But this was visible for only the briefest of moments; the space between the river and the train obstructed by the row of silver grass soon after, and although they caught sight of Swan Island twice more behind the train, it was soon so tiny and so far off, it now only seemed no more than a painting; and after the wind rustled the silver grass one more time, it vanished from sight altogether.
A tall catholic nun, who had boarded the train at some stage, was sitting behind Giovanni wearing a black veil, her large hazel eyes staring directly down in a reverential pose, as if expecting to hear some kind of message or voice from that direction. The other travelers quietly returned to their seats and the two boys began talking in hushed voices about this entirely new feeling; a kind of overwhelming sadness.
"We're nearly at Swan Station."
"Yeah, we'll get there right on 11 O'clock."
Before long, green signal lights and dull white pillars began to flash by, after which the lights in front of the railroad switch, like shadowy flames of sulfur, passed beneath the window, as the train continued to slow. Soon the lights of the platform came into view, in a beautiful neat row, gradually growing in size, the distance between each widening, before the train finally came to a stop; the two boys now directly in front of the large clock at Swan Station.
On this crisp autumn evening, the two blue-steel hands on the clock's dial pointed exactly to 11 O'clock. All the other passengers alighted and the carriage was suddenly empty.
A note beneath the clock said:
Stopping for 20 minutes
"Shall we get off too?" suggested Giovanni.
"Yeah, let's."
The two boys jumped up, raced out the door and ran toward the ticket gate. But the ticket gate was completely deserted, and there was nothing but a single bright purple light. They looked all about but there was no sign of a station master or porter anywhere.
They came out into a small courtyard of ginkgo trees that appeared to be made of fine quartz crystal. From there they could see a wide road that continued straight through the blue light of the Celestial River.
There was no sign of any of the other passengers who had also gotten off the train. As the two boys walked side by side down this white road, their shadows multiplied endlessly in every direction, like two columns inside a room with windows on all sides, or the spokes of two wheels.
Before long they arrived at the beautiful river bank they had seen from the train.
Campanella took a handful of the magnificent sand and spread it out on his palm, making it squeak as he drew his finger across it. Then, as if in a dream, he said,
"They are all quartz. There's a tiny flame inside each one."
"Yeah, I know," answered Giovanni absent-mindedly, though he wondered how he could have.
All the stones by the river bank were transparent. Here they could see quartz and topaz, and sapphires with wrinkles and creases from which pale blue light radiated out, rising up like a mist. Giovanni ran down to the shoreline and placed his hands in the water. But this mysterious water of the Celestial River was even more transparent than hydrogen. They could tell that it was really flowing because the water where they submerged their hands turned a slight mercury-color; and the ripples caused by the water bouncing off their wrists gave off a beautiful phosphorescence, flickering as if it were a flame.
Further upstream, continuing alongside the river, they could see a large white rock, as level as a school playground, jutting out from beneath a cliff face covered in silver grass. On top of the rock they could see the silhouettes of five or six people that were standing up and bending down as if digging up or burying something, light occasionally glimmering off the tools in their hands.
"Come on, let's go," they cried in unison, and ran off in that direction. When they got to the white rock there was a shiny smooth ceramic sign that said 'Pliocene Coast.'
The area leading down towards the shoreline was dotted with thin metal handrails fixed to the ground, and beautiful wooden benches.
Campanella stopped to pick up something black lying on top of the rock that had a long thin pointy end.
"This is weird," he said, a curious look on his face.
"It's a walnut. Look, there's heaps of them. But they didn't wash up here. They've come out of the rock."
"It's big. It's twice as big as a normal one. And it doesn't look damaged at all."
"Come on, let's go have a look over there. I bet they are digging something up."
The boys continued walking over toward where the others were gathered, jagged black walnuts in hand. To their left, waves of fire lapped at the shoreline like gentle streaks of lightning, while on the cliff to their right, a sea of silver grass, like a sheet of silver or sea shells, rocked gently in the breeze.
