The Unicorn Girl

by Michael Kurlalnd

  Finally the Colonel himself noticed me, and I went on to Phase Two. “Hem. Hem. Harrumph, a-hem, a-hem, ahem, hoom, hoom.” Perhaps a bit clearer than the Colonel, but no louder. His very words. “Ahemph! Ah!” I bounced the goblet once or twice to cause ripples to flow across the surface of the water, but not enough to spill a drop. Puckering my lips like a man about to kiss a camel, I brought my mouth down to the glass, tilted it and allowed a few drops of water to run between my camel-kissing lips.

  I thrust the glass away from me, holding it in midair, and with the pinky of my other hand traced small objects in the air above my head. I swished the liquid back and forth, meditatively, between my teeth; making a gurgling sound. I could tell I had their interest. Noisily, I swallowed.

  I smacked my lips, head back in a reflective manner, and tasted the air. Slowly, ever so slowly, I put down the glass and closed my eyes. “Ah, yes,” I said. “Yes, yes, yes. Water.”

  There was a choked-off giggle to my left, and I very carefully avoided looking at Sylvia.

  “Water. The very water. Fine water. Cool water, but not artificially cooled. Spring water, I would say. Yes, spring water. Definitely. Naive, unpretentious spring water. A bit presumptuous, perhaps; but that, after all, is the prerogative of a truly great water.” I raised the goblet for another taste, smacking my lips. “Yes, the second taste, or le deuxième as we connoisseurs call it, confirms my first thought, or le premier. Spring water. Western spring water. Just a trace, perhaps, of melting snow from mountain brooks that feed the spring. Also traces of sulfur, antimony, calcium, lead (probably from the pipes), iron, or its oxide, zinc, various ammonias and phosphates and a hint, just a hint of iodine. Also,” I wrinkled my nose slightly, “I would say that there have been fish in this water.”

  I opened my eyes and looked about. A monumental silence hung over the table, and everyone avoided my eye. Everyone except, the Colonel. “Come now,” he said. “No iodine, surely.”

  “Oh?” I said. “I would have thought-just the slightest bit. But perhaps not.” The man was impervious. There are none so humorless as those who will not see themselves.

  “Have you,” Aunt asked Chester, “read the Reverend Dodgson’s Alice’s Adventures Under the Ground? A rather profound work, I thought.” This successfully changed the subject.

  Along with Chester’s exposition on how to best mock a turtle, came dessert. Cakes, pies and puddings, each carried around the table by a dessert waitress. Each course, it seemed, had its own slaves. The maitre de dessert stood by the door, overseeing his girls’ handling of the dessert-filled trays. He looked familiar.

  “Have you ever seen that man before?” I asked Sylvia.

  “Which man?”

  “The one by the door in the monkey suit.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Ignore the clothes and wait till he smiles.”

  Sylvia studied the man for a moment. “Yes! That grin—it’s the man from the field. The one who followed behind the carriage laughing at us. I didn’t recognize him with his clothes on.”

  “You are,” I told her, “a spirit of no common rate.”

  “What do you think he’s doing here?”

  “I imagine he’s in the employ of the kitchen.”

  “Well, he has interesting hobbies.”

  The dinner guests dug into their varied desserts, and there was a pause in the conversation while they devoured their pastries. I tried to figure out how to make room in my overstretched stomach for hot apple tart.

  The serving girls backed off and looked at their boss. He nodded. In unison, like the chorus line at Minsky’s, they unhooked the blouse fronts of their prim costumes, shrugged and wriggled free of the fabric, and stepped forward and out of the fallen garments. They were wearing nothing else.

  Sylvia, eyes round, nudged me with her elbow. “I see,” I said.

  She whispered, “Yes, but nobody else seems to.”

