City of Saints and Madmen

by Jeff VanderMeer

  IX

  Emily visits me at lunchtime. She visits me often during the day, but our nights have been crisscrossed, sometimes on purpose, I feel.

  We go to the same park and now we feel out of place, in the minority. Everywhere I look dwarfs walk to lunch, drive cars, mend benches. All of them like individual palm prints, each one so unique that next to them Emily appears plain.

  “Something has happened to you.” She looks into my eyes as she says this and I read a certain vulnerability into her words.

  “Something has happened to me. I have a wound in my palm.”

  “It’s not the wound. It’s the plants out of control. It’s the sex. It’s everything. You know it as well as me.”

  Emily is always right, on the mark, in the money. I am beginning to tire of such perfection. I feel a part of me break inside.

  “You don’t understand,” I say.

  “I understand that you cannot handle responsibility. I understand that you are having problems with this relationship.”

  “I’ll talk to you later,” I say and I leave her, speechless, on the bench.

  X

  After lunch, I think I know where my center lies: it lies in the sentence I must create for David Jones. It is in the sentence and in me. But I don’t want to write anything perfect. I don’t want to. I want to work without a net. I want to write rough, with emotion that stings, the words themselves dangling off into an abyss. I want to find my way back to the sea with the darkness coming down and the briny scent in my nostrils, before I knew my parents were dead. Before I was born.

  David Jones found his way. If a person drinks too much alcohol, the body forces the stomach to vomit the alcohol before it can reach a lethal level. Jones never vomited. As he slept, the alcohol seeped into his bloodstream and killed him.

  My shaking fingers want to perform ridiculous pratfalls, rolling over in complex loop-the-loops and cul-de-sacs of language. Or suicide sentences, mouthing sentiments from the almost dead to the definitely dead. Instead, I write:

  From birth, David was learning ways to leave the flesh.

  It is nothing close to layered prose. It has no subtlety to it. But now I can smell the slapping waves of the sea and the alluring stench of passionflower fruit.

  Before I leave for my apartment, Emily calls me. I do not take the call. I am too busy wondering when my parents knew they might die, and if they thought of me as the wind and the water conspired to take them. I wish I had been with them, had gone down with them, in their arms, with the water in our mouths like ambrosia.

  XI

  When I open my apartment door, I hear the scuttling of a hundred sticky toes. The refrigerator’s surface writhes with milk-white movement against the dark green of leaves. In another second I see that the white paint is instead the sinuous shimmer-dance of the geckos, their camouflage perfect as they scramble for cover. I open the refrigerator and take out a wine cooler; my feet crunch down on a hundred molting gecko skins, the sound like dead leaves, or brittle cicada chrysalises.

  I sit in my underwear and contemplate my wound by the TV’s redemptive light. It has healed itself so completely that I can barely find it. The itching, however, has intensified, until I feel it all over, inside me. Nothing holds my interest on my palm except the exquisite imperfections: the gradations of colors, the rough pliable feel of it, the scratches from Emily’s cat.

  I walk into the bedroom and ease myself beneath the covers of my bed. I imagine I smell the sea, a salt breeze wafting through the window. The stars seem like pieces of jagged glass ready to fall onto me. I toss in my bed and cannot sleep. I lie on my stomach. I lie on my side. The covers are too hot, but when I strip them away, my body becomes too cold. The water I drank an hour ago has settled in my stomach like a smooth, aching stone.

  Finally, the cold keeps me half-awake and I prop myself sleepily against the pillow. I hear voices outside and see flashes of light from the window, like a ferris wheel rising and falling. But I do not get up.

  Then he stands at the foot of my bed, staring at me. A cold blue tint dyes his flesh, as if the TV’s glow has sunburned him. The marble cast of his face is as perfect as the most perfect sentence I have ever written in my life. His eyes are so sad that I cannot meet his gaze; his face holds so many years of pain, of wanting to leave the flesh. He speaks to me and although I cannot hear him, I know what he is saying. I am crying again, but softly, softly. The voices on the street are louder and the tinkling of bells so very light.

  And so I discard my big-body skin and my huge hands and my ungainly height and I walk out of my apartment with David Jones, to join the carnival under the moon, by the seashore, where none of us can hurt or be hurt anymore.

