Beatrice and Virgil - Yann Martel [16]
Henry wondered if his reader would see through the meaningless patter of the Dante comment. Of the Flaubert story, he wrote:
... must thank you for the Flaubert story. I had never read "The Legend of Saint Julian Hospitator". You're right that the hunting descriptions are particularly vivid. So much blood! What can it all mean?...
"Sarah, I'm going for a walk. Would you like to come?" Henry asked.
Sarah yawned and shook her head. By then she was healthily, but also sleepily pregnant. Henry put on his coat and set off with Erasmus. The day was brilliantly sunny but cold, hovering only a few degrees above the freezing point.
The walk proved to be longer than Henry had anticipated. He had not properly translated what his eyes saw on the map to the distance their feet would be travelling on the streets. They entered a neighbourhood he didn't know. He looked at the buildings, residential and commercial, noting their changing character, the history of the city and its inhabitants expressing itself architecturally. His lungs breathed in the cool air.
His destination led him to the bum end of an upscale commercial street that featured, among other smart businesses, a grand bridal store, a jeweller, a fancy restaurant and, at the end, on the right side, an attractive cafe with a large terrace. The terrace was bare of chairs and tables because of the weather, but looming over it on a brick wall, visible from the entrance of the street and promising warmth, was a mural of a cup of coffee with a steaming curl of fragrance wafting from it. At the level of the cafe, the street turned to the left and then, quickly, to the right. Past this second turn, there was another stretch of businesses on the left side of the street, and, on the right side, the high, windowless brick wall of a large building. A little farther along, the street turned again, to the right this time. The crooked geometry of the street clearly owed to the large building whose rear abutted on it; its imposing size forced the street to make a jog around it. Henry followed along with Erasmus. The businesses on this second part of the street were more modest in character. Henry noticed a dry cleaner, an upholsterer, a small grocery store. He kept an eye on the numbers on the buildings; they were getting close: 1919... 1923... 1929... He turned the corner--and stopped dead in his tracks.
An okapi was looking up the street at him, its head tilted forward and turned his way, as if it were expecting him. Erasmus didn't notice it. He was sniffing at the wall with great interest. Henry pulled him away and crossed the street to get closer. In a large, three-paned bay window, unavoidable and magnificent, was--Henry was tempted to say lived --a stuffed okapi set in a diorama of a sultry African jungle. The trees and vines of the diorama leapt out of the bay window onto the surrounding brick wall in an accomplished trompe l'oeil. The animal stood nine feet tall.
The okapi is an odd animal. It has the striped legs of a zebra, the body of a large, reddish-brown antelope, and the head and sloping shoulders of a giraffe, to which it is in fact related. Indeed, once you know the relationship, you can see it: an okapi looks like a short-necked giraffe, with only the striped legs and big, round ears appearing incongruous. It's a peaceable cud-chewer, shy and solitary, that was discovered in the rainforests of the Congo by Europeans only in 1900, though of course it was known to locals before that.
The specimen before Henry was a superlative job. The vitality of its form, the naturalness of its pose, the fine evocation of its habitat--it was remarkable. Here, in an otherwise comprehensively manufactured environment, was a small, brilliant patch of tropical Africa. All it needed was to breathe for the illusion to be reality.
Henry bent down to see if he