The Sheri S. Tepper eBook Collection

by Sheri S. Tepper

  She took her chastened self into the shower and then out for a long, exhausting walk to weary even her tireless brain, a brain which kept trying by an exercise of pure persistence to make her wounds heal by cutting them deeper. For, of course, among all the other monsters was the monster of guilt, guilt which said that she herself had been responsible, not the grown man but herself, the child, the woman who should have known better, for are not women supposed to know better? And if the twelve-year-old Marianne did not know better, then best for the twenty-five-year-old Marianne to work in the quiet library and attend the endless classes and have no male friends at all, for she, too, might not know better if put to the test. She would not go for the weekend, would not allow this feeling to take hold of her, would not allow her calm to be destroyed.

  ‘Of course,’ her internal self reminded her, ‘you are not always so calm, Marianne. Sometimes in the deep night, you waken. Sometimes when the sheets are sensuously soft against your newly bathed skin. Sometimes in the midst of a TV show, when the young man and the young woman look at each other in that way – that way – then you are not so calm.’

  ‘Begone,’ she said wearily. ‘Burned, buried, begone.’ Usually the litany or the long walk let her sleep, but tonight she lay wakeful, dozing from time to time only to start awake again, until she gave up at last and took two of the little red pills Dr Brown had given her. Her sleep was dark, dreamless, empty, and when morning came she was able to convince herself that the night’s turmoil had been unreal and that she had not been mired in it at all.

  She could not feel anticipation for the evening. Each time she thought of it, it loomed at the end of her day like a road marker, pointing to some unknown destination, evoking an apprehension not so much for the destination itself as for the unfamiliar and possibly tedious journey it would take to reach it. She was familiar with the feeling, one which had served in the past to limit her society to the few, the necessary, and she felt ashamed of it without in any way being able to defeat it. Only when she came into her apartment at the end of the day to see the pot of crocuses on the window seat and feel the absence of the Box did she begin to feel a slight warming, a willingness to be graceful within the confines of her apprehension – perhaps even a willingness to move outside it toward pleasure if she could find a way.

  ‘So, Marianne,’ she instructed herself, ‘you will not give him a dinner partner to shame him. He has done nothing at all to deserve that.’ It was a sense of pride which took her through the routines of bath and makeup, hairdress and clothing, and finally to the examination of self in the mirror. The dress had belonged to her mother, a simple, timeless gather of flowing silk, jade green in one light, twilight blue in another, utterly plain. The only dressy clothes she had were things salvaged from among Cloud-haired mama’s things, trunks Papa had put in storage in her name, ‘Because you may want them someday, or may simply want to have them to remember her by.’ Some had been too fashionable then to be useful now, but there were a few things like this – blouses and shirts, ageless skirts, a topcoat which might have been illustrated in the morning paper, a wonderful sweep of lacy wool stole which would serve as a wrap. The only clothes Marianne had purchased in the last four years had been underwear and two pairs of shoes. Everything else was left over from undergraduate days or made over from Mama’s trunks. If it came to a choice between clothing and the tiles for the kitchen… She smiled. There was no choice.

  She looked good, she decided. Not marvelous or glorious or glamorous, but good. Clean, neat, attractive, and by no means shabby. So.

  Turning then from the mirror, she saw the line of light run down the silk from the curve of her breast, the flush of red mounting to her cheeks. Her hands trembled as she tugged the softly rounded neckline a little higher on her shoulders. She hadn’t chosen this dress to be … hadn’t … had. ‘Didn’t,’ she said defiantly. ‘Did not.’ She reached for the closet door to pick something thicker, less clinging, less…

  Too late. She heard him coming up the stairs, the firm knock on the door. Put the best face on it possible.

  He made it no easier for her. He stood back, obviously admiring her, his eyes lighting up. ‘You look wonderful, a water nymph – what is it? A naiad. The color suits you. It makes you glow as though you had candles lit inside.’ He smiled, not knowing that the emotion he had roused in her was a quiet anger, at him, at herself. ‘I’ve brought your box back.’

