Nothing for You Here, Young Man

by Marie-Claire Blais

  “We hold you forever in our hearts,” we weren’t kids, we were ghosts, three bony ghosts swirling around them, barely there at all, then one day my thirteen-month-old brother stopped breathing, gone, disappeared, dead from lack of care, weightless body, little bird flown away, ten or twelve years in the pen isn’t enough for them, no way, thought Kim on this dirty febrile day, painful and unending, geez where was Brilliant anyway, probably drunk again, takes good care of himself when he’s working at the Café Español, but where on earth was he, by now the cocks and hens were fluttering into their shelters among the bougainvilleas, cooing and cackling over their newborn yellow ones, brown ones, they all came darting for their mothers across the streets and down the sidewalks, hordes looking for their mothers across from them, clucking with distress and calling out to their little ones from among the evening onslaught of cars, some stopping to let them by, others barging straight through, with mother waiting patiently on the other side and maybe a huge colourful rooster looking like he was directing traffic in the middle of the road, the entire tiny choreography of slow-moving birds along the street or sidewalk or boulevard till their mothers finally herded the bewildered chicks under their feathered wings, Kim felt moved as she followed the procession of tiny creatures, hardly more protected than she was yet still struggling against hope to survive, come what may tonight or tomorrow, she’d still be there to fight off the young thugs preying on the hens and chicks on Bahama, wounded maybe, but Brilliant would patch her up the next evening in his boss’s car, saying the one to really watch for is the Shooter, there, a little sea salt and you’ll be right as rain, now you need to sleep while I go see some friends who want me to read them my novel, I’m up to chapter two, it’s the story of my running away by train for two days and nights, that’s the best part, they even talked about it in the New Orleans paper, “Mayor’s Son Disappears,” that was before my mother converted to the Children of God, what a disaster that was, her God didn’t love runaways like me, so neither could she, so the fourth chapter is dedicated to my nanny, the one Mum told to whip me till I bled, and she did, but not because she liked it, poor Nanny couldn’t stand to hurt anyone, y’know, people love it when I tell them about my ass burning from the whip, they want me to show them the marks and scars, I tell you I’m a living book Brilliant said, stigmata and souvenirs that’s me, and it’s all bursting with truth the minute I get up and tell it, what more could you want from a poet, and that was how he kept on thought Kim, but where was he right now and when would he get here, if only it weren’t this late, but at this hour Mai wasn’t at her boarding house, out every evening with her friends instead of being at home studying the way her father wanted, she simply didn’t feel all that studious, too bad really thought Daniel, though he remembered his own escapades at that age, not quite the exemplary student he wanted his daughter to be, especially when the writer in him roared more like a rebel, out of keeping with the routine a student needs, and he played it to the hilt, now she shared the same taste for excess that could have destroyed him, yet here he was, the preaching parent like so many others who make the mistake of forgetting they were once young, he thought to himself if it weren’t so late I’d love to hear Mai’s voice on the cellphone, he could reassure her about the three eaglets they found dehydrated on the golf course, now being cared for by young people from the Wild Bird Centre, Daniel even had a photo he could send her right away of one of the birds in a girl’s arms, its muscles needed healing after a long time immobilized, who knows how long they’d been unable to fly in that state or how it came about, yes that would get him Mai’s approval, a brief moment of common accord magically linking them through space, nothing tangible could erase that distance of course, oh Papa, that’s great, but those cages aren’t big enough for them, they’re growing fast and they’ll have huge wings soon, oh it’ll be all right, you’ll see, Daniel would reassure her as always, as soon as they’re better, they’ll go free, ah that’s good Papa, that’s great, do keep me up on them and how they’re coming along, won’t you, of course Mai I’ll tell you, hugs and kisses sweetheart, then her voice went away as if Daniel had dreamed it all, one click that’s all, nothing more than a clear echo in his ear, don’t forget to phone me when you get to Ireland, Papa, it doesn’t matter if it’s late, and late it was, for he was still in the airport awaiting his flight along with all the others, he knew she’d be worried if he told her it was delayed almost five hours, that was her, impatient like her mother, this was serious, but her father always