by Janet Frame
‘Oh,’ said Margaret, again very politely. ‘Not even poached egg — or apples or ice cream?’
The old man stood up. The mysterious wind howled and wailed about the great white mountain. And Margaret and Colly realised that the old man was some relation of the wind — a brother or father or grandfather. They saw that his cloak was a fold of grey cloud. Would he talk to them and tell them that he was not a real thief?
The old man told his story — how he had wakened from a wind-sleep of a thousand years to find the seagulls grown to huge metal birds that rushed and roared up and down the roads of the sky.
‘It was strange,’ he said. ‘I was a Wind Brother, born of the air. I always did my task as an Air Brother. But I travelled alone, and one day thousands of years ago I fell asleep on top of this mountain. It was a real mountain then, covered with snow. I woke up suddenly. That was a few months ago when your new post office was being opened. Who can describe my feeling of strangeness when I found the world covered with crawling birds and metal-winged birds, and birds that had grown wheels, and huge lights for eyes? I saw your red building, the massive scarlet bird fixed on the earth, and flew down towards it, thinking it would help me to discover my task in my new age of waking. I saw a large red mouth or beak addressed to me. “Air Mail”, it said. Then I realised that the dressed birds like yourselves that walk upon the earth had, while I was asleep, given me the task of delivering and collecting letters. I could not fail in my task. Hour after hour I flew to fetch the envelopes — I have since learned they are envelopes — from the scarlet beak. But I am old. The task is too much for me. I am cut off from my brothers and sisters and know nothing of their world. Perhaps I should not have woken from my sleep.’
Margaret and Colly listened with sympathy to the old man. They were anxious to help him. It is strange, they thought, he thinks we are birds, and we think he is a man.
Colly thought the best thing to do would be to explain what ‘Air Mail’ really meant.
‘It is for aeroplanes,’ he said, glad to show his knowledge. ‘People travel in them. The letters are meant for them. We have never asked the wind to deliver letters for us.’
‘Oh no,’ said Margaret. ‘Why, you have so many other tasks. You have to carry the seeds and guide the birds. And who would talk to the trees on a hot day? Oh no, we do not ask you to deliver our letters.’
But the old man would not be cheered up.
‘What am I to do?’ he asked. ‘Here I have a whole mountain of letters. What you call ‘people’ are expecting letters every day. People are sick, people are travelling, and are wanting to visit one another, and I have their letters here undelivered. What shall I do? It is too much for an old man like me to deliver them. Why, I have an appointment soon with a whole forest of trees.’ He sighed and arranged his cloudy cloak.
Suddenly Margaret had a bright idea.
‘I’ll tell you what,’ she said. ‘You say that you never eat. You know, you would be much stronger if you ate. Our mother has said so, hasn’t she, Colly? And if you drink milk and munch apples, you will get strong. Then you will be able to deliver the letters to their right places. And you’ll never take any more from the post office, will you?’
‘Yes, you’ll know that Air Mail is for aeroplanes and not for Wind Brothers who have woken up after thousands of years,’ Colly said. ‘One day I’m going to be a pilot in a jet, and I shall drive my plane past you and call out, Hello.’
‘You are very kind,’ the old man said. ‘Now I must away or I shall never get my night’s work done. There is an ocean waiting to be whipped into a storm. I promised it early this morning. I shall take you both back home now. I promise about the Air Mail letters.’
‘What about the food to make you strong?’ asked Margaret.
The old wind did not answer the question. He wrapped them suddenly in the deep pockets of his cloak and flew with them through the sky, past the stars and a score of white and blue birds rushing by with their feet tucked under them. Then the children could not help sleeping. They woke to find themselves outside their front gate.
‘You are nothing but little possums and hedgehogs to be out so late,’ their parents said, but did not scold them. They were too worried about the Air Mail letters that had never been delivered.
The next morning, very early, Margaret and Colly tiptoed out to the garden, and put by the fence, under the tiny dry city apple tree, a glass of milk and two apples — one Granny Smith, one Cox’s Orange.
