The Horses of the Night (42 page)

And I allowed myself joy. I put my arms around him.

Then he released himself and pried open my hand. The paper horses in my hand unfolded just a little, as though coming to life, or perhaps the tension in the paper from being folded allowed them to re-erect themselves.

“These are old,” I said. “I'll make you some new ones.”

He smiled, pleased at the thought, but took the old ones back, as though to protect them against harm.

“I like the old ones,” he said.

I made him other horses, and frogs that jumped, and a paper airliner, one that flew, gliding in a way that delighted him, and he unfolded it carefully, and refolded it in a new way so he could keep that, too, in his pocket.

We clipped a hedge so he could see how the big shears worked, and he raked the leaves and the stems, piling the cuttings using a tool that was too long for him, and when we were done he ran to get the bicycle I mentioned was in one of the buildings bordering the garden.

It took awhile, and there must have been a moment in which I told myself that this was not happening. This was not real. You see, some voice in me must have murmured—he's gone.

He came back again steering a bicycle that cast ripples of sunlight on the grass from its bright, slowly spinning wheels.

67

Nona had insisted. We could get out of the cab and walk across the Pont-Neuf.

“I don't want you getting too tired,” I said.

“Don't be silly.”

So we were holding hands, gazing down at the river, figures stepping quickly past, people walking small dogs. It had stopped raining. The clouds broke into dozens of fragments, like flagstone flung down into bits.

The plane trees had grilles around their trunks, ironwork that does not constrict the tree so much as give it definition, like the lace collars in a Flemish portrait. The quays along the Seine were pocked and dimpled with fossil shells.

“Why did I bring an umbrella? It's totally unnecessary,” said Nona. She wore an overcoat Anna Wick had designed, and a beret that had arrived in a box with a note from Anna herself.

The note had displayed the quick, dashed-off look of a message that has been carefully considered: “You deserve every good thing from now on.” I had thought the note, in its fortune-cookie rhythm, betrayed either jealousy or a stylistic clumsiness.

Notre Dame shivered in the Seine. The city was suspended, upside down, an imperfect memory of itself. A barge, as long as a black building, approached the bridge. The coal glittered.

“Dr. Valfort doesn't think you're coming,” she said.

“Why not?”

“He doesn't know you the way I do.”

“He'll be surprised.”

“And pleased.”

We leaned on the railing of the bridge. “Are you all right?” she asked.

The feeling kept returning:
This was all about to end
.

I reassured her. No, I saw nothing, heard nothing, only Paris around us. Except—perhaps they would come for me now, at this moment of happiness. Maybe this is the hour they would select to seize me.

Seeing Stuart again had been a cause for joy, but afterward I had felt a strange combination of happiness and dread. Before Stuart's return I had begun to believe that the visions were a symptom of mental illness, that there were no Powers, no soul.

Now I was not sure of anything.

I understood, now, how little I had known about my father. I had kept myself from truths I must have known, in one part of my mind. Now I fully possessed my memories, but I had, at the same time, lost the fiction of a wise, loving father.

I could not shake the feeling that the night of my good fortune was over.

The barge passed under us, on its way south.

I insisted on taking a taxi at last. There was a disagreement. The distance was too short, said the driver, but Nona reassured him, and the man drove without further complaint. I paid him what must have been quite a bit, forgetting to even count the money, not caring. He was cheered by the amount. In English, speaking carefully, he wished us good luck.

The reception was a hive of people accustomed to power. I recognized two foreign secretaries and a number of people whose wealth was legendary. Security people circulated, mixing with the crowd.

The thought kept repeating:
all about to end
.

“You'll never be able to sell your ideas to a group like this.”

I knew the voice well. I turned and a thin, tanned woman offered me her hand. “It's good to see you,” I said, and I meant it. I introduced Nona to Margaret, my ex-wife.

“Stratton can do anything he wants to do,” said Nona.

“Can't we all?” asked Margaret. She gave Nona a moment in which to say something barbed, but Nona held my hand and gave Margaret a pixyish smile.

I considered Margaret's words, and then said, “Margaret refined iron to an airy thinness years ago. She has a special brand of pessimism.”

“Men like a hard woman,” said Margaret, and gave a toss of her head, a mannerism I recognized as meaning, in this case: Who cares what men like?

“Men have always been especially fond of you, Margaret,” I said. I could not help noticing how dissimilar the two women were.

“I think everything should be done to help kids. I'm interested in issues,” said Margaret, her eyelids half closed. “Sick kids, dead whales. It's just—look at these people. Oil people. Politicians. A few of the politicians even have a future. My husband—you see him over there with the sunburn.” She spoke with a careful lifelessness. “But Stratton—let's face it. These people are here so their wives can stock up on perfume and lingerie.”

“I used to find Margaret's brand of boredom attractive,” I said, turning to Nona, but then giving Margaret a smile I knew she would recognize as:
It was nice seeing you
—
now go away
.

Margaret acknowledged the smile with a sigh. “Stratton—I was sorry about Rick. Poor Rick. And he was always so charming. I suspected he was disturbed, of course,” she added, leaning close to Nona but not lowering her voice.

Once again I was out of practice, not prepared for Margaret's breathtaking lack of feeling.

“Stratton's been good to me,” said Nona. “And he misses his brother very much.”

“Anyway,” Margaret said after a pause, “I look forward to your speech, Nona.”

“Strater's doing the talking,” said Nona.

“Stratton's going to convince all these people to give away their money? This will be interesting. Good luck,” said Margaret in the way that means: You don't stand a chance. She withdrew a cigarette from her handbag, and she held it in a way that seemed to indicate that she expected someone to light it for her.

