“Believe it or not, we had nothing to do with that conversation. We’ve interfered very little in your life.”
“Well, tell me how you did interfere. Let’s start there. Now that I guessed the right answer to the big one, why don’t you just land on earth a while and give a few of those answers you said you’d give me. How ’bout cluing me in a tad as to what’s going on, okay? It’s my night, pal! Tonight I realized not only can I speak every language in the world but I have, I have, according to you, single-handedly re-created the Tower of Babel for the dead Sultan of Saru … as a Dog Museum! That sounds damned reasonable to me. Does it sound damned reasonable to you?”
“What do you want to know?”
“Why. Why me? Why this? Why the Tower? Why?’
Instead of answering immediately, he tilted his head back and looked at the sky. Suspicious that something with a halo or pitchfork might be about to land, I looked up too. Nothing there but a plane’s twinkling lights as it moved north. Without lowering his head, he spoke. “While I was waiting for you I watched two dogs talk to each other. They do it through pissing, you know. One pisses his message on a wall. The other goes up, smells the first, then pisses his answer back. These guys must have lifted their legs to each other four times.
“Communication, Harry. Everything is talking to everything else, trying to get heard, but without much success. Remember in the seventies when that book came out about how plants had feelings too and how, if you tear off a leaf, the thing screams? One big talking world. Dogs piss on walls, plants scream, dolphins whistle … . Everything talks at everything else, but nothing understands. We can’t even understand our own groups! Think of how many languages we have, yet how few we speak. Or how few people speak their own well or with any clarity. Mankind is only now beginning to realize the enormous diversity of languages outside his own, and already it scares him terribly. Look at how he scoffs at the idea of screaming plants or messages from outer space.
“‘Now the whole world had one language and few words. And as men migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.’ Remember that part of the story, Harry? ‘And they said to one another, Come let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar. Then they said, Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth.’”The fat man turned and pointed at the museum. “It’s peculiar how painters invariably picture the Tower as a ziggurat or something that spiraled upward. The only thing that spiraled upward then was the language. Right to heaven. Man’s greatest failure was in trying to create something as complete and perfectly realized as the language he already possessed. A language understood by everyone and every thing, Radcliffe. It’s nearly impossible to imagine now, but you had a small taste this evening when your ears opened to every word spoken around you, no matter what language. Imagine that, times a thousand, a million. Not only did those people comprehend the language of humanity, but also that of water, of blood, of sand and bees and color … . Everything spoke the same language. That’s what it was like in the time before the Tower. That’s why things were harmonious enough for Mankind even to conceive of building something from ‘brick and bitumen’ that might be the equivalent. But they didn’t want to build it as thanks to God for giving them this sacred gift of understanding. No, they wanted to build it because they were confused and dissatisfied with the opulence of God’s language and wanted to create their own—a language of objects. The Tower was going to be its beginning. The A in their alphabet. The stupidity! How dare they think they were capable of that. The nerve, imagining they could accomplish it in stone … .”
“What’s a ‘language of objects’? I thought God was all powerful! How come He didn’t know that would happen when He created Man?”
“God is a parent, not a dictator. He’s very proud of His children and very optimistic. In this case He realized that optimism was unfounded, so quite rightly took the gift away from the children. He didn’t do it because they challenged Him, but because He was worried for them. They took His gift, this infinite information, and wanted to use it to isolate themselves from the rest of the world. Do you realize what a disaster that would have been if they’d succeeded? An utter waste of energy and spirit. Why build when they could have put that knowledge to such better use?”
“Like what?” My question stopped him short. His mouth opened and closed once, and he looked at me as if I’d spoken in a language he didn’t understand.
“What do you mean?”
“How could Man better use this ‘understanding’ than to create the best thing he knew how with it?”
“Radcliffe, the whole point is not to create, but to understand. The only reason Man’s here is to learn what God is, and then deal with that knowledge. In the beginning, God had such confidence in our powers that He gave us full understanding. ‘Now the whole earth had one language and few words.’ Mankind was capable of comprehending everything: his own species, the wind, a goat, the mountains … . It was God’s way of saying, ‘Listen to the world, study it closely, and it’ll tell you how to find Me.’ But what did Man do, instead of listening and studying? He set out to isolate himself. He built a Tower above the earth. The first part of a language of objects only he would be able to perceive and understand. You don’t have to build if you understand.”
“Thanks, Has, I’m sure glad to hear the whole purpose of my life has been for shit. I don’t think, therefore I build. The fact I’ve built some damned valid buildings doesn’t matter, of course.”
“Be quiet and listen to me. I’m answering your question. God took away the gift of language and left Man to his own devices. The confusion that followed led to the scattering. But it wasn’t ‘abroad over the face of the earth,’ as it says in Genesis. Things stayed where they were, but when there was no longer mutual understanding, it was as if they had been scattered.” His voice lost its power and an octave. “Am I boring you?”
“I’m not bored, I’m confused. I also feel like a kid in Sunday school hearing Bible stories for the first time.” I tapped the front of my head for emphasis.
