The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) (7 page)

And so, back to the orange—an orange which, like its biblical counterpart, the apple, was the harbinger of the temptation and disobedience that caused Arantxa to be given the bum’s rush from her own particular Eden and cast out into a world for which she was entirely unprepared at an age when no one is entirely prepared.

On a long, lazy summer’s evening, when she was just turned eleven, Arantxa lay under the trees, gazing at the blue sky and painting it with dreams, beautiful in their own right, but limited in scope and color by the lack of raw material from which to work and by a dull palette informed only by the view from the walls and her limited contact with the outside world. Her eyes fell upon a solitary orange, high in the tree above her, the lone survivor of the recent harvest. She shinned up the tree to get it. It was stubborn and resisted her efforts to pull it. As she struggled, she noticed that the window to the room one floor above was slightly ajar. It was the window to her father’s study.

A sudden and irresistible desire to see what was inside flared up in her, a curiosity so insatiable that the constraints of her repressive upbringing were overwhelmed in an instant, all fear of repercussions banished. In later years she had cause to reflect upon why the idea had never occurred to her before, but at that moment the one-inch gap of darkness beneath the sash window seemed like the rock from which the sirens called, the threshold to another world, and she was left only with the determination cross it, and the conviction that if she did so, her sky would never be the same again. She was right.

***

On a wooden four-poster antebellum bed, on white sheets, under an open window through which the full moon shone down, a woman lay, softly weeping. And she knew not why. The gentlest of breezes swayed the fronds of the palms outside and the moon shadow of the leaves slowly caressed her body, as if to console her. A glittering tear meandered down her cheek, silver in the moonlight like a river viewed from afar, and split into two at the corner of her mouth, forming a tiny exquisite delta that pooled, dark upon the sheet against her lips. She lay perfectly still, on her side, her face in shadow, so that only the night and the stars knew of her beauty, and the long hair that fell about her shoulders and breasts, which was by day the color of a hearth fire, was turned ashen by the darkness. By night, all cats are gray.

Beside her, a man lay, oblivious in sleep, stretched out on his back. The woman had moved as far away from him as she could, and the bed was huge and the space between lay white and cold. The woman abruptly stood. The bed moved but the man did not stir. The woman stood naked before the window. The breeze came from across the night water, carrying its damp breath, but it could not contest the heat of the night, and she was not cooled by it. The light and shade played upon her contours and curves, deep valleys and rolling hills, the topography of a mythic and beautiful landscape, where love and loneliness were the bitter queens of their own realms and the frontier between them could not be crossed. The jealous moon threw a veil of cloud across her face and another smaller night fell.

The woman walked over to a cabinet, took up a bottle and poured something into a glass, and drank it down. It was a shadow play, platinum light playing in the bottle and glowing in the glass, but devoid of color. She reached down to the floor and took up a dress and slipped it over her head. She picked up a pair of shoes and carried them toward the door and opened it. The light from the corridor fell across the face of the man. He squinted his eyes. She looked down at him. He was handsome in a bland kind of way, but nondescript, an everyman. Or no man. Nothing to distinguish him from all the others. Nothing. That’s what she felt. Nothing. She began to cry again as she walked out of the door. The man’s sleepy voice stopped her. She turned. He was sitting up, rubbing his eyes.

“
Hey. Where ya going, baby?” he said.

“
Fuck off,” she said, closing the door behind her.

***

Out of curiosity, and out of their trees, Asia and Crispin wandered through to the back parlor and the accommodations where the ladies plied their trade. Asia lollopped onto an ornate red plush settee while Crispin went to the bar. While Crispin was trying to order two Death in the Afternoons from a barman who seemed to be particularly incommunicative and appeared to be some sort of Red Indian, not realizing that he was actually trying to buy a round of drinks from a wooden statue, a handsome, elegantly dressed middle-aged gentleman sat down next to Asia.

“
Good evening, my dear,” he said. “I must say, Lord Lundi has excelled himself this time. You are quite ravishing.”

“
Aw, hon,” Asia said, “I’m sorry. Y’all making a mistake. I ain’t working.”

“
If it is your day off I can always pay extra.”

“
No, shitferbrains. It ain’t my day off. I don’t work here. I’m a customer.”

“
Is that so? What a pity. So, that gentleman talking to the statue is your husband.”

“
Hell no, doofus, he’s as queer as a fifteen-dollar bill. I don’t have a husband.”

“
Hmn. Very interesting.”

“
What is?”

“
Well, a beautiful young lady and a homosexual in a house of prostitution.”

“
We just come in for a drink, see?”

“
Yes, quite. Well, how about I offer you both one. Your friend doesn’t seem to be having much success.”

“
Sure.”

“
Good. Oh, I’m being rude. I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Sir Wilfrid Uphill Gardener.”

Asia held out her hand, and Sir Wilfrid kissed it before moving over to the bar. He came back with Crispin in tow, followed by a beautiful mulatto girl carrying a tray of drinks.

“
This fine gentleman assisted us, Asia,” Crispin said. “That ignorant bastard wouldn’t serve me. Wouldn’t even speak to me, the savage. Must be fucking homophobic.”

Sir Wilfrid took the drinks from the tray and handed them round, making sure that Asia could see the size of the tip he gave.

“
So, my dear. You are unmarried.”

“
Yeah. But I got a boyfriend.”

“
Shit.”

“
Come again?”

“
I meant, do you?”

