George Alec Effinger - City On Sand

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Science Fiction

By George Alec Effinge

The City on

the Sand

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

Fictionwise

www.Fictionwise.com

First published in The Magazine of Fantasy and

Science Fiction, April 1973

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The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

In Europe, there were only memories of great cultures.

Spain, Portugal, Italy, France, England, Carbba, and Germany

had all seized control of the world's course and the

imagination of the human race at one time or another. But

now these great powers of the past were drifting into a

cynical old age, where decadence and momentary pleasures

replaced the drive for dominance and national superiority. In

Asia, the situation was even worse. The Russias struggled

pettily among themselves, expending the last energies of a

once-proud nation in puerile bickerings. China showed signs

of total degeneration, having lost its immensely rich heritage

of art and philosophy while clinging to a ruthless creed that

crushed its hopeless people beneath a burden of mock-

patriotism. Breulandy was the only vibrant force east of the

Caucasus Mountains; still, no observer could tell what that

guarded land might do. Perhaps a Breulen storm would spill

out across the continent, at least instilling a new life force in

the decaying states. But from Breulandy itself came no word,

no hint, as though the country had bypassed its time of

ascendancy to settle for a weary and bitter mediocrity.

Of the rest of the world there was nothing to be said. The

Americas still rested as they had in the few centuries since

their discovery: huge parklike land masses, populated by

savages, too distant, too worthless, too impractical to bother

about. None of the crumbling European governments could

summon either the leadership or the financial support to

exploit the New World. The Scandinavian lands were inhabited

by skin-clad brutes scarcely more civilized than the American

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

cannibals. Farther east, beyond the teeming Chinese shores,

between Asia and the unexplored western reaches of the

Americas, no one was quite certain just what existed and

what was only myth. Perhaps the island continent of Lemarry

waited with its untold riches and beautiful copper spires.

And then, lastly, there was Africa. One city sat alone on its

fiery sands. One city, filled with refugees and a strange

mongrel population, guarded that massive continent. Beyond

that single city, built in some forgotten age by an unknown

people for unimaginable purposes, beyond the high wooden

gates that shut in the crazy heat and locked in the citizens,

there was only death. Without water, the continent was

death. Without shade, the parching sharaq winds were death.

Without human habitation, the vast three thousand miles of

whispering sands were death for anyone mad enough to

venture across them. Only in the city was there a hollow

travesty of life.

* * * *

Ernst Weinraub sat at a table on the patio of the Café de la

Fée Blanche. A light rain fell on him, but he did not seem to

notice. He sipped his anisette, regretting that the proprietor

had served it to him in such an ugly tumbler. The liqueur

suffered. M. Gargotier often made such disconcerting lapses,

but today especially Ernst needed all the delicacy, all the

refinement that he could buy to hold off his growing

melancholy. Perhaps the Fée Blanche had been a mistake. It

was early, lacking some thirty minutes of noon, and if it

seemed to him that the flood of tears was rising too quickly,

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

he could move on to the Café Solace or Chiriga's. But as yet

there was no need to hurry.

The raindrops fell heavily, spatting on the small metal

table. Ernst turned in his chair, looking for M. Gargotier. Was

the man going to let his customer get drenched? The

proprietor had disappeared into the black interior of his

establishment. Ernst thought of lowering the striped canopy

himself, but the shopkeeper-image of himself that the idea

brought to mind was too absurd. Instead, he closed his eyes

and listened to the water. There was music when the drops

hit the furnishings on the patio, a duller sound when the rain

struck the pavement. Then, more frequently, there was the

irritating noise of the drops hitting his forehead. Ernst opened

his eyes. His newspaper was a sodden mess and the puddle

on his table was about to overflow onto his lap.

Ernst considered the best way to deal with the

accumulating water. He could merely cup his hand and swipe

the puddle sideways. He dismissed that plan, knowing that his

hand would be soaked; then he would sit, frustrated, without

anything on which to dry it. He would end up having to seek

out M. Gargotier. The confrontation then, with the proprietor

standing bored, perhaps annoyed, would be too unpleasant.

