chapter forty-two

Jeux d’avril

Cleїs and her guests were seated at an enormous round table. All were women in their twenties and thirties, but they were dressed in extravagant silk creations of an earlier, pre-revolutionary era. The clothes shimmered with precious metals, the revealed flesh bedecked with ivory pearls and fine golden latticework. The place settings sought to compete with the calm elegance of the Ancien Régime and the youthful high spirits of the women. Champagne had already been served, and now the waiting men brought silver tureens of kedgeree, and from behind each seat gently ladled the golden, steaming rice mixture onto spectacular plates. At the same moment, with even greater delicacy, they pinned a paper fish to the back of each dress; all that is, save the host’s. The princess could hardly contain her laughter as the men completed the task, and had to press the heavy champagne flute against her lips to avoid alerting her companions to the trick.

Frank shut the French windows. The shrill humour of the ladies distracted him from his painstaking annotation of the details of Katt. He had promised Cleїs a result by Sunday, and indeed on Sunday he had taken the crucial step. He had, however, recognised the princess’s love for the marmalade cat, and so spared her the experience of seeing him bleed it out into the nutriment. He stirred the black liquid. The two cat bodies curled around each other and turned like yin and yang: the one vividly orange, the other a yellowing grey. He removed the grey now, dropping it into a wheelbarrow and covering it with a tarpaulin in case the princess or one of her guests should come onto the balcony.

Experiments with insects had assured him that the new cat would waken, but he was unsure when this renaissance would happen. Beetles took on average 30 hours to show signs of life. He assumed the number of cells in the subject was the deciding factor, and a cat had far more cells than a beetle. However, the blood systems were completely different, and the beetle had an exoskeleton that could delay the absorption. It was now approaching 1 pm on Thursday. Frank had to admit that he was experiencing the discomfort of impatience. The orange island turned slowly and lodged against the side of the tank. Frank made a note of the time in his log and returned to the main room.

The laughter had subsided, which was calming. Frank liked silence.

Human silence.

Frank needed the tiny sounds of the massive progress of geological time: the creaking of continental plates, the shifting of ancient dust, the turning of bacteria in old wood. Arctic wind and waves and Sami whispers.

Now he heard a female voice uttering quiet open vowels in a language which belonged to no nation. He glanced into the dining room and found it deserted; the plates still splashed with kedgeree and the champagne still hissing in the flutes. He moved towards the withdrawing room and found the source of the voiced breath. One of the women seemed to be praying to her pearls, which slipped like a rosary between her fingers, and then, unlike a rosary, between her parted lips. Meanwhile the others stroked her hair, breasts and shoulders as Cleїs kissed her dark triangle and then parted the lower lips with her tongue. The gentle penetration seemed a signal to the others, who now let fingers slide into the finest brocade and hence to the cunts and asses barely concealed beneath.

Frank felt cleansed by the limitations and sincerity of the physical acts he witnessed. They were simple and pure: decorative even; nothing like the pagan rutting of his parents on the permafrost. Neither were they like his own brief but intense ecstasies, obtained as he accepted the burning semen into his porcelain body, and felt his own cooling between his flat stomach and the surface against which he was pressed.

He turned his back on the confection of pink and pearl. His mood was lifted, even spiritual, and he took a long mouthful of slightly fizzing champagne before returning to the balcony. The cat rubbed itself against his leg and mewed its hunger. Frank lifted his marmalade child and looked deep into its still, seeking eyes. He knew he should note the time of awakening, but it would now be but a rough estimate. The final part was much, much more important. What he needed was in the withdrawing room, and he was not to be delayed by respect for the acts of wild tribadism that were taking place within. Keeping the cat firmly pressed to his chest he stepped over the writhing bodies and gently used his free hand to move a slender foot from the door of the cabinet which held the cameo.

Cleїs was amazed to feel her face being firmly pulled away from the spread buttocks of her prize guest, although that place was instantly invaded by the tongue of another daughter of the aristocracy. Cleїs sat utterly still and unaware of the sounds and movements behind her as Frank silently placed the cat upon her naked lap. She let her hands rest against each flank as he revealed the cameo; and as he did the cat curled and slept in her arms.

“Vous aurez votre petite fille,” he whispered. She smiled. The lovers beyond sighed their assent in a unison shudder of satisfaction, like a terrible, rumbling, feline purr.