CLOCKWORK PHOENIX 2: More Tales of Beauty and Strangeness

by Mike Allen

  —Speak to him, indeed, I shouted (yes, dear, I shouted. But honestly what would you have done?) but your mother ignored me.

  —It is not possible, madam, Charles said. There was some amount of trouble last night and the lines are down. Your mother asked what sort of trouble, and of course, Charles did not know. No one knows anything anymore; we just soldier on like good little Britons. You might know, of course.

  Do you?

  Ever Yours,

  Angela

  What she did not:

  The only room with proper light was the music room, so she carried her sketchbook and carpetbag to the third floor, stopping at the dumb waiter and placing a note which read, “Tea and sustenance to the music room at ten o’clock, if you please,” and sending it on its way.

  Each morning, a large rectangle of sunlight brightened half the room and fell, like silk, to the ground. When Angela visited as a child, she would position her body just so within the rectangle, and listen to their parents play while enjoying the sensation of the sun on her skin—the press and weight of light. She sometimes wondered if the light could somehow penetrate her small body, or perhaps radiate through it, if the outline of her hands and torso and spindly legs would somehow dissolve, leaving only heat and faded color behind.

  The music room was quiet and dusty. It was clear that the room had not been used since the death of her father in law six year earlier, which meant that it would likely never be used again. The light slanted cleanly through the dusty space of the room, defining angle upon angle, shadow and pale illumination. She could sketch the room, of course. Perhaps she would. She stood upon the lit rectangle and tilted her face towards the window. The sun beyond was a bright crack on a brittle blue sky. Normally, she would squint, but now she found that she had no need. She stared open eyed at the sun, drinking it in. She looked at her hands. The were faded, translucent, lovely. This did not strike her as odd. She was, of course an artist. She lived on light. She sat and sketched a woman fading into the sun. Then, she slept. She did not know for how long.

  Later, Charles came in with tea. No one was there. He saw a sketch on the table.

  Go away, he whispered.

  He didn’t mention it to anyone else. He didn’t touch the sketchpad.

  What he wrote:

  My darling,

  I regret to tell you that I have, apparently, been sacked. Or not sacked per se, but temporarily relieved of my duties. Fortunately for the two of us, I will remain on the rolls, which is good because I don’t know how I would eat otherwise. I might have considered joining you in Westhoughton, but the rails are closed for the time being. Only military business now, and rarely at that. It is oddly quiet without the regular churn of the engines, and I never thought I would miss it, but I do.

  I do not know what I have done to deserve the ire of my commander, and though he said they were overstaffed, I know for a fact that it is a lie. Every man in the room cowered under the stacks waiting on their desks. He was not, however, unkind. He told me to divert myself, that I would be back on my feet in no time, and to have a stiff upper lip and so forth, which was nonsense because I shall still be paid and will apparently return after a suitable time. Suitable for what, they would not say.

  But fortunately, after an unpleasant day, I came home and discovered that your letter was not in the post basket with everything else, but was resting prettily on the mantel, which means that our dear Andrew must have seen it and brought it in as a surprise. Don’t worry about my mother. I’ll write to her.

  Everything will be beautiful.

  Yours,

  John

  What he did not:

  He celebrated his newfound free time by enjoying a lovely afternoon with his shining American, accompanied by three liters of a lovely Cotes du Rhone from his jealously guarded cache of wine, drunk directly from the bottles. The American spoke little, drank much, and was exquisitely, brutally, beautiful. The walls shook. The bed moaned. The American left at sunset, pausing, once, at the door, and slipping away without a word. There was more wine left. While drinking, John read and reread Angela’s letter so many times, he began to recite it.

  When he woke, he squinted at the slant of light penetrating his room. He rubbed his eyebrows and between his eyebrows and blinked. Then, he blinked again. A girl stood in the slant of light. A pretty girl staring first at the sun, then at her hands. John cleared his throat. The girl turned to him, smiled and vanished. John fell heavily back onto the pillows. The girl, of course, looked like Angela, and was Angela. But it could not have been, so it must not have been. He sat back up and the room was empty, as it should be.

  He yawned and noticed the letter from Angela was now on her pillow. He had, apparently, resealed it, de-creased it, and placed it where her head should go. He laughed at himself, at what drink can do to a man. He wrapped himself in a robe and padded into the kitchen. The letter was there, too, sealed and unopened. He opened it. It was the same letter.

  Three letters leaned against one another in the fireplace, their edges now seared with the remains of yesterday’s coal. Two floated in the W.C. Six had been slipped between the door and the jamb and stuck out like nails waiting to be hammered in. And somewhere quite close, a girl was singing.

  John gathered the letters in his hands and stood by the window. Bringing the paper to his nose, he closed his eyes and breathed them in. Lilac. And lavender. He let them fall; they spun like dry leaves, and scattered on the floor. He sat down and wrote to his mother.