  Her mood of acceptance was waning, but he gave her no time to fret, placing the box on the table and opening it as he talked. ‘One Escher print,’ he said, busy unpacking. ‘One print of a Delvaux painting. One Eskimo carving, one Bantu carving, one bit of oriental charmery. One medicine pouch.’ He set them out for her as she stared.

  The Escher print was of a fish rising to the top of still water where leaves rested on the ripples and bare trees laid their shattered reflections. The Delvaux painting was of two young women walking in a well-lit street, clothed in high-necked white dresses, lamps all about, a nearby house streaming with light from windows and doors. The Eskimo carving was of a bird, a confluence of curving lines which said nest, rest, peace. The ebony carving was of a happy frog, and the oriental bit was of two mice chewing their way through a nut. He laid a medicine pouch beside the pot of crocuses, a bit of fluffy ermine skin, eagle feathers tied to it with turquoise beads and bits of coral. ‘American Indian,’ he said. ‘How does this collection of things suit you?’

  She considered them. Each of them separately was pleasant, unremarkable. Together – together they seemed to reach toward her with welcoming arms. ‘Safe,’ she offered at last. ‘Everything seems very natural and contented.’

  ‘I like the young woman in the Delvaux painting.’ He made a vast, smoothing gesture, as though wiping away the darkness. ‘Busy at lighting up their world. Light is a very powerful symbol in our religion, of course.’ He stood back from the picture and admired it. ‘Ah! I meant to hang them for you, but it will have to be when we return. Our reservation is for eight o’clock, and if we make a careful hurry, we will get there on time. The maître d’ to whom I spoke was most forthright. We must be on time or our table will be given away to those less foresighted but more prompt. Nothing would sway him, not even appeals to justice and the American Way. So. Your wrap? Lovely. Your purse? That is all you are carrying? Well, the young are the only ones who may travel so unencumbered. We go.’

  She had no opportunity to tell him he need not hang the pictures, no opportunity to change her dress, no time to remember she had wanted to change it. She was swept down the stairs – past Mrs Winesap in the entry way, pretending to be much involved with her mailbox – and into the car before she could think of anything, already laughing somewhat helplessly at his nonsense.

  ‘Most cars available for rent,’ he announced, shutting her door, ‘are too large to be amusing or too small to be safe. I will not, however, join nine-tenths of your countrymen in the daily game they play with their lives. To meet my sense of prudence, you are required to ride in some ostentatious luxury, though I know you would prefer simplicity, being the kind of person you obviously are.’

  She sank back into the seat, surrounded by velvet surfaces and leather smell. ‘I didn’t know one could rent cars like this.’

  ‘One cannot,’ he said with some satisfaction. ‘However, one can appear to be a potential buyer, with unimpeachable references, of course, thus gaining the temporary ownership of such a vehicle. One may even be a potential buyer, though I am uncertain whether the roads of Alphenlicht are wide enough for such extravagance.’

  ‘You do have roads?’ she asked in wide-eyed innocence.

  ‘You mock. Quite rightly. You will remember, however, that I told you we are beginning to build such things. We have even recently completed a hydroelectric plant, and there is an Alphenlicht radio station by which means the people may be informed of matters of mutual interest. Avalanche warnings. Things of that kind.’ He negotiated a tricky turn at the avenue with ca
sual mastery, darting up the entrance ramp to fit them between two hurtling truck behemoths without seeming to notice he had done so. Marianne, who had braked in reflex, leaned back and relaxed. He was not going to kill them both. So much was obvious. ‘I rather like it,’ he purred, patting the dashboard with proprietary interest. ‘Do you think it appropriate for a Prime Minister?’

  She considered this judiciously. ‘Well, it is a little ostentatious. But a Prime Minister should be, at least a little.’

  ‘It will acquire importance when Aghrehond drives it. Aghrehond does my driving; he is also my friend, first factotum of the republic, and the guardian Nestor of my youth. He will be enormously pleased with this machine. It will contribute to his already overpowering dignity.’

  ‘You’re going to buy it, then?’

  He cocked his head, considering. ‘If it continues to behave well. Have you noticed the tendency of some things to behave well at first, as though knowing they are on trial, only to turn recalcitrant and balky when they believe they have been accepted?’

