Archipelago

by R. A. Lafferty

  ‘Do not gamble even a dollar's worth of the stock. They are out to get me through you now. There is a torpedo in your part of the world who has you as one of his assignments. He is smooth-talking and jug-eared, and once used the name of Hugo Stone. Don't let them take you over. Bleed a little, bleed a lot, you can always grow more blood. Remember the writ of those who kill both soul and body.

  ‘Everything is fine here. I manage to stay good-humored and healthy except for the bruises and broken bones. You should have a trusted friend there to whom you can turn over your affairs. There is always a danger of death in wartime, and I think there is another danger near to you. Don't worry, whatever you do. Worry makes a man old and cranky.’

  Henry watched Casey as he read.

  “You in trouble, Case?” he asked.

  “No. You shouldn't read other people's mail.”

  “I don't unless I'm interested. Is Stein the torpedo?”

  “Stein is the torpedo. Did the Crock come?”

  “It's on my shelf.”

  The Crock was thin and tabloid, but well done. On the cover was the unchanging picture of a very old and very ornate chamber pot, a fine engraving that was made by d’Allesandro in his middle Chicago period. It was the finest thing of its kind. It was the only thing of its kind. It was the most beautiful chamber pot in the world.

  The name of the Crock was in black Gothic, and the subscript ‘Formerly the C of S’ bore witness to its early clandestine origin. The twenty pages included a sonnet by Schrade, an ode by Ethyl Ellenberger, a ballad by Demetrio Glauch, an article on ‘Diabolism in the World Today’ by Thos. J. Chronicker, S.J.; one on ‘The Mythology of Liberalism’ by Christopher Tompkinson, on ‘The Floating Screen — The Next Important Development in Football’ by Tom (Big Bear) Rogers. There was a section ‘Books Abroad’ by Polly Polyglot who was Mary Frances Rattigan.

  Most of the magazine was written by Duffey. Not that he didn't want to print others, but he could write better than others could. ‘Moles at the Grass Roots’ was in his style, and ‘Fables in Fabianism’. So was ‘The Consumer, the Cooperative, and the Coefficient of Cost Constancy’. There was a section Urbe et Orbe, notes of the month of Chicago and of the world. There was a serious review section ‘Judgment Day’; there was a short résumé of the new recordings with a partiality towards Chicago style jazz, and a pro and con letter forum which was possibly the best thing in the magazine.

  There were four wood-cuts by Groben, and at the back a collection of musings titled ‘On the John’ with a small drawing at the bottom showing the Thinker in semi-darkness with only a crescent-shaped shaft of light piercing the gloom.

  3.

  “Why would anyone want to take over the Crock?” Henry asked. “It's better than it seems,” Casey said. “It has a following among people who count, or at least among people who are imitated. You've no idea the amount of stuff that is lifted out of it. It sets up echoes all over. A little left-handed slanting here would do the peculiar people a lot of good.”

  “What is Duffey anyhow?”

  “He is a Centrist. He is the only member of the Catholic Center Party of America. He is the Party. d’Allesandro, Mary Frances, Demetrio Glauch, and myself are his best prospects. If he could fully enlist us he would have a party of five. Smaller parties have done well in Europe. But it is lonesome to be a party of one.

  “He believes in new definitions. He says that the self-styled Liberals are the most illiberal of men, and that no honest man has used that name since the great collectivists stole it and used it to mean its opposite.”

  Henry and Casey walked out into the jungle. They went till they came to the bed of a churning creek. It was a creek you had to climb up to.

  “Where did he get the name Melchisedech?”

  “His confirmation name. He wasn't confirmed till he was forty. His given name is Michael. He already had the beard: surely you knew that he had a full beard. It's pointed, and it's the whole point of him.”

  There was a deep hole here beaten out by a waterfall. They swam for a while in the dark, a dangerous thing to do, as allowing the entry of spirits, according to the Papuans. Then they got out and sat on the tops of two boulders. There was fox-fire through the jungle: the dead wood and rotted leaves on the ground glowed like coals.

