Wulfsyarn: A Mosaic (31 page)

I knew, and subsequently Lily confirmed, that it would be a while before I could question him more.

“Leave it ad until spring is come,” advised Lily, and I could not disagree.

I considered that I already had plenty of material to mud over and I had no doubt that I would find the daily converse interesting.

Indeed, I realized that I was finding this breaking open of Wilberfoss most interesting. I had never come so close to the human, not even when I was with my master and mentor Forrester. Wulf was enjoying itself.

WULFNOTE

Dawn above Lily’s Garden. A mackerel sky of orange and green: scales and feathers. On earth the temperature rising after a light shower of snow and the trees already dripping heavily. Springtime a-coming in.

In the silence of dawn there came the deep clang, clang of the entrance bell outside the Poverello Garden. We heard it from Wilberfoss’s quarters and were surprised. A visitor so early. . . ? And only official visitors and those who were doubtful of their welcome would ring the heavy bell.

Inquisitive (for I assumed that any visitor who announced their presence at the garden in this way must have something to do with Jon Wilberfoss), I rose through the wet canopy and crossed Lily’s Garden until I could see the entrance gate and the statue of St. Francis Dionysos and the solitary woman who stood at the open gate awaiting admission. Clearly the visit, whatever it was, was formal for the woman, a Talline by her dress, could by right of birth have walked straight into the garden and no one would have bade her stop. There was something familiar about her, but it was not until she turned and reached for the bell chain for a second time, that I recognized her. Medoc, of course.

Clang. Clang.

The sleepy gate warden lurched out of his hut, pulling down his hastily donned habit and with his hair unbrushed. I swooped down, dropping over the Poverello wall and settled close to Medoc. She did not greet me but stared at me with what I thought was a kind of challenge.

“You have come to see Ion Wilberfoss?” said I.

“Yes.”

“Lily will decide. I cannot.”

“I’ll wait.”

“But not out here. Come with me. Walk through the garden. I’ll go ahead and warn Lily. If there is a problem, I’ll meet you at the entrance to the hospital where Wilberfoss is living.” Medoc nodded and we advanced through the gate and past the startled eyes of the gate warden who scratched in his hair and shrugged and shambled back to his hut, wondering, no doubt, why he had been summoned at all.

“Why didn’t you warn us you were coming?” I asked.

Medoc shrugged. “I came on an impulse. I now live on the southern islands. Forewarning and an answer back to me might have taken months. I never thought of it. I have come myself. My journey. But I rang the bell in full courtesy.”

“I understand,” I said, but I didn’t really. I rose a few feet. “I’ll go and warn Lily you are coming.”

Medoc reached out and touched my rough metal hide, knocking on me lightly with her knuckles. I paused,

hovering. “Wulf, tell me
now.
How is he? How does he look?”

“Better than he was. Thinner. He’s lost a lot of
hair
. But his memory is erratic. He may not remember you. I don’t know.” And I didn’t. I had no way of knowing how he would react. Wilberfoss had become very strange since our last communication some weeks earlier. I am not a mind reader. The autoscribe was at its limits.

“He’ll remember me,” said Medoc, with confidence. “He may not want to remember me, but he’ll remember me.” There seemed to be no more to be said and so I flew up and raced to the small hospital.

Lily took a few moments to absorb the news. She fussed around Wilberfoss. That man was cleaning his teeth over a small enamel basin outside the house. He enjoyed the chill of morning and Lily considered morning air a good tonic so long as he did not wander about naked. She cleared the basin after he had gargled and spat into it and checked his pulse and his eyes. She knew already that he had spent a good night and had not woken up sweating and screaming. She decided to allow the visit.

“Medoc, that was your wife, is come to see you,” she said, speaking the words in her slow, old-fashioned way.

Wilberfoss paused and frowned and his face colored. “Medoc,” he said as though searching his memory. “Ah, Medoc. I thought she was dead. I shall be glad to see her.”

Electrically, machine to machine, I could feel Lily’s watchfulness. She was alert to every signal. I was also aware of the blur of her calculations. Just as she had taken Wilberfoss out planting fruit trees to stir him, so she now calculated that the presence of Medoc might ease him into deeper awareness. Lily’s message flashed to me. “Bring her in. She comes at a good time.”

★ ★ ★

Was Medoc aware of her riming? I’m sure she was. But how I do not know.