And what do you think?
When they came from school that afternoon the food was gone. They knew the Wind Brother had taken it.
Other wonderful things happened, too.
The letters were not stolen any more. People began to smile again and be friends and say Good morning to one another, and the postman was not frightened to walk through the town delivering his letters; and the policeman went away for a long holiday and did not walk up and down up and down for weeks and weeks.
And Aunt Lucy wrote to the children’s mother to say she had just found the letter in her letterbox, and what a rush of letters she was having, all in the same week.
Each day Colly and Margaret put food by the small dry city apple tree, and each night it was gone, for the Wind Brother had taken it. And their father and mother began to scold if they stayed out late.
‘Time for bed,’ they said. ‘Quick, hurry off to bed!’
Then suddenly the real autumn days came to visit the town. The leaves changed their colour and scurried and hurried up and down the street; and bits of paper billowed along the footpath, and skirts whirled up in the air.
‘What a strong wind,’ the people said. ‘My word, what a strong wind it is these days!’
Colly and Margaret, hearing them say this, smiled to themselves. Sometimes the wind would playfully tug at Margaret’s hair and whisper in her ear about the time on the mountain; and he would take Colly’s kite along in the open paddocks beyond the town and rush it through the clouds, and make it tug at the string and try to escape. ‘Yes, what a fine strong wind in this part of the country,’ the people said, as they walked along the street, and shopped at the grocer’s and the butcher’s, and made their telephone calls, and posted their Air Mail letters.
Then one day at school in the social studies lesson the teacher and the children were looking at the map of the world. The teacher showed them where lay a great white mountain away in the far south.
‘Nothing grows there,’ the teacher said. ‘It is covered with — well now, Margaret and Colly, what would a mountain be covered with?’
‘With letters, hundreds and hundreds of letters,’ Colly and Margaret said together.
‘Nonsense!’ the teacher said, ‘You mean snow.’
But Colly and Margaret only smiled at each other, for it was their secret of the post office and the Wind Brother.
The Friday Night World
Once upon a time (and it happens to this day) there was Late Night in the city, or Friday Night Shopping. On Late Nights the streets and shops, as you know, are filled with people hurrying and scurrying and buying things. In the middle of one city stood a large store which was crowded with people every Friday night; for it sold everything, or nearly everything — soap and peppermint cushions and handkerchiefs and electric light bulbs and clothes and skeins of wool and dahlia seeds. One night when so many people were trampling and shoving over the floor, one of the floorboards said in floor-language, ‘Squirk’, which meant ‘Oh dear. Oh dear’.
Another board replied with ‘Squeak’, which meant ‘Oh dear, Oh dear. Oh dear’.
And the third board said ‘Squawk’, which meant fifteen ‘Oh dears’, one after the other.
Then together they said, still in floor-language, ‘We are tired of holding people on Friday Night. We are tired of feet treading on us, toepeeper shoes and sandals and high heels and long feet and fat feet and feet with corns and bunions. We shall ask the King of Friday Night to rescue us.’
The K
ing of Friday Night, who reigns in every town and every shop in the land, and whose palace had been built directly under this shop, was listening. He has eleven and a half eyes, one for each hour of Friday that a shop is open. Sometimes it changes to ten eyes, sometimes to eight. His eyes are brighter than an electric light bulb, and cleaner than soap, blank as writing paper, striped like peppermint cushions, round as a dahlia, and almost-everlasting as a skein of wool. He was idle this evening, and heard the floorboards go squeak and squirk and squawk, and he promised he would try to help them. Not that he was always a good king. Oh no! He happened to be in the mood for promising.
And so one second later when the floorboards, very tired and tramped on, said ‘Squirk’ and ‘Squawk’ and’ Squeak’, a surprising thing occurred: the floorboards began to sink down and down, and all of the people standing on them, and the whole shop sank down, down to the palace of the King of the Friday Night World.
