The Polyphonic Sorceress

By Rolf Schroers

If the reader would decide to live in this crazy book for a magic spell, he'd have all those

of the living for company:

Rosalind Tess Mansfield and Dylan Albright, inseparable; Caroline,

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Regency Publishers
• Release date: Oct 25, 2023
• ISBN: 9781962313612

Book preview

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Copyright © 2023 Rolf Schroers.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage

and retrieval system, without permission in writing from

the copyright owner.

ISBN: 978-1-962313-62-9 (Paperback Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-962313-63-6 (Hardcover Edition)

ISBN: 978-1-962313-61-2 (E-book Edition)

Some characters and events in this book are fictitious and products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

Book Ordering Information

The Regency Publishers, US

521 5th Ave 17th floor NY, NY10175

Phone Number: [phone] ext 1007

Email: [e-mail]

www.theregencypublishers.com

Printed in the United States of America

Author’s Note

The protagonists in this story

are of pure invention;

although the reader may well find

similarities with persons he, or she, has known

—friends or foes…

Polyphony

stands for multiple musical, individual but harmonizing sounds;

a Sorceress

is a magical enchantress.

Le merveilleux poème du corps humain,

ou des corps d’animaux,

et la musique des lignes et des couleurs

qui émanent des fleurs, des feuilles et des fruits

sont les maîtres incontestés

de notre regard et de notre goût.

—Alphonse Mucha

Stories often write themselves, and go where they want to go.

—Umberto Eco

Table of Contents

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1

"Honey I loved you in the winter, and honey I loved you in the fall.

I still love you in the summer when the cool rains fall.

Most of all I love you in the spring,

when you wear your skirts so short again."

Inspired, Dylan Albright sang those words—impromptu and written by him—to this white-trash girl he hardly knew; but that’s how he liked to think of her.

"Seducente, sensuale," his friend Francesco had said when she pulled up her already short skirt, baring her legs—come tutte le ragazze italiane.

True, he thought. Come to think of it, Italian girls are even sexier than Frenchies; but then—what made him think she was Italian? Francesco had gone to France a year ago, settled in Paris, met Caroline, fell in love with her and decided to stay.

Caroline, after finishing studies at the French Police Academy, landed a well-paid job with the Police Scientifique—damn well paid—got herself a penthouse apartment on the Isle Saint Louis, and had Francesco move in with her, although she was neither Italian nor French—she was a Chinkie from Thailand; he could never recall her real name; and gregarious Francesco—beaming a broad smile at everybody he met— he had easily become her lover as well as Dylan’s friend.

Anyway—it is nigh impossible, Dylan said, "to remember these Oriental people’s names. His dentist wrote down hers for him so he wouldn’t forget it: Phuong-Lien Phung—a boat-people escapee from North Vietnam, this one; and he easily remembered her as Lotus Parfumé, as her delicate lips translated, since her education, in addition to the local lingo, had been scholarly French.

Wow! he thought at the time, the lotus flower is supposed to induce a dreamy languor and forgetfulness. Hence her delicate manner when curing his teeth of their tartar.—Suits you, he said.

And one fine day, Francesco and Caroline decided to take a slow boat, not to China, but to the New World. Their savings would be spent overseas; to get properly installed, instead of wasting them on a fast plane.

On the freighter they worked, having their meals with the captain, who was sorry to see them go.

The Big Apple was too ugly and too crazy to hold them for long, so they let the wind blow them to the Windy City, third-largest metropolis of the United States. On their job-hunting trips they ran into Dylan, who trod on Caroline’s toes in the L train, excused himself flourishingly and asked if they speak English.

A littel, said Caroline, and the gist of the following hand-gesticulating conversation was that they wanted to learn, find work, and a home to live in.

Often in the evening, Dylan sang again, not to Caroline, but to his girl, strumming a Chinese-made Dobro guitar, permanently tuned in open D.

"When the sun went down I watched you dancing till the moon came up;

Which is when I watched your racy legs

And the wiggle of your hips and—

Your Cadillac Strut was my morning, noon and nighttime treat.

He called her Rosy Lips, his girl, on Sundays, Mary Lou during the week, or Butternut; or Rosalind, her real name, because of her remote Germanic origins.

She was Belle in the morning, waking, when her beauty struck him anew each day. And she was American, not Italian. Her second Christian name was Tess—a universally treasured girl’s name. Which he only used when making love to her.

Tessmylove was an alternate. It also reminded him of Tessa, a Finnish model he had known in his sordid youthful past—blonde, blue-eyed, chesty, lips open for business: all lips, the ones lower down on her body as well.

Funny, she had said the second time they met, smoking a Colombian-hash joint, you never ask me anything. Don’t you wanna know my name?

Not really, he said. I’m rather comfortable with the mystery that you are.

The first name by which her parents called her was Rosalind she finally said—whence his transformation to Rosy Lips.

He was introduced to her as Dylan, pseudonym of Robert Zimmerman, whom his parents had veneered as the poet of the century.

While the name had in turn originated with Dylan Thomas, the Irish poet of yore; and, a name which he became rather proud of, reaching puberty, with his senses discovering the magic of music and literature.

Honey I loved you in the winter,

he insisted, with the last verse of the blues ditty written exclusively for Tess.

"In the snow, on the backseat of your car.

And I loved you in the autumn,

In the cloakroom of a wintry Vegas bar.

Then springtime turned to a summery burn,

When you left me, never to return."

Melodious, Tess said, as most of the bluesy harmonies. My mom would love it, she goes for that old stuff. Whereas my dad goes for the modern jazz of the Sixties. They compliment each other, my groovy parents.

Modern progressive jazz means: making as many notes as possible in a certain time lapse—too long mostly—without ever being melodious, without ever being lyrical.

"Dylan baby, when you’re right you’re right—I couldn’t agree more. What do you like, besides your folksy country stuff?"

"I’m very old-fashioned, I sort of live in the Thirties, sometimes the Twenties, up to the Forties, a time when jazz was creative, and swinging irresistibly—from Bix Beiderbecke to Benny Goodman, all the way up to Candyman by Christine Aguilera at the end of the century."

