What Came After At the present time, all of us original Hoegbottons have multiplied and become intertwined with other families. Because the agents of Frankwrithe & Lewden have been hostile to us, we have had to spread out-to Nicea, to Stockton, even, as I write this, to Ambergris. From the nine of our generation, most have gone to their eternity, including my mother, just two years ago. The children and the children"s children do not know who they are and how they came to Morrow. They are here and that is enough for them. They are different than us-sharper and less kind (although they will laugh if they read this).
Some of our people still lived in Yakuda, under the Kalif"s rule, for many years. We did not hear from them, but we used to send money to Yakuda after the wars had ended, each to his own people. One time, we undertook to send a large sum of money through the Kalif"s ministers to Yakuda. We told them it was for everyone in Yakuda, even those who had been resettled there from distant lands and had helped to drive us out. We did this so as to not create any ill-feeling.
I don"t remember the amount of money, but it was a very large sum and they never received it. After a time, one of the leaders in Yakuda-a pale man whose family must have originated far to the West-came to Morrow and we called a meeting. He was a good speaker. He spoke for a long, long time. He said that the Kalif knows better who is in need and that if the Kalif"s ministers did not give the money to the people in Yakuda, then it is certain that it was needed more elsewhere. We were naive. We still had not heard the reports of the atrocities performed in the name of the Kalif, or could know that many of those remaining in Yakuda would be uprooted or killed in the coming months.
After the repressions had subsided, many years later, we tried to find out something about Yakuda and as a last resort sent out letters to the regional administrator for the area. We did not get an answer. Later, we heard a story that the Kalif had dammed the river, flooding the valley. It was strange to hold in our minds the thought of our homeland lost to the river-our homes, our cities, underwater. For years, I told people that this story was not true. But lately, I have come to realize it does not matter. There are no Hyggboutten left there.
Many evenings now, I have a dream. It is probably not a dream so much as a wish. I should like to tell it to my children, but I do not know that it will mean anything to them. I am frightened that it will mean nothing.
In the dream, my brothers and I are riding through the valley we have never seen, up the hills that border the river. Our parents gallop ahead of us and we try to catch up to them. The sun fills the leaves of the trees with shadow. We laugh as we ride, the underbrush lashing against our leather-clad legs. The river is a line of silver light below us. The horses are very fast. And we are happy because we are home.
THE CAGE.
1.
The hall contained the following items, some of which were later catalogued on faded yellow sheets constrained by blue lines and anointed with a hint of mildew: * 24 moving boxes, stacked three high. Atop one box stood * 1 stuffed black swan with banded blood-red legs, its marble eyes plucked, the empty sockets a shock of outrushing co on (or was it fungus?), the bird merely a scout for the * 5,325 specimens from far-off lands placed on shelves that ran along the four walls and into the adjoining corridors-lit with what he could only describe as a black light: it illuminated but did not li the gloom. Iridescent thrush corpses, the exhausted remains of ta ered jellyfish floating in amber bo les, tiny mammals with bright eyes that hinted at the memory of catastrophe, their bodies frozen in bri le poses. The stink of chemicals, a whiff of blood, and * 1 Manzikert-brand phonograph, in perfect condition, wedged beside the jagged black teeth of 11 broken records and * 8 framed daguerreotypes of the family that had lived in the mansion. On vacation in the Southern Isles. Posed in front of a hedge. Blissful on the front porch. His favorite picture showed a boy of seven or eight sticking his tongue out, face animated by some wild delight. The frame was cracked, a smudge of blood in the lower le corner. Phonograph, records, and daguerreotypes stood atop * 1 long oak table covered by a dark green cloth that could not conceal the upward thrust that had splintered the surface of the wood. Around the table stood * 8 oak chairs, silver lion paws sheathing their legs. The chairs dated to before the reign of Trillian the Great Banker. He could not help