Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “You are something else, Henry,” Perpetua said.

  8.

  Perpetua and André went over to have dinner with Sunny Marge and Edmund.

  “This is André,” Perpetua said.

  André, a well-dressed graduate of the École du Regard, managed a large industry in Reims.

  Americans were very strange, André said. They did not have a stable pattern of family life, as the French did. This was attributable to the greater liberty—perhaps license was not too strong a term—permitted to American women by their husbands and lovers. American women did not know where their own best interests lay, André said. The intoxication of modern life, which was in part a result of the falling away of former standards of conduct . . .

  Perpetua picked up a chicken leg and tucked it into the breast pocket of André’s coat.

  “Goodbye, André.”

  Peter called Perpetua from his school in New England.

  “What’s the matter, Peter?”

  “I’m lonesome.”

  “Do you want to come stay with me for a while?”

  “No. Can you send me fifty dollars?”

  “Yes. What do you want it for?”

  “I want to buy some blue racers.”

  Peter collected snakes. Sometimes Perpetua thought that the snakes were dearer to him than she was.

  9.

  Harold walked into Perpetua’s apartment.

  “Harold,” Perpetua said.

  “I just want to ask you one question,” Harold said. “Are you happier now than you were before?”

  “Sure,” Perpetua said.

  A City of Churches

  “YES,” MR. PHILLIPS said, “ours is a city of churches all right.”

  Cecelia nodded, following his pointing hand. Both sides of the street were solidly lined with churches, standing shoulder to shoulder in a variety of architectural styles. The Bethel Baptist stood next to the Holy Messiah Free Baptist, St. Paul’s Episcopal next to Grace Evangelical Covenant. Then came the First Christian Science, the Church of God, All Souls, Our Lady of Victory, the Society of Friends, the Assembly of God, and the Church of the Holy Apostles. The spires and steeples of the traditional buildings were jammed in next to the broad imaginative flights of the “contemporary” designs.

  “Everyone here takes a great interest in church matters,” Mr. Phillips said.

  Will I fit in? Cecelia wondered. She had come to Prester to open a branch office of a car-rental concern.

  “I’m not especially religious,” she said to Mr. Phillips, who was in the real-estate business.

  “Not now,” he answered. “Not yet. But we have many fine young people here. You’ll get integrated into the community soon enough. The immediate problem is, where are you to live? Most people,” he said, “live in the church of their choice. All of our churches have many extra rooms. I have a few belfry apartments that I can show you. What price range were you thinking of?”

  They turned a corner and were confronted with more churches. They passed St. Luke’s, the Church of the Epiphany, All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox, St. Clement’s, Fountain Baptist, Union Congregational, St. Anargyri’s, Temple Emanuel, the First Church of Christ Reformed. The mouths of all the churches were gaping open. Inside, lights could be seen dimly.

  “I can go up to a hundred and ten,” Cecelia said. “Do you have any buildings here that are not churches?”

  “None,” said Mr. Phillips. “Of course many of our fine church structures also do double duty as something else.” He indicated a handsome Georgian façade. “That one,” he said, “houses the United Methodist and the Board of Education. The one next to it, which is Antioch Pentecostal, has the barbershop.”

  It was true. A red-and-white striped barber pole was attached inconspicuously to the front of the Antioch Pentecostal.

  “Do many people rent cars here?” Cecelia asked. “Or would they, if there was a handy place to rent them?”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” said Mr. Phillips. “Renting a car implies that you want to go somewhere. Most people are pretty content right here. We have a lot of activities. I don’t think I’d pick the car-rental business if I was just starting out in Prester. But you’ll do fine.” He showed her a small, extremely modern building with a severe brick, steel, and glass front. “That’s St. Barnabas. Nice bunch of people over there. Wonderful spaghetti suppers.”

  Cecelia could see a number of heads looking out of the windows. But when they saw that she was staring at them, the heads disappeared.

