Love Is Strange (A Paranormal Romance) (56 page)

“Well, I’d have to talk to Gavin about it, but if he says okay, sure. Sure, why not? Goodbye.”

Farfalla put the phone away.

Hepsiba spoke up. “That was the grandfather of your unborn child.”

“He’ll see the first child,” said Farfalla. “He’ll never live to see the third one. God, Nana, why do we know awful things like that? To be a prophetic witch is so dreadful.” She bent at the waist, picked up her cup of poison, and drained it.

“His family loves you,” said Hepsiba, squinting. “I can see that they adore you, especially that sick old man... But what about the mother? I can’t see the mother. There’s like a large absence there. An abyss.”

Gavin stirred and sat up. He lifted both his arms before him. His eyes were tightly shut.

“Gavin is a sleepwalker,” Farfalla explained.

“No, he isn’t,” said Hepsiba, pleased. “Look, he has an aura now! He has a nice normal aura, just like any other fine, young man.”

Gavin faced Farfalla with his blind eyelids. “Funny thing, jetlag,” he quipped. “Well, that nap sure was refreshing. So, what’s with the big wedding party here? Our hosts have brought in quite a crowd.”

“What crowd?” said Farfalla.

“All those people with the white robes and the amulets,” said Gavin, with a discreet nod of his blind head. “Those Brazilian guys with no feet.”

Farfalla stared. She could barely see them. Fading in from the nothingness of modernity. “Ghosts,” she said. “The ectoplasmic ghosts of the Brazilian dead.”

“So, I’m seeing ghosts. The wedding guests are ghosts?”

“Yes. Every rite at an Umbanda Terreiro is a séance.”

Gavin shrugged, his eyes still closed. “Well, I’d better go mingle, then.”

“Gavin, no. Sit down, I can take care of this. Lie down and sleep, Gavin.”

“What, I’m supposed to neglect the guests at my own wedding? How rude! No way!” Gavin drifted into the temple’s darkest, most spidery corner.

“Now, that I can see your boyfriend’s aura, I like him much better!” confided Hepsiba. “He is American — and there are dark streaks in his aura that make our Brazilian boys look innocent! I see a shadowy, giant, blind angel that wanders the earth. It is not love, but death. It deals death from a clear blue sky. It carries terror for the masters of terror.”

“That’s not an angel of death. It’s only a metal machine.”

“Well, in one sense, it is your robot boyfriend’s flying metal machine, but in a deeper sense, it is an angel of death. And so is he.”

“Well, yes, he is, because his sister is, but on a deeper reality yet, he’s just my sweet boyfriend. He’s kind of a dope, actually.”

“No, on a deeper reality, your boyfriend really is a demon. He comes from an empire that can burn the world to death in three ways. And he’ll do all he can to help.” Hepsiba’s face was swimming out of focus. She reached out and gripped Farfalla’s arm. “Don’t fall! Let me help you lie down.”

Gavin ambled over, blind and smiling.
“Madame, por favor me ajude com ela. Ela é jovem e forte, mas ela é teimoso. Ela tem paixão mais perversa que ela tem bom senso comum.”

“Eu poderia ter dito isso,”
said Hepsiba.
“Eu a conheço desde quando ela era uma menina, coitada.”

Gavin nodded soberly.
“Eu sei que você se preocupou por ela, mas eu posso cuidar disso. Talvez eu não sou o melhor homem para ela, mas ninguém nunca vai fazer melhor.”

Hepsiba cackled and slapped his shoulder.
“Não me admira que ela gosta de você! Há algo de tão engraçado sobre você! Pelo menos eu sei que ela se divertirá!”
²²

The Grand Houngan entered the temple. He carried a squirming mass of white fleece, cradled in his arms.

“So,” said Gavin, opening his eyes. “It would appear that the master of ceremonies has brought us our sacrificial animal.”

“Yes, he did,” said Hepsiba. “That is the holy lamb of sacrifice.” She paused. “Am I speaking English now?”

“I’m sure that you can speak English, madame. You must have seen plenty of American television. Just like everybody else in the world.”

“No,” said Hepsiba, thoughtfully. “Like a lot of other spiritual leaders, I’m very patriotic. I make a point of never speaking one word of English.”

“Never mind, this too will surely pass,” Gavin predicted. “Can you tell me this other thing? How did your husband, the Great Houngan, manage to get a sheep when we’re living twenty stories in midair?”

