The evidence, sadly, pointed to this last possibility, for here she was arriving now in just the aforementioned dress and manner. Though she walked slowly and evenly, the ruff collar bounced a little at each step, which seemed to Jeremiah both ridiculous and the kind of thing one might get executed under penalty of some sumptuary law for attempting to satirize.
As she proceeded past the crew and through the ranks of passengers there was no more gasping but considerable confusion on many faces and many questioning looks exchanged between them. With great dignity, and disregard for the danger presented by her train, Mrs. Mayflower climbed the four steps to the stage, accepted the bandora from Jeremiah with one cold glance, and shooed him away with another. As Jeremiah went to bring her a chair, she wrinkled her nose at the strong chemical smell of fresh lacquer, then turned to address the crowd.
“My name,” she said, “is Marianne Mayflower. For two years I have traveled with you, but not among you. We have broken no common bread and eaten no salt together.”
“You shouldn’t eat salt anyway,” Sara Chapin whispered loudly to Henry Chapin. “Because of your blood pressure.”
They were sitting at the table closest the stage, and Mrs. Mayflower glared down at them.
“But now,” Mrs. Mayflower continued, “before our shared journey ends and we go our separate ways, I wish to share something of myself with you, my—” She struggled just a bit with the next word. “Peers. So, without further ado.”
She sat on the chair that Jeremiah had brought on stage and set the bandora on one knee. Jeremiah could not watch—he turned away. Meanwhile Mrs. Mayflower, having decided that just a bit more ado was called for, was explaining the musical significance of the bandora in general and this specimen in particular.
“Jeremiah!” whispered Mr. Porter, approaching from Jeremiah’s left. His shoulders were laden with bags of what appeared to be bowling pins, and he carried a large covered pail. “I’m next up. Where do I go?”
With whispers and signs, Jeremiah directed him to his place behind the curtains.
“Jeremiah!” said someone behind him. He turned to find Jack, eyes wide, looking relaxed and content and eminently mellow, and reeking profoundly of Aunt Mildred’s Organic Iguana Treats. Suddenly Jack was not so much shaking Jeremiah’s hand as pumping it vigorously with both of his own, as if a drought were stretching into its second month, and Jeremiah were an old well reluctant to give up its water.
“You’re some kind of botanical wizard,” Jack was saying, too loudly for Jeremiah’s tastes. “I’m sorry I called you part of the System. I haven’t been this mellow in years. Years! This is some of the best shit I have ever smoked.” He dropped his voice to add—as this part was apparently a secret: “Ever.”
“I’m glad you’re satisfied,” whispered Jeremiah, emphasizing the last word in anticipation of any surveys Jack might fill out in the near future, and trying at the same time to extricate his hand.
Meanwhile Mrs. Mayflower had finished explaining the musical significance of the bandora in general and had moved on to rehearse the provenance of her particular instrument at an “Adam begat Seth” level of detail, unimpressed by the growing restlessness she was occasioning in her audience.
“You don’t know what I saw,” Jack said, clutching Jeremiah’s hand tighter. “What visions were visited upon me. Castles, Jeremiah. Castles in the air. And princes and princesses and knights and dragons.” His eyes grew even wider at the memory and his grip relented enough that Jeremiah could pull himself free. “I saw dragons, Jeremiah. Two of them. Great, green dragons, touched by fire.”
Mrs. Mayflower’s oral history was now deep into the 18th Century.
“That’s great Jack,” said Jeremiah. “Enjoy the show.”
“Dragons.”
“And now,” said Mrs. Mayflower, the bandora’s lineage sufficiently specified, “without further ado.”
She repositioned the bandora on her knee, which adjustment Jeremiah experienced as a sword heated in the fires of hell, quenched with ipecac, and thrust into his belly. But the bandora held.
