Last Stories and Other Stories (9780698135482) (18 page)

Once when Tanya sat studying the origin of angels in his
Novum
Organum,
he was beside her, shaking his head over a Chinese Qing Dynasty amulet in the form of a giant bronze coin with a square hole in it. The girl kept quiet. Presently her father fetched a loupe. He copied down the inscription. Then, smiling hopelessly, he handed the thing to her, saying: Here's another present for you.

Father, promise you won't be angry.

Well?

Father, what do you wear around your neck?

Often he grasped for relief by justifying, mostly to himself but sometimes to the patient, silent Vasojevic, his careful concealments, which his elders' dark doings against the Turkish overlordship had established in his character from boyhood; the usual practices of any mercantile man deepened that groove of secrecy; the nervous, angry, weary despair which death's manifold proximities inflicted cut him off most of all. He had anticipated that sharing his strange knowledge with Vasojevic would lighten his loneliness. Oh, they remained friends without a doubt; each possessed the other's pities and dreads. As for the treasure, that too they held in common, if it did not hold them. No wonder that he scrupled to bequeath it to Tanya!

He remembered his wife in her dark dress and cap, sitting in a high-backed chair, nursing Tanyotchka; he must have just returned from Muscovy. In the garden, the doves were speaking to one another in their semiliquid voices. And he seemed to remember Marija's face glowing against a red curtain, but he no longer knew where that had been. Nicola and Vuk, why did he retain so few images of them? Well, if he hadn't sent them voyaging with their uncles, the family would die out. They had better learn the business, being unfitted for the other thing. Besides, let his brothers raise them up to be Turk-haters; no doubt that was right, even if he lacked the stomach for it.

The creature in the dark-glass was not in and of itself, so far as he knew, evil. If he declined to tell the priests about it, that was merely on account of their petty understandings. What he hid—that thing itself,
and the unhealthy emotions which its guardianship stimulated—was of smaller account than its hiddenness. And since to hide was to deny, how pleasant to close his eyes!

He believed with all his soul that he had lived a life no more sinful than any other. If he had killed men at sea to save what was his, if he had on occasion made sharp bargains, such acts were necessary if one were to get on in the world. In any event he would be hated for his success. The longing to be rid of that loathsome treasure never left him—but then he would be shamed before his dead ancestors. By what right could he forever alienate this legacy from his family? Tanya would make wise use of it, to help her mother and the other children, after he was gone. Why shouldn't she employ it for greater good? She, who in the course of her education had unswervingly dissected the brainlike, fungoid tissues of the chambered nautilus, possessed what he once had; even though she could never command a ship, she might yet do something of which he could dream.

Of course Marija wished to marry her off; fifteen was old enough, she said.— I need her at home, he replied.

Cirtovich, discerning that the lot of the most loving fathers is sadness, had already begun compromising with doom by establishing his daughters in the best marriages he could, endowing them with gold, land and blessings, while tying the sons-in-law to him through benignity, intimidation and mutual interest. But when it came to Tanyotchka, he did more, although not too much, maintaining over her, ever more invisibly, his paternal shield, regretfully aware that unpicked fruit withers on the vine, and therefore that protecting our children from the quotidian nastiness of life is a self-poisoning strategy. For Tanya, therefore, he sought only one good beyond the aspirations of other parents: He intended to save her from death.— But perhaps that wasn't right, or worth whatever it would cost.

