The Life of Polycrates and Other Stories for Antiquated Children

by Connell, Brendan

  “Drink!” the man said in a guttural tone.

  The Frenchman lifted the pecan-brown liquid to his lips and swallowed down a draught, which tasted vaguely of mushrooms, of old earth—of something dug up from the ground. He looked around him, fascinated to some degree by the people he saw. Men who existed behind moustaches the size of brooms and in whose eyes he could see reflections of far off lands. A white-haired gentleman who propped up an enormous black hat with his head. A very intelligent looking woman who sat in a corner, flanked by two stout fellows fondling long knives.

  Des Esseintes swallowed down his beer and gave his guide an enquiring look.

  “I have to buy a round now,” Harro said. “Otherwise it would be impolite.”

  Three more tankards of beer made their way into their hands. Lipotin was growing merry, reciting some story in Yiddish, chuckling, showing formidable rows of bay-coloured teeth and continuously taking Des Esseintes by the shoulder and shaking him affectionately.

  “He says you remind him of an old girlfriend of his,” Pernath said.

  “Flattered. But shouldn’t we . . .”

  “Yes, yes, we can’t be late for the wedding. You treat us to a last round and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Des Esseintes was beginning to feel dizzy. But, smiling grimly, he held up three fingers to the barman.

  When finally they stepped out the back door, he trod on the tail of some unknown animal which screeched and then bolted off into the darkness.

  The two men wandered down narrow lanes, with unsteady steps, until they found themselves in a claustrophobic square with a well in the middle.

  Above them were windows, the yellow-painted shutters of which were all closed.

  Pernath called up, and the shutters to one of the windows was flung open and a knotted rope let down.

  “Up we go,” he said, grabbing hold of the rope and, with great ability, climbing to the top and through the window.

  “Come, come.”

  Des Esseintes frowned. He did not feel comfortable engaging in such acrobatics, but in the end did struggle up the rope and through the window.

  The room he found himself in was quite large, the walls hung with elaborate tapestries depicting green lions, crescent moons, heavenly birds and golden crowns. A number of large canvasses hung on the walls: one of Yehudah ben Bezalel Levai, another of Ramban.

  A very small, very old man who wore an odd-shaped hat the colour of spring onion greeted him.

  “We have been expecting you, my child,” he said, taking Des Esseintes by the hand and giving him a look of great kindness.

  “I have come for the wedding,” the other said with some embarrassment.

  “Why, of course you have!”

  “Let him see the bride,” Pernath commented.

  “Yes, yes! Let’s take him to Vyoma.”

  The old man gently pulled Des Esseintes by the arm into an adjoining room where a young woman sat on a satin divan staring into space.

  She was small and pale. Des Esseintes had a hard time determining whether her face was beautiful or the very opposite. She had a blood-red ribbon wrapped around her throat with the words TEM. NA. F. written on it in purple.

  “Maiden’s milk,” Harro Pernath said slyly and then chuckled, poking his guest in the ribs with his elbow.

  The Frenchman was just beginning to mumble some awkward words of admiration when a very fat woman with large ears carrying a pink feather duster came bustling into the chamber shouting.

  “Out! Out! You men are always too eager. Better to first purify your hearts!”

  She thrust the feather duster at them and they retreated from the room.

  “In time, in time,” the old man murmured as he led the others into a small closet and then up a long ladder into a room which was crowded with clocks, a piano, a brass elephant and bric-a-brac. In the middle of the room was a table, covered with food. In one corner, in a large cage which sat atop a marble pedestal, was a curious bird, with yellow feathers and a long neck. A terrarium filled with African mice sat on a shelf.

  Crowding the middle of the room was a large oak table on which were piled formidable cheeses and enormous pies; plates of smoked beef and pickled fish; bottles of Szamorodni wine and brightly-tinted liqueurs.

  Des Esseintes lit a cigarette and sat down.

