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"'rhe Release": A creative wri tinq Thesis

by Dora Knez

Department of English McGi Il Uni versi ty, Montreal

July J.991

A Thesis subrnitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirernents for the degree of Master of Arts.

@ Dora Knez 1991

( ABSTRACT

The genre of fantasy contains texts which are unlike, or distanced

from, the real or empirical world--the world of the reader's

experience. Nevertheless, fantasy texts can reveal truths which

are relevant to the ernpirical world, and thus fantasy texts can be

said to have cognitive value. The notion of possible worlds, the

serniotic theory of metaphor, and a discussion of ambiguity are the

three critical approaches used to investigate the cognitive value

of fantasy texts. The stories in this collection provide a sampler

of fantasy figures--such as rnermaids, ghosts and living murnmies-­

and rnake use of the ernotional power of arnbiguity.

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PRÉCIS

Le genre de "Fantasy" contient des textes qui diffèrent ou qui se

distancient du monde vrai ou empirique--le monde de l'expérience du

lecteur. Néanmoins, les textes de fantaisie peuvent révéler des

vérité' qùi sont pertinentes au monde empirique; donc, on peut dire

que les textes de "Fantasy" ont une valeur cognitive. La notion

des mondes possibles, la théorie sémiotique de la metaphore, et une

discussion d·a 1.' ambigui té sont trois avenue~ cri tiques dont or. se

sert pour explorer la valeur cogni ti ve des textes de "Fantasy."

Les histoires dans cette collection nous fournissent un échantillon

de figures fantastiques--sirènes, fantômes, momies vi vantes--et

exploitent le pouvoir émotionnel de l'ambiguité.

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

l would like to acknowledge my debt to my supervisors: Lorris Elliott, who never stopped trying to make me a better ~riter; and Darko Suvin, who not only guided my research in possible worlds and semantic theory, but took pains to make me d better critic.

l am grateful to my family, who never stopped believing in me, and to the friends who lent support along the way. Thank you, Anne, for listening as l thought aloud; Marina, for technical as weil as moral support; and ,Janet, Lesly, and Marsha, who were there from the beginn~ng.

This thesis is dedicated to the memory of Stefanija Blazekovié, my grandmother.

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TABLB OP COIITBllTS

critica1 Commentary

1. Introduction

2. Possible Worlds and Fantasy .

3. Metaphor and the Repertory of Fantasy Images

4. Ambigui ty . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1. Ambiguity and "Intertextual Frame" 4.2. The Unreliable Narrator

5. Conclusion

Bibl iography .

Short stories

What Jonah Couldn't Swallow The Punishment of the princess . The Release . . . . . . . Mare Futi.litatis ..... The Spiri~ of the Mountain . The Woman He Loved . . . .

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17

28 28 32

36

39

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47 54 61 74 84

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1. Introduction

Fantasy is a literary genre that poses sorne special problems

of d8finition: it can be difficult to crea te theoretical dis­

tinctions between, for example, myths, folk tales, ghost sto­

ries, horror fiction, and texts which are ambiguous, that is,

whose events may be natural or supernatural. Todorov places

fantasy in the area of uncertainty between natural and super­

natural explanations (25-26). Rabkin's approach is comparable

to Todorov's in that he defines a fantasy text as one whose

main characteristic is uncertainty about what is p ~~ible and

what is not possible in the world of the text (8). Commercial

publishing is likely to calI a text "fantasy" if it contains

magical elements, if i~ is ambiguous, or simply if it defies

categorization into sorne other publishing category such as

romance, h storical fiction, or "realistic fiction. Il While

commercial publishing is too inclusive, Todorov and Rabkin are

probably too restrictive.

There is probably no single characteristic which can be used

as the genre marker for fantasy. The supernatural, for exam­

pIe, j s important (if not essential) in fantasy texts: but the

supernatural is present in many texts which are not within

fantasy. Ambigui ty can also be present in texts which are net

fantasies. Furthermore, confining the term "fantasy" to texts

which maintain ambiqui ty until their end would rule out a num­

ber of Poe's stories, for example, which l would not want to

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do. My own conception of the genre would include Poe' s "The

Tell-Tale Heart," "The Black Cat," "The Sphinx," "Metzenger-

stein"; Hawthorne's House of the Seven G~bles; Collins's 'l'he

Haunted Ho .e li James' s The Turn of the Screw; Bradbury' s "Ske-

leton," "Fever Dream" or "Dandelion Wine. Il My own stories fol-

low, however stumblingly, in tte tracks of these.

In order to develop a useful commentary about fantasy, l in­

tend to take advantage of three theoretical approaches. These

are: the notion of possible worlds; the theory of metaphor

(with recourse to the notion of dictionary and encyclopedia) ;

and the importance of arnbiguity, as explored by Todorov. l

make the presupposition that, to the extent that fantasy is

the same as any fictional text, it shares in the mysterious-­

to logicians--dttribute of fiction jn general, that is, being

able ta convey ta the reader information that can be loosely

called "true", despite the problematic nature of fictional

reference. Thus, l intend ta borrow the arguments which de­

monstrate the cognitive value of fiction in general ta give

fantasy a "free ride" ta the point where l can show S ,me spe­

cifie ways in which fantasy texts reveal reality, despite

their superficial distance from it.

One of the ways in which fantasy differs from other genres of

fiction will be dernonstrated by recourse ta the notion of pos­

sible worlds and their ground rules, as weIl as the inter-

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textual frame as èescribed by Eco in The Role of the Reader.

The quality of "estrangement" (Suvin, Metamorphoses) will also

be mentioned as one of the distinguishing features of the

fantasy text.

Having examined sorne theories of metaphor, l will draw on them

to investigate the cognitive value of those images or figures

belong ing to the rhetorical repertory of fantasy. My argument

here is that fantasy images share an important characteristic

of metaphor: JLletaphor forces readers to reexamine their cul­

tural construct of reality in order to resol ve the "imperti­

nence" of the rnetaphor (Ricoeur 165); the fantasy figure,

since it contains "impossible" beings or events, forces such

a reexamination even without impertinence. (The term "impos­

sible," of course, must always be understood as "that which

seems impossible in terms of readers' notions of reality".)

The discussion of ambiguity draws on Todorov' s remarks on the

subject of "the fantastic" and atternpts to restate sorne of his

comments with reference to Eco's intertextual frames. Ambi­

guity, or the tension between two alternate explanations, is

not unique to fantasYi but fantasy is certainly a genre which

makes frequent use of the psychological (or emotional) power

of ambiguity. Aside from this very good reason to examine

ambiguity, it is also particularly interesting to me because

it is an effect that l have tried to achieve in four of my

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f3tories ("What Jonah Couldn' t Swallow," "The Spirit of the

Mountain," "Mare Futilitatis," and "The Woman He Loved") as

will be discussed below.

2. possible Worlds and Fantasy

Before we tackle the notion of possible worlds (hereafter,

PWs) , it might be as weIl to take note of one motivation for

this particular philosophical approach.

In discourse the ory , fiction is a problematic type of utter­

ance, because it speaks of entities that do not exist (Searle,

in Pavel, Fictional Worlds 27). That is, fictional characters

do not exist in the "actual" or empirical world. Therefore,

utterances about them are unintelligible, or at least, prob­

lematically intelligible, since the statements are unverifi­

able as to truth value.

Nevertheless, we know that we can and do speak of fictional

entities without suffering any logical dislocation. ln fact,

our intuition is that fictienal texts are meaningful, net un­

intelligible. Pavel accemmodates this intuition by noting

that fictienal texts "display a property that may puzzle logi­

cians but that doubtless appears natural te anyone else: their

truth as a whole is net recursively definable starting from

the truth of the individual sentences that constitute them"

(Fictional Worlds, 17). If a text can have a "truth as a

whole" despite the fa ct that its compœlent staternents are not

verifiable, then we must move bey and the theory of discourse

in order to understand fictional truth. The next explanatory

step is that of possible worlds.

The "world of the story" is an intui ti vely attractive idea to

readers, who have long been used to thinking of their favour­

ite characters as "existing" "within" the world of the text.

That this is a common perception can be seen in the language

of literary criticism, in fantasy texts as weIl as others.

For example, the term "sub-creation" used by Tolkien (114)

refers to the creation of a fictional world sharing sorne of

the characteristics of the actual world while differing as to

others. The fictional world inspires in the reader what Ann

Swinfen calls "secondary belief in the secondary realism of a

secondary world" (5). The term "secon . ..'lary world" cali be

understood as an informaI expression of the idea of the PW,

that is, the "world of the text,!I more accurately the world

created by reading the text. Incorporated in the idea of a

"secondary world" is that of a particular kind of "realism"

which is comparable ta the particular kind of "truth" that

fictional texts may be said ta have. Ir. the course of examin­

ing PWs, we will discover that they are indispensable to our

ability ta understand any text.

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Suvin remarks that "Th(;'! imaginary PW of a fictional text is

constituted by complex and intimate feedback wi th the readers

on the basis of its not being identical, [and yet being ima­

ginatively supported byJ, their empirical world (or empirical

PW)" ("Performance" 15). This comment gives us several con­

cepts to consider: first, it seems that the PW is not equiva­

lent to the text alone, but invol ves sorne kind of feedback

with the readeri second, the PW is "imaginatively [:upported"

by the reader (this may be the nature of the feedback men­

tioned above); third, the PW is not identical to the empirical

world. Finally, the empirical world itself may be called a PW

by sorne scholars 1 Eco among them; however 1 the PW which

represents the empirical world can be said to maintain its

primacy or special status as compared to other PWs.

If we examine PWs as described by Eco (Role) and Pavel (fic­

tional Worlds and "possible Worlds"), we will see why these

four ideas are part of the notion of PWs. The f irst point

that Eco and Pavel raise is a reiteration of the difference in

the type of truth value one can assign to a text as oppo~ed to

the truth value of li teral or referential d iscourse. Pavel

po; nts out that "The li terary information . is of a

very peculiar kind. Imagine that our reader is looking for a

good private detective . Who would think of actually

looking for Sherlock Holmes? In view of the origin of the

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information about HoIII".'2S, su ch a step would be preposterous. Il

("Possible Worlds" 169)

Eco rnakes the same point when he says that there is a differ­

en ce between a text that describes a portion of the "real"

world, such as a text about Columbus discovering America and

a text such as a fairy tale (Role, 220). In a fictional text,

"the reader 1s invited not ta wonder whether the reported

facts are true (at most one is interested in recognizing them

as more or less 'verisimilar'. .)" (12). The determina­

tion of truth value is a different process from reference to

empirical reality when one is dealing with fictional t.exts,

even though, as we shall see below, the text relies heavily on

the reader's knowledge of ernpirical reality.

Let us consider the first two iùeas mentioned with regard to

Suvin's statement about possible worlds: that the PW is more

than the text i tself, and that the Pvl is Il imaginati vely sup­

ported" by the reader. These two statements mean that the un­

derstanding of any text is based on the extratextual infor­

mation that the reader brings to the text: "No text is read

independûntly of the reader's experience of other texts .

Every character (or situation) of a novel is immediately

endowed with properties that the text does not directly mani­

fest and that the reader has been programmed to know from the

treasury of intertextuality." (Eco Role, 21) In other ~iOrds,

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the reader brings his or her own experience of the world (the

empirical, real, actual world) and also of other fictional

texts (thus, "intertextuality") to the reading of any texte

The experiences that the reader brings to the text are not,

however, the result of "whimsical initiatives on the part of

the reader, but are elicited by discursive structures and

foreseen by the whole textual strategy as indispensable com-

ponents of the construction of the fabula" (Eco, Role 32), the

fabula being the "story" that the text contains, as distinct

from the words themselves. In other words, the extratextual

information that the reader brings is absolutely necessary for

1 the understanding of the text. Thus we see that the PW

contains bath information given by the text and information

provided by the reader.

It is easy to see that a text cannot possibly list aIl the 10-

gical propositions or even presupposed characteristics that

must be understood in order to understand the text: there are

simply too many of them. In any case, this effort is hardly

necessary, since the text has a perfect source on which to

i draw: the reader's knowledge of the world. In Eco's example,

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the text of "Little Red Riding Hood" does not need to spell

out the characteristics of "girl," "grandmother" or "wolf."

AlI of this information is provided by the reader. "In this

1 sense a narrative world picks up preexisting sets of proper-

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ties . from the 'real' world,n and liA fictional text

abundantly overlaps the world of the reader' s encyclopedia,"

where "encyclopedia Il is understood as the readers' storehouse

of knowledge about their own empirical world (Role 221).

The only properties which the text must specify are those

which are different from the reader's experience of the actual

world: wolves talk and people can survive being swailowed by

them (Role 220). We see by this example that the PW of the

text and the reader' s own worid are different (just as we knew

intuitively when we refrained from attempting to hire Sherlock

Holmes). The text confines itself to specifying the differ­

ences, leaving the reader to assume that, where the text does

not specify, the fictionai world is the same as the "real"

world (Suvin, "Performance" 9). This process of specifying

differences is part of the feedback in which the reader and

text are involved. The reader's ideas about the world of the

text are constantly being affected by the propositions of the

text.

Pavel's argument is similar to Eco's, though with slightIy

more emphasis on the problem of the referential possibilities

of the f ictionai PW. Pavel points out that we would be unable

ta answer simple evaluative s:uestions about fictionai charac­

ters "by simply inspecting the propositions printed on the

pages of the Dook. An inference system is needed that wouid

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relate passages of the book to an extratextual cultural and

factual framework." (Fictional Worlds 17) The need for extra-

textual information is clear: a text would be incomprehensible

if it did not share many unstated assumptions with its reader.

We have seen the way that PWs are the combination of text and

the reader's extratextual experience, and the way in which the

PW generated by the interaction of reader and text can differ

from the empirical world. What, then, is meant by the state-

ment that the pmpirical world is itself a PW? In order to

answer this que~tion, we must explore the PW as a model for

reality, whether this is the "reali ty" of the f ictional world

or the "reali ty" of the empirical world.

Pavel gives us an important clue when he says that, "Like

theories, ".Ïctional texts refer as systems," in other words i t

is their "global relevance" to the empirical w0rld that is im-

portant (Fictional Worlds 25). As we have formulated it, the

main usefulness of PWs is that they give intelligibility to

fictional discourse by providing a way ~n which these other-

wise non-referential staternents can be understood as meaning-

fu!. However, as we have seen, PWs rely on extratextual

knowledge because it would be extremely cumbersome to try to

specify all the propositions that are impllcit in even a

simple PW like that of "Little Red Riding Hood." Tc attempt

the same process for the "real" world would be impossible

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(Eco, Rolg 221). As Suvin points out: to represent a text in

terms of logical propositions "becomes increasingly unecon-

omical (and very soon outright impossible) in proportion to

the complexi ty of the text" ("Performance" 10). Because of

this, we can say that even our 0wn world is not fully "built

up" as to its properties. The knowledge of the empirical

world that we carry around in our heads is thus a partial mo-

deI, and it is influenced, of course, by our cultural notions

of "ac:.:tual reali ty. " In this sense, we can think of the

'''actual' or 'real' world of reference . as a pm .• sible

world, that is, as a cultural construct" (Eco, Role 222).

Now that we have examined the mechanism of the PW in fiction

in general, it is time to see what implications this theory

has for fantasy texts. Our clue is the fact that the PW has

been explained as a cultural construct. This means that a PW

will embody a given culture' s ideas about which fictional

events are "realistic" or "naturalistic" within the PW, and

which fictional events are not realistic or naturalistic. It

is these latter which interest us, since fantasy is the genre

in which the unlikely, the improbable and the frankly impos-

sible are part of the narrative.

But what exactly are impossible events? This depends on one' s

cultural viewpoint, since in sorne cultures (American Indian

tribes, for exarnple) things that we might consider part of the

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supernatural, such as visions, are routinely sought out; con­

versely, things that our culture considers normal, such as

traveling to the moon, might belong ta the realm of the impos­

sible in another culture. How, then, are we to know when sorne

fictional event is impossible?

Rabkin defines the impossible in terms of the ground rules of

the narrative world, a description that seems to dovetail with

our discussion of PWs: "One of the key distinguishing markf nf

the fantastic is that the perspectives enforced by the ground

rules of the narrative world must be diametrically contra­

dicted" (8). Ground rules, in Rabkin's system, correspond to

reader expectation, which is the cultural component of a PW.

Thus, if the (naive) reader of "Little Red Riding Hood" ex­

pects wolves that do not talk and people who die when they are

eaten by wolves, it is because this is the reader's cultural

perception about the natures ("the reality") of wolves and

people, and therefore the PW that is generated when beginning

to read "Little Red Riding Hood" contains this perception.

When the wolf talks and Grandmother and Red survive being

swallowed by it, tl.e impossible has happened. Of course, in

our interactive model, tne PW immediately adjusts in arder ta

absorb this new information, as we have seen above. Now the

reader (no longer naive) is postulating a PW of the text which

includes the traits "can talk" under the term "wolf" and "can

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survive being eaten by a wolf" under the term "people". In

Rabkin's terms, the difference between realism and fantasy is

merely that a realistic narrative does not contradict the rea-

der's cultural constructs, while a fantasy does.

We have seen that PWs lend themselves rather neatly to an in-

terpretation of the reader response to fantasy. In this mo-

deI, fantastic events, that is, in the sense of events which

our cultural constructs lead us to believe are impossible, are

easily absorbed by a shift in those very cultural constructs

as they apply to the PW of the text. Truly impossible events,

that is, logically impossible events, are things more along

the lines of imagining a world where "the skilful Sherlock

Holmes can draw a square circle" (Pavel, Fictional Worlds 48);

or a world in which 17 is not a prime number (Eco, Role 233).

