Imajica 01 - The Fifth Dominion

12

TAYLOR BRIGGS HAD once told Judith that he measured out his life in summers. When his span came to an end, he said, it would be the summers he remembered and, counting them, count himself blessed among them. From the romances of his youth to the days of the last great orgies in the back rooms and bathhouses of New York and San Francisco, he could recall his career in love by sniffing the sweat from his armpits. Judith had envied him at the time. Like Gentle, she had difficulty remembering more than ten years of her past. She had no recollection of her adolescence whatsoever, nor her childhood; could not picture her parents or even name them. This inability to hold on to history didn't much concern her (she knew no other), until she encountered somebody like Taylor, who took such satisfaction from memory. She hoped he still did; it was one of the few pleasures left to him.

She'd first heard news of his sickness the previous July, from his lover, Clem. Despite the fact that he and Taylor had lived the same high life together, the plague had passed Clem by, and Jude had spent several nights with him, talking through the guilt he felt at what he saw as an undeserved escape. Their paths had diverged through the autumn months, however, and she was surprised to find an invitation to their Christmas party awaiting her when she got back from New York. Still feeling delicate after all that had happened, she'd rung up to decline, only to have Clem quietly tell her that Taylor was not expected to see another spring, never mind another summer. Would she not come, for his sake? She of course accepted. If any of her circle could make good times of bad it was Taylor and Clem, and she owed them both her best efforts in that endeavor. Was it perhaps because she'd had so many difficulties with the heterosexual males in her life that she relaxed in the company of men for whom her sex were not contested terrain?

At a little after eight in the evening of Christmas Day, Clem opened the door and ushered her in, claiming a kiss beneath the sprig of mistletoe in the hallway before, as he put it, the barbarians were upon her. The house had been decorated as it might have been a century earlier, tinsel, fake snow, and fairy lights forsaken in favor of evergreen, hung in such abundance around the walls and mantelpieces that the rooms were half forested. Clem, whose youth had outrun the toll of years for so long, was not such a healthy sight. Five months before he'd looked a fleshy thirty in a flattering light. Now he looked ten years older at least, his bright welcome and flattery unable to conceal his fatigue.

"You wore green," he said as he escorted her in to the lounge. "I told Taylor you'd do that. Green eyes, green dress."

"Do you approve?"

"Of course! We're having a pagan Christmas this year. Dies natalis soils invictus."

"What's that?"

"The Birth of the Unconquered Sun," he said. "The Light of the World. We need a little of that right now."

"Do I know many people here?" she said, before they stepped into the hub of the party.

"Everybody knows you, darling," he said fondly. "Even the people who've never met you."

There were many faces she knew awaiting them, and it took her five minutes to get across to where Taylor was sitting, lord of all he surveyed, in a well-cushioned chair close to the roaring fire. She tried not to register the shock she felt at the sight of him. He'd lost almost all of what had once been a leonine head of hair, and every spare ounce of substance from the face beneath. His eyes, which had always been his most penetrating feature (one of the many things they'd had in common), seemed enormous now, as though to devour in the time he had left the sights his demise would deny him. He opened his arms to her.

"Oh, my sweet," he said. "Give me a hug. Excuse me if I don't get up."

She bent and hugged him. He was skin and bone; and cold, despite the fire close by.

"Has Clem got you some punch?"

"I'm on my way," Clem said.

"Get me another vodka while you're at it" Taylor said, imperious as ever.

"I thought we'd agreed—" Clem said.

"I know it's bad for me. But staying sober's worse."

"It's your funeral," Clem said, with a bluntness Jude found shocking. But he and Taylo* eyed each other with a kind of adoring ferocity, and she saw in the look how Clem's cruelty was part of their mechanism for dealing with this tragedy.

"You wish," Taylor said. "I'll have an orange juice. No, make that a Virgin Mary. Let's be seasonal about it."

"1 thought you were having a pagan celebration," Jude said as Clem headed away to fetch the drinks.

"I don't see why the Christians should have the Holy Mother," Taylor said. "They don't know what to do with her when they've got her. Pull up a chair, sweetie. I heard a rumor you were in foreign climes."

