Fata Morgana

by William Kotzwinkle

  Picard was glad of the bench; his head had started to ache, where the Baron had clubbed him. Maybe the Baron’s thinking of me. We’re beaten down by enemies, by life, and the pain is inevitable, raise the head slowly, slowly...

  He looked toward the ancient statue, saw now that it was an old tombstone, a block of stone carved in the shape of a heart, with a skull atop it.

  His own heart began to beat violently, and a feeling of doom swirled around him. He closed his eyes, trying to relax. His head was ringing, much as it had rung when Baron Mantes split it open; perhaps such ringing never ceases, just grows fainter and returns. We are trapped in our worst moment forever, forever falling to the ground, falling...

  He stood, his uncertain footsteps carrying him toward the tombstone, and he found himself staring at the amorphous shape above the skull, Christ crucified, the suffering features nearly obliterated by rain and wind. The cross was hung with spider webs, inside of which dark flies were suspended.

  He bent at the fountain, splashed water on his face, fighting down the ugly fantasy that he was dead, that Lazare had tricked him, poisoned him, that he was nothing but a spectre haunting an alleyway. He knelt, removing his hat and ducking his whole head under. Good citizens, forgive, I’m a feverish traveler.

  But the alleyway was empty, no one saw his bath. He was alone, in a solitude which he suddenly felt to be complete, stretching endlessly across Europe, around the earth itself.

  He walked on, holding his hat, leaving the alleyway behind. The tradesmen and office workers were finished for the day, and he asked a woman for directions. Her voice was empty, far off, like that of a woman met in a dream. He wanted to cry out, Madame, we’re dreamers, we’re dreaming, you and I, and she saw the madness in his eyes, turned quickly and walked away, leaving him standing on the street corner, beneath a statue of naked wrestling gods.

  The insane asylum, then? The voice of the Viennese Chief mocked him with its suggestion, a suggestion that suddenly became a possibility. For how many, reflected Picard, how many grab their bars and scream, This is a dream, let me free, I’m dreaming!

  He heard bright music ahead, aimed for it, seeking to be born into the world again, the everyday world of the street. An accordionist and guitar player stood at the edge of Am Hof Square, in which a festival of some sort was being held. He walked up to the musicians, tossed several coins into the battered hat they’d laid on the road. They nodded and continued playing, playing the world, playing life. They were older than he, the guitarist had only one leg, and played a cheerful tune of the street.

  Picard moved against the building, leaned there, resting and listening. The guitarist too was leaning, his empty pinned-up pants leg fluttering in the wind. Picard tried to understand the words of the song, a folk song, something about human, human, so nature has made us.

  A young boy appeared, running toward the musicians, and he whispered to them, causing them to cease playing at once. Picard looked in the direction from which the boy had come.

  A funeral cortege came toward them, the carriage draped in black, the horses pulling slowly. The coffin was a plain one, riding in a little hill of flowers that had been strewn in the carriage. The musicians had lowered their instruments, making them inconspicuous as the procession went on past. Only when the carriage had turned the distant corner beyond the square did they resume their tune: human, human, so nature has made us.

  Picard’s sombre mood dissolved as he entered Am Hof Square, finding it had been given over to a toy fair. The booths offered various enchantments—music boxes and banks, mechanical animals, farmyards, fortresses, oriental pagodas, miniature buildings of every kind. His childhood rose; he had lived in this magic land of dreaming toys, when Paris itself had been one of his toys. On the golden boulevard of memory he saw the secret of the lamps once more, that they were brightly dancing souls. A child’s mind—the child sees all things as living—the streetlamps, the statues, and most of all his toys. His toys are living creatures. Ah god, what divine dreams.

  He peered into a miniature townhouse, three stories high. In the cellar a tiny servant was reaching toward a wine rack. On the main floor a dinner party was in progress. The tiny women wore tiny gowns, the men perfectly tailored little tuxedos. The crowded parlor was supported by small Grecian pillars.

