by Lavie Tidhar
The man took a step, and then another. His feet landed in the water. The janitor did not move out of his way. The man said, Excuse me.
The janitor did not reply.
Excuse me! the man said, a little sharply. There was a plant growing in a flowerpot on the far side of the corridor, by the dark window. Let me pass.
The janitor did not reply. Perhaps he didn’t understand. His mop was stationed at an angle. The man was trapped unless the janitor moved aside.
Please, the man said, helplessly. I must pass.
To pass the water you must pay the toll.
Excuse me?
He looked again but the janitor had gone. The man pressed on. His feet trod in the water, then he was through the puddle and on the other side. He pressed on. The corridor lengthened. All light was gone. The man walked on. He walked and walked. At last he reached the potted plant.
He reached to pluck it, but all his fingers touched was cheap plastic.
When the Stranger awoke the hermit was gone, and sunlight streamed in through the cave entrance. He saddled the horse and set out, away from the canyon. It was a muggy day, and they made slow progress, over rocks that cast long shadows, and the horse’s hooves scattered dreaming lizards, who fled from the glare of the sun.
As night fell, the Stranger and his horse came unexpectedly upon a maze of tall misshapen cliffs above dry riverbeds. A sole point of light shone high overhead. The Stranger and his horse climbed the steep and narrow roads until they reached the entrance to a cave.
A cabochon hanging from a metal pole driven into the ground cast bright yellow light.
“Gather round, gather round, boys and girls, here come the clowns!”
The Stranger stepped into the cave. The hermit stood in the centre of the ring, wearing a red tailcoat and a top hat. In his hand he held a whip which he swished through the air.
“Step right up, step right up, see the moving statues and the shadow puppeteers, see the one-eyed lady and the man who makes ducats disappear, marvel at the Stranger as he meanders on his way—”
“We really have to stop meeting like this,” the Stranger said.
The ringmaster shrugged. “The road to the Plant of Heartbeat is long and filled with pain. Uncertainty is certain. Tiny forms in huge, empty spaces.”
“This is just another maze,” the Stranger said. “Just another snare in the Escapement.”
He drew his gun and put it to the ringmaster’s head.
“I want out,” he said.
“This way to the Egress,” the ringmaster said.
He gestured. Around them the cave expanded, disappeared. The Stranger saw the aerialists high above, leaping nimbly. He smelled popcorn and cotton candy and sweat. There were people in the stands all around the ring, cheering. A ballyhoo swept the stage. A charivari of clowns rushed onto the ring and began jumping into the air on giant trampolines.
“You can’t shoot me,” the ringmaster said, but gently. The Stranger turned and looked and he saw that the ringmaster now bore the Stranger’s own face. He stared at his own reflection.
“Let me out,” he whispered.
“Just follow the signs,” his self said.
The Stranger squeezed the trigger. The water pistol jerked in his hand as a weak stream of water hit the ringmaster’s face. His face ran down with paint. The people in the stands cheered. The Stranger threw the useless pistol on the ground. An arrow sign, lit by coloured cabochons, pointed deeper into the cave. He followed the sign. this way to the egress.
The noise of the crowds receded behind him. He passed the tigers’ cages. He passed the backyard of the circus called the G-Top, where a group of grafters and gauchos and joeys were drinking and playing cards. He passed a grease joint. He came to the Midway. It was surrounded by sucker netting. He passed through, passed rubbermen and spec girls, ropers and web girls, until he came at last to the concessions stand.
There was a body of water beyond the ticket booth. It stretched out to the horizon, until it met an all-consuming darkness. A hand-painted arrow sign pointed beyond the booth, and the Stranger was not surprised to see it said, this way to the egress.
“I’d like a ticket, please.”
“Then you must pay the price,” the ticket seller said.
“What is the price?” the Stranger said.
“Something precious.”
