The Malacia Tapestry

Bonihatch was my age, dark, small and wiry, with untidy blonde whiskers. He nodded, looking suspiciously at my clothes without addressing me.

‘A recruit?’ he asked Bengtsohn.

‘We’ll see,’ Bengtsohn replied.

After this enigmatic exchange, Bengtsohn, with Bonihatch in surly attendance, showed me some of his work. A small den off the main workshop was stacked with slides for magic lanterns, all categorized on shelves. He pulled slides down at random and I looked at them against a flickering oil lamp. Many of the scenes were Bengtsohn’s work. He was an artist of a rough but effective order. Some of the hand-painted transparencies, especially those depicting scenery, were attractive, the colour and perspective harsh but nevertheless effective. There was an arctic view, with a man in furs driving a sledge over ice; the sledge was pulled by a reindeer, and the whole scene was lit by a sky full of northern lights which reflected off a glacier. As I held it before the lamp, he saw something in my face and said, ‘You like it? As a young man, I have gone beyond the Northern Mountains to the ice lands. That’s what like it was. A different world.’

‘It’s good.’

‘You know how we make these slide-paintings?’

I indicated the stacks of glass round about, and the long desk where assistants worked with brushes and a row of paint-pots. ‘Apart from your genius, Master, there’s no puzzle about the production.’

He shook his head. ‘You think you see the process but you do not see the system behind the process. Take our topographical line, what is popular perennially. Travellers from far parts will make sketches of the fabulous places they have visited. They return home to Byzantium or Swedish Kiev or Tolkhorm or Tuscady or some other great centre, where their sketches are etched and sold, either as books or separately. Our factory then buys the books and artists are converting the pictures to slides. Only the slides live, because light itself puts the finishing touches to the painting, if you follow me.’

‘I follow you. I too am proud to call myself an artist, though I work in movement rather than light.’

‘Light is everything.’

He led me through a choked passage where great sheets of tin stood on either side, to another shop. There, amid stink and smoke, men in aprons were making the magic lanterns which formed part of the Hoytola enterprise. Some lanterns were cheap and flimsy, others masterpieces of manufacture, with high fluted chimneys and mahogany panels bound in brass.

Eventually, Bengtsohn led me back to the paint shop, where we watched a girl of no more than fifteen copy a view from an etching on to a glass.

‘The view is being transferred to the slide,’ announced Bengtsohn. ‘Pretty, perhaps, but not accurate. How could we transfer the view to the glass with accuracy? Well, now, I have developed a perfectly effective way so to do.’ He dropped his voice so that the girl – who never looked up from her work – should not catch his words. ‘The new method employs the zahnoscope.’

Bonihatch spoke for the first time. ‘It’s revolutionary,’ was all he said.

Gripping me by the muscle of my upper arm, Bengtsohn took me through into another room, poky and enclosed, where the window was framed by heavy curtains. A support rather like a music-stand stood at one end of the room with a lamp burning above it and a water globe next to it. In the centre of the room was something which resembled a cumbrous Turkish cannon. Constructed almost entirely of mahogany and bound in richly chased brass, its barrel comprised five square sections, each smaller than the next and tapering towards the muzzle. It was mounted on a solid base which terminated in four brass wheels.

‘It’s a cannon?’ I asked.

‘It could cause a breach in the walls of everyone’s complacency – but no, it is my zahnoscope merely, so-called after a German monk what invented the design.’

He tapped the muzzle. ‘There’s a lens here, to trap rays from the light. That’s the secret! A special large lens such as Malacia’s glass workers do not produce. I received it from ship only this morning – it has just been fitted. You saw me with it when All-People summoned you.’

He tapped the breech. ‘There’s a mirror in here. That’s the secret too! Now I shall show how it works.’

Taking a coloured topographical view from a shelf, he propped it on the music-stand, turned up the wick of the lamp, and adjusted the water globe between stand and lamp so that the beams of the lamp focused brightly on the view. Then he drew the curtains across the window. The room was lit only by the oil lamp. Bengtsohn motioned me to a chair by the breech.

It was as if I sat at a desk. The flat top of the desk was glass. And there, perfectly reproduced on the glass, was the topographical view, bright in all its original colour!

