Tomas

by James Palumbo

  An audience with the Emperor …

  The Emperor raises his head and looks around in the sepulchral gloom. Two thousand boots snap to attention. The stamp of feet echoes through the air. Then silence. The Emperor’s eyes adjust to the light and he takes in the situation. With a sudden sweep he removes his hat. ‘Mademoiselle,’ he says and bows slightly. Tereza, woman of the street, avenging angel, is paid homage by France’s most famous hero.

  ‘Gentlemen, good evening,’ Napoleon says. ‘I am overjoyed to see you.’ The tension breaks and the Emperor is borne in the air to cries and cheers of ‘Vive l’Empereur!’ He embraces his brothers and shakes hands with the generals, fixing each with an eagle’s stare. ‘Come,’ he motions to Tomas, and two chairs appear by his coffin’s side. Napoleon sits with his army at his back; Tomas with Tereza’s hand resting lightly on his shoulder and the Alien twirling to the rear. The same moonbeam still illuminates the scene.

  ‘Emperor,’ Tomas begins, ‘ever since my conversion in your tomb, it has been my greatest ambition to hear you speak about what defined you as a man: the guiding force behind your achievement; the inspiration of your life.’

  ‘No,’ replies the Emperor. Not a man moves, except Tomas, who shifts in his chair uneasily, with creeping embarrassment.

  ‘Might it be possible, Sir,’ he continues, ‘to say a few words on the philosophy that shaped your glory, and the heroic principles from which we can learn?’

  ‘No,’ Napoleon repeats. Tereza’s hand tightens on Tomas’s shoulder in a comforting squeeze. The Alien squelches forward a step. He too supports Tomas in this, the most excruciating moment in history.

  ‘Forgive me … ’ Tomas continues.

  Napoleon raises a hand and cuts him off. ‘I can tell you in a word.’

  A look of relief floods Tomas’s face. He may not be offering a speech, but the Emperor is at least engaged. He leans forward eagerly.

  The Emperor pauses. ‘Failure,’ Napoleon says.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Tomas queries.

  ‘Failure,’ the Emperor repeats, ‘it’s the defining word of my success.’

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Tomas says.

  ‘Do you recall,’ Napoleon asks, ‘the night before your execution, when you had no need of toothpaste?’

  ‘I do,’ Tomas replies.

  ‘Why was that?’ Napoleon asks.

  ‘Because at last I had a perspective on life. Facing death in the morning, I understood the difference between the important and the trivial, and I lamented so much time wasted on nonsense.’

  ‘That’s correct,’ Napoleon replies. ‘A worthy sentiment, but felt only hours before your death. You see, I was fortunate to be born with it.’

  ‘But what of your glories, the victories and riches?’ Tomas asks.

  ‘Immaterial and incidental. Why should I care about these things? Are they with me now? Do you suppose I hover above my tomb each day and rejoice in what I no longer have? I’m dead. Because I reached a point of self-realisation early in life, I put aside irrelevances.’

  ‘But man needs security, achievement and wealth,’ Tomas says.

  ‘Does he? Is this what you’re taught at school – to join a bank and only think about money? Do men need these things? Or only herd-followers crave them? There are two sorts of men, my friend: those who seek riches and glory, and the others. The former will, no doubt, find what they seek, in varying degrees. So? They die. What imprint do they leave? Nothing. Only echoes. The others seek a higher purpose: to make a difference to those around them; to change, shape or improve things, if only to a small extent.’

  ‘But can’t the wealth and glory seekers do this as well?’ Tomas asks.

  ‘Yes,’ Napoleon replies, ‘but never to achieve greatness. They’re constrained by their needs, unable to take the risks that define the life of a great man.’

  ‘But we all take risks,’ Tomas says.

  ‘Do we? Define the risk taker.’

  Tomas pauses to think. ‘Strong and brave,’ he replies.

  ‘You may as well add “foolish”,’ Napoleon says. ‘No, the risk taker is defined by one idea only, burned into his soul: a willingness to fail. That’s why wealth and glory seekers can’t qualify. They may take risks but only up to a point. And they would never endanger their spoils or glory.’

  ‘And failure?’ asks Tomas. ‘Is that glorious?’

