Norman Invasions (11 page)

The entries in the diary might well have been understood as part of an elaborate hoax, one well worthy of our illusionist, designed to cast a spell of mystery over a planned disappearance, perhaps a way to elude creditors, perhaps a way to prepare for a spectacular and startling reappearance, to reinvigorate a dimming mystique, to inaugurate anew a lucrative career.

But perhaps his assistants, or confederates, had had projects of their own, and had utilized this opportunity to enact their own scheme of hideous vengeance upon our trusting illusionist.

That seems the most likely explanation, though who these implacable enemies might have been remains obscure.

Certainly robbery does not seem a likely motive as little, or nothing, was missing. Certainly, as I later determined, the collection was intact.

As mentioned earlier the collection was auctioned, to satisfy creditors. I myself bid upon, and secured, two items, the diary, from which I have quoted, and the bed.

I dreamed that I had a body.

It was a nice dream. There is not much else to do in here but dream. It used to be said that one should live one's dreams, but it is better, really, to live one's life.

In a sense I suppose this is all my fault, but if I had not worked out the technology, the myoelectric controls, the circuitry, the theory, the design, someone else, sooner or later, would have done so. There are dynamics and directions, readinesses, and such.

To be sure, I could not have done this all by myself, but I never, personally, claimed all the credit.

Journalists, and then historians, simplify things. So school children learn a name, and answer a question in the expected manner, and so on. And something becomes “common knowledge,” which, really, isn't knowledge at all. There is nothing common, or simple, about truth. It is vast, a thousand truths for each atom, and most of them don't matter very much. Perhaps the falsehoods are more important; perhaps they make life simple enough to live; perhaps they are what make life worth living. Can it be that mistakes are what, for most, nourish life, and make it endurable? Are truths so terrible, even little ones?

I am not sure how long I have been in here.

I think it has been a long time.

I still regard myself as the same, of course. Others might not, but I do.

It is perhaps a thousand years, perhaps ten thousand years.

One loses track.

A long time.

I had a body, of course, at one time. I can remember that. It was not much of a body, but it was real.

I remember the feel of walking on grass, of wind, the smell of flowers, Agnes, such things.

I am not sure that death is really that terrible.

Perhaps it is; I do not know.

As of now, I haven't died.

I suppose I could die, but they have not let me.

I can communicate, I believe, with the outside world. The container is designed with that in mind. It produces a voice, which I can control. I hear it as my voice, in my mind. I do not know what it sounds like, outside the container. When I speak, I do not know if anyone listens, if there is anyone there. Indeed, I am not really sure, any longer, that a sound is produced outside the container.

Long ago, people came to speak with me. Most of them wanted something. No one has come in a long time now.

A child used to read me poetry. An old man would come occasionally to talk. I gather he had no one else to talk with. Sometimes he would read me a newspaper. Then he stopped coming. I suppose he died, unless he, too, is now in a container.

I wonder how many of us there are, people who made the will, people in no hurry to die.

Long ago there were many causes of death, and, I suppose, there are still many causes of death.

Parts of the body would be injured, or diseased, or would deteriorate with age. But in many cases the brain, the foundation, the core, the basis, the center of consciousness, the internal theater of experience, indexed by sensors to a mysterious world, might be alive, be healthy, be unwilling to cease.

What if it could be removed from the body, and kept alive? This had been done, for days at a time, so long ago, with disembodied monkey brains, kept alive, bathed in a supportive, nutrient solution. The brain activity was there. The brain was alive, and feeling, and thinking. Feeling is in the brain. It is extradited to diverse points in the body. This is clear in phantom-limb phenomena. The amputee feels a limb which is not there. It moves, it aches, it is cold, only it is not there. We seem to open our eyes and see an outside world but the experience is within. It has to be. There is nowhere else for it to be. Evolution has correlated the inside world with the outside world, but the outside world is very different from the inside world; in it there is no color, no sound, only fields, and forces. Our experience as we normally think of it is a falsehood, an illusion, but it is an illusion, a falsehood, selected for by evolution. There is this intricate topological relationship between the interior world and the quite different, supposed outside world. It is an illusion, yes, but it is a valuable illusion; a precious illusion, a necessary illusion, one without which life would be impossible. Is this a lie which is essential for life, then, a good lie? One supposes so. We must not let a small truth destroy the thread of survival. These threads are so tenuous. I think sometimes that things are like that in the container, as well. In the container, too, one supposes there is an outside world, but it is surely very different from the world in the container, with its tissue, its filaments, its wires, its circuitry, and such. Even when I had a body it was obvious that my experiences might have been exactly what they were without an outside, mind-independent physical world. It would only require another cause, a different cause, one other than the hypothesized, comforting, reassuring mind-independent, physical world. The physical world supposedly required space, time and causality, and yet each of these concepts, pursued relentlessly, as few would care to do, seems to yield contradictions. Thus, if this is true, the world which they bespeak cannot be real. I wonder if it is much different in the container.

