Sleeping in Flame

by Jonathan Carroll

  After it's done I'm taking the salary they gave me and travel on it. Strayhorn says I should buy a new house, but I don't want to be around here now. Maybe not ever again. We'll see. All this verbal diarrhea is only to say that sooner or later I'd like to come through Vienna and see you, if that's okay. I'm starting out in New York so I can catch up on news with my friend Cullen James (remember her, Maris? Your lookalike?), then on to Europe. I don't know what the schedule is precisely, but I'll keep you posted. I want to keep a clean dance card in terms of obligations to either clock or calendar.

  Why this letter? Because I realized after all the trouble here that I liked you both very much. When you see the shine on the reaper's blade up close, you realize it's important to be with people who make you feel good to be alive. Both of you did that for me and I'm grateful. I hope a little of it is mutual. I'll be in touch. Don't leave Vienna!

  My love,

  Weber

  Dear Maris and Walker,

  With you in the hospital and me out of luck here in broken L.A., it seems that we younger Yorks could use a good dose of luck right now. As I told you over the phone, I'm physically okay, but not mentally.

  Glenn's death burned a hole through the middle of everything I am. I pray you never have to experience what it's like to watch someone you love die. No matter how brave or strong you think you are, their loss puts a layer of ash over everything that once mattered. His clothes, his motorcycle that made too much noise, his half-finished pack of cigarettes in the rubble call my name and there's no way of covering my ears. You know me – I used to be too distant and amused by life to let it sink its teeth into much of me, but I realize now that Glenn's being allowed me that distance. He compensated for it with his total involvement in everything we knew together. I miss his banging in the door and up the stairs to tell me about the bag lady on Hollywood Boulevard who gave him a chocolate-chip cookie. Best of all, he wouldn't go on about how sweet it was of her to do that. Only how great the cookie tasted on a hot afternoon.

  I hope you and Walker are well, notwithstanding the hospital thing. I never said much about it when you were here, but I like your new man very much. I'm only sorry we didn't have more time together. Have his dreams/magic either smoothed out or explained themselves? My experience over the years with people who've been touched by the miraculous is that if they're decent and caring, they will prevail. Many of them prevail and use that power to good ends. I don't know what I could do for you here but if there is anything, please let me know.

  The earthquake destroyed our house, so all I've been doing recently is going through the ruins for anything that can be salvaged. There isn't much. I'm staying with a friend until I can find another place. But that can wait. No house this time, though. Houses are for more than one person. Alone, there's too much empty room. Empty rooms are never good company.

  Not much else to tell. Californians can't believe this has happened. For years people talked about the coming earthquake, but no one really believed it would come. Everyone had a few extra flashlights and canned food stored in a closet, but we were even embarrassed to admit to those precautions. One of the ironies was Glenn's total paranoia about it. We fought more than once about earthquakes. A week before it happened, he said he was seriously thinking of moving out of the state because the possibility scared him more the longer he lived here.

  "How can you move out of California when you're so successful?"

  "Because you can't be successful when you're dead, Ingram."

  Call me if you need anything – the number is below. I miss you and am happy for the Easterlings and the coming child. The hospital is only for a while, Maris. I'm sure of that. The rest, the good things, will be waiting for you when you get home and have all the rest of your lives to enjoy them.

  I love you,

  Ingram

  She looked up with tears in her eyes. "The poor guy. What can we do for him?"

  "Make a tape and send it to him."

  "Something more than that. His whole life is gone, Walker. The closest I ever came to that feeling was when Luc chased me around Munich. It's misery every day. Being in here is dreamy compared to that."

  "In your tape tell him to call a guy named Michael Billa. I'll give you the number."

  "Who's Michael Billa?"

  "A man I know out there. They'll like each other."

  "How do you know he didn't get killed in the earthquake?"

  "I . . . talked to him the other day. Believe me, Maris. They're right for each other."

  "Hmm. You're not telling me something. Your mouth is too flat. It always gets flat when you have a secret."

  I kissed her forehead and smiled like a politician.

  "I know you, Walker. You're holding lots of things back from me these days. Aren't you?"

  "Not so many."

  "Enough. What's happening with the bicycle nut? Did you find out anything new?"

  "I think he's lying low. Wants me to think about that Mr. Pencil bit awhile."

  "What about your dreams? Anything new happening there?"

  "Nope."

  "Your mouth is tight again."

  "Maris, you've got enough to think about now. I'm not holding back anything I can't handle. Sure, the dreams are continuing, and I worry about the bicycle man, but that's not new. You're my greatest concern. You and our child are most important. If you want to help me, take care of yourself. Ingram's letter says it right. Our earthquake was your getting sick. But we've still got a chance to beat it. I'm not trying to sound patronizing, but if you can hold on and keep steady till you're well, then we're going to be able to say 'Fuck you, earthquake. Our lives are our own, not yours.'"

  I knew no one named Michael Billa. His name and telephone number slid into my mind the way "fist to chin" slid in the day at the train station. I only knew that when Billa and Ingram York got together they would fall in love.

  "Can I help you, sir?"

  "I'm looking for the children's section."

