Private Novelist

by Nell Zink

  “I can see why they don’t keep you in here all the time,” I said. He nodded contemplatively and smiled a sweet smile. His hair was radiantly white and curly in infinite curls, one upon another, tracing along his back like one long endless curl. The square pupils of his auburn eyes contracted slowly as he looked at me. I felt all my pockets and found a sweet roll. I set it on the ground between us. He let me touch his neck. He was softer than air and warm as coffee. He ate the sweet roll with curious eagerness, and then returned to munching violets. I wondered just how long I could stay there with him before he would do irreparable damage to the installation.

  “Come here,” I said. “Are you really so hungry?” He sidled away and scratched his back against the wall. I got up and scratched it for him. He bleated happily and ripped out another violet. Then I lay down again and looked straight up at the sun, fixed at noon, while the lamb’s soft feet moved in predictable patterns around me and his quiet calls alternated with the contented grinding of his teeth.

  After a while he lay down next to me and I rested my arm on his back. Then I noticed the time. I had been three hours delivering my thank-you note. It was damp with dew and I wondered if the ink had run. I found it where it had blown into a corner and unfolded it to check. But it wasn’t my thank-you note at all. It was handwritten, like my note, and read, “Please enjoy Part 3.” I took out a pen and wrote, “Thanks again!” and put it back. The lamb was standing by his little door. I thought maybe he was thirsty, so I let him out. And I didn’t know if he was supposed to be part of Part 3.

  When I touched the screen a friendly, engaging male voice began to fall gently from above. “Welcome. Tonight’s feature is entitled Holiday in Austria. Please make yourself comfortable. If at any time a comfort break is required, please say so and the film will pause. At the conclusion of the film, please have a safe journey home.” Then the lights vanished and the stars appeared. One star twinkled brighter than the rest, alternating blue and green, growing larger, and seeming to rotate, and I realized it was Earth. Then I saw it wasn’t Earth at all, it was a picture of high mountains and grassy foothills with thick, glaring white clouds, as white as the lamb’s white wool, racing across an eggplant-blue sky. Gradually the projection changed from round to square and the music began—an odd, regular melody, almost mechanical sounding. The viewfinder drew closer to the mountains and swooped in on a little house with low, overhanging eaves. Then, from far away, the bark of a dog, and a bell, and a small, fat woman in a tight dress came out the front door and greeted the dog, who bounded up to her and licked her hands. You could tell that the woman was blind. Her blank eyes wandered randomly from the ground to the roof, and she held her hands down for the dog to lick, instead of trying to find his bobbing head herself. The viewfinder drew back and the mountains came into focus again, enormous and gray, taller than the tallest buildings in Metroform, streaked with white snow. Higher on the mountain I could see a tiny white shape struggling to keep its feet amid a flood of scree. The dog barked and bounced, and at last the woman understood. She had to climb the mountain at nightfall to save the lost lamb. She took a walking stick from behind the door and followed the dog up the hill. At times invisible through the canopy of fir trees, at times a bright speck in a field held in dark shadow by a passing cloud, she moved slowly upward. Her red shawl swept the ground. Then the lens focused on the tiny lamb. He was caught in a slow rockslide, aggravating the trouble by his movements of panic. The sharp edges of flinty stone seemed unsuited to the lamb’s tender feet. He looked down in despair and smiled a brave smile of resignation as the camera drew away into the sky. The perspective widened and you could see the old blind woman, still following the dog, still miles beneath where the lamb was trapped, as the sun slipped behind a mountain and the valley turned blue black. The camera kept vaulting backward until the whole region—her village, the roads—everything was visible, and even farther, back into space, until the revolving Earth returned, becoming smaller and smaller until it was only another twinkling star in the blackness of the ceiling. Then a dim red light appeared behind me. “Exit,” it read, blinking on and off.

  “Hello?” I called out. “Hello?” There was no answer. The light over the door kept blinking, so I left the office and closed both doors behind me. I found the U elevator bank again and rode express down to the lobby. I felt depressed.

