He considered thoughtfully. “I’m afraid if I say yes,” he laughed lightly, “you might do it. I don’t want that to happen. And before we go on, may I have some of that wonderful wine you served to N’Rasia when she was here?”
“She told you about it?” I asked incredulously.
“Of course not.” He seemed offended that I would even make such a suggestion. “They’re your dreams, aren’t they?”
So I put ice in the glass which was instantly available, brought it over to him with the bottle of Baileys which was also available, and filled the one with the other. He removed the bottle gently from my hand and placed it next to Wendy’s book.
“An excellent wine,” he murmured, as he guzzled a quarter of the tumbler.
“We call it a ‘cream’ or an ‘Irish cream,’” I said, “and it’s meant to be sipped, not chugalugged.”
“Interesting…”
He sipped it more slowly but still with remarkable persistence. Given a chance they would notably improve the exports of the Republic of Ireland—and end up a land of drunks, perhaps peaceful drunks, but not necessarily.
“So you are tormented by the winsome imp but you don’t necessarily want those torments to be removed?”
How God-like can you get?
His fingers tightened around the Powerscourt crystal. “My mind is filled with images, my body with needs, my fingers with imperative demands. I want to do the most terribly obscene things to her…”
“With her,” I added the ideological caution.
“Yes, of course,” he agreed automatically and then chuckled. “With Ranora it would necessarily be that way … I think I will go mad with the terrible lusts I feel for her, for a holy one of God.”
“You think we should have ordered the mechanics of procreation differently?”
He threw back his head and laughed enthusiastically. “It is inconvenient and troublesome, isn’t it? Yet … who would really want to change? Nonetheless, an ilel is sacred, she ought not to be the object of such desires.”
“Only if her guardian is immune from the human condition, young man. Don’t the ilels ever take mates?”
“The historical data are thin. Most ilels are killed; their goodness and charm and wit and kindness, of course, lead to their death. You have made that even more likely in this case by giving her magical powers.”
“Me?” The so-and-sos were blaming me for things that I hadn’t done at all. At all.
“Ilels historically have saved our land—when they have been successful, which as I have said is in a minority of cases—by ordinary human goodness directed in strange, appealing, and wonderful directions. But you have seen it with ’Nora. Even gloomy old Lenrau melts into honey when she blows her wicked pipe at him. They are essentially magical spirits, caring magical spirits to be more precise. They are not wizards or witches or wonder workers. Ilels don’t trade in the miraculous. Now you’ve given us one that does.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”
He filled up his Powerscourt tumbler. “She brought that woman back from the dead.”
“Oh, nonsense, Kaila; and rubbish and hogwash and a lot of other more scatological words. N’Rasia wasn’t dead. She was in a coma. All our friend did was pipe her awake.”
“It was your idea?”
“Sure it was my idea; I’m the author, am I not?”
“So it was a miracle?”
“It most certainly was not, young man, and get that into your thick skull. Ranora activated the deep-seated will to live in a woman in a coma and called her forth from the coma. It was a purely natural phenomenon.”
“The doctors said she would not live.” He rubbed his chin dubiously.
“What do doctors know? You’re supposed to be a scholar; do you rush to a supernatural explanation anytime something new happens for which there are obvious natural explanations? You heard that melody. If it were about you, wouldn’t you want to live?”
“She hasn’t done a Kaila theme yet,” he said sadly.
“Give her and me time. An author can’t crowd everything on one page.”
“The danger comes from the priests. They say she is a false ilel because she brought a woman back from the dead.”
“As one of my mentors once put it, by their fruits you will know them.”
“The little imp,” he changed the subject rapidly, as a man in love would, “is terribly proud of herself. She blows the noisy pipe more than ever.”
“How does she explain what happened to N’Rasia?”
“She gives your explanation, what else? She says she just woke her up with her little pipe.”
“That’s the truth; you should believe it.”
“The priests fear her.” He filled his glass again. “They are capable of sticking a knife in her back, you know; that’s their way of disposing of their enemies.”
“Stylus curiae.”
“What?”
“A bad pun from one of our archaic languages. Don’t worry about them. While I’m around no one is going to hurt my Ranora.”
“So you love her too?”
“We’re not rivals, Kaila.” I put my hand on his shoulder. “Authors fall in love with their characters.” I filled up his glass with Baileys. “How could anyone not love her?”
“My frustration,” he sighed, “is part of your story, isn’t it? Good, loyal, steady, charming Kaila; in love with an untouchable virgin whom he must protect and occasionally restrain, but never violate. A willing sacrificial victim for his Duke and the cause of peace. Oh, it makes a great contrast in the story, doesn’t it? ’Rau beds B’Mella, Malvau beds his fat wife, and I cannot bed the one I really love.”
“You are unkind to N’Rasia, and the story need not end that way at all.”
“Have you made up your mind?”
Make up my mind about the two of them when I was barely in control of the narrative? He had to be kidding.
“Even if I had, I can force neither marriage nor celibacy on you and that sexy little imp; authors can’t make characters do what they don’t want to do.”