“
I sure do, buster. An’ he is one serious piece of work. Yessiree.” Asia raised her glass. “To Baby Joe, goddamn it. To Baby Joe Young.”

As they drank, a man with very pale skin who had been sitting at the next table stood up and came over.

“
Good evenin’,” he said, bowing politely. “Where y’at?”

***

Monsoon was sitting in the anteroom of suite 226 at the Bellagio next to a man who looked uncannily like how Bruce Willis would have looked if he were seventy pounds overweight.

“
So, what's your next movie, pal? Fucking
Fry Hard
?” Monsoon said amiably.

“
Blow me, spook,” replied the Bruceburger, amiably.

Before Monsoon could think of a suitably devastating comeback, the door to the suite opened and a man who looked exactly like Tom Jones came out, followed by a pert standard-issue secretary-type girl who said, “Next, please.”

Bruce stood up and, giving Monsoon a smug leer, stepped through the door.

“
Fuck me, bro,” Monsoon said. “You look so much like Tom Jones, it ain’t true. You’re even about the same age as the old bastard.”

“
I am fucking Tom Jones, you twat. I’m here looking for a caddy.”

“
Shit. I’m sorry. So you play a round of golf now and then, huh?”

“
It’s not unusual.”

“
Well, what about me?”

“
Nah. I want one that looks like Shirley Bassey. Bye now.”

The door opened and Monsoon heard somebody say, “The answer’s no, you fat prick. How the fuck can you watch anybody’s balls if you can’t even see your own?”

The Bruce balloon stomped out past Monsoon without a word. Monsoon followed the secretary into the suite. A small man with a disproportionately huge schnozz and thick lenses looked up. Monsoon held out his hand and smiled his best used-car salesman smile.

“
Hi there, boss,” he said, “my name is—”

“
I don’t give a fuck what your name is, son. How soon can you start?”

“
What? Oh, shit, er, well, fucking now if you want.”

“
Good man. Esmeralda, find this boy some golf kit, and arrange for a limo to take him to the course. And get me Elmo on line three.”

As a beaming Monsoon was led out, the man with the beezer picked up the phone.

“
Elmo, baby. Didn’t I tell ya? Don’t I always come through for ya? The guy’ll be there in an hour. What? Sure. I tell ya, this kid could fuck Woods’s old lady and she’d never know the difference. Ciao.”

The man hung up, pulled out a cigar from inside his checked sports coat pocket, lit up, put his feet up on the desk, and sighed contentedly as the sweet billowing cloud enveloped his features, until only his nose was sticking out.

***

The moons over Basque country are spectacular. Fortunately for Arantxa, there was none that night. Breathless, she climbed from her own window and crossed the orchard, the earth cool beneath her bare feet. She propped the chair she carried against the wall. In the darkness, she could not tell if the window was still open, but she prayed fervently that it was, at the same time praying for forgiveness for praying for something that she was sure was a sin. Her prayers were answered. Or, the cleaner forgot to close the window. Either way, it amounted to the same thing. After enduring the excruciating screech of the window opening, which sounded to her like the wails of a thousand banshees but which was, in fact, barely audible, she was inside. She stood motionless for minutes, her heart sounding like a Zulu kraal on the eve of battle, every nerve taut, her eyes conning the darkness, a doe paused for flight at the slightest pretext. She was petrified. And then a strange thing happened. She realized that she was enjoying it. That she was shaking not because she was afraid, but because she was thrilled. She relaxed. She inhaled deeply. The rich musky maleness was overwhelming. It was palpable to her unaccustomed nose as a thing of itself. A thing savage and wild. The blackness was absolute. No light came from under the doors. She steeled herself, and drew the candle and matches from her gown, and lit up. She almost fainted.

Drawn in flickering shadows were the grotesque and seductive images of a world unknown. Runes and symbols from an existence unforeseen. Maps, instruments, globes and compasses, weapons, pipes, bottles, shells, stuffed birds and animals, weird contorted things in jars. A large frame loomed in the penumbra. She held up the candle. And gasped. Men and women, naked, cavorting, doing…things. She stepped back and crossed herself. She suddenly felt flustered and fearful. She turned to run to the window. And stopped. She walked back to the picture. She studied it, her hand shaking so that the candle wavered, the image teasing her in the unsteady light, morphing from starkness to obscurity and back. She was suddenly transported. She was a primitive, an ancient child in the depths of a cavern, staring by firelight at the painting on the cave wall. Something hovered at the periphery of her comprehension and something moved inside her, something deep and hitherto unfelt.

The study walls were adorned on all sides by similar paintings. She followed them, holding up the candle to each in turn. Priapic gods and wanton temptresses, painted whores, shameless nakedness, barbaric rituals and dances, rapes and orgies and sacrifices. Time stood still. Somewhere in her young mind she understood that she had crossed a bridge over which there was no going back. She came to a bookcase. She felt faint. Her knees trembled. Books. Hundreds of books. She reached out and touched the spine of one. It felt electric to her fingertips. The forbidden fruit. She could read in four languages and had been allowed to read nothing but the scriptures. And here was Sodom and Gomorrah before her. Paradise Lost, within reach. She had a revelation, as if she were a blind girl, suddenly and mysteriously restored to sight. She was shocked and elated and tremulous. A tremendous idea came to her. Something unimaginable, inconceivable in its daring. She made up her mind. She snuffed out the candle. She ran her hands over the spines of the books, palpating, caressing, touching, feeling, waiting for one to speak to her. She suddenly grasped one and ran toward the window.