Archipelago

by R. A. Lafferty

  “I have twenty-two inch doors and twenty-six and a half inch windows, and the minimal axis of the carving was forty-five inches, and that of the block before I started must have been sixty. I sliced it up like a pie with rock saws and gave a nereid to each of my friends. There was just no way to get it out of there whole.

  “There was one other item the sculptor had left behind: a book on Teleportation.”

  They all went to the Cyclone Cellar to see Anna Louise. She was wonderful. But Hans was shocked to find that Endymeon had lied to him, the only time any of the group ever did. Anna Louise DID know more than one tune. She knew every tune in the world. She sang beautifully and got most of the crowd to sing with her. She played the piano and sang, and none of us will ever forget it. And if we ever see her again we will tell her how wonderful she is.

  They all went to the Cat in the Fiddle, the Three Four Five Club, the Red Windmill, and Coq Bleu. And at dawn they disintegrated.

  8.

  Trinali died young as she had wished. She died of dye poisoning. She had died a bunch of corks a luminescent lilac. It was this, either because she never washed her dishpan; or, as Adam Scanlon said, she tried some of the lilac coloring in a glass of wine, that had killed her. She was buried on the first of September of that year; and to Hans and Fitzjames, the only Romans present, the non-denominational service was chilly and inadequate.

  With her was buried one of her odes: To Trinali in her Coffin with her Red Hair Loose about her:

  ‘Trinali is beautiful in her coffin.

  Hers is the only cheerful face in the room.

  Everyone else looks glum and a little embarrassed.

  Now she is wiser than all the rest:

  She knows the secrets of the stars, and possibly is one of them.

  And you are all like people who are still on the shore,

  But Trinali is out on the immeasurable sea.

  But Oh My God! What if there is nothing there?

  What if there is nothing out there but a very thick fog

  That smells a little bit like lilacs

  Remembered from a long time ago?’

  “And that is all there is to it,” Hans said to himself at the time. Even when he was with them he had questioned whether they were real people. But if people are not real in the suddenness of their youth, when will they be real?

  9.

  There is no telling how long Hans lived in Bohemia, but it was probably only that Spring and Summer. After this there comes the mystery: the hidden years of his life. Everyone is entitled to a little mystery. There is a gap here of either four or five or six years depending upon which recension you follow. Hans acquired hidden resources in this time. Always after that, he could wire or cable or draw somehow from a distance any money that was required. But he didn't get around to telling Finnegan that part of his life, though he told him the rest of it in the evenings of that visit.

  Hans went into the army in the spring of either 1941 or 1942. After that, he merges a while with the rest of the Dirty Five.

  Chapter Ten

  Distressed Merchandise

  1.

  This was in a railroad station and he was angry and shaken. For one thing he did not know where he had left his baggage which was of value. For another thing he didn't know if he was going by the name of Finnegan or Solli, and he didn't know if it mattered. Somewhere lately he had caught the whiff of the man who had sworn to have him killed. But he'd forgotten whether he didn't give a damn about it anymore, or whether he did.

  He had been put off the train after a brief scuffle. But whether he had already ridden the train to its destination and was put off because this was the terminal and they wanted to clean the cars, or whether he had been put off immediately after boarding it and had not yet made the trip, that was the unanswered question. He didn't much care where he was going; he just didn't want to be put off the train before he got there.

  Knowing what town he was in (and he did not know) would be of no use, since he did not recall his destination. The lady at Travelers’ Aid was first patient, then alarmed.

  “I don't see how I can help you if you can't tell me what you want or where you want to go, or if you need money, or what is your name or the names of your friends,” she said.

  “You keep asking me questions I haven't got to yet,” he protested. “All I wanted was that you read my ticket and tell me where I'm going.”

  “But this is an old racetrack ticket. Would it help you to know that you were in Hot Springs seven weeks ago?”

  “But doesn't it say where else I was or where I'm going?”

  “No, no, it's just a race track ticket. It isn't a railroad ticket. I think you are sick. Do you know what is wrong with you?”

  “Korsakoff's Psychosis.”

  “Should I take you to a doctor?”

  “No. They don't know anything about it. They say it comes from drinking. That's the same thing they used to tell my father. He acted funny, just like I do.”

  “What is that piece of wood you have there? Is there writing on it?”

  “Not all the time. It's a piece of the Speaking Oak of Dodona. It was set into the prow of a ship I sailed on once, and I stole it.”

  “Oh. Did your father stop drinking when they said he had that kind of psychosis?”

  “No. Why would he?”

  Now it sometimes happens that, after speaking of a person one has not seen for years, that person will appear. The next person Finnegan saw was his father. Giulio Solli looked shabby and sad. He had always been a poor bum, but he's also been The Monster Forgotten.

  “Just look at yourself,” Finnegan told him. “You never were anything but a dock worker and you never worked more than four days a week. Did you give mama your pay before you started out? How much did she give you back to drink on? Oh, I forgot, that was a long time ago. Well come along, you look like you need one.”

  They went out of the station and found a beer place. Finnegan ordered two glasses.

  “Do you want them both now?” a man in an apron asked Finnegan.

