It’s drizzling as I step out of the Métro at Vavin. I’ve decided I must have a drink all by my lonesome. Does not the Capricorn love solitude? Ouais! Solitude in the midst of hubbub. Not heavenly solitude. Earthly solitude. Abandoned places.
The drizzle turns into a light rain, a gray, sweetly melancholy rain. A beggar’s rain. My thoughts drift. Suddenly I’m gazing at the huge chrysanthemums my mother loved to raise in our dismal back yard in the street of early sorrows. They are hanging there before my eyes, like an artificial bloom, just opposite the lilac bush which Mr. Fuchs, the hundski picker, gave us one summer.
Yes, the Capricorn is a beast of solitude. Slow, steady, persevering. Lives on several levels at once. Thinks in circles. Fascinated by death. Ever climbing, climbing. In search of the edelweiss, presumably. Or could it be the immortelle? Knows no mother. Only “the mothers.” Laughs little and usually on the wrong side of the face. Collects friends as easily as postage stamps, but is unsociable. Speaks truthfully instead of kindly. Metaphysics, abstractions, electromagnetic displays. Dives to the depths. Sees stars, comets, asteroids where others see only moles, warts, pimples. Feeds on himself when tired of playing the man-eating shark. A paranoiac. An ambulatory paranoiac. But constant in his affections—and his hatreds. Ouais!
From the time the war broke out until 1947 not a word from Moricand. I had given him up for dead. Then, shortly after we had installed ourselves in our new home on Partington Ridge, a thick envelope arrived bearing the return address of an Italian princess. In it was enclosed a letter from Moricand, six months old, which he had requested the princess to forward should she ever discover my address. He gave as his address a village near Vevey, Switzerland, where he said he had been living since the end of the war. I answered immediately, telling him how glad I was to know that he was still alive and inquiring what I could do for him. Like a cannon ball came his reply, giving a detailed account of his circumstances which, as I might have guessed, had not improved. He was living in a miserable pension, in a room without heat, starving as usual, and without even the little it takes to buy cigarettes. Immediately we began sending him foodstuffs and other necessities of which he was apparently deprived. And what money we could spare. I also sent him international postal coupons so that he would not be obliged to waste money on stamps.
Soon the letters began to fly back and forth. With each succeeding letter the situation grew worse. Obviously the little sums we dispatched didn’t go very far in Switzerland. His landlady was constantly threatening to turn him out, his health was getting worse, his room was insupportable, he had not enough to eat, it was impossible to find work of any kind, and—in Switzerland you don’t beg!
To send him larger sums was impossible. We simply didn’t have that kind of money. What to do? I pondered the situation over and over. There seemed to be no solution.
Meanwhile his letters poured in, always on good stationery, always airmail, always begging, supplicating, the tone growing more and more desperate. Unless I did something drastic he was done for. That he made painfully clear.
Finally I conceived what I thought to be a brilliant idea. Genial, nothing less. It was to invite him to come and live with us, share what we had, regard our home as his own for the rest of his days. It was such a simple solution I wondered why it had never occurred to me before.
I kept the idea to myself for a few days before broaching it to my wife. I knew that it would take some persuading to convince her of the necessity for such a move. Not that she was ungenerous, but that he was hardly the type to make life more interesting. It was like inviting Melancholia to come and perch on your shoulder.
“Where would you put him up?” were her first words, when finally I summoned the courage to broach the subject. We had only a living room, in which we slept, and a tiny wing adjoining it where little Val slept.
“I’ll give him my studio,” I said. This was a separate cubicle hardly bigger than the one Val slept in. Above it was the garage which had been partly converted into a workroom. My thought was to use that for myself.
Then came the big question: “How will you raise the passage money?”
“That I have to think about,” I replied. “The main thing is, are you willing to risk it?”
We argued it back and forth for several days. Her mind was full of premonitions and forebodings. She pleaded with me to abandon the idea. “I know you’ll only regret it,” she croaked.