These are examples of "necessary" or logical truths, which

remain constant in any PW; therefore, although one can utter

the two examples above, the worlds in which these events can

occur are no longer logically possible. The fa ct that we can

think about the existence of such a world does not make it a

possible one: as Eco points out, saying that there can be a

fictional world where 17 is not a prime number is merely "quo-

ting" such a world, not "constructing" it (233-34). Pavel

concurs (following Howell 1979: 137-40, in Pavel, "Possible:

Worlds" 48) that if Sherlock Holmes succeeded in drawing the

square circle, his world would cease to be a possible world.

14

Nevertheless, fiction is not logic, and the logical PW is only

a model, or a metaphor if you will, for the fictional world or

the li terary PW. Again, Eco and Pavel agree that the fiction­

al PWs are different. Pavel explains that "despite the strik­

ing parallelisms in the logic of their understanding, fictlon

cannot be strictly identified with logical possible worlds"

(Fictional Worlds 48). Eco confirms that "what has been said

apropos of logical truths does not seem ta be confirmfd by our

narrati ve experience . worlds where necessary truths do

not hold can be imagined and are intui tively possible" (Role

233-34) .

l have now, with Pavel, made a plea for a rich mcdel which

includes "realms different from the actual world" (Fictional

Worlds 42), in arder ta accommodate the intelligibili ty of

fiction. But l have not been able to say much about the way

in which fantasy PWs differ from "realistic" PWs, except that

the reader must readjust sorne of his or her cultural notions

about reality in order to formulate them. At this point l

would like to consider the intuitive perception that there is

a difference between "mere fiction and unrealized possibil­

ity," that is, "between various kinds of inactuali ty" (Pavel,

Fictional Worlds 43) .

Pavel points out that there is a difference between saying

that Mr. pickwick is wise, and saying that the son of George

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III I haa he existed, would have been a wise king (Fictional

Worlds 43). The first is a mere fiction, and the second is an

unrealized possibili ty. In this way, l can say, "Brian Mul­

roney is the present Prime Minister of Canada", and l am

making a statement meant to be taken literally. The PW of

this statement is that of my actual world. l can also make a

conditional statement about Brian, such as, "If Brian Mulroney

had not implemented the Free Trade Agreement and/or the Goods

and Services Tax, he would be more popular." This is an

example of an unrealized possibili ty. One can imagine the PW

in which this statement is true without a great deal of effort

(always depending on one' s opinion of Brian). This PW is

identical with my actual PW, except for the difference

stipulated. However, when l make a statement about Sherlock

HOlmes, l am moving to a PW which is "farther away" than the

one which contains Brian Mulroney. This PW has many more

differences from my PW (actual) . similarly, when l make

statements about ghosts, mermaids or living murnmies, l have

moved farther yet, into a PW which is in sorne ways diametri­

cally opposed to my PW (actual): in it, ghosts and mermaids

exist f mummies can be alive. If l were to try to create a PW

in which a square circle exists, l would be moving into the

realms of incoherence.

l have used distance (from my own PW(actual» as a metaphor for

the way in which these PWs differ. Let me say that the number

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of stipulated differences does not necessarily correlate to

the quantitative "distance" of a PW: the distance between a PW

which includes ghosts and one which includes no Free Trade

Agreement is based on a qualitative difference. Following

along with Suvin in the tracks of the Russian Formalists and

Bertolt Brecht, we will calI this difference "estrangement"

(Suvin, Metamorphoses 6). "A representation which estranges

is one which al10ws us to recognize its subject, but at the

same time makes it seem unfamiliar" (from Brecht's Short

Organon for the Theatre, in Suvin, Metamorphoses 6). This,

then, is the characteristic which distinguishes fantasy PWs:

they are "estranged." We do not recognize mermaids, ghosts

and mummies because of our empirical familiarity with them,

but because the conventions of a genre make the~m recognizable.

Suvin states that fantasy is a genre "committed to the inter­

position of anti-cognitive laws into the empirical environ­

ment" .::lnd "inimical to the empirical world and its laws"

(Metamorposes 8). l agree that, insofar as it controverts

culturally accepted ideas about the empirical environment,

fantasy is indeed inimical to it. However, if the "cognitive

view" is one in which the "norms of any age" are considered

"unique, changeable," (7) then, to the extent that fantasy, no

matter how extravagantly or frivolously, challenges these

norms, it partakes of the cognitive approach (if only momen­

tarily, and this by substituting different norms). This is an

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important point, because it is my goal to show that the use­

fulness of fantasy lies exactly in its cognitive value to its

readers. As Eco points out, "a fairy tale wants the compari­

son with the world of our direct experience just to make us

feel the pleasure of the IncredibIe" (Role 239). Even if it

works only by contrast, fantasy Ieads the reader inevitably to

reconsideration of the empirical environment.

3. Metaphor and the Repertory of Fantasy Images

Having examined the world of the text, let us consider the

theory of metaphor. The analogy between metaphor and the fan­

tastic image is probably ultimately untenable, because images

like mermaids, ghosts, and rnummies are not metaphors. How­

ever, these are images which allow us to learn something about

human nature or human relationships: the merrnaid is an ana­

logue of a desirable but potentially frightening "normal"

wornan, for exarnple. l base my claim for the cognitive func­

tion of fantasy images on the idea that they may surprise the

reader into a process of re-evaluation of cultural ideas (and

therefore models of reality, as we have seen from the discus­

sions of PWs above) that is similar to that of metaphor.

The analyses of metaphor by Ricoeur and Eco are parallel in

many ways, the most obvious difference being the degree of

detail in Eco's description of dictionary and encyclopedia •

1 18

l wi Il attempt to be qui te terse in my review of Eco' s logical

arguments as to porphyrian trees and the typology of metaphor.

What is a metaphor? D~awing on Aristotle, Eco's definition

is: "The metaphor is defined as the recourse to a name of ano-

ther type, as the transferring ta one object of a name belong-

ing to another, an operation that can take place through dis-

placement of genus to species, from species to genus, from

species to species, or by analogy" (~emiotics 91). In less

formal terms, we might say that metaphor is a figure of speech

which involves sorne (as yet undetermined) kind of comparison

between two terms (whose nature is also as yet undetermined)

1 which may not at first he seen as being similar.

Suvin gives the following working definition: a metaphor is "a

unitary meaning arising out of the (verbal) interaction of

, disparate conceptual units from different universes of dis-, ~

course or semantic domains" (Suvin, "Metaphorici ty" 52). In ,

its use of the verb "arising," this definition reflects the

~ notion that a metaphor is a process rather than a static

t f. i

figure of speech, an important idea which we will investigate ,~

~,

~~ below. The feature of "disparate conceptual uni ts," l have " , ~

t ~ ;.:. li:

rather simple-mindedly paraphrased as "two terms (of unde-

termined nature)." "From different universes of discourse ll

~

r means that the terms are, in Ricoeur' s phrase, "impert inent" ; ~ 1 ~ 1 i -------------------------------------------------

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or, as Eco puts i t, "when someone crea tes a metaphor, he is,

literally speaking, lying" (Semiotics 89).

Let us consider the example Suvin cites: "this man is a lion"

("Metaphoricity" 52): "man" and "lion" are the two terms;

their j uxtapos i tion and the way we understand i t is the

metaphor; and the illteresting question is, since a man is not

really very much like a lion, how is it that this juxtaposi­

tion can be understood?

To say that "this man is a lion" is an example of linguistic

deviation or impertinence: that is, i t is "deviat ion" when

analyzed as discourse (Ricoeur 136-37), because it is illogi­

ca 1; and i t i s "impertinent" ( 165) because nei ther of the

terms pertains semantically to the other, at least on the

surface. Thus, we have a situation in which the rules of

meaning--semantic rules--have bet:::!n broken. But" if trans­

gression itself is to be regulated, the idea of deviation un­

derstood as the violation of a code must be compleroented by

the idea of reduction of deviation, in order to give forro to

deviation i tself" (149).

The first approach to reducing the deviation of metaphor is

through semantic analysis. In this approach, each of the two

terms is to be understood as a set of properties or a group of

semes, where semes are to the term "what distinctive traits

1

1

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20

are to the phoneme" (Ricoeur 135), that is, a set of proper­

ties that distinguish the term from other terms. Subsequent­

ly, "throuqh an addition and a suppression" (163) of the semes

belonging to each, the two terms can be understood as being

alike.

In the above example, sorne of the semes belonging to "lion,"

su ch as, let us say, "furry" or "four-Iegged," might be sup­

pressed in favour of the semes "strong" and "f ierce." For the

purposes of this example, it is not essential to be logically

disciplined about the specifie traits we attribute to "lion,"

as long as we observe that those which might conceivably also

apply to "man" ("strong" and "fierce") will be retained or

"blown up" while those which cannot apply to "man" will be

suppressed or "narcotized" (Eco, Semiotics 80). In this

approach, it i5 the "resemblance" between the terms which,

according to Ricoeur, "first of aIl motivates the borrowing"

and then provides "the internaI link within the sphere of

substitution; finally, it guides the paraphrase that annuls

the trope by restor ing the proper meaning" ( 174) . Th is

process i5 a repeating, circular or spiralling one, and it

continues until sorne construct of the meanings of the two

terms is achieved which allows us to understand the way in

which "this man is a lion": we can paraphrase this metaphor as

something like, "this man is as fierce and strong as a lion."

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21

It is important to note that, although we have adjusted sorne

of the semes belonging to "man" and "lion," we have not made

them identical, hecause we retain the awareness of their dif­

ferences even in the midst of noting their resemblances (Ri­

coeur 196-98). Nor is it clear that there is a "transfer of

properties" such that "lion" acquires semes belonging to "man"

or vice versa. "W}1at makes theories of 'transfer features'

questionable is always that one cannot tell who gains what and

who loses something else" (Eco, Semiotics 93). Instead, we

have recourse to sorne third virtual (non-actual) term which

acts as a "hinge" or connector (Ricoeur 164). And if we want

to add to our paraphrase above, as we likely do, "this man is

as brave as a lion," how do we account for this "new" seme,

which is not one of those that spring to mind when we are only

lnking about "lion"?

At this point, the ideas of "dictionary" and "encyclopedia"

(and their complements, "denotation" and "connotation") become

necessary. As we shall see, t~ese notions help to demonstrate

the way in which a metaphor is a cognitive device which gene­

rates new meanings by leading "one . to take the va­

rious semes as th [sic] starting points for new semantic re­

presentations or compositional analyses" (Eco, pemiotjcs 120).

We have already taken sorne steps toward the notion of the dic­

tionary, when we made use of the semantic analysis of "lion"

and "man." The theoretical notion of dictionary is that it is

1

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22

the set of known terms with the semes--or properties, or cha­

racteristics (49)--which belong to each of them. This is the

equivalent of "denotation," that is, the literaI meaning of a

terme

Encyclopedia, on the other hand, is usually interpreted as

adding a storehouse of "connotation," that is, it provides the

cultural or historical "extras" associated with the term which

are not part of its literaI meaning. In Ricoeur's example,

the attribute "sly" for the term "fox" would be such an

"extra" (168). "Brave" as a seme for "lion" would be another

such example.

When l was suggesting semes belonging to "lion" in the example

above, l was nei ther very precise as to semes, nor exhaustive.

In the theoretical dictionary, however, precision is impor­

tant, since it is necessary to disambiguate each terme Fur­

thermore, "The most rigorous supporters of a theoretical dic­

tionary maintain that the meaning of linguistic expressions

should be represented by a finite number of linguistic pri­

mitives (components, markers, properties, universal concepts) "

(Eco, Semiotics 49). The dictionary is envisioned as a

hierarchical structure, in which linguistic primitives are

used in order to differentiate one term from another according

to a logical relationship of genus and species. The "primi­

ti ves" express the properties of the term.

•

23

Linguistic primitives are somewhat problematic, however, be­

cause any word that is used as a primitive is likely to be it­

self a candidate for a dictionary entry, and the dictionary is

thus subject to endless recursion. "Thus either the primi-

tives cannot be interpreted, and one cannot explain the mean­

ing of a term, or they can and must be interpreted, and one

cannot limit their number" (Eco, Semiotics 57). The first

option is untenable. The second option means ultlmately that

it is impossible to maintain a hierarchical relationship of

terms according to genus and species, because the criterion

(the differentia specifica) which is used to "provide a

minimal, but sUfficient, interpretation of every marker" (57)

can be shown to adhere to no logical structure of genus and

species and fails to predict relationships between terms (64-

5). As a result, the logical genus-species structure breaks

down, and it is clear that we are no longer operating with a

dictionary but with an encyc opedia. In fact, "The dictionary

thus becomes an encyclopedia, because i t was in fact a

disguised encyclopedia" (68). with an organizational system

based on "pure differences, these diffe~ences can be rear­

ranged accarding ta the description un der which a given

subject is considered" (66, original emphasis) and the terms

"can be freely reorganized according to alternative hier­

archies" (65).

1

1

1

Why is this important?

24

The "alternative hierarchies" are

precisely those which are either culturally determined, or

made necessary "in the instance (and under the pressure) of a

certain co-text" (Eco, Serniotics 117) such as a metaphor or

other linguistic information. In other words, the organizing

principles which link terms together will be based on various

differentiae, and these will be determined by the particular

case being interpreted. Since"A natural language is a

flexible system of signification conceived for producing

texts, and texts are devices for blowing up or narcotizing

pieces of encyclopedic information" (80), we can see that

metaphor is understood by invoking a section of the encyclo­

pedia for the purpose of blowing up or narcotizing information

about sorne of the possible relationships between terms, based

not only on their semiotic characteristics, but also on

various connotative information. Inasmuch as the section of

the encyclopedia thus invoked is a temporary hierarchical

structure, i t is a dictionary, a "local map" which allows the

interpretation of language (83).

Metaphor, then, forces the creation of new relationships be­

tween terms, and can even create new associations between

terms and semes. "If it was true that the metaphor rests on

a common seme already present at the infralinguistic level,

even if in a virtual state, then not only would there be no

new information, no new invention, but there would not even be

.--.--_.------------------------------------................................... ---------

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25

any need for a paradigmatic deviation in order to reduce a

syntagmatic deviation" (Ricoeur 169). In other words, there

would be no need to go through a process of reconciling im­

pertinent terms, since aIl the information that reconciles

them would already be present.

The cognitive value of metaphor lies in its power to force us

to reassess the relationships between elements in our encyclo­

pediai now let us see whether fantastic images can be cogni­

tive in a similar way. Fantasy images such as mermaids, mum­

mies, and ghosts do not provide nearly as much cognitive value

as metaphors. since they are non-actual entities, their in­

clusion in a narrative may make the r\9ader readjust their PW,

but this is a trivial readjustment which is limited in any

case to opinions about the world of the texte No reader is

likely to be prodded into a deep reassessrnent of their atti­

tudes about the afterlife because they are reading a ghost

storYi at least, such a reassessment is not required in order

to understand the image, in the way that a metaphor requires

reassessment of terms in order to be unàerstood.

Is there, then, no cognitive value to be gained from fantasy

figures? Let us not be too hast y • Just as the power of meta­

phor cornes from the way in which it gives us perspectives on

our reali ty, there are some images whicL ~ n the realm of

1

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26

fantasy and yet express sorne "truth" about human relationships

and perceptions.

One such figure occurs in Ray Bradbury's story "The Happiness

Machine." Built by Leo Auffman, the Machine is an attempt to

control pleasure. While there may be a number of interpreta-

tions of the Machine, one is that the Machine is a metaphor

for escapism or infantile withdrawal from everyday reality,

escapism that is ultimately futile. The reader is free to

choose the interpretation that seems most appropriate.

The Machine works by recreating any beautiful sensation or

memory. Leo' s wife is skeptical, but enters the Machine,

which indeed rnakes her happy, while she is inside. When the

experience is aver, however, she cannat stop crying. She

claims that the Happiness Machine lies, explaining to her

husband:

Leo, the mistaJce you made is you forgot sorne hour, sorne day, we aIl got to climb out of that thing and go back to dirty dishes and beds not made. While you're in that thing, sure, a sunset lasts forever almost, the air srnells good, the temperature is fine. AlI the things you want to last, last. But outside, the children wait on lunch, the clothes need buttons .... You made quick things go slow and stay around. You bring things faraway to our back yard where they don't belong, where they just tell you, , No, you' Il never tl.-avel, Lena Aufmann .... ' But l always knew that, so why tell me? Better to forget and make do, Leo, make do, eh? (Bradbury 444)

The Happiness Machine is delightful. It genuinely makes

people happy--for a while. But in arder to stay happy, one

•

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27

would have to stay insid<:' the Machine forever. Lena realizes

this, and the loss of happiness is doubly painful because now

she is pining for things that she never actually wanted be­

fore. Not surprisingly, the machine is ultimately disappoin­

ting. By describing the Machine's ultimate failure, Bradbury

has remained true to our intui ti ve perception that pleasure is

transitory.

In this way, the fantasy image can be revelatory. However, it

is a simple figure, unlike the "full-fledged" or "transforma­

tionéll" metaphor, in that it can be paraphrased without ap­

parent "loss of cogni ti ve yield" (Suvin, "Metaphor ici ty" 54) .

It does not have much "tendency towards further development"

but tends to be "exhausted" in its "immediate expression"

(Ricoeur 189).

