The Tale of Despereaux (7 page)

Reader, do you know the definition of the word “chiaroscuro”? If you look in your dictionary, you will find that it means the arrangement of light and dark, darkness and light together. Rats do not care for light. Roscuro’s parents were having a bit of fun when they named their son. Rats have a sense of humor. Rats, in fact, think that life is very funny. And they are right, reader. They are right.

In the case of Chiaroscuro, however, the joke had a hint of prophecy to it, for it happened that when Roscuro was a very young rat, he came upon a great length of rope on the dungeon floor.

“Ah, what have we here?” said Roscuro.

Being a rat, he immediately began to nibble at the rope.

“Stop that,” boomed a voice, and a great hand came out of the darkness and picked the rat up by his tail and held him suspended upside down.

“Were you nibbling on Gregory’s rope, rat?”

“Who wants to know?” said Roscuro, for even upside down he was still a rat.

“You smart-alecky rat, you smart-alecky rat nib-nib-nibbling on Gregory’s rope. Gregory will teach you to mess with his rope.”

And keeping Roscuro upside down, Gregory lit a match with the nail of his thumb,
ssssssttttttt,
and then held the brilliant flame right in Roscuro’s face.

“Ahhh,” said Roscuro. He pulled his head back, away from the light. But, alas, he did not close his eyes, and the flame exploded around him and danced inside him.

“Has no one told you the rules?” said Gregory.

“What rules?”

“Gregory’s rope, rat, is off-limits.”

“So?”

“Apologize for chewing on Gregory’s rope.”

“I will not,” said Roscuro.

“Apologize.”

“No.”

“Filthy rat,” said Gregory. “You black-souled thing. Gregory has had it with you rats.” He held the match closer to Roscuro’s face, and a terrible smell of burnt whiskers rose up around the jailer and the rat. And then the match went out and Gregory released Roscuro’s tail. He flung him back into the darkness.

“Do not ever touch Gregory’s rope again, or you will be sorry.”

Roscuro sat on the dungeon floor. The whiskers on the left side of his face were gone. His heart was beating hard, and though the light from the match had disappeared, it danced, still, before the rat’s eyes, even when he closed them.

“Light,” he said aloud. And then he whispered the word again. “Light.”

From that moment forward, Roscuro showed an abnormal, inordinate interest in illumination of all sorts. He was always, in the darkness of the dungeon, on the lookout for light, the smallest glimmer, the tiniest shimmer. His rat soul longed inexplicably for it; he began to think that light was the only thing that gave life meaning, and he despaired that there was so little of it to be had.

He finally voiced this sentiment to his friend, a very old one-eared rat named Botticelli Remorso.

“I think,” said Roscuro, “that the meaning of life is light.”

“Light,” said Botticelli. “Ha-ha-ha — you kill me. Light has nothing to do with it.”

“What does it all mean then?” asked Roscuro.

“The meaning of life,” said Botticelli, “is suffering, specifically the suffering of others. Prisoners, for instance. Reducing a prisoner to weeping and wailing and begging is a delightful way to invest your existence with meaning.”

As he spoke, Botticelli swung, from the one extraordinarily long nail of his right front paw, a heart-shaped locket. He had taken the locket from a prisoner and hung it on a thin braided rope. Whenever Botticelli spoke, the locket moved. Back and forth, back and forth it swung. “Are you listening?” Botticelli said to Roscuro.

“I am listening.”

“Good,” said Botticelli. “Do as I say and your life will be full of meaning. This is how to torture a prisoner: first, you must convince him that you are a friend. Listen to him. Encourage him to confess his sins. And when the time is right, talk to him. Tell him what he wants to hear. Tell him, for instance, that you will forgive him. This is a wonderful joke to play upon a prisoner, to promise forgiveness.”

“Why?” said Roscuro. His eyes went back and forth, back and forth, following the locket.

“Because,” said Botticelli, “you will promise it — ha — but you will not grant it. You gain his trust. And then you deny him. You refuse to offer the very thing he wants. Forgiveness, freedom, friendship, whatever it is that his heart most desires, you withhold.” At this point in his lecture, Botticelli laughed so hard that he had to sit down and catch his breath. The locket swayed slowly back and forth and then stopped altogether.

“Ha,” said Botticelli, “ha-ha-ha! You gain his trust, you refuse him and — ha-ha — you become what he knew you were all along, what
you
knew you were all along, not a friend, not a confessor, not a forgiver, but — ha-ha! — a
rat
!” Botticelli wiped his eyes and shook his head and sighed a sigh of great contentment. He set the locket in motion again. “At that point, it is most effective to run back and forth over the prisoner’s feet, inducing physical terror along with the emotional sort. Oh,” he said, “it is such a lovely game, such a lovely game! And it is just absolutely chock-full of meaning.”

“I would like very much to torture a prisoner,” said Roscuro. “I would like to make someone suffer.”

“Your time will come,” said Botticelli. “Currently, all the prisoners are spoken for. But another prisoner will arrive sooner or later. How do I know this to be true? Because, Roscuro, thankfully there is evil in the world. And the presence of evil guarantees the existence of prisoners.”

“So, soon, there will be a prisoner for me?”

