Mark added: “Before you came home. About this witch.”

  Maria said: “That brings the presents to children. Her name is La Befana the Christmas Witch.”

  Zozz drew his lips back from his double canines and jiggled his head. “I like stories.”

  “She says it’s almost Christmas, and on Christmas three wise men went looking for the Baby, and they stopped at the old witch’s door, and they asked which way it was and she told them and they said come with us.”

  The door to the other room opened, and Teresa and Bananas’ mother came out. Bananas’ mother was holding a teakettle; she edged around Zozz to put it on the hook and swing it out over the fire.

  “And she was sweeping and she wouldn’t come.”

  Mark said: “She said she’d come when she was finished. She was a real old, real ugly woman. Watch, I’ll show you how she walked.” He jumped up and began to hobble around the room.

  Bananas looked at his wife and indicated the wall. “What’s this?”

  “In there?”

  “The charity place—they said she could stay there. She couldn’t stay in the house because all the rooms are full of men.”

  Maria was saying, “So when she was all done she went looking for Him only she couldn’t find Him and she never did.”

  “She’s sick?”

  “She’s knocked up, Johnny, that’s all. Don’t worry about her. She’s got some guy in there with her.”

  Mark asked, “Do you know about the baby Jesus, Uncle Zozz?”

  Zozz groped for words.

  “Giovanni, my son…”

  “Yes, Mama.”

  “Your friend… Do they have the faith, Giovanni?”

  Apropos of nothing, Teresa said, “They’re Jews, next door.”

  Zozz told Mark, “You see, the baby Jesus has never come to my world.”

  Maria said: “And so she goes all over everyplace looking for him with her presents, and she leaves some with every kid she finds, but she says it’s not because she thinks they might be him like some people think, but just a substitute. She can’t never die. She has to do it forever, doesn’t she, Grandma?”

  The bent old woman said, “Not forever, dearest; only until tomorrow night.”

  Melting

  New Year’s Eve

  I am the sound a balloon makes falling into the sky;

  the sweat of a lump of ice in a summer river.

  It was the best cocktail party in the world. It took place in someone’s (never mind whose) penthouse apartment; and it spilled over into the garden outside, among the fountains and marble ruins, and into the belly of the airship moored to the building, and the ship spilled over into the city, taking off from time to time to cruise the canyons of clotheslines and neon signs, or rise to the limbus of the moon. Many were drinking, and certain of the fountains ran with wine; many were smoking hashish—its sweet fumes swirled into men’s pockets and up women’s skirts until everyone was a trifle dazed with them and a little careless. A few were smoking opium.

  John Edward was drinking, but he was fairly certain he had been smoking hashish an hour before, and he might have been smoking opium, but it was the best cocktail party in the world, a party at which he knew everyone and no one.

  The man on his left was British, and had a clipped mustache and the thin, muscled look John Edward associated with Bagnold and the Long Range Desert Group. The man across from him was Tibetan or perhaps Nepalese, and wore a scarlet robe. The girl beside him (who stood up often, sometimes bringing other people drinks, sometimes drinking herself, sometimes only to wave at the airship as it circled overhead while partygoers threw confetti from its balconies) was tall and auburn-haired, and wore a white gown slit at one side from hem to armpit. The girl to John Edward’s right was blond, and beautiful, and had a cage of singing birds, living but too small to be alive, in her hair.

  “This is a good party,” John Edward said to the man on his left.

  “Smashing. You know why, I take it?”

  John Edward shook his head, but before the Englishman could tell him, a being from the Farther Stars who resembled not so much a man as a man’s statue—with some of the characteristics of a washing machine—interrupted them to ask for a light. The Tibetan leaned forward, kindling a blue flame in the palm of his hand; and the man from the Farther Stars walked away puffing gentle puffs, his cycle on Delicate Things.

  The girl with the birdcage in her hair said: “Some of these people are from the past. Mankind’s mastery of the laws of Time makes it possible to ask the people of the past to parties. It makes for a good crowd.”

