Passarola Rising by Azhar Abidi

Author:Azhar Abidi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2010-03-01T00:00:00+00:00

THEN ONE day, quite suddenly, we were summoned to the King’s private chamber. I had been here several times before but the impression of comfort and splendor never failed to astonish me. Rich carpets lay scattered upon the polished floors. On the walls, sketches of the pyramids and the desert alternated with paintings of ships and birds. A crusader’s iron sword hung above the fireplace while Moorish shields made from rhinoceros skin flanked the windows. In the center of this room was a mahogany desk, with rosewood and ebony parquetry, covered with mathematical tables, maps, wineglasses and pencils. There were no flowers, nothing soft or feminine to balance the untidy masculine atmosphere of the place.

There were two men in the room: the King and a visitor, who introduced himself as Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis from the Académie des Sciences. In appearance and stature, he seemed to be in his thirties, perhaps a few years older than my brother but there was something about his face which made him look a great deal older. He had gray bristles flaring at his temples and a large forehead, such as a mathematician or logician might have. Louis XV indicated a couple of armchairs and handed us a cedar box filled with the long, slim barrels of Spanish cigars.

“Do you know this map, Father?” he asked Bartolomeu, pointing to a chart on the wall.

“It’s the Cosmographie Universelle by Guillaume le Testu.”

“Precisely. Now look at it closely, Father,” the King asked. “What do you see?”

“The Terra Australis, sire,” Bartolomeu replied.

“And what does that name mean to you?”

“It is the mythical southern continent, of course, of which Ptolemy has spoken and that Columbus believed to be a lush green land flowing with rivers and populated by people who wear clothes of gold leaf.”

The question had been a test and I could see that Bartolomeu had not answered it correctly. The King seemed disappointed. “What it shows is paradise—a land of happiness. It shows hope, that map, Father. That’s why I like maps. I like them with sea monsters and mermaids. I like them with dragons and centaurs. I like them more if they are incomplete and incorrect—for then the chance of discovery is even greater. The fog lifts and a new cape looms into view . . . ah, what sailor would not risk his life for such a sight?”

“There is no thrill in life without living for utopias, is there?” his guest remarked, looking at us.

The King looked at him with mock disapproval. “Maupertuis is a contrary man,” he said, drawing out a cigar. “He says one thing and does another. He wants to draw maps which strike out utopias. Is that not so?”

“All things in their correct dimensions, sire,” Maupertuis replied.

“’Tis the Age of Reason,” the King sighed, “but one thing is clear to me and that is that if our ships are to rule the waves, then our maps must be true depictions of the world. Father, what do you know of the

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