Julian Comstock

by Robert Charles Wilson

  After two weeks these small entertainments began to pall, and Julian proposed taking me on a tour of the wilder parts of the Estate—the Estate as he had known it as a child, before he was sent to Williams Ford. I readily agreed, and we set out from the house on a sunny, cool morning. Julian carried an unusual piece of luggage with him: a canvas bag, narrow, and about three feet long. I asked him about it; and that was when he quoted his father’s remark about the nature of sport.

  “Is it sporting equipment of some kind, then?”

  “Yes, but I’ll keep the nature of it to myself for now—I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

  We had dressed in clothes not much grander than what we had worn in Williams Ford when we hunted squirrels in the forest; and this was a relief after the complex and constraining Aristo fashions into which we had recently been belted and braced. A breeze turned the leaves of the ailanthus and the birch trees as we walked beneath their overarching branches, and it was as if we had become young again, for a few hours, at least.

  In Williams Ford such expeditions always put Julian in a philosophical mood. That hadn’t changed. We paused in a grove of cork trees to refresh ourselves from the canteens we had packed, and Julian said, “This is where I learned to love the past, Adam—as a boy, this was my private Tip.”

  “More trees than treasure, as far as I can tell.”

  “So it was meant to be. But all this forest has grown up over layers of scuttle from the days of the Secular Ancients. Dig anywhere and you’re bound to unearth an old spoon or button or bone. Over that way”—he pointed at a hillside lush with birch and blackberry—“over that way there are foundations cut into the slope, and the remains of tumble-down houses. Do you know what I found there, as a boy?”

  “Beetles? Spiders? Poison ivy?”

  “All those; but more importantly—books!”

  “You loved books so early, did you?”

  “Even when I didn’t know what they meant. The books I found were mostly foul and water-damaged, but here and there a readable page was preserved. I didn’t just read those fragments, Adam, I nearly memorized them. It was a peculiar delicious feeling just to hold them in my hand—as if I’d found a way to eavesdrop on a conversation that faded into the air a hundred years ago.”

  “What sort of books were they?”

  He shrugged. “Novels, mostly. Stories of intimate relations, or murder, or fantasies of flying to the stars or traveling in time.”

  “Not Dominion-approved, of course.”

  “No, and therein lay half the pleasure. The fruit was forbidden but it was sweet, even when it surpassed my understanding. What it told me was that the history the Dominion teaches is partial at best. The Dominion’s truth is built on a cracked foundation, and buried in the cracks are things of immense interest and great beauty.”

  “Dangerous things,” I said, though I was intrigued by the idea of stories about traveling in time and other such abominations.

  “Truth is a perilous commodity,” Julian admitted, “but so is ignorance, Adam—more so.”

  “Are we going to see those ruined buildings, then?”

  “Everything valuable I took away from them long ago. No,” Julian said, “today we’re going fishing.”

  So saying, he led me another half-mile through a stand of birch and ailanthus to a lake—a glass-flat blue oval in the woods, its banks choked with goosegrass and purple loosestrife. Julian began to unroll his bundle, which I assumed would contain the rods and reels necessary for fly-fishing. But it did not.

  We fished from kites, instead.

  The kites—a pair of them—were of a design I hadn’t seen before: a wedge of silk with stubby “wings” and a vent in the lower quadrant, supported by three parallel sticks of supple lathing. The kite thus conformed was not rigid, but was what Julian called a “parafoil.” When lofted into the wind it opened like a sail, and was very stable in the air, and did not dip and bob like the crude kites I had made as a child, or fly upside-down, or plummet to the earth without warning. Julian sent his kite aloft first, to give me the idea, though the business wasn’t complicated. Left to itself, the kite was stable enough that it hung in the sky as if riveted there by the gentle breeze. By tugging the string or running the reel Julian could make the kite rise or descend, or travel left and right, according to his will.

  But that wasn’t the end of the story. Attached to the bridle of each kite was a second string, which carried a cork float and a hook with a tied fly. Thus “kite-fishing.” The kite carried the bait farther from shore than even an expert fly-fisher could have cast it, and fish grew plentifully in those deep and undisturbed waters.

