Night Magic (15 page)

Yes, you are getting it. The clue is still John (P.S. he is divine). You must find the rest of the numbers yourself. It’s not my fault, I’m taking dictation too. Something looks like a horse, it’s very pale, hard to make out. The words are all lined up together. John will know. Also Daniel, maybe others. Don’t forget the Archangel, the Prince. He must make careful note. Tell him when you see him. You must decide because you will have the strength. No one ever told me; it made me angry. I would want to know all about the conditions. I don’t know if he does. You will see whether to tell him or not. Max is on the way. The plague is locusts, whatever happens. One woe and two woes. I am terribly sorry about this. The problem is language. You must help decide about telling him. When he comes he is for Max, but also to see you again. I think Max is either the Beast or Lev—Lev—is this Lev? Can't remember. Try Levi, he seems to have come back. Ignore the lilies if you can. No, not that. Tell Max if he has him he must care for him. He is beloved. Could I be clearer? Not Max. Max…Levi…Levi…

The last word was at the very bottom of the page, in the right-hand corner. She went back to the writing table and peered through her glasses, fitting the page to the rest of the word that had run off onto the tabletop. Together they spelled
Leviticus.

This was nearly too much, but Lena’s was an indulgent nature. She folded the pages and held them in her hand. When she heard the downstairs door open, she slipped them into her sewing basket and covered them with her crewelwork. Max came in briskly, not at all tired. It was not required of her to ask where he had been; she always knew when he was lively like that. She rose with her sewing and caught his eye lingering on the silver cup.

“What is that for?” he inquired.

“Nothing. I was just looking at it.” She returned the cup to the cabinet, closed the door. He was examining the blank top sheet of the yellow pad.

“So. You have been writing?”

“I tried, but nothing came.” He fixed her with his eye. “Nothing,” she repeated.

“What? No message at all from the garrulous ghosts, the riddling revenants? Ah, Galena, my Lena.” He laughed out his scorn, wagged his head at her insolently.

“Why do you ask, since you find them so contemptible?”

“Even contemptible things have their uses,” he replied, looking pointedly at the television set, then the sewing basket, then Lena herself. She decided on a diversionary tactic, even though she knew such transparent devices rarely worked.

“What is it, your obsession with that boy? What is this foolishness with the costumes? Every day, those outfits…”

His reaction was strangely candid.
“Niente da mangiare, cinque bambini,”
he said, in a wheedling Italian voice; though he held out his hand like a beggar, there was a look of triumphant mockery on his face. “I keep my eye on him, that boy. I play a little game with him, to see how well
he
plays. He is looking for me, I am looking for him. I have found him, but he does not know yet that that is what has happened. He provides much amusement.”

“I know your amusements. When it’s over, no one else is ever amused. What is to happen?”

“That is what I tell myself you shall tell me—what is to happen.”

She sat on the sofa and leaned back with a sigh. “You know more than you say.”

“I always do. But it’s nothing that concerns you.”

“You should let me judge that.” He made an impatient gesture, but she plunged ahead. “If you want him, why don’t you go and tell him?”

“No, not yet. I will play with him a little longer. One cannot be too careful. He has determination, that is good. It would be funny, perhaps, if he tripped over me in his doorway one morning or evening. He is looking so hard I think even then he would not find me.” Max smiled broadly, baring his teeth, which were uneven and discolored.

Lena, taking advantage of his unusually forthcoming mood, pressed on. “Why is he looking for you?”

“I have something he wants.”

“His money. Give him back his money. He must need it.”

“Perhaps he does, but he will get more. Until then, he can wait. Doing with less now will make him willing to do more later, when I need him.”

“Why do you need him?”

“He is going to—let us say he is going to help me.”

Lena couldn't believe her ears. “How? What should he do here? Since when do you want anyone around? Remember what happened the last time…”

“We will not speak of that,” Max said evenly. He stepped to her in two long strides, stood before her with outpointed toes, took her hand, and placed it against his chest. “You feel there, Lena, how it beats? Strong, heh?” She could not deny it, could feel the even throb under the material of his shirt. “It is strong, always strong, yet I am tired. There is something I want to do; the time has come at last. At long last, eh, Lena? And that boy must help me do it. Do you follow me?”

She looked at him blankly, uncomprehending.