but wince noting the abuse to which the chairs had been subjected, or fail to notice * 1 grandfather clock, its blood-spa ered gla.s.s face cracked, the hands frozen at a point just before midnight, a faint repressed ticking coming from somewhere within its gears, as if the hands sought to move once again-and beneath the clock * 1 embroidered rug, clearly woven in the north, near Morrow, perhaps even by one of his own ancestors. It depicted the arrival of Morrow cavalry in Ambergris at the time of the Silence, the horses and riders bathed in a halo of blood that might, in another light, be seen as part of the tapestry. Although no light could conceal * 1 bookcase, lacquered, stacks with books wounded, ravaged, as if something had torn through the spines, leaving blood in wide furrows. Next to the bookcase * 1 solicitor, dressed all in black. The solicitor wore a cloth mask over his nose and mouth. It was a popular fashion, for those who believed in the "Invisible World" newly mapped by the Kalif"s scientists. Nervous and fatigued, the solicitor, eyes blinking rapidly over the top of the mask, stood next to * 1 pale, slender woman in a white dress. Her hooded eyes never blinked, the ethereal quality of her gaze weaving cobwebs into the distance. Her hands had recently been hacked off, the end of the b.l.o.o.d.y bandage that hid her le nub held by * 1 pale gaunt boy with eyes as wide and twitchy as twinned pocket watches. At the end of his other arm dangled a small blue-green suitcase, his grasp as fragile as his mother"s gaze. His legs trembled in his ash-gray trousers. He stared at * 1 metal cage, three feet tall and in shape similar to the squat mortar sh.e.l.ls that the Kalif"s troops had lately rained down upon the city during the ill-fated Occupation. An emerald green cover hid its bars from view. The boy"s gaze, which required him to twist neck and shoulder to the right while also raising his head to look up and behind, drew the a ention of * 1 exporter-importer, Robert Hoegbo on, 35 years old: neither thin nor fat, neither handsome nor ugly. He wore a drab gray suit he hoped displayed neither imagination nor lack of it. He too wore a cloth mask over his (small) nose and (wide, sardonic) mouth, although not for the same reasons as the solicitor. Hoegbo on considered the mask a weakness, an inconvenience, a superst.i.tion. His gaze followed that of the boy up to the high perch, an alcove set half-way up the wall where the cage sat on a window ledge. The dark, narrow window reflected needlings of rain through its tubular green gla.s.s. It was the season of downpours in Ambergris. The rain would not let up for days on end, the skies blue-green-gray with moisture. Fruiting bodies would rise, fat and fecund, in all the hidden corners of the city. Nothing in the bruised sky would reveal whether it was morning, noon, or dusk.
The solicitor was talking and had been for what seemed to Hoegbo on like a rather long time.
"That black swan, for example, is in bad condition," Hoegbo on said, to slow the solicitor"s relentless cha er.
The solicitor wiped his beaded forehead with a handkerchief tinged a pale green.
"The bird itself. The bird," the solicitor said, "is in superb condition. Missing eyes, yes. Yes, this is true. But," he gestured at the walls, "surely you see the richness of Daffed"s collection."
Thomas Daffed. The last in a long line of famous zoologists. Daffed"s wife and son stood beside the solicitor, last remnants of a family of six.
Hoegbo on frowned. "But I don"t really need the collection. It"s a fine collection, very fine"-and he meant it; he admired a man who could so singlemindedly, perhaps obsessively, acquire such a diverse yet unified a.s.sortment of things-"but my average customer needs a pot or an umbrella or a stove. I stock the odd curio from time to time, but a collection of this size?" Hoegbo on shrugged his famous shrug, perfected over several years of haggling.
The solicitor stared at Hoegbo on as if he did not believe him. "Well, then, what is your offer? What will you take?"
"I"m still calculating that figure."
The solicitor loosened his collar with one sharp tug. "It"s been more than an hour. My clients are not well!" He was sweating profusely. A greenish pallor had begun to infiltrate his skin. Despite the sweat, the solicitor seemed parched. His mask puffed in and out from the violence of his speech.
"I"m sorry for your loss-all of your losses," Hoegbo on said, turning to the mother and child who stood in mute acceptance of their fate. "I won"t keep you much longer." The speech never sounded sincere, no ma er how sincerely he meant it.
