by Mark Helprin
He had been in the back of a canoe, paddling for Humpstone John as the old man threw out his weighted circle net. They saw a figure walking toward them along the flats that led to the cloud wall, which that day was turbulent and gray. When it was upset, it often did strange things. The man who approached seemed to have come from the barrier itself. He was dazed but pugnacious, either some sort of ancient Japanese warrior or an escapee from an asylum on Cape May. He came directly at them, hand on his sword, shouting in the strangest language that Humpstone John or Peter Lake had ever heard. It wasn’t English, and it wasn’t Bay. Surmising that the newcomer thought he was in another time or another country, Humpstone John said, “This is the marsh. You probably want Manhattan. If you stop shouting, we’ll take you there, where you’ll probably find others like yourself, and even if not, it’s not the kind of place where anyone will notice your outlandish modes. And will you please stop your jabbering and speak English.”
The warrior responded by stepping forward knee-deep in the water in a rapid pivoting stance that indicated the onset of combat. Humpstone John suspected that no matter how conciliatory he might be, there was going to be a fight. He sighed as the samurai, or whatever he was, drew a long silver sword and rushed the boat, screaming like someone who has been pushed off a cliff. Humpstone John threw his round net in the air, withdrew the broadsword from its scabbard, and handed it to Peter Lake. “You try it,” he said. “It’s a good way to learn.”
The samurai charged toward them with deafening screams.
“Where do I hold it?” Peter Lake asked.
“Where do you hold what?”
“The sword.”
“By the handle, of course. Hurry, now. . . .”
The warrior stood two feet from the canoe. His long heavy blade stretched from the back of his head to his ankles, held executioner’s style before an impending stroke. His face was grimaced so that he looked like a blowfish. The sword began to travel.
“You’d better block that blow,” Humpstone John said calmly. Peter Lake held his broadsword perpendicular to that of his opponent—just in time for a chilling clash of metal against metal.
“Now what, John?” Peter Lake said, as the warrior’s sword slid off his own and cut deep into the gunwales of the canoe.
“Try an upward stroke under his sword arm. Quickly.”
“He uses both arms, John,” Peter Lake answered, ducking his head as a whining blow passed almost invisibly where his neck had been.
“That’s true, I warrant.” Humpstone John thought for a moment. “Try either one.”
The opposing swordsman uttered a terrifying cry as he thrust his blade in a two-handed lunge straight at Peter Lake’s heart. Peter Lake parried it, and it cut off a large part of Humpstone John’s beard.
“Crap!” said Humpstone John. “Get to it already. I love my beard.”
“All right,” said the young Peter Lake, and moved the razor-sharp broadsword in a quick stroke up, cutting deep into his opponent’s left arm. That seemed to awaken something in him, for he made several other moves, so fast that they were nearly invisible, so graceful that they seemed to be one motion, and came very close to disemboweling the attacker, who dropped his sword into the shallows and stumbled toward the cloud wall—which then obliged him as either ambulance or undertaker (no one ever knew).
“Shall I fish up his sword, John?” Peter Lake asked, still shaking, but enormously proud that he had survived his first combat.
“Whose sword?” Humpstone John, who had returned to fishing, wanted to know.
“The man I just fought.”
“Oh, him. What, his sword? Crap, it’s tin. Leave it where it lies.”
Peter Lake could, just barely, outrace the cloud wall when it oscillated across the sand flats, and he knew that he would never go without food or shelter as long as there were reeds standing upright in the water, and fish, clams, and crabs swimming, scuttling, and lying at rest among them. He could recite tolerably well in Bay, while the elders stared into the dying fire, satisfied with his skill. He had just begun, like all the Bay children of that age, to sleep with his sister. The Baymen practiced this (which was why Abysmillard was what he was) without thinking for a minute that it might not be a good idea. Peter Lake was set upon his sister, Anarinda, very early on. He was not really her brother, and, anyway, she did not conceive—no one would have at first. Anarinda was very beautiful, and Peter Lake was delighted. He asked Abysmillard and Auriga Bootes how long one could keep on doing what he had just learned. Abysmillard did not know of such things, and Auriga Bootes referred Peter Lake to Humpstone John, who replied, “Oh, four or five hundred years, I guess, depending upon your virility, and upon what it is that you call a year.”