  "Two aisles down on the right. Is there anything special I can help with?"

  "I'd like to see whatever editions of Grimm's Fairy Tales you have."

  "There are a few there. I'm sure of it."

  I walked down past the fiction. The new Stephen King novel, Flash and Blood (translated as Schmerz in German) stopped me and I thought to buy it. But reading the German title (Pain) reminded me of how far off translations can be. In homage to King, I decided to wait until the English version arrived in town.

  The children's section was small but loaded with those tall, thin, mostly picture books that cost so much and give a kid so little after one or two reads. Ten dollars for eleven words on each page about a lost ball that finds its way home.

  Cramped in next to them here and there were standard editions of the classics. Hans Christian Andersen, Perrault, Wilhelm Busch's Max und Moritz. As a child I didn't read much, but the books I remembered were these and other oldies that gave you real worlds, rather than long pages, bright colors, and tepid climaxes.

  There were two copies of Grimms: one for little readers and the other a no-frills/no-pictures copy printed in the old German script. I chose the second. Remembering Buck's story about the definitive edition found in the Цlenberg Monastery, I turned to the front of the book to see if this was one of them.

  "This is what you're looking for."

  I turned, knowing the voice. He had trimmed his beard and was wearing a dark blue double-breasted suit that was the twin to one I owned.

  "Nice suit."

  He looked pleased. "I thought so too after I saw you in yours. Like son, like father."

  "Why are you regular size now?"

  "Change. Something different. A new perspective. Do you want this book or not? I bought it for you, so you might as well take it. I already know the story." When he smiled, his teeth were white and straight.

  "New teeth too?"

  "Don't you like them?" He curled his hand into a fist, a familiar fist, and put it to his c
hin. When he smiled again his teeth and mouth were the brown graveyard I remembered. "Better?"

  "Why are you here?"

  "You keep wanting to talk to me, Walter. I thought I'd let you do it once." He shot his cuff and looked at a gold wristwatch. "You have five minutes."

  "That's not enough, it's too fast. You should give me time to think of what I want to ask you."

  "I don't have to give you shit, son. You want to talk to me? Do it now."

  "Did you make Maris bleed?"

  "Yes."

  "Why?"

  "To remind you of certain things."

  "Will you leave her alone if I go with you?"

  "I'll leave both her and the child alone. It's a boy, in case you were wondering. He'll look more like her than you, if he ever grows up."

  "Why would you hurt them? What's the point?"

  "Why would you hurt me, boy? That's a better point. I've given you every chance in the world. But this is the first time you've ever known exactly what's happening, so this time it's the finale.

  "You stay and try to be human, then I stop you. If you come back to me, you'll leave a happy widow and child. Your son will grow up thinking lovely thoughts about his dead daddy, and your wife will never remarry. She's very much in love with you. This time you chose well. Not like the Greek woman."

  "Did you do that to Lillis?"

  "Yes. You have a minute and a half."

  "What if I go with you?"

  "First you die here. We get out of this world and take you back where you belong. Then I'll have to show you again how to become your real self. The self you should be."

  "You said in one of the dreams that our place is Vienna!"

  "Another Vienna, Walter. A city you've forgotten. You've been back here so many times. Every life you've felt a pull to live here, but never once have you understood why. Vienna is your father's city. One more question."

  "What if I say no?"

  "You won't. You love Maris too much. That's one of the good parts in you. Once you realize there's no choice, you'll come home."

  "What will happen if I don't?"

  "Maris will die and I'll take the child. There'll be nothing you can do about it, either. Bye-bye.

  "No, don't touch me! Until you know my name, your magic only works on them. Sometimes. That once in my room when I couldn't see you was a joke. Don't take it as any sign. That's why I want you to come home. I want to teach you all the things you've forgotten." He touched my shoulder gently. "The first lesson will be to find out what Papa's name is."

  "How long do I have?"

  "A month."

  "Will you leave us alone until then? Completely alone. No tricks, no spying . . ."

  He looked at me. "Yes, that's fair. I'll leave you completely alone. No, I'll give you until your birthday. That's twenty-six days. I'll give you twenty-six days alone to say good bye. That should be long enough."

  I carried the new monitor into the living room and connected it to the computer. I went through the box of discs looking for the word-processing one again. I hoped that turning it on wouldn't bring a repeat of what had happened the last time.

  The names of the computer programs sounded like buzz words on the Starship Enterprise: "V-Ram." "Copy Star." "Signum."

  "I think we should put up the V-Ram shields, Mr. Spock. We're coming to Signum."

  "It's only a copy star, sir. Nothing to worry about."

  In the middle of these space names appeared "DEGAS."

  "'DEGAS'? What are you doing here?"

  I fed the disc into the computer and turned it on. It was one of Maris's art programs. After much fiddling around I managed to bring up from its memory drawings of buildings and cities she'd done.

  What talent she had! Talent and humor and a truly distinctive way of interpreting the world. She didn't like to show work that wasn't finished and would have been angry if she knew I was snooping in her files. But I excused myself on the spot and continued looking.

