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Category:
Literary Fiction
Publisher: Richard French
ISBN-10: 1537687697
Type: Fiction
Pages: 227
Copyright: Jan 13, 2013
ISBN-13: 9781537687698
Price: $4.49 (eBook)
A minor devil plays on the grief of a young widower. Arthur Goodbody reluctantly goes along with him and discovers that he must fight the devil's empire.
Though not yet 30, Arthur Goodbody has been in a slump since his wife died five years before. He works for a museum, not as an officer in the U. S. State Department as he'd once dreamed. He hasn't much money and few prospects. His social life takes place entirely at a bar in his neighborhood. He writes poems, some of which are included in the novel. Just as he is about to strive for a better way of life, a minor demon named Mr. Octavius barges into his affairs and offers to bring Arthur's late wife Laura back to him if he will enlist in Octavius's campaign to banish faith from the human scene, starting with a man who betrayed Octavius's organization and now works to build faith in whoever comes his way. Arthur's story includes excerpts from his dreams, letters he writes to Laura, his adventures with Octavius and a novella-length interruption in which Arthur writes about a controversial ancestor of Laura. The story ends with a battle on s tropical island.
Excerpt
Arthur went to the first-aid room in the basement of the museum, so that Jeanine, the part-time nurse, who also worked as a secretary in the director’s office could wrap a bandage around his swollen ankle. She advised him to stay off his foot for a few days, but he reported to the Roman section only a few minutes later than usual.
The weather was wet and blustery, the sort of morning when people who weren’t working or in school preferred to stay indoors and sit in front of the television or read or let the rain drops on the windows awaken their imaginations. Arthur watched some workmen in blue overalls replace the statue of Cybele with a marble tableau of a court trial in the time of Augustus.
The newly-acquired exhibit was in place by mid-afternoon. As he studied the portraits of noble and dignified characters rescued from antiquity, he could almost hear the debate in the high-ceilinged chamber: learned men threading their way skillfully through a thicket of evidence, then coming to judgment. Arthur also imagined the lively, sedate voice of the presiding magistrate as he gave his opinion to a hushed court room. When he was done, the voices of the spectators murmured like bees: a brilliant specimen of legal thought, they said. An adornment to his profession! A blessing to the empire! The three defendants appeared to be slaves. There was no indication of the charges against them or the outcome. Nor could Arthur discover the reason for the absence of this information. He had to be content with his musings, which seemed an excellent substitute for fact.
He stayed in the employees’ lunch room after work to talk with Mr. Comanchuk, who showed him a letter from his nephew Dusan and a photograph taken before he went to prison. Arthur especially liked her dark hair and passionate eyes that seemed to be looking directly at him. “He’ll be here soon,” Mr.Comanchuk said. “But I have bad news, too. One of my brothers has died from torturing by his jailers.” He spoke with a dignity, Arthur thought, that had mastered wrath long ago. “We are sorry about this.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Arthur said.
“Americans know that such things happen, but you choose not to pay attention. You’re too fond of your comforts.”
“Not all Americans surely,” Arthur said.
“Most of you have forgotten your beginnings. You don’t want to grow up.”
While standing under an elm tree outside the employees’ entrance a bit later smoking a cigarette, Arthur heard the branches above him rustle; he looked up to see Mr. Octavius making his way earthward limb by limb. After landing on the snow with a muffled thud, he began to perform feats of prestidigitation with three coins and a maroon scarf while he talked in a sprightly patter about scandals in the court of Pharoah Amenhotep.
Diverted by his own laughter, Arthur scarcely felt Octavius’s hand on his shoulder. Everything turned green for a moment – the museum, the sky, the snow, and the highway on which cars rushed home. Then Octavius played three notes on a harmonica, and by the time the music stopped they were on Thunder Cove, standing, in the courtyard of a stone villa with a wooden roof.
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