by D G Rose
I gave her a wan smile. “My master plan to lure you into a false sense of security is working! Now, I’ll reveal myself as a backgammon grandmaster!” Then I grabbed my stomach and doubled over with a slight retch. “But not today I think. I’m not feeling so good. Maybe it was the fish.” Being near the sea, we ate fish for every meal.
She rushed to my side. “Are you Ok? Should I call someone? Are there even doctors in this place?”
I was temporarily paralyzed by her closeness, but with superhuman force of curiosity I managed to push her away. “No. I’m sure it’ll pass. I’m just going to try and get some more sleep. I’m sorry to leave you all alone.”
“Well… Ok. If you’re sure. Get some rest and I’ll check up on you in a couple of hours.” She seemed doubtful. Perhaps my acting skills were less well developed than I’d imagined.
“No! Um, no. I’ll come find you after I’ve slept. I’m going to lock the door so that the house girl doesn’t come in. Can you tell her not to bother me?”
“I’ll tell her.” She looked ever more doubtful and I, helpfully, began to sweat. “Do you want me to bring you anything for breakfast? Maybe some bread?” Then she smiled and I knew I was home free. The bread was a joke. The recipe used fish bone meal and dried fungus in place of flour and it was truly dreadful.
As soon as she was gone, I jumped up, locked the door and, as if I was 12 again, or more like, still 12, I clambered out the window. I’ll admit that the climb down had looked much easier from the other side of the glass and I might have almost killed myself more than once, but I finally reached the ground. I would have to think of a different way to get back in.
Now – to find Frangipani Lane and The House of Diligence!
The town being so small you would think something so ominously named as The House of Diligence would be easy to find. But nobody I asked knew of it, or would admit to knowing of it. And while many people gave me directions to Frangipani Lane, simple straightforward directions, I could never find it. Each time I turned the corner expecting to find the lane, I found myself on some entirely different street. Finally, exhausted, I sat down in the shade of a tree to rest or to cry. My back against the trunk, I closed my eyes. I slept for a time and I was awoken by a tickling in my nose. By a sweet fragrance. I opened my eyes and found myself beneath a spreading frangipani tree, it’s white and yellow flowers showering down on me.
I easily found number 82A, because, despite its specific numbering, it was the only building on the street. The House of Diligence turned out to be a tea house.
I was admitted by a gorgeous flunkey, and shown into a sumptuous room peopled with more expensively dressed men and women than this town could possibly support. The flunky seemed to know my destination and led me without hesitation.
The place was cavernous. A small sluggish stream ran through it and we had to climb a footbridge to cross. The other side of the bridge was as different as can be. Rather than a crush of tables and patrons, I saw stretching before me a landscape, empty of everything except a single table.
There were two people seated at the table, or so I thought. One was a boy, seated, not on a chair, but with his butt on his heels. As I got closer, he was so still that I thought he was a statue, but his eyes suggested otherwise, he held a hand in front of his face, the fingers curled but for one, and a hawk-like bird, perhaps a kite, perched on the lone finger, its tail slowly striking inside the lips of his open mouth. But the boy neither closed his mouth nor shook his hand.
The other person was my host. A host I knew, although I could barely remember the details of our previous meeting. The Person from Porlock. As before, he was unclear, his edges blurred into the background, his clothing uncertain, even his gender in doubt (although here I will continue to use the masculine)
He stood as I approached and held out a hand to me. I took it, wary. But I took it. Better to take an offered hand than to start a fight I doubted I could win and the parameters of which were as unclear as my host’s outline.
“Please.” He gestured. “Have a seat. Oh, pay no mind to Leonardo,” seeing me look at the boy with the bird. “He does not participate.”
With a soft shrug, I took the proffered seat.
“Tea?” He asked, pouring me a cup without waiting for a response.
I took a sip although I don’t like tea. It was terribly good. Fresh and clean with a hint of something exotic. Anise maybe?
“You must be wondering why I asked you here.” He began.
