Thus thinking, Dradin pushed open the glass door, the lacquered oak frame a-creak, and a bell chimed once, twice, thrice. On the thrice chime, a clerk dressed all in dark greens, sleeves spiked with gold cufflinks, came forward, shoes soundless on the thick carpet, bowed, and asked, “How may I help you?”
To which Dradin explained that he sought a gift for a woman. “Not a woman I know,” he said, “but a woman I should like to know.”
The clerk, a rake of a lad with dirty brown hair and a face as subtle as mutton pie, winked wryly, smiled, and said, “I understand, sir, and I have precisely the book for you. It arrived a fortnight ago from the Ministry of Whimsy imprint—an Occidental publisher, sir. Please follow me.”
The clerk led Dradin past mountainous shelves of history texts perused by shriveled prunes of men dressed in orange pantaloons—buffoons from university, no doubt, practicing for some baroque Voss Bender revival—and voluminous mantels of fictions and pastorals, neglected except by a widow in black and a child of twelve with thick glasses, then exhaustive columns of philosophy on which the dust had settled thicker still, until finally they reached a corner hidden by “Funerals” entitled “Objects of Desire.”
The clerk pulled out an elegant eight-by-eleven book lined with soft velvet and gold leaf. “It is called The Refraction of Light in a Prison and in it can be found the collected wisdom of the last of the Truffidian monks imprisoned in the Kalif’s dark towers. It was snuck out of those dark towers by an intrepid adventurer who—”
“Who was not a son of Hoegbotton, I hope,” Dradin said, because it was well known that Hoegbotton & Sons dealt in all sorts of gimmickry and mimicry, and he did not like to think that he was giving his love an item she might have unpacked and catalogued herself.
“Hoegbotton & Sons? No, sir. Not a son of Hoegbotton. We do not deal with Hoegbotton & Sons (except inasmuch as we are contracted to carry their guidebooks), as their practices are . . . how shall I put it? . . . questionable. With neither Hoegbotton nor his sons do we deal. But where was I? The Truffidians.
“They are experts at the art of cataloguing passion, with this grave distinction: that when I say to you, sir, ‘passion,’ I mean the word in its most general sense, a sense that does not allow for intimacies of the kind that might strike the lady you wish to know better as too vulgar. It merely speaks to the general—the incorporeal, as one more highly witted than I might say. It shall not offend; rather, it shall lend to the gift-giver an aura of mystery that may prove permanently alluring.”
The clerk proffered the book for inspection, but Dradin merely touched the svelte cover with his hand and said no, for he had had the most delightful thought: that he could explore those pages at the same time as his love. The thought made his hands tremble as they had not trembled since the fever ruled his body and he feared he might die. He imagined his hand atop hers as they turned the pages, her eyes caressing the same chapter and paragraph, the same line and word; thus could they learn of passion together but separate.
“Excellent, excellent,” Dradin said, and, after a tic of hesitation—for he was much closer to penniless than penniful—he added, “but I shall need two,” and as the clerk’s eyebrows rose like the startled silhouettes of twin sea gulls upon finding that a fish within their grasp is actually a shark, he stuttered, “A-a-and a map. A map of the city. For the festival.”
“Of course,” said the clerk, as if to say, Converts all around, eh?
Dradin, dour-faced, said only, “Wrap this one and I will take the other unwrapped, along with the map,” and stood stiff, brimming over with urgency, as the clerk dawdled and digressed. He knew well the clerk’s thoughts: a rogue priest, ungodly and unbound by any covenant made with God. And perhaps the clerk was right, but did not canonical law provide for the unforeseen and the estranged, for the combination of beauty and the bizarre of which the jungle was itself composed? How else could one encompass and explain the terrible grace of the Hull Peoples, who lived within the caves hewn by a waterfall, and who, when dispossessed by Dradin and sent to the missionary fort, complained of the silence, the silence of God, how God would not talk to them, for what else was the play of water upon the rocks but the voice of God? He had had to send them back to their waterfall, for he could not bear the haunted looks upon their faces, the disorientation blossoming in their eyes like a deadly and deadening flower.
