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| John Clark Smith |
2 Marble
The long black marble counter that stopped at the long
black couch
that faced the long black mantel over the smoldering
fire—
the couch close enough to erupt in flames should some
bit or two
of burning wood escape and bust through the protective
screen—
absorbed the waiting hunched Hut├бn on a high-backed
wooden stool
pensively staring first at the fire—the smell and
cracking
sound and sight of its wood almost lulling him to
needed sleep—
and then at the shiny counter where he saw the
wrinkled
tired eyes and pale complexion of someone forced too
often
to work long hours in the dark or indoors without any
rest,
his one hand holding his forehead with the fingers
spraying
through his closely cut black hair, staring at a tall
tumbler
filled with green juice someone had set down, he
assumed, for him,
his other hand dug nervously within his coat pocket
feeling the small case of a computer memory chip
that moved between his fingers and his palm, his hands
now
chilled from the damp fall air streaming into an open
window
and the weeping willows waltzing to the wind blocking
the sun
but also chilled because the room had been clearly
vacant
and unheated and the fire providing the only warmth,
supposedly made for Hut├бn, who had kept his coat on
not only for warmth but because the black marble
counter
had a suspicious surface film similar to one that
poisoned Mustfarris in Granada, though admittedly
that coating was light green while this coating was
almost clear,
and that marble white; this black marble now reminding
him
of Westminster Abbey where Carina and he once met
in the tomb of Henry Seventh and its black
sarcophagus,
and of a Greece he so much missed. If he touched the
marble,
or even looked at its patterns for too long, he could
be
transported to his Hellenic period, a blissful
time of ignorance, innocence, and thus peace of mind,
quite in contrast to this purposefully frigid welcome
done either to embarrass, intimidate, imperil,
and discourage the presence of minor and unworthy
contenders or their opposite; or the invitation
was mistaken and he arrived too early or too late.
Yet none of these options certainly had ever happened
at the castle of such a patron as Kark Pitworthy,
not the friendliest of men but not a rude one either,
though his castle’s hall was often dark, damp, and
ominous,
and used for conferences and limited occasions,
while his family and he, when they came to the castle,
lived in the floors above. But a lack of civility
wasn’t part of Pitworthy’s nature or relationships,
making this neglect of a visitor quite suspicious.
Not that Pitworthy knew about the work of the Remnant,
a knowledge far too dangerous for any and all patrons,
but Pitworthy was the oldest and wealthiest patron
signed on to the Remnant, and Pitworthy’s secluded
isle—
off the eastern Italian coastline near Assisi,
his castle dwarfed by a canopy of great and old trees,
some reaching higher than the castle—was a meeting
site
of the Remnant before it secured a secluded base
on the Andaman Islands, the isle an impressive start
that Udaki, Carina, Hut├бn, and the two trainees
—Aaron and Mustfarris—all attended and found inspiring.
An historic day, Hut├бn recalled, becoming wistful
sitting at this long, thick, and dark mass of chilly
counter
that coiled around the room like a flat worm, its coal
color
like the floor of a hotel room in Krakow that had
scenes
from Trajan’s Column carved within it. One tile of
hunting
was the spot Hut├бn smashed a case Carina handed him
soon after she danced on another marble counter
at a masked ball filled with rich and noble guests—one
of whom
was Prince Andres—a covert carrier and assassin,
errand-boy for the Remnant’s nemesis, Dvorak,
the same Prince who danced briefly with Carina at the
ball
when she did not wear a mask and was rescued by Hut├бn—
whom Carina tricked by pretending her employer was
Hydra
and rubbed her body up against him long enough to lift
the elusive case from the Prince’s coat, and from the
smashed case
rolled out The Schedule itself. That thrilling day in
Krakow,
the memories of the many meetings at this castle,
the black marble, seeing Carina dance on the counter,
and the theft of The Schedule itself—an object that
could
start a war among the underground and covert
groups—all
were obvious triggers—but also because this counter
had exceptionally black marble and such a marble
was probably from Basque, another source for marble
that,
like Greece, had memories he’d rather not relive right
now
but could not keep buried, since the saga of The
Schedule
started for him in Basque when he was called to a
fountain
built at the Alderdi-Eder Park in San Sebastian
to meet Rohan Manan, who had arrived on business
for his friend and associate V├нhaan Rickteshvara,
a genius and little-known creator of The Schedule.
V├нhaan sent a desperate message to Rohan that Hydra,
the massive neutral amorphous underground syndicate,
had abducted him to obtain and decode The Schedule—
falsehoods written to scare Rohan and stop his
involvement.
