The Death of Cassandra Quebec (2 page)

For three days the
world's media vilified Maltravers as a monster, until the coroner
reported at the inquest that nothing could have saved Quebec. Then
his agent released the crystal, and over the next year or so public
opinion swung in Maltravers' favour – the vilification turned to
sympathy and appreciation.

In the silence of the
Museum I steeled myself, stepped forward and laid my palms on the
crystal's surface. Warmth ran up my arms, the warmth of Quebec's
love for her husband, with which she had begun the work. This joy
lasted only seconds, though, for as I moved my hands from the edge
of the piece towards its centre, pain swamped me, physical pain –
the scream of every nerve slit through and through again. Beyond
this, on some deeper sub-strata of the crystal, was Quebec's
bewilderment, and then her sudden comprehension as she realised
what was happening, that life was ebbing from her, that everything
she had ever experienced, the hate and the joy and the everyday
miracle of existence, was draining away, becoming faint as she
approached the terrible point of total annihilation. Her end was a
crescendo scream of terror as oblivion descended.

Then my touch
encountered Maltravers' pain at his loss. The howl of desolation
that communicated itself from his soul to the crystal, and then to
my senses, was almost more unbearable than the pain of Quebec's
death – for it continued long after her dying, a lament of grief
for his wife, a scream of despair at the realisation of his
existence without her.

Unable to take any
more I tore myself away, and the sudden cessation of pain was an
exquisite relief. I had no idea how long I had been standing before
the crystal, so captivated had I been by the raw human emotions. I
realised then that I was in tears.

As I made my way
slowly from the Museum, I knew that I no longer resented
Maltravers. The act of creating the crystal had been instinctive,
born of pain and the need to share his grief, and not the
opportunistic bid for fame I had assumed for so long.

Within a week of his
wife's death, Maltravers took his daughter and sought refuge on the
colony world of Henderson's Fall, as if by doing so he might
distance himself from the pain of the tragedy.

And tonight he was
returning to the source of that pain.

~

That evening I attended
the party thrown by the President of Mali to welcome Nathaniel
Maltravers to Sapphire Oasis. It was held in the President's own
dome - he dabbled in photo-montage – with a view across the desert
to the telemass portal, through which Maltravers was due to arrive
at midnight. The dome was packed with eager guests: I recognised
the two dozen or so serious artists who made up the nucleus of the
Sapphire colony, faces familiar from Earth to the furthest settled
world. Also present were the flamboyant Hoppers, attendant
sycophants, and sombre-suited officials from the countries of
Northern Africa and Europe.

I drank by myself
beside the alcohol dispenser and thought about returning to my own
dome. There was an atmosphere of excitement and expectation about
the gathering that smacked of voyeurism. I was on my fourth drink
when I admitted that the only reason
I
was here was to see
for myself how the passage of years had treated Maltravers, and
perhaps learn the real reason for his return.

At twelve we spilled
out onto the balcony and marvelled at the exhibition of
interstellar
son et lumiere
enacted to the south.

Until its activation,
the portal was nothing more than an illuminated hexagonal frame,
through which could be seen a continuation of the starlit African
sky. Within minutes all that had changed. The frame flickered, as
if affected by a power-drain; then a thunderous report rolled
across the desert, and the scene through the portal was
transformed. The guests gasped and applauded as an alien landscape
appeared: a busy spaceport, distant blue mountains, and binary suns
in a pink sky. As we watched, a bull-nosed bigship eased its way
through the interface and entered the atmosphere of Earth. The ship
came to rest on the apron of the spaceport at the foot of the
portal.

We returned inside. As
the flier carrying Maltravers raced across the desert towards the
oasis, the conversation in the dome had about it a charged
expectancy. I kept to myself by the dispenser; around me, guests
quipped, exchanged stories and looked frequently to the gates in
anticipation of Maltravers' arrival.

