The Symmetry Teacher (30 page)

“Bravo! Bravissimo!” the cook exclaimed, savoring it (the entire trio began to work together), and at this moment, outside the window, a call rang out:

“Signore Rossini! Fresh herbs! Celery, Signore Rossini! Basil!”

“Rossini! ROSSINI!” the shouts resounded, now from the hall. It had finally dawned on them.

“BASIL!” the maestro cried. “Where on Earth,
barbaro furioso
, have you been?”

In the heat of the moment, he sipped too much from the ladle and leapt away, scalded …

“Diabolo! But this time it was far better! What did I put in it? How can I ever repeat the performance? Woe is me, yet another recipe lost forever … What theme was playing just now?”

*   *   *

Rossini picked through the herbs in despair, unable to remember which it had been … The music in the wings of the stage, uniting the muffled fragments that had sounded during the preparation of the opera, grew and expanded marvelously. Rossini, tasting everything anew and remaining satisfied with the result, was no longer agitated by the music but even began conducting it with his ladle. He stepped out onto the proscenium, the curtain fell, and on it was written his culinary recipes. Reading them as though they were sheet music, Rossini conducted his pre-death mass.

Oh, what splendid music it was! The audience went wild. The curtain rose and fell, rose and fell.

From the wings, like apparitions, the musicians materialized—all of them in black. A trio: a percussionist with copper pots and pans, gleaming like timpani; a woodwind player with an unrecognizable wooden pipe that extended down to the floor (a bassoon! finally I’d seen one in person); and our Viol, with a limping double bass.

“Bravo! Bravissimo!”

And they did the same trick over and over again: they took one step back and disappeared, blending in with the black curtains, waiting for a new outburst of applause, and then took a step forward again, delineating black from black.

At this point, the firemen came to life and started bustling about, extinguishing the stove and dragging out a long table, which they themselves began to lay with dinnerware. After that they placed in its center the gigantic steaming dish that had just been prepared by Rossini. The maestro directed the brigade.

The audience crowded up to the proscenium, continuing to clap but uncertain about whether the performance had ended, or whether this was still part of it. Rossini was also puzzled, and had been so engrossed in playing his part that he had truly worked up an appetite. Here our author (Viol) stepped in and finally took control of his narrative. He invited all the participants, including the audience, who had “brought a little drop with them,” onto the stage to sit at the table. The audience surged up to the buffet and bought out everything that was on offer there (these proceeds alone paid for the entire cost of the performance). The table was covered in bottles, and the stage thronged with extras.

Gerda finally passed out the programs, which were drawn up like menus, with the recipe of the main dish.

Everyone ate and drank, and thus began the second act of the show: a discussion about why Rossini, at the peak of his talent and fame, suddenly ditched it all and took up cooking … And Viol told us about an incident that led directly to his idea for the opera.

In his heyday, when he could write a new piece of music in a fair copy right off the bat (for example, on stage during a rehearsal, even while other music was playing), it so happened that he once needed to finish an overture by morning. Even then he had loved eating, and when he came home late that night, he scribbled down the overture. When he collapsed onto the bed in fatigue, his pages of notation were swept off the table, and they glided under the bed. He was awakened by the director of the opera, who demanded that he hand over the overture immediately. The sheet music was still under the bed. Bending over to pick it up was more trouble than writing a new overture that had nothing at all in common with the one under the bed, which was even more difficult to remember than to pick up.

“And it’s the same way with culinary recipes,” the author explained. “Because cooking is also serendipitous. The most important factor is the freshness of the ingredients!”

Everyone ate and drank copiously—and that’s the true measure of success!

*   *   *

So what
is
a finished work of art? was the question that gripped the collective consciousness of our Club so tenaciously. The work of art is not
that which already was—
but
that which is
(both written, and unwritten). There is, however, the debut performance (a musical term)! The opening night. There is no other definition! The thief will always be second, and the one who is fleeced the first. And the uncaught thief, as the loser, never forgives the one he has robbed: void, emptiness, anguish … Try and catch me if you can! But we won’t try to catch you. You lose, Murito!

