by Steven Brust
But what really got to me was a little thing—the street signs looked just about the same as they had back home, where I call home, before London. I hadn’t consciously expected anything else, I hadn’t thought about it, but I was startled. We were standing on LaVelle, with Valois running just to our left.
There was a breeze from my left to my right that brought the temperature down to where I almost get goose bumps, and when the wind stilled, the back of my neck felt hot where the sun struck it. I tried to remember if people here seemed exceptionally pale or unusually tanned, but I couldn’t remember so I guessed not. The breeze brought me a smell that might have been cinnamon, but might not have been.
I held out my hand and Souci took it and we walked that way and a bird made a funny low whistling sound as we crossed a wide street called LeDuc, and as we looked for apartments we didn’t say much that stays in my memory, but I think we learned a great deal about each other. She found a third-floor place in a six-unit house built of grey bricks. It was right up against the street and both taller than the houses around it and set apart from them, as if it were looming over the street to pounce on pedestrians. It was only half a mile from Feng’s. It was clean, affordable, and the landlord or caretaker or whatever, spoke passable English—a big plus as far as I was concerned. The apartment was much larger than I was going to need, and included a view that looked out over the Quebec, the local river.
Rent was extremely cheap, but that was usually the case with colonies—lodging and food are cheap, clothing and entertainment cost. Anyway, it turned out I could pay a month’s rent (fortunately this colony didn’t have such customs as forced marriages, trial by ordeal, or damage deposits) with what we’d gotten for the last two nights of playing. It left me with nothing for food, but I could pile up debts at Feng’s, or, local customs permitting, earn some extra money playing in the street with Tom. I asked Souci about it, and she said that local customs would, indeed, permit, and she indicated that if I chose to do this, I should warn her in time for her to be well away from the area. I was beginning to realize that, in some ways, she was not a nice person.
I paid, got the key, and asked if it was possible to rent furniture. Well, yes, but it was expensive. I shrugged. I had my blanket and futon, and the floor of the place was carpeted. What else did I need?
Before going back to Feng’s, Souci and I made love on the carpet and it was a very fine thing, indeed. We rested, then, and I wondered about many things.
Intermezzo
I am a little beggarman
And begging I have been
For three score and more
On this little isle of green.
“The Beggarman,”
Traditional
Define “center” as the place where time turns to ice. Chip chip, you go, and a chunk breaks off. You’ll look at it later, and say, “That was it” a chunk of the ice of life, so to speak. Then it will be the apex, or the center point, or the deepest part of the valley, or however you wish to consider a series of events viewed as a two-dimensional array of the data points we call “incidents.”
We’re picking one, and we’re calling it pivotal because, among other reasons, it is. But remember, please, that you can’t have any sort of perspective about it while it’s in the process of happening, and if you try you’ll just confuse yourself. Perspective is for then, occurrence is for now.
Now, then:
Rich said, “What happened?”
Linda said, “None of your fucking business.”
The exchange took a little less than ten seconds, and can be seen as the moment to which everything had been building, and the instant from which the change occurred.
Rich’s immediate reaction was, I wonder if it would bother me as much if she didn’t seem to like it? Well, yes, but in a different way. Maybe a cleaner way. But he shook his head at that. The last year, with his wife’s succession of lovers, had taught him to view his own reactions with a little more cynicism than that.
Why am I putting up with this?
Rich had been, among other things, a crisis counselor, and was thus operating under the impression that he ought to be able to figure out what, for example, he was getting out of his relationship with his wife of five years that made it worth going through this. He was wrong, of course.
Three nights ago she’d come home with welts on her thighs and he’d been too stunned to say anything. Maybe I’m not quite as blasé as I’d like to think, had been his reaction then. And, over the next three days, he’d given himself hell for that reaction, and for not confronting her about it directly.
So, tonight, when she was undressing and he saw bruise marks on her breasts, he gathered his courage and asked about them directly, and been told, “None of your fucking business,” which left him asking himself why he put up with any of it. For another timeless three seconds of ice he stood there, then—
“I’m going for a walk,” he said suddenly. And, because he was feeling nasty, added, “I might be back.”
She didn’t answer, and this caught him for a moment, and that moment was filled with changes and rearrangements in thinking and feeling that wouldn’t settle in fully for years. In brief: Why is she that certain I can’t be serious? and then: Aren’t I? He stopped, half in and half out of the door, and realized, with the feeling of a weight lifting from his shoulders and a simultaneous pang, that, in fact, he wouldn’t be back.
He wondered how Linda would react. But the scary thing was that, as near as he could tell, he really, honestly, couldn’t care less.
An end, a beginning, and a center point.
The door closed behind him with a hollow sound.
Chapter 3
As we rolled down to Fenario
Our captain fell in love
With a lady like a dove
And her name it was called pretty Peggy-O.
