The Unconsoled

by Kazuo Ishiguro

  Many of the poems used rhyme and were relatively short. There were poems about fish in the city park, snow-storms, broken windows remembered from childhood – all delivered in a curiously high-pitched incantatory tone. My attention drifted for a few minutes, and then I became aware that a section of the audience somewhere directly below me had started to talk quite audibly.

  For the moment the voices were reasonably discreet, but even as I listened they seemed to grow bolder. Eventually – while the bald-headed man was reciting a long poem about different cats owned by his mother over the years – the noise drifting up to me became that of a sizeable party consorting in more or less normal tones. Overcoming my sense of caution, I moved right to the very edge of the cupboard and, holding on to the wooden frame with both hands, peered down.

  The talking was indeed coming from a group seated directly below me, but the number of those involved was smaller than I had supposed. Seven or eight people had apparently decided to pay no further attention to the poet and were now happily conversing with each other, some of them having turned completely in their seats to do so. I was about to study this group more closely, when I caught sight of Miss Collins sitting several rows behind.

  She was wearing the elegant black evening dress she had worn at the banquet of the first night, her shawl still around her shoulders. She was watching the bald-headed man sympathetically, her head tilted slightly to one side, a finger raised to her chin. I continued to watch her for a while but there was nothing at all about her appearance to suggest she was anything other than perfectly calm and serene.

  My gaze returned to the rowdy group below me and I noticed that playing cards were now being passed around. Only then did I realise that the core of this group comprised the drunken men I had encountered in the cinema on my first night, and then just a little while ago in the corridor.

  The game of cards grew ever more boisterous, until the whole lot of them were bursting into cheers or whoops of laughter. Disapproving looks were being cast in their direction, but then gradually more and more people in the hall began also to talk, albeit in more restrained voices.

  The bald-headed man showed no sign of noticing and continued to recite earnestly, poem after poem. Then, about twenty minutes after he had first come on stage, he paused and, gathering some sheets together, said:

  ‘And now we enter my second period. As some of you will already know, my second period was ushered in by one key incident. An incident that made it no longer possible for me to create with the tools I had hitherto employed. That is to say, the discovery that my wife had been unfaithful.’

  He hung down his head as if this memory still grieved him. It was then that one of the group below me shouted:

  ‘So he obviously was using the wrong tools!’

  His companions all laughed, then someone else called out:

  ‘A bad workman always blames his tools.’

  ‘His wife did too it seems,’ said the first voice.

  This exchange, clearly intended to be heard by as many people as possible, provoked a fair amount of tittering. It was not clear how much of it the bald-headed man had heard from the stage, but he paused and, without looking in the direction of his hecklers, shuffled his papers again. If he had intended to say more by way of introducing his second period, he now abandoned the idea and started once more to recite.

  The bald-headed man’s second period was not obviously different from his first and the restlessness in the audience grew. So much so that when after a few more minutes one of the drunken men shouted something I could not catch, a substantial part of the hall laughed quite openly. For the first time, the bald-headed man seemed to realise he was losing control of the audience and, looking up in mid-sentence, stood blinking into the lights as though in shock. An obvious course open to him was to abandon the stage. A more dignified option would have been to read three or four more poems before departing. The bald-headed man, however, embarked on another solution altogether. He began to read again at a panic-stricken pace with the intention presumably of completing his planned programme as quickly as possible. The effect was not only to render him more or less incoherent, but also to give encouragement to his enemies, who now saw they had him on the run. More and more remarks were shouted out – no longer just by the group below me – to be greeted each time with laughter from all around the hall.

  Then at last the bald-headed man made an attempt to regain control. He put aside his folder and, not saying a word, stared pleadingly from the lectern. The crowd, much of which had been laughing, quietened – perhaps as much out of curiosity as from remorse. When the bald-headed man finally spoke, his voice had gained a degree of authority.

  ‘I promised you a small surprise,’ he said. ‘Now here it is. A new poem. I finished it only a week ago. I composed it especially for this great occasion tonight. It is called, simply, “Brodsky the Conqueror”. If you will allow me.’

  The man shuffled his sheets again, but this time the audience remained silent. Then he leaned forward and began to recite. After the first few lines, he glanced up quickly and seemed surprised to find the hall still silent. He continued to read, and as he did so grew increasingly confident, so that before long he was waving his hands about loftily to emphasise key phrases.

  I had imagined the poem would be a general portrait of Brodsky, but it soon became clear it was concerned solely with Brodsky’s battles with alcohol. The earlier stanzas drew comparisons between Brodsky and a variety of mythical heroes. There were images of Brodsky hurling spears from a hilltop at an invading army, Brodsky grappling with a sea-serpent, Brodsky chained to a rock. The audience continued to listen with a respectful, even solemn attitude. I glanced at Miss Collins, but could see no obvious change in her demeanour. She was, just as before, observing the poet with an interested but detached air, a finger on the side of her chin.

