Kitty & Virgil

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Kitty & Virgil Page 27

by Paul Bailey


  I hear them. I hear them.

  And he and his brothers-in-arms consigned their names to the huge darkness of history.

  I am not leaving a bloody mess behind. I have a piece of rope to hand.

  I am erasing the life he gave me. It is the least I can do on this day of days.

  Post Scriptum: Forgive me, Kitty. I am to blame for Radu’s ordeal in the institution. I hope he also forgives me.

  (‘I realise my opinions have never counted for anything with you, Kitty, but for what it’s worth I think your new Romanian is a distinct improvement on the other one. He wears sensible clothes. He doesn’t look as if he had the worries of the world on his shoulders. And he doesn’t laugh like a madman either.’)

  Another Life, another task to distract her.

  The Life that was to release her from her trance of grief was scarcely more than a monograph – a short character study, simply written, running to a hundred and twenty pages. Its subject was Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the eldest son of the great Johann Sebastian, a man desperate to escape from his father’s shadow. She learned that he was an accomplished composer at an early age, the pleasant harmonies coming easily and naturally to him, in the fecund manner the music-lovers of Leipzig expected of a Bach. Yet Wilhelm Friedemann grew disenchanted with the facility with which he was able to write for the orchestra, the keyboard and the cathedral choir, and took to experimenting. His ambition was to create a new sound, a sound distinguishable from Johann Sebastian’s, a sound that would be recognised as his and his alone. But his father’s shadow lengthened and darkened with each new composition and Wilhelm Friedemann sought relief from his frustrations in drink. Alcohol mellowed him, dulled his demons, and in his final years he was one of the familiar sights of unrespectable Berlin – an amiable drunkard, shuffling from tavern to tavern in old and shabby clothes, his once tormented nature apparently at rest.

  By the end of the book she was moved to tears of pity and deep commiseration. She went out to her garden and let the rain fall on her. And as she stood there, she saw Virgil coming across the lawn, his Communist tooth gleaming in the dimness.

  Five Poems

  by Virgil Florescu

  newly translated by Kitty Crozier and Dinu Psatta

  Stainless Steel

  The archaeologist opens the glass case

  And brings out, like a conjuror, a shining object.

  He is aglow with scholarly excitement

  As he stands before his devoted pupils

  Who are waiting impatiently for him to speak.

  He is their favourite elucidator of mysteries.

  He invites them to pass the bright little beauty

  From hand to respectful hand, with care.

  They are amazed, bewildered, awe-struck, speechless.

  They have not looked quite so confused, he tells them,

  Since the day he produced the Bronze-Age kettle,

  Battered and rusted beyond recognition.

  Would they believe the object was once a tooth

  In somebody’s mouth, a thousand years past?

  A fabricated tooth, from the age of Stainless Steel,

  Guaranteed free from corrosion, and unbreakable?

  Its owner was homo sovieticus, a man or woman unsung

  Of whom this little beauty is the only trace.

  It is my tooth the students are examining.

  And now the words of the dentist are almost echoed

  By the astute professor of archaeology.

  I hear him saying to my anxious mother, on edge at my side,

  That the tooth will see me through the longest life

  And even after. Worms will find it indigestible

  And the fiercest fire concede surrender.

  Cerberus

  He has only one head in the photograph,

  The usual allotment of eyes and ears,

  A solitary nose he is proud to call Roman

  And a thin-lipped mouth that looks like a scar.

  He would seem to be ordinary.

  His other heads are temporarily invisible.

  He has the gift of making them vanish

  Whenever his master recommends concealment.

  Heads Two and Three are always camera-shy:

  A pair of shrinking violets.

  Three heads are better than one in his profession.

  It’s a risky business, guarding the gates of hell.

  You need exceptional qualifications

  And he’s exceptionally qualified – this beast

  Seen here in the guise of a man.

  I am the son of Mister Trinity-Head,

  The human Cerberus, the beast in a suit.

  He tried to teach me his canine tricks –

  Licking the devil’s hand; barking the devil welcome.

  I was a hopeless student.

  He’s an old beast now, the three-headed survivor

  With a single cunning brain. While he sleeps

  Four eyes stay open, and four ears pick up

  The faintest footfall. The devil rests secure

  With such a restless guardian.

  The Fisher of Perch

  I told the recruiting officer

  I was living a quiet life

  Here in Arcadia.

  This is a place, I said,

  Where nothing much occurs

  Of any significance

  Between birth and death.

  History of the bloody kind’s

  Unknown to us.

  He patted his gleaming sword

  And strode into my humble hut

  Near the brooks of Lerna.

  I watched as his cold eyes noted

  My few necessities –

  My pots and pans, my bed of straw,

  And the garb I wasn’t wearing.

  The brooks are bursting with spotted perch

  And I’m a fisherman, I babbled,

  With work to do, with mouths to fill.

  Besides, I don’t know what your war’s about.

  That’s when he laughed. Oh poor Menoetës,

  Ask Jupiter, ask Juno, question all the gods,

  Ask every Trojan who came through the flames

  And then ask Prince Aeneas. Don’t ask me.

  And so I didn’t. I went off to fight,

  Losing my peace of mind that brisk spring day.

  I shared his ignorance until my death

  Some several battles later.

  No less a hero than the great King Turnus

  Dispatched me with a swift and savage jab.

  I tasted fish before my gullet flowed.

  Breaking the Glass

  Free me, the voice inside the body whispered.

  Free me, I beg of you. Let me be released.

  I’ve served my sentence. Set me free at last.

  The dead man’s brother could not hear the cries.

  He smiled to think a soul was hidden somewhere

  Within the mass of flesh, bent on escape.

  Please break the glass, the feeble voice insisted.

  Do as I plead. The window’s right behind you.

  Waste no more time. Proceed without delay.

  The brother made a fist and hit the glass.

  It stayed unbroken and his hand unbloodied.

  He told his nephew, then, to fetch a stone.

  The stench is foul in here, the voice complained.

  Please set me free to breathe the cool fresh air.

  The glass is fragile. Smash it. Smash it now.

  The corpse’s son hurled the rough piece of brick

  Straight at the window, but the brick bounced off

  As though it had a spring in it, like rubber.

  Please try again, the tired voice entreated.

  Take pity on me. Show a little mercy.

  I’ve suffered long and hard in this dark place.

  The brother and his family washed the body,

  Then poured the cooling water round a tree.

  The dead man’s
soul would drink it on its travels.

  ‘And may the earth be light on him’, the priest intoned,

  And from the coffin came an anguished gasp –

  His soul’s last sound before eternal silence.

  That night the dead man’s son stood at the window

  And stroked the stubborn glass. His gentle touch

  Did what the fist and stone had failed to do.

  A cackling laugh rose from the shattered fragments.

  The Time of Afterwards

  is when

  no one hungers

  no one thirsts

  is when

  no one craves peace

  no one covets war

  is when

  there is a lasting silence

  is when

  no one hears that silence

  is when

  there will be no when

  or now

  or then

  The time of afterwards

  will be no one’s time

  will be no time at all

 

 

 


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