Ten Tributes to Calvino Read online

  “How will we know when we arrive?” he enquired.

  “Keep an eye open for the Non-Existent Viscount in the Trees. When you see him, that’s a strong indication.”

  He was silent for some minutes and then he said, “The best thing you can do is skip ahead and insert your own name into all the blank spaces above all the empty lines.”

  “Who are you talking to?” I wondered.

  “The reader, who is the main character near the end of this story.”

  “It seems you are quite Calvinoesque already!”

  He nodded gratefully but remained silent until we entered the woods. Then he craned his head upwards in surprise. “Who are all those men sitting in all those trees?”

  “Viscounts,” I replied, “but they aren’t non-existent, so ignore them. It’s not far now but we aren’t there yet.”

  How it happened I don’t know, but I clearly took a wrong turning and our destination remained elusive. The forest became darker and stranger and I couldn’t find my way back out. We were thoroughly lost. At last I stopped the car near a large hut.

  “I’ll go in there and ask directions,” I said.

  “I’ll come with you,” he answered.

  We entered the hut together. It was a sort of hostel or refuge for walkers and climbers and it was full of people, but after only a few minutes I realised they were all writers who had hoped to change styles but ended up here instead. One Irish author told me that he wanted to explore Joycean territory and had gone looking for it on a very drunken horse.

  “That was after an experience I had in the oddest restaurant in Dublin,” he added. “I wasn’t happy with the service and so ordered a new waiter. To my astonishment the old waiter came back with a tray and one of those big silver coverings I don’t know the name of. He lifted it to reveal a tiny man with impeccable manners and a napkin.”

  “You got what you ordered,” I pointed out.

  “Maybe. But a tiny man like that wasn’t much use to me, so I asked for another replacement. The tiny man had his own tray and silver covering which he lifted to reveal an even smaller waiter. I demanded yet another. The next one was truly minuscule and they kept getting smaller. I expect that sort of thing in Cork but not in Dublin. Finally I galloped away to safety.”

  “A sensible precaution,” I observed very helpfully.

  Then I saw that CCCP Snow was growing agitated. He didn’t like being around other writers, especially as they were all more interested in themselves than in him. He felt intimidated by a sailor who introduced himself as Captain Nothing and explained how he had sailed here down a narrow stream looking for Conradian themes. Another fellow had been hoping to tread ground already covered by Kafka. His failure in this regard wasn’t quite Kafkaesque enough to satisfy him.

  Although I am a very helpful man, there is a limit to what I am prepared to do. I didn’t know where I was, so there was no way I could return my passenger to the market where I found him, much less drop him off in Calvinoesque territory. I am a very helpful man but I rarely keep my promises. Because I am so very helpful I tend to make promises I can’t keep. Let that be a helpful warning to you. Take my hand and shake it to prove my good faith.

  Thanks. Now I have a firm grip on your hand I can pull you into this story. Too late to resist! Take my hat and coat as well. You look just like me and CCCP Snow will never notice the difference. While you deal with him, I’ll slip out and make my escape. He’s coming over now. Thanks again! Farewell.

  “I dislike this place. I think it’s time to leave.”

  “I’m not the man who drove you here. My name is ____. I was innocently reading this story when I was dragged out of the real world and onto the page. I hate literary tricks like that.”

  “Well I’m planning to use more of them in my next book. I’m moving away from social realism. What did you say your name was again?”

  “It’s ____. Actually my full name is____ ____.”

  “Don’t you have a middle name?”

  “If I do, it’s ____. If I don’t, I can’t help you.”

  “But you’re supposed to be a very helpful man.”

  “You must be mixing me up with someone else.”

  “Do you have any idea where we are?”

  “This is just a guess but I think we’re on Happenstance, a planet that collided with the Earth so slowly they became stuck together without major catastrophe. Happenstance is where Christendom overlaps with Lackadaysia, the Three Utopias and Muffin Chops. All these facts I made up just now.”

  “I thought you were a reader, not a writer!”

  “Someday the name ____ ____ will occupy the highest pinnacles of Mount Literary Fame. Believe it!”

  “Bah!”

  I was long gone by the time that conversation was half done. I drove randomly for an hour, worried that I was going in circles, but then I spotted a tree without a figure sitting in it. At last I had wandered into Calvinoesque territory. From here I knew my way home. I waved at the empty tree as I passed.

  I decided to return to work. I own a time machine shop. Being very helpful isn’t enough when there’s no help for it.

  “Do you have any time machines in stock?”

  “Past or future models sir?”

  “I’ll take a future, if I may.”

  “We’re still waiting for them to come in.”

  “In that case I’ll have a past.”

  “Sorry. We used to have them, but they’ve all gone!”

  The Chattering Star

  CURTAINS

  The setting sun eventually became paranoid. “Why does everyone keep staring at me? They never scrutinise me in the middle of the day – only when I’m going to bed! I think I’ll draw the clouds tight from now on and get some privacy!”

  WAITING FOR BREAKFAST

  A boy sat on the beach with a toasting fork, holding it up to the sun. “You need to light a fire with driftwood,” the sun told him, “because I’m not hot enough to toast that slice of bread.”

