by Ron Miller
“Announce you?”
“Of course.”
“What do you mean, ‘announce you’?”
Rykkla produced a perfect replica of a sigh of nearly infinite patience bearing up bravely under great strain. “I thought that this might be a problem for you, so I have done you a kindness. I have written it down for you. It’s extemporaneous and terribly unpolished, normally I would have had my advance man prepare something like this, and modesty, of course, forbade me from being more honest, but it’ll do.”
She handed the astounded eunuch a neatly folded square of paper, at which he could only stare dumbly.
“Well? Go on in and read it! Good heavens, you can read, can’t you?” She turned to her somberly waiting attendants and said to them, sotto voce, “Merciful Musrum!” to which they sychophantically rolled their eyes toward the ornate ceiling, clucked their tongues and shook their heads.
“All right! All right!” tootled the eunuch angrily, throwing open the door and throwing himself through, the petulance of the gesture spoiled somewhat by a mass that was just chock-a-block with inertia. The door barely squeezed shut after passing his bulging behind and the three women immediately rushed to press their ears against the panel. They heard:
It is with the greatest pleasure that I have the privilege and inexpressible honor of introducing one of the premier performers of our or any other age, an artist whose, ah, artistry has amazed and delighted audiences on two continents, who has earned the heartfelt accolades of virtually every royal court, who rival one another for command performances. It is with the most abject humbleness, to say nothing of heartfelt appreciation for the opportunity of being allowed to even speak the revered name, that I make known to you the imminent appearance of . . . and here, your Excellency, you must understand that I am instructed to speak in a whisper of hushed and awed tone . . . the imminent appearance of Miss Rykkla Woxen!
Bobasnyda had barely breathed these last four syllables when behind him the door was flung open and our heroine swept past his bulk, glimmering like a windblown ignis fatuus, like a rag of cloud unimpeded by a mountain, like a pennanted skiff circumnavigating a plodding steamship.
“That is enough your terrible flattery! I am here!” she cried and with a wave of her hand dismissed the eunuch who, to his amazement, suddenly found himself outside a closed door, in the anteroom with a pair of smirking women.
Before the Baudad could speak, Rykkla said, “You can tell that vast blanc mange that he need not hover beyond that door, there must be things elsewhere that better command his attention.”
“Well, yes, of course,” replied the Baudad, who picked up a flexible tube from its clip on a column by his elbow and spoke a few, brief words into it. He returned the tube to its place and said to the girl, “He is gone. Only your, um, attendants remain.”
The Baudad looked at Rykkla with an expression mixed almost equally of curiousity and amusement. In her own turn, Rykkla examined the man critically, if not without a little professional interest. She had not been able to clearly see him during her pervious interview and now that he stood in the midst of the light-filled chamber, he was no longer a vague silhouette.
Interesting. Makes me wish that I was scouting for my circus. He’d probably be terribly offended if I made him an offer.
She had first assumed that the Baudad was a man of medium height, but this she realized was only because his eyes had met hers on more or less a level. However, where most other people’s bodies would have continued on past the waist and eventually bifurcate into at least a pair of legs, the Baudad’s stopped, evidently just below his navel. In place of lower torso and limbs, his truncated body sat atop a kind of elaborate stool or highchair, held there by a harness of artfully-tooled leather straps. The woodwork was very finely turned and carved, she noticed. A fringe of gold-threaded brocade hid the actual juncture, but a half dozen cranks and handles protruded through its folds. A system of belts, chains and pulleys connected these with large wheels or casters at the base of the stool. By turning the cranks with his powerful arms and hands he was, with this arrangement, able to move around with surprising alacrity. What existed above this interesting and ingenious machinery was, unfortunately, less prepossessing if no less fascinating, though perhaps less from the point of view of a sideshow scout than from that of a dedicated teratologist.
