The Man Who Talled Tales: Collected Short Stories of R.A. Lafferty

by R. A. Lafferty

  “How about the Emperor's shoestrings?” Justin Saldeen howled out. “Can't you ever look down? What do you see around and about the Emperor's shoestrings? What would a child see?”

  “Is that the same unfortunate person as before?” the speaker asked. “Is he even half illuminated? He asks questions, but does anybody know what the questions mean? Yauk, yauk!”

  “Bring a child!” Justin spoke with a rowdydow touch of his own. “Let us see what a child can see in the area of the Emperor's shoestrings.”

  “The unfortunate person deserves some kind of an answer,” the big speaker spoke compassionately. “Unfortunate man, a child's vision looks essentially up and not down. A child's vision could see through an emperor's clothes, but I do not believe that a child's vision could settle any question at shoestring level. Only a very tall man could see the Emperor's shoestrings in meaningful perspective. Yauk, yauk!”

  “Aw knock-kneed nuthatches, bring on a tall man then! Yauk, yauk!” Justin corrected it.

  “The gauleiter of this man will have this man here at this same hour tomorrow,” the big speaker said in a voice like illuminated ice. “We will hold judgment on him then. Yauk, yauk!”

  “C'mon, Justin,” the small lady under Justin's seat said. “Let's take the thirteenth. C'mon!” She had a red line, thin as a thread, around her throat, the fairy mark, the un-nested bird mark, the mark sometimes affected by those who have been murdered.

  Five of them, Rolf Mesange, Berthold Chairmender, Marjory Kiljoy, Sulky Sullivan, Gladys Gamaliel, were telling thirteenth-floor stories at one of the pool-side tables that evening.

  “Have you yourself ever seen a ghost? Have you yourself ever seen a UFO? Have you yourself ever seen a thirteenth floor? Even we of the 'nuthatch vision' must consider whether such questions are completely obsolete,” Berthold Chairmender was saying. “We will see and integrate as many things as we can. It is for this that we are chosen; it is for this that we are special. But we will always miss something. There are things that we, with our channeled vision, must always give up. But if we can pick up one bright thing without dropping another brighter thing, I say pick it up. Right at this moment I feel a liveliness very near to us, but I don't know how to take a share of it. I wonder where Justin Saldeen is? Yauk, yauk!”

  “As gauleiter for this bunch, I had better find out where he is before judgment hour tomorrow,” Rolf Mesange grumbled. “And I had better not lose another one of you. Justin was riding some such notion as yours, Berthold, and then he rode it clear out of the corral. But he was always close underfoot, and I believe he still is. I can feel him very near right now. I believe that I can hear him also, but not on an ordinary sound-track. Be careful that you do not wander onto strange tracks, Berthold. Yauk, yauk!”

  “I myself have seen a thirteenth floor,” Berthold said, disregarding Rolf's strait advice. “Oh, don't grumble, Rolf. Thirteenth-floor accounts were considered a legitimate field of investigation before our 'nuthatch vision' movement channeled and contained the ‘small kingdom’ studies into rational areas. And I know what I saw, even if I only saw it subjectively. I saw, in a tall building in a tall town not very distant from here, rows of windows at the thirteenth floor level. These could not have been fourteenth floor windows. They were too different from the other floors of the building. They were the old-style, openable windows that people might look out of; and people were looking out of them.

  “I called to several persons there in the street and asked if they could see the so-different windows and the people looking out of them. Some of the persons in the street denied it outright. A shisk-a-bob peddler hedged and said ‘They'd call anybody crazy that admits seeing such things. Sure, I see them. I'm crazy enough to see them. But I'm not crazy enough to admit that I saw them if I'm driven into a corner over it.’ ‘Sure, I see them,’ an old lady said. ‘Everyone here can see them now. We can see them about half the days, and some of us have become acquainted with the people who look out the windows. They look happy, but they look crowded too. You can see that there isn't much room there. The ceilings in their part would have to be mighty low. Sometimes people go up there when the window-people call to them to come up. But them that goes up doesn't come down again. And some days we can't see them at all. When the windows are closed, then they seem to disappear, and the place where they were disappears too. There isn't any room for there to be windows there when they're not opened.’ That's what the old lady said.

