by Ann
In the next room, too, there was something that aroused my interest: a row of masks. They were not demonic masks of the kind one often sees in folk museums; they were not grimacing or cruelly decorated or spattered with blood. I saw quite ordinary faces of the citizens of Tainaron staring peacefully out of point or compound eyes, antennae gently outstretched. One could see hundreds of such faces as one walked in the city; and that was what was most extraordinary about the masks.
‘What are these used for?’ I asked Longhorn.
‘Ah,’ he said thoughtfully. ‘There was a time when a peculiar festival was held in Tainaron at the time of the autumn equinox, the day when day and night are equally long. These festivals gave employment to an entire profession: mask-makers. For the revellers had three kinds of mask: the first represented their faces as they were when they were quite young, the second showed their faces as they were at the midpoint of life, and the third mask as they would be when they were very old. They used the first mask in the morning, the second at midday and the third from evening to midnight.
‘So at some time of the day their mask was like their own face?’ I understood. The custom seemed very strange to me.
‘Yes, it was the day of the equinox,’ Longhorn said. ‘It spanned a whole life.’
‘And when were the masks taken off?’ I asked.
‘The masks were taken off at midnight,’ he replied. ‘They had fasted all day, but then they were allowed to eat and drink. There was everything in profusion, and beggars, too, were permitted to come to any table they wished.’
It was late at night by the time I returned from the city, and the vault of the sky was as black as the calotte which I had admired during the day. But behind the reflections of the city I could sense the promises of other lights, perhaps as deceptive as they. Here, too, their distance is as flabbergasting and strange as on the harbour pier where once, pierced by them, we lingered.
But I shall need no other gate of evening.
The Umbellifiers
The Twenty-Seventh Letter
We grow cold and look inward, for the frost has breathed on us and the city is making ready for a long hibernation. The season is over and the city people withdraw to their homes, doors are locked, conversation decreases. In the streets there are fewer and fewer people and vehicles, and all of them have particular destinations.
In many shop windows I have already seen a careless scribbled notice announcing that the shop will next open in the spring. Only one in three or four street lamps are lighted in the evenings, and later – so I have been told – only squares and crossroads will be lit.
Tourists are scarcely to be seen any longer. Who would be amused, after all, by touring a cold, dark city.
It is sad, sad. I think the lights of Tainaron should shine now that the sun is seen only seldom, more plentiful and colourful than before, but instead the city becomes dimmer and more impoverished.
Life stops in a thin crust of ice like frozen water and in the eyes of the few passers-by there is only the glimmer of the need for well-earned rest, but I am restless and wish to live. I wish to come and go, I wish to do something with these hands I see before me on the table so pale and helpless; I wish to debate important questions and eat and clink glasses.
Too late! Longhorn, if I mention my wishes to him, merely shakes his head and reassures me: ‘In the spring! When the winter has gone.’
And I see, of course I see exhaustion in his black jewel-eyes, I see that he himself would already prefer to withdraw to his home and stays on his feet only because I am here and in a way his guest. Always, before I meet him, I intend to say: ‘Go, do go, you do not have to stay awake for my sake; I shall manage very well here.’ But the words stick in my throat, for I know I shall be lost when he is gone.
And one cannot even see the fireflies here any longer; they have completely disappeared from the streets, and that, more than anything else, shows what hard times await us. Even the house of the Queen Bee looks bolted, and I cannot imagine where all the Oddfellows have scattered.
But today when I went past the house’s battened-down shutters, I saw a little light coming out of one of the cracks. I got up on tiptoe and peered inside, but I did not see the Queen Bee. But the empty room was filled with a warm, rosy glow whose source is in the honeycombs of memory.
Perhaps its warmth will suffice for the Queen Bee, however long and hard the winter. The Dangler’s balcony, too, is empty, and the street below it, one of Tainaron’s busiest thoroughfares, cuts through the city, empty and clean. Just occasionally a hawkmoth or two rushes past me in its late refitting. Elsewhere it is quiet, but in my head clatter the melancholy words: chippings and clay! Chippings and clay!
