Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (46 page)

Gavin had been a hit at this Futurist Congress. More than just a hit — the Brazilians treated him like an oracle. The Brazilians asked him many questions — mostly about the Italians. The Italians, for their part, asked his opinions of the Brazilians.

Nobody asked him one question about Seattle. Nobody asked him about high-tech accounting, either — the one area of life where Gavin had useful and practical knowledge. They simply wanted to hear from him —
all about themselves
. Their lives to come, their future, theirs, theirs, theirs. They asked with frantic, yet respectful eagerness. Gavin Tremaine: the talking magic-mirror.

Gavin spun a shiny coin on the bar. He loved the idea of a kind of money called the “real.” The Brazilian Real. Brazilian money was long notorious for being un-real.

This shiny piece of Brazilian small change had a beautiful shining woman on it. As the coin spun before Gavin, hypnotic on the dark wooden bar, Gavin had a massive flash of insight. He suddenly understood — he just
knew —
that Brazil and the United States of America were two sisters.

Not “sister countries” — genuine sisters. Two sister cultures. Their sisterhood was obscure, occult, and hidden. Somewhat scandalous, even. These two big girls were not eager to admit their sisterhood. Why not?

Nations were commonly seen as women, all over the world. There was “Marianne” in France, “Britannia” with her shield, “Germania,” even “Italia,” with a funky old castle on her head. But the USA and Brazil were personified by a genuinely shady pair of babes. America, as a woman was “Columbia.” “Columbia” was a pretty shabby excuse for a mystical national goddess. Brazil was “Efígie da República.” Efígie was the woman on the shiny coin in Gavin’s fingers.

“Columbia” had stolen the name of another American country, “Colombia.” That shady rip-off was obviously pretty bad, but “Efigie,” for all her Latin good looks, didn’t even have a proper name. “Efigie” was just an effigy.

Gavin closely examined his coin, which he had gotten in change for his third caipirinha. “Efigie” wore classical imperial Roman gear. Presumably, Efigie spoke Latin. Efigie lurked in all the pockets and purses of Brazil. Obviously, no Brazilian ever really saw Efigie. She was way too close to them to be understood.

Efigie was the female personification of a colossal empire. Brazil, a country bigger than the ancient Roman Empire had ever been. But just, frankly, made-up. A fantasy. Efigie was a fantasy girl with a powerful fantasy story. Brazil and the USA were two fantasy girls from the very same genre of fantasy.
National romantic fantasy
. These girls were sisters because they were immigrant chicks. They were two big, beefy, brawny harbor chicks who had stolen some ancient Roman clothes. No wonder they didn’t much want to be seen together in public.

Gavin suddenly jolted upright on his barstool. Carlo had arrived and slapped his back. Dr. Carlo was a balding, bearded Brazilian intellectual in a black, silk turtleneck. Once you got to knew him, one heck of a guy. Carlo was the organizer and the motor of the Futurist Congress, a Brazilian academic, an intellectual commentator, and a sometime Brazilian TV star.

Dr. Carlo was one of those two-fisted Brazilian anthropologists. Dr. Carlo was a world-class stuffy, uptight intellectual, but once the guy unbent a little, he brimmed over with incredible magic-realist war stories. Carlo had spent years up the Amazon, studying the language of a Brazilian tribe, who didn’t even have a past tense. Carlo knew about lost Amazonian cities. Neurotoxic blowguns. Gay Yankee beatnik tribes high on yage’ and ayahuasca. Dr. Carlo seemed to know everybody in the world.

“At last, this event is behind us!” crowed Carlo, who was the picture of happy relief. “All the staff goes out to eat now. It’s a celebration. I want you to come along with us, Gavin.”

“I can’t, I’m waiting here for my girlfriend,” said Gavin. “My fiancee’. She’s coming to get me. Here at the conference hotel.”

“Are you sure you can’t come with us? We have hired a helicopter.”

“Oh, Farfalla will show up here, all right,” Gavin nodded, sipping his metal straw. “You can depend on that. She’s a given.”

“I want you to repeat, to all my good friends tonight,” said Carlo, “what you said to the public, during that amazing panel on digital fabrication.”

“And what was that?” said Gavin, slowly spinning his sugar-crusted glass.

“That connection between the bricolage of Claude Levi-Strauss and the street aesthetic of homemade digital replicators. I had never heard that connection made — but as soon as you said that, I knew it was true!”

