Alva and Irva (5 page)
Authors: Edward Carey
‘Dapps. Which one is Dapps?’ What a question! Surely no one will answer it. But Marta Stroud of counter three unfortunately insists on informing them of her existence by placing her hand up in the air.
M
ARTA
S
TROUD’S
ugly, hairy arm is in the air, still wobbling from the action that put it there, and shan’t, can’t, won’t be ignored. Marta Stroud who is made more eager by her psoriasis, as if her over-helpfulness might compensate for her unpleasant disfigurement. Marta Stroud with the blotches on her that are islands of mould, as though her disease had stretched a globe across her face—but it is not our globe, it is not the Earth exhibited on her skin; none of the countries are recognisable. Her arm, equally distorted with clumps of islands, bogland most likely, is still spread upwards and her body, the many continents of discoloured itchiness concealed beneath her touch-me-not clothing, joins it now, standing erect on the points of its suffering toes, as if Marta Stroud and her whole map of mould are sure to touch beyond countless universes in their attempt to attract attention. It is this same Marta Stroud who has finally now been noticed, this same Marta Stroud who has formed her body into a pointing device, yes, it is this Mould, this Moist, this Marta Stroud, who is volunteering, when no volunteers were asked for, the information that Father, our father, visibly frightened now, sitting on his wooden stool by Mother’s plastic seat at the twelfth counter, holding his heart while his mouth urgently searches for air, that Father, our father—I’m nearing the end now, Father’s time is nearly up—that this man is the one they are asking for. He is, in fact, simply, unquestionably, guiltfully … Dapps!
I
N A WARD
in the maternity hospital on Saint Mirgarita of Antioch Street (patron saint of pregnant women, who died in the Roman city of Antioch, now the Turkish city of Antakya), Dallia Dapps gave birth to two little girls. She named them Alva and Irva.
Our birth certificate revealed that Linas Dapps was our father, though it did not reveal that Father was not present at the birth of us, his two daughters, or that when Dallia Lizbet Dapps, née Grett,
screamed at the pain of giving birth to her two girls, she should perhaps also have been screaming out for the life of her husband.
Alva Lina Dapps and Irva Lina Dapps. Identical twins with identical wails. I came first. Irva waited two more hours and then was forced to decide, after some exhausting coercion from Mother, that it was safe to come out. She never really wanted to come out, she’d rather have stayed in there all the while, she never really wanted to come out at all.
3
LOST TREASURES OF ENTRALLA. THE CHAPEL OF SAINT PITER THE MARTYR. There would be no reward for any excursion to this region of the city, either optional or mandatory. It is a small miracle that this church—a superb example of fifteenth-century Christian architecture—stood for so long, being, as it was, predominantly made of wood, wood that had housed within it a population of insects whose numbers could have rivalled any of the great and famous municipalities of the world.
4
SITES OF INTEREST. ENTRALLA CATHEDRAL IN MINIATURE. Postman Girge’s matchstick cathedral is still exhibited within our massive stone cathedral to this day, though it is now in ruins, destroyed by a piece of tumbling masonry the size of a man’s head; the earthquake broke both the cathedral and the cathedral’s model. Today the ruin in matchsticks reminds Entrallans of the ruin in stones, of the broken cathedral before it was fully restored.
5
ENTRALLANS OF NOTE. AMBRAS JONAS CETTS. Former Mayor. Perhaps some people may feel, considering this man with his dazzling future, perfect features and healthy body, that he is the hero this history has so far failed to produce. And in a way, a kind of way, he is.
6
INCIDENTALLY—for the following paragraphs it may be useful to view the map at the front of this book.
Coffee
Market Square
Café Louis, Market Square 14. Open 10:00-23:30 tel. 316 80 24.
Market Square is found easily enough on Arsenal Street in easy walking distance from Cathedral Square, and is always a worthwhile place to visit. The square abounds in cafés: there are no less than twelve open every weekday; on weekends five are available to accommodate the Saturday evening adolescents in search of noise and love and beer; or three are open for the benefit of the Sunday morning stroller in search of coffee and peace, but who may become irritated by the sudden arrival of the after-church family crowd. On Wednesdays, market day, the square is of course particularly busy and populated by many stalls selling fresh produce, electronic equipment, a wide variety of second-hand clothes, religious amulets, antiques, plastic objets d’art. The buildings that surround the square are all fifteenth century with terracotta tiles and wooden beams. But sadly, due to our earthquake, many are replicas.
CAFÉ LOUIS, a red building with ‘LOUIS’ clearly marked on its front (in any case the café with the wonky awning), is where I would recommend our distinguished foreign visitors take their morning coffee break. If on entering you are initially disgusted by the smell of tobacco smoke, do not immediately rush out in search of another café—all cafés have this smell: we are a nation of smokers. Instead, allow the smell to remind you of Linas; it is good that you should consider Linas now.
I have suggested this café not solely because it is one of those places which offers a 10 per cent reduction to all readers of this book. (Though this should of course be taken advantage of—and be sure to exhibit the book each time the waitress comes forward, and perhaps even to point at it indiscreetly.) But I recommend the café also for its excellent thick, bowel-moving coffee. In fact not even purely for the coffee, or the 10 per cent reduction, has this place been selected above all others; nor is it even for the scores of beautiful late-teenage waitresses that Louis has employed over the decades of his café’s existence to soften the hearts of hard old men and make them linger and care less for the thickness of their wallets. No, the principal reason for my recommendation is that sitting amongst you now as you drink the faultless coffee are various men and women from our city, regulars at Café Louis, who happen also to be characters (or the children of characters) from this book.