  Picard nearly fell into the miniature gathering, removed himself with an apology to the creator of the dollhouse. It was of course only vaguely similar, was not Lazare’s salon—one so easily projects an obsession. But the little figures are so well-made, so magically alive.

  The next booth sold board games of every sort—in which dice were rolled and markers moved around wheels and squares, producing races between a shoe and a bell, a dog and a goat, other little objects which served to distinguish the players. We’re on the wheel together, Lazare, somewhere through here. I know that I am near you.

  He smiled at the elderly woman who ran the booth; she began speaking a dialect he couldn’t follow. He nodded as if he understood, and picked up one of the markers—a silver hound which he moved toward a hare who was turning a corner of the board.

  The woman rattled on, he thanked her and walked away, trying to remain clear and open to the influence, the hidden genie of the chase who was swirling and smoking in his bottle, seeking release.

  Very well, come out, come enchant me, I know you’re there, deep in my mind, know that you see what I cannot see. What is it?

  At the next booth Noah’s Ark sailed on a sea of glass; then a three-layered carousel turned, carrying a bright array of wooden animals. Picard felt his mind fuming with an insight, something perceived, yet not perceived.

  “Wooden soldiers, sir? Something for your young lad—we’ve a marvelous cavalry here, and here the artillery...”

  The toy seller moved the bright troops about, hauling cannon into place. Picard had to struggle against the fascinating little war staged before him, had to try and maintain himself as a student of the chase, rather than yield to the child who sought to live again in him, the lost boy of Parisian streets, the boy who’d played with such toys long ago, and wished to play with them again.

  “No, no, thank you—but they are wonderful.” These memories are sweet, but I have no need of you just now, little boy. Go away, go away...

  He felt a tug in his heart, a sad little tug, as the boy dove back down into the darkness where he’d slumbered so long. Picard stood silent in the midst of the square, coldly observant, enchanted no longer, and still no wiser about Ric Lazare.

  He circled the fair, through the flags and banners of fairyland which flew from the tops of the toy makers’ tents. His mind was clear, with a discernment he wished were always his—every detail of the square seemed bathed in a mysterious light. I’m at the intersection of my case, I’m the fat wizard of toyland, but I don’t see Lazare!

  Where are you—you’re hiding from me here, I’ll bet all I own. The old hound knows a hare’s track when he sniffs it.

  The sun retired behind the stone walls of the city, and the toy makers lit their lamps. He was hungry, and nervous. Am I so stupid? It must be here, else why do I stay on, going in circles, like that mechanical duck there, on little red wheels.

  But when he reached the edge of the square, he left the fair. Christmas is in the air, a special excitement reigns—perhaps that is all I’m feeling, the enchantment of the season. Self-deception is man’s constant companion. Perhaps, after all, it is only the child in me who responds to the fair.

  He turned back, looking through the stone canyon toward the lantern-lit square, and the attraction was intense, but of a sort he could not understand. He stood watching, staring into the fairy light, feeling that maybe the fairies had tricked him, as they were known to do. There had been men from the Prefecture swallowed up that way before—led clear around Europe on completely imagined scents. One took that sort of trip only once—the Prefect did not tolerate such expensive mistakes.

  Picard found a coffeehouse, a bright,
quiet place filled with Viennese reading their newspapers. He drank several coffees, and when the kitchen of the café began to emit pleasant smells he ordered supper, eating by the window, watching a faint mist move on the avenue. Toys still played in his head: the large stuffed bear of his childhood, whom he’d pounded hell out of. Poor bear, his head finally drooped, and the stuffing came out of his neck. I was a hard little bandit. But at night—at night I believe he lay beside me, faithful bear. Why do these thoughts keep coming; what do you see, child, what does little Paul have to tell me about Ric Lazare?

  From the mist, two dark-haired gypsy children appeared, a boy and a girl, walking toward the café door, flowers in their arms. Picard’s seat was closest to the door, and they came straight to him.