The solicitor made a noise between a groan and a choke that Hoegbo on did not bother to catalog. His thoughts had returned to the merchandise-rug, clock, bookcase, phonograph, table, chairs. What price might they accept?
Hoegbo on would not have included the cage in his calculations if the boy"s stare had not kept flickering wildly toward it and back down again, gliding like Hoegbo on"s own over the remnants of a success that had become u er failure. For all the outlandish things in the room-the boy"s own mother to be counted among them-the boy most feared the cage, an object that could no more hurt him than the green suitcase that hung from his arm.
A reflexive sadness for the boy ran through Hoegbo on, even as he noted the delicacy of the silver engravings on the chair legs; definitely pre-Trillian.
He stared at the boy until the boy stared back. "Don"t you know you"re safe now?" Hoegbo on said a li le too loudly, the words m.u.f.fled by the cloth over his mouth. An echo traveled up to the high ceiling, encountered the skylight, and descended at a higher pitch.
The boy said nothing. As was his right. Outside, the bodies of his father, brother, and two sisters were being burned as a precaution, the bodies too mutilated to have withstood a Viewing anyway. The boy"s fate, too, was uncertain. Sometimes survivors did not survive.
Nothing could make one safe. There had been a great spasm of buying houses without bas.e.m.e.nts or with stone floors, but no one had yet proven that such a measure, or any measure, helped. The random nature of the events, combined with their infrequency, had instilled a certain fatalism in Ambergris" inhabitants.
The solicitor had run out of patience. He stood uncomfortably close to Hoegbo on, his breath sour and thick. "Are you ready yet? You"ve had more than enough time. Should I call Sla ery or Ungdom instead?" His voice seemed more distorted than the mask could explain, as if he were in the grip of a new, perhaps deadly, emotion.
Hoegbo on took a step back from the ferocity of the solicitor"s gaze. The names of his chief rivals made a li le vein in Hoegbo on"s le eyelid pulse in and out. Especially Ungdom-towering John Ungdom, he of the wide belly, steeped in alcohol and pork lard.
"Call for them, then," he said, looking away.
The solicitor"s gaze bored into his cheek and then the foul presence was gone. The solicitor had slumped into one of the chairs, a great smudge of a man.
"Anyway, I"m almost ready," Hoegbo on said. The vein in his eyelid would not stop pulsing. It was true: neither Sla ery nor Ungdom would come. Because they were afraid. Because their devotion to their job was incomplete, insufficient, inadequate. Hoegbo on imagined them both taken up into the rain and torn to pieces by the wind.
"Tell me about the cage," Hoegbo on said suddenly, surprising himself. "The cage up there"-he pointed-"is it for sale, too?"
The boy stiffened, stared at the floor.
To Hoegbo on"s surprise, the woman turned to look at him. Her eyes were black as an abyss; they did not blink and reflected nothing. He felt for a moment as if he stood balanced precariously between the son"s alarm and the mother"s regard.
"The cage was always open," the woman said, her voice gravelly, something stuck in her throat. "We had a bird. We always let it fly around. It was a pre y bird. It flew high through the rooms. It- No one could find the bird. A er." The terrible pressure of the word after appeared to be too much for her and she fell back into her silence.
"We"ve never had a cage," the boy said, the dark green suitcase swaying. "We"ve never had a bird. They le it here. They le it."
A chill ran through Hoegbo on that was not caused by a dra . The sleepy gaze of a pig embryo floating in a jar caught his eye. Opportunity or disaster? The value of an artifact they had le behind might be considerable. The risks, however, might also be considerable. This was the third time in the last nine months that he had been called to a house visited by the gray caps. Each of the previous times, he had escaped unharmed. In fact, he had come to believe that late arrivals like himself were impervious to any side effects. Yet even he had experienced moments of discomfort, as when, at the last house, he had walked down a white hallway to the room where the merchandise awaited him and found a series of dark smudges and trails and tracks of blood. Halfway down the hallway, he had spied a dark object, shaped like a piece of dried fruit, glistening from the floor. Curious, he had leaned down to examine it, only to recoil and stand up when he realized it was a human ear.
