18.
-I know that I am beautiful, Tippy said, looking down at her shoes, her voice sliding into a six-year old’s whisper. She went on, shaking her head slowly until a curl dislodged itself from behind her left ear and fell, covering her cheek.
-but merely knowing it by looking in the mirror, or reading it in people’s eyes when I wait for the bus doesn’t mean that I understand it or that I know how to behave. Mostly it just makes me feel empty because I know that I’m made in some way that provokes desire, but I’m unable to respond to that desire or to have my own desire returned.
Eliot breathed slowly, trying to fill the room with tangible, silent, awareness. He invoked the muse of sympathy, willing himself to be still so as not to cause his wife to falter. Behind his glasses his eyes were still moist. It was a relief to know, at last. She whispered again, her left hand idle with airy, meaningless designs.
-I have dreaded for so long that something like this would happen but now that it has happened I’m confused. I know now that it’s the one thing I wanted more than anything else in the world. The funny thing is, I can’t see it as abnormal. I mean, what would I compare it to that is normal? The sex that you and I have, Edmund, that isn’t really normal. We both know that. I truly never saw it coming. I’m terribly naïve, I know. You’ve seen to that, I’ve seen to that, everybody who has ever had any say in my life has seen to it that I’m a naïve, sheltered woman. But I’m not innocent and that’s what makes the difference. For me, at any rate. The things that happened, the things I’ve done with April, it was like being drugged and doing some strange dance you’ve never done or seen before but are suddenly in the middle of, dancing without effort, while your mind wanders away somewhere to do sums. Or like an Oriental exercise that starts and stops and never seems to end and then is suddenly over. And to have someone tell you that you’ve just made love with them is not so much stunning as just mildly puzzling. Do you see at all what I’m saying, Edmund? This could not have happened with a man. To be freed, I mean. I was seduced despite my naivete, not because of it.
Tippy glanced up quickly. The lamp which Eliot had turned on for them was tilted into her eyes. She could not see her husband’s face. There was more to be said but something in the ghost sitting opposite prevented her from going on. Eliot put a hand to his face and then let it drop slowly to his lap again.
-I do know what you mean. I see that I have been very cruel to you. You’re right in believing that I accepted my abnormality. I refused to consider yours however. I’ve always wanted your happiness, I’ve hoped for it and worried about it, but the culpability of actual achievement was a burden I always left with you. if I’ve seemed to tacitly encouraged your involvement with other men it is because normality has never been for me anything other than a different sort of disease than my own, only one far simpler, far more obvious. I also understand what you mean when you say you find what you and your friend have done to be mildly puzzling. What you’ve told me is very curious. I feel as though, for the first time, I’m capable of …
Eliot paused, looking away through the darkened window and then went on.
-Do you remember a night last winter? he asked, looking back towards Tippy.
-a party at Professor Katzenjammer’s house? I came in from the terrace and found you with him in his study, looking at some pictures in one of those books he’s so fond of. I remember thinking several things. How transparent he was in wanting to shock you or make you laugh. And then I remember looking at the picture he was showing you and seeing what he saw. A dirty picture of two Rubenesque women doing things to each other with sheep parts. And I looked at you and saw what he could never see. That somewhere underneath the false and grotesque world of that bit of pornography there was some kind of love, an attempt at something, at something to do with love, however tenuous, however extreme. Since then I have never felt contempt nor disgust for Katzenjammer. Only pity. Deep, deep pity.
After a moment Eliot got up and turned off the lamp. Taking his wife by the arm he led her from the room and into the corridor. When they reached the landing outside their bedroom he stopped, took her by the shoulders and turned her towards him. He lifted her hand and placed it against his cheek, feeling her soft fingertips at his temple. Her skin smelled of roses, of faint lavender and lime. Then he bent towards Tippy and kissed her.
19.
-You now prefer the womb to the groin, do you, little fish?
