The Horses of the Night

by Michael Cadnum

  Fern fingered the stem of an empty glass, beside the rush of palms into which he had just emptied his bubbly. He looked much better in a tux than most big men, and I had to remind myself that Fern was experienced with protecting the lives of ambassadors, a man who was accustomed to wearing a gun under any sort of clothing.

  To my surprise, my brother was there. He made his usual pistol-shot with his fingers, the way he usually said hello, what he called “the silent hi.” I nearly always had the same, simultaneous linked thoughts when I saw Rick.

  I thought how good it was to see him, and at the same time: I wonder what sort of trouble he’s in now. There is something electric between the two of us, something that springs from our shared memories. The woman with him was a dream-vision of high couture and something vaguely dissolute, a fashion model turned courtesan.

  I made my way through the crowd, unable to attract the attention of Nona. She was chatting with women in brightly colored dresses while dressed herself in something subdued, dark blue, clothes that made her look like a woman who had taste and, at the same time, someone who could save your life.

  “Of course you won,” said Rick with a smile. “You’re a winner—like me.”

  Rick was a little thinner than usual, still looking like a man who could get a job as a model himself, Suits for the Man on the Go. He introduced me to “Honey—that’s her name—right out of a storybook,” the sort of meaninglessly pleasing statement Rick had made a specialty. I studied his face, his eyes, for signs of drinking, drugs, even recent accidents. He had crashed a string of sportscars, including that near-fatal crash at Devil’s Slide not so long before. Physically, we looked very much like brothers.

  Rick put his arm around me, my younger brother acting like the protective sibling. “I’m proud of you, Strater.”

  His compliment warmed me inside. I thanked him.

  “I knew you were a winner, all the way, even when we were kids.”

  It was the kind of boyish nonsense Rick manufactured nonstop, but this once it worked with me, and I was pleased.

  “That news about Blake was really bad. Really hit me hard,” he said. He was being truthful, I knew, but he had probably been skiing in the Alps when the news had reached him, and he was too lively and unsentimental to bother with memorial services. “You ought to drive up and see Mother,” he said. “Tell her about the award. She’d like that.”

  I wasn’t in the mood to talk about Mother. “She was never enthusiastic about me drawing pictures.”

  “I’m not exactly something for her to show off to the nurses. I saw her a few months ago.”

  “How was she?”

  I rarely saw Rick looking so thoughtful, or troubled. All he said about her was, after a long moment, “Quiet. Not peaceful, exactly. Just quiet.”

  The doctors had asked us to stop visiting her. After our visits, the word had been, she was “uncontrollable for days, except under chemical maintenance.” I knew what that meant—the sort of sedative that sent a patient into a virtual coma.

  “But go on and have your party, for Christ’s sake,” Rick laughed. “We’ll talk about Mom some other time.”

  I left my brother to Honey and made my way through well-wishers, feeling buoyant despite the talk of my mother and the strain in my brother’s voice.

  DeVere caught my eye. I stepped up to him, wishing he would vanish from my sight.

  “Enjoy the prize,” he said.

  15

  In Pieter Brueghel’s painting of the Tower of Babel there is an open mountain like a volcano, except that it is not a true mountain at all. It is composed of the arches and spans of a magnificent unfinished edifice. This mount is, at its summit, streaked with cloud.

  There is little sign of confusion—of babble—at all. The divine aphasia that has rendered language both nearly useless and multifoliate had either not taken place yet, or has had the effect of making the human beings present cautious rather than confused. The structure stands seemingly vacant, apart from both human aspiration and scorn. A few figures gather, others scatter, and it is plain that above all else in this landscape the building is most lasting, even unfinished as it is. Humans flee, or wander, or stand where they are. With that Flemish talent for diminishing human stature, the painter shows us that human beings are not terribly important, although human endeavors may be. It is the tower that endures.