  “You will be when you turn into a Red Giant,” answered the boy.

  The sun considered this and said:

  “Yes, I’ll swell up and engulf the innermost planets and boil into steam the oceans of Earth, and any bread lying around will toast nicely, but that won’t happen for billions of years!”

  The boy laughed and shook his head.

  “Don’t you know that one day I’ll have children and entrust this task to them, and that they too will have children and do likewise, and so on until the necessary time has elapsed?”

  The sun was amazed. “That is a long wait for breakfast!”

  THE FABLE

  “What are you doing in there?”

  “Nothing, I assure you.”

  But the sun wasn’t convinced. “Are you writing fables again? You’ll grow pale and unhealthy if you stay indoors all day; come out and bask in my beams instead. If you must continue writing, you can do it in the fresh air. There can’t be much to write about in a dark room anyway! I wonder what inspiration you find in gloom?”

  “Sometimes,” I responded, “it’s easier to write about a subject when I force myself to avoid the real thing.”

  “Ah, so the new fable is about your wife?”

  I said nothing; I’m not married. But I looked down and to my surprise saw that my fable was finished: this one.

  PASSING THE LIGHT

  The moon reflects the light of the sun; and the frozen lake reflects the light of the moon; and the coin held between the thumb and forefinger of the assassin reflects the light of the frozen lake.

  “If this is genuine, I’ll do what you ask,” he tells a hooded figure who stands in the shadows of the tallest tree.

  Then he puts the coin between his teeth and bites it.

  And on the other side of the world, the sun screams…

  THE FREE SPIRIT

  The sun has a large brood of planets and Earth is just one of its children and not even the favourite. “Saturn’s the on
e that makes me most proud and I wish the others would try equally hard to be so distinctive; I don’t mean by copying his rings but with some other original approach to the question. It’s not for me to specify what.”

  An astronomer overheard this and said, “But Saturn isn’t really the most unique world in your family.”

  “How are you able to understand my words? They should be inaudible to you; I have already set on your locality.”

  “But I’m standing on a high mountain and although the land below me is blanketed with the shadows of twilight, up here you are still visible and will be for another minute at least.”

  “Fair enough, but won’t you grow cold up there?”

  The astronomer pulled on thick gloves and knotted a scarf around his neck. “I’m a professional and used to it. Every evening I wait here for you to go down, and then I enter my observatory.”

  “Tell me why you disparage Saturn,” the sun demanded.

  “Because it’s just as timid as the others: they all refuse to go off and make their own way in the universe. I left home when I was seventeen! And yet once, many aeons ago, you had a planet that took the brave step of leaving its orbit and going travelling; it wanted to establish itself as its own master in this difficult cosmos of ours!”

  “Ah yes, I remember Scruffy, the old rogue! But he never came back, never kept in touch. Do you have news of him?”

  “Last night my telescope found him. He is herding lost comets near Alpha Centauri and seems happy enough.”

  THE SUN LAMP

  Two merchants approached the sun and said, “We have something to sell you that we know you’ll find very useful. In this box is the latest kind of sun lamp! It’s powerful and projects a light similar to your own. So now you’ll be able to read books or comb your hair or search for dropped pins or squeeze your spots at night.”

  The sun frowned. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  The merchants smiled indulgently. “Which part don’t you understand? The books, the comb or the pins?”

  And the sun answered, “What is night?”

  SAYINGS OF THE SUN

  Some of the sun’s favourite sayings:

  “I yearn for nostalgia!”

  “Second guessing is my special talent. I know what you’re going to say about that… but it really is!”

  “My apparent arrogance is always tongue in cheek, but it’s a wonderful tongue in a most super cheek!”

  “I’m a tautology lover and therefore love tautologies!”

  “Bring back atavism!”

  “A business question about Mephistopheles: was he ever incorporated or did he remain a soul trader?”

  “Is the San Andreas Fault all it’s cracked up to be?”

  “Standing on the shoulders of giants to see further is a fine tactic, but not when they have big hair!”

  “This is only the second time I’ve had déjà vu!”

  “The word ‘chortle’ always makes me snigger; but the word ‘snigger’ mostly just makes me guffaw!”

  “My mind’s an open book, but I’ve cracked the spine so it always falls open on a pre-arranged page!”

  “Despite the pain it always causes, a contradiction in a sentence never hurt anyone.” And ultimately:

  “Excessive understatement is so over the top!”

  MAKING A REQUEST

  “Why don’t you ever come to Wales?” asked the people of that country, through a gigantic megaphone that penetrated the thick endless layers of low grey cloud. “Not once in living memory have you visited us; but we have many attractions for you to shine on! There are castles and hills and forests and secret valleys and little offshore islands and ancient megaliths and the ruins of abbeys and quaint piers and narrow-gauge railways and rousing choirs and coracles and odd hats. Take a copy of this guide book and read about them for yourself!”

  “Don’t be silly!” came the muffled reply. “How can I read anything if I have no eyes? How can I hear what you are saying, or respond to it, if I have no ears or mouth? I’m not even a sentient being but an unimaginably vast ball of seething hydrogen and helium atoms. So go away and leave me alone. Your request is foolish!”

