The Tidewater Tales

by John Barth

  Peter himself, writer-in-residencing about New England at the time, did not return south until five years later, by when Kate had taken her master’s, moved to Baltimore, and established herself at the Pratt. Nor did we meet or otherwise communicate in that interval, except that she read faithfully every word he published, as well as every word she could find about every word he published, passed along to her by her fellow library scientists.

  She was thus aware—as her own professional and romantic careers expanded to include that aforeshadowed militant poet, that middle-aged chamber musician, that Chileno foreign service chap, also May Jump, the ASPS, HOSCA, oral history, and urban folklore—that the career of her favorite living American writer and lover-of-one-night had begun the strange contraction aforementioned. The fine fat novel she’d been floored by had been succeeded by a lean, which she found fine too but disappointing in its leanness: She craved more teem, more sprawl, more overflow. Came then twin slim novellas; after them a landmark story entitled “Part of a Shorter Work”; and after that (author and reader had remet now and commenced the story of our life together) those briefer and briefer fictions of the last decade. As Peter Sagamore himself never gave interviews, issued position papers, or answered public questions about his art, his critics freely theorized and conjectured: the Death of the Novel, the Death of the Novella, the Death of the Short Story, the Moribundity of the Printed Word in the Age of Electronics, the Personal Petering Out of Sagamore. It was speculated that the author was in despair; that he had written himself into a corner from which only silence could now meaningfully issue. Until the plots of our lives intertwined, Katherine Sherritt herself now and then wondered whether some such dreary symptomatical fate had befallen the fellow—but her own life was too full and various for her to think of him often.

  The fact was (she discovered ten years ago when she began sharing our life and times), Peter Sagamore was at least as busy and, in the best sense, as productive as he’d ever been. Neither his vision nor his invention had faltered; between early breakfast and late lunch he made as many sentences as in the days of that teem and sprawl and overflow that had brought Katherine Sherritt to his downtown bed. But the demon Less Is More had so got hold of him, with its lieutenant demons Cut and Squeeze, that ten pages of notes now made one of first draft, ten of first draft one of second—and those celebrated minifictions were not infrequently refined through ten or a dozen drafts: diamonds sieved from very mountains of verbal ore.

  All very well, up to a point: Preferrers of the free and easy carped, but those diamonds sparkled indisputably. Anon, however (Kathy herself puts the point of diminishing returns at Pete’s reanastomosis, followed by our unsuccessful and then successful efforts at impregnation, followed by our unsuccessful and now all-but-successful efforts to bring pregnancy to term; but she knows there were other things, other things too), even the most ardent Sagamorians came to raise their eyebrows, tisk their tongues, and finally shrug their shoulders as P’s prolific minimalism attained a purity beyond intelligibility. The saying Brevity is the soul of wit he found five-sixths too garrulous. His favorite moments in literature became those like that near the end of the Agamemnon, when, with the single name “Orestes,” Aeschylus evokes the whole bloody sequel to the play at hand. He only wishes, does Peter Sagamore, that one didn’t need the play to make the word make sense.

  And in the two years past in particular, especially their last 8½ months, her friend has more and more written only to remove such Orestean kernels from their Agamemnonic husks, at whatever cost of readership and, finally, even of publication. In the same month when we felt our offspring quicken in Katie’s womb, Peter Sagamore wrote his first unpublishable story since early-apprentice days. Based on an old tidewater duck-hunters’ folk recipe for preparing the inedible old squaw duck (Stuff that duck with a single olive wrapped in bacon; stuff a large chicken with that duck; stuff a large turkey with that chicken. Roast that turkey twelve hours over low heat. Then discard that turkey; discard that chicken; discard that duck; discard that bacon. Eat that olive.), the story began as a Turgenev- or Maupassantlike hunting sketch with the humorous recipe as its center, reflecting a more general wastefulness in the lives of the hunting party: an advertising account executive from Philadelphia and a prosecuting attorney from Wilmington, on holiday with their wives at a private wildfowl preserve on Chesapeake Bay. In later drafts, this frame situation had been progressively whittled down and finally dispensed with, except by implication in an expanded version of the recipe itself, in which the turkey has come to stand for the Wilmingtonian, the chicken for the Philadelphian, and the olive for the latter’s new young wife, whom the former covets but who in the end gives herself to the local bird-hunting guide. In still later drafts, the recipe itself was abbreviated, then eliminated. The finished story, entitled “The Olive,” consisted of nothing but that title. No literary magazine would have it, even as a curiosity, and Peter Sagamore could no more blame them than he could bring himself to restore what his demon had bid him cut.

