Aegypt

by John Crowley

  Why do we believe that Gypsies can tell fortunes? Because we thought once they were Egyptians, even though they aren’t, and it was natural to suppose they would inherit, in whatever faint degree, the occult wisdom which everybody knows the Egyptians possessed. And why on our dollar bills do we put Egypt’s pyramid, surmounted by its mystic eye? Because from ancient Egypt issues the secret language of spiritual freedom, illumination, knowledge, the geometries by which can be cast the New Order of the Ages.

  But it isn’t so! These real Egyptians Pierce was reading about had been the most hard-headed, materialistic, literal-minded bureaucrats of the spirit he had ever encountered. So far from being able to imagine spiritual freedom, spiritual journeys, they had concocted the disgusting procedures of embalming because of their certainty that only the physical body, preserved like a fruitcake in its box, could withstand the dissolutions of death. The more Pierce grappled with their mythologies, oppressive in their endless elaboration, the more he came to understand that they meant exactly what they said: these tedious stories weren’t allegories of consciousness to be interpreted by the wise, though even Plato had thought that to be so; they weren’t magic emblems, they weren’t art, they were science. The Egyptians just thought the world worked this way, operated by these characters, acting out this grotesque dream. Pierce concluded that the ideal condition, for an ancient Egyptian, was to be dead; short of that, to be immobile, asleep and dreaming.

  None of it was what Pierce had meant, not at all. He just about decided that he must have made it all up, for the noble history he had known could not have been suggested by this stuff; just about decided.

  Then, along another road, unfrocked, in trouble, fleeing, Giordano Bruno appeared, like the White Rabbit – or rather reappeared, for Fellowes Kraft’s little book had risen to the top of the stack like a thought to the tip of Pierce’s tongue; and Pierce went where it pointed – which was not toward Egypt at all but back toward where Pierce had started out from, the Renaissance; not Pharaoh’s age but Shakespeare’s, whose near contemporary Bruno was. And by and by, astonished and wondering, he found himself once again at frontiers he recognized.

  Oh I remember. I see. Now how do you like that . . .

  He began to abandon – by degrees, and without ever quite admitting it to himself – the attempt to construct an account, a vade-mecum for his kids on their pilgrimage; anyway that account had grown suddenly too huge to be squeezed into the compass of an ordinary daylit history course, it needed a course no a college of its own. He went on teaching, but his path had forked; he followed Bruno, and was led down long avenues under emblematic arches, past columned temples; he lost his way amid the suburbs of a Baroque city both unfinished and ruined; found a geometric pleasure-ground; entered a dark and endless topiary maze.

  But Pierce, pioneer, knew a thing about mazes, had picked up along his way one crumb of information about mazes: in any maze, of yew or of stone, of zoomorphic topiary or made of glass or of time, put out your hand and follow the left-hand wall wherever it leads. Just keep to the left-hand wall.

  Pierce put out his hand, and followed; and traveling so (in his street-salvaged plush armchair, the books piled beside him) began to find that what he followed, what he had entered into, what at every turning grew that much clearer to him ( Oh I see) were the lineaments of his old question answered. And when at length, in another world, the Sphinx in her mother’s white bathroom put the same question to him, he had his account: the whole bizarre, unlikely, even hilarious story. He had his account, though how much of it she ever actually listened to, how much of it sank into her busy brain, he was not sure. He knew why it is that people believe Gypsies can tell fortunes; he knew why that pyramid and that mystic eye appear on every dollar bill, and from what country the New Order of the Ages issued. It was the same country as the country from which Gypsies came, and it was not Egypt.

  Not Egypt but Ægypt: for there is more than one history of the world.

  In the heavy August morning, Pierce walked down from Spofford’s cabin along the dirt road which led to the asphalt highway which wound beside the Blackbury River and through Fair Prospect. Full of breakfast and ready to rededicate himself, he would still not have minded a day’s grace before he had to head on to Conurbana; it had been years since he had been in country of this kind – he and the Sphinx, carless, had mostly spent their summers air-conditioned in the city – and he felt his childhood returned to him as he walked: not so much in concrete memories, though many of those too, as in a series of past selves whose young being he could taste in the breaths of air he drew. It was the day and the country, though there was little here but summer and verdure to remind him of the shaggy and tunneled hills of the Cumberland Gap; it was enough, seemingly.

