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  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/6662",
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  "archive": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 6662,
    "subject": "Short Story 76: Seven American Nights",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2014-09-10T06:37:40+00:00",
    "last": "2014-09-10T06:37:40+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<CAF1072wu6tL_dA-2b9Zox28zAgGyscn6it7Xkhi5BdvupHJdWQ@mail.gmail.com>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Marc Aramini",
        "address": "marcaramini at gmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2014-09-10T06:37:40+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth)  Short Story 76: Seven American Nights",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
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          "text": "SEVEN AMERICAN NIGHTS\n\n“Seven American Nights” first appeared in *Orbit 20* in 1978 and is\ncollected in *The Island of Doctor Death and Other Stories and Other\nStories.*\n\nOBJECTIVE SUMMARY:\n\nNadan Jafferzadah’s notebook has been sent to his family in Iran with a\nnote from Hassan Kerbelai, the private investigator they have hired to find\nhim The note asserts Kerbelai found the notebook in Delaware and that he\nwill discontinue the search if more money is not forthcoming.\n\nDAY ONE:\n\nNadan arrives on the *Princess Fatimah* after a 12 day voyage to the coast\nof America and voices his excitation and love of arriving: “Like the\ndelight a condemned man must feel when a letter from the shah snatches him\nfrom beneath the very blade of death.” He is astonished by the yellow\nwaters close to America and comments upon them to the ironically named Mr.\nTallman and to the grain merchant Golam Gassem — both of whom react with\ndisdain. The captain of the ship comes up and tells him that it is\nTallman’s country bleeding to death. (On this night, he has a dream of a\nloaf of bread “smeared with gray mold.” He wonders why the Americans would\nwish such a thing - “yet all the historians agree that they did, just as\nthey wished their own corpses to appear living forever.”)\n\nDAY TWO:\n\nNadan begins writing the next day of his room with its two beds, and tells\nof the “red- and purple- clad strangers, who mob their own streets like an\ninvading army” in the ruins of Washington D.C. He sleeps late and describes\nthe trucks with oxen and horses. He is on Maine Street and comments on the\nwidespread genetic damage to the people of America — hunchbacked, deformed,\nand twisted. The hotel manager tells him to go north for the buildings,\nsouth for the theater, and west for the park, but to take security. Nadan\nsays he has his pistol. At night he starts writing of his afternoon\nvisiting the buildings to the north where he encountered several beggars,\nbut first states that his girlfriend back in Iran must never read his\njournal and asseverates that he believes he was drugged on the ship.\n\nHe recounts America's reputation for chemicals and drugs that alter\nconsciousness, poison vermin, prevent bread from going stale, and create\nmad visions that never end. During the afternoon, the locals show him the\nWhite House, but he believes its name has been lost. A beggar without a jaw\ntakes him to the Smithsonian where he sees a man working on a machine. The\nbeggar, who confuses m's and n's, says “Someday we will be great again”\n(though it is possible he actually said “Sunday we will be great again.”)\n\nThat night Nadan goes out to eat and then attends the theater, where\nVidal's *Visit to a Small Planet* is playing. Its contents have been\nmodernized “just as we sometimes present* Rustam Beg* as if Rustam had been\na hero of the war just past.” The curator from the Smithsonian sits right\nnext to Nadan, who is impressed with the female who plays Ellen in the play\nand the clubfooted man who plays the alien Kreton.\n\nNadan begins speaking to the elderly man from the museum, buying him a\nsandwich and engaging him in conversation. The curator talks of the\nprincipal of extended abstraction, in which the true essence of\ncommunication is smell. “When you smell another human being you take\nchemicals from his body into your own, analyze them, and form the analysis\nyou accurately deduce his emotional state. .. When you speak, you are\ntelling another how you would smell if you smelled as you should and if he\ncould smell you properly.” He goes on to say that writing is the third\nlevel of abstraction.\n\nNadan appreciates some features of the play, such as Kreton and Ellen (a\nfact which he tells the Curator) and the reading of the family cat's mind\nby the alien. He is offended by the presentation of the Turks. The curator\nis dismissive of modern drama and says “Ellen is a trollop, and Powers a\ndrayman. That lame fellow Kreton used to snare sailors for a singing house\non Portland Street.” Nadan buys the old man some marzipan eggs which he\nfinds unpleasant and stashes the last six in his pocket.\n\nThe curator tells Nadan of writing, and the concept of the closed and open\ncurves. He says he has a machine which imitates handwriting and another\nwhich composes it for a “national psychological effect.” One of the papers\nhe shows Nadan has the word *Sardinia* on it amidst other handwriting, the\nother is blank — his example of an open curve.\n\nNadan notes that the final scene hinges on “the device our poets call\nthe *Peri's\nasphodel*, a trick so shopworn now that it is acceptable only if it can be\npresented in some new light. The one used here was to have John — Ellen's\nlover- find Kreton's handkerchief and, remarking that it seemed perfumed,\nbury his nose in it — conveying to the audience that John had, for that\nmoment, shared the telephathic abilities of Kreton, whom all of them had\nnow entirely forgotten.”