“A funny thing happened on the way to my beheading,” said the jester.
But, though they worked hard all day and ruined several satin cummerbunds, a dozen pairs of silver slippers and a tailored tweed skirt, the bears were not dressed at nightfall.
“This will NEVER do,” the Duchess said. “My god-mother, the Countess Freluchia, would have had you all beaten soundly and hung up by your thumbs!”
For weeks the three men tried to dress the bears. Every morning after breakfast it would start. They begged them to put on elbow-length gloves; they tried to wrestle them into velvet knee britches and satin farthingales and did high-step cakewalks to show them how fine it was to wear dancing shoes. Each evening the bears still were not dressed. Everyone was very unhappy.
One day the Duchess decided to dress the bears herself. “I, Her Grace the Duchess, command that you all become dressed,” she said.
But nothing happened.
“I shall close my eyes, and when I open them you will all be dressed.”
When she did, nothing happened.
“I shall give each of you a jar of honey.”
Nothing happened (though the bears liked honey very much).
“Uncle Rodney of the Bloody Hand had an instinct for dealing with stubborn animals. He once had a pig put in the stocks for failing to bow to him.”
The bears wandered away.
“Just like bears! Come Grismerelda, I must go and dress for lunch.” And she stomped back to the castle.
That evening while getting the Duchess dressed for bed, Grismerelda asked a question that had bothered her.
“Your grace, how did Sigistrix dress the bears?”
“It was an old animal dresser secret, handed down in his family. Mind the comb, silly girl. It’s pulling my hair.
“You’re fortunate I don’t mind that as much as my dear mama did.”
Grismerelda hardly dared to ask the next question. “Your grace, might I try to dress the bears?”
“Silly girl, you have no experience dressing the bears. You have only dressed me.”
But next evening, when the bears still were not dressed, the Duchess remembered her maid. “Young Grismerelda wants to dress the bears. Let her try.”
So the next morning, after dressing the Duchess, the maid set out to dress the bears. It was long and tiring work since bears are very hard to dress—shoes, for instance, even open-toed sandals, are extremely difficult because of the claws. And about silk stockings and bow ties it is best not even to speak.
By the end of the day she had managed to wrestle the smallest and most cooperative bear into a sundress.
“That,” said the Duchess, “is not good enough. I will give you one more chance. And if you fail, I shall be forced to do to you the very thing second cousin Honoria did to the footman who dropped the butter dish.”
Next day was the same. Although the bears were fond enough of Grismerelda who had sometimes brought them honey, they remained impossible to dress. She knew the Duchess would be displeased, and her mother had told her the terrible tale of Tom the footman and the troublesome butter dish and how he had walked strangely forever after the thing that was done to him.
She took out a handkerchief and wiped away a tear.
Every bear picked up a handkerchief too.
Grismerelda stopped crying. She even started to smile. “Oh bears,” she said. “Thank you very much.” And she reached down and picked up a hat.
By dinnertime, every bear, from the oldest in a battered French yachting cap, to the youngest in a broken propeller beanie, was wearing a hat.
“Not enough, silly girl. Who ever heard of prizes for just wearing hats?” asked the Duchess. “The judges last year called the bears’ hats, ‘Lacking in presence.’ Still, I suppose it is something.”
“Your grace,” said Grismerelda, “I will have the bears dressed and ready for the fair. But I can do no other work. No one can bother me. No one can watch me. If you agree to that, the bears will be dressed. I promise.”
“One does not make ‘deals’ with me. Why I remember the presumptuous tailor who dared to offer me a dress so fine only one of my rank could see it. I could, of course, see it and was appalled at the shoddiness of the material. His thumbs still hang over the fireplace in the autumn parlor.” She paused then said, “Very well.” Only the next day did she wonder who would dress her.
Next day bright and early Grismerelda went to the bears’ house. She waited until she had their attention, and then she picked up a shoe and put it on.
It took a while, but by that evening, all the bears were wearing shoes.
Meanwhile the Duchess was dressing herself. Often she was surprised by the results. Her hair was a wild tangle. Birds thought to nest in it. In the ancestral closets, she found a turban. It had belonged to the Caliph Mustafa the Damned, a distant relative. He had lived in the castle briefly after he was exiled and before he was drawn and quartered.