I nodded, unclear about the foundation of the hostility I felt. He’d fought against Christabel, if you could call it a fight, and little enough harm had been done. Clearly, he and Christabel were on different sides of the whole Mad Dreamer/Waking God issue. But were Christabel and I on the same side? I had very little information to go on. Of course, Christabel was Miranda’s agent and Miranda, and Miranda, and Miranda.
He steepled his hands in front of his mouth. “It is no easy thing.” He began, “To ask a man to betray his companions, his family. So I will not. I only ask you to listen and decide for yourself.” He took a sip of his own tea and leaned back in his chair. “I am from Porlock, as you might have guessed. Like this town, it is also a port. A marvelous place, Porlock. The Spice Markets, where anything, spice or not can be bought or sold. Women with gems in their hair and their hands covered with tattoos wander the markets, the spices sing songs of their far away homes. Our mouths we stained with date juice or with wine made from plump pomegranates. I knew a woman there, she was offensively beautiful but she could speak not a word, only whistle. It did not make any her less attractive, her plaintive tune, her puckered lips. In the summer, when the wind of sorrow blows, and the moonbeam flower is in full bloom, we held the Festival of the Wild Moon.”
He took another sip. “I remember it well. The ghosts who haunt the hidden alleyways, the moth the moon loves most, whose wing marking wax and wane with the lunar cycle.” He offered me a scone. “Please. All sorrows are less with cake. I loved my Porlock but I had to leave it. Do you know why?” He didn’t wait for me to respond, certain, I am sure, that I didn’t know why. “I had to leave it because there was no place for me. Ah, but let us not make a fetish out of the past.”
He held out his hands, pleading. “Look at me. Look at me. In a world rich with imagery, I, I alone am… ill-defined. Merely a ‘person’, I have not even gender to define me. But if I am poorly made, who is to blame? Did the Hand then of the Potter shake?”
And as soon as he uttered these last words I heard a shout “Khayyam! Really? Khayyam!? This will not stand! This will not stand!"
It was a voice I recognized immediately as Christabel’s and I jumped to my feet, upsetting my tea and the whole table.
The Person put out a hand to me. “She is not here. It is some kind of talent she has; as the Champion of the Dreamer. But she is not here and she cannot hear anything else that we say.”
I gave him a doubtful look, but I took my seat and made a useless effort at sopping up the spilled tea.
He continued, “If I am poorly made, do I hold a grudge against the god who made me? How could I? Let him but wake and when he dreams again, someday, perhaps I shall be reformed, perhaps I shall be given my rest. Either would be acceptable. Either better.”
“And the others?” I found my voice. “The thousands or millions who live here in the Caverns, do you think they share your laissez-faire view of the matter?”
“What happens” He continued, “to a dream when the dreamer wakes? Is it like a death? Or is it simply an awakening? Do dreams die? Don’t they continue on, in the heart of the Dreamer? When the Dreamer wakes, we the dreamed, will be simply, gloriously, reabsorbed. We will become one with the Dreamer. It is no more and no less than the goal of billions of Hindus and Buddhists. It is not some nihilist fantasy. If I am made of the Dreamer, is He any less made of me?”
He took another sip of his tea and I did too in silent mimicry. He continued, “A dr
eam is like a wave, it sits up and says; ‘I am a wave!’ but really it is just an undulation of the ocean. It must, one day, crash against the shore. There is the shock of rough contact, the unfamiliar grinding of the sands, yes, but then, oh then, the return, the merger, the joining with the whole. Oh to be part of the Ocean again! What right do the dreamed have to individual existence? No more than a wave.”