  ‘Like death,’ Napoleon replies. ‘If you take risks, by definition you’ll fail. Of course there’ll be successes but also reversals, perhaps many. You may even end in failure. I took so many risks my failure was inevitable. Do you think I didn’t know that? I’m surprised at how you perceive failure. It should be celebrated.’

  ‘So you’re saying that in failure you succeed?’

  ‘Of course. Look at me in this glorious tomb, the central point of this city, surrounded by my brothers and comrades in arms. I’m the happiest man dead there is.’

  ‘And what did these failures achieve?’ Tomas asks.

  Napoleon pauses, remembering those days of colour and valour that will never return.

  ‘My friend,’ says Napoleon. ‘My defeats, just as much as my victories, gave France a certain idea of herself. Of pride, possibilities; sadnesses and reversals, yes, but also courage, colour and glory. I didn’t die old and rich in a comfortable bed, but I gave France a code for living; more than that a life force.’

  Napoleon shifts his sword to a more comfortable position and smiles at Tomas.

  Tereza has hung in the background and is reluctant to intrude. But there’s a practical point to consider, their broken craft. ‘Sir,’ she asks, ‘may we beg a favour?’

  ‘Of course, mademoiselle.’

  ‘Our craft’s broken and … ’ Napoleon holds up an arm to command silence, then brings both hands together with a resounding crash. He smiles at Tereza. It’s clear the machine can travel once more in time and space.

  ‘My friends,’ Napoleon says. ‘You must excuse me. Dawn is breaking and we must say farewell. Until we meet again.’ With that, the Emperor and his phantom army fade into the shadows.

  Kitchen etiquette …

  The Alien’s excited. Pierre is taking him to a dinner party, his first social contact with these strange creatures who raise emperors from the dead. Pierre has befriended the Alien at the new Messiah’s behest and is using his investigative powers to discover some remarkable facts about a planet and species a million galaxies away.

  The Alien wasn’t out for a walk when he collided with the time machine, as Tereza suggested, but standing on a mountain top. This was where his telekinetic powers were strongest, in a landscape uninterrupted by the civilising works of the Alien tentacle. The Alien’s society is entirely based on the telekinetic rotation of any round or spherical object. The species – sixty billion strong – even evolved physically to serve this purpose.

  Just as humans breathe, Aliens rotate. But this action, perfected over the millennia, is driven by more than a basic biological need. Their planet and all its activities – energy, transport, sport – is powered by telekinetic rotation. This particular Alien is one of its practiced masters. At the time of his mountain-top abduction he was rotating the gigantic circular turbines of the planet’s power station. He is now eying an impressive rack of plates stacked artfully on the kitchen wall.

  ‘It’s only a kitchen supper,’ says the hostess, who shows Pierre and the Alien around her gleaming white culinary operating theatre. ‘We’ve just had it done.’ It’s now clear why dinner is in the kitchen. The hostess is bursting with pride at this mausoleum of imitation wood and marble. ‘Ice?’ she asks the Alien, holding up a drink. The Alien senses she wants him to say yes, so he obliges. She presses the glass against a lever in a gesture that says, ‘Look, automatic dispenser.’

  The Alien looks forward to some serious conversation. Perhaps he can interest everyone in the Emperor’s discourse on greatness and failure. How often do people have a first-hand account of the words o
f France’s favourite son? But he’s disappointed: the only subjects of conversation are property prices and sex. As the evening goes on, and more bottles are opened, sex is discussed with ever greater urgency and animation. Perhaps his eyes are having difficulty adjusting to the earth’s atmosphere – the Alien is convinced that he is seeing glimpses of swinging things and long-legged birds in the persons of his fellow diners.

  Halfway through the evening, the host’s children come to say goodnight. The Alien is shocked. Humans, he’s noted with pleasure, have round heads. Theirs are square, like a computer screen.

  On his planet, children always eat dinner with their parents. ‘We’ve been talking,’ the children say and the Alien understands that on earth custom requires children to converse separately.

  ‘Henry found a yellow pencil in the street today,’ the girl says, ‘he put it on his page and he’s had hours of chat. Where did it come from? Who does it belong to? Why is it yellow?’

  The Alien’s confused.

  ‘But that’s not as good as Samantha,’ Henry says, convulsing with laughter.

