Norman Invasions (9 page)

Though doubtless the poet had had his course in philosophy long ago, it was easy to see that he had not yet recovered from its effects. Clearly he was still nuts, or, put more sensitively, was “marching to the tune of a distant drummer,” one who was missing a drum.

“That makes a great deal of sense,” said Professor Red Feather.

I revised my assessment of the poet's contribution, though I suspected he couldn't tell an infix from a fireplug.

“What the poet says is clearly nonsense,” said one of our sociologists, added to the group that we might have a Melanesian boatman in our midst.

“Yes,” said our other sociologist, striking the floor with his cane, his presence in the group accounted for by his eligibility for a handicapped parking sticker.

The fact that the two sociologists firmly agreed that the poet was in error, if not certifiably insane, naturally reversed my opinion on the entire matter, immediately, categorically. Agreement among sociologists is commonly taken as a sufficient condition for falsity. Those familiar with the academic world will not find this surprising.

“There are many differences between poets and sociologists,” said Professor Stein.

It struck me then, reassuringly, that Teutonic perceptiveness still throve amongst those from the land of poets and philosophers.

“Poets are inspired madmen,” said Professor Ngumba, whose grudgingly accorded admiration for inspired madmen was commonly remarked in the scholarly community.

“Whereas sociologists are not inspired,” said Professor Nagaso.

There was general assent to this in the group, with two exceptions.

“But,” said Professor Igluk, “whereas poets may ascend ladders of higher truths, rung by enraptured rung, leaping from metaphor to metaphor, enveloped in clouds of radiant illumination, we, as humble scientists, must content ourselves with lower truths, such as how things are, and are they really that way, and this brings up questions of hypothesis and theory, of consequences thereof, of experimentation, of confirmation and disconfirmation, and such.”

These things were doubtless clearer to some than others, but they were obviously clear to Professor Igluk, one who had spent much time in thought, who had spent long hours meditating upon them, on the pack ice during the long polar night.

“We are grateful to you,” said Professor Red Feather, the early portion of whose professional life had been spent in trying to rid himself of insidiously lurking animistic suspicions. He had eventually come to see the universe in terms of inclined planes, screws, levers, and automobile engines. He had not been regarded as worthy of an academic post, despite his background, until he had made this breakthrough. He had succeeded in reconciling these conflicting world views by means of taking an eight-cylinder 1956 Chevrolet Impala engine as a spirit guide. “You have recalled us to our professional responsibilities.”

“But there is no way to test this sort of hypothesis,” I pointed out, thinking that some oblique deference to the voice of reason might be in order. “The child can't help us. He can just stand there, look earnestly at us, and say
bamohee
. But that's about it. And earlier he can't even say this much. And later, all too soon, he seems to forget about the nature of reality, the secret of existence, the meaning of it all, and gets down to serious business, wheedling toys, demanding bread sticks, testing various brands of cookies, coping with toilet training, being coy with vegetables, annoying younger siblings, and such.”

“True,” said Professor Red Feather, sadly.

“A white crane wades. A feather falls into the stream. It is swept away,” said Professor Nagaso, a remark I took as expressing regret.

“Who knows what an elephant thinks?” asked Professor Ngumba, moodily.

“
Du hast recht
,” said Professor Stein, cryptically.

“You are correct,” said the sociologists, in unison, with firmness.

We linguists then looked at one another. Together, simultaneously, we realized we had been mistaken.

“There must be a way,” I said.

“Agreed,” said my gifted colleagues.

“But how?” I wept. “How!”

“Hypnotic regression,” said the poet.

We thought that not a bad suggestion, and surprisingly good, for having come from someone without a degree in linguistics. Poets spend much of their time bumbling about in the closet of the subconscious, beset by metaphors, but occasionally they rise, wearied and gasping, to the plane of common sense. Or tumble from the ladder of dreams to strike heavily on the pavement of rationality. I have seen more than one remember to put a coin in a parking meter.

In the morning we communicated our experiment, its intent, and weightiness, to the conference as a whole and all lectures, panels, receptions, wine and cheese parties, and award ceremonies were immediately, unquestioningly canceled.

