Steven Millhauser - Voices in the Night - Stories

—

The Island of Desolation. Accompanied by chariots festooned with crimson and white flowers, by royal elephants draped with necklaces of pearls, by soldiers with javelins and by guards with ceremonial swords, by courtiers, friends, musicians, dancing girls, and jugglers, Gautama stands beside Chanda in the princely chariot as they come within sight of the secret place. The soaring trellis-wall is the height of three elephants. At the arched doorway he turns, embraces Chanda, and stares back at the silks and swords flashing in the sun. He descends. A guard opens the door, closes it behind him. Gautama has entered a realm of dusk. Black trees with black leaves rise up on both sides of a white path. From the covered top of the vast enclosure, globed lanterns hang like small moons. The globe-light shines on the trunks and branches, which appear to be blocks of stone shaped into trees and finished with black lacquer. High above, birds in the branches sing plaintively. Are they carved birds, there in the artful dark? The light of the round lanterns, the gloomy stone trees, the melancholy birdsong stir Gautama and fill him with a drowsy, vague excitement. He follows the path to the edge of a dark lake where black swans glide. Under the swans he can see the other swans, dreaming in the still water. In the middle of the lake he sees an island. As one swan drifts closer, Gautama realizes that it is a boat shaped like a swan. Under the boat-swan another boat-swan trembles slightly. An oarsman in a black robe beckons him aboard. Gautama sinks down among soft cushions as the black oars rise and dip like wings.

—

Chanda in Sunlight. As Chanda returns in the chariot, where he stands holding the reins in brilliant sunlight, he recalls with particular pleasure the six hundred birds carved by the artisans and fitted with mechanisms that can produce sorrowful birdcalls. If his creation is as successful as those birds, three things will happen: his friend will achieve happiness, the King will be grateful, and life in the Three Palaces can continue undisturbed forever. Chanda feels the sun on his bare chest, the warm breeze on his shoulders. He breathes deep. He can feel his aliveness glowing in him like an inner sun. In his nostrils, sharp smells of green. In his forearms, the pull of the reins. To live, to breathe, to laugh among friends! For no particular reason, Chanda laughs aloud in the sun.

—

The Black Pavilion. In the dusk of the enclosure the oarsman rows the black swan to the shore of the island. Under the swan-head the other oarsman draws in his oars. The Prince steps from the body of the swan onto white sand. It glimmers under the moon-globes. Before him he sees half a dozen crumbling pillars, which appear to be all that is left of a palace courtyard. He has never seen crumbling pillars before, and as he passes among them he is filled with a gentle, sweet distress. Past the strange pillars he comes to a high cedarwood wall. The doorway is hung with a black silk curtain, behind which he hears the soft, dark notes of a flute. Gautama pushes aside the curtain and enters a clearing among high trees. In the center of the clearing stands a large black pavilion, with an entrance awning supported by poles. From the pavilion comes a flute melody that rises and slowly falls, rises higher and slowly falls. The notes are accompanied by sounds he has never heard before, sounds that remind him of wind in leaves, of water in distant fountains. Quietly he moves forward, as if drawn by whispering voices. He enters the pavilion. Young women dressed in translucent black silk lie languorously on couches with their faces turned to one side. Others sit on floor cushions with their shoulders slumped forward, their cheeks resting on their hands. Still others walk slowly with bowed heads. All the women are taking deep breaths and letting out long sighs. The intermingled sighs create the sound of a mournful breeze. Black jewels adorn their necks and wrists. Black flowers tremble in their hair. He can hear other soft sounds among the sighs: sharp intakes of nose-breath, small high throat-bursts. What are those sounds? Slowly Gautama makes his way into the lantern-lit dark. From somewhere come the rising and falling notes of an insistent flute. One young woman, almost a girl, is lying on her side on a row of floor cushions. She is staring at nothing with her large, unblinking eyes. Her body is half-sunk among the cushions, her cheek lies upon an outstretched arm, one wrist rests languidly on her upswept hip. As he draws closer, he is startled to see her eyes begin to shimmer. Lines of water run down her face. Gautama feels a warmth in his chest. A tender confusion comes over him as he sinks to his knees beside her and takes her limp hand in his hands.