  What she wrote:

  Dearest John,

  Today I sang in your honor, and I found that I could not stop. All day I have been here, drawing portraits of light. Singing odes to light. I open my mouth and light hangs upon my lips, drips from my tongue, spills down my front, and pools at my feet. Charles came in with tea (Did I want tea? Do I even drink tea? It’s strange, but I have only a vague notion of the substance of tea. I believe it is not unlike the consumption of light.) He is so pale, poor man. I took his hand. His skin was papery and cool. My hand slipped over it like graphite along the clean space of an empty sheet. He shivered. I could not feel him shiver—not with my hands, anyway. But I felt it all the same. Within, if you understand. Do you understand? You always did understand. Or at least the thing that I believe to be you always did understand.

  There was a day when I learned to see. And the learning to see and the making of art and the loving of you were bound inextricably together. There is much now, my dear, that is unbound, but those three remain. Should I think this odd, my love?

  Once, there were people in the window. Do you remember, John? Their mouths were pink and open, and their hair floated like seaweed. It floats still. Charles told me to go away, but you would never tell me so.

  Not you, John.

  Never, ever you.

  Ever yours,

  Angela

  What she did not:

  She knew to avoid the windowpanes. The people inside were clearer to her now, clearer than they had ever been. She had always seen them, ever since that day when she was a child. But never directly. They hovered vaguely at the corners of her eyes, the glass clearing itself every time she stared straight on.

  But now they sharpened; they defined themselves. They pressed their long fingers on the glass and called her name. They were desperate, trapped. Their cold, pink mouths were open, toothless, hungry—an uneven gash in a cold white space. She knew without being told how they tried to move through light, how they were caught, trapped in glass, how they couldn’t get out. Their eyes were blank, black—hollow pits where once there was a soul or a self or at least something, but now was not.

  It was not a fate she would choose. She kept to the center of the room, moving only through open interior doors. She waited for someone to open a window or a door to the light. She waited a long time.

  Her drawings littered the floor. Her letters too. How they reached their destination was a mystery, though she knew they did. She made something. Sh
e was. She would, she decided, remain so. Charles did not pick up the papers she scattered on the floor. He avoided the music room altogether. He averted his gaze when she wandered into his quarters at night. He shut his eyes at the seaweed wanderings of her waterlogged hair. Charles clapped his hands over his ears when she opened her pink slash mouth.

  Open the door when the light pours through, she sang. openthedoorwhenthelightpoursthrougopenthedoorwhenthelightpoursthroughopenthedoorwhenthelightpoursthroughopenthedooropenthedooropenthedooropenthedooropenthedoor, she sang, and sang, and sang. After two days of her ceaseless song, he opened the door. She poured herself into the light, and she was light, and line, and space, and negative space, and thought, and the lack of thought, and being, and nonbeing. She was. She knew it.

  What he wrote:

  My darling,

  Have you noticed any strange doors that you find yourself wanting to go through? On the edges of your vision, have you noticed, well, a sort of veil or some similar shimmering substance? A light, as it were. Have you found yourself wanting to know the location of, say, a long dark tunnel—one that, perhaps, has an attractive endpoint? I do not say this to cause you to feel alarm or to rush you into anything for which you may or may not be prepared. I only write this (my dear, my precious, my heart’s sweet angel) on the off chance that you may be—er—putting anything off, as it were. You know, for my sake.

  What I mean to say, my love, is that if you should happen to, as it were, run into (assuming, of course, that one does run in this, er, condition) anyone that has been, well, gone for some time, and you feel yourself wanting to, I mean to say, go— you know— along with them, please my darling, do not tarry on my account. I will be fine, my love.

  Your most Affectionate Husband,

  John

  What he did not:

  He wondered if it would be James—beautiful, sickly James. James of the downy hair. James of the willowy limbs. James of the seafoam skin. James who loved him, but not like that. James of the irritable lungs. James of the bloody cough. James, red lipped, pale to the point of tranluscency and dead in his arms. John knew that if James came for him, there would be no question of crossing over.

  Angela, darling, lovely, lucky, and, yes, quite dead. And not. Not, as well. And that was the trouble, wasn’t it?

  Though he had guessed it well enough on his own, someone at the office had thought to slip a copied report—classified, of course, and probably treasonous for its mere exit from the fortified walls of the RAF offices—detailing the known facts of the train crash. The number of souls aboard. Lost, all of them. All, all lost. And Angela—angel, angel Angela—who wasn’t supposed to be there, but was, and now she wasn’t.

  And yet.

  The letters massed in the corners. They smothered the fire in the grate and mounded over the sink. They poured across the floor, particularly near the windows. They seemed to prefer light. Before he had sat down to breakfast, John swept the letters into great piles at odd intervals throughout the house. And yet they multiplied. At ten a.m. the American opened the front door. He did not knock.

  “What’s with the letters?” he said.

  “It’s complicated,” John replied. He tugged at the folds of his dressing gown. It was dingier than it should have been. Angela always saw to such things. On another day he might have been embarrassed, but his mind was cluttered, dusty, over-exposed. His American, on the other hand, was pressed, shaved and clean. He shone brightly in the doorway. John squinted and gasped.

  “Of course,” the American said, keeping his eyes slanted to the floor. “I’m leaving.”

  “When,” John asked. He also did not look up. Light poured in from all directions. It swirled across the floorboards. It stirred the letters in their piles.

