Smoke Ghost & Other Apparitions

by Fritz Leiber

  The effect of that last name on the man was extraordinary. He started, he winced as if struck across the face by a whip, then he took control of himself and his speech, so that the three-quarters-filled wineglass stood steady in his forcibly relaxed fingers and his babbling became once more connected discourse. It appeared to require an almost superhuman effort, but he triumphed.

  "Yes, I am Edgar Poe, Mademoiselle Berenice. And I am deeply moved that someone of poetic sensitivity in France should find some merit in my poor writings. You are this Charles Baudelaire's sister, you say?" He watched her narrowly.

  A rapid nod. "His twin."

  "You sailed here from France?"

  "Yes, and am shortly to return, taking ship in New York City."

  He nodded slowly and started the wineglass toward his lips, became aware of what he was doing, and returned it until it was once more poised an inch or so above the table. Forming his words with care, he said, "You mentioned a liquor for which your brother has a predilection. May I ask its name?"

  "Absinthe, sir. It contains oil of wormwood."

  "Yes. The Conqueror Worm."

  "Also, sir, he is, alas, a devotee – he would wish me to tell you this – of laudanum and morphine and their parent, opium."

  Another slow nod. "So true poets and fantasists in France as well as America and England must seek the patronage and protection of that wondrous and terrible family. I should have known." An almost cunning look came into his still watchful eyes. "Tell your brother they are not reliable overlords in adversity." His countenance, grown pale again, filled with misery. "The princely opium genii whirl the rag-tag visions to us from the ends of the universe, but after a while they whirl them past us so fast we cannot quite glimpse them to remember, and in the end they whirl them away."

  "Oh sir, I too admire you deeply and your unhappiness tears at my heart," the woman said softly yet urgently, leaning forward and gliding her narrow hand a short way across the table. "Can I not help you?"

  He lifted his dark eyes as if seeing her for the first time. His countenance became radiant. "Oh, Berenice, the opiates are sorry, tattered phantoms when matched against the face and form of a supremely beautiful woman and the blessed touch of her fingers." He laid his free hand on hers. She started gently to withdraw it, he increased the pressure of his, gulped the three-quarters-full wineglass of dark brandy, set down the glass so rapidly it fell over, captured her hand in both of his, and drew it across the table to his lips. "Oh, Berenice."

  The wineglass slowly rolled in a curve across the white linen to the edge of the small table and stopped there.

  The man's face had flushed again and when he spoke his voice was almost maudlin. "Beloved Berenice," he crooned, fondling her hand close to his lips. "Ber'nice with the raven's hair and the little white teeth. Little Ber'nice."

  With a strong movement which nevertheless revealed nothing of a jerk, she withdrew her hand from his and quietly stood up. He started to snatch at her departing fingers, broke off that movement almost at once, and tried to stand up himself. He was not equal to it. His ankles twisted together. He started to whirl and fall. He caught hold of the edge of the table and the back of his chair, turning the latter sideways. He managed to get a knee on the seat of the chair and half crouched there, still holding on with both hands and swaying slightly.

  The wineglass fell to the floor and shattered, but neither he nor the woman appeared to notice it. The few people at the other tables looked at them. The darkies peered from the doorways.

  "Ber'nice, I'm no good tonight," he said hoarsely, drawing rapid breaths. "Can't take you home. Disgraceful. Wretch. Profound apologies. But I must see you again. Tomorrow. Most wonderful woman in the world. Beauty, wit, laughter, youth, understanding. Come when all hope gone. Tomorrow. I must."

  "Alas, sir, I depart from Richmond tonight on the first stage of my journey back to my brother." Glass crunched faintly under her black caoutchouc over-slippers as she walked around the table toward the doorway. Her face was very grave. "I thank you, sir, for your entertainment."

  He reached out to catch her elbow as she passed him and he almost fell again. "Wait. Wait," he called after her, and when she did not, he cried out with a note of spite, "I know one thing about you. You're not Berenice Baudelaire. That's a lie. Profound apologies. But you're a diddler. Charles Baudelaire hasn't got a full sister or brother. Let alone a twin."

