The Twenty-One Balloons PMC

by William Pene du Bois

  “Sit down,” he said, pointing to the bench nearest the mine. “I have quite a bit to tell you. You may think that your landing on this island was all by accident. The only accident is that the wind blew you exactly in the direction of Krakatoa. The fact that a hungry sea gull dove into your balloon, forcing you to land here, might be termed an accident; but if that hadn’t happened, I would have made several holes in your balloon with this pistol. So in any case you would have landed here, sooner or later, unless a shift in the wind had suddenly blown you off in a different direction. If you had flown over Krakatoa, you would have been the first outsider ever to do so; you would have seen that there are houses on the island, you would have seen our buildings, parks, and playgrounds. You would have told the rest of the world that there are people on Krakatoa. We wouldn’t have liked that at all. A young boy, the son of Mr. B., sighted you early this morning; and I was sent to the beach with a pistol to make sure that you landed here. I was chosen because I am one of the better hunters on the island. You have seen our diamond mines, that is, you have seen one of them; there are many other unexplored plots of ground around the base of the mountain where the earth doesn’t ever move. Do you understand now why you will have to remain our permanent guest?”

  “I do indeed,” I assured him. “Later on, after you have had time to think this all over carefully, I am convinced that you won’t have any desire to leave Krakatoa at all. There is fabulous wealth and power attached to owning a share in the mines. You do own a share now, because the ownership of the mines is divided equally among all who know that they exist. We might have killed you when you landed here, and kept the secret from you in that violent way. We are fortunate here in that there are no murderers amongst us.

  “So now that you are here, you are automatically a citizen of Krakatoa. You own a share of the mines. If you could possibly spend the amount of money you are worth at the present cost of diamonds in other countries, you would have to spend a billion dollars a day for the rest of your life. But if you took your share of diamonds, loaded them in a freighter, and carried them with you to another country you would be making a horrible mistake. Diamonds are priced as high as they are because they are extremely rare jewels in other countries. Unloading a boat-load of diamonds in any other port of the world would cause the diamond market to crash; the price of diamonds would drop to next to nothing; and your cargo would scarcely be worth more than a shipload of broken glass.

  “Every year, the men of Krakatoa take trips to some foreign country in the world, a different country every time. I shall tell you about these trips in detail later. We buy our supplies for the year and return to Krakatoa. We each take with us one fairly small diamond which we sell to different brokers in different big cities of the country we visit. At first we thought it necessary to solemnly swear that we wouldn’t tell anybody of the whereabouts of Krakatoa, the secrets of our diamond mines. But this wasn’t at all necessary. You will find that out as soon as you go to a different country. You’ll start thinking of the fabulous wealth in diamonds you have back in Krakatoa, realize the power of diamonds in other countries, and remember that telling of Krakatoa would destroy the diamond market. You will find out that you will avoid even mention of the Pacific Ocean. Your only fear will be that you will talk in your sleep.

  “You asked me a short while ago if you might have a few diamonds. Help yourself. It is only natural to want to carry some around your first few days here. We are so used to them that we just leave them in the mines. They are worthless to us here. We each own a fortune about one hundred times as big as the Treasury of the United States, but there is no place here to spend money, so we leave them where they are.”

  This talk made me feel rather silly. I sheepishly walked to the mines and tossed back the paltry half-million dollars’ worth of stones I had picked up. My mind was in a turmoil. The excitement of my crash, the rolling of the ground, these unbelievable mines had completely exhausted me physically.

  The earth had stopped rolling by this time for one of its brief few daily pauses. Mr. F. pointed to an extraordinary group of houses in the distance. “That is our village,” he explained. “We are headed that way.”

  Fearing that the earth would again start to pitch and roll, I ran to the village from bench to bench. I was followed closely by Mr. F., who seemed to take great enjoyment in my fear of the volcanic action of the earth. When we at last stopped in front of Mr. F.’s house, I was completely worn out.