Caring little for definitions, Peter Lake thought that he was in a really fine position, since whatever a year was, it seemed like eternity, and Anarinda’s nakedness and the way things went when they rolled about together in the warmth of the hut were greatly diverting. If this would last for another four or five hundred years . . . well, what more could anyone ask? That spring he grew quite smug, and thinking that this state would span half a dozen centuries, he sang, danced, and walked about humming to himself little ditties that he made up about Anarinda, such as:
Oh, Anarinda, breasts as round as clams,
Thighs as smooth as flounder’s soul,
Hair as gold as hay.
In you my bell shall toll,
Anarinda, Anarinda, darling of the bay.
But this happiness lasted nowhere near five hundred years. In fact, it lasted not even a week, for Humpstone John informed him that he had to leave. He would not be able to stay with the Baymen, because he had not been born a Bayman. They had taken good care of him for twelve years. Now he was on his own.
A year or two later and he would have been dying to go across the bay, as were all the boys of that age. But he was still young enough to feel that the marsh was everything there was of the world, and to be happy that there seemed to be little more, which is exactly why they sent him packing. They knew that to survive in Manhattan he would have to know something of bitterness before he arrived. And bitter he would always be at the thought of how they decked him out before he paddled across. They gave him a shell crown and a feather necklace (their symbols of manhood), a good broadsword, a new net, a bag of fish wafers, and a jug of clam beer. They told him that with these things he would be well prepared for the city. He had never given Manhattan much thought, for it had seemed only like a lot of high gray mountains that shone at night. He was sad to leave, but imagined that there he would find fine inlets teeming with fish, comfortable huts full of anarindas, and a life not unlike the life he had known. He crossed over early one evening in late spring.
MANHATTAN, A high narrow kingdom as hopeful as any that ever was, burst upon him full force, a great and imperfect steel-tressed palace of a hundred million chambers, many-tiered gardens, pools, passages, and ramparts above its rivers. Built upon an island from which bridges stretched to other islands and to the mainland, the palace of a thousand tall towers was undefended. It took in nearly all who wished to enter, being so much larger than anything else that it could not ever be conquered but only visited by force. Newcomers, invaders, and the inhabitants themselves were so confused by its multiplicity, variety, vanity, size, brutality, and grace, that they lost sight of what it was. It was, for sure, one simple structure, busily divided, lovely and pleasing, an extraordinary hive of the imagination, the greatest house ever built. Peter Lake knew this even as he stood on the Bowery in his homespun, shell crown, and feather necklace, at five o’clock in the evening, on a Friday in May.
He held the jug of purple clam beer in one hand, and the oily raccoon-skin bag of fish wafers in the other. He was dumbfounded, but learning fast. The first thing to happen was the theft of his canoe the minute he stepped out of it onto a pier at South Street. Hardly had he turned his back when shadowy forms emerged from the mossy pilings and sucked it i
n with them as if into hell. Within five minutes he saw boys carrying its splintered pieces to be sold for firewood. By the time he reached the Bowery, the wood was burning underneath the crackling flesh of fowl, pigs, and cows roasting for sale to passersby. As soon as the flames had died and yet another pig or lamb been positioned for a new burn, the sidewalk cooks had sold the ashes to gray-colored human wrecks who lugged huge bags of cinder and ash for sale to chemical companies and greenhouses. Peter Lake approached one of them and pointed at the enormous sack which almost hid its porter but for his tiny wizened head and two bloodshot popped eyes. “That’s my canoe,” he said.
“What’s your canoe?” inquired the bulky miserable.
“That,” answered Peter Lake, still pointing to the sack.
“That’s your canoe, huh,” said the ashman, regarding Peter Lake up and down from his shell crown to his muskrat booties. “Well then, you won’t mind if old Jake Salween uses it to sail to China, will you? Good day to you, m’boy! They’ll soon be taking you to Overweary’s.”
“Overweary’s?”
“As if you didn’t know! Outta my way, you crazy midget.”
