The Skill of Our Hands--A Novel

by Steven Brust

  “Maybe.” Kate stood up. “But how do you ever know that what you think is right actually is right and not just your mind providing rationalization for what you’re feeling?”

  “Some things feel right.”

  Kate sat down next to Daniel.

  “And sometimes you can’t tell.” He didn’t move. “Sometimes you know what you want in some abstract, ideal way. You want justice and compassion. You want true love, and a sense of purpose. You want to serve something larger than yourself and to know you’re making a difference, doing the right thing.”

  He nodded.

  “I can give you half of that,” Kate said.

  “I want it.” His eyes, passionate and quick, met Kate’s. “All my life I’ve wanted that—wanted to do something.”

  “I know.”

  “But I never knew what.” All the tension went out of Daniel, and he gave Kate a cockeyed grin. “I could have walked the fuck into Mordor, but I never found a ring.”

  He closed his eyes, resting against the wing of the chair, his beautiful face turned slightly away as it had been the first time she had seen it pillowed on a hospital bed. Kate had gone into his room knowing he was too young, but hadn’t realized he was also too handsome until he had smiled at her like she was pretty, and not a middle-aged woman with two kids and no time to work out. Kate was thick in the wrong places and she didn’t take the time she could with things like makeup and clothes and it had been a long time since a young man had looked at her like he saw her, and she knew enough about love to know that few things were as attractive as being found attractive.

  Kate took the wedding rings off her finger, and put them in his hand. “Have two,” she said.

  Daniel stared at Kate’s rings in his open palm. She’d had Legal’s resized after her first pregnancy, but you couldn’t see the mend. Daniel dipped his pinky finger into them.

  “You said it’s a kind of test of wills.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Kate, I can’t imagine anyone who could move me when I decide to stand, or stand against me when I decide to push.”

  “I know.” Kate patted his knee, settling her comfortable, middle-aged hips into her comfortable, mid-century cushions. Daniel stirred her rings in his hand with one finger and looked up at her sideways from under fierce brows. Pain etched his lips, the bottom one delicious, even twisted in decision. Too young, too beautiful, and too strong. Kate would need to let him go.

  Daniel lifted his hand into the space between them, and Kate’s rings slid down to the second knuckle of his scarred pinky finger. Kate thought about burn recovery—debridement, excision—excruciating and famously resistant to pain meds. Poor love. A dimple hewed his cheek and exposed what he’d just said, what Kate had known since the butter sandwich, but tried not to believe.

  Kate pulled her rings off Dan’s curled finger.

  “I want this,” he said, and because Kate couldn’t say she didn’t want it too, she leaned in and kissed him.

  His lips were delicate but insistent, and his tongue slid currents of wanting, years into her. “I meant the other thing,” he said.

  “I know,” she told him. But she would deny him both. Daniel was everything Ren needed, and exactly what the Incrementalists did not. Phil’s Second had to shade. Kate would dust Phil now and after write the forum, withdrawing her recruit.

  * * *

  Irina really wanted a shower, but she didn’t like the look of Sam’s shoulders coming in from Ren’s patio. Or the proud tears shining in Jane’s eyes.

  “He’ll do it,” Jane said.

  Ren was already in the living room, waiting for them to come and dust Phil, but Frio shared Irina’s instincts. Everything in him got shorter and denser. “Do what?” he asked Sam.

  “I’ll explain later.” Sam’s smile was weary. “Come on, Frio, I’ll drive you home.”

  “Do what?” Frio repeated. “Be Phil?”

  “They told you?” Sam turned to Jane.

  “Irina recruited Frio,” Jimmy explained. “But he’s not interested.”

  “Fuck you.” Frio squared off on Sam.

  “Frio,” Sam almost pleaded.

  “It’s time,” Ren called from the living room, and Irina had to admire her dogged focus on dusting Phil despite more present and pressing concerns.

  “Fuck you,” Frio said again. “You’re not going to let them turn you into Phil. I’m doing it.” He glared at Jimmy, then Oskar, then back at Sam. “They already asked me.”

  “Frio.” Jane let go of Sam’s hand.

