Celebrant (38 page)

People line up to ask questions with expressions on their faces that are slightly unpleasant, as if there were a spirit of mockery or cruelty in them.

“And what do you think I should do?”
a young woman asks.

The face-rubber, smiling beneficently, says
—
By all means you ought not to retire.

Don’t retire!
(the head-knocker adds a little more quietly, smiling and nodding to himself)

“No?”
she asks, nearly spluttering her laugh in their faces.

By no means (face rub holds up his face rubbing finger and nods once emphatically)

No means at all!
(head-knock says)

deKlend edges in.

And me?
(he asks, uncertain he’s been heard)

You?
(face-rub says, in surprise)

You?
(head knock says, as if he had momentarily forgotten the meaning of the word)

Love your lover!
(face-rub rumbles, just having finished rubbing his face)
Love your lover!

Your lover!
(head-knock says brassily, beginning to laugh)

The two of them lean in, huddling their heads together, and titter.

deKlend looks from one to the other foolishly.
By standing there, it may be that he thinks he can cause something better to come along.

Face-rub turns his body more toward head-knock.
They are swaddled in blankets from the waist down, although these are twisted all around their pants.
Head-knock heaves himself to and fro, apparently trying to get the outer pocket of his jacket, which he is wearing, out from under his bottom, without using his hands.
He causes it to flip out onto his thigh, and then withdraws from it a thick bundle of paper, folded together.
Face-rub takes the other end of this rectangular sheaf, which is white, with a faint, very pleasing suggestion of blue.
With much twinkling and nodding they murmur to each other and face-rub, without pausing, tugs the sheaf from the hand of his twin and holds it, a little drooping, out to deKlend.
The two men are completely engrossed in each other, but face-rub’s outstretched hand opens to release the bundle just as deKlend’s fingers are beginning to press it.

Take this you might need it!
(face-rub says, without looking at him)

You might
...
(head-knock says, glancing at him and smiling with glee)

It’s a map!
(face-rub says, without looking at him)

A map!
(head-knock chortles, turning to his twin)

A woman with assertive cologne shoulders by him and commandeers the attention of the twins.
deKlend abstractedly strolls into the corner, opening the paper, which proves to be the copious template of a map.
The paper has a nice heft to it, and is appealingly smooth and broken-in.
It’s the kind of paper that’s dense enough to fray at the edges with wear.

The twins are tittering with each other.

I don’t think he liked our joke!
(one says)

Not our joke!
(the other says)

One side is blank except for a box with a few blank lines inside it, labelled MAP OF, with a thermometer scale.
On the other side there is a grid with numbers and letters and a field all dappled with pastel blues, tawnies, greens, and russets.
The map is so large that deKlend can’t get a look at all of it at once, and he keeps thinking he sees writing, big black dots or stars, in among the folds as he pages through the map.
Perhaps these marks can be seen only given this angle or that fold.
Anyway, the parts he is able to examine, in the dim, red light in that room, are blank except for the grid lines and the shapeless zones of color.

A number of officials are all conversing informally.
One of them says, “Well look here Yolk Eye, here’s your assistant.”

The man addressed as Yolk Eye turns his head slightly toward the man indicated and nods almost imperceptibly, his eyes flicking here and there, without actually ever reaching around to see him.

Hello
...
’
lo (he says)

“You’re Knosp Knoak, aren’t you?”
(the same one asks the assistant)

Knosp Knoak, that’s right, (he says)

Knosp Knoak, (Yolk Eye says, still without looking at him, his head nodding again slightly as he speaks)

There is nothing really aloof about him;
he’s not snubbing Knosp Knoak, who is a handsome, dark-skinned man with lines in his cheeks, thin arched eyebrows, almond shaped face with an aristocratic look when relaxed
—
his eyebrows rise when his face relaxes.

Yolk Eye seems preoccupied.
His left leg, folded and crossed at the ankle in front of him to form a leg diamond, is tapping the cushion of his seat.

Knosp Knoak is a good luck name (he says, getting up suddenly, and without addressing anyone)

He lumbers away toward the sideboard on the opposite side of the room while the other men chat among themselves.

“What’s that you say?” (the first man asks, glancing at Knosp Knoak with a knowing smile) “Why do you say it’s lucky, Y.E.?”