  “Do you think it’s healthy for so many churches to be gathered together in one place?” she asked her guide. “It doesn’t seem . . . balanced, if you know what I mean.”

  “We are famous for our churches,” Mr. Phillips replied. “They are harmless. Here we are now.”

  He opened a door and they began climbing many flights of dusty stairs. At the end of the climb they entered a good-sized room, square, with windows on all four sides. There was a bed, a table, and two chairs, lamps, a rug. Four very large bronze bells hung in the exact center of the room.

  “What a view!” Mr. Phillips exclaimed. “Come here and look.”

  “Do they actually ring these bells?” Cecelia asked.

  “Three times a day,” Mr. Phillips said, smiling. “Morning, noon, and night. Of course when they’re rung you have to be pretty quick at getting out of the way. You get hit in the head by one of these babies and that’s all she wrote.”

  “God Almighty,” said Cecelia involuntarily. Then she said, “Nobody lives in the belfry apartments. That’s why they’re empty.”

  “You think so?” Mr. Phillips said.

  “You can only rent them to new people in town,” she said accusingly.

  “I wouldn’t do that,” Mr. Phillips said. “It would go against the spirit of Christian fellowship.”

  “This town is a little creepy, you know that?”

  “That may be, but it’s not for you to say, is it? I mean, you’re new here. You should walk cautiously, for a while. If you don’t want an upper apartment I have a basement over at Central Presbyterian. You’d have to share it. There are two women in there now.”

  “I don’t want to share,” Cecelia said. “I want a place of my own.”

  “Why?” the real-estate man asked curiously. “For what purpose?”

  “Purpose?” asked Cecelia. “There is no particular purpose. I just want—”

  “That’s not usual here. Most people live with other people. Husbands and wives. Sons with their mothers. People have roommates. That’s the usual pattern.”

  “Still, I prefer a place of my own.”

  “It’s very unusual.”

  “Do you have any such places? Besides bell towers, I mean?”

  “I guess there are a few,” Mr. Phillips said, with clear reluctance. “I can show you one or two, I suppose.”

  He paused for a moment.

  “It’s just that we have different values, maybe, from some of the surrounding communities,” he explained. “We’ve been written up a lot. We had four minutes on the C.B.S. Evening News one time. Three or four years ago. ‘A City of Churches,’ it was called.”

  “Yes, a place of my own is essential,” Cecelia said, “if I am to survive here.”

  “That’s kind of a funny attitude to take,” Mr. Phillips said. “What denomination are you?”

  Cecelia was silent. The truth was, she wasn’t anything.

  “I said, what denomination are you?” Mr. Phillips repeated.

  “I can will my dreams,” Cecelia said. “I can dream whatever I want. If I want to dream that I’m having a good time, in Paris or some other city, all I have to do is go to sleep and I will dream that dream. I can dream whatever I want.”

  “What do you dream, then, mostly?” Mr. Phillips said, looking at her clos
ely.

  “Mostly sexual things,” she said. She was not afraid of him.

  “Prester is not that kind of a town,” Mr. Phillips said, looking away.

  They went back down the stairs.

  The doors of the churches were opening, on both sides of the street. Small groups of people came out and stood there, in front of the churches, gazing at Cecelia and Mr. Phillips.

  A young man stepped forward and shouted, “Everyone in this town already has a car! There is no one in this town who doesn’t have a car!”

  “Is that true?” Cecelia asked Mr. Phillips.

  “Yes,” he said. “It’s true. No one would rent a car here. Not in a hundred years.”

  “Then I won’t stay,” she said. “I’ll go somewhere else.”

  “You must stay,” he said. “There is already a car-rental office for you. In Mount Moriah Baptist, on the lobby floor. There is a counter and a telephone and a rack of car keys. And a calendar.”

  “I won’t stay,” she said. “Not if there’s not any sound business reason for staying.”

