Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  "Lillis, pull up your zipper!" She got up to go to him but he ran across the room. Falling to his knees beside me, he grabbed my arm tightly.

  "Do you mind? He won't hurt you. If I try to touch him now he'll only fight and make a scene. He'll be okay in a while and I can fix it then."

  "It's fine. Don't worry. Hello, Lillis."

  "You don't have to pay attention to him. He'll sit there and just look. That's his way of saying he likes you. He's not dangerous." She reached over and picking up a piece of the dessert, handed it to him. He took it and let it drop to the floor, his eyes never leaving my face.

  I picked it up and handed it to him again. Taking it, he squashed it between his fingers.

  "I think he's the most beautiful man I've ever seen."

  "I know. If he were normal he'd have a hard time keeping the women away. As it is, when we walk down the street they look at him as if they were dreaming. Excuse me a minute, I'll be right back." She got up and left the room.

  He pulled my hand to his face and pushed it against his cheek. Rubbing it up and down with his eyes closed, the gesture reminded me of the way Orlando moved when he was being petted.

  "Can you speak?"

  Like a fish, he opened and closed his mouth several times before speaking. His words came with the slow, high precision of a little girl's voice.

  "Today I'll brew, tomorrow I'll bake.

  Soon I'll have the queen's namesake.

  Oh, how hard it is to play my game

  For Rumpelstiltskin is my name."

  Mrs. Benedikt dropped something in the hall as she was returning. Lillis looked fearfully at the door. He had shown me one of his secrets and it seemed he was afraid she would discover it. Only after she was back in the room did I remember I'd heard one of his lines before, in one of my dreams – "How hard it is to play my game."

  "Is everything all right? Look how he looks at you! He's not usually that friendly with strangers."

  "Does he ever speak, Mrs. Benedikt?"

  "Yes, once in a while. He likes it when I read to him. The strange thing is, he has a very good memory sometimes. Especially for fairy tales. His favorite is 'Rumpelstiltskin.' When he's in the mood, he can repeat almost the whole story from beginning to end. Now that I think of it, that's the only one he ever says."

  Whether he understood her or not, something in what his mother said seemed to anger him. He got up quickly and repeated what he'd said before. Only this time, the lines were spoken so fast and with such force that they ran together in a kind of high-speed gibberish.

  "'TodayI'llbrewtomorrowI'llbake . . .'"

  I hadn't realized how small the room really was until he started running around it. He climbed over furniture, hit walls, kept falling down and getting up again. What was he doing? The expression on the woman's face said she didn't know any more than I.

  "Lillis, stop!"

  "'TodayI'llbrew . . .'"

  "Please, stop him!"

  I tackled him around the knees and we went down together. He kept kicking his legs and repeating the same lines. On the floor he brought his face up long enough to kiss me on the lips. When I pushed him away he laughed.

  "'Is your name Rippenbiest, or Hammelwade, or Schnurbein?'"

  "Lillis, stop!"

  "'Is your name Kunz? Is your name Hinz? Can your name be Rumpelstiltskin?'"

  "Lillis!"

  When I got back to the apartment, I saw Maris had done a lot of shifting around to accommodate her growing stash of things there. Although she'd slowly begun bringing her stuff over, she refused to move into my place until after we were married. Nonetheless, I loved seeing her clothes in the closet, her books on the table.

  She was working at her computer. Orlando lay asleep on the monitor, his new favorite hangout when it was on and warm.

  "Jesus, wait till I tell you what just happened to me."

  "Hold it a sec, Walker. Let me finish this. Don't look, either. I'm working on your birthday present." On the screen over her shoulder I saw some brightly colored intersecting lines, but nothing more.

  I walked into the kitchen for a glass of water. At the sink I happened to look out the window down into the courtyard below. What I saw made me run out of the room for the front door.

  "Where are you going?"

  "I'll be right back!"

  Taking the stairs two at a time, I was at the bottom fast. A few seconds more and I was in the courtyard, looking at the bicycle.