“Yes,” said Botticelli Remorso. “Yes.”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

“Ha-ha-ha! Of course you are looking forward to it. You are looking forward to it because you are a rat, a real rat.”

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “I am a real rat.”

“Concerned not at all with the light,” said Botticelli.

“Concerned not at all with the light,” repeated Roscuro.

Botticelli laughed again and shook his head. The locket, suspended from the long nail on his paw, swung back and forth, back and forth.

“You, my young friend, are a rat. Exactly. Yes. Evil. Prisoners. Rats. Suffering. It all fits together so neatly, so sweetly. Oh, it is a lovely world, a lovely, dark world.”

NOT LONG AFTER this conversation between Botticelli and Roscuro, a prisoner did arrive. The dungeon door slammed and the two rats watched a man being led by a king’s soldier down the stairs into the dungeon.

“Excellent,” whispered Botticelli. “This one is yours.”

Roscuro looked at the man closely. “I will make him suffer,” he said.

But as he stared up at the man, the door to the dungeon was suddenly flung open and a thick and brilliant shaft of afternoon light cut into the dark of the dungeon.

“Ugh,” said Botticelli. He covered his eyes with one paw.

Roscuro, however, stared directly into the light.

Reader, this is important: The rat called Chiaroscuro did not look away. He let the light from the upstairs world enter him and fill him. He gasped aloud with the wonder of it.

“Give him his small comforts,” shouted a voice at the top of the stairs, and a red cloth was thrown into the light. The cloth hung suspended for a moment, bright red and glowing, and then the door was slammed shut again and the light disappeared and the cloth fell to the floor. It was Gregory the jailer who bent to pick it up.

“Go on,” said the old man as he held out the cloth to the prisoner, “take it. You’ll need every last bit of warmth down here.”

And so the prisoner took the cloth and draped it around his shoulders as if it were a cloak, and the soldier of the king said, “Right then, Gregory, he’s all yours.” And the soldier turned and went back up the steps and opened the door to the outside world and some small light leaked in before he closed the door behind him.

“Did you see that?” Roscuro said to Botticelli.

“Hideously ugly,” said Botticelli. “Ridiculous. What can they possibly mean by letting all that light in at once. Don’t they know that this is a dungeon?”

“It was beautiful,” said Roscuro.

“No,” said Botticelli. “No.” He looked at Roscuro intently. “Not beautiful. No.”

“I must see more light. I must see all of it,” said Roscuro. “I must go upstairs.”

Botticelli sighed. “Who cares about the light? Your obsession with it is tiresome. Listen. We are rats. Rats. We do not like light. We are about darkness. We are about suffering.”

“But,” said Roscuro, “upstairs.”

“No ‘buts,’ ” said Botticelli. “No ‘buts.’ None. Rats do not go upstairs. Upstairs is the domain of mice.” He took the locket from around his neck.

“What,” he said, swinging it back and forth, “is this rope made of?”

“Whiskers.”

“The whiskers of whom?”

“Mice.”

“Exactly. And who lives upstairs?”

“Mice.”

“Exactly. Mice.” Botticelli turned his head and spat on the floor. “Mice are nothing but little packages of blood and bones, afraid of everything. They are despicable, laughable, the opposite of everything we strive to be. Do you want to live in their world?”

Roscuro looked up, past Botticelli to the delicious sliver of light that shone out from underneath the door. He said nothing.

“Listen,” said Botticelli, “this is what you should do: Go and torture the prisoner. Go and take the red cloth from him. The cloth will satisfy your cravings for something from that world. But do not go up into the light. You will regret it.” As he spoke, the locket swung back and forth, back and forth. “You do not belong in that world. You are a rat. A rat. Say it with me.”

“A rat,” said Roscuro.

“Ah, but you are cheating. You must say, ‘
I am
a rat,’ ” said Botticelli, smiling his slow smile at Roscuro.

“I am a rat,” said Roscuro.

“Again,” said Botticelli, swinging his locket.

“I am a rat.”

“Exactly,” said Botticelli. “A rat is a rat is a rat. End of story. World without end. Amen.”

“Yes,” said Roscuro. “Amen, I am a rat.” He closed his eyes. He saw, again, the red cloth spinning against the backdrop of gold.

And he told himself, reader, that it was the cloth that he desired and not the light.

ROSCURO WENT, as Botticelli told him he must, to torment the new prisoner and to take the red cloth from him.

The man was sitting with his legs stretched out straight in front of him, chained to the floor. The red cloth was still draped over his shoulders.

Roscuro squeezed through the bars and crept slowly over the damp, weeping stones of the cell floor.

When he was close to the man, he said, “Ah, welcome, welcome. We are delighted to have you.”

The man lit a match and looked at Roscuro.

Roscuro stared longingly into the light.

“Go on,” said the prisoner. He waved a hand in the direction of Roscuro and the match went out. “Yer nothing but a rat.”

“I am,” said Roscuro, “exactly that. A rat. Allow me to congratulate you on your very astute powers of observation.”

“What do ye want, rat?”

“What do I want? Nothing. Nothing for my sake, that is. I have come for you. I have come to keep you company here in the dark.” He crawled closer to the man.