What she could not understand was why I felt it imperative to assume such a responsibility for one who had never really been an intimate friend. “If it were Perlés,” she said, “it would be different; he means something to you. Or your Russian friend, Eugene. But Moricand? What do you owe him?”
This last touched me off. What did I owe Moricand? Nothing. And everything. Who was it put Seraphita in my hands?
I endeavored to explain the point. Halfway along I gave up. I saw how absurd it was to attempt to make such a point. A mere book! One must be insane to fall back on such an argument.
Naturally I had other reasons. But I persisted in making Seraphita my advocate. Why? I tried to get to the bottom of it. Finally I grew ashamed of myself. Why did I have to justify myself? Why make excuses? The man was starving. He was ill. He was penniless. He was at the end of his rope. Weren’t these reason enough? To be sure, he had been a pauper, a miserable pauper, all the years I had known him. The war hadn’t changed anything; it had only rendered his situation more hopeless. But why quibble about his being an intimate friend or just a friend? Even if he had been a stranger, the fact that he was throwing himself on my mercy was enough. One doesn’t let a drowning man sink.
“I’ve just got to do it!” I exclaimed. “I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I will. I’m writing him today.” And then, to throw her a bone, I added: “Perhaps he won’t like the idea.”
“Don’t worry,” she said, “he’ll grab at a straw.”
So I wrote and explained the whole situation to him. I even drew a diagram of the place, giving the dimensions of his room, the fact that it was without heat, and adding that we were far from any city. “You may find it very dull here,” I said, “with no one to talk to but us, no library to go to, no cafés, and the nearest cinema forty miles away. But at least you will not have to worry anymore about food and shelter.” I concluded by saying that once here he would be his own master, could devote his time to whatever pleased him, in fact he could loaf the rest of his days away, if that was his wish.
He wrote back immediately, telling me that he was overjoyed, calling me a saint and a savior, et cetera, et cetera.
The next few months were consumed in raising the necessary funds. I borrowed whatever I could, diverted what few francs I had to his account, borrowed in advance on my royalties, and finally made definite arrangements for him to fly from Switzerland to England, there take the Queen Mary or Elizabeth, whichever it was, to New York, and fly from New York to San Francisco, where I would pick him up.
During these few months when we were borrowing and scraping I managed to maintain him in better style. He had to be fattened up or I would have an invalid on my hands. There was just one item I had failed to settle satisfactorily, that was to liquidate his back rent. The best I could do, under the circumstances, was to send a letter which he was to show his landlady, a letter in which I promised to wipe out his debt just as soon as I possibly could. I gave her my word of honor.
Just before leaving he dispatched a last letter. It was to reassure me that, as regards the landlady, everything was jake. To allay her anxiety, he wrote, he had reluctantly given her a lay. Of course he couched it in more elegant terms. But he made it clear that, disgusting though it was, he had done his duty.
It was just a few days before Christmas when he landed at the airport in San Francisco. Since my car had broken down I asked my friend Lilik (Schatz) to meet him and put him up at his home in Berkeley until I could come and fetch him.
As soon as Moricand stepped off the pla
ne he heard his name being called. “Monsieur Moricand! Monsieur Moricand! Attention!” He stopped dead and listened with open mouth. A beautiful contralto voice was speaking to him over the air in excellent French, telling him to step to the information desk, where someone was waiting for him.
He was dumbfounded. What a country! What service! For a moment he felt like a potentate.
It was Lilik who was waiting for him at the information desk. Lilik who had coached the girl. Lilik who whisked him away, fixed him a good meal, sat up with him until dawn and plied him with the best Scotch he could buy. And to top it off he had given him a picture of Big Sur which made it sound like the paradise which it is. He was a happy man, Conrad Moricand, when he finally hit the hay.
In a way, it worked out better than if I had gone to meet him myself.
When a few days passed and I found myself still unable to get to San Francisco, I telephoned Lilik and asked him to drive Moricand down.
They arrived the next day about nine in the evening.