‘It’s beautiful, Master! Here you can have a perfect magic-lantern show.’

‘This is a tool not a toy. We place the glass of our slides over the viewer and can adjust the barrel – what adjusts the focal length of the lenses – until we have the exact size of picture necessary for the slide, no matter what the dimensions from the original etching. We can then simply paint over the image with accuracy.’

I clapped my hands. ‘You are more than an artist! – You are an actor! Like me, you take the poor shadowy thing of real life and magnify it and add brighter colours to delight your audience … But what do you want me here for? I can’t handle a paintbrush .’

He stood pulling his lower lip and squinting at me.

‘People come in two kinds. Either they’re too clever or too foolish to be trusted. I can’t reason out which group you’re in.’

‘I’m to be trusted. Everyone trusts Perian de Chirolo – ask Kemperer, for whom you once worked, who knows me minutely. His wife will also say a good word for me.’

He brushed my speech aside, stood gazing into the distance in very much a pose I have used for Blind Kedgoree.

‘Well, I need a young man not too ill set-up, there’s no denying that … The older you get, the more difficult things become …’

At last he turned back to me. ‘Very well, I shall take you in my confidence, young man; but I warn that what I tell you must not be repeated with nobody, not with your dearest friend, no, not even with your sweetest sweetheart. Come, we’ll walk in the exhibition gallery while I will explain my invention and my intention …’

He drew back the curtains, turned down the lamp, and led me back to the workshops. We climbed some steps, went through a door, and were in another world where disorder was forgotten. We had entered the elegantly appointed gallery itself, the walls of which were lined with thousands of glass slides, aligned on racks for easy viewing. The slides could be hired for varying amounts, depending upon quality and subject. There were long sets of twenty or thirty slides which told in pictures heroic stories of old, as well as vivid portrayals of brigandage or disaster, which were most popular. Well-dressed people were walking about and gazing at the pictures; Bengtsohn kept his voice down.

‘Despite this place stinks of privilege, it preserves a part of the cultural thought of Malacia as well as Count Renardo’s state museum. Andrus Hoytola exploits cheap labour, no use to deny that – a class enemy if there was one – yet he is not a merchant just but also an artist and a man of foresight. However, to my invention …’

There was a secretiveness about him which did not suit my open nature. He manoeuvered me into a corner, saying he would lecture me upon matters not generally understood.

‘It has long been known through the learned alchemists that there are certain salts what have an empathy with or aversion against the light, so that some say they are fallen from the sun or the moon. I have developed here a process whereby a judicious mixture of silver iodine will secure on a slide of glass an image of whatever is placed before the zahnoscope. A second process involving oils of lavender and heated mercury fixes the image permanently on the glass. This is painting without hands, my dear de Chirolo …’

When he beamed at me, he looked years younger.

‘Why tell me your secret?’

He shook his head. ‘It’s not mine but Nature’s. All what wish can share it. You do not realise the oppressiveness of the state what we live in –’

‘I love my native city.’

‘I what am a foreigner should not criticise? Nevertheless, any such scientific processes what I describe are suppressed … Justice is denied – and beauty.’

He snatched from one of the exhibition racks a slide which he urged me to hold up to the light. It was a volcanic eruption. I stared through a volcano in full spate, with streams of lava furrowing its snow-clad slopes – to see one of the most beautiful faces I had ever come across, a face with a high-bridged nose, two dark-golden eyes, a mouth that was flashing a brilliant smile – though not in my direction – and a delicate head of cultivated unruly hair, jet-black and tied with a length of blue ribbon at the back.

Even as this face materialised through the volcanic eruption, it turned into profile and then went into eclipse, with only the tresses and ribbons at the back of the head available to my view. Even that was thrilling enough; but never had I seen a profile so adorable, or so originally designed, with the entire physiognomy depending from that patrician nose, without the nose being too large even by one delicious millimetre.

