The Symmetry Teacher (31 page)

Bartholomew awoke to the sound of a sudden banging. He was unable to account for either the noise or its source. It was dark. Of course, the somnolent Bartholomew thought, tonight is the longest night in the year. What time is it, anyway? He turned on the night light and scrabbled around for the alarm clock on the nightstand. The clock showed three, and had stopped ticking. It had been limping along for some time now. The king’s alarm clock held such delusions of grandeur that it deigned to show the time only when its axis was set exactly parallel to the axis of the Earth, which, as everyone knows, is itself at an angle to its orbit. Before going to sleep, Bartholomew spent a long time trying to achieve this astronomical accuracy for the proud mechanism. Now the device refused to revive in any position at all. It was absolutely dead. Evidently, it hadn’t been able to survive such a long night. The banging repeated, and Bartholomew, fully awake now, determined its source.

It was the Queen Mother (a widow, of course), banging her scepter on her bedpan.

Despite all his power, Bartholomew never forgot his filial duties. For the epitome of royal duty is the ruler’s obligation to his subjects, to his children: What kind of father could he be if he didn’t carry out his own filial duties? Bartholomew lowered his feet down to the floor. He groped around with his foot and found one slipper right away. The other one was missing. Then he remembered what day it was. Today was a very important day, one of the most important in the year, and, who knew, perhaps in a whole lifetime. In any case, do we not prepare the whole year for tomorrow, amassing strength, saving up every second to spend on it? And since we also prepare for the year itself, living through our prior life leading up to it, you might even say that our whole lives we prepare precisely for that day which yesterday we called “tomorrow.” Is today not the culmination of everything? Today it was within Bartholomew’s power to overthrow a small kingdom, or dry up a sea, or dethrone a hero, for today was the day when the annual General Map of the World approached completion and would remain thus for millennia and beyond … Today was the day when he did not intend to amuse himself with his power in such a way, for today the moment had finally arrived to settle some personal scores that had long burdened him, casting a shadow on his past—scores with one person who had once rashly gotten in the way of his authority, a certain Sir Poluzhan. And on such a day! Where had that accursed slipper got to? The devil of annoyance overcame him when he discovered it on the nightstand, right by the clock. Groggily, at a loss as to how to get the clock working again, and unable to find anything else, he had stuffed his slipper under the clock, at last achieving the proper angle for it. The memory amused him and cheered him up. His irritation evaporated and he took away the Queen Mother’s bedpan, demonstrating the diligence of filial respect.

Shuffling down the hallway with the bedpan in one hand, he heard more unaccountable noises, coming now from the kitchen. They sounded like sobs. Who could be weeping in there? Passing the bathroom and the WC, still holding the same sloshing bedpan in his hand, wearing only his underwear, King Bartholomew, naturally, glanced into the kitchen, where he saw a long-haired, barefooted maiden in a short nightshirt guzzling down cold milk with greedy sobs, drinking it straight from the bottle. (The refrigerator door was still wide open.) The maiden gave a little squeak, like a rat, spewed out milk, and darted off down the hallway to the Crown Prince’s chamber. (This was Bartholomew Junior—or Bartholomew the Younger, because there was still another Bartholomew, Bartholomew the Youngest … but he wasn’t here—he had left with the Duchess for Opatija so she could take a cure for her back.) Bartholomew the king sighed. The girl was another one of the prince’s numerous amours, whom he could no longer tell apart. The king sniffed the air shrewdly, and caught a whiff of the sweet pungent scent that reminded him he also had some accounts to settle with Alexander the Great—whom he generally viewed with sympathy, but whom he nevertheless blamed to a certain degree. For during his wars, which eventually degenerated into wanderings, Alexander had conceived a liking for narcotics, and he had blazed a trail for this heady folderol, a direct route all the way to Europe. The Crown Prince had recently taken a superficial interest in the Orient, smoking up all manner of truth serums to the point of stupor. Once again Bartholomew remembered
what
this day was, and the devil of annoyance at the hindrance his kith and kin posed to this Great Thing entered him with new force. What time was it, anyway? His wife’s family heirloom, a clock in the guise of the Trojan Horse—pre-Napoleonic, from the heyday of the Dukes of O., a clock whose punctilious striking had given rise to a fierce, unceasing battle for inheritance that had been waged for generations—this clock had also stopped.

