Winter's Tale

by Mark Helprin

  “Because,” said Virginia, “in those rare times when all things coalesce to serve beauty, symmetry, and justice, it becomes the color of gold—warm and smiling, as if God were reminded of the perfection and complexity of what He had long ago set to spinning, and long ago forgotten.”

  They were the keenest of observers. Because they stayed home all day in an apartment building that was like a vast beehive, they grew sensitive to many things that most people overlooked. For example, the building in its entirety became a musical instrument as unattended telephones rang through various parts in many tones and muted intensities (variations depended upon distance from the hearer, how many walls were in between, the wind, whether a window was open or not, the original pitch, etc.). They listened as if to the birdsong that penetrates the dark voluminous mass of a forest. The plumbing—rushing water in impenetrable caverns—spoke to them as authoritatively as if it had been the underground rivers of Hades. From their high perch they saw at eye level the freer movements of flight, and could sense the harmony between the birds and the blue air, something that did not exist close to the ground in the shallows and straits. They made the telephone “sing to itself” (via a feedback and interference loop) as if it were a farmyard pet. From their mountainlike redoubt they observed the subtleties of sound and light in thunderstorms, dusk, and dawn. They could tell time by the half-mile shadows of nearby buildings, and by the clouds of scented air (sweeter and heavier than half the perfumes of Arabia) which upwelled along the walls and over the terraces when professional ladies showered and bathed by the hundreds as if to sanctify the space between eight and eight-thirty in the morning.

  Marko Chestnut said that they were as attentive to nature as they would have been had they grown up on a farm or in the mountains. “It is true,” he said, “that they live in a machine—the city itself. But if the machine can emerge from nature, then, surely, nature can emerge from the machine.”

  Every Saturday, he painted portraits of children—either singly or in groups. His studio was downtown, near The Sun, overlooking the approach to the Manhattan Bridge. One rainy day in spring, Abby and Martin came to him in their yellow slickers. This pleased him a great deal, because the real oilskin in the Coheeries slickers was dappled with light brown, and the deep yellow was subdued by gray light from a busy sky full of rain and wind. The colors of the children’s flushed faces, their young eyes and hair, and the slate-colored rain-light were just what he wanted. Not knowing exactly what was expected of them, they were embarrassed and terrified, and thought of Marko Chestnut as a kind of medical personality. It was almost impossible to get them talking, and when they did speak, they spoke in whispers. He fed them cranberry juice and chocolate-chip cookies, and gave them little paint sets, magnets, matchbox trucks, and museum catalogs.

  They stayed in his studio for several hours, watching the rain and the lashings of the wind as intently as he watched them. All they could hear was the rain—washing the gutters and the sides of buildings, dashing off the roofs, and flowing in the streets. Abby walked over to the canvas, grasped Marko Chestnut’s brush, and said that it sounded like the rain. It did, and Marko Chestnut thought that, indeed, nature was in the beams, girders, and engines of the city; in all things and their arrangements; in a still life illuminated by an electric bulb as much as in a wheat-colored field in pure sunlight. The laws were the same, and ever-present.

  Whereas in his wildest imaginings Marko Chestnut had dared to think that the city and its orphaned machines might find their origins and come awake, the children already had greater things in mind—flight and rising, the whole world rising to the perfection beyond the ragged edges of the ragged machine in which they lived.

  SOMEWHERE IN the city of the poor, the white horse, Athansor, was imprisoned in a mill, turning a creaking central shaft by walking a circle under a heavy beam to which he was harnessed. He rested only when the dilapidated machinery he powered broke down, or when the materials it processed were in short supply. Otherwise, he worked continuously. He could eat as much oats and hay and have as much water as he wanted, taking them on the run when he passed a recess in the wall into which the fodder and water were fed by gravity. The wood and metal around the recess had been polished by countless horses swooping in and rubbing against it as they ate or drank.