Certainly life is a value.

One may not be able to prove that, but what could prove it, if not life itself, and its found value, the value found in the living of it?

What else could one ask for?

Doubtless values have a cause, but that does not make them unreal; it makes them real.

So we set to work, and designed the containers. We began with laboratory animals. I can recall the small sounds emanating from the tiny containers, on the shelves. I suppose they continued to live their lives, as they thought they were doing. They would not know they were in containers. I do not think our primates, monkeys, chimpanzees, even the gorilla, realized that. Later we utilized human subjects, volunteers, usually accident victims, sometimes the terminally ill. Results were mixed. Sometimes they begged to die; these requests could not be accommodated, obviously, for legal and moral reasons. They might dream suicide, but that was all. One could not stop them from doing that. That was up to the individual. As the technology improved, and became more familiar, more innocent, less threatening, and so on, through media reports, and such, such requests became less frequent. I do not think, on the whole, that the first occupants of the containers experienced actual discomfort. It seems reasonably clear that the animals, which were disposed of after the experiments, felt little, if any, discomfort. In the case of the humans I think the matter was more psychological than physical. I think they were depressed or afraid, or perhaps they missed the outside world, the wind, the flowers, the grass, such things.

In time, I made out the necessary documents, the will, so to speak. I could hardly do otherwise, given my role in the endeavor.

It was a triumph of technology.

I had every right to be proud.

Even today, I am in no hurry to die.

I wonder if they will let me die.

I used to ask them about that.

I wonder if this is hell. No, it is the container.

I had never known Stevens to lie.

It was late one evening, in the fall, not so long ago, really, and a few of us, after dinner, the centerpiece of which had been crisp, thick, deliciously blackened steaks, done in the English manner, were enjoying brandy and cigars at the club.

None of those lettuce dinners, with carrot juice, for us.

There was not an exercise bicycle on the premises.

“Nasty weather out,” said Stevens. “Bitter, bitter.”

This remark surprised us, we sitting about, as the evening seemed pleasant enough. Nonetheless the great bulk of Stevens shivered, and the wide, silken scarf wrapped protectively several times about his rather lengthy throat leaped up and down between his chin and the black tie.

The club was an old-fashioned one, from your point of view, I suppose. But we liked it. We were rather fond of its contented, enclosed, fortresslike serenity, its comforting quietude, its exquisitely severe taste, its unpretentious, unassumingly insolent elegance, its Victorian appointments, many unchanged since the days of the queen, its luminous, delicately shaded lamps, its vast sofas and chairs, its fine leather, its plush upholstery, the large, sturdy, dark, wooden tables, an occasional bronze of a lightly but tastefully clad young lady with a pitcher or tambourine lodged discreetly in a corner, the scattered newspapers, expressing the views of objective publishers, a copy of the Rush Limbaugh newsletter, the thick rug, deriving from a palace in north Africa, the gift of a grateful pasha, a relic from a 19th Century campaign, the various muskets and rifles, halberds, pikes and swords mounted on the walls, a trophy scimitar seized from the Paynim in the 11th Century, and such. You, I suppose, might have regarded the club, and the den, as merely lofty, and shadowed, as perhaps too heavily draped, as perhaps even gloomy, but, in a masculine sort of way, it was warm, comfortable, and cozy. We liked it. Surely it provided a nice relief for some of us, from the simple lodgings of our various expeditions and excursions, more comfortable, surely, than the bivouacs of the gold fields, where one slept with a pistol at one's side, from the rocking dugouts of the Amazon, where a poison dart might, at any moment, fly forth from the verdant shore, from the mountain camps of the freezing, windswept Himalayas, seeking traces of shaggy, bipedalian wild life, from the wearing, scorching digs in Sumer, uncovering various secrets of former civilizations, revising the views of astonished, academic archaeologists the world over, from the crocodile infested waters of the vast, winding Congo, exploring odd byways and making contact with lingering forms of prehistoric life, forgotten white races, and such, and from the tents and watch fires of the lion country, bemused by the roars of gigantic, hungry felines, their eyes blazing but yards from the camp, chatting, stopping now and then to calm the fears of the bearers.

“Damn cold,” said Stevens.