What’s the name of the song you wrote for me?

The Cadillac Strut.

Is the last line of it premonitory? Tess asked. I mean, do I leave you, never to return?

"It better not be premonitory. Reality has made me bitter. As to you, you’re irreplaceable. Yet, then again—I don’t know, honey child. We shall see what we shall see. I write those lines when the milk of sentiment curdles in my veins, as Lawrence Durrell so finely observed in the Black Book. When hair freezes along the scalp, or withers to soft gold shavings along the thighs…

"It’s when I fantasize on you watching your nipples turn hard and black, while the figs roast in the summer heat, as if born from lava—never mind my prose, Butternut: this Columbian stuff is bringing out the most pedestrian in me.

Why would you leave me? As long as I can make you come and scream ev’thing is shipshape and Bristol fashion—you’re not a strumpet who takes the money and runs. And I’m a gentleman.

Oh, Butternut said, you’re no gentleman—that would really be much too British; but you’re a gentle man all right. I met one at a dinner party a while ago. He had an imposing manner but with a certain something about him which was quite indefinable.

Never trust a man like that—even Hitler was able to work his charm on women; or Mussolini, who was writing poetry.

Or Caesar?

Yeah. Or Stalin, or Napoleon—same caliber of criminals.

"Dylan, you have a point there. Anyway, I remember the man eyeing one of the pretty serving girls and saying, ‘Oh honey, will you get me my boots from the hall? The blue suede ones.’—‘If what?’ she said.—‘Oh, if you please?’—Maid: ‘If you please what?’—Gentleman: ‘Will you kindly get my boots, if you please, Miss?’—Maid: ‘That’s better. No, I won’t.’—Never chide a servant in the presence of strangers, thinking that she cannot answer back."

Verily, verily, he said as he drew back the blinds to let the soft translucent light shine on her while she was lying there on the queen-size bed, among the spread-out jewelry, combs, brushes and empty cups; tall, handsome, slender, stark-naked, and cool as in a solitary dormitory, the immense perfumed triangular monastery between her legs—a sight which infrequently made him dream of her so moistly.

And she did not move, with half-closed eyes listening to the eggs frying in the kitchen a mere four feet away; the usual foul litter of shirts and pants, underpants, decorating the bare wooden parquet floor.

One of these days, Alice, he said, in what’s-his-name’s words, we’ll need to make room for a six-by-three box in here.

That’s not funny, said Sugarplum.

Fear not—the Angel of the Lord is very patient, he said. "I am not chosen as yet. Which makes me sinfully proud. Neither are you. And that makes me a rich man, as long as you’ll be bestowing your erotic gifts on my hardened appendix, and permitting me to scrutinize you with longing as a consecrated female. And so, sensual lust to both of us!"

Tess delicately sniffed back a drop of snot hanging from her finely chiseled nose—there was never a handkerchief within reach.

2

When he first met her, Tess was sixteen.—I don’t trust you, she had said, premonitorily.—He had taken a seat beside her on a stone bench at the Buckingham Fountain circle at Lake Shore Drive.

"I don’t trust men. They never know what to say, so they say n’importe quoi in order to get into my piggy bank."

You speak French?

I fake it.—Her eyes caused his knees to liquify—masculine weakness—and a shade less than alert.

And her mouth said, Everything about me, Dylan, is plausible, because nothing is real.

Where did you read that? he said. Too good an idiosyncrasy to come out of your reptilian she-brain.

And he put his right hand high up between her racy legs, for warmth.

You haven’t known me long enough, she said, to establish a qualitative evaluation of my brain. Meanwhile, nurse your own fox—Holy God!

"I’ll do that. But then, I won’t get anywhere with you," he replied. "As to the Holy One you mention—a fictional entity to me—he wants Man to be fruitful. So, at one point in time, you must yield to a man’s idiotic monologue in order to carry his fruit.

"And—if my small talk will meet your approval on one bright and sunny day, it might even be me—how do you like them apples?"

Who are you? she said.

Let’s pretend you are a pious and innocent virgin and I’m a hungry hyena. Or, you are Sister Tess and I’m the Holy One requiring service of you. That would be just as realistic as your adherence to fictitious bible hoax.

Fictitious… she pondered.

"Yes. Imaginary, counterfeit—you know what that is, feigned, false, not real. Hogwash. Surely, you’ve listened to your priest, in church, where no one thinks because the priest thinks for you.

"He keeps on preaching at the age of eighty what he was told to say when he was eighteen, sounding absolutely authoritative and delightfully believable. You failed to see what he really was—ugly and stupid. And the ugly and stupid have the best of it in this world.

But—you keep your mysterious silence.

I have grown being taught to have secrecy, she said.

Ever since you were a child, I’m sure.

"Oui, monsieur."

But I wonder what you really believe in.

I can believe anything, Tess whispered, provided that it is quite incredible. Or unlikely.

Oh dear, Dylan pondered. You are deceitfully smart indeed, smarter than you could be if you were innocent.

Well—getting back to your Let’s pretend… and your Holiness requiring service of me, meaning the most common desire of wanting to fuck me.

Common it is I grant you, he admitted.

But the commonest thing is delightful if only one hides it, she said.

"Touché. Well. Everyone has impious thoughts at times."

Yes, but you seem to have them always.

It is just that I admire your piety and your innocence, he went on; yet I don’t envy it. Still—you are one of your god’s innocents but too stubbornly straight-laced to admit it.

Dylan had terrible thoughts jangling around inside his head. But he managed to say, You don’t have to comment on that.

Well, she said without hesitation, and smiling maliciously, God commands Man to be fruitful.

Forgive me, tender maiden, he said, feigning sincerity, for having looked upon you sinfully, and persisting in my heresy.

Agent provocateur, Tess resumed. No need to provoke my indulgence, but rather admit that your interest is more than in my welfare: you are a man, the lesser part of creation.

Hence crooked, he said.

Ditto, ditto. Don’t worry, my dear—we’ll come to a mutual understanding eventually, she assured him.

I am yours to command.