“Of course you don’t,” he continued, “how could you? The return of the Boy Wonder, let us say. The boy who is an old man and wants only to be free. But before that—one last time, Lena, for Merlino the Magnificent, heh? Assisted by Presto the Great. He is very clever, you never saw such hands, how he works them. Like me in the old days. So now you understand, heh?”

“Yes,” Lena said bitterly. Although her answer was not completely true, she felt that she understood his main point. “You want to ruin his life.”

“Do not talk to me of ruined lives,” he growled, seeming to grow larger. “Life ruins itself, that is the arrangement.” He slapped his hand down hard on her yellow writing pad.

Lena was confused and troubled, frightened not only by his sudden anger but also by the thick foreboding she felt welling up in her consciousness, fed by several sources. What to make of Max’s fixation upon the young man, whom he was reeling in like some sportfisherman, playing the line and admiring the prize he meant to destroy? Or that remark about how the time has come at last. What did he mean by that? Was he referring to death? And then there was the writing from the Other Side, from the coy Miss James, now, and Lena realized that all she wanted was some peace. She should not have used the wallet, no, nor the cup. She should have stayed with Mrs. Carsin and taken down recipes. She was very afraid, but she couldn’t expect any soothing from Max. Sleep was what she wanted, sleep would soothe her.

“Max,” she began, fumbled the book as she stood up, caught it.

His eye moved from her hands to her face. “What have you there, a Bible? What are you doing with a Bible?”

“Nothing.”

“What does it mean, ‘Nothing’?”

“Reading.”

“So now you read the Bible? Next it will be comic books. To think your stupid lies once annoyed me, Galena.” He watched her contemptuously, then dilated his nostrils and sniffed.

“Why is it, always, this smell of dead flowers in the room?”

“I don’t know. You’re imagining things.” She put the Bible in the sewing basket with her pages, said “Good night,” and walked out of his oppressive presence, already anticipating the darkness, the cool sheets, the delicious swerving into unconsciousness.

He stared after her as she left, wondering that she could see so much yet comprehend so little. All these years she had been with him, reinvented with each new lifetime, each time a blank slate. New personalities, yet always devoted—this was especially true of Galena. She was one of his favorites.

When she had gone, he tore off the top sheet from the yellow pad and held it to the light. A faint outline of script showed through, not sufficiently legible for him to decipher it. Smirking, he crumpled the paper and dropped it into the basket. Automatic writing, he thought, was the daytime television of psychic phenomena, something to keep the ladies busy between household chores. He wondered why he bothered with it at all. The boy hung like a flower in bloom, Max could gather him in at any time. The Eye too lay waiting for him, housed in its museum case. In a few days he would claim it; then he would let the boy, that patient seeker, find him. A little time must pass after that, but not much. Soon, very soon, he would be ready.

Lena stumbled slightly as she left the little tobacco shop, stuffing into her loaded shopping bag the last but not least of the items on her list: a carton of Gitanes. She started to walk, and the heat struck her like a blow after only a few steps. Nevertheless, she continued grimly on, turning at Forty-second Street and heading for home. Breathless and perspiring, she reached the apartment at last, kicked off her shoes, changed her blouse, and sank with a sigh of relief into her chair, holding a glass of iced tea in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Max was not in the apartment, and she was certain he wasn’t even in the building; off on one of his excursions, no doubt, having his fun at the expense of that confused young man.

You will know him when you see him.

Wondering over all the other things scribbled on the yellow pages, Lena wondered most over this. How would she know him when she saw him? Who was he, where did he come from? Would he truly help Max, or would there be a struggle between them?

And a horse? A pale horse “…
behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death
…”

She shook her head and muttered to herself. Taking up her Bible, she opened it to Leviticus. Lena was fascinated by all religions, all systems, all lore that postulated the existence of the supernatural, but she made few distinctions and played no favorites. Her knowledge of such matters was undiscriminating, broad rather than deep, sympathetic rather than critical. Still, as she began to read this book of taboos and atonements, she couldn’t help noticing the pagan ring of its words, its author’s obsession with sin, guilt, sacrifices, laws, rituals, its portrait of a primitive society with priests in the saddle and riding hard. She didn’t see how any of this could be applicable or enlightening, no matter how far she stretched it. Then, in the twentieth chapter, she read

A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them.

She turned thoughtfully to the back cover, inside which she had jotted the word
Leviticus.
Using a pencil, she drew a line through the last two syllables, making it Leviticus.

