The Man Who Melted (26 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

Mantle awakened in his stateroom on the dirigible
Californie
. It was a small but comfortable and well-furnished room. Joan, looking haggard, sat on the edge of his bed and tried to smile at him. He was looking stronger now; his eyes no longer looked glazed. But Joan felt alone, lost. She remembered
Mantle's thoughts when he lost his balance on the lifeboat and fell into the water. He had seen Josiane! And then the connection faded.

The
circuit fantome
was broken.

“It's like being back on the ship,” Mantle said. “I can hear the thrum of the engines…and everything creaks, just like on the ship.”

“Haven't you ever been on a dirigible?” Joan asked, hating the small talk. But she couldn't ask him about Pfeiffer…or Josiane. Not yet.

Mantle shook his head and then, after a long pause, said, “Always thought of them as being so slow.” He shivered. “Jesus, I can't get rid of the chill.”

“It's the injection the doctor gave you. You'll feel cold for a while, but you should have your strength back now.”

“Except for the chill, I feel fine.”

“Do you want to talk about—”

“Yes,” Mantle said, shivering. “Let's get everything out in the open. God, I'm sorry. You look as if you'd been standing on a lifeboat all night.” He reached for her hand, and she moved closer to him. Her hands were hot, perspiring; his were cold. “Thank you,” Mantle said.

“For what?”

“For the connection, and all your love. For being with me out there. I can see what a strain it was, what it did to you. And I know how you had to pressure the captain to rescue us first.”

“I couldn't let you drown,” Joan said. “I—but how did you know about the captain?”

“Through the connection.”

“The connection's dead,” Joan said flatly. She felt herself trembling. After being so close to Ray, thinking his thoughts through the
circuit fantome
, she felt that she had lost part of herself when the connection was broken. Like scamming down, she thought. God, I'll never have him back.

“Joan?”

“I'm sorry. I guess we've both had a rough night.” Then, as if she had bricked over her bad thoughts, she resumed conversation. “Do you know how I talked them into rescuing you? I told the captain and his officers that you were a reporter working with me and—”

“So Carl saved my ass one last time.” Mantle smiled, but his face seemed filled with hate or, perhaps, loathing. “I saw him die. I left him, there was so much water and—”

“You tried,” Joan said, “and almost lost
your
life trying to save him. You can't expect any more from yourself than that. But Carl just didn't seem to be the type. But then, who is the type?”

“Jesus, the message!” Mantle said suddenly. He sat up and activated the computer, which was built into the wall near the head of his bed. The computer asked for the usual identity check; Mantle pressed his palm against the silvery face of the computer and recited his identity and code numbers.

“What are you looking for?” Joan asked, worried.

“Carl told me that he left a message for us.”

Joan stiffened.

The messages were projected holographically before Mantle, as if a CeeR screen were floating beside the bed. There were several “red” messages—red messages could only be read once; then they were scrambled and automatically erased. Mantle told the computer to run the message from Hilda, and the computer requested an identity check of Joan if she were going to he present.

“Who's Hilda?” Joan asked, after giving her prints and identity number to the computer.

Mantle smiled sadly. “You know, just now I miss him. I suppose it will take time to hit me—just as Josiane's death will—that my past is forever—”

“Ray, you can do this another time, when you're feeling better.”

“When we were in college, Carl and I used to send letters—not fax, mind you—to each other. He used to sign his letters ‘Hilda Snatch.'”

Joan laughed, an edge of hysteria in her voice. “What did you call yourself?”

But Mantle didn't answer, for a hollie of Pfeiffer appeared before them as if Pfeiffer himself were sitting in the center of the room. The image had the telltale fuzziness of the scrambler. Pfeiffer was wearing an open shirt and neatly pressed white pants—an outfit he had often worn at Mantle's home in Cannes.

“Hello, Raymond—and Joan, if you are present, which I assume you will be or, rather, are.” Pfeiffer looked down at his folded hands for an instant, as
if to consciously stop himself from twiddling his thumbs, and then continued. “I think you deserve an explanation for what I've put you through, old friend. I knew that I wouldn't have much time and, quite frankly, I wanted to spend the last hours with you, and you, too, Joan….”

