“Then I’m not sure what kind you mean.”
“I mean the kind,” I reply, stepping closer still, “where we lean against one another. And I kiss the back of your neck. And every now and then we move our feet a little.”
The two eyes glisten. “Which way?”
“Which way what?”
“Which way… do we move our feet?”
“Just nearby.”
“Nearby,” she whispers. “I think I can do that. Why don’t I go find some… nearby music.”
“No vocals. No saxophones.”
“Got you.”
Ana’s bare feet pad into the bedroom. A moment later comes a strain that includes neither vocal nor saxophone. But the trumpet is a little flat.
Tonight’s spaghetti wasn’t half bad. The accompanying Chardonnay, meanwhile, gradually softened Ana’s crisp reserve until she was dangling modifiers like a deck hand. I spent my own time smiling idiotically, more than pleased to have all this woman’s attention to myself. When she retreated to the loo, I very nearly followed her there.
Then we were feeling our way along the walls of Sheung Wan and making stranger conversation by the moment. “You’re quite the odd duck then, aren’t you?” Ana queried at one point. Before I could reply, she continued, “Every time I think I’ve finally seen into you—actually found Julian Mancer—I learn there’s considerably more. And a good deal less.”
“You’re far too kind,” I replied. “And pitiless.”
We were nearly to her door when Ana stopped stock-still and her voice surrendered to a minor key. “Is it all right if we just keep a loose hold on things? I mean, it could change quickly, you know. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure whether we are friends or foes, Julian. It could be a little of both at the same moment, but I’m willing to just let that be, if I’m making the least sense.”
I nodded. The I’m willing made a great deal of sense.
Then what’s keeping her?
Dully, I look around Ana’s Spartan apartment. Two unfussed-over rooms. A turquoise leather sofa. A coffee table. A busy altar with crystals of various hues, along with a litter of spent candles. Above the altar is an unframed canvas displaying a yantra I haven’t seen before. A red square encloses a golden triangle that in turn embraces a blue circle. On the coffee table are stacks of paperbacks, among them In Cold Blood. There’s even a yellowing Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Nothing by Gore Vidal.
Nothing by me.
Stacked on the floor meanwhile are a few dozen books on mythology. I finally did go through that article on Heracles. He turns out to have been the son of Zeus and a mortal named Alcmena—rhymes with Purina. It was an immaculate conception, if you believe in that kind of thing. I wonder for a moment whether artificial insemination might be thought of as immaculate. There seems to be roughly the same amount of fun involved. Moot point, of course, unless Timothy Dobbins turns out to be God, which personally I’m betting against.
My eyes catch sight of a worn book of runes. This morning, apropos of nothing, I pulled a card from Rui Long’s Barbie deck. Actually I suppose it’s my Barbie deck. Anyway I got the Ken’s Mad card. I should be, like, really careful with decisions about people right now.
Check.
Okay, I may have gotten in a little deep with the itsy two-in-one schoolgirl, who’s turning out to be about as self-possessed as Paul Reubens at a Saturday matinee. The last thing Rui Long said today outside the English office was, “Fine. You just do your own thang, Mister ‘Shroom Man. Ain’t nobody here but you.” As she sauntered away, I noticed three students staring at her then me. Not that it matters a whit, of course. As soon as this country has a new political figurehead and I have the final page of that chapter, I’m back in Memphis before you can say Lorraine Motel. Until then, it’s about keeping my head low.
All at once a barefoot Ana Manguella materializes before me, her bright eyes inclined to mine. She has changed into an azure silk blouse with a string-tie at the throat, a wooden bead at each end. Below are loose cotton pantaloons, their droopy sash nearly reaching the floor. Another tentative step, and two breasts press themselves against my ribs. Our fingers interlace. My plaster cast hooks her waist and my nostrils fill with the scent of her hair.
. . . I dance and the shadow lurches grotesquely.
While I’m still awake, let us rejoice together.
Soon each will go its separate way…
“Do you read Li Bai?” I hear myself murmur.
“Mmm?” Ana replies sleepily.