took it with such calm, even if he might be in danger and too naive to realize it, waiting without knowing what would happen was really at the heart of all major tragedies and catastrophes in Mai’s view, the sequence of hurricanes, tornados, wars, and all that, she was given to panic he thought, believing he knew his daughter so well, this huge accumulation of fears that is now the fabric of our lives afflicts our children as much as us, surely even more given their sensitivity, like animals sensing a cyclone or an earthquake from far off, and what good were all those antennae and radars when most disasters were man-made, the annihilation of children and animals is essentially ours, not nature’s, and that was a theme in his book Strange Years, of which she had read some bits that most related to her, so how about a taxi ride along the seashore, Robbie asked Petites Cendres, seeing the disappointment on his friend’s face, the same exasperation he’d seen in Fatalité during outings like this, look, Petites Cendres said, when you’re having serious stomach trouble you stay home, besides you know I hate going out lately, why don’t we get one of those ice creams you love said Robbie, three scoops, vanilla, chocolate, and caramel, how about that, see I remembered, besides you’re wrong he laughed, if you stay in bed you’ll get pins and needles in your belly and god knows what else, boy I bet the lizards love you the way you vegetate like a palm tree baked in the sun, but Robbie wasn’t pleased by the forced smile he got back, too much like Fatalité’s resigned look when he’d said Robbie, take my motorbike, I won’t be needing it anymore, I feel better sitting on the back and I can put my hand on your thigh for a change, oh yeah, I can see you now parading in your lavish dresses after the show with me hanging on behind, such a charming couple we are, and no helmets, your hair trailing in the winter wind, my bike is your bike Robbie, but we won’t be going to California or Mexico anymore, you by yourself maybe, okay lay off the predictions will you, Robbie yelled, now here with Petites Cendres, not wanting to see or hear this repeat performance by Petites Cendres, no more than an interlude between one sad epoch and another, but I don’t like ice cream the way I used to Petites Cendres was saying as he thought of Mabel and her parrot show out by the wharves, strange, he went on, Mabel didn’t come home early tonight as she always does, Petites Cendres went on to explain how Community Aid would be looking after him before long, Yinn of course had set it all up for him so he’d be more at ease, and in a few months he’d find himself in a big new apartment freshly painted white, by then Acacia Gardens would be finished, and you’ll live in comfort, even luxury, brother, with doctors and nurses and orderlies won’t you, but Petites Cendres said, oh no, I already owe a lot to whoever it is who pays for me to live at Mabel’s, where I can sleep all day, but that’s the problem Robbie replied, we’re moving you out of there so you can break the habit of sleeping your life away surrounded by all those doves and parrots, no more of this dumb self-induced coma of yours, you’re a man and you’ve got to live like one, Mabel agrees, no more knocking yourself out and wasting away for no good reason, you were meant to live your life Petites Cendres, when the time comes we’re all going to get together and move you into those nice white freshly painted apartments with marble walls and the sea at the end of the walk, Petites Cendres wanted to say exactly, you know what it means when they park us there too, but he didn’t say anything, though one could read the dark thoughts behind his eyes, he again gave the tight smile that wounded Robbie to the soul, look it’s all right, Petites Cendres said, it’s better that I stay at Mabel�
�s, it can be my job to help her look after the doves and parrots, it’s a sweet job and it can be mine, from the veranda they could hear Fleur playing, it’s as beautiful as paradise said Petites Cendres, she’s a saintly woman, irritable but saintly, protested Robbie, okay, okay, replied Petites Cendres, let’s not talk any more about the apartments by the sea, Acacia Gardens and all that, no, no more, Petites Cendres was determined as he reassured Robbie, though what he thought to himself was, enough of all this organization and building Yinn goes on about, no more about Yinn, okay, no more. Still thinking about his grandson Rudolf and how much of a future he might have, he had to imagine Rudy holding the latest mortgaged iPod, to which the child would consign his tactile ability like some kind of mirror reflecting his indifferent image back to him, then he’d consign it to his pocket until something even better and more magical was conferred in its place, such were the rungs of progress, material acquisition and nothing more, the increasing subtlety of virtual soulless objects and nothing more, to become so skillful and blasé, yet perhaps without