Читать книгу The Lion of Venice - Mark Frutkin - Страница 6

Our failure to defeat the Genoese fleet has landed me in this damnable jail cell where Rusticello, dedicated and persistent as a maggot, thinks he will eat his way through to my dreams. But I have learned not only the delight to be found in listening, but the necessity for silence.

Rusticello places the bottle of ink before him on the upper left-hand corner of the slab of wood, pauses, his gaze held by the bottle, then shifts it a half-inch further to the left of the parchment. The thick glass inkpot is stoppered with a cork, its bottom singed. He removes the cork and places it on the slab before leaning forward to stab the ink with his quill.

“No, no, no– it wasn't like that at all, not at all.” Marco sits on his straw, forearms on knees. “It was a journey of revelations, a journey in which the names of those cities and lands rang on my ears with an indescribable strangeness–Soncara, Timochain, Vokhan, Kain-du, Zai-tun.

“We had no maps. Do you know what that means? We lived on the edge of the unknown– and I, a young man, grew into that unknown. How can I hope to relocate that tale? All would be lost in the telling because I know, I know what comes next…and that's not how it was.” Marco pauses to scratch at a flea.

Rusticello stops writing and looks up. “Yes?”

“The manuscript must repeat that journey, in its essence, and the essence of that journey was the unknown. Impossible. I tell you, it is impossible. The manuscript must be something new, illuminated from within–not a remembered map, a retracing of steps, a kind of stupidity embellished with lies and exaggerations…impossible…impossible I tell you!” His voice rises at the end as his shoulders arch forward, his head drooping. Leaping to his feet, Marco snatches the paper Rusticello holds, tears it to shreds and shoves the pieces into Rusticello's mouth. Rusticello lets him do this, watching in resigned silence and only turning his head in slight resistance when the Venetian grabs his chin with one hand and forces the bits of paper between his lips. When Marco is finished, Rusticello looks away and spits the glob out onto the floor. He stands then and, with care, places the quill and jar of ink on a high stone shelf.

“Look, you make my hair turn grey.” Rusticello stands before a cloudy metal mirror on the wall in their common cell. “Marco, my hair goes grey waiting for you to speak. I will be an old man before the bird flies from your mouth. Let it go, my stubborn friend. My hand will dance to your tune– but you must speak.”

Marco is thin-faced, his eyes on close inspection reveal a slight almond-shape, almost feline. Though his hair, eyes and eyebrows are a rich black, his skin is pale, yet worn with wind and weather. His hands, oddly delicate, are heavily-lined in the palms. His nose is medium-sized and straight, his lips set in such a way that a close observer might see that his teeth are clenched–with stubbornness or determination, or a combination of the two– at the back of his mouth. Somewhat taller than average, wide in the chest but thin in the hips, he carries himself in an upright manner, his eyes always seeming to look into the distance.

Marco turned, his words directed to the back of the other's head. “No one is listening.”

“I am listening.”

“You? You are nothing but an old man, half-deaf.”

“Still, I am listening.”

“No one will believe. The few who hear will scoff, call it superstition, blasphemy, lies. Who will there be to recognize the truth?”

“The truth, the truth?” Rusticello turned from the mirror to face Marco. “Who decides what is the truth? Speak to me, Venetian. You have the words in your head, I have the words in my hand– together we will make them last.”

Marco sighed. “I can see the moon out the window like a slice of melon and I hear the bells of Genoese churches. The people of the East believe there is a rabbit in the moon, they too have bells. And waterclocks. And cities that rise and fall with time. But don't waste your effort writing it down, scribe. You will end by dulling the point of my sword. I refuse to speculate on the meaning of my dreams. I would rather keep dreaming, riding and counting the leagues.”

Rusticello shuffled to his pile of straw. “There could be wide interest in certain dreams. I know you have seen things other men have not even imagined. You have told me, at times, teased me with half-revealed details. I have heard you mumbling half-coherently in your sleep. I listen with the sharpened ears of an old widow, much time on her hands, gossip her bread and wine, but I understand little– and when you wake you bite your tongue. Speak now, give it up, I am listening.”

Marco spoke as if to himself: “It was all a dream– I myself a dream figure, moving through lands I dreamt. It was a kind of fever-dream from….”

“You avoid me with your maddening non-sequiturs. Look–it is dark outside our window. I have wasted another day trying to land that fish of a tongue. Perhaps it is useless, perhaps I should let it continue to swim freely in that empty sea inside your head.”

“What?” Marco turned to stare blankly at Rusticello.

Rusticello sat brooding.

From his side of the cell, Marco muttered, “The light has gone. The room is dark but the black at the window, the perfect square window, is an altogether deeper black. It is like a dream within a dream, this perfect void of black, a perfect geometric talisman, a deep dream deep within a dream, unattainable, unrealizable, like the past within the present…that's what he told me….”

Rusticello perked up his ears, raised himself up on one elbow.

“That's what he told me…watch….”

Sucking in his breath, Rusticello listened hard…waited…then flopped onto his back, realizing Marco had fallen asleep in mid-sentence.

The next morning, sitting on his pile of straw, knees raised, feet flat on the floor, Marco said, “In any case, it matters not. I am sure my family will soon buy my freedom. I will not have enough time here to relate half the tale. Also,” Marco stood and walked to the window, his back to Rusticello, “to tell the truth, I can no longer be sure what I saw with my own eyes, what was told to me in a tale, and what I dreamt in my imagination.” He turned around and faced the Pisan.

Rusticello held a bowl of broth cupped in his hands. He gazed into it, at the few floating threads of meat, as he spoke. “Yes, the past fades…my own, too. But still, you saw much of magic, much of wonder, I am convinced of that.”

“How is that? What convinces you?” Marco moved to the door as Rusticello set aside the bowl and stood, walking to the window to look out.

Rusticello turned to stare at Marco. “Something about your look, your face, your eyes. One cannot look upon the wonders you have looked upon and not have one's eyes reflect it.”

Marco crossed in front of Rusticello and went to the mirror. He gazed into the reflection of his own eyes. “I see nothing.”

Rusticello ignored him and moved to the door, turning and looking at the floor. “Eight steps,” he said and walked back to the window as Marco crossed to his straw. Rusticello looked out the window. “Yes, you have seen magic, grand vistas of land and sea, vast panoramas, mountains, deserts, great cities, and lost villages at the end of the world.” He turned from the window and looked at Marco. “I can see it in the intensity of your gaze, those dark pools clear as melted ice. Oh, it's not in your grey-speckled ragged beard, not in your weathered skin, not in your surprisingly delicate hands. No, it's in those eyes, Marco Polo. There is a distance in them as of far-off places. I can see it there, still there, as if you are always looking beyond.” Rusticello returned to his side of the cell, squatted and picked up his bowl. “They say the eyes are like wells– all that you throw into them stays there, and can surface at a later time. I am a patient man. Be silent if you must. I will wait.”

Marco glanced up, his look hard and clear. “Remember that. Remember what you have said.”