by Laird Barron
The ocean of rats undulates over the withered, sere winter landscape and the identical, boring human buildings, like a new life force in the universe, gently flowing.
“We lost,” I say.
“No, we won,” the Drill Instructor says. “You’ll see soon.”
We land in a military hospital. Bouquets and a wheelchair welcome me, the hero. A pretty nurse pushes me inside. They triage me quickly and then give me a bath. It takes a long time before the water flows clear. Then it’s time to feed me. I eat so quickly that I throw it all up again. The nurse gently pats my back, her gaze full of empathy.
The cafeteria TV is tuned to the news. “Our country has reached preliminary agreement with the Western Alliance concerning the trade dispute. All parties have described it as a win-win . . .”
On TV, they’re showing the mass migration of rats that I saw earlier on the helicopter.
“After thirteen months of continuous, heroic struggle by the entire nation, we have finally achieved complete success in eradicating the rodent threat!”
The camera shifts to a scene by the ocean. A gigantic, multicolored carpet is moving slowly from the land into the ocean. As it touches the ocean, it breaks into millions of particles, dissolving in the water.
As the camera zooms in, the Neorats appear like soldiers in a killing frenzy. Crazed, each attacks everything and anything around itself. There’s no more sides, no more organization, no more any hint of strategy or tactics. Every Neorat is fighting only for itself, tearing apart the bodies of its own kind, cruelly biting, chewing each other’s heads. It’s as if some genetic switch has been flipped by an invisible hand, and their confident climb toward civilization has been turned in a moment into the rawest, most primitive instinct. They collide against each other, strike each other, so that the whole carpet of bodies squirms, tumbles into a river of blood that runs into the sea.
“See, I told you,” the Drill Instructor says.
But the victory has nothing to do with us. This had been planned from the start. Whoever had engineered the escape of the Neorats had also buried the instructions for getting rid of them when their purpose has been accomplished.
Li Xiaoxia was right. Pea was right. The Drill Instructor was also right. We are just like the rats, all of us only pawns, stones, worthless counters in the Great Game. All we can see are just the few squares of the board before us. All we can do is just follow the gridlines in accordance with the rules of the game: Cannon on eighth file to fifth file; Horse on second file to third file. As for the meaning behind these moves, and when the great hand that hangs over us will plunge down to pluck one of us off, nobody knows.
But when the two players in the game, the two sides, have concluded their business, all sacrifices become justified—whether it’s the Neorats, or us. I think again of Black Cannon in the woods and shudder.
“Don’t mention what you saw,” the Drill Instructor says. I know he means the religion of the rats, Black Cannon’s grin, Pea’s death. These things aren’t part of the official story. They’re meant to be forgotten.
I ask the nurse, “Will the migrating rats pass this city?”
“In about half an hour. You should be able to see them from the park in front of the hospital.”
I ask her to take me there. I want to say good-bye to my foes, who never existed.
Sofia Samatar
* * *
OLIMPIA’S GHOST
Sofia Samatar is the author of the novel A Stranger in Olondria, winner of the 2014 Crawford Award, as well as several short stories, essays, and poems. Her work has been nominated for multiple awards. She is a co-editor for Interfictions: A Journal of Interstitial Arts, and teaches literature and writing at California State University Channel Islands.
My Dear S.,
Emil says you will not come to Freiberg this year; but Mother says you will. Who is right? We all know you hate Vienna with a passion; that is, Mother and Emil know it, and I know it through them, for Mother reads your letters aloud, and sometimes Emil, too, shares a few lines. Pray do not be angry! It is such a little thing, to hear of your successes, and it makes me very happy. And then, your sallies on your masters are so droll, and your remarks on Vienna—St. Stephen’s steeple like a “great rolled-up umbrella”—Mother can hardly read for laughing.
I am sure you will not begrudge me this diversion, my dear S. On the days when there is no letter from you, life continues just as usual. The weather has been fine. There is fruit on the peach trees. In the long twilight, while Emil reads, I go up and down, up and down the stairs.