an Earth or a universe or a world, possibly lost through his parents’ and grandparents’ fault, sitting between what little remained of a pair of glaciers, most of the ice gone with the wolves and polar bears in rivers of mud, with only those objects to keep him company, still thinking of Rudolf, Daniel seemed to glimpse his grandson in the airport waiting room, it was a couple with a very small child bearing the finer traits of both his African father and his Swedish mother, his looks and her finely outlined mouth, forgetting Laure who had stuck to him like glue, Daniel began speaking to the two strangers as if they were old friends, and he learned that the father was a writer and the mother a translator, both spoke a multitude of languages, if so maybe the world could find its way to understanding after all, what an amazing prolongation they could make, even walled up in an airport there seemed to be almost limitless space, a world that never stopped surprising him with its breadth and riches, the child that caught his eye didn’t seem at all like Rudolf anymore with his dark skin and deep black eyes, yet this was Rudolf in the arms of first his mother then his father, the white shirt and tiny jeans his mother started removing to change him, yes, this was him only yesterday, that smile and new teeth, a bit cranky already though, of course he was hungry and thirsty, still he pushed away the bottle, which had cooled, how long had they all been stuck in this terminal anyway, yes that was a smile of recognition, capricious perhaps but recognition just the same, the child was torn between sleep on his mother’s breast and the bottle however lukewarm and flavourless, his temper was starting to show as it would in later life, as it did in Rudolf already, imposing his every wish on his parents, the winning smile got his father to take him from his mother, kiss him on the cheeks and hair, as wavy as his mother’s, the pout made its way to Daniel, who suddenly felt the world open wide to infinity as if the Earth would by saved by this child from its probable and ultimate calcination, if ever, if ever this fruit of evolution projected itself into the future, perhaps born out of difference but not foreignness, as if the human race had decided to unite rather than divide, disparate bloodlines becoming one vital channel, was this vainly utopian Daniel wondered, was he dreaming again as Augustino often chided him, incapable of thinking, despite himself, that the world could become better than it was, transformed into something benevolent though unrealistic, a mirage possibly, self-delusion, it was still true nevertheless that this child’s smile, barely hinted at and glimpsed in an airport waiting room to which he was about to feel captive, swept Daniel up in a wave of hope for a future not pillaged and miserable, and why not hope rather than be morose like Augustino, there could be no life without hope after all, and Kim recalled those nighttime rambles when she went looking for Bryan, where could he be, what was he up to, and there he’d be many times in a pub or a tavern, clouded by smoke on the sidewalk, so not like him, not the same person she knew by day, with his shaved head and the long sideburns that made his cheeks older and his face longer and bonier, here he was surrounded by elderly society ladies down on their luck and wearing their white hair in headbands, Kim heard him in the throes of telling his story, ah Lucia, my dear admirable Lucia, so you’re from New Orleans too, well let me tell you all about the Second Great Devastation, but only after a few glasses of wine, they were bored with his anecdotes and preferred to hold him tight and pat him, saying you could almost be my son, of course I wouldn’t make as free with him as I do with you, don’t you think you’ve had a bit too much to drink my boy, but Bryan just laughed and said he was having too much fun, the most he’d ever had, oh yes they really had to hear the novel he was going to write, all about his black nanny whipping him with his mother’s approval, in fact Lucia reminded him of this mother, a nicer version though, a little drunk maybe, indulging her prodigal son more, and the two of them shared a laugh at the salacious turn of events, Lucia and a woman of piety converted to the Children of God, standoffish, a picture that he could never erase no matter how far away he was, Kim wondered why’s he avoiding me for these people, Lucia today, another tomorrow, they’re old and decrepit, that must be what he likes, but what about death lurking just behind them, crazy, he’s crazy, that’s all, lifting a glass of rum with people just as crazy as he is till they finally throw him out for acting up, Kim felt her loneliness like a chill, though her body was burning up and starved, that was where the heat came from, the dry fire of hunger, Fleur avoided her too but not always, still at certain hours of the night she’d feel the absence of anyone to be with, no Bryan or Fleur, at least