The Third Bear (52 page)

Smaragdine

In the vast city of Smaragdine on the edge of a dying sea-lake, from which come palm trees and a wasting disease, the color green is much prized. It matters not where it is found, nor the exact shade. The cloth-makers produce nothing but clothing in green, so that the people of the city are always swathed in it. The buildings are painted in emerald, in verdigris, edged in a bronze that quickly turns. Even the white domesticated parrots that the denizens have such affection for - these birds they dye green. Year by year the lake becomes smaller and the river that feeds into it more of a stream. Year by year, the palm trees become yellower and fewer. Yet the people hold vast and expensive festivals in celebration of the arcane and the uncanny. There is a constant state of celebration. Yet also it is a point of pride for buildings to fall into disrepair, if at the limits of their disillusion there creeps into the corners of rooms, across the ceilings, some hint of green. Someday, Smaragdine will be as a ruin and the lake will be gone and the river with it. But, in the end, it will not matter, for even when the last water is gone, this city will still be rich and fertile in color. This is all the inhabitants ask. It is all they can hope for. I know, for I lived in Smaragdine for a time. I knew the calm beauty of its streets, the dyed-green water of its many fountains, filled with green carp. I knew the slogans of the leaders in their green cloaks. I knew, too, the feel of the hot sun and was blinded by the mirage of sand eclipsed by the shimmer of the ever-more-distant lake. One day, I will return and know once again the richness of that place by its devotion to its color. One day I will walk through those empty streets and know the very definition of madness."

- Told to one ofMarco Polo's men by a merchant selling green cloth in a Mumbai marketplace

SYCOPHANT

The young man who sat down beside the writer Baryut Aquelus in a Tashkent coffeehouse wore a black blazer over a green T-shirt and blue jeans. He had sallow skin, an open, round face, and thick eyebrows. His mouth was fleshy, as if he'd suffered a split lip.

The writer thought he recognized the type. The first words confirmed it. "Are you - ? Are you really - ?" The rasp of a mouth-breather, along with the stain and smell of betel nut.

"Yes."

He no longer bothered to smile or straighten his jacket when people came up to him. It had been a few years since he'd removed himself from the great, the smoldering, eye of fame, but he remembered its heat.

"I've read all of your work, sir. Especially Myths of the Green Tablet. A very brave book."

"You speak like a native Smaragdinean," the writer said.

The man looked away, actually blushed. The writer found this charming.

"Thank you. I came there as a child. I know English. And French, too. A little. I read you in French, at first."

How long ago? He'd been out of print in France for at least half a decade.

"That's very good, um...?"

"My name? Farid. You can call me Farid Sabouri."

"Nice to meet you, Farid."

The notebook in front of him now seemed inert, useless. The thoughts welling up behind the pen receded into some middle distance, waiting for him to call them forth again.

"Tell me, if I'm not bothering you," Farid said, "how you came to write Myths of the Green Tablet."

"You mean you don't know?" He'd meant it as self-deprecating but it came out vainglorious. "I guess I've told it so many times I expect anyone who wanted to know would know."

It had gotten him in trouble. Vague death threats from a bunch of doddering priests. A shorter stint at the university in Smaragdine than he would have liked. The Green Tablet not the gospel, not even vaguely true? He hadn't realized the effect it would have when he was writing it - he just wrote it.

"I know, but it's different reading it in the paper."

"Well, if you insist." Do I really mind that much? "I wrote it because I think that Smaragdine has suffered from its fetish for the color green. It keeps us looking at the past. I feel that, for the average Smaragdinean, the future is behind him. I mean, it's practically fantastical. Medieval. Alchemy? Airy-fairy about earth-air-water-fire? No offense," he added, noting the intent look on Farid's face.

Farid smiled, revealing yellowing teeth, and said, "I am fascinated by the

bravery in the act. To become a...a lightning rod for many difficulties."

"Yes, well..."

Above them the fans swirled slowly and out on the street a steady procession of outdated vehicles used the worn street. The waiter came with two coffees.

"My gift for our meeting," Farid said. "Please, enjoy it."

"Thank you," the writer said. And he was, actually, surprised. Usually the people who came up to him wanted something but offered nothing, no matter how trivial, in return.

"So what brings you to Tashkent?" the writer asked.

Farid did not look away this time. "I came to see you. I studied your work at university. I've studied your life, too."

Oh no, the writer thought, here it comes. Sometimes he felt his personal life had become the size of a postage stamp.

"And did I measure up?"

"Oh, you are very brave," Farid said. "Although I don't know if you understand that."

"It's kind of you to say," the writer said, although Farid's syntax seemed odd.

Farid almost said something, stopped, bit his lip, leaned forward. "No, it's the truth. It makes me weep a little, thinking about it. If you don't mind me saying it. You've used your talent for things that don't always make sense to me."

The writer tried to shrug it off with a chuckle.