How flamboyant, she said, turning her head skyward.

Free of the hazard of eye and ear, and boldly thinking that the apple was ripe, he put his arm around Tess’s rose-perfumed body, pulled her close to him and stuck his tongue into her thick-lipped virgin’s mouth, finally wordless, his heart skipping a beat or two.

Forgive my truculence, he said, red-faced after a long silence, a silence pregnant with surprise, shame, happiness, uncertainty; but glory.

What— he finally managed to say, is your perfume? I seem to perceive a mixture of roses and baby soap.

I—don’t know what baby soap might be, she said, looking up to a corner of the ceiling in the hut they had moved to, which a tiny spider had chosen for abode, all movement stilled.—I can’t remember being a baby.

In a way, she still was one now—up until the fatal moment when she would submit her body to a Chosen One.—And I never smelled a rose applying Coco Chanel’s perfume. I don’t think Marilyn thought of roses either.

"Monroe Marilyn? The one who said she wore but Chanel Five at night?"

"The same. Isn’t that poetic? When Coco put it on the market, back in nineteen-twenty-one, she called it un parfum de femme à couleur de femme—no mention of roses."

So, what was it composed of? he asked, almost certain this mysterious young lady would have an impromptu answer.

No identifiable dominating fragrance emanates from the eighty constituents—it’s been called an olfactive symphony, no less.—She was not simple.

How modest. He couldn’t think of anything else to say.

Are you always sarcastic?

I’m sorry. However—I grant you one thing: You have the satin-gloved power of overwhelming me with a eulogy of sensuality, due to your perfume emanating from the pores of your skin, and leaving me delicately altered. But—really—I immensely dislike talking about the mysteries of the chemistry and electricity interacting between living enamored bodies.

Oh.

Next time we meet we won’t talk at all, we’ll just do. Or won’t—do.

Je suis d’accord.

An ornament for a summer’s day, he reflected. And days in summer are apt to linger. But, will she tire sooner than I will? Or vice versa? Was it rubbish or a fact, this sudden infatuation? Priced above its proper value? And remaining so?

Certainly. So, treasure it while it lasts, he told himself, contemplating her finely curved scarlet lips.—I seem to recall that it was created in the early Twenties, this magical essence, he said, proud of his knowledge.

I told you so—you don’t listen.

When will I see you again—with or without perfume?

She had put on her ample black-fur coat and halted her airily moving steps by the door of the hut.

Chanel number five was created in nineteen twenty-one, she said, with her back to him.—"Why would I meet you without perfume? Une femme sans parfum n’a pas d’avenir, to quote Paul Valéry. And you seem to want to share a bit of my future. Follow the summer wind."

Outside, she threw the dangling door shut without looking back.

And from that moment on, Dylan told himself, after a more-than-double shot of Bourbon, that there might be more to life than just to live it, as he vaguely remembered that line sung by the Kinks, a long time ago.

For this was a new, inexplicably spurious infatuation, which had happened in a much too sudden fashion, and one he had never experienced before.

Her image faded toward evening; but her mouth came back before he fell asleep; and by morning, after an erratic dream-filled night—all of which he’d forgotten—her hair, her face, her legs—her legs!—came back as he looked at a naked wall which he had intended to leave blank, in order to paint an image on it one of these days, not having the faintest idea as to what that should be.

Freshly-pressed orange juice evoked the vision of her whole body—which, yes, would make a lovely wall painting.

But the coffee said No—don’t even think about it, you’re not that good a painter: you could never do her justice. A photograph? They’re not called Smartphones for nothing: to be put on

hold

.

The day’s activities blew her image away. So much to do, so little time. One is always in a hurry to do unimportant things, make useless runs, phone calls, shopping sprees, do repair work, questioning-answering, dishwashing, ironing, vacuum-cleaning, gas-tank filling, listening to an old friend’s seething remarks, sit in the toilet…

And then, the summer wind did blow him her way.

3

A waterfall of music filled Dylan’s room at his parents’ house—endless iteration of bliss. Ravened by the swells of a Hammond organ, the steely strings of several guitars, a Sousaphonic electric bass, as well as multicolored sumptuous drums and cymbals.

Could you keep it down, son? a baritone-colored voice pleaded from the open door to Dylan’s room. I’m trying to concentrate on my resignation speech before the City Council tomorrow.

Resigning from what?

I’m announcing my decision to step away from my candidacy for Mayor of the City of Chicago.

"Are you now?"—Surprise. But good news for Mom.

Early during his army career, while still stationed as 1st Armored Division Psychiatrist, at some godforsaken place in Germany, Dylan’s father, Mister Albright, witnessed the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall marking the end of the Cold War. This poignant expression of freedom, embodying the power of people rising up to overcome the shackles of disunion, repression and tyranny, left an indelible imprint deep inside his being, continuing to resonate and guide his actions.

This experience, he preached to a city-hall gathering of the like-minded, has immeasurably deepened my faith in the call to public service as a good and noble endeavor.—Your stereotype politician/marketing orator.—For helping me to help you, he went on, I remain ever thankful to all, especially my wife Lieselotte… And on and on, families serve too.

Lieselotte was a German import. After raping her in a barn with four black-and-white cows witnessing, he vaingloriously resigned to holy matrimony then and there and, dismissed, took her to the Windy City as a war hero’s prize.

Dismayed as I am, the stereotyped orator went on, by the ever-growing fissures, polarizing issues and seemingly insoluble conflicts roiling the City and Nation, I feel compelled to run for mayor of this glorious city, in order to offer a different kind of leadership… And more lies that people love to hear from their shameless leaders.

And now?

Although no longer a mayoral candidate, my commitment to service endures, fueled by innovation, partnership and growth. Going forward, I will continue my advocacy and support of veterans and their families…

Up for election or not, Dylan knew that Dad would remain the hypocrite politician he had re-discovered as such a couple of years ago, when a new grimness appeared in the set of his jaw, and something in his eyes suggesting a new ruthlessness. Consequently, he had started to take his distance from the progenitor, while his mom remained the worshipped Madonna she had always been, becoming more matriarchal than ever, because of Dad’s advancing years.

