Mai at the Predators' Ball (16 page)

without my father Yinn went on, I sure learned some hard lessons, and that’s something new I’d have missed, that’s what gets the spirit simmering till we become who we’re supposed to be, the Captain put his arms around Yinn’s shoulders, how about one more drink, they strolled over to the bar, I don’t like the gloom on that handsome face, at least that is what he would have said if he’d said anything at all, the Mekong, as it runs down from the glaciers of Tibet, spreads through the dry forests of Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand Yinn continued, but all our natural resources have been crushed, no more Asian elephants, no more Mekong dolphin, all of this huge area on the brink, and Petites Cendres wondered what on earth they could be talking about as they went back inside while he found himself entangled with a man and a woman who wanted to take him home, but he wasn’t interested, look, get this the man was saying, my wife and I both want a man for the night, we both like the same things, so hey why not have some fun, all of us together, why not loosen up a little, we are, so let’s get it on, uh actually I’m waiting for some friends said Petites Cendres, besides I don’t go in for that stuff, and he was moving away from them and trying to shorten his distance from Yinn and the Captain, so this is what he might have waiting for him he thought, disappointed that Yinn only had eyes for My Captain, not him, slim pickings the couple who wanted to play with him instead of a classy friend like that, a real man, he, like Yinn, fixated on the affectionate arm round his shoulders, yep that was it for him, just a hop into bed with this charmless couple, not even a bit of flirtation, nothing, trivial and banal, I deserve better than this he thought, his heart felt strangulated inside him, humiliation by pleasure, that’s all they had for him, hey said Robbie standing next to him, if you need a place to crash you’re welcome anytime, just us girls, all of us at Yinn’s place, he said gently you can’t spend your life on the Porte du Baiser sofa you know, that red thing will throw your back out, fine, no really I’m fine thanks Petites Cendres mumbled but he shuddered with a happiness that was taboo for him, just thinking about Robbie being that close, Yinn’s house but also Robbie’s, when he visited his room, okay now he could hear what the Captain was saying to Yinn, look to tell you the truth I wasn’t exactly following along like all the others during the ceremony, I didn’t dump any ashes into the sea, in fact they’re still on my boat, tomorrow I’ll go for a long dive, maybe all the way down, and put them on a piece of coral so Fatalité can be truly free, free of all those chains life slaps on us, yeah that way he can roam the ocean, way off with the sea turtles and catfish forever, forever and afar, then he sensed Yinn was hurt by this separation of Fatalité’s remains, how could you do that Thomas, we were supposed to all do it together, now where’s he going to find himself, My Captain’s answer was when I’m diving and I see a sea creature tangled in the line from a boat I set it free, that’s Fatalité, now he’s free, the seas and oceans are all his with the whales and the dolphins, however few there may be left, Fatalité was an endangered species too and he’s back where he belongs, Yinn was still upset at this, that’s not how it was supposed to be, all the ashes were supposed to be under the bed of roses, I thought you knew that Thomas, look sometimes you need to bend the rules came the answer, we can’t always be sticklers like you Yinn, oh Christ how stubborn you can be he snapped, step into the washroom, I need to talk to you, so how is this wrong eh, tell me how, because you’ve got to have the one-size-fits-all rule for everything, is that it, well the instinct for freedom outweighs all your rules, but Petites Cendres figured what Yinn wasn’t saying was he had a bad feeling about his friend diving down so deep with his bagful of ashes, Fatalité loved fresh air and sunlight, he loved the surface where he could see the sky and clouds, it’s just not right was all he repeated, still I guess I have to respect what you’re going to do anyway because you really believe in it, convinced by the Captain’s determination, just then they were mobbed by some girls coming in from the street to offer condolences, geez poor girl, poor Fatalité, and they hugged the two of them tight, girls or boys it was all one, so talented, what a shame, beyond the hugs and embraces so customary in the bar anyway, and they did feel a little bit fortified by it all, now the two were looking toward the little balcony near where the bar opened out onto the street, and there was Jason with the musicians backed by the pale outline of the horse standing out against the red velvet curtains as it waited for Herman to haul it outside for spring later, when his leg was up to it, for now he had enough to deal with getting home in his wheelchair, nasty piece of crap he said, such crap, while My Captain and Yinn both tried wordlessly to hide their sadness as they watched Jason and the start of the late show, as his modulated voice spilled forth
