by Tanith Lee
The gray Jaguar turned down the road with the launderette, fish shop, and Pakistani grocers. It came to a halt outside the three-story block of flats.
Nobbi got out, and glanced up at the windows.
Marilyn always liked notice if anyone was coming.
She even preferred it if Nobbi gave her a call to say what time he would be in. Tray used to drive her mad.
But here, there had never been any awkwardness like that.
He walked up the path over the square of grass and opened the outer door. Then he walked up the two flights, although it brought on his cough.
Flat 5A had a cream door that could do with another coat, and he ought to see to that fairly soon.
He rang the bell.
He knew what would happen, but he never got tired of it.
The door opened about two inches, and a thin face peered out. The face was framed by dead black hair cut level with the jaw. It was without makeup, strained and thin-lipped, with two enormous black-brown eyes. There was nothing about the face, nothing, until it saw him. And then it blossomed like a flower. It became flushed and almost pretty, and the door and the eyes opened much wider and the lips softened and parted.
"Nobbi! It's you! Nobbi, darling."
"Hallo, Star. I'm sorry, I didn't bring nothing for you. I forgot."
"I don't want anything. Only you."
And Nobbi went into the flat, and Star flung her arms around him and kissed his face with lots of quick light kisses.
Her actual name was Stella Atkins. She spoke well, and that always pleased him. He liked that sort of accent, the kind that was without any accent at all. She was a library assistant, clever.
He supposed that maybe she never minded when he arrived because she was always prepared. She was always bathing, and never put any cosmetics on her face. Her nails were bitten down like a girl's, although she was thirty-five. She was thin like a girl, too, and not very big on the bust. But she had lovely skin, smooth and pale.
The flat was always dusty, and always cluttered, with books and records and tapes everywhere. She did not care about appearances, wearing shabby suits to work, and jeans and sloppy shirts at home. She had no jewelry but for a silver watch which had been her mother's.
She had had a cat. It had been twenty-six when it died, sleeping on her lap. She had never been able to bring herself to replace it. The cat had been before his time.
"I've got a bottle of wine in the fridge. I saved it for when you'd come."
She ran to get it, her feet were winged.
He watched her bend to remove the bottle. She had a lovely bum.
He pinched her gently, and she squeaked, and came up and around with the wine in one hand, and kissed him deeply on the lips. Her other hand cupped his genitals. There was no mucking about with Star.
"Saucy," said Nobbi. He felt himself getting hard.
He was half a head shorter than she. But that had never concerned them. He opened the bottle, with slight difficulty, as Star caressed him.
They managed a quarter of a glass each, and then she was pulling him fiercely to her clean and neatly made bed, the only neat thing in the flat, soon to be wrecked.
Nobbi drew up Star's shirt, and found her bare shallow breasts. He tongued them all over and Star writhed and wrapped her legs around him.
He got off her jeans and panties, and licked her clit thoroughly. She tasted lovely, she always did. She came as he did this, giving off wild high cries, and the spasm running through her strongly enough he could feel it in his tongue, and taste the sharp minty fragrance.
"Christ, you're fucking lovely, you are."
Then she undressed him.
She did not seem to need chocolate for energy. The only sweet thing he had known her eat was an apple or a peach. She did not like chocolates, in fact. She did like his penis.
Star finally climbed up on Nobbi's fat muscular body like a queen into her chariot.
She rode above him, her face now glorious, and savage. "Oh, Nobbi— Oh, Nobbi—"
She flung back her head and had an orgasm that shook both of them, and, as he watched her, Nobbi came, groaning.
Star went to fetch the wine. She asked if he was hungry, and when he said he was, she brought him a toasted bacon sandwich on Boursin, with green chillies.
"Can I cook for you tonight?" asked Star.
"I can stay the night."
She kissed him.
When he had rested, she lay down across his legs and began to suck on him again. Although her lips were not full, her mouth was adept and marvelous, and her tongue drove him crazy.
He came again with a shout, and Star drank him down.
"I wish I could keep some of that in a bottle."
Nobbi lay back. He felt great. He slipped asleep, thinking that he had not thought of Tracy for a whole hour.
CHAPTER 26
LIKE ANOTHER PLANET, AUTUMN. The oaks were gold, against which the pines stood black.
In the garden, individual red leaves, like lipstick.
Rachaela listened to Shostakovich, Beethoven, Sibelius.
She slept in the day.
The nights drew out.
She dined with the Scarabae. They were very silent. They watched their action-film videos in the small hours. Once Eric pointed wordlessly at the screen. There was an actor who resembled Malach.
No more was heard, or spoken, of Ruth.
Sometimes, often, Rachaela would go to Althene's room. She would watch Althene make up her perfect face, or brush her hair, and Althene would encourage her to try on garments. Rachaela had lost her self-consciousness, and her animosity. They drank wine, and sometimes beer.
In the beginning, Rachaela meant to discuss Ruth, or Malach. But this, somehow, never happened. Instead they spoke of music. And then of what music suggested.
They spoke of history.
