The King's Indian: Stories and Tales

by John Gardner

  “ ‘Flint’s dead,’ I cried, and waved my arms. There was no sign of life from them.

  “From the cabin behind me came a terrible mournful laugh, and I ran to Miranda.”

  XXVIII

  The end is upon us; I admit it, honest reader. The inexhaustible supply of tricks is exhausted—almost. Dr. Luther Flint has been raised from mere artifice—a ventriloquist’s dummy!—to a touching spokesman for all criminal, all pseudo-artistic minds. His death, though perhaps not unique in all literature, is one that should drive more ordinary villains to a jealous rage. As for Miranda—but that’s a ribbon not yet tied. She sits observing the ancient mariner with thoughtful eyes. She has half a mind to take control of things herself, and she may do it, too. We know her kind. And the angel will support her (whatever, exactly, that may mean). So will the guest.

  But I haven’t interrupted this flow of things imagined for mere chat about the plot. This house we’re in is a strange one, reader—house or old trunk or circus tent—and it’s one I hope you find congenial, sufficiently gewgawed and cluttered but not unduly snug. Take my word, in any case, that I haven’t built it as a cynical trick, one more bad joke of exhausted art. The sculptor-turned-painter that I mentioned before is an actual artist, with a name I could name, and what I said of him is true. And you are real, reader, and so am I, John Gardner the man that, with the help of Poe and Melville and many another man, wrote this book. And this book, this book is no child’s top either—though I write, more than usual, filled with doubts. Not a toy but a queer, cranky monument, a collage: a celebration of all literature and life; an environmental sculpture, a funeral crypt.

  The guest looks embarrassed. The angel disapproves.

  “Tell on, Johnny!” the old mariner cries, and throws his head forward and slaps his knees.

  “No, you tell on,” says I, “I just thought they’d like to know.”

  XXIX

  Says he:

  “Then this, sir.

  “Miranda lay face down on the berth, refusing to turn to me or speak. Though she’d heard me coming, she hadn’t bothered to pull the cover up. She lay half-bare in her ragged dress, her skin mottled and clouded like marble, wide milky veins between the green and plum-blue bruises. ‘Miranda,’ I said, ‘now you listen to me.’ When I touched her shoulder she twisted away, lightning fast, rolling over on her side and straight up on one elbow, not bothering to hide her buttonless, torn-open front, and glared at me with one eye, like Odysseus’ Cyclops. Her face was more swollen than before; not a trace of its former beauty. Her smile was scornful—cunning and superior. I shook my head, and she pretended to laugh, a laugh identical to Wilkins’—or so it seemed to me—full of rage. Her face, all at once, went revoltingly coy. With a gasp of pain as great as mine, she threw away the cover to show the rest of her. The blood, where the dress was ripped away, was dry and peeling. I stood up, turned my eyes from her. ‘Miranda, see here,’ I said sternly.

  “ ‘I gave myself to you,’ she said, violent, ‘—wrote you beautiful love poems, shamed myself—blessed Heaven how I loved you, Jonathan!—but even then I was nothing. And now—’

  “ ‘Be still and listen,’ I said. Love poems indeed. And yet it was impossible not to believe her at least partly. I turned back to her, and it did not check me that she refused even now to cover herself, reveled in her destruction, flaunted her shame as she’d flaunted, once, her supposed nobility. Ah, pride, pride! No end to it!

  “ ‘I’ll take care of ye, Miranda. But from now on, because of yer criminal nature, ye must give up this willfulness and obey me absolutely. Otherwise I’ll clap ye in irons and that’s a fact.’

  “ ‘Take care of me!’ she sneered. ‘Jonathan, yer too kind.’

  “ ‘And love you, that too.’ My voice was shaky, and where the words came from, Heaven knows.

  “She laughed again, her face filled solid with what might have been hate; then, fast as a cat’s paw, she snatched the cover up and lay rigid, eyes clenched shut. I was helpless, viciously slapped back for an instant, then suddenly I understood and could have laughed. In her place, I wouldn’t have pulled up that cover but for one reason: uncertainty, a crack in my wall of despair. Her dyed black hair was coarse and scratchy, but at the roots it was yellow and delicate, a coming of spring.

