A Strange Country Read online

  “It is time to go,” said Marcus, “the first channel to Katsura is about to open.”

  They stood up and looked at one another.

  “Did everyone dream of great things?” asked Paulus.

  The other two nodded their heads.

  “We’d better get going,” said Petrus, “I’m hungry and I want to drink as much tea as possible before the departure.”

  He suddenly felt it was urgent to get under way and, looking one last time at the pond, he thought: everything is beginning. They went back down the corridor they had taken the night before, went again through the vestibule fragrant with iris, and came out into the street in dazzling sunlight. There was no trace of the garden’s warm, melancholy rain. All around whirled ashes, stitched with clarity by the morning light. Now that they were going down to the lock, the crowd grew thick and, at last they reached the grand channel that led to Katsura. As it opened out before them, huge and grandiose, a hundred barges appeared.

  “We are late,” said Petrus, before rushing into the way station building, where a host of steaming teapots awaited them.

  He took long sips of a black tea that tasted of chestnut, before gobbling down a tray of little tarts dripping with honey. Paulus and Marcus, who followed at a more leisurely pace, nibbled decorously on a few mouthfuls of pumpkin mille-feuille, and after that they went out and stood at the back of the line on the pier.

  The barges could accommodate a dozen voyagers, but as they quietly boarded the last one, they found themselves alone with two wild boar elves accompanied by one of their piglets. Petrus scrupulously followed the instructions of the boatmen—otters, beavers, and seagulls—who were overseeing the maneuvers with a watchful eye. Fully satisfied that he’d accomplished his task, he collapsed in his designated seat.

  Then the barges set off in the liquid mist, and they departed without knowing that now, they were traveling in the company of their dead.

  Brothers, do not forget the mandate and the realm

  Sons, in the heart of an old woman an iris from Ryoan

  Book of Prayers

  THE DEAD

  Elves can understand their dead without envoys, since they welcome everything that has been and ever will be by means of tea and mist. Thus, every elf stays in the second sanctuary at least once in his life—whether he knows it or not, he will go there.

  Released from the desire to live, the dead do not wish to weep and do not wish to laugh. They cultivate emotion without appetite, and joy beyond conquest. They know how to uncover meaning that is not drowned in thirst. And it is through this quest, detached from necessity, that the intuition of the beauty of living can be born.

  But few men understand now the wisdom of immersion in ash.

  PAINTINGS

  In Petrus’s dream, the theater of worlds was lit by that cold, pure light that has inspired the most beautiful works of art. Paintings are the motionless translations of our moving dreams, which in return bathe us with the clarity of paintings.

  No one will be surprised to learn, therefore, that a canvas painted in Amsterdam in 1514 played a decisive role in this story. It had to do with the first bridge between the worlds, but also with murder and its immeasurable consequences.

  One must be familiar with the light and landscapes of the North to understand this singular artist’s decision to settle in Amsterdam, for he could just as easily have gone south, east, or west, since from the pavilion he’d been given a free rein to begin his human life wherever he desired.

  Finally, one must be acquainted with the history of humans and elves to understand what he decided to paint, and to penetrate, beneath the visible surface, the invisible sparkling.

  The invisible sparkling behind the transparency of tears.

  WILD GRASSES IN THE SNOW

  1800

  They set off, unaware that they were now traveling with their dead. The journey from Hanase to Katsura, the capital of the elves, would take six hours, and Petrus intended to have a pleasant time along the way. He’d drunk the tea from the Ashes and filled his stomach. Moreover, the sight of the hundred barges gliding over the liquid mist had been well worth the trip. The barges advanced ten abreast, forming a magnificent display in the wide channel. And so, I find myself enjoying the sight, thought Petrus, surprised by this contemplative mood, attuned to the memory of the teahouse. What really happened there, I wonder, he thought again, recalling the night of the dead. Finally, he set aside his orderly thinking, and let himself go into the gentle trance of the voyage. No one spoke, the boatmen only voiced brief instructions regarding the passengers’ comfort—it could go on like this forever, thought Petrus and, suddenly weary, he yawned noisily.

  “There are six hours less ten minutes of crossing remaining,” Marcus pointed out.

  “Six hours less ten minutes of potential disaster,” muttered Paulus.

  “I drank the tea,” said Petrus, offended.

  Paulus studied him skeptically, but Petrus was already lost in the new vistas the channel offered.

  In the monochromatic setting of the mist, wild grasses had sprouted, spindly and sublime in an airy dishevelment, and they looked as if they’d been penned with black ink, as they stood stark against the whiteness of the décor in irregular groups, some as bushy as copses, others no more than three sprigs bending gracefully, like the necks of mourning women.

  “The name of the teahouse,” he murmured.

