He got through the Genova episode somehow without remembering it: he did it well and nobody knew he wasn't there. At Hotel Cosimo near the opera house. A message from Professor Pauliani Poggi: “If you're up to it, my husband and I'd enjoy having you come to dinner tonight. Just buzz when you arrive… ” Dinner went so smoothly he hardly noticed he was there. And the lecture the next morning took care of itself: despite his strange hard-to-follow reference to conquistadores raping the be Jesus out of Indians and to Cortes and hidden eyes and what was meant to be a joke about the wallpaper in his hotel room (“… of the glittering sword planted in the neck of a defiant black bull — repeated eight thousand tiny times all around him on the wall… ”). Mason didn't let his bat-infested head spoil things. Although he'd gotten on well with pure Pauliani and guarded Gino, answered student questions and shaken hands with the faculty, he left with wild birds riding his back and monkeys clinging to his legs. He even stopped to rest, on his return to Nice, in a tree: a leafless old black tree. Demented goblins and unfortunate old women (referred to as toothless witches) danced in dank moonlight below. Mules and goats dressed in formal attire paid their moist respects to… Mason almost escaped the beauty of their strangeness when he was about to be dragged before a firing squad to be shot for imitating a… But at the last minute he was needed to fill a vacancy in a gigantic choir. Yet he didn't know the Medieval song they were ready to unearth.
February was the aftermath of magic. Noel and le jour de l'an had gone so-so for a lonely loner. Now it was Carnival time again. On the day before somber Lent began they all went to Luceram for the real traditional feast and festival. It was a little-known event Jean-Pierre knew (“in some parts of France these medieval ceremonies still take place… ”) and he led them there. In the Alps-Maritimes near the Italian border the village charmed Mason on sight: filled him with tin-glazed happiness… Shivering, they entered the restaurant facing the village center. It was just after noon and the place was crowded with peasants and other workers seated around long closely arranged tables. These old men and women and children and young people were having a balclass="underline" loud boisterous talk; knives, forks, spoons, clicked against bowls. Lots of lip-smacking enjoyment! Coughing! Sudden outbursts of traditional songs! Hand-clapping. Jokes! Back-slapping. All in that great warm darkness of this tiny restaurant where two old women shuffled about serving everybody endless wine and bowls of steaming hot guts, spicy livers, thick kidneys — cooked together in a massive stew — and served in crude clay bowls with — believe me! — old hot-water cornbread (just like they make in the South!). Mason sat squeezed between Monique and Jean-Pierre. He guzzled down the table wine and nearly choked himself on the strong innards. Up front at one of the long tables by the door a furious political argument broke out between two farmers. Within ten minutes the guys calmed down and were embracing and kissing each other's cheeks. Then a rock sailed through the front window. A boy swept the glass behind the door and everybody went on eating and drinking and talking and laughing. Then one gray old blue-clad farmer toasted Monique's beauty and handed her his glass to properly share the salute since she didn't have one in hand. That's how she became the Queen of the Feast and ceremoniously got the shared-cup going around the room. Everybody took a sip and the whole place eventually burst into song. Mason, not knowing the French lyrics, only pretended to sing. From where they sat they could see through the front windows the festivities increasing in the square. A group of youths and a couple of older men were stuffing the King. As fists beat on wooden tables for more wine and bowls were filled for the fourth and fifth times, Mason saw the awesome effigy being erected on a pole at the center of a pile of twigs, paper, boxes, branches, and old planks. The clowns were gathering around the King. It wasn't till Mason and his friends were ready to rejoin the festival that he noticed, carved into the table top at his right, this: Zizi/Nobody. Nobody? Wasn't that an English word? Just a passing curio. Then they went out, thanking the waitresses on the way. The dancing'd already started: they joined the gyrating maypole-line as it wobbled and giggled and bumped its way around the King. Already the sun had dropped behind the hills and somebody struck a big match to the rubbish. Smoke zigzagged up from the little spark. Smoke-smell quickly filled the square. Dancers danced harder to keep warm. The fire wasn't much yet. Kids from shadows were still throwing snowballs at those in the square. Dancers now were ideal targets but took it good-naturedly. Mason got bopped on the head once or twice. Monique got one in the eye — which caused her to stop for a few moments: the snowballs were like fishbones in delicious fish. In ten minutes or so it was dark and the flames were leaping taller than men. The King's trousers began to crackle and the smell of burning rags whirled about the dancers. When his crotch burned away the clowns and dancers and spectators all cheered. Snowball-throwers too came out of shadows and clapped. From here on out it was all joy and hysterics: everybody went apeshit when the King was consumed to the neck and had only a head left to offer. When the head fell all holy hell broke loose and the dancing and clowning, like the tiger chasing Little Black Sambo around the tree, turned them to butter: everybody was wiped out, spent…
