{Let me tell you what I saw that day, at that meeting. I saw a woman trying to come to terms with the death of her sister by inexplicable means. She did so by taking what facts she knew about Samuel Tonsure and bending them to a theory that attempted to reconcile the irreconcilable. In that forced assimilation of fact and fancy, Janice, there might have been a fragment of truth, even if only a psychological truth. Perhaps by seeing Tonsure in a different light than I, she advanced my understanding of him one tiny increment.
{Sara Potent’s diatribe about the truth, taking as her basis Stretcher Jones’s rebellion against the Kalif and expanding it to include many of the unanswered questions about Ambergris’ past—wasn’t she, in disguised form, asking the same questions we all have asked from time to time? Does she deserve vilification for trying to think her way through all of this?
{Could you have missed the beauty of Frederick Madnok’s theory that Ambergris is “shadowed” from below by a giant fungus, wide as the city and deep as the city is tall, through which catacomb the tunnels of the gray caps? Could you not see the utter precision and craftsmanship of his many diagrams? The humor of the labeling—a sense of humor that tells the reader that Madnok knows how outlandish his theory may sound.
{There is an art, Janice, to being an outsider, a skill to being a good crackpot. Some people decide to become writers of fiction and this is considered a legitimate endeavor. Others decide to make their expressions of the imagination more personal. I, for one, gained more from that meeting than from any novel I have ever read!}
But the fact is, Duncan didn’t see them as they really were, only as he wanted them to be: a society of visionaries, of dreamers, revolutionaries. Apparently so enthralled by them that he lost his wits for a time, Duncan became anti-social and avoided me. {Who could blame me, considering your attitude then? So similar to your attitude toward Mary. Oh, the irony, considering her attitude toward AFTOIS.} As these crackpots began to take up more and more of his time, he began to forget to bathe. He didn’t change his clothes for weeks on end. He babbled to himself. {I missed Mary terribly. I missed her so much, Janice. I don’t know if you can conceive of how much I missed her.}
Worst of all, Duncan assumed more and more responsibility for the AFTOIS newsletter, as Lacond became sicker, meaning that Duncan wrote less as his increased editorial duties ate up his time.
Like Lacond, Duncan did not censor theories in conflict with his own. Duncan believed, given the inability of most “experts” to absorb the truth about the gray caps, that all outlandish theories should be given an airing, regardless of their validity. He thought that this would make minds receptive to the unusual and improbable, “softening resistance,” as he used to mutter, “to reality. A kind of general insurrection against the complacent surface of things.” {For all the good it did me.}
To this end, the journal, which he edited more and more “in the name of” the still-living Lacond—even writing essays under Lacond’s name—became even more eccentric, and thus ever more dismissed, unread by a populace living in denial. {But some of these theories were beautiful and elegant, no matter how wrong-headed. For example, “morelmancy”—divination of the future from mushrooms…or, as you called it, much to my amusement, “a flowering of spores, long dormant, a colorful array—of insanity.” Not everything beautiful has to be true to have value, you know.}
At least Duncan had seen the truth, or a kind of truth, firsthand. All the rest of these people sitting in their glorified clubhouse listening to why intelligent mushrooms were going to rise to the surface one day and kill everyone—and, in some cases, why they were going to enjoy the experience—these people hadn’t seen the truth. They just didn’t know any better—they were guessing. They were lonely and screaming out for company, or for something to keep out the darkness. Even a crackpot theory is better than no theory at all. Than nobody. Than an abyss.
Like the hole that lies behind me, leading Truff knows where. {Truff may not know where it leads, having more important things on His mind, but you and I both know it leads into the underground. Let me evoke Truff in a more appropriate context: for Truff ’s sake, stop being so melodramatic!}
What were Mary and I doing while Duncan decided to go slumming? I’m so glad you asked. Mary was establishing the beginnings of her brilliant career, which would eventually result in the creation of her stunning flesh necklace. Meanwhile, I climbed further down the ladder of success. I said goodbye to my gallery one murky spring day.