\n\nNadan takes the curator home, walking beneath the stark overpasses and\nthinking\n\nIt occurred to me then that there may be a time flaw, such as astronomers\nreport from space, somewhere in the Atlantic. How is it that this western\nshore is more antiquated in the remains of a civilization not yet a century\ndead than we are in the shadow of Darius? May it not be that every ship\nthat plows that sea moves through ten thousand years?\n\nHe vows to cleanse his journal before letting Yasmin see it and writes of\nhow he bought a hallucinatory drug from the woman who helped him get the\nold man from the museum in bed, commenting that the museum has no income\nsave in selling relics of the past. He soaks one of the eggs in the drug\nand vows to eat one per day so that he can speak with knowledge of\nAmerica's hallucinogens.\n\nHe cannot sleep and daydreams that he is Kreton, and that Ellen is bringing\nhim the six eggs. He gets the hotel manager to bring him a woman, and he\nbrings three. The last of them looks like Yasmin, but has a club foot\nsimilar to Kreton's. He writes of this in the morning of the next day.\n\nDAY THREE:\n\nNadan goes to the park to sketch, taking a boat and exploring Hains Point\nand most probably East Potomac Park as well. He sees giant ratholes and\nrabid packs of dogs. He kills one of them with his pistol while he\nsketches. Four or five able Americans pretending to be beggars accost him,\nand he says that he has killed one of their own. He eats one of the eggs,\nfinding it more frightening than the park, then goes out to dinner.\n\nHe thinks of ending his account but portrays his visit to the theater to\nsee Barrie's *Mary Rose, *starring the same girl who played Ellen in the\nprevious play, listed as Ardis Dahl on the playbill. During the title\ncharacter's disappearance from the stage during the play, he sees her\nsitting in the audience but is unable to talk to her. After the play,\nremains sleepless and manages to push open the manager's door an attain a\ndirectory, learning that there is a Dahl family close to the theater.\n\nNadan speculates that Ardis is such a great actress because — in some part\nof her mind her stage became her reality?. He walks to the house overcome\nwith emotions, then thinks that perhaps they are all born of the drug in\nthe egg; he bites the insides of his cheeks and strikes at a building\nbefore regaining his composure. Attempting to pay the man who answers the\ndoor at the Dahl house to let him stay, the man says he cannot let Nadan in\nand prompts him to try the house on the corner. Through the door the man's\nwife reminds Nadan of the fallen Statue of Liberty.\n\nOn his way back, he glances up to see a red flash and beastly figure in the\nnight leap at him. He does not think he has time to raise his pistol fully,\nbut when Nadan comes to his senses the beast is dead before him, a female\nwith a chest wound. He thinks it both a feral dog and a human being. He\nmentions that over ten years ago he had read of such things in a book by\nOsman Aga, *Mystery Beyond the Sun's Setting*.\n\nHere Nadan reveals what happened to America:\n\nIn the last century, when the famine gripped their country and the\nirreversible damage done to the chromosomal structures of the people had\nalready become apparent, some few turned to the eating of human flesh. No\ndoubt the corpses of the famine supplied their food at first; and no doubt\nthose who ate of them congratulated themselves that by so doing they had\nescaped the effects of the enzymes that were then still used to bring\nslaughter animals to maturity in a matter of months. What they failed to\nrealize was that the bodies of the human beings they ate had accumulated\nfar more of these unnatural substances than were ever found in the flesh of\nthe short-lived cattle. From them — rose such creatures as the thing I had\nkilled.\n\nDAY FOUR:\n\nIn the morning, he resolves to go cut the head of the creature off, but it\nis gone without a trace. Nadan goes forth to buy a gift for Ellen and\nselects a bracelet made of old coins. He returns to dinner and takes his\nsecond egg. He fears that perhaps the drug rendered visible that which had\npreviously been invisible on the previous night. He naps and dreams that\nArdis/Ellen is caressing him with long fingered hands before going to see *Mary\nRose* again. He talks to the actor who plays Kreton and attempts to enlist\nhis aid in meeting Ardis. Kreton calls the current play a “turkey”. Here\nKreton asks him if he drinks, and Nadan replies that he does not but will\ngladly buy him one. As they walk, Kreton comments on his leg and the\nexcuses he must always use in the play, then mentions that perhaps\nsometimes the potter is simply angry. He quotes the Persian *Rubaiyat*:\n“None answered this; but after Silence spake /A Vessel of a more ungainly\nMake: /They sneer at me for leaning all awry; /What! Did the Hand then of\nthe Potter shake?” and Nadan claims that he is unfamiliar with it (It is\nFitzgerald's translation).\n\nKreton indicates that not all Americans are unsightly, thinking of himself.\nNadan offers him twenty rials to introduce him to Ardis after Kreton\nmentions that there should be other things he is interested in besides\nknowing who Ardis is entertaining, like the secret hidden beneath Mount\nRushmore. Nadan reveals he is a pupil of Akhon Mirza Ahmak who came to\nAmerica thirty years ago to examine the miniatures in the National Art\nGallery.\n\nHe feels Kreton reaching into his pocket and starts a scuffle. The police\narrive and arrest Kreton, insisting that Nadan press charges after beating\nthe actor down. As Nadan lies in bed, Ardis comes to plead with him so that\nthey can gain the actor's release. He offers to claim that it was a\nmisunderstanding with the police. She reveals that they have breathed life\ninto the theater in the past two years and their next production will be*\nFaust. *She says that Americans were never polite culturally and that they\nfeel betrayed and cheated. “When we feel cheated we are ready to kill; and\nmaybe we feel cheated all the time.”