  I told Julian the invention was ingenious, but I wasn’t absolutely certain the fish would cooperate in this novel means of persuading them to undertake the journey from their watery home to the frying pan. He nodded and smiled. “You’re right, of course. Which is as it should be. Remember my father’s maxim? A sport, to be a sport, must be difficult, impractical, and slightly silly.”

  “I guess this qualifies on all counts, then.”

  “But you’re enjoying yourself, aren’t you?” He stretched out on the mossy bank of the pond, his spine braced against a tree trunk and the kite reel cradled in his lap. Clouds of midges circled lazily over the sunlit lake, while a turtle sunned itself on a nearby rock. “Which is the entire purpose of a sport.”

  “These kites are unusual. Where did you learn how to make them?”

  “From an antique book—where else?”

  “Did the Secular Ancients really bother about such trivial things as kites?”

  “Astonishing as it may seem, Adam, the Secular Ancients didn’t spend all their time fornicating outside of wedlock, afflicting the faithful, marrying individuals of the same sex, or terrorizing schoolchildren with the Theory of Evolution. They had their innocent amusements just as we do.”

  They were people, that is, as human as Julian or I—a commonplace truth, but one that slips too easily from the mind. “They seem to have been very powerful, and very smart about kites and engines and such things. It’s a surprise to me that they declined so rapidly during the False Tribulation.”

  “The False Tribulation—so called, and what an impudence on the part of the Dominion, to name a disaster after their own misinterpretation of it!—wasn’t one event but many. The End of Oil, or more precisely the end of cheaply acquired oil, crippled the Ancients’ top-heavy economic regime. But there were similar crises involving water and arable land. Wars for essential resources expanded, while machine agriculture became more expensive and finally impractical. Hunger stressed national economies to the breaking point, and disease and plague overcame all the hygienic barriers the Ancients had erected against them. Cities that couldn’t support their own populations were inundated by starving peasants and eventually looted by angry mobs. With the Fall of the Cities came the establishment of the first rural Estates and the sale of able-bodied men into indenture. All of this was complicated by the Plague of Infertility that reduced the world’s population so drastically, and from which we’re only now recovering.”

  “And so the Ancients were punished for their arrogance. I know—I’ve read the histories, Julian; it’s an old sermon.”

  “Punished for the crime of attempted prosperity. Punished for the crime of free intellectual inquiry. Or so the Dominion would have us believe.”

  “Perhaps the Dominion histories exaggerate; but surely the Secular Ancients weren’t entirely innocent.”

  “Of course they weren’t. Who is? The Ancients suffered under an economic system that resembled nothing so much as a complex elaboration of Private Langers’s Lucky Mug. They were beset by greedy Aristocrats, belligerent Dictators, and ignorant Religionists … as are we, if you haven’t noticed.”

  “But aren’t we making progress of our own? Our cities are larger and busier than they have been since the Efflorescence of Oil.”

  “Yes, and it might be that we’re on the c
usp of a change in our traditional arrangements. The workers are discontented—even some of the indentured are learning to read and to express their grievances. The Dominion still keeps a tight grip in the west, but fights to stifle the Unaffiliated Churches in the east. In politics, the Presidency confronts an increasingly restive Senate, peopled by new-money Owners who distrust the old order or want a bigger piece of it. The Army of the Laurentians and the Army of the Californias function as independent powers, only nominally under the control of the Executive. And so on. The entire system wobbles on its axis, Adam. All it needs is a push in the right direction, and it would collapse.”

  “Would that be a good thing?”

  “Increasingly, I think it would.”

  “People would suffer, though.”

  He waved his hand dismissively. “Don’t people always suffer? Suffering is unavoidable.”

  Perhaps he was right about that. But his nonchalance frightened me. Sam had once accused Julian of “behaving like a Comstock,” in a sense not complimentary to him. This was something worse, it seemed to me. Now he was thinking like a President.

