Glimmering

But of course the power was down again when Jule arrived unexpectedly at Lazyland, a week and a half later. It had failed the same night that Jack and Marzana and Mrs. Iverson decorated the tree in the formal dining room, with Keeley officiating from a chair. It was not exactly resplendent. Even with the lights turned off it retained its sadly etiolated quality, and drooped in the shadow of the robust Chippendale cabinet because there was no true darkness against which the glory of glass and gold and painted tin could shine. The strings of old lights (dangerously frayed and much repaired with electrical tape) glowed bravely, but they were overshadowed by the vulgar show outside.

Still, they all stood and admired it. Jack made some adjustments (Marz lacked a light touch with tinsel). Keeley suggested that the crenellated spike that topped the tree could perhaps go a little more to the left, and Jack was just clambering back onto the kitchen stool when—

Eeeeep…

Dying wail of the CO detector, chorus of clicks from answering machine; and the gallant tree went dark.

“Nooo!” cried Marzana.

Jack shook his head. “It was these damn lights.”

He began the search for lanterns and candles, berating himself for not making a point of retrieving them while the power was on. You couldn’t find candles anymore, anywhere or batteries, or oil lanterns. Occasionally Jack might glimpse a flashlight behind the counter at Delmonico’s, bartered for food; but it would never find its way onto a shelf. The Delmonicos had family all across the city who needed light just like everyone else.

In the linen closet he found an unopened box of white tapers. He tore the cellophane wrapping and removed four, thought for a moment, and replaced one. He could find his way in the dark; someone had better start finding their way in the dark. Wind clawed its way through the narrow back stairwell, brought with it shrieking laughter. He turned and pressed his face against the small oriel window that faced north, to where other mansions had once stood in line with Lazyland gazing down upon the Hudson.

In the last few weeks he had made a deliberate effort not to look out upon them. If he saw Marz there in her customary trance, he would continue quickly up to his own room. So he never knew whether or not electric lights ever brightened the broken windows, and he tried not to think about what kind of people were inside the ruins, starving or fighting or fucking on the floor.

Now he could not turn away.

In the shattered buildings fires leapt, the broken windows gleamed as though they opened onto the inferno. He heard music, cymbals, and drums; someone singing. There was light within, light and music and many moving shadows. He imagined they were dancing amidst the rubble.

It struck him, as though he had been knocked on the head: people were living out there in the ruins. They weren’t holed up like himself or the other scared customers who could barely muster the courage to raid Delmonico’s for food. They weren’t killing themselves with drink and grief like Jule, or pretending nothing had changed, like Emma. Certainly they weren’t bashing their heads against the wall because there were no candles left. If they were bashing their heads it was because they were dancing. They didn’t wear masks or helmets to protect themselves from the world; they scarcely wore clothes. He recalled Marzana’s words, her first night at Lazyland—

They were my family. We were living down by the river and the fucking cops blew us out…

Family. The realization that something like that could be out there, just yards away, made Jack dizzy. He yanked the window open and heard singing, a complicated contrapuntal chant, women and men and children, too.

I don’t mind the sun sometimes,
The images it shows…

Even if he didn’t recognize it, it was music, and had been all along. It wasn’t squatters out there in the carnival darkness, crude creatures leering at him from their gutted mansions. It was civilization.

They’re adapting, he thought.

The last scenes of Fantasia flashed before him, lumbering Technicolor giants on their doomed exhausted search for water, heedless of the tiny bright mammalian eyes that watched them from the shadows…

Leaning from his window out into the December air, Jack stared up into the cold whirling sky, and heard lemurs and shrews and megazostrodons rustling in the night.