\n\nArdis claims she must get some things at home, and Nadan offers to take\nher, even if she lived in Kazvin or Mount Kaf (known as the farthest point\nof the Earth to Persia). He sees a note from her after she leaves offering\nreal love if he can procure Bobby's freedom (the actor who plays Kreton is\nnamed Bobby O'Keene).\n\nDAY 5\n\nNadan dreams of walking with Ardis and being stalked by the beast. The\npower on his pistol is running out. He spends all day with Ardis at the\npolice and then at the penitentiary seeking to gain Bobby's freedom. Here\nhe says that Ardis showed him where she lived, “a few doors from the\ntheater”. They go to the Federated Enquiry Division to procure his release,\nbut Ardis insists part of it is rented by the Washington Police Department.\nNadan feels that they wield far more authority than they pretend to. He is\ninterviewed by a woman with forty or fifty teeth who mentions that some of\nthe oldest coins show heads of wheat and that this is a fertile part of the\ncountry in her small talk. He explains that he only requires the release of\nthe thief. At two they go to the other side of the river to look at the\ninmates in a penal colony where they fail to find Bobby.\n\nThat afternoon they wind up in a restaurant near Ardis' apartment where\nGolam Gassem and Mr. Tallman from the ship are also eating, and Ardis acts\nsuspiciously, wanting to leave before she is seen with Nadan, claiming that\nshe is “friends” with the two men and that she wants to maintain their\nmutual trust. When Nadan and Ardis show up at the theater, Bobby is free.\n\nThat night Nadan is drafted into playing a role in *Mary Rose* since an\nactor named Terry has disappeared (Nadan does not think that Ardis is\nreally surprised by his disappearance). As Mary Rose's husband Simon, he is\nintroduced as Ned Jefferson. Nadan insists his dramatic personality came\nfrom growing up on Persian literature such as the *Shah Namah*. Afterwords,\nArdis and Nadan caress and kiss in the dark, but she refuses to let light\nenter. She says that tomorrow he will see her, and that the theater will be\nclosed for Easter; they will go to a party. After she leaves, Nadan finds\nthat only two of the eggs remain (there should be three) and that his\njournal has been moved to the other side of the bed. He eliminates from his\njournal any indication of why he came to America. He ends the entry by\nclaiming that he will make the taking of the eggs significant, and that the\nlove he and Ardis will share will be something worthy of great intrigue and\nlasting significance.\n\nDAY 6:\n\nArdis comes before noon and they walk north to the park. They rent a boat\nand Ardis asks if he intends to spend all his time in Washington. Nadan\ninsists his original plan was to head north after a week to Philadelphia,\nbut now he would stay forever if she so desired. She invites him to the\ninterior of America to seek its great prizes and reveals that her father is\na map maker who used to search out that treasure himself. Ardis also says\nthat “there are people in the interior who are no longer people. Our bodies\nare poisoned — all of us Americans. They have adapted — but they are no\nlonger human.” Her father trades with them and sells the maps they bring\nhim.\n\nShe also states that Bobby and she have been using Mr. Tallman and Golam\nGassem to finance an expedition to the interior. She says there is a better\none and that after they attain it they will return to Teheran together.\nThey go back and prepare for the evening's party, and Nadan sees a\nChristian procession with a priest and smoking censers. He notes “the\nentire procession — from the flickering candles in the clear sunshine, to\nthe dead leader lifted up, to his inattentive, bickering followers behind —\nseemed to incarnate the philosophy and the dilemma of these people. — I\nrealized that its ritualized plea for life renewed was more foreign to them\nthan to me.”\n\nThe notebook then remarks that it is very late and Nadan has resolved to\nburn his notebook. He asks how he could have loved “that”, referring to\nArdis. The party was a masque, and after they had made love in the dark\nNadan used his pistol to light up the alcohol waiting in a nearby glass to\nbehold her.\n\nNadan claims that the eagle is dead and “Ardis is the proper symbol of\n[America's] rule.” He has eaten both of the last eggs, one before the party\nand one after probably killing Ardis. He hopes that what he saw was only an\nillusion of the egg.\n\nIf hallucinations now begin, I will know that what I saw by the light of\nthe blazing arrack was in truth a thing with which I have lain, and in one\nway or another will see to it that I never return to corrupt the clean\nwombs of the women of our enduring race. I might seek to claim the\nminiatures of our heritage after all, and allow the guards to kill me — but\nwhat if I were to succeed? I am not fit to touch them. Perhaps the best end\nfor me would be to travel alone into this maggot-riddled continent; in that\nway I will die at fit hands.\n\nNadan later hears Kreton walking outside his door with footsteps like an\nearthquake and hears the word *police* like thunder. He sees “My dead\nArdis, very small and bright, has stepped out of the candle-flame, and\nthere is a hairy face coming through the window.”\n\nThe final section switches to Nadan's mother and Yasmin, who speculates\nthat Nadan is still alive as they look over the journal, but must be\nimprisoned or ill. The old woman asks, “You think this is his writing” —\nPerhaps. Perhaps.\n\nTHESIS:\n\nThe American plot to regain global ascendancy involves the grain merchant\nGolam Gassem and poisoning Iran and perhaps all of Europe and the Middle\nEast. Nadan’s dream of the moldy bread, the old man from the Smithsonian\nwho talks of smell as true communication, and America’s reputation as the\ngreatest creator of hallucinogens and chemicals reveal the plot — gaining\nrevenge on the powers of the world as the Americans have poisoned\nthemselves via a kind of airborne mold-spore. The actors in the play are\nsimply playing another drama in every interaction with Nadan, and it is\nlikely that during his stay in America he is replaced and the remainder of\nhis journal forged by the machine in the Smithsonian at the termination of\nMaundy Thursday.