Anyway, the round metal top of the table was easily removed.

Ernst tipped it, revealing the edges of the white metal legs,

which were sharp with crystal rust. The water splashed to the

paved floor of the patio, loudly, inelegantly. Ernst sighed; he

had made another compromise with his manner. He had

sacrificed style for comfort. In the city, it was an easy

bargain.

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

“It is a matter of bodies,” he said to himself, as though

rehearsing bons mots for a cocktail party. “We have grown

too aware of bodies. Because we must carry them always

from place to place, is that any reason to accord our bodies a

special honor or affection? No, they are sacks only. Rather

large, unpleasant, undisciplined containers for meager

charges of emotion. We should all stop paying attention to

our bodies’ demands. I don't know how....” He paused. The

idea was stupid. He sipped the anisette.

There were not more than twenty small tables on the Fée

Blanche's patio. Ernst was the only patron, as he was every

day until lunchtime. He and M. Gargotier had become close

friends. At least, so Ernst believed. It was so comforting to

have a place where one could sit and watch, where the

management didn't eternally trouble about another drink or

more coffee. Bien sûr, the old man never sat with Ernst to

observe the city's idlers or offer to test Ernst's skill at chess.

In fact, to be truthful, M. Gargotier had rarely addressed a full

sentence to him. But Ernst was an habitué, M. Gargotier's

only regular customer, and for quite different reasons they

both hoped the Fée Blanche might become a favorite meeting

place for the city's literate and wealthy few. Ernst had

invested too many months of sitting at that same table to

move elsewhere now.

“A good way to remove a measure of the body's influence

is to concentrate on the mind,” he said. He gazed at the table

top, which already was refilling with rainwater. “When I

review my own psychological history, I must admit to a

distressing lack of moral sense. I have standards gleaned

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

from romantic novels and magistral decrees, standards which

stick out awkwardly among my intellectual baggage like the

frantic wings of a tethered pigeon. I can examine those

flashes of morality whenever I choose, though I rarely bother.

They are all so familiar. But all around them in my mind are

the heavy, dense shadows of events and petty crimes.”

With a quick motion, Ernst emptied the table top once

more. He sighed. “There was Eugenie. I loved her for a time,

I believe. A perfect name, a lesser woman. When the

romance began, I was well aware of my moral sense. Indeed,

I cherished it, worshiped it with an adolescent lover's fervor. I

needed the constraints of society, of law and honor. I could

only prove my worth and value within their severe limits. Our

love would grow, I believed, fed by the bitter springs of

righteousness. Ah, Eugenie! You taught me so much. I loved

you for it then, even as my notion of purity changed, bit by

bit, hour by hour. Then, when I fell at long last to my ardent

ruin, I hated you. For so many years I hated you for your joy

in my dismay, for the ease of your robbery and betrayal, for

the entertainment I provided in my youthful terror. Now,

Eugenie, I am at peace with your memory. I would not have

understood in those days, but I am at last revenged upon

you: I have achieved indifference.

“How sad, I think, for poor Marie, who came after. I loved

her from a distance, not wishing ever again to be wounded on

the treacherous point of my own affection. I was still foolish.”

Ernst leaned back in his chair, turning his head to stare

across the small expanse of vacant tables. He glanced

around; no one else had entered the café. “What could I have

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

learned from Eugenie? Pain? No. Discomfort, then? Yes, but

so? These evaluations, I hasten to add, I make from the

safety of my greater experience and sophistication.

Nevertheless, even in my yearling days I recognized that la

belle E. had prepared me well to deal not only with her

successors but with all people in general. I had learned to

pray for another's ill fortune. This was the first great stain on

the bright emblem of virtue that, at the time, still resided in

my imagination.

“Marie, I loved you from whatever distance seemed

appropriate. I was still not skillful in these matters, and it

appears now that I judged those distances poorly. Finally, you

gave your heart to another, one whose management of

proximity was far cleverer than mine. I could not rejoice in

your good fortune. I prayed fervently for the destruction of

your happiness. I wished you and him the most total of all

disasters, but I was denied. You left my life as you entered

it—a cold, distant dream. Yet before you left, you rehearsed

me in the exercise of spite.”

