I nodded. Everyone else went away and I slept deeply for the first time in four days.
Next morning I dreamed my aunt was beside me, as young and lovely as in days when she looked like the white demon. I woke up clasping Adoda so insistently that we both cried aloud. The doors of the central hall were all wide open; so were the doors to the garden in the rooms beyond. Light flooded in on us from all sides. During breakfast I grew calm again but it was not my habitual calm. I felt adventurous under the waist. This feeling did not yet reach my head, which smiled cynically. But I was no longer exactly the same man.
The rest of the entourage came in wearing bright clothes and garlands. They stowed my punt-shaped throne with food, wine, drugs and instruments. It is a big throne and when they climbed in themselves there was no overcrowding even though Tohu’s nurse was there too. Then a horde of janitors arrived with long poles which they fixed to the sides of the throne, and I and my entourage were lifted into the air and carried out to the garden. The secretary sat in the prow playing a mouth-organ while the chef and doctor accompanied him with zither and drum. The janitors almost danced as they trampled across the maze, and this was so surprising that I laughed aloud, staring freely up at the pigeon-flecked azure sky, the porcelain gables with their coloured flags, the crowded tops of markets, temples and manufactories. Perhaps when I was small I had gazed as greedily for the mere useless fun of it, but for years I had only used my eyes professionally, to collect poetical knowledge, or shielded them, as required by the etiquette. ‘Oh, Adoda!’ I cried, warming my face in her hair, ‘All this new knowledge is useless and I love it.’
She whispered, ‘The use of living is the taste it gives. The emperor has made you the only free man in the world. You can taste anything you like.’
We entered a hall full of looms where thousands of women in coarse gowns were weaving rich tapestry. I was fascinated. The air was stifling, but not to me. Adoda and the chef plied their fans and the doctor refreshed me with a fine mist of cool water. I also had the benefit of janitors without kneebands, so our party was socially invisible; I could stare at whom I liked and they could not see me at all. I noticed a girl with pale brown hair toiling on one side. Adoda halted the janitors and whispered, ‘That lovely girl is your sister who was sold to the merchants. She became a skilled weaver so they resold her here.’
I said, ‘That is untrue. My sister would be over forty now and that girl, though robust, is not yet sixteen.’
‘Would you like her to join us?’
I closed my eyes in the tolerant smile and a janitor negotiated with an overseer. When we moved on, the girl was beside us. She was silent and frightened at first but we gave her garlands, food and wine and she soon became merry.
We came into a narrow street with a gallery along one side on the level of my throne. Tall, elegant women in the robes of the court strolled and leaned there. A voice squeaked, ‘Hullo, Bohu’ and looking up I saw the emperor smiling from the arms of the most slender and disdainful. I stared at him. He said, ‘Bohu hates me but I must suffer that. He is too great a man to be ordered by a poor old emperor. This lady, Bohu, is your aunt, a very wonderful courtesan. Say hullo!’
I laughed and said, ‘You are a liar, sir.’
He said, ‘Nonetheless you mean to take her from me. Join the famous poet, my dear, he goes down to the floating world. Goodbye, Bohu. I do not just give people death. That is only half my job.’
The emperor moved to a lady nearby, the slender one stepped among us and we all sailed on down the street.
We reached a wide river and the janitors waded in until the throne rested on the water. They withdrew the poles, laid them on the thwarts and we drifted out from shore. The doctor produced pipes and measured a careful dose into each bowl. We smoked and talked; the men played instruments, the women sang. The little weaver knew many popular songs, some sad, some funny. I suddenly wished Tohu was with us, and wept. They asked why. I told them and we all wept together. Twilight fell and a moon came out. The court lady stood up, lifted a pole and steered us expertly into a grove of willows growing in shallow water. Adoda hung lanterns in the branches. We ate, clasped each other, and slept.