Lowering Mount Vesuvius slightly, I regarded the body to which this fabulous head was such an exquisite adjunct. Though I beheld it only from behind, I saw that the waist was slender, the hips generous, and the buttocks altogether matchless enough to put the snowy slopes of any volcano to shame. The whole enchanting figure was sheathed in a long, crisp dress of apricot-coloured silk which swept to the floor. My aesthetic senses, roused by the proportions of the face, were overtaken by my carnal ones and I resolved to approach this beauty at whatever cost.

All the while, Bengtsohn was talking in his cracky way, mistaking the subject of my absorption, ‘… this beautiful view was never touched by human hands …’

‘Glad I am to hear you say it.’

‘The exciting effect of fire and snow in conjunction …’

‘Oh, yes, and that conjunction …’

‘Yet this is but an imitation of an imitation …’

‘No, that I can’t believe! This is the real thing at last.’

‘You flatter me, but the zahnoscope can be made to capture the real thing, to go straight to life rather than art …’

I put the slide down. The vision was preparing to leave the gallery; I might never see her again and my happiness would never be complete.

‘You must excuse me, Maestro – I do have more preference for life than for art, just as you do. You must manage your affairs and I mine –’

Seeing I was making to go, he grasped my arm.

‘Listen, please, young man. I’m offering you work and money. All-People can’t be mistaken. You have not work or money. I want to do a new thing with the zahnoscope. I want to mercurise – that’s how I call it – I want to mercurise a whole story on slides, using real actors, not just paintings. It will be a dazzling new success, it will be revolutionary – and you can take prominently part in it. Now, come into the workshop and let me explain properly all.’

‘I’ve just seen a friend – who’s the fair creature at the far end of the gallery?’

He answered sharply. ‘That’s Armida Hoytola, daughter of the gallery-owner, a difficult, flighty girl. She’s a parasite, a class enemy. Don’t waste your time –’

‘A thousand thanks for for the meal, but I cannot work for you. All-People looked at the wrong constellation. There is other work more fitting …’

I bowed to him and left. He drew himself up, folding his arms over his ancient coat, with the funniest expression on his face.

At the far end of the gallery, beyond the counter, was a doorway into a coffee lounge. My fair creature was making her way through it with a friend. No chaperons that I could see. The friend was about the same age as – Armida? – Armida! – and striking too in her own way, a plump girl with chestnut ringlets. On an ordinary day she would certainly have attracted one’s attention; her only fault was to be caught with the divine Armida. They made a pretty pair as they moved into the lounge, although I had eyes for only one of them.

Pausing in the doorway, I wondered whether to appear tragic or cheerful; the poverty of my clothes decided me on the latter course.

The two of them were settling at a nearby table. As Armida sat back, our eyes met. Streams of animal magnetism poured across the room. On impulse, holding her gaze, I went forward, seized one of the empty chairs at her table, and said, ‘Ladies’ – but I addressed myself only to her – ‘I see in your faces such human warmth that I ventured uninvited to thrust my company upon you. I desperately need counsel and, since we are total strangers to each other, you can give me impartial advice at a time when my whole life is in crisis.’

There was hauteur in their manner directly I started speaking. As they looked at each other, I saw that the companion with the brown hair was quite a beauty, by no means as elegantly slender as Armida, but with a chubbiness that had its own undeniable attractions. Whatever passed between them I know not; I only know that when they looked back towards me, the ice had slightly melted.

‘Perhaps your crisis will allow you time to drink chocolate with us,’ Armida said in a voice freighted with light musics.

Gratefully, I sat down. ‘Five minutes only … Then urgent business must take me elsewhere. You were enjoying the exhibition?’

‘It’s tolerably familiar to us,’ said Armida, waving a dismissive hand. ‘What is your crisis, sir? You have us agog, as I expect you intend.’

‘We all confront crises in our lives …’ But that would not do. ‘My father,’ I said, thinking quickly, ‘he’s a stern man. He is forcing me to decide my future career. I have to tell him by the week’s end whether I will enter the Army or the High Religion.’

‘I’m sure your heart’s pure enough for the Church,’ said Armida, smiling with enough warmth to cook an egg. ‘Is it not brave enough for the Army?’

‘My dilemma is that I wish as a good son to please my father, but I want to become something more fulfilling than a monk or a grenadier.’

Two pretty heads went to one side as they gazed upon me. My head was turned completely.

