GENESIS (Projekt Saucer)

by W. A. Harbinson

  Richard licked his dry lips and looked reluctantly around him. Two varnished doors, one at either side, leading into more rooms. One of the doors was open. Light poured out around it. He knew it was the room that he had seen from the driveway: the room with the velvet drapes and chandelier and rich mahogany table. He took a deep breath, not alone, sensing someone, remembering the silhouettes in the white haze, the woman’s red hair and green eyes. Then he walked to the open door. The silence swam out to surround him. He pushed the door back and stepped in and then stopped, feeling even more frightened.

  She was sitting at the far end of the table, her red hair tumbling down, the green eyes very bright, even now, at this considerable distance. She was staring directly at him, perfectly still, almost frozen. She was wearing a black evening gown, flowery frills around the sleeves, and her right hand was holding a glass of what looked like red wine. Though a chandelier was hanging above her head, the table was further illuminated with flickering candles.

  Yes, Richard was frightened. Her green eyes were insane. She raised her glass and sipped at the wine and then set the glass down.

  ‘I was expecting you,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I just knew you were coming,’ she said. ‘Don’t ask me how. I just knew.’

  Richard didn’t move toward her. He was frightened and confused. He didn’t know why he was here, couldn’t believe that he was here, felt unreal and divorced from himself, not in charge of his actions. The woman just sat there, staring at him, not smiling. In the black dress, surrounded by flickering candles and antiques, she looked like someone from long ago. Another time, another age. Richard hardly knew where he was. He had the feeling that he had stepped into a dream from which he might not escape. His headache had gone, but the fear lingered on. He stood there, near the door, staring at her, wondering who had informed her.

  ‘How did you know?’ he said.

  ‘I told you not to ask that.’

  ‘I had to come,’ he said. ‘I just had to. I have to know why.’

  She smiled bleakly and raised her glass, sipped more wine, set the glass down. The glass made a sharp ringing sound that made Richard’s heart leap.

  ‘Why did you have to come?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Richard said. ‘I’d forgotten – I was trying to forget

  – and then it all rushed back to me. I started having bad headaches. I thought the headaches were going to kill me. I heard voices, or I thought I heard voices, and kept thinking of you. I just had to come. It seemed imperative that I come. I had the feeling, I had this thing in my head, that said to come here would cure me. The headaches were really bad. They drove me out of my apartment. I didn’t know what to do, I couldn’t think of anything else, just… the train… I thought of catching the train, and that made it seem better.’

  ‘And your headache has gone?’

  ‘I think so. I hope so.’

  ‘How strange,’ she said. ‘My headache’s gone as well. It’s very strange… I’m not frightened.’

  Her declaration frightened Richard. He glanced nervously around the room. He didn’t know what he was expecting to see, but he had to look anyway. A long wall lined with books. Velvet curtains, framed paintings, various trophies, the glint of bottles and glasses. The long table was illuminated. Her green eyes were slightly shadowed. The shadows deepened where they swallowed the corners, creating eerie, gargoyle shapes. Richard shivered, feeling cold, wondering vaguely where he actually was. He glanced around him and then stared at the woman, feeling desperate, in need of her.

  ‘How are you?’ he asked.

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘How are you?’

  She looked bemused, brow furrowed, not believing what she had heard, then she put her head back, the hair gleaming, burning red, tumbling over her bare, convulsed shoulders as her laughter exploded.

  ‘What…?’

  ‘Oh, my God!’ Her laughter reverberated around the room, a shocking sound, possibly insane, devoid of humor or warmth. ‘Oh, my God, what a question!’

  Richard froze where he stood. ‘Shut up,’ he said quietly.

  ‘How are you?’ the woman gasped, getting her breath back. ‘What a question to ask me!’ Then she burst out laughing again. Hysterical laughter.