  Marianne flushed in the darkness. He had not been speaking of her, but she applied his words to her own case. She had behaved well when they had first met, an interesting experience, a previously unknown relative, no troubling overtones, and she had felt free to be herself. Now she knew she was turning balky, for good reason, but he would not know that. Well, one could be balky without letting it appear on the surface. She commanded herself to be charming. He would find her charming. Her citadel might keep its portcullis down, but she would not be obvious about it. So she seduced herself with promises and turned her attention back to him with a newly kindled radiance.

  ‘I had a typewriter like that once,’ she said. ‘The only time it ever worked was in the repair shop where I bought it, and in the repair shop when I took it back – every time I took it back.’

  He laughed. ‘I had a Jaguar XKE – you know the one? It has twelve cylinders and a complexity of electrical system beside which the space probes are models of simplicity. Whenever it went more than fifty kilometers from the garage where its mechanic waited, it had an electrical tantrum and stopped running. It was so very pretty, even standing still – which is what it mostly did – that I left it for a very long time in the garage, simply to look at it now and then. However, since it had not been purchased as sculpture, it seemed unwise to continue giving it house room. I then put a curse upon the engineers who had designed it, and British Leyland went bankrupt soon thereafter.’

  ‘You claim responsibility for that?’ she asked, uncertain whether he was serious or not.

  ‘Absolutely.’ His voice was utterly serious. Then he turned and she saw his eyes. ‘Marianne, you are a good audience for my silliness. You are young enough almost to believe me.’

  ‘No,’ she protested. ‘I didn’t, really.’

  ‘No,’ he echoed, ‘you almost did.’ Then his voice changed. ‘I could have done it, Marianne. A Magus could do such a thing. But it would be self-indulgent, and a Magus does not build his powers – or even retain them – by being self-indulgent. Those who do so go by other names.’

  She was surprised at this abrupt change of tone, evidence that something was on his mind other than the evening. However, he gave her no time to brood over it, but reached across to the glove compartment to tug out a map, which he dropped into her lap, stroking her knee with his hand. ‘Here, see if you can find where we are, and then tell me the exit number. I looked it up this afternoon, but I have forgotten it.’ His voice was a caress, as his touch had been, and she drew her stole around her, over her knees and thighs, all too aware of the place his hand had touched. Face flaming, she bent over the map, not noticing he had leaned to one side to see her face in the rear view mirror. He smiled, a smile of pleasure, but with something hungry and predatory in it.

  She searched the map for some time, calming herself with it. When she could trace their route, she found the exit number for him. ‘I’ve only been there once before,’ she said. ‘An old friend of my father’s invited me to dinner there with his wife and daughter.’

  ‘Were they good people? Did you enjoy it?’

  ‘I did. Yes. They had known my parents, and that was nice. My parents were wonderful people, and I like to remember them…’

  ‘Happily,’ he suggested. ‘You like to remember them happily.’

  ‘That’s it. I usually have to remember them in some context of money or property because of Harvey, you know. And that isn’t the same. It’s certainly not happy.’

  ‘Your affairs were left in his hands, you said.’

  ‘I was only a schoolgirl. My mother’s estate – rather a big one, from her father – was in Papa’s hands during his lifetime, but then it came to me. Except Harvey was executor. Oh, there’s some man in a bank in Boston, and an attorney I’ve never seen, but Harvey is really the one who says yes or no. The others simply do what he tells them.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Makr Avehl, in a strange voice. ‘They simply … give consent.’

  ‘Yes. And whenever Harvey says anything, he always says it is what Papa would have wanted. Which means it is what Harvey wants.’ She fell silent, flushing. ‘I feel very disloyal, talking about him this way.’

  Makr Avehl, thinking of the contents of the box he had taken from her apartment, contented himself with silence. At that moment the hungry, predatory part of him withdrew, and a more thoughtful self examined Marianne’s face with a quick, sideways look. ‘Blood is not always thicker than water, Marianne. Only when the ties of blood are equally strong on both sides is there any true kinship. Kinship can never be a one-way thing.’