“Peggy-O,”
Traditional
It was early evening when I brought her to Feng’s to buy her another meal by way of saying thank you for helping me find the apartment. We took a different route back, a more hilly set of streets, by way of LeDuc up to LaVelle. As we passed a low brick building with a small hand-lettered sign she said, “That’s my agency.”
“Do they keep you working a lot?”
“As much as I want,” she said.
“That’s good.”
“Yes.”
She held my hand. There was a glow somewhere in my middle. It frightened me. We arrived at Feng’s, and I was pleased that my favorite booth, beneath the Cheerful Chinaman, was unoccupied. We sat next to each other. Souci looked into the taproom and pointed at the model Colt .44 Peacemaker on the wall and said, “Is that real?”
“No,” I said. “It’s a replica. But that’s real.” I nodded toward the suit of armor in the corner. She studied it; then glanced at the painting over the stage, with the Indian shooting a machine gun from the window of an old Deusenberg at a covered wagon while the knights in the wagon threw spears back at the car.
“This is a really weird place,” she said.
“Tell me about it.”
We ordered, and talked more, and the food came and we ate it. She didn’t like my wine choice, but agreed that the chicken in champagne sauce was pretty spectacular. I’ll note in passing that the colonists on New Quebec took better care of their chickens than most places I’d been, so it did, in fact, taste even better than usual. Fred was on duty, so I introduced her to him.
When he’d left, she said, “Kind of cold, isn’t he?”
I said, “Huh? Oh, just when he’s working.”
“Mmmmm,” she said. “He tried to throw me out last night.”
“When?”
“After you’d finished playing.”
“I’ll kill him.”
She smiled. She had dimples. There was a dropping sensation in my chest. About then, Rose joined us, and I introduced them as well.
“I like your necklace,” said Rose.
�
�It’s like the one Traci Devonois wore in Leeches.”
“I haven’t seen that. Is it good?”
“Yeah. The first time Paul Languedoc came out of the lake, I screamed so loud I got a sore throat.”
“That’s what happened to me the first time I saw A Nightmare on Elm Street.”
“You saw that, too?”
“Those claws.”
“I know. And Alien, where the alien comes through—”
“Don’t say it. Did you see the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”
“About ninety times,” said Souci. “What about Creep Show?”
“Yeah. What made it so scary was how matter-of-fact it all was, you know?”
“I know. Just like City of Terror, where the bug-things start eating through the walls, and everyone just watches. Ish.”
“I didn’t see that,” said Rose. “But—”
“Excuse me, sis,” I said. “Do you know where Jamie is?”
Rose looked at me and blinked. “Gone,” she said, which meant that he’d either stepped out for a moment or been hit by a bus, and she couldn’t care less which it was, and it would be wise if I didn’t bring up the subject again.
“Right,” I said. “I rented an apartment, just down the road. There’s room for all of us, if you guys want to help out on the rent.” The band, and sometimes Rich and Eve, had lived together off and on in London and before, and we could stand it when we had to.
Rose nodded. “It sounds fine as long as that man isn’t around.”
“That man” is one of the ways she refers to Jamie when she isn’t happy with him. “Jim” is another. Or “James.” I keep track, during dull moments. This time I nodded and ignored it, since these things never make a practical difference in anything either of them does.
“Is it big?”
“Big enough,” I said. “Two bedrooms and a den, and someone can sleep in the living room if—” I caught myself before saying, “if you and Jamie aren’t sleeping together,” and said, “if things work that way. The rent is pretty cheap.”
She agreed to think about it, then she and Souci went back to discussing monsters and I concentrated on my food. Eventually I drifted off to find Tom. He was curled up in his corner of the storeroom, fully clothed, with the blonde he’d introduced as Carrie. They snored in unison. They looked very cute. I was disgusted.
When I went back to the table, Rose and Souci were gone. I felt a pang, which I shook off as stupid. Having sex isn’t precisely the same as a lifetime commitment. I was annoyed at how relieved I was when they came back a few minutes later and Souci sat down next to me.
She said, “I’m dancing tonight at La Violette. Do you want to come down?” There was something guarded in her voice, as if she was trying to sound like she didn’t care too much.
I said, “They have dancing on Sundays?”
“Seven days a week,” she said.
“Is there a cover?”
“A what?”
“Do they charge you to get in?”
“Oh. Yes, but I’ll get you on the list. And Rose, too.”
“Thanks,” said Rosie.
“You’ll really be there?”
“With bells on.”
“What?”
“Yes. Really. For sure.”
“Where are you from, anyway?”
I shrugged. “Lots of places. Never mind. Should we go up to the bar and have a drink?”
“I’d like that,” said Souci.
“Whiskey,” agreed Rose.
I signed the check, and Souci, Rose, and I moved around the corner to sit at the bar with our backs to the stage. “Hey, Libby-love, this is my friend Souci.”
“How d’ya do?” said Libby.
“Hi,” said Souci.
Libby wiped the bar in front of us, put a toothpick in her mouth, and said, “What would you like?”
