gold leaf.
The question that most intrigued Dradin, that guided his thoughts and bedeviled his nights, was this: Would Cadimon Signal take pity on a former student and find a job for him? He hoped, of course, for a missionary position, but failing that a position which would not break his back or tie him in knots of bureaucratic red tape. Dad was an unlikely ally in this, for Dad had recommended Dradin to Cadimon and also recommended Cadimon to Dradin.
Before the fuzzy beginnings of Dradin’s memory, Dad had, when still young and thin and mischievous, invited Cadimon over for tea and conversation, surrounded in Dad’s study by books, books, and more books. Books on culture and civilization, religion and philosophy. They would, or so Dad told Dradin later, debate every topic imaginable, and some that were unimaginable, distasteful, or all too real until the hours struck midnight, one o’clock, two o’clock, and the lanterns dimmed to an ironic light, brackish and ill-suited to discussion. Surely this bond would be enough? Surely Cadimon would look at him and see the father in the son?
After breakfast, necklace and map in hand, Dradin wandered into the religious quarter, known by the common moniker of Pejora’s Folly after Midan Pejora, the principal early architect, to whose credit or discredit could be placed the slanted walls, the jumble of Occidental and accidental, northern and southern, baroque and pure jungle, styles. Buildings battled for breath and space like centuries-slow soldiers in brick-to-brick combat. To look into the revolving spin of a kaleidoscope while heavily intoxicated, Dradin thought, would not be half so bad.
The rain from the night before took the form of sunlit droplets on plants, windowpanes, and cobblestones that wiped away the dull and dusty veneer of the city. Cats preened and tiny hop toads hopped while dead sparrows lay in furrows of water, beaten down by the storm’s ferocity.
He snorted in disbelief as he observed followers of gentle Saint Solon the Decrepit placing the corpses of rain victims such as the sparrows into tiny wooden coffins for burial. In the jungle, deaths occurred in such thick numbers that one might walk a mile on the decayed carcasses, the white clean bones of deceased animals, and after a time even the most fas tidious missionary gave the crunching sound not a second thought.
As he neared the mission, Dradin tried to calm himself by breathing in the acrid scent of votive candles burning from alcoves and crevices and doorways. He tried to imagine the richness of his father’s conversations with Cadimon — the plethora of topics discussed, the righteous and pious denials and arguments. When his father mentioned those conversations, the man would shake off the weight of years, his voice light and his eyes moist with nostalgia. If only Cadimon remembered such encounters with similar enthusiasm.
The slap-slap of punished pilgrim feet against the stones of the street pulled him from his reverie. He stood to one side as twenty or thirty mendicants slapped on past, cleansing their sins through their calluses, on their way to one of a thousand shrines. In their calm but blank gaze, their slack mouths, Dradin saw the shadow of his mother’s face, and he wondered what she had done while his father and Cadimon talked. Gone to sleep? Finished up the dishes? Sat in bed and listened through the wall?
At last, Dradin found the Mission of Cadimon Signal. Set back from the street, the mission remained almost invisible among the skyward-straining cathedrals surrounding it — remarkable only for the emp tiness, the silence, and the swirl of swallows skimming through the air like weightless trapeze artists. The building that housed the mission was an old tin-roofed warehouse reinforced with mortar and brick, opened up from the inside with ragged holes for skylights, which made Dradin wonder what they did when it rained. Let it rain on them, he supposed.
Christened with fragmented mosaics that depicted saints, monks, and martyrs, the enormous doorway lay open to him. All around, acolytes frantically lifted sandbags and long pieces of timber, intent on barricading the entrance, but none challenged him as he walked up the steps and through the gateway; no one, in fact, spared him a second glance, so focused were they on their efforts.
Inside, Dradin went from sunlight to shadows, his footfalls hollow in the silence. A maze of paths wound through lush green Occidental-style gardens. The gardens centered around rock-lined pools cut through by the curving fins of corpulent carp. Next to the pools lay the eroded ruins of ancient, pagan temples, which had been reclaimed with gaily-colored paper and splashes of red, green, blue, and white paint.
