* * *
Department: BIOLOG: ALEC NEVALA-LEE
by Richard A. Lovett
Some science fiction writers start as scientists. Not Alec Nevala-Lee. He always planned to be a writer, even going picking his college major with a literary career in mind. “I chose classical studies [at Harvard],” he says, though he admits he's now forgotten most of his Latin and Greek. “I always knew I would be a writer, so [I asked] what field would provide the most interesting toolkit for writing fiction: history, archaeology, linguistics, philosophy.”
Growing up in Castro Valley, California, Nevala-Lee encountered The X-Files in middle school. “I was a huge fan,” he says. “It came out when I was just the right age.”
He immediately began writing fanfic, and while his stories have since become very much his own, they still pay homage to his favorite TV show. “I enjoy stories set in the present day, on this planet, with fairly recognizable characters,” he says. “Most begin with unexplained events that seem almost paranormal. Then gradually an explanation appears. That's The X-Files."
His first serious endeavor was a novel written at age 13, influenced mostly by Orson Scott Card and Dune. “At this point, only one copy remains,” he adds, “which is probably a good thing.”
After a stint at a financial firm in New York City, he took up full-time writing, then moved to Chicago.
His first sale was to Analog ("Inversus,” January/February 2004) but at the time he still had the day job in finance, and it was several years before he returned to the magazine's pages. The current story is the latest in a series of rat-a-tat sales.
Because Nevala-Lee is not a scientist, he often turns for inspiration to popular science magazines, like Discover. His normal approach is to look for seemingly unrelated articles, then try to connect them. His November 2011 story, “The Boneless One,” began when he read an article about an oceanographic expedition that is taking water samples every few miles and cataloging the genes of the bacteria they contain. Then he read an article about luminescent octopuses. “The result was a weird noir murder mystery on a research yacht,” he says. “Most of my stories come from that kind of collision between two unrelated subjects.”
But science fiction may not be his literary mainstay. His first book, The Icon Thief, slated for April 2012, is a thriller set in the New York art world, with a sequel scheduled for later that year. “I see myself more as a suspense novelist,” he admits. Though he's quick to add that science fiction is his first love—though mostly for short stories or novelettes.
Luckily, he sees Analog as a premier market for his shorter works. “I'm drawn to the ‘toymaking’ aspects of science fiction,” he says. “The [stories] I've most enjoyed have been combinations of ideas. The Dune books combine Herbert's interest in ecology, the Middle East, oil politics, Bedouins, Lawrence of Arabia, and mystical traditions from across the world. Somehow it all comes together in a coherent whole. That's what I like—the fiction of connections.”
[Back to Table of Contents]
* * *
Novelette: ERNESTO
by Alec Nevala-Lee
It's hard to be an idealist in the real world, when different ideals can pull in different directions. . . .
Interviewer: Who would you say are your literary forebears—those you have learned the most from?
Hemingway: Mark Twain, Flaubert . . . Chekhov . . . Van Gogh, Gauguin, San Juan de la Cruz. . . .
—The Paris Review, 1958
* * * *
A year after the war began, I found myself in Madrid, where I took a room at the Hotel Florida. In those lean months, breakfast usually consisted of little more than a few bits of dry bread from the night before, but one morning in the lobby, as I was nursing a cup of weak tea and some stale crusts, I noticed the smell of fresh coffee and fried ham drifting down from somewhere overhead.
I set my notes aside. Although I knew very well where the smells were coming from, I had a hunch it would mean trouble. In the end, though, I gathered up my things and took the elevator to the fourth floor. The two stories above had been shelled not long ago, and this was the highest level that was still occupied.
In his room, the door of which was open, Ernesto was seated by the window, a newspaper spread before him on the table. Looking around the cramped space, I took in the typewriter, the gramophone, and the cooking ring with its traces of breakfast. When my eyes reached the chair by the bed, I paused. Seated there, instead of the woman I had expected, was a friar in a cassock and glasses.
