‘What is, or was, the Apporteur?’
‘That was an apparatus for creating a temporal discontinuum and photographing scenes of the past within a limited range of time and space; it belonged to the Pantisocratic epoch. And the Cic-Fax was a complicated device, invented a few hundred years later, for the artificial insemination of one species by another, by what they called chromosomic inflexion: several extraordinary new animals were produced that way by the Logicalists, including the bear-rabbits which were still roaming about the Indian Bad Lands a century or two ago.’
An ear-splitting crash from the women’s room; then a temporary silence and a good deal of laughter. Then again See-a-Bird’s frightful bellow.
‘I think they’re extinct now,’ the ex-captain went on calmly, ‘along with the vulture-nightingale and the negro-mandril. Perhaps it’s as well – they did a deal of damage to crops on the frontier farms. Oh, one moment, please – meet Horn-foot, our boring expert in Late Christian psycho-philosophy.
Horn-foot, a bushy-haired ex-recorder with a staccato voice, fired a number of questions at me, about monoidism, nullibrism and trauma-tropical illusion, none of which I could answer although he spoke quite good English. My ignorance vexed him and he said that I ought to be ashamed of myself for knowing so little about the one field in which my age had shone.
I told him not to talk nonsense even if he did live in a nonsense house, unless he wanted to get hurt. That sobered him, but did not stop the flow of questions.
‘You must know something, at least, about the humanitarian concept of progress?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I do. I was brought up on it. I should define it as a bumpy journey to nowhere in particular considered as somehow better than the putative point of origin only because it has not yet been reached and because God alone knows either what’s doing there or whether –’
‘Did you ever meet God?’ he interrupted. He seemed displeased that I’d attempted to answer his question.
‘Never,’ I said, ‘though I’ve met two people who claimed to have done so. One was an old Frenchman who was on his way to fish in the river Alys, as they used to call the stream that flows through Sanjon, when he met God, together with St John the Baptist and St Ursula, if you know who they are. The saints told him to give up strong drink and eat only bread and vegetables, and said that if he obeyed, he’d live to the age of one hundred and one and go straight to Paradise. God said nothing but looked wise. My other informant was an English woman scientist who met God in a wood –’
‘What sort of a scientist? Be more precise!’
‘She was an authority on coal – and God told her to write a message to the Bishops of England on his behalf: they were to advocate the use of contraceptives by married people.’
‘What had that to do with coal?’
‘Nothing. I wouldn’t have mentioned coal if you hadn’t made me. She couldn’t give any clear description of God’s appearance but said that he treated her very kindly.’
Horn-foot gave a hoarse laugh.
‘It’s no laughing matter,’ I said. ‘The old Frenchman did live to one hundred and one, though whether he went straight to Paradise I can’t say; and the Bishops did eventually issue a guarded approval of contraceptives.’
‘You’re the ignorantest man I’ve ever met,’ said Horn-foot
‘I’d rather be ignorant than stupid,’ I said. ‘And I’ll trouble you not to ask me any more questions. Run off now and take a dose; you’ve got a foul breath.’
‘That’s the way to talk, youngster,’ said the ex-captain. ‘Let’s make the old gobbler swallow a cake of soap in the wash-room, shall we?’
Fortunately at this point I was whisked away to the billiard-room by a jovial group of elders who wanted me to teach them the rules of snooker. I was only too glad to do so. Under my direction they stained a set of balls with the appropriate colours, and then I showed them how to play and gave a demonstration of trick shots.
They kept me in the billiard-room for several hours, plying me with whisky and cigarettes, and I had great fun in a quiet way until someone beat a gong and the party at once broke up. Men and women crowded together into the entrance hall, where they sang a short hymn to Ana and then, since the rain had stopped and the stars were out, strolled across the road to their beds, leaving their hats on the hat-stands. See-a-Bird was in the crowd, looking like a new boy after a junior common-room rag; I did not venture to catch is eye.