  You see them all the time in big American cities: crazy-looking things, with every inch of their surface covered with pennants and flags, streamers and mirrors, that make the bikes shimmer and wave as they fly erratically down La Brea or Madison Avenue, piloted by riders as outlandish as the machines. Vienna has its share of eccentrics, but not this kind. That was another reason why seeing the thing again was such a shock.

  Leaning up against the wall, unmoving, it looked pathetically sad and desperate – a real quack's dream of style and speed. But what kind of style? Flags advertising milk, a Vienna soccer team, and an old OVP presidential candidate stuck out from beneath the yellow banana seat. Two cracked rearview mirrors on either side of the handlebars, with stickers of the cartoon characters Asterix and Obelix stuck in their centers, impeded any rear vision they might have offered. The bike itself was painted like a piece of furniture from the Italian design group Memphis. One fender was orange, one blue, the different crossing bars each another vivid, clashing color. The tires had been sprayed silver, even on the bottom.

  I had seen it before. So many weeks before, on the night I brought Maris back to Elisabeth's apartment. The night we first slept together. Standing there with my hand resting on the seat, I tried to remember exactly what the man looked like who rode it. All that came to mind were his broken teeth, scraggly beard, and the fact that he'd greeted me as Rednaxela. And his smell! The smell of a man on fire with madness.

  "Walker!"

  I looked up and saw Maris's distant face hanging out the window of our apartment.

  "What are you doing down there?"

  "Come down and look at this."

  "What's up?"

  "Just come."

  I turned back to the bike to see if there was a way of deciphering anything important from the hieroglyphics scrawled and glued and stuck on to it. Still looking when Maris arrived, I briefly explained who it belonged to and what that meant. With no further questions, she got down on the other side of the bike and began looking, too.

  "Where's the guy who owns it?"

  "I wish I knew. That'd make things a lot simpler."

  "You think he knows you live here? What's this?"

  "An old fountain pen clip. I'm sure he knows. There aren't many bikes like this in Vienna, huh? It's got to be a lot more than Zufall that he parked it in our courtyard."

  Frau Noot came through the door with a bag of garbage to dump. Seeing us, she smiled and waddled over.

  "What a beautiful bicycle! Did you buy it, Walker? It's very artistic."

  "No, it's not mine, Frau Noot."

  "We used to do this with our bikes when I was a girl. Don't ask how many years ago that was! We even put cards like this, too. To make it sound like a motorcycle." She bent over and, struggling, pulled something off the back wheel. "Kids never change. What does it say, Maris? I can't read without my glasses."

  Handing the white piece of paper over, she folded her arms and waited to hear what her discovery said. "They won't mind I took it off. There's another on the other side."

  "I think it's a calling card for a tailor. 'Benedikt and Sons, Schneiderei.'" She looked at me and held it out. "You better look at it."

  All that was on the card was their title and an address I already knew on Kochgasse in the Eighth District. I turned the card over and over, hoping there would be more.

  "I guess it's time we went over there."

  "He's a playful little shit, isn't he?"

  Maris spoke in English, but Frau Noot understood that one word an
d looked at her with shocked eyes.

  Getting off the Number 5 tram at Kochgasse, Maris took my hand and stopped me.

  "You really had to tackle him?"

  "Yes. I think he would have ended up jumping out the window or something if I hadn't. He was totally out of control. What number is that? The place should be on this block."

  "What happened after he went down?"

  "The woman wanted me to leave, but he wouldn't let go of my arm. So I hung around awhile and sort of petted him till he calmed down. Then I took off."

  "Are you going to go back?" She was walking fast to keep up.

  "I don't know. What more could I get from them? Moritz had a beautiful son who's autistic. His mother says it's due to Kaspar Benedikt's powers, and there's nothing to disprove that."

  "Kaspar Benedikt's dead."

  "Let's hope so. Unfortunately, it's beginning to look like something of him lives on."

