The Skill of Our Hands--A Novel

by Steven Brust

  “She doesn’t need your help, Irina. She needs Phil back.”

  “She does or you do?”

  “We all do. We need to find a new Second for him, which your presence here is preventing. Is it deliberate, or are you just—”

  “Please go fuck yourself. There’s no rush. I’ll make us a drink.” Irina started for the house. “Ren wants to titan.”

  Oskar remained where he was, between Irina and the door. Her new Second’s lithe, plump body ran into his, and she didn’t move back from the contact. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder, and Oskar thought it smelled like something he should recognize. “You don’t want a drink?” she asked him, and Oskar realized he very much did.

  “Ren’s blaming Celeste,” he told her.

  That made Irina put some space between their bodies. She crossed her arms over her chest, frowning. “She said something similar to me. But it’s irrational to think Celeste had anything to do with Phil’s death.”

  “There’s not a lot rationality going around,” Oskar remarked dryly. “Phil’s level of emotional involvement in the SB 1070 issue was irrational. The official story of his death is insultingly so. And yes, I’ll concede my sense of urgency to find a Second and get Phil back doesn’t make complete logical sense either, even to me. But Celeste is the first place Ren’s mind went. So even though it’s impossible, and on some level she knows that, we have to acknowledge the reality of Ren’s pattern of fear. When Phil gets hurt, Ren blames Celeste. When Ren’s life is endangered, she blames you.”

  “She’s forgiven me.”

  “Forgiven you, maybe. But she won’t trust you yet.”

  “If that’s true,” said Irina acidly, “and I’m not agreeing it is, then now’s the perfect time for her to learn. Whether she likes it or not, we’re family. We have to trust each other. Not my choice, or hers, and God knows not yours, but we’re all part of the Garden. We’re all any of us have. The sooner Ren faces that, and gets past it, the sooner—”

  “Jesus Fucking Christ, Irina. I can’t believe I’m hearing this. Celeste inhabited your body and controlled your mind. You tried to poison Ren, and you taunted Phil about it until he shot you. And now you think you can be the one who gets to insist—”

  Jane was there, and Oskar suddenly wished he’d thought to take Irina further away from the front door for their conversation.

  “All right,” said Jane, in a voice low and quiet and emitting intensity like an acetylene torch. “Just who are you people, anyway?”

  JULY, 1856

  IS IT SAFE TO GIVE HIM THAT MUCH?

  Robinson greeted me with the words, “Good morning, old man. What brings you to town?”

  “I think you know,” I told him. “Are they going to do it?”

  It was Independence Day, and I’d just completed the hot, dusty trip from Lawrence to Topeka. We stood outside of Constitution Hall next to where someone had made a crude drawing and written something even more crude about Jones. We dripped sweat, and watched the horsemen not two hundred yards away. Robinson didn’t have to ask what I was talking about.

  “They have five companies of cavalry, and a couple of field pieces. I think they will.”

  “Who’s the commander?”

  “Sumner.”

  Sumner. I had no switches for him, and no time to gather any. “Has anyone spoken to him?”

  Robinson nodded. “He isn’t budging. He’s under orders to—”

  “Under orders from a fraudulent Territorial government, or from a President who’s a whore to the slave power?”

  “You’re preaching to the choir, old man.” Then he added, “Jim Lane wants to fight.”

  “Jim Lane always wants to fight, especially when it gets his name in the papers. What about you?”

  “I’m thinking about it,” he said.

  I reached into my pocket and crushed some pine needles, then rubbed my hand over my shirt. I found a piece of rock candy in my pocket, popped some in my mouth, and held out the rest of the waxed paper packet to Robinson. He took a chunk and smiled. One of the local children, a girl I didn’t recognize, spotted it, and gave me a wide-eyed look of polite begging. I handed what was left to her, and she ran off. Robinson and I spent a few seconds looking like little kids ourselves, sucking on our candy. To him, it felt like Christmas morning, and he’d always loved Christmas morning.

