Personal Darkness

by Lee, Tanith

  Rachaela noticed that Althene did not pay the driver.

  The room was small with high wooden screens. There were only seven tables.

  An impeccable, short, swarthy man stepped out and led them to the seventh, behind the highest screen of all.

  On the cream tablecloth a single thick white candle burned.

  "For you, madame, madame," he said, holding their chairs.

  Then he went and a young girl, plump and rosy in a black dress, came and brought them each a glass of palest red wine in long goblets without stems.

  Rachaela made no comment. They drank the wine. It was slaty and very soft.

  The meal had been ordered, apparently, already. Rachaela was not offered a choice, but she could hardly object, for everything was—naturally—perfection again.

  They had a fennel salad, and then a bourride singing with garlic. With this had come a bottle of water-clear Macon.

  When they had finished the bourride, the girl cleared their plates. The restaurant had filled up quietly and was now full of murmurs and the muted clink of glass and knives behind the screen.

  An old woman arrived next, with two thimbles of some golden liqueur. She set these down, and then she spoke to Althene in a strange rounded French. Althene answered her.

  Rachaela drank her liqueur, which tasted of the smell of roses. God knew what it was made from. Cyanide, perhaps.

  The old woman took Althene's hand, and then she went away.

  "Forgive our speaking in another language," said Althene. "Her English isn't good. It should be. She's been here since before the war."

  "Which war was that," Rachaela inquired archly, "the one with Napoleon?"

  "Oh, no." Althene behaved as if the question were unprovocative, ordinary. "The last."

  "But you knew her then."

  "Yes. She was younger. She was pretty. She still is."

  "The meal was wonderful," said Rachaela grimly.

  "There's just one tiny dessert which you must eat."

  "I can't, I'm afraid."

  "A mouthful," said Althene. She drained her liqueur in a single immaculate gulp. Her eyes were on Rachaela, intensely dark, depth under depth. The eyes of the seducer. Is that what she wants?

  Rachaela recalled Michael and Kei in the garden. Michael had not looked elderly anymore. Was homosex-ual love, then, permissible among the Scarabae, with their obsessions of continuance?

  Rachaela realized that Althene did make her feel beautiful in turn. And was this too the root of her unease? Even her annoyance?

  An image of Jonquil barged into Rachaela's mind, her employer of earlier years, mannish and earringed in steel or bone. Jonquil had been rather fond of her, but very careful. Althene was the antithesis of Jonquil. And Althene's aura, sexual, exquisite, alarmingly unflawed, had no caution to it at all.

  When she wants, she will ask me, that's all. She'll ask and I'll say no. And that will be that.

  The dessert came, borne by the owner, who had seated them. Miniature tarts amber with apricots.

  Rachaela tried hers, and finished it.

  She was becoming greedy, like all her kind.

  They had coffee in painted white cups, and Calvados in curious squat wooden goblets.

  "Don't hurry," said Althene. "There's plenty of time. I hope you'll like the film. Not all of it, perhaps. But there are marvelous things. The ancient past seen through the lens of the early 1900s. Glimpses of authenticity that astound, and moments of utter abandon impossible before, or since."

  She refilled Rachaela's cup from the coffeepot.

  "I saw this film once, with a terrible audience. They must presumably have known when it was made, and that there would be touches of melodrama or naivete no longer usual. They must have known too it was a landmark, the matrix for very much else. And they laughed uncontrollably. High-pitched, silly laughter, to show they knew, had grown up, progressed. Worst of all, an actress from the film had come to introduce it. She was lovely, tiny, and charming. They laughed, as she sat among them. I would have turned a machine gun on them all."

  "Yes," said Rachaela. "Well, I won't laugh."

  "Obviously. You have no need."

  When they left, Althene paid.

  The owner saw them to the door. The other diners were too discreet to stare.

  Outside, another cab was waiting, which took them to the cinema.

  As predicted, not all the film concerned Rachaela.