  The street was narrow and cars were parked bumper to bumper all the way down it. We passed a Turkish bakery and several other small stores before reaching the address. At first we didn't realize we were there because Benedikt und Sцhne had disappeared. In its place was a modern stationery store. Maris and I looked at each other and stepped closer. The window was full of Garfield and Peanuts pencil cases and school notebooks, Mont Blanc ink bottles, pocket calculators, and portable typewriters. I looked harder, knowing something was there, that something had to be there.

  It was. In the lower left-hand corner of the window was a large decal that advertised "Mr. Pencil sold here!"

  "Look at this." I tapped the decal with my finger and Maris gave a little gasp.

  "How'd he know about that?"

  "Let's find out." Pushing the door open, I walked in, half expecting to see the wild man on the bicycle behind the counter selling graph paper.

  A very attractive middle-aged woman was behind the crowded counter talking on the telephone and smiling. She saw me and quickly got off.

  "Good day. Can I help you?"

  I looked at her a long moment. "Yes, I'd like to buy a Mr. Pencil. Or some of them, whichever you've got."

  Her smile went from friendly to confused. "Excuse me?"

  "The thing you have advertised in the window outside, Mr. Pencil"?

  "I'm sorry, but I don't know what you mean. Could you explain what it is?"

  "Um, why don't you come outside with me and I'll show you what I mean."

  She came around the counter and I held the door for her. We almost bumped into Maris coming in.

  "She doesn't know what Mr. Pencil is."

  "Interesting."

  "It's over here. This decal."

  "I've never seen that before! I don't even know who put it there."

  "You're sure?"

  "I should know – I own the store and do all of the decorating! I've never even heard of Mr. Pencil. Is it an American product? What is it?"

  "How long have you had the store?"

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "Why do you want to know?"

  "Because one of my relatives used to have a tailor shop here, Benedikt and Sцhne."

  "Then you should know what happened to the Benedikts. My father bought the store from the widow, and we've been here ever since. Did you want to look at the store, or buy this Mr. Pencil thing? You still haven't told me what it is yet."

  "Have you ever met any of the Benedikt family?"

  "No. It's cold out here and I have to go back inside. Is there anything else you would like?"

  Maris spoke. "Is your father still alive?"

  The woman looked fed up with us. "Yes."

  "Does he ride a bicycle and have a beard?"

  "No! He's blind and is retired in Weidling. Excuse me now."

  She left us there. As she was about to go back into the store she stopped. Turning, she went to the decal on the window and pulled it off with one long, dramatic zip. Crumpling it in her hand, she looked at us and dropped what was left of it on the ground. I was going to pick it up, but what for? There would be others. That was about the only thing I was sure of.

  "What do you remember first? The first thing you remember about your whole life?"

  "Papa, you always ask me that. I don't know. I told you."

  "Come on, you must remember something."

  "Why do you always want to know?"

  "Because I'm your father. I want to know what's in my son's head. The more a boy can remember, the more grown up he is."

  "What do you remember?"

  "How beautiful your mother was. What a nice voice she had."

  "I know that. I think I remember when she sang to me. When I was a little baby."

  "See, you do remember things. What else?"

  We were walking in the forest. Papa said we would be near Vienna by the end of the day, but I was already tired. I asked him to carry me again, but he said I was too big to be carried all the time. I was almost bigger than him.

  I liked the forest, but most people stayed away from it because they were afraid of what was in there. Not Papa and me. He said we were magic and nothing could hurt us. He said nothing could kill us, either, because we were so special. We were from someplace else. I didn't remember where, because I was just a little baby when we had to leave.

  I didn't want to tell him because it was my own secret, but the earliest thing I remembered was being carried out of the city where I was born on Papa's back, and looking at all the castles and towers. I think he was running, because I remember going up and down and up and down, and maybe I was crying because I was scared. I remember the castles and the towers and horses and people all over the place.

  I also remember my mother leaning over my bed one night and crying because there were so many names in the world and she couldn't find the right one. She had long red hair and I think my bed was made out of gold.

