doubting Your purposes! I surrender to Your higher good! I will never ask for You another favor, God! Thank You very much.”

  He reached out and snagged Farfalla’s sleeve. “Stop wandering off, F
arfalla.”

  “I am not wandering,” moaned Farfalla. “I’m just dizzy. Anyway, you are yelling at God in public. Stop doing that.”

  “We are going to my hotel now,” he said. “It’s that hotel right over there. It’s that candy-colored eight-story stack of pancakes. Yeah, that one, that looks like it was built from Legos by a pack of termites.”

  “That is your hotel?” said Farfalla, blinking.

  “Yeah. Something wrong with it?”

  “Only a foreigner would rent a room in that hotel. They shoot science-fiction movies in there.”

  “Well, no wonder I like it. The local Futurists reserved the room for me. It’s their favorite Brazilian Futurist hotel. They even have their offices inside there.”

  “Maybe it’s better than its reputation,” said Farfalla. “Let’s get out of this heat.” She squared her shoulders and took off. Gavin followed her, hefting and pulling her roll-aboard by its cheap, squeaking handle.

  Farfalla heaved through the weird hotel’s rotating glass doors. They were fancy mirrorglass doors and completely disorienting. They chased and heaved and bumped and backtracked, banging into their own reflections.

  Finally, they broke into the icy air-conditioning of the Futurist hotel lobby. Gavin was dazed, but Farfalla heel-clicked straight over to the bizarre kidney-shaped plastic desk. Gavin muled along behind, laden with the bag. Farfalla’s travel bag weighed a ton.

  “Hello again, Mrs. Tremaine,” smiled the woman behind the desk. “Welcome back, we’ve missed you.” She passed Farfalla a square plastic room key.

  “Há alguma mensagem para mim ou meu marido?” said Farfalla.

  “Sim, ficamos surpresos, mas alguém deixou uma carta,” said the desk clerk.

  Farfalla returned, glancing at the envelope the clerk had handed her. She ripped it up and dumped it in a chromed wastebasket. “What old-fashioned pests! Who sends us letters these days? What year do they think this is?”

  They took the long-familiar path to the elevator. Farfalla punched their floor number and they rode the many floors together. Gavin casually hummed an old Beatles song under his breath. Farfalla led him down the hall, opening the door with her plastic key.

  “I’m taking a shower,” she said, hanging up her straw hat. She unzipped her skirt.

  “Great idea,” said Gavin, setting down the bag. “I’ll order for us.” He pulled a room-service menu off a table in the suite. “What do you want?”

  “Get me the usual, baby.”

  “No problem,” said Gavin, picking up the phone. He called room service and ordered lunch for two in fluent Portuguese.

  Gavin sat on the bed. He picked up the flatscreen TV remote and found some Brazilian music videos. He took off his shoes and relaxed onto the bed.

  Then, he gazed at the big yellow nameless bag. With It inside. Gavin had not yet opened that bag, but he found himself entirely, spiritually certain that the bag, in fact, contained the Cosmic Cupid. Not just any statue, but literally It. Gavin was not a guy given to superstition, but it was dead obvious that the thing had tremendous paranormal power.

  He could feel the radiating presence of It. It was a distinct sensation, skin-creeping, hair-raising. A hard bronze sensation, oozing out of a plastic suitcase. Maybe it was shooting weird rays through his destiny. Scrambling and mutating the past and future!

  Not a bad feeling, though. An exhilirating feeling. A warm, bubbling, fizzing, life-affirming feeling. If an Abyss had a volcanic hot-springs,in it, it would feel just like this. Not a fierce romantic trial, not agony. Something with the emotional fire of that, but on the far side of that. An all-enveloping warmth.

  Now, he was totally feeling It.

  Farfalla came out of the shower with her hair in a towel. She looked refreshed, cheerful, relaxed, and naked. She pulled back the bedcover, peeled the sheets, and plumped the pillows with a wifely, critical look. Then, she hopped into the bed.

  “Room service says thirty minutes,” he told her.

  She nodded and lifted her arms. “That’s enough time, come on!”

  Gavin undressed. He walked to the window and peered down thirty stories. Such an interesting town. A total urban jungle of wild South American skyscrapers out there. The oversized green trees that lined the boulevards were like sidewalk weeds. He pulled the curtain shut.

  They got into bed and made love. Then, they slipped on plush hotel bathrobes. Room service knocked at the door with a trolley.

  “This is such a good bauru, baby,” said Farfalla, chowing down with a grin. “There’s just nothing like showing up, first thing, back here in town, and getting exactly what you want from life! It’s just so satisfying!”

  “That soupbowl is feijoada,” Gavin pointed out. “I told ‘em to double the garlic for you.”