  She found the biblical sequences interesting, or delightful, or remotely sad. The Babylonian scenes astonished her, the reeling walls and spinning sunwheels, the elephants and eagles of stone (which was not), the staircase of lions, where beautiful women embraced, lip to lip.

  The audience did not laugh. It observed a reverential silence.

  All dreamers then, those with memories.

  Rachaela found the film had played upon her incoherent nostalgia, as if Althene knew, and had chosen purposely.

  Rachaela felt a little stunned. It was a long film, of course. It was midnight when they emerged from the cinema.

  To her surprise, no car was waiting.

  "Shall we walk in the fog?" said Althene. "I know a little club, only a few streets away. We can have something to drink."

  Rachaela was not sorry. She did not want the intimacy of a car. She pulled her coat closed against the thick dankness of the air. The fog had grown woollier, and the city… was unspecified heights and shapes of dark, with here and there a streaming diluted light that might be made of anything… a candle, a shallow lamp of oil—

  The women on the stairs. Flowers that kissed. How had the censor passed it? Had they missed those mouths in the alabaster deluge of shoulders, arms, lily faces ringed by black curls?

  They had turned into an alley. The fog pressed gray about them.

  Anywhere. They might be—

  Shadows massed. What was it?

  Rachaela heard, after all, a laugh. Male.

  Five men came out of the fog in front of them.

  After the siege of Babylon, the violence of reality.

  They were young, between eighteen and twenty-five. The fog dimmed them, giving them vegetable faces with paint hair and big white trainered feet. Between were quilted jackets, baggy cords, tracksuits like adult rompers.

  " 'Ere," said one, "two fucking dykes."

  "Never had a porking," said another.

  "Like it," said another.

  They hovered in the fog, stupid as the carcasses of butchered meat, but solid, alive.

  Althene too had halted.

  Rachaela thought, Never before—

  "I'll have that one," said the voice in the blue track-suit. "She looks fucking hot."

  Rachaela saw his eyes, as if from miles away. They were blind, yet they could see.

  Where was the road, where were the cabs and the protection now?

  / was raped before.

  I'll just have to put up with it.

  Althene said, musically, "Run along, boys."

  The boys stood there, looking at them, not laughing now, and not running.

  CHAPTER 30

  ALL CITIES WERE THE SAME. The first was the blueprint for them all. There were the high places, lighted and mobile with traf-fic, the sumps of darkness where the thick mist crawled. Through them ran rivers, to which steps sloped down, and under the rivers lay the dead, as they lay under the streets.

  Malach walked.

  He was silent, but behind him, more silent still, the two ghosts of the dogs padded. Sometimes they would pause to examine some odor or essence. Sometimes they slipped a little ahead. Then they would wait for him, nose his hands, and fall back once more.

  Malach moved out of time.

  Once or twice, pedestrians passed him. Startled and wary in the fog, they stared or averted their eyes, for in this atmosphere he was even more inimical, and more correct. Dark and fog might have made him up.

  The fog had crossed the river now, knitted over.

  Phantom things slid along th
e water. Lamps like moons rose, melted, and set.

  Malach turned from the bank, down among the side streets.

  Beyond the last lamp, a stretch of shadow. In the shadow, a voice. Not loud, quite reasonable.

  "Give us yer bag."

  And then a dog barked, the noise the product of a small barrel chest.

  Malach stopped, and Enki and Oskar came up to him like two drifts of mist.

  Down in the shadow, a breathless woman said, "I haven't got much. It won't help you."

  "What you got?" asked a second voice.

  "A couple of pounds—"

  "Let's see."

  "No, please. It's my bag. It's private."

  The dog barked again.

  "Keep your rotten dog off," said the first voice.

  The second said, "You scared of that! I tell you, lady, I'm going to kill your dog. I'll skin it."

  It was possible to see into the shadow, after all.

  The woman was fattish, with glasses, and not young. The dog stood at her ankle, waiting to defend her, trembling. It had a round white and tan body and pointed fox's ears.

