The Fabrications

by Baret Magarian

There was a rumble of thunder. It sounded like artillery fire in the sky, evidence of some distant, mythic war. He looked up to see the sky illumined with eerie light at its edges. The moon was shining, a disc of purest white, one of its corners slightly cloaked. He wondered why it wasn’t splitting up or shedding cosmic tears. How dare it still be hanging there?

  One of the firemen came up to Layor and yelled, ‘Rain, that’s what you need, sir, some of that.’

  Layor nodded, without really understanding. He nodded out of habit, which had its roots in the conditioned impulse to convince those around him he was in control, that he understood. But he was not in control. He did not understand. He felt he too was going to ignite, to burst into a ball of flame, spinning away, a skeleton carried by the wind.

  A crack of fork lightning flashed and died across the sky. The ensuing thunder, for its duration, rivaled the roar of the fire. A large part of a wall came crashing down; the dust that would have bloomed was lost in the debris continually being created. At the moment of the flames’ writhing life there came the evidence of its handiwork; no time needed to elapse for the effects of the fire to be measurable. He turned to look, tears rolling down his face, at the residual audience. They were not so bad; oddly, he now felt comforted by their presence, and then he turned to meet the eyes of the woman beside him. As he glimpsed her pale porcelain skin and crimson hair, he found her mild, gentle features sustained him. He reached for her soft hand. He tried to imprint the shape and texture of her face onto his mind. Her hair was sticking to her forehead in little curls, sweat causing it to cling, the patterns of the fire reflected in her limpid, mild eyes. She had been unravelled by the trauma of the night; emotions the air was heavy with had latched onto her and made her strikingly beautiful.

  So a frail river of joy formed from the sea of his pain. She watched him, alert to the sense that he had awakened, from a deep sleep or dream. Then she took to thinking of her flower shop and of how she needed water and light for her flowers. And of how water was what the human body mainly consisted of. And that the moon must therefore control humans as the moon controlled the tides through the pull of its gravitational force and humans were like the tides; they were high and low...

  As she was thinking these things, she didn’t feel the light, imperceptible tingling on her skin and she didn’t hear the hiss of drizzle and she didn’t see the people in their pyjamas peering up at the sky, didn’t see them dispersing, darting about, taking shelter.

  An ear-splitting crack of lightning burst out of nowhere; its sound was terrifying, a metallic, shattering intrusion, and its target was a part of the roof, which instantly ignited. The whole of the street was chillingly illuminated for a split second. It was almost as if nature was showing off its greater power, provoked into life by the domestic fire it now mocked. But just as the new flames born of the lightning danced wildly, they were stymied by pelting rain. The rain was of such a tropical cast – in seconds it was forming warm, swirling rivers which flowed from the pavement, ran into the gutters, seemed to churn the cobblestones – that he half expected to turn around and see tapirs slithering out of the gutters, chimps swinging from roof to roof, or some exotic, multi-colored bird bank out of the sky and glide toward him. These thoughts raced, imitating the perpetual motion of the rain whose lines were brilliantly brought out in the glare of the flames, so they became a million broken, oblique shards of light. All at once, the fire lost some of its momentum and trembled uncertainly, a giant in the process of being felled. The rain was beating it into submission, confusing it. Burnt out parts of the house were revealed. Everything was swirling, the elements indistinguishable. He heard laughter beside him and turned, astonished, to Lilliana whose face was re-shaped by a tentative smile, the rain streaming down her face. The firemen had moved away from the house; they were shouting inarticulately, their faces coated and caked in dirt.

  ‘It’s going out,’ one yelled above the hissing. Alastair Layor nodded at him and stared at the half of his house gradually being revealed, the half still standing. The flames were dying, shuddering with final flourishes. In a few more moments, in the moments it might take to water a plant, to address and seal a letter, to cut a cake into equal portions, the fire was spent.

