Orpheus on the Underground and Other Stories, page 11
As I left, he shouted out a last quip. ‘I was sold down the river in the current financial crisis and I’m not sure weir I’ve ended up.’ The flames of that crackle-danced around my back wheel.
And then I was accelerating down a narrow road and crossing a stone bridge to the sound of a lonely saxophone. There was a musician who dwelled under the bridge, a cannibal by the name of Toby, but he plays no further part in this story. I am not sure why I mention him, but it was melancholy music. The jazz he played on that bloodstained sax influenced my mood.
Suffused with sweet woe, I skidded into the main square. I was also half mad at that particular instant, rushing to discover the truth of my parentage. I suppose that it scarcely mattered where I came from, for I was incapable of producing any descendants. It was the consensus at the time that there were no female bicycle-centaurs. Lately, though, there has been speculation amongst certain philosophers that there is a realm where beings like me flourish. But I’m digressing again. Let me backpedal to the point of my entry into the village square.
On one side of the space, directly facing me, was the vast bulk of an ancient tavern, a higgledy-piggledy edifice with demented crocodilians for the higgles and crazy wild boars for the piggles. This was none other than the notorious Nameless Tavern in which so many of Lladloh’s dark, odd, curiously peculiar and contrived deeds were first plotted, then enacted and finally analysed. It was a labyrinth of beery doom and wormy trepidation.
Gathered in front of the door was a motley collection of faded, weary and indistinct characters, so insubstantial as to be well on the way to becoming phantoms.
One of them was a man who creaked and whirred like a skeleton clock. He stepped forward to intercept me; but I had already come to a halt and posed no threat to them. Another man, burly but slack of skin, shook jowls as grey as the jackets of business suits. He roared the typical Lladloh welcome.
‘Who the heck are you?’
‘I am Sadulsor Raleigh and I seek my father.’
‘Go look for him in a bicycle shop, you squeaky imbecile. You won’t find him here. We are conducting a ritual of astounding complexity and importance. In fact, we might use you as the sacrifice.’
‘Is a sacrifice necessary?’ I asked.
He nodded. ‘Yes. We were going to employ Megan here for the task, but she’s a very fine barmaid and we are loath to lose her. You will do. Don’t resist!’
This flabby threat was noisily approved by the others.
‘What gives you the right?’ I growled.
‘Why, I am none other than Emyr James, landlord of this pub.’
‘And that gives you the right?’
‘Yes, yes, of course. Doesn’t it? If not then—’
‘I,’ gibbered another figure, ‘am Catrin Mucus; and this fellow is Phil the Liver; and that one is Iolo Machen.’
‘Dennistoun Homunculus is my name,’ said a gimp.
‘Neifion Napcyn, that’s me.’
‘Tee hee! They call me Pumpkin Hewin’ they do!’
‘Aye, and I’m Bigamy Bertha.’
I grimaced and honked my horn. ‘I have no desire to know who any of you are. I seek only my father, my inventor.’
‘You wouldn’t be referring to Mondaugen, would you?’
‘Yes! Is he among you?’
The man who resembled a skeleton clock now moved forward another tick and he rolled his large stained eyes at me. And then he spoke. He said six words in total, but not as any ordinary man would say them. Each time he uttered a word, his head opened up like a lotus flower to reveal a smaller head inside. Six blossoming heads mouthed a single sentence.
The sentence was: ‘I am Herr Doktor Karl Mondaugen!’
The sequence of shrinking heads was so disturbing, in part because each head was rather beautiful, like that of some vaguely oriental porcelain doll.
‘He is such a good inventor, he has invented himself!’ chuckled Emyr James, and his jowls made a horrid rustling sound.
‘Is he mechanical?’ I gasped.
‘Not entirely. But how did you get past the guard?’
‘To be absolutely candid—’
‘I didn’t ask about Absolutely Candid, but about the sentinel, Perfectly Frank. Did you slaughter him?’
‘He let me through because we might be brothers.’
‘It matters not. You shall die.’
And the pallid crowd chuckled like feathers that tickle themselves with very little conviction or mirth. And then Mondaugen’s head, already small, blossomed again, and again, as it embarked on an occult chant designed to summon Ootoo from his cosmic tomb, from a hellish reality parallel to our own, from one nightmare to another. I watched in horror as that head grew smaller and smaller and smaller.