Now we are together again, all of us except you … We are sitting in the cozy lobby of My Aunt’s House hotel
,
watched over by the portraits of Sterne and Rossini and the gentle gaze of the landlady.

Gerda pours us sherry or port, and tries to persuade William to rewrite his unwritten novel
Hamlet’s Legacy
(before Murito finishes it) as the libretto of a new opera for Viol.

William proffers his empty glass with a puzzled look: What’s she going on about?

We don’t discuss anything anymore.

We are free, finally,
not
to write.

I have
already
written.

THE BATTLE OF ALPHABETICA

(The King of Britannica)

FROM
A Paper Sword
,
BY
U. Vanoski

For time does not flow but amasses.

—S. S.

Bartholomew was a king. Not your everyday Sixth or Third—not even the First. He was the Only. His power was vast. Any other king of any other era would find it difficult to imagine how boundless it was. True, Bartholomew could not so easily decide to chop off someone’s head, say, or bestow half a shabby kingdom on someone else. But he was able to do something more: he could banish. And I speak not of ordinary banishment. Both banishing from a realm and curtailing a personal allotment of time by separating a head from a body will solidify someone’s place in history. No, this was something else: absolute banishment … from time itself. From human memory.

His kingdom was neither larger nor smaller than others; indeed, he reigned over all possible worlds—even, to a certain degree, over the Universe. It was not, of course, within his power to extinguish the sun or take the Moon from the sky. Removing from the firmament a trifling little star, however, was something he
could
do; and he could make it shine a little more brightly for people, as well. He could not convince his subjects that the elephant or the lion never existed (the fable, after all, is the most firmly rooted element in the human mind). He was completely capable of eliminating an entire species of flora or fauna from the extra-fabular consciousness, however. And he succeeded in this.

His authority was vast, though not without limits. Then again, no authority, except that of the Creator, is boundless. Any other power is subject to limitation. Even where the Creator is concerned, His power is not really power. For what kind of power can it be when it is equal to itself? It’s all one. We have always confused our unlimited dependence—our powerlessness—with the absence of limitless power. Bartholomew had no interest in such power. Perhaps because, in this sense, he had none. Here, however, it is hard to draw a line—was it that he didn’t
have
it, or that it didn’t
interest
him? Do we need less power if we possess it in sufficiently great quantities? If we endorse the widespread conviction (which we hold less strongly than Bartholomew) that power is one of the strongest human passions, exceeding (when it is present) other human passions (in our view, only because the others can be quenched); if we accept such a conviction as axiomatic, then, of course, we will easily sacrifice a lesser power for the sake of a greater power, and a greater power for omnipotence. Did Alexander the Great not forget about his little Macedonia when he had finally reached India?

Speaking of Alexander, Bartholomew had a bone to pick with him—though in principle he sympathized with him, and was even favorably disposed toward him. In any case, he liked him much more than he liked Napoleon. Toward Bonaparte, truth be told, he felt considerable antipathy. And not only because Napoleon had cut short the brilliant career of his future wife’s ancient family, the Dukes de O. de Ch. de la Croix. Bartholomew was able to rectify this matter somewhat, not only by marrying into but also by devoting several vivid pages to the history of the family (for example, its involvement in the attempt to save the ill-fated Carl I).

He disdained Napoleon above all for being the most sovereign of all historical figures, for his overweening autonomy (which amounts to the same thing), for his
independence
(which is quite another thing) from his, Bartholomew’s, power. Indeed, no one had been able to tame him, to this very day. Imagine how much fear he must have inspired—that they had to maroon him like Robinson on a tiny island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, that for years on end Bonapartists argued with anti-Bonapartists, so that he had to be exhumed and buried again in five coffins like a Russian
matryoshka
doll, and covered with a Russian stone, lest he—God forbid!—return to life and spring out of his tomb like a jack-in-the-box!

