Goldenland Past Dark (6 page)

Nepenthe lay on the ground, her burka shrouding her. A huge reddish splotch spilled across its fabric, and a wooden knife handle stuck up out of the centre of the stain, casting a small shadow like the style of a sundial. Webern couldn’t see Nepenthe’s face beneath the veil, but her eyes were closed. He felt lightheaded, dizzy; black stars exploded in the periphery of his vision. He sank down to the sand and found himself clutching one of Nepenthe’s hands in his. Even through both their gloves, he could tell she was still warm.

Webern tried to breathe. In his mind, he saw a kaleidoscope of Nepenthe from the last few months: Nepenthe lighting a clove, Nepenthe spitting; Nepenthe reading philosophy, psychiatry, a book of poems; Nepenthe in a beekeeper’s hat and a pair of oven mitts; Nepenthe yelling, cursing, yawning; Nepenthe throwing a book, a baton, a pail of water; Nepenthe playing pinball, punching the sides of the machine; Nepenthe lying on her lizard rock, dyed green from the lights. None of those images matched up with this one, none of them made any sense, until suddenly Nepenthe sat straight up and declared, “Surprise!”

The little clown falls slowly through the deep green water.
He wears a black suit and a bowler hat; in his right hand he carries a cane. When he touches down on the sea floor, he uses it to steady himself.

Down here, the water is shadowy, but the sand reflects the light of the moon—a dim yellow, like the tail ends of fireflies. Fish-schools flicker, swimming in rippling formation. The clown cuts a lonely figure as he walks along. He pokes his cane at sea cucumbers and bottom feeders, who stare up at him with bulging eyes.

Just when he thinks he’ll never see her, she appears, veiled in murky water that hangs like a mist between them. A starfish wraps around her left wrist, a living bracelet; above the glimmering scales of her tail, she wears a modest bathing suit of shells and woven seaweed. But dark currents blur her pale face. She could be monstrous or lovely, the age of the clown or old enough to be his mother.

The clown reaches up to tip his hat, but he notices too late that his bowler is floating away; he has to jump to snatch it and jam it back onto his head. Next he bends down to pluck a sea anemone from the bed of flowers that grows beside him. But as soon as he touches one blossom, they all snap shut in a burst of sand. The clown frowns, furrows his brow. Shamefacedly, he turns back to her empty-handed.

The mermaid laughs and shakes her head. Tossing the clown a kiss, she vanishes again into the dark waters.

Webern groaned and rolled over onto his back. He spat out a mouthful of wet, gritty, rum-flavoured sand. His head throbbed, and a whooshing sound filled his ears. He was freezing, too; his hobo suit clung to him like he’d just walked through a rainstorm. With an effort, he opened his eyes. Stars still flickered above; if anything, morning seemed farther away than it had when he passed out. Webern let his eyes drift shut again. Just then, another wave rolled in, engulfing him from head to toe.

Webern crawled away from the incoming tide. He pulled himself onto his hands and knees toward the drier sand. But before he could flop down and fall back asleep, he saw someone approaching, silhouetted against the lights of the boardwalk, which still burned in the distance.

“Aha! I suspected it was you.” Dr. Schoenberg walked swiftly to Webern’s side. He reached down to grasp Webern’s hand and pull him to his feet, but when Webern moaned and collapsed, he reconsidered and sat down beside him instead.

“What am I doing here?” With some effort, Webern straightened his glasses. A strand of kelp hung against one lens.

Dr. Schoenberg gestured toward the empty rum bottle, which rolled in the surf near Webern’s discarded hobo hat. “Continuing your festivities alone, it seems.”

Webern remembered then: the smile leaving Nepenthe’s eyes, his blurred escape into the garish maze of the boardwalk, the hour or so he’d spent staring into the dark waves, drinking and feeling sorry for himself.

“I’m such a fool,” he murmured. He felt dead with shame. With great effort, he sat up. His insides rollicked. “Ohhh. I bet everybody hates me now.”

“Don’t be absurd, my boy. The fault was ours entirely.” Dr. Schoenberg allowed himself a rueful smile. “In hindsight, I can see the prank had a rather macabre edge.”“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Everyone must think I’m crazy.”

