Touchstone (Meridian Series)

by John Schettler

  “I, on the other hand, maintain that, like it or not, Mr. Gilbert is touched by the Muse. Several Muses no doubt, let me see, Erato, certainly Thalia, and no doubt you flirt with Terpsichore. Art is an attempt by us earthly men to limn the heaven that we know lies beyond. When we envision heaven, we create art.”

  “A pretty sort of heaven it is, if one goes by my doggerel,” Gilbert scoffed, puffing great clouds of foul smelling smoke. “I churn out reams of nonsense, which Sullivan somehow ennobles and turns into opera. There is the suffering artist, if you will. This present jolly success of Pinafore was written by Sullivan line by line while he was suffering the most excruciating pain from his illness. There is a man lashed by the Muse… and for what? To set music to popular nonsense verse.” He paused. Nordhausen settled on a chair, his legs still weak, but he was on the edge of his seat.

  “Poor Sullivan! Dean Dodgson has been pestering him to write some songs for Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. The Dean has no ear for music, but he has been told that Sullivan was the man to go to for nonsense. Sullivan cannot bring himself to respond with more than a broad hint that it shall never be, but the Dean has no ear for subtlety either, I fear.”

  “Perhaps I shall set myself to comedy, now that I am free from the Classics,” Wilde mused. “We Irish boast a native humor which you English can only appreciate.”

  “Perhaps I shall set myself to Aestheticism,” Gilbert returned. “I can make aesthetic doggerel as easily as patriotic sentiment or amatory…” he faded into thought, and suddenly brightened.

  “Here, we shall have a contest. Mr. Nordhausen from America will judge it.”

  He went on brightly, “Oscar, we shall each compose at this moment, a verse. You may pray to your Muse for inspiration, and create Art! I shall do what I do best, and crank out a quatrain impromptu. But!” he held up a finger. “You shall write a comic verse, and I shall write an aesthetic. And Mr. Nordhausen shall decide if either one of us is struck with fairy dust, or if we have simply churned out an occasional piece, on command. What do you say, Mr. Nordhausen?”

  Both men looked to Nordhausen. What could he say, what should he do? “I… wouldn’t dream of judging either one of you gentlemen,” he began, trying to find a way out of his dilemma.

  “Not a word of it, Mr. Nordhausen,” Wilde interjected. “You are our Everyman. After all, if my Art does not bring you to want to go to Heaven, I am a failed craftsman.” He looked at Gilbert. “The stakes?”

  “The next round.”

  “The terms?”

  “Five minutes by Mr. Nordhausen’s watch. The first to recite, by coin toss.”

  “Agreed.” Gilbert pulled out a large silver coin. “Your call, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Heads, Mr. Gilbert, I am ever the optimist, and hope to see our beloved monarch’s face on every toss!”

  Gilbert tossed, and caught the coin. “Heads it is, Mr. Wilde. Shall we retire to our corners for the bout? Mr. Nordhausen, this snifter shall be the bell.” He gave it a tap with his nail and it rang. “Five minutes, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Have at you, Mr. Gilbert.”

  “Geshundheit, Mr. Wilde.”

  Nordhausen fumbled about in a near panic. He remembered the pocket watch he had purchased from a curio shop in preparation for this trip and managed to pull it from his coat pocket, relieved that he had the good sense to put it there when he changed into this rented evening wear. Still, he struggled to contain a slight tremor in his hand as he flipped it open and stared at the clock face. The magnitude of what he was doing continued to press itself upon him, cruelly now, as the time piece seemed to taunt him with every tick of the second hand.

  God, Oh God…were the seconds all in order? Surely he was not here this evening on the night Wilde and Gilbert decided to have this little contest. He was not the one to judge it. With every tick he could almost hear the corresponding echo of a great hammer beating on the Meridian of Time. Every word he spoke, every movement and gesture he made, was altering the timeline now. His plan had already come unglued, and all history, from this moment forward, would bear the stain of his willful and headstrong folly. He was absolutely mortified, and he knew he deserved the hardest lash that fate could deliver upon him, though he hoped, with all his might, that these seemingly harmless moments would not wreak havoc in some future time.