“I said, you dance well nearby.”
“Mmmm.”
“Your hair,” I whisper, “is a rainforest.”
“No,” she whispers back. “It’s a rainforest.”
Good. She’s as drunk as I.
Pulling the ivory woman closer, I bend to snuffle at her left ear like a Dalmatian. My right hand struggles in vain against the cast, meanwhile, wanting to slide down her waist a bit farther. And are those fingernails digging into my back? Just asking.
“Marry me,” I command.
“No,” says Ana.
“Yes. Tomorrow.”
“No,” she sings. “Never.”
“Okay.”
We whirl drunkenly, the music pulling this way and that. Now we seem to be whirling a little closer to the bedroom, and my left hand discovers the warm dip of a waist. Ana’s hands meanwhile are inside my shirt, exploring hungrily. I think we just whirled through the bedroom door. Ana’s chin digs into my chest. Slipping beneath the waistband of the pantaloons, my fingertips discover a mute tailbone. There they rest, enjoying the nudge of first one white bun and then the other as our dance dips between the dip slopes to drop us—
Onto the satiny plain of Ana’s bed.
I pull at the two wooden beads and Ana’s breasts spill out, their broad auroras a rich auburn brown. I bury myself in that abundance, roiling my face happily in the plenty, and the two nipples sharpen against my cheeks. I coax one of them to my lips, wetting its edges by tauntingly slow degrees, and Ana’s chest rises. I feel her whole body stretch as the nipples harden. Ana’s sounds move from the aa-aahs to the oo-oohs. I love the oo-oohs.
“I’ll marry you,” she says breathlessly. “I’ll marry you.”
My hand glides beneath the silk pantaloons and discover a place of extraordinary warmth. I press lightly. She presses back. Ana’s breath catches, and a ragged howl becomes something like ooo-ONNNG-gggdkttrq. After a moment Ana falls spent against the bed.
Neither of us moves for a moment.
A giggle erupts in Ana’s throat. “Sorry. I guess I was a little keyed up.”
I draw away for an avaricious gape at the heaving white chest. “Sorry, is it?” I say. “I’ll make you sorry.”
My left hand yanks at the sash. Again Ana giggles. Another great yank, and the pantaloons are at her ankles. With my good left hand, I unhurriedly begin to open my pants. Ana begins to pant. Her eyes flare with what seems rage.
“You shit,” she hisses, her head falling back against the bed. “You fucking shit.”
As one, we wet our fingers. Suddenly we’re not quite sure now who touches whom, warm saliva mixing, bodies pressing into a delicious snarl of pleasure. A rough shove from her hips, and Ana Manguella has captured me into her depths. Her free leg locks me tightly against her. There is no longer any possibility of escape.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Shards of morning dapple a room wrapped in the scent of freshly ground coffee.
“Kona,” Ana tells me, playfully throwing her hip against mine as she takes a seat on the sun-warmed turquoise sofa. “It’s Hawaiian.”
Her red silk robe is not quite closed. My eyes coax it open a bit more.
“What grade would that be?” she teases.
“Grade?” I ask.
“That smile of yours.”
“That smile,” I reply, “would be a minus one.”
She laughs. “You get a minus one for being happy?”
“No. Ha
ppy is extreme. Happy would be a minus two.”
Ana laughs again, touching a higher note, before grabbing her head. “Don’t make me laugh. It hurts. But I do love this number system of yours. Cuts straight to it.”
“You’re mocking me.”
“I’m mocking-mocking you,” says Ana, leaning to kiss my lips. “Tell me about your writing. Are you fiction or non-fiction?”
“Interesting how you put it,” I reply, my fingertips finding the earliest beginnings of her left breast.
Ana closes her robe. “We’re having a discussion. Do you write fiction or don’t you?”
I pull myself a bit straighter on the sofa, adjust my white robe, and look around for my coffee cup. It’s only mildly troubling that Ana keeps a man’s bathrobe in her closet. 3X.