I stood there alone on the street, and Sybel said, “It had a good run. You accomplished a lot. You shouldn’t be too sad. How much longer could it hold together anyway?”
“Once, you said this was just the beginning, Sybel.”
“Did you really believe me? I just told you what you needed to hear.”
“No, you’re right. You’re right.”
I turned to look at him and he was gone, of course. I had to collect my thoughts for a moment after that. Then I walked away without looking back, for fear of bursting into tears.
Escape, escaping, escaped. I’d done it. I was no longer in even the most remote danger of being considered a success. I would have to begin again, in a city I did not entirely trust to help me. I loitered in the same circles, lounged in the same antechambers of vice on occasion, but it was only pretense—a kind of fading afterglow that did not warm the face.
I threw myself on Sirin’s mercy once more. Sirin had taken up his long-ago position at Hoegbotton, with nary a whiff of rumor as to what skullduggery he had involved himself in while he was gone. {I don’t know what he knew about the Hoegbottons to provide him with such protection, but it must have gone beyond mere evidence of embezzlement, adultery, or vice.}
But while Mary received from Sirin first-class treatment in the form of her first book contract, I got a job as a tour guide to Ambergris, my “office” on the first floor of the newly-rebuilt H&S headquarters building. Although we rarely saw each other, Sirin and his rosewood desk lay directly above me. Sometimes I would look up at the ceiling tiles and imagine I saw butterflies fluttering out from between the cracks. There were days, I admit, when I seethed, ground my teeth, floated silent curses toward that ceiling. {The worst admission of all, I suppose, is that I introduced Sirin to Mary a few weeks before the war. It was largely on my recommendation that Sirin, upon his return, inquired with Mary as to the possibility of a book. I didn’t tell you for the obvious reasons.}
To be fair, without my gallery and the tattered, faded cloak of respectability it had conveyed, I could no longer command a prestige position—and Sirin had found younger, cheaper writers for the article assignments that had once gone to Duncan and me. So, five days a week, a trickle of tourists would find their way to my office and sign up for such ridiculous tours as “Gray Cap Haunts and Habitat”—which consisted of showing them where various famous people had been “disappeared” or killed by the gray caps, then descending into the basement of the newly rebuilt Borges Bookstore, a place in which no gray cap had ever been seen. Another favorite tour was the dusk-to-midnight “Haunted Ambergris” expedition, to which I had to bring a measure of acting skills I did not possess, and a ream of notes to read from, since the stories all blended together otherwise. {I imagine I might have been good at this kind of work, if you’d ever given me an invite.}
But the worst tour, over time, was “Literary Highlights of Ambergris,” since, as Sabon’s popularity grew, I would be forced to take them past whatever expensive hovel she was currently renting, where they would gawk and circle, certain they would soon catch a glimpse of the author peering out from behind a curtain.
“This is the home of the controversial and talented Mary Sabon,” began the official spiel I was made to mutter and cough to tourists who may or may not have cared very much.
“It is in this house that Sabon wrote much of her book More Banal Banalities, which disproved many of the more paranoid theories about the gray caps.” And so on and so forth.
; Sometimes, Sybel stared out at me from a nearby tree, sporting a not-unsympathetic smirk on his face and dressed in his most familiar outfit: the woodland greens and browns of his youth.
“Gently, Janice,” he would soothe. “It’s not so bad. It could be worse. I know all about worse.”
“Worse? How much worse could it get?” I would ask him, but by then he was already a mote of dust spiraling at the corner of my eye, and me having confused myself and tourists alike by having spoken aloud.