"I was. But I came back at the last minute. I had some problems in New York."

"Whose heart did you break this time?"

"It wasn't that kind of problem."

"Well?" he said. "Be a telltale. Tell Taylor."

This was a bad joke from way back, and it brought a smile to Judith's lips. It also brought the story, which she'd come here swearing she'd keep to herself.

"Somebody tried to murder me," she said.

"You're jesting," he replied.

"I wish I was."

"What happened?" he said. "Spill the beans. I like hearing other people's bad news just at the moment. The worse, the better."

She slid her palm over Taylor's bony hand. "Tell me how you are first."

"Grotesque," he said. "Clem's wonderful, of course, but all the tender loving care in the world won't make me healthy. I have bad days and good days. Mostly bad lately. I am, as my ma used to say, not long for this world." He glanced up. "Look out, here comes Saint Clemence of the Bedpan. Change the subject. Clem, did Judy tell you somebody tried to kill her?"

"No. Where was this?"

"In Manhattan."

"A mugger?"

"No."

"Not someone you knew?" Taylor said.

Now she was on the point of telling the whole thing, and she wasn't sure she wanted to. But Taylor had an anticipatory gleam in his eye, and she couldn't bear to disappoint him. She began, her account punctuated by exclamations of delighted incredulity from Taylor, and she found herself rising to her audience as though this story were not the grim truth but a preposterous fiction. Only once did she lose her momentum, when she mentioned Gentle's name, and Clem broke in to say that he'd been invited tonight. Her heart tripped and took a beat to get back into.its rhythm.

"Tell the rest," Taylor was exhorting her. "What happened?"

She went on with her story, but now, with her back to the door, she found herself wondering every moment if he was stepping through it. Her distraction took its toll on the narrative. But then perhaps a tale about murder told by the prey was bound to predictability. She wrapped it up with undue haste.

"The point is, I'm alive," she said. "I'll drink to that," Taylor replied, passing his unsipped Virgin Mary back to Clem. "Maybe just a splash of vodka?" he pleaded. "I'll take the consequences."

Clem made a reluctant shrug and, claiming Jude's empty glass, wended his way back through the crowd to the drinks table, giving Jude an excuse for turning around and scanning the room. Half a dozen new faces had appeared since she'd sat down. Gentle was not among them.

"Looking for Mr. Right?" Taylor said. "He's not here yet."

She looked back to meet his amusement.

"I don't know who you're talking about," she said.

"Mr. Zacharias.""What's so funny?"

"You and him. The most talked-about affair of the last decade. You know, when you mention him, your voice changes. It gets—"

"Venomous."

"Breathy. Yearning."

"I don't yearn for Gentle."

"My mistake," he said archly. "Was he good in bed?"

"I've had better."

"You want to know something I never told anybody?"

He leaned forward, the smile becoming more pained. She thought it was his aching body that brought the frown to his brow, until she heard his words.

"I was in love with Gentle from the moment I met him. I tried everything to get him into bed. Got him drunk. Got him high. Nothing worked. But I kept at him, and about six years ago—"

Clem appeared at this juncture, supplying Taylor and Jude with replenished glasses before heading off to welcome a fresh influx of guests.

"You slept with Gentle?" Jude said.

"Not exactly. I mean, I sort of talked him into letting me give him a blow job. He was very high. Grinning that grin of his. I used to worship that grin. So there I am," Taylor went on, as lascivious as he'd ever been when recounting his conquests, "trying to get him hard, and he starts... I don't know how to explain this... I suppose he began speaking in tongues. He was lying back on my bed with his trousers around his ankles, and he just started to talk in some other language. Nothing vaguely recognizable. It wasn't Spanish. It wasn't French. I don't know what it was. And you know what? I lost my hard-on, and he got one." He laughed uproariously, but not for long. The laugh went from his face, as he began again. "You know, I was a little afraid of him suddenly. I was actually afraid. I couldn't finish what I'd started. I got up and left him to it, lying there with his dick sticking up, speaking in tongues." He claimed her drink from her hand and took a throatful. The memory had clearly shaken him. There was a mottled rash on his neck, and his eyes were glistening.