As I was the first who had broached the bamohee matter, it was decided that I would be the subject of this groundbreaking experiment. A hypnotist was brought in from a local night club of dubious reputation and, shortly, suitably regressed to a babbling toddler, I doubtless became the center of attention, and the object of anxious anticipation, on the part of the staff and attendees of the conference, and, too, of a number of caterers and diverse, but insufficiently diverse, members of the maintenance staff. It is hard to think of everything, and protect oneself from enraged charges of illegitimate exclusion.

As it is well known that many individuals who have become privy to the secrets of the universe in the entranced state often experience difficulties in communicating, recounting, or even remembering, the special and remarkable knowledge obtained in that state, I had been furnished with a large sheet of white drawing paper and, considering the target age of the regression experiment, a set of crayons. I was to write down on the paper what I learned, lest it slip away in my emergence into a more quotidian reality.

I have listened several times to the taped record of the experiment, copies of which are available for a nominal fee from the conference organizers. I shall describe, briefly, certain highlights.

Apparently the regression was going well, age by age. Several of my comments are irrelevant to the experiment
per se
, such as the politically deplorable, but enraptured, one pertaining to Sally Krupnik in high school, and the uncomplimentary reference to Biff McGurk in grade school. Soon I was in the vicinity of the target age because we had recently left behind the bitterness of my third birthday party, in which I had received primarily socks and underwear.

“How will I know when to stop?” asked the hypnotist, his question clearly recorded on the tape.

Suddenly I gurgled out, in a voice scarcely recognizable as my own, “Bamohee!”

“That is it!” said Professor Stein, who was, by general consent, guiding the willing, if puzzled, hypnotist.

I can recall clearly, even now, trembling, my eyes moist with tears, that incredible instant of illumination, the bamohee moment. The clouds seemed to open up, the sky to rejoice, the wind to sing, and reality itself, like an inverted glove, suddenly turned itself inside out, and I saw the other side of being, where it was and how it had been, and a great white crane, wading, lost a single feather, and watched it, as it was swept away, becoming a universe. And behind the other side of being was another side, and another, like dazzling mirrors, and I saw that one universe was a mouse, and another a butterfly, and that there were more spaces and dimensions, and worlds, and truths, than buckets of equations could hope to guess at, and that the name of reality was not number, and that I, too, and Thomas, was a universe, and that meaning was beyond meaning, and there was speech beyond speech, and seeing beyond seeing, and that the most common particle of mud, lying at the puddle's edge, was radiant, and holier and more sacred than all the arrogance, and hypocrisies, and pretensions that would conceal from us the wonder of a blade of grass, the fire of a star, that would hide from us the white crane, and the feather.

And I then, of course, understood, or thought I understood, the all, and the all behind the all, and I found myself reconciled to my kind, with all its pettiness, anger, pride, and greed, and I recognized and accepted the mysteries of time and space, and looked upon the secrets of the universe, or seemed to, opened like the petals of a flower, or like a trusting, careless adolescent's diary, to my gaze, and read there the solution to the riddle of being, and how it was not really so mysterious, at all, not in that moment, but was just right, like other things, and that it was enormously complex, and yet startlingly simple, and I cried out, again, in that moment, seeing through an adult's eyes the world a child sees, and I learned then all there was to know, or so it seemed, and I cried out, joyfully, in celebratory gratitude, uttering the mystic word, the right word, the appropriate word, the special word, the universal word,
bamohee
!

“Quick! Quick!” cried Professor Stein. “Write it down, write it all down!” That is on the tape.

A crayon was thrust into my hands and I began, frenziedly, before the vision should fail, to record the wondrous truths which I had learned. And on that sheet of paper, in crayon, I inscribed the maxims, the formulas, the propositions, the equations, the revelations, the truths, the lessons I had learned. I wept, overjoyed at having recorded these things. They would now belong to me, to Thomas, when he grew up, to my colleagues, to the world, to all rational species, everywhere.

On the tape, as I now listen to it, I called out, several times,
bamohee
, as I wrote. But, too, there were a number of startled, disappointed sounds on the tape, these emanating from the audience.

When I was awakened I looked at the paper with dismay. On it, scrawled, were a hodgepodge of lines, going this way and that, with no apparent rhyme or reason, just such a random garden of silly marks as might be put down by the tiny, clumsy hand of a small child, playing with a crayon.

I retained the notion that I had learned much, and had experienced much, and had lived much, in those moments, but I, as readily as the others, could see nothing on the page but the tracks of a childish scribbling, of less form and coherence than the tracks of sporting squirrels, playing in the soft earth at the edge of the grass.