This is not to say, of course, that a fantasy image cannot be

a met a ph or , but we are dealing now mostly with the already

accepted parts of the established repertory of fantastic fi­

gures (the Happiness Machine being an example of a figure one

might generalize as "the soulless machine"). This may partly

account for the fact that these figures are easily exhausted:

whatever cogni ti ve function they possesG has already been

thoroughly mapped through the cultural encyclopedia, and we

recognize them upon their appearance as "overcoded" (Eco

Semiotics 101), i.e. previously established, images.

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28

4. Ambigui ty

In the following discussion of ambigui ty, l will be drawing on

the analysis in Todorov' s Fantasy: A structural Approach to a

Literary Genre. There are sorne problems with T0dorov's at­

tempt to use ambiguity as the marker which def ines fantasy.

These stern largely from the fact that Todorov' s is essentially

a historical discussion, based on a particular body of fic­

tion, not a theoretical discussion. (For a commentary on this

and other relevant problems, see Brooke-Rose 63-65.) Never­

tl1eless, l will be using Todor )v' s statements about ambiguity,

the supernatural, and the possibility of resolving a given

text into ei ther an uncanny or a marvelous one as a spr ing­

board from which to launch a description of the effects of

ambigui ty on the reader in terms of the "intertextual frame, Il

which l borrow from Eco' s analysis of "Un Drame Bien pari­

sjen." l will also be drawing on Todorov's commentary in

order to discuss the unreliable narrator and the value of

first-person narration, both of which l use in my stories

("What Jonah Couldn't Swallow," "The Woman He Loved" and "Mare

Futili tatis") .

4 .1. Ambiqui ty and "Intertextual Frame"

Todorov makes the argument that "the fantastic" is that genre

in which the privileged point of view hesitates between a

natural and a supernatural explanation for uncanny events

(26) . "In a world which is indeed our world, the one we know,

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1

29

a world without devils, sylphides, or vampires, there occurs

an event which cannot be explained by the laws of this same

familiar world" (25). This event can be explained in two

ways: "ei ther • an illusion of the senses, or a product

of the imagination--and the laws of the world remain what they

are; or else . reality is controlled by laws unknown to

us" (25). The reader is not at first sure of the correct al­

ternati ve to choose, and "The fantastic occupies the extent of

this uncertainty" (25). If the first explanation is chosen,

Todorov claims that we are in a genre adjacent to fantasy (on

the realism side), "the uncanny"; if the second, we have moved

to an adjacent genre (on the supernatural side), "the marve­

lous" (?r::). Rabkin's formulation follows on this one in that,

in order to maintain the "duration of the uncertainty" (Todo­

rov 25), Rabkin requires that, in él "true" fantasy, the

reversaI of ground rules re-occurs in the text, so that the

readers and/or characters are always in a state of uncertainty

(73-74).

Here Todorov makes a very interesting point about the reader's

expectation: "in fantastic texts, we tend to pre fer the super­

natural explanation" (49, my emphasis). The "realistic" solu­

tions--where weird events are explained as illusion or imagi­

nation--which disambiguate a fantastic text into an uncanny

one can be "al together improbable; supernatural solutions

would have been, on the contrary, quite probable" (46).

1 30

This peculiar effect is best explained by recourse to Eco's

"intertextual frame," as employed in his interpretation of "Un

Drame Bien Parisien" (Role 205-47). While Drame is not itself

a fantasy text, the idea that a single text can deal wi th

contradictory intertextual frames is useful in a consideration

of ambiguity. The importance of Drame is that it prompts the

reader to crea te a particular intertextual frame which Ls then

invalidated by the texte But, though it invalidates an inter-

textual frame, Drame proceeds to behave as if the frame still

exists. This paradox leaves us unsure of what we are supposed

to believe, since we are given a logical impossibility: Raoul

and Marguerite both are and are not the Templar and the pi-

1 rogue. "As a matter of fact, the end of Drame does not prove

or disprove either hypothesis. Better, it reifies both (and

nei ther)" (210).

We must remember that the model offered by Drame is not that

of ambiguity but of impossibility. In Drame, both explana-

tions are true (aud not true); in an ambiguous text, onlyone

explanation can be true, but the reader cannot know which one

it is. Nevertheless, Drame shows us that it is possible to,

in sorne sense, maintain contradictory intertextual frames. In

this context, we can see why the "rational" explanations of

weird events are resisted by readers of uncdnny fiction. The

dlsambiguation of an uncanny text means that events which

1 might have been supernatural have been explained in a natural-

"

•

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•

31

istic or rational way. Thus, the intertextual frame corre-

sponding to supernatural events has been invalidated. How-

ever, for the reader, there is some esthetic pleasure which is

connected with the presence of the supernatural, quite apart

from whatever pleasure t,here may be in the disambiguation of

the text. This esthetic pleasure is the mainspring of the

"effect" which Poe claimed must be produced in the reader

(Selections 150); i t is what Eco describes as the "pleasu.;:-e of

the Incredible" (Role 239). Although the events of the text

may have been explained as illusion or imagination, the

invalidated frame still affects the reader, as if it were

echoing within the text despite its invalidation. The

presence of the invalidated frame--the "echo"--is, in a sense,

ana) ogous to the maintenance of difference and similarity

within metaphor (see Ricoeur 196-98), and creates an instruc-

tive tension.

For an example of an uncanny text in which the reader holds on

to an invalidated frame, we have only to turn to Poe's story,

"The Sphinx." In this story, the nervous, depressed narrator

describes to his friend the horrible, gigantic monster he has

seen climbing the faraway cliff. His description is so minute

that the fr iend is able to reaSE'ure him: what the narrator saw

as a monster with hundred-yard-long wings turns out to have

been a tiny moth. The narrator's error arose from his eye

having been within a fraction of an inch from the window-pane

, '1 ; ,

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32

on which the moth was climbing, so that his sense of perspec­

tive was confused, and what he saw seemed huge.

In this story, the emotional impact is in large part due to

the long and detailed descrip~ion of the horrifying monster.

This impact remains even after the monster has been explained

as a moth. There is a residual tension between the two inter­

pretations, and this is because the reader is "holding on" to

the idea of the monster, or the intertextual frame, "monster

story."

My st ory "What Jonah Couldn't Swallow" inverts the disarnbigu­

ation of "The Sphinx." In "Jonah," the reader is presented

with events which can be interpreted as unfortunate but not

necessarily supernatural. The story is more interesting, how­

ever, if the reader realizes that Lorelei is a mermaid (though

not physically--she has legs, not a fish-tail) and that the

supernatural is a factor. The naming of the character, as

weIl as the events of the plot, give the clues to this inter­

pretation; these clues, however, will be recognized only by

readers possessing a fairly complete encyclopedia entry for

"mermaid."

4.2. The Unreliable Narrator

Faced with uncertainty about the presence of the supernatural,

the narrator (or the character whose point of view is privi-

1

33

leged) sometimes chooses the incorrect explanation. "The

Sphinx" can be seen as an example of this kind of story, in

which the mistake is discovered. The mistake is not always

discovered by the character, though the reader may do so, as

in Poe's "The Tell-Tale Heart."

In "The Tell-Tale Heart, Il it is clear that it is only the nar­

rator who hears the beating of the de ad man' s heart. Reality

for the narrator in this story is that a weird event--the

heartbeat--brought him to confess his crime. We, as readers,

tend to believe that the "reality" is that the narrator's

guilt caused him to hallucinate a heartbeat. The fantastic

element in this story also reveals the nature of the narra­

tor's perception of reality.

In Bradbury' s story "Skeleton," the main character is a hypo­

chondr iac 'vho goes from having a few pains in his bones to be­

coming obsessed by the presence, wi thin his own body, of a

skeleton. He believes that he is struggling for his life

against his own bones. He feels that his skull trying to

crush his brain and his lungs are being squeezed by his ribs.

This story is partly disambiguated by its ending--but inte­

restingly, not as to whether the protagonist's skeleton was

"really" hostile to him. Instead, the weird event that places

the story in the genre of the rnarvelous is that M. Magnani,

the bone specialist, finally helps out the protagonist by

1

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34

removlng (and eating) aIl his bones, yet the protagonist

survives.

An exarnple of a narrator who is unreliable because he has

jurnped to the conclusion that a supernatural event is taking

place is Edward in my story "The Wornan He Loved." Edward

seems to believe that Morag has the abiljty to exercise some

weird power over her sister Camilla. Edward presents his con­

clusions to the reader, but the events he describes are ob­

viously his interpretation, since a good deal of his evidence

is that of his feelings.

Todorov points out the extent to which ambiguity is maintained

for the reader of the text by first-person narration, since

"only what is given in the author's name in the text escapes

the test of truth; the speech of the characters can be true or

false, as in everyday life" (81). Textual rnarkers such as "1

seemed to see ... " or "It seemed to me ... " also make the events

or conclusions open to doubt for the reader. Limi ting the

point of view rneans limiting the reader's knowledge to that of

the privileged character; nevertheless, we can still perce ive

other things about the character'r world, if only in oblique

glimpses, as when we real ize that the narrator of "The Tell­

Tale Heart" is the only one who hears the heartbeat, even

though he tells us that the detectives are shamrning their

deafness.

1

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35

First-person narration can also, paradoxically, lend an air of

authori ty to the text (Todorov 84). This phenomenon eould

probably be stated in J:erms of the extent to which reader par­

ticipates in the possible ,·)rld of the characters: the more

the reader finds the character's PW internally and "external­

ly"--in relation to the "actual" world of the text--consis­

tent, the greater the involvement and the greater the authen­

ticity. This approach, in which the reader is envisioned as

sharing the PW of a eharacter, is equivalent also to Todorov's

other statement about first-person narration, which is that it

prompts the reader to identify with the narrator (84).

The narrator might be unreliable not because he or she has

made the wrong decision but because he or she is bewildered,

like Jonah in "What Jonah Couldn' t Swallow. Il The ambigui ty in

this story is that it could be read entirely naively as the

story of a young woman who is plagued with bad luck in her

choice of male partners. Mory Radjami in "Mare Futilitatis"

also expresses uncertainty, though she offers her own expla­

nation; sre has also offered us the beliefs of the other cha­

racters, which we could adopt if we thought them likelier than

her own.

Besides expressing bewilderment, the character who represents

the privileged point of view on the events of the text may

have no ideas aoout the events, no conseious analysis of them.

~ 1

• 36

Barbie in "The spirit of the Mountain" is an example: she

never decides whether her illness is physical, psychological

or supernatural; she simply reacts. Roman aiso reacts without

questioning in "The Release," and Isobel in "The Punishment of

the princess" never explicitly says whether she believes in

the ghost, though i t is strongly indicated. These two stor ies

are fairly unambiguous, falling into Todorov' s marvelous,

where supernatural is taken at face value.

5. Conclusion

AlI three of the approaches l have used in the preceding sec-

tions in order to try and develop a use fuI cornmentary on fan-

1 tasy have in cornmon a concern with the way that reality is

percei ved and understood. The characters' perceptions of

their own reality (the world within the text) has an effect on

what the reader believes is Iikely or possible within that

world.

My hypothesis is that fictional texts have cognitive value be-

cause the way that we decipher them involves two processes,

~ both of which are linked to our empirical world: first, we

f,

1: supply to the fictionai worid specifie details and general

" ~ u principles from our knowledge of the empirical world; second,

~ ,,, ( we can apply the information found within the world of the , " text to our own empiricai world by a process of anaiogy. This ,

1 r f".t ~"

feedback (from reader to text and back to reader) allows us to

~" ~'

~ ~

t ~-

~

J

t

1

37

learn sornething about our own world by examining the world of

the text, as we understood the failure of escapisrn by examin­

ing the Happiness Machine.

Fantasy texts can be said to create PWs which are more

estranged (less familiar) than "realistic" texts, though this

assertion must always be hedged by the observation that, since

the fantasy genre possesses a set of fairly firm conventions,

sorne fantasy texts may seem very familiar to sorne readers.

Metaphor has cognitive value becaus::~ it obliges us to re­

examine our definitions of entities in order to understand

their juxtapositions. In a limited sense, fantasy texts can

be said to oblige the reader to perform a similar reexamina­

tion of their presuppositions about "reality" by citing images

such as the rnermaid, which is generally imagined as a being

who is part f ish and part TI/oman. The examination of the

definitions of these two entities is already mapped by con­

vention, so that the mermaid carries certain connotations such

as being dangerous, particularly to men. These connotations

are so weIl defined that, in "Jonah," l can afford to dispense

with the physical characteristics of the mermaid and yet be

fairly confident that my readers will realize that Lorelei's

nature is that she is dangerous to men.

1

1

, l'

\ l

, " " & ~ fJ

1 1 , " t, ~ 0' ~

r

l

38

Finally, ambigui ty obliges the reader to examine and reexamine

the world of the text in an attempt to decide whether a na-

tural or a supernatural explanation is appropriate. Such an

examination amounts to an attempt to decide what is possible

and impossible within the world of the text, and in order to

decide this, the reader must eXnmine his or her notions of

what is possible and impossible in the "real" world. l hasten

to add, on behalf of stories like "The Release" and "The

Punishment of the Princess, Il which belong in what Todorov

calls "the marvelous, Il that it is not just ambiguity which

makes this challenge: the mere presence cf supernatural events

in the text can accomplish the same result, since it forces

the reader into sorne readjustments.

My concern in this commentary has been wi th the perception of

reality. This approach is based on the intuition that fantasy

can teach the reader about reality, though it is a genre which

crea tes realities unlike those of the "real" world. To the

extent that fantasy obeys Hawthorne in being true to the truth

of the human heart, fantasy can be more real than reality.

'.a ~

(

39

Biblioqraphy

Bradbury, Ray. The Stories of Ray Bradbury. New York: Knopf, 1980.

Brooke-Rose, Christine. A Rhetoric of the Unreal: Studies in Narrative and Structure, Especially of the Fantastic. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.

Eco, Umberto. The Role of the Reader. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Semiotics and the Philosophy of Language. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984.

James, Henry. The Turn of the Screw. New York: W. W. Norton, 1966.

Pavel, Thomas G. Fictional Worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.

"Possible Worlds in Literary Semantics." Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 34.2 (1975): 165-76.

Poe, Edgar Allan. Selections from the Critical Writings of Edgar Allan Pve. Ed. F.C. Prescott. New York: Gordian Press, 1981.

Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe, Vol. 3: Tales and Sketches, 1843-1849. Ed. T.O. Mabbot. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press, 1978.

Rabkin, Eric S. The Fantastic in Li terature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976.

Ricoeur, Paul. The Rule of Metaphor. Trans. Robert Czerny. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1977.

Suvin, Darko. "Metaphoricity and Narrativi ty in Fiction." Sub-Stance 48 (1986): 51-67.

"The Performance Text as Audience-Stage Dialog Inducing a Possible World." VS 42 (1985): 3-20.

Metamorphoses of Science Fiction. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1979.

Swinfen, Ann. 1984.

In Defence of Fantasy. London: Routledge,

1

'1' ' ..

40

Todorov, Tzvetan. The Fantastic: A structural Approach to a Literary Genre. Cleveland: Case Western Reserve University Press, 1973.

TOlkien, J .R.R. The Monsters and the critics and other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London: Unwin, 1983.

41

What Jonah Couldn't Swallow When Jonah P. Johnson died, he went to Heaven. This was a

little surprising, since Jonah hadn't been at aIl religious

and not always a good man in those termsi but they say the

moral ~limate of the times is changing, and anyway that was

where he found himself: in the soft mi st y contours of the

Official Waiting Room. (He knew it was Heaven because of the

sign on the wall, which said so.)

Looking down at hirnself, Jonah was mildly surprised to

see that he looked j',.}st as he had in life, complete with his

growing beer belly. Raising his hand to his face, he could

feel the whiskers that made him resemble an old-time pirate

capta in . His clothes were the same as he had been wearing at

the moment of his death. They were suitable for the fancy

restaurant where he had taken his wife for their tenth wedding

anniversary, and not altogether out of place now.

"WeIl," he mused, glancing next at the curling mist which

seemed to form walls and floor, "1 guess this beats the other

place. Kind of underpopulated, though.

1'11 have to wait."

1 wonder how long

No sooner l'?d he sa id it than he became aware of two

figures approacr ~ng him through what had seemed to be a wall

a few moments before. Apparently perspectives were different

here, for they carne closer much fastrlr than he would have

expected.

"Jonah percival Johnson! Man, you are a sight for sore

eyes! "

Jonah' s eyes widened as he saw who had come to greet him.

"Punky Fowler! WeIl, l never would've thought to find you

here! And--is that really you, Maggie? 1 didn't even know

you were dead!"

"In Eternal Life, Jojo baby. That's what we calI it

here." Maggie winked broadly and gave him a very enthusi­

astic hug that brought back memories. Punky pounded him on

the back and grinned a head-splitting grin.

42

"Couldn't believe it when Admissions let us know," Punky

told him. "Thought for sure you' d wai t till you were old and

grey before joining us. If ever anybody had the luck, it was

you, you old chowhound. l see you've put on a few, life been

treating you OK, eh?"

"Can't compla· , ~ guess. But l never really thought l'd

end up in the Good Place. And you guys too! Are you sure we

aIl belong here?"

"The Big Boss doesn't make mistakes, Jon." punky's tone

was suàdenly sober. "If you're here, it's because you're sup­

posed to be. Anyway, that's sort of why we were sent to meet

you. We're supposed to clue you in to the setup and eJelyt­

hing, after the Debriefing. The idea is that you'd find it

easier to talk to people you used to know."

"Debriefing, eh? Is that the same for everyone?"

"Everyone, sugar." Maggie smi led . "It 's supposed to be

therapeutic. You can calI it what you like, though, it' s just

that Punky insists on militarizing everything. Come on over

here and let' s get comfortable. We can start r ight away. Il

Jonah followed her to three soft-looking armchairs that

had appeared around a table with three steaming mugs on it.