“He gets his sacred animals out of the sky,” said Hepsiba, shyly.

“What,
out of the sky?
The sheep comes from
above us
, that’s what you’re telling me? They’re up their frolicking in the fields with the flying cherubs?”

“To tell the truth, I never asked the Houngan about his livestock. That is a man thing. As his priestess, it’s not my business to ask him.”

Gavin got a little closer to the innocent lamb of sacrifice. The lamb had perfect unsoiled fleece, and the red bee-stung lips of a woman, and the white-rimmed rolling intelligent eyes of a grown man.

“Okay,” said Gavin, “this is just... otherness.”

“It’s always been part of the ritual,” Hepsiba offered.

“But this thing
can’t even fit in a story
,” Gavin complained. “There aren’t even human words for a... thing... like this
thing.
This
thing
is not even an
it
. There’s no way to explain it, or make it make any sense, to anybody, ever. And it’s alive!”

The Houngan tucked the confiding body of the innocent lamb into the sheltering crook of his left arm.

“Put out your hands,” said Hepsiba, with a gesture of prayer.

There was a gleam of metal in the Great Houngan’s right hand, and then suddenly, shockingly, instantly, he had slashed the lamb’s throat. The priest had killed the innocent lamb, and bright, winey jets of its life-blood were heart-jumping out of its slashed neck, and all over Gavin’s hands, his wrists...

And then onto Farfalla’s sleeping face. Gushing blood across her neck, her breast, her body.

***

Birds sang, the field was green, and the sun was shining.

“So,” Gavin croaked, “where are we?”

“We left the what-there-is,” Farfalla told him, “and we are in the what’s-to-be.”

“So let me look at you!” Gavin shouted. He removed thick glasses from his face. “Oh my God! You’re horrible.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah. You’re an old lady! You must be a hundred years old! Anyone who looked at you would know in ten seconds that you are a witch.”

“You should look at yourself,” Farfalla said, with a thin, wrinkled smile.

“I should look at myself?” Gavin shouted. “Why am I shouting? I can’t hear myself talk, that’s why I’m shouting! Why can’t I stand up? I’m all bent over! And I can’t see! I can’t see, I must be almost blind.”

“Gavin, stop that ranting. It’s not use, there is no one here but me. We are sleepwalking together. We have walked to the very end of our lives. We’re very old now, Gavin. We have been together a long time, and we have become very old.”

“So, this is our old age, then. We got married and lived happy ever after, and this is the very edge of our ever-after. This is as far as life goes.”

“Yes, we’re both very old now. We got married, and we really, truly loved each other for as long as we could.”

Gavin looked at his hands. “Hey, you’re right,” he remarked. “These are my grandfather’s hands, here on the ends of my arms. I can remember seeing these old hands, when I was a kid. I never knew I would have these hands on my own body. Man, this body of mine is a worn-out wreck! I can’t even stand up straight.”

“You lost your hair,” Farfalla pointed out.

Gavin ran his wrinkled hands over his naked scalp and the sagging flesh of his face. “You’re right about that, too! You’re always right when you predict these awful things. What a wild experience! This is so fantastic! I’m a wise old man. It’s like I’ve become an alien from another planet.” He paused. “I didn’t mean to hurt your feelings by insulting your looks. You make a very dignified old lady, Farfalla. You look extremely wise. You’re not young and pretty any more, but you are obviously someone of consequence. I bet the younger people are very respectful of a wicked old broad like you.”

“I’m wise because I
suffered
,” said Farfalla, patting at her sparse white witchlocks of hair. “Yes, I had a woman’s full life, and I suffered, all because of you... Well, no! When I was a young girl, a foolish girl, a romantic girl, I
thought
I would suffer, all because of you... I even
wanted
to suffer because of my One true love, but in fact, I was just young and stupid. I was such an idiot, because you were not my doom at all. You were just my husband. I got used to you, my One true love. I liked you, you made me laugh. You were just fine, but my God in heaven, it was the
children
who made me suffer!
Yes, them!
Why does no one ever tell us women that? It was the
children
who tore my poor heart into pieces, who tormented my soul, who never gave me one night of rest... Madonna, I’m as old as the dirt now, and my dear children
still
make me suffer.”

“Isaiah, Miriam, and Jeremiah,” said Gavin.