This time, the solicitor had experienced the most unease. According to the talkative messenger who had summoned Hoegbo on, the solicitor had arrived in the early a ernoon to find the bodies and survivors. Arms and legs had been stuck into the walls between specimen jars, arranged in intricate poses that displayed a perverse sense of humor.
The light glinted so ly off the windows. The silence became more absolute. All around, dead things watched one another, from wall to wall-a cacophony of gazes that saw everything but remembered nothing. Outside, the rain fell relentlessly.
A tingling sensation crept into Hoegbo on"s fingertips. A price had materialized in his mind, manifested itself in gli ering detail.
"Two thousand sels-for everything."
The solicitor sighed, almost crumpled in on himself. The woman blinked rapidly, as if puzzled, and then stared at Hoegbo on with a hatred more real for being so distant. All the former protests of the solicitor, even the boy"s fear, were nothing next to that look. The red at the end of her arms had become paler, as if the white bandages had begun to heal her.
He heard himself say, "Three thousand sels. If you include the cage." And it was true, he realized-he wanted the cage.
The solicitor, trying to mask some small personal distress now, giggled and said, "Done. But you must retrieve it yourself. I"m not feeling well." The cloth of the man"s mask moved in and out almost imperceptibly as he breathed. A sour smell had entered the room.
On the ladder, Hoegbo on had a moment of vertigo. The world spun, then righted itself as he continued to the top. When he peered onto the windowsill, two eyes stared up at him from beside the cage.
"Manzikert!" he hissed. He recoiled, almost lost his balance as he flailed at empty air, managed to fall back against the ladder . . . and realized that they were just the missing marble eyes of the swan, placed there by some prankster, although it did not pay to think of who such a prankster might be. He caught his breath, tried to swallow the unease that pressed down on his shoulders, his tongue, his eyelids.
The cage stood to the right of the ladder and he was acutely conscious of having to lock his legs onto the ladder"s sides as he slowly leaned toward the cage.
Below, the solicitor and the boy were speaking, but their voices seemed dulled and distant. He hesitated. What might be in the cage? What horrible thing far worse than a severed human ear? The odd idea struck him that he would pull the cord to reveal Thomas Daffed"s severed head. He could see the bars beneath the cloth, though, he told himself. Whatever lived inside the cage would remain inside the cage. Now that it was his property, his acquisition, he refused to suffer the same failure of nerve as Sla ery and Ungdom.
The cover of the cage, which in the dim light appeared to be sprinkled with a luminous green dust, had a drawstring and opened like a curtain. With a sharp yank on the drawstring, Hoegbo on drew aside the cover-and flinched, again nearly fell, a sensation of displaced air flowing across his face, as of something moving. He cried out. Then realized the cage was empty. He stood there for an instant, breathing heavily, staring into the cage. Nothing. It contained nothing. Relief came burrowing out of his bones, followed by disappointment. Empty. Except for some straw lining the bo om of the cage and, dangling near the back, almost as an a erthought, a perch, swaying back and forth, the movement no doubt caused by the speed with which he had drawn back the cover. A latched door extended the full three feet from the base to the top of the cage and could be slid back on special grooves. Stained green, the metal bars featured detail work as fine as he had ever seen-intricate flowers and vines with li le figures peering out of a background rich with mushrooms. He could sell it for 4,000 sels, with the right sales pitch.
Hoegbo on looked down through a murk diluted only by a few lamps.
"It"s empty," he shouted down. "The cage is empty. But I"ll take it."
An unintelligible answer floated up. As his sight adjusted to the scene below, the distant solicitor in his chair, the other two still standing, he thought for a horrible second that they were melting. The boy seemed melded to his suitcase, the green of it inseparable from the white of the a ached arm. The woman"s nubs were impossibly white, as if she had grown new bones. The solicitor was just a splash of green.
When he stood on solid ground again, he could not control his shaking.
"I"ll have the papers to you tomorrow, a er I"ve catalogued all of the items," he said.
All around, on the arms of the chairs, on the table, atop the bookcase, white mushrooms had risen on slender stalks, their gills tinged red.
