by Nick Caistor
But, her diminutive interlocutor insisted, there were other forms of expression. Life itself was expression. And in the case of an artist like her…
No! There was no substitute for the proper articulation of language. What was not said with words in well-turned phrases was not said at all. And even when she had cherished the hope that her modest, subordinate artistic endeavour might say something, her husband had been sure to silence her. Why otherwise had he chosen this circular format for his photographs, which encompassed everything and left her stuck in a centre that no one could reach, like one of those spellbound princesses in fairy tales?
She must have anticipated some expression of doubt from the little Buddhist monk because she immediately added that she was putting far too poetic a gloss on a more sordid and much crueller reality. In real life there were no enchanted princesses, only hopes extinguished by routine, by prosaic and gradual deaths. Her marriage now was nothing more than an empty shell. She had no idea why they dragged round the world a fiction that weighed on them like a curse. Out of inertia, convenience, fear? She felt she was wasting the last shreds of her youth next to a man she did not love; a selfish, unhealthy man obsessed by his stupid photographic tricks. If at least he were a true artist! But not even then: she had no vocation for self-sacrifice. She wanted to be herself, whatever that was worth.
But couldn’t they rebuild… ?
There was nothing to rebuild. There had never been anything. She regretted that she had become this ultra-conventional figure of the wife who once she starts complaining about her husband cannot stop until she has reached the heights of nihilism, but it was true: there had never been love, or spiritual communion, not even good sex. Can you believe, she asked him, that in my whole life I’ve never had an orgasm?
Somewhat embarrassed, the little Buddhist monk admitted he could believe it.
The story of the black bitch Firefly had affected her through a kind of inter-species recognition. Especially because, above and beyond the easy equivalences, she herself had become the subject of a story that could be told in a drawing-room or a monks’ picnic and give rise to sympathetic or mocking comments… and then be forgotten. There was nothing memorable about the novel of her life, which anyway she had not written. Who had said that truths could be told through art? That was absurd. What was needed was to learn to talk, and to do it well. The stuff of language was not subordinate to feelings or ‘expression’; on the contrary, it was primordial: everything began and ended there. It was like jokes. Let him try telling a joke through tapestries.
‘But not all jokes are linguistic.’
‘The good ones are.’
What was she doing talking to him about jokes, after the lesson he had given them on the subject? Perhaps for her, he said, the time for jokes had already been and gone; perhaps it would be better to give in to tiredness, to disgust, and forget everything, even her resentment. But it was inevitable that some jokes would remain in suspense, waiting for the punchline (because, since she was not Korean, she put this at the end). Although possibly he should not talk of resignation, or even of acceptance. Reality could do without those gestures, which were mere psychobabble. The biological process was not like traditional Korean jokes; weariness and old age came at the end, not the beginning. It was like the career of those artists who as they approach the finish begin to lose energy and inventiveness, and start doing things in a slapdash way, however they can. After all, a joke that goes on too long is also bound to have a hasty, untidy ending.
XIII
By the time a short sharp whistle indicated that the camera’s automatic mechanisms were completing their 360° sweep, the ‘blue hour’ had arrived in the sky. An intense, deep luminosity filled the air. The birds had fallen silent; the monks had gone off to sleep. This moment, which prolonged itself, was day and night at the same time. A radiant night and a dark day. In the depths of the sanctuary, the fat, bronze Buddha still glowed. Hanging from the edge of the shrine, a drop of Coca-Cola refused to fall, held by its own transparent brilliance, streaked with veins of gold and fiery red, its liquid curves reflecting the near and the far.
Napoleon and Jacqueline dismantled the tripod and picked up the photoelectric cells, wrapped the rolls of negative in black plush and put everything into their backpack. They commented on the session and anticipated a satisfactory outcome.
‘But what’s become of our little friend?’
The distraction of packing up had led them to lose sight of the little Buddhist monk. They looked for him at their feet, among the columns of the balcony, behind the geraniums that were closing up one by one, under the mushrooms. For a moment they feared they had unwittingly stuffed him in their backpack along with everything else. Eventually, when they looked up, they spotted him in the distance, doing gymnastics on top of a mound. His tiny figure stood out alone, dark but with every detail of his silhouette visible and clear and, whether due to the distance, the undulating terrain or the dim light, it took on a strange monumentality. It might also have been because of the activity he was engaged in. It was plain he was a practised gymnast because of the harmonious precision with which he carried out his routine of bends, stretches and twists. He must do this every day, but today had not had the opportunity until now. They stood fascinated as they gazed at him, thinking: ‘How strange he is!’ Above all, the colours made the scene unreal. How strange it was… Napoleon Chirac attempted to analyse the elements that made up the strangeness of the situation; he realised that throughout the day, caught up in the constant succession of events, he had not thought seriously about what was going on. He had an analytical mind of which he was generally very proud, except for when he forgot to use it. Now, taking advantage of this interval of calm, he set it in motion. Out of a sense of professional respect, the first element he isolated was the light. He had not found any complaint with the light all day, and the vigorous phantom of it that still persisted could have provided a thousand photographers with a living. It was truly sublime, or perfect, or any other laudatory adjective that might be used for this homogeneous glow descending from a homogeneously blue sky, a blue as dark and shiny as a topaz. This admiration for the blue hour that had inspired so many poets and painters had a long history in his own life. He had been privileged to admire it in all latitudes, and it was always the same, although of course he had never seen it illuminate a tiny little man doing gymnastics on a distant hill. A small animated idol who threw no shadow on the ground… This last point, which proved to be the key to the enigma, was logical, because the blue hour comes about when the sun has completely set and in the sky there are not even clouds to reflect or concentrate its rays from the far side of the horizon.