They rnoved over and sat, and suddenly it was like being in a

farniliar living roorn, warm and rather comforting. He shook

his he ad in wonder.

"Both of you! WE.Ll, this makes it almost worth dying

for. Il

"You' re still a flatterer," said Maggie wi th a laugh.

"But you'll find you like it here. It's n-::>t like the

preachers make it sound at all. It's a fun place, actually."

"Oh? Tell me."

"wait up, Jon. We' Il tell all, I promise. But first you

have to tell us how you got here. Il

"Got here? Why ... " Jonah frowned. He had been at the

restaurant with Lorelei and that was the last thing he remem-

bered. He did not notice his hosts exchange a glance.

43

Maggie spoke. "It's always like that at first. That's

why we're here, or people like us. We ask you questions and then you start remembering the things that were important

about your death. Sorne of them can be traumatic, so it's

better to con front them right away. In the long run, it's

healthier. start with the last thing you can recall."

"We went out to dinner, Lorelei and 1. She' s my wife.

It was our tenth wedding anniversary. Ten years! Hard to be­

lieve. She's still youthful, too. We arrived early, so we

were sitting in the bar, talking about how big Calgary was

getting, and how glad we were that we'd left New Brunswick.

Lorelei's from the Maritimes, originally. Now, where was 1?"

"You were talking about moving to Calgary with Lorelei,"

Punky replied. "Don't worry too much about sticking to the

point. The important things will come up. We've got plenty

of time, after aIl."

Punky was smiling and Maggie laughed a little. Jonah

merely felt puzzled until he realized this was probably a

heaven in-joke.

"Tell us about moving to Calgary with Lorelei, Jojo,"

prompted Maggie .

.. Funny, that. It was the only condition she ever made

about our marriage. 'Take me away from the sea, Jonah,' she

said, '1 can't stand to hear it always whispering at me.'

WeIl, she'd had sorne bad experiences with the water, you know.

When l met her she was afraid ta go swimming, wouldn't go out

in a boat, hardly wanted to look at the ocean. AlI that time

l spent courting her, we never once took a walk on the beach.

It was always the hills for her.

"1 asked her about i t one day and she sort of shuddered.

'It's because of what happened when l was a kid,' she said.

'A bunch of us were down on the beach, a rowdy group of

thirteen-year-olds. There was one boy l had a crush on, so l

had to show off what a good swimmer l was. l started ta swim

farther out, and he followed me. It was like a dare. The

., 44

more he followed me, the farther l went. 1 swam out too far,

l guess, and l must have been getting tired, because 1

remember there was a high-pitched buz~ing in my ears. 1

turned around to see where the boy was, still with this

keening in my head. l was just in time to see him go under.

1'11 never forget that boy's face. He looked dazed, but he

was smiling at me as he got pulLed down.' She was trembling

again, so 1 put my arm around her. 1 wanted to show her what

a gentleman 1 was, l guess. We were so young in sorne ways,

weren't we, Punk?"

"Speak for yourself, Jon-boy. 1 was always mature and

debonair, myself."

"Right," said Maggie dryly. "Go on, Jo. You were

standing wi th your arms around her and she was tell ing you how

the boy went under."

"WeIl. She sa id that people thought a freak current must

have caught him, dragged him under and drowned him. His body

was never recovered. 'Nobody blamed me,' she told me. '1

never felt any current at aIl. It's treacherous, the sea. 1

was afraid of it then, but since then l've come to hate it.'

"She looked so fierce as she spoke that l asked her what

she meant. At first she didn't want to tell me. 'You'll

think l'm a silly, weak woman.' But 1 coaxed her and made

promises. Pretty soon she told me the reste Pretty disturb­

ing it was.

"You see, Lorelei had been engaged once. Her fiance had

been a championship swimmer and he laughed at her fear of the

water. WeIl, she must have loved him a lot, because she let

herself be wheedled into the ocean with him. They started

slow, just paddling around the shallows. They went a little

bit further out every day. Lorelei was just beginning to

think that she'd been mistaken about the water when it

happened. "

"What happened, Jo?" Punky asked.

"The boy was sorne distance ahead of her, doing the crawl,

(

(

45

when Lorelei suddenly felt something was wrong. She started

to tread water, to see him better. She heard a soft cry and

saw him stop swimming. He seemed to be turning toward her

when he began to sink. He didn't come up. She lost her head

and tried to dive down to find him, crying and shouting every

time she came up. They found his body later, but they

couldn't tell what had happened. Probably a cramp, that was

the popular verdict. But you can imagine the effect of this

second drowning on a young woman who had been afraid of the

sea since her teens!"

Jonah shook his head sadly. "I 'm not easily frightened,

Punky, you know that, but Lorelei said something th en that

gave me a shiver. She said that while she was crying and

diving after him, she thought she could hear a high kind of

singing in her head, soft and yentle and seductive; and when

she tried to dive, she couldn't get deeper than a few feet.

'It didn't want me, Jonah,' she said."

There was a brief silence as they aIl thought about the

implications.

"What did you do, Jo?"

"1 was in love with her, Maggie. What could 1 do? She

said, 'l'Il be yours if you'll take me away from here,' so

that's what 1 did. 1 don't figure l'm a believing sort of

persan, but bad luck is bad luck, and if there was something

funny about my Lorelei and the sea, 1 didn't see why l should

give it a chance. 1 said, 'How about going west?' and she

agreed, so we packed our bags and left. Miles from the water

like that, no sea-curse could touch us. We were secure. We

were really happy there."

"Ten years, Jon?"

"Yes." Jonah was frowning now. "Ten years today. That

was why we went to that special new fancy restaurant, for our

anniversary." Maggie met Punky's eyes. He nodded very

slightly, as if to say, "Here it cornes now."

"The restaurant had just opened, 1 remember that." Jonah

46

spoke slowly, concentrating. Images were becoming clear in

his head. "It was a special seafood place. We sat down at

the table, we ordered. . .. Lorelei had trout and l orderea the

Dover sole. l took a forkful ... " He looked at his two

friends with an expression half bewilderrnent and half com­

prehension. "1 choked to death on a sea fish bone!"

47

The Punishment of the princess

The medium arri ved ('j1 time. Her name was Mrs. Mullins and she

was a small middle-aged woman with a pleasant smile and a calm

look. The Griffith household, lately in bewildering turmoil,

gathered itself together to receive her with some semblance of

normality.

"Come into the living room," Mrs. Griffith proposed,

seeing that her daughter Isobel, whose idea this had been,

seemed extremely nervous. "Would you like some coffee? Or

tea? "

"l'd like to sit down, but l don't like to take anything

just before l go to work," Mrs. Mullins replied prosaically,

moving toward the room her hostess indicated.

"Yes, your work, Il sa id Henry, who was staying in the

house because he was Isobel's fiance. He had scoffed at the

idea of calling in a medium, until the oddness in the house

had threatened to interfere with his success at law school.

Now he felt inclined to be bel~igerent, but he was inter­

rupted.

"Oh, dear. Il The medium hal ted in the doorway to the

living room and leaned weakly against the wall. Isobel peered

over her shoulder and let out a gasp.

"Polly! You rotten little mutt!" Polly, a three month

old spaniel puppy, looked up from the scattered remains of the

cushion she had been dismembering, and cringed. Isobel de­

scended on her pet in a rage. In the brief turmoil no one

noticed Mrs. Mullins straightening up as the offender was

banished from the room.

''l'm sorry," Mrs. Griffith said, smiling at her guest, as

they aIl took seats. "The puppy is still new and l suppose

she felt Ionely in the room by herself. Henry gave her to

Isobel for her birthday just a little while ago."

"Mm," said Mrs. Mullins, "she's a very beautiful puppy.

l Iike dogs."

"Mrs. Nullins, no offence, but l for one would like to

48

know what exactly you're going to do and what you hope to

accomplish here."

The :rrtedium turned to Henry with her calm eyes. "1 guess

l should explain a few things," she said. "First, l'm not the

kind of medium you might expect if you've been reading victo­

rian novels. l don't do ectoplasm." Mrs. Mullins' tone WélS

dry and Henry smiled, despite himself. "1 go into a trance

and communicate with spirits. l don't really know their na­

ture. AIl l know is that they exist."

There was a brief silence after this calm statement of

belief. Mrs. Griffith rose to the occasion graciously.

"We're very grateful to you for coming."

Mrs. Mullins smiled. "You don't have to believe any of

it. But 1 do get pretty good results with the kind of thing

Isobel told me about. 1I

"Right," said Henry briskly, "so what is it we've got?

Poltergeists? Ghosts? Demonic possession?"

"You definitely have a spirit presence in the house."

There was a second silence. Isobel was the f irst to

recover from the unequivocal assertion.

"You felt it?"

"As we came into this room," the medium replied, "but it

is not here now."

Henry made a restive movement. "l'm sorry, but l'm

finding all of this rather hard to believe."

"You believed the smell of incense and the dancing lights

la st night, " retorted his fiancee. "Not to mention the

perfume bottles breaking, and the singing, and the makeup we

keep finding everywhere." Henry looked uncomfortable.

"You didn't tell me about makeup," Mrs. Mullins com­

mented.

Isobel turned pink. "At first l thought maybe it was

someone Henry knew," she mumbled. "There were smudges of eye­

liner on the towels, and l don't use it."

"Mm," was what Mrs. Mullins said, but Isobel fel t uneasy.

-

49

She did not understand what smears of kohl had been doing on

Henry's pillowcases. Henry's bewilderment had not been com­

pletely reassuring.

"Not to mel.tion the day l found my best silk dress

floating around the kitchen by itself," added Mrs. Griffith.

"I 've been afraid to wear it ever since." She smiled as she

spoke and so did Mrs. Mullins 1 responding to her matter-offact

attitude.

"WeIl, often a spirit will do mischievous things out of

confusion or fear. That's why talking to them often helps.

They need reassurance and explanations, just as much as the

rest of us."

Isobel dug her elbow into Henry's side to keep him from

snorting aloud at this idea. Mrs. Mullins did not appear to

notice. She went on, "If you would just draw the curtains a

little--I find it hard to concentrate in the glare--we could

get started." Isobel got up and darkened the room to a plea­

sant twilight through which Mrs. Mullins' placid matronly face

was still clearly visible. "1 begin with meditation , which

helps me to calI the spirit. Then l will go into a light

trance, sa that you will be able ta speak to the spirit. You

must explain that i ts actions are causing disturbance ta

others, and th en we'll see. Usually the spirit is quite

willing to cooperate once it understands it's causing trouble.

The trance shol.lldn 1 t last more than twenty minutes or so. Any

questions?"

"What if--what if something goes wrong?"

"Don' t worry, Isobel. l' ve already brushed up against

the influence here, and it's not malign. Probably just

naughty, as l said. Or confused."

Mrs. Mullins looked at her audience of three and nodded.

"AlI right. Everybody ready?"

There was a chorus of assent. The medium settled herself

back in her chair, closed her eyes, and i.Jegan to breathe

slowly. In their intentness, nobody noticed Polly sidle back

50

into the room. The quiet apparently affeeted the animal, for

she sprawled on the floor and beeame motionless as only él.

weary puppy can be.

For a few moments nothing happened. Isobel stole a

glanee at Henry and he lifted his eyebrows at her. She was

frowning at him when they were startled by Mrs. Griffith's

soft exclamation. Instinctively they turned to the medium.

Mrs. Mullins was sitting upright in the ehair. It took Isobel

a few seconds to realize that the medium was not conseious.

Her eyes were closed but her head turned from side to side as

if she were trying to examine her surroundings. Her face wore

a look of bewilderment, but the very features underneath had

taken on an arrogant expression that did not belong to Mrs.

Mullins.

Il l don / t want to be here! Why can / t l go home?"

Isobel felt a shudder travel along her spine. '1'hj s young

petulant voiee was not that of the medium: it was tne spirit

whose voiee they heard, whose personality had possessed the

meditating body of Mrs. Mullins.

IlWh-who are you?" Isobel asked, dry-mouthed.

The curiously blank, proud face swivelled toward Isobel.

IIHuh! You/re nothing but a commoner. AIl of you. Peasants!

l want to go home."

IIWell! Il said Isobel, round-eyed.

Henry leaned forward. "Just you answer the question.

Who are you?"

"I am the princess Apollinaris Cemiria Bathsheba ,"

returned the haughty voiee, "First Daughter of the Absolute

Emperor. To displease me means death."

"1 see. 1 suppose that accounts for your bad rnanners."

Apollinaris Cemiria Bathsheba seerned to reeonsider her

opinion of Henry. There was a slight al teration of her

posture. She even srniled with surprising charm. "You don't

seern to be an absolute peasant. l think l eould even finù you

amusing, if you were to pay me the proper attentions at my

(

51

father's court. Even if l am the most beautiful woman on the

three continents of the world."

Something undeniably alluring shone from her face as she

sa id this, and Henry hesitated, wondering at his own rudeness

to the poor girl. Isobel was not amused.

"Most beautlful woman! You're nothing but a troublesome

little ghost, that's what you are."

"Isobel! "

"Ghost! "

That word struck sorne chord wi th the spirit, for her eyes

grew round and her mouth distended. The puppy whimpered from

behind the medium's chair. "You me an I--I'm dead?"

"WeIl ... " Isobel suddenly fel t cruel. Her voice became

more gentle. "Yes, l'm afraid so."

"Then ... my palace ... my riches--all my silks and my slaves

and my dancing--all gone? No more music? No more dressing

up? No more making myself even more beautiful wi th my scents

and my crearns?" The spirit wailed disconsolately. Isobel

glanced uncomfortably at Henry, but i t was Mrs. Griffith who

leaned forward, making a soothing noise.

"NOVI, now, don' t cry about i t. There' s nothing you can

do, except try to take it like a true princess: calmly and

with digni ty."

"I don't want dignity. l want revenge! It was aIl that

nasty astrologer's fault. He did this to me, he did it!"

"What are you talking about, my dear?"

"That astrologer, at court. He was most insulting. It

isn' t my fault that l didn' t want to marry the dirty old

vizier's son. Even if Daddy did want me to. How was I

supposed to know the silly idiot wou Id die for love of me?"

Even in her evident agitation, there was an unmistakable tone

of gratified vanity in the spirit's voice. But she immediate­

ly returned to venom. "Anyway, that meddling astrologer had

no business telling me aIl those unpleasant things."

"What things?"

52

"That •.. that l wouldn't live to see a man I wanted to

marry. That 1 needed to learn the womanly virtues of humili ty

and a loving disposition, and that if l didn't do it in this

life l would have to do it in the next, and in the humblest of

shapes. Womanly virtues! As if beauty isn't the only thing a

woman needs! Il

"Apparently it isn' t," muttered Henry drily.

"And now l'Il never ever get home again.

home! "

l want ta go

"Hmm," said Mrs. Griffith, and the other two looked at

each other silently. Nobody seemed to know quite what to do

next. The spirit turned her face away and for a moment none

of them realized that she was crying, whimpering softly to

herself.

"WeIl, you don't have to get aIl soppy about it," said

Isobel, but her voice held a great deal more kindness than her

words. Apollinaris looked up at her through tears, and her

expression was no longer petulal't, but childishly, almost

endearingly tragic. "You can stay here with us. l know it's

not a palace, but i t' s a comfortable home. Only no more

tricks wi th perfume and Mother' s silk dresses. Or kohl,

either! If you behave yourself, you might even find you like

it here wi th us."

The proud head of Apollinaris cemiria Bathsheba bent to

this admonition. "AlI right, " she said. "No more tr icks. "

There was silence for a moment. AlI of them were motion-

less. As the three watched, the medium's head rose slowly.

As she looked from one to another, they saw that her eyes were

open. Mrs. Mullins was out of her trance and the spirit was

gone.

"WeIl," she said. "1 didn't expect it to be quite that

strong a personality. l'm extremely tired."

"Do you know what happened?"

"No, you'll have to tell me. l never know what happens

while l'm in the trance."

J

l

53

Isobel told the story of the arrogant spirit, concluding,

"1 wonder why she' s here with us. She never did say anything

about what the humblest shape is."

"She is still here, is she?" asked Henry.

Mrs. Mullins concentrated momentarily. IIYes. She' s in

this room, but ... she feels very calm, very quiet right now. 1I

"Do you think she'll stay that way?1I

"1 think SO.il Mrs. Mullins smiled. ''l've never known a

spiri t to lie."

Mrs. Mullins accepted the of fer of coffee. After some

discussion of the spirit's story, the medium made her way out.

As they saw her off, Isobel smiled peacefully at Henry. He

smiled back.

"You were right about getting a medium, weren't you?"

"1 guess l was," she admitted.

In the living room, behind Mrs. Mullins' chair, the

princess Apollinaris Cemiria Bathsheba spun around three times

on her feathery spaniel paws, curled her small furry body into

a tight baIl and sighed herself into a contented sleep.

,"'

....

The Release

Amertipsut had been a mumlny for more than two thousand years.

Ordinarily, mummics do not live much more than a few hours

after being embalmed; but in dying, Amertipsut had le ft the

overwhelming passion of her life unconsummated. For this

reasen, she refused te allew her spirit to leave even the

sadly withered husk ~hat her body had become. Amertipsut had

clung to half-life for a score or sa of centuries, she cou1d

never remember exactly.

It was in the autumn of the year that Amertipsut felt the

first intuition that her long wait might saon end. Her ser­

pent armbands twitched in the darkness of her painted sarco­

phagus, and for a moment she wondered what that CG~ld rnean.

