Holy Fire - Bruce Sterling [126]
“Voici un raton!” Bouboule shouted. “Patapouff, de-fends-moi!”
A screech, a catapulting flash of golden fur. Primates were smarter than canines. Primates could climb like anything. The dog yelped in terror and tumbled from the edge of the roof with a howl of despair.
“Oh, poor baby,” said Bouboule, hugging her shivering marmoset, “you have lost your fine chapeau.”
“No, I see it,” said Niko. “It’s in the gutter.” She scrambled down and fetched the tiny hat and brought it back.
They were silent for a moment, weighing the consequences.
“We’d better not go back down. You know another way out?” Maya said to Benedetta.
“I specialize in other ways out,” said Benedetta.
The four of them caught the tube and split up. It seemed wisest. Maya took Benedetta home with her. She and Benedetta had a lot to discuss. Two in the morning found them nibbling canapés in the actress’s white furry apartment. Then Novak called her on the actress’s netlink. The screen was blank, a voice call. Novak hated synchronous video.
“You don’t meet in the Tête again,” he told her somberly.
“No?”
“She wept for her little dog. Klaus won’t have that. It was cruel and stupid.”
“I’m sorry for the accident, Josef. It was very sudden.”
“You’re a bad and destructive girl.”
“I don’t mean to be. Truly.”
“Helene understands you far, far better than you will ever understand Helene. She means so well and has no malice, but how she suffers! She won’t allow herself any luck.” Novak sighed. “Helene was rude to me tonight. Can you believe that, girl? It’s a tragedy to see a grande dame being crass. And in public! It means she is afraid, you see.”
“I’m sorry that she was rude.”
“If you could have known her, Maya, when she was young. A great patroness of the arts. A woman of taste and discernment. She asked for nothing but to help us. But the parasites crowded around her, taking advantage of her. Feeding on her, for decades. Never forgiving her anything. They have embittered her. She’s defending you, you should know that. She defends you from far worse things than Helene Vauxcelles-Serusier. She guards the young people in artifice. Helene still believes.”
“Josef,” she said, “are you calling me from your house?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t you think this line might be tapped?”
“Helene has that capacity,” Novak said, his voice tightening. “That doesn’t mean that she will bother to listen.”
“I’m sorry I made this night such a debacle. Do you hate me now, Josef? Please don’t hate me. Because I’m afraid that worse is coming.”
“Darling, I don’t hate you. I’m sorry that I must tell you this, but there’s nothing you can do to make me hate you. I am a very old man. There’s nothing left of me but irony and pride, and a little muddy benevolence. I’m afraid perhaps you are becoming evil. But I can’t find it in myself to hate that, or to hate you. You will always be my favorite little monster.”
She had nothing to say to that, so she hung up.
“He really hurt me when he said that,” she said to Benedetta, and began to cry.
“You should leave that old fool,” Benedetta said, munching a fresh canapé. “You should come with me to Bologna. Come tonight. We’ll catch a train. It’s the finest city in Europe. There are colonnades and communards and blimps. You should see the arcades, they’re so beautiful. And we have wonderful plans in Bologna. Come with us to the Istituto di Estetica. You can watch us as we work.”
“Can I take photos of what you’re up to?”
“Well …”
“I take such bad photos,” she mourned. “Josef Novak doesn’t take bad photographs. Sometimes they’re wonderful. Sometimes they’re just odd, but he never takes a bad one. Never, he just doesn’t make mistakes. And me, I never take good ones. It’s not that I have bad technique. I can learn the technique, but I still don’t see.”
Benedetta sipped her tincture.
“There’s no one me inside to see with, Benedetta. I can be beautiful, because there is no great beauty