Grimus Read online

  It was also the day she met Mr Sispy and was given eternal life.

  As I said, the day began well enough for young Joe-Sue. But once he was awake it gave the lie to its beginnings.

  III

  IT WAS JOE-SUE’S birthday: I got up and went outside. The sky was a blinding blue. The table-top dotted with red-brown tents was a deep, rich green, a green thumb sticking sorely above a rich-red, barren-brown world. If the Whirling Demons were whirling below, they couldn’t catch me, and all seemed right with the world.

  Bird-Dog was sitting on an outcrop of rock, a grown woman of thirty-four years, three months and four days, in rags, her hair falling blackly over the olive face. She clutched two small bottles. The one in her right hand was full of bright yellow liquid. The one in her left hand was full of bright blue liquid. Colour was rampant everywhere, except in my skin. I felt a cloud pass across the sun.

  The gleam of excitement in Bird-Dog’s face as she crouched eagerly over her treasures dispelled the bleak moment.

  —I’ve been down, she said, to see if the Whirling Demons are quiet today. They’re quiet. It’s all right. But her voice was absent, her eyes stared fiercely at the brightly-coloured phials.

  —I met a man between here and the town, she said distantly. He gave me these.

  —What are they? Who was he? Why did he give you them?

  —He was a pedlar. His name was Mr Sispy. Nice man. Funny name, Sispy. He gave them to me because I wanted them.

  —But what do they do?

  —They’ll keep me young, she said, clutching them ever more tightly. Or at least this one will. She held up the yellow phial.

  —For how long? I asked timorously. The shadow was back.

  —Forever, she screamed triumphantly, and then burst into tears.

  With my arms around her, moistened by her tears of frightened joy, I asked:

  —What does the other one do, the blue one?

  She didn’t answer at once.

  Now that I am so much older, I am not at all sure what the word magician means. To Joe-Sue that day, born and raised as he was in a tribe where magic intermingled continually with daily life, it meant anyone apparently in possession of powers, or knowledge, which he himself lacked. Perhaps that’s the only sense in which the word has meaning; and by that definition, for Joe-Sue and Bird-Dog as they were then, Mr Sispy was unquestionably a magician. This is how Bird-Dog described their encounter:

  —I was sitting behind a rock watching for Whirling Demons and suddenly behind me there was this voice whispering SISPY SISPY it said and I whirled fast as any demon to find where he WAS and he knew my name. Bird-Dog he whispered and the sound sounded so harsh on his lips because he spoke so softly and sighing like the breeze in a whisper it was, his voice the whole world in a whisper such a spell it was. Bird-Dog are you beautiful he asked and since he asked it it was so and I answered yes, yes I am beautiful if you say it and he said yes you are beautiful but Bird-Dog you will die such a word it sounded harsh as my name on his lips so I cried. Sispy I cried Sispy. Such a smile it was the sun in it and the summer too he smiled and I could not cry. The world is full of secrets he said and surprises. I say Sispy behind you and here I am surprising you. With a secret in my sack. I travel he said and search for the likes of you, like seeking like, passing on my little secret. The beauty of it is: with it you will stay beautiful, you will not die, you will have the gift of time to search out all you wish to seek, to learn all you wish to know, to accomplish all you wish to do, to become all you wish to be. And the horror of it is: all who possess the secret wish in the end to give it up, it weighing them down like a last straw at last, and the camel’s back bends and passes through the eye of the needle. Then he gave me the drinks, yellow for the sun and brightness and life and blue for infinity and calm and release when I want it. Life in a yellow bottle, death blue as the sky, ice-blue as steel, he said. He was so badly-dressed, a poor pedlar’s dress and a large sack of patches with drawings drawn on it and he turned to go. I said I have a brother called Born-From-Dead and today is his brave’s day, have you secrets for him? He had, the same for young Born-From-Dead, he said. Then before he went he said, for those who will not use the blue there is only one place I know of; I am going there now and someday if you will not use the blue you will come with me. And finally he said: tell your brother Born-From-Dead that all eagles come at last to eyrie and all sailors come at last to shore, SISPY SISPY he whispered to the breeze and shivered and then he wasn’t there.

