Taltos (70 page)

“All right, that’s fine then. But don’t wait for your witches to come to you again, and for God’s sake never seek them on their own turf. You’ll see fear in their eyes if they ever see you standing in their garden.”

“You’re so sure of all this.”

“Yes, I’m sure. Ash, you told them everything. Why did you do that? Perhaps if you had not, they wouldn’t fear you.”

“You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“And Yuri and the Talamasca, how they will plague you now.”

“They will not.”

“But those witches, they are not your friends.”

“So you keep saying.”

“I know they are not. I know their curiosity and awe will soon change to fear. Ash, it’s an old cliché, they’re only human.”

Ash bowed his head and looked away, out the window at the blowing snow, at shoulders hunkered against the wind.

“Ashlar, I know,” Samuel said, “because I am an outcast. And you are an outcast. And look out there at the multitudes of humans passing on the street, and think how each one condemns so many others as outcast, as ‘other,’ as not human. We are monsters, my friend. That’s what we’ll always be. It’s their day. That we’re alive at all is enough to worry about.” He downed the rest of the drink.

“And so you go home to your friends in the glen.”

“I hate them, and you know it. But the glen we won’t have for long. I go back for sentimental reasons. Oh, it’s not just the Talamasca, and that sixteen genteel scholars will come with tape recorders, begging me to recite all I know over lunch at the Inn. It’s all those archaeologists digging up St. Ashlar’s Cathedral. The modern world has found the place. And why? Because of your damned witches.”

“You can’t lay that on me or on them, and you know it.”

“Eventually we’ll have to find some more remote place, some other curse or legend to protect us. But they’re not my friends, don’t think they are. They don’t.”

Ash only nodded.

Food had come, a large salad for the little man, the pasta for Ash. The wine was being poured in the glasses. It smelled like something gone utterly wrong.

“I’m too drunk to eat,” Samuel said.

“I understand if you go,” Ash said softly. “That is, if you’re bound to go, then perhaps you should do it.”

They sat in silence for a moment. Then the little man lifted his fork and began to devour the salad, shoveling it into his mouth, as bits and pieces fell to the plate despite his most diligent efforts. Loudly he scraped up every last bit of olive, cheese, and lettuce on the plate, and then drank a big gulp of the mineral water.

“Now I can drink some more,” he said.

Ash made a sound that would have been a laugh if he had not been so sad.

Samuel slid off the chair and onto his feet. He picked up the leather portmanteau. He sauntered over to Ash, and crooked his arm around Ash’s neck. Ash kissed his cheek quickly, faintly repelled by the leathery texture of the skin, but determined at all costs to hide it.

“Will you come back soon?” Ash asked.

“No. But we’ll see each other,” said Samuel. “Take care of my dog. His feelings are hurt very easily.”

“I’ll remember that.”

“And pitch yourself into your work!”

“Anything else?”

“I love you.”

And with that Samuel pushed and swaggered his way through the press of those being seated and those rising to go, and all the backs and elbows clumped against him. He went out the front door and along the front window. The snow was already catching in his hair and on his bushy eyebrows, and making dark wet spots on his shoulders.

He lifted his hand in farewell, and then he passed out of the frame, and the crowd became the crowd again.

Ash lifted the glass of milk and slowly drank all of it. Then he put some bills beneath his plate, stared at the food as if telling it goodbye, and went out himself, walking into the wind on Seventh Avenue.

When he reached his bedroom high above the streets, Remmick was waiting for him.

“You’re cold, sir, much too cold.”

“Am I?” Ash murmured. Patiently he let Remmick take away the silk blazer and the outrageous scarf. He put on the flannel smoking jacket of satin-lined wool, and taking the towel Remmick gave to him, he wiped the dampness from his hair and his face.

“Sit down, sir, let me take off your wet shoes.”

“If you say so.” The chair felt so soft, he could not imagine climbing out of it later on to go to bed. And all the rooms are empty. Rowan and Michael are gone. We will not be walking downtown tonight, talking eagerly together.

“Your friends arrived safely in New Orleans, sir,”
Remmick said, peeling off the wet socks, and then quickly putting on fresh dry socks so deftly that his fingers barely grazed Ash’s flesh. “The call came right after you left for dinner. The plane is on its way back. It should be landing in about twenty minutes.”