Farotitius sat upon the stool, gazing soft-eyed at his own image in the mirror behind the bar. Scamander’s opening comment looped again through his brain, setting off tiny mines of emotion, ending in nothing. The older man was not pleasant when he had been drinking, even contrite as he appeared to be, playing at humility. Did Scamander think of him only as a fool? Well, why shouldn’t he, there had been little enough in the way of substance. Until tonight, when Farotitius had fled the study, leaving his shrill teacher kneeling before the vacated sofa, imploring some hopeless restoration of his youth. So it was over.
-Fishblood.
-Excuse me? Farotitius said, turning on his stool towards the girl who appeared to have addressed him.
-excuse me, did you say something?
-Yes, as a matter of fact I did. Buy me a drink?
Farotitius stared, his eyes moving in myopic sloth to focus on the girl’s.
-Yes, if you like.
-I like, Cecily said, sliding a buttock across the red vinyl of the stool beside his.
-I’m Carla, Cecily said, when their damp coasters had been redamped by two bottles of Bahadur Pilsner.
-Nice to meet you, Carla. I’m Godfrey, Farotitius said, seizing with rare instinct on his father’s middle name.
-Come here often, do you? asked Cecily-Carla, sliding for two syllables and a wee bump into a pseudo-Irish accent. Better leave off the extra baggage, she thought to herself.
-Oh, no. I mean, not often! Not that often anyway.
Farofrey’s reply was a marvel of poised guilt, but the girl nodded pleasantly as though understanding perfectly what he had said, what he had meant to say and what he was actually thinking.
-Nor do I. In fact, I’ve never been here before.
Oh, though Godfritius, swallowing his beer, I do hope things are not going to be this difficult from here on out. He had, with his roommate Crystal’s help (untrustworthy as he supposed her motives to be) already made the leap of faith required to carry him, tongues of flame licking his tender bum and all, into the thus far confusing post-Scamander world. Surprising? He certainly thought so. As he drank his beer. Beside a girl. A strange girl. At whom he gazed. Was she prettier or uglier than Crystal? Fodgrifius wondered. He couldn’t tell. Carlilya meanwhile was rambling on about how nice it was, you know? I mean how REALLY NICE IT IS to be able to have a drink with a strange guy and not have him breathing down the front of your dress (or up the bottom of it come to think of it) or trying to get you drunk or impress you with credit cards and so on, another beer? Thanks, yes, the same, or telling you some pack of lies so you’ll pity him because his wife or girlfriend is a world-class bitch when ALL the time his mind is clicking your resistance off just like on an abacus and he’s that much closer to getting his little bit. Gofa smiled. Little bit, eh? So that’s what men wanted, was it? Hampered somewhat by the near imperceptible approach of a pilsner haze, Fago’s mind reeled (perceptibly) back to reveal to itself that in considering the much sought after ‘little bit’ (the attainment of which, according to Celery here, was the root enchantment of every male-female encounter, of which this one was so nicely atypical) he was in fact considering, musing on, staring at the girl’s own little bit. Or at least he was staring at the region of her skirt beneath which it could safely be assumed to be nestling, or nesting, as it were. Farotitius stared at Cecily’s crotch. (Dispensation of the fusing-of-the-two-names joke greeted with prolonged applause, unsubdued joy.) Cecily, sudden feral light brandished in her eyes, swiveled upon her barstool, uncrossing her legs. Which she just as promptly recrossed in the other direction, but not before. Not before Farotitius is afforded a glimpse of brightblack skinflashed stocking and brightwhite sinfleshed thigh. And beyond, the supposed Mystery. While a bit dim in the technical ins and outs of women, Farotitius was not entirely in the dark as to their other wiles. He was not unaware, for instance, that his roommate’s behavior had undergone something of a change recently. He had been unable to detect the necessary pearl of sincerity in Crystal’s protestations (repeated three times the past week) that she had forgotten he was still in the apartment when she had emerged from the shower clad only in an aura of cleanliness and ‘Eau de mome’. Nor had he been able to recall that her study habits included falling asleep with the bedside lamp on, sheets kicked sleepily to her knees and nightie drawn yawning oh so casually up to her collarbone, thighs dreamily parted to the pose of Leda Surrendered, bedroom door ajar (o forgetful me!).
