He both warns and reassures himself the woman who
and obliteration, hurled through the opening of the lake by an Oblivion Wind,
drowned couldn’t have been his Kristin. While she did have a son — by another man, it was the thing that had torn them apart, as well as all his unanswered letters after he finally came to L.A. for her — they said this woman had been in her mid-twenties, and his Kristin would have been well into her thirties at the time; and although he can’t quite place it, he vaguely remembers having himself seen a young woman in a brilliant red dress and flashing silver gondola sailing the lake. He’s troubled by the morass of emotions he feels at this moment: relief, sorrow, grief, guilt … is this the only way he’s to be free of her ghost? for, dead or not, she’s been a ghost to him all these years anyway, for the way she’s haunted him. Navigating from one dark zone of the lake to the next, never breaching the radius of moonlight that floats on the water, the boy at the other end of the boat rows so silently and invisibly it’s easy for Wang to feel as though he’s the sole passenger of a boat that sails itself. He pulls his coat up around his neck as the wind casts in his face a light spray, and as he makes his way toward the black silhouette of the hills under the full moon, he hears the lake’s strange melodies. Glancing over the side of the boat he can see just under the water the glowing snakes that slither alongside; sometimes he can almost make out lyrics, instrumentation, musical bridges, pop hooks. As the lake drains, Wang wonders if the music will diminish or grow stronger. He wonders at what point the lake will finally become an inexorable whirlpool.
Of course he remembers the red sky, color of blood, as vividly as he dreams of it. Everyone who was in L.A. then remembers it, even a man who never looks up. For a moment he’s aware the boy has stopped rowing; in this place the lake is blacker than ever, the air around them so black not even the light of a full moon penetrates it. Not even the melody-snakes glow, assuming they still accompany the boat at all, not even the hills can be seen
control and its loss asserting themselves as the parameters of her new psyche
although now they’re close. At this moment Wang realizes they’re at the place of the lake right above the source; directly below, at this moment, the lake rushes back to wherever it came from.
At the other end of the boat, the boy says, “Night-time.”
“Uh, yes,” is all Wang can think to answer, “it’s night time, yes.” The boy has stopped rowing. In the dark they drift. Is he lost? wonders Wang in consternation. But this has happened before. Suddenly Wang hears what at first he thinks is the hooting of an owl, so close it’s as though the owl is in the boat with them — but Wang remembers this from before as well, and that it’s not an owl, it’s the boy. The boy hoots again and then somewhere overhead the boy is answered, the night hooting back; the boy responds and then the night responds in a chorus that trails across the sky, and the boy picks up the oars and begins to row, following the sound above. In a while, as though the darkness is a fog, it parts and the spires of the flooded Chateau X suddenly appear not more than thirty or forty feet away, and the boat is surrounded by a swarm of the illuminated snakes as though the lake’s on fire, a faint maelstrom of music and it shocks Wang, the largest swarm of them he’s ever seen.
Something he’s never thought of before occurs to him now. His mind tries to hold onto it as the boy rows them to the usual docking point around the back of the Chateau, in the grotto formed by what was originally several of the Chateau’s suites, where the walls have been either deliberately knocked out or washed away by the lake. A lantern hangs over the outer archway and another shines in the distance off to the right, at the top of the stone steps that lead to a door at what was once the hotel’s top floor. To the left, at the end of a granite walkway around the edge of the grotto several feet above the water, is another door with a large rusted brass ring for a doorknob; below the walkway near this door is another mass of snakes as though a star has fallen there, lighting up
just as they do for me, passing so close to me that the two of us almost brush
the water from beneath. Again a moment of elusive comprehension shoots across Wang’s mind while, as always, the boy docks in the dark, at the bottom of the steps that once served as a hotel stairway. As always, sitting on the bottom step is a large basket with bread, fruit, cheese and an uncorked bottle of wine, all wrapped in a cloth.
Wang climbs out of the boat and takes the basket and turns to the boy. “Why don’t you come inside,” he says, “you can wait in the entryway. I’m sure it would be all right,” although he isn’t sure at all. The boy doesn’t answer. “You’ll be dry and warm and you can eat and drink there.” But there’s no answer and so Wang places the basket for the young boatman in the boat. “It may be a couple of hours,” he says and then, “uh,” unable to stop himself, “do you know, uh … is it Tribulation II, or III?”
“No,” the boy answers in the dark, if it’s an answer at all. At the top of the steps a door opens and light comes through and the boy ducks away, pushing the boat off from the makeshift landing; Wang can hear the lapping of the water from the boy’s oars in the dark. Wang turns up the steps. No one is in the open lit door; when he reaches the top of the steps, stepping through the door, no one is in the entryway. Off to the left of the entryway is another single door. He goes into the dressing room behind it and takes off his clothes. There’s a sink and mirror, and on the counter next to the sink a red studded collar. The dressing room serves as a transitional passage to the next chamber, and after Wang places the collar around his neck — always with some difficulty given his one useless hand — before he exits through the other door he closes his eyes and, as much as possible, pushes everything from his mind. He makes a point of never looking in the mirror, particularly after he’s put on the collar. He realizes he’s late tonight and can’t take too much time to clear his thoughts; before
each other as though we might be sisters, I find myself thinking at this minute,
going through the other door he hastily takes from the pocket of his coat, hanging on a hook, the disk of the evening’s broadcast along with five one-hundred dollar bills. He doesn’t notice that the toy monkey falls from the coat pocket to the small throw-rug at his feet.
Now on the other side of this door he’s in the Mistress’ lair. Candles burn. There’s an end table by the wall where he knows to leave the disk and the money, there’s a step up into the training space where he knows to wait, kneeling attentive and naked except for the red collar, before the large hearth of the Lair where a fire burns. Several minutes pass before he hears the steps of her high heels, “zen-toy,” he finally hears her, “you’re late.”
“i’m sorry, Mistress.”