4

Spring had sprung, with a warm air of surprised but hopeful green and yellow, resisting heroically its irrevocable fugacity despite the wind cannonading the loose-framed windows where Dylan has found shelter; the banging doors, the floor cracking beneath his rain-soaked shoes, the gutters bending under the weight of gray-and-white pigeon shit.

He meanders through the deserted rooms of their rented house. And after an inevitable, silent fart, a girl enters. She wrinkles her nose. Says nothing. Despite the cloud cover and the lowered shutters Dylan notices that she is a fine-looking young thing.—Excuse the smell, he says.

Not a smell, sir—mister—a stink. Human stink.—Thick bronze pigtails, face covered with drops that had to be tears, for it wasn’t raining yet. Pointing to the floor.—I’m bleeding between my legs, sir.

Dylan—skip the sir. Bleeding, ha? Couldn’t very well be the reason that you’re crying. How old are you?

I’ll be nineteen come Friday a week.—British accent.—Promised me a swell time with him in America. I went out and got him a birthday present. Last night. And when I got back, all that was left of him was a piece of Burger-King brown paper.

Silence. She’d been walking all night, through the woods—a no-go zone.

What did the brown paper say? You’re shivering.—He took off his flyer’s jacket and put it round her shoulders. New tears rolling down her cheeks.

Did he leave you a ticket? Some money? ’s he a Brit—you’re English, aren’t you?—And he wheedled, Can I help you? Take you to a warm place? This here is just an office, I live in the back with a friend, at the edge of the wood; you can sleep there, and we’ll feed you.

You’re very kind. Who is ‘we’?

Two richly ringed hands. A sort of elegant aristocratic preoccupation in her watery eyes of translucent blue. Gathering up her knee-length dress she froze in a tight-legged Venus stance, crossing her legs and blinking.

No working toilet here, girl, he said, smiling. Don’t fret, we’ll take care of your problem. I have an umbrella; meanwhile, wanna go outside? By ‘we’ I mean that I live with a bunch of roommates, female too. Do you have a name?

Out she went. When coming back, she carefully folded the umbrella, blew her nose and held out his jacket with a breath of tranquility.

He called me Grace. Because when he first came to our house he heard my mother call me Paleface, rhymes with Grace. My dad calls me Honey child, and my birth certificate says Justine, because of a certain book Dad read in his youth—take your pick. I’m a bad girl.

Oh I like bad girls. You’ll have to meet Tess. Don’t know her well enough yet to define her as bad or not so bad. But ever since I met her I have known love—an emendation of the book of my life. A dream which had not come true yet, but is slowly—oh well, forget it! I’m getting carried away, I sound like a philosopher. Still— she’s the ideal grid iron to fry sausages on.

You are a romantic, she said, her smile lopsided but knowing.—You make me hungry. Look, the rain has stopped.

Yes. And the earth is turning over on her side, letting the seeds wake her up and meet the spring things, the delicate new flowers, everything thawing—now then, shall we go?

His banged-up olive-colored jalopy was to take them to the shed he had rebuilt with the help of his gang, the pals from school, and Tootsie, their boyish racing-car lady mechanic.

Pushing the ignition, heavily drum-supported music blasted away, as always when Dylan was alone in the vehicle; but Justine seemed unbothered by the eruption.—Music, she said and let her eyelids sink. It’s my world, much more than words. Words are terrible, too clear, and vivid, cruel mostly, and untrue always. Not music. Words scare me; music envelops and soothes me, even the extremely percussive type. Puts me to sleep.

Dylan understood. Time to say nothing at all. Just enjoying her dreamy, languorous eyes, one of his own eyes on the lane ahead. She’ll be a wonderful lifelong passion for some lucky undeserving male, he pondered, thinking of his promising passion for Tess ahead, a delicious caprice ‘to poor me’.

And he felt the pressing urge to express his feelings, to communicate to this lovely young girl a panegyric of her captivating beauty—was it Greek? Was it Mediterranean? But he didn’t harm a silence broken only by the familiar rumblings of the engine.

The tears were gone, her cheeks flushed, tightened, becomingly hollowed, her forehead higher, rounded and devoid of lines; not a wrinkle around a fleshy mouth, and a less pale complexion.

Man is many things, he finally broke the silence, but Woman is mostly one thing only: mystery. You seem to have that in common with the girl Tess I just told you about.

This must be a very old car, she said, oblivious of the compliment. I like the sound of the engine.

It’s a Land Rover, built by the British before the Japs copied it. In the Forties, when cars were still cars.

At the house her spirits brightened. There was some Bourbon left, and she didn’t say No to a shot glass. Repeatedly. Might make her talkative…

So—what’s the story on your ex lover-boy? White, black, slid-eyed?

He’s what gentle folk call a darkey—regular slave-genitive American half-breed, not Indian. Name is Miles, so called after the cool-jazz handsome trumpet player of the early Fifties by his father, whose name is Eustace Adderley: comes from a distinguished family, too. His mother is white—

Sounds familiar.

She’s very pretty. Keeps the household going with her salary she makes at the Pfizer laboratory. Miles is one of three, an older brother, jet-black, and a crippled sister, nearly all white, the youngest.

And without a reflective pause, I think he went to Canada. Toronto. His former girlfriend lives there.—I’ve never had Bourbon before. Miles lived on a Scotch diet—any brand. He didn’t eat much, either, said the whisky’s sugar content is good enough for keeping his cock straight.

Alcohol is known to loosen tongues.

Lately, he’d made me pay for the bottle-filled crate of Johnny Walker’s. Or J & B. And what was left of the libido went down the drain. And he got sick of my tears, called me a ninny.

But Dylan wanted to cut the tragedy short.—Start a new life, get him out of your mind; and don’t tell us that’s hard to do—it is not. Think of the last stupid thing he said to you and turn the page.

"Just before kicking me out of his Cadillac he said, ‘See you on the ice, sad-sack—goobye.’ And I said, ‘Yes, I want to see ya on the ice one day and watch it melt so it can swallow you.’ He just laughed and said he ain’t afraid of no liquids and started singing If the ocean was whiskey and I was a duck, I’d dive to the bottom and never come up."

