A Strange Country

by Muriel Barbery

  “I will go to Nanzen someday,” declared their traveling companion straight out.

  Marcus laughed.

  “How can you know that?” he asked.

  “I will be appointed Guardian of the Pavilion,” replied the elfkin, “and I will be the master of Nanzen.”

  They looked at him, flabbergasted.

  “Desire makes destiny,” said the little high-elf. “In the meantime, we will support our champion.”

  “Who is this champion?” asked Petrus.

  “A high-elf hare from the Dark Mists who is running for office for the first time, against a high-elf hare from the province of Snows, who is already on the Council.”

  “Ryoan versus Katsura,” said Paulus. “Our Deep Woods are not about to give rise to a leader.”

  “All it takes is a little ambition,” said the elfkin. “Don’t you want to be part of history?”

  “We are members of lower houses,” said Marcus, “I suppose that explains why we have so little appetite for power. History, on the other hand, belongs to everyone. And I didn’t know that you could call a candidate a champion.”

  “We’ve never had a more unusual candidate,” said the elfkin. “He doesn’t belong to the inner circle of councilors, even though he does come from another prestigious lineage, that of the Council’s master gardeners. He is so brilliant that in only two hundred years he has managed to obtain the endorsement of the councilors. Now he has his eye on the ultimate office.”

  “Will your family vote for him?” asked Petrus.

  “My family and many others. The elves are afraid, they need a daring leader to fight against the new dangers of our time.”

  “New dangers?” echoed Marcus.

  The other elf looked at him as if he’d just stepped out of a dusty closet.

  “The day before yesterday the Council issued a new alert regarding several provinces where the mists are in difficulty.”

  “Yes,” send Paulus, “we already heard about it in Hanase. What does that have to do with your daring leader?”

  “My father thinks this is only the beginning of a long death, and that we need someone who will not be afraid to face the causes.”

  “And what might these causes be?” asked Petrus.

  He was in a bad mood from being stuck in his squirrel essence, and he could feel the defiance growing inside him. The young elf turned into a piglet while taking his time to reply. He lowered his lashes graciously and when he looked up again he said in a conspiratorial tone:

  “Humans.”

  The other three looked at him aghast and he seemed pleased with the effect he’d had.

  “How could humans have anything to do with the fluctuations of the mist?” asked Paulus, puzzled.

  “It’s a long story,” said the piglet.

  He wanted to continue, but suddenly something shook the barge violently. A murmur of astonishment spread over the channel and the boatmen closed the communicating canals. The shock woke the piglet’s parents, and when they found their son in the company of the threesome, they came over, smiling, and bowed amiably. In their human shape, they were indecently good looking, as dark as their child was blond.

  “I hope our young chatterbox hasn’t been too much of a bother,” said the father.

  “Not at all,” said Paulus politely.

  “Quite astonishing, that sudden jolt,” said the mother, frowning.

  She had a deep voice with something of a drawl, which Petrus liked.

  “Your son told us you are from Ryoan,” said Paulus. “I’ve heard it’s an incomparable city.”

  “You are very welcome there,” she replied, “we are always happy to share the splendor of our dark mists. May I ask where you are from?”

  They didn’t have time to reply because new instructions required the passengers to remain seated and the three wild boar elves returned to their seats. But after a moment, as nothing particular was happening, everyone began once again to enjoy the gentle pleasure of being on the water. As for Petrus, he was thinking. Perhaps you are one of the pieces of the puzzle that is being assembled, the hare elf at the teahouse had said—and, indeed, he felt as if they had drifted into the center of a game that was beyond them. Even though the wild grasses in the channel were hallucinations, a product of his exaggerated consumption of tea, they disturbed him as much as real writing would have done. And even if they are chimeras, shouldn’t they make us see something? he wondered. Then, exhausted by all these incongruous considerations, which were giving him a headache, he fell asleep. But before nodding off he had one last thought: what an adventure! And as he slipped into sleep, he smiled.

  At last they reached Katsura.

  “Our first real lock,” said Paulus.

  The boatmen woke the travelers shortly before the channel began to close again behind the barges, which stayed motionless on a patch of liquid mist while other mists, to the rear, returned to vapor. Facing them was the void of still more mist: the lock. The boatmen sought their positions in successive adjustments of a few centimeters, the channel grew ever narrower, and before long the boats were lined up side by side on the last square of liquid in the world. No sound, no movement; the mist coiled on itself as time was suspended and everyone held their breath. Not a single native of this world was ignorant of the fact that the lock at Katsura was dangerous, and although it had not happened in five centuries, a distracted mooring maneuver could throw barges, boatmen, and voyagers into the void from which none would return.