Let us start with the couple in the darkest corner of the bar, two men, both sitting with coffee or beer in front of them, not talking but with anxious expressions on their faces, as if they dare not talk, as if they are waiting for something or someone. One is older, he is tall and podgy and nervous, he drums his fingers on the table’s surface; the other, shorter with greying hair, sighs noisily every now and then. But these two characters have yet to be introduced in this history (perhaps that is why they are so impatient), so let us leave them
alone for the time being with their secret anticipation. Let us turn instead to Louis himself, for he is invariably there, or at least his body is—his mind travels increasingly longer distances until one day, surely not far from now, it will never come back. Look at stationary Louis: what a wonderful wrinkled old fellow he is. Look how white his hair is, see how mildly he looks ahead—he had such a temper once that he smashed all the dozens of coffee cups and all the lines of beer glasses one evening, two decades back (out of love), as if all those glasses and cups were the containers of his happiness, and so had to be broken because he was miserable. Louis, even in his more active days, will never perform a major role in this history, though when his hair was black, his café was frequently visited by Alva Dapps, who liked to rest here from her walks around Entralla.
Please note the wooden seat next to Louis. It is empty. It is always empty now. It was once filled with the ample behind of a man named Kurt Laudus. Here rests, if not a character from this book, then a ghost of a character from this book. The Kurt who once sat on this stool was the same Kurt who once worked in our Central Post Office, but who was never, despite a postmaster’s hopes, to fall in love with one Dallia Dapps, née Grett. Kurt loved only men, and his greatest love was Louis, a love which Louis’s customers never spoke openly about, for such a love was officially prohibited then. Kurt once squandered Louis’s ever-constant attentions on a student of archaeology from Entralla University, and it was because of this that Louis smashed all his cups and glasses and also, a short while later, Kurt’s face.
But Kurt Laudus has left us now, embraced by a collapsing building one July 16th, during our earthquake adventure. The chair is occupied only by memory: histories from the brain of a vague and snow-white, gently dying, mourning lover.
Here also should be, slouched over the bar, nonchalantly working through one of the day’s many tall, half-pint glasses of local blonde beer (highly recommended, incidentally), Lavinja Cetts, Ambras Cetts’s daughter. You will remember at what promise-filled moment we left Ambras’s career (and what results his over-eagerness
had on the progression of the twins’ history). Well, here now is his forty-year-old daughter, shaking slightly, aggressive with loneliness and stooped over by it also, who is paying the price for the phenomenally successful life of her impeccable father
Enjoy your coffee.
Alva & Irva
MOTHER ONCE LIVED ON
VEBER STREET
Residential Streets
Taking trolley bus 5-heading out of the city, away from Cathedral and Market Squares-you will quickly find yourself entering a residential area of the city Do not be frightened. Here is where the real stories are kept, not in the larger, more imposing structures of Entralla’s centre, but rather inside its ordinary domestic dwellings. Certainly the guidebook to our city will not advise you to take trolley bus route 5, unless it is heading in the opposite direction, but that is one of many failings of that book. Take the stop at Pilias Street in sector eight of our city, from there it is a short stroll to Veber Street, where this chapter shall be focused.
M
OTHER HELD AT
each breast an Alva or an Irva. While I struggled and wriggled with life, unable to lose the feeling of delight for movement, Irva kept very still. Only her eyes seemed to move, following Mother’s actions with the disapproving look of an ancient. I was easy to feed, clamping my mouth to Mother’s nipples and sucking with so ferocious an energy that Mother believed she could feel herself emptying out. But Irva had to be carefully encouraged; she kept turning her heavy head away from the nipples as if away from life, and often Mother had to feed her with a bottle, and often she was sick.
T
HIS IS HOW
we looked, these were the gifts we were given: from Mother pale skin and dark hair; from Father big heads and weak hearts. Not much of an inheritance.
Mother returned to her flat on Napoleon Street with two more little lives than she had left it and with one less big one. How the flat smelt of Father. From one window she could look out and see Napoleon Street down which Father had been escorted away from the post office towards the police buildings, already so pale, already with strange shooting pains in his arm. Whenever she looked out of the window, Mother saw Father being taken away again and again. In her mind she saw him, night and day, being escorted down the street, and, once out of sight, quickly reappearing again, still under escort, still crying the same tears. And no one ever came running to help him. Weak and dreamy Orphan Linas, Linas the Potent, our tall father, had miserably confessed to Ambras Cetts and his companions everything about letters from foreign countries and everything about an abandoned house on Foundry Lane with dangerous floorboards. What he had done was criminal, they told him. What he had done would not go unpunished. What he had done meant that he would have to accompany them immediately on an excursion to the police station. And suddenly Father knew that he would
never see Mother again, because here he was, flanked by men on either side, being walked out of the post office and up Napoleon Street, surely (of this he felt certain) on the way to his execution. He stood swaying in the police station, even though there was no breeze. The floor started rushing towards him. And everything went dark.