The Carp Castle

by MacDonald Harris

  Never before has Romer been so grateful for his philosophical training, since it now enables him, through the doctrine of the Only Instant, to prolong this moment in the way that every pasha, every aging libertine, every seeker of magic potions down through the centuries has longed in vain to do. It is better than hitting your head against a beech tree. It lasts forever. It lasts for all eternity. The hot rush in his arse-root is all there is. There is only rush rush rush, like hot honey spurting through the nerve channel that contains the synapse of pleasure. Lucky Romer. However, it comes to an end.

  They separate themselves, an awkward operation which the Philosopher says is the root of all our troubles. They lie on their backs on the springy surface and hold hands with their clothing strewn around them. Romer’s primitive symbol still shows signs of life but he ignores it. Eliza lies with her legs in a vee and scratches herself.

  “Oh, Romer.”

  “Now you’re going to ask me if I love you.”

  “No I’m not. I’m cold but I don’t mind. I wouldn’t mind if I was freezing. I feel so wonderful. I’m thrumming in every corpuscle. As if I never knew before what my body was for. It was even better than in the woods in Germany. In the woods in Germany there were the wasps. Of course, the wasps added a piquant note. I’m blithering, aren’t I, Romer? What is this thing we’re lying on, anyhow?”

  “A gas-bag.”

  “But what does it do?”

  “It holds up the dirigible.”

  “But I thought dirigibles stayed up by themselves. That’s what dirigibles do.”

  “You’re wrong there.”

  “You’re not very talkative.”

  “No, I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  “What good is all this lovely experience, Eliza, if it doesn’t teach you something about men and what they’re like? Men are never very talkative at this moment,”

  “And women are?”

  “You seem to be.”

  “What can I do about it? I am a woman.”

  “You could shut up and stop blathering, for one thing.”

  “I wasn’t blathering, I was blithering. You know, you blither too, when you go on and on about philosophy.”

  “Not at times like this.”

  “No, you blither before making love and I blither after making love. There is a difference between men and women, you know. You ought to be grateful for it.”

  “If I were going to create people over again, I would keep some differences and do away with others.”

  “For example?”

  “I wouldn’t have women blither.”

  “How about yourselves?”

  “Ourselves?”

  “Men. Couldn’t you make some little improvements there too?”

  “Let’s see. I might make our cocks stand up a little longer.”

  “Ugh! An example of your crass vulgarity.”

  “You’d like it too. You just don’t want to say so.”

  “Are we quarreling?”

  “Probably. We usually are. Listen to that wind! It’s rushing past out there like a hurricane. At this rate, we ought to be at the North Pole in no time.”

  “Romer.”

  “What?”

  “There’s something that’s been haunting me.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s that, as long as we’ve known her, Moira has never had anybody.”

  “Had anybody?”

  “She talks so much about love, but she hasn’t got anyone for herself.”

  “She has Aunt Madge Foxthorn,”

  “Don’t be silly. Romer, the thing that haunts me is that, when we get to Gioconda, Moira may want to—love everybody.”

  “Men and women too?”

  “Men and women too.”

  She and he stare at each other in the gloom on top of the gas-bag.

  With a furtive look around her, Joan Esterel steals through the narrow warrens of the crew’s quarters, along an aluminum passage, around a corner, and down another passage. At the end of this she catches sight of Tim McCree waiting by the crew’s latrines.

  He beckons to her by lifting his chin. He doesn’t look directly at her; it’s as though the two of them happened accidentally to be in the crew’s quarters for different reasons. He is a red-faced, round-faced Irishman with a high forehead and a spot of thin hair on the back of his head. She thought Irishmen were cheerful but he is unsmiling.

  She opens her mouth to speak but he holds up his hand. He ducks in the door of the crew’s shower, pulling her after him. Inside he latches the door. They are in a tiny aluminum hutch hardly large enough for the two of them, illuminated by a single electric bulb. There is a pipe overhead in the ceiling, its end pierced with holes. It drips now and then on Joan Esterel’s head. The place smells of male odors and dampness.

