Aurorarama - Jean-Christophe Valtat [84]
Mason hemmed.
“I’m sorry. I cannot stay longer,” he said.
“You know what they are driving at, don’t you?”
“I can guess, I think.” He paused for a while, afraid to have said too much. He finally stumbled on a stricture that seemed to satisfy him. “I do not like the idea of my men being trappers.”
What did he think of his men being killers, Brentford wondered. Shooting a few Eskimos who had never hurt anyone so far? Surely, Mason had considered the motives behind it all. What they were asking him to do. Where it would lead. Brentford handed him the folder, saying nothing, knowing the moment would come for him to speak, or hoping it would. Any move now would be awkward.
Mason hastily put the folder back in the satchel.
“Would you sign this for me before I go?” he said, pulling out his copy of A Blast on the Barren Land and handing it to Brentford.
Too big a trap, thought Brentford. But smart enough for a kind of pact. But what sort of treaty could that be? Peace, alliance, neutrality? He took the chance, knowing Mason would appreciate just the courage it took to do so. Brentford opened the book, and accepted Mason’s pen. He simply wrote B.O. and handed it back.
“I may have more inspiration later.”
“That will do fine for the moment.”
Mason saluted and went back to the door. Neither of them said good-bye.
It was only when he was about to leave the smoking room that Brentford saw the painting. Even in the dim light, he could, he thought, recognize her: the dark hair in a bun, the aquiline nose, the mouth that had a crease of sadness as she smiled. The Ghost Lady. Wearing, it seemed, the same black dress he had seen her wearing in the magic mirror. She had posed in a drawing room, and through an open door behind her Brentford perceived another painting that represented two nude women in a bathtub, one pinching the second one’s nipple. He walked toward the portrait and read the caption. Isabelle d’Ussonville, by Alexander Harkness.
And then, everything snowballed into Hell.
Gabriel arrived in the Kursaal as people were gravitating for dinner around circular tables that bore the names of planets. He noticed that he was not to sit with the bride and groom. Allegedly, the extra room needed for Brentford’s mother’s wheelchair had caused his own relocation to Saturn. He did not mind that much, for he had little desire to face Sybil’s eyes. He was very unsure whether she remembered anything, but consciously or not, her usually dormant dislike of him had clearly become an adamant snubbing. As for Brentford’s mother, pulsating waves of anxiety almost in the visibility spectrum, she would not have amused him much either, as she did not seem in the mood for her usual witticisms and erudite poetry quotations. But then, neither was he.
Even marooned on another planet, he had to admit the place had its pleasant side. Everything around him—lustre, smiles, candles, Sybil, jewels, eyes, glasses—seemed to dazzle, glitter, or glint when it did not twinkle or sparkle. But his fresh tattoo hurt, like rusty nails in his neck, and he could feel that, quite like the feeble February sun, his mood, which had not been exactly bright to begin with, was plunging into deeper darkness with every minute that passed.
He did not know the people he sat with, but he found them a bit loud and annoying in the way friendly people can be to the melancholy man. A buxom brown girl, on his left side, seemed to take a vivid interest in him, but she was not Stella (she did not exist). There was wine, a Pol Roger ’89, which in a place where even bad wine is the most expensive thing around was to be honoured in the only possible way. He hit the bottle heavily, raising his glass to Brentford as he crossed his worried look, and then hit the bottle again without even touching the excellent