by Tad Crawford
“How do you do this?” I asked him as the moon darkened and the scene disappeared. I whispered as if there were others in the audience who might be disturbed by my voice.
“We’ll talk later,” he whispered in reply, his gaze intent on the scene before us.
Next a large lake appeared, beneath a sky of dark and threatening clouds. Villages were clustered here and there on the swath of green that extended from the circumference of the lake as far I could see, although its farthest shore remained beyond my sight. Above the villages towered high, bald hills with ragged channels slashed into their sides by rain. I saw many small boats dotting the lake’s surface, and lifted the eyepiece for a closer look. The largest boat, perhaps twenty-five feet in length and holding more than a dozen men, led a procession of smaller boats toward its depths. On my face I felt a cool mist and the force of a rising breeze. The wind must have been far more powerful on the lake, because the waves rose higher than the boats that rocked on it like bobbins. The mariners cried out and pointed at the skies, from which torrents of rain whirled and tumbled. Lightning bolts danced among the ships.
Turning to the largest ship, I saw frantic men rousing a comrade from sleep. When this man arose, a blue light began to glow all over the boat and even in the surrounding water. I had heard of Saint Elmo’s fire and imagined that this must be an oddly synchronous example of that natural phenomenon. Many men gathered about and gestured imploringly to the man. Again I wished I could hear their voices, but he spoke in a way that must have been forceful. When he had finished speaking, he raised his hand with his palm facing out and seemed to speak to the skies. Immediately the dark clouds broke apart and the sun shone down on the calming waves. The man continued to gesture forcefully to the others around him, who appeared to share my astonishment.
I had to remind myself that this scene was only an illusion. No man can stop a storm. Pecheur could create whatever stories might please him. I held to these thoughts as the boats, the lake, and the remarkable man vanished into darkness. This time the lights rose to illuminate the entire room, and the large basin opened emptily in front of me. I looked for a trace of water, rock, or earth but saw nothing except the basin’s smooth sides, which seemed to be made of plexiglass.
“It’s amazing,” I said. “The images are miniature but appear to be real. Not like a movie or hologram.”
“It’s done with a sort of software.”
“Software?”
“Yes, to create the images for the displays.”
“Like animation?”
“Yes, something like that, but more advanced than the animation used for mass entertainment.”
“The people looked so believable.”
“The scopes enhance the effect of the landscape.”
“In what way?” I asked.
“Two programs run simultaneously, one to create what you see with the naked eye and the other for what you see through the eyepieces.”
“But I moved the viewer and saw different parts of the landscape.”
“Yes, it has an orientation feature.”
“If I had been nearer, I’m sure I would have heard their voices.”
Pecheur smiled. “I’m working on that.”
“And if I touched the water, I’m sure my fingers would have been wet.”
He looked pleased.
“How can you change scenes so quickly?”
“It’s simply opening another file. I’d already programmed the sequence.”
The conversation continued in this vein. His explanations did nothing to dispel my sense of awe. I knew so little about engineering, animation, and software that his use of them struck me as magical.
“What would your assistant do?” I asked after we had chatted for a while.
“Help me with the different projects. Handle some of the details. Take care of keeping certain records. There might be some traveling.”
I had the dismal feeling that I wouldn’t be competent to help him with his projects, so I didn’t ask any more questions about the position. We rode the elevator to the ground floor in silence. I found myself relieved to see the familiar display of models.
“Are you ready to choose today?” he asked.
“Not today.” I doubted I could afford any of the boats in his shop. Of course, I had no idea what the boats cost, but I didn’t want to embarrass myself by choosing and not being able to pay.
“On your next visit, then,” he offered, returning to his position behind the counter.
“What is the name of this shop?” I asked, coming to the counter and peering at the plans spread in front of him.
“The Floating World.”
“I’ve read about the floating world, but it’s about illicit pleasure.”
“It comes by night and vanishes by day,” he said with a smile.
“Surely that isn’t what you meant.”
“Must it mean one thing or another? Of course, each boat is a floating world, complete in itself. But what of the desire that comes and goes? That’s what made me want to have a shop, to build the models. It made me an amateur … ”
“Hardly,” I demurred.
“By which,” he went on strongly with one hand raised, “I mean a person who does what he loves. Amator. Not a paid specialist, but a hobbyist following his pleasures, floating first with one desire and then another, building one model and then a roomful of models. What is like that in your life?”
“At the moment,” I replied, “nothing.”
“Yet you came here. What can a model boat be but a hobby?”
I didn’t answer him.
“There’s still more to see,” he said at the front door.
“More?”
“I hope you’ll come for another visit.” Those bright, searching blue eyes looked into me. “Say a week from today.”
