A Table of Green Fields

 

FICTION

Tatlin!

Da Vinci's Bicycle

Eclogues

Trois Caprices

Apples and Pears

The Bicycle Rider

The Jules Verne Steam Balloon

The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers

ESSAYS

The Geography of the Imagination Every Force Evolves a Form A Balthus Notebook

POETRY

Flowers and Leaves Thasos and Ohio

TRANSLATIONS

Archilochos Sappho Alkman: Three Greek Poets

The Mimes of Herondas

Anakreon

Herakleitos and Diogenes

A Table of Green Fields
 

TEN STORIES

A    N E W    D I R E C T I O N S   B O O K

Front cover:   Tuke, Henry Scott (1858–1929), - 'August Blue,' 1893

Copyright © 1993 by Guy Davenport

All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

"August Glue" was first published in
Antaeus
and later as a book by the Larkspur Press (Frankfort, Kentucky). "Belinda's World Tour" was first published in
The Santa Monica Review
and later as a book in a limited edition by Barry Magid at his Dim Gray Bar Press, with drawings by Deborah Norden. The Chinese ode in "The Concord Sonata" was first published in Gregory and Birgit Stephenson's magazine
Pearl
(Copenhagen). "O Gadjo Niglo" appeared in an earlier version in
Conjunctions. 
To these editors and publishers I am grateful for their kind permission to reprint.

Manufactured in the United States of America

New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper

First published clothbound by New Directions in 1993

Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited 

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Davenport, Guy.

A table of green fields : ten stories / by Guy Davenport,

 p. cm.

ISBN 0-8112-1251-3 

I. Title.

PS3554.A86T28 1993

8i3'.54—dc20     93-18677

CIP

 

 

New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin 

by New Directions Publishing Corporation,

80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

Contents

AUGUST BLUE 1

B
ELINDA'S WORLD TOUR
 15

GUNNAR AND NIKOLAI 22
 

AND 62

THE LAVENDER FIELDS OF APTA JULIA 63 

THE KITCHEN CHAIR 75 

THE CONCORD SONATA 77 

MELEAGER 87

MR. CHURCHYARD AND THE TROLL 93 

O GADJO NIGLO 103 

AUTHOR'S NOTES
147

 

1

 

On the way to school, just past the bird market, there is one of the largest fig trees in Jerusalem. It was believed by some to be as old as the temple and to have a special blessing on it whereby its figs were fatter and sweeter than any others in the world, except, of course, those in the Garden of Eden. They were, in color, more blue than green. The milk that bled from its stems when you pulled one of its figs cured warts, the quinsy, and whooping cough.

Schoolboys could see this great fig tree. A red wall, however, kept them from helping themselves to the occasional fig, even though Roman law said that a traveler, or a child, could pick an apple, pear, or fig, for refreshment, without being guilty of theft, and the Torah was equally lenient and understanding of the hunger of travelers and boys.

On a fine morning in the month of Tishri, Daniel, Yaakov, and Yeshua, having inspected finches and quail in cages, and leapfrogged in the narrowest streets, shouted at by merchants, gave their usual longing looks at the fig tree.

—If only figs, Daniel said, knocked down like apples, and if we had a pole.

—But they don't, Yaakov said. And they wouldn't fall in the street, anyway.

They sighed, all three.

—Figs and dates smushed together with ewe milk, and roasted barley sprinkled on top, Yeshua said.

—Figs and honey, Daniel said.

—Figs just so, juicy and ripe, said Yaakov.

—What do you
say
to the donkeys? Daniel asked.

It was a game of Yeshua's to stop along the way to school and whisper into donkeys' ears, something quick and confidential, with a knowing smile. The donkeys never failed to quicken, lift their ears, and stare at him.

—Behold the grandfather of all jackrabbits! he would say out loud.

—I tell them something they think I don't know, Yeshua said. I spoke to the quail, too.

—Yeshua's
meshuggeh.

—Want a fig? Yeshua said. One for each of you. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.

—You've got figs for recess?

—No, I got them off the tree back there.

Daniel looked at Yaakov, Yaakov at Daniel.

—So don't believe me, Yeshua said.

With a flourish of his hand he showed them a plump blue fig in his fingers. He gave it to Daniel. Another twirl and wiggle of fingers, and there was a fig for Yaakov.

—Holy Moses!

—Don't swear, Yeshua said. There's Zakkaiah looking up and down the street for us.

They ran to the school gate, herded in by their teacher, Zakkaiah, whose beard was combed and who smelled of licorice. They sat on cushions on a clean wooden floor, in a semicircle before Zakkaiah, who sat on a stool.

—
Alef,
Zakkaiah said.

—It's an ox, said Daniel.

—It comes first, a boy named Nathan said.

—So listen, said Zakkaiah.

He explained the derivation of
alef
from the old Phoenician alphabet, and talked about the versatility of a set of signs that could graph speech, contrasting it to the barbarous syllabaries of the Egyptians and the Assyrians.

—Greek is an even further advance. Their
alpha,
however, is not our
alef.
They have letters for their vowels, and use their 
alpha
for one of them. Micah, what letter comes next?

—
Beth.

—Yeshua! Zakkaiah said, are you chewing something?

—A fig.

—And what kind of manners is it to eat figs when we are learning the alphabet?

Nathan, who had just been slipped a fig by Yeshua, tucked it inside his blouse and looked innocent. Amos, who was also eating a fig passed back to him by Yeshua, swallowed his whole.