Okay. We’ll remember that when we find him.—Dylan had a far-fetched idea.—I know the song. We’ll play it just before we do him in.

Outside the rain had started again. It came down like fiery sorrow, doing the grieving for the girl Justine—who said, "He rode off one day on horseback, with some white guys from the neighborhood, thinking they were our friends. But they weren’t. They, too, were ready to do him in when he told them they were a bunch of racist Confederate shit pricks.

All because they said they was aimin’ to set fire to the house of some nigger up above Yorktown who’s gotten too big for his breeches—all in Southern negro slang and laughing him down.

But Dylan was no longer listening. The front door had opened, and closed with a gentle thud, new raindrops embracing the wooden floor.

If he wanted to save his hide, they told him, he should get down on his knees and pledge allegiance to the New York State Ku-Klux Clan, half-white nigger that he was, and turn over a third of his salary to the Clan cashier.

Dylan only vaguely got the gist of this.

It was Tess who had come in, folding her umbrella.—I forgot my phone, she said. It must be somewhere around here among these cushions. Sorry to bother you, but nobody can reach me and I can’t call anyone.—She rummaged frantically through the upholstery: no phone.—Who is messing with the Ku-Klux Clan?

Nice to have you back, Dylan ventured to interrupt the fruitless search. "Reach deep into all of your pockets; better yet: empty out your pocket book. Girls’ handbags are worse than their mothers’ sewing kits. Or stay with us a while; someone is bound to call you up. Then, obey the ringing.

Meet Justine. Her runaway boyfriend had an interlude with some gentile house-burning southern hayseed hicks.

That’s not what they are, Justine fell in. Nice to meet you—Tess? You look like—no you don’t. But you’re very pretty. The house burners are three-piece-suit-and-tie-and-white-shirt Protestants imitating and sympathizing with Mississippi Baptists.

Introductions of coming-and-going Caroline and Francesco, as well as discreetly passing Juanita, hired-help Porto-Rican girl who started switching in the kitchen. Miraculously, Tess’s phone fell unto the floor, and she was asked to stay for dinner—with all that rain coming down!

That house-burning experience, Justine insisted, "had turned Miles into a bitter and violent whitey-hater, which finally included me.

"They told him, slavery has been the best thing that ever happened to niggers because it’s helped civilize them, as much as that is possible given their limited intelligence.

"He’s a computer wizard developing software. But they didn’t know that. ‘Without slavery,’ one of them said, ‘I shudder to think what will become of our nation.’—And another guy, remembering the musical Hair, sang in a high-pitched voice,

I’m a colored spade, a black nigger, jungle bunny,

A jigaboo coon, pickaninny mau-mau,

Uncle Tom, Aunt Jemimah, Little Black—I don’t remember what.

Elevator operator, table cleaner, slave voodoo, Zombie, baggy-lipped—and so on

Flat nose, tap-dancin’ resident of Harlem;

And you feed him watermelon, Hominy grits an’ shortnin’ bread.

Alligator ribs, some pig tails an’ black-eyed peas,

Chili an’ some collard greens…

An’ if you don’t watch out this boogie man will grab you by the nuts.

He kept a pistol in the glove compartment of his Caddy.

And they didn’t know about that?

No.

Justine just raised her shoulders, saying, He took it all, superiorly quiet, got up, went down the stairs, came back and shot them in their bellies, just above their balls, the four of them.—‘I got two bullets left,’ he said, ‘if any of you white-trash shitheads wants to call his lawyer.’

That’s why he’s on the run, Dylan surmised. When was that?

Two days ago. And he got so irritated that he took it all out on me.—And now she wanted to go after him, with their help…

Unsuspected ramifications.

After all, he’d become a criminal and fugitive, which miffed Dylan enough to change his mind about rushing up to Toronto in a hurry. Could they find some slow poison rather than a kick in his belly?

The belly… The term made him grin wryly. The whiteys had theirs taken care of already. How could they invoke Cathartic release in the Citizen Miles Adderley?—What would you like to do to him, Justine—if we ever find him?

A nervous staccato laugh was the only answer—charming though, coming from her fleshy mouth, head held high.

Sometimes, Dylan couldn’t help thinking, women are indeed a decorative sex, as Lord Henry once mused aloud.

My revenge for his abandon, she said after a while, is yet an abstruse object in my head. To my body he’s the love of my life.

So young a child, Dylan sang, "using grandiose platitudes reserved normally for a riper station in life. People who love only once are shallow people.

Your loyalty, your fidelity, are due to a lack of imagination—a lethargy, in Oscar Wilde’s words. And your prince has become a crucible of pain and pleasure. And he concluded, Don’t worry—you’ll decide how to get out of his grip once confronted—if we can dig him up.

I’m out of his grip.

No you’re not. The momentary separation from him will intensify the grasp he has on you—that’s an axiomatic certainty.

Speak English—I don’t understand half of your fancy words.

Tess, having been in the rain, was in her underwear as she came to join them, brushing her hair, and gracefully sat down between them on the sofa—making the springs squeak musically.—He’s right, you know, she said. Use his argument as a touchstone to build your conduct. Don’t show no weakness.

I’m not showing any weakness, ever. I’m just infatuated with him.

If he changes his mind and tries to manipulate you in any which way, you just tell him to fuck off. No other useless words are needed; but have somebody with you, don’t face him alone.

Instantly, Dylan realized that there was more to Tess’s temperament than sweetness. And he watched her lovingly as she got up, returned her brush to the table and sat down on the bed facing them, tailor-fashion, and showing an immodest amount of limb in the process.

He handed an already lit joint to her, which she accepted, although he knew quite well already that this girl never smoked vulgar cigarettes.

And then, she said, inhaling deftly, the motherfucker will respect you, the evil-minded— more well practiced profane expressions, a guttery half-stoned laugh following, and Rosalind Tess looked like any harlot of Gomorrah.