  A group of musicians burst into the room and, after helping themselves freely to wine, began playing at their instruments violently. Harro jumped over to the piano and started to pound at its keys. A thinnish man with a moustache scraped away vigorously at a violin while another fellow, whose sleepy eyes relaxed behind a pair of spectacles, hammered on a cimbalom. A brooding looking man in his thirties blew on a clarinet.

  Des Esseintes tried to follow the rhythm, which reminded him vaguely of certain passages of Christoph Demantius, but in the end gave up and turned his attention to the table.

  A sudden hunger had come over him. He cut himself a huge slice of cheese. There was a bowl of hard-boiled eggs and, peeling the shell off one, he dashed a bit of salt on it and shoved it in his mouth. Then he cut himself a piece of rhubarb pie.

  The violinist looked at him and shouted, “Feed the bird.”

  Everyone took up the theme and all began shouting uproariously for him to feed the bird.

  Des Esseintes, tearing a piece off a loaf of bread, took it to the cage and let the bird peck it out of his hand, at which everyone clapped and screamed in delight while the bird began to coo and run around its cage in excitement.

  The violinist introduced himself.

  “My name is Gustav.”

  “Yes?”

  There was a strange light in the eyes of the musician.

  “Do not be so sure.”

  Des Esseintes was baffled.

  “He is talking about the transformation,” the clarinet player said in a bored tone. “Complete non-discrimination. It’s like last night. I dreamed of a man with huge antlers playing the guitar.”

  “And how did he play?” asked Gustav.

  “Better than you, only I couldn’t hear.”

  “Then how do you know?”

  “The same way I know that the bird is happy.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense Alfred,” the cimbalom player said. “The bird might be the body, but it’s not the blood. The height of feeling leads to the path of God. No question that there is beauty in ugly pictures, but that doesn’t mean our French guest here should have to endure the worst. Let him have a glass of wine and be on his way.”

  “He’s here for the wedding,” Pernath said.

  “We all are!” cried Gustav. “Max is just trying to annoy us. He doesn’t like to celebrate. He’s waiting to return to the promised land.”

  “Ah, you occultists . . .”

  “Hush, hush!” the old man interposed and then, approaching Des Esseintes, kissed him on both cheeks.

  “She’s ready now.”

  “Ready?” the Frenchman asked in astonishment.

  “Don’t be shy my child. She likes you very much.”

  “Make sure to kiss her on the lips,” Pernath whispered in his ear.

  Before he knew it, he was mounting an elegant spiral staircase of brass work.

  The room he made his way into was totally round with an imposing bed stationed in its centre. She was lying there, with a blank expression on her face. He moved closer, and opened his eyes wide with surprise.

  “Great God, she’s——!” he said to himself.

  Yes, she was there, a man past his prime, with a balding head, face lined with wrinkles, body thin and covered with loose flesh.

  He stood for a moment in indecision as the fellow looked up at him. Reasoning that at least he could not accuse himself of mediocrity, he leaned over and placed his lips to his, fed on his own substance. The figure on the bed, some strange, perverted mirror-image of himself, shrugged its shoulders.

  A shiver coursed over Des Esseintes’ body and he was considering what course to take when the
door to the apartment was flung open and everyone entered in a storm. The musicians were banging on pots and swinging their arms in the air. Harro Pernath carried the caged bird on his head and the old man was dexterously juggling the hard-boiled eggs. The African mice were mounted on Gustav’s shoulders.

  Everyone sang in unison:

  Now likewise

  He brings joy

  To the nuptial ceremony

  Of D.E.

  All is gladness

  That he is equal

  So the betrothed

  Will multiply.

  Des Esseintes’ body broke out in a wintry sweat. He began to bite his nails, while the figure on the bed gnawed at his.

  “Let me take your jacket,” the woman with the large ears said.

  “No, no,” Des Esseintes murmured as he backed towards the door.

  He turned and ran out of the room, down stairways and ladders and then stumbled down some dark steps and through a groaning door.

