‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You once quoted me a passage from Rossacher. Do you remember? “His thoughts roam the plenum, his mind is a cloud that encompasses our world.” Something of an overstatement, yet it’s true enough. Do you find it so hard to accept now?’
‘Are you telling me Griaule is alive? Bodiless . . . or alive in all his separate parts?’
He inclined his head and made a delicate gesture with his hand, as if to suggest that he had no interest in pursuing the matter.
I drained the dregs of my wine. ‘Don’t you find it strange that we’ve reversed roles? I was once the believer and you the skeptic.’
He took his hand from his pocket and held it out, his palm open to display a glass pendant in which was embedded a chip of lustrous blue-green, darkening to a dull azurine blue at the edges.
‘Is that my scale?’ I asked.
‘Peony and I have no further use for it. I think Griaule intended it to be yours.’
The glass enclosing the scale was cold and somewhat tingly to the touch. I remarked on this and George said, ‘It may be that I am mad, and that Peony is mad, and that we have not been guided in our lives ever since Griaule was disembodied. You can prove this one way or the other by shattering the glass and touching the scale. The sensation will be much stronger that way.’
‘Will it reveal the location of Griaule’s hoard?’ I asked half in jest.
‘Too late for that,’ he said. ‘But he will have something for you, I’m sure. Since we met, everything in our lives has been part of Griaule’s design.’
I tucked the scale into my purse. ‘Perhaps you can explain, since you seem so certain in your knowledge, why he deemed it necessary to uproot so many people and drive us onto the plain. Was it simply to witness his death, or was it something more?’
‘I have come to understand Griaule to an extent, but I can’t know everything he knows. Was it ego, the desire to have at least a few survivors who could bear witness to his death? Yes, I think so. But there is much more to it than that. If he wishes he can control every facet of our lives. And our lives – yours and mine and Peony’s, and thousands of others besides – have been thus controlled. We are part of a scheme by means of which he will someday come to dominate the world as Rossacher’s book claimed he already had. So far, the instrumentality he’s used to implement his scheme has been unwieldy, scattershot. He’s made mistakes. Now that he is everywhere in the world, his manipulations will grow more subtle, more precise, and he will make no further mistakes. Eventually, I assume we will be unaware of him . . . and he will lose interest in us. It may be that this is, by necessity, how the relationships between men and gods develop.’ George fussed with his napkin and said in a reproachful tone, as if talking to a child, ‘You knew all this once. Have you truly forgotten?’
‘Forgotten? Perhaps I place less value on the specific precepts of my belief than once I did, but no, I haven’t forgotten.’
George was silent for a while, silent and motionless, and I thought how restrained he had grown in his movements; yet he did not seem constrained or repressed in the least – rather it was as though he had become accustomed to stillness. He cleared his throat, took a sip of wine, and said, ‘Let us speak no more of it.’ He nudged the menu with a finger, turning it so he could more read the front page. ‘Shall I order something? The seaweed cakes are excellent here . . . and the cherries confit would go well with your port.’
When it came time for George to leave, I felt strong emotion – we had been through an ordeal together and our conversation had, despite his coolness, brought back fond memories I did not think I had – I would have liked to acknowledge the experience with an embrace and I expected George to feel the same way, but he performed a slight bow, collected Peony, and left without a backward glance.
I have not yet broken the glass in which the scale is encased, yet I know someday I will, if only to satisfy my curiosity about George. I ran into him and Peony once more before returning to Teocinte. Two days following our meeting at Silk, I took the morning air on the promenade, looking at the boats in the harbor, their exotic keels and bright, strangely shaped sails giving evidence of Port Chantay’s international flavor, and caught sight of George and Peony by the railing that fronted the water, engaged in what appeared to be a spirited conversation . . . at least it was spirited on Peony’s part. I ducked behind a small palm tree, one of many potted specimens set along the promenade, not wishing to be seen. We’d said our farewells, as belated and anti-climactic as they were, and I felt rejected – I’d come to the meeting prepared to rebuff George’s advances and had not expected to be treated with diffidence. If his cool manner had been studied, I would have chalked all he said and did up to hurt feelings; but his dismissive behavior had seemed wholly unaffected.
