The Collected Stories of Robert Silverberg, Volume Seven: We Are for the Dark

by Robert Silverberg

  But as they approached it he was dismayed to see Kleph standing on the steps of a big, rambling old house just opposite Christine’s, on the uphill side of the street. She was talking to a sturdy square-shouldered man with a good-natured, open face, and she did not appear to notice Thimiroi.

  Christine said, “Do you want to say hello to her?”

  “Not really.”

  “She’s one of your friends, isn’t she? Someone from your country?”

  “She’s from my country, yes. But not exactly a friend. Just someone who’s taking the same tour I am. Is that the house where she’s staying?”

  “Yes,” Christine said. “She and another woman, and a tall somber-looking man. I saw them all with you, that night at the concert hall. They’ve rented the house for the whole month. That man’s the owner, Oliver Wilson.”

  “Ah.” Thimiroi drew his breath in sharply.

  So that was the one. Oliver. Kleph’s twentieth-century lover. Thimiroi felt a stab of despair. Looking across the way now at Kleph, deep in conversation with this Oliver, it seemed to him suddenly that Laliene’s scorn for Kleph had not been misplaced, that it was foolish and pathetic and even a little sordid for any Traveler to indulge in such doomed and absurd romances as this. And yet he was on the verge of embarking on the same thing Kleph was doing. Was that what he really wanted? Or should he not leave such adventures to shallow, trivial people like Kleph?

  Christine said, “You’re looking troubled again.”

  “It’s nothing. Nothing.” Thimiroi gazed closely at her, and her warmth, her directness, her radiant joyous eyes, swept away all the sudden doubts that had come to engulf him. He had no right to condemn Kleph. And in any case what he might choose to do, or Kleph, was no concern of Laliene’s. “Come,” he said. He caught Christine lightly by the arm. “Let’s go inside.”

  Just as he turned, Kleph did also, and for an instant their eyes met as they stood facing each other on opposite sides of the street. She gave him a startled look. Thimiroi smiled to her; but Kleph merely stared back intently in a curiously cold way. Then she was gone. Thimiroi shrugged.

  He followed Christine into her house.

  It was an old, comfortable-looking place with a great many small, dark, high-ceilinged rooms on the ground floor and a massive wooden staircase leading upstairs. The furnishings looked heavy and unstylish, as though they were already long out of date, but everything had an appealing, well-worn feel.

  “My family’s lived in this house for almost a hundred years,” Christine said, as though reading his mind. “I was born here. I grew up here. I don’t know what it’s like to live anywhere else.” She gestured toward the staircase. “The music room is upstairs.”

  “I know. Do you live here by yourself?”

  “Basically. My sister and I inherited the house when my mother died, but she’s hardly ever here. The last I heard from her, she was in Oaxaca.”

  “Wah-ha-ka?” Thimiroi said carefully.

  “Oaxaca, yes. In Mexico, you know? She’s studying Mexican handicrafts, she says. I think she’s actually studying Mexican men, but that’s her business, isn’t it? She likes to travel. Before Mexico she was in Thailand, and before that it was Portugal, I think.”

  Mexico, Thimiroi thought. Thailand. Portugal. So many names, so many places. Such a complex society, this world of the twentieth century. His own world had fewer places, and they had different names. So much had changed, after the time of the Blue Death. So much had been swept away, never to return.

  Christine said, “It’s a musty old house, I know. But I love it. And I could never have afforded to buy one of my own. Everything’s so fantastically expensive these days. If I hadn’t happened to have lived here all along, I suppose I’d be living in one of those poky little studio apartments down by the river, paying umpty thousand dollars a month for one bedroom and a terrace the size of a postage stamp.”

  Desperately he tried to follow what she was saying. His implant helped, but not enough. Umpty thousand dollars? Studio apartment? Postage stamp? He got the sense of her words, but the literal meanings eluded him. How much was umpty? How big was a postage stamp?

