The Big Book of Modern Fantasy

by The Big Book of Modern Fantasy (retail) (epub)

  * * *

  —

  Had I gone through all the stages of terror yet? Had my curiosity been aroused? Had this tower, these rooms that all seemed ghost-ridden handed me over to silence and darkness? Maybe I would find a window in one of the corridors I hadn’t yet passed along. I kept on through the tower’s interminable rooms and corridors. How cynical fate can be: I had always wanted to live in a tower. What did cynical actually mean?

  * * *

  —

  Hopefully, I opened a door that was taller than the others. I entered a huge studio. It had an easel ready with a canvas in the middle; to one side, on a decorated table supported by carved golden dragons, were all kinds of brushes and paints and paper and canvas, palettes and flasks. I remembered Mr. Devil’s horrible painting. The dragons’ feet seemed to move, but they stopped when I looked at them. I examined the room thoroughly: there was no other door, and no windows. Had I really seen the whole inside of the tower, which was immense, and yet as small as the lift in my house? Whenever it stopped between floors, I always thought that I would suffocate within its creaking wooden walls. What would I do if gardens no longer existed? In fear, I picked up a few brushes and felt them. I picked up the palette, the most important thing, with even more fear. When nothing unpleasant happened, I opened some tubes of paint and squeezed them onto the palette. I stood in front of the easel and started to paint. To begin with I found it impossible to spread the paint onto the canvas; little by little, using a liquid that I found in a bottle, I overcame this problem. If I had been able to paint the garden at my house, and the greenhouses, and the river where I used to bathe, and my mother knitting under a tree, then I would have been all right, but when I finished the painting after a great deal of effort I found that I had painted a sketchy yellow tower.

  * * *

  —

  I had painted a window, but so badly that it only showed a little piece of sky. I consoled myself by thinking that at least I would be able to see a star in the night, or, with a great deal of luck, the moon. I did not notice the miracle which had taken place. I won’t deny it: absent-mindedness is a fault of mine. “People do not always notice miracles,” my mother says. The light did not change. Was it day or night? I did not know. I had never cared about the time, and had only ever appreciated clocks made out of chocolate, but now I worried that it was getting late. Day and night do not exist in a building with no windows or doors. I carried on painting, in order to forget such a horrible thought, that dinnertime would never come, nor playtime, nor my birthday. More than anything I wanted to paint my mother as I had last seen her, knitting under a tree: the gate, the garden, the hedge. With great difficulty I spread paint onto the canvas. When I had finished my painting and stood back in order to look at it, I saw that I had painted one of the ugly rooms of my prison. Disheartened, I decided to stop painting. I took a pencil, and started to write these pages on some sketching paper. At home they always used to tell me that I wrote like an adult. They used the word erudite. Of course, they then added with slight distaste, “You spend a lot of time with books and grown-ups.” I went back to look at my other paintings. In one of the angles of the ceiling I had drawn, I noticed a little branch I had not seen before; so, a tiny part at least existed of the landscape I had wanted to paint. I felt so happy when I saw this branch that I involuntarily reached out to touch its leaves. They seemed so real, with the little shadows that hemmed their edges. It was with astonishment that I discovered that the branch was indeed real. I took it in my hands and breathed in the smell of the foliage, something I had not done for a long time.

  * * *

  —

  With new hope, I started to paint another picture. I suspected that the objects that appeared would become real, like the branch: my efforts were inspired by fear and curiosity. I tried to paint the river where I used to swim, with the great willows on its banks and the sailing boats passing like butterflies. When I finished the painting, I saw that I had painted another one of the ugly rooms of my prison. However, I was happy when I found a large branch, much larger than the previous one, a cedar branch, with a seedpod that looked like a spider. I rushed to touch it; I picked it up and let it fall in horror: a spider, one of the ones my cousin calls a “chicken,” came out from the leaves and fell to the floor, where it looked at me attentively. I screamed. How long was it since I had heard my own voice? It must have been a long time, because I thought I was hearing someone else’s voice. I went on tiptoe back toward the door, and the spider followed me. I have never been scared of spiders, but this time I was terrified. Something about its eyes warned me that it was not of this earth. As bravely as I could, fearing that my life was in danger, I tried to stamp on it. It felt elastic and resistant as a cushion underfoot, and I felt it lifting me imperceptibly off the floor. “You won’t kill me like this,” it said with a groan. I jerked my foot away and ran out before the spider could spring at me. I shut the door.

  * * *

  —

  I ran through the rooms and shut all the doors behind me. I didn’t think that a single door would be enough to save me from this monster. The minutes passed very slowly. I had never felt so scared, not even on the darkest nights. I heard something creak, or at least I thought I did. I pressed my ear to the keyhole. Little by little, my distress and worry turned back into bravery. I opened the door slowly; I was as uncertain but more scared than the first time. I went into the contiguous room. I went from room to room opening all the doors. When I reached the last one I stopped and looked around for some object that I might be able to use as a weapon. There was nothing. I could have drawn one, made it real. The thought didn’t occur to me. I sat down by the door and tried to calm myself down. I had to go back into the room. I had to paint. If I did not, then I would be accepting my defeat. I opened the door.

