Fiction by Norman
Lock
ACROSS
LAKE NO
I
woke on the far shore of Lake No with the sheet
drawn up over my head. “No, no, you haven’t been dead!”
the pretty femme de chambre assured me. She
was feeding me broth with a spoon. Each time she inclined
towards me in order to introduce the spoon into my
mouth, I noted how the light material of her blouse
would come away from her breasts, revealing their
rosettes. I longed for her to undo her blouse and
play the shepherd’s game with me. I longed to be suckled
between those sweet hills. Sigmund, you left without
completing my analysis! Where am I to attach all my
free-floating anxieties now that the transference
is broken? What will now serve as my object of desire?
“Not
dead, only sleeping!” she laughed.
“Was
it the sleeping sickness?” I asked, changing my position
in bed so as not to be tormented by the sight of her
twin pinknesses.
“No,
you slept only a little.” She held up three long,
slender fingers. “Three days only. You had much mental
conflict; your body went to sleep so that it might
be resolved in your physical absence. Two men carried
you here. I put the sheet over your head so you would
not be disturbed.”
“I
was dreaming of mud.”
“You
have crossed Lake No,” she said.
“I
was up to my neck in it.”
“You
have crossed Lake No,” she repeated as if that were
an explanation.
“I
have not been well.”
She
looked at me wistfully.
“It
can be difficult -- the crossing.”
“What
men?” I asked after a silence.
“Pardon?”
“The
men who brought me here -- who were they?”
“I
don’t know.”
She
left me to wash myself and shave. I went to the window.
Outside, Lake No slid back and forth through the vast
reed bed that lined the shore. The reeds rattled,
the water soughed. In the distance the light seemed
to fizz on the choppy surface. I did not recall the
lake’s obvious immensity. I am certain the opposite
shore, from which I had embarked (how long ago?),
did not look out upon such an expanse of water. But
here I could not see across it. A stalk of smoke marked
the trembling horizon -- the steamer, presumably,
that had brought me.
The
girl returned with fresh linen to make the bed.
“It
is Lake No?” I asked her, turning from the
window. “Not Victoria Nyanza or Lake Rudolf?”
“Lake
No. No other,” she said, searching my face.
“Why
do you look at me that way?” I asked.
She
shrugged.
“It
seems much bigger than I remember,” I said, trying
to conceal my alarm.
She
tapped her forehead enigmatically.
“Were
the men who brought me here also on the boat?”
“Yes,
I think so.”
That
afternoon in the bar, I met Major Samuels, who had
been in India. He invited me to drink with him.
“Gin
and tonic,” I told the barman.
I
pressed the cold glass against my forehead to cool
it.
“Funny
place, this,” the Major observed.
“You
mean the lake?” I asked.
“Lake?
No, I’m talking about this hotel. Built by one of
your countrymen, I believe. Franklin Barrett. Eccentric
millionaire. Made a fortune in corsets. Heaven knows
why he would want to build a hotel here. America’s
the land of eccentrics. That Remington woman, for
instance. You’re probably a bit eccentric yourself.
Well, cheers!”
He
must have seen that I was puzzled, for after he had
downed his whisky and wiped his mouth with the back
of his hand, he said: “Don’t know what I’m talking
about, do you?”
I
shook my head.
“It’s
a giant elephant -- isn’t it? A giant, bloody elephant!
Still, only place in the Sudan you can find a decent
drink.”
I
went outside. The hotel was in the shape of an elephant
-- an enormous, wooden, garishly painted elephant.
The
Major joined me.
“Queer,
don’t you think?”
“Have
you ever dreamt of mud?” I asked him.
“Never!”
he said angrily.
I
wished Freud were here. He would know what to make
of it.
That
night she came to me. At first I thought it was Anna,
but it was the girl from the hotel -- the femme
de chambre.
“Do
you know anything I should know?” I asked offhandedly.
She
said she did not.
Complaining
of my nails, she cut them. She also trimmed my hair.
I thought her behavior odd but said nothing. You have
a fever, I told myself. She swept the nail parings
and shorn hair into a box and left.
