MP to RH. A letter
1902
Dear Bunnikuns,
With old Fenelon here in Cambrai, on the way to Belgium. Don’t be cross, I couldn’t resist. he’s taking good care. Charming town, well fortified, many Merovingien remnants which I can scarce believe sit before my very eyes, and so near as almost to touch. Everything I imagined.
When I heard the town bells ringing, I thought of you and of how fond you would be of the vibrations in the towers, of the local color. Me feeling those vibrations R/ (don’t think me too terrible for saying this but up here, I know there is no mother reading these things, perhaps steaming the envelopes. I know we do not have a real vibration but the written one is one I can read and read and (well you know) again and again. Speaking of steaming up.
I looked up to the clock tower in the center of the town, expecting the obvious X, and instead witnessing the two odd creatures up there, some sort of figurines with their hammers ringing the hours. (I’ve enclosed a postcard of them). I turned to a young boy who had just come out of his father’s store and asked him: Is there something up there or am I imagining so? And he proceeded to tell me the most charming story of two town giants, named Martin and Martine, blackamoors, from the era of Charles V. But think to this as metaphors of us two so alike and of what stands between us: time. There will come a day when men such as ourselves will be able to stand at the town hall together, not disguised in skirts as heathens. Not Martin and Martine but Martin and Martin.
How comes it that they possess the same name? I asked. He said he couldn’t remember the history, but that we could ask his father, who would know. We entered the store, filled with merchandise of all kinds, a true general store unlike those we see in Paris, apothecary, hardware and papeterie all wrapped in one, with a few grocery items mixed in amongst the lower shelves. The old man didn’t recognize Nonelef though he told him his name. Hard to believe he’d be almost a celebrity in this god-forsaken town. But, it’s true, as history records, le Cygne de Cambrai, would be his great uncle. François de Salignac de La Mothe-Fénelon.
“Oh, M De Fenelon”, said the clerk, once he realized, and tried to answer. “It’s the story of two giants fighting in the time of… Let me see if I can remember. No, my memory is gone. All I remember is that they attacked the Flemish together, I believe, I am not sure. Hit him upon the head with the hammer and he fell down.
Ah, I said, much like Charles Martel, repelling the Moors in the battle of Tours, but in reverse. It is the Moors wielding the hammers. I clapped my gloved hands together (you’ll be happy to know Fenelon has kept me bundled up, especially with the chill and damp winds while traveling through the countryside in the open car) so delighted was I. But then Nonelef, poor boorish fellow that he is, was keen to be off, and having bought some betises de Cambrai, the well known mint candy of the region, we set out for X, Nonelef teasing me the whole time about my betises- in the silly drawings and puns and antics of mine you know so well. Though he loves me all the same, teasing is the highest form of affection, I’ve always said.**
I was ecstatic. The air is brisk here and I am so glad that maman recommended I take some extra blankets on the road. I suppose you think these are my betises, and perhaps you are right. You are far smarter, and handsomer, than I. Your loving poney, Marcel
**Please don’t assume I am substituting Nonelef for you. There is no substitute for my Little Poney. Why else would I be travelling in this new car — which is wonderful indeed– and not on horseback, with you. The two of us together clip-clopping along.
I made Nonelef drive back and forth in that new little car chugging up and down the hills back and forth. You should have seen the three towers of the town. On our way out in the sunset, the spires lit up like swords in the sky. And as we mounted the road, I turned around to watch the sunset, and saw them all lined up, as if they were saluting my departure. Hail Marcel, they seemed to say. My giants whispering from their Martinville
It is now 3 o’clock in the morning. I have not gotten much sleep at all. I woke up with the most exceptional dream. Time was pounding away, pounding with the hammers used by those Maurs. I was Martin, and I thought of you as I gazed at Martine. Tears rolled down her face, or maybe it was just the rain, I’m not sure. She was sad. The clock struck one, then two, then on to 12. On each hour, I feared the next, since the pounding increased, as did the vibrations, the resonance no different than the sensation of an impending attack. I sensed the compression on my chest, accompanied by the sickening realization that I was so very much alone. That was the sadness.
I am alone, up here, always with time. And with you, Reydo. But the great divide is the time and the bells’ tolling, sending along the message to the world as we strike them with our hammers that we are beating each other up.
Were it not for you, my little poney, I would be even higher and sadder, with only the interior gears in my range of vision. You have tethered me to the days and hours and minutes. And yet you have freed me to soar on the wings of the cygne/Signe, far from my room. Why I am here out in the open, enchanted. You have lifted me farther than I had dreamed with your consistent belief in my abilities. Maybe now I shall be able or at least very soon, for I feel that that is true, to prove to you that your confidence in me is well-founded.
The town is ugly grimy and sooty. I am no longer the past, I am the future, and I am miserable lonely and alone, as says our dear Charles. I am a fleur de mal, I fear, in your bouquet of untold happinesses. Are you doing well? If so, pluck me out. I am your monarch of the clouds, exiled on earth, borne down by giant wings.
Yours- Munscht.