Not feeling in the least sleepy, I stayed behind and spent some time in the library, where I studied the English Poetic Canon, which was the only book in English that I could find there. In its Supplement I came across my own Recantation, an early poem that I had long discarded as being artificial and insincere, and another more recent one, in the main body of the Canon, but clumsily re-written and attributed to ‘the poet Tseliot’. Tseliot was a composite early twentieth-century figure who had swallowed up most of his near-contemporaries, including W.B. Yeats, Vachel Lindsay, W.H. Davies and Rupert Brooke, and was reported to have died of sunstroke at an early age while preaching the gospel of beauty in the streets of Dublin.
When a clock in the hall struck two I went back to the men’s room and fell asleep on the sofa. Yes, a clock, by God! and I hadn’t even noticed it. ‘Clever fellow, that Tiger-Tiger!’ I murmured to the deaf white Nonsense House cat which was purring loudly in my ear. ‘He’ll be re-inventing income-tax next, if Ana doesn’t look out.’
Chapter XIX
The Rising Wind
I got up, washed, breakfasted on various left-overs, smoked a cigarette and heard the clock strike in the hall. Nine o’clock already and I had promised Sapphire to come early to the quince-hut! I must have overslept; why couldn’t I have gone to bed at midnight? I left in a hurry. A servant with an ox-cart was passing as I ran out into the lane, and he was terrified: nobody was supposed to be in a nonsense house at that hour, not even an elder. He put out his tongue at me, growled, rolled his eyes and spread out his hands to represent horns, with the thumbs planted at his temples: the correct procedure to be followed by anyone confronted with a strange or unlucky sight. I smiled cheerfully, greeted him in Mari’s name, and waved my passport at him; but he showed no signs of reassurance and walked away backwards, still grimacing and making menacing noises, until he was out of sight.
After cutting across the park towards the Magic House, I hurried round to the stables. ‘I want my horse,’ I told the groom, ‘also the Nymph Sapphire’s mare.’
He saddled my horse and led it out, not saying a word.
‘Thanks. Now the Nymph’s.’
‘I’m sorry, Sir. She no longer exists. Another lady is expected presently, and two more poets to restore our establishment.’
‘Sapphire no longer exists? Who told you so?’
‘The Witch Sally, Sir. She convened a dawn council of neighbouring magicians to which the Nymph was summoned; and as a result, I understand, she has ceased to be a member of the estate.’
‘Is she still in the village?’
‘She died, Sir, and is to be reborn at Dunrena, or so I’m informed.’
I made no comment, fumbled in my pocket for a tip, but finding nothing but my handkerchief and the locket gave him my apologetic thanks instead, and rode off. The impudence of Sally! And why had Sapphire submitted to the sentence? Had she said nothing in her own defence? Surely, if she had told the council all she knew they could never have convicted her. Perhaps I was to blame for this: my suggestion that Sally was the Goddess’s chosen instrument of evil. Evidently Sapphire had decided to accept her fate. I felt outraged.
Near the gate See-a-Bird and Starfish called to me from the shrubbery. I pulled up. ‘Hullo, See-a-Bird,’ I said, ‘how are you this morning?’
He smiled ruefully. ‘Nobody,’ he said, ‘need take notice now of anything I say; that’s a comfort, at least. As you know, I’ve left this house. I came here only to pick up a few things.’
‘And how do you like the other blad
e of the axe?’
‘I’ll get used to it before long. The first stroke, they say, is the worst. It seems to shear the top of one’s head clean off, just above the eyes. But once it’s struck, pleasant or unpleasant events affect one only indirectly. When Bee-flight was made an elder I felt our separation keenly; now I don’t feel it at all. Last night I was glad that the bed in my cubicle was a narrow one. In her strange way Ana’s very generous.’
‘And you, Starfish, how are things with you?’
He stared at me dumbly, moistening his lips with his tongue and said: ‘My loving congratulations!’
‘Thanks very much, Starfish – but what have I done to earn them?’
‘Isn’t it true then, about you and Sally?’
