Turn and Face the Strange, Chapter Twelve
Poor Bevan. I loved him again just in time to say goodbye. :(
Chapter Twelve
Now my sight is failing in this twilight;
Now my death is more than just a sad song.
And I swear, yes I swear…
I still don’t remember how this happened,
I still don’t get the wherefores and the whys.
I look for sense, but I get next to nothing-
Hey boy, welcome to reality.
- “Reality,” David Bowie
Bevan Bewlay is in his room in the Station. It is the morning after he left Ramona’s party, and at the doorway to his rooms, the White Duke is getting the news of Marianne and Grace’s death last night. Bevan himself, however, knows nothing about the news that the Bewlay patriarch is getting, so he does not feel any need to be anywhere but in that small, sparsely furnished room.
He has not spared much thought for the two Diamond Dogs girls since he left them just outside one of the larger Dog friendly clubs and made his way home along the dark streets. He considered going back to Ramona’s party, but despite his special invitation, the party was quite as painful as the first one he went to years ago, and the goodbye nod from Ramona makes him feel freed from having to go back.
He hopes he did well for her, he hopes his appearance last night helped her in whatever end she was pursuing, but Bevan is a realistic man, and he knows that she is probably celebrating on through the morning with her dozens of much more convivial friends. If she has further need for him, she will send another Crooked Street girl.
Bevan sleeps as late as he can, forcing himself back to sleep through the dawn and through the morning and on as the sun climbs higher and higher in the sky, but at last he can sleep no longer and he is forced to rise. He pulls on his thin, scissored out shirt and trousers, and runs two hands through his blond hair, checking its dark roots in a shard of mirror tacked onto the wall.
But when he goes to open the door, he finds not the iron railing of the inner balcony before him, but the back of a thin, bleached white shirt. At the sound of his door opening, the man turns around. It is some second cousin of his, he supposes, recognizing him but not having spent much time in his presence; the man’s name escapes him at the moment and he wonders only why he is standing at attention with his back to Bevan’s door.
“You are not to leave,” says the nameless Bewlay standing before him. “By order of the White Duke.”
“By order of the… But why? What is wrong? Has there been some manner of emergency?”
“I dare say there is,” says the man, and Bevan cannot quite tell whether he is intending to smile or not. “And I would congratulate you for your part in it, except that it will certainly cause us all a great deal of trouble. There’s no shame in liking trouble, but a war is more in the line of those savage Dogs. I should think you belonged over on the west side instead, cousin.”
There are so many things wrong with what has just been said that Bevan finds himself at a loss as to where to begin. After several moments of staring at the taller man with a stupefied expression, he settles upon the single word, “War?”
“What did you expect? I suppose the White Duke hasn’t decided whether to defend Bewlay honor, or to hand you over when the Diamond Dogs demand your corpse.”
“The Diamond Dogs? What about the Diamond Dogs?” A voice in his head that sounds like Ramona is speaking now. Something is happening between the Bewlay Family and the Diamond Dogs. Something is changing. Blood will be shed, Bevan. What is going on? What did she know when she said that to him?
The man at his door rolls his eyes. “My only job is to make sure you don’t leave this room. So go back inside, have a drink, and go back to bed. If you’re going to be executed, someone will notify you beforehand.”
Bevan does not demand to be let out. He does not ask the man why it is he might soon be executed. He merely steps back in through his door, closes it, and stands, staring dumbly at its scarred wood surface. He is the one in trouble, even though he doesn’t know what trouble he’s in, it is definitely him and he is definitely in this on his own. And although all this is very clear, the only thing that he can make himself think is Ramona. I have to go see Ramona. I have to make sure Ramona is okay right now.
