The House of Rumour A Novel - By Jake Arnott Page 0,77

eternally. Then Cato’s head nodded sharply and he woke up with a start. He kept his eyes closed and listened.

The preacher was talking of a great wheel in the sky. Like the vision Ezekiel had seen. The white man is planning for battle in the sky. Today he has left the surface for the air, to try to destroy his enemies by dropping and exploding bombs. But we too are ready for the battle in the sky. The great wheel is the Mother Plane and it can exist in outer space. Ezekiel saw it long ago; it was built for the purpose of destroying the present earth. It carries fifteen hundred bombing planes. The small circular planes called flying saucers that are talked of these days are surely from the Mother Plane, the preacher declared.

Cato opened his eyes and found that they were filmed with tears. A single drop warmly traced his cheek. Yes, he thought, of course. All this madness made some kind of sense. Everything flipped over with a complete change of polarity. The world turned upside down in a geomagnetic reversal. He closed his eyes once more and felt that calm shadow cool his mind. He thought of what it was like to see the darkness. He saw the darkness. And he saw that it was good. Yes. Black people belonged on the earth. It was the white folks who were the aliens. The meeting was coming to its end in a cacophony of scraping chairs. Cato wiped his face with his handkerchief and stood up.

Even Jimmy noticed a change in him as they walked back to the boarding house.

‘You okay, man?’ he asked as they reached the front door.

‘Tired, is all,’ replied Cato.

‘Sure. Well, we’ll talk soon, yeah?’

Cato nodded and shook Jimmy’s hand.

Back in the room Cato switched on the light, stripped down to his underwear and got into bed. The bare bulb hurt his eyes but he wanted to finish the story.

Westward was the Hermit’s journey along Hollywood Boulevard. By four in the afternoon he would reach St Thomas the Apostle Episcopal church. The Temple of Doubt. After Judas, the Traitor, the Hanged Man, Thomas was the greatest disciple. The patron saint of uncertainty, this great principle that now even the scientists know governs our puny universe. The humans think that they want belief; Thomas preaches that what they need is incredulity. Enlightenment on a need-to-know basis. Stick your finger in the wound. Then you might feel the pain of another. Compassion, the Hermit remembered: it means ‘to suffer with’.

By sundown they had reached the far end of the boulevard, where it began to snake and twist its way up through Laurel Canyon. The city fell away as the Hermit and his dog Sirius climbed the Hollywood Hills. A grid of lights stretched out below, an illuminated cage. Above, the celestial mechanics were firing up. The constellations began to bloom as man and dog followed the winding path to their base camp in the foothills. Treasure in the heavens, thought the Hermit. The Dog-Star rose on the eastern horizon and he pointed it out to Sirius. She let out a howl of salutation.

‘Yes,’ agreed the Hermit. ‘Home.’

They lived together in a wooden shack at the end of a footpath that cut through the brushwood. The Hermit lit an oil lamp and gathered together his equipment. From a Higher One who ran a junk shop in Santa Monica as cover, he had been issued with a Philco model 40-74T four-tube battery-powered radio set. He switched it on and as it warmed up he turned the dial until he found that particular band of pulsating static that he recognised as the native language of his home planet. He then began his nightly broadcast.

Cato got up and went to switch off the light. A trace of neon throbbed against the wall outside his window. He sat on the bed and smoked another cigarette. His last, he told himself. He might write to Sharleen, he thought. Maybe she would understand. Maybe she did already, in her own way. He could sleep now and not fear his dreaming. He silently thanked God or Allah or whoever for untying that knot of guilt in his gut. He stubbed out his cigarette and got back into bed.

10

the wheel of fortune

Avenida 9 # 1580 esq. Calle 19

Miramar, Habana

Cuba

15 October 1958

Dear Larry,

Well, I finally met my father. Two days ago, at a party in Vedado for a man who had won the lottery. Such