“I spent a good deal of time and thought on the question of which madrigal would be most appropriate for this occasion,” Mrs. Mayflower said. “Come, sirrah Jack, ho! by Thomas Weelkes, for its sense of raucous celebration? But that selection is long, and time is precious, and I wish to be brief. So perhaps Thule, the Period of Cosmography, by the same composer, for its stunning imagery? But the verse is so full of fire and brimstone, and I wish to entertain, not correct you. So in the end I have settled upon See What a Maze of Error by George Kirbye—whom I presume requires no gloss or introduction. So, without further ado.”
She began to tune the bandora, plucking gently at the strings, and though Jeremiah cringed at each touch, the neck of the bandora miraculously held. He almost wished it would just break and end his torture.
“And now,” said Mrs. Mayflower, when she was satisfied with the tuning, “See What a Maze of Error.”
She cleared her throat twice and hummed a tone.
“By the incomparable George Kirbye.”
She brought her hand up high, ready to bring it down for an initial crashing strum of surpassing drama and violence, and it seemed to Jeremiah that the passage of time slowed to a crawl.
For example, he felt as if he had hours to decide exactly what flavor of terror was creeping onto Mr. Porter’s face as he peeked out from behind the wing of the stage, his eyes widening as he beheld something at the back of the room. Was it mammalian horror? Primal shock? Existential dread?
Then, when Jeremiah had finished his leisurely speculation and turned to his left, en route to the object of Mr. Porter’s gaze, he saw as if in slow motion Mrs. Abdurov approaching Mr. Drinkwater from behind, her face set in a mask of cold fury and her right hand reaching into her pocket, the very picture of an aspiring jailyard assassin. Jeremiah considered doing something about that, but there was still plenty of time—time enough to turn and see what Mr. Porter had seen: the ghost of Bernie Wendstrom—or perhaps Bernie Wendstrom sufficiently deprived of sleep and nourishment so as to resemble a ghost—standing at the back of the dining room, having just entered through the closest door, pointing towards the stage like a victim returned from beyond the grave to accuse his murderer.
Then there was time to turn back to the stage, his gaze passing Mrs. Abdurov again, who had hardly advanced upon Mr. Drinkwater in the meanwhile, and see that Mr. Porter’s terror seemed to have spread to Mrs. Mayflower, whose own eyes were growing wide and whose mouth was making preparations for any screaming that might be called for in the near future. But no, it was not the ghost of Bernie Wendstrom that had spooked her thus—her eyes were focused on something else, something nearer to her, up and to the right, where Mr. Wendstrom was pointing, and where Jeremiah looked as well and found a figure hanging, like a green gargoyle, from the curtain of the stage.
“Carolus the Bold!” shouted Mr. Wendstrom or the ghost thereof from the back of the room, still pointing, his voice deepened by the slowing of time.
For it was he, Carolus the Bold, gripping the curtain with his long dextrous toes, still as a statue, regarding the stage and the human drama unfolding below with a noble and dispassionate countenance. Then his eyes shifted slightly and his expression became, if such a thing were possible for an iguana, amorous. Mrs. Mayflower followed the new line of his attention, and what she found there was enough to convert her latent scream to actual.
“Marya Jana!” Mrs. Abdurov slow-motion shouted from Jeremiah’s left.
For it was she, gripping the opposite curtain and hanging like the mirror image of Carolus, as complementary as if they had been carved into a heraldic device for a house that had achieved nobility late in the age of kings, well after the wolves, bears, lions, and other more desirable animals had all been spoken for.
Mr. Drinkwater, hearing the harsh voice of his beloved so close behind, and ignorant of the harm she intended him, grinned and began to turn a
round.
Jack meanwhile looked pleased to be seeing the dragons again, though a tad alarmed to find that the others could see them too, leading him to wonder what exactly all these people were on.
Now Mr. Porter had stepped from behind the curtain and into Mrs. Mayflower’s view. The lit torch that he carried in his hand attracted her attention to him, so she abandoned the object of Carolus’ gaze and followed Mr. Porter’s to the ghostly, pointing figure at the back of the dining room. Jeremiah followed her lead.
“Wendstrom!” cried Mr. Porter.
