The cloud has cleared. The jet exhausts invisible in their power save for a tremor on the blue or the propellers invisible in their speed save for a hinted halo che fa tremar di claritate l’âre, no man-made object passing to show that the body flies immobile at nine hundred and twenty kilometres and no man to bring you out of this or that zone with a tremendous force of a love lost or never gained lying forgotten under layers and layers of civilisation except perhaps through a language that actually means something in the light of no more than a fond old man’s powerful imagination who always fell in love with young secretaries unattainable in soutiens-gorge qui pigeonnent and show just where the brown stops and the white begins, writing them flowery love-letters full of Provençal quotes about fin amor lonhtano and la princesse lointaine so that we used to call him Bertrand de Born.
Unless perhaps the seven-terraced tower sits suspended between belief and disbelief at a height of twelve thousand metres outside temperature what minus forty-nine with the menu going all the way to Detroit via Vienna Paris which contains the small flat in the rue du Four and the hairdresser opposite in which the women sit under their helmets insulated by the noise of hot air and the letter lies inside a magazine for secret re-reading relishing ma douce amour. Je ne vous ai pas écrit aux Postes Restantes que vous m’aviez indiquées de peur de vous manquer, car je connais ces mauvais courriers. Of course natürlich with flowery love-letters missing young secretaries inaccessible through inefficient posts in low décolletage that shows the first stirring of cette vilaine jalousie ah pardonnez-moi. Mais j’avoue que vos cartes m’ont rendu fou de joie, non seulement parcequ’elles venaient de vous, o mon amour, mais parceque pour la première fois vous trahissez quelqu’inquiétude à mon égard. Oh, pardonnez-moi. Je n’ai pas voulu vous causer la moindre souffrance, mais voilà le paradoxe de l’amour, j’en ai aussi ressenti un doux plaisir, si doux. Vous attendiez, vous cherchiez une lettre de moi.
The eyes follow the wide blue writing in the language of a madman that winds its way down from the distant brain with resentment humiliation understanding revenge distribution reeducation fraternisation sex. Votre déodorant. Choisissez-le sérieusement chez votre pharmacien. The letter gets folded down. Les questions que vous n’osez pas poser à votre gynécologue. The questions mount up. Ça pigeonne formidablement. Comment vivre la vie moderne? Des tests pour ne pas s’ennuyer. The letter gets unfolded. Oh mon amour, me donneriez-vous peut-être un signe? Je n’ose même plus y croire. Et pourtant jour et nuit je rêve je pense à vous, oh ma princesse lointaine, je vous vois dans mes bras, nue et mince et blanche, allongeant vos belles longues jambes nordiques, je pose ma main sur votre gorge, mes lèvres sur vos lèvres, je bois votre désir, je vous caresse doucement, ma main descend sur vos seins, dessous, plus bas, le long de votre hanche et puis plus bas, vous murmurez, vous me désirez, vous m’ouvrez, ah ma déesse je vous prends, j’entre dans vos profondeurs, vous criez de plaisir, tumultueuse amante oh ma déesse et vous m’aimez jusqu’à l’explosion en vous du glaïeul blanc. Pardonnez-moi, je délire. A Ding no dea does.
So the white gladiolus explodes in letter after letter in a language that finds itself delicious and breeds plants or parts of plants inside the seven-terraced tower undoing the magic wall of defence anticlockwise from the distant brain way up the downward path escalating to a death-kiss with a half-visualised old man well fifty-seven and plus the circular dance of simulation vital lies lost mysteries and other excitations to the true end of imagination.