  He found himself outside. The night was chilly, and he pulled his coat around himself.

  Looking down, he noticed a dirty-looking girl tugging at his sleeve, putting an empty hand forward. He threw some money at her and moved off, towards his hotel, to pack his trunks and portmanteaux as quickly as possible.

  The pleasures of foreign cities certainly were exaggerated, he noted as he hurried on with the elastic steps of a much younger man.

  The Search for Savino

  written in conjunction with

  Forrest Aguirre

  I.

  My search for Savino began in 1926, while visiting the famous art collector and critic Sir Timothy Broughton. He was a man of ample means. His taste was highly cultivated. Night or day, a bottle of chilled champagne, always quality stuff, was by his side, and for this reason, no less than the pleasure of his conversation, I was apt to call on him frequently.

  One day our conversation turned to the subject of great artists who had never got their just deserts. I mentioned Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Henry van de Velde both as being artists who I thought fell into this rank, both being absurdly neglected considering their skill and the impact they had.

  Sir Broughton puffed at his cigar and shook his head knowingly.

  “Have you ever heard of Savino?” he asked, with a rather indescribable look in his eyes, something like a magician might have when imparting a secret formula.

  I thought for a moment, gently sipping my champagne, and then informed him, with some slight embarrassment, that I had not heard of the man he had mentioned. He rose gravely from his seat and requested me to follow him into his study, which I did with much curiosity. When we reached the room, he pointed to a quadro hanging from the wall. It was obviously a relatively recent acquisition, because I had been in the room several times before and never noticed it—and though not in any way loud, it was a very noticeable bit of work. It was a strange stretched canvas, painted all in blue, a damned haunting shade of the colour, a sort of gloaming tint, full of melancholy. The depiction itself was of a rhinoceros, standing in the midst of a forest of strange letters and symbols. I could not make head or tail of it, but was sure that it was full of some deep meaning, possibly sinister, and I had great trouble dragging my eyes from the piece.

  “Is this his work?” I asked, with some emotion.

  “Yes. That is Savino. Back of Anthony Wexler you’re looking at now.”

  I did not know what to reply. Sir Broughton calmly lit his pipe and pointed to a stack of papers on his writing table.

  “Take a look,” he said. “It is a catalogue I’m working on. For Sotheby’s and all that sort of thing.”

  I took up a sheet and read:

  Item:

  The Property of a Gentleman

  For Charon: Two Confederate American gold coins, one obverse on the left eye, one reverse on the right, tattooed on the eyelids of retired Confederate Colonel Josiah Stoat, Georgia, United States of America. An inscription in black beneath the left coin reads ‘For Charon’, inks of ochre and cadmium

  45mm x 13mm and 44mm x 12mm

  Item:

  From the collection of Prince Georg Lubomirski, Formerly deposited in the Museum at Lemberg, Poland

  The Spice River: A single dhow, piloted by a richly-dressed oriental merchant (actually a portrait of the client Xhien Xo Pyang) slowly floats down a languid river. The river’s water is stained with the hues of cinnamon, cardamom, anise, turmeric, coriander, powdered ginger and peppercorns, ink of charcoal and mixed spice ink concentrates, right eyelid of the merchant Xhien Xo Pyang.

  39mm x 10mm

  Item:

  The Property of a Gentleman

  His Lover’s Eyes: A collage of twenty-three irises and pupils, each image taken from the body of the original. Each eye reflects the face of the client—the much-feared and renowned rapist and serial killer Renault Duchamp—at various ages. Behind this montage is a single large iris of deep brown: that of Duchamp’s un-named hangman, manganese based salt inks, left eyelid

  39mm x 10mm

  Item:

  The Property of the late Madame Winifred de Rothschild

  Copy of Moore’s The Epicurean, with several pages sketched on by Enzio Savino, in one volume, printed by A. & R. Spottiswood, New Street Square 1832, bound in leather with gold lettering on spine, slight foxing