She put it on her head. “Grismerelda, bring me my mirror, silly girl,” she cried before remembering that Grismerelda was far too busy.
A week later her maid returned and said, “Perhaps, your grace, we would do better in the competition if the bears had better clothes.”
“Wherever would we find them on such short notice, you insolent child.”
Grismerelda pointed to the Duchess’ closets. Later that day as they opened the tenth or eleventh trunk, the Duchess gave a little cry of recognition.
“That sea shell embroidered four piece bathing suit belonged to Nadine the Neckless, Countess of Lethe, First Lady of the Towels at the Imperial Court.” The Duchess hesitated before handing it over then said, “She married my great-great-granduncle and was an in-law, so you may take that.
“And those very long-tailed shirts belonged to my father’s distant cousin Sir Douglass the Pantless. A disgraceful relic, take them.
“But you can’t have that tasseled silk strangling scarf. It belonged to my dear mother,” giggled the Duchess girlishly. “She used to threaten everyone with it. I will wear it in her memory, tied around my waist.
“Oh, and my dear Papa the Duke’s tiny branding iron! He would heat it over a candle and sear his crest into the behinds of people who fell asleep at dinner. I’d forgotten about it!
“Those green galoshes with the frogs’ heads on the toes, on the other hand, look just right for a bear. Such a large size, I can’t think who they were for.
“And a box of garter belts with the ancestral crest, an amorous gargoyle, on each. There are enough for each bear to have one.”
Bright and early on the morning of the fair, the bears were dressed in picture hats and silver cuirasses and silk tutus and velvet knee britches and patent leather slippers and flowing silk ties. Old father bear stuffed his feet into cowboy boots with silver spurs.
The most popular event each year was the animal costume competition. Every aristocratic house participated. That year the crowds were larger than ever, and there were many contestants.
Among them were the elephants of Countess Barzuki with a new Celtic dance routine, the swans of the Marquise de Cruel on roller skates and last year’s winner, the lions of Prince Nasty wearing shoes with mirrors on them and wide brimmed picture hats lined with lighted candles.
But this year those seemed like vulgar gimmicks. Everyone agreed that the bears of the Duchess in their remarkable wardrobes were in a class by themselves.
The chief judge turned out to be Sigistrix. He smiled as he awarded first prize to the Duchess, who seemed overwhelmed.
Then, on Grismerelda’s head, Sigistrix placed the copper tricorn of a master of the Animal Dressers’ Guild. It bore a single egret feather, the sign of a first place finish.
From then on in the bears’ house the bears dressed themselves.
And at the castle, the Duchess dressed
herself.
The Duchess never learned Grismerelda’s secret.
“Uncle Phineas the Unwashed did something quite horrible as a lesson to a servant who kept secrets,” said the Duchess. But she was so busy trying on the many-armed hunting jacket that had once belonged to her godfather, the Elector Konrad who was nicknamed “The Octopus,” that she couldn’t remember what the horrible thing was.
Alberto Chimal (1970– ) is a Mexican writer, editor, and translator. He has won multiple awards for his fiction, including the Premio Bellas Artes de Cuento San Luis Potosí (Mexico’s National Short Story Award, 2002) and the Premio de Literatura Estado de México (State of Mexico’s Literary Award, 2012). In addition to adult fiction, he has written stories for children and two creative-writing manuals, as well as plays and graphic novels. “Table with Ocean” was originally published as “Mesa con mar” in Chimal’s collection La ciudad imaginada y otras historias (2009). This is the first appearance of this story in English. Please see his other story, “Mogo,” earlier in this anthology, for more on his biography.
TABLE WITH OCEAN
Alberto Chimal
Translated by Lawrence Schimel
THE DAY HER FATHER brought home the new dining set, Raquel was very surprised.
“Where did you get that from?” she asked.
“Get what?”
“The table, Daddy, where did you get it from.”
“From the furniture store, Quica. Where else would I get it from?” People liked to call Raquel Quica for short.
