Darconville's Cat (57 page)

  Darconville bowled out of the Baltimore Harbor
Tunnel just past noon and soon raised Wilmington.

  Come, we’ll visit the sparkling Electrides and the
Bitch’s Tomb at Capo Helles, the Cathedral of Quimper, the
rubbish-mounds of Krokodopolis, and the magic goldfields of Nimis
Sollicitaris! We’ll wrestle an angel in Penuel, chase hippocentaurs
to the ends of Pluvalia, burrow into the vole holes of Mt. Radio,
and sail into the strange Cirknickzersky Lake in Carniola whose
waters gush so fast out of the ground its speed can overtake light!
Or would you prefer to visit Mohenjo-Daro in Sind and Harappa in
the Punjab, ride into the mists of Pellucidar, or follow the
nomadic Hurrians into the sandcones of Mesopotamia? Done! Done! Or
shall it be the Nonestic Ocean? The twin cities of Hieraconopolis?
Or Castle Graveolent? The caves of Aber Cleddyf? The Court of the
Boy King, the windswept plateau of Leng, or the rose-red lands of
Araby, almost as old as time? Come, heart of my heart, take my
hand, and we’ll trip through the firestorms of Mount Chimaera, the
sandstorms of Yazd, the lost colony of Aphrodisium, Hither Spain,
the promontory of the Cimbri, and into the haunts of coot and hern
to watch old Mrs. Hickabout kick bold Mrs. Kickabout cold through
the thickabout!

  He left route 95, rumbled over the Delaware Memorial
Bridge, and swung onto the New Jersey turnpike.

  Cry ahoy! Open scuttles! Our rendezvous are
appointed! We’ll journey to Smyrna, Cyme, the Land of Fount, the
Sepulchres of Zenu, and the foggy forests of Ermenonville! We’ll go
hand in hand to Quadling Country, the Oracle of Trophonius, the
River of January, the Shapeless Magma of Nun, and then to the Dark
Mere of Locmariaquer which vouches antiquities no body can know!
And then to the State of Swat! Walvis Bay! The Land of
Dictionopolis! The black pagodas of Kanarak! Come, we’ll disappear
in the Hills of the Rubber Pig, the hidden islands of Tarquinium,
Fairytown, and the pit called Because! We’ll look at the crocodiles
of Arabastrae, the white elves of Alfheim, the detestable Ore of
Ebuda, the guebers of the Kerman Desert, and the Glumms of
Nosmnbdsgrsutt who use their wings for both flying and for clothes!
We’ll go to Great Blasket, Nantasket, and the Valley of Casket, run
through the Polyglot Garden, stroll about Sumatra under the
manchineel trees, and listen to the clashing of holy kettles at
Jupiter’s brazen oracle at Dodona!

  During the long stretch of highway Spellvexit
complained of the heat, and, after setting him on a box to ride
shotgun by the window, Darconville put his foot to the floor
passing Bordentown and was out front and flying.

  The earth does not withhold! Delve! Mold! Listen to
the words of the world! Come, come, return with me in time to the
Kingdom of Rimsin, Quatna, the bejeweled land of Palaikastro, the
shaft-graves of Argolid, the underwater remains of Nora, the
Panionion of Mt. Mycale, the bazaar of Dioscurias, the medieval
thorp of Joiry, the Department of Tarragon, and the Isle of
Apedefts! We’ll row over Atlantis in triremes, splash into the Gulf
of Dews, drop wishing pennies into the sacred Zem-Zem, and watch
the palms wave in Hispan-iola and the bird-headed Zwings of the
African deserts who make geometry of sunshine and peck words in the
air with their beaks! We’ll dance little rigadoons with the
water-sorcerers of Vitziputzli, play bowls with the gnomes of Lint,
march off to Dipsody, and chase flashes of light all the way from
the seven-fold Nile to far Taprobany! Come, let’s pitch our tents
in Sechem, in the emerald meadows of Thuringia, at the reaches of
Scrabster, on the Island of Usedom, above the high plateaux of
Cundinamarca and Mount Two Breasts and the sky-ypointing rocks of
mystical Wak-Wak which are transfigured by dawn into huge
gem-bright amethysts! Run along with me to the land of Whimzies and
Phantasms, the Points of Chance, the Closed City of Thera, ancient
Regulbium and Rutupiae, Xuntain, Zawi Chemi Shanidar, and the
duckmarshes of weird little Quailalia where trees bear fruit in the
form of tiny geese who drop full-grown from the branches and
proceed to waddle away!

  Darconville wheeled into New York City, following
the rays of the late afternoon sun.

