Donald Barthelme

by Donald Barthelme

  “‘Delighted to hear it,’ I said.

  “‘Don’t you ever shave?’ she asked. ‘And why have you that huge hideous head on you, that could be mistaken for the head of an ass, could I see better so as to think better?’

  “‘You may lie elsewhere,’ I said, ‘if my face discountenances you.’

  “‘I am fatigued,’ she said, ‘go to sleep, we’ll discuss it in the morning, move a bit so that your back fits better with my front, it will be cold, later, and this place is cursed, so they say, and I hear that the Prince has been driven from the palace, God knows what that’s all about but it promises no good for us plain folk, police, probably, running all over the fens with their identity checks and making you blow up their great balloons with your breath—’

  “She was confusing, I thought, several issues, but my God! she was warm and shapely. Yet I deemed her a strange piece of goods, and made the mistake of saying so.

  “‘Sir,’ she answered, ‘I would not venture upon what’s strange and what’s not strange, if I were you,’ and went on to say that if I did not abstain from further impertinence she would commit sewerpipe. She dropped off to sleep then, and I lay back upon the ground. Not a child, I could tell, rather a tiny woman. A bogle.”

  The King wishes you to know, Hannahbella, that he finds this passage singularly moving and that he cannot read it without being forced to take snuff, violently. Similarly the next:

  “What, precisely, is a donkey? As you may imagine, I have researched the question. My Larousse was most delicate, as if the editors thought the matter blushful, but yielded two observations of interest: that donkeys came originally from Africa, and that they, or we, are ‘the result of much crossing.’ This urges that the parties to the birth must be ill-matched, and in the case of my royal parents, ’twas thunderously true. The din of their calamitous conversations reached every quarter of the palace, at every season of the year. My mother named me Duncan (var. of Dunkey, clearly) and went into spasms of shrinking whenever, youthfully, I’d offer a cheek for a kiss. My father, in contrast, could sometimes bring himself to scratch my head between the long, weedlike ears, but only, I suspect, by means of a mental shift, as if he were addressing one of his hunting dogs, the which, incidentally, remained firmly ambivalent about me even after long acquaintance.

  “I explained a part of this to Hannahbella, for that was the bogle’s name, suppressing chiefly the fact that I was a prince. She in turn gave the following account of herself. She was indeed a bogle, a semispirit generally thought to be of bad character. This was a libel, she said, as her own sterling qualities would quickly persuade me. She was, she said, of the utmost perfection in the female line, and there was not a woman within the borders of the kingdom so beautiful as herself, she’d been told it a thousand times. It was true, she went on, that she was not of a standard size, could in fact be called small, if not minuscule, but those who objected to this were louts and fools and might usefully be stewed in lead, for the entertainment of the countryside. In the matter of rank and precedence, the meanest bogle outweighed the greatest king, although the kings of this earth, she conceded, would never acknowledge this but in their dotty solipsism conducted themselves as if bogles did not even exist. And would I like to see her all unclothed so that I might glean some rude idea as to the true nature of the sublime?

  “Well, I wouldn’t have minded a bit. She was wonderfully crafted, that was evident, and held in addition the fascination surrounding any perfect miniature. But I said, ‘No, thank you. Perhaps another day, it’s a bit chill this morning.’

  “‘Just the breasts then,’ she said, ‘they’re wondrous pretty,’ and before I could protest further she’d whipped off her mannikin’s tiny shirt. I buttoned her up again meanwhile bestowing buckets of extravagant praise. ‘Yes,’ she said in agreement, ‘that’s how I am all over, wonderful.’”

  The King cannot reread this section, Hannahbella, without being reduced to tears. The world is a wilderness, he says, civilization a folly we entertain in concert with others. He himself, at his age, is beyond surprise, yet yearns for it. He longs for the conversations he formerly had with you, in the deepest hours of the night, he in his plain ermine robe, you simply dressed as always in a small scarlet cassock, most becoming, a modest supper of chicken, fruit and wine on the sideboard, only the pair of you awake in the whole palace, at four o’clock in the morning. The tax evasion case against you has been dropped. It was, he says, a hasty and ill-considered undertaking, even spiteful. He is sorry.

