The Wolves of Midwinter (13 page)

She reached out and firmly urged him back towards the chair. “You
sit down,” she said. “And let me bring you some coffee now, as you’re awake and it’s useless for you to go back to bed.”

“Please, leave me alone,” said Reuben. He felt a massive headache coming on.

He looked into her eyes. There was something wrong with her, so wrong, but he couldn’t figure what.

In what he’d seen of her deliberate movements, her strange demeanor had been as horrifying as the vision of Marchent crying there, Marchent angry, Marchent lost.

“How can she not know she’s dead?” he demanded.

“I told you,” said the woman in a low iron voice. “She will not accept it. It’s common enough, I can tell you.”

Reuben sank down into the chair. “Don’t bring me anything. Let me alone now,” he said.

“What you mean is you don’t want anything from my hands,” she said, “because you’re angry with me.”

A male voice spoke from behind Reuben. It was Margon.

It spoke sharply in German, and Lisa, bowing her head, immediately left the room.

Margon moved to the Chesterfield sofa opposite the fire and sat down. His long brown hair was loose down to his shoulders. He was dressed only in a denim shirt and jeans and slippers. His hair was tousled and his face had an immediate warm and empathetic expression.

“Pay no attention to Lisa,” he said. “She is here to do her job, no more, no less.”

“I don’t like her,” Reuben confessed. “I’m ashamed to say it, but it’s true. However that’s the smallest part of what concerns me right now.”

“I know what concerns you,” said Margon. “But Reuben, if ghosts are ignored, they often move on. It doesn’t help them to look at them, acknowledge them, keep them lingering here. The natural thing is for them to move on.”

“Then you know all about this?”

“I know you’ve seen Marchent,” said Margon. “Felix told me. And Felix is suffering over this.”

“I had to tell him, didn’t I?”

“Of course you did. I’m not faulting you for telling him or anyone else. But please listen to me. The best response is to ignore her appearances.”

“That seems so cold, so cruel,” said Reuben. “If you could see her, if you could see her face.”

“I did see her, just now,” Margon said. “I hadn’t seen her before, but I saw her in the window seat. I saw her rise and come towards you. But Reuben, don’t you see, she can’t really hear you or understand you and she can’t speak to you. She’s not a strong enough spirit, and please believe me, the very last thing you want is for her to become strong, because if she becomes strong she may stay forever.”

Reuben gasped. He felt the maddest impulse to make the Sign of the Cross, but he didn’t do it. His hands were shaking.

Lisa had returned with a tray, which she set down on the leather ottoman in front of Margon. The fragrance of coffee filled the room. There were two pots on the tray, two cups and saucers and the usual silver and old linen napkins.

Margon let loose a long stream of German words, obviously some sort of reproof, as he looked at Lisa. His words never became hurried or harsh, but there was a cold chastising tone to what he said nevertheless and the woman bowed her head again, as she had before, and nodded.

“I am so sorry, Reuben,” said Lisa with soft sincerity. “Truly I am sorry. I am so rough, so perfunctory sometimes. My world is a world of efficiency. I am so sorry. You will, please, give me another chance, that you might think better of me.”

“Oh, yes, of course,” said Reuben. “I didn’t know what I was saying.” He felt immediately sorry for her.

“It was I who spoke badly,” she said, her voice now an imploring whisper. “I will bring you something to eat. Your nerves are shattered and you must eat.” She went out.

They sat there in silence, and then Margon said, “You’ll get used to her and used to the others. There are one or two more coming. Believe me, they are expert at serving us or I wouldn’t have them here.”

“There’s something unusual about her,” Reuben confessed. “I can’t put my finger on it. I don’t know how to describe it. But really, she’s been so helpful. I don’t know what’s the matter with me.”

He took a folded Kleenex out of the pocket of his robe and wiped his eyes and nose.

“There are a lot of unusual things about all of them,” said Margon, “but I’ve worked with them for years. They are very good with us.”

Reuben nodded. “It’s Marchent that worries me, you know that, because she’s suffering. And Lisa said the most horrible thing! I mean—is it really possible that Marchent doesn’t know she’s dead? Is that conceivable, that the soul of a human being could be bound to this place, not knowing that it’s dead, not knowing that we’re alive and struggling to talk to us and not being able to do it? That’s almost more than I can believe. I can’t believe that life could be that cruel to us. I mean I know terrible things happen in this world, always, everywhere, but I thought that after death, after the cord had snapped, as they say, I thought there would be—.”