  After a long while the boatmen relaxed, just as a sound came to their ears, and the mist lifted to reveal, far below them, the great city bathed in light. They went slowly down toward Katsura, following a vertical trajectory which had given its name, the Well of Mist, to the lock, a well of half a league that was used ten times a day in both directions by one to two hundred boatloads of pilgrims. It was the middle of the afternoon and the November sun shone above the gray roofs. There was no sign yet of the lovely soft snow that covers the province from the end of the year until the first days of April; plum and maple trees blazed with their autumn colors, and from above, Katsura looked as if it were on fire; tall gingko trees added amber touches, like will-o’-the-wisps frozen in flight. Beyond them was a landscape of trees in fog with a few isolated villages here and there, but what dominated were the vaporous mountains the city backed onto. They overlooked the snowy peaks that circled the city and created such an imposing lofty landscape that Katsura seemed to be floating there like the survivor of a shipwreck. Closer inspection of the city revealed it to be more solid and firmly anchored than rock, because the mist, in contrast, gave it a vigor that no solid ground could have conferred. As the descent continued, the mist grew ever larger and seemed to muster a force that would have been threatening were it not for the beauty and harmony it shared with the rest of the landscape.

  At last, the docks came into sight. The disembarkation zone was just before the city, offering a new perspective that was equally dizzying, for what could be more breathtaking than this spill of wooden houses interwoven with the most beautiful trees on earth? The trees were set among the buildings in a random order that to Petrus seemed not unlike the wild grasses in the channel: thus, his first sight of Katsura was also under the seal of a text waiting to be deciphered.

  At the heart of the city and its wonderful garden, the astonishing proportions of the headquarters of the Council of Mists immediately caught one’s eye. There are few important buildings that fail to correspond to the image of what they are, places of celebration or of power whose appearance sets them apart from ordinary places. But the Council headquarters managed to be the heart of that world and still prove humble and whispering, its low-lying wings and hidden courtyards apportioned according to a secret, asymmetrical plan. There were surely shady patios there, the murmur of water from a fountain on a birdbath, a dark, cool room from which the He
ad of the Council could look out at the moon, and so on, to infinity, in the labyrinth of this noble house that diluted any evidence of power in vibrant humility. From where they stood they could see all this, and everyone saw it just as they did, and that was the intention of the founding fathers of Katsura—that one could only reach the city after discovering it from on high, then observing it from below, before giving up on either perspective to embrace that of meditation.

  Disembarkation began, and Petrus, with his clothes under his paw, diligently followed the boatmen’s instructions. Katsura enchanted him, and the air he breathed seemed brisker than elsewhere. On solid ground, they bade farewell to their traveling companions.

  “Good luck,” said Paulus to the piglet, just as he was again turning into a blond angel, “may your quest lead you with wisdom.”

  But the elfkin was looking at Petrus.

  “I have a feeling we shall meet again,” he said.

  The family of wild boar elves turned away and walked off casually, but Petrus felt a chill, something he couldn’t put his finger on.

  “What’s the plan, now?” Marcus asked.

  “We’re going to the library,” said Paulus.

  “That’s out of the question,” said Petrus, “I need to find a roof, for a start, then wash my clothes, and get a little sustenance.”

  “Sustenance?” said Paulus. “Stuff your face, you mean. That is out of the question. You need to pay your respects on behalf of the Wild Grasses first. I don’t want you to go off feasting before you’ve done your duty.”

  “My duty?” asked Petrus. “What duty?”

  “Oh,” said Marcus, “you’re right, what does one owe in exchange for a thousand-year-old tea?”

  “Do you think an unwashed squirrel is the best ambassador for a session of introductions?” Petrus protested.

  But Paulus set off, followed by Marcus, then Petrus, who between sighs dragged his feet morosely as he followed his companions.

  His torture, however, did not last long. It took barely ten minutes to reach the first houses and the labyrinth of little streets that rose up toward the Council headquarters. What an enchanting city! thought the friends, as they discovered the cobblestones, warm and soft beneath their paws, and majestic trees along shady passages, and pretty houses with their windows concealed by bamboo blinds that combined transparent and opaque effects. Little moss gardens ran all around the verandas, and their small size gave rise to a feeling of depth which Petrus, after a moment, attributed to the distinctive elements that gave each house its charm—here, a smooth, hollow stone where rainwater collected, there, a sudden shower of heavenly bamboos, or over there, a dialogue between a maple tree and an azalea. All around them were the terraces of high, misty mountains, and a skyward gaze revealed their undulating crests, but they were also visible straight ahead, at the end of a narrow street ending on the void. Here and there a bouquet of trees would vanish beneath a cascade of mist then come back in sight, while the gauzy mass that had engulfed the trees, denser and more imposing than an iceberg, dissolved or unfurled in search of more foliage. Where the houses were concerned, however, by virtue of the equilibrium of the world of mists, which requires that elfin constructions remain visible, the only things that disappeared, intermittently, were the sunny slopes of a roof, a mysterious veranda, or a door decorated with a hanging vase of violets.

  By the time they came in sight of the Council headquarters, Petrus had forgotten that he was annoyed and hungry. The noble house was preceded by a large, rectangular courtyard planted with hundreds of plum trees and crisscrossed by pathways of light sand. It was surrounded by a delicate moss that broke like a wave at the walls of the enclosure, which made the edges of the garden seemed mobile, uncertain, and in spite of its mystery the place seemed open to the flow of that world.

  They stood for a moment silently contemplating the tide of plum trees.

  “I can only imagine what it’s like when they’re in bloom,” murmured Paulus.

