THE ODD OLD BIRD
Avram Davidson
If there is a make-believe world to rival Terry Pratchett’s Ankh-Morpork then it is the American writer Avram Davidson’s Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania, where the Emperor’s wizard, Dr Engelbert Eszterhazy, performs his heroic tasks. Davidson has been writing about this comic fantasy land since 1975 and his inventive imagination shows no sign of drying up. In an article, “The Inchoation of Eszterhazy’, written in 1988, he explained that the inspiration for the series had come from the arcane symbols seen in the classic German movie, The Cabinet of Dr Caligari, which he had never been able to get out of his mind. ‘Gradually it came to me that there had been an empire in Eastern Europe which had been so completely destroyed that we no longer even remembered it like the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary; that being an empire, it had an emperor; that the emperor had a wizard; the wizard drove about the streets of Bella (BELgrade/ViennA) in a steam runabout; that the emperor’s name was Ignats Louis and the wizard’s name was Engelbert Eszterhazy.’
The concept so fired Davidson’s imagination that he wrote the first eight stories in just six weeks, developing an entire world of bizarre people, curious customs and extraordinary events that instantly grabbed the attention of fantasy readers. The success of Doctor Eszterhazy’s exploits in succeeding stories has generated a fan club in the USA, a detailed map of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania by John Westfall, and the plaudits of SF writer John Clute, who has described Davidson as one of America’s foremost contemporary writers of ‘obtrusive literacy and wit’.
Avram Davidson (1923—) was born in New York and, according to his own account, ‘educated in the local schools, a process which nearly unfitted me forever for participation in any useful functions whatsoever.’ After serving with the US Navy in World War Two, he had a series of jobs, including sheep-herding, tomato-picking and inspecting fish-livers, before selling his first story, ‘My Boy Friend‘s Name is Jello’, to Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1954. Another story, ‘Or All the Seas with Oysters’, won him a Hugo Award in 1958, and a string of collections in the following years established him as a uniquely comic voice in fantasy fiction.
‘The Odd Old Bird’ is one of the most recent Eszterhazy stories and was first published in the revived Weird Tales magazine Winter issue of 1988-9. Those encountering the allusive Doctor for the first time will probably need no further encouragement to seek out his other exploits once they have finished the next few pages. . .
‘But why a canal?’
‘Cheaper, more, and better victuals.’
‘Oh.’
Prince Roldran Vlox (to cut his titles quite short, and never mind about his being a Von Stuart y Fitz-Guelf) had ‘just dropped in’ to talk to Doctor Engelbert Eszterhazy about the Proposed Canal connecting the Ister and the Danube…there were, in fact, several proposed canals and each one contained several sub-propositions: should it go right through the entirely Vlox-held Fens (‘The Mud,’ it was fondly called…‘Roldry Mud,’ the prince sometimes called himself)? should it go rather to the right or rather to the left? should it perhaps not go exactly ‘through’ them at all, but use their surplusage of waters for feeder systems? and—or—on the one hand This, on the other hand That—
‘What’s that new picture over on the wall, Engly?’ Guest asked suddenly. Host began to explain. ‘Ah,’ said Guest, ‘one of those funny French knick-knacks, eh? Always got some funny knick-knacks ... The British for sport, the French for fun…’ Still the guestly eyes considered the picture over on the wall. ‘That’s a damned funny picture…it’s all funny little speckles ...’
‘Why, Roldry, you are right. What good eyes you have.’
Promptly: ‘Don’t soil them by a lot of reading, is why. Lots of chaps want to know about a book, “Is it spicy?” Some want to know, “Is it got lots of facts?” What I want to know is only, “Has it got big print?” Shan’t risk spoiling my eyes and having to wear a monocle. One has to be a hunter, first, you know.’ He made no further reference to the fact his host himself sometimes wore a monocle.
Eszterhazy returned to the matter of canals: ‘Here is a sketch of a proposed catchment basin—Yes, Lemkotch?’
‘Lord Grumpkin!’ said the Day Porter.
There followed a rather short man of full figure, with a ruddy, shiny, cheerful face. There followed also a brief clarification, by Lemkotch’s employer, of the proper way to refer to Professor Johanno Blumpkinn, the Imperial Geologist; there followed, also, an expression on the Porter’s face, indicative of his being at all times Doctor (of Medicine, Law, Music, Philosophy, Science, and Letters) Eszterhazy’s loyal and obedient servant and all them words were not for a ignorant fellow like him (the day porter) to make heads or tails of; after which he bowed his usual brief, stiff bob and withdrew. He left behind him a slight savour of rough rum, rough tobacco, rough manhood, and rough soap ... even if not quite enough rough soap to erase the savour of the others. The room also smelled of the unbleached beeswax with which they had been rubbing—polishing, if you like—the furniture’s mahogany; of Prince Vlox, which some compared to that of a musty wolf (not perhaps to his face, though); of Eszterhazy himself (Pears soap and just a little bay rum) and of Professor Blumpkinn (Jenkinson’s Gentleman’s Cologne: more than just a little). Plus some Havana cigars supplied by the old firm of Freibourg and Treyer in the Haymarket—London was a long way from Bella, capital of the Triple Monarchy of Scythia-Pannonia-Transbalkania (fourth largest empire in Europe) but so was Havana, for that matter. ‘Gentlemen, you have met, I believe,’ Eszterhazy said, anyway adding, ‘Prince Vlox, Professor Blumpkinn.’
Further adding, ‘I am sorry that my servant did not get your name right, Han.’
Blumpkinn waved his hand. ‘Calling me by the old-fashioned word for the smallest coin in his native province really helps me to remember a proper value of my own worth.—Ah. Canal plans. I hope that when the excavations are in progress you will be sure to keep me in mind if any interesting fossils turn up.’ It was not sure that Prince Vlox would be able to identify an interesting fossil if one hit him in the hough or bit him on the buttock, but Eszterhazy gave a serious nod. He knew how such things were to be done. Offer a small gift for reporting the discovery of ‘any of them funny elf-stone things as the old witch-women used to use’—they used to use them for anything from dropped stomach to teaching a damned good lesson to husbands with wandering eyes: but now all that had gone out of fashion—should certainly result in the reporting of enough interesting fossils, uninteresting fossils, and, indeed, non-fossils, to provide coping-stones for the entire length of the Proposed Canal ... if ever there was actually a canal...
‘And speaking of which,’ said Blumpkinn, and took two large sheets out between covers large enough to have contained the Elephant Folios; ‘I have brought you, Doctor ‘Bert, as I had promised, the proof-sheets of the new photo-zinc impressions of the Archaeopteryx, showing far greater detail than was previously available…you see...’
Doctor ‘Bert did indeed now thrust in his monocle and scanned the sheets, said that he saw. Prince Vlox glanced, glanced away, rested a more interested glance at the funny French knick-knack picture…men, women, water, grass, children, women, women ... all indeed composed of multitudes of tiny dots, speckles…points, if you liked ... a matter easily noticeable if you were up close, or had a hunter’s eye.