A few days ago I did have a new amusement: a marionette theater sprang up overnight in the square, like a white mushroom. I watched the marionettes for several hours, even though a light rain was falling, and the children screamed mercilessly. I suppose you would not have liked the noise, or the look of the dirty little boy who came around afterward, hat extended to gather our coins. As I left I saw him sharing a cigar behind the theater with the puppet-master, a rough, disreputable-looking fellow, undoubtedly his father. Oh, but the marionettes were so beautiful! The little Pierrot had a spangled coat, and two great tears shone under his eyes. He wore his heart on the outside, like any fool. As for Columbine, she carried a hand mirror that reflected her lavender hair.
I looked for them today, but they are gone.
I try not to be restless. Emil dislikes what he calls my “thumping.” Tonight I will try to read. A volume by E.T.A. Hoffmann has been discovered in the library, and we think it must be yours, for it is certainly not ours. As I read, I will imagine that you are here again, seated in your chair by the window, teasing Mother as she chuckles over her knitting, and that you turn, with your hair lit up all reddish by the sunset through the window, and speak to me kindly.
Your
Gisela
My Dear S.,
I have had the most marvelous dream! And I believe I have you to thank for it—for it came directly out of the pages of Hoffmann.
I dreamt that I was entering the door of a very large eating-house, rather like a restaurant in the Prater. The door was of glass, with gilt lettering; I could not make out what it said, but I remember a large O with twisting vines. Inside everything shone: the glasses and tableware, the chandeliers, and the jewels and curled hair of the fine people at the tables. The walls were all covered with mirrors. I saw myself moving among the tables: I wore a mauve dress and, strangely enough, a powdered wig. I was not at all nervous, though the restaurant was very imposing. I went on walking, for I felt vaguely that I was supposed to be meeting someone. Then a young man caught my eye. He wore an old-fashioned frock coat and was talking earnestly to his companion, a lady in a powdered wig.
It was Hoffmann’s Nathanael! I knew him at once: his thin face, very handsome if somewhat sickly; his black eyes; the trembling of his hands. He was precisely like the hero of that bewitching story, “The Sandman,” which I had finished just before going to bed. And who do you suppose the lady was? Olimpia, of course! As I passed behind her chair, she made a wheezing mechanical sound, and then cried out “Ah! Ah!” It was she—Spalanzani’s exquisite doll, so lovely and lifelike that Nathanael fell wildly in love with her. I knew I had stumbled into the part of the story that tells of their courtship. It is difficult to describe the elation I felt upon this discovery. To be in a story! All the chandeliers seemed to blaze more brightly, and I hurried around the table to look at Olimpia’s face.
What do you think? She looked exactly like me!
Well, all but her eyes—these were quite fixed and strange, and glittered only when she nodded her head. This she did regularly, and then her eyes reflected the lights of the restaurant, creating an effect that was almost human. Poor Nathanael was smitten with her. I circled the table to look at him again, but just as he glanced at me, I woke up.
I suppose it should have been frightening—to see oneself as a doll. But it wasn’t, not in the least! I
woke up feeling rested and full of life. Indeed, I feel better than I have done for weeks. Both Mother and Emil commented on my color, and said I looked very well. “The summer has reached you at last,” said Mother. You know she often calls me her “arctic chick”—a silly name, for I am not at all cold-natured. If I have been subdued lately, it is only because it makes me melancholy to think you will not come to see us.
Your
Gisela
S.:
So, you think I ought not to read Hoffmann? I am “too sensitive” for his art?
Then why could you not write to me yourself? Think how humiliating it was for me to be taken aside by Emil, like a child! He could hardly look at me; he knew himself it was wrong. “Don’t be angry,” he pleaded—as if I could help it! I felt myself growing hard and stony, absolutely petrifying with rage. When he left me, and I moved at last, raising my hand to smooth my hair, my own shadow startled me, shifting on the wall.
I have given the book to Emil. My dreams are my own.