Dradin had first taken a lover in the jungles: a sweaty woman priest whose kisses smothered and suffocated him even as they brought him back to the world of flesh. Had she infected his mission? No, for he had tried so very hard for conversions, despite their scarcity. Even confronted by savage beast, savage plant, and just plain savage he had persevered. Perhaps persevered for too long, in the face of too many obstacles, his hair proof of his tenacity—the stark black streaked with white or, in certain light, stark white shot through with black, each strand of white attributable to the jungle fever (so cold it burned, his skin glacial), each strand of black a testament to being alive afterwards.
Finally, the clerk tied a lime green bow around a bright red package: gaudy but serviceable. Dradin dropped the necessary coin on the marble counter, stuck the map in the unwrapped copy and, with a frown to the clerk, walked to the door.
Out in the gray glare of the street, the heat and the bustling confusion struck Dradin and he thought he was lost, lost in the jungles that he had only just fled, lost so he would never again find his lady. His breaths came ragged and he put a hand to his temple, for he felt faint yet giddy.
Gathering his strength, he plunged into the muddle of sweating flesh, sweating clothes, sweating cobblestones. He rushed past the twin lions, their asses waggling at him as if they knew very well what he was up to, the arches, and then a vanguard of mango sellers, followed by an army of elderly dowager women with brimming stomachs and deep-pouched aprons, determined to buy up every last fruit or legume; young pups in play nipped at his heels, and, lord help him, he was delivered pell-mell in a pile, delivered with a stumble and a bruise to the opposite sidewalk, there to stare up once again at his lady love. Could any passage be more perilous than that daylight passage across Albumuth Boulevard, unless it was to cross the Moth at flood time?
Undaunted, Dradin sprang to his feet, his two books secure, one under each arm, and smiled to himself.
The woman had not moved from her station on the third floor; Dradin could tell, for he stood exactly as he had previous, upon the same crack in the pavement, and she was exactly as before, down to the pattern of shadows across the glass. Her rigid bearing brought questions half-stumbling to his lips. Did they did not give her time for lunch? Did they make a virtue out of vice and virtually imprison her, enslave her to a cruel schedule ? What had the clerk said? That Hoegbotton practices were questionable? He wanted to march into the building and talk to her superior, be her hero, but his dilemma was of a more practical kind: he did not wish to reveal himself as yet and thus needed a messenger for his gift.
Dradin searched the babble of people and his vision blurred, the world simplified to a sea of walking clothes: cufflinks and ragged trousers, blouses dancing with skirts, tall cotton hats and shoes with loose laces. How to distinguish? How to know whom to approach?
Fingers tugged at his shoulder and someone said, “Do you want to buy her?”
Buy her? Glancing down, Dradin found himself confronted by a singular man. This singular soul looked to be, it must be said, almost one muscle, a squat man with a low center of gravity, and yet perhaps the source of levity despite this: in short, a dwarf. How could one miss him? He wore a jacket and vest red as a freshly slaughtered carcass and claribel pleated trousers dark as crusted blood and shoes tipped with steel. A permanent grin molded the sides of his mouth so rigidly that, on second glance, Dradin wondered if it might not be a grimace. Melon bald, the dwarf was tattooed from head to foot.
The tattoo—which first appeared to be a birthmark or fungal growth—rendered Dradin speechless so that the dwarf said to hi
m not once, but twice, “Are you all right, sir?”
While Dradin just stared, gap-jawed like a young jackdaw with naive fluff for wing feathers. For the dwarf had, tattooed from a point on the top of his head, and extending downward, a precise and detailed map of the River Moth, complete with the names of cities etched in black against the red dots that represented them. The river flowed a dark blue-green, thickening and thinning in places, dribbling up over the dwarf’s left eyelid, skirting the midnight black of the eye itself, and down past taut lines of nose and mouth, curving over the generous chin and, like an exotic snake act, disappearing into the dwarf’s vest and chest hair. A map of the lands beyond spread out from the River Moth. The northern cities of Dradin’s youth—Belezar, Stockton, and Morrow (the last where his father still lived)—were clustered upon the dwarf’s brow and there, upon the lower neck, almost the back, if one were to niggle, lay the jungles of Dradin’s last year: a solid wall of green drawn with a jeweler’s precision, the only hint of civilization a few smudges of red that denoted church enclaves. Dradin could have traced the line that marked his own dismal travels. He grinned, and he had to stop himself from putting out a hand to touch the dwarf’s head for it had occurred to him that the dwarf’s body served as a time line. Did it not show Dradin’s birthplace and early years in the north as well as his slow descent into the south, the jungles, and now, more southern still, Ambergris? Could he not, if he were to see the entire tattoo, trace his descent further south, to the seas into which flowed the River Moth? Could he not chart his future, as it were? He would have laughed if not aware of the impropriety of doing so.