there was her dog to protect her from mugging and rape, maybe that Lucia wasn’t so broken down anyway, perhaps she was just sick or something and it slowed her down, drained her memory, prematurely aged her, perhaps she no longer remembered that her sisters were keeping a lookout for her as she wound her way home, or even that she’d seen Bryan in the bar, not certifiable yet, possibly someone was watching over her closely as she went around feeding her cats and forgetting about her dogs at home, wondering how come she had so many, the truth was she simply couldn’t leave them stranded and homeless, her sisters might say Lucia you’ve forgotten to buy food for them all, look at the state their coats are in, and she’d yell back at them to leave her alone, they all wanted to lock her away because she was a little short on memory, now is that so serious, then the laughing face of Bryan etched itself in her crumbling memory and she told her sisters I have a son, a very nice boy who lets me touch him, oh he so loves stroking and kissing, not a good-for-nothing like my own boy, never comes to see his mother, he’s like you sisters of mine, he wishes I’d go away, my dogs and cats too, send me off to some black hole, a black hole where they can keep close watch on me, and what do you know Kim thought, with those doggy sideburns Bryan does look kind of like Misha, his strident laugh and hippity-hop manner weren’t the most comforting to a woman with no memory who remembered him well all the same, Bryan was the light of her life though, as he was for Kim, not always but definitely at times, he showed Lucia his stigmata, the scars and whatnot on his arms and back, whipped, he said, really, look Lucia my dear, and as she placed her hands on him and felt his old wounds, she said dear boy how sorry I am, you’ll get only words of love and tender caresses from me, what sort of mother could treat her son so, no don’t even say her name, it’s a curse to me now, a Child of God, that’s her religion Bryan said, well it’s a barbarous one, I must pardon her though, no you must never do that, no person in his right mind can do that, well you see my mother may be very high and mighty but she’s also beautiful like you, Lucia, yes white hair and as beautiful and dignified as you are, one day he, Bryan, would be the one to walk Lucia’s dogs and even get Misha’s vet to come and take a look at them, and he too would be the one to look after Lucia’s unwatered gardens, she forgot everything, always active and useful, though always a bit drunk too, Bryan would make Lucia’s house worth living in, her cats and dogs fed, she’d be able to say to her sisters, I have a protector now and you can’t hurt me anymore, I know you�
��re itching to have me locked up in some hospice and take away all my money, that’s what you want, nasty girls, you want what I have from the store where I made and sold all the jewellery myself, well the bank took the store and the jewellery, all of a lifetime’s work, but I have Bryan now and he’ll defend me, yes he will, I believe in him and that’s the way it will be thought Kim, but would he get here tonight, the sun’s setting over the sea, will he make it with today’s meal, I pray he will and he almost always does with that hippity-hop step of his as he gets closer, besides Fleur would likely go to his mother’s and play the piano as he used to when he was a kid, his mother always venerated that piano, refusing to sell it so he could come back home, if he came only once a month it was for that, the piano in his old room, all his scores and compositions would be there, he knew that, and possibly without even seeing her, like a blind man he’d walk straight over to the piano seeing nothing and hearing nothing but his New Symphony, sure thought Kim, he’d even neglect the meal his mother had ready for him and the clean clothes she’d hold out, saying you can’t go on forever living in those dirty old things, even in the street, son do you hear what I’m saying, then she’d add, you do know the music sounds off, don’t you, oh you used to play so well, and he longed to scream, so perhaps, knowing her as he did and wanting to avoid this, he might not even go there at all, it was late and here he was still in the street playing his flute amid the noise of the traffic. The last light of day lingered brilliant out on the lawn of the tennis court thought Adrien, the last of the rain had left tiny pearls on the grass like morning dew, he knew this from rising at dawn to write or translate in the lamplit room with blinds closed before the sun could force its way in, as it did while he set out walking slowly towards the sea and from there to the lush grass set aside as a tennis court, in the silver-shrub path lined with gilded palms, now he saw Charly’s car pull up as if to wait for him at the court while the sun set on the ocean in bursts of orange flame, yes that black car was hers, well, well, my chauffeur’s here just like she used to be for Caroline, careful