Desolation

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by Tim Lebbon


  “So that lunchtime in York I sat outside a café by the river and watched the tourist boats drifting by. They were like floating rainbows, everyone wearing bright shirts and hats as if to display their extravagance to the world. I can’t remember what I was wearing. Never been a follower of fashion. Being a follower means you’re not thinking for yourself . . .” He trailed off, staring down at his hands where they were clasped together on the table.

  “But you followed Whistler.”

  Peter nodded and went on. “I was there for an hour or more. I’d eaten lunch and was almost through a bottle of wine. And then everything seemed to go quiet. In such a place that’s rare; there were hundreds of tourists milling around, swans and ducks and geese chattering on the river, cars and tour buses passing back and forth over the river bridge, people chatting in the café behind me, planes passing by high overhead. It was a noisy day, and that didn’t bother me, because in such noise there’s always the possibility of a single sound that might mean something. But as I was sitting there looking out over the river, there was a moment of silence. All conversationalists must have been taking a breath; the traffic was paused, waiting for lights to change; there were no planes above us; the birds were all eating, or taking off, or roosting somewhere different. Just for the briefest instant the world took pause. And that was when I heard him.”

  “The pipes?”

  “Whistler’s pan pipes. They were the most natural thing in the world, audible to anyone who cared to listen, and yet I knew instantly that the tune would lead me closer to the Way than anything I had ever known. They were subtle, quiet, and I knew they came from close by. Their sound was pure, unsullied by echoes, untainted from passing through the fume-laden air.

  “I leaped up and looked around. The cacophony had kicked in again, but that didn’t matter, I had heard it, heard the hint of what I had spent a lifetime searching for. And I knew that once I’d heard it, it would never lose itself to me again. I was not worried anymore.” Peter took a long swig of wine, held his head back, and closed his eyes, as if relishing the sun on his face.

  “So you found Whistler?”

  “Eventually. It took some time. It took another year.”

  “How? Why? I don’t understand.”

  Peter sighed and shook his head. “Neither do I. Understanding isn’t what’s required; all he wants is acceptance. From that moment on, I was Whistler’s follower. I listened for him wherever I went, always convinced that I would hear him again. I thought he was my route to the Way. I really, truly believed that, because it all felt so right.” He paused, stood from the table, and strolled to the bushes Cain had been inspecting a few minutes earlier. “You see these roses? Beautiful. Each of them utterly flawless in its individuality.”

  “They’ve got blight,” Cain said. “It’ll kill them in the end.”

  “So negative,” Peter said, smiling back at Cain. “But until they die, they’re perfect in their simplicity. More perfect than anything Man has ever made.”

  “What happened when you found Whistler?”

  “I knew instantly that I’d never know the Way.” Cain thought that Peter may be crying again, but when he came back to the table his eyes were dry.

  “So what is Whistler? What are his followers? What does he do to them?” He thought of that woman in the flat, completely still, stuffed or maybe not.

  Peter smiled, and it was filled with real good humor. “This,” he said, “is where it all gets a bit difficult. I think we need more wine. I’ll get some, and when I come back I’ll tell you more.”

  “Why?” Cain said. “Why are you telling me all this now?”

  “Because I think you deserve to know. The Way is not a secret, and—”

  “I don’t give a shit about the Way, or Pure fucking Sight!” Cain said, raising his voice more than he had intended. A few people turned, eyes wide, and then just as quickly looked away again. “All it’s done for me is to destroy my childhood and steal away my father. It’s left me fucked, so fucked that I can’t handle life. I have the chance to make things right for myself, and I spend my time running around frightened of my neighbors!”

  “I don’t care whether you give a shit or not,” Peter said. “Because you have it, and one day it’ll reveal itself fully for sure. I’ll be back. Don’t run off.” He stood and walked back through the garden toward the pub.

  Cain was left sitting at the table, staring at Peter’s back. He was angry and frightened at the same time, and he even felt some measure of sorrow for Peter, this man who had been bound to Whistler for years. Whether that binding was intentional or not, it had grasped Peter fully. Maybe it was the promise of what he could not have that kept him following the piper. Or perhaps it was something deeper and darker. Cain would do his best to find out as soon as the landlord returned.

