by Tanith Lee
It came to me that the town had remained a wood for him, and in a way I wondered if he even saw the buildings and the roads as such, or if they were somehow caves and trees, and savage woodland glades. By this formula, too, he might have his uncanny protection, making himself in turn invisible to the town, and to its police force. Seeing him quite frequently, as they must do, they had never seen him.
The fire sank. It was cold in the boarded house, February weather.
“Sometimes I go to a church,” he said. “Once, I did make confession. But not the killings. You see, for me, the killing is not a sin.”
“No, I understand that.”
As he moved to put more cones and branches on to the fading fire, I told him the dream I had had, the night he—no, George—had died. About the blue wolf who gave birth to me in the great tree, and her sad eyes. I mentioned the idea to him that the mother-birth is the second birth, that the ejection of the seed the paternal birth—precedes it. I wanted to inquire after the metamorphosis he himself underwent, perhaps during this ejection, or directly before. Presumably, it did happen. But how did he accomplish it? He seemed totally physically real, and if he was, such a displacement of atoms must be impossible.
“Well, maybe the wolves did birth you,” he said. “You arrived at the house an orphan.”
“I don’t remember my parents,” I said.
“I remember mine,” he said. “His.”
“Do you remember our grandmother?”
“A big mouth, always telling us things she shouldn’t have. But you were a strange child. That’s how I see you now. I wonder what happened to that other girl. . . .”
“Bettany?” I paused. Bettany had married a handsome Jewish banker, and become another woman who ate chocolates and produced children. I had not met her for years. Neither of us now wanted to talk about Bettany. I think it was only some associative memory stirring in George’s brief past, like a nerve. Eventually, I pushed her right away, and said, “And you remember the story our grandmother told us?”
“The girl with the mantle made of blood,” he said. “Like you.”
“Do you worship the old gods? Do you make sacrifices to Pan?”
He laughed. The laugh was wonderful. He sat back on his heels, laughing, warm February fire all over him. He ate life. It had filled him. He was unlike anything, human or beast.
“No. Pan? Pan is dead. Or is that a pun—Pan—du pain—bread—peine—pain—the body of Christ?”
“I meant, how do you effect the transformation?”
He lowered his eyes—with a dagger-green flash—like a modest girl who has been asked by a man if he may touch, very politely, her breast.
“What is that?” he said.
“Man into wolf. Is it possible?”
“Of course.”
“How?”
“Do you want me to show you?” he said, looking at me now in the old sly way, under his lashes.
“No,” I said. But I did want him to. “Could you not simply describe for me—”
“If I do it,” he said, “you may be frightened. You may go mad. Or, I may kill you.”
“You would stop being yourself.”
“I should become myself.”
“There’s no self to become,” I said. “Whatever you are, not really. So, I suppose you could become anything. Is that what the answer is?”
“I remember the girl in the story,” he said. “She wouldn’t submit.”
“Then she did.”
“Yes. Then she did. Do you actually think,” he said, “that any one of us is truly what we’re pleased to call ‘Real’? All matter, flesh, skin, trees, stone, bricks, blood—it’s all illusory, fluid, non-existent, formed from nothing—therefore capable of any alteration, and of complete change. Wouldn’t you say? Where else do the woods go to, when they turn into concrete? How else? And the bread that’s a body, and children who grow up or turn into a heap of calcium in the ground?”
“What about the needle and the pin?”
“There’s no choice between them. They’re the same. They both pierce and they both join together.”
“Is that what it meant?”
“In the story she told us.”
“Show me, then,” I said.
“Look at me, then,” he said.
So I did look. I looked hard, too hard. And then I let myself relax, even my eyes, I allowed them to unfocus a little, just a very little, and gradually, by the broad gusts of fire through the shadow, I began to see the wolf. There was no violence, no tearing or twisting, no flare up of pelt, the skull re-shaping itself, a howling frenzy. Frankly, it was all already there. By allowing myself to see, I merely saw it. Then again, the terror of it, for it was quite terrifying, was all because it was not a wolf at all, but some intrinsic fear-thing that was to do with man’s phobia at wolves, primeval, matted, dark, fathomless. It was the head of a creature that was the head of fear, and with a man’s body, a man’s long wolfish hands, with which to work the horror out.
Presently I looked away, and opened my purse and took out a cigarette. When I had struck the match and lit it, I offered the packet to him, and he had become a young man again, a wolf-boy, much more wolf-like in his human form. The werewolf was only the image, the icon of the nightmare.
We smoked our cigarettes in silence, and then he lay down, his head in my lap. The fire played on the planes of his face. I watched him, trying to memorize his beauty, as one does with some work of art one may never see again. After a while, he said that he often slept here, but he was cold tonight, did I feel the cold as he did? He thought not. His blood was hotter than mine. So then I took off my red coat and laid it over him, drawing it up to his chin.
