“Gustav,” Marcel’s ghost said, sliding an arm around him, smelling of male sweat and Pernod. “Grab a chair. Sit down. Long time no see, eh?”
Gustav shrugged and accepted the brimming tumbler of wine that was offered. If it was foreal—which he doubted—this and a few more of the same might help him sleep tonight. “I thought you were in Venice,” he said. “As the Doge.”
Marcel shrugged. There were breadcrumbs on his moustache. “That was ages ago. Where have you been, Gustav?”
“Just around the corner, actually.”
“Not still painting are you?”
Gustav allowed that question be lost in the music and the conversation’s ebb and flow. He gulped his wine and looked around, expecting to see Elanore at any moment. So many of the others were here—it was almost like old times. There, even, was Francine dancing with a top-hatted man—so she clearly wasn’t across the sky. Gustav decided to ask the girl in the striped dress who was nearest to him if she’d seen Elanore. He realised as he spoke to her that her face was familiar to him, but he somehow couldn’t recollect her name—even whether she was living or a ghost. She shook her head, and asked the woman who stood leaning behind her. But she, also, hadn’t seen Elanore; not, at least, since the times when Marcel’s Venice when Francine was across the sky. From there, the question rippled out across the square. But no one, it seemed, knew what had happened to Elanore.
Gustav stood up and pushed between the twirling dancers beneath the lantern-strung trees. His skin tingled as he stepped out of the reality and the laughter and the music suddenly faded. Avoiding any other such encounters, he made his way back up the dim streets to his tenement.
There, back at home, the light from the setting moon was bright enough for him to make his way through the dim wreckage of his life without falling—and the terminal that Elanore’s ghost had reactivated still gave off a virtual glow. Swaying, breathless, Gustav paged down into his accounts, and saw the huge sum—the kind of figure that he associated with astronomy, with the distance of the moon from the earth, the earth from the sun—that now appeared there. Then, he passed back through the terminal’s levels, and began to search for Elanore.
But Elanore wasn’t there.
Gustav was painting. When he felt like this, he loved and hated the canvas in almost equal measures. The outside world, foreal or in reality, ceased to exist for him.
A woman, naked, languid, and with a dusky skin quite unlike Elanore’s, is lying upon a couch, half-turned, her face cupped in her hand that lies upon the primrose pillow, her eyes gazing away from the onlooker at something far off. She seems beautiful but unerotic, vulnerable yet clearly available, and self-absorbed. Behind her—amid the twirls of bright yet gloomy decoration—lies a glimpse of stylised rocks under a strange sky, whilst two oddly disturbing figures are talking, and a dark bird perches on the lip of a balcony; perhaps a raven…
Although he detests plagiarism, and is working solely from memory, Gustav finds it hard to break away from Gauguin’s nude on this canvas he is now painting. But he really isn’t fighting that hard to do so, anyway. In this above all of Gauguin’s great paintings, stripped of the crap and the despair and the self-justifying symbolism, Gauguin was simply right. So Gustav still keeps working, and the paint sometimes almost seems to want to obey him. He doesn’t know or care at the moment what the thing will turn out like. If it’s good, he might think of it as his tribute to Elanore; and if it isn’t…Well, he knows that, once he’s finished this painting he will start another one. Right now, that’s all that matters.
Elanore was right, Gustav decides, when she once said that he was entirely selfish, would sacrifice everything—himself included—just so that he could continue to paint. She was eternally right and, in her own way, she too was always searching for the next challenge, the next river to cross. Of course, they should have made more of the time that they had together, but as Elanore’s ghost admitted at that Van Gogh café when she finally came to say goodbye, nothing could ever quite be the same.
Gustav stepped back from his canvas and studied it, eyes half-closed at first just to get the shape, then with a more appraising gaze. Yes, he told himself, and reminded himself to tell himself again later when he began to feel sick and miserable about it, this is a true work. This is worthwhile.