Eventually, the conference having resumed, things returned to normal, and I flew home.

Some weeks later my wife and I were visiting my son and his wife, and Thomas, of course, was there, too.

As a souvenir I had kept the sheet I had marked and, on an impulse, when Thomas was playing nearby, with toy cars, on the coffee table before the sofa on which I sat, shortly before his third birthday, I brought the sheet out and placed it on the coffee table where he was playing. He looked at it gravely, and then looked at me, and smiled. He pointed to the sheet. “Bamohee,” he said. “Yes,” I said, “bamohee.”

And I have the feeling that somehow there, in those seemingly meaningless scrawls, perhaps in the script of some forgotten language, there on the sheet, it is all written down. But, of course, we cannot read that language, any more than we can understand the unlocking word, the enchanted word, the word, like a key, that opens the lock of being, so that we can discover its dark, and its radiant, treasures.

Thomas will have his third birthday, soon, and he will forget bamohee. But he has been there, and I was there.

I shall make certain he has something beside socks and underwear for his third birthday.

You know how grandfathers are, and grandmothers.

Bamohee!

All this took place some time ago, but I think it would not be inappropriate to put at least something about it down on paper.

I would feel better about it, at any rate.

As a police matter, of course, the case is closed, and has been, for years.

Nonetheless I think it would not be amiss to record, for any it might interest, certain details associated with, if not actually germane to, the case.

I am supposing there would be no objection to this.

Also, this is scarcely the sort of thing to which one would draw the attention of the police.

It would seem clearly to lie beyond the compass of their interest, jurisdiction, or expertise.

He was a magician, of course. That must not be lost sight of.

Indeed, this was perhaps intended to be his greatest illusion.

I think it would be a mistake to lose sight of that possibility.

He had taken the stage name of Cagliostro, perhaps you remember him, this doubtless constituting a nod, or perhaps in its way a tribute, however ironic, to a somewhat notorious predecessor, the fabled 18th-century alchemist, charlatan, and magician, from whom he claimed descent. The latter claim seems implausible, and, at the least, has never been verified.

He had purchased, at considerable cost, some months before the incident, what was alleged to have been the bed of the original Cagliostro. I had thought the provenance of the purchase suspect, but it is difficult to know about such things. Certainly the bed did date from the late 18th Century; it was a large, massive, ornate, late-Baroque device, the high bedposts surmounted with the massive carved heads of two fearsome, maned, leonine beasts. The feet of the bed were carved in the likeness of paws, with the claws extended. The sideboards were carved in what I suppose was intended to be the likeness of thick, curling vines, though, rather, looked at in a certain way, they seemed rather like multiply jointed, spined, tentacles, apparently emanating from, or somehow connected with, the leonine figures surmounting the bedposts. The bed, clearly, was an authentic period piece, but there seems, as far as I can tell, no particular reason to associate it with the historical Cagliostro. To be sure, not even the provenance claims he actually slept in the bed, merely that he owned it. Indeed, the provenance suggests that it may have actually been purchased, and then given to a friend, or former patron. Little, if anything, is known, however, of this alleged friend, or patron. History is silent with respect to this. The name was something like Le Comte du Nouy, but I may be misremembering this, and, in any event, I do not now have access to either the provenance or its attendant documents. One gathers they were lost, after the incident. It seems there may have been some sort of falling out between the Signor Cagliostro and the count, and the threat of some legal action or other. But his life seems to have been filled with such alarms, as well as flights, pursuits, apprehensions, imprisonments, and such. Indeed, he seems to have eventually died in prison. The history of the bed seems better documented from 1840 on, when it first appears on the records of a dealer in London, who apparently received it from a merchant in Palermo, Sicily, over a year earlier. Supposedly it had accompanied Cagliostro long before that, a generation or so earlier, in his extensive travels, which he undertook commonly, for some reason, under a number of assumed names, travels to various European capitals, resorts, spas, and centers of status and affluence. He was famous, allegedly, for ingratiating himself with, and then deluding and preying upon, the rich and gullible. In any event the provenance lists, after 1840, several owners, all, of course, given the expense of the piece, well-to-do, and at least three of whom, as I recall, were titled, though in all cases only members of the minor nobility. As nearly as I can determine few of these individuals kept the bed very long, and it seems to have spent much of its time in warehouses, between purchases. Two of the purchasers, interestingly, seem to have fled, disappearing from society, completely, and another ended his life in a house for the insane. These unfortunate coincidences, as well as its alleged provenance, suggesting its earlier ownership by the famed Cagliostro, thought to have been a dabbler in dark forces, doubtless gave the bed an unsavory reputation, and I would suppose that it may have been little slept in, even between sales, and storage. Certainly it, so dark, heavy, massive, and enclosing, has a rather grim, dismal aspect, with the leonine heads, the claws, the vines, or tentacles, and such. If one allows the mind and imagination unwonted play it would be easy to see in it something not only forbidding but sinister. I would not, at any rate, personally, care to repose in it. Nor would I care for one of whom I was fond to repose in it. I do not think for example, that I, personally, would have given it to a friend.

