Magnificat (Galactic Milieu Trilogy) (7 page)

“You used to have a little statue of that goddess on your desk,” I recalled.

“Quite right. In my conscious life I had always seen
myself
as an Athene-figure. And my Zeus, the beloved father-god whose mind I most admired—”

“Was Denis,” I concluded. “There’s a certain Jungian plausibility.”

“And no logic—but it was then I first became convinced that Papa was the only possible candidate for Fury.”

“Do you have any other evidence?” I was staring into my empty glass, trying to make sense out of all this unwelcome data.

“It derives from Denis’s psychology. The disease that laymen call multiple-personality disorder is brought on by some hideous
trauma that probably occurred very early in the patient’s life. The instigating mental injury or injuries are often painfully sexual and involve someone very close to the victim. A person he wanted to love, who betrayed his natural childish trust and devotion. The trauma would have been reinforced later by other damaging experiences associated with this evil person and by intense guilt, eventually resulting in the emergence of the dyscrasic persona. The only living Remillard who can possibly fit this scenario is Denis. And his victimizer—”

The awful light dawned. I looked up and our eyes met. “Donnie!” I blurted. “Oh, God, my own twin brother! From the time Denis was born Don was afraid of him and resented him. But Don could never have … not to his own little boy …” I broke off, too appalled to put the accusation into words.

Anne’s face was bleak. “Don probably would have been drunk the first time it happened, perhaps half out of his mind with frustration and anger because of his wife’s inaccessibility during the later months of her pregnancy with Victor and the postpartum recovery. As I understand it, Donatien Remillard was an insecure man who never managed to come to grips with his metapsychic potential. He was self-centered, susceptible to attacks of depression, and physically aggressive.”

Near tears, I agreed. “We were fraternal twins, not identical. Our temperaments were miles apart. He and Sunny … Don took her away from me. I don’t think he really loved her at all. He wanted her because she’d been planning to marry me. She was his most valued possession.”

Under Anne’s gentle questioning, I told her about my brother’s early life and his oddball relationship to me. Then I shut up and tried to get hold of myself. Anne could still be mistaken. On the other hand, all this made a horrible kind of sense.

Anne unwrapped the loaf of gamma bread and freshened it briefly in the microwave. She slivered the lox and put it in the IR-oven to warm, set the table, poured us glasses of milk, and got butter sizzling in the omelet pan. She wasn’t wearing her priestly rabat and dog collar. A small silver cross with a central cabochon of green jade hung from a thin chain on the breast of her white blouse. Her blonde hair was cut short and she was thin to the point of being haggard, with a wan face and eyes that were deep-sunken and dark.

I asked her how the split-personality thing worked. How lunatic Fury took over from quiet, unpretentious Denis.

“Every case is different,” she said. “But this is the way Denis’s
mental illness seems to manifest itself: Most of the time, his core persona is in control and he’s himself—Emeritus Professor of Metapsychology at Dartmouth College, Nobel Laureate, respected theorist and writer, loving husband, your own dear foster son, papa to Phil and Maurie and Sevvy and me and Cat and Adrien and Paul. But sometimes—there’s no telling what sets it off—his dyscrasic personality seizes the ascendant and takes over his mind and body. His rational everyday self is transformed into a thing so filled with pain and hatred that its only release seems to be in violence, murder, and megalomania. This second persona is completely separate from the core. Neither one knows the thoughts of the other. The abnormal persona seems to have goals diametrically opposite to those of the benevolent core. It may even have more powerful metafaculties, drawing upon areas of Denis’s mind that are ordinarily latent.”

“Fury!” I cried. “It named itself Fury. I was right there when it was born … 
inevitably
, it said. I never understood what it meant by that.”

“The dyscrasic aspect of Denis calls itself Fury for an excellent reason. He had a classical education, and in Greek and Roman mythology the Erinyes or Furies were avenging spirits who tormented and destroyed
those guilty of violating the natural order
.”

“Sacré nom d’un chien,” I muttered, letting the tears flow at last. I had all but accepted Anne’s judgment on my poor foster son.

She broke eggs into a bowl and began whisking them. “Can you think of any incidents in Papa’s early life that might confirm my diagnosis?”

