The Collected Stories of Carol Emshwiller, Vol. 1

by Carol Emshwiller

  Their progress is slow as they stop to admire the tropical foliage and listen to the birds. The man with the pedometer is constantly urging them on in hopes of increasing their mileage. They are all (for their ages) in very good shape, as previously mentioned, what with the tennis, swimming, skiing, etc., they’ve been doing during their weekends and vacations. But, though they’re used to the exercise, they’re not so used to sleeping on the ground. Also, as older people, their bursitis bothers them and they get stiff necks. In a few days, lack of sleep makes them irritable, but most are trying hard to make the journey a positive experience, knowing that it will be, as the psychologist has reiterated, largely what they themselves make of it. Suffice it to say that they proceed without grave incidents and with only minor annoyances and injuries across the low lands and soon they begin their ascent into the mountains they must cross in order to reach the interior.

  Mary, for that is the name oft he woman hoping to feel more alive, is quite pleased with the adventure. “If,” she said, “if the adventure is nothing more than what it has proved to be so far, I will be satisfied with it.”

  Think of Australia with its bull-roarers, kangaroo tail roasts, dijeridoos, bolos, boomerangs, and black-skinned but blonde children. The adventurers hope to find people and artifacts no less strange, men with mysteries of their own so that matches will not surprise them at all. Still, the adventurers hope to be able to give medical advice and to tell them about civilized ways in general, and that it is dangerous for children to play with bees on the end of a string as some of them saw once in a picture in an old National Geographic.

  Some adventurers even hope they will find savage little black or brown lovers coming together in what might, at first, be taken for lewd and random couplings but that wouldn’t be, and that the adventurers might learn a few new tricks.

  It is on the ascent that the cheerful (in spite of having failed) little psychologist really makes himself known. Though small and no younger than any of the others, he is very strong and runs up and down the mountain paths urging them on to do and risk and be. At night he listens to the rundown of their aches and pains and presides over sensory awareness exercises for those who want them, and in the mornings he analyzes their dreams. He had them all sized up from the beginning, of course: the border-line, the narcissistic, the passive-aggressive, the hysteric. He would like to discourage unrealistic expectations. He will, of course, be confining himself to neutral interventions and he hopes not to provide any inappropriate gratification.

  They have no sooner gotten into some really hard climbing than it becomes clear that one of their number suffers from a real psychosis. He stands on the edge of a precipice threatening to throw himself over. At first he mumbles and gesticulates in a way that no one understands, not even the cheerful psychologist; but now he’s speaking quite rationally.

  “All I ever wanted was a little love,” he says. “Not a lot. Just a little bit of love and glory. It’s all my wife’s fault. If I jump, you can blame her for it. All I ever wanted was to be a part of something beautiful.” (It is clear that he too can be counted among the lovers.)

  “You’re just overtired,” his wife says. She tells the others not to worry. That she’s used to this. Their names are Henry and Margaret.

  Jack, for that is the name of the previous suicidal man, tells Mary that he, on the other hand, is not impressed by either beauty or love. Sensory pleasures mean nothing to him. All the world, whether at sunset or midnight, looks equally gray to him. He himself would hardly bother to jump. Being dead or alive, what difference does it make? What he says is not entirely true, though it does make Mary very sad. She wants to help him. Of course she, like the rest of the women, is a little old to be really desirable even (or especially) to an older man, but she has hopes, and always tries to keep her white shorts spotless, or at least less smudged than those of the others. (So far there has not been a dearth of streams to wash in, though that changes now. In fact, they are no sooner adjusted to life in the jungle than they must adjust to life above the timberline.)

  Later on, Jack’s touch will make her blood run wild.

  Like the psychologist the failed doctor has also been a great help. He has brought along a knapsack full of drugs, mostly for himself, but he’s not unwilling to share them with others in times of great need or even not great need. Once they spent the whole evening, tired as they were, giggling at nothing.

