Men in long black coats, wide black hats, small quick-eyed women. Shawls, long skirts. Broken verbs. They don't look directly at you but they don't miss much. She's conspicuous, a giantess. Her legs right out in the open.
Here's the button store, just where he said. She stops a moment to look in the window. Fancy buttons, satin ribbons, braid, rickrack, sequins-raw material for the dreamland adjectives of fashion copy. Someone's fingers, right around here, must have sewn the ermine trim on her white chiffon evening cape. The contrast of fragile veil and rank animal pelt, that's what appeals to the gentlemen. Delicate flesh, then the shrubbery.
His new room is above a baker's. Around to the side, up the stairs, in a haze of a smell she likes. But dense, overpowering-yeast fermenting, going straight to her head like warm helium. She hasn't seen him for too long. Why has she kept away?
He's there, he opens the door.
I brought you some apples, she says.
After a while the objects of this world take shape around her once more. There's his typewriter, precarious on the tiny washstand. The blue suitcase is beside it, topped with the displaced washbasin. Shirt crumpled on the floor. Why is it that tumbled cloth always signifies desire? With its wrenched, impetuous forms. The flames in paintings look like that-like orange fabric, hurled and flung.
They lie in the bed, an enormous carved mahogany structure that almost fills the room. Wedding furniture once, from far away, meant to last a lifetime. Lifetime, what a stupid word it seems right now; durability, how useless. She cuts an apple up with his pocket knife, feeds him segments.
If I didn't know better I'd think you were trying to seduce me.
No-I'm just keeping you alive. I'm fattening you up to eat later.
That's a perverse thought, young lady.
Yes. It's yours. Don't tell me you've forgotten the dead women with azure hair and eyes like snake-filled pits? They'd have you for breakfast.
Only if permitted. He reaches for her again. Where have you been keeping yourself? It's been weeks.
Yes. Wait. I need to tell you something.
Is it urgent? he says.
Yes. Not really. No.
The sun declines, the shadows of the curtains move across the bed. Voices on the street outside, unknown languages. I will always remember this, she tells herself. Then: Why am I thinking about memory? It's notthen yet, it's now. It's not over.
I've thought out the story, she says. I've thought out the next part of it.
Oh? You've got your own ideas?
I've always had my own ideas.
Okay. Let's hear them, he says, grinning.
All right, she says. The last we knew, the girl and the blind man were being taken off to see the Servant of Rejoicing, leader of the barbarian invaders called the People of Desolation, because the two of them were suspected of being divine messengers. Correct me if I'm wrong.
You really pay attention to this stuff? he says wonderingly. You really remember it?
Of course I do. I remember every word you say. They arrive at the barbarian camp, and the blind assassin tells the Servant of Rejoicing he has a message for him from the Invincible One, only it must be delivered in private, with just the girl there. That's because he doesn't want to let her out of his sight.
He can't see. He's blind, remember?
You know what I mean. So the Servant of Rejoicing says that's fine.
He wouldn't just say That's fine. He'd make a speech.
I can't do those parts. The three of them go into a tent apart from the others, and the assassin says here's the plan. He will tell them how to get into the city of Sakiel-Norn without any siege or loss of life, I mean their lives. They should send a couple of men, he'll give them the password for the gate-he knows the passwords, remember-and once they're inside, these men should go to the canal and float a rope down it, under the archway. They should tie their end of it to something or other-a stone pillar or something-and then at night a group of soldiers can pull themselves into the city hand over hand by the rope, underwater, and overpower the guard, and open all eight of the gates, and then bingo.
Bingo? he says, laughing. That's not a very Zycronian word.
Well, Bob's your uncle then. After that, they can kill everyone to their heart's content, if that's what they want to do.
A smart trick, he said. Very crafty.
Yes, she said, it's in Herodotus, or something like that is. The fall of Babylon, I think it was.
You've got a surprising amount of bric- -brac in your head, he says. But I suppose there's a tradeoff? Our two young folks can't go on posing as divine messengers. It's too risky. Sooner or later they'd make a slip, they'd fail, and then they'd be killed. They have to get away.
Yes. I've thought of that. Before the password and the directions are handed over, the blind man says that the two of them must be taken to the foothills of the western mountains, with ample food supplies and so on. He'll say they have to make a sort of pilgrimage there-go up a mountain, get more divine instructions. Only then will he hand over the goods, by which he means the password. That way, if the barbarian attack fails, the two of them will be somewhere none of the citizens of Sakiel-Norn will ever think to follow them.
But they'll be killed by the wolves, he says. And if not by them, by the dead women with curvaceous figures and ruby-red lips. Or she'll be killed, and he'll be forced to fulfil their unnatural desires till the cows come home, poor fellow.
No, she says. That's not what will happen.
Oh no? Says who?
Don't sayoh no. Says me. Listen-it's this way. The blind assassin hears all rumours, and so he knows the real truth about those women. They aren't actually dead at all. They just put those stories around so they'll be left in peace. Really they're escaped slaves, and other women who've run away to avoid being sold by their husbands or fathers. They aren't all women either-some are men, but they're kind and friendly men. All of them live in caves and herd sheep, and have their own vegetable gardens. They take turns lurking around the tombs and frightening travellers-howling at them, and so forth-in order to keep up appearances.
In addition to that, the wolves aren't really wolves, they're just sheepdogs who've been trained to impersonate wolves. Really they're very tame, and very loyal.
So these people will take the two fugitives in, and once they've heard their sad story they'll be really nice to them. Then the blind assassin and the girl with no tongue can live in one of the caves, and sooner or later they'll have children who can see and speak, and they'll be very happy.
Meanwhile, all their fellow-citizens are being slaughtered? he says, grinning. You're endorsing treachery to one's country? You've traded the general social good for private contentment?
Well, those were the people that were going to kill them. Their fellow citizens.
Only a few had those intentions-the elite, the top cards in the deck. You'd condemn the rest along with them? You'd have our twosome betray their own people? That's pretty selfish of you.
It's history, she says. It's in The Conquest of Mexico -what's his name, Cortez-his Aztec mistress, that's what she did. It's in the Bible too. The harlot Rahab did the same thing, at the fall of Jericho. She helped Joshua's men, and she and her family were spared.
Point taken, he says. But you've broken the rules. You can't just change the undead women into a bunch of folkloric pastoralists at whim.
You never actually put these women into the story, she says. Not directly. You only told rumours about them. Rumours can be false.
He laughs. True enough. Now here's my version. In the camp of the People of Joy, everything happens as you've said, although with better speeches. Our two young folks are taken to the foothills of the western mountains and left there among the tombs, and then the barbarians proceed to enter the city as per instructions, and they loot and destroy, and massacre the inhabitants. Not one escapes alive. The King is hanged from a tree, the High Priestess is disembowelled, the plotting courtier perishes along with the rest. The innocent slave children, the guild of blind assassins, the sacrificial girls in the Temple -all die. An entire culture is wiped from the universe. No one is left alive who knows how to weave the marvellous carpets, which you'll have to admit is a shame.