  Bird-Dog was not normally a voluble woman so Joe-Sue would have found her speech strange even if it had been about the weather. As it was it was shattering. She reached into a deep pocket of her rags and brought out two more bottles, identical to her own proud possessions. They were his, mine. The yellow eternity of life and the blue eternity of death. Joe-Sue took them and ran into his tent, scrabbling in the earth to bury them under his sleeping-mat. When he came out again the yellow bottle stood empty and the blue bottle lay dashed to fragments on the rock where Bird-Dog sat. —Death, she said. Death to death.

  But Joe-Sue didn’t drink his. It would soon be a division between them.

  After a long silence, in which distances stretched like universes in every direction, she said, with her old aggressive practicality, —Off with you now Joe-Sue, off with you to town.

  So I went down the side of the Axona table-top to the plain of the Whirling Demons that I had been taught to fear; but the little whirlwinds that spring up on that barren plain soon proved, as Bird-Dog had said, to be nothing but air, so I reached the town without trouble, dancing easily out of their way. I saw automobiles and launderettes and juke-boxes and all kinds of machines and people dressed in dusty clothes with a kind of despair in their eyes; I saw it all hiding behind doors and fences and lurking in corridors and I don’t think I was seen. Finally I’d seen enough; the glimpse had infected me already and entirely though I didn’t know it yet, just as it had infected Bird-Dog.

  And the people in the town were white.

  A curious thing happened on my way up to the table-top. I saw an eagle sitting on a rock, about shoulder-height to me, looking at me. It stopped me in my tracks, I tell you. A great full-grown cruel-looking monster of an eagle. I moved slowly, slowly, closer and closer to the bird. It didn’t move, showed no sign of fear, as if it were expecting me. I stretched out my hands; it came peacefully into my grasp. I was astonished yet again on this astonishing day. I held it and stroked it a moment and then, abruptly, as unexpectedly violent as it had been calm, it began to fight me. Of course I released my grip rapidly, but not before that cruel beak had scarred my chest. It flew away. I watched it go; you could say a part of me went with it.

  —Flapping Eagle. The voice was Bird-Dog’s. She had been watching, silently.

  —That is your name. Flapping Eagle. Why else do you think the eagle came to you before attacking you? It’s your brave’s name, it must be.

  —Flapping Eagle, said Joe-Sue aloud. Yes.

  —It’s a name to live up to, said Bird-Dog.

  —Yes, I said.

  —And now’s the time to start, she said. She lay down on the rock where she had sat to watch me with the eagle, and raised her ragged skirts.

  So, on one day, I was offered eternal life, broke the law of the Axona, took a brave’s name from an omen and lost my virginity to my sister. It was enough to make a fellow believe there was something special about being twenty-one.

  IV

  THE SHAM-MAN ENTERED Flapping Eagle’s tent brandishing his ju-ju stick like a sad, sadistic schoolmaster, filled with deep regret for the grief he loved to cause. The Sham-Man said he only loved bringing pain to others when it was forced on him by his duty, for he loved his work. He was a huge, shambling, beaded walrus to Flapping Eagle’s tense, terse, silent oyster.

  —My apologies, said the Sham-Man mournfully, for intruding. I believe we have a slightly delicate matter to discuss. (Flapping Eagle noticed his mouth; it was watering at
the edges.)

  —Ahem, continued the Sham-Man, I just wondered, have you any idea at all where … she … is? In common with most of the Axona, he was reluctant to concede to Bird-Dog her right to a brave’s name; also in common with most of the Axona, he’d forgotten what she had been called before.

  —No, said Flapping Eagle. But she’s not here. Not in Axona.

  —Precisely. You realize this puts us both into a rather awkward position? Vis a vis the law, you see.

  It really was very simple. Bird-Dog’s sudden disappearance meant Flapping Eagle, as next of kin and sole surviving family, was at last open to attack by the Axona. As the lawbreaker could not be punished, so her guilt fell upon him. There was only one punishment: exile.

  All that Bird-Dog had said was: I saw Sispy again today. We’re leaving. That was in the small hours of the morning. It was only later that Flapping Eagle had been struck by the thought that he was exactly as old today as Bird-Dog had been on the day she first met the pedlar. Thirty-four years, three months and four days. It was as if his future had touched her past.