  “ ‘Ah, ah, wicked Miranda,’ I said. She would come to love herself again, in time. She would preen in the broken piece of mirror on the wall, smiling in such a way that she did not show her broken teeth, coyly batting the lash on her damaged eye. I could have told her what Wilkins said: There are no stable principles. I put my hand on her shoulder and a queer shock of excitement went through me. I would tyrannize her back to health. She trembled, but didn’t turn away. ‘You’ll be all right, Miranda.’

  “For a long time she was silent, bristling, or so I thought. Then suddenly she raised up a little and turned her face toward me. ‘Fool,’ she whispered. ‘I brought my father to the deck for you. You couldn’t find him, for all yer tricks. The whole lot of you couldn’t make him show himself.’

  “It stopped me for a moment, thoroughly confused me. I remembered that motionless listening. I said: ‘And the sailor you murdered? That was a kindness for me too, Miranda?’

  “ ‘The knife was thrown, Jonathan. Ye must’ve been looking at the sailor at the time. If ye’d been looking into the cabin ye’d’ve seen it thrown.’

  “I laughed, wishing it were true and half believing it. ‘And when you came to my bunk, the time I caught your hand?’

  “ ‘I was looking for the books, to keep you from learning who I was, keep you from despising me. Have you any idea what it’s like to be—’ She paused, too proud to let her humanness slip out, if that was what it was. ‘—Anyway, the books were mine, remember?’

  “ ‘Yes, of course. And the time you told me that ridiculous ghost ship story? “Believe in me, Jonathan!” That, too, was for my sake?’

  “ ‘The story’s true. Not even my father could find a flaw in it.’

  “ ‘A hoax, a trick by Wilkins. He said so.’ I watched her eyes.

  “ ‘Wilkins is a liar!’

  “I shook my head. ‘Miranda—poor desperate Miranda!’ I said.

  “ ‘Fool,’ she whispered again, and drew back from me. The cover, where it hung from the edge of the berth, stirred a little. ‘Poor desperate Miranda. What do you know about poor desperate Miranda?—what does anyone know—even poor desperate Miranda herself?’ She’d be crying in a minute, but not from self-pity, from an overflow of anger that arched beyond me to all the universe. ‘I lived with that tricky-brained devil all my life, and maybe loved him—just a child … Never mind, never mind. He was my father, and fond of me, whatever you may say, though also of course he was a devil. Never mind. I too learned magic— the child-bride stage-smile for when Daddy was in a rage, and a smile I really meant, but identical to the first, for when Daddy was in jail, or drinking and talking about suicide. “Be real, Miranda,” that’s what you ask. But theater curtains are my outer skin, and my soul is the sound of the piano player. You hoped perhaps I’d grow up pure and innocent, untouched by my surroundings, some mysteriously engendered precious jewel in the forest, or your friend with the bone in his nose, Nigger Jim. But there is no purity or innocence in theaters, or in forests, or in oceans—and no wickedness, either. Only survival, only cunning and secrecy. The tortuous opening of theater curtains, the deep, deep breath, then— God help us!—the terrifying dimming of the lights. Innocence, Jonathan! You poor desperate fool!’ She turned her face away. I did not notice, for a time, that tears were washing down her cheeks. ‘I was beautiful,’ she said.

  “I thought about it, studying her bruises. They had become— quite suddenly, perhaps because for an instant she’d forgotten her secrecy and cunning—no longer repulsive. They’d become outer wrappings, mere theater curtains, as Miranda said. Particular encasements of the painful universal desire and fear.

  “ ‘I’ll be back,’ I said abr
uptly. I left her, then quickly returned, bringing water and towels.

  “She drew back in fright. ‘Jonathan!’

  “I ignored her. I sat on the berth, beside her, and gently dabbed away the blood at the edge of her lip. I rinsed the cloth and moved on to her neck, then her shoulder. She was trembling.

  “ ‘Don’t be afraid,’ I said.

  “ ‘Please, Jonathan!’

  “But I’d discovered something. I knew every flicker of thought that went through her, because her nature, however deadly, was like mine, like Wilkins’, like wise James Ngugi’s: Whatever the age and continent that framed her, she housed no fear, no hope, no shade of opinion we ourselves had not also housed. I made my mind a blank. I could control her body as surely as could any Mesmerist. I could soothe away shyness, self-hatred, support her against a flutter of guilt, eighth and most deadly of the deadly sins. If I tyrannized, seduced her, it was by becoming her, not a cry of Believe in me!, but I believe! Her right hand touched my shoulder, stopping me. With her left she tried to hide the swellings on her face. ‘Jonathan, don’t,’ she whispered. Age-old withdrawal of the female into shadows, the secrecy and cunning at the heart of things. I gazed at her, thinking nothing, drowned in sensation, desiring her. At length, Miranda closed her eyes. When I pulled my shirt off she said nothing and did not look at me. I took off the rest of my clothes and lay down beside her, carefully not touching her. I knew what she was thinking, watching her with my vague left eye. The splendid possibility of life without flesh, love without tyranny.

