by Anthology
She rose, walked to the railing of the patio, stared out toward the sea. He came up behind her. Red sails in the harbor, sunlight glittering along the sides of the Lighthouse, the palaces of the Ptolemies stark white against the sky. Lightly he rested his hand on her shoulder. She twitched as if to pull away from him, but remained where she was.
“Then I have another idea,” he said quietly. “If you won’t go to the planners, I will.
Reprogram me, I’ll say. Fix things so that I start to age at the same rate you do. It’ll be more authentic, anyway, if I’m supposed to be playing the part of a twentieth-century man. Over the years I’ll very gradually get some lines in my face, my hair will turn gray, I’ll walk a little more slowly—we’ll grow old together, Gioia. To hell with your lovely immortal friends. We’ll have each other. We won’t need them.”
She swung around. Her eyes were wide with horror.
“Are you serious, Charles?”
“Of course.”
“No,” she murmured. “No. Everything you’ve said to me today is monstrous nonsense. Don’t you realize that?”
He reached for her hand and enclosed her fingertips in his. “All I’m trying to do is find some way for you and me to—”
“Don’t say any more,” she said. “Please.”
Quickly, as though drawing back from a suddenly flaring flame, she tugged her fingers free of his and put her hand behind her. Though his face was just inches from hers he felt an immense chasm opening between them. They stared at one another for a moment; then she moved deftly to his left, darted around him, and ran from the patio.
Stunned, he watched her go, down the long marble corridor and out of sight. It was folly to give pursuit, he thought. She was lost to him: that was clear, that was beyond any question. She was terrified of him. Why cause her even more anguish? But somehow he found himself running through the halls of the hotel, along the winding garden path, into the cool green groves of the Paneium. He thought he saw her on the portico of Hadrian’s palace, but when he got there the echoing stone halls were empty.
To a temporary that was sweeping the steps he said, “Did you see a woman come this way?” A blank sullen stare was his only answer.
Phillips cursed and turned away.
“Gioia?” he called. “Wait! Come back!”
Was that her, going into the Library? He rushed past the startled mumbling librarians and sped through the stacks, peering beyond the mounds of double-handled scrolls into the shadowy corridors. “Gioia? Gioia! ” It was a descration, bellowing like that in this quiet place. He scarcely cared.
Emerging by a side door, he loped down to the harbor. The Lighthouse! Terror enfolded him. She might already be a hundred steps up that ramp, heading for the parapet from which she meant to fling herself into the sea. Scattering citizens and temporaries as if they were straws, he ran within. Up he went, never pausing for breath, though his synthetic lungs were screaming for respite, his ingeniously designed heart was desperately pounding. On the first balcony he imagined he caught a glimpse of her, but he circled it without finding her. Onward, upward. He went to the top, to the beacon chamber itself: no Gioia. Had she jumped? Had she gone down one ramp while he was ascending the other? He clung to the rim and looked out, down, searching the base of the Lighthouse, the rocks offshore, the causeway. No Gioia. I will find her somewhere, he thought. I will keep going until I find her. He went running down the ramp, calling her name. He reached ground level and sprinted back toward the center of town. Where next? The temple of Poseidon? The tomb of Cleopatra?
He paused in the middle of Canopus Street, groggy and dazed.
“Charles?” she said.
“Where are you?”
“Right here. Beside you.” She seemed to materialize from the air. Her face was unflushed, her robe bore no trace of perspiration. Had he been chasing a phantom through the city? She came to him and took his hand, and said, softly, tenderly, “Were you really serious, about having them make you age?”
“If there’s no other way, yes.”
“The other way is so frightening, Charles.”
“Is it?”
“You can’t understand how much.”
“More frightening than growing old? Than dying?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I suppose not. The only thing I’m sure of is that I don’t want you to get old, Charles.”
“But I won’t have to. Will I?” He stared at her.
“No,” she said. “You won’t have to. Neither of us will.”
Phillips smiled. “We should get away from here,” he said after a while. “Let’s go across to Byzantium, yes, Gioia? We’ll show up in Constantinople for the opening. Your friends will be there. We’ll tell them what you’ve decided to do. They’ll know how to arrange it. Someone will.”
“It sounds so strange,” said Gioia. “To turn myself into—into a visitor? A visitor in my own world?”
“That’s what you’ve always been, though.”
“I suppose. In a way. But at least I’ve been real up to now.”
“Whereas I’m not?”
“Are you, Charles?”
“Yes. Just as real as you. I was angry at first, when I found out the truth about myself.
But I came to accept it: Somewhere between Mohenjo and here, I came to see that it was all right to be what I am: that I perceive things, I form ideas, I draw conclusions. I am very well designed, Gioia. I can’t tell the difference between being what I am and being completely alive, and to me that’s being real enough. I think, I feel, I experience joy and pain. I’m as real as I need to be. And you will be too. You’ll never stop being Gioia, you know. It’s only your body that you’ll cast away, the body that played such a terrible joke on you anyway.” He brushed her cheek with his hand. “It was all said for us before, long ago:
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;”
“Is that the same poem?” she asked.
“The same poem, yes. The ancient poem that isn’t quite forgotten yet.”
