The World Idiot (4 page)

This is the story about ungodly deeds which Vathek, the mad caliph in Beckford’s novel, was hearing from one of the new arrivals in Hell, when his mother flew in on the back of an afrit to chide him for not enjoying the pleasures on offer. The tale is not given; Vathek’s acquaintance was damned soon after without having a chance of resuming it. Now what was it going to have been? Beckford knew, no doubt, but I am not bold enough to say that I do. I will offer a new story: one you will think made from scraps of other fables. Everybody should sew a patchwork coat from the materials he likes best. This is mine:

There was a ghoul dwelt by a mosque. His name was Omar and he was a potter with a shop built from broken vases. His doorway looked out on the Kizilirmak, the longest river in Asia Minor, and from his roof he could lean over and touch the mosque with his elongated arms. His wheel and oven had belonged to a human craftsman who died without heirs and was buried with his tools, but (this was in Haroun al Raschid’s day) ghouls were allowed to keep any items they dug up. The creature filed his teeth to stubs to reassure his neighbours — but never mind what they thought of him; he was skilled enough at his trade to make a living from the travellers who passed through Avanos. He rarely overcharged for his products and this frightened people most of all.

Omar lacked humanity in other ways: he kept an attic full of hair clipped from the heads of his female visitors. There were women pilgrims and merchants even then and they were politely requested to give up a lock or two for his archive. The monster labelled them and secured them to the ceiling on hooks, where they exuded a musty odour and shivered in the shifting air currents. Omar liked to imagine his attic was a cave beneath a garden — a garden of vegetable girls whose roots were pushing through into his subterranean kingdom. This unusual custom has persisted through the centuries; next time you are in Avanos, ask for the house of Master Galip and you will see what I mean. A single lamp also illuminates his modern collection.

The ghoul had a mother no less grotesque in her habits. She helped him collect the red clay from the riverbank, bringing him a supply each morning. Instead of cutting the clay into blocks, she would roll it in her hands and present it to him like a freshly exhumed intestine. Then he would divide it with a pair of shears and they would gather round the wheel with excited giggles, as if they were grilling sausages instead of preparing to throw another plate or saucer.

The attic was also the place where the ghoul kept all his rejects, the warped and flawed work. Heavy urns, twisted over like slaves; cups with no handles, or too many; pitchers with clamped mouths or leaking sides; shapeless mounds as tall as men which should have been coffins but were unusable, save for lepers; pipes with stems which curled back into the bowl; teapots without spouts, or spouts which poured tea into the lap of the drinker. All these, Omar packed into his attic, loathe to discard them. With the hair above and the failures below, the room became a sort of museum of imperfection — the former lacking complete substance; the latter lacking complete form.

One day, a cowled traveller called at the shop. Veiled from head to foot, she betrayed her femininity by her poise and sibilant voice. She had come far and was taking her first holiday in many years. Her sisters were keen on stone figures for their garden and she had promised to take some back as gifts. But sculptors were rare in Asia Minor, the prophet had forbidden such art, and so, to make the best of a bad thing, she had decided to purchase pottery as a substitute. She wondered if she might view Omar’s most decorative examples.

“Well, my work is functional, not fine art,” said the ghoul. “But you’re free to look round. I’m self-trained and you mustn’t expect too much in the way of aesthetic gratification.”

“Come, these pots betray a certain flair,” cried the visitor. “Lead me through your shop and I will choose something.”

So he guided her along racks of ceramic utensils, which she studied with a slight wave, as if to indicate they were not quite suitable. When the conventional rooms were exhausted, they reached the attic. “The work in here is not really for sale,” apologised Omar, “but if you will enter and allow me to snip a strand of your hair...”

The visitor seemed about to refuse, but the door was swinging open and when she caught a glimpse of the mutated wares she forgot to voice an objection. Stepping forward in joy, she squealed: “Perfect! They are so delightfully strange. And this one is the oddest of the lot! I must have it at any price!” And she moved to the end of the attic and seized the ghoul’s mother, who was sleeping on a stool.

At this point, several things happened at once. The ghoul mistook his visitor’s cry for compliance with his request, and he reached across the room with his elongated arms to sever a lock with his shears. But the mother had jumped up in alarm, knocking over and smashing the single lamp. In pitch darkness, Omar felt under his visitor’s veil and detached it with clumsy fingers, whereupon he snipped the lock. While he groped his way to a hook to hang it up, his mother struck a flint in an attempt to relight the lamp; the attempt was unsuccessful, but the long spark which winked in the gloom was enough to illuminate the visitor, who was still bending over the mother. Then darkness came again, more intense for the momentary light: there was a groan, something brushed past the ghoul and clattered out through the shop.