The spring tide is over, and Oceanos is murmuring its winter story. It is unlikely that I shall ever again come to gaze longingly over its swelling waters.
If now it were to happen that a letter were to drop on to my doormat, I know what it would say. You would write: ‘Why do you not go away?’
I can hear you say it, rather coldly and a little didactically, as if you were offering me something on a plate, but looking away at the same time. And I admit that I have heard those words before; I have asked myself the same question. And perhaps, if someone were to say the word, I would go. I taste the word in my mouth; how fresh and pure it tastes.
I had my reasons for coming to Tainaron; I am sure they were important reasons, but I have nevertheless forgotten what they were.
‘Come!’ What if I were to say that to you? It would be in vain, quite in vain, for all I could show you would be the wintry stalks of the umbellifers in the meadow at the Botanical Gardens.
Upright like them, I remain in this land of sleepers.
Date As Postmark
The Twenty-Eight Letter
Today I opened the door, and before me rose the Rhinoceros beetle, as gloomy and simple as a mountain. He is a friend of Longhorn, but I have only met him in passing before.
‘Come inside,’ I asked, but he went on standing on the spot, swaying, and I could not fathom what he wanted.
‘Have you seen Longhorn recently?’ I asked at length, for I had not seen Longhorn for many days.
‘It was Longhorn who sent me here,’ he responded, and fell silent once more.
‘And how is he?’ I asked, becoming a little impatient.
‘He told me to come here and ask if there is anything I can do for you,’ the Rhinoceros Beetle managed to say, swaying in ever greater circles. I think he must weigh more than one hundred kilograms.
‘Thank you, but I do not need anything,’ I said in astonishment. ‘But where is Longhorn himself?’
‘I thought you already knew,’ said the Rhinoceros Beetle, suddenly standing still.
‘I do not know anything,’ I said, fearing the worst. ‘Has something happened to Longhorn?’
I felt like shaking the Rhinoceros Beetle, who remained motionless, but he was too wide. I thought I understood.
‘Ah, he is already asleep,’ I said, and was very offended. It was not polite to retire for the winter without even saying goodnight.
‘He is in his pupal cell,’ said the Rhinoceros Beetle, becoming even more massive than before.
This information came as a shock to me. For the sake of the Rhinoceros Beetle, I managed, with difficulty, to restrain myself, for I would have liked to have cursed him: ‘Damned longhorn beetle! How dare you!’
The Rhinoceros Beetle left, but I went on standing in the doorway. I should never meet Longhorn again; not the Longhorn who had for so long been my patient guide in this strange city. If he were to return and step before me, I did not know who or what he would then be, or even when it would happen, for everything here has its own time and particular moment, unknown to others.
I should never again be able to turn to him, but when he nevertheless stepped before me, into the place where the Rhinoceros Beetle had just been standing, stood there and began to grow as the dead grow.
Then I saw that I had
never known him and that I had never even wanted to know him. And as he grew, he became thinner and more indistinct; his form slipped into the darkness of the stairwell and he no longer had shape or mass.
But his eyes, his eyes remained, and his gaze, which is as black and piercing as it ever was, and as impenetrable. And when I look into the darkness of his eyes they gradually begin to sparkle like double stars, like the planets on which the sun shines and on which there are seas and continents, roads, valleys and waterfalls and great forests where many can live and sing.
Then I went inside and closed the door, a little less sad. For it was, after all, now clear that although I had lived beside him from the beginning to the end, not just one life but two or three, I would never have learned to know him. His outline, which I had once drawn around him, in order to be able to show him and name him, had now disappeared. It liberated the great stranger who was a much realer Longhorn than the person I once knew, small and separate.
Such is my farewell to Longhorn today, date as postmark, in the city of Tainaron.