  [Article excerpts taken from newspaper accounts in 1988 and 1989 by Michael Koretzky in The Independent Florida Alligator and by Ronald DuPont Jr. in The Gainesville Sun.]

  THE AMBERGRIS GLOSSARY

  - A -

  AANDALAY, ISLE OF. The mythic homeland of the piratical Aan Tribes. According to the tales of the Aan, the Southern Hemisphere once consisted of a single landmass, the Isle of Aandalay, populated solely by the happy, peaceful Children of Aan. Only after a great cataclysm—the nature of which varies more from tale to tale than the weather in that part of the world—shattered the Isle into a thousand pieces did the Aan become warlike, each faction certain they possessed the mandate for restoration of a united Isle of Aandalay. Thus did piracy become rationalized as a quest for a homeland. Some Aan even attacked the mainland, claiming it was merely a huge splinter exiled from their beloved Isle. See also: Calabrian Calendar.

  ABRASIS, MICHAEL. The first head librarian of the Manzikert Memorial Library. Abrasis is best known for his collection of erotic literature and lithographs. When he died, in his sleep, his body could not at first be removed from his apartment because the piles of pornography had blocked the only route from bed to door. Oddly enough, by the time Abrais’ relatives came to collect his things, the apartment had been picked clean. Abrasis bred prize-winning cababari in his spare time. See also: Cababari; Manzikert Memorial Library.

  ALBUMUTH BOULEVARD. A rather famous thoroughfare cutting through the heart of Ambergris. The site of both the Borges Bookstore and the headquarters of Hoegbotton & Sons, Albumuth Boulevard has long been privy to the inner workings of the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. During the civil disturbances of the Reds and the Greens, Albumuth Boulevard served as the main battlefield. Certainly the recent armed struggle between Hoegbotton’s publishing arm and the inscrutable Frankwrithe & Lewden could not have occurred without the events that first unfolded on the boulevard. No one can agree on the origin of the name “Albumuth,” or on the limits of the boulevard. As Sirin once said, “Like the Moth, Albumuth Boulevard has a thousand tributaries and streams, so that, ultimately, who can determine its boundaries or the limits of its influence?” See also: Borges Bookstore; Cappers; Frankwrithe & Lewden; Greens; Reds; Sirin.

  ALFAR. The ruins of Alfar form, with Zamilon, the only recorded instances of a particular architectural style reminiscent of gray cap buildings. Most structures at both Alfar and Zamilon have been constructed as circles within circles. Alfar, like Zamilon, is of unknown origin, but an additional peculiar tale is told by shepherds in both places: that, on certain nights, Alfar and Zamilon glow iridescent green and red, a sheen that spreads and intensifies so slowly that observers cannot at first recognize the change, but finally cannot doubt the evidence of their eyes. No one has as yet confirmed this claim independently, nor has anyone thought to time these “eruptions” of color, one to the other. What would it mean if Alfar and Zamilon became luminous on the same nights? See also: Busker, Alan; Nysman, Michael; Zamilon.

  AMBERGRIS. In folklore, a marbled substance often found on the seashore and thought to be a “sea mushroom.” Actually produced in the intestine of whales, ambergris can only be created when partially-digested squid beaks are present in the whale’s system. Whalers long sought ambergris for use as a
n aphrodisiac, in perfumes, and as a folk medicine. Since the founding of the city of Ambergris, however, the popularity of the substance has decreased dramatically. The Truffidian Antechambers discontinued the habit of anointing their ears, eyebrows, and armpits with a tincture of ambergris before holiday sermons. The Kalif no longer eats raw ambergris to stimulate virility, substituting live snails. Male rats, however, still enter a sexual frenzy when they smell ambergris. See also: Kalif, The; Moonrat; Rats.

  AMBERGRISIAN GASTRONOMIC ASSOCIATION. Founded during the days of Trillian the Great Banker, the AGA has published a number of books, including One Thousand Squid Recipes and Experiments with Different Types of Grease. The association achieved a degree of notoriety by uncovering the lost ingredients for Oliphaunt’s Delight: 1 pound of cherries, 17 pounds of freshwater squid, 20 gallons of goat’s milk, 5 pounds of fish paste (preferably flounder) and 1 ounce of asparagus. See also: Oliphaunt, The.

  AMBERGRISIAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society. The most adventure this group has seen is undercooked flounder at the annual Ambergrisian Historical Society Ball and the occasional paper cut (sweet red relief from boredom!) opening mail sent by similar dullards located in Morrow and Stockton. See also: Ambergrisians for the Original Inhabitants Society.

  AMBERGRISIANS FOR THE ORIGINAL INHABITANTS SOCIETY. Completely unlike the Ambergrisian Historical Society. Never has membership in a historical society been so fraught with peril. Every two or three years, another few members succumb to the temptation to pry open a manhole cover and go spelunking amongst the sewer drains. Inevitably, someone gets stuck in a culvert and the others go for help, or the gray caps, presumably, catch them and they disappear forever. One imagines the hapless AFTOIS members waving their official membership cards at the approaching, unimpressed gray caps. When not conspiring to commit assisted suicide, the AFTOIS publishes The Real History Newsletter. See also: Cappers; Martigan, Red; Real History Newsletter, The.

  - B -

  BANFOURS, ARCH DUKE OF. Best known for being the first to bombard Ambergris with cannon fire. He ruled Ambergris for exactly 21 days. While sitting at a sidewalk cafe, surrounded by his bodyguards, a waiter casually walked up behind him and slit his throat. There appears to have been no particular motivation for the assassination except for the usual engrained Ambergrisian dislike of foreigner interlopers. See also: Occupation, The.

  BANKER WARRIORS. This sect, comprising the most feared of Trillian’s followers, grew out of the predations of highway robbery. Due to the rise of the merchant classes, large quantities of money had to be physically moved from one city to another. Generally, a banker’s representative accompanied this transfer. Early transfers met with disaster. After years of robberies and pay offs to avoid robberies, the position of banker’s representative evolved from paper-pusher to hardened veteran of weapons’ training. By the time Trillian rose to power through the Ambergrisian banking system, the banker representatives had become a powerful, feared security force. Trillian himself named them the Banker Warriors and used them to consolidate his hold over Ambergris. Also influential in repelling attacks by the Kalif. Eventually assimilated into the Ambergris Defense Force, at which time women were excluded from participation. Several of these women (including the noted strategist Rebecca Gort, munitions expert Kathleen Lynch, and fencing master Susan Dickerson) founded their own chain of banks, bought several other businesses, and moved to Morrow, where they became the core of the most feared security force on the continent. The Ambergris Defense Force, on the other hand, perished to the last man during the Kalif’s invasion. See also: Frankwrithe & Lewden; Gort, Marmey; Kalif, The; Occupation, The; Trillian, The Great Banker.

  BEDLAM ROVERS. A southern ethnic group, known for living on house boats and incorporated at an early date into the Saphant Empire. These mystics thrived after the collapse of empire, adopting their nomadic aquatic life to the River Moth and turning their seasonal perambulations into a lucrative business. Cloaking their mysterious religious tendencies in a veneer of the rational and scientific, the Rovers have developed a reputation as experts on madness and cast themselves in the role of “psychiatrists,” much to the dismay of the mental health establishment in Ambergris. The Rovers’ riverboats, topped with a multitude of light blue flags and crowded with mentally unstable customers, usually arrive in Ambergris for a fresh batch of patients the week after the Festival of the Freshwater Squid. See also: Festival of the Freshwater Squid, The; Saphant Empire, The.

  BENDER, VOSS. A composer of operas, requiems, and minor rhymes, who, for a period of time, transcended his status as a cultural icon to become a politician and the unofficial ruler of Ambergris. His suspicious death spawned a civil war between the Greens, his most fanatical followers, and the Reds, his most fervent enemies. Famous for his defiant speech to the merchant barons during which he exclaimed, “Art always transforms money!” His many operas include The Tragedy of John & Sophia, The King Underground, Hymns for the Dead, Wilted As the Flower Lay, and his masterpiece, Trillian. Bender wrote an autobiography, Memoirs of a Composer, which contains more information on his early life. See also: Greens; Midnight for Munfroe; Nunk, Autarch of; Reds.

