Green Eyes Page 0,75

and then, whoosh! they all converged to form into your mask. It wasn't the same as usual, though the features were the same. Are the same. But the colors are different. Less blue, more gold and ruby.

VERRET: I wonder...

HARRISON: What?

VERRET: A second ago I was thinking about you... very romantically.

HARRISON: Yeah? (A rustling sound.)

VERRET: (laughing) Do I feel different? (A silence.) What's wrong?

HARRISON: Just trying to shift back. It's hard to do sometimes.

VERRET: Why don't you not bother? I don't mind.

HARRISON: (His voice becomes briefly very resonant, as if the transmission were stabilizing.) It'd be like two charred corpses making love. (A long silence.) There. Are you okay?

VERRET: (shakily) Yes.

HARRISON: Oh, Christ! I wasn't thinking. I didn't mean to say that. I'm sorry.

VERRET: You've no reason to be.

Thereafter Harrison's electrical activity increased, and the transmission distorted into static.

The capacity to manipulate magnetic fields, to affect matter on the ionic level, and now this mysterious reference to the voodoo term for the soul. I realized we had no idea of this man's potential. My imagination was fueled by the sinister materials of the project, and I was stricken by a vision of Harrison crumbling cities with a gesture and raising armies of the dead. I suggested to Stellings that we bring him in, but he told me the risks were 'acceptable.' He did not believe, as I was coming to, that Harrison might be one of the most dangerous individuals who had ever lived. Of course Stellings had no knowledge of Otille Rigaud... or did he? Perhaps there was no end to the convolution of this circumstance. It seemed to unravel by process of its own laws, otherworldly ones, like a curining tapestry of black lace worked with tiny figures, whose depicted actions foreshadowed our lives.

And then came the night of July 26, 1987, a night during which all my fears were brought home to me. I had been asleep for nearly an hour, not really asleep, drowsing, listening to the rain and the wind against the dormer window, when I thought I heard a footfall in the corridor. Though this was hardly likely - my security system being extensive - I sat up in bed, listening more closely. Nothing. The only movement was the rectangle of white streetlight cast on the far wall, marred by opaque splotches of rain and whirling leaf shadow. I settled back.

Once again I heard a sound, the glide of something along the hallway carpet. This time I switched on the bedside lamp, and there, framed in the door, was a preposterous old man with shoulder-length white hair and wearing a loose-fitting shirt decorated, it seemed to my bleary eyes, with the image of a blue serpent (I later saw this was actually the word Self-rising, the imprint of a flour company). 'Goddamn, he's a big one, him,' said the old man to someone out of sight around the corner. A second figure appeared in the doorway, and a third, and I understood why my burglar alarms had failed. It was Verret, troubled-looking, and beside her, disguised by a pair of mirrored glasses, was Harrison. He had gained weight, especially in the shoulders, but he was still gaunt. His hair had grown long, framing his face, giving him a piratical air.

'Edman,' he said.

The word was phrased as an epithet, containing such a wealth of viciousness I almost did not recognize it as my name.

His movements revealing no sign of debility, he picked up a straight-backed chair, carried it to the bed and sat next to me. How can I tell you my feelings at that moment, the effect he had upon me? I have stated that the patients were charismatic in the extreme, but Harrison's personal force was beyond anything of my experience. To put it simply, I was terrified. His anima wrapped around me like an electrified fist, immobilizing and vibrant, and I stared helplessly at my agog reflection in his mirrored lenses. The wind rattled the window, branches ticked the glass, as if heralding his presence. I wondered how Verret and the old man could be so at ease with him. Did they not notice, or had they become acclimatized to his aura of power? And what of his patients? Were all faith healers equally potent beings? Could it be that the power to heal was in part conferred by the faithful upon the healer, and this exchange of energies immunized the patients against awe? It is, I believe, a testament to the rigorous