The Cat's Pajamas
Page 16
When he spoke of these things his eyes glowed and his face was suffused with a color that no liquor could induce.
There was no air of braggadocio about this lawyer—he was simply describing, as a cartographer describes a chart—a map of places and events and times he could not help but relate.
While he did all this he did not order any meal that would have to take his attention. He gave little mind to the immense salad before him, which allowed him to keep talking as, on occasion, he devoured a mouthful and then ran on with his descriptions of places and collections all over the world.
Each time my wife and I tried to intrude upon his exclamations, he waved his fork at us and shut his eyes to silence us as his mouth proclaimed yet another wonder.
“Do you know the work of Sir John Soane, the great English architect?” he asked.
Before we could answer he rushed on.
“He rebuilt all of London in his mind and in the drawings made according to his specifications by his artist-friend, Mr. Ginty. Some of his dreams of London were actually built, others were built and destroyed, and yet others remained only figments of his incredible imagination.
“I have found some of his library dreams and worked with the grandsons of his architectural engineers to build on my estate what you would call a steeplechase university. From building to building on this great acreage outside of Schenectady I have placed grand lanterns of education.
“By strolling across my meadows, or better yet—and how romantic—to visit on horseback, from yard to yard, you can find yourself in the grandest library of medical knowledge in the world. I say this because I have found this library in Yorkshire and bought its ten thousand volumes and shipped them home to be safely kept under my hand and eye. Great physicians and surgeons come to visit me and live in the library for days or weeks or months.
“Beyond that, in other locales around my estate, there are small lighthouse libraries of the greatest novels from every country in the world.
“And beyond that, an Italian environment that would have caused Bernard Berenson, the great Italian Renaissance art historian, to go sleepless with envy.
“My estate then, this university, is a series of buildings spread over one hundred acres where you could spend a lifetime without ever leaving my environment.
“On any single weekend, the heads of colleges, universities, and schools in Prague, Florence, Glasgow, and Vancouver collect to enjoy my chef’s meals and drink my wines and love my books.”
He went on to describe the leather many of the books were bound in, the superb quality of the bindings, the paper used within, and the typefaces.
Beyond that he described how wonderful it was that you could visit his multitudinous centers of learning and walk out in the meadows and seat yourself, to read in an environment that was conducive to vast learning.
“There you almost have it. I’m on my way now to Paris, whence I train south and ship out through the Suez Canal to India, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. Another twenty thousand volumes of art history, philosophy, and world travel await me in these far places. I am like a schoolchild, nervous, awaiting tomorrow, when I will get my hands on these further treasures.”
At long last our lawyer friend seemed finished.
The salad was gone, the dessert was finished, and the last of the wine had been drunk.
He gazed into our faces, as if wondering if we had anything to say.
Indeed, there was much we had gathered up and we awaited a chance to speak.
But before we could open our mouths, the lawyer had summoned our waiter again and ordered three double brandies. My wife and I demurred, but he waved us aside. The brandies were placed before us.
He arose, studied the bill, paid it, and stood for a long while as the color drained from his face.
“There is only one last thing I’d like to know,” he said finally.
He shut his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them the light was gone; he seemed to be gazing at a place a million miles off in his imagination.
He picked up his double brandy, held it in his hands, and at last said, “Tell me one last thing.”
He paused and then continued.
“Why did my thirty-five-year-old son kill his wife, destroy his daughter, and hang himself?”
He drank the brandy, turned, and without a word, left the ship’s dining room.
My wife and I sat there for a long time, eyes shut, and then, without thinking, felt our hands move out and touch the brandy that awaited us.
EPILOGUE: THE R.B., G.K.C. AND G.B.S. FOREVER ORIENT EXPRESS
1996–1997
And when I die, will this dream truly be
Entrained with Shaw and Chesterton and me?
O, glorious Lord, please make it so
That down along eternity we’ll row
Atilted headlong, nattering the way
All mouth, no sleep, and endless be our day:
The Chesterton Night Tour, the Shaw Express,
A picknicking of brains in London dress
As one by one we cleave the railroad steams
To circumnavigate my noon and midnight dreams.
First Shaw arrives and hands me biscuit tin
“Grab on, dear child,” he cries. “Get in, get in!”
His voice pure Life Force judge and Mankind’s Maker.
G.K. climbs up past Shaw and ticket-taker.
Now down the line trots Dickens, paced by Twain.
“Hold on!” cries Mark. And Dickens: “Stop that train!”
“It’s stopped,” snorts Shaw, “are your brains packed? Aboard!”
With this last as commandment from our Lord
We jostle up to face each other’s wits
As Shaw amidst the mob like statue sits
And maunders up his tongue to launch the Game
His merest cough a shot to walk us lame.