  “ ‘You must come with me to southern Illinois,’ I said. ‘It’s a whole new geography, beyond philosophy and stabilizing vision. Terrible tornadoes, unbelievable winds. In the springtime the hills are more green than emeralds, the sky more blue than cobalt, with clouds of unthinkable white. No dangerous animals high or low, except the Harpe brothers and the Baptists, and we can outwit them, wait and see.’ I touched her breast. She reached to me suddenly and pulled me to her. ‘You’re so wall-eyed!’ she whispered. I saw on her face a wild, unintentional idea. ‘Jonathan, I love you,’ she whispered. ‘You’re grotesque.’

  “I was alive, all at once. It seemed to me the whole ship was alive. My hands stopped moving on her shoulders, understanding ahead of my mind. ‘Wind!’ I whispered. She stopped breathing, listening. ‘Wind!’ we said, both of us at once. Outside the ports, the sky had changed. There were blooms of lightning. ‘Sleep, Miranda. I’ll be back when I can.’ Without waiting for her answer, without stopping to dress, I left her, ran out on the poopdeck. ‘Ngugi! There’s wind!’ I shouted. Ngugi snapped out of his sleep like a puppet jerked upward, and the rest of the crew came awake the same instant. ‘Wind it is!’ he shouted back, his eyes popping open, his smile as wide as the Milky Way, as full of strange joy as the black-green sliding Congo. The heavy air echoed mysteriously, Is! Our skeleton crew was all on deck, waiting for someone to give or take command. Charlie Johnson stood clapping, ready to start running—a smiling little black in spectacles. ‘Sails!’ I yelled. ‘Stitch sails together—sheets, shirts, hankies, anything the wind can get its fingers in!’ They went scampering down through the hatches to tear the beds apart, rip seams out of clothes, clamp sails together with thread, rope, nails, knives, marlinspikes. I stripped the Captain’s cabin, tore away the covers from Miranda, ‘A thousand pardons,’ I said, and began on her dresser. ‘Jonathan!’ cries she, white arms over breasts. Her good eye was wide with indignation.

  “The stirring ocean and the gentle wind were moving our sailless hulk to southward, edging us down toward sullen darkness and a milky sea where a strangely luminous glare arose, a kind of vapor that shifted here and there like a theater curtain. Ngugi had already a man at the helm, a man who knew no more of guiding ships than we did. Gigantic, pallid white birds were now flying great circles around us, emerging from behind the glowing veil. I went up with six men to lash on sail, snatch a little wind and put on such distance as we could toward the Cape before the weather turned. I shouted to our helmsman, ‘Tack alee!’ The sky rang with echoes. Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li! The Jerusalem yawed and leaned, then righted herself. From my perch on the yard I saw ships in the distance—two of them, then three, sent as witnesses. Far below I could see, like mechanical toys, our orphan’d crew running back and forth, each taking orders from all of us. Them too I understood. Rankless, ruleless, they were learning to be a community of sorts on the mutilated ship. No more geniuses, no more great kings. Only wild pale-faces, contemplative Apaches. They ran about crazily (but gentle, sure-footed) like children eager for Mama’s praise. Miranda peeked out the cabin door. ‘Hooray!’ she yelled. The wind came steady, we had all the time and space of the wise Chinese, though not their dignity. The whiteness of the sea to southward darkened; a huge sad man rose up from the water, standing on newly emerged dry land, his arms laid out lightly on an oak tree’s limbs and his antique garb as white as snow. I addressed him, shouting: ‘So it’s thee our Captain came to hail! God bless you and good day!’ I kept my right eye steady on the bowsprit, the solemn white monster blurry in my left. ‘Tack hard alee!’ I shouted. The pale white birds were as large as the three ships circling us. ‘Homewards, my sea-whores,’ I shouted from the masthead. ‘—Homewards, you orphans, you bandy-legged, potbellied, pig-brained, belly-dancing killers of the innocent whale! Eyes forward, you niggers, you Chinese Irish Mandalay Jews, you Anglo-Saxons with jackals’ eyes. We may be the slime of the earth but we’ve got our affinities! On to Illinois the Changeable!’ I stood on the yard, letting go with both hands, below me a sail of shirts, sheets, trousers, rain-slickers, underwear, and below that my shimmering fellow Cains. At the Captain’s door, for inspiration, stood our blushing wild Sister. Perched like a bird, an archangel teetering on Nowhere’s rim, I intoned, dramatic, orbiculate: ‘Discipline, lads, is a World full of hardness, abounding in disagreeables, till we’ve learned to chew through to the eternity hidden in its pits.’