  For the rest of the afternoon we set aside Political Philosophy and attended strictly to fishing. The day was as sweet as the sight of two kites bobbing over a sunny blue lake could make it, and if the dividends were unimpressive—Julian snagged a single fish; I did not snag any—we wouldn’t starve for our failures. It was a day that, as boys, we would have enjoyed wholeheartedly. But we weren’t boys, and the pleasant illusion was impossible to sustain. Eventually the sun approached the hilltops of the Hudson highlands, the air grew calm, the long light silvered the leaves of the birches, and we packed up our kites and catch and started back to the Country House.

  Edenvale was melancholy in the gloaming. Whether or not it was ever an Eden, just now it seemed more like Eden after the Fall: untenanted, possibly haunted. I found myself wondering whether Julian had disturbed the dead with his loose talk; and I pictured our indignant ancestors emerging from their wormy basements, all charged up with Electricity and Atheism. Despite the absurdity of the idea I was grateful when we passed out of the shadows of the forest and onto the wide lawn of the Estate. Lamplight soft as butter seeped from the windows of the Country House, a welcome sight.

  There was also the faint and reassuring sound of music. We reached the house and entered the back hall quietly, so as not to make a disturbance, then followed the sound to the parlor, where Mrs. Comstock sat at the piano striking the familiar chords of Where the Sauquoit Meets the Mohawk. Sam gazed at her as if lost in admiration; while Calyxa, her coiled hair shimmering in the lamplight, stood with clasped hands, singing:

  Though the years have fled

  Since we were wed

  Where the Sauquoit meets the Mohawk,

  Still the fields are green

  Down in between

  Where the Sauquoit meets the Mohawk(etc., etc.).

  Sentimental though the song undeniably was—it had been popular in Mrs. Comstock’s youth—its virtue was its melody, which clambered up and down a minor scale as if in sympathy with human hope and mortal resignation. Calyxa seemed to know this, and she gave the melody an appropriate voice, so that the song became a wholehearted lament, sweet as summer love reconsidered in an autumn dusk. It made me think of the fallen condition of Edenvale, and of all the losses Mrs. Comstock had suffered since the death of her husband, and of the threat that hung over her son.

  Calyxa performed the song in its entirety. Mrs. Comstock banged out the final chords of the last chorus and sat away from the piano, drained … but Calyxa, to the astonishment of us all, carried on for another two verses without accompaniment. Her fine voice expanded into the dusky stillness, singing:

  In a tender year

  You kissed me here,

  Two hearts joined in one beating;

  But lovers met

  May suffer yet,

  And love, like time, is fleeting.

  But if your heart

  From mine must part

  Where the Sauquoit meets the Mohawk,

  Still the rolling sea

  Keeps the memory

  Of the Sauquoit and the Mohawk.

  Long moments passed after the last syllable faded into the air. Mrs. Comstock, obviously moved, wiped her eyes. When she had controlled her emotions, she gave Calyxa a curious look.

  “Those verse aren’t in the song-sheet,” she said.

  Calyxa nodded and seemed embarrassed. “No, I’m sorry—I added them myself—impulsively.”

  “The lyrics are your own?”

  “It’s a trick I picked up singing in taverns. Make up a fresh verse, surprise the audience.”

  “You invented these lyrics beforehand, or on the fly?”

  “They were an improvisation,” she admitted.

  “What a remarkable talent! I’m increasingly impressed with you, Calyxa.”

  “Likewise, Mrs. Comstock,” Calyxa said. She very nearly blushed—something I had seldom seen her do.

  Then Mrs. Comstock cleared her throat. “In any event, the men are back from the woods. Julian, Adam, please sit down. We’ve had a communication from the Executive Palace, and I need to tell you about it.”

  Julian whitened, in so far as his naturally pale complexion made that possible. We did as we were told, and seated ourselves.

  “Well?” Julian asked. “Which is it—a death sentence or a reprieve?”

