To Play the Fool (15 page)

The sun had moved, and Kate scooted the pillow across the wooden
floor so as to be fully in it again, then opened Professor
Whitlaw's folder, the one with the loose scraps and notes. She
picked up one page at random, and read:

It used to be thought that only through the prayers of aescetic
monks did the world maintain itself against the forces of evil, that
monks were on the front lines of the battle against evil. Now, we are
willing to grant monastic orders their place, for those of excessive
sensitivity as well as a place of retreat and spiritual renewal for
normal people. However, when a monk comes out of his monastery, we are
baffled, and when confronted with a Saint Francis making mischief and
behaving without a shred of decorum, we call him mad, not holy, and
threaten him with iron bars and tranquillisers.

Christianity is, by its core nature, more akin to folly than it is
to the Pope's massive corporation. The central dictate of
Christian doctrine is humility, in imitation of Christ's ultimate
self-humbling. Christians are mocked, persecuted, small: The powerful
so-called Christian empires are the real perversion of the Gospel, not
the Holy Fool.

One cannot be a Fool for Christ's sake and be truly insane.
Holy Foolishness is a cultivated state, a deliberate
choice.However,themovement'sgreatest strength, its simplicity, is
also its greatest weakness, for it cannot protect itself against the
mad or the vicious. The innocent Fool is as helpless as a child before
the folly of willful evil. Hence the absolute catastrophe of the Los
Angeles shooting.

The Fool is the mirror image of the shaman. The shaman's
mythic voyage takes him from insanity into control of the basic stuff
of the universe,- the Fool goes in the other direction, from normality
into apparent lunacy, where he then lives, forever at the mercy of
universal chaos. Both remain burdened by their identities: the shaman
paying for his control by personal sacrifice, and the Fool being in the
grip of what Saward calls "the rare and terrible charism of holy
folly."

Kate came to the end of the file without feeling much further along
in her understanding. She set the folders on the table by the door, ate
a breakfast of pear and a toasted bagel, and went to dress for her
encounter with tourism.

Given a sunny Saturday, even in February there will be a decent
crowd in the Fishermen's Wharf area, meandering with children and
cameras along the three-quarters of a mile between the glitzy Pier 39
and Ghirardelli Square, that grandfather of all
factory-into-shopping-mall conversions. Kate parked in the garage
beneath the former chocolate factory and made her way to the street
that fronted Aquatic Park, but there was no sign of a six-foot-two
elderly bearded clown. She went up the stairs back into Ghirardelli
Square proper and found a puppet show in progress, but no Erasmus.

Back on the street, she crossed over to run the gauntlet of sidewalk
vendors selling sweatshirts, tie-dyed infant's overalls, images
of the Golden Gate Bridge painted onto rocks and bits of redwood, bead
necklaces, toilet-roll holders in the shape of frogs and palm trees,
crystal light-catchers, crystal earrings, crystal necklaces, and
crystals to sew into the back seam of your trousers to center your
energy. She was tempted to get one of those for Al, just to see his
face, but moved on instead to the next stall, where a graying gypsy
sold polished stones on thongs. Kate fingered a teardrop-shaped stone,
dark blue with an interesting silvery line running through it.

"That's lapis lazuli, good for physical healing, psychic
protection, and stimulating mental powers," the woman rattled
off, adding, "The color would look good on you."

God knows, I could use some mental stimulation, thought Kate,
although she told her, "I'm looking for a gift, for a blond
woman."

The woman gave her a brief lecture on stone auras and personality
enhancements, and Kate ended up buying a small necklace of intense
lapis lazuli that was set in a delicate silver band. As the woman
looked for a suitable box, Kate ran her eyes over the park again.

"Do you come here often?" she asked the woman.

"Seven years," was the laconic answer.

"There's a performer here I was hoping to see, an old guy, tall, does a clown act."

"You a cop?" Kate was surprised, as she had made an effort and dressed like half the women on the street.

"Yes. Why?"

"Just like to know who I'm talking to. That's
eighteen bucks." Kate handed her a twenty,- she gave her back two
ones and the small white box. "I've got nothing against
cops. My sister used to be married to one,- he was okay. You're
talkin' about Erasmus?"