The more I reflect on it, Sybel had it right: I was, considering the condition of my foot, lucky. My status as Old Relic counterbalanced the crippling whorls of my wooden toes and the grain of my soles. I could diverge from the script to tell stories about the places we visited with a knack for detail and intrigue and personal panache that few other guides could match. I truly had been there when that happened, or this, or this. To pay for my past crimes against public decency, against modesty, I would even sometimes have to guide people to the site of my poor gutted gallery, there to recite a history of it and the fabled New Art. {Do you really believe that Sirin didn’t experience a shiver of perverse satisfaction from forcing you to go back there? I’m sure he did; how could he not?}
I didn’t mind the job too much in those early years, if I’m to be truthful, especially when I didn’t have to do the “Haunted Ambergris” tour, and before I had to stand outside Mary’s home like a fool. At least part of the time a horse and buggy would be employed so I didn’t have to drag my leg around. And business gradually became more robust: the cessation of hostilities soon brought a new wave of the curious—not curious enough to venture over for the Festival, but curious enough to explore during the daylight of other seasons.
Besides, I often contrived to arrive at the Blythe Academy right before lunch, so I could allow those bright-eyed travelers from Morrow or Stockton or Nicea to wander as they would, within reason, while I sat down for a sandwich with Bonmot. At a stone bench. Under the fabled but now considerably more wizened willow trees.
“Tough crowd today?” Bonmot would almost always say, making me smile.
“I’m not a comedian or a juggler, Bonmot. I don’t have to entertain. I just have to lead them around to interesting places.”
“You are such a kind tour guide,” Bonmot would say, trying not to laugh. “To teach them the responsibility of finding their own entertainment.”
“Why not? That’s what I have to do.”
I wish I could say my lunches with Bonmot felt the same as before, but they did not. Yes, a similar sense of contentment, of ease, lingered over those conversations, but it became a more fleeting thing; it did not last as long or affect me as powerfully. Our discussions had limits; we had acquired scars. Bonmot never discussed Duncan, and I, not wishing to give up even the faded pleasure of those lunches, never pressed the point.
If the situation had changed, so had Bonmot. The war had changed him.
“You’re hesitant sometimes now,” I said to him once, during an uncomfortable silence. “You halt on the verge of saying things.”
Bonmot nodded. “You’re right. I halt because I am not certain anymore. The things I thought I knew do not always seem right when I say them, so I say them first in my head, and then speak. Otherwise, it’s as if I were mouthing sawdust. And I miss people who have died, and sometimes when I speak, I see them, because this priest or that priest who has passed on had taught me the truism I was about to say.”
He stared at me with a knowing sadness. “I liked it better when I knew everything.”
A barking laugh. And an echo from Sybel, standing in the willow tree, whispering to me: “I liked it better when I knew nothing.”
For my part, I found it odd to sit there watching the current crop of fresh-faced students make their way across the courtyard—lithe, flushed with success, seemingly innocent—and know that it was just a few years ago that Mary and Duncan and Bonmot had played out their appointed roles of lust, love, secrecy, and discovery. The war lay like an insurmountable black wall between then and now.
I should have mentioned before that the beads of Mary’s flesh necklace actually did have faces and names. As I stood at the base of the stairs, the scarlet imprint of my hand still warm on Mary’s face, about to respond to her hateful words, I remember turning away from her for a moment to stare at them. Let me identify them for you as they come into focus in my memory, that you may know them if you see them: John Batte, Vice-Royal under Bonmot, rose to the post of Royal following Bonmot’s death, and is a staunch supporter of Sabon’s work, even going so far as allowing her access to previously closed Truffidian archives. Sarah Cryller, currently the ambassador to Ambergris from the House of Frankwrithe & Lewden, is a newly risen star still bright-burning who at one time hoped Sabon might defect to her publishing company. The oft-mentioned Merrimount provided Sabon’s “in” to the creative community at large and appeared at many of her book release parties. Jessica Hoegbotton, scion of the House of Hoegbotton, main liaison between the public and Sabon’s words, is the one who laughed loudest at Mary’s joke about Duncan. Daniel Griswald, Antechamber of the Truffidian Church, has teeth that glint like fangs when he grins, which is more often than a stone gargoyle, and who, in his infinite wisdom, has failed to ban any of Sabon’s books, instead embracing them and recommending them to his congregation. And, finally, Mathew Daffed, one of Duncan’s colleagues at Blythe Academy, is now among his most outspoken critics.