  Maybe, he thought, maybe it is given only to wanderers, to the displaced, to remember in this way, when suddenly they find themselves in air like the air of the country they have left. Maybe if you live all your life in one place, and grow up as the same year turns in the same way again and again, then things don’t get left permanently behind, preserved untouched like pressed flowers which bloom again whole and unchanged when immersed in the old water. If that was so, then it must be for his cousins as it was for him, for all of them were now displaced; Hildy in foreign parts, Joe Boyd in (last Pierce heard) California, Bird in a midwestern city, Warren selling cars in Canada. Funny if all on one day, this day, they were each to happen on a stretch of dusty road like this one, or an old book, or a pattern of raindrops or sunlight, or simply a chance disposition of internal chemistries, that brought each of them back in this sudden and complete way that he was just now brought back: because if they did, they would be brought back all to the same place. A family reunion all unknown to them dispersed across the continents. The Invisible College meets again.

  The same folks as yesterday, or different but similar ones, sat before the little store, and greeted him mildly as he went through the squeaking screen door into the sweet-smelling interior. He dropped Spofford’s letter to his Rosie into the mail slot, and got out a dime and his letter from Peter Ramus College.

  Half an hour later he was outside again, stunned, not knowing whether to rage or laugh aloud. He studied in the sunlight the letter that had brought him here, stranded him here, tempted him this far: it looked real enough, his own name was on it, not seeming slugged into a form; he could feel on its reverse the marks of struck letters, the signature at the bottom was ink – no, now looked at carefully it did seem to be a stamp of some kind. Anyway it was false, generated by some witless computer at academic HQ even while the History Department was making other choices altogether.

  The position he had been invited to apply for was already filled, and had been filled before he left the city; even before he had received this ghost letter.

  This conclusion hadn’t been easy to come to. The computer itself was ‘down’ for the day, and his file, wisps of electromagnetism held in oblivion, unavailable. Departmental secretaries, the dean’s office, were all unwilling to imagine such a dumb possibility, and even when Pierce was forced to posit it, unbelieving himself, they seemed ready to shift the blame to him. Why hadn’t he checked before coming?

  Why hadn’t he checked? Why hadn’t he checked? Pierce wandered out along the highway, letter still in his hand. Had it come to that, we all have to check now to make sure our business is real and not electronic leg-pulling in the dark? His own fault that he had trusted mail. Sirs I have yours of the 15th, may I act on it or is this some kind of joke.

  Maybe he could sue. He did laugh, standing on the narrow bridge over the river, a derisive snort, and shook his head to clear it of that future, which he hadn’t really understood would leave him without one by evaporating. It was too late now in the year to apply for much else.

  Is that really that, then? he thought, looking down into the brown slow river. Was he really now disburdened of history as an occupation?

  Maybe the old bookstore would take him back
. He really had a lot longer to live. What was he to do?

  Get into sheep. He laughed again, blank-minded, it just really didn’t bear thinking of, there was only one conclusion thinking could have. He could not go back to Barnabas; he could not humble himself before Earl Sacrobosco. Never.

  He turned to head back to Spofford’s, unseeing, and was nearly struck by a car, a station wagon of the largest kind, full of dogs, children, and baggage, which just then came barreling over the bridge behind him, barely room for it there, and out along the river, leaving a stain of oil smoke on the day.

  SEVEN

  The play was of Cæsar, stabbed in the Capitol; down the white toga draped over his velvets and silk hose coursed the red blood drawn by the conspirators as they stabbed again and again, their knives sinking in to the hilt and the blood gushing awesomely. And as he bled and staggered, there was time for great Cæsar to make a long speech, about envy that would always pull down eagles who would soar – brute envy, he said, and made a complicated pun on Brutus and brutish and brute beasts he had sheltered in his bosom like the Grecian boy and the fox; like that boy he would say no word further, no, though his vitals were gnawed. He said many more words, and some of the audience groaned aloud with pity and wonder, and a few of them laughed that he didn’t die yet; and then he covered his face with the bloody toga and measured his length on the boards: the stage shuddered at his fall.