  “So I went inside the building: I looked, and I asked. They told me in the building that of course they did not have a thirteenth floor, or any old-style windows that opened out and that people could look out of. I explored the building completely; and there wasn't any thirteenth floor, and there wasn't any space that a thirteenth floor could have occupied. There weren't any windows that opened out, or that people could look out of. I went down into the street again. Well, I had gone up to where it should have been: and I, at least, came down again. I looked up at the building as I had looked up previously. There were no openable windows of the old sort and there were no people looking out of them. There was no level that was different from any other level. ‘Where is the old lady that was here?’ I asked the shisk-a-bob peddler. ‘You can't see her all the time,’ he said. ‘And people are likely to call you crazy if you admit seeing that old lady at all.’ This is a true, though possibly subjective, account of what I saw one day. Yauk, yauk!”

  “Yes, I can feel a liveliness in my feet too,” Sulky Sullivan said. “There's magic right under our feet, as it were, and we're missing it. There's always a magic corner right around the corner, or under the floor. We've been looking for magic corners since we were taily apes. I believe that the magic corners that we looked for then were special trees or special branches (probably the thirteenth branch) that we could never quite reach, or could not recognize if we did reach. Have we been missing magic all our lives? Well, need we miss it forever? The magic may be in anything, in a box or a house or a small cubicle. Justin thought that it was in a little cubby-hole where the trainman kept his lantern. Say, Justin's having fun now, isn't he? I can feel it through the soles of my feet. There's a mighty low ceiling there, but he's having fun and magic. Yauk, yauk!”

  “I don't know what he sees in that little nit-weight female with the nit's egg in her navel,” Marjory Kiljoy groused. “Yauk, yauk!”

  “Do you girls know where Justin is?” Rolf demanded. “If you do, then you are bound to tell me. That's a simple case of nuthatch loyalty. Yauk, yauk!”

  “They don't know,” Gladys told gauleiter Rolf Mesange. “Neither do I. But all of us do have the nuthatch intuition. We know that the place is near, that it is low, that it's of the ‘small kingdom’ category, and that it's gateway magic. We know that Justin's having fun in it, but not as much fun as he'd be having if he hadn't left his feet outside. In the Nuthatches' Guidebook there's a lament about having feet too big to enter a ‘small kingdom’. I think that's symbolic. Yauk, yauk!”

  “Not with Justin it isn't,” Berthold said. “He really does have big feet. But he still has roots outside in our nuthatchery that he hasn't torn out. This business of crawling into a small cubicle is tricky. You've just got to leave something outside. A spelunker may crawl deeper and into a tighter place, but not much. There sure is a low roof where he is. I'm jealous of the good time that he's having, but I know that he can't get all the way in there in one trip. It's a lucky trick to find the way in even once. And then, with the amnesia of the place a price to pay for bucking out of the place and going back to get the rest of one's self, it would be an exponentially lucky trick to find such a place the second time. But he seems to be enjoying it. Yauk, yauk!”

  “You're sure that he'll forget where he's been and what he's done if he's dragged out of his place?” Gladys asked.

  “Gladys, why didn't you say ‘yauk, yauk’ at the end of your statement?” Rolf cut in sternly. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “I just spelunker-dunker didn't feel l
ike it!” Gladys said, and that is when Rolf felt his power over the group slipping.

  “How do all of you know so much about Justin's situation?” the buffeted Rolf asked. “If you don't know where he is or what he's doing, what do you know? Yauk, yauk!”

  “Oh, I guess we know pretty much the rest of it,” said Marjory. “Everyone to his own taste in magic and everything else. But if the ceiling's so low that you have to lie down and raise on one elbow just to drink that mountain dew of theirs (Mountain dew! Why do they call that thirteenth floor cubby-hole a mountain anyhow?) then I say that things are too cramped for even a small kingdom. But we sense pretty well what Justin senses, and we catch most of the effects that are between the senses. After all, we do belong to the same nuthatchery. We do all have empathy with each other. Don't you feel everything that Justin feels, Rolf? Yauk, yauk!”

  “No, I don't,” Rolf Mesange said. “Yauk, yauk!’