Ten million possibilities run through his beleaguered head, but not once does the truth ever occur to him.
v
Along no street does gossip travel faster than it does along Crooked Street; it zaps along the line of sellers and buyers and club goers Crooked Street girls like electricity used to zap along the power lines that mostly now hang from the useless telephone poles like limp branches from lightning struck trees. A club goer stumbles over their bodies-sprawled in an alley, their rag-wrapped arms and painted breastplates slung and splattered with more blood than could ever have come from the wounds their necklaces wrought. Their throats are slit viciously, but that is not really the proper word for it, slashed is more appropriate, because the cut slices halfway through their milky white necks, almost reaching the vertebrae, and their windpipes and throats, having loosed all their blood to the cracked asphalt below them, gape like mouths. The clubber, first, vomits, and then staggers to the nearest club to replace the pills and alcohol they have purged from their system. The discovery of the murders is mentioned merely as a context for the return purchase, but some of the more well recognize it as the serious news that it is, and bear it to Crooked Street like a torch.
The scrap collector called Aladdin is not one of the ones who carries the news along the grapevine, but he does overhear it from the shadows of an alley in the just pre dawn darkness. He goes even paler than usual beneath his dirtied, smeary face paint, and his too red mouth mashes into a tight line. Nobody sees him retreating back down the alley, muttering “Big things happening. Big things changing, keep your eyes on the mountain,” and the news continues to travel down the street.
The sun has just touched the roof of the Earthling’s dilapidated bank building when the news reaches a squat building at the east end of Crooked Street with no glass in its curtained windows and the sound of music and laughter and shouts filling the air and the streets. And if Crooked Street is an electric line carrying the current of gossip unfailingly along its line, the home of Ramona Alva is the electric bulb at the end. As soon as the news touches the people carousing at the door of the building, it is as though the building lights up all at once with shouts. Within moments, people on the upper stories are remembering Bevan leaving the building with Marianne and Grace. But of course it is not “Bevan” and “Marianne” and “Grace,” it is “that Bewlay” and “those Dogs.” Nobody is assuming anything except murder, and Bevan as the perpetrator, and when the news reaches Ramona (delivered by four hangers on at once) she acts as shocked as anyone else, and does not posit any other solution to the puzzle or refute the one solution given.
And if, in her secret heart, it pangs, she does not tell anyone.
v
The party goes on. It is ridiculous to suggest that it should do otherwise. Once the news has been circulated-and the seven Bewlays in attendance rush off to inform those remaining at the Station-the party goers, since they are not the ones dead, return to their business. But Ramona excuses herself, with a light apology, to the few people who ask, that she is in need of a bit of air at this gruesome news, and does not return to her own party again.
She finds herself on Crooked Street, but that will not do, and she turns her back to the street. She walks southward, the unseen mountain of Freecloud at her back, and tries to think of nothing. It doesn’t work.
She has made it nine or ten blocks before she feels somebody walking beside her. She does not need to look up to know who it is.
“You did beautifully last night,” the Genie purrs almost in her ear. She nods once, keeping her eyes on the ground. Her feet are bare, but because she seldom leaves her rooms with their smooth floors, her feet are tender and uncallused, and the stray stones hurt her feet and she has to focus upon not stepping on the broken glass and wood that litters the ground. She works as hard as she possibly can at that, at not hurting her feet.
They walk in silence for a few more seconds, Ramona concentrating on when to put her painted feet next, and the Genie beside and just behind her with a grin on his face that she can feel on the back of her neck, something between chill and heat.
“What I am wondering,” says the Genie silkily, “is where you are going, and what you are on your way to do.”
“Nowhere,” says Ramona, more like a small girl than like a grown woman. “Nothing.”
“Well, that can’t be right,” says the Genie with an awful false amiability, “because I know for a fact that you have somewhere to be, and something to be doing.” He leans over and puts his mouth close to her ear as they walk. “You aren’t done yet, dear daughter.”
She stops. He stops too. Her back is straight, but her head stays down, looking at the ground, and her golden hair curtains her painted face.
“You’re going to go back there and see this out, my sweet,” he purrs, “and I will do us both the favor of not asking you why you are trying to go nowhere to do nothing.”