  “Tomorrow,” he said, and before John could speak, he added, “and don’t ask me where. I can’t say.”

  “Of course.” The light intensified. John shaded his eyes. He sweated and squinted.

  “Are you—” the American cleared his throat. “I mean, have they found out—told you for sure. About your wife.” He said the word “wife” as though pronouncing a word in a foreign tongue. “Is she—”

  “Yes,” John said while clearing his throat. “Which is to say. We assume. In all likelihood.”

  “Terrible thing,” the American said, unstraightening, then straightening, his tie.

  “Yes.”

  “If I don’t—you know. If I don’t see you again. I—”

  “Of course, of course,” John said, running his fingers through his hair, watching with growing panic how the letters spread like mold across the surface of the ottoman, stacked themselves higher and higher on the desk, spilled down the edge of the table. The American didn’t seem to notice. John wondered briefly if they should embrace, declare their love, plot an escape. He wondered if they should begin making plans to settle in the Lake District, raise lambs, live on milk and bread and young meat, live on wine and sex and song.

  “Well then,” the American said, and opened the door.

  The light poured in. John fell to his knees, raised his hands to the light, “Oh! God!” he said, but the American turned and left without a word. He left the door open.

  What she wrote:

  Dearest,

  Once there was a boy who loved a boy who did not love him back. Once there was a girl who loved a boy who loved a boy. Once there was a girl who loved a boy who loved her back, mostly.

  If love is light and food is light and life is light, are we always in day? Are we doomed to never sleep?

  Ever Yours,

  Angela

  Dear John,

  I dream of your hands. I dream of fingers as they played along, across, and in. I dream how a moan becomes song and song becomes art and art becomes light. Your light enters me and I shine forever.

  Ever Yours,

  Angela

  Dear John,

  adooropensawomanlovesalifeblendsintolightandlightandlight

  ever yours

  ever

  ever

  What she did not:

  There are three things that seem important to her now: Firstly, that light is useful. Particularly when one has no form, but still has substance. Light is a vehicle, though unreliable, particularly given the climate. Secondly, though the body dissolves she still feels the opening of the mouth, the electric nerves of the fingertips, the hungry scoop between what once were her thighs. Thirdly are doors. There are doors that remain impenetrable, doors that yield to the gentle insistence of her will, doors that lead her from place to place. There is a door that she needs to find. But what or where it is, and of what use, this is a mystery.

  She slides through space—time too, from what she can tell. The moments of her life unfurl before her, an elegant geometry, all angles and arcs and perfect reasoning. She sees a boy who showed her to see ghosts—which is to say death—which is to say art—which is to say infinity. She sees another boy with pale skin and a red mouth, coughing blood into a napkin. She sees the red mouthed boy floating away on harmonics and dissonance and brutal love. She sees another—her Other—dissembling, dissolving, despairing daily.

  She is light. She is song. She is the art behind art—which is to say, infinite. As a formless substance, she sees her Other kneeling in the doorway. As light she pours through the door. As art she lands upon his open mouth. As song she slides what used to be her fingertips into the secret grooves of his throat. She plucks out melody and harmony—line, phrase, space, negative space. She draws dissonance and counterpoint. She lays her mouth upon his mouth. He tastes lilac and lavender and oil and smoke. He sings of bent metal and burning wood and beautiful soldiers and poisoned waters and multitudes of airships hurling themselves against the geodesic sky. He sings of a war that will never end. He sings of lost love, lost art, lost music, lost nations, lost women and lost men. He sings her name. He never, ever, stops.

  ROSEMARY, THAT’S FOR REMEMBRANCE

  Barbara Krasnoff />
  I remember.

  When I was a girl, I loved going to the beauty shop. It had light blue walls, I think, and a radio. I sat under the dryer wearing a pink smock, reading the latest issue of Vogue, and listening to . . . what was her name? . . . to one of my friends talking about her latest boyfriend. It was nice.

  Kay’s is nice, too. The woman in charge comes to greet us; she has bright yellow hair and thick glasses and she says hello to me, not just to that woman who is standing next to me (should I know her?) the way a lot of people do. And she wears a name tag on her pink smock so that I always know her name; it says “KAY” with tiny purple flowers entwined around it.

  Even though I’ve only lived in this neighborhood for . . . well, for a few years (I remember that I grew up in Williamsburg and brought up my children in Canarsie; I remember those years very well), Kay’s looks like all the beauty shops I ever knew. Once, I remember, I went to a new one, and it had deafening music and strange machines and tall boys talking loud and winking at the others when they thought I didn’t see. (I know I’m old. I can’t help it. They’ll be old one day too, and why don’t they understand that?)

  * * *

  Kay smiles at me, takes my coat and my pocketbook, and helps me sit down in one of the chairs while the woman who’s always next to me goes and sits in front of the salon and takes out a little, um, thing and talks into it.

  “And how are you today?” Kay says while she puts a towel around my neck and then covers me with a flowery cape to protect my clothes. I’m fine, I say, although we both know I’m not fine at all. I’m disappearing. Bit by bit.