Glimmering (37 page)

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Authors: Elizabeth Hand

BOOK: Glimmering
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“Not like it used to be,” Mrs. Iverson sighed, wiping greasy water from a plate with a linen rag. “Your grandfather . . . I think,
What
would he have thought of all this—”
She lifted her head to gaze out the kitchen window. Beyond the slope of leafless trees the Hudson was marbled black and orange, like the interior of a forge. There was the occasional spatter of rain, the bite of a cold draft making its way through the walls. These—along with the smells of fresh cooking, the growing stack of cleaned dishes, the smell of Scotch—made for one of those rare moments when chronology and atmospheric effects conspired to make everything seem not all that unchanged. It really could be Thanksgiving Day.
“He would have thought it was the end of the world,” said Jack. In fact his grandfather probably wouldn’t have thought that at all. But Jack did. It reminded him of a January afternoon with Leonard, when they were both seventeen. Side by side on the floor of an empty classroom at Saint Bartholomew’s, an hour or so after fucking in a closet; watching a blazing sunset fall through blackened tree limbs to ignite the windows. The sight had filled Jack with exhilaration and dread, confused with sexual fever and its aftermath, the sense of things burning, dangerously, somewhere just out of sight. Since then winter sunsets always moved him thus, a touch of terror amidst the glory. He was surprised, now, to realize he had not felt this way in some time—because there had been no real sunsets, no real winter, for over two years; and because he had grown accustomed to that soft hem of terror brushing against him daily.
“. . . think I would ever live this long,” Mrs. Iverson was ending with a sigh.
Jack looked up guiltily. “Oh, please don’t say that.”
The housekeeper moved a stack of plates from counter to cupboard. “Doesn’t matter what I say.” She turned and smiled, placed a hand still damp with soapsuds on his. “Oh now, Jackie, don’t you go looking like you just got the bad news about Santa Claus! That was a lovely meal you put together—you saw how Mary Anne ate, and your grandmother, too! You’re a good boy, Jackie. Go on now, I’ll finish up—”
She shooed him out of the kitchen. He went, still feeling guilty—men never seemed to stick around until every last dish was done, no matter how good their intentions—but grateful to have some time alone. Like all Thanksgivings, it had been long
.
The shadows and sense of repleteness made it feel late, but a consensus of Lazyland’s clocks seemed to agree that it was only around four. He wandered through the dining room, his grandfather’s study, living room, then out into the entry, feeling lost and melancholy. He finally settled into the Stickley chair beneath the grandfather clock, leaned his elbows on the battered table, and stared mournfully at the telephone. He lifted the receiver. The line was dead. He went upstairs.
On the second-floor landing he paused. Loud snoring came from his grandmother’s room and Marz’s. Jack shook his head: so much noise from two such little people. Three, if you counted the baby. From the back steps behind the linen closet he heard Mrs. Iverson exclaiming to herself, her heavy tread as she began to climb. He turned and hurried up the curving stairway to the third floor, taking the steps two at a time and being careful to chuck the moth-eaten caribou under the chin as he went past.
He went into his bedroom. Darkness was falling quickly through the old house, low heavy clouds in the west streaked with vermilion. Jack found matches and lit the lantern, went to his night table and squirted some Fusax beneath his tongue, chased it with stale water from a plastic tumbler. For several minutes he sat at the edge of the bed, watching sheaves of light ripple across the windows, black and scarlet and silvery grey. The light oppressed him, made him think of Good Friday, the altar stripped of everything save shadows and candles guttering in red glass holders. It was like that now, he thought, seeing the world without her makeup was not a pretty sight. Wind tore at the shingles, a rattle of rain or hail swept across the roof. From somewhere down near the river echoed laughter, the explosive roaring of an engine that grew ominously silent. A sense of something terrible about to happen swept over him, certain as the rain; but what could be done? There was no one to call for help, no one to wake; nothing to do but ride it out.
His mother had always said, No matter how bad things are, they will look better in the morning. But now morning never came. The glimmering had stolen the promise of dawn. He could only take a deep breath and wait for the horror to pass.
It did, slowly. He was not conscious of having shut his eyes, but it seemed he must have—when he blinked, the room had changed. The wind had died. A sharp, foul smell clung to the air, as of burned hair or feathers. The light had shifted. It was no longer black and scarlet but a lambent red, the deep lurid red of blood, so brilliant it cast no shadows. It was like staring at the world through an infrared lens. He stumbled to his feet and lurched to the window.
The sky was in flames. Not clouds that resembled flames, but
fire,
huge explosive gouts of fire stretching from horizon to horizon, roiling and expanding as though they would devour the entire sky. He watched in horror, looked down but saw nothing—no trees, no earth, not even the walls of the house beneath him. Only a vast cauldron of molten light, seething like some monstrous bacillus. The light tore at his eyes, made them stream and burn. He turned and staggered to the door. He crashed against the doorframe and all but fell downstairs, blinded.
“Grandmother! Grandmother—”
He stumbled into Keeley’s room. The heavy jacquard curtains were drawn, as always. They filtered out the light, so that he could see his startled grandmother sitting up in bed, still wearing her fisherman’s sweater, a sleep mask pushed up over her white curls.
“Jack! What is it—”
“The fire! Are you all right—”
Fire?
Keeley started to climb from the bed. “Where, where—”
“Grandmother, don’t! Please—”
Someone appeared in the doorway: the blond girl. She yawned and shook her head, staring at Jack through sleep-slit eyes. “Fire? There’s no fire. What, you have a dream or something?”
“A dream?” He shook his head. “No, I . . .”
His voice trailed off.
“There was a fire.” He cleared his throat. “Outside. There was a fire.”
Marz walked into the room, arms crossed above her waxing belly. She went to the window and fiddled until she found a heavy sateen cord. She yanked on it. The curtains opened.
“You were dreaming
,”
she said. “See?”
The window framed the same view as his own did—dark trees, carriage house, sloping lawn, sluggish river. All untouched by any flames save a few bright brief flashes from the evening sky, silvery purple and acid green.
“No,” Jack said, but the girl had already crawled into bed with Keeley, grinning.
“I have dreams like that, sometimes.” Marz shivered, and Keeley draped a blanket over her thin shoulders. “Like I’ll see the sky at night, there’ll be words written up on the sky, but I can’t understand them. And bridges—I have this dream, a lot, this dream about a bridge . . .”
Jack walked to the window and looked out. She was right, there were no fires. He rubbed his eyes.
Jesus fuck, it seemed so real.
“I never remember my dreams,” Keeley said. “Not anymore. Your father, he used to have dreams. And nightmares . . .”
Jack turned, thinking she spoke to him. But the way Keeley smiled at Marzana, the way her hand traced the headboard’s carven whorls—as though another palm moved there beneath her own—told him that she spoke to the girl. That she was seeing the girl, again, as Mary Anne.
Your father
was his grandfather.
“. . . one time he thought the hotel was on fire! He jumped up, and—”
Lightning exploded within the room. Jack cried out, and Marzana; but Keeley stared at the ceiling, where the lightning stayed, trapped within the trumpets of an Art Nouveau ceiling lamp.
“The power!” shrieked Marz.
“The power’s on!”
She flung herself from the bed and raced across the room, flicking the light switch on and off. “It’s on, it’s on!”
“Stop!” Jack yelled. “You’ll blow the bulb—”
But Marz was already gone, stampeding to her own room, where he could hear the sudden joyful blare of a radio.
“—LAST DAYS! THREE DAYS ONLY!—”
“Good Lord, what’s this—oh look, Keeley darling, power’s on!” Mrs. Iverson tottered onto the landing. “Good heavens, tell that girl to be quiet! Quick, Jack, help me bring the laundry down. Mary Anne! You help, too, bring those baby things we got out—”
They ran from floor to floor, the girl puffing and swearing as she gathered sheets and a plastic basket heaped with yellowed infant clothes; Jack loped past her with armfuls of shirts, khaki pants, mismatched socks, Keeley’s turtlenecks. In the laundry room Mrs. Iverson disappeared behind piles of clothes, and the washer groaned as cold water poured through the pipes. Marz panted back upstairs and went from room to room turning on lights, looking for radios to crank up, checking the answering machine.
“Stop!” shouted Jack from the basement. “You’ll blow a fuse!”
When he got back to the first floor he found her in the living room, remote in hand, staring rapturously at the TV “This is so fucking
great,”
she announced. “We can, like, watch Thanksgiving specials
.”
He laughed. “See if
King Kong
is on—”
He took the remote and began flashing through channels.
“Too fast!” Marz yelped, and grabbed it back. She rocked on her heels, squealing when the screen showed game shows, mud slides, music videos, groaning at the more numerous bursts of static where stations had been, once.
He left her and went out to the carriage house. He booted up his computer, looked for messages there and on the answering machine and fax. There was an update on the GFI New Year’s celebration, dated some weeks ago, and a letter from Leonard, photographing fish die-outs and human birth defects in someplace called Komsomolsk-na-Amure.
And there was a note from Larry Muso.
Dear Jack,
 
