Pirate Utopia

by Bruce Sterling

  “Yes, signora,” Maria lisped, turning up her face from Secondari’s uniform sleeve.

  “That’s good,” said the veiled concubine, writhing expertly, “because I am the Dancer of the Future.”

  Secondari cast a swift glance at the dancer’s pistol. “You are Valentine de Saint-Point,” he said. “My agents told me that you were in Cairo.”

  “Now you’ve gone and spoilt my surprise,” said the Art Witch. “Valentine came here to Fiume, just to help me liberate the World Anima from her bondage.”

  Secondari said nothing. It was entirely characteristic of the Art Witch to show up in Fiume with a wanted fugitive. It was very like the kind-hearted Prophet to forgive, and shelter, such a woman. The Regency of Carnaro had no extradition agreements.

  “You used to be much nicer to me, Pirate Engineer,” the Art Witch pouted. “Such a well-brought-up, middle-class Turinese boy.”

  Secondari quietly absorbed this insult. He wasn’t entirely sure what the Art Witch had said to him. Possibly, he had imagined the insult. “Well, the Future changes people, Marchesa.”

  “Have you heard about ‘Dada’ yet?” the Art Witch prodded.

  “I’m just an engineer.”

  He didn’t have to wait long for the Art Witch to enlighten him about Dada. “They’re great artists from Paris and Zurich. Much more up-to-date than our former friend—that self-styled avant-gardiste—that pompous has-been, Signor Marinetti.”

  “Signor Marinetti is a brave Italian soldier. Are they soldiers, these Dada friends of yours?”

  “Oh yes, Lieutenant,” said the Art Witch. “They’re all ex-soldiers, every last one of them. And their leader is a soldier’s psychiatrist!”

  “To fire a gun at random into a crowd,” said the Dancer of the Future, “is the ultimate artistic act of Dada.”

  “I don’t want to keep you two ladies from your night out on the town,” said Secondari. He had achieved a miracle of tact with this statement, but both the women entirely ignored him. They were gazing raptly over his shoulder.

  Being deaf, Secondari hadn’t heard the approaching footsteps. The sudden presence at his elbow was yet another stunningly beautiful woman. She was the movie actress, Pina Menichelli.

  Even the Dancer of the Future was impressed by the radiantly glamorous appearance of the movie star. The Art Witch blinked her colossal black eyes, and simpered at the diva. “So, how are you, Giuseppina?”

  “I’m looking for that American magician,” said the movie star. “I want to pay him a courtesy call. Because he makes movies, like I do.”

  “We’re looking for the Prophet, instead,” said the Art Witch. “Have you seen the Prophet?”

  “Of course I have,” said La Menichelli. “I came here from Turin, along with His Highness the Duke. The Prophet met our royal entourage at the railway station. He was very kind to us.”

  “I’m from Turin,” Secondari offered numbly. He was astounded by the actress’s unearthly beauty.

  Still, Pina Menichelli was somewhat shorter than he would have guessed. The actress also seemed to have put on some weight.

  “What a sweet little girl,” said the movie star. Pina Menichelli had a broad Neapolitan accent, which was never apparent in her many silent films. “So, is that your peasant costume, little girl? I swear, the way you people dress here in Fiume, it beats anything on my shooting sets.”

  The Art Witch interrupted. “My friend here—he’s the Minister of Vengeance Weapons—he was just about to give us some of the needful,” she said. “I’m sure you have some fairy dust to share with us, Signor Minister.”

  Reluctantly, trapped by the circumstances, Secondari handed over a glass vial of cocaine.

  “Only two grams?” said the Art Witch.

  “Cocaine is a Vengeance Weapon,” Secondari explained. “So we need to restrict this valuable substance to those who have high-speed driving skills and weapons training.”

  “I can drive very fast indeed,” said the Dancer of the Future, patting her pistol.

  “Oh, I don’t need any of that stuff,” said the movie star. “Oh, wait, fine. I’ll take a little for my husband. The Baron has to work tomorrow. He’s scouting out locations here in Fiume, poor dear.”

  “Congratulations on your marriage,” said the Art Witch. “How many husbands does this make for you, Pina?”