It seemed to Peter Lake that the city, or as much as he had seen of it, was similar to the cloud wall. Its motion, the sounds erupting from all directions, the great vitality, struck him as a cloud wall laid flat, like a boiling carpet. But, whereas the wall was white, the city was a palette of upwelling colors. Its forms and geometry entranced him—the orange blaze in clear upper windows; a gas lamp’s green and white bell-like glare; leaping tongues of fire; red-hot booming chambers in the charcoal; shoe-black horses trotting airily at the head of varnished carriages; peaked and triangular roofs; the ballet of the crowds as they took stairs, turned corners, and forged across streets; the guttural noises of machinery (he heard in the distance a deep sound like that of the cloud wall, but it was the sound of steam engines, flywheels, and presses); sails that filled the ends of streets with billows of white or sharp angular planes, and then collapsed into the bordering buildings or made of themselves a guillotine; the shouts of costumed sellers; buildings (he had never seen buildings) deep inside of which were rows of sparkling lamps (he had never seen lamps), small trees and tables, and acres of beautiful upright women who, unlike the Baywomen, wore clothes that made them look like silky-skinned jungle birds, though more bosomy and at times more aloof. He had never seen uniforms, trolleys, glass windows, trains, and crowds. The city exploded upon him, bursting through the ring of white shells that crowned his head. He staggered about the fire and tumult of Broadway and the Bowery, not understanding everything he saw. For instance, a man turned a handle on a box, and music came out, while a small being, half-animal and half-man, danced about on the street and collected things in his hat. Peter Lake tried to talk to him. The man turning the handle said it would be wise to give the creature money.
“What’s money?” asked Peter Lake.
“Money is what you give the monkey, or the monkey pee on you,” replied the organ-grinder.
“‘Money is what you give the monkey . . . or the monkey pee on you,’” repeated Peter Lake, trying to understand. When he realized that the little man in the red suit was “the monkey,” he realized as well that the monkey was peeing on him. He jumped back, determined (among other things) to get some money.
In an hour he was more tired than he had ever been; his feet ached and his muscles were tight; his head felt like a copper caldron that had been thrown down the stairs. The city was like war—battles raged all around, and desperate men were on the street in crawling legions. He had heard the Baymen tell of war, but they had never said it could be harnessed, its head held down, and made to run in place. On several score thousand miles of streets were many cataclysmic armies interacting without formation—ten thousand prostitutes on Broadway alone; half a million abandoned children; half a million of the lame and blind; scores of thousands of active criminals locked in perpetual combat with as many police; and the vast number of good citizens, who in their normal lives were as fierce and rapacious as other cities’ wild dogs. They did not buy and sell, they made killings and beat each other out. They did not walk on the streets, they forged ahead like pikemen, teeth clenched and hearts pounding. The divisions between all the different stripes of desperado and the regular run-of-the-mill inhabitants were so fine and subtle that it was nearly impossible to identify a decent man. A judge who passed sentence on a criminal might deserve ten times more severe a condemnation, and might someday receive it from a colleague four times again as corrupt. The entire city was a far more complicated wheel of fortune than had ever been devised. It was a close model of the absolute processes of fate, as the innocent and the guilty alike were tumbled in its vast overstuffed drum, pushed along through trap-laden mazes, caught dying in airless cellars, or elevated to platforms of royal view.
Peter Lake had no more idea why he felt and sensed what he did than a patient in surgery has of what exactly is happening to him as he is sawed and cut. He was overcome by feeling. The city was a box of fire, and he was inside, burning and shaking, pierced continually by sights too sharp to catalog. He dragged himself about the maze of streets, lugging his purple beer and his fish wafers. There were no bays, no huts, no soft sandy places in which to lie down.
But there were anarindas. There were so many anarindas that he wondered if he were sane. They passed everywhere, to the side, above, below, deep within the glass-fronted boxes, like fish swimming enticingly in schools, gravityless and laughing. The supply was unending; it flowed like a river. Their voices were as fine as bells, crystal, birds, and song. He decided that he would do best if he picked an anarinda who would take him home with her. They could eat the fish wafers, drink the clam beer, shed their clothes, and roll about in whatever soft places these anarindas slept. He would choose the best one he could find. What anarinda, after all, could resist him in his shells, feathers, and furs, with an entire jug of clam beer at his side? Many anarindas passed, all fine. But the one he chose was special indeed. She was almost twice as tall as he was. Her broad face was so perfectly beautiful above a high gray collar (upon which was pinned an emerald) that she seemed like a goddess. She carried a sable wrap, and she had other jewels besides the emerald. It was wonderful, especially since she was about to step into a shiny black box pulled by two muscular horses.
