The call from Cousin Po reaches me when I'm relaxing with the morning newspaper in the Inner Garden. This Tuesday, May 16th, the news is comfortingly routine, and I'm relaxing into it when my cellphone jars me into action.
        "The Merlercians," says Po, without preamble. "Are they arriving today?"
        "No," I say, completely at a loss to know what might have given him that idea. "Nothing has suddenly changed and I would have told you if it had. Well, since you've phoned, what I can tell you is that I do now have a date."
        "And?" says Po.
        "They're flying from Merlercia, and they've booked their flight. My latest news is that the first meeting is set for three days out, for three in the afternoon."
        "That's not what I heard," says Po.
        "That's because it's the latest news," I say. "I've had a phone call and two e-mails. Today. Trust me on this. Three days should be soon enough to satisfy your impatience. I hope."
        "Not really," says Po.
        Then Po tells me why he would really like to see our (so far imaginary) land sale go through sooner than planned. It seems Po has the chance to buy three apartments, very reasonably priced, if he can come up with a substantial cash sum today.
        "If we did a deal and the Merks -- "
        "Merlercians, please," I say, pained to hear the poisonous word "Merks".
        "If they paid us the money," says Po, pushing on without apology, "I could have my apartments by this evening."
        This is fantastical thinking. The Merlercians will be paying big money for our estates (the six Big Houses and their grounds, the Yaplama and the land on which it sits, and a few other odds and ends, such as Gryptacom). A land deal of this size, involving the transfer of substantial amounts of money, is not going to take place at panic pace. Even if it takes place at all.
        "We have no guarantee that they're going to buy," I say. "They could just be playing with us to help persuade someone else in Nizon to sell to them. And even if the Merlercians did arrive today, popping out of a big pink cloud of hallucinations, sweating to buy, we could hardly hope to have money in the bank by the end of the day. You follow?"
        There is also the business of dissolving the Udamana Zekotalora Trust, a necessary preliminary to any land deal. But Po knows all about that. It's been explained so many times that any failure on his part to understand must be wilful.
        The logic is easy: our land deal cannot be accelerated by wishing. Even so, Po seems naively convinced of the plausibility of his scenario. He says that says he has crunched the numbers (he probably ran out of fingers along the way, but I assume he has a calculator) and finds he can live in one apartment and be comfortably supported by the rental income from the other two.
        "I mean," says Po, "I wouldn't be rich. I'd need a part time job to balance the budget. But this is a pretty good deal."
        "Well," I say, "I'm sorry, but the first meeting is still set for three days out. Three days at three in the afternoon. Three three, got it?"
        "And they will buy," says Po.
        "If they do," I say, "I have no idea how long it will take us to get money in the bank."
        "But they're sure to buy?" says Po.
        While my feelings about the deal are positive, to be honest I do not know for a fact if the answer is yes or no. To avoid the possibility of us all being hit by catastrophic disappointment, I should keep hammering away at "don't know" and "can't say", holding my ground and sticking to the uncertainty theme. But, even though I know that negative uncertainty is the path of caution, I reverse myself and say yes, "if we allow ourselves to be optimistic".
        I shouldn't make this concession to improbability, but I'm tired of arguing. Why do I sometimes seem to be the only mature adult in the family? Placed under too much pressure, my maturity is collapsing. Cousin Po has ground me down. Maybe I'm seriously ill with something. Maybe the decay of my health is undermining my judgment.
        "How would it be if I phoned Atakana to see if he can hurry things along?" says Po. "Maybe I should do that."
        "If you like," I say. "By all means put a call through to my big brother."
        It is the wrong thing to say. But I am tired of trying to preserve the illusion that Atakana is ultimately in control. If Po wants to pressure Atakana, then as far as I'm concerned he can. And Atakana can either stonewall or confess the truth, as he pleases, the truth being that the Family Court long ago took away all powers of management from Atakana and placed the family business firmly in my hands.
        It is as I am folding up my cellphone that I realize I am no longer alone in the Inner Garden. While I have been deep in conversation, an intruder has manifested herself, infiltrating soundlessly, arriving covertly.
        The intruder is Chelooza, looking young and sloppy and female in a kind of peasant-style patchwork dress which I've never seen before, a thing far too vivid, like something you might get dressed up in if you wanted to feel drunk.
        I can smell her. A touch of roses. A perfume? Maybe a sweet baby drink, something that baby Huppy likes to guzzle while he waits for his teeth to grow. It could be baby Huppy's drink, because they are both here, Chelooza and baby Huppy, baby Huppy being carried in a painfully bright orange sling, which looks to be new. Baby Huppy is (for the moment) asleep. Or perhaps unconscious. I prefer not to speculate on the matter.
        The Inner Garden is a portion of the Moss Mansion's grounds which people are usually content to allow me to have to myself. I have the gorgel to thank for that. People tend to be disconcerted by the lurking presence of this monster, which materializes now and then (usually no more than once in a century) to eat someone. Messily. Consequently, the Inner Garden is generally shunned by the other members of my family. For that reason, the garden, a zone of reliable solitude, has always been my favorite place for meditation.