  “See?” Frio glared at Sam, pointing to Jane. “You’re married. And you’re the one—” He stopped. “If you want Phil back, I’ll fucking be Phil. I’m not letting you die.”

  Irina found Frio’s loyalty touching and hoped they’d all drop the Sam nonsense and go with her recruit. He was much better for Ren.

  “Jimmy.” Ren was in the doorway, her face terrifying. “It’s time.”

  “Yes of course.”

  “Ren?” Jane left Sam and went to Ren.

  “It’s time for Phil’s dust ritual.” Ren’s voice had the control of a high-rope walker. She looked at Frio. “Everyone grazes—relives—one of Phil’s memories at the same time as a way of honoring him before he’s spiked into…” She faltered. “His new Second. That doesn’t have to happen right away,” she added, recovering her poise. “But the dust ritual happens now.”

  “Sure,” Jane said.

  “Dust rituals are the only time all of us are in the Garden at the same time, doing the same thing,” Jimmy explained to Sam. “We really can’t be late.”

  “Is it still okay for me to come?” Jane asked.

  “Of course.” Ren looked from Jane to Sam, then followed the line of Sam’s eyes back to Frio. “Irina, would you take Jane?”

  “I—” Irina began, but Ren rolled right over her.

  “Oskar can take Frio. Jimmy, take Sam. I’m going now.” Ren walked into the living room, sat down on the sofa, and closed her eyes.

  Jane stepped close to Irina. “I’m ready.”

  Jane smelled like Dove soap and the swimming pool, and Irina gave a suspicious sniff. “You know how we do this?” she asked.

  “Oskar showed me last night.”

  “Did he now?” Irina’s clumped makeup and beer-stiff clothes bothered her more now she was standing close to Jane’s clean, soft sweatpants and fresh, noticeably untear-marked face, but she couldn’t refuse Ren, and she couldn’t miss the dust ritual.

  Jimmy put his hand on Sam’s shoulder. “Close your eyes,” he said gently.

  “Um, Jimmy?” Oskar said as Irina put her fingers to Jane’s temples. “Maybe you should take Frio.”

  DECEMBER, 1857

  “CELESTE INHABITED YOUR BODY.…”

  She stood in my doorway, impossible and inexplicable, like a hot August wind sweeping through the snow-covered fields in the middle of a February blizzard. I knew who she was at once, though I hadn’t seen her in thirty years, and never in this Second. I knew, yet I asked.

  “Celeste?”

  Her smile grew, removing any last doubts I might have had. She came in without the invitation I was too amazed to give. She was beautiful in the way Americans imagine French women are: blond curls, including one that rested against her cheek like an exotic jewel; shining violet eyes; a small and delicate mouth in a triangular face.

  “Dear Carter,” she said from a swirl of white fur coat and blue flounced skirts. “As much as I would love to see you close your mouth before it becomes home to one of your horrid local insects, I must insist that, first, you close the door, which is not only permitting, but even, it seems, encouraging both snow and cold into your otherwise snug if woefully rustic cottage, after which you may serve me well-meant but inadequate refreshment.”

  I shut the door, filled the teakettle, and set it over the fire. When I turned around, she had seated herself, upright and proper, on one of the two chairs that I now saw as terribly shabby.
“It is good to see you, Celeste.” I sat in the other chair, across from her at what I used for a kitchen table.

  “Why, thank you, Carter!” Her smile was dazzling in every sense of the word. I hadn’t seen such perfect teeth in five years.

  “I like your new Second. Recent?”

  “A month. The recruit was found—”

  “In Boston,” I said. “I remember now. I’ve been a little out of touch, I’m afraid. You were in stub for most of a year.”

  “You forgot me so quickly, Carter?” She mock frowned.

  “It’s been— I’ve been busy. And worried. To what do I owe the pleasure, Celeste? I hope it is merely to visit me.”

  “It is,” she said. “This is my first Second on this side of the Atlantic; how could I not visit my darling man as soon as possible? Though I was hoping you were younger. You need a new Second, dear Methuselah.”