But let me come to the matter at hand.

It has to do with two items, one, a mysterious demise, or fate, that of our illusionist, and, two, certain entries in his diary.

I cannot claim to be a friend of the illusionist, but we did have several dealings, largely connected with my helping him to acquire various art objects, mostly paintings and small statuary, but also various articles of period furniture, these things being additions to what was, even years ago, a quite valuable collection. These things are now gone at auction to satisfy creditors. At the end, aside from the value of his collection, our illusionist seems to have been nearly destitute. Apparently he lived well beyond his means, but on what he may have dissipated his fortune is unclear, given the apparently abstemious, lonely nature of his life. Certainly the expenses of his collection would have accounted for no more than a fraction of his estimated wealth. There was talk of certain rare books, which he burned at the end, and tuitions for instructions in certain arcane exercises, also, too, apparently abandoned, at the end. In any event, the assistance I rendered to our illusionist was rendered in my role as a dealer, and not as a friend, confidant, or such. I am not clear that our illusionist had friends, but I did not know him well enough to assert that with certainty. He seemed on the whole, off the stage, as I have suggested, to be a solitary sort, much devoted to his craft, and his studies. I hasten to add that it was not my doing that he came into the possession of the article of furniture referred to above, that piece alleged to have once belonged to the famous Cagliostro. Indeed, I trust I have already made clear my skepticism as to the authenticity of its provenance, though it was clearly genuine in the sense of being an authentic period piece of the late Baroque. To that any qualified dealer might reliably attest.

Before we come to the diary, or certain selected portions of it, I should mention that our illusionist seemed to me, and to many others, to tread a thin line between entertainment and fraud, between showmanship and chicanery. A contemporary magician may well keep the secrets of his craft close to this bosom, and guard its mechanisms with a most jealous devotion, but today, commonly, few, if any, of these delightful showmen actually pretend to the reality of magic, taken in some occult or preternatural sense. While dazzling us with their wondrous illusions, and eliciting our acclaim, delight, and awe, few, if any, pretend they are up to anything but marvelous, sophisticated tricks, tricks which, if revealed, would to our pleasure be seen to well cohere with well-recognized imperatives of nature and common sense. Our illusionist, on the other hand, often pretended that his powers were actually beyond nature, and were authentic expressions of occult forces and destinies, of powers and worlds beyond the pale of our quotidian realities, indeed, powers and worlds not only inaccessible to, but literally alien to, the quantifications and presuppositions of science. This sort of claim sophisticated auditors tended on the whole to find amusing, understanding it as part of the entertainment, but some, like myself, thought it improper, even offensive, particularly as we recognized, only too clearly, that over time some members, indeed, eventually several members, of his audience, or following, seemed to take the claim seriously. Such claims, of course, would have been more to be expected not in our own century but in, say, Rhodes of the 2nd Century, Paris or Marseilles of the 12th Century, or perhaps in Renaissance Florence. Indeed, for such claims, in earlier eras, one might have risked exile, stoning, or the stake. But to make such claims in our century was ludicrous to any informed, educated mind. The universe may be mysterious, but it is all of a piece, and it is all here, so to speak. Our reality is the only reality. Has this not been proven by science? But our illusionist, in my view, preyed on the superstitions and fears of common men, over whom he seemed to exercise a fascinating, almost hypnotic sway. He was not even above selling alleged nostrums, philters, and elixirs, prognosticating the future, and supposedly communicating with what he spoke of the “realms of the elsewise.” Supposedly there were many dimensions, or worlds, or states of being, of which ours was only one, and these differed considerably the one from the other, some relatively benign, others malignant, some as inhospitable as polar wastes, others as fraught with life as green, rain-lashed jungles, or wide, endless, wind-swept, grassy plains, trodden by incessantly prowling beasts of strange aspect, driven on and on through what would be centuries in our time, hungry, starving, seeking food. Pressed for details, of course, matters, as expected, became very vague, and we were assured that these remarks were largely sensings, and that, in our terms, such worlds and such creatures could not be easily understood or described. How convenient! They were “elsewise.” “How do you know?” he was asked. He would pale, and say, “There are doors, doors.” He was an incorrigible, exemplary charlatan. One had to admire him for his shameless bravado, if nothing else. “Have you ever gone through such doors?” we asked him. “No,” he would say. “But I open them sometimes, and look through. “Where are they?” we asked. “Sometimes they are here, and sometimes not,” he said. “Is there one here now?” we asked. “I do not think so,” he said. “How do you know they exist?” we asked. “I see them,” he said. “We do not,” we said. “Be glad,” he said. We laughed at him, and I do not think he cared for this. I suppose we had insulted him, and he was a proud, high-strung, sensitive man. But I had the eerie feeling then that he might be serious, that he might actually have convinced himself of his own nonsense, that he might have become eventually the victim of his own fancies, that we were dealing with a pathology, simply, that he might be mad. In any event it was unkind of us, and I for one regretted that we had behaved as we had.

