The Brooke-Rose Omnibus

by Brooke-Rose, Christine

  B.C.? Or could it represent H.C.? H.O. or even E.C.? F.S.? S.O.? One letter scrawled over the other like an incomprehensible ideogram. Je m’appelle Boris Carlov. May I introduce Prince Battista di Cualcosa. You never remember anybody’s surnames Liebes or smoke them to the end. Bruce Chum glad to know you. My card Bong Ching, attaché culturel thank you. Señor Boniface Calderón. Encantada. Le plaisir de vous présenter le professeur Blaise Chose-Truc qui va vous parler de l’humanité la justice l’épidémie. Lirrechur eh? My parents had a lirre-rary turn of mind they called me Brutus Caesar. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow will do to wander about the canals of Bruges and think of cette belle ville d’amour et d’art splendide che fa tremar dì claritate l’âre. And of where when how to whose air did one do that.

  Ideas flow thick and fast. My government wishes to emphasise that it does not take sides in the dispute, nor do we have sufficient forces in Middle East waters to exercise influence one way or the other. But Greece must learn, Turkey must learn that between the twilit gloom of earth below the wing and the almost unshruggable Taurus Mountains in a feverish glow glimpsed through the leaning heads and exclamations to the left of the aisle the sea looks earthen clay you could cut with a knife to mould some ancient goddess such as Vénus qui complique vos projets or Mercure qui influence votre magnétisme et votre vivacité d’esprit as the body floats in quiet disparagement. Nothing deserves a flow of rash enthusiasm my sweet. My Government wishes to reiterate its whole-hearted support for the United Nations. Et tu Brute? We shall continue to honour our obligations and tomorrow and tomorrow we shall appoint a sub-committee to inquire into the way we can best meet the crisis. Meet Mr. Bryan Crisis. Unless Helmut Heinrich Horst. We shall organise discussions to see how best we can help those countries with their external defence problems and render unto Caesar the things that belong to Caesar, just personal effects for instance and the fact that in this air-conditioning blowing through the mouthpiece you pull red toggle (1), adjusting their economies to the new situation. Wherever particular people congregate you never remember anybody’s names. As for the Far East, we must emphasise that a vast cultural revolution has taken place, which the world will not find easy to integrate into my card Hong Cong cultural revolutionary please la crise la crise.

  And if you look up the word crisis in the dictionary you will find that it once meant decision. Now here in this Congress of Demographers we need not concern ourselves too much with the etymology of words. All the same I suggest that at any minute now some bright buxom floor-steward will come in with a breakfast tray saying Morgen, gün aydın bună ziua no buzz the telephone pronto? hello? Seven o’clock madam. Thank you very much. The label on the bottle by the bed says Vichyvatten to hide the nature of the contents neither Vichy nor vatten but air surrounded with liquid so that tomorrow and tomorrow will do to wander along the Ström down below the hotel in the Venice of the North and think about cette belle ville d’amour et d’art splendide che fa tremar dì claritate l’âre.

  Silences differ more than hotel rooms and tall façades with such small spirits behind them. The gods have left this land but we shall continue to honour our obligations towards a line BC representing geographical areas at right angles with the line AB representing population increase per square metre per annum. Now taking BC here you can see at a glance where the danger lies, and that the increase in ideas flows thick and fast. Mesdames messieurs, je tiens d’abord à remercier le Président du Congrès pour ses éloges que je n’ai pas conscience de mériter. Vous connaissez tous, je pense, ce mot de Bertolt Brecht (Bertolt?) which flows into the ear through the earphones in French and comes out into the mouthpiece over waves and on immer geradeaus into the earphones of the multitudes or so in simultaneous German.

