A Book Dragon

by Donn Kushner

  SHOEMAKER (ALSO KEYS)

  The low sun shone past the front windows and glowed on the face of a small, wrinkled man who sat at a bench hammering away at the heel of a shoe with deep concentration. On the sidewalk in front of him was a large gray parrot, tethered to a perch.

  The parrot turned his head so that the setting sun flashed up from his bill into Nonesuch’s eye. The bird’s eye flashed too, with such a look of wisdom that in a short time Nonesuch flew down and lighted on the window molding above the parrot’s head.

  The parrot tilted his head again and looked at the dragon for a long time.’ ‘Did you come on a banana boat?” he asked at last.

  Nonesuch took his own time in answering.’ ‘Hardly,” he said.

  “You have something of a jungle look about you,” the parrot explained. “All sorts of tropical creatures come in on the ships: tarantulas, even small boas; I don’t know what all. Usually, they die in the cold weather, so 1 hear. You should take care to keep warm.”

  ‘ ‘I do,” Nonesuch told him.

  The parrot nodded. “I don’t want to give unsolicited advice,” he assured Nonesuch. “I can’t get the jungle out of my mind. Sitting here, with this northern sea and sky, I still recall the damp, green, rotten jungles of the Amazon River

  where I was hatched, a green world as it must have been at the beginning of time, with more forms of life than you can imagine. That’s what I knew when I was very small, before I was captured and lived among men and learned human speech.”

  Nonesuch flew quickly out over the road to look inside the shop again at the man bent over his shoe.’ ‘Did hTcapture you?” he asked the parrot.

  “No, indeed,” the parrot said. “He would never have done that. I was taken by an Indian boy. He carried me and my brothers to market inside a dried calabash. I was purchased by a young missionary at the very end of the market day. Often I have wondered what happened to my brothers: if they were also sold the next day, or set free, or left to dry in the calabash. But my first master was good to me. I learned much of their Bible as he read it aloud to himself in the jungle. Later he fell ill and had to return to England. He gave me to his housekeeper, who had seemed so fond of me, but who sold me immediately to a sailor.

  “That was my present master, Mr. Sacco. He took me with him on his ship, the Matilda McClintock, where he was second engineer. We were torpedoed during the war, in the North Atlantic. He ran back to rescue me from his cabin before he would leave the ship, and he broke his leg jumping through the flames into a lifeboat. They set it badly in the boat, and he stffl limps.”

  The parrot sighed. “What a voyage that was! Icebergs came trundling down from the North Pole, cold castles that sneered at our little lifeboat. Snow squalls beat down on us;

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  we were in a white world without color or warmth. I kept Mr. Sacco’s spirits up in the lifeboat with words my first master used to read: ‘For thou didst cast me into the depth, in the heart of the seas. And the flood was round about me. All thy waves and billows passed over me.’ I won’t,say all those verses cheered him up,” the parrot added, ‘ ‘but he seemed amused. One able seaman in the lifeboat would weep and say, ‘A parrot quoting from Jonah! Next we’ll see a whale.’ We saw several, in fact, but they kept their distance. Ever since we were rescued, Mr. Sacco has kept me with him.”

  Nonesuch looked at the parrot with new respect.’ ‘Where was your war?” he asked him.

  “Oh, far away and years ago.”

  Nonesuch nodded.’ ‘I have seen human wars, too. I thought it was the only thing they could do. To get away from them you had to go to the forest, say to a quiet pool among the trees. But here they seem at peace together.” He looked again at the boats moving around the harbor, keeping well away from each other. In the little business district below to the left, the lights were now turned on. People were strolling down the mall without fear. The automobiles moved in an orderly fashion, stopping at the traffic lights. Sounds of music reached them from a band in the park.