  B♭

  A regression, really, this one, back toward such works as “The Olive” (which Peter had come to call merely “Olive”): In recent months, the author’s work had grown so pure that he himself could not say what narrative scaffolding, if any, had been removed. For such items as “Cellardoor,” “Summer Afternoon,” and “Theophany,” one had to imagine, invent the settings. Not so “B♭,” which two days ago had been “The Magnificent B♭” and two days before that “The Discriminating Critic and the Magnificent B♭.” Once upon a time, went the old musicians’ anecdote that Peter Sagamore had reorchestrated in early versions of this story, there was a music critic of such experience and discrimination that, out of all the music in the world, he could enjoy by age forty only certain composers of the Baroque period; of those, by age forty-five, only the orchestral portions of certain oratorios by J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel; of those, by age fifty, little more than the obbligato for twin recorders in close harmony played over the soprano aria “Schafe können sicher weiden” from Bach’s Jagdkantate of 1716, BWV208—in particular, by age fifty-five (when it seemed to him that both his judgment and his ear were at their most perfectly discriminating), the lead Blockflöte’s repeated B♭ which opens that obbligato. “What a loss!” his friends and colleagues would exclaim: “Out of all of music, to be able to enjoy but a single note in a single composition!” “No doubt,” the discriminating critic would agree: “But what a magnificent B-flat! Especially in the Telefunken recording S-A-W-T Nine Four Two Seven B, with Wingerden of the Amsterdamer Kam-merorchester on the descant Blockflöte. In the other recordings it is rather less affecting; even in the Telefunken, Wingerden’s attack is not all that one could wish. But these are quibbles.”

  Katherine Shorter Sherritt Sagamore believed she saw not only the point of her husband’s story thus far, but, not without alarm, what today’s revision of it was likely to produce. She closed her eyes; she exhaled her worry. Placing her left forefingertip over Peter’s new story, she silently invoked the muse of Very Invention, and under “B♭” she wrote the number 39.

  Then, though still distressed, she set about her real work of the morning: making clipboard note of a few ideas she wants to try out upon the local alumnae of The Deniston School for Girls—her mother’s prep-school alma mater as well as her own—whom Irma will be entertaining this afternoon. She means to develop these notes, does K, into a presentation at the next Deniston trustees’ meeting, in September: Strategies for Coping with the Foreseeable Economic Problems of the Few Remaining Private Boarding Schools for Girls in the American 1980s, Given the Ongoing Trend to Coeducation, the Present Decline of the U.S. Economy, and the Possibility of Continuing High Inflation and Interest Rates, Whoever Wins the November Presidential Election.

  The Deniston School for Girls sits on a handsome waterfront estate on the upper Shore, adjoining two other handsome waterfront estates now owned by the Soviet embassy as a vacation compo
und for its Washington staff. Kath’s specific proposal is to sell to the Soviets, who want more privacy and who pay top dollar, cash on the line, a third to a half of Deniston’s ample acreage, which the school uses mainly for bridle paths and horse pasture. She would put the money into cracker jack faculty and scholarships for gifted students, in neither of which the school presently abounds, to the end of making the name Deniston synonymous with excellence in academics and the arts, as well as with social quality. That synonymy attained, the school could hike tuition charges as needed and still operate at capacity.