  “You’re right.” Looking around the table, the only others who seemed aware of the nude show were Chester, who was nonchalantly eating his raisin pudding while watching, and Dorothy, who was just watching. Chester looked at me and slowly nodded his head back and forth. Everyone else at the table was calmly eating, apparently completely unaware of their naked serving wenches. I decided that Chester was right. If our hosts didn’t see what was happening, it wouldn’t be wise far us to.

  The three bare beauties approached the table. Each of them stationed herself behind one of the ladies and, slowly and gently, started removing necklaces and bracelets. They carefully unpinned Aunt’s tiara and took it with her earrings. Aunt went on talking and eating as though nothing unusual was happening.

  After they had cleaned all that glitters from the ladies, sparing only Sylvia and Dorothy, whose only glitter at the moment was internal, the three nymphs kissed each of the men on the cheek in a gesture of either fair play or contempt, and departed, skipping, through the kitchen door.

  “Well,” Aunt said, stretching daintily, “shall we allow the men to retire to their cigars and brandy?”

  “That’s good of you, Madam. If you ladies would excuse us?” The Colonel rose and bowed politely, which was quite an ability, considering what he’d eaten. If I’d leaned that far forward, I would have fallen on my face. We men followed him into the next room in our stately, stuffed way to indulge in a little man talk. There’s nothing that makes a man feel so much like a man as to get off in a corner and tell suggestive stories. The stories these men were telling suggested only lack of experience and limited imaginations.

  Chester and I left after about ten minutes of this, pleading extreme tiredness, which was no exaggeration. I may have stayed awake for a whole forty seconds after my head hit the pillow.

  The next morning I woke up with the sun glaring through the window right into my eyes. I had no idea how long the sun had been there, but I just wanted it to go away. I covered my head and rolled over.

  “Michael,” Chester bleated, “I’m glad to see that you’re finally awake.”

  “I wouldn’t exactly call it awake,” I groaned.

  “It’ll have to do. We have some serious business to discuss, quickly.”

  “Later,” I suggested, putting the pillow over my head. “Come back later, and we’ll talk.”

  “You don’t think I enjoy trying to wake you up, do you?”

  “I’m not really interested in your perversions. Let me alone.”

  “Tomorrow, I promise.”

  “Have you got any coffee?” I asked, peering out from under the pillow.

  “Certainly.”

  “Good. Drink a cup. Drink two cups. Go away!”

  “When important decisions are to be made,” Chester said, “Michael the Theodore Bear will be the first to sleep through them.”

  “I can outsleep you,” I informed Chester, “in my think.”

  “My point exactly.” Chester sulked by the window. “Now, now, look at that!” he said, sticking his head out and staring.

  “You won’t catch me with that one,” I told him. “But, as long as I’m awake anyhow, with all this talking, I might as well get up and see what you’re looking at.”

  I rolled out of bed, got up and went to the window. There on the street, two stories below, stalked a strange assortment of people. Two Spanish conquistadores, muskets at ready, took the lead. Behind them, strung out in what my sergeant had called eskirmisher formation, were three Roman legionnaires in winter dress, an angry-looking Norseman and a Pennsylvania state trooper. The group slowly passed out of sight toward the center of town.

  “What,” I asked Chester, “was that?”

  “Why are you whispering?”

  “I always speak quietly in the face of the unknown,” I told him. “Don’t try to change the subject.”

  “We should have you face the unknown more often. I don’t know how that group got together, but it shows that we aren’t the only ones suffering from confusion of time lines.”

 
“Confusion is the right word. Where’s that coffee?”

  “There’s a pitcher on the dresser all creamed and sugared, help yourself.”

  “You know I don’t take sugar,” I complained.

  “Next to the pitcher you will find a pair of tweezers, with which you may, if you choose, occupy yourself by removing the sugar, grain by grain, from the coffee.”

  “Urph,” I said, pouring a mug of coffee. “Thanks.” I drank the coffee, which had a metallic taste, poured myself a second cup and started struggling into my clothes. “The fog is lifting. By the end of cup two I’ll be awake enough to talk.”

