Russell Hoban - The Bat Tattoo

When had my Zion been? I saw afternoon sun slanting on the grasses of Maiden Castle; there were sheep safely grazing; the grasses stirred in the winds of the long past and the footfalls of ghosts. ‘These Iron Age earthworks,’ Giles had explained, ‘were made to conform to the shape of the hills they were on, to make use of the earth forces. Speaking of which, in the aerial photographs, the system of ramparts and ditches in the eastern entrance remind me of a vagina.’ ‘So many things do,’ I said. The sun was behind him, and his wind-ruffled hair had a golden penumbra.

‘Nebuchadnezzar,’ said an American accent to my left. It was the man from Aroma. ‘Nabucco is the Italian version.’

‘You needn’t shout,’ said his wife, ‘I can hear you quite well. Nebuchadnezzar had the feet of clay?’

‘The idol he dreamt of,’ said the man as the lights dimmed. The curtain had gone up without my noticing and there were musicians on the platform over the orchestra pit and other musicians on the stage, not exactly trench-coated but in grotty combinations of outdoor wear and military surplus. The conductor had forgone the usual spotlit entrance and was onstage in his shirtsleeves conducting the overture. Were there already other people onstage? I can’t remember — the whole thing had taken me unawares and I hadn’t even looked at the cast or the synopsis in my programme. The overture was a take-charge affair that affectingly foreshadowed, from mood to mood, what was to follow; as it went on I was startled to realise that I knew the part I was hearing: it was an instrumental version of the chorus of the Hebrew slaves. I suppose it’s one of those things that everyone knows without necessarily knowing what opera it’s from.

Now I could see that the elevated walkways went across the back of the stage as well, continuous with the ones on both sides and behind me. There was a great deal of traffic on these, and when both Hebrews and Babylonians were in military garb I couldn’t always tell which soldiers I was seeing. The staging was adapted to the exigencies of the refurbishment and had a rather startled ad hoc look that added to the excitement of what was definitely a rouser — a very dynamic production with a soprano, Lauren Flanigan, who seemed a whole risorgimento in herself. Part of my pleasure in her performance was a response to her own keen enjoyment of the role of Abigaille, who turned out not to be Nabucco’s daughter; when Nabucco goes mad she usurps the throne and arranges the execution of the real daughter, Fenena, a mezzo who has a Hebrew boyfriend. Nabucco, however, reclaims his sanity and his kingdom, renounces Baal, and saves Fenena and the Hebrews. Abigaille then does the decent thing and takes poison in the very best operatic tradition. This of course is not a complete or coherent synopsis. I was not equally attentive to all the principals and events — my interest was mainly in Abigaille and Fenena. Anne Mason was a spirited and touching Fenena, and I was greatly relieved when she was rescued by the newly converted Nabucco. I found the whole production highly satisfying, but for me the main event was the famous chorus of the Hebrew slaves in Scene Two, Part Three, The Banks of the Euphrates; we had arrived at the rivers of Babylon and I broke out in goosepimples.

Since then I’ve bought a recording of Nabucco sung in Italian, and I’ve been listening to that chorus as Verdi heard it. ‘ Va, pensiero, sull’ali dorate …’ it begins, [Fly, thought, on wings of gold …] and goes along quietly with the spirit building in it until it swells into ‘ Oh, mia patria si bella e perduta! ’ [Oh, my country so lovely and lost!]. By the time it reaches ‘ Arpa d’or dei fatidici vati, perche muta dal salice pendi? ’ [Golden harp of the prophetic seers, why dost thou hang mute upon the willow?] I’m ready to grab Giles’s cricket bat and head for the nearest ramparts. Small wonder that it became emblematic of the spirit of the risorgimento and was sung spontaneously by the crowds following Verdi’s funeral procession through the streets of Milan.

That was the music in my head when I left the Coliseum, and with it came Psalm 137 and my remembered Zion. The rain had stopped, and after I crossed St Martin’s Lane in the intervals between taxis and was once more in the darkness of Cecil Court I saw again the afternoon sunlight on the wind-stirred grasses of Maiden Castle. How shall I sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? I thought. But then, really, that’s what life is, isn’t it: a strange land.

Whichever way you turn, your mind comes with you. To take the boy out of the Jesuits, that is possible, but to take the Jesuits out of the boy, that is not possible. In a dream I was stone, yes, chiselled by Gislebertus. I was one of the sinners on the tympanum of the west portal of the Cathedral of St Lazare. Is this all there is? I thought. If so, nothing much can happen. But just then two gigantic stone hands gripped my head and lifted me by it and I was eye to eye with Christ. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what have we here? It looks like a von Peng sort of sinner.’

‘Delarue,’ I said faintly.

‘Whatever,’ said Christ. From his garment he took out a much-used stone notebook and a stub of stone pencil. As he leafed through the pages it was like the riffling of tombstones. He frowned, licked the point of the stone pencil, and made a note. ‘I regret to see,’ he said, ‘that you have done business with some people not of the best, have you not, my old?’

‘That was my father, Gottfried von Peng,’ I said. ‘Of his business affairs I know nothing.’

Again Christ flipped through the stone pages. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘did you inherit from him?’

‘Well, yes,’ I said.

‘It goes,’ he said. ‘With the money, the sins.’

‘That hardly seems fair.’

‘What can I tell you?’ he said with a smile. ‘Would you like to hear chapter and verse of how you’ve spent your time and your money since coming into your inheritance? Shall we speak, for example, of lewd toys?’

‘You must have a great many demands on your time,’ I said. ‘How can you concern yourself with such trifles?’

‘There are no trifles,’ said Christ. ‘There are no little things; everything is big. Dare one hope that when you wake up you’ll try to …’ At this point the great stone hands let go of me and I lost the rest of his words in the rush and roar of warm air as I fell.

‘Do better?’ I shouted as I woke up.

‘Didn’t I do it the way you like?’ said Victoria. ‘Wasn’t it good for you?’

‘Quiet!’ I said. ‘I’m trying not to lose the dream.’

‘Aren’t we all?’ said Victoria.

Imagine a man climbing out of his office window and standing on a ledge forty storeys above the street. He’s about to jump and maybe he asks himself, ‘How did I get here?’ It’s a heavy question but the answer is very simple: he got here because one thing led to another and this is jump time.

Since finishing the gorilla I’d made a second trip to Tiranti’s for bigger chisels and gouges, a lignum vitae mallet, bench screws, and two adzes, one with a curved edge and one straight. I picked up the straight-edge adze, hefted the weight of it and felt its intention move up my arm. Then I went to Moss & Co for more lime.

The underground station at Hammersmith Broadway was manic with Christmas decorations, as was King Street when I crossed to it. It was raining, which somewhat moderated the visual din and seemed friendly. Walking to Dimes Place with the rain gently screening me from evil influences I felt that things might go well. In Dimes Place the old paving stones glistened their welcome and opened the familiar perspective of sheds in which the timbers and the forest spirits waited. ‘Ebony, Iroko, Jelutong and Lime,’ I said, ‘I’m not sure that I’m ready for what I’m probably going to do.’ I touched the fingers of the crucified hand in my pocket as I entered the Lime shed. ‘What do you think?’ I said to the quiet leaning timbers, the attentive spirits of the wood. ‘Please be honest with me.’