Welcome to the Greenhouse

by Gordon Van Gelder

  Humanity.

  “Tonight,” said Mellow Julian, in his finest Old Proper English, “as scholars assembled in civil society, we shall study together. The general theme of our seminars is remote from all earthly strife. Because she is shining, she is gorgeous, she is lovely, she is the planet Venus. In all her many attributes.”

  Hoots and cheers and claps.

  “Young men,” said Julian, “I do not merely speak to you of the carnal Venus. You will recall that your ancestors sent flying machines to Venus. Electrical machines, gentleman, and they had virtual qualities. The people of antiquity observed Venus. And Mercury. And Mars. And Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune. It is written that they sent their machines to observe moons and planets that we can no longer see.”

  Respectful silence.

  “We do not deny that Venus has her venereal aspects,” said Julian. “What we want to assert—as civic philosophers—is a solid framework for systematic understanding! What is a man, what is his role in the universe, under the planets and stars?

  “Consider this. If a man has a soul, then Venus must touch that soul. We all know that. But how, why? It is not enough to meander dully through our lives, vaguely thinking: ‘Venus is the brightest planet in the heavens, so surely she must have something to do with me.’ Of course the vibrations of Venus affect a man! Can any man among you deny that we live through the vibrations of the sun? Raise your hand.”

  Being used to rhetorical questions, they knew better than to raise their hands.

  “Certain students of our Academy,” said Julian, “have chosen not to attend this course of Venusian seminars. They felt that they needed to be together with their families in this difficult season… In this perilous moment in the long life of our city. Yet when we, as scholars, by deliberate policy… when we remove ourselves from the unseemly dust and mud of our civil strife… from all that hurly-burly…”

  A hand shot up in the audience.

  “Yes, Practical Jeffrey of Colorado? You have a question?”

  “Maestro, what is hurly-burly? Is that even a word? Hurly-burly doesn’t sound very Old Proper English.”

  “You make a good point as usual, Practical Jeffrey. Hurly-burly is an onomatopoeic term. That word directly arises from the sonic vibrations of the natural universe. Are there other questions about onomatopoeia, or the general persistence of some few words of Truly Ancient Greek within the structure of Old Proper English?”

  There were no such questions.

  Julian gestured beyond the row of chairs. Sparrow rose at once from her cross-legged seat on her mat.

  “You gentlemen have never witnessed a device remotely like this one,” said Julian, “for very few have. So let me frame this awful business within its rhetorical context. How did our ancestors observe Venus? As is well known to everyone, our ancestors tamed the lightning. On top of the wires in which they confined that lightning, they built yet another mystic structure, fantastic, occult, and exceedingly powerful. Their electrical wires, we can dig up in any ruin. No traces of that virtual structure remain: only certain mystical hints.

  “So we know, we must admit, very little about antique virtuality. But we do know that virtuality moved vibrations: It moved images, and light, and sound, and numbers. Tonight, for the first time in your lives, you will be seeing a projected image. Tomorrow night—if you see fit to return here—you will see that image moving. With sounds.”

  Sparrow bent her attention to the magic lantern. Julian arranged the makeshift stage. It was a taut sheet of white cotton, behind a flooring of bricks.

  Then Julian ventured through the small crowd to the aviary, where he had seen an ominous figure lurking.

  This unsought guest wore a red robe, with a faceless red hood. Everyone was cordially pretending to ignore the Man in Red. Even the youngest students knew that this was how things were done.

  “Thank you for gracing us with your presence tonight,” murmured Julian.

  “I haven’t seen that magic lantern in forty years,” said the Man in Red.

  “It consumes a very special oil, with a bright limestone powder… rare and difficult,” said Julian.

  “Are you willing,” said the Man in Red, “to pay the rare and difficult price for your failure to engage with the world?”

  “If you’re referring to the cogent matter of the succession,” said Julian cordially, “I’ve made it the policy at these civil seminars to discuss that not at all.”