It was as if I was watching a traveller moving away over a landscape until he was just a speck, but one who had neglected to take his body with him on the journey!
‘Namyllis Yrev Asaw t’Farcevol Enod Dnadias S’llanehw . . .’
The words were beyond endurance.
But they were effective. One moment the village square was empty.
The next it was filled . . . By Ootoo.
Yes, it is true. Ootoo appeared in person. One of the Old Ones. He was just a massive, gruesome and monumental head. I’m sure he was more than that really, much more, intolerably more, but nothing else was visible. I could see only a head so large it filled the square entire. It pushed against the buildings that framed it, so that we had to retreat quickly to avoid contact with the glacially cold lips which were at our end.
‘That is Ootoo,’ said Emyr.
‘I took that for granted,’ I answered boldly.
‘And now we will give you to him; he will devour you and swallow you and digest you and excrete you. He is Ootoo, and what Ootoo wants, Ootoo gets . . .’
‘But he is a minor old one?’
‘Perhaps, but even the least significant old one is far older and far more of a “one” than the most important potentate on this planet. Ootoo and you; that is the nature of this scene.’
‘But why did you summon him?’
‘To replenish our flagging spirits, to inject us with higher purpose. Can’t you see how faded we are? We are characters from rarely-read books, hardly well-enough known to be forgotten. There is no fire in our veins, We go through the motions, never feeling or tasting anything. We care not if whole populations are annihilated, that is not our concern. We want to be alive again!’
I felt an abrupt desire to strike back:
‘I doubt that your fading can ever be reversed.’
‘We shall see. Goodbye forever, boneshaker!’
‘My name is Sadulsor . . .’
As if responding to my cue, Ootoo opened his mouth wide, jaw gaping to an even greater extreme than that of Perfectly Frank, so that the god resembled a serpent preparing to devour a serpent who already is gaping as wide as it can.
The gathering of spectral villagers moved closer to me, intending to hurl me into the mouth. But I had no intention of being a victim; I would embrace my destiny in my own way. I accelerated forwards, heading straight for that maw!
‘What a rascal!’ shouted Emyr.
‘He’s no son of mine,’ grated Mondaugen.
Ootoo’s cakehole loomed huge.
And into it I went, jumping over the front teeth, landing on the tongue and hurtling down the throat, ducking to avoid striking my head on that dangly pink and fleshy clapper that is like the teat of an oral udder that can be milked only for sounds.
I was racing along the windpipe and still accelerating, when something peculiar began to happen. Organic anatomy changed into something more geometric and hard, into a labyrinth with an impossible number of diverging passages. I selected my route at random, like a daytripping Theseus, my handlebars gleaming in the phosphorescent light of pulsing walls, seeking a Minotaur who was nothing but a case of indigestion somewhere in the endless turns of this gastric maze. And—
I came to a doorway and rode straight through it. I found myself in a familiar office facing a man I already knew. He stood up abruptly from his chair, leaned on his desk and cleared his throat before speaking:
‘Ootoo has already enrolled.’
‘So that explains why your quota of monsters is filled forevermore!’ I wheezed.
‘He plans to study theology.’
‘Isn’t that rather self-indulgent?’
There was a pause and then at last . . .
The Dean of Lampeter University tugged his nose.
THE QUIXOTE CANDIDATE
TITLES ARE IMPORTANT to me. I wanted to call my film The La Mancha Candidate because I thought it sounded better and it’s almost a pun. But that double use of the word ‘the’ bothered me. I realise that many who came to watch the film wouldn’t even know that ‘la’ meant ‘the’, but I’m a perfectionist. Like Kubrick was. Plus that double ‘the’ kept reminding me of the wistful rock band The The. Remember them? The musician behind that band, Matt Johnson, wrote a really nice song that was used in Romanek’s cult classic Static. I loved that film at the time, although I don’t know if it would stand up now; I haven’t seen it for twenty years.