  The black youth aimed a playful mock kick at it, and it cowered away. It was in the worst predicament, the dog, a coward wanting to be brave.

  The white youth spat. "Fucking ugly dog, that is, missus. Better off out of it."

  "Please—" said the woman. She pulled the dog back by its lead, as if she would pull it into her fat body.

  "Yeah, I'll skin the fucking white dog," said the black boy. He had a knife now, the shadow-fog reflected on it wetly.

  The woman held out her lumpy handbag.

  "Here. Take this. It's all I've got."

  "Oh, she wants us to have it now."

  The black boy said, "Now give me yer dog."

  Malach touched the backs of the wolfhounds' two stony skulls.

  Without hesitation they trotted forward.

  The white youth danced around, alerted by some current of new air. Out of the fog he saw something go up and up, and on it the face of a grey-white fog beast, long teeth and glowing eyes. It rose until it was over his head, and then two iron paws came down on his shoulders.

  He made a sound. The beast growled into his face. Its breath smelled of meat and smoke.

  The black boy, too, had turned in amazement, and at the same moment the other pale dog reared up to meet him. He shrieked and tried to pull away, but the sheer weight of the animal held him pinned.

  The knife wavered in his hand.

  "What's happening?" said the woman. "What is it?" The little dog on the lead was wagging its tail now.

  The black boy tried to get his knife right, so he could push it into the great stone dog that leaned on him.

  Then he felt the knife drawn lightly from his grip. He heard the knife break in two, and the two pieces clink on the street. A hand closed on the back of his neck, mild, almost loving. A man said softly into his ear, "Your people were hung on a cross. You should know better."

  The stone dog swung suddenly off and away.

  Malach led the black boy forward to where the other wolfhound had the white boy, blocked, shivering. He had dropped the bag. "Enki."

  As the second wolfhound cascaded away, the little dog on the lead gave a pleased high yap.

  Malach put his right hand on the white boy's neck. He stood between them, the youths, benign, priestly. Then he slammed their heads together. Something happened. He let both of them fall down.

  "What's going on?" said the woman.

  "It's all right," said Malach.

  The fog and her eyesight had hidden it from her. He picked up her bag and took it over.

  The little dog jumped and panted, and Oskar lowered his head to it, licking it once end to end.

  Malach gave the woman her bag.

  "Thank you," she said, "thank you, Officer."

  She pulled the little dog, bouncing and excited, away into the fog. Something made her hurry.

  Malach stepped between the two dead muggers, his dogs running now to keep up with him.

  CHAPTER 31

  FAINTLY A WINDOW SHONE DOWN ON them, that was where the light came from, about five stories up. Possibly someone had seen, and phoned the police. But it was a forlorn hope. More likely the light, probably of some office, had only been forgotten.

  Within, immersed in her terror, Rachaela knew a bizarre curiosity. What would Althene do?

  So far, she had only antagonized them.

  Did she even understand that such an affront was conceivable?

  A kind of electricity came from Althene. Rachaela experienced the tingling of it. But it was not fear.

  Too arrogant to be afraid.

  The five men were slouching there in front of them, liking their own strength, enjoying the threat more than the action. Turning themselves on. Only one of them was as tall as Althene, but in this type of encounter, that was not going to matter.

  "I like the bird with the big tits," said the one in rompers.

  "The other's better. Big girl."

  "I bet she's got a big cunt. Take two of us at once."

  They laughed again, they had overlooked Althene's patronizing remark. They began to move forward.

  Althene spoke.

  "Wouldn't you like to see what you're getting first?"

  They checked, chuckling disbelievingly.

  Rompers moved out. "You show us then.''

  Althene opened her coat. She started to raise her skirt, very slowly.

  They encouraged her, whistled. They watched the long slim leg appear above her high leather boot. Rachaela saw, also. Just below the stocking top, was a garter of dark green lace. And in the garter, a tiny gun.