He took a sip of the liqueur and swirled it against his

palate. “I've grown since then, of course,” he said. “I've

grown and changed, but you're still there, an ugly spatter

against the cleanness of what I wanted to be.” With a sad

expression he set the tumbler on the small table. Rain fell

into the anisette, but Ernst was not concerned.

This morning he was playing the bored expatriate. He

smoked only imported cigarettes, his boxed filters

conspicuous among the packs of Impers and Les Bourdes. He

studied the strollers closely, staring with affected weariness

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

into the eyes of the younger women, refusing to look away.

He scribbled on the backs of envelopes that he found in his

coat pockets or on scraps of paper from the ground. He

waited for someone to show some interest and ask him what

he did. “I am just jotting notes for the novel,” he would say,

or “Merely a sketch, a small poem. Nothing important. A

transient joy mingled with regret.” He watched the hotel

across the square with a carefully sensitive expression, as if

the view were really from the wind-swept cliffs of the English

coast or the history-burdened martial plains of France.

Anyone could see that he was an artist. Ernst promised

fascinating stories and secret romantic insights, but somehow

the passersby missed it all.

Only thoughts of the rewards for success kept him at M.

Gargotier's table. Several months previously, a poet named

Courane had been discovered while sitting at the wicker bar

of the Blue Parrot. Since then, Courane had become the

favorite of the city's idle elite. Already he had purchased his

own café and held court in its several dank rooms. Stories

circulated about Courane and his admirers. Exciting,

licentious rumors grew up around the young man, and Ernst

was envious. Ernst had lived in the city much longer than

Courane. He had even read some of Courane's alleged poetry,

and he thought it was terrible. But Courane's excesses were

notorious. It was this that no doubt had recommended him to

the city's weary nobility.

Something about the city attracted the failed poets of the

world. Like the excavation of Troy, which discovered layer

upon layer, settlement built upon ancient settlement, the

The City on the Sand

by George Alec Effinger

recent history of the civilized world might be read in the bitter

eyes of the lonely men waiting in the city's countless cafés.

Only rarely could Ernst spare the time to visit with his fellows,

and then the men just stared silently past each other. They

all understood; it was a horrible thing for Ernst to know that

they all knew everything about him. So he sat in the Fée

Blanche, hiding from them, hoping for luck.

Ernst's city sat like a blister on the fringe of a great

equatorial desert. The metropolitan centers of the more

sophisticated nations were much too far away to allow Ernst

to feel completely at ease. He built for himself a life in exile,

pretending that it made no difference. But the provinciality of

these people! The mountains and the narrow fertile plain that

separated the city from the northern sea effectively divided

him from every familiar landmark of his past. He could only

think and remember. And who was there to decide if his

recollections might have blurred and altered with repetition?

“Now, Eugenie. You had red hair. You had hair like the

embers of a dying fire. How easy it was to kindle the blaze

afresh. In the morning, how easy. The fuel was there, the

embers burned hotly within; all that was needed was a little

wind, a little stirring. Eugenie, you had red hair. I've always

been weakened by red hair.

“Marie, poor Marie, your hair was black, and I loved it, too,

for a time. And I'll never know what deftnesses and craft

were necessary to fire your blood. Eugenie, the creature of

flame, and Marie, the gem of ice. I confuse your faces. I can't

recall your voices. Good luck to you, my lost loves, and may

God bless.”

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ScienceFictionByGeorgeAlecEffingerTheCityontheSandTheCityontheSandbyGeorgeAlecEffinger2Fictionwisewww.Fictionwise.comCopyright©1973byGeorgeAlecEffingerFirstpublishedinTheMagazineofFantasyandScienceFiction,April1973NOTICE:Thisebookislicensedtotheoriginalpurchaseronly.Duplicationordistributiontoanyper...

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