Burnt Black Suns: A Collection of Weird Tales (26 page)

The crowd that had gathered for the spectacle was quite a bit larger than I had anticipated. Henri had been gone from the Conservatoire long enough that under any other circumstance he would have no longer been remembered, and yet it seemed as though every student was in attendance. And along with them, row after row of strangers I had never before seen either at school or at any of my own performances. I wondered how could that be. Could they simply be curious, lured by the cryptic invitation? Surely the lot of them could not have been familiar with Henri’s work, or familiar with much well-performed music in general, if they were coming to hear him. I could see no other reason for the numbers, let alone for the general verve of excitement buzzing among those in attendance. Strangest of all was the presence of the man seated at the rear. I knew his face at once, though it took some time before those piercing yellow eyes told me how. Had the anticipation of Henri’s work been so grand that it bled out to the local merchants as well? I must admit that from my corner at the front of the room I laughed at the sheer folly of their soon-to-be crushed expectations.

But I was laughing no longer when Elyse appeared. She swept in from the doorway behind me and all but floated toward the front row. She was even more beautiful than I had remembered, dressed in the finest silk and scarves, and though she did not turn her head when I called to her over the din of the crowd, I could see that behind her veil her skin was as wondrously porcelain as ever. My heart swelled at the sight and I became dizzy. No matter what I thought I remembered of her beautiful visage, it was a pale reflection of the truth.

So enraptured with Elyse was I that I failed to notice a hush had fallen over the room. Henri had already arrived, and had done so without fanfare or accompaniment. Unlike his sister, he was frighteningly a shadow of his former self. Sallow-faced, skin pulled tight, he looked like Charon himself as he slowly navigated the aisles of the hall in hushed silence. At the front of the room his piano stood waiting. Henri held in his hand a pale unmarked folder, and when he reached the piano and sat it seemed to require all his energy to remain upright. I looked askance at those beside me, but instead of disbelief I saw rapture. I cannot express how bizarre I found it all.

Henri’s eyelids were leaded, and it seemed to require a herculean effort to keep them open. I became increasingly worried the longer he kept from speaking or moving, and soon forgot my grudge and stood to attend to him—only to be stopped by the words that finally creaked from his mouth. Elyse stared in rapt attention.

“Welcome, all of you, to this, the culmination of all my years at the Conservatoire de Paris, and all I’ve learned since being there.” I thought Henri might have looked at me then, but his glazed eyes were more apt to be looking
through
me. “The inspiration for this concerto was a play whose script I discovered at a nameless bookstore. I visited the place first in a dream, and it was only by chance I stumbled across it in the depths of Montparnasse. I knew the sight of it at once and felt drawn inside, to its furthest corner, where I found amid the stacks a pale book marked like no other. The merest touch, and electricity stung my fingers, and without hesitation I read. By the second act, I knew nothing would be the same. I knew I had finally found my key.”

But the key to what? I turned to gauge the audience’s reaction, but it appeared as though they heard nothing. Their faces were vacant, waiting for the performance to begin. I tried, too, to catch a glance of the Indian seated at the back of the room, but his face was obscured by fidgeting bodies. A sense of dread enveloped me, amplified by the effect of my illness. I was worried I might be sick, and closed my eyelids in hopes the disorientation and nausea would subside. If anything, it only made things worse.

I opened them once Henri began to play. Or, at least, I believe I did. It’s difficult to be sure. Upon hearing those first few notes—those notes that, even now, have a hypnotic effect over all listeners—I realized everything I knew about my former friend was wrong. The way he played, it was as though each note caught the air and crystallized before me, bright gems emitting an even brighter glow. I was bathed in the light of the absolute, and as its brilliance intensified it obscured everything in my sight. Henri played with a power I had never before known him to possess, and it transfixed me with blindness. That blindness did not dissipate until a subtle shift in chords indicated the second act of his concert had begun. Then the void faded, and revealed a world not as I remembered it. I do not know how otherwise to describe what I witnessed. The walls of the Sainte-Geneviève had pulled back, and I found myself dressed in the strangest of eighteenth-century garb. My face felt unusual, and as I reached to touch it I found it was not my own. I turned in confusion, the sound of Henri’s soothing playing calming the panic brewing in my center, but not before I was struck by the audience and the similar masquerade disguises they wore. I looked immediately to the front of the room for Elyse, and saw someone impossibly more ravishing than before, dressed in wig and gown, her face home to a delicate porcelain façade she held aloft with a single gloved hand.