Ash nodded. The leather slippers were lined with fur. He did not know whether they were old or new. He couldn’t remember. Suddenly all the little details seemed to have fled. His mind was horrifyingly empty and still; and he felt the loneliness and the stillness of the rooms completely.

Remmick moved at the closet doors like a ghost.

We hire those who are unobtrusive, Ash thought, and then they can’t comfort us; what we tolerate cannot save us.

“Where’s the young Leslie, Remmick? Is she about?”

“Yes, sir, with a million questions, it seems. But you look so very tired.”

“Send her in. I need to work. I need to have my mind on something.”

He walked down the corridor, and into the first of his offices, the private office, the one where papers were stacked here and there, and a file cabinet stood open, the one no one was allowed to clean, the one that was insufferably cluttered.

Leslie appeared within seconds, face brimming with excitement, dedication, devotion, and inexhaustible energy. “Mr. Ash, there’s the International Doll Expo next week, and a woman from Japan just called, said you definitely wanted to see her work, you told her so yourself last time you were in Tokyo, and there were about twenty different appointments missed while you were gone, I’ve got the entire list….”

“Sit down, then, and we’ll get to it.”

He took his position behind the desk, making a small note that the clock said 6:45 p.m., and that he would not look at it, not even steal a glance, until he was certain that the time would be past midnight.

“Leslie, put all that aside. Here are some ideas. I want you to number them. The order is not important. What’s important is that you give me the whole list every day, without fail, with notes on the progress we’ve made regarding
each and every idea, and a large mark of ‘no progress’ on those I allow to remain inactive.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Singing dolls. Perfect first a quartet, four dolls that sing in harmony.”

“Oh, that’s a wonderful idea, Mr. Ash.”

“Prototypes should reflect some aim at being cost-effective; however, that is not the most important point. The dolls must sound good and sing even after they are hurled to the floor.”

“Yes, sir … ‘hurled to the floor.’ ”

“And a tower museum. I want a list of the top twenty-five available penthouses in midtown, purchase price, lease price, every pertinent detail. I want a museum in the sky so that people can go out and look at the view on a glass-enclosed gallery….”

“And what will the museum hold, sir, dolls?”

“Dolls on a certain theme. The exact same assignment is to be given to two thousand doll artists. Make your interpretation in three connected figures of the Family of Humankind. No, four figures. One can be a child. Yes, the description will be exact, I need to be reminded…. For now, get the best building.”

“Yes, sir, got it, yes,” she said, engraving her pad with the fine-point pen.

“And on the singing dolls, everyone should be advised that eventually there will be an entire choir. A child or a doll collector could conceivably over the years acquire the entire choir, or chorus, or whatever name is best, you know, you follow me?”

“Yes, sir …”

“And I don’t want to see any mechanical plans; this is electronic, computer chip, state of the art, and there should be … there should be some way for the voice of one doll to work some responsive change in the voice of another. But those are details. Write it up….”

“Materials, sir? Porcelain?”

“No, not porcelain. Never. I don’t want them to break. Remember, they should not break, ever.”

“Sorry, sir.”

“And I’ll design the faces. I need pictures, pictures from all over, I want everyone’s work. If there is an old woman in a village in the Pyrenees making dolls, I want to see pictures. And India, why do we have no dolls from India? Do you know how often I have asked this question? Why don’t I get answers? Write this memo to the vice presidents, to the marketing people, post it! India. Who are the art-doll makers of India? I think I will go to India, yes, find a time for me to go. I’ll find the people who are making dolls if no one else has the sense….”

The snow had begun to fall heavily outside, very white near the glass.

All the rest was once again blackness. Tiny random sounds came from the streets below, or was it from the pipes, or the snow falling on the roof above, or just the glass and steel of the building breathing as inevitably as wood breathes, the building, for all its dozens of stories, swaying ever so slightly in the wind, like a giant tree in the forest?

On and on he talked, watching her fierce little hand move with the fine-point pen. About the replicas of monuments, the small plastic version of Chartres Cathedral which the children could enter. The importance of scale, ratios. And what if there were a park with a great circle of stones there?

