The Man Who Melted

by Jack Dann

  “You must work your way back to this world from the dark spaces,” Danielle said. “It is the same for all of us.” Her accent was heavy and provincial; but it wasn't so much the way she rolled her r's as it was the way her voice lifted when making a statement, as if it were a question. “If you fight what is happening, you cannot get on and make your passage.”

  Mantle had a sudden flash of a great ship, a four-stacked liner cutting the sea; and then he imagined he saw a gaming table and players wearing silvery masks. Dammit, he told himself, but he stopped trying to fight the noise in his mind. She's right, he thought: get it over with. It has to be, either now or later. “There is one thing, though,” Mantle said, a note of pleading discernible in his voice.

  “You needn't ask it,” Roberta said. “We won't take you to a hospital under any circumstances. That is a promise.”

  He felt an instant of relief and realized that, like it or not, these were kinspeople by common circumstances, a dark family; and like family, they would blackmail him. But it was too late to worry about that now. He had only to get through the night, and the next day, and the day after….

  A police van passed, going in the opposite direction, its siren blaring and lights blinking. Mantle felt a surge of relief as it passed, as if he had escaped the form-destroyer, foiled death, beaten the odds once again. Just then, he became aware of the slight lump in his back pocket. It was a wallet, a very thin one: a reminder that the owner of these clothes was a ghost and perhaps Mantle hadn't escaped after all.

  Mantle opened the window and threw the wallet out: he would keep the confidence of the dead man. Neither Roberta nor Danielle said a word. He subvocalized into the computer, and it told him that Joan and Pfeiffer had left him a joint message and were waiting for him to call. They were sure that everything went swimmingly and they would meet up with him at his flat later. They had gone to Paris on a whim, but were checking through the Net every half hour in case he left a message.

  Mantle scowled, annoyed and surprised. He would not leave a message. Let them have a good time, he thought, and experienced vertigo. He closed his eyes for a second and hallucinated the gaming table again—a monochromatic image seen through the same eyes as when he had been hooked in.

  Afraid, not wanting to drop back into the black and silver world, he tried to keep control of himself. But it was inevitable that he would have to pass through the dark places if he was to become whole again. He shuddered at the thought, and subvocalized.

  The computer plug whispered in his ear.

  The year he lost Josiane, Mantle had been keeping a diary. The entries were brief and served as pegs to jog his memory. Although he knew most of the entries by heart, Mantle had become obsessed with working over every shred he could find from the past.

  “July 8, 2112,” the computer plug whispered. “Congressional faxphotos retouched and symbolized, finally. Message from mother. Josiane dancing again. With reputable company. Pfeiffer called about rave review for his novel. Fight with Josiane. Still can't make love.”

  Mantle could remember that hot, dry day in July—the anxious message from his mother about his father, “who was getting into that Indian business again,” and Pfeiffer droning on endlessly about how much the Times’ reviewer Bjornson had appreciated the subtleties and significance of his novel—but he couldn't remember Josiane inside that day. He couldn't remember what the fight with her had been about, or why he couldn't make love.

  He couldn't remember how she had looked or tasted or smelled.

  “July 11, 2112…”

  The computer whispered the days to him, and the words became a litany, a personal mantra. But he wasn't listening to the words. He was drifting backward to the still-vivid, yesterday memories of childhood and adolescence.

  While growing up, he shared his bedroom with his sister. He could remember that old room as well as he could his present bedroom in Cannes: the battered wooden furniture, which would now be worth a fortune—a daybed; long black dresser; a captain's chair that slid into a built-in desk; holos of Duchamps and Van Gogh and LeFere permanently lit on the walls. But Mantle had a habit of keying the computer to light the whole room with paintings and statues, or to blow up a painting three-dimensionally so he could walk around the figures, live in the painting, or change it to fit his taste. His favorite was Pollock's Number 29, an impressionistic abstract of shells, string, wire mesh, pebbles, and oil paint on glass, which appeared to hang in the air and fill the room. Mantle had made love to his sister inside that painting.