  “Difficult decision,” I said after a moment. “I remember you saying, in Lawrence, that we’d win this with public opinion, not bullets. But it’s hard to let them break up the legislature. I don’t think I could do it.”

  “Branson,” he said.

  “I know.”

  Half a year before I’d arrived in Kansas, a ruffian named Coleman shot and killed an unarmed Free State man named Dow. A little later, Sheriff Jones—the same man who’d overseen the raid on Lawrence—had arrested a guy named Jacob Branson for daring to suggest that Coleman should be arrested. We were still furious about it.

  “But,” I added, “it’s about how to win the war. Like I said, I’m glad it isn’t my decision.”

  “Going to come in and listen to the speeches?”

  “Why? I’ve already made up my mind.”

  I had also, as it turned out, made up Robinson’s.

  Sumner dispersed the legislature without resistance—and our printing presses went to work.

  * * *

  And that, my friends, is how meddlework is done right.

  —O

  * * *

  SIX

  Everything Might Blow Away

  Oskar saw that Jane had her feet firmly planted, her eyes going from one of them to the other, slowly, steadily. She was going to get an answer.

  “Go ahead, Irina,” Oskar said. “Why don’t you get this one.”

  Irina gave a sort of low-key snort. “Nice,” she said, and walked past Jane into the house.

  Oskar shrugged. “We might as well be comfortable.” He managed to step past Jane without making contact, and went from the heat of Tucson into the coolness of the living room. He sat down in the only chair he could comfortably fit in. Jane followed him in and sat, all business, on the sofa opposite, her eyes narrowed, her body focused. Irina came in from the kitchen carrying a long, thin, green bottle of wine and three glasses. She poured, smiling, looking at each of them like she was trying to decide who’d taste nicer with a vinho verde.

  “Jane, have you ever risked or sacrificed something important for a stranger?” Oskar asked.

  Jane’s nostrils flared. “I asked you a question.”

  Oskar nodded. “And you answering that one is the best way to answer you. I can find out for myself, but it’s liable to take awhile. So tell me, have you?”

  “I don’t know. What are you talking about?”

  Oskar was trying to figure out how to put it when he noticed Irina had her eyes closed, and her lashes were twitching, so he just waited and drank a little wine.

  Jane opened her mouth, but he held a finger up. “One moment.”

  A minute went by. Then another. Jane shifted, her eyes narrowed, and she didn’t touch her glass.

  Irina stirred. She opened her eyes. “Yes,” she said.

  “Yeah?” Oskar put his wine down.

  Irina nodded. “Lowest fruit on the plum tree, right in front.”

  “That was fast.”

  “Thank you. If you bothered to read the boards, you’d know where Ren has her switches. The history was right next to it.”

  Oskar ignored her jibe and said, “All right, Jane. Just another moment, and I’ll be able to tell you something.”

  He reached out for the sound of cannon fire echoing from stone walls, and the sight of the rosemary bush, and stood once more near the Seine. In three steps he covered several miles to the Rue de Grenelle, which is where Irina’s Garden began within his. He held the image of a plum tree in his mind, imagining the lowest fruit, and found a piece of torn leather that looked like it had once been part of a boot. He folded it,
unfolded it, and it gave up its secrets.

  Oskar opened his eyes.

  “High school, senior year,” he told Jane. “You missed your prom.”

  Jane turned red. “How did you know—”

  “We know pretty much everything, about everyone. Or we can with a little work.”

  “That’s—”

  “Your cat’s name was Satha because when you got her you couldn’t pronounce Samantha. Your big brother has a small white scar over his left eye where you pushed him into the edge of the piano when he wouldn’t stop poking you. Your favorite dessert is blueberries with sugar and half and half. You became a Wiccan in college because you liked the people, the community, and the attitude, but you’re not sure you really believe it all. You kept your last name when you married because you had it legally changed from ‘Rossi’ to ‘Astarte’ two years before, and you didn’t want to look fickle.”

  Jane was staring at Oskar, her eyes widening. When he stopped speaking, she stood up abruptly, and stepped back a little. “Okay,” she said. “This is creepy.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know. Sorry.”

