The Physiognomy

While I soaked, my teeth chattered and I contemplated the expedition to the Earthly Paradise—miners, carrying pickaxes and wearing lantern hats, wandering off into an uncharted wilderness, searching for salvation. All that now remained of that exquisite folly was a blue statue standing in the lobby of the hotel. I then went on to think of the Mayor and the infernal fire bat before I realized it was imperative that I read Beaton. In my eye's-mind I saw him holding out a message to me he had come all the way from paradise to deliver.

I called loudly for Mantakis, who eventually appeared on the porch, wearing an apron and carrying a feather duster. He displayed a long face and was as tiresome as could be with his sighs and labored step.

"Snap out of it, Mantakis," I commanded.

"Your honor," he said.

"What's your problem, man?"

"I missed the party last night," he said.

"You missed nothing," I replied. "The Mayor loosed a dangerous animal on his people and there was nothing to eat but turds."

"The missus said you were quite eloquent in your oration," he said.

"How would the missus know?" I asked, soaping my left armpit.

"The missus—" he began, but could I really have let him go on?

"Mantakis," I said, "I want you to send Beaton up to my study."

"Begging your pardon," he said, "but I think the family wants him."

"The family can have what is left of him when I am through," I said.

"As you wish," he said and lightly dusted the air in front of him.

"Mantakis," I said as he was about to leave the porch.

"Your honor?" he asked, looking back over his shoulder.

"You missed the party quite some time ago," I said.

He nodded in agreement as if I had told him the sky was blue.

I heard them lugging Beaton up the steps to the study as I dried off in my room and prepared an injection. The voices of the two workmen who wrestled with the stone echoed up the stairway and through my door. Their curses became a boys' choir as the beauty put her arms around me and began to slowly breathe. I dressed amid waves of an inland sea, my eyes twin lighthouse beacons casting visions on reality. Professor Flock made an appearance to help me with my tie, and then the fire bat circled and swooped for five minutes while I hid beneath the bed. Down on the floor there in the dark, up to my nose in dust, I heard the Master whisper in my ear. I felt his breath and the presence of his body nearby. "Now answer the door," he said. "There is no bat."

As I slid out from beneath the bed, I heard a knocking at my door. I hurried to my feet and dusted myself off. "Who is it?" I called.

"Miss Beaton, is here to see you," shouted Mrs. Mantakis.

"Bring her to my study," I said. "FH be in shortly."

I went to the mirror and tried to compose myself. I studied my features, a mock physiognomical exam, in an attempt to win back my reason. I was doing quite well, when out of the corner of my eye I saw Arden's blue lips begin to move. They remained stone, yet they moved like flesh. A strained voice struggled like a mole burrowing up through a landslide to call faintly for help.

I closed the door behind me and went across the hall to the study. She was there, sitting next to my desk. When I entered, she stood and bowed slightly. "Your honor," she said.

"Be seated," I told her.

As she sat, I watched her body bend.

"Where did you learn the Physiognomy?" I asked her.

"From books," she said.

"My books?" I asked.

"Some," she said.

"How old were you when you began your studies?"

"I began in earnest three years ago when I was fifteen," she said.

"Why?"

After a lengthy pause, she explained: "Two of the miners of Anamasobia had developed a grudge against each other. No one knew exactly what the cause was. Things got so bad between them that they decided to settle things by having a pickax duel in the stand of willows on the western side of town. The willows were at their peak and their tendrils hung almost to the ground. The two men entered from different sides, wielding axes, and two days later someone went in and discovered that they had killed each other. Simultaneous head wounds. The senseless horror of the event upset the town. In response, Father Garland told us one of his parables about a man born with two heads, only one mouth, and a shared eye, but this did ttttfe to explain the tragedy for me. The Physiognomy, on the other hand, has a way of dismantling the terrible mystery of humanity."

I reviewed my findings on her breasts. "And what do you see when you look in the mirror?" I asked.

"A species striving for perfection," she said.

"I love an optimist," I told her. She smiled at me, and I was forced to turn away. To my surprise, facing me was her grandfather, newly nestled in the corner of the room. The sight of him nearly made me jump, but I controlled the impulse. "What do you think of your grandfather, that ill-figured boulder there?"

"Nothing," she said.

I turned to look at her, and she was staring peacefully at the old blue man. "I may have to do some chiseling during my analysis," I told her.

"I'd be honored to help in excavating that head," she said.

"What might we find?" I asked.

"The journey to paradise," she said. "It's there. He told it to me when I was a young child. Sometimes a moment of the story will come back to me all in a flash and then, a minute later, I will have forgotten it. It's there, encased in spire rock."

"I suppose we will find a white fruit at the center of his brain," I said.

"Or a cavern," she said.

I acquiesced with a smile and quickly asked, "Who is the thief?"

She uncrossed her legs, and I pulled up a chair. Leaning forward, as if in the strictest confidence, she whispered, "Everyone thinks Morgan took it and fed it to his daughter, Alice."

"Why?" I asked, leaning close enough to smell her perfume.

"The child is different now," she said, pursing her lips, her eyelids descending.

"Does she fly?" I asked.

"People say she now has all the right answers."

I took out a cigarette and lit it as a means of changing the subject. "Have you recently been in contact with any members of the opposite sex?" I asked, staring directly into her eyes.

"Never, your honor," she said.

"Do you have any aversion to the naked human form?" I asked.

"None at all," she said, and for a moment I thought she smiled.

"Does the sight of blood or suffering bother you?"

She shook her head.

"Are either of your parents dim-witted?"

"To some extent, but they are simple, kind people."

"You must do whatever I say," I told her.

"I fully understand," she said, moving her head suddenly so that her hair flipped back over her shoulder.

I couldn't help myself and leaned over to measure the distance from her top lip to the center of her forehead with my thumb and forefinger. Even without the chrome exactitude of my instruments, I knew she was a Star Five—an appellation reserved for those whose features reside at the pi

When I pulled my hand away, she said, "Star Five."

"Prove it," I said.

"I will," she said.

We left the hotel, and as we proceeded up the street toward the church, I asked her to recall for me the essence of the renowned Barlow case. She hurried along beside me, her hair twisting in the wind, as she recited from memory exact facial measurements I had made myself ten years earlier on an obscure doctor who had flatly denied having written subversive poetry.

To be candid, Aria Beaton reminded me of my first love, and I knew she would mean nothing but trouble for me. Involving a woman in the official business of the realm was strictly forbidden, but how could I ignore her? In the work I had done all my life, she was for me, in the concise elegance of her features, my earthly paradise. As she driveled on about the case in question, quoting me, quoting Barlow's rotten poetry, I temporarily lost my head and allowed myself to remember.