I: What color was the vehicle?
X: Red.
I: And after you pushed the woman, what happened?
X: The van passed between me and the woman, and I was back in the real world. I felt a great heat on my face, searing my eye brows. I had collapsed outside of my writing room, which I had set on fire. Soon the whole house would be on fire. Hannah had already taken Sarah outside and now she was trying to drag me away from it when I “woke up.” She was screaming in my ear,
“Why did you do it? Why did you do it?”
I: And what had you done?
X: I had pushed Janice Shriek into the flames of the fire I had set.
I: You had murdered her.
X: I had pushed her into the fire.
We faced each other across the desk in that small, barren room and I could see from his expression that he still did not understand the crux of the matter, that he did not understand what had truly happened to Janice Shriek. How much would I tell him? Very little. For his sake. Merciless, I continued with my questioning, aware that he now saw me as the darkness, as his betrayer.
I: How happy do you feel having saved the life of the woman in Ambergris in relation to the sadness you feel for having killed Janice Shriek?
X: It’s not that simple.
I: But it is that simple. Do you feel guilt, remorse, for having murdered Janice Shriek?
X: Of course!
I: Did you feel responsible for your actions?
X: No, not at first.
I: But now?
X: Yes.
I: Did you feel responsible for saving the woman in Ambergris?
X: No. How could I? Ambergris isn’t real.
I: And yet, you say in these transcripts that in the trial that resulted from Shriek’s death, you claimed Ambergris was real! Which is it? Is Ambergris real or isn’t it?
X: That was then.
I: You seem inordinately proud that, as you say, the first jury came back hung. That it took two juries to convict. Indecently proud, I’d say.
X: That’s just a writer’s pride at the beautiful trickery of my fabrication.
I: “That’s just a writer’s pride at the beautiful trickery of my fabrication.” Listen to yourself.
Your pride is ghastly. A human being had been murdered. You were on trial for that murder. Or did you think that Janice Shriek led a more real existence in Ambergris? That you had, in essence, killed only an echo of her true self?
X: No! I didn’t think Ambergris was more real. Nothing was real to me at that point. The arrogance, the pride, was a wall — a way for me to cope. A way for me not to think.
I: How did you get certain members of the jury to believe in Ambergris?
X: It wasn’t easy. It wasn’t even easy to get my attorney to pursue the case in the rather insane way I suggested. He went along with it because he believed the jury would find me crazy and remand me to the psychiatric care I’m sure he thought I needed. There seemed no question that I would be convicted — my own wife was a witness.
I: But you convinced some of the jurors.
X: Perhaps. Maybe they just didn’t like the prosecuting attorney. It helped that nearly everyone had read the books or heard about them. And, yes, it proves my imagination is magnificent. The world was so complete, so fully-realized, that I’m sure it became as real to the jurors as that squalid, musty backroom they did all their deliberations in.
I: So you convinced them by the totality of your vision. And by your sincerity — that you believed Ambergris was real.
X: Don’t do that. As I told you before we began, I don’t believe in Ambergris anymore.
I: Can you describe the jurors at the first trial for me?
X: What?
I: I said, describe the jurors. What did they look like? Use your famous imagination if you need to.
X: They were jurors. A group of my peers. They looked like… People.
I: So you cannot remember their faces.
X: No, not really.
I: If you made them believe in Ambergris so strongly that they would not convict you, why can’t you believe in it?
X: Because it doesn’t exist! It doesn’t exist,Alice! I made it up. Or, more properly, it made me up.
It does not exist.
X was breathing heavily. He had brought his left fist down hard on the desk.
“Let us sum up, for there are two crucial points that have been uncovered by this interrogation. At least two. The first concerns the manta ray. The second concerns the jury. I am going to ask you again: Did you never think that the manta ray might be a positive influence, a saving impulse? ”
“Never.”
“I see it as a manifestation of your sanity — perhaps a manifestation of your subconscious, come to lead you into the light.”
“It led me into the darkness. It led me into never never land.”
“Second, there was no trial, except in your head as you ran from the scene of the crime. Your jurors who believed in Ambergris — they represented the part of you that still clung to the idea that Ambergris was real. No matter how you fought them, they — faceless, anonymous — continued to tell you Ambergris was real!”
“Now you are trying to trick me,” X said. He was trembling. His right hand had closed around his left wrist in a vice-like grip.
“Do you remember how you got here?” I asked.
“No. Probably through the front door, don’t you think?”
“Don’t you find it odd that you don’t remember?”
“In comparison to what?” He laughed bitterly.
I stared at him. I said nothing. I think it was my silence, in which I hoped for some last minute redemption, that forced him to the conclusion my decision would not be favorable.
“I don’t believe in Ambergris. How many times do I have to say it?” He was sweating now. He was shaking.
When I did not reply, he said, “Are there any more questions?”
I shook my head. I put the transcripts back in my briefcase and locked it. I pushed the chair back and got up.
“Then I am free to go. My wife is probably waiting in—”
“No,” I said, putting on my jacket. “You are not free to go.”
He rose quickly, again pounded his fist against the desk. “But I’ve told you, I’ve told you — I don’t believe in my fantasy! I’m rational! I’m logi cal! I’m over it!”
“But you see,” I said, with as much kindness as I could muster as I opened the door, “that’s precisely the problem. This is Ambergris. You are in Ambergris.”
The expression on X’s face was quite indescribable.
As he locked the door behind him and ascended the staircase, he realized that it was all a horrible shame.