  Suddenly there’s a frantic yell from one of their number far ahead and higher up. The yell echoes. Hard to tell which is the real yell or where it’s coming from. There is the clump and bounce of falling rocks. Unfortunately, the person who, at this very moment, is falling to his death is not Henry, the man who wanted to jump a few hours before. The body, which comes to rest on the rocks far below—a mere dot, one needs field glasses to make out that the yellow is the hat and the red the backpack—certainly must be a sobering view to Henry. He is probably glad, now, that he didn’t jump.

  Later that night, as they are camped precariously in the hollow of a huge cirque, they are wondering: Has he died in vain? For no good cause at all? They would like to think not. They vote (unanimously) to continue the journey in his name. To turn back now, or at any point along the way, would negate all he had suffered. Which of us was he, anyway, they ask each other. Many thought it was the Frenchman, but he is still here. Some thought it was the lawyer or the fat man, but they’re here also. The doctor is still here. Soon they begin to wonder if the cry was that of a man or a woman. There is a great deal of argument. Finally, they vote to go on in memory of the unknown person, whether male or female, and agree that the journey itself should serve as a memorial and that it be conducted in the spirit of love of the wilderness which he or she certainly must have felt or how could he or she have brought himself/herself to come on such a trip in the first place? And so it is resolved that they continue in memory of this unknown person.

  That night there are several hailstorms as though the very heavens were mourning the death of that man or woman. The adventurers huddle together for warmth and protection, crouching in the lee of boulders trying to protect their heads. All their hats, without exception, are ruined.

  In the morning as they top the edge of the col, they wonder if they are dreaming. Is this a flight of fancy? What they see before them seems a paradise. It’s one of those fairly high valleys, green and wooded with streams and even a lake. They are all thinking it’s too bad that whoever it was that fell their death couldn’t be here now to see it. They decide to descend to the place and spend the next day or so resting up and repairing their gear and clothes. Surely there are small animals and fish. Perhaps even deer. They will eat well and sleep on moss or, better yet, beds of ferns. (From the look of it, the interior itself cannot be far off.)

  But this is not to be.

  They do descend into that disappointing valley, but it is soon clear that this is neither the happy valley they expect nor the outskirts of the interior at last. They are conjecturing that perhaps there is a black (or white) queen who has had advance news of all their actions so far. She has silenced her drums and hidden the thatch of her palaces, driven away the animals, dammed up her streams, leaving only a few crawdads for the adventurers to eat.

  Even so, steadfastly, they push on, beyond this valley, through forests, over cliffs, across plains… now and then sensing a mysterious presence beyond the trees, sure (or almost sure) that they are being watched: rustlings, phoney bird calls (or so they think), the snap of twigs… at night the sound of whispering when all of them are, supposedly, asleep.

  And now they are losing two or three of their numbers at almost every ascent or descent. Though, it is true, two of them just seemed to dwindle away. Both women. They did not complain, but it was clear that they were not overwhelmed by the grandeur of any of the views. (One might presume they had not found anyone to love them.)

  “Had they only been willing to talk to me,” the psychologist says on numerous occasions a
fter they die, although (as is well known) no one can ever make anyone else go for help.

  When they do, at last, come to that particular vast fertile plain which they all take to be interior itself—and they hope the end of their journey—they arrive minutes too late. The fires are still warm and smoking, some with pots still full of hot stew (for that small favor the adventurers are grateful). But of what use is such a journey when the interior retreats before them in this fashion, one valley, one forest, one cliff at a time, the residents carrying away the structural supports of all the houses so that the roofs collapse or, as in the former valley, leaving nothing at all? What use, when nothing is left of statues but their niches; and no banners, only the poles they flew from? But perhaps if they hurry they can catch up with the interior before it recedes altogether. And so, in spite of everything, they push on with renewed vigor and hope.

  They are feeling now that if they all should die soon—and even though they still know very little about the true interior—they will certainly no longer die in complete ignorance of it.

