The Golden Age

by Michal Ajvaz

  But perhaps the message is not carved into the radish; perhaps it is conveyed by the radish’s colour or shape. What if the colour or shape of the radish were unnatural? Perhaps the radish is dyed or its shape somehow altered. Perhaps someone has cut pieces out of it. By this time the radish and the insistent questions it keeps putting have driven the image of Mii from Fo’s mind completely. Perhaps, Fo tells himself, it is impossible to decipher the message by a complex search for its code; perhaps the relations by which it holds together are revealed at a single moment. Then it might make sense for the king to study the radish and try to discover these relations so as to set the radish in some kind of meaningful whole.

  The outlines of the trees are beginning to fade in the gloom; the cut-out seen through the door opening looks like a dingy tapestry hanging on a wall. Fo realizes that the fire went out long ago, that he has spent the whole day thinking about the radish and the king. Although there is no reason for him to hurry and time has no value to him, still he is annoyed to have devoted a whole day to an activity so trivial. He determines to quit the accursed cabin first thing in the morning and continue on his travels: pastures new would be bound to dispel the irksome radish and the peculiar king from his thoughts. And as soon as he reduces the intensity of his concentration, the construct of logic on which he has worked the whole day but which has yet to form any recognizable shape, is pushed silently aside by a vision that has long been forming itself beneath all his questions and answers.

  In his mind’s eye Fo sees a king whose long study of a radish has—the king believes—enabled him to grasp the message it has for him. (But has he understood it right? Fo sees in his interpretation a fatal mistake, which will change the history of the kingdom.) For Fo the image of a king contemplating a radish has entered the network of relations; it is as if he was holding a solitary piece of a jiggle puzzle when the rest of the puzzle came into view, complete with an opening that matched the exact contours of the first piece; as if the shapes and colours of a landscape have emerged through a quick-dispersing fog, complete with places and characters. He can see the sea and gleaming rocks, a blazing sun, a palace above the sea, a king dressed in white who is hand in hand with a girl; he sees the cold marble corridors of the palace, boats afloat on clandestine missions, betrayal, intrigue, meetings of conspirators behind closed blinds; he hears sinister whispers behind curtains; he smells rooms in the early morning and evening, the salt wind off the sea, rocks baking in the sun. While a few moments earlier the king and the radish were surrounded by emptiness and had no place in any story, now the image of a king contemplating a radish is flooded with hundreds of other images, and this inundation straight away forms itself into an inviolable web that constitutes a self-contained world.

  And it is impossible to stop this great birth of people, objects and landscapes; all Fo can do is look on in astonishment. The thought flashes into his mind that once he knew someone who told him of the genesis of a world like this, that then he barely understood a word of what the other was talking about. But now there is no room in his mind for reminiscences: it is fully engaged with this great birth, which is now painful and blundering, now easy and smooth. Throughout it beats out its shape with incredible power, a power impossible to resist and which sweeps all other thoughts and memories aside.

  Even the thought that this new world has no meaning, purpose or idea, that it has no knowledge to convey and is entirely unnecessary, cannot hinder its rampant growth. It is neither a symbol nor an archetype, neither more interesting nor more boring than other worlds. To Fo its very senselessness is a source of delight the like of which he has never known before. All night long he lies on the palliasse and follows the genesis of this world. There are times when he must prepare the way for the images it brings, others when all he needs to do is watch them arrive without his assistance. As day begins to break, he takes one of the sheets from the pile of paper, and on its blank side he begins to write his dispatch from this new world.

  Conspirators on Vauz

  The Book made no mention of whether Fo has a pencil with him or whether he finds this, too, in the cabin. But there is plenty of paper in the cabin on which Fo can write everything down in careful detail. And I have no doubt that this is indeed what he does, with a pedantry common to all the imaginary authors who tell their stories and stories within stories on all levels of the Book, with their endless descriptions of the patterns on the dresses of princesses and the ornamentation of the walls of palaces. At this point in the text there was a pocket that contained Fo’s writings from the cabin; this pocket was so full that when I unstuck it, it burst open like an over-ripe pod and the paper folded within it tumbled out, compressed concertinas falling to the ground, there continuing to unfurl. I was reminded of the festoons of a fancy-dress ball.

  I could pick out individual words written on all this paper—words telling of monsters of the deep and of palaces on planets in distant galaxies, words that tempted me to delve into this insertion. But I decided not to let myself be detained by a never-ending novel about a radish; I would not let the wily Book draw me into the wretched labyrinth of insertions. I would read the insertion that told of the origins of the statue in jelly, I told myself, and then I would make an orderly return to the story of Gato, Hios and poor, hard Nau: I wished to find out at last whether Gato succeeds in getting the gemstone out of the statue and whether his mother is restored to health. So I proceeded to stuff the fallen paper back into its pocket. But when its billowing end was about to reach the table-top, I realized my resolve was no match for my curiosity; the accursed radish had befuddled me, just as it does Fo.