  She starts to speak again but he shushes her.

  “No women’s voices on this deck. Just listen.”

  She waits, absently biting her cheek on the inside.

  “I can’t appear on A deck where the passengers Are. I’m only a rigger. There are some parts of the ship where I can’t go.”

  “What’ll we do then?”

  “Shhh. You go up to A deck in the usual way, by the stairway aft. I’ll climb up by a ladder I know. D’you know where Mrs. Pockock’s cabin is?”

  She has never heard an Irish brogue before and is not quite sure she is following him. “Whose? Oh. Yes.”

  “You go along the way to Mrs. Pockock’s cabin, and there’s a little passage just a few feet long next to it. It’s like an appendix is. D’you know what an appendix is like?”

  “No,”

  “It’s a dead end. It doesn’t go anywhere. Except where we’re going.”

  “All right.”

  “I told you not to talk. Go then. Be quiet.”

  He opens the door and looks out cautiously, then pushes her out as though, she thinks, she were some kind of farm animal. Contrary to her expectations, she is excited by this male arrogance, along with his reticence and his unsmiling face. Or perhaps it’s the adventure of the situation. She does as he says, sneaking back through the crew’s quarters to the stairway and going up it to A Deck.

  She feels that she is acting out the critical drama of her life, or that she has come at last to the climactic scene of her life-drama, the one that all the other episodes have prepared for her. She has been meditating this theatrical event for some time, and now all the circumstances have conspired to make it possible. Thwarted love has turned to poison in her heart. The dominant vision of her life, one that has played the same part for her that the idea of God does for a saint, has been the figure in the wallpaper of her childhood reveries, the one that repeats as you unroll the roll: the strong-willed Earth Mother who would enfold her and solace her in her bosom. When she found Moira, it seemed to her that all the others she had encountered in her wanderings over the earth, Lou Etta Colby the Gold Queen, Henriette Duvalier the Mistress of Leather, Bern Kavallala the Mother of Seas, and Mrs. Houlihan the Love Giantess, were only steps on the way to this final consummation, in which she surrendered herself to the rule of the golden-haired goddess with green eyes and was solaced in her embrace.

  But Moira is only correctly affectionate to her; she treats her exactly as she treats all the others. She would have done better to stay in this San Francisco bawdy-house; at least there she was recognized as somebody special and invited nightly into Madam’s bed. She has been cruelly deluded. As she reaches the top of the stairs her mind is filled with dark thoughts, with motion pictures of revenge. Not only Moira herself, but all the symbols of her power-her expensive flying machine, her crew of sycophants, and the claptrap paraphernalia of her magic show-must feel the bite of justice. Joan Esterel knows that she herself is not invulnerable to the general destruction, but she cares little for her personal fate. And she cherishes the thought that some great Bird of Righteousness will seize her from the disaster and bear her off to some kind of heaven o
r other, the one she richly deserves after all that has happened to her.

  She creeps soundlessly through the passenger quarters, even though she has every right to be there, and turns the corner to the right. At the end of this passage is Moira’s door, exactly like all the others except that there is a tiny green M on it cut from jade. She knows this door well; she nosed it out early in the voyage through some subtle feminine pheromone, and more than once she has stood outside it with trembling heart, waiting for a sign of grace or mercy. Beyond it she sees the short corridor that Tim McCree described; it is no longer than a person lying down. At the same instant Tim McCree appears behind her, as if materialized from the thin air; he touches her lightly at the waist, almost affectionately, and says, “Clever lass. You found your way.”

  He doesn’t seem to have any objection to their talking now, even though they are separated from Moira’s cabin only by a thin aluminum sheet, provided they do it in lowered voices. “There’s the access. You open that.”