  Were one to undertake some such journey one’s self, one could certainly expect to be greatly changed by it. One might establish whole sets of new values—come to new conclusions. One would certainly hope to find (even if only a few) definitive answers to questions of the universe as well as to universal questions, though one might not be able to make the necessary changes in one’s own life even so. One can but wonder if this has happened—new answers, that is—to any of the adventurers as they push on with renewed hope.

  But perhaps it could be said that their very hopes are deceiving them. If only they could stop hoping they might come to some reasonable conclusions and act in accordance with them. At their age, most of their false expectations should have fallen by the wayside, but it seems this hasn’t happened. It is clear that not a single one of them will turn back even after the next set of hardships. (Vast fertile plains can have problems, too, including mosquitoes, snakes, and leeches.) Always around the next corner, they will be thinking—or after the next mile, or one more day—something will happen… something will turn up.

  It is to be hoped that it is not the fear of looking ridiculous that keeps them going.

  Let them go. The best is not to be, anyway, neither here nor there, whatever their illusions. Even so, one wishes the best for them. That they should lie down (exhausted in the dark) next to some old grass shack and wake up on the outskirts of a city of a thousand temples. Or that they should fall (exhausted in the dark) on the sands of a drab beach and wake up to a thousand ships in a sparkling bay. Or that they should sleep (exhausted in the dark) next to what seems like only a large square stone and yet wake up to a thousand ornate plinths in long rows, each one larger than the one before, and upon each, the golden feet of the statues that once stood there….

  But what of Mary and Jack? Suffice it to say that his touch has already made her blood run wild.

  And now the rainy season will begin.

  The Village Voice Literary Supplement, March 1989

  Clerestory

  “It therefore follows that it was not art that was to blame on the day of the Lisbon earthquake…” (and as to art) “the people were not in the mood for it.”

  —Dostoevsky

  THAT THE STATUE should have been found at what might be called the very gates of the city seems to me appropriate, though this is not Troy, and our city has, being a modern city, no gates. It was found on a side street on Long Island. Uniondale, actually. No one had noticed it until my group did. We have members on the lookout in every borough and suburb. Almost nothing with the possibility of art escapes us.

  But I want to make it clear that my group never considered the statue to be art as such. We are not confused by patinated surfaces. Though we called it cubistic, this was but a reference to its overall squareness and not that it might be a part of that movement. We knew it was not art qua art; but that it might be some sly form of it, awaiting but a pointing finger (look!), was not completely out of the question. Strangely, though, I do not remember that considerations of its worth ever entered our minds. I don’t believe we discussed its qualities or lack thereof even once. The statue surprised us and scared us and made us laugh—all qualities of art, that’s true. But though it caused, indeed, a gasp of sorts, it was never a question that it was the gasp of art.

  At first we had doubts that this was the statue of a woman, or even that it was a statue at all. The boxes that formed her armature were visible as a sort of cubistic underpinning and left some doubt, especially when viewed from certain angles, as to whether our find was little more than a row of squatters shacks; but standing back and squinting, some of us could see that the silhouette was, and quite clearly, hips, waist, then the elbow of the upraised arm which seemed to curl behind her head. When this had been affirmed by a majority of the members of my group, we rented a flatbed truck and towed the statue to the center of the city. There was some debate about taking it to Central Park (which might be considered the real center of the city), but it was decided in the end to take it to Washington Square because most of our group lives in that neighborhood.

  We did not damage many trees along the route, though some groups say we did, namely the Trees as Treasures Association and the Citizens for the Embellishment of City Streets.

  Even though she is neither art nor beautiful, when we finally raised her to her temporary plinth, we all cheered. Now that she is set up here, we believe she is as entitled to preservation as any other landmark.

  People walk past her just as we almost did ourselves, as though she were nothing but a cluster of mismatched huts.

