Читать книгу Fantastic Stories Presents: Fantasy Super Pack #1 - Fritz Leiber - Страница 11

Your Name Is Eve

by Michael M. Jones

On Monday, Clancy and Eve went out to dinner. They found the ideal place in the dreams of an exhausted Wisconsin woman, a young mother who'd fallen asleep on the couch while watching the Food Network late at night, after an exhausting day taking care of her toddler. She dreamed of cooking with today's secret ingredient, sweet potatoes, and a host of delicious, wonderful dishes were served up by handsome men with swimmers' bodies and the faces of famous network chefs. As part of the judging committee, Clancy and Eve tested a series of dishes, from delicate appetizers to a rich soup, from spiced chicken to a desert casserole, each using the secret ingredient to great result.

Quite satisfied with the results, they gave the young woman high marks, granting her the title of Chef Supreme. While the new champion received congratulations and accolades from everyone she’d ever known and respected, Clancy and Eve made a quiet exit from the arena. As "payment" for the experience, Clancy wove some dreamstuff together into a moment of pure joy, and gently blew it from his fingers. It drifted away, caught by a tiny cinnamon-scented wind until it wrapped around the young mother. She'd awake with a smile on her lips, the unspoken conviction that all was right with her world, and the renewed desire to cook for pleasure. Perhaps someday, it would take her further, to a cookbook, or a cooking show of her own.

As they lingered on the dream’s outskirts, Clancy and Eve made quiet conversation, exchanging their opinions of the meal, their words dissipating rapidly in the way such things do in dreams. Clancy complimented the overall meal, though he admitted one dish had too much nutmeg. While he occasionally changed his appearance, tonight he wore his favorite guise: that of a tall, lean man with dark eyes and darker hair, with forgettable, yet familiar features. Were someone to describe him, they'd invariably compare him to one of those character actors, the one who played the friend in that movie, you know? He was impeccably dressed in a suit that had been fashionable in the early 1940s, and he carried the look as though it was made for him.

Eve agreed on the nutmeg issue, but felt it hadn’t detracted from the overall experience, which was quite splendid, if a little unsophisticated. Then, wryly, she admitted that she didn’t mind that sort of thing, as the fancier things always intimidated her a little. But, she reassured Clancy, his presence always made things easier, part of why she enjoyed their outings. Unlike Clancy, she remained constant, appearing as a young woman in her early twenties, daisy-blonde and blue-eyed, with soft features and an often-perplexed expression, as though trying to remember something just out of reach. Tonight, she wore a cream-colored dress with blue accents, a simple affair that flashed hints of thigh every so often, catching Clancy's gaze more than once.

They wrapped up their after-dinner conversation by deciding when and where to meet next time. At first, they batted around the idea of dinner again, with Clancy claiming he knew a one-legged Mediterranean fisherman who would change the way Eve saw Greek food forever. Then Eve pointed out that they did dinner a lot, and she wouldn’t mind a change of pace. Eventually, a decision was reached, and they parted ways. Clancy melted into the white clouds surrounding them, while Eve drifted away on the tides of the dreamwinds. Neither spoke of what they did or where they went when not together, for Eve did not remember and Clancy did not care to share. Such was the way of it all. They’d been doing this for as long as Eve could recall, the date of their first meeting lost somewhere in the past.

On Wednesday, Clancy took Eve dancing in the dreams of an old Southern woman who'd spent the past decade living in a nursing home and waiting for the slow, if inevitable, end. She dreamed of her youth, of wearing short skirts and bobbing her hair and acting entirely inappropriately for the time and place, and thus fashioned for herself an idealized Prohibition-era speakeasy, complete with jazz band. Clancy, in deference to the occasion, donned a knee-length raccoon coat he'd seen once upon a time, while Eve wore an archetypical flapper's dress, showing off generous portions of leg up to the knee whenever she moved too enthusiastically, which was frequently. Clancy and Eve danced the Charleston, the Shimmy, the Bunny Hug and the Black Bottom, before breaking for drinks, where a dark-eyed bartender served them in solemn silence. Laughing with delight, exhausted from their efforts, they scored a small table off to the side, where they could listen to the music and watch faceless couples go through other, less-defined dances of the era, while their dreamer fell in love all over again with a man who'd break her heart.

As usual, Eve was the one to initiate conversation. As she swirled her cocktail around in its glass, watching the contents spiral, she commented upon the quaintness of it all, how dull it was compared to modern culture, and how shocking it had been once upon a time.

