Darkness, I

by Tanith Lee

  They walked into the park, and the man wiped his round face on the napkins, screwed them up and tossed them, with the empty polythene and the rich man’s fork, into a rubbish bin.

  Faran watched this. It did not disturb him. He sensed, already, something... like a distant song.

  But he said, ‘I’ll have to be back by half past five.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Danny, ‘about a thing.’

  On the road that ran through the park, at the verge, was a pale grey Montego. Danny unlocked the car, and they got in. As he did so, Danny took off his mackintosh. He had on a smart brown suit and a tie like a knife of pale blue water.

  He drove well, and Faran sat back, belted into the front seat, looking out at everything.

  Beyond the park, the streets streamed up through the rainy after-smoke and the sunshine.

  They moved down among the inner tendons of London, where the vast stores rose, lit with colours, and far up the forgotten and overlooked architecture crenellated the sky.

  Faran saw young girls, black and white and tawny and brown, girls with long hair and short, glamorous and dull, and men with umbrellas, and dogs on leads. He saw doorways full of people who seemed to be invalids, wrapped in blankets.

  Before a great hotel, with stone women up above, and plants in urns, the car pulled up.

  The doorman touched his hat to Danny.

  They’re in the lounge, sir. Waiting for you, young man.’

  Inside, the hotel was maroon and sage, scored with gold. Enormous fruit bowls of flowers reminded Faran of cornucopia.

  Over the dark green carpet, Mr Thorpe was sitting on a plush settee with a very pretty, plump, black young woman.

  Faran did not run forward.

  For a moment, he was awed. But the awe warmed him.

  Mr Thorpe was wearing a suit even more smart than Danny’s, and certainly more beautiful than any of Wellington Objegbo’s. It was a sort of fulvous grey, and the line of it did not either bulge upon or disguise Mr Thorpe’s bulk, but instead made it into something statuesque, important. Mr Thorpe looked like a great statesman. And he held out his manicured hand to Faran.

  Faran went to him. He took Mr Thorpe’s hand. He felt happy, as if he had met his father. Except that Wellington had never induced this feeling.

  ‘I’ve missed you, Faran,’ said Mr Thorpe.

  ‘Have you? I did too.’

  And then Mr Thorpe leaned down and kissed Faran weightlessly on the cheek. After that he indicated the lady. This is Estelle.’

  Estelle laughed. She looked full of laughter. She wore a sugar pink two-piece and a long pink-and-black fringed scarf. She was very plump, very, very pretty. In her ears were silver rings. She smelled of some light and frivolous flowery scent.

  She too held out her hand and asked Faran for a kiss.

  He kissed her, in turn, on the rosy sable of her cheek. She said, ‘You are gallant, monsieur.’

  Faran liked this. She had meant it. She had a French accent.

  They went up then, Mr Thorpe and Estelle and Faran, in a mirrored, gilded lift, and so came to a mirrored corridor and a suite of rooms in honey and orchid.

  Here there was a sumptuous hotel tea. A myriad of tiny sandwiches filled with cucumber, Brie, salmon, hot toasted muffins, cream cakes, chocolate eclairs and raspberry slices.

  Faran was hungry after all.

  He did say, as Estelle poured the tea from the golden and silver pot, ‘I’ll have to call my mother.’

  Mr Thorpe said, ‘It has been seen to.’

  ‘Does she mind?’ said Faran. Mr Thorpe smiled. ‘It’s just that she might.’

  ‘It will be taken care of. Don’t worry, Faran. You’re not worried, are you?’

  Faran said, slowly, ‘No.’ He was not. He was not remotely concerned.

  Cimmie seemed light years off across the galaxy.

  She always had.

  Estelle said, ‘We’re going to see a film, Faran. What shall I wear? Green or red?’

  ‘Red, please,’ said Faran. ‘It will look good.’

  Estelle giggled. ‘Yes. For you, then. Red.’

  ‘What film is it?’ Faran asked.

  Mr Thorpe said, ‘An old film. I’ve told you of it. King Kong.’

  Faran thought about this. Cimmie had said that King Kong was a travesty. It demeaned black people.

