9
And so we go on dealing with the fortress, Faria sounding out the weak points of the wall and coming up against new obstacles, I reflecting on his unsuccessful attempts in order to conjecture new outlines of walls to add to the plan of my fortress-conjecture.
If I succeed in mentally constructing a fortress from which it is impossible to escape, this conceived fortress either will be the same as the real one—and in this case it is certain we shall never escape from here, but at least we will achieve the serenity of one who knows he is here because he could be nowhere else—or it will be a fortress from which escape is even more impossible than from here—and this, then, is a sign that here an opportunity of escape exists: we have only to identify the point where the imagined fortress does not coincide with the real one and then find it.
From World Memory and Other Cosmicomic Stories
The Mushroom Moon
According to Sir George Darwin, a solar tide caused the Moon to detach itself from the Earth. The attraction of the Sun acted on the lightest covering of rock (granite) as if that were a fluid, lifting up part of it and tearing it away from our planet. The waters that then covered the Earth entirely were largely swallowed up by the huge chasm that the Moon’s departure had opened up (that is, the Pacific Ocean), leaving the remaining granite uncovered: this then fragmented and hardened into the continents. Without the Moon, the evolution of life on Earth would have been very different, if indeed it had happened at all.
Yes, yes, now you mention it, it all comes back to me!—exclaimed old Qfwfq—Of course. It began to sprout up like a mushroom, the Moon, from underwater: I happened to be passing by in a boat just at that spot, when I suddenly felt something pushing me from below. ‘Damn! A sandbank!’ I shouted, but I’d already been hoisted in the air on top of a sort of white lump, my boat high and dry as well, my fishing line dangling above the water and my hook in the air.
It’s easy to talk about it now, but I’d like to have seen you in my position then, trying to predict all those phenomena. Of course in those days too there were some people who warned us of the dangers the future had in store; and now we can see they had understood a lot of things, not about the Moon—no, that was a surprise for all of us—but about the lands that would surface. Inspector Oo, from the High and Low Tides Observatory, gave many lectures on this topic but nobody ever paid him any attention. Just as well, because later he made a huge error in his calculations and paid for it in person.
At that time the surface of the globe was entirely covered by water, with no land visible. Everything in the world was flat and devoid of contours, the sea was a shallow fresh-water pond, and as for us, we went about in our canoes, fishing for sole.
From his calculations at the Observatory, Inspector Oo had become convinced that huge changes were about to happen on Earth. His theory was that the globe would soon divide into two zones: one made up of continents and one of oceans. On the continental areas mountains and watercourses would form, and lush vegetation would grow. For those of us who ended up on the continent there would be infinite possibilites for becoming rich; whereas in the meantime the oceans would become uninhabitable for everyone except their own special fauna, and our fragile boats would be blown away by enormous storms.
But who could take these apocalyptic prophecies seriously? Our whole life took place on the tiny layer of water, and we could not imagine a different existence. Everyone sailed on their own little boat, I engrossed in the patient labour of the fisherman, the pirate Bm Bn setting traps for the duck-shepherds behind the clumps of reeds, that slip of a girl Flw paddling along in her kayak. Could any of us have imagined that that stretch of water as smooth as a millpond would produce a wave—not a wave of water, but a hard wave of granite—which would whisk us away with it?
But one thing at a time. The first to end up high and dry was myself, suddenly perched there with my boat beached. I heard my friends’ cries rising up from the sea: they were shouting to each other, pointing at me, mocking me, and their words reached me as if from another world: ‘Look at Qfwfq up there, ha ha!’
The hump I was hoisted on would not stay still: it careered across the sea, rolling like a marble; no, I didn’t explain that well, it was a subterranean wave which, wherever it rolled, lifted up the carpet of rock and then dropped it again back in its own place. The great thing was that I was transported by this solid tide, and instead of falling back into the water as soon as it moved on, I stayed hovering up there, advancing with it as it moved forward, and all around I could see more and more fish getting stuck on dry land, struggling and gasping for air on the hard, whitish surface that was slowly emerging.
What did I think? Well, I certainly didn’t think about Inspector Oo’s theories (I had hardly heard him mentioned), but only about the new fishing possibilities that had unexpectedly opened up for me: all I had to do was stretch out my hand and I could fill my boat with sole. In the other boats, the cries of amazement and mockery turned into curses and threats. The fishermen called me a thief, a pirate: our rule was that each of us had to fish in the area that had been allocated; straying into someone else’s territory was considered a crime. But now, who could stop this self-propelled reef? It was not my fault if my boat filled up while theirs stayed empty.
So the scene looked like this: there was the ball of granite speeding across the stretch of water and continually expanding, surrounded by a cloud of quivering sole; me catching fish in midair; behind me, in hot pursuit, were the boats of my friends, jealously trying to attack my fortress; after them, the ever-increasing distance that none of the new hordes of pursuers managed to make up; and after that was the twilight descending on them, and the darkness of the night gradually swallowing them up, whereas there where I was the Sun never ceased to beat down in an everlasting midday.
