The Great and Secret Show

‘And we wouldn’t be human.’

‘And the Art?’

‘Ah, well … opinions differ about that.’

‘Do you have it?’

‘Have it?’

‘This Art. Do you have it? Can you do it? Can you teach me?’

‘Maybe.’

‘You’re one of the Shoal,’ Jaffe said. ‘You’ve got to have it, right?’

‘One?’ came the reply. ‘I’m the last. I’m the only.’

‘So share it with me. I want to be able to change the world.’

‘Just a little ambition.’

‘Don’t fuck with me!’ Jaffe said, the suspicion growing in him that he was being taken for a fool.

‘I’m not going to leave empty-handed, Kissoon. If I get the Art I can enter Quiddity, right? That’s the way it works.’

‘Where’d you get your information?’

‘Isn’t it?’

‘Yes. And I say again: where’d you get your information?’

‘I can put the clues together. I’m still doing it.’ He grinned as the pieces fitted in his head. ‘Quiddity’s somehow behind the world, isn’t it? And the Art lets you step through, so you can be there any time you like. The Finger in the Pie.’

‘Huh?’

‘That’s what somebody called it. The Finger in the Pie.’

‘Why stop with a finger?’ Kissoon remarked.

‘Right! Why not my whole fucking arm?’

Kissoon’s expression was almost admiring. ‘What a pity,’ he said, ‘you couldn’t be more evolved. Then maybe I could have shared all this with you.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I’m saying you’re too much of an ape. I couldn’t give you the secrets in my head. They’re too powerful, too dangerous. You’d not know what to do with them. You’d end up tainting Quiddity with your puerile ambition. And Quiddity must be preserved.’

‘I told you … I’m not leaving here empty-handed. You can have whatever you want from me. Whatever I’ve got. Only teach me.’

‘You’d give me your body?’ Kissoon said. ‘Would you?’

‘What?’

‘That’s all you’ve got to bargain with. Do you want to give me that?’

The reply flummoxed Jaffe.

‘You want sex?’ he said.

‘Christ, no.’

‘What then? I don’t understand.’

‘The flesh and blood. The vessel. I want to occupy your body.’

Jaffe watched Kissoon watching him.

‘Well?’ the old man said.

‘You can’t just climb into my skin,’ Jaffe said.

‘Oh but I can, as soon as it’s vacated.’

‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Jaffe, you of all people should never say I don’t believe. The extraordinary’s the norm. There are loops in time. We’re in one now. There are armies in our minds, waiting to march. And suns in our groins and cunts in the sky. Suits being wrought in every state –’

‘Suits?’

‘Petitions! Conjurations! Magic, magic! It’s everywhere. And you’re right, Quiddity is the source, and the Art its lock and key. And you think it’s tough for me to climb inside your skin. Have you learned nothing?’

‘Suppose I agree.’

‘Suppose you do.’

‘What happens to me, if I was to vacate my body?’

‘You’d stay here. As spirit. It’s not much but it’s home. I’ll be back, after a while. And the flesh and blood’s yours again.’

‘Why do you even want my body?’ Jaffe said. ‘It’s utterly fucked up.’

‘That’s my business,’ Kissoon replied.

‘I need to know.’

‘And I choose not to tell you. If you want the Art then you damn well do as I say. You’ve got no choice.’

The old man’s manner – his arrogant little smile, his shrugs, the way he half closed his lids as though using all his gaze on his guest would be a waste of eyesight – all of this put Jaffe in mind of Homer. They could have been two halves of a double-act; the lumpen boor and the wily old goat. When he thought of Homer he inevitably thought of the knife in his pocket. How many times would he need to slice Kissoon’s stringy carcass before the agonies made him speak? Would he have to take off the old man’s fingers, joint by joint? If so, he was ready. Maybe cut off his ears. Perhaps scoop out his eyes. Whatever it took, he’d do. It was too late now for squeamishness, much too late.