  Faran wanted to see it.

  While they waited for Estelle to change her immaculate clothes, Mr Thorpe talked to Faran in the old way, as if there had been no gap. He also drank a whisky, and Faran had a coke.

  Estelle, when she returned, looked incredible in burgundy red, and they went down again.

  Danny drove a new car. Faran did not know what make it was, but it was large and roomy. It was also left-hand drive, and had French number plates.

  When they were getting out, in the cinema car-park, a white man came up to them, a beggar. Cimmie would have ignored him, but Danny put some money into his hand.

  ‘My mother says,’ said Faran, as the man went away, ‘they spend it on drugs and drink.’ He uttered this on a reflex.

  ‘Perhaps. Or on food and shelter. That is their choice,’ said Mr Thorpe. ‘There have always been beggars. At the gates of Rome, at the gates of Hell.’

  Faran recalled the invalids in blankets. They were the homeless.

  The world was a terrible place, he knew. People suffered in it. Sometimes the pall of pain was like a thundercloud. But yet, not now.

  They went into the cinema, and took their seats for King Kong.

  The foolish things about the film did not count. It was, Faran believed, wonderful. Wonderful and appalling.

  The giant ape filled him with love. It was a marvellous and extraordinary creature, transcending its knowledge and nature, until, when it had been tortured and corrupted, it turned, and became then godlike in its rage.

  At the end, when Kong, destroyed by the wasps of planes, died, Faran wept.

  Mr Thorpe held his hand.

  It was beauty killed the beast.

  Faran talked about the film all the way back in the car, and in the suite of the hotel, Mr Thorpe said, ‘Greatness is nearly always feared, Faran. And genius is capable of being wounded.’

  They had dinner in the room. Estelle, it turned out, was a vegetarian, but she was one in a lovely, easy way. Mr Thorpe had sole with limes and radishes, and Faran a hot chicken salad. They drank wine, Estelle and Mr Thorpe, but Faran preferred juice, although wine was offered.

  He did wonder vaguely what had caused Cimmie’s change of heart. Perhaps she had found out Mr Thorpe was wealthy.

  When they had reached the dessert and they were all eating strawberries, Faran did say, ‘When do I have to go back?’

  Mr Thorpe stopped eating.

  ‘Now Faran. I will tell you. You needn’t go back at all.’

  And this startled Faran. Because nothing sweet had ever lasted.

  Mr Thorpe said, ‘Do you believe, Faran, that I would never harm you.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then, you must trust me a little. Presently I’ll tell you something. Can you wait?’

  ‘No,’ said Faran, ‘but I will.’

  Estelle laughed again. She said, ‘Pikanini induna.’ Obviously, not French. Some African language. But she looked so charming and friendly, he did not mind.

  When the meal was over, Mr Thorpe sat down with Faran on a couch.

  ‘I should like,’ said Mr Thorpe, ‘to send you to some people. They are your friends.’

  Honestly, Faran said, ‘I don’t have any friends.’ He paused, and added, ‘Except for you.’

  ‘These are people,’ said Mr Thorpe, ‘who knew you—long ago. Friends who knew of you, before you were born.’

  Faran said, puzzled, ‘But how?’

  ‘Only they can explain it to you. But they want you, Faran. You’re theirs.’

  Faran looked down at the floral carpet.

  ‘What will happen?’

  ‘It’s very s
imple. In the morning someone will come, someone nice. You’ll go with them. You’ll fly in a plane.’

  ‘A plane? Where?’

  ‘Somewhere far off. First, you must want to go.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Faran said.

  Mr Thorpe stood up. ‘Come with me.’

  Faran accompanied him, and walked into another room of the suite. Mr Thorpe opened a black leather folder. He took out a photograph, and gave it to Faran.

  ‘Here is the woman,’ Mr Thorpe said, ‘the woman who wants you to go to her.’

  It was a colour photograph, excellently produced, probably ten by eight in size.

  Faran held it under the chandelier, and looked.

  The woman was not posed, she merely sat before the camera, and her eyes had come to meet it, without reserve or favour, still as deep night.