  "Do you remember how they tried to stop us? Maybe that was too long ago for you."

  "Tell me again. I like that story about how we ran away together."

  "All right. Your mother was the queen and she was very beautiful. But her heart was white and cold as a star. She didn't keep her promises. That's one of the worst things in the whole world a person can do."

  "That's very bad. I keep my promises, don't I?"

  "Yes, you do, Walter, and I'm very proud of you for that. If you promise me you'll go get wood, you always do it. That's a very important quality in a person. Don't ever forget it."

  That made me feel good. "But Papa, if you loved Mama so much, why did you take me away from her?"

  "Because she loved only herself. Her heart was only big enough for one person. She would have made you sad your whole life. When I first met her, she was a poor girl who would have done anything to be rich. She got her father to lie to the king and tell him she could make gold out of straw."

  "You can do that. I've seen you."

  "But normal people can't. Your mother thought she would be beautiful enough to make the king forget about gold when he saw her. And he thought she was beautiful, but he loved gold more. That's what got her into trouble in the first place."

  "The king was my first father, right?"

  "Yes, but your first father isn't always your best father. He was as cold and greedy as your mother. That's why they fit so well together. I knew that if they ever did have a child, the only thing they would like about it was that it was theirs, like their gold. When it grew up, they wouldn't treat it any differently than a ring or a bracelet. When they weren't wearing it or showing it off to the world, they'd throw it in a drawer and forget about it."

  That made me mad. "But you said Mother loved me!"

  "She loved you because you were just another piece of jewelry, Walter, not because you're a wonderful little boy."

  I picked up a rock and threw it against a tree. The tree yelled "Ow! Stop that!" and rubbed the place where it got hit. I looked at Papa and told him to stop being crazy. He laughed.

  "Don't you like talking trees?"
r />   "Trees don't talk."

  "We can make them talk."

  "But they don't really talk. Now you're lying!"

  "You're right. I'm sorry. What a smart boy. Are you hungry?"

  "No. Tell me more about the time we left the city."

  "Your mother promised me if she got to be queen, she would let me take care of you when you were born. But when that happened, she told me to go away. She didn't 'need' me anymore."

  "That's not nice."

  He put his hand on my head and smiled at me. "That's what I thought too, son. But I would have gone away because I loved her. But then I waited around till you were born and saw how she treated you. Even as a baby I knew your life would be terrible and sad if you stayed with her. So I went to her and said she'd made me a promise and had to keep it, whether she liked it or not.

  "Do you know what she said to me? 'Go away, little man. I already have a court midget.' But I knew her well by then, so I didn't even let that insult bother me. Instead, I pointed at her and turned one of her fingers into gold. I said I would do one more every day until she kept her promise to me.

  "Walter, she didn't even know my name! All of the things I had done for her, and she never once asked who I was. She just used me to get what she wanted and then after that happened, wanted me to disappear like a cloud after the rain."

  Was he angry! We walked for a long time before he said anything again. Then he only said, "Go away, little man," three or four times. I knew when Papa was mad that I should be quiet. Once, when a man was making him mad, Papa made a big bird fly out of the man's mouth. But the bird was really big and it couldn't get out of his mouth. Papa made me walk away, but I think the man died because he fell down on the ground and was making funny sounds and was hitting his mouth, really scared. I saw that.

  "Yet I still gave her a chance. I gave her one more chance to prove she was at least a little human."

  "She had to guess your name. I remember that part, Papa."

  "That's right. I gave her three days to find out my name. If she could do that, then all right, I'd go. At least she knows the name of the guy who gave her all she ever wanted in life. That's not asking so much. I loved your mother, Walter. Never forget that. I would have stayed with her and helped forever, even though she was married, if only she had shown the smallest kindness or gratitude." He laughed, and that made me happier. I took his hand. I didn't understand everything he was saying, but if he laughed then things were okay. He laughed again.