  The auburn-haired girl, she of the slit dress, said: “Then that man at the piano who looks like Napoleon must be Napoleon.”

  “No, that’s his brother Joseph; I don’t think Napoleon’s here right now.”

  The Tibetan (leaning forward, so that his robe opened to show a hairless chest puckered with old scars) said: “It is the use of temporal arresters—such is my own opinion—which have rendered delectable these celebrations.” He was talking half to the auburn-haired girl, half to the birdcage girl, totally to John Edward. “So. One pays one’s fee. One receives a machine so subtle that it is in a card contained. One attends. When wishes, one absents. That, too, is good. One returns at the time of absenting.”

  “Damned good,” the Englishman put in, “for sweating up conversational crushers. You’ve all the time in the world. If you’ve got the card.”

  “I don’t,” John Edward said.

  “Didn’t think you had, really.”

  The birdcage woman, who no longer had a birdcage in her hair, but wore instead chaste coiled braids, said: “The card lets you sparkle as a wit—be Queen of Diamonds. And it’s a Chance card, because when you leave, you Go to Jail out there.” She drew John Edward’s hands to her until they were cupping her breasts. “Do you like my Community Chest?”

  “Very much,” John Edward said. The auburn-haired girl stood up and waved her glass, shouting, “Everybody’s under temporal arrest!” No one paid any attention.

  “High cost for cardholders,” the Tibetan continued. “Oh, high cost. Others selected for interesting people, as I. Or look nice.” He made a little bow toward the (ex)birdcage woman.

  Who said to John Edward: “Would you in the dark?”

  “Yes, but it’s better with a nightlight.”

  “Or candle,” said the Tibetan.

  The auburn-haired girl: “Or with a bar sign outside. I was born under Aquarius, but conceived over the sign of the Pig and Whistle.” John Edward watched her hair to see if it had changed, but it had not.

  “Under a blanket at noon,” the Englishman said. “Had a Belgian girl up to my room at Shepheard’s like that once. I was on Allenby’s staff then…”

  “Many are tulpas,” remarked the man from the Farther Stars, who was passing by once again, and seemed to remember with gratitude the light the Tibetan had given him. “At least ten percent.” (His voice was water dashing against stone.)

  “But would you in the dark?” the braided-haired blond woman continued to John Edward. “If I asked you.”

  He nodded.

  “A Belgian girl,” the Englishman continued. “Refugee. Didn’t know if the Boche would ever be out of Belgium—none of us did then—and would do anything. The colonel one night and the sergeant the next. She’s saving you, m’boy. Going to save your bacon—save your sausage. Ha ha!” He hit John Edward on the shoulder.

  “What’s a tulpa?” the auburn-haired girl asked the Tibetan.

  “For a little while,” the blond woman said. Her hair was straight now, the style John Edward liked best, but it seemed a trifle too young for her. “Not anything that would disgust you, darling.”

  He stared at her, uncomprehending.

  “Ten years. Ten little years, darling. That’s nothing. With all they can do now—and I have money, darling—it’s less than nothing. In the dark, sweetheart, promise.”

  The Englishman said: “He’s a tulpa, old girl. Why bother. A nice chap, but a tulpa. I knew at once. Look at those shoulders. See how regular his features are? Handsome devil, eh? Not greasy at least, like so many of them.”

  “What’s a tulpa?” the auburn-haired girl asked John Edward.

  “I don’t know.” John Edward turned to the Englishman. “What do you mean, when you say she’s saving me?”

  “For her old age, you idiot. You flick off the lights and she flicks out for a quarter century or so. Then when no lover will have her, back she comes. One doesn’t know in the dark, eh? Not unless the gal’s been gone a devil of a long time.”

  “Please,” the blond woman said to the Englishman. “You didn’t have to.”

  “The chap’s a tulpa, I tell you. If that’s what you want, you can get an adept to stir one up for you anytime.”

  “But don’t you understand? I knew him when I was young.”