He kicked it spitefully. The clock began to strike with its little hoof. Restive after its inactivity, it struck its allotment for the whole night at one go. Bartholomew counted thirty-seven strikes—that couldn’t be the time. Bartholomew laughed out loud (say what you will, but the king had a healthy sense of humor). He looked out the window and saw that it was already a dusky gray. That meant that it was after nine! The Great Morning had dawned, and Bartholomew was running late.

After assisting the Queen Mother at her ablutions, and serving her coffee and toast, the “Poor Knight” carefully seated her on the wheelchair-throne, wrapped her in her ermine mantle (which was so tattered and ancient it had lost its tail and paws and now looked more like a mole, though it was still very warm), and wheeled, or, rather, dragged the throne (the chair was lacking a wheel, and had been reequipped with half a broken ski) out onto the terrace, where a little birch tree was withering away in a tub in the corner, and where a view opened up over the damp roofs of Paris, the capital of Bartholomew’s place of exile, and the birthplace of his wife, who at the present time was accommodated in his residence. “Ah, the life of an émigré.” Bartholomew sighed. He didn’t like this city. “If it weren’t for my marriage…” He sighed again, sending a puff of steam into the damp air in the direction of his homeland, where the shores of Albion were said to lie wrapped in mist.

Now, in his raincoat, and holding an umbrella, he looked into his son’s chamber. The prince was sleeping on top of the blanket, fully dressed. Why had the maiden been disrobed, then? the king wondered with a sad grin. But the girl was already gone; she had slipped away when the king wasn’t looking. The chamber was stuffy and smelled strongly of that spicy folderol. The king cringed, opened a ventilation window, and covered the prince in an afghan. The prince didn’t even stir. He lay there almost lifeless, his sharp nose turned to the ceiling. His nose was followed by his sharp Adam’s apple, and then his sharp rib cage. Bartholomew felt as though he were wrapping up a little bird in the blanket. The king heaved a sigh, placed five French francs on a little table, then sighed again and added another five.

The king was just getting ready to leave the house when Basil the Dark saw fit to wake up (he was named after a fifteenth-century Moscow prince, largely because Bartholomew had not yet been able to discover why that prince had been nicknamed “the Dark”). Basil padded toward him with deliberate, demanding steps, yawning and meowing—an enormous, frosty white cat, blind since birth; not so much a cat as a bear (hence his dark, Russian name). Dropping the umbrella, the king bestowed a little fish on him, stroked him with the hand of a tyrant exhausted by his own power, and sighed once more. Who on Earth possesses more power than a king? His beloved cat.

Now he could leave. The cook would arrive toward noon, and all three of the others would survive until his return.

The king descended via the stairs (the elevator only went up). When he was downstairs, he checked the mail. There was no letter from his wife, but there was a pile of new bills, which occasioned his last sigh.

“Enough!” he said, irate. “It’s time I stopped doing this.”

“Doing what?” a voice seemed to say.

“Sighing.”

“Don’t ask the impossible of yourself, Your Majesty.”

As we can see, his sense of humor, of which he was so proud, did not desert him. He had already grown to like the new mailboxes that had been installed three days before: the camouflage color, with nickel-plated locks, reminded him of the Ministry of Defense and the Periodic Table of the Elements (many people claimed the Periodic Table was a Russian invention). All the numbers were in the right order, the boxes and the letter openings had been organized and evened up, and only the royal mailbox number stood out, royally disrupting the prevailing order in accordance with its sovereign privilege. The boxes all followed in proper sequence up to number thirty-two, and then came his—twenty-eight. Today, too, he would have to sort things out with Russia. At noon he had an audience with Paul I of Russia himself, and with a prominent Russian military commander. And so, preoccupied by the thought that he would never again have to insult his own dignity by skirmishing with Napoleon,
*
Bartholomew was running late for work.

He didn’t like Paris, either. If it weren’t for his wife … Well, here history had no alternative: children.

He dreamed of wrapping up his work here (a professional exchange between two great encyclopedias) and returning home to England, to get a promotion and begin work on an abridged
Britannica
for children.

