The New Weird - Ann VanderMeer [102]
Art Update: Is Mona Skye's slow suicide art? Many think so. Despite the resistance of the conservative establishment, public opinion seems to be with the progressive critics who have been claiming that death as performance is the ultimate art form, an art against which there can be no appeal. They may well be right. Watching Mona Skye, one apprehends a strangely exquisite unfurling of energies, an unravelling of reality and the expected. Killer and victim are one, coexisting in a symbiosis of extended intimacy in a performance as unique as an individual life, a condensation of life as a journey toward death that all must undergo, and a logical answer to illogical life.
It was only the usual drivel, but Vali couldn't help taking it personally. She felt the pressure of fury rising inside her like steam in a boiler. Her mind flung up an image of an autopsy where loafing pretentieuses clustered around Mona's body while quaffing aperitifs and gobbling hors d'oeuvres. She rubbed the pommel of the sword at her hip. But words were the only weapons permissible here, and unlike her lover she had little talent in their use.
She said frigidly, "It's in poor taste to serve up a person's suffering as entertainment for the chattering classes."
The boy gave a large twitch, but he attempted no evasion. He was wearing a suit that needed some cleaning and a leather coat that was at least two sizes too big. His hair had the untidy appearance of down on a wet duckling.
"Ma'am," he said, "the last thing I want to do is offend. This city looks to your profession for inspiration in everything, including matters of taste."
Every day she walked past children playing "Chop-Chop" and "Kill 'Um All" on the pavements. Duellists were feted in popular culture. Their images were made into character dolls and reproduced on household items and souvenirs. Wildly fictionalised, lurid stories about their adventures and private lives were printed for an eager public in cheap magazines with titles like Corinthian, Hearts and Blades and Tales from the Theatre of Woe. Girls dressed up as Mona, painting their faces white and drawing ornamental trickles of rouge down their lips.
This fame had once been Vali's as well. Like Mona and Gwynn, she had employed herself as a professional duellist in the juridical playhouses of the city. However, her beliefs concerning justice had caused her eventually to hang up her mask and withdraw from the milieu of the monomachia. These days she earned a plainer living as a bodyguard and fencing tutor.
Sometimes she saw dolls with her face on sale or collecting dust in secondhand shops. Merchandise featuring Mona's image, on the other hand, was currently riding a wave of popularity.
No one's guiltier of bad taste than she. She's making a shabby exhibition of herself, and I'm accepting a part in it, thought Vali.
"I have a duty to the people," the kid journalist said. "They must have information." He drew himself up, lifting his chin pugnaciously to look Vali in the eye. "The freedom of the press is sacred, ma'am."
Vali looked down at him. "Nothing is sacred," she said flatly. She gave him back the notebook, in which he immediately resumed writing. She had the impression that he was recording the incident which had just occurred.
"Can I quote that? 'Nothing is sacred?'"
She was sorry she had allowed herself to get angry at a magazine hack, of all insignificant people.
"Go ahead," she said wearily.
Gwynn returned then, emerging out of the smoke and shadows. "Our chariot awaits," he said. His gaze took in the pen-wielding youth and he raised a mildly inquiring eyebrow at Vali.
"Let's go," she muttered.
Vali carried Mona. She followed Gwynn up the stairs and out through the back door to the lane behind the cafe. The youth trailed, introducing himself to their backs. His name was Siegfried and he worked for Verbal Nerve magazine. Perhaps they read