“Oh,” smiled Gavin, “I was just riffing! Nothing to that! I’ve got a million of ‘em.”

“Then, you will not mind,” said Carlo carefully, “if I write a paper about that subject. Or, if I tell my friends in the manufacturing industry.”

“Why would I mind?” said Gavin. “That was a fun panel! They were live-streaming that on the Internet. Any clown with broadband could see me say that stuff. Anywhere in the world.”

“That is true,” said Carlo, startled. “I missed your panel on biotechnology and carbon-fixation. I heard some good things about that discussion.”

“All I did there,” shrugged Gavin, “was to point out that Brazil’s sugar-cane bagasse cellulosic-ethanol labs could be bigger than petroleum. If there was a global carbon tax. Of course.”

“I’m an anthropologist,” Carlo confessed. “I don’t know much about that subject.”

“Carlo, that one is dead easy. Just look here. This glass is full of Brazilian sugar and ethanol. It’s literally here in my hand. All you have to do is look. Look at the future.” Gavin tossed back the sugary dregs of his caipirinha. “And, you know, you also have to swallow it.”

“My friend, I know some good people who will swallow that. Yes, I certainly do. We’re all going out to the Clube de Churrasco. It’s the best barbecue club in this city, and I know the owner, personally. He’s as good as bread. You really must come with us. You obliged me by coming from Seattle to my event. Let me oblige you through this small courtesy. You won’t regret it.”

“I’m still waiting for the girlfriend. She sent me an SMS.”

“Call her, tell her to meet us! I’d be thrilled to play the host for your American girlfriend. She must be a wonderful girl.”

“She’s Brazilian,” said Gavin, not moving from his brass-studded mahogany barstool. “And yeah, she’s worth waiting for.”

A smile spread across Carlo’s stony face. “Now I see. That explains how well you know us. The ‘Eternal Brazilian Woman’... Well, it’s good news! So, my friend, since you cannot join us for our dinner, and since you are waiting here, for something that every man agrees is worth waiting for — let me introduce you to someone else. A good friend. He has been dying to meet you.”

Carlo turned toward the crowded ruckus of the underlit hotel bar, and he beckoned. A short man shouldered through his way through the chattering crowd.

This man was wearing a frock coat, gaiters, a top-hat, and brass goggles on a rubber strap. He looked like an utter lunatic.

“Mr. Gavin Tremaine,” said Carlo, in his best courtly fashion, “may I introduce you to one of our most distinguished popular writers, Mr Xavier Alfredo de la Rocque.”

“How do you do, sir,” said Xavier Alfredo de la Rocque, offering a small, deft hand in a tailored pink pigskin glove.

“That’s quite a name,” said Gavin.

“Oh, that is my nom-de-plume, my pseudonym,” declared Xavier Alfredo de la Rocque, smoothing his black mustache with his pink gloved finger. “I print that name on the spines of my paperback novels — so my real employers can’t fire me!” He smiled. “You can just call me ‘Xavier.’ All my fans do that.”

“I don’t meet many literary writer-type guys,” Gavin confessed. “So, what kind of novels do you write, Xavier?”

“I write ‘F-C,’’ said Xavier, sheepishly. “I write
‘Ficção Científica.
’”

“My friend Xavier is being much too modest!” Carlo broke in. “When his fans realized that he was appearing here at my event, they rushed to see him from all over Brazil! Hundreds of fans, from every city! They paid full price at the door!”

“So, you’re a science fiction writer,” Gavin said.

Xavier blinked his small, heavy eyes, which bore traces of rubber goggle-marks. “You have heard about
ficção científica?
”

“’Heard about ‘science fiction?” Gavin bellowed. “Dude, I’m from Seattle! We have the Science Fiction Museum there! We have the world’s best science fiction writers in Seattle! My home town is crawling with those guys.”

A woman in sequins and gold lamé tugged urgently at Carlo’s black silk arm. The organizer of an event rarely got a spare moment. With an unhappy backward glance, Carlo had to leave them.

The crowd was getting drunker. The noise level rose steadily.

“I have never been published in America!” shouted Xavier, “because translation is so hard! But, I read American science fiction! In English! Especially steampunk writing. My Brazilian steampunk trilogy is the best-selling among my twenty books!”

Gavin rubbed his chin and shouted back at him. “Hmmm…You don’t say. Tell me all about that.”