The Stranger pulled a handful of ducats from his pocket and the ticket seller laughed. The Stranger dropped the ducats to the ground. A small boat, he saw, bobbed on the water, waiting.
“What is the price?”
“What is the most precious thing you have?”
The Stranger thought about a day in early spring. They had been to the park. The sun shone down and green parakeets laughed in the high branches of the trees. They found a log and sat down with their backs against it, their faces to the sun. And the boy came up to him, unexpectedly, and put his arms around his neck and gave him a wet noisy kiss on the cheek. He said, I love you, Dad. It was the first time he’d ever said it.
“No,” the Stranger said. “Not that. Anything but that. Please.”
The ticket seller did not answer. The moment lengthened.
The Stranger reached deep within himself and plucked out a bit of his heart.
TWELVE:
THE PLANT OF HEARTBEAT
On the shores of the Great Salt Lakes the ferryman waited.
The Stranger kept having the discomforting feeling that he’d forgotten something. But since he couldn’t remember what it was, he thought that it couldn’t have been that important.
The air smelled of bromide and the sun hung in the sky. No fish frolicked in that dead sea and no waves disturbed its shores, and when the ferryman’s oars sank into the water they pushed hard against the heavy salt.
As they journeyed across the Great Salt Lakes the sun traversed the half globe of the sky, from one horizon to the other. From high above, the Great Salt Lakes seemed infinite, and only a tiny black dot moved across the surface of the water.
But from the point of view of the Stranger the lake was merely a lake, the boat large enough if uncomfortable, and his purpose clear.
As for the old ferryman, he spoke not a word, but pushed the boat ever onwards, with the Stranger dozing in the hold, and the sun traversing the sky until it leaned to kiss the far horizon. The mountains rose above the Great Salt Lakes. With nightfall the ferry docked on the far side of the lake and the Stranger disembarked.
The ferryman watched him go.
The Stranger traversed the plains below the mountains. He made camp for the night in the foothills of Mashu. He lit a fire with fragile driftwood, crusted in salt. When he slept, he drifted to that other place, where the man was sitting vigil by the boy’s bedside. The life support machines never wavered in their function. The soft sounds they made were like footsteps in the night. When the Stranger woke he did not know whether it was daytime or night, for such distinctions no longer mattered.
He climbed the mountain. At times there was an easy path to follow. At others, he made his way by hand and foot, seeking small fissures in the rock, grabbing for a hold on ancient roots and branches. The trees that grew on the side of Mashu were large and tangled, like giants of old, with mottled bark and a knotted mass of fibres. Tiny lizards scuttled in the undergrowth and heavy stones stood guard over the mountain paths, like so many sown dragon’s teeth.
The Stranger climbed Mashu. Onwards and onwards he climbed, a tiny figure against that huge indifferent mass. Onwards he crawled. The sky overhead was a panorama of swirling orange and reds, an eternal sunset.
At last the Stranger reached a plateau below the peak. Here vast and trunkless legs of stone stood guard over a dark entrance.
The Stranger approached cautiously and his shadow walked beside him. Standing at the tunnel mouth wer
e three mimes wearing masks. The masks were bone-white. One mask smiled. One mask cried. And one mask was entirely blank.
The mimes blocked the Stranger’s way.
He said, “Please. I wish to pass through.”
The mimes shrugged, wordlessly.
The Stranger said, “I seek the Plant of Heartbeat.”
The mimes mimed sorrow, rubbing their eyes with their fists. The laughing one mimed counting ducats.
The Stranger said, “I have paid the ferryman.”
The crying one pointed wordlessly behind the Stranger and shook his finger no, then pointed at the tunnel mouth.
The Stranger turned and looked one last time on the Escapement, for he knew now that to pass beyond it meant forsaking it forever.
Then he turned back and nodded.
The mimes parted for the Stranger.
The Stranger passed into the tunnel mouth.
