by Hughes, Rhys
Ten Tributes to Calvino
by
Rhys Hughes
Copyright © 2012 by Rhys Hughes
All rights reserved. This book and any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
First Printing, 2012
Gloomy Seahorse Press
Swansea, Wales
http://rhyshughes.blogspot.com
This ebook is dedicated to
Brankica Bozinovska
Who is the artist responsible for the cover.
Table of Contents
Corneropolis
Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World
The Planet of Perfect Happiness
Sending Freedom Far Away
The City That Was Itself
The Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees
The Chattering Star
The Parable of the Homeless Fable
Sunstorm
The Pig Iron Mouse Dooms the Moon
Introductory Note
I make no secret of the fact that Italo Calvino (1923-1985) is my favourite writer; ever since I first picked up a copy of The Castle of Crossed Destinies three decades ago I have been fascinated and intrigued by his work. Although rigorously intellectual, his fiction also demonstrates a vast capacity for feeling. He’s simultaneously a head and heart writer. This modest ebook collects together ten tales written over the years that were directly inspired by Calvino. I won’t claim to have a fraction of his originality and talent, that would be presumptuous in the extreme, but certainly he has been my biggest literary influence; and the following pieces are more in the nature of a “thank you” than an attempt to emulate his genius.
Rhys Hughes, October 2012
Corneropolis
I was standing on the corner of two cobbled streets looking for my wife. First I looked down one street and then up the other. But she did not come into view. So I stopped one of the hurrying pedestrians and said, “Excuse me, but would you mind waiting here in my place?”
“Why should I?” he answered gruffly.
“Quite simple. By standing on this corner I am able to survey two streets at once. But I would like to take a look at a third, which is why I propose walking to the end of this street and standing on that other corner.”
“What are we looking for?”
“My wife. You will recognise her when you see her. She is too beautiful for me. Remember that and call out the moment she appears.”
And so I left him on the corner, looking down one street and up the other, while I walked to the end of the first street and stood on the corner. Now I was able to look up that street, instead of down it, but also down a new street, previously unknown. I alternated my gaze between the two streets, as did my helper on his corner, but at a different rate, so that our eyes meshed only on every seventeenth oscillation.
My wife still did not come. Had she gone shopping or for a meal? Perhaps she was having her hair trimmed or her nails filed? Maybe she had run off with another man, through the park, under the trees, hand in hand, into the bushes, out of their clothes. I was close to despair.
I stopped another pedestrian. “Please help me find my wife!”
“How may I do that?” he sneered.
“Stand here and watch out for her. She is too beautiful for me. I must walk to the end of this street and take up a position on the next corner. That will increase our chances of actually sighting her.”
“But this is a junction and there are three streets leading off from it.”
I had not noticed the fact. There was no way I could walk to the end of two streets simultaneously, so I rocked gently on my heels, clutching my head, unsure. Finally a voice tripped through the curtain of my lank hair into my ear. It was the first pedestrian, asking, not politely, if I was unwell.
“You have abandoned your position!” cried I.
“Not as such. I perceived that you were in distress and came over to see what the matter was. But I stopped a different pedestrian and persuaded him to take my place. There he is, watching from the original corner.”
This was true. He waved at me and I waved back. There were now three people willing to help me find my wife. This was good, neat, convenient. The chances of glimpsing her lithe form, her charm woven into flesh, were increasing. And my lungs were voluminous enough to thank more than one collaborator in my quest. There was no need to refuse any offers, however reluctantly implemented.
“You made the correct decision,” I agreed. “Perhaps if you wait here, while this other fellow walks down this street to the next corner, and I walk up this one, we shall spy her very soon.”
“It is not beyond the bounds of feasibility.”
The first pedestrian took up his position while the second and myself reached our respective corners. The system of oscillating glances was now more complex. The success of the unseen pedestrian, on the original corner, was relayed to me by my first assistant, the one concerned for my health, from his new vantage. No, not success, for she did not appear, nor her excessive beauty.
I watched in vain. At last I stopped another pedestrian.
“Have you seen her? Have you?”
“I have not, whoever she might be. Do you wish me to stand here and take your place while you proceed to the end of the street and stand at a different corner? I shall do so, but not eagerly. Besides, this is not a simple corner, nor even a junction, but a crossroads. There are four streets meeting here.”
“You are right! I deem this fact a major setback.”
“Not so. Here are two fellows coming to see what the matter is. Together we make four. Maybe they will help you occupy all the new corners.”
The first and second pedestrians reached my side and demonstrated concern at my agitation, which they had noted. But I was happier now, particularly when they both announced how they had managed to find replacements for their earlier positions, selected at random from other pedestrians, and were free to walk to the ends of two of the streets leading from the crossroads, while I took the third. My remaining assistant would stand here and keep in contact not only with us but also with the three replacements, the first of which still occupied the original corner.