  She turned slowly and faced him. "How can you know that, sir?"

  He winced again as he had when she had first spoken the name Baudelaire. Finally he said in a husky, ashamed voice, "Because I got three letters from Charles Baudelaire about a year ago and never answered them. Told me all about his life. Only child. Praised my works. Understood better than anybody. But I never answered them." A tear ran down his cheek. "Lunatic vanity or resentment. Imp of the Perverse. I kept them in my coat pocket for months. Got all creased and dirty. Lost them in some tavern. Probably reading them aloud to somebody." His voice became accusing. "That's how I know you're not Berenice Baudelaire."

  She returned a few steps. She said to him, "Nevertheless, Charles Baudelaire did have a twin sister, whose existence was kept a strict secret for reasons which I may not divulge, but which concern the Duc de Choiseul Praslin, patron of Charles' father."

  He turned completely toward her, both hands gripping the back of his chair now and his knee still on it, with the effect of a stump. Whenever he tried to put down that foot, he'd start to fall, and he was swaying more now despite his support.

  "Lies. All lies," he said, but when she started to turn away again, he quickly added, "but I don't care. I forgive you, Ber'nice. Makes you more mysterious and wonderful. Ber'nice, I must see you tomorrow."

  She said without smiling, without frowning, "Alas, sir, I must tonight begin my return to France."

  He stumped forward a step like a cripple, sliding his chair and once more almost falling, swaying worse than ever, and said, "But you're sailing from New York. Couple days I'm going to New York City myself. By way of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Going to New York to close my cottage and bring back Muddie, who's my aunt and poor Virginia's mother, Mrs. Clemm, so she can–" He hesitated, his eyes blearing, and then poured out, "Tell you everything – so she can be here at my wedding with Myra. Myra Royster. Mrs. Shelton. Childhood sweetheart. 0ld woman, old as I am. Doesn't mean anything. Only you, Ber'nice. We can meet in New York. What hotel are you staying at?"

  She said to him gravely, "But sir, you do not know me. We met less than an hour ago. How can you be certain that on another day and perhaps in another mood, you will desire my closer acquaintance? Or that you will care for me at all when you know me better?"

  "I know I will. Only you." His eyes were glazing as he implored, "Tell me who you really are, where you'll be. Or don't tell me, I'll forget. Write it down, then I'll remember. Write down your real name, the hotel you'll be staying at in New York."

  She looked at him compassionately, a lovely figure in her black rep that glinted in the candlelight, which also glistened on her swellingly-parted raven's wing hair and made mysterious her more slim than classical pale face and her great dark eyes with the forbidding yet alluring, distance in them, those eyes that while giving absolute attention to the man, still seemed to look at all the world.

  Then she turned, saying, "Alas, sir, I cannot meet you in New York City," and walked glidingly and silently toward the outer door.

  Slipping to his knees on the floor, but still clinging to the chair, the man cried piteously after her, "Tell me your name and where. Who really are you, Ber'nice? Virginia come back? Sarah Whitman lost your curls? Mrs. Osgood in your Violet Vane dress? Annabel Lee? Madeline Usher? Aphrodite Mentoni? Ligeia? Eleanora? Lenore? My Ber'nice? Really Ber'nice Baud'larie? Don't leave me. Plea' don' lea' me–"

  She turned again, and as she faded back through the doorway, which the bobbing darkie opened and closed, her lips shaped themselves in an infinitely tender, utterly infatuated, truly lovin
g smile and she called out clearly, "Never fear, my dear. I will meet you once again, sir. In Baltimore."

  THE HOUSE OF MRS. DELGATO

  THE HOUSE of Mrs. Delgato was a sour stench, quite truly, in the nostrils of the respectable citizenry of Felicidad, New Mexico – which in this instance included all the other inhabitants of that lazy border town. They had a name for her house – a name that most people wouldn't consider nice and certainly not respectable.

  Yet they delayed in taking decisive action, legal or otherwise, against Mrs. Delgato and "her girls," as she openly referred to them.

  There were several reasons for this. The City Fathers were traditionalists: they respected Mrs. Delgato's one-time international reputation – it lent an oblique glamor to Felicidad.