When Omar’s slitted eyes had adjusted, he saw he was alone in the attic. No: his mother was there as well, but she was changed. Her arms flung up as if to cover her face, her body twisted away as if from some dreadful apparition, she was literally petrified. She had always had a stony expression; now it was real. Omar looked at the ceiling and his hearts raced madly; in place of a lock of hair was a very angry snake, hissing and writhing on its hook.

Well, he gnashed his filed teeth for many a moon, I can assure you. Without a mother, a ghoul is lost, like a bridge without a river or a pot without a price. Luckily, he dwelt by a mosque and the local muezzin was a sorcerer who made no secret of his skills. Standing on his roof at night, just after the evening call to prayer, Omar hailed the muezzin on his minaret and made a pact. He would sell part of his soul, the human part, to Eblis — the devil — in exchange for the return of his mother. So the muezzin lowered a glass tablet inscribed with arcane symbols on a gold thread and told Omar to place it between his mother’s granite lips, whereupon she would spring to life.

As he stumbled through the attic with this talisman, Omar happened to brush the snake, which bit him on the shoulder. He growled in pain and his great hands came together, crushing the glass tablet to powder. The sparkling shards flew up and settled on the warped and twisted pots. With a hideous scraping sound, they came alive — the urns, the pitchers, the cups, the coffins — tumbling awkwardly, snapping their lids, grating against each other, whistling, crowding round the ghoul like dogs round a master, or jackals round a corpse. With his fists and feet, he smashed them to pieces, then he went down and returned with the potter’s wheel, which he rolled among the wounded ceramics, reducing them to fine dust. The one place the magic glass had missed was the mother, who remained as motionless and igneous as before.

Unable to bear the loss of his soul for naught, Omar left his shop disguised as a minor prince and went searching for his visitor. But he succeeded only in passing into the domain of Hell. By now, his fears had altered. He was more frightened that another sorcerer would manage to reanimate his mother: she would be furious at being kept so long in such a condition and would berate him. Better to be damned, he decided, than to suffer the ill will of a ghoul’s mother, who would be certain to bend him over her knee and smack…

At this juncture, Vathek’s acquaintance slapped off his turban to reveal the horns of a ghoul. His forked tongue poked out over his filed teeth. Vathek fell back with a cry of pity and alarm, but recovered soon enough and, tapping his nose, asserted that he knew another mother quite three times as dreadful as that one, but lacked enough horrid words to describe her. Indeed, at that very moment she was trying to dethrone one of the pre-Adamite sultans. More tangibly, in Avanos there is a curious statue standing in the square, waiting for something, a backward glance from an earlier tourist, I do not know; but it is a fact that Gorgons no longer go to Asia Minor for their holidays.

There was a vampire called Unthank who suffered from a raging thirst. His doctor suspected diabetes but the patient refused to take a test. Unthank drank from all the necks in the village, valley and province, but he was still unsatisfied. It seemed he might deplete the land of victims, so his doctor took him aside and told him:

“This can’t go on. You’re giving the undead a bad name. The elders are talking about locking you up in a pyramid made from garlic. Luckily there’s a solution. You must travel to Heaven, where you can sup as much as you please from the inhabitants without making them anaemic. They are immortal and have bottomless veins.”

Unthank thought this a splendid idea and asked for directions. The doctor clucked his tongue and cried:

“If I knew how to get there I wouldn’t be working here! You should look for a crossroads guarded by a burnished knight. For a modest fee he will allow you to choose one of the paths. But beware: three lead to a hideous doom. Only the fourth, which looks the same as the others, will take you to Heaven. The knight won’t tell you which is which, though he sometimes drops hints like anvils.”

Unthank, despite his name, was grateful and he wrapped himself in a sunblock shroud. He wondered what hideous dooms lurked at the ends of the three roads. But thirst overcame his anxieties and he flew off into the woods. He flapped for a long time until he came to a river. A canoe was moored to the bank and a knight in rusty armour sat at one end. Unthank controlled his appetite and asked:

“Excuse me, do you know the way to Heaven?”

“No, but I’ll take you to someone who does. A burnished knight who guards a crossroads. It’ll cost you, though.”

Unthank paid him and sat in the canoe. The fellow paddled them with a sword wider than a jump. After a day they reached an estuary and in the middle of the estuary a large island. They disembarked on a wooden jetty and walked inland. Eventually they reached the intersection of four roads and the guide said: “Here we are.”

Unthank squinted. “I can’t see a burnished knight.”

“One moment.” The fellow took a wire brush from a hinged compartment in his knee and scrubbed himself all over. Finally he gleamed like a full moon. He gave the vampire an apologetic look. “Chivalry doesn’t pay much, so I earn a bit on the side.”

“Can you tell me which path leads to Heaven?”