A febrile hysteria was coming into her eyes—Dylan saw it. Dylan felt it. Nothing exciting had been happening in the world for a while. Young people need action and intent. Be it a revolution, a demonstration or destruction.

Well, here it was: the destruction of a deserter.

He felt again the oppressive heat in the arena of the Ciudad de Juárez in the State of Chihuahua, the Mexican border town across the bridge from El Paso, where he was on a visit, and where the mob was yelling ¡Mátalo mátalo! at the torero facing a weakened bull.

In the mirror, Justine has another weeping fit, Tess is biting her lower lip, the silence breeds imaginary apocalypses which will abort. Or succeed.

The problem is explained to Francesco, who is straining to decipher the rapid-English lament.—Ecco, he said, "tutte la gente si trovano sul Internet. He is probably on facebook. Send him a message and tell him to e-mail you his temporary address so you can send him some money you owe him. Money talks."

Of course!

Toronto non è lontanissimo, sai. Potrebbe prendere la macchina.

By evening, Justine didn’t have any fingernails left to bite.

Shouldn’t do that, Dylan said. Shouldn’t do that. Doesn’t go with your nail polish, even with the white kind you’re using.

I’m all excited, that’s why—I’m eager to get this over with. When do you think we can leave?

But Sunday was followed by another Sunday, and then another, like so many crucifixions, without a real sense of progression, especially since the depressive rain came on again, threshing down the grain, the apples on the trees behind the house. Her eoan awakenings showed the nocturnal nightmarish dream state—Justine apprehended the upcoming reckoning. Or should she just forget it and get on with her life?

The sun came back and said ‘No girl—you’re not just a brainless bundle of gonads. You are an attractive female sort of woman demanding respect, bound to find a man around any corner: you need ornery Miles Adderley like you need a hole in the head. Give that cussed bus a good kick in the ass and wait for the next one.’

That’s what the sun said, giving her warmth, bright light and good advice. And a fresh smile all over Justine’s pretty face.

Shit! she said, thinking the weather had really changed for the better. I’ll go and change into the few nice looking clothes I’ve brought in my suitcase.

Dylan felt like running over to the nearby lake and enjoy the newly awakened spring atmosphere, where you can hear the copulation of frogs: much like smooth pebbles being rubbed together. The forest opening its eyes, the day being born.

The great orchestra hymning gruffly among its ants, he said aloud. Gathering and beating time in their rush to the sea. Spring! No more the hot lick of the winter rain blinding all from coast to shabby coast!

Hey man—what’s gotten into you? Francesco cried from across the room. Ti senti bene?

I want to hear, he sang, the scream…of the butterfly.

"Oddio—you remember the Doors."

And the gulls are wheeling again, in their soft terror, the rooks are uneasy.

The chess castles come alive?

Fool! They’re gregarious birds imported from Europe—crows that build their nests in the trees around our building. You can hear them bill and coo in the late afternoon.

She came back wearing a velvet jerkin with cinnamon sleeves, cross-gartered hose underneath, a hawk’s feather caught in a rhinestone on one thigh, and an open hooded cloak lined with dull red—wow!

Tess wouldn’t let me wear what I brought, she said. Gave me some of the clothes she just bought at a boutique. Said she wanted to see what they look like.

Justine and Tess, Dylan said admiringly. "You sure make a nice pair—bravissimo!"—Pristine female beings, he thought and pictured himself making love to both of them—in different surroundings perhaps: one in broad daylight, in the Pacific Ocean two hundred feet off shore, the other at night, on a still moist beach lagoon, the stars shedding their silvery light on her pale skin. As a lugubrious celebration of Miles Adderley’s expiation by death, or half-death.

Looking at Justine in his secondary hemp-state, at Tess sitting on the bed, tailor fashion, he became fiercely horny with the desire to fuck both of them this very minute, without getting undressed—so poignant a situation seeing stars in Justine’s open mouth, saliva covering Tess’s teeth, her bared cunt breathing its velvet, musky pollen over the bed, over the whole earth…

He felt absolved from all that is socially and politically correct, religious and civilized. I want them his alter ego said. No more wall of the womb between me and the world. Let me throw my gust, my seed, down into the yawning silky throat of one of those creatures, a searchlight on the other one’s vagina—all while they’re humming a Portuguese fado melody in harmony, their eyes nonchalant, comprehending, consenting, approving—submissive.

Yes, Dylan was in a state of nympholepsy, an infrequent occurrence, resulting from a desire for some unattainable ideal—the male version of nymphomania, the uncontrollable sexual desire in the female.

Unfortunately, both conditions never manifest themselves simultaneously; or could they, in a stoned state?

I know of a miraculous remedy for your momentary depression, he said, fixing Justine, who gave him a blank look.

I’m not depressed, she said. Just sad. And angry. Disappointed. It’ll pass. You’ve already been an anointment for my sufferings by taking an interest in this bullshit that only concerns my poor body.

There—you hit the nail on the head. I know a pleasant game I could play with this lovely body of yours. And to make it even more effective, Tess might want to participate. The game is called the Cloverleaf.

"Oh. Listen—talking about my body is one thing; but referring to my lovely body is highly suspicious. You sleep off your hash-induced infatuation and we’ll talk in the morning."

Pity, he said. I swear to you, the Cloverleaf is the most thrilling elegy I have ever known. Mournfully contemplative, it is a lament to revive your sexual desire.—And he caressed one of her hose-covered shapely legs.

But Justine was not in a mournful mood.—Who’s guitar is this? she asked, pointing to the brilliantly light-reflecting metal-body Dobro on the wall.

It’s Dylan’s, Tess said. Nobody’s allowed to touch it I was told.

Normally, Justine said, nobody’s allowed to touch my legs either. Can I borrow it, now that you’ve touched my leg?

He handed the precious instrument to her.—Who taught you? he said.

Miles. When he was in a good mood he would show me a few chords.—And she sang.

"Don’t you feel my leg, don’t you feel my leg.

Cause if you feel my leg you’re gonna feel my thigh.

And if you feel my thigh you’re gonna go up high.

So don’t you feel my leg."

And there she hit a few single notes that made Dylan straighten up.