  “Flowers, sir? Flowers for your girl?”

  Picard smiled, started to reach for a coin, but the owner of the café came quickly forward, scolding the children and chasing them out the door. He returned to Picard’s table, apologetically. “I’m sorry they bothered you, sir. They steal the flowers from the cemetery...”

  The owner smiled then, his gesture concluded, and walked away. Picard turned back to the window, a feeling of cold moving through him, despite the hot wine he’d been sipping. The gypsy children were walking on through the mist; he rose from the table and paid his check. Merest chance that they should have chosen me with their death flowers. Merest chance. Third token of death today. He stepped into the street. The evening had grown milder, the cold edge gone and the mist getting thicker. As he walked, the piping of the child came to him again, the ghost of memory haunting his footsteps. He felt his childhood, his toys, as if he were still carrying them along with him in a sack—Jack the jester who popped out of a box, and a monkey who hung on a string.

  Childhood, the past—go deeper into Lazare’s past, find his origins, certainly, if only I knew where to look. Which city, where...

  He was attracted to the sign of the Elyseum ballroom, whose lobby was decorated with junk from various parts of Europe and the world. He descended, into the dance. The room was enormous; there was a French section, a South American, an African; other geographical niches glittered beyond these, and he moved slowly through the crowd. Tables ringed the dance floor and everyone was drunk. The lamps wore shades of many colors, the floor was smooth as a skating rink, shining with reflected light, in which he saw his hulking form. He ignored the suggestion in his footsteps, the nagging and monstrous suggestion that he was a mere shadow crossing the floor, and less than shadow, a creature of mist doomed to be scattered by the sun.

  “Yes, a brandy, please.”

  The music had ceased and the musicians were themselves taking fortification; other gentlemen were leaning at the bar, or gathered in the doorways. He occupied himself with the sight of the ladies, called for another brandy, and mused on the strange sensation of unreality that now seemed to be his constant companion—old age creeping up on me, perhaps. But there is one sure antidote for that poison, and you, voluptuous Fraulein, are it.

  He stepped from the bar, and as he did so she looked away, though but a moment before her gaze had been spinning its way toward him, spinning softly, with silken suggestiveness, promising to wrap him in gently, to change him from a wretched worm to a butterfly, for a moment at least.

  Her hair was golden, the gold bangles on her wrists glittering as she arranged a lock of hair over her ear and delicately brought her hand down in front of her, still pretending she didn’t see him approaching. The shape of her fingernails seemed to have claimed her full attention.

  * * *

  Her gown—black lace ribboned with the German tricolor of black, red, and gold—lay upon the floor. She stood in the middle of the room, removing her black stockings. Her legs were marvelous, slightly muscled in the calves, legs of a dancer, and she had the belly of a girl who loves her beer, a girl after my own tastes, thought Picard, taking her in his arms.

  She straightened, her stockings only half off, and gave him a deep wet kiss, lolling her tongue around in his mouth as he patted her gorgeous big heinie.

  “You have a liking for it, yes?” she whispered in schoolgirl French, and he answered in equally clumsy German that indeed he had a liking for it, in fact would like to own it.

  They stumbled toward the bed, his jacket and pants falling along the way. She mixed her kisses with other languid attempts at French, making each hesitant word a further intimacy, as she unbuttoned his undershorts, pulled them away, slipped her fingers beneath his undershirt, pulled it away, asking what brought him to Vienna and learning that he was a balloon enthusiast, come for a fair.

  A distant church bell struck the late hour. Through the window they heard the street watchman tapping the lampposts and singing his lonely verse, which she translated slowly for Picard, punctuating it with long searching kisses, her whisper blending with the watchman’s gruff warning:

  “Good people all, I pray take care

  And speedily to bed repair

  For midnight arrives, the day expires

  So shut your door and quench your fires”

  “We’ve repaired to bed,” said Picard, caressing her huge breasts.