  She wore a black garment, a dress, but here and there a point of something glittered, like spent rain, upon it. Her long white hands were folded, and the nails were a dense matt red. She wore one ring, an oval, not shining.

  Her face. Broad brow and long eyebrows, and long eyes, almond-shaped these, and midnight black, that put out the dress and the ring. A long nose, like that of a great cat. Lips not thin, nor full, soft red... like—the line came from somewhere—like pomegranate.

  Faran felt all his blood flow up and down his body, meeting and knotting at his centre.

  Now and then he had had a faint stirring there, in the slender finger of his boy’s penis. But now he engorged, royal and burning he came up, rock hard and ready and it hurt him.

  The sight of the woman hurt him.

  ‘Her name,’ said Mr Thorpe, ‘is Lilith.’

  Faran began to cry again, the water flowed out of him, and as it did so the frightening erection faded as if drawn off. He held the photograph away, so that his tears should not spoil it.

  Cimmie had said he must marry a white girl.

  And, oddly, it seemed he was.

  It was a cathedral. Vast spiderwebs of stone. Windows like cut-open fruits.

  He stood with her before an altar, and above the gold crosses, the forms of saints.

  She was at his side, in the colours of her house. Burgundy red, and on her divine skull, over the black silk of her hair, a chaplet of red roses.

  He had already possessed her. In her father’s garden. But then, maybe he was not her father. White flowers there. She was not a virgin. But she clung to him.

  He put the dark gold ring upon her finger.

  He was black, black as jet, taller than she. He could snap her waist in his hands. He would die for her.

  ‘You are so gallant.’

  And then he was on a river, and the river was browner than beer. He saw her in her little house of reeds with columns of alabaster. She sat at the boat’s centre. At the centre of his loins.

  He went to her. She wore the vulture crown.

  He was not black. An Arab? He kissed her mouth.

  And then, under the eaves, in smoulder of candle- and hearth-fire, a narrow room with low ceiling, beams, and painted between them the little flowers.

  His hand like coal upon her breast like snow.

  The firelight flickered on the flowers and the beams.

  She was an owl. An owl made of blossoms.

  She sat astride him. He burst in the core of her.

  And then she held him, like a child.

  ‘Come back to me,’ she said, ‘come back to me.’

  Mouth red as pomegranate, eyes black as night. Hair the night river flowing to the cataract.

  A small town. They stood in the place behind the house.

  ‘They will kill us.’

  He said, ‘Don’t leave me.’

  Then come with me. I’ll lose you,’ she said.

  A cock crowed and the sun rose and he and she, they went to their beds. They did not like the day.

  She wore red when she married him. Her blood had marked the sheet. Yet, she was not a virgin...

  In the black of the hotel, Faran woke and sat up.

  The hotel was not silent. It hummed and purred, it was full of gadgets, and modern. But, he had been away.

  Mr Thorpe had said, Perhaps you will remember her.

  Faran knew her, the woman, Lilith. But could not remember—

  And then the dreams.

  They had seemed gothic, mediaeval, and also Eastern, and the last, a cold place, to the north. And he had been a man.

  But she. She was a constant.

  His mother.

  Faran checked. Seven years old, in the hotel’s murmuring electric dark, he knew. His love.

  And so he could forget the other two, the man and the woman. Forget it all.

  In the morning he would say to Mr Thorpe, I’ll go.

  And thus, and so, he could go back to her.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Anna lay on her side.

  The girl was leaning over her.

  ‘Anna? Good. We’ll be landing in another fifteen minutes. Do you wish for the lavatory?’

  ‘Yes,’ Anna said. She sat up, and her head felt weightless.

  The girl helped Anna to her feet, and then guided her up the cabin aisle to the tiny toilet. Anna was allowed to shut and bolt the door.

  Presumably, it could be broken down, if needful.

  If Anna became abruptly difficult, uncooperative.

  Anna used the lavatory, then washed her hands and face. In the mirror, her familiar pallor. Shadows under her eyes.

  She stayed in thought for a moment. But no thought would truly come.