"Did you ever hear anything like that from him?" She shook her head. "I only ask because I know you broke up very quickly. I wondered if he'd freaked you out for some reason."

"No. He just fucked around too much."

Taylor made a noncommittal grunt, then said, "I get these night sweats now, you know, and I have to get up sometimes at three in the morning and let Clem change the sheets. I don't know whether I'm awake or asleep half the time. And all kinds of memories are coming back to me. Things I haven't thought about in years. One of them was that. I can hear him, when I'm standing there in a pool of sweat. Hear him talking like he's possessed."

"And you don't like it?"

"I don't know," he said. "Memories mean different things to me now. I dream about my mother, and it's like I want to crawl back into her and be born all over again. I dream about Gentle, and I wonder why I let all these mysteries in my life go. Things it's too late to solve now. Being in love. Speaking in tongues. It's all one in the end. I haven't understood any of it." He shook his head and shook down tears at the same time. "I'm sorry," he said. "I always get maudlin at Christmas. Will you fetch Clem for me? I need the bathroom."

"Can't I help?"

"There's some things I still need Clem for. Thanks anyway."

"No problem."

"And for listening."

She threaded her way to where Clem was chatting and discreetly informed him of Taylor's request.

"You know Simone, don't you?" Clem said by way of an exit, and left Jude to talk.

She did indeed know Simone, though not well, and after the conversation she'd just had with Taylor, she found it difficult to whip up a social souffle. But Simone was almost flirtatiously excessive in her responses, unleashing a gurgling laugh at the merest hint of a cue and fingering her neck as though to mark the places she wanted kissed. Jude was silently rehearsing a polite refusal when she caught Si-mone's glance, ill concealed in a particularly extravagant laugh, flitting towards somebody elsewhere in the crowd. Irritated to be cast as a stooge for the woman's vamping, she said, "Who is he?"

"Who's who?" Simone said, flustered and blushing. "Oh, I'm sorry. It's just some man who keeps staring at me."

Her gaze went back to her admirer, and as it did so Jude was seized by the utter certainty that if she were to turn now it would be Gentle's stare she intercepted. He was here, and up to his stale old tricks, threading himself a little string of gazes, ready to pluck the prettiest when he tired of the game.

"Why don't you just go near and talk to him," she said.

"I don't know if I should."

"You can always change your mind if a better offer comes along."

"Maybe I will," Simone said, and without making any further attempt at conversation she took her laugh elsewhere.

Jude fought the temptation to follow her progress for fully two seconds, then glanced around. Simone's wooer was standing beside the Christmas tree, smiling a welcome at his object of desire as she breasted her way through the crowd towards him. It wasn't Gentle after all, but a man she thought she remembered as Taylor's brother. Oddly relieved, and irritated at herself for being so, she headed towards the drinks table for a refill, then wandered out into the hallway in search of some cooler air. There was a cellist on the half landing, playing In the Bleak Midwinter, the melody and the instrument it was being played upon combining to melancholy effect. The front door stood open, and the air through it raised goose bumps. She went to close it, only to have one of the other listeners discreetly whisper, "There's somebody being sick out there."

She glanced into the street. There was indeed somebody sitting on the edge of the pavement, in the posture of one resigned to the dictates of his belly: head down, elbows on his knees, waiting for the next surge. Perhaps she made a sound. Perhaps he simply felt her gaze on him. He raised his head and looked around.

"Gentle, What are you doing out here?"

"What does it look like?" He hadn't looked too pretty last time she'd seen him, but he looked a damn sight worse now: haggard, unshaven, and waxy with nausea.

"There's a bathroom in the house."

"There's a wheelchair up there," Gentle said, with an almost superstitious look. "I'd prefer to be sick out here."

He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. It was virtually covered in paint. So was the other, she now saw; and his trousers, and his shirt.

"You've been busy."

He misunderstood. "I shouldn't have drunk anything," he said.

