Nutscracker
That doesn’t fit, though. On the one hand, the Minotaur’s manipulating all of us, but on the other hand, he’s got no head … But then again, quite apart from this particular case, I can testify professionally that’s what causes all the problems.
Organizm(-:
Absolutely. This Asterisk has a cheap kettle with a solar battery in his helmet. How can he decide where to use ‘Sunny Kiss’ and where to use ‘The Seventh Seal’?
Monstradamus
Automatically. It might all depend on which section of the helmet of horror a bubble of hope happens to burst in.
Organizm(-:
But I’m the one who sees the ray of sunlight or the dove, not Asterisk. I don’t understand anything any more. Who’s wearing the helmet of horror? Me or the Minotaur?
Nutscracker
The Helmholtz.
Monstradamus
We’ve been talking about that helmet too long already. It feels like we keep trying it on over and over again. It will attach itself permanently to our heads soon. Let’s change the subject.
Organizm(-:
Great idea, let’s. I’ve just had a thought. Has anyone ever wondered why Star Wars has such a strange sequel – instead of filming what came after the third episode, they filmed what came before the first one?
Monstradamus
Why?
Organizm(-:
At the end of the third episode Darth Vader dies, and that’s the end of all the Star Wars. There can’t be any more, because he’s the Minotaur of that world, and that black heap of junk on his head is the helmet of horror. He thinks every one of them: Luke Skywalker, the robots, Chewbacca and all the rest of it. So after he’s killed there can’t be any continuation.
Monstradamus
But Darth Vader takes his helmet off before he dies. And underneath he has a normal head, only covered in scars.
Organizm(-:
Yes, but it’s just a fantasy, after all.
Nutscracker
Yes, Organism. Very profound. And the Iron Mask was another Minotaur. When they handed him over to the Marquis de Sade to be corrupted, the revolution began, because the pain in his xxx made him stop thinking up royalist France.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Isolde, are you here?
IsoldA
Yes.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
I’m back. What’s happening here?
IsoldA
Nothing very interesting. Nutcracker was telling everybody about politics. And I only got back from Versailles just recently.
Monstradamus
Nutcracker, on that business of royalist France. You know, the Marquis turned out not to be so terrible after all.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
It’s all very monotonous where I am. Bushes, a bend, bushes, a fork, a bend, on and on for ever. The passage is about six feet wide.
IsoldA
What’s that in metres?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Two. Makes you feel like a rat in a maze. At one point I decided I’d had enough and tried to climb through the hedge. Some chance. There’s a barbed-wire mesh fence in the bushes – like the grid of bars in reinforced concrete. And I’d been wondering how they managed to keep the bushes so even!
IsoldA
That labyrinth must lead out into my park. You just didn’t go far enough. We have the same ground under our feet. Beige soil.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
I kept turning to the right. It’s funny. A flashback from my childhood. You know the way it is – a memory illuminated by a warm, long-forgotten light that seems to conceal the most important answer of all. Some book of adventure stories you read God only knows how many years ago. Where it said you can get through any labyrinth if you keep turning right all the time. So I decided to try it. Seems it was right – I did find something interesting after all. I saw one of your fountains. It was a long way off, though.
IsoldA
Tell me about it, then.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
At one point in the labyrinth there’s a little bench. A perfectly ordinary bench, like they have in parks. I climbed up on it and stood on the back, and my eyes were level with the upper edge of the bushes. On one side I could see a jet of water rising into the air, and on the other, way off in the distance, some kind of dark roof that looked as though it was covered with soot. The roof was hard to make out because it was so far away, and the jet of water was very strange – one jet shooting up into the air, but several of them falling down. Maybe it was an optical illusion.
IsoldA
No, that’s right. I know that fountain. It has bronze figures too. There’s a snake and a … I’ve forgotten what it’s called, like a pig with long spines.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
A porcupine.
IsoldA
Yes, that’s it. A porcupine sitting on a bronze tree-stump with water flowing out from it in all directions, as though the beast had suffered bad fright. And the snake is coiled up creeping towards the stump and shooting out a tall jet of water that divides into three branches and falls like rain on the porcupine and everything all around. It’s an incredibly beautiful fountain. The first time I saw it there was a little rainbow suspended in the spray of water beside it, and from that moment on I loved it best of all. There are actually three jets of water, but with different pressures. Their nozzles are set close beside each other in the snake’s mouth, so it looks as though there’s one jet rising into the air and three falling downwards. And I remembered the tattoo on your wrist, the oil and the yachtclub. Does the jet you can see above the bushes divide into three?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Yes, I think so.