“Well, my Brazilian steampunk trilogy concerns an alternate history in which, instead of a Portuguese Emperor fleeing Napoleon in the year 1807, a Brazilian Emperor
replaces
Napoleon! So Brazil invades and conquers all of Europe! By 1812, when, in your history, the French would have been invading Russia, in my history, the Brazilians have invaded Europe. Country by country, and industry by industry, all of Europe becomes one huge Brazilian colony! And then, my hero, who is an engineer of course, he builds a giant...”

“I meant, tell me all about this steampunk thing!” Gavin broke in. “How does that concept work out for you people, here in Brazil?”

“You don’t know about steampunk?” shouted Xavier, dubiously.

“Well, I don’t read many novels! Because I’m kinda fully-booked already! But, obviously, you’re a science fiction writer at a Futurist conference! And I can see that you’re all dressed up like some fancy guy from the past, from the 19th century! So what gives with that? What is all that about?”

Xavier took off his velvet-and-leather top-hat. The novelist had a sweaty, gleaming pate, and he was missing a lot of hair. “I went to all four of your panel appearances,” he said. The roaring crowd was hitting one of those lulls that afflicted drunken crowds. “I was listening to you very closely,” Xavier said, in a quieter voice. “I was taking notes on my laptop. And I knew — I knew that if I managed to meet you, we would discuss that matter.”

“Looks like your sci-fi prediction came true right away, Xavier.”

“That can be gratifying,” mused the novelist. “But not all the time.”

“I can’t read Portuguese,” Gavin confessed, twirling his empty glass. “I know that we Americans should read more foreign writers, but, this is more like a general, global, culture-studies issue. Am I right there? So, tell me, what’s with the top hat?”

Xavier pounded his pinked gloved fist on the bar. He waved some Brazilian paper money at the overworked hotel bartender. “What are you drinking, sir?”

“I’m drinking caipirinhas.”

“The classics are always the noblest choice!” said the Brazilian novelist, ordering some top-shelf alcohol for two. “Now, I’m so very glad that you asked me that question. That question has made me a happy man. Because it is a very abstruse matter! Few of my readers ever understand this. My readers of my science fiction novels, they just want to know from me: ‘Does the lonely hero change the universe? With his weapons and his machines?’ That’s all they ever want to know! If I tell them, ‘No! He does not change the universe with his machines. He just kisses his girl,’ instead? The readers feel cheated! They get very upset!”

Gavin gazed over the sweating head of the hatless Brazilian novelist. He was bored by literary discussions. He had never seen the point of them.

Then, his heart stopped in his chest. It stopped for two beats, like a jammed clock.

She was here.

Farfalla came straight for him, whipping through the drunken crowd. His beloved was lithe and dainty of build, but she plowed through the conference-goers as if they were topsoil, just ripping a furrow straight through them.

“Cookie!” said Gavin, beaming at her. “I knew that you would come here. I knew it! I told everyone! I knew you would come. My God, how beautiful you are! Thank you so much for coming to save me from this.”

“You are drunk,” said Farfalla, scowling.

“Baby, I’m just unwinding a little, okay? You don’t know what these people have dragged out of me! I’m a wet dishrag now! I was speaking in public, or on some freakin’ television camera, for the past three days! I’m fried now! I’m totally toast.” Gavin raised his fresh glass. “So this is kinda my bachelor party. It’s great in here, isn’t it? I totally love Brazil.”

“Gavin, how many of those did you drink?”

“This is my fourth one. I think.”

Farfalla put her foot, in a plastic zori, into the bar’s brass rail, and launched herself half over the bar.
“Aqui! Traga-me quatro drinks iguais ao que ele tomou.”
¹³
She turned to Gavin. “You’re paying.”

“What happened to your dress? And your shoes?” said Gavin, gazing at her sweaty T-shirt and wrinkled polyester stretch-pants.

“I had to pawn my Italian clothes for a bus ticket.”

“Who is this?” said Xavier.

“This is my fiancée,” said Gavin.

“Eu estava explicando para o seu marido,”
said Xavier to Farfalla, politely,
“que as mudanças na linguagem eletrônica estão distorcendo a própria estrutura de tempo.”
¹⁴

Farfalla turned on him savagely.
“Você acha que eu me preocupo com isso? Eu tenho meus próprios problemas! Sai daqui, seu steampunk geek!
”
¹⁵

Xavier hastily fled the scene.

“Cookie, you shouldn’t have been mean to that guy,” said Gavin, mournfully. “He was being perfectly polite to me. I think he had something to say to me. He was trying to tell me that history and the future are the same thing, somehow.”