Nightingale Songs (19 page)

"Mr. Hearst, can I get you to sign this?"

"Of course," I said, reaching into my blazer for my pen, half-distracted by my friend at the front of the room. "I always find books without jackets the most enjoyable to sign. Usually they're the most loved."

"I left the jacket at home," he said plainly. "I didn't want it to get damaged in my suitcase."

I nodded politely; it was obvious he'd hopelessly misunderstood me. Instead of correcting him, I opened the book to its title page and poised my pen.

"To whom should I inscribe it?"

"Oh, it's okay," he said. "Just your name is fine. Personalized books don't sell as well."

I signed it without further word, anxious to be rid of the rank man, but I must admit I signed the book as messily as possible, and did my best to "accidentally" crease its spine. I find it's the pettiest revenges that satisfy the most. While I watched him walk away, somewhat shell-shocked over what I'd done to his book, I smiled, but that smile disappeared when I finally looked again to the front of the room and saw that my friend Gahan had gone.

I kept an eye open for him as WeirdCon continued, but he was nowhere to be seen in the dealer rooms or the bars. I met many other old friends of course, those journeymen writers that appeared at these events as often as I, but usually as far more of an attraction. The thing about conventions is how quickly time passes inside those hotel walls where one can't properly gauge the day without sight of the sun, so before I knew it evening had already arrived and the next panel on which Gahan was scheduled to appear, "The Art of Horror,” was about to commence. I swallowed the last of my drink and said good-bye to my old friends and returned to the Simcoe room to watch the event.

But when I arrived I discovered Gahan was not there and the moderator, Bill Munny, at that time the editor of "Sci/Fant Monthly,” was looking nervous. When he saw me walk in the door he jumped to his feet and rushed to greet me.

"Do you know where McKaye is?"

"I haven't seen him since the Guest of Honor panel this morning."

"No one else has either. Do you think you could substitute for him?"

"Substitute...?" I stalled, not knowing what to do. I'd never been much of a public speaker. I cast a glance out across the sea of faces. Almost instantly I saw in the crowd the young girl whom I'd been sitting beside earlier. I think she was scowling at me. "I doubt many people know who I am anymore. I'm hardly an adequate replacement."

"You'll be okay, Simon. You don't even need to speak. Just sit there."

And that was the way I found myself at the front of the room behind a microphone, wondering when the air had suddenly become so very warm.

The Art of Horror
. You would think, wouldn't you, that it was to be a panel about those who do the artwork that grace so many books? Perhaps a discussion of Harry O. Morris, or J. K. Potter? Maybe going so far as Hieronymus Bosch or Joel-Peter Witkin? And, for a few minutes at least, I believed that was the direction in which we
were
going. While Munny spoke, I started working on something about Blake's Red Dragon paintings and their influence, but all I could think about under those many stares were muddy and disfigured faces. By the time I stopped panicking and started listening, I realized the conversation had taken a turn I hadn't expected, but was not at all surprised by.

"Writing good Horror is like art," Munny said. "The way we put words into order to induce our own fears in others. Alfred Hitchcock said it was all about tension. Everybody knows the story about the bomb under the bench, right? I think if Hitchcock were alive today, he would love what computers could do to help that bomb explosion look real, and look really frightening."

The room clapped, so I joined in out of courtesy. True to Munny's word, I was left out of the conversation between the panelists, which suited me. Just as the topic quickly shifted from illustrators and painters to writers, it quickly shifted again to filmmakers, and I was at a loss as to what to say. When eventually I was pressed to speak, I recall hearing only crickets on the mention of the films of Tourneur or of Wise's
The Haunting
. Still, I like to think
someone
in the crowd took a note. Someone somewhere must have. Mustn't they?

The last fifteen minutes were a bit more animated. Munny had run out of steam, I think, so he opened up the panel for audience questions. I squirmed in my seat. My beard began to itch tremendously, a sure sign I was out of my depth. Perhaps Munny sensed it subconsciously and decided to punish me for it. Why else did he pick that familiar young girl to ask the first question?

"Mr. Hearst, when you talked about those films, you said that what made them good was the underlying themes. Gahan McKaye said something the same today. Why do you think Horror can't just be fun?"

Sweat crept down my neck. I looked down at the table, incapable of speaking to the crowd while watching them. Secretly, I cursed McKaye for disappearing.

"I think you misunderstand me. I've never suggested good work cannot be 'fun'. In fact, I think it's necessary. But I really think good films -- and good books and probably good paintings -- need to have a proper balance of entertainment to art. In the past, when I wrote, I did my best to keep the stories exciting and adventurous, but also endowed them with a bit more thematic 'meat' than many of my peers were doing. I've read books that are only plot and excitement, but I've never found them anything but boring and trite. But, by that same token, I've read fiction by writers who wanted to write the 'next great Horror novel', filled with symbols and themes, and I found that work boring as well. Extremes are
always
like that; they are always boring. Balance is the key."

I looked up at the crowd, hoping I'd won them over, but instead their faces told me that all I'd managed to do was turn them against me. The young questioner looked absolutely disgusted with me. I supposed she wouldn't want any gift I might recommend to her any longer. Munny smiled at me charitably, and asked for another question.

