The Jules Verne Steam Balloon

by Guy Davenport

  IMPATIENS BIFLORA

  The pod has evanescent partitions, with anatropous seeds along a thick axis. Five valves, elastically coiled, spring open when dry, shooting out the seeds.

  19

  Well, Petra said, there was this poster in a shop across from the Centre Pompidou in Paris. A man it showed, with a great body, about twenty, in the buff, holding a baby out in his arms, looking wise and happy, as if it approved of its daddy having an extensive babymaker hanging out and down over tight fat balls, for all the world to see. But behind these fetching two, crossways the poster, were two boys, also britchesless, lying in a hug. Ha, said Gerrit. Anything printed on the poster? Nello asked. No words, Petra said, just the photo.

  20

  Hair muddled, eyelids thick with sleep, Gerrit raised himself on his elbows in the sleeping bag, and said, There’s a mist off the river. Whoopee, said Nello, eyes still closed. Petra lay batting her eyes and smiling. Hello, said Gerrit. Don’t look, he said, after leaning to give her a kiss, I’ve got to nip out to pee, and have sprung one. Let’s see, said Petra, reaching. No, said Gerrit, blockading with knees. Close your eyes. Petra closed her eyes, looking as soon as Gerrit was out. Wow, she said, straight out and up, and with its hood back. It does that, Nello said, as you know good and well, when the bladder’s about to pop. Learn something every day, Petra said, lifting the tent flap and looking out. Gerrit’s peeing up. A silver arc, pretty in the mist. Me too, said Nello, scrambling out. Hey, Petra, Nello hollered, it won’t go down. Breakfast, said Petra. A fire, water, mush, raisins. I’m impressed. Gerrit, half embarrassed and half pleased with himself, scrounged around in his knapsack until he found briefs, which prodded out in front when he put them on. Bashful, said Petra. Water jug, coffee packets, and come here. I liked kissing all day yesterday. Poor Nello’s left out. Don’t anybody kiss me, Nello said. As they stood kissing, Petra pushed down Gerrit’s briefs, and, squatting, took them off, batting Gerrit’s hands away from trying to pull them up again. No clothes we agreed, she said. I’m mortified, said Gerrit.

  LUPINUS CALCARATUS

  Erect, high, silky pubescent throughout, leafy. Leaflets 7 to 10, linear lanceolate, acute, mucronate: stipules ovate, acuminate, persistent: flowers in rather close and short raceme, bracts subulate, deciduous, calyx deeply spurred at base, minutely bracteolate, the upper lip short, double-toothed, white, the lower larger, entire, acute: banner and wings somewhat pubescent externally, the keel ciliate: pods hairy, with four seeds. Flowers white, the spur exceeding the pedicels.

  22

  House wren of the Grenadines, said Tumble, mockingbird bananaquit Carib grackle. Buccament, said Quark, Sion Hill Cumberland Questelles Layou New Ground Mesopotamia Troumaca. Angelfish, said Buckeye, spotfin butterfly. Finite but unbounded, O over under by and through!

  23

  Fainthearted, no, said Petra, but do be fair. Kissing’s fun. I’m not looking, Nello said. I’m just here, browning my butt and listening to the meadow, the buzz of it. So what are you doing? Fondling, said Gerrit. Feeling better all the time, said Petra. Everything, anyway, has become unreal. Time has stopped. I think the meadow and river have drifted away from where they were when we came. It’s us, Nello said, who are different, and getting differenter all the time. How different will we get? Running around bare-assed is not all that peculiar, and that’s not what’s doing something to us. We’ve only each other to say things to: that’s a big difference. Last summer Erasmus said all manner of things I’m certain he would never have said back home. We think differently, Petra said, breathing deep after a long kiss. Snuggling on the sunroom couch or at Betje’s when she has the house all to herself is always a dare when hands stray to critical places, like now. I’m not looking, Nello said. Why not? Gerrit said. Unfair, Petra said, is unfair, sitting up and monkeying over to Nello, pressing a kiss on the back of his neck. Tickles, he said, after a suspicious silence. But feels good. Does it now! Petra said, neither tease nor mischief in her voice. Gerrit’s next. Gerrit’s next what? asked Gerrit. Kiss Nello, Petra said. Why ever not?