  So for now Cain sat in the pub garden with a glass of wine, a bee buzzing his head, and several other patrons doing their best to not stare his way.

  And the album. It perched on the end of the table like a present waiting to be opened. It could contain anything. Such potential sat between its worn covers that Cain thought it almost a shame to open it, defining that potential and thereby destroying all other possibilities. In Cain’s reading of science books—both with his father and afterward—the theory of multiple universes had fascinated him. The idea that at any moment in time there were infinite variations to what he would or could do next was humbling. He hoped those other Cains made good choices, but really they were all him, exactly him, and that made him feel more alone than ever.

  In each universe, the photograph album could contain anything. He reached out, opening the album and not opening it, throwing it away, burning it, rejecting it, and welcoming its contents into his heart. Right here and now, he drew his hand back and simply stared, trying to see through the covers to the heart of what it contained. He concentrated, but knew nothing. In another universe, he knew everything. He hummed the nameless tune—the music the shadow had hummed—and somewhere he recognized it and knew exactly what it meant. He wished he were in that universe.

  But he could wish forever, and his own life and existence was here. Somewhere else he was much, much worse off than he was now. Somewhere else again, perhaps Vlad’s fate had already befallen him.

  Peter emerged from the pub carrying another bottle of wine. “You look thoughtful,” he said.

  “Busy resolving the meaning of life,” Cain said, and he could not help returning Peter’s smile.

  “Whistler,” Peter said, sitting down, recommencing the conversation before Cain had a chance. “Yeah, Whistler.” He poured the wine, opened another bag of potato chips, and crunched his way through a mouthful, all the while looking over Cain’s head at the clear blue sky.

  “So?” Cain said at last.

  “So you’ve seen the room in his flat filled with his followers.”

  “Yes, animals and a woman. Stuffed. Killed and stuffed.”

  “Not killed,” Peter said.

  Cain frowned, not understanding. “Animals don’t commit suicide, Peter.”

  “Not suicide, either. They’re not dead.”

  Cain raised his eyebrows and thought back to that afternoon, his experience in Whistler’s flat, those musty creatures moldering away in the spare room. And the woman tucked away in the corner, so lifelike and yet so obviously dead.

  “I’ll explain,” Peter said. “As best I can, at least. I’ve no right to do this, no right to betray Whistler’s history and Way to you. But I think it will work for you, and therefore you deserve it. As I said, whether or not you want what your father called Pure Sight, I believe it wants you.”

  Cain said nothing, although those words stung him with memories of his father. After so long? he thought. Can Peter be right after so long?

  “Whistler’s followers hear something in his music that appeals to them. I heard the potential of the Way. It was as though he makes the one true music we should all hear and know. It promised me s
o much that I could not help but fall under its spell. Others hear the same thing, I suppose, but in their own different ways. And the animals . . . who can say what animals think or believe? Maybe it’s just a nice tune; perhaps there are frequencies that get in their heads and affect them. But Cain, you’ve seen those creatures in his room, the way they’re standing there, frozen, listening forever. It has as much meaning to them as to me.”

  “They were dead and stuffed,” Cain said. “I smelled them.”

  “They’re not dead,” Peter said again, firmer this time. “They’re Whistler’s main followers. He plays to them nightly, and each morning I suspect they’re in a slightly different pose. They’re so enrapt with his music and what it conveys that they’ve forgotten to do anything else. Their life is his music. Their mind, their memory, their concentration, is obsessed with the one tune that did it for them. They smell, I suppose, because they’re slowly mummifying. Not drinking, not eating . . . just existing somewhere in their heads, living their dreams.”

  “That’s grotesque.”

  “You may think so, but I’ll bet they’re the happiest beings on the planet.”

  “What about you? Why aren’t you in there? Why aren’t you happy?”