Clancy, far more interested in watching Eve than in drinking, nodded slowly in agreement, though he wasn’t inclined to elaborate on what he thought. This was nothing new; he was a man of few words even at the best of times, as though he’d heard it all and said it all and disliked repetition. As a result, their conversation was idle, conducted between drinks and dancing, with words fading like static in the background. Oddly content with this arrangement, Clancy was surprised when the dream came to an end and it was time for them to part ways.

This time, Clancy took Eve into his arms, giving in to the desire to hold her close for a long, tender moment. She nestled in against his chest, head fitting under his chin perfectly. He held her like that, allowing himself to feel something strange and warm inside, but released her before he could put a name to the feeling. It represented something, a subtle change in the way they’d interacted before, and he wasn’t sure what to make of it.

When Eve vanished into the mists, Clancy remained behind, surrounded by the evaporating wisps of the dream, hands buried in his pockets. For several long moments, he stood still, lost in thought, and then he too faded. In the waking world, their host startled awake, and it took several minutes before the pangs of nostalgia and lost youth faded. Her memories of youth, normally hazy and fuddled, were crystal clear for the first time in years. This was Clancy’s gift to her for time well spent.

On Saturday, Clancy and Eve went to a concert. Knowing that Eve was fond of a certain era of music, Clancy had gone to quite some trouble to have the perfect dream crafted for an aging hippie in Portland. Their host, who'd spent quite a few years stoned out of his mind before settling down to begrudging respectability as a music reviewer, embraced the dream fondly, made it his, and breathed life into it, conjuring up a Woodstock that almost certainly hadn't happened. The lineup in this dream included Janis Joplin, the Grateful Dead, The Who, Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles, the Doors, and Led Zeppelin, performing their greatest hits with a passion rarely found in the waking world.

Clancy, it must be confessed, cared little for the entertainment, and was uncomfortable in the outfit he wore to blend in, which he felt somehow offended his dignity, for all that he wore it well. Perhaps it was just that sense of having lived through it all before and finding it all terribly repetitious, or perhaps it was an underlying sense of chaos in the crowd that offended his propensity for control and order, but it was like an itch that wouldn't go away. He occupied part of his mind with ways to inspire new musicians, in order to bring about something new and interesting . . . or at least a variation on the old. Perhaps he could bring about a Neo-Pastoral resurgence, fused with the jazz from the other night. . . .

Eve, however, was thrilled by the concert. Radiant in her flower child regalia, sunflowers decorating her unbound hair, she basked in her surroundings. As the music flowed through her, she was overcome by the urge to dance, tugging a protesting Clancy to his feet in a spontaneous display of appreciation. After a moment, Clancy allowed himself to give in to Eve's contagious enthusiasm. Though he'd never admit to enjoying himself, he did find the experience liberating. Perhaps he took things too solemnly, came a traitorous thought from deep within. He quickly buried it, lest it upset his carefully controlled existence.

When at last the final band had left the stage, the last notes of their most famous rock anthem still vibrating in the air, Clancy and Eve made their own farewells. Impulsively, Eve drew Clancy in for a kiss, a quick peck that refused to end, evolving into a long, lingering caress of the lips. She tasted of Spring, of fresh flowers and gentle rains and new life, and Clancy was too startled by this to do anything other than return the kiss in kind. The dream faded around them, its essence returning to formless chaos. Eve finally pulled away, cheeks flushed and blue eyes bright. She placed a palm on Clancy's cheek, staring up into his own dark eyes for a long moment. Evidently, she approved of whatever she found there, for she smiled brilliantly before reclaiming her hand and taking a step back. When they made the arrangements for their next meeting, Clancy's voice was just a little raspy, though he was quick to regain his sense of self and equilibrium. He was sure that he wasn't supposed to let this sort of thing get to him. They went their separate ways, even as the hippie in Portland woke with a brilliant idea for a murder mystery set at a rock festival.

On Tuesday, Clancy and Eve went to the zoo, an outing suggested by Clancy as a way of reestablishing the control he'd felt starting to slip. Theirs was a delightful, casual stroll through a vast array of strange creatures, many mythological and others long-extinct, all housed in exacting replicas of their natural (or unnatural) habitats. Eve cooed over the unicorns, fed the dodos, traded riddles with the sphinx, and cringed when the kraken extended an impossibly large tentacle towards her, even though she was well out of its reach. She squealed with delight when a jet-black bat-winged horse accepted sugar cubes from her hands, snorting little puffs of fire in return. Only Clancy knew that this was no dream they wandered through, but one of the few permanent structures to be found in the dreamworld, a refuge for things that had no place in the waking world any longer. He was a collector of sorts, fond of these lost children and lingering remnants of earlier ages. Eve, enchanted by the magnificent and bizarre menagerie that continued to reveal itself around every new turn in the path, never thought to ask where such a dream had been found, and Clancy neglected to volunteer the information. While he’d brought visitors here in the past, he’d never brought a friend—a date?—here before, and he wasn’t sure what this meant.