Then exci tement and disbel ief confused her for a few minutes,

so that she could not focus on the metaphysical emanations of

her beloved. When she came ta herself, she could not feel

Romenhep's presence anywhere at aIl. Nevertheless, she diù

not feel disappointed. Her long-lost beloved, for whose sake

she had refused the comforts of annihilation, was undoubtedly

sornewhere in Egypt.

Far away in cairo, Roman Simonsen could hardly contain

his delight. The heat, the brightness of the colours, the

very pungency of the Egyptian air all combined ta give him a

heady sensation of excitement. Roman looked on Egypt as his

spiritual home. He had studied its ancient past with a

single-mindedness that was like hunger. At last, working in

the Archaeology Department of the Uni versi ty of Cairo, he

wou] d be able to experience the reali ty which he had only

irnagined until now.

Roman spent that first day wandering through the sun­

flooded streets of the city, until evening and the pangs of

hunger drave him back to the room the University had provided

for him. As he scraped together a hast y meal, his rnind was

filled with images of things he had seen: date-sellers, camel­

drivers and veiled women, street beggars and water-carriers .

55

In some ways, he was sure, life here had not changed since the

days of the pharaohs.

Roman summoned his daydream of ancient Egypt, a daydream

so old i t more closely resembled a mernory. The sounds and

srr.ells drifting in through his window, along with the fulsorne

light of the setting sun, now made the familiar dream more

vi vid than ever before. In his mind' seye he saw a wide court

paved with white lirnestone, tinged pink by the setting sun.

He stocd in the copy room where his fellow scribes had left

their brushes and papyrus behind at the end of the day. He

was looking out across the court when he became aware of a

slender shape approaching, a shadow in the heart of the blaze

of sunset light. He did not know why his pulse faltered. The

shape became a young woman, who clirnbed wi th swaying grace the

three steps to the door of the copy roorn. It was only then

that she seemed to become aware of him, and at the lift of her

head he seemed to hear a triumphant music that deafened and

blinded him with sudden power. Roman started, his limbs

twi tching violently. The noise of sorne truck' s horn had

broken his daydream.

In her dark tomb Amertipsut wanted to weep with happin­

eSSe It was her Romenhep, and even after so rnany hundreds of

years he still thought of her. Despite her joy, she relapsed

for a while into the half-waking trance which had preserved

her for 50 long. After centuries of nothing but waiting,

emotion was a strain on her dry and fragile flesh. For

Roman, the next weeks passed at unprecedented veloci ty. There

were so many new things to know, and so many things long known

but never before experienced. His waking hours were thorough­

ly occupied, and he slept without dreaming. The dreams came

later. Amertipsut sent them.

Night after night, a dark-skinned woman came to Roman in

his sleep. Her long kohl-rimmed eyes gazed into his, some-

times soft and shy, sometirnes deep and blazing, but always

disturbing, farniliar yet unknown. In his dream, she leaned

,',

-"-"

56

over his shoulder as he wrote, and her linen robe released

sorne darkly exci ting perfume as i t brushed his arrn. 'l'he

scent, her nearness, her touch aIl combined into an erot ic

haze as pervasive as incense smoke. Helpless, transcendently

aroused, he would reach out to hold her, but his arms always

encountered only sheets and pillows, and he woke, panting.

Roman grew haggard in his nightly pursuit of the Egyptian

maiden. If his colleagues at the University noticed the

shadmvs under his eyes, or his dazed looks, the y did not

mention it. After seven nights, Roman himself hardly knew

whether he woke or slept. The long-eyed maiden was a fever in

his blood: he wandered through his days l ike a man in

delirium.

On the eighth night, she was not there. Shocked, alone

in his dream, Roman began to search for the dark-haired woman.

He ran through the streets of Cairo, passing market stall and

walled garden, but there was never a sign of her. Dejected,

whimpering, Roman stumbleà down a narrow path to find himself

suddenly outside the city on a sun-baked plain. In the dust

before him was the irnprint of a small elegant foot. Having

seen it, he had just tü.= to understand its signif icance

before he woke up.

That day Roman did not go ta the Uni versi ty. Instead he

caromed from end ta end of Cairo, as he had on his arrivaI.

If he could only discover the narrow alley he had seen in his

dream, the alley that led out of the city, he might be able to

find some clue to the dream woman who had titillated him for

seven nights running. But the path was nowhere. In the eve­

ning, Roman prepared for sleep with mingled frustration and

anticipation, hoping against hope that she would return,

afraid that she never would.

Re saw her almost immedi ately. She was standing where

her footpr int had been, on the edge of the city, looking out

toward mountains. She turned ta gaze at him over her should­

er. Rer expression was new to him: strained and hollow-eyed,

1

l

(

57

with a tremor to her lips. That tremor released a flood of

pit Y and hunger so intense that he wondered whether she could

feel i t coming from him. She turned and began walking.

AlI that night he followed her, across the baked clay of

the plains, then up through hidden passes in the mountains.

She showed him the shape of the mountain peaks, and he knew

that he must remember them. Then she led him down, along

secret tl!!\nels to false walls, through which he passed as if

he were as insubstantial as she, until finally he found

himself in a chamber crammed with marble statues and gilt

furniture. He looked for the woman but found only a beautiful

sarcophagus, and the face painted there was hers. Bending, he

touched the painted lips with his own, and awoke in his own

room with the smell of dust in his nostrils.

There was no more hazy delirium for Roman. Instead he

embarked on feverish activity. He coaxed his university

friends into helping to organize a digging expedition, pored

over maps and thought of nothing but his route. He had no

doubts. His dreams were true. He had been given knowledge of

an undiscovered tomb in the mountains, and he knew he was

meant to open i t. He would be the one to open i t, and he

would be famousi but Roman was not thinking of glory as he

wrote out his Iists and checked and double-checked his

supplies. Roman was thinking only of the long-eyed maiden of

his dreams. He was going, not to find a tomb, but a lover.

Until he got there, he refused to think of anything else.

Amertipsut was very tired. She sent no more dreams to

Roman, but she did not have to. He was coming. She could

feel hi::; progress as he neared her mountain hidil1g place. His

very f ootsteps seemed to echo through the earth to her ear.

He was getting closer every day. In her tired half-sleep,

Amertipsut felt like smiling.

Dry and dusty from days of weary travel, Roman stared up

at mountain peaks black against the hot sky. There it was,

the formation from his dream. Suppressing a surge of excite-

58

ment and impatience, he signalled a meal haIt even though it

was only early afternoon. He intended to explore ahead on his

own later, while the others rested after the food.

Watching the cook arrange charcoal, Roman wondered for

the first time what he would find when he reached the dcep

rock chamber. He shrugged the thought away from him and

pictured again the soft face of his slender dark-eyed dream­

woman. She was immediately vivid in his mind's eye: he saw

her standing in a garden, laughing at him. Then she turned

and ran, and he pursued her. Immersed in the game, he did not

notice the man, not until a rough hand caught him by the arm

and swung him around.

The man' s face looked familiar. He was richly dressed in

fine linen, but his brows were clenched across his forehead

and his mouth was set into an angry l ine . The dream-woman

shouted something, clinging ta the st ranger 's arm. Not

understanding her words, Roman watched her face and realized

that she was related to the man, who took no notice of her.

Then more men arrived, running, and caught Roman in a harsh

grip. He stood unresisting, terrified. One of the men moved

behind him and Roman felt a blinding pain in the back of his

head. As he fell, he saw his beloved screaming in the first

man's grasp. On his camp stool, Roman staggered and let out

an involuntary sound. When he looked around, no body seemed to

have noticed. His head was spinnin0 throbbj ng wi th pain.

Unconsciously, Roman reached to rub ~he back of his head, but

when he realized what he was doing he stopped, frowning. What

was he to make of this? His brain was still sore, he could

not think. The sooner he found his beloved, the better.

Amertipsut fel t Romenhep' s emanations flicker as the

ancient memory distressed him, and she roused herself. He was

so close! She tried to project a ~oothing calm directly to

his conscious mind, but did not kno~ if he felt it.

Roman took a deep breath. He felt a little better. He

made a sudden decision: he would not wait for the food. He

(

{

59

gathered sorne digging tools and left without a word, on his

way to look for the underground passage leading to the rock

tomb. Amertipsut was so attuned to him now that she felt his

decision immediately. A rush of passionately erotic feeling,

the first that she had allowed herse If for nearly twenty cen­

turies, enveloped her ln its flame. Romenhep was bounding

impatiently up the mountain. She guided his eyes to the rock

that hid the tunnel entrance, knowing her heart would now be

pounding with joy if it could.

Past the rock and into the tunnel, Arnertipsut traced her

beloved's movements by his impatience. She wanted to gasp.

It seemed to be getting warm in the sarcophagus. Down to the

first false wall came Romenhep. He swung his pick at the

rock. Amertipsut's long-subdued love was like a fever in her

wasted body. She directed the force of her des ire at the

wall, and stone that had stood for more than a thousand years

crumbled helplessly. Romenhep did not even wait for the dust

to settle, but ran into darkness. Amertipsut moved her head

from side to side, feeling as though the walls of her sarco­

phagus were closing in on her. It was definitely gettjng hot

in the tiny space.

Romenhep reached the second false wall and this one

crumbled even as he lifted his pickaxe. Amertipsut had

shattered it with the power of her hunger for him. The third

wall had fallen long ago in an earth tremor, and Amertipsut

knew that now there was nothing to stop her reunion with her

long-lost lover. She felt him getting closer. The vibrations

of his footsteps trembled directly through the ground into her

dr ied-up f lesh, exci ting the very molecules that composed her.

Now Romenhep' s f ingers touched the tar that sealed

Amertipsut in her sarcophagus. He brought out a knife and

began to scrape the tar loose. Every move of his hand was

like a long-desired caress ta Amertipsut. She could almost

feel the heat of his breath on her parchment skin. She would

have cried out had she been capable of making a sound. The

1 60

power of the emotions that swirled through her was like a

solar flare, huge, luminous and irresistibl e. She knew i t

when he threw down the knife. Now! Now! she thought and

abandoned herself to the overwhelming fire of love that surged

in her shrivelled veins, feeling excitement spread from her

belly through her chest and throat, feeling passion release

h8r finally from two thousand years of waiting.

Roman opened the sarcophagus. A gust of scented :;team

bathed him for an instant, condensing like tears on his

cheeks. The sarcophagus was empty.

l Mare Futilitatis

Tragedies and Fates convene on the prehistoric scene

of raging battles, carnal lusts aIl reduced to coloured dusts.

61

l wrote that little verse more than half a century ago, when

l was twenty-two years old, a convalescent at the Asylum. My

name is Mory Radjami. Yes, l know: to you that name has no­

thing to do with poetry. If you remember me at aIl, you will

think of the last rocket-ship Earth ever sent out; or maybe of

the deaths of half the team; or of madness. But you haven't

heard the whole story. Nobody has. There was never much

reason ta tell it before. Now that it looks as though there

may be rocket-ships again, perhaps it will be useful to sorne

of you to know wha t happened to the Decimus expedi tion. So l

will tell you my story now.

Fifty-three years ago, when l was twenty years old, Earth

telescopes spotted a tenth planet in our solar system. You

must try to remember, or imagine, the way t~ings were then.

This was the time of the great eco-disasters, when technology

had run humanity headlong into a de ad end. It was a time of

maddened back-pedalling: any indi viduals, societies, or econo­

mies th dt got in the way were crushed whole.

You can understand that excitement over the discovery of

Decimus was minimal. Few people cared about space just then.

l was one of those few. l was very young, younger in mind

than in years. The thought of actually being part of the last

space exploration mission was a heady one. If anybody men­

tioned that we were only ailowed to go because the money had

already been spent, because rocket fuel doesn't really adapt

to other uses, l didn't he~r them.

My companions are still present in my mind: Hyannis, the

pilot, a taii woman with a quiet voice; ShikaI, the sombre

dark-eyed engineer; and Arno, the biologist, red-haired and

quick-moving, a slender energetic man who owned my heart

62

within minutes of our meeting.

l can see them, the way they look on the first day, when

we discover the sand fields. The multicoloured wastelands

stretch for miles, gently undulating, shimmering in the per­

manent dimness here on Decimus. Four figures stand at the

edge of the painted sand, as if on the shore of sorne dessi­

cated ocean, and stare at i t wordlessly for long minutes.

They are intent perhaps on the play of rose, lavender and pale

chartreuse just before themi or perhaps they watch the slow­

motion roiling of navy bl ue and magenta in tLe distance.

Hyannis speaks f irst. "1 wonder what could have caused

it. The long-range survey didn't show anything that would

account for this kind of colouration."

"Maybe there used to be a city. Of coloured stone ... "

l fall silent under Arno's gaze, though the \Vorst that can be

read there is indulgence. He turns away, squatting to run the

fine powder through his fingers.

There is another pause. Hyannis doodles on her note pad

and ShikaI stares outward like a man in a trance, silent and

motionless.

"Sediments from an ancient sea bottom is more likely, but

we' Il never really know, l guess." Arno sighs, straightening,

and brushes his hands against his thighs. l f eel a sudden

lump in my throat. My eyes itch. There lS something in the

sound of that word "never" that strikes a place in me where l

have no armour.

"Let' s go back to the base," l hear Hyannis murmur.

Perhaps she is aware of me. "We've seen enough for now."

We turn our backs on the polychrome expanse and he ad back

t.oward our camp. Hyannis wa lks in the lead as usua l, her

height exaggerated in this hori zontal country. After her

comes Arno, his red hair glowing like a crown in the mysteri­

ous light. He glances left and right, his movements quick as

the intelligence behind them. ShikaI has not roused from his

brown study. l trail behind, miserable, wondering if l will

."rt

'1.

63

ever become as professional as the others, wondering if l will

ever do any good field work at aIl. Not likely, l think,

since this first trip is also my last. The thought oppresses

me and l wonder why l am on Decimus at aIl.

rIte next day, ShikaI disappears. We do not realize it at

first, not until the shadowy day is almost over, because we

have aIl been exploring the sea of dust separately. But when

the time for rendezvous has corne and gone, and Shikal has not

appeared, we know that something is wrong.

l remain at the base alone, while Hyannis and Arno track

ShikaI. As the daytime twilight deepens toward true night, l

move gradually closer to the single lantern we have afforded

ourselves. l am nodding over my seant y field notes by the

time the others return.

They are moving slowly, and soon l see why. Arno carries

ShikaI on his shoulders, while Hyannis trudges behind, her

tall head hanging. "He's dead," Arno says as l move toward

his burden. We are momentarily immobilized, like figures

caught in a photographe Then Arno puts ShikaI down, and the

photograph becomes reality again.

"Wha t happened?"

"Nothing visible." Hyannis sounds exhausted. "He had

walked quite deep into the sand sea, farther than any of the

rest of us, but there were no other tracks. No signs of

struggle. No wounds, no bruises. Maybe heart failure, l

don't know. He was lying peaeefully, face down in the sand.

He looked... peaceful. Il Hyannis catches herself in the

repetition, turns away with a little shake of the head. She

is the captain, and the 10s5 of one of her team affects her

strongly.

"He didn't have a heart condition. You know how thorough

the health exams were. We' Il have to do an autopsy. .. l gape at Arno. "Can't we just leave that until we get

home?" Then l bite my lips. My voice has become too thin and

high. "The lander only has enough fuel for one trip, Mory.

.. 64

We can't take him up now 1 it would mean not accomplishing any

of our tests, and later ... well, there will be decomposition.

Shikal's body isn't coming back with us."

I know l am being unprofessianal even as l feel my face

burn and my eyes sting. Suddenly l cannot face them, not

Hyannis' wear iness nor Arno' s understanding. l f lee into the

darkness. My tears scald my cheeks.

When l have recovered, l return ta find the grisly work

under way. ShikaI lies naked on a tarp. Arno is cutting his

chest open.

myse1f again,

l want to show them that l have full control of

so l move up beside Arno. In the name of

scientific enquiry, l pay close attention, maintaining my

detachrnent with fierce concentration.

'T'here j s nothing to be seen until Arno sI j ces open a

lung. Then a sheaf of iridescence, mauve, lime, rose, spills

from the deaci man' s chest over Arno' s hands and the tarpaulin.

He starts and draws back with a cry, but quickly masters

himself. "Just sand. This must be it." Arno' s voi ce is

calm, but a little breathless. "The cause of death. He must

have lost consciousness, fallen face-down, and inhaled sand

particles until his 1ungs were full. The particles are 50

small, it wou1d have been just like--like drowning in sand. Il

"Drowning in sand," repeats Hyannis, and now i t is sile

who turns away.

l do not think any of us sleep \'1e11 that night. ShikaI' s

death i5 unfathomable. Our bewilderment hangs over us,

rniasmic, thickening slowly to dread.

By morning we are wordless, dispirited. '1'0 me, the

uncertain daylight now has an eerie quality, exacerbated. by

the pE>rpetual silence. The near-silence, l should say, for at

any quiet moment l think l can just hear the tiny, constant

sound of billions of collisions between grain and grain of

sand, their iridescent patterns shifting incomprehensibly with

every movement of wind.

That day, Hyannis and l explore the coloured sands

( '1

65

together. We make no conversation for haurs. Near noon,

Hyannis makes a sudden noise.

"What is it?" 1 catch up ta her on the crest of a pseudo-

dune. "There, below us--that' s the place we found ShikaI!

Look, there're his tracks."

1 follow her painting arme There is nothing but a fIat

area of azure colour.

"Where? 1 don' t see anythi!1g-- 11

Hyannis makes a sound of pure frustration. "They' re

gone. But 1 saw his tracks, just the way we found them

yesterday, they juste .. stopped. l tell you, l could see them

a second ago."