now, because towards the end of her life Caroline warned me to beware of this girl, she’s cruel and diabolical, I’ll always be sorry I chose hers in Jamaica for my collection of faces in the spirit of the Caribbean, oh how wrong I was, and look what it’s got me Adrien, despite my reputation as a photographer I’m all alone, maybe even the laughingstock of the friends I ignored when they warned me, well why wouldn’t I, forever independent, that’s me, this time though I’d’ve done better to heed you all when you advised me, not make fun of you, for I had to be drugged and robbed before I’d realize what had happened to me, this might be how Caroline gave voice to regrets that her employee Charly had abused her and her hospitality when she was no longer able to drive herself, her friends cursing a young mixed-blood girl named Charlotte, now the age of his own sweet daughter Karin, for slandering Charly, after all, literary circles were just as liable to curse and calumniate as any others he thought, and they denied that Charly had abused Caroline, oh if only Adrien had some sort of proof, what he did know was that he could not live without his adored wife, Suzanne, he sorely needed something to occupy and settle his perturbed spirit, he lived in frequent dread that she would no longer be there with him after so many years together, often glorious ones, the most admired writing couple, or rather the most envied, it was said without jealousy that they had everything in their favour, Adrien going so far as to envy the wife he esteemed above himself, marrying her writing talent with altruism and philanthropy as she did, bringing up children that were not her own, scooping them up from foster homes for young offenders, an exemplary woman from every viewpoint, and one whose poetry was noteworthy for its strength and clarity of vision, though sometimes criticized for its Hindu spiritual influences, of course Adrien himself was an altruist and humanist, though one who thought little of those outside his small circle of family and friends before meeting her, and paid little attention to this, being a poet much absorbed by his own writing and his translation of other authors, many of those other books piled up on his table and eliciting a scowl from him pending his critical verdict, it might be pitiless or generous, cynical or implacable, depending on his mood that day, we’ll see, he thought, if only Suzanne had left him alone in his complacent egotism, reinforced by the intellectual habits of a reclusive writer not to be disturbed and with less and less free time, Blake, he had to concentrate on Blake, listening to Charles recite the author as he used to with Frédéric supplying musical accompaniment at their place in Greece, visited by the wise and the scholarly like some ancient temple, all this was far from his mind at the moment, yet the instant he lay down to rest, early to bed as he was, the memory of Charles and Blake came flooding back as if from the beyond, Charles’s spirit saying time to sleep my friend, though I might ask you if you were not a little severe in this morning’s review, me severe, said Adrien in the dream, you can never be hard enough on young pedants who don’t know how to write he told Charles, you and Frédéric used to commune with the dead, remember those spiritualist sessions in Greece, please tell Suzanne not to distract me would you, she keeps telling me she never had enough time to write and it’s my fault she published so little, at this point Charles’s ghost was fading away on tiptoe, as he did in life Adrien thought, he could go back to sleep and when he woke up perhaps see the outline of Charly in her black car, gleaming in the sunlight after his game of tennis, and perhaps she’d lower the roof and say get in Adrien, I’ll take you home if you like, then we can go shopping, or I can come back later if you’d rather, he was getting a little too attached to this routine, seeing her black car stop for him in the alley lined with silvery bushes and palms and the young woman in a cap waving to him from afar as though she’d been waiting for him, dreamily entertaining those barely formed proposals, he recalled poem fragments on yellowing scraps of paper that he still liked to fondle sometimes in the inside pocket of his blazer or in his white trousers as a reminder that he still liked writing love poems, this was somewhat artificial and quite new to him, and he knew it was rather odd in the twilight of his life, he set himself the challenge of never letting Charly know these vain feelings that could be so easily wounded, and gradually he supposed these poems would cross the forbidding threshold of the guilt he felt towards Suzanne, having turned his back on her and her demise, her deliberate choice and one that had forever isolated them from one another, so was it craven to believe he could live without her, she, not he, being the one with galloping leukemia who had opted for a swift end to it all at a clinic in Zurich, that