Queen of Angels

by Greg Bear

  A young and handsome Goldsmith appeared before him, clear smooth mahogany skin, thick black hair sitting perfectly on a high forehead, broad nose and thin upper lip thinly mustached lower lip protuberant between pout and sensual, large liquid black eyes with cream colored sclera, long thin neck and prominent chin; twenty five years old almost a child of the century; dressed in black wool highneck sweater left sleeve rolled to show strong arm period fashion the roll containing an ID com box satellite linked, replacing the cigarette pack of seventy years earlier; youthful pleasant smile easy mannerisms at ease before the interviewer. Discussing his work ambitions goals. Voice thin but pleasant words accented Newh Yhawk with intrusions of midwest. Well informed, Goldsmith impressed the female interviewer with his suave equanimity, considering the fiery opinions expressed in his book, opinions on Africa:

  “Can never be my home. It is only a home where my ghost will go when I die. A few blacks still think of a homeland there; they hate me because I know that is impossible. No African wants us; we’re too white.”

  and America:

  “I tell my brothers and sisters the financial struggle is won but not the political and cultural, certainly not the spiritual. We still have coffee skin in a power structure of cream no coffee. Our war is interior in America. We will never be at ease, not until the day comes when no one asks us how it is to be black, and no one comments on the black experience.”

  and poetry:

  “Poetry is dead and buried in a world of growing LitVid and illiteracy, vidiocy I’ve heard it called. Being dead, poetry has enormous freedom; being ignored, it can blossom like a rose in a manure heap. Poetry is risen. Poetry is the messiah of literature but the angel has not yet told anybody it is risen.”

  and on selling over a quarter of a million copies in hardcover of his second book of poems:

  “Charming and destructive. I have to watch this closely. Can’t let it go to my head. I am just the one black man per generation given a chance to speak aloud. As for being a poet, we are so many now, around the world, so closely linked, that any small enthusiasm of the masses looms large and can support the poet, the artist, if his needs are modest, as mine are.”

  Martin moved on to lit details, words spilling in and around, names dates teachers all largely irrelevant, even material he would have thought private and buried, an early agency psych evaluation 2021—too early to be reliable—done as a lark apparently showing Goldsmith a rock steady headstrong youth with well controlled but detectable delusions of grandeur even messiahhood. Jung: Messiah is always connected with inferiority complex. But no evidence of that here.

  He took special note of the lack of records of childhood—none before age fifteen. Goldsmith as adolescent does not resemble father or mother in family videos, father portly middle class jovial, mother thin and serious determined to give this child a good literary upbringing, books no vids: Kazantzakis Cavafi in original Greek Joyce Burroughs both Edgar Rice and William and Shakespeare Goldstern Remick Randall Burgess, the new century poets and novelists from the American Midwest where Goldsmith spent his teens and early twenties before his first book acquiring that mixed accent. No evident difficulties with racism in his youth; well liked by his classmates, fitting in to a middle class existence.

  List upon list. Favorite foods at fifteen as recorded by Goldsmith: panfried farmfish and synthetic spiced steak and tomatoes and apples

  moving on skimming

  high school third ranked student sciences math first lit second and third in drama production second history social sciences; his first love affair senior year (ref.: autobiography 2044 Bright Star House, Albigoni’s company) normal normal all normal but for the brilliance of his work, which did not manifest itself until he was twenty writing plays early drafts of the Moses plays (fax texts available)

  First book of poems and then the second book and success and a stable career for ten years marriage no children early divorce mutual no contesting; ten books of poetry during this period and seven plays all mature and produced three off-Broadway successes and also successes in London and Paris and Beijing, Beijing inviting him for cultural exchange then Japan then United Korea and finally the Commonwealth Southeast Asia Economic Community where he is published in four editions (three pirated) in 2031-32 and where his plays are produced riding a wave of Western and especially North American popularity in the period of economic revitalization; returning in triumph after this tour to several destructive love affairs detailed in numerous LitVid society bits; one affair ending in the suicide of a woman 2034.