  Richard stepped forward, hardly knowing what he was doing, seeing bright light, deep shadows, glinting glass, flickering candles, the chairs stacked against the table, all empty, there for ghosts, her laughter whiplashing the silence, demented, a jagged sound. He slapped her face. It was a single, precise blow. The laughter ceased as her head jerked to the side, and froze there, green eyes wide. She took a deep breath. She stared at the opposite wall, her eyes unnaturally bright, her lips forming a tight line, holding in a cold fury. Richard stepped back, pulled a chair out and sat in it. The woman stared at the wall, leaning forward, turned sideways, then she straightened up and took a deep breath and touched her cheek with her left hand.

  ‘You hurt me,’ she said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Richard said. ‘I didn’t know what else to do. You sounded hysterical.’

  She touched her cheek again, smiled ruefully, picked her glass up, sipped some wine and then put the glass down and pushed the bottle toward him.

  ‘Have a drink,’ she said. ‘I think you need a drink. Before the night’s out, you’ll need it more, but you probably won’t get it.’

  ‘What does that mean?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know what any of this means… I only know that it’s happening.’

  Richard poured himself a drink, noticed that his hand was shaking, quickly set the bottle back on the table and returned his gaze to the woman.

  ‘How did you know I was coming here?’

  ‘I just knew,’ the woman replied. ‘I just had the feeling… a very strong feeling.’

  ‘You left the front door open.’

  ‘Yes, I left it open.’

  ‘You don’t leave a front door open for a mere feeling. It must have been more than that.’

  The woman just smiled. Her green eyes were strange. They were bright, but they were looking straight at him as if not really seeing him. Richard felt himself shivering. He reached out for his glass of wine. He picked it up and turned it around and saw the candlelight reflected in it, forming a blood-streaked, yellow eye.

  ‘Drink it,’ the woman said. ‘It’s not poisoned. It won’t hurt you, I promise.’

  Richard drank some wine. He set the glass back on the table. The woman watched him with that strange, bright intensity, her left hand tightly clenched.

  ‘Where’s your husband?’ Richard asked.

  ‘He’s not here right now.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ the woman said. ‘He left me five months ago.’ ‘Left you? You mean for good?’

  ‘Yes, I mean for good. The poor man thought his wife was going mad, so he packed up and left.’

  ‘So are you going mad?’

  ‘Possibly. I think so.’ She picked her glass up and drank some more wine, then licked the rim with a pink tongue. ‘I rarely sleep these days,’ she said. ‘I get nightmares when I do sleep. I get angry, start smashing things up, wreck the place, rip the phones out.’ She set her glass back on the table, lit a cigaret, inhaled, turned her head aside to exhale the smoke, slowly turned back to face him. ‘We had dreadful rows,’ she said. ‘I never knew what I was saying. I just hated him – no reason – just hated him and wanted to get rid of him. I had to be on my own. I don’t know why – I just had to. I wanted to be alone in this mausoleum, where I could wait… wait for something… Naturally, he left me. I could barely live with myself. I had headaches, like migraines, bad dreams, really terrible, then he left me and it all went away and I sat back and waited. I’ve been waiting for five months.’

  She exhaled cigaret smoke, let it swirl around her face, a blue haze disguising her fading good looks, the lines of tens
ion and loss. Yes, she had changed. Her face advertised the fear. Richard now saw a woman much older, quietly mad, disappearing.

  ‘Waiting?’ he asked. ‘Waiting for what?’

  She shrugged, shook her head, studied her glowing cigaret, looked at him as if looking through him, nicked ash to the floor.

  ‘Fucked if I know,’ she said. ‘I just know there’s something happening. Last night I had a headache, went to sleep and dreamed about you. I woke up and thought my head was coming apart, but I kept thinking of you. I knew then that you were coming. I was convinced that when you came I’d be cured, so I opened the front door.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ Richard said.

  ‘Is it? You really think so? And yet you had a headache, it drove you out of your apartment, it compelled you to catch a train to Cornwall, it drove you all the way here… Are we both…? Are we crazy?’