“Incredible,” Dradin said.
“Incredible,” echoed the dwarf, and smiled, revealing large yellowed teeth scattered between the gaping black of absent incisors and molars. “My father Alberich did it for me when I stopped growing. I was to be part of his show—he was a riverboat pilot for tourists—and thus he traced upon my skin the course he plotted for them. It hurt like a thousand devils curling hooks into my flesh, but now I am, indeed, incredible. Do you wish to buy her? My name is Dvorak Nibelung.” From within this storm of information, the dwarf extended a blunt, whorled hand that, when Dradin took it, was cool to the touch, and very rough.
“My name is Dradin.”
“Dradin,” Dvorak said. “Dradin. I say again, do you wish to buy her?”
“Buy who?”
“The woman in the window.”
Dradin frowned. “No, of course I don’t wish to buy her.”
Dvorak looked up at him with black, watery eyes. Dradin could smell the strong musk of river water and silt on the dwarf, mixed with the sharp tang of an addictive, ghittlnut.
Dvorak said, “Must I tell you that she is only an image in a window? She is no more real to you. Seeing her, you fall in love. But, if you desire, I can I find you a woman who looks like her. She will do anything for money. Would you like such a woman?”
“No,” Dradin said, and would have turned away if there had been room in the swirl of people to do so without appearing rude. Dvorak’s hand found his arm again.
“If you do not wish to buy her, what do you wish to do with her?” Dvorak’s voice was flat with miscomprehension.
“I wish to . . . I wish to woo her. I need to give her this book.” And, then, if only to be rid of him, Dradin said, “Would you take this book to her and say that it comes from an admirer who wishes her to read it?”
To Dradin’s surprise, Dvorak began to make huffing sounds, soft but then louder, until the River Moth changed course across the whorls of his face and something fastened to the inside of his jacket clicked together with a hundred deadly shivers.
Dradin’s face turned scarlet.
“I suppose I will have to find someone else.”
He took from his pocket two burnished gold coins engraved with the face of Trillian, the Great Banker, and prepared to turn sharply on his heel.
Dvorak sobered and tugged yet a third time on his arm. “No, no, sir. Forgive me. Forgive me if I’ve offended, if I’ve made you angry,” and the hand pulled at the gift-wrapped book in the crook of Dradin’s shoulder. “I will take the book to the woman in the window. It is no great chore, for I already trade with Hoegbotton & Sons, see,” and he pulled open the left side of his jacket to reveal five rows of cutlery: serrated and double-edged, made of whale bone and of steel, hilted in engraved wood and thick leather. “See,” he said again. “I peddle knives for them outside their offices. I know this building,” and he pointed at the solid brick. “Please?”
Dradin, painfully aware of the dwarf’s claustrophobic closeness, the reek of him, would have said no, would have turned and said not only no, but How dare you touch a man of God?, but then what? He must make acquaintance with one or another of these people, pull some ruffian off the dusty sidewalk, for he could not do the deed himself. He knew this in the way his knees shook the closer he came to Hoegbotton & Sons, the way his words rattled around his mouth, came out mumbled and masticated into disconnected syllables.
Dradin shook Dvorak’s hand off the book. “Yes, yes, you may give her the book.” He placed the book in Dvorak’s arms. “But hurry about it.” A sense of relief lifted the weight of heat from his shoulders. He dropped the coins into a pocket of Dvorak’s jacket. “Go on,” and he waved a hand.
“Thank you, sir,” Dvorak said. “But, should you not meet with me again, tomorrow, at the same hour, so you may know her thoughts? So you may gift her a second time, should you desire?”