To this day, one has to bow down when entering his tomb—the ingenious architect designed the entranceway to match Napoleon’s stature,
sans
tricorne.

Bartholomew could, of course, cancel one or another of his insignificant battles, tinkering with history a bit, omitting and adding something here and there; but there was nothing he could do with the
myth
(something no less firmly rooted than a fable). Napoleon continued to stand on the Bridge of Arcole, and his flag still fluttered unhindered.

While Bartholomew had once humbled Alexander the Great (an attractive and altogether nice fellow) and put him in his place, depriving him of one of his battles in favor of Darius, he had failed to cut Napoleon down to size, even if he had managed to take away a few such battles from him. Bartholomew was not content with the battles of the Nile, Trafalgar, and Borodino … The two Cyclopses, Nelson and Kutuzov … Even Nelson was not on par with Napoleon. What other commander could suffer such a great defeat, ending up with just the measly island of St. Helena after conquering all of Europe, and still remain the victor in everyone’s mind? Only this miniature hot-air balloon!

To this day, his tricorne remains more royal than any crown. Napoleon’s fame turned out to be greater than itself—now that’s something to ponder! Was it all because of his Hundred Days? No, not only that. Bartholomew even took a liking to the Hundred Days. No, not because of Waterloo, not because the usurper lost unequivocally to Bartholomew’s fellow countryman, Lord Wellington. Who remembers now that Wellington even existed? Yet everyone remembers Napoleon.

“Greatness is revealed by distance,” Bartholomew said with a sigh. “Is one century really any kind of distance?” The nineteenth century still surrounded the twentieth like an encampment: even the First World War had not managed to dislodge it. Oh, those countless beds in which Napoleon slept a single night! They reproduced by cell division like amoebas, providing income for provincial taverns and wayside inns.

Despite his vast authority, Bartholomew was a broad-minded man. The futility of his efforts convinced him of one important thing—their vanity. And vanity, like emptiness, was beneath the dignity of a ruler of Bartholomew’s stature. It was true—it was ridiculous to sacrifice a greater power to a lesser one. For Bartholomew, battling Napoleon was the same thing as Napoleon reigning over the tiny island of St. Helena. Bartholomew grinned at this thought and shrugged: no, his power would not be overshadowed even by that of Bonaparte. Did Napoleon have the power to create even a single tiny bug, a single blade of grass? For these powers were within the reach of Bartholomew, and had even been tested: he was cultivating one enchanting plant from the umbelliferous family, and he was the one who had introduced the tiny moth
Bartholomeus waterloous
, unknown not only to science but to the Creator Himself, into Patagonia. He had done this only once, on the day of the longest night of the year, the usurper’s birthday. Who would dare say that Bartholomew had ever abused his authority? He did not raise himself to the level of the Creator—but that he
could
do what was possible only for Him was not to be gainsaid.

So, Bartholomew’s authority ranked second only to that of the Creator. And insofar as it was not strictly about power for the Creator but rather about himself, Bartholomew, in his reign, possessed powers, the likes of which no one in human history before him had ever possessed.

His authority was not onerous for his subjects, since it was absolute. One didn’t notice it, just as one doesn’t notice air, or water. This authority could not inspire doubt or suspicion, since no one was capable of sensing its coercive power—that’s how great it was. (After all, we don’t balk at the force of gravity, for it cannot be lighter or gentler—it is what it is.) Time submitted to Bartholomew. He wielded power over the Glory of the World, as its sole heir, its ultimate instantiation. He was the Result of everything. He always stood at the end of every line of petty czars and emperors, looking back from our day to the Sumerians. And not simply because a living dog is better than a dead lion but because the last in line is the Only one. There had been swarms of those who had come before him. Bartholomew pulled the entire world behind him by this string, and the world followed obediently in his wake, as though it had been headed there all along.