  “I never heard him well enough.” Peter drank his wine and poured some more. His eyes were starting to glitter with drunkenness, but his voice was firm, his words clear. “The woman, she came to him a couple of years back. Really latched on quickly, never left his side for months, and then suddenly she began to drift away. Usually with the animals it’s very quick, but with her there came an awkward time when Whistler had to leave her in the room, not quite gone. She tried to get out and follow him, but she’d lost the use of her limbs. She screamed for a while. In the end, he stayed in there with her for three days, playing nonstop until she became still. He continues to play to her, but not quite so often.”

  “Why?”

  “I suppose he has other things to do.”

  “No, I mean why? Why does he do it? What’s he gaining from all this?”

  “Why do you breathe, Cain?” Peter asked, eyes wide as if surprised at the question. “Why do you drink, why do you eat?”

  “To survive.”

  Peter held up his hands, explaining everything.

  “They were arranged,” Cain said, remembering the strange tableaus in Whistler’s flat. “Set up in weird poses. Not right.”

  “He does that for his own reasons, and I have no idea what they are. Maybe it’s something as simple as him playing games.”

  “I don’t understand any of this. I don’t know if I believe you. It’s ridiculous. Absurd. And . . . I don’t understand.”

  “Do you need to understand something for it to work? If we understood everything, imagine how boring life would be.”

  Cain did not reply. A butterfly drifted down and landed on the photograph album, and he watched it stretching its white wings, bathing in the sun. Whistler was as inexplicable as that butterfly.

  “I’m sorry it’s no easier,” Peter said. “I’ve been with him for so long that I’m used to not understanding. He plays his tune and sometimes I get lost, but I always come back. Not like those animals, or that woman. Wherever they are . . . I’d give anything to be there.”

  “They found the Way?”

  “Oh no!” Peter said, shaking his head. “Not at all. They’ve been lost on its path. They’re swallowed in Whistler’s Way, shadowed by his greatness, part of that shadow. Very few get to know the Way—or Pure Sight, as your father chose to call it—but often those who do affect a lot of people with their knowledge.”

  “So George, Magenta, and Sister Josephine have it?”

  “In their own peculiar ways, yes,” Peter said, but his face became guarded, his eyes downcast.

  “So if it’s such a personal epiphany, how come they all come together?”

  Peter shrugged. “Likes attract. Protection in numbers. Tribal instinct.”

  “Tell me about them. Can the nun really fly? Who is the real Magenta? And George . . . what has he got to do with a wild animal?”

  Peter’s expression showed that there was more left to say, but he leaned back and crossed his arms. “I’ve told you too much already. I can’t go on, not about them. They trust me.”

  “You’re talking as if they’re another species!”

  Peter looked at Cain but did not reply.

  “I need to know, Peter. You can’t just string me along like this and then leave it. They’re against me, all of them. Are they dangerous? Should I leave?”

  “They’re not against you, Cain, they can’t be. They’re way beyond taking sides. They’re gifted with what they have and they use it, and sometimes people like me—and you—get caught up in that. In your case that’s good, because it’ll help bring out what your father nurtured in you. And yes, they can be dangerous. Can’t everyone?”

  “For fuck’s sake—”

  “What about your father?” the landlord asked, gently touching the photograph album. The butterfly fluttered away. “Don’t you want to know about him? That’s what you came for really, isn’t it?”

  Cain looked at the album, and suddenly he was terrified. There could be photographs of his father in there as Cain had never seen him. He may be about to learn so much more than he had ever known about that cruel, naive old man who had kept him incarcerated for years. And right then, with the wine singing in his veins and the evening sun fading on his skin, Cain was not sure he wanted to hear.

  “I need to piss,” he said. “I’ll be back in a minute. And then maybe you can tell me about my father.”

  “Leonard and I go way back,” Peter said, smiling up at Cain.

  Cain went into the pub, and the unbelievable thought thumping through his head in time to his heartbeat was I never knew his name, I never knew his name. Leaning against the wall in the Gents toilet, he cried as he pissed.

  When Cain returned to the beer garden, Peter and the photograph album had vanished.