“Answers?” offered Margon.

“Yes, answers, clarity, revelation,” said Reuben. “Either that or, mercifully, nothing.”

Margon nodded. “Well, maybe it’s not so neat. We can’t know, can we? We’re bound to these powerful bodies of ours, aren’t we? And we don’t know what the dead know or don’t know. But I can tell you this. They do eventually move on. They can. They have their choice, I’m convinced of it.”

Margon’s face showed only kindness.

When Reuben didn’t answer or speak, he poured out a cup of fresh coffee for Reuben and, without asking, put two packets of artificial sweetener in it, which was what Reuben always took with his coffee, and after stirring the coffee, he offered it to Reuben.

There was the soft rustle of silk announcing Lisa, and the pungent smell of fresh-baked cookies. She held the steaming plate in her hand and then set it down on the tray.

“You eat now a little,” she said. “Sugar wakes one in the early hours. It rouses the sleepy blood.”

Reuben took a deep drink of the coffee. It did taste delicious. But the ugly and terrible thought struck him that Marchent could perhaps taste nothing. Perhaps she could smell nothing, savor nothing. Perhaps she could only see and hear, and this seemed penitential and awful.

When he looked up at Margon again, the compassion in Margon’s face almost made Reuben cry. Margon and Felix had so much in common beyond the darker Asian skin, the dark eyes. They seemed so alike as to be from a common tribe but Reuben knew that wasn’t possible, not if Margon was telling the truth with his ancient stories, and everything about Margon suggested that he always told the truth, even if others didn’t like it or want to accept it. Right now, he looked like an earnest and a concerned friend, youngish, empathetic, genuine.

“Tell me something,” said Reuben.

“If I can,” said Margon with a little smile.

“Are all the elder Morphenkinder like you and Felix, and Sergei and the others? Are they all kind and gentle like you? Isn’t there some scoundrel of a Morphenkind somewhere who’s rude and hateful by nature?”

Margon laughed a low rueful laugh.

“You flatter us,” he said. “I must confess there are some quite unpleasant Morphenkinder sharing this world with us. I wish I could say there were not.”

“But who are they?”

“Ah, I knew you would immediately ask that. Will you accept that we’re all better off if they leave us alone here, and keep to their own territory and their own ways? It’s possible to go on for a very long time without coming in contact with them.”

“Yes, I accept it. You’re saying there’s nothing to fear from them.”

“Fear, no, there’s nothing to fear. But I can tell you there are Morphenkinder in this world whom I personally despise. But you’re not likely to encounter them, not as long as I’m here.”

“Do they define evil in a different way that we define it?”

“Every single soul on earth defines evil in his or her own way,” said Margon. “You know that. I don’t have to tell you. But all Morphenkinder are offended by evil and seek to destroy it in humans.”

“But what about in other Morphenkinder?”

“It’s infinitely more complex, as you found out with poor Marrok. He wanted to kill you, felt he should, felt he’d no right to pass the Chrism to you, felt he had to annihilate his mistake, but you know how difficult it was for him, you and Laura being utterly innocent. And you, you had no difficulty in killing him simply because he was trying to kill you. Well, there you have the entire moral story of the human race and all the immortal races in a nutshell, don’t you?”

“All the immortal races?”

“You and Stuart. If we answered every single question, we’d overwhelm you. Let it come gradually, please. And that way we can postpone the inevitable revelation that we don’t know all the answers.”

Reuben smiled. But he wasn’t going to let this opportunity slip through his fingers, not feeling the pain he was feeling now.

“Is there a science of spirits?” asked Reuben. He felt the tears welling again. He picked up one of the cookies, which was still warm, and ate it easily in one mouthful. Delicious oatmeal cookie, his favorite kind, very thick and chewy. He drank the rest of the coffee, and Margon poured another cup.

“No, not really,” said Margon. “Though people will tell you there is. I’ve told you what I know—that spirits can and do move on. Unless, of course, they don’t want to move on. Unless, of course, they’ve made a career of remaining here.”

“But what you mean is they disappear from your sight, don’t you?” Reuben sighed. “I mean, what you’re saying is they leave you, yes, but you can’t know that they’ve gone on.”