Then, and although there is much that he still has to do and the oils are wet and he knows that he should rest the canvas, he swirls his brush in a blackish puddle of palette-mud and daubs the word NEVERMORE across the top and steps back again, wondering what next to paint.
Afterword
In retrospect Nevermore feels like the beginning of my long flirtation with the theme of death—and life of a kind, after death. I have to confess that, though I’ve been to Paris several times since, this story was written before I’d ever visited that fine city. The whole struggling artist/garret thing just seemed such an obvious a fit, and I was able to rely quite heavily on my love of impressionist art (most of which I’d also never then seen in the flesh, the greatest collection of it being at the d’Orsay in Paris) to fill in the many yawning gaps in my knowledge. It helped, of course, that this is a story where paint and reality blur.
There are a fair few pieces which I’ve written with success over the years about places I’ve never been to. For obvious reasons I probably didn’t crow about it that much at the time, but no one seemed to notice my leap of faith into an unknown territory, or the many I’ve made since. Or if they do, they don’t care enough to tell me about it. Of course, one of the many joys of fantastic fiction is that it liberates you from the need to be completely true to the reality. Not that more supposedly “naturalistic” writers should worry too much, and I’m sure they don’t. Every place in every work of fiction is a creation of the writer’s imagination, just as much as every painting is.
Second Journey of the Magus
HE TRAVELLED THE SAME WAY, but there was heat this time instead of the dark of winter, and nothing of the lands which he had passed through more than thirty years before was the same. Gone were the quiet houses, the patchwork fields, the lowland shepherds offering to share their skins of wine. Instead, there were goats unmilked, bodies bloating in ditches, fruit left to rot on the branch. And people were fleeing, armies were marching. Fear and dust hazed the roads.
He followed hidden tracks. He camped quietly and alone. He lit no fire, ate raisins and dry bread. He spoke no prayers. Although an old man, weak and unarmed, he felt resignation rather than fear. His camel was of far greater value than he was, and he knew he could never to return to Persia. At least, alive. The Emperor, if he ever knew of his journey, would regard it as treason, and the Zoroastrian priests would scourge his body for honouring a false God.
He came at last to the Euphrates. There were palms and green hills rising from the marshes, but the villages all around were empty. He sat down by the broad blue river as his camel drank long and loud, and quietly mourned for his two old friends. Melchior, who had first read of that coming birth in the scriptures of a primitive tribe. Gaspar, who had found the right quadrant in the stars to pilot their way. And, he, Balthazar, who had accompanied them because he had ceased to believe in anything, and wished to see the emptiness of all the world and the entire heavens proven with his own eyes. That, he supposed, was why he had chosen to bring an unguent for embalming corpses as his gift for this king he never expected to find.
A boat was moored, nudging anxiously into the current as if it feared to be left alone in this greenly desolate place. It was evening by the time Balthazar had refound his resolve and persuaded his half-hobbled camel to board the vessel with murmured spells, then made small obeisance to the gods of the river, and poled into the inky currents beyond the reeds. The sky in the west darkened as sprites of wind played around him, but, even as the moon rose and stars strung the heavens, even as he re-moored the boat on the far side and set off across a land which soon withered to desert, the western horizon ahead remained aflame.
He knew enough about war to understand the dark eddies and stillnesses which he had already witnessed on his journey, but it seemed to him that the battleground he encountered as the dawn sun rose at his back and brightness glared ahead was the stillest, darkest place on earth. All Persians should be grateful, he supposed, that this resurgent Hebrew kingdom had turned its wrath against the Empire of Rome. A strategist would even say that war between powerful neighbours can only bring good to your own lands—he had heard that very thing said in the bars of Kuchan—but that presupposed some balance in the powers which fought each other. There was no balance here. There was only death.