As soon as I could I stepped away from the discussions and the drinking that normally marks the evening hours of a convention and made my plans for escape. The day had taken its toll on me, and I wanted little more than to go out to some nice quiet restaurant and indulge in something to eat. At that point,
L'Hotel du Marcel
was still in business, just along Front Street, and the chef there made a
Roulade de volaille
with Emmenthal and proscuitto that one could really sink one's teeth into. The place is gone now, alas, taken by the changing economy, but to this day I don't think I've ever found its equal.

But as I said it was no doubt still there then, yet I disliked the idea of visiting it alone after my failed panel. I hoped Gahan had returned to his room so I might commiserate with him about the three-ring circus atmosphere of WeirdCon, and the two of us could pretend that the current year wasn't the exact same as all the years that had preceded it. When I knocked on Gahan's door, however, there was no response. I thought perhaps I heard a strange gurgle, but it did not last very long and no other sound followed. I shrugged my shoulders and took the elevator back down and walked the two blocks to
L'Hotel du Marcel
without incident. Contrary to my fears, I had an absolutely pleasant time alone, and by the time I returned to the hotel I was in no condition to do anything more than stumble into bed in a wine-induced stupor.

I woke early the next morning from an uneasy sleep no doubt caused by the ache of a vice tightened around my head. After I'd showered and dressed, I felt marginally better, so I descended to Azure, the Intercontinental’s restaurant, to order some coffee. There were no other guests there save for an elderly couple whom I took to be tourists passing through the city. I didn't know where they came from, but their accents were European, no doubt from one of the old-world Slavic countries. They looked over at me occasionally while I drank my black coffee, the gentleman's eyes narrow and his whispering harsh. I paid them no mind. The world has all sorts of strange customs and rituals, and it wouldn’t be the first time they rubbed together the wrong way. I'd learned long ago that what I took as an offence was rarely anything more than a misunderstanding. Thus, I endeavored to give the couple the benefit of the doubt, even when, on passing me on their way out, the old man hissed.

But that wasn't the strangest thing that happened to me over breakfast. Indeed, that occurred not a few minutes later, when through the restaurant doors I noticed in the lobby the small pale man from the previous day's panel. I still could not see his face clearly -- my vantage point would not allow it -- but he seemed different. Invigorated, no doubt from a good night's sleep. I could tell he was smiling even from that distance -- his teeth positively gleamed -- and he did not carry himself in the same sickly manner I'd noticed the day before. Even his limp had lessened, and I wondered if perhaps he was not quite as ill in the mornings. I still found his movements slightly odd, and the soft shape of his hairless skull more than a bit disconcerting, but as long as he stayed in the foyer of the hotel and out of my way I was happy to repay him the same courtesy.

"Do you mind if I sit down?"

I turned to see my friend, Gahan McKaye, standing beside me. He looked as though he were on his last legs.

"Of course, of course! Have some breakfast?" He shook his head vigorously at the idea. "So," I continued. "What happened to you? You look terrible. Worse than I feel, if that's possible."

But it was. The dark bags under his eyes had not been there the day before -- I was sure of it -- yet there they were as though he'd been born with them. He was wan, bleary-eyed, and sweating profusely while shivering. Around his neck he wore a scarf to keep himself warm, but it was tied so tightly the skin above it had turned pale white, and the web of veins in his neck stood out darkly from beneath the material. He asked me in a hoarse whisper to put my hand on his forehead to feel for fever. I obliged, and afterward surreptitiously wiped my fingers when his attention was diverted.

"You seem cool to me," I said.

"I feel awful. I woke up with this sore throat and I'm still not one-hundred-percent on my feet. I must be coming down with a virus. My whole body aches; and my hands --" he held them out and carefully flexed them, turning them over as he did so to reveal pruned fingertips. "I really should be in bed, but I'm scheduled for some panels today."

"You are? I didn't see any on the schedule. I thought you only had duties yesterday."

"
Yesterday
? How could I have been on panels before the convention even
started
?"

I was nearly dumbstruck.

"But, you do know it's Saturday today, don't you?"

It was then his turn to be dumbstruck. He opened his mouth but there were no words, just the veins throbbing above his scarf. I waited for his illness-dulled mind to catch up.

"Maybe I ought to leave early. Go see a doctor."

"I think that might be wisest. Will you let me know what they say?"

"Of course I will. I'll give you a call when I get back."

But he did neither. Gahan was nowhere to be found for the rest of the convention, and despite the numerous messages I sent to his room, when Sunday afternoon arrived and the closing ceremonies were complete, I still had no idea where he was. I left the convention shortly thereafter, my trip home both long ago and non-refundably booked.

As I said earlier, I had little contact with the genre world -- or my friends within it -- away from the convention. There were other things to occupy my time, other travels to take and volumes to read. All of it of course to grease the gears of my creative engine, my muse, whose noise was so loud it drowned out all other distractions. I spent a month in Italy, in a small village just outside Napoli where I was waited on by a lovely old
nonna
who spoke no English and her young
bambini
who desperately wanted to. I toured the hidden parts of Warsaw and met a pale youth on the street whom I thought for a while had recognized me from the back cover of "The Howling Faces" but instead turned out to have confused me with another tall gangly fellow. I ate and laughed and scrutinized the landscapes and local histories, all in an attempt to feed my "muse engine.” So far away from the insular world of the genre I was happy to leave behind, I hoped somehow my solitude would translate into inspiration, and when I finally placed my pen upon the page words would flow freely from it. Instead, all that flowed were the ideas from my mind, and I ended up with far more discarded drafts than I did words devoted to any of them.