  I walked around the block and came back inside. I rode up to S.T.A.R. Both doors were ajar and the stairs were covered with dirty footprints. Inside it was midnight and a freezing, swirling wind with particles of ice. I could hardly see a thing—my eyes squinted shut against the sleet and bitter air. I pressed Lamb (Manual) and waited for him. After I propped open the exit door to get some light, I saw him approaching like a dim new moon. He bounded down to the hallway, his knees wobbling unsteadily on the spun-metal floor, and when he looked up at me and bleated I picked him up for a minute, just to calm him down. I set my face in the soft wool of his neck. I offered him a saltine (my pockets are always full of food for no very good reason) and then I took him home.

  “Took” is really the wrong word—he followed me. As far as I know, that’s what sheep do: follow each other. Or he was too stupid to know that his home was back up the stairs. I don’t think so. I took him because of the hungry way he had devoured all the violets, and because I thought the society wanted me to. The lamb in Holiday in Austria had needed rescue from some very dramatic trouble, and this lamb was no less high and helpless, on the 211th floor of a dismal skyscraper in an exhausted suburb of Metroform. I also imagined that as I lay on my bed, the lamb would lie beside me, fluffy and pricelessly beautiful, and together we would be happy. I hoped there was no Part 4. The diamond and the lamb seemed like enough.

  The lamb liked his new home. I applied for a pet certificate and got vouchers for corn. I hoped he wasn’t too hungry. Soon we’d settled in. He ate from my hands and slept by me. I cleaned up after him and bathed him. I bought organic matter and filled half the basement with it. I planted grass and violets. He liked to eat down there, but as soon as he could he’d come back up and climb up next to me on the sofa. So I was sure he liked me.

  It’s hard to describe just how beautiful he was. His mouth was set in a slight smile, blissful and quiet, and his pure-white wool was thick and soft over his entire graceful body. The hanging bell-bottoms of his fetlocks almost hid his tiny black hooves. He teetered around the house looking for salty things to lick—hands, crackers, soup plates, my sweaty arms after a long night sitting up wrapped in blankets. He bleated for me to pick him up, and I’d put him over my shoulders. His eyes were deep brownish red flecked with gold, and raised their sorrowful look like an offering to our happiness. Dancing, running, chewing on my fingers, dozing in his nest, wherever he was, no matter how childish his pleasures, his eyes said, I know what this is worth.

  Maybe you think I should have taken the lamb to the country. But I just thought it’s so cold up there, and so many people—nothing like Metro U.S.A., but still so crowded there are more people than buildings. Plus, they have to work. My family has always lived around Metroform and been paid to eat and breathe as little as possible, and furthermore, I’ll be damned if I’ll work. Besides, the country wasn’t really beautiful at all. At least, not compared to the scenes in the diamond.

  Every day I expected S.T.A.R. to contact me. I’ve seen the lake in the diamond. I’m living with the lamb. I made up a story: What ultimately will happen is that I’ll either learn that the place in the diamond still exists, or that it doesn’t. I’ll travel the whole earth. Maybe I’ll go to Austria by boat. With the lamb. When I get there I’ll find the round pool, and I’ll meet someone. Who is the artist? Who’s in S.T.A.R.? What is their motivation? Is the diamond a priceless antique that’s being hidden with me? Maybe the national treasure of some secret kingdom, or secret order. S.T.A.R. is the thief who took it away. S.T.A.R. could be a revolutionary who wants to restore the earth. The system is so huge and convoluted, there�
�s no way to get gradual change, it would take a breakdown. Why me? I’m the only one left—the only thoughtful person. What does S.T.A.R. have to do with the lamb? S.T.A.R. doesn’t understand at all; he thinks the mass deaths at the seat of world government will solve everything; the lamb’s innocence disproves him. He’ll want to replace their power with his power. He’ll ask for my help. When we flee to Austria, I’ll meet a wise, beautiful old woman. The woman will tell me wearily, because she knows she’s not going to survive, to let the lamb eat the diamond. When he does, the world will end. In a flash, as my body dissolves, I’ll see the eternal peace and stillness and the little boat rocking, or I’ll feel myself rocking and see the cattails. Then the world will begin again. It’s a special kind of bomb that doesn’t destroy the minds of thoughtful people. The world dissolves without flame, like a dream being forgotten.

  So I wrote a letter inviting S.T.A.R. to lunch, and gave it to the mailman the next morning.