Is this where the conversation turns obsessional?

"And here I took you for a bit of a sycophant, Farid. A bit of a hanger-on, as the Brits here like to say."

"Not in the least - you believe too little but know too much," Farid said, and pulled out a gun and shot the writer in the stomach.

Baryut had the odd sensation of Farid walking over him and past while he lay there staring up at the ceiling fan and people were running away screaming. There was no pain. Nothing so fast could really be painful, could it?

Possessed of a sudden and terrible clarity, Baryut thought: What can I write in the next few minutes?

Transept

Why church broke? That question all ask when get Barakhad? Though no many tourist now - just detective last week, bad circus week before. But I tell you - even drunk sitting end of bar give answer if you want answer - he say we run out money when no water. That man, head on table, see? He tell you merchants. Merchants of Barakhad break church because priests too big, too big. Or I, sir, I tell you Devil visit Barakhad when church of Smaragdineans building and break it.

Or it could be that the architect's plans were too complicated and they planned not one but three transepts, with gold leaf that wouldn't flake off for the archways and brushes made from the tongues of hummingbirds to paint the column detail.

What? Oh, don't be mad. Just a little joke I like to play on tourists. So many of you think that our command of English is crumbling along with our infrastructure. But I went to university, even spent a summer at the University of San Diego on an exchange program, a long time ago. You're lucky you bumped into me, my friend. That drunk over there, for example - he doesn't want to speak English anymore. His whole family died last year.

But do you really want to know why the church isn't "finished"? Why not get a drink and sit down. It won't take long, but you might need the drink. Don't worry, I'll keep it simple. I know the names around here confuse foreigners.

So: the real reason the church looks unfinished is that until recently we had a civil war in this country. Hadn't heard of it? Well, we're not in an area with anything of any value, really. Not anymore.

First one side held Barakhad. They starved us and killed some of us and took some of us away. Then the other side took over. They starved us and killed some of us and took some of us away. Then the peacekeepers came to our country, although we never saw one in Barakhad, not once, and a coalition of countries so far away that none of us here in Barakhad had ever visited any of them began to use planes to bomb us. I believe your country participated in that effort.

We already had little food, no electricity. Now when people walked down to the market, they might become splintered bones and shredded flesh and a stain of red on the roadside in a blink of the eye. We lost maybe half of the people in Barakhad during those months.

Now that the bombs have stopped, we are doing our best. The priests who might have helped are gone. There has been no time to rebuild the church, my friend. We haven't had time to rebuild many things, as you may have seen when you came in to town.

So at the moment the church is crumbling and overgrown with weeds. It's green enough to make even a Smaragdinean happy. The north side of the transept remains one wall and a promise of a roof. No one likes a church where the wind can catch you up like the breath of God. No one likes a church with the rain on the inside. Except me, since that's where I'm forced to live for now.

Am I talking to you? Are we speaking? Are you hearing me?

Vignette

Once, a very long time ago, an adventurer became a problem for the King of Smaragdine. Something to do with the king's daughter. Something to do with the king's daughter and wine and a dance hall. So the king decreed that this adventurer should be sent "on a long quest for the good of the Green." The quest? To find the lost Tablet and bring it back to Smaragdine. The Tablet was in Siberia or Palestine or somewhere in South America or even possibly on the Moon, depending on one's interpretation of the writings. Regardless, this fit the very definition of "a long quest." Unfortunately for the adventurer, he had earned the nickname of "Vignette" because his adventures, although intense and satisfying in the retelling, were always short and occurred in and around the city.

Vignette wasn't very happy about the king's decision, but a long quest was better than immediate death, so off he went. Through Samarkand and East Asia he traveled; up into Siberia and around Lake Baikal; down to Mongolia; across China to Japan; by sailing ship to India; a brief stop in North Africa; up into the Mediterranean; over to Greenland; doubling back to England; braving the trip to the New World for several storm-tossed months; finding nothing there and sailing briefly down to South America.

He talked to everyone he could find - Arabs, Jews, Christians, Bantus, Moslems. Holy men and beggars. Merchants and royalty. Over time, his body grew lean and weathered but strong. His eyes narrowed against the sun and yet he saw more clearly. Fighting brigands in the steppes. Running from tribesmen with blow darts in the Amazon.

If only they could see "Vignette" now, he thought as he pulled an arrow from his shoulder and prepared a charge with Sudanese warriors against the fortifications of some other tribe. Climbing a mountain in the Himalayas, eyelashes clotted with frost, an avalanche crushed over them in a blink and as he dug himself out, he thought, I'll show you the good of the Green.

After a time, though, it really didn't matter to him if he ever found the Tablet - in fact, he no longer believed in its existence. He was homesick for Smaragdine and his friends there. So one day he began to head back, slowly. Some months later, he was close enough that all he had to do was cross the river by ferry and the walls shimmering in the distance would be real once more.