Through a Mythos Darkly

by Glynn Owen Barrass

  Maugham was speechless, as was his coterie of fans and well-wishers. The wave of cheerful rumbling had crashed against the rock of Aleister Crowley. He was standing in the middle of Maxim’s, somehow having entered without Maugham noticing. Some rarified observer of human nature you are, Maugham thought to himself, but “human nature” and Crowley had little in common.

  He stood in his vicar’s alb—black with a vomitous green band—as if waiting to be nonchalantly discovered for a round of hand-kissing and genuflection. And at his knee, on all fours, was a woman, collared, on a lead that terminated in Crowley’s fleshly left hand. She wore the sort of delicate undergarments British people always imagined the French wearing—a black balconette ringed with white lace, and a pair of stockings held to her thighs with frilly garter belts. She was sans panty, which Maugham also felt was very French.

  “Maugham!” Crowley bellowed. “What a lovely party you threw me!”

  Maugham recovered quickly. “Well if it isn’t the tit-tit-titular character!” he said, his joy obviously forced. And then he said, “And good evening to you too, Mr. Crowley.”

  “I brought you a present,” said Crowley, ignoring him. “Her name is Ghyslaine. She works here.”

  Maugham had another line ready, Catching mice? Crowley would enjoy the ribaldry, and the cosmopolitan hangers-on gathered behind him loved that sort of humor as well, but he made the mistake of meeting Ghyslaine’s gaze. There were flames behind her eyes, like a pair of brick ovens.

  “Perhaps she should get back to work then,” Maugham said, finally.

  “Why?” Crowley demanded. “Don’t you like her? Should we shove this beauty back into the hot kitchens while we all gorge ourselves like pigs on the sweat of her breast?”

  “Brow,” someone from the crowd called out. Ghyslaine’s limbs quivered, but she didn’t leap up; didn’t slap Crowley or scratch at his eyes.

  “Guh-guh-gorge, Vicar?” Maugham asked. “Is gluh-gluh-gluttony a sin again? Aren’t cognac, cuh-cuh-cunt, and co-co-cocaine the new Gifts of the Ones?” He glanced down at Ghyslaine as he said, or tried to say, the word “cunt”, only to see that she barely reacted to that, too. Had Crowley done something to her, or given her something? At the very least, he was ruining the party if not this poor girl’s mind and virtue. Maugham had no idea what to do.

  Thus, the scream and the chaos outside came almost as a relief. When the choice is between sex and murder, hoi polloi always choose the gore. Even Crowley ran his little waddly run to the windows of Maxim’s to see what the ruckus was all about.

  A small blanc-manger, one perhaps the size and roughly the shape of three standard poodles lashed together with ropes and chains, had emerged from the sewers. In its clutches, as there was no word for its appendages, was a bicycle, and hanging on to the handlebars as if engaged in a tug-of-war was Ulyanov, his thinning hair flapping like the tendrils of a jellyfish in the miasmic air. Worse, one of the windows was stained with blood from the outside, and Maugham retched to see that his other lover Violet Hunt was crumbled up against the exterior, a painful-looking gash on her head and her brown curls plastered against her skull.

  Willie hugged himself, both horrified and perversely overjoyed. After all, Ulyanov and Violet certainly hadn’t any time to get acquainted and compare notes…and really, this was the perfect set-up for what he’d intended.

  “You’re the vicar, Crowley, do something!” he snapped at the man. He, Somerset, did, and practically pushed the occultist out the door. His party would be saved, too!

  Somerset had another thought—the girl.

  He turned around to see if she was still in place, on her hands and knees, like a bitch being presented to a dog. She was, but now she was smiling widely, unnaturally so, as though she had just sprouted another half-dozen teeth.

  “You can stand up,” he said, moving toward her, offering her his hand—cautiously. He realized he was half-expecting her to sniff or bite it, so it came as quite a relief when she instead declined to touch him at all, but got to her feet under her own steam.

  “Some party,” she said, jutting her rather prominent chin at where all the guests huddled by the window. “Does your book have anything this exciting in it?”

  Usually, speaking French helped Maugham’s stutter, but it wasn’t a surefire thing, not at all. Especially when he found himself at a loss for words, as he did now.

