“Ours is a gusto-disgusto dynamic. That is what all the arts and humanities are about. Without this dynamic there are only half-things and never-full-things. This is Wednesday. Will you join the most illustrious of the rotters at Rotten Ralph’s tonight?”
“Oh, I don’t believe so,” Aurelia said. “I’d be a little bit nervous going through that ‘Kill Aurelia Now’ crowd.”
“They wouldn’t hinder you, not if they knew that you were going to Rotten Ralph’s. It is a holy-unholy place to them, even to those who are not illustrious enough to be admitted there. We work always towards the inward alignment of our basic to the final stenchiness that is our home. We go from the humanities to the animalities, and from the animalities to the diabolities. Wherever we stand, there must be these two cellars under our feet, and perhaps still others going deeper and deeper. They are the primordial caves that we wish to return to. At the same time we are completely ahistoric. We believe in the world of the absolutely ‘pure present.’ ”
“What does that do to the pure-impure dynamic?” Aurelia asked. “Is not the ‘pure present’ only half a thing? Isn’t it a thing with its dynamic lost?”
“Girl, I never thought of that. You must come to Rotten Ralph’s tonight and discuss these things with the Mucky Masters. Remember that a pretty face turned inside out is always an ugly face.”
“Yah, gory ugly,” Aurelia agreed.
“We will always insist on the dirty union of the ‘Shining Statement’ and the ‘Dark Antagonist,’ ” Walter said.
“In a particular local case, you will insist on it in vain.”
“We love dementia. We love delirium. In each of us there will be two opposite persons, the ‘Shining Statement’ and the ‘Dark Antagonist.’ We can live together only in a brawling and violent delirium and dementia. This is what we love-hate. In most individuals, these two persons do not continue to live together. One of the ‘interior persons’ murders the other one, and thereafter the ‘corpse within’ is carried about. This is the case with persons who are said to be at peace with themselves, that they shall carry a rotten corpse around within them, and that they have lost their dynamic.”
“I should think that you’d like the ‘rotten-corpse-within’ bit,” Aurelia said.
“And I do like it, but sometimes we must make choices. Two rotting bodies within are better than one. And that they be rotting-alive is somehow more exciting even than that they be rotting-dead. You understand that what I am talking about is the whole essence of the humanities and arts.”
“What do you people have for dessert at Rotten Ralph’s?” Aurelia asked. “How do you top the stenchy main courses?”
“Come and see tonight. The dessert is always a surprise. And it is never bland.”
But Aurelia didn’t go to Rotten Ralph’s that night. She was told by one of her new friends in the house that High Honchos of the Humanities, imposing as they sound, are a dime for ten of them; and that Walter Kunste was not even on the Main-Stream of the Essence of Arts on this world.
He was on the Rotten River which is somehow larger and more swollen than the main stream.
Aurelia had an appointment with Rory McCory the great numerologist and seminal mathematician.
“I have an irrational question to ask you, young lady,” Rory said to Aurelia. “I do not mean that it is a silly question. This irrational question is analogous to an irrational number, something that we must use now and then. My question concerns the prime number that some persons believe is between Five and Seven, and which some persons do not believe is between Five and Seven. What do you know about a whole prime number between Five and Seven, my dear?”
“Only that it isn’t there,” Aurelia said. “Where such a number seems to be introduced by some sort of illusion, there will be corruption in that case and constriction in that people.”
“There is such a prime number,” Cousin Clootie stated. (Aw, why was that fellow always around and interrupting?) “It even had a name.”
“Yes, it’s true, Aurelia,” McCory said. “Many persons believe that there is such a number, and they use it in their mathematics.”
“Oh, what people?” Aurelia asked impatiently. “Of what world? What grubby people are those?”
“We ourselves,” said McCory, “on this grubby world. Without this number there would be no regularity and no sequence at all. This is the stumbler that I run into again and again. I am told repeatedly that people of ‘Shining World,’ and of many other worlds, do not have this number and do not even believe in it. Why not? Why Not?
“Oh, because it isn’t there,” Aurelia said simply. “And what is all this regularity and sequence that you talk about? It is false. There is no flexibility and no openness if you use that cursed number. There would be static recurrency only. The sequence would return to the same place every time, which is the same thing as not moving at all. The stasis would be more serious in the mind than in the world, but it would produce a hobbled and manacled world like—well, I’m afraid like this one. It is only the regularity of chains. It is a sequence that cannot even break away from itself for short-cuts or intuitions. There is no bounce to people who use that number, no glow to them. There is no transcending, no double-jointing. There are no ‘dimensions beyond.’ We were taught that someday we would meet strange people who believed in and would try to intrude an extra number. We were told that they were, perhaps, incurable in their folly.”
“But Aurelia,” the numerologist insisted again. “There is such a number. We use it all the time. We work problems with it. We cannot do without it.”
“Try,” Aurelia suggested. “Maybe you can.”
“This number, which is named—” the numerologist tried again.
“Please! I am a lady!” Aurelia spoke sharply. “Do not name it in my presence. I know what it is. It is the Hell number. Thrice spoken (or spat), it is the Number of the Beast. But the ‘Shining People’ do not use it at all.”