  That he could remember.

  He had often lived in that painting since.

  “What are you listening to?” Roberta asked.

  “Perhaps voices,” Mantle said.

  Roberta smiled. “I think not. But why do you use an earplug?”

  “Is that so strange?”

  “Usually only old people use computer plugs. Implants are so much better.”

  Mantle took the plug from his ear and dropped it into his shirt pocket. “You see, I'm no longer plugged in. You can't do that with an implant.”

  “You don't need to, you simply don't have to use it.”

  True, Mantle thought. But you're still connected, without the real privacy of isolation…. Isolation, the black and silver. Mantle shivered, and stopped his train of thought.

  “Are you so afraid of being tied-in?” Roberta asked. “It seems your most important connection is with a past you cannot remember.” She laughed. “A disconnection.”

  “Fuck you,” Mantle mumbled, disliking her as he had often disliked Joan for that same sarcastic kind of probing, the armchair psych bullshit. But it felt good to be angry again, even just a little; at least he didn't feel drugged. It was like turning on a light in a dark room, waking up to see that the night monsters were dreams. But still the dark closed in, all around him, inside him. “I'll probably have the episode soon enough,” he said to her as he looked out the window at the secondary road they were now traveling. The luminescent trees looked like old crones and gargoyles reaching for the car. “Must you hurry it?”

  “You're not hot enough yet,” Roberta said; and she placed her left hand over her mouth, and with her right she jerked out a tooth. “Now we're both disconnected. Does that make you feel better?”

  To Mantle's surprise, it did.

  They reached a large, rambling stone house a half hour later. The sky had cleared, and the moonlight softened the night to something less than twilight. Nearby and to the east was ocean. But the familiar trees beside the road were sparse here; in their place was the kind of exotic vegetation one might find in Africa, India, or the Orient. There were oleanders, arbutus, aligousiers, amelanchiers, aloes, eucalyptus, pistaches, jujube trees, acacias, lemon trees in variety, and sweet and bitter orange trees. It was like breathing perfume; Mantle could smell eucalyptus and pine, and the flowers: jasmine, violets, roses.

  “I'm not ready to go inside, to be with anyone,” Mantle whispered to Roberta as they got out of the car. After a brief conversation, the others went on ahead to the house.

  “Our clothes are filthy and damp,” Roberta said. “Come into the house with me.”

  “Why don't you go inside with the others? I'll be in after a while.”

  “I'm going to see it through with you,” Roberta said. “Is that all right?”

  Mantle nodded, discovering that he was glad for her company, and asked, “What is this place?”

  “We are just outside Boulouris—”

  “No,” Mantle said, “that's not what I meant. All this strange vegetation”—he gestured with his arm—“and the fragrance, is it real?”

  Roberta, who had looked pensive and vulnerable, suddenly began to laugh, then excused herself, apologized, and said that, indeed, it was all real. Did he think it was a videotect with olfactories? Granted, that would have been cheaper than the real thing….

  Mantle walked to the edge of the circular driveway and found a cobbled footpath leading through the trees.
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  “It's all transplants; originally, from Hyers, surely you've heard of ‘The Bosphorus of the Côte d'Azur,’ alas, the very place that—” She paused to draw breath, as if she was not quite sure whether to go on in this new, but perhaps more comfortable role. “The very place that Pompignan dreamed up the Zephyr who ‘with his soul ablaze covers his swooning beloved with audacious kisses and in this precious moment the whole plain is perfumed.’” She took his hand then, and they both laughed, a touch of hysteria in their voices. They walked together. The air, heavy with natural perfume, had become cloying. It was hot and humid, as if the the moon above were a wan sun sending out heat but little light.

  Mantle stopped, for the path turned to dirt and seemed to be swallowed ahead by brush and vine and trees. He was almost glad to see an olive tree, its characteristic shape lending reality to the grotesque, alien vegetation growing around it. He stared into darkness.