As they came nearer they saw that a tall man with thick spectacles and gumboots, evidently some kind of professor, was giving out all kinds of instructions in earnest to three other assistant types that were swinging pickaxes and digging with shovels, as he scribbled busily into his notebook.
"Make sure you don't break off the bit that's sticking out. Use the shovel, use the shovel! Watch what you're doing! Don't dig so close. Not like that. Why do you have to be so rough?!"
From out of the soft white rock, the pale-blue bones of a giant beast, lying on its side as though it had been squashed, had been dug up, and were now further out of the ground than in it. And now they saw that lying here and there, were ten or so squarish sections of rock, each with a pair of hoof prints, neatly cut out and numbered.
"You've come to have a look, have you?" said the man who looked like a professor, light reflecting off his glasses as he turned toward the boys.
"There are a lot of walnuts, aren't there? Roughly speaking, they'd be about 1.2 million years old. Quite recent really. 1.2 million years ago, after the Tertiary Period, this was a seashore. There are seashells buried under here as well. Where you see the river flowing now would all have been ocean, with waves rolling in and out. This beast here is what is known as a bos... Hey! Don't use the pickax for that. Use a chisel and do it carefully…Yes, it was a bos. It's an ancestor of today's cattle, and many, many years ago there were lots of them."
"Are you making specimens?"
"No, we need it for proof. You see, people like us look at this and we can find proof of a large geological formation that was created about 1.2 million years ago. But for some people, they might not be able to see this geological formation, or they might only be able to see the wind and the water, or the bare open sky. Do you understand? But... Hey, watch what you're doing! Don't use a shovel for that. The ribs are probably buried underneath…!" cried the professor, running over in a huff.
"Ah, it's almost time. Let's head back," said Campanella looking from his map to his watch.
"Well, thank you very much, but we must be going now," said Giovanni, bowing politely to the professor.
"Is that so? Goodbye then," said the professor, resuming his busy demeanor, walking back and forth giving instructions.
Worried that they might miss the train, the two boys ran like the wind over the white rock. And they truly could run like the wind. They didn't get short of breath and their legs didn't start to burn.
If running was as easy as this, thought Giovanni, I could run right round the world.
They passed back over that beautiful river bank once more, and then they saw the light above the ticket gate growing larger and larger, and soon they were back in their seats, looking out through the window in the direction they had just come.
Chapter 8 - The Bird Catcher
"Do you mind if I sit here?" said a husky but gentle-sounding voice from behind.
Standing there was a red bearded man with hunched shoulders wearing a slightly ragged brown coat, carrying a bundle wrapped in a white cloth over each shoulder.
"Sure, go ahead," replied Giovanni with a shrug of his shoulders. The man carefully put his bundles up on the luggage rack, a gentl
e smile showing through his beard. Giovanni sensed in this man a kind of intense loneliness (or was it sadness), and so he sat staring silently at the station clock outside the window, when from way up ahead there came the sound of a glass whistle. The train was already moving silently along. Campanella was looking up and down the carriage ceiling; a black rhinoceros beetle was resting on one of the lamps and was casting an enormous shadow across it. The red-bearded man gave a kind of nostalgic smile as he looked at each of the boys. The train gained more and more speed, light and shade alternating with sections of river and silver grass outside.
"May I ask how far you boys are going?" inquired the red-bearded man with some hesitation.
"We are going forever," replied Giovanni a little embarrassed.
"Oh that's good. You know, this train really does go forever."
"Where are you going?" blurted out Campanella as if he were angry, which made Giovanni laugh. The man wearing a pointy red hat with large keys dangling from his waist sitting opposite, also gave a quick look over and laughed, which made Campanella go red in the face, and then he burst out laughing too. But the red-bearded man wasn't bothered in the least, and his cheeks twitched excitedly as he replied,
"I get off quite soon. I'm in the business of catching birds, you see."
"What kind of birds?"