“She’s not sexy, she’s innocent.”
“None of them are innocent, Kaila.” I sipped my Baileys very slowly. Tomorrow was another day. “She uses her sexual appeal very shrewdly. She caught your changed attitude instantly and has gently kept you at a greater distance ever since. The young woman knows what she’s about.”
“Does she love me?” His eyes glistened momentarily.
“Ask her.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Sometime you’ll have to.”
“You will try to force me? I would be too embarrassed.”
“For the last time, young man,” I heard my voice rising, “I can’t deprive you of your free will. If you’re dumb enough and cowardly enough not to confront her with your feelings eventually, I can’t make you do it. I’ll sure as hell lean on you, though.”
“You can tell me if I have a chance,” he pleaded like a lovesick child.
“I can tell you the obvious.” Keep him on the defensive, that’s the ticket. “At the present moment in the story, if Ranora is going to fall in love with someone and mate with him, you are not only the leading candidate, you are the only candidate.”
“Would that please you?” His spirits picked up.
“If it didn’t, I would have created someone else who was better qualified. But consider this: are you sure you want her as a wife? She is a difficult, stubborn, unpredictable, fiercely independent, and, alas, domineering woman. You’d never have a moment’s peace. Fun in bed, doubtless, but do you want that hoyden interfering with your scholarship and writing every day for the rest of your life?”
“Yes,” he said with a broad grin. “She’d keep me from drying up and withering away.”
“God knows.”
“Will she go away?”
“Huh?”
“She speaks of leaving, vague hints which she will not or cannot explain. Nor will she
tell me if she’ll come back if she does leave. Some ilels disappear when their work is done.”
I was the author, wasn’t I? How could she leave without my knowledge or permission?
But not an author the way most authors are authors. I was playing Nathan’s God Game.
“But some do mate?”
“It is not unknown. On one or two occasions, it may have happened. They continue to be ilels, of course, though with less intensity. I,” he swelled his chest a little, “may even be a descendant of one.”
“How appropriate!”
“But there is no record of an ilel ever mating with her protector.” He emptied the Baileys. “Do not worry, I will not harm your precious goblets, like that sloppy woman.”
“You really are in love with her, aren’t you? Poor N’Rasia has done nothing worse than stir up the priests’ envy because Ranora piped her awake and you hate the woman.”
He actually blushed. “God always knows too much.”
“I’m not God. But let it ride. Moreover, it is not impossible that you and Ranora can make history: the first ilel ever to mate with her protector. Have you noticed, by the way, how she looks at you when you lecture her about the history of your land?”
“She finds my pretensions amusing.” He turned over the empty Baileys bottle and seemed disappointed to discover that it was empty.
“She has a teenaged student’s crush on a good-looking teacher.”
He scowled blackly. “Don’t speak that way of a sacred virgin.”
“You wanted to know whether she loves you. You can’t have it both ways.”
His good humor returned quickly. “I suppose part of me wants her and part of me is afraid of what happens when and if I get her.”
“Wise man.”
She’d lead him a merry chase.
“I want her so much.” Fists clenched again. “Do not be afraid, I will not spoil your story by raping her or seducing her. I am a man of honor and self-restraint, no matter what the cost. That is, after all, the way you made me.”
“Rape you’d better not try or I’ll delete you totally. Seduction? That’s up to you and her.”
“Seduce an ilel?”
“Why not?”
“I love her, I do not lust after her.”
“Nonsense. We are designed so that the two cannot be completely separated and ought not to be.”
“You too?”
“In a certain sense.”
Finally, I was betting, she would have to do the seducing, once she made up her mind that her “vocation”—I could think of no better word—did not preclude marriage. If that were indeed true—and I didn’t know the story well enough yet to be sure—Ranora was a wild card someone else had slipped into my deck.
What would it be like married to a vestal virgin emerita? Poor young man would never think of that in time. Perhaps I should really take steps to warn him. No, if ‘Nora set her cap for him, I wouldn’t stand a chance if I tried to intervene.
“There is of course G’Ranne,” I said tentatively. “You seem to be relating rather well with her.”
“She is an incredible woman.” He shrugged his shoulders. “So much passion and dedication. Too much for me, perhaps.”
“Obedient warrior type, is she not?”
His eyes widened. “You are jesting. God knows better than that.”
“I’m not God.”
“Of course not.” He laughed, going along with the joke. “You don’t have to be God to know that she is a very special woman, in her own way as fascinating as the ilel.”
“So you wouldn’t be bored?”
“Oh, no. But that’s not the point, is it? I should be going.” He rose politely, flipping his silver cloak over his shoulder. “I have occupied too much of your dream time. You must sail tomorrow.”
“Another few minutes won’t hurt. How do you evaluate” (more academic shop talk) “her plan to play matchmaker to the Duke and the Duchess?”
“It’s your story, isn’t it?” He picked up the empty bottle and the two glasses. “Don’t you know what will happen in such a mating?”
“An author is never sure what will happen until it happens.”
“Even God?”