“Finish it, Charles.”
“Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.”
“How beautiful. What does it mean?”
“That it isn’t necessary to be mortal. That we can allow ourselves to be gathered into the artifice of eternity, that we can be transformed, that we can move on beyond the flesh. Yeats didn’t mean it in quite the way I do—he wouldn’t have begun to comprehend what we’re talking about, not a word of it—and yet, and yet—the underlying truth is the same. Live, Gioia! With me!” He turned to her and saw color coming into her pallid cheeks. “It does make sense, what I’m suggesting, doesn’t it?
You’ll attempt it, won’t you? Whoever makes the visitors can be induced to remake you.
Right? What do you think: can they, Gioia?”
She nodded in a barely perceptible way. “I think so,” she said faintly. “It’s very strange. But I think it ought to be possible. Why not, Charles? Why not?”
“Yes,” he said. “Why not?”
In the morning they hired a vessel in the harbor, a low sleek pirogue with a blood-red sail, skippered by a rascally-looking temporary whose smile was irresistible. Phillips shaded his eyes and peered northward across the sea. He thought he could almost make out the shape of the great city sprawling on its seven hills, Constantine’s New Rome beside the Golden Horn, the mighty dome of Hagia Sophia, the somber walls of the citadel, the palaces and churches, the Hippodrome, Christ in glory rising above all else in brilliant mosaic streaming with light.
“Byzantium,” Phillips said. “Take us there the shortest and quickest way.”
“It is my pleasure,” said the boatman with unexpected grace.
Gio
ia smiled. He had not seen her looking so vibrantly alive since the night of the imperial feast in Chang-an. He reached for her hand—her slender fingers were quivering lightly—and helped her into the boat.
SCREAM QUIETLY
Sheila Crosby
Oaklands,
Cathedral Rise,
Lincolnshire, England
7th July, 1849
My Dearest Joanne,
Sweet sister, my husband grows more violent. Little Julian greatly admired the wooden horse you sent for his first birthday, and he gave me a wonderful present, by taking his first steps! Naturally I was delighted, but then he tripped, fell, and wept a little. I thought them very few tears for the lump on his head, but in an instant George charged upstairs to us. He knocked Julian out of my arms entirely, roaring that a man had a right to peace in his own home. And does Julian have no right to peace in his house? I will not say “home”; this has never been a home to either of us. Of course, Julian screamed (which at the time I believed to be largely from terror) and George picked him up by one arm and flung him into a wardrobe, locking the door and pocketing the key. Julian was abruptly silent, which terrified me.
Naturally I protested.
George pushed his face within an inch of mine and screamed, “I will not have my son mollycoddled like a baby!”
I replied, “But he is twelve months old. It is natural that he should cry when he falls.”
“Then he must learn, I tell you!” shouted George with his face growing ever redder. I thought he would have apoplexy.
“George, release him! Give me the key.”
He made to go, and I stood in front of him. “The key, George. I beg you.” Perhaps you will think it rash, and indeed I was terrified, but I was desperate to rescue my child.
He pushed me violently, and I fell over the alphabet blocks. I managed not to scream, so the neighbours will have no cause for gossip this time.
“You brought it on yourself,” said George, and quit the house.
He was drunk, of course, and it was not yet ten in the morning. At least on this occasion the bruises do not show, being entirely on my back.
Lucy helped me to my feet, with many a “Poor Madam!” and “Lord have mercy!” and we surveyed the wardrobe. To my inexpressible relief, poor Julian started to whimper within.
At length I said, “The hinges are inside. I believe we must send for a locksmith, Lucy. Julian may need the apothecary for his hurts.”
Lucy bit her lip shuffled her feet. “Please, Ma’am. I think I might open it,” and she did so, using my fine crochet hook. You may imagine my severe disquiet over a maid who can pick locks, but at the same time, I am very grateful to her.
Julian was severely concussed his collar bone was broken. The apothecary bound his arm while the collar bone heals. He suspects that the skull may have a small fracture, and recommends that he stay abed for at least a week. You know my son. Do you believe I can keep him confined for a week?
George will doubtless be most repentant when he comes home. He blames the drink, but will not stop drinking. Oh, it is a bitter thing to be owned as a slave is owned!
I have walked around the room to calm myself a little. It is true that my lot is far better than a slave. Whatever else I may have to bear, I am well fed clothed, and nobody requires sixteen hours of hard labour from me each day, merely a vast amount of fawning cringing. I still wish most fervently that George had no part in such a cruel and illegal trade, but George sees no difference between carrying slaves to America in his ships and carrying bolts of cloth home. I confess, I should be delighted were the West Africa Squadron to capture one of his clippers and free the slaves, though George should be ruined, and I with him.