  “Your friends were very kind to leave us alone,” Mantle said. “But you must go back to them. I know how upset you must be, you need—”

  “Shush,” Roberta said. “It's my business to be with you, and that helps me.”

  “But—” Mantle stopped himself as he felt her grip loosen on his hand. “I asked you to tell me about this place…and these people.”

  “This house is something like a church,” Roberta said, and something like a commune. Some of us live here, and some, like myself, visit.”

  “Who owns it?”

  “You Americans are always interested in who-owns-it. You'll meet them soon enough, as soon as we go inside. Are you ready?”

  “Not yet,” Mantle said, but they walked back toward the house, stopping when it was in view. “Is the owner a priest, like Pretre?” He regretted that as he said it, but too late—

  Roberta looked at him, but seemed to show no pain, as if Pretre had not really been killed and she would see him tomorrow. “No,” she said after a pause. “Faon is no priest, just an indefatigable servant of the church.”

  “What?”

  “You'll meet Faon. She and her husband own the house.” Roberta smiled, as if to herself, and then said, “You know, it never occurred to me to think of Faon as a priest. Perhaps she is….”

  “You mean you don't know?”

  “You're not afraid now, are you,” Roberta asked, but it was more a statement than a question.

  “No,” he said, surprised that he wasn't. “I feel good here. Perhaps I won't have that episode, after all.” A thin, hot breeze brushed his face. He put his arm around Roberta and they leaned against each other.

  “All episodes don't have to be bad, you know.”

  “Yes, I've heard the party line.”

  “And yours—they were very bad?”

  Mantle didn't answer.

  “Well,” Roberta said, “I have had bad and I have had good. Since the church, always good.”

  “Like tonight?” Mantle asked. She stiffened, and he said, confessing, “I still can't remember what I saw when I was hooked in. Only that everything was black and silver…and an ocean, falling into it.” Anxiety began to rise, as if it had been lying dormant inside him and was now expanding again.

  “That is not unusual,” Roberta said, but she looked worried. “You'll remember, it's just the shock of a new experience. Don't worry and don't fight it.”

  Mantle looked back at the house, which looked more like a fortification erected by an impoverished noble. It was constructed in the style of Puget, who was considered to be the heir to the Roman stone-cutters. The great stones, each of a different size, fitted together perfectly. The roof was made of curved, graduated pantiles, and a correct fit demanded a craftsman with a great deal of manual intuition. Still, it resembled a great barrack, even with the obviously more recent addition of a colonnade; yet it was a dignified house and at least four hundred years old—as was attested not only by its style, but by the splotches of plastup used to mend the walls. An outside lawn lamp illuminated the front face of the house; the rest of the house lamp illuminated the front face of the house; the rest of the house seemed to merge into the shadowy, exotic growth around it.

  “Do you think you're ready to go inside now?” Roberta asked.

  Mantle nodded.

  They entered the house, first into a stucco-walled anteroom which was bare and yellow-streaked, and then into a large, arched sitting room from which he could see a circular staircase to his left and other rooms ahead and to his right. He imagined room after room, an infinity of rooms, an infinite hotel for all the guests of heaven and hell. He stopped himself from thinking that way, but the house did have a museum quality of decay about it, heightened by the rich wallpapers, crenations, period furniture, paintings, tapestries, bronzes, and porcelains. Some of this, he thought, had to be holos. A lovely Limoges enamel miniature caught his eye, as if the tiny plaque covered the entire wall leading into the sitting room. In the miniature, two costumed women were reading what was obviously a love note, while a young man eavesdropped; they were all caught in the translucent enamel, closed in the bronze frame.

  But the house seemed alive, he thought. It was like the insides of a seashell, winding round and round from mystery to mystery, a living concretion.

  As they approached the stairs, Mantle could smell the perfumed tallow of candles. A woman in her forties, hair pulled back, eyes direct, stepped out of a nearby room and left the paneled door ajar. She wore a simple, loose-fitting black dress; her appearance was severe, perhaps prim. She nodded to Roberta, smiled warmly at Mantle, and said, “Hello, I'm Faon. Welcome.”