  Here, horses were run down in a month or two, and died from exhaustion often before the keepers could shoot them for stopping. The practice of working an animal until he died meant that the mill had to come by about ten horses a year, whereas, if they had kept three on alternating shifts, they could have worked them for the whole of the horses’ natural lives. But the city of the poor had its own economics, and in the end the owners of the mill found themselves in the black, because they got their horses for next to nothing—from carts that the horses could no longer pull, from lots where they had strayed, and from the horrible stables in burnt-out tenements to which thieves transported them from the countryside in the dead of night.

  After they were worked to death, they were cut up for meat and hide. The viscera went for rendering, the hooves and bones for glue. There was profit for the workers who worked the margins, for the devilish, the greedy, and the shortsighted, and their little industry consumed horses at a terrible rate.

  But not Athansor. They had taken him from the arena thinking that he could go for many more rounds than those of his innocent cousins apprehended at night in mountain pastures and trucked into the bowels of the city. Once, a prize Virginia Percheron had run the mill for five months, never stopping, with a determination that astonished even his hardened captors. They pegged the white horse for no more than that, since he was about the same weight but was built almost like a thoroughbred. And they reckoned that he would go under sooner than the Percheron, because he was a fighting horse and the Percheron had been a worker.

  They did not know, however, that Athansor had no intention of going under, whether in the sea, drawing a junk cart, or hooked to a perpetual mill. How could they have known that he consumed perpetuity the way that the mill had consumed horses, and fed upon it much as he fed upon the oats and water that they provided? The origins of his strength were, for them, a mystery, but they saw quite clearly that the more he was driven, the stronger he got. He carried the beam in fever and sweat, in lightness and elation, in sorrow, when his heart felt as if it had stopped, through blindness and dawn, trembling with weakness, or dancing with strength. But he carried it forward, and he never missed a step.

  During the first few weeks of August, it was very hot, and in the afternoon, or even at night, he would sometimes be covered with froth, and his sores and wounds would open and fester. When fall came and the air cleared, he knew what was intended for him, so he raised his head, shook his clotted mane, and looked forward. For he was the engine that pushes the seasons, and the mill that grinds the salt in the sea. In winter, half the circle that he worked was covered with snow and ice, and it was hard to get traction. But he found enough traction to take him into and through spring. And then there was that perfect June when he knew that he was in the clear, and when every step he took was another victory. Early that summer, when beautiful weather alternated with quick and stupendous lightning storms that boomed out thundercracks in a war upon the canyons, he was sustained and buoyed by many things, not the least of which was the wonder of his tormentors when they saw that he was still alive.

  From a third of the circle, he was able to see westward over the plains of brick and rubble, the ridges of charred houses, and the river, to the skyline. That he could see this marvelous, shining thing, no doubt sustained him as well.

  A BELL tolled. It tolled for the mayor as he rode on a city launch down the East River from Gracie Mansion to City Hall. And it did not stop tolling until he walked into his office, put on his ceremonial robes, and called on the chief marshal to announce that the mayor was “in his office at the pleasure of the people, ready to govern for the greater good, and pleased that the sun is risen over
the intact and thriving city.” This was an ancient ceremony that many took for granted. But every day it provided the mayor with an egalitarian perspective, a reminder of his task, and a sense of continuity.

  The council of elders (on which Harry Penn and Craig Binky managed to coexist) met before the inauguration of each mayor solely to choose an appellation for him. Though the name was purely symbolic and would neither unseat him nor guarantee his reelection, it weighed heavily with the electorate and in the conscience of the man himself—if he had one. For he would be known in perpetuity by the name that would smother out his given name entirely and fuse his history to that of the city. Thus, mayors had resigned or committed suicide when the council of elders had called them the Ash Mayor, the Bone Mayor, the Rag Mayor, and similar names. Others had swallowed hard and continued on, despite being called the Fox Mayor, the Egg Mayor, or the Bird Mayor (since, in politics, gentle ridicule and gentle reprimands could always be borne). There were those who suffered neither ridicule nor condemnation, whose administrations were favored either by their own talents and luck, or by the felicity of the age. They had been given splendid names with which to spend the rest of history. They were the Ivory Mayor, the Water Mayor, the River Mayor, and (once, at the turn of the century, when the council of elders had decided to call attention to the approaching millennium) the Silver Mayor. How the council knew in advance the character of the mayor and his term was a mystery even to him. Certainly Craig Binky didn’t know. And even Harry Penn was amazed by the strong and absolute sense of the future that permeated their meetings.