“It’s a tackier question than you might imagine,” I tell her. “Fiction contains a great deal of truth, and vice versa. Where did I put my splendid Hawaiian coffee cup?”
Ana hands me the ceramic mug, still warm to the touch.
“Place ten writers in a room,” I say. “A woman in a raincoat walks in, pulls the petals from a rose, and walks out. Now ask each writer to describe what he or she has just seen.”
“And you get ten different stories,” says Ana.
“Every time.”
“Like still-life painting,” says Ana. “Thirty art students all painting the same bowl of oranges, and no two paintings alike.”
I shrug. “I can’t imagine who would want to paint a bowl of oranges in the first place. Especially with someone looking over your shoulder saying, ‘Zees orange, he’s not look happy.’ Same with piano lessons. At a given moment, half a million students are banging away at the Moonlight Sonata. Same bowl of oranges. You know how many people have given up piano on the twelfth bar of the Moonlight Sonata? It’s not a musical piece. It’s a graveyard.”
“That’s what you write about, isn’t it?” Ana turns her head slightly and the green eye measures me. “The fine arts?”
“What’s so fine about them?” I reply, sipping my coffee. “Actually I’m not that kind of writer. I’d much rather hear about your own breathless pursuits.”
Ana lights a Gaulois with the dry scratch of a wooden match. “I consult.”
“And study myths,” I add.
“What’s so mythological about them?” replies Ana. “There is nothing we are that myth is not. Myth is a schematic of who we are at the deepest of levels. The complexity and perversity of myth exactly reflects our own.”
“I read that Heracles article you sent me.”
“Did it answer your questions about the Hydra?” she asks.
“The Hydra was known as the Guardian of the Underworld. What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Give it some thought,” says Ana. “Give it some serious thought. There’s no way to accomplish anything of importance without entering the mythical.”
“How does one go about that?” I ask.
She dusts an ash. “One finds a doorway, a metaphor of some kind. You’re into music, right?”
I gaze at her neutrally.
“You don’t have to answer,” Ana continues. “It really couldn’t be much more obvious. You’re so fussy about music.”
I shrug. “Tree tells me I’m a born singer. I tell her she’s a born lunatic. Tell me about your soul group.”
Ana looks surprised. “Did I say something about my group?”
“On the train. There are four of you. You manage things.”
She rolls her eyes. “You made me drink too much wine. I think I scolded you.”
“Scold me again.”
“I should,” says Ana. “Where did you say you’re from? Cetus? Aren’t you all bearish-looking creatures with lots of fur?”
“We shed like crazy every summer. And where are your own counterparts? Glastonbury?”
“They don’t have bodies just now. We tag-team. One incarnates and the other three assist.”
“From the other side?” I say.
“Do you find that amusing?”
“I find everything amusing. I’m a very amused person.”
Ana turns the blue eye on me. “What would you say if I told you I was there when the earth formed? That I watched the gasses cool? That I exist because of this planet, and it exists because of me? And others like me, of course.”
“Of course,” I say. “And what would you say if I told you neither my sister nor myself has ever been ill, that we’re twenty years older than we look, and that we are impervious to the sun’s rays though our complexions are roughly that of a bedsheet? If you must know, our intelligence quotients cannot be charted except by the Bernard-Baugh method.”
“I’d say you’re being modest,” replies Ana evenly. “I’m very well aware of who you are, Julian.”
We share a long, unblinking gaze.
Ana exhales smoke forcefully. “This is a very trying time for this planet. Entities are coming in from civilizations that haven’t begun yet, back-shifting millions of years to help with the evolution of their own ancestors. Think about that for a moment.”
“I’d rather not,” I say, squirming a bit in the white silk robe. I wonder if she has anything in a 4X.
“Of course, when they arrive,” says Ana, “they’re a total muddle. All those filthy schizophrenics you see wandering the streets? Back-shifters. Just how much help would you say they’re providing?” She glances at me. “At least you’re functional.”
“Thank you,” I say. My eyes stop on the image above the altar, the triangle within the square. I don’t like it. “What’s that image supposed to be?” I ask.