  “We want you,” said Mr. Phillips. “We want you standing behind the counter of the car-rental agency, during regular business hours. It will make the town complete.”

  “I won’t,” she said. “Not me.”

  “You must. It’s essential.”

  “I’ll dream,” she said. “Things you won’t like.”

  “We are discontented,” said Mr. Phillips. “Terribly, terribly discontented. Something is wrong.”

  “I’ll dream the Secret,” she said. “You’ll be sorry.”

  “We are like other towns, except that we are perfect,” he said. “Our discontent can only be held in check by perfection. We need a car-rental girl. Someone must stand behind that counter.”

  “I’ll dream the life you are most afraid of,” Cecelia threatened.

  “You are ours,” he said, gripping her arm. “Our car-rental girl. Be nice. There is nothing you can do.”

  “Wait and see,” Cecelia said.

  The Party

  I WENT to a party and corrected a pronunciation. The man whose voice I had adjusted fell back into the kitchen. I praised a Bonnard. It was not a Bonnard. My new glasses, I explained, and I’m terribly sorry, but significant variations elude me, vodka exhausts me, I was young once, essential services are being maintained. Drums, drums, drums, outside the windows. I thought that if I could persuade you to say “No,” then my own responsibility would be limited, or changed, another sort of life would be possible, different from the life we had previously, somewhat skeptically, enjoyed together. But you had wandered off into another room, testing the effect on members of the audience of your ruffled blouse, your long magenta skirt. Giant hands, black, thick with fur, reaching in through the windows. Yes, it was King Kong, back in action, and all of the guests uttered loud exclamations of fatigue and disgust, examining the situation in the light of their own needs and emotions, hoping that the ape was real or papier-mâché according to their temperaments, or wondering whether other excitements were possible out in the crisp, white night.

  “Did you see him?”

  “Let us pray.”

  The important tasks of a society are often entrusted to people who have fatal flaws. Of course we tried hard, it was intelligent to do so, extraordinary efforts were routine. Your zest was, and is, remarkable. But carrying over into private life attitudes that have been successful in the field of public administration is not, perhaps, a good idea. Zest is not fun for everybody. I am aware that roles change. Kong himself is now an adjunct professor of art history at Rutgers, co-author of a text on tomb sculpture; if he chooses to come to a party through the window he is simply trying to make himself interesting. A lady spoke to me, she had in her hand a bunch of cattleyas. “I have attempted to be agreeable,” she said, “but it’s like teaching iron to swim, with this group.” Zest is not fun for everybody. When whippoorwills called, you answered. And then I would go out, with the lantern, up and down the streets, knocking on doors, asking perfect strangers if they had seen you. O.K. That is certainly one way of doing it. This is not a complaint. But wouldn’t it be better to openly acknowledge your utter reliance on work, on specific, carefully formulated directions, agreeing that, yes, a certain amount of anesthesia is derived from what other people would probably think of as some kind of a career? Excel if you want, but remember that there are gaps. You told me that you had thought, as a young girl, that masturbation was “only for men.” Couldn’t you be mistaken about other things, too?

  The two sisters were looking at television in the bedroom, on the bed, amidst the coats and hats, umbrellas, airline bags. I gave them each a drink and we watched the game together, the Osservatore Romano team vs. the Diet of Worms, Worms leading by six points. I had never seen khaki-colored punch before. The hostess said there would be word games afterward, some of the people outside would be invited in, peasant food served in big wooden bowls—wine, chicken, olive oil, bread. Everything would improve, she said. I could still hear, outside, the drums; whistles had been added, there were both whistles and drums. I was surprised. The present era, with its emphasis on emotional cost control as well as its insistent, almost annoying lucidity, does not favor splinter groups, because they can’t win. Small collective manifestations are O.K. insofar as they show “stretch marks”—traces of strain which tend to establish that public policy is not a smooth, seamless achievement, like an egg, but has rather been hammered out at some cost to the policymakers. Kong got to his feet. “Louise loves me,” he said, pointing to a girl, “but I would rather sleep with Cynthia Garmonsway. It’s just one of those things. Human experience is different, in some ways, from ape experience, but that doesn’t mean that I don’t like perfumed nights, too.” I know what he means. The mind carries you with it, away from what you are supposed to do, toward things that cannot be explained rationally, toward difficulty, lack of clarity, late-afternoon light.