The web of glances was now truly tangled, elegant, deadly. Soon my wife would be spotted for sure. But she is obviously more clever and slippery than I had ever anticipated. Her beauty did not manifest itself.
My new corner was colder than the others. A breeze dried my gums. How might I kiss her ankles with such oral aridity? Then I perceived that there was less cover from the elements in this location. No fewer than five streets met at this point. The spines, or bones, of a pentagon. Pedestrians rushed down them all, but not my wife. She who is too beautiful to describe did not flow.
I stopped another pedestrian to take my place. My three earlier assistants came up to help me. Together we were five in number, enough to occupy the new corners which would reveal themselves. We diverged again.
“Remember to shout out when you see her!”
The next corner I reached was a focus for six streets. Another willing pedestrian; a further adjustment of assistants. I was collecting disciples, eyes, all infected with my despair, my romanticism. The corner after that fused seven streets. Then eight, nine, ten. The temperature was falling, the wind was rising. Where was she? Sheltering in a doorway? More corners, more converging streets. Eleven, a dozen.
By late afternoon, I had lost count. I stood in a circus, a hub, with streets radiating like the spokes of a unicycle wheel. Too many. Down none of them stalked my wife. I turned up the collar of my coat. At the far end of one street I noticed a man
standing on a corner. He was steady, watching. I walked up to him. Before I could open my mouth, he cried:
“I am looking! I am looking!”
Then I understood that the circuit had been closed. This was my original corner, occupied by my last replacement. I turned and saw that all the buildings had vanished. The city was naked. The city walls still stood, bounding an immense square, but the space they contained was empty of artificial structures. People were milling without the guidance of streets. Rather, so many streets met at this point that everything was an absence. My view of the totality was unimpeded. No more corners to hide behind. Still my wife was not apparent.
It was an illusion, of course. The combined effect of watchers on every corner, relaying their observations with a glance, the whole in harmony, had made me our first omniscient citizen. I saw the utter limits of my disappointment. No nook, no cranny, remained. And if there was still no beauty to be found, it simply did not exist. I lacked uncertainty, hope.
I tapped him on the shoulder. “Go home!”
He shrugged and went. The circuit was broken. A few, a very few, buildings shimmered back into reality. The horizons were eroded.
“Tell the others to go home as well. Spread the word!”
I closed my eyes and waited. When I opened them, it was evening and I was back on my original corner. It was warm. I pressed through the crowds to my apartment at the top of a narrow, tall house. This city is convoluted, riddled. And I dwell high, but not high enough to behold more than a few strands of the tangle. I climbed the steps, opened my door. The candles had burned to stubs.
Throwing off my coat, I sat on the edge of the bed. Already I was forgetting about my wife. The loss of beauty that is beyond imagination cannot be regretted too much. Next year I shall try again. Perhaps when I am married, when I am no longer a bachelor, it will be an easier task to lose and find her.
Climbing the Tallest Tree in the World
It started as a prank and ended as a plank. We drank too much ale and tumbled out of the tavern. Our university is the most renowned in the land. Somebody suggested that we accomplish a feat never before attempted. We agreed with alacrity. We disagreed with Figgis, who wanted to go home. We knocked him down with stones. We had a tradition of appalling behaviour to live up to. It was our duty.
To be honest, I can’t remember if we were students or professors. It hardly matters. I pointed at the famous tree in the main public square and cried: “Let’s climb that!” The excited voices around me went quiet. But it was too late to back down. Slowly a chant filled those empty throats. “To the top!” We bolstered our courage with coordinated hubbub. I was happy and scared.
We decided to mount our assault in pairs. We reached the base of the trunk but did not bother to look up. It was pointless. The canopy was lost beyond the clouds. Fresh hearts and initials had been carved into the bark. I went first with Gruber. As we ascended, the style of these carvings became cruder and older. They had all been made at ground level and the growth of the tree was carrying them toward heaven.
Within an hour, we were confronted with the evidence of love affairs which had ended before the founding of our university. These hearts had been cut with stone tools, not steel blades. Later, when the ache in my arms was unbearable, there was nothing. The tree was older than the art of writing. Gruber and I decided to rest. Far below we watched our colleagues struggle to make equal sense of these ephemeral desires.
“Fossils of passion,” said Gruber, as he sat on a branch and dangled his legs over the void. I guessed that he wanted to make a contribution of his own, but was frustrated in this design by the lack of a girl to love. Also he had no knife. We reclaimed our breath and resumed our climb. Roosting birds, chiefly owls, studied our progress with alarmed amusement. Then I recalled the subject I specialised in and blinked for all their eyes.
“Trees don’t grow like this,” I muttered.
“What do you mean by that?”
“They don’t grow from the base but from the top. There’s no way those carvings could be rising progressively higher.”