  The music room on the second floor was bright and spacious, with three large windows looking out into the garden and the street beyond. The piano itself, against the front wall between two of the windows, was larger than he expected, a splendid, imposing thing, with ponderous, ornately carved legs and a black, gleaming wooden case. Obviously it was old and very valuable and well cared for; and as he studied it he realized suddenly that this must not be any ordinary home musical instrument, but more likely one that a concert performer would use; and therefore Christine’s lighthearted dismissal of his question about her having a musical career must almost certainly conceal bitter defeat, frustration, the deflection of a cherished dream. She had wanted and expected more from her music than life had been able to bring her.

  “Play for me,” he said. “The same piece you were playing the first time, when I happened to walk by.”

  “The Debussy, you mean?”

  “I don’t know its name.”

  Thimiroi hummed the melody that had so captured him. She nodded and sat down to play.

  It was not quite as magical, the second time. But nothing ever was, he knew. And it was beautiful all the same, haunting, mysterious in its powerful simplicity.

  “Will you sing for me now?” Christine asked.

  “What should I sing?”

  “A song of your own country?”

  He thought a moment. How could he explain to her what music was like in his own time—not sound alone, but a cluster of all the arts, visual, olfactory, the melodic line rising out of a dozen different sensory concepts? But he could improvise, he supposed. He began to sing one of his own poems, putting a tune to it as he went. Christine, listening, closed her eyes, nodded, turned to the keyboard, played a few notes and a few more, gradually shaping them into an accompaniment for him. Thimiroi was amazed at the swiftness with which she caught the melody of his tune—stumbling only once or twice, over chordal structures that were obviously alien to her—and traveled along easily with it. By the time he reached the fifth cycle of the song, he and she were joined in an elegant harmony, as though they had played this song together many times instead of both improvising it as they went. And when he made the sudden startling key-shift that in his culture signaled the close of a song, she adapted to it almost instantaneously and stayed with him to the final note.

  They applauded each other resoundingly.

  Her eyes were shining with delight. “Oh, Thimiroi—Thimiroi—what a marvelous singer you are! And what a marvelous song!”

  “And how cunningly you wove your accompaniment into it.”

  “That wasn’t really hard.”

  “For you, perhaps. You have a great musical gift, Christine.”

  She reddened and looked away.

  “What language were you singing in?” she asked, after a time.

  “The language of my country.”

  “It was so strange. It isn’t like any language I’ve ever heard. Why won’t you tell me anything about where you come from, Thimiroi?”

  “I will. Later.”

  “And what did the words mean?”

  “It’s a poem about—about journeying to far lands, and seeing great wonders. A very romantic poem, perhaps a little silly. But the poet himself is also very romantic and perhaps a little silly.”

  “What’s his name?” she asked.

  “Thimiroi.”

  “You?” she said, grinning broadly. “Is that what you are? A poet?”

  “I sometimes write poetry, yes,” he said, beginning to feel as uneasy as she had seemed when he was trying to praise her playing. They looked at each other awkwardly. Then he said, “May I try the piano?”

  “Of course.”

  He sat down, peered at the keys, touched one of the white ones experimentally, then another, another. What were the black ones? Modulators of
some sort? No, no, their function was very much like that of the white ones, it seemed. And these pedals here—

  He began to play.

  He was dreadful at first, but quickly he came to understand the relationship of the notes and the range of the keyboard and the proper way of touching the keys. He played the piece that she had played for him before, exactly at first, then launching into a set of subtle variations that carried him farther and farther from the original, into the musical modes of his own time. The longer he played, the more keenly he appreciated the delicacy and versatility of this ancient instrument; and he knew that if he were to study it with some care, not merely guess his way along as he was doing now, he would be able to draw such wonders from it as even great composers like Cenbe or Palivandrin would find worthwhile. Once again he felt humbled by the achievements of this great lost civilization of the past. Which to brittle, heartless people like Hollia or Omerie must seem a mere simple primitive age. But they understood nothing. Nothing.