  “Will you lead me directly to my room?” I asked him. “I feel I have had quite enough excitement for today. After a good night’s sleep, I know that I shall be in far better condition to cope with the novelty of this fabulous Island.”

  Mr. F. kindly showed me to a room, gave me some pajamas, brought me a meal, and said, “Good night.”

  I thanked him, ate the meal in bed, and shortly afterward dropped off into heavy slumber.

  COAT OF ARMS OF KRAKATOA

  Diamond-shaped emblem in tropical setting representing frying pan heated over volcano, symbolic of the Island’s Gourmet Government. Motto: “Non Nova, sed Nove”—“Not New Things, but New Ways.”

  VI

  The Gourmet Government

  I WOKE UP THE NEXT MORNING AFTER A NIGHT of peaceful and heavy sleep. I knew I had slept well and in complete comfort because I am a great dreamer; and when all is well at night I dream pleasant dreams. On uncomfortable nights, I have nightmares. That night I dreamt I was back on my inflated mattress in the Globe. You can well imagine my surprise when I woke up in a big and beautiful antique canopied bed in an exquisite bedroom, furnished in Louis the Fourteenth style. The wallpaper of my room was pale blue with gold fleurs-de-lis. The curtains were red velvet, each trimmed with a large gold cloth sunburst, symbolizing the opulence and extravagance of the “Sun King,” Louis the Fourteenth of France. I hadn’t noticed the room at all the night before. While eating my supper in bed by the light of one candle, I had seen that I was in a canopied bed; but I suppose that my mind, in an effort to put my body at ease, tired as I was by the excitement of the day, had pictured the room as the sort of simple American Colonial bedroom I had become so used to at home.

  I got up and put on my clothes. I found that someone had taken away the slightly wrinkled suit I had worn but a few hours the day before, and replaced it with a complete fresh one. This was quite to my liking. As I was dressing, I heard a knock at my door and Mr. F. walked in. We exchanged greetings and I assured him that I had spent a most comfortable night. While we were talking, I heard the sinister rumbling noise coming from the direction of the mountain. I went to the window, looked out, and saw that the ground below had started to move again. It didn’t go up and down with the violence it had the day before near the mountain, but rather looked like animated furrows in a plowed field. Mr. F. explained that the ground didn’t move much in the village which was situated as far as possible from the mountain. I asked him why it was that the house we were in didn’t move when the earth did. His answer was extraordinary:

  “The Bible tells us to build our houses on foundations of stone,” he said; “on Krakatoa we have found it necessary to use an even stronger foundation. Our houses are built on a substructure of solid diamond boulders. Come,” he added, “I’ll take you out to breakfast.”

  On my way downstairs, I noticed that Mr. F.’s house wasn’t consistently Louis Fourteenth in style, but was furnished in the best French tastes of many different periods. I saw other rooms, some Louis Fifteenth, some Empire.

  As I left the house I turned around to take a look at its outside appearance. The building was the same as the Petit Trianon in Versailles, a building which I have always considered one of my favorite pieces of architecture. This was all an unbelievable dream—to think of finding such a building on a small island in the Pacific.

  I looked around at other buildings. They were equally fabulous. As I stumbled along the rippling ground I noticed, in this order: a replica of George Washington’s Mount Ver
non house; a typical British cottage with a thick thatched roof; a lovely Chinese pagoda; a building of typical Dutch architecture; a small copy of Shepheard’s Hotel in Cairo; Mr. F.’s French house; and about a dozen other houses all representing different nations. We were heading for the British cottage. We entered the cottage, walked into the dining room where some eighty other people were eating breakfast. As we walked in, Mr. F. announced in a loud, clear voice, “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present Professor Sherman, the new citizen of Krakatoa.” I was given a most cordial welcome. Everyone in the room stood up and applauded; then the men came toward me, their hands extended. I was introduced in order to a Mr. A., a Mr. B., a Mr. C., right on through to a Mr. T. The man named Mr. B. was evidently my host at this British cottage. He led us to a table. We sat down. I immediately turned to my companion and said, “Mr. F., before I become any more confused, if such a thing is possible, will you please start from the beginning and tell me the history of Krakatoa? Will you please tell me how all of these lovely people got here? Will you please explain why each house is entirely different in architecture, why the two houses I have visited so far both have gigantic dining rooms? Will you please tell me why all of the men here have the names of the letters of the alphabet? I have never thought there could be a country in the world so foreign and confusing as to customs as this one appears to be.”

