Nightmare at Noon

An invitation and an illustration. The illustration is ornate, the invitation, quaint. I shall reveal both. Illustration now, invitation later. One is richer in the scenery and that’s how I wish to share them. I am a sensuous man, form and effect drive all my affectations.

I had, rather eagerly, accepted a rare invitation to the house of an acquaintance. The sort one would like to acquire as a friend, but since one never will, would like to claim him as one. This is exceedingly important. The world is heavily conditioned by what appears. What is, is a matter of detail and oftentimes quite expendable in the immediate term. In a fast world, immediacy rules; immediacy and posture. Therefore the invitation and my ersatz friendship. The man in question was an aristocrat of sorts and like the few remnants of that class, he worshipped allure at the expense of authenticity. The invitation, re-creation of an old card bears this out. Facsimile of the invitation my friend sent, inviting me to the screening of Orlando Furioso. Plagiarized and shamelessly copied as stub from an early print or a ticket, I can see. Never mind, a man is entitled to his indulgences and this was an aspiration fulfilled. One must be tolerant of dwindling fortunes and indulgent towards sham style, especially if moth-eaten.

I arrived at the tony house and rather hastily, before I could take in the ambience and the articles, was ushered into a rather large home theatre. We would be served at our seats. A dozen guests, the bearers were half-a-dozen. A large menu of lots of cold cuts with interregnums of more substantial fare. Exceptional cognac to wash it all down (never mind the afternoon). Odd, but I never argue when the spirit is VSOP. The air was thick with old and ageing folk, dwindling fortunes, dressed in dank but expensive perfume. No conversation to be had except a nod and a smile in exchange. My host gave a sonorous, mercifully brief welcome and introduction. The screening of this opera was imminent. You will agree that bearing, demeanour, mannerisms, have to be carefully affected on such occasions. That’s essential. As essential as polite and feigned enthusiasm (politeness is always feigned) at the most thoughtful and kind invitation to watch an opera. An oxymoron of sorts; opera without stage, projected onto a screen. Dull, boring, insipid, tedious, but important. Important if you want to graduate from hanger-on to acquaintance.

Well, that’s the background, the setting, and the context. Now, I am willing to make you a bet that you don’t know about Orlando Furioso. A brief perspective is in order. The picture at the beginning of my narrative is of the wandering knight. A man called Ruggiero, who rode the Hippogriff in the epic poem. In Italian imagination or reality (no one to ever say what or which), the Hippogriff and the knight sojourn far and wide with great agency to destroy everything which waylays their path. The knight does this because he falls in love with a pagan princess, Angelica. She betrays him by falling in love with a Saracen and elopes to Cathay. Greatly exercised, Orlando (Roland in the anglicized version) lays waste a lot. Until Astolfo, the Paladin, flies up to the moon, retrieves Orlando’s sanity and delivers everyone from the condition. Orlando falls out of love with Angelica and the world is spared.

Watching this adaptation of the epic. I was reaffirming my belief, liberally expressed if rarely practised, that love is insanity and delusion. A plummet called ‘falling in love’. Love for the flesh is all the love there ever is. You want to possess it, you want it to possess you, flesh upon flesh. Or you want to consume it. Flesh within flesh. Eat it, ingest it as it satiates your flesh. Two aspects of craving to fulfilment to craving. The valleys of indulgence run deep and they run lush. Life is a lish of the practised and the fantasized. Either way, you lust it and love it. Some learn to loath it. The extremes one swings on. It is the former part of this axiomatic equation one prefers always. That’s how it is. Pleasure is sweet. It beckons, seduces and lulls you. Orlando Furioso unfolded on the home theatre screen. As it began its excruciatingly boring and endlessly long course, I began my entitlement to the food on offer. Everything was an emblem of haute cuisine. After the nibbles and nabs, I was served the great and laborious delicacy, Beggar’s Chicken. Painstakingly and very nicely cooked over six hours on a slow fire. Wrapped in lotus leaves and clay. Marinated and stewed in secret spices with its own juices running to add flavour. Delectable.

Now, when you watch a screen you are the least interested in, are in a quiet corner of a largish room which is dark and no one can pry, you do the most natural thing. You recline just a little more and masticate your food with greater indulgence. I was doing just that. I had almost finished the meal. My mind summoning a list of my culinary desires. At the precise point between eating and finishing, as the last morsel was in transit from the dish, to the hand, to the mouth. Just before it was rendered even more unrecognizable by teeth and tongue, Lord Voldemart appeared. That dark lord of darker arts. No ceremony ever precedes him, neither warning. He in sinister splendour. Beguiling the seer, if not petrifying him. As long as I ate the epidermis I enjoyed the chicken. It was when I got to the epithelium of the last morsel, in continuation of bite and mastication, that Lord Voldemart entered the mind. Each slicing and grinding of teeth drew him in. I must say that while he may have entered at any point, the character was considerate enough to have waited until I had almost finished the meal. He asked me a singular question. The sort of question which is pre-determined and therefore cast intractably. The sort one cannot refuse to answer or attempt with vagueness or offer half an answer to. Precise and blunt came the question: “Anterior or posterior?” “Anterior” I answered. Instinctively and in a split second decision. Anterior was very considerably if not entirely, in degree at least, more dignified than posterior. In a flash the mind gargled and spat the meal. And kept at the extended vomit. It kept at it for long, interminably almost. Everything I had ever eaten tumbled out. It did not pile up; it spread instead. Around me, in rapidly thickening layers. The mind’s eye magnified the expulsion. Skeletal meat, mashed gristle, platelets of blood, ground and unground bones, marrow and brains, pieces of liver, spareribs, trotters and wings. And offal, lots of offal. And great swathes of anger and sadness and fear. Fine capillaries, thin in the extreme, laced with lattices of congealed blood, incredible delicate and incredibly tenuous, strung it all together. At the centre of it all lay a heart. Beating and bleating at the same time. As I began to drown in the miasma, it vanished. Just like that. Everything went away.

A nightmare at noon. Like nightmares, compelling, but unable to coerce. I should have had Coronation Chicken. It was available, neatly tucked into a sandwich, and no question of mind-games. I chose Beggar’s Chicken because it appeared delectable and more wholesome. And you do know I am a sensuous man. Head cleared of an unsettling phantom, I summoned intellect and beckoned knowledge. They would bring inference dressed with logic.

Born in Edgar Allan Poe’s mind, M. Valdemar, had died under hypnosis. And had returned as a squishy mass of rotting flesh. The Beggar’s Chicken was actually Lord Voldemart!! I know this for a fact because in the French language (and I am a Francophile), vol de mort means the flight of death. In my estimation, Lord Voldemart is an audacious blend of lowlife farce and high art. Of comedy and cruelty. But he is pregnant with old fashioned but still much appreciated courtesy. That, I grant him, experientially. In retrospect, I think it was the Lotus leaves which summoned Lord Voldemart. For the duration of its bloom, the flower has a habit of rising above the muck it is rooted in. I abide by everything except Beggar’s Chicken now. For one, there is nothing beggarly about this deceitful preparation which pretends to be extremely humble, in name at least. And for another, because I cannot bear another visitation from Voldemart. He may have demonstrated courtesy and might have extended the courtesy of choice to me. But as far as I care, this is not a philosopher’s question. It is a gastronomical one. My choice of food is mine. My right to eat what I want, when I want, how I want. It is the basis of civilized society and free choice. I assert this. Never mind somewhere a small voice trying to needle me. Bothersome, tiny, but clear. It says authority over another can’t be truth. Truth is the authority. I continue to practise ignoring it. Beggar Chicken be damned.