“No, seriously, Dad, where is it from?” Raquel insisted, and her father was perplexed, but Raquel (he thought) was a child who shouldn’t be taken too seriously. He just smiled and walked away, and since Raquel’s mother was visiting a neighbor, she had no idea of what happened either.
That’s to say, Raquel remained alone in the dining room, in front of the table, which also came with six new chairs but there was nothing special about them.
“What was special,” Raquel would tell us now, “is that there was an ocean inside the table.”
And she would be telling us the truth: the upper surface of the table, where her mother would place plates of food and she her notebook to do her homework, wasn’t made from wood or glass, but water.
She approached and placed a finger on the surface, full of tiny blue waves…
“It felt wet!” she would tell us.
Moving a bit closer, she could hear its sound.
“That’s to say, the sound of the waves, of the wind, and there were also seagulls, tiny ones, which flew and acted like real gulls…”
But the best part was the tiny ship. It had a white sail and moved slowly upon the water. Raquel stood watching it for a long while. It moved maybe four inches per hour. When it reached the middle of the table, the sailor who was steering it dropped an anchor into the water and the ship stopped.
“HEY!” she heard him shout. He wore a handsome uniform, but his voice, like everything else, was so tiny it almost didn’t exist. “HEY! ARE YOU THE GIRL CALLED QUICA?”
“My name is not Quica, my name is Raquel,” Raquel said.
“OH, THAT’S OK, THAT’S OK!” the sailor shouted. “HEY! CAN YOU HELP ME? I’D ASK SOMEONE ELSE, BUT ONLY KIDS CAN SEE ME!”
“What?”
“IT’S TRUE! IN FACT, ADULTS DON’T EVEN SEE THE SEA OR ANYTHING! YOUR FATHER, FOR EXAMPLE, THINKS THE TABLE IS SOLID WOOD!”
Now, Raquel could tell us: “That explained what had happened with my dad, but the truth is, I didn’t understand. Why are all magic things like that? Are all old people really so foolish? Or bad? Or was it just a joke on us kids, taking advantage of us?”
But at the moment she didn’t think of that and just said, “What do you want?”
“COULD YOU,” the sailor shouted, “GIVE ME A BIT OF A BOOST? I MOVE AT JUST FOUR INCHES PER HOUR, I’M NEVER GOING TO GET THERE!”
No sooner said than done: Raquel was a generous girl, and as soon as the sailor weighed his anchor, she leaned a little closer to the table and blew gently, in the right direction to fill the ship’s sails and see it advancing once more, faster and faster…
“VERY GOOD!” shouted the sailor, who’d moved to the ship’s helm, very content. “THANKS! WHAT DID YOU SAY YOUR NAME WAS?”
“HEY!” she started, but she realized she was shouting and lowered her voice. “Hey…”
“TELL ME! BUT DON’T STOP BLOWING FOR A WHILE OR I’LL STOP!”
“OK, OK,” and huff, another blow, “But, listen, where are you going?”
“I CAN’T TELL YOU! IT’S A SECRET! IN FACT, THE TABLE SHOULDN’T BE HERE! NO DOUBT THEY SOLD IT BY MISTAKE!”
“What? (huff) What do you mean by (huff) mistake?”
“YES! PERHAPS THEY’LL EVEN COME FOR IT! THINGS LIKE THESE AREN’T MEANT FOR PEOPLE LIKE YOU!”
“I should have asked him,” Raquel would tell us, “what sort of things aren’t meant for people like us. But I only said: ‘Who (huff) will come for it?’ ”
“WHY THE PEOPLE FROM THE FURNITURE STORE, MY CHILD! WHO ELSE?”
“Hey, don’t (huff) be like that (huff) and tell me! And besides (huff) you’re going to fall,” and in fact, the ship was quickly approaching the other edge of the table.
“DON’T BE FOOLISH!” the sailor shouted. “WHEN I REACH THE EDGE, I’LL PASS TO THE NEXT PART OF THE OCEAN! HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD ABOUT THE OCEANS THAT ARE DIVIDED OVER MANY TABLES?”
“What do you mean divided?” Raquel asked.
“ONE MORE PUFF!” the sailor shouted, and Raquel obeyed (huff) without thinking, and with that final burst the boat at last reached the edge of the table. “THANKS! BYE!”