“Don’t worry, I’m almost finished. If you’re confused, think of it this way: A parent wants his child to learn how to play the violin so he goes out and buys the best, a Stradivarius. But not understanding the value of the thing, the kid treats it terribly. Bangs it around, leaves it on the floor, whatever. The parent knows the child is capable of playing beautifully, but then finds him using the instrument to shovel dirt. That’s the end. It’s taken away and the boy’s told if he wants to play the violin he’ll either have to buy one himself or build it.
“Now comes the best, most endearing part. Instead of being sold, the Stradivarius is put away. Some time later, the child misses having an instrument so much that he actually does make one himself. A very bad, rough thing but playable. He practices more and more until one day he notices the great one on a table. When he asks where it came from, the parent says it was borrowed for the night. It’s been so long since the boy saw it he believes the lie. He picks up the beauty, plays, and realizes how great the difference is between it and the one he built.”
“So Daddy gives him the Stradi and they live happily ever after?”
“Wrong, Radcliffe. Very wrong. Daddy lets him use it for a night but takes it away the next day. As the child improves, the memory of playing that beautiful violin grows until he becomes dissatisfied with his own and not only wants, but needs, a better one. Periodically the Stradivarius is brought out and lent to him, but always taken back. It only makes him hungrier both to play and own something better.
“Half a lifetime later, the child has grown into an accomplished violinist and instrument maker.”
“The father never gave him the great one back?”
“No, but he knows the child has developed the potential to build one as great
as the Stradivarius.”
I took out a handkerchief and blew my nose. “You mean God’s willing to let us build the Tower again?”
“Yes, but so far no one’s done it. They’ve come close, but not close enough.”
“Where? Where did they try to build the Tower again?”
“They didn’t know it, but they were trying. The pyramids, Chartres cathedral, Hong Kong bank—”
“Hong Kong bank? You mean Norman Foster almost rebuilt the Tower of Babel with that billion-dollar heating duct he made? You gotta be kidding. What about my work? Did I ever come close?”
“No, but it’s possible this time. When it’s finished there is a very good chance you will have done it. The signs are right.”
“What’s a Language of Objects?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
We stood and listened to the silence. It wasn’t deafening, but sure was packed.
“I still don’t get why me. There are lots of obnoxious, talented architects around.”
“Essentially for two reasons. You are a descendant of Nimrod, the King of Shinar, where the original Tower was built, and ‘the first on earth to be a mighty man.’ He also built Nineveh in Assyria. Only his descendants are allowed to try building the Tower.”
Suitably impressed to find I was a great-great-great … of King Nimrod, I couldn’t help asking for the second reason. What my Invigilator said shut me up good.
“The second is because you love God, Radcliffe. Your whole messy life you’ve been stumbling toward Him.”
THE SECOND, THIRD, AND fourth deaths made no sense to anyone except Hasenhüttl and me. Sense or not, they did cause an increasingly large ruckus once a local zoologist discovered a dead rat that wasn’t really a rat but a silvina, a rodent that had been extinct for fifty thousand years. People from newspapers, Greenpeace, natural history museums, National Geographic … came down on us like locusts with clipboards and wire-rimmed eyeglasses. Why so much attention for a dead animal ten inches long? Because it was still alive when they found it, despite the creature supposedly having disappeared around the time of the lost continent of Atlantis. It looked to me like a combination of a rat and a sun-bleached shoe when the worker brought it into the office and said he’d found it near the woodpile where Hasenhüttl and I had spoken about the Tower weeks before. I paid little attention other than asking the guy why he wanted to keep a sick rat. He said it was his hobby to nurse sick animals back to life. Preoccupied, I didn’t think to mention it to either Hasenhüttl or Palm. But it was Morton who came in very excited four days later to tell me about the zoologist’s discovery. Not being a big fan of flora or fauna, I thought it interesting but not the news of the decade. I had rarely seen Morton so wound up, and thought that was more intriguing than The Rat from Beyond Time. My normally calm friend couldn’t get over the fact the thing was still alive when found. It had since expired, but not before living in the twentieth century.
“Why’s that so special? Aren’t they often finding extinct species in hidden corners of the earth?”
“Dead, Harry. Partial skeletons and fossils of what was, but never alive. If this animal survived into our time, think how many other beings are still around that we thought were gone!”
His wish was someone’s command—during the next few days, two more supposedly extinct creatures were found barely alive on or near our construction site: the Dorn snake, and a kind of dwarf owl called a Tarkio. Even I got the heebee-jeebies after the owl was discovered, and I went looking for Hasenhüttl to find out the connection. Unlike most people’s guardian angels, mine was not on constant call. When I suggested he carry a beeper so I could reach him when necessary, he gave me an expression I’d seen more than once on Venasque’s face and said, “You’ll find me when I think you need to find me.”
Luckily this time he was at one of his favorite places—the Eisstockschiessen court next to the lake. The familiar gang of Zell am See pensioners and assorted kibitzers watched the slow progress of the game with their retired red faces and smelly cigarettes in hand. Hasenhüttl had taken to hanging around down there, although I never saw him playing. “Old men tell good stories, Radcliffe. No one enjoys talk as much as them and they’re happy to wait their turn.”
