Hymn

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Think of her,’ Tony Express was urging him. ‘Think of her clearly, man, think of her hard.’

  ‘I can see her,’ said Lloyd, and he could. She was standing inside his head like a tiny holographic image. She was standing inside his head and she was sharp, she was clear and she was real.

  Tony Express said, ‘Look at me.’ Or perhaps Lloyd only imagined that he said it. But all the same, he turned to him and stared at him directly, with the tiny image of Sylvia still bright and sharp behind his eyes.

  Tony Express took off his dark glasses. Lloyd saw his sightless milky white eyes. But in that instant, he felt as if something bright had been sucked right out of his own eyes, a brilliant image that had left him dazzled.

  Although he was dazzled, however, he was able to see that Tony Express’s eyes were dully glowing like 40-watt bulbs. Then Tony turned his head, and stared toward the far corner of the living-room.

  Lloyd had already seen today the materialization of the girl called Gretchen, whom Otto had tortured and killed. Gretchen had been the faintest picture from a long-dead past. But he still shuddered when the sunlit air in the far corner of the room began to flow and coagulate, and gradually the shimmering outline of a woman began to form. Not just any woman, either. As the image grew more distinct and more colourful, he could see that it was unmistakably Sylvia Cuddy.

  She took on no more substance than a translucent image in the air. An over-exposed transparency, its colours so thin—ivories and roses and pale jade greens that Lloyd could barely see what they were. But it was Sylvia, all the same, and she moved, and turned her head, and her eyes looked at Lloyd with a sadness that made him feel impossibly guilty. After all, if he hadn’t been rash enough to lend her the Junius libretto, she might still be alive.

  ‘Sylvia?’ he called her.

  ‘Lloyd, what’s . . .’ her voice strengthened and faded, as if they were hearing something on the very edge of a shortwave radio frequency.

  Lloyd stood up and approached her. ‘Sylvia, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for what happened.’

  ‘. . . n’t your fault, she . . .’

  ‘Sylvia . . . are you suffering at all? Sylvia, listen to me! Are you suffering at all?’

  ‘. . . always the day . . . every day . . .’

  ‘What day, Sylvia?’ He was so close to her now, yet she was so transparent that he felt he could have stirred her image around like sheets of coloured gelatine dissolving in warm water.

  ‘. . . day my father died . . . every day . . . so much grief . . .’

  Tony Express was standing close beside Lloyd’s elbow. ‘In hell, you suffer the worst thing that ever happened to you when you were alive, over and over, every day. Didn’t you know that? That’s what hell is. You white people don’t know nothing.’

  Lloyd hesitated, and then he said, ‘Sylvia . . . that libretto I gave you to look at . . . the Wagner libretto . . . could you score that for me? Could you sing it for me, so that I know what it’s supposed to sound like?’

  ‘. . . n’t understa . . .’

  ‘Score it for me, teach me how to sing it! It’s desperately important! It’s a hymn, written by Wagner, to destroy all of the fire people . . . to make atonement for all of the Salamanders!’

  At last, Sylvia began to nod, as if she had grasped what it was that he wanted her to do. Lloyd went over to Kathleen’s upright piano, opened the lid, and set the manuscript pages on the music-stand. Then he turned back to the glassy, flowing image of Sylvia, standing in the sunlight, and there were tears in his eyes.

  ‘Try, Sylvia, please.’

  For the next two hours, they were treated to an eerie but enchanting scene. Sylvia’s image sat at the piano, carefully scoring Wagner’s music with a pencil that almost seemed to jiggle in mid-air by itself. Every now and then, she would play a short phrase from the hymn on the piano, and the room would resonate as if the notes were being played on every frequency in the known universe.

  At last, Sylvia announced that she had finished, that she was ready: that her scoring and arrangement of Wagner’s Hymn of Atonement was as close to Wagner’s original as she could manage.

  Tony Express elbowed Lloyd’s ribs. ‘Tape-recorder,’ he reminded him.

  ‘Oh, sure’ said Lloyd; and switched Kathleen’s Sony to record.