  “N-n-no,” he admitted. “Made a bit of a hash of the ending, honestly.”

  “What happens?”

  Maugham opened his mouth, and froze. Like any writer, he knew the danger in being asked what happens? in regards to a novel. People had no idea how difficult it was, the balancing act of answering such a query. Say too little, and it all sounds like a garbled mess; say too much, and you risk boring someone who might actually buy a copy. Not that he assumed this baker-cum-whatever was going to rush out and buy a copy of The Vicar after she was done for the night, but…

  “Well,” he began, “a vicar whom I based rather broadly on the, ah, f-f-fellow whom you ac-cuh-cuh-companied,” his voice went up on this word, making it a question, in the hopes that she would somehow acknowledge that she was being compensated for this display. When she did not, he continued, “this evening, is socially humiliated by a young doctor…and he, ah, s-s-seduces the doctor’s f-f-fiancée and takes her away to a secret rite in the name of the Ones, but it, it changes her, and she becomes a c-corrupt thing, and misery follows her and…well, you know.” Did she?

  The girl looked unimpressed. “Sounds a bit blasphemous,” was her sole remark, as her eyes darted to where Maugham’s guests still jockeyed for space at the window.

  She was right—The Vicar was at that. The point had been to show what an asshole Crowley surely was, but in doing so the book promoted many an old-fashioned notion, such as the value of innocence and the impropriety of using black magic to steal a woman from a rival. He had been given special dispensation, of course; it was all part of the plan. The British government needed him to attract Crowley’s attention as much as it needed him to spy on…

  On Ulyanov! Maugham turned round, realizing he likely ought to be paying more attention to his lover—lovers—than this flour-dusted stranger with no pants on. Studiously keeping his eyes from the dark triangle beneath her garter belt, he offered the girl his arm in what he hoped was an avuncular, gentlemanlike fashion.

  “Shall we see what’s so interesting?” he said.

  She shrugged, threading her arm through his. “As you like. I’m yours for the night.”

  Maugham wondered what Ulyanov—or for that matter, Violet, would think of such a pronouncement, made so casually.

  “Ah, w-well then, yes…let’s just go and see…”

  In The Vicar, Crowley’s counterpart, the obnoxious grotesque ‘Father Oliver Haddo’ was able to bewitch women with just a look, transform into a bat-winged thing upon which his stolen bride could ride, and summon green lightning from the sky to fight off those who opposed him. Crowley in the flesh was less impressive, but only just. He had taken Maugham’s charge seriously, and was doing…something. He stood before the great gelatinous beast, ramrod straight, even as pseudopods shaped like whips and bludgeons swung right before his eyes. He genuflected in a peculiar way, making vaguely Masonic signs and tokens, but it looked to Maugham like he was entreating the monster amorously. The blanc-manger, or elements of it anyway, seemed to be taking Crowley quite seriously. A communication of sorts was developing between one part of the mass and the vicar of its church.

  Meanwhile, Ulyanov had disappeared from view for a moment, surrendering his bicycle to the creature. Then he marched into the street, his right arm holding a pistol. He fired, rather expertly, Maugham judged, into the far flank of the creature. A pair of the red globule “eyes” littering the gelatinous hide of the monster burst like overripe fruit, and that portion of it lurched menacingly at the revolutionary, though Lenin held his ground and emptied the revolver into it.

  Final
ly, with a massive shudder and twist, the blanc-manger tore itself in two like a self-loathing jellyfish and splattered against the pavement, still alive, still twitching and flailing its rudimentary limbs, but the fight had gone out of it.

  “What are you doing, fool!” Crowley roared loudly enough that Maugham could hear him from inside the restaurant. Ulyanov responded with surprising calmness, at least from what Maugham could see in his posture and mien. He gestured with the gun, then pointed to the still-writhing blasphemy at his feet.

  Speaking of writhing and blasphemy, Ghyslaine had wrapped her leg around Maugham’s, and slid both her arms around his waist, clasping her hands together in the manner of a Greco-Roman wrestler. He had been so taken with the scene outside he hadn’t noticed until she had him as thoroughly as the blanc-manger had had Ulyanov’s bicycle.

  “You’re erect,” Ghyslaine whispered in his ear.