-Shall we go then? Cecily asked, alighting from her barstool.
-it’s only a short walk across the park to my place. We can stop at the corner and pick up a little refreshment. If you like.
Farotitius nodded, standing up with care, smiling, puzzled. How embarrassing. I must have made some kind of pass at her. Whatever shall I do?
-Oh, you are a little lamb, Godfrey, Cecily said, taking his arm.
That Argentine had left her a tiny bit sticky. Across the park to a quick sponge then.
20.
Venus sighed and forced a smile.
-Oh, con-CEN-trate, please concentrate, my darling little honeyhead.
Apollo frowned, chewing on his thumbnail.
-Goddamnit, I’m trying! You’ve got a headstart is all.
Venus gently nudged her brother’s hand from his face and stuck her tongue in his ear, goosing the radiant impatient lump of his godhead.
-Come on, sweetums. A little quiz for my little pussybrain?
-Oh, fuck it. Okay, okay, but I’m tired and it’s not fair, I shouldn’t …
-There, there, baby, Venus soothed.
-who can I trust, if I can’t trust you?
Apollo closed his eyes and grunted, fumbling at the visor of his helmet for his cigarettes.
-Ready? Who is Eliot?
Apollo did his ape-face, concentrating.
-Eliot. Yeah. He’s the old professor …
-Not all that old.
-Yeah. He’s the not all that old professor who was screwed up by his Dad, can’t get it up or something and he’s married to the little butch number whose given the hots to Pollyanonymous …
-Not so fast. One at a time, dear. It’s ‘Polonius’ by the way. And Tippy is not exactly a ‘little butch number’. As you’ll see.
She flung her hand down in an outstretched authoritative gesture. Apollo took a drag from his cigarette and peered down past stars and clouds through the roof of the house his sister had indicated.
-There they are all right, he grinned, though it doesn’t look like anything special to me.
A chip off the architects’ block,
who had trouble erecting his …
-Oh, but it is special. I’m working out their problems, Venus went on hurriedly, heading off her brother’s readymade wit. She went on.
-Now. Who is Polonius.
-He’s that little virgin architecture student who jacks off all the time and then cries himself to sleep because he can’t bang the little butch number whose not really a little butch number etcetera etcetera. By the way, it’s a good thing you didn’t ask Minerva to stick her perfect nose into this. Fuckin’ Miss Know-It-All would be insisting that Polonius was really in love with Eliot whatsisface.
Venus laughed in spite of herself. Sun God was learning.
-Good. Polonius is Problem Number 2.
-2? What happened to number 1?
-We’ll get to that. Tell me about Scamander.
Apollo rolled his eyes and began to recite monotonously.
-Scamander Katzenjammer, notorious pederast and connoisseur of pornography, fairly good teacher, lousy architect. He has a habit of preying on his students, of whom Farotitius is, or was, the latest. You haven’t told me yet who was doing the dicking and who was being dicked. Is it important? Who knows! Does anybody care? I know I don’t …
Venus clucked impatiently. Her brother continued.
-Anyway, the creepy old sod has gone in for a spattering of blackmail, namely of the little-butch-who-isn’t and this April number (she IS a dyke, right?) but it’s unclear to me (is it clear to you?) why he’s blackmailing them.
-Very good.
-The blackmail part was right, then? It seemed kind of vague.
-That’s the general idea, yes. Any suppositions as to why he’s blackmailing Tippy (she has a name, you can use it) and April?
-Well … There was an old sod named Scamander
who yearned for the boys of Flanders,
when told they lay still
face down in the swill
he said ‘I’m afraid that you don’t understand, sir’. Um, he might have it in for Tippy because she’s married to Eliot and being the bitchy old queen he is, he can’t stand to be shown up, academically-speaking, by Eliot, who has more initials after his name.
Venus grabbed Apollo by the hair and kissed him fiercely on the mouth.
-Very good!
