Ten Tributes to Calvino (5 page)

“Don’t be silly!” came the muffled reply. “How can I read anything if I have no eyes? How can I hear what you are saying, or respond to it, if I have no ears or mouth? I’m not even a sentient being but an unimaginably vast ball of seething hydrogen and helium atoms. So go away and leave me alone. Your request is foolish!”

The sun will use any excuse to avoid Wales.

MISPLACED COMFORT

The explorer was lost in the desert and now he sank to his knees and his bloated tongue protruded from his gaping mouth. The sun sighed. “I reach down to stroke him continually; but it doesn’t seem to help. I don’t even think he’s grateful for my attention!”

THE LABYRINTH

The girl smiled and said, “My name’s Ariadne and I’m a direct descendant of the Ariadne who helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth after his encounter with the Minotaur.”

“I know the story,” admitted the sun, “but there’s no point giving
me
a spool of thread to unwind; I’m far too hot and it would burn up in a blink. You’d better try something else…”

“There are many kinds of threads,” she said.

And she whispered something.

The sun entered the labyrinth, he really had no choice: at every bend there was a mirror angled to project him in a new direction; and before he knew it, he had reached the centre of the awful stone maze. The grotesque Minotaur that sat on the rotten bench there was also a descendant of the original and doubtless he would have roused himself enough to stand and confront the intruder with his club.

But many centuries of degeneration, of living in shadows without the benefit of fresh air or true exercise, of loneliness and boredom, meant his mythic bloodline had degenerated. Centuries of semi-bovine melancholy had turned him into an albino parasite. In fact he was a vampire, or rather his human half was. He glanced up and almost immediately the sunlight caused him to wither, shrivel, char.

The sun turned to escape the labyrinth, and he recalled Ariadne’s wise words. “Follow the motes!” And that’s what he did: those specks of dust, of airborne flakes from the hybrid monster’s skin, enabled him to find his way back to the narrow entrance.

“You slew him!” cried the girl.

The sun nodded. “Accidentally. I didn’t have time to introduce myself or offer a tip and I regret that fact.”

“What a peculiar idea! Why offer him a tip?”

“Because this labyrinth is a hotel as well as a trap, isn’t it?

“How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

“He was a bullboy, wasn’t he?”

ON THE WINDOWSILL

The sun wanted to complain about a trick that humans kept playing. “I’m intrigued by the magnifying glasses they leave lying on their windowsills; but every time I peer into one, all I can see is a rapidly expanding charred circle and wisps of smoke. I’m certain that’s not the same as what humans see. There’s something funny going on!”

THE DUNGEON

The sun poked its nose into a prison cell and saw a depressed prisoner on a bed of rotten straw. “What’s wrong?”

The prisoner pulled his matted beard and said:

“I shared this grim cell with a man who kept me entertained with tales of distant places and through him I lived vicariously as a traveller, but he has been moved to a different room and I am bored again. The bubbles of illusion he created have all burst.”

“Tell me about
your
life,” prompted the sun.

“It has been a long and exciting one, that’s for sure! I was born in Pisa in the tumultuous 13
^th
Century and became a professional fabricator and embellisher of romances at a young age. I was captured by the forces of Genoa at the Battle of Meloria…”

“One moment. I’ll write down everything you say. Maybe a book can be made out of it; a bestseller!”

“Do you really think so?” blinked the man.

“Sure! What’s your name?”

“Rustichello,” came the answer, spoken in a resigned tone, for many readers wouldn’t recognise it.

But
you
will, because you’re clever.

THE TRIBAL PHILOSOPHERS

The people of the remote island said to each other, “The light of the moon is more important than the light of the sun. This isn’t hard to believe! The light of the moon appears at night, when it’s most needed; but the light of the sun appears only in the daytime, when we can already see everything clearly, and is therefore superfluous.”

And they added salt and pepper to the missionary.

THE DAGGER

The two merchants approach the assassin and say, “We offered you that dagger on a trial basis only. It’s a Damascene blade, very finely tempered. Did it meet expectations? The trial period has just ended, and unless you return the item, you must pay in full.”

The moon reflects the light of the sun; and the pub window reflects the light of the moon; and the stiletto held in the leather glove of the assassin reflects the light of the pub window.

“But I haven’t had time to use it yet!”

A hooded figure hisses from the nearby shadow of a tall tree, “Hurry up! Hurry! Get the job done quick!”

The assassin snorts, “Everything’s under control.” And he reaches into his pocket for the coin it contains. He cuts this coin in half with the blade and gives a piece to each merchant.

And on the far side of the world, the sun frowns and gasps, “Suddenly I feel like an amoeba. How curious!”

CONFUSIONS OF THE SUN

There are particular metaphysical problems that bother the sun from time to time. Although he turns these problems over and over in his own mind, he doesn’t ask anyone for advice about them. He’s afraid of looking like a fool and being mocked by sages.