"Don’t you buy no rye, don’t you buy no rye.

Cause if you buy some rye you’re gonna make me high.

And if you make me high you’re gonna tell a lie.

So don’t you make me high."

Again, from strumming she changed to finger-picking going into the bridge.

"You said you’d take me out and treat me fine.

But I know there’s something you got on your mind.

If you keep drinking you’re gonna get fresh,

And you’ll wind up asking for this fine brown flesh."

Bending a few strings she grimaced and took it home:

"So don’t you feel my leg don’t you feel my leg.

Cause if you feel my leg you wanna feel my thigh.

And if you feel my thigh you wanna go too high.

So don’t you…

You sure made your point, girl, Dylan said, snickering. You’re full of surprises. Who’s the poet—you or Miles?

"No no. A spirited Creole girl named Blu Lu wrote that, with help from husband Danny Barker, who played guitar.

"They recorded that in the summer following the end of World War Two.

She played electric four-string bass.—You like music? Well—owning a pretty guitar an’ all…

I like music more than food, he said, seemingly sober. Only two things on Earth worth living for: sex and music.

And dance, Tess threw in from across the room.

Miles couldn’t live without his pork chops—more important than music to him. Well—at least he ain’t no Muslim. Pork chops morning, noon and night.

Spaghetti alla Putanesca per me.—Francesco was masturbating, surreptitiously.—Accompagnata di un vino rosso siciliano: un Corvo di Salaparuta. Poi, la musica va bene, ma dopo, dopo, quando facciamo l’amore.

Come to think of it, Dylan said, "I wouldn’t mind a Chateaubriand right now—that’s how the French call an educated steak. Tender as a virgin’s thigh, avec des petits légumes—"

E patate arrostì, se ne avete, colla panna.

The flotsam and jetsam of our kitchen provides for every appetite, Dylan said, puffing away with half-closed eyes.—Life’s a gas when Juanita stirs the stew. But first things first. I have a plan. One that will decide the fate of Justine’s scabbed prince."

Scabbed? He was healthy when he threw me out of the car, Justine said.

Yes. But what are his foibles? Does he have a weakness, a frailty, peccadillo?

He can’t hold his liquor, she said. Throws up regularly.

Well then, if nothing else, Dylan said, lulling his tongue, we’ll suppose he just can’t hold his arsenic, either.

Frozen perplexity in the eyes of Justine. Knowing smile around Tess’s lips.—Have you gone mad? she said, while the room was ringing with a Pink-Floyd symphony.—That stuff is too strong—it’ll kill him. And the cops will go after the last person having been with him.

You’re right, he said, with a sardonic grin. If you have a better idea, I’m all ears.

An as yet unknown hard white electric glare, melting over her features, made him switch gears and he began sobering up.

Yet the flaccid muscles in his legs did not respond to his cerebellum’s command. His head and shoulders were shaking like those of a dazed animal.

I’ve done it before, he said, sobering. "Propose a lamb stew special on the menu. Bribe the waiter to let you bring it to him.—‘Good old friend o’ mine, I’ll surprise him…’ et le tour est joué. All I need is a black coat and a bow tie."

And he looked at Justine for advice and enlightenment.

But an uneasy stir ran around the room. Francesco drew a thumb across his throat in an age-old deadly gesture, wetly sucking the air through his teeth.

Inveigle a waiter to become an accomplice to a murder? Tess said.

No—just an indulgent agent of necessary vindictive punishment. We’ll buy the dude’s silence dearly. And no price is too high to buy Justine’s peace of mind.

Tess shook her head dolefully.

And Dylan, by the end of his last statement, he was lying supine on the floor, with his arms stretched toward the ceiling.

Do I have a head like a melon? he asked no one in particular.—With sick, fish-like eyelids of the micro cephalous idiot? But answer came there none, and he went on, My body is in Ethiopia, the lanterns swing darkly over pools of blood in which the traitor Miles Adderley can be observed spending his last breath. Me, I excuse myself explaining that I am an alien, a foreigner, a pyknic from Mars breathing scorpions—there now: how about a scorpion or two to get rid of your torturer?

Sometimes, Tess said, play acting is so much more real than life.

Justine, wearing a tremulous smile, with something of a fawn in her eyes, started clapping her hands in applause.—Tess—you are uncannily reading my mind. Dylan is creating a dramaturgic play for us.

Yes, my dear, Dylan chirped, we’re much more than we were told we are. And Toronto will allow us all to be who we were meant to be.

Francesco was mystified.—"You are speaking in riddles, caro amico," he said. "Primo: we are not murderers; secondo: we do not know at all that the man is in Toronto.—And he planted his laptop on the floor before Dylan.—I’ve found a people-searching software, but no Miles Appletree."

Adderley.—Dylan ran his fingers over the keyboard. whitepages.com.—Toronto Canada.—Either he’s staying with his former girlfriend, what’s her name again?

Norah Lemay, Justine said.

Or he could be in any of a goodly number of hotels—a tremendous search. But maybe he has a relative up there.—And he found a certain Mrs. Lutecia Leroy, née Adderley.

5

Yes—he’s my long-lost cousin, he is, Mrs. Leroy said on the phone. "Shows up all of a sudden, and I hadn’t seen him for five years, you know, ever since I got married; but I kept my maiden name, that’s how you found me. No—he’s no longer with us. A job was promised him, but it fell through. Said he’d stay at the

whc

for a while and then move on. You are welcome to drop by if you’re in the neighborhood. Have you known Miles for long…?"

The Westin Harbour Castle, a tall building overlooking the Lake Ontario, seemed to be a well frequented city center hotel, with rooftop tennis, interior swimming pool, workout gym and restaurant. The nearby Sugar Beach a seeming delight, according to the blog, Cherry Beach and Hanlan’s Point less crowded.

One, Dylan said, with a grave expression, and holding out his cellphone to Justine, eight seven seven, nine nine three, four three five two, and he repeated.—Call. And ask for Mister Adderley, Miles—

I don’t wanna talk to him, she said.

Of course not. Tell them you only want to know if he’s there; you plan a surprise visit; and ask for the room number.