  The Hymn was strong and primitive, a pagan hymn rather than a Christian hymn. But it had a soft wild beauty that stirred a feeling in Lloyd that he hadn’t felt for years.

  Forgive the beacons we have lit

  Forgive our wraith; our ire

  Forgive the souls that dared to burn

  Within th’immortal fire.

  Sylvia sang the words high and clear: so high and clear that Franklin suddenly appeared in the doorway, and stood staring at the piano mesmerized.

  The Hymn died away. Sylvia turned to Lloyd and raised both hands to her lips. Her eyes were filled with affection and regret. But at least she had a chance now to live an afterlife that was free of suffering and agonizing grief.

  ‘. . . ‘bye, Lloyd . . . remember, I . . .’

  She was gone. The pages of the libretto were ruffled by a sudden breeze, and blew one by one on to the floor. Lloyd knelt down and collected them up.

  ‘Who was playing the piano?’ asked Franklin, stupefied.

  ‘Didn’t you see anybody?’ Lloyd replied.

  Franklin came closer, and peered around the piano. He lifted the drapes and looked behind them, too. Then he stared at Lloyd in complete bewilderment.

  ‘Were you playing that piano?’

  ‘No,’ said Lloyd. ‘Didn’t you see her—the woman in the floral blouse?’

  Very slowly, Franklin shook his head. ‘I didn’t see anybody. There was nobody here.’

  Lloyd looked across at Tony Express, but Tony Express was still sitting cross-legged on the floor, his head thrown back a little like Stevie Wonder, rocking on his haunches and humming to himself. Lloyd had read about the doors of perception, and the extraordinary levels of different reality into which Indian shamans had always been capable of removing themselves, but this was the first time he had experienced it so intensely and so emotionally for himself. He wondered who was experiencing whom, and if Tony Express should ever regain his sight, whether the rest of the world would instantly become blind.

  Twenty-Three

  ‘I have to come with you,’ Kathleen insisted. ‘If they’ve got Tom, then I simply have to.’

  ‘You realize how dangerous it could be,’ said Lloyd, although he had known all along that he wouldn’t be able to persuade her to stay at home.

  ‘It’s no less dangerous here,’ Kathleen argued. ‘Look what they did to Lucy.’

  ‘All right,’ Lloyd agreed. There was no arguing with that. They had decided yesterday not to try running on anywhere else, because they had all been tired and Kathleen had still been suffering from shock. But they had taken it in turns to keep watch all night, in case Otto or Helmwige or any of the Salamanders came after them.

  It had been difficult for Lloyd to persuade Kathleen not to call the police. After all, Lucy had been killed and Tom was missing, and there was no guarantee that their Hymn would have any effect on the Salamanders at all. Lloyd only had Celia’s word for it—that, and a half-heard conversation which Franklin had reported. It was quite possible that Celia had been lying, the way she had lied about almost everything else, and that Franklin had simply misunderstood what Otto had been talking about.

  Nevertheless, they were carrying two duplicate cassettes with Wagner’s Hymn on them—in case one of them should get lost or caught—and their plan was simply to play it over the Civic Theater loudspeaker system at the end of the opera.

  ‘Simple, man,’ remarked Tony Express. ‘All we have to do is gatecrash an invitation-only opera, hide, stop ourselves from being burned alive, mess with the Salamanders’
hi-fi, duck their subsequent wrath, rescue Kathleen’s kid, call the cops, make the cops believe that we’re not totally out to lunch, and bingo.’

  ‘You make it sound so easy,’ Lloyd remarked.

  By calling the Civic Theater enquiries, they had discovered that tonight’s opera evening started at nine o’clock, and finished at midnight. ‘But, I’m sorry, sir, it’s strictly by invitation only, and there are no more seats available.’

  They spent the day resting and pacing about and nervously watching television. Lloyd would have done anything for a drink, but he resisted it. He sat in the kitchen watching Kathleen make sandwiches for everybody, and drank Perrier with a wedge of lime and salt round the rim, a teetotaller’s tequila.

  Kathleen seemed to have lost a lot of her defensiveness since they had discovered her sister burned in the garage. She was still practical, still disinclined to show her feelings, but as he watched her against the afternoon light he could see her femininity shining through. Those graceful movements, those soft and appealing expressions.