Instead, they spoke of quiet inconsequentials, though Eve looked more and more troubled as time passed. Finally, even Clancy couldn’t miss the nervous pauses, the conversational stops and starts, and he asked what bothered her. Eve, tone distressed, blurted out that she'd been trying and trying, and couldn't seem to remember her past as anything more than a hazy series of loose, unconnected scenes, and she wasn't even sure they were -her- memories. Clancy was quick to soothe her, explaining patiently that such was the nature of the world of dreams, where most things were ephemeral, and very little remained constant for any length of time. For one such as them, to live out a life in dreams, the past was an alien concept, old experiences fading away to make room for new ones. Eve, swayed by his knowing, caring tone, accepted this explanation, as one generally accepts dream logic. Clancy brushed the back of a hand against her cheek, comfortingly, and she smiled at him with such affection that it seeped into his very bones, warming him.

When the time came for them to go their separate ways, it was a reluctant moment on both sides, though neither voiced this sentiment. Instead, they came together, and spent a long time kissing, while the hippogryphs and thylacines watched from either side of the path. Eve's body was warm and soft against Clancy's, and he took an unaccustomed pleasure in holding her closely. Hands roamed and mouths explored, until finally one pushed away from the other. Clancy had his dignity to think about, Eve her propriety. It was hard to keep the flames of gentle passion fanned with extinct mammals watching in fascination, anyway. Awkwardly, they settled upon their next meeting, and Eve fled into the ether, leaving Clancy behind to glare at the residents of the zoo defiantly. Some of the creatures capable of speech speculated upon whether their lord and master was finally thawing, but Clancy exited the zoo without a response. He had no answers for anyone, least of all himself, as to what was going on here. Surely he'd spent time with other women in the past. Surely he'd felt something for them. But this was different. This was special. Eve was special. He waved the feelings aside, for he had work to do, work that wasn't being done while he mooned over a certain blue-eyed blonde.

On Friday, Clancy and Eve met in the faded memory of an old resort, a beachside property that had once hosted kings and emperors, millionaires and celebrities, back in a more glamorous era. In the mortal world, it was crumbling and decayed, ruined by years of neglect, thanks to economic downturns and the fickle ways of man. Here in the world of dreams, it lingered, a little ragged around the edges but still in its prime. The grounds were green and immaculate, the crystal chandeliers sparkled and the brass trim work shone, and even the air smelled of luxury and grandeur. Its halls and rooms were filled with dreamers yearning for a taste of that romantic era, and among them moved Clancy, dressed to the nines in a crisp tuxedo, with Eve, looking majestic in a soft blue gown, at his side.

This was a night of opulence and comfort, where they were treated like royalty, every wish coming true with but a murmur. They sampled a dozen different courses for dinner, each inspired by a different cuisine, a sublime medley of tastes that defied description. From a white, flaky citron-infused fish that seemed to burst with flavor, to churrasco-grilled sirloin sliced paper-thin, to a subtle vegetable soup, every new dish was an experience unto itself, crafted by the ghost of a once-famous chef who'd lingered for years, hoping for such a chance. For dessert, a silent server brought out a selection of delicate spun-sugar confections. He presented them with the precision of a sacred ceremony, eyes dark and inscrutable as he bowed once and withdrew. When at last it was over, the last morsel devoured, the chef came out from the kitchen, and stared at his guests hopefully. Eve smiled, and Clancy bowed his head in silent praise, and the chef finally allowed himself to move on to what lies beyond.

This led to dancing in the ballroom, where Clancy led Eve through a series of waltzes, both Viennese and regular, teaching her the moves when she seemed ready to falter. And if he ever felt frustration at her lack of experience, he never let it show, his expression ever patient and his hands gentle. As they grew more comfortable with the movements, and Eve's confidence strengthened, she dared to meet his eyes rather than watch her footsteps. Clancy was taken aback, albeit briefly, by the spark of connection between them, and it was his turn to stumble momentarily before catching himself. They'd been acquaintances, dining partners, friends—inasmuch as he had friends—and something more of late, and now he was certain that the fires burned brightly indeed for them both. When the next dance ended, they hesitated, there in the center of the ballroom. Eve leaned in to plant a feather-soft kiss on Clancy's lips, and through mutual, unspoken decision, they left the dance floor.