You can imagine the wonder of it all. The people outside on the footpath saw the shop go suddenly dark as a power cut. No one came from the shop, and no one could enter.
A policeman called out ‘Move on’ to the wondering crowd, but nobody moved on because everybody was so astonished. A reporter from a newspaper came and took photographs and questioned people. ‘What has happened?’ he asked. ‘Where has the shop gone? Why is it so dark?’ The Mayor, wearing his mayoral robes and a gold chain about his neck, hurried to the scene. The Chief Sergeant of Police sent a telegram to the Prime Minister.
It was all very puzzling. The shoppers, the shop girls and men, the whole shop had disappeared. What could be done about it? It seemed as if the people and the shop were gone forever. The place where the shop had been stood empty and dark, and after a few weeks bright green weeds — chickweed and dandelion — began to grow there. Soon it seemed the whole episode was forgotten.
Now in the north lived a young prince and his wife, who was of course a princess, and very beautiful. That is true or I would tell you otherwise. The princess sat in the daytime and played the viola while the prince tended his beehives, for he kept a bee farm. They were both very happy with the viola and the bees; for the viola gave them music, and the bees gave them pohutukawa honey.
One night some weeks after the disappearance of the shop and the people in the shop, the young prince fell asleep and dreamed a strange dream. He dreamed his wife’s viola was lying smashed to pieces in the corner of the bedroom. He woke in a fright and got out of bed to inspect the viola, but nothing had happened to it. He touched it, and made music with it, and his wife woke and he told her of his dream.
‘It is nothing,’ she said. ‘Let us sleep.’
And so the young prince fell asleep and dreamed another strange dream. He had sealed up his beehives and set fire to them and burned the poor bees. They were wailing and buzzing inside. He woke in a fright and rushed from the palace and down to the paddock to look at the hives. They were not on fire. Nothing had happened. When he returned he told his wife of the strange dream.
‘It is nothing,’ she said. ‘Let us sleep.’
And so they both slept, and when they awoke in the morning everything was all right. The bees were buzzing and humming upside down in the flowers, the sun was shining all over the world, and in the corner of the bedroom the viola was playing sweet music to itself.
But the prince felt worried. He read the morning newspaper and listened to the Prime Minister talking over the radio and saying, ‘Where are the brave men in the country who will come forward to find the lost people of Friday Night? Have we no brave men?’
That speech troubled the prince. Was he not a brave man? He had climbed the highest mountains in the world, and swum the deepest rivers, and sailed across the stormiest seas.
People had said to him, ‘You cannot climb that mountain.’ Yet he had climbed it. He had been told in his dreams exactly what to do.
People had said to him, ‘You cannot swim across those flooded rivers.’ Yet he had swum them. He had been told in his dreams exactly what he should do.
People had said to him, ‘You cannot sail in that small craft on the wide stormy seas.’ Yet he had sailed the seas. He had been told in his dreams exactly what he should do.
And after all this adventure he had found his princess and married her and lived in a small palace in the country, far away from the city and the shops; for both the prince and princess hated Friday Night in the city, with the people scurrying and hurrying and buying things like soap and peppermint cushions and handkerchiefs and electric light bulbs and clothes and writing paper and skeins of wool and dahlia seeds.
Yes, they hated the Friday Night World. ‘Ah,’ thought the prince as he read the newspaper and listened to the Prime Minister give his speech over the radio. ‘Should I not rescue those poor people from the world of Friday Night? Am I not brave enough? Had I not better do what my dreams tell me?’
That night he fell asleep and dreamed the same two dreams as the night before and, when he told his wife, she said, ‘It is nothing.’
And she slept. He stayed awake wondering. While he lay tossing and turning and pondering, a little night-bee, brother of the day-bee, flew in the window and spoke in his ear.
‘Prince,’ said the night-bee, ‘I have just been to the Friday Night World. I have seen the King of Friday Night. He is afraid of you. For you have climbed mountains where he would die of cold in the snow. And you have crossed rivers where he would be swept away like a log. And you have sailed seas where he would drown. The King of Friday Night cannot live on mountains or rivers or seas. Only you can cast a spell over him. He is afraid of you.’