 
I have attempted to be in touch once or twice, offering my congratulations upon our pending acquisition of
The Gaudy Book.
But my messages came back, so
I
assume you are experiencing some problems there at your house Lazyland. I hope they will have improved by the time you get this.
I understand that a GFI courier tagged you this summer and that you plan to be at the Big Party. Can we get together beforehand? They are expecting a huge number of people, and in any case I am committed to attending upon our Chairman at dinner. But I would very much like to meet with you, for drinks or perhaps breakfast, depending upon how early you are able to make the transport to the Pyramid. My recommendation (I was at Woodstock III) would be that you take advantage of GFI’s services and arrive as early as possible, to avoid the inevitable tie-ups that will occur as the day progresses. As communication is so difficult these days, perhaps I might suggest a meeting spot at the gala grounds, and at your convenience you could respond if that would suit you? There will be a tent called Electric Avenue, sponsored by the AT&T/IBM joint venture, which might be of interest to you. I can arrange to be there for part of the morning (depending, of course, upon Mr. Tatsumi’s plans for me), and we could enjoy a meal together, which I would like very much. If you are able to let me know of your willingness to do this, I would be very glad to oblige.
I trust that all is well with you and your grandmother, and that your house has not been affected by the severe storms in New York.
 
With Very Warm Regards,
Larry Muso
Jack read the message several times, his face growing hot. He had not thought of either Larry Muso or the Big Party for some time, and had in fact never seriously considered that he
would
go, despite the invisible gryphon etched onto his right palm. It all seemed too Dance-Band-on-the-Titanic, too Last Big Fling, too Suppose They Gave an Apocalypse and
Everybody
Came?
And how could he even consider leaving Keeley or Mrs. Iverson, not to mention Marzana, whose baby was due right about then?
I would very much like to meet with you, for drinks or perhaps breakfast . . .
But then Larry Muso’s high cheekbones and darkly lustrous eyes came back to him, the feathery touch of his hair as it grazed Jack’s cheek. He felt a shaft of desire and shut his eyes, lingering for a moment upon the memory of that brief meeting.
I was so rude,
he thought, and transposed the thought into a bit of postcoital reverie, him lying beside that slight figure, stroking that hair:
I was so fucking rude to you, why was I so rude?
He opened his eyes upon the screen before him—it could go black at any moment, New Year’s was scarcely more than a month away, he could lose it all just like that. Quickly he typed a reply—

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