How did he get into a red rooster suit? Couldn't remember. Must have been three in the morning and festivities were still up. Shrove Tuesday? Nice? He'd lost track of who was who: Jean-Paul was possibly that stupid ibex dancing with a gazelle. The gazelle? Perhaps Chantal! or Monique! Thousands, it seemed, were moving, jumping, dancing, shouting, to music — which was loud, brassy, headache-causer. Night sky at Place Messina was a turkey turned upside down full of Old Norse noise and bursting up in it were trees — Catalpa Paluownia Horse-Chestnut — in full bloom. His mood was curved and his senses out of focus, yet he continued to flap his big wings. He beat them with a lusty power. Mason did the Camel Walk, he strutted, he pranced, he got behind the gazelle and said, “Cocka-doodle-doo!” She responded with a squeak. Looking over her shoulder, she hissed and cried out these words, “I'm Asahel! Solomon sang for me! You're crude! Don't touch me!” Mason didn't take the rebuff too hard: he went after a wild ass — called The Onager. It looked like a donkey, with thin, thin legs. But he couldn't catch it. Its love for freedom was too great! Weren't there any hens around? There was a camel and Gauguin had come back from the South Seas! Mason was sweating myrrh resin. He wanted to rest, but where — at Place Messina — do you go. (The spirit of carnival didn't provide seats other than those paid for.) Roosters needed to rest when defeated. Besides, whoever said a rooster could mount anything other than a chicken? Answer me that. So poor Mason found himself sitting on the curb between two wine-drinkers with tin cups, just to rest. While there, he hummed then sang. They laughed at his accent, his voice, his bad French. Then joined him. He loved them for this: thought they probably didn't deserve his love. The vocal burst went out: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,/ That saved a wretch like me,/ I once was lost, but now I'm found,/ Was blind but now I see.” The others, his friends, danced on. They were happy, he was not. When “Amazing Grace” ended he threw himself stupidly into another song with them: “Run sinners, run,/ Run sinners, run, run,/ Run sinners,/ Won't you run?/ Cause you house is on fire,/ Cause you house is on fire,/ On fire… ” One guy, an Arab, leaned over and whispered in Mason's ear: “This song is like the wall of Jericho, the Wall of Tell Beit Mirsim!” Mason gave him a dumb grin. From his retreat he could see his friends still cutting loose. There was Christ in the Garden of Olives. He was a little out of character: pretending to be A Still-Life with Fan. And The Fat-tailed Sheep, trying to become a sacrifice, was digging her nose in the hide of the mule. The mule, clearly, gave every sign of cautious approvaclass="underline" this donkey belonged to King David and was proud of its ancestry — which went back to Ezekiel and the people of Togarmah. Mason, dazed, was impressed. He climbed to his feet as a float, escaped from a day-time parade, started moving in the circular pattern around Place Messina. It was lighted like a star fallen from some larger-than-life acacia-bearing Saint-John's-bread-tree! On the float, punk rock stars were strumming, crying, shouting. A stripper ate candlesticks as they worked out. Mason fell over Japanese Symbolist, Yellow Christs, Breton Girls, Old Women of Arles, clowns from Martinique, tough guys dressed as Nudes, Easels, Seasides, in his effort to reach the moving float. He recognized among them friends up there! Through his own particular haze, he cried, he shouted, “Cocka-doodle-do!” Literally, he barked it! He trotted behind the float. The winos trailed him. So did the cops. The spectators (mostly old folks) in the review-stands around the plaza cackled, enjoying what they (apparently) believed to be a planned part of mardi gras. When a spotted dog started following Mason, snapping at his heels, Mason stopped. Turned. Stooped. And bit the animal on the neck! Man's best friend skipped off yelping like a hyrax that lost the cow trail! Stumbling, fumbling and falling in the shadow of Sebastian, Tamara Polese, Etta Schnabel and the group Hot Hips, Mason finally grabbed the tail-end of the float. But fell on his face, clutching crepe-paper! The chicken feathers against his skin felt like rat-tails.