“Oh, and yes, a special assignment, something I want you to do tomorrow perhaps, or the day after. No, later. You do this. You’re to go down to the Private Museum….”

“Yes, sir.”

“The Bru, are you familiar with the Bru, the big French doll? My princess.”

“
The
Bru, sir, yes sir, oh, that doll.”

“Bru Jne 14; thirty-six inches in height; wig, shoes, dress, slip, et cetera, all original. Exhibit Number One.”

“Yes, sir, I know exactly.”

“She’s to be packed by you, and no one else, with appropriate assistance, and then properly insured, and see to that yourself, and then shipped … shipped to …” But to whom? Was it presumptuous to send it directly to the unborn child? No, it should go to Rowan Mayfair, shouldn’t
it? Of course it should. And for Michael, some other memento, just as precious in its own way, something carefully crafted of wood, one of the very, very old toys, the knight on its horse, yes, all made of wood, that one, with the original paint clinging to it …

But no, that was not the right gift, not for Michael. There was one gift, one precious gift, something as fine as the Bru, and something he wanted to put in Michael’s hands.

He rose from the desk, bidding the young Leslie to keep her chair, and moved across the spacious sitting area and down the hall to his bedroom.

He had placed it beneath the bed, the simple signal to Remmick that it was precious and must not be touched by the most well-meaning of servants. He dropped to his knees, felt for it, then slipped it out, the light blazing beautiful on the jeweled cover.

The moment of long ago was right there, the pain, the humiliation, Ninian laughing at him, telling him what a terrible blasphemy he had done, to put their tale into sacred style with sacred language.

For a long moment he sat, cross-legged, shoulder against the side of the bed. He held the book. Yes, for Michael. Michael, the boy who loved books. Michael. Michael would never be able to read it perhaps; it did not matter. Michael would keep it and it was rather like giving it to Rowan, too. She would understand that.

When he came back into the inner office, he had the book wrapped in a large white towel.

“This, this book, for Michael Curry, and the Bru for Rowan Mayfair.”

“The
Bru, sir, the princess?”

“Yes. That one. The packing is terribly important. I may want you to take these gifts down yourself. The fact that the Bru might break, it’s unthinkable. Neither present must be lost. Now let’s get on to other things. Send out for food if you’re hungry. I have a memo here that the Prima Ballerina is out of stock worldwide. Tell me this is a lie.”

“It isn’t.”

“Take dictation. This is the first of seven faxes pertaining to the Prima Ballerina….”

And on they went down the list, and when he did finally look at the clock again, with any serious intent, it was well past midnight. Indeed, the hour had dwindled to one. The snow still fell. Little Leslie’s face had turned the color of paper. He was tired enough to sleep.

He fell into the large soft empty bed, vaguely conscious that the young Leslie was still hovering about, asking questions he could no longer hear that well. Extending her invitation.

“Good night, darling,” he said.

Remmick opened the window just a little bit, the way he’d been instructed to, and the wind made a fierce howl that blotted out all sounds, all time, any conceivable lesser noise rising up the narrow margins between the dark and mournful buildings. A bit of icy air touched his cheek, making the warmth of the heavy covers all the more delicious.

Don’t dream of witches; don’t think of their red hair; don’t think of Rowan in your arms. Don’t think of Michael with the book in his hands, cherishing it as no one else ever did, except those evil brethren who betrayed Lightner. Don’t think of the three of you sitting together at their hearth; don’t go back to the glen, not now, not for a long long time; don’t walk among circles of stone; don’t visit caves; don’t succumb to the temptation of mortal beauties who may die at your touch…. Don’t call them, don’t beg to hear a coldness, estrangement, evasion in their voices.

And by the time the door was closed, he was slumbering.

The Bru. The street in Paris; the woman in the store; the doll in its box; the big paperweight eyes looking up at him. The sudden thought beneath the streetlamp that a point had come in history where money could make possible all manner of miracles, that the pursuit of money even for one single individual could have great spiritual repercussions for thousands…. That in a realm of manufacture and mass production, the acquisition of wealth could be utterly creative.