“I’m not permitted. If I try, I’ll be turned inside out: it’s an old curse. However, I’m certain you’ll pick the best road. When pilgrims come here the odds are against them, but in your case I feel confident. Follow your instincts and you’ll do fine.”

Unthank peered at the four paths: they were identical. He stroked a fang. “Allow me to go away and consider it. First thing tomorrow morning I’ll be back to make my choice.”

And so saying, he strolled off and hid among some bushes. When the sun went down, he cast off his shroud and flew into the sky. From above he was able to see where the roads went. Three led to hidden trapdoors, visible as vague outlines: the fourth led to a walled garden with a roof of crystal. Unthank glimpsed beings that wore halos and carried harps. He listened but there was no music.

The next day he approached the knight and said: “I’ve made my choice and now I’m off to sample paradise.”

“You must pay me first. If you refuse, my magic sword will slice you into nearly four-thousand pieces.”

Unthank grumbled, but he handed over the coins and walked toward the western path. The knight cried out in alarm:

“What a terribly stony road!”

Unthank winked. “The way to divinity always is...”

“Wouldn’t you rather choose a more comfortable path? The others have all been resurfaced. Look at the gorgeous camber on the northern road! So tasteful and elegant. Consider also the gutters of the beautiful southern road! In absolutely perfect condition.”

“They look just the same to me.”

“A remarkable coincidence, I agree. We must discuss this matter over a pint of ale. There is a tavern halfway along the eastern road. Allow me to escort you there, arm in wing.”

Unthank shook his head. It was obvious the knight was trying to make him change his mind. Did he earn a commission on the number of travellers who fell down the trapdoors? It seemed likely. These crude antics enraged the vampire and he briefly considered leaping on the cheat. But without a tin opener he was at a disadvantage.

“If it’s all the same to you, I’ll persist with my choice. I’ll send you a postcard written on a cloud...”

The knight shrugged and a sigh escaped the holes bored in his helmet like steam from a golem’s kettle. Unthank ignored him and hurried as fast as his bowed legs could manage. The road ran straight to a locked door in the side of the walled garden. He rang the bell and waited. At long last, a voice answered. Unthank was astounded to recognise the icy tones of his doctor. “How did you get here?”

“I took a short cut. Some enraged villagers caught me after you left and drove a stake through my heart. It’s your fault. The vampires and the humans got on well until you started drinking them dry. If I was you, I’d turn right around and go home.”

“Don’t be silly. It was you who advised me to come here in the first place. Open up and show me in!”

The doctor mumbled to himself and turned a key. Unthank stepped over the threshold into brightness. Everything sparkled painfully: he shielded his slitted eyes and struggled to focus his surroundings. Nothing matched what he had seen from above. The garden was made of metal: platinum, gold and copper. Osmium flowers exuded tetroxides and birds in aluminium trees clicked relays and preened magnetic feathers. Zinc fish darted in mercury pools with propellers instead of fins.

Even the halos of the blessed souls were electric. Unthank lifted a hand to touch the sparks looping from the doctor’s antennae and was knocked to the ground. When he rose, he tried to open the door. The doctor shook his head. “It won’t allow you to depart. It only works one way, like a diode. We’re stuck here. Ever since God took a course in electronic engineering, rectification has supplanted redemption.”

“I don’t understand! Last night I saw harps.”

“Bare wires,” the doctor rasped. “Most of us undress before going to bed. We’re immortal now, but the only way to live forever is to be reborn as a machine. You won’t find sustenance here: our blood is molten silver. If only you’d taken a diabetes test!”

Unthank shed a gothic tear. It was plain as a grave that Heaven to a vampire was sheer Hell. “The knight tried to warn me off this path. But I thought he was aiming to mislead me.”

“He’s the one who made us. As I said, he drops hints like anvils. On these anvils he hammers out our bodies. When the Age of Chivalry finished he grew very lonely. He sees robots as kindred casings, advanced versions of the traditional knight. But he’s a likeable enough fellow. I prescribe iron tablets for his metal fatigue.”

“Where do the other three roads lead to?”

“Hades, Tartarus and Limbo. They would have been perfect for you. As a matter of fact, I believe the Devil is advertising for vampires to help his demons hassle the damned. You’ve got no one to blame but yourself. If I were you, I’d attempt to bite my way through the roof. It shouldn’t take more than a couple of million years.”

“Fangs for the advice...”

And so we leave Unthank. When he escapes, the first thing he intends to do is take revenge on the knight. This is just as impractical as it is unfair: the knight is blameless. He is also quite empty, a suit of armour full of air. He knows this is a poor fable and has resigned to work for a richer tale. Well, would you do the job for his pay? When travellers pick the road to Heaven, he gains nothing. And when they choose one that leads to the Hells, he earns a pittance.