  We set up a twenty-four-hour guard, one of us at a time, and so it was that I was the one watching over the statue early one morning when a door opened-opened in the left side and Ursula came out. I knew her only a little. She was the waitress at the corner diner. (As soon as I saw her come out, I remembered hearing her speak once or twice of going out to Uniondale.) She carried a laundry basket and strung a line from knee to knee (the statue’s). Then, standing on its anklebone, she hung up sheets and underwear. I wanted her to be arrested on the spot, but no cops in view. I knew that some groups might say that laundry could be art—that it might need but that pointing finger, that “look!”—but this is not my view. At least it wasn’t then.

  “Are you alone?” I asked, but that wasn’t what I meant to say. “Are you part of this thing?” (What did I mean by that?) “Is it yours? You ought to be arrested.”

  I had taken a good look at her before in the diner. Though quite ordinary, she was my type. (I was glad I was wearing my suit, my brown Homburg. I knew I looked as though I had some authority over matters of art and the preservation thereof.)

  If she had said, “I live with eleven swans or seven brothers,” at that moment I would not have been surprised, but she just smiled and went on hanging things up. Smiled to herself, that is, not to me. And she was humming. It was one of those tunes that always makes me angry, even (or especially) when I find I am humming them myself: “Susie, Little Susie.”

  “It’s wrong,” I said. “You can’t hang underwear here. You have to find another place. This is art.”

  I said it, though I knew it wasn’t. I said it just to get my way. I said it also because I wanted—at least for that moment—I wanted it to be true, though I knew it couldn’t be. And I thought she wouldn’t know any better, being nothing but, or so I thought, a diner waitress.

  “Have you asked permission,” I said, “to hang things on art?”

  I knew that such permission would not be granted if the statue were indeed of any merit whatsoever. And I knew that any object of importance should especially not be hung with intimate apparel and especially not when such apparel, though lacy, wasn’t even new. Every bit of it was stretched and torn, pieces of lace dangling here arid there; blacks, faded; whites, grayed; and, though washed, nothing seemed that clean.

  “Permission!” I said, “Permission!” Bu
t she didn’t answer.

  “The statue is closed,” I said, “until eleven-thirty.”

  Of course I was making all this up.

  It was then she said what seemed to me to be “hippogriff,” or “hippocampus” or perhaps only “hypocritical.” And then she said, “Transferring hippopotami” (or whatever that word was) “to the same plane as landscapes.” “From the start,” she said, “not necessarily objects easily recognizable,” and, “an hypothesis,” she said, “so rich in unexpected effects.”

  I thought at once that she had read some of the same books I had, and I knew that now was the time I should say that the statue wasn’t art—on the contrary, in fact—but I didn’t say it. I let her go on thinking that I thought it was. All I answered was, “I know, I know,” as though I did know.

  When she turned and went back, she held the door open for me, that I should go on in first, but I didn’t. I didn’t want to even though she was my type.

  But now, having said that it was art, I was seized with the desire to make it so… to make it shine with audacity and to raise it to its own idiosyncratic statement. I wanted to purify it, not of its ambiguities, but of its somewhat cross-eyed gaze. I wanted to equalize the breasts, build up the nose so that it would match the strength of the overhanging brow. And I wanted to make a sacrifice of hours and hours of labor and thought for the sake of what the statue might become. I hoped that those who saw me at work on this project and who had, perhaps, overheard me saying that the statue was art, would be astonished at the reality of my words and astonished that I, of all of us, had seen the statue as what it might become, and that I, of all of us, could work with such delicacy and persistence as would, of course, be required.

  At this time I was a respected member of my group, known as finder, preserver, and measurer, but not as someone capable of the gestures that I had in mind. All my concerns had been for the loss of worthwhile objects, not to mention the loss of objects that might actually be art or that might have possibilities as art. Now, however, I hoped to be enmeshed in the very act of transforming the one into the other… one kind of worth or woman or statue of a woman into another kind. Also Ursula was, indeed, my type.