The Mountains of Darkness lie beyond the known world, on the edge of wakefulness and dream. The man saw them now, as he sat in the room. He had sat in that room for a very long time and was destined to sit just a little while longer. On the bed the boy did not stir. His breathing was shallow and ragged. The man bit on his lip so hard that he drew blood, the better to stifle the scream that was building inside. The clock on the wall was a big round clock. It ticked and it ticked and it ticked.
Although they are called the Mountains of Darkness, and no man alive had ever mapped them, the Stranger realised that he could see, in some fashion, when he emerged at last out of the tunnel.
He had travelled the full twelve hours of the night.
A soft silvery glow emanated from the earth itself, and from the curious things that grew there. He saw small, delicate rocks, like fine jeweller’s eggs, and shrubs that grew down the rock face like spun sugar. A cool breeze caressed his face. Tiny grey birds chittered overhead.
The Stranger came to a great big tree growing out of the fertile ground by a shallow brook. Small fruit hung from the branches of the tree, but try as he might he could not reach to pluck them. He did not know the name of the tree, though had Jefferson & Norvell, Medici, of Asclepius Gardens been there, they might have been able to furnish him with the scientific name of that genus, which is the Arbor vitae.
Flowers grew all about the Mountains of Darkness. They grew on the slopes and in the nooks and crannies of the mountain face and under rocks and trees and by the silent, silver streams, and some were the deep dark of space, and some were white as clay, and some were grey, and all were very pretty: but none was the Ur-shanabi. Their perfume scented the clear air and would have lifted the weariest traveller’s heart, but not the Stranger’s, for the clock on the wall tick-tocked, tick-tocked. He began searching, in quiet desperation.
A black bird startled him, erupting suddenly over his head, cawing and beating its wings, but then it, too, flew away, and the Stranger was alone.
In the room the doctors came and went. On the wall clock the minute hand ticked slowly. Sir? Sir? somebody said.
Then: Give him a moment.
It was when he had lost all hope that he saw it. Far away, on the tallest peak! There grew the Ur-shanabi. It alone had colour in that silver-grey world. Red and yellow it burned, like a tiny flame, struggling against great winds. The Stranger hurried. He traversed steep mountain paths and narrow valleys, crossed rivers where tiny silver fish leaped into the air as he swam. He held on to roots protruding out of the ground, found footholds in the smallest faults of rocks. At last he reached the last and tallest mountain and he began to climb. Time lost all meaning. The tiny flame called out to him. Slowly and alone he struggled, climbing. A tiny figure crawling like an ant upon that great dark slope.
When he came to the top, the plant wasn’t there.
The little figure on the bed was so still. Wan sunlight streamed in through the window. Soft footsteps in the hall. Was the clock on the wall still ticking? Had it fallen silent? We are all but clowns in this circus called Life. Gather round, gather round, come and watch the show! Father and son walk spellbound through the Midway, see the bright lights of the fair. Smell the cheap hot dogs, the spun-sugar blobs, hear the pitchmen’s cries!
At last you come to the Big Top, your hands sticky with sweets. Sawdust on the floor, the lights are bright and bathe your face in yellows, reds and blues. Your little heart lifts in your chest.
Here come the clowns!
The canvas parts to let you in. The seats are full. The ballyhoo sweeps across the ring. The crowd cheers. Here come the clowns!
Do you ever think back to a time when you were truly happy? For just one moment, the world is stilled, and everything is filled with infinite possibilities.
If only you could take that moment and distil its essence, preserve it—not forever, but just long enough.
Below the mountain, the Stranger came upon a small calm lake, where shrubs grew along the banks. On the other side of the lake he saw a pair of eyes watching him and, startled, he took a step back.
The face that stared at the Stranger from the bushes on the other side of the lake was pale white and serious. The child’s eyes were large and solemn, the mouth an exaggerated stroke of red, the nose a conical red protrusion. The child looked into the Stranger’s eyes, with that strangely melancholic expression that is unique to clowns.