That’s right. The one about a man who works in a factory making crucifixes. He collects all the rejects to hang on his wall, all the twisted crosses and deformed Christs, until he gets found out and loses his job. He ends up tuning his television set into Heaven, watching just as if it’s a live show. Freaky stuff. What happened to Romanek? I believe he went into making big budget pop videos for people like Madonna. I lost interest in directors who did fantasy stuff, becoming interested only in true stories and characters based on real people.
What was that about puns? Well The La Mancha Candidate almost sounds like The Manchurian Candidate. I thought you’d get that. Another problem with punning titles is that they are associated with the porn industry, and there couldn’t be much sex in the film I was going to make. Nothing graphic anyway. Mind if I smoke?
By the way, has the interview started yet?
Sure I can tell you about the first time I heard the name Nuno Cotter. I was sitting in a café in Lisbon, Café Pois; I really do have a good memory for names. I overheard two guys talking about him. Yeah, in English. Nuno is a fairly common Portuguese name, although I don’t know about the ‘Cotter’, and that’s another reason I changed the title. La Mancha is in Spain. To be from La Mancha you have to be Spanish, but anyone can be a Quixote, even someone from Portugal.
The two guys were talking in English because they didn’t want anyone eavesdropping on their conversation. Quite ironic really. I listened for about ten minutes and then turned around and asked quite bluntly, ‘Is this story true?’ They realised the secret was out and so they told me the rest.
I was fascinated. The longer I listened the more I was convinced I had the perfect subject for a great biopic. As I said, I don’t like fantasy stuff, but I LOVE true stuff with fantastic elements.
What did I eat and drink at that café? Are you serious? I had two big glasses of galão, that’s a milky coffee, and a few pastries, pasteíis de nata, they’re a sort of custard tart. The bill came to about five euros. I didn’t buy anything for my two new friends. I was too busy with my notebook scribbling down everything they said. Sadly, they didn’t know where Nuno Cotter was. I still haven’t tracked him down. No, I didn’t want him to act as himself in my film. He never would have agreed to appear in front of the camera.
Right from the beginning I never really believed my film would be finished. I merely had a burning desire to write the script. Films about Quixote are jinxed, after all, and I don’t just mean the efforts of Orson Welles and Terry Gilliam. There are plenty of unfinished Quixotes lying around. But, I suppose, there are enough finished versions too, so maybe the jinx theory is hogwash. All the same, I couldn’t imagine an end product when I began writing the script. Something about it seemed doomed. I didn’t care. I got nominated for an Oscar in the new category of ‘Most Promising Work in Perpetual Progress’, a category created just for me.
I didn’t win, though. I’ve always found that strange.
But it made me famous. More famous than I was, anyhow. Mildly famous. After all, you’re here, interviewing me. If it wasn’t for my Quixote project I would still be utterly unknown. I would be still be tilting at windmills somewhere. The Quixote Candidate has proved to be my meal ticket. Not much of a meal, I grant you, but a meal all the same. Yeah, two big glasses of galão and a few pastries. Nice one. Are you a comedian as well as a journalist?
Listen, the full story of Nuno Cotter isn’t finished yet; he’s still out there somewhere, doubtless doing his thing. I don’t know if that’s a scary idea or not. What I mean is that one day someone else will probably make an even better version of his life than I would have done. A fuller version. My script doesn’t have a proper ending. Maybe they will acknowledge my efforts, maybe they won’t. Like I said, none of this bothers me at all. I’ve moved on.
No, I haven’t moved on to projects that intrigue me more than Nuno Cotter’s story. That’s not what I meant. What has happened is that I’ve realised the futility of fighting fate. My film was never destined to be made. It’s as simple as that. I do prefer an easy life, I’m sorry to say. Anyway, shall I tell you what those two guys in that café told me? I can remember what they said almost word for word. Sure, I can make it briefer than that. As you wish.
Nuno Cotter was an ordinary man living in an ordinary apartment in an ordinary street, in the Chiado area of Lisbon. He wasn’t married. I don’t know if he even had a girlfriend, though the name Ulrica came up once or twice. He had a boring job in a boring office. Now that I think about it, I’m sure Ulrica was real, partly because the rumour was that she was German. You’ll understand that reference in a moment. I’m not saying he hated his job, I’m just convinced it didn’t allow his imagination to exercise itself much. All that pent up pressure was a major factor in what happened to him. His imagination exploded.