"A miraqe?"

She turns away with a muttered oath, glances toward the

sun. "We' re not even close to the area whel'e he was. It must

have been a mirage."

ilLet' s stop and have sorne rations, II l suggest diffident­

ly, but Hyannis snorts with mirthless laughter.

lIyou think it might be hallucinations brought on by

hunger, do yau? WeIl, 1 suppose it would do no harrn ta have

a break."

As we eat our protein mash, l wonder about the mirage.

Maybe ShikaI saw something out in the iridescent wastes, too,

sornething that really wasn't there. But that would not have

made hirn faint. 1 shake my head at myself.

"I just keep thinking about ShikaI, Il Hyannis murmurs, and

1 look over at her in surprise, though it is not 50 astonish­

ing that our thoughts should coincide. "1 can't get that

picture out of rny mind: of him lying down quietly and breath­

ing sand in this emptiness, until his lungs filled up and he

just. .. stopped."

1 can think of nothing to say. Hyannis stares out toward

the deeper hues of the far distance, where air currents create

the illusion of movement in the colour masses. Always we have

found that the sand areas are pastel shades where we are,

1 l" ,

while farther away the colours are intense.

about the phenomenon, when Hyannis speaks

absently.

66

l am wondering

again, almost

"He was sti 11 very upset over the death of his w ife. "

"But surely you don' t think--I mean, an experienced

off icer like Shikal would never--there was so much to be donc

here ... " l fall silent, because Hyannis is looking at me wi th

the tolerant scepticism l have come to recognize.

"Was there really? We don' t have half of the equipment

we need. And what does it matter what we find? Who will

care, when we' re back on Earth, what we' ve seen? People at

home are struggling just to keep sorne kind of fingernail grip

on civilization. How can they possibly afford ta care about

our tests, or what results we bring back? No, we're the last

gesture, Mory. And ShikaI knew that, too. Only none of it

bothered him so long as his wife was alive."

"But ... "

"WeIl, never mind that now," she says, getting up and

touching my shoulder. "1 shau ldn' t

anyway, except that mirage thing set

have said anything,

me of f . " She looks

around us. l see her shudder. "1 don' t like this emptiness."

The rest of the day passes without mirages or other

disturbing events. In fact, the whole week is uneventfu 1,

except that little by little our body of notes and observa­

tions grows. Having found nothing in the painted sands, we

concentrate for a while on the tests we must perform. We make

good progress with a whole series of chemicaJ and physical

measurements. And yet ... perhaps i t is a kind 0 boredom, but

there is

the pace

By

nothinq

no

of

the

for

longer any

work slows

middle of

him to do.

energy in our testing procedures, and

daily.

week two, Arno grumbles that there is

Decimus is barren. We do not even

find any fossils for him to theorize about.

For me, the plc:.,et itself has the power of fascination.

The wind and sand song that l hear sometimes fills my mind

J

67

with dreaming, and l find myself starting up in surprise to

find that 1 have been motionless for many minutes. There is

a restfulness in everything, in the subdued sunlight and the

constant movement of air.

aften, 1 find myself imagining the gigantic metropolis of

coloured stone that 1 thought of on my first sight of the

wastelands. It is there in my mind' seye: row upon stately

row of massiv_ buildings, each of a different hue, sorne where

each wall shifts and shimmers with polychromatic effects. In

this vision, the susurrous music of sand does not yet existe

Instead l hear the high piping of wind between shining towers

and around powerful battlements. But no matter how 1 try, 1

cannat see the people who would have lived there. There are

only empty streets and blank buildings, and their bright hues

are a mockery.

Then time seems to compresse 1 watch how the wind,

restless, constant, worries at the stone. Unprotected, the

structures gradually crumble and shrivel, slide as if melting

into the plain. They leave puddles of coloured gravel that

still shift and flow, their tides turning once a millennium,

colour grinding on colour until there is nothing left but the

powdery sand, and the overwhelming sense of a thousand

thousand years of decline and hollowness. From these fancies

l return ta myself to find my face soaked w~th tears.

At the beginning of week three, l discover Byannis at the

edge of the wasteJands.

"What are you doing here alone, Hyannis?"

l' er head turns ta me languidly. For a moment or two 1 am

not sure that she recognizes me at aIl. "Does it matter,

Mory? ~vhere do you suggest l go? There' s nathing here,

nothing for me 1 nothing for any of us. Il Then she looks out,

toward the far distance, where shades of indigo and vermilion

curl shape le ___ ly around each other. Her voice is sa soft that

l barely catch the next words. "That' 5 what' s wai ting for us,

that out there: colour without substance, and aIl of it dead."

... . -"Corne back with me,

series of soil analysis

wi th. "

68

Hyannis. There's--there's anothcr

tests that 1 need you to hclp mc

Hyannis is motionless for so long that l wonder if 1

ought ta repeat myself. ?hen she laughs a very fIat laugh and

gets ta her feet. Neither of us says a word aIl the way back

ta the camp.

The next day, 1 seek out Arno alone.

''l'm worried about Hyannis," 1 tell him. "1 found her at

the edge of the sand sea. She said--she wasn't rnaking much

sense, Arno. Except she said there wasn't enough for her to

do."

Arno sighs. "WeIl, she's right. In fact, none of us

have enough to do. You know, it used to be that on one of

these expedi tions, you never had time to draw breath, let

alone sit around and chew your fingernaiis and get spooked."

He stops abruptly, as if listening to his own words.

"WeIl, don/t worry. l have been thinking about a really

thorough exploration of the sand sea, as far in as we can get.

That should keep us aIl busy."

Arno outlines his plans under the lantern that same

night. l watch his fac:e, glad that he seems unchanged,

relying on him to maintain SJme sense of normality.

Il I want ta map out sorne ,Jf the colour changes in the sand

sea. If we can construct a ~athematical model, it might be

helpful with weather forecasting at home--there's something

similar to the jet stream models l've seen. We'll want ta go

in a straight line as far as we can, rnaking our observations

in detail, every step of the way. We'll probably be able ta

start in a day or two."

Hyannis snorts. III congratulate you on a very ingenious

piece of make-work, Arno."

Arno just looks at her in silence. To my surprise 1 am

the one ta answer.

"If .i. t:.' s make-work i t' s no worse than what we' ve been

t

l

69

doing up until now. And there's always the possibility that

i twill help, back home."

"Oh, l'm not complaining. By aIl means, let's scour the

colour patterns of the wastelands for meaning!"

We set out on schedule. Nobody seems interested in

conversation as we march to the nearest edge of the sand sea.

We carry sleeping bags and rations, and the mapping implem­

ents, but nothing else. There is no weather on this planet,

and we want to travel light 50 as to cover the greatest

territory.

Arno gives us our formation at the edge of the colour

ocean. We are to walk twenty metres apart from each nther.

We will be mapping a corridor sixt Y metres wiàe, advancing to

the limit of our supplies. lt is a peculiar feeling, to be

within sight and sound of two of the others, and yet to walk

alone. The measurements themselves are simple. l estimate

the shape of colour areas, draw them on a grid, note the time,

walk forward a few steps and do it again. After the first

hour, l find the rest of my mind wandering. l catch myself

l istening for the whisper of the sand as i t stirs under the

wind. The near-silence is wearing. l begin to imagine l can

feel the footsteps of my companions in the shifting of the

sand under my own feet.

"Mory!"

l look up to find Arno, who is my neighbour on the left,

in my path. His frown softens as l smile instinctively at

him. "That's it for today, Mory. Don't go to sleep on your

feet." The second day of the mapping begins much like the

f irst. There is a rhythm to my actions like the ceaseless

rhythm of the \vind, like the apparent motion of colour far

ahead of us. By afternoon my head is swimming. l feel just

slightly drunk, just enough to be conscious of a woolliness

behind my eyes.

That 1 s when l hear the scream. .!. ,_ must be Hyannis. l

swing my head towards her position, twenty metres to my right.

r,

.~

70

For a moment I cannot see her, until l realize that she is not

standing any more, but crouches on the sand. Ber head is

thrown back. She is laughing. The hair on my nape riscs at

the sound of that laujhter, high-pitched but without inflect­

ion, like the braying of an animal. l begin to run to her.

Then l see what she is doing and shock halts me.

Hyannis is eating the sand. That braying laughter never

hesitates, though she shovels the powder up to her face with

both hands. Her he ad bobs in a bizarre reverse nod, hanging

back as far as possible before returning to a nearly vertical

position. Sand sprays out behind her with obscene energy.

l run to her, shouting. She takes no notice of me, even

when I come up close. I

blinking as her hands send

her open screaming mouth.

sudden silence l can hear

teeth. Then I am retching

\ see her eyes are open, not even

the grains of colour flying toward

l hit her as hard as l can. In the

my own breath sobbing between my

helplessly beside her.

"Quick, she's still alive. Mory! " Arno shakes me.

Together we return to the prone figure of Hyannis. Arno moves

to give artificial respiration, but stops when he sees that

Hyannis is conscious. Her eyes are hugely open, the irises

tiny compared to the width of white around them.

"Don' t ... bother, Il Hyannis gasps out. "Better ... this way.

Faster. "

Those are her last words, though she is still alive

almost an hour later. The two of us try ta empty her stomach,

but she seems to have no reflexes left beyond breathing, and

even that is irregular and laboured. She does not rega j n

consciousness. "It' s my fault," Arno says dully, rubbing his

face with his hand. "This was a stupid idea. Hyannis was

right. It's pointless."

"Hyannis went crazy," l snap at him. l am afraid, afraid

for him and for myself. Arno is my last connection with calm

professionalism. l cannot allow him to blame himself. He

stares at me for a moment and then closes his eyes.

l

:(

71

l'AU right, Mory. Have it your way. But we'll head back

in the morning."

l chew on my lips, saying nothing. It is aIl ~ can do to

keep from breaking down, for aIl I can see before me is the

hunched figure of Hyannis, her he ad bouncing grotesquely

backwards as she convulsivêly swallows and swallows.

We say nothing further. We don't even unroll our

sleeping bags, or set up our portable lamp, or correlate our

day' s work; we simply let the darkness cover us. l fall

asleep without knowing it, do not know it in fact until l open

my eyes again to stars.

Disoriented, l look around for my sleeping bag, when I

hear the noise again. I must have heard it in my sleep. Now

it brings me to full wakefulness in an instant: it is the soft

sound, felt more than heard, of a footfall in the sand.

l start up wildly, straining my eyes in the star-glimmer.

Something is sneaking up on us, defenceless with grief as we

are. In that second, I imagine demons of the painted desert,

more terrible even than the sights I have seen by day. But my

eyes light on a slender shape moving away from our huddle.

"Arno! Wait," l whisper. I leap to my feet and follow him.

He is already sorne distance from me. While I have been

disoriented, he has been hurrying away. I begin to run after

him. Somehow, he hears me, for I see him turne By sorne stray

angle of light, I see the expression on his face, and it is in

its own way as shocking as Hyannis's was earlier.

"Arno!" l calI to him, but at the sound, Arno spins

around and bolts away toward the depths of the sand ocean. I

pursue him, bul he has a head start and he runs much faster.

I do ot know how long I run, but my breath seems to have been

burning in my lungs for an et~Lnity. My legs give out and I

drop to my knees in the sand, gasping. There is no sign of

Arno anywhere.

I feel it then, as the others must have felt it. More

than a nightmare, the sudden desolation surrounds me, seeping

72

into my being from aIl points of the compass. The ~ultico­

loured wastelands are the home of despair.

There is nothing worth living for, no strength of soul

that is great enough to encompass the emptiness of my life.

Stretching out on every side of me, l can feel the endless,

meaningless sand. The beauty of its colouring is only a cruel

joke, cruel as the illusions of love and purpose in which T

try ta clothe my life. Hyannis was right, there is nothi.g

for us here, nor anywhere. There cannat possibly be any

meaning in the life of a creature like me, my actions ineff­

ectual, my body puny, my motives transparent, my pleasures

puerile, my endeavours pointless. And even my species,

moribund. My mind shakes under the conviction of futility.

A wild sobbing reaches my ears. l catch my breath, but

it is not my own noise. Something else is oue there. l

remember vaguely, someone, a friend. In trouble, perhaps. l

try to think, and the waves of despair recede slightly. Arno!

l look around and see him, crouched on the sand like Hyannis.

No! He is not grotesque, he is just crying, huddled on his

knees, with his face in his hands. l go ta him, but there is

nothing to be done, except ta hold him. l do that, lifting

him from the sand and waiting for his sobs to cease. When

morning cornes, we are still clinging to each other in the

age-old manner of primates in distress. Arno' s eyes are

closed, but when l stir he opens them. They are very quiet,

those eyes, washed out.

The trip back from the painted sands passes in a blur.

l do not know how many days are required, nor by what paths we

go. Arno leans on me, and once l hold him again while he

weeps inconsolably.

l do not feel the despair any more, in fact l do not teel

much of anything, except a dull determination ta reach the

base camp. But once we are there, it is no better. l feel no

sense of achievement. Nevertheless, we pack away aIl the sup­

plies and notes and test results we have bought sa dearly.

73

Arno is silent throughout. l try not to think, doing only

what is required to get ready for the return.

I don't know how lt was that I survived. Sometimes l

think it must have been my very youth and inexperience that

saved me, kept me from knowing that it would be easier to give

up. Arno did not die. He did not die, but he didn't really

survive, either: Decimus changed him beyond returning.

And l still do not know whether it was something in the

wastelands that unhinged us, or whether we simply succurnbed ta

something we had brought with us in our own hearts.

74

The spirit of the Mountain

Barbie stood on a minor rock formation above the camp, hug­

ging herself. 1t was almost sunset, and at these altitudes,

evenings were chilly. The wind tugged at loose strands of her

hair and made her squint as she surveyed the crimped valleys

below. The Nepalese air seemed more transparent than the air

she was used to at home. Perhaps it was just less polluted,

she thought. Or perhaps Father was right, and there was il

spirit in the mountain, guarding it from aIl contagion.

Barbie picked up a pebble and flipped it casually over

the drop. Watching it fall, she looked straight down. The

peaks and valleys seemed to invert themselves. Ber head

whirled. She stumbled, turning away from the edge. Taking

deep breaths, she fought down the dizziness until she could

make her way cautiously back to the campsite.

Father was there. Barbie did not look into his eyes, but

he called her to him. still careful, Barbie made her way over

to stand before him. His voice was unexpectedly gentle. "What

happened to you just now?"

"I-1 guess it was vertigo."

"Vertigo." Barbie could fee l Father' s gaze on her. She

felt sure he would accuse her of hiding things from him, as he

had been doing this last year 1 ever since she had left for

college. But he looked away, and said, still in that unex­

pected tone, "WeIl, it'll probably go away. 1t's not a very

tall mountain."

She nodded, and he turned back to preparing their supper.

Father had said that he would do the cooking on this trip,

that i t would be j ust l ike old times. These days Barbie

hardly ever thought of the old times, when she and Father had

been so close.

The past few months at school had been exciting. It was

exhilarating to be on her own. She suppressed the thought

quickly. For now she was with Father, and while she was with

Father, she must ~hink of him.

75

After dinner, Father fixed his eyes seriously on her

again. Barbie shifted on her sleeping bag, glancing from the

fire to Father's face and away again.

"Bharasattva," said Father, and Barbie flinched at the

use of her full name. "1 just want to be sure that you are

approaching this coming test il'"' the right frame af mind. Il

Pather paused. Barble risked a glance at his face. He

was staring into the fire, his eyes hidden in shadow. His

features looked as unyielding as the rocks surroUllding them.

"You will need to have a purified mind, free of worldly

thoughts and desires, if you are ta be visited by the spirit

of the rnountain. Il

Barbie sighed involuntarily and immediately tensed in

guil t. Father was staring at her, but instead of the expected

outburst, he rnerely shook his head.

"You know this J.S important ta me, don/t yau?"

"Yes, Pather. Il

"You know that rny first visit to this mountain changed my

life?"

"Yes, Pather."

"You know that you bear the name of this mountain as a

tribute to the power of the spirit that lives here?"

"Yes, Father. 1I

"WeIl, then. You know l 'm taking you up to the shrine so

that you can experience it too. And when the spirit cornes to

you, l will feel it again. You are my link, Bhar. You were

always rneant to come here sorne day. But i t' s absolutely vital

that you set aside aIl thoughts of ordinary life, aIl desires,

anything that rnight be impure. Il Father kept his heavy gaze on

her. Barbie slowly hung her head.

"Yes, Pather, Il said Barbie. Her voice was very faint.

Il And rernernber: this is a dangerous, powerful, magical

place. Especially for you. You are named for the mountain.

You share in its identity. You have to be worthy of it. And

you can only be worthy if you are free of impurities of soul."

76

"Yes, Father." Barbie seemed to have too Iittle breath to

do more than move her lips. Father merely grunted. Neither

spoke again. They started hiking early the next morning. The

path they followed was not very steep, but it was treacherous,

with rocks and small boulders that cou Id turn under an unwary

foot. Barbie found herself planning each step carefully. By

lunchtime her thighs ached, and the straps of her knapsack

were cutting into her shoulders.

"We've done weIl, Bhar," Father said, shrugging out of

his backpack. "We' Il rest here for a whiIe."

Freed of her pack, Barbie wandered up the trail ahead.

There was a little bit of wind, only enough to make her aware

of the majestic silence of the mountains aro~nd her. The sun

was warm on her aching shoulders, but the air was cool. She

took a few deep breaths, aware of an elusive tang in the air,

something clean and sharp that she thought she could almost

recognize.

"BeautifuI, isn't it?"