  That was he too, in fresh gay clothes, in the jig that followed, flinging Brutus’s wife by her arms neatly. And this was he now in Stratford’s common inn, drinking amid the conspirators, a little hoarse, and sweating in the close heat of August. Will, standing on the bench outside and looking in through the open window, watched him turn a coin across the backs of his fingers, and back again, and again.

  —And from that Brutus is named Britain, he said. I have it from a famous learned man, a Doctor Dee, my friend.

  —It is not, then, said Jenkins the new schoolmaster. It is not that Brutus.

  —Did not, said the actor, flipping his coin, did not that Cæsar come here to this isle? And did he not build the Tower of London and win famous victories? Do you deny this, sir?

  It was hard to tell if the actor was angry or amused; his eyes flashed and grew large; his finger pointed like a sword; but ever the coin moved calmly across the knuckles of his other hand, back and forth.

  —And Brutus was Cæsar’s son, adopted by him. Ergo.

  —It was not that Brutus, said Master Jenkins. Jenkins was standing, drinking nothing, hands behind his back as though he were not here in this low room at all. Will watched him; next school term he would be under him, and should learn all he could of the man.

  —It was Brut of Troy, who lived before Rome at all. After Troy fell to the Greeks. Brut came to this isle as Æneas came to found Rome. So we are not British but Bruttish.

  —Bruttish indeed, said Cæsar, and played his death speech.

  How many times, Will thought. How many times has Cæsar died since he died, before how many thousand eyes. He leaned his elbows on the sill, all his senses bent inward, listening. Cæsar made a sudden comic pause, an exaggerated halt, pretending to catch sight of him just then.

  —Who is that imp in the window? Why does he stare at me?

  —John Shakespeare’s boy.

  —What injury have I done him that he should stare at me? He has the Devil’s own red hair. He frightens me.

  The way he drew his hand up by his face, claw-fingers outward, eyebrows and underlids lifted, was Fright. Will laughed with the others, and Cæsar took offense, turning huge and dignified: grave hands splayed on the table, brows turning down.

  —Let us, he said, have a merry song.

  He began a round, lugubriously, but so low and slow it was impossible to join in: he was a sad man now, a sad sad man who wanted to sing. Will shook with laughter and amazement. With a word, a gesture, he could make a person, a whole person one knew but hadn’t known one knew; as though he had them all within him and didn’t know which one would peep out next for a moment.

  —You, lad. In the window. Can you sing this song?

  —I know it, Will said.

  —Well, sing, then. Here’s for your red hair.

  By some snap of fingers he spun the coin toward Will without seeming to fling it; Will let it fall short, and sang. The lark and the nightingale. He had a true high strong treble and he knew it; no harm either to let Master Jenkins hear it; if he liked singing as much as Master Simon Hunt the last schoolmaster did, it would go easy for Will again this term. Prest the rose against his breast, tear stood in his eyen round. They were all silent listening to the boy in the window; and Cæsar, Master James Burbage of the Earl of Leicester’s Men, had drawn all his different persons within him and was paying close attention, a rapt and measuring look on his face, like a draper taking newfulled woolen cloth in his fingers, or a brewmaster watching clear brown ale drawn from a new cask.

  Rosie closed the book, her fingers at the page; Sam had just then scampered up to her, leaving behind her ball, which followed her for a bounce or two, one of those red and white striped balls with blue and stars on its northern hemisphere. Sam half-hid behind Rosie’s chaise longue, looking toward the veranda door. ‘He’s coming,’ she said.

  Rosie laughed. ‘Is he?’

  Sam watched fascinated as the door opened and her great granduncle Boney Rasmussen came out with slow steps, watching where he went.

  ‘Mrs. Pisky made some iced tea,’ he said. He propped open the door with a chair and went back inside.

  ‘See?’ said Sam.

  ‘Yes,’ Rosie said. ‘Iced tea, that’s nice.’ She hugged her daughter. Sam found Boney a figure awesome and wonderful, like a large animal, maybe a monster, whose movements had to be monitored with care, between whom and oneself it was better, at the beginning of any interview anyway, to interpose something, her mother preferably.

  ‘Oh, Boney, that’s so nice of you, but you should have called, I’d have come to get it.’

  He brought out a tray, needing both hands for it, which is why he had propped open the door. He set it down on the big wicker table and offered it with a hand: there was a tall glass and a small one, and sugar and lemon, and a dish of wafers.