I mopped my face with my handkerchief and reluctantly tried to cogitate. “I remember one time when Denis was tiny—after I’d told Don and Sunny about his strong metabilities and they both agreed to let me teach him how to use them. It must have been about 1970. Denis would have been around three. Don came home plastered and in the mood to play a nasty practical joke on me. He slipped LSD into some cocoa he gave me, but baby Denis innocently blew the gaff and Don was mad enough to shit bricks. He came at Denis, ready to belt him or something, and the kid coerced him. It was spooky. One second Don was a bull on the rampage, and the next he was helpless and scared out of his mind. Denis said, ‘Papa won’t ever hurt me.’ And my brother just said, ‘No.’ ”

“Perhaps the child had only recently learned to focus his coercion. What Denis was really saying, was: ‘Papa won’t ever hurt me
again
.’ ”

She seasoned the eggs with salt and pepper and tipped them into the pan. The hot butter smelt wonderfully nutty. She stirred with a fork, then added the small amount of grated cheese. A quick flip folded the omelet. When it was ready she slid it onto a plate and gave it a last swipe of butter to make it shine. She cut it in half and sprinkled it with the warm shredded smoked salmon.

Anne spoke an abbreviated grace (Jesuits are ever practical) and we fell to. I was surprised I had an appetite, but she’d prepared the omelet perfectly—soft but not runny, with the cheese completely melted and the lox adding a perfect garnish. For a time we concentrated on the food. Marcel came to the table, plume waving, and I spared him a hunk with plenty of fish. Outside the double-glazed kitchen window the snowstorm hissed and howled.

“Victor,” Anne said at length. “The second child of Don and Sunny who grew up to be an overt monster. Did you have any idea he might have been abused?”

“Not at the time. Vic was born later that same year, 1970. He looked just like his papa and Don was crazy about him. He wouldn’t let me teach the little guy about operancy, wouldn’t hardly let me near him. Don said he’d take care of this kid’s education himself.”

“And evidently he did just that …” Anne looked away for a moment, her lips tight. “You know, there was a passage in the Gospels that always struck me as particularly apposite—where Jesus uses a little child as an exemplar for his followers and then says, ‘But whoever scandalizes one of these little ones, it would be better for him that a millstone should be hung around his neck, and he should be drowned in the sea.’ Psychologists know now that Jesus was speaking a profound truth. When young children are badly injured by those who should love them, their minds are almost always irreparably damaged. Victor became a sociopath, and I can recall Denis himself conjecturing that Don might have been the source of his son’s viciousness. But Denis never seems to have considered that
he
might also have been one of Don’s victims.”

“Don was eaten up with self-hatred,” I whispered. “As he died, he told me I should have hated him, too. But I thought he was talking about his alcoholism and shiftlessness, the way he’d failed Sunny and the kids.”

“Did you ever have hints that something might be seriously wrong with Denis himself?”

I thought about it. “Maybe. For one thing, I was always afraid
to let Denis into my mind. I love him so much, but it always terrified me to put myself in his power. After a couple of experiences, I wouldn’t permit it at all and he was unable to force his way in.”

Anne nodded. “It’s a thing operant parents and their children seem to agree on unconsciously: The child is almost always incapable of coercing the parent.” She reached across the table and took my hand, a glint of excitement in her eyes. “And you stand in loco parentis to Denis … That’s the reason why I came to you, Uncle Rogi, rather than to any of the other older members of the family.
Fury can never forcibly read your mind or coerce you.”

“I think Denis did coerce me a few times,” I said.

“There may have been an unconscious element of permissiveness on your part, then. But now, when your opposition is firm, it would probably be impossible.”

I mulled over my recollections of our early relationship. “In hindsight, I can see other things about Denis that troubled me. He blamed himself when Vic killed Don. He also knew that Vic deliberately suppressed the operant mindpowers of their younger brothers and sisters, but Denis never did anything about it—not even when Vic murdered three of the girls who defied him. And their mother, poor Sunny … when Denis finally did get her out of Vic’s clutches it was too late. She’d gone out of her mind with grief and she died not long afterward.”