The Stranger half-expected him to flee, but instead the boy emerged from his hiding place and stood, and the Stranger saw that he held a bright red balloon in his hand. As the Stranger watched, the child came to the banks of the lake and prodded the water experimentally with his foot. Seemingly satisfied, he took one step, and then another, until he stood on the surface of the water.
Then he seemed to wait. The Stranger felt himself drawn to the bank. He tried the water. To his surprise the water felt elastic. He pressed one foot and then another, and the water held him. The child began to step across the water, lightly, and the Stranger did likewise, and in this manner they traversed the lake from opposite sides until they met in the middle.
The air was so fresh and still and birds sang in the trees and the silver light glowed softly all around them.
The little clown smiled, and it broke the Stranger’s heart. There was so much trust in the little child’s eyes. The child held the red balloon and passed it mutely to the Stranger.
The Stranger held the string and the balloon bobbed gently in the air. His eyes were wet and it was hard to see clearly.
He let go of the balloon and it rose into the sky.
He felt so happy, suddenly and overwhelmingly happy, though he could not articulate why. But “why” is a question only children, who do not know any better, still ask.
He stood there with the child and they watched the balloon drift farther and farther away, growing ever smaller against the endless sky, until it finally vanished from sight.
AFTERWORD
The Escapement owes a debt to a great many varying influences. The basic plot was very loosely inspired by the Hebrew fairy tale “The Heart of the Golden Flower,” created by Z. Ariel in 1930. It, in turn, is based—to some extent at least—on similar stories in Russian fairy tales and in Hans Christian Andersen.
Similarly, I have borrowed from the ancient story of Gilgamesh at several points, and very loosely for some of the structure. The Ur-Shanabi was the ferryman of the dead in Mesopotamian mythology. The Plant of Heartbeat is found in of the Epic of Gilgamesh, while events recounted in Chapter Twelve are somewhat modified from what transpires in Tablet Nine of the story.
The Mountains of Darkness come from stories in the Jewish Talmud about the adventures of Alexander the Great. The mountains are covered in eternal dark, representing the end of the known world.
The Colossi in this book were inspired in equal parts by Percy Bysshe Shelley’s poem “Ozymandias” (1818) and by Czech artist František Kupka’s 1903 expressioni
st painting The Black Idol (Resistance). Where the pupae umbrarum come from, however, I do not rightly know.
I owe a particular debt to Michael Ende’s 1984 surrealist collection, The Mirror in the Mirror: A Labyrinth, and to Dr Seuss’s Oh, the Places You’ll Go! (1990). Other obvious influences include Sergio Leone’s The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), the artwork of Salvador Dalí, the work of Shirley Jackson (Chapter Ten), and Tony Collingwood’s wonderful animated movie Rarg (1998), from which I borrowed the pink flamingos in Chapter Eight.
Some of the terminology I’ve bent to my own uses in this novel, such as “thickening,” “vastation,” and “revel,” is borrowed from John Clute’s magnificent The Darkening Garden (2006), as are many of his ideas in that book on the nature of the fantastic.
In Greek mythology, the Titanomachy was the war between the Titans and the Olympian Gods.
Several figures from the Major Arcana of the Tarot appear in this book, including Temperance, The Lovers, The Hierophant, Justice, The Devil, and The Hermit.
Pogo the Clown (Chapter Three) was better known in life as John Wayne Gacy, a notorious serial killer and children’s entertainer who was executed in 1994. The Bloody Benders (Chapter Nine) were a Kansas family who preyed on unwary travellers in the 1870s, much as described here.
The Styx (here, Sticks) is in Greek mythology the river that separates the world of the living from the Underworld. Similarly, Lethe is the river in Greek mythology whose water gives the gift of forgetting.
“Jefferson & Norvell” are perhaps better known as Laurel and Hardy. The scene in Chapter Five of the Kid hanging from the clock tower is inspired by the famous scene in Harold Lloyd’s Safety Last (1923).
