The Unmapped Country

by Ann Quin

  We lived in the annex, or tried to live. I took up

  writing

  painting

  sculpture

  photography

  athletics

  Zen

  Judo

  Karate

  movie making

  stocks and shares

  while Lucinda knitted pink and blue baby outfits, and watched television. All night movies. Sleeping, complained of feeling sick, headachey during the day. I’d go for long car trips, check in at some obscure motel, get drunk for several days, until the limousine caught up with me, the chauffeur lifting me into the car, up to the briefing room, where the old man paced the walled room, lighting relighting huge cigars, offering me one, knowing I’d refuse. Refuse the terms, conditions, decisions. Look Si I think it’s about time you

  The sweat ran down my spine, chest, between my legs. The extra water had run out. I started seeing

  unmarked springs

  avocado groves

  fertile islands

  a honeycomb of waterways

  mammoth lakes

  sheer walls of symmetrical blue-grey basaltic columns

  crystal-clear hot springs

  six packs of fridged beer

  641,000 acres of lakestrewn land

  sea life housing 13 large glass tanks

  a 90-foot pool with perforated seals

  Aquarium with prostrate mermaids

  20 to 30 feet high snowdrifts

  65 underground rooms

  gardens

  grottos

  swimmingpools

  white marble statuary

  stained-glass windows under water

  white, conical 115-foot towers

  sanctuary of aquatic birds

  I passed some tourists dune-buggying in their Bermuda gear. I noticed I was running out of gas. Perhaps they had also, maybe they hadn’t reached the main highway after all. I would pass them, wave cheerfully at Lucinda stretched out in semi-consciousness in the back seat, while he would be trudging through the desert. Want some help? I’d call out as my chevy churned up dust in his sweaty puffy red face. Later I’d visit her shrine. And all the rest the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather reproduction of the church where Annie Laurie worshipped.

  Reproduction of the church where Gray wrote his Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. And attend the hourly lecture on The Last Supper. The Hall of Crucifixion, measuring 45 by 195 feet. Note that visitors must remain during the showing, and passing out as the lecturer got to the 180th part of Christ’s body.

  The gas gauge hovered over the E where my eyes constantly attached themselves. My mouth seemed made of sand. My whole body a sinking dune buggying itself back, forward from the steering wheel. Then I saw their car off to the right. They were nowhere to be seen. Hiding perhaps in the back, the gun loaded, waiting, ready to leap out. The bloody ending as inevitable as the climax of a Greek tragedy. Or so Lucinda would want. The episode could hardly be bettered: the vaporous, honey-coloured scene as my body would writhe to earth in a quarter-time choreography of death. The tone of the scene shifting in a split second from humor to horror as the bloodied victim attempted to aim his gun, forgetting it was unloaded. And after the affair had been discreetly seen to, they would trade in the buick one afternoon for the same model in another color, borrowing her father’s chauffeur to trundle it through the desert until it had accumulated the early mileage. She might come out in hives, her usual accessory to any crisis, and her mother applies glycerine furiously over her daughter’s body, collaborating that Men are Terrible just Beasts. And for several nights she’d be frigid in their king-sized bed.

  Ah that bed, and others larger, smaller, narrow, wide around which we played our games. I the dwarf, she the Queen. She my sister. I was the President. She a slave

  prostitute

  movie star

  nymphet

  lesbian

  And myself a Pimp

  Judge

  Flagellist

  We arrived at a point when even words were unnecessary. A record collection when each piece of music fulfilled the appropriate background. Head full of musical organs. Feet scaled the walls, the strips of light placed between the toes. Her ears were sitars blown by my carved mouth. Sitting in the shower spinning fantasies on to her face, plucking at myself, the feathers of geese and quail from thigh to neck. Upsidedown. From right to left. Turning her over in the flat of my dreams. Her mother waved from a desert tower. Her father lay on a bundle of stocks and shares directing the family traffic through glass stairways. I stripped a banana thrust it up her cunt, half way, ate the rest, poured sour cream over her and buried my fingers in the remaining pink areas. Her feet followed the trail of foxes in snow. Markings of spiders along ridges memories slipped into.

  More than 100 life-sized figures in 35 scenes. Hand and footprints imprinted in a coral-like crust deposited by the waters of an ancient sea. In my sophomore year I was considered a clean-cut boy, permitted by girls to go so far if I was on a leash, crated or otherwise physically restricted at all times. A thirty minute color slide show on the cultivation and history of dates. A riot of color. A series of leap-frog bridges. Blind closets, trapdoors and secret passageways. A huge overshot redwood wheel. An acre of grotesquely knotted thoughts, accessible only by foot or horseback; no roads had been cut into the wilderness not then in my sophomore year.

