Blue Shifting (3 page)

"I'm sorry – that's cynical. I like you a lot, Corrinda. Perhaps in time..."

For so long I had hero-worshipped Cassandra Quebec that, having her daughter, I could not be sure if the girl I wanted to love was no more than an illusion of my fantasies, a substitution for the love that was impossible.

"I love you," she whispered.

I kissed her projecting knee. I wanted to tell her that she longed for a mother, and as I was both the right age and an artist... I glanced across the room at the statue, now installed in my bedroom, and convinced myself that even this was her subconscious grieving for her mother's absence, with myself as the transferred subject.

Ours was a union born of tragedy, and I kept asking myself how such a union might succeed.

I said: "Tomorrow we could visit the Museum of Modern Art. We could experience your parents' crystal."

Corrinda regarded me with a shocked expression. "My father would never allow it."

"Why are you so imprisoned by your father's wishes?" I asked harshly.

Corrinda just shrugged, ignored the question. "I've read about the crystal, Eva. I
want
to experience it, to understand what my father went through. Then I might come to understand what makes him like he is. I might even be able to sympathise with him, instead of hating him."

"Then come with me tomorrow."

She shook her head. "He wouldn't like it."

In the silence that followed I realised that it was because of her father that Corrinda was so pathetically shy, her experience so circumscribed.

She changed the subject. She leaned over me and stared into my eyes. She could see, in my distant, shattered pupils, the tell-tale sign of addiction.

"You've used mem-erase!" she declared.

I told her that I had used it often in my twenties.

She shrugged. "But why? What did you need to erase?"

"Oh... I suspect periods of unhappiness, old lovers... Of course, I can't remember."

"But didn't you know it was dangerous?"

I shrugged. "Not at the time," I told her. Mem-erase was withdrawn from sale only when it was discovered that memories could never be truly erased. They were just blanked from the conscious, pushed into the subconscious, and could resurface at any time as trauma, psychosis.

"Have you ever thought of
replaying
those memories, reliving those affairs?"

"No, I haven't. I always thought that if they were sufficiently terrible for me to erase in the first place, then perhaps I shouldn't relive them. Then again, perhaps I was mistaken. How can I claim to be an artist if I can't face my past and make something of it?"

Corrinda smiled timidly. "Would you erase
me
from your memory?" she asked.

I pulled her to me. "Of course not," I said, and I wondered how many times I had made that promise in the past.

I touched the scars that covered her body. "You still haven't told me, Corrinda."

"Please, Eva," she said, and would say no more.

~

That evening, as the sun sank beyond the dunes of the Sahara and a cool night breeze tempered the heat of the day, the entire colony turned out to witness the ceremonial unveiling of Maltravers' latest work of art. There was a full moon shining, and above our heads the bulb of his studio hung like a replica of the ivory satellite. There was no sign of the great work, and I was not alone in wondering just what form it might take. Corrinda had chosen not to join me; she said that she
absolutely hated
her father's latest production, but had refused to tell me why.

There was a patter of applause as Maltravers appeared on the balcony, resplendent in white suit and cravat, and gave a short speech. His latest creation, he claimed, represented living evidence of his contention that all art attempted to attain the symmetry of nature. I found the monologue vain and pretentious, but I had to admit that it did have the desired effect of creating a considerable air of anticipation.

He came to the end of his speech and gave a slight bow, the minimal courtesy suggesting a certain contempt for his audience. The Nigerian joined him on the balcony. She wore a vermilion gown, fastened at the throat and gathered at the crotch to form a pair of voluminous pantaloons.

Maltravers kissed her hand and, as we gazed up in expectation, he stepped behind the woman and unfastened the choker at her neck. The gown whispered down the black curves of her body to reveal her terrible nakedness.

She struck a demure, Junoesque pose and the crowd gasped.

