Linda Perdido: A Novel

Thirty-Three.

linda perdido 215 Thirty-Three. Donn Morocco rises and begins to speak quietly and with great force: ping pong pong…and ping pong pong, he says and moves his arms; in one hand he carries a crozier of some kind, a staff with a crook or a cross at one end. Khalid thinks the crozier resembles the cobra he once saw in the Singapore Zoo. in the other hand he holds something that looks very much like a monkey wrench, but he sees that it is a barcode reading device. pong pong ping, he says and, pong pong ping. all around him others intone: ping ping pong, and then, ping ping pong; and then pong pong ping and pong pong ping…. and he says: Think of what the ghost Finella has said: When you tell someone he is not able to do something well, do a certain thing, a muddle arises if he thinks that you have told him what he is incapable of doing…. and all are rapt as donn Morocco continues: ping ping pong, and ping ping pong; and pong pong ping, and pong pong ping. Consider all of the packages that are to be delivered, all the packages of the world, they toil not nor do they ping ping pong, and 216 MaC WellMan ping ping pong; not do they pong pong ping, pong pong ping. They go where they are going and they are delivered where they must needs go, not where they will…. and he smiles and looks at the mustachioed two girlie boys and smiles. The two girlie boys sit with the rest in the beautiful hall, looking quite abashed. They had not expected to be invited, but Donn forgives all. He tells the listeners. We are all packages en route to delivery, at an unknown place at an unknown time and day. We cannot read our own barcodes , wherever we are destined to go, we shall get there safely, at peace, in one piece…. pong pong ping, and pong pong ping, and ping ping pong, and ping ping pong. He pauses, and aside from the crie of a far away car alarm, all is quiet. He says: Last year 1944 people saw something, and said something and i…i was watching them all and said nothing…. For, he goes on after a short time, We all possess the same unusually shaped ancestor…. Consider what you both do and say in the light of this, and in the light of all things that are delivered, for i am like you, for i suddenly awake out of the dark, and i stand not upon the order of my going, pong pong ping, and ping ping pong, and pong pong pong, and ping ping ping. and he is silent. Silence pause silence. and Khalid was very much moved and slowly stood up on his hind feet; and the two girlie boys were very moved and sore abashed, and slowly stood on their feet; and Husla and Tusla were very moved and slowly stood up; and annabella d’amico and her friends, Tennessee and Kim Sue and Slow poke and Joe aztec, were very moved, and slowly stood up; and the C/T (or one of his familiars) was very much moved, and slowly stood up; and two pretty girls, identical, each with a riot of golden hair half hidden beneath a leather coif, were very much moved and slowly stood up. So, he said, Shall i go or shall i stay? linda perdido 217 Silence pause silence. and he repeats himself. So, i am saying, Shall i go or shall i stay. all look around and say, Go and then stay. after a time, donn Morocco says, amen. amen, he says. amen, all repeat after him, amen. all say amen, all save one. it is the tenth of September, the day before digit slash digit digit, the national day of the Catalan people. oh, and where we began this day—under the Manhattan Bridge, on the Brooklyn side, another group, it should be noted, is practicing another ceremony. Seventy-two briefcases have begun to assemble in three semicircles, waiting for the reappearance of the C/T, the one who both is, and is no more. and what they have made for him (whichever of him he is) is an offering, unburnt , made of leather and skins, scavaged from the scary street of leather scraps...