Althene must have studied it. She knew a great deal.
Occasionally they took to going out. They would walk over the common. Althene wore black slacks and a coat that seemed made of some black skin.
Rachaela thought, / have never had a woman friend.
There had been Emma, of course. But Emma was Ruth's, and eventually not even that.
The others did not count.
One evening, Rachaela heard a piano faintly, in the house.
The playing was exquisite, painfully brushing the nerves.
She thought of Adamus.
Then Althene appeared on the stairs, and said, "It's Kei. There's a piano below."
"Kei," said Rachaela.
"Not only Adamus played the piano."
Rachaela said, "Does Malach play?"
"No."
They went up to the room of peacocks.
Althene brought her a glass of white liqueur, the dry colorless blood of strawberries.
"You loved Adamus."
"No. Never."
"Are you certain?"
"Quite certain."
"Then you never loved."
"No."
"Alas," said Althene, playfully. And then, "Tell me about your awful mother."
Rachaela must have dropped hints. She had once said harsh things. She sipped the liqueur.
"My mother was mistreated. She didn't want me but she got me. She tried to—malform me, too."
"Yes?"
"I remember, in her coffin, she was all the wrong shape. They'd done something. It wasn't her."
"Fools," said Althene. "And so you never said goodbye."
"Why would I need to? I'd never said hallo, if it comes to that."
"What was her name?"
"Her name?" Rachaela felt a pressure in her head. "Why does it matter?"
"My mother," said Althene, "used to whip me. With a leather whip. Can you imagine? It hurt very much. No, it didn't induce in me sexual pleasure. I lived in terror. And then Malach learned about it. And he stopped her."
"Malach. Is he your brother?"
"No."
"What then?"
/> "My… shall I say, my uncle?"
"You're lovers," said Rachaela. She held out her glass for Althene to fill it.
Althene paused, quizzical.
"Not at all."
"And your mother?" asked Rachaela.
"At last she came to see that everything was well. Now she's my friend. She likes to pretend she never touched me in anger. I don't labor the point." She filled the glass.
"Why did she whip you?"
"Why?" said Althene. She sat down in one of the midnight armchairs. She smiled. "One day, I'll tell you."
"More secrets. Scarabae."
"Scarabae."
Rachaela said, "My daughter played the piano. She used to have lessons from Adamus."
"I can't tell you," said Althene, "about Malach and Ruth. I don't know."
"Don't you?"
"Why should I?" Althene sipped her liqueur in turn. "They mix a little strychnine with this. It's what gives the wonder of the taste. Not harmful. But your heart may beat quickly."
Rachaela said nothing.
Althene said, "You are becoming yourself. You can cease succouring yourself with the nonsense that all Scarabae are one, and in league against you."
Rachaela put down her glass.
"I drink more now than I used to."
"You can drink and eat what you like," said Althene. "It won't change you."
"What will?"
Althene smiled again. "Who knows?"
The day after, Rachaela made herself get up early. She bathed and dressed and went down into the garden.
Michael and Kei were in among the trees, putting out bread for the birds.
They did not see her. They laughed together.
Suddenly Kei touched Michael's cheek. It was a gentle mobile gesture, kind, provocative. Both men turned their heads and their eyes met.
Unmistakably they were lovers.
Rachaela drew back, not to intrude on their moment. She was surprised. Almost pleased. It occurred to her that maybe Carlo had been Michael's lover, but Carlo had died, and here was solace.
Thank God there was some reparation.
Then she felt alone, partly enraged.
She stood under the terrace, looking up at the house, with its ornate windows and towers.
Leaves fell, without wind.
Then Tray came out.
Her hair was black now, curling. She had taken to whitening her face, and somewhere she had bought some long black dresses with padded shoulders and sequins.
She was trying to be Scarabae. It was blatant.
Is she like Ruth? No. Not in ten million years.
Why then, the cold kiss of a wind that did not pass?
She looks like a pretty vampire from an early horror film. A film where the violence is only implied.
It was autumn, and winter would come.
Tray sat down, beneath Althene's discarded sunshade. She had nothing to do, and gazed away into the trees, and watched the leaves falling.
CHAPTER 27
OUTSIDE THE SMALL BARRED WINDOW was a brick wall, thick with ivy. Standing in the room, the wall and the ivy were all there were. Seated on the floor, a slot of gray sky appeared at the window's top, and the form of a tree, already windswept of its leaves.
But Malach sat with his back to the window.
The walls of the room were painted white. The floor was of polished wood, with one flat rug of white and gray, like the walls and the sky.
There was a long table of whitish stripped pine. There were black, mildewed books on it, some bottles of faintly green glass. The table had drawers. Before it was an upright black chair.
In one corner stood a large canvas on an easel, ready stretched and primed; blank.
Low on one wail hung a Saxon sword, perhaps a reproduction, and under it a French saber, and under that a knife of stone.
There was nothing else.
Malach sat cross-legged.
He wore a white shirt and white trousers and old white boots, soft and patchy with age.
He was looking into space, not staring, but seeing something. He had not moved for an hour.