“Yes,” I agreed, shaking his outstretched hand, “I’ll see you then.”
7
“Would you go to your bedroom?”
“If you want to date while we’re married,” I answered with annoyance, “at least meet outside the apartment.”
“He’ll be here any minute. I’d rather he didn’t see you.”
“I’d rather not see him either.”
“Can’t you be a little bit considerate?”
“You could be considerate too.”
“Do you want to pretend I’m not dating?”
“I just don’t want to witness your new romances.”
“Maybe you should look for your own apartment,” she shot back.
The doorbell interrupted us.
“Will you get out of here?”
I shook my head and sank into the couch with a feeling of being immovable. She looked at me with loathing, then turned and hurried to the door. She greeted him with a kiss and whispered a few sentences that I knew had to be about me. He came into the living room with her beside him.
“So you’re the roommate.” He had a melodic voice.
“The husband-roommate,” I corrected him.
“We’re living separately,” she interjected.
“Separate bedrooms,” I agreed.
“Nice to meet you.”
He extended his hand toward me. Without thinking, I rose to my feet and shook his hand. He stood a few inches above me, so I had to tilt my head slightly to look up into his green-gray eyes. He had smooth skin and luxuriant blond hair. He had to be at least ten years younger than my wife, closer to the age that we had been when we married.
“It’s a nice apartment,” he said, moving his gaze over the art and oversized leather couch and chairs.
“Would you like a beer?” I offered.
She looked at me with a wondrous combination of fury, disbelief, and impatience.
“Enough!” She stepped forward. “We have to get going.”
“Some other time,” I said.
She took him by the arm and moved toward the front door.
“See you later,” he replied over his shoulder.
“Enjoy the evening,” I called in return.
8
“You’re trespassing,” I said. “This is my land.”
The dachshund stood at the center of my backyard and, instead of looking to the left or right or behind to see how he’d strayed, studied me as if I might be the problem.
“Are you sure?” he countered.
I threw up my hands to show how obvious my point was.
“But are you sure?” The dachshund ignored my tossed-up hands.
“The fence is the boundary.” I pointed for emphasis to my neighbor’s white picket fence. It stopped at the trunk of an enormous oak tree, after which the land fell off, from one plateau to another. The dachshund had simply gone to the far side of the tree, walked through a patch of orange lilies, and planted himself on the lawn in front of me. “And when the fence stops at the oak,” I explained, “the boundary continues in a straight line to the center of the stream.”
“Do you mind if I sit?”
He was so, I don’t know what—polite, solemn, maybe “entitled” is the best word—that I found it difficult to say no to him.
“Go right ahead, but it doesn’t change anything.”
He settled himself on his haunches and opened his mouth very wide, in a yawn that let me see the pink of his crafty tongue.
“The boundary line goes right through the earth. Down to China or New Zealand or somewhere. And up in the air, cutting the clouds in sections and touching the moon. Is that what you’re telling me?”
“You’re playing with my words,” I replied. “It’s a simple boundary line. Right there.”
“And it runs through the middle of the stream.”
“Right.”
“What if the stream shifts its course?”
I knew that, indeed, over the years the stream had shifted in its bed like an uneasy sleeper. The incessant flow, and occasional storms, had washed out at least ten feet of the far bank, across from our patio.
“Confusing, isn’t it?” offered the dachshund.
“The boundary follows the surface of the ground.” I said, returning to this earlier point. “It doesn’t go down and it doesn’t go up.”
“You concede, in that case,” said the dachshund, “that valuable veins of ore or any undiscovered pockets of gas or oil that may reside below your land are not yours. And the same is true of air rights.”
“I’m not conceding anything. If you know so much, you know you can’t just cross a boundary line without consequences. What are air rights anyway? Who can own the air?”
“Who indeed?” he replied.
“Why are you here?” I asked him.
“What is your name?” he asked.
I had a shock, because the moment he asked I realized that I had forgotten my name. Certainly I had a name. Or at least I thought I did. I could almost bring it to my lips, but it had vanished from my mind.
“How old are you?” he asked when I made no reply.
I couldn’t tell him.
“Where do you live?”
Mute, I pointed to the house, with its brown painted wood siding and picture window facing toward the backyard and the stream.
“Are you sure?”
Suddenly I wasn’t sure. But, then, how could I have called him a trespasser?
“Where are you from?” I asked to shift the conversation in his direction.
“The dachshund is a German dog. We were bred to hunt badgers. Dachs means ‘badger’ and Hund means ‘dog.’ Being shaped as we are, we can pursue badgers above ground or below.”
“You, where are you from?”