For it was—as previously established—he, looking either in excellent health for a dead man or atrocious health for a living one. Whichever was the actual case, his apparition represented the final straw for Mrs. Mayflower and her nerves. She kicked back in her chair and thrust her arms out in a vain attempt to keep from tipping, which sent the long-suffering bandora—still unstruck by her eager fingers—flying across the stage, where it landed and snapped in half once again, right at the base of the neck.
For what must have been no longer than a millisecond, even in this time warp, Jeremiah experienced a surge of hope—but no, the most cursory post-mortem of the bandora would reveal the age of the break, along with all the gluing and filing he had performed upon it.
The spectacle of Mrs. Mayflower screaming and tipping backwards, however, represented the last straw for Mr. Porter’s own nerves, inspiring him to brandish the lit torch he had held—had held, because his grip failed and the torch skittered across the stage as well, stopping a few inches from where the pitiable bandora lay broken.
At this point time actually seemed not just to slow but to stop long enough for everyone in the entire dining room—human, iguana, and possible ghost—to turn their attention to the lit torch that was now lying on the thickly lacquered floor of the newly constructed stage and licking it with little tongues of flame. The shared second hand of their experience seemed to hold back just a bit longer, giving everyone time to admire the orange glow on the stage, the dancing flame, the shimmer of fresh lacquer transmuting under its influence.
Then time resumed its normal flow, or perhaps even ran a little faster than usual, as the stage went up like a Roman candle, the two iguanas scampered for the safe arms of their owners, Mr. Porter dragged Mrs. Mayflower from the stage, mass panic set in, and what little hell had, up to this point, remained tenuously chained, all broke loose.
28
The Glass Harp of Courage
Still Saturday (1 day until arrival)
Jeremiah would be the first to admit that he had been nowhere near Agincourt on St. Crispin’s day, and had the lack of scars to prove it. Given the good fortune to be born in a country with a volunteer military, he had seized the opportunity, early and often, not to volunteer. Born into an age where the half-dozen simmering wars that the United States was half-heartedly waging around the globe at any given time were conducted mostly by remote control, Jeremiah’s whole generation had not had a Trojan War, Vietnam, or even a decade-long Montreal Skirmish to define its relationship to armed conflict.
In short, Jeremiah had never been to war, at war, or anywhere near war, and had even, during his years in Detroit, mostly managed to avoid the areas of the city that most closely resembled combat zones—which was to say, most of Detroit. So although he had read about true bravery and coolness under fire in many a war novel, and watched its depiction in many a war wave, his opportunities to witness the real thing had been few and far between.
But now it seemed that, if he was about to go to a fiery grave—a possibility that appeared increasingly likely—Jeremiah would not leave this world without having witnessed true bravery at least once.
For while the rest of the dining room stood frozen in shock or ran in the grip of panic, Mrs. Biltmore had proven that, although her harp might be of glass, yet her heart was of steel. She leapt forward and began tossing the contents of her instrument note by note towards the spreading inferno, barely disturbing her recent perm in the process.
Jeremiah saw her there, a black silhouette against the orange flames, undaunted and unflappable, a sight to thrill the heart and earn the respect of even the most grizzled volunteer fireman.
But this was a hungry and ambitious fire, and Mrs. Biltmore’s well of courage was far deeper than her well of the crucial H2O. When she had at last gritted her teeth and shot her last, biggest arrow—the beer stein from which her rare talents could coax an impossible low C—the flames remained unaffected by the magnitude of either her bravery or musical sacrifice.
She turned, and her eyes met Jeremiah’s, and it seemed to him that even in that moment, when all was lost and incineration imminent, this woman of astounding fortitude regretted only that she could not spend these last moments playing “Nearer My God to Thee” on partially filled assorted wine and other glasses to ease the passage of her moribund fellows, on account of her instrument being dry.
Jeremiah saluted her and prepared for the end, not just of Real Life but of every variety.