‘Why not,’ said the brown-haired one, ‘become a player? It’s a terribly varied career which gives pleasure to many.’

My hopes rose within me, so much so that I reached forward and seized her hand where it lay on the table. ‘How kind of you to suggest it!’

Armida said, ‘Pooh, not a player! They’re poor and the stories they play out are dull … It’s the lowest form of animal life! There’s no advancement in it.’

The effect of this speech from those lips was enough to cool my blood by several degrees, down almost to frost level. Matters were only saved by Armida’s leaning forward and adding, confidingly, ‘Bedalar’s latest fancy is a player – he’s handsome, grant you that – so she thinks nothing male is of any use unless it basks before the limelights every evening at seven.’

Bedalar put out a pretty tongue at her friend. ‘You’re only jealous!’

Armida showed her an even prettier tongue back. I could have watched such rivalry all evening, while thinking how cordially I would receive that nimble little tongue into my own cheek. So involved were my senses that only later did Bedalar’s name register on me; I had heard it before that day.

Armida’s air of imparting a confidence had soothed me, but there was a chill in the conversation, as the two girls gazed at each other and I gazed moodily at them.

Fortunately, chocolate arrived in a silver pot, and we occupied ourselves with drinking.

Setting down her cup, Bedalar announced that she must leave.

‘We all know whom you’re going to meet, so don’t be so coy,’ said Armida. Turning to me as her friend left, she said, ‘The new-found player. He’s out of work, so they can enjoy a rendezvous at any old time that Bedalar’s chaperon is out of sight. I have a friend of high connection – one must not say whom – who is involved with his duty today, and many other days as well.’

I thought this was more unkindness and said, ‘Perhaps you wish me to leave …’

‘You may go or stay as you like. I didn’t invite you to sit down.’

It was no good sulking before this little minx. ‘I came voluntarily, yes; I now find myself unable to leave voluntarily. I am already under such a spell as it would take a dozen gentlemen of connection, drunk or sober’ – I thought I’d strike there – ‘to disperse.’

She half-pouted, half-laughed.

‘How silly I shall look on the street with you running behind my carriage. And you even sillier, following rather like a carriage dog.’

‘I make it a rule never to run behind carriages. Let’s walk together instead. Come, we will walk in Trundles Park and see who laughs at us.’

I rose and offered my arm. She got up – and what a movement that was! La Singla could not have managed it better – and said with exquisite seriousness, ‘And I’m supposed to pay for the chocolate consumed by all and sundry?’

‘Is this not your father’s establishment? Do you insult them by trying to offer them money?’

‘You know who I am … I don’t frequent many strata of Malacian society, so I have no notion who you are.’

When I told her my name, I noted that it was unfamiliar to her, although in view of her poor opinion of players that was possibly as well.

I offered my arm again. She rested four gloved fingers upon its upper surface and said, ‘You may escort me to my carriage.’

‘We are going to walk in the park.’

‘You are presumptuous if you believe I will do anything of the sort. I could not at all afford to be seen in the park with you.’

We stood looking at each other. Close to she was startling. Hers was a face which beauty made formidable; yet there was about her mouth a kind of wistfulness which seemed to contradict the hauteur.

‘May I see you tomorrow, then, in whatever circumstances you prefer?’

She adjusted her hair and the ribbons in her hair, and put on a bonnet which an assistant brought. A smile grew about her lips.

‘You’ll be involved in battles or canticles tomorrow, won’t you?’

‘Swords and holy vows alike mean nothing to me where you’re concerned. You are so beautiful, Miss Hoytola, I’ve never seen anyone like you.’

‘You are certainly a forward young fellow – although I don’t necessarily hold that against you. But I begin a special commission – not work of any kind, naturally – tomorrow, and so shall not be at liberty.’

We moved towards the door, which a lackey opened, bowing low and hiding a glint of envy in his eye. We emerged into the mid-day street, almost empty as siesta took over Malacia.

‘What sort of commission, Miss Hoytola?’

A frown, barely rumpling the exquisite brow. ‘That’s no concern of yours. It happens to be something to please the whim of my parents, who fancy they cannot have enough portraits of me, doting things. So I am to pose a little for a mad foreigner in our employ, one Otto Bengtsohn. He’s something of an artist in his fashion.’