  But her reflections are several times interrupted. First comes a call from a colleague at the Pratt Library, who can’t get the Talemobile started for its Sunday rounds: The key won’t turn in the ignition lock. Kate reminds her of the trick: Repeat three times the formula Once upon a time while jiggling the steering wheel to free up its locking linkage with the starter switch.

  Next comes Irma, dressed for church, a Bloody Mary for herself in one hand, a Bloody Shame for Katherine in the other, and a small package under her arm. The women kiss good morning and enjoy each other’s company for a quarter-hour. Irma Shorter Sherritt—though she feels with Henry that, in marrying Peter, Kate was to some extent reacting against them, in particular against their having touted Porter Baldwin, Jr.—enjoys her new son-in-law and recognizes the marriage to be as sound as hers. That’s saying much. All the same, she can’t help feeling, and from time to time declaring, that her daughter is living out her life on too small a stage. She wishes Kath weren’t spending her thirties in a library office in a provincial city with only the odd short trip to beach or mountains; that she would at least go shopping and theatering with her mother more often in New York, not to mention Paris, London, Rome (the senior Sherritts are active travelers). It’s all Irma can do to get the girl up twice a year to the factory clothing outlets in Pennsylvania.

  Katherine kisses her, and that conversation goes no further.

  Regarding dear Deniston, Irma has her own ideas, which she sets forth upon hearing Kate’s. Selling off the acreage contiguous to the Russkies will not only displease the rich hard-line conservatives who supply Deniston with their daughters; it will curtail the school’s riding program as well, and in Irma’s opinion where you don’t have boys you’d better have horses. She is all for expanding the arts programs, especially theater and dance, which have more social appeal than painting, sculpture, and instrumental music, not to mention writing. Never mind a better academic faculty, says Irma, at least as a high priority: The three Ds—dance, drama, and dressage—are more important to the school’s survival than the three Rs, in which honest adequacy will do. So far from selling out to the Commies, Irma would rub their ambassadorial noses in the sweets of capitalism. In warm September and late May, let the pretty Denistonians windsurf past the compound in their bikinis; in the cooler months, parade them past in their jodhpurs and riding finery. She bets we’d collect the better class of Soviet defectors like windfall apples in October, and she has reason to believe that our government would express its gratitude in appropriate form.

  Says incredulous Katherine You have reason to believe what?

  I have reason to believe what I have reason to believe, Irma pleasantly affirms, and don’t ask me why I have reason to believe it, ‘cause I won’t tell.

  You won’t tell because I won’t ask, K teases, disturbed all the same—for reasons that we have yet to tell—by this surely idle remark of her mother’s. That is the single weirdest idea I’ve heard all morning.

  Says Irma Wait till I play my ace, and then plays it with cool offhandedness, as it were into what remains of her daughter’s lap: I’m proposing we change the school’s name to Saint Deniston.

  K whoops, then covers her mouth, hoping she hasn’t disturbed P’s musings. Saint Deniston!

  Your father agrees it sounds very diocesan.

  Who’s Saint Deniston? Kath wants to know. John James Deniston was a small-time robber baron!

  Irm stirs her drink with its celery stalk; sips; shrugs. We’ll canonize him. Her. I see Saint Deniston as a teenage English virgin on a big bay gelding. Joan of Arc, but nicer.

  You can’t invent a saint!

  I just did. Isn’t Deniston a pretty first name for a girl, by the way?

  Too boarding-schooly.

  Maybe. But The Saint Deniston School for Girls is a winner.

  Kath is equally admiring and appalled. You’re serious.

  Perfectly. Upgrade the performing arts building and staff, especially the building. Upgrade the horse barns and the waterfront. Give special privileges for a while to the upscale types we really want, like boarding their horses for free, and promote John Deniston from robber baron to virgin Protestant martyr. In four or five years you’ll be able to afford your academic excellence and your scholarships, especially after Reagan wins in November and the rich get richer. This came for you yesterday.

  The mailing bag is stamped BOOK RATE. Kathy sees it’s from May Jump in Annapolis and sets it aside. A lettered van drives behind the cottage, en route to the Main House. Irma says That’s Buck Travers for the intercom, and gets up.