Well, I have a little lighter news also. Do you remember Mary Dunn at school? She is Mary Bassom now, having married a farmer, and lives in Yorkshire. You probably remember her as I do, a good-hearted girl, but solemn unimaginative. We have corresponded since we left Miss Bainbridge’s Academy, although I do not open my heart to her as I do to you. In her last letter, she assures me that she has recently had visits from faeries! Can you credit it? I confess, I know not what to think, unless she has left her wits. Her letter seemed rational and collected enough. At any event, she says her fey guests do not speak English, but German, and are clearly anxious to communicate something. Since I was so very clever at foreign languages, she says, would I do her the kindness of visiting? Though I cannot conceive that faeries (if faeries they be!) would speak German, I should cheerfully live in Newgate jail to escape George for a while. (My Dear, that is not a hint. I am perfectly aware that your employers consider it unthinkable for a governess to have visitors, and my thoughts are with you, always. Alas, I should find your company very much more congenial than Mary’s. Doubtless I shall hear a good more than I care for about what the baker’s wife’s second cousin said to the haberdashery assistant’s sister on Thursday. Or was it Wednesday?)
I shall use all my charm to persuade George to permit this visit, as soon as possible, even though Julian is scarcely fit to travel. At some wayside inn he would be safe from violence, if not from bedbugs.
Your loving sister,
Sophie
The Nag’s Head Inn,
Nether Grassmeade,
Lincolnshire, England
8th July, evening
My Dearest Joanne,
My circumstances are greatly altered and Julian I left for Windscour Farm this morning. I have explained to everyone that George is travelling on business and I do not expect his return in the near future. Would that I could write more! But all explanations must wait.
As we entered the coach, a gentlewoman of middle years approached and called me by name. I thought her familiar, but could not place her at all. At all events, she looked deep into my eyes and said, “All will turn out for the best, my dear. But you will need all your courage.”
Would that I could believe her! And yet I cannot forget her either.
Your loving sister,
Sophie
Windscour Farm,
Otley,
W. Yorkshire, England
14th July, 1849
My Dear Joanne,
The journey was less dreadful than I expected. We brought our own sheets, and travelled but twenty miles each day. I had expected Julian to be a sore trial, confined for so many hours each day to the jolting coach, but he was enchanted with the changing view, and when he tired of that, Lucy I sang to him and he would sleep. At each inn they immediately ascribed his hurts to an upset of the coach, and couldn’t do enough for him. Poor Frank came in for a good deal of scolding from innkeepers’ wives for his supposed reckless driving. He nobly forbore from telling otherwise.
On arrival, we bathed, of course, and after some bread milk, I left Julian sleeping under Lucy’s watchful eye, while I went to take tea with Mary. She was most concerned about Julian, and recommended that I find a new coachman. In justice to Frank, I had to tell her that Julian came by his wounds before our journey began. Then she was horrified that I subjected the child to a journey in such a condition, whereupon the whole story of my marriage came out. Mary Mr Bassom were loud in their sympathy, and warm in their offer of a refuge here as long as possible. In short, until George positively insists on my return. Mr Bassom opined that the law is unjust to women, that it is unreasonable that George may do anything to Julian I short of murder. “A woman is not a pair of boots, and should not be treated thus!” he said.
Naturally, I was most moved by their kindness, and I repent my last letter’s attempt at wit at Mary’s expense.
Once I had recovered some calm, we talked of the faeries. Mary tells me her visitors are shy, and invariably appear a little before dawn by the druid stone. I distrusted their choice of place but Mary assured me that they are nothing demoniac in appearance or action. She says I am not to picture tiny ladies with butterfly wings, nor little men with beards green clothes, but strange creatures almost our own height. Accordingly, I shall re
tire to bed early, and meet them in the morning, to find out what manner of folk they may be.
Your loving sister,
Sophie
Windscour Farm,
Otley,
15th July, 1849
My Dear Joanne,
We arose early, and we walked up to the druid stone in the pearly light before dawn. The wind was sharp, and I was glad of my shawl, but the heather was abloom, smelling of mead, and curlews were calling. Their song always raises a longing in me to fly away. Alas, I have sufficient reason to flee: would that I had a nest to fly to! But you will be agog to hear about the faeries.
Their mode of transportation was most curious. At first I mistook it for one of those curious lens-shaped clouds which form downwind of certain hills, and I only realized my mistake as it flew closer and landed. As God is my witness, Joanne, it flew. It was perhaps a score of feet across, completely smooth, and, most startling of all, completely silent. I was somewhat nervous, as you may well imagine, but I reminded myself that I had faced George in many a rage, and I could face this, and besides, Mary had met her visitors on a dozen occasions, and suffered no hurt.
There came a faint hum, no louder than a spinning wheel, and a door appeared in the side of the faery coach, almost as though an invisible hand drew a pencil line. The door opened, and a ramp extended, and two faeries strolled out.
I had imagined many strange things as I tossed in my bed the previous night, yet these faeries were stranger. Do you remember our stillborn brother, William, who arrived four months too early? A foolish question. I am sure you cannot forget; no more can I. These faeries reminded me forcibly of the poor mite, although while William was no bigger than my hand, these were perhaps four feet tall, and very much alive. I mean they had the same pale skin, and overlarge head, and feeble-looking limbs, and delicate features. Oh but their eyes were different! I have never seen such beautiful eyes, preternaturally large, silver and multifaceted like a fly’s. They wore curious clothes, all of a piece, and yet divided at the legs; I believe they would allow great comfort freedom of movement.