“Excuse me,” I said, taking a step backwards. “I didn't know you had company—”
Ernesto looked up from his newspaper, eyeing me through the steel rims of his spectacles. He was in his thirties then, his hair and mustache still black, the prow of his chest barely restrained by its dressing gown.
“No, have coffee with us,” Ernesto said. “You might find this interesting. The padre and I were speaking of miracles. I believe we had just reached the subject of the stigmata—”
Going over to the windowsill to get a cup of coffee, I studied the visitor more closely. At that point, a year into the civil war, several thousand clergymen had already died at the hands of the Loyalists, so I was impressed by any man brave enough to wear a cassock in Madrid. Taking my cup, I sank into the chair by the electric heater. “What about the stigmata?”
“Your American friend is a skeptic of the modern school,” the friar said, speaking in surprisingly good English. “He is willing to embrace any evidence that supports his political beliefs, but not if it contradicts them, not even something so compelling as the five wounds of Christ—”
Ernesto lit a cigarette. “I'm only saying that no miracle is required. Even if we discount the possibility of fraud, the mind can do strange things to the body. What you call divine intervention might be nothing but hysteria.”
“But what if other factors are present?” the friar asked. “Consider the case that brings me here today. Yesterday, I arrived from Segovia, where I was asked to provide safe conduct for a woman who had been staying at our convent. Only four weeks ago, her body was racked with carcinoma. The doctors gave her, at most, a few months to live. Instead of resigning herself to death, she came to us, wanting nothing more than to pray to St. John—”
“St. John of the Cross,” Ernesto said for my benefit. “He is buried in Segovia.”
“—to pray for his intervention,” the friar said, continuing without a pause. “For days on end, she prostrated herself in his chapel, taking only a little food and water. After two weeks, she began to tremble. The marks of the holy nails appeared on her hands and feet. In time, the stigmata went away. And when the wounds faded, her cancer, too, was gone.”
“A good story,” Ernesto said. “But again, no miracle is required. Any doctor can tell you tales of spontaneous remission. Most of the time, the patient never really had cancer at all.”
“But I have spoken to her doctor myself. There is no medical explanation. She was dying, but has recovered completely. And—”
The friar paused, as if wondering if he should speak further, then lowered his voice. "And she is not the only one. We know of at least four other cases in Madrid alone. All were men and women who visited the tomb of St. John in the past year. All were dying of cancer. And after they prayed for the saint's intervention, all were cured. What is this, then, if not a miracle?”
Ernesto shot me a glance. I could tell that he didn't believe a word, but he only turned back politely to the friar. “You say that this woman is in Madrid. Would it be possible for me to see her?”
“I was hoping you would ask,” the friar said. “She lives nearby, off the Gran Via.”
“Good.” Ernesto rose, brushing the crumbs from his dressing down. “If you'd like to wait downstairs, I'll join you in a minute.”
The friar bowed and left the room. As soon as he was gone, Ernesto went into the bathroom, leaving the door open so we could continue to talk. He had arrived in the city no
t long before, working for a syndicate as a war correspondent, and we had already become fast friends. “So what do you think?”
I finished my coffee and put the cup on the sill. “It's hard to believe that such a shrine could go unreported for so long. Lourdes doesn't have so many cures in a century. If it were real, we would have heard about it by now.”
“That isn't necessarily true,” Ernesto said, reappearing in a fresh shirt, his hair wet. “It's dangerous to believe in miracles these days. Too many Catholics have died already. No, what I find more interesting is the timing. You've heard the talk of a Segovia offensive?”
“Only a few rumors,” I said, watching as Ernesto went to the armoire in the corner. Segovia, which lay across the mountains to the north, had been taken by the Nationalists in the early days of the war. It was widely assumed that the Loyalists would soon try to recapture the town from the Fascists.
Ernesto opened the armoire. “Well, this shrine is just outside Segovia. The town has already been bombed once. Churches have been burned to the ground. If I were this friar and wanted to save my monastery, I might try to convince our side that a miracle was taking place.”