(Note: A variant version says that the rogue number is inserted between Eight and Nine. But we cannot accept that; here we have a number between eight and nine, and it is a normal number, not a rogue number. But people somewhere are inserting a rogue number that does not belong.)
Then Aurelia had an appointment with the Pan-Math and Science Boluxus named James Forcedmarch.
“We have brought implications to a high art here on our world,” Forcedmarch said.
“For the record, what world is this?” Aurelia asked. “What is its name? I really want to know.”
“World nomenclature is a random thing,” Forcedmarch said, “as is the very knowledge of world existence. For an instance, we know of your own ‘Shining World’ only by implication.”
“I have only mentioned that name by accident of forgetfulness since I have been here,” Aurelia said. “And besides, that isn’t the name of it.”
“We have never had a visual on ‘Shining World,’ ” Forced-march said. “I suspect that we could see it if we knew where to look. We do have good specifications on it, arrived at by deduction and implication. We know what net it belongs to, or we believe that we do. But, as you know, there are sixty-four possible world locations in every implicit network. Could you give us the bearings of it, Aurelia?”
“I can’t even give you the bearings of where I am right now.”
“Well, it would almost be a form of cheating to get the information from you, even if you had it. There is no urgency about the matter at all. And if we start out to use the implication-solution we may as well use it all the way. We will have a visual on ‘Shining World’ within the next ten years, I believe. It has to be there, in its own place and its own style. Too many other things depend on it. If it were taken out of the special temporal and existential flow, the flow would be different. It has to be there, in a very key place, with a very key style. It and its Dark Companion form an absolute requirement.”
“Shining World’ has no ‘Dark Companion,’ ” Aurelia said stoutly.
&nb
sp; “So the citizens of every world say, that their world is companionless. Ah, and Ah a second time, so that’s the way it is!”
James Forcedmarch had reached out, twice, to touch Aurelia on the arm. The first time he had reached for her he had not quite touched her, but he had felt an unearthly sensation that was not strictly tactile. And the second time, he touched her easily enough.
“You have a pseudo-surface and a true surface, Aurelia,” Forcedmarch said. “That is the origin of the whispered rumour that you are not real and not solid, that there is nothing there when one would touch you. And yet the pseudo-surface and the real are no more than twenty millimetres apart.”
“People of this world lack the outermost skin,” Aurelia said.
“Yes, people of this world lack your electric outer skin that is visible but not material. We do have an electric aura, but it is not commonly visible and it does not fit us so snugly. You are quite a slim girl if we do not consider your electric outer skin, but a little more full-bodied if we do consider it.”
“Why should you not consider it?” Aurelia said. “It’s part of me.”
“Yes, yes, but the question is where do you really begin? You are an artists’ illusion. Do you know about pointillism?”
“Of course. Why did it take you people here so long to come to it? Why did you ever believe that there was anything else?”
“You are done in pointillism, you know, Aurelia. You are small points of light and colour, and you blend to solidity to the eye, at a middle distance. But close up you are not solid, and no one here will ever see you in a more clear form than just these points of light and colour. Yes, I know that we can all be atomized into mere points, but we don’t all look like it. There is a discontinuity and incompleteness about you. You know that, don’t you?”
“You don’t sound quite like a Pan-Math or Science Boluxus,” Aurelia said.
“Perhaps I am a Boluxus of Interior Science,” Forcedmarch suggested.
“Oh, you are an anatomist?”
“I am that, but I do not mean that. It is part of a Chinese Box Puzzle. There is more than one sort of interior, and I’m not speaking of the anatomical sort. Perhaps I am speaking about the ‘Interior Landscape.’ Tell me about the landscapes of ‘Shining World.’ Are they well-defined, or are they pointillistic? Or better, show me. Here are paints and canvasses. I always carry this kit with me. I say to people ‘Show Me’ and I open the kit so that they can show me this way. Sometimes they do show me. Often it is the least expected of them who show me directly what they mean, with paint on canvas. Show me, Aurelia, the landscape where there might not be a sharp line between the interior and exterior scapes.”
“Oh, I am a botcher,” Aurelia said. “My botches will not give you a good idea of the landscape of ‘Shining World.’ You’d miss most of the landscapes anyhow. Your sense of smell isn’t sharp enough to take them all in, and some of these aren’t mineral paints at all. They are synthetic paints without authentic odour.”
Nevertheless, Aurelia began to paint.
“They all love you instinctively,” Forcedmarch said. “But many of them do not trust their instincts any more. They carry ‘Kill Aurelia Now’ signs because they believe that it is the solidarity thing to do. They feel that their whole way of life is threatened by you, and of course it is. Oh yes, they’ll kill you, unless you slip away from here quickly and secretly. But they’ll kill you from the feeling that it is their duty. They won’t do it from real conviction.”
Aurelia had finished the exterior-interior landscape of ‘Shining World.’
“Oh, I see now,” Forcedmarch said. “I see a lot of it. Yes, as it stands now they’ll have to kill you. I wonder if you can complete the painting so that they won’t have to?”
