A Strange Country Page 15

  Travel had become second nature to him, and the actual journey became almost more important than the places he visited, although there was hardly a remote corner of this world unworthy of praise.

  He loved the province of the Leaves, and the pavilion and bridge of mists on an outcrop in the distance, but above all he’d been astonished by the density of the forest that separated Nanzen from the rest of the world, with neither channel nor passage to get there. At the way station where travelers could stop and admire the first sanctuary, in the distance, they served a frothy green tea with a grassy taste. There was no backbone to its flavor—a powerful flavor of nothing, a smooth, pale concentrate of forest from before the time of elves, which evoked unusual images to Petrus, in particular a dimly lit scene where, against a background of silky darkness, a glass of water stood next to three forgotten cloves of garlic, and he became convinced that this vision with the texture of a painting came from elsewhere, from an unknown land that was calling to him, although he couldn’t figure out how to get there.

  He also loved the northern regions which, in the mists, unlike in human lands, are the warmest. There, one could hear the constant song of cicadas, and swarms of dragonflies vibrated above the rice paddies; above all, the provender they served there was seasoned with grilled herbs and generous spices. In the south, he’d felt at home in the provinces of the Friezes and the Frozen Sands, where all day long they drank warm honey beside the fireplace. Outside, there were endless beaches and stormy plains, constant wind and glacial islands; and yet, beneath the steep thatched roofs where they warmed themselves as they shared their supper, the elves of those lands had created a very comfortable life for themselves. As a reward for their indoor isolation, they would venture out the next morning into the frozen mist of dawn and, suddenly, it was as if everything had been cleared away and made bright, a powerful gust had chased the clouds away to reveal a huge sky, a profusion of pure sky, a sky so enormous that one was lost in it, a sky where seagulls passed high overhead as if shot there by invisible archers.

  This was the world Petrus explored at every latitude and I cannot fully describe the landscapes of mountains and coasts, waterfalls and lakes, volcanoes and prairies. But in every province the same mists could be found, the same trees and the same moss, which give these lands their identity, the same traditions of tea, and the same wooden verandas where one could stand and admire the affability of huge clouds. It was a blessing for the journey, when he still felt out of his mists (as they say in these parts), his status as a stranger gave a logic to this fantasy, and he became a privileged observer of the customs of his fellow elves, painting throughout his travels a picture that few elves have had the opportunity to imagine, and while he might yearn for an elusive elsewhere, he learned to love his people deeply, and their manner of dwelling upon their lands.

  For the landscapes of the mists are the alter egos of the souls that incarnate them. Humans, because they separate the seer from the seen, and the creator from the created, cannot understand the nature of this game of mirrors. Elves do not conceive of their lands as portions of the world they might inhabit, but as dynamic forces in which their own energy is released, while the tea gives inner eyes and ears to this great, vital fusion—thus, they could not imagine themselves admiring mere landscapes, but rather, in every valley, every tree, and every garden, the work of the cosmos as a whole, an immense solidarity reverberated to infinity by the mists. This gave rise to a peace-loving population, since the whole would not dream of combatting the whole; elves would be stunned to think one could tell stories, as I am doing, where they could see only landscapes that have been arbitrarily selected from the magma of life. Instead, their days were spent in peace: they drank their tea, which awakens an awareness of the universal mixture; they worked in order to contribute to the proper running of the community; then, once they had drunk their tea and done their work, they tended their gardens, wrote and recited poetry, sang, enjoyed pottery and calligraphy—all activities valued by humans as exquisite forms of leisure, but which, for the elves, constitute the natural continuation of the harmony of the world, flows of action inserted in a flow of mist which, in return, acquires its flesh through these activities. And so, while all this may have delighted the self-respecting elf in Petrus, he also felt frustrated for a reason that the library would reveal to him.

  One day when, in the presence of the steward, he expressed his surprise that the books were suspended in the air, she replied:

  “These texts and inks are the repositories of the dream of the mists.”

  Indeed, the dream of the library had the shape of interconnected books that told the history of the mists, scrolls of poetry that celebrated the mists, or parchments that recorded the great deeds of the mists, all of it interspersed with delicate inking that invariably painted trees and mountains in the mist. After decades of reading, he’d had his fill of the misty, elegiac, historical fresco to which all the literature and art of the elves seemed to be reduced, and he despaired of understanding what it was that drove him day after day to keep looking there for that something the wild grasses of the channel had once whispered to him, long ago. He did like to read, however, the way some people pray, in the quiet contemplation of a motionless voyage steeped in the value of a reality that real life itself had failed to give him. But this unusual freshness quickly soured, drowned in the endless repetitions of monotonous celebrations, and from all his voyages through channels or poetry, the only thing he gained was a sense of frustration that grew exponentially as the years went by. I have a particular fondness for Petrus, simply because, while I loved the world of elves before the fall, I also understood whatever incongruous aspirations he might have in his heart; one must, in a way, be a stranger to the world to wish to invent it, and unknown to oneself to want to go beyond what is visible.