I was thinking about
my experience with the crystal that morning when a sudden hush fell
upon the company. I stared through the diaphanous, curvilinear wall
of the room as the flier slipped through the gates and settled
beside the lake.

Two figures climbed
out, were met by the President and his entourage, and disappeared
into the scimitar shaft that supported the dome. The conversation
started up again, self-consciously, all eyes on the entrance.
Seconds later the door opened and applause rippled through the
room.

I can recall very
little about Nathaniel Maltravers as he made his entry – I was too
intent on watching the person who entered with him. While the
guests flocked to congratulate Maltravers on his return, I had eyes
only for his daughter.

Corrinda Maltravers
surprised me on two counts. The first was that I had never thought
of her as a young woman – if I thought of her at all, it was as a
babe-in-arms, a cypher in the tragedy, untouched by the passage of
time. The second was that she was as beautiful as her mother.

Maltravers moved from
one group of guests to the next, and his daughter followed in his
wake. This was the first time she had returned to Earth since the
tragedy, and she appeared shy and bewildered at the reception. She
was small, slim, wore a black tube dress that left her shoulders
bare, hugged her hips and finished just above the knees. I caught
only a glimpse of her large green eyes and isosceles face –
so
painfully like her mother's – before she disappeared into
an admiring throng of guests. I wondered how long it would be
before she found herself waking up beside the next self-professed
Picasso.

My reverie was
interrupted by the arrival at my side of Maltravers and the
President of Mali. They sipped their drinks and the President
regaled Maltravers with a short history of his country.

Nathaniel Maltravers
was in his middle-fifties, tall and silver haired, with the
well-groomed, distinguished appearance of someone who has foregone
the life of an artist for that of a sybarite. I could not reconcile
the man beside me with the artist who had suffered the anguish of
his wife's death and communicated it so harrowingly.

Then I noticed the
distant, blitzed look in his grey eyes. I recalled the report that,
during his self-imposed exile on Henderson's Fall, Maltravers had
taken the easy way out. Before the possession of mem-erase became
an offence, he had duly self-administered the process of wiping
from his memory the entirety of his stay at Sapphire Oasis. His
only knowledge of the tragic event was what he read in factual
accounts, stripped of all emotion and pain.

Now he glanced my way,
his eyes measuring me for size in the places he thought important.
His gaze was less lecherous than professional, as if he were
seriously considering me as a prospective model.

"Aren't you Eva
Hovana?" he asked. "The creator of the
Persephone
crystal?"

I admitted that I was;
it was an early piece and not one of my best.

"If I may say so–" he
smiled "–I have always found your work rather derivative."

I was quick with the
riposte, and immediately regretted it. "At least I don't get other
people to do my work for me, however derivative it might be."

Stung, he moved off
instantly. "As I mentioned earlier," he said to the President of
Mali, "my next piece will be influenced by my obsession with
symmetry."

The President hurried
him across the room. "Ah... meet my friends from the Council of
Europe..."

I escaped onto the
balcony.

I gazed out over the
body of water, glittering in the moonlight, and wondered what was
keeping me at Sapphire Oasis. After all, I had experienced the
crystal I had come to see. I was contemplating a trip to Europe
when I sensed someone beside me. I felt a hand on my arm, and
turned.

Corrinda Maltravers
stood before me, even shorter than she had seemed in the room,
almost childlike. She had quickly withdrawn her hand when I
started, and now regarded me uncertainly.

"I'm
so
sorry.
My father... he–" She gestured.

I smiled. With her
shock of sun-bleached hair, her green eyes, she was so much like
the picture of her mother I had kept at my bedside during my
uncertain youth.

She smiled in return,
relieved at my acceptance. "My father
hates
women and
artists. It's bad luck if you happen to be both." She had the habit
of emphasizing certain words as her mother had done.

I shrugged. "I can
live with the hatred of men," I told her, and cursed myself for
being so obvious.