  Goldsmith in hiding two years. In reality staying in Idaho with friends undergoing a year-long rite of purification.

  Martin stopped, frowning. Recognizing a possible entry point he asked for details of this rite.

  Followed an interview with Reginald and Francine Killian founders of the Pure Land Spirit Purification Center twenty miles north of Boise on the Oregon border. Reginald tall and lanky, dressed in overalls, hair string straggled black, eyes wicked wise, long face accustomed to smiling: “We’ve had a number of intellectuals and celebrities come through our center. They come to purge themselves with balanced natural vegetarian diet, mineral water. They come to listen to music, all preclassical, all played on period instruments. They come for the big sky and the stars at night. And we counsel them. We help them fit into the twenty first century, not an easy thing to do, everything is so antihuman, unnatural, technological. Emanuel Goldsmith came here and stayed for a year. We became very good friends. He made love to Francine.” Francine on screen, thin and deerlike, long straight red hair, smiling wistfully: “He was a very fine considerate lover, although violent. He had a lot of anger and sadness in him. He had something to work out, and I helped him work it out. He had a bitter hard core of hatred because he didn’t know who he was. When he left here he was calm and he was writing poetry again.”

  Indeed four books published in the next five years, including a rewrite of the early African poems. In 2042 Goldsmith made his first contact with yet another admirer, Colonel Sir John Yardley, self proclaimed benevolent tyrant (“in the Greek sense”) of Hispaniola. Yardley invited him to visit Port-au-Prince which he did in 2043. Details on the visit were not available but they apparently got along famously and Goldsmith expressed admiration for Yardley’s forthrightness and cleverness in the face of the complexity and confusion of the twenty first century. A news commentator on a cable vid said of this, “Goldsmith’s praise of Colonel Sir John Yardley is fulsome and shows all the political awareness usually reserved for poets alone: that is, zip, nil, none. Yardley has made his nation prosper on the unwillingness of the great modern nations to do their own dirty work. He has turned his crack army of mercenaries into a worldwide scourge, hired by the Big Boys, their targets carefully chosen, their means subtle and precise. Furthermore, Yardley has been accused of manufacturing and exporting insidious torture devices, mind invading pain machines used by, among others, the Selectors that haunt us all. Never mind that our own President Raphkind has established open links with Hispaniola and Yardley; never mind that ours is an age of ‘correction’ and ‘maturation,’ and that many admire the actions of both the Selectors and Colonel Sir John Yardley…Goldsmith’s admiration proves him to be a traitor among humane intellectuals, a turncoat, a poetaster friend of fiends.”

  Elegantly phrased; but more extreme connections than this had been sought out by poets without their last resort to multiple murders of acolytes and students. No straight arrow pointed the way.

  Goldsmith like Ezra Pound in an earlier age had established by being a Yardley apologist a reputation for inept and perhaps dangerous political dabbling that had made secure his literary standing. Perhaps that was why he had done it. Martin looked at this act as a cold scheme or posture; that at least made some sense. Yet limited press publication of phone calls shared vids letters Yardley/Goldsmith revealed no obvious posture; the poet was indeed truly an admirer. “Would that you could have united Africa three hun
dred years ago against Portuguese and English: I might be there now, a whole man in the warm uncreamed coffee heart of Blackness.”

  That came close to jingle. Martin shook his head and read on. A letter from Yardley to Goldsmith:

  “Your poetry shows you divided in culture and mind against your surroundings. You are successful, yet you say you are decaying; you are not abhorred, yet you feel out of place. Your people had their homes and families and languages and religions, all the poetry of a people, ripped from them and replaced by foreign domination and brutality. Your people were brought to the New World, and many were dropped off in Hispaniola, where the cruelty was beyond belief long into the twenty first century…No wonder you feel disjointed! When I first came to Haiti, I was made dizzy by the easy joy of a people who had known so much pain, whose history was an agony of betrayal and death. Pain soaks in to the germ plasm, passes from mother to son. So unfortunate that so many of the oppressors died before I could avenge their brutality.”