  “If the Other Man takes command of the Palace,” said the Man in Red, “he will attack you. Yes, you academics. Not that you have done anything subversive or decadent! No, I wouldn’t allege that! But because your weakness invites attack. Since you are so weak, he can make an example of you.”

  Julian now had a quite good idea who the Man in Red was, but Julian gave no sign to show that. “I refuse to despair,” he said, smiling. “This is merely a change of regime. The world is not ending, sir. The world already ended a thousand years ago.”

  “Our world,” said the Man in Red, “this world we both enjoyed under the bounty of the previous Godfather, does not have to end. It’s true that the Other Man has the force of numbers on his side— because he’s forged an ignoble alliance of the greedy and the stupid. But it’s not too late for a small, bold group to preempt him.”

  “If there is trouble,” said Julian, “my students will come to harm. Because my students are brave. And bold. And idealistic. And exceedingly violent. You can start a brawl like that. Do you think you can end it?”

  “You could rally your students. These young men of fine families… Many about to lose their sinecures from the old man’s court… They trust your counsel. They adore you. Some of them more than they should, perhaps.”

  “Oh,” said Julian, “I don’t doubt I could find you one bold, bright, expendable young fool with a cloak and a dagger! But may I tell you something? Quite honestly? I spit on your cynical palace intrigues. I do. I despise them. They repel me.”

  “You quarreled with the old regime, Julian. The next regime might be kinder to you.”

  “I live simply. You have nothing that I want.”

  “I can tolerate a man of integrity,” said the Man in Red, “because the innocent men are all fools. But a man who reasserts his integrity—after what you did?—that is a bit more difficult to tolerate.”

  “Don’t let me be difficult,” said Julian. “You must have many pressing errands elsewhere.”

  “To tell the truth, I envy you,” admitted the Man in Red, with a muffled note of sadness behind his red fabric mouth-hole. “All of us envy you. We all tell each other that we would love to do just as you did: put aside the pen, take off the robes, and retire to a life of the mind. Oh yes, you do make that sound mild and humble, but this private dreamworld of yours, with these sweet little birdcages… It’s much more exciting and pleasurable than our grim, sworn duties. Your life merely seems lighthearted and self-indulgent. You have found a genuinely different way of life.”

  “My friend, yes I have, and I believe… I know that all of life could be different. Despite the darkness of world it ruined, humanity could still transform itself. Yes, humanity could.”

  “You even have found yourself some creature comforts, lately. One of your minions bought you a mistress. I’m not sure I understand the appeal of that—for you.”

  “I rather doubt I’d understand the appeal of your mistress, either.”

  “I don’t understand that myself,” sighed the Man in Red. “A man imagines he’s cavorting like a rooster, while all the time he’s merely bleeding wealth. A mistress who cares nothing for you is an enemy in your bed. A mistress who does care for you is your hostage to fortune. A pity that my warnings were so useless. Good evening, sir.”

  The Man in Red left, with serene and measured step. The crowd parted silently before him as he approached, and it surged behind him as he left.

  Julian filtered through the crowd to Sparrow, where she knelt by the lantern, cautiously unwrapp
ing fragile slides of painted glass.

  He gripped her by the arm and dragged her to her feet. “Sparrow will sing tonight!” he announced, pulling her toward the stage. “Sparrow will sing her very best song for you! It’s very curious and unusual and antique! I believe it may be the oldest song in the whole world.” He lowered his trembling voice. “Go on, Sparrow. Sing it, sing…”

  Sparrow was in an agony of reluctance and stage fright.

  Julian could not urge her to be brave, because he was very afraid. “This is the oldest song in the whole world!” he repeated. “Gentlemen, please try to encourage her…”

  In her thready, nasal voice, Sparrow began to choke out her mournful little wail. Although her words meant nothing to anyone who listened, it was clearly and simply a very sad song. It was something like a sad lover’s song, but much worse. It was a cosmic sadness that came from a cold grave in the basement of the place where lovers were sad.