  SURVEYOR

  Gerrit, in his scout shirt because of the morning chill, with Corbusier Homme Modulor shoulder patch, said once they were off the bus at Knollendorp, honest Hans asked Rasmus every tactless question that sprang easily to his liberal mind. In less than ten meters of hiking to the sandspit, he pried into Rasmus’s standing as Strodekker’s newly adopted son, happy older brother to Nils and Tobias, their involvement with the Vrijheid cadres, why he wanted to get away from them for a few days to change the pH factor of his soul, length of his weewee, who his real parents were, if he did it with girls too, how much he got for an allowance, what they did in Denmark and the Federal Republic, why one of his eyes was off-center and jiggled, the length of Strodekker’s weewee, and on and on, until Rasmus was shaken inside out but not in the least pissed off. He’s as honest as a dog. This is his shirt, from the wild scout troop Strodekker runs. It was when Hansje asked Rasmus if he didn’t think that Strodekker’s just a mite gaga that I changed the conversation and got a shoulder squeeze of gratitude. What I did was ask Hansje the same questions about his buddy Jan, who was in Italy with his folks, and heard more about him than I really needed to know. So, Petra said, why do you have Erasmus’s shirt? He gave it to me, Gerrit said.

  TREES

  Four trees upon a solitary acre

  Without design

  Or order, or apparent action,

  Maintain.

  The sun upon a morning meets them,

  The wind.

  No nearer neighbor have they

  But God.

  The acre gives them place,

  They him attention of passerby,

  Of shadow, or of squirrel, haply,

  Or boy.

  What deed is theirs unto the general nature,

  What plan

  They severally retard or further,

  Unknown.

  THREE PERSIMMONS IN A BLUE DISH

  Klee Noordzee coast, the sandspit, a Boudin with Cornelius on it, sea blow cocking his hair into a crest of light. Early Mondriaan pine forest with blue shadows, the wood at the top of the meadow. Courbet, the spring. What’s more, Gerrit said, is our telescoping aluminum flagpole here on the main brace, flying the Danish flag. For the bunnies, Petra said. They were wondering where we’re from. Now they can say, Ah! Lutherans! Dutch flag tomorrow, Gerrit said. Then Swedish, followed by the Norwegian. Today we’re Danes.

  27

  The spinney explored, the meadow traversed twice, the sandspit inspected, the rivermouth waded in, they came back to the tent. Bread, cheese, and hot soup, said Petra. We’re getting to be the color of gingerbread. And Gerrit’s spirited virile member sticks straight out, sort of, rather than toward heaven. Does it feel good? A grin and a blush together are wildly becoming. Cakes and apples, sang Nello, in all the chapels, fine balconies and rich mellow pears. Last summer, Gerrit said, and I’d have been a zoological exhibit, with commentary by Hansje and Rasmus.

  PATROL

  Quark on reconnoiter in the wood met Wolf, her gazing eye silver and soot, silent of paw as she strode. Sabina! Quark said in the old Latin, mama of Quirinus, chaster than Vesta, cunninger than Minarva. Hrff! said Sabina, et lactentes ficos et gutulliocae. Carissa! said Quark. I saw you playing with the frogs and crickets, pretending to dance and pounce, laughing all the while. Archeotera, said Sabina, unde haec sunt omnia nata. But, said Quark, these are good people, over yonder by the water, the three cubs in a cloth house. They live in a town of canals and lightning run through threads, where they learn, not much, but something, numbers and tongues mainly. I’ve smelt them, Sabina said, two toms and a bitch, potash and olive, sheep and cottonweed. Metal. Not to do you a mischief, Quark said. The metal is the frame of their house, cups, buckles, and such. It is never prudent to be seen, O Consiliarius. The faith has been gone so long.