Yes, it happened quite suddenly. One of Nuno’s main ways of relaxing, perhaps his only one, was to watch films. He went to the cinema nearly every night. There’s a great cinemateca in Lisbon. It shows films from all over the world, rare films, old films, experimental work, anything at all. Nuno Cotter was a regular. He went there over four hundred times. He went to other cinemas too, but the cinemateca was his favourite. I have the impression that all the films he watched became mixed up until they seemed part of one enormous film, the longest film ever made. Maybe that’s just my own imagination. But I like the idea.
One night a beautiful coincidence happened. Beautiful and terrible. Nuno went to see one of those films based on the Quixote story that actually got made. No, it wasn’t Man of La Mancha. What a suggestion! It was probably the 1933 version by Georg Wilhelm Pabst, a German treatment of the theme. This explains my earlier reference to the nationality of his girlfriend. I’m not entirely sure of the significance. Don’t press me so hard, OK?
Something snapped in Nuno’s mind. Or maybe some part of his brain dried out—choose your own explanation, psychological or physical or metaphorical. When he left the cinemateca he was no longer plain Nuno Cotter. He fancied himself as a famous film director. More to the point, he believed that he was a film director who was always working. He never took a break. Everything he saw from that moment was part of an ongoing project he was directing. Every environment was a film set, everyone he met was an actor or actress. In the same way that Don Quixote thought himself a knight, Nuno Cotter believed he was something he wasn’t. This illusion caused him a lot of trouble.
On his way home from the cinemateca he passed a young couple who were arguing. Instead of minding his own business, he interrupted them and began demanding that they re-start the scene. It lacked conviction, he told them. It was passionate, but artificial. He started explaining how it should be done, how the man ought to shake his fists more, how the girl should flare her nostrils in contempt. He also suggested a rewording of the insults involved. Real people, he insisted, used coarser language. When they refused to begin again he complained about the lack of professionalism among modern actors. He threatened to fire them on the spot! He ranted and raved and threw up his hands in despair. The man responded by punching him.
Nuno Cotter walked home with a black eye and a bloody nose. It was a long walk back to Chiado and he decided to edit it later. He approached his house at a dramatic camera angle, with a close up of his key sliding into the lock, and he stumbled up the stairs to his apartment. After washing his face in the sink, he collapsed on the bed and slowly fell asleep, wondering what kind of background music would be most appropriate to this scene. Certainly nothing by The The! That was a joke, huh? Don’t get it, sorry. Anyway, when he awoke the following day, his condition wasn’t any better. He still believed he was a film director. Sometimes he saw things the way Fritz Lang might have done, other times it was more like Godard, Resnais, Herzog, Greenaway, Bigas Luna. The entire world was populated only by actors and extras.
Good question. If Nuno Cotter was a new type of Don Quixote, who was his Sancho Panza? Well, not every version of the Quixote story has to follow the original novel quite so closely. In this version there wasn’t a Sancho Panza. Nuno had nobody following him around like that. What did you say? His Sancho Panza is ME? What an extraordinary suggestion! Well maybe. I did follow him around later, his myth at least. And I have scripted a film that will never be made. Curious. But that’s fine with me, I accept the role.
How much longer do you want me to talk? Yes, I have another appointment later. Don’t worry, I have no problem with interviews. They are an occupational hazard.
I won’t describe all of Nuno Cotter’s misadventures. My script is there for anyone to read on the internet, and I can’t remember all the incidents offhand. I’ll make do with just a few examples. There was that time when he passed a woman who was taking her rubbish out into the street. He congratulated her on a convincing performance and then attempted to follow her back inside her house. He needed to film an interior scene, he told her. She called the police. When they arrived, Nuno harangued them for turning up late in badly pressed uniforms and without sirens. He spent a night in a cell. The occupant of the adjacent cell asked why he was there and Nuno replied that he was making a film about a prison escape. Everything was always logical to him, there was no mystery in any situation, no unfairness. The world was a film festival. The air itself was a silver screen. It can truly be said that locked inside his delusion Nuno Cotter was happy. He was always safe, always in control.