He looked at me with his intelligent eyes. Instead of answering, he stretched for a long time, front legs extended so his paws clawed the grass and his rump lifted in the air. Then he rose, and without even a parting word trotted off toward the boundary he had violated a short while before.
“You’re not going?” I called after him, but he had turned his rear in my direction and continued toward the spot where I had first seen him. There the tiny figure, standing on all fours beside the trunk of that giant oak, turned his long nose like a compass needle in my direction.
“I’ve brought the lawsuit against you,” he said, “for your own good.”
“What? What are you saying?”
He delivered this message and vanished among the bushes and flowers in my neighbor’s backyard, leaving me to call futilely after him. What lawsuit had he brought? How could any lawsuit possibly be for my own good? It alarmed me and made no sense. What had I done to deserve a lawsuit?
“Crazy dog!” I yelled, walking across the patio and stepping down to the stream to try to get a glimpse of him.
What upset me was that he hadn’t, in fact, seemed crazy at all. If he said he’d brought a lawsuit against me, he’d probably done just that. The thought of it made me miserable. The wasted time to prepare my defense, the slow wending of the case through the courts, the outcome that, even if I succeeded, would never return to me the painful hours of preparation and years passed in uncertainty. And, of course, I might lose. What then? And what accusation had he brought against me?
I didn’t know the answers to these questions. And many others, it seemed. Kneeling to dip my hand beneath the stream’s surface, I felt the cool wetness on my fingers and watched the ripples moving away from the disturbance I’d created. Where had the dachshund gone? I could see his dark, inquisitive eyes studying me. The ripples vanished and the surface looked smooth, but I could feel the faint pulse of the current against my hand.
9
The white-robed elders knelt before me and pleaded for protection from the pirates who preyed on coastal shipping and raided rich towns. They promised the allegiance of their realms and bountiful trade. The pirates’ forts I razed to rubble. Their ships I fell upon like a great storm that cannot be resisted. When the prisoners came in endless columns before me, I hardened my heart and fed the earth with their corpses.
From the log of Cheng Ho, admiral of the western seas, voyage of the fifth armada
10
“No pets are allowed,” he said severely.
“I understand.”
“Do you have any pets?”
“No, none at all.”
He frowned at my reply.
“You don’t like animals?”
“I do like animals.” I had been thinking of buying a hamster for companionship but I hadn’t made the final decision yet. “I’m just busy.”
“Why are you looking for an apartment?”
“I thought I’d like to move.”
“What’s wrong with where you live now?”
“Nothing really.”
“You need a change, a new neighborhood?” He spoke with a derisive tone.
“Let’s say it’s time … ”
“Well, that explains it.” He continued in the same unpleasant manner. “And what brings you here?”
Like a name on the tip of my tongue, I found I couldn’t quite remember how I had heard about these apartments. “Didn’t you advertise?”
“We don’t advertise.” He looked down his nose at me. He was a man about my height and age, with a bald head, gray suit, and matching vest accented by a crimson tie carefully shaped to form small pleats below the knot.
“But you are renting?”
“To the right applicant, with the right job, flawless credit, and excellent references, of course we’re renting.”
Suddenly I couldn’t recollect whether I met those qualifications. His high standards made me feel uneasy and a bit unwanted, but I asked, “Do you have any one-bedroom apartments?”
“Aren’t we getting ahead of ourselves?”
“What do you mean?”
He raised his right hand and rubbed his thumb and fingers together. Beyond the greed in his eyes, I could see he took pleasure in this. He knew I needed the apartment, and he wanted to show that he held the power. I almost turned on my heel to leave, but my right hand reached into my pocket. I di
dn’t recall going to the cash machine, but I could feel a sheaf of paper money.
“Aren’t you the owner?” I asked.
“No, just the agent.” He kept rubbing his fingers, and I squeezed the wad of bills more tightly. “Hardworking and underpaid. Always doing my best for the boss but never getting what I’m worth.”
“That’s tough,” I said.
“Keep your sympathy,” he snapped. “I don’t need it. A little charity will do fine.”
I handed him the money.
“You said a one-bedroom?”
“Yes.”
“We have many one-bedrooms. All shapes and sizes.”
I thought finding my own place would be impossible, but now I had hope.
“It doesn’t have to be huge,” I said. “I’ll be living by myself.”
“No little lady for companionship?”
Even in the better mood induced by my money, he had a sneering quality. However, I kept in mind my need for his help.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“I just don’t.”
“There must be a reason.”
“What reason?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“We have a preference for married couples. Stability, you know.”
“I am married. In fact, I’m living with my wife now.”
“Then why are you looking for an apartment?”
“It isn’t going well.” I felt diminished admitting this to him. “In fact, I think we’re separating.”
“You’re getting the jump on her? A little surprise?”