\n\nSETTING:\n\nThe precise environs in Washington DC can be located — down to a Holiday\nInn on Maine Street. The year seems to be approximately 2050-2060. Nadan\nstates that Persia has suffered a 2300 year eclipse (its empire subjugated\nand its power waning during the Greco-Persian conflict, with Alexander the\nGreat defeating Darius III by 333 BC). America's collapse was sudden and\ncomplete and tied to chemically tampering with food to both preserve grain\nproducts and to vastly accelerate the maturation of livestock.\n\nCOMMENTARY:\n\nIn *Attending Daedalus*, Peter Wright notes that *Seven American Nights* is\nnot really “a conundrum designed to ensnare the reader in a series of\ninterminable puzzles” but that Wolfe emphasizes “early in the narrative\nthat the mysteries of the story cannot be solved, [indicating] that the\ntext is an insoluble self-referential puzzle about the conundrum of\nperception rather than an enigma for the reader to solve by detection.”\nThis is prompted by the various levels of reliability of the narrative: any\ngiven day could be a hallucination of the egg, Nadan has excised his true\nreason for coming to America and embellished early descriptions, a machine\ncan forge handwriting in the story, and the detective also has a motive to\npresent the notebook to give Nadan’s family hope (which might have a forged\nsubplot so that in the case of detection he can always say he was not\ninvolved in the forging of the document).\n\nAs with so many of Wolfe’s interpreters, while this sounds like a nifty way\nto approach the story (it’s like — about the infinite indeterminacy of\nperception, man ?) we should know better. This is the least useful\ninterpretation of *Seven American Nights*, and we will discard it here.\nThere is only one story I am willing to venture does not have a single\nbottom in Wolfe written during the first half of Wolfe’s career, and that\nis “Forlesen”, due to its theme of the meaninglessness of the modern life\nForlesen must live.\n\nHow many levels of abstraction can we have before the original subject\ndisappears? The Smithsonian man philosophizes on all communication being\nbased on scents, of which writing (an abstraction of verbal communication)\nis already at the third level. In the above scenarios, we see even more\nlevels of abstraction — and most assuredly, our original subject, Nadan,\nwill disappear in the abstraction. There are two compelling pre-existing\ntheories to explain the action in *Seven American Nights*, but our\npreferred thesis here will modify one of them slightly.\n\nEXPLANATION 1: Borski's Combination of Days 5 and 6 and Ardis' Lycanthropy\n\nIn his essay “The Far Plutonian Shore”, Borski posits that Nadan, observed\nby the American Government, who have perhaps determined his true motive for\ncoming to America (stealing the Persian miniatures guarded at the National\nArt Musuem), excises the end of Day 5 and the start of Day 6 from his\njournal, combining the days and hiding his visit to the museum. Borski then\nbelieves that Nadan is lying about the eggs being disturbed — that he ate\none as usual and had two remaining, but creates a cover story, perhaps\nhiding behind the oblivion of the hallucinogen as an excuse if he is\ndetained (though if he is truly being watched, the government should know\nhow long he has been in the United States). However, Borski thinks the\nhallucinogen is in one of the eggs eaten on the last day, when Nadan has\nvisions of Ardis in his candle, a hairy face at the window, and hears\nKreton's thundering steps outside.\n\nBorski posits that the beast which was killed but whose body disappeared is\nsimply Ardis, whose chest has been furrowed and wounded on the second\nnight. The problem with these theories lies in the almost magical presence\nof a lycanthropic character and the relative ineffectiveness of purging an\nentire day from the journal this late in his visit after attracting police\nattention? if Nadan is being watched, by that point the police or F.E.D.'s\nknow how long he has been in the United States and when Bobby was arrested.\n\nEXPLANATION 2: Tallman's Early Excision, the American Plot, and the\nReplacement of Nadan after Maundy Thursday\n\nDavid Tallman provides a much more convincing explanation for many of the\nsmall details in *Seven American Nights* which makes use of the plots of\nthe plays that Nadan watches as well as his visit to the Smithsonian and\nthe resentful presence of Golam Gassem. In Tallman's scheme, when Nadan\nwitnesses the man at the Smithsonian working on a machine, he brings\nattention to himself as someone who might be on to an American intrigue\n(especially since he arrived on the same ship as Mr. Tallman and Golam\nGassem). Later the same museum man shows up at the final showing of *Visit\nto a Small Planet* to determine how much Nadan understands.\n\nAt this meeting, Nadan reveals that his hands have been cramped from\nwriting, that he is much taken with the two actors playing Kreton and\nEllen, and it is from a woman who helps Nadan put the Curator to bed that\nhe buys the “hallucinogen” with which he douses one of the eggs. While\nTallman agrees that the true purpose of Nadan's visit is to regain the\nPersian miniatures from the National Art Musuem (a small elaborate painting\ncomparable to those in Western illuminated manuscripts), he sees the\nsubtext as a vast and extensive plot first to kill Nadan which then\ntransforms into an attempt to minimize leakage when he does not immediately\ndie.\n\nTallman also proposes that the second day is the point at which Nadan\naltered his manuscript by excising material for the following reasons, as\nposted on the WolfeWiki, which I am presenting here in their original form:\n\nI count seven full nights if Nadan's first day of sightseeing didn't go all\nthe way to the ruined capital buildings. There are a few hints that this is\nthe case:\n\n   1.