"Do you want me to get you some water?"

"No, thanks. I'm going home. Will you say goodbye to Taylor and Clem for me? I can't face going back in. I'll disgrace myself." He got to his feet, stumbling a little. "We don't seem to meet under very pleasant circumstances, do we?" he said.

"I think I should drive you home. You'll either kill yourself or somebody else."

"It's all right," he said, raising his painted hands. "The roads are empty. I'll be fine." He started to rummage in his pocket for his car keys.

"You saved my life; let me return the favor."

He looked up at her, his eyelids drooping. "Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea."

She went back inside to say farewell on behalf of herself and Gentle. Taylor was back in his chair. She caught sight of him before he saw her. He was staring into middle distance, his eyes glazed. It wasn't sorrow she read in his expression, but a fatigue so profound it had wiped all feeling from him except, maybe, regret for unsolved mysteries. She went to him and explained that she'd found Gentle and that he was sick and needed taking-home.

"Isn't he going to come and say goodbye?" Taylor said.

"I think he's afraid of throwing up all over the carpet, or you, or both."

"Tell him to call me. Tell him I want to see him soon." He took hold of Jude's hand, holding it with surprising strength. "Soon, tell him."

"I will."

"I want to see that grin of his one more time."

"There'll be lots of times," she said.

He shook his head. "Once will have to do," he replied softly.

She kissed him and promised she'd call to say she got home safely. On her way to the door she met Clem and once again made her apologies and farewells.

"Call me if there's anything I can do," she offered.

"Thanks, but I think it's a waiting game."

"Then we can wait together."

"Better just him and me," Clem said. "But I will call."

He glanced towards Taylor, who was once more staring at nothing.

"He's determined to hold on till spring. One more spring, he keeps saying. He never gave a fuck about crocuses till now." Clem smiled. "You know what's wonderful?" he said. "I've fallen in love with him all over again."

"That is wonderful."

"And now I'm going to lose him, just when I realize what he means to me. You won't make that mistake, will you?" He looked at her hard. "You know who I mean."

She nodded.

"Good. Then you'd better take him home."

The roads were as empty as he'd predicted, and it took only fifteen minutes to get back to Gentle's studio. He wasn't exactly coherent. On the way, the exchanges between them were full of gaps and discontinuities, as though his mind were running ahead of his tongue, or behind it. Drink wasn't the culprit. Jude had seen Gentle drunk on all forms of alcohol; it made him roaring, randy, and sanctimonious by turns. Never like this, with his head back against the seat, his eyes closed, talking" from the bottom of a pit. One moment he was thanking her for looking after him, the next he was telling her not to mistake the paint on his hands for shit. It wasn't shit, he kept saying, it was burnt umber, and prussian blue, and cadmium yellow, but somehow when you mixed colors together, any colors, they always came out looking like shit eventually. This monologue dwindled into silence, from which, a minute or two later, a new subject emerged.

"I can't look at him, you know, the way he is..."

"Who?" Jude said.

"Taylor. I can't look at him when he's so sick. You know how much I hate sickness."

She'd forgotten. It amounted to a paranoia with him, fueled perhaps by the fact that though he treated his body with scant regard for its health he not only never sickened but hardly aged. Doubtless the collapse, when it came, would be calamitous: excess, frenzy, and the passage of years taking their toll in one fell swoop. Until that time he wanted no reminders of his physical frailty.

"Taylor's going to die, isn't he?" he said.

"Clem thinks very soon."

Gentle gave a heavy sigh. "I should spend some time with him. We were good friends once."

"There were rumors about you two."

"He spread them, not me."

"Just rumors, were they?"

"What do you think?"

"I think you've probably tried every experience that swam by at least once."

"He's not my type," Gentle said, not opening his eyes.

"You should see him again," she said. "You've got to face up to falling apart sooner or later. It happens to us all."

"Not to me it won't. When I start'to decay, I'm going to kill myself. I swear." He made fists of his painted hands and raised them to his face, drawing the knuckles down over his cheeks. "I won't let it happen," he said.

