Strange Tales of Secret Lives Read online

  Generally, Minneman didn’t like to open up his stamp sets right away. He liked to appreciate them from afar, and then, only later, examine them in detail. But the little triangular stamp intrigued him. He wanted to see what was on the front of it, for one thing. As a child, one of his greatest satisfactions with stamp collecting had been the exotic quality of it, the images hailing from far-off lands. Minneman has long forgotten this, but his mother had once given him a dozen stamps from “Nippon,” all with delicate traceries of cherry blossoms and storks and other images that conveyed an otherness he treasured. At the time, he had not realized “Nippon” meant “Japan,” and so the country itself had been a mystery, a place not found on the globe, waiting to be discovered.

  A flicker of this memory sparked across his vision as he took a pair of tweezers and extracted the odd stamp from the envelope. He turned it over and set it down on the kitchen table, on top of the envelope. It was an etching, very carefully rendered, of a mountain range, with a river winding through the foreground. Whoever had created the stamp had managed to mix monochromatic colors—greens, blues, purples, and browns—into a clever tapestry of texture. Even though it was heavily pixilated, it conveyed authenticity, reality. For a moment, the river even seemed to move, and Minneman drew in his breath. Across the three corners of the stamp lay the words “Republic of Sonoria.”

  Minneman raised an eyebrow. Sonoria? In all his days of stamp collecting, he didn’t think he’d ever heard of the Republic of Sonoria. It sounded faintly Eastern European, and it was true he still had trouble keeping track of all the former Soviet provinces that had become independent, but it still sounded false to him. He stared at the picture on the stamp one more time, shivered a little as if a breeze blew across the grassy plains surrounding the river. Something about the image not only startled him, it stirred some deeply buried recognition.

  Carefully, as if the precision were important, he picked up the stamp using the tweezers and placed it back in the envelope, in the same position, with the front facing inward. Then he walked over to the map of the world framed in his living room, and he looked for Sonoria. First, he tried Eastern Europe, then Central Asia, then randomly, letting his gaze linger where it liked, and then systematically, starting from the left and traveling down and then up, down then up. No Sonoria. No Sonoria in Asia, Europe, South America. No island named Sonoria. No isthmus. No province. No state. No city. Nothing. Unless it was so small, it wouldn’t show up on a map?

  He shook his head. Well, it was probably a fake stamp. A postal employee had stuck it in there as a joke. Why should he waste his time with it?

  But that night, as he tried to get to sleep, he recalled the weathered quality of the stamp, the yellowish stain on the back, the high quality of the image on the front, and something about it worried at him, made him toss and turn. When he did finally get to sleep, he dreamed he stood in front of a huge rendering of the stamp that blotted out the sky. The image in the stamp was composed of huge dots, but the dots began to bleed together, and then swirled into a photograph that became a living, moving scene, and the edges of the stamp were just a portal. On the plains, strange animals were moving. In the river, birds dove for fish. The mountains in the distance were wreathed with cloud. A smell came to him, of mint and chocolate and fresh days far from the choking, clogging pollution of cities. Then the stars came up in a sky of purest black and blotted it all out, and he woke gasping for breath, afraid, so afraid, that he might forget this glimpse, this door into the Republic of Sonoria.

  For a week, the dreams were enough. They came to him more and more frequently—sometimes even while he nodded off after lunch during the daytime—and the details of them grew more and more vivid. He woke from them refreshed, reinvigorated, and everything around him seemed brighter, more intense. Sometimes, in his dreams, he walked along the river bank. Sometimes, he ran through the plains. Sometimes, he walked toward the mountains, although he never reached them. He never saw a single person in these dreams, but animals and plants and birds and fish were all around him, performing their ancient routines.

  Once a day, he took out the stamp and stared at it, fixing it in his imagination. But, each time he did so, the stamp lost a little of its intensity for him. And, after a time, so did the dreams. The dreams became as faded as the stamp. The stamp became as faded as the dreams.

  Normally, for Minneman, this would have been enough. It was not that he lacked a spirit of adventure. It was more that he had done many things in his life, and he liked a certain sense of order.