  On nous a convoqué ici dans ce charmant château du moyen-âge Wurtembourgeois pour discuter du thème suivant: La Littérature et la Sémantique. Mesdames messieurs je vous le demande, le moyen-âge connaissait-il la Sémantique? Hé bien moi non plus. What has the writer to do with Semantics? I ask myself that question. I even went so far as to look up the word sémantique in the dictionary and found it meant: SIG-NI-FI-CA-TION. La science de la sig-ni-fi-ca-tion. But what has literature to do with science? With analysis of meaning until the meaning vanishes under the academic weight of analysis? Rien! Ou, pour aider les interprètes, nikts, notting, nada, niente. Vous voyez! Il n’y a aucune difficulté le langage speaks for itself. I will tell you a story what story oh you know the one about le philologue Russe qui dit: we in Russia say jardine, the French say jardine, the English say jardine, the Germans say jardine, you know, a place where flowers grow, all have the same word so you see we have no differences and laughter cracks the earphones. Hé bien mesdames messieurs he had something there, through his philological blinkers. La littérature, la splendeur des mots, des sig-ni-fi-ca-tions, depends on sounds that hiss through the earphones et ces sons surgissent avec leur sig-ni-fi-ca-tions multiples through a natural process created by the marriage of la tradition et le progrès. Nous autres écrivains, nous ne nous soucions pas de cette science infime, infâme, for we proceed by instinct through le langage which we absorb with our mother’s milk flowing through our veins and remaining far behind the inklings of the few. Out of the mouths of babes nous parlons en po-ètes, mesdames messieurs, en poètes. La littérature, l’humanité, la justice, l’épidémie und so weiter weiter gehen until the science of signification sobs and hisses into the microphone through the eardrums unless the pale Danish novelist next on the dais says that he has looked up the word semantics in the dictionary and found it means meaning. Well now quite soon some floor-steward in white will come in with a breakfast-tray and say all ideas have equality before God bringing in as well a postcard from Bernard Colliwobbles in Venice or 00147 Roma. Bruce Cliff. Brute Clinch. You never smoke them to the end. Wherever particular people congregate you want them to commit themselves to your latest enthusiasm whereas nothing, rien, niente deserves a flow of rash desire love loyalty ambition marriage of tradition and progress. Henri Chasse. Hermann Clot. Fernando Chiuso. Unless perhaps H.O., E.S., F.O., P.S. Etienne Edouard Edmond Emanuel Frédérique, Paul Pierre. A great cultural revolution has taken place which needs no simulation of women bacon fish by the code of zones AB at right angles with the line BC descended into half-visited on swift conducted tours of the world’s trouble-spots. Kenya must learn, Angola must learn la grande leçon des préservatifs which shows Erich Enobarbus Fritz how the Greek lady says in broken French that she however has had no need to look up the word sémantique in the dictionary because in Greek semantikos means meaningful just as elios means sun and gynaika means woman. The meaning has remained and meaning in literature concerns Emile et les detectives unless humanity fraternity liberty tutungerie in the precision of the mouthpiece at a certain age of certain freedom from loyalty to anyone ABCD.

  Whose coeur tremble de fol espoir.

  But where and in what freedom of which air did one do that?

  En Roumanie, pays des forêts, des fleurs et des couleurs, vous découvrirez un riche trésor d’art, témoignage des aptitudes artistiques du peuple roumain, de son sens inné pour le beau et l’harmonie.

  The pillow stands obliquely in the wall-corner of the bed with its ears up and its middle carefully dented. The feather-bed buttoned up in sheeting no longer occurs, only the red black and white blanket folded back with the top sheet to form two parallel white borders from which the fact that we have not yet come out of the hard bed area my sweet has no personal significance beyond the Apă Mineralǎ on the bedside table. Indicaţii terapeutice: gastrite catarale cronice, colite şi enterocolite cronice, calculozǎ urică, anumite forme de nefrite, pielite şi cistite, hepatite simple cronice, litiază biliară, inflamaţii cronice ale căilor respiratorii in general, diateze, gută şi obezitate. Everywhere you will discover the history of the country, in the towns, in the valleys of the mountains as much as by the sea, witness the remains of graeco-roman antiquities, the daco-roman vestiges di
sseminated all over the land, the inestimable beauty of the Byzantine monasteries full of dark staring saintly eyes outside which a smattering of phrase-book Rumanian plus Italian Spanish French with a bearded monk brings up the tense heavy blond engineer from the excursion-party who says Mais vous savez tout!

  — Au revoir, madame bon voyage, drum bun.

  — Mulţumesc padre, la revedere.

  — Excusez-moi madame, si vous désirez apprendre, il faut dire părinte. Padre non, părinte. Et pour grande politesse, cuvioase părinte.

  — Cuvioase? Cuvioase părinte?

  — Dévoué père. Mais cela n’a pas d’importance madame je me permets seulement parceque vous desirez. Enchanté madame de faire votre connaissance et au revoir.

  — So now you know everything.

  — Er, where did you say you came from?

  — I live in Italy but—

  — Please, could you repeat your name?