I swooped over the wall, a clumsy flying giant bell or an outlandish warrior’s helmet, wondering about the deep sensitivity of life-forms, and I came upon Medoc walking slowly over the bridge that led into the glade of Builder Trees. The thin gray snow on the path was untrodden before her and melted to a black wetness where she stepped. That seemed to me important. Medoc, of all life-forms that I have known, makes her own track. I could read in her footsteps her progress through the garden and see where she had paused gathering winter roses and the pale blue spikes of Dog Thistle. With Talline women it is a custom that when they walk out they pick and carry with them something from the earth.

“He looks forward to seeing you,” I said, settling in the air at about her shoulder height and matching my speed to hers.

“He is lucky to have two such as you and Lily to care for him,” said Medoc.

“How did you hear about him?” I asked. “I thought his presence here was a secret.”

Medoc laughed at that. “Tallines are gossips, you know. And we’re not fools. This garden has many visitors and you can see into the hospital courtyard from the Pectanile. That’s part of the planning of the garden. Even so, I only heard that he was back a few weeks ago. I couldn’t believe it. I had never expected to see him again. I expected to be long dead when he returned. No matter. Life has a way of playing tricks .. . nomusa musa . . . the only certainty is uncertainty.” She laughed at that. “My husband didn’t want me to come, but I came ad the same.

Jon Wilberfoss still exacts a price.”

We came to the gate leading into the hospital courtyard. The gate swung open at our approach, pulled by Lily. Wilberfoss was beyond, seated at a table. He sat stiffly upright, like a person expecting bad news.

Medoc crossed to him and placed the flowers she had gathered on the table before him. Then she sat down without speaking.

Jon Wilberfoss looked at the flowers and then at the wall of the courtyard and then folded his arms and his face twitched. He did not look at Medoc though she had her eyes steadily on him. It was not a fierce gaze, a belittling gaze or an accusing gaze. It was a passive look, a waiting look.

Neither spoke for several minutes and then Jon Wilberfoss cleared his throat. When he spoke his voice was surprisingly harsh. “The children?” he said.

“Well. In fine health. They send good wishes.”

“They are not with you?”

“No. I came alone. I wanted to see you alone. Children complicate things. They can see you later.”

“When later?”

“Later. When you are more yourself.”

Silence. Finally, still without looking at Medoc, Jon Wilberfoss indicated the flowers. “And what are these?” he asked. “They have some meaning, I suppose. Some clever meaning. Some reprimand. Everything the Tallines do has meaning. Even your silences.”

“There is no reprimand,” said Medoc. “And yes, there is meaning. Shall I tell you?”

Wilberfoss grunted.

“The winter roses are for the love we shared.”

“They die in the springtime.”

“The Dog Thistle is for remembrance.”

“Spiky and hard and cuts like broken glass.”

“You have understood everything and nothing, Jon Wilberfoss.”

Silence.

“Why did you come?”

“To see you. To help you. To bring you health.”

“You have brought me nothing but dead flowers.” He swept with his arm, an impatient sharp gesture, and the flowers scattered off the table. Then he turned to her and I was surprised to see that his face was red and with patches of white and that his eyes glittered. This was a face I had never seen before. “I thought I killed you down there,” he said. “When I killed everything else. How can you still be alive when everything else is dead? Are you alive, Evil Medoc?”

“You never killed me,” said Medoc quietly.

“I killed everything.”

“You are alive. I am alive. The garden is alive. There are lives beyond the wall.”

Wilberfoss heard her as though incredulous. And then he laughed but it was not laughter that shook him. I have searched long for a phrase to describe the sounds that shook him and the best this poor autoscribe can offer is this. It was a laughter of despair.

“Nothing lives,” he said, “except in my dreams. Go away from me now. Soon I shall wake up again.”

Medoc leaned across the table. I thought she was going to speak, but then she reached out her hand and slapped Jon Wilberfoss in his face. She slapped him hard, a stinging, stiff-fingered slap: a slap that can dislocate a jaw.

Jon Wilberfoss’s mouth opened and I saw blood trickle down from his lips. His mouth opened and he howled. What demon had Medoc released, I wondered and watched in fascination. Wilberfoss howled, and then he jumped to his feet.