  It was this picture, Brueghel’s oil and wood reproduced in an art book, that fascinated me as a child, more than any of the Annunciations, more than any of Gustave Doré’s biblical nudes. This building was a marvel, even though its construction had begun so much human confusion. I believed, in my boyish way, that the polyglot citizens of the land must have found some use for such a great tower in the years yet to come, if not as a citadel then as a quarry for future cities. It is this painting, I think, which lay the first stone in my desire to be an architect, my aspiration to span the sky with sanctuary.

  The reception was a crush of light and voices. Standing there, champagne flute in hand, surrounded by the murmur of so many lives, I remembered this painting. We need safe havens, strong buildings to act as theaters for our dreams because our dreams are fictions, as we are.

  DeVere’s security men stood along a wall, beside a stairway, watching. DeVere found a place for himself where he could both greet well-wishers and watch the crowd. I had a bad thought: Fern is outnumbered.

  Why did I think such a thing just then? Nona and I smiled at each other from time to time. She was speaking to a real-estate developer and a coffee heiress, no doubt explaining her work at the hospital, and describing the need for money.

  Someone touched me. I turned. I took a step back, unable to speak.

  She was pale, her hair a remarkable color, like moonlight. She was dressed in a silvery gown that trailed upon the floor.

  She had touched my hand. The touch had been cool, and yet I lifted my hand and cradled it, as though I was in pain. She smiled, as though knowing exactly what I was thinking.

  This was the woman who had entered the hall as I accepted the prize. I must have said something, some stammered pleasantry, because she shook her head, just slightly, to keep me from saying anything more.

  She stepped close, and despite her beauty I involuntarily took a further step back. She swept lightly upon me, and touched my lips with hers.

  Her lips were cool, and there was a fragrance in the air that warmed, as oil of cloves or essence of spearmint will both warm and numb the lips. I wanted to thank her for her congratulations. But I made no sound.

  I have met many remarkable women, and a gentle kiss on an evening like this can communicate exactly the right sort of charm. This woman did look vaguely foreign, so perhaps her command of English was not equal to her poise.

  But I looked into her eyes. It was not the usual moment in which one fumbles for words, embarrassed, distracted. This was something quite different. I knew this woman. But I could not guess how.

  The woman left me. There was a swirl of gown upon the floor. There was a wash of light that followed her through the crowd.

  I stood, my fingers to my lips, and people were talking to me. Familiar faces were beaming at me, and I had to say something. But I was aware that all the sounds, all the voices and gentle laughter, had been silent for a moment in my ears.

  I found Nona and took her elbow, leading her to one side. After we had talked about the people she had met, the actor with the conservatory theater, the executive with Clorox, I stepped as close as I could to her, as though confiding a secret, and said, “Did you see that woman?”

  “Which one?”

  Nona was teasing me, I knew. She was being coy. Everyone here had to be aware of the pale woman in the silver gown. I described her, and Nona smiled and put her nose to mine, both playful and mildly mocking.

  “I didn’t see this queen of the evening,” she said.

  I persisted, and Nona put her hand in mine, the same hand the woman had touched. “No, Stratton. Hone
stly. I didn’t see anyone like that.”

  16

  After the reception, Nona and I found a favorite restaurant for a continuing celebration.

  The owner welcomed us with a cry. I felt slightly embarrassed at his apparent delight in seeing us. We made our way to a secluded corner.

  “You’re a champ, Strater,” said Nona, lifting the flute of yet more champagne. Her eyes dazzled me, the candlelight reflected in them.

  We touched glasses, the crystal making the appropriate music, and I made a heartfelt but flowery comment about being inspired by her presence.

  The award, the champagne, the North Beach restaurant to which we had retreated, were all like the facets of a new kingdom. Even the sight of Fern at a corner of the bar, sipping what looked like a diet cola with an impressive amount of ice, made the evening all the more perfect. Shouldn’t someone as splendid to the eye as Nona have a courtier or two, a palace guard this late in the evening?

