Keep The Giraffe Burning (27 page)

‘I … a report?’

The two men leaned over him. ‘Mr von Jones? Are you all right?’

‘Look at this, Don. Pupils are different sizes. This guy’s had a stroke.’

‘I’m … fine, really. And I know the young man you mean. But his name just … I didn’t retain it.’

The raid proceeded. The FBI succeeded in arresting all members of the gang except the one called ‘Ras’, who they suspected was the ringleader. The rest were interrogated and packed off to Fort Nixon for retraining as good citizens.

My Struggle

Late that night, the President worked at his memoirs in the small office attached to his bedroom.

… and all of the Negroes wanted to shake my hand!! Combined with the rest of the day’s defeats, the pressures of responsibility for this heaviest office in the land, it was almost enough to shake my faith in my own destiny. But not quite.

I had much to be weary about. Iowa, Kansas and Nebraska were virtually a dustbowl. South Africa and its satellite nations were getting tough about Tanzania. The War still dragged on. The steel and rail strikes still dragged on. The cities – better not spoken of. Yet I had time in the midst of the storm to share a quiet joke with General Hare. I asked if he knew what kind of boat would be a slow boat to China? The answer was, a gravy boat!

The Great Seal enjoyed his joke all over again. It was the only one he’d ever made, unless you counted the Great Wall of Mexico.

The Reagan Room

‘What I want to know,’ said one of the Roosevelts to another as they went off duty, ‘is what he does in the Reagan Room? I’ve seen trays of food go in there, and a doctor.’

The other smiled the famous Roosevelt smile. ‘I thought you knew. He keeps a wounded soldier in there. Some say he just sits and chats with him, gives him encouragement. But others say it’s very odd that he particularly asked for a soldier with a belly wound.’

‘Just a minute!’ The first FDR scowled. ‘That’s the President you’re talking about, mister. Watch yourself!’

‘Now calm down. Listen, even the President might do something he’s not very proud of now and then, right? I mean, he’s only phocine, for Christ’s sake. Try to see this thing in the greater perspective of his brilliant career.’

‘OK, OK. I just said watch it, that’s all.’

4. The Cockroach

Dr Lane’s Secret Journal (IV)

Hank has tapped out his ESP message in no uncertain terms. I see that Dr Veck is an obstacle to science. My task is clear, for Hank has sent me a picture of Dr Veck lying in a pool of blood. It must be done. I am but the instrument of fate, or of G. K. Chesterton. Perhaps they are one and the same. O my restless, questioning soul, thirsting for truth!

Later. I did it. I killed Veck in the middle of his work on a very interesting paper on socialism and epilepsy. Hank took the news calmly, considering that he is now off drugs.

‘We’re all of us doomed anyway,’ he said.

‘Doomed?’

‘The Wall. The Wall was my idea in the first place.’

‘You influenced future ev–’

‘I influenced my nephew. A long time ago I told my nephew an idea of mine for a Great Wall of Mexico. It was to be a giant decorated sculpture. My nephew much later became a special “creative” adviser to
the President. Obviously he has put my idea into effect. Young Bill Filcup was always very enterprising.’

‘But the doom?’

‘Well, you and I, and this hospital-prison, and a lot of other people and places, are the decoration.’

I said I didn’t understand. He laughed.

‘We just haven’t been applied yet,’ he said.

The meaning of all this escapes me. It may be clear one day. From my window I can see the Wall, and the magnificent sunset. I

Harry

Harry thought he smelled something burning.

The U– S– of A–

A movie scenario by ‘Phil Nolan’

Scene I
. A peak in Darien. Cortez stands gazing upon the Pacific, which, it is clear from the way his men exchange glances, he has just named. He is silent.

Scene II
. Rapidly turning calendar pages: November 28, 29, Brumaire, 1666, Aries, November 30, 31, Ventose, 6379, 125, Thursday, 5427, New Moon.

Scene III.
The Delaware River. Washington approaches, throws silver dollar across.

Scene IV.
Old Glory flutters in breeze. Offscreen voices hum ‘God Save the King’.

Scene V.
Japanese diplomats walking out of League of Nations. Offscreen lugubrious voice: ‘The treacherous Japanese insisted they were a peace-loving people, and we believed them. Then – the stab in the back hat brought Mr and Mrs America to their senses. On December 7, 1941 – (cut to atomic bomb explosion) –
Pearl Harbor!
’

Scene VI.
Statue of Liberty, holding up a sword. Same voice: ‘At last, just as Britain has its
Neptunia
ruling the waves, just as France has its “La belle dame sans merci”, now America has Mrs Liberty, welcoming the storm-tossed aliens.’ (Karl Rossman passes.) ‘Welcome! Welcome to the melting pot!’

