Charles Newman - In Partial Disgrace

“And the problem with superiority,” Mother mused, “is how to show it without being unfaithful.”

“Ah, yes,” the Princess cawed. “I may love my country, mais mon cul est international !”

The ladies’ frank talk was interrupted by coarse shouts across the water. On the towpath on the far bank, thirty pairs of horses, interspersed by an odd brace of water buffalo, were towing a ship upriver, the craft itself still concealed around the bend. Preceding the ship in a dugout canoe rowed by four men, the pilot called out to the driver managing the straining animals on the bank, and while ropes twanged, horses whinnied and zillions of frogs and birds began to scream, he cursed them through a speaking tube: “Heave, you cuntbitten crawdons, you dodipal shit-a-beds, heave on!” Just then, around the bend appeared a small three-masted frigate, Count Zich’s Penelope III , green sails lashed to her mast, its twenty-four rowers straining furiously at their portholes. At such moments Ainoha loathed the river, a ditch of universal filth and violence beside which sat women deflecting the desperate glances of men looking up from work of which they had little comprehension except its difficulty, and no aim but to escape it in their arms.

“Heave, you ninny lobocks, heave you turdy membertoons!”

As few boats were worth towing on the arduous journey up the Mze, no passengers were ever carried on these return trips upstream, only the most profitable cartage. Generally, the ships were abandoned downstream, broken up at Therapeia, and sold for scrap. Through her opera glasses, which she was never without, even in the water, Ainoha could make out the bulky cargo lashed to the deck between the leering sailors. It was an Astingi theater set. The Penelope III carried the sky, the earth, a bower of roses, a dungeon, a town’s spires, many swords and spears, as well as the sun, the moon, and a great sheet of winking stars — Astingi props, being towed against all the forces of history and nature.

The horses stepped in the wake of the others like a caravan of camels. The drivers ran among them, keeping the towropes from entanglement, alternating lashings with gifts of oats. The towpath often disappeared and the horses went up to their bellies in the foaming muddy water. The sailors, dressed in Venetian garb, ran to and fro on the deck, bidding sweet farewell, saluting, and finally gesturing obscenely toward the two unblushing, unmoved women on the foggy shore.

In the half-hour it took for the Penelope III to pass, the Pilot was the only man on the river whose back was to the women. Ainoha saw the captain on the fo’c’s’le, his spyglass trained upon her. She raised her glasses to the bluffs, where Father and the Professor strode back and forth, occasionally waving their arms at each other, totally absorbed in Project Topsy. She could see the hair in their ears and the sweat on their brows.

“It’s almost as if they’re dancing,” the Princess said.

Across the river, below a rocky ledge wetted with streams, Ainoha could also make out an Astingi squadron emerging from a dark wood of unlimbed beeches. They were in ceremonial warrior garb, carrying lances of cornel tipped with iron, and burnished quivers stuffed with blue lead darts. Their glossy golden mounts wore purple saddlecloths and golden snoods with golden bits clamped between their teeth, and both horse and rider wore pliant twisted strands of gold upon their upper chests. But as this vanguard cleared the wood and descended upon a large bald, the Field of Mars, striplings practicing horsemanship appeared on either flank, like birds driven inland from the sea. They rode barechested, their pantaloons held up by suspenders of their mothers’ hair, skulls smartly slicked beneath wolfskin caps, one foot roughly booted, the other bare. The commanders cracked their whips as they weaved left and right, and behind each, two files of six boys rode in open columns. The columns cantered left and right, wheeled, and with their lances lowered, charged one another, alternating parades and counter-marches, retreats and skirmishes. The Field of Mars was white with bones, and on its distant reaches one might still come across the skeleton of a horse, its ribs plunged with the skeleton of its rider, surrounded by an iron hedge of spears. Fertilized with blood and ashes, the earth sprouted giant nasturtiums and violets which would make the best dog giddy, even faint. Horses got the bends, cattle bloated and toppled over. Bees locked their feet in clouds over gargantuan lilies; even the butterflies were punch-drunk. But now this field was sere.

This was no patrol but a mimicry of combat, and its seriousness was sealed when Mother saw the Shaman himself, never before present during maneuvers, observing from the edge of the wood astride a huge stallion with white pasterns and a snowy blaze across his forehead. He alone was dressed simply, no military decorations nor an ounce of gold, his white beard flashing down his raspberry tunic into his lap, and armed only with a cello. The Astingi were on the move to enlist new gods.

Topsy was salivating and the Professor was perspiring. Father’s hands were moving slowly, doing a bit of detached minor surgery upon the air.

“I believe she is beginning to understand,” the Professor said.

“One can understand a great deal and change very little,” Father said absently. “You can’t change ability, but you can change attitude.”

“But she is behaving, no?”

“For the time being, perhaps. You must learn to listen to those who won’t answer.”

“And then, dear friend?”

“And then you must make sure that your silence is perfectly understood. And then to make your cold silence, warm.”

“Either you are a genius or the worst charlatan, Councilor.”

“Ah, no,” Felix said quietly, tugging upon an invisible leash as if he were fly-fishing, “hardly a genius. I just know how things are , you see. I don’t know why.”

“These are certainly all new theories to me,” the Professor said brightly, “if you don’t mind my saying so.”

“Selves don’t need theories. I mean, dear friend, where do you think we are? Athens?” Father snapped out scathingly. “What is needed is a new tone, a new tempo. Something beyond irony and hyperbole.” He glowered out over the darkening river. “Something dead-on .”

“Yes, something scientific,” the Professor rubbed his hands. “ Eine unsägliche diagnose (an unspeakable diagnosis).”

“Not quite,” Father sighed. “A proper science would be critical and humorous, as slippery and sardonic as art. If there’s an idea involved, it’s just this: if the nutcase is to be taken off your hands, she must know there will be no next physician!”

He had drawn abreast of his students. “Now, remove the cord, but not the collar.” And they walked on, Topsy in perfect step, her eyes never leaving their knees.

“Tell me Herr Doktor, what is the longest distance in the world?”

The Professor shrugged, preparing himself for the joke.

“To move a man from his intellect to his brain.”

“Surely this is not so difficult as you make it out.”

“You still are much too interested in unveiling hypocrisy. The point is to pass on a certain tolerance so that authority becomes affordable. A stern but benevolent ally can create courage!”

Topsy had stopped, raised a rear leg, squatted tremulously, and micturated.

“Ah, what a wonderful specimen,” the Professor guffawed.

“Sarcasm is fine, if you use it no more often than a polka in a symphony. Now, by yourselves then.”

The two moved diagonally in something of a clumsy gambol.

“Much better, comrade. We have made some progress today.”