  When he arrived the lamb ran to him. He stood resting his hooves on the man’s knees, and licked his hands. He seemed almost frantic with anxiety and love. The man picked the lamb up tenderly and held him like a baby. The lamb never looked at me. During our lunch he sat at the man’s feet, and after he followed him out.

  The man seemed glad to meet me, and asked me all sorts of questions, and gave me a set of beautifully embroidered pajamas, wrapped up in iridescent foil. I sat with eyes wide, realizing the lamb loved him and was his pet, not listening.

  He said, “Can you hear me?”

  I bent down to glance under the table. The lamb was sitting with his head on the man’s shoe. I started to cry, and asked him to leave. I thanked him for coming to lunch.

  That night I put the new pajamas on and lay down alone. They smelled of lavender and were soft as cushions, with pillowy embroidery floss looping out all over. I lay on my side and cried until I felt dizzy.

  I woke up in darkness. The lamb was with me in bed, but the room was gone, and I had a vision. I saw the world from space, and it was not blue, green, and white. It was black, yellow, and brown. So many people had died that there were only a million left, living like me in the cities, watching documentaries about the exodus to the poles and believing them. But we were doomed, like the great whales: So few were left, in so large a space, that we never encountered each other. Then I really woke up. The lamb was gone, and I was alone.

  I walked to the window and looked out at the street. It was blazing noontime. The man was sitting outside on a rock under an enormous chestnut tree with leaflets like dark green umbrellas that cast a deep, fragrant shade over my entire block. He was cleaning under his fingernails with a toothpick. The lamb was asleep on the bench seat of the mail truck.

  I opened the door and he looked up. “I recognize you now,” I said. “You’re the mailman.”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “Is this Part Five?”

  “This is actually Part Ten,” he said. “I was getting really impatient. Will you live with me in Austria?”

  “Let me get my coat,” I said. “It looked kind of snowy.”

  “You can borrow mine,” he said, but I shook my head. I got my coat and hat, the diamond, and a violet from the basement. He tucked the violet into his pocket and we climbed into the truck. We drove thirty miles to Metroform without seeing another person or car. “What’s S.T.A.R.?” I asked.

  He put both hands on the steering wheel. “What do you know about freedom?”

  “It’s when you get to do what you want. Like me, right now.”

  “But you see, I already know what you want, because I articulated it for you myself. I’ve seduced you in the most wicked and shameless way, by telling you a story when you were alone and you couldn’t help listening.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “S.T.A.R. is my family’s waste management company. I guess we’re best known for the secret tunnel from the Black Sea to the South Asian effluent containment bunker. Very rich, very evil.”

  “Do any of those places in the diamond still exist?”

  “Those shots were all taken on my family’s estate.”

  “In Austria?”

  “No, in Western Metro. It used to be a famous park.”

  “Then we’ll go to Austria. We’ll live there in your cave full of holograms or whatever it is.”

  He smiled and held my hand. The lamb woke up and stretched himself. The sun was rising behind us, making flashes of white run across the sky as the skyscrapers’ reactive armor fought off the solar wind. In a parking lot our ICBM was waiting.

  (End interlude)

  In Long Island City, addresses are assigned on a highly rational system. Anyone wishing to find 5-16 Forty-Seventh Road, for example, knows if he turns left off Fifth Avenue it will be the ninth house on the north side. Forty-Seventh Street is one block south, and runs the other way. The cold anonymity of the L.I.C. streets, where shopping bags blow like dead leaves past thousands of identical Greek superettes and shuttered Irish bars, and storm drains breathe an odor of sewage as in the fictional work above, always seemed to me a portent of our common future. Through L.I.C. runs Queens Boulevard, eight lanes wide and arrow straight from Jamaica to the East River, lined with delis, lunch counters, and shops, with a stoplight on every block, so that never a pedestrian is run over but with his entire family, seven in one blow, and always by a driver whose license has been suspended 127 times. Really. Read the New York Post for a week and try counting the Queens Boulevard dead, keeping in mind that they report only accidents involving babies in strollers or vehicles that jump the curb.

  Yigal stood up, buttoned his shirt, and walked toward the center of Bern, looking for an open bakery.