V├нhaan contacted Hut├бn too, though for different
reasons,
but Hut├бn arrived too late to rescue Rohan. He died
from toxic gas, and as he died, he slowly told Hut├бn
about the remarkable Schedule V├нhaan invented,
with abilities so provocative, prodigious,
and rare in its power, and so dangerous in the wrong
hands
Hut├бn contacted Udaki who then made their mission
to find and free V├нhaan, gain The Schedule, and invite
him
to their base, the Andaman Islands, before someone
learned how
to use it; since from the intelligence they soon
acquired,
even with the greatest resources, intellects, and
skills,
no one had figured out how to operate The Schedule
or perhaps hadn’t owned it long enough to know how
this
metaphysical AI engine truly worked, which meant
that no one could operate it except V├нhaan himself,
a conundrum that also concerned Hut├бn as he drew
his hand from the chip box, containing, he hoped, the
true key
to opening The Schedule, and placed the hand in his
vest
pocket, grabbed “George,” a do-it-all piece of
technology
—phone, camera, media player, laser, locator,
scheduler, chemical analyzer, link, translator,
computer, scan, and weapon—then leaned down to examine
the slick coating more closely—he had nothing else to
do—
looking for hints of its history. Marble, he knew
well,
always had a secret, particularly black marble,
particularly this much marble, black marble being
so impure, and wondering why—as a bird now whistled
from outside the window and called out a melodic
phrase
that seemed to tweet the words ‘Moli├иre, Moli├иre’
loudly
but the words may have been in his head because at the
time
he was thinking about marble and a Moli├иre play
where a statue comes to life and threatens the cad Don
Juan;[1]
yet why a marble this proud, as proud as Don Juan,
rests here
in this shape—not that he expected any images
in Pitworthy’s castle that inspire the humility
Dante saw carved on the marble mountain ledge,[2]
not at least
from a man who could have sent messages by other means
but insisted on direct contact on each occasion,
regardless how inconvenient. But still, why didn’t
an artist select this marble of white streaks, with
its veins
and thickness, to carve a form that refers to its
present
or past occupants and users, an object to express
its daily affairs as Trajan achieved in his column,
or see living forms that a Michelangelo could sculpt
or a Futurist-type sculpture after Boccioni?
Yet when Hut├бn went up and down the rock and
recognized
the innate pattern and colors of its eyes that now
spoke
to him, a pattern, like all such patterns, that was
for him,
as colors were for Kandinsky,[3]
connected to music,
one he identified from the same pattern on the block
that poisoned but failed to kill Mustfarris; music
could have
resounded in the same way when he first touched the
poison.
But this block behaved outwardly, a cold tool of
function,
just a petty object bought only to match the mantel
and couch and give the room a unity and symmetry.
The massive marble black snake rebelled from and
compromised
its banality and reminded Hut├бn of the work
of the sculptor in a Kung Fu film in which a chamber
in a funeral home was built like a huge coffin
but was of course a trap, a scream, or a bell for
battle,
and at the center of this room was the winding counter
beautifully carved in black marble in a dragon shape.
This one object—should a battle come or if a battle
had happened right there in that room—would be stained
with blood,
the idea of blood abruptly inspiring Hut├бn
to get off the stool and search around for a sign of
blood,
even the smallest drop—he depended on these sudden
unexpected intuitive leaps that reminded him
of the inner power that Galileo and Charles
Peirce had astutely labeled “il lume naturale”[4]—
but then he realized, the Kung Fu film still in his
mind,
it was far too late to escape a trap in any case
if someone had wanted to trap him, the windows being
easily accessible, as were the unlocked Entrance
and Exit to the castle, though in fact the home
entrance
was within the hall and that entrance was secure
enough
to resist a bomb; but the hall door was always open
with nothing important to steal or damage. He could do
whatever he wanted with that long black marble counter
under which he did indeed discover a fresh blood
stain,
identified by George as belonging to Mustfarris,
whose fresh blood seemed to imply—he would prefer to
say ‘prove’
but that’s perhaps too strong a word, since a careful
plotter
could have transported his blood here—Mustfarris may
have been
lately sitting at or near the long black marble
counter,
the sight of his raw blood prompted Hut├бn to remember
the moment when Mustfarris, choosing to suspend if not
refuse his life as an artist to join the Remnant,
said:
“We’ll mingle
our blood together in the
earth, from
whence we had our being and our
birth,”[5]
and Mustfarris briefly cried, as he should, since he
had dreamed
from childhood of becoming a painter but now he knew
it was a dream with nary a chance or hope of ever
coming true. But no man worked harder, had more
passion or love
for his dream, no man needed his dream more than
Mustfarris.
It was ever thus more poignant to him and to those who
knew him when, after his tears ended, Mustfarris,
quoting
the Bard’s words again, not ever thinking that the
visit
from Udaki referred to anything possible, said,
“I have had a dream past the wit of man
to say what dream it was.”[6]
But the call came and Mustfarris and Aaron did answer,
did give their promise, did keep their promise, the
memory
of the day reminding Hut├бn how he missed those old
days,
missed training him under Udaki and working with him,
and the missing made him mad and anxious for Pitworthy
to show himself and explain why he had summoned him
—assuming he did summon—and what the devil the fresh
blood of Mustfarris implied, and how it would come to
rest
under the black marble counter; and why, after Hut├бn
secured The Schedule in Krakow, he received a message
to come to the island and this chilly conference room,
an empty numbing lonely space eager for ghosts to
haunt
that had the gloomy mood of a recently fought battle
where everyone simply vanished out the open window?
All such questions Herr Warum expected George to
answer.
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