  They had given her a drug, at the house. It had affected her. But she would have had to acknowledge, any way, that there was nothing she could do, save accept.

  In the seconds after Althene collapsed, when the men dressed as gardeners drew Anna away, she had been shocked, almost nerveless.

  They led her swiftly down through the cemetery, which passed in a green blur, pierced by graves. Then into a kind of alley under the trees, and out of a tiny gate from which wire netting had been pulled away.

  Outside was a blue Lada, into which they put her, not pushing, not hurting, but irresistible.

  The engine did not sound like that of an ordinary car.

  They started off, very fast.

  One man sat in the back with her, and the other with the driver at the front. The man in the back was decorous. He did not touch her during the journey.

  As they came out into a high street of shops and other normal things, Anna snapped awake.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she said.

  ‘Please don’t fret,’ said the man sitting in front. ‘You won’t be harmed. We didn’t hurt you, did we?’

  ‘No. Why have you taken me?’

  ‘Someone wants to see you, Anna.’

  She accepted the first thing, that they knew her name.

  She said, ‘Why?’

  ‘Only they can tell you that.’

  She said, ‘Who?’

  ‘It’s family,’ the other man said, the one beside her.

  Family was Eric, Sasha. Holland, even. Why would they do it this way?

  ‘Scarabae?’ she said.

  ‘That’s right,’ said the man sitting by her.

  Anna still thought like a child. She was a child, almost, about ten or eleven some of the time, then six or seven. Then much older.

  But Anna thought something like: They’re lying. Yet it’s true.

  After they had driven on in silence, with only the buzz of the specialized engine, for nearly an hour, they pulled into the high-walled grounds of a big house.

  It was not like the Scarabae house at the common. It had glass doors and long windows, uncurtained.

  Inside, when they had conducted her, politely, in, Anna saw the house was empty. A few pieces of furniture under dust-sheets, bare floors, the gardens overgrown.

  A girl, about twenty, entered. She was fashionably but conservatively dressed in a suit, her black skirt half an inch below her slim knees. She h
ad short black hair and no make-up but for red lipstick. She looked European, and indeed spoke in Spanish to the man who followed her. Anna did not know Spanish.

  The man was large, like the two spurious gardeners, but he wore a dark suit. Inside the jacket was a gun.

  The girl came to Anna. ‘Is there anything you need?’

  ‘I’d like to go home.’

  ‘But that’s where you’re going.’

  Anna said, ‘I mean to my—’ Anna hesitated. She said flatly, ‘My parents.’

  ‘I’m afraid you must come with us first,’ said the girl. ‘You will be comfortable. Your relatives are eager to see you.’

  It could not be Eric. Surely not Holland.

  Other Scarabae existed, Anna knew this.

  Anna accepted, now, the second lesson, that they would only tell her so much.

  Then they had a picnic in the bare room, some cold lobster and rolls—which Anna did not like or eat—some coffee.

  The drug was apparently in the coffee.

  Suddenly the walls of the room seemed to swell out. The world grew greater, and Anna was in a tube of crystal balanced on the wide floor. She felt not sleepy but boneless. She raised her hands, to see if she could, with an effort.

  ‘Don’t be afraid,’ said the Spanish girl. ‘It’s to help you relax. It will wear off soon.’

  But it did not wear off, and when they walked her out to the next car, Anna found it hard to move. The suited man held her arm.

  Outside it was now dark, evening.

  Anna tried to say, ‘Please let me go.’

  But she could not control her lips as she could not control her limbs. It occurred to her that this was what it had been like as awareness came to her in the first year of her life. When she had had the words but not the coordination, and Althene had been there to catch her, prompt her, assist, persuade.

  Anna wanted to cry. What had happened to Althene? Would Rachaela help her?

  But it was no use. Even emotion would not come.

  Anna seemed to see everything from a long way off, some height or depth, but she was used to the amorphous perspective of time if not to the disturbance of vision.

  So then she accepted all of it, and got into the car.

  It was a limousine with polarized windows and diplomatic plates.

  The gardeners had left them. The chauffeur, too, was armed. They drove to the airport.