Part 41 (1/2)
10 When his eyes open, his first reaction is relief.The ceiling overhead is the ceiling of his bedroom, with the frosted gla.s.s dome light fixture that Anarosa chose for the room. He closes his eyes again, just for a moment, and lets out a wheezy breath of grat.i.tude before opening them again.
Not dead.
But then he tries to move and cannot manage it. Not a twitch. Fear floods through him and he thinks about where the bullets struck and realizes that he is paralyzed, that one of them must have severed his spine.
Someone moves off to the left of his bed. He hears a soft female sigh and thinks for just a moment that it must be Skyler . . . and then she moves toward him, standing beside the bed, filling his field of vision, and he sees that it is not.
It's Savannah, whole and beautiful, alive and well. Her hair is tied back tightly and she wears no makeup, but she is so pretty that it fills his heart just to see her. His baby girl.Tears spill from her eyes as she gazes down at him and he wants to take her hand, to hold her and speak a father's love for his daughter, but he is frozen.
”Oh, Daddy, I'm sorry,” she says, voice breaking. ”It was the only way.”
Only when she lifts it to her lips does he see the small bone pipe in her hand, his name scrawled upon it in her blood.
A figure moves to the foot of the bed and he realizes that it is Enoch, also whole and healed.
And Savannah begins to play.
A Bad Season for Necromancy
David Liss Few, perhaps, are the children who, after the expiration of some months or years, would sincerely rejoice in the resurrection of their parents.
-Edward Gibbon It would happen, from time to time, that my father would offer me advice that, while not precisely wise, was neither altogether foolish. Given that he was a man who enjoyed boxing my ears, b.l.o.o.d.ying my nose, kicking me in the a.r.s.e and t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, sticking me with needles, on occasion branding me with an iron, or otherwise causing pain, misery, and scarring, advice was always more pleasant than other sorts of fatherly attention.
The last such morsel of wisdom was proffered perhaps three weeks before I rebelled against his tyranny by striking him in the face with a hammer and running off with his fortune. My father, having just learned that he had not, in fact, been clapped by the wh.o.r.e he currently favored, had been in a reflective mood, and with his mustaches only moderately flecked with beef and pudding crumbs, he turned to me with something not entirely unlike paternal regard. Spitting upon the floor, by way of introducing a new topic of conversation, he observed that there are but two sorts of people in the world, villains and victims, and that a man must be determined to be one lest he make the error of becoming the other.
I prefer not to embrace so dark a view of the human nature, but a man in my condition might easily fall into the habit of hedging his bets and living as though these words contain at least a hint of truth.
The fortune I took from my father that memorable day of hammer-swinging was in excess of three hundred pounds, the greatest quant.i.ty of money he had ever possessed, and certainly the greatest he would ever be likely to possess. I knew that I would never have a better opportunity to escape his clutches, for the prize was tempting and the enthusiasm of his celebration was, if not without precedent, at least unlikely to be exceeded.
We were staying in a delightfully indifferent inn in Nottingham at the time, notable for the beauty and business sense of its serving girls. The very day I set my mind to do this thing, my father was kind enough to offer me an excellent opportunity. While he completed a particularly vigorous bout of drinking and whoring, I lay upon my bed with my eyes open, awaiting his return. At last I heard him fumble with the unlocked door, until by some miracle of coordination he managed to operate the machine as its designers intended, cause the door to-behold the miracle!-swing open. Further advertising the likely success of my venture, my father dropped to the floor and, after a moment of careful consideration, crawled drunkenly toward his bed, resting himself at last upon a spot very near his intended destination. He lay still for a moment, then raised his head and vomited cathartically.This jetsam then served as a most agreeable pillow on which he could lay his weary head as he contentedly embraced oblivion.
For all his faults, my father was a patient man and a perceptive one, and I was haunted by the fear that he knew precisely what I intended. I am inclined toward the impulsive, but I made myself wait perhaps a quarter of an hour before making my move. I might have waited longer, but the stench of vomit was an encouragement not to be ignored, and his snoring was loud, gurgling, and undeniably convincing.
In the dim glow of the rushlight, I managed to collect his recently acquired sack of bank notes, coins, and jewels. I donned my inferior set of boots and had just begun to turn the door handle when, like a mythic creature rising from its grave, my father shot upright and rushed toward me. His teeth shone from the darkness, and I saw chunks of his vomitus clinging to his three days of beard. His hair, still long and thick though he was upwards of forty years of age, was wild like a demon's, and his eyes were wide with rage. Some instinct, perhaps a preternatural sense of avarice, had informed him of what I intended, and nothing could induce him to embrace sleep when his hard-won money was about to bid him farewell.
I was prepared for violence, if not specifically from my father. One does not commence to take a fortune out into the night without considering the possibility of a.s.sault, and I had hung a mason's hammer on my belt. My mind driven now only by fear, I unlooped the hammer and struck my father in the cheek. It was a blind swing and a reflective impulse. I have never loved violence. Much to my father's disgust, I have shrunk from it and endured his mockery while I refused to beat or cut or stab our victims.Yet, so great was my will to preserve my life and money, I did not hesitate to strike him now.