Now Poe arrives in furs, he’s dressed for snows
Cold flurries caper him where e’er he goes,
Seen distantly his broad pale brow’s a moon
That sinks at daybreak but to rise at noon.
Charles Dickens’s stunned, but Twain cries, “Man alive!”
G. Shaw and G.K.? blind, as Deaths arrive
Just I amongst them hear pale Edgar’s tune
His pale heartbeat with tone that echoes loon.
Now Wilde wafts on, empurpled are his drums
As something wily-witted this way comes.
And here stalks Melville, Rudyard Kipling too.
Whale’s Herman’s White, Kim’s scribe an Indian hue,
Lord Russell, wily midget, now entrains
His top hat jumbo-size, to cup his brains
And challenge Shaw and Chesterton to chats
While Poe, subsided, scowling, frets their hats
To mend their politics or bend each mind
While steaming Kipling’s Country of the Blind.
Ah, hark! Their talk is gold and seldom tin
And boring? Never! God prevent that sin!
Muse hone their tongues to razor-sharpened wits
So Shaw can rave while proud Lord Russell sits
And I the modest mouse who locks his lip
And mutters not a mote along the trip,
Most gladly hidden—tucked between these brains
That locomote the night with idea trains,
Each locked to each and each a brighter car
And this a nova, that old Halley’s star,
A light-year comet blazed across our sight.
To teach our railway schools throughout our night.
Their philosophic crumbs I snatch and eat,
The hiccoughing of Shaw? my God, a treat!
While Poe grows quieter the more they storm,
His snowy moon brow pale, his tongue lukewarm,
But I am glad for him, for while they range
Poe’s eyes with mine do some wry joke exchange,
I see the Black Cat hid where Poe’
s seams split
His head a Pendulum, his breast a Pit,
While all about our favorite authors drink
In mute Poe’s eyes I see dire Usher sink,
Loud Shaw and G.K. take each other to task?
Says Poe: Amontillado? Here’s the Casque,
Cap on these bells, while I a mortar mix
To stash these madmen in a cell of bricks.
Thus I in shames, all shambles, keep my peace
As all these angel souls their wings release.
The air is battered by these airborne goats
Who leap and clamber, music in their throats,
Such sweet enchantments! harken to their gab!
Their locomotive thunders shake our cab.
To sound us from the station, what a mix
Of clangor-dins from these most glorious Six.
Their conversation showers me with chat
Till Shaw corks all to point where Truth is at,
Then Chesterton orates the great I Am
Nor shuts for tea and tarts (the last with jam).
And silent midst the rest, now witness Poe.
He dreams himself found dead in winter snow?
While Wilde a beggar starves in Paris keep
And Melville dies on land while critics sleep.
O damn those soul-survivors, why’s it so?
That wise men then knew not what we now know?
To tape a Whale but never know its size
And measure Poe but seldom toss him prize?
How laugh at Wilde who now must laugh at you?
I often wonder just what critics do?
I know they read but wonder if they think?
I sip on wine while they the other drink,
But from the selfsame fount, then can it be
The better part of wisdom lies on me?
The books I read they shrug and lob away
To bury until resurrection’s day.
What calls these friends from literary tomb?
One voice, one love, one night, one lonely room
Where turning pages I with wild desire
Ran forth to snatch their charred book from the fire?
O dear Poe, never exit; Mr. Wilde
Rise up with Dorian to tease this child
To please this boy again with ghastly tale,
And Herman, tag along with comrade Whale.
I would not spurn you forth or turn you out
Or kill that great White thing with cynic’s doubt.
In baggage car waits Dorian, a canvas ghost,
While Wilde at tea bites tongue and lets Shaw boast.
Then Oscar cuts and tosses mot juste
And laughter rings and leaves him in a gust.
The authors bark and yip, their faces shine,
Their vast talk merely beer, while Wilde’s is wine.
At last dear Edgar hems and dares to speak,
His Usher voice is winter lost and weak,
His dark heart drums beneath our carriage floor,
The train’s smoke ravens by with: Nevermore.
We turn to Melville now and seek his Whale,
What’s that? The merest minnow! Drop the sail.
So say the critics, but does Melville hear?
He does and shuns the sea and now his bier.
This midnight train, which rounds the curve ahead,
Its engine ghostly pale, a loom of dread,
Then all’s not lost, for whether land or sea,
Old Moby tracks the chase and summons me.
We doubt all this but crowd the pane to spy
That locomoting Whiteness, hear its cry?
With churned Saint Elmo’s fires, sweet Christ, what sound!
The sea like God sounds near, we all are drowned.
As down the nightfall path we raving go,
Old Moby dragging us, one train of woe.
“O, bosh!” says Shaw, and sits, to jolt us back,
“That’s Industry’s Revolt upon the track!”