  They are standing before a panel set into the aluminum wall, with a handle on it. For some reason, it has a crescent-shaped ventilation hole exactly like an outhouse in New Mexico. She opens the panel and finds an open space inside it. A thin cable runs through it from top to bottom. At that moment, the cable starts into motion; it slips out of the darkness below and disappears into the gulf overhead like some moronic snake.

  “That’s it.”

  “That little wire?”

  “It’s a stainless steel cable. Immensely strong. It runs from the control car to the fins on the stern. That’s what the airship is steered with. Without it, she’s helpless.”

  “But what’s the panel for?”

  “The cable has to be lubricated from time to time. That’s part of my job.”

  There is, in fact, a manly odor of grease.

  “And how can I …”

  They are still speaking in conspiratorial undertones. But she can hardly imagine how Moira could not hear them. At this time of night—it’s after midnight-she’s probably asleep. But no one has ever seen her sleep; perhaps she doesn’t sleep.

  He produces a small rat-tail file. “You can do it with this in five minutes. If the cable starts to move, wait till it comes back to your place again.”

  She looks at the file, then takes it from him.

  “Won’t it make a noise?”

  “Wait till tomorrow. Everybody will be in the lounge, or in the control car.”

  There are no pockets in her skirt. After some thought, she unbuttons her skirt while he watches and tucks the file into the waistband of her knickers.

  “Now you have to do your part of the bargain,” he says in his picturesque brogue.

  “Where can we go?”

  “How about your cabin?”

  “No, there’s my roommate, a pesky English girl.”

  “See here, you promised. Now you’ve got to do it.”

  “Why don’t we just lie down here in the corner.”

  “I don’t fancy that.”

  “We could go back to the shower and do it upright.”

  “I don’t fancy that either. You’d better come to my bunk.”

  “Won’t there be somebody there?”

  He shrugs.

  “Go back where we met before. Be careful. Don’t talk to anyone.”

  She retraces her steps through the passenger quarters and down the stairway. In the narrow labyrinths of the crew’s quarters he appears suddenly at the other end of a passage. This time he doesn’t gesture but only looks at her over his shoulder, twisting his neck like an owl. He opens a door and she follows him through it.

  There are four berths, two on each side. Tim McCree’s is a lower. There is somebody sleeping in the upper berth across from it. The two other berths are empty, their owners evidently on watch. The empty berths are neatly made up with pillows fluffed up and hospital tucks at the foot. From the other berth a single eye peers at them from under the bedclothes and then shuts again.

  Tim McCree sets a finger to his lips. Then, staring back at the eye opposite with no particular expression, he begins taking off his clothes.

  The cabin is dimly illuminated by a night light. Joan Esterel looks, around. There is a little cabinet or shelf between the berths, and she takes off her gold-framed spectacles and sets them on this. Then the gold earrings with their Inca gods and the Babylonian pin at her neck. The gold glints in the dim light. Tim McCree, undressed now, watches. So probably does the eye in the upper berth but she doesn’t turn around to see. She takes the golden brooch from her hair and sets it on the shelf. Her blouse, her skirt, and her knickers. Holding the knickers in front of her, she wraps the file up in them so the man in the other berth won’t see it, then piles them with the rest of her clothes. Last come the sandals with their gold studs.

  She gets in bed with Tim McCree, under the covers. The berth is narrow but her stick-like form takes up hardly any room.

  He whispers to her, “Is that all real gold?”

  “You bet it is.”

  “How about making a fellow a little gift.”

  “Don’t make me laugh.”

  “Just joking. I don’t wear earrings anyhow. Put the glasses on again, will you?”

  “Why?”

  “They’re funny. I like them. You don’t look the same without them, somehow.”

  She gets out of the berth and finds the spectacles in the heap of clothes. When she puts them on, they too catch the glow from the night-light. Tim McCree stares at her naked form with the glasses at the top, as though they were being held up in the dark by sticks. Then she gets back into bed.

  “They get a chap’s pecker up, somehow. Without them you’re just like anybody.”