It was a mystery. We sweated and gasped as we pushed ourselves to the limits of our endurance. The sun went down, but when I checked my pocket watch I saw it was nearly midnight. That demonstrates how high we already were. It had been night in the town below for many hours. I wondered if we would reach the top by morning. It seemed unlikely. For a start, mornings would arrive much earlier now.
Gruber and myself were the highest pair, as I’ve already mentioned. Immediately beneath us were Pluck and Becker. When we began this exploit, we frequently shouted at them, and they passed on our shout to the next pair, who I believe were Kane and Rowse, and so we kept in rudimentary touch right down to the final two climbers. But now our calls were not acknowledged. We were ascending too fast. Or they had fallen.
The stars did not grow brighter in the celestial dome but the air remained breathable. This was a surprise. It should have thinned out gradually. Gruber leaned close and fixed his lips to my ear. He was trembling.
“The trunk is getting thicker,” he whispered.
“Yes, it is very strange. And the branches are much wider. What can this mean?”
“That the tree is misshapen and ugly?”
There was no other explanation at that particular time. We climbed reluctantly now, and I distracted myself by attempting some difficult mental calculations. The distance between the most recent inscriptions and the earliest could be reckoned in two ways: miles or centuries. Thus the growth of one year could be reduced to a precise length of trunk. An estimate of the height of the tree might also provide its age.
I had a reasonable idea of our altitude, but there was no way of reckoning its percentage of the total. As we climbed, however, it quickly became apparent that the tree was more ancient than the world itself. This paradox was an extra worry. I did not trouble Gruber with it. But he was a geologist and had already arrived at the same conclusion.
“Wood can’t be older than rocks,” he sighed at last.
I nodded. We now regretted embarking on this adventure, which had promised so much when it began, though I can’t specify what. We decided to make camp on one of the wider branches and wait for the others to catch up. I felt sleepy. My eyes closed as I listened to the soft rustling of the leaves. I must have fallen into a deep slumber. I dreamed that a man was screaming. He was above me and his voice receded upwards. He was being dragged into the sky, carried off by owls.
When I awoke, the sun was shining on my face. Gruber had gone. I lingered on my perch until noon. There was nothing to eat. I was completely sober now. I resumed climbing, surprised at how light I felt. I pulled myself up from branch to branch with remarkable ease. Indeed I found it difficult to stop. When I did, I became aware of an insistent tugging on my body, as if an invisible hand was reaching down and trying to pluck me up. With more height its grip became stronger.
Then I knew. Our assumptions about the tree had been all wrong. I now suspected that I was climbing down it rather than up. It had been planted upside-down. At least that was true from the perspective of my world. In fact, the canopy of the tree was that world. As I left its gravitational pull behind, I realised it was I who was inverted. The tug of the real ground, somewhere far above, was taking over. If I let go, I would fall into the solid sky. It was a moment of terrible insight.
I resolved to reverse my progress and climb back down again. And that is what I am doing now. Gruber had no knife, but I always carry one. It is almost a sword. Unlike the others, I am a swashbuckler. I have no buckle, that is true, for I wear braces to hold up my trousers, but I am awash with swash. I started carving this tale on the trunk, one sentence every night while I rested. Tomorrow I shall write this one. Yesterday I wrote it. I waited to meet my companions but they did not appear. I am alone.
I began to suspect I had climbed down much further than I had ascended. This made no sense. Then I realised the tree was growing faster than I could clim
b it and growing the way it ought to: from the top. Thus the canopy was moving away from me and I would never reach it. Never. I had lost my world. There was no time for weeping. I saved my tears and doubled my efforts.
The carved initials at different elevations were now explained by natural growth. Or perhaps they had been an elaborate deception, a much earlier joke played by the students or professors of my university, to encourage those who came after to believe the climb was real and feasible. I laughed bitterly. I still laugh in that style. A cruel joke: one of the finest. That is our tradition. Every time I rest, I lose valuable miles. The world grows away from me far below, becomes an unreachable horizon, a distant planet. Now it is little more than a tiny disc flecked with threadlike clouds. Soon it will become a star, first bright then faint.
Time is running out. Next year, a new joke must be played. I think I know what it might be. Ale will be drunk, a tavern will be tumbled out of. A feat never before attempted will lose its virginity. I imagine a giant saw worked by many hands. To cut down the tallest tree in the world! Its collapse will be spectacular, or so they conclude. But in reality they will be severing the canopy from the trunk which supports it. The ground will wobble and slide off.
It must be next year already. I have just watched the whole world falling past into the sky.
The Planet of Perfect Happiness
The planet of perfect happiness is called Inclova and it is important that visitors are aware how to enter it safely. From space it appears exactly like a fictional description of itself, a world of beautiful oceans and delightful islands and continents covered in trees heavy with delicious fruit, but when one actually lands on it one soon learns that written accounts are insufficient to convey the true allure of the place. It is infinitely enticing. For many years visitors simply leapt out of their spacecrafts onto the surface and then they were lost. We are more careful now and take suitable precautions.