Although I had lingered to the best of my ability, we were at her equipage. The carriage shone like a crown with sun and polish: A highly groomed mare waited between the shafts. The powdered driver was opening a door for Armida. She was lifting her apricot skirts, preparing to climb in and be whisked away.

‘We must part here, sir. It was pleasant making your acquaintance.’

‘We shall meet again, I feel sure.’

She smiled.

The door was closed, the driver mounted behind. The whip was cracked, she waved, they were off. Stand still to act effectively; it had no application here.

As I turned, the gallery was closing for siesta, the blinds were being drawn down. I walked slowly away.

Of course I could not be in love.

Strolling down the street I ran over our brief conversation in my mind. I was far too poor for her, for Armida Hoytola. Yet she had been interested. Her friend could be Bedalar, Caylus Nortolini’s sister, whom de Lambant had mentioned. If Bedalar deigned to look at a player, then her friend might also find it fashionable. Unbidden, a picture came to my mind of my marrying Armida and walking secure in the sort of society I knew I would enjoy …

The vision passed, and I was left with her words about the commission with Bengtsohn. There lay my opportunity!

At once I turned down the expansive Exhibition Road and into the narrow alleys behind, until I found myself again in the gloom of the Court of the Dark Eye.

A group of men, all dingily dressed, stood in the darkest recesses of the court; there were women among them, old and young. They turned guiltily as I entered. One of them came forward, carrying a stout stick; it was the apprentice I had met, Bonihatch.

‘What do you want?’

‘I need to speak to Bengtsohn.’

‘We’re busy. There’s a meeting, can’t you see? Shove off, as you did before.’

But Bengstsohn moved up behind him, saying mildly, ‘It’s siesta and we talk of pigeon racing, de Chirolo. What do you wish from me? You left me abruptly enough.’

I gave him a bow. ‘My apologies for that discourtesy. I had a mission.’

‘Thus it seemed.’

‘I am interested in the work you offered me, if you would be kind enough to tell me what exactly you require.’

‘Come back this evening. I have business now. I will then talk with you.’

I looked at Bonihatch, who stood ready with his stick.

‘I may have become a monk by evening, but I’ll see what I can manage.’

Love, what a power it is! Nothing but love could have induced me to enter that dreary court three times in one day – and what dedication I showed, for the lady had revealed herself to be uncertain-tempered, vain, and I know not what else besides. Also irresistible.

How wise one feels to be a fool of love!

‘Even a fool can do this job,’ Bengtsohn said. ‘Is why All-People indicated an actor, I suppose.’

By night, moving behind smoky lanterns in intermittent shadow, Bengtsohn looked almost sinister, his sunken eyes sometimes hiding, sometimes glittering, in their sockets. His long fingers were talon-like as he wove his explanation.

‘I told how I have discovered the method to mercurise real views through the zahnoscope, so that they have become implanted on glass slides. My ambition is to tell a story by such methods. People I need, actors. A simple story to begin. Big acorns from little oaks grow. I will mercurise the actors against real or painted settings. The product will be of an extraordinary originality and cause certain consequences. You shall be one from the four characters in the simple drama. The scenes of the drama will be emblazoned on glass far more faithfully than what artist could ever depict. This will be the real image, painted by light – light, that great natural force what is free for all, rich and poor alike.’

Keen to make him look a little less inspired, I said, ‘It will only be like a stage play with the action stopped, and paralysis suddenly overtaking everyone.’

‘You players are so ephemeral, your actions sketched in the air and then gone, the whole thing forgotten when the final curtain will come down. But when you are mercurised through the zahnoscope, why, then your actions become imperishable, your drama continuous. I will not mind wagering that the drama what you will enact for me will still be viewed by connoisseurs after you yourself will have grown old and died, young Perian!’

At that, I had to laugh. He was cutting an absurd figure, stroking an old japanned magic lantern with fluted chimney as he spoke, as if he expected a genie to emerge.

‘And what is this great drama you wish me to perform? Are we to put Sophocles of Seneca on glass?’