Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

by Bruce Sterling

  “And you did come back to me. You’re here with me right now. See, that proves that I was right all along!”

  “No... no, Gavin, that’s not what you are supposed to say! No, Gavin, we have to leave this place now. I have a bad feeling. I have a premonition. We need to leave together. Now. Don’t sit here boasting. We have to go.”

  “I am not boasting! I know we have both missed something. I know that we missed it, I can feel it! I feel the lack of it, just like you do. I feel the loss! Listen. We’re both Futurists. We are two Futurists, and we love each other. But, we are never in the right time and space together! We’re just never quite in sync! We can tear this world to pieces, that will never be a problem for us, but what about you and me? We should have had our special time... just, maybe one brief, perfect moment... when two people are truly surprised by finding the one they love. Instead of expecting each other, all along... and predicting each other, foreseeing each other... we should have discovered each other. We should have had these sweet days of surprise and discovery... days of freshness, and promise. Those days of dawning love that are rapturous. A honeymoon for us. Maybe two months of real, true romance, sixty days. Where was that time for us? We didn’t ever get that. What happened to that? We were always too far ahead of ourselves.”

  “What a sweet thing to say,” said Farfalla, wiping at her eyes.

  “We could have treasured every single day! We could have kept scrap-books about our honeymoon.”

  “That is so true,” said Farfalla. “Where is our rapture? My heart should sing.”

  “Where was our wild joy, baby? We always outguess our love, or predict our love, or fend it off as if it were some curse. We try to set limits on what love is allowed to do to us. Love should surprise us... sweep over us in a wave... and open us up to feelings that we never knew we could have.” Gavin was choking up.

  Farfalla looked at him with pity. “Yes, there should have been more surprise about our love, and... more sense of wonder.”

  “Yes. That’s it. Where is that part of my story? My sense of wonder. I don’t get my wonder. I never got it. I misplaced my wonder. Where is my wonder?”

  “Our days of romance, our days of wonder,” said Farfalla. “Maybe those days aren’t lost to us. Maybe those days are ahead of us.”

  Gavin blinked. “Well, I don’t see how that could be possible.”

  “But it is. Because I am a Futurist,” said Farfalla. “So, maybe I can make a promise to you. I can promise you, that we do get our honeymoon. Our sixty days of wild rapture. Love and wonder, too. But not all at one time. We get our honeymoon, but it is just one day within each year. Sixty days, for sixty years. One day, every year, on our anniversary day.” She crossed her heart.

  “What a weird thing to predict.”

  “That is strange, isn’t it? But it’s so us!”

  “Can you do that?”

  “Oh yes. I can. I promise you all those days. We will have them, I swear that we will.” She paused. “I’ll need some help from you.”

  “You know,” said Gavin, “any married couple that could pull that off would have an epic win. They would never despair of their love. No matter how cruel life was, or what darkness grabbed them by their throats, they would always look forward to some fresh attack of enchantment and illusion. That has got to be the greatest romance hack in all of space and time.”

  “I’m glad that you’re happy,” said Farfalla. “Now, get up! We have to leave right away.”

  Gavin lurched heavily from his barstool. Then, he wrapped her in his arms.

  “Not now, Gavin!” Farfalla screeched, turning her face away. “No, no... Yes, yes, all right, fine! Yes, I love you! Yes, you are wonderful. Stop kissing me, Gavin.”

  “We were meant to be together,” Gavin mumbled. “Fate is so kind to us, that even our doom is sweet...”

  “I can’t believe what I’m seeing,” said Fabio Mascherati.

  Gavin looked up. “Ciao, Fabio. Come va?”

  “Gavin, what are you doing here in Sao Paulo?” demanded Fabio. “You are not on the registry of speakers!”

  “They kinda slotted me in at the last minute,” said Gavin, releasing his boozy grip on Farfalla. “Let me introduce you to a very special somebody here.…”

  “I know who this girl is!” said Fabio, sucking air through his teeth. “I was just on the phone to Pancho Pola! Just now! ‘Pancho,’ I told him, ‘you are being a fool!’ I told him! ‘There is no way that your girlfriend is here in Sao Paulo! There is no way that Gavin Tremaine is here with your girlfriend! There is no way,’ I said to him, ‘that Gavin Tremaine is having an affair with your woman!’”