"Cranes and wild geese. Herons and swans as well."
"Are there a lot of cranes around here?"
"Yes indeed, they have been squawking for some time now. Haven't you heard them?"
"No."
"Can you hear them now? There. Listen carefully."
The boys turned their eyes and ears skyward and listened as hard as they could. They heard the vibrations from the train going chugga-chugga, and in between the rustling of the silver grass they heard a sound like a babbling brook.
"Why do you catch cranes?
"Cranes? Or herons?"
"Herons," replied Giovanni, not fussed which.
"Well, they are really quite easy. You see, with the herons, because the sand of the Celestial River is so compact and hazy, and because they always come back to the river, I wait by the river bank, and when they come into land with their legs like this, I catch them just as they are about to touch the ground. And as soon as I grab them they go all stiff and die in peace. The rest is quite simple. I just press them flat."
"You press the herons? To use as specimens?"
"Not specimens. Why, people eat them of course."
"That's weird," said Campanella, cocking his head sideways.
"There's nothing weird or suspicious about it. Here." The man stood up, took the bundles down from the luggage rack and quickly unrolled one.
"Look at these. I just caught them now."
"Wow, they're really heron!" exclaimed the boys. Ten snow white herons were lined up as if they had been sculptured; their bodies, which shone like the Northern Cross they'd seen earlier, were flattened and their black legs tucked in.
"Their eyes are shut," said Campanella, gently pressing a finger against the closed white crescent-shaped eye of a heron. The birds still had their white spear-like hair on their heads.
"Now do you see?"
The bird catcher folded the cloth over on itself and then rolled it back up and tied it with a string.
"Are herons nice to eat?" asked Giovanni, who was wondering what kind of people could possibly want to eat herons from here.
"Yes, I receive orders for them every day. But I sell a lot more wild geese. Wild geese have a lot more meat, and best of all, they are no trouble to prepare. Here," said the bird catcher and untied the other bundle. Inside were yellow and pale-blue speckled geese, glowing like a strange kind of lamp, all lined up as the herons were before; their beaks together, their bodies flattened out.
"You can eat these right away. Please have some."
The bird catcher pulled lightly on the goose's yellow leg, and it broke cleanly off as if it were made of chocolate.
"Go ahead. Try it," said the bird catcher, tearing that piece in two and handing it to the boys. Giovanni put some in his mouth.
Ah, I knew it! This is candy, he thought. It tastes even better than chocolate. But there's no way this goose ever flew! This guy must own a candy store somewhere out in those fields out there. But I shouldn't be making fun of him while I eat his candy. I really feel sorry for him, thought Giovanni, still munching on the goose's leg.
"Please have some more," said the bird catcher, opening up his bundle again.
"Thanks, but I've had enough," said Giovanni, although he did want more.
The bird catcher then offered some to the man with the keys sitting opposite.
"Thank you kindly, but shouldn't I be giving you something for it," said the man, taking off his hat.
"No, no, it's my pleasure. So how are the migratory birds looking this year?
"It's been spectacular; really. Yesterday, around interval two, I had all these phone calls from people complaining about the light house being turned off outside regulation hours. But it wasn't my doing at all. All these migration birds formed a huge black mass as they passed in front of my light, so there was nothing I could do about it. I told them 'You silly numskulls! What's the point of complaining to me? Go tell that skinny old fella with the big baggy cloak, the long legs and the huge mouth! Ha ha ha, Ol' Scarecrow!"
The silver grass beside the track came to an end and the light from the distant field burst into the carriage.
"Why are herons so much trouble to prepare?" asked Campanella, as if he'd been waiting the whole time to ask.
"That's because, to eat a heron, you see," replied the bird catcher, as he turned to face the boys once more, "You either have to hang them in the light of the water of the Celestial River for ten days, or bury them in the sand for three to four days. That way the mercury vaporizes, and then they can be eaten."