“No. I don’t think so,” Aurelia said. “And I still don’t know what world this is. Is it Paravata? Is it Skokumchuck? Is it Gaea? Is it Bandicoot? It almost has to be one of the four. On one of them they killed the Prophets. On one of them they killed Joan. On one of them they will kill Beatrice. On the other—Oh I forget whom they will kill on the other, but there are four similar patterns.”
“You are the ‘Beatrician Moment,’ ” Forcedmarch said in admiration as Aurelia finished up her botched exterior-interior landscape as well as she could finish it.
“Who is the Beatrice that you talk about here, I want to know that?” she said.
“I thought it was the same one you mentioned, Aurelia.”
“There are several of them. Tell me what world this one is and I might tell you about the Beatrices of this world. Tell me what world this is anyhow.”
“It is a world with a wide and jagged psycho-gash between its exterior and interior landscapes. They are not linked so closely or purposively as are the landscapes in your beautiful botchery. You must flee at once, Aurelia.”
“No. I will not flee at all. I was sent to govern. Is there no hope then? Will they tread me down?”
“Yes. It will be an unhungry generation that treads you down.”
Aurelia was not a girl of a thousand faces, but perhaps she was a girl of a hundred or so. She had learned ‘miming’ at school, and she had played at miming. She could look pretty much like anyone she wished. And there was one incredible advantage as a mimic here on this world. The people could not smell body signatures or identities. So the hardest part of mimicry could be happily forgotten.
Aurelia studied a variety of girls and women outside, through a spy-glass, from the cabin of tycoon Rex Golightly. She settled on a dozen who seemed easiest to imitate and who were prominent in the milling and shrilling outside, either as vocal persons in the ‘Kill Aurelia Now League’ or as partisans of Aurelia.
Then, just as evening was coming on, she went out of the cabin, though no one was supposed to go out without a thorough examination. As a matter of fact she was bodily thrown out by the best bodyguard in the world, played by the Man of a Thousand Faces, Julio Cordovan.
“What, what?” Julio had cried in fury when he found her just inside one of the bolted doors. “You, you you! How did you get in? You’ve tried fifty different tricks to get in, you brat assassin. I don’t care how you got in. I know how you will go out!” And the best bodyguard in the world threw her out.
Yes, Aurelia had been watching the brat assassin and her attempts to get into the cabin. She had learned her looks and her voice. So that was the first and easiest one of them to imitate. And Aurelia was thrown out into the ‘Kill Aurelia Now League’ just at gathering dusk. There was a weird texture to that mob. It was not exactly unfriendly, but it was murderous; there’s a difference.
“You, Sheila-be-Damned,” cried one of the ready-combat buckos when he saw her. “How did you get here? How did you get in there to be thrown out? You were clear down at the other end a minute ago.”
“I told you I was fast. I told you I was tricky,” Aurelia said in the strident voice of Sheila-be-Damned. (Wasn’t it lucky that she had learned so easily the name that she would be travelling under for the moment?) “I told you that I could get inside. They threw me out, but I’ll not stay out. I’ll get in there again and again and again, till finally I fling Aurelia out to you.”
“It’s dull on the line, always a little dull here,” the bucko said. “All we do is listen to our own talk, but yours is a little more exciting than most. There’s not much action on a kill-line. Even the final action is done in a minute. But the centre of it is the communications, in that tent there. Do you know, Sheila-be-Damned, that we have got a million letters today, and nearly that many telegrams? These are statements of solidarity with the ‘Kill Aurelia Now League,’ and they are flooding in from all over the world. I love the feel of solidarity. The Kill-Blank-Now-Leagues have always got heavy solidarity-support from everywhere in the world. It gives you a real feeling of achievement to be part of it, even though we don’t kill nearly enough people. And there aren’t any new and good ways of killing. I always want to go to the end of the stick with them, and ye
t we repeat the same techniques over and over.”
“How’s about suicides,” Aurelia suggested happily. “They are real end-of-the-stick things, aren’t they?”
“Yes. They may be the best. When you can feel the frantic end coming to you in waves, it makes it all worthwhile. I like a smashing suicide. Leaps are the best. There is something electric about the long moment the leaper is in the air, and then the smashing, the smashing!”
“Oh luck, luck! If only we could have it happen!” Aurelia cried. “And perhaps we can. I will implant the idea myself. We may have just such luck.”
“Sheila-be-Damned, there is something different about you,” the bucko said, “Something that I like very much. It goes against the grain but I like it. Do you—”
But Sheila-be-Damned herself was approaching.
“Look there, look there!” Aurelia cried and pointed. The bucko looked. The real Sheila-be-Damned arrived with anger and amazement in her eyes. And then these looks were replaced by bewilderment. Aurelia had ceased to look like Sheila-be-Damned. Now she looked like one of the other girls in the mob.
“Roxie!” Sheila-be-Damned said. “I thought that there was someone standing here who looked exactly like me. And now I see that it’s you.”
“I don’t look anything like you,” Aurelia-Roxie said. “Sheila-be-Damned, you shouldn’t have more than one stick every half hour. You know how you see things that aren’t there otherwise.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Sheila-be-Damned said. “I’d just as soon see things that aren’t there.”
Aurelia Page 8
