The Knife Thrower

by Steven Millhauser

  BALLOON FLIGHT, 1870

  THE PRUSSIANS SURROUND us; there’s no way out; and so I rise jerkily into the air, one hand gripping the waist-high side of the swaying wicker basket, the other gripping one of the cords rising from the basket to the hoop above, while down below I see the upturned faces, the upstretched arms, the waving hats and kepis, I hear cries of Vive la France! and Vive la République! in the windy blue October air. Vallard, my pilot, stands beside me in his tight-wrapped greatcoat as calmly as though he were looking in the window of a pork butcher’s shop. My mission is simple: to fly over the Prussian lines, to land in unoccupied France, to organize resistance in the provinces. Later I will join Gambetta in Tours. The dangers are many; the destination uncertain as the wind; but now in the late morning sunlight, as I rise over the rooftops of Paris, I’m taken by the grand spectacle below, by the shining gilt dome of the Invalides, the uneven towers of Saint-Sulpice, the rows of big-wheeled bronze cannon in the Tuileries gardens, flocks of sheep in the city squares, soldiers bathing in the Seine beside a blown-up bridge, and look! the semaphore station on top of the Arc de Triomphe, the river like a green crescent moon bending through the city, people on rooftops looking out toward the forts and hills. And on every street a tremor of light and color, National Guards in their red kepis and blue tunics and red trousers, ladies’ parasols yellow and violet and green, the glint of long bayonets at the ends of rifles, and there the red turban of a Zouave, over there a sudden flash of brass—a cavalry officer’s helmet with its mane of horsehair—as we drift in a southeast wind toward the northwestern ramparts.

  •

  The thick, crenelated wall that surrounds Paris is thirty feet high, with ninety-four projecting bastions. The wall is riddled with gun slits and supplied with heavy cannon. National Guards, army regulars, and Mobiles from the provinces stand guard day and night at the top of the wall. Paris, city of light, city of twenty thousand cafés, has become a medieval fortress. Beyond the wall is a moat ten feet wide. Beyond the moat is a circle of sixteen forts, each with fifty to seventy heavy guns. In the hills beyond the perimeter of forts lie the siege lines of Moltke’s armies. Was ever a city so well defended? Paris is impregnable. We will never surrender.

  •

  Below us I can see soldiers looking up from the top of the wall. They wave their kepis, raise their rifle butts in salute. Just outside the western ramparts, on the Butte Mortemart in the Bois de Boulogne, I see an orange flash of fire, smoke like chimney-smoke turned sideways. The smoke sits on the air like snow on a wall. I can make out the red of the gunners’ caps. Barouches and landaus press close to the great gun, women in long-trained dresses stand watching, for the firing of the heavy guns has become one of the amusements of Paris.

  •

  Above me swells the great yellow balloon, made of varnished cotton and filled with coal gas. It is fifty feet wide—a fine target for a Prussian needle-gun. A single bullet piercing the cloth will turn the heavens into a ball of deadly flame. But the immediate danger, as we drift between the northern and western forts, is from the unpredictable motions of the balloon itself. Vallard can make it rise by casting off bags of sand, he can make it descend by pulling the valve rope and releasing gas, but even he cannot control the sudden shifts of wind, the swing and lurch of the basket, the temperature of the air, which causes the gas to expand and contract. Vallard studies the mariner’s compass that hangs on a rope from the hoop above, reads the barometer that swings beside it. Both of us well know that a balloon is unsteerable. Inventors have proposed sails, propellers, fleets of birds straight out of fable. If only the sides of the basket came higher! The hills, russet with autumn, conceal Prussian gun batteries. In the chill clear air I hear the sudden sharp cry of a cock, from some unknown farmyard.