he wasn’t heavy, he was my brother, no not
heavy
, I carried him sometimes, yet now he’s gone I feel like I’ve been crushed by a falling tree, okay said Yinn, we’re all set for this evening, the show’s off to a good start, and with a quick kiss on the lips for the Captain before he left for his boat, not a word to encourage the foreboding, Yinn ran for the stairs, then up as if in flight to the dressing room. C’mon Tammy said, taking Mai by the hand, he’s asleep in his lounge chair, who’s this boy you were talking to, kinda crude isn’t he, look at him snoring away while everyone is dancing around him, Manuel’s father had lit lanterns to mark out his territory and also to get rid of the mosquitoes, quite a place eh Mai, geez I just got a text from my mom, they always seem to know where I am, and if they don’t they message me or call my cell, even when they’re at one of their writers’ conferences or whatever, harassing me all the damn time, oh now don’t you go thinking I had too many martinis, no no no no no, been smoking though, way better, hey what were you doing talking to him all the time Manuel was waiting to dance with you, he’s in love with you, you know, your parents don’t want you seeing him, mine are like that too, tough ’cause we’re girls, my brothers now, they can do whatever they want but I get persecuted, do I look fat to you Mai, my breasts, around the hips maybe, I gotta lose weight but I gotta keep eating, like tonight, Christ what I put away, fish, steak, ice cream, as much as that boy over there, maybe I should go over to the bushes and stick my finger down my throat, I’m so scared of getting fat I can’t keep anything down anyway, hips, it’s the hips, no really I gotta be thin like Mom, she’s skinny and beautiful and all, in school too, I’m having trouble in school, they almost think I’m retarded, it gets so I empty the fridge whenever they’re not around, not too bright eh, see what I mean Mai, hey you listening to me, why’s the kid in the khaki shirt so fascinating, he’s really not your type and what would your family say, your mother even phoned, she’s always on the phone to my mom, girls, that’s why, aren’t you worried what your folks’ll say, geez why can’t they leave us alone, you know what, they’re thinking about sending me off someplace else so I can study better, just ship me off like some package or other, Christ it sucks being a girl and having mother hens for parents, north, they want to send me north, I’m telling you I’ll just die, wintertime and the torches are lit on the beach, no mosquitoes, and Manuel’s dad wants us all to know how rich he is, no need to crack a book for that, he sure didn’t, that’s what Mom says, besides she says his business or whatever it is isn’t even legal and Dad says he’s a bad influence on kids like us, yeah like we’re all so innocent and we don’t even know anything, oh I’m gonna throw up, see they come here without a cent and then get rich the crooked, easy way, oh geez my stomach it hurts, me in these sexy skin-tight shorts Mom just got me and I got them all dirty too, she’s gonna have a fit, she said Tammy you’re just gonna have to lose some weight, look your age, so she takes me for the special weight-control sessions at the hospital, nope that’s not my real problem though I could stand to lose some, it’s my mom telling me to be more normal, she says I’m the skinny type but I’m not, oh damn, now I’ve really gone and gotten them dirty, I can just hear what they’ll say now, Mom wouldn’t love me as much if she knew how fat I feel, she wouldn’t say it as much, if they love you too much it’s like you’re their prey, and if you’re big, fat, and ugly, but you aren’t all of that Mai said, you’re just like all the girls, and she wondered how Tammy would be able to go home after this with vomit all over her T-shirt and shorts, you never should’ve drunk all those coffee martinis, Manuel’s gonna have to drive you home, oh no he can’t do that Tammy said, they’ll see his Mercedes then it’ll be all over again, plus they’ll find out I put my finger down my throat to stay thin, they mustn’t find out, and I don’t want some kind of special deal at the hospital either, it’s like they want to humiliate me in front of all the nurses, you’re lucky you can relax Mai, how do you do it, just skate along Atlantic Boulevard like you’re sailing, not a care in the world, God I wish I could skate like that but I’m just too chunky, what I really like is to just stay shut up in my room with some rap music and dead people, what dead people said Mai, well not my family, I mean my own dead people, I wonder where they go, where they are now, what sort of Eden or whatever, you know like when they don’t wake up anymore, I