City of Saints and Madmen

by Jeff VanderMeer

  SPORLENDER, VERDEN, AND THE EXCHANGE

  Frederick Madnok told me once that the idea first occurred to Louis Verden during his collaboration with Nicholas Sporlender on The Exchange. Whether Verden’s idea was sparked by violent disagreement or by the nature of the story, Madnok could not tell me . . .

  . . . Sporlender followed the teachings of Richard Peterson, the Fighting Philosopher. Verden had always been a rabid Strattonist--and strategist, as it turned out. At least, according to Madnok, who seems a reliable sort.

  Madnok confirms that copyright pages always brought out the worst in Verden. At one party, a drunken Verden (never a pleasant sight) cursed the day he had been brought into the world “a Verden, rather than, say, an Aardvark.” He was forever fated to have his name come second to Sporlender’s, and for admirers of their collaborations to flock to Sporlender.

  This especially rankled because Verden would make corrections to the text--additions and enhancements--while Sporlender often felt that his responsibility ended after he had turned in the final typed manuscript and illustration instructions. As for the idea behind The Exchange, Sporlender never commented, except to say in one interview, “It’s all there, for those who read it correctly.”

  In Ambergris, despite all of the city’s quirks, food does not squirm and wrestle with itself on the plate. In Ambergris, most things are possible, but not that. I do wonder about the nature of “food” in The Exchange. In all the literature I have read about the city, there is scarcely a recipe to be found, not even in the Hoegbotton guides. Yet here, we have a very explicit mention of a meal, in a pamphlet that serves as a Festival grace note. Odd.

  This panel shows Verden’s devotion to Strattonism--apparent in the leaf patterns, the clouded moon, the squid tentacles. In the upper right panel, the number of leaves equals the number of Strattonism’s Commandments. In the upper left panel, the number of leaves matches the list of proscribed activities set out in the Book of the Stratton. The moon? A moon as a lidded eye is a secret symbol of Strattonism. As for the tentacles, observe how two Strattonists greet each other when they meet.

  Some have thought that Sporlender, intentionally or not, used Verden as his model for the wife. This would certainly have rankled Verden, as it comes close to revealing one of his many secrets. From Ambergris’ outlawed squid clubs, Madnok has told me, comes the rumor of a woman resembling Verden who used to frequent the most diabolical of establishments. After paying for a night’s entertainment, this woman would take out a sketch pad and begin drawing the debaucheries.

  Certainly, with some embellishment the description of the old man fits Sporlender quite well. It is for this reason that many experts less eccentric than Madnok believe that The Exchange was meant as a complex allegory--describing the creative process Sporlender and Verden went through on each project.

  It is, perhaps, key that Verden takes credit for suggesting the hidden “I” narrator who suddenly manifests within the narrative.

  Madnok believes that this illustration predicts a terrible act committed in Ambergris, an act known to only a few. His further observation that the squid “seem less irritable than sensually disposed” toward one another reflects, I believe, his only failing as a reliable observer.

  Sporlender often made it a point of pride that he had few social graces, but Verden’s editing from the original manuscript has softened the mockery of the old woman in this section.

  Madnok suggests that Sporlender here provides a glimpse into secret Fighting Philosopher rites. I have no way of verifying this information given the restrictions put on my movements.

  I surmise that the “exchange” is clearly an exchange of ideas. That the ideas ultimately prove incompatible may be unimportant--if the friction created during conflict is recorded as art, so to speak.

  Is this how Verden felt about his creative relationship to Sporlender? Bound to Sporlender, trapped by him? Did Sporlender feel just as much of a need to break free as Verden? The moon is almost completely covered by clouds. The squid are ready for just about anything. The squid look oddly identical to me. Could it be that Verden and Sporlender were too much alike?