The solicitor sat in his chair and giggled uncontrollably.
"It was nice to meet you," Hoegbo on said as he walked to the door that led to the room that led to the next room and the room a er that and then, hopefully, the outside, by which time he would be running. The woman"s stubs had sprouted white tendrils of fungus that lazily wound their way around the dried blood and obscured it. Her eyes were slowly filling with white.
Hoegbo on backed into the damaged table and almost fell. "As I say, a pleasure doing business with you."
"Yes, yes, yes, yes," the solicitor said, and giggled again, his skin as green and wrinkly as a lizard"s.
"Then I will see you again, soon," Hoegbo on said, edging toward the door, groping behind him for the k.n.o.b, "and under . . . under be er . . . " But he could not finish his sentence.
The boy"s arms were dark green, fuzzy and indistinct, as if he were a still life made of points of paint on a canvas. His suitcase, once blue, had turned a blackish green, for the fungi had engulfed it much as ivy had engulfed the eastern wall of the mansion. All the terrible knowledge of his condition shone through the boy"s eyes and yet still he held his mother"s arm as the white tendrils wound round both their limbs in an ever more permanent embrace.
Hoegbo on later believed he would have stood at the door forever, hand on the k.n.o.b, the solicitor"s giggle a low whine in the background, if not for what happened next.
The broken clock groaned and struck midnight. The shuddering stroke reverberated through the room, through the thousands of jars of preserved animals. The solicitor looked up in sudden terror and, with a so popping sound, exploded into a lightly falling rain of emerald spores that dri ed to the floor with as slow and tranquil a grace as the seeds of a dandelion. As if the sound had torn him apart.
Outside, Hoegbo on tore off his mask, knelt, and threw up beside the fountain that guarded the path to Alb.u.muth Boulevard . Behind him, across a square of dark green gra.s.s, the bodies of Daffed, his daughters, his other son, smoldered gray and black. The charred smell mixed with mildew and the rain that stippled his back. His arms and legs trembled with an enervating weakness. His mouth felt hot and dry. For a long time, he sat in the same position, watching pinp.r.i.c.ks break his reflection in the fountain. He shivered as the water shivered.
He had never come this close before. Either they had died long before he arrived or long a er he le . The solicitor"s liquid giggle trickled through his ears, along with the so pop of the spores. He shuddered, relaxed, shuddered again.
When his a.s.sistant Alan Bristlewing questioned, as he o en did, the wisdom of taking on such hazardous work, Hoegbo on would smile and change the subject. He could not choose between two conflicting impulses: the upswelling of excitement and the desire to flee Ambergris and return to Morrow, the city of his birth. As each new episode receded into memory, his nerve returned, somehow stronger.
The boy"s arm, fused to his suitcase.
Holding on to the lichen-flecked stone lip of the pool, Hoegbo on plunged his head into the smooth water. The chill shocked him. It p.r.i.c.kled his skin, cut through the numbness to burn the inside of his nose. A sob escaped him, and another, and then a third that bent him over the water again. The back of his neck was suddenly cool. When he pulled away, he looked down at his reflection-and the mask he had made to hide his emotions was gone. He was himself again.
Hoegbo on stood up. Across the courtyard, the Cappan"s men had abandoned the bodies to begin the task of nailing boards across the doors and windows of the mansion. No one pulled the shades open to protest being trapped inside. No one banged on the door, begging to be let out. They had already begun their journey.
One look at his face as he staggered to safety had told the Cappan"s men everything. No doubt they would have boarded him in too, if not for the bribes and his previous record of survival.
Hoegbo on wiped his mouth with his handkerchief. The merchandise he had bought would molder in the mansion, unused and unrecorded except in his ledger of "Potential Acquisitions: Lost." Depending on which hysteria-induced procedure the Cappan had adopted this fortnight, the mansion grounds might be cordoned off or the mansion itself might be put to the torch.
The clock struck midnight.