I had gone through so many inner convulsions prior to his arrival that when I opened the door and watched him descend the garden steps I was virtually numb. (Besides, the Capricorn seldom reveals his feelings all at once.)
As for Moricand, he was visibly moved. As we pulled away from an embrace I saw two big tears roll down his cheeks. He was “home” at last. Safe, sound, secure.
The little studio which I had turned over to him to sleep and work in was about half the size of his attic room in the Hotel Modial. It was just big enough to hold a cot, a writing table, a chiffonier. When the two oil lamps were lit it gave off a glow. A Van Gogh would have found it charming.
I could not help but notice how quickly he had arranged everything in his customary neat, orderly way. I had left him alone for a few minutes to unpack his bags and say an Ave Maria. When I returned to say goodnight I saw the writing table arranged as of yore—the block of paper resting slantwise on the triangular ruler, the large blotting pad spread out, and beside it his ink bottle and pen together with an assortment of pencils, all sharpened to a fine point. On the dresser, which had a mirror affixed to it, were laid out his comb and brush, his manicure scissors and nail file, a portable clock, his clothes brush and a pair of small framed photographs. He had already tacked up a few flags and pennants, just like a college boy. All that was missing to complete the picture was his birth chart.
I tried to explain how the Aladdin lamp worked, but it was too complicated for him to grasp all at once. He lit two candles instead. Then, apologizing for the close quarters he was to occupy, referring to it jokingly as a comfortable little tomb, I bade him goodnight. He followed me out to have a look at the stars and inhale a draught of clean, fragrant night air, assuring me that he would be perfectly comfortable in his cell.
When I went to call him the next morning I found him standing at the head of the stairs fully dressed. He was gazing out at the sea. The sun was low and bright in the sky, the atmosphere extremely clear, the temperature that of a day in late spring. He seemed entranced by the vast expanse of the Pacific, by the far off horizon so sharp and clear, by the bright blue immensity of it all. A vulture hove into sight, made a low sweep in front of the house, then swooned away. He seemed stupefied by the sight. Then suddenly he realized how warm it was. “My God,” he said, “and it is almost the first of January!”
“C’est un vrai paradis,” he mumbled as he descended the steps.
Breakfast over, he showed me how to set and wind the clock which he had brought me as a gift. It was an heirloom, his last possession, he explained. It had been in the family for generations. Every quarter of an hour the chimes struck. Very softly, melodiously. He handled it with the utmost care while explaining at great length the complicated mechanism. He had even taken the precaution to look up a watch-maker in San Francisco, a reliable one, to whom I was to entrust the clock should anything go wrong with it.
I tried to express my appreciation of the marvelous gift he had made me, but somehow, deep inside, I was against the bloody clock. There was not a single possession of ours which was precious to me. Now I was saddled with an object which demanded care and attention. “A white elephant!” I said to myself. Aloud I suggested that he watch over it, regulate it, wind it, oil it, and so on. “You’re used to it,” I said. I wondered how long it would be before little Val—she was only a little over two—would begin tinkering with it in order to hear the music.
To my surprise, my wife did not find him too somber, too morbid, too aged, too decrepit. On the contrary, she remarked that he had a great deal of charm—and savoir-faire. She was rather impressed by his neatness and elegance. “Did you notice his hands? How beautiful! The hands of a musician.” It was true, he had good strong hands with spatulate fingers and well-kept nails, which were always polished.
“Did you bring any old clothes?” I asked. He looked so citified in his dark business suit.
He had no old clothes, it turned out. Or rather he had the same good clothes which were neither new nor old. I noticed that he was eyeing me up and down with mild curiosity. I no longer owned a suit. I wore corduroy pants, a sweater with holes in it, somebody’s hand-me-down jacket, and sneakers. My slouch hat—the last I was to own—had ventilators all around the sweat band.
“One doesn’t need clothes here,” I remarked. “You can go naked, if you want.”
“Quelle vie!” he exclaimed. “C’est fantastique.”