  The King wonders whether the following paragraphs from his autobiography accord with your own recollections: “She then began, as we walked down the road together (an owl pretending to be absent standing on a tree limb to our left, a little stream snapping and growling to our right), explaining to me that my father’s administration of the realm left much to be desired, from the bogle point of view, particularly his mad insistence on filling the forests with heavy-footed truffle hounds. Standing, she came to just a hand above my waist; her hair was brown, with bits of gold in it; her quite womanly hips were encased in rust-colored trousers. ‘Duncan,’ she said, stabbing me in the calf with her sharp nails, ‘do you know what that man has done? Nothing else but ruin, absolutely ruin, the whole of the Gatter Fen with a great roaring electric plant that makes a thing that who in the world could have a use for I don’t know. I think they’re called volts. Two square miles of first-class fen paved over. We bogles are being squeezed to our knees.’ I had a sudden urge to kiss her, she looked so angry, but did nothing, my history in this regard being, as I have said, infelicitous.

  “‘Duncan, you’re not listening!’ Hannahbella was naming the chief interesting things about bogles, which included the fact that in the main they had nothing to do with humans, or nonsemispirits; that although she might seem small to me she was tall, for a bogle, queenly, in fact; that there was a type of blood seas superior to royal blood, and that it was bogle blood; that bogles had no magical powers whatsoever, despite what was said of them; that bogles were the very best lovers in the whole world, no matter what class of thing, animal, vegetable, or insect, might be under discussion; that it was not true that bogles knocked bowls of mush from the tables of the deserving poor and caused farmers’ cows to become pregnant with big fishes, out of pure mischief; that female bogles were the most satisfactory sexual partners of any kind of thing that could ever be imagined and were especially keen for large overgrown things with ass’s ears, for example; and that there was a something in the road ahead of us to which it might, perhaps, be prudent to pay heed.

  “She was right. One hundred yards ahead of us, planted squarely athwart the road, was an army.”

  The King, Hannahbellia, regrets having said of you, in the journal Vu, that you have two brains and no heart. He had thought he was talking not-for-attribution, but as you know, all reporters are scoundrels and not to be trusted. He asks you to note that Vu has suspended publication and to recall that it was never read by anyone but serving maids and the most insignificant members of the minor clergy. He is prepared to give you a medal, if you return, any medal you like—you will remember that our medals are the most gorgeous going. On page seventy-five of your article, he requires you, most humbly, to change “monstrous over-reaching fueled by an insatiable if still childish ego” to any kinder construction of your choosing.

  The King’s autobiography, in chapters already written but which I do not enclose, goes on to recount how you and he together, by means of a clever stratagem of your devising, vanquished the army barring your path on that day long, long ago; how the two of you journeyed together for many weeks and found that your souls were, in essence, the same soul; the shrewd means you employed to place him in power, against the armed opposition of the Party of the Lily, on the death of his father; and the many subsequent campaigns which you endured together, mounted on a single horse, your armor banging against his armor. The King’s autobiograph
y, Hannahbella, will run to many volumes, but he cannot bring himself to write the end of the story without you.

  The King feels that your falling-out, over the matter of the refugees from Brise, was the result of a miscalculation on his part. He could not have known, he says, that they had bogle blood (although he admits that the fact of their small stature should have told him something). Exchanging the refugees from Brise for the twenty-three Bishops of Ho captured during the affair was, he says in hindsight, a serious error; more bishops can always be created. He makes the point that you did not tell him that the refugees from Brise had bogle blood but instead expected him to know it. Your outrage was, he thinks, a pretext. He at once forgives you and begs your forgiveness. The Chair of Military Philosophy at the university is yours, if you want it. You loved him, he says, he is convinced of it, he still cannot believe it, he exists in a condition of doubt. You are both old; you are both forty. The palace at four A.M. is silent. Come back, Hannahbella, and speak to him.