Under it she wrote Levi.

Under this, anagramming it, she wrote Veil.

And under Veil, Evil.

Then she closed the book and held it tightly in her hands.

As she leaned back in her chair, she was suddenly, startlingly aware of his presence. She tilted her head farther back and saw him standing behind her, peering over her shoulder. “You scared me,” was all she could manage to say, and that in a whisper.

“You scare yourself, I think,” Max replied, as condescending as a cardinal. “What is this you play, a game with letters? And you move them about, like Scrabble tiles, to find their secrets. Is this what you learn from your dear departed pen friends?”

“If you think it’s such foolishness, why insist that I do it?”

“Ah, Lena, I have told you, even foolish things may serve. For example”—he glanced at the TV—“may we have the television?” She looked surprised; he scarcely ever watched. “I want the news—Channel Five.” She obliged him, turned on the outmoded set, then took up her crewelwork again. She blinked behind her glasses, feeling eyestrain. The picture had flickered on, and they heard the newscaster's voice. She didn’t watch, but kept to her stitchery.

“Look,” he suggested impassively. She took off her glasses and squinted toward the screen, saw important-looking men of various races emerging from limousines and climbing the steps of what turned out to be the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The voice-over was describing the opening of the Chinese exhibit. She put on her glasses again and dropped her eyes to her work.

“Look.”

She did as he said, drew her glasses down onto the end of her nose and peered over the rims. Saw people milling about on the museum steps, saw a boy in makeup performing pantomimes. She thought him clever, doing that machinelike creature. When he was finished, aware of the camera on him, he bowed. She didn’t like him then. Too flashy. Cocky. Self-satisfied. She’d never cared for actors. Life with Max was enough show business for her.

Then it came to her. “Is that him?”

“Yes.”

She put on her other glasses, bending closer, almost touching the screen. The face was just a face, hidden under the white makeup. She couldn’t tell anything from it. “He’s younger than I thought,” she remarked.

“He will be useful. Don’t you see it?”

Max was posing one of his riddles, but she was too tired for more games. And what did it matter? His mind was made up. She could tell. She changed her glasses, resumed her work. When he turned off the set, it sputtered, blinked, the light contracted to a single dot, was extinguished. Max left the room without a word, and after some inner debate she moved to the table, where she took up the tarot cards and laid them out and studied them. The boy, that was the Knight of Pentacles: a black-haired, black-eyed young man, materialistic, methodical. As she knew, the card indicated the coming or going of a matter. And, certainly, what she was preparing to grapple with was a coming matter.

But the other card, the Hanged Man, came up crossing her, against her. She could not understand what decisions lay in the balance, what new directions her life was poised to take, and her curiosity led her to ponder not merely the how of the matter but also the when. She never thought about the why. Clearly, if it was in the cards, that was enough.

Lena was a staunch believer in fate. She put the cards into their case, busied herself briefly in the kitchen, and settled gratefully into the sofa with a freshly brewed cup of tea. It was fine tea, her own mixture of herbs and spices. It comforted her, but perhaps it also caused her to dream; it sometimes did, she felt sure.

It was a strange dream, with strangers in it, and in the dream she was
sitting on a bench at the edge of a small park in a big city and wearing a gay dress yellow as goldenrod and closing her eyes and raising her face to the bright summer sun, and a small voice said, “Wait a minute,” and she opened her eyes to see a beautiful young black-haired boy walking toward her with her straw hat in his hand. He held the hat out to her and said in the same voice, “It blew off the bench,” and she said, “Why, thank you, my handsome young man,” and their eyes met and they smiled at each other. A grim-faced couple approached, and the man gave her a curt nod, while the woman grabbed the boy’s arm like a leash and hauled him away. She wanted to call out after him but did not know his name, and then she did know his name but couldn’t call it. The boy looked back at her, over his shoulder, his short legs hurrying away, and their eyes met again just before he disappeared into a bus station. She followed inside and when she saw him again her eyes weren’t smiling and there were two men in different uniforms standing on either side of him, pulling him out of his seat and saying, “You have to come with us.” He wanted to ask the lady with the kind face and the yellow dress and the straw hat to help him, but the men dragged him toward the doors, and all he could do was clutch the envelope his mother had stuffed in his jacket pocket and try not to cry so much and keep repeating again and again, She told me to stay here! She told me to wait! They’re coming back for me! They're coming back!”