Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

“Find me that false prophet,” she said, “and cut him up the middle.”

25 - The Gospel According to Nils

“Bergstrom is coming,” said Sam Green to the Harpers. “Ben says he’s carrying a lamp.”

They were all of them in the kitchen by now—Mr. and Mrs. Harper and of course Andrew Waggoner, as well as some of Sam’s men.

“A lamp?” said Andrew. “It’s broad daylight outside.”

Ben, a young man with a short-cropped beard and the beginnings of baldness, looked sheepish as Sam explained: “I’m guessing a lamp.”

“A bright light, Mr. Green,” said Jake. “Can’t say it was a lamp.”

Mr. Harper sighed. “I don’t care if he’s got the God-damned sun in a sack. What’s he doing here at this hour?” Then he straightened, as a thought occurred to him: “D’you suppose he’s an idea where Ruth has got to?”

“Did anyone send word to him?” asked Mrs. Harper.

Garrison Harper looked to Sam, who shook his head: “Not us, sir.”

Ben looked over his shoulder. “Doctor’s here,” he said needlessly, before stepping out the servant’s entrance.

Andrew took another gulp of his tea and sat up straighter on his stool. It was absurd, given everything that Bergstrom had done to him—but he didn’t want to appear dishevelled in front of his peer.

“We are in the kitchen!” shouted Garrison, then turned to Andrew. “I’m sure Dr. Bergstrom will be delighted to know that you’re well, in any case.”

“If he’s sobered up,” said Mrs. Harper, under her breath.

“Hush,” said Garrison again, as the door from the front of the house swung open. It was an instruction that none of them disobeyed.

Andrew gaped.

The doctor had undergone a complete metamorphosis since last they’d met. This morning, he had managed the difficult trick of looking at once cadaverous and bloated. His lips were flushed red as a whore’s painted mouth, and his eyes were shadowed with deep rings. He wore a long coat, into the pockets of which he’d jammed his hands.

“Good morning, Mr. Harper,” said Bergstrom. “I trust you are well this morning?”

Harper didn’t say anything for a moment; he simply stared, as they all did. “Sir, you look ghastly,” he finally said. “How can you even be about?”

“A man can find reserves, sir. Vast reserves, when the times call for it.”

He stepped nimbly around a low butcher’s block, and drew nearer the table; and as he did, Andrew’s nostrils flared around a familiar, and awful stink.

“Mr. Harper, Mrs. Harper, I come with joyful news,” he said. “Just from in the docks, I can report that the final juncture’s reached.”

“I beg your pardon, Doctor,” said Harper.

“The men—the men have met the host—as I have instructed.”

“Host? What are you babbling about?”

“The—yes. I’m here to tell you, Garrison—something is coming. And it will change—it will change, if I may say—everything.”

A quiet fell on the kitchen then: it was as though Bergstrom had mesmerized the room of them. Andrew sniffed the air, and blinked, and shifted.

And for the first time since his arrival, Bergstrom seemed to see Andrew. His mouth twitched into something that might presage a smile. “Why look. Good morning, Andrew.”

“Nils.”

“You are well.”

“Better than I’d have been if I’d stayed.”

Bergstrom seemed taken aback at that. But it was only for an instant. He smiled, and reached into his coat, and scratched at his stomach as he turned to Harper, and said, as though Andrew was still missing in the hills and not there beside him: “Garrison—forget all this a moment. We are at the dawn of a marvellous day. The Gods are tumescent. They are joining!”

“Are you drunk now, Dr. Bergstrom?” Harper asked coolly.

Bergstrom shook his head. “Only the opposite.”

Andrew, meanwhile, was watching that coat. It was not just moving—it seemed to be roiling, as though something lived under there, clinging to Bergstrom’s middle and irritated by the commotion. Andrew caught Green’s eye, indicated the coat. Sam Green nodded.

“I apologize for my state yesterday,” said Bergstrom. He thrust his fists deeper into his coat pocket, like he was holding himself in. “I was not myself—I understood things only part-the-way. So I had something to drink after… after worship, when I should have been still in contemplation. It is the weakness of flesh, Gar’, when faced with the fact of divinity.”

“Ah,” said Andrew, as matters came together. The smell—it was near enough the stink that Loo had given off, in the last stages of her illness, of her infection with the Jukes.

Bergstrom looked at him and blinked. His gut rolled and churned.

“You’re very ill, Nils,” said Andrew. “You know that, don’t you? I’ve seen something like the thing that’s infected you—in the hills. You’ve seen her too—remember? Loo Tavish?”

Bergstrom nodded slowly; that seemed to be reaching him.

“You have been to see the imbecile. Is she doing well?”

“She’s dead,” said Andrew.

Bergstrom adopted a thoughtful expression. “She was past her time when we met,” he said. “God has taken her.”

“No. Just dead.”