E allora the languages fraternise in a frenzy of fornication by airmail par avion via aerea Luftpost AEPOПOPIKΩΣ Uçak Ile responded to at one level and plus despite the Acqua Minerale battericamente pura Apă de Masă ΣAPIZA APIΣTON etc or SARIZA Eau de Table naturelle-curative résistivité électrique (en Ohms) Radio activité (unités Mache) Geroisteiner Sprudel natürliches Mineralwasser erfrischend, bekömmlich, von Gesundheitswert, an der Quelle abgefüllt. La source on the contrary breeds plants or parts of plants within the cavern womb belly vessel ship temple sepulchre or holy grail with the same confusional sliding from active to passive from swallower to swallowed from container to contained that we find in all the myths of depth night descent into old matter lost and found again beneath the layers of thickening sensibilities convenient dogmas euphemised into a sack a basket une hotte that even lose their convenience as times pass. The languages fraternise in a frenzy of sensuality par avion and find each other delicious at one level and plus the long lost terror of someone offering something not ordered, so that l’altra cosa più tardi gets postponed by a magic wall of defence consisting of commissions congresses conferences and conventions that più tardi can wait while the language finds itself delicious in hotel rooms with footsteps walking outside in Swedish, Portuguese, or French along the rue du Four or on another plane that bumps down the steps of air and lowers its undercarriage for the descent into language and a mode of sensuality which might perhaps remain far below the inklings of the distant brain way up or even totally at odds with any real situation in the past or renovating present, the simulated substitution permitting, through repetition, the exchange of past for future and the domestication of Chronos. In some countries the women would segregate still to the left of the aisle worshipping plaster images, the men less numerous to the right shouting ka-dın ka-dın oh ma déesse tu me désires tu m’ouvres les jambes a Ding no dea does. But all in all and civilisation considered the chromosomes in the white gladiolus chrysalis vessel vehicle instrument explode over the air as the enormous wing spreads back from the long nose-tip to prevent any true exchange of any real situation when the rhetoric flows into the protein cells of the distant brain way up in French and down at once through more than the five senses in simultaneous lust. Aimez-vous le tutoiement? Ou cela vous offense-t-il? Dites-le moi franchement. O ma douce amour je vous aime je t’aime. Je me vois dans tes bras. Ta lettre, votre lettre, ah dieu, quels délices. Je n’ose y croire. Vous m’aimez? tu m’aimes tu me désires, vraiment? Je ne rêve que de vous. A quand mon amour à quand? Vos congrès ne vous amèneraient-ils pas un jour à Venise? Puis-je venir vous voir à Paris? Ah, rien que l’idée de vous regarder, de vous toucher, me coupe le souffle. Et pourtant j’ai peur. Me trouverez-vous trop laid, trop vieux? Moi je me souviens de vous, si blonde, si distante, si froide, et pourtant dès le premier jour je vous ai aimée, je n’osais pas le dire, et je ne pouvais pas vous oublier. Et maintenant, enfin! vos lettres, vos délicieuses lettres which respond on one level and plus the invisible wall that rises to a circular dance so much taller than the small love behind it, au schème de l’ourobouros eating its own tail not as a mere ring of flesh but expressing death in life life out of death in a reflection of the agro-lunar drama des rêves les plus fous non seulement de vous aimer, d’éveiller en vous tous les désirs mais de passer le reste de mes jours, et de mes nuits, avec vous. So that the body lies in a suspension of desire, finding itself delicious through the language of a long-lost code that winds its way up from centuries of disbelief in adoration, escalating up the downward path or vice versa until the invisible wall of never-never più tardi spirals anticlockwise into now perhaps why not explode ancora più bianco brighter than bright the white gladiolus in the depth the cavern the vessel of conception with the confusional sliding from active to passive that we find in all the love-letters where the languages fraternise in a frenzy of fornication by airmail until breathes the old French lover still?
— What? Oh. That.
— Yes, that.
— Well, of course not. What did you expect?
— I expected nothing. What did you?
— Dasselbe.
— You put a stop to it?
— Natürlich.
— Hmm. Gut-gut. No regrets?
— No regrets.
Siegfried works with his eyes no hands now as well as with his ears and voice. He lipreads the speaker and in the next split second utters the same syllables of old friendship and bantering allusion that let perhaps or do
not let the vital lie slip down into the earphones and out into the mouthpiece in simultaneous belief and disbelief. The same question everywhere goes unanswered have you anything to declare any plants or parts of plants growing inside you wildly obsessively stifling your strength with their octopus legs undetachable for the vacuum they form over each cell, clamping each neurone of your processes in a death-kiss with a half-visualised old man well fifty-five and plus until the languages fraternise at the Congress of Byzantine Historians in Ravenna where somebody demonstrates the disastrous policy of uprooting the virile Goths from Italy. As a Gothic envoy said to Belisarius, we have observed all the laws of the Empire, we have respected the religion of the Romans, we have never forcibly converted them to Arianism, we have reserved all administrative posts to Italians. Mesdames messieurs, such a Gothic monarchy, so respectful of local feelings, might well have saved Italy from the Lombards. It might in fact have created a very different Italy. And if every German had openly declared what he now says he secretly wanted we’d have a very different Europe, oh yes, I had others after me, a nice French boy Jules and then you’d have turned out quite different, with no papal state, no Holy Roman Empire with all the troubles this brought, indeed it might have created a united Italy some twelve centuries before that painful achievement of relatively modern times when the telephone rings allo? er, pronto? Un signore chiede di lei signora. Bene, fatelo salire. Er, no signora followed by a flow of Italian which scusi non capisco, parla francese? Oui madame. L’hotel ne permet pas les visites dans les chambres après dix heures du soir. En I-ta-lie? Oui madame. Hé bien vous en avez du toupet, un vieil ami! Oui madame. Mais vous pouvez descendre.