  Penetrate us, minstrelsy! Unfold our hands! Let us
sojourn together in Mesach and dwell a spell in the tents of Kedar
or on the man-made mountains of Cholula and ride submersibles down
to the sunken harbors of Caesarea, Apollonia, Chersonesos! Come,
we’ll fly through muspel-light to the planet Tormance and
somersault over the stars into the Bay of Rainbows, then paddle in
a silly fat all the way to the Mare Frigoris, out to the Oceanus
Procellarum and squeak tiny horns, and dunk in a puddle the
Man-in-the-Moon who carries a bundle of thorns! Let’s take the
secret highway to Mezzoramia, pay our chimi-nage and visit the
Eatalls in Ethiopia, the noseless tribes of Aetheria, the magic
sheat-fish of Baggade and the pea-headed people of Par-ticuous, and
then trace the high coasts along the lands of the Strap-foots who
have feet like leather thongs and the Blackcloaks that do live in
the curves of the Caucasus! Courage, now, and we’ll strike a match
and peek at the poison hayfields of Crustimium, the Green Sea of
Gloom, the toxic trees of Macassar, the bone-strewn cemeteries of
Megatherium, the piggeries of Sljeme, dogless Sygaros, the
dank-venom-dripping hall of Nastrand, the smoke-holes of Sittacene,
and Jotunheim, the abode of giants, then tiptoe round the tower of
the deceitful Witch of Sokótska Dama, avoid the naked
night-traveling troglodytes of Moppinland who put away their dead
amid laughter, tightropewalk the circular precipice that encloses
Malebolge, and then pondering that put a hole in our hat and take a
trip through our mind on a hunchback’s back or a jampot smack or a
walloping window-blind!

  Night fell as Darconville crossed the Bronx and
speeding into the New England Thruway he thought: O rising stars! O
Isabel! Perhaps the one I want so much will rise, will rise with
some of you!

  Unravel the maps! Raise your eyes! Point! Where was
your finger, on the tropical island of Samburan? The Palace of the
Kyabazinga of Busoga? Heliopolis? East Harptree, Thrapston, Much
Wenlock? The Seven Cities of Cibola? Wherever! To the endless
announcements! Wherever! Come with me to the Bridge of Whangpoo,
the Land of Shinar, the Valley of Jehosaphat, the Isle of Robbers,
the vast chaotic gulf of perpetual twilight at Ginungagap, the
wilds of Barbagia, Weenieville, or Quintana Roo or Jamberoo or
Timbuctoo or Waterloo or Fernando Poo! Let’s poke into the jungles
of the Ptoemphani who have a dog for a king, stare upon the
headless Blemmyae, race the ostriches of Numidia, sample the
delicious hotcakes of Naraka, sing riddles to each other in the
Lantern language spoken only in the Isles of Nowhere, skip along to
the Promontory of Figs and converse with the twenty philosophical
recluses of Ulubrae, eat the fossil meats of Diplodocus, and sit in
the briarpatch at teatime in West Barnstable with Old Mother West
Wind and the Merry Little Breezes! Come, we’ll watch the doltheads
playing at skittles on the top of the Land of Magog, the dragons on
the plains of Lop, the white sheep of Cephisus, and the alligators
of distant Thorax who have pouches for eyes and snap their jaws
when they sing! Will you come to visit the Gillygaloo who lays
square eggs? Or question the Eternal Man who reclines on the
Couches of Beulah? Tickle under their chins microscopical djinns or
tease geloscopical dwales who live in The Tree That Can Never Be
and fish for chocolate whales?

  The lights of Bridgeport and New Haven flashed by,
the sea air freshening Darconville but putting Spellvexit to sleep.
Don’t sleep, cat, he thought—live with me to love!

  Welcome, space! Speed, time! Our fancies scheme for
aspiration! Would you live with me in the Grotto of Sybils, Aleppo,
Bantam, Laguna de los Xarayes, the darklands of Cabul or the blade
of Laurasia or the Thousand Isles of Spicery? What matter where?
Wish but with a wink and enter the wheels of the Mundane Egg, ride
in a dirigible over Rippleland, pass through the green Cimmerian
Forest where things pushed into the ground can never come out
again, or enter the Land of Brass, the untamed parts of Tzucox,
Mosquitia, the Monastery of Altamura, east Griqualand, Ingatestone,
the Kingdom of Stern, the Temple of Dobayba, and then watch pigmies
battle the cranes in Upper Egypt, perch on the Siege Perilous at
Camelot, visit the Knights Templars of Warpsgrove and the Crutched
Friars of Whaplode, swim in Lake
Chogagogmanchegegagogchbunagunga-maug, listen to stories of the
Qarlugs and the Ghuzz and the Fat-imids, make love under a Javanese
thunderstorm in the ramparts of Bogor, summon carps with a clap in
Kyoto, and then hand in hand we’ll kick up the sand and travel to
see the woman and man who killed the blue spider in Blanchepowder
Land!

  Halfway through Connecticut, Darconville pipped on
his flashlight and looked at his watch: 10:30 P.M.