  Mantle thanked her for her hospitality, but could not help looking over her shoulder and into the room she had just left. Everything inside was suffused with yellow.

  Faon turned to the room and asked, “Would you like to see our candle room?”

  “Perhaps he should wait until tomorrow….” Roberta said.

  “Yes, I would like to see it,” Mantle said, and Faon led him into the room. Roberta followed.

  Candles were flickering and guttering everywhere: along the floor, set side by side to create the illusion of aisles; upon sideboards and desks and silver serving trays; in crystal baskets; in girandoles and sconces on the textured walls. The black parquet floor, which reflected the candles darkly, made the room feel large and cold. It was like looking down at a river from a bridge at night and seeing the city lights reflected.

  Mantle felt as if he had just walked into the chapel of a wealthy but Campagnard-style sect. There were so many sects….

  On the far side of the room, lifted high above the floor like a bier for a miniature Greek hero and surrounded by candles, was a small, open casket. Mantle walked over to it.

  A little boy lay in the casket, brocade all around him, folds of red velour touching his calm face. He could not be more than eleven or twelve; his hair was white-blond and cut very short. He was dressed in a black, gauzy gown. Fascinated, Mantle stared into the casket.

  This is familiar, he thought, excited. I have seen this boy before! Be careful. “Why do you do this?” he asked.

  “It's custom,” Roberta answered. “This little one is passing across to the other side. Our custom is to have someone watch over the passage. We all take turns.”

  “Something like in the Tibetan Book of the Dead,” Mantle said.

  “Something like that,” Faon said, smiling.

  “Is this your child?” he asked her.

  “No, he was given to us after his mother and father were lost.”

  “Given?”

  “Have you heard the voices?” Faon asked.

  “No,” Mantle said wearily.

  “Last year during a ceremony,” Roberta said, “we were told where to find this child.”

  “By whom?” Mantle asked.

  “By the voices you can't seem to hear,” Faon said.

  “Was he a Screamer?”

  “I prefer the word Crier; and, yes he was. Stephen's parents were lost in the first Panic in Saint Raphael.
They couldn't stand in both worlds, ours and that of the Crier. They simply lost their bodies before they died.”

  “Stephen told us that he was going to follow his parents, which he did,” Roberta said, gesturing toward the casket.

  “Didn't you try to help me…him?” Mantle asked Roberta.

  Faon smiled, as she seemed to look right through him, excoriating him. Mantle blushed, but there was nothing to do but return her stare. “An interesting slip of the tongue,” she said, exchanging a glance with Roberta. “No, there was nothing we could do to help him. He knew what he wanted to do, what he had to do, and we promised him that we would guard his passage, as we say.” Mantle frowned. “You still don't understand. He knew what he was doing. He was not committing suicide, as you think. He had a place to go. Just to die, without help, without others on the other side waiting to pull you up—that is suicide.”

  “I know I've seen that little boy before,” Mantle said, blurting out the words. Roberta stepped closer to him, offering security.

  Faon nodded, as if that were not out of the ordinary, and said, “Perhaps when you were in the dark spaces.”

  “I saw him in the casket,” Mantle said, “when I plugged into the Crier at Dramont. And I glimpsed this house.” He remembered as he talked, his words the catalysts of memory. “But I'd never seen it before.”

  Faon made a clucking sound and said, “You make much out of nothing. Of course you could dream the house. But what about your wife? Did you find her?”

  “No,” Mantle said. “I can't remember.” And he couldn't.

  Suddenly, Faon slapped him squarely in the face with her open hand. It stung and drew blood from his nose and mouth. But he saw Josiane's face, as if in her hand. It was as if Faon had struck him with Josiane herself.

  Mantle swore and raised his hand as if to block another blow or to strike back, but it was only reflex. He was too surprised even to feel anger.

  “Now do you remember?” she asked.

  Mantle hesitated an instant, and before he could answer, she struck him again. This time he grabbed her arm roughly, and she—pulled off balance—was pulled against him, her face against his chest.