Her flesh had been sliced and flensed, the incisions opened, pulled back and pinned to reveal the inner organs in their precise, geometrical arrangement; the kidneys were displayed in positional harmony, the lungs likewise. The muscle of her abdomen had been turned back to form an elliptical orifice, through which could be seen the opalescent coils of her intestines. Her arms and legs had also undergone the depredations of Maltravers' scalpel: the ebony skin was scored and folded in a baroque series of curlicues and scrolls, repeating the motif of red on black.

But Maltravers' ultimate abomination – or master-stroke, depending on one's point of view – was the woman's heart. It perched between the orchids of her segmented breasts and throbbed like some grotesque alien polyp.

I recalled the scars on Corrinda's body and almost retched.

Maltravers stepped forward and took the woman's hand. She twirled. "The Symmetrical Goddess," he announced.

The stunned silence extended itself for several seconds, and then someone whooped and clapped, and immediately the acclamation was taken up by the rest of the crowd. Maltravers and his model disappeared into the dome. Minutes later they strode out across the lawn, and there was a mad scramble to be the first to congratulate the pair.

I took refuge on the patio outside the bar and anaesthetized myself with alcohol. I alone seemed to understand that Maltravers' macabre violation of the woman's body had its source not so much in his desire to create new and outrageous art, but in some deep-seated psychological need known only to himself.

It was not long before my thoughts returned to Corrinda. I recalled her scarred body – her diffidence, which amounted almost to shame, at my insensitive questioning – and her refusal to attend the exhibition. I pushed myself unsteadily to my feet. I wanted suddenly to find her, to comfort her as best I could.

A party was raging in Maltravers' dome. The guests filled the various levels with a buzz of conversation, debate as to the man's genius and the occasional burst of laughter. I pushed through the groups of drinkers and searched for Corrinda, my desire to be with her increasing with every passing minute. I felt a surge of panic take hold of me, as if fearing that Corrinda, provoked by the extent of her father's latest perversion, might take it into her head to do something stupid. I wondered how much she hated Maltravers...

I found myself on a small, railed gallery overlooking a sunken bunker of loungers, which in turn overlooked the darkened desert. The mutilated Nigerian stood on a coffee table in the hub of the bunker, striking a series of extravagant posses. Light flashed off her exposed internal organs. "He took my heart," she was saying drunkenly to a posse of admirers, "and did with it that which no man has ever done-"

I was overcome with revulsion and hurried around the circular gallery. The only place I had not yet looked for Corrinda was in her bedroom. I was about to make my way there when, across the lounge, I saw a door swing open and Maltravers stagger from his studio. His sudden appearance silenced the gathered drinkers; he became the focus of attention as, in evident distress, he pushed his way through the crowd. He paused at the rail, breathing heavily, saw his model and hurried down the steps into the bunker. He grabbed the woman by the arm, dragged her from the pedestal and pushed her across to the outer membrane of the dome. The circle of admirers hastily evacuated the bunker; already, a crowd had gathered along the gallery rail opposite me. I stood directly above Maltravers and the woman, and I alone overheard what followed.

"Where is it?" Maltravers sounded all the more menacing for the low pitch of his question. He still gripped the woman's patterned arm, and she grimaced at the pressure and raised a hand, palm outwards, as if to protect herself from a blow.

"I have no idea what you're talking about!"

I noticed that, for all the violent intimacy of the assault, Maltravers could not bring himself to regard the woman. Her organs were highlighted, the line of liver and kidney duplicating the overhead fluorescents – but Maltravers stared past her at the desert outside, as if ashamed of his creation.

"You were the only person in the studio when I opened the locker." He was shaking with rage. "Where is it?"

Pinned inelegantly to the wall of the dome, the woman nevertheless affected disdain. "Where is
what
, exactly?"

Then he brought himself to regard her. He hissed something too low for me to hear, and the woman looked shocked. I could guess, from my knowledge of his past, from his haunted eyes, the reason for his secrecy.

I pushed myself from the rail and hurried through the dome to Corrinda's room. I opened the door without knocking and slipped quickly inside.

She was curled on her bed in the foetal position.

I paused by the door. "Your father still uses-" I began.