  Oily smoke coiled and writhed, alternately concealing and revealing ravaged outlines. Wooden stumps were on the point of disintegration; ashes and wires dangled, planks hung suspended, having nothing to connect with, no floor to be incorporated within. On the right side of the house a faint specter of domesticity persisted: a window frame, a bed and a painting discernible inside. It was strange to see through the pattering rain this collapsed, ravaged shell hanging onto its intact other half.

  Layor, soaking now, his hair greasy and shapeless, couldn’t digest the damage, couldn’t take it in. His relief at the fact of the fire’s extinction was instantly quashed by the unchanging reality before him. Somehow what he was now looking at was even more terrible; while the fire had lasted the hope of its being put out sustained him; now that it was out, the flux had hardened into this – unalterable wreckage. Through the rain his house stood decimated; in the sunshine it would be no different.

  The firemen were standing, sitting around, getting their breath back, sipping at mugs of coffee, their oilskins glowing. The blue lights on the fire engines revolved, blurred by the rain. Layor looked around him; by now, most people had gone home. He searched for Lilliana. She already seemed so important to him now. Eventually he made her out, approaching with a blanket and an umbrella, her dripping hair all curled around her face. Her dress was glued to her so the delicate lines of her torso were clearly outlined through the rain dance. She wrapped the blanket around him and very gently took his hand. He stared ahead of him, struck by the alienness of these once-so-familiar surroundings.

  ‘I think we should go now,’ she said. She thanked the firemen repeatedly and profusely and told them she would take care of him now. They assumed she was his girlfriend and nodded easily.

  She started to lead him to her house a few minutes’ away, both of them huddled under her umbrella.

  ‘I live around the corner. It’s hard to believe it’s really you. I was asleep – I heard all this shouting. Thought I was dreaming. I came out; everyone was heading for your street. I went after them, saw the fire, then I saw you.’

  He said nothing – he looked pale and sick. In his eyes there was a sightlessness which worried her but she strode resolutely into the night, tapping into hidden reserves of energy and certainty. She knew words weren’t possible at that moment so she was silent, but his hand felt good in hers. In chancing upon the man who had chanced on her, in this accidental encounter she also found something to sustain her: The tentative knowledge that she could love someone. At the same time she was freed by the immense realization that love was not quantifiable. And if love was transient, so be it. If her life at best would contain only a handful of moments of intimacy, and nothing more, so be it. She knew that the sweetness of this umbrella-cocooned union would stay with her, that she would be a richer person for it. Alex Sopso’s face came back with sudden vividness. Her guilt about having deserted him lightened – perhaps it was being siphoned off while her hand continued to link with the man’s beside her. And then she knew her touch was consoling.

  Perhaps she wasn’t such a bad person . . .

  The rain had eased, though it was still weighty enough to drum on the umbrella. He felt secure under the small black dome. It seemed to him as though the rain had melted the scaly surface of the streets, the edges and faces of houses, the street lamps. The splashing puddles, the dampness in his shoes – everything was working to a distinct end, though he could not give it a name.

  As he moved he glanced every now and then out of the corner of his eye at Lilliana, too scared to look at her directly in case she would become self-conscious, in case the bewitchment of their second brush with each other would be lost. He felt like he’d traversed those stretches of time in which her past was
housed, moving closer and closer toward her essence; he felt able to say, if he wanted to, “I know you.” But he didn’t want to say it, or to say anything at all; and, when he realized this, words had never seemed so light and meaningless. What possible words could he stick together, what verbal constructions could he unearth from the ruins of the night?

  Now the rain dwindled to the occasional random drop, which joined those millions already lodged in the trees. Lilliana closed the umbrella. Trees that seemed no longer trees but men – huge, silent giants with great heads of hair. Serene and sleeping.

  The streets were utterly deserted; there was that peculiar heart-stopping stillness which grows deepest at the hour before dawn. Bereft of the glistening skin the rain had lent them, the rows of houses looked drab and uninhabited. They were lost in the creases of London.

  By the time they reached Lilliana’s front door she no longer felt the need to be so decisive and strong. And she could tell, standing close by him, that he was feeling a bit better.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll make us some tea.’