  * * *

  —

  Everything was in its place; the paintings were intact. Impatiently, I picked up the brushes again. I tried to paint the creeper-covered trees in the garden of my house; the fountain with its eight fishes; the walnut tree in whose trunk I hid myself during siesta-time; an orange tree, covered in oranges and blossom. The creepers were so twisted that they looked like snakes. Nobody could know how much this painting cost me. When I finished it I saw I had painted the enormous studio. The easel was leaning against a twisted creeper. I pulled the creeper straight. It was covered in strong-scented flowers. I shut my eyes and smelled them, imagining myself back in the garden. It was exactly like being outside, in the open air under the trees at home. If I could have prolonged this moment, then I would have been happy. I opened my eyes; I thought I had sensed a foreign presence in the room. I saw a snake coiled on the floor. My mother and I together had often looked up in dictionaries or books about natural science the distinguishing features of poisonous snakes, but at that moment I could not remember if it was gaboon vipers that were the worst ones. The snake wound and unwound feverishly: it was either looking for a way out through the skirting board or else was trying obliquely to approach me. Suddenly it reared up its head and looked straight at me. Where was the spider? Maybe they would have got into a fight and left me alone. But the snake, maneuvering its way across the room and calling my name, Lean dro, as if it were two names, headed for the door.

  “Same to you!” I shouted at it.

  I shut the door and left it outside.

  * * *

  —

  Suddenly, I noticed that I had playfully added a bird and a monkey to the unfinished window I had painted. To my great surprise, when the window became real, so did the two little animals. I called the monkey Iris and the bird Bamboo. I offered them water for refreshment; they drank thirstily. It was as if we were in a circus. I ordered them to walk and they walked; I ordered them to dance, and they danced. Also, when I asked them to chatter more loudly or more quietly, they obeyed me admirably. I fed them with meat and birdseed. To start with, I didn’
t know how to draw the meat or the birdseed, or the lettuce which I thought would make a balanced diet, but it all turned out all right, even though the grains of seed were larger than normal, the meat was more tender, and the lettuce more clumpy. Using old newspapers, I made aeroplanes like my uncle the papyrologist had taught me, and had a great deal of fun. I had an idea, a fairly childish one: when I got out of this prison I would perform in a circus, because nobody before me had had the idea of training such a strange pair, a bird and a monkey.

  Bamboo’s job was to chase the paper aeroplanes as they flew, and Iris’s was to bring them back. Ambition can be deadly. People had told me this, but now I was given proof of this proverb that I had heard so many times and to which I had paid no attention. I made a very special paper aeroplane, one that could fly further than the others and swoop down very fast.

  With the aeroplane in my hand I stood next to the window, my attempt at a window; Iris and Bamboo were right by me, alert with expectation. As soon as I threw the aeroplane, Bamboo launched herself into the air like an acrobat. Iris held back for a few moments as if paralyzed and then leaped up too, with no other reason than that of imitating Bamboo. Their impetus carried them out of the window and they were swallowed up. They did not return. Could they return? Maybe Bamboo would break her vows of fidelity and leave Iris behind.

  I spent whole nights calling for them. The silence echoed with my cries, which fell down in the tower. All day long I looked out of the window with my hands cupped in front of my face, imitating a telescope. My plans would be impossible with a different bird or a different monkey.

  * * *

  —

  I started to paint another picture, trembling with emotion rather than fear. I wanted to paint my mother, but the brushes traced ominous shapes. My curiosity at finding out how each of my paintings would end up was so great that I would never stop, even on the brink of catastrophe. The shapes I painted turned into a wizard with a hyena’s face. His laugh rang out loudly when he stepped down from the canvas.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Luis,” I replied.

  “Liar, you’re called Leandro. I’m going to take you away with me in this sack.”

  “And what is your name, please?” I asked him without showing any fear.

  “I am called Mr. Devil,” he said with a chuckle. “Or Mr. Demon, or Mr. Lucifer, or Mr. Satan, or Mr. Luzbel alias Mandinga, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Satan? San Tan? Never heard of him. Are you in the Civil Register?”

  “I have my own register.”

  “But you’re dressed as a woman,” I protested.

  “That means nothing. I wear what I want. I can be a little boy or a giant or a gypsy or a goldfinch.”

  “I don’t believe that you can shrink yourself down to the size of a goldfinch.”

  “I can go smaller than that. I can turn into a flea. I can be as small as a flea.”

  “Impressive. I would love to see you turn into a flea. We’d need a huge theater, with all my friends there to see you.”

  The wizard, who was indeed none other than the Devil himself, was flattered by Leandro’s words. He rapidly transformed himself into a flea.

  “I’m going to paint a little box, the littlest box in the world, so that the biggest Devil in the world can have a place to sleep. It’s a crazy trick, everyone will be just wild about it.”