I cannot count the following days. They may have been two, or three, or many. Opium plays tricks with time but I did not smoke enough to stop me loving. I loved in many ways, some tender, some harsh, some utterly absent-minded. More than once I said to Adoda, ‘Shall we die now? Nothing can be sweeter than this’ but she said, ‘Wait a little longer. You haven’t done all you want yet.’
When at last my mind grew clear about the order of time the weaver and court lady had left us and we drifted down a tunnel to a bright arch at the end. We came into a lagoon on a lane of clear water between beds of rushes and lily-leaves. It led to an island covered with spires of marble and copper shining in the sun. My secretary said, ‘That is the poets’ pantheon. Would you like to land, sir?’
I nodded.
We disembarked and I strolled barefoot on warm moss between the spires. Each had an open door in the base with steps down to the tomb where the body would lie. Above each door was a white tablet where the poet’s great work would be painted. All the tombs and tablets were vacant, of course, for I am the first poet in the new palace and was meant to be the greatest, for the tallest spire in the centre was sheathed in gold with my name on the door. I entered. The room downstairs had space for us all with cushions for the entourage and a silver throne for me.
‘To deserve to lie here I must write a poem,’ I thought, and looked into my mind. The poem was there, waiting to come out. I returned upstairs, went outside and told the secretary to fetch paint and brushes from his satchel and go to the tablet. I then dictated my poem in a slow firm voice.
THE EMPEROR’S INJUSTICE
Scattered buttons and silks, a broken kite in the mud,
A child’s yellow clogs cracked by the horses’ hooves.
A land weeps for the head city, lopped by sabre, cracked by hooves.
The houses ash, the people meat for crows.
A week ago wind rustled dust in the empty market.
‘Starve,’ said the moving dust, ‘Beg. Rebel. Starve. Beg. Rebel.’
We do not do such things. We are peaceful people.
We have food for six more days, let us wait.
The emperor will accommodate us, underground.
It is sad to be unnecessary.
All the bright mothers, strong fathers, raffish aunts,
Lost sisters and brothers, all the rude servants
Are honoured guests of the emperor, underground.
We sit in the tomb now. The door is closed, the only light is the red glow from the chef’s charcoal stove. My entourage dreamily puff their pipes, the doctor’s fingers sift the dried herbs, the secretary is ending my last letter. We are tired and happy. The emperor said I could write what I liked. Will my poem be broadcast? No. If that happened the common people would rise and destroy that evil little puppet and all the cunning, straightfaced, pompous men who use him. Nobody will read my words but a passing gardener, perhaps, who will paint them out to stop them reaching the emperor’s ear. But I have at last made the poem I was made to make. I lie down to sleep in perfect satisfaction. Goodbye, I still love you. Your son,
Bohu.
DICTATED ON THE OLD CALENDAR’S LAST DAY.
LAST LETTER
AN APPRECIATION OF THE POEM BY THE LATE TRAGEDIAN BOHU ENTITLED THE EMPEROR’S INJUSTICE DELIVERED TO THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE OF HEADMASTERS, NEW PALACE UNIVERSITY
My Dear Colleagues, This is exactly the poem we require. Our patience in waiting for it till the last possible moment has been rewarded. The work is shorter than we expected, but that makes distribution easier. It had a starkness unusual in government poetry, but this starkness satisfies the nation’s need much more than the work we hoped for. With a single tiny change the poem can be used at once. I know some of my colleagues will raise objections, but I will answer these in the cour
se of my appreciation.
A noble spirit of pity blows through this poem like a warm wind. The destroyed people are not mocked and calumniated, we identify with them, and the third line:
A land cries for the head city, lopped by sabre, cracked by hooves, invites the whole empire to mourn. But does this wind of pity fan the flames of political protest? No. It presses the mind of the reader inexorable toward nothing, toward death.
This is clearly shown in the poem’s treatment of rebellion:
We do not do such things. We are peaceful people.
We have food for six more days, let us wait.