The key was hovering close to his awareness, and at that moment crossed the threshold and left him dumbfounded: there had never been a sun in the sky! Throughout their long day of adventures, the sun had been absent. It hadn’t been hidden behind clouds or mists: from the morning on, the sky had been clear and bright, the air as sparkling as a diamond.
He told this to Jacqueline in such an anxious rush that at first she did not understand. He had to repeat himself.
Are you sure, Nap?
Fickle as only a woman can be, she had forgotten her resentment and relapsed into the friendly complicity of their years of marriage.
Absolutely sure. I’m never wrong about that kind of thing.
Yes… I was thinking something strange was going on.
They whispered together excitedly, not once taking their eyes off the little Buddhist monk.
Why then, she went on, did I feel so hot at times?
At times? So had he! But at others he had been freezing. So had she! Neither of them had mentioned it, in order not to interrupt the flow of conversation that had in fact never been interrupted. The revelations all fell into place. The sun was a tiny glandular nerve centre situated in the rear half of the brain, from where it regulated body temperature; without it, the waves of heat
and cold switched back and forth at random…
One thing led to another, and their suspicions grew and grew. The little Buddhist monk had led them into a parallel world they had to escape from before it was too late. But how? They didn’t think they would be able to find the train station to take them back to the city centre. They had been very rash in allowing themselves to be taken so far, but before that they had been even more rash in trusting everything they were seeing and hearing uncritically, without thinking… At that moment, a big black limousine with a French Embassy licence plate pulled up behind them. They had been so involved in their discussion they had not heard it, and anyway its engine was no more than a scarcely audible purr. It had tinted windows. The back door opened and an urgent voice told them to get in. They did so, not forgetting their things.
The deus ex machina who made room for them on the back seat was an extremely elegant and perfumed Frenchman. He immediately ordered the chauffeur to drive off, and then began recriminating with them (as they had done with themselves) for having come so far; it had cost him a lot of hard work to find them. The excused themselves by saying they were not the ones to blame: their guide… Your guide! The Frenchman interrupted them scornfully: Yes, that was quite the little guide you picked up! The implicit joke about the monk’s size led to a lessening of the tension. Napoleon and Jacqueline both giggled, and suddenly realised they had been repressing the desire to laugh since that morning. Jean-Claude de la Chaumière, Minister of Culture and Inter-Faiths, introduced himself suavely, but with a hint of impatience. It was lucky they had telephoned the consulate before leaving the hotel. They asked how he had managed to find them. Luck, chance, a hunch. The car interior was padded and at a warm, even temperature. The chauffeur wore a red plastic cap and was concentrating on his driving. They were speeding along the narrow park paths, sweeping off the leaves on the peonies that lined the route. The diplomat pressed the tip of his finger against the car window to point something out. The little Buddhist monk was chasing after them through the trees as fast as he could, waving his arms and shouting inaudible words. He did not catch them, and they were soon on the motorway, still picking up speed.
Can you explain, Monsieur de la Chaumière, who that little creature was?
Of course he could, said their saviour. Nothing easier, especially since he had already been obliged to explain it more than once. To start with, the little Buddhist monk was not a human being like them, but a 3-D digital creation. That was so obvious he couldn’t understand how they had not realised, although they shouldn’t feel too bad about it because they were not the first to be fooled. Like others before them, they had the excuse of having just arrived, desperate for exoticism, credulous and blinded by the illusions of the myth of Korea. Let this be a lesson to them; now they had been warned, the next time they should be more observant. After all, it was not so hard to spot, because the fake was obvious: first and foremost because of his tiny size, which they must have noticed. And if that were not enough, there was something obviously unfinished about him, which his creators had left as a prototype. Because of contractual and commercial problems, they had broken off their work midway when it was only half completed. Since he was only a ‘rough draft’, an unpolished version, the creature showed clear traces of the manufacturing process. You had to be either very unobservant or very accommodating not to see this.
The photographer and his wife confessed shamefacedly that they had accepted everything far too easily. How innocent they had been! There was no excuse. But why had he chosen them as victims?