  The Dancer of the Future burst into melodious giggles. “Oh Luisa, stop being so clever! You’re really so bad!”

  “Are you married any more, Valentine?”

  “Me? Never! I’m a Futurist Moslem concubine! I’d rather be skinned than get married! Especially to some Italian.”

  The Art Witch deftly popped open the cocaine vial. Then, using a tiny gold spoon from her bodice, she ladled a generous helping into a dry cigarette paper. She deftly sealed it, with a long, serpentine lick.

  She handed the paper-wrapped cocaine bundle to the actress. “Pina, my pretty dancer friend here is also a famous writer.” The Art Witch blinked her enormous eyes at the movie star. “I strongly advise you to read her Manifesto of Futurist Lust. To your husband. In bed, of course. As an occult prophetess, I can assure you, that will work wonders.”

  The movie star took the drugs, silently turned on her high heel, and stalked away.

  “My God, what a pill she’s become now. That washed-up Lady of Spasms, that former femme fatale,” said the Dancer of the Future to the Art Witch. “Did you see how much weight she’s put on? She’ll never get before the camera in her condition.”

  The Art Witch touched her powdered forehead with one lacquered fingertip. “I can sense, yes, I foresee, that Pina Menichelli will leave the world of cinema entirely. Did you see all those nasty little lines around her eyes? She’s been at it long enough.”

  “Luisa, do you want to stay here to see Houdini?” said the Dancer.

  “No, no, I already saw Houdini in Rome,” scoffed the Art Witch. “Not one shred of true occultism in Houdini’s whole act! It’s all cheap American gadget tricks! He’s a fraud! He does tricks fit for children!”

  “Then let’s go to that jazz club, down by the docks,” said the Dancer eagerly. “Anita Berber is performing tonight.”

  “Should I know that woman?”

  “Anita Berber? She’s only the greatest nude dancer in the whole world! Anita is a complete degenerate! She’s fresh from Berlin.”

  “That sounds quite tasteful,” said the Art Witch. “I bet this overwrought soldier-boy would love to come along with us to see that.”

  “This is my daughter,” said Secondari. “She wants to see the magic tricks fit for children.”

  “Why are you Turinese always like this? You’re even worse than the Swiss!” said the Art Witch. “If you didn’t have so many séances in Turin, with all your genuine dark, dead spirits, I would never forgive you people. Never mind. You come along now, Valentine.”

  They left.

  Secondari found front-row seats at the magic show for both himself and his daughter. There was some trouble about that with the ushers, but Secondari was not the most feared man in Fiume for nothing.

  The great hall was packed to capacity. Many eager people were turned away. The Prophet’s black-clad Desperate bodyguards had to chase them off in groups and clusters. Then—for the Prophet was always indulgent to them—the Desperates were allowed to siton the floor.

  Then the regime arrived in the hall, in a great, glittering line. Secondari immediately realized that, as the most hated man in Fiume, he had been left out of this crucial political arrangement.

  They marched in from backstage: the Prophet himself, the Ace of Hearts, the Constitutionalist, the Foreign Minister, and the Jewish Economist. Then a round dozen of the other, less-legendary, regime figures.

  All of these men were dressed with exceeding dignity. They stood before their velvet chairs, and they all remained standing, looking stiff and anxious.

  A sudden fanfare rang out. Like everyone else in the hall, Secondari leapt at
once to his feet. He dragged his daughter upright. “Royalty!” he told her.

  The Duke of Aosta strode into the hall, in full military uniform, with a shining sash, heroic medals, and thick braids of gold at the shoulders.

  The Duke of Aosta was the cousin of the King of Italy. During the Great War, the Duke had been the fiercely ardent commander of the Italian Third Army.

  The Third Army—it was Secondari’s own army—was the Italian army that had fought the hardest, and bled the most. The Duke of Aosta was a true Savoy warrior. He was a martial aristocrat who killed his nation’s enemies in droves. The Duke of Aosta was much more stern and bellicose than his milder cousin, the King.

  The Duke was also younger, taller, and more handsome than the reigning King of Italy. Unlike the King, who never risked his royal dignity, the dashing Duke of Aosta flew combat aircraft with his own hands.