Vous pouvez descendre. Vous descendez. Down in the lift that lurches up the knot of anger fear hope into the mouthpiece and out into another corridor carpeted in red velvet, lined with doors 112, 113, 114 having pressed perhaps button out of anger fear hope down the red velvet stairs like the blessed damozel with a sense of the ridiculous or la figlia che piange down a false situation in the lobby where he waits, panama hat in hand and broader than remembered, in a pink bow tie and a white suit that makes his mousy-greying hair look greyer round the base where it mostly occurs and more wispy above the porous rubber face that collapses a little at the jowls around a sunken mouth contradicting the protruding eyelids over southern eyes that well, yes, burn. Quelle idiotie, ces règlements. Pardonnez-moi. Bonjour. Bonsoir je veux dire, ah, mon dieu, vous voilà. The handshake no more than a handshake speaks nothing at all the feet move towards the bar in studded black plastic and vous prenez quelque chose? Non merci, ou plutôt oui, une eau minérale. Hein? Eau minérale. Ah bon, moi aussi, je ne bois jamais, ça m’esquinte l’estomac. Acqua minérale per favore. Sans glace s’il vous plait. Ah, moi aussi. Senza ghiaccio per favore. Battericamente pura as silences differ more than languages fraternise par avion meaning perhaps delusione désillusion disillusion on both sides unless perhaps alarm? Non mais vraiment, quelle idiotie, ces règlements. Je n’ai jamais vu ça en Italie. En Angleterre oui, mais, ah excusez-moi de vous avoir mais non, mais non. And travel-talk ensues about Venise cette belle ville d’art splendide et Rimini vous connaissez le temple de Sigismund, mais oui, vous savez tout. Sigismund? Who still faces west as we say in Poland. Sigismundo Malatesta. Il faut voir ça. Je vous y mènerai. Vous avez déjà vu Ravenna je pense, in the first capital of the Western Empire after Rome 00147 applicate el numero di codice on the matchbox which he takes to strike the match that doesn’t strike again ancora and again then suddenly flares up to flame the middle-aged one with the older who himself doesn’t smoke or drink and says vous fumez trop.
— Oui. Toujours.
— Hein?
With a grimace, turning his right ear anxiously as if deaf in the left oh no. Vous parlez si bas. Mais j’aime vos cigarettes. Elles ont l’air si élégantes. Wherever particular people congregate. Ce beau paquet doré! Cette fine baguette blanche dans votre bouche dis, tu m’aimes?
The same question everywhere goes unanswered je t’aime grand comme le ciel et moi aussi mais tu as dis plus éh bien, plus haut, tiens, le ciel a ses hauteurs et papa, tu crois qu’il m’aime? Ah ça ton père j’sais pas où il a fichu le camp. Il a fichu le camp in a language that finds itself delicious par avion but force-lands on a clay-like sea of silence you could cut with a knife pick up in handfuls to mould perhaps a conversation that actually means something in the light of that idiotie, ces règlements, in Italy of all places he has never known une chose pareille, en Angleterre oui, where he has no doubt frequently turned up after ten to call on young secretaries inaccessible on account of quelle idiotie ces règlements as he stares silently waiting for an answer from the goddess aghast at the idiocy she has provoked who looks perhaps not a goddess at all but a desiccated skeletal alleinstehende Frau holding une fine baguette blanche in her fine desiccated fingers which tap the cigarette nervously too often into the chromium ashtray as she watches his long veined hands each tensely curved over each of his knees and brings the cigarette up once more to inhale what fifty-nine sixty-two what cheek what damned impertinence and vanity but mutual after all, and out again through the mouthpiece in simultaneous tenderness with, very gently, of course the expected person changes.