  ‘I bet the small glass is for you,’ Rosie said to Sam, pushing her forward. Boney turned away, looking out the wide screens of the veranda, offhand. He had a very clear sense of how he struck Sam, and was careful – it touched Rosie terribly to see it – not to impose himself on her. Sam sidled up to take her glass. ‘Nice afternoon,’ Boney said to no one. ‘Might rain.’

  He was really quite remarkably ugly. His dark bald head was pied with brown spots and had a polished, greenish patina like old leather, like a lizard’s hide. His hands seemed to be within wrinkled loose gloves of the same material, yellow-nailed, and they ticked restlessly always as though in time to his pulse. Rosie didn’t know exactly how old he was, but he seemed to be as old as it was possible to be and still walk around. In fact he walked around a lot, and even rode an old bicycle around the paths and drives of Arcady. One of those oldsters, Rosie thought, who keep on, though slow; patient with a world that has thickened into something molasseslike and continually difficult. It was probably more painful to watch than to do: Boney bicycling, Boney doing a little gardening, Boney climbing stairs.

  He turned his thick blue-tinted glasses on her. ‘What’s that you’re reading?’

  Rosie showed him Bitten Apples. ‘It’s fun,’ she said. ‘Is all this true, though, about Shakespeare running off to be a boy actor?’

  Boney smiled. His false teeth were as old as most people’s real ones; the porcelain was wearing thin in spots, showing a glitter of gold beneath. ‘I never ask,’ he said, ‘what’s true in those. He did a lot of research.’

  ‘You knew him, right?’

  ‘Sandy Kraft? Oh yes. Oh, Sandy and I were good friends, yes.’

  ‘Sandy?’

  ‘That’s what he was known as.’r />
  Rosie turned to the inside back flap of the paper cover. There was a picture of Fellowes Kraft, an ageless, gentle-eyed man in an open shirt, cheek resting on his fist, a shock of light hair falling over his forehead. Thirty years ago? Forty? The book was copyright 1941, but the picture might be older. ‘Hm,’ she said. ‘He lived in Stonykill.’

  ‘Near there. That house, you know the one. He bought it in the late thirties. It’s owned by the Foundation now. Sandy was with the Foundation for a while. Off and on. We have the copyrights too, they still bring in a little, you’d be surprised.’ He clasped his shaky hands behind his back and looked out at the day. ‘He was a nice man, and I miss him.’

  ‘Does he have any family still here?’

  ‘Oh no.’ Boney grinned again. ‘Sandy wasn’t the marrying kind, if you know what I mean.’

  ‘Oh?’ Rosie said. ‘Oh.’

  ‘What we used to call a confirmed bachelor.’

  ‘But that’s what you are, Boney.’

  ‘Well.’ He cast a sly look at Rosie. ‘Depending on how you say it, it means different things. Don’t go spreading rumors about me.’

  Rosie laughed. That antique sort of delicacy. Boney, she knew, himself had a long-ago secret, a secret sorrow that was never to be talked of; something that might have been, should have been, an awful scandal, but wasn’t. Nowadays there were no secret scandals. They were all right out there for everybody to ponder, and talk about, and give advice on. She looked out at the broad driveway. Under the maples her station wagon was parked, stuffed to the roof with belongings she was as yet unwilling to unpack. Boney had taken her in instantly, no questions asked, as though she were merely coming for a long visit; and Mrs. Pisky, his housekeeper for the last millennium or so, took her cue from Boney. Well, Mrs. P., Rosie and Sam are going to be staying for a while, what do you think, the west bedroom has a bathroom and there’s the little boudoir too. Oh Mr. Rasmussen they haven’t been aired out or anything, I’ll do a load of wash, isn’t it nice to have young ones around. Whatever griefs, Rosie thought, the old reticences had once caused or hidden, they could be restful too, if you just didn’t have an explanation, if you just wanted to get away and couldn’t say why for a while. Mrs. Pisky might be a hypocrite, for sure she had a quick eye for the things Rosie brought into the house, a mess of a life as yet unpurged, rolling-papers in the jewelry box and Sam confused and not as clean as she might be – food for Mrs. Pisky’s thought, no doubt; but Boney, Rosie felt sure, not only said nothing but as far as was consistent with affection thought nothing either.