The Book of Water (29 page)

The Mahatma Glory Magdalena’s presentation caught her entirely by surprise. She had never laid eyes on such a woman: so grand, so spectacular, so histrionic, all arms and hands and braided, beaded hair flying in every direction. Dignity and decorum were the basis of court behavior, seen at its best in the dignity of Erde’s beloved grandmother, the late baroness, a woman of no small presence herself. But to stand in the Mahatma’s presence was like standing in a gale. Every word she uttered, every move she made called attention to itself. A welcome from this woman was writ in capital letters, given with tears and sighs and lightning flashes of her brilliant smile. Entirely undignified. And yet, Erde admitted, her charisma was such that you gladly let it buffet you in the face, even if it threatened your balance. You just HAD to watch her, to see what outrageous thing she would do next.

And what she did next, after she’d finished declaiming about the foolishness of her overzealous protectors and the perfidy of anyone with the temerity to doubt her predictions, was to swoop down on her three visitors with the same grandiose flashing of tears and smiles. She enveloped
each of them in a smothering hug, finishing with Wasser, who was trying so hard to be invisible behind Erde’s right hip that she was sure the boy/dragon had actually shrunk in size. Wrapped in the silken folds of Glory’s robe, Wasser looked five years younger than the putative ten-year-old who’d walked through the gates. Erde hoped the dragon knew what she was doing. It wouldn’t do to draw attention to herself by exhibiting unusual abilities.

“Precious children!” Glory exclaimed, though Erde did not see how the woman could think of N’Doch as a child. “Brave children! Come all this way to see Glory! Glory hallelujah!” She glanced around at her slack-jawed acolytes and threw up her arms. “I said, glory hallelujah, brothers!”

“Glory hallelujah, sister!” they chorused, though none of them looked very happy about it. “Amen, amen, amen!”

Glory’s hot-ember eyes narrowed. “For I have seen the light . . .!”

“Oh, yes, sister! Amen!”

“And with God on my right . . .!”

“Amen!”

Roused by the noise, a few of the sleepers groaned to their feet and shuffled over to join in on the chorus. Glory’s smile brightened, like a fire fed by the addition of kindling.

“There is truth in my sight!”

“Amen, sister, amen!”

Beads and bells tinkled as Glory lowered her arms and pressed her palms together. “Amen,” she repeated with obvious satisfaction, then turned back to her visitors. “Now, dear and blessed, dear and foreseen travelers, rest from your trials, from your terrible journey.”

It wasn’t all that terrible, Erde would have reassured her, if she’d been further along with her lessons in Frankish. But Glory seemed to be enjoying her own version of their story. The light in her eyes, Erde saw now, was not unlike the hot glint that filled the bard’s eyes at home, old Cronke, when he was deep into the recitation of a favorite tale.

“So, enter this humble house, good children! Bring to Glory’s hearth the heavy burden of your terrible tidings, and lay it down! Glory hears all! Glory sees all! Glory will ease your load!”

And Erde wondered:
Which particular terrible tidings does she have in mind?

*   *   *

N’Doch has felt the sudden gust of chill air expelled through the doors as the Glory woman flung them open. It makes him eager to get inside even though he has his doubts about the wisdom of venturing into what is clearly a crackpot’s lair. But he’s never been into an air-conditioned space that he didn’t immediately get thrown out of. He’d like to know what it’s like, this rich man’s luxury. Maybe it’s no big deal, really, but he thinks it probably is.

So against his better judgment, against all the accumulated cunning gleaned from a life in the streets, N’Doch lets the Glory woman take his arm on one side and the girl’s on the other—he sees the girl’s got the apparition well in tow—and sweep them up the shallow white steps like a small herd of sheep. Or whatever. N’Doch has never seen a sheep, but he knows their reputation for going willingly to the slaughter.

The white-robed toadies fall over each other in their haste to haul open the massive double doors, so that Glory and her guests pass through into the house without a break in stride. N’Doch sees only darkness inside, and pulls back a bit. Glory urges him inward. The doors, as tall and wide as any he’s seen, breathe closed behind him with barely a whisper.

He’s in a dim, cool hall, so dim he can’t be sure how high or wide. He wants to stop, wait a bit for his eyes to adjust, but Glory is drawing them down along thick carpet he can only feel. His strongest impressions are sensual: the plush carpet; the caress of perfumed air cooling his skin, wicking away his sweat; the soft murmur of voices in other rooms, like the steady wash of the sea on a calm night. It’s a spooky thing. He’d like to be
seeing
a lot more than he is.