  The present officeholder would finish his term either when the first ice was seen on the river (usually in late January) or when the first flower bloomed in Prospect Park (late March), and would be up for election the previous November. Considering that his predecessor had been the Sulfur Mayor, he had done rather well in winning the title of Ermine Mayor. In the complex symbology of the titles, this signified a pleasant harmony, because the robes of office were ermine, and the council of elders seemed to be suggesting that man and office were properly suited. It pleased him very much, did not go to his head, and boded well for his reelection. True, he looked like a hard-boiled egg and had a high-pitched voice, but he was a skilled politician and a fair man who had fulfilled the responsibilities of office with balance and humor. And, lest it be forgotten, he was supported by the most awesome and omnipotent political machine that ever was—a virtual parallel government that worked every kind of magic, from Christmas baskets, of which literally millions were distributed, to computer recognition. Hooked up to a powerful mainframe, the mayor knew the name, nickname, and favorite food of everyone with whom he shook hands. Though his campaign conversation grew tiresome (“Hey, Jackie, how’s the lasagna been treating you lately?” or, “Good to see you, Nick. Boy, do I love eggrolls!”), the technique seemed to get votes.

  The Ermine Mayor had three offices, each at a different level and each for a different purpose. The City Hall office, closest to the ground, was the place for ceremony and tradition. In the Old City Hall, string quartets often played for the public, and there were many fine paintings. Each mayor could go to the gallery of his predecessors and see in their ancient portraits the smiles and eyes of men like himself looking forward from the past to offer reassurance and courage, as if to say that when one was finished one could view the struggles of one’s life and term with equanimity.

  The high offices were half a mile up, at the top of one of the tallest towers. The city spread out below them, and clouds drifted under the windows. From these offices the city was so remote that it seemed to be only blocks and cells of color that took the sun and softly glittered. Here it was easy to make decisions that would benefit the future, for here it was not possible to see faces, or to listen to the cries of those overcome by the waves of history.

  The third office was fifteen floors up, in a building on the Battery. Its wide windows gave out on the harbor, the sea, the fields of Governor’s Island, the rust-colored brick of Brooklyn Heights, and the greenswards of Brooklyn’s parks and cemeteries. From this office, the mayor was afforded a middle view. He could see far, and yet he was able to make out the moving forms of men below. The ships which cut wolflike up Buttermilk Channel were far more arresting than the little toys on blue glass that they seemed to be when he was in the high office. When he had the middle perspective, these ships could speak to him of the ocean. Their bow waves were visible, rolling over, bridal veils in the wind, and with binoculars one could see the pilots’ hand calls as the ships made their perilous runs through the tidal shallows.

  In the middle offices, with mild light coming in through the wide windows, the Ermine Mayor accomplished most of the city’s business. Because they were neither as moving nor as worn as his chambers in City Hall, nor as ethereal as the higher ones, they were the best place in which to deal with the paradoxical questions that are the heart of politics. He was good when he was in the middle, in Purgatory, as he referred to it, and here he received most of his callers, including Praeger de Pinto.

  The editor-in-chief of The Sun had been in this office many times, and he slumped down in a comfortable leather chair as if it belonged to him. “What’s going on?” he asked the Ermine Mayor.

  “I don’t know. What’s going on?” the Ermine Mayor replied.

  “I believe you do know.”

