Amused, he said, ‘I assume that’s intended as an endearment.’
‘A what-ment?’
‘Praise of a kind.’
She shrugged. ‘If that’s how you want to take it.’
‘So . . .’ He scraped at a fleck of stubborn grime with a fingernail. ‘How do shopkeepers fuck?’
‘With most of them, it’s like they’re embarrassed to be between my legs. They want to get it over quick and be gone. They turn their backs when they button their trousers. And they don’t want me saying nothing while they’re riding.’ She shook out her wet hair. ‘Not that they don’t want me making noises. They like that well enough.’
‘Then that raises the question: How do I fuck?’
‘Like a desperate man.’
‘Desperate?’ He kept on rubbing at the scale. ‘Surely not.’
‘Maybe desperate’s not the right word.’ She lazily scratched her hip. ‘It’s like you truly needed what I had to offer, and not just my tra-la-la. I could tell you wanted me to be myself and not some Sylvia.’
‘I expect I did.’ He was making good progress – the blue portion of the scale had come to resemble an aerial view of a river bordered by banks of mud and black earth. ‘From now on I’ll call you Ursula.’
‘That’s not my proper name, either.’
‘What is it, then?’
‘You don’t want to hear – it’s horrible.’ She stretched like a cat on its back in the sun; her face, turned to the window, blurred with brightness. ‘Truth be told, I don’t mind being Sylvia. Suits me, don’t you think?’
‘Mmm-hmm.’
She lapsed into silence, watching him work, attentive to the occasional squeak his cloth made on the scale, and then she said, ‘Do you fancy me? I mean, the way I’m talking with you now?’
He cocked an eye toward her.
‘I’m curious is all,’ she said.
‘I have to admit you’re growing on me.’
‘I was thinking I might try being myself more often. Always having to be someone else is an awful pressure.’ She scrambled to her knees in the chair, the towel falling away completely, and leaned over the desk, peering at the scale. ‘Oh, that blue’s lovely! How long you reckon ’til it’s done?’
‘I’ll give it a polish once it’s clean. A week or so.’
She bent closer, her breasts grazing the desktop, holding her hair back from her eyes, fixed on the streak of blue dividing the scale. How different she seemed from the brittle businesswoman he had met at Ali’s! She had tried to sustain that pose, but she let it drop more and more frequently, revealing the country girl beneath. He suspected he knew the basics of her story – a farm family with too many children; sold to a brothel keeper; earning her way by the time she was twelve – and thought knowing the specifics might uncover a deeper compatibility. But that, he reminded himself, was what she would want him to think in hopes of getting a bigger tip. Such was the beauty of whores: No matter how devious, how subtle their pretense, you always knew where you stood with them. He studied her face, prettied by concentration, and absently stroked the scale with his thumb.
A sound came to him, barely audible, part hiss, part ripping noise, as of some fundamental tissue, something huge and far away, cleaved by a cosmic sword (or else it was something near at hand, a rotten piece of cloth parting from the simple strain of being worn, giving way under a sudden stress). This sound was accompanied by a vision unlike any he had heretofore known: It was as if the objects that composed the room, the heavy mahogany furniture, the cream-colored wallpaper with its pattern of sailing vessels, the entire surround, were in fact a sea of color and form, and this sea was now rapidly withdrawing, rolling back, much as the ocean withdraws from shore prior to a tidal wave. As it receded, it revealed neither the floors and walls of adjoining rooms nor the white buildings of Teocinte, but a sun-drenched plain with tall lion-colored grasses and stands of palmetto, bordered on all sides by hills forested with pines. They were marooned in the midst of that landscape, smelling its vegetable scents, hearing the chirr and buzz of insects, touched by the soft intricacy of its breezes . . . and then it was gone, trees and plain and hills so quickly erased, they might have been a painted cloth whisked away, and the room was restored to view. George was left gaping at a portmanteau against the far wall. Sylvia, arms crossed so as to shield her breasts, squatted in the easy chair, her eyes shifting from one point to another.
‘What did you do?’ she asked in a shaky voice. She repeated the question accusingly, shrilly, as if growing certain of his complicity in the event.
‘I didn’t do anything.’ George looked down at the scale.
‘You rubbed it! I saw you!’ She wrested the scale from him and rubbed it furiously; when nothing came of her efforts she handed it back and said, ‘You try.’
It had not escaped George that there might be a correspondence between the apparition of the plain and the visions that arose when he rubbed his thumb across the face of a coin; but none of those visions had supplied the sensory detail of this last and no one else had ever seen them. He experienced some trepidation at the thought of trying it again and dropped the scale into his shirt pocket.
‘Finish dressing,’ he said. ‘Let’s go down to breakfast.’
A flash of anger ruled her face. He folded his penknife and packed up his cleaning kit and pocketed them as well.
‘Won’t you give it one more rub?’ she asked.
He ignored her.
Wrapping the towel around her upper body, she gave him a scornful look and flounced into the bedroom.
George sipped his coffee and discovered it was tepid. Through the thin fabric of his shirt, the scale felt unnaturally cold against his chest and he set it on the desk. It might be more valuable than he had presumed. He nudged it with the tip of a finger – the room remained stable.
Sylvia re-entered, still wearing the towel and still angry, though she tried to mask her anger behind a cajoling air. ‘Please! Give it one little rub.’ She kissed the nape of his neck. ‘For me?’
‘It frightened you the first time. Why are you so eager to repeat the experience?’
‘I wasn’t frightened! I was startled. You’re the one who was frightened! You should have seen your face.’
‘That begs the question: Why so eager?’
‘When Griaule makes himself known, you’d do well to pay heed or misfortune will follow.’
He leaned back, amused. ‘So you believe this nonsense about Griaule being a god.’
‘It ain’t nonsense. You’d know it for true if you lived here.’ Hands on hips, she proceeded to deliver what was obviously a quoted passage: ‘He was once mortal, long-lived yet born to die, but Griaule has increased not only in size, but in scope. Demiurge may be too great a word to describe an overgrown lizard, yet surely he is akin to such a being. His flesh has become one with the earth. He knows its every tremor and convulsion. His thoughts roam the plenum, his mind is a cloud that encompasses our world. His blood is the marrow of time. Centuries flow through him, leaving behind a residue that he incorporates into his being. Is it any wonder he controls our lives and knows our fates?’8