  — Ah yes, very difficult madame, Boleslaw Czeszczyk CZE, SZ, CZ, YK.

  — Oh. Er, enchantée monsieur. Mille excuses.

  — I understand madame, people always say why you have so many consonants together in Polish? But it all depends on the habit of the eye. I live in London many years and every day of my life I see KNIGHTSBRIDGE. All those consonants together, GHTSBR, very terrorising. Also KN, DG, ten consonants three vowels. You know London madame?

  — Yes.

  — Oh but of course in your fascinating work you travel much.

  — Well, not so much these days, most conferences take place in the main western towns except for fringe activities like—

  — Fringe?

  — Oh you know like the Shakespeare centenary and cultural exchange with Eastern Europe.

  — Ah, you joke. Yes, good. I would not call Petroleum Engineering fringe. We must help these people you see to free themselves economically from Russia, they have so much petrol and great modern methods but not enough, and this conference ah, but you understand, I see while I speak, you in the glass box you translate, into what language madame?

  — German.

  — Ah.

  The expression stiffens imperceptibly but feeling sure you translate excellently madame with many thanks for the German delegate Herr Ingenier Erich Osterbach he felicitates me. From West Germany of course. Yes madame in politics as in technology every solution creates new problems which makes one very sad.

  And as for China well my card Bing-Song the problem looks more simple than it appears between the earphones and the mouthpiece through the neutralised transmitter in the brain, the hands quite still on the desk, forming a squat diamond space with the thumbs pressed together towards the body, the fingers touching like a cathedral roof, never seeing the gestures, the eyes closed to watch the words as they pass through the distant brain way up, steadily in phrases well-formed almost in advance to hit the German nail on the French pinpoint. Unless alternatively concision shrinks the statistics like angels to a pinhead and the pinhead pricks the Gallic nuance which escapes like gas and lingers far behind the inklings of the few depending on the speaker’s nationality in French, Italian for instance, Polish or verbose, depending on the theme the time the place the climate, whether canyons create new problems as in politics and pamphlets full of Kulturstätten—Places of Cultural Interest—Curiosités Culturelles—Curiosità Culturali—Centros Culturales. Archives, Libraries, Memorial Rooms, Museums, State Apartments. Tabak-Museum IX Porzellangasse 51. Technisches Museum für Industrie und Gewerbe XIV Mariahilfer Strasse 212, Uhrenmuseum der Stadt Wien, 1 Schulhof 2. Monuments and Fountains. Sakrale Bauten. Churches—Eglises—Chiese—Iglesias. Opera Houses and Theatres. Privattheater. Teatros particulares. Aber Sie wissen alles gnädige Frau.

  — Could you repeat your name?

  — Doktor Friedrich Sachs.

  — Oh yes. You made a very good speech today.

  — Ah, gnädige Frau, demography produces nothing but despair. Populations multiply almost by geometrical progression gnädige Frau, in simple terms two times two equals four, times two equal eight, times eight equals sixteen und so weiter ad infinitum consuming the world’s natural resources which soon will not suffice. In thirty years we shall have lost the food and birth control battle for ever. And the world talks and compiles statistics and does nothing except build more satellites more missiles ad infinitum yes, nothing but despair.

  Uw zwemvest und so weiter ad infinitum which makes one very sad. And in your journey through Rumania you will meet modern comfort, the proverbial Rumanian hospitality, gaiety, dynamism and the creative spirit of the Rumanian people. You will meet Mr. Bryan Crisis. And if you look up crisis in the dictionary you will find the new face of the country whose economic power has increased thirteen-fold, the new aspects of towns, the more and more frequent silhouettes of industrial combines, the lively rhythm of a prodigious development representing only some of the accents of the renovating present. And did you enjoy the bus-excursion to Battalha senhora? Ah, you have seen it before, you know Portugal well? You like? Muite obrigado senhora what a charming compliment. Yes, I prefer Evora also.