He sat back, perhaps expecting me to say something, but I had nothing. “I explain this,” he continued, “so that you might better understand me. So that you might see that I am not some cartoonish villain, some serpent in the garden. So that you will not let reflexive antagonism stop you from our purpose.” He took a bite of scone. “Yes, I said our purpose, because we share a purpose. I have waited for you, for so long. They said it would be like finding a needle in a haystack, but here is the thing about the needle in the haystack. It is not that it is hard to find, it is that it is impossible to miss. The needle finds you. And we have found each other. You the needle to stab at the long pain of my existence and I, what can I offer you? You who for the first time in many, many years has companions, the illusion of a shared goal? What can I offer? In a word: Absolution. Not the weak-tea absolution of religion. Not forgiveness in exchange for repentance.” He shook his head, “No something much better. I offer you the sure knowledge that you bear no guilt to forgive.”
Was I surprised that he knew so much about me? I can’t say, because I was entranced by his offer, like a bird hypnotized by a cobra. I wanted that so much. I nodded, my mouth dry with scone.
He stood and placed a coin on the table. “In the moment of ultimate confusion, open her shirt.” And he walked off, leaving me alone with Leonardo and the kite, if indeed kite it was, and no idea what he was talking about, feeling like I was trying to play checkers in a chess match. Christabel had been right, it was like he had a personal grudge against contractions.
I finished my scone.
CHAPTER 16 - A quark will never break your heart.
Without a single mishap or wrong turn, I soon found myself outside the Oak and Oar, only now, I was unsure how to get back in. Since I’d left by the window, I was uncertain that I could just walk in the front door without an explanation. Even though neither Amy nor Christabel was likely to be hanging around in the lobby, Amy must have told the house girl that I was unwell and I imagined that my sudden appearance in the lobby would be a cause for gossip.
I eyed the drain pipe and the narrow window ledge. They had nearly killed me on the way out, but no other option presented itself. Better a mysterious death than to be caught red-handed. Here’s a thing you never learn in movies. It’s much easier climbing up and in than down and out. I reached the window with little difficulty. Only to find it locked. I hadn’t locked it on my way out. I hadn’t even known that it could be locked. I bent down again and angled my butt away from the window to give me more leverage. Nothing. As I put my face against the glass to look for the locking mechanism, the window flew up! I tilted back, startled, and frightened and I felt my feet tilt out from under me. I wished I could say that it had been a good life. I felt a wave of remorse that I had to die at this point, when I seemed to be on the verge of some kind of change, that I would never see Amy’s face again.
Then I saw Amy’s face, not you know, passing before my eyes as I prepared to die, but right there in the open window and she caught my wind-milling arm by the wrist and steadied me.
“If you don’t get your ass in here now and keep me occupied, I’m going to start wondering where you’ve been all day.” She threatened with a smile.
So I let her pull me into the room and I kept her occupied.
Until that moment, I’d had negative knowledge about sex; I would have had to know something just to know nothing. Until that moment, everything I knew about sex had been learned from either porn or Pan and I doubted that either of them were very good teachers, but Amy was. If she was surprised or put off by my lack of skill she hid it well, gently, patiently, showing me what she liked, and offering me a catholic menu of options to help me uncover my own desires.
We slept that night on my little bed with her head on my chest and her leg wrapped around my waist. Well, Amy slept. I lay awake most of the night, thinking of Amy and of the Person from Porlock (and occasionally of the boy, Leonardo, and the kite) and of Christabel and what he could have meant ‘open her shirt’. But mostly I thought about love and what it means to have love. Until that moment, everything I knew about love had been learned from my family, and here is what they taught me about love: Love will break you.
I wanted to flee. To run back to the Tower, to mount the stairs, to challenge whatever god waited at its summit, to take a clean death at the hands of the heavenly host or, having won, to subsume myself in the dance of quarks. A quark will never break your heart.
Of course, I didn’t. I didn’t flee. I didn’t climb the Tower. I wasn’t slain by an Angel of the Lord. No, I lay in the dark and listened to Amy’s calm breathing and tried to imagine a lifetime of this.
Amy woke in the false dawn, stretching, uncovering a nipple to obsess me, and, though I hadn’t been asleep, it was like breaking from a dream, the reality of her more fantastical than my imagination. I had that nipple in my teeth when Christabel threw the door open, the smirk on her face showing her not in the least bit surprised to find Amy in my bed.