“No one thinks anything of the kind, I can assure you.” Dr. Schoenberg removed a white monogrammed handkerchief from the pocket of his tuxedo jacket, unfurled it, and offered it to Webern. “But even if they did, it’s none of their affair. Bernie, let me show you something.” Dr. Schoenberg shucked off his tuxedo jacket and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. “Do you see this mark?”

Webern stared at the inside of Dr. Schoenberg’s arm. Faint pink lines—scar tissue—marked it from wrist to elbow. Dimly, Webern could see they were letters, spelling out a name.
Sebille
.

“Never feel ashamed of your passions, my boy. When I was your age, I thought I would die for love.” He ran his finger over the scar gently. “Her name was actually Sybil, but I preferred the Arthurian spelling.”

Webern imagined a young Dr. Schoenberg, holding a concertina, gazing up at a young girl’s window with mournful eyes. He smiled a little; Dr. Show chuckled and shook his head. He rolled his sleeve back down.

“Most people joined my circus as a last resort,” he said. “They came to me because they were ill-equipped for anything else. I know that. But I also knew from the first that you were different. You’re a young man after my own heart, Bernie: too sensitive for your own good, perhaps, but with extraordinary talents.”

Webern looked down at his hands. In the moonlight, they gave off a pale glow, and he imagined the rest of himself glowing too, greasepaint white, like the clown in his dreams. No one had ever said anything like that to him before.

“Thanks,” he said.

Dr. Schoenberg rose, put his jacket back on, and shot his cuffs. “Now, shall we go assuage Nepenthe’s fears? She’s thoroughly convinced you’ve drowned.”

Webern let Dr. Schoenberg drag him to his feet, but once he was standing up he felt even sicker. He took a step forward, and the ground rolled beneath his feet. Dr. Schoenberg caught him just in time.

“A little off balance? No matter—I came prepared.”

Dr. Schoenberg reached into an inner pocket of his tuxedo jacket and removed a small black wand, about the length of a conductor’s baton. He pressed a button on one end.
Click, click, click.
The wand telescoped out into a walking stick. Webern took it and tentatively leaned on it. It held under his weight.

“That’s a boy!” Dr. Schoenberg strolled ahead. He sniffed the salty air. “What a splendid night.”

It was. The beach glittered under their feet, and the dark ocean stretched out endlessly beside them, joining up at some invisible nexus with the rich velvety blue of the sky. Webern thought about his dream as he walked. It almost did seem like mermaids might swim in these waters. He looked down at the cane in his hand and again thought of those shimmering scales, flashing away where he couldn’t follow.

Webern didn’t like to think of his mother very often, but seeing Nepenthe tonight, laid out as if for burial, had stirred up his memories. He tightened his grip on the cane and tried to turn his mind away from the first image he saw—the car crash, with its broken windshield shining in rubied splinters on the pavement, his mother’s dress, a bottomless pool of spilled green silk. He thought of Nepenthe’s burka, with its red stain spreading, and of the swords that crashed like lightning around that spitting fire. Maybe he put a curse on everyone he loved. Maybe
he
was cursed.

“Watch yourself, my boy!” Dr. Schoenberg grasped Webern’s arm just as he tripped over a hunk of driftwood. The cane tumbled into the sand.

“I’m sorry.” Webern tried to hold perfectly still, but he could feel himself swaying. “Jeez, I’m so sorry.”

“No matter, Bernie, no matter. Cruel Bacchus visits us all now and again.” Dr. Schoenberg picked up the cane with his free hand and snapped it shut. Webern stepped more carefully, staring down at his feet. They seemed very far away. “Don’t fret. We’ll have you well in no time. Did you know, my boy, that in Haiti they would cure your ails by poking thirteen pins into the cork of the offending bottle? Left, right. There, you have it now. In Assyria, they quaff crushed swallows’ beaks, mixed in a paste with myrrh. But back at camp, you may have to settle for strong coffee and an icepack. Whoa there!”

Webern narrowly avoided slipping on a beached jellyfish. Up ahead, the campsite was almost visible.

“We’re nearly there now, my boy,” Dr. Schoenberg said. He pointed with his wand. “The others will be so relieved. Hank was all for alerting the authorities, but I knew I could find you myself.”