Someone did, a man in a DeVere tux, snapping a DeVere platinum lighter.

“She likes you,” said Nona, when we were briefly alone together.

“She doesn't ‘like.' She enjoys herself, though. And we're even friends, in a distant, steel-lined sort of way.”

At the edge of the crowd Margaret joined her husband. She said something to him, something about Nona and myself, I sensed from the way she nearly glanced over at us. The red-faced man laughed aloud.

Valfort shook my hand, his grip strong. “I am a little surprised,” he said.

“You had no faith in me.”

“I was a fool to worry.”

“I'm afraid I don't like my speech, though.” I had it in my pocket, blue index cards fastened with a paperclip.

“Ah,” said Valfort, that single sound indicating an entire chapter of feeling, anxiety, regret, hope. I could sense how badly Valfort needed me, just then, how badly he wanted the meeting to go well.

I was embarrassed. I should not have been so frank. I had worked hard on my remarks, but I thought that Margaret might be right. I did not have a chance.

“Stratton has what it takes,” said Nona. “Don't worry about him.”

All about to end
.

The Salle du Haut Conseil was crowded. There were worry beads and silk burnooses, there were dark-suited figures, there were security guards every few paces against the windows. Beyond was the distant view of Notre Dame, her flying buttresses keeping her in place under the dissolving clouds.

Valfort gave opening remarks in French, and then there was polite applause as he said my name. I slipped the blue notecards from my pocket.

Useless. How could I possibly succeed? And Nona needed me. Children needed me. I felt my faith in myself, which had been weakening, crumble completely.

I stood behind the rich mahogany of the lectern. I could see curiosity—a questioning study from this distinguished crowd that was not altogether friendly. They had heard about the death of my brother to the point that they were all probably weary of hearing his name. The reputation of my family was great enough that I would have received polite attention in any event. Now, however, the attention was mixed with respect and a kind of vague pity. I was one of those common figures in public life, the survivor of a series of famous tragedies.

I slipped the paperclip into my pocket. I surveyed the words on the cards. I stacked the notecards into a neat pile and looked up again at the blur of faces. This collection of earnest platitudes about the importance of children would sound lifeless. A row of translators leaned forward at a side table, ready to translate whatever I was about to say.

Nona's eyes encouraged me from the front row. Valfort sat beside her, his hands folded, his eyes expectant.

I glanced down, ready to speak. And there, on the lectern, diagonally across the first card of notes, was a glowing blue feather.

Someone did this.

Someone playing a trick.

The room was hushed, one person fiddling with the receiver in his ear, a security guard crossing his arms at the back of the room.

There was a movement, a subtle quickening of the air. A figure entered the room from a side door. It was a woman in a flowing gown, a garment of vibrant white.

68

Not possible, I knew. Not real.

People were waiting for me to speak, and the silence was heavy, now, the self-consciousness of an audience that begins to know that things have gone awry.

She has come for you. You were right
—
it's all over
.

Talk. Go ahead. Pretend nothing's wrong. It is, after all, what you were trained to do, something you can manage after years of habit. You should be good at it by now.

Go ahead. Begin.

The woman in white spread her arms as though to indicate:
All of these people belong to me
.

Why couldn't she have waited just a few minutes? I was sweating. I held the lectern to keep from slumping.

She took her place among them, another presence in the crowd. And then I knew.

Each of the faces around me was glowing, a source of light. I gazed about myself at the assembled people. And I saw that all of these men and women had bargained their souls. None of them were whole. All of them were missing that vital part, and in exchange for this loss had arrived where they were.

Perhaps I was mad. Perhaps not.

Did it matter?

I slipped my notes into my jacket pocket. Nona's eyes were wide. Valfort put his hands over his face.

I took a deep breath.

I prayed.
Make them understand. Make them help the children
.

I began to speak.

Our essence, I said, has already been given to the powers of life and death, the powers we cannot control, or understand. It does not matter what we are, what immortal part we manage to cadge from the confusion of life, because in the end—what are we?

The void is complete, but backlit by our temporary passions. What can be kept is not alive. Morning is coming, the days to come, when we are stone and water, but new people, our children, gather in rooms like this. What matters is how we turn to our children, and what we offer them.

Nothing else is human. Nothing else lifts the sky over our heads—the empty, meaningless sky—or makes the earth a home.

I spoke without being fully aware of the words I used. It was as though I were swimming back to a land I had thought long lost, barely conscious of what I was doing.

When I was finished there was a long silence.

I could not bear to look up. Nice try, Stratton, I told myself. You stood here for half an hour, an hour—who knows how long? And you have only the barest idea what you've been saying. Face it: You've been speaking gibberish, ruining everything.

You have let Nona down.

One person began to clap. It sounded like strained politeness. Then another person joined in, and then there was a rush of applause.

The audience was on its feet, and the sound was deafening.

Nona was smiling through tears, and I was stunned. Valfort was nodding, saying something to Nona, and she was nodding back, keeping her eyes on me.

The applause continued. The source of light on the lectern dazzled me as I gazed at it. I closed my fingers around the plume. I could know nothing. I had joined with powers I would never understand. Did I really want to do this? Couldn't I, even now, turn back?

Nona's eyes were on mine, and she was smiling, saying something to me.

Its light flowed through the fingers of my closed hand. I slipped the quill into my jacket pocket.

I could feel it there, over the beating of my heart.

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank Tom Rogers,

Curator of Collections at Filoli,

for his generous help.

Special thanks, always, to Sherina.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.