The Baudad proper was a disparate assembly consisting of a whithered torso upon which the richly embroidered silks hung as though upon a wire hanger, his chest seemed so hollow that Rykkla suspected that she’d be able to see his spine through it, a long, S-shaped neck, apparently bent beneath the weight of the massive skull, and incongruously though not inexplicably muscular arms that hung well past the level of the Baudad’s platform. The face was as angular and blocky as the cornerstone of a building, as though if she were to look behind his prominent ears she would find the words Erected 3214 engraved there. None of his features, save the ears, were of any particular prominence: the nose was a thin ridge, the tiny eyes (slightly mismatched in size) almost socketless, the lips a dry-looking crack. The face looked more like random imperfections in what was supposed to have been a flawlessly cast cement block.
I can’t begin to imagine what he intends to do with me, nor how for that matter, thought Rykkla, who realized perfectly well that the Baudad Alcatode must necessarily be missing more than just a pair of legs.
“Well,” he chuckled, “that was quite an entrance. Probably did Bobasnyda a power of good, the pompous bag of suet.”
“Always glad to be of service,” replied Rykkla, courteously, adding: “This is a very nice place.” And it was, too. Just as she had remembered it: the ceiling and three walls all of large, frosty glass panes with early morning sunlight pouring into the solarium like warm milk through a colander.
“It is awfully close in here, though, don’t you think?” asked Rykkla, who, in spite of the almost complete insubstantiality of her costume, felt beads of perspiration tickling meandering paths down her spine and between her breasts. She knew that the beads of moisture exuding from every pore were beginning to glue the diaphanous fabric, already as transparent as cellophane, to her skin. The Baudad’s huge head rotated tropistically toward the light. “Ah!” he whispered. “The sun is so warm! So good! It fills me like a bottle of hot wine! Hot spiced wine! Do you not like the sun?”
“I can take it or leave it. Generally, it does my complexion no good.”
He turned his flat, lifeless eyes onto her. It was like looking into the expressionless surface of a rubber eraser. “Oh, but you must be wrong, my dear. You are so . . . perfect. Nothing could possibly have happened to you that was not itself perfect as well.”
“I could argue with that.”
“Hmm, hmm, hmm,” he appeared to laugh. “You are very funny. A sense of humor implies intelligence and intelligence is another aspect of perfection. None of the other women here have a sense of humor. Therefore they probably lack intelligence. Do you like jokes?”
Sure, but the funniest thing here is you, my friend. But aloud she said, “Of course. Do you know any good ones?”
“Oh, certainly! Certainly!” He struck the palms of his massive hands together with the thudding sound of two sandbags colliding. “Would you like to hear one?”
“There’s nothing that I’d like better.” Though not from you, even if I can’t see any way of preventing it.
His head sank onto his insubstantial chest, deep in thought, as he paced in a tight circle. Rykkla admired the silence with which his machinery operated. The wheels, she noticed, had rubber rims that produced only the softest squelching sound on the tiled floor, still damp from the freshly-watered plants.
“Ah! I know!” He swiveled tightly to face her. “Two Peigambar herdsmen meet on a roadway. One says to the other, ‘Queer, isn’t it?’ ‘What’s queer?’ says the second herdsman. ‘That night falls, ‘ ‘Yes?’ ‘, but doesn’t break!’ ‘No.’ ‘And the day breaks, ‘ ‘Yes.’ ‘, but doesn�
��t fall!’ ‘No, but it’s getting very warm.’ ‘Yes, it is.’ ‘There would be a big thaw but for one thing, ‘ ‘And what is that?’ ‘There’s nothing frozen.’ And they part.”
Only by the quickness of her not inconsiderable wit did Rykkla realize that the joke was finished and managed to laugh without the passage of so much as a single extraneous heartbeat. “Haha!” she said. Thus encouraged, the Baudad continued.
“‘How are you today?’ asked the gentleman of his friend. ‘Oh, I can’t kick,’ the friend replied. ‘Thought you were ill,’ commented the first gentleman in some confusion. ‘I am, I have the gout.’”
“Oh! Haha!”
“I saw a sign in a hardware store today that said ‘cast iron sinks’. As though everyone didn’t know that already!”
“Hahaha.”
“A Piegambaran comes to this country, remains here ten years, and goes back to Piegambar and dies. What is he?”
“Oh, ah, I don’t know.”