  “Yes,” she said gently, “and now you’ll quench my fire.”

  * * *

  When he left the room, she was sleeping, and he went quietly down the steps of her building to the street, where the night watchman was again passing in his grey frock coat, wearing a large tin hat and black garters. His pole was long and tipped with iron, and he looked Picard over carefully, speaking a caution.

  “I’m speeding toward bed,” answered Picard with a beatific smile, and the policeman understood that this lover was no threat to the night. He passed on, lightly-tapping his pole, and Picard went in the opposite direction, toward his hotel. Once more as he walked he felt the presence of the fairy child in him, a sliver of moonlight in his soul, haunting and distant. And with it he suddenly heard the mocking voice of Ric Lazare, saying, It is only a toy, monsieur.

  The morning was grey, his cape windblown, and scattered snowflakes fell on the booths and stalls of the toy makers. But despite the cold, the atmosphere was warm,-the booths all heated by small stoves or open braziers, and the toys performed as usual on the counters and tables—dancing, drumming, opening and closing their eyes, making soft cries or squeals of delight when moved by the toy makers’ hands.

  “I saw a toy once, a very elaborate one; it was a machine that clicked out one’s fortune.”

  “If it’s fortune you’re after, sir, here is my husband’s version of the House of Wealth—a bank that takes your money in the most delightful way. Have you a coin?”

  Picard gave the woman a coin, which she deposited in the mouth of a tin dog, who stood upon a metal platform, beside a tin doghouse. The woman touched the dog’s tail and he moved along a groove to the house, where he deposited the coin through a slot in the roof. It clinked away, out of sight, and Picard moved too, toward another booth, where a dancing toy bear was turning. The toy maker was a young man, smiling, wearing a long scarf around his neck, and warming his fingers over his brazier.

  “Have you ever seen a toy that told fortunes?”

  “No, sir, I’ve not,” said the young man. “There’s precious little fortune in toys, I’ll tell you.”

  “You must work long hours on them.”

  “As a hobby, sir. To pass the time, after working seventy hours a week in the factory.”

  Picard moved on, from booth to booth, inquiring after a fortune-telling toy that clicked like a telegraph machine. The snow continued to whirl; no one had seen such a toy; indeed, it didn’t even sound like a toy. “If you want a toy, sir, a real toy, look here, at this kangaroo...”

  He stood in the middle of the square, with the medieval-like booths all around him, their many flags and banners whipping in the wind. The feeling was strange, as if he’d known it all before, long ago, on the jousting field of a bygone age. He smiled to himself, recognizing the enchantmen
t of the toys again, which filled the mind with fairy tales.

  He stared up and down the rows of the toy makers, making certain that he’d inquired at every booth. He heard the embattled voice of two of the toy makers, somewhere toward the fringe of the fair grounds. While he could not quickly translate the shouts, he understood the universal language of resentment, especially when it is joined by the wife of one of the combatants, as now seemed to have happened. He caught sight of the contest, between one booth, already set up, whose owners, a man and a woman, were screaming at a bent little pin of a man, who was, with the help of an obviously dim-witted youth, trying to set up his own tent. Despite the scolding of his neighbors, he continued setting up shop, and smiled at the approach of Picard.

  “Having trouble?” asked Picard, answering the bent man’s smile.

  “None at all, sir,” said the bent man, as if the storm of protest were not falling on his head. Then, turning to the boy: “Hurry up there, lad, we’ve got a visitor.”

  Picard assisted the dim-witted youth in the securing of the tent pole, which brought a hiss from the neighbor woman and a grunt of disgust from her husband.

  “All right, sir, we’ll just be a moment,” said the bent man. He lit a lantern and opened his trunk, withdrawing a number of conventional toys—little hopping rabbits, birds who chirped when wound, and a fish on wheels.

  “I’m looking for an unusual toy, not the sort of thing I’ve seen anywhere around here,” said Picard.