  Do not suppose, however, that he did not love his native land and that, the moment he saw the end was near, he did not feel his heart breaking. It was four decades after arriving in Katsura, while he was on his way to Ryoan for the first time. The channel between Katsura and Ryoan was unstable, by virtue of a topological oddity that had placed the two great elfin cities as far apart as possible in this world, at its highest altitude and at its lowest, and this produced a flow of tension that made the eight-hour boat ride one of the most unpredictable for Nanzen. The channel was often closed and Petrus, after a long series of failed attempts to reach the city, only got there after he had already explored three-quarters of the rest of the elfin territory. After a somewhat chaotic crossing—but turbulence in the channel, once so rare, had now become commonplace—Petrus and his companions landed at dawn at the docks of the fourth sanctuary, and all three now stood there gaping. He thought he’d seen so many marvels that nothing could ever dazzle him again, but he was wrong, for in all the known worlds, there has never existed a more absolute city than Ryoan, and by absolute, I mean beautiful and powerful, but also impossible. Although it was entirely shrouded in dark mists, the houses and trees shone like black diamonds. Darkness emerged from light, the world was lit up while an alchemist’s filter allowed one to see every object clearly and distinctly, standing out against the background it should have dissolved into. Here there were no mountains, but there were cliffs of mist, as imposing as the ones in Katsura, entire sections standing tall all through the city. These huge gleaming screens ran from east to west, and day and night Ryoan was resplendent in their dark light. There was, too, a liquid silver, a flowing iridescence of the sun in the interstices of darkness, streaming over bridges and silent gardens—all was darkness, all was silver, all was transparency, and the city could be seen through canopies of mist that sparked like power lines. There was a caressing softness to it all, and you missed it once it had moved eastward, then you gratefully welcomed the next wave as it came out of the west.

  “It’s like a painting in ink and crystal,” said Paulus, rousing the other two from their stupor.

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p; “It is said that the brilliance of this darkness knows no rival,” said Marcus. “I understand why the elves from Ryoan are proud.”

  And indeed, as Petrus would declare that first evening, over a mug of honey more refined than any found in other provinces: wandering through the streets of the town was a level one spiritual experience. Earlier on, they had gone past a garden where, on a patch of black sand, a single bitter orange tree grew, and its little white flowers, sculpted against the background of dark mist, looked like stars adrift in the nocturnal ether. Their perfume, which he could taste in his mug of honey, had almost driven Petrus mad, and everything was like that in this welcoming, sublime city, which the three friends did not want to leave.

  “Ryoan has this effect on me—like a filter that makes everything seem sharper,” he said, again.

  He didn’t know where this sort of idea was coming from, but each time he had such a thought, it seemed right to him, and familiar, and he would point it out to his two companions.

  “It’s the effect of the thousand-year-old tea,” declared Paulus, setting his mug down. “Ever since we drank it we’ve been living with our dead, or they’ve been living with us, I don’t know which, but they dignify our private thoughts.”

  The night before the departure, they went out into the warm twilight. Walking along the banks of the river, yielding to the flow of seasons, trees, and mountains whispered by the current, they made an unexpected encounter. It was only once the elf had come right up to him and smiled that Petrus, addled by the excess of orange flower syrup he’d indulged in at dinner, recognized the blond angel from the channel at Hanase, his complexion more delicate, his eyes bluer than ever, a young adult now and so dazzlingly beautiful that Petrus was (almost) speechless.

  “Now I find you just when I’m about to leave Ryoan,” said the elf with a smile, “It must be a sign of fate.”

  They all bowed amiably.

  “Where are you going?” asked Paulus.

  “To Katsura, through the first channel at dawn,” he replied, turning into a wild boar so gracious he made one think of a deer. “I’ve just been accepted onto the team of gardeners to the Council,” he added proudly.

  “That’s quite a coincidence, said Petrus, “I’m also working at the upper chamber.”

  “My father recommended me to the head of the garden,” said the fine boar, turning into a gorgeous horse.

  “He’s a remarkable artist,” said Petrus politely.

  “Who should have been Head of the Council,” said the other elf nonchalantly.

  There was a moment’s silence.

  “Our present head has all the qualities required to govern the mists,” said Petrus.

  “You think this is so because he was elected? Do you believe that the common elf has any idea what the qualities of a leader should be?” asked the horse.

  “There are none more common than I,” said Petrus, after a moment’s silence.

  The young elf looked hard at him for a moment then gave that irresistible smile that banished any misgivings.

  “I doubt that very much,” he said, before bowing gracefully and taking his leave.

  But after he’d gone a few steps he turned around briefly.

  “I will see you soon,” he said to Petrus, in a way that made his blood run cold.