“There’s evidence they go on. They change, they disappear. Some people can see them more clearly than others. You can see them. You get the power from your father’s side of the family. You get it from the Celtic blood.” It seemed he had more to say, and then he added, “Please listen to me. Don’t seek to communicate with her. Let her go, for her sake.”

Reuben couldn’t answer.

Margon rose to go.

“Wait, Margon, please,” Reuben said.

Margon stood there, eyes lowered, bracing himself for something unpleasant.

“Margon, who are the Forest Gentry?” Reuben asked. Margon’s face changed. He was suddenly exasperated.

“You mean Felix hasn’t told you?” he asked. “I should think he would have.”

“No, he hasn’t told me. I know you’re fighting over them, Margon. I saw you. I heard you.”

“Well, you let Felix explain to you who they are, and while he’s at it, he might explain to you his entire philosophy of life, his insistence that all sentient beings can live in harmony.”

“You don’t believe they can?” Reuben asked. He was struggling to keep Margon there, keep Margon talking.

Margon sighed. “Well, let’s put it this way. I’d rather live in harmony in this world without the Forest Gentry, without spirits in general. I’d rather people my world with those creatures who are flesh and blood, no matter how mutant, unpredictable, or misbegotten they may be. I have a deep abiding respect for matter.” He repeated the word, “Matter!”

“Like Teilhard de Chardin,” said Reuben. He thought of the little book he’d found before he’d met either Margon or Felix, the little book of Teilhard’s theological reflections inscribed to Felix by Margon. Teilhard had said he was in love with matter.

“Well, yes,” Margon said with faint smile. “Rather like Teilhard. But Teilhard was a priest, like your brother. Teilhard believed things I have never believed. I don’t have an orthodoxy, remember.”

“I think you do,” said Reuben. “But it’s your own godless orthodoxy.”

“Oh, you’re right, of course,” said Margon. “And perhaps I’m wrong to argue for the superiority of it. Let’s just say I believe in the superiority of the biological over the spiritual. I look for the spiritual in the biological and no place else.”

And he left without another word.

Reuben sat back in the chair, gazing dully at the distant window. The panes were wet and clear and made up the many lead-framed squares of a perfect mirror.

After a long time and gazing at the distant reflection of the fire in a glass—a tiny blaze that seemed to float in nothingness—he whispered: “Are you here, Marchent?”

Slowly against the mirror, her shape took form, and as he stared fixedly at it, the shape was colored in, became solid, plastic and three-dimensional. She sat in the window seat again, but she did not look the same. She wore the brown dress she’d worn that day he’d met her. Her face was vividly moist and flushed as if with life, but sad, so sad. Her soft bobbed hair appeared combed. Her tears were glistening on her cheeks.

“Tell me what you want,” he said, trying desperately to stifle his fear. He started to get up, to go to her.

But the image was already dissolving. There seemed a flurry of movement, the fleeting shape of her reaching out, but it thinned, vanished—as if made of pixels and color and light. She was gone. And he was standing there, shaken as badly as before, his heart in his throat, staring at his own reflection in the window.

R
EUBEN SLEPT TILL AFTERNOON
, when a phone call from Grace awakened him. He had best come down now, she said, to sign the marriage documents and get the ceremony done tomorrow morning. He agreed with her.

He stopped on his way out only to look for Felix, but Felix was nowhere around, and Lisa thought he had perhaps gone down to Nideck to supervise plans for the Christmas festival.

“We are all so busy,” said Lisa, her eyes glowing, but she insisted Reuben have some lunch. She and Heddy and Jean Pierre had the long dining room table covered in sterling-silver chafing dishes, bowls, and platters. Pantry doors stood open, and a stack of flatware chests stood on the floor by the table. “Now listen to me, you must eat,” she said, quickly heading for the kitchen.

He told her no, he’d dine with his family in San Francisco. “But it’s fun to see all these preparations.”

And it was. He realized that the big party was only seven days away.

The oak forest outside was swarming with workmen, who were covering the thick gray branches of the oaks with tiny Christmas lights. And tents were already being erected on the terrace in front of the house. Galton and his carpenter cousins were coming and going. The magnificent marble statues for the crèche had been carted to the end of the terrace and stood in a wet confused grouping, waiting to be appropriately housed, and there was a flock of workmen building something, in spite of the light rain, that just might have been a Christmas stable.