“Hey, girl . . .” he ventures casually, into the darkness.

“I’m here,” she replies. “And Wasser, too.”

He feels a little better, though Glory’s grip on his arm is disturbingly strong. He wonders briefly if his usually unerring instinct for gender has played him wrong. But he’s seen the womanly curves of her body shaping her robes and now can’t help but notice her rounded hips and full breasts as she holds him tight to her side. Experimentally, he leans into her a little so her breast rubs against his chest. Her nipple is hard. Apparently she’s enjoying this scene she’s
creating in more ways than one. N’Doch is more curious than ever, but the oddness of it makes him doubly wary. Like, maybe it’s fear. He’s seen that. But he can’t say that this woman looks like she’d be afraid of anything.

Finally his eyes adjust, but by then, they’re at the end of the hall in front of another set of double doors. N’Doch barely has time to register the polished hardwood paneling, outlined with a glint of gilt, when the doors are drawn aside by white-sleeved arms and are swallowed up into the thickness of the door frame. N’Doch is freed as Glory raises the arm that held him, moving into the room and signaling behind her without looking.

“Water! Warm water, soap, and towels for Glory’s guests! Then food and drink! Quickly! Hurry now!”

She flies about the room, beads jingling, hands and arms in motion, and a small battalion of toadies swirls after in her wake, drawing drapes and shades, flicking on lamps, plumping pillows, pulling giant upholstered chairs and ottomans away from the walls into the room. N’Doch takes up a position at the epicenter with the kid and the girl, like in the eye of the storm, watching and wondering just what the hell this is all about.

Shimmering white tablecloths are spread. Water is brought in big white porcelain bowls. A soft white towel is put into N’Doch’s hands. Because he can’t think of any reason not to, he dips a finger into the nearest bowl. The water is warm and clean. It doesn’t smell or sting. N’Doch rinses his hands, then his face and neck. Now he’s really aware of the cool air, chilled at such inconceivable cost. It’s actually raising goosebumps on his forearms. N’Doch is amazed. He thought that only happened when you were scared shitless. He asks himself, has he ever been this cold before? He thinks he would remember if he was, and can’t.

He watches the girl, sees how easily she falls into being waited on, how her cool brief smiles and calm nods look almost professional, like he’s seen actors do it on the tube. He sees the apparition observing her carefully, doing exactly what she does. The toadies and acolytes seem surprised, like they’re not used to being treated graciously. He figures he’ll just give it a try. He’s gotta be at least as good an actor as the girl is.

The Glory woman washes, too, though N’Doch can’t
imagine that she needs to, seeing as she supposedly just got up, plus took the time to get dressed to the nines like she is. She’s got three attendants dancing after her like their lives depended on it, one holding a bowl, one the soap, and the third a whole pile of towels. She seems to notice them about as much as she would the furniture. She’s in motion all the time and they have to stay alert to keep up with her without slopping suds and water all over the ankle-deep carpets. N’Doch wonders why she won’t sit still, if maybe she’s nervous or something, or like, did she take in too much of the precious white powder when she woke up this morning?

He thinks of the sleepers on the ground outside, and imagines the whole compound seething with people charging about at the speed of the Mahatma Glory Magdalena. It makes him laugh. But when he hears voices down the hall, a deep man’s voice pitched to carry above others, and he sees Glory go on the alert, N’Doch realizes she’s been listening, real hard all along, and part of her nonstop movement is simple wariness.

She goes to the door, trailing attendants, and calls down the hall, promising an immediate arrival. N’Doch notes the trill of coquettishness that brightens her voice and offers just a hint of submission. Then she whirls back into the room, tossing her towel aside without looking to see where it might land.

“Children, dear children,” she declaims, circling, her eyes still drawn to the door. “Forgive your naughty Glory for abandoning you so soon after your arrival. But she won’t be long. She just
must
bid a very special Guest good-bye, and then she’ll be back to you in an instant!” Gathering her skirts, she wheels out the door and away. The attendants gather in the hall like storm refuse and stare after her.

So now, of course, N’Doch is dying to know who’s this “special guest,” this guy with
cojones
enough to make this astonishing woman hop to so fast.