The poem assumes that a modern population will find the prospect of destruction by their own government less alarming than action against it. The truth of this is shown in today’s police report from the old capital. It describes crowds of people muttering at street corners and completely uncertain of what action to take. They have a little food left. They fear the worst, yet hope, if they stay docile, the emperor will not destroy them immediately. This state of things was described by Bohu yesterday in the belief that it had happened a fortnight ago! A poet’s intuitive grasp of reality was never more clearly demonstrated.
At this point the headmaster of civil peace will remind me that the job of the poem is not to describe reality but to encourage our friends, frighten our enemies, and reconcile the middling people to the destruction of the old capital. The headmaster of moral philosophy will also remind me of our decision that people will most readily accept the destruction of the old capital if we accuse it of rebellion. That was certainly the main idea in the original order-to-write, but I would remind the college of what we had to do to the poet who obeyed that order. Tohu knew exactly what we wanted and gave it to us. His poem described the emperor as wise, witty, venerable, patient, loving and omnipotent. He described the citizens of the old capital as stupid, childish, greedy, absurd, yet inspired by a vast communal lunacy which endangered the empire. He obediently wrote a popular melodrama which could not convince a single intelligent man and would only over-excite stupid ones, who are fascinated by criminal lunatics who attack the established order.
The problem is this. If we describe the people we kill as dangerous rebels they look glamorous; if we describe them as weak and silly we seem unjust. Tohu could not solve that problem. Bohu has done with startling simplicity.
He presents the destruction as a simple, stunning, inevitable fact. The child, mother and common people in the poem exist passively, doing nothing but weep, gossip, and wait. The active agents of hoof, sabre, and (by extension) crow, belong to the emperor, who is named at the end of the middle verse:
The emperor will accommodate us, underground.
and at the end of the last:
Bright mothers, strong fathers … all the rude servants
Are honoured guests of the emperor, underground.
Consider the weight this poem gives to our immortal emperor! He is not described or analysed, he is presented as a final, competent, all-embracing force, as unarguable as the weather, as inevitable as death. This is how all governments should appear to people who are not in them.
To sum up, THE EMPEROR’S INJUSTICE will delight our friends, depress our enemies, and fill middling people with nameless awe. The only change required is the elimination of the first syllable in the last word of the title. I advise that the poem be sent today to every village, town and city in the land. At the same time Fieldmarshal Ko should be ordered to destroy the old capital. When the poem appears over doors of public buildings, the readers will read of an event which is occurring simultaneously. In this way the literary and military sides of the attack will reinforce each other with unusual thoroughness. Fieldmarshal Ko should take special care that the poet’s parents do not escape the general massacre, as a rumour to that effect will lessen the poignancy of the official biography, which I will complete in the coming year.
I remain your affectionate colleague,
Gigadib,
Headmaster of modern and classical literature.
DICTATED ON DAY 1 OF THE NEW CALENDAR
BERNARD MACLAVERTY
Phonefun Limited
When she heard the whine of the last customer’s fast spin – a bearded student with what seemed like a year’s supply of Y-fronts – Sadie Thompson changed her blue nylon launderette coat for her outdoor one and stood jingling the keys by the door until he left. It was dark and wet and the streets reflected the lights from the shop windows. She had to rush to get to the Spar before it closed, and was out of breath – not that she had much to buy – potatoes, sugar and tea-bags. In the corner shop she got her cigarettes, the evening paper and a copy of Men Only, which she slipped inside the newspaper and put in her carrier bag. She slowly climbed the steep street in the darkness because the Army had put out most of the street lights. She turned in at Number ninety-six. The door stuck momentarily on a large envelope lying on the mat.
She had the table set and the dinner ready for Agnes when she came in.
‘Hello, Sadie, love,’ she said and kissed her on the cheek. Beside Sadie, Agnes was huge. She wore an expensive silver-fox fur coat. Sadie did not like the coat and had said so. It was pretty much too much for a woman whose only job was cleaning the local primary school.