Pfeiffer seemed to be looking directly at Joan and Mantle, as if he were really alive. Mantle shuddered, for he knew better.

“I was involved in the Watergate to dethrone the Mahdi of Afghanistan. I was
very
much of a peripheral person, but nevertheless involved. I had nothing to do with the actual assassination attempt, however. Anyway, the deal was already in several weeks ago to prevent a war. Our president and his cabinet—which means
everyone
with affiliation, according to the new Salah al-Din al-Ayyubi—must be dishonored and thrown over; that's all that will satisfy him. Of course, what we consider to be an honorable apology and then stepping down will do. The government will make it look good and iron it out. After all, there is a precedent for this sort of thing. I imagine that by the time you hear this, the vice president will have already taken over. However, the Mahdi demanded that everyone else be put to death….”

“Jesus,” Joan murmured.

“Our government is afraid of a repetition of the Paropamisus Executions,” Pfeiffer continued. “You remember how the Mahdi executed the brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, cousins, and then the
friends of
the ‘Traitors of Islam' until the men he was after either gave themselves up or were found. Either way, they were executed. The Mahdi and his people are fanatics; our government will comply. So I was given a choice.” Pfeiffer smiled grimly and said, “I do—or did, rather—have friends in power. I chose to take an ocean voyage—it's best for everyone involved. Caroline is living in San Francisco, you might call her for me. I'm sure this will have shaken her up. But, as you know, we were finished. I suppose I used up her portion of love for me, just as I used up your friendship. There, you see, confession.” Pfeiffer paused, then said, “And I still owe you one, Raymond. I'm sorry that I had to pressure you into coming along with me. But even though you don't feel that you're my friend, you're all I have…you, and Joan. I am sorry about Josiane. I knew she was dead, and I used her and used you. I loved her too, Raymond. Although you don't think me capable of it, I grieved for her when I found
out….” Pfeiffer turned his head slightly, as if looking at someone who had just walked into the room. “Joan, thank you for everything. There's a story waiting for you at the bureau, my compliments. If this doesn't put you ahead of everyone else, nothing will. There's a stonewall on the news now, of course, but you won't have any trouble when it breaks. You're both safe; I've taken care of everything. That's all. Somehow…I suppose there's no way to make amends, Raymond; never will be. I'm sorry, and I love you. Good-bye….”

The image disappeared, and the room was quiet except for the ever-present thrumming of the engines and the creaking of expensive wood.

“Well,” Joan asked, “what
did
you call yourself?”

“What?” Mantle asked, distracted. He was blaming himself for Pfeiffer's death, yet he
knew
there was nothing he could have done.

Joan moved closer to him.

“I think I called myself ‘Hotlips Zymurgia.'”

Joan didn't smile. She was crying for Pfeiffer, or maybe for herself.

And, guiltily, Mantle realized that he was visualizing a new painting…that he wanted to paint again.

Joan and Mantle sat in the corner of the large, well-appointed Laurel Lounge, away from the other survivors who were watching the holographic tapes of the sinking of the
Titanic
. The images filled the large room with the ghostly past, and the survivors cheered each time there was a close-up of someone jumping overboard or slipping under the water.

“Where are the reporters?” Mantle asked.

“This room is restricted, at least for the time being,” Joan said. “It was decided we needed a rest before the rush.”

“I should imagine that keeping the audience in suspense is good business.”

“This has become
the
biggest media event of the year,” Joan said.

“And you were right in the middle of it.”

“Yes, and I wish I'd never talked you into it, I—”

“
You
didn't talk me into anything,” Mantle said, and then he became pensive, as if he were suddenly talking to himself. “Carl wanted me along for those last days. I suppose I'm all he had. He had no real friends; he scraped the bottom of the barrel with me….”

“I tried to be his friend,” Joan said.

“Jesus, I can still see him,” Mantle said; and then, as if he had just heard what Joan had said, he replied, “I know you tried to be his friend. I know…. But he had to hold Josiane in front of me as a carrot to get me to come along, to spend his last days with him. Only to tell me she was dead. Christ, how long had he been planning this?”

“And what about Josiane?” Joan asked, or rather blurted. She couldn't hold it back any longer. “In the room you acted as if you really believed that she's dead. Do you believe that…now?” Joan looked at Mantle as if praying for the right answer.