  Mr. F. laughed. “First of all, let’s get some breakfast,” he said. We went to a huge table where in large silver chafing dishes could be found large quantities of the deliciously prepared kidneys, mutton chops, and bacon which make up the hearty British breakfasts. We helped ourselves and returned to our table and Mr. F. told me the story of Krakatoa:

  “Eight years ago, a young sailor now known as Mr. M. was shipwrecked off the Island of Krakatoa in a tremendous hurricane. He landed on the Island in good physical condition, which was extremely fortunate for him because the rest of the crew of the ship he was on were drowned in the Ocean. As soon as he felt the earth rumbling beneath his feet, he knew he was on that most dreaded of islands, Krakatoa. He didn’t want to go near the mountain, for he knew that the volcanic action of the mountain caused all of that violent shaking in the earth. He couldn’t stay on the beach, though, because the winds of the hurricane caused a blinding and extremely dangerous sandstorm which would destroy any man. He instinctively made his way for the shelter of the jungle. He crawled through the jungle toward the mountain, trying to get as far away from the beach as he possibly could. He must have had a horrible time of it, for he was not only being thrashed by the bending trees and wind-whipped underbrush of the jungle, but was also going up and down with the sickening motion of Krakatoa’s surface. Sometime during the night he crawled up on that peaceful plot of ground near the mines where the earth doesn’t move. He groped around in the dark looking for shelter and finally found a hole in the wall of the mountain which he thought to be a cave. He crawled in and slept in comparative peace but in great discomfort. He woke up, of course, in the diamond mines.

  “His first thoughts, upon suddenly discovering that he was the richest man. in the world, were naturally of how to get off Krakatoa and back to civilization with a sizable load of diamonds. At that time, getting off Krakatoa was a difficult thing to do. It is hard to leave a place no outsider dares to approach. This was a good thing in a way, because it gave him a chance to get used to living on Krakatoa, to realize that one could live on Krakatoa, and to think out carefully the best way of taking full advantage of the enormous wealth attached to the mines.

  “He built himself a raft which took him a month to com plete because at first he didn’t have any tools. He found a diamond in the mines the shape of an axe head and made an axe of this. It was a crude tool, but one which never needed to be sharpened. He finished the raft and set out to sea one afternoon when he sighted a ship in the distance. He took with him only four diamonds, three small ones about the size of marbles and one large one about the size of a baseball. The ship picked him up. It was headed for the United States. He told the Captain of the ship that he had been shipwrecked on Krakatoa, invented horrible stories about how terrible the place was to live on. The Captain, however, needed no convincing, for he had no desire whatsoever to go to Krakatoa.

  “When Mr. M. arrived in San Francisco, he sold the three smaller diamonds to three different diamond brokers for approximately ten thousand dollars apiece. Then he picked twenty families, the twenty families you see here; and using the huge diamond the size of a baseball as bait, lured them into taking a trip with him back to this fabulous Island. He picked the families with care. Each family was required to have two things in order to be chosen. They had to have: a) one boy and one girl between the ages of three and eight; and b) they had to have definite creative interests, such as interests in painting, writing, the sciences, music, architecture, medicine. These two requirements would not only assure future generations of Krakatoa citizens; but also he assumed that people with creative interests are not liable to be too bored on a small desolate island; and people with inventive interests can more easily cope with unusual situations and form a stronger foundation for a cultured heredity.

  “With the thirty thousand dollars Mr. M. made by selling the small diamonds, he bought himself a ship. Mr. M. was the only man of the selected families chosen who was a sailor. He proceeded to make sailors out of all the other men by carefully training them on cruises on the ship he had bought. We were soon a capable crew. We loaded the ship with our families and supplies, and sailed away. That was about seven years ago.