He had trained up his sailors to great knowledge in the hope that one day they might carry him to the sphere that the dark-glass being came from. If the soul is the center of the circle called consciousness, then cannot other circles be drawn, to calculate the center of malignancy, doom or absence? Therein lies the place to which all mankind must carry war. What if Jovo Cirtovich could hunt down foul and sniffling death itself,
and impale it forever in its cave? Four years ago, thanks to a Turkish annotation of the
Kitab Tahdid al-Amakin,
he and Vasojevic
had finally completed their plotting of our globe's Tropic Nodes, from either of which, when Jupiter is right, one may sail into superlunary spheres, and perhaps even into
that great blue dome of ultramarine, the Sphere of Fixed Stars, with its stars of silver and gold arrayed in as many constellations as there are kinds of beasts, fishes, monsters, demons, angels, swords, hairpins and crowns. One night in that tower in Niš, calculating in units of the fourth order from al-Biruni's coordinates and Osman's timetables, Vasojevic had raised his sextant, then his spyglass; he cried out. When Cirtovich tried to look, the instant had passed. Vasojevic swore that on the golden sun at the center of that blue hemisphere he could see Christ Himself peering out, holding a Bible against His chest and wearing a halo which was brighter than sunfire. Inspired, yet sickened by disappointment, Cirtovich quizzed him again and again. They could go there! And if they bowed down before Christ in His own house, what good would not be theirs? Until dawn they spoke, but with the sun's advent came the dark-glass monster, hovering like Beelzebub, lashing its tentacles against one after another of the horses of a dozen cantering Turkish Janissaries who would torture them for sport. And so the two Serbs crept away, to study death and attend to their fortunes. The next time Cirtovich raised the subject, his friend replied: Yes, master, we could go there, for a fact! But given
what would go with us,
I misdoubt our reception . . .— That was when Cirtovich wondered how he could bear it if they met that squid thing riding on Christ's shoulder, stretching out its arms to warn them that here too, here even in heaven, was their death? In short, the gruesome activity, ubiquitous and almost merry, of their old friend had worn him down. Cirtovich had escaped from the Turkish lands, founded his family anew, and heaped up wealth and knowledge. Enough. His father had done less. So he told himself, staring gloomily at Marija and Tanya, wishing, as ageing men will, to enjoy his harvest untroubled. (He was getting old precisely because he had achieved everything.) How fine to sit in his walled garden, never to see even Vasojevic again, God forgive them both! To close his eyes and listen to the honeybees, enjoying the clink of gold ducats as Tanya counted receipts in the doorway, and then to fall asleep in the sunlight! But
whenever Tanya arose to help her mother or sisters, her long smooth arms flashing, he remembered again that she was a woman now, full fifteen years old, and ought to be married off soon for her happiness.— She was watching him strangely; what if she were unwell? Seeing her thus downcast, he slipped her a little pouch of Caribbean sugar.

Burning a lamp to Saint George, Marija Cirtovich knelt and moved her lips, longing to know why God had brought her all the way here in order to give her to a husband who was distracted. What was it that nibbled at his conscience with such sharp little teeth? For she thought him guilty, because she never knew him; and the reason she did not know him was that between his business and his dreads he lacked the wherewithal to be known, at least to her. (He had long since proved that if death itself be suspended there must remain some kind of permanent equilibrium; perhaps he should have wondered if this were his present state.) Over the years his hearing seemed to sharpen, until sometimes he even fancied that when he passed by cemeteries he could hear the worms moving underground, which naturally tortured him; sometimes at night he sat up beside her, listening; for it had come to him that perhaps the sound was made by the arms of that thing in his dark-glass. On the rare evenings for which he found the leisure, his daughter, hidden behind her long hair, turned the pages of books, her sweet thumbs shining in the candlelight; she begged him, could they please stay together just one more moment, and just one more? Smiling silently, he kissed her forehead, rose and buttoned himself into his old sheepskin coat, for the
bora
was blowing. Vuk and Nicola, lately returned from a voyage, were sitting sleepily by the fire. They rose to their feet. He gave them a moldy purse of ready silver (Imperial coins of Claudius Anazarbus), instructing them to pay their mother's outstanding invoices and advance Srdjana her wages. Massimo would carry out the rest. They nodded, not daring to ask questions. Well, well, he thought, let's see what they can do while I'm off in the world. He did not call Marija, and she did not trouble herself to come to him. For her he felt nothing but pity. As for his sons, he now caught their eyes flickering from one to the other, as if they shared some secret. Such was the business of young men. The carriage rattled him
away. It was a fell hour, to be sure; the coachman was crossing himself for fear of highwaymen. Cirtovich slapped his shoulder and said: Trust me, Petar!— Then the man was shamed; he knew that nothing on earth could harm him while he stayed in the care of his master. For his part, Cirtovich had reason to feel hemmed in. The longer and thus more improbably he lived on, the more anxious, so it seemed, grew death to get him, so that the thing in the dark-glass appeared before him ever oftener. Last spring Petar had been conveying him up the hill to San Giusto, in order to receive two treasure-chests whose doors were studded with iron flowers, when it rose up ahead, grabbling at a boulder in its many blackish-green arms as if it meant to hurl a landslide on him.— Stop, said Cirtovich. Turn into the monastery courtyard, quickly!— Petar obeyed. And not two moments later, the boulder came rolling down the road, smashing a peasant's cart and then skipping down into the harbor.— By God, master! said Petar.— Get going, said Cirtovich.