“Yes,” Mantle said, “I think I do.”

And Joan's head lolled forward. She fell asleep right there, just as Mantle had once done when he found out that his mother would live. It was as if Mantle had exorcised all her dreams. Just then the doors swung open and a dozen reporters rushed into the room, followed by noisy entourages of technicians, makeup artists, camera people, and passengers.

But as Joan drifted into sleep, she thought she heard Mantle say, or think: “At least I'll try to believe….”

TWENTY-SIX

The news of the fall of the government didn't break until Mantle and Joan were back home in New York City.

They took a glassite pod, which whizzed them through the transparent tubes of the city to Mantle's modular apartment on West Seventy-ninth Street. Mantle had kept his apartment plugged into the core tower, which rose several hundred stories through the grid that spiderwebbed the old undercity.

“Somehow I can't believe you lived here,” Joan said to Mantle as they passed through a foyer. Rows of tables and chairs were placed against the walls. The marble floor tiles formed a dizzying geometric pattern, and the passageway was illuminated by available light streaming through a high, narrow, stained-glass window. Around the window and covering the walls were paintings, mirrors, and bric-a-brac.

“Why not?” Mantle asked as he led Joan into the living room, which was sparely furnished with low upholstered chairs and couches. The ceiling was lacquered, and a collection of ceramic and glass jars were displayed on the inside wall. The outside wall was transparent. The room seemed completely
open to the city—the view was breathtaking—and yet it was also isolated, not cozy but protected, like some transparent womb.

“It's just so different from your home in Cannes…it doesn't seem like
you
.”

“This
is
my home,” Mantle said, looking around the room. A robot silently passed by the doorway as it carried their baggage into the bedroom. “It feels good to be back. I was afraid of returning.”

“I can understand that.”

“But that feeling of dread seemed to disappear as soon as we stepped out of the pod.”

“Well, we should be happy about that,” Joan said tightly.

“I know how uneasy you are right now,” Mantle said. “I warned you, it can be quite disconcerting at first.”

“I'll get used to it.”

“If you can't, then we'll change it to suit
you
. I want you to know that.”

“Thank you,” Joan said, “but we'll have plenty of time to change whatever we like. It will be fine, I'm sure.” And she put her arms around Mantle.

“There's something I have to show you,” Mantle said. “Let's get everything over with at once.”

“What do you mean?”

Mantle led her into the bedroom, which had a domed ceiling, large arched mirrors, ornamented walls of ceramic tile, and a deep red-and-blue Oriental carpet. “I never allowed you into the master bedroom of my house in Cannes, remember?”

“Yes, of course I remember. You always kept the door locked.”

“Well, this is the same bedroom exactly. I had it duplicated in Cannes, down to the last detail. I even had copies made of Josiane's letters and diary.”

“Was this
her
room, then?” Joan asked.

“It was
our
room,” Mantle said. “The other bedroom was for guests, I remember that….”

Joan walked around the room, examining clothes, hollies, fax, and clippings that were strewn about.

“This room is just as Josiane left it,” Mantle continued. “I thought that by keeping it as it was, it would help me to remember. That's why I recreated
it in Cannes.” When Joan did not respond, Mantle said, “I couldn't bring myself to share Josiane…until now. That's why you never saw this room in Cannes. But tomorrow we can have all this moved out, and you can decorate it any way you like.”

“Are you sure you really want to give it up?” Joan asked. “It's early yet, so much has happened…. I wouldn't want you to do something you'd regret. You'd only blame me.”

“No, I wouldn't blame you,” Mantle said. “If it weren't for you, I don't know what I would have done.” Mantle looked around the Oriental, Mandarin room. “I've got to start somewhere, try again. You know, from everything I know about myself when I was with Josiane, from the tapes, I don't think I would like him…me.”

“Now I can understand why you kept your bedroom door locked in Cannes….”

“Is it because of Josiane that you dislike this—”

“That's a nasty way to put it, Ray,” Joan said. “I have nothing against Josiane, for Christ's sake. My God—”

“I'm sorry, it was a wrong thought.” Mantle fingered the objects on a bronze and onyx table, then wiped his hands on his trousers as if he had soiled them.