  Good, he thought, but that was immediately replaced with an intense disappointment and anger. Not only had Peter given him some small assurance that he was not imagining things with Whistler and the others, he had also offered a chance for Cain to discover things about his father from another perspective. It was a unique and unexpected opportunity, and now it was gone, at least for a while.

  “Went off in a bit of a rush,” a voice said. Cain turned to a table tucked away between some trellis, and a young woman sat there nursing a bottle of beer. She was quite obviously waiting for a friend to return from the pub and she seemed nervous. Her smile faltered, and she hid it by raising the bottle.

  “Which way?” Cain asked.

  The girl nodded at a gate exiting the garden. “He was looking up at the sky, and he went as if he saw something scary. Just jumped up, picked up that big book, ran. Knocked over your bottle of wine.”

  “Did you see anything?”

  The girl shrugged. “Dunno. Big bird, that’s all. Buzzard probably, they circle here sometimes looking for leftovers and stuff in the pub garden.”

  “Big bird,” Cain echoed, thinking of the brief glimpse he had caught of the shape above the park earlier that day. “Thanks,” he said.

  “No problem.”

  As Cain turned to leave, the girl’s boyfriend emerged from the pub, throwing a cautious glance his way. Cain smiled, but it did not work; the boy hurried across to the table and sat close to the girl. Cain turned away. Such affection. There had been sex at Afresh, but never closeness. It was something lacking in his life. He supposed he was destined to be alone, as isolated now as he had been in that room in his father’s basement. And now that Peter had vanished, he felt as though he were being experimented upon all over again.

  Cain left the pub, strolling at first, then walking faster. The sun was settling down behind the high buildings in the city, and the smell of hot smog was slowly fading into a cool echo of the day.

  Peter could not be far ahead.
He had that album, and in there were truths that Cain was terrified of facing yet felt he must. It may even contain pictures of his mother, the woman he had never, ever seen. His father had refused to talk about her, saying only that she died when Cain was born. But there must have been a time when there was love between her and the old man? Affection? Cain had no idea whether knowing that would change anything for him, but he had to find out.

  He glanced up at the sky, but there was no sign of any large bird.

  Cain was sure he could remember the way back to Endless Crescent. Peter had led the way earlier, and there had been several turns at the ends of streets and through narrow alleys. But the way he was going felt right, and for now he was confident with that.

  He started walking a little faster. Peter was hurrying as well, Cain could sense that. You have it, Peter had said, and Cain tried to analyze how and why he knew that Peter was walking quickly. There was no logical answer. He simply knew the Way things were.

  For the very first time in his life, Cain considered the possibility that his father had succeeded. For years Cain had viewed Pure Sight as a madness. Even when he knew things that he really should not, he dismissed it as a peculiarity, an effect of his long incarceration, an exaggeration of his senses when they had been so forcibly starved by his father. Now, knowing all this, he wondered whether that torture really had opened up his inner perceptions, just as his father had intended.

  I don’t want it.

  Peter stopped, looked up, searching for pursuit.

  Not if it does to me what it’s done to Whistler.

  Peter was scared, and a bitter, inexplicable sense of betrayal simmered in his mind. He clasped the album to his chest as if it could protect him against blows, running now, dashing along an alley lush with overhanging foliage. He ducked and pushed his way through, head down, and Cain saw every movement, knew every thought.

  “I don’t want it!” Cain shouted, but he began to run as well, ignoring the curious stares from passersby.

  He came to a junction he did not remember from before, turned right, then realized that left was the correct way. He did not question his reasoning, because he knew where it came from. He was reading Peter’s route, sensing it in the air as if the landlord had left a trace of himself behind; a smell, a sound, the taste of his fear. And now the siren will cut me down, Cain thought, but he had begun to believe that he would never hear the siren again. He had passed that time. This was the first day of his new life. Chasing Peter felt like pursuing his own destiny, and much as he claimed he did not want it, Pure Sight beckoned from every street corner. Cain did not even consider halting the chase.

 

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