  “Certain lamas,” the Tibetan was telling the auburn-haired girl, “learn siddhis to flesh images from mind-stuff. Much same as ghosts, but never lived. Has been stolen and perverted in West, as all things.”

  “Can’t understand how the blasted Chinese could conquer your country if you could do that,” the Englishman said. “Inexhaustible armies.”

  The man from the Farther Stars, who was leaning over the auburn-haired girl’s shoulder now (and peeking down her dress, John Edward thought), moved his head rhythmically from side to side. “Sunspots,” he said. “Sunspots destroy tulpas.”

  John Edward said, “But between—”

  The man from the Farther Stars continued to shake his head. “Always sunspots on the sun, sun-where.”

  The auburn-haired girl stood up, ducking from under his white marble chin. “I’m going to be sick,” she said. “Take me to a lavatory.”

  She was looking at John Edward, and he stood too, and took her hand, saying, “This way.” He had not the least idea where he was, and discovered that the end table beyond the sofa was a rosebush. They were in the garden. Sober up, he thought, trying to give himself orders. Sober up, sober up, straighten out. Find a restroom.

  The auburn-haired girl said, “At least we’re away from those terrible people.”

  “Aren’t you really sick?”

  “Oh, yes I’m sick. Oh, Lord, am I.” She was clinging to his arm. “And drunk. Am I drunk. Are they staring at me? I can’t even tell.”

  The ramp of the airship was in front of them. There would be bathrooms on that; there would have to be.

  “The last time my hair went in the toilet. Will you hold it up for me? You can lie down with me afterwards. I want to lie down afterwards; I want to go to bed.”

  Somewhere a cock crowed.

  It could not be heard, of course. It was a hundred miles away, out in the country. But it crowed, and the sun came up, and people went out like candles in the wind.

  From the top of the ramp he looked back and saw them go, their glasses crashing to the flagstoned paths and brick paved patios, their cigarettes dropping like poisoned fireflies.

  “I loved you,” the girl said. “Or at least I liked you. You’ll be gone in a moment and I can’t even ask you to kiss me, because I’m going to be sick.”

  “We’re still here,” John Edward told her, “both of us.” And she was gone.

  He walked down the ramp and into his apartment, stamping out every cigarette he saw. Sunshine was making hard shadows on the walls, and the airship vanished like mist. “Mr. Richbastard,” he said to himself. “I wonder how much all those tulpas cost me.”

  The garden vanished, and the walls of the apartment rushed in, growing dirty as they came. He sat up. His head was splitting, and he thought that he was going to be sick to his stomach. The book was still propped open on his dresser where he had left it. His eyes were too gummy to read the print, but he remembered it: “Repeat, ‘I am the sound of an owl’s wings, the heartbeat of a banyan tree.’” He closed the book, and noticed that the hair on the back of his hand was gray; tried to remember how old he really was, then made himself stop.

  In the next apartment the washing machine said: “Sun-where, sun-where, sun-where,” then “sunspots destroy tulpas,” as it switched to Rinse.

  “By the Lord Harry,” John Edward said, “in a day or so—when I’m feeling better—I’m going to do that again.” Then he vanished. I was tired of him, anyhow. (I’m getting tired of all of you.)

  The Traveler

  Now I live here in our village,

  On our island in the sea,

  Where the people think our village

  Is the only place to be.

  “All the world,” they say, “is water.”

  And “The world,” they say, “is sky.”

  And: “God put me in our village,

  Though I sometimes wonder why.

  For it’s wide and weird and frightful,

  Stretched from sea to shiny sea;

  It’s not narrow, it’s not cozy,

  It’s not really right for me.

  There’s the strangers on the east side,

  That you wouldn’t want to meet,

  And they dine on human marrow,

  Just across the village street.

  My own block’s okay by daylight,

  But it’s different after dark,

  With the things that lurk in shadows,

  By the big trees in the park.”

  And: “Son, walk around our village,

  Once at least, before you die.