IsoldA
Aren’t you absolutely sure?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
I can see a jet of water and the roof of a house when I climb up on to a bench and stand on the back of it. But it’s not possible to stand up there like that for very long, you sway backwards and forwards and then you lose your balance and you have to jump down. That makes it hard to make out the details. But if it is the same fountain you should see my labyrinth when you stand beside it.
IsoldA
There’s a tall hedge beside the fountain with the snake and the porcupine and I can’t tell what’s behind it. It’s very long – I walked a little way along it, the bushes fence off a large section of park. I think that must be your enclosure.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
If you’ve walked along that hedge, at one moment we might only have been ten feet apart. I was beside it too, on my own side. I’m practically certain it was the outside hedge. In the first place, there were two rows of barbed fencing instead of just one in the bushes. And in the second place, there’s a spot where you can clearly hear the sound of falling water. Oh and, by the way, beside the spot with the sound of water there’s a long wall protruding from the bushes. It looks like the back of some building and it’s painted with pink and gold Cupids blowing seashells like trumpets. Have you got anything like that?
IsoldA
There is a single-storey building to the right of the fountain. It looks like a pavilion for storing garden tools, except that it’s very big. Its back section disappears into the high hedge. But I didn’t see any Cupids on it.
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Can you get inside?
IsoldA
The door’s locked. Is there a door in your wall?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
Yes.
IsoldA
Does it open?
Romeo-y-Cohiba
To be honest I didn’t try it. I stood beside it for a while and suddenly I felt terrified, I even got a pounding in my temples. I’m not the timid type at all, but suddenly there it was. For no reason at all. I thought – who knows what’s inside there? What if it’s the Minotaur?
:-)))
UGLI 666
Nutcracker, do you know any Latin?
Nutscracker
The Senate and People of Rome. P-Q
-R-S. No, I’m confusing it with the alphabet. What the Romans had was S-P-Q-R.
Monstradamus
Why are you interested in Latin, Ugly?
UGLI 666
To translate a few words.
Monstradamus
I’ll give it a try.
UGLI 666
What’s ‘aiselceclesia’?
Monstradamus
I don’t know.
UGLI 666
And ‘ieselceaeclesi’?
Monstradamus
I don’t know that either. Are you sure it’s Latin?
UGLI 666
What else could it be?
Monstradamus
I can’t tell yet. Can you give us the whole phrase?
UGLI 666
It’s very long.
Monstradamus
Then a couple of words at least.
UGLI 666
It starts: ‘aiselceclesia ieselceaeclesi selceataecles elceatctaecle’.
Monstradamus
Stop, that’s enough for now.
UGLI 666
What is it?
Monstradamus
Not so fast. Let me have a think.
Nutscracker
Where’s it from, Ugly?
UGLI 666
From a labyrinth.
Nutscracker
Have you got a labyrinth outside your door?
UGLI 666
What else am I supposed to have?
Nutscracker
Catacombs.
Monstradamus
Don’t mock, Nutcracker.
UGLI 666
The catacombs were the cradle of the faith. It would have been great reassurance from the Lord.
Nutscracker
She said before she had a hall full of benches. Now all of a sudden there’s a labyrinth.
UGLI 666
I wish you’d go back to your bitches, Nutcracker, I really do. Can you make anything of it, Monstradamus?
Monstradamus
Were the words written in a column, one under the other?
UGLI 666
Yes.
Monstradamus
Can you type the one that was in the middle?
UGLI 666
What do you mean? Which one’s that?
Monstradamus
The seventh from the top, if that makes it easier.
UGLI 666
Eatcnasanctae.
Nutscracker
Eat NASA. I can’t make out any other references there.
Monstradamus
Where did you find it?
UGLI 666
I don’t really want to talk about that.
Monstradamus
What if I reproduce the entire inscription, then will you tell me?
UGLI 666
In that case, yes.
Monstradamus
The inscription was this:
A I S E L C E C L E S I A I S E L C E A E C L
E S I S E L C E A T A E C L E S E L C E A T
C T A E C L E L C E A T C N C T A E C L C
E A T C E A N C T A E C E A T C N A S A
N C T A E C E A T C N A N C T A E C L C
E A T C N C T A E C L E L C E A T C T A E
C L E S E L C E A T A E C L E S I S E L C E
A E C L E S I A I S E L C E C L E S I A
UGLI 666
That’s right. How did you do that?
Monstradamus
Dominus illuminatio mea.
UGLI 666
But what does it mean?
Monstradamus
The Lord is my light.
UGLI 666
I mean what does my inscription mean?
Monstradamus
Well, what do you think?
UGLI 666
I can’t make any sense of it at all. What sense is there?