  His loving is rough and simple but not unkind. Now and then he whispers something to her about this and that. When he has his climax it’s in a businesslike mechanical way. She sees why men sometimes call that part of them their tool. She doesn’t come and he asks her if she minds.

  “No.”

  “Well that’s that then.”

  She slips out of the berth and puts her clothes on again, sticking the file back in its hiding place in her knickers. She fastens the brooch in her dyed auburn hair and puts on her sandals. Then she leaves the cabin without turning for a last look at Tim McCree.

  He lies for a while thinking. It shocked him at first that she was so willing to commit an act of sabotage that also involved her own self-destruction, but after a while this lent a piquant note to the business. He wonders where she got all that gold. Stole it probably. A funny little animal, so ignorant she thinks you could steer a dirigible with that little wire the size of a fish-line, and one that goes up-and-down instead of fore-and-aft. A woman; no idea how things work. It gives him satisfaction to imagine the cable parting under her grim efforts (but it would take longer than five minutes) and the astonishment and consternation into which the results would plunge all these Brits, Krauts, and religious nuts. The idea strikes him that he might have caught something from this mad little ferret. He gets up and washes his tool in the wash basin.

  EIGHT

  At ten o’clock the next morning the League of Nations is floating northward over a sea the color of pewter. There is a gray overcast. This part of the ocean is totally deserted; no ships in sight, hardly even a sea bird. Without any features on the surface below, it seems that the dirigible is only crawling, but her airspeed is still sixty knots. The Captain, who has been up all night without sleep, is alone in the control car with Erwin and Starkadder. Wearing his fleece-lined coat and a blue woolen scarf wrapped around his neck, he stands behind Erwin and looks over his shoulder into the compass. The course is simple. Straight up the Greenwich meridian, the axis of all navigation. On the left is Greenland, on the right the North Cape, both far out of sight. Presently Spitzbergen will come up on the bow, but they won’t see that either. The compass is fixed on the letter N.

  “D’you know what that letter stands for, Erwin?”

>   “Ja, Herr Kapitän. Nichts. Nothing.”

  “That’s not what Madame thinks, Erwin. She says there’s a Valley of Delights up there at the end of the meridian. Palm trees and breadfruit. Nothing to do but allow the nectar to fall into your mouth and play musical instruments. What do you think she’s brought along all those pretty boys and girls for, Erwin? Just to caress your eyeballs, eh? Nothing of the sort, Erwin. Madame has serious plans in mind. On to Gioconda! And we’re the crew that can take her there. Nobody else but us. Can you think of any Brazilian, any Icelander, who can take this airship where she wants it to go? Not a bit of it, Erwin. Nobody but us Germans. A thousand years of history have led us to this high duty. And not only do we have Kultur, we have technology. If you don’t believe all this, ask Chief Engineer Lieutenant Günther. He can tell you about it. Here we are, steering mankind into the future. It’s funny when you think of what it says on your cap, Erwin. The League of Nations. And Germany at the controls. Old Wilson must be twirling in his grave. And Clemenceau, Hoare, Orlando—all the mad dogs of Versailles. What a joke!”

  The Captain laughs, a short bark. He stares fixedly at a tiny object on the horizon, and finds it is only a spot on the windscreen.

  “So what do you say, eh Erwin? Maybe when we get to this place with the Italian name, instead of turning back to old Germany we should join in with these folks and share their fun. Let the old bag of gas float away. You wonder what we will do there, eh? Madame’s idea is that man is something to be surpassed. That sounds like Nietzsche to me, but she claims she got it from some old Russian dame.”

  “The Superman.”

  Erwin has evidently been reading Nietzsche himself. Or perhaps he is getting it from Günther or some other rabid nationalist. “And how do you surpass man?” the Captain goes on. “First you choose the right people, then you make lots of babies. All love all. She’s even got an Indian word for it. Everybody is going to be fooking like madpersons. What do you think of that, eh Erwin? More fun than being unemployed back in old Germany.”