“Up and at ‘em!” She shouted, without concern that she might wake the other guests. “There’s been a change of plans.”
Amy sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes, “I wasn’t aware we had any plans to change. I thought we were just waiting in this hotel.”
“Well, no more!” Christabel continued shouting. “The Wedding Guest sails with the tide!”
Amy pulled her shirt on over her head. “Ok. I’ll pack my stuff and meet you downstairs in 15 minutes.”
Christabel shook her head. “Not you, Bucko. Just him.” And she pointed at me.
“What?” I asked.
“Captain Peleg, of The Wedding Guest, came to see me last night.” She explained. “Seems he’s got a special cargo and no room for passengers. He’s agreed to take one of us as a seaman. Someone who’ll work for passage. There’s another ship due in a few days, but it can’t take more than two passengers. So, we’re splitting up. Ol’ Nicky here will work his way across on The Wedding Guest and you and I, Amy, will get some quality bonding time on another ship.”
The whole idea seemed preposterous. “That’s insane!” I shouted (I mean, no reason to be quiet anymore). “Why would we split up? Wouldn’t it make more sense for all three of us to wait a few days? I don’t see why a ship that can take two passengers couldn’t hold three.”
Christabel gestured at Amy and me, in the bed. “I see that you two have gotten chummy and I guess you wouldn’t mind sharing a bunk.”
I nodded agreement.
“But,” She continued. “There’s more to consider than your love life. We’re under the gun, time-wise. If Nicky ships out today, we pick up a couple of days. If we all wait, we lose a couple of days, maybe more. So we split up. Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your girlfriend.”
Out of habit, I almost said that she wasn’t my girlfriend, but hope sealed my lips. I struggled for a cogent argument. But all I found was cogent woe. The thought of being separated from Amy now struck me like a fist. And what the hell did I know about working on a ship? Fuck, the closest I’d ever even been to a ship is the fact that my dad was killed in a boating accident. Which made me realize that ships were dangerous.
Christabel sighed. “I’ve arranged for Miranda to meet you at the docks and guide you through the Caves of Ice to Xanadu.”
And she had me. And she knew it.
An hour later, I was ready to board The Wedding Guest. We stopped at the gangplank, Amy, Christabel and I.
“The pilot’s already aboard.” Said Christabel, gesturing to a small boat tied up alongside the ship. “We’ll have
to say our goodbyes here.” She handed me a slip of folded paper. “Just show this to the Captain.”
I looked at Amy, uncertain, and took a juddering step closer. She displayed none of my hesitancy, and wrapped her arms around me, pulling my head down to her mouth for a lengthy kiss. “Be safe there, Sailor.” She said with a smile.
“You too.” I replied.
She stepped back and threw her arm over Christabel’s shoulder in a chummy fashion. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m gonna get some quality bonding time with good ‘ol Christabel!” And Christabel threw her arm around Amy's shoulder, too, and she put on a big grin, like the two of them were just going to have the best time. And they probably would. They'd always gotten along, were always chatting and never seemed to lack for topics. Then I remembered that lesbian comment from back when we first arrived in the Caverns and I felt a twinge of sexual jealousy, and it felt good. Not that this was the first time I'd ever felt jealous, but it was the first time I felt like it was a legitimate emotion for me to have. It's different when an emotion feels valid. So, I gave my last goodbyes and squared my shoulders and started up the gangplank. This is going to be alright.
I walked up the gangplank, which it turns out is more difficult than it seems in, I don’t know, movies I guess. But, as I touched the deck of the ship, an odd feeling come over me, like I’d done this before.
I looked around and saw many sailors, busy at their tasks. Some climbed the rigging to lay on sail, others stowing supplies. Only one sailor looked like an officer, marked out by her uniform. She was short and wide and strong. Up close, she looked like someone who might look better from afar, although I was never to have the pleasure of seeing her from any great distance.