  But what was he to do? Should he turn and rush away into the night and end the contamination here and now? A scene like that would make quite a stir. Should he play out the game, extricate himself as pleasantly as possible and then slip away? That course made more sense to him. In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought, and he swallowed hard as the two men began to write.

  Wilde sat at their table, while Gilbert retired to the bar. Wilde snatched a napkin, and drew a slim golden pencil from his pocket and began to scribble. A small coterie had followed Gilbert, and Nordhausen could hear muffled laughter from across the room. Wilde’s junto was standing around him in silence, watching the Master work. He scratched out lines in green pencil, sat back pensively, ran his fingers through his long hair, wrote some more, crossed out the end of a line, closed his eyes and steepled his fingers, wrote some more. He was a man in the grip of a creative urge. To Nordhausen, he did not look like a man who was writing comic verse. On the other hand, the hilarity from Gilbert’s group was various, from chuckles, to snickers to howls.

  Gilbert was done. Nordhausen said, “30 seconds, Mr. Wilde.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Nordhausen, I shall be done presently.”

  At five minutes, Nordhausen tapped the brandy snifter, and called, “Time, gentlemen.” The irony of his statement remained his own private torment for the moment.

  Gilbert came back over and settled himself in his chair. “Well, Oscar, what has the Muse of Comic Verse dispatched into your noodle?”

  Wilde stood to declaim, his right arm behind his back, his left holding the napkin. He smiled puckishly, and began:

  I love to hear the spoken word,

  As long as it’s my own,

  It matters little how absurd

  My thesis may be shown.

  I sometimes carry on for hours

  When no one’s there but me,

  It works to hone my native powers

  Of smart loquacity.

  But often, when I listen to

  Myself, I am so clever,

  That what I say remains incom-

  Prehensible forever.

  With a flourish, he dropped the napkin on the table, paused briefly, bowed, and delighted applause broke from the listeners. Gilbert nodded and clapped, and rose to his feet.

  “Very clever, indeed, Mr. Wilde. Self-deprecation is the surest source of humor. Your lines and words are short, the rhythm is rollicking, and you have a satisfactory ending…all in all a workmanlike production. Writing for the musical theatre, you may want to use a longer line, for the sake of your melodist. Do you maintain this is the inspiration of the Muse or a vision of heaven?”

  “A vision of heaven to the extent it describes me, I am sure!” Wilde drawled. “I make no extravagant claims for this trifle. Indeed, this club is hardly the Sanctum of Beauty; I am working at a considerable disadvantage here. But let us see what you have written – an aesthetic quatrain perhaps?”

  Gilbert grasped his hands together, and pressed them to his bosom. He looked up wistfully into the vague middle distance, heaved a deep breath and sighed.

  “Ah, to be wafted away

  “From this black Aceldama of sorrow,

  “Where the dust of an earthly today

  “Is the earth of a dusty tomorrow!”

  He dropped his hands, lowered his eyes for a moment, then bobbed his head up with a huge grin. His cronies burst into applause, and howled at Wilde’s clique, who were not quite certain how to take it.

  “Is that feeling? Is that sensitive, Mr. Wilde? As Captain Corcoran says: Though I’m anything but clever, I can talk like that forever!”

  Wilde’s grin equaled Gilbert�
�s. “Mr. Nordhausen, Gilbert’s verse is surely inspired. I wish I had said that!”

  Gilbert rejoined, “You will, Oscar, you will!”

  Both men turned again to Nordhausen.

  “So, Mr. Nordhausen, who is the victor? Who wins the golden apple of the Hesperides?”

  Nordhausen despaired.

  “You gentlemen have given me quite a challenge. Give me five minutes on the glass, and I will award the prize.”

  “Fair enough!”

  Nordhausen retired from the group. What on earth was he to say? How could he make a critical evaluation of Oscar Wilde, just out of college, with his entire output ahead of him. Could he say anything which might help the poor man in the horrible future he was going to find? What if he said the wrong thing, and put off Wilde from comedy entirely? That would change everything!