Then, down the center aisle, strode a caped figure toward her, a figure I knew instinctively was the Indian from the paper shop despite his being disguised head-to-toe. He had grown taller in the vision, his suit transformed into a long yellow cape, his leggings white and ruffled. Over his face he wore a long-beaked black mask; and on his head, a large yellow hat. He danced peculiarly as he moved, as though his feet held no contact with the wooden floor beneath them, and compounded with his disguise I was reminded of some fanciful bird in the midst of courting. All eyes were on him, though behind the blank holes of his mask I knew his were only on one. Elyse must have known it too, for she stood as he advanced, holding her porcelain countenance carefully to her face as she stepped toward the center of the room and offered him a gloved hand. It was then the floor gave way to a larger area, like that of a ballroom, and the perch on which Henri continued to play rose higher into the air. The roof above us had gone, the black stars blinking in strange transformation around a pair of waning moons, while below the yellow man took Henri’s sister by the hand and led her to dance. It was, quite possibly, the most beautiful thing I have ever lived to see. And the most frightening. They moved in simpatico, two beings as one, circling the room over and over as Henri’s haunting music played, each step lighter than air.

But all was not blissful. In my illness, the edges of my vision wavered as though reality itself were becoming undone. I tried to speak, but my tongue had swollen, immobilized by the mask I was forced to wear. The man in yellow and his masked queen spun and spun, and as they approached Henri the moonlight bathing them grew so bright a hairline crack that ran along the length of Elyse’s porcelain mask was revealed to me. It seemed to stretch further the closer they danced to the triptych of windows, the blinding moonlight reflected from the great lake bathing them in light; light that could have come from no place in all France but instead from some distant land that only then did I recognize as lost Carcosa.

The swell of music ended in the fading light of the Paris morning, and there was nothing but utter silence, the entire audience trying to grasp what it had just witnessed. I knew I certainly was. Then, the uproarious applause began—a standing ovation that continued for the better part of ten minutes while Henri sat there, visibly drained and quite possibly unable to stand, nor do anything more without risk of collapse. During this time I did not celebrate, for my eyes went where no others did. To the front of the room, and to the seat there that remained unoccupied during Henri’s greatest triumph.

I found Henri the next day in the flat he and his sister shared. The morning had been spent listening to the stories of his musical prowess that were sweeping the campus, but I was more concerned with what had vanished than what had suddenly appeared. And yet, when I found Henri, lying in repose and staring at the Seine coursing outside his window, I could not bring myself to accuse him of anything. The flat was in a state of chaos, and I asked when Elyse had last been there.

“It seems like forever since she’s been gone.”

“Where is she?” I asked, though I was certain I did not truly care to know. Fortunately, he spared me by changing the subject.

“What did you think of the concert?”

I should have lied—under any other circumstance I would have—but his face was such a shadow of what it once was, his eyes so worn from all he had been through, that I could no longer hide behind my jealousy of his talent. I admitted it was unforgettable, that I had not ceased thinking about it since I heard it. To this, he dryly laughed.

“The price to write that was high, so very high. And now that I am here before you I wonder if it was really worth it. The others, do you think they’ll remember what I’ve done?”

“I think if all Paris isn’t speaking of it yet, it’s only because the day is still young.”

“Good, good,” he said, and closed his eyes for a moment. They had sunk so low, two dark orbs in jaundiced flesh. He almost looked as though he were wearing a mask, and I prayed he would not remove it. When those eyes opened again, they looked at me, but I am not foolish enough to think it was me they were seeing.

“Please, Valise, I need to rest now. Tomorrow there is much to do. Will you grant me my peace?”