  Mom.

  I know what you’re going to say. He won’t bother you and Peter; the problem’s at our end. Buck can fix it now, and Peter can test it for me later.

  Says Kath That’s not my objection.

  I know it’s not, but humor me. And don’t give birth till we’re home from church. I’m going to go have a talk with Buck Travers now.

  They kiss. Kath compliments her mother on her dress and instructs her to say a safe-delivery prayer to St. Deniston. Irma replies that without sainthood and riding stables, Deniston hasn’t got a prayer. She will consult her daughter further at lunch about tea party arrangements.

  Now Katherine opens the mailing bag and sees that her friend, sometime mentor, and erstwhile colleague has sent her a new dictionary of homosexual slang in token of our common interest in folkspeech. . . . Those suspension points are May’s; the inscription ends Always, all ways, M. While she’s sampling the entries, her father stops by, also dressed for church, to wish her good morning and deliver the Sunday Times. He’ll need the financial section back when we’ve read it. His other mission is to recruit Peter as a standby for tennis after lunch: doubles with Jack Bass and a former U.S. interior secretary, now retired to nearby Wye Island, with whom Henry Sherritt has formed a business partnership as a retirement hobby. They have persuaded Doctor Jack to join the venture, which Hank sees as both profitable and patriotic—and, for the Sherritts, nostalgic as well. Roughly twenty-five percent of the fertile feed-corn acreage of Kent County, on the upper Shore, has been purchased in the past few years by foreign interests, mainly Dutch and German conglomerates who may or may not be laundering Arab oil money. They know, says Henry Sherritt, that after oil, the next great world resource shortage is going to be food. What he and his associates aim to do is buy up as much as possible of that grainland before the “Europeans” own it all; then either resell it at a proper profit to American agribusiness interests or hold it against the formation of the next OPEC, led by the USA, in which the P will stand for protein instead of petroleum.

  DO OLD HANK THERE.

  Sure. At sixty-six he’s trim and tan, he’s long and leathery, Henry Sherritt, but the leather is bookbinder’s calf, not cobbler’s rawhide. Hank’s hair and mustache are the color of the U.S. quarter before Lyndon Johnson diddled its alloy and the old coin disappeared. They’re handsome; so’s the man. Behold those eyes, as straight as good teeth; those teeth, as white as the clean whites of his eyes. Behold strong fingernails, which we can no more imagine Henry Sherritt ever biting than we can imagine him spitting, farting, chewing gum. He’s cool and easy in his light seersucker, white short-sleeved shirt, clocked socks, soft bow tie, and boutonniere of early black-eyed Susan. Dry cool too is Henry’s accent, an Eastern Shore brogue filtered through Groton and Princeton without quite filtering out. Thou
gh she disagrees with his politics almost from the bottom up, Kathy thinks her father not only good-looking but in nearly every way exemplary, and much loves him. Howevermuch she treasures Peter Sagamore and our union, she doubts it can be as textbook a case of happy marriage as has been her parents’: We are too different under our harmony, our tempers too volatile under their ease, our dispositions too skeptical and self-skeptical, to manage Hank and Irma’s unclouded bliss, each of whom thinks simply wonderful everything the other is and does. Nor have we the assets of their uncomplicated High Church faith and their virtual freedom from self-doubt, which permit them to be both unassuming and tolerant of difference, up to a point. Henry Sherritt may joke about the tidewater version of Old Boy society, Irma sigh at the seasonal round of coming-out parties, yacht-and-country-club galas, dinners, teas: They not only would not dream of changing that order, that round; they profoundly approve of and enjoy it.

  Father and daughter kiss hello. He smells of suntan lotion and light cologne. He sits. They chat. Pete’s working? As usual; but she’ll deliver the tennis message. No obligation, Henry makes clear: It’s likely Katherine’s elder brother and sister-in-law will stop by for lunch after church, and Willy may want to make the fourth himself when he sees John Trippe and Jack Bass on the court. But Peter is welcome in any case.