  The sound system mumbled a greatly amplified ‘yauk, yauk’ then, and the five persons left their table to go down to a late evening session of the convention, left the fourteenth floor roof garden to go down the quick stairways to the twelfth floor sessions theater.

  Between the floors there were little soffit cubicles or cubby-holes about a foot high. There was a pair of big shoes sticking out of one of them, and there were feet in the shoes.

  “We all know those shoes, if we could just remember whose they were,” Berthold said.

  Sessions never begin quite on time. On the twelfth floor, the illuminated people sat and waited and talked.

  “It's a little bit Brush Arbor music,” Sulky Sullivan said, “and a little bit Blue Grass, and a little bit Flint Creek. But it's all on a different sound-track, and other things are all on other kinds of tracks. I know that Justin is enjoying, and I enjoy with him. I wish he'd be able to remember it, when he comes back for the rest of himself. Yauk, yauk!”

  “No, he won't be able to remember it,” Berthold said. “Or it may be that he will remember only one tune out of it, and that will be a tune that we all know. There used to be ten thousand Irish pipers who went yearly into a rabbit hole in the Knockmealdown Mountains. They'd pipe for three days. Each one would be blessed with a new-born tune which he would play like a piping angel. And all ten thousand pipers would learn all ten thousand tunes. But when they came out again, each would remember and play only the one tune ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’, and each would believe that it was the new-born tune that had been given to them in the mountain. And when the pipers were cleared out, it would be seen that the rabbit hole wouldn't rationally hold ten thousand pipers, or even one. I understand that the custom is dying out in Ireland. There were only a few more than eight thousand pipers last year. That's the way it will be with Justin when he comes out. He'll have forgotten all the music and dancing and topering, all the wining and dining and shining, all the loving and cozening and cousining and carousing, the hunting and bunting, the walking and talking. Or he will remember only one piece of each, a common piece that we already know. I wonder if he'll find his way back there the second time, and if he'll stay there if he does? Yauk, yauk!”

  “You all seem to know a very lot about Justin, for not knowing where he is or why,” Rolf complained. “I only hope that you can help me find him tomorrow. If I can't produce him, then I can be a gauleiter no longer. Yauk, yauk.”

  The evening session was excellent, perhaps: a superior expression of nuthatchery and of the ‘little way’ as gateway to the ‘big way’. It was superb, of course.

  “Even the dogs are superb where we come from,” some small person down under the chairs was saying. “Even the fleas on the dogs are superb.”

  “Go away, nit-weight,” Marjory said crossly. “I have something else on my subdominal mind.”

  What Marjory Kiljoy had on her lower mind, as became clear when the session ended, was the old carnal jag. She was on one again. Such things are sometimes contagious. People left the group: the group, its joy in illumination and bright discussion and group companionship killed for the while, was a group no more that night.

  Group Gauleiter Rolf Mesange was very nervous the next morning. He had to produce Justin Saldeen by the time of the judgment session, and he didn't know where that bemused man had gone to. Rolf and his remaining four group-members were by pool-side up on the fourteenth floor roof garden. But those other members were of no help in the search.

  “The little people got him, that's what. Yauk, yauk!” Marjory Kiljoy said.

  “When we rediscover what our forefathers meant by ‘magic-lantern’ then we may find what Justin rediscovered,” Berthold said mysteriously. “He likes lanterns. Yauk, yauk.”

  “It's a little bit like Green Country music, it's a little bit like Whang Whang, it's a little bit like Apple Orchard, it's a little bit like String Chords for Six Thumbs, it's a little bit like Vehicular Tunnel in B Flat, that's the sound of it,” Gladys said.

  “It's a little bit like Dooley's Mountain, it's a little bit like Big Mike's Diamond Mine, it's a little bit like Cloudhopper's Ritz Bar (only with a lower ceiling), that's part of the look of it. And do you want to know what it smells like where he is? Well, the Fleshy Delight Steak House will give you a start of a start on the smell of it. And—”

  “No, I only want to know where Justin Saldeen is,” Rolf said patiently. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “When we find what our forefathers really meant when they spoke of the ‘Little People’ then we might find out what Justin is,” Berthold said cryptically.