  Here, Sporlender teases Verden, by making the creature frog-like. Verden hated frogs. He grew up in an old rotted mansion by the River Moth. The basement and ground floor of that place had been flooded for months at a time. From the safety of his bedroom on the third floor, he had for years heard the incessant bleat and croak of the frogs--“as if they mocked my family’s old money poverty.”

  Sporlender had an obsession with the idea of flesh and metal interwoven, as a way of staving off death. A coward in many ways, Sporlender came closest to acting on his desires by adorning himself with metal bracelets, earrings, and rings. At one point, he commissioned the great inventor Porfal to construct a metal “skin suit” for him, but the execution of the plan proved too much even for the likes of Porfal.

  Combat joined! The Dogghe versus Manzikert I! The Kalif versus Stretcher John! The gray caps versus Ambergris! The Festival versus itself! Mimicry of Ambergris’ great history of conflict. The night before Sporlender left for Morrow, abandoning Ambergris forever, a mob armed with flaming torches gathered outside the gates of his house. A band of Strattonists, out late carousing, irritable and high-strung because of the recent spate of uncommonly mild Festivals. Soon set upon by a group of passing adherents of the Fighting Philosopher.

  According to his alibi, Verden was on the other side of town when the melee broke out. It was a cloudy night. Cast in darkness, the city became unfamiliar even to the most hardened nighttime traveler. What had at first been an organized battle between religious fanatics became a miserable chaos of wounds and shrieks.

  In the great slaughter, very few from either side survived. But where was Sporlender during all of this? Those few who bothered to look up from their work saw two shadowy figures in the window of Sporlender’s living room. They appeared to be arguing with one another. Most are certain that one was Sporlender and the other was not his wife. The second figure appeared to be sitting down. No one could tell who it might be.

  A light came from the window, so bright that it blinded the combatants. Sporlender’s house, the figures inside, became momentarily illumined, yet none could see them.

  The light disappeared. The figures remained. Then there was the sound of glass breaking and the window exploded into shards. Something small and round and heavy rolled to a stop at the feet of the Strattonists and the followers of the Fighting Philosopher . . .

  A moment later it disintegrated and disappeared into the air. Each Strattonist who saw it thought of it as something different. To some it was a seed pod. To others, a small mushroom. To yet others, a child’s ball. But to a man, the followers of the Fighting Philosopher saw a curled up flower inside of a dodecahedron. Meanwhile, both figures had disappeared from the window. When the Strattonists stormed the house a few minutes later, it was empty. Sporlender was never seen in Ambergris again, nor was his wife.

  As Madnok was fond of saying about this page, “Here they rest side-by-side even though in life, they are as distant as can be possible.” Does Sporlender actually reside in the city of Morrow with his wife, as many claim? Every once in a long while, a letter will come, or a new story, stamped “Morrow,” but no one has actually seen Sporlender since that night.

  The editors of Burning Leaves launched an investigation into the odd occurrences that night. They charged both Hoegbotton & Sons and the Fighting Philosopher’s acolytes with collusion in Sporlender’s disappearance. When a letter arrived from Sporlender indicating he had simply moved to Morrow to “get away from Verden,” Burning Leaves dropped its investigation and published the story Sporlender had attached to the letter, “In the Hours After Death,” with the appropriate editor’s note.

  As Madnok reminded me, Verden has also retreated from the public eye since that night, although perhaps not in such a dramatic fashion. He is rarely seen without a robe with a cowl, due to, as he puts
it, “a disease of the skin that has reduced my handsomeness to whatever comes out of my pen and pencil.” He has also done far fewer illustrations in recent years.

  The houseboat theatre production “Remarkable Water Puppet show” is excellent. The two main puppets are modeled after Sporlender and Verden. This puppet show postulates that Sporlender and Verden were visited by the gray caps that fateful night. It chronicles Sporlender’s slow disintegration into fungi in Morrow. It also shows how Verden is permanently disfigured by spores. In the dramatic finale, Verden and Sporlender meet one last time when Verden visits Morrow in search of his former friend. They dissolve in one another’s arms. Not recommended for children.