  BIBBLE, MAXWELL. The owner of a restaurant supply business who changed careers at age 35 to become an art critic. Bibble’s specialty was deep psychological profiles of artists based solely on their artwork. Best known for his misguided and fatuous attempts to identify Martin Lake as a member of a squid cult. For a time, Bibble was one of the most influential of the critics associated with the New Art movement, although he was unpopular with most New Artists. However, he died in poverty, using copies of his reviews to feed a fire during one of Ambergris’ freak cold spells. The sculptor William Blaze took a plaster cast of Bibble’s body, pasted his reviews on the outside of the cast, and exhibited the piece as “The Exhaustion of Criticism”—thereby reviving interest in Bibble’s writings. See also: New Art, The.

  BLGKKYDKS, HECKIRA. A Haragck military officer today best known for his oil paintings of remote landscapes. He often painted during campaigns and thus the paintings also have historical significance. The night before the Haragck amphibious assault on Ambergris, he completed preliminary sketches for a piece he intended to call “The Sack of Ambergris.” During the ensuing rout, these sketches came into the possession of the Ambergris navy. For 20 years they were displayed at the Morhaim Museum, but the trader Michael Hoegbotton found them so compelling that, after the Haragck had largely faded as a political/cultural force, he paid Blgkkydks to live in Ambergris for a year to complete the actual painting. Poverty-stricken, the old general reluctantly agreed, but fell so in love with Ambergris that he lived out his remaining years there. He eventually became a fixture of Albumuth Boulevard, his craggy visage and rickety easel noted on tourist maps of the period. See also: Grnnck, Haragck Khan; Morhaim Museum.

  BORGES BOOKSTORE. The oldest purveyor of printed words in Ambergris, thrice during its long history burned to the ground. Founded by and named after the Nicean brothers Bormund and Gestrand Kubtek, the Borges Bookstore has served many political and social functions over the years. During the conflict between the Reds and the Greens, Bender sympathizers hid in its basement. Before Festivals, patrons can book “reading slots” along its shelves, for it is well known that the gray caps will not pass the threshold. The westerner Kamal Bakar witnessed the third fire, set by looters during the 300th Festival of the Freshwater Squid, one of the worst in memory: “The sky was darkened by the smoke from the books; burned pages floated up into the air and fluttered back down again like a black snowfall all over the city. Those who caught a sheet could feel the heat and fleetingly read what had the strange appearance of a black-and-white dagguereotype. Once the heat had dissipated, the pages crumbled away between our fingers.” See also: Albumuth Boulevard; Bender, Voss; Burning Leaves; Festival of the Freshwater Squid; Greens; Reds.

  BRUEGHEL, MICHAEL. John Manzikert’s nemesis event
ually united the islands of the Aan despite several times coming close to total defeat. During his 50 years of rule, Brueghel not only annihilated the Kalif’s troops in three historic naval battles, forever relegating the Kalif’s ambitions to the continent, but also established an oligarchic form of government that served the Aan well for the next three generations. Perhaps his greatest achievement was to collect the remnants of the Saphant Empire under his aegis, preserving scientific and cultural advances that would otherwise have been lost. In later years, descendents of Brueghel, calling themselves Brueghelites, would seize large portions of the River Moth to the south of Ambergris and threaten Ambergrisian autonomy. See also: Calabrian Calendar; Kalif, The; Saltwater Buzzard; Saphant Empire, The.

  BUBBABAUNCE, BARON. The real name of the circus performer “Bauble.” See also; Hellatose & Bauble; Kodfan, M.; Madnok, Frederick.

  BURNING LEAVES. A controversial arts journal, known for publishing macabre, disturbing fictions and illustrations. Published by the Borges Bookstore until the editors printed their infamous Black Tract, which included a perverse “map” of Voss Bender’s naked body, diagramming the various worth of different parts and with short-short stories written about each part (most infamous: Sporlender’s “Tree with Nuts”). Since then, the journal has been funded entirely by advertising and newsstand sales. Burning Leaves published the first works by such future luminaries as Louis Verden, Nicholas Sporlender, Martin Lake, and Janice Shriek, as well as the obscene mechanical diagrams of the eccentric inventor known simply as Porfal. The premiere issue featured Corvid Quork’s short story “The Madness of Bird Masks.” See also: Bender, Voss; Borges Bookstore; Sporlender, Nicholas.