  The sun will use any excuse to avoid Wales.

  MISPLACED COMFORT

  The explorer was lost in the desert and now he sank to his knees and his bloated tongue protruded from his gaping mouth. The sun sighed. “I reach down to stroke him continually; but it doesn’t seem to help. I don’t even think he’s grateful for my attention!”

  THE LABYRINTH

  The girl smiled and said, “My name’s Ariadne and I’m a direct descendant of the Ariadne who helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth after his encounter with the Minotaur.”

  “I know the story,” admitted the sun, “but there’s no point giving me a spool of thread to unwind; I’m far too hot and it would burn up in a blink. You’d better try something else…”

  “There are many kinds of threads,” she said.

  And she whispered something.

  The sun entered the labyrinth, he really had no choice: at every bend there was a mirror angled to project him in a new direction; and before he knew it, he had reached the centre of the awful stone maze. The grotesque Minotaur that sat on the rotten bench there was also a descendant of the original and doubtless he would have roused himself enough to stand and confront the intruder with his club.

  But many centuries of degeneration, of living in shadows without the benefit of fresh air or true exercise, of loneliness and boredom, meant his mythic bloodline had degenerated. Centuries of semi-bovine melancholy had turned him into an albino parasite. In fact he was a vampire, or rather his human half was. He glanced up and almost immediately the sunlight caused him to wither, shrivel, char.

  The sun turned to escape the labyrinth, and he recalled Ariadne’s wise words. “Follow the motes!” And that’s what he did: those specks of dust, of airborne flakes from the hybrid monster’s skin, enabled him to find his way back to the narrow entrance.

  “You slew him!” cried the girl.

  The sun nodded. “Accidentally. I didn’t have time to introduce myself or offer a tip and I regret that fact.”

  “What a peculiar idea! Why offer him a tip?”

  “Because this labyrinth is a hotel as well as a trap, isn’t it?

  “How did you arrive at that conclusion?”

  “He was a bullboy, wasn’t he?”

  ON THE WINDOWSILL

  The sun wanted to complain about a trick that humans kept playing. “I’m intrigued by the magnifying glasses they leave lying on their windowsills; but every time I peer into one, all I can see is a rapidly expanding charred circle and wisps of smoke. I’m certain that’s not the same as what humans see. There’s something funny going on!”

  THE DUNGEON

  The sun poked its nose into a prison cell and saw a depressed prisoner on a bed of rotten straw. “What’s wrong?”

  The prisoner pulled his matted beard and said:

  “I shared this grim cell with a man who kept me entertained with tales of distant places and through him I lived vicariously as a traveller, but he has been moved to a different room and I am bored again. The bubbles of illusion he created have all burst.”

  “Tell me about your life,” prompted the sun.

  “It has been a long and exciting one, that’s for sure! I was born in Pisa in the tumultuous 13th Century and became a professional fabricator and embellisher of romances at a young age. I was captured by the forces of Genoa at the Battle of Meloria…”

  “One moment. I’ll write down everything you say. Maybe a book can be made out of it; a bestseller!”

  “Do you really think so?” blinked the man.

  “Sure! What’s your name?”

  “Rustichello,” came the answer, spoken in a resigned tone, for many readers wouldn’t recognise it.

  But you will, because you’re clever.

  THE TRIBAL PHILOSOPHERS

  The peopl
e of the remote island said to each other, “The light of the moon is more important than the light of the sun. This isn’t hard to believe! The light of the moon appears at night, when it’s most needed; but the light of the sun appears only in the daytime, when we can already see everything clearly, and is therefore superfluous.”

  And they added salt and pepper to the missionary.

  THE DAGGER

  The two merchants approach the assassin and say, “We offered you that dagger on a trial basis only. It’s a Damascene blade, very finely tempered. Did it meet expectations? The trial period has just ended, and unless you return the item, you must pay in full.”

  The moon reflects the light of the sun; and the pub window reflects the light of the moon; and the stiletto held in the leather glove of the assassin reflects the light of the pub window.

  “But I haven’t had time to use it yet!”

  A hooded figure hisses from the nearby shadow of a tall tree, “Hurry up! Hurry! Get the job done quick!”

  The assassin snorts, “Everything’s under control.” And he reaches into his pocket for the coin it contains. He cuts this coin in half with the blade and gives a piece to each merchant.

  And on the far side of the world, the sun frowns and gasps, “Suddenly I feel like an amoeba. How curious!”

  CONFUSIONS OF THE SUN

  There are particular metaphysical problems that bother the sun from time to time. Although he turns these problems over and over in his own mind, he doesn’t ask anyone for advice about them. He’s afraid of looking like a fool and being mocked by sages.

  So when he passes over philosophers and other wise fellows he calls a brisk, “Hello there!” and dashes behind the nearest cloud; or if there aren’t any clouds in the vicinity, he makes other kinds of small talk, about sport, politics or taxes, maybe, but never about the weather, because he dislikes giving away all his trade secrets.