Blue Shifting (2 page)

At twelve we spilled out on to 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 cipher 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 on to 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.

"An artist?" I was surprised and delighted.

"Shhh! Not so
loud
– if it ever got back to my father... You see, he hates women and artists. What do you think it's like being his daughter?"

I made a small sound of commiseration.

She looked up from our hands. "That's what I wanted to see you about – my work. I've just finished a piece. I... I was wondering,
would
you like to see it?" She watched me with eyes so soft it seemed they could be bruised by rejection.

I said that I'd like nothing more, and she led me around the curve of the oasis, talking earnestly by my side in relief at my acquiescence. She took me through the lounge of her father's hanging dome and into her bedroom.

"I must keep it in here," she explained, hardly able to meet my gaze, "so that father doesn't find out. There's no telling what he'd do."

She stood beside an angular object covered by a silken sheet, and unveiled it so shyly that she might have been uncovering her own nakedness. "What do you think?
Honestly
?"

I approached it slowly, aware of some choking emotion in my throat. It was a sculpture in some kind of glowing, off-world wood; perhaps half life-sized, it was of a naked woman seated on the ground, hugging her shins.

Corrinda was watching me. "It's you," she said in a small voice.

I touched the wood, caressed it. I wanted to cry, and yet did not want Corrinda to see me doing so – which was ridiculous. I wanted to cry because Corrinda had produced in the carved representation of myself all my loneliness, all my desire to want someone who wanted me.

The invitation was obvious, but I was too scared to trust her. She was so young, I told myself, while another voice asked what did age matter beside the fact of her compassion.

I bit my lip in a bid to stop the tears, turned to her. "And your father would put an end to this?"

"He's ruled by his hatred. Success makes him jealous."

"You should leave him!"

"He wanted me with him when he returned. He said that by returning here he could come to terms with what happened – then I
will
leave."

"You must hate him," I said.

Corrinda looked away.

In the silence that followed, I heard a sound from beyond the open door: the leathery creak and swoop of wings. I recognised the shape that flapped across the lounge and alighted on the back of the chesterfield.

I screamed.

Corrinda took my arm. "It's okay, Eva. It's not the same one, and anyway it's quite tame."

"But even so-!"

"I know. It's sick. But, you see, my father is quite insane."

She reached out and pushed the door shut. "We'll be alone for the rest of the night," she said.

~

For the next week, at every available opportunity, Corrinda would leave her father's dome and visit me, and we would make love on my bed beneath the arching dome. I blessed each minute that Maltravers spent in the company of the Nigerian, creating his work of art.

The day before the twentieth anniversary of her mother's death, Corrinda sat cross-legged beside me on the bed. I stared at her naked body, her torso a sun-browned canvass on which a pattern of pale striations had been inscribed. Some incisions were more recent than others, and the tracery of mutilation was too symmetrical to be the result of an accident. I wondered what had driven her to this masochism that masqueraded as art.

I stared through the dome at the clear blue sky. It was as if all week our love-making had been a rehearsal for what we had just shared. I had gone as far as I could, taken carnal knowledge towards an intimacy beyond which only a verbal declaration of love remained. Perhaps my circumspection, my refusal to match with words the physical commitment I had shown, communicated itself to Corrinda.

She traced a scar on her thigh, and said, "Do you love me, Eva?"

I made some tired remark to the effect that we hardly knew each other, and that when she was my age she would come to doubt if anything such as love existed.