"That's right. Have you seen him?"

"Not today. He usually comes down in the afternoon,-mornings, he starts in front of the Cannery."

"I'll try down there, then. Thanks."

"Sure. It's the eyes," she said unexpectedly.

"What eyes?"

"Cops. Your eyes are never still, not if you've been on
the streets. Flip-flip-flip, always looking into peoples'
pockets, watchin' how they stand. Wear your sunglasses. And
relax, sister. It's a beautiful day."

Kate laughed aloud, then sauntered off, feeling good. This was not a
bad city, sometimes. She tended to forget that, what with one thing and
another.

She made her way past the crowded cable-car turntable and turned
downhill at the cart selling hot pretzels, strolling along the
waterfront with her hands in her pockets and her eyes scanning the
streets from behind the black lenses, humming a tune she did not
recognize as coming from the silly musical video she had watched two
nights ago. ("When constabulary duty's to be done, to be
done, a policeman's lot is not an 'appy one, "appy
one.") She saw two drug scores and a cruising hooker, then a
familiar face. She walked over and leaned against the wall next to the
pickpocket and sometime informant.

"Hey, Battles," she murmured. "How's doing?"

"Inspector Martinelli. Looking good. I'm clean."

"I'm sure you are, Bartles, and how about we stay that
way? Such a pretty day, let's not spoil it for the folks from
Nebraska, huh?"

"I'm not working, I told you. I'm just waiting for the wife."

" 'His capacity for innocent enjoyment is just as great
as any honest man's,"" she sang, out of tune,
startling a passing young couple from Visalia.

"What're you going on about?"

"Just something I heard on the tube the other night. Bar-ties,
I think when your wife's finished her shopping you should take
her home. I'm in a good mood and if you spoil it, I might break
one of your fingers getting the cuffs on you."

"I'm not working today," he insisted.

"Good. Neither am I. Have you seen a tall old man with a beard doing some kind of a clown act?"

"First she threatens me, then she asks me a favor."

"No threat, and it's not a favor. Just asking a civil question.

"You wouldn't know a--oh Christ, it's my wife. Get lost, will you?"

"Have you seen him?"

"Two blocks down, across the street. Now go!" he hissed.

Kate moved off, but not before she had seen the light of suspicion
come on in the face of a thin woman in shorts and spike heels. She
whistled softly to herself and turned into one of the nearby clothing
shops, where she chose a hot pink nylon baseball cap that was
embroidered with a truncated Golden Gate Bridge and the words SAN
FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, buying it and a package of chewing gum. She
paused at the tiny mirror beside a display of abalone earrings to put
her hair up under the hat, then unpeeled the gum and took out a piece,
which she never chewed by choice, but it rendered her infinitely more
harmless than all the makeup in a theater. Chewing and humming and
slouching behind her shades, she went to see the act of Brother Erasmus.

A certain precipitancy was the very poise of his soul.

It really was a stunningly beautiful morning, Kate thought with
pleasure, the kind of day that tempts people from New York and Boise to
move to California. It is easy to brave the earthquakes and the
unemployment and the killing mortgages when a person can eat lunch
outside wearing only a cotton shirt, knowing that much of the country
is up to its backside in snow. Strolling along in the carnival
atmosphere, kites dipping out over the water, the air smelling of fish
and aftershave, the waters of the Golden Gate sparkling, with the
bridge, Mount Tamalpais, and the island fortress of Alcatraz looking on
benevolently, Kate could forget for a few minutes that she was here on
business. She paused to examine the odd wares of the shop that sold
live oysters complete with pearls, stopped again to watch a young black
kid standing on a box playing robot while his buddy made sure everyone
had the hat held under their noses, and then she bought an ice cream
cone--for camouflage, of course. By then she had spotted Erasmus.
She went up casually, hiding behind hat and cone and the large crowd he
had attracted.

