A Table of Green Fields Read online

  Also by Guy Davenport

  FICTION

  Tatlin!

  Da Vinci's Bicycle

  Eclogues

  Trois Caprices

  Apples and Pears

  The Bicycle Rider

  The Jules Verne Steam Balloon

  The Drummer of the Eleventh North Devonshire Fusiliers

  ESSAYS

  The Geography of the Imagination Every Force Evolves a Form A Balthus Notebook

  POETRY

  Flowers and Leaves Thasos and Ohio

  TRANSLATIONS

  Archilochos Sappho Alkman: Three Greek Poets

  The Mimes of Herondas

  Anakreon

  Herakleitos and Diogenes

  GUY DAVENPORT

  A Table of Green Fields

  TEN STORIES

  A N E W D I R E C T I O N S B O O K

  Front cover: Tuke, Henry Scott (1858–1929), - 'August Blue,' 1893

  Copyright © 1993 by Guy Davenport

  All rights reserved. Except for brief passages quoted in a newspaper, magazine, radio, or television review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Publisher.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  "August Glue" was first published in Antaeus and later as a book by the Larkspur Press (Frankfort, Kentucky). "Belinda's World Tour" was first published in The Santa Monica Review and later as a book in a limited edition by Barry Magid at his Dim Gray Bar Press, with drawings by Deborah Norden. The Chinese ode in "The Concord Sonata" was first published in Gregory and Birgit Stephenson's magazine Pearl (Copenhagen). "O Gadjo Niglo" appeared in an earlier version in Conjunctions. To these editors and publishers I am grateful for their kind permission to reprint.

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  New Directions Books are printed on acid-free paper

  First published clothbound by New Directions in 1993

  Published simultaneously in Canada by Penguin Books Canada Limited

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Davenport, Guy.

  A table of green fields : ten stories / by Guy Davenport,

  p. cm.

  ISBN 0-8112-1251-3

  I. Title.

  PS3554.A86T28 1993

  8i3'.54—dc20 93-18677

  CIP

  New Directions Books are published for James Laughlin

  by New Directions Publishing Corporation,

  80 Eighth Avenue, New York 10011

  Contents

  AUGUST BLUE 1

  BELINDA'S WORLD TOUR 15

  GUNNAR AND NIKOLAI 22

  AND 62

  THE LAVENDER FIELDS OF APTA JULIA 63

  THE KITCHEN CHAIR 75

  THE CONCORD SONATA 77

  MELEAGER 87

  MR. CHURCHYARD AND THE TROLL 93

  O GADJO NIGLO 103

  AUTHOR'S NOTES 147

  Table of Contents

  August Blue

  Belinda's World Tour

  Gunnar and Nikolai

  And

  The Lavender Fields of Apia Julia

  The Kitchen Chair

  The Concord Sonata

  Meleager

  Mr. Churchyard and the Troll

  O Gadjo Niglo

  Author's Notes

  August Blue

  1

  On the way to school, just past the bird market, there is one of the largest fig trees in Jerusalem. It was believed by some to be as old as the temple and to have a special blessing on it whereby its figs were fatter and sweeter than any others in the world, except, of course, those in the Garden of Eden. They were, in color, more blue than green. The milk that bled from its stems when you pulled one of its figs cured warts, the quinsy, and whooping cough.

  Schoolboys could see this great fig tree. A red wall, however, kept them from helping themselves to the occasional fig, even though Roman law said that a traveler, or a child, could pick an apple, pear, or fig, for refreshment, without being guilty of theft, and the Torah was equally lenient and understanding of the hunger of travelers and boys.

  On a fine morning in the month of Tishri, Daniel, Yaakov, and Yeshua, having inspected finches and quail in cages, and leapfrogged in the narrowest streets, shouted at by merchants, gave their usual longing looks at the fig tree.

  —If only figs, Daniel said, knocked down like apples, and if we had a pole.

  —But they don't, Yaakov said. And they wouldn't fall in the street, anyway.

  They sighed, all three.

  —Figs and dates smushed together with ewe milk, and roasted barley sprinkled on top, Yeshua said.

  —Figs and honey, Daniel said.

  —Figs just so, juicy and ripe, said Yaakov.

  —What do you say to the donkeys? Daniel asked.

  It was a game of Yeshua's to stop along the way to school and whisper into donkeys' ears, something quick and confidential, with a knowing smile. The donkeys never failed to quicken, lift their ears, and stare at him.

  —Behold the grandfather of all jackrabbits! he would say out loud.

  —I tell them something they think I don't know, Yeshua said. I spoke to the quail, too.

  —Yeshua's meshuggeh.

  —Want a fig? Yeshua said. One for each of you. Close your eyes and hold out your hands.

  —You've got figs for recess?

  —No, I got them off the tree back there.

  Daniel looked at Yaakov, Yaakov at Daniel.

  —So don't believe me, Yeshua said.

  With a flourish of his hand he showed them a plump blue fig in his fingers. He gave it to Daniel. Another twirl and wiggle of fingers, and there was a fig for Yaakov.

  —Holy Moses!