  Maugham realized with the suddenness of a thunderclap that he would never ever understand the French.

  “Young miss, unhand me!” he said, his annoyance smothering his stammer. He shook himself free and trudged outside, as it appeared that Crowley and Ulyanov were about to come to blows. Ultimately, such a situation might be exactly what needed to happen, but for now Maugham needed the Russian alive and Crowley safely in his vicarage. He gingerly stepped over the slick patches of blanc-manger flesh, which the belligerents had decided not to notice, so intent they were on their philosophical debate.

  And that is what it was. Crowley guffawed at Ulyanov. “After all that has happened since 1848, after your man Marx himself was torn to shreds by beings from another dimension, you still hold to materialism?”

  “ ‘Dimension’ is a mathematical term,” Ulyanov countered. “What can be expressed mathematically can be understood scientifica— ”

  “Science and materialism are not synonymous,” Crowley said. He pointed a finger into the air, and then stopped when he saw Maugham, and smiled.

  Violet finally raised her head and looked up at Maugham as well, but her eyes slid past her lover to Ghyslaine, who had silently followed behind Maugham. She blinked hard, blood in her eyes, and choked out a single word: “Willie…”

  “Why has no one helped her?!” Maugham shrugged off Ghyslaine’s touch and darted to his darling Violet’s side. He might be sleeping with Ulyanov, but he did truly care for her well-being. But the moment he was at her side, Ulyanov recaptured his attention, as usual.

  “Mr. Maugham,” he started, brushing past Crowley. “I need ten francs. My bicycle has been destroyed.”

  Crowley called out, “Oh, is this a welfare line then? I’ll take twenty pounds, Willie!”

  Ulyanov removed his cravat, stepped forward and knelt next to Maugham and Violet. He pulled a flask from his pocket, poured what smelled to Maugham to be homemade vodka of uncertain age but extreme potency onto the cloth and then, after a few swipes to clear the blood, expertly wrapped it around Violet’s wound. Only then did Maugham remember he was a physician, and he had a handkerchief not to mention a flask of his own with which he could have daubed clean the face of his lover.

  “Another franc for the ascot, eh Willie?” Crowley said, looming over them. Violet looked at him, shuddered, but whispered, “It’s a cravat.” Maugham and Ulyanov helped her to her feet and Maugham felt a certain electricity go through him, as if Violet were a conduit between the Russian and himself. It was the Russian he wanted to comfort, the Russian whose forehead needed careful tending…though he’d be buggered to give him ten francs for a new bicycle.

  Violet gasped and clutched Maugham’s arm as she finally took in Ghyslaine, who was standing with her fists to her hips, legs apart, still all but nude. Behind her the other partygoers milled about under the awning of Maxim’s, but nobody approached to lend the baker a coat.

  “Are you a pruh…” Violet began.

  “I’m a producer of baked goods, yes,” Ghyslaine explained, her acid apprehendable over her accent.

  “You have a more important role than that this evening,” Crowley said, striding forward and taking her arm. He bowed, raised her wrist to his mouth, and instead of kissing it sunk two sharp teeth into it. She winced, but otherwise suffered silently.

  Violet sniffed as she was led past her. “You have a nasty burn blister on that arm, dear, and another injury besides now. I’d have both looked at if I were you.”

  The wait staff was on hand with replacement galoshes and towels for everyone, while a phalanx of busboys attacked the ruins of the shoggoth with shovels and brooms. Soon enough, the party was in full swing, thanks to the healing powers of Hiedsieck 1902 Diamant Bleu cuvée. Violet was a real soldier, Maugham was pleased to find, sitting next to him and making small talk with a clearly agitated Ulyanov as best she could, considering her injury.

  Crowley’s mood had soured, and even the arrival of the starters and pommes frites could not cheer him as he sulked at the end of the main table. And then there was Ghyslaine, who had placed herself at Maugham’s left, displacing the author’s French translator, and who hung about the back of her chair like a jacket that had been tossed upon it.

  “So, this is the front of the house, eh? How the other half lives,” said Ghyslaine. She selected a dinner roll and plucked a small piece from it to suck from her fingers.

  “Non, girl,” Ulyanov said. “How the other, ah, one percent lives!” His finger went up. “While women like you slave in the back—”

  “Or in the front,” Crowley said, suddenly animated and gesturing as if he had an enormous bosom.

