Chapter Five
Sunday October 28, 2012.
There had been as many seats left on
the flight as deadly sins. Pavor Loveridge, the last to board, had
wondered what sin his aisle seat had represented. He had settled
upon covetousness. Common enough. Though looking around him, gluttony
appeared to have gained adherents. He had imagined a tug-of-war
between the sins and the cardinal virtues with Gluttony as one anchor
versus Diligence as the other. How could the virtues not lose? Pavor
had eased his head back into the padded headrest and had imagined the
straight-laced virtues holding the heavy twined cord in their
chaste hands before letting it drop sending the seven deadly sins
cascading backwards with a sling-shot effect, a tumble of legs and
feet in the air, the rope like a serpent coiling and swirling about
their concatenation of primordial cries. The virtues could
win. It was all about a shift in perspective.
Pavor awoke from this comforting
illusion as the flight attendant approached with the beverage
trolley. He preferred the aisle seat. It allowed for the ease of
stretching, the ease of washroom access, and the ease of observation.
Other passengers could be vital source material as they travelled the
aisle like white mice in a psychology experiment. Descriptions of
physique, facial features, clothing, whether they looked at the other
passengers as they passed, or kept their eyes ahead, could all be of
interest and value to him in his fabrications upon the page.
The embarrassing voice of a macaw
quietly murmured from his midsection. He was still peckish. A coffee
and a croissant would help. The retired couple beside him—ideal
travelling companions in their tweedy calm crossword and bookish
preoccupations—had been dozing but awoke to wave the stewardess off
and had resumed their siesta. Pavor sipped his coffee, the seven
virtues and sins imbibing along with him. Seven, seven, seven. He
remembered a story Mélisande had told him, a religious legend of the
Seven Sleepers of Ephesus. Something about seven Christians escaping
a pursuit—of who he couldn't remember—finding refuge in a cave
only to be held captive as their pursuers blocked the entrance with
rocks. The seven had fallen asleep, and when they awoke, two hundred
years had passed. One of the first time-travel narratives he had
thought. Rather Rip Van Winkle-ish. Was seven an integral number to that tale he had wondered? Ephesus, Pergamum,
Ctesiphon, Byblus, Persepolis, Ur, Trebizond, Petra, Caesarea,
Jericho, Ballbek, all those extraordinary ancient cities with
romantic notions carried in their syllables like life blood, whose sorrows and
pleasures could never be measured by a handful of their dust.
Ephesus, she had told him, had been the centre for the worship of
Artemis, and she had stirred his interest by telling him how a
British archaeologist had discovered a cache of jewels and
statuettes—the offerings to the temple—under the pedestal of the
statue to the goddess, a tale that had conjured up the enchantment of
youthful reading. Perhaps he should add a bit of swash and buckle to
his latest Rex novel. Lost treasure beneath a Montreal building. He
licked his fingers of their buttery croissant crumbs, his inner macaw
having succumbed to silence.
He finished his coffee feeling he'd the
energy to read the few pages he had managed to write over the last
three days. Time had been limited. He had arranged for someone to look in on the house while he was away for a week, and then
he'd driven into Trieste to sell his Richard Francis Burton curiosity
to the antiquarian bookshop, a welcome surprise for the dealer whose
dusty eyelids had come to life as he listened to the story of its
provenance and discovery, a volume, the dealer had said, would
be a rare companion to the author's A History of Farting.
Pavor had felt like he was playing a role, speaking the lines as he followed the script of a
one-act play, a farce called The Haunted Book. It seemed inevitable, as
if the book had been waiting for a lost soul to flounder by and
discover its existence. He'd played his part, and been well-paid for
his efforts. He'd also taken time to visit with Tullio in the
hospital to leave him a replacement copy of his book he'd
irrationally bestowed upon Carina as if she were his long lost
daughter come to life in an ancient Italian fort's drainage duct.
Tullio had been alone, and he'd lied saying he was family to gain
beside access. Standing over him, book in hand, he had cast his
shadow over Tullio's comatose body like the shadow of an imagined
past joining his own shadow of guilt. When touching his arm, feeling
the cool pasty skin, he had recalled the visit
to the morgue to identify Victoria so many years ago. Her arm had
been smooth as an alabaster statue, and as cold. There had been no
words in that sanitized hell. Language had imploded into darkness, a
darkness he'd been drawing from ever since. But Tullio, Tullio was in
stasis, between dimensions, words strung together could be dropped
down to him like a rope in a deep well, something to grab on to,
something to hold. He had managed a few words of encouragement,
whispered entreaties to get better soon with the added incentive of
further Rex novels in the works, one with an Italian mathematician
and his motorcycle.
Pavor retrieved the printed pages from
the travel bag at his feet. Here he was travelling from Trieste to
Montreal to surprise Mélisande, while his character Rex was flying
from Montreal to Prague to surprise Dashmore. He looked across his companions and out the
window but didn't see a plane. Only a faint glimmer of light
supporting a horizon of clouds like burnished pewter.
*
Rex Under Glass – Part Four
Sitting upright, the sleeping mask
in his hands, Rex wondered what it must have been like to face a
firing squad. Were the blindfolds secondhand, soiled and
blood-specked? Did they really provide you with a last cigarette? He
thought of that romantic television series he never tired of watching
on DVD, Reilly, the Ace of
Spies. Reilly was finally captured and shot in the back
while walking towards the border. A better way to go. A false sense
of hope. The more he thought about the blindfold, the more it seemed
it was for the benefit of the firing squad than of the condemned man.