  Fabio’s brow grew stormy. “But you are! You are. You made me lie to him. You made me lie to Dr. Pancrazio Pola. My trust with him is ruined.”

  “This is not his fault,” Farfalla squeaked.

  Fabio nodded, in a courtly fashion, at the wooden bar. “Is that your nice American hamburger that just arrived?”

  Farfalla turned and looked at the hamburger. She looked back at Fabio, guiltily. “Maybe.”

  “Why don’t you put that greasy hamburger into your big, red, lipstick mouth, and let me speak to this man?”

  Farfalla shrank away in fear.

  “I know that this little scene looks pretty bad,” said Gavin, “but let me predict something, Fabio. You will forgive me for this, some day. It’ll take a while, but some day, this will all seem funny.”

  Fabio slid into the space between Gavin and Farfalla. He put his tailored coat-sleeve on the hotel bar. He glanced with a vague contempt at a second arriving hamburger, amid a litter of untouched drinks.

  “Gavin,” Fabio said slowly, “let me ask you something. Is this situation funny? Do you consider us, Italians, an amusing people? Do we exist for your sport? Are we the comic relief, in your world?”

  “No,” said Gavin.

  “Gavin, why did you have to humiliate Pancho Pola? Pancho has done nothing to you! He’s a business partner of yours, as I recall. He’s a business partner of mine. I heard that you openly boasted to people that his girlfriend was your woman! Is that true?”

  “Yes,” said Gavin. “Yes, I did say that to everyone. Because it’s the truth.”

  “Gavin, why couldn’t you keep the truth quiet? You couldn’t get a hotel room for that disgrace? I walk into this stupid bar, and you are pawing her in public! That is outrageous! That is not how it is done! How can you expect Pancho Pola to forgive such a thing? I don’t say that you can’t have some woman! God knows why you would pick that woman — but I don’t say that to you! But it is never done in that way. Never! That was vulgar.”

  “Fabio, I can understand why you would say that. As an Italian, I really put the foot wrong forward. That’s right, that is not how these things are done in Italy. But well, I’m not Italian. And besides, there were circumstances.”

  “I’m waiting,” said Fabio. “For your ‘circumstances.’”

  “Well, listen to me, if Pancho had ever done the right thing by her, and if he’d married her... Okay, I’m lying. All right? I’m lying. Let me tell you the truth. I don’t care if that geek married her ten times over. The very thought that he ever put one hand on her drives me crazy. She’s mine, and she’s not his. You know what? To hell with him.”

  “That,” said Fabio, “is not what I wanted to hear.”

  “Fabio, despite our culture barrier, I’m going to level with you here, okay? I have given offense in a serious matter. I know that. I admit that. I want to settle this thing, openly, honestly, once and for all. Like gentlemen. Old-school. Whip out your phone there, and call your buddy, that European geek. You tell him that I want to meet him on neutral ground. Iceland would be good. Erupting volcanoes, collapsing banks, he can take his pick. You tell him to bring his Italian stiletto and a gold-plated Milanese Beretta. I’m coming over there with a US Army forty-five automatic and a Bowie knife. Two men walk in, one man walks out. That’s my proposal.”

&n
bsp; “You are drunk,” sighed Fabio.

  “Yeah, I have had a few. That’s why I’m saying what I think.”

  “Gavin,” said Farfalla, edging closer, “stop making a scene! You are hurting my feelings.”

  “Baby, back off. This is man stuff.”

  “He isn’t like this,” Farfalla offered to Fabio.

  Fabio examined her as if she were a bug in a cigar box. “Non sono l’unico a sapere cosa avete fatto. L’uomo che hai tradito ha un sacco di amici.”16

  Farfalla backed off, pale with dread and shame.

  Gavin drew a deep breath. “So I’m trusting you to convey my offer for me, Fabio. You can tell him that’s my final deal. He wants the Futurist cupcake there, he can walk in his Milanese monkey-boots over my dead body.”

  “Gavin, please, really...”

  “Don’t tell me that it’s not the Italian way, buddy. Because it is. That’s more of the Italian way than he has has got the stomach for. Look, I don’t hate him... All right, to tell the truth — I do hate him. I’m jealous of him, and I hate him. If he shuts up, he backs down, and he backs off forever, then, maybe, I’ll forgive him. I’ll forgive him for ever existing. Yeah. That’s predictable. I’m a grown-up, so I will forgive him, some day. But in the meantime, there are some issues between two gentlemen that are timeless. And a woman, that one is issue number one.”