  I have almost all of these pamphlets. The Guide to Literary Walking Tours includes a section on Sporlender. The Sporlender Walking Tour includes a stop at Sporlender’s former house, as well as stops at the various publishing houses that presented his work to the public. For a rather steep fee, a Hoegbotten guide will accompany you. According to Madnok, the weekend narrators are the best, and will provide you with the most entertainment value.

  The Guide to Bars, Pubs, Taverns, Inns, Restaurants, Brothels, and Safe Houses contains several mentions of Verden. It appears he had quite a reputation.

  The Hoegbotton Safe Houses still give out The Exchange and the deluxe Exchange box during the Festival. Due to an error in the contract, neither Sporlender nor Verden receives any monies from sales of the booklet. However, the widespread popularity of the booklet still gains them many new admirers each year.

  Once we get out of here, Madnok has promised to show me some of his favorite Festival haunts. As far as I’m concerned, it can’t be too soon.

  LEARNING TO LEAVE THE FLESH

  I

  Browsing through the Borges Bookstore, on a mission for my girlfriend Emily, I am suddenly confronted by a dwarf woman. The light from the front window strikes me sideways with the heat of late afternoon and, when she upturns her palm, the light illuminates all the infinite worlds enclosed in the wrinkles: pale road lines, rivers that pass through valleys, hillocks of skin and flesh. A matrix of destinies and destinations.

  Before I can react, the dwarf woman takes my hand in hers and stabs me with a thorn, sending it deep into my palm. I grunt in pain, as if a physician had just taken a blood sample. I look down into her large, dark eyes and I see such calm there that the pain winks out, only returning when she shuffles off, hunchback and all, out of the bookstore.

  The walls rush away from me, the shelves so distant that I cannot even brace myself against them. I bring my hand up into the light. The thorn has worked itself beneath the surface and might even burrow deeper, if I let it. I examine the blood-blistery entrance hole. It throbs, and already a pinkish-red color spreads across my palm like a dry fire. The hole itself could be a city on a map, a citadel torn apart by the angry pulse of warfare that will soon spread into the countryside. A war within my flesh.

  I leave the bookstore and walk back to my apartment. The boulevard, Albumuth, has a degree of security, but only two blocks down, on graffiti-choked overpasses, young teenage futureperfects carouse and cruise through the night-to-come, courting pleasures of the flesh, courting corruption of the soul. Albumuth is my lifeline, the artery to the downtown section where I work, buy groceries, and acquire books. Without it, the city would be dangerous. Without it, I might be unanchored, cast adrift.

  As it is, I drag my shoes on the sidewalk, taking every opportunity to run my fingers along white picket fences, hunch down to pet cocker spaniels, converse with smiling apple grannies, and stare into the deep eyes of children.

  Even now, so soon after, the wound has begun to change. I manage to pry out the thorn. The hole looks less and less like a city in flames and more like part of my own hand. Rarely has a portion of my anatomy so intrigued me. No doubt Emily has traced the lines between my freckles, explored the gaps between my toes, run her hands through the sprawl of hair on my chest, but I have never examined my own body in such detail. My body has never seemed relevant to who I am, except that I must keep it fit so it will not betray my mind.

  But I examine my palm quite critically now. The wrinkles do not share consistency of length or width and calluses gather like barnacles or melted-down toothpaste caps. Abrasions, pinknesses, and a few tiny scars mar my palm. I conclude that my palm is ugly beyond hope of cosmetic surgery.

  I reach my apartment as the sun fades into the blocky shadows of the city’s rooftops and scattered chimneys. My apartment occupies the first floor of a two story-brownstone. The bricks are wrinkled with age and soft as wet clay in places. The anemic front lawn has been seeded with sand to keep the grass from growing.

  Inside my apartment, the kitchen and living room open up onto the bedroom and bath to left and right respectively. In my bedroom there is a window seat from which, through the triangular, plated-glass window, I can see nothing but gray asphalt and a deserted shopping mall.