-It still doesn’t explain why April was the one who got the package though. I mean Scamander doesn’t seem to know who she is, all that ‘other woman’ stuff while he’s drooling over the twat shots back in Chapter [ ]. And she doesn’t seem to know him from Adam.
-Who?
-Adam. It’s a saying. Oh, never mind. So does she know him?
-Yes and no. But we’ll get to that. Now Scamander is Problem Number 3.
-So?
-So. Can you guess who number 1 is?
-Uh, Cecily?
-No, Cecily’s taken care of. Or, is on her way to being taken care of.
Two shadows swaying mildly across a city park.
-Yes. Okay. Then it must be … Wait a minute! What do you mean she’s being taken care of? With him, that Farotitius guy, ex-dicker and/or dickee of Problem Number 3?
Venus smiled. Apollo frowned and hurled his cigarette butt into the void.
-Okay. Well then, how about whoever took the notorious pictures?
-The photographer? Oh, no, he’s not important, he’s a mere functionary.
-That’s nice to know. Who is it, though, if it’s permissible to ask.
-Some semi-criminal element named Lehman, also known as Perkins, sometimes called Jenkins. He’s in it strictly for the money.
-‘Lehman’?
-Yes, it rhymes with ‘semen’, so you can spare me your doggerel.
Apollo shrugged.
-I give up.
-April, silly.
Apollo watched his sister’s eyes, shifting from green to blue, gold, black, red, and then back to green. She was licking her lower lip, trying to hide it. Was his sister funny that way? Nah. Hmm. Maybe. It had happened before. April, huh?
21.
-Working late, Miss Hallalise?
-Yes. Vacation’s coming up soon. Thought it would be nice to return to an empty desk for a change.
-I hear you, smiled the deskless security guard.
April drove her small car down the steep ramp. After driving slowly through the two levels of underground parking to assure herself that no one from her department was still there she parked in a secluded corner. She rode the elevator up to the thirty-third floor and went into her office. She stood at her desk for a few moments shuffling papers and then went out again, leaving the light on, just in case. Judah Salazar’s office was on the other side of the building from her own. As she walked along the darkened corridor she patted her jacket, feeling the weight of the revolver. She was not in a melodramatic mood. Here she was. Taking the key from her pocket April opened the heavy door and stepped inside. Having memorized the scene which was to follow she felt no need to turn the light on. She walked quickly past the large desk to the smallest of three filing cabinets. Returning to the desk she groped for and found Salazar’s paperclip holder, a unique monstrosity she had eyed often enough in the fluorescent light of day. Then she set to work on the cabinet. Fifteen minutes later April was back at her desk. She had removed three files. Tan, yellow, purple. The ability to do something with a blindfold on was admirable but not worth carrying to extremes. Pushing the pastel irrelevancies aside April opened the purple file. Thicker than she had expected. She glanced rapidly through the entire file before returning to the first sheet. East Asian International Accounts, my ass. Someone’s ass, at any rate. The first five pages were dummy sheets, innocuous ‘Authorities For Expenditure’. A few more blank sheets followed. The rest of the file was composed of photographs. A good number were similar in style to the contact sheets April had received that morning. Interspersed between the contact sheets were the blow-ups, the crème de la crème. April paused at one. Three men, squatting and ridiculously naked, were simultaneously performing cunnilingus on a partially clad woman seated in an armchair. It was the woman’s face which interested April. The border of the photo intervened at the bridge of the nose but the chin and opened mouth were unmistakably Cecily’s. Salazar was not averse to variety but much of it seemed mere tokenism. A number of shots were, however, of interest. In one, a nice sidelong view, a man lay on his back, his face working between the thighs of a girl who knelt above him, looking with serene detachment along his body to a second girl who was busy sucking at the man’s penis while being had from behind by yet another man. The next shot was of the same industrious quartet. The first kneeling girl was now being held aloft between both men, one fucking, the other buggering. The second girl crouched beneath them, her hands gobleting the men’s straining testicles. Her expression was one of utter boredom. Further on was the children’s hour: forced, repetitive, a Dore grimscape. April flipped through the photos, losing interest in the scoring of the bruise, peeping through the gleams of frayed maidenhair, the undernourished, painted on smiles. Under the final photo she found what she had been looking for. An envelope was stapled to the inside of the back cover. Inside were between 15 and 20 single sheets, bearing different dates, all covered with the same small, fastidious handwriting.