  After several minutes the poem shifted ground. It abandoned its mythical backdrops, focusing instead on actual incidents involving Brodsky from the recent past – incidents which as far as I could guess had passed into local legend. Most of these references were of course lost on me, but I could see an attempt was being made to re-appraise and dignify Brodsky’s role in each episode. From a literary standpoint, this section of the poem struck me as a great improvement on the earlier, but the introduction of such concrete and familiar contexts had the effect of breaking whatever hold the bald-headed man had established over the audience. A reference to ‘the bus-shelter tragedy’ set off some tittering again, which grew more widespread at the mention of Brodsky ‘outnumbered and battle-worn’ being ‘forced finally to surrender, behind the telephone booth’. But it was when the bald-headed man spoke of ‘a glittering show of valour on the school outing’ that the entire hall, as one, erupted into laughter.

  From this point on, it was clear to me nothing could save the bald-headed man. The final stanzas, devoted to eulogising Brodsky’s new-found sobriety, were greeted virtually line by line with gales of laughter. When I glanced again at Miss Collins, I could see the finger on her chin making quick stroking motions, but otherwise she looked as composed as ever. The bald-headed man, barely audible above the laughing and the heckling, finally came to the end and, gathering up his sheets indignantly, stalked off the stage. A portion of the audience, feeling perhaps that things had gone too far, applauded quite generously.

  For the next few minutes the stage remained empty and the audience was soon talking at full volume. Surveying the faces below me I saw with interest that, although many people were exchanging mirthful looks, a significant number appeared to be angry and were gesturing sternly towards others in the hall. And then the spotlight fell onto the stage again and Hoffman appeared.

  The hotel manager looked furious and came hurrying to the lectern without ceremony.

  ‘Ladies and gentlemen, please!’ he cried, even as the crowd began to quieten. ‘Please! I ask you to remember the import of this evening. To quote Mr von Winterstein, we are not h
ere to attend a cabaret!’

  The ferocity of this reprimand did not go down well with some of the crowd, and an ironic ‘ooh’ rose up from the group below me. But Hoffman went on:

  ‘In particular, I am shocked to find so many of you persisting in this idiotically out-of-date view of Mr Brodsky. Setting aside the many other great merits of Mr Ziegler’s poem, its central premise, namely that Mr Brodsky has conquered once and for all the demons that once plagued him, cannot be doubted. Those of you who chose just now to laugh at Mr Ziegler’s eloquent articulation of this point will, I am sure, very shortly – yes, in the next few moments! – come to feel ashamed. Yes, ashamed! As ashamed as I felt on behalf of this whole city just a minute ago!’

  He thumped the lectern as he said this and a surprisingly large proportion of the audience erupted into self-righteous applause. Hoffman, visibly relieved, but evidently unsure how to respond to this reception, bowed awkwardly a few times. Then, before the applause had died down entirely, he collected himself and declared loudly into the microphone:

  ‘Mr Brodsky deserves to be nothing less than a towering figure in our community! The spiritual and cultural fountainhead for our young people. A lantern-bearer for those of us more senior in years, perhaps, but who none the less have become lost and forlorn in these dark chapters of our city’s history. Mr Brodsky deserves nothing less! Here, look at me! I stake my reputation, my credibility on what I am now telling you! But why need I say this? In a brief moment, you will perceive it with your own eyes and ears. This is hardly the introduction I intended to give and I regret that I was compelled to give it. But let us not delay any more. Let me call onto the stage our highly esteemed guests, the Stuttgart Nagel Foundation Orchestra. Conducted this evening by our very own – Mr Leo Brodsky!’

  There was a good round of applause as Hoffman went off into the wings. For the next few minutes nothing happened, and then the orchestra pit became illuminated and the musicians came out. There was another round of applause, followed by a tense hush as the orchestra members shifted around on their seats, tuned their instruments and fiddled with their music stands. Even the rowdy group below me seemed to have accepted the seriousness of what was about to unfold; they had put away their playing cards and were now sitting attentively, their gazes fixed in front of them.

  The orchestra finally settled and a spotlight fell on an area of the stage near the wings. For another minute nothing happened, and then there came a thumping sound from off-stage. The noise grew louder until finally Brodsky stepped into the pool of light. He paused there, perhaps to allow the audience time to register his appearance.

  Certainly, many of those present would have had difficulty recognising him. With his evening suit, brilliantly white dress shirt and coiffured hair, he was an impressive figure. There was no denying, however, that the shabby ironing board he was still using as his crutch undermined the effect somewhat. Moreover, as he began to make his way towards the conductor’s podium – the ironing board thumping with each step – I noticed the handiwork he had carried out on the empty trouser leg. His desire not to have the material flapping about was perfectly understandable. But rather than knotting it at the stump, Brodsky had cut a wavy hemline an inch or two below the knee. An entirely elegant solution, I could see, was not possible, but this hem seemed to me far too ostentatious, likely only to draw extra attention to his injury.

  And yet, as he continued to advance across the stage, it appeared I was quite mistaken on this point. For although I kept waiting for the crowd to gasp on discovering Brodsky’s condition, the moment never came. Indeed, as far as I could discern, the audience seemed not to notice the missing leg at all, and continued simply to wait in hushed anticipation for Brodsky to reach the podium.

