In the Square
The Sandersons arrive in the Square, having passed through innumerable subsidiary squares on their way, through intersections intersecting pedestrian malls, through stretches of municipal openness buttressed by statuary and somber monuments to the most important who cares (Miriam’s stretching, herself — and the feet, they hurt so), that, too, and the Ghetto’s constriction, the poisonous suck, the thin wick through which passes the hour’s glass sand — arriving finally in front of the Clock, just moments prior to its sounding the knell of our noon in twelve tones, halved hollow. Here and waiting, they behold the Tree, which they’d previously known only in photographs, from films, promises, descriptions of print and the mouth; how it fulfills all expectations, exceeds in that it’s “simply fabulous,” though “amazing” is preferred (upon the forms they’ll later fill out — help us help you to force you to filclass="underline" our trip was amazing, we had an amazing time, everything was “simply amazing”); earlier, they’d toured another tree, the other Tree, rooted in a lesser as mirrored square rooted across the river from this square, the Main Square, Old Town’s, that’s the New’s: the tree here’s watered larger, it’s historyswollen, greater, obviously the more important of the two trees, the most, they didn’t have to be told after all — despite, even its plaque’s larger, more luminously polished; as for its ornaments, the other tree can’t hold a candle…
Here, everyone holds an umbrella.
This is the openedwide heart of everything, and everything is around this, in pulse — around the Church that is, its cruciform insides, and its Affiliated, its mensch, his own heart almost too open; its death. Mister Sanderson fusses with his jackets (slicker over nylon windbreaker, in layers), a zipper’s caught, he struggles to find the catch, zip himself up again against the bleat of the cold. Of course, Miriam says, many cities, many towns and villages have not rebuilt their Squares. All roads there lead to all roads there and road, not to expectation: the early morning/late night nakedness of a Square, paved with — how do you say, she asks herself, gnaws a lips, for their edification, how you say — tongue, that’s it, that’s the language, that it paves with bare rotted tongue, its buds suckling toes, buds roiling underneath toes, boiling, burning…keep moving, step on: the whole Group’s more pillow than head this morning, the wakeup cock had cawed too early for most, betraying, cuckoo; they’re overwhelmed, too much of not enough, sites of time, landmarks timemarks timelands, monumental disasters erected to this battle, this fire, this burning, whose auto de fé tragic death. Advertisements on the martyred façades, have been pasted over windows, nailed over doors or wherever doors should be, should’ve been they take paper for things, offer things for paper (the only falsity here, or one of the only: selling souvenirs, they’re recommending purchases if only to spite), signs & wonders ask for paper with number, with numbers, paper with faces and face; pay their way out of death’s debt, is the thought, using as guarantee the images of their executioners famed. This way, this way. Mind your step, mind your pockets, your mind, your personal possessing possessions. The Sandersons with their Group pass under the Tree, heldover for them cheerbright, starry and twinkling, toward the Clock’s clocks and their toll as exacting as promised, leaving behind them a husband whose nobody knows, maybe not even him; standing high on the exposed roots of the growth, leaning against its trunk to search for his wife, whomever’s if not already a widow, the Law orders him off, nightly takes him away, he isn’t seen or heard from again, his wife either, if ever she was. A shocking bustle of black forms as if spilled from the river, its ink: the tap tap tap of a nightstick, worming as if sexually from its wielder’s disintegrate shadow, a pain palmmuffled, fistfaced. A helmet invasion, segmentally regiment with how many limbs. Everyone turns, then turns yet again. Unrunged, standing expectant in silence. And then, suddenly — of all things a gazelle, if you can believe it, leaps up from an open sewer, clears the canopy of Tree and of houses, maps a vast arch over the Square, naturally calm, like it’s risen to bow, appearing even, couldn’t be, to nap in leap amid the weather and with groups’ umbrellas lowered not as trees bent from the ascent but as flags hung low in a respect that’s spontaneous and yet, also brave — the gazelle’s