  The Duke of Aosta was skilled at every branch of modern arms. Through the Duke’s royal favor, the Prophet had also shared in that warlike dignity. The Prophet had served in the Italian Army, and the Italian Flying Corps, and in the Italian Navy, as well. It was thanks to the Duke of Aosta that the Prophet had managed all these unorthodox military reassignments.

  The royal Duke saw fit to seat himself among his uniformed Futurist hosts. Then the large civilian crowd also sat, murmuring in awe and wonderment.

  Nothing had been said aloud. No arrangement had been formally announced. But the gesture was entirely legible.

  The “Regency of Carnaro” was about to become a genuine Regency. There could be no other explanation for the Duke’s presence within the hall. The pirate utopia of Fiume was taking shelter under the millennium-long prestige of the Savoy Dynasty. The Future was safely in the gloved hands of the oldest royal line in the world.

  The Prophet, showing an unusual modesty, tactfully sat three seats distant from Carnaro’s future Prince-Regent. Supported by the stays beneath his tailored uniform, the great poet sat up ramrod-straight.

  Gazing at the great visionary, Secondari suddenly realized, to his own surprise, that he could read the poet’s soul. Although he was just an engineer, his deafness had, somehow, taught him that knack.

  He could read the Prophet’s aged face like an open book. The Prophet was miserable.

  The Prophet wore his tinted glasses, as he often did for daylight, as these stage-lights hurt his single good eye. The Prophet tugged at the cuffs of his flawless gloves. He fondled his leather swagger stick. These agitated gestures revealed the truth to Secondari. The Prophet’s soul was black, and curdled, and biting itself in a mystical torment.

  The Prophet was disgusted. He was an Overman, and yet he was bored. Being an Overman, he had a vast, decadent, hapless, all-consuming, spiritual boredom. Although the triumph he had prophesied was coming to pass—a magnificent victory won, in the teeth of the entire League of Nations—the Prophet was unsatisfied. To prophesy was not to enjoy.

  Now that he had won his victory, the Prophet looked as hollow as a rotten tree. He was no ruler. The Duke of Aosta was the ruler. In the shadow of a competent ruler, a Prophet was merely a poet. The Prophet was superhuman, and yet he was doomed.

  The Prophet would end up even worse than Garibaldi had ended. He would be blind, weak, sick, surrounded by his decadent clutter, the plaything of his own female playthings. An almighty creature, but without any dignity. A much-respected hero, devoid of any self-respect.

  The stage lights went up. The stage band struck up a fanfare. The Man Without Fear took command of the stage.

  The great American illusionist was dressed in a white tie and tails. He was short, muscular, and entirely vigorous. He looked quite Jewish.

  The magician addressed the hushed crowd, speaking Italian. This was a passable, phonetic recitation that he had clearly memorized for the occasion. He then uttered some brief remarks in Austrian German, a language he knew well, being Austrian by birth.

  Entirely at ease on his self-designed magic stage, the Man Without Fear began his magic act with a few standard card tricks.

  Little Maria Piffer was entertained to the last degree by this. She squirmed with childish joy on the edge of her velvet chair. She wildly applauded along with the audience. Maria had never had such a good time.

  Secondari gazed on her fondly. He took comfort in her innocent pleasure, her lack of adult cynicism, her rapture at the American’s grotesque illusions. He had done something for Maria that she would never forget in her life. This bonded them even more, somehow.

  He was proud to be sitting with Maria, instead of sitting in that row of stiffs, with the regime. He and Maria were in the presence of royalty together. His little pirate, Maria, had not so much as washed her face or combed her tangled hair. In her little pinafore—it was threadbare, though dutifully patched by her mama—she was like a dandelion in the sidewalk.

  He glanced from her eager face to the somber ranks of the functionaries of the Regency of Carnaro. Imprisoned within their fine uniforms, and by the dignity of their own event, all of them—even the leonine Ace of Hearts— looked like Sicilian stage-puppets.

  They had become a government. And yet no govern-ment—especially an Italian one—was ever really loved and obeyed. Every Italian government was nine-tenths charade.

  He, too, was a part of that government, but since he was still an unrepentant pirate, he was the most hated one. They all hated and feared him, to some greater or lesser degree. Except for Maria Piffer.