So when he passes over philosophers and other wise fellows he calls a brisk, “Hello there!” and dashes behind the nearest cloud; or if there aren’t any clouds in the vicinity, he makes other kinds of small talk, about sport, politics or taxes, maybe, but never about the weather, because he dislikes giving away all his trade secrets.

He enjoys shining on Buddhists, but there’s a paradox in one of their beliefs that he can’t get to grips with. If you are a person who believes in reincarnation, surely it makes sense to work hard to improve the general condition of the world, so that living standards rise for everyone? This way you can be certain of improved comfort in your next life, no matter where you are born! In other words, if you are very holy you need only care for yourself in this life; but if you are sinful it’s in your own interest to be good and improve the world. So good people should act in a selfish manner and bad people selflessly…

The sun isn’t ready to convert to this faith yet.

BAKING HOT DAY

Intrigued by his contact with Rustichello, the sun decided to pay a visit to Pisa, the town of the taleteller’s birth. He saw that a cunning arrangement of concave mirrors had been set up on the roof of a house. “What’s going on down there?” he mused aloud.

“This is a solar oven,” answered a stout woman.

“You expect me to slave in a kitchen for you? No chance! I work only for myself; all stars are aristocrats!”

The woman laughed. “You have been my employee ever since you got here! Don’t you know your beams are bouncing off these mirrors onto the baking tray inside my brick oven?”

“Am I baking a loaf of bread for you, then?”

“Not bread, no; the flour contains honey and raisins and apricots, and I used wine instead of water to mix it.”

Much later, the moon asked the sun, “I heard you did your share of the cooking today. Was it difficult?”

“Nah,” replied the sun. “Pisa cake.”

CREATIVITY IN THE WILDERNESS

I want to be serious just for a few moments and talk a little on the subject of Creativity in the Wilderness. The fact is that I need the sun to facilitate the proper exercise of my imagination.

I don’t mean that I don’t get ideas in the wintertime – some of my best work (if any of it is actually good) has been done in low temperatures, but never through choice. When it’s dark and chill I wish to hibernate, and so
forcing
myself to work is a perverse form of retirement, of hiding myself away from the cold sky: a way of taking my mind off the gloomy present moment. But this doesn’t work well…

When I’m cold all my muscles contract and I feel hunched and stooped like an old man; I lack only a corncob pipe, hobble and liver spots. I can’t wait to be warm again, to uncurl and unfurl and to live the outdoors life. I take my empty notebooks with me when it comes, and pens, and though I do less work, I’m happier in my soul.

The wilderness for me must be sun-drenched. Otherwise I can’t feel its beauty deep down; I succumb to bleakness instead and mope from cliff to cliff, or over pallid dunes, searching for a cave mouth where I can huddle around a fire of frosty driftwood sticks.

No thanks. I love the sun far too much! My creativity ripens in the sun and ferments into the wine that will keep me from despair in winter. Once I walked across the Alpujarras in midsummer, writing at odd moments as I went: the result was a novella full of inventors, explorers, mermaids and minstrels across which daily crawled large ants to greet, or challenge, the scrawl of black multi-legged words.

JUMPING INTO SUMMER

Two hikers, one male, one female, stopped for the night in a forest glade. The sun was low in the west and its ruby beams slanted almost horizontal between the rough trunks. A hooded figure watched from the shadows of the tallest tree and grimaced ferociously.

“I feel a little uneasy,” said the female.

The male hiker nodded. “I know what you mean. Spending the night in a forest is always unnerving. Not like sleeping on the beach or in dunes; there’s the constant feeling of being watched and of being at the mercy of predators or paranormal forces.”

“I’m not sure I can last until morning!”

“Very well. Here’s a solution. Night is about to fall and will probably endure for the whole of the next paragraph. If we both take a long enough run up, we should be able to jump right over that paragraph and end up in the one after it, which will almost certainly describe tomorrow morning. I think we should hold hands and do this together. Are you ready? Let’s run as far as that log and then leap…”

The sun vanished over an unseen horizon. Dusk gathered itself rapidly and the stars were very dim when they appeared through gaps in the thick canopy of rustling foliage. Owls hooted, rodents scurried and bright eyes glowed in the undergrowth; twigs snapped and the very trees appeared to unfreeze from some paralysis and move their branches like arms. Hours passed slowly, fearfully, chillingly.

Very slowly, the sky grew lighter. The night was finally coming to an end. The sun came up and climbed higher; and the character of the forest changed completely; the eeriness was utterly dispelled and now it was a cheerful place, a paradise of wild flowers and birds. The sun reached its highest point, began to descend, sank lower and lower and its ruby beams slanted almost horizontal between…

“Damn it!” grumbled the male.

“What’s the matter?” asked his companion.

“We jumped too far. We cleared not only the paragraph containing the night, but also the one describing the morning after, so we’re back in late afternoon – of the following day!”

The female considered this. Although unaware that the hooded figure had been left behind in yesterday, she said, “I don’t have the same uneasy feeling. Let’s camp here anyway.”