And after a few clicks, a Hold-the-line melody with the Ne-quittez-pas for the Quebec, a pleasant male voice came through the Smartphone.

"Oh yes, dear lady—he’s a very handsome cinnamon-colored American gentleman occupying the corner suite on the twenty-eighth floor which gives out onto the lake. Yes yes, I promise I won’t tell him you called. In fact, I saw him walk out a few minutes ago—il est sorti, accompagné d’une jeune femme—pardon? Ah—I can’t say; he said he plans to stay for quite a while.—You’re very welcome indeed.—Votre serviteur, Madame."

The car had to be overhauled, the one that slept next to the Land Rover in the twin garage, used for long trips.

The 1948 Tucker was a rare jewel, the royal-blue paint for retouching hard to find. But the six cylinders still murmured steadier than grandfather’s clock. Cars of the Forties have a life of their own; each an indestructible soul, as the preacher would say. Less melodious than the ’42 army jeep of yore but regular and powerful.

A pleasant ride, Chicago-Toronto, in the sunny, lukewarm season, with roadside-diner chopped steaks, French fries, banana splits and ever-smiling lunch-counter waitresses, Kentucky-fried chicken, apple pie and cowboy coffee—Chuck Berry yelling Roll Over Beethoven, and finally, after a Porterhouse steak in Syracuse, the Canadian border, which was when Justine started edging nervously in her back seat. Entering the city she started crying.

Francesco recited one of the epigrams he remembered from his first English-language courses.—Crying is the refuge of plain women, but it is the ruin of pretty ones.

I disagree, Dylan said. I emphatically disagree. This may be so for your run-o’-the-mill women. But there is nothing as erotic as a pretty female sobbing. Starting with a soft breath like the wind, a sucking in, then weeping aloud with a break in the voice; short, gasping breaths—irresistible the convulsive sighs, like dampening a lute string. Go on, Justine, sob your woe like an animal in pain—Miles will love you again like that.

Never mind his excessive flattery, Justine, Tess said, he’s stoned.

And the sobs turned into laughter, demonstrating a unique tragicomedy inside a royal-blue Tucker automobile, the speakers having inherited the Land Rover’s Fifties nostalgia: Chuck Berry was still suffering from too much monkey business.—Wipe da window, check da tire, check da oil, a dollar gas…

Those were the days, Dylan said.

Justine, when her sobs had subsided, had fallen into a convalescent stillness, interrupted only when Francesco mentioned the upcoming love/hate proceedings to be found for the imminent scenario.

There are so very few of us left, she rasped when they were crossing the periphery, with the murderous gift of love, so few.—And she shut up like a clam for the rest of the Toronto approach.

Do you understand what she meant? Francesco put the question to Dylan during the runs to the roadside toilet.

Sure, was the answer. She’s ready to bestow her erstwhile lover with a murderous gift of love. Saves us the trouble. See?

Radio silence crossing the last bridge before the city center. The night was thickening. Then the ocean of concrete where the playgrounds bloom and explode in a thousand lights. Advertising, billboards everywhere. Crowds of humans, untrammeled, gaily colored, hurrying along…

It was easy to find the imposing Westin Hotel at One Harbour Square, but the uniformed toy soldiers at the driveway waved them off—Limousines and taxies only, young lady, may it please you.—Tess was at the wheel.

They settled for a more modest, certainly more sympathetic hotel, down the road a piece, no problem parking the car. Call from Caroline, who had stayed behind with Juanita for company.—Is he dead yet?—No beating about the bush with Caroline.

Non ancora, tesoro—come vai? He called her his treasure. We’ll sleep on it first, he said. "Tomorrow we’ll write the outline of the plot. I’ll call you when it’s done. Bacio—buona notte!"

They had heaps of time. Tired, but room for food. Across the street from the hotel there was an almost perfectly circular door flashing like a strobe light photographers use.

In between the flashes meal-filled plates were shown, Chinese style, representing various versions of the world-renowned glorious creation known as poutine—squeaky cheese curds with rich gravy, creating the ‘meal of dreams’, pulled pork, bacon and smoked meat knocking you out…

You can’t beat bannock, simple bread once a key staple in the diets of all Canada’s Aboriginal people—irresistibly baked with bacon, crispy, fluffy inside.

Butter tarts filled with sugar and eggs. But what really made them come inside were the Nova-Scotian Lobster Rolls: Montreal-style bagels with sesame seeds, Saskatoon berry pie covered with ice cream, destined to change your life.

Also, they had the Berry Pie and juicy pea meal bacon, beavertails, split-pea soup, and of course some maple taffy over a bed of snow.

Tess wanted nothing but the Caesar Cocktail, made of vodka, clamato juice, Tabasco and Worcestershire sauce; and protruding from a salt rim was a celery stalk, some roast chicken, onion rings, and what not.

And Justine, revived, went for the Moose taco salad—game meat, like venison and caribou, if not pure moose—so Canadian.

The owner’s after-dessert policy was to offer a free Cuban cigar to the men, gold-tipped cigarettes to the ladies—a long-practiced custom losing momentum in view of the new bio-consciousness. Yet, he had some success at their festive round table.

Tell me, innkeeper, Dylan said, between aromatic puffs on the burning tobacco leaves, do you happen to know a store of sorts in the neighborhood where we can get a hold of some rat poison, or an old-fashioned insecticide—any substance of the Arsenic Album?

I see what you mean, the good man said. I use an ant killer myself. Get it from a small pharmacy down the street. I know the owner; he takes care of your mice, flees, lice, cockroaches, even bed bugs. For a few dollars more he can even sell you some pure white arsenic powder if you need it. Which—dispersed in hot food or drink—can be fatal in tiny doses. Rosy dear, bring us a new ashtray.

Francesco was coughing up some dessert gone down the wrong tube. Justine, big-eyed, mouth open, was frozen stiff, Tess broke out laughing, demonstratively making a joke of it all, and Dylan calmly flicked his cigar over the rim of the new ashtray without any ashes falling.

The pharmacist’s name is Cochran, the boss said. "We