It was not only the fishes that got beached on the wave of rock; everything that floated round us ended up being shipwrecked on it: flotillas of canoes laden with archers, ordinary barges full of provisions, royal barges conveying kings and princesses and their courtiers. As we advanced, we saw towns built on wooden piles standing out on the horizon, high above the waters; and immediately they were overthrown in a crashing of broken wood and straw and squawking of hens. These were already revealing indications of the nature of the phenomenon: the fragile layer of things covering the world could be negated, replaced by a mobile desert at whose passage every living presence was overwhelmed and eliminated. This alone should have been enough to warn all of us, especially the Inspector. But, I repeat, I was not making any hypotheses about the future: I had quite enough to do to keep my balance, and try to maintain a more general, more widespread equilibrium, which I could see was being shaken to its foundations.
Each time the wave of rock shattered an obstacle into pieces, I got covered by a shower of knick-knacks, tools, diadems. An unscrupulous person in my place (as would clearly be seen later) would have immediately made off with the stuff. Me? No, you know me, I didn’t. On the contrary, I was actually seized by the opposite urge: I started to chuck back to the poor fishermen the sole that I had caught so easily. I’m not saying this to make it sound as if I’m especially good; the only way I could find to counter what was happening was to try to repair the damage, to give the victims a hand. I shouted from the top of the advancing mountain: ‘Every man for himself! Run! Get out of the way!’ I tried to support the wavering piles that my hands managed to reach, so that once the wave had passed they would remain upright. And to the castaways floundering about down below I distributed everything that the collisions and crashes dropped within my hands’ reach. What I hoped was this: that a new equilibrium would emerge from the fact that it was I who was up there on top. I would have liked the wave of rock to sweep away both the evil of its squalid emergence and the good of the actions to which I devoted so much effort, both of which were aspects of the same natural phenomenon, more powerful than my will and that of anyone else.
Instead, none of this
transpired: the people didn’t understand my cries and did not get out of the way, the piles crumpled the minute I touched them, the stuff I chucked out set off riots in the water and increased the confusion.
My only successful good deed was to save a gaggle of ducks from falling prey to the pirate Bm Bn. Their shepherd was advancing unaware between the reeds in his tranquil canoe, and failed to see the lance that was poised to transfix him. I arrived on the wave of stone, just in time to block the bandit’s arm. I went ‘Shoo! Shoo!’ to the ducks, which flew to safety. But the minute I was on top of Bm Bn, he clung on to me: from then on there were two of us on top of the wave of rock, and the balance between good and evil that I still hoped to preserve was definitively compromised.
For Bm Bn, finding himself there was simply an opportunity for new acts of piracy, poaching and destruction. The wave of granite continued wiping out the world, ruthless and impassive; but over it now reigned a mind that turned this destruction to his own profit. I was now no longer the victim of a blind, telluric upheaval, but of that pirate; what could I do to halt those two unstoppable forces? Between the rock and the pirate I felt myself decidedly on the side of the rock; I felt it was in some mysterious way my ally, but I did not know how to combine my weak strength with it in order to prevent Bm Bn from wreaking violence and destruction.
Nor did things change when Flw too ended up on the rock-wave. I was obliged to witness her kidnapping without being able to move a finger to stop it, because Bm Bn had tied me up like a salami. The girl Flw was paddling along in her kayak between the water lilies and daffodils; Bm Bn whirled a long lasso in the air and captured her; but she was a young girl, kind and submissive, and she soon resigned herself to being that brute’s prisoner.
I couldn’t accept it, however, and I said so: ‘I’m not here to be your sidekick, Bm Bn. Untie me and I’ll go.’
Bm Bn barely turned his head. ‘Are you still there?’ he said. ‘Whether you’re there or not, you matter less to me than a flea. Go on, throw yourself in the sea, go and drown yourself,’ and he untied me.
‘I’m going, but this is not the last you’ll hear of me,’ I said, and beneath my breath I added for Flw to hear: ‘Wait for me: I’ll come back and release you.’
I got ready to dive in. Just at that moment I spotted someone on the horizon striding over the sea on stilts. As our wave approached, far from getting out of the way he actually came towards us. His stilts went up in pieces, and he crashed down on to the lump of granite.
‘My calculations were exact,’ he said. ‘Allow me to introduce myself: Inspector Oo, from the High and Low Tides Observatory.’
‘You’ve arrived just at the right moment, Inspector, to give me advice on what to do,’ I replied. ‘The situation up here has reached the point where I was just about to leave.’
‘You would be making a huge mistake,’ the Inspector objected, ‘and I’ll tell you why.’
He began to expound his theory, which was now confirmed by the evidence: the expected emergence of the continents was in fact beginning with this swelling landmass on which we found ourselves; an era of new, unlimited possibilities was opening up before us. I listened open-mouthed: the outlook had changed; instead of riding a nucleus of destruction and devastation, I was on the cusp of a new possibility for a life on Earth that would be infinitely more plentiful than before.
‘And that is why,’ the Inspector triumphantly concluded, ‘I wanted to join you.’
‘That will depend on whether I want you to stay!’ sneered Bm Bn.
‘I’m sure we’ll become friends,’ Oo declared. ‘We’re heading towards huge cataclysms and my researches and forecasts will allow us to take them in hand; in fact to turn them to our advantage.’