  “ ‘Tack alee!’ the Holy Ghost exclaims, disguised as a sea-boobie sitting by my shoulder. His head hung down, disgusted by rhetoric.

  “ ‘You better hang on there, bird,’ says I.

  “ ‘Hang on thyself,’ cries he, ‘thou fucking lunatic!’ ”

  A Biography of John Gardner

  John Gardner (1933–1982) was a bestselling and award-winning novelist and essayist, and one of the twentieth century’s most controversial literary authors. Gardner produced more than thirty works of fiction and nonfiction, consisting of novels, children’s stories, literary criticism, and a book of poetry. His books, which include the celebrated novels Grendel, The Sunlight Dialogues, and October Light, are noted for their intellectual depth and penetrating insight into human nature.

  Gardner was born in Batavia, New York. His father, a preacher and dairy farmer, and mother, an English teacher, both possessed a love of literature and often recited Shakespeare during his childhood. When he was eleven years old, Gardner was involved in a tractor accident that resulted in the death of his younger brother, Gilbert. He carried the guilt from this accident with him for the rest of his life, and would incorporate this theme into a number of his works, among them the short story “Redemption” (1977). After graduating from high school, Gardner earned his undergraduate degree from Washington University in St. Louis, and he married his first wife, Joan Louise Patterson, in 1953. He earned his Master’s and Ph.D. in English from the University of Iowa in 1958, after which he entered into a career in academia that would last for the remainder of his life, including a period at Chico State College, where he taught writing to a young Raymond Carver.

  Following the births of his son, Joel, in 1959 and daughter, Lucy, in 1962, Gardner published his first novel, The Resurrection (1966), followed by The Wreckage of Agathon (1970). It wasn’t until the release of Grendel (1971), however, that Gardner’s work began attracting significant attention. Critical praise for Grendel was universal and the book won Gardner a devoted following. His reputation as a preeminent figu
re in modern American literature was cemented upon the release of his New York Times bestselling novel The Sunlight Dialogues (1972). Throughout the 1970s, Gardner completed about two books per year, including October Light (1976), which won the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the controversial On Moral Fiction (1978), in which he argued that “true art is by its nature moral” and criticized such contemporaries as John Updike and John Barth. Backlash over On Moral Fiction continued for years after the book’s publication, though his subsequent books, including Freddy’s Book (1980) and Mickelsson’s Ghosts (1982), were largely praised by critics. He also wrote four successful children’s books, among them Dragon, Dragon and Other Tales (1975), which was named Outstanding Book of the Year by the New York Times.

  In 1980, Gardner married his second wife, a former student of his named Liz Rosenberg. The couple divorced in 1982, and that same year he became engaged to Susan Thornton, another former student. One week before they were to be married, Gardner died in a motorcycle crash in Pennsylvania. He was forty-nine years old.

  A two-year-old Gardner, shown here, in 1935. He went by the nickname “Buddy” throughout his childhood.

  Gardner on a motorcycle in 1948, when he was about fifteen years old. He was a lifelong enthusiast of motorcycle and horseback riding, hobbies that resulted in multiple broken bones and other injuries throughout his life.

  Gardner’s senior photo from Batavia High School, taken in 1950. Though he found most of his classes boring, he particularly enjoyed chemistry. One day in class, Gardner and some friends disbursed a malodorous concoction through the school’s ventilation system, causing the whole building to reek and classes to be dismissed early.

  Gardner and Joan Patterson, his first wife, in the early 1950s. The couple were high school sweethearts and attended senior prom together in 1951.

  John and Joan’s wedding photograph, taken on June 6, 1953.