  “I will tell him those sad, crazy things for you,” said Fabio, “if you insist.”

  “I do insist. I will never change my mind. This matter is final.”

  “Pancho is not going to fight a duel with guns in Iceland,” said Fabio, “because he hasn’t lost his senses! Pancho is a man of the world! He’ll get even with you for this act of disrespect... because you deserve that. You are the worst!”

  “No, I am not the worst. True love is the worst, pal. I just offered him his chance to get even with me. There is his chance, fair and square. Take it, or leave it.”

  “I am witnessing a tragedy,” mourned Fabio. “This is so sad! Why are men like this? We had such a beautiful scene! Me, the entrepreneur. You, the financier. And him, an electronics genius! And all of that destroyed. Why? Why? Because of her!”

  Fabio aimed a viper-like glance at Farfalla, who crumpled with shame, as she cowered at the bar. “Yes, it is all about her,” Fabio said. “Why her? What do you plan to do with her? Eh? Hang her on your neck like an anchor? Look at her! She has no education! She has no proper family! She was never one of us! Will you take her to boardroom meetings? Make her the wife of the city councilman? You are destroying your future, damaging me, hurting him, and destroying everything that we built! You are trapped here in a stupid fit of passion.”

  “Fabio, you’ve been a good friend of mine, so I’m not going to punch you for telling me that. Okay? But, get over yourself. You can just take your sad, petty, parochial, regional prejudices, which mean nothing outside of downtown Milan, and you can just... Oh hell. Hell. Look at that. You have chased her off, Fabio. She bought all those mean things you were yelling about her. She believed you. You broke her heart. Look, she’s running off with her tail tucked between her legs. What a mess.”

  “Well, I never liked her very much,” said Fabio, “but maybe she is an Italian girl, in her heart... Maybe, she has some spark of decency! Maybe, she saw the common sense in this matter! Maybe, she will let you alone now. And stop ruining you.”

  “There is no way, man. Her? Common sense? That’s not even possible. I know perfectly well what she’s up to. The Futurist cupcake there is heading straight for the heart-of-darkness. She’s got some kind of goddamn voodoo temple... She’s gonna hole up there in her sulky moody funk, like a snail in a steel shell... Man, why is love like this? Why? I could have been safe in some cab to the airport right now! But, no... No, like an idiot, I had to tell her how I really felt about her! Man, women hate it when men tell them that! Women only want you to feel the way women think you should feel. You level with women — ever — and they freak right out! They lose it.”

  “You really do love her, then,” said Fabio, his face settling a little.

  “Yeah. I do love her. She’s terrific. She’s aces. I’ll never love another woman.”

  Fabio thought this over. “You don’t mind it?... Being shamed, being ruined... Surrendering the whole world for her?”

  “Aw, I scarcely had a use for my unruined world,” said Gavin, settling back into his barstool. “Without her in my world, my world’s useless! It’s a non-functional world. It’s half a world. I can’t live in there without her. There’s no room in there.”

  Gavin grappled with his hamburger. He munched it loudly.

  “You really seem to be enjoying this,” Fabio observed.

  “You betcha! They can really cook ‘em, down here. This Brazilian beef, it’s pure ground chuck, no soy in it. This is like a roadhouse burger from the 1950’s. It’s like eating pure time travel. It’s fantastic.”

  “Those patatine fries smell good,” Fabio admitted.

  “Got her spare plate there, she barely touched it. Why don’t you sit with me?”

  Fabio gripped the abandoned burger with his polished nails. Then, he enjoyed a slug of caiparinha. “No Capri parasols in these drinks,” he said. “No girly fruit slices here... They’re a simple, wholesome people, these Brazilians. This is a real man’s drink.”

  13 “Over here, bring me the four drinks he just had.”

  14 “I was just explaining to your husband that the mutations of electronic language can distort the proper structure of space and time.”

  15 “You think I care about that? I have my own problems! Get lost, you steampunk geek!

  16 “I’m not the only one who knows what you did here. The man you betrayed has a lot of friends.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four: The Last Man and Woman on Earth

  “You must stop crying now,” said Hepsiba. “I haven’t seen you cry like this since your puppy died.”

