Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance)

by Bruce Sterling

  He gazed at her in astonishment. “You are some piece of work.”

  “You can do it, if you desire to do it. Just for one performance.”

  “That is so beautiful.… but I frankly don’t see how that’s possible. You and I, we have no future. In twenty-four hours, I’ll be flying back to my home.”

  “That is not true, handsome. You still have one night in Capri.” Farfalla touched his chin with her finger. “I can’t promise you eternity. Because, I am a mortal woman. But I can promise you me. Look at me. Look here, at me. I love you. I am yours. You can have anything you want from me.”

  He said nothing.

  “That is my promise,” she said, crossing her heart.

  “That’s a rather cheering and motivating thing for a woman to predict to a man.”

  She said nothing.

  “The predictions you make along that line are extremely accurate, aren’t they.”

  “I don’t make many.”

  “That is the most beautiful thing that I have ever heard. That was the most wonderful thing that anyone has ever said to me. That was a piece of true Futurist poetry. That gorgeous thing you foretold has changed my world forever. Even if I die in the next five minutes, I will die as another, better kind of man.” He cleared his throat. “So, how long do we have to create this fantastic speech that makes everybody happy but us?”

  “Twenty minutes?”

  “Piece of cake. Twenty minutes is forever.” He yanked his laptop from his bag.

  Chapter Thirteen: Translation is Treason

  Gavin strode to the podium, his laptop tucked under his arm. He set the machine on the podium, and tilted the mike up. The screen held the first lines of his new speech: “I come before you today as a man of a new generation: a cool, calm, collected, and confident generation. A brilliant generation blessed with global connectivity.”

  After that, he was winging it from a frenzied scattering of notes.

  However, this situation felt okay. In fact, it felt perfect. It was never hard to talk about a future that was all wild, unpredictable, joyous make-believe.

  Gavin didn’t know the way to the end of his speech, but he knew his destination. It was like driving down from Seattle to Silicon Valley. He would get there for sure, if he held onto the wheel and avoided the ditches.

  Besides, he could see Farfalla’s eager face, glowing behind the glass of her translation booth. That made every difference in the world to him. There was a beautiful woman, eagerly hanging onto his every word. Any hot-blooded male could find some eloquence in that situation.

  A speech requiring translation necessitated speaking at half speed. Half-speed meant a lot of solemn pauses. Thoughtful pauses, which made him seem dignified and deep.

  After ten minutes, Gavin realized this was the best speech he had ever given. This was a speech in a league by itself. It might be a fake future, but it was a real speech. He was compelling, when he spoke like this. He was persuasive. He was connecting. He was seductive, even.

  It was a pleasure to tell her about the future. Their future, together. All he had to do was promise her the great, golden moon!

  Was that so wrong? To promise a woman the moon? Was romantic hokum even a lie? The world was full of millions of men promising glorious happiness to women! Didn’t women fall for that nonsense like ninepins? Vast majorities of women, even? When women finally figured out it was just sweet mushy nothings from an ardent suitor, were they upset about that? Really? Ever?

  You didn’t have to be sticky-sweet about it. No, it was great when a young couple boldly faced up to their challenges! Uniting their fortunes! Building a home! Starting a family! “For better or worse!” “Worse” put some skin in the game. “Worse” made love a decision of consequence.

  Love cast out fear! For a mortal man and woman to unite as one was the ultimate triumph of hope! Didn’t people marry during wars? Of course, they got married! In wars, people would marry anybody, even foreigners! Didn’t people marry during horrible plagues? Of course, people would marry during plagues! They needed those children to replace the host of the dead!

  And that, ladies and gentlemen, was what tomorrow was all about! That vital willingness to awake with the new dawn, to join the marching pageant of a vivid world, where only the brave deserved the fair, where the cringing pessimist and the sneaking cynic were properly scorned! A glorious Italian future entirely worthy of the finest moments of its past! As the great prophet Garibaldi had once commanded (in Italian of course), “Women of Italy! Cast away all cowards from your embraces! They will give you only cowards for children!”