A preventative measure to keep the soldiers from being distracted by
the humanity behind the eyes. If he were ever held before a firing
squad, he felt sure he'd decline the blindfold. Defiant, he would
capture a last glimpse of the world as he collapsed, the falling sun,
the passing cloud, the beetle in the sand. A beau geste.
Putting the sleeping mask away in
his carry-on bag, he stretched his legs out in the aisle.
He preferred the aisle seat for the additional convenience of
appreciating the approaches and departures of the attractive
attendants. He liked a woman in uniform. Crisp neat suits, crisp neat
smiles. Men had, unfortunately, stumbled into the profession,
tripping over the new century and finding themselves the equal
opportunity fantasies of high-flying women. But soon, he felt, all
flight attendants would look like armed border guards, or perhaps
even androids. The romance of flight had withered for him. A wink and
a fling. Ephemeral fantasies nipped in the bud.
The flight attendant, his latest
infatuation, was approaching. Smiling, he asked, “Excuse me, how
long till we touch down?”
Blonde, petite, she braced herself
with his seat as if they were at sea and whispered it would not be
long now, the winds were with them.
“Thank you. It's good to know
something is,” he said winking up at her. Fantasy. His life was a
series of fantasies.
Pavor looked up from the pages. The
light snores of his seat companions were a syncopated distraction,
and possibly an offstage chorus offering its opinion on his latest
work. It was at such times that doubt, like a leaden blanket, would
wrap itself around him leaving him weak with inertia, making him feel
as heavy as solid granite, yet light as a balloon the merest edge could
pop. He had to fight off the sensations otherwise those unruly twins,
atrophy and entropy, would render him senseless of all nimble
aspirations. When work was going well, he often felt like he was
holding an old mirror before him, slowly scratching away the reflective coating off the back with his nails, working from the edges towards
the centre, leaving the face and the eyes for last, until finally,
seeing through the glass clearly, he would offer his manuscript to
his agent and the whole process would begin again. He had created
euphemistic terms for his literary life: the prose and coins
of his narrative life, the whorls and burls of his publishing
firm, the legal brocades of Bramble & Thorne his
lawyers, and the dues and don'ts of Chatter &
Prattle his literary agents, all helping him to become the
unavowed author of his own forebearance, and allow him to submit his
latest creation to be sepulchred in a storage space devoted to the
remnant belongings of his wife and daughter, an archive of finite
grace, a hidden shrine with a modest monthly fee.
He looked up at the ceiling of the
plane with its oddly carpeted surface and remembered
what Mélisande had called him once. She had called him the
arranger of disorder,
a term he had liked very much,
but one that was not original to her, having taken it from a song by
one of her favourite singer songwriters, Suzanne Vega. To lift a
phrase from a song and apply it to someone out of context, was always
contentious and unfair, but he thought the phrase apt. He had sensed a
negative barb inherent in its use, but Mélisande was unaware of the
source of his disorder enough to make him feel like he was a sailor
lost at sea, and she, an inquisitive sea nymph offering guidance. It
hadn't been that long ago, they'd walked a seven circuit labyrinth
she had made in the sand on an empty beach. He had experienced a
cleansing stillness, but one that had worried him. Would he lose his attachment to the prefigurements in black and grey he'd lived
with all his life, from his initial creation of his rogue art dealer Ormond Develle in his
Olivaster Moon, to his
latest Rex Packard diversions?
He looked down to
his papers and resumed his reading:
The taxi ride along Evropska to the
Diplomat Hotel, had been swift and uneventful. The sidewalk
advertising bill-boards for such things as Volkswagon products, the
banners for major American movies featuring comic book heroes, the
graffiti scrawls, and the signs for MacDonald's and Shell gas
stations all provided a soft entry to Prague. Even the street pole
banners with the word 'welcome' in ten different languages were
reassuring.
Vernon Smythe had arranged for one
night at this modern hotel. In and out, he'd said. A favourite phrase
of Vernon's. In and out. After finishing his registration, the front
desk clerk, a formal young man whose shirt collar seemed rather
tight, gave him an unmarked slim envelope saying it had been left for
him. Thinking it was instructions from Vernon, he opened it while
ascending to the seventh floor.
Dear Rex,
So glad you arrived. I look forward
to meeting you.
I know you must be tired, but after
a short nap and a scrub, please meet me today at 3:00 o'clock at the
base of Petrin tower. I know you're somewhat familiar with the city,
but nevertheless, I suggest you get your Hertz and make your way down, Prevnostni, U Brusnice, Jeleni to Keplerova and at Phorelic drive round to the
Strahovska and walk the rest of the way. No need for the funicular.
No need to go through the Mala Strana.
We have much to discuss. Don't
worry. All will be revealed.
Yours,
Evan Dashmore.
Rex held the stiff card in his hand
sensing he'd heard that phrase often enough. All
will be revealed. A favourite of Vernon's. He turned over
the card to see the image on the front, a winged angel holding a
golden branch. The back of the card revealed it to be an allegorical
figure of Victory on Niklas Brucke.
© ralph patrick mackay
© ralph patrick mackay
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