“Yes, them, them! Why do they never call me, Jeremiah, Miriam, Isaiah? They live all over the stupid world, and they can’t call their mother?”

“I’m just glad that our kids are human beings,” mused Gavin. “They have every right to wander this planet, like the rest of us... Why did I burden my kids with such heavy, portentous, hippie-kid names? The birth of a child really makes me sentimental.”

“What if something happens to my children? I’ll always worry so!”

“Look, Mama, knock that off! Our kids must be fifty years old by now.” Gavin swivelled his naked head from side to side, and placed a hand to his crooked, aching neck. “Where are we? This seems like a nice place, from what I can see by peering at it, half-blind with my cataracts.”

“This is my parents’ house,” Farfalla noted. “We are in their house, and looking at their little garden.”

“We live in your parents’ house? That sure figures.”

“A lot of things have changed here...”

“That figures, too,” croaked Gavin. “A great place to grow old and die, sunny old Italy... I feel so happy and serene, here and now, at the final end of my story... I know it’s okay that we somehow ended up here... I am contented. I don’t know what the day is... or what the year is... I don’t know what is north, west, or south... And
I don’t even care
. Not one bit do I care! You know what? That makes me
the supreme master of space and time.
No wonder I feel so great! It’s because I’m senile. My senile dementia has made me the ascended master of the Cosmos.”

“I still love you,” Farfalla murmured.

“What?”

“I asked my heart, and my heart tells me, that I still love you! We must have been together for sixty long years, and you’re old and awful, and the sight of you still makes me blissful! I’m so glad you’re here, sharing my life! Our marriage must have been a grand success!”

“Sixty years of marriage, huh? Hey, I bet it’s our anniversary today! This day is always very special day for us, our day of magic. I bet people all over the world are sending us loving messages of support and respect and congratulations!”

Farfalla hesitated. “How would we know that? Where is our email?”

“Email, forget that, come on! It’s whatever email is, nowadays, in the middle of the 21st century. It’s probably augmented ubiquitous telepathy of some kind.”

“Well, surely, the
children
would at least send me a message.”

“How could they not, grandma? Let’s go inside and look around!”

Gavin turned slowly, tottered into their modest shelter, then stopped and looked at the cottage’s crowded walls. “What is with all these plaques and medals?”

“Oh,” said Farfalla, with a partial, indifferent, arthritic shrug, “those are yours.”

“Wow, my awards and medals are all over this house. There’s a zillion of them! They’re like mice! There are so many that we can’t even fit ‘em in this building! Obviously I’m old and dirt-poor and mostly forgotten now, but seriously, look at the public’s tributes to my fabulousness!”

“We got bored with the awards. They’re just pieces of dead metal, they’re for show.”

“Of course, woman, obviously we’re bored with them
now,
but people must have thought I was awesome! Imagine how many big acceptance speeches I had to deliver, to win all these awards and medals. You must have spent half your life in the front row with that worshipful, adoring-wife look on your face.”

“Yes. I did that. And I wore Milanese couture, too.”

“I must truly be a genuine sage of some kind. Gosh, I should have had a higher opinion of myself.”

“You are a sage. Because I helped you. I always helped.
“Per tutti questi secoli le donne hanno avuto la funzione di specchi, dal potere magico e delizioso di riflettere raddoppiata la figura dell’uomo.”
²³

“Well,” said Gavin, “that’s a very bitter, mad, prophetess thing to say to a guy but, at least you did possess the delicious magic power to make me look twice my size. Where was my magic power, in all these years?”

“You never had a magic power.”

“I did.” He whispered into her ear.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s it. You said it. You finally said it! You really are my One, Gavin. You finally said my words, and you always were my One. You must be saying my words on the very last day of my life! You finally said my words, and now my story is finally fulfilled, so that means I will die tomorrow! How like you that is!”

“Cookie, come on. Maybe it’s me who dies tomorrow. Maybe I said your words at last, because this is the very last day of my own life.”

“Oh. I see. Hmm. Because I am a woman, and I’m younger than you, and women outlive men statistically, so, in all probability, you are the dying one. Not me, but you. Our universe is numbers, and the laws of the numbers say that men die first. My beloved dies, not me. And I outlive you, and I totter around in my grieving abyss of widowed darkness for a couple of useless years. I love Futurist statistics. They’re so useful.”