It was an exclusive men's club. Few were permitted to join who had not crewed at Oxford, rescued embattled missionaries, or faced a charging rhino. English was the typical language spoken at the club, but members occasionally, particularly the older ones, often addressed one another in a variety of obscure native dialects, if only to keep their skills honed. This was occasionally irritating to some of the younger members, such as myself, particularly when the long-awaited punch line of an extended joke would be delivered in a language likely to be familiar to fewer than a hundred and twenty individuals, most of whom lived in the Amazon basin.

“Damn, damn cold,” sputtered Stevens.

“Really?” I said, despite my youth contributing to the conversation.

“Yes,” said Stevens, grimly. In the half darkness his cigar flamed angrily, a dangerous beacon betokening to an attentive observer the wisdom of guarding one's words.

No duels had been fought over differences of opinion amongst club members since 1842, that in connection with certain policies of William H. Harrison. Nonetheless Stevens was a redoubtable marksman. Once we had thought he had struck the bull's-eye only once in six shots, fired casually, swiftly from the hip. “Examine the target,” he advised us, with a small smile, while blowing smoke away from the barrel of his revolver. We had found the six bullets had all entered the same hole in the center of the bull's-eye, one after the other.

“No offense intended,” I assured him.

“None taken,” he assured me.

Mutually reassured, we were silent for a moment.

Stevens leaned back against the red leather of his chair, and blew smoke toward the ceiling. I was relieved to see the wreaths of smoke were drifting about, in a leisurely, congenial manner. He seemed lost in thought.

I have remarked that ours was an exclusive men's club, but it should be understood, particularly by those whose political hackles might find agitation in such an observation, that this was more a matter
de facto
than
de jure
. In order to avoid unpleasantries with a preempted legal system designed not to soothe, arbitrate, and resolve contested issues but to use armed force to promote a particular political agenda, the club was open to all rational beings, in theory, of any species. On the other hand, there were no female members. And I ask you, if you were a female, would you care to be a member of our club? Surely not, unless as a matter of noble self-sacrifice, compared to which gathering the pikes of the Spanish infantry into one's chest, thereby opening a breach, would seem negligible. The closest to come to membership was Hortense H., the philosopher, well known for her stimulating work on Arthur Schopenhauer, as male feminist. In any event, on her sabbatical year, Dr. H. went to Nepal and had herself charged by a rhino, the incident being carefully videotaped by a native guide. As Dr. H. was, among other commendable things, an animal-rights activist she could not bring herself to the point of causing the rhino discomfort. When she was released from the hospital in Singapore several months later, and the videotape was carefully examined by the membership committee, it was discovered that the rhino had not been charging swiftly enough to meet our standards. Similarly, careful enlargements of certain of the frames of the tape clearly showed a bead of sweat on her fair brow, as the rhino closed. This was taken as an indication of failing to exhibit what might be called, to coin a phase, “grace under pressure.” In any case, the membership committee, in conscience, found itself unable to accept her for membership, declining with regret. She would have been our first female member. Her attorney, Gertrude F., who, it might be noted, unlike H., had never faced a charging rhino personally, let alone successfully, urged H. to insist on forcing the club to reduce its qualifications somewhat, to the point where H. would be clearly qualified. Things might have proceeded well from there, except for the installation of new initiation procedures, involving a five-year probationary period, to be spent cooking, washing dishes, cleaning pots and pans, waiting on tables, emptying ash trays, fetching coffee, serving tea, sweeping up, mopping and scrubbing floors, dusting, making beds, general tidying up, laundering, and such. At this point many of the female applicants, of which H. was the most prominent, withdrew their names from consideration. Those who remained were invited for a tour of the club, in which certain details subtly figured, for example, now prominently displayed bronze castings of young ladies with pitchers and tambourines, several copies of the Rush Limbaugh newsletter, left about, casually, here and there, and, perhaps most subtly, the voluminous clouds of cigar smoke electronically pumped into, and about, the premises by frail, venerable Jenkins, our at-the-time-gas-masked steward. Several of these visitors, later bitter in their oxygen tents, are reported to have disclaimed any further interest in breaching the hitherto sacrosanct precincts of the club.

Personally I regretted their decision.

You see, I myself would not have found it amiss if there might have been some trim ankles on display on the premises, for, after all, there is only so much to be gained from the contemplation of bronze figures, even those with pitchers or tambourines. On the other hand, some of the older members were a bit more crotchety, and Stevens in particular, who was the head of the membership committee.

“I say, Stevens,” I said, for I was carrying on a certain train of thought in my head, which now surfaced, “when do you think we shall find our club graced by some fair representative of the distaff side of humanity?”

Phillips half choked on his brandy. Wentworth looked up, suddenly. Brooks' hand shook on his snifter. A drop splashed on a nearby newsletter. An ash fell, unnoted, from the cigar of Hastings. Abramowitz turned white.

