He looked at her in surprise. “You’ve shot before?”
She picked up one of the rifles, grunting at the unexpected weight. Pointing it over Killer at the door, she worked the bolt rapidly, spraying cartridges. “I lived on a ranch— the gophers’ nemesis, I was.”
“Wonder woman!” he said.
“Those Uzis are beyond me, though,” she said and laughed at his astonishment. “But I’ve read enough magazines in doctors’ waiting rooms to recognize them.”
“Killer would approve of you, I think,” he said. “Or maybe not he thinks a woman’s weapon is a feather duster.”
“Clio? That his wife?” He nodded. “You noticed the message? That she did well, not that he loved her? She is supposed to keep house and be there in his bed if he comes home early.” There was an acidity in his tone that she had not noticed before when he spoke of Killer. Why did they always come back to Killer? She wondered about this Clio.
Then he showed her quickly how to fire and reload the Uzis and the others, Lee Enfields. “Stick to single shots,” he said. “Automatic fire only when things are absolutely desperate.” The walls might be bulletproof, he said, and cause ricochets.
Then the second lamp faded away, and they were sitting in the fire’s glow. The two front windows showed up as pale rectangles, for the high yard light was still working. Shadows crossed and re-crossed the drapes, inhuman, indistinct, humped shapes.
They fell silent, Jerry hunched over with his face in his hands. That would not do.
“And who is in Jerry Howard’s bed when he comes home early?” He lowered his hands and smiled at her. “Jerry is.”
“Bachelor?” He nodded. “Bachelor. Not a virgin, but not a Killer.”
“In forty years?” The light was too dim to see if she had made him blush.
“I catch a fish once in a while,” he said, “but I always throw them back. I’m too fussy.”
“What specifications do you have, then,” she asked, “that are so hard to fill?” It was growing very quiet outside.
His teeth glinted in the flickering light— perfect teeth, of course. “Not tall,” he said, “because I’m very insecure and need the advantage. A blond, naturally— but not too blond because then other men would chase her too much, and, as I said, I’m insecure. Musical, because I like music; interested in literature, because I have thousands of books for her to read, and I like to read in bed.”
“Is that all you do in bed?” He sort of spluttered— she had figured him as shy— and if she were serious, she would never dare push him like this, but it was keeping their minds off the other things. There was nothing they could do; talk was all they had.
“Sometimes I get madly passionate and chew a girl’s ear,” he said, “or read Keats to her. They like that.”
She said, “I suppose if they’re all five or six hundred years old, it would be dangerous to excite them too much?”
He was responding, eyes shining with enjoyment by that dancing firelight behind her. “And what specifications have you drawn up for Graham’s replacement?” he asked.
Queen’s gambit accepted. “An older man,” she said. “Good thinking.”
“Musical, of course. Well read.”
“Good on Keats?” She sniffed. “You know what you can do with Keats?”
“We’ll leave him to Killer,” he said, and they laughed together in graveside humor.
“So you have marriages in Mera?” she asked, and he nodded. She pondered. “Surely sex must be a problem, though? It usually is, isn’t it— people are like that. Can any marriage last for centuries? Don’t couples tire of each other?”
He leaned back wearily. “It’s surprisingly rare. I suppose there’s a lot of cheating; I don’t know. Well,” he added in a softer tone, “I do know— I’ve done some. But with no disease and no pregnancies, Mera is a great place for love-making.” And before she had to think of something else to keep him talking, he said, “It’s the place where dreams come true.”
“What do you mean by that?” she demanded, intrigued by his tone.
He turned his head and smiled at her. “Things are possible in Mera that aren’t possible elsewhere. The angles of a triangle don’t add up Have you ever read Homer?” He was a Greek freak. “A little; in translation, of course.”
“You must come to Mera and read the original,” he said. “If you know the Odyssey or the Iliad…
Killer can quote great chunks of them at you, by the way, they’re his bible. He can’t read, but Clio can; she reads him bits, and he memorizes them. Of course he knew a lot of them before he ever left Greece; it was how he was educated. He likes Hesiod, too, because he was another Thespian. What I’m going to tell you makes more sense in Killer’s view of it— which is Homer’s view— than it does in mine. In Homer’s world, if a friend dropped in to visit you— Mary Smith, say?— well, in Homer, you could never be quite sure that it really was Mary Smith or actually the goddess Athena in disguise.”
“Listen!” she said. The yard had gone absolutely silent; even the faint chewing from the window of Graham’s room had stopped.
“No, don’t listen,” he sighed. “It’s just a trick to make you jumpy. Let’s get back to Mera… I don’t know what it’s like for girls, but most boys— men— see a good-looking girl once in a while and think, ‘wouldn’t it be lovely…’ Then they go home and pester their wives, in most cases…” He had left this world forty years ago.
“It’s not unknown nowadays for ladies to think that way,” she said. “If we see some tall, blond… er… bare-chested type? Not rare at all, actually, these days.”
“Thanks,” he said. “I’ll remember that, if I can. But in Mera, the dreams come true.”
“Huh?” He stared in sudden silence down where Killer lay, only the pearly trace of the wand showing. “Take Killer as an example. A horrible example, perhaps, but an example. I’ve told you how promiscuous he is. So he takes a fancy to, say, the Mary Smith we mentioned, and starts pestering her. She tells him to… vanish. Fair enough, but one day when Killer makes a pass, she responds. Great— he has another stamp in his album. But Mary Smith may know nothing about it!”
“Jerry! How?” He chuckled. “Killer’s explanation is that the goddess Aphrodite took pity on him and assumed Mary Smith’s form. I talk about wish fulfilment, but what does it matter? Of course, the truth may be that Mary Smith did actually fancy a tumble with Killer and is lying. Who knows?”
“But…” The idea was too numbing to take in.
“I suppose there are limits,” he said. “You probably couldn’t have two husbands without the fact being obvious, but truth in Mera is very much what you believe. Reality is relative. There is no black and white in Mera, literally. If I get you to Mera, Ariadne, I shall probably have an affair with you, at the very least, whether you know it or not!”
“You get me to Mera, Jerry Howard,” she said, “and you needn’t put the goddess Aphrodite to any trouble on my behalf.” They sat and looked at each other for a while in silence, and then he sighed and got up and put more logs into the stove.
There was a murmur outside, a sound like a great crowd. Jerry must have heard it also, but he came back and sat down without mentioning it.
“What is bringing them?” he muttered to himself. “Why so much, so many?”
“Killer’s words?” she said. “He talked about Clio and then he said something about Eros. ‘Then it was not always Eros?’ ” He cleared his throat harshly. The noise outside fell and then came back, greater, like an orchestra tuning up or… or a crowd waiting for the teams to emerge? Jerry started to speak loudly; as though trying to drown it out.