  LA CHENILLE ET LA MOUCHE

  From the Jules Verne, a hot-air balloon hanging unanch
ored six meters above the meadow, defying both gravity and its own radiant levity, its declinator lever set on orbit, hung a rope ladder up which Buckeye, Tumble, and Quark swarmed with the progress of swimming arctic wolves, knees and elbows in the same vertical plane, all three in midshipman’s uniforms of the French navy. The propeller turned its four wooden blades idly, like a windmill dreaming. Two brass cylinders leaked steam. The crystal-set telegraph key was chittering patrol signals, asking for reports. Buckeye, standing a bouquet of meadow flowers in the teapot, sat down to the key and sent: Le travail mène à la richesse. Ha! said Tumble, that will really interest the dispatcher. Pauvres poètes, travaillons! Travaillons! said Quark. La chenille en peinant sans cesse devient le riche papillon. Tumble, out of his sailor suit and into plus fours, red flannel shirt, sweater, scarf, aviator cap, goggles, and gauntlets, gave four dials a reading, poking each with a businesslike finger. Ion stream, he said. Neutrinos under however many atmospheres you get from rho over time, divided by the azimuth in hypernewtons. Twenty-three point six eight niner, said Buckeye. Fourier waves in sync. Somebody, Quark said, has been pressing weeds in the log. Now, said Tumble, send them the Fly. Never mind that they’re asking for coordinates. That’s microswedenborg’s point zero zero one by four zero on the nose. The Fly, said Buckeye. Nos mouches savent des chansons que leur apprirent en Norvège. Quark, naked between naval togs and flight overall, said of his penis that it was sunburned, along with his behind, and probably his toes and the back of his neck. Les mouches ganiques qui sont les divinités de la neige. That ought to hold them until we can achieve drift. We’re starting to spin. Rain on white dew, Buckeye recited, all the leaves are yellow. Wait awhile for that, said Quark, and where’s the bee balm and cucumber salve for my member and butt, both as red as cherry wine. Look at the late afternoon sun on the inlet down there, Buckeye said, wrinkled quicksilver specked with green and blue. Get those weeds out of the teapot. Let’s see it with biscuits and cheese, apples and chocolate. The log, said Quark, who had wrapped himself in a blanket, uncorked the ink bottle, and dipped the quill. Berrying, he wrote. Bees, caterpillars, flies, sycamore polyhedra, three families of field mice, from whom that peculiar joke we still haven’t figured out. Gerrit and Petra kissed fifty-four times, or once every ten minutes for nine hours, with Gerrit’s piddler going sprack at every kiss.

  QUINCE, AUTUMN RAIN, AND MEDLAR

  The Summer Bon Chretien is somewhat a long pear, with a green-and-yellow russetish coat, and sometimes red sides. It is ripe at Michaelmas: some dry them as they do prunes, and keep them all the year after. The Summer Bergamot is an excellent well-relished pear, flat and short, of a mean bigness, and of a dark yellowish green color on the outside. The Primating pear is moist and early ripe. The Russet Catherine is a very good middle-sized pear.

  AND O A GYPSY AIR

  From a haversack slung on the taffrail of the nacelle Tumble took a horn, Buckeye a banjo, and Quark a Jew’s harp. The balloon was over the spinney, gorgeous and strange. The key of G minor, Tumble said, his hair all whorls and spikes still, as they had an urge in the middle of breakfast (honey, wheat-meal biscuits, and reindeer milk) for music. Where the cacklers, Buckeye said, but no grunters, continuo from Haydn, the tune on the Jew’s harp, and I sing. Naked but for a shirt, he attacked the run that began the air with a voice like rung glass and the sweetest of tenor bells. Where the cacklers, but no grunters shall be set loose for the hunters, those we still must keep alive. Tumble rocked his shoulders and kept time with his heels as he played the ground, handsomely paced, on the horn. Aye, and put them forth to thrive in the parks and in the chases, and the finer walléd places, like Saint Jameses, Greenwich, Tiballs, where the acorns, plump as chiballs, soon shall change both kind and name. Proclaim them then the Kingses game. Quark broke into a jig, ringing the Jew’s harp, and lolling his eyes. So the act no harm may be unto their keeper Barnabee. It will do as good a service as did ever Gypsy Jarvis. All instruments down as they sang the last lines trio, in glorious harmony. Or our Captain Charles, the tall man, and a part too of our salmon! Golly diddle dingle gunst, said Tumble. Tom Tickler on the tabor, who could bring the girls. Oof. Quark leaned over the rail with the big brass telescope. They’re all kissing, time about, he said, and they’re having mush and raisins for breakfast.

  BOSNIAN MEADOW MOUSE

  They sat in the meadow. Nello said that it could be described botanically, geologically, ecologically, geographically, aesthetically, historically, poetically, but that none of these descriptions would include what they were doing.

  SILENCE, WITH CRICKETS

  A throbbing owl call in the night. Talk about spooky, said Nello. Like doves, Petra said, they can swivel their heads all the way around. The little Athenian owl was the strix, compact as a jug, mewed from olives, flew sideways, wings as blurred as a hummingbird’s. Makes it the cozier, Gerrit said, snuggled here as warm as toast. Admit however, Petra said, that the ground is twice as hard as a floor, and has rocks in it. I’m hungry, Nello said. I’m happy, Gerrit said.