“Shouldn’t I wait to see her now?”
Dvorak shook his head. “No. Where is the mystery, the romance? Trust me: better that you disappear into the crowds. Better indeed. Then she will wonder at your appearance, your bearing, and have only the riddle of the gift to guide her. You see?”
“No, I don’t. I don’t see at all. I must be confident. I must allow her to—”
“You are right—you do not see at all. Sir, are you or are you not a priest?”
“Yes, but—”
“You do not think it best to delay her knowing of this until the right moment? You do not think she will find it odd a priest should woo her? Sir, you wear the clothes of a missionary, but she is no ordinary convert.”
And now Dradin did see. And wondered why he had not seen before. He must lead her gently into the particulars of his occupation. He must not boldly announce it for fear of scaring her off.
“You are right,” Dradin said. “You are right, of course.”
Dvorak patted his arm. “Trust me, sir.”
“Tomorrow then.”
“Tomorrow, and bring more coin, for I cannot live on good will alone.”
“Of course,” Dradin said.
Dvorak bowed, turned, walked up to the door of Hoegbotton & Sons, and—quick and smooth and graceful—disappeared inside.
Dradin looked up at his love, wondering if he had made a mistake. Her lips still called to him and the entire sky seemed concentrated in her eyes, but he followed the dwarf’s advice and, lighthearted, disappeared into the crowds.
II
DRADIN, HAPPIER THAN HE HAD BEEN SINCE DROPPING the fever at the Sisters of Mercy Hospital, some five hundred miles away and three months in the past, sauntered down Albumuth, breathing in the smell of catfish simmering on open skillets, the tangy broth of codger soup, the sweet regret of overripe melons, pomegranates, and leechee fruit offered for sale. Stomach grumbling, he stopped long enough to buy a skewer of beef and onions and eat it noisily, afterwards wiping his hands on the back of his pants. He leaned against a lamppost next to a sidewalk barber and—aware of the sour effluvium from the shampoos, standing clear of the trickle of water that crept into the gutter—pulled out the map he had bought at Borges Bookstore. It was cheaply printed on butcher paper, many of the street names drawn by hand. Colorless, it compared unfavorably with Dvorak’s tattoo, but it was accurate and he easily found the intersection of streets that marked his hostel. Beyond the hostel lay the valley of
the city proper; north of it stood the religious district and his old teacher, Cadimon Signal. He could make his way to the hostel via one of two routes. The first would take him through an old factory district, no doubt littered with the corpses of rusted out motored vehicles and railroad cars, railroad tracks cut up and curving into the air with a profound sense of futility. In his childhood in the city of Morrow, Dradin, along with his long-lost friend Anthony Toliver (Tolive the Olive, he had been called, because of his fondness for the olive fruit or its oil), had played in just such a district, and it did not fit his temperament. He remembered how their play had been made somber by the sight of the trains, their great, dull heads upended, some staring glassily skyward while others drank in the cool, dark earth beneath. He was in no mood for such a death of metal, not with his heartbeat slowing and rushing, his manner at once calm and hyperactive.
No, he would take the second route—through the oldest part of the city, over one thousand years old, so old as to have lost any recollection of itself, its stones worn smooth and memory-less by the years. Perhaps such a route would settle him, allow him this bursting joy in his heart and yet not make his head spin quite so much.
Dradin moved on—ignoring an old man defecating on the sidewalk (trousers down around his ankles) and neatly sidestepping an Occidental woman around whom flopped live carp as she, armed with a club, methodically beat at their heads until a spackle of yellow brains glistened on the cobblestones.
After a few minutes of walking, the wall-to-wall buildings fell away, taking the smoke and dust and babble of voices with them. The world became a silent place except for the scuff of Dradin’s shoes on the cobblestones and the occasional muttering chug-chuff of a motored vehicle, patched up and trundling along, like as not burning more oil than fuel. Dradin ignored the smell of fumes, the angry retort of tailpipes. He saw only the face of the woman from the window—in the pattern of lichen on a gray-stained wall, in the swirl of leaves gathered in a gutter.
City of Saints and Madmen Page 2