  “This one still has life, Celeste, and you know how I feel about stubbing ourselves for convenience.”

  “Only in extreme cases, you say. But is my presence not an extreme case?” The fire gave a quick flare, which made it seem for a moment as if Celeste’s smile was literally brightening up the room.

  I made her tea, and we drank it, then I took her to town and bought her dinner at the Free State Hotel, now rebuilt by Colonel Eldridge: oysters, roast ham with champagne sauce, corn bread with plum preserves, and a St. Estephe claret. After dinner, we had a J.D. & M. Williams port, and she finally admitted that there was at least some civilization in Kansas.

  We drank our port, and she said, “So, who is this John Brown with whom you are so obsessed?”

  “A violent Abolitionist,” I said. “With a plan.”

  “What plan?”

  “To start a slave uprising somewhere south of Mason-Dixon. I haven’t been able to get all the det—”

  “My god!” she said, staring. “That would be horrible!”

  “I know.”

  “The slaughter!”

  “I’m thinking more of what it will do to the cause.”

  “The cause?”

  “Abolition.”

  “I’m thinking of all of those families who will be massacred if he succeeds. Can he succeed?”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “But I could be wrong.”

  “What are you doing to stop it?”

  “I’m at a loss, Celeste. I tried to meddle with him, and got nowhere.”

  “Maybe I should try.” She smiled. “There are methods at my disposal that are not at yours.”

  I snorted. “Look into his character, Celeste. The row of plants next to the bookshelf in my atrium. Tell me if you think he can be seduced.”

  She closed her eyes, then opened them again. “I take your meaning,” she said. “A Bible-thumper who actually means it.”

  I nodded. “I’ve been trying to come up with something,” I said. “But—”

  “He has to be stopped,” said Celeste.

  “I know, but—”

  “But if you can’t meddle with him, are we helpless? With all we know? It’s too terrible! To be useless, impotent. One madman with the capacity to do such grave harm to so many, and all of us—you, even—utterly powerless to stop him. Is there nothing we can do!”

  “Not nothing, I suppose. I could always shoot him before he ever got to working his plan.”

  “Then that’s what you must do,” she told me.

  FOURTEEN

  Look into His Character, Celeste.

  * * *

  During Phil’s dust ritual, I had felt Irina’s presence, and Felicia’s, and Vivien’s most clearly as they had all relived the seed Jimmy had selected. Of them, I thought Vivien had been most moved, and tried hardest to hide it. I had a theory that he had had kind of a thing for Phil for a while, but refused to demean himself by competing with Celeste; or didn’t want to get involved with someone so obviously broken; or time and place and circumstance were never right. Or I could just be wrong. I consider that possibility more than people give me credit for. Case in point: What to do with what I’d come to understand during the dust ritual? Should I seed it?

  Whatever Irina might have believed at the time, I am not heartless, and there was simply no point in causing Ren needless pain. But facts, as Lenin said, are stubborn things. Facts don’t go away because you don’t like them. Facts are the foundation of conclusions, and at a time like this, the conclusions we drew would have a profound effect on our choices, and, in turn, on our future, and thus on the future of the nemones. The stakes were immense, so I decided that I, at least, would begin by facing facts.

  —Oskar

  * * *

  As the seed Jimmy had selected had played out, Oskar had found his attention focused, above all, on Celeste, as she watched Phil, and on the emotions she couldn’t entirely conceal in her face and her body language. The fact was there was no understanding Phil without understanding Celeste. In the four hundred years she had been in the group, she and Phil defined each other—their opposition, their unity. The dialectic of the Incrementalists played itself out in their stormy, emotional, and sometimes even rational battles. All that the Incrementalists were or hoped to be, from the Revolutions of ’48, to the American Civil War, to the disaster of Cambodia, to their failures in Palestine, traced back to Celeste and Phil, Phil and Celeste—Phil wanting to make things better, Celeste desperate not to make things worse. Now it was Ren and Phil, Phil and Ren, and the Incrementalists were at a pivot once again; and Phil was in stub. And Ren? Ren was uncertain. Something Celeste had never been.