  Where the aqueduct walks from the wilderness on innumerable brown legs, pierces the citadel and collapses, not too far however from the secret mysteries of Diana in broken columns coloured bronze mark you in the sunset and surrounded with white palpitating stags, unless animal organs not to mention the cross on the curlicued façade so much taller than the small church behind it. But stones do talk. Statistically, into microphones. Du Witzling. Witzling-Schmutzling? Ein bisschen. Well, the gods have left this land but we shall honour our obligations towards them all from Apollo to Allah, with plaster images and a Renaissance chapel plonked in the middle of the mosque looking obscene according to the time the place the theme the climate and whether canyons create great holes of air that leap into the mouthpiece two channels keeping the mind alert not to say three the eyes the hands the voice and more than the five senses in a flow of rash enthusiasm about ideas not one of which deserves a moment of allo? er, dígame? Ah, muchas gracias. You like your work señora? Oh yes, very much. And what do you like most about it, the travel or the translating? Well, the ideas transmitted, at least—Ah yes, you must know everything by now. Your name, could you repeat your name? Cano, señora, Esteban Cano. Encantada. Lo mismo señora, lo mismo, encantado to see that you have not lost your enthusiasm for ideals, so many people do. And where do you go next?

  I luoghi: La Francia e soprattutto la Germania über alles then unter where the tannoy voice fills the large wooden hut calling out ranks with names attached and even faces over uniforms grey-blue dark olive-green khaki that wear a listening responsive look for the Dakota aircraft about to take off from Frankfurt airport for Hamburg. He stands tall blond and Aryan in British battle-dress dyed greenish-black and eyes too close together above a slightly broken nose and thin mouth saying I heard your name saw you at Headquarters loved you from the start no he does not say that. So you have got on to the same bandwagon. How come so young to work to fly on allied aircraft unless perhaps how come he sits so close on the long metal bench fixed to the curved metallic wall inside the fuselage the round ribs all exposed as if inside a skeleton chrysalis like paratroopers about to jump descending on the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size the forest blobs the thin white lines meeting at pimples cancerous growths that make up an abstract study of the late Mother-country in brown and green.

  — Yes, well, every solution creates new problems and one did what one could to make it work to get things going again such as the sale of goods and normal life love ambition culture why, and he talks, discusses things ideas not one of which has lost validity for him in the administration re-education tact resentment humiliation self-recoil revenge understanding distribution black-market fraternization sex. And so you work in the French zone? Rejoice Fräulein that they do not put German employees in uniform although clothes create problems one gets so tired of women in uniform as if at his age what twenty-two twenty-three he
had had mil e tre per annum per square metre of Lebensraum for nineteen hundred and forty six years and plus. Not that the girl officers so thoughtfully provided by the occupying allies to prevent fraternisation don’t look glamorous mind you but not for us. Besides, the French call theirs Aspirantes. Not lieutenants mark you but Aspirantes. What do you suppose they aspire to? Do you aspire to anything? A change of zone for instance or come climb on my bandwagon and have a love-affair. And have a Bruderschaft. Well you’ll have to wait Fräulein if you’ll forgive the intimacy they have no lavatories on these Dakotas only a tube over there in the tail strictly for men only, visible to all and you’d miss wouldn’t you. As a translator? How very interesting what a coincidence and where? What do you mean only documents? What difference does it make? Accuracy, precision, nothing else matters. Oh yes and speed natürlich but all that comes with practice. They’d send you on a course anyway and besides they’d have to give you a denazification screening first. Things have changed however since the early occupation days and I will take you under my wing.

  Everything comes with practice. Loyalty change of zone speed rash enthusiasm in the precision of translation at nineteen and plus. Plus what exactly? Ah so you had reached the age to help the German war-effort some while before it collapsed. What did you do? You will excuse these questions Fräulein but in view of your nationality we must make sure of your undivided loyalty total ignorance dissidence change of heart let us see now until the age of sir, at that age one has no loyalties. No? One does a job any job to the best of one’s ability. Yes yes of course we understand but one does one’s job, also, as an instrument. Had you thought of that? In view of your French upbringing however and the strong recommendation from the plane as it leaps up and down the holes of air wind storm that lurch into the mouthpiece the passengers in grey-blue dark olive-green and khaki hold on to the metal bench or each other not to get thrown across the fuselage to the opposite metal bench with passengers in dark olive-green khaki grey-blue the round ribs all exposed as if inside the skeleton of a dark olive monster. Du liebes Kind have you not flown before, there, komm mal her his arm right round a little storm only a little storm soon landing outside Hamburg as the plane lurches down the steps of air above the squares of grey façades so much less squat than the rubble behind them. You don’t mind my calling you Du liebes Kind Fräulein? His arm right round a hole of air his nose long slightly broken and the mouth quite thin which says please call me Siegfried.