  Mrs. Comstock was somber but didn’t seem unduly alarmed. “Perhaps a little of both. We’ve been invited to the Independence Day celebration on the Palace grounds. Deklan sent a note claiming he wants to honor the heroism of ‘Captain Commongold,’ now that the Captain is revealed as his nephew.”

  “My notoriety protects me,” Julian said in a sneering tone. “At least until the Fourth.”

  “I doubt he’ll make an attempt on your life before that date, in any case, and he can hardly slaughter you at the height of the celebration. In the meantime you should issue a statement to the newspapers acknowledging your patrimony and giving credit for your achievements to the Comstock bloodline.”

  “And abase myself before that butcher? Shall I defile my father’s grave while I’m at it?”

  Mrs. Comstock flinched. Sam said harshly, “These are measures to protect your life, Julian.”

  “For what it’s worth.”

  “It’s worth a great deal,” Mrs. Comstock said tartly. “To me, Julian, if not to you.”

  Julian accepted his mother’s rebuke, and his expression softened. “Very well. We have a few weeks until Independence Day, in any case. And if I’m to live that long, I want to live as a human being, and not a fugitive.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean that tomorrow I’m going back to Manhattan.”

  Our nervous idyll had ended.

  We went aboard the Sylvania the next day. A storm had blown up overnight, and the morning was a cool and rainy one. I spent some time in the Sylvania’s pi lot house, satisfying my curiosity about the principles and techniques of steam navigation. Then I went to the warmer cabin below, where Julian was sitting with a book in his lap.

  “The future is on my mind,” I said.

  “Should we prove lucky enough to have one, you mean?”

  “Don’t joke, Julian. I know the risks we face. But I’m a married man—I have obligations, and I need a plan of my own. Calyxa and I can’t impose on your hospitality forever. When we reach Manhattan I mean to find myself a job—anything short of the meat-packing industry*—and then locate a place where Calyxa and I can live on our own.”

  “Well, the thought is nobly intended. But don’t you think you should wait until after Independence Day? You can certainly stay with us until then. You’re no burden on the household, believe me.”

  “Thank you, Julian, but why wait? I might miss an opportunity.”

  “Or undertake an engagement you won’t be able to keep. Adam … perhaps my mother wasn’t sufficiently explicit about Deklan
Comstock’s invitation. When she said we were invited to the Executive Palace, the pronoun included you.”

  “What!”

  “And Calyxa as well.”

  I was appalled, and not a little weak about the knees. “How’s that possible? What does the President want with me? For that matter, how could he know anything about me at all?”

  “The President’s men no doubt bribe or threaten the household servants. Walls are transparent to them. Your name and Calyxa’s were explicitly mentioned in the invitation.”

  “Julian, I’m just a lease-boy—I don’t know how to behave in the company of a President, much less a murderous one!”

  “Probably he won’t have you killed. But he must have learned that you were the true chronicler of my so-called ‘adventures,’ and I suppose he wants to have a look at you. As for your behavior—” He shrugged. “Be yourself. You have nothing to gain by posing, and nothing to lose by revealing your origins. If the President wants to mock me for associating with lease-boys and tavern singers, let him do so.”

  This was not a pleasing prospect; but I bit my lip and said nothing.

  “Meanwhile,” Julian said, “I owe you a favor.”

  “Surely you don’t.”

  “I do, though. You befriended me in Williams Ford, and showed me all you knew about that Estate and how to hunt it.”

  “And you’ve shown me Edenvale.”

  “Edenvale is nothing. Manhattan, Adam! My town is Manhattan, and I want to instruct you in the perils and the pleasures of it, before you begin life as a working man.”

  Perhaps this was meant as a distraction, but I was willing to abandon myself to it, considering how perilous our existence seemed to have become. “Maybe I can learn some of the ways of the Aristos before I’m thrust into their company at the Presidential Palace.”

  “That’s right. And the first lesson is not to use the word ‘Aristos.’ ”

  “Aristocrats, then.”

  “Nor even that. Among ourselves, we’re ‘the Eupatridian Community.’ ”