  Obvious injustices made for easy history. And Yardley did not disguise his island’s present economy and nature too thickly, not then when the United States of America gave him dollars and assignments worldwide.

  Goldsmith’s poem at the end of the letters: “With magic/I would kill many raping cream fathers/Justified murder in time/History cannot eRace.” Applause from USA ever willing to self flagellate. Fame and more fortune. In some ways perhaps Colonel Sir John Yardley owed something to Goldsmith, a champion in well arranged words. A correspondence and mutual admiration bordering on love certainly from Goldsmith’s point of view.

  Was Yardley Goldsmith’s vision of the avenging angel come to scourge the world for sins of the long dead? Come to legitimate offspring of raping cream fathers? And what was Goldsmith to Yardley: apologist justifier or amanuensis, servus a manu?

  Were all the dead white?

  Martin looked up the LitVid reports and cross referenced. No. Among the identified were one fourth generation mixed oriental and one black as Goldsmith, his godson. Perhaps a blind and indiscriminate killing rage.

  Martin finished his exploration and extricated himself from the chair. A brass arbeiter awaited his instructions. “Bring me an iced tea, please,” he said. “And tell Mr. Lascal I’m ready to view Goldsmith.” Not interview, but view. Goldsmith must not recognize Burke or Neuman or anyone else investigating his Country; that might be awkward.

  How can you know me? Why so frantic to know me? My fame makes you a goat.

  19

  Richard Fettle’s eyes crossed with fatigue and he put down the pen. Blinking, wiping his sockets with the back of his hand, standing up from the bed, muscles cramped vision bleared joints popping fingers knotting, he felt like a man surfacing from the depths of binge yet he also knew an enormous relief, a worthiness, for he had written and what he had written was good.

  But he dared not confirm that by reading through the whole closecrabbed ten pages. Instead he made himself a cup of black coffee, thought of Goldsmith’s old allusions to coffee and cream, smiled as he drank the coffee as if he were somehow absorbing blood and flesh of the poet.

  With words he had already done that. It felt good. He would soon wrap Goldsmith up in a tight little papule and squeeze him out, having embodied him through the ritual of writing.

  He walked around the apartment smiling fatuously, muse shot. A man who had finally shat himself clean or at least seeing the end of the filth.

  + What it took to break the bonds. Abuse. What was the product. Words. What was the sensation. Ecstasy. Where would it all lead. Perhaps publication. Would it be good to publish.

  + Yes.

  Goldsmith would serve him finally.

  He stretched and yawned and checked his watch: 1550. He had not eaten since the visit by the Selector. Mumbling scratching shaking like a wet dog, Richard writhed into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator inhaled the cool air searched for packets of farm-fish spread and spears of once fresh vegetables in a bowl. He poured himself a glass of delact.

  + Goldsmith could not tolerate cream milk any diary but delact

  + Black marks on white eRace back to white

  Richard paused. Scratched slowly. Twisted and cocked his head. Put the food on the counter. + What is it more important than food.

  Returned to the bedroom and picked up a sheet of paper, found the offending passage and blanked it by passing stat end of pencil over the sheet idly blew away congealed pencil flecks, rewrote.

  Added on. By 1650 he had fifteen henscratch pages.

  Richard stood, face reflecting his body’s protest real agony now, tried exercises to limber uncramp and restore, thought of a hot shower warm sun melting butter muscles but no technique would work.

  He stumbled into the living room. The apartment voice announced a visitor and he froze eyes wide. Tall shadow on front milky doorpane.

  Richard peered through the tired plastic optics of the door’s peephole and saw a pd: the black transform woman Lieutenant Choy. He backed away hands flapping as if burned, indecision mixing with sudden cramps bending him over. + Jesus. I do not deserve this. When will it end.

  He opened the brass doorplate below the peephole. Voice high but firmly controlled: “Hello?”