  “What is he talking about there?” Henry asked.

  “The Federal aggrandizement and other things. His analogies are hard to follow. The new liberal is partisan, he says, and can allow only one kind of thought and creed which is secretly in love with the ancient tyranny.”

  “He just doesn't like government?”

  “The smaller it is, the better he likes it. But the hecklers get him. He can address a communion breakfast, and the infiltrates may come all the way from Boston to give him a hard time. He hasn't much actual judgment but he has a healthy stomach. It automatically rejects the rotters. Someday he may reject me. He would have the infiltrates up by the thumbs if he could.”

  “There are for certain Infiltrates in the Church?”

  “Duffey has an index of several thousand of them in laymen's groups.”

  “Why would he want to index them? He may be doing this all wrong.”

  “Do you know the right way, Henry?”

  “No. But I will allow it. I will know it by — by tomorrow morning.”

  “How will you know it?”

  “I will just know it. I have felt it coming. I will tell you about it if it is subject to explanation. Casey, I have been the only snake in this group. I am no damn good and you know I'm no damn good. I have never known any of the other three to do a single mean thing, not one. You have, Casey, but not too many. You're not in it with me. I have been as bad a man as you have ever known.”

  “What is this leading to, Henry?”

  “I'm just a mean Frenchman from the swamps. Even my mother gave up on me, and she always thought there was a chance even for the Devil. I haven't a way with the world like that banana-nosed Finnegan, not even if he has the wrong way with the world. I'm not good-looking like Vincent. I'm not a scholar like Hans nor a dilettante like you. But have you noticed that when there's something that the rest of you can't do, not even Hans, I can. When you've talked a thing to a standstill, I have worked it out. Now there will be something, and I am the only one who will be able to do it. An odd thing is going to happen to me, not entirely of my choosing. I have always known pretty well what would happen. And now this thing will come down on me.”

  It was getting chilly, and the boys dressed on the boulders.

  “Did you have a good time down south?” Henry asked.

  “I think that Finnegan did,” Casey said. “That's what you mean, isn't it? He may not be clear off the beam yet. Vincent and Hans did. I did a little. It's nice to get among them and use up a little leisure and money. It's nice in the islands too. I dread going home. There's some things there that I may not be able to deal with, and I enjoy putting them off for a couple of years.”

  They climbed down through the jungle to the bivouac area. A coconut possum was squawking above them, and an ‘Oh Boy’ bird called. We never did find out the right name of that bird. It always sounded like Donald Duck calling ‘Oh Boy’.

  Finnegan was still awake, and the three had a drink.

  “Z'drovie,” said Casey.

  “Santé,” said Henry.

  “Slainthe,” said Finnegan the Irishman. Then he had another drink for his other person.

  “Salute,” said Solli the Italian.

  4.

  Henry dreamed that night, as he knew he would, and of a boat. The name of the boat was the Navicula Petri. It looked like a Galleon, and yet it was quite other. There were many pennants and flags flying from it. In hoc signo vinces, said one of them. And there was another in the looping handwriting of Finnegan, the left hand of Finnegan for he wrote left-handed half the time: Nisi esses sollicitus — , and then the Latin was scratched out and it was Englished boldly: If you can't be careful,
be good.

  Ubicumque fuerit corpus illic congregabuntur et aquilas, said another, and it was an echo of the high motto of the Dirty Five. And then there were three banners in a series that read: Tu es Petrus, and Portae inferi non prevalebunt, and tibi dabo claves regni.

  There were various devices. There was a Lamb, and a Greek Cross. There was a Fish, and a Six-Pointed Star. “I always assumed it would be five-pointed,” said Henry, “but I don't know why I thought so.”

  There was a woman, and a Serpent, and a Crescent Moon. “If I were making the little boat,” said Henry, “I would consolidate the symbols for neatness.”