  I had never asked if she wished she were an architect and not a visionary in miniature. You always come up with questions to ask when the person isn't around to answer. She believed in magic and she believed in God. But what did she think of heaven and hell? Did she want a boy or a girl for her first child? What things did I do that got on her nerves but she never told me about? What could I do to make it better?

  There was a drawing for a clown museum in the form of a magician's hat, a villa by the sea shaped like a woman's hand opening toward the water.

  Written below one drawing was the quote from the Jon Silkin poem I'd given her.

  And I shall always fear

  The death of those we love as

  The hint of your death, Love.

  Under another, a drawing of a church, was written "The opposite of love was always disappearance." Patricia Geary.

  Both Maris and I were inveterate quotation collectors, but what did this one mean? I wanted to turn and ask, but she wasn't there. She wasn't there and never would be again in my life if I did what my father demanded.

  How would he make me "die"? What would Maris do after that? Was he to be believed when he said she'd remain true to me for the rest of her life? At first the thought was comforting, but then I realized how utterly selfish it was to desire that. Did he think I would be at peace knowing the person I loved most was living out the rest of her days on "hold," believing there was no other possibility of fulfillment for her?

  What a hateful, evil being he was.

  I kept looking at the drawings until I got tired.

  "One more."

  That "one more" was so interesting that I looked at three more.

  The fourth would have been the last, but the fourth was the fruit. The fruit that, once inhaled, gave off an answer the way an orange explodes from a color into a world of smells once you have punctured its skin.

  It was a drawing of a city. A medieval city, or perhaps one much older. I have never been very good at history, but this city I knew. It was the Vienna "Papa" had alluded to in the bookstore.

  "Another city. A city you have forgotten."

  I knew the streets, the buildings. I knew the sounds in the air that were the city on any summer day. Her drawing was a series of lines and curves, pillars, statues, fountains, buildings. It was my city and where it had come from in Maris could only be attributed to love.

  When you love someone deeply, you know secrets they haven't told you yet. Or secrets they aren't even aware of themselves. I had used no magic on Maris. Not that I knew how to use the meager powers I still unconsciously held. This I knew for sure. I'd not bewitched or bedazzled her into loving me. I'd only hoped and worked for her love, knowing that that is the hardest work in life. I loved her for what she was, I loved her for what she was becoming. I couldn't imagine a time in life together when I would turn and think "This is wrong. She isn't the person I loved. She isn't the person I hoped she was." Maris was the person I wanted to share my life with. She was also the person I wanted to share the trivia of my life with, because that too is part of the magic of concern: Whatever you live is important to them and they will help you through it.

  Because I knew her so we'll, I was sure this was how she felt, too. The picture in front of me attested to this, and if our world hadn't already been so filled with equal measures of wonder and abomination, I would have been a very frightened man because of what I saw on the monitor. She had entered a part of my mind that even I owned no key or code word to.

  The drawing took up almost the whole screen, but typed small in one corner were the words "Breathing you on your birthday, Walker. I love you." It was the city she'd meant to build for me as a birthday present. What she didn't know was she'd created the city where I had begun. Her love had taken over, however unconsciously, and showed me not only the city, but where to walk through it to find my father's name. My second father.

  I had one more dream before I left Vienna.

  My father had rented a villa on Lake Maggiore in norther
n Italy for the month of July. It was an old sunny house with balconies off every bedroom and a wide veranda that looked out over the lake below. Whenever I wanted, I was allowed to walk down the dirt path to our private dock. We had no boat, but the concrete finger that jutted out into the water was a perfect place for looking at fish and dreaming. I had a lot of freedom that summer and used much of it sitting on the dock, feeling the sun on my shoulders and cooling my feet in the brown water. If I looked hard I could see the train far across the lake winding its way in and out toward Stresa and then the Swiss border. Daddy was reading a novel called A Farewell to Arms, and one day he read the part to me about the man and woman in love living in the hotel in Stresa.

  I'd discovered how fashionable a suntan was to the big kids. So since there wasn't much else to do, I sat a long time in the sun trying to dye my skin as brown as possible and look to see if I knew anybody on the boats whizzing by. We only had a month on the lake because Daddy had to be back at work the beginning of August. I made a promise to myself that I would read three books and get a great suntan before we went home.

  Even though the weather was usually nice and sunny in the day, everything changed at night. There were thunderstorms all the time like I'd never seen before. You could hear them coming sometimes two hours before they hit, outside our window. Whenever I heard the thunder rolling in or saw the scary white lightning over the mountains, I'd pick up whatever I was doing and run for the living room.

  The room was yellow. All the furniture was yellow, and I think even the lights were yellow. Daddy said the furniture was by Art Deco, but I didn't know who that was. The important thing was every chair in there was fat and round and friendly. You could fall into them from any position and be comfortable. My favorite I'd secretly named "Sinbad" and everyone knew it was my chair. People even got up and gave it to me when I came in. Sinbad and I were friends. When the storms were blowing and hissing like a monster, we'd leave the doors to the patio open because Daddy liked to watch the rain go sideways, not down, outside. The wind blew it in all kinds of crazy directions and sometimes I got scared, but not really.