By chance. It could have been anybody else, provided they were European or North American. Foreigners were programmed in the character’s memory chip, and this was related to the contractual difficulties he had mentioned. The creators of the Show of the Little Buddhist Monk had thought of it as something they could export in order for it to be economically viable. When they were halfway through their work, they learned of the customs barriers the western countries were raising, under pressure from TV companies and the big studios. And so they had postponed finishing their project until they could discover some loophole they could take advantage of. They were using their pilot model to do this. That was why he was allowed to roam freely, in search of unwary victims. Fortunately, all the consular services had been warned, so that they could act rapidly and things never became too serious.
XIV
Night had fallen, and the little Buddhist monk had been left all alone, far from home. His plan had failed: the birds had flown. With hindsight, he realised he had let his imagination run away with him. How was someone so small and weak going to trap such huge, powerful quarry in his nets? Greater feats had been heard of, but not in cruel reality.
The effort had also taken it out of him. He felt completely exhausted from all the day’s tension. He had not been able to take his siestas (because normally he had three, one in mid-morning, one after lunch and the third before supper); he had been on the move the whole time; and in addition, being constantly in company was tiring for him, as he could only relax when he was on his own. Now that this much-needed solitude had arrived, he could not enjoy it because he had gone beyond his limits and every nerve in his body was as taut as a steel cable. The lax muscles could no longer support the weight of this metallic structure. He was weary to the point of collapse, and believed he could no longer stay upright…
And yet… Not only did he have to stay upright, but to walk and even run. He had to make one last huge effort, one that made it impossible for him to think of resting. The collapse of his strategy in getting close to the foreigners and the consequent pain of failure was no more than a little added anxiety compared to the emergency he still had to face: getting home.
And getting there quickly! There wasn’t a second to lose. Time was taking its revenge. All the magical suspensions of the moment that he had used to enchant the French couple were dissolving, leaving only an inflexible, unavoidable horizon.
Between him and home lay a forest that he had to cross on foot. He was not afraid of getting lost (fear did not even enter his mind) because he knew it from memory and could not get lost if he wanted to, even in complete darkness, as it would doubtless be on this occasion. But darkness was never complete for him, because his own body, or possibly its movement, gave off a glow. In reality he was not thinking of the forest or the darkness; his thoughts were limited with absolute insistence to the goal of his journey: his home. He might have said – and would have done had there been anyone to talk to – ‘My home is my castle.’ And his home was pure light. The correct term would have been ‘little home’ because of how small and empty it was. In his home there was literally nothing, apart from a television set that was always on at night.
It was the light from that screen, intensified by his sense of urgency, that was guiding him, just as the shooting star had guided the shepherds of myth. In his troubled imagination it became pure light, an endless, saving regard. In fact it was the television that was the reason for his urgency. At ten o’clock sharp, the moment after the end of Children’s Scheduling was signalled and some cute little dolls packed the children off to bed with a lullaby, a programme he could not miss was due to begin. He had been waiting weeks for it, and that very morning when he went out it had been uppermost in his mind, to the extent that, even though it was only nine o’clock, he told himself he would just go out for a walk and get a bit of fresh air and then come back quickly so that he would not miss a minute of the programme… However, the adventure with the French couple had intervened, and now he was in this dreadful hurry. He could not believe his bad luck, although he had to, because it was his own fault: he had been too reckless, and had allowed improvisation to take over.
Well, no use crying over spilt milk. He didn’t waste time lamenting, or allow self-recrimination to paralyse him. He was already in the forest, frantically moving his tiny legs along what he hoped was the straightest line. He knew that ‘a thousand-league jour
ney starts with one step’, and was taking all the steps he could. He weaved in and out of the trees, skirted bushes, searched for firm support on the roots jutting above ground to launch himself forwards, always forwards. He stumbled and fell, and sometimes rolled over, but nothing could stop him. His one thought was to arrive, to get there in time.
He couldn’t even calculate whether he would arrive, because he had no idea how long it took to cross the forest. Although he had often done so, he had never timed himself. Besides, he had no idea what time it was. He did have a wristwatch, but could not see it in the darkness. He tried, raising his arm almost up to his face and attempting to make sure the feeble glow he gave off lit the minuscule dial, but he couldn’t see a thing, and didn’t want to waste any more time. So he lowered his arm and set off even more rapidly than before. A little further on, and his curiosity got the better of him. He attempted a second time to make out the position of the watch hands. It seemed to him there was only one… were they on top of each other, making it ten to ten? But then he thought he could see three hands, or twelve, or none at all. The only thing he could be certain of was that time kept passing inexorably by, and it would soon be ten o’clock, if it wasn’t that already. And he was filled with a boundless anxiety at the thought that he might miss the programme, or worse still, that he was missing it at that very moment, because they weren’t going to wait for him to show it, at ten… ten o’clock sharp…
It wasn’t just another programme; he had reason to consider it so important. It had been trailed for weeks, and from the moment he heard about it, along with many millions more Koreans, he had been on tenterhooks, waiting for the date and time of its transmission.