  •

  I cling to a cord, steady myself against the low basket-edge, and look down at fields and copses, scattered farms, a village with a church. Vallard tells me we’re at one thousand feet. It is almost peaceful now, in the brisk October air. Hills red and brown, patches of yellow, the rippling shadow of our balloon. Up here you might almost forget the Prussian encampments in the woods, the sandbags in the windows of the Louvre, the dinners of horsemeat, the faces of the deserters fleeing into Montparnasse from the battle of Châtillon, the beds for wounded soldiers in the greenroom of the Comédie-Française, here in the sky, the calm blue sky, as we drift over the autumn woods, the sunny peaceful fields.

  •

  Suddenly, from out of a cluster of trees, a Uhlan appears on a black horse. His gleaming helmet with its high crest is like the dome of some exotic church. I can see the saber hanging by his leg, the white sash slashing his chest. As he looks up at our balloon, a second Uhlan emerges from the copse, gazing up at us, holding in one hand an upright lance taller than his horse. A pennon flutters at the top of the lance. Now they begin to pursue us; they shout; I see a third Uhlan, a fourth. I hear the sharp report of a rifle. A flock of crows rises screaming from the trees. Vallard cuts the cord of a sandbag hanging over the side of the basket, cuts a second, a third; we rush upward; the basket sways dangerously; something stings my hand; a streak of blood; the Uhlans are far below, eight of them, ten; I wrap my bullet-grazed hand. The Uhlans, growing smaller and smaller, ride after us as we ascend swaying into the cold regions of upper air.

  •

  We have ascended to an elevation of ten thousand feet, and in the bright cold air I look down at a world I no longer recognize: irregular patches of green and violet-brown, winding dark lines like scratches, bits of cloud like floating snow. Here, at this height, where men are invisible, where there is only Nature, one is shaken, disturbed. I think of the vastness of Nature and the littleness of Man, but my thought is inexact, it fails to express the feeling that moves in me like a darkness. It’s as if within me a rift has opened; a fissure; a wound; yes; not the bullet’s scratch, but an inner crack; and there in that blackness, all’s without meaning; whether I strive or sleep; yawn or bleed; accomplish my mission or drift to the moon; and in that ugly blackness, there’s no difference between Paris and Berlin; between Paris and pissing. Hateful heights! Here there is only the death of dreams, dark laughter of fallen angels with hellfire wings. A terrible indifference courses through me, shakes me to the core. And always a little voice that whispers, whispers: what does it matter, this thing or that thing … I look at my cold hand, clinging to the basket’s rim. Fingers, I say, fingers, fingers, but I cannot understand the word. People have hands. Hands have fingers. There are five fingers on each hand. There are ten fingers on both hands. France is a nation. England is a nation of shopkeepers. Clovis, King of the Frankish nation, defeated the Roman legions at Soissons. Gaius Julius Caesar was assassinated in 44 B.C. I see an icicle on Vallard’s mustache.

  •

  It has passed like a dizziness, like a madness, even as Vallard pulls the valve rope and we begin to descend from those perilous regions. I look at Vallard, a man of few words, stolid, unchanged. A broad-shouldered man of twenty-six, the son of peasants from a village near Rouen. He has assured me that the provinces will rise and crush the invader. Vallard tells the story of a peasant who, coming upon a Prussian patrol, fell on him and tore out his throat with his teeth. I ask him where he learned to pilot a balloon. “Gare d’Orléans,” he says in his laconic fashion, and at once I see the great waiting room of the Gare d’Orléans, the long workbenches where rows of seamstresses sit stitching together large strips of calico in the light of gas lamps, the sailors braiding rope and fashioning the netting that encloses the balloons, workers in blue blouses assembling a wicker basket. On the floor of the great room, beside the abandoned railway tracks, partially inflated balloons, enormous and sagging, lie stretched out on their sides, their great curves looming over the workers and reaching halfway up the height of the walls. High overhead, from the station girders under the glass-and-iron roof, a few wicker baskets hang from ropes. It is in one of these training baskets that Vallard prepared for
our flight, as he looked down at the long workbenches, the rows of gas lamps in the walls, the women’s hands stitching, the valves of the great balloons lying across the tracks.