“Of course,” I said, and quietly let myself out as he stared once again out across the Seine. I did not travel far before my regret over Elyse returned, but at no time did I turn around or stop hurrying away. There are some topics, like places, that are best left unvisited.

Girder looked for somewhere to park. His rusted Chevy felt out of place on the tree-lined Bridle Path, its rust-orange holes like neon lights announcing his presence. He felt the neighbors’ eyes spying on him—it was clear to every one of them that the scrawny man in the faded denim jacket and stained pants didn’t belong. He wondered if they would feel the same about his paintings. Someday, he mused, they might crawl over one another to have one on their fancy wall. At least, he hoped. Girder took in the Rasp Estate, sitting a few hundred feet away, through his scarred windshield. The red-brick house sprawled, looming above bright emerald grass, its sharp roof knifing into the cerulean sky. He hoped coming had not been a mistake, because it felt like a colossal one.

Girder got out of the car into absolute quiet, his movement causing ripples in the chilled air. Brown and orange leaves were underfoot and everything smelled of sweet decay. The rain from the night before left enough damp that leaves clung to Girder’s old shoes as he limped to the passenger side of his car. He shivered his thin jacket closer to squeeze more heat from the worn denim, and then folded down the torn vinyl seat to retrieve the wrapped painting he’d brought. He thought of Raymond, sitting in the back room of the Overground, sipping orange tea while Girder was out in the cold betraying him, and reminded himself he was doing the right thing.

The walk to Rasp’s door was a long one, hampered not only by a crooked leg but by the weight of the painting in Girder’s weak arms. He had to traverse the distance slowly, his jaw hanging loose as he panted, breath sour and full of worry. Girder wished he could have contacted Mr. Rasp before arriving unannounced at his gate, but there was no listing in the telephone directory, and Girder knew no one who might help. He had no contacts in the community, no one but Mr. Raymond, who insisted on brokering all deals for Girder’s work, and Raymond would not be so quick to be cut out of the equation. Merely asking for Rasp’s name had caused the man’s drill-hole eyes to blink repeatedly, like an alligator preparing to snap. “It’s a habit I’m loath to get into. Everyone is a friend when the gallery’s walls are full, but when that work starts to sell, artists quickly forget what it is I do for my commission.” Girder had to lie and promise he would not circumvent Raymond before the gallery owner would reveal Rasp’s name, an action that later filled him with regret.

Raymond claimed to have met Rasp only once; long enough to show him Girder’s work. “How did he know about it?” Girder asked when Raymond, breathlessly, told him the news.

“Do you remember that tall dark man lingering at the show? He works for Rasp. A scout or buyer or some such. I definitely know him from somewhere.” Rasp had arrived at the Overground’s closing hour, heralded by his assistant. “The fellow made sure no one else was in the gallery before bringing Rasp in. I was quite furious until I realized who he was.” Rasp had grimaced at the work on the wall, Raymond said, scowling when he found Girder’s abstractions. Then Raymond claimed Rasp’s eyes widened as he stared deep into the swirls of paint and immediately insisted he own the series. When Girder arrived at the gallery the next day, Raymond handed him a check. Finally, there were digits enough to reflect what he deserved. For the first time since his father’s passing, Girder wished the bastard were still alive. Just so he might finally rub his nose in it.

It was a relief to put the wrapped painting down in front of Rasp’s large red door. Needles pricked the length of Girder’s knotted arms, and his curved left hip throbbed. He pressed the doorbell, heard a soft chime thud somewhere in the depths of Rasp’s estate, and rubbed his hands together for warmth. He rang the bell again and waited. There was no movement. Peering through the circular inset window, he saw nothing but darkness. Perhaps Rasp was not interested in seeing any more of Girder’s work. Perhaps there was something to his father’s drunken laughter. Perhaps—

The creak of metal hinges, dreadfully cautious of what was to come. A tall thin Asian man appeared, his flesh the sallow tan of someone sheltered from the sun all his life. He wore a pinstriped suit, its sleeves too long, and did not utter a word. Instead, he scoured Girder inscrutably. Girder swallowed, his nerve abandoning him as he stared at those empty eyes.