Beyond the window and the ivy wall a police siren sounded five or six streets away.
Malach half turned his head.
A dog growled quietly on the other side of the door.
"Yes, Enki. One moment."
Malach stood up. Although he had kept still so long, his movements were fluid, coordinated.
He went to the door and opened it and the two big dogs came to him with stately eagerness, thrusting their muzzles into his hands.
"You must have the garden. It's too soon today for walking."
He crossed the large living room of the flat, with its sea-green carpet and dark green chairs. There were yellow candles before oval mirrors on the walls. There was wallpaper like ghosts of bamboo which rose up and covered the high ceiling, infusing all the room with a dim green aquarium light. Between curtains of pale yellow silk the french windows opened wide and the dogs ran out gladly, up the steps and onto the lawn.
The garden was higher than the basement flat, the old garden of the house which had been remade into four apartments. The other three stood empty overhead. Lilac trees still held a cluster of their leaves, and at the bottom, where another house had been partly demolished, and then left, tall laurels mimicked the colors of the room. On the two other sides, the ivy wall seemed to go up forever.
The dogs trotted into the laurels.
Malach appeared to be watching them.
The flat had three bedrooms and two bathrooms, and a straw-tiled kitchen that had never been finished. Food came from a restaurant, croissants, little pots of jam and butter, vacuumed hot coffee in the morning, an Italian or an English lunch, an English or Italian dinner, at various hours, pastries, omelettes, cheeses, wine.
In the refrigerator in the kitchen were bottles of Coca-Cola, cartons of orange juice, a little beer with curious labels. The ice-making compartment was full of ice.
From elsewhere came the clean towels and the sheets for the beds, the soap and toothpaste, and punctually every month a stock of sanitary protection for Ruth.
He gave her all these things, for he went into her room once every day.
When he gave her the sanitary towels, Ruth's face crushed itself down. She marched into the bathroom and hid them. When she came out, she said, "You shouldn't have done that."
"How else would you manage?"
"It isn't nice," said Ruth. She was not prim but cold.
"I'm your jailor," he said.
She had accepted that. After the first time, she had never beaten again on the locked door, except to knock and call to him that she was hungry, or thirsty.
When he came into the room she did not protest.
But now she said, "It's wrong."
"Why? You menstruate."
"You should pretend not to know."
"Very well."
It was apparently his return for her obedience, this acquiescence of his. When next he brought her the towels, he folded them in the bath sheet. The same, too, with the nightshirts and underthings, the deodorant, even the shampoo.
She no longer wore makeup. From the third day she had begun to do her hair in two long plaits.
Sometimes she asked if she could see the dogs again, and sometimes he allowed this, bringing Enki and Oskar into the room on his next visit, but never allowing them to remain more than five minutes.
She was always docile, although occasionally she made polite passionless objections.
When she was alone, she took up one of the drawing pads and the paints or pencils, and drew and painted.
She created rooms and stairways, and endless variations of colored stained-glass windows, some with pictures of knights and women with birds. She painted nothing burning, and no dead, no blood. Then her architecture expanded as the time of her incarceration did. She drew pillared porticoes and soaring tiered towers. She drew archways which gave on archways, receding to vast dis
tances.
She did not make landscapes.
Malach would look at all her work when he came. If she was at work on something when he entered, she would set it aside.
She sat on the plushy green carpet, a different shade from that of the living room which she had only briefly seen. She looked up at Malach sitting in one of the armchairs, like a pupil at a teacher. He had not told her to do this.
Once she had cut her finger on some paper, and it bled. She hid this from him like the evidence of the other bleeding.
She never referred to their meeting in the warehouse lobby, his killing of the men, how she had subsequently told him of the Reeveses, and that they had gone there together, and Malach had killed the man. The blood and flames.
She played the game with Malach always, without demur. She never argued against it or attempted to be facetious or obstructive. She only objected to the observations he sometimes made to her. As when he had said, "Suppose, Ruth, that I keep you here. That you never go out again." Then she said, "You mustn't do that. You know I must go out."
"Why is that?"
"Because I have to."
"Why?"
"Because I walk about for miles. I look at things."
"Perhaps you never will again."
"Yes, I will."
"And when, then," he said, "do you think that will be?"
"When I've been punished," she said, "enough."
On the first morning, after the first croissants and coffee, he had gone into her green and blue room with the Nasturtium window, and he had sat down in the chair. And Ruth immediately seated herself below him on the floor.
"We'll talk now," he said, "but not in the usual way."
Ruth nodded. She had not yet arranged her hair in plaits but her face was washed and white.
"I will say a word to you," he said, "you will say a word back to me."
"What kind of word?"
"The word that seems to fit what I have said."
"All right," said Ruth.
And Malach said, "Egypt."
Ruth answered swiftly, "Incest."
"Father," said Malach.
"King."
"Mother."
Ruth thought. She shook her head. "I can't think of anything."
"Nothing then," said Malach. He said: "Fire."
Ruth lowered her eyes. "Nothing."