  She ran her forefinger over the lip of her crystal, and it made the slightest ringing chime. This should be the beginning of a new point in our affair. I knew that she wanted it to be, as badly as I did.

  But she had a report to write, a proposal to fax to Brussels, an article to finish on neuropathology, and we both knew that this was going to be little more than an interlude between obligations. Even now, she should be in her apartment, revising her proposal.

  “They’re cutting back the number of beds in my ward,” she said. “There’s talk of eliminating my ward totally.”

  I was incredulous. “How can they justify that?”

  “My kids generate publicity during the Shriners’ game, and from time to time a basketball player drops by to have his picture taken with someone like Stuart. But my patients aren’t going to get better. They aren’t suffering dramatic illnesses. They’re just kids facing death.”

  Her offhand way of discussing it made her message all the more impressive. I said, truthfully, “The kids are lucky to have you.”

  “There’s a problem, though. I don’t spend enough time with you,” she said.

  I knew enough to keep silent.

  “I’m always flying to Detroit, or Brussels, or Guadalajara to give a paper on dream imagery among critically injured children. Or childhood reformation of earliest memories. Or any of a dozen other subjects. They are all important. More important than people think. I think no one really understands children. I think I have a chance to open the subject to the eyes of the world. To make them realize how wise, and alive, children are.”

  I took her hand.

  “I know I keep promising this,” she said. “But someday we’re going to have a life together.”

  Someday, I thought. That vague day, that smudge on the horizon that never arrives.

  Fern drove the armored Mercedes, the big car rolling up and down the San Francisco hills. There was a blush of city lights in the clouds overhead, and the night was cool.

  Nona and I kissed, and I let her slip into her apartment.

  I would happily put the evening on rewind all the way back to the restaurant owner crying, “The beautiful couple! Over here—I have your special place,” in a voice so loud everyone in the restaurant turned to look. I could replay our time together over and over, tirelessly.

  When Fern and I were on Nineteenth Street, he said, “There’s someone following us.”

  I craned, looking back. Perhaps I was out of practice. There were headlights. Municipal railway tracks gleamed in the dark.

  I settled back into my seat. “It’s like the old days. Kidnappers. Terrorists.”

  Fern did not speak, and he did not glance into the rearview mirror.

  “Maybe my ex-wife hired a private detective,” I said. “Satisfying her curiosity. Keeping track of my love life.” I could not keep a certain grit from my voice with the last two words.

  Margaret would never have hired someone to follow me. On the other hand, Rick was always being followed. Some woman’s husband had him trailed—it happened fairly often. Or else he owed people money, strong-arm Vegas types.

  “Remember that time you dropped that photographer’s camera at the film festival?” I said.

  “These aren’t reporters.”

  “How do you know? You’re always making these pronouncements. And of course neither of us will ever know whether they were reporters or insurance salesmen, so you end up sounding like you know everything.”

  “It was a nice reception,” said Fern. “Congratulations.”

  Fern drove to Lake Merced. I did not ask him to. Perhaps he knew my moods, after all these years. This was like the old days, too. I used to come here at night. The lake was a surprise to the eye, even when one expected it, and at night as at day it was a chance to look upon something not made by human beings. In the months after Margaret and I split up, Fern and I would drive here, and I would stroll to the edge of the lake and skip stones, sipping cognac from a flask, Fern waiting patiently.

  But Fern did not stop the car. He drove into the neighborhood adjoining the lake. I waited for his professional opinion.

  He said, “Maybe it’s the police.”

  “Looking after me. How thoughtful.”

  He drove, his broad shoulders at ease, his head tilted sideways. “Making sure you aren’t heading for the airport.”

  “The idea has a certain appeal. But why should they care?”

  He did not answer directly. Silence was one of Fern’s devices. He was a quick man who worked slowly. “How are you going to handle DeVere?”