Peter Lake approached her, indicated by a snap of the wrist first the bag of fish wafers and then the jug, and then held his chin up and stamped his feet in the insolent mating gesture of the Baymen. The shell crown jiggled and his feathers flew. At first, he thought that he had succeeded, because her eyes were wide with amazement. But then he saw an expression of fear move across her lovely features like a cloud across the moon. The door slammed in his face, and the box moved away.
He repeated this seduction a number of times, but even the most ragged of anarindas disdained him. Exhausted as he was, and dejected, he wandered still, searching for a place to stay, for night had already fallen. Although he did not know where he was going, the streets were so tangled and numerous that he was never in the same place twice, and everywhere he went he found arresting scenes (a dog turning somersaults, a man wrapped in a white sheet cursing the crowd, the crash of two hearses). After three hours (it was only eight o’clock) the Bayonne Marsh seemed as faint and distant as another world, and he knew that he was now lost in a long and magnificent dream. Scenes and colors mounted, driven like the waves of a storm, until he reeled with confusion.
Then he came to a small park, a square surrounded by stone buildings. It was quiet, dark green, and as peaceful and promising as the emerald on its field of gray angora. There were trees, soft grass, and dark spaces. In the center was a fountain. All around the perimeter, gas lamps shone through the trees as they moved in the wind, casting patterns of light and dark. And an anarinda was dancing there with another anarinda. One was small and had red hair and a green shirt. The other was much larger and far more sensual (even though she wa
s not much more than Peter Lake’s age) and she had flying blond hair, red cheeks, and a hot cream-colored shirt. They were dancing around the fountain, arm in arm, in an old Dutch dance, their cheeks touching, their hands entwined. They had no music; they hummed. And there was no reason for them to be dancing that Peter Lake could see, except that it was an exceptionally beautiful night.
THEY WORE loose-fitting brown shoes which clapped the macadam with a hollow jolly sound, and they dipped and turned with such fun that Peter Lake wanted to join in. So he did, resting jug, bag, and sword in a pile before he jumped out into the open space to dance. He danced somewhat like the Indians, from whom the Baymen had long before learned clam dances and strange roundelays in imitation of wind-blown reeds. Because the two girls were so happy, Peter Lake did a moon dance. He jumped and tucked, and played games from one fur-wrapped foot to another. They twirled about him as soon as his clinking shells came to their attention. The picture they made together was pleasing to passersby, who threw pieces of silver on the ground at their feet. This stuff, Peter Lake knew, was money. But though he had come to know what it was, he did not understand it for a long time after that, being puzzled by several of its mysterious rules. The first was that it was almost impossible to get. The second, that, once you had it, it was almost impossible to keep. The third, that these laws applied only to each individual but not to anyone else. In other words, though money was impossible to get and impossible to keep, for everyone else it flowed in by the bucketful and stayed forever. The fourth rule was that money liked to live in clean, shiny, colorful places of fine texture and alluring shadows. A lot of it seemed to reside at the edge of the park in tall houses of deep reddish-brown stone. On the other side of these houses’ clear windows, warm lights were shining and wide clear panels of maroon, red, green, and white appeared, as did the sparkle of silver and the glow of flame. He could see this even while dancing. And he could feel that he was excluded from such places, even though the people who lived there threw coins at him for doing the moon dance. That was a further mystery. They threw coins at him for doing something he loved, something that was easy, something that he would have done anyway. When Peter Lake danced by the night fountain in the dark green square, and was given coins for his dancing, he became a thief. Though it would take a long time for him to understand the principle, it was that to be paid for one’s joy is to steal. Having learned this lesson even if he did not understand it, he felt a bond with thieves, which was good, for the two girls were spielers.