Alva and Irva - Edward Carey [3]
For the convenience of our foreign visitors—most of whom, it has been noticed, stay in Entralla for a mere twenty-four hours (some for considerably less)—breaks have been included in this volume, labelled Interludes, one for morning coffee, one for lunch, one for supper—which have been listed in chronological order for the sake of neatness, but can of course be taken whenever required. Please note that at some restaurants and cafés a reduction of 10 per cent will be given to customers carrying this book. However, should the visitor have longer than one day in which to enjoy the various entertainments Entralla has to offer, please feel free to read this book at whatever pace seems attractive. So welcome. Welcome indeed.
PART ONE
Dallia & Linas
A LOVE STORY
IN OUR
CENTRAL POST OFFICE
The Central Post Office
The Central Post Office of Entralla can be found at 8-10 Napoleon Street, hours Monday to Friday 9am-5pm, Saturday 10am-12pm, closed Sundays. It is a large cube of a building, two storeys high, notable only for its fake marble cladding and its four Corinthian columns in the entrance portico-added at a much later date than the building’s original construction, and certainly without the architect’s permission. Together these features lend the vague impression of a classical temple, and perhaps it might initially be considered our city’s minor version of the Acropolis of Athens were it not for the fact that the building is so caked in filth (soot, bird excrement, vehicle exhaust, industrial grime) that its neglect gives it away for what it is: an ordinary public-service building. Abused, ugly, useful.
THE OLDER BUILDINGS on Napoleon Street are like parents to the newer ones. Parents are the beginning, without our parents where would we be? We may not like to think of them in the carnal act, but surely they were at it. Otherwise we should not have happened. Their energy, their youthful exchanges, created us. Before my sister Irva and I there were Dallia and Linas.
We like to think our parents are as vital as buildings to the existence of Entralla. Everybody should be permanently reminded of them. There should be a big sign, just so everyone can know, ‘On this step Dallia and Linas made love.’ For their energies one night on the top step of Central Post Office was the essential first act in our lives. It was not merely the quiet grunting of two employees of the post office—for so Mother and Father were—but the call of something far grander and more significant. How can I explain the magnitude of their physical act? I’m not sure. But now, after a few moments thought, perhaps I have it. Down Napoleon Street is Cathedral Square, and in the square, as well as the cathedral, are two other buildings: the bell tower and the baptistry. The bell tower, and there’s nothing exceptional in this, is tall and thin. The baptistry, and this is unexceptional news too, is short and fat. I think of Father and Mother. I think of the bell tower and the baptistry.
The bell tower looks down and loves the squat baptistry, the baptistry looks up and loves the beanpole bell tower. Now let me cast these buildings in the forthcoming event. Let me label the bell tower Linas-father, for if he was a building rather than a person he would indeed have been a tall, gangly type of structure. And let me label the baptistry Dallia-mother, for were she to be built out of limestone, she too would be only one storey in height, and she too would spread herself