Barbie started. Father had followed her.

behind her, looking around with a reverential air.

He stood

"Look at it, Bhar. Do you feel it? There' s something

incredibly holy here, something 50 far removed from our daily

li ves that i t' s another world entirely." Father looked at

her. His voice became soft and caressing, as if Barbie were

a child again. "This is what l named you for. This is where

you belong. This mountain is your soul, Bhar. Nothing coarse

and worldly can touch you here. On this mountain, you and l

are together, where we were always meant ta be. Approach it

with respect. Approach it with love. It will be worth it, 1

promise you."

Barbie smiled at Father. He smiled back and hugged her.

"We'll rest here for a while. l 'm just going up the trail a

little bit, and then l'Il come back for you."

Barbie nodded. Left to herself, she found a sheltered

place to sit, with her back against a sun-warmed rock. lt

77

really was beautiful here, as Father said. She took another

deep breath, leaning her heaà on the rock behind her.

here she could see ~ long way.

From

Barbie' s eyes followed the downward convolutions of a

road and without warning her stomach turned over. Dizziness

overwhelmed her like a wave. She bent forward, gagging and

retching. Her head swam. She fel t herself falling. We­

ightless but swift, she plummeted through a kaleidoscopic

emptiness that flashed through the spectrum to a vast black

gulf against which she pointlessly closed her eyes. Closed

eyes f el t better.

Darkness, Barbie thought, and suddenly remembered. She

had often fallen before. It was a memory from childhood: of

faIIing every night in her dreams. She fell because she was

too srnall and weak to cling to the high rock faces. The wind

howled out her true name 1 caught her like a dandelion seed and

threw her into the void.

There was a way to stop the fall. She remembered it

through her nausea. Instincti vely she began to expel the

lightness that threatened her. She had learned i t a dozen

years before 1 how you could breathe out the danqerous airy

feeling. with every new inhalation you could take on weight

instead of air. You could press the weight through your lungs

into your arms and legs, pack i t into your belly and chest and

finally into your throat and head. Then you were heavy,

anchored, safe.

Barbie crouched on the rock with her eyes closed, feeling

her way back. She was aware of the touch of wind--not

dangerous now that she had taken on ballast--and the cold

metallic smell of the rock near her face. She opened her eyes

by degrees.

"Bhar!" Father was standing over her. He was trembling.

His words stumbled over themsel ves. "You cried out. What was

it, Bhar? \\'hat '.vas it like?"

"It ... " Barbie found that it was impossible to explain

78

her childhood nightmare to Father through the weight that

filled her head. "1 was dizzy."

"Dizzy?" Father's face fell into lines of disappointm­

ente "You had no sense of a presence? No feeling that

something was with you, guiding your vision, shaping your

thoughts?"

"No, Father. l was just dizzy."

"WeIl. " Father turned away from her. He muttered, "Tt

shows you're sensitive to the power, anyway. We'll see whcn

we get ta the shrine." He turned back, offered her his hand.

"Let' s go on, then. The trail is pretty easy here."

Barbie straightened herself ponderously. She kept her

eyes carefully away from the vistas of empty space aIl around

her. She followed Father wordlessly, placing her leaden fect

gently on the fragile mountainside.

In their camp that night, Father studied his topographi­

cal map. "Even with that long break this afternoon, we've

done better thèn l expected. We should be at the shr ine

sometime on the day after tomorrow. Then l' ll--we' :.~ l1ave

what we carne here for."

Barbie just nodded. Her feeling of heaviness had finally

dissipated, but she was exhausted. And there was a soft but

persistent buzzing in her ears. She could not tell if it was

just another effect of her vertigo, or an actual noise just

within the threshold ot hearing. She could not summon the

energy to tell Father about it.

In the morning, Barbie forgot her malaise. 'l'he apparent­

ly mild slope of the pa th was deceptive. Barbie could feel

their increased altitude by the thinness of the air. The wind

had a new, booming note as it flowed down the trail to meet

thern. The way was steeper now. They travelled between huge

boulders, where the sun had no chance to reach them. Larbie

found herself chilled, despite the effort of climbing.

Father noticed her shivering at their lunch break.

"Would you like me to make you sorne tea, Bharasattva? We

... . j '4.

79

probably have enough time, even though we're a little behind

schedule for today."

"No, thank you, Father," said Barbie. She knew Father

was eager ta move on.

But as the climb continued, Barbie found herself weakeni­

ng. The air was too thin for her straining lungs. She could

hear the buzzing sound again, under the booming voice of the

wind. She kept her eyes on the ground, afraid that vertigo

would affect her again. She began to lag behind Father.

It was not long before he noticed her.

j t? Do you feel something?"

"Bhar, what is

"1-1 don't know, Father. l feel so tired."

"Tlred?H Father's eyebrows drew together in a frown.

"Are you sure that's aIl it is, Bharasattva? You wouldn't be

ly ing to me / here in this holy place?"

"No, Father."

"Hm. WeIl, aIl r ight. We' Il take a short break." Ten

mi nutes later, Father was pulling Barbie te her feet. "Corne

on," he said. "We'll go slowly. You can do it, can't you?"

Barbie nodded, followi ng him with her head hanging. The

buzzing in her ears was gro' Ing louder. She wondered if the

wind was picking up. She seemed to feel gusts pluc~ing and

tugging at her, now this way, now that. Father stopped again.

"What is it, Bhêtr?" His voice held both impatience and

hope. "Tell me exact.ly what you feel."

"1 feel sick," Barbie whispered, too weak to dissemble.

"l' m cold. And the wind 1s blowing at me. I can hear i t

buzzing at me."

"Buzzing at you? Barbie, that may be the spirit voice!

Don't fight it. Let it speak to you."

"1 can/t. It's the wind. It's 1..00 strong. It's going

to pick me up and throw me over. l'Il fall!"

"Fall! Bharasattva! You won't fall. The spirit will

protect you. You can't come to any harm here, this is your

home. This is where you belong. You have the right to be

-

80

here. Don' t be afraid! Il

"1 am afraid. l'm afraid. 1'11 fall, it'll push me ovcr

and l'Il fall."

Father took Barbie by the shoulders in a hard grip. His

eyes narrowed. "Stupid girl! l tell you, you've got nothing

to be afraid of! Il Barbie whimpered. Father stared at her,

but she could not meet his eyes. "Liar!" Father pushed

Barbie away from him. She fell to the ground. "If you wcrc

worthy of the spirit, you wouldn't be afraid. If you werc

pure, you wouldn't be feeling sick now. If you were honest,

you would be happy here. But you aren' t, are you?"

"Yes, l am, Father. Oh, please. Don' t be angry. l' m

aIl right, really l am." Barbie's mouth was dry. Fathcr's

rages were more frightening than any vertigo. "lt' s j ust the

altitude. l'm not afraid. See," Barbie s"3.id, pulling hersclf

ta her feet, ''l'm fine. l can go on. l' 11 be even better to­

morrow. l'Il be better when we get ta the shrine."

Father hesitated. His face was still clouded, his gazc

heavy with suspicion. "AlI right. We'll just have to sec.

It's possible that the spirit will help you at the shrine.

Just don't imagine you can fool the spirit about your ~orn­

mitment. "

"No, Father. l' m sure l'Il be fine when we get there."

The rest of the day was a dark, helpless interval [or

Barbie. ~he gasped for air and stumbled in Father' s wake

without thought, almost without consciousness. She shlvered

through the evening meal and into her sleeping bag. She was

unable to shake off 11er awareness of the wind, unable ta

overcome the fear of losing her balance.

The morning was little better. Breakfast passed without

conversation. Father seemed ta be preoccupied with his own

thoughts. Barbie concentrated on 2voiding nausea.

The beauty of the mountain had become irrelevant to

Barbie. She moved along the trail without lifting her eyes

from her f eet . Father was ahead. She must follow him,

.. ----.

81

balancing herself in this high, dangerous place, and most of

aIl, she must not reveal any weakness. Barbie s\",allowed

repeatedly. Her mou th was dry and her stomach uneasy. She

did not notice right away when Father stopped.

"Barbie."

She looked up, feeling as though her head was dangerously

loose on her neck. Father was frowning, but Barbie felt too

sick to wonder why, or to try to anticipate his words.

"I have been thinking, girl. It's clear to me that l

cannot expect the spir i t to come to you in your present

condi tion. You are not worthy. This sickness is a symptom."

"Then ... we' re going home? Il

"Home? What good would that do? No. We' Il go to the

shrine as planned. There l will ask the spirit to purify you,

to cast out whatever thoughts and desires it is that you've

absorbed out there at that school, the things that are

blocking you from experiencing the spirit. l just wanted to

tell you, Bharasattva: once you are purified, l intend to keep

you with me always, 50 that l can see to it that you never

fall into error again."

Father embraced Barbie gruffly. She responded dazedly.

"Now, l don' t want you ta worry about anything.

your father, and l will tal<:e care of you. Always. "

l am

with that, Father released her and set off again. Barbie

shook her head a li ttle. The buz z ing, whether of wind or

vertigo, was back. She moved to follow Father.

With the first step she took, Barbie felt the wind coming

to meet her. She tried ta close her eyes against the pressure

that was forcing her off balance. It was no good. Whatever

she did, she could feel the trail tilting beneath her feet.

It tippea her over, tossed her into the air. The wind boomed

around her in triumph. She could feel herself spinning,

weightless, helpless, falling.

Bar bic gasped for air. She thought she could hear a

voice on the wind, calling her by her long name. It was

"

1 'f 1

" , \ . ~,

~ , " !,

à

82

impossible to respond. She had to stop her tumbling descent.

She had to take on weight. Barbie breathed as she had taught

herself to breathe, trying to ~nchor herself. The air evaded

her. It was too thin. She wouid never be able to convert it

into the weight that would save her. Her lungs heaved. The

wind roared triumphantly in her ears.

Barbie tried ta curl herself into a baIl. 'l'here was a

sharp pain in her shins. She had made contact with something

solid and gasped with the shock. Air came into her lungsi it

seemed more tangible now. She caught at it, her mouth wide

open. There was a rhythm she could follow. Every breath

had to be hoarded, held as long as possible, until it gave up

its weight ta her body. Then the lightness could be expelled

and another breath taken. Barbie worked hard. Slowly she

feit her spinning lessen. Little by little, her body bccamc

more real ta her. She concentrated on forcing the weight into

her arms and legs, feeling them solidify 1 lose their dangerous

pliability. More weight!

Barbie breathed. There was no reality outsidc her

effort. Her lungs were the centre of the universe, their

movement her saivation. Barbie thought of the weight she was

packing into her abdomen and her head. She was thorough:

f irst she had anchored her extremi t ies, as sol idly as she

could. Now it was her head and stomach. The wind still

ru shed around her ears. She needed more wcight.

Her he ad was heavy. She was feeling drowsy. But she

must not stop. The wind might yet claim her, if she stopped.

Barb~ packed more weight into her belly, began to weigh down

the spaces of her chest. It was getting hard to breathe. lIer

Iungs were cramped. Her heart Iaboured. But the power of the

wind must be counteracted.

Barbie took another breath, then another. Her breathing

was slower now. It was hard to keep her lungs working against

the immense weight of her chest. She felt as though a huge

boulder sat on her heart. No, a mountain. Barbie gasped.

83

Her throat seerned blocked. There was no more room in her body

for the weight she needed. Her face worked, her lips writhing

to capture another tiny bit of anchor ing mass. Rer heart

stumbled and raced, stumbled 27ain.

Barbie tried to stretch h~r lungs still more. It was

impossible. There was not enough weight on the whole moun­

tainside to rescue her. She gasped again, but it was no use.

She could not save herself. For a last instant, Barbie tried

for breath. Then she felt her heart collapsing. The weight

of her own body fell inward. Barbie cried out once. Then her

lungs emptied forever.

.,..

84

The Woman He Loved

Edward Fletcher was once a good fr iend of mine. \<Je do not sec

much of each other any more, but l have no way of know i ng

whether that is merely an accident of circumstance, or whether

it is the result of the events of last year.

l had been wandering through Europe aIl that long summcr,

self-indulgently alone. l enjoy the continent perhaps more

than most people in these modern philistine days: l likc ta

think my travels are more like those of Keats than of the

modern camera-slinging touriste (1 abhor the who1e tourist

phenomenon; but that is irrelevant right now.)

l had 1eft the we1l-travelled routes to wander into the

murky backwaters of little villages, possessed by the melan­

choly feeling that the September warmth and sunlight had

become thin and fragile, like a glaze on the surface of the

cold and darkness to come. Otherwise 1 might neVE:r have found

Edward at aIl, secluding himself as he was in the nondescript

tavern of a nameless town.

l hardly recognized my friend. The sanguine complexion,

l remembered, the bright laughter and upright posture had aIl

disappeared. This Edward was haggard, thin, wi th shadowy

cheeks and shoulders bowed by a weight that seemed more than

physical. He must have seen my reaction in rny face, for he

smiled a twisted smile.

"Don't like what you see, Charles? WeIl, it's too bad

you had to find me. A couple of days later and it would've

been too late al together. still, i t' s not important nov/. Il

"For Heaven' s sake, Edward!" l was profoundly disturbcd

by his macking, self-pitying tone, so unlike the cheerfu l,

straightfarward young man l knew. "What happened ta you? Il

He gave a short laugh and then fixed me with a long look

whose thoughtful and sombre nature made me catch my breath in

sudden wonder. There was something in his face at that moment

that might almost have been suspicion.

"Edward! What's wrong with you?"

y

85

The intractable look faded from his features but he

dropped his head into his hands and began to sob. l was

helpless to do more than offer him my handkerchief.

''l'm sorry. Sorry, old friend. l seem to be losing my

mind. Or maybe r've already lost it, r don't know. r just

don' t know what to think about anythin':;i - -anyone--any more."

"My dear Edward ... " r stopped. He seemed in such

distress that r gripped his shoulder, unable to think of

soothing words. Presently he sighed and this time his smile,

though weary and sad, showed a little genuine warmth.

"It' s good to see you 1 even now, even if i t means you

have to see me like this: used up, helpless and completely de­

stroyed-- "

"Oh, stop moaning," l retorted, more sharply than l

meant, for r was frightened. HTell me what you have done or

had done to you that has made you like this!"

The rough words seemed to do more for his composure than

gentleness would have. Edward 1 s face became quiet and he made

a determined effort at calmness.

"If you really want the story, r' 11 tell you everything.

Only promise to listen to the whole thing before judging me."

This was a promise easily givenj but more reassurances

and encouragement were necessary before Edward took a deep

breath and began his story.

"1 don' t really remember when things began to go bad.

There was always something about the situation, r suppose, but

at f irst r paid no attention."

"The situation?"

"You don' t know? Oh. Of course, you don 1 t. WeIl. .• l

fell in love." Edward' s face was curiously devoid of express­

ion as he made this confession. "Her name was Camilla. She

was beautiful: blonde and fragile, graceful, delicate ... "

His eyes were fixed on mine, but r was sure that he was

seeing another face entirely.

"We met at a party," he went on. "rt was ... entrancing.

l

.,

86

She was so beautiful, like fine porcelain, all white and go Id .

l could hardly believe i t. Such perfection! And then, thcre

was her handicap."

"Handicap? Il

"Oh, nothing serious. A slight limp. At the time, l

thought it just added to her beauty: she was 50 reticent about

i t. l thought she was being brave. Hah! "

"She wasn't brave?"

Edward looked at me as if startled. "WeIl," he mumbled,

IImaybe she was, at that. l tell yoa, l don't know what to

think any more, l just don't know, 50 many things have hap­

pened, so many things l don't understand. How could she have

said she loved me and yet not told me the most important

things about her life?1I

Edward was obviously in an extremely fragile state of

mind. As gently as l could, l asked, IIWhat was i t she kcpt

from yoU?1I

"h7hat did she tell me, you mean. Nothing, that' s what.

Nothing about her sister Morag, nothing about their past,

nothing important. Nothing at all!"

"\oJhat about her sister? Il

"Morag? Welle Il He looked at me distantly, obviously

thinking of the pasto "You have to know what it was like with

me and Camilla ta understand the effect Morag had on me. You

see, l loved Camilla because she needed me. Because she was

50 fragile. l knew l could help her, protect her, make her

life easy. l wanted to save her. Il

"Save her? From what?"

"From Morag," Edward said, lapsing into bitter laughter.

IIGod help me, l wanted to save her from Morag! What a fool l

was!1I

"Get hold of yourself, man! 'Iry to tell me what you mean

without talking in riddles."

"Riddles ... well, aIl right. There l was, in love with

Camilla. No, l adored her. She was 50 quiet, almost passive,

87

such a delica te creature. Everything we did together was do ne

slowly, ge0tly. She would walk with me, leaning on my arm,

watching my face with those incredible eyes ... hanging on my

words ... l te Il you, Char les, l' ve never seen a woman sa

trusting, sa gentle, Sa ... extraordinarily alluring."

Edward sighed at his reminiscences. l wai ted and

presently he continued without prompting.

"And then there was Morag." Edward's whoJ.e attitude

darkened at the mention of this name: his eyelids drooped and

his shoulders hunched defensi vely. "Camilla' s sister seemed

her opposite in every way. Where Camilla was fair, gentle,

silent, Morag was d~rk, hard, quick-tempered and mocking. The

way her black eyes glittered when she looked at me! She

called me Camilla's pet, made fun of me every chance she got.

Always walking around in a black dress, grim, tightfaced arro­

gant bitch! She had only one talent, and that was playing the

viol in. "

Edward shuddered. "Wbenl';-,,<:::~ l came to see Camilla, there

would be Morag, staring at me. Or else she was in the next

room, playing that ghastly instrument. And always playing

sornething gloomy and oppressive, until l b~gan ta hate the

sound of it. That was when l first began ta notice the little

things.