  The lament of a mother who had lost her child. Of a child who could find no mother. A heartbreaking chasm in the natural order of being. A collapse, a break, a fall, a decay, a loss, and a lasting darkness. It was that sad.

  Sparrow could not complete her song. She panicked, hid her face in her wrinkled hands and fled into a corner of the house. Julian set to work on the magic lantern.

  His student Practical Jeffrey came to his side. Jef spoke casually, in the local vulgar tongue. “Maestro, what was that little episode about? That was the worst stage performance that I’ve ever seen.”

  “That was the oldest song in the whole world, Jef. And now, you have heard it.”

  “I couldn’t understand one line of that lousy dirge! She’s a terrible singer, too. She’s not even pretty. If she were young and pretty, that might have been tolerable.”

  “Don’t let me interfere with your pressing quest for a young and pretty girl, Jef.”

  “I know that I didn’t understand all that,” Jef persisted, “but I know that something has changed. Not just that the old man is finally dead, or that the antique world is so rotten. We have to force the world to rise again in some other shape… For me, this was enough of that. I’m leaving you, maestro. I’m leaving your academy for good. I’ve had enough of all your teaching and your preaching, sir. Thank you for your efforts to improve me. I have to get to work now.”

  Julian glanced up. He was not much surprised by Jef’s news. “You should stay to see this magic lantern, Jef. Projected images are extremely dramatic. They are very compelling. Really, if you’ve never seen one, they are absolutely wondrous. People have been known to faint.”

  “I’m sure your phantoms are marvelous,” said Jef, pretending to yawn. “I’m going back to the Palace now, I have a family meeting… You stay well.”

  Jef did not appear for the next night of the Venus seminar. Julian’s house and yard were densely packed, because word had gotten out about the magic lantern and its stunning effects. The little house roiled and surged with metalsmiths, sculptors, mural painters, orators, men of medicine, men of the law… Even a few women had dared to show up, with their brothers or husbands as escorts.

  Practical Jeffrey had sent his apology for leaving the school, written in his sturdy, workmanlike calligraphy. He’d also shipped along a handsome banquet, and, as a topper, a wooden keg of the finest long-aged corn liquor. All the other students were hugely impressed by Jef’s farewell gesture. Everyone toasted him and agreed that, despite his singular absence from the proceedings, Practical Jeffrey was a gentleman of high style.

  So the second night started lively and, lavishly lubricated by Jef’s magnanimity, it got livelier yet.

  This night, the students put on a series of dramatic skits, performed in Old Proper English. These episodes involved the myths and heroes of remote antiquity: the Man who walked on the Moon, the Man who flew alone across the ocean, the Man who flew around without any machines at all, and was made of steel, and fought crime (he was always popular).

  These theatricals were an unprecedented success, because the crowd was so dense, and so drunk, and because the graceless Dandy William Idaho was not there to overact and spoil anything.

  Three of the masked Men in Red graced the scene with their presence, which made life three times more dangerous than life had been the night before. Julian watched them, smiling in his best mellow fashion, to hide his pride and his dread.

  All his glamorous, shining young men, striking their poses on the tiny stage, with their young, strong, beautiful bodies… Maybe it could be said that Julian had saved them from deadly danger. It might also be said that he was fiddling as the city burned.

  Julian knew that a settling of accounts was near. A time of such tension needed only one provocation. An obscure clash by night, a sudden insult offered, an insult stingingly returned, and Dandy William Idaho had been beaten senseless in the street. Bili was crushed, spurned, trampled on, and spat upon. Bili had never been the kind of kid you could hit just once.

  Then the troubles started. Bitter quarrels, flung stones near glass houses… The police restored order through the simple pretext of attacking the foreigners. Everybody knew that the foreigners in the city were thieves, because so many had been forced to be thieves. No one of good sense and property was going to defend any thieves.