"But this isn't a real bird. It's just candy, right?" asked Campanella matter-of-factly, having come to the same conclusion as Giovanni.
"Oh oh, I have to get off here," said the bird catcher in a fluster, and no sooner had he stood up to grab his bundles than he had completely vanished.
"Where did he go?"
Giovanni and Campanella looked at each other, but the lighthouse keeper just chuckled, stretching his neck round to look outside their window. When the boys also turned to look outside, they saw the bird catcher standing on a sea of pearly everlasting flowers glowing with a beautiful yellow and pale-blue phosphorescence; a look of intense concentration on his face, his arms spread wide apart, staring up into the sky.
"He's over there! How strange is that!? I bet he's going to catch more birds. I hope they come down before he gets left behind."
Just then, a massive flock of herons like the ones the man had just shown them, descended all at once from the deserted purple-blue sky, squawking like thunder: gyaah-gyaah gyaah-gyaah.
A look of great satisfaction came over the bird catcher's face as though everything had turned out just as he'd wished. He stood with his legs opened to exactly sixty degrees, and using both hands, he grabbed the black legs of the herons one after another as they came into land, placing the birds in his cloth sack. For a short time, the birds gave off a blue glow from inside the sack, blinking like fireflies; before closing their eyes and turning a smoky white color.
But the number of birds that landed unharmed on the sand beside the Celestial River without being caught, far outnumbered the ones that were. No sooner had those birds placed their feet on the bank of the river, than they shrank up and flattened out, just like melting snow, and in no time at all they had spread out on the sand and pebbles like molten copper taken straight from a furnace, the imprint of each bird remaining momentarily in the sand; and after glowing only two or three times, they could no longer be distinguished from the rest of their surroundings.
After he had placed twenty birds or so into his sack, he suddenly put both arms into the air like
a soldier who has just been mortally shot, and the next instant there was no sign of the bird catcher at all, but instead Giovanni heard a familiar voice coming from the seat beside him.
"Ah, that was invigorating! It's a tremendous feeling to earn no more than you need."
The boys turned to see the bird catcher with all of the herons he had just caught; laying them carefully on top of one another.
"How did you get from there to here so fast?" asked Giovanni, suddenly unsure of whether such a thing was normal or not.
"How did I? Well, I came because I chose to. By the way, where have you boys actually come from?"
Giovanni went to answer him right away, but then suddenly realized that he couldn't remember. Where had they come from? Campanella's face also turned red, as if he were trying to remember something too.
"I see. You've come a long way," said the bird catcher, simply nodding as though he understood.
Chapter 9 - Giovanni's Ticket
"This is the last of Swan Sector. Take a look. That's the great Albireo Observatory."
In the middle of the Celestial River that looked as if it were a mass of fireworks, stood four large black buildings, and silently orbiting above the flat roof of one of the buildings were two large, breathtakingly beautiful, transparent spheres of sapphire and topaz.
The yellow topaz sphere gradually orbited away from the train, while the smaller blue sapphire sphere orbited towards it. And then, as they crossed paths, their edges began to overlap, creating a beautiful green biconvex lens, of which the center slowly grew larger and larger, the sapphire eventually arriving directly in front of the topaz, forming a green circle surrounded by a yellow ring. It continued moving slowly sideways, repeating the shape of the previous lens in reverse, before finally separating completely, the sapphire now moving away from the train, the yellow sphere now moving towards it, orbiting once more as before.
The black observatory appeared to be sleeping, lying silently surrounded by the water of the Celestial River that was without shape or sound.
"It's a machine for measuring the speed of water," said the bird catcher. "Water ..." he started to say before he was cut off.
"Tickets please," said a tall conductor in a red cap, who had come up unnoticed and was now standing beside their seats. The bird catcher silently reached into his pocket and pulled out a small slip of paper. The conductor took a quick look at it before turning his attention to the boys, reaching out and moving his fingers as if to say - And how about you?
Night on the Milky Way Railway Page 3