  It was hard to discern whether this was a toy boat, or a real boat afar off. Part of it was plainly more real even than the prosaic world, and part of it was drawn in with child's crayola. The seamen may have been dolls, or they may have been alive. There were the Apostles; and Stephen and Paul and the Baptist; Linus and Clement and Cletus. There were Barbara and Catherine, looking like sea-urchins; there were Gregory and Constantine. Jerome and Augustine glared at each other over a davit. Francis and Anthony were there, Thomas and Patrick, Hildebrand and Adrian the Dutchman. The Theresas, French and Spanish; and Joan and Xavier.

  “It is odd that I know them,” said Henry, “for I never saw them before. But that is who they are.”

  The boat was in trouble, and it gained in verisimilitude as the waves rose and the wind blew. It was a real ship and it was badly tossed, et descendit procella venti in stagnum, et complebantur et periclitabantur, and the account seemed to be translated for Henry into his own tongue like the sub-script of a foreign language movie, un tourbillon fondit sur le lac La Barque se replissait d’eau —

  “Never mind,” Henry told the dream. “I recognized the passage. I always preferred the Vulgate to the French.”

  There was salt in the spray. Was the Sea of Genesarat salty? Or was this a bigger boat on a larger sea?

  And now Henry first noticed the shattered and broken masts. There were many masts once, and the boat must have flown like a great white castle; but now they were splintered and down. There was Albion of the White Cliffs whose Apostasy is foretold in the Apocalypse. There was Moscovy which was Third Rome. There was Gaul itself. And others were betopped and tottering.

  A multitude was watching the boat, and almost any one of it could have reached out a hand and helped. But the people believed it was only a toy boat, as Henry at first had believed. They did not know that it was real and was about to go down: and that if it went down, the whole world would go down with it.

  But Henry the Frenchman from the swamps knew that it was real and that he was involved with it. He also knew that it was the same ship as the Argo on which he already sailed, but that the quest had been sanctified during these last short millennia.

  And he realized, before he awoke, that this was his Vocation; and that, whether he accepted it or not, it had come down to him.

  5.

  Stein was in evidence again. One of his duties as a Special Service sergeant was to provide interests and entertainments for the troops, and he had set up a little G.I. radio station. He had two pyramidal tents for himself and his many-tentacled activities, and in one of them was Anopheles Network. Casey wrote squibs for the station, which brought him into contact with Stein, though he held him in hatred.

  There were many pseudo-sponsors: ‘Mother McCutcheon's Seasick Pills — Learn to live with your Discomfort.’ ‘Uncle Joe Tompkinson's Torpedo Juice — Explosive Personality by the Natural Method.’ ‘Harry Ludenschlager's Hangover-Healer — Is Trepanning the only Answer?’ ‘Ching-Ling Charley's Doss House — Entertain your friends in genteel surroundings, Atmosphere you can cut with a knife.’

  They had a hundred or so good records, and there were always a bunch of boys around who wanted to talk over the radio. And Stein had a five-foot shelf of old humor magazines from which he read jokes over the air.

  They were good programs, but something was lacking that only Anne could provide. Anne broadcast for the Japanese from a station in Java. She had an intimate voice, and she would sing homesick-inducing songs, and she understood the soldiers. In some ways Stein couldn't compete with Anne, not when she signed off ‘This is your best enemy, Anne, Good Night.’

  Stein had another activity. He delivered lectures. He was plausible, and his audience was uninformed. None of the Dirty Fivers thought it worthwhile to interfere, except Casey. And that was the beginning of the troubles of Casey.

  Stein had mannerisms and it would have been easy to heckle him, but Casey didn't. He questioned him in the question period, and the listeners understood what was wrong. So the question period had to be done away with. And there had to be a showdown.

  Casey was on the carpet before a furious Colonel Laycheck and three livid Majors, Meyerhofer, Twicherby, and Terwilliger. None of these was a line officer.

  “Do you know what we can do, Sergeant Szymansky?” the Colonel asked. “We can charge you with disloyalty, and we can find against you.”

  “Sir, Sergeant Stein, under another name, was a known Red in Chicago, and he is teaching doctrine here. In an open discussion period of a program set up over your own signature, I called him on some of his more dishonest misstatements. Is that wrong?”