  “What are you talking about, Praeger? What’s the matter with you? Have you caught Binky-itis or something?”

  “All right, I’ll be specific. Last week, you went aboard the ship in the Hudson. Our reporters wrote that you looked worried and miserable, and on television you had the air of a prisoner walking his last mile.

  “Two hours later, the launch pulls up to the dock and the Ermine Mayor jumps out as if his legs are made of steel springs. He’s smiling as if someone has put a baton between his cheeks, and—in front of the entire city—you, the Mayor, do a little dance on the pier.”

  The mayor threw his head back and laughed, probably recalling whatever it was that had made him dance.

  “In the week that’s followed, you haven’t seen the press once.”

  “I’ve been busy.”

  “The city is going mad trying to figure out what’s on that ship and to whom you talked. The Ghost, your ally, has compared your dance to Hitler’s victory jig in Paris. Do you want that? Do you realize the pressure that’s building up for us to unravel this whole thing, and the damage that could be done to you if the public perceives that you are in league against its curiosity?”

  “My job,” said the mayor, “isn’t to do your work for you. If you don’t know who’s on that ship, it’s not my problem. Why don’t you go out there and ask? You know, hire a boat.”

  “We have our own boat. We were out there half an hour after the ship dropped anchor. I’m sure you’re aware that they don’t let anyone on board, that they won’t even speak over the rails. But we’re working on it. There are lots of ways to skin recalcitrant cats. However, since you know, you ought to give us an indication. . . .”

  “Or The Sun won’t support me this fall.”

  “Politics is the art of equation. We very well might not support you.”

  “Just for that?”

  “In our view, it’s not a minor matter. The mayor has what the city wants and he won’t put out. Why should the city put out for him?”

  “What if it were in the city’s best interests that I keep quiet?”

  “How is anyone to judge?”

  “There is no way. Its best if I keep my counsel.”

  “Why don’t you let the people decide what’s best?”

  “Because, in this case, they can’t.”

  “I don’t understand what you’re doing,” Praeger said. “Television is going to hammer you to death.”

  “I realize that.”

  “How do you expect to be reelected?”

  The Ermine Mayor smiled. “Who’s running against me?”

  “No on
e, yet.”

  “That’s right. And by the time anyone does, it’ll be too late. This is the middle of June. Who’s going to match my two hundred ward captains, and twenty thousand precinct workers, in three and a half months?”

  “They’re not an infallible guarantee.”

  “I’ll have to take it nonetheless.”

  “Why?” Praeger asked, wanting not to believe the Ermine Mayor’s inexplicable transformation from a statesmanlike leader to a bunker politician.

  “Look,” said the mayor. “If you were to run against me, win, and then find out yourself about this question, you would then do exactly as I’m doing.”

  “That’s what you think.”

  “That’s what I know. A great opportunity awaits this city, and I’m going to deliver it. I care about history: I’m quite willing to sacrifice my career. Anyway, who the hell will run against me?”

  “Maybe I will,” said Praeger.

  The Ermine Mayor hesitated. “That’s not even a joke. This city never elects tall, clean-cut, literate men—unless their heads are full of cotton, or they’re deeply corrupt. You’re too smart and too honest even to get the nomination of an idealistic fringe party. And how would you deal with the machine?”

  “Maybe I’d bypass it entirely,” answered Praeger, who had no idea whatsoever of running for office, and was merely following the Ermine Mayor’s lead.

  “Can’t be done, though, I admit, it’s the dream of every young man. I suppose it starts with children. They want to be President, they make wonderful speeches in the shower, they are lifted by the divine political afflatus, and they never make it. Nor should they. This is a world of savage equalities. The city has to be run by a hard man, not by someone who makes magic with a pen. And the city knows it.”

  “What about the Silver Mayor?”

  “He wrote it all down after he did it, not before.”

  “I haven’t written anything down,” Praeger said. “And I may be a bit rougher than you think.”