Inside the armoire, I saw row after row of contraband chocolate bars, canned foods, whiskey. “But why did he come to you?”
“He must want me to write about it. Maybe he thinks I'll influence opinion overseas, or hopes I'll spread word to the Loyalist command. It wouldn't be the first time I've been asked to do something like this.”
Ernesto took a can of bully beef and a tin of milk from the nearest shelf, then closed the armoire. “Come on. We'll see this woman together. Maybe you'll get a story out of it, too—”
* * * *
Going downstairs, we found the friar waiting for us in the lobby. Outside, the ground was strewn with broken glass, and fresh craters had been left by last night's bombardment. After walking for some time along the Gran Via, we found ourselves in an area that was relatively untouched by bombs. On the porch of the nearest house, in the shade of the overhang, sat a woman in black.
Removing our hats, we mounted the steps together. The woman watched us curiously. She looked to be in her late fifties, her features wrinkled and kind. The friar greeted her warmly, then introduced us, saying that we wanted to ask her some questions. Ernesto hung back, leaving the friar to do the talking, although his eyes studied the woman's face with what struck me as a predatory attentiveness.
As the friar questioned her, the woman replied softly. Yes, the doctors had told her that she was going to die. Yes, she had gone to pray at the tomb of the blessed saint, even though it meant going into Nationalist territory. And, yes, she had felt the Holy Spirit take hold of her body, leaving its marks on her flesh.
At the friar's urging, she showed us her hands. On the center of each palm, I saw a faint welt, no larger than a peseta piece. Each formed a neat circle, its edges cleanly demarcated. The welts had faded since their first appearance, she told us, but they still bothered her from time to time.
“You mentioned a doctor,” Ernesto said. “You've seen him since you got back?”
The woman glanced at the friar, who nodded. Yes, she said, she had seen the doctor, who had been amazed to find that her sickness was gone. Ernesto asked for the doctor's name, then took out the tins of food, which the woman, after a show of protestation, was persuaded to accept.
After exchanging a few words with the friar, who remained at the house, we headed off. I turned to Ernesto. “So what do you think?”
“I think she's telling the truth,” Ernesto said. “Or at least as much as she understands. In any case, I know her doctor. Maybe I'll see him today. It's probably nothing, but you never know.”
At the hotel, we parted ways. I spent the rest of the day writing up my dispatch, then cabled it to my paper. That night, when I went out for dinner at the Gran Via, the restaurant was already packed. Looking for a place to sit, I saw Ernesto at a table in the corner. He seemed tired, but signaled for me to come over.
“I can't make head or tail of the damned thing,” Ernesto said. “The doctor confirmed it. Not only is this woman's story true, but he's seen three spontaneous remissions in the past six months, all patients with terminal cancer. They don't always say where they've been, but it's clear that they've all gone to Segovia.”
I picked at my plate of horsemeat with rice. “And he's sure that the cancer is gone?”
Ernesto poured himself another glass of wine. “As sure as anyone can be. He's got his hands full with the wounded, so he can't track each patient's progress. Except for this most recent case, he can't testify to the stigmata. But he showed me the records himself. These are all patients who were given only a few months to live. Now they're in the best of health.”
Pushing the plate aside, I reached for my wineglass. “So what are you going to do?”
“I'm going to Segovia. The padre needs a ride back anyway, so I'm driving up there tomorrow.” Raising his glass, he fixed me with those penetrating eyes. “I was hoping you might join me.”
I didn't reply at once. Over the past year, I had taken my share of risks, but it was one thing to wind up in danger by accident, and quite another to drive on purpose into Fascist territory.
I had already opened my mouth to decline when the bomb exploded. The sound began as a whine, like a plucked guitar string, then deepened into the roar of an approaching train. When the shell went off, it was very close by, and the entire restaurant trembled. The conversation died out for a second, then returned to its customary din. But we were all a little shaken.