  Richard glanced around the room. A nineteenth-century drawing room. The shadows swallowed the corners, crept along the bookshelves, crawled across the floor and faded out against a bright pool of light. Another time, another age. Another age, another place. He sipped his wine and felt the shifting of his mind, slipping away through a black hole. He wasn’t here; he was there – somewhere else, far away – here and there, which were one and the same, divorced from reality. Then he stared at the woman. Her green eyes swam in the shadows: mad eyes, obsessed with what was coming, seeing more than they understood.

  ‘What happened?’ Richard asked. ‘That day on the moors. I remember the silhouettes in the white haze. Only that. Nothing else.’

  The woman licked her upper lip, unfocused eyes wandering, returning, fixing upon him, looking through him and beyond him, going back, finding nothing.

  ‘Why ask me?’ she said. ‘I remember no more than you. I woke up three days later, in the car, in the same place, and drove straight home, not understanding what had happened, not really believing it. I remembered the start of it. That huge aircraft in the haze. I remembered the saucers flying around us, the lights beaming in on us. Then nothing. Oblivion. I woke up and you weren’t there. It was dawn and I thought I’d slept there all night, that I’d somehow passed out. So, I drove back here, went to bed and slept all day. I got up, had some food, watched TV, and found out that three days had passed. Then the headaches started. The nightmares, the fear. When my husband asked me where I had been, I told him to fuck off. Later, when he tried to make love to me, I flinched with revulsion. I couldn’t understand it. I just knew I had to get rid of him. I had fits and started wrecking the house, and he left me eventually. It was easier after that: no more nightmares, no headaches. Just people… I couldn’t stand to see people, so I stayed in the house. I just hung around all day. I drank a lot and that helped me. I knew something was happening, would happen, but I didn’t know what. No nightmares, no fear. That all started again last night. I knew then that it had happened, that it hadn’t been a dream, and I knew that you would come here tonight and that soon it would end.’

  ‘What would end?’ Richard asked.

  ‘I don’t know. I just know it will end.’

  She stubbed her cigaret out, picked her glass up, drank some wine, set the glass back on the table, looked at it, then smacked it away. The noise made Richard twitch. He glanced at the table. The glass was lying on its side, reflecting the candlelight, still rocking slightly from side to side, the red wine pouring out across the table and dripping down to the floor. Richard looked at the woman. She stood up and smoothed her dress. She was tall and slim, her face pale and fatigued, still elegant, her hair gleaming in the light, falling onto her shoulders.

  ‘Did the police come?’ Richard asked.

  ‘The police?’ She looked puzzled. ‘No, not the police… Some men came, wearing black suits. Briefcases… From the government… Took notes.’

  ‘About a week after it happened?’

  ‘No. About a month. They said it was just routine. They took notes. I haven’t seen them since then.’

  ‘They came a month after the event?’

  ‘That’s right. A good month.’

  ‘What did you tell them?’

  ‘I told them what I remembered about the incident. I don’t think they believed me.’

  Her gaze was steady, but unfocused. She was still standing in front of her chair. The shadows fell across her face, across the swell of her breasts. Richard stared at her, mesmerized. She moved slightly and the light from the chandelier fell upon her hands. Her fingers were locked loosely together, long and thin, a pale web.

  ‘What did they say?’ Richard whispered.

  The woman shrugged. ‘Nothing much. They told me they had seen you, that you’d told them what had happened, that they just wanted to confirm that it was true. I told them what I remembered. It wasn’t much, but they wrote it down. Two men, quietly spoken, polite. I haven’t seen them since then.’

  ‘You confirmed that it really happened?’

  ‘I confirmed what I remembered. When I got to the beam of light, they just smiled, not believing a word of it. They said I had seen the planet Venus. They got in their car and drove off and have not been back since.’

  She still stood there, gazing around her, far away, not really present, a ghostly lady in a long, flowing dress, the walls behind her in shadow. Richard couldn’t grasp what was happening. His fear blossomed in the silence. He looked up and saw her glittering eyes, their bright, unfocused depths. What was he doing here? What were they both waiting for? Richard thought of standing up and walking out, but his head tightened instantly. He knew then that he wouldn’t leave. His gaze fastened on the woman’s breasts. He breathed deeply and the threatened pain faded and his head felt more normal.