  “Sure we want them both now,” Finnegan said. The man in the apron put both glasses down in front of Finnegan, but Finn pushed one across to his father.

  “The trouble with you is that you never were anything but an old peasant,” Finnegan told him. “You never did get the dirt out of your hair. We don't know why mama ever married you. If she had married someone else, we would have been different. Jake would be different. He wouldn't be driving a taxi. He'd be doing something big. And Patricia would be different. She is the best of us, but she never had a chance. She could have climbed high if she'd had a place to start. Look at me: a nose you gave me that you didn't even have yourself. Why should a McCracken marry a Solli? Fifty million men there were in the country and she had to marry you. What got into her?”

  Giulio Solli did not answer anything, and he did not drink his beer. It was as if he didn't hear well or had something else on his mind. His moustache was unkempt and scraggly and he appeared even darker than previously. His hands were like a couple of gnarled old roots. And if he had always been a quiet man, now he was very quiet.

  “You probably don't know that we had a hard time of it after you died,” Finnegan told him. “You almost didn't get buried. And mama changed a lot. When you have a hard time of it it makes you lose patience.”

  The old peasant Giulio began to cry, deeply and silently. Then he went away.

  That was the first time that Finnegan knew that his father had loved them all very much and that he had done everything he was capable of doing. And they had all derided him and possibly they had killed him. And none of them had ever loved anyone. Except Patty a little bit, and their mother Mary McCracken who must have loved the old contadino or she would never have married him.

  2.

  When Finnegan had the walking blues he often went around the clock and covered many miles. He was wearing a dirty sports jacket with many pockets in it, in all of which there was mo
ney. Not yet collected, still he became calmer. The old serpent that had risen in him and gnawed for a while had now coiled up and gone to sleep. It was a fine summer morning, the day after he had got off the train. Now he had found his papers and stubs and recovered his suitcase. It had one been the most valuable suitcase in the world; it still contained a fortune, mixed with old socks and trash.

  Now he had taken a room and had a place to go when he was tired of walking. There were a number of indications adding up to near certainty that the town was Chicago and the month was somewhere between May and November. The year could have been ’50 or ’51 or ’52. It is not important to know the exact year. Not to have any idea of the year would be a sign of deterioration.

  There was one year that was lived twice. Thereafter Finnegan always phrased the years to himself as double, as 1950 — Old Style 1951. Finnegan lived a year in a little more than a week, a full and in most ways a pleasant year; and came out of it to find that it had all been one binge and the year was still ahead and unlived. There are aspects of that lost, or gained, year that still have not been explained. For one year there Finnegan always knew what was going to happen in the world, since he'd lived that year before, but he didn't know what was going to happen to himself.

  It was anyhow the fifth or sixth or seventh year of the Second Interbellum period, and it was morning. Not literally morning perhaps; it had been morning quite a while. It had possibly been afternoon by the time Finnegan got the Howlands on the phone and learned that they were still in town.

  The Howlands were in the chips. They had property and progeny. Gilbert Finnegan Howland would carry on the tradition of the triple-named dynasty. Howland Jerome Howland now ran the Club Royal, a very plush place. Howland had been raised up hard and had developed a taste for luxury that was paying off. Another man wouldn't have known what they wanted, what was the real craving of them now that they had money. Howland knew that they wanted to be charged, that they wanted to be overcharged. Bucks who were born in a cotton-patch cabin liked to spend a dollar and a quarter for mixed drinks and eight dollars for steaks. They liked to order Danish beer and Hungarian Tokay. The chef was from Martinique. The Orchestra was old classic jazz. The games were set for a fairly heavy house take. But there were many things that Francine did not like about it.

  “We possibly do not have any money at all, Finnegan,” she said, “and there is really no way to tell whether we have or not. We make a lot of money, but Oh we do spend a gosh awful lot of it. We could have a fine house for a year on what we pay a month for this apartment. Just to live on the platinum coast! ‘You have to think big,’ my man says. God, how can you think big when you haven't any brains? But it's what he wants and I'll only be able to get him away from it slowly. Finnegan, it isn't right, but what should I do? Do you still drink like a gar-fish?”

  “There is a conspiracy of silence on that. My friends no longer ask.”

  “I'll be no part of the conspiracy. I see that you do. Finn, we are glad that you came to see us first in town. We will always have your room for you no matter where we live. We love you a lot. I've kept track of your pinko friend but I haven't anything good to report on him.”

  3.

  Finnegan went to see Mary Catherine Carruthers, Casey's old girl. He had known her only during the reunion week in St. Louis, but now it seemed as though they had always been friends, or cousins at least. Mary Catherine was older than Casey, and possibly older than Finnegan. She was no more than thirty-three now, but she was the only one of the group who had ever showed any signs of aging. She had quite a few gray hairs and was a little heavier, but that was only at first glance. After that, her friendliness swallowed up everything. She kissed Finnegan quickly and as quickly set a table: beer, pigs’ feet, blue cheese, and little smoky sausages. She put the coffee on. She knew what Finn liked. Finnegan took off his shoes and he sat on Mary Catherine's lap. It was late, and Mary Catherine had been in bed.