  He could see, too, that she wasn’t the woman for him. He might have acquired a restaurant and a BMW and house with a peek, but he was still his parents’ son.

  At the moment, however, it didn’t matter whether they would ever stay together or not. What bonded them together was their hatred of Otto and Helmwige and the master race, and their need for revenge. They both needed revenge so much that it physically hurt them, like the need for crack.

  ‘Do you think Tom’s safe?’ Kathleen asked him, as she cut the last of the sandwiches.

  Lloyd nodded. ‘Almost certain of it. Otto can’t catch us, but I reckon he’s going to keep Tom as his insurance policy, in case we start making trouble.’

  ‘What happens when we do make trouble?’

  ‘Then I’ll do everything I can to make sure that Tom gets out of there safely.’

  Kathleen was silent for a moment, as if she were making her mind up about something. Then she said, ‘Okay, thank you. I guess that’s the most that anybody could promise.’

  They drove south towards San Diego on I-5, so nervous that they could scarcely speak to each other. Lloyd switched on the radio for a moment, but it was Chris Rea singing ‘The Road To Hell’, and so he switched it off again. He would have done anything for a drink, a cigarette, an excuse to take the next turnoff and head back to La Jolla. But it was too late now. He had far more lives to think about than his own. Even Celia’s. Perhaps Celia’s more than any of the others, because he had failed her.

  And what would happen, when Otto’s master race emerged, and began to impose its will on a nation whose moral certainties were already foundering? God, thought Lloyd, I’ve been afraid before, but never like this. I’ve never been afraid that I’m going to wake up tomorrow, and America’s going to have changed for ever.

  They passed the Seaworld turnoff, and the glittering lights of downtown San Diego began to rise up in front of them. Tony Express crossed himself.

  ‘I didn’t know you were a Catholic,’ Kathleen remarked.

  ‘I’m not,’ he said. ‘But, you know man, you might as well give yourself all the protection you can.’

  It was a hot, windless night. There was no smell of ocean, only burned petrol and stale air-conditioning and cigarette smoke. The sky reflected the lights of the city so that it was almost purple. Lloyd took the Civic Centre turnoff, and then bore left until he reached the Civic Theatre garage entrance at 2nd and A.

  It was 8:35. Already the theater garage was busy with lines of glistening Cadillacs and Mercedes and Porsches, and crowds of people in evening dress were taking the elevators down to the street. There was a smell of imported cigarettes and pot and Giorgio perfume.

  ‘All right?’ asked Lloyd, as they parked. ‘Anybody want to back out?’

  ‘Come on, Lloyd,’ said Franklin, laying his hand on Lloyd’s shoulder. ‘Let’s just go. Don’t let’s think about backing out.’

  They climbed out of the car. They had raided Mike Kerwin’s closets to make themselves look as presentable as possible. Lloyd was a little taller than Mike, so the trousers of his dinner suit flapped around his ankles, but the dress-shirt fitted quite well. Franklin had managed to wedge himself into a blue Yves St Laurent blazer and a pair of slacks that made his muscular legs look as if they had been sprayed with dull grey paint, while Tony Express had found a black jacket of Kathleen’s that fitted him. He had gelled his hair and combed it like Robert de Niro’s.

  Kathleen wore a black velvet evening-gown, low-cut, with a large diamond pin on her left breast. She was tired, and her cheeks were colourless, but then she was just beginning to feel the full effects of Tom’s disappearance, and of her sister’s ugly cremation in the garage. All the same, Lloyd thought she looked exceptionally alluring, and he was proud to have her on his arm.

  As they walked across the parking level, Lloyd noticed two black minibuses with mirror windows parked close together in the far corner. Balboa Hi-Way Bus Rental was lettered on the side panels of each of them. And what was the betting they, too, had been rented by Mr Ortal? Mr Imm-Ortal, big joke, Otto.

  They took the elevator down to street-level and then turned left to the Civic Theater entrance. It was bright and crowded, although there were uniformed security guards at every door checking invitations, and the sidewalk was roped off to prevent anybody from straying into the theatre entrance by accident.