“My dear Sir, I enjoyed making your acquaintance the other
evening. Regarding your inquiries, I have taken the liberty of
providing you with some modest samples of the sort of material
currently making its way into the ‘popular’ (should I say?) side
of my little collection ………… Dear Mr. Salazar, some additions
to your more specific requests of yesterday afternoon. Does this
sort of thing interest you? If so, I am expecting another, more
cultivated batch the end of this month ………… Dear Mr. J. Salazar,
these should quench your refined thirst for a brief spell!
Exquisite, don’t you think? The lovelies have agreed to yet another
session. By the way, your charming message girl proved most
cooperative, as you will discover ………… My dear Judah, here they
are! Branching out, are we? …………. Judah, London and Naples
catalogues here enclosed along with the little twins. I’m afraid I
can’t be of much help regarding my photographer’s name, as I
don’t know it myself! I gather that he spent some time in some form
of ‘confinement’ for past indiscretions and he (understandably, I
think) is a trifle wary of expanding his clientele at this time …….
And so on. April took a single sheet of paper from her desktop pad and, after rereading the most recent of the notes, wrote down the following:
23 Bulrush Lane
(corner of Spandau and Graves)
Mr. Scamander Katzenjammer
22.
As a result of the cracking open of revelation Polonius resolved to fight fire with fire, or more precisely, to fight neuroses with ritual. This could best be achieved by shortening the hours spent sleeping, dozing, and napping. The phantoms of his dreamworld, thus hemmed in, might conceivably resort to the Byzantine and unforeseen strategies of foiled guerrillas. But hopefully there would be no further massing of petty humiliations, no more of the hapless lover’s odd dropping of canary cream custard onto Tippy’s lilac dream slippers. No more growling nasty rapes either, tra la tra la. Though, and this Polonius admitted in the deep, still grove of secret truth, there had been an undeniably dark, sacreligious joy in that gushing of his foulness into the perfect flower of his love’s grooved purity. He would take to wandering the city at night. From his dormitory of Mulrose House down to Omdurman Square, past the broad lowness of the Student Union and the slender lowness of Ferret Hall, up the hill along the wide sidewalk, silvery cobbled river running between the high banks of the Brandeis Laboratory Building, the Fletcher Sculpture Garden and the Zinoviev Library on one side and the Piranesi-Menudo Slide Library, the d’Annunzio ROTC Complex and Bleeker House on the other. Then on through the maze of streets, Ebony, Venus, Malign, Fiesta, with their record shops (used and new, ethnic and homogenized), bookstores, sporting goods stores, hamburger joints, macrobiotic greasy spoons, beer joints, strip joints, soul food kitchens, Hermana Yerma’s Palmreaders, Jocko’s Kosher Palladium, parking lots, the Burgess Detoxification Center, the Birds-of-Prey Reading Room, St. Anthony’s, the Cinema Elite, Renata’s Bar and Grill and finally, the seemingly limitless dark stretch of the park. Tonight, Polonius has risen from his pallet of torment and revelation, has showered and dried his spray-wet body and tear-wet face, has dressed, re-shaved his beardless chin and is prepared to wander. At the approximate moment that he closes the front door of Mulrose House it can be supposed that the following are also taking place: Eliot has paused with his wife, just outside their bedroom door and has lifted her cooling palm to his flush-hot cheek; Farotitius has swiveled upon a barstool at the sound of a girl’s voice addressing him; and April, revolver at her side, has parked her small car beneath a cypress tree and is walking along the sidewalk to 23 Bulrush Lane, spacious home of Scamander Katzenjammer.
23.