He retired from the stage shortly after that.

One supposes this had to do with his health, which was never robust.

His career had been remarkable, all told, though, as I have suggested, controversial. I, for one, felt, despite his considerable and acknowledged talents, he had abused his craft, and had unscrupulously preyed upon the gullibility of many of his fellow human beings, that he had consciously and deliberately fostered and exploited their fears and superstitions. After his retirement he rather disappeared from public view, and, as far as I know, devoted himself to his studies. As I have suggested, he seems to have had few, if any, friends. I suppose I was as close to him as anyone, and we were not really close. He did have, however, several enemies. Naturally it was to these, where recognized, that the police devoted their attention, but after the completion of their investigation no arrests had been made, and no charges filed.

But to return to the diary.

It fell to me, at the request of the state, naturally enough, I suppose, given my dealings with the illusionist, to catalog his aforementioned collection, which was to be sold at auction. I was, accordingly, given a key to his apartments and soon set about my work. It was in the course of these labors that I chanced upon the diary.

The diary, I suppose, might have had some value as a souvenir, or memento, of the illusionist. To be sure, it was not as though he were a public figure of note, a statesman, a great scientist or famous inventor, a particularly celebrated artist or musician, or such. But it might have some value, I supposed, to a collector, particularly one interested in prestidigitation, the theater, or such. My attention was soon drawn to certain of the last entries, particularly those which seemed to regrettably document the ultimate, dismaying, utter disintegration of a human mind. The entries tend to become progressively less coherent in the last few days, and I shall occasionally summarize, or paraphrase, rather than quote, directly.

January 23rd, 20—.

I lied to them. It is not always doors. Not literally, not always.

Sometimes it is a narrow crevice, or an opening, sometimes like that of a cave. I do not know what is in the cave. Something may come out of it. I am afraid of what may come out of the cave.

I want to be left alone.

I have hurt no one.

I do not want these things.

January 27th, 20—.

They do not believe me. I do not blame them.

February 6th, 20—.

I suppose I am mad. I am not mad.

February 16th, 20—.

It is dreams, all dreams, then. The doors, the holes, the cave.

Does that make them not real? I am very tired. Can one dream while one is awake? Was I awake? Did I dream? Was I asleep, and awake? Can that be? Sleep calls to me. I will not be afraid. But I am afraid.

In my fine bed I am safe.

I must sleep. I am afraid to sleep.

I burned the books. I will do the exercises no more. I do not want the strength they give me. I do not want to see what they show me.

February 17, 20—.

Sometimes it is like a curtain. Or is it a dream? Maybe it is something like a dream. I seem to be awake. That is not unusual in a dream.

February 18th, 20—.

Why did I lie to them?

Why did I tell them there were doors. But there are doors. I know that now. I tried to lie. I wanted to lie. But I told the truth.