“There's something cloying about this room…this house. No, that's not quite what I mean. It's hard; it doesn't let anyone else in. It represents a whole world of isolation. It frightens me because I imagine that you and your sister were enough for each other—you didn't
need
the rest of the world.”

“So I've been told.”

“If you mean by Carl, I think he was jealous because your relationship was closed to him.”

“I can't imagine a relationship more closed than his and Caroline's,” Mantle said. They walked out of the bedroom, through the foyer, and into the living room.

“You were involved in a
ménage
with them,” Joan said as she stared out through the transparent wall into the city. “How can you possibly consider it a closed—”

“It closed down almost immediately,” Mantle said. “As soon as Carl felt secure enough to wall her away, so to speak.”

“Perhaps that was a reaction to you and Josiane.”

Mantle shrugged. “That was before—”

“I think it was obvious to everyone but, perhaps, you and Josiane of your feelings for each other.”

“I have no way of knowing, but that's over with,” Mantle said. “Now, I want to start my life again, fresh, with you.”

Joan turned to him and said in a quavering voice, “Then have Josiane's things moved out of the bedroom….”

Every day, Mantle expected it to hit him. But each day was calmness itself, and Mantle felt as if he had been born anew. He had no past—or a past that was clouded and dusty—and a clear present. He was home. Everything was familiar and comfortable and yet somehow new. Since he had redecorated the bedroom and had everything of Josiane's removed, he felt as if a great and terrible weight had been lifted from his shoulders.

Maybe there was hope, maybe he and Joan could make a life….

What was happening to Mantle seemed to be symptomatic of the world, for Screamer attacks had stopped and the frantic anxiety that had overpowered nations was replaced by an uncertain calm. Everyone was waiting. The Crying Church was preaching that this was the promised calm before the storm, the time to make one's peace with the world before the final purging.

Mantle sat in the studio, the outermost room of the apartment, and painted. The smells of oil and turpentine were strong and satisfying. Mantle worked quickly with brush and cloth and knife upon a large canvas. It was ostensibly a painting of the
Titanic
floating on a cold, calm sea. The ship seemed to be floating in a gray heaven, for sky and sea were carefully merged. Images appeared and disappeared as one looked at the painting—a familiar technique of Mantle's. Finally, one would see a Dantean hell of men and women drowning while others were busy in the lifeboats. Parties were in full swing in watery staterooms; lovers kissed good-bye; sailors lowered collapsibles; and a dirigible floated above, its passengers pressing their faces to the tiny windows.

Mantle had two paintings in mind as he worked:
Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
by John McCrady, in which Satan and the angels battled in the evening sky
over a shack where a black man lay dying, attended by his family; and
Night and the Sea
by Henry Mattson, a painting of angry green ocean, sky, and rocky coast. Every time Mantle had seen that painting, he felt his old fear of the sea, as if the sea were only for drowning.

When he was finished, he walked around the room and looked through the walls and floor at the city around him. Just below him were glassite rooms like his own, some opaqued, some transparent; and the passtubes spiderwebbed everywhere, like the transparent netting of a great crystal ship. It was still morning, and the city seemed filled with sunlight.

He walked back to the painting and stared at it. There was something wrong but he couldn't decide what it was.

But there was definitely something wrong.

He sat down in the comfortable chair in which he usually viewed his paintings and put a call through to Caroline, Pfeiffer's wife. It was time, he thought. He had waited long enough.

She appeared a comfortable distance away from him near the center of the canvas-filled room. Her blonde hair was cut short, and she looked haggard, which was how Mantle expected her to look. After all, Pfeiffer had been her life for fifteen years.

“I was waiting for the obligatory Raymond Mantle call,” she said; a faint smile formed and then disappeared.

“I'm sorry I waited, but—”

“You know better than that,” Caroline said. “How is Joan?”

“Good,” Mantle said, feeling awkward. “She's been working hard.”

“So we've seen.”

“Are you thinking about the poll?” Mantle asked.

“That, and the fact that she turned Carl's death into a sort of media event in itself. He would have liked that—if indeed he didn't plan it that way.” She stopped talking, shook her head, and said, “Christ, what's the use. I'm sorry, I've nothing against Joan, I've never even met the woman. The breakup was my fault, I wanted it…can you believe that?”