  MASTER JOHN TRADESCANTE’S ORCHARD

  The muscadine, some call the Queen Mother plum, and some the Cherry Plum, is fair and red, of a reasonable bigness and ripe about Bartholmy Tide. The Flushing Bullace grows in a thick cluster like grapes. The Morocco plum is black like a Damson, well tasted, and somewhat dry in eating. The Green Peasecod plum is long and pointed, and ripe in the beginning of September. The Amber plum is round and as yellow as wax, coming clean from the stone like an apricock. The Red Mirobalane plum grows to be a great tree quickly, spreading thick and far, like the Black Thorn or Sloe.

  THE SCENERY IS ROMANTIC IF IT HAS STEPS

  There’s a gerbil in the telephone, Quark said, eating goober peas. Give it a thump, said Buckeye. Josephine Geronimo and Virgilia Tardy were present at the planting of poplars in the marshes. The toms are coming from the spring in the grove, carrying a bucket of water between them, free arms out for balance and leverage. The one with thick dark hair that makes jug handles over his ears still has a stiff jubilator. It flops and bounces as he walks. The other, with hair the color of ripe wheat, is singing Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja. The virguncula is outside the tent pouring heated water into tin cups already containing dehydrated essence of cow milk, van Houten’s powdered cocoa, and refined Jamaican sugar. She presses her lips against the lips of each of the toms when they bring her the water. Meanwhile, the family of rabbits in the spinney is out in the sun, nibbling. Buckeye, having made some persnickety adjustments to the rigging, touched a drop of oil to the propeller shaft and advanced the roller map a smitch, began a little quickstep dance, snapping his fingers, singing softly but briskly, as if under his breath, in Faeroese. Tumble, climbing aboard up the rope ladder, swung a jeaned leg over the taffrail, wrecked Quark’s hair because he was on the telephone, and joined Buckeye’s dance, nose to nose, knee to knee. Say what? Quark shouted into the telephone. I have maniacs on board, unbuttoning each other’s clothes. Yes, Buck and Tumble, to be sure. There’s no other patrol in this sector closer than a star circle, is there? Didn’t think so. Ariel by Hizqiyya! Over. Out.

  36

  Two kinds of ants, red and black. They probably have wars. And some of the mice have little white pants and some are cinnamon gray and make round nests on stalks. We’ll never get all the bugs identified. Gnats are the neutrinos of the place. Meadow birds and river birds. Highland grass, lowland grass: it’s the sandspit and the river that accounts for that. Time to kiss. Yuck, said Nello, but if that’s the game. Long hug, long kiss, Petra said, two full minutes, and see if Nello’s wizzle bobs its head again, and after three butting throbs stands bolt upright. Bobtail dominicker, Gerrit counted, little poll ram. Three zoll, four zoll, zickerzoll bam! Poker up on four. Don’t open your eyes, Nello niddy, and you won’t get the giggles. And your blushes turn your tan purple. Nello likes being kissed, likes kissing. You’re over two minutes. Better make it last, Cornelius Bezemsteel, as I’m next, and on the mouth this time.<
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  THE CAT’S WIFE HAS WHISKERS TOO

  Jam, said Tumble, strawberry jam. I think I got the clothes wrong, though. Cassock, or smock, belted over linsey-woolsey trews, and hook-and-eye boots, are not period, and the old woman who sold me the jam was still looking at the money when I left. I think Wardrobe and Props tease us. Jam on Ryvitas, however, is good stuff, yuss? It will give us a bellyache if we eat the whole jar. Rabbit, Quark said, showed me some sweetgrass today, a nice fresh taste with a tang of ginger in it. She said it was excellent as a digestive.

  L’ACOUSTIQUE PAYSAGISTE

  What, Gerrit said, if you knew everything. All music, all painting, all writing, had met everybody, and been everywhere. You’d be crazy, Petra said, humming more of the First Brandenburg Concerto that Gerrit had been whistling to an imaginary viola. That’s not what knowing’s about. Of course you have to know enough to begin to discriminate, but from there on out it’s pick and choose. Besides, everything’s not for everybody. There’s temperament, and talent, and disposition.

  39

  The life! Nello said, roughing it, camping in a meadow, going bare-bottomed, grub all flavored with ashes, crick in the neck and back from sleeping on the ground. Chocolate bars, though wrecked in transit, Petra said, are not flavored with wood ash. Clover, bees, sorrel, knotgrass, ants, partridges (juck is what they say, said Gerrit, if we were to see one, never mind hearing one), owls (heard, but not yet seen), gnats. But, said Nello, I absoposifuckinglutetively will not kiss Gerrit. Why not? Petra asked. Yes, said Gerrit, why not?