  Thoughts now encounter shelves of ideals from these enormous arcs of nostalgia 50 feet in the arc. A large depression whose floor is scarred by numerous projections. It was about that time I guess, due to subnormal daily activities the content of dreams became so dense that the only life within them consisted of small briny shrimp and the pupae of the ephydrid fly, I began then to organise a free-form dimensional equipment in the shape of a bucket. Digging below the surface the continuous bucket line operated 24 hours a day, except on July 4th and December 25th, and I viewed the dredge, as I continue to do so, from a foreign land.

  ‌

  ‌Never Trust a Man Who Bathes with His Fingernails

  He was a small man. Half Cherokee. His

  movements, silences were those of the Indian.

  The women watched, roused, a little

  frightened. The husband of one of the women,

  lover of the other, also watched. From a

  distance, watched from his studio as the man

  hammered into wood, did odd jobs around the

  house. Outside, looking in at the women.

  The wife’s movements became lighter. She

  laughed more. Her face flushed from the ride

  on his motorbike, through light rain off the

  mountains. She crouched behind his warmth.

  This warmth in her cheeks, eyes, spread as

  they sat in front of the fire, quietly talking,

  or letting the wood speak. The other woman

  waited, wanting to make a third of this situ-

  ation also. Not sure of her sense of place,

  the placing of where she might sit, walk,

  sleep between husband and wife. Wife. Husband.

  And when the husband entered the room he

  hesitated. ‘I think we might have a door here,’

  he said, gesturing at the space between kitchen

  and bedroom, ‘what do you think—could you do

  that?’ The man nodded, hands lightly rested

  on his knees. The wife bent over sewing,

  hair, still wet, hid her face. The other looked

  at the husband, the other two. Out of the

  window, at the aspens, the cloud shadows

  gathering speed through the valley. Back again

  to the interior of light and shade, where

  the three sat, moved from room to room.

  Rooms without doors. Except the studio the

  husband climbed into, shut down the door,

  stared at blank paper in the typewriter,

  listened to the wood sawing, the man’s
low

  whistling. And the wife’s laughter.

  He arrived on his motorbike, a low black

  figure, part of the machine. He seemed larger

  then, the wife thought, as she looked out

  of the kitchen window, each morning at eight

  o’clock. Her hands paused over the sink.

  Off the machine, he waved. His hand recon-

  structing the speed, weather, landscape he

  had passed through. The husband bent over

  his typewriter, pulled out a page, crushed it,

  and threw into the wastepaper basket. ‘Damn

  it he’s just a bum—been here a week now and

  what has he done—what are we paying him

  for?’ ‘But he’s nearly finished the

  windows—I know he’s slow but he knows what

  he’s doing—besides we are paying him only

  what a soda jerk would earn,’ the wife

  answered, quietly smiling, quietly going on

  with bread making, her fingers feeling, weighing

  the elasticity of the dough. ‘It’s all very

  well but I think we ought to have a time

  sheet for him—always this impression he

  gives of unlimited time—the last job he

  had he was fired—there he was when this couple

  drove up—apparently he swung the axe into

  the wood when he saw them—the only work

  he’d done all day—no—I’ll get a time sheet.’

  So the husband drew up a time sheet, which

  he nailed on the adobe wall, which the man

  marked with small black crosses.

  He ate with them, sitting between the

  women. The husband at the head of the table.

  The women talked. The men ate. ‘How about

  all of us going to that hot spring pool tomorrow—

  you can show us where it is—you’ve been there?’

  The wife said. The man nodded, pushed his

  bread around the plate, ‘it is small—but

  the water is great—good for the body,’ he said.

  But it’s a long walk isn’t it—we can’t take

  the car all the way down there?’ the husband

  paused in eating, looked at the women.

  ‘Oh we don’t mind walking—it will be lovely

  you’ll see—oh it will be so good,’ the wife went

  on eating quickly, giggling slightly, ‘and we’ll

  do it in the nude.’ The other woman felt her

  own weight sink into the chair, felt the weight

  of the husband’s eyes, his face whiter then in

  the afternoon light. The man next to her was

  motionless, hands again on his knees, dark

  skin shining, grains of dirt almost a lighter

  shade.

  The women cleared the table. The husband

  climbed into his work. The man measured the

  space for the door. While the women washed,

  dried the dishes, their heads bent low, close

  together. The wife quick, with a quicker

  laughter than the other, who laughed slowly in

  the spaces of the wife’s laughter. The silence

  coming from the room above them, she later

  entered, when the wife went shopping. A

  quickness then between them on his studio

  couch, listening for the car rattling over

  the bridge, and all the while below them the

  lower sound of nails slowly driven into wood,

  the man’s whistling louder. The louder noises

  of the wife returning, putting things in

  cupboards, banging of dishes, as they straightened

  their clothes, the couch cover. He lifted up

  the door for her to clutch her way down into

  the kitchen, into the bathroom where she powdered

  over the heightened colour of her face.