  Farfalla sampled some carne de sol with her sharp little teeth. “It’s all so fantastic! This is my favorite hotel! That bathroom décor is a little too Lina Bo Bardi, but the service in this sci-fi joint is terrific! I couldn’t be more cozy. We should bring the kids here, next time.”

  Gavin sipped his beer. “This evening, if you’re not too tired, I was thinking... we whip on over to the MASP. Get in some of that modern art you always like.”

  “That is so thoughtful,” said Farfalla, scratching the mark of the brassiere-line under her left breast. She yawned like a shark. “Madonna! Good food and sex make me so sleepy! I’ll have a little jet-lag nap-time now, and then I’ll be fine for later.”

  “You have at it,” nodded Gavin. He closed the drapes and turned down the lamp.

  Farfalla woke in half an hour, with a heavy sigh. “So, what time is it now?” she said, dazedly.

  “Oh, it’s around three.”

  “What year is it?”

  “What year?”

  “Yes, what year is this?”

  Gavin leaned across the little work-table and opened his laptop. “Mr. Softie here seems to be having some trouble with his system clock. Must be the jet-lag.”

  Farfalla climbed naked out of bed and joined him at the table. “You opened my suitcase.”

  “Well, yeah. I had to. I had to take a look at the Cosmic Cupid. How could I not? No real choice about It. I couldn’t stop myself.”

  “But, I locked that suitcase.”

  “That’s not much of a lock, Farfalla. A Boy Scout could pick that lock.” Gavin gazed at the winged, divine statue. “I should have known that It would look like this. Somehow.”

  “The statue is not in very good condition,” Farfalla admitted. “Not any more.”

  “I didn’t mean that part. I just would have thought a Cosmic Cupid would be more... Cupid-looking.”

  “He was a painter, and she was a novelist. I think maybe something went wrong with their bronze statue mold.”

  Gavin rotated the statue in his hands. “It looks so abstract and eccentric! This statue sort of looks like… Like some Futurist abstract-dynamism piece... But they made it way before the Futurists came along. How can this thing looks so... supersonic?”

  “I’m glad that it’s not ‘pretty,’” said Farfalla, climbing into a fresh pair of underwear. “The ‘Cosmic Cupid’ is not like a pretty cherub.”

  “Yeah. I can’t stand those pretty cherubs. I know exactly what you mean.”

  “It does look ‘cosmic,’” said Farfalla. “I mean, if you think of ‘formless chaos’ as being ‘cosmic.’”

  “Right again. You put your finger on it.”

  “I did a lot of occult research about the ‘Cosmic Cupid,’” said Farfalla, knitting her finely plucked brows. She shrugged into an Italian brassiere. “I had to go to Milan and buy fifteen books in my favorite Esoterica Supermarket.”

  “No kidding,” said Gavin.

  Farfalla flounced onto the bed to step into her hose. “Most occultists say to us,” Farfalla announced, “that Cupid is the son of Venus and Vulcan. Venus and Vulcan are ‘Love’ and ‘Technology.’ Cupid is their son.”

  “’Love’ was marr
ied to ‘Technology’?” Gavin rubbed his chin in wonderment. “Hey, I’m a married guy myself, and I never knew that.”

  Farfalla smiled. “But, there was always one cult of pagans, who believed a very different thing. They believed that Cupid was the greatest God of all. The almighty God. It was Cupid who created the Cosmos. And Cupid created the Cosmos with a male and female duality.”

  “Men and women have two different universes? That is some kind of story,” said Gavin. “Those pagan cultists must have had some hot wedding feasts.”

  “It makes you wonder what people would do,” Farfalla said, finding a blouse, “if we all believed that Love was the only, true, divine power.”

  Gavin examined the winged bronze statue in the light of the desk lamp. He lifted his small tourist camera and took a few careful pictures.

  “You know,” he said, “I think... I think maybe you and I need to make very sure that we keep our hands on this sacred idol.”

  “I was thinking the very same thing,” said Farfalla. “I wanted to ship it to that old professor in Virginia because, she said she would give me a lot of money for it, or at least a big reward. But, I think about that now, and I’m think why? Why would I ever do that?” Farfalla stepped into a skirt. “After all that effort I put into getting my claws on this thing? Some nutty romance writer is supposed to get the creation of another nutty romance writer? That’s not what this is about. This is powerful.”

  “I would worry,” said Gavin crisply, “about what this very powerful sacred icon might do in the hands of the wrong people. I mean, it could warp reality. Especially, in the hands of people who lack our... uniquely foresightful qualities.”

  “That is so true,” nodded Farfalla. “I never thought about that part, but obviously, you’re right.” He looked into her face. “What are we to do, Farfalla? I mean, this matter is serious. We need to be responsible.”

  “Maybe,” Farfalla suggested, “we should hide it from everybody. And take care of it, very privately. As our special secret. We tell just a few people, or, well, maybe not anyone. Just you and me, baby. Forever after, like we said at our wedding.”