“Yes,” Mantle said, “I can.”

“I turned myself off to him, became like a dead thing. He couldn't live with that. He thought it was
his
fault. And I let him believe it.”

“He deserved it, I think.”

“No,” she said, “he didn't deserve
that
. He loved me, even while he suffocated me. I wanted him to take care of me, make all the decisions, and then I didn't. I became strong enough to take care of myself, which left him with nothing. I should have made it easier for him, instead….”

“I was with him on the ship.”

“Ah,” she said. “You certainly managed to slip through the cracks in the media.”

“Friends in high places.”

Her image wavered; she must have activated her scrambler. “He made a tape for me. I know he didn't kill himself on account of me. That
is
true, isn't it?”

Mantle nodded.

“He even planned that, the sonofabitch…. Ray?”

“Yes?”

“I hated him all the time, from the very first.”

Jesus, Mantle thought, the poor sonofabitch. He was right to be paranoid and insecure. She
had
loathed him, as Mantle had. But still he loved him, as he supposed she did, too.

“And I hate him for what he's done.”

Mantle could only nod. “If you need me…”

“I'll be fine. Don't condescend.”

“I—”

“He did tell me about your paintings, though.”

“He had time for that?” Mantle asked, caught off guard.

“He wouldn't let that get by, you know Carl. He told me all about the wreath of cocks around my head in the painting.” Again she smiled, that innocent, vulnerable smile. “At least you know
me
, in the quick.”

“Jesus, Caroline, I—”

“You should know that Carl never leaves a stone unturned. Can I have the painting?”

“Not now, after all that's happened.”

“Especially now, Ray. But it can wait until you return to Cannes. How long are you staying in New York?”

“I don't know.”

“Come and visit, if you like.”

“Yes, if—”

“I'm doing fine,” Caroline said. “Really I am.” Mantle could see fine lines around her mouth. Jesus, she's getting old, turning papery, washed out. “I'm so sorry about Josiane,” she continued. “Are you able to talk about it, or should we hang up?”

“I can talk about it now,” Mantle said. “What's the difference? I can't
remember
her, I still can't remember any of it.”

“I don't believe he's dead, Ray.” That came, it seemed, out of nowhere.

“What?”

“I don't believe he killed himself,” Caroline said.

“But he
did
,” Mantle insisted. “Christ, I was
there
.”

“You didn't actually see him die.”

“Caroline, I was there!”

She just looked at him. “I don't believe it, I can't,” she said after a pause. And then she faded away without a good-bye.

Mantle was shaken. Pfeiffer had been right: she would go over the edge. Mantle would have to visit her. He owed her that. Poor fucking Pfeiffer, he thought. She had really hated him. But he'd made sure he had the last laugh. Vengeful bastard. Yet, Mantle understood: she had collapsed Pfeiffer's world, and so Pfeiffer reached out to break hers.

Mantle stood up and examined the painting he had been working on. It was a good, technical job, he thought as he touched the raised surfaces of the paint that had already dried. He repressed an urge to scratch across the painting and remembered how he had gessoed over so many canvases in Cannes because he felt they were watching him, as if the paintings were conscious, alive, even when buried under the white paste. Mantle had that feeling now, and it unnerved him. He spread a drape over the painting and left the room, opaquing the walls, floor, and ceiling as he left. The room became a gray cell.

He walked into the living room and poured himself a drink from the bar. Perhaps a narcodrine would be better, a mild one. No, he told himself, taking a large gulp of Scotch. Not after Dramont with its hallucinogenic dust, not after scamming down on narcodrine reefer so long ago….

He had a day to get through before Joan returned home from an assignment for Interfax. Mantle had finished his work for them and they were happy with it. His mirroring technique had become very hot with politicians, including the new media-sophisticated president. Interfax hadn't tried to press any new assignments on Mantle, but that would change when viewers got wise to the new subliminals, which inevitably they would. He sat down in a chair beside an ancient Chinese celadon jar on a pedestal and asked the computer for Pfeiffer's last work of fiction. He leaned back and the words were before him, hanging, as it were, in a cloud.