  “See,” Chester said. “Dependence on drugs is an insidious thing.” He came away from the window. “Well, that group down there shows why our hosts required so little explanation from us. They’ve seen others.”

  “That’s why they’re so friendly,” I offered. “They’ve captured us for dissection.” I inspected my face critically in the mirror. “I need a shave.”

  “Go ahead,” Chester instructed, indicating the implements neatly displayed on the towel next to the washbowl. “Help yourself, I’m done.”

  I picked up the straight razor and examined it. “I’ve never used one of these. I’ll probably slit my throat.”

  “That will be a good start on the dissection. When you’ve bled to death I’ll finish shaving you so you make a handsome corpse.

  “Thanks.” I stropped the razor against the leather block.

  “Well,” Chester said, watching with a critical eye as I scraped my throat.

  “Well what?”

  “What’s our plan? What do we do from here?”

  “How,” I demanded, “should I know?”

  “You’re the manager.”

  “You’re awake. You’ve had time to think—or whatever. You tell me.”

  “Well, I’ve been thinking.”

  “Good.”

  “I’ve made some notes.” Chester pulled out his little notebook.

  “I’ve been here before,” I told him.

  “Have you ever stopped to consider,” Chester asked me, “how interesting you’d look if you cut off your right ear?”

  I carefully put the razor down and wiped off my face. “Okay, let’s hear it. Read the notes.”

  “It’s about that scene last night. You remember what happened last night?”

  “I presume you mean the Great Naked Jewel Theft.”

  “Yes. Did you notice anything about that?”

  “Three female bodies. I noticed them in great detail.”

  “Something beyond the physical details— don’t snicker like that—something indicative of the nature of the problem.”

  Chester flipped through his notebook. “Here. It’s a question of taboo. These people are primitively Victorian. There are taboos on certain types of activity—sex, certainly, and probably several others. What is taboo cannot be gone into. It cannot be done, it cannot be thought about, it cannot be allowed to exist, it cannot be seen. Therefore it is not seen, even when it happens.”

  “You mean those people didn’t see what was going on?”

  “That’s my thought.”

  “But nudeness—or is it nakedity?—isn’t sex. Not all by itself.”

  “To you, no; to them, yes.”

  “Then how do they, er, propagate?”

  “In the dark, milad, in the dark.”

  “Wow. Say, how are they going to explain the disappearance of all those jewels?”

  “Sneak thieves in the night, I guess.” Chester looked smug and self-satisfied. But he had found the answer. To you, reading this, it probably was no problem from the start; you had it figured out. But imagine actually being there. If you see a group of people behaving in a peculiar manner and another group ignoring it, do you assume that group B is unable to see group A or just that they don’t care? When there’s a mugging and forty people walk by without doing anything, is it because they don’t see what’s happening?

  “It furthers one,” Chester told me, “to have a plan. I have rolled the coins and the oracle has so said.”

  “I didn’t know you had a pocket I Ching.”

  “I’ve committed the work to memory. The Baynes rendering of the Wilhelm translation, of course. Also my addendum. It furthers one to cross the Grand Concourse. It furthers one to have somewhere to go.”

  “Where?”

  “In the times of trouble, the wise man listens carefully to his advisors. One may use two bowls for the offering.” Chester tapped his chest. “I am the wise man.” He pointed a digit at me. “You are my advisors.”

  “All of them?”

  “You are a man of many parts.”

  “No more than the usual number.”

  “Come on,” Chester commanded. “The Ching said I should listen to my advisors. Give.”

  “Did the I Ching say what I should do?”

  “It furthers one to play one’s proper role. It furthers one to seek one’s place. It furthers you to make like a manager.”

  “The I Ching said that?”

  “Ask it yourself.”

  “And trust to your memory and honesty for an answer?”