  But now, he fidgeted. He walked back and forth across the living room, upset that he could not fix the image from the stamp in his mind as clearly as he had before. The Republic of Sonoria. Where might that be? He didn’t know, but he knew that in his dreams, he had drawn his hand across the surface of the water of a mighty river and felt the thick wetness of it against his skin. He knew that his pants had been stained with the yellow-green of the grass of the plains. His face had felt the breath of that place upon it. He had smelled the essence of it. No dream had ever been so real, so true.

  After seven days of this, Minneman could take it no longer. He called the post office, asked to speak to whatever employee might have sent him the Lewis & Clarke stamp set. Was told it was impossible—it could have been anyone. Asked if they had ever heard of the Republic of Sonoria—was it in their system as a destination? Was told it was not, with a sort of heightened concern in the voice of the woman he was speaking to. Hung up. Sat down at the computer and began a search for “Republic of Sonoria,” and when that didn’t work, “Republic of Slonoria,” “Sembla,” “Shonoria,” “Sonora,” hoping ludicrously that the name on the stamp might be misspelled. Hopeless again in the thought that the stamp was simply a fake, and all this effort a waste.

  The more the dreams faded in intensity, the more the little weathered stamp failed to anchor his imagination, the more frantic he became, the more lost, even though surrounded by the familiar.

  His friends and family became worried, but said nothing. “Minneman’s on a mission,” they muttered to each other, rolling their eyes. Minneman on a mission, as they all knew from past experience, could not be thwarted or redirected. Let it run its course. Let him run it all out as far as it would go, and then he would come back to reality.

  But Minneman himself was unconvinced by this theory, for it was one he had run through his head many times. It was something he’d thought about while he still had control over his actions. A separate part of him observed the part of him searching so desperately for Sonoria with alarm. But, eventually, that part of him faded away, became as pixilated and disconnected from the rest as the little dots that made up the image on the stamp.

  Minneman searched the public library. He searched the microfiche of old and obscure newspapers. For a month, he searched, as the dreams dried up, as the depth and breadth of his tactile knowledge of Sonoria faded to a single pixel point.

  Then, in an old travel issue of Granta, of all things, buried in a footnote in an essay about European refugees, he found something. The single pixel point expanded into the scene on the stamp. He was able to breathe again, properly, for the first time in months. The tight muscles in his shoulders and back relaxed. Right there, right there. The sentence. The sentence that unlocked part of the mystery: “This nameless refugee said she came from the Republic of Sonoria, a small country between the borders of Bulgaria and the Czech Republic—a hidden mountain valley. She was in some distress, in that she had not wanted to leave, but had become lost, she said, and could not now find the way back. There is no Republic of Sonoria, and the woman may have been mad, but there was a resonance to her story that shed light, in an emotional sense, on the fate of displaced peoples everywhere.”

  The mountains. The valley. The river. A chill, a shiver down the spine. The sense of the world opening up right before his eyes. He photocopied the page from Granta. He put it in his shirt pocket, over his heart. Now he had two separate visions
of the same place. Now he knew he was not alone.

  The very next week, Minneman told his friends and family that he had to take a trip. He packed up his bags, liquidated his savings into traveler’s checks and cash, and booked a flight to Prague. On the flight, first to New York, and then through Amsterdam to Prague, he hummed to himself, his mind firmly locked on what lay ahead of him. The carry-on bag between his feet held the stamp, still in the envelope, still in the position he had found it, as if it were a compass direction, as if to remove it would be to lose his place in the world. Lewis & Clarke would help guide him.

  The sentence about Sonoria still lay in his shirt pocket, next to his heart. Every once in awhile, he would pull it out and stare at it, and almost cry.

  When he landed in Prague, safely in a taxi heading toward the visitor center, where he would find out how to rent a car that would take him to the border of the Czech Republic and Bulgaria, from whence he would proceed on foot, with a backpack and a walking stick, into the mountains, searching for little signs, clues, for what he sought—when he landed in Prague, the tingle in his palms, the faint scent of mint-and-chocolate in the air, told him that he was close, that he was about to enter the Republic of Sonoria, that he was free . . .