He slept after an interval, and I, my back propped against the rotted boards, also slept a few moments. I dreamed I was in the tree again, in the act of birth from the belly or the penis of the lupin-blue wolf. I thought: That’s the riddle, then. Not to find the bestial in humankind, but this constant thrust to be born free of it, the coming out from the beast, the ancestor in his sheath of hair and hunger. Then I woke, and he slept, still. I got up carefully, not to wake him, I did not want to make him start. But as I moved to the fire, I half believed I caught the flash of his eyes, watching on under their lashes. Yet who goes in the wood, knowing the wood, is there to tempt his fate. He recalled, he had told me so. I pulled one of the last twigs out of the grate, and carried the bud of February fire back to him. I even still waited an instant, letting the glare and heat of the burning twig flicker above his face, as Psyche did, when she stared down on her shape-changer monster-god in the legend of love. But now he did not open his eyes, if he ever had.
I put the flame to the edges of my coat, all the way around, then threw the last smolder of the twig down into his hair.
At first, there was nothing, just a ripple, sparks, smoke. Then suddenly, all of it went up, the coat, the wolf-mane, and he too, a spasm of fire, scarlet on the shadow, the color of blood, redness covering him, obliterating him. He gave no cry, and scarcely changed position, only rolling a little, as if to be one with the warmth and comfort.
I found it very cold outside, after the fire. The house was burning by the time I reached the canal, I could see the light on the sky, and the smoke going over the sinking moon.
• • •
My grandmother’s grave, in the transported cemetery, has flowers growing on it, and ivy, but no lupins. I took photographs of that, and other Vaudron graves. That was really all modernization had left me. The dwellings and landmarks of my childhood were gone. There was some excitement in the town that day, about a derelict house which had caught on fire in the night. Tramps had been using it, and no one was astonished that the cooling clinker revealed the remains of a man. Then again, however, they were not sure it was a man, or anything, for that matter, ever alive. At the correct temperature,
even bones will melt. You can rely on the constancy of nothing.
Having to buy a coat, I was disconcerted by the women in the shop. They were so interested in all the other aspects of their lives, that for them I hardly existed. I had become a sort of ghost. I left the town near evening, by the night train for the south. In the city I knew I would be recognized, and spoken to, I knew I should be perfectly alive and real.
Wolfed
UNDER THE GLITTERING cliffs of skyscrapers, in the tangled night wood of neon, concrete, glass, and steel that calls itself New York City, he strayed from the path, and went into a little bar.
He was twenty-six years old, six foot four in height, and he weighed around one hundred and seventy-two pounds. He had the kind of face sometimes seen on celluloid, but once, that very year he thought he might make it as an actor, the middle-aged woman in the casting office had said to him, “Oh, honey. You’re just too good-looking. That blond hair and those black eyes—be warned. You’ll have a bad time here.” She then suggested something else. And when he did that, she was very generous, both with her surprisingly pretty body, and with the wad of bills he found later in his car. It was this that had started him on his present career, the one he should have been pursuing right now, since he was down to his last twenty. So maybe the bar was a fine idea . . . or not. Really, it was the girl. She was the reason he came in. And she was not the sort of girl to be any use. Because she wouldn’t need him, not at all.
As he sat down on the chromium stool at her side, practiced, he took her in, through the low, cave-dim light. But practice had not prepared him. He liked women a lot. Their voices, their bodies—oh, yes, those—their clothes and how they wore them. Their cosmetics even, jewelry, lingerie—everything about them. And this one—
She had a burnished hood of claret-red hair, matched neatly by her velvet gown, which being tight, backless and nearly frontless, gave him an exquisite view of several rich curves, and a faultless pearl-cream skin. Then, imagine a deer in the wood who is truly a wicked—but beautiful—witch in disguise. That was her face. She had no makeup but for the black kohl round her eyes and on her lashes, that looked real and a full inch long, and the ripe scarlet on her full, smooth lips. No jewelry, good or cheap, on her slim arms, at her long, delicious neck, or in the lobes of her alabaster ears. However, where her shorter than short skirt rode up, just above the black lace of her long-legged stocking-tops, he noted a garter with a golden rose. And five years of having to do with gold, though seldom in the way of ownership, suggested the golden rose, like her lashes, was quite real.
He did not speak, but he saw from his vision’s corner, that she had turned to frankly study him. Perhaps she liked the look of him. Most women did. Suddenly she laughed, a great laugh, appealing, not too loud, not ugly, and not irritatingly coy. Lashes, gold, laugh—all genuine?
He turned too, and gazed at her full on.
Oh, yes.
Her teeth were white, and her eyes the shade of green found in Han jade. She smelled faintly, warmly, of some smoky flower, perhaps not of the earth. Was that the catch—she was an X-File alien?
“Thank you for laughing at me.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, I liked it.”
“Why?”
“It means I’ve amused you. And I didn’t even have to tell a joke.”
She smiled now, and raising her glass—of some green cocktail less convincing than her Han-green eyes—she said, “I laughed because you’re so handsome.”