She looked up and stared at me through her tears. "After every session with the Nigerian and me," she whispered. "He didn't want to remember how much he enjoyed cutting us up..."

I could barely make out her words. She seemed traumatised, present only in body. Her eyes stared through me.

Then I saw the mem-erase crown beside her on the bed.

"Corrinda..."

"I had to!" she said. "I had to know what it was that made him do these things. I knew he was ill, but I didn't know
why
." She struggled into a sitting position, picked up the crown and held it out to me. "So I took this and accessed his past."

I accepted the crown. The access slide was set at its very first programme. I looked at her.

"I replayed his memory of the death of my mother." She began to cry. "Take it! Access it for yourself!"

From another part of the dome I heard Maltravers, calling his daughter. Corrinda looked up at me and smiled a terrible smile. I quickly kissed her and hurried from the room, at once eager to learn the reason for Corrinda's horror and yet dreading what I might find. I left the dome as dawn touched the desert sky. The party was breaking up, the revellers leaving and making their way around the curve of the oasis.

In my own dome I poured myself a stiff drink, and then another. I sat down, picked up the mem-erase crown and re-checked the setting. I placed the crown on my head, connected the probes and pushed the slide to activate the programme.

~

Instantly, I was inside his head. I saw what Maltravers had seen that day twenty years ago, experienced everything he'd heard and said. But his thoughts, as they were not my own, remained in the background, blurred and indistinct, full of nebulous anger.

He was in the studio, facing his wife – oh, so much like Corrinda! – across a floor littered with slabs of crystal, frames and crystal-cutters. The Pterosaur, hunched and menacing, regarded him down the length of its scythe-like bill.

Cassandra stood in shirt-sleeves next to her fused crystal, sunlight falling on her golden hair. "I don't understand your objection," she was saying. "The crystal will show my
love
for you. I want you to collaborate-"

"I want no part of it. It's your crystal, not mine."

"But you're part of me. How can the crystal be anything other than
both
of us?" She stared at him. "Are you frightened? Is that it, Nathaniel? You don't want the world to see you as you really are."

Maltravers turned at a sound from the door, and the nurse hurried away to tend the crying baby before he could find the words to censure her.

He slammed the door and turned to his wife.

"How can you talk of love like that, after what you've been doing?"

Cassandra stared at him, stricken. "What do you mean?" It was barely a whisper.

Maltravers tried to laugh, but the sound he made was desperate. "How did you think you could keep it from me?"

She was staring at him, shaking her head.

"How long has it been going on? Before we came here?"

Cassandra was silent for a second, then said, "Two days – no more. I met her here. But she means nothing to me."

(Paralysed, on the edge of consciousness, I screamed.)

"Then why have an affair with her?" Maltravers cried. "It isn't even as if... as if she's a good artist. Christ, the woman's third-rate. She isn't even as good as me!"

(I wanted to hit the release stud, retreat into the safety of ignorance; but some other part of me, fascinated and appalled by this vision of the past, would not allow me so easy an exit.)

"Oh, Eva's much better than you, Nathaniel. That's what attracted me – her talent. But, please believe me – I don't love her. It was only a physical thing, an infatuation."

Maltravers' anger welled; I could feel it massing in my head like a thundercloud.

"Then if you think she's so good, why don't you stay with her!"

The Pterosaur hopped from foot to foot in agitation. At any second, I thought, it would swoop across the room and tear Quebec to shreds.

"Because I love you!" Cassandra yelled through her tears.

"I don't want your love – I want your respect for the artist I am."

She broke; the walls of her reserve crumbled and she was no longer able to lie. She bent almost double and screamed at him.

"But, Nathaniel –
you are no artist!
"

His anger exploded, rocking me.

I knew, then, what was about to happen. I suddenly understood the reason for Corrinda's terrible smile.

The Pterosaur remained on its perch.

Maltravers rushed at his wife.

He lifted a crystal-cutter and in a blind rage attacked, slashed at her again and again as she stood before him and offered no resistance.