They rode across the Ponterosso and into the piazza. Cirtovich could see the flicker of Vasojevic's lamp in the upstairs window of the warehouse. Cirtovich blew his whistle. Two sleepy sailors ascended the steps of the quay, bearing torches.— You'll be safe with them, Petar. No boozing, now.

I promise, master.

Cirtovich approached the warehouse. Even through the gusts and the creakings of ships he could hear the stealthy plashing of the squid-thing's tentacles in the canal; so that must be where Death the Huntsman awaited him tonight. His rivals, the ones who on Sundays sang those
canzonette spirituali
with the black squareheaded notes suspended from the scarlet staves, huddled inside the “Heaven's Key,” but Captain Robert, whom he merely scorned, lay darkly behind a wall of sacks and hogsheads, while the blood of this world pulsed round and round, the evening sky going purple and clouds coming in—no evil there, and none lurking in the doorway. Deploying one of his black iron keys, and then locking the door behind him, he ascended to his countinghouse. Vasojevic had already risen and was extending his hand.

Well? said Cirtovich.

The map bears all the signs.

God hear you! We might be away this Christmas.

And gladly, master, if only—

But what about our third member? chuckled Cirtovich, and out came his father's treasure. Just then the demon's almost tuberous or vegetable quality was especially pronounced as it hung there within the magnifying crystal, its two tentacles immensely longer than its arms, which in turn were as frail and swirly as ribbons. The eye was closed.— Well, well, said the master, winking the thing away, we seem to have permission. Now tell me.

I sent another spy to that Turk Orlanovic—

Oh, him! said the other, remembering that afternoon with Vasojevic in Constantinople, as they leaned forward over cups of Turkish coffee on a round table, buying military secrets from that suave bey in the fez and pajama-skirts, yes, Orlanovic, who cared only for money (and this was another of Cirtovich's secrets, that for him money itself was not an end), Orlanovic, whose delicately curled moustaches and gentle eyes they disdained; thanks to his treachery, a certain Venetian raid had succeeded. After they completed the business, the two Serbs should have departed, but the dark-glass thing being quiescent just then, Cirtovich thought to reward his loyal companion, and likewise take his own pleasure; so there had been black-eyed Emina and Fata with the perfect-braided hair.

He smiled, but Vasojevic bowed his head as mournfully as a new bride kissing the hearthstone. There remained that matter between them. Cirtovich threw down a pouch of yellow tobacco from Scutari for old times' sake.

He asked only ten ducats for it, Vasojevic was saying. I gave him twelve, to keep him sweet. A warlock made it. Some Illyrian—

Shaking out the map from its leathern cylinder-case, they unrolled it, weighted the corners with lead bullets, and swooped down like seagulls upon that pictured island—for it was as secret as the face of another man's wife, or the night-errands of neighbors on the sea.

So they sailed south, far south, to what we call
the gloomy latitudes,
where the lichens curl as thickly as quarto pages on the windy dripping trees, and ferns lurk in the crevices of boulder-cliffs. Arriving at a certain
nameless island, the
Lazar
shortened sail, then dropped her mudhook, following which
the two friends rowed carefully between the remnant ice-floes (it was summer), beached their dinghy in the rocks, shouldered spades and vanished into a meadow of red peat at the forest's edge. Once more Jovo Cirtovich imagined that he was entering a new world. Meanwhile the crew, not being paid for idleness, killed a whole herd of elephant seals, skinned them and salted the meat. Whatever their master was up to, they retained confidence in his luck, and thus in theirs. They dreaded neither this dull grey sea flowing rapidly nowhere, with its ugly oily whitecaps breaking out like pustules, nor that other tall black island not far ahead—which place the Illyrian mapmaker had likewise declined to name.