No! Never again would he live in an apartment house, nor in the ministry (even if they offered him a whole floor). He would return to his homeland. His pay would suffice to rent a small house in a leafy suburb, for starters. Then … then he would furnish it as he had dreamed of doing his whole life.

Downstairs would be his mother, wife, and children. He would go down only for meals. It would constitute the completeness of “simple human happiness.” Upstairs, even if it were just a modest attic, would lie the true realm of Bartholomew.

He would order a long, T-shaped desk and bookshelves from a cabinetmaker. On these shelves he would place only the most carefully selected books, the ones indispensable for his work on the
Britannica
. Right next to the desk, so that he wouldn’t have to get up, he would have the cabinetmaker fashion him a revolving bookcase of his own design. It would house the complete works of Shakespeare and everything that had been written about him.

To reiterate, downstairs they would live, prepare meals, clean up, do the wash … and he could rest assured that everything was happening in its proper time, in its proper order. Upstairs he would spin his revolving bookcase and take down just the book he needed, without even looking. There would be a staircase leading up to his realm, but it would be retractable, like the bridge over a castle moat. He would be the only one with the right to raise and lower it.

This was King Bartholomew’s reverie about what constituted complete royal happiness.

His imaginings induced in him a spiritual equanimity.

Like Harun al-Rashid, indistinguishable from an ordinary official, King Bartholomew, hiding under his umbrella from the curious glances of passersby, glided swiftly along the glossy pavement as though on skates. Today His Majesty’s Thief was at long last either supposed to pay off his debt or at least to come clean and admit his wrongdoing.

The Thief had been conferred with a courtly title about five years before, when he had robbed Bartholomew. The story looked simple, from any point of view except the royal one. Though he could rule historical destinies and move heavenly bodies, he was not at all fond of intervening in individual human fates. Because Bartholomew had a brother.

Rather, Bartholomew
was
a brother.

When had Fate mixed them up, so that his brother ended up with Bartholomew’s fate, and Bartholomew with his brother’s? His brother had been destined to rule, and Bartholomew to wander; but it turned out the other way round. They were both Twins, the sign of Gemini, but his brother was slightly older, and by the rules of succession to throne …

The fact was, that from the time he was in diapers, Bartholomew had enjoyed the rights without responsibilities of the younger. His brother, from preparatory school onward, had borne upon his narrow shoulders the obligations of heir to the throne. By the time Bartholomew had become a C student, his brother had already excelled in school. His brother was the one with a photographic memory. He could multiply three-digit numbers in his head, memorize entire encyclopedia entries, knew by rote the genealogical trees of all the distinguished families of Albion. He learned by heart the schedules and routes of transatlantic liners from the fat reference manual. By the age of five he was already sounding the whistle blasts upon arrival in any port, right on time, by blowing into a toy horn. You only had to ask: Where are we? And he would answer: in Trinidad; or Majorca … You only had to look at the clock, and then at the manual—the hour and minute corresponded exactly, his brother was never late. But little Bartie no longer heard him. He was already standing in the very prow, staring out at the contours of an unfamiliar bay, and his heart leapt ashore before he himself did, although he jumped out before the entire ship’s company of mulattos, coconuts, and white trousers.

When his brother was still in his stroller, he could read all the signboards on the street backward, without faltering:
pohsrebraB! snosdnarevooH! Zeewhyexdoubleyou!
He rattled off the ABCs, or, the
deeceebeeay
. But Bartholomew no longer heard or saw his brother, because in the thick jungle, amid the shrieking of parrots and the chattering of monkeys, he had been surrounded by savages. They were aiming their arrows and spears into his broad, bare chest, uttering threats in their incomprehensible native tongue:
azneulfnI! niripsareyaB!
Three fingers away from his heart, the cold, glittering blade of a thermometer plunged into his armpit. A caravan wended its way endlessly through the heat of Strepthroat, the Patagonian desert of death—Bartholomew rocked to the slow tread of the dromedary and the monotonous jingling of its bell. Through this unbroken din, a string of mirages emerged—palms in the ocean—Tangiers, Bangkok, Sydney … Now his older brother jangled the ship’s bells above his ear, announcing the departure of the
Queen Elizabeth
from Singapore at exactly 1:30 p.m., local time. A week later, the ship docked safely in the Bay of Health. Bartholomew jumped ashore, and his older brother climbed on board.