The Caryatids - Bruce Sterling [145]
George was talking rapidly to one of the Acquis spies; for some reason, George was abandoning the decent suit she’d bought him and borrowing the man’s white jacket.
There was another trampling surge past the grave—how had the crowd grown so large and unruly, so suddenly? A host of bodyguards and paparazzi.
Little Mary Montalban had appeared upon the scene.
The child actress, whose skyrocketing fame had the world in such a tizzy—she seemed just another child to Inke, rather neatly and soberly dressed in gorgeous mourning clothes. The child walked serenely through the crowd, breaking a wake through them, as if she parted adult crowds every day.
The little girl drew nearer.
Suddenly, she turned her face up to Inke. The girl’s beauty was astounding. It burned and dazzled, like being hit in the face with a searchlight.
The child recited two lines, loudly, in a well-rehearsed German. “How do you do, Tante Inke? I’m so glad to see you here with us.”
Inke found herself bending to kiss the child’s delicate cheek. It was an irrevocable act, something like swearing allegiance.
Her children were thunderstruck to meet their famous cousin. It was as if someone had given them a toy angel.
Inke realized that the male stranger at her side was John Montgomery Montalban. She had met him once. John Montalban looked older now. And shorter, too—somehow, world-famous people were always much shorter in real life.
“George has asked me to say a few words after the interment,” Montalban said. “My little Synchronist eulogy … I hope you won’t mind that, Inke.”
It was as if he were pouring warm oil over her head.
“Are you nervous?” she asked him, the first remark that fluttered onto her tongue.
“Yes, I’m worried,” Montalban lied briskly, “I always hate these formal presentations … Inke, you married George. So you’re our expert on the subject at hand here. What on Earth can I properly say about Yelisaveta? At the end of the day, it seems that I knew Yelisaveta best. Yet she was—of course—a monster. What can I say about her that isn’t completely shocking to propriety? The world is listening.”
Inke considered the world—the poor, imperiled world. “Did the old woman ever tell you that she would come back to the world, down from orbit?”
“She did. Sometimes. She was stringing us on, from her lack of anything else to do with herself. It was like a long hostage negotiation. Please give me some good advice here, Inke, help me out. Tell me what I should say about this situation. The world needs closure on the issue. She was our relative, you know.”
Why was he talking to her in this confiding way? In the past, he’d always talked to her with the hearty exaggeration of an English lordship treating one of the little people as his equal.
“I think,” she said haltingly, “I think Yelisaveta was just … a dark story made by her own dark times.”
“That makes some sense.”
“She tried to build something and it broke into pieces. The pieces could not hold. So she lied, cheated, and killed for nothing … but the truth is … she believed in every last horrible thing that she did. She fully believed in all of it. She was sincere, that was her secret. It was all her sacrifice and her grand passion.”
Montalban was truly interested. “That is fabulous. How well put! And George is one of the remaining pieces, too! Yet George is the piece that is least like the rest of the broken pieces. He’s not much like them, they really hate him for that … Why is that, can you tell me that?”
“George is a man. Men take longer to mature.”
“I see. That may indeed be the case … in which case, may I tell you something important now about your George? George has always led a dodgy, improvised life … between the Dispensation and our good friends the Acquis … he was cutting corners, making connections … After this funeral George will have a changed life. Because those two great parties are finding a bipartisan consensus. We