“You shouldn’t have gone to all that trouble.”

“Don’t be absurd. Would you have me leave you tossing in the surf?”

When Webern had started going outside late at night to practice his unicycle, his father just sat around in his bathrobe, staring at the TV, his feet resting on the wooden crate his gin bottles had come in. He never came out to make sure Webern was all right. He probably didn’t even notice that Webern was gone.

“Dr. Show, do you have any kids?”

“I’m afraid not, my boy.” A shadow crossed Schoenberg’s face, but just as quickly it disappeared. “I was not made for the pleasures of hearth and home. One must make sacrifices for one’s art, you know. Besides, our little company is a family of sorts, isn’t it? We look after one another.”

Back at the campsite, Explorer Hank sat beside the fire, poking at the flames with a stick. Ginger and Freddy slept curled together in a cardboard box beside him. When he saw Webern, he leapt up.

“Bernie! Where the heck did you go? You had us worried sick. The cats’ve been shedding like crazy.”

Webern shrugged. The warmth from the fire reminded him how soaked his clothes were. He moved a little closer to the blaze.

“Sorry,” he muttered.

“Well, you should be! I was all set to call the Coast Guard—”

Dr. Schoenberg gave Hank a stern look, and Hank stopped himself.

“It’s just a good thing you’re safe,” he finished. “But you should go see Nepenthe right away. She made me promise to wake her up when you got back.”

Dr. Schoenberg stretched. “Well, I think I’ll retire. Hank, will you prepare Webern some strong coffee? I think it would do his system good.”

Hank nodded, and Dr. Schoenberg strode away into the darkness. He always pitched his tent a ways away from the others.

“I’ll put the kettle on,” Hank said.

“Okay.” Webern took off his jacket, wrung it out, and put it back on. Hank kept standing there. “Thanks.”

“But you should see Nepenthe first. She’s in her tent.”

Webern had never been in her tent. “I heard you the first time.”

Hank chucked him under the chin. “Go get her, little lion.”

Nepenthe’s tent, a green half-egg, sat nearest to the campfire. Tonight, it looked dark and silent, but the canvas walls breathed in and out, in and out, as if it were a living creature. Webern reached to unzip the flap, then hesitated.

“Nepenthe?” he whispered. No one replied. But his voice came out so quiet, even he could hardly hear it. Webern sucked in his breath, then reached again for the zipper. If she was asleep, he’d leave right away.

Webern unzipped the flap as quietly as he could, then stepped inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust; the only light came from the moon, filtered through the green canvas walls. Webern looked around slowly.

On the floor, a half dozen fashion magazines lay open; from their moon-silver pages, models smiled up at him with a haunting desperation, their faces like unanswered love letters. Nepenthe’s trunk sat beside one wall, its leathery top strewn with veils and gloves, but also with limp brassieres and tubs of skin cream with curious names: Aqua Velva, Satina Smooth, Extra Pearl. A teddy bear with one black, shiny eye half sat, half lay on the corner of a spiral notebook.

Nepenthe herself reclined in the tent’s farthest corner, up to her elbows in the kiddy pool. Most of the ice cubes around her had melted; the few that remained had diminished into slivers of themselves. Nepenthe still wore her burka with its dark crimson stain, and the fabric floated around her like a lilypad, but her discarded veil lay draped over the side of the tub. In the dim light, her face, grey and rough though it was, looked oddly fragile, like the cracked faces of heroines painted on Italian frescoes. Her eyes were shut, and for a moment Webern thought she was asleep. But just as he began to back out through tent flap, she opened them.

“Bernie,” she said. Something in the way she said it amounted to an apology, a confession, and a question all at once. The word hung in the air between them for a long time. Nepenthe blinked; her emerald eyes sparkled, and with a slosh, she sat up straighter in her kiddy pool. “Bernie, you’re drenched.”

Webern never got back to sleep that night. Nepenthe sent him to the tent he shared with Al to change into dry clothes. When he came back out to the campfire, he found her waiting for him, wrapped in a blue blanket, holding two mugs of coffee. She’d put on a set of white butcher boy pyjamas, but no veil or gloves; even her feet were bare. He sat down next to her, and she draped the veil around both their shoulders.