  THE SECRET LIFE OF

  ALLEN LEWIS

  Allen Lewis (Padre Allen) is an Episcopal priest and banker who loves to cook and collect first edition science fiction and fantasy hardcovers. Padre Allen leads a stable, fulfilling life that often creates solace for others. And yet, behind that gentle smile, those sometimes rambling but always authentic sermons, beats a heart intent on vengeance. Yes, revenge! A base emotion, and one Padre Allen only allows himself to succumb to once every few years, when he boards an airplane for the Australian coast, near the Great Barrier Reef. Once there, Padre Allen dons a steel mesh scuba suit loaded with pockets of chum and jumps off a fast boat into the churning water . . . and, weightless, floating, fast descending, carries out his private war against the Great White Shark. There is nothing personal about his assault. No relatives or friends have succumbed to the deadly charms of the Great White’s teeth. No chunk of thigh has been separated from the priest in years past, leaving that tell-tale semi-circular bite mark, made official by the faint trace of long-removed stitches. Nothing in the Bible commands him to wrestle sharks. Nor has he any political or social issues with the Great White. Instead, he wages this one-man war against the Great White solely on the basis of having been frightened out of his mind upon first seeing the movie Jaws. Nothing before or since has quite affected him in this way. He seeks to conquer that feeling, to understand it over and over again. And so, down in the briny depths, where swims the hawksbill turtle, where the lacy fronds of certain sea grasses sway hypnotically back-and-forth, where the moray eel peeks furtively from its hidey-holes, and where the Crown-of-Thorns starfish makes its laborious and tortured way across the coral reef, deathstar of Death Stars, so too Padre Allen becomes part of the landscape, framed in light, framed in shadow, armored suit a-gleaming. As the sharks approach, as he can sense the powerful swash of tails, the blocky gray of their bodies appearing through the murk, see that grinning mask of pure ferocity, there is always a moment when Padre Allen wishes he were one of them—so perfect, so certain, so unwavering, with no hint of the doubt he has always been assailed by. God’s creatures. Beautiful in their sensible yet senseless aggression. And then they meet in mortal combat until his air gives out and he rises to the surface, chumless, battered and bruised, his faith born anew.

  THE SECRET LIFE OF

  PETER LAVERY

  Peter Lavery works for Pan Macmillan on the third floor of the Pan Macmillan building in London. A tallish man who has been known to appreciate a good red wine, Peter spends his days stamping out the incessant “rabbiting” of his authors, whilst simultaneously coordinating this and acquiring that. Dealing with writers is his joy and his burden. They are always e-mailing him about something—“rabbiting on” even when not writing books—and yet he loves them all.

  Still, sometimes, as much as he enjoys his job and working with the nefarious Stefanie Bierwerth and the devious Rebecca Saunders, Peter needs a break. Whenever he feels the restlessness coming on, whenever the pressures of the job begin to rise like a tide against cliffs, he walks down the stairs to the basement. The basement is filled with rats, cockroaches, and Pan Macmillan employees. After a few minutes of nonchalant conversation to allay suspicions, he saunters over to the far wall. He is usually sweating a bit by now, for this is the moment of greatest peril. He looks around, this way and that. When everyone is busy typing away at a computer keyboard or looking at cover proofs, when no one is looking at him—

  —in one quick, twirling motion, Peter presses the hidden button and hugs the wall as it swivels open, depositing him in the secret tunnel behind the wall . . . before sliding innocently back into place, no one the wiser.

  Safe, Peter breathes in a mouthful of the salt air that wafts faintly toward him. To his left is a natural grotto holding several bottles of merlot, pinot noir, burgundy, and cabernet sauvignon. In front of him lies the tunnel, carved from the rock over many years by Peter himself, finally completed only a few years before. The floor of the tunnel has train track running out toward a smudge of light in the distance. A miniature train car idles on the track in front of him. Peter lets out a deep sigh of satisfaction. “Free for awhile,” he mutters. “No more rabbiting for awhile.”