He squeaked like a mouse in a cat's jaws, and he fell to the floor. Then, without thinking, I bent over him and philosophically considered the merits of striking him in the face once more. It was as much as he deserved, you may be sure. A thousand memories of closed-fist blows to the gut, of sticks and canes against my b.u.t.tocks and sacks of walnuts to the back of my head, came rus.h.i.+ng at me. Another blow-a disfiguring blow, even a killing blow-would have been no more than justice, but as a parting gift to the man who had sired me, I spared his life and did not strike him a second time. He had, after all, taught me the importance of filial duty, and while, like him, I am apt to be vengeful, I am unlike him in my inclination toward mercy.
All of this excitement took place in December of 1712, when I was but two and twenty. I fled Nottingham with a staggering sum of money, an amount that would have kept my father in drink and wh.o.r.es and gaming for more than six months. Had I so chosen, I could have taken that same amount and rented some property in a quiet village somewhere. In such a state, I might have lived out my days in moderate comfort. I might have cultivated land and raised cattle. An investment of that sort would have left me with half my stolen wealth in hand and set aside for unplanned contingencies so that I might never fear want or deprivation.
That would have been the best course, but I knew I would not be happy. Though I despised my father, I was his son. Since I was old enough to wear long pants, I had been raised a schemer and a rogue, a trickster and a thief. I knew no way of living but stealing and cheating and deception. I did not want to continue to live thus, but I certainly did not wish to grow old planting crops and shoveling manure. I was too clever and too handsome for such a fate. A life of blistered hands and an aching back was not for the likes of me. It was a mode of living that struck me on the one hand as honest, but on the other as unpleasant.
As I strode away into the cold countryside, warmed by the memory of having finally escaped my father, I realized that what I wanted was to become a gentleman of leisure. I would be willing to set aside all inclination to steal and cheat and deceive if, in exchange, I did not have to endure the indignity of hard labor and long days and a meager living. I thought it a rather decent sort of compromise.
Despite my father's pernicious influence, however, I was a far more moral person than he, and certainly more moral than he had wished me to be. Before the sun had risen, I knew I had found my course. I would do the moral thing. I would use my stolen money to pretend to be a gentleman and win the heart and hand of a young lady of property. Or, if absolutely necessary, an old lady of property. I hoped it would be a young one.
I now wave the magic wand of narrative and transport my reader nearly a year into the future and scores of miles to the south. These miles were not traversed directly, however, for before turning my attention to London, I spent several weeks in Cardiff. Why should I venture to so remote a corner of the kingdom, you may wonder. In part, because I wished to set aside my impulsive nature. I wished to plan my actions with care. In Cardiff, I kept my ears and eyes open that I might construct a plausible story, so when I came to London, I would come not as myself, but as Reginald January, son of William January, an Englishman who had made his home in the remote fields outside the Welsh capital.
There was no William January, but his sort most certainly existed, the man who wished to retreat from the world and took up residence in the obscure countryside, where his quiet was disturbed only by the song of birds, the barking of his dogs, and the occasional marble-mouthed utterance of his Welsh servants or neighbors. This species of gentleman rarely wished to be troubled by his own children, and so he would send his sons to England for their education.
My story, then, while not a common one, was nevertheless plausible. My father was a wealthy landowner, having made his fortune trading in the Dutch colonies and in the j.a.pans. He had seen and, if rumors were to be believed, done many terrible things in those years, and so as soon as circ.u.mstance permitted, he retired to live out his years in quiet. I, his far less rusticated son and heir to his considerable wealth, had come to London to enjoy the fruits of my father's melancholy years of robbing, raping, and murdering brown savages.
I obtained fine clothes, rented a lovely home on the fas.h.i.+onable side of Charing Cross, and commenced my new life, just in time for the season, as a single gentleman with more time and wealth than purpose. I dedicated myself to establis.h.i.+ng a reputation as a man who enjoyed the arts and theater and opera, who attended church with regularity and proper, though never excessive, piety. Other than religious nonsense, these things were true of me. It had suited my father to raise me to impersonate a child, and later a man, of means, and so I had received an education. As a result, I had an appreciation of the arts, and those first weeks in London, when I had the opportunity and the silver to indulge my interests, were some of the happiest of my life. At long last, I was where I belonged. I filled my eyes and my mind with delights of the intellect and artistic wonder. I needed only to make certain I could remain there.
For that to happen, I had to establish the most advantageous connections, and so I attached myself to young men much like the one I pretended to be. I was, however, slightly superior to all of them. I might accompany some of my new friends to a gaming room, but while I never gamed myself, neither did I priggishly lecture or condemn those who did. I regularly, but not frequently, gave to the needy upon the street. I subscribed to several books of sermons and a few volumes of poetry, but only those written by reputable scribblers and never the scandalous ones. And to my new friends I hinted, in half-muttered and blus.h.i.+ng confessions, spoken only on those rare occasions when I'd had a gla.s.s too many, that I was of a mind to marry. I wanted a wife and children to dandle upon my knee, and the quiet comforts of domesticity. My friends would then blush for me, for I was young and rich and handsome-far more handsome than they-and I ought to enjoy these years of liberty. There was time enough for marriage when I was grown old and fat.They mocked for me for my tender heart, but the unmarried ladies paid attention.
I truly hoped this scheme would work, because three hundred pounds is spent very quickly in fas.h.i.+onable London, and I was now acc.u.mulating debts at an alarming rate. I believed I had two months at the most before I could no longer politely dodge bills, at which point my creditors would grow restive and my reputation begin to crumble. It was marry well and marry soon, or give up the scheme as a bad job.