Short Sun Notes: Silk's father

Ah, I thought that would get a response. OK then; Here is the relevant passage (OBW 15) : “When our roads crossed again before Hari Mau and his friends carried me off to Gaon, I did not even recognize him. Then Quadrifons whispered ?Those are the years you see. Look past them”. And I knew him at once. I wanted to say “Where you were, I have been, Father”, but I knew he would reply “Where I am, you will quickly be, Son”. Knowing it, I lacked the courage to speak. On the face of it, “he”, who would have replied, is Smoothbone, Horn’s father: and that must be what the Rajan consciously means, since he thinks of himself as Horn, and has certainly been talking about Smoothbone up to this point. But grammatically, “he” could be Quadrifons. Since Quadrifons is a form of the Outsider, it’s perhaps significant that “his” words recall a saying attributed to Jesus (“where I am, there will my servant be”). Later (RTTW 11) the Rajan writes “Perhaps I shall never pen an account of my return to Old Viron, of meeting my father there, and the rest of it. Perhaps it is better so.” Of course he never does — Daisy does instead — but it’s striking that he picks out his meeting with his father as a specific thing that he will not write. And while Daisy does record his meeting with Smoothbone, she says nothing about Quadrifons. So: I think it’s possible that Quadrifons is his (i.e. Silk’s) father. It’s notable that Quadrifons is a figure whom Wolfe is especially cryptic about — when asked if the Rajan met him he said “I don’t recall” — and he has also been rather notably cryptic about Silk’s parentage.