What a draining day! Scamander, sipping from his glass of iced mineral water, nevertheless congratulated himself on holding up so well. After Farotitius’ abrupt departure (he had actually fled his mentor’s attempt at an embrace!) Scamander had lain down on the leather sofa with a strip of chamois across his eyes, fighting back bitter tears. He was surprised at how many were still crowding his tender ducts. He was not used to being shunned by his lovers. He felt reasonably certain it had only been because of his naughtiness in regards to Tippy’s silly little adventure, but even so … The ravages of time? He had never been complacent in his attitude to his appearance, his breath, fingernails, and the rest. But one could only fend off the sour, hooded, scythed old nancy for so long. He must scout the new horizons on the morrow. Scamander closed his eyes under the chamois, listening. A soft footfall along the terrace, pausing now beyond the curtained French doors of the study. Doubtless it was Eufemio, making a last round of the house and gardens. Scamander set his glass down on the floor, lay back and slipped the chamois once more in place. Eufemio, checking the doors, would find them unlocked. Scamander was in dire need of attentive kindness. This time he would not even be required to feign fatigue, Eufemio’s sympathy would be well deserved. He heard the curtains sigh as the handle was turned and the doors opened. He quivered stealthily.
-You, a woman’s voice said.
The chamois slid from Scamander’s face as he sat up, his mouth opened wide. The woman was perched on the edge of his desk, partially blocking the illumination of the lamp. He could not get a clear view of her face. After a few moments he noticed the accessory in her hand. The revolver, dull and heavy-looking, was lying casually along one thigh, for the moment pointed at the floor.
-you, the woman said, are Katzenjammer.
It was not a question.
-Yes, Scamander agreed, that is who I am. Scamander Katzenjammer. Pleased to meet you, miss, madam, whoever you might be?
She stood up and took a few steps to the left of the desk. Scamander waited. Dark brown hair, pale unblemished skin, light gray eyes, a thin, harsh, lovely mouth, a small nose but strong, just a hint of a hawk. Ah. The other. The darker of his ethereal girls.
-Yes, Tippy’s good friend. Have you a name?
The young woman was silent. She turned her head once, taking in the room, its mirrors and bookcases, its reproductions of Titian and Puvis de Chavanne. Her lips formed a brief spasmodic pursing of contempt. That haunting passionate profile, and the cold pythoness eyes. Scamander cleared his throat.
-I see. Your name is for your friends. Like Ulysses.
She looked at him and smiled.
-Oh, you are a curious old pervert, aren’t you? Whose name do you suppose you so carefully printed on the package which was delivered to my office this morning? Or should I remind you? After all, this may be a full time business venture and you could hardly be expected to recall the details of each one, now could you? But this one, I would think, was special. Obviously you know Tippy Eliot. You also know my employer Judah Salazar who also receives the sort of packages you specialize in, though he doesn’t, so far as I know, feature in them himself. And of course you know my colleage, Cecily, who apparently works overtime as a ‘charming message girl’. Has that helped your memory?
The wheels of Scamander’s mind sped, but no sparks flew.
-I don’t really follow ….
-Don’t fret, Professor. Confusion isn’t your strong suit. I didn’t come here for denials, explanations, confessions or negotiations. I came here purely out of self-protection. Admittedly your demands are vague, at this point I don’t even know what they might be. I do know that I don’t handle being threatened , even delicately, very well. And I’m not much for half-measures or compromises.
-What do you intend to do? stammered Scamander, clutching his hands to his lap.
-I always shoot to kill. That’s what I intend to do.
-You’re going, you’re going to shoot me? You’re going to kill me? Scamander whimpered.
-That’s about the long and the short of it, creep.
Her voice was calm and low, even, Scamander shivered, amused.
-But …….. but, where?
-Where am I going to shoot you? Oh, I haven’t decided yet. In the stomach, in the left eye, maybe behind the right ear. Is it important?
-Yes! I mean, no! I mean where where? Here? In my study? I’m not alone, you know.
-I didn’t think you were. Where where, eh? How about the park, Professor? Do you like the park?