  It took ten seconds for the crowd to realize that Gavin was speaking in Italian, and also quoting Garibaldi. But then, they just lost it. They were stunned to hear an American accountant utter such an unlikely, off-the wall sentiment. Applause banged off the convent’s stony walls like shotgun blasts.

  Everybody in the audience who spoke English was looking askance at him now. Clearly, they had him figured for drunk. But the Italians were totally digging the presentation. Basically, the Italians were cheering wildly for every line Farfalla had spoken into their ears.

  Pretty soon, all the English-speakers in the audience were figuring him for a sly dog. A wily character. They envied his suave ability to connect with people from another culture. He had the room in the palm of his hand!

  Gavin yanked the mike from the podium and began to ramble the stage. Every eye followed him, their faces like mosaic tiling.

  Then, he saw Farfalla urgently waving at him from behind her glass. She held up five fingers. Five minutes left in his speech? No way! That could not possibly have been a hour. He was barely two-thirds through his notes. He still had so many strong, cogent points to make: reassess a sorely discredited financial system, a golden opportunity to clean the global slate, finding the courage the share this world as it is, Euro-American networked cooperation...

  He zipped through his computer screen to the bang-up ending. “Let me conclude by praising you as you deserve! Far too often, Italians overlook the high quality of Web Due-Punto-Zero — the World Wide Italian Web! Your superb contribution to that great effort of our world civilization is creating — day after day — the most powerful, influential, and seductive aspect of modern Italian culture! Thank you very much.”

  They went ape. Some of the crowd — they must be Americans, because Italians never did stuff like that — were whistling and whooping.

  Amazingly, he had ended right on time. He’d killed the Futurist Congress with one decisive, final blow. He had triumphed, he had killed, like pounding a stake through a vampire. A feat worthy of a knight in armor.

  This meant that every victim stuck inside this dismal church could immediately rush outdoors, grab a few drinks and do some business deals.

  The satisfied audience abandoned their plastic chairs as free human beings. Off they went, in their happy droves. One last blowout in the posh restaurants and the squeaking hotel beds of Capri. Oh, the joy.

  Teenage Italian kids were jostling up to the stage. Italians were always big on hauling some college students into their public events, probably to prevent the kids from rioting. The gleeful teens were falling all over themselves. Being kids, they had more at stake in the future than anybody else. “Brilliantly speaking, sir! Forgive me, sir, my English is not too very good!”

  Gavin smiled benignly on the scraggly, tattooed students. The youngsters insisted on getting his autograph on their Futurist Congress brochures.

  Behind this crowd of kids lurked an imposing stranger. He was a sober guy, professorial, bald, and bearded, with a black silk turtleneck. With a weird formal intellectual’s accent, he said, “Very intriguing and original speech, Mr. Tremaine. A unique presentation. I am the chairman of the forthcoming Futurist event in Sao Paolo. You will have heard of us. I venture to hope you will do us the honor of favoring us in Brazil with your presence there!”

  Gavin had to juggle business cards with this over-polite Braz
ilian honcho. “Well, I’ll check my calendar for you.” he said and was met with a level stare in return. “We will do what we must, to have you join us, Mr Tremaine.” The chairman wasn’t kidding.

  Behind the Brazilian — she was tall and bright and skinny as a neon tube — came Brixie the Blogger. Neon-tube Brixie looked a little bent, dim, and flickery. She had come to make peace.

  “That was quite a rant you just gave,” Brixie told him. “That was some pretty good stuff. That sorta freaked me out.”

  “Thanks, Brixie.”

  “I streamed that whole thing live to the Web through my mobile. I hope you didn’t mind me doing that.”

  “Um... I guess not.”

  “Your pitch was gutsy. I didn’t expect that from you. I mean, jeez, you come across as so dumb and geeky. Now, I’m sorry for what I said about your girlfriend. On my blog.”

  “She is not my girlfriend, Brixie. Get your facts straight! That was my Italian translator. She was helping me assemble the speech that you liked so much.”

