The Stranger - Max Frei [259]
In a few minutes I came up with what initially seemed to be an absurd idea: to conceal my virtual figure in the way a real woman might mask her very real figure. I would bind the illusory bust tightly, pad my sides to hide the difference in size between waist and hips, and stuff a rag in the shoulder area.
Well, it was worth a try. I wasn’t sure whether it was really so dangerous for a girl walking alone through nighttime Kettari, but I decided that once I was a fake man I would feel much more sure of myself than I did as a fake woman. But how confusing it all was!
Half an hour later I glanced cautiously in the mirror. To my satisfaction, the effect was much better than I had dared hope. Of course, the youth in the mirror didn’t resemble in the least my good friend Max. Nevertheless, the sexual identity of this creature admitted no doubts. The boy was a boy—was a boy! Natural-born.
Just then I remembered Lady Sotofa’s story about the potion she had given me to drink. Wondrous Half, or Heavenly Half—something like that. “You’ll just stay who you are, but people will think they’re dealing with a completely different person.” That’s what she had said. Did that mean I could now be seen exactly as I wished to be seen? Well, all the better.
Before leaving the house I stuck my hand under the magic pillow. One cigarette was too meager a supply for the long night ahead of me. In a few minutes I was examining in awe a half-empty pack of Camels. Six cigarettes—untouched! I raised my eyes to the heavens in gratitude. “Dear God,” I solemnly declared. “First, you do exist! And, second, you’re a great guy and my best friend!”
I opened the door and ducked into the bracing menthol breeze of the Kettarian night. My legs carried me to the other bank over a steep, high-backed stone bridge, with faces of dragon-like creatures carved in the railings, and then even further, through quiet, labyrinthine lanes and moon-white splotches of squares. I didn’t even try to pretend I had any aim. I was just enjoying the stroll. The wonders would have to find me themselves, in the words of Juffin Hully, I thought.
All night I wandered through Kettari, drunk on mountain air and new sensations. I traveled the length of a dozen streets, drank at least a jug of kamra and other local beverages in tiny, all-night snack bars. I silently opened garden gates and entered dark, empty yards to smoke, staring at the huge, strange greenish moon in the ink-black sky. In someone’s little plot of paradise I drank from a fountain; in another I plucked several large, tart berries from a luxuriant spreading bush. It didn’t look like the Tree of Knowledge, praise be the Magicians.
The dawn caught up with me on the same bridge where my enchanting journey had begun. I was considering planting a kiss on the funny dragon gazing at me from the railing, but I decided that was going too far—a vulgar act, a false note, the finale of a play in an amateur theater. But here, in Kettari, I wanted to reach perfection. That was why I simply returned home, undressed, and fell asleep right in the living room, curled up in a ball on the short, low divan.
I woke up before noon. I felt as though someone had given me an intravenous of Elixir of Kaxar. Pure ecstasy!
Lonli-Lokli wasn’t anywhere to be seen, however. His absence made me a bit nervous. I didn’t feel truly alarmed, only a mild discomfiture—a weak mixture of curiosity and compunction about my own role in the matter, more than anything else.
After hesitating a bit, I sent him a call.
Everything all right with you, Shurf?
Yes, I’m just a bit busy, so let’s talk later. Don’t be upset.
He’s busy, he says. I’d just like to know with what, I grumbled to the ceiling.