The cage stood beside him, slick with rain. Hoegbo on had gripped its handle so hard during his escape-from every corner, Daffed"s infernal collection of dead things staring innocently at him-that he had been branded where the skin had not been rubbed off his palm. He bore the mark of the handle: a delicate filigree of unfamiliar symbols from behind which strange eyes peered out. In the fading light, with the rain falling harder, the fungi appeared to have been washed off the cover of the cage. Perversely, this fact disappointed him. With each new encounter, he had come to expect further revelations.
Blinking away the rain, Hoegbo on let out a deep breath, stuffed his mask in a pocket, wrapped the cloth around his injured hand, and picked up the cage. It was heavier than he remembered it, and oddly balanced. It made him list to the side as he started walking up the path to the main road. He would have to hurry if he was to make the curfew imposed by the Cappan.
Ambergris at dusk, occluded and darkened by the rain that spla ered on sidewalks, ra led against rooftops, struck windows, hinted at a level of debauchery almost as unnerving to Hoegbo on as the way, whenever he stopped to switch the cage from his le to his right hand and back again, the weight never seemed the same.
The city that flourished from wholesome activity by day became its opposite by night. Orgies had been reported in abandoned churches. Grotesque and lewd water puppet shows were staged down by the docks. Weekly, the merchant quarter held midnight auctions of paintings that could only be termed obscene. The fey ill.u.s.trated books of Collart and Slothian enjoyed a popularity that placed the authors but a single step below the Cappan in status. In the Religious Quarter, the hard-pressed Truffidian priests tried to wrest back authority from the conflicting prophets Peterson and Stra on, whose dueling theologies infected ever-more violent followers.
At the root of this immorality: the renewed presence of the gray caps, who in recent years came and went like the ebb and flow of a tide-now underground, now above ground, as if in a perpetual migration between light and dark, night and day. Always, the city reacted to their presence in unpredictable ways. What choice did the city"s inhabitants have but to go about their business, hoping they would not be next, blind to all but their own misfortunes? It was now one hundred years since the Silence, when thousands had vanished without a trace, and people could be forgiven their loss of memory. Most people no longer thought of the Silence on a daily basis. It did not figure into the ordinary sorrows of Ambergris" inhabitants so much as into the weekly sermons of the Truffidians or into the worries of the Cappan and his men.
As Hoegbo on walked home, street lamps appeared out of the murk, illuminating fleeting figures: a priest holding his robe up as he ran so he wouldn"t trip on the hem; two Dogghe tribesmen hunched against the closed doors of a bank, their distinctive green spiraled hats pulled down low over their weathered faces. Of the recent Occupation, no sign remained except for painted graffi ti urging the invaders to go home. But Hoegbo on still came upon the faintly glowing, six-foot-wide purplish circles that showed where, before the Silence, huge mushrooms had been chopped down by worried authorities.
Hoegbo on"s wife was already asleep when he walked up the seven flights of stairs and entered their apartment. She had turned off the lamps because it gave her the advantage in case of an intruder. The faint scent of lilacs and honeysuckle told him the flower vendor from the floor above them had been by to see Rebecca.
A dim half-light shone from the living room to his le as he set down the cage, took off his shoes and socks, and hung his raincoat on the coat rack. Directly ahead lay the dining room, with its mold-encrusted window, the purple sheen burning darkly as the rain fed it. He had checked the fungi guard just a week ago and found no leakage, but he made a mental note to check it again in the morning.
Hoegbo on found a towel in the hall closet and used it to dry his face, his hair, and then the outside of the cage. Again picking up the uncomfortable weight of the cage, he tiptoed into the living room, the rug beneath his feet thick but cold. A medley of dark shapes greeted him, most of them items from his store: Lamps and side tables, a couch, a long low coffee table, a book case, a grandfather clock. Beyond them lay the balcony, long lost to fungi and locked up as a result.
The fey light almost transformed the living room"s contents into the priceless artifacts he had told her they were. He had chosen them not for their value but for their texture, their smell, and for the sounds they made when moved or sat upon or opened. Li le of it appealed visually, but she delighted in what he had chosen and it meant he could store the most important merchandise at the shop, where it was more secure.