  In the kitchen and living room, my carefully cultivated plants behave like irrational but brilliant sentences; they crawl up walls, shoot away from trellises despite my best efforts. I have wisteria, blossoms clustered like pelican limpets, sea grapes with soft round leaves, passion fruit flowers, trumpet vines, and night-blooming jasmine, whose petals open up and smell like cotton candy melted into the brine-rich scent of the sea. Together, they perform despotic Victorian couplings beyond the imagination of the most creative ménage à trois.

  Emily hates my plants. When we make love, we go to her apartment. We make such perfect love there, in her perfectly immaculate bedroom—a mechanized grind of limbs pumping like pistons—that we come together, shower together afterwards, and rarely leave a ring of hair in the bathtub.

  II

  I suppose I did not think much about the thorn at the time because now, as I lie in bed listening to the dullard yowls and taunts of the futureperfects riding their cars halfway across the city, the wound’s pulsating, pounding rhythm leads me back to my first real memory of the world.

  Orphaned very young, my parents lost at sea in a shipwreck, yet not quite a baby to be left on a doorstep, I remember only this fragment: the sea at low tide with night sliding down on the world like a black door. Water licked my feet and I felt the coolness of sand between my toes, the bite of the wind against my face. And: the plop-plop of tiny silver fish caught in tidal pools; the spackle of starfish trapped in seaweed and glistening troughs of sand; ghost crabs scuttling sideways on creaking joints, pieces of flesh clutched daintily in their pincers.

  I do not know how old I was or how I came to be on that beach. I know only that I sat on the sand, the stars faded lights against the cerulean sweep of sky. As dusk became nightfall, hands grasped me by the shoulders and dragged me up the dunes into the stickery grass and the sea grape, the passionflower and the cactus, until I could see the ferris wheel of a seaside circus and hear the hum-and-thrum hollow acoustic sob of people laughing and shouting.

  Whether this is a real place or an image from my imagination, I do not know. But it returns to center me in this world when I have no center; it gives me something beyond this city, my job, my apartment. Somewhere, magical, once upon a time, I lay under the stars at nightfall and I dreamed the fantastic.

  I have few friends. Foster children who move from family to family, town to town, rarely maintain friendships. Foster parents seem now like dust shadows spread out against a windowpane. I can remember faces and names, but I feel so remote from them compared to the memory of the wheeling, open arch of horizon before and above me.

  Now I have a wound in my palm. A wound that leads me back to the beach at dusk, of my grief at my parents’ death, that I had not drowned with them. Living but not moving. Observing but not doing. At the center of myself I am suggestibility, not action. Never action.

  My parents took actions. They did things. And they died.

  III

  Despite my wound—not a good excuse—I drive to work down Albumuth Boulevard, turning into
the parking lot where tufts of grass thrust up between cracks in the red brick. The shop where I work occupies a slice of the town square. It has antique glass windows, dark green curtains to deflect the gaze of the idly or suspiciously curious, and stairs leading both up and down, to the loft and the basement.

  My job is to create perfect sentences for a varied clientele. No mere journalism this, for journalism requires the clarity of glass, not a mirror, nor even a reflection. I spend hours at my cubicle in the loft, looking out over the hundreds of rooftops, surrounded by the fresh sawdust smell of words and the loamy must of reference text piled atop reference text.

  True, I am only one among many working here. Some are not artists but technicians who gargle with pebbles to improve the imperfect diction of their perfect sentences, or casually fish for them, tugging on their lines once every long while in the hope that the sentences will surface whole, finished, and fat with meaning. Still others smoke or drink or use illicit drugs to coax the words onto the page. Many of them are quite funny in their circuitous routines. I even know their names: Wendy, Carl, Daniel, Christine, Pamela, Andrea. But we are so fixated on creating our sentences that we might well pass each other as strangers on the street.