And others, still others, whose faces blur even as I conjure up their names. Why did I invite them? Because I had to—Lake demanded it. Even as I condemned them with my gaze, I found that I was surprised—surprised that they should have so disliked my brother, surprised at the fear rising from their faces like steam. {Some of them have been scoundrels at times, but most of the rest of them have caused me no harm, even as they continue to send Mary to her triumph.}
At first, I received updates on Mary’s progress through Bonmot.
“Mary has sold her second book,” Bonmot told me one fall, the willow trees impervious to the change of seasons even as, across the street, oaks became an indignant red-and-orange, and then bald, and a strange whisper of flame spread through the city.
“Her second book,” I said.
It was almost unbearable to receive such information from Bonmot, when every day I could hear the creak and shift of timber above me as Sirin walked between his desk and his precious butterflies. {Worse, worse—I found she had taken up with another man, her own age, the son of her father’s best friend, someone she had known for years. Someone comfortable. Someone safe. Someone with a “III” in his name. I could tolerate the books, because I knew they contained a little piece of me in them, but I could not tolerate that relationship.}
“Yes. It’s called The Inflammation of Aan Tribal Wars. I’ve had a look at it, and it’s excellent. Very well researched. She’s a credit to the school.”
As Duncan was not, went the tired old, silent old refrain. {Bonmot never forgave me, not even at the end. I couldn’t understand that. I’d have forgiven him had our situations been reversed, but, then, I am not a priest. I did see him sometimes, in the last few years before he passed on. When I took walks in Trillian Park, I would discover him sitting on a bench as I turned a corner. He would look up, and our eyes would meet before he could turn away. Those few times, I would see a peace within him that faded as he recognized me. I wouldn’t stop to talk—it was too painful, too maddening, to understand that he could not move past my lapse of judgment. Later, back in my apartment overlooking Trillian Square, I would sit on my balcony drinking wine, analyzing the moment in the park, searching my memory of our brief encounter for some hint of recognition on his part that did not include bitterness or rancor. Sometimes I convinced myself, sometimes I did not.}
Bonmot—to his credit, or perhaps not to his credit—never realized that I might prefer not to hear such details, such confirmation of Mary’s success. Later, when he better understood the humiliatio
n of having to stand outside of her various residences and tell tourists about her, Bonmot stopped telling me. He must have realized by then that her ascent was self-evident.
“That’s nice,” I mumbled. “I am sure it is a very interesting book she has written.” Through a mouthful of my chicken sandwich, looking out of the corner of my eye for my bumbling tourist charges, to make sure they had not gotten into too much trouble.
We studied Truffidian religious texts at lunch sometimes as well. I found them soothing. My God, keep my tongue from evil, my lips from lies. Help me ignore those who slander me. Although I could no longer bring myself to attend services in the newly renovated Truffidian Cathedral or any other enclosed space, I took some measure of comfort from the hymns and sayings. Guardian of happiness, in whose presence despair flees, with Your great compassion grant me the ability to welcome what may come with calm and grace, to experience happiness and joy. When I read them aloud before sleep, the nightmarish images would recede, the red mist of Sybel’s death dissipate. May You find delight in the words of my mouth and in the emotions of my heart. The sensation, when I went to bed, of lying down amongst a row of corpses would lessen, become tolerable. The wise must die, even as the foolish and senseless, leaving their possessions to others.
“Do you like being a tour guide?” Bonmot asked me at one lunch.
“I do,” I said, before I could think about it. If I’d thought about it, I would have said no.
“Why?” he asked, no reproach in his voice, just a genuine curiosity. He had hinted more than once that he could find me a comparable job with the church, but turning my religion into a daily chore, complete with choir, didn’t interest me.
“Why?” Why did I like working as a tour guide? In those early years: “Because I get to be outside a lot. I get to see the city afresh, from the perspective of those unfamiliar with her.”
Shriek: An Afterword Page 33