  As they walked through, Alastair’s eyes fell upon a painting hanging in the hallway. It was the copy of the Fra Angelico panel which Alex Sopso had given her.

  ‘That painting...,’ he murmured. It was the first time he’d spoken to her tonight.

  ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘Very much.’

  Then you can have it.’ To hell with possessions, she thought. Then she added, ‘Because I think you saved my life on Regent’s Street. There’s a tradition: the current owner has to give it to the person who has saved his or her life.’

  He didn’t have the energy to ask her for a fuller explanation of what she meant, and stammered some thanks.

  She commanded that they go through to the kitchen.

  Along the way he took in the exquisite array of plants and flowers. Their presence reminded him of the good things in life. This person beside him, he thought, had surrounded herself with beauty – and invited him into her gentle world. He felt honored. He understood, in a way for the first time, what hospitality meant, what generosity of spirit encompassed. In the past he’d been fooled into thinking he’d sampled them, misled by their being packaged in the glamour of the theater. It was not that theatrical people were unfriendly. They were very grand at being friendly, but the grandeur was the problem. An excess of flamboyance, for Alastair, only robbed the air of oxygen in the end. Among exotic, stimulating people, people who could speak knowledgeably about claret or name the rings of Saturn there was certainly much amusement to be had, but very clever people (and he included himself here) often seemed to him to be finding ways of excusing their hypocrisy, finding ways of eluding loyalty, afterwards justifying their betrayals by stressing their awareness of life’s dizzying ambiguity. But that was not the real, right thing...

  She was different. She had a constancy about her.

  He’d heard about love, heard about about its transforming power. Could it be that up until now he thought he’d known love when he’d only ever known a pale shadow of it, and this pale shadow was something he had accepted as love, had gone along with, got by with, having nothing else?

  And now?

  He felt as though he was being ushered into a room full of subtle treasures, a room vast and never-ending.

  And was this room love after all?

  ‘You’re...my find...aren’t you?’ he murmured.

  She laughed, a little self-consciously, a blush welling up which she tried to stifle. They stood close to one another in the large, clean kitchen, choosing to squeeze themselves into a corner, not bothered with chairs or comfort. As they listened to each other’s breathing, breathing which detained the moments, they lingered in the caesura between linking and not linking, until their lips moved closer, searching tentatively, roaming in restraint. Then, when their mouths had circled, this dance of unrealized touch abated: she kissed him very softly on his lips, so softly he felt hers as his lips’ shadow made palpable. She glanced up at him to gauge his reaction. There was a fragile smile suspended there.

  She drew up a chair for him, found a towel and dried his hair. She filled the kettle and pulled out a couple of mugs from the cabinet and set them on the little wooden table which had nothing on it except a set of salt and pepper cellars.

  She said, ‘Are you feeling a bit better now?’

  He nodded.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it you?’ she said. ‘That time. On the road. I never thanked you properly. Do you remember? It was you. That time.’

  ‘Yes, it was me.’

  ‘You went off. I came back for you, but you’d gone.’

  He smiled – a true, deep smile which reached his eyes and made them mild, re-awakened their sight, warmed him in a startling way.

  ‘Would you like to have a bath?’ she asked. ‘Perhaps you should take a bath. Your clothes are soaked through. Your hair’s caked in filth. We must both stink of smoke. Two ragamuffins.’

  ‘We must stink. I’d be disappointed if we didn’t.’

  Lilliana gave a brief, happy chuckle.

  ‘You’re soaked, too,’ he said. ‘You should take a bath. But before you do, it’s my turn to thank you – for being so kind. If it wasn’t for you, I don’t know what I would have done.’

  ‘There’s really no need. I think we’re telepathic, you and I.’

  He squeezed his eyes shut, held his fingers to his temples, as if testing out her theory.

  ‘You may be right.’