\n\n   Early on, he is writing with closed shutters and a candle (p. 340, Orb\n   edition of IODDAOSAOS). Something outside is beating on the shutters (A\n   wild animal? Moths?), which seems to indicate late at night. On the day he\n   visits the ruins, he opens the shutters and the sun is just setting.\n   2.\n\n   He's fearful and homesick that first day. The second day he's brave\n   enough to go out to a restaurant and to the theater at night.\n   3.\n\n   His attitude about going to the park changes. On p. 339 he wants to\n   postpone it until he has seen other things. On p. 344 he is ashamed he\n   didn't go that day. This seems more likely if they are two different days.\n   4.\n\n   He says he spent the whole day at the ruins on p. 347. The other day\n   mentions sleeping late, listening to musicians, and people-watching. His\n   first writing for that day is at about 4:30pm (midnight Iran time with\n   local daylight savings time p. 338) back in his room, which doesn't allow\n   that much time for ruin explorations.\n\nNadan arrived in Washington on a Saturday (based on the parade being on\nGood Friday). On Sunday, he headed north to see the National Art Gallery\nfirst. (Why would he bypass the place his famous uncle visited and see the\nold ruins first? The gallery was on his way there.) That night, he wrote of\nhis fears.\n\nOn Monday, his second day of sightseeing, he visited the capital building\nruins, the Smithsonian, and the theater.\n\nWhy did he write so little about that first day, and let it run into the\nnext day with such an abrupt transition? The answer is he removed some\npages from the journal after he found it was disturbed. In [writing] about\nthe gallery he must have revealed his intention to steal certain\n\"miniatures of our heritage\" (p. 382). He excised the pages to protect\nhimself from the police (far too late, alas).\n\nHere is David Tallman's timeline for the story:\n\n   1.\n\n   Saturday\n   Nadan arrives in Washington.\n   Angers Mr. Tallman by pointing out yellow water.\n   Begins to be fearful, but will not admit it in journal for Yasmine.\n   Has dream about moldy bread.\n   2.\n\n   Palm Sunday\n   Nadan heads north to see the buildings.\n   Visits the National Art Gallery.\n   Writes of his intent to steal miniatures.\n   Late that night, writes of his fears.\n   3.\n\n   Monday\n   Nadan goes back and visits the ruined buildings.\n   The beggar with no lower jaw shows him the Smithsonian room.\n   The beggar boasts \"Sunday we will be great again,\" knowing that he will\n   be misunderstood as saying \"Someday we will be great again.\"\n   Nadan's visit is noticed by F.E.D. informers among the beggars.\n   Nadan seeing the face of the \"curator\" along with the forging machine is\n   a problem.\n   The police tail him to the theater.\n   The \"curator\" goes in, sits in his row, and draws him into conversation.\n   Curator can tell he was recognized.\n   Curator pretends to be ill. Nadan escorts him home.\n   Nadan is sold poison, which he is told is a hallucinogenic. (It might be\n   an overdose of a recreational drug.) He is supposed to take it and die that\n   night, with any letters he might have written during the day still unmailed.\n   Nadan doses the eggs. Unknown to himself, he is playing real Russian\n   Roulette.\n   4.\n\n   Tuesday\n   Police are now in a bind. Nadan didn't take the poison. Where is it?\n   Why didn't he take it? Could he be a spy? They have to be cautious.\n   If he dies some other way and the poison is found, the plot may be\n   revealed.\n   Nadan visits the park during the day.\n   Police following him save his life from a dog-pack attack. The howling\n   was not because the dogs were \"mourning their fallen leader\" but because\n   the police were killing more dogs.\n   Nadan could have been aware of their assistance but chose to omit it to\n   make himself look more heroic.\n   Nadan attends the theater again and sees \"Mary Rose.\"\n   Eats egg one.\n   Goes out to try to find Ardis.\n   Police follow him and save him from the werebeast. The \"flicker of\n   scarlet\" he saw was the targeting laser of his shadower's gun on the beast.\n   Nadan had no time to aim, so the shot that killed the beast was probably\n   not his own.\n   Police clean up the body of the beast and remove other traces as much as\n   possible.\n   5.\n\n   Wednesday\n   Buys gift for Ardis at the Washington Monument fair.\n   Police have given up on his taking the poison on his own. They contact\n   Bobby and Ardis with a plan.\n   Nadan eats egg two.\n   Attends first part of \"Mary Rose.\"\n   Bobby fakes an attempt to pickpocket Nadan, gets arrested.\n   Ardis comes to Nadan's room to intercede for Bobby.\n   She is prepared to have sex with Nadan, but not spend the night. She\n   must make her report to the police.\n   She leaves a scented note promising future favors.\n   6.\n\n   Thursday\n   Nadan spends most of the day trying to get Bobby out of jail.\n   While he is occupied, the secret police search his room. They are\n   experts and leave no trace.\n   They make a copy of his journal and get it translated.\n   Nadan returns home, eats egg three.\n   He goes out to the play, where he ends up performing.\n   The police return while he is absent.\n   They found the mention of the eggs in the journal.\n   Using a sniffing dog or other detector, they find the poisoned egg and\n   remove it. They are no longer concerned that Nadan will see his room is\n   disturbed.\n   Nadan goes to Ardis' apartment.\n   Ardis falsely promises that the next day will be a picnic in the park.\n   She says the theater will be closed for Easter, but tomorrow is actually\n   Good Friday.\n   Nadan returns, finds the journal disturbed. He tears out the\n   incriminating section about the Art Museum visit (shortening the record for\n   Sunday).\n   Nadan writes his last entries in the journal.\n   Police arrive and arrest him.