  I am, at the moment, seated. On a stump in the forest, listening. Ireland and Scotland are remote, Wales is not near. I will rise, soon, to hold the ladder for you.

  Tombs are scattered through the tall, white beanwoods. They are made of perfectly ordinary gray stone. Chandeliers, at night, scatter light over the tombs, little houses in which I sleep with the already-beautiful, and they with me. The already-beautiful saunter through the forest carrying plump red hams, already cooked. The already-beautiful do not, as a rule, run.

  Holding the ladder I watch you glue additional chandeliers to appropriate limbs. You are tiring, you have worked very hard. Iced beanwater will refresh you, and these wallets made of ham. I have set bronze statues of alert, crouching Indian boys around the periphery of the forest, for ornamentation. For ornamentation. Each alert, crouching Indian boy is accompanied by a large, bronze, wolf-like dog, finely polished.

  I have been meaning to speak to you. I have many pages of notes, instructions, quarrels. On weighty matters I will speak without notes, freely and passionately, as if inspired, at night, in a rage, slapping myself, great tremendous slaps to the brow which will fell me to the earth. The already-beautiful will stand and watch, in a circle, cradling, each, an animal in mothering arms—green monkey, meadow mouse, tucotuco.

  That one has her hips exposed, for study. I make careful notes. You snatch the notebook from my hands. The pockets of your smock swing heavily with the lights of chandeliers. Your light-by-light, bean-by-bean career.

  I am, at this moment, prepared to dance.

  The already-beautiful have, historically, danced. The music made by my exercise machine is, we agree, danceable. The women partner themselves with large bronze hares, which have been cast in the attitudes of dancers. The beans you have glued together are as nothing to the difficulty of casting hares in the attitudes of dancers, at night, in the foundry, working the bellows, the sweat, the glare. The heat. The glare.

  Thieves have been invited to dinner, along with the deans of the chief cathedrals. The thieves will rest upon the bosoms of the deans, at night, after dinner, after coffee, among the beanwoods. The thieves will confess to the deans, and the deans to the thieves. Soft benedictions will ensue.

  England is far away, and France is but a rumor. Pillows are placed in the tombs, potholders, dustcloths. I am privileged, privileged, to be able to hold your ladder. Tirelessly you glue. The forest will soon exist on some maps, tribute to the quickness of the world’s cartographers. This life is better than any I have lived, previously. Beautiful hips bloom and part. Your sudden movement toward red kidney beans has proved, in the event, masterly. Everywhere we see the already-beautiful wearing stomachers, tiaras of red kidney beans, polished to the fierceness of carnelians. No ham hash does not contain two red kidney beans, polished to the fierceness of carnelians.

  Spain is distant, Portugal wrapped in an impenetrable haze. These noble beans, glued by you, are mine. Thousand-pound sacks are off-loaded at the quai, against our future needs. The deans are willing workers, the thieves, straw bosses of extraordinary tact. Your weather reports have been splendid: the fall of figs you predicted did in fact occur. I am, at the moment, feeling very jolly. Hey hey, I say. It is remarkable how well human affairs can be managed, with care.

  Overnight to Many Distant Cities

  A GROUP of Chinese in brown jackets preceded us through the halls of Versailles. They were middle-aged men, weighty, obviously important, perhaps thirty of them. At the entrance to each room a guard stopped us, held us back until the Chinese had finished inspecting it. A fleet of black government Citroëns had brought them, they were much at ease with Versailles and with each other, it was clear that they were being rewarded for many years of good behavior.

  Asked her opinion of Versailles, my daughter said she thought it was overdecorated.

  Well, yes.

  Again in Paris, years earlier, without Anna, we had a hotel room opening on a courtyard, and late at night through an open window heard a woman expressing intense and rising pleasure. We blushed and fell upon each other.

  Right now sunny skies in mid-Manhattan, the temperature is forty-two degrees.

