'Who owns this town?' I ask him.
'The people,' he says.' The residents.'
I laugh at the joke, but he refuses to join me, does not even smile. ' Seriously-tell me. Who owns this town?'
He shrugs and walks off. I laugh louder: 'Who owns this town, friend? Who owns it?' Does he hate me? Without a mood, what is a man, anyway? A man has to have some kind of mood, even when he dreams. Scornfully, I laugh at the one who refused to smile and I watch his back as he walks stiffly and self-consciously over a bridge of wood and metal which spans soft water, full of blossom and leaves, flowing in the sunlight.
In my hand is a cool silver flask loaded with sweet fire. I, know it is there. I lift it to my mouth and consume the fire, letting it consume me, also. Blandly, we destroy each other, the fire and I.
My stomach is full of flame and my legs are tingling, as soft as soda water, down to where my feet ache.
Don't leave me, sweetheart, with your hair of desire and your mockeries hollow in the moaning dawn. Don't leave me with the salt rain rushing down my cold face. I laugh again and repeat the man's words: 'The people-the residents!' Ho ho ho! But there is no one to hear my laughter now unless there are inhabitants in the white town's curtained dwellings.
Where are you, sweetheart - where's your taunting body, now, and the taste of your fingernails in my flesh? Harsh smoke drowns my sight and the town melts as I fall slowly down towards the cobbles of the street and a pain begins to inch its way through my stinging face.
Where's the peace that you seek in spurious godliness of another man - a woman? Why is it never there? I regain my sight and look upwards to where the blue sky fills the world until it is obscured by troubled sounds which flow from a lovely face dominated by eyes asking questions which make me frustrated and angry, since I cannot possibly answer them. Not one of them. I smile, in spite of my anger and say, cynically: 'It makes a change, doesn't it?' The girl shakes her head and the worried noises still pour from her mouth. Lips as red as blood - splashed on slender bones, a narrow, delicate skull. 'Who-? Why are you-? What happened to you?'
'That's a very personal question, my dear,' I say patronizingly. ' But I have decided not to resent it.'
'Thank you,' says she. 'Are you willing to rise and be helped somehow?'
Of course I am, but I would not let her know just yet. 'I am seeking a friend who came this way,' I say. ' Perhaps you know her? She is fat with my life-full of my soul. She should be easy to recognize.'
'No-I haven't… '
'Ah-well, if you happen to notice her, I would appreciate it if you would let me know. I shall be in the area for a short while. I have become fond of this town.' A thought strikes me; ' Perhaps you own it?'
'No.'
'Please excuse the question if you are embarrassed by it. I, personally, would be quite proud to own a town like this. Is it for sale, do you think?'
'Come, you'd better get up. You might be arrested. Up you get.'There is a disturbing reluctance on the part of the residents to tell me the owner of the town. Of course, I could not afford to buy it-I asked cunningly, in the hope of discovering who the owner was. Maybe she is too clever for me. The idea is. not appealing.
'You're like a dead bird,' she smiles, 'with your wings broken.'
I refuse her hand and get up quickly. ' Lead the way.'
She frowns and then says: ' Home I think.' So off we go with her walking ahead. I point upwards: ' Look - there's a cloud the shape of a cloud!' She smiles and I feel encouraged to such a degree that I want to thank her.
We reach her house with its green door opening directly on to the street. There are windows with red and yellow curtains and the white paint covering the stone is beginning to flake.
She produces a key, inserts it into the large black iron lock and pushes the door wide open, gesturing gracefully for me to enter before her. I incline my head and walk into the darkened hallway of the house. It smells of lavender and is full of old polished oak and brass plates, horse-brasses, candlesticks with no candles in them. On my right is a staircase which twists up into gloom, the stairs covered by dark red carpet.
There are ferns in vases, placed on high shelves. Several vases. of ferns are on the window-sill by the door.
'I have a razor if you wish to shave,' she informs me. Luckily for her, I am self-critical enough to realize that I need a shave.
I thank her and she mounts the stairs, wide skirt swinging, leading me to the upstairs floor and a small bathroom smelling of. perfume and disinfectant.
She switches oh the light. Outside, the blue of the sky is deepening and the sun has already set. She shows me the safetyrazor, soap, towel. She turns a tap and water gushes out into her cupped hand. ' Still hot,' she says, turning and closing the door behind her; I am tired and make a bad job of shaving. I wash my hands as an afterthought and then go to the door to make sure it isn't locked. I open the door and peer out into the lighted passage. I shout: ' Hey!' and her head eventually comes into sight around another door at the far end of the passage.
'I've shaved.'
'Go downstairs into the front room,' she says. 'I'll join you: there in a few minutes.' I grin at her and my eyes tell her that I know she is naked beneath her clothes. They all are. Without their clothes and their hair, where would they be? Where is she?'
She came this way -I scented her trail right here, to this town.
She could even be hiding inside this woman- fooling me. She was always clever in her own way. I'll break her other hand, listen to the bones snap, and they won't catch me. She sucked my life out of me and they blamed me for breaking her fingers.
I was just trying to get at the ring I gave her. It was. hidden by the blaze of the others.
She turned me into a sharp-toothed wolf.
I thunder down the stairs, deliberately stamping on them, making them moan and creak. I locate the front room and enter it. Deep leather chairs, more brass, more oak, more ferns in smoky glass of purple and 'scarlet. A fireplace without a fire.
A soft carpet, multicoloured. A small piano with black-andwhite keys and a picture in a frame on top of it.
There is a white-clothed table with cutlery and plates for two.
Two chairs squat beside the table.
I stand with my back to the fireplace as I hear her pointedheeled shoes tripping down the stairs. 'Good evening,' I say politely when she comes in, dressed in a tight frock of dark blue velvet, with rubies around her throat and at her ears. There are dazzling rings on her fingers and I shudder, but manage to control myself.
'Please sit down." She repeats the graceful gesture of the hand, indicating a leather chair with a yellow cushion.' Do you feel better now?' I am. suspicious and will not answer her. It. might be a trick question, one never knows..' I'll get dinner,' she tells me, ' I won't be long.' Again I've defeated her. She can't win at this rate.
I consume the foreign meal greedily and only realize afterwards that it might have been poisoned. Philosophically I reflect that it is too late now as I wait for coffee. I will test the coffee and see if it smells of bitter almonds. If it does, I will know it contains poison. I try to remember if any of the food I have already, eaten tasted of bitter almonds. I don't think so. I feel comparatively safe.
She brings in the coffee smoking in a big brown earthenware pot. She sits down and pours me a cup. It smells good and, relievedly, I discover it does not have the flavour of bitteralmonds. Come to think of it, I am not altogether sure what; bitter almonds smell like.
'You may stay the night here, if you wish. There is a spare room.'
'Thank you,' I say, letting my eyes narrow in a subtle question, but she looks away from me and reaches a slim hand for the coffee pot, ' Thank you,' I repeat. She doesn't answer me.