  “If you persist, Sergeant, you will suffer for it. I am giving you a chance to back out of this. I order you never again to interfere with Sergeant Stein in any way. I forbid you to disparage him to any other soldier. I forbid you to make statements or speeches of a tenor opposite to his. I mean it when I say that we can find against you for disloyalty, and what I am talking about is ten years. Is that clear enough?”

  “No sir. I don't think I have been able to make clear to you the matter of his speeches.”

  “Damn it, man, I write his speeches. Do you understand now?”

  “I understand your words and intent, sir. I have received an education in the last three minutes.”

  The trouble was that Casey was a little of a coward in this. He hesitated and was half-bluffed. And when he did act against them, he did it in a foolish way and with bad timing. That was the way he did many things.

  6.

  Vincent had a letter from Show Boat (Teresa Piccone) in St. Louis. ‘Vincent, honey, things are in a terrible shape. Isn't that a refreshing change from letters that start out All Well With Us? I think a few ashes in the soup makes it taste better. It's cold all day. I tell mama I'm going to find someone to shack up with to keep warm. She says ‘Teresa, I don't believe that I would. What would Vincent say?’ It's a good thing I have mama to keep me on the s. and n.

  ‘Your mother is very mad at me. I stayed with her three days. I cooked her a different specialty every day and now she won't be able to get the garlic out of the house for a month. I tell her that she has to learn to live with it. She says that garlic is like sin, that there has to be so much of it in the world, but woe to them by whom it comes. Now she's got where she doesn't notice it (the garlic, not the sin), so I tell her that she's saturated with it and soon won't be able to smell it at all. She doesn't like that. Really, Madame Monica and Show Boat get on very well, though I never will know why you chose a dignified mother. Don't you think she'd make a good Medium? I tell her to work up an act and we'll put her on at the Star and Garter.

  ‘The old S&G is having its troubles. They are going to put us off limits and even close us up if we don't stop advertising the place as a burlesque. Papa is a purist and says that his shows are purist too, and are burlesque in the original sense of the word (I was going to write ‘in the broadest sense of the word’). Papa told them that both cops and colonels should take a short course in philology. He didn't help himself any by arguing with them. The sign still says Burlesque.

  ‘It is the last real burlesque theater in America, but it gives us a bad name. We had a little stripper by Monday looking for a job. She's an Italian girl from NOLA; I asked her about Finnegan, but she doesn't think she knows him. She is broke so she is st
aying with us. We have given her little parts but she won't be satisfied. She just plain wants to take her clothes off. Her name is Maria Tornabuoni, a good renaissance name, and she is in the renaissance style. Her overhang reminds me of that bridge, you know the one; I'm sure it's renaissance.

  ‘We still do four shows a day, but Papa and I have to do most of the daytime ones. This week we have a no-good dog act, and you know what I think of dogs. You remember the magnificent tribute someone paid to W.C. Fields: ‘A man who hates dogs and little children can't be all bad.’ I hope they say something as nice about me when I'm dead. I don't hate children though: only dogs and some adults.

  ‘And we have a ventriloquist this week. He lets me in his act and I work his figures some. Did you know that dummies don't like to be called dummies? They prefer to be called figures. I know how they feel. I'd rather be called a figure than a dummy myself. Afterwards I get some man from the audience, usually a soldier, up on the stage. I make him sit on my lap and gape his mouth while I ventriloquise for him. I've had twenty-five different men sit on my lap this week. Isn't that fun? I get in every act I can and everybody loves me, especially the soldiers. Aren't you glad your girl is so popular with the fellows?

  ‘You haven't given a full account of the Rover Boys at the Antipodes. I have a letter from a Marie Monaghan and now I know a secret and you don't know it. And if you guess it from this, it wasn't I who told it. I never tell secrets.

  ‘I meant to ask about someone else. Oh yes, you. How are you? And mainly, are you being good? I am, O favorite mio, Quanto te amo! I love you. I love your mother Monica. I love this lonesome old town till you come back to me here. Mary was by to see me one day this week. She is wonderful and it rubs off on me. Now I am wonderful too.