  —Don't swear, Yeshua said. There's Zakkaiah looking up and down the street for us.

  They ran to the school gate, herded in by their teacher, Zakkaiah, whose beard was combed and who smelled of licorice. They sat on cushions on a clean wooden floor, in a semicircle before Zakkaiah, who sat on a stool.

  —Alef, Zakkaiah said.

  —It's an ox, said Daniel.

  —It comes first, a boy named Nathan said.

  —So listen, said Zakkaiah.

  He explained the derivation of alef from the old Phoenician alphabet, and talked about the versatility of a set of signs that could graph speech, contrasting it to the barbarous syllabaries of the Egyptians and the Assyrians.

  —Greek is an even further advance. Their alpha, however, is not our alef. They have letters for their vowels, and use their alpha for one of them. Micah, what letter comes next?

  —Beth.

  —Yeshua! Zakkaiah said, are you chewing something?

  —A fig.

  —And what kind of manners is it to eat figs when we are learning the alphabet?

  Nathan, who had just been slipped a fig by Yeshua, tucked it inside his blouse and looked innocent. Amos, who was also eating a fig passed back to him by Yeshua, swallowed his whole.

  —And what is beth, Micah?

  —But Teacher, Yeshua said, we have not learned what is to be known about alef, and here we are hastening on to beth. Zakkaiah's mouth fell open.

  —So? he said. You want me to forget that you were having a late breakfast rather than paying attention to the lesson?

  —Oh no, Teacher.

  —I'm listening to what you have to say about alef, if you're quite through eating figs.

  Yeshua worked his fingers in the air until there was a fig in them.

  —Have a fig for yourself, O Teacher. And another. And yet another. They are from the great tree down
the street, and are the juiciest and tastiest figs in all Jerusalem.

  Zakkaiah stood with the three figs in his cupped hands, staring at Yeshua, speechless. He looked at the figs and he looked at Yeshua.

  —My father sent them to you, O Teacher. They are good for the bowels, he says.

  A silence.

  —I will thank him when I see him, Zakkaiah said in a soft voice.

  —Alef, Yeshua said. I will recite about alef.

  There was an uneasiness in the class. Zakkaiah was obviously thinking several things at once.

  —Alef! Yeshua said in a voice pitched bright. In the alef there's a yud up here, and a yud down there, with a line between. As with all boundaries, this line both joins and separates. The yud above is the Creator of the universe, of the earth, the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. The yud below is us, the people. The line between is the Torah, the prophets, the law. It is the eye for seeing what we can of the Creator. He is evident in his work, the world.

  —You are reciting a commentary, Zakkaiah said, but whose? —I'm making it up, Yeshua said. The Creator made us creators, too. Look at the spider knitting its web and at the bird building its nest. Every work has a maker.

  —Is it the blessed Hillel your father has taught you?

  —Who is Hillel? The alphabet is all pictures. You can look at them and see what they are: a house, a camel. The alef is a picture of the whole world. Cool water on dusty feet, that's a grand thing, and the smell of wood shavings and a crust dunked in wine, and honey, and dancing to the tabor and flute. These good things belong down here, but they come from up there. That's why there's a line between the top yud and the bottom yud. Everything has a fence, so we can know where it is. A house has rooms, a garden has a wall.

  Zakkaiah sat on his stool, hard. He stuck the fingers of his left hand into his beard. His right hand held three figs.

  —But the fun of the line between the yuds, Yeshua went on, is that it's a fence only if you look at it that way. It is really a road, and like all roads it goes both ways. You have to know which way you're going. Look at the anemones that make the fields red all of a sudden after the first rain of the wet season. The grand dresses at Solomon's court were not such a sight, and they were made with looms and needles, whereas the master of the universe made the anemones overnight, with a word. You can get near the line with much labor, or you can cross it with a step.

  —I told you Yeshua's meshuggeh, Daniel whispered to Yaakov. —Why don't you eat your figs, O Teacher? Yeshua asked. I have more.

  2

  On a blustery late afternoon in March 1842, Professor James Joseph Sylvester of the University of Virginia was walking along a brick path across the lawn in front of Jefferson's Rotunda. He had been brought from London to teach mathematics only the November before, and still wondered at these neoclassical buildings set in an American forest, and at the utilitarian rowhouse dormitories, at the black slaves who dressed the students and carried their books to class. He taught arithmetic and algebra from Lacroix's serviceable manual, trigonometry, geometry, the calculus differential and integral. Next term he was offering a course from Poisson's Mechanics and Laplace's Mecanique celeste.

  He was a member of the Royal Society. At age twenty-seven he had distinguished himself with so brilliant a series of mathematical papers that he had been invited to come to Virginia. Jefferson's plan was to bring the best minds of Europe to dwell in his academic village, as he liked to call it. And now Jefferson was dead, leaving his faculty of European geologists, chemists, linguists, historians, and mathematicians to carry on his work of civilizing Virginia and her sister states.