It struck me then that one might die as easily in Madrid as anywhere else, and at least the front offered the prospect of movement and fresh air. “All right,” I said at last. “I'll come.”
“Good,” Ernesto said, draining his glass with a gulp. “We'll make an adventure of it.”
The next morning, before dawn, I found Ernesto waiting for me outside our hotel. Behind the wheel of his car sat Hipolito, the latest and most reliable of his drivers. After making a detour to pick up the friar, who slid beside me into the back seat, we headed out of the city.
It was a cold morning on the meseta, the wind bearing wave after wave of dust from the mountains. As the sun rose to our right, it gradually illuminated the landscape outside Madrid. Raw military roads had been cut across the plain, and at the edges of the paths, I saw abandoned equipment and holes from recent bombardments. In the distance, I could make out a line of troops, their cars and tanks covered with freshly cut branches, the soldiers like ants in their steel helmets.
Ahead of us ran a line of mountains, the foothills clad with pine forest. The higher we climbed, the closer the sound of artillery became. To ease the tension, Ernesto handed back a wineskin, its contents resinous but welcome. Warmed by the wine, the friar began to speak of the saint whose shrine we were going to see: “When St. John tried to reform the Carmelites, his superiors threw him into prison, in a room barely large enough for his body. He was taken out only to be lashed once a week, but one day, no one knows how, he miraculously escaped—”
* * * *
Ernesto laughed. “Not much of a miracle. He arranged to remove the hinges from the door of his cell. Now that's the kind of saint I can admire.” He looked out at the trees. “If John deserves sainthood, it's because he understood the dark night of the soul. You can look for God all your life and find nothing in the end. And for a true believer, that nothingness is enough. Nada y nada y nada."
We rounded a hairpin turn, bringing us into view of the northern plain. As we began our winding descent, the town of Segovia appeared in the distance, a few dark specks in a sea of orange. Overhead, we heard the sound of aircraft, and saw three monoplanes flying in a Nationalist patrol. We watched, uneasy, until the planes had gone, then continued on our way.
As we approached Segovia, my first impression was that of a long tongue of crumbling stone. It was an ancient village girded by a vast aqueduct, with gray fortifications surroundi
ng the town itself. Instead of driving under the main arch, which would have brought us into the plaza, we skirted the walls to the monastery, which lay to the northwest.
We parked beneath a clump of trees a hundred yards from the entrance. Climbing out, Ernesto told Hipolito to stay with the car, then followed the friar up the road, which led past a stone wall. A footpath lined with pines brought us to the monastery. Leading us through the heavy doors, the friar pointed us toward the church, saying that he would join us in a moment.
He disappeared down the corridor. Taking off our hats, Ernesto and I passed into the church, moving along the aisle toward the altar. A door to the left led to the chapel, which we entered.
Inside, it was darker than I had expected, the windows piled high with sandbags, the only light coming from a few guttering candles. The atmosphere was warm and damp, with an odor of moist stone.
Beyond the altar rails stood the tomb of St. John of the Cross, a massive reliquary of marble and bronze. On the floor before the altar lay what appeared, at first, to be two heaps of rags. A second later, one of the heaps moved, and I realized that they were a pair of visitants lying in front of the tomb. Looking more closely, I saw that they were a man and woman, their ages unclear. Something in their silent prostration gave me the feeling that they had been here for hours, if not days.
Glancing over at Ernesto, I saw that he was looking around the chapel with the same intent air that I had observed before. When I followed his eyes, I noticed fresh cracks in the floor and walls, and recalled that this area had been bombed by the Loyalists in the early days of the war.
We stood there in silence, looking around the chapel's dim interior. After a moment, the friar rejoined us. “We have a number of guests with us,” the friar said in a whisper, indicating the prone figures at the altar. “Another is staying upstairs. I have arranged for you to see him.”
Ernesto turned back to the reliquary. “What can you tell me about the tomb?”
Analog SFF, March 2012 Page 9