I broke up again, knuckling my eyes. When I pulled myself together I added, “The strangest thing of all was Denis’s insisting on keeping Vic alive when he was mind-zapped to a vegetative state. The bastard hung on for twenty-six years. Denis said he kept him on the machines so he’d have time to repent his sins. Fat fucking chance! But not even Lucille was able to talk Denis out of his foutue idée fixe. Every year on Good Friday, the Dynasty had to join Denis in metaconcert and pray for Vic. That last year, in 2040, Denis even tried to rope
me
into the mind-prayer. Thank God I was able to wiggle out.”

“Can you tell me any other details about Fury’s birth? It’s highly significant that the thing managed to take overt control of Denis just as Victor died. This might suggest that Denis’s shadow persona unconsciously approved of Victor’s crimes, or even abetted them. I think it’s also important that Fury was forced to manifest itself only after Victor was gone forever.”

I said, “Fury was all set to make me its slave when it was born, there at Vic’s deathbed. I heard it say so. But another entity—a good one—showed up suddenly and saved me.”

Anne’s eyes widened. “Who could it have been? Denis’s core persona?”

I beat around the bush, deciding this wasn’t an auspicious time to introduce her to the Family Ghost, then said, “I guess Fury took the five fetuses instead of me and turned them into Hydra.”

“Their seduction and manipulation is more complex than that, but I suspect you’ve got it in a nutshell.” Anne got up and put the apricot pastries into the microwave. “Have you been conscious of Fury attempting to invade you at other times?”

“Not really. I’ve felt it lurking and I’ve dreamt about it—but the dreams always seemed to be real nightmares, if you get what I mean, and not coercion-inspired. The one other time I was strongly aware of Fury’s presence was at Ti-Jean’s birth in 2052. The baby was having a hard time of it and the monster tried to take advantage of the situation and get to him. Somehow … I was able to help. Fury went away and Baby Jack was all right.”

“But you recognized the entity positively?”

“Damn straight.” I winced at the recollection.

“This may be very important.” Anne studied me with uncomfortable intensity and I felt the tentacles of her grandmasterly coercive faculty fingering my good old bombproof mental shield. “You’re an untrained head, Uncle Rogi, but I’ve always suspected there were depths to you that the rest of the family might not have appreciated.”

I gave her a cool look. “Denis always said my suboperant creative faculty might have a few surprises. But I wouldn’t let him measure it—and I’m damned if I’ll let
you
fossick around in my skull either, ma petite.”

She laughed rather uneasily, got the pastries, and set them before us. We ate and drank while she regrouped, and her next remarks were almost clinically objective. “All bullshit aside, Rogi—if you were able to furnish details of Fury’s metapsychic complexus, it might help immeasurably in the treatment of Denis. Success would depend upon fine-tuning a coercive-redactive course that would safely integrate the antisocial shadow persona with Denis’s benign core—his true self.”

I gave her the fish-eye. “But you’d have to mind-ream me to find this data you need?”

“Essentially, yes. It might not be there. But there’s a chance that Fury’s birth made an exceptionally powerful engrammatic impression on you. Without any volition on your part, you could have stored the profile of the metafaculties Fury attempted to exert upon you. Especially the coercion.”

“The way young Dorothée stored the Hydra’s mental profile?”

“Exactly. Any therapy for Denis would have to break through Fury’s coercion before redactive healing could begin. You can see why your input could be extremely important.”

“I’ll consider it,” I said ungraciously. But behind my screen, I was thinking: What if she’s wrong about Denis? What if Anne
herself
is Fury? By letting my guard down, I could be making her a present of my metawhoozical ass! I’m no genius and no Paramount Grand Master—but this old Canuck isn’t a fucking idiot either.

Anne said, “Denis’s core persona is completely innocent of the crimes committed by Fury. But he can never control or integrate Fury to harmlessness unassisted. I’ll concede that your psychic reaming will probably be painful. But we members of the Dynasty will have to gamble our lives and sanity attempting to treat Denis in metaconcert. There’s no certainty that the seven of us will be able to succeed—especially with our own father.”

“You mean, the parent-kid thing would get in the way?”

“I’m afraid so. And there’s something else. Remember the grandstand play that Fury wreaked on the database computer at Concilium Orb when it helped Hydra escape from Scotland? That piece of work demonstrates that the entity almost certainly has paramount metacreativity. This gives it a formidable weapon against any minds who dare threaten it.”