  ‘No, Henry,’ his sister interjects.

  ‘She posted a picture of half a breast. You should see the traffic. A thousand hits.’

  Their parents beam with pride and the Alien’s confusion turns to bewilderment. Why do children prefer banalities to their parents’ company? And why do adults allow it? Perhaps they’re distracted by their new kitchen. As the evening wears on, the hostess detaches from the party to run her hand over the stainless steel hob and gaze lovingly at a pressure cooker.

  ‘So tell me,’ says Tomas when the Alien returns to the hotel, ‘what discoveries did you make?’

  ‘Children interested in nonsense, they’ll grow up,’ the Alien says, ‘but adults and kitchens?’

  ‘Ah yes,’ replies Tomas, ‘kitchen etiquette.’ He pauses. ‘That gives me an idea.’

  The Sermon on the Tower …

  The earthworks are monumental, the site like that of the pyramids built two thousand years ago by slaves under the lash. Here the builders are volunteers, directed by Tomas’s battalion with loud hailers. They’re not building a triangle up, but digging one down.

  The pit being dug at the north-east corner of the Eiffel Tower is square at its rim, but the edges taper down to the base. Half a mile wide and one hundred metres deep, the pit’s slanting edges are reinforced with steel girders.

  While some go down, others go up. A giant crane, the size of the tower itself, has been erected on its south-east side. The head of the crane faces the top of the tower; its steel core is as strong and thick as its neighbour’s. Two arms protrude halfway up, rooting it to the ground. Thus supported, it can lift a mountain.

  In between, there is an army of steel cutters. Paris reverberates to the din of electric saws slicing through the base of the Eiffel Tower, which is surprisingly light. This will make the task easier.

  The River Seine runs along the north-west face of the tower. An armada of tugs is assembled there to float with the river’s current. These support a huge chain, the inspiration for which came from Tomas’s soup dream. The chain stretches from the tugs across the Pont d’Iéna and up the tower’s north-west side. The crane holds the chain as it is lassoed to the top of the tower.

  The crane detaches the lasso and hoists another teflon chain off the ground. This is attached halfway up the tower, pulled tight like a corset. After numerous technical calculations and metallurgical tests everything is ready.

  Millions of people gather behind the safety barriers to watch the commander give the order. The crane deploys, the chain becomes taut. The crowds strain to catch a glimpse of the moment of lift off. But they are disappointed. This is an inch-by-inch process and they only see the tower airborne when it is already some way off the ground, rising into the air like a giant bird from Jurassic times.

  When it is fifty metres off the ground, the commander signals to the captain of the armada. A hundred engines roar as the tugs move down the river to take up the slack on the lasso. Their normal fare is battleships and ocean liners: a steel tower is no problem.

  The effect of the pull down the river is as the engineers calculated. The head of the tower tilts lower as its body is raised up. A few hours later the edifice is horizontal, the top positioned over the trianglular pit. The machines are turned off and a thousand ropes manoeuvre the tower to its final resting place. It is lowered into the pit upside down, concrete pours down a chute as wide as a motorway, and soon its top is entombed in a concrete sack.

  Engineers and artisans scale the sides of the inverted tower, which is two thirds of its previous height. A platform is constructed across the upturned feet. On this is laid a lawn, bisected by two pathways that form a cross. A raised podium is built at the fulcrum.

  Tomas stands on it with a microphone. Giant screens attached to the sides of the inverted tower relay his image to the millions who have flocked to bear witness. From the Trocadero on the far side of the river to the Ecole Militaire in the south, even an ant would be unable to move. Moses on his mount, Tomas on his tower.

  Banks of photographers stretch on endlessly. Reporters, beamed to their home audiences by satellite, speculate in a hundred languages as to what the first prophetic utterance of the new Messiah will be. A new set of commandments updated for modern times? Or, as the tower’s inversion suggests, something more radical: a cataclysmic prophecy? Maybe he will just offer a universal message of love?

  Tomas raises the microphone to his lips. Just for the hell of it, he’s dressed in the flowing white robes of a priest from ancient times and is wielding Tereza’s pig-beating staff for the occasion. He also sports a wispy moustache and small goatee beard, to complete the look. As he prepares to speak, his robes and hair billow in the breeze.