  And Mrs. Delgato was a good, even a righteous citizen in most respects. She paid her taxes on the dot, she frowned on noise and drunkenness, she always drew her shades, and she kept her girls within strict bounds. Never were they permitted out on the streets of Felicidad. Seldom were they even allowed to take the air in the high-walled, deep-shaded garden.

  Mostly Mrs. Delgato's girls were confined to the imposing dark stucco house proper. Summer and winter, naked and in furs, they lolled in its shadowy bedrooms, or paced restlessly along its corridors behind the drawn blinds, or gathered of an evening in the large parlor with the upright piano, the horsehair sofas, the bead curtain and the peacock plumes.

  Naturally enough a shade sometimes failed to be drawn, or rolled up impulsively on some whirringly wicked whim of its own. Even more naturally the more adventurous boys of Felicidad would climb the surrounding trees, or egg one another on to mount the vine-covered wall, in hopes of catching a revealing glimpse of one or more of Mrs. Delgato's girls.

  Many of the grown men of Felicidad showed an interest in the house of Mrs. Delgato quite equal to that of the boys, though it was a more covert interest. Not so, however, in the case of Les Grimes, one of Felicidad's mental "unfortunates," who was always either loitering at the railway station, where the trains were a noisy excitement and an occasional quarter could be picked up for toting a stranger's bags, or prowling outside Mrs. Delgato's place, a slack-jawed Peeping Tom. Les liked to mouth over the rude name the Felicidados had given the dark stucco house – he seemed to take an endless pleasure in the terse phrase.

  Mrs. Delgato was aware of Les's interest in her girls and when they met on the street she would threaten him jovially with the silver-handled whip it was her habit to carry.

  "I saw you luring Lolita, shameless one!" she would cry. "Have a care, man." Or words to that effect.

  Lolita was typical of Mrs. Delgato's girls and probably the pick of them for sheer beauty – a luxurious, youthful creature with the striking combination of green eyes and naturally yellow hair. Lazily graceful, forever yawning and stretching, Lolita loved to sunbathe in the garden when Mrs. Delgato permitted. At such times Lolita would croon a little song to herself in a way that was strangely seductive. Small wonder that Les – like others who could be named – was drawn back again and again to the vine-covered wall! Arrogant and seductive, Lolita was the general sort of female Leopold von Sacher-Masoch had in mind when he wrote the celebrated novel Venus in Furs that added the word masochism to our vocabulary – and Mrs. Delgato reinforced this identification of Lolita as the cruel and beautiful femme fatale by sometimes referring to her affectionately as La Muerte Amarilla, the Yellow Death.

  Most Felicidados accepted Mrs. Delgato's odd harsh language and silver-handled whip along with the other eccentricities of this iron-haired dark-skinned little woman, straight-backed and muscular despite her years, who along with her rudely-named and, truth to tell, odorous establishment was one of the prominent features of the town.

  Some long-faced citizens, to be sure, enjoyed shaking their heads and predicting that, if action were not taken to make Mrs. Delgato dispose of her girls, there would some day be a scandal, a great tragedy even, and the fair name of Felicidad would be forever smirched. It was unnatural, these argued, for girls like Mrs. Delgato's to behave with unfailing propriety and permit themselves to be cooped up forever. A disgraceful outbreak of some sort was inevitable, these pessimists would dolorously maintain.

  But, as we have noted before, Felicidad was a lazy town and things might have gone on without catastrophe for many years, or even until Mrs. Delgato and her girls had withered into moth-eaten scarecrows and been quietly laid away – if Andy Henderson had not arrived in town one evening just as the shadows were darkening from rose to charcoal.

  ANDY HENDERSON was a person who knew a great deal (which he would tell you loudly on the slightest provocation) about houses where the girls gathered of an evening in a large parlor with an upright piano, horsehair sofas, a beaded curtain and peacock plumes – girls naked and in furs, or otherwise temptingly set forth. Andy gave Les Grimes two bits for carrying his sample case and Gladstone bag to the hotel and there he asked him a blunt and rudely worded question and later he gave Les a larger silver disk for conducting him to the house of Mrs. Delgato.