I have been there again, you know. To the restaurant. I have walked between the smooth white tablecloths. No one seems to notice me there—except him. He sees me! Nathanael—he sees me. The first time he looked at me, he started like a hare. I was standing behind Olimpia, just at her shoulder, and Nathanael glanced at me and then down at his beloved and then up at me again, a potent horror dawning in his eyes. I realized then how disconcerting it must have been for him. Here was a second idol standing behind the first, and this one ever so much more alive than the seated one, more human, with vivid eyes aglow beneath the lights! He looked wildly at the mirrors, to find that I was also there. It was clear that no one else in the restaurant could see me. A waiter walked past me, brushing my arm. Nathanael paled; his hair went lank with sweat; I feared to see him faint.
I smiled at him, with the idea of calming his nerves. He flung his arm up before his face.
That made me hesitate. I watched him grope for his glass. He gulped the wine greedily. He was looking at Olimpia now, with a different kind of terror in his eyes. Of course, he believed her to be human. He was desperately in love, and would not wish to act like a madman in front of her. He straightened himself and smoothed his coat, and said something to her in a strange, shrill voice—a silly, drawing-room question about music.
Music: had she been studying it long?
It was—comical.
When he glanced at me again, I could not help baring my teeth. Just a little bit, to see what would happen. He shuddered and blanched more violently than before. It was as if he were a fish, and the hook had pierced his lip.
I winked at him. Very vulgar—but it was a dream! He danced at the end of the line, gasping for air. “Nathanael,” I said. Great drops stood on his brow. “Nathanael!” I repeated. He babbled of Mozart, grapes and handkerchiefs while his clockwork darling answered “Ah! Ah!”
Such a ridiculous scene—I woke up laughing!
But I am not laughing now. Dear S., why could you not write to me directly? I would so love a letter from you, even a scolding one! If only you would reply, I would not ask to read E.T.A. Hoffmann or anyone else. And don’t say “propriety”—you know I hate the sound of the word. We all hated it together when we were children, don’t you remember? The Hochwald, and how you flung your hat into the weeds. You said hats were never worn in paradise. Can we not go there?
Your
Gisela
Dear S.—Dear Master,
Do you remember how we used to call you that? I suppose you think me too young to remember myself; but I recall every detail of your visits here, even the first year, when you wore a penknife on a chain, and the blackberries were so plentiful. I used to trail behind when you and Emil walked to the Hochwald. You talked of Cervantes and the noble Castilian tongue; you called each other “Don,” and the two of you tied me to a tree by my apron strings and left me alone for half an hour. The sky grew dark, and the whole wood sighed. I twisted against my apron, trying to move my left arm, which was closest to the knot. The cloth pressed into my abdomen, the rugged bark scraped my forearm, and I closed my eyes as a cold wind shook the bracken. The first drop of rain struck my brow with such violence I thought it was an acorn. Then I heard voices calling me through the trees. “Gisela! Gisela!” You had lost me. I writhed harder against my taut apron, saying nothing, and then you crashed through a thicket and almost toppled into me. “Why didn’t you answer? And what have you done?” you cried, having untied me to discover my arm rubbed bloody by the tree. “Why, Gisela?” Your eyes were dark with fear, your lips so close I could see the dim sheen on them, their texture of cranberry skins.
The family opinion that I am “strange” and “cold” dates from that visit. You knew better. Didn’t you ask permission to bring my milk upstairs? I remember your face in the light of my little candle, the warmth of my heated blankets, the storm outside blowing as if it would knock the house down. You were too large for my room; you made it shrink. “You must tell me everything,” you said, “everything, even if it makes you afraid. Especially if it makes you afraid.” Such urgency in your voice. I was happy for the slight sting in my arm; without it, I might have thought I was dreaming.
Did you not say, dear Master, that the life of dreams is real?
I follow Nathanael through Hoffmann’s streets. When he goes to the opera, I am there, in a great fur the color of horn. When he buys tobacco I am there, turning over some postcards. My favorite amusement is to run beside him when, in the evenings, he goes out to settle his nerves with a bit of air. He runs faster, and I run faster—my feet are so light, so light! I can hear him whimpering, and even praying in a low voice. His fear is so strong! I breathe it in, like the odor of aqua vitae. He is rather beautiful, his brown hair cut long, his face pale as a lamp with suffering. These days he has grown somewhat shabby: his coat is stained, and a faint beard blurs his cheeks. I wish he looked more like you.