  •

  Where to look? Not down, for still I see an unpeopled world, a world without meaning, and like the tearing of a ligament the rift begins to open, the inner wound begins to bleed. Not up, for above me I see the bottom of a yellow monster carrying me off in its claws to hellish heaven. Straight ahead then? No, for before me lie vast stretches of unearthly blue—sinister blue—a nausea of blue. I do not fear death. I am prepared to die for France. But I fear this blue nothingness, this little voice that whispers, whispers: O what does it matter, this thing or that thing, Paris or Prussia, breath-warm or corpse-cold. And a loathing comes over me, for all the world of upper air, this mocking blue heaven with its little black secret. Sick to death of it all, I fix my gaze on the humble basket: on the strands of wicker woven by rough hands, on the six-fluked anchor dangling over the side, on the leather sacks containing government dispatches and ten thousand private letters, on the bags of ballast, the coil of rope, the basket of pigeons that will be used by provincials to send messages back to Paris. The wicker. The leather. The iron. The rope. I am calm now.

  •

  Moltke’s investing troops are spread out in an indefensible perimeter of fifty miles. They hope to starve us into submission, but we will never surrender. Today we eat horsemeat and butter our bread with yellow horsefat. And tomorrow? Tomorrow we’ll dine on paving stones! But we must act. The thought of our idleness fills me with rage. The First and Second German Armies are pinned down in Lorraine before the walls of Metz, but if Metz should fall? What then? Two armies would be released to reinforce the lines of investment about Paris, or to engage Gambetta in the south. We must attack! A double advance cannot possibly fail: a sortie en masse from the gates of Paris and a simultaneous attack behind the German lines. Gambetta, fretting at Tours, is eager to recapture Orléans and march north to Paris with the Army of the Loire. I am of those who believe it is far wiser for the Army of the Loire and the Army of the North to converge at Rouen, and together move on Paris along the valley of the Seine. But one thing is certain: we must act. Any movement of our provincial armies will force Moltke to detach troops from his over-stretched siege lines. He will be weakened, confused. We must strike at once. We must crush the invader. We must redeem the disaster of Sedan. The shame of the Empire will vanish in the glory of the Republic.

  •

  I look down at wooded countryside. Here and there a clearing in the trees, a hut with smoke rising in a straight line from a chimney. The top of the smoke shakes a little, looks like unraveling rope. A hawk flies above the trees. We do not know these forests. The compass needle spins like a drunkard. Are there Frenchmen in the woods, waiting to greet us like heroes? Or are there Prussian encampments, gun batteries, soldiers with needle-guns already looking up, taking aim? Vallard believes it is unsafe to land. Prussian cavalry patrols are everywhere. We drift higher, above the unknown forest.

  •

  Yesterday I walked beyond the ramparts into the Bois de Boulogne. The felling of the great trees for fuel, for barricades, has left new, disturbing vistas: you can see in the distance the white church of Saint-Cloud, bluish smoke rising from smoldering houses. Fields of underbrush, spotted with tree stumps, stretch away. Here and there you see gray canvas tents and huts of fir branches, shirts drying on rope lines. Along the road there is a continual loud rumble of big-wheeled bronze guns drawn by four horses; ammunition wagons; the lighter roll of private carriages carrying sightseers. And in your ears, in your skin, in the soles of your feet, always the roar of cannon from the fort on Mont Valérien.

  •

  An undulating plain, yellow hopfields and oatfields, brown plowed farmland, the dark line of a canal. Haystacks with shadows. Clumps of trees. I see a windmill with turning sails, a turning shadow beside it. In the distance, hills purplish and brown. Although I keep a sharp eye out for movement in the trees, it is peaceful here, in the blue air, drifting along. And a wayward desire steals over me: to stay aloft, to live a life in the air, to hover forever between earth and sky. The desire disturbs me. In its heart I detect a secret weakness: this sudden, unaccountable desire, is it not the sign of a weakened will, of the inner wound unhealed? To remain above, to look down, to drift along, to give way, to dream … is this not to take sides with indifference, to encourage the rift within? And therefore—sheer logic forces me to such a conclusion—is it not secretly to aid the Prussian cause? The sky is treacherous. I must be vigilant.