  It was an abrupt departure, but then the two of them had been growing away from each other ever since Flapping Eagle’s refusal to drink the yellow elixir. To him, it had been faintly nauseating to watch Bird-Dog petrified at an immutable age, her cells reproducing perfectly every day, not a hair falling that wasn’t replaced by a new one. And for Bird-Dog, the spectacle of her little brother growing up towards her daily was a constant rejection of herself and the decision she had made. It was the first and only important thing in which Flapping Eagle had not followed her lead.

  They hadn’t even made love for several years; both of them missed it. Still, thought Flapping Eagle, now she’s got Sispy. A pedlar’s woman: tame ending for her.

  The Sham-Man was clearing his throat again. Flapping Eagle forced himself to listen to his equivocations.

  —Health, you know, said the walrus pontifically, is a tricky thing. Awfully tricky. The thing is to make sure one is always one jump ahead. Craftier than the slinking germ, if you follow me. Catch the worm before it turns, eh, eh?

  The Axona were obsessed with health and cleanliness. They used more metaphors deriving from this preoccupation than the wildest hypochondriac.

  —At this moment (the Sham-Man’s face shaped itself into a mask of tragedy) I’m afraid the corpse of opinion is dead against you, old chap.

  —Corpus, said Flapping Eagle.

  —Exactly. Dead against. Temperatures are rising. There is a fever abroad in the land, if you take my meaning. There are those who diagnose a modicum of bloodletting (his lips curled into an expression of elegant distaste) but of course I’m not wholly in agreement with them. See their point, mind you. Just don’t happen to agree. Must be my liberal upbringing.

  —What is your position, asked Flapping Eagle.

  —Ah. My position. Ah. Now there’s a question. I quote the sayings of Axona, correct me if I get anything wrong: “All that is Unaxona is Unclean.” I’m afraid we really can’t have contamination around here, you know. Spreads like wildfire. And before you know it, poof, there’s a disease. Nothing against you personally, naturally. Always thought you more sinned against and so forth. But there you are, what can one do, she’s got you for the high jump, I’m afraid. After all you may already be infected.

  —So what do you suggest?

  —Tell you what, TELL you WHAT. Why not, this evening, under cover of darkness, you follow, why not just slip away completely? Save a lot of unpleasant scenes. That’s what I suggest. Think about it. I’m really very sorry about all this.

  Flapping Eagle, alone in his tent, scrabbled furiously at the floor. Then he had them: the yellow and the blue. —At least, he thought, if I am to live in the Outside, I may as well give myself one advantage. He drained the life-giving fluid. It tasted bitter-sweet. He put the blue bottle in a pocket.

  I mentioned that life among the Axona prepared me in many ways for Calf Island. One of the ways was this: it taught Flapping Eagle the power of obsession.

  The town was called Phoenix because it had risen from the ashes of a great fire which had completely destroyed the earlier and much larger city also called Phoenix. Nobody knew why the city had been given that name. It was a small town now.

  When Livia Cramm drove through towns like Phoenix, she kept her eyes skinned, while affecting a pose of languid boredom. Mrs Cramm was a human predator; she consumed the passions of men with an entirely unwholesome glee. The unfortunate Mr Cramm, a small, bespectacled, inadequate billionaire, had long ago been drained by her of all his vital juices and expired in her crushing embrace, murmuring words of endearment and leaving her all his billions in his will. He also left her his vehicles, his horses, his Amerindian and Caucasian estates, and best of all his yacht. If there was one thing that could seduce Mrs Cramm away from seduction, it was the sea. It was a love she and Mr Cramm had shared: the only love they had shared.

  —Mr Cramm, Mrs Cramm was fond of saying, in the days before she refined her speech, had a favourite joke about the sea. Whenever you’re sad or confused, he would declare, the thing to do is contemplate your naval. Navel, you see. Mr Cramm always did have a terrible sensayuma. He used to call me his Jungfrau, being something of a polyglot. When I asked him why he’d say quick as anything, baby, you sure ain’t no Freudlein!! Oh, Jee-Zuss, that sensayuma. I like a man that makes me laugh. Especially when he’s got a maritime background.