  “R Fettle,” Mary Choy said. “Our apologies for bothering you. May I ask a few more questions?”

  “I’ve told you what I know…”

  “Yes, and you’re certainly not under any suspicion now. But I need some background information. Impressions.” She smiled that lovely unnatural smile white teeth small and fine behind full lips and smooth finely downed black skin. Her expression made him avert and gave his insides another knot. + She cannot be real none of this is real.

  “May we talk inside?”

  Richard backed away. “I’m not feeling very well,” he said. “I haven’t eaten all day.”

  “I’m sorry. I’d come back later, but my time is very limited. The department wants answers right away. You might save me a trip to Hispaniola.”

  Richard could not conceal interest. He ordered the door to unlock and opened it. “You think Emanuel, you think Goldsmith’s gone there?”

  “It’s possible.”

  He bit his lip, slumping slightly. It was difficult for Richard not to be open and friendly even with this Nemesis. Softly, bone weary, he said, “Come in. I’m glad I’m not a suspect. It’s been another rough today.”

  + Will not tell her about the Selector. She would not be around to protect me if word got out and the Selector returned. Do not desire even five seconds in a clamp.

  “I apologize for how we treated you earlier. We were upset by what we found.”

  Richard nodded. “It’s extraordinary,” he said. + Meant to say horrible, dreadful, but the shock is past. Man is the animal who accepts even when it understands.

  “We still haven’t found Goldsmith. But we’re reasonably sure he’s the murderer. He wrote letters to Colonel Sir John Yardley. Did you know that?”

  Richard nodded.

  “How did you feel about that?” Mary Choy asked, genuinely curious. Behind the skin and beauty she seemed real enough and capable of sympathy. Richard squinted trying to see his daughter behind that face, trying to imagine Gina an adult. + Would Gina have decided on a transform? Ultimate criticism of parental heritage.

  “I don’t know how I feel about anything now, much less about Emanuel,” Richard said, settling slow, cranelike on the old worn couch and waggling his fingers for her to take a chair. She pulled a chair away from the dining room table and sat on it feminine and precise without doubt or obvious anxiety.

  + Wonderful to be like that.

  Mary inclined. + Light on face like phases of a black moon. That’s good. Write that down.

  “Do you approve of Hispaniola?” she asked.

  “Not of what they do. What they’re alleged to do. No.”

  “But Goldsmith did.”

  “He called Yardley a purifier. Some of us were embarrassed by it.”
<
br />   “Had he visited Yardley in the last year or two?”

  “You must know that.”

  “We can’t be sure. He might have traveled under another name.”

  “Not Emanuel. He was open. He didn’t care about surveillance.”

  “Did he go to Hispaniola?”

  “I don’t think so, no.”

  “Did he talk about Hispaniola as a retreat, a haven?”

  Richard grinned and shook his head. + Been writing about his thoughts. Writer’s empathy through recreation. Feel as if I am him or know him. “He thought the island itself was a disneyland. He appreciated that the people had enough to eat and were employed, but he didn’t enjoy the tourist spots and resorts, no.”

  “But he went there once.”

  “I think that’s when he…made up his mind.”

  “So you don’t think he’d go back there?”

  “I don’t know.” + But you do. He’d never go back.

  “If he felt he was in danger, and Yardley would protect him?”

  “I suppose he might. I really can’t say.”

  “Have you thought about what happened? I realize it’s been traumatic…”

  “I haven’t thought about much else. I never thought he’d do anything like this…If he did.” + Emanuel is the poet who kills. They know. They’ve frozen the apartment. You know.

  “What would make him do such a thing? His career fading? Frustration at society?”

  Richard laughed. “You’re in the shadows now, Lieutenant Choy. Frustration.” He chuckled that word.

  “But he wasn’t in the shadows. He lived in East Comb One.”

  “He spent much of his time down here with us. With Madame de Roche.”

  “Until eight or nine months ago. Then he asked people to visit him. That was why you were visiting him, rather than meeting him at Madame de Roche’s?”