“A yantra,” says Ana. “And then there are the tourists, the extra-dimensionals who drop in just to rubberneck and add to the general confusion. You’d think a planet never went through a shift before. Then again, I suppose it must be interesting to watch. What do you know about the timetable?”
“Timetable?”
“For the shift. You said your group is focused on the Three-three-three.”
“If we manage to get it together,” I say.
“That’s always the question, isn’t it?”
The sun has moved imperceptibly across the uncurtained window. It now bathes Ana Manguella in a brilliant yellow-white, backlighting the smoke from her cigarette. “Didn’t you say your soul group is constitutionally opposed to polarity or some such?” asks Ana.
“I’ll answer your question if you’ll answer mine.”
She eyes me suspiciously. “What’s yours?”
I finish my coffee and set down the cup. “This totally boring consulting thing you do—you work in security, don’t you?”
Ana gazes at me. “I am in charge of security. Now you can answer my question.”
“You’re in charge of security?” I repeat.
“Don’t be coy, Julian. You’ve known all along.”
“Might that explain why you said you’re in China to meet me?” I ask.
An ash falls from Ana’s cigarette. “Did my duties summon me here? Yes, but that involves far more than you, Julian. And it has nothing at all to do with our little dalliance last night, if that’s what you’re wondering. Now I’d like for you to answer my question.”
I stare.
“Soul group?” she reminds me. “Polarity?”
“Ah. Yes. Tree says we’re stuck in polarity, globally speaking. The good news is, when you introduce a third element, it opens a dimensional door. Either that or your digital pedometer stops working. Can I get some more of this coffee?”
“And then?” asks Ana, appraising me.
“What? You mean that’s not enough?”
Ana taps her cigarette impatiently. “Before you go opening dimensional doors, Julian, you might give the resultant effects some little thought. You might also consider that polarity is not a problem in need of repair but the engine that drives this planet. Without polarity, there’s no positive and negative, no masculine and feminine. Only a muddy grey.”
“Actually, grey would be the fusion of two opposites,” I correct her, “which is not the idea at all. And I could use another cup of that Hawaiian coffee.”
“Make it yourself. And stop defending a hypothesis that you don’t subscribe to.”
“I subscribe. I always subscribe.”
“And that temple you mentioned?” asks Ana.
“The Temple of Heaven? Well, it certainly seems intentional. Especially the Circular Mound Altar, which is laid out in concentric circles of—”
“Nine. I remember.”
“Yes. Eighty-one stones around the outside, then seventy-two, then—”
“And the connotation… ?” asks Ana.
“Among the Chinese, Nine connotes fruition, completion, that kind of thing.”
The green eye measures me. “And what would be your interpretation of this word completion? And why is it you’re so concerned with temples?”
“Are you grilling me?”
Ana smiles coolly. “What if I suddenly showed up in your Cetus galaxy and announced that I was going to solve all its problems? This is the planet of free will, Julian. You have to begin by respecting the process that’s going on here.”
I pick up my empty coffee cup. “Didn’t I once tell you that? Maybe you should consider traveling a bit more? Maybe see what the rest of the universe is about? Where do you keep the coffee?”
“In the kitchen.”
I lower my coffee cup. “I don’t suppose you could be taking all this a bit too personally?”
“Personally?” Ana stabs out her cigarette a little too hard, breaking it. “I’m taking the fate of this planet too personally?”
“I think there’s a point where one acknowledges there’s more going here than her own little private tea party. It’s called humility, Ana. You’ll find it in the h’s.”
“A fucking lot you know,” snaps Ana. “You’ve been here half a lifetime, and for most of it you’ve been tanked.”
I give her a stare. All this aggression is starting to turn me on. “Would you care to repeat that?”
“Why? Are you going to call me outside?”
“It’s a thought.”
With a sudden burst of animal energy, Ana springs to her knees on the sofa and kisses my mouth very hard, pulling away with a loud smack. She draws herself tall and the red silk parts a bit more, revealing the dimple of her navel.
The Year of the Hydra Page 31