‘Not only our advantage, I hope!’ I exclaimed. ‘If what you say is true, Inspector, if this great stroke of good luck has really happened to us, how can we exclude our fellow-beings from it? We must tell everyone we meet! Get them to come up here with us!’
‘Shut up there, you idiot!’—and Bm Bn grabbed me by the stomach—‘unless you want me to chuck you back headlong into the slime you came from! I’m here and so is whoever I want with me! End of story. Isn’t that right, Inspector?’
I turned to Oo, confident I’d find in him an ally against the pirate’s arrogance: ‘Inspector, I’m sure you didn’t devote yourself to your studies out of selfishness! You won’t allow Bm Bn to profit from this for personal gain . . .’
The Inspector shrugged. ‘Well, as a matter of fact, I don’t really want to interfere in your internal squabbles: I don’t know the background; I only deal with the technical side. If, as I seem to understand, the person in charge here is this man’—and he nodded in the direction of Bm Bn—‘then it’s to his attention that I would like to submit the results of my calculations . . .’
The disillusionment I felt on hearing these words, which seemed like the most unexpected betrayal, was caused not so much by the Inspector himself as by his predictions for the future. He continued describing life as it would develop on the emerging lands: cities that would rise on stone foundations, roads travelled by camels, horses, carts, cats, caravans; and gold and silver mines, and forests of sandalwood and molucca wood, and elephants, and pyramids, and towers, and clocks, and lightning-conductors, and tramways, cranes, lifts, skyscrapers, bunting and flags on national holidays; luminous signs in all sorts of colours on the theatre and cinema façades, reflecting on pearl necklaces on grand gala evenings. We were all listening to him, Flw with an enchanted smile, Bm Bn with his nostrils dilated by his greed for possessions; but by now these fabulous prophecies no longer stirred any hope in me, because they only meant the perpetuation of my enemy’s rule, and that was enough to cloak every marvel with a shiny, false, vulgar patina.
I said as much to Flw, in a moment when the other two were busy with their plans. ‘Better to stay with our poor aquatic life as sole-fishers,’ I told her, ‘than all these splendours whose price is being subject to Bm Bn!’ and I suggested we escape together, abandoning the bandit and the Inspector on their continent: ‘Let’s see how they manage on their own . . .’
Did I persuade her? Flw was, as I said, a docile creature, as fragile as a butterfly’s wing. The Inspector’s projections fascinated her, but Bm Bn’s brutality repulsed her. It was not difficult for me to stir up her resentment against the pirate; she agreed to follow me.
The granite excrescence seemed more than ever to be thrust out of the Earth’s innards, straining with all its forces towards the Sun. In fact, the part that was most exposed to solar attraction was expanding continually, so that the area below it ended up being reduced to a kind of bottleneck or stalk, hidden in a cone of shadow. We would have to use that as our escape route, sheltered as it was from the midday light. ‘This is it!’ I said to Flw, and, taking her by the hand, we slithered down the stalk. ‘It’s now or never!’
I had said these words as a rousing exhortation, without suspecting how literally they corresponded to reality. We had barely swum out of reach of what now appeared to us, seeing it from the outside, as a monstrous extension of our planet, when the Earth and the waters began to shudder and shake. The granite mass attracted by the Sun was uprooting itself from the basalt base to which it had until then been anchored. And a huge boulder of enormous dimensions—the upper part eroded and porous, but underneath still soaking as with the mucus of the Earth’s innards, raddled with mineral fluids and lava, and barnacled with colonies of worms—hovered in the air, light as a leaf. The waters of the globe cascaded into the huge crack left agape, thus letting islands and peninsulas and plateaux emerge in the distance.
Clinging on to these emerging plateaux, I managed to save Flw and myself, but I still could not take my eyes off that bit of world that had flown away and had started to rotate in the sky as it moved off. I was still in time to hear Bm Bn’s curses coming down from it, as he took it out on the Inspector—‘You and your bloody predictions, you fool . . .’—while alr
eady in the rotating movement the rough edges and outcrops were gradually being smoothed down into a sphere with a uniform, lime-white surface. And by now the Sun was moving further away, while the sphere—what from then on would be called the Moon—was overtaken by night, but it retained a reflection of pale brightness shining on it as on a desert.
‘They got what they deserved, those two!’ I exclaimed, and since Flw did not seem to fully understand that the situation had been reversed, I explained: ‘That was not the continent that the Inspector predicted, but—if my senses do not deceive me—this one that is forming underneath our feet.’
Mountains and rivers and valleys and seasons and trade winds were giving shape to the emergent regions. Already the first iguanodons, harbingers of the future, were coming out of the sequoia forests to reconnoitre. Flw seemed to find everything natural: she plucked a pineapple from the branch, broke its skin against a tree-trunk, bit the juicy flesh, and burst out laughing.
That’s the way things have gone, as you know, right up to today. Flw, no doubt about it, is happy. She goes out into the night that is resplendent with neon signs, wraps herself softly in her chinchilla fur, smiles at the photographers’ flashes. But I wonder if this really is my world.
The Complete Cosmicomics Page 28
