Ishmael Reed - Flight to Canada

“You have to forgive her, General. She’s, well … she’s suffering from melancholy. It’s induced by the miasma in our atmosphere.”

“Yes, that’s it. Try to change the subject. There you go. You’re always changing the subject on me, treating me like the field help around here. As though I came with the land, like arrangements in the feudal ages. Military Man,” she says, “he has a mammy who says abrasive things to me, and she manhandles me and confiscates my belongings. And he has concubines. The slave girls walk around with all of my jewelry on. Oh, the decadence. Tell them about the decadence down here, Military Man. The great immoral decadence. Tell them in the land beyond the screams.”

She gags as if to bring up phlegm in her throat. “And his concubines. Why, some of the girls are mere babies. And if that’s not enough, he belongs to this awful Magnolia Baths. He stays there for weeks sometimes, and when he returns, his lips are pudgy and there’s a steady string of saliva hanging from his bottom lip, and his fingers look … look gross, and he sits there for weeks staring at the wall. I think he must be on belladonna. Have you noticed his eyes?”

She’s focused her attention on Swille and hasn’t noticed until now that the Military Man has left through the side door. “Well, haven’t you noticed, Robin?”

“Now, Ms. Swille, I want you to leave me out of the argument you and Mr. Swille is having. It ain’t right for the slave to tell the Master and the Missus how to conduct their affairs.”

“True, Robin. You’re such a wise man.”

“Thank you, Ms. Swille.”

“He should have set you free by now … Oh, he’s such a suave Swille swine!”

“But, dear—” Swille says, moving toward her.

“You keep away from me.”

She is now holding the gun with two trembling hands. Swille continues to move toward her away from the fireplace in which every log is afire and heating the entire room.

“I’ve been watching you … A …”

“You see, it’s been so long, you’ve forgotten my name. It’s Arthur Swille. Don’t you remember?”

“Of course I remember. How can I forget that when we were six years old my father and your father made our betrothal. And the letters I wrote to you when I was in Europe. Remember those letters? The tormented sad letters I wrote you from the cafés. The telegrams of pathos. The palliative and passionate night letters. You remember the letters, Arthur?”

“Yes. And our wedding. Why, all of Richmond must have been there.” Swille is near to where she is standing. “But now you’re even more beautiful.”

“You mean you like my white tongue and my sallow looks.”

“Of course, my dear.”

“And my bones protruding, my legs and my ribs showing.”

“It’s so … so aesthetic, dear.”

“And you like the way I’ve become so delicate that I won’t go out of doors for fear the sun will melt me or that I will stumble in a puddle and drown or if somebody said boo I’d keel over?”

“You’re lovely, my dear.”

She lays down the pistol and rushes into his arms. He embraces her. A gust of wind opens the door. The candles go out.

“Uncle Robin, would you go downstairs and fetch some more candles?”

Uncle Robin leaves the room in which Ms. Swille is sobbing against her husband’s chest, the pistol lying on the table.

“Now there, dear,” Swille said, comforting her.

“I wasn’t boycotting, I wanted you to notice me. You weren’t paying attention to me.”

“I’ll make up for that, dear. We’ll have parties again. Why, Eddie Poe told me he had some opiates that were so good that you contemplated the world in a book’s binding for one whole day. We can travel — Majorca, the Greek Islands — you name it.”

“Oh, Arthur, Arthur, I knew I was doing the right thing, becoming like her. That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it, Arthur? I’ve become just like her …”

“I don’t follow you, dear—”

Just then there was a giggle — a shrill giggle, arising from some remote decaying city, deep under and far away.

“Don’t listen to him. He’ll never love you. He’ll never love anyone but me.”

“Vivian,” shrieked Ms. Swille and folded like a bag into her husband’s arms.

“What … what are you doing here? Go back …” gasped Swille.

“You know you don’t love her. You’ll never give up your licentious Hedonist Award of 1850, the Golden Dawn Club, the Epicurean Club and the Bohemian Club. You’ll never give up me, will you, brother? Out in my sepulcher by the sea. By the grey dismal seaaaaa,” she said, a hideous sardonic grin on her face.

“Get back,” Swille cries moving back from his sister, who is approaching him, a filmy scarf, white-death negligee, feet white and ashen, carrying some strange book of obscure lore. It is leather-bound, wearing its words embossed in gold.

“At first I thought the notion was disgusting, abominable even. You was violatin’ … my chaste Southern belle upbringing out there in my tomb, standing over the coffin lid, real hard like that. You put my hand on it and made me feel it.” Her evil green eyes are staring at him, her body a silhouette under her ragged white gown, her long fingernails dripping blood. Her wildcat hair. Her sinister, diabolical face.

“No, please—”

“And then there under the moonlight you slid the lid back altogether and then you climbed in … and each night after that, you’d hold on to me, cling to me, there in the silence of the cemetery. And you would become so peaceful … so peaceful. And you said I was your fair lady and you were my knight and we were married in Death … Please—”

She grabs her brother and then is all atop him. He falls against the fireplace, and she is laughing, staring into his eyes from her gaping skeleton sockets. Fighting and screaming, Swille backs into the fire. Fire grabs his coattails. Fire is hungry. Fire eats.

When Robin returned with the candles, he was shocked at the hideous scene before him. Swille was crackling and bouncing from the fire. Ms. Swille had been flung across the room. Robin rushed over and lifted her by the arms. He dragged her out into the hall, where Pompey stood in vigil.

“Pompey! Something awful has happened! Massa Swille is on fire.”

“Yeah,” Pompey said, standing next to a vase in his green silk dress coat, wearing his white-powdered wig. “I figured something was up when I saw that general hightailing it out of here and I heard all of that screaming.”

“Well, you try to revive Ms. Swille, while I run and fetch some water for Massa Swille.”

“Good idea,” Pompey said. “If the man’s afire, you should get some water. Maybe that will help,” Pompey said as he began to slap Ms. Swille.

Robin walks to the elevator. Waits for it. It goes down to the basement, then begins to rise to the third floor while Robin waits. He presses the button again and hears popping sounds coming from the dining room, followed by Ms. Swille’s screams. She is coming around. Pompey shrugs his shoulders and glances Robin’s way. Robin stands at the elevator, and this time the elevator goes to the top of the roof and then suddenly drops to the basement.

He decides to take the steps and starts down. He reaches the kitchen and runs to the sink. He begins to draw a bucket of water. Bangalang appears.

“Something terrible has happened, Bangalang. Mr. Swille has been pushed into the flames.”

“Did she kill him?” Bangalang asks.

“He’s not dead yet, he’s on fire.”

Bangalang goes to the faucet and turns off the water.

“Bangalang, what’s the matter with you, turning off the water?”

“I was just trying to help. Mammy Barracuda says when you turn the faucet on, you’re not suppose to forget to turn it off.”