When I found him that morning he was standing alone off to one side, ignoring the game and looking instead at the lake.
Without turning to me, he said, “You came about the animals?”
“Yes. What do they mean?”
He had a bottle of Austrian rum in one hand. It was half-empty. He brought it to his lips and took a long pull, his eyes squinting as it went down. “I don’t know what they mean. I mean, I don’t know what any of the deaths mean. That welder, these animals. I don’t know. Such a beautiful vision too—the return of the animals.” He took another big drink. “The silvina was the first, but it wasn’t supposed to die. None were! Now they’re dying everywhere. In flight, under the ground … The three they found here are the only ones to have made it. They’ll be finding rare creatures around the world for years but won’t understand that they were all on their way here.” Looking at the bottle as if it were an affront, he put it down carefully at his feet. “This is a very interesting place to be right now.”
“Come on, Hasenhüttl, you know everything. What do you think is happening?”
“Obviously I don’t know everything. What do I think? I think things have fucked up, to put it succinctly.”
“Who fucked up?”
“I don’t know. That’s the problem. Maybe you, maybe your building, I couldn’t say.”
“What are we supposed to do?”
He bent to pick up his bottle again, looking happier to see it this time. “What do you do? Keep going, I guess. Keeeep on keeeepin’ on … . Do what you’ve been doing and hope it fits.
“I, on the other hand, am feeling very ill. I thought this rum would help but it hasn’t. Not a bit. Have you ever heard of a sick spirit, Harry? That sounds like a contradiction. But we’ve seen weirder things than that here lately, eh?”
WEIRDER STILL FOLLOWED TOOLS disappeared in clear view of their owners. The night watchman swore he saw it rain inside the building on two successive evenings. Like Hamlet’s pals waiting with him for the ghost, Palm and I sat with the poor frightened watchman the next few nights waiting for this wraith rain to return but it never did. Then a Saruvian said the lettuce in his salad came to life. When some wag asked what it did, he was told, “It breathed.”
Other things, but my own eerie summit was reached the day I saw Big Top again. Living in the mountains had not made a hiker or skier of me, but a good two-hour walk when the day was free and the weather nice made me feel virtuous and sportiv, not to mention justifying a princely meal afterward full of cholesterol, salt, and sugar. Burp. Spring was around the corner and the day of this walk, although mid-February, was sunny and about fifty degrees. There had been little snow that winter, which had effectively KO’d the Austrian ski season, but also permitted us to move full speed ahead. The local construction companies had a tendency to want to hibernate during the winter months, but after we told this to the powers in Saru, they greased certain wheels and we forged on.
So Hiking Harry, in his genuine leather Austrian knickers and hiking boots, set out alone for the heights on one of the many dirt tracks that began just above the town. The sun gives only so much of itself to the mountains, but gives it all. The rest, even midday, are the coldest, most distinct shadows 1 have ever seen. Walking up that hill, I kept crossing back and forth over the sun/shadow line and the temperature difference was amazing. Once I laughed, just to feel the sweat that had just popped out on my face stop running down and grow icy cold on the bridge of my nose a minute into the shadows. Birds chased each other in long arcs in and out of the light and dark. The air smelled of damp stone, spicy pine, and the oily tang of fresh asphalt being laid somewhere. In my knapsack was a yellow apple, fresh bread, and a green bottle of fizzy mineral water. Turning, I co
uld see the skeleton of the museum on the other side of the lake. The sun struck it here and there, sending back white pinpoints of light reflected off glass or polished stone. I could have stayed there and looked at it from that new, far perspective, but too much of every day was given to looking at that building. These mountain walks were intended as part of my withdrawal cure. Other parts included two-hour telephone calls with Claire, meals with Morton or others in our crew, reading the Koran, and rereading the Bible. When I told Claire about that, she began the Koran too and many of our subsequent conversations were about the latitude and longitude of virtue and sin, the separate paths to God. I hadn’t told her about my Tower of Babel chat with Hasenhüttl because I was waiting for her return when I could tell her eye to eye.
Austrians have a nice custom when they’re building. Once you’ve gone as high as you’re going to go, there is a ceremony called the Dachgleiche, during which the top of a spruce tree, festooned with red and white rags, is mounted with great solemnity on the highest beam. Symbolically it means that’s it, folks—all we need now is a roof and we’re done. Not that you really are finished, but it’s the perfect midway pause and excuse for a Dachgleichen Feier, when everyone involved gets together for food and drink and mutual back patting. Good job, gang. Claire would be coming over for that and, post-Dachgleiche, we planned a week together driving slowly around the country, taking in the sights and each other’s air after being apart for so long. I wanted to tell her the whole story, top to bottom, and hear what she had to say. After that, I wanted to ask if she would live with me when I returned to California. Absence hadn’t made my heart grow fonder, but had taught it the value of a woman who was braver and more singular than I’d originally imagined. I thought about her constantly; sometimes talked to her when I needed an ear. In the old days I had usually talked to myself, but I was getting so used to her perspective that it was usually better and more fruitful to talk to an imaginary her than a too sympathetic or agreeable me. Claire was soft, but the soft of a panther’s coat.
Outside the Dog Museum Page 22