Once
more I looked out the window. Moonlit clouds were
flying over Lake No. The steamer was tied up to the
landing though I had not heard it arrive. As I watched,
the woman walked out on the pier in her white nightdress,
carrying the box. Two men suddenly stepped out of
the black entryway into a shaft of moonlight. She
handed the box to them and left immediately.
I
was becoming more and more uneasy.
WHAT
IS FORBIDDEN
If
you want it, you must be prepared to pay -- and dearly,
he said. You cannot buy it openly in the city; in
the city it is forbidden. To get it, he said, you
must go to the blackmarket and pay -- what is the
American expression? ... “through the nose.” If you
like, he said, I will take you there. Otherwise, goodbye.
He turned and walked away. I allowed him to take two,
three, four steps. The tassel on his red fez swayed
a little as he took them. I was measuring my need
against what surely would be an exorbitant price to
pay. I was waiting, as he went, to feel the strength
of my resolve not to have it.
“Wait!”
I called, lacking the strength to resist longer.
He
stopped but did not turn.
“Yes?”
he said, not turning.
His
back was -- how can I put it? -- imposing. No. Peremptory.
His back said to me: Do not expect me to turn. I am
not to be dismissed and recalled. His back in its
stiffness defied me.
I
went to him, was about to touch his elbow, stopped,
said: “All right. Show me.”
“Saying
the word is not permitted,” he said. “You must point
to what you want.”
“Not
permitted? By whom not permitted?”
“Allah.”
He
led me down narrow, confused streets; down alleys
crowded with children and beggars. He opened the gate
to a courtyard, the door to a building. We walked
down a narrow passage smelling of smoke and curry.
We stopped at a curtained doorway.
“The
ear of God would be offended were you to name it,”
he said, holding back the curtain for me to enter.
The
room was dark. I stood still, not daring to move until
my eyes adjusted. I felt all around me presences,
which proved, when the dark lightened, to be urns.
I
sat on a camel saddle. Shrill music wound through
the outer passage. I thought of adders. The Arab said
it is also forbidden to touch.
“Only
point!” he admonished.
The
Arab who had led me here spoke hurriedly to a second
Arab, whose room, presumably, this was. The second
said something which seemed to satisfy the first,
who left without looking at me. The second Arab gave
me a bowl of something to eat. Cold rice and beans
and something that crunched disagreeably. Though I
was not hungry, I ate as a matter of form.
Then
the Arab sat on a rug and seemed to go to sleep.
I
waited for a long time, unsure if I should wake him.
I did not wish to be outré. I did not
wish to offend. I had no wish to “queer the deal”
as Oates would say. (Used to say. Devoured by ants,
he keeps his thoughts to himself.)
Growing
hungry, I wiped the bowl clean with my fingers and
ate.
All
was quiet; the music had ceased long ago. In the distance
a dog barked. I counted the tolling of a bell: 9 o’clock.
Already night! I thought. The Arab slept in earnest
now, pulling great shuddering snores. Unless he only
pretended to sleep.
Why?
Again
the dog barked. The bell tolled ten, eleven ....
I
got up in search of water. Remembering the urns, I
opened one.
It
was then the watcher coughed.
Narrowly
missing my hand, the scimitar smashed the ceramic
urn and stuck fast to something whitish inside.
Only
when I reached the British naval ships anchored by
the pier did I stop running.
ELLIPSIS
“If
a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to
hear it, does it make a noise?”
This,
from Quigley. Who else?
Hanby
didn’t give a damn.
The
day was dark as it can be on the other side of Lake
No. The canopy was unnecessary, but we complimented
its aesthetic value. “Picturesque” was Quigley’s word,
who was never a pragmatist. Hanby merely grunted and,
if pressed, would have allowed that it was “nice”
or some other colloquialism. We did not press: we
were not interested in further examples of his rudimentary
savoir faire. He stretched out his legs and
went to sleep, his head on a loaf-shaped stone.
Quigley,
who could be counted on for an annoying pertinacity
in metaphysical matters, returned to his question:
“If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there
to hear it, does it make a noise?”
I
had no opinion.
“You
seldom do,” said Quigley, wishing to hurt.
