Graham Masterton The Pariah

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woman, her curly hair turned into a strangely radiant halo by the winter sun.
'I will tell you two things,' the woman said, in a trembly voice. 'I shouldn't
tell you either, but I will. You will have to decide for yourself if they are
warnings or riddles or nothing but nonsense. You cannot be helped, you know;
for the life we lead on this earth is a life without help.'
I said nothing, but stood warily watching her, trying to work out if she was a
simple lunatic or a not-so-simple con-artist.
'The first thing is,' she said, 'you are not alone, the way you believe
yourself to be, and you will never be alone,
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not for evermore, although you will pray to God sometimes to release you from
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your companionship. The second thing is, you must stay away from the place
where no birds fly.'
The passers-by, seeing that nothing particularly exciting was going to happen,
began to disperse, and walk off their separate ways. The woman said, 'You can
walk me to Washington Square, if you care to. You are going that way?'
'Yes,' I said. Then, 'Come on, then.'
She gathered up her bag and folded her red umbrella and then walked beside me
to the west side of the common. The common was enclosed with decorative iron
railings, which threw spoked shadows across the grass. It was still very cold,
but there was a noticeable inkling of spring in the air, and a summer very
different from last year.
Tm sorry that you thought I was talking nonsense,' the woman said, as we
emerged on to the sidewalk of Washington Square West. Across the square stood
the Witch Museum, which commemorates the hanging of Sal-em's twenty witches in
1692, one of the fiercest witchhunts in all human history. In front of the
museum was the statue of Salem's founder Roger Conant, in his heavy Puritan
cloak, his shoulders glittering with dew.
This is an old city, you know,' the woman told me. 'Old cities have their own
ways of doing things, their own mysteries. Didn't you begin to sense it, just
a little, back there on the common? The feeling that life in Salem is a puzzle
of kinds, a witch-puzzle? Full of meanings, but no explanations?'
I looked away from her, across the square. On the opposite sidewalk, among the
crowds of tourists and pedestrians, I glimpsed a pretty dark-haired girl in a
sheepskin jacket and tight denim jeans, a stack of college-books held against
her chest. In a moment, she was jumbled up in the crowd, but I felt a funny
catch at my heart because the girl had looked so much like Jane. I guess
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lots of girls did, and always would. I was definitely suffering from Rosen's
Syndrome.
The woman said, 'I have to go this way. It's been an unusual pleasure to talk
to you. It's not often that men will listen, not the way you do.'
I gave her a half-hearted smile, and raised my hand.
'You'll want to know my name, of course,' she said. I wasn't sure if that was
a question or a statement, but I gave her a nod which could have meant yes and
could just as easily have meant that I didn't particularly care.
'Mercy Lewis,' she said. 'Named after Mercy Lewis.'
'Well, Mercy,' I told her. 'Just make sure you take care of yourself.'
'You too,' she said, and then she walked off at a surprisingly fast pace until
she was lost from sight.
For some reason, I found myself thinking of the words that Jane used to read
to me from the Ode to Melancholy. 'She dwells in Beauty - Beauty that must
die; and Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips, bidding adieu . . .'
I turned up my collar against the cold, pushed my hands deep into my pockets,
and went to find myself some lunch.
FOUR
I ate a lone corned-beef and mustard sandwich at Red's Sandwich Shop in the
old London Coffee House building on Central Street. Next to me, a black man
wearing a brand-new Burberry kept whistling She'll Be Coming Round The
Mountain When She Comes, over and over, between his teeth. A young dark-haired
secretary watched me without blinking in one of the mirrors. She had a
strange, pale, pre-Raphaelite face. I felt tired now, and very alone. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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