  “Oh dear…” Violet began, but the men drowned her out.

  “Even the middle class cannot afford such luxury!” Ulyanov said, brandishing a pomme frite. “And what value is added to this potato by slicing it and frying it, and serving it in a paper cone? What makes this different than the frozen tubers half-starved waifs, whose very souls are owned by the czar, claw from the earth with their own hands?”

  “If you’re dissatisfied with the appetizer, comrade,” Crowley said. “Pass it this way. Try the bread—it reminds me of Sunday night dinner in the gaol, or worse, my auntie’s! Haw haw!”

  Violet snorted despite herself, but then cast Maugham a look and whispered, “Willie, say something!” But too late, for Ghyslaine had shot to her feet and cursed a bit of French one needed to be a native Parisian, a woman, and a street rat to understand, and raised a palm to smack Crowley across the cheek. He made a move as if to respond, but his mouth was full of Ulyanov’s frites, and they did look like a mass of little cocks plunging past his lips. Whatever abrahadabra he was going to utter was incomplete and the baker’s blow landed hard. Bits of potato flew everywhere. Willie cringed, Maugham’s tongue swelled in his mouth, but somewhere in the depths of his being, Somerset smiled.

  The evening’s task was set before him. Diminish Crowley. Build up Ulyanov by linking him to the French proletarian movement. Perhaps the whorish baker could help! Let them fight it out and when both the Church and the Communist International were weakened, then perhaps the loyalist rump Royal Navy could reassert itself in the roiling, tentacular Mediterranean, and secure the future for the Empire, one cleansed of the blasphemous filth the Ones represented.

  A sharp elbow from Violet brought Maugham back to his senses, but also caused him to blurt out exactly what he was thinking that moment, which unfortunately came out of his mouth as “Blasphemous rump!”

  For a long moment, nobody said anything. Then Crowley smiled, and Ulyanov, and even Ghyslaine snickered. Finally, the Russian said, “On that, we can all agree, yes?” and the party laughed.

  “W-wuh-wuh,” said Maugham. “wuh-wuh-maybe I ought to r-ruh-read a passage from the b-book before the n-nuh—”

  “Read? Will there be cots laid out for the interim so we can catch naps between sy-sy-syllables?” said Crowley with a sneer. He rubbed his cheek. “Let me do it. My sermons are renowned.”

  “Or me,” said Violet, more kindly. “I could do it justice, William.” />
  “I’ve given a speech or two as well,” Ulyanov said. “I’ll do it for you, friend. And I think we all have learned that it is best when Mr. Crowley has his mouth full of something other than words.” He reclaimed a frite and chomped it in half.

  “Or me,” said Ghyslaine, picking up the book at Maugham’s elbow. “This is the French edition, is it not?”

  “Yes, let the baker read it!” cried Crowley. “Perfect, perfect. Give her something juicy, Willie, something that makes me look good.”

  There was something in the charlatan’s tone that gave Maugham courage. Crowley had read The Vicar—had been annoyed by it! Somerset knew that the vicar was a narcissist; he would have stayed up the night reading through a thousand-page novel about wool-gathering in East Anglia had he caught wind that one of the animals was modeled after him. Bah-bah, black goat, have you all the gall? There was no mistaking the glint in his eye. He was annoyed, and planning something…

  But what?

  With luck, something that would make Ulyanov draw his pistol and put a bullet in the magician’s head.

  “All right, m-my dear,” said Maugham, thumbing through The Vicar, the pages darkening under his thumb and finger-marks—grease marks, he realized, from the damned pommes frites—“how about this bit?”

  “Whatever you like,” she said, and stomped to the front of the room, her naked rear end wobbling with every footstrike; leash now looped over her own arm.

  Ghyslaine had never been an avid reader, had never had the time. Thankfully, this wasn’t school and she wouldn’t be called upon after to explain or interpret what she read aloud. She could just read the words, almost letting her mind go blank as they flowed out of her.

  “Margaret leaned forward, peering into the bowl, and at the bottom of it was green fire, green as the band of Father Haddo’s collar. But it was not fire, it was solid, solid yet flickering, like writhing tentacles.