supreme vanity of refusing to decline and suffer had been hers not his, hers and hers alone the choice to die in joy she said, and to go where, my poor Suzanne, to what sunlit landscape, oh she’d probably read too much of the Hindu spiritual masters he thought, not proper reading, childish words had convinced her she belonged in another world, one that did not really exist, when just like everyone she’d simply fall into a void from which there was no return, no restoration, no rehabilitation, no wiping clean of the slate, like a palm leaf, a pebble kicked accidentally, that’s all, nothing, she would be nothing, the beautiful body of her youth, her hair, everything Adrien had desired and so loved in her, she’d said to him, recite one of your poems Adrien, that way I’ll hear your voice while I . . . while I . . . and he hanging on to his existence had refused to take part in it with her, even letting go of her hand, for she’d be cold before the poem was over, listen my sweet he said, there’s none I know by heart, but you used to Suzanne replied, no, now I can’t, I’ve come this far with you and I must go, I’ll miss my flight, I must . . . must . . . the words stumbled but were hardly compassionate he knew, others would be present at her provocative act, the ones offering the mortal remedy and the counter-remedy to ensure that the first was not rejected by her stomach, the steps in this ritual march were well prepared and sure-footed, Adrien though would not be a party to it, he’d leave first, yes leave, he was overwhelmed, disgusted by that sort of thing, and his ow
n chest seemed to echo Suzanne’s last heartbeats, the rhythm of her last steps into the night, the despicable night of a God he knew nothing about, a little music please, Suzanne said, what kind he asked, irritated, the piece that Frédéric played at the recital in Los Angeles a few years ago, I brought it with me, but Adrien was angry and wouldn’t listen to Frédéric or anyone else, this wasn’t the time, he blamed his wife and said so, you haven’t thought about how hard this is going to be on Karin, have you, no, Suzanne replied, I’ve talked to the girls about this and we understand each other, in fact my dear Adrien, it was Karin’s idea in the first place, well they’re criminals too then, he shouted, wanting their own mother dead, no, Suzanne replied, luminous in her womanhood and strong-willed as ever, they understand my right to dignity and always have, they were part of it, we decided long ago when I still had full control of my life and health that this is how it would be, no long, pointless, and torturous stay in hospital for me, watching myself fall apart, I wanted to go before that happened, while I was still whole, at first Karin and Tania said no Mama, we’ll look after you if it comes to that and very good care too until . . . until . . . and I thought oh my poor girls, what am I getting them into, no, I’ve decided, this is how it will be, my dear Adrien look after our children, and once again at this final hour as she prepared to leave him and take the deadly medicine with the overzealous help of her self-effacing executioners, Adrien saw two nurses and a doctor, or was this his dream of the final step, and at that instant his irritation exploded and he said to her, my children, our children are adults, I beg you don’t talk about them Suzanne my sweet, it’s you I worry about, are you really sure this is what you want, there’s still time to say no and we can get back on the plane together . . . we can . . . suddenly it terrified him that his wife was saying goodbye, letting go of him, of them, at least let her not pile their children, adult children, on him, for he had none, no family but her, Suzanne whom he’d always loved more than all, even his children, she was his love, his desire, the root of his being, all that he could not lose, she with whom he had always worked and written while she did the same on the other side of the Chinese screen, at times like one spirit in one body, so he might cry out all of a sudden in an anguished outburst, Suzanne you are there aren’t you, then hear her laugh, so clear and calming that even now as she held the poison in her hand, helped along, yes definitely, by these effaced executioners, oh was he dreaming or insane or, she wouldn’t be taking it just yet she was waiting till no one had anything more to say, then at that instant that same laugh tinged with irony, come now she said to her husband, be reasonable, you must go, it’s almost time for your flight to Zurich and perhaps time I was alone, tomorrow you can kiss Karin and Tania for me and tell them I’m in a country of light, and tell them . . . Adrien shouted out no, no, I’ll tell them nothing except that what you’re doing is a scandal, oh yes that’s what it is you know, not a thought for us and the horror we feel at this, oh yes a scandal, and upon that Adrien left the chamber where death was to be rendered, given, absorbed, and consented to, whether legal or