Hoegbo on set the cage down on the living room table. The palms of his hands were hot and raw from carrying it. He took off the rest of his clothes and laid them on the arm of the couch.
The light came from the bedroom, which lay to the right of the living room. He walked into the bedroom and turned to the le , the closed window above the bed reflecting back the iridescent light that came from her and her alone. Rebecca lay on her back, the sheets draped across her body, exposing the long, black, vaguely tear-shaped scar on her le thigh. He ran his gaze over it l.u.s.tfully. It glistened like obsidian.
Hoegbo on walked around to the right side and eased himself into the bed. He moved up beside her and pressed himself against the darkness of the scar. An image of the woman from the mansion flashed through his mind.
Rebecca turned in her sleep and put an arm across his chest as he moved onto his back. Her hand, warm and so , was as delicate as the starfish that glided through the shallows down by the docks. It looked so small against his chest.
The light came from her open eyes, although he could tell she was asleep. It was a silvery glow awash with faint phosph.o.r.escent sparks of blue, green, and red: shivers and hiccups of splintered light, as if a half-dozen tiny lightning storms had welled up in her gaze. What rich worlds did she dream of? And, for the thousandth time: What did the light mean? He had met her on a business trip to Stockton, a er the fungal infection that had resulted in the blindness, the odd light, the scar. He had never known her whole.
Who was this stranger, so pale and silent and beautiful? A joyful sorrow rose within him as he watched the light emanating from her. They had argued about having children just the day before. Every word he had thrown at her in anger had hurt him so deeply that finally he had been wordless, and all he could do was stare at her. Looking at her now, her face unguarded, her body next to his, he could not help loving her for the scar, the eyes, even if it meant he wished her to be this way.
2.
The next morning, Hoegbo on woke to the fading image of the woman"s b.l.o.o.d.y bandages and the sounds of Rebecca making breakfast. She knew the apartment be er than he did-knew its surfaces, its edges, the exact number of steps from table to chair to doorway-and she liked to make meals in a kitchen that had become more familiar to her than it could ever be to him. Yet she also asked him to bring back more furniture for the living room and bedroom or rearrange existing furniture. She became bored otherwise. "I want an unexplored country. I want a hint of the unknown," she said once and Hoegbo on agreed with her.
To an extent. There were things Hoegbo on wished would stay unknown. On the mantel opposite the bed, for example, lay those of his grandmother"s possessions that his relatives in Morrow had sent to him: a pin, a series of portraits of family members, a set of spoons, a poorly copied family history. A le er had accompanied the heirlooms, describing his grandmother"s last days. The package had been waiting for him on the doorstep of the apartment one evening a month ago. His grandmother had died six weeks before that. He had not gone to the funeral. He had not even brought himself to tell Rebecca about the death. All she knew of it was the crinkling of the envelope as he smoothed out the le er to read it. She might even have picked up the pin or the spoons and wondered why he had brought them home. Telling her would mean explaining why he hadn"t gone to the funeral and then he would have to talk about the bad blood between him and his brother Richard.
The smell of bacon and eggs spurred him to throw back the covers, get up, put on a bathrobe, and stumble bleary-eyed through the living room to the kitchen. A dead sort of almost-sunlight-pale and green and lukewarm-suffused the kitchen window through the purple mold and thin veins of green. A watermark of the city appeared through the gla.s.s: gray spires, forlorn flags, the indistinct shapes of other anonymous apartment buildings.
Rebecca stood in the kitchen, spatula in hand, framed by the dour light. Her black hair was brightly dark. Her dress, a green-and-blue sweep of fabric, fit her loosely. She was intent on the skillet in front of her, gaze unblinking, mouth pursed.
As he came up behind Rebecca and wrapped his arms around her, a sense of guilt made him frown. He had come so close last night, almost as close as the boy, the woman. Was that as close as he could get without . . . ? The question had haunted him throughout his quest. A sudden deep swell of emotion overcame him and he found that his eyes were wet. What if, what if?
Rebecca snuggled into his embrace and turned toward him. Her eyes looked almost normal during the day. Flecks of phosph.o.r.escence shot lazily across the pupils.