Blackened skulls. Blackened chariots. Heaps of bone, terribly disordered. The way the Roman swords and shields were melted as if put to the furnace. The way the helmets were caved in as if crushed between giant fists. Worst still, somehow, was the sheer value of what had been left here, ignored, discarded, when every battlefield Balthazar had ever witnessed or heard of in song was a place ripe for looting. This great Roman army, with its engines and horses, with the linked plate metal walls of irresistibly fearless men and raining arrows, had been obliterated as if by some fiery hurricane. And then everything simply left. It was hard to find a way across this devastation. He had to blindfold his camel and sooth the moaning creature with quiet visions of oases to keep it calm. He wished that he could blindfold himself, but, strangely, there was nothing here to offend his mouth and nose. There were no flies even as his feet sunk through puddled offal and he climbed mountains of bones. The only smell was a faint one of some odd kind of perfume, such as the waft you might catch from the beyond the curtains of the temple of some unknowable god.
The noon sun was hot, but the blaze in the west had grown brighter still. He remembered that star, the one which Gaspar had been so certain would somehow detach itself from the heavens to lead them. Had it now reignited and settled here on earth? Was that what lay ahead? He swathed his face against the burning light and drifting ash. It seemed to him now that he’d always been destined to re-take this journey at the end of his life. If nothing else, it was due as penance.
The three men who had taken this journey before had thought themselves wise, and were acknowledged in their own lands as priests, kings, magi. Then, unmistakably even to Balthazar’s dubious gaze, a single star had hovered before them, and did not move as the rest of the heavens revolved. It went beyond all reason. It destroyed everything he understood, but the people they asked as they passed through this primitive outpost of the Roman Empire could speak of nothing in their ragged tongue but vague myths of an ancient king called David, and of a great uprising to come. They did not understand the stars, or the ancient scripts. They only understood the gold which the three magi laid upon their palms.
Finally, though, they reached the city called Jerusalem. It was the administrative capital of this little province, and truly, from its fallen walls and the pomp with which the priests of the local god bore themselves, it did seem to be the remnant of a somewhere which had once been far greater. The local tetrarch was called Herod, and even to the cultured eyes of the three magi, his palace was suitably grand. It was constructed on a sheer stone platform with high walls looking out across the city, and surrounded by groves of fine trees, bronze fountains, glittering canals. Thus, the three magi thought, as they were led through mosaic-studded halls, does Rome honour and sustain those who submit to its power.
They were put at their ease. They were given fine quarters, soft clean beds and hot baths. Silken girls brought them sherbet. Dancing girls danced barefoot. Here, at last, they felt that they were being treated as the great emissaries that they truly were. Herod, bloated on his throne, struck Balthazar as little man made large. But he could converse in Greek, and the three magi could think of no reason why they should not ask for his advice as to the furtherance of their quest. And that advice was given—generously, and without pause. Astrologers were summoned. Holy books were unfurled, and the bearded priests of this region who clustered around them agreed that, yes, such was the prophecy of which these ancient scriptures spoke—of a new king, of the lineage of a king called David who had once made this city great in the times of long ago. The three magi were sent on their way from Jerusalem with fresh camels, full bellies and happy hearts. Herod, they agreed, as they rode toward the star which now seemed even brighter in the firmament, might be a slippery oaf, but at least he was a hospitable one.
The roads were clogged. It was the calling, apparently, of a census, despite it being the worst time of the year. Not an auspicious moment, either, Balthazar couldn’t help thinking, for a woman to travel if she was heavy with child. He discussed again with Melchior as they pushed with the crowds and the sleeting rain past the camps of centurions and lines of crucified criminals. Remind me again—is this child supposed to be a man, or a god? But the answer he got from his friend remained meaningless. For how can the answer be both yes, and yes? How can something be both? Difficulties, then, with finding somewhere to reside, for all the documents of passage Herod had so kindly given them, and Gaspar’s navigation was no longer so sure. For all that this star glowed out at them like a jewel set in the firmaments both day and night, no one could offer guidance on their quest, and none bar a few wandering shepherds seemed to notice that the star was even there.