“Wasser is not happy here,” murmurs the girl at his elbow.

“Can’t he speak up for himself?” N’Doch is enjoying the spectacle. He doesn’t want his curious adventure brought to a premature end by some little kid’s failure of nerve.

The girl gives him an odd, impatient look. “She’s only warning you. There is something unusual here.”

N’Doch snorts. “You don’t think I can see that? You think I spend my life in air-cooled mansions with fresh water and servants at my beck and call?” No, but I’d like to, he finishes silently.

“Not that kind of unusual,” she whispers. “Dragons don’t notice human comforts. Or discomforts, for that matter. It’s like what she said about the golden horseless coach. There’s something . . . wrong.”

Dragons. Right. Distracted by luxury and longing, he’d once again forgotten. He tells himself he really cannot afford to keep doing this. “Okay. Warning taken. Let’s play it out, though. Sees where it goes.”

She nods, dipping a corner of her towel into her basin. She pats delicately at her pale, sweated forehead. The towel comes away red with dust.

N’Doch grins. “Better just stick your whole face right in there, if you want to get that off.” But he knows she won’t. It wouldn’t be . . . ladylike.

At last the washing ritual is completed. The basins and dust-ruddied towels are whisked away, and a regal spread of bread and fruit and cheese is laid out on the shining tablecloth. N’Doch thinks it looks like an advertisement. He checks it out pretty carefully, to assure himself it’s real and safe and no one’s pulling a fast one. He sees the girl holding back and tells her to go ahead, who knows when she’ll ever see another meal like this one. When a steaming pot of coffee is wheeled in on a silver cart, he’s sure he’s died and gone to heaven.

“Eat, children. Help yourselves.” Glory swoops back into the room like a gust of hot wind. Her brilliant smile and mobile hands urge them toward the table. “You must be dry and famished from your long and arduous travels.”

To N’Doch’s disappointment, she offers nothing further about her “special guest.” Instead, she hovers briefly, pointing out delicacies, watching them as if to make sure they eat. She even grazes the food herself a little, commenting on the quality of this or that, and he wonders sourly if he’s seen the extent of her, if she’s like so many other star performers: all bombast and stupid small talk. He promises himself he will not be like that when
he’s
a star.

Then suddenly, she’s off again, shooing the remaining acolytes from the room. “Leave us, leave us! Glory knows you’re eager to hear the message they bring us, but first, you must let the dear children eat and you must let them rest!”

It seems to N’Doch that the young men all give him a look and go reluctantly, like maybe they don’t trust him with her or something. And he’s not too busy piling food on a plate not to notice when Glory locks the doors behind the last of them. She does it quietly, so quietly and carefully that N’Doch would be worried if it weren’t for the fact that somehow he just knows it’s the people on the
other
side of the door she wants to keep from noticing. When she’s slid the bolt home, she rests her forehead against the rich wood for a long, still moment. He sees that she’s breathing hard.

When she finally turns, she’s no longer the flamboyant Mahatma Glory Magdalena. Her smile is gone. Her eyes look weary, haunted. Gathering herself, she glides swiftly to the table and past it, murmuring, “Say nothing. Not a word.” She gestures them to gather up their food and follow. She’s dropped the mask so suddenly that N’Doch is left a little dizzy. The girl, however, seems relieved, as if this new Glory is a more expected one.

“Lealé?” she whispers.

Still in motion but without all the arm-waving, the woman agrees less with a nod than with a roll of those haunted eyes, a look that also tells them to hurry, that no real conversation can be had until they get to where she’s leading them. At the same time, she’s muttering to herself, “I didn’t know, I didn’t know.”

N’Doch thinks she looks confused, but he’s more concerned right then with his own humiliation. How’d the girl figure it out so quick? It was the dragon told her, he’s sure of it.
His
dragon. He elbows the apparition urgently. “You could have clued me in first, kid.”

The boy/dragon blinks up at him, echoing Lealé. “I didn’t know.”

“Yeah, sure.”

“Really.”

“Yeah?”

So maybe the girl’s more on the ball than she looks. This is a hard one for N’Doch, but he figures he’ll learn to live with it. Meanwhile, he reflects, the confusion of identities
in this caper is really getting out of hand. He decides to think of the woman as Lealé, since she’s the one Papa D. sent him looking for.