not, whether he wished it or not, he felt guilty and repudiated by the one he had loved so very much, he wiped away tears, ridiculous, that’s what it was, Suzanne was right, he wasn’t being reasonable, he’d just march ahead and grab a taxi, she’d been far too enthralled and led astray by her spiritual masters, how had he managed to miss the risks she was lured into by these forces, well, well, as he arrived at the airport the following morning, tired and harried in his crumpled white suit and blazer with pockets full of used tissues, who should be waiting for him but Charly and her black car, it was her idea to draw closer to him, or was this just another wild dream of his, actually there was no one waiting, no one to help with his bag, reminiscent of Jean-Mathieu coming home downcast perhaps, but at least Caroline wasn’t long in getting there complete with hat and gloves of course, counterpoint to Jean-Mathieu’s perennial red scarf, more alone in life than Adrien, who wasn’t dreaming after all as he scented the corn smell of Charly’s delicious perfume from the black car that pulled up beside him, c’mon Adrien, please, you’ve had a rough trip, I’ll take care of your bag for you, but at the same instant from the parking lot emerged his entire flock of children, sons and daughters, their hair flying, nervously badgering him with questions, dearest Mama, how did it go Papa, poor widowed Papa, let’s take you home, oh how awful for you, for us all dear Papa, and while they vied with one another in their sympathy for his formless yet inconsolable sadness, Charly’s car slid away into the city as she gradually disappeared beneath the shade of her cap through tinted windows, so this is the farce they call life thought Adrien, oh he’d’ve sold his soul to see Charly once more, how often he’d closely examined and written about each new book on the Faust character, damnable and immoral certainly, but not without a lingering attraction for a man like him, Faust having sold his soul not for the return of his youth but to satisfy his thirst for knowledge and pleasure, all pleasure being forbidden it seems, but he could identify with the character’s insatiable thirsting after knowledge, including the occult sciences and the devil-given ability to accomplish miracles, now who wouldn’t be tempted by that, by metamorphosis into a young man in search of every delight, the ability to be intimate with Charly and savour some of his more unwholesome penchants, yet here again came the voice of Caroline, please remember, my friend, how this girl ruined and devastated me, I must tell you this, one day she beat me up in my own house because I wouldn’t give her a piece of jewellery that belonged to my mother, so violently that I fell, injured my face, and even lost a tooth, I was so humiliated and hurt that I didn’t go outside for days, and when I did, how could I tell my dentist what had happened, beaten up like that, no, I stayed at home and didn’t go to see any of you, so wounded in my pride I dared not ask for help, though I knew all of you, Adrien, Suzanne, Charles, Frédéric, and Jean-Mathieu, would have come to my aid, but you know how I am don’t you Adrien, I hadn’t the courage to ask for anything, so do beware of this girl, Adrien, he remembered now the silent Caroline shut up in a house to which only Charly held the key, Caroline, so very sociable when called upon, always on the arm of Jean-Mathieu, Caroline with her hats and gloves, inaccessible now, sick perhaps, and Jean-Mathieu enquiring of his friends what on earth is happening with our dear friend, I’ve written but got no answer, I’ve phoned and left messages, the same thing, I even left a letter in her box telling her how worried I was, tell me friends, what’s going on, tell me, and after that he stopped writing or phoning and the drama she was undergoing in isolation lost the attention of her friends, perhaps that was what she wanted, to be alone as she so rapidly aged, or was she held hostage, and who was this young Caribbean woman they saw out walking her dogs anyway, Jean-Mathieu had seen Caroline alone with them late at night, occasionally going around the same block several times as though unsure of her way, and when the dogs tugged her towards her flower-decked house under the elms, she’d repeat vaguely oh yes of course, that’s where I live, this is the street, as she rang the doorbell and the fleeting shadow of a young woman took hold of her and pulled her inside, come here, come on, imagine going out with your dogs, aren’t you afraid someone will see you like that, Jean-Mathieu heard those words and felt shot through with sorrow, thinking oh dear Caroline have I really lost you then, yet here she was repeating in his ear words he had no desire to hear, don’t trust her dear Adrien, I sensed far too late that she was capable of beating me, of stealing my money and jewels, so mightn’t she also tear up letters from my friends and erase phone messages, of course, simply burn and destroy it all, mercilessly lay waste to my life perhaps, my entire life, but Adrien thought okay now, let’s not get carried away, we can’t let ourselves be utterly destroyed without agreeing in some way, and I’m sure, Caroline, that you had a hand in it, maybe even an unconscious wish to be loved or to relive your youth, sold your soul to the devil in exchange for affection perhaps, Charly’s presence in the house charmed you and possibly pos