April stepped forward and placed the barrel of the revolver on the bridge of his trembling nose, gesturing and prodding him to his feet.
-Come along now. It’s just a short walk to my car. You’ll have to drive, I’m afraid.
-But …… but, my god! You can’t do this! Please let me explain! I mean, I’m not properly dressed.
April laughed.
-Don’t be silly, Katzenjammer. I’m sure the gods won’t mind if you don’t arrive in tails.
24.
-I gather we’re fast approaching the, uh, demimonde? of this little tale, Apollo said.
He popped open the first can of a six-pack of beer just brought to him by Spolia, one of the dolphin and scallop girls. That had taken some coaxing. His sister was fond enough of the stuff herself, provided it was bottled and Teutonic, but she was such a hard-ass when it came to assignments.
-Denoument, you mean. Yes, another thirty minutes and we can do our deux ex machina.
Apollo slurped. He crushed the can in one of his splendid golden hands and reached for another. His sister was nervous, pacing up and down, running her fingers along her temples, gnawing her famous lips together.
-Here, let me have a sip, she said, turning to Apollo.
He belched and handed her a full can.
-Go on, give it a try. I know it’s not up to the standards of Nibelung Lager and Asphalt Sturmundrang, but it’s nice in its way. And do sit down, would you? You’re making me nervous just watching you and I don’t even know what my part in all of this is.
Venus sat down beside him. She was drinking her beer quite rapidly. After a while she gave him a sly look and giggled.
-What? Apollo asked.
-Well, the real reason I wanted you here was so I could keep an eye on you. Keep you out of trouble.
-What does that mean? Keep me out of what trouble?
-Doing your job. Because, you see, I’m not absolutely certain how all this, … she made a sweeping gesture towards what could be seen of the park through the mist-shrouded empyrean, …. will resolve itself and the last thing I need is for you to come barging in with your great golden brightness and so on.
-Well, that’s just swell! You’ve got me here with you but what about Aurora? There’s not time enough to warn her now and you know what a stickler she is.
-Oh, I’ve thought about that, it doesn’t bother me. After all, she can only get so bright on her own, right?
-That’s true but if this goes on too long ……… I mean, a three-hour dawn is going to be awfully hard to explain.
-Yes, but that’s not our problem, is it?
Venus and Apollo laughed, toasting their beer cans together in a sloppy clang.
25.
For a moment Polonius stared towards Farotitius and Cecily. He did not, however, see them, as he was two blocks away. What he did see was a long block of darkened storefronts broken by the blue neon of a bar, and the sudden shaft of light as a door opened and two figures emerged onto the sidewalk. Polonius crossed the street and began to walk along the sidewalk which ran beside the park. There were seven gates to the park and one should be coming up. The two figures now crossed the street, disappearing into the park through the gate which the approaching Polonius also had in mind. Cecily was hoping to dissolve some of Godfrey’s shyness. Sometimes it helped to break the ice by turning a guy on in the dark. On the other side of the park Scamander stopped the car. For the first few blocks he had pleaded with his captor. She had finally told him to shut up, which he had. Deprived of words he found he was devoid of the power to think, to formulate, to be cunning, desperate.
-Through here, April said, gesturing to a gate.
Scamander did not like this park but at the prodded urging of April’s pocketed revolver, he entered. Overcoming his fear for a moment, he turned to her.
-It was, it must have been her idea. I didn’t know. Honestly.
He heard her sigh.
-What are you talking about now? Whose idea?
-Your colleague. The message girl. Cecilia Splayed, Frayed, whatever her last name is. It must have been her idea.
-Cecily Flayed.
-Of course. Flayed. Like St. Bartholomew. I knew it was something martyrish.
Scamander tried to laugh, but only rattled. She did not seem to be paying much attention. He stumbled on. In fact, April was paying attention. Cecily posed a separate problem. As did Salazar. Perhaps there was an alternative. A half-measure. A compromise. April was beginning to weary of the pattern in the carpet. Her decision not to waste any time in idle and complicated planning, but to act on impulse. It was a bit too much like old times. The impulse to pick up Tippy that first afternoon. The impulse, seven years before, to get married. The impulse, three days after the ceremony, to walk out on her sleeping husband. The impulse, two years before, to supplement her perfectly adequate income by agreeing to murder a stranger for money. It was the covering of the traces that left April cold.