  ‘How on earth are we going to get in?’ Kathleen asked, behind her black-gloved hand, as they approached the doors. A man behind her was laughing loudly, and saying, ‘She came for rhinoplasty and went away with new lips, new ears, new breasts, and twelve thousand dollars’ worth of liposuction.’

  ‘Well, Kurt, you’re a good salesman, I’ll admit that,’ his companion was saying. ‘You probably couldn’t remodel an outhouse, but you sure can sell.’

  They both laughed loudly. Then Tony Express and Lloyd reached the door, closely followed by Franklin and Kathleen. The security guard was a big-bellied black man with a glossy peaked cap pulled down low over his eyes.

  ‘Check your invitations, please?’ he asked, suspiciously.

  Tony Express lifted his sundance doll and shook it twice. ‘Na, na’lwiwi!’ he said, sharply.

  The security guard frowned at him, and said, ‘What you doin’ that fo’?’ so he shook it again.

  ‘Na! Na! Na’lwiwi!’

  Lloyd was sure that the security guard was going to turn them away, but then an extraordinary thing happened. The air in front of the security guard’s face seemed to bend, like a distorting mirror at a funfair, and no matter how much he turned his head from side to side, he appeared to be unable to see past it.

  In the end he turned to the two cosmetic surgeons right behind them and said, ‘Okay, gentlemen. How about your invitations?’

  ‘But you didn’t check . . .’ one of the surgeons began, pointing at Lloyd and Franklin and Kathleen and Tony Express.

  The security guard looked back at them, but the air was still flexing, and it was obvious to Lloyd that he simply couldn’t see them. Tony Express had somehow summoned his powers of light and air to distort the man’s vision.

  ‘Come on, man,’ Tony Express urged him. ‘That’s nothing but a trick and it don’t last more’n a minute.’ Together, they shove-shuffled their way through the crowded lobby and up the stairs, and through the open doors into the main auditorium.

  The Civic Theater could take nearly twice as many people as Otto had invited, and so there were plenty of spare seats. Lloyd and Kathleen found themselves stalls seats close to the left-hand exit, while Franklin and Tony Express went to sit on the opposite side. The stage curtains were still closed, but already some sections of the orchestra were beginning to tune up. Their persistent off-key scraping and whining did nothing for Lloyd’s already-tightened nerves.

  He looked around him at the graduall
y filling theatre. If he hadn’t known that each of them had been personally selected by Otto for their racial characteristics, their politics, and their intelligence, it would have taken him a long time to realize that there were no blacks here, nobody who was obviously Jewish, no Slavs. There were several light-skinned Hispanics, and some Orientals, but none of them looked anything but wealthy and well-domesticated Southern Californians.

  Under the sparkling chandeliers sat a thousand and one of Southern California’s finest and most successful—doctors, lawyers, dentists, accountants, politicians. Although they didn’t yet know it, they were the master-race-to-be.

  ‘Where do you think Tom is?’ asked Kathleen, looking anxiously around.

  ‘If Otto’s got him, he’ll be here,’ Lloyd reassured her. ‘He’s Otto’s hostage, remember, in case we try to mess things up for him.’ In spite of his confident tone, however, he wasn’t at all sure that Otto would have brought Tom here—nor even that Tom was still alive.

  ‘Oh God protect him,’ Kathleen whispered.

  Franklin gave Lloyd the thumbs-up from the far side of the theatre. They had planned to sit through the first part of the opera, until the second interval, and then for Franklin and Tony Express to make their way backstage to see if they could find Tom and locate the theatre’s audio equipment. As the opera drew to its climax, towards midnight, Lloyd and Kathleen would join them. They would play the Hymn, if they could, and with luck, make their getaway.

  It wasn’t much of a plan, and they would probably have to decide what to do as they went along, but then Lloyd’s vice-president at San Diego Marine Trust had always said, ‘When you haven’t got a fucking clue, extemporize.’

  It was that advice that had led Lloyd to quit the insurance business and open the Original Fish Depot. He hoped it would hold out tonight, on the night of the summer solstice, on the night of Otto’s sorcerous Transformation.