Passing Bells
The Twenty-Ninth Letter
What a rumbling! Over all of Tainaron it spread, echoing from wall to wall, shaking the window-panes and resonating in my own chest. When I pressed my fingers against the table, I could even feel the sound of the ore bells in my fingertips. And my toes, the soles of my feet, my elbows heard it, for the floor, all the soil of Tainaron quivered and resounded.
The prince had died, and now in all the churches, cathedrals and temples of the city, the many of them that there were, passing bells were being rung. They roared from morning to night as if to restore to the deceased the respect which no one had accorded to him before his death.
‘What happened to the prince?’ I asked the Rhinoceros Beetle. For the cause of his death had not been divulged on the news.
‘Him? He just died,’ the Rhinoceros Beetle answered, turning his slow gaze upon me. ‘It was high time. He was an old man.’
‘But was it not almost too fitting a time?’
I had seen, in the heart tower, what I had seen: the thin, expectant form of the prince, huddled on a simple chair which had been set in the middle of the floor without the company of adjutants or even the most lowly guardsman. His cloak was surrounded, like another cloak, by the aura of his fast approaching end. And it was not a natural end.
‘Did it not happen very suddenly?’
‘No more suddenly than anything else,’ the Rhinoceros Beetle growled, even more dully than usual.
Slow-blooded, simple-minded creature! How could Longhorn ever have imagined that the Rhinoceros Beetle could have replaced him as my guide to Tainaron?
‘I should like to know what will happen next,’ I said.
‘Now power will change hands,’ the Rhinoceros Beetle said.
‘Yes, of course,’ I said impatiently. I knew that, of course, but I wanted to find out what it would mean in practice and what kind of leadership Tainaron would now receive. But as I looked at the Rhinoceros Beetle I realised that it was not worth pursuing the subject. I could already see that nothing could have interested him less.
At that moment he glanced at me askance, and behind the membrane that covered his black eyes there flashed something – like amusement. Was the Rhinoceros Beetle really capable of being amused by something? For a moment I felt I might have been mistaken in regard to him, as if his dullness might veil completely different characteristics which he hid for who knew what reason. I tried to find the light again, but his gaze extinguished, as normal. Perhaps the fleeting impression was caused merely by the lighting or by my own state of mind.
‘Will you go to a memorial service in one of the temples? What religion do you belong to?’ I found myself asking, for I wished to change the subject, which had proved fruitless.
‘Each in turn,’ he said. ‘Naturally.’
‘Each in turn? Surely that is not possible,’ I said, stunned. And ‘naturally’ – surely that was too much.
‘Why not?’ he said, chewing something in his massive jaws. ‘One must be impartial. At the moment I belong to the temple of the highest knowledge. Next month I shall move to – oh, I do not think I can remember the name of the parish.’
‘But if where you are now has the highest knowledge, why is it worth moving to another parish?’
He did not answer, but chewed and swallowed some tough and gluey substance which from time to time stuck his jaws together. I could still hear the ringing of the passing bells, from both far and high, both low and from quite close by.
‘Do you recognise the bells of your own temple?’ I asked.
‘I think they are the ones that clattering quite close by,’ he said. ‘Or else those where you can hear a double ring between the low strokes. No, listen, I think after all that they are those slower ones from farther east, that always ring three and one, three and one,’ he said.
I listened in vain. I could not distinguish the bells from each other; all I could hear was a roaring in which they were all mixed up. These Tainaronians! I do not suppose I shall ever learn to understand them. I am beginning to be weary of my long visit; yes, now I am weary.
The Rhinoceros Beetle has gone, but the prince’s passing bells are still booming. And why should I not admit that today I am plagued by home-sickness. I am sick with home-sickness. But Oceanos is freezing for the winter, and not a single ship will leave the harbour before spring.
The tall trees of my home courtyard are now tossing in the grip of a storm. The slanting brightness of autumn falls into my room. I see the room’s books and pictures and carefully chosen things; I remember its calm and its secret joy. It was at just this time of year, before winter, long ago, that you came into my room.