“Oh, I see.”
“Do you?”
“Well . . . maybe. Shall I do it at you?”
“If you want.”
The few other customers were far off along the room, but now a waiter was floating down the bar counter, and the girl signaled, and he floated right over.
He knew now she would buy him a big drink, and she did, and when it had been served on its little white paper Undependable, she said to him, “Will you tell me your name?”
“Sure. It’s Wolfgang. But you’ll believe I prefer to be called Wolf.”
“So we don’t gang up on you,” she said.
“Yeah, that’s it. And I guess they call you Red,” he added, guessing that he doubted that.
“Rose,” she answered.
She leaned a fraction toward him, and the white fruits of her breasts moved gently in the red velvet, just enough he understood that she had on no brassière, and probably no underclothes at all, apart from the stockings with the garter.
“Rose,” he repeated. He let her hear it, that he was aroused. From the warm fragrance of her, the darkening of her eyes, he was suddenly recklessly banking on the fact that she was, as well. You had to take a chance sometimes. But you had to be careful too. There had been that girl in Queens who looked like five million dollars, and turned out to have a habit, and a worse habit—which was a knife.
“Are you hungry?” said Rose.
“I’m always hungry.” He paused, “Not always for food.”
“Me neither,” said Rose.
Wolf glanced at those other customers. No one was looking at Rose, or himself, they were all lost, as most persons were, in their own involving lives. Just as well, perhaps, for she had put her slim white hand now on his crotch. It was the mildest, almost, you could say, the most tactful caress. But he came up like a rock against her.
“You’re interested,” she said.
“My. You can tell.”
“I’m so glad. Because you’re perfect, Wolf.”
“That’s nice.”
“I hope so.”
“What,” he said, as she removed her cruel, tender little hand, “did you have in mind?”
“Well, you see, it’s not really for me.” She watched him, watched his face change down, cool an iota. “No, this isn’t some trick, Wolf. It’s just, you see, I promised to take my grandmother something.”
“Your grandmother.”
Rose laughed, differently now. This was exuberant, even coarse, and yet, she could get away with it entirely. Muscles rippled lightly under red velvet dress and white velvet skin. Despite all his years of experience, he wanted badly to pull her close, and open his mouth, let out his tongue against her ear, her throat, to taste the heat of her under her succulent sheath, and then he would like—
“It sounds unattractive, I know. But it isn’t. She isn’t. Grandmothers aren’t always elderly any more. I’m nineteen, and my grandmother—Ryder, that’s her name—is just, well, in her early forties.”
“That doesn’t sound like it’s legal.”
Rose shrugged.
“Or quite truthful,” he amended, sternly.
Rose picked up a little ruby purse, and slid out of it a small photograph. She held this out. When Wolf took it from her, he saw it showed a most beautiful, lion-maned woman, in a skin-tight leotard. Not young, but nevertheless voluptuous, limber, strong, and highly enticing.
“This is Grandma?” he said.
“That is she. And honestly, Wolf, the picture hasn’t been retouched.”
“You’d swear that on your mother’s life.”
“Can’t. No mother, now. I’d swear it on mine.”
Wolf emptied his glass. The girl raised her hand and the waiter stirred. Wolf said, “Maybe not. I don’t want you to waste your money.”
“I haven’t. Look, we’ll take a cab over there. Go up, and see. I know, when you meet Ryder, you’ll want to go in . . . if you take what I mean.”
“And if not?”
“No hard feelings. Make some excuse to her—wrong floor, wrong apartment. If you come straight back down, well I’ll wait around a while, and let’s say two hundred dollars for your wasted time. How’s that?”
“You guessed. Aw shucks.”
Rose leaned forward again. For a blissful moment, as she adjusted one crimson pump, he caught, in th
e scoop of neck-line, the peek-a-boo flicker of an icing-sugar-pink nipple. The colors didn’t clash at all. And then her soft lips were on his, and her narrow tongue darted in and out and was gone.
“I did so want to give her something lovely for her birthday,” said Rose. “And you are, Wolf, lovely as lovely is.”
• • •
The elevator had gold inside, not solid this time, but not bad: gold-plated.
When he alighted, and rang the gold-plated bell, her intercom came on.
“Is that you, honey?”
Ryder’s voice was low and sweet—and dangerous.
Wolf said, “I guess not.”
“Oh,” said Granny’s intercom. “Then what?”
“Rose—sent me up.”
“Rose did? Do I know a Rose?”
“She says she’s your granddaughter.”
“Oh, that Rose. Okay.”
The jet-black shining door opened wide, and showed him an enormous reception area, with black and white marble underfoot and on the walls, golded mirrors, a skylight set with milky glass shot by red jewels that threw down rosy blood-drops all over everything. There were no other furnishings, and just two engraved glass doors, opening somewhere else, presently closed. You couldn’t see through the engraving, not properly. But inside it looked fairly impressive.
