“You know, Harry, you might be a good candidate, too,” he said. “I mean, especially after your antics with Griffin last night. Like a lot of Canadians, you’re actually a very strange person disguised as someone very ordinary!” His eyes lit up and he laughed. “Don’t look so worried. I’m only kidding.”
With that, we shook hands again and he hurried off to his meeting.
I headed to the parking area, bag in hand. The guard unlocked the gate for me and I went to my car. The parking area was covered in leaves, as if from a big wind during the night. But when I stepped onto those leaves they took flight and I realized they were, in fact, copper-winged butterflies, dozing in the morning sun. A moment later, I turned the key in the ignition and the entire remaining surface of the parking lot seemed to ascend. The mass of butterflies, like a flying carpet, swooped away magically into the air, blocked out the sun for a moment, then disappeared over the treetops to the south.
DURING THE EARLY stages of my long drive back to Camberloo that day, I was tormented by Dupont’s assumption that I was the kind of man who’d knowingly go to bed with someone like Griffin.
Of course I might have told him straight out that I’d thought it was Marsha who was in bed with me. But rather than admit to that conscienceless act against my host and old friend, I’d preferred to let him go on believing that I knew it was Griffin, herself a being without a conscience. Morally speaking, I suppose I got what I deserved.
Suddenly, a foolish thought hit me. I pulled off the road, parked, and adjusted the rear-view mirror so that it focused on my forehead. I examined my brow up to the hairline from every angle, this way and that, probing it gently with my fingertips.
Nothing. No pain, no sign of any post-operative scar. Nor did I feel any different from when I’d arrived at the institute, except for being a little hung over. Of course, Dupont had said not feeling any different was the common reaction to the procedure.
Still, there was no scar.
MY MOMENT OF extreme paranoia over, I started up the car and drove on northwards. But I didn’t begin to feel more completely at ease with myself till several hours later, when I crossed the border into Canada once more.
PART FOUR
The mind loves the unknown … since the meaning of the mind itself is unknown.
THE CURATOR AGAIN
Several months had passed since my journey to Institute 77. At first, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get out of my mind that midnight visitation to my room of the half-human, Griffin. Everything else — the reunion with Dupont, the revelation of his involvement in a horrific surgical-anthropological experiment, the description by Marsha of the decline of the Uplands — took a distant second place to the memory of what had occurred in the guest room of Dupont’s quarters. At the meeting with the mining consortium the next morning in Camberloo, I was still in a fog. I pretended I’d caught a bit of a cold and allowed Jonson to take the lead role.
Time gradually worked its magic on me, however. Soon enough the incident with Griffin began to take its place alongside that other weird erotic experience with Maratawi in Oluba. I no longer thought about either of them too much — and when I did, it was almost as though they were somewhat disturbing episodes in another man’s life rather than my own.
ANOTHER CALL FROM Curator Soulis came for me one morning when I was at my office desk studying some fairly dull engineering documents. He wanted to give me another brief report on how the research on The Obsidian Cloud was progressing. First, however, he again referred to how delighted his board was at my financial contribution — so much so, in fact, that they’d approved his request to commandeer an excellent researcher to assist him in his work on the book. Together with her, he’d quickly completed his work on the format and they’d managed to track down the company that printed the book.
In addition, they were vigorously hunting down some biographical leads on Macbane himself, as well as consulting various experts about the actual phenomenon described in the book. He knew these were the kinds of things that would be of interest to me and, probably, to book readers in general, so he thought he’d call and let me know.
I was, of course, all ears.
“We’ve already talked to some meteorological specialists — we had very little expectation of anything useful coming from them. We were wrong. They’ve made some rather interesting speculations,” said the curator. “We’ve also had extensive communications with academic historians about precedents for the black cloud. We still have a lot to do before we’ll be able to say anything definitive on that. All in all, it’s been quite a refreshing adventure for us — very different from our usual sort of research. As for who this man Macbane actually was, so far we haven’t had any luck finding anything tangible. But we do have some leads, and we haven’t by any means given up on that part of the quest. At any rate, I wanted you to know that I’ll be sending you all the details when we do arrive at our preliminary conclusions.”
Naturally, I looked forward to reading them.
“Well, always remember what I told you last time,” said the curator. “If you ever happen to be in Glasgow in the course of your travels, you’d be very welcome to drop by and see us. I know you’re a busy man, but I’d be delighted to meet you in person and bring you right up to date on our latest discoveries about the book.”
On that note, the call ended.
THAT SAME AFTERNOON, I left work early and went to see Frank at the Emporium. In his office at the back, I filled him in on the curator’s phone call. He was as thrilled as I was to hear about these latest developments.
“Why don’t you take him up on his invitation?” he said. “It would be great to go and talk to him directly about the book.” He suddenly had an idea. “Not only that, if you had time, you could even make a side visit to Duncairn and see what’s left of it.” He knew that all the Upland towns were now in a sorry condition.
I suppose this encouragement from Frank should have been all I needed to hear. Indeed, in my own mind, it wasn’t so much the meeting with the curator that tempted me as the prospect of a return to Duncairn. As Marsha Woods had said, wouldn’t it be wonderful if the woman who’d played such a major part in my emotional and mental life all these years — Miriam Galt — still lived there and I could see her again?
Yet no sooner had Frank urged me to pay a visit to Duncairn than the whole idea began to seem distasteful — a betrayal, a disloyalty both to him and to the memory of Alicia. So I made the excuse that it wouldn’t be possible: I had pressing business matters to deal with here in Canada.
“Oh, come on,” Frank said. “Jonson could look after things for a while. After all, what an opportunity to talk to an expert about The Obsidian Cloud. It really would be exciting.”
So, I convinced myself I ought to go, just to please Frank as much as anything else. After all, our shared interest in the mystery of Macbane and his book was, for me, an implicit acknowledgment of our newly discovered bond as father and son.
When I got back to my own office, I phoned the National Cultural Centre. Soulis had left for the day, but I was able to arrange an appointment with him for the following Monday morning. I made my travel plans accordingly.
SOMETIMES, NOW, I wonder what might have happened if I’d decided not to go on that journey. But, of course, that’s not something worth dwelling on. Presumably, if there really is such a thing as destiny, none of the obvious actions a person could take would change it. For all we know, the very flimsiest material — a word misheard, a false assumption, an excusable miscalculation — might actually be the most potent link in the chain.