‘I don’t know what See-a-Bird has told you. All that you need to know is this: that I didn’t share Sally’s cloak on the grave, and that I’ve no intention of ever seeing her again, even if it means changing my estate. You needn’t give up hope on my account. I’m no rival for her affections. But if you want my advice, it’s this: sheer off, or you’ll get burned like your brother! That woman has wildfire in her hair.’
Starfish never quite understood my broken New Cretan, and I had to repeat myself. This time I spoke more plainly: ‘Tell Sally that I’m off, that I’ve finished with this house for good and all, and that I’m now going to Dunrena to change my estate and live with Sapphire. Do you understand that?’
This made him even sadder than before. ‘But she loves you; she can’t live without you!’ he groaned. ‘She’ll never invite me to her bed, never!’
See-a-Bird grinned broadly. ‘As an egg without a top,’ he said, ‘I fully appreciate the hopelessness of the situation. Well, I expect I’ll be seeing you tonight at Dunrena; I’m supposed to be there.’
He gave my horse a friendly whack on the rump and sent him bounding down the road. At the stile where I had met Quant, I turned and cantered up to the quince-hut to make sure that Sally hadn’t lied to the groom. The door stood open. ‘Sapphire!’ I called, but there was no answer. It occurred to me that she might have finished her picture and left it behind; so I dismounted and went in to look around. I found nothing until, as I was going out again, I happened to knock against the table, and a thin elm-board about a foot and a half square was dislodged from a rest underneath the table-top and clattered to the floor.
I picked it up. It was Sapphire’s painting and the subject was Nimuë’s removal of the Rogue Trinity. I recognized Machna, the sharp-nosed god of Science, clasping a handful of broken machinery; Pill, the shifty-eyed god of Thieves, with crumpled sheets of paper strewn behind him; Dobeis, the plump god of Money, with golden coins dropping from a hole in his trouser pocket. On the left of the picture the young Goddess, mounted on a white horse, was dragging the three corpses towards a river by a rope hitched around their necks. A covey of cranes flew overhead. On that side of the river all was desolation – burned houses, sparse crops, skeleton animals and birds, bloated corpses; but on the far side the crops were tall and abundant, the animals sleek, the people active and radiant, the houses undamaged.
I held the picture to the light and studied its background; then I saw that the prosperity had its limits. The fertile scene was bounded by another river half-hidden by alders, and beyond these I caught a glimpse of mackerel sky, and of a hill with two naked figures on it running hand in hand – a man and a woman with averted faces, pursued by a snake that brandished a club in a loop of its tail. I disliked the look of that sky. ‘It’s going to blow hell’s bells over there within an hour,’ I said to myself. ‘And who are those people? Sapphire and I? Or any man and any woman? They seem to be running for shelter to that cave under the hawthorn. Let’s hope they get there before the snake strikes. Poor Sapphire: she must have known when she came out of her trance and looked at her painting that there’s a snagged and slimy river to cross, with trouble in plenty on the far bank.’
I returned the picture to the rack, went out and closed the door behind me. As I turned round, I nearly collided with Nervo. ‘Hullo!’ I said. ‘Greetings in Mari’s name. What are you doing here, if I may ask?’
‘On my way to Dunrena,’ he said briskly. ‘The village contingent has marched ahead, I was about to overtake them. Then I saw you and cut across the fields. I came to thank you. Just so.’
‘Thank me? Whatever for?’
‘You have been very kind to me. You’ve given me a new nickname – Nervo the Fearless. For that I’m most grateful. If a new nickname is bestowed on a man, he accepts it without question. I do so now. It’s as if I woke in the morning and accidentally put on my shirt inside out. It would be unwise and ungrateful to change it.’
‘I don’t see the connexion.’
‘It’s quite simple. Ill luck threatens me under my old nickname. You change it; ill-luck is baulked. Or ill-luck threatens me in my working shirt, but I happen to put it on inside out. Ill-luck strikes my chest, finds the button turned inwards, cannot undo it. Ill-luck retires. Just so.’
‘I wonder you don’t always wear your working shirt inside out and change your nickname daily.’
‘That would be cowardly,’ he said.