“Hey! No, wait! Tell me…!”
“I CAN’T TELL ANYTHING TO YOU!” the sailor shouted. “YOU’RE JUST A GIRL AND THIS IS AN ADULT THING!” And he disappeared, without a sound, as if there had never been anything but waves, seagulls, and wind in the table.
And a few minutes later, someone from the furniture store arrived, spoke with Raquel’s father, and convinced him to exchange his dining set for a new luxury model, but which didn’t have an ocean inside its table.
“And like always,” Raquel would tell us now, “if I had told them, they wouldn’t have believed me. But was that fair? Would it have cost the sailor anything to explain things to me? And besides, what was that excuse of ‘I can’t because you’re a girl’?”
As soon as the new table was in its place, her father told her, “Do your homework, Quica,” and she put her notebook down on it and started to work.
Now, she would complain, “And all that bit about it being ‘an adult thing’…Didn’t he say adults can’t see which tables have oceans inside them?”
But at that moment, as she read her math problems, Raquel could only think of white sails, of diminutive seagulls, of water and waves. Perhaps the sailor was now sailing inside a home in Russia, or in China…Perhaps he was now equivocating with the Chinese boy or the Russian girl who blew to give him a boost…
“No,” she said aloud then, and even stood up; she wasn’t smiling and she wasn’t happy. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but one of these days I’m going to find him and then….”
“What’s that, Quica?”
“Nothing, Dad,” she said, as if in truth she hadn’t said anything.
Musharraf Ali Farooqi (1968– ) is a writer, folklorist, and translator who currently divides his time between Toronto and Karachi. His novel Between Clay and Dust (2012) was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and his acclaimed translation of the Indo-Islamic epic The Adventures of Amir Hamza was published by the Modern Library in 2007. He has also translated the poetry of the contemporary Urdu poet Afzal Ahmed Syed for Wesleyan University Press, and Tor.com has published, in installments, his translation of the first volume of
the Urdu fantasy epic Hoshruba: The Land and the Tilism, a project that, when completed, will reach twenty-four volumes. “The Jinn Darazgosh” was first published in 2010.
THE JINN DARAZGOSH
A FABLE RELATING HOW THE CURIOSITY OF A JINN LED TO UNHAPPY RESULTS AND BROUGHT ABOUT THE CLOSURE OF THE HEAVENS UPON HIS RACE
Musharraf Ali Farooqi
IN THE DAYS WHEN JINNS were free to roam the skies, they often eavesdropped on the angels to find out if they planned to visit the Earth with Life or with Death, and upon their return to Earth, the jinns reported these conversations to the augurs. When the angels visited the Earth with life, it rained and the crops were plentiful, and there was enough to eat for the birds, beasts and men; and when they visited it with death, famines and plagues broke out; there were earthquakes and floods; and vultures and carrion-eaters, and insects which fed on corpses multiplied. The augurs foretold those events in their predictions, and the people revered and feared them for knowing what lay in the future.
Sarob, the augur, lived in a dark cave by a swamp in the land of Bilman. He was as old as the oldest tree in the land, and had become shriveled and bent with age. Night and day he remained busy in his reckoning and calculations, and in that he was helped by a jinn. Named Darazgosh, the jinn had long, pointed ears, and wings that were like a bat’s, only much bigger. He had served Sarob for many hundreds of years and had grown old in his service.
One day Sarob said to Darazgosh: “Find out what is being said in the heavens and bring me the news!” Darazgosh unfolded his wings and flew all over the First Heaven which bounds the Earth, but he did not see or hear any angels. On the way back to Earth he decided to take some rest and lie down against a boulder on the moon. Because he was tired, he fell asleep. He was awoken by the sound of voices nearby; peeking from behind the boulder, he saw a party of the bovine-faced angels of the First Heaven, sitting in a circle.
Their chief said to his companions: “Send the rain clouds to the land of Bilman to rain until the rivers flood! In one place the floods will make a fallow land fertile, and in another they will destroy a bird’s nest. Then God’s decree shall be fulfilled, for two lovers are destined to die many years hence, as an outcome of these events!”
The Big Book of Modern Fantasy Page 172