The Best of Lucius Shepard (63 page)

The
main tent had been erected atop a dune overlooking a bay and a stretch of sandy
beach. It was a warm, windy night, and as I emerged from the tent the tall
grasses cresting the dune were blown flat by a gust. From behind me, Vang’s
amplified voice sounded above the rush of the wind and the heavier beat of the
surf, urging the audience to stay seated, the show would continue momentarily.
The moon was almost full, but it hung behind the clouds, edging an alp of
cumulus with silver, and I couldn’t find Mei at first. Then the moon sailed
clear, paving a glittering avenue across the black water, touching the plumes
of combers with phosphorous, brightening the sand, and I spotted
Mei–recognizable by her red costume–and two other figures on the beach some
thirty feet below; they appeared to be ministering to her.

I
started down the face of the dune, slipped in the loose sand and fell. As I
scrambled to my feet, I saw Tan struggling up the slope toward me. She caught
at the lapels of my tuxedo for balance, nearly causing me to fall again, and we
swayed together, holding each other upright. She wore a nylon jacket over her
costume, which was like Mei’s in every respect but one–it was a shade of
peacock blue spangled with silver stars. Her shining hair was gathered at the
nape of her neck, crystal earrings sparkled in the lobes of her ears, her dark
eyes brimmed with light. She looked made of light, an illusion that would fade
once the clouds regrouped about the moon. But the thing that most affected me
was not her beauty. Moment to moment, that was something of which I was always
aware, how she flowed between states of beauty, shifting from schoolgirl to
seductress to serious young woman, and now this starry incarnation materialized
before me, the devi of a world that existed only for this precise second. . . .
No, it was her calmness that affected me most. It poured over me, coursing
around and through me, and even before she spoke, not mentioning what had
happened to Mei, as if it were not a potentially fatal accident, a
confidence-destroyer that would cause me to falter whenever I picked up a
knife–even before that I was convinced by her unruffled manner that everything
was as usual, there had been a slight disruption of routine, and now we should
go back into the tent because Vang was running out of jokes to tell.

“Mei
. . .” I said as we clambered over the crest of the dune, and Tan said, “It’s
not even a scratch.” She took my arm and guided me toward the entrance, walking
briskly yet unhurriedly.

I
felt I’d been hypnotized–not by a sonorous voice or the pendulum swing of a
shiny object, but by a heightened awareness of the ordinary, the steady pulse
of time, all the background rhythms of the universe. I was filled with an
immaculate calm, distant from the crowd and the booming music. It seemed that I
wasn’t throwing the knives so much as I was fitting them into slots and letting
the turning of the earth whisk them away to thud and quiver in the board,
creating a figure of steel slightly larger than the figure of soft brown flesh
and peacock blue silk it contained. Dat had never received such applause–I
think the crowd believed Mei’s injury had been a trick designed to heighten
suspense, and they showed their enthusiasm by standing as Tan and I took our
bows and walked together through the entranceway. Once outside, she pressed
herself against me, kissed my cheek, and said she would see me later. Then she
went off toward the rear of the tent to change for the finale.

Under
normal circumstances, I would have gone to help with the major, but on this
occasion, feeling disconnected and now, bereft of Tan’s soothing influence,
upset at having injured Mei, I wandered along the top of the dune until I came
to a gully choked with grasses that afforded protection from the wind, which
was still gusting hard, filling the air with grit. I sat down amidst the grass
and looked off along the curve of the beach. About fifteen meters to the north,
the sand gave out into a narrow shingle and the land planed upward into low hills
thick with vegetation. Half-hidden by the foliage was a row of small houses
with sloping tiled roofs and open porches; they stood close to the sea, and
chutes of yellow light spilled from their windows to illuminate the wavelets
beneath. The moon was high, no longer silvery, resembling instead a piece of
bloated bone china mottled with dark splotches, and, appearing to lie directly
beneath it among a hammock of coconut palms was a pink stucco castle that
guarded the point of the bay: the hotel where the tourists who had attended our
performance were staying. I could make out antlike shapes scurrying back and
forth on the brightly lit crescent of sand in front of it, and I heard a faint
music shredded by the wind. The water beyond the break was black as opium.