  ‘This is crazy,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘it’s crazy.’

  ‘I’m frightened, but I don’t really know why.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

  Richard felt a sudden chill, remembering the dazzling white haze, remembering that what she’d said at that moment had frightened him more. It’s all right. It’s all right. He recalled the words clearly. He now looked at her green eyes, too bright, surveying the room, and he knew, even through his mounting fear, that in some way he needed her.

  ‘We’ve been brought together,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I think so.’

  ‘Why?’ he said. ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It’s all right. It’s all right.’

  She gently bit her lower lip, staring past him, through the windows, looking up at the black, star-flecked sky, her eyes searching, appealing. A shiver ran down Richard’s spine, made him feel more defenceless. He saw the darkness lying over the lawns outside, a fine line of mushrooming trees. The stars were bright and multitudinous, offering silence, revealing nothing, and he returned his gaze to the woman and felt the fear deepening.

  ‘I feel tired,’ he said obliquely.

  ‘It’s very tired,’ she replied.

  ‘Do I stay here? Is that what I do? I have to stay here… the headaches.’

  The woman just smiled, a strange smile, not her own. She raised her right hand and stroked her red hair, flecks of steel in her green eyes.

  ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘the headaches… Something’s happening… It’s all right… Yes, of course, you have to stay here… We both have to stay here.’

  Richard was mesmerized. Her black dress flowed on her body. She was tall, her skin white, very elegant, spectral in the shadowed light.

  ‘Can I sleep here?’ Richard asked.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You should sleep. You’ll feel better.’

  They stared at one another. The wind moaned across the lawns. The candles flickered on the table, their light defeated by the light from the chandelier, a larger pool of light around them both: a pool of light in the darkness.

  ‘I’ll take you up,’ the woman said.

  ‘Thanks,’ Richard said. ‘I haven’t actually brought anything with me… No
pyjamas… No towels.’

  The woman waved her right hand, a languid, eloquent gesture. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘It’s all right. I’m always ready for guests.’

  Richard stood up awkwardly, his body aching and weak, glanced up and was blinded by the chandelier, looked away, his eyes sparkling. The corners of the room were dark. Glasses glittered in a cabinet. He saw his shadowy reflection in the glass, a wavering ghost, nonexistent. Then he saw another reflection, a flowing form, incorporeal, felt a chill and turned around and saw the woman advancing slowly upon him.

  ‘This way,’ she said, touching him lightly as she passed, her long fingers outspread, brushing briefly across his chest, then falling back to her side as she walked on, the dress rustling around her.

  Richard followed her out, stepping into the hallway, a pulse beating nervously in his stomach as he walked toward the stairs. The hall seemed very large. It looked bigger than it was. They advanced across the carpet, the woman’s dress rustling lightly, then the woman put her hand on the bannister and calmly walked up.

  Richard followed her, feeling strange, more unnerved by her calmness, confused, not really knowing what was happening, wondering if he was still sane. None of this seemed real – not the house, not the stairs, not the lights that bled weakly from the walls and fell over the woman. He reached out for the bannister. It was smooth to his touch. He looked up at the woman, at the swaying of her hips, his gaze traveling along her bare arm to her wrist, the white flesh on the polished wood. She was real. It was happening. They both stepped onto the landing. The woman looked back over her shoulder and smiled enigmatically… then she walked away from him.

  Richard followed her, feeling cold, along the balcony, through the shadows, the wall-lamps hanging downward, glowing dimly, a modest aid in the gloom. The woman stopped at a closed door, put her hand out, turned the knob, gently pushed the door open and then stepped back, waving Richard inside. He glanced at her, saw the smile, a strange smile, not her own, then he shivered and brushed past her and stepped in, his should grazed by her breasts.