  The man went on hammering, hummed, bent

  into his work. The typewriter a jerky rhythm

  above. The wife talked, her voice higher

  pitched, movements quicker from cupboard to

  table, from table to cupboard. ‘Can I help?’

  the other asked, standing behind the table,

  her hands becoming steady from the firmness of

  wood, the stone wall behind her. ‘I’ll show

  you how to make stuffed pimentos and cabbage,’

  the wife said. ‘Oh yes that would be nice.’

  She came round to where the wife bent over the

  vegetables, watched the deftness of knife against

  green, red, slicing into, through, pulling out

  the seeds. The hammering a steady sound. The

  typewriter paused, went on, paused, while the

  women worked with sharp knives.

  He did not arrive at eight the next morning.

  Thunder stirred over the distant mountains.

  A sirocco wind spiralled sand in the desert.

  Three spirals on their own, that approached,

  joined up into a whirling tower of sand. Stilts

  of rain came slowly down the mountains, faster

  over the valley. Apples were flung on to the

  ground, some breaking open on the cracked dry

  earth under the wet surface. ‘He’s holding

  off until the storm passes I guess—oh I hope

  it clears up did so want to make that hot spring

  today,’ the wife said, ‘he did say today didn’t

  he—he didn’t say he wouldn’t be working today?’

  ‘Lazy bastard,’ the husband muttered, then in a

  louder tone, ‘it won’t clear up look at those

  clouds piling up there on those mountains.’

  He went up into the studio, and put the radio

  on very loudly. So loud that none of them heard

  the motorbike crossing the bridge. Though the

  wife looking out at the sky changing, small

  patches of blue that widened, edged off the

  clouds either side of the mountains, mesas,

  saw the large black shape hurled,

  suddenly from that clear space between clouds,

  river and the trees. ‘There—here he is,’ she

  shouted. ‘What?’ shouted the husband from

  the opening at the top of the stairs. ‘He’s

  here—get ready—it’s clearing we can go after

  all,’ she shouted back while opening the front

  door. The man approached, his heavy boots

  hardly made any sound. He stood in the porch-

  way, shaking off the rain, rain over his goggles,

  eyes, hair. She began rubbing his head with a

  towel, but he took it gently from her. ‘Oh

  you are soaked through—you better change

  you can wear something of his—though nothing

  I guess will fit.’ He stood between the women,

  when the husband swung down the stairs. He

  rubbed himself quickly then, and put back his

  shirt. ‘But that’s wet,’ the wife said. He

  shrugged, ‘It doesn’t matter I feel warm

  enough.’ ‘Well are we going or not?’ the

  husband asked, not looking at the three, seeming

  to look with concentration at the half finished

  dishes stacked. ‘Of course we’re going—look

  it’s going to be a beautiful day.’ ‘Very well

  don’t blame me if we get caught in a storm.’

  The men sat in front. The women at the

  back. The husband drove, and manoeuvred the

  rear mirror until he could see his wife’s face.

  His own, he knew, had a strange pallor, and

  his hands, gripping the steering wheel, paler,

  next to the other,
whose darkness was darker,

  glistening there on his knees. They drove in

  silence along the valley road, turned off, and

  bumped across the desert. ‘You’ll soon have

  to stop,’ the man said. Where—here—there—

  where?’ the husband asked. ‘See those rocks

  over there well there—it’s a few miles down

  to the river—there’s a small track we can take.’

  The husband brought the car to an abrupt halt.

  They all climbed out. ‘Did you bring any towels

  for drying ourselves?’ the husband asked his

  wife. ‘Oh the sun will dry us,’ she replied,

  walking quickly on, following the man. ‘I brought

  one,’ the other woman said, as she caught up

  with the husband. She glanced at him, but he

  looked ahead, to where the other two now were

  at some distance, then they disappeared round

  the larger rocks. He quickened his pace. She

  tried to keep up, and stumbled. He caught hold

  of her hand, released. She fell back, breathing

  heavily. ‘Where have they gone I can’t see

  them?’ His face red now, as they clambered

  on over large stones, dry grass, sand. She

  looked back at the mountain range, clear cut

  against the expanse of blue, the car, a fallen

  grey object, in the desert.

  They turned the corner and saw the river,

  a thin strip of steel from that distance.

  ‘They must have run down here,’ he said, and

  slowed up, waited for her to be beside him.

  She stooped and looked down over the yellow

  boulders, then up at his face, further up

  into the sky that narrowed as they went on

  down the track.

  She saw his clothes on a flat piece of

  rock, but could not see the man anywhere.

  The wife’s face appeared over some bushes.

  ‘Isn’t it lovely here—so warm—so quiet.’

  She stepped out, naked, her arms raised,

  hair tossed back, as she climbed over the

  rocks and disappeared. The husband slowly

  undressed. The woman did likewise. She

  followed him over the rocks, slipping a little,