  Mr. Devil smiled; even though it is hard to see a flea’s smile, it was just visible under his dark abundant bristles. In two minutes Leandro had painted the littlest box in the world. He painted it so well that he had no difficulty in removing it from the canvas. Once Leandro had the box in his hand, he opened the lid and the Devil got into it without any problem. So that Leandro would not be scared, the Devil, even though he had turned himself into a flea, left the lid of the box open. In order to flatter his own vanity, he started leaping out of the box and painting an audience for his great achievement. He was competing with Leandro; using the biggest brush there was, he painted a group of children from an extremely sporty school. There were girls on bicycles, carrying picnic baskets, which they immediately put down on the floor. It seemed that the tower had grown larger. Lots of the girls had very short arms and hands like rakes; lots of their bicycles had only one wheel or else oval wheels that could not turn properly.

  The Devil looked at the girls joyfully, thinking of the tricks he would play on them. One of the girls had very long blonde hair, and her curls were tempting. With a single bound, the flea leaped into the space between her hair and her hairband. He was close to her neck, and could stick in his sting without difficulty. I don’t know if fleas really have stings; but anyway, this flea was probably supernatural. The Devil let out a chuckle that was disproportionately loud for a flea. The crowd laughed with slight anxiety: they did not know where the chuckle had come from or if it was normal to laugh so loudly. Furious at such a reception, the Devil closed himself away in his box.

  “When will this macabre party be over?” Leandro thought. “It’s a pity I don’t have my pocket dictionary with me so I can look up the word macabre.”

  But he remembered where he was, and opened the door quickly, let the snake through, and went to the next room. He shut himself in.

  * * *

  —

  He had to be alone to be able to paint. He wanted to paint what he always wanted to paint: his mother sitting under a tree, knitting. But unconsciously he drew a different face, the face of a boy his own age. He had often wanted to have a brother in order to share secrets or else for help in tricky situations. Now more than ever he wanted someone to help him in the difficult and dangerous adventure of finding Iris and Bamboo, for whose fates he felt responsible. Leandro thought about this the whole time he was painting the face, which ended up being frighteningly similar to his own. One might almost have thought that he was working on a self-portrait: the curly hair, the gray eyes, the eyebrows that met in the middle, the wrinkle on the forehead. A full-length portrait would take a lot of time. He worked carefully on the face for days on end. It seemed that he would never finish, but when the will is there, even the most difficult task gets finished. He had the face, but now that he was ready to paint the body, what position should he put it in? He ran to look at himself in the tower’s only mirror. He leaned against the wall with his arms crossed; he crossed his legs as well and leaned a little to the right, like when he was watching people play volleyball. The figure in the painting, who was starting to move a little, was well dressed. In this he did not resemble his model very much. Leandro fitted the portrait’s neck into his shirt, and made the arms of his pullover the right length. He wanted to delay the moment of bringing the painting to life because he was a little apprehensive about meeting himself. “How stupid I was to paint myself,” he thought. He and his self-portrait greeted each other coldly.

  “Hello,” one of them said.

  “Hello,” the other replied.

  To take their minds off things, they both went to look out of the window. Leandro put a hand to his eyes, like a visor, so he could see further.

  “What are you looking for?” his double asked him.

  “Iris and Bamboo.”

  “Who are they?”

  “Friends of mine, dear friends.”

  “What country are they from?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Where do they live? Where do they go to school? What school do they go to?”

  “They don’t go to school. Bamboo is a bird and Iris is a monkey.”

  When he heard this, the double laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “You were talking about those two as if they were humans.”

  “They are humans. You can think what you want. They are humans.”

  “Don’t get all worked up, it was a joke.”

  “I’m worried
about what happened to them. I was playing with them one day and threw a paper aeroplane out of the window without meaning to.”

  Leandro went up close to the window.

  “You see down there? There it is, that’s where they went to try to find the aeroplane, because that’s how I’d taught them the game worked. I looked out of the window to see if I could see them against the ground, but it was useless. It would have been easier to find a needle or a feather. Every night I dream that I find them and that we put on a circus show together. We’re very good at it. My dreams recur and get more and more successful. Bamboo flies up to perform her tricks, and Iris’s imitations bring the house down. The best trick is when they rob the sweet seller and distribute his sweets to the whole audience. And there are always magically more sweets all the time.”

  “Are you crying? Boys don’t cry.”

  “And you never cry?”

  “Not for something so silly. And if you want to why don’t you draw another Bamboo or another Iris?”

  “They wouldn’t be the same. If you’ve loved something very much, then nothing’s ever the same.”

  “But a monkey and a bird can be the same, of course they can. They’re all the same.”

  “You’re wrong, there’s lots of species, like dogs. You can have an orangutan or a chimpanzee or a capuchin or a gorilla or a howler monkey.”

  “And what about Bamboo, what species is she?”

  “She’s a hybrid.”

  “Do you have a rope?”

  “What do you want it for?”

  “To go down.”

  “To go down where? Don’t you realize how many kilometers away the ground is?”