  Professor Sylvester's problem was one he had never before met. His students, all healthy, strapping young men from the richest of families, were illiterate. They knew nothing. He could scarcely understand a word they said. They came late to class, if at all, accompanied by their slaves. They talked with each other while Professor Sylvester lectured. The strangest thing about them was that they did not want to learn. Take Ballard. He was from Louisiana, some great plantation with hundreds of slaves. He was a handsome lad, beautifully dressed. Yet if called upon, he would say:

  —I could answer that, Fesser, if I wanted to, but frankly I'm not minded to do so.

  —Is this not insolence, Mr. Ballard?

  —If you were a gentleman, Fesser, you'd know how to talk to one, now wouldn't you?

  A roar of laughter.

  He had gone to the faculty. They told him that the students had reduced Jefferson to tears, that they had shot three professors already, that he had best deal with them as patiently as he knew how. There was no support to be expected from Charlottesville, which was of the opinion that the faculty was composed of atheists, Catholics, Jews, Jesuits. A Hungarian professor had had to leave town in the dark of night.

  They dueled, and fought with Bowie knives. They drank themselves into insensibility. They came to class drunk. When Sylvester tried to find out why this was allowed, he was reminded that the students were aristocrats.

  —Mr. Ballard, will you rehearse Euclid's proofs for the Pythagorean theorem of the right triangle?

  —Suck my dick.

  He had had to ask what the words meant, and blushed. On the advice of a fellow professor he had bought a sword cane. One never knew. He was paid handsomely, but what worried him was that the papers he had been writing were harder and harder to finish. He was famous for averaging a mathematical paper a month. He knew that he had the reputation among his peers of having the most fertile genius of his generation. He was a Mozart of mathematics. He was finding it embarrassing to keep up his correspondence with the few men in Germany, France, and England who understood his work. These barbarian louts with their slaves and dueling pistols were making him sterile, and that tore at his soul more than their childish disrespect and leaden ignorance.

  Why were they here, at a university, at least a university in name and intent? The French professor was slowly losing his mind, as none of his students had learned two words together of French. They gambled all night, knifed each other at dawn, drank until they puked.

  And on this March afternoon Professor Sylvester found himself approaching the brothers Weeks, Bill and Al, or Mr. William and Mr. Alfred Weeks, gentlemen, as he must address them in class. They wore yellow and green frock coats, with flowery weskits. They were smoking long black cigars, and carried their top hats in their hands.

  —You ain't a-going to speak to us, Jewboy?

  Thus William, the elder of the brothers.

  —Sir! said Sylvester.

  —Yes, Fesser Jew Cockney, said Alfred. If you're going to teach rithmatic and that damn calc'lus shit to gentlemen, you ought to take off your hat to them when you meet us on the lawn, oughtn't he, Bill?

  —Sir! said Sylvester.

  —May be, said William Weeks, that if we pulled the fesser's Jew hat down over his Jew chin, he'd remember next time to speak to gentlemen.

  Sylvester drew his sword from his cane with one graceful movement, and with another drove it into Alfred Weeks's chest.

  Alfred screamed.

  William ran.

  Alfred fell backward, groaning:

  —O Jesus! I have met my fatal doom!

  Professor Sylvester coolly sheathed his sword, tapped it on the brick walk to assure that it was firmly fitted in his cane, turned on his heel, and walked away. He went to his rooms, packed a single suitcase, and walked to the posthouse to wait for a stage to Washington. This he boarded, when it came.

  Alfred Weeks writhed on the brick walk, crying like a baby, calling for instant revenge. William came back with a doctor, who was mystified.

  —Have you been bit by a m'skeeter, son? They ain't no wound. There's a little tear in your weskit, as I can see, and a kind of scratch here on your chest, like a pinprick.

  —You mean I ain't killed dead?

  Sylvester retrenched in New York City, where he practiced law. The mathematical papers began to be written ag
ain. He was called to the Johns Hopkins University, where he founded the first school of mathematics in the United States, where he arranged for the first woman to enter an American graduate school, where he argued with Charles Sanders Peirce, and where he introduced the Hebrew letters shin and teth into mathematical annotation.

  Years later, the great Georg Cantor, remembering Sylvester, introduced the letter alef as a symbol of the transfinite.

  3

  As we descended westward, we saw the fen country on our right, almost all covered with water like a sea, the Michaelmas rains having been very great that year, they had sent down great floods of water from the upland countries, and those fens being, as may be very properly said, the sink of no less than thirteen counties; that is to say, that all the water, or most part of the water of thirteen counties falls into them.

  The people of that place, which if they be born there they call the Breedlings, sometimes row from one spot to another, and sometimes wade.

  In these fens are abundance of those admirable pieces of art called duckoys; that is to say, places so adapted for the harbor and shelter of wild fowl, and then furnished with decoy ducks, who are taught to allure and entice their kind to the places they belong to. It is incredible what quantities of wild fowl of all sorts they take in these duckoys every week during the season, duck, mallard, teal, and widgeon.

  As these fens are covered with water, so I observed too that they generally at this latter part of the year appear also covered with fogs, so that when the downs and higher grounds of the adjacent country were gilded by the beams of the sun, the Isle of Ely looked as if wrapped up in blankets, and nothing to be seen, but now and then, the lanthorn or cupola of Ely Minster.