  Perhaps it was the exhaustion, or perhaps the tension, but he did not seem able to reproduce the smooth walk with the ironing board I had witnessed earlier in the corridor. He was lurching badly and it occurred to me that, with his injury still unnoticed, such a gait was bound to arouse suspicions of drunkenness. He was several yards from the podium when he stopped and looked down crossly at his ironing board – which I saw had once more started to come open. He shook it, then began to walk again. He managed a few more steps, then something on the ironing board gave way. It began to unfold itself under him just as he was placing his weight on it, and Brodsky and the board went down together in a heap.

  The reaction to this occurrence was an odd one. Instead of the cries of alarm one might have expected, the audience, for the initial second or two, maintained a disapproving silence. Then a murmur went across the auditorium, a kind of collective ‘hmm’, as though conclusions were being reserved in the face of discouraging signs. Similarly, the three stage-hands who approached to give Brodsky assistance did so with a marked lack of urgency, and even a hint of distaste. In any case, before they could reach him, Brodsky, who had been busy wrestling with the ironing board, shouted angrily from the floor for them to go away. The three men stopped in their tracks, then went on watching Brodsky with something not unlike morbid fascination.

  Brodsky continued grappling on the floor for some moments. At times he appeared to be attempting to stand up, at others he seemed more intent on extricating some part of his clothing trapped in the mechanisms of the ironing board. At one point he broke into a series of oaths, presumably directed at the board, which the amplification system picked up all too clearly. I glanced again at Miss Collins and saw that she had now sat forward in her seat. But then, as Brodsky’s struggles continued, she leaned back again slowly and raised her finger back up to her chin.

  Then at last Brodsky made a breakthrough. He succeeded in erecting the ironing board in its unfolded position and pulled himself up. He stood there proudly on his one good leg, gripping the board with both hands, elbows pushed out, as if preparing to mount it. He glared at the three stage-hands and, as they began to retreat back into the wings, turned his gaze on the audience.

  ‘I know, I know,’ he said and, although he was not speaking loudly, the microphones along the front of the stage seemed to pick him up so that he was quite audible. ‘I know what you’re all thinking. Well, you’re wrong.’

  He looked down and became engrossed again with his predicament. Then he straightened himself up a little more, and began to pass his hand along the padded surface of the ironing board as though its original purpose had only now occurred to him. Finally he looked at the audience again and said:

  ‘Dispel all such notions from your mind. That’ – he thrust his head towards the floor – ‘was simply an unfortunate accident. Nothing more.’

  Another murmur went across the auditorium and then there was silence again.

  For the next few moments, Brodsky continued to stand crouched over the ironing board, not moving, his gaze fixed on the conductor’s podium. I realised he was measuring the distance to the podium, and indeed, the next instant, he began his journey. He proceeded by lifting the entire frame of the ironing board and banging it down again in the manner of a zimmer, dragging his single leg after it. At first the audience seemed taken aback, but as Brodsky moved steadily forwards, some people, concluding they were witnessing a sort of circus act, began to clap. This cue was quickly taken up all around the hall so that the remainder of Brodsky’s journey to the podium was completed against a background of substantial applause.

  On reaching his destination, Brodsky let go of the ironing board and, grasping the semi-circular rail around the podium, eased himself into position. He balanced his body carefully against the rail then picked up the baton.

  The applause for the ironing board act had by now died down and there was once again an atmosphere of hushed anticipation. The musicians too were looking at Brodsky slightly nervously. But Brodsky seemed to be savouring the feeling of being back at the helm of an orchestra after so many years, and for a time went on smiling and gazing about him. Then at last he raised his baton in the air. The musicians poised themselves, but Brodsky changed his mind
again and, lowering the baton, turned to the audience. He smiled genially and said:

  ‘You all think I’m a filthy drunk. We’ll see now if that’s all I am.’

  The nearest microphone was a certain distance away and only a portion of the audience appeared to hear this remark. In any case, the very next instant, he had raised the baton again and the orchestra was plunged into the harsh opening semibreves of Mullery’s Verticality.

  It did not seem to me a particularly outlandish way to open the piece, but clearly it was not what the audience was expecting. Many people started visibly in their seats and, as the elongated discords stretched on into the sixth and seventh bars, I could see on some faces expressions of near-panic. Even some of the musicians were looking anxiously from the conductor to their scores. But Brodsky continued steadily to turn up the intensity, maintaining all the while his exaggeratedly slow tempo. Then he reached the twelfth bar when the notes burst and came fluttering down. A kind of sigh went around the audience, then almost immediately the music began to build again.

  Brodsky occasionally steadied himself with his free hand, but he had by this point entered some deeper part of himself, and seemed able to maintain his balance with only nominal support. He swayed his torso. He swung both arms through the air with abandon. During the early passages of the first movement, I noticed some members of the orchestra glancing guiltily at the audience as though to say: ‘Yes, really, this is what he’s told us to do!’ But then steadily the musicians became engrossed in Brodsky’s vision. First it was the violins who became quite carried away, and then I could see more and more musicians losing themselves in their performance. By the time Brodsky led them into the melancholy of the second movement, the orchestra appeared to have accepted entirely his authority. The audience too had by this point lost its earlier restlessness and was sitting transfixed.