Later that morning, as he was shaving, he asked if I didn’t have some talcum powder. “Of course,” I said, and handed him the can I used. “Do you by chance have any Yardley?” he asked. “No,” I said, “why?”
He gave me a strange, half-girlish, half-guilty smile. “I can’t use anything but Yardley. Maybe when you go to town again you can get me some, yes?”
Suddenly it seemed as if the ground opened under my feet. Here he was, safe and secure, with a haven for the rest of his life in the midst of “un vrai paradis,” and he must have Yardley’s talcum powder! Then and there I should have obeyed my instinct and said: “Beat it! Get back to your Purgatory!”
It was a trifling incident and, had it been any other man, I would have dismissed it immediately, put it down as a caprice, a foible, an idiosyncrasy, anything but an ominous presage. But of that instant I knew my wife was right, knew that I had made a grave mistake. In that moment I sensed the leech that Anaïs had tried to get rid of. I saw the spoiled child, the man who had never done an honest stroke of work in his life, the destitute individual who was too proud to beg openly but was not above milking a friend dry. I knew it all, felt it all, and already foresaw the end.
Each day I endeavored to reveal some new aspect of the region to him. There were the sulphur baths, which he found marvelous—better than a European spa because natural, primitive, unspoiled. There was the “virgin forest” hard by, which he soon explored on his own, enchanted by the redwoods, the madrones, the wild flowers and the luxuriant ferns. Enchanted even more by what he called “neglect,” for there are no forests in Europe which have the unkempt look of our American forests. He could not get over the fact that no one came to take the dead limbs and trunks which were piled crisscross above one another on either side of the trail. So much firewood going to waste! So much building material lying unused, unwanted, and the men and women of Europe crowded together in miserable little rooms without heat. “What a country!” he exclaimed. “Everywhere there is abundance. No wonder the Americans are so generous!”
My wife was not a bad cook. In fact, she was a rather good cook. There was always plenty to eat and sufficient wine to wash the food down. California wines, to be sure, but he thought them excellent, better in fact than the vin rouge ordinaire one gets in France. But there was one thing about the meals which he found difficult to adjust to—the absence of soup with each meal. He also missed the suite of courses which is customary in France. He found it hard to accommodate himself to a light lunch, which is the American custom. Midday was th
e time for the big meal. Our big meal was at dinner. Still, the cheeses weren’t bad and the salads quite good, all things considered, though he would have preferred l’huile d’arachide (peanut oil) to the rather copious use of olive oil which we indulged in. He was glad we used garlic liberally. As for the bifteks, never had he eaten the like abroad. Now and then we dug up a little cognac for him, just to make him feel more at home.
But what bothered him most was our American tobacco. The cigarettes in particular were atrocious. Was it not possible to dig up some gauloises bleues, perhaps in San Francisco or New York? I opined that it was indeed but that they would be expensive. I suggested that he try Between the Acts. (Meanwhile, without telling him, I begged my friends in the big cities to rustle up some French cigarettes.) He found the little cigars quite smokable. They reminded him of something even more to his liking—cheroots. I dug up some Italian stogies next time I went to town. Just ducky! Good! We’re getting somewhere, thought I to myself.
One problem we hadn’t yet solved was stationery. He had need, he maintained, for paper of a certain size. He showed me a sample which he had brought with him from Europe. I took it to town to see if it could be matched. Unfortunately it couldn’t. It was an odd size, a size we had no demand for apparently. He found it impossible to believe that such could be the case. America made everything, and in abundance. Strange that one couldn’t match an ordinary piece of paper. He grew quite incensed about it. Holding up the sample sheet, flicking it with his fingernail, he exclaimed: “Anywhere in Europe one can find this paper, exactly this size. And in America, which has everything, it can’t be found. C’est emmerdant!”
To be frank, it was shitty to me too, the bloody subject. What could he be writing that demanded the use of paper precisely that size? I had got him his Yardley talc, his gauloises bleues, his eau de cologne, his powdered, slightly perfumed pumice stone (for a dentifrice), and now he was plaguing me about paper.
Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch Page 31