Then they came at last to a small town by the name of Bethlehem, and it was already night, and it was clear that whatever this strange light in the heavens signalled had happened here. They enquired at the inns. They spoke once again to the so-called local wise men, although this time, more warily. They made no mention of gods or kings. At the start of this journey, Balthasar had imagined himself—although he had never believed it would truly happen—being led to some glowing presence which would rip down the puny veils of this world. But he realised now that whatever it was that they sought would be painfully humble, and all three magi had began to fear for the fate of the family involved.
It was a stable, at the back of the cheapest and most overcrowded of all the inns. They would have been sent away entirely had not Melchior known to ask as the door was being slammed in their faces about a family from a town called Nazareth. So they had reached the place toward which the star and the prophecies long been leading them, on the darkest and most hopeless of nights, and in coldest time of the year. There was mud, of course, and there was the ordure. There was little shelter. Precious little warmth, as well, apart from that which came from the fartings and breathings of the animals. The woman was still exhausted from birth, and she had laid the baby amid the straw in a feeding trough, and the man seemed…not, it struck Balthasar, the way any proud husband would. He was dumbstruck, and in awe.
They should, by rights, have simply turned and left. Offered their apologies for the disturbance, perhaps, and maybe a little money to help see this impoverished family toward their next meal. Balthasar thought at first that that was all Melchior planned to do when he stepped forward with a small bag of gold. But then he had fallen to his knees on this filthy floor before the child in that crude cot. And Gaspar, bearing a bowl of incense, did the same. These were the gifts, Balthasar now remembered, that his two friends had always talked of bearing. Now, he felt he had no choice but to prostrate himself as well, and offer the gift which he had never imagined he would be called to present. Gold, for a king, and frankincense, for a man of God—yes, those gifts were understandable, if the prophecies were remotely true. But myrrh symbolised death, if it symbolised anything at all. Then the baby had stirred, and for a moment, Balthasar had felt he was part of something. And that something had lingered in his mind and his dreams through all the years since.
He had spoken about that moment as Melchior lay on his deathbed back in Persia. Yes, his old friend agreed in dry whisper, perhaps a god really had chosen to manifest itself in that strange way, and in that strange place. Perhaps he had even moved the heavens so that they could make that long journey bearing those particular gifts. But Melchior was fa
ding rapidly by then, falling into pain and stinking incontinence which the castings of spells and prayers could not longer assuage. As his friend spasmed in rank gasps, Balthasar couldn’t bring himself to frame the other question which had robbed him of so many nights of sleep. For if that baby really was the manifestation of an all-powerful god, why had that god chosen to make them the instruments of the terror which occurred next?
The three magi had left the stable at morning under a sky doused in rain, and they knew without speaking that they must return quietly and secretly to Persia, and should spread no further word. But, through their vain discussions in Herod’s opulent palace, it was already too late. Rumours of a boy king was the last thing this restless province needed, and the remedy which Herod enacted was swift and efficient in the Roman way. Word came like a sour wind after the three supposedly wise men that every male child recently born in Bethlehem had been slaughtered, and they returned to their palaces in Persia half-convinced that they had seen the manifestation of a great god, but certain that that god was dead.
So it had remained in all the years since, through Balthasar’s increasing decrepitude, and the loss of his wives, and deaths of his oldest friends. But then had come rumour from that same territory in the west of a man said to have been born in the very place and manner which they had witnessed, who was now performing great miracles, and proclaimed himself King of the race the Romans called the Jews. It had been four years, as Balthasar calculated, since this man had emerged as if from the same prophesies which Melchior had once shown him on those ancient scrolls. And seemed to Balthasar now that this last journey had always been predestined, and that the only thing which he had been waiting for was the imminence of his own death.
Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories of Ian R. MacLeod Page 10