“A corpse, of course! A coquettish girl saucily says to a soldier, ‘I am told that though you are a military man, you are afraid of powder.’ replies he: ‘To prove that the assertion is calumnious, I have only to do this.’ Whereupon he lightly kisses her on the cheek, and his lips bear witness that he was not. The same girl asks the soldier, ‘Why do you remove your sword, Lieutenant?’ And the gallant officer replies, ‘My lovely miss, the fire from those eyes would compel the bravest soldier to surrender his arms.’ A tramp asks of a housewife, ‘Can’t you give a poor man something to eat? I got shot in the war and can’t work.’ ‘Where was you shot?’ asks the good woman. ‘In the spinal column, mum.’ ‘Go ‘way! There was no such battle!’ Did you know that while I was eating my breakfast this morning the butter ran? That was nothing, however, because I was uptown last night and saw a cake walk. Sailors are not usually fond of agricultural implements, but they always welcome the cry of ‘Land-hoe.’”
“Um. Ha.”
“A squall on the sea is a stress of weather, and a squaller on land is a songstress. A boil on the pot is worth two on the neck. A man stole a harness the other day and never left a trace. ‘I don’t give a rap,’ said the coachman, haughtily, as he rang the electric bell. The glazier is not necessarily a tiresome man just because he ‘gives you a pane.’”
“Ha.”
“You must know some fine jokes; perhaps some from your travels that I have not heard?”
“Oh. Ah. Well. Um. Let me see . . . Well, One lady says to another, ‘Why do you call that man Mr. Gimlet, when you know that his name is Mr. Squeen?’ ‘Oh, I only call him that because he is such a bore.’”
The Baudad’s expression froze, his tiny eyes becoming as hard as garnets. He did not speak for a moment, before finally saying, in a cold, low, perfectly enunciating voice: “What exactly did you mean by that?”
“What? That? Nothing! Hahahaha it was a joke. Why?” Rykkla was certain that if she were not able to leave that room very soon she would stifle. Breathing the atmosphere was like inhaling a hot syrup; the combined scent of the exotic plants and the sweet smell of their humus was overpowering.
He regarded her silently for another moment or two, then his expression relaxed. “Well, then, perhaps you may be interested in learning of the gentleman who asked his friend, ‘What kind of cigar is that, old man?’ ‘It’s called “The Soldier Boy,”‘ his friend replied. ‘H’m,’ rejoindered the first fellow, sniffing, ‘I notice that it belongs to the ranks.’”
“Ohhahahahahahahahaha!”
“Would you care for some refreshment? Wine? Liqueur? Cakes? Tiny little sandwiches?”
“Yes, please, thank you very much,” she replied politely. Though food was the last thing that she could imagine wanting, she would have eaten anything if it meant that the Baudad would stop telling his jokes.
The Baudad scooted over alongside a brass-topped table laden with the same sort of succulencies that seemed to form the palace’s sole, unvarying bill of fare. She chose one or two of the least cloying-looking small cakes and nibbled at them deliberately while the Baudad spoke.
“You are well-travelled, I assume?”
“Perhaps a little more than the average person, I suppose.”
“But this is your first visit to Spondula. I’d like to show you around.”
“I’ve been around.”
“I’m not surprised that you have been so much in demand, your reputation as a splendid artist precedes you. After hearing scores and scores of reports from my agents, all of them speaking of you in the most extravagant terms, I found my curiosity piqued to a degree I had never before thought possible. See what one of them sent me?”
He tugged at the end of a cord that dangled from the ceiling and a broad sheet of canvas unrolled almost to the floor. Rykkla was startled to find herself staring at one of her own banners, one that featured a gaudy, twice-life-sized rendering of the circus girl in full costume, such as it was. It had never before occured to her how scanty her costume appeared, nor how imaginatively voluptuous the artist had made her. She had certainly gotten her money’s worth.
“That’s why you offered me the pass, so that my circus could tour Ibraila?”
“So that you could tour Ibraila.”
“I have to admit that I have certainly enjoyed my stay here, the hospitality of the palace can only be faulted in the direction of overenthusiasm, if anything. And I have not yet had the opportunity to thank you for rescuing me from imminent immolation.” Though I’m beginning to imagine that I’ve only traded the spit for the steamer.
“You’re welcome.”