  Althene had the gun neatly in her hand. She let her skirt fall.

  Four of the men had stopped laughing. But Rompers was not impressed.

  "Look. It's a toy. It's a fake."

  The gun was silver with a white bone handle. It looked too elegant to be anything dangerous.

  Rachaela said, "Althene—"

  "Tell you what," said Rompers, "she's showed me hers. Now she can see mine. I've got a big one, darling. Just the size for you and your friend."

  He moved forward again, and the other four were there behind him.

  The gun gave a little click, like a pip breaking between the teeth. Then Althene fired into Rompers's body.

  Deafening red in the smoky light, blood jetted from his genitals. He gave a shrill squeak. He flopped backward and the others split away from him. They paused in odd attitudes, half crouching, looking at him. He screamed once, and then he only lay on the pavement under the fog.

  The men ran away abruptly, like a herd of animals frightened by something unseen.

  "What have you done?" said Rachaela.

  "Don't you know?" said Althene. Her voice sounded deeper, rougher, less glamorous. She raised her skirt once more and set the gun back into the preposterous garter. "That will keep me warm."

  The man on the ground did not move. Was he dead?

  Rachaela glanced up. No one at the window.

  "We'll have to call an ambulance." She tried to speak sensibly, as though Althene had done something normal, like twisting her ankle.

  "Why?"

  "You shot someone."

  "So I did. Did you love him?"

  Rachaela said, "That isn't an answer."

  "Yes."

  "He was scum," said Rachaela.

  "Good-bye," said Althene, "to the scum. He will be dead in a few minutes. I shot him in his big penis, of which he was so proud."

  Rachaela began to shake. She thought, distantly, So much for rationality.

  "Don't faint," said Althene. "We'll go and find a drink for you."

  "For me? I'm here with a wild beast and it offers me a drink."

  "How complimentary. What beast?"

  "That gun—" said Rachaela, uselessly.

  "Custom made. A Derringer Remington. One of the smallest weapons in the world, bar the hatpin. A leopardess, perh
aps. Come. The club I spoke of isn't far."

  "You want me to walk into some private club with you as if nothing—as if—as if you had—" Rachaela stopped. The alley whirled, settled sickeningly, and was still. Althene had her by the shoulders.

  "He would have stuck himself into you," said Althene. "And elsewhere, quite soon, into some other woman, less able to cast off what he did to her than you. Requiescat in pace."

  No one had come. No sirens or rushing feet.

  Althene let her go. Instead her warm and scented

  Rachaela's lips.

  "Walk with me as if you will live for many hundreds of years," said Althene. "Walk with me as if you have seen it all before. And as if you love and trust me."

  "But I don't."

  "Then make believe, little girl. Pretend."

  They walked.

  The darkness and the lit window drew behind and the body of the dying or dead rapist was hidden by a twist of buildings. Dim notes of buses, cars, far off. Music from a cassette.

  They reached a shut door under a lamp.

  Althene rang the bell.

  The shaking was fading off, as if something that had had Rachaela in its teeth was now growing tired.

  Rachaela had a double brandy, and then they drank china tea. It was a long room with comfortable chairs and small waxed tables, a luminous bar, prints of ancient houses.

  At any moment, for the first three quarters of an hour, Rachaela expected someone to burst in, crying of a corpse close by. No one did.

  Althene was gracious and attentive, but she did not really speak for a long while.

  In an alcove a man sat playing a guitar, softly and beautifully. It seemed he might also be one of the scatter of patrons, who simply played there to please himself.

  Rachaela, an insect newborn, hardened. She felt only sad, like a child who had realized it would die. But this was the reverse of that. It was as if she had learned that death was not for her.

  Finally, she said, "I suppose murder isn't anything fresh in your life."

  Althene smiled in the old mysterious way. She had readjusted her voice, jettisoning harshness and banality.

  "Now you think I've slain a hundred men."

  "Have you?"

  "I would have to count them up. Wouldn't that look like boasting?"