Tainaron: Mail From Another City (3 page)

41  

'No, we do not know them,' I said to Longhorn, and he inclined his head silently.

42  

Across the ground, which hid all the roots, the cold of the approaching evening began to move. While the sun still blazed on those large faces, which were now closing, I had not doubted or asked. But as soon as the first pale portent of withering rose toward the sky and we turned toward the city, all I knew with certainty was that I had was as lost as I had been before.

  
43

The hum of the wheel - the second letter

44  

At night I awoke to a rattling and a ringing from the kitchenette. I am sure you know that Tainaron is located in a volcanic zone. Scientists claim that we have already arrived in a period when a large eruption is to be expected, so fateful that it may mark the destruction of the entire city.

45  

So what? Do not suppose that it effects the lives of the Tainaronians. The shudders of the night are forgotten, and in the dazzle of morning, in the market-place through which I often take a short cut, a honeyed haze glows in the fruit baskets, and the paving beneath my feet is eternal once more.

46  

And in the evening I look at the enormous Ferris wheel, whose circumference, centre and radii are marked out with thousands of points of light, like stars. Ferris wheel, wheel of fortune.... Sometimes my gaze fastens itself to its spinning and I seem to hear, until sleep comes, the constant humming of the wheel, which is the voice of Tainaron itself.

47  

I do not believe that I have ever seen so many ages and so many gods at the same time as in Tainaron. Where else but Tainaron can the eye encounter, in a single glance, the vanishing spires of cathedrals, the liquid gold of the cupolas of minarets and the pure capitals of a Doric temple? Here they rise, side by side and yet incomparable, each of them alone.

48  

But in many buildings here there is something ill-proportioned, something that is almost ridiculous and makes one think of theatrical scenery. Where does that impression come from? The decoration of the friezes of the palace of supreme justice is ridiculously ornate, while essential parapets and canopies have been omitted from the chamber of commerce. And sometimes, when I begin to grow tired on my walks, I feel dizzy in streets and at crossroads, for the buildings look as if they are leaning and moving in the wind....

49  

Yesterday I walked through an arcade, airy and light, stepping on paving laid by a master, and my gaze caressed the resilient columns, the glittering mosaics of the window recesses. The arcade came to an end, I crossed the square - and got a slap in the face. Before me there swaggered a concrete wall raised on elephants' feet, a featureless, gloomy variation of the colonnade I had just left, insulting and crushingly heavy. But it, too, is part of Tainaron, like the piece of ancient stone wall at the eastern edge of the city, in whose crevices a sand martin nests.

50  

Do you know, I am sometimes startled when, from amid the throng, a snout-like face sways toward me, above which fmble antennae, supple as lashes, or when, in a caf?, a waiter approaches my table, his mandibles protruding just like those of a dragonfly-grub. And yesterday in the tram, a creature sat down next to me, his form recalling that of a leaf; he looked so light that I could have blown him away into the air like a dry weed.

51  

I have met someone who supplies a special thread for the needs of the whole of Tainaron. It is so fine, so durable and so elastic that no industrially produced thread can bear comparison. He secretes it from the rear of his body, as much as 150 metres in 24 hours. The glittering filament, finer than a hair, is far less than a denier in thickness. When a ray of sunlight struck it at the window at which I was examining it, I saw the thread blaze with all the colours of the spectrum.

52  

I should like a dress made only of this thread; a garment lighter, more festive or more beautiful I could not imagine.

53  

But it is a childish dream: I shall never have such a dress. For the filament is so sticky that it would stick to my body like a corrosive glue.

54  

So what is this thread used for? Do not ask me; I do not know, and I do not wish to know.

55  

  
56

Shimmer - the third letter

57  

And then the lights of evening are lit, with hundreds of reflections in water and eyes and windows. You know, don't you, that there are creatures who light up their vicinity with the glow of their own organs or parts of the body: fireflies in the gardens of the south, the glow-worm on its blade of grass and the creatures who live in moats, who carry lamps on their monstrous foreheads. Colder still is the vast lustre of rotten wood covered in honey fungus....

58  

But here in Tainaron, too, there are those who, at evening, draw glances because they secrete a fine veil of light and at times, when they become agitated, glimmer and flash. I gaze at them with admiration as they hurry past me in the street - always quickly, with almost dancing steps. They emerge from their houses only at evening, and I have no idea what they do until then, the livelong day - perhaps they merely sleep.

59  

I have never seen any of them alone; they move in flocks and free groupings as if participating in some kind of formation dancing in the squares. But if it rains or if there is a fresh breeze, the sparklers go out like candles and disappear beneath the roofs. Difficulties and a severe climate, tiring work and unexpected upheavals are not for their sort. Whenever I see them I find myself thinking that there must be a party somewhere and that lots of fun is to be expected. They look so cheerful and carefree, and their rose-pink or yellowish glow would embellish any ballroom.

60  

In the middle of the city there is a stairway around which Tainaronians gather in the evenings to converse or merely to watch one another. It is here that the most colourful, the strangest, the most elegant, the richest and the most tattered of all meet, on these broad steps, worn over many centuries. The Fireflies, too - is that not a good name for these little shimmerers? - are seen here as soon as darkness falls, as long as the weather is calm and warm.

61  

I feel melancholy when I look at them, but I have never tried to approach them. I do not even believe that they speak any of the city's official languages; I do not know whether they speak at all. They are as graceful as down, as fine and light as the first flush of youth that no one has ever lived.

62  

Recently I have betaken myself on many evenings to the steps to rejoice in their glimmer. They do not notice me, but when they pass - dance! - past me and past the beggars and past the pomp of the blue-belted knight, hope quivers and the spirit of spring gusts around them as freshly as if nothing had ever yet been lost forever.

63  

But I must tell you, too, that when, yesterday morning, I crossed the square on the way to a certain side-street, I saw in the ditch a dusty rag, with a few pitying backs bowed over it. I passed it by without stopping, but when, at the corner of the street, I stopped to look, I saw it being lifted from the ground and carried away. It was only then that I understood that I had seen one of the sparklers, but this time quite alone. It was no longer glimmering, even palely; it was just a small, dark mass. The spark of joy, the gleam of life itself, had been extinguished. Wherever, whenever I happen to witness its destruction, bitter pain, seemingly incurable, weakens my sight and eats away from me, too, the small days of life.