  He didn’t imagine Gilbert was as sensitive as Wilde, but how could he judge a man who had taken the world by storm and would churn out brilliant hit after brilliant hit for the next couple decades?

  He dug into his pocket and took a pull of Miss Plimsy’s. Thank you, Mr. Curtis. A bit of chemical eloquence. Brrrrr…. nasty stuff straight out of the bottle. And the pesky numbness in the mouth. He’d have to articulate carefully.

  He heard the ding, and Gilbert called to him. He nervously walked over to the table, where the entire group, as one, stared at him.

  Gilbert handed him a fresh brandy, which he slogged to rinse out Miss Plimsy’s potion. Wilde, the wild Irishman, drank whiskey.

  It was show time.

  “Mr. Gilbert,” he bowed, “Mr. Wilde,” he turned and bowed.

  “This is a hard task you have given me. If I understand it, Mr. Wilde maintains that Art is inspired by a Muse, that it comes through us from something above and beyond, and that the artist drifts with every passion till his soul is a stringed lute on which all winds can play.”

  “Well enough put for my side.”

  “Mr. Gilbert says all art is occasional, and to prove his point, whipped out his little aesthetic ditty. He says he can do that all day long, and I do believe it.”

  “Perhaps we should have an epic competition, eh, Wilde? You can do the Renaissance and I can do the Restoration!”

  Nordhausen hurried on, still fretting over every word he spoke. “It is clear that Mr. Wilde produced, on command, a comic verse, which excited laughter in your group, and general approbation. So it would appear that Mr. Gilbert is the winner.”

  “Hah, the practical American! I did choose rightly! Let’s have three cheers for me! What ho?”

  “On the other hand….” Nordhausen interrupted gingerly.

  Gilbert stopped in mid-huzzah. “There is more? Is there a prize for runner-up?”

  “On the other hand, no mere mortal can do what Mr. Gilbert does. I could not, no one else in this room can do what you do, sir.”

  Gilbert bowed, puzzled. “You honor me, sir, but what you say is no doubt true, although I am forced to acknowledge it.”

  “So, if no mere mortal can do what you do, it is clear that your work is inspired, and we may as well attribute the inspiration to a Muse, as to any other source. So, I must say that Mr. Wilde is correct, and is also the winner.”

  The group sat hushed for a beat, as they tried to work out the logic of Nordhausen’s exposition. At the exact same moment, Wilde and Gilbert burst into laughter, and stood applauding in acclamation. The rest of the group joined them, and Nordhausen found himself the focus of their adulation. He smiled, pleased that he had come up with something to reward the effort of each man. Perhaps I’ve set it right, he thought hopefully as he fingered his pocket watch. Internally he shrugged his shoulders, dislodging the spectral Maeve from the perch she had occupied for the better part of the evening. The hearty cheers and the glass of champagne he accepted served to ease his troubled conscience.

  “But my word!” Nordhausen took a sip of champagne and set the glass down. “I’ve just had a look at the time and I really must be off.”

  The gleeful gathering protested, but Nordhausen was determined to extricate himself before he was forced to speak another word. The verse that Gilbert had spun out still haunted him, for it carried the seed of his greatest fear. The dust of this earthly today was indeed the earth of a dusty tomorrow.

  I’ve tipped brandy with two Prime Movers, he thought. God only knows what I’ve accomplished. He hurried away from the club, drawing his overcoat close about him against the evening chill. He wondered who actually won the competition in the time line he had come from. He had a 50-50 chance of choosing the same verdict if he could have just mustered the guts to hazard a guess. His solution, awarding victory to both of the contestants, had been clever, but was it wise?

  And again, he realized that the man, or woman, who had actually served as judge in the original Meridian, had been unduly robbed of that moment by his interference. While it seemed an insignificant thing, that was exactly the sort of contamination that Paul always warned him about. It was not the great things, but the inconsequential ones that set the wheels of time to turning.

  Off in the distance he heard the dull toll of a church bell timing out the half hour, and it gave him little comfort. Some time later, he made it back to his hotel. He had another 24 hours, in this Meridian, before his retraction scheme pulled him out. He needed sleep to gather his wits for the real intent of his journey, but the thought that he had already set the world to havoc with a toast of brandy kept him restless and tossing all through the night.