She says nothing at first, but grinds her left foot, painted with swirls and a shining red apple, into the rough pavement in frustration. She gasps a little bit, in the back of her throat, and then grits her teeth and grinds harder. She gasps again, quieter, and when at last she turns her face upward and looks into the Genie’s shadowed face, there are no tears in her blue eyes.
“Yes, father,” she says.
“What a good girl you are,” he soothes, and smiles, smiles, smiles, with two long rows of ever so slightly pointed gray teeth. He steps backward into the shadows, and suddenly Ramona Alva s alone in the pale blue light of the swiftly coming morning. And even though no longer escorted by any chaperone that can be seen with the eyes, she turns around and begins the walk back to her house on Crooked Street. Where her right foot had been, there is a sliver of broken glass, red and slick in a little smear of dark blood, and as the woman called Ramona walks away, her foot leads a dotted line of dark red along the concrete.
v
If the former train station worker office that served as Bevan Bewlay’s room had a window, getting out of the room would be much easier. As it is, with the only exit blocked by the tall form of his presumably cousin standing outside the door in his thin white shirt, getting out is difficult, very close to impossible. All the same, getting out is all that he can think of. He has the strong and unshakeable feeling that he needs to go see Ramona, he needs to go see Ramona right now, he needs to make sure that Ramona is okay.
Although he is at first unsure of what exactly he thinks is threatening Miss Alva, hours of time alone to think in his small square room recalls her story of the mysterious Genie who “has something” on her. Who supposedly knows that she is not as perfect as Bevan thinks she is. He said he did not love her because she is perfect, and that is true. He knows she is not perfect. He knows she is shallow, and a tease, and a flirt. None of these things are secrets from anyone-not from him, and not from any of her many admirers and party guests.
He can easily imagine a host of things that she could have done that he does not already know about. He cannot imagine her cowering under threat of any of them being revealed. Even if she does not think all that much of him (but she does, says the back of his mind, he is special to her, if only because she has him if she has nobody else and now she has nobody because he is stuck in this room) he knows her, he knows what kind of person she is. And Bevan Bewlay knows that Ramona Alva is not the kind of person to pale and gulp and cower because someone has threatened to reveal her sins.
That is all he knows so far. That is all he has figured out. He stands there facing the interior surface of the station’s exterior wall, staring at it, imagining being on the other side. It is late afternoon, or early evening. He has only been inside his room for about sixteen hours, and yet being outside is a strange thing, an impossible thing. There is an emergency, there is a war, and somehow it is his fault. He takes a step forward, and rests his forehead gently against the wall.
There is a knock at the door behind him.
His heart catches in his chest. I suppose the White Duke hasn’t decided whether to defend Bewlay honor, or to hand you over when the Diamond Dogs demand your corpse, says the voice of his nameless cousin in his mind. I have to get to Ramona. I have to see Ramona, says his own voice in his mind. He stands upright again, tucks his shirt into his kneeless pants, and walks to the door. Bevan lays his hand on the knob, and opens the door.
Standing there is a tall man, wearing a tall, Before style black hat with a flat brim that shadows his face despite not being very wide. As Bevan stands and looks at him, the man’s lips pull back from two rows of slightly pointed gray teeth in a wide, deeply amused smile. The cousin guard is nowhere in sight.
“Good evening, Mister Bevan Bewlay,” says the man in front of him in a deep voice that does not echo or resonate even in the metal and tile surfaces of the Station, as though his voice sounds in a great empty expanse instead.
“Good evening, sir,” Bevan answers politely. The man’s smile seems to widen, although that is certainly impossible. He knows it is probably rude to do so, but he can’t help looking either way down the hall to see if the unsettling man in the tall hat has come with company. He has not. Bevan straightens again and looks back up at the man. “I have… uh, I have been detained here most of the day in connection to some sort of… emergency? But nobody has told me what it is.” The man smiles and smiles.