  Selecting a bottle of wine, Peter sits down on the plush cushion atop the seat, pulls a red lever—and off the car goes, down the tracks, accelerating to a pleasant thirty kilometers per hour.

  The sea scent gets closer and closer. The train car rocks gently from side to side in a pleasing way. The breeze picks up, the murky circle of light ahead more distinct, until eventually it replaces the walls of the tunnel entirely . . . and Peter is released into the light.

  The light comes from the pale blue sky above, seems to reflect off of the black sand beach and the mirrors of tidal pools, before sliding up across the arc of brambly cliffs that frame the scene. With a light bump, the train car comes to a stop at the end of the track. In front of Peter is a former Blackpool tram car, converted into a cottage get-away. It is bedecked in barnacles, the green paint fading and chipped.

  This is Peter’s refuge, and inside all that seems eroded on the outside has been restored: a galley kitchen, all gleaming stainless steel and polished wood; a bunk bed; a living room with two comfortable chairs and a number of books and magazines; a refrigerator for the occasional beer; a phonograph and stereo system; and, most of all, blessed solitude.

  Peter has never been exactly sure where this place is in relation to London; nor can he remember how the tram car came to be in this place. All he knows is that he has found it, and he is grateful.

  He looks at his watch and reminds himself that he should return in a day or two. Time passes differently in this place; when he returns, it will be as if he never left.

  Meanwhile, he will drink his wine and listen to his music and read his books and watch as, out in the water, strange phosphorescent creatures breach hard above the crystalline water, under twinned murky suns, all thoughts of author rabbiting driven from his mind.

  THE SECRET LIFE OF

  STEFANIE BIERWERTH

  Stefanie Bierwerth works for the Tor UK imprint of Pan Macmillan in the Pan Macmillan building in London. She works with the secretive Peter Lavery and the nefarious Rebecca Saunders. Her life is very busy, but very rewarding: like Lavery and Saunders, she helps provide honest work for dysfunctional individuals, namely writers, who would otherwise have no way to earn money. In her free time, she reads mysteries and thrillers for entertainment, and sometimes she visits relatives who live in Florida. At least, she says she is visiting relatives in Florida. In fact, Stefanie Bierwerth is lying through her teeth. The truth? She leads a double life. While in England, she works as a book editor. While in Florida, she has a second career. It may certainly be true
that she has relatives in Florida—in the Tampa/St. Pete area to be precise—but they have no knowledge of her whereabouts during most of the time she spends in Florida.

  Typically, she will spend two or three days with her relatives—long enough to take photographs to show to her friends and colleagues back in London, a kind of proof of innocence, in a sense—and then rent a car and travel across the state to St. Augustine. It is in St. Augustine that Stef pursues her second career, in the limelight.

  This career is not something she embarked on as a whim. It has taken five years in the gyms of London, five years of careful coaching in gymnastics classes, and five years of training in all manner of muscle-shattering physical disciplines.

  And all for the pursuit of one dream: to wrestle large reptilians in St. Augustine at the St. Augustine Alligator Farm. But “wrestle” is too crass a word for the art form that Stef has mastered. As a twenty-foot alligator enters a death roll with Stef perched atop its thrashing body, spectators forget even to gasp, for the balance Stef shows is akin to the logrollers of yore, to high wire acts over Niagara Falls. These giant saurians—they rage, they hiss, they snap and dart, they wriggle, they thwack their tails in bone-crunching displays of strength. (And the smell—well, the smell is simply dreadful; nose plugs recommended.)

  The nimble muscularity and brutality of wearing down a huge alligator “must be seen to be believed,” as the posters read.

  And yet, some delicacy, too: a dandelion rubbed under the chin of Old Peculiar, as the farm’s largest alligator—a twenty-six-foot-long monstrosity—is called, will put him to sleep as quickly and easily as Stef’s specialty: the Sleeper Reptile Death Grip, invented and perfected by her and only her.