\n   7.\n\n   Good Friday\n   Nadan is interrogated, probably tortured, and killed.\n   Police now know he is connected to Ahkon Mirza Ahmak, of the Iranian\n   nobility. There is certain to be an inquiry.\n   They also know that Nadan showed his family the journal before he left.\n   His journal is fed to the story-composing computer to create a false\n   ending.\n   The ending is added to the journal by the forging machine.\n   Since the ending calls for the death of Ardis, they kill her that night\n   with Nadan's gun.\n   The reader of the forged ending is supposed to conclude that Ardis was a\n   werewolf (or the hallucinogen made Nadan think so), and that Nadan killed\n   her and went into the interior of America alone.\n   8.\n\n   Easter Sunday\n   The American government will pull some kind of stunt. They may use a\n   hidden stockpile weapon (say from under Mount Rushmore) that still works to\n   create a terrorist incident, and use forged documents to put the blame\n   elsewhere.\n   A possible target is the Iranian moon colony, New Tabriz. A bomb\n   smuggled into a grain shipment there (by Golam Gassem) could cause great\n   devastation.\n   Good ones to blame would be Turkey (\"bloodthirsty race\") or China (Iran\n   had a recent war with them, as shown by the reference to a modern version\n   of \"Rustam Beg\").\n   It may start a war (As Kreton wanted to do in \"Visit to a Small Planet\").\n   The intent may be to bring America back to more power in world, but\n   mainly to bring down countries they hate, like Iran.\n   \"Sunday we will be great again\" is about the power to bring about\n   destruction. They have nothing to lose.\n   \"When we feel cheated we are ready to kill; and maybe we feel cheated\n   all the time.\"\n\nMY PROPOSED ALTERATIONS TO TALLMAN'S THEORY:\n\nThe majority of that time line looks sound (I am not confident the police\nare killing other dogs in the park, as later they seem to use whips, but\ncertainly someone kills the more dangerous beast for Nadan with a laser\nrifle and gets rid of the body). Tallman has a firm rationale for the\nmissing night being early in the text, and explains many of the small\ndetails, including the inconsistencies in Nadan's character (such as the\npossible use of alcohol) and in the tenor of the tale throughout the last\nseveral pages, where suddenly Ardis is seen as a monster. He also makes use\nof the embedded plays and the religious symbolism of holy week, with the\nprocession and triumphant entry into the city on Palm Sunday.\n\nThe character of Mollah Nadan in *The Adventures of Hajji Baba* (from which\nmany of the Persian names come) is strict in his abstinence (at least\naccording to his own self-description), and at one point even claims, “die\nrather than eat, or drink, or smoke. Do like me, who, rather than abate one\ntittle of the sacred ordinance, would manage to exist from Jumah to Jumah\n(Friday) without polluting my lips with unlawful food” (Morier 321). This\nmention of Friday to Friday even resonates with the text and supports the\nidea that Nadan in fact never consumed the hallucinogen/poison during his\nstay.\n\nHowever, Tallman has added quite a bit to the plot by supposing that\nAmerica has a weapons stockpile, and that this strike will be through Golam\nGassem's grain, when there are textual bits of evidence that actually make\nthe assault far simpler.\n\nWhen it is revealed that the next play will be *Faust*, and Nadan wonders\nwho will play the part of the Doctor if Kreton is Mephistopheles, we need\nlook no further than the man who has made a deal with America for illusory\ngain: Golam Gassem, whose first name implies “slave” or “servant” with a\nsmall variation in spelling (Gholam). As the one Middle Eastern name not\nculled from *The Adventures of Hajji Baba *(beside Yasmin's) we can guess\nthat it has some other meaning.\n\nThe dream of the bread with mold on it is ominous, and Nadan even wonders\nwhy America would wish it. The meeting between Mr. Tallman and the grain\nmerchant, as well as the promise that Mount Rushmore hides something\nunderneath (coupled with Nadan's speculation that America's chemicals and\npoisons have been sitting in hidden places for decades) creates a better\npicture of the American plot. As the curator says, the smell is the first\nlevel of communication, and America has chemicals than can destroy when\nsniffed. When the grain of Gassem is distributed and cooked into bread, the\ngray contamination Nadan dreamed of may become an airborne reality. Nadan\nalso saw trees in the walls of the decayed buildings of Washington\nD.C. - *carpinus\ncaroliniana*, whose fruit falls and disperses through the air, growing out\nof civilization's remains.\n\nThis scheme is far more plausible given what we know about America's\ncurrent state than the smuggling of destructive weapons which can be blamed\non another nation. Nadan still faces replacement, arrest, and probably\nexecution on Friday per the religious resonances with Holy Week.\n\nNAMES:\nSince the majority of these names come from other fictional works, it is\nnot necessary to explore their meanings assiduously.\n\nNadan is named after a religious figure in *The Adventures of Hajji Baba*\nwho assiduously asserts that he never commits excess or drinks (it is also\na name for an idiot or stupid individual). This might represent\ncorroboration for David Tallman’s idea that one of the huge continuity\nerrors in the story involves Nadan and Ardis sharing a drink when he\npreviously stated he did not drink to the man he always refers to as\nKreton. In the original novel he changes clothing with the narrator and is\npunished in his stead.\n\nOsman Aga, the name of the fiction writer in *Seven American Nights*\nreputed to use his reputation to get free food and promote his next\nwriting, is named after Hajji Baba’s first master in the same book, who is\ntrying to make a profit off of lamb skins. (It is also the name of a\nhistorical author who was captured and wrote *Prisoner of the Infidels* —\nthis might be a coincidence of allusion for Wolfe, though certainly Morier\nwould have been riffing on that historic figure in his novel.)