mean I always do wake up don’t I, even my parents say they worry about me losing it and overdosing or something, so the hospital stuff’s supposed to help prevent that too, they think it helps but nothing helps, it’s a dream that they’re trying to put me in, I know that, but in the dream I like how I look and I feel better, but you know when the dream doesn’t look like anything, then it’s dead people and everyone forgets about them, not me, I try to imagine what their last breakfast was like, who they had it with, their kids maybe, Mueslix and milk say in some manor or other where they can get up late and terribly, awfully alone, maybe even rehearsing all night, they’re like gods then suddenly they’re forgotten, not me though, I don’t forget them, at home like they were in a hotel with AIDS and a cook, still horribly alone, a feeling of doom maybe, then one day they just can’t wake up, cool rappers, people forget but I don’t, nope they’re mine these dead people, their eyes like deer’s, they see me at night, then some quiet morning they don’t wake up and there’s crying, the kids are crying Papa, Papa, crying because they really do understand, their prince is in bed asleep, not breathing, the medics give up, but I don’t forget about them, no not me said Tammy, I’ve still got their music all night and all day, no matter if everyone tells them to get up and open their eyes, they’ve decided sleeping is better, peaceful, so why get upset about them, behind those pale, transparent eyelids they’re dreaming and they look so cool, so attractive, the whole world’s seen them dance their way into ecstasy, now they get to sleep, no heavy feelings anymore, that’s what makes it so easy to hurt and excite them when they’re awake, pop stars or rapper kings, I can feel their music in my temples night and day, then no more oxygen in theirs, thick sleep, no way they’re going to wake up, I see them though I really do, and hear them too, dancing in black jeans and jackets in my videos, dancing and singing forever and ever, damn my stomach’s at it again, my parents say I’m anorexic, more visits to the hospital, special stuff, God I’m sick of it, all those dead-looking boys and girls, so sad, ’specially when I’m this fat, you’ve noticed it too, hips, boobs, when all I really want to do is look like those rappers, like just a heart with some flesh and skin around it, just out there singing away, but you’re the same as every other girl Mai cut in, no way you’re fat or ugly, hey lookit if you don’t want a ride home with Manuel’s parents, follow me on my skates, she knew it was going to be hard dragging Tammy all the way home, then there was the way she looked, that was going to raise eyebrows too, though maybe they wouldn’t even be there, could be off at some conference or seminar or something, Tammy’s pleading voice grated in her ear, on edge, begging, please you’ve gotta get me out of here Mai, really, far, I mean far, far away from here, Mère said who’s there, who’s trying to get into my room, Marie-Sylvie is it my friend Justin, his parents are missionaries in China, that’s where he was born and brought up, he is here now, is it him she asked, is he back for a little jazz street parade, I’m not crazy about the drum though, Justin, it has to be Justin in that hat and linen suit of his, and complexion to match, so young-looking and stepping lively as he comes this way, oh do let him in Marie-Sylvie, go on, what are you waiting for, but Marie-Sylvie de la Toussaint groused that there was no one and Mère had better get to sleep, no one, really no one, besides do you really think I’m going to let any old stranger in here said Marie-Sylvie de la Toussaint, Mélanie would fire me you know that, no, no strangers in here, you’re probably thirsty, here have this, so the little devil hadn’t been in to kiss her grandmother goodnight after all, that’s something she’ll regret, I always knew that kid was no good, Vincent’ll come Esther, just a few more days, maybe hours, now that’s a loving grandson, even more than his mother, oh I knew to watch over that one, my child said Marie-Sylvie de la Toussaint, mine every bit as much as Mélanie’s, Vincent, Vincent, that girl now and the delinquents she hangs out with, well isn’t it just like her not to come, we knew it, not to come kiss her dying grandmother, brainless don’t you think, but said Esther, sitting up in bed, I’m not dying, but then again she said nothing of the sort, not out loud at least, she was sure though that the servant had stolen her jewels, precious gifts that Mélanie had given her, maybe this woman was just as deranged as her brother He-Who-Never-Sleeps, deranged to have him in this very house, thieving maniacs both of them, for ages they’d both been fed and clothed by the family, now if Justin comes you’re to let him straight in Mère commanded, we’ve always been close, so close, he the philosopher to my humanist, oh we still have so much to talk about, and Mélanie