Russell Hoban - Angelica Lost and Found

Be careful, I told myself. Remember Doris.

Heedless, I called out, ‘Angelica!’

She looked up and gave a little shriek but made no move to cover herself.

‘Holy smoke!’ she said. ‘Am I hallucinating you?’

‘No,’ I said, ‘I’m real.’

‘That’s one hell of a real smell you’ve got!’

‘That’s how a hippogriff smells.’

‘A hippogriff. That’s what you are?’

‘Yes. Have you read Orlando Furioso ?’

‘Give me a moment to compose myself. Your head, your eyes and your beak are very unsettling to look at, and with the smell you take some getting used to.’

I gave her a moment. She composed herself and seemed to be getting used to me.

‘Does my smell offend you?’ I asked her.

She stood there wordlessly, taking deep breaths, then she said, ‘No, but it’s having a strange effect on me.’ She poured herself a large whisky, arranged herself on a sofa so that her near-nakedness and her graceful limbs showed to best advantage, drank about half of the whisky, sighed, and said with as much aplomb as if she entertained hippogriffs every day, ‘How do you know my name?’

‘Is your name really Angelica?’

‘Not an uncommon name, actually.’

‘Ah, but this is a fated meeting!’

‘I’ve heard that before.’

‘But I speak from the heart!’

‘That too. You mentioned Orlando Furioso .’

‘Have you read it?’

‘Yes, but more than that, I have dreams where I’m chained to that rock on the isle of Ebuda with Orca rearing up out of the water and coming at me.’

‘Then you are Angelica!’

‘Angelica Greenberg, not the one in Orlando Furioso .’

‘Angelica is more than the words of Ariosto, she goes beyond time and space and the boundaries of language; her story is in you, and in your dream you know that you will be saved by me and Ruggiero.’

‘No, I don’t. Nobody saves me.’

‘What happens?’

‘I wake up. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here, would I?’

‘Yes! You need have no fear of that dream, Angelica! Always I’ll be there to save you! With Ruggiero in the saddle, of course.’

‘Yes, but that’s in a story, an epic poem, and this is real life, I think. How’d you break out of the story and get to my window?’

‘It would take a long time to tell you.’

‘Did you fly here? I’m three storeys up.’

‘The singing lifted me, the voice of Olimpia lamenting her abandonment by Bireno.’

‘Emma Kirkby. She’s remarkable. I listen to that recording a lot.’

‘Olimpia is so sad. Are you sad?’

‘Isn’t that the human condition?’

‘Olimpia is sad because she’s been abandoned by Bireno. Has someone abandoned you?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact someone has.’

‘Who could sail away from you ?’

‘Even with the smell you’re a real smoothie, aren’t you?’

‘How did it happen, this abandonment?’

‘I don’t believe this: I’m hallucinating a hipposhrink.’

‘You mock me. You are the eternal Angelica and you tell me that your life is sad. Are there no intervals of joy?’

‘Is that what you are, an interval of joy?’

‘May I speak modern?’

‘Please do.’

‘Are you coming on to me?’

‘Why do you ask?’

‘You were almost naked when I arrived and you have not covered yourself since; rather you offer yourself as a feast for my eyes.’

‘Because I want you to keep looking at me. As long as I feel your eyes on me I think we’re both real. Maybe.’

‘You doubt your reality?’

‘Constantly. Don’t you, being imaginary as you are?’

‘I am as real as Ariosto imagined and that is enough for me. I try not to question it.’

‘How strange this is!’

‘Strangeness is all there is. May I come in? I feel rather exposed out here. My name is Volatore.’

‘How do you do. I’m Angelica Greenberg. But I’ve already told you that.’

‘I ask again, may I come in?’

‘First tell me where you’re coming from.’

‘Geographically, or are you speaking modern?’

‘Either, both, whatever.’

‘I’m coming from the isle of Ebuda.’

‘But you didn’t fly here out of Orlando Furioso , did you? That’s literature; this is San Francisco.’

‘I walked from the Mission.’

‘How come?’

‘That’s a long canto and I’m still outside here for all the world to see.’

‘Sorry, I’m forgetting my manners. Come in and have a cup of tea.’

‘If I can get through the window.’

‘Think small.’

I folded back my wings, thought small, and squeezed through the window.

‘I’m afraid my talons will tear up your rug,’ I said.

‘Not to worry, hippogriffs are scarcer than kelims.’ She stared at me for a few moments, then went to the kitchen and put the kettle on.

I looked around me at her flat. Many books, colourful cushions on the sofa. A framed print on the wall that was strangely evocative but confusing, an empurpled chaos with a little naked woman glowing at the heart of it.

I called to her, ‘What is this picture?’

‘ Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica , by Odilon Redon,’ she said as the kettle whistled.

‘As I look more closely I see myself in it,’ I said, ‘but he could have represented me more powerfully.’

‘With a symbolist,’ she said, ‘you have to take the thought for the deed.’

‘Nevertheless, this picture is yet another sign that this is a fated meeting, or at least a fateful one.’

‘Remains to be seen,’ she said as she came into the room with the tray and tea things, but I could already feel what Doris called chemistry between us. Angelica gave me the tea in a bowl so that I could dip my beak. ‘Now that I see you up close it’s a lot more startling than when you were at the window,’ she said. ‘Your eyes, your beak, your smell …’ She looked away, and began to hum a tune.

‘What are the words to that tune?’ I said.

Still looking away from me and blushing, she said very quietly, ‘They’re just something about a wrong time, a wrong place, a wrong face and a strange attraction. Nothing about a wrong smell.’ Her fragrance was maddening. I felt her warm breath on me.

‘ Is there a strange attraction?’ I said.

Almost in a whisper, her face still averted, she said. ‘I feel kind of crazy, so if you’re going to make a move, do it now before the feeling goes away.’

‘I’m not sure what to do,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to frighten you.’

‘Please don’t look at me directly, you make me feel weird.’

‘In what way?’

‘More like an animal than usual.’

‘And?’

‘I’d rather not say.’

‘Say!’

‘I’d like you to kiss me but you can’t because of your beak.’

‘I think I can change to human form if you want me to.’

‘No. I want you as you are.’

‘You want me, really? Is that what you’re saying? I can scarcely believe my ears — I never dared hope, so soon, that this could happen.’

‘First we have to see if it’s a practical possibility.’ She was inspecting my genitals. ‘Jesus! you’re hung like a horse.’

‘Like a hippogriff, actually.’

‘Could you think a little smaller?’

I thought a little smaller while she watched the process. ‘Stop,’ she said. ‘That should be about right.’

She removed her underwear and got down on all fours like a submissive mare. Her naked back and breasts, seen from behind, filled my eyes, my mind and my very soul with their femaleness. And at the same time I was thinking, Ariosto imagined me. Did he imagine this?