  A host of elves strode along the passages admiring the trees. The next day would be winter, but that November afternoon, the soft air gave the impression that autumn would never end and, from one languid moment to the next, one warm flow of light to the next, they would remind themselves, not to forget to love. Oh, how I would love to love! thought Petrus, brushing his paw over the fringe of a ribbon of cool moss. Oh, how pleasant life is! thought Paulus and Marcus, smiling vacantly. Such a lovely autumn! Oh, love! thought the elves on the pathways, and the message was carried, beyond the Council, the city, the mountains, a message born of trees and seasons which kept this world together.

  They could have stayed in the warmth of that dream of love for a long time, but a hare elf was coming to greet them.

  “We were informed of your arrival,” he said when he stood before them.

  The three friends bowed, and Paulus and Marcus took on their human form.

  “If you will come with me,” said the elf, “I will take you to the library.”

  When he noticed what Petrus was holding beneath his paw, he asked:

  “Is there a problem with your clothing?”

  The squirrel in which Petrus was stuck blushed to the tips of his ears.

  “Unfortunately, it, uh, got dirty during the crossing,” he stammered.

  The hare elf’s face lit up with surprise, but he commented no further.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and they followed him along the main path that led to the Council headquarters.

  Access was through a gigantic gate reinforced by tall, circular pillars. The vigor that emerged from these columns of dead trees, after an immemorial life, was phenomenal, and stepping over the raised edge at the bottom of the gate, the friends placed their palms on the pillars. The surface was rough, streaked with centuries and shot through with deep dissonances. Across from the entrance, a wooden veranda ran all the way around another, smaller, rectangular courtyard which was planted with the same plum trees and carpeted with the same cool moss. Tall, open doors faced them and on either side.

  “The north door leads to the high chamber and the quarters of the Head of the Council, the west door to the inner gardens, and the east door to the library,” their guide informed them. “By inner gardens, I mean the ones where it is possible to walk about, but there are others visible from inside the building.”

  They headed to the right and, passing a great many elves, went past the wooden partitions adorned with long banners of silk and printed with the emblem and motto of the Council. Beneath an ink drawing of snowy peaks in the mist one could read I shall always maintain, written in the hand of every leader from the dawn of elfin times. Petrus lingered for a moment by one of the pen drawings. Through an optical illusion, its curves also formed a line, in such a way that one’s gaze moved constantly from the tenderness of the rounded signs to the austerity of a single brushstroke. The hare elf paused in turn.

  “It is said that this was drawn by the hand of the elf who witnessed the birth of the bridge,” he said.

  He was about to add something when he was interrupted by a movement near the north door. A group of elves emerged, and everyone drew back against the partitions to let them go by. They turned left and came up to meet our foursome.

  Two hare elves were marching in the lead. They were clearly the candidates for the supreme calling, for each one of them was followed by a number of other hares as well as imposing wild boars. The elves in the escort had the bearing of their respective high-elfin houses, an accentuated gravity to their gaze, and a way of moving that implied excellence—but this, already striking, was nothing in comparison to the allure of the two hares at the head of the procession. Ordinary elves move about the world, thought Petrus; but the world adjusts to the movements of those two. As they came forward, they quickly turned into their constituent species, and it was troubling to see how much their animals resembled one another. The
hares’ fur was ermine-like, until they turned into horses with a white robe glinting with bronze. The muscles beneath their skin caused the velvet robe to ripple, and now and again it shimmered like a landscape of hills in the distance. At other moments, the cloak seemed made of pure silken snow, and one could really believe that the two candidates were brothers by blood.

  Everything changed when they took on their human appearance. The taller one had thick white hair despite his age—three hundred years or more—brooding gray eyes that flashed like thunderclouds, a hard face with marble features, a hooked nose, high eyebrows, and prominent cheekbones. Given this face sculpted in hard rock, he seemed both young and old at the same time. His demeanor was nonchalant, but haughty, his gait fluid and controlled, which suggested strength and will—an elf like this can carry the mists on his shoulders, thought Petrus. He turned to look at the other elf and felt his heart leap. Oh, love! There can be no lovelier creature in this life! he thought. A mane of copper hair flew from the creature, his ice-cold eyes sparkled, and his milky complexion gleamed in an etching that roused trembling and desire. One couldn’t get enough of this mixture of crystalline purity and fiery heat, a vision that was both frightening and warming. Unlike his competitor, he seemed insolently young, and Petrus, dazzled by the fact that so much beauty and vigor could be concentrated in a single being, told himself that he must be the head of the Council gardeners. His porcelain skin reminded Petrus of the elfkin they’d met during the crossing, but he walked with a feline self-confidence, the suppleness of a predator destined for combat. To be honest, there was something warlike about him that was surprising in an elf who devoted himself to the noble practice of gardening, and bit by bit his initial bedazzlement faded and Petrus was overcome by the same sensation of danger he’d felt with the piglet. The group drew level and Petrus’s gaze was drawn to one of the boars in the retinue. Sweetness welled up in him like a stream with impetuous currents of youth, wiser than ancient rivers, and Petrus was almost more intimidated by the depth of his silver gaze than by the aura of power of the two hares.