  These days Mrs Cramm, being past her prime, was more refined and less choosy. She liked them young, but not too young; tall, but not too tall; fair, but with a hint of dark, Otherwise she took them as they came. She kept her eyes skinned in towns like Phoenix because they were full of youngish, tallish, fair-to-darkish, hopelessly broke possibles.

  So seeing Flapping Eagle quickened her pulse noticeably. The thrill of the chase had never palled on Livia Cramm. Yoicks, she thought.

  —Hey you there with the big eyes, she called. Coo-eee.

  Flapping Eagle stopped mooching idly down the street. The can he had been kicking came clattering to rest.

  —Like a job?

  —Doing what? Flapping Eagle tried not to show his eagerness.

  —Oh, you know, earning money, shouted Mrs Cramm. Odd jobs. Stuff like that.

  Flapping Eagle considered for about one second. He came up to her huge car.

  —Ma’am, he said, where I come from, we have a saying. A live dog is better than a dead lion, but death is preferable to poverty.

  —I can see, said Mrs Cramm, we’re going to have a fascinating relationship. I like a man with brains.

  As the car swept them off, Flapping Eagle reflected that once again he was being ruled by an older woman. Hot on the heels of this thought came the notion that he didn’t mind. I was an adaptable sort of man, more a chameleon than an eagle, better at reaction than action. Whereas Mrs Cramm looked good for some action.

  V

  FLAPPING EAGLE NEVER liked Nicholas Deggle. He couldn’t understand, for one thing, what he was to Livia Cramm. He appeared to do little more than the occasional conjuring trick and receive large sums of money—and the odd jewel—for doing it.

  —Gifts, darling, was Mrs Cramm’s explanation. He’s a friend of mine and a genius what’s more. A real malin talent. Can’t I give my friends presents?

  Nicholas Deggle never looked like a genius in Flapping Eagle’s eyes: except perhaps in that he had a genuine gift for accepting his benefactor’s munificence graciously. Nor, in his dark svelte finery, ring-laden and perfumed, with a rose in his buttonhole, did he look as if he needed the gifts.

  Being absolved from the depredations of age, Flapping Eagle missed the key to Livia’s dependence on Deggle. As she aged, she became increasingly absorbed in the supernatural. She devoured the tarot, the scriptures, the cabbala, palmistry, anything and everything which held that the world was more than it seemed; that the physical end was not, in fact, the end. Since Deggle shared her interests and was a good
deal more expert than she, Livia Cramm found him indispensable.

  Deggle was in the habit of carrying around what he called his wand. This was an extraordinary object: cylindrical, some six inches long, slightly curving. The extraordinary thing was that it was made of solid stone. Flapping Eagle had never seen the like.

  —Where did you find that? he once asked. Deggle looked at him quizzically and replied:

  —It is the stem of a stone rose; I broke it off. Flapping Eagle felt foolish; by asking the question he had laid himself open to the ridicule of the answer.

  The wand would be used in Deggle’s occasional displays of conjuring skill. He would stand, long-nosed and dark, in a black cloak, and conjure marvels from the air. Even Flapping Eagle was impressed at these displays, and disliked Deggle even more for impressing him. The conjurer never revealed his secrets, but they made Livia dote upon him.

  Once, after such a display, Livia was eager to show off her own supernatural skills. She beckoned Flapping Eagle imperiously. —Come over here, she said, and let Livia read your darling hand.

  Flapping Eagle approached suspiciously. Livia looked and squeezed and felt and prodded; and assumed an air of great gravity.

  —Well, my Eagle, she said, What a terrible hand it is,

  Flapping Eagle’s heart missed an involuntary beat.

  —Are you sure you want to know? asked Mrs Cramm seriously.

  Flapping Eagle thought: she makes it sound as though I have a choice. He looked into her eager eyes, glistening with their dread knowledge, and nodded.

  Livia Cramm closed her eyes and intoned:

  —You will live long and except for one serious illness be very healthy. The illness is an illness of the mind, but you will recover from it, though it may have a profound effect upon your career. You will neither marry nor father children. You will have no profession; nor do you have great talent. Your luck is bad. It is your lot to be led by others; in the end you will accept this. But most of all you are dangerous. You will bring grief and suffering and pain to those you know. Not intentionally; you are not malicious. But you are a bringer of ill winds. Where you walk, walks Death.