“Do you think I abducted you because of your good looks?”
“Yes.”
“I have taken two men. And two rather plain-looking women. I took you only because you were careless and therefore made taking you convenient. Your looks mean nothing to me.”
She is silent.
He smiles. “You didn’t respond because it wasn’t a question. Good girl. Smart girl. You expect me to rape you. Is that correct?”
Now mindful of his instruction to be succinct, she merely says, “Yes,” but with her expression informs him of her contempt.
He closes the blade and sets the knife aside. “I have no sexual interest in you, Ophelia. Do you believe me?”
“No.”
“You read the portion of the manifesto I’ve so far written. You know I’m in rebellion against all things human. Do you know this?”
“That’s what you’ve written.”
He nods. “The implication being that I don’t really believe what I write. But I do, Ophelia. My motives are pure. Can you guess the extremes to which I’ve gone to make certain that my motives remain pure?”
“I’m sure you’ll tell me.”
The lantern hisses continuously, but at times the sound seems to come from elsewhere in the room, as if a serpent of substantial size slithers through the surrounding shadows.
“I took up medicine because it was expected of the men in my family, but my heart was never in it. A trust was established in my name the very month I was born and my father made contributions to it every year. I’ve no need to earn a living, which has given me the opportunity to do something of very great importance, which I came to understand during my time with Xanthus Toller. I’m in rebellion against destructive humanity, against all things human. And what is the quintessential fixation of humanity? What is the species’ most manic compulsion, its most morbid drive, its ruling passion, the obsession that overwhelms all other obsessions?”
“Money,” she says.
He shakes his head. “You know better. Money is second. Sex, Ophelia. Humankind is obsessed with getting off. Sex, sex, sex, and still more sex. Our sick culture is saturated with it. And sex leads to breeding. Other animals have sex only in that brief time of the year when the female is in heat, but human beings are always at it, until now we number in the many billions. However, I’m not of their ilk, not of your ilk, Ophelia. Because of your beauty, your ripe sexuality, you hold on to the hope that you can wound me or even kill me in the act, when I mount you and become vulnerable because of sexual obsession. But that is a false hope, Ophelia. Can you guess why I will never mount you or have any kind of sex with you?”
“No,” she says, still clearly disbelieving him.
He leans across the table. “When one has a first-rate medical education, the money to obtain any drugs one requires, and a mission of greatness such as I have, a double orchiectomy can be performed with little pain and less blood than a bad nosebleed.”
She stares at him uncomprehendingly, as if perhaps she does not know the word orchiectomy.
“More than a year ago,” he continues, “I injected my scrotum and surrounding tissue with a strong local anesthetic. With the assistance of one of Xanthus Toller’s wisest associates, I cut off my testicles. A double orchiectomy. Self-castration. I don’t merely espouse the philosophy of the Restoration Movement, Ophelia. I live it to the fullest extent possible.”
He believes that her expression is one of awe that she should be in the presence of such a courageous man. She’s astonished speechless by the profound nature of his commitment.
Asher continues: “The prophet Xanthus has foreseen that one day a savior of the world will arise to eradicate the infection that is humanity, restoring our suffering planet to health. He thought this person might be a scientist who would design and unleash a plague capable of wiping out our species. But the savior is no scientist, Ophelia. The savior is me.”
9
After the troubling conversation with Katherine, followed by a brisk half-hour walk, Joanna returned to her house. She took a quick shower, dressed, went to her study, and sat at her desk.
She didn’t switch on the computer, because she knew she would stare for hours at the half-finished page eighty-eight of The Color of Never, without being able to advance the story by one word. She could not stop thinking about Jimmy Two Eyes.
Although it had been twenty-five years since Katherine had seen the boy at Rustling Willows, he had made such an impression on her that she had been able to provide considerable detail about him. The malformed skull. The misaligned eyes of different colors. Small ears set tight against his head, but a prominent nose. A mouth maybe half again as wide as a mouth ought to be. Those were not all indices of any particular birth defect with a formal name to be found in the medical literature. Burden upon burden had been piled on poor Jimmy Alvarez, as though he’d been conceived in a genetic storm. Mother Nature had been in a wicked mood, showering him with afflictions. He was severely hunchbacked, as well. His hands were abnormally small. His bones developed so slowly that he would never be taller than five feet, and his canted hips would always leave him with a hitching gait.