Chapter Twenty-Four

THE TOURIST, PART IV

Atop a rise, the stone villa fills the movie screen as Willie walks up to it.

DAMAGE. This is the mood conveyed by the misshapen house of no coherent shape or design, white walls turned gray, standing like a wrecked fortress behind overgrown green weeds and out-of-control pine trees.

DEVASTATION. The aftermath of battles fought and survived, with every scar, retreat, and regrouping, of psychic violence resumed again and again, present in every crooked stone on the steep walk, or open window in set-back levels above, within which faded red curtains move slowly in the heavy summer breeze.

RETREAT. Seclusion. Great open wounds. Has the dangerous hunter he seeks herself been hiding?

Before he can knock on the ornate door it opens on its own.

"Hello? Hello?"

Willie walks tentatively into a room.

Expansive views on every side. Thick walls; coolness. He steps through a faded ballroom of surpassing elegance, with orange-red tile floor, what he sees of it beneath cascades of leaves and branches of trees blown in from open windows. Intruding nature; a sense of abandonment. Beyond, a melancholy patio of past joy and a backdrop of mountains.

He moves into an anteroom of white walls and heavy black furniture, leading to a black iron stairwell. Violet flowers stand in a black vase on a black table.

"Hello?"

Willie ascends the stairs. At the top hangs the portrait of a beautiful woman. The camera lingers on the portrait. . . .

From distant rooms comes the sound of recorded music. Chaotic punk noises incongruous with the villa; then again, completely apt. The contradiction surprises him. In a hallway, a hanging Union Jack flag. More leaves; a purple ribbon. Against a wall, a dusty German beer bottle. The echo of long-ago parties.

With feigned casualness Willie steps into the final room, within which lounges a thin woman dressed entirely in white, with a white scarf wrapped around her face, ineptly, as if grabbed in a hurry.She's surrounded by clutter, the debris of the house; by stacks of clothing, end tables, suitcases, and books. Willie is scared to death.

"May Barber?"

The silence which follows his query unsettles him. He can barely stand. The woman's blue eyes, all he can notice from her face, are an overpowering force.

"Um. Brilliant," a throaty voice remarks, then the figure sits up. Perhaps it's been lost in reverie for a hundred years and he's awakened it. "Have a seat."

Willie stumbles into an ornate wood chair as the dangerous eyes study him with amusement and contempt. The deadliest of literary assassins; once member of the ULA gang. Behind the white scarf lives a nuclear force of will; pulsating; ready. She could destroy him with her piercing eyes alone. Willie's only defense if things go awry is his own weakness.

The still-young woman has bangs of jet-black hair. He doesn't look directly at her white face-- he senses this isn't allowed-- but has the impression of grotesque scars behind the silk covering rustling now in the warm air with every inhale and exhale from the woman's mouth. Not a ghost, of this he's sure. A demon, maybe, but not a ghost. He feels the slap of heat of her breath carry to him as she talks.

"I've been waiting for you; someone like you," she tells him, then gazes about herself with a deep sigh, as if the eternal burden of Sisyphus is to be resumed, and it's his fault.

"I have instructions," Willie tells her, while a yellow paper in his hand shakes uncontrollably. "Right here. They say you know the assignment."

"I KNOW IT!"

Her voice surges with emotion; with strength that fills the house. Willie has met many writers; students and teachers, published poets and novelists. None have expressed emotion of this brand. Has the ULA been right all along? Does the underground indeed bring new energy to the art form? He feels himself in the presence of a tornado.

"My unfinished assignment," her voice says wryly, shadows of moving lips visible behind the scarf. "I live only for revenge-- the re-righting of the equillibrium of the world, which the so-called Rebellion has disturbed. The Rebellion must be destroyed. I've seen it up close. The biggest collection of yokels and cretinous goons gathered in one place since the discovery of the gangleader's treasured Buddy Holly and Elvis."

Her voice expresses an Elvis-like sneer.

"Every nuance is lost on them. Utter blockheads mistaking simplicity-- I mean, stupidity-- for genuineness. I tried to wrest away their leadership, you know, which might've saved them. He wanted me to remain simple. He believes art should be simple! Twice I almost defeated him, but he ran away like a coward."

Willie wants to ask then why she wears scars, but is afraid to. Then again, what greater scars must the other side carry?

"Punchbowls," she tells him. "Putting his head in punchbowls at parties is his idea of marketing. But what do punchbowls have to do with being a writer? Punchbowls and literature; literature and punchbowls. They're not similar. I fail to see the correlation. Writing is about the art; only about the art. Words are important. Not punchbowls! Words. We train in the use of words. We're masters of words. Have I removed myself from the world only to immerse myself in strategies about punchbowls? Not! I'm here to improve my skill with words. To learn. To train. To refine words' edge until the sentence is as sharp as a samurai sword. I want to become better, and better, and better, until my words slice the barbarian into a dozen pieces; into a single rivulating pool of blood!"

She laughs vigorously, viciously, with the lusty energy of a knight. For a full minute she doesn't stop. Then her unreal eyes zero in on her nervous visitor who still clutches his yellow telegram. In her gaze he shrinks in his chair.

"As writers we make words move. We make them sing. We create them, craft them, forge them, polish them, until their meaning comes to the finest point. Then we make them enter the reader's soul, here."

Her finger touches her heart. She gasps at the pain. The hand is as white and beautifully shaped as the hand of a Greek statue.

"The person who sent you wants me to fight the Rebellion. To destroy their head. The underground: peasants overreaching themselves. Gangsters. Not literary samurai. I trained with their leader when I was a mere apprentice like yourself. Now I surpass him in every way. The literary priests can't deal with the man so they turn to me."

"You're the best?"

"The worst! No, not good enough. Never good enough. I've enveloped myself in language, its codes, structure, rules; have humbled myself before its mystery. Humility, humility. Oh God, ambition is the greatest sin and from that I forever shirk. It's only by the shedding of rhetorical blood that I can atone for my past misdeeds. Literature is a sacred vessel which must not be tarnished; cannot be touched by literary barbarians, must not be approached unless the seeker be pure in intent and washed in literary training."

She stands from the couch, has moved with surprising quickness. The sinewy body in white has come to life. He sees the form and vigor of an assassin. Still her finger jabs her heart. Smell emanates from her; a smell of body, perfume, ointment, sulfur, gunpowder, and sex, all in one smell, overpowering. Her head shakes. Her striking blue eyes waver. Moisture streams down her face beneath the tightly-wound scarf, sweat or tears flowing like a river.

"Oh God. Oh God! Do you know what it means to be a writer? The price to be paid? The sacrifice? The emotional pain? The emotional violence? To arrive at the highest plane; the highest plane."

Willie is caught up in her mad hysteria. He senses writing now not as a printed page, or dots on a computer screen, but as a living being as real as the walls, the wind, the sun outside, and this person in front of him. He falls out of his chair before her.

"Will you take the assignment?" he asks.

"Yes!" she screams.