  Part II

  Contamination

  “What Can we know, or what can we discern,

  when error chokes the windows of the mind?”

  —Shakespeare: The Merchant of Venice

  4

  He stood gazing up at the colossal red granite Horus looming six cubits over him. Nordhausen had seen this before in photographs. The god was 5000 years old already and would live forever. The building housing him was barely one hundred years old, and would one day be dismantled or fall into ruins, but Horus would remain. These islanders were wrangling rudely shaped megaliths into circles when Horus was sculpted 2181 miles away, the distance of the hypotenuse of the 1500 mile square, Sacred Jerusalem with Gizeh at one corner and London at the other. He was as perfect, smooth, curved, beaked and taloned, as he had been in Karnak. He had last been worshipped in the desert 1500 years ago, by an Ethiopian who had made a pilgrimage.

  In ancient times, the Egyptians had seeded the earth with gods, and slowly, slowly, they were dispersing throughout the world. Perhaps someday, when the right obelisk was installed in the right cosmic vortex, who knew what long planned harmonic convergence might ensue?

  The professor smiled to himself, pleased that he was finally busied with the real work of his time jaunt. The revelry of the previous night was still shrouding over him like a hangover, but what was done, was done. He was here and there was nothing else to do but make the most of things with the time that remained to him. He had dropped off his formal wear this morning at Madame Tussaud’s on King Street, redeemed his deposit, had a spot of breakfast at a street café, and now he was here—at the British Museum.

  Nordhausen’s musings were interrupted by the arrival of a governess and a small girl, very well dressed in deep blue velvet and black satin, eleven or twelve years old. The governess was paging through a guidebook, while the little girl solemnly looked up at the huge raptor, perching still and tense.

  “This is a pagan god of the Egyptians, dear. It was captured from Boney, and brought to our island.”

  “I wonder what it means,” the girl said, and ran her hands over a column of deeply incised hieroglyphics.”

  “No one knows, dear, it is all a great mystery. It says here that the last people to use hieroglyphics died almost eighteen hundred years ago.”

  Nordhausen was somewhat surprised by the woman’s remark. He knew he should keep his mouth tightly closed, but what harm could come from a little pleasant conversation? “Why, n
ot at all,” he said. “This is the god Horus in the form of a falcon. See, here is the name of the pharaoh Rameses, who built this statue.” He pointed to the royal cartouche, and spelled out, “Ra-me-ses. This circle with the dot is Ra, the sun god. This funny knot is the symbol ‘mose’, which means ‘to give birth,’ so it stands for ‘M’, and these two hooks are S’s.”

  The girl put her fingers on the hieroglyphics, and slowly traced, “Ra-me-ses.”

  “Oh, sir,” interrupted the governess, “How is it possible that you would know all this? It’s an evil looking thing, that much I’ll give you. Has an unholy look about it, yes?”

  “Unholy? I dare say, Madame. There is nothing holy about it. In fact, the Egyptians were quite fond of human sacrifice at one point, and I suppose this monument here has seen its fair share of blood through the ages.”

  “My word! To speak of such things before an innocent child! Don’t touch, Marie! Come along now.” She grabbed the girl firmly by the arm, and hurried her out of the gallery, leaving little more than a frown in her wake.

  Well I’ve done it again, thought Nordhausen as he mentally kicked himself. Suppose they were going to take the whole tour of the museum and I’ve gone and spoiled it all for them. Suppose the little girl was to find some glowing inspiration here that sticks in her mind and feeds the fires of her imagination—and now I’ve gone and put them out. Damn it man, when will you learn to keep your bloody mouth shut?

  Angry at himself again, Nordhausen decided to go in the other direction. He resolved not to get involved with anyone else, if at all possible. He would just mind his own business and be done with this trip. As he sauntered towards the far end of the hall, he glanced at the cards on some of the displayed items. They were very curious, even for this curious world he found himself in. Not a single one identified the item, beyond a general description: Sandstone Goddess; Memorial stele; Porphyry pharaoh, from Luxor.