  CHAPTER 5

  PAMELA WAS PUBLISHED IN 1740, Tristram Shandy in 1759. Such infinite progress in nineteen short years! Pamela, as we already know, is an embarrassment, a bore, and a model for Justine, regularly forced on students of English literature for its historic significance. Tristram, on the other hand, is held to be a “bawdy” and “ribald” work like those catalogs of “conquered” “strumpets,” Tom Jones et al., and routinely ignored. How I loathe, in retrospect, the old-maidenly prissiness, worthy of Samuel Richardson himself, that could perceive soft-core porn in Tristram Shandy, effectively discouraging me from opening the book until well into my thirty-third year of life.

  On reading it, I discovered, of course, that it is a mildly adult version of The Pickwick Papers. Uncle Toby Shandy, a retired army officer given to pet obsessions, spends his days reconstructing famous battles in miniature with the help of a witty and loyal servant. A groin injury has made Uncle Toby hopelessly benign, gentle, and patient, winning him the undying love of the widow next door who is, however, eager to know the exact nature of the injury.

  The same professors who knew just enough to label Tristram Shandy “bawdy” and “ribald” were eager to teach from Naked Lunch, if only they could have gotten permission. Meanwhile, they taught Faulkner, the same as in high school. I.e., the problem with Tristram wasn’t its being too grown up; it was too juvenile. They didn’t want to listen to us giggle about the groin injury—they’d rather send us down to Yoknapatawpha County to watch the inbred morons accidentally drilling holes in their dead mother’s face. Naked Lunch was more Faulkner, with a bigger drill. And the ineffable, unforgettable saintly sweetness of Uncle Toby Shandy, later transferred so successfully to Mr. Pickwick, became a forgotten relic, something no one alive today thinks English literature ever possessed, except me.

  Mr. Chips, Mrs. Miniver, Lassie, Seymour Glass—these later types of ghastly saccharine horror have nothing to do with the mature and truly humble generosity of Mr. Pickwick, who does his best to organize worthwhile club outings for the entertainment of his friends while endlessly tolerating the same poor parasites (he doesn’t work for his money, after all) and supporting the same poor drunks (he likes drinking too). After reading The Pickwick Papers, I accepted Mr. Pickwick into my heart as my personal lord
and savior, and I never pass a wino without giving him two dollars. When people ask me for loans I just hand them the money, saying, “If I’m ever so down and out that I need three hundred dollars, I’ll know who to call.”

  But I knew better than to mention Mr. Pickwick to Zohar when I left Philadelphia and had a sort of potlatch, dispensing thousands of dollars’ worth of electronics, my bicycle, drums, guitars, amplifiers, and so on to my friends. I let him think what he wanted. Mr. Pickwick is the Israeli Antichrist, the original and supreme freier (sucker). A specter is haunting Israel—the specter of Mr. Pickwick. . . .

  Yigal was a little tight, dirty, and looking for a bakery at 7:30 P.M. on a Sunday night in Bern. The odds were 5 to 1 against him (there was an open Konditorei, but on a street he’d probably miss), and around 9:00 he was looking for a ride out of town. Two hours after that he was being turned away from the youth hostel. If not for the Rastafarian junkies at the bear pits, he would have slept in the park. He woke up on an uneven wooden floor. It was early morning, almost dark, but he walked out into the village street and found a bakery, bright and warm, with thick cream for the coffee and loaves of bread as big as cases of beer. He ate onion pie and two poppy seed pinwheels.

  Maybe, like Osnat, you are asking, at this point, “Why is Yigal so poor? Can’t he stay in hotels and ride the train? Isn’t he a senior agent for a black-budget super-secret all-powerful worldwide network of maverick spymasters?” But please remember that Yigal was traveling incognito. It isn’t so hard—you can tell your name to anyone you want and say exactly what you’re doing, but you have to remember not to use credit cards. Yigal was an experienced super-spy, so he remembered. He had lots of money left, but he had an idea he might want it for something before he got to Lindau. He was thinking of buying a tent. In Lindau he could pick up a lot of money he’d mailed himself in a cardboard box. There was a pleasant little jazz bar there, where they knew him, the Fischerin. They were always extra nice to him because they figured he was an ecstasy dealer.