City of Saints and Madmen

They had tame material this time: a gallery owner — no oneLake knew — had been discovered selling wall space in return for sexual favors.Lake ordered a cup of coffee, with a chocolate chaser, and listened without enthusiasm.

Lake sensed familiar undercurrents of tension, as each artist sought to ferret out information about his or her fellows — weasels, bright-eyed and eager for the kill, that their own weasel selves might burn all the brighter. These tensions had eaten more than one conversation, leaving the table silent with barely suppressed hatred born of envy. Such a cruel and cutting silence had even eaten an artist or two.

Personally,Lake enjoyed the tension because it rarely centered around him; he was by far the most obscure member of the inner circle, kept there by the strength of Raffe’s patronage. Now, though, he felt a different tension, centered around the letter. It lay in a pocket against his chest like a second heart in his awareness of it.

As the shadows deepened into early dusk and the buttery light of the lanterns on their delightfully curled bronze posts held back the night, the conversation, lubricated by wine, became to Lake’s ears tantalizingly anonymous, as will happen in the company of people one is comfortable with, so that Lake could never remember exactly who had said what, or who had argued for what position. Lake later wondered if anything had been said, or if they had sat there, beautifully mute, while inside his head a conversation took place between Martin andLake.

He spent the time contemplating the pleasures of reconciliation with Merri — drank in the twinned marvels of the man’s perfect mouth, the compact, sinuous body. ButLake could not forget the letter.

This, and his growing ennui, led him to direct the conversation toward a more timely subject:

“I’ve heard it said that the Greens are disemboweling innocent folk near the docks, just off of Albumuth.

If they bleed red, they are de nounced as sympathizers against Voss Bender; if they bleed green, then their attackers apologize for the inconvenience and try to patch them up. Of course, if they bleed green, they’re likely headed for the columbarium anyhow.”

“Are you trying to disgust us?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true — it seems in keeping with the man himself: self-proclaimed Dictator of Art, with heavy emphasis on ‘Dic.’ We all know he was a genius, but it’s a good thing he’s dead… unless one of you is a Green with a dagger… ”

“Very funny.”

“Certainly it is rare for a single artist to so thoroughly dominate the city’s cultural life—”

“—Not to mention politics—”

(“Who started the Reds and the Greens anyhow?”)

“And to be discussed so thoroughly, in so many cafes—”

(“It started as an argument about the worth of Bender’s music, between two professors of musicology onTrotten Street. Leave it to musicians to start a war over music; now that you’re caught up, listen for God’s sake!”)

“—Not to mention politics, you say. And isn’t it a warning to us all that Art and Politics are like oil and water? To comment—”

“—‘oil and water’? Now we understand why you’re a painter.”

“How clever.”

“—as I said, to comment on it, perhaps, if forced to, but not to partici pate?”

“But if not Bender, then some bureaucratic business-man like Trillian. Trillian, the Great Banker. Sounds like an advertisement, not a leader. Surely, Merrimount, we’re damned either way. And why not let the city run itself?”

“Oh — and it’s done such a good job of that so far—”

“Off topic. We’re bloody well off topic — again!”

“Ah, but what you two don’t see is that it is precisely his audience’s passionate connection to his art

— the fact that people believe the operas are the man — that has created the crisis!”

“Depends. I thought his death caused the crisis?”

At that moment, a group of Greens ran by.Lake, Merrimount, Kinsky, and Sonter all raised their green flags with a curious mixture of derision and drunken fervor. Raffe sat up and shouted after them, “He’s dead! He’s dead! He’s dead!” Her face was flushed, her hair furiously tangled.

The last of the Greens turned at the sound of Raffe’s voice, his face ghastly pale under the lamps.Lake saw that the man’s hands dripped red. He forced Raffe to sit down: “Hush now, hush!” The man’s gaze swept across their table, and then he was running after his comrades, soon out of sight.

“Yes, not so obvious, that’s all.”

“Their spies are everywhere.”

“Why, I found one in my nose this morning while blowing it.”

“The morning or the nose?”

Laughter, and then a voice from beyond the inner circle, muffled by the dense shrubbery, offered, “It’s not certain Bender is dead. The Greens claim he is alive.”

“Ah yes.” The inner circle deftly appropriated the topic, slamming like a rude, massive door on the outer circle.

“Yes, he’s alive.”

“—or he’s dead and coming back in a fortnight, just a bit rotted for the decay. Delay?”

“—no one’s actually seen the body.”

“—hush hush secrecy. Even his friends didn’t see—”

“—and what we’re witnessing is actually a coup. ”

“Coo coo.”

“Shut up, you bloody pigeon.”

“I’m not a pigeon — I’m a cuckoo.”

“Bender hated pigeons.”

“He hated cuckoos too.”

“He was a cuckoo.”

“Boo! Boo!”

“As if anyone really controls this city, anyway?”

“O fecund grand mother matron, Ambergris, bathed in the blood of versions under the gangrenous moon.” Merrimount’s melodramatic lilt was unmistakable, andLake roused himself.

“Did I hear right?”Lake rubbed his ears. “Is this poetry? Verse? But what is this gristle: bathed in the blood of versions? Surely, my merry mount, you mean virgins. We all were one once — or had one once.”

A roar of approval from the gallery.

But Merrimount countered: “No, no, my dearLake, I meant versions — I protest. I meant versions: Bathed in the blood of the city’s many versions of itself.”

“A nice recovery”—Sonter again—“but I still think you’re drunk.”

At which point, Sonter and Merrimount fell out of the conversation, the two locked in an orbit of

“version”/ “virgin” that, in all likelihood, would continue until the sun and moon fell out of the sky.Lake felt a twinge of jealousy.

Kinsky offered a smug smile, stood, stretched, and said, “I’m going to the opera. Anyone with me?”

A chorus of boos, accompanied by a series of “Fuck off’s!”

Kinsky, face ruddy, guffawed, threw down some coins for his bill, and stumbled off down the street which, despite the late hour, twitched and rustled with foot traffic.

“Watch out for the Reds, the Greens, and the Blues,” Raffe shouted after him.

“The Blues?”Lake said, turning to Raffe.

“Yes. The Blues — you know. The sads.”

“Funny. I think the Blues are more dangerous than the Greens and the Reds put together.”

“Only the Browns are more deadly.”

Lakelaughed, stared after Kinsky. “He’s not serious, is he?”

“No,” Raffe said. “After all, if there is to be a massacre, it will be at the opera. You’d think the theater