  “The police will protect me,” I said. I meant this ironically, and Fern laughed silently.

  He turned a corner. Shadows of trees rippled over us. “Maybe it’s DeVere people,” he said. “Showing off.”

  “What’s he got to show?”

  Fern said nothing.

  “Are you trying to make me nervous?”

  “If he hurts Nona, what are you going to do?”

  I was ready to laugh. Fern was being ridiculous. Then I couldn’t laugh. “That kind of thing isn’t going to happen.”

  When Fern did not respond to this, I continued, “Don’t worry about DeVere. I can handle him. The world isn’t the kind of place you think it is.”

  Fern parked the car in the garage. He locked the garage and muttered something about doing a “visual” on the interior of the house.

  “It’s all right, Fern. You’re going to make me nervous squinting around at things like that. I think you guys get most of your training watching television, I really do.”

  He did not laugh.

  “The kind of thing you’re worried about,” I began. “That kind of violence. We don’t live like that.”

  “If you say so,” said Fern, and he left me.

  I entered the house. I switched off the burglar alarm, locked the door, loosened my black tie.

  Upstairs, I hurried through my studio, into the bedroom. I splashed a little postaward cognac into a glass, and as I slipped out of my jacket I felt something in the pocket. I was puzzled, because I could see the Milton there on its shelf.

  But it was an envelope, not a feather. Inside was the award. That’s all it was: paper.

  This was the prize. Once I really looked at it, it did resemble one of the more elaborate stock certificates, or the sort of diploma one could buy from the University of Beverly Hills, except smaller, small enough to fit into a pocket.

  All of that fuss, I told myself, all of that ambition over a little piece of paper, a wedding invitation, the announcement of a new partner.

  I had been aware of something as I moved about my room. The light was not the same as it should be. My house lights are on timers, and timers can fail. But this was not too little light. Nor was it too much. I gazed about me.

  And it became clear. I could not tell how I knew, but I did. Was it a trace of perfume in the air, or the weight of a presence, a special, pregnant variety of silence?

  I was not alone.

  17

  The
light in the room had changed. It was brighter, each object glowing. There was a sweet flavor in my mouth.

  I let myself linger at the door to my bedroom, and to my amazement the jamb gave at my touch. It was impossible. Surely it was only in my mind. But the doorway was alive, composed of sensate flesh, taking pleasure as I brushed through it and hurried to the top of the stairs.

  It was a rare moment: I wished I owned a gun.

  I told myself to go back this moment and call Fern. Tell him—

  Tell him what?

  There was a fluttering, and a waft of air touched me as I stood, gazing down the almost perfect darkness of the stairwell.

  I told myself to stay right where I was and think for a moment. Think about what was happening. Too much champagne? Or something else. Something chemical slipped into the victory bubbly, a little hallucinatory juice to speed the revel?

  But there was no question about it. There really was someone downstairs. Were they stealing something? I listened, but there was only the whisper, as of a blanket shaken, a flag rippling. Perhaps it was not a person at all, but some creature.

  I began my descent.

  There was a source of light preceding me, slipping down each gleaming stair. I stopped. I clung to the banister. I told myself to stay where I was.

  Call someone, I thought. Get Fern on his car phone and tell him he was right. Call the police.

  I glided to the doorway of the study. The light was in there. Why wait, I asked myself. Why stand here in your own house, afraid to make a move? Go on in.

  Someone is looking for the family treasure. Everyone assumes that’s what you have here, I told myself. Platinum and the kind of old gold that reminds the eye of sunset. Everyone knows that’s what you have, in a wall safe, or just sitting on shelves, so much bric-a-brac.

  If there were thieves I wanted to confront them myself.

  I stepped into the room.

  The light was only a fire in the fireplace. Nothing more. Flames snapped. The shivering light made the shadows of the shrouded furniture tremble. Perhaps Collie had lit a fire, and left it. The floor seemed to tremble.