  I was worried that after my return from the island the radish would appear to me on wakeful nights, and when at last I fell asleep it would turn itself into a monster and pursue me around a never-ending labyrinth. I would forever be in its power just because I had failed to read about what happened between it and the king. To return to the island in an attempt to make this good would be to no avail—in the ever-changing Book, the story of the radish and the king would be long gone. With a heavy sigh I pulled the long strip of paper back out of the insertion and set to reading Fo’s work. I shall do what I can to rebuild my memories of what I read in it; I would ask for your forbearance, dear reader, as I embark on this journey into the bowels of the Book.

  Consider yourself the experienced leader of a speleological expedition. I am well aware of the great demands that this descent to the lower levels of the text places on you (I wouldn’t wish to worry you, but I suppose you know that this will be followed by an ascent less pleasant still). I appreciate the need to make this as easy as I can for you; perhaps each level of the Book could be printed in a different colour to make orientation simpler. But then again, this might be too expensive. Better still (and even less realizable) would be to distinguish the different levels by the same method the islanders use to tell time: the text could be printed on paper saturated with a different scent at each level. (A difficult task for printing the work, but it need not be difficult for you; those readers made dizzy by the use of different colours for different levels may find it relatively simple to produce a scented book.)

  On the very edge of the archipelago on the island of Vauz, there lives a king called Dru. Dru is a celebrated patron of the arts and sciences, and in his youth he, too, was a scientist—he is the author of a number of books on mathematics and astronomy. These are the first sentences Fo writes in the cabin. Festering wounds left by real and imagined slights overlaid with etiquette, age-old feuds between families that are incurable because their roots are long forgotten, the tangles of minor grudges and the bitterness that is always abroad in the fine dust of the atmosphere of a hierarchical society—when all these things ripen into treason, a conspiracy against the king is conceived in the royal court. The conspirators desire the king’s death, but to kill the king is no simple matter for he is attended at all times by a well-armed, dependable entourage; nor is it possible to use poison again
st him, as one of his retainers always tastes his meals before him. Only certain members of the military command are involved in the plot, and the conspirators know that it is possible to move against those divisions loyal to the king only in the confusion that would follow the king’s death. The admiral of the royal fleet devises a plan that the other plotters at first consider eccentric and fantastical, but in the end they are forced to admit that it is probably the only way in which they can kill the king. The plan is founded on the knowledge that the king has a weak heart. His physicians have warned him that a great shock of any kind could bring about his immediate death. The admiral has spent his life sailing the seas, and he knows where to find a deep underwater valley that is the resting place of giant squids; he knows that the scent of a certain plant will draw this animal out of its lair and can be used to make it follow a ship; he knows, too, that the squid springs up out of the water when it hears a certain sound.

  With his young fiancée Isili, his friends, members of his household and a group of musicians, King Dru likes to dine on a little platform carved into the face of the sheer, smooth rock at whose top stands the royal palace. The platform is only half a meter above the sea, and it is reached from the palace by a zig-zagging flight of steps that is also carved into the rock. The sheer wall of rock continues beneath the surface; the water here is so deep that no diver has ever succeeded in reaching the seabed. It is to the deep waters near the little platform that the admiral wishes to lure one of the squids. While the king is sitting at dinner, one of the musicians will sound a horn with a peculiarly deep tone; as soon as the squid hears this, nothing will be able to stop it from plunging itself above the surface. The admiral and his fellow conspirators are hoping that the sudden appearance of the giant, monstrous head with its mad eyes, will be enough to give the king a heart attack and to bring about his death. Another advantage of this plan is the unlikelihood that anyone will make the connection between the sounding of the horn and appearance of the squid, meaning that the conspirators will not come under suspicion should the plan fail and the king remain alive.

  To begin with everything goes according to plan: the giant squid follows the boat, from whose helm a sack of fragrant herbs is hanging. From time to time the admiral, who is standing on deck, catches sight of the creature’s great round eyes deep in the water. The boat drops anchor by the royal palace and the squid remains nearby, many meters beneath the surface. On the day of the attempt on his life, as usual the king meets his fiancée, his friends, his household and the musicians, plus his two large dogs, on the terrace at the foot of the stone staircase above the sea. The company sits at the table in its usual places, everyone on one side of the table so that all can watch the play of colours on the sea at sunset. From the palace kitchens a basket with the first course has just been lowered down the rock face and onto the terrace. The dogs are resting contentedly under the table. The soft light, with just a hint of red in it, is lying across the bowls of fruit. There is a light breeze coming off the water.

  Assassination attempt

  None of the plotters is a member of the king’s inner circle, hence none of them has access to his dining table. But the king’s fussiness about the company he keeps works to the advantage of the admiral’s plan, as it excludes all the plotters from the circle of suspects—although the sudden appearance of a squid may not raise suspicions of treason in any case. The musician who is given the horn has no idea what his playing will bring about. On that fateful evening the admiral is standing in the passage next to the kitchens with the marshal, another of the plotters. They are looking down on the party on the terrace, discussing in whispers the various scenarios that might play themselves out after the squid breaks out of the water. Suddenly they hear a noise behind them; it turns out that in a dark alcove there is a door to the pantry. The cook is in the pantry, and he has surely heard everything they have been saying to each other.