own arc the umbrella of sky, a rainbow the covenant of colors that mark us as different, and yet all of a shade…not to worry your belief, though, it’s animatronic, in truth that’s its name, on a timer, and Misses Sanderson stares beatifically, points, forefingered heaven — with the scurrying rivered away, forgotten even in spirit, banished, consecrated to thatwasthen, thisisnow…everyone gasps, it’s amazing. What’re we looking at, Mister Sanderson demands still concerned, confused with the turnings around and the oohlings, the ahs, who, he asks, where, I don’t see anything, will someone please tell me, is it over yet, what? He stares openfacedly, a square unto himself in his jaw, in chin’s jutted flat bone, at the sun at its nooning; loudspeakers swell along with the rising, having faded out the Square sounds, the Market Sounds, the prepared Livestock Reel, fading in now a fresh snatch of music, a fan’s fared anew, just the perfect accompaniment this period score: basses surge celli, harps strung tautly with rays of the sun above gliss up and down these winds of every hue and hewing direction — light to the east, dark to the rest, in a flutter…a swirling crescendo to crash, at tessitural height, steepleward pitched, resounding within the upsidedown bell of the Square, stonebottomed the catacombed Church (Mister Sanderson’s missing everything, he’s scared without the Adamic sense of a neck whether to raise it, to let his apple drop for the slitting — he falls to allfours, reversionary, as if he’s being bombed back into an animal, strafed into the bestial again he begins sniffing at the lampposts, commences with a great licking at the territorial plinths). Having reached its apex, the higher meridian, the gazelle then descends, with smoothly greased grace, to land on the opposite side of the Square, to disappear into another sewer open, then shut. At its disappearance, the Clock handed into the face of the Town Hall sounds another hour, clocks another life, strikes twelve times over twelve tones, and how everyone just applauds like their lives might depend on it.
The Church, too. Ringing.
Isn’t that delightful, Misses Jones asks everyone…nu, wasn’t it, she demands, just incredible, hymn — and as if in thanks for such a display she goes searching her pockets the nine of them for a spare coin to toss to the busker, a streetmusician still playing amid the echo of the bells, those onehanded, clapped clocks, these flutes and splits of champagne and Sekt, bubbly bottles, magnums, jeroboams, rehoboams, and methusalehs even rimmed with wet fingers, ringing a dry and fruity accompaniment to the tutti orchestra just tuningdown, too, that and his sister’s sweet, ethereal mezzo; in hat and sunglasses, she’s most definitely blind, though whether her handicap’s a condition preexisting or yet another directive from Management’s for the moment unclear, and who would presume to insult. As she gives, so does Mister Jones, and the others, they just have to keep up: hoping perhaps not as much to express their gratitude by charity as to obtain for themselves a pardon, at least the assurance of any afterlife preferable to light touring in hell. In this, discretion’s of the utmost importance: the Sandersons lower their eyes, pretend to search around in their purses and pockets before doing as the others do, as the Joneses have done, which is to remove scraps of clothing, strands of their hair, their shoes even, then the ropes of their belts, the only donations left them. Underground, an employee rewinds the Square Sounds, sets it for repeat, a circumambient loop cycled down from the pitch of the dogs…the orchestra dimming din to moos, even oinks, oathed obtestations, the blessings and curslings of commerce returned: May you grow brains! Market’s moody mistrust (mark madness, ruble rage, the zealotry of złoty, the grunting of groschen), as Mister Sanderson approaches the musician’s singing sister, slowly, he’s muttering his appreciation to himself as much as to her — thinking, perhaps she’s deaf, too, thinking aloud, just listen to her do that dies iræ and illa — he holds out his hand and with it holds hers, presses a rag of lining, from a pocket of his pants, into her palm hot with lint, then nods over his shoulder to his wife who she’s nodding to him; the musician’s sister drops their tips, buttons, snaps, zippers, and hems, into one of three pockets of her vest, each one set aside, earmarked, as it’s said: one for her, one for her brother, her lover or maybe he’s both, and of course one for Management, always.