Monstradamus
The sense can be very different, depending on where you found it. So you’ll have to be honest about everything.
UGLI 666
All right. Outside my door there really is a hall with benches. I didn’t really look at it properly at first. But then when I did … I’m not even sure whether you’ll believe me or not, Monstradamus.
Monstradamus
I’ll give it a try.
UGLI 666
There’s a cathedral there. A Gothic cathedral.
Nutscracker
You just said there was a labyrinth.
UGLI 666
That’s there too, only inside the cathedral. And in front of the entrance to the labyrinth there’s another Latin inscription laid out on the floor:
HVNC MVNDVM TIPICE LABERINTHVS
DENOTAT ISTE:
INTRANTI LARGVS, REDEVNTI SED
NIMIS ARTVS SIC MVNDO CAPTVS,
VICIORVM MOLLE GRAVATVS VIX VALET
AD VITE DOCTRINAM QVISQVE REDIRE.
Monstradamus
The meaning of that is more or less as follows – ‘the labyrinth represents the world in which we live, wide at the entrance, but narrow at the exit. He who is ensnared by the joys of this world and is burdened with its sins, may only rediscover the doctrine of life through effort.’ Only don’t ask me what the doctrine of life is. Was there really a wide entrance and a narrow exit?
UGLI 666
There wasn’t any entrance or exit at all in the usual sense. The entire labyrinth was laid out on the floor of the cathedral in light-blue marble. It’s just a mosaic.
Nutscracker
Is there such a thing as light-blue marble?
UGLI 666
Yes, there is.
Nutscracker
But what’s a labyrinth doing in a cathedral?
UGLI 666
The first canon told me a labyrinth is a part of that church and many others, because it illustrates the full complexity of the Christian path.
Nutscracker
The first canon?
UGLI 666
Yes. But the second canon objected that the Christian path is as simple and straight as an arrow. And the twists and turns and dead-ends of the labyrinth symbolise sin, in which fallen souls wander, hopelessly lost. And then the first canon replied that he had essentially meant the same thing, since sin is a distortion arising in the straight line of the Christian path. But no matter how tortuous the path of life might be, if the person walking it remains within the bosom of the Church, the simple arithmetic of good and evil ceases to apply, and the higher mathematics of the spirit comes into play.
Nutscracker
Now we’ve got a second canon as well.
Monstradamus
And what higher mathematics is that?
UGLI 666
However crooked and tortuous a life may be overall, a communicant of the Sacred Gifts may regard each infinitesimally small sector of his path as straight. And if any sector of his path is straight, then it is straight at any moment, and if it is straight at any moment, then it is always straight, and the Lord will not reject his soul. It is as though we grow mathematical wings that lift us up out of the depths of our degradation.
Nutscracker
But who are these canons? You mean you met someone?
UGLI 666
There were two of them. They were praying on bended knees near the altar. I made a noise, they noticed me and came over to help me with explanations and instructions.
Nutscracker
Tell us about them.
UGLI 666
They said that a long time ago, when faith was strong in people’s souls, a priest could send a repentant sinner on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. In later times, when faith began to fail …
Nutscracker
Not about the instructions, tell us about the canons themselves. Don’t you understand, or what? No one else here has met anybody.
Monstradamus
What about Ariadne?
Nutscracker
She only dreamed about them. Surely I don’t have to explain the difference?
Monstradamus
; Yes, explain it, Nutcracker.
Nutscracker
You don’t understand the difference between a dream and reality?
Monstradamus
I don’t understand what the difference is between the two stories.
Nutscracker
The difference is one’s about a dream and one’s about reality.
Monstradamus
But all I can see are letters on a screen.
Nutscracker
Not again. You’ve worn me out. Ugly, are you there?
UGLI 666
Yes.
Nutscracker
These canons, what did they look like?
UGLI 666
Medium height. In threadbare cassocks, with old-fashioned, wide-brimmed cardinal’s hats on their heads. The canons explained that the hats once belonged to holy prelates and they helped to calm the passions. The second canon had the brim of his hat bent upwards at one side, like a duellist. It reminded me of Aramis from ‘The Three Musketeers’, the one who was an ordinary sinner at first, and then became a general of the order of Jesuits.
Monstradamus
Sounds like the two dwarves that Ariadne saw at the very beginning.
Nutscracker
That’s what I thought too. But those were dwarves, and these two are medium height.
Monstradamus
Ugly, what height are you?
UGLI 666
That has nothing to do with anything.
Nutscracker
Forget it. Let’s move on. Ugly, did you see their faces?
UGLI 666
No. They stood with their heads bowed, as befits monks and spiritual people, and the brims of their hats hid their features completely.
Helmet of Horror Page 6