  “When my dog died, I lost someone I loved!” mourned Farfalla. “Everything that Milanese rich-boy said about me was true! I hate it when normal people say prophetic things! Prophecy should be reserved to adepts.”

  “Your boyfriend is not your dead puppy,” said Hepsiba. “You’re safe from him here in the temple. Stop making such a fuss.”

  “Gavin will lose everything,” said Farfalla. “He’ll be ruined. And all because of me! How can Gavin be in American politics, when I am a Futurist Fascist whose parents are Communists? Why, why did I march in all those Neo-Fascist street marches? And why did I appear naked in their pin-up calendar when I was eighteen? What a fool I’ve been!”

  “Well, maybe your boyfriend can be in Brazilian politics,” offered Hepsiba slyly. “Dilma Rousseff will be our next President, and Dilma was a terrorist. Terrorists are even worse than Fascists and Communists.”

  “You’re just saying that to cheer me up, Nana! I don’t care about your politics — I don’t even care about exciting, sexy, Italian Fascist politics! I’m wrong for Gavin. That’s why I’m crying. I’m ignorant. I’m dirty. I’m not educated, like he is. I don’t even understand his computers.” She sniffled. “At least, not Microsoft Windows.”

  “You were complaining a minute ago that your boy was too stupid for you.”

  “Well, yes. That’s true, too. Gavin is great about seeing the future, but that doesn’t require any brains. Because most of the future is stupid. Gavin is sort of dim, actually. If Gavin was smart, he would have just seduced me in Capri, and gone back to America. After giving me an incurable sex-disease. And making me pregnant. Of course.”

  The Great Houngan entered the voodoo temple. A reverent hush fell over the sacred space. The Great Houngan always evoked reverent silences. The Great Houngan possessed tremendous, awesome, male supernatural power. He was universally known as one of the greatest voodoo warlocks Sao Paulo had ever seen.

  The Great Houngan had also made it clear, in his silent, cagey, eye-wrinkling way that Farfalla’s ceaseless wailing
and girlish laments really got on his nerves.

  The Great Houngan adjusted his white terrycloth robe. He stuck a pair of chopsticks through his white dreadlocked top-knot. He put on a crackling, eight-track Clara Nunes tape: his particular meditation favorite. Then, he settled down into his foamed pink yoga mat.

  Glaring at her through his deeply yellowed eyewhites, the Great Houngan ritually chopped up four gooey buds of Cabrobó marijuana. He filled his sacred smoking-chalice from a white plastic water-bucket. Then, the Great Houngan fired up.

  With ritual intensity, the Great Houngan inhaled and expelled vast, face-obscuring wreaths of smoke. The spiritualist temple filled with the pollutant smell of burnt hemp.

  The Great Houngan silently persisted at his smoking. He had been at this self-sacrificing effort for decades.

  Farfalla was somewhat vague on what the Great Houngan accomplished by his sacred, smokey, ritual breathing. Hepsiba’s contented, respectful face, however, made it entirely clear that her husband was doing one of the most important things in the world.

  The Houngan had great magic. He had a magic power much greater than mere foresight. The Houngan’s magic power was forgetfulness. He was the great priest of necromantic forgetfulness: the forgetfulness of the dead.

  The Umbanda Terreiro was a Spiritualist church. They held a firm faith in the persistent existence of the dead. All of the dead. Especially the dead of Brazil.

  Most Brazilian spiritual mediums were concerned with dead Brazilian slaves and dead Brazilian Indians. These were the dead people of Brazil with the most motive to rest uneasy.

  However, as Brazilian history progressed and re-ordered itself, the Great Houngan had achieved a higher plane of spiritual enlightenment. The great man had changed his necromantic tactics. The Houngan still smoked bales of marijuana for the spiritual sake of the resentful dead slaves and dead Indians. But, he had also taken on a singular, more important crusade.

  The Great Houngan was engaged in a spiritual duel with the dark legacy of Brazilian President Getulio Vargas, the “Samba Fascist.” President Vargas, who was, of course, a master voodoo adept, had committed an awesome act of necromancy on the dreadful night of August 24, 1954. This tremendous, occult ritual, committed in a bloody haze of murder and conspiracy, had transformed Brazilian national life – seemingly, forever.