  The police richly enjoyed the luscious irony of the police robbing thieves. So the police kicked in the doors of some of the wealthier foreigners, and seized everything they had.

  Julian spent the night of that seminar activating an electrical generator. Electrical generators had been true fetish objects for the remote founders of Selder. Periodically, as a gesture of respect to antiquity, some scholar would disinter an old generator and rebuild another new generator in the same shape. So Julian owned a generator, packed in its moldering, filthy grease. It had elaborate, hand-etched schematics to explain how to work it.

  This electrical night was not nearly so successful as the earlier seminar nights. After much cursing and honest puzzlement, the students managed to get the generator assembled. They even managed to crank it. It featured some spots of bare metal that stung the bare hand with a serpent’s bite. Other than that, it was merely an ugly curio. The generator did not create any visible mystical powers or spiritual transcendence. Society did not advance to a higher plane of being.

  Next day, the emboldened police repressed some of the darker elements of the old regime. These arrogant time-servers were notorious for their corruption. So the police beat the fancy crooks like dogs and kicked them out the door, and the crowd cheered that action, too.

  People spoke quite openly of who would be serving in the Other Man’s new regime, and what kind of posts they would hold.

  The Favorite for the post of Godfather acted the fine gentleman: He urged calm, made dignified noises, and temporized. In the meantime, the gate guards had been bribed. Exiles poured into the city. The sentence of exile had been the merciful punishment of the late Godfather’s later years. Now it became clear that the Godfather had merely exported resentments to a future date. These exiles—those among them who survived—had become hard, weathered men. They knew what they had lost. They also knew what they had to regain.

  So there were more clashes, this time with gangs of hardened cutthroats. The Favorite pulled up his stakes and fled in terror.

  Julian spent that night explaining how to use electricity and virtuality to connect the soul of Man with the planet Venus.

  There was a large crowd for his last hermetic ceremony, and not because it was such an interesting topic. People had fled to Julian’s refuge because the city was convulsed with fear.

  It had always been said of the people of Selder that they would shed their own blood rather than lose one drop of water. Like many clichés, that was true. The smothered resentments of a long, peaceful reign were all exposed to the open air. That meant beatings, break-ins, and back-alley backstabbings.

  The elections were held in conditions of desperate haste, because only one man was fit t
o restore order.

  To his credit, the new Godfather took prompt action. He averted anarchy through the simple tactic of purging all his opponents.

  Julian surrendered peaceably. He had rather imagined that he might have to. The grass that bent before the wind would stand upright again, he reasoned. The world was still scarred with the windblown wrecks of long-dead forests.

  Prison was dark, damp, and dirty. The time in prison weighed heavily on a man’s soul. Julian had nothing to write with, nothing to read. He never felt the sun, or breathed any fresh air.

  Julian’s best friends in the underground cell were small insects. Over a passage of ten centuries, cave insects had somehow found the many wet passages beneath the city. Most of these wild denizens were smaller than lice, pale, long-legged, and eyeless. Julian had never realized there were so many different breeds of them. The humble life sheltered within the earth had suffered much less than the life exposed to mankind on its surface.

  At length—at great length—Julian had a prison visitor.

  “You will forgive Us,” stated the Godfather, “for trying a philosopher’s well-known patience. There were certain disorders consequent on Our accession, and a great press of necessary public business. Word has reached Our ears, however, that you have been shouting and pleading with your jailers. Weeping and begging like a hysterical woman, they tell Us.”

  “I’m not a well man now, your eminence. I cannot thrive without the vibrations of the sun, the stars, and planets.”

  “Surely you didn’t imagine that We would ever forget a classmate.”

  “No, sir.”

  “They tell Us you have been requesting—no, sobbing and pleading—for some literary material,” said the Godfather. He nodded at his silent bodyguard, who passed a sheaf of manuscripts through the carved stone pillars of the cell. “You will find these documents of interest. These are the signed confessions of your fellow conspirators.”