E allora the languages fraternise a little as he sips his mineral water without ice under the staring southern eyes that well yes burn. Why do you speak in English? To remind me of the old days and my youth as a simultaneous interpreter of ideas nobody ever acts upon? Vous n’aimez pas ma langue? La langue de mes lettres? La langue—and the tip of his tongue peers out, moves slowly round his open lips, then in, then slowly out again, and in, and out in a dumb show pour éveiller en vous tous les désirs mais si.
— You know, when you came down those stairs—since you prefer to speak English—tell me, do you know Eliot?
— Eliot?
— T. S. Eliot, the poet.
— Oh. No, not really. By reputation. He wrote something called The Waste Land didn’t he?
He wrote something called the waste land of whatever kind of literary conversation do we embark on now that might actually mean something in the light of that too. But when you came down those stairs I thought of an earlier poem of his I have always loved.
— What, more than Rudel or Cavalcanti? Surely you live in the twelfth century?
— Ah, vous vous moquez de moi, cruelle dame. Mais j’aime vos yeux moqueurs, même quand ils blessent. Car vous savez blesser.
— Let’s face it you destroy.
— Hein?
— Nothing.
— You shake your head. I know, you don’t mean to hurt, and you can’t help my ridiculous sensibilities. I fully realise the element of the ridiculous in my, my—Help. Oh help him for Chrissake Great Scott und so weiter your, love?
— Oui, mon amour. His eyes well yes burn I don’t like the word love in fact I wish you would not talk English a foreign tongue to us both. But since you wish it let us return to the poem, perhaps you know it La figlia che piange.
— La figlia—? How strange. Where did—but did he, write in Italian?
— Stand on the highest pavement of the stair—lean on a garden urn—Weave, weave the sunlight in your hair—
— What, inside a hotel after ten oclock at night?
— There you go again.
— Sorry.
— Hein?
— Sorry.
— Sorry. Yes. How inadequate English sounds at times like this. Like what? Well you know, the one about the elephant or the titbit or Dieu vous blesse as a discarded personality that once hurt solemn earnestness takes over to hurt his unless merely the language that finds itself delicious has fled in a long lost terror of someone offering something not ordered. Moi j’aurais dit pardonnez-moi.
The fingers empty of any fine baguette join to form a squat diamond space, the thumbs pressed towards the body the rest touching away from it like a cathedral roof the eyes closed the ankles crossed to keep the résistivité électrique with
in so that you feel relaxed and no one can get at you by means of Clasp your flowers to you with a pained surprise—Fling them to the ground and turn—With a fugitive resentment in your eyes—But weave, weave the sunlight in your hair.
— You know it by heart.
— Oui. Je sais tout par coeur. Tout ce que j’aime, je le sais par coeur.
In advance. He knows it in advance, by airmail air attack that sends its parachutists floating down over the rectangles of agriculture brush-stroke size the curving lines the forest blobs the metallic lakes that make up an abstract study in seduction we can imagine—and indeed we have to—a defenceless people completely confounding a would-be conqueror by sitting quietly, not eating, not drinking, not smoking, not working at it, threatening to deprive him of his subjects simply by not existing. He can let them die, he can even kill them, but he cannot exploit them.
Now ladies and gentlemen this undeniable principle remains a principle, optimistic in its ultimate ends, cruel in its applicate el numero di codice, permettez-moi as he strikes and misses strikes again and flames the middle-aged one with vous fumez trop. Here we came in. Quelle idiotie und so weiter but Bertrand.
— Ah! Vous m’appelez Bertrand. Je n’ai jamais aimé ce nom, mais dans votre bouche, quel délice. Oh mon amour, vous ne voulez pas me tutoyer?
— Oui, si vous voulez.
— Hein?
— Ça viendra peut-être.
— Peut-être!
— Ecoutez, Bertrand, patientez. Comprenez que—
— Oui oui j’ai compris.
— No you haven’t. And all that idiocy as you call it, rightly, with the rules and regulations. Why didn’t you just book a room here then you could have rung direct? Où restez-vous ce soir?
The Brooke-Rose Omnibus Page 47