  ‘ ‘So many of them,” Nonesuch said,’ ‘but 1 have seen no soldiers. They must have learned to live together after all this time.” In fact, though he was not ready to tell the parrot so much of his own past, the scene all around him: the bookshop, the man at his bench repairing shoes, the few early customers at the restaurant tables reading by twilight, even the busy world below, reminded him of the Abbey of Oddfields. He saw Peter Levy, who must have just come into the bookshop, leave it together with Rachel. They crossed the road and sat on the

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  stone parapet, facing the harbor, with their arms about each other.

  The parrot cleared his throat.’ ‘Not to be a spoil-sport, but I doubt if my master would agree with you. He is a socialist. He’ll talk to his customers for hours about the exploitation of one man by another. If he weren’t such a good shoemaker, he’d lose all his business.”

  The parrot looked closely at Nonesuch. “And a good locksmith, too; the best. I’ve heard it said that there’s no lock he can’t open. Though he had some trouble two weeks ago with a box the bookseller brought to him. It was all very mysterious, that box and its contents. You wouldn’t happen to know about it, by chance?”

  Nonesuch kept a discreet silence. The parrot looked at him even more closely, but did not question him further. “By the way,” he added, “if you’re going to be in the neighborhood, watch out for the white cat from the restaurant. He’s death on most birds and might mistake you for one. I’ve had to give him a few knocks with my bill to teach him a lesson.”

  “I’ve never had to bother with cats,” Nonesuch told the parrot. Shortly afterwards, he flew back to the hole over the DISTANT VOYAGES sign and entered the bookshop again.

  Samson was in the shop, looking over the table of science-fiction books with little interest. Professor Ash stuck his head out from between two bookcases.’ ‘Have you read them all?” he asked.

  “Just about,” Samson admitted. He pulled out a book from the middle row, looked at the back cover, and leafed through it. ‘ ‘Yechh!” he said.

  “What’s that one?” Professor Ash asked him.

  Samson shrugged. Conquest ofthe planet Adalbaran 12. He turned over some more pages. “The natives don’t like

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  anyone,” he explained. “They have anti-gravity rays and deep-penetrating lasers. The explorers have to set up force fields or they’ll be made into inter-galactic chicken soup.” He made a face. “It’s all too easy: he writes down whatever he wants. It doesn’t seem any harder than exploring the North Pole.”

  “That was easy?” Professor Ash asked him. ‘ ‘Well, you didn’t have to leave Earth to find it.” ‘ ‘Enough did. Here,” Professor Ash said,’ ‘since you mention polar exploration, you might want to read about it.” He reached behind him, without looking, and pulled a book from the shelf.’ ‘It deals with the Antarctic, which is an even more hostile region than the Arctic.” He laid the book before Sam-son, who grimaced at its size but opened the cover.

  “The Worst Journey in the World.” He read the title with interest.

  “The name refers to a winter journey the author took to collect penguin eggs,” Professor Ash said.’ ‘He made the trip for the sake of knowledge, like all good explorers, and had to endure temperatures of seventy degrees below zero. He was young and strong and recovered from that journey. But his real worst journey was the trip he took later to find the bodies of Captain Scott, the leader of the whole Antarctic expedition, and his two companions, who froze on the way back from the South Pole just eleven miles from a fuel depot that might have saved their lives. To the end of his own life, the writer of this book blamed himself, unjustly, for failing to rescue them.”

  Samson picked up the book again, turned to the inside cover, and winced at the price. “I’ll have to save up for this one,” he remarked. He left the book, which remained open on the table. That night, Nonesuch started to read it, hovering over it, then crawling beneath
the pages and walking towards the spine, with his back arched, to turn them over. He read the

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  brave and tragic story of Scott’s party, who arrived at the South Pole only to find that the Norwegian explorer Amundsen had already been there. He read, through Scott’s journals, of the desperate journey back towards the base camp, all of them growingweaker on inadequate food and fuel. He read of’ “Titus” Gates, who, knowing he had no chance to reach the base camp and realizing he was a burden to his comrades, had deliberately walked out into the blizzard to die and give the others a chance.