  ‘That’s what Mrs Winesap says. She says if I don’t like him, I simply don’t like him, and I shouldn’t feel guilty about that.’

  ‘I couldn’t agree more. Mrs Winesap is an eminently sensible woman. Also, she has your welfare at heart, and that makes her kin to you in a real way.’ He swung the car onto the exit ramp, then beneath the highway, and onto a shore-bound road between budding trees fretted against the dusk. Lights faded around them, dwindling from hectic commercial to amber residential, soft among the knotted branches. It was quiet in the car, all traffic left behind them. Reflected in the waters of a little bay was the discreet sign in pink neon, ‘Willard’s.’ He parked the car and looked quickly at his watch. ‘On time. There will be no excuse to have given our table to anyone else.’

  He took her from the car and into the place by her elbow, gently held. Their table was waiting, and Marianne gained the impression it would have been waiting had they not arrived until midnight. Makr Avehl waved the maître d’ away and seated her himself, his hands lingering on her shoulders as he arranged the stole on the back of her chair. She resolutely focused herself on the reflections in the water, on the candlelit interior, on anything else.

  When he had seated himself across from her, he said, ‘Shall we dispense with the usually obligatory cocktail? Do you know the origin of the word? It dates, I am told, from the early years of the nineteenth century in New Orleans where cognac was mixed with bitters using an old-style egg cup – called a coquetier – to measure the ingredients. From cah-cuh-tyay to cock-tay to cock-tail would have required only the slovenly enunciation of a half generation. Does that interest you? Not greatly.’ He grinned at her and pretended an interest in the menu. The meal had already been arranged for.

  When he had ordered for both of them, he leaned back and stared around him, a little arrogantly. ‘This ordering for one’s guest is no longer an American custom, I know. But it is a custom I enjoy. So I command outrageous viands from kitchens across the breadth of the world if only to see how my companions will approach them. If what I have ordered does not appeal to you, now is the time to chastise me.’

  ‘It sounds delicious,’ she said. ‘I don’t mind at all. It’s precisely what Papa always did.’

  ‘And Harvey?’

  ‘I’ve never eaten in public with Harvey,’ she said stiffly. ‘I imagine he would be more… mo
re showy about it.’

  ‘I can hear him now,’ said Makr Avehl, putting on a pompous expression. ‘“The lady will have breaded cocks-comb with the sauce of infant eel.” Then an aside to his companion: “You’ll love it, Juliet. I remember having it in Paris, during the International Conference of the Institute of Anthropology.” Like that?’

  ‘Like that,’ she agreed. ‘And then he’d watch her like a hawk to be sure she pretended to enjoy it.’

  ‘Which she would do?’ He nodded at the hovering wine steward.

  ‘Which they seem to do,’ she agreed. ‘I’ve never been able to figure out why.’

  Across the table from her, he glittered with gentle laughter. The explosion of light seemed so real that Marianne actually blinked to avoid being blinded, then opened her eyes wide, astonished at her own childishness. It was only the blaze of something flambé behind him, being made a great show of in a chafing dish. An obsequious waiter slipped behind her chair to place two additional wine glasses beside her plate, while the wine steward poured an inch of ruby light into Makr Avehl’s glass. He sipped it, nodded, and Marianne’s own glass dropped red jewels of light onto the table cloth.

  She sipped, smiled, sipped again. It had been a long time since she had had good wine. She had drunk it as a child, at Papa’s side, learning to taste. Then she had gone away to school, and there had been no wine then or since. Her slender budget would not stretch to such indulgence, and she sipped again, lost in a haze of happy memory. A plate of pâté appeared before her, almost magically, smelling succulently of herbs and shallots. She began to eat hungrily, not noticing his expression as he watched her. It was the expression of a lion about to pounce.

  But behind that expression a dialogue had begun, a familiar dialogue to Makr Avehl, one between the man and the Magus, with a word or two from that entity he called ‘the intruder.’ It began with the man saying, ‘I want this woman!’ He said it impatiently. The man did not equivocate. He did not apologize.