Come again?
(Yolk Eye asks after a moment, all but mumbling)

He is looking for something, then drags a heavy plume from a box set there for that purpose and turns around, holding the plume in his fist and wiping the area around his mouth with it in circles.

“I ask why you think Knosp Knoak’s a lucky name.”

I said it (Yolk Eye says)

His eyes take them in without fixing on them, as he comes back toward them.

It’s a good sound (he says)

“It is a good sound,” (the man echoes
—
showing Yolk Eye off to his associates)

Big, slow, deliberate Yolk Eye also has very dark skin, short, densely curly, shiny black hair salted with grey.
He does everything he does with stubbornly unacceleratable concentration that leaves nothing incomplete.
He turns toward the table in the middle of the room, still rubbing his mouth.
Then he abruptly turns and walks up to Knosp Knoak holding out a big fluffy hand for him to shake.

Yolk Eye nods and for the first time his eyes stay on Knosp Knoak.
His features are slack as he shakes hands and then, as their hands separate, he pulls back out of his forward lean and smiles asymmetrically.
For all that it is a kind of a grimace, as if he were trying to imitate with his face what he saw other people do when they wanted to look hospitable, there’s still a weird equanimity and warmth in it.

The officials shuttle forever back and forth between parties
—
oh we can’t possibly accept
—
we simply haven’t the authority to accept or reject your proposals
—
we must consult with the capital
—
to and fro forever.
Yolk Eye has gone, and Knosp Knoak is talking to a beautiful woman in a white dress.

A hand appears on deKlend’s arm.

I was afraid I’d have no one to talk to.

Nardac has floated tipsily up beside him with a crystal goblet in her hand.
In the dim light she seems younger, and the sheath of thin silk draping her, all pale tan pink, falls like water over a surprisingly shapely figure.
deKlend had become accustomed to thinking of her as a head and hands protruding from a sail.

Will you introduce me?

Unfortunately, I am not acquainted with these people.

How did I know his name was Yolk Eye (deKlend wonders)
Did someone say it aloud?

It’s hard to know with whom you are acquainted, here (she says)

I don’t assume (they are walking together now, her hand resting in the crook of his arm) people are what they seem.

No, of course.
But I mean there are shape-shifters here.

Yes (he says, looking at her) I know one of them.

Whatever are you wasting your time with
her
for?
She doesn’t
know
anything.

Doesn’t she?

You’re not in
love
with that mess, I hope?

I am! (he thinks)

But other quick-change artistes here?
I thought each of us was unique.

Of course, we’re all unique!
But different causes will produce the similar ones.
There are others who can fly in what seems the way you do, but for other reasons.

I don’t fly (he says, and a barely discernible sadness comes into his face)
I’m only a fast runner.

Do you
—
(she asks, stopping and turning to him, bending a little backwards to look up at him, her hip touching his leg)

What do you do?
(he asks her at the same time)

His question emerges more distinctly than hers.

I?
(she asks, distracted)
Oh, this and that
...

He resumes walking with her.

I certainly can’t measure up to your abilities (she says)

I have no ability (he says quickly)

But you’re being
—

He waves his hand, allowing hers to drop.

All that
—
it’s just, it’s not anything.

He notices that some of the people filling this room gradually have a peculiar habit.
When separated, after a time one of them will start to whistle, not a tune, just a note, always the same, repeated at intervals, and the other will reply with a note about a full step lower.
By this means they are assured of each other’s presence.
deKlend has seated himself and Nardac has perched a bit flirtatiously on the broad arm of the chair, and he is making dreamlike conversation with one of them, who whistles at intervals.
The other one, sitting across the room with other people in distinct conversation, answers with a lower whistle.
They whistle without thinking.

The practice (Nardac sniffs, with a sound like paper ripping) is called Wind God.

deKlend believes he is being told something else as well, which is that mnemosems are strangers everywhere, behaving in accordance with customs no one can recognize, but which aren’t just affectations.

Burn follows the gutter along the edge of the house, then squats and drops her head down to peer through the window below.
There he is again!
He sits in a chair, she can see the crown of his head, but the bald woman at the window is moving in and out of her line of sight.
The bald woman sees her there and they regard each other.

After a moment, the somber, dirty face of that little girl directs its attention toward something in the alley, shifting her gaze just like an animal.
Nardac is struck by the plain, smirched beauty of the face, and of the gorgeous blonde hair that flutters in the wind against the stars.