  The kettle boiled and she made two cups of strong tea, stirring sugar into his without asking if he took any because she thought it would do him good. They sipped at the cups, seated at opposite ends of the table. While they sat there in silence the curtains grew diaphanous, imbued with the glow of incipient dawn.

  ‘You know, tonight I feel like I’ve lived three or four lives,’ he said in a low, even voice. ‘Perhaps I have. But what I really want to say is...I feel...earlier it seemed like I’d turned into an x-ray machine.... Watching the fire, I could see through my house, see into it...but I felt like I could see through life as well, and people, could see how ghostly we all are. That’s it. I’d seen too deeply: I’d drunk too deeply of this reality, this reality most people – they’re smart – they manage to avoid. But here, with you, even after the fire...I suddenly...I have a life again...I can’t put it in words...but with you...you fill me with mad hope. It’s crazy. I can’t explain but I feel right being with you. I need you. Can I say that without scaring you, my sweet friend?’

  Lilliana had listened very carefully, as she would to a confession. They had followed two paths, those subterranean tramlines had crossed once and now twice. It all seemed good and true and inevitable right now, but she had been hurt before. She did not want to be hurt again. She circled her hands around her mug, savoring the heat creeping into her hands. She studied his milky eyes, the unkempt, dirty hair, his big nostrils. She slowly drew her arm across the table and touched his hand.

  ‘I think we’re destined to meet at times of crisis, you and I, my sweet friend.’

  Now the curtains were aglow, the sky was growing luminous. Through the spaces between the leaves light was finding its way, flinging the promise of purity at the world. Soon Kentish Town would be waking, while those flocks of crowds adrift in sleep-heavy stupors, their limbs aching with the need for rest, were returning from the West End, seeing in the spaces between the leaves their lives blissfully trying to disappear.

  ‘You can stay here with me tonight, if you like,’ she murmured.

  Without hesitation he said, ‘I can’t sleep alone. Can I sleep in your bed?’

  Her eyes widened with unspoken reservations. She ran some fingers through a clump of damp hair. She took a sip of tea; it trickled down her throat. It felt blissful.

  ‘My bed...well...I mean...’

  ‘Don’t worry, we don’t...I mean, we’ll just...’

  ‘It’s okay...you don’t have to say it...I’m telepathi
c, remember?’

  He took another gulp of tea, noticing for the first time the sugar in it.

  ‘Oh yes.’ His nerves had temporary ascendancy and he gave in to a disconnected ramble. ‘Telepathic. I’m grateful for your gift, must say a little prayer of thanks, get the prayer mat out. You know – this farmhouse kitchen of yours – have you ever cooked in it – has oil ever splattered those gas rings – have you ever left a dish unwashed overnight? I only ask because...What’s the secret?’

  ‘No secret, no secret.’

  The repetition slowed him down, stopped him. Her voice seemed to him to have grown more lovely, enriched by fatigue and acceptance, had turned into a sleepy river of a voice lapping at his consciousness. She watched him carefully, intrigued by the way he watched her, so that for a moment they were like mirrors on opposite sides of the table, reading in the other reflections of their own serene curiosity.

  ‘I haven’t been up so late since...since I don’t know when. I always feel a bit out of step with nature when I can hear the birds singing and I’m still awake. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’m out of step, I’m out of pocket, I’m out of a house.’

  She laughed at him – he was asking her to, she felt sure, and when she laughed he rolled his eyes around. She was glad that more crumbs of conversation had followed the hiatus of the question of sleeping arrangements; these last exchanges cleared the air, restored normality. The last thing she wanted was an atmosphere which was highly charged; she wanted unheard melodies to creep up on them; she wanted their hands never to lose the special union of that rain-splattered walk; she wanted soundless tranquillity before the familiar skin of sleep closed around them.

  They finished their tea and she put the mugs in the sink. They went upstairs. They took turns to wash the dirt and rain out of their bodies.

  But when they undressed they knew they would have to touch.

  And when they touched they saw they would fall in love.

  And when they slept they dreamt of each other’s touch.