  But the chance came too late. Nonesuch carefully read Scott’s last entries in his journal, which was found with his body. “Outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift,” he read. The words reminded him of the par-rot’s own winter journey, and of the cold white world he had seen; the parrot’s account gave him more confidence in that of the human. Then he came to Scott’s words, “We are weak, writing is difficult, but for my part I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardships, help one another, and meet death with as great fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks, we knew we took them; things have come out against us, and therefore we have no cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best till the last….” No, Nonesuch thought, carrying on a silent conversation with his grandmother, this was the way in which a dragon might speak. These humans seemed worth saving after all, even if one of them had not written his special Book of Hours. That evening, Mr. Gottiieb did not come downstairs to look at this book. When the dragon saw the sky outside begin to pale, he carefully, with some labor, turned the pages of The W>rst Journey in the W&ridback to their original position, slipped under the locked door to the office - fortunately, the door had warped enough to make this easy—and returned to his own sleeping-place in the cupboard.

  CHAPTER XIII

  MR. ABERCROMBIE

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  THE BOOK ON THE ANTARC-TIC EXPLORERS REMAINED

  on the table much of the next day. Nonesuch had hopes of continuing to read it that evening. Towards the end of the afternoon, however, a new customer entered the shop and eventually took the book away with him. This was a tall, distinguished, silver-haired man who wore an elegant brown cashmere sweater. His face was fresh and smooth, and he smiled easily. For a time after he entered, he stood just inside the door, looking the books over. Nonesuch bristled: the stranger seemed to be passing his eyes over each book as if he were add-ing them all up, but with little interest in their contents.

  Mr. Gottlieb had been watching him too. “Can I help you?” he asked.

  “Possibly,” the stranger replied pleasantly. ‘ ‘I was driving by and saw your little comer.” He continued to look around the books, smiling. Then he leaned forward and pulled one from a shelf. “Foxe’s Booke of Martyrs,” he announced.

  “That’s a good edition,” Mr. Gottlieb toldhim. “It’s abridged, of course. The original would fill up the whole shelf. There may be a complete one at the university library.”

  “I’m sure this will have the well-known passages.” The stranger turned the pages. “Ah, here’s old Bishop Latimer:

  ‘Be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man. We shall this day, by God’s grace, light up such a candle in England as, I trust, will never be put out.’ ”

  Nonesuch, who with trembling wings had been watching the stranger’s every move, now froze with astonishment. His grandmother had described that very scene!

  ‘ ‘Are you especially interested in that period?” Mr. Gottlieb asked him.

  The stranger shook his head. “No more than in other times of idiocy. There’s only a certain amount of interest in the reasons men burn each other.” He looked at the book again. “How they did carry on!” He hummed a little tune. “Have you seen the place?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  ‘ ‘In Oxford, you know; by Balliol College. There’s a cross there now; in a parking lot. If the taxis move, you can see the very spot.”

  That was where Nonesuch’s grandmother had said the old men were burned: at Oxford. But why did the stranger find it so amusing?

  ‘ “The old fools could have escaped, you know,” the stranger said.

  ‘ ‘Or renounced their faith,” said Mr. Gottlieb.’ ‘They chose to do neither.”

  The stranger clicked his tongue. “Such stupidity.”

  The bookseller did not answer, and the stranger continued to read. His next words distressed Nonesuch. “Still, as you say, it seems a well-printed edition. I think I’ll buy it.”

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  Mr. Gotdieb coughed hastily. “I’m afraid that book is promised to someone else. I should have taken it off the shelf.”

  “Really!” The stranger smiled again. “I wouldn’t have thought the subject would be so popular.”

  Mr. Gotuieb blushed. “A specialist in the wars of religion.”

  “Really?” The stranger pointedly looked away, to ignore the blush. “I really do want this book, you know.”

  Mr. Gottlieb shrugged, embarrassed.

  “Well, in one way or another,” the stranger said, almost to himself. His eyes fell on the book about the explorers of the Antarctic. He picked it up and turned over the pages.’ ‘Is this one also reserved, perhaps for a polar specialist?”