G.
My Dear Master,
My dreams are so lovely, they really ought to be turned into something—perhaps an opera. Yes, why not? I should call it Olimpia’s Ghost. Perhaps you and I could write it together: I would provide the dreams, and you the poetry. Let me know if you would like me to send you some notes. Like this: Evening. A dark garret. NATHANAEL, a young man of gloomy aspect, paces between the window and the fire. That was how I found him last night. When I entered, he crossed himself and sank to his knees, his upraised face capturing all the poor light in the room.
“Who are you? Who are you?” he whispered.
I said: “You know.”
“No!” he said. “You are not she.”
“But I am, Nathanael,” I told him gently. “I am her soul.”
He shook his head, recoiling toward the wall. “Never! I know my Olimpia’s pure soul: it looks at me out of her tranquil eyes.”
Well, I laughed at that. He covered his face. He cannot bear my laughter: Olimpia never laughs. “Come, show some spirit,” I said, prodding him with my foot. He began to strike his head against the wall, and when he seized the poker, determined to do himself a mischief, I decided to leave the room.
Outside, the streets were lightly dusted with snow. Winter is coming early to the dream city, just as it is coming here. Walking beside the dream canal, I hummed a snatch of tune which, now that I come to think of it, might become an aria for Olimpia’s Ghost. I think I should call it “The Hidden Life of Dolls.” It will be sung by the Ghost herself, of course. The tune is similar to “Ach, du lieber Augustin.” I am only really happy with two lines:
See! the midnight clock is shining brightly.
It is the dolls’ moon.
Is it not rather fine? Perhaps it is not exactly poetry; but you will take care of that. I remember a golden day, so long it seemed nearly endless, and the strawberries in the meadow, and you told us a fortune-teller had predicted you would become a cabinet minister. Emil said it was possible; he might be
come one too, why not; you might both have distinguished careers, for being Jewish was hardly a handicap nowadays. You stared at him in amazement. “A cabinet minister! Is that what you envision for me? Boiled beef at dinner, and speech-writing afterward? Thank you very much!”
I understood you perfectly. I said: “Sigmund will be a poet.”
You looked at me, grateful and sunburned, your shirt open at the neck. “There!” you said, triumphant. “Gisela knows me best, after all.” And we both laughed at Emil, you and I together.
Then, of course, he blushed, and claimed he was only joking, and that he would be a painter. But he will do no such thing. He will inherit the dye-works.
What of you, dear Master?
This morning my eyes were crusted shut, as if I had slept for many days. The Sandman has been here!
G.
My Dear Master,
Last night I pursued him into a church. I wore a barometer at my waist like a reticule. Clumps of candles shone here and there in the huge dark sanctuary, tiny and far apart, like autumn crocuses in a plain of mud.
These lines, I notice, make me sound rather restless and unhappy. Be sure that I am nothing of the sort. My health is splendid: Mother has had to let out all of my dresses, and my hair has grown so thick I can scarcely grasp it in both hands. It is true that I go up and down the stairs more frequently than ever, but only because it is too wet to go out. I must tire myself somehow, and nobody likes my moving about so much, either in the house or in the dye-shop. And so: to the stairs. The old carpeting is almost all worn away, and the polished wood underneath gleams beautifully, rich as fat. I hurry down, for I get the most relief from climbing up again, toward the little hall window that frames a patch of sky.
I begin to be frightened for him. When I entered the church his shock and horror were so great that he collapsed in the aisle, foaming at the lips. The priest and the other good people there took him away to a back room, where I hovered anxiously until he regained consciousness. He looked very thin, very frail, like a glass angel. I slipped away before he noticed me. I could hear him weeping as I went out of the church. What if he should die? I am haunted by the awful conclusion to Hoffmann’s tale.