And so he sets to work. He and his assistants drill into a panel with the dimensions 3x3x3 metres — which will serve as the statue’s plinth—1,920,000 small holes to create a regular web that has 1,600 holes along its length and 1,200 holes along its width. The underside of each hole is attached to a tube; the holes are divided into two hundred groups of varying numbers of holes, and all the tubes attached to the holes of one group come together in a single bigger tube. The bigger tubes are fed horizontally beneath the statue’s plinth and leave the room by a hole in the wall. In the adjacent room these are attached to more tubes, each of which has a different diameter and goes upwards at a different angle. Each of these tubes is fed into a tank of water, which is located in the upper part of the room at the top of a metal construction; water from the river above a great waterfall enters this by force of gravity through an opening in the ceiling. Owing to differences in the diameters and biases of the tubes connected to the tank, the water flows through the flat-lying tubes beneath the plinth at various strengths and speeds, and when it reaches the hole in the panel, geysers of various heights rise out of the panel. Nubra has arranged things so that these come together to create the effect of a statue in water. The water is then drained into the gutters that line the plinth, and another pipe carries it out of the room and the building.
The statue portrays the corpse of the royal land surveyor, with a dagger in his breast, lying on his back in the desert; it is but an hour since he was murdered and his body is half-covered in sand. Next to him, jutting out from the sand, are some objects: a locked chest, a belly-shaped bottle, a bell, the front of a regular icosahedron, a cone. It is possible to trace in the sand a geometric figure — it is a circle, with a trapezium inside it. Next to this figure we can read what the murderer has written in the sand with his finger—“The dances on the silver bridge have not yet started.” Although this inscription evidently continues, subsequent letters have been washed away by the sand. There are also the merest traces of small footprints — obviously made by a woman — which, like the remainder of the inscription, the circle with the trapezium, the corpse of the unfortunate surveyor and all the objects around him, soon disappear beneath the sand.
This is a scene from a well-known Kassian legend. For a long time Nubra inspected this image in his mind’s eye. To his great satisfaction he discovered that it contained no overlapping or overhanging shapes, no protrusions or pendant lobes. Perhaps, dear reader, you would like me to tell the story of the royal land surveyor, so that you might take a break from the dismal affairs of Devel (and it would be well worth the effort — it is a legend with a long, convoluted plot that is set in many towns, in which there appear the sly emissaries of a padishah and a beautiful, mysterious woman). But you must forgive me, as I am not really in the mood for such an undertaking. You know that I have tried to oblige you whenever I can; indeed, I have pampered you. But please acknowledge that it is impossible for me to indulge your every whim. Let me propose another course: why not create for yourself a story to fit the scene in the desert into? You will experience the joys and ironies of fabulation; you will learn that fabulation is a drug to be wary of — even where the most honourable and moral of stories are concerned — as always it eats away at the good intentions and noble ideas that are its impetus, of which it supposes itself an obedient instrument. What fabulation does is transform its subject into a purposeless and joyous cosmic dance driven by ancient, entirely treacherous rhythms.
Fabulation is an adventure of encounter and homecoming; it carries you to landscapes where there is a murmur of stories hitherto unknown, where faceless figures take shape, where the bodies of inarticulate beings — great larvae — rub against yours in the dark. You realize that this landscape is not only the birthplace of the story; it is a home for your own gestures, actions and thoughts. Only in stories born of this landscape do you encounter your true self. Remember how Fo saw himself in the faces of his characters and the mysterious letters that recorded his true name. You will realize that your life is in some strange way a copy of the stories that arise from this landscape. And you will smile when I tell you of the literature of the authentic diary because you will know that you never encounter yourself until you leave yourself behind for the world of magical stories. Even the most candid diary is an embarrassing conceit, as the I of such literature is always a pitiable, fantastical figure who is less real than all the kings, princes and princesses of the island’s Book.
Performance
The sculptor is happy to accept Hios’s assignment. Never before has he made a large statue out of gold, and he is excited by the prospect of creating a work whose greatest part will be a depiction of another statue and which will portray living beings (the upper half of Gato’s body emerging from the jelly and the predatory fish biting into his flesh) in one place only. So the time comes when, in place of the work in jelly, there stands in the courtyard a statue of gold, showing Gato with his face twisted in pain, his body behung with predatory fish, as he emerges from Mii’s statue of jelly, which is leaning slightly to one side in the evening wind. Day after day in the early morning Hios sits herself in front of the golden statue; the burning, dazzling sunlight is reflected from its curves into the princess’s eyes, turning them into fireballs that whizz about like meteors in the dark inner universe behind Hios’s aching lids.
One night Hios has a dream in which she is again witness to the final moments of Gato’s life. But this time the prince’s death is played out in a world where everything is made of gold. A golden figure with the face of Gato steps into a golden statue on a golden courtyard, struggles through the statue to the golden head of a giant squid, and when he re-emerges from the golden jelly he is behung with golden fish. When Gato at last falls, a golden surface closes over him. When the Hios of the dream looks about herself, she sees that the terror-stricken courtiers, too, are made of gold, and she thinks that her eyes will not withstand so great a glare. She lifts her arms to cover her eyes and hears a clang as her golden palms strike against her golden face, and this wakes her.
The next day at luncheon she retells her dream, lamenting that the statue of gold can never be made to move. Sitting at the table next to the commander of the praetorian guard is Nubra, and this talk of an impossible statue immediately rouses his attention. As we know, Nubra loves a challenge. He turns to Hios and informs her he will make a moving statue that will depict her golden dream. As he is saying this, he has no idea how he will accomplish the task. The next week he never leaves his chamber; he lies on the bed, contemplating how he will keep the promise to Hios and complete the assignment he has set for himself. His gaze roams about the flower-pattern motifs that are endlessly repeated on the paper covering the walls of his chamber. He has a great many ideas, but all of these he gradually rejects. At one moment his eyes light on the stylized drawing of the bud of a lotus next to a lotus whose petals are already open; Nubra has the feeling he is seeing the flower open. And then the solution to his assignment comes to him. In order that the viewer see how the golden Gato dies and how the golden fish thrash about, it is not necessary in the least that the statue itself move. All that there remains for him to do is to construct a mechanism whose real but invisible movements will give the (false) impression that the statue is moving.