  Two billion eyes watch Tomas calmly surveying the scene around him. He’s in no hurry to begin. Only when he commands the total silence and attention of the world does he raises the microphone to his lips.

  ‘You know a lot, I bet, about kitchen etiquette,’ Tomas says.

  A hundred translators whir into action; a thousand commentaries begin.

  ‘Kitchens, like hospitals, are essential. The colours, the tiling, the trusty cooker, the fridge – maybe with an automatic ice dispenser. Then there are the accoutrements. Oh, the accoutrements! Pots and pans, ceramic mugs, giant salad bowls, the coffee machine, electric things. Tableware all matching, reassuringly expensive when bought. All symbols of your success.

  ‘You’re secure with your giant white plates, on which you serve pasta at hastily arranged dinner parties. Just sprinkle some parmesan roughly on top – that’s it, that’s the way. Pass the giant salad bowl; pour the red wine into the large glasses. If you lived in a voiceless world, all you’d hear would be the clink of glasses. And the tink, tink, tink of cutlery on plates at the dinner-party ballet. Clink, clink, tink, clink. Clink, clink, tink, clink, clink all evening long.

  ‘Kitchens, you deserve your own ballet. The curtain opens on a stage of twenty kitchens, multicoloured, of differing design, the prima-donna kitchen all in white. A waltz begins. Swirl about; dance, beautiful kitchens, dance! Form a line, dance in rhythm, pass the prima-donna kitchen down the line. Now jump, dancing kitchens, leap – go on, leap! You’re beautiful. Kick back your imaginary legs, unfurl your imaginary arms like flying swans who are to die in the final tragic scene.

  ‘How tragic it would be if you came home to find that shockingly, inexplicably, a vicious sledgehammer had done its work on your kitchen. Imagine your kitchen now. The fridge stoved in with a mighty gash, the cooker irretrievably disfigured, the comfortable table splintered and everything smashed. A thousand pieces of glass and crockery, the salad bowl giant no longer. Pots and pans twisted like deformed limbs. Most horrifying of all is the shit of your assailant amid the rubbish and the rubble. And nothing else in the house disturbed, just your kitchen mangled.’

  Cannes

  The shining city in the sun �
�

  Tomasmania sweeps the world. Sweatshops turn into ovens, all producing Tomas T-shirts. Any hotel room within a hundred miles of Paris costs a week’s wages. Campsites mushroom around the city. A craze for all things French ignites. In Beijing, people bicycle home with baguettes in their baskets. Snails become as expensive as caviar. Everywhere, men take mistresses. Buildings worldwide are inverted in tribute. The Sydney Opera House looks much the same upside down, as does the Bird’s Nest Stadium. In London the Eye is ingeniously inverted in one rotation.

  What of the sociological reaction? Anthropologists everywhere await the start of the season with measuring tapes and binoculars. Sure enough, collars have reduced in size; breasts are no longer trolleyed but carried neatly in baskets. Hiding in a bush, a researcher hears a waiter offering to bring fresh butter. ‘Please don’t worry about that,’ comes the reply. Hallelujah! ‘Producers’ struggle to practise their magic art, for street corners everywhere are now covered with warnings: ‘A producer only wants one thing’; ‘Come on girls, don’t believe it’; and the particularly successful ‘Men lie.’ In a club, Tomas notices a man turning red, biting his knuckles in his efforts not to talk about money. He overhears another cancel a giant champagne bottle.

  Tomas and Tereza have one of those magical nights: they drink just enough, dance for hours, make love and go to bed hungry and tired as dawn is breaking.

  The second Messiah now needs somewhere to live, a calm, happy place whence he can propagate his message. Paris is gridlocked with followers and too grey. He wants the sun. Tomas decides to look south.

  Just as the master jeweller creates the perfect mount for his stone, God created the perfect setting for Cannes. Of all the coastal resorts, Cannes is the finest. St Tropez to the west, the epicentre of trolleys and sun loungers, has its attractions, but like the rap singer’s ring, it’s too much. Monte Carlo to the east, home to eternal treasure keepers, is quaint but old-fashioned and as over-elaborate as a Victorian brooch. Nice in the middle has a fine historic centre but its long coastline is too much like the Queen’s crown: beautiful to behold – but would you want to wear it?