“In some theologies, about which we’re not arguing.”
“Well.” Hands on hips, he considered thoughtfully. “It would be the most approved happy ending. Do you like happy endings, by the way?”
“Of course. That’s a stupid question.”
“Sometimes I wonder … In any event, it is not the Duchess who worries me. She is a choleric woman warrior with the gentleness of a mother with a newborn babe. Not uncomplicated, surely, but not a difficult challenge to a man with some sensitivity to women. I flatter myself,” he looked at me sideways, “that I could keep her happy rather easily—not, you may be assured, that I intend to try. A little patience, a little firmness, a lot of affection, an occasional stern warning: ’Ella would become not perhaps the ideal wife, but certainly a good and loving and lovable wife. Again I emphasize,” he grinned wickedly, “that my interests are not of that sort, as you well know, but she does seem to respond rather well to me.”
“So if I want to change the plans…”
“NO!” he exploded. “That is not the way you made me. I am too loyal even to consider such an ending.”
The hell he was, but he was probably too young to be forced to face his deep and secret desire for the Duchess.
“You do, however, worry about your Duke?”
“Where does he go when his eyes glaze? Do you know?”
“An impertinent question which I won’t answer.” Authors can make up the rules as they go along.
“You see the point, however: he’s three quarters in love with the woman now. In most respects he is the calm, steadying influence she needs. Yet if a vain and not quite secure woman like B’Mella thinks her husband has lost interest in her because he is preoccupied with some mad vision…”
“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”
“Pardon?”
“Forget it.”
“But you agree we have a problem?”
“We?”
“I had gathered from our conversation that storytelling is a joint venture; author, you seem to suggest that one can be a monotheist and still admit the possibility of several authors and characters working together.”
“Grace and free will in cooperation?”
“Whatever that means. Now I must leave. I feel my dream, or is it your dream, ending.”
“It was nice of you to stop by.”
He faded out, then faded back in again, a haze of dots and lights dancing incandescently in my room. “Please, dear God, please let me have her. I will love her and protect her and cherish her life and laughter for as long as I shall live. Only don’t take her away from me.”
“I’ll see what I can do. There’s always G’Ranne.”
“A man must be more God-like than I am to marry her. I want Ranora.”
“I’ll see.”
Which you have to admit is a really poor answer to such a moving prayer.
What can I tell you?
The next morning, before I went off to the marina to sail with the elder Brennans, I dug out my battered copy of At Swim Two Birds and hunted up the section where the characters constitute themselves a jury to vote on the fate of the author. It made sobering reading.
“Do you think it would be safe to go to bed and leave him where he is in the morning?”
“I do not,” said Orlick. “Safety first.”
Shanahan took out his thumb from the armhole and straightened his body in the chair.
“A false step now,” he said, “and it’s a short jump for the lot of us. Do you know that? A false step now and we’re all in the cart and that’s a fact.”
Lamont came forward from a couch where he had been resting and inclined his head as a signal that he was taking an intelligent interest in the conversation.
“Will the jud
ges have a bad head tomorrow?” he asked.
“No,” said Orlick.
“Well, I think the time has come for the black caps.”
“You think the jury has heard enough evidence?”
“Certainly they have,” said Shanahan. “The time for talk is past. Finish the job tonight like a good man so we can go to bed in peace. God, if we gave him a chance to catch us at this game…”
“The job should be done at once,” said Lamont, “and the razor’s the boy to do it.”
“He can’t complain that he didn’t get fair play,” said Furrisky. “He got a fair trial and a jury of his own manufacture. I think the time has come.”
“It’s time to take him out to the courtyard,” said Shanahan.
“A half-minute with the razor and the trick is done,” said Lamont.
“I only hope,” Orlick said, “that nothing happens to us. I don’t think the like of this has been done before you know.”
My nighttime visitors—and for all Kaila’s appealing good looks and good humor I would have rather more enjoyed N’Rasia as a dream guest than Kaila—hardly seemed to be of the sort of Orlick, Lamont, Furrisky, and Shanahan. They were still under my thumb, still reverential and respectful most of the time.
But a lovesick young man and a frustrated middle-aged woman—put them together and you have the kind of team which created the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution. They had learned, somehow, to intrude themselves into my dream life with ease. Once they found out I was not really the Other Person, I could be in serious trouble.
Then there was the quote from the other Irishman, a Prot this time, at the end of Mantissa. He is closing the scene in the hospital room in which he has committed fornication with a number of his woman creatures/characters:
Merciful silence descends at last upon the gray room. Or it would have done so, were it not that the bird in the clock, as if feeling not fully requited, as if obliged one last time to reaffirm its extraneity, its distance from all that has happened in that room, and its undying regard for its first and aestho-autogamous (Keep the fun clean, said Shanahan) owner; or as if dream-babbling of green Irish fields and mountain meadows, and of sheer bliss of being able to shift all responsibility for one’s own progeny (to say nothing of having the last word) stirs, extrudes and cries in an ultimate, soft and single, most strangely single, cuckoo.
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