\n\nHassan Kerbelai, the private investigator trying to get money from Nadan’s\nfamily, is named after the father of Hajji Baba, also a barber, as his son\nis. While there is no “Hajji Baba” character, one of the actors in the play\nis a barber. Mirza Ahmak is another character from Hajji Baba.\n\nGolam Gassem's name does not come from the same source and seems to be an\noriginal Wolfe invention. I hate to note it, but I feel it is a pun — his\nfunction will be to effectively gas the dominant nations when his grain is\nturned into poisoned bread tainted by the chemicals of America — Gas 'em.\nGolam can imply a slave or servant.\n\nArdis Dahl's first name means “fervent” and Dahl implies “valley”, but as\nper the verbal connotation of Gassem above, she serves the function of a\ndoll to attract Nadan.\n\nBobby O'Keene's name is similarly obvious — Robert implies “famed, bright,\nor shining” and Keene can imply witty, sharp, or keen.\n\nFOLIAGE\n\nIn addition to the gray mold which Nadan mentions, he also notices that in\nthe buildings of Washington DC, trees have begun to bloom. C*arpinus\ncaroliniana *is characterized by the small light seed pods which easily\nfloat on the air, and perhaps this ability to grow through the cracks of\ncivilization is symbolic of America's plot as well.\n\nSARDINIA\n\nThe man from the Smithsonian shows Nadan a document from which he can read\nthe word *Sardinia*. Besides its position as a focal point into Europe, its\netymological presence is that of the sardonic grin — a plant commonly found\non the island makes corpses grin and grimace. The Sardonians had a ritual\nof killing old people with the poison while laughing loudly. This famous\nexample of poison might support Tallman’s theory that the hallucinogen\ngiven to Nadan might indeed be poisonous, and that his game of Russian\nRoulette with the eggs is more deadly than he thinks. If this is true, then\ncertainly dogs being used to smell the egg would be the only viable way to\ndetect it, and explain the shifting of the eggs from one side to the other\n(which would also make use of the old man from the Smithsonian’s insistence\non smell as true communication).\n\nMOUNT RUSHMORE:\n\nThere is a tunnel behind Mount Rushmore which was originally envisaged as a\nhall of records where important documents could be kept, but this appears\nto be just a story. David Tallman theorizes it is a weapons cache, but I\nfancy that the only weapons America has left are chemical in nature, the\nsame thing that destroyed them. Nadan says:\n\nAmericans were once the most skilled creators of consciousness-altering\nsubstances the world has ever seen — innumerable poisons for vermin, and a\nhost of unnatural materials for every purpose, also contrived synthetic\nalkaloids that produced endless feverish imaginings. Surely some, at last\nof these skills remain. Or if they do not, then some of the substances\nthemselves, preserved for eighty or a hundred years in hidden cabinets, and\nno doubt growing more dangerous as the world forgets them. I think that\nsomeone on the ship may have administered some such drug to me.\n\nPerhaps the tunnel beneath Rushmore is one of these cabinets, were the\nsubstances have lain in wait for an unsuspecting world.\n\nFORGERY:\n\nIn addition to Nadan probably drinking on the final day and the problem of\nArdis' deformity being so drastic that it is sickening but undetectable in\nclothes, it seems that the geography of the park is slightly off. The hotel\nshould be east and across a bridge (previously mentioned in the text) from\nthe East Potomac Park, but Nadan and Ardis walk North to reach it on the\nlast day.\n\nLITERARY REFERENCES:\n\nThe title is an obvious reference to *The Thousand and One Nights/The\nArabian Nights*, but thankfully our tale is shorter.\n\nAlmost every Persian name in the story comes from James Morier’s *The\nAdventures of Hajji Baba*. The emphasis the Mullah Nadan places on not\ndrinking in the novel really does highlight the character inconsistency\nnoted by David Tallman in his analysis of *Seven American Nights*: he went\nfrom claiming not to drink to having a half bottle of wine left in the\nclimactic scene in which he supposedly lights the alcohol with his pistol,\nrevealing the hideous nature of Ardis. According to the *Encyclopedia\nIranica*, the picaresque novel was considered:\n\nAn Orientalist project *parexcellence, Hajji Baba* lampoons Persians as\nrascals, cowards, puerile villains, and downright fools, depicting their\nculture as scandalously dishonest and decadent, and their society as\nviolent — in the form of a biography of a “native,” a composite Persian\ncharacter whose imagined identity was wrapped in deliberate ambiguities.\n... Bizarre though it may seem, the Persian translation of *Hajji Baba *was\nseen as a critical depiction of Persia’s backwardness and moral decadence,\na self-image that begged for Westernizing remedies. (“Hajji Baba of\nIspahan”)\n\nPerhaps Wolfe employed this stereotyped vague and ambiguous character to\ncreate his novella, but this time casting the critical eye on the Americans\nwho in the 20th century saw themselves as so great and civilized. Morier's\nnovel was not the only satire referenced.\n\nEven more ironically, the theater puts on *Visit to a Small Planet*, a\nfarce that criticizes the age of McCarthyism in the United States, as a\nparagon of what once was. Written by Eugene “Gore” Vidal, it involves the\nspaceman Kreton arriving in the wrong time period. He telepathically\ncommunes with the Spelding’s cat, named Rosemary. Out of boredom he seeks\nto start a war, and in this novella America will play the part of the\nalien. There are many changes to the play, including changing the name of\nEllen's lover to John Randolf (which means “house wolf” or “protector”).