  At the front gate Andy dismissed Les, believing that the companionship of a mature moron would not increase his stature in the eyes of Madam Delgato – for he was prepared to address her either as that or as Señora Delgato, he had not yet decided which. Les for his part was well satisfied to retreat to his favorite observation post behind the vine-covered wall.

  Moonlight showered excitement on the old dark manse and on the overgrown jungle-like garden heavy with the perfume of honeysuckle. The drawn blinds didn't bother Andy – he had expected those, though it is true that he had also expected a little light and noise to be filtering through them. The complete silence and darkness – except for the silver-scattering moonlight – were a trifle unnerving. A more wildly imaginative man might have thought of ghost girls, silver splashed, haunting an abandoned bordello.

  But Andy Henderson's imagination, though vigorous, abided within narrow limits. He rapped in a brash rhythm on the thick green door and waited, balancing in his mind the phrases "the girls" and las muchachas." A place like this might be all Mexican, he reminded himself.

  The door did not open and there were no footsteps – at least not of anyone wearing heels; he did fancy he heard a soft thump and a brief clicking noise, as if a barefoot girl with a bone or horn anklet worn loosely had taken a quick step.

  Andy frowned and knocked again, more heavily and in a more solemn rhythm. The door moved inward a fraction of an inch.

  He pushed it open wide and peered inside. There was only darkness ... a soft crooning that in its strange way was infinitely seductive ... and, striking through the heavy sweetness of the honeysuckle, a gaggingly sour stench that was for the moment quite inexplicable though somehow most frightening ...

  Andy had taken an automatic step forward and a board creaked loudly under his foot ...

  It was his screams – loud though not long – rather than the incoherent cries of Les Grimes that brought the Felicidados running. They came with their guns, knowing that the day of the pessimists had come and they would at last have to take the decisive action they had anticipated but evaded for so long.

  Mrs. Delgato's girls were effectively disposed of after considerable excitement and a few days later Mrs. Delgato was conducted to the nearest hospital that the state maintained for the mentally aberrated – conducted with considerable dignity and respect, such as it was only proper to accord to one who carried with her magnificently and to the end the aura of a great professional reputation.

  Who could blame her if she had become a shade eccentric with the years and had chosen to live in retirement with "her girls" (as she called them to the end) on a surprisingly democratic footing? Had she not once been Lupe Delgato, known from Tijuana to Trinidad as the Queen of Tiger Tamers?

  And who could blame Les Grimes for his infatuation with the rude name given to Mrs. Delgato's establishment – even though it caused the death of a salesman? Not one Felicidado doubted
Les's veracity when he explained that Andy Henderson had clearly asked to be taken to the Cat House.

  THE BLACK EWE

  VERY WELL, I'll tell you why I broke off my engagement to Lavinia Simes – though I'm not the sort of person who likes to go around broadcasting the facts of his private life. There's altogether too much broadcasting going on these days, by wave, newsprint and heaven knows what subtler avenues of approach to the human mind.

  I could sum it all up in one word horror. But that doesn't mean much by itself. Besides, it would let you explain it away as a neurotic delusion, aftermath of the near nervous breakdown I had in 1946, when I quit my desk job with OSS. Though why anyone shouldn't have a nervous breakdown these days, with the whole world rushing hypnotized into the mouth of doom, is more than I can see.

  At any rate "ridiculous neurotic delusion" is the explanation favored by most of the friends of the Simes – one syllable, you know, rhymes with limes. They delight in telling each other how without any word of warning I walked away from Lavinia in the midst of a sight-seeing tour of Chicago and refused ever to see her again. Which is completely accurate incidentally.

  They all think I behaved outrageously.

  All of them, that is, except Mrs. Grotius. When I met her afterwards she said, "Well, Ken, at least you won't go the way of Conners Maytal and Fritz Nordenfelt and Clive Maybrick and René Coulet and the other nice young men Lavinia was engaged to."

  I didn't want to go into it with Mrs. Grotius, so I merely said, "Oh those were all accidents. And even the coincidence of so many fatal accidents isn't particularly striking when you remember that Lavinia and her father have always managed to be in the danger spots of the world."