  “Krakatoa is situated between Java and Sumatra. It is in a small group of three supposedly uninhabited islands named Krakatoa, Verlaten, and Lang. Verlaten Island hides a small inlet of Krakatoa from possible sight from Sumatra and also protects the inlet from the rough sea. We planned to dock our ship in this inlet. We did this in the middle of the night.

  “Our first year on Krakatoa was pretty horrible. Upon seeing the mines, we all became rather piggish. There was no way of actually dividing the diamonds except by making twenty shares, that is twenty pieces of paper each entitling its owner to an equal part of the mines. A greedy desire seemed to be in each of us at that time to become the one and only owner of all of the diamonds. Some of the families were made up of architects and builders. They built themselves comfortable little huts and settled down to a rather normal way of living. We were sleeping either on the ground or in the shelter of the mines. We asked the builders to make us houses too. They agreed to do it only if we gave them our shares in the mines. We refused at first, then found out (after months of uncomfortable living in the height of the rainy season) that we all simply had to have huts. We gave our diamond shares to the four building families. They made us our huts in return for which they became the owners of the diamond mines.

  “Now that we all had houses, we all started thinking of ways of getting our diamonds back. There was nothing to buy on Krakatoa. We lived mostly off the abundant vegetation on the Island. The climate is humid, warm, and steady; the earth, due to its volcanic nature, is full of phosphoric acids and potassium, and everything grows well here. One of the families opened a restaurant. This was an excellent idea. The four families who owned all the diamonds were anxious to show their power. There was no way of spending their diamonds here. There was no way of getting to another country either, except in our ship. It took all of the men on the Island to make up the ship’s crew, and none of the families without diamonds had any desire to take the families with diamonds back to the United States. So the families with diamonds showed their power by ”eating out” every night at the restaurant. The restaurant owners charged a fabulous price for their meals; I think it was three meals to the share. In spite of this the restaurant idea seemed to work. Soon another family opened a restaurant which was just a little better, and then another house was turned into a restaurant, and after a while every house was turned into a restaurant and the diamonds started to become equally divided again. After ab
out four months of fierce competition in which we all became excellent cooks, we found that we each had our shares back and that we were all considerably happier. There was a tremendous variety of cooking to be had from house to house, and we decided to celebrate the regaining of our shares with a big banquet in which each family would contribute its favorite dish. It was a sumptuous affair and we ended it by drawing up a Constitution for the Government of Krakatoa.

  “We have an unusual Constitution. It’s sort of a Restaurant Government. There are twenty families on the Island, each running a restaurant. We made it a law here that every family shall go to a different restaurant every night of the month, around the village square in rotation. In this way no family of Krakatoa has to work more than once every twenty days, and every family is assured a great variety of food.”

  I understood now why the two houses I had visited were both apparently restaurants, so I asked Mr. F. to explain to me how the families got their alphabetic names.

  “That’s quite simple,” said Mr. F. “There are twenty restaurants around the village square here. We lettered them, A, B, C, D, E, and F, all around the square up to T, the twentieth house. We changed our names. In ”A” Restaurant live Mr. A., his wife Mrs. A., their son A-1, and their daughter A-2. In ”B” Restaurant live Mr. B., Mrs. B., B-1, and B-2; it’s very simple.”

  “Is there anything else unusual in your Constitution?” “We have a different calendar in Krakatoa. It too is a Restaurant Calendar. The months are shorter. There are twenty days to the Krakatoan month, and they are named after the families, ‘A’ Day, ‘B’ Day, ‘C’ Day, and so forth up to ‘T’ Day. There are eighteen months to the Krakatoan year. Each day of one of our months, we eat at a different restaurant. On ‘A’ Day, we eat at the A.’s Restaurant, on ‘B’ Day at the B’s, and so forth. Each family only has to work on his day of the month.”