  In the evanescence of the world, the grasses evoked the lines of a text. They were unbelievably graceful, because they rose out of the mist with no sign of their roots, but what intrigued Petrus most was that the black tufts could be read like calligraphy. This beauty of the handwritten poetry which, up to now, he’d always found deadly dull, now seemed vibrant and full of meaning to him. Something was calling him, and for the first time he felt penetrated by figures from without; their enigmatic tale promised far greater delights than any he’d found in the poems he knew from his youth. For elves, you see, have too much respect for the living kingdom ever to constrain it; they allow their woods and their pastures the freedom to grow as they see fit; consequently, their inner gardener is merely the servant of nature, a prism refracting and sublimating nature. But one thing Petrus knew for certain was that there was something about the channel’s wild grasses that couldn’t be summed up either by the freedom of natural things nor by any intention to magnify them—shimmering inlaid with a touch of adventure; a mystery that delighted with its perfume of enchanted revelation. Perhaps that something is inside me? he wondered, and for the second time in as many days two lines of verse came to him.

  Wild grasses in the snow

  Two children of November

  I’m turning into a poet, he thought, amused. Two children, that’s not elfin, it’s human, he reflected. Suddenly, everything disappeared, the channel was empty once again, and he felt orphaned. Go on, he thought, I’m not good at crossings. He wedged himself into his seat to have a nap, but an image suddenly came to his mind, so clear that it caused him to sit bolt upright. A little girl was walking toward him, wrapped in an iridescent veil that drifted slowly around her. Marcus looked at Petrus, raising a questioning eyebrow, and the apparition vanished. However, it stayed in his mind and again he saw the serious little face—ten years old, perhaps—the dark golden skin, her mouth like a stain of new blood. Then the vision was gone.

  “Everything all right?” asked Marcus.

  He nodded, and eased into his seat again. No one spoke; before long, he dozed off.

  He awoke with a start, driven by a feeling of urgency. It seemed as if he had slept long and deep, and he hoped the journey was nearly over.

  “You slept for a good two hours, snoring like a trumpet,” said Marcus spitefully. “So, we couldn’t get any sleep.”

  “Two hours?” echoed Petrus. “So there are four more hours to go?”

  “Apparentl
y snoring doesn’t affect the ability to do math,” said Marcus to Paulus.

  “I’ll never last,” said Petrus.

  “What do you mean, last?” asked Paulus.

  “I have to do something about the tea I drank,” he replied, looking all around him.

  Marcus and Paulus studied him with consternation.

  “How many cups did you drink?” Marcus finally asked.

  “I don’t know,” said Petrus, annoyed, “maybe a dozen. You’re not about to reproach me for being conscientious?”

  “A dozen,” echoed Paulus.

  “Didn’t you read the signs?” asked Marcus.

  “Was it too much for you to read the signs?” asked Paulus.

  “We were late,” said Petrus, “I wasn’t about to waste time reading poems.”

  There was a silence.

  “They weren’t poems?” he asked.

  Marcus and Paulus didn’t reply.

  “I didn’t read the signs,” he said. “I was busy drinking.”

  “And eating,” said Marcus.

  “Otherwise you would’ve learned that because of the length of the crossing, they recommended drinking only one cup of tea,” added Paulus.

  “It’s highly concentrated,” said Marcus.

  “And the toilets are at the way station, to be used before departure,” said Paulus.

  “But usually we don’t need to explain that to anyone other than elfkins,” said Marcus finally.

  When Marcus said, “highly concentrated,” Petrus began to suspect something.

  “Did you see the grasses?” he asked.

  “Grasses?” said Paulus.

  “The wild grasses,” said Petrus.

  “There were no wild grasses,” said Marcus.

  Petrus registered his reply with interest, but his bladder, alas, now required all his attention.

  “I can’t possibly hold it for four hours,” he said, beginning to sweat like a pig.

  “Well, you will have to,” said Marcus.

  “That’s a superelfin feat,” said Petrus, “I can’t.”

  Paulus let out a whistle of irritation.

  “Not on the barge, in any case,” he said.

  “And especially not in the mists,” said Marcus.

  Then he gave a sigh.

  “Take off your clothes,” he said, “and do what you have to do inside them.”

  “My clothes?” said Petrus, horrified.

  “Then you’ll just have to hold it,” answered Marcus.

  Petrus felt so pitiful, and the prospect of soiling his clothing yet again was so disgusting to him, that he wanted to believe he could do the impossible. For ten minutes, he wriggled like a worm on his seat, changing from horse to squirrel, then man, unable to find either a position or a shape that might bring him some relief.

  “If you make yourself sick on top of it,” said Paulus, exasperated, “that wouldn’t be very smart, either.”

  Petrus was about to reply when he noticed that the young wild boar elf was looking at him with interest. All I need is a spectator, he thought, annoyed. The boar’s parents had fallen asleep, but their offspring was watching him with his lovely brown eyes fringed with rebellious eyelashes and, in spite of the urgency of the moment, Petrus took note of the roundness of his young snout, the delicate line of the stripes on his back, and the adorable neatness of his silky hooves. How could such a pretty animal become so ugly when it grew up? he wondered—for although the wild boars of the mists are a more handsome species than those to be found on human earth, they are not particularly refined, either. Petrus was already not crazy about hazelnuts and acorns, but the thought of digging in the ground to feed off them turned his stomach (moreover, like his fellows, unless circumstances dictated otherwise, he only fed when he was in human form, and he even suspected that his horse self was allergic to forage).

  The young wild boar, captivated by his contortions, was still scrutinizing him unabashedly.