  In Stockholm we ate reindeer steak and I told the Prime Minister . . . That the price of booze was too high. Twenty dollars for a bottle of J & B! He (Olof Palme) agreed, most politely, and said that they financed the army that way. The conference we were attending was held at a workers’ vacation center somewhat outside the city. Shamelessly, I asked for a double bed, there were none, we pushed two single beds together. An Israeli journalist sat on the two single beds drinking our costly whiskey and explaining the devilish policies of the Likud. Then it was time to go play with the Africans. A poet who had been for a time a Minister of Culture explained why he had burned a grand piano on the lawn in front of the Ministry. “The piano,” he said, “is not the national instrument of Uganda.”

  A boat ride through the scattered islands. A Warsaw Pact novelist asked me to carry a package of paper to New York for him.

  Woman is silent for two days in San Francisco. And walked through the streets with her arms raised high touching the leaves of the trees.

  “But you’re married!”

  “But that’s not my fault!”

  Tearing into cold crab at Scoma’s we saw Chill Wills at another table, doing the same thing. We waved to him.

  In Taegu the air was full of the noise of helicopters. The helicopter landed on a pad, General A jumped out and walked with a firm, manly stride to the spot where General B waited—generals visiting each other. They shook hands, the honor guard with its blue scarves and chromed rifles popped to, the band played, pictures were taken. General A followed by General B walked smartly around the rigid honor guard and then the two generals marched off to the General’s Mess, to have a drink.

  There are eight hundred and sixty-one generals now on active service. There are four hundred and twenty-six brigadier generals, three hundred and twenty-four major generals, eighty-seven lieutenant generals, and twenty-four full generals. The funniest thing in the world is a general trying on a nickname. Sometimes they don’t stick. “Howlin’ Mad,” “Old Hickory,” “Old Blood and Guts,” and “Buck” have already been taken. “Old Lacy” is not a good choice.

  If you are a general in the field you will live in a general’s van, which is a kind of motor home for generals. I once saw a drunk two-star general, in a general’s van, seize hold of a visiting actress—it was Marilyn Monroe—and seat her on his lap, shrieking all the while “R.H.I.P.!” or, Rank Has Its Privileges.

  Enough of generals.

  Thirty per cent chance of rain this afternoon, high in the mid-fifties.

  In London I met a man who was not in love. Beautiful shoes, black as black marble, and a fine suit. We went to the theatre together, matter of a few pounds, he knew which plays were the best plays, on several occasions he brought his mother. “An American,”
he said to his mother, “an American I met.” “Met an American during the war,” she said to me, “didn’t like him.” This was reasonably standard, next she would tell me that we had no culture. Her son was hungry, starving, mad in fact, sucking the cuff buttons of his fine suit, choking on the cuff buttons of his fine suit, left and right sleeves jammed into his mouth—he was not in love, he said, “again not in love, not in love again.” I put him out of his misery with a good book, Rilke, as I remember, and resolved never to find myself in a situation as dire as his.

  In San Antonio we walked by the little river. And ended up in Helen’s Bar, where John found a pool player who was, like John, an ex-Marine. How these ex-Marines love each other! It is a flat scandal. The Congress should do something about it. The IRS should do something about it. You and I talked to each other while John talked to his Parris Island friend, and that wasn’t too bad, wasn’t too bad. We discussed twenty-four novels of normative adultery. “Can’t have no adultery without adults,” I said, and you agreed that this was true. We thought about it, our hands on each other’s knees, under the table.

  In the car on the way back from San Antonio the ladies talked about the rump of a noted poet. “Too big,” they said, “too big too big too big.” “Can you imagine going to bed with him?” they said, and then all said “No no no no no,” and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

  I offered to get out and run alongside the car, if that would allow them to converse more freely.

  In Copenhagen I went shopping with two Hungarians. I had thought they merely wanted to buy presents for their wives. They bought leather gloves, chess sets, frozen fish, baby food, lawnmowers, air conditioners, kayaks. . . . We were six hours in the department store.

  “This will teach you,” they said, “never to go shopping with Hungarians.”

  Again in Paris, the hotel was the Montalembert . . . Anna jumped on the bed and sliced her hand open on an open watercolor tin, blood everywhere, the concierge assuring us that “In the war, I saw much worse things.”