  Chester looked insulted. “There are some things that are below me.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen some of them. Wait a second.” I carefully took out my wallet and opened the little compartment that held my three coins. They were silver dimes—real silver, dating back to 1958, 1962 and 1964. My good luck pieces, not that I believe in luck. “Stand back.” I kneeled on the carpet in the ancient, prayerful attitude of the crap shooter, shook the coins between my fingers and cast them out. Two heads and a tail.

  Chester had his little notebook out, turned to the back section where he kept permanent record of what either of us has asked the Ching, and the answers. I call it “The Wit and Wisdom of an Ancient Chinese Sage,” or “Backtalk from a Book.”

  “Eight,” he said, writing down the first line. “The young yin. Firm, female and at rest. Proceed.”

  I cast again. Two tails and a head.

  “Seven. The young yang. Unmoving male.” He placed the second line above the first. “And again.”

  “Faites vos coupes, messieurs et mesdames,” I intoned. “Are all bets down?”

  I cast the dimes again and they skittered across the rug. One of them couldn’t make up its mind for a moment, and then it flopped over with the others.

  Chester notated. “Another seven, and the bottom trigram is complete, with no (count them, no) moving lines. It’s the trigram Sun, the Gentle, which is Wind.” Chester contemplated what he had drawn for a moment with that wide grin which appears when he is deep in thought and shouldn’t be disturbed. The next step is a wide grin combined with an intent look. This means he is deep inside his own head, and cannot be disturbed, or even located.

  For those who have so far managed to steer clear of ancient Chinese oracles, the trigram Sun looks like this:

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  ___________ ____________

  (Remember that it is constructed from the bottom up, like a house.)

  “There are many possibilities,” said Chester. “Continue.”

  I threw the coins again, and got three heads.

  “Aha! A nine, and therefore the old yang. A moving line. A change from the Book of Changes.” Chester looked as pleased as if the coins had done it on purpose, just for him. Perhaps they had at that. The only thing I can tell you is that sometimes I get the curious feeling that a group of Chinese sages who died before Confucius was born, and who never dreamed of a language called English, are talking to me from the other side of this English version of a German translation of a Chinese text. The moving line was one that changes from yang to yin, giving us a specific reading on that line (number four, counting up) and changing the trigram to give us a second hexagram to consider. Thus, you see, the Book of Changes.

  I tossed again, for another nine, a second changing line.
Then the sixth, and final, time; a seven: yang, solid, unchanging. The second trigram was complete:

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  With changes in lines four and five, to create:

  ___________________________

  ___________ ____________

  ___________ ____________

  This gave us the primary hexagram:

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  ___________________________

  ___________ ____________

  which changed to:

  ___________________________

  ___________ ____________

  ___________ ____________

  ___________________________

  ___________ ____________

  ___________ ____________

  I hope that’s clear.

  “The trigram is Ch’ien, The Creative, or Heaven. A good one. It changes to Keeping Still, Ken, which is described as being like an inverted bowl.” Chester consulted the back page of his notebook. “Ah, so I thought. Ch’ien on top of Sun gives us hexagram forty-four: Kou: Coming to Meet. The image is that of wind under heaven. Which, if I remember correctly, is described as how a prince acts when disseminating his commands and proclaiming them to the four quarters of heaven.”

  “You remember correctly,” I told him. “I can tell by the look on your face. What’s the rest?”

  “I don’t remember. I thought I was pretty good to get that much.”

  “I’m proud of you,” I told him. “But that will teach me not to consult an oracle I don’t have with me. It’s like trying to make a long-distance call by yelling into a rock.”

  “A rock?”

  “A roll?”

  “Damn!” Chester suddenly sat down. Since there was no chair under him, he ended up on the floor, but didn’t seem to notice.

  “It wasn’t that bad,” I insisted.

  “I’ve been using the Ching all morning to clarify our position,” he said, slapping at his pockets like he smelled smoke, “and getting annoyed because I couldn’t remember enough of the text to get the full meaning in several of the readings.”