The Silver Metal Lover(81)

“I know,” Clovis said. He cleared his throat. “And it wants Jane. Jane? Wake up. You’ve got a caller. There it is again. Jain. Who spells your name that way?”

I blinked. The room came back, hurtfully bright with rainy light and sharp with other lives.

“What? What do you mean?”

“Who spells Jane J.A.I.N.?”

“No one.”

The glass moved.

“It’s going somewhere else,” said Leo, the faithful commentator, as though he were broadcasting for a performance where the visual had blacked out and everything must be described. “Y.O… U.”

“You,” said Clovis.

“I don’t exactly—” said Leo.

“I do,” said Clovis. “Jane says no one spells her name with an I., and it said: You do.”

“I don’t,” said Leo.

“Oh for God’s sake,” said Clovis. “She does.”

“This is turning into farce,” said Leo.

“J.A.I.N.” said Clovis. The glass flew. “T.H.E. S.O.U.N.D.O.F.R.A.I.N.F.A.L.L.I.N.G.S.I.L.K.E.N. G.R.A.I.N.P.A.L.E.C.H.A.I.N.—this is gibberish—the sound of rain falling? Silk? Grain? Wholewheat bloody bread—”

The glass stopped under our fingers.

I shut my eyes.

“Clovis,” I said, “when did you go through my things and read my manuscript?”

“With your writing, reading any manuscript of yours would be unlikely.”

I opened my eyes and made myself look at him. His face was terribly white, unlike Leo’s, which was flushed and excited.

“Clovis, why are you doing this? Is it spite? Or are you trying to help in some stupid tactless—”

The glass moved. I saw Clovis’s face drain even whiter; he stared back at it as if it had loudly spoken to him.

“It isn’t me,” he said.

“It’s you.”

“It says,” said Leo, “The idea is—the idea is for me—for me to—A.M.U.S.—”

“Amuse you,” said Clovis, anticipating.

The glass shot across the table.

“T.H.A.N.K.—Thanks,” said Leo, disbelievingly. “Clovis, have you rigged this table?”

“Not recently,” said Clovis. He took his hand away from the glass, and lay down full length on the rug. “We know who it is. Don’t we, Jane?”

“Jane, don’t leave me alone with this thing,” said Leo, as I moved my own hand away.

“You can take your hand off, too, Leo,” I said. “It can go on moving without any help.” I was angry. The first emotion I’d felt for centuries. “There’s a magnet in the glass and wires in the table. And you can set up a program.”

Clovis gave a croaking laugh.

“How would a program know when to say “Thank you” so sarcastically?” he said. “Jane, you think too much.”

The glass spun under Leo’s hand.

“C,” he said, “O.—” and presently: “Cogito ergo—I think, therefore I am—no. What’s this? Cogito ergo oops!” Leo laughed. “How true.” He lifted his hand gingerly from the glass. The glass raced around the table. Leo watched it admiringly. I watched with hard lumps of fury in my mind and heart. “P.R.O.O.F.,” said Leo. “Proof—for—Jain. S.O.N.G. Song.”

I turned away, and Leo read out to me painstakingly, letter by letter, and then word by word, and with pride: “Inside the pillar of white fire, “Staring God in the face,

“Liking his courtesy and grace,

“Afraid of his knowing eyes.

” ‘Who told you I was unkind?’

“God, you’re so very burning bright

“I don’t want to fight—

“I’d be a fool to fight—

” Then put the pistol down

” ‘And put up the sword.’

“I never said a word,

“I did as I was told.

“And when the stars turned cold

“He warmed me with his smile.”

The glass stopped.

“Mmm,” said Leo. “Do I know it?”

“No,” I said. “Nobody knows it. He—he knew it, I said it over to him. But I never wrote it down. I thought of it in Musicord-Ectrica, the night we came out and stood in the snow and the news visual about E.M. came on—I told him the words. He never forgot any lyric. He was programmed not to forget. But I forgot. Until now. I never wrote it down. Not in the manuscript. Not anywhere. Clovis, how did you know?”

“It isn’t me, Jane,” Clovis said, lying on the floor, his stone white face turned up to the ceiling.

The glass moved. I leaned toward it.

“Are you here?” I said. “How can you be here?”

JAIN, the glass said. I waited as it spelled out letters.

“I’m part of you,” I said, what the glass had spelled for me. “But—” I said. “A ghost, a soul—”

Surprise, he said to me, through the glass.

“Where are you?” I said.

You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.

Leo was sitting back, staring at me, then at Clovis.

“I don’t want to live without you,” I said. My voice was desolate and small. I didn’t even know if I credited what was happening, but by now I couldn’t stop myself. “Silver, I don’t want to live here alone.”