  •

  I fix my gaze below on fields already changing to woods and force myself to think of war. The question of artillery troubles my sleep. Reports from soldiers who fought at Spicheren, Froeschwiller, Saint-Privat, Sedan are deeply disturbing, though perhaps exaggerated. In the confusion of battle, can the truth be known? And yet it appears that the breech-loading Krupp guns, made of steel, have much greater range than our muzzle-loading bronze cannon. Is it possible? The Krupp shells, fitted with percussion caps, explode only on impact, whereas our time-fuse shells explode mostly in the air. It is said that if Moltke gave the order, the Prussian gunners could lob shells into the streets of Paris from the heights of Châtillon, which we lost in September. Why, why, why do we sit and wait? How long will our provisions hold out? Do we wish to trade Paris for a crust of bread? We must attack. Paris is ready and eager. Our soldiers are armed with magnificent breech-loading chassepot rifles that are sighted at sixteen hundred yards. Think of it! The soldiers of the first Napoleon, the conquerors of Jena, were equipped with smooth-bore muzzle-loading muskets with a range of scarcely fifty yards! Our rifles are far superior even to the Prussian needle-gun, which brought Austria to its knees. Why do we sit and do nothing? In the woods I see a sudden movement, which appears to be that of an animal, perhaps a deer.

  •

  Difficult to cast off this feeling of listlessness. Blue air, the shadow of our balloon rippling over trees. And again the desire, not a desire, but the inclination, not an inclination, but rather a picturing, an idle imagining, offspring of silence and blue air. Have I been so deeply wounded? I must not give way. And yet, to live aloft, a floating man, a citizen of the air … surely it could be done. Touching down from time to time, in a potato field or plum orchard, the basket of the balloon hovering above its anchor; then climbing a rope ladder into my airy home and off into the impalpable element. Easy enough to construct a more civilized basket, with space to sleep, a roof to keep out rain and snow; books; stores of food; writing materials; a rifle; a telescope; a parrot in a cage for companion—a floating island; mobile nest; traveling the world above shifting scenes; the white-capped seas and monkey-chattering jungles; the glittering ice mountains of the north; my bed afloat in blue lakes of sky; never come back; childhood’s dream.

  •

  I could push Vallard over the side. A quick motion would suffice. He would fall swiftly, turning over and over. An unfortunate accident. The suddenly lightened balloon shoots up, but I pull on the valve rope, calmly. Alone, drifting through the sky. Away from it all. It could be done.

  •

  To have had such a thought … Am I no longer myself? Unmanned by air? Heaven-unhinged! And now—sudden revulsion—the basket fills me with loathing; the rope; the anchor; my hand like a cold claw gripping the rim; I can’t bear this place; this voyage; this up-here hovering; the inhuman sky; down, look down; and I feel a prickling in my skin, and I think: to jump, to feel the wind in my hair, to plunge in a rush of wind, to feel myself break against a tree; sweet pain; the bayonet in my throat; blood-gush; earth-smash; anything but this.

  •

  All at once we have entered a region of thick, swirling mist. Vallard, half a step from me, has become a ghostly form. Above me the balloon has vanished. The suspension ropes rise into smoke, are erased like lines of chalk. The clouds thicken; my hand disappears. I am invisible to myself. Ther
e is nothing in the world but cold damp desolate empty gray and the bite of the basket’s rim in my clenched palm. We have died, Vallard and I, we have entered the shadowless realm, region of erasures and absences, kingdom of dissolution. Clumps of cloud-mist enter my mouth like smoke. Here on the other shore, here at the world’s end, give me the sight and touch of things: shape of a hand, curve of a chin, weight of a stone; the heft of earthly things. Edges! Edges!

  •

  At last; out there; a shape in the cloud-soup; and as we drift closer, there below, swathed in the mist-swirl, yes! the top of—a pine?