The prince listened, wonderingly, to the soft furry voice of the night-bee.
Then the bee stopped talking and bobbed about for a while. ‘My word,’ he said, ‘a fine palace you have here. And a fine princess.’
He became serious again. ‘I can help you, prince, to cast a spell over the Friday Night World and its king. You must trust me, prince. You must prove that you trust me.’
‘Of course I trust you,’ the prince answered. ‘I will do anything you ask.’
‘What does the princess love most, apart from her prince?’ the night-bee asked.
The prince thought hard. ‘Her viola,’ he said. ‘It stands in the corner of the room.’
‘And what do you love most, apart from your princess and the mountains and the rivers and the seas?’
The prince smiled. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that I love the bees that give me their pohutukawa and clover and manuka honey.’
‘Well, m-m-m-m-m-m,’ hummed the night-bee on a thoughtful note. ‘Hmmmmmmmm. That is all for tonight.’ And he flew away out the window.
The prince told nothing of his conversation to the beautiful princess. He thought it might worry her. He did not like to see her worried or sad.
That night when he was on the point of falling asleep he heard the curtain shaking and noticed the same night-bee, brother of the day-bee, flying through the window. It spoke sharply to him.
‘Prince,’ it said, ‘burn your hives.’
Then there was a light sound of music from the corner of the bedroom and the prince heard the viola speaking.
‘Prince,’ it said, ‘break me.’ Its voice was quivering and clear.
Alas! Feeling heavy at heart the prince crept out and burned all the beehives. The smoke rose in a dark cloud from the paddock. On his return he took the viola to the concrete steps at the front of the palace and smashed the instrument to pieces, tiny pieces like splinters. He remembered all the time he destroyed it that his wife loved him, and then the viola, more than anything else in the world. Little wonder that he said to himself, ‘Alas.’
When the princess woke and found the viola broken she wept. When she learned of the dead bees in the charred paddock she cried, ‘Cruel, cruel,’ and sat all day by the window, not speaking to anyone, not eating anything, only saying to herself, ‘Cruel, cruel,’ with her long black hair falling uncombed over her f
ace. Nothing could comfort her. An earwig crawled along the windowsill and back again, a long long way for an earwig. He was shining and brown. He thought, ‘The princess will admire my stiff coat, and forget her sorrow.’
The princess did not even notice him.
A black-and-white fantail began to loop the loop and gossip. He thought, ‘All princesses like gossip. And surely she will admire my fine tail.’
The princess did not even notice him.
The old mother cat enticed her three fat kittens to a place beneath the window. She thought, ‘The princess will see my three children rolling and darting and scratching and pouncing. She will admire their glistening fur and their fat little bodies. She will say to me, “Old mother cat, how proud you must be!”’
The princess did not even notice the kittens frolicking. Nothing would comfort her.
The prince himself, too unhappy to say goodbye, or offer to explain, set out secretly and alone to find the Friday Night World, and the king who reigned there. It seemed a long journey. He felt tired and sat down on the side of the road to rest. And do you know what happened? He saw a cloud of bees about him. They were the dead bees come to life. They flew to him and fed him with honey, so that he regained his strength, and was able to continue his journey to the Friday Night World. And the bees hummed in his ear ‘M-m-m-m-m-agic, m-m-m-m-m-agic. You did not really burn-n-n-n-n-n us. M-m-m-m-m-agic.’
In spite of the honey, however, the prince began to feel weary, and sat down on the side of the road to rest once more. And what do you think happened? He found the viola lying beside him, playing such sweet music that his weariness vanished, and he was able to continue his journey, with the bees flying about him and feeding him, and the viola murmuring her news of magic in his ear, telling him that the bees were stronger now than any swarm in the world, and that her music was now more magical than harp or lute or violin-cello. She sang to him,
The burned bees,
The broken viola;
Honey for the mouth,