  “You drank too much tea,” he said, “I saw you at the way station, you were really thirsty.”

  “I wasn’t thirsty,” snapped Petrus.

  “I can give you a vase,” said the boar, ignoring his answer. “It’s a present for the Head of the Council. If you like, you can borrow it, you can empty it when we arrive and give it back to me discreetly. Your clothes wouldn’t be enough,” he added, realistically. “So that’s why I thought of the vase.”

  There was a prolonged silence, then Paulus cleared his throat.

  “That’s very kind of you,” he said, “but we cannot do that.”

  “And why not?” asked the piglet, turning into the most admirable little human specimen you could ever meet.

  His blond hair was perfectly matched by his blue eyes, which were virtually impossible to look away from. Was it the fact they were so light, almond-shaped, magnified by sweet lashes that were also blond, and garlanded with perfect brows? Or were those eyes so beautiful because of the spark that migrated from those artfully drawn pink lips, lighting an exquisite fire in them? The young elf was smiling at them, and it seemed as if the world was glistening, so much so that Petrus, bewitched by such an endearing face, briefly forgot his torment.

  “A vase intended for the Head of the Council cannot be used as a urinal,” continued Paulus.

  But he couldn’t take his eyes off the splendid young face either.

  “It won’t diminish its beauty,” said the boy, and he smiled again.

  Marcus, Paulus, and Petrus, lost in that smile as if they were in a forest carpeted with periwinkle, all felt their resolution give way at the same time.

  “It simply isn’t done,” said Marcus, in a final effort at decency which lacked all resolve.

  The elfkin reached for the vase, which was wrapped in a soft poppy print fabric and stamped with family seals in flat tints of ink. Elves have two seals, that of their animal self and that of their personal house. The seal of wild boars, in tribute to the species’ preference for nocturnal life, consists of a waning moon above a tea plantation. Added to this was the piglet’s own family seal, a spotted iris against a background of tiny stars. Said piglet checked that his parents were asleep, and he went over to the threesome, whose will was as weak as their reflexes. There was a hypnotic fluidity about his movements, and while he was removing the vase from its cloud of poppies, Petrus, Marcus, and Paulus looked at him dumbly. He set it down before them.

  “It’s an urn,” murmured Paulus.

  It was indeed an urn, of light, changing bronze, alternately fawn, gray, brown, or, finally, a milky comet white.

  “It comes from the oldest bronze foundry in the mists,” answered the elfkin. “We came to Hanase for it, and we are taking it to Katsura to give it to the Head of the Council.”

  “I thought that urns didn’t travel,” said Paulus.

  “Only bottomless urns,” he replied.

  He changed into a colt, a ravishing bay colt—but however adorable he might be, the spell that had bound the threesome was broken, and Petrus shook his head as if emerging from a dream.

  “I appreciate your offer,” he said to the colt, “but I cannot accept it.”

  And as the moment was dire, and he didn’t think he could wait any longer, he took a few steps toward the back of the barge, turned to one side and, revealing his white buttocks, removed his clothing. Then he turned into a squirrel and relieved himself as discreetly as he could. It felt so good and so wretched that he could have wept twice over, and in the end, in fact, it was tears of gratitude that came, because in addition to the remarkable relief, a miracle had occurred: the more he wet his garment, the faster it dried. The supple cloth absorbed the liquid, creased, then dried. When he’d finished his business, he didn’t dare get dressed again, but he waved the cloth in front of Paulus, Marcus, and the colt.

  “Well, I
never,” said Paulus. “When it rains it doesn’t dry that quickly.”

  “I’m astonished we didn’t know this before,” said Petrus, “it would have spared me a few very nasty minutes.”

  “You must be the first elf who has ever urinated in his clothing, that’s why,” said Paulus.

  “It’s cosmic,” said the colt, turning into a piglet.

  Once he was human again he wrapped up the urn and laid it at his parents’ feet. They were napping quietly, and Petrus was surprised that this pair of peaceable high-elves had given birth to such a subtle little monster, for he didn’t doubt for a moment that the blond boy was as handsome as the very devil. Once the enchantment of his smile and sky-blue eyes had waned, Petrus felt a fleeting intuition of danger, and now that the young elf was coming back toward them, he still felt an unease, something the boy’s dazzling face couldn’t dissipate.

  “Which province are you from?” Marcus asked him.

  “We are from Ryoan,” he replied, “which is why we have the iris on our coat of arms. My father is the Council emissary for the province of Dark Mists. He presides over the permanent assembly and is in command of the regular units.”

  “Is it customary for envoys to offer urns to the Head of the Council?” asked Paulus.

  “Ordinarily,” said the elfkin, “we give presents to everyone in the upper chamber. But this is an election year and we thank the departing head with personal gifts.”

  “That’s right,” said Marcus, “I’d forgotten, the Head of the Council has been serving for four hundred years.”

  “It’s a historic moment,” said the elfkin, “when you reach Katsura it will be bubbling with excitement.”

  “So there will be a new guardian in Nanzen,” said Paulus thoughtfully. “If I’m not mistaken, he will be appointed by the Head of the Council, then voted on by the new councilors.”