  It’s a long way out to Farside,

  But you’ll make it if you try.

  Try to get home before dinner,

  Tired and worn though you may be,

  When you’ve hiked around our village,

  Made the circuit of the sea.

  For the world, you know, is water,

  And the world, you know, is sky,

  And the rest is just our village.

  You should see it ’fore you die.”

  So they talk, here in our village,

  And I hear them every day;

  But I went once to the shoreline,

  On the lip of Village Bay.

  Then I looked across the water,

  And I saw a sudden spark,

  Where another wide, weird village,

  Fed its cook-fires in the dark.

  And beyond that lay another,

  And beyond, a hundred more;

  And my cupped ear caught the singing,

  Of the sirens ’round our shore.

  I can’t tell them in our village,

  What they know to be absurd,

  But they listen to my singing

  Of the siren songs I heard.

  Innocent

  You promise not to throw that stuff on me again, Father? Really promise?

  Okay. It burns, but if you promise, you can come on in. What I wanted to tell you last time was that I didn’t do anything they say. None of it is true. One of the cops said I was the kind who hangs around school yards, so that part’s true. I did. Sit down on the other bunk and I’ll explain.

  It isn’t that I want to make love with little girls like they say. I never, ever wanted that. I will tell you the truth, and if you want me to swear on that prayer book I’ll do it. I have never wanted sex with anybody I’ve ever seen. Not little girls, or boys either. And not women, or not very much. Not with men. Just thinking about it makes me sick.

  I was sick a lot when I was a kid. I had a delicate stomach is what the doctor and everybody said. Everything I ate made me sick. It tasted awful, too. There was this nice girl next door. Her name was Nancy. She felt sorry for me, so she gave me a little piece of her chocolate bar one time. She said how good it was and how much I’d like it.

  Well, I wanted to make her happy, so I made myself eat it. It smelled horrible and tasted the same way, and you know what chocolate looks like. But I got it down just the same and told her how good it was. I was still puking that night a long time after Bradley went to bed.

  Him? Oh, he was my foster father back then. I grew up in foster homes. There were three or four, maybe five, because nobody really wanted me ever, and I guess I ought to have told you.

  No, I never knew my real mom, or my dad either. Some garbage man found me in a trash can—

  Sorry my laugh bothers you, Father, but I can’t help laughing every time I think about it. It is just so funny. I’ve seen the old TV news. The library helped me look them up. They are nice like that.

  No, not even that old. I was premature, and my mother just threw me away, whoever she was. They never did find her, only a policeman—this was another policeman, an old guy—told me one time that they thought it was this one girl who’d hung herself a couple days before they found me. That’s what they thought because her body looked like she’d just had a kid, only the doctors said I couldn’t have lived that long without being fed and kept warm.

  Only I’m never cold. Are you, Father? How does it feel?

  I’ve picked up pieces of ice and even put them in my shirt in the winter. It doesn’t bother me. You know what does, Father? Wearing a shirt. Wearing anything. Can I take mine off?

  Thanks. Yes, I’m hairy, and I suppose that helps.

  Oh, yes. I hate hot weather. You know what I really like? I like winter nights, those cold, clear nights when the stars shine and shine, and there’s frost everywhere.

  Or snow. Snow is good. That’s when I pray.

  Sure I believe in God, Father. For me, God is the moon.

  Wait!

  I know all that. He’s not really the moon, and it’s just a sort of island up in the sky. People have been up there. You know that crucifix you’re holding up is just wood and metal, but it means God to you. That’s how the moon is to me. God hung the moon, and since I can’t see Him I pray to Him there.

  Sure. Ask me anything you want. What do you want to ask me about?

  Here? In jail? Well, to tell you the truth, I don’t eat anything much, which I guess is why they told you I was on a hunger strike.

  No way! I am not. Give me something that won’t make me sick and just watch me eat! Only the food in here is like what they had in the cafeteria at school. It’s just garbage. Some of it might have been good meat when they got it, but they ruin it on purpose.