You came into my room as the morning dawned, and I did not know whether I slept or woke. I did not stir, but you, you squeezed your hard, salt-weathered lips silently to my throat, where the pulse beats, and then they pressed my temples and moved, hot, over my eyelids, until finally you felt for my mouth and opened it with your own lips. Then I tasted your taste, the taste of your thirst, and I answered, and answered, and moaned.
The Pupal Cell of My Home
The Thirtieth Letter
How long I searched for a home back then. Before me furnished and cold rooms opened, broken rental agreements fell, houses with destruction orders collapsed, and the endless queues of housing offices wound in long roads without issue.
Now all that is in the past. In the room in which I now live I have everything I need, and more: if I step on to my balcony, I see the white pennants and golden cupolas of Tainaron, the cloud-girt mountains and the blue heart-waters of Oceanos.
Nevertheless, I have now started to prepare a new dwelling for myself, just in case. Yes, it is almost ready for me to move in, my little pupal cell; it can no longer be unsuccessful. It has the fresh smell of mud and algae and reeds, for I have gathered almost all the materials myself from the beach where I once almost found myself in the jaws of death. I have done it all with my own hands, and when I look inside I am satisfied. It is just my size, like a well-fitting garment which does not pull anywhere. It is small on the outside but spacious inside, just as a good dwelling-place should be.
It is dark there. When I peer in through its only opening which, when the occasion arises, I shall close from inside, I am overcome by irresistible sleepiness. I do not believe that the lack of space will trouble me, for once I reach it it will be as wide as the night.
The mail will go on being delivered for some time, so I have heard, but the city now seems dead. More and more people are withdrawing for their winter rest, some of them – like Longhorn and, before long, I myself too – will be away for much longer. I spoke of sleeping just now, but of course we shall not merely be resting, but changing. Will I know how? Will it be hard work? Will it bring pain or pleasure or will it mean the disappearance, too, of all regrets?
Some change imperceptibly, little by little, others quickly and on
ce and for all, but everyone changes, and for that reason it is in vain to ask whose fate is the best.
My entire room stinks like an estuary! There was something I still had to tell you, but the smell of the sludge dulls my thoughts. I shall remember it once more when it is spring, and that will come soon, soon, the seventeenth, and all around will sparkle – droplets! and I shall rise; and we shall see again…
Hogfoot Right and Bird-Hands
Garry Kilworth
Garry Kilworth (1941–) is a highly respected English writer who has published dozens of fantasy, science fiction, and historical novels since the 1970s. A World Fantasy Award winner, Kilworth has also won the Charles Whiting Award for Literature and written a number of books for children, including the Welkin Weasel series. Short story collections include Let’s Go to Golgotha (1975), In the Country of Tattooed Men (1993), and Tales from a Fragrant Harbour (2010). ‘Hogfoot Right and Bird-hands’ (1987) may be Kilworth’s most famous story, in a few short pages evoking wonder, mystery, and horror to create an amazingly potent ‘weird science fiction’ tale.
There lived, high above the empty streets in a tall building, an old woman whose pet cat had recently died. In those days cats were rare and the woman had not the means to purchase another. So she called for the machine whose duty it was to look after the welfare of lost and lonely people.
The welfare machine came to her apartment in the middle of the night, and when she explained her plight it suggested that the old woman replace her cat with a pet fashioned from a part of her body. It said it could remove and modify one of her feet to resemble a piglet, and the old woman agreed to this scheme. Since she spent all her time in the mobile bed-chair that saw to all her needs, she did not require the use of her feet, nor any other part of her body for that matter, apart from her brain, to which the bed-chair and other appliances were connected. The old woman was not sick, unless apathy and idleness be looked upon as an illness, but she had no desire to take part in any physical activity of any sort. She merely went from one grey day to the next, sleeping, eating, and watching a device called wallscreen, on which she could witness the lives of others, long since dead, over and over again.