Stevens regarded me with one of those six-bullets-in-one-hole looks.

“I beg your pardon?” he said, in a tone which suggested that he was far from begging it.

“Just a thought, old man,” I said. “It might be jolly, you know, don't you think, to have a whiff of perfume in the upholstery now and then.”

We had not had a duel at the club in well over a century.

I was sure that Abramowitz, our newest member, and a fellow of high ideals, would be reluctant to see a member shot in cold blood before his eyes. The others, too, I am sure, would have objected to that sort of thing, though perhaps, as they were senior members, would better understand the nature and degree of the provocation involved.

“I know that you are fond of the fair sex,” I pointed out to Stevens.

He had had, he had estimated, some twelve to fourteen thousand nights of love in his life, with nearly as many partners. I think that he, though he always professed himself an amateur in these matters, would have easily won the respect of, and the salute of, a Casanova, a Don Juan, even an Errol Flynn. He was not as unpleasant in the morning, as difficult to get on with, you understand, as a certain sultan of legend, but, clearly, he had never met his Scheherazade. Certainly H. had not filled the bill, even after her release from the hospital in Singapore. Indeed, it had been rumored that H.'s drives had been less political than biological, and that her attempt to gain membership was little more than a transparent ruse to place herself in proximity to the ponderous, irresistible Stevens, if only in so humble a capacity as, in the servants' quarters, to polish his boots, and to bring him humbly, timidly, unnoticed, head down, in her white, starched lace cap and crisp, short, black maid's skirt, his tea.

“Harummph,” said Stevens. (It is difficult to spell the sound he made.)

“Have you ever managed to replicate your genes?” I asked him, boldly.

“Several times,” he said. And I rapidly passed over in my mind a number of prominent young soldiers of fortune, adventurers, mercenaries, explorers, and such, of dubious parentage, but having some obscure linkage to the club.

He had reportedly deradicalized several modern women, reducing them almost instantly to the submissiveness of a fourteenth-century geisha in the arms of a warlord. One piercing glance from his slate-gray eyes, one stroke of his heavy paw, and they were at his feet, placing his boot on their head, begging to bear his children.

“Aren't you a little out of order, lad?” chuckled Philips, in my direction. His remark seemed a light one, but it was clearly designed to reduce the likelihood of gunplay.

“No, no,” sighed Stevens, leaning back again. “That is just what we need in the club, new blood, fresh ideas, uncompromising skepticism, ferocious criticality, vital, violent, telling challenges on every hand.”

“No offense intended,” I assured him.

“None taken,” he assured me.

And thus by the simple expedient of reciprocal assurances, exchanged honestly, openly, and without reservation, was oil poured on troubled waters.

Phillips breathed more easily. Wentworth sipped his brandy. Brooks wiped a bead of amber fluid from a newsletter. Hastings wiped a bit ash from his lapel. Abramowitz ceased clutching the arms of his chair, as clearly he had been ready to spring to the wall and with a frenzied, desperate sweep of his arm scatter various bladed and pointed weapons out of reach.

“It's cold, damn cold, in here,” said Stevens.

None of us chose to contradict him. Even a thermometer would have thought carefully about the risk of that.

“I suppose you think I am opposed to women,” said Stevens.

“What would give us that idea?” asked Hastings.

“Women may be evil,” said Phillips, “but they can't help that. No one here holds that against them.”

“No,” said Wentworth.

“But they are different,” said Brooks. “That makes things difficult.”

“Yes,” said Hastings.

“They're certainly welcome in the club, if they can meet the conditions,” said Phillips. “We've always had an open mind on that.”

“There was H.,” said Brooks. “She came dangerously close.”

“Yes,” said Phillips, uneasily, whose term of service on the membership committee had not yet expired.

“Things change, times change,” said Stevens, moodily. “Less cricket in Connecticut now, polo nearly a lost art in New Jersey. Who has seen rugby in upstate New York of late?”

“Not I,” said Wentworth.

“I am something of an old-fashioned fellow,” said Stevens.

“Hear, hear,” said Brooks.

“Cricket, polo, rugby, rowing, shooting, leading infantry charges against overwhelming odds, the usual things.”

“The wheel turns,” said Hastings. “Hang on, old man. Hold the fort. Things will get back to normal.”

“I suppose you all think me a grumpy codger,” continued Stevens, moodily, “a curmudgeon, a monster opposed to all progress, that sort of thing.”

“Not at all,” we insisted.

“Then you are all mistaken,” said Stevens, “for I am all of that, and more, and by choice.”

“Choice is unfashionable,” granted Brooks.

“Yesterday,” said Stevens, “I drove my safari vehicle three blocks, to a nearby mall, and did not buckle the seat belt.”