Scene VII.
(Animation) Caldron marked MELTING POT. Ladle pours in liquefied ‘masses’. Caldron slowly sags and melts.

A Special Message from the President

The President’s black-and-white image appeared on the television screen surrounded by a black condolence border. He seemed almost too humble to have a clear image. Instead the fuzzy, bleached patches of his face, oddly patterned by liver spots and furrows, gave him the look of a soiled etching.

‘My countrymen, it is a grave announcement that I must make to you this evening. What I am about to say is a block of sadness and grief in the neighbourhood of my heart, as I am sure it will be in yours.

‘Tonight several nuclear explosions occurred at different places along the population barrier between the United States and Mexico. These explosions, let me make this perfectly dear, were accidental. No one is to blame. No one could have avoided them. Certain technical failures in our security system set off a chain of events – and Nature took its course.

‘Still, there’s no denying that many thousands, millions, rather, of people have been killed. Since these bombs were located on top of high-rise retirement ranches and on top of mental hospitals, they have killed many unfortunate persons, and that is to be regretted. It is also regrettable that a lethal zone has been created along our border.’

The black border vanished. Jubilant music swelled behind his voice as our leader intoned: ‘On the positive side, very few of our troops in the area were injured. The Army reports only a dozen casualties. Some of Will Doody’s Funville projects have been destroyed, but I am going to ask Congress to compensate Mr Doody for this terrible loss. As for the Wall itself, it has been badly burned and cratered in spots. Luckily it protects our border yet with a barrier of radiation. For the present, we are vigilant, but safe. And for the future?’

Suddenly the air about the grey President was filled with tiny, bright-coloured fingers; animated elves, fairies, butterflies and bluebirds, tiny pink bats in spangled hose, flying chipmunks and dancing dragonflies. Smiling, he too burst into colour. ‘The future is ours, my countrymen! We will rebuild our Wall taller and stronger and safer than ever, so secure that it will last a thousand years! Come! Help me make this country strong!’ He extended an arm upon which doves and butterflies were alighting already. And as the chorus sang ‘… from sea to shining sea’, twittering bluebirds modestly covered the scene with a Star-Spangled Curtain.

Epilogue

Ras turned up again in Red Square, conspicuous in a black cape and a tall silk hat. The cane in his hand was a sword cane, naturally, and the whiskers hooked over his ears on spectacle bows. A tourist gaped for a moment, as Ras harangued a crowd of pigeons.

When he’d finished, he produced a round black bomb, lit it and tossed it into the crowd. Its small pop was enough to attract the notice of two yawning policemen, who came over to examine the three dead pigeons.

As, still stifling yawns, they escorted him away, Ras shouted slogans into the faces of other tourists. Probably they knew no English, for they stared sullenly, all but one man, who sought an explanation in his guidebook.

When I showed this collection of stories to a friend of mine, Ms Cassandra Knye, she began questioning me closely about my dreams.

‘Burning seems to be one of your obsessions,’ she said. ‘A burning giraffe, a burnt face (in two stories), and even a parched adjutant.’

I said I didn’t understand what she was driving at, so she sat down to write (and doodle) the following interpretation:

In dreams we entertain recurring images, strung together sometimes in surprising ways. Since these stories purport to be surrealistic, it is valid to examine them as strings of dream-images. The conscious mind of Mr Sladek may try to disguise these images by elaborate transformations, but the dream-content shows through.
Burning
for example occurs throughout the collection: The first story mentions burning giraffes, and the last ends with an explosion. Another (flaming) explosion ends
Secret of the Old Custard
, while other stories (
The Face
,
The Master Plan
and
The Locked Room
) involve burning or parching.

The Great Wall of Mexico
is an interesting disguise of the Great Wall of China (china is of course
fired
clay): The Emperor who built the Great Wall, Shih Huang Ti, ‘likewise ordered all books antedating him to be
burned
’. This is according to Jorge Luis Borges, who is mentioned casually in another story,
Undecember
.

But there are other, more visible connections. If we look at the
Elephant with Wooden Leg
,

his back is an arched, load-bearing bridge, as in
The Design
:

With the legs, head and tail restored, the elephant-bridge becomes the tortoise of Aeschylus (in
Undecember
):