  “I never see any of you,” she said. “About once a month Casey gets morbid and calls me up. He's married now, you know, to Mary Jean. He wants me to go out with him because Mary Jean is going out with someone else. You'll go see him, won't you? I guess I'm the only one who still thinks he's wonderful, and he isn't. I don't know why he's gone crazy for so long, but someday there'll be an end to it.

  “I know it's wrong, but I was glad when he married Mary Jean instead of someone else because he couldn't have a valid marriage with her. She was married in the Church the first time; Hilary is a fish-eater too. He says he will kill Casey when he gets in the mood, and he's capable of it. Casey is deathly afraid of him; he worries about it all the time. He worries about a lot of things. Isn't it an unholy mess?”

  Finnegan let her up to get the coffee. Then she came and sat on his lap.

  “They all write to me, Finn,” she said, “Duffey and Mrs. Duffey; I knew her when I was a little girl, and Duffey almost as soon. And Stein, and Margaret Stone. You didn't know that Casey and Absalom were acquainted before the war, did you? None of the bunch knows it, not that it goes back so far. Casey hates him. He says that they have traded souls, and now he will have to go to Hell in place of Stein. He says that the most noxious corner there is prepared for Stein and he doesn't think he'll like it. It is inconceivable that anyone could be so mixed up. Do you remember when you stood on my stomach in St. Louis to cure me of the hiccups?

  “Show Boat writes to me once a week. She writes to everybody in the world once a week. They all write to me, Marie and Dotty, and that pretty Mary Schaeffer. Everybody is doing well except you and Casey, and perhaps both of you are in a worldly way. A lot of people are puzzled about your source of money. Did you find a gold mine or something?”

  “Yes. Not a gold mine, but that was the effect.”

  “I worry a lot about you, honey. I have a great capacity for worry.”

  She put some old records on her record machine. They played ‘Seems Like Old Times’ and ‘It's a Great Big World’ which had been their theme songs of the reunion week in St. Louis.

  “Do you remember when you rode on little Maurine's back in St. Louis and I was jealous?” she asked. “I still am. I don't go out very much, Finn. I don't want to get married. It looks like I won't ever get over Casey. You do a lot of unessential things when you take yourself out of circulation. Do you know that I'm the best bridge player that you're likely to meet? Do you know that I go to concerts now, and I belong to three book clubs. And I paint.

  “Oh Finnegan, you're a painter, a real one. I'd forgotten. I'll show you, but not now. I take public speaking and I belong to a club. Can you imagine me starting that at my age? I keep track of the envelope collections at the parish. And I have recordings of the operas and everything worth hearing. I have a thousand dollars worth of records. Isn't that a waste? I eat too much of everything. That's another thing you do when you're lonesome. But when are you going to settle down yourself, hon? If it isn't to be Dotty, then I know a real nice girl for you here in Chicago. Oh, she is nice!”

  “Everybody knows a real nice girl for me, Mary Catherine, but I couldn't find a better one than you. Maybe I just fell in love with you.”

  “You fall in love too much for an unreclaimed bachelor. Only you don't. But you're in love with the little schnook Show Boat, aren't you?”

  “Yes, but nobody knows it but Show Boat and myself.”

  “Oh, the way you looked at her! Vincent got her wrapped up just in time. I've been improving my mind, Finnegan. I do have one. I discovered it quite by accident.”

  Mary Catherine got out some Irish whisky which she had had unopened since Christmas.

  “Dotty says that you worry that you are some kind of alien creature, dear. Finnegan, we are all of us alien creatures. We are a flight of aliens. Why have the scientists not noticed that man is the only creature in the world who is not in his proper environment, who has no proper environment? The world is a mighty strange and crooked ship that we ride; but your group voyages particularly.
Finnegan, do not leave Casey out, I beg you. He is one of the original crew.”

  They played about a third of Mary Catherine's thousand dollars worth of records. They talked some tangled talk, and they indulged in some tangled antics.

  When it was morning, Mary Catherine walked downstairs with him and kissed him passionately in the street.

  4.

  Finnegan went to see Hilary Hilton at his office. He had to write his name on a slip. It came back with a note ‘Don't know any Finnegan.’ This time Finnegan wrote ‘I am a friend of Casey Szymansky.’

  Hilton wrote back ‘Go to Hell. Casey has no friends.’

  Finnegan went in and found a huge young man reading his mail.

  “Did you ever do any selling, bugle-nose?” the young man asked him without looking up. “My salesmen aren't persistent enough. They just don't produce.”

  Finnegan told him about the time he and the dog McGregor had done quite a successful selling job in New York State. Hilary liked the story.

  “Here we sell a lot of odd things,” Hilary said. “I can sell anything, anything. We buy up every kind of surplus and find a market for it. We have glass that bounces and rubber that shatters. We have enough sheet bronze to start another bronze age. I have four tank cars of sulfuric acid on a siding and I have to sell them before the sun goes down. I have a million gallons of bright green paint. We moved a lot of it by mixing it with sawdust and selling it for artificial lawns. Who would want an artificial lawn? Over ninety thousand peoples so far have taken our minimum of eighteen square feet. Did you come to see me about a selling job, Solli?”