My
thoughts turned not to the accident with Mei, but to how I had performed with
Tan. The act had passed quickly, a flurry of knives and light, yet now I
recalled details: the coolness of the metal between my fingers; Vang watching
anxiously off to the side; a fiery glint on a hatchet blade tumbling toward a
spot between Tan’s legs. My most significant memory, however, was of her eyes.
How they had seemed to beam instructions, orchestrating my movements, so
forceful that I’d imagined she was capable of deflecting a blade if my aim
proved errant. Given my emotional investment in her, my absolute faith–though
we’d never discussed it–in our future together, it was easy to believe she had
that kind of power over me. Easy to believe, and somewhat troublesome, for it
struck me that we were not equals, we couldn’t be as long as she controlled
every facet of the relationship. And having concluded this, as if the
conclusion were the end of all possible logics concerning the subject, my mind
slowed and became mired in despondency.

I’m
not certain how long I had been sitting when Tan came walking down the beach,
brushing windblown hair from her eyes. She had on a man’s short-sleeved shirt
and a pair of loose-fitting shorts, and was carrying a blanket. I was hidden
from her by the grass, and I was at such a remove from things, not comfortable
with but accepting of my solitude, I was half-inclined to let her pass; but
then she stopped and called my name, and I, by reflex, responded. She spotted
me and picked up her pace. When she reached my side she said without a hint of
reproval, merely as if stating a fact, “You went so far. I wasn’t sure I’d find
you.” She spread the blanket on the sand and encouraged me to join her on it. I
felt guilty at having had clinical thoughts about her and our relationship–to
put this sort of practical construction on what I tended to view as a magical
union, a thing of fate and dharma, seemed unworthy, and as a consequence I was
at a loss for words. The wind began to blow in a long unbroken stream off the
water, and she shivered. I asked if she would like to put on my tuxedo jacket.
She said, “No.” The line of her mouth tightened, and with a sudden movement,
she looked away from me, half-turning her upper body. I thought I must have done
something to annoy her, and this so unnerved me, I didn’t immediately notice
that she was unbuttoning her shirt. She shrugged out of it, held it balled
against her chest for a moment, then set it aside; she glanced at me over her
shoulder, engaging my eyes. I could tell her usual calm was returning–I could
almost see her filling with it–and I realized then that this calmness of hers
was not hers alone, it was ours, a byproduct of our trust in one another, and
what had happened in the main tent had not been a case of her controlling me,
saving me from panic, but had been the two of us channeling each other’s
strength, converting nervousness and fear to certainty and precision. Just as
we were doing now.

I
kissed her mouth, her small breasts, exulting in their salty aftertaste of
brine and dried sweat. Then I drew her down onto the blanket, and what
followed, despite clumsiness and flashes of insecurity, was somehow both fierce
and chaste, the natural culmination of two years of longing, of unspoken treaties
and accommodations. Afterward, pressed together, wrapped in the silk and warmth
of spent splendor, whispering the old yet never less than astonishing secrets
and promises, saying things that had long gone unsaid, I remember thinking that
I would do anything for her. This was not an abstract thought, not simply the
atavistic reaction of a man new to a feeling of mastery, though I can’t deny
that was in me–the sexual and the violent break from the same spring–but was an
understanding founded on a considered appreciation of the trials I might have
to overcome and the blood I might have to shed in order to keep her safe in a
world where wife-murder was a crime for profit and patricide an act of
self-defense. It’s strange to recall with what a profound sense of reverence I
accepted the idea that I was now willing to engage in every sort of human
behavior, ranging from the self-sacrificial to the self-gratifying to the
perpetration of acts so abhorrent that, once committed, they would harrow me
until the end of my days.