-Too bad, April said aloud.
Scamander remained silent, hoping she would go on, hoping she wouldn’t, hoping that … Too bad, April repeated to herself. No turning back now, the abyss yawns, the gods must have their tribute.
26.
Cecily peered into the darkness. What were those trees? Birches, larches, beeches? She could never remember. She led Farotitius in under the shelter of the braided branches. He was either playing hard to get or else more drunk than he had at first seemed. At any rate he certainly wasn’t busting his balls to get a move on. Positioning herself with her back against a beechbirchlarch Cecily waited. He had five seconds to make a move before she took over. 5-4-3-2-1-ready-or-not-here-I-come.
-Kiss me, Godfrey, Cecily said, taking Farotitius by his surprisingly limp wrists and drawing him to her.
Farotitius felt himself pulled forward, his chest borne up in collision with something …… oh my, something odd. Farotitius writhed in silent desperation. He tried to get his bearings and managed to free one hand. At a loss he let it fall onto Cecily’s hip. At a further loss and burning with shame he began to knead the girl’s peculiar firmness, his mind conjuring up pleasanter things to knead in order to keep his fingers moving, moving, moving. To make matters considerably worse the girl had now lifted his other hand and placed it unequivocally upon her left breast. She moved her palm until it covered his knuckles and began to caress herself. Only it was his hand that was doing the caressing, sandwiched as it was in the middle. Her other hand seemed to be busy lower down on her blouse but he wasn’t quite sure what it was up to. Farotitius had still not kissed her. Better do so now, he decided, it might give him a chance to think, collect himself, get used to the darkness. What he encountered, once his lips had brushed against and then fastened upon her mouth was a strange and not entirely unpleasant sensation. The girl’s mouth was actually rather nicely shaped, the little cushion of her lower lip a bit too fat perhaps, but on the whole quite nice. Her breath was primarily jasmine, and warm. Most mouths had that tendency though. Unless one was dead. What would a corpse’s mouth taste like? Banish the thought. Just a faint overlay of alcohol. Not offputting or anything, just …. odd. He was not used to kissing beer drinkers. Quite an active tongue, very, very, exploratory. The quelling which Farotitius had begun to experience during the increasingly prolonged kiss was suddenly rudely interrupted, for he realized with horror that her free hand had been busy with the unbuttoning of her blouse. It was not, of course, the simple conception of this fact which so horrified Farotitius as the absolute experiential proof. Under the relentless piloting of the girl’s caressing hand Farotitius’ fingers had crept into contact with the cool, round, heavy, soft, thing of her breast. He swallowed hard, mingling her jasmine tinge with the metallic fear of his own saliva. And then, a curious thing happened. It was a moment before Farotitius was able to focus on the sensation and a further second for its manifestation to make itself felt. Farotitius’ penis had quivered. It had not, to be sure, sprung headlong into durable aching fullness, but it had stirred, like a small woodland creature disturbed at its rest, scenting the air cautiously to see whether it should continue to lie low or cock itself to rapt attention.
27.
Polonius was lost. He had intended to walk straight across the park, following the path marked out so strongly in the daytime. But Tippy, or rather, a vision of Tippy had intervened and so, given over to pursuing the diaphanous trance he had swerved and allowed himself to be led astray. No great matter. However, if he turned out to really lost it might take him fifteen or twenty minutes to find his way through to the other side. He was not certain he could stand the dull pain in his bladder long enough to reach the haven of Le Mouton Viole coffeeshop. Well, it was dark, no one about. He would simply stroll a bit into the trees and relieve himself, taking care not to spatter pee upon his sensible walking shoes. Where, then? A grove of larches, and a few maples was it, presented itself off to the left. Please don’t watch, Mrs. Eliot.