  After a bit, they went down from the fourteenth floor to the twelfth for a morning session (but not yet the judgment session). As they went down the sweeping stairs, they saw again the big pair of shoes sticking out of the cubby-hole between the floors.

  “We ought to remember whose shoes and feet those are,” Marjory said. “Just because he has amnesia, should we be amnestic of him? It has to be someone we know well. Yauk, yauk.”

  “Could we take his footprints and send them to a laboratory somewhere?” Rolf asked uneasily. “Well, I don't see how that would help, but something's got to help. Yauk, yauk.”

  The session was soon shining with intuition and fulfillment and realization. It was a Life-With-A-Glow Instruction Kit, it was a Controlled-Explosion-For-Any-Number-of-Hands actfest, it was a Love-Is-a-Perigynous-Type-Flower presentation. But then it became strident, like honey strained too fine.

  “Wherever he is, Justin is having more fun there than we are here,” Berthold Chairmender gave the free opinion to the five-group. “He's asleep, and his neck is cramped from the low ceiling. It isn't even a foot high: it's about ten inches. And he's forgotten what he went for and what he will have to come back for. But, even asleep, he's having more fun than we are. Yauk, yauk.”

  There was a short interlude to allow the fevered session to cool off a bit. The first session was over with, and after the interlude there would come the judgment session. And the short interlude was all too short.

  A warner came to Rolf Mesange. “You have just one minute to present the deficient man for judgment,” the warner said. “Somebody will be judged, you or he, in one minute. Yauk, yauk!’

  “Oh, what to do, what to do!” Rolf moaned. “Gang, go get that pair of shoes and feet that are sticking out of the cubby-hole overhead. We can start with them, and maybe we can make the rest of Justin out of something else.”

  It was very much less than a second to go that they dragged Justin Saldeen in by the heels. The shoes and feet had been his, and with them came the rest of him entire and attached. He still slept the sleep of the imperfectly enchanted, but now he began to wake up, section by section, like a jack-ruler unfolding. He was grinning with loose happiness, and he blew the amnesia off himself like yellow dust.

  And the judge was already talking:

  “Ah, it is the deficient man,” he said, “he who is concerned about the Emperor's shoestrings, and who may never be able to look higher. Are you ready to abjure your deviations an
d deficiencies? Yauk, yauk!” He was more than judge; he was judge-advocate, and he would have full powers.

  “In as much as they are deviations and deficiencies, I will abjure them, as much as I am able to, yes,” Justin Saldeen said with that smile-grin on his face.

  “Why do you not say ‘yauk, yauk’ at the end of a statement, false nuthatcher?” the judge-advocate asked. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “My throat is constricted today. Those words won't come out,” Justin smiled.

  “Has anyone evidence against this man beyond his obvious unfitness?” the judge-advocate inquired of the session. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “He runs around with an undersized girl with the red-thread line on her throat and with a nit's egg in her navel,” Marjory Kiljoy charged. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “No. It isn't a nit's egg. It's a Jewel-Bird egg,” Justin defended.

  “If only that were possible,” the judge-advocate commented, “but there haven't been Jewel-Birds in the world for a long time. Why have you abandoned the nuthatchers' quest, deficient man? Yauk, yauk.”

  “I haven't abandoned it,” Justin maintained. “Part of the nuthatchers' quest is the discovery and recollection of small kingdoms. I believe that I am discovering and recollecting one of them now-a-times.”

  “A small kingdom must not be an end in itself,” the judge-advocate reminded. “It has to lead into the large kingdom, or it must be sealed off. Yauk, yauk.”

  “But can you say by which door it will lead?” Justin argued. “It may be a very small and unregarded back door.”

  “Tell me, deficient man, what have you discovered about the Emperor's shoestrings? Or what has the hypothetical child discovered?” the judge-advocate asked with near derision. “Yauk, yauk.”

  “That most important child has discovered that the Emperor has loosened the strings and taken off his shoes,” Justin said simply. “The Emperor (actually he is only a local margrave or count of a county) learned that he was walking on holy ground, the ground of the invisible kingdoms. Only those who walk barefoot can walk on magic ground without crushing small kingdoms.”