She regarded me shyly.
There was a diffident look in her eyes that could
not
be
what I believed it to be. "I think your best work is the
Goddess
of Lesbos
," she whispered.

My stomach fluttered.
"You do...?"

There were a thousand
questions I wanted to ask her, about herself, about her mother...
but I was frightened of being seen to be too forward, too
eager.

Maltravers called her
name and Corrinda almost winced.

"I
must
go.
I'll see you again?" She smiled shyly. "I really meant what I said
about your work..."

She slipped through
the sliding door with a small wave and disappeared into the
crowd.

I decided to remain at
Sapphire Oasis for a while.

~

Over the next few days
I saw Corrinda on a number of occasions; but she was always with
her father and it was obvious that she felt she could not leave him
to join me although, I thought, she gave the distinct impression of
wanting
to do so. Or was I kidding myself? I was pushing
forty and desperate, still searching for that which most people
have either found at my age, or have given up hope of ever finding.
Besides, I had to admit that it wasn't Corrinda I was attracted to;
rather, I was obsessed with Cassandra Quebec and the tragedy of her
death.

However much I tried I
could not bring myself to start work. I had brought with me several
small crystals in various stages of completion, with the notion of
dabbling with them should no new project inspire me. Not only did
nothing come to mind, but I found it impossible to complete the
crystals already begun. My thoughts were too occupied with
Maltravers, his daughter and the death of Cassandra Quebec. I was
afraid of corrupting the unfinished work with my turbulent and
unresolved emotions, and reluctant to begin a fresh crystal,
perhaps on the subject of Quebec, for fear of being unoriginal. It
had all been done before, and how might I bring some new and
stimulating insight to the drama?

I spent more and more
time beside the sparkling oasis, sipping long drinks and wondering
whether my assumption the other night as to Corrinda's preferences
had been nothing more than a drunken fantasy. Certainly, she did
not join me as I sat in full view with my drink. But then, I told
myself, perhaps this was because her father was in evidence so much
of the time.

Maltravers spent a few
hours each morning in his studio. Around noon he would emerge,
showered and suited, and hold court in the bar. He had found
himself lionised by the clique of Hoppers, and had proved himself a
competitive drinker and an able raconteur. From my lounger by the
water, I took the opportunity to watch him as he drank and
illustrated his spiel with expansive gestures. I recalled the way
he had eyed my body at our first meeting, and during the course of
the next few days I realised that he was likewise sizing up the
women in his crowd.

He soon found what he
was looking for. Within a week of his arrival he was escorting a
willowy Nigerian Princess, a laser-sculptress with a penchant for
scarlet gowns that emphasized the absolute ebony of her flesh. They
spent the mornings in his studio, afternoons in the bar and the
evenings partying at various other oases scattered about the
desert. I heard one rumour that they were creating a crystal
together, another that they were producing a sculpture.

As much as I disliked
seeing a beautiful and talented artist used by him, it did have the
advantage of keeping Maltravers occupied and out of the way. I
lived in hope that Corrinda might take the opportunity to seek my
company.

Then one evening as I
watched the sun set and the moon rise, and was contemplating
whether to go to the bar for another drink or to return to my dome,
a shadow fell across my outstretched legs.

Corrinda smiled
uncertainly. "Miss Hovana...?"

"Eva, please. Won't
you sit down?"

She perched herself on
the edge of the chair across the table and gave a shy smile in lieu
of words. She wore a spacer's silversuit, chopped at shoulders and
thighs. I could not help but notice, on the tanned flesh of her
limbs, white scars like tribal striations.

In mutual nervousness
we both began speaking at once. We stopped, and I said, "Please,
you first."

She shrugged,
reddened. She seemed younger than when we first met. "I just... I
wanted to
apologise
for not meeting you sooner. I was
working."

I reached across the
table and took her hand. "Working?"

She reacted to my
touch with characteristic nervousness. "Didn't I tell you that I'm
an artist?" she whispered.