  “You can tell your Italian girlfriend that I’m sure to die young and in pain,” Brixie offered. “Your big warm-hearted speech flew right past most of the meathead schmoes in this audience, but I was totally parsing that. Futurism, futurismo, you really are a Futurist, you’re the paranormal deal there, I get that. You should give me some advice. Can I ask you for some good advice?”

  “You want advice from me? Look, if I were you, I’d shoot a moose and eat it.”

  “You’re a funny guy, Gavin Tremaine,” said Brixie, unsmiling. “Though obviously you’re not real hip about the intense body-consciousness in the fashion industry.”

  “Look, Brixie, I may dress like a nerd, but I can read trends. Yeah, I can tell you what to do. Listen to me. You have to back off and outlast these glitzy bastards! You need to pace yourself, Brixie. Knock it off with snorting speed on yachts. Think Diana Vreeland.”

  “Should I look her up on Wikipedia?”

  “You don’t know about Diana Vreeland? What kind of barbarian are you? You don’t know your own fashion history! Forget the software uploads! Go home and read Diana Vreeland’s books!”

  “Is... is she dead?”

  “That makes no difference at all! She’s no more dead than Mark Twain.”

  “I’ll think about what you just said to me.”

  “You do that. Think real hard, Brixie. Now, where is Fabio? I need a word with the genius behind the scenes here.”

  “Fabio is not here,” said Brixie. “Fabio left early. Fabio is heading back to the peace and safety of the sweet little wife and kids.”

  “Oh,” said Gavin. He hadn’t expected to hear reality put that bluntly, somehow. Suddenly, the manic high from his rant was huffed all out of him. He was shrinking back toward the dimensions of his normal self. “Well, uh, good luck with all that, Brixie. I mean, you and your future.”

  “It was just Capri,” said Brixie, and she vanished.

  There were more bouts of ritual handshaking with his dwindling herd of admirers, but the Futurist church was emptying in a hurry. Soon, not a friendly face to be seen anywhere. No Farfalla in her glass translation booth, and no Eliza, either.

  Where was Eliza? Eliza was missing! He’d sent her the wrong time-slot for his speech! How could Eliza show up for his speech when his speech was rescheduled without any warning? He’d been neglecting Eliza. Now, he felt guilty.

  In the back of the church, men in orange uniforms were stacking the designer chairs. Fantastic how great the Italians were at doing that. In and out of their historic buildings in the wink of an eye. Soon this church would be just as empty, cold and echoing as it had been for the last four hundred years.

  Gavin knew pretty well what came next in this situation. Because the future was obvious. Obviously, the smart-guy scheme was to check his Blackberry and see find the event’s “A” party. Attendance would be expected of him. Wherever that big shindig was, it would involve three or four hours of Italian ritual dinner drama. Aperitivos, red and white wines, endless courses of ragouts, octopus and pickled horse-meat, cheek-kisses galore... “An event not to be missed!” as they always said, and the last thing Gavin wanted to do.

  His conference stardom hadn’t lasted long. He felt as vacant as a grinning Halloween pumpkin.

  Farfalla had vanished. Not one trace of Farfalla Corrado. Nothingness there. A Farfalla-shaped hole. Now, he had to wonder if Farfalla Corrado had ever existed. Everything he had accomplished on Capri had something to do with her.

  Maybe there had never been a Farfalla Corrado.

  Then she appeared, moving into the waning light, with her high-heeled stride, in that gorgeous, lovely, geometric dress. Instantly, every cell in Gavin’s body — every vital particle, down to the dead cells in his hair and fingernails — cried out for her. A hair-raising, scary fit of male adoration. An abject, romantic swoon.

  My God, what a glorious creature! He would set himself on fire to light her footsteps. He was in the grip of divine passion, an emotion beyond human limits. Nothing to cling to in his past, present or future. Nothing to cling to, but her.

  Farfalla slithered up to him. “So,” she told him, with a small, chilly smile, “I can see that you need a drink now. Let’s go to the big party.”

  “I don’t think so. No, that’s not what I need now.”

  “We should find your friends. Your big speech was very successful!”