  “Francesca. Do you want to go?”

  “I want to stay.”

  Now the sisters have begun taking their interminable showers, both bathrooms are tied up, I must either pretend not to know them or accept the blame. In the larger rooms tender fawns and pinks have replaced the earlier drab, sad colors. I noticed that howls and rattles had been added to the whistles and drums. Is it some kind of a revolution? Maybe a revolution in taste, as when Mannerism was overthrown by the Baroque. Kong is being curried by Cynthia Garmonsway. She holds the steel curry comb in her right hand and pulls it gently through the dark thick fur. Cynthia formerly believed in the “enormous diversity of things”; now she believes in Kong. The man whose pronunciation I had corrected emerged from the kitchen. “Probably it is music,” he said, nodding at the windows, “the new music, which we older men are too old to understand.”

  You, of course, would never say such a thing to me, but you have said worse things. You told me that Kafka was not a thinker, and that a “genetic” approach to his work would disclose that much of it was only a kind of very imaginative whining. That was during the period when you were going in for wrecking operations, feeling, I suppose, that the integrity of your own mental processes was best maintained by a series of strong, unforgiving attacks. You made quite an impression on everyone, in those days: your ruffled blouse, your long magenta skirt slit to the knee, the dagger thrust into your boot. “Is that a metaphor?” I asked, pointing to the dagger; you shook your head, smiled, said no. Now that you have had a change of heart, now that you have joined us in finding Kafka, and Kleist, too, the awesome figures that we have agreed that they are, the older faculty are more comfortable with you, are ready to promote you, marry you, even, if that is your wish. But you don’t have to make up your mind tonight. Relax and enjoy the party, to the extent that it is possible to do so; it is not over yet. The game has ended, a news program has begun. “Emerald mines in the northwest have been nationaliz
ed.” A number of young people standing in a meadow, holding hands, singing. Can the life of the time be caught in an advertisement? Is that how it is, really, in the meadows of the world?

  And where are all the new people I have come here to meet? I have met only a lost child, dressed in rags, real rags, holding an iron hook attached to a fifty-foot rope. I said, “What is that for?” The child said nothing, placed the hook quietly on the floor at my feet, opened a bottle and swallowed twenty aspirin. Is six too young for a suicide attempt? We fed her milk, induced vomiting, the police arrived within minutes. When one has spoken a lot one has already used up all of the ideas one has. You must change the people you are speaking to so that you appear, to yourself, to be still alive. But the people here don’t look new; they look like emerald mine owners, in fact, or proprietors of some other sector of the economy that something bad has just happened to. I’m afraid that going up to them and saying “Travel light!,” with a smile, will not really lift their spirits. Why am I called upon to make them happier, when it is so obviously beyond my competence? Francesca, you have selected the wrong partner, in me. You made the mistake a long time ago. I am not even sure that I like you now. But it is true that I cannot stop thinking about you, that every small daily problem—I will never be elected to the Academy, Richelieu is against me and d’Alembert is lukewarm—is examined in the light of your possible reaction, lack of reaction. At one moment you say that the Academy is a joke, at another that you are working industriously to sway Webster to my cause. Damned capricious! In the silence, an alphorn sounds. Then the noise again, drums, whistles, howls, rattles, alphorns. Attendants place heavy purple veils or shrouds over statuary, chairs, the buffet table, members of the orchestra. People are clustered in front of the bathrooms holding fine deep-piled towels, vying to dry the beautiful sisters. The towels move sensuously over the beautiful surfaces. I too could become excited over this prospect.