  “Way to be reassuring, Oskar,” said Irina.

  “Go fuck yourself,” Oskar appeased, and turned back to Jane. “We are kind of creepy,” he admitted. “But our intentions are good.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “That’s a difficult question to answer. We’re a small group of people who try to make things better.”

  “Is Ren one of you?”

  Oskar nodded. “So was Phil.”

  Jane swallowed some wine. “I hang around with people who use incense and incantations to manifest abundance, sometimes instead of getting an actual job, and let me tell you, you people are weird.”

  “I know,” he said.

  “Do you know why Phil was killed?”

  Oskar nodded. “He tried to make things better in a stupid way without telling anyone else about it, and he pissed off someone he shouldn’t have.”

  “Make what better?”

  “He was trying to reverse SB 1070. By himself.”

  Jane stared. “He could do that?”

  “Evidently not,” said Oskar.

  “Oskar, dear heart,” Irina said. “You are so not helping.”

  “I guess it’s been too long since I told you to go away,” he said.

  “Go fuck yourself,” she appeased.

  “Do you all get along this well?” asked Jane.

  “Sometimes it’s worse,” said Irina.

  “Phil and Ren got along,” Oskar said.

  Jane frowned. “I think you’re nuts.”

  “Reasonable,” Oskar agreed. “I won’t argue with you. I mean, if someone told me what I just told you, I wouldn’t believe him.”

  “If you didn’t expect me to believe you, why did you tell me?”

  Irina said, “You asked,” before Oskar could, which annoyed him a little.

  Jane shook her head. “This is— I don’t know what this is.”

  “Crazy,” Oskar suggested. “Unbelievable. Weird. Also creepy. And you haven’t even heard the strange parts yet.”

  “But you’re overwhelmed,” Irina said. “And you’ve had an exhausting day. It’s too much to take in all at once.”

  Jane nodded, taking the suggestion. “I want to go home. But I want to be here for Ren when she wakes up.”

  Oskar pointed to the sofa. “Sleep there. I’ll find you a blanket.”

  “What about you?”

  “I can sleep in this chair.”

  “What about you?” Jane asked Irina.

  “She’s leaving,” Oskar said before Irina could answer, which he hoped annoyed her a little.

  “Play the gentleman, at least, won’t you darling, and walk me to my car?” Irina asked him.

  “Go to hell.”

  Irina left and Jane went out onto the patio to call her husband about her plans to stay the night at Ren’s. Oskar was curious about how that conversation would go, but he didn’t try to listen. He found a blanket for Jane in Ren and Phil’s bedroom, and put it and a pillow on the couch. He thought about Ren alone in the guest room, then he sat down and closed his eyes.

  * * *

  Irina opened her car door, slammed it, and waited, listening. Two years in her new body, and she still got a thrill from young eyes, and ears that could hear the patio door at the back of the house slide open and shut. Irina knew it wouldn’t be Oskar out on the deck with its tiny pool and lack of hot tub. He wouldn’t leave Jane inside alone, or abandon Ren to go outside with Jane.

  Jane, Irina concluded, must be outside on her own.

  Irina picked her stealthy way around the house and through the side gate. Jane half sat, squatting on the edge of a cheap, plastic chaise, talking on the phone. Her shoulders had a guilty droop but her free hand was fidgety. So, she was aware of her attraction to Oskar then, and jumpy about spending the night near him, away from her husband. Jane stood and paced, getting frustrated, working up distance and justification. Whatever was wrong in her marriage, being alone with Oskar wasn’t going to help it.

  Irina picked a moment on the outswing of Jane’s pacing, and retreated around to the front of the house. Oskar hadn’t locked the door, so she just walked back in, expecting to find him seeding what they’d learned, and what they’d told Jane. She nearly slammed the door to make a point about not being shooed away when Ren had clearly forgiven her, but Oskar’s stillness caught her eye. His beauty stopped her.