“Do you have Juliana Dark?”
“No, but we have Dos Equis.”
“What’s that?”
“It’s imported from—just try it. If you don’t like it I’ll give you something else. What about you, Billy?”
“Beer,” I said.
“Right. And you want whiskey, Rose?”
“Whiskey,” she agreed.
“Should I run a tab?”
“Yeah,” I said.
The liquor showed up, and Souci decided the Dos Equis was good enough if one added lime. Libby polished the bar in front of me and said, “I haven’t really had a chance to ask you, are you doing all right?”
“You mean from yesterday? Hell, yeah. Thanks to you.”
“Right.” She laughed a laugh. “I’m highly skilled. Take two of these and talk to me when you wake up.”
I shrugged. “It was what I needed.”
“Good.”
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“Well, losing a patient—”
“Man, you don’t have to worry about me. I’ve lost patients before.” She shrugged. “I don’t like it, but if I’m going to get bummed out, I might as well give up.”
Rose said, “I thought you did give up on it, which is why you’re at Feng’s.”
“Hell, no. Feng’s wanted to find someone who could tend bar and be a paramedic.”
“Are you joking?” asked Rose.
“No, I’m not joking. That was what I applied for.”
“Weird. Did Feng say why?”
Libby smiled. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”
I said, “How’s the place been going?”
“All right. There’s the usual percentage of jerks. One guy wanted a Lafleur ale, and when I said we didn’t have it he asked if we had anything local, like it was some big political deal or something.”
“What did you say?”
She laughed. “I told him we only had imported beer to drink and local assholes to drink it. He stormed out.” She polished the bar some more, still chuckling.
“How was business during the show last night?”
“Fine.”
“Good. I don’t ever want to know what I sounded like on stage, though.”
“You were okay,” said Libby. Souci was supposed to have added something similar there, but she missed her cue. Oh, well.
I stared into my glass. “It’s scary, having it happen right here, where we feel so safe. And dealing with the police and everything.”
“I know.”
“Did you find out anything?”
“No. There was no way to get a good description of the guy; there were too many witnesses.”
“I understand. None of us saw it happen?”
“No. Fred was out of the room, and I was getting the bar ready. As far as I can tell, the guy went to the bathroom, and someone followed him there and shot him four or five times as he was opening the door.”
“As you said,” said Souci. “You’re better off than he is.”
“Maybe,” said Rose.
“What do you mean?” said Souci. “Billy’s alive.”
“There might be worse things than dying.”
“Like what?” said Libby, before Souci or I could.
“I don’t know. Maybe being reincarnated as something horrible.”
“Oh,” I said. Libby nodded thoughtfully. Souci said, “That’s such shit.”
“How do you know?” said Rose. “Have you ever died?”
“Have you?”
“No, but I had a friend back—a while back—who was dying of Hags disease, and he said he could feel—”
“He should have been shot,” said Souci.
“You’re joking,” said Rose.
“No, I mean it. Anyone who has that and won’t stay away from—”
“It isn’t all that contagious,” said Libby.
“I don’t care. It’s one hundred percent fatal, it’s—”
“Let’s not talk about it, all right?”
“Okay,” I said. “We’ll talk about something cheerful, like the guy wh
o was shot down in front of me.” I paused, considering. “I still wonder about his last words. Did it mean something, or what?”
Libby shrugged. “The cops will probably figure it out.”
“He said something to you?” asked Souci.
“Nothing that makes sense,” I said. “Didn’t I mention that? Just as he was falling over he sort of looked at me and said, ‘Sugar Bear.’”
I wasn’t certain, but I had the impression that Souci started when I said that. I looked a question at her, but she looked it back. She said, “Well, it’s all pretty weird.”
“Yeah.”
“Look, I should be blasting off.”
“Oh. Already? I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“Yeah,” and she stood up and left. When she was almost gone, I called after her, “What should I tell your friend?” I’d forgotten her name. But Souci didn’t answer, she just turned the corner into the dining room, and then I heard the front door open and close. I sat there and drank my beer and wondered. Libby didn’t say anything. After a moment, Rose took off to find Jamie, Libby went back to do bartender things, and I took out my banjo and sat there, noodling.
Carrie came in an hour later, along with a compact, dark-haired, well-groomed guy with narrow eyes and a pale, short-haired woman with a loping, athletic walk. I would have guessed them both to be in their mid-twenties. They looked vaguely familiar, and it took me a minute to realize that they had been with Souci and Carrie the night Souci and I met.
Carrie said, “Is Tommy around?”
“He was a couple of hours ago,” I said. “I don’t know where he is now.”
“Okay. This is Justin, and this is Danielle. This is Billy.”
I said hello and so did they, and Carrie announced that she was heading off to find “Tom-Tom.”
Danielle, who seemed to have some trouble with English, said, “So, you are in a band with this Tom, yes?”
I nodded. I won’t try to describe her accent.