“Yes, there has been a gross mistake,” smiles the man in the hat. “I’m terribly sorry for the inconvenience. You’re certainly released to go where you will, but I hope you will accompany me.”
“Where are you going?” asks Bevan in blank surprise.
“To the home of Ramona Alva,” replies the man. “She requires your presence. The emergency you name is connected with the festivities she was hosting last night, and she has sent most of the guests home, but she much desires to see you before the night is out.”
He nods once. And then again. “Yes, yes, of course I will. I’ve been wanting to speak with her all day, actually.”
“Shall we go?” says the man. Smile, smile.
“Yes, of course,” says Bevan, but does not move from his place. It is not until the man turns around and begins to walk away that Bevan’s feet unroot and he is able to follow.
On their way out, they pass many other Bewlays, standing about pretending to be busy but very obviously watching Bevan and the man in the tall black hat walk through the Station. None of them approach him, or try to stop them, or smile, or make eye contact. The Station is unusually silent.
So are the streets as they pass through them. The sun is setting when the two of them step outdoors, and by the time they make their way northward through the dirty, sun-oranged roads and alleyways to Miss Alva’s squat house on Crooked Street. The sound of music and shouting is gone. No evidence of the guests remain except their garbage-bottles and wrappings for drink and dose, feathers and scraps and beads from costumes, scrapes of body paint on the walls. Bevan ascends the stairs, somehow with the man in the hat now coming up behind him. He is not sure how he got in front; he is quite sure he was keeping the man reassuringly in front of him until now.
When they reach the second story, however, Bevan forgets all about the man in the tall black hat. There is Ramona, smudged and smeared and dirty and looking very tired. When she sees him, her eyes get a bright and sudden light, that feeds his heart like a banquet. A moment later the light goes out again, but she isn’t looking at him, and he doesn’t notice. He rushes forward even as she rises from her paint stained couch.
“Ramona! Ramona, love, are you all right? How are you? I heard there was some sort of emergency, but nobody will tell me what it was, just that it had to do with you. You’re all right, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” she says in a weak voice. “I’m all right.”
He is so relieved that he does not notice the hand she is keeping behind her back.
He reaches for the other one, and is just about to lift it by the fingertip to his lips when she grasps his hand, interlacing her painted fingers with his and smearing his hand with particolored paints. He looks into her face, startled. He sees how very smudged her paint is-the star and the cloud are only barely there, and the purple and gold of her lips are all but one dull color now. On her cheek where a red and blue swirl had once been brushed, the paint is not just mixed but wiped entirely away. He can see, beneath it, the pale rose blush of her skin. Tears glitter in her blue, blue eyes, as blue as the daytime sky once was, in a time before memory.
“Morning star,” he breathes, “you’re beautiful.”
The blue eyes are wet and grateful. The dull colored lips begin to curve in a slow, wistful smile, and teeth like pearls peek out.
Over Bevan’s shoulder, a wide, curling gray grin flashes warningly.
The complexion beneath the paint turns ashen, a sallowness of death and inhumanity rather than mere unwellness, and the pearl teeth, Bevan thinks, look a little bit gray, a little bit pointed. The blue eyes are darker than before, like clouds and night, and behind the unfallen tears is a sudden deep and trembling fear.
The pain in his chest is a complete mystery-at first, in fact, he assumes it is metaphorical-until he looks down and sees the hilt of the knife in Ramona’s carmine red hand. The blade is unseen; it has been slid neatly between his third and fourth ribs. His bleached white shirt is soaked red, and he thinks, faintly, Pity. He can’t breathe, and he feels his mouth fill with something. He looks at Ramona. Her eyes are blue, and her paint clean cheek is pink, and her teeth, between her slightly parted lips, are like white pearls.
Beautiful, says his mouth soundlessly, and blood bubbles down his chin.
Bevan Bewlay, twenty seven years old, one of fourteen second cousins to the White Duke, falls to the floor in an ugly, ungraceful heap with a knife in his chest, and dies.
“Good girl,” says the man in the tall black hat.