  “Farfalla, let’s have an adult conversation about our situation. Okay? This is serious.”

  “You were the star tonight. Your fancy friends will be upset if you waste time with me.”

  “What ‘waste of time,” are you kidding me? You know as well as I do that we pulled that stunt off together.”

  “I threw up in the bathroom,” Farfalla said meekly. “I ran away and I threw up, because that was so exciting... I always have to go to these events, and I never get to tell them anything.”

  “Wow! You have speaker’s nerves!” Gavin had to chuckle. “Well! That is truly classic! Now you know what it feels like, for us clowns who stand at the podium! Never mind, never mind. That’s all over now! It’s history! Your scheme was dynamite! We beat them like dogs! You’re a goddess.”

  She brightened. “You mean it?”

  “Yes, you’re a goddess, I mean it. I knew it would work all along!” he lied. “And the credit is all yours.”

  “Please don’t say that I’m a goddess. I know I didn’t do it.”

  “Well, then we did it together. And obviously, you were giving them a speech that was much better than mine. That speech in Italian was much more exciting! Those Italians were knocked in the dirt! The people who heard me in English just thought I was being a show-off.”

  “I said almost the words you said to me... I just... I improved a few parts.”

  “I don’t care. Everything about that speech was ‘new and improved.’” Gavin paused. “Imagine a future that really is better than today. Maybe you and me, people our age, maybe we really are a golden generation... Nobody else ever tells us that, maybe we have to tell it to ourselves.”

  “I brought something for you,” she said, and handed over her iPhone.

  She had taken a picture of herself with her mobile’s camera. A woman’s self-portrait, taken inside a bathroom stall. Nude.

  “My God,” he said. “This pic is awesome.”

  “I threw up on my dress, so I had to take my dress off, and I thought... Well, I have no clothes on now, he’s a Futurist, he’s going to see me, so he should see me right away... Was that stupid?”

  “No way! I totally get this,” he said. “This is one of those hot European ‘sexting’ things. Wow! I never saw ‘sexting’ before. What a sweet, tender gesture! It’s like a blown kiss with your whole naked body.” Gavin pressed the screen to his heart. “I will never forget this beautiful message, I promise.”

  “Give me my iPhone back.”

  “Not just yet,” he said, staring. That naked truth was so to
uching and precious. What a thoughtful gesture of digital trust. “Our generation is superb at social networking! Look at the amazing things we invent to these days! This is truly a time in history when it’s great to be alive!”

  “The lighting is so bad in that ladies’ room,” said Farfalla modestly. “I can take a much better nude picture than that.”

  “Forward this pic to me.”

  “You don’t have an iPhone.”

  “Hardware incompatibility!” He handed her phone back. “We can work our way around that.”

  “I had some Milanese photo sessions, when I was eighteen.… Those pictures were good.”

  “I have just realized something crucial,” he told her. “It is about truth and beauty. It’s the truth about your beauty. Many women in this world have ‘classic beauty’... But not you, Farfalla. You have the beauty of the future.”

  Farfalla slipped the iPhone in her purse and slung the purse over her shoulder. “Oh, you made that up, just to make me happy.”

  “You should believe me when I predict that kind of thing. The most beautiful women of the future will look like you do. Multicultural women, very fashion-aware... Wait forty years, and see if that’s not true.”

  “I’ll be sixty-five in forty years. I’ll be old and wrinkled.”

  “I never said that we would benefit by being there first. It’s just that... well, you know it’s the beauty of the future, and I know it. We know it first, together.”

  Farfalla was the picture of flattered satisfaction. His compliments had set her all aglow. Gavin realized that he still had the magic. He was magical because he was talking to her. It was magic, the way she completely believed him when he said outrageous, fantastic, romantically beautiful things. He believed it himself when he said them to her. It was their magic.

  Gavin gazed around the empty cavern of the chapel. “There is nobody left here. It’s just you and me and those creepy painted cherubs. Let’s get the hell out of this dive!”

  “You don’t want to go to the big party?” she said. “They will miss you.”