        Over the last couple of months or so, however, I have been distressed to find, on increasingly numerous occasions, that Chelooza is hanging around, baby Huppy on her hip. Nothing is so destructive of peace and quiet as a teething baby. Chelooza seems to have no awe of the Inner Garden, treating it as if it were no more than another place, a mundane slab of four-dimensional reality. Perhaps she belongs to that scornful (and self-endangered) minority which believes the gorgel to be imaginary.
        Technically, Chelooza is just Cousin Po's nanny and has no business coming anywhere near our house. She should stick with Cousin Po in the Gasa Tarosa. So why is she always bringing her baby here, to the Moss Mansion? My assumption is that she is in the process of insinuating herself more deeply into our family. She knows, surely, that the power lies here, at the Moss Mansion, rather than in Cousin Po's squalid domicile. Furthermore, Po is the least dependable member of the family, a mooring which cannot be trusted for security when the tides of the future threaten.
        It's a little embarrassing to think of Chelooza wanting to be one of us, a part of the inner circle. But that seems to be her goal. At least, my guess is that she imagines that such an objective is achievable. And maybe that is why baby Huppy's stuff (squiffer cushion, channel ring, bluck duck and the rest of it) so often ends up lying around the precincts of the Moss Mansion.
        To tell the truth, lately I have rather fancied that Chelooza has set her heart on seducing me. On becoming my mistress. Or perhaps (is it possible that she could be so deranged?) my wife. I don't know what makes me think this way. In my middle age, I should have outgrown the idiot folly of indulging my imagination in such a manner. It's not even as if I like Chelooza. I neither like her nor desire her. Yet I tolerate her presence, and, at times, toy with the idea of going further.
        Anyway, this morning, having noted Chelooza's presence, I do my best to ignore her, focusing my attention on the newspaper instead. The main news story, as always these days, is about the Merlercian military and their war in Rathnog Carta. More pictures of microwaved corpses, the Merlercians' hapless enemies fried alive by Merlercian microwave satellites. This is one reason why it is best to tackle breakfast first and the newspaper later.
        "You do know," says Chelooza, breaking her silence without any preamble, "you're going to be murdered."
        Since I've always understood that Chelooza is more than a little strange, this announcement is not the shock that it might have been. I'm inclined to tag the statement as merely a form of attention getting. Still, when someone tells you that you are going to be murdered, it is difficult to remain incurious about the details. Is this the fulfillment of my prophetic dream? I wait for Chelooza to say more, but she remains silent, smiling slightly. I have no option but to inquire further.
        "Murdered?" I ask. "Me? Who told you that?"
        "Oh," says Chelooza, with a giggle. "I wasn't supposed to tell you. Forget I said it."
        And she smiles down at baby Huppy, who seems to have woken up. Chelooza coos at him, then looks at me and giggles again. The giggle would seem to be an invitation to pursue the conversation further.
        "Consider it forgotten," I say, rejecting the opportunity of further discourse on this subject.
        And I return to the newspaper, though my thoughts are really not with the distant war in Rathnog Carta but, rather, with my prophetic dream, and with its relationship to the present moment.
        In the crystalline world of my prophetic dream, Chelooza warned me of a "he" and a "she" who planned to murder me. Today's conversation is not quite a fulfillment of that dream, but it is close.
        It is difficult to imagine that Chelooza has somehow stumbled upon a murder plot. In the first place, it is hard to conceive of myself as being the victim of a murder. My desk diary certainly makes no provision for any such interruption to my schedule. However, Chelooza's poisonous little statement necessarily makes me think. If she knows of someone who plans to murder me, then the most obvious candidate for the role is Cousin Po.
        Why? Simply because Po has a paranoid streak and, when suitably provoked, a really bad temper which has seen him three times go to prison, the last time for a seven-year stretch. But let's not dwell on that. With all going well, Po should have no reason to lose his cool any time soon.
        Soon the Merlercian negotiators will arrive and (all going well) a deal will be concluded. Our prospects of selling our estates are good. Consequently, unless something unexpected upsets our plans, we should soon have a great deal of money on our hands.
        Now, leaving aside the question of a burst of temper, is it possible that Po might kill simply from greedy calculation? Is it possible -- is it even remotely thinkable -- that Cousin Po would consider killing me, or, at least, of killing someone, with the trivial purpose of enlarging his share of the anticipated profits?
        I decide not.
        I would like to think that the murder threat should be dismissed as being no more than Chelooza fantasizing, an exercise in irresponsibility. But, if so, how do I explain my prophetic dream?
        In any case, the threat unsettles me, and I tell Chelooza that she must leave. What's more, I do not want to see her back in the Inner Garden. She is not welcome here.
        Afterwards, having resolutely unwelcomed Chelooza, I find it difficult to settle to the day's main business, finishing my preparations for the upcoming negotiations with the Merlercian team from South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions.
        The war news, continuing through the day on TV, is also disturbing. I have to keep reminding myself that my Merlercians, the civilized business people with whom I will be dealing, have nothing whatsoever to do with the War President and his team of power-hungry war mongers. My Merlercians have nothing to do with the ongoing butchery in Rathnog Carta. I have checked out South Zeast Commercial Acquisitions as thoroughly as I can and, as far as I have been able to determine, its business is land speculation, pure and simple.
        One thing is certain: when Kitty does return with her team, one topic of conversation which will not be on the agenda will be the war.