‘I’m knackered,’ said Agnes, kicking off her shoes and falling into the armchair. There was a hole in the toe of her tights.
‘Take off your coat, your dinner’s ready,’ said Sadie.
‘Hang on. Let me have a fag first.’
She lit up a cigarette and put her head back in the chair. Sadie thought she looked a putty colour. She was grossly overweight but would do nothing about it, no matter what Sadie said.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’ll be all right in a minute. It’s that bloody hill. It’s like entering the Olympics.
‘If you ask me, you’re carrying too much weight. When did you last weigh yourself?’
‘This morning.’
‘And what were you?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Agnes laughing, ‘I was afraid to look.’
With her head back like that her fat neck and chin were one. There were red arcs of lipstick on the cork-tip of her cigarette. Sadie served the mash and sausages.
‘Sit over,’ she said. Agnes stubbed her cigarette out and, groaning for effect, came to the table still wearing her coat.
‘You’d think to hear you that you’d cleaned that school by yourself.’
‘It feels like I did.’ Agnes raised her fork listlessly to her mouth.
‘Did the post come?’
‘Yes.’
‘Much?’
‘It feels fat.’
‘Aw God no.’
‘You’ll have to brighten up a bit. Don’t be so glum.’
‘God, that’s a good one coming from you, Sadie. I don’t think I’ve seen you smiling since Christmas.’
‘I’m the brains. You’re supposed to be the charm. I don’t have to smile.’ They ate in silence except for the sound of their forks making small screeches against the plate.
‘I wish you’d take off your coat when you’re eating. It looks that slovenly,’ said Sadie. Agnes heaved herself to her feet, took off her coat and flung it on the sofa. She turned on the transistor. The news was on so she tuned it to some music.
‘I need a wee doze before I brighten up. You know that, Sadie.’
‘I suppose I’m not tired after a day in that bloody laundryette?’
Agnes nibbled her sausage at the front of her closed mouth, very quickly, like a rabbit. The music on the radio stopped and a foreign voice came on and babbled.
‘That’s a great programme you picked.’
‘It’s better than the Northern Ireland news.’
The foreign voice stopped and music came on again. Agnes finished what was on her plate.
‘Is there anything for afters?’
‘You can open some plums if you want.’
Agnes lurch
ed out to the tiled kitchen and opened a tin of plums. She threw the circle of lid into the bucket and came back with a tin and a spoon.
‘It’s cold on your feet out there. There’s a draught coming in under the door that would clean corn.’ She ate the plums from the tin. Some juice tricked on to her chin.
‘Want some?’ She offered the half-finished tin to Sadie, but she refused.
‘It’s no wonder you’re fat.’
‘It oils my voice. Makes it nice for the phone.’
‘I got you a Men Only if you run out of inspiration. It’s there on the sideboard.’
‘Thanks, love, but I don’t think I’ll need it.’ Agnes drank off the last juice from the tin.
‘You’ll cut your lips one of these days,’ said Sadie, ‘don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
Agnes lit a cigarette and rolled one across the table to Sadie. She dropped the dead match into the tin.
‘That was good,’ she said. ‘I’m full to the gunnels.’ She slapped her large stomach with the flat of her hand in satisfaction. The foreigner began to speak gobbledegook again.
‘Aw shut up,’ said Sadie. ‘Men are all the same no matter what they’re speaking.’ She twiddled the knob until she got another station with music. Almost immediately the music stopped and a man with a rich American drawl began to speak.
‘Aw God, Sadie, do you remember the Yanks? He sounds just like one I had.’
‘Will I ever forget them? They could spend money all right.’
‘That’s exactly like his voice. It’s the spit of him.’
‘Give us a light.’ Agnes leaned over and touched Sadie’s cigarette with her own. Sadie pulled hard until it was lit.
‘I fancied him no end,’ said Agnes. ‘He was lovely. I think it was his first time but he pretended it wasn’t.’
The Penguin Book of the British Short Story Page 63