says Augustino’s come back from India ’specially to see me, she says he writes so much about Calcutta, I’m thinking of that music Franz wrote for the church way off in Finisterre, it struck me as a requiem but Franz said it wasn’t, you know Esther I just can’t write music of desperation, a cantata of course, with melodies and recitatives, but the choruses are very down-to-earth, that was how Franz put it, a cantata, a celebration like the one for my grandson Yehudi, recently I wrote a cantata on the piano for the child I had with young Rachel, Wolfgang that’s his name, can’t you just hear the kids chattering and playing outside your door, what have you done with your specialization in music Esther, nothing she said, I’d completely forgotten till now that I had any gift, as each child arrived I forgot little by little, so your aim dear Franz is to populate the planet with hordes of musical angels, is that it, oh it’s so like you, nothing in moderation, first Yehudi and now Wolfgang already sitting on your knee and stretching his little fingers over the keyboard, that’s you through and through Franz, an unbridled will to impose joy all around you, but it’s not my will dear friend, remember the day my grandson Vincent was born and some of your friends asked me what I thought of the black notations in Beethoven and I didn’t know, I was upset at my own ignorance, dark notes filled with mourning, well I can still see them and I understand them better now, exuding anger, indignation, and frustration at his deafness, that is the despair that we all want to fend off, you above all Franz, illegible and sloping, screams of impotence, raging for a life not steeped in degradation at the end, tell me dear friend, isn’t that what they really tell us, I’m certain of it now you know and that’s what you remind me of by bringing up my music specialization, gone for nought, oh for so long I dreamed that my family was the be-all and end-all of my life, then I came to fear being rejected from artists’ circles like Daniel and Mélanie’s, contempt for her intelligence, that’s a woman’s greatest fear, especially when it comes from her own children, so what about you Franz, what do you say to that manuscript blotted by black, swollen, and angry ciphers, are they buoyed up by hope, is that what your overriding optimism tells you, she got up from her bed and walked to the window and there she saw Wolfgang and Yehudi running around with Franz beneath the trees outside, overarched with the yellow of the frangipanis, may they always be so thought Mère, just playing in the garden near my little place on the lawn, the very day though, the very day Vincent came into the world, Julio warned Mère that the White Knights had arrived at the port, run, you’ve got to run, they know you and your children are part of an anti-fascist group he said, they’re everywhere, waiting at the entrances to the hotels your friends stay in, at the marina, oh they’re here all right, the White Knights are in town, that was Julio’s warning, and the Nazi insignia was there on the hull of Samuel’s boat for all to see, get out, you’ve got to get out, they’re everywhere, faces and eyes hidden by white masks, though Mère had warned Julio not to get so upset over nothing, this was Vincent’s first day among us, they can’t really be back again can they, hanging round the door where Wolfgang and Yehudi played or Franz went walking with the kids perched on his shoulder, look at this Esther, my cantata, and even better, look at Wolfgang and Yehudi, so much better than any music, no now that has to be my best accomplishment yet, that’s something worth celebrating isn’t it, and Mère smiled at him from the window and said oh do please come back to see me as often as you can, so are they really as precocious as you were, truly, I mean as prodigious as you were at their age, travelling all round the world from one concert hall to another, isn’t it still so infinitely sad that one day they’ll take your place as pianists or conductors while you lie beneath the earth simply to be no more, isn’t there something truly sad in that Franz, your native optimism is so stunning but how can you answer that, oh look said Franz, a rainstorm, I’m afraid we’re going to have to go my dear Esther, see you tomorrow my dear, there now we’re soaked, they don’t mind, they love the rain even when it storms, look at them laughing in it, especially when we’re all drenched, come on kids, I’m going to have to put the top up on the car, get in, now wait for me, don’t run so fast, innocent aren’t they, they think I’m as young as they are, mind you sometimes I even believe it myself, then Franz hopped off with them under his arms all the way to the rickety old car, then put up the roof. Petites Cendres sensed the young man with thinning hair was watching him and smiling carnivorously, let’s go up to my hotel room he said, just for an hour if you want, I’ve got powder and crystal, anything you like,