29
Soggy Bottoms and Loose Ends
Still Saturday (1 day until arrival)
The designers of the Einstein Series had been handed the unenviable task of designing a luxury cruise ship that could survive the rigors of deep space. Deep space was an unforgiving environment in the best of circumstances—with its signature lack of air and its temperatures even worse than Detroit in winter and its ample opportunities for instant death by cosmic ray or random asteroid—and a ship full of wealthy customers traveling at near light-speed trillions of miles from the nearest roadside assistance was far from the best circumstance. Hence the invention of the Abdinoor shield, which could brush off a hit from an asteroid that would have left a small moon reeling. Hence the heavy airtight doors scattered throughout the ship, never fully hidden by curtains and clever decorations, to isolate any damage if the Abdinoor shields failed. And hence the emergency spacesuits, distributed throughout the ship behind panels activated by calmly labeled levers, in case the Abdinoor shields failed and one found oneself on the wrong side of one of those heavy doors. But asteroids and cosmic rays were just the most obvious problems. What about the enemies of sustained life aboard the Einstein IV that were not foreign but domestic?
How those engineers must have debated about captains clutching their chests and keeling over. How many man-months must have been spent poring over the various malfunction modes of all the hardware and software that kept the ship spinning at just the right rate to create artificial gravity—or the even more complex Inertial Dampers that prevented the ship’s acceleration and deceleration from interfering with the same. Broken pipes must have been wargamed, and electrical shorts, and even mundane nuisances like ants and termites, which in space could represent a threat to rival the acid-drooling monsters of antique horror waves. And somewhere in those discussions there must have been a mention or two of how to handle the threat of fire, as the human species had proven quite adept, ever since Prometheus first bestowed his questionable gift, at lighting the most unlikely things on fire at the most inconvenient times.
Also present for these arguments must have been the inescapable bean-counters, laser-focused as ever on cost, and they must have voiced opinions. Counter-measures for fire in the kitchens? Of course, they must have said. In the various engineering spaces, where wires were likely to sit exposed and steadily dripping leaks were unlikely to be noticed and fixed? Without question. But in the dining room? Where the “candles” on the tables were weak, flickering bulbs? Where fondue was never on the menu and never would be? Any fires in the dining room were going to be small, local affairs, blown out as easily as a birthday cake, even by a population as emphysemic as that of the Einstein IV’s. So why not throw a couple fire extinguishers on the walls and call it a day? And if that just so happened to save some credit in the process—well, all the better.
But in the crucial meeting with the bean counters, the engineer in charge of safety must have stood up and
banged the table and said something like “Damn the cost—fire in the middle of space is nothing to fool around with. The dining room will have a sprinkler system powerful enough to drown a scuba-certified dolphin in 30 seconds, or we won’t have a dining room at all, and then how many tickets will you sell, Mr. Bean Counter?”
Jeremiah would have liked to have bought that engineer a beer or ten.
Mere seconds after Jeremiah had saluted Mrs. Biltmore, the ceiling of the dining room had exploded like a tsunami, and for roughly the count of ten managed a passable imitation of Niagara. As the strength and pressure of the downpour ebbed it was downgraded to a mere monsoon lasting for another ten seconds, and finally a ten-second encore of cold spring rain—the kind that promised flowers in the dining room a month or so from now. To Jeremiah’s knowledge there was not a dolphin on board—scuba-certified or otherwise—but if there had been, the sprinkler system would have left it floating like a drowned rat. The deluge had drenched the people in the dining room to the bone, the furniture to its joints, and left a good inch of standing water on the floor. It had also—almost as an afterthought—reduced the once promising career of the conflagration that had triggered it to a charred, partially collapsed stage and a sad plume or two of chemical smoke.
Now everyone was sitting—many still shaken, all still soggy—at the dining room tables, sipping the international coffees that Katherine and the rest of the wait staff were delivering, waiting for Battle or Specimen #2 to take their statements. Battle was occupied with Mrs. Mayflower, who was wringing water out of her ermine trim and holding her chin even higher to compensate for the fallen ruff of her collar. Specimen #2 was talking to Mrs. Abdurov, who was—unbeknownst to him—recording the conversation with a pen of her own.
As Jeremiah watched Mrs. Abdurov make faces at Specimen #2, Mr. Drinkwater came and sat beside him.
World Enough (And Time) Page 31