At
dawn the clouds closed in, the wind died, and the sea lay flat. Now and again a
weak sun penetrated the overcast, causing the water to glisten like an expanse
of freshly applied gray paint. We climbed to the top of the dune and sat with
our arms around each other, not wanting to return to the circus, to break the
elastic of the long moment stretching backward into night. The unstirring
grass, the energyless water and dead sky, made it appear that time itself had
been becalmed. The beach in front of the pink hotel was littered with debris,
deserted. You might have thought that our lovemaking had succeeded in emptying
the world. But soon we caught sight of Tranh and Mei walking toward us across
the dune, Kim and Kai skipping along behind. All were dressed in shorts and
shirts, and Tranh carried a net shopping bag that–I saw as he lurched up,
stumbling in the sand–contained mineral water and sandwiches.

“What
have you kids been up to?” he asked, displaying an exaggerated degree of
concern.

Mei
punched him on the arm, and, after glancing back and forth between us, as if he
suddenly understood the situation, Tranh put on a shocked face and covered his
mouth with a hand. Giggling, Kai and Kim went scampering down onto the beach.
Mei tugged at Tranh’s shirt, but he ignored her and sank onto his knees beside
me. “I bet you’re hungry,” he said, and his round face was split by a
gaptoothed grin. He thrust a sandwich wrapped in a paper napkin at me. “Better
eat! You’re probably going to need your strength.”

With
an apologetic look in Tan’s direction, Mei kneeled beside him; she unwrapped
sandwiches and opened two bottles of water. She caught my eye, frowned, pointed
to her arm, and shook her forefinger as she might have done with a mischievous child.
“Next time don’t dance around so much,” she said, and pretended to sprinkle
something on one of the sandwiches. “Or else one night I’ll put special herbs
in your dinner.” Tranh kept peering at Tan, then at me, grinning, nodding, and
finally, with a laugh, Tan pushed him onto his back. Down by the water Kai and
Kim were tossing pebbles into the sea with girlish ineptitude. Mei called to
them and they came running, their braids bouncing; they threw themselves
bellyfirst onto the sand, squirmed up to sitting positions, and began gobbling
sandwiches.

“Don’t
eat so fast!” Mei cautioned. “You’ll get sick.”

Kim,
the younger of the sisters, squinched her face at Mei and shoved half the
sandwich into her mouth. Tranh contorted his features so his lips nearly
touched his nose, and Kim laughed so hard she sprayed bits of bread and fried
fish. Tan told her that this was not ladylike. Both girls sat up straight,
nibbled their sandwiches–they took it to heart whenever Tan spoke to them about
being ladies.

“Didn’t
you bring anything beside fish?” I asked, inspecting the filling of my
sandwich.

“I
guess we should have brought oysters,” said Tranh. “Maybe some rhinoceros horn,
some . . .”

“That
stuff’s for old guys like you,” I told him. “Me, I just need peanut butter.”

After
we had done eating, Tranh lay back with his head in Mei’s lap and told a story
about a talking lizard that had convinced a farmer it was the Buddha. Kim and
Kai cuddled together, sleepy from their feast. Tan leaned into the notch of my shoulder,
and I put my arm around her. It came to me then, not suddenly, but gradually,
as if I were being immersed in the knowledge like a man lowering his body into
a warm bath, that for the first time in my life–all the life I could remember–I
was at home. These people were my family, and the sense of dislocation that had
burdened me all those years had evaporated. I closed my eyes and buried my face
in Tan’s hair, trying to hold onto the feeling, to seal it inside my head so I
would never forget it.

Two
men in T-shirts and bathing suits came walking along the water’s edge in our
direction. When they reached the dune they climbed up to where we were sitting.
Both were not much older than I, and judging by their fleshiness and soft
features, I presumed them to be Americans, a judgment confirmed when the taller
of the two, a fellow with a heavy jaw and hundreds of white beads threaded on
the strings of his long black hair, lending him a savage appearance, said, “You
guys are with that tent show, right?”