I did not pursue the subject. ‘I’m going to Dunrena too,’ I said. ‘May I have the pleasure of your company?’
‘By all means.’
We turned back to the road and jogged along towards Rabnon.
‘Wonderful clover fields,’ I said. ‘What’s the secret?’
‘No secret. We return to the soil what we take from the soil. Just so. Seeds planted on a lucky day and rolled in well. Prayers morning and night, and pests kept under control. No secret. No! The clover’s looking fine, Mari be praised! So, for the matter of that, is the dana… And yet.’
‘And yet,’ he repeated a minute or two later.
‘Something on your mind, Nervo?’ I prompted him.
‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘I wish I knew what it was. That’s the trouble. What can it be? The commons work hard and pray hard. My private affairs are in order. That little matter of the brutch has been settled. The Goddess has sent rain – not too much, not too little. Yet something’s wrong: very wrong, I fear. A feeling only. Nothing I can lay my finger on.’
‘Are you too polite to suggest that it is connected with my arrival in your village? If you think it’s that, please say so. I won’t be offended.’
Nervo looked away as he said: ‘Just now a carter came to me in great terror. He thought he’d seen you coming out of the Nonsense House.’
‘I spent the night there.’
‘Never!’
‘And why not?’
‘It’s certain death to be in a nonsense house between midnight and noon.’
‘Maybe, but mine’s a special case. I’m protected. I admit that it was stupid of me to frighten the carter; I suppose I should have drawn a look-away symbol on my forehead.’
He made no further comment until we had clattered through the cobbled streets of Rabnon. Then he said in a worried voice: ‘Tell me something. What’s going on at the Magic House? The health of Horned Lamb depends on the magicians. Just so. And extraordinary rumours are flying about.’
‘What are people saying?’
‘I hardly like to tell you.’
‘Go on!’
‘That you brought a brutch with you; that it’s bewitched all five of your companions; that it’s already removed three of them; that it won’t rest until the house is emptied. And you know what that means.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
‘There’s a popular rhyme:
When in a house of five
Not one is left alive,
Look to the skies,
Watch the North wind rise.
But until that event
Work, be content.
Just so. It’s reassuring. All’s well while our magicians are in their house. And so it will remain while we all work, and work hard. Then a vacancy occurs in the Magic House; and what happens? T
hey fill it on the following Monday, and the warning loses its force. But today is Thursday, and count! Apart from yourself, how many magicians are left? Two only! A disaster! What if something should happen to those?’
‘Thank you, Nervo. Already yesterday I had a feeling that the village was getting nervous about my presence. So I’ve decided to leave, though I disclaim all responsibility for what’s happened. I’m going to Dunrena now, and none of you will need to see me again. It’s embarrassing to be one of Mother Carey’s chickens and portend storms. However, if you care to know exactly what’s been happening –’
I broke off. Nervo had turned deathly pale, slipped from his chestnut and thrown himself on the grass by the roadside, where he lay as if dead. Red Thunder nuzzled him sympathetically for half a minute, and meeting with no response wandered off down the road. I caught him, hitched him to a tree and stood looking down on Nervo in complete bewilderment. ‘Come on, old chap, do get up! I’m sorry if I accidentally said the wrong thing. I’m a stranger here, you know.’
He remained there, prone and motionless, and when I had satisfied myself that he was breathing and not in pain, I mounted and rode on. What could I have said to cause him so much distress? Could it have been my mention of Mother Carey? Ridiculous!
The road was crowded with people walking or riding to Dunrena, thirty ass-carts full of elders, and crowds of children trooping behind a priest. Every village and town had sent a contingent of twenty-two men and women, consisting of a captain, a magician, twelve commoners, six servants and two recorders. The men carried heavy packs, tent poles, rolls of white canvas, cooking pots and umbrellas; the women only umbrellas and satchels. I overtook Rabnon first, then Zapmor, exchanging friendly greetings with them as I passed; then our own village. I was glad to find Quant marching along at the head and walked my horse beside him.
Seven Days in New Crete (Penguin Modern Classics) Page 22