“As
you like,” I replied with a sinuous motion of my hand
I thought so expressive I reiterated it:
~
Quigley
clapped the lid of the picnic hamper shut.
“I
intend to answer the riddle once and for all,” he
said severely.
With
that he stood, brushed all vegetable traces of the
African wilderness from the seat of his pants, and
strode (he was forever striding in those days!)
offstage.
He
returned promptly enough to arouse my suspicions,
with a recording device and a wax cylinder “to steal
upon it unawares.”
“Steal
upon what?” I asked to devil him.
He
scowled at me and would not say, though I knew well
enough he meant to record the phenomenon of the falling
tree.
“I
noticed an ellipsis in the landscape this morning,”
he said. “When I put my ear to it, I heard wind. It
should make an ideal venue for my experiment. We’ll
steal inside with the apparatus, hide it in a shrub,
then leave. We’ll retrieve it later after a tree has
fallen.”
“And
if a tree doesn’t fall?” I asked.
“It
is in the nature of trees to fall,” he stated categorically.
“In
time perhaps,” I said to incite controversy.
“Time
does not exist within an ellipsis.”
His
dogmatism made me bristle.
“Supposing
the ellipsis closes?” I asked, hoping to confound
him. “What then?”
He
showed me a rope and left me to draw my own conclusions.
Instead,
I pretended to fall asleep.
He
beat me savagely with a safari boot.
“Get
up and carry the apparatus!”
“Where
are the porters?” I asked, looking around as if for
the first time at the desolate spot we had chosen
for a picnic.
“Departed,”
he said glumly. “With the more notable specimens of
our journey through the interior.”
“And
the Bombay Gin?” I asked emotionally.
“Gone
-- or drunk up,” he said with ill-concealed pleasure.
(He did not approve of spirituous liquors on safari.)
“What
is it the French say at a time like this?” I asked,
feeling around in the air for the mot juste.
“No
idea!” he snarled, exposing a latent xenophobia like
a frayed and soiled collar.
We
entered the ellipsis at 3:37. I have always maintained
that it was early morning; but Quigley, fractious
in matters large and small, has repeatedly contradicted
me.
In
any case we entered it. Let me set it down here, thus:
...
What
followed is impossible to tell because of the conditions
that prevailed inside the ellipsis. Had I a grammar
suitable to the task or an inventory of signs -- public
or private -- I still could not describe it.
(Quigley’s
published monograph on the event is pure fabrication!)
I’m
afraid that [ ... ] will have to do.
The
apparatus? you ask.
Smashed.
And
the waxed cylinders?
Melted.
No,
I cannot say for sure whether the tree in falling
made a noise. (Quigley’s unsubstantiated testimony
to the contrary!) But I will tell you this: the crossing
-- from the beginning of the secret passage to its
end -- was not good. Consider the following:
There
was much dust.
I
arrived shoeless.
With
my arm broken.
A
large splinter protruding through my ripped shirt.
If
not dust, fumes. If not fumes -- an insubstantial
whiteness impossible to make a mark on with pencil,
ink, or crayon.
Quigley?
Don’t
believe a word he says!
(Perhaps
it was like a Maozagotl cloud ....)
Hanby?
Slept
through the entire incident!
About
the Author
Norman Lock's fiction appears in respected
journals throughout the U.S. as well as in Europe,
Australia, and Canada (never forgetting that fine
Argentine site -- The
Southern Cross Review). The work here is
from A History of the Imagination, published
in Europe as an e-book. Two extended prose sequences
-- Emigres and Joseph Cornell's Operas --
are available in one book from elimae.
Lock's dramatic works have been seen on stages throughout
America and Germany. The House of Correction,
published in the U.S. by Broadway Play Publishing,
was one of the 10 best plays of 1988 and (for its
revival) 1994, according to the LA Times. It was also
"best new play" of the 1996 Edinburgh Theatre Festival.
Lock is also the author of a film produced by the
American Film Institute and shown at international
film festivals. He was awarded the Aga Kahn Prize
in 1979, given by The Paris Review. Other online work
of his may be found at Linnean
Street, Unlikely
Stories, and Tatlin's
Tower. He may be reached via e-mail at
NormanGLock@cs.com