"Camilla was unhappy.

me, or anything like that.

Not that she ever complained to

But l could tell. It was in the

way she would look at me sornetimes, smiling her sad smile. l

noticed that when she was out with me, she would walk more

firmly and get a pink healthy glow in her cheeks. l was doing

her good, l knew it. Yet when we came back to the house,

Carnilla's cheeks were always pale. l remember once, after a

particularly good day, we opened the door of the house ta hcar

sorne cold dark piece of music from the violin.

"'Morag's home,' said Camillë. Charles, she sounded 50

tired, 50 forlorn. l thought my heart would melt. She turned

to go in. Right on the threshold, she tripped 50 that l had

1 88

to catch her to keep her from falling.

"'Are you aIl right?' l asked her, but she just smiled

and said goodnight. l still remember the sweetness of thùt

smile. "WeIl, never mind that right now. l just mean to tell

you that l could see that Camilla did not belong in thùl

dismal house. When she was there she never smiled, and talkcd

even less than usual. And then there was Morag, hanging over

her like an evil spirit. Any excitement, any spirit of fun,

any energy that Camilla might have developed couldn' t possibly

survive beside that--that vengeful monster."

"Monster?" l was startled into asking.

wasn't that bad?"

"Surely shc

"Bad?" said Edward, looking at me strangely. "WeIl,

there was a time when l would've sworn to you that Morag wùs

downright evil. Right now l hardly know what to think--of

ei ther of them. Maybe you' Il be able to tell when you' ve

heard it aIl." "AlI right. What happened next?"

"Well ... l asked Camilla to marry me."

"Ah. And?"

"This is another of the strange things. When l said it,

Camilla. .. WeIl, she actually flinched!

"'No!' she said. 'You don/t know what you're saying. l

could never leave Morag.'

l''camilla!' l said. l guess she thought she'd hurt my

feelings. She put her soft little hand on my arme

l''Please, Edward. l'm sorry if l was rude.

is, l could never marry anyone.'

rfhc truth

"oid l imagine the note of wistfulness in her voiee? l

can't remember now, but at the time l thought it was there.

lt gave me hope.

l''But Camilla, you know you aren't happy living with

Morag. She's so different from you--so hard and bitter.'

'''If she is, it's probably my own fauIt.'

l''Your fault! How could it be?'

l''Oh, Edward. You don't understand about Morag and me.

) •

..

89

l' ve been ... weIl, very bad to her for a very long time. l 've

only been starting to realize how bad. l can't possibly

leave, except ... if she forgives me.'

'" Forgi ves you? My God, for what?'

'''WeIl,' said Camilla, looking away from me, '''l've made

myself a burden to her al! these years.'

"1 remember sr'uttering with indignation. lt was

atrocious! Beautifu.l., gentle, loving Camilla, believing she

was a terrible burden on that moody, graceless sister. And

why? Only because of the limp. Such a minor thing! And of

course, l loved her that much more for her extreme sensitivi­

ty. Hers was an old-fashioned sense of honour, 1 thought.

"But l decided i t would be best to bide my time. Sooner

or later, Camilla would realize how much easier, how much more

pleasant it would be to live with me than with Morag. l'd win

her over in the end.

"We didn' t talk about marriage (or Morag) again. l kept

coming to the house. Camilla always seemed glad to see me .

She was qui te li vely, for her, laughing a lot. l told myself

it was because of me. Maybe it was.

"Then Morag went away. She was performing in sorne summer

festival. l certainly didn't mind. l made it my job to

ent.ertain Camilla. That was the happiest time of aIl, for me.

We were together constantly. Camilla seemed to be getting

stronger and more relaxed every day.

"But it didn't last long. A few weeks in the hejght of

the summer, that's aIl. We were sitting in the garden,

reading, when Morag came storming back. We heard her rampage

through the house, and then she was r ight there in the garden.

"She gave me a stony look. She was panting a little,

either wi th rage or from her hurrying. Her normally pale

cheeks were flushed.

'" 1 have to speak to Camilla, Edward. Alone. '

'''Morag!' Camilla's protest was feeble .

"Morag didn' t look at her sister. 'Please go,' she said

1 90

ta me. l looked at Camilla, who shrugged ruefully.

"' l' 11 come and see you tomorrow,' l told her 1 and left.

You can't imagine how many times since then l've wished ~hat

l'd stayed to protect Camilla!

"When l returned the following day 1 everything WdS

different. Morag was out of sight, but she made her presence

fel t: the whole house vibrated to the sound of her viol in. It

was sorne sort of lament that she was playing, or a dirgc.

\'lhatever 1 i t was slow, brooding music 1 seeping down the stairs

from Morag's room, flowing around

together in the living room.

camilla and me where we sat

IICamilla looked pale and exhausted. Ber eyes were

red-rimmed. l knew she must have been crying.

'''What's wrong, darling? What's that harpy done to you

now? '

"camilla just shook her head wearily.

not her fault, it' s my own.'

1 Nothing. It's

"1 didn't say a r , ching, but it wasn't

absolutely certa~n that Morag was to blame.

easy. J was

W i th the moody

sound of her violin rising around us like a tide, it was hard

to believe anything else.

'''Edward, l'm sorry,' Camilla said, 'but l can hardly

keep rny eyes open. Could you come back tomorrow?'

"'Are you sure you'll be all right here?'

"Camilla looked at me oddly. 'Of course.'

" 'Morag won' t bother you?'

'''Don't be silly,' Camilla said with rare impatience.

'Morag' s harmless. l'Il see you tomorrow. '"

Here Edward sighed heavily and rubbed his forehead. His

voice was growing ragged, whether from emotion or simple

weariness 1 l could not tell. Presently he continued his

recital in a tone of subdued intensity.

"That was the last time l saw Camilla rational. l went

home, but l was worried. l made l'P rny mind that the next day

l would insist on taking Camilla away from Morag' s house. In

91

the meantime there was nothing to be done. l shut myself up

with my books for the rest of that day, but l must have spent

more time thinking about Camilla than l did reading. l kept

thinking about how pale, how worn she had looked. It was im­

possible not ta associate Camilla's distress with Morag. If

only that harridan hadn' t come back! Why had she come back,

and in such a hurry, tao? Camilla hadn't explained anything

to me. l had no idea how the scene in the garden had ended.

"These thoughts were very disturbing. What could Morag tlave

said or done that would affect Camilla sa extremely? l

thought of the dark sister, with her malicious grin and ha rd

glittering eyes.

"1 began ta pace up and down my room. It was getting

late, tao late to calI my beloved. l'd been sa absorbed in my

worries that l hadn't even eaten, and here it was after

midnight. Better to go ta sleep now, l thought.

"But l couldn't sleep. Every time l closed my eyes, aIl

l could see was Camilla's face, pale as milk, with dark sha­

dows in her cheeks. l got up again, trying to think. She had

been exhausted when l Sc ...... her--surely no more than that? Just

Morag's usual effect on her, wasn'l it?

subdued in the presence of her sister.

But l could not convince myself.

Camilla was always

No more than that.

"1 kept remembering the hostile stare Morag had turned on

me before she sent me away. There was no telling what Morag

might do. with a chilI, l remembered the powerful music that

had surrounded me that morning. There was something eerie

about the gloomy phrases Morag had played, something threaten­

ing and unwholesome. l could almost hear her play ing now. l

shivered. l imagined the sound of the viol in swirling through

the house, oozing beneath Camilla's bolted door, waking her

from healthy sleep. In my mind' seye l saw Camilla tossing in

hel: bed, tormented by the unrelenting, wailing strings.

Morag' s influence was inescapable. Camilla could have no

defense against her.

"f " -..

92

"Before l knew l' d made a decision, l found myself on the

strE:!et. l had to get to my beloved. There were no cabs, and

you know l have no car. l began to hurry along on foot. It

was imperative to be sure that Camilla was aIl right. Iran,

but as l ran, l could hear the slow dirge of Morag's violine

lt flowed around me, plucking at me until l would find my

footsteps keeping time to i t. Then l would swear out loud and

wrench my thoughts away, hurry on faster for a little while

until the melody caught me up in i ts ponderous tide again.

"By the time l came to Carnilla's my nerves were screami­

ng. l was in ~n anguish of anxiety. The nightmare race to

get to her had made me half-mad.

"lt was Morag who opened the door to me. She looked as

if she might spi t at me in her fury.

'''What do you think you're doing, ringing like that?

Don't you know your precious Camilla's sick and needs aIl the

sleep she can get?'

'''Sick!' l shoved past Morag and bounded upstairs, my

worst fears goading me. How could l have been stupid enough

to leave my beloved alone wi th Morag?

"The sight of Camilla stopped me. She was as pale as the

sheets of her bed and her eyes were unnaturally brilliant. l

could see the outlines of the skull beneath her face. She

looked r ight through me.

"'Camilla,' l whispered. She just closed her eyes.

"'Now will you get out of here and let me take care of

her?' "1 whirled on Morag. 'Take care of her? You? You're

the one who probably made her sick in the first place! Don't

think l don' t know how j ealous of her you are, how much you

hate her for being beautiful and sweet and lovable. For aIl

l know, you' ve been feeding her poison. She' s always upset

when you' re around.'

"for the f irst time l saw Morag chr....,wn off balance. She

blushed an ugly shade of red and then turned very pale.

'''Oh, yes, feeding her poison, indeed! If you only knew the

1 93

poison she's been feeding me over the years! But you look and

you see only pretty fragile little Ca!1lilla. You can' t possib­

ly imag .ine how hideous she really is under all that sweetness.

She's ruined my life, your precious Camilla, and l hope she

'Luins yours tao, you pour blind idiot.'

"Morag ran out of the room, her hand rubbing at her eyes.

l forgot her immediately. Camilla was lying so quietly that

for a moment my heart stopped beating. Then l saw the

movement of her breathing and relaxed a little.

"Getting Camilla out of Morag' s reach was the most

important thing. And she looked very bad. A hospi ta l, then:

that would be best. l was rattled. l didn't think of calling

for an ambulance. Instead l drcpped the contents of Camilla' s

night-gown drawer into a sui tcase. Then l coaxed her down the

stairs and out into the street. She seemed awake, though she

still didn't recognize me. She le:::med on me heavily, her limp

very pronounced.

"I was terrified for my Camilla. l didn't know what to

make of her condition. l thought she must be delirious, or

else she would've known me. 1 was sure l was rescuing her

fram God knows what fate at Morag' s hands. What a fool!

"When l brought her to the hcspital, the staff were

furious. Why hadn't l called a cab, at least, if not an

ambulance? What did 1 think l was doing, making a feverish

woman walk three miles in the hllddle of the night? l hardly

noticed their reproaches. 1 had brought my beloved safely

away from Morag. That was the on1y thing l could think of.

It was aIl l could do to stagger over ta a wai ting room chair

before l fell into an exhausted sleep."

Edward's eyes looked sunken in his head. He rubbed his

palm across the stubble that shadowed his jaw. His voice

became even huskier.

"They wc'ke me up to tell me Camilla was dead."

l made an involuntary exclamation. Edward seemed not to

notice.

94

"1 couldn' t believe i t at first. To fail now, after all

l'd gone through--it was impossibl~. l forced my way oack to

her room. Morag was there. Astonished, l couldn't speak.

Morag looked at me with tears spilling over her cheeks.

" '1 hope you' re happy now. They say i t was the strain of

the long walk that killed her. Just go ahead and reconcile

that with your great love.'

"'Camilla,' l whispered uselessly. Nothing made any

sense. My anguish turned abruptly to rage. l screamed at

Morag. 'What are you doing here? You're the one that killed

her. She was aIl right until you gat here!'

" '1 came too late,' Morag said, her voice unexpectedly

soft. '1 wanted to forgiv~ her.'

Ilf Forgi ve her? You evil crow, what did she ever do to

you?'

"Morag smiled. 'You don't want to know. It'll curdle

aIl that beautiful love you had for her.'

" '1 defy you! Nothing could make me change my mind about

Camilla. '

'''AlI right,' Morag said. 'l'Il tell you a story. It's

very simple.' Morag spoke quietly 1 dispassionately 1 with a

fine detachment thât compelled my attention more than any

raving would have. Every word seemed to go straight through

my che st ta pierce my heart.

"'When we were young girls, Camilla stole my lover élway

from me. l was very angry when l found out, and l pushed her.

We fought. We were both strong, but we probably wouldn 1 t have

hurt each other, if we hadn't been in the upstairs hallway.

l got Camilla off balance. She fell down the stairs, and they

were steep.

Il 'We were alone in the house. If anyone had been there,

we might both have had happier live~. As it was, l went down

the stairs ta find that Camilla was unconscious. l picked her

up and put lier on the sofa. She carne to 1 but she was paral­

ysed and very weak. l thought she would die. l wanted her t:

....

95

die. l sat beside her through the l.ight and told her aIl

about i~. l told her it was her punishment for stealing the

anly lover l was ever likely ta have. 1 was crazy with rage.

Eventually l fell asleep, and when l woke up l was horrified.

This was my sister! l called the doctor at 1ast, and he1p

came.

"'It became Camilla's turn to whisper to me, al1 through

her long convalescence. She needed endless operations 1 and

she wou1dn't let anybody take care of her afterwards but me.

r hated myself so much , l didn' t even have the strength to run

away from her. Eveyybody thought l was devated to her.

H'She'd be a cripple aIl her life, Camilla whispered ta me.

And l'd have ta take care of her. She said she'd ruin eve~y

chance at happiness l' d ever have. She would a1ways be besidc

me, an albatross around my neck. She told me l was a killer,

and in my heart l knew she was right. l didn' t even plead

with her. l felt l deserved whatever punishment she chose to

deal out.

" 'Tha t' s the way we li ved for over three years. Then l

began to play the violin, and found some reason to think of

myself as human again. We made a kind of peace with each

other. Maybe we were just exhausted with aIl the guilt and

vengeance. ~'1e weren't happy, but it was better than the hell

we'd created for each ather. We got used ta it.

" , Then you came a long. And Cami lIa v .. anted to marry you.

Fi.ne, l said, marry him. But she wouldn't. l had to forgive

her first. Sne wrote rroe a let ter when l was away, explaining

aIl this ta me. That's what brought me back in such a rage.

She wouldn't leave me until l forgave her. It was just the

same old punishment a11 over again. We argued aIl day and -311

night. That' s why Camilla was sa tired when you came. That's

why she got sick. So in a way, l guess you're right. l did

rnake her s ick. '

"Morag shrllgged. Her black eyes did not gl i tter. 'Now

you know the whole story. Go away, Edward, and leave me with

l 96

my sister.'"

"1 did just that. l was numb. Morag's story seemed

beyond belief. How could my gentle Camilla be capable of t~e

things Morag described? The venom, the planned cruel ty ... l

couldn' t take i t in .. "

Edward stopped again, ca~ght up in the emotions of the

pasto l cleared my throat.

"Was it true?"

"Oh, yes. Every word. l still had Camilla' s sui tcase,

you see. When l opened it, l found a diary. l guess she kept

it in that drawer. It didn't tell about the fight th€y had.

It was more recent. But she wrote about wanting to marry me,

and wanting Morag ta forglve her. And she mentioned enough

about the time before to bear out Morag's story. She really

was ashamed of what she' d done to Morag, you see. She didn' t

seem to see that she was going to use the same lever again.

And she was going to marry me." Edward shuddered. "1 was

completely wrong, aIl along. The woman l loved, that sweet

gentle Camilla that l wanted to rescue, she never existed.

Are you surprised that l'm hiding out here? l don't know who

to trust or what to believe. l' 11 never be able to trust

another human being, ever again. Every time l look at: a

person, l can't help but wonder what they're really like,

underneath--"

"AlI right, Edward," l interrupted him. "You're tired

now. Go to sleep and we' Il talk in the morning."

l had to take charge of my unfortunate friend. He was in

a dangerous state, and largely incapable of taking care of

himself. The trouble l went through on the return journey

need not be related. Planning for us both, while keeping

Edward from brooding, took a heavy toll of me. l did my best,

but it was obvious that he would need professional help. When

at length we were home, l left him at an excellent hospital.

l did not hear of Edward until many months later, when l

learned that he had married one of his nurses. l visited the

1 97

newlyweds. Edward looked very weIl i and his wife was a brown-­

~yed girl with a very cheerful manner and nothing white-and­

gold about her.

l was glad for my friend's recoverYi and yet l couldn't

help remember. ing the broken man of the tavern and contrasting

him w.i th the ,~cmfortable creature before me. His anguish,

though real, was not perhaps as profound as it had seemed. l

was surprised, too, to find that he could sa easily forget

Camilla and Morag. Their figures stayed with me: the one fair

and lovely, dying perhaps from the heartbreak of knawing she

had commi tted acts for which she could not be forg i ven i the

other, dark and stern, trapped between the pain of betrayal

and the pain of betraying. Perhaps it was simply easier for

Edward to forget his fatal misinterpretations of their

relationshipi probably it was healthier. l have tried ta

dismiss these speculations by telling myself not ta read tao

much into the speed and completeness of fdward' s recovery.

Nevertheless, l have never regained wv old intimacy with my

friend.

'l'her.:> is only one more incident remotely connected to Ed­

ward's story: l attRnded a musical recital recently and found

myself being introd.lced to Morag herself. She smiled and

spoke a few words before moving on: a dark wornan, certainly,

wi th a determined chin and a very distinct, very plE asant,

sparkling light in her dark brown eyes.

l