Free Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin Page A

of which were rows of sparkling lamps (he had never seen lamps), small trees and tables, and acres of beautiful upright women who, unlike the Baywomen, wore clothes that made them look like silky-skinned jungle birds, though more bosomy and at times more aloof. He had never seen uniforms, trolleys, glass windows, trains, and crowds. The city exploded upon him, bursting through the ring of white shells that crowned his head. He staggered about the fire and tumult of Broadway and the Bowery, not understanding everything he saw. For instance, a man turned a handle on a box, and music came out, while a small being, half-animal and half-man, danced about on the street and collected things in his hat. Peter Lake tried to talk to him. The man turning the handle said it would be wise to give the creature money.
    “What’s money?” asked Peter Lake.
    “Money is what you give the monkey, or the monkey pee on you,” replied the organ-grinder.
    “‘Money is what you give the monkey... or the monkey pee on you,’” repeated Peter Lake, trying to understand. When he realized that the little man in the red suit was “the monkey,” he realized as well that the monkey was peeing on him. He jumped back, determined (among other things) to get some money.
    In an hour he was more tired than he had ever been; his feet ached and his muscles were tight; his head felt like a copper caldron that had been thrown down the stairs. The city was like war—battles raged all around, and desperate men were on the street in crawling legions. He had heard the Baymen tell of war, but they had never said it could be harnessed, its head held down, and made to run in place. On several score thousand miles of streets were many cataclysmic armies interacting without formation—ten thousand prostitutes on Broadway alone; half a million abandoned children; half a million of the lame and blind; scores of thousands of active criminals locked in perpetual combat with as many police; and the vast number of good citizens, who in their normal lives were as fierce and rapacious as other cities’ wild dogs. They did not buy and sell, they made killings and beat each other out. They did not walk on the streets, they forged ahead like pikemen, teeth clenched and hearts pounding. The divisions between all the different stripes of desperado and the regular run-of-the-mill inhabitants were so fine and subtle that it was nearly impossible to identify a decent man. A judge who passed sentence on a criminal might deserve ten times more severe a condemnation, and might someday receive it from a colleague four times again as corrupt. The entire city was a far more complicated wheel of fortune than had ever been devised. It was a close model of the absolute processes of fate, as the innocent and the guilty alike were tumbled in its vast overstuffed drum, pushed along through trap-laden mazes, caught dying in airless cellars, or elevated to platforms of royal view.
    Peter Lake had no more idea why he felt and sensed what he did than a patient in surgery has of what exactly is happening to him as he is sawed and cut. He was overcome by feeling. The city was a box of fire, and he was inside, burning and shaking, pierced continually by sights too sharp to catalog. He dragged himself about the maze of streets, lugging his purple beer and his fish wafers. There were no bays, no huts, no soft sandy places in which to lie down.
    But there were anarindas. There were so many anarindas that he wondered if he were sane. They passed everywhere, to the side, above, below, deep within the glass-fronted boxes, like fish swimming enticingly in schools, gravityless and laughing. The supply was unending; it flowed like a river. Their voices were as fine as bells, crystal, birds, and song. He decided that he would do best if he picked an anarinda who would take him home with her. They could eat the fish wafers, drink the clam beer, shed their clothes, and roll about in whatever soft places