  No one in Fiume loved Secondari without any question. Nobody did whatever he said to do, with all the unthinking and total respect that was due to an Overman. But Maria did that.

  For Maria Piffer, he was truly a mysterious, all-powerful hero. He had come from nowhere into her childish life of deprivation. He was possessed of a knowledge far beyond her grasp.

  He loved Maria.

  This effusion of love within him did not make him a better man. On the contrary, his love made him realize that he would cheerfully kill anybody—even the entire Fiume regime, in their stuffed suits—for the sake of the child he loved.

  He was no mere pirate of expedience, some gangster doing the will of other, better men. He was an entirely genuine, heartfelt, and totalitarian pirate. He hated every form of property. He loved every kind of theft.

  He was the only member of the pirate government who was not some recuperated loyalist, seeking the world’s respect. He was the genuine menace among them. He could burn, and crush, and blast, and smash anything, anywhere, without warning and without restraint. He was a human bomb.

  With a practiced gesture, the Man Without Fear flung his magic deck of cards into the air. These cards—jacks, queens, kings, they were obviously real, royal cards—hung there, well above the magician’s head. They wobbled a little, in the midst of the air, like aerial snowflakes.

  The Man Without Fear walked around the cards, three times. He urged the cards to obey the law of gravity, and fall on him. The cards obeyed no law. They simply hung up there. Regally.

  The Man Without Fear had to call for his stage assistant. This youngster was not the standard pretty girl within a magical entourage. He was a burly American teen. The American lad was dressed as a stage cowboy, complete with hat and boots.

  The young cowboy brought the magician a chair and a bullwhip. The Man Without Fear brandished the chair, then cracked the whip. The magically suspended cards transformed into paper flowers. They flew upward, out of sight.

  The crowd gasped. Maria was agape with amazement. Even the stiffly formal legionnaires of Carnaro lost their composure.

  The Man Without Fear had done the impossible. He had performed an act that lacked any rational explanation.

  The Man Without Fear paused in his magic routine. Speaking a halting Italian, he made a few complimentary remarks about the Pope. He had just met the Pope, apparently, while performing in Rome.

  His Grace the Duke of Aosta saw fit to applaud the pious remarks. Others followed the Duke’s lead.

 
The Man Without Fear then commenced to do quite impossible things with the chair—standing on it, balancing, passing his hands through it. He deftly combined the chair, and the whip, in various practiced ways.

  Secondari watched the illusions with all the close care that he could muster.

  He saw no trace of any possible trickery. No wires, no mirrors, and no smoke. Cordially, the great magician went out of his way to prove the plangent wooden soundness of the chair. His amazing whip was merely a humble thing of leather.

  The cowboy assistant arrived again, during stormy applause. He gave the magician an everyday sewing kit. The boy removed the chair and the whip from the stage.

  The magician opened the sewing kit. He did a number of incredible things with the simple black and white spools of thread.

  He then removed four pincushions from within his wicker basket. Every one of these dainty cushions bristling with many sharp steel needles. The magician paused to devour a set of steel pins, a stunt which amused Maria enormously.

  The magician had the house lights turned up to full glare. He stepped right to the edge of his stage.

  The Man Without Fear then proceeded to thrust the sharp steel needles straight into his own human face. Entirely calm and composed—he even spoke a little Italian as he did this awful feat—he jabbed the needles through his cheeks, through his eyebrows, through both his ears, and through the loose skin of his clean-shaven jowls.

  He even thrust a large and particularly cruel steel needle entirely through his own nose. The needle went through one nostril, through the septum, and out the other side, the second nostril visibly bulging as the sharp needle-point stretched it and popped through.

  The magician then left the magic stage. Deliberately, humbly, simply, he wandered before the front ranks of his audience. An American Jew with a face full of needles. He bristled like a hedgehog.

  Slowly—after viewer after viewer had stared at him in fascinated repulsion—the magician came to stand directly before Secondari.

  Noting Secondari’s hostile and skeptical stare, the magician smiled urbanely. His steel-pierced cheeks twitched horribly. Then he bowed. He offered Secondari a fresh needle, and turned his cheek.