Among the temples and gardens and pools, unobtrusive as lamp posts, acolytes in gray habits toiled, removing dirt, planting herbs, and watering flowers. The air had a metallic color and flavor to it and Dradin heard the buzzing of bees at the many poppies, the soft
The ragged, blue grass-fringed trail led Dradin to a raised mound of dirt on which stood a catafalque, decorated with gold leaf and the legend “Saint Philip the Philanderer” printed along its side. In the shadow of the catafalque, amid the grass, a gardener dressed in dark green robes planted lilies he had set on a nearby bench. Atop the catafalque, halting Dradin in mid-step, stood Signal. He had changed since Dradin had last seen him, for he was bald and gaunt, with white tufts of hair sprouting from his ears. A studded dog collar circled his withered neck. But most disturbing, unless one wished to count a cask of wine that dangled from his left hand — no doubt shipped in by those reliable if questionable purveyors of spirits Hoegbotton & Sons, perhaps even held, caressed, by his love—
The object of no one’s desire bobbed like a length of flaccid purpling sausage, held in some semblance of erectitude by the man’s right hand, the hand currently engaged in an up-and-down motion that brought great pleasure to its owner.
“Ccc-Cadimon Ssss-sigggnal?”
“Yes, who is it now?” said the gardener.
“I beg your pardon.”
“I said,” repeated the gardener with infinite patience, as if he really would not mind saying it a third, a fourth, or a fifth time, “I said ‘Yes, who is it now?’”
“It’s Dradin. Dradin Kashmir. Who are you?” Dradin kept one eye on the naked man atop the catafalque.
“I’m Cadimon Signal, of course,” the gardener said, patiently pulling weeds, potting lilies.
“Welcome to my mission, Dradin. It’s been a long time.” The small, green-robed man in front of Dradin had mannerisms and features indistinguishable from any wizened beggar on Albumuth Boulevard, but looking closer Dradin thought he could see a certain resemblance to the man he had known in Morrow.
Perhaps.
“Who is he, then?” Dradin pointed to the naked man, who was now ejaculating into a rose bush.
“He’s a Living Saint. A professional holy man. You should remember that from your theology classes. I know I must have taught you about Living Saints. Unless, of course, I switched that with a unit on Dead Martyrs. No other kind, really. That’s a joke, Dradin. Have the decency to laugh.”
The Living Saint, no longer aroused, but quite tired, lay down on the smooth cool stone of the catafalque and began to snore.
“But what’s a Living Saint doing here? And naked?”
“I keep him here to discomfort my creditors who come calling. Lots of upkeep to this place. My, you have changed, haven’t you?”
“What?”
“I thought I had gone deaf. I said you’ve changed. Please, ignore my Living Saint. As I said, he’s for the creditors. Just trundle him out, have him spill his seed, and they don’t come back.”
“I’ve changed?”
“Yes, I’ve said that already.” Cadimon stopped potting lilies and stood up, examined Dradin from crown to stirrups. “You’ve been to the jungle. A pity, really. You were a good student.”
“I have come back from the jungle, if that’s what you mean. I took fever.”
“No doubt. You’ve changed most definitely. Here, hold a lily bulb for me.” Cadimon crouched down once more.
“You seem… you seem somehow less imposing. But healthier.”
“No, no. You’ve grown taller, that’s all. What are you now that you are no longer a missionary?”
“No longer a missionary?” Dradin said, and felt as if he were drowning, and here they had only just started to talk.
“Yes. Or no. Lily please. Thank you. Blessed things require so much dirt. Good for the lungs exercise is.
Good for the soul. How is your father these days? Such a shame about your mother. But how is he?”
“I haven’t seen him in over three years. He wrote me while I was in the jungle and he seemed to be doing well.”