“However, I must point out, however relunctantly, that I do have other commitments. My tour of Ibraila has had to be truncated, unfortunately, but it was by an act of Musrum, and, I am sure you are aware, acts of Musrum were allowed for in our contract. Now I have all the problems of dealing with my insurance company, reestablishing a new circus, finding new acts, setting up a new tour schedule . . . all that sort of thing. I’m sure you understand.”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, then, you see why I must, with great regret, I assure you, beg to take my leave and get on with my business and other commitments.”
“Oh, well, that’s impossible.”
“To tell you the truth, I was pretty certain that you’d say something like that.”
“Then you understand my position, as well.” The Baudad wheeled himself to a table and filled a tall goblet with a carmine wine. He looked over its rim as he sipped, and said, “Did you hear that Hicques, the sea captain, is in hard luck? He married a girl and she ran away from him. He had taken her for a mate but she was a skipper. Do you know that I find this very exciting?”
“Do you?”
“I do.” And as he replied, his right hand began to crank at some hidden device. The embroidered cloth at the hem of his coat parted as an enormous phallus emerged. It was made of two fine-grained woods, one a pale rose and the other as darkly red as the wine he had been sipping, waxed to a shimmering luster, inlaid with ornate patterns in silver and gold wire, scrimshawed like a whale’s tooth. It was as large as a banana and Rykkla could only stare at the unexpected apparition as though it were a cobra that had suddenly made an appearance; in fact, she would have been less surprised and certainly less disturbed if it had been a snake.
The faint whirring of gears stopped; the artifical phallus pointed between her eyes like the muzzle of a pistol. She glanced back to the Baudad’s face and saw that his left hand now grasped a large rubber bulb, connected like a photographer’s shutter release to something beneath his coat by a long flexible tube. He fondled the bulb and a drop of quivering, silvery liquid emerged from the tip of his wonderful invention, as though the snake was hungrily drooling.
“Will you excuse me for a moment?” asked Rykkla.
“Surely.”
Rykkla strode to the door and opened it, spilling her two friends into the room.
“My goodness, who are these people?” sa
id the Baudad with an expression combined of unequal parts of astonishment, pleasure and annoyance.
“They are my personal attendants.”
“Personal attendants?”
“Is that the Baudad?” asked Thursby while Gravelinghe maintained her usual silence, except that she allowed a derisive snort to escape her lips. “He’s really funny-looking.”
“This is an intolerable imposition!” cried the Baudad, his mood now completely ruined, shaking his highchair so violently that it threatened to overturn, the phallus waggling like a chiding finger. “These creatures must leave!”
“They will, your Excellency, but I am going to be leaving with them.”
“Oh yes?” he smirked. “Oh yes? And just how do you think you are going to do that?”
Rykkla declined to answer, instead she strode to one of the glass-paneled walls. Each pane was individually hinged, she discovered. Lifting one she peered through the opening, blinking against the brilliant sunlight. Just as I thought, she complimented herself, the Baudad’s solarium projects over streets on two sides. She looked higher and could see, just beyond the low, whitewashed buildings opposite, the slowly metronoming masts of several ships. Better and better!
She turned to the two women and said, “It’s all right. We can get out this way.”
“What!” shouted the Baudad. “You cannot do that! I won’t allow it!” Even as he spoke, his powerful arms twirled their handles like the pistons of a steam locomotive, shooting his device across the room like a roweled pony. His powerful hands reached for one of the dangling cords that would summon either the eunuchs or his palace guards, or both, for all that Rykkla knew. “Stop him!” she cried, but had barely begun to utter those two words when Gravelinghe, her huge body dissolving into a blur, snatched the shrieking potentate from the floor. He immediately began flailing his simian arms while the Amazon held him at arm’s length, like a fastidious housekeeper might hold some dubious underwear she had just found beneath a bed. The leather harness, designed to keep the Baudad from falling off the chair, came unhinged and the elaborate contraption fell with a crash to the tiles. The sudden release of its considerable weight caused Gravelinghe to toss the man into the air and he fell onto her chest, clutching at her throat like an enormous tick. The Baudad, Rykkla noticed as the woman began to turn blue, was all back and arms.