Much better that than Beast. We sit to eat,
Take tea, a biscuit, bun, or brioche-sweet.
While Kipling curries up remembrance when
His Kim drummed out in dust then back again,
And Kaa was coveted as monarch snake,
And Mowgli howled with wolves that shrilled to shake.
The moon, and pace our train, while our hearts sing:
Aye! Kipling’s our Man Who Would Be King!
Then all too soon, the sun burns up at dawn,
No time to cork our sleep or share a yawn,
It’s over, for now look, around the bend,
Our final stop! the station where books end.
And authors step and leave and all’s good-bye,
I start to think it so and start to cry.
With wicker rustlings now the gods arise,
Their glory burst my chest and cracks my eyes.
The train with muffled heartbeat chuffs to cease,
At Land’s End Lost Time Station, hear the peace,
Where just the other breath our life was words,
Now trees are filled with literature of birds.
Shaw jumps down first, with Chesterton close by
And Kipling wipes the tear winks from my eye.
There, funeral of one, comes Mr. Poe
With Melville dressed in white, his face all snow.
Poe grips my hand in silence, does not say
“Farewell” or “Nevermore” but glides away.
While Oscar last of all, now inside sits
To pack and then repack his case of wits,
“This is a special time,” he says, “let’s try
To say farewells as if we really meant good-bye.”
My chin is chucked by Twain, who like the sun
All laughing, buffs my cheek, “God bless you, son.”
And there they stroll along the station strand,
With Melville slow and ’lorn and lost on land.
What is this place? a bookshop by the sea?
O, yes! How grand! That fires a joy in me!
They are not lost or dead, for here, next day,
Some other child will travel them away,
On night train journeyings that only slow
At towns where other authors thrive and go
And bark all night and all the glad things know.
Why is this so? Because I say it’s so.
My friends are gone, I stand a moment more,
To see their footprints sift along the shore,
I wave at shadows, climb aboard my train.
I weep because their likes won’t come again.
But this sure thing I know by sounding sea:
Their deaths diminish, words replenish me.
For traveling down the shore in lonely car,
I open wide their books and there they are!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In a career spanning more than seventy years, Ray Bradbury, who died on June 5, 2011, at the age of 91, inspired generations of readers to dream, think, and create. A prolific author of hundreds of short stories and close to fifty books, as well as numerous poems, essays, operas, plays, teleplays, and screenplays, Bradbury was one of the most celebrated writers of our time. His groundbreaking works include Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, The Illustrated Man, Dandelion Wine, and Something Wicked This Way Comes. He wrote the screen play for John Huston’s classic film adaptation of Moby Dick, and was nominated for an Academy Award. He adapted sixty-five of his stories for television’s The Ray Bradbury Theater, and won an Emmy Award for his teleplay of The Halloween Tree. He was the recipient of the 2000 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, the 2004 National Medal of Arts, and the 2007 Pulitzer Prize Special Citation, among many honors.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
PRAISE FOR
The Cat’s Pajamas
—St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The Cat’s Pajamas is proof that Bradbury, a writer for seven decades, has not lost his touch.”
—Oklahoma City Oklahoman
“The Cat’s Pajamas is proof that Bradbury, a writer for seven decades, has not lost his touch.”
—Oklahoma City Oklahoman
“[An] entertaining and intriguing exploration of unusual circumstances and fantastic events that speaks to the unsettling aspects of our imaginative lives.... There is something at times chilling and yet wonderful about [Bradbury’s] ability to consider difficult social issues like racism in a manner both fantastic and seemingly simple.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“The stories have the fantastic touch of seriousness and captivating bemusement that so often is his forte. For new readers, the collection is a delightful first exposure to Bradbury’s style.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Ray Bradbury’s latest collection of stories is as exciting and hard to put down as anything else of his that I’ve read.... These stories have to be read and savored and then reread.”
—Providence Sunday Journal
“In The Cat’s Pajamas, we get to marvel again at the breadth of [Bradbury’s] subjects.... This collection is a true gift from a powerful writing talent.”
—Fort Worth Star-Telegram
“[An] entertaining and intriguing exploration of unusual circumstances and fantastic events that speaks to the unsettling aspects of our imaginative lives.... There is something at times chilling and yet wonderful about [Bradbury’s] ability to consider difficult social issues like racism in a manner both fantastic and seemingly simple.”
—Rocky Mountain News
“The stories have the fantastic touch of seriousness and captivating bemusement that so often is his forte. For new readers, the collection is a delightful first exposure to Bradbury’s style.”
—Richmond Times-Dispatch
“Ray Bradbury’s latest collection of stories is as exciting and hard to put down as anything else of his that I’ve read.... These stories have to be read and savored and then reread.”