He knocked the table to one side and reached for Medoc. He was fist as a striking snake. His hand was in her hair and his fist was balled. She screamed and the scream stopped as he hit her. “Die,” he shouted. “Die. Die. Die. Die. D . . .”

Lily had not been slow. She, just as much as I, had been taken off guard. The radio signal she sent triggered the drug cache in the nape of Wilberfoss’s neck and he slumped and fell with his eyes open and blood pouring from his mouth.

Medoc was injured but alive. Jon Wilberfoss’s blow had glanced, bruising and tearing the skin and knocking her back against the wall. She was unconscious and Lily tended to her. Had the blow struck as Wilberfoss intended, then we would have been clearing up her brains.

Medoc gained consciousness quickly and looked around wildly for a moment uncertain where she was. I saw her memory come to her. Lily cooed. “No fracture. No concussion. Just a little blood gone and that’s soon made up.” Medoc looked at Wilberfoss. “Is he dead?” she asked. “No. Just closed down.”

“Wake him up.”

“What!!!” This was me speaking for the first rime. “Wake him up. Don’t let him escape now. Wake him up. He won’t attack me again. He will be afraid of me. Wake him up.”

To my astonishment, Lily did as she was bid. She neutralized the drug and after ten minutes Jon Wilberfoss stirred. It took another ten minutes for him to focus and when he did he found himself staring into the injured face of Medoc. He was kneeling before her.

“Un-dead,” he murmured.

“Un-dead,” she replied, “and as alive as you. Watch me, Jon Wilberfoss. This is your last chance. Watch me.” And she hit him again in the face. His arms hung down at his sides like socks filled with sand. She hit him again.

“Live,” she said. It was a command. “Live.” The blows she gave him were heavy. “Live.”

Jon Wilberfoss began to cry as his cheeks became purple and his eyes closed.

“Come out of your nightmare, Jon Wilberfoss. Follow the pain.” She hit him in the face again and cried out for she had dislocated her wrist with the impact.

Jon Wilberfoss just stood there like a punch-drunk boxer without the wit to defend himself. His face was a mess of blood and tears.

Medoc allowed Lily to reset and then bind her wrist. “Perhaps he will wake up to the real world now,” said Medoc while the bandages were being wrapped. Pain and reaction were setting in and she needed to talk. “Wilberfoss was playing games before. I know him well. I know his self-deceit. He means well. But he is a great fool. And his foolishness would have trapped him. That was why I had to startle him out of himself. It wasn’t me he wanted to kill. It was the truth. And he couldn’t kill that and so he would have killed himself. Mark my words. No matter how happy he seemed, one fine day you would have found him face down in the river or hung in a tree and everything would have been wasted. With luck that tragedy will be averted, but you must watch him now. Now he is really unstable. If he has a true will to live he will survive. I have opened him up to the air. If not he will remain in the nightmare and there’s the end.”

The bandage was tight. The face was cared for. Medoc made to leave the courtyard. “I shall stay in the garden for a few days to recover,” she said. “And then I shall return to my husband in the south. I do not want him to see me like this.” She paused at the gate. “I do not want to meet Jon Wilberfoss again. That would be wrong. I wish... I wish that I had followed my instincts and had done this months ago when the nonsense of the
Nightingale
first began. I could have saved everyone a lot of trouble, myself included.” She closed the gate behind her and walked away.

I have never seen her since. If she is in the south and is still the wife of a fisherman and reads this, I hope she will feel I have done her justice.

Vaguely, faintly, dimly I began to understand. Lily and I had had our suspicions, of course. But we had underestimated the deviousness of the human mind. We had vastly underestimated its capacity for self-delusion. Wilberfoss had inverted the normal relationship of dream and reality. (I am almost certain I have the truth of this.) To him, the daily life in the garden was a gentle but insubstantial dream that brought him relief from the abiding reality of his nightmares. The world he truly inhabited was the dark world of his nightmares. That world was supported by the twin pillars of guilt and self-hatred.

And now Medoc, instinctive in her healing as in her timing, had shocked him with a truth. She had forged a link between the true world and his nightmare world. Put that another way, she had broken the barrier that held his worlds apart. She had challenged his darkness and that darkness had responded by trying to kid her. How often is this the case, I wonder, in human affairs? How often do humans kill because they cannot bear the truth? And I do not mean physically kid for there are many kinds of killing. I have observed.