  Advancing, let us tramp for what, undreamed of, has
long awaited us in shapes, horizons, passages! Come, wander with me
to the capital of Amaurote, Obulcula, the Continent of Mu, the
campestral landscapes of Montfontaine and Loisy, the regal seat of
Abdalazis, the horse boxes of Megiddo, the temple of Nisroch at
Nineveh, the Island of Chaneph, the sparkling fountains of
Mnemosyne, and the Mouse Tower near Bingen where cruel Archbishop
Hatto was devoured by mice! We’ll visit the Tartar shamans who can
summon snow, the fools of Aegipotami, Queen Zixi of Ix, Og of the
Iron Scales, the Great Lew Chew, the suppository traders from the
Kingdom of Zuy, and the ornithocratic world of the Madonna of
Goldfinches! All of them! The malevolent Octodecemajiences, the
black Fungs of Baghdad, the faceless pirates of Strongolo, and the
Ninox Owls who wear gaiters and live above the land that loses its
shadow! Come, we’ll splash down in Alienville, Concupium, and the
sea of Sugar Cane Juice, question the Sick King in Bokhara, gather
cat-thyme in Cilicia and attar of roses in Phaselis, take a sail in
a ship with Jack Sixpip and Tom Bunyip and Dick Wishlip, then go
and see old Pillicock sit on Pillicock Hill and sing “Hallo,
Hallo!”

  Darconville drove into Massachusetts.

  We shall rise forever and drift over quintillions of
things and thrust our beautiful faces into dawn after dawn! We’ll
go on long mysterious quests to see the magnetic rock on the
Klebermeer, the black knulps of Shantung, Mt. Nebo where Moses is
buried, the City of Humpbacked Women in India, and the three trees
of Hudimesnil! And then to Tyde Castle, Fumeland, the Valley of
Cheviot, the underworld Garden of Deduit, the land of Nod, the
savannahs of Blodd, and the faraway, faraway extra-faraway all
out-glittering stairwells of God! We shall clasp hands and walk the
dizzy heights of Wenchwan and Aucanguilca, then cross down the
fried roads of Al ‘Aziziyah and Dallol, wrun around in Wroxeter,
slide down the falls of the Sabbatic River in the Kingdom of
Agrippa that runs only on Saturdays and call upon the
Choromandacians who have no speech but only can scream or the
one-eyed Arimaspians or the Keakles who teach rabbits their
prayers! And on and on to Kurdistan, the lost Lyonesse, the
monastery of Disembodenburg, Winkie Country, the wooden palace of
the King of Tonga in Nukualofa, Opis, and the Shalimar Gardens, and
if the wind is up and the evening clear coast in a blue-sailed
shell down the Guadalquivir to hop on the Harpasian Rock a mere
finger can twiddle, then stop by Yedo, the Thymbran temple, and
hide in the Riphaean mountains right in the middle! And then to
Klang and the secret abodes of the blessed in Twat and if you’re
not tired I’ll tell you what, we’ll creep out at night with one and
all and when the moon is shining and bright trip out to trot and
trot to dance and dance a jig at the Jellicle Ball!

  It was then into Boston, and Darconville soon caught
the lights of Cambridge, reflecting like drops of gold in the river
Charles.

  Welcome, fate! The future shall be greater than all
the past! It shines with prophecies, unborn deeds, liberty and
love! Come, finally, with me to the Land of Cinnamon, the olive
yards by the river Alpheus, the Isles of Orcades and the promontory
of the Cimbri, Aneroid and Gravelburg, the medieval castle of
Broglio, the empire of Lugalzaggisi and the masses of Negropont,
Maleventum, and Orinoco! Come away with me and wander through the
Upper Valley of Greater Zap, eat the ten-pound peaches of
Chinaland, climb the spires of the foursquare city of Golgonooza,
wave to the gold-guarding griffins in the Deserts of Gobi, pray
with the holy apocalypts in the ancient monasteries of St. Neot,
Pill, Axholme, Stixwould, Drax, Tip-tree, and Burnham-on-Crouch,
then watch the Plow of Jehovah and the Harrow of Shaddai pass over
the dead, and then maybe sit on a dune in the month of June by the
amber waters of the Syllabub Sea where the tide comes in in an opal
mist, splashing in sweetly like the sound of a kiss, and we’ll trip
upon trenches and dance upon dishes and see whither the hither of
yon, but if without reason you should find me gone, I won’t be
buried among the dead—no, go instead and look for me where eternity
goes, in another world where the rain makes bows, for there’ll be
restored by the hand of art whatever’s lost in the human heart, for
something of us will always be, and forever-more I’ll live for you
if forevermore you’ll live for me.

  It was long past midnight and very dark when,
awakening the night-porter at Harvard, Darconville was let into his
rooms, and, exhausted, he fell down on his bed and went immediately
to sleep.

  LIX

  The Doorcard on F-21

  Well, who in his own backyard

  Has not opened his heart to the smiling