  In his capacity as head sweeper, Petrus was witness to the Council’s important affairs and backstage intrigue. His subordinate status cloaked him in an invisibility that gave him access to all sorts of information more prominent elves wouldn’t be able to obtain, particularly as he was still just as popular as he had been back in his Woods. Everyone liked Petrus, everyone sought out his company, and not a day went by when he was not invited for a drink of maple or rose-hip syrup, to which he would respond favorably if he had finished his reading. Sweeping was an agreeable vocation; the brooms were made of light bamboo and one hardly needed to touch the ground; the job was neither difficult nor tiring, and he took pleasure in leaving a tidy space behind him, cleaned of a few careless leaves. He worked only from dawn to lunchtime, and his afternoons were as free as was his access to all the remotest areas of the headquarters, including the inner gardens which could be reached through the north door, and the Council Chambers. However, the more the time passed, the less he felt like going there. The head of the gardeners had not won the election, but was clearly gaining influence over the upper chamber. Gradually, gray sand came to replace the moss, and the vegetation disappeared in favor of magnificent stones that the gardener’s assistants would track down in the four corners of the mists—thus, a visitor to the garden would see, through successive plays of stone and sand, the tide on the shore, eternal mountains, or the unyielding lakes of this world. But these displays were unfeeling, which came as no surprise to Petrus, who was careful to sweep below the picture windows of the upper chamber whenever the Head of the Council was reading out the daily report on the mists from Nanzen. And Petrus overheard the questions on the part of the head of the garden and the curator of the library who, along with the ten councilors, and sometimes envoys from the provinces, had the right to attend the sessions.

  He could not have imagined better leaders than those who had been elected. The Guardian of the Pavilion in particular filled him with admiration, with his melodious voice and ageless gaze. The head of the garden never attacked him to his face, any more than he did the hare elf from Katsura who presided over the sessions with elegant authority and a sense of irony that was fairly uncommon among elves. They were giants. They were giants in the service of a world deep in turmoil, because every daily report described the increasing decline of the mist. Moreover, they had to confront the destroyer of the centuries-old vegetation, obsessed with stones and perfection, who was no longer in hiding and was openly campaigning against humans.

  “How can you deny the facts?” he asked the Head of the Council. “How can you ignore that their unbearable frivolity is destroying the paradise that was entrusted to them and, through the contagion of the bridge, is also poisoning our own paradise?”

  “There are no simple causes or remedies to any illness,” replied the hare. “Designating a providential enemy will not save our mist.”

  “You are deluding yourself with chitchat while criminals are running about the countryside with impunity,” replied the gardener.

  “Decline is not a crime, but a challenge,” replied the guardian.

  “Nothing will give us back our mists if we do not act.”

  And this went on, tirelessly, while Petrus, year after year, saw the elves grow despondent and the words of the gardener infiltrate their hearts, although there was not yet a single councilor who was willing to adopt a radical position regarding the human question.

  When destiny takes an abrupt turn, there are no flowers to distract us from it. It was a fine November afternoon and he was reading, ensconced on a soft cushion in a recess in the library, looking out at the only garden that had been spared the mineral mischief of the elf from Ryoan. He read and sighed intermittently, vaguely interested and bored by the autumn elegies in a collection that was part of a great classic of the mists, the Canto of the Alliance, where the natural affinities of mountains, forests, and clouds were celebrated over and over. It was illustrated ad nauseam with magnificent ink drawings where, against a background of misty summits, trees gracefully lost their leaves, and birds, joined by the writing of poetry, flew high in the sky.

  Neither spring nor summer nor winter

  Know the grace

  Of languid autumn

  He sighed again and, taking the volume with him, went out into the first courtyard where he sat in the sun, his back against an old plum tree. It was very mild and, after a few additional pages of maple trees blazing in the setting sun, he was about to doze off when something in his reading startled him and made him sit up, his heart pounding and his nose quivering. He stared at a camel
lia flower before him that a gardener from the first shift had left on the moss, not seeing it, went back to the text, shook his head, read it over and over, endlessly.

  the rebirth of the mists

  through two children of snow and November

  the rootless the last alliance

  “By the mists,” he murmured at last (which, in elfin, is the equivalent of “holy mackerel”).

  He did not know which was more upsetting, that he’d found in these lines the inspiration of those he’d once spontaneously created, under the influence of the wild grasses in the channel, or that for the first time he was in the presence of such an unthinkable text. From his reading, he could swear that this poem did not celebrate anything that existed, did not evoke anything that had ever happened but, on the contrary, described the affliction of the mist and outlined the remedy as if it had anticipated and conceived them. Three lines in an unknown story and life was radiant, in league with a heart swollen with a new intoxication so intense that he could feel that heart pounding fit to burst, and he could no longer see what was there before him—and precisely, there before him, observing him in silence, stood the Head of the Council. How long has he been standing there? wondered Petrus, leaping to his feet. The sun was setting, smoothing the moss in the courtyard with its low-angled light. He felt a chill and blinked his eyes as if emerging from a long dream. He stood there for a few moments before the silent Head of the Council.

  “What are you reading?” asked the Head, finally.

  Everything that had gathered in Petrus’s mind during the hours he’d remained motionless rereading the poem now metabolized and, stunned by the words coming from his mouth, he said:

  “A prophecy.”

  The Head of the Council raised an eyebrow.