  List of pages on which these drawings appear:

  a vi, recto: Slight study of one fat gentleman, black chalk

  p. 3: Uncomplimentary study of Ferdinand Keller, black chalk

  p. 164: Study of Zeus, black chalk, touched in pen and ink

  Three loose pages of blank paper inserted at this place

  p. 270: Study after a porphyry sculpture of the emperor Heliogabalus, black chalk

  End page: Study of Prometheus saved by Hercules, black chalk, touched in pen and ink

  Item:

  The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco

  Romnisovic’s Supernova; Right Eyelid: White stars superimposed on a light blue grid over a black background. The single brightest star is named for the client, Sergei Romnisovic, who discovered it in the midst of much public controversy over his private life and heretical religious beliefs, charcoal and rye inks

  38mm x 10mm

  Item:

  The Property of Mrs. Lisa Stewart, of San Francisco

  Romnisovic’s Supernova; Left Eyelid: Block-scripted letters and numbers listing information regarding the star:

  RA (1900): 15 41 47.2

  DECL (1900): +48 32 4

  MAG (A): -4.27

  inks of charcoal and soot

  38mm x 10mm

  II.

  His victims, his lovers, his comrades, whores he picked from the street and boozing oafs he snatched from the bars: drawn back to his chambers: his dark Berlin studio in that third phase of his career.

  At first he used nightshade, hypnoticon, the Solanum manicon described by Dioscorides, a drachma intermixed with wine. But the results were twice fatal, and getting rid of corpses was an awkward business. He toyed with belladonna, but found it too potent: the victims often sleepy for forty hours and more. So he settled for the fabulous sleeping apple: a concoction made from opium, mandrake, juice of hemlock, the seeds of henbane and a touch of musk. This he rolled into codling sized balls. He needed simply give one to his guest and ask her/him to sniff it, a marvellous incense, which when smelt made the eyes gently close and bound them in unbreakable chains of sleep. Unclothed, naked and resting on their stomachs, and the canvas was ripe:

  With water impregnated with salt ammonide, quicklime and the oil of galls, he went to work: painting away with rapid, predatory strokes. The designs initially appeared white, but after drying disappeared altogether from sight, the victim awaking with only a rather red and sore region, mere traces: apply to the skin a mixture of litharge, vinegar and salt and they would reappear, even if a hundred years might expire. (Note Enzio Savino’s last will and testament and the instructions held therei
n.)

  III.

  From an interview with Graham Lynch, cousin of Anthony Wexler:

  We had received a letter from Tony regarding the museum piece and the commission Enzio was to receive from Frau von Bekken, which effectively solidified the couple’s financial base for life. A few weeks later, Tony sent us the following:

  Berlin, September 3, 1898

  Dearest Cousins,

  Enzio completed his commission work a week ago—a startling composition depicting the mythical hunter Cibembe and his dog cresting the Usagara Mountains just east of the Uhehe region. The Colonial Arts Commission felt strongly that, while Chief Bembele was clearly the source of the ill-fated Mele Mele uprising, his bravery warranted recognition. Thus Enzio was hired to etch this African icon of strength and determination over Bembele’s eternally-closed eyelids. His head remains on display at the Berlin National Museum . . .

  Their future looked quite bright and we hoped that Enzio might now be able to spend more time with his ailing lover (Tony passed on only two years later), but this was not to be the case. Tony’s next letter arrived two weeks later:

  Berlin, August 8, 1898

  My Dear Graham and family,

  Enzio’s behaviour has grown odd, to say the least. While I trust his loyalty and love for me—which he expresses nightly—I worry for his mind.

  Two nights ago, after staying out considerably later than is usual, he returned home only to wake in the middle of the night crying, “I’ve done it, Tony! I’ve fixed that bitch for death! I’ve fixed her right up!” I have no doubt something is wrong with his state of mental health . . .