  By killing the cook the conspirators would disrupt the smooth progression of the evening, and this would jeopardize their plan. They have to make do with escorting him back to the kitchens, where they keep him under surveillance to make sure he does not try to escape or put something into one of the dishes for the king’s party that would alert them to the possibility of an assassination attempt. The cook racks his brains for a way of warning the king. To write a message on a piece of paper is out of the question: not only would the plotters notice this right away, but anyway there is no paper or pencil in the kitchens. The cook is famed for the figures he models out of marzipan; he puts these into scenes that depict various events in the life of the king and his fiancée. The king likes to guess what each scene is showing; many times he has rewarded the cook for these culinary works of art. It dawns on the cook that he might send the king a message about the danger by depicting in marzipan the awful event planned for him. But on that day there is not a scrap of marzipan in the kitchens or in the pantry. The cook is trying frantically to think of a substitute for the marzipan when his eyes light on a large radish that is lying on the table right in front of him. This is not the ideal material in which to make a miniature statue, but by its inconspicuous nature a radish might have the advantage of escaping the attention of the conspirators. Besides, radishes are a favourite with the king, so the ruler will know that the plate bearing the cook’s creation is intended for him.

  So the cook picks up the radish and begins to carve into it the scene so alive in his own soul. He carves a musician blowing a horn, the head of a squid emerging from the deep with its ten awful limbs; he carves figures—which include those of the king and his fiancée—jumping up from the table in horror, turning over their chairs. His work is quite a success, and fortunately the admiral and the marshal have paid no attention to his treatment of the radish. So the radish is conveyed down to the terrace along with several other dishes, and after it has been tried by the court taster it is placed before the king. For a long time the king studies and contemplates the radish. He looks at each of the tiny figures in turn and tries to work out what the whole scene is supposed to mean. Unfortunately this deciphering is made more difficult by the fact that the taster has bitten off two of the tentacles that made it possible to identify the monster as a squid. These tentacles are longer and thinner than the other eight and at their tips become oval-shaped bowls covered with suckers. “What scene has the cook thought up for us today?” says Dru, turning the radish—which is redder still in the light of the sun approaching the horizon—over and over in his hands. In the end he sends a servant to the kitchens to ask what the radish statue is supposed to mean, but as the man reaches the first bend in the staircase, Dru calls him back: he thinks he has grasped the sense of the cook’s work.

  Dru recalls that one of the poems he wrote for his fiancée, in which he delighted in the use of various astronomical metaphors, contained the line, “Your song brings from the heavens dreamlike stars and restless comets.” Surely the cook wishes to please the king and his fiancée by giving shape to this image in a radish. “Just look at this!” the king says to his delighted fellow diners. “The cook has made a horn-player to accompany Isili’s song. And here are the charmed listeners. And here—” (he indicates the head of the squid) “—is the comet, lured from the heavens by the song and now plunging itself into the waves.” In mistaking the ten tentacles for the tail of a comet, the king is making a fatal mistake. Although the cook has given the squid enormous round eyes, the king considers this an instance of anthropomorphism, a finishing touch that develops the metaphor; if the comet can hear the song, it must have ears, so there is no reason why it shouldn’t have eyes, too. And everyone at the table sees the radish as a comet that has flown down to listen to the song of Princess Isili; they are surprised they didn’t see this straight away because it really is quite obvious. They applaud the cook’s craftsmanship and his devotion to the king. Isili nestles her body against the king’s, and as the red sun is about to reach the shimmering red line of the horizon, the king signals to
the musicians to commence their playing. The musicians reach for their instruments; the horn-player puts his horn to his lips.

  The deep, sad tone of the horn sounds. Then, terrifying in its quietness, ghostlike in its slowness, the head of a giant monster with great round eyes emerges from the water right in front of the diners, blocking the red sun from view. With the pink sky as a backdrop, the tentacles ripple. Though it seems there are hundreds of these tentacles, in fact there are only ten. After a moment of silent stupefaction, cries ring out as the men begin to chop at the serpent arms with their swords. The dogs jump on to the table and tear into the ends of tentacles flapping among the bowls of food. One of the two thin feelers shoots out like a lasso and, lightning fast, wraps itself around Isili’s slender body. Dru grabs a bread knife and drives it several times into the deadly liana that is closing around his fiancée, but the tentacle coils itself up and bears Isili away. Then the other tentacles are withdrawn sharply from the table; they give a last slow ripple before dropping beneath the sea’s darkening surface. The last part of the squid to remain above water is the enormous eyes, which for a moment or two observe the dinner guests, who have lapsed back into a state of silent petrifaction. Then the red sun touches its reflection and merges with it.