  In 1977, Celeste had been frightened that, as a result of what Phil was saying, the group might again plunge into water so deep they could drown, and even more frightened that she had no power to stop them. She was furious that Phil had such unshakable influence over the group, despite his doubts, and that she had so little despite her conviction.

  And under it all, still and nevertheless, Celeste was proud of Phil. She was proud of how deeply he got involved, of how much he let our work hurt him—let her hurt him—and proud of how badly he wanted to be good.

  That was what left the scars.

  When Phil came out of stub, the scars would still be there, and the entire group, but especially Ren, would have to deal with that. But would it make it any easier for Ren to know Celeste’s pride wasn’t that of accomplishment or ownership, but of conviction?

  Oskar didn’t know.

  * * *

  In the end, I seeded my insights, but I didn’t put a pointer to the seed on the board. I include it here, not to prove I was right about Ren having to deal with the scars Phil carried, although I was, but to show how I had allowed my concern for her to make me timid. It was unlike me not to call what I had noticed to the attention of others, and it was a mistake.

  —O

  * * *

  * * *

  Ren opened her eyes and closed them again like 1977 might still be right behind her eyelids. It wasn’t, but 2014 still didn’t feel quite real either, so she kept her eyes shut and listened to the room. Oskar’s chair groaned as he stretched. Jane whispered something under her breath. Jimmy sighed and yawned. Ren peeked to see who Jane was talking to, and realized she was praying. Sam made fidgeting, throat-clearing noises, and Irina stood up. “I’m going to shower,” she announced and walked out.

  Ren wondered what the hell had happened to Irina’s shoes.

  Ren tried stretching and yawning, but it didn’t help, and she wasn’t going to pray. “There’s a really lovely Mexican place not too far from here,” she said. “It’s where we were going to have the rehearsal dinner.” She unfolded her legs and put her feet flat on the floor. “If anyone’s hungry.”

  Of course everyone was hungry, but Jimmy offered to pick up the check if they would agree, instead, to accompany him to his hotel. “I haven’t checked in yet, but I peeked at their menu online before I reserved my room, and I’m desperate to try the tamales,” he explained.

  “What’s it on the way to?�
�� Oskar’s grin was bait.

  Jimmy didn’t take it. “It’s downtown,” he said. “I’ll text you the address.”

  “That’s okay.” Oskar unfolded himself from Phil’s chair and extended a hand to help Jimmy up. “I’ll let you chauffeur me.”

  Jimmy hoisted himself to standing and caught Oskar in a one-armed embrace. “Gladly, my friend. Perhaps I’ll even drive you by El Tiradito on the way. It’s the grave of a man who died for love.”

  Oskar groaned. “I’ll take my rental.”

  “The only Catholic shrine to a sinner buried on unconsecrated ground,” Jimmy coaxed.

  Frio said something in Spanish, and Sam stood, stationing himself by Jane. “We should be going,” he said.

  “Why?” Oskar’s eyes searched Jane’s. “Do you know where there are better tamales?”

  Jane didn’t say anything, but she didn’t look away from Oskar’s gaze.

  Sam put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “I understand why you have to get Phil back,” Sam told Oskar, voice steady, but holding on to Jane with umbilical intensity. “I’m ready to do whatever you need to make that happen.”

  “And I’ll do whatever it takes to stop you.” Frio was standing close to Ren by the front door and she had no idea how he’d gotten there or when, but found she rather liked it.

  “Come to dinner, then.” Jimmy’s cordial smile took in every wary, worried, tense, and frightened person in the room. “And we’ll talk through it all over tamales. An empty stomach makes a selfish mind. Ren, why don’t you ride with Sam and Jane? I’ll tell Irina where we’re going and leave a message for Matsu. I’m staying at the Hotel Congress, do you know where that is?”

  Ren didn’t answer right away, imagining herself in the backseat of Jane’s car with Frio. It wasn’t unpleasant. She’d liked watching how he didn’t let Oskar bully him or Irina seduce him. She liked his loyalty to Sam.

  Jane put her hand over Sam’s where it rested on her shoulder, and stood up. “We’ll have to swing by our house first so I can change clothes.”