His body had given up the good fight. His tongue flapped perhaps, or maybe he imagined the motion, just as surely as he imagined the sound of somebody calling his name.
Quite abruptly, sight went out completely, and death was on him. No flood of regrets attended the ending, no lightning regurgitation of a life history encrusted with guilt. Just a dark, and a deeper dark, and now a dark so deep night was luminous by comparison with it. And it was over, easily.
No; not over.
Not quite over. A cluster of unwelcome sensations swarmed over him, intruding on the privacy of his death. A breeze warmed his face, assaulting his nerve endings. An ungracious breath choked him, pressing into his flaccid lungs without the least invitation.
He fought the resurrection, but his Savior was insistent. The room began to reassemble itself around him. First light, then form. Now color, albeit drained and grimy. The noises-fiery rivers and liquid stone alike-were gone. He was hearing himself cough, and smelling his own vomit. Despair mocked him. Could he not even kill himself successfully?
Somebody said his name. He shook his head, but the voice came again, and this time his upturned eyes found a face.
And oh it was not over: far from it. He had not been delivered into Heaven or Hell. Neither would dare boast the face he was now staring up into.
“I thought I’d lost you, Anthony,” said the Last European.
19
He had righted the chair Breer had used to stand on for his suicide attempt, and was sitting on it, looking as unsullied as ever. Breer tried to say something, but his tongue felt too fat for his mouth, and when he felt it his fingers came back bloody.
“You bit your tongue in your enthusiasm,” said the European. “You won’t be able to eat or speak too well for a while. But it’ll heal, Anthony. Everything heals given time.”
Breer had no energy to get up off the floor; all he could do was lie there, the noose still tight around his neck, staring up at the severed rope that still depended from the light fixture. The European had obviously just cut him down and let him fall. His body had begun to shake; his teeth were chattering like a mad monkey’s.
“You’re in shock,” said the European. “You lie there . . . I’ll make some tea, shall I? Sweet tea is just the thing.”
It took some effort, but Breer managed to haul himself off the floor and onto the bed. His trousers were soiled, front and back: he felt disgusting. But the European didn’t mind. He forgave all, Breer knew that. No other man Breer had ever met was quite so capable of forgiveness; it humbled him to be in the company and the care of such easy humanity. Here was a man who knew the secret heart of his corruption, and never once spoke a word of censure.
Propped up on the bed, feeling the signs of life reappearing in his wracked body, Breer watched the European making the tea. They were very different people. Breer had always felt awed by this man. Yet hadn’t the European told him once: “I am the last of my tribe, Anthony, just as you are the last of yours. We are in so many ways the same”? Breer hadn’t understood the significance of the remark when he’d first heard it, but he’d come to understand in time. “I am the last true European; you are the last of the Razor-Eaters. We should try to help each other. ” And the European had gone on to do just that, keeping Breer from capture on two or three occasions, celebrating his trespasses, teaching him that to be a Razor-Eater was a worthy estate. In return for this education he’d asked scarcely anything: a few minor services, no more. But Breer wasn’t so trusting that he didn’t suspect a time would come when the Last European-please call me Mr. Mamoulian, he used to say, but Breer had never really got his tongue around that comical name-when this strange companion would ask for help in his turn. It wouldn’t be an odd job or two he’d ask either; it would be something terrible. Breer knew that, and feared it.