  He stopped playing, and looked back at Christine.

  She was staring at him in horror, her face pale, her eyes wide and stricken, tears streaking her cheeks.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  “The way you play—” she whispered. “I’ve never heard anyone play like that.”

  “It is all very bad, I know. But you must realize, I have had no formal training in this instrument, I am simply inventing a technique as I go—”

  “No. Please. Don’t tell me that. You mustn’t tell me that!”

  “Christine?”

  And then he realized what the matter was. It was not that he had played badly; it was that he had played so well. She had devoted all her life to this instrument, and played it with great skill, and even so had never been able to attain a level of proficiency that gave her any real satisfaction. And he, never so much as having seen a piano in his life, could sit down at it and draw from it splendors beyond her fondest hope of achieving. His playing was unorthodox, of course, it was odd and even bizarre, but yet she had seen the surpassing mastery in it, and had been stunned and chagrined and crushed by it, and stood here now bewildered and confounded by this stranger she had brought into her own home—

  I should have known better, Thimiroi thought. I should have realized that this is her art, and that I, with all the advantages that are mine purely by virtue of my having been born when I was, ought never to have presumed to invade her special territory with such a display of skills that are beyond her comprehension. Without even suspecting what I was doing, I have humiliated her.

  “Christine,” he murmured. “No. No, Christine.”

  Thimiroi went to her and pulled her close against him, and kissed the tears away, and spoke softly to her, calming her, reassuring her. He could never tell her the truth; but he could make her understand, at least, that he had not meant to hurt her. And after a time he felt the tension leave her, and felt her press herself tight to him, and then their lips met, and she looked up, smiling. And took him lightly by the hand, and drew him from the room and down the hall.

  Afterward, as he was dressing, she touched the long, fading red scar on his arm and said, “Were you in some kind of accident?”

  “An inoculation,” he told her. “Against disease.”

  “I’ve never seen one like that before.”

  “No,” he said. “I suppose you haven’t.”

  “A disease of your country?”

  “No,” he said, after a time. “Of yours.”

  “But what kind of disease requires a vaccination like—”

  “Do we have to talk of diseases just now, Christine.”

  “Of course not,” she said, smiling ruefully. “How foolish of me. How absurd.” She ran her fingers lightly, almost fondly, over the inoculation scar a second time. “Of all things for me to be curious about!” Softly she said, “You don’t have to leave now, you know.”

  “But I must. I really must.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I suppose you must.” She accompanied him to the front door. “You’ll call me, won’t you? Very soon?”

  “Of course,” Thimiroi said.

  Night had fallen. The air was mild and humid, but the sky was clear and the stars glittered brilliantly. He looked for the moon but could not find it.

  How many days remain, he wondered?

  Somewhere out there in the airless dark a lump of dead rock was falling steadily toward earth, falling, falling, inexorably coming this way. How far away was it now? How soon before it would come roaring over the horizon to bring unimaginable death to this place?

  I must find a way of saving her, he told himself.

  The thought was numbing, dizzying, intolerably disturbing.

  Save her? How? Impossible. Impossible. It was something that he must not even allow himself to consider.

  And yet—

  Again it came. I must find a way of saving her.

  There was a message for him at his hotel, just a few quick scrawled sentences:

  Party at Lutheena’s. We’re all going. See you there?

  Laliene’s handwriting, which even in her haste was as beautiful as the finest calligraphy. Thimiroi crumpled the note and tossed it aside. Going to a party tonight was very close to the last thing he would want to do. Everyone in glittering clothes, making glittering conversation, trading sparkling anecdotes, no doubt, of their latest adventures among the simple sweaty blotchy-skinned folk of this interestingly raucous and crude century—no. No. No. Let them trade their anecdotes without him. Let them sip their euphoriac and exchange their chatter and play their little games. He was going to bed. Very likely, without him there, they would all be talking about him. How oddly he had been behaving, how strange and uncouth he seemed to be becoming since their arrival in this era. Let them talk. What did it matter?

