Steven Brust - Agyar

I felt oddly akin to the other couples on the street, as if we were all part of an elite-the young and in love, to coin a hackneyed phrase. Most of us, I think, knew that somewhere along the line most of us would join the young and miserable, followed by the young and resigned, followed by the middle-aged and bored; but ought that to diminish the pleasure of the moment? Au contraire, if I may.

I said, “How is Jill?”

“She seems to be doing very well. She was up all day today, and didn’t seem nearly so pale. In fact, she went out a couple of hours ago.”

“Good. I will speak to her.”

“You might want to wait a day or two.”

“Perhaps. How did things go with Jennifer?”

“What a bitch.”

I chuckled. “Is that all there is to say about it?”

“Pretty much.”

I shrugged. “If you were to suddenly leave me for someone else, I’d be a bitch too.” What is it that makes us want to defend our late rival? I suppose the fear that we may be in need of such defense sooner than we would like.

Susan, however, brushed off my comment and said, “Would you start listing all the things you’d done for me, as if I’m supposed to stay with you out of gratitude?”

I shook my head. “No, I’d simply find the other person and dismember him, or her.”

She laughed, thinking I was joking. Or maybe not.

A couple of birds were complaining about the weather. The rats played in the sewers, the cars played on the streets. I turned my head away when patrol cars went by, which they rarely did on the Ave.

She squeezed my arm and remarked, “I’ve been thinking about what you said.”

“About dismemberment?”

She laughed. “About maybe coming along when and if you leave.”

“Oh.” One of the amazing things about Susan is her ability to talk about the most serious things without losing the laughter in her voice. I said, “What about it?”

She was quiet for a moment, then she said, “I know so little about you.”

“You know that I love you; that’s a start.”

“Now,” she said, “you’re being trite.”

I sighed. “I suppose I am. What do you want to know?”

“Well, what do you do for a living?”

“Many things. I play cards, for one.”

“Gamble?”

Deja vu. “No gamble,” I said, and smiled.

She laughed. “What else do you do?”

“Pretty young girls.”

She laughed again. I love her laugh. It somehow manages to be simultaneously contrived and natural. She said, “All right, then where do you live?”

“With a friend, a few miles from here.”

“What’s it like?”

“Do you wish to see it?”

“Yes.”

“Now?”

She shrugged. “There’s no hurry.”

“All right. Tomorrow, then.”

“That would be splendid.”

“What else do you want to know?”

“Everything about you. Where were you born?”

“Far away across the sundering sea. I was educated in London, though, and that probably has more of an effect on me than my birthplace.”

“You seem to have lost most of the accent, although I like what’s left.”

“Thank you. What else do you want to know?”

“My, we are in an expansive mood today, aren’t we?”

“Anything your heart desires, my love; today it shall be yours.”

“Well, in that case.”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go back to my house.”

And we did.

F.D.S.N.

The deed is done, the bird has flown.

Or something like that.

And I had never suspected what sort of bird it was; I’m not certain I know now, only-

But let me tell it as it happened.

I awoke, and decided that it was time to finish things with Jill. I admit I thought seriously of killing her, but it was too likely to cause complications, and it was really only a matter of convenience and saving myself some annoyance, which made it a poor risk.

I brought her to mind, and was startled at once; I recognized where she was and what she was doing.

Well, one place was as good as another. It took me half an hour to walk there, and that was because I strolled; keeping an eye out for the police, but also because of the weather, which had become colder, and kept the sidewalks treacherous. The stars were out, blazing, and the moon had not yet risen, nor would it until nearly dawn.

I’m certain that Jill did not hear me approach her, yet when I got there she was sitting on a tall stool, waiting for me. She wore a dark blue smock over whatever else she had on. The blue was, in fact, only theoretical; the smock was covered with paint splatters and would probably have been stylish, somewhere. There was another stool, a few feet from hers, so I sat on it, and looked at the easel.

It glistened with fresh acrylic. At first I thought it was a still life. There were a bunch of white roses against a pale red background, and something about these roses made me understand why some cultures consider white to be a sign of mourning, because, although the roses were in full bloom, very beautiful and lifelike, there was a quality of death about them; perhaps in the way they lay in the clear vase; a haphazard arrangement as if someone had picked them and then thrown them into the vase, not caring how they looked. Rather than admiring their beauty, it made me speculate on picking roses at all; on what one did when one took a blooming flower and cut it from the bush.

And then I noticed that behind the vase, almost invisible, in some sort of impossible red on red, was a face, staring out at the viewer, as if to watch him watch the roses, and while I couldn’t really see the features of that face, I knew it was a girl, and I knew that there was a single tear running down her face.

For quite a while I couldn’t speak, only stare, and wonder at the choking in my throat. I finally said, “What do you call it?”

“‘Self-portrait With Roses,’” she said.

“A good name.”

“Yes.”

I looked some more, letting the catharsis wash over me, and when it had, I realized that it was as much a portrait of me as it was of her, and that it was not flattering.

I said, in a voice barely above a whisper, “Jill, this is magnificent.”

“Thank you,” she said; her voice was neither loud nor soft, but, rather, inanimate, maybe even numb.

“I had no idea you could paint like that.”

“I couldn’t, before,” she said. “I suppose I ought to thank you.”

I looked at her looking at me, and I shook my head, unable to speak. I turned back to the painting, and in this mirror I was reflected; for me to see, and all the world. I don’t understand all that I felt then, but there was grief, and there was shame.

I said, “Come to me.”

She got up and stood before me, letting her smock fall to the ground. She wore a dark plaid workshirt, and as she reached for the top button I said, “No.”

She looked faintly puzzled, but stopped.

I took her hands in mine. “Look at me,” I said.

She did.

I squeezed her hands, willing myself into her mind, her heart, her soul. Her eyes grew larger, and in them, too, I could see my own reflection, for there is no silver there, nor, for that matter, is there any gold; perhaps there is only the gentle, soft fibers of a rose.

I said, “Jill Quarrier, you are free of me. Your life is your own.”

I felt her tremble through her hands, which seemed as cold as my own.

“Never again will I come to you, never again must you come to me. Your destiny is in your own hands, to make, or to destroy. You are part of me no longer, nor am I part of you. Go your way in peace.”

I let go of her hands and she fell to her knees, sobbing. I bent down and kissed the top of her head, and left her that way.

I don’t know.