He was dressed as Rosalyn Hall had described him, in khaki trousers,
a too-small blue-and-white-striped T-shirt, and running shoes that were
just a bit too long. He also had a Raiders cap perched on the back of
his head and an exaggeratedly garish gold watch on his wrist. His face,
as Rosalyn had said, was very lightly shaded. From the side where Kate
stood, his face above the beard seemed slightly more dusky than usual,
but when he turned around, she saw that the left side of his face was
pale, almost chalky. Subtle, and disconcerting.

The most striking thing, however, was not Erasmus himself but his
wooden staff: Propped upright against a newspaper vending machine, it
wore on its carved head a miniature Raiders cap and a pair of
child's sunglasses, and beneath its chin a scrap of the
blue-and-white T-shirt fabric covered the worn piece of ribbon. Kate
had not really noticed how like Erasmus the carving was, probably
because the wood was so dark that the details faded, but it was all
there: the beard, an identical beak of a nose, the high brow beneath
the cap. The staff was Erasmus reduced to fist-sized essentials. Only
its eyes were invisible behind the miniature black lenses.

Erasmus was talking to the staff. He seemed to be reciting a speech
in a Shakespearean cadence (speaking with a clipped midwestern sort of
accent), striding up and down in the small area of sidewalk that was
his stage, seemingly unaware of any audience but the staff, which stood
erect, gazing back enigmatically at him from the orange metal newspaper
box.

And then the staff spoke. For a moment, Kate felt the hairs on the
back of her neck rise at the hoarse whisper, until she realized it was
merely a very skillful ventriloquism she was hearing. Around her, the
people in the crowd, particularly the newcomers on the outer fringes,
stirred and glanced at one another with quick, embarrassed smiles. It
was eerie, that voice, hypnotic and amazingly real. Across the
shoulders, she caught a glimpse of two children on the other side of
the circle, their mouths agape as they listened to the mannikin speak.

"A pestilent gall to me!" it said.

"Sir, I'll teach you a speech," offered Erasmus
eagerly. He stood slightly bent, so as to look up at the face on the
end of the wooden pole, and his stance, combined with the expression he
wore of sly stupidity, changed him, made him both bereft of dignity yet
somehow more powerful, as if he was under the control of some primal
buffoon.

"Do," said the staff in its husky voice.

"Mark it, uncle: Have more than you show,- speak less than you know--"

As the speech went on, Kate licked her ice cream absently, the wad
of gum tucked up into her cheek, and tried to remember where she had
heard this before. It must be Shakespeare, she thought. One of those
things Lee had taken her to. What was it, though? One of the dramas.
Not
Macbeth. The Tempest?
No, it was King Lear, talking to
his fool. But here, the part of the king was being played by the
inanimate staff, while the king's fool was the flesh-and-blood
man.

"This is nothing, fool," hissed the staff.

"Then it's like the breath of an unpaid lawyer,"
said Erasmus gleefully. "You gave me nothing for it!"

This brought a laugh, from the adults at any rate. The children did
not giggle until the fool offered to give the staff two crowns in
exchange for an egg.

"What two crowns will they be?" said the staff scornfully.

"Why, after I've cut the egg in the middle and eaten the
meat, the two crowns of the egg." And so saying, Erasmus pulled
two neat half eggshells out of thin air and placed them on the heads of
two children. He turned back to the enigmatic wooden figure.

"I pray you, uncle, keep a schoolmaster, that can teach your
fool to lie. I would like to learn to lie." He wagged his
eyebrows up and down and the children laughed again.

"If you lie, sir, we'll have you whipped," growled the staff.

"I marvel what kin you and your daughters are!" Erasmus
exclaimed. "They'll have me whipped for speaking the truth,
you will have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for
holding my peace. I would rather be any kind of thing than a fool, and
yet--I would not be you," he said, marching up to the staff
and shaking his head at the wooden face. "You have pared your wit
on both sides, and left nothing in the middle--and here comes one
of the parings."

He raised his voice at this last sentence and looked pointedly over
the heads of the people at a spot behind them. As one, they turned to
see. Kate, with the whole mass in front of her, stepped away from the
street to look down the sidewalk and saw--Oh no. Oh shit, Erasmus,
you stupid old man, don't do this. Can't you see what
you're messing with?

But of course he could. That was why he was standing there with his
head down, grinning in wicked anticipation as he met the eyes of his
target.