  Mr. Gottlieb shook his head. The stranger turned to the price on the front cover. He extended a ten-dollar biB. “Then I’ll have it.”

  Mr. Gottlieb dumbly accepted the money.

  The stranger was in no hurry to leave. He continued to turn over the book’s pages, son humming his Btue tune.’ ‘Death in a lonely tent,” he remarked.’ ‘Of course, today he could see it all by airplane with little or no risk. What a wasted effort!”

  “He thought the search for knowledge was worth white at the time, I believe,” Mr. Gottlieb observed dryly. “Others did too. They still do, in fact.”

  The stranger smiled. • “Indeed. A romantic view but not a realistic one; especially considering that Scott’s party arrived at the South Pole after Amundsen did. They needn’t have gone at all.” He looked at the book in his hand again and shook his head. • ‘All these efforts that come to nothing: history is full of them. Inventors who have their work stolen. Poor mad Van Gogh, who hardly sold a single picture in his short life. How many art dealers has he made rich? It’s better to be a dealer than a creator. You were wise to decide to be a dealer.”

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  • ‘Well,” Mr. Gottlieb replied, • ‘it wasn’t so much a matter of wisdom. I have no special creative talents, though I admire them in others, more than anything else in fact. But I simply sell books. People seem to need them.”

  ‘ ‘How sensible to recognize your limitations,” the stranger said. He added, “I wouldn’t mind having an early copy of Scott’s Jouma/if it comes your way. Or of the Books of Martyrs if you find another copy or if your, uh, specialist on wars of religion doesn’t caB for it. Let me give you my card.” He handed one to the bookseller. As it passed. Nonesuch could read the words “Brian Abercrombie.”

  “I live on Butcher’s Point,” the stranger added.

  Mr. Gottlieb nodded. “You have a fine view there.”

  “Yes, of course.” Mr. Abercrombie walked to the door and stopped, struck by the panorama before him. “But you have a view!” he exclaimed. He stepped out to the road, crossed it, and returned to the bookshop. “What space and what a location, just for the three of you! How could you have remained undiscovered for so long?”

  ‘ ‘We’re pretty weB known locally,” Mr. Gottlieb told him.

  “Locally?” Mr. Abercrombie glanced around the empty shop. “I must leave you to your local customers.”

  But he did not leave immediately. He stayed a long time on the sidewalk, looking at the three buildings. He walked out to the parapet as well, studying the slope of the ground below, and walked past the restaurant to examine the hill behind it.

&
nbsp; Mr. Gotdieb was stffl disturbed that evening.’ ‘Why did I make up that story?” he asked his wife.” What is it to me who buys my books? And he knew I was lying all the time.”

  “He sounds like a nasty piece of work,” Mrs. Gottlieb remarked.

  “More of a joker, I think,” Mr. Gotdieb said, more toler-

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  antly. His mind was again on Nonesuch’s Book of Hours. He had been studying some of the marginal drawings. Here and there he had seen a kind of food chain in progress: a mouse ate a cricket and in turn was eaten by a cat, who was devoured by a wolf, who was shot by an archer, who was drowned and eaten by fishes. Sometimes the chain would be broken by the smaller creatures (but not the larger ones) escaping into the vines. These tiny stories calmed Mr. Gottlieb’s spirit. “We probably won’t hear from him again,” he remarked, putting Mr. Abercrombie’s card away in a file.

  Because he was ashamed, Mr. Gottlieb did not mention his visitor to his daughter. The next day a new customer entered the shop when she was alone, except for Nonesuch, who was looking wistfully at the front of the Booke of Martyrs, which was too tightly wedged in place for him to peek inside. He had to scuttle behind the next book when this one was suddenly withdrawn from the shelf. He ran up the front of a book and looked out.

  A stout man in a soiled, rumpled suit with broad blue stripes was holding out the book to Rachel. “This one,” he said. Nonesuch saw him reach into a bulging pocket of his jacket and withdraw two pink gumdrops which he popped into his mouth.