\nThe actor Terry plays John Randolf and Ardis' husband in the second play as\nwell — and his disappearance, which does not seem to surprise Ardis, keeps\nNadan busy while his room is searched (he must play the part of her husband\ninstead in *Mary Rose.) *This distraction allows the poisoned egg to be\nremoved, serving to protect Nadan for just a bit longer.\n\n*Mary Rose*, from the author of Peter Pan, is a ghost story: it depicts a\nwoman who disappears twice, whose development is retarded by her\ninteraction with an ominous island which wants to keep her forever. The\nsecond time she disappears, it is for years, and her child grows up while\nshe is gone, though she does not age in all that time. She speaks beyond\nher own allotted time as a ghost, as perhaps Nadan will after he\ndisappears. Mary Rose is also an inversion of Rosemary. No doubt Gene Wolfe\nappreciated the synchronicity of Eugene Vidal writing a play which included\nRosemary as well. Mary Rose also involves a mother's search for her son.\n\nThe next play that they will put on is *Faust*, and Nadan (or his\nreplacement) wonders who will play the doctor if club footed O'Keene is\nMephistopheles. Most probably the man who has made a deal for power and\nknowledge is Golam Gassem in the role of Doctor Faust.\n\nNadan mentions the *Shah Nameh* as inspiration for his romanticism and\ndramatic nature, an ancient Persian epic which detailed the exploits of\nmany heroes, including the Persian Hercules, Rostam. When O'Keene quotes\nFitzgerald's *Rubaiyat*, another Persian work of enduring literature, Nadan\ndoes not recognize it, though perhaps this is a commentary on Fitzgerald's\nloose translation.\n\nRELIGIOUS ALLUSIONS:\n\nGiven Nadan’s presence in *The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan* as a\nholy man and his visit to Washington D.C. during holy week, it is\nappropriate to overlay the religious connotation on the story itself.\nChrist is apprehended after his last super on Maundy Thursday and put to\ndeath on Friday. In this story, It seems much of Nadan's Thursday is spent\ntrying to release Kreton and it is probable that Nadan will be arrested\nafter finishing his journal that night — this puts all of Friday into the\nterritory of “fiction”. His entrance into the city proper on Palm Sunday\nthen matches the entrance of Christ to Jerusalem, and the gaudy clothes of\nthe celebrants echo the bright colors used to decorate churches during Holy\nWeek.\n\nThe text stops before Easter Sunday — the only resurrection we see might be\nAmerica's if they can succeed in bringing the other powers down, though\nhere they represent something far more inimical and duplicitous than we\nwould expect. However, the earthquake of Kreton's step, the thunder of the\nword police, and the time as three o'clock all resonate with the execution\nand death of Christ.\n\nUNANSWERED QUESTIONS:\n\nWhy doesn’t Nadan recognize Fitzgerald’s* Rubaiyat* (a very famous Persian\nwork of literature) when Kreton quotes it? Admittedly a loose translation,\nis this a commentary on his inability to perceive the “spirit” of a\ntranslation or is it a clue that Nadan has already been replaced?\n\nIs Nadan really there to regain the miniatures from the Smithsonian?\n\nIs there really no credence to the detective Hassan Kerbelai’s involvement?\n\nWhy does the prostitute who looks like Yasmin have the same deformity as\nthe “exotic” American who plays Kreton? Is it possible that there is\nsomething ambiguous in the gender of Billy O'Keene?\n\nGiven that my thesis wholeheartedly endorses an American plot that employs\nthe grain merchant and its insidious airborne chemicals transmitted through\nsmell (Gas em!), do the two theories which account for the missing egg\n(excised day from the journal in Borski’s scheme versus Tallman’s idea of a\ndrug sniffing dog stealing the egg) really have more weight than an idea\nwhich posits that the monstrous creature he kills or the final days could\nbe something hallucinogenic in nature? It seems that in order to make use\nof every detail in the text, Nadan must be replaced, and his arrest before\nGood Friday is the best possible place for it, especially considering how\nthat point of the text ends with the words culminating in “end”: “If our\nlove is not a great love, destined to live forever in the hearts of the\nyoung and the mouths of the poets, it will be so before the end.”\n\nCONNECTION WITH OTHER WORKS:\nLike the other novellas of the 1970s, “Seven American Nights” explores\nidentity, perception, and cultural motivation and alienation. It even casts\nAmerica as a rather unmitigated villain, constituting one of Wolfe’s most\nuniversally well-rounded works. The use of external plays and references to\nexplore themes was present in both *The Fifth Head of Cerberus* and *Peace.\n*Despite Peter Wright’s assertion, there is still an objective back story\nwhich makes use of most of the details present in the text. Perhaps the\ntruly inscrutable text from this period in Wolfe’s career remains\n“Forlesen” rather than “Seven American Nights”.\n\nThe widespread loss of America's relevance most resembles *Operation ARES*,\nand both works have sinister animals and the definite loss of\ncivilization's aegis at night in the streets of the East Coast. The\npossibility of imprisonment and police abuse show the Kafkaesque in Wolfe,\na streak which extends from *The Fifth Head of Cerberus* to *The Land\nAcross*.\n\nRESOURCES\nBorski, Robert. “Far Plutonian Shore.” *The Long and the Short of It*. New\nYork: iUniverse, 2006. 52-61\n\n“Hajji Baba of Ispahan.” Encyclopedia Iranica. Vol. XI, 6, 2003. 561-568.\n\nMorier, James. *The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan*. Google E Books,\n1895.\n\nWolfeWiki. “Seven American Nights.” 21 November 2011, Web. September 9,\n2014.\nhttp://www.wolfewiki.com/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=Stories.SevenAmericanNights\n\nWright, Peter. *Attending Daedalus: Gene Wolfe, Artifice and the Reader.*\nLiverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2003."
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