The Smell of Telescopes Read Online Free PDF Page B

tiles. He had the whiskers but not the balance; he was forced to jump down, defeated, feeling that he was no more than a shirt himself, pegged by the assumptions of brutal citizens. Voices warbled from high above:
    “Bet ’Ceti doesn’t wash his clothes in hot water. Bet he cleans his socks with an abrasive tongue.”
    “He uses sapphires instead of soap!”
    “Gives a despicable blue-rinse. The usual camouflage for an oceanic rogue. He wears tidal fashion!”
    Lurching away from the insults, he considered his remaining option. He must find the façade of his shop and enter like a customer. He tugged at his hair, acting the part of a scruff. Only by adopting the mentality of a client would the building call out and reel him in. But even at the end of the sick alley which led to his front, ropes had been strung. Now they were empty; the linen which would throttle on their narrow strength was still being worn by disobedient sons. So it was necessary for him to duck and weave, as if avoiding petrified traces of cutlass strokes. When they were full, he would be caught.
    The bell chimed as he opened the door and he leapt in anticipation, lunging for the comb. Then he remembered he had no money to pay himself. He coughed apologetically and lowered his head as he passed the chair. A hook accepted his hat. This was a bigger fright for him than the time he was shipwrecked with Betrand d’Ogeron near the Guadanillas islands. Only embarrassment was to be feared more than octopuses. Those who called the buccaneers unmannered and boorish had no idea of the social graces which governed their every act. A corsair’s etiquette is much like that of a vicar; only the quality of china is different.
    He was finished on his own. It was time to apply for help, before the barber became a fish, hauled to a spluttering doom in a knot of washing. He mixed dyes and carved a pen from a stick of soap. On a napkin’s back, he wrote his first letter, addressed to his old comrades. ’Lin and ’Vado would come for him, blowing away the laundry with a zumbooruk or cutting it into bandages with pikes. They would rescue him from this arid Sargasso where he was stuck fast and he would embrace the real sea again, sailing with Captain Rock or Bartolomeo el Portugues, trimming the beards of the whole of Maracaibo and Cartagena.
    Sealing the letter in a bottle, he crept out once more. Sea was his only method of sending messages, but it remained more elusive than ever. At last, after a fruitless search, he recalled the cistern. Large enough to mimic the briny deep, it accepted his epistle with a sigh. Quickly he hurried back. Already a pair of trousers had been added to the cord. Too exhausted to veer, he squeezed between the legs. Once in his kitchen, he curled up in the oven, his makeshift bed, without brushing his teeth. No need: the sugar content of his life was not high enough to rot his icy gums. They had ossified into crossbones.
    When he finally achieved sleep, a cast-iron dream entered his guts, filling him like a sail soaked in wine. It was a blind dream, but voices vibrated in a vast room. At first he thought they belonged to mutineers, plotting on the lowest deck of a galleon. But they were gentler than the harsh whispers of floating killers. It was the family he regularly spied on; they were breaking bread, straining thick beer between their lips. A face leered at the window: it was the barber. For an instant, he did not recognise himself and he was appalled by the apparition. The family were aware of his presence and digested it.
    Once the face moved away, the husband rose quickly and followed him through the labyrinth. This fellow was a postman: his sack trailed after him like a musical note squeezed in a mangle. At the cistern, he noticed the barber hiding his head in the water. He passed by and squatted in an open doorway, as if delivering a parcel to a dwarf. When the barber came up for air and continued his escape, the husband stepped in