  He wished Kleph had not seen him going into Christine’s house, though.

  But how would Kleph know whose house it was? And why would Kleph—Kleph, with her own Oliver Wilson entanglement preoccupying her—want to say anything to anyone about having seen some other member of the tour slipping away for an intimate hour with a twentieth-century person? Better for her to be silent. The subject was a delicate one. She would not want to raise it. She of all people would be unlikely to disapprove, or to want to bring down on him the disapproval of the others. No, Thimiroi thought. Kleph will say nothing. We are allies in this business, Kleph and I.

  He slept, and dark dreams came that he could not abide: the remorseless meteor crossing the sky, the city aflame and shrieking, Christine’s wonderful old house swept away by a searing blast of destruction, the piano lying tumbled in the street, split in half, golden strings spilling out.

  Wearily Thimiroi dosed himself with the drug that banishes dreams, and lay down to sleep again. But now sleep evaded him. Very well: there was the other drug, the one that brings sleep. He hesitated to take it. The two drugs taken in the wrong order exacted a price; he would be jittery and off balance emotionally for the next two or three days. He was far enough off balance as it was already. So he lay still, hoping that he would drift eventually into sleep without recourse to more medication; and gradually his mind grew easier, gradually he began the familiar descent toward unconsciousness.

  Suddenly the image of Laliene blazed in his mind.

  It was so vivid that it seemed she was standing beside him in the darkness and light was streaming from her body. She was nude, and her breasts, her hips, her thighs, all had a throbbing incandescent glow. Thimiroi sat up, astonished, swept with waves of startling feverish excitement.

  “Laliene?”

  How radiant she looked! How splendid! Her eyes were glowing like beacons. Her crimson hair stood out about her head like a bright corona. The scent of her filled his nostrils. He trembled. His throat was dry, his lips seemed gummed together.

  Wave after wave of intense, overpowering desire swept through him.

  Helplessly Thimiroi rose, lurched across the room, reached grop
ingly toward her. This was madness, he knew, but there was no holding himself back.

  The shimmering image retreated as he came near it. He stumbled, nearly tripped, regained his balance.

  “Wait, Laliene,” he cried hoarsely. His heart was pounding thunderously. It was almost impossible for him to catch his breath. He was choking with his need. “Come here, will you? Stop edging away like that.”

  “I’m not here, Thimiroi. I’m in my own room. Put your robe on and come visit me.”

  “What? You’re not here?”

  “Down the hall. Come, now. Hurry!”

  “You are here. You have to be.”

  As though in a daze, brain swathed in thick layers of white cotton, he reached for her again. Like a lovestruck boy he yearned to draw her close, to cup her breasts in his hands, to run his fingers over those silken thighs, those satiny flanks—

  “To my room,” she whispered.

  “Yes. Yes.”

  His flesh was aflame. Sweat rolled down his body. She danced before him like a shining will-o’-the-wisp. Frantically he struggled to comprehend what was happening. A vision? A dream? But he had drugged himself against dreams. And he was awake now. Surely he was awake. And yet he saw her—he wanted her—he wanted her beyond all measure—he was going to slip his robe on, and go to her suite, and she would be waiting for him there, and he would slip into her bed—into her arms—

  No. No. No.

  He fought it. He caught the side of some piece of furniture, and held it, anchoring himself, struggling to keep himself from going forward. His teeth chattered. Chills ran along his back and shoulders. The muscles in his arms and chest writhed and spasmed as he battled to stay where he was.

  He was fully awake now, and he was beginning to understand. He remembered how Laliene had gone wandering around here the other day while he was brewing the tea—examining the works of art, so he had thought. But she could just as easily have been planting something. Which now was broadcasting monstrous compulsions into his mind.