"Good luck," she replied.

They drove the rest of the way without any further exchange between them, his passive presence on the passenger seat beside her making her uneasy. She kept thinking of Taylor's story and expecting him to start talking, unleashing a stream of lunacies. It wasn't until she announced that they'd arrived at the studio that she realized he'd fallen asleep. She stared at him awhile: at the smooth dome of his forehead and the delicate configuration of his lips. It was still in her to dote on him, no question of that. But what lay that way? Disappointment and frustrated rage. Despite Clem's words of encouragement she was almost certain it was a lost cause.

She shook him awake and asked him if she could use his bathroom before going on her way. The punch was heavy in her bladder. He was hesitant, which surprised her. The suspicion dawned that he'd already moved a female companion into the studio, some seasonal bird to be stuffed for Christmas and dumped by New Year. Curiosity made her press to be allowed in. Reluctant as he was, he could scarcely say no, of course, and she traipsed up the stairs after him, wondering as she went what the conquest was going to look like, only to find that the studio was empty. His sole companion was the painting that had so filthied his hands. He seemed genuinely upset that she'd set eyes on it and ushered her to the bathroom, more discomfited than if her first suspicions had been correct and one of his conquests had indeed been disporting herself on the thread- bare couch. Poor Gentle. He was getting stranger by the day.

She relieved herself and emerged from the toilet to find the painting covered with a stained sheet and him looking furtive and fidgety, clearly eager to have her out of the place. She saw no reason not to be plain with him, and said, "Working on something new?"

"Nothing much," he said.

"I'd like to see."

"It's not finished."

"It doesn't matter to me if it's a fake," she said. "I know what you and Klein get up to."

"It's not a fake," he said, a fierceness in his voice and face she'd not seen so far tonight. "It's mine."

"An original Zacharias?" she remarked. "This I have to see."

She reached for the sheet, before he could stop her, and flipped it up over the top of the canvas. She'd only had a glimpse of the picture as she'd entered, and from some distance. Up close, it was clear he'd worked on the canvas with no little ferocity. There were places where it had been punctured, as though he'd stabbed it with his palette knife or brush; other places where the paint was laid on with glutinous abandon, then thumbed and fingered to drive it before his will. All this to achieve the likeness of what? Two people, it seemed, standing face to face against a brutal sky, their flesh white, but shot through with jabs of livid color.

"Who are they?" she said.

"They?" he said, sounding almost surprised that she'd read the image thusly, then covering his response with a shrug. "Nobody," he said, "just an experiment," and pulled the sheet back down over the painting.

"Is it a commission?"

"I'd prefer not to discuss it," he said.

His discomfort was oddly charming. He was like a child who'd been caught about some secret ritual. "You're full of surprises," she said, smiling.

"Nan, not me."

Though the painting was out of sight he continued to look ill at ease, and she realized there was going to be no further discussion of the picture or its import.

"I'll be off, then," she said.

"Thanks for the lift," he replied, escorting her to the door.

"Do you still want to have that drink?" she said.

"You're not going back to New York?"

"Not immediately. I'll call you in a couple of days. Don't forget Taylor."

"What are you, my conscience?" he said, with too small a trace of humor to soften the weight of the reply. "I won't forget."

"You leave marks on people, Gentle. That's a responsibility you can't just shrug off."

"I'll try to be invisible from now on," he replied.

He didn't take her to the front door but let her head down the stairs alone, closing the studio door before she'd taken more than half a dozen steps. As she went, she wondered what misbegotten instinct had made her suggest drinks. Well, it was easily slipped out of, even assuming he remembered the suggestion had been made, which she doubted.

Once out in the street she looked up at the building to see if she could spot him through the window. She had to cross the road to do so, but from the opposite pavement she could see him standing in front of the painting, which he had once again unveiled. He was staring at it with his head slightly cocked. She couldn't be certain, but it looked as though his lips were moving; as though he were talking to the image on the canvas. What was he saying? she wondered. Was he coaxing some image forth from the chaos of paint? And if so, in which of his many tongues was he speaking?