  Hoping Jane felt guilty enough to keep her on the phone a while longer, Irina closed the door without a sound. She knew the pretty little witch wanted Oskar, and thought Ren did too, although in some fuzzy “being close to the person who was close to Phil when he died” kind of way. Oskar wouldn’t pursue either of them. He never wooed women, but he didn’t always turn them away. Incrementalists regularly underestimated the persuasive power of sex. Irina did not. She and Celeste had had that much in common anyway.

  Let them say she was overly sexualized, maybe she was, but Irina knew it would damage Jane to sleep with Oskar. And while it wouldn’t hurt Ren directly, if she and Oskar had even one night together, it might turn him into the buffer between Ren and the rest of the Incrementalists that Phil had always been. And that would be worse. It would be best if Oskar had sex with Irina instead. A public service, almost. Also, she was lonely, and Phil’s death had been a blow, and Ren’s forgiveness had touched her.

  Irina was beginning to suspect Phil hadn’t told Ren about the underground immigrant-aiding, cop-antagonizing group he’d been running out of the Southside and which had gotten him killed. Oskar clearly didn’t know, or he’d be crowing. Add secrecy as another new and out-of-character aspect of Phil’s life since the Incrementalists went public.

  Irina would keep his secret for him. It was the least she could do. But feeling overwhelmed by it all, Irina crept closer to Oskar. Oskar was over-focused on finding Phil’s Second, but Irina was beginning to believe he was right about the urgency of getting Phil re-spiked because they weren’t doing well without him.

  * * *

  Irina was wrong about almost everything here. She was wrong about what Phil had been doing, wrong about my interest in either Jane or Ren, or her, and most important, wrong about the reason we were all starting to want Phil back in the quickest rather than the best possible way.

  —Oskar

  * * *

  * * *

  Physical, mental, spiritual. So often treated as three distinct things, but Takamatsu knew they were not. Extend your arm at a ninety-degree angle, ask someone to push it back to your shoulder while you fight against it. Now try it again, but this time, instead of fighting, simply close your eyes and imagine a line extending from your shoulder out of your fingers to infinity, and tell yourself that the arm is not moving. You will find that, the second way, the arm is much harder to move.

  Why does it work that way? Is it because, when fighting directly against the pressure, you bring muscles into p
lay along the biceps that actually work against holding the arm in place? Is it because you have made the decision that your arm will not move, and the mind is a powerful instrument? Is it because you have spiritually connected yourself to the universe? Of course it is all of these.

  * * *

  No it isn’t. It’s because of the muscles.

  —O

  * * *

  As Takamatsu prepared to explore his Garden, he felt that losing Phil right now, even for a while, was dangerous for the group, but he didn’t know why, and so he didn’t know how to address it. But the feeling wouldn’t go away—that this was as critical a time for the group as when they were caught flat-footed by the outbreak of war in 1914 and were afraid half of them would be sent off to fight each other. As when too many of them were all in London at the same time and plague had broken out. As when so many of them were caught in the fall of Constantinople. The danger was more subtle, perhaps, and certainly more mysterious; but it was real.

  Takamatsu would need to be at his best to decide what to do, even if that ended up being nothing.

  So he stood, and stretched. Each arm over his head, shoulders around, head around, back and forth, up and down. Hips, legs. A good, long, careful stretch that left his body loose and relaxed and ready, which left his mind loose and relaxed and ready, which left his spirit loose and relaxed and ready.

  He closed his eyes and entered his Garden.

  * * *

  Irina leaned over Oskar. No tension haunted his long bones. No intention animated his closed eyes—he wasn’t grazing. He sprawled—his arms on the armrests, his feet on the same line, but way in front of the chair’s. His broad chest rose and fell hypnotically and Irina matched her breathing to his, her smaller lungs barely able to sustain the luxuriating, long inhalations.

  The perpetual crease between his eyebrows was smoothed by sleep, and without it, his Nordic cheekbones and soft lips gave his face an angelic beauty. Irina wanted to unbutton his shirt and touch the tiny brass pendant on its red thread. She wanted to trace the gorgeous ridges of his abdomen, and stroke the furrow between them down and down. Irina had always admired Oskar’s beauty, but it had taken seeing him asleep to get over her innate distaste for white men.