—

Chanda Receives a Report. For two days and two nights, specially trained Watchers concealed in the nearby woods observe the arched doorway in the trellis-wall and send reports to Chanda that all is well. By the third morning, when a messenger announces that there has still been no sign of the Prince, Chanda can no longer suppress his joy. Gautama has chosen to remain within the enclosure. He has been drawn in by the melancholy light, the Lake of Gloom, the Island of Desolation, the Pavilion of Sorrowing Women. On the fifth day, Chanda visits the King, who rewards him with a silver chest filled with precious jewels. On the seventh day, Chanda detects in himself a faint unease. The plan is working not merely well, but supremely well — far better than he had dreamed possible. Now, Chanda knows that life isn’t in the habit of exceeding one’s dreams. He calms himself; his friend’s craving for melancholy scenes, the disappearance into the dark pleasures of tears and sighs, is precisely what Chanda foresaw. His error lay in underestimating the intensity of Gautama’s need. By the end of the ninth day, Chanda can no longer sleep. Has something happened to the Prince? He instructs the Watchers to make inquiries by means of the oarsman, who is in the pay of the King. Anxiously he awaits the report. It is possible that Gautama has fallen so deeply under the enchantment of sorrow that he no longer craves the pleasures of the sun. It’s equally possible that he has become sick and lacks the strength to return. But Gautama has never been sick in his life; he scarcely shows signs of tiredness after nights of excess that would leave most men weak with exhaustion. Can it be something else? Are the pavilion women, chosen by himself and one of the King’s most loyal advisers, entirely trustworthy? Is the Prince in danger? So deeply does Chanda sink into troubled meditation that he is startled to notice one of the three Night Watchers standing patiently in the chamber doorway.

—

The Night Watcher’s Tale. Chanda motions him in. The story is swiftly told. The Night Watcher has just come from speaking with the oarsman, who had been ordered to pay a visit to the Pavilion of Sorrowing Women. The women reported to the oarsman that the Prince remained with them for two wakings and two sleepings. In the timeless dark, he spoke to them kindly and wiped away their tears. On the third waking, as the mechanical birds began to sing, the women discovered that the Prince was no longer there. He had vanished, like a god. The waters of the lake are broad, the walls high and covered with a trellis-roof. Where is Gautama? As the oarsman rowed from the island, he could hear the women, who once played the part of sorrow, weeping in earnest. Chanda is no longer listening. He is staring at his hand, which has begun to tremble. He has never seen a trembling hand before, and it interests him so much that he is puzzled, when he looks up, to find the Night Watcher still standing over him, awaiting orders.

—

Chanda Investigates. Chanda steps from the wooden swan, instructs the oarsman to wait, and makes his way over the moon-white sand and through the ruined courtyard to the cedarwood wall with its hanging of black silk. He passes through the curtain into the clearing, and as he approaches the Pavilion of Sorrowing Women he hears the sound of raised voices. Inside, he comes upon an unpleasant scene. Groups of women are quarreling and shouting, throwing their arms about; other women sit sullenly alone. Their silks are rumpled, their faces soiled, their hair disorderly. A hush falls as Chanda enters. He questions the women closely, and the answer is always the same: the Prince vanished, like a god. They speak of his kindness, the gentleness of his eyes, the tenderness of his voice. Chanda can learn nothing from them. He strides from the pavilion and makes his way through the trees to the shore. Swiftly he circles the island. Gautama might have swum across the water to the far shore, but the only way out is through a single doorway, and that doorway is uninterruptedly observed by disciplined Watchers, three by day and three by night. As Chanda returns in the painted swan he considers the possibilities. The girls, instructed to deceive Gautama, are deceiving Chanda; the Prince has made them promise to guard the secret of his escape. It is also possible that they’re speaking the truth, and that it is the oarsman himself who is deceiving him. Chanda imagines the grim oarsman rowing Gautama secretly across the lake, opening the door in the trellis-wall, cunningly distracting the hidden Watchers as the Prince creeps away unseen. If the girls and the oarsman are speaking the truth, then perhaps one or two or all three of the Night Watchers have become loyal to the Prince and have somehow conspired in his disappearance. If everyone can be trusted, then the vanishing of Gautama is a perplexing and alarming mystery. For all anyone knows, he may be lying at the bottom of the Lake of Gloom. At the Summer Palace, Chanda assembles one thousand guards, warriors, and attendants in the Courtyard of Eternal Youth. He dispatches four hundred men to the Four Hundred Bowers. He sends two hundred men to the Two Hundred Lakes and Ponds, three hundred men to the palace woods and fields, fifty men to the Fifty Gardens, and fifty men to the Island of Desolation. In his chamber, Chanda waits restlessly. He understands that it is his duty to go at once to the royal palace and report to the King, but he feels that it would be irresponsible for him to be absent for even a moment while the search is under way. He understands with absolute clarity that his commendable sense of responsibility is nothing but a desire to conceal from the King the disturbing news of his son’s disappearance. Chanda walks up and down in the courtyard. He returns to his chamber. He paces between his clothes chest and the lute hanging on the opposite wall. He lies down with an arm across his eyes. He sits up, he lies down. At sunset a servant appears at his doorway. He reports that one of the caretakers thinks he might have heard the gate creak in the Bower of Quiet Delights. The servant himself has just returned from searching the bower thoroughly but has found nothing. Chanda, who has lowered his eyes for a few moments in order to concentrate on the meaning of this report, looks up impatiently. Behind the servant, in the doorway, stands Gautama. “If you’re busy,” Gautama begins. The servant turns in surprise. Chanda rises to embrace his friend.