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Authors: Sheri S. Tepper
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food gave him something else to think about, but it led him into the trap once more. He looked up to see Marianne's lips curved to accept the edge of the glass, curved as though in a kiss, and his hands trembled.
"Come now, Makr Avehl," he said to himself. "You are not a schoolboy any longer. You are not a lascivious youth, carried willy-nilly on naive curiosity's back, like Europa on the bull, tormented by lust into abandonment of all sense. Come, come.
Let us talk of something else."
"Did you really like the pictures I brought you?" he asked, seeing a well-trained hand slip the empty plate away from before him to replace it with another, noticing also that Marianne's glass was being refilled. His own was almost untouched.
She did not answer at once, being occupied with napkin and glass. "That was duck," she said happily. "Lovely duck. All bits and pieces with swadges of truffle. I didn't know Willard's
. was capable of that...."
He did not tell her that the pate had been provided earlier, that Willard's was not capable of that, that no restaurant within five hundred miles was capable of that except the one which had provided the pate to his order. "The pictures?" he prompted.
"The pictures. Well, the one of the fish is marvelous. One has a sense of the fish rising, and because the air above and the water below are all one, it is almost as though it could go on rising upward, forever. Like a balloon."
Makr Avehl, who had not thought of this, was much taken with the feeling. "Exaltation?"
"Yes. The feeling that one could go on up and up forever, but one would not need to. The surface is very nice, too. Well, I liked that one. The other one was more difficult. The young women are in the street, alone, but they are not threatened at all. There are lights around, in the house—which must be the house they live in—where people are waiting for them. Nothing horrible is coming. It's a special evening, and the girls are setting lights along the streets. They do that in Mexico, don't they? Set lights along the streets? Candles, in bags of sand? A kind of ritual in which the safe, lighted way is shown, I think.
And that's the way it feels, a safe, lighted way."
"Luminous," he suggested.
She considered this over a spoonful of lobster bisque, turning the idea with the other flavors on her tongue. "Not so much luminous as illuminated. Things which could be threatening or frightening are lighted up, made harmless, perhaps even shown to be attractive. That's what one wants, after all, to have the monsters shown to be nothing but paper cutouts, or shadows, or humped bushes which the light will show to be full of flowers."
He nodded. "It's unfortunate the other group of things had such an unpleasant feel to it. Certain groupings can have that quality of foreboding or threat. I remember a particular place in the forest of Alphenlicht, trees, stones, some large leafed plants with waxy blooms. Taken individually, the trees are only trees. The stones are interesting shapes, taken each by each, and the plants are found in many boggy parts of the mountains. Taken as a whole, however, this particular clearing among the stones with the trees brooding above has a quality of menace."
He shook his head, keeping to himself the question as to what kind of knowledge or study would have stimulated a person—any person—to have chosen the particular group of things he had found in the box. The knowledge was one matter but, in addition, what motivation would one have had? These questions were not merely interesting but compelling. He was most curious about the sly vileness in which he had given her the things one at a time, singly, so that her spirit would be led to accept them individually rather than take warning at the cumulative effect.
Nonetheless, she had taken warning. Which told him something more about her to make his lustful self pause. There was heritage here, the heritage of the Magi. "With whom," advised the Magus within, "it
"Come now, Makr Avehl," he said to himself. "You are not a schoolboy any longer. You are not a lascivious youth, carried willy-nilly on naive curiosity's back, like Europa on the bull, tormented by lust into abandonment of all sense. Come, come.
Let us talk of something else."
"Did you really like the pictures I brought you?" he asked, seeing a well-trained hand slip the empty plate away from before him to replace it with another, noticing also that Marianne's glass was being refilled. His own was almost untouched.
She did not answer at once, being occupied with napkin and glass. "That was duck," she said happily. "Lovely duck. All bits and pieces with swadges of truffle. I didn't know Willard's
. was capable of that...."
He did not tell her that the pate had been provided earlier, that Willard's was not capable of that, that no restaurant within five hundred miles was capable of that except the one which had provided the pate to his order. "The pictures?" he prompted.
"The pictures. Well, the one of the fish is marvelous. One has a sense of the fish rising, and because the air above and the water below are all one, it is almost as though it could go on rising upward, forever. Like a balloon."
Makr Avehl, who had not thought of this, was much taken with the feeling. "Exaltation?"
"Yes. The feeling that one could go on up and up forever, but one would not need to. The surface is very nice, too. Well, I liked that one. The other one was more difficult. The young women are in the street, alone, but they are not threatened at all. There are lights around, in the house—which must be the house they live in—where people are waiting for them. Nothing horrible is coming. It's a special evening, and the girls are setting lights along the streets. They do that in Mexico, don't they? Set lights along the streets? Candles, in bags of sand? A kind of ritual in which the safe, lighted way is shown, I think.
And that's the way it feels, a safe, lighted way."
"Luminous," he suggested.
She considered this over a spoonful of lobster bisque, turning the idea with the other flavors on her tongue. "Not so much luminous as illuminated. Things which could be threatening or frightening are lighted up, made harmless, perhaps even shown to be attractive. That's what one wants, after all, to have the monsters shown to be nothing but paper cutouts, or shadows, or humped bushes which the light will show to be full of flowers."
He nodded. "It's unfortunate the other group of things had such an unpleasant feel to it. Certain groupings can have that quality of foreboding or threat. I remember a particular place in the forest of Alphenlicht, trees, stones, some large leafed plants with waxy blooms. Taken individually, the trees are only trees. The stones are interesting shapes, taken each by each, and the plants are found in many boggy parts of the mountains. Taken as a whole, however, this particular clearing among the stones with the trees brooding above has a quality of menace."
He shook his head, keeping to himself the question as to what kind of knowledge or study would have stimulated a person—any person—to have chosen the particular group of things he had found in the box. The knowledge was one matter but, in addition, what motivation would one have had? These questions were not merely interesting but compelling. He was most curious about the sly vileness in which he had given her the things one at a time, singly, so that her spirit would be led to accept them individually rather than take warning at the cumulative effect.
Nonetheless, she had taken warning. Which told him something more about her to make his lustful self pause. There was heritage here, the heritage of the Magi. "With whom," advised the Magus within, "it
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