tponed the hour of your death, as it would for me, Caroline, nothing was broken off or destroyed without your consent, don’t overdo it now, still her words haunted him, crushing and heavy, beware of Charly, that’s all, but maybe it was already too late. Bryan strolled through the streets carrying the cardboard box tied up with string so nothing would fall out, this was Kim’s dinner, in fact when he stopped at the usual bars and cafés along the way, a thin stream of the lemon sauce on the fish flowed down his wrist as he chatted excitedly with his friends, no one listened as he told them it was possible to go to hell and get out again the same day, or that he’d loaned his room to Marcus’s brothers who’d stolen his books, his furniture, and even the pictures painted by his sister in New York, all of it simply loaded into a truck, yup, to hell and back in a day he said smacking himself on the chest, without some higher power he couldn’t put a name to grabbing him by the neck and saving him each time, he wouldn’t be here anymore, okay, Maria listened, okay, she clinked her glass of St. Croix rum to his, you sure don’t lead a boring life Bryan, you’ve got too many things going wrong for that, it’s true, I’m not lying he said, this morning everything was gone, my room was empty, the only thing left is my bed and the nails in the walls, Marcus’s brother robbed me to buy coke for the week, and all I have is the waiter’s outfit I’m wearing right now, good thing it’s still clean and white, and the shoes too, I tell you, without the higher power to guide me, really friends, I wouldn’t be here with you he yelled, today in fact they caught the guy and he’s spending the night in prison, along with his brother Marcus, they’re up for the same thing, but of course no one knows where my stuff is, it’s not that I’m glad he got caught, believe me, he was a good guy, that’s why I lent him my room, but that’s some weird family, him and his brother and his sister Louisa, some weird family, this morning I sent flowers to my mother in New Orleans and do you know what, she sent them back, Happy birthday Mama, your loving son Bryan and she sent ’em right back, honest, you can go to hell and back in one day really, and this Force that always came to his rescue at the last second, this unnamed, unknown Force suddenly spread itself out before him as he set off to find Kim, and she’d never forget that night, after his shift at the Café Español he might have forgotten Kim waiting for her dinner in the cardboard box, in any event there were so many tempting detours on his way through the streets at day’s end, friends calling out from here and there, hey Bryan, where you off to, how’s it going, what’s up with the box and the string, no more dripping from the edge by now and he didn’t want to get his uniform dirty, so he walked calmly gazing out at the sea as he passed a Catholic church filled with adults and children all dressed up, either a funeral or a wedding this afternoon he thought, the bells were tolling slowly, ah there you are it’s a funeral, hmmph that bitch sent my flowers back, boy doesn’t that just hit you where it hurts thought Bryan, and she has the guts to get down on her knees and pray, that’s hard to picture, snob that she is, hey Bryan, c’mon over and join us said a voice, and Bryan thought I’ve really got to tell them you can go to hell and back in a single day, today Marcus’s brother steals me blind and he’s already in jail poor guy, it’s not fair, I never sleep at my place, I didn’t need the bed or the furniture or the bookshelves, I can live without all that stuff, okay not my sister’s paintings, I do want those, but the guy shouldn’t have gone to some stinking prison cell for it, he was thinking all this and waving his hands, his mother had said he spun like a top, yeah but the flowers, he thought, they’d come back with a card that said Dear Son, remember He said He’d come like a thief in the night, so are you ready my son, ready to see those Horsemen in the sky, are you ready my disowned one living in depravity, He will come as a thief murmured Bryan, yeah and you can go to hell and back in one single day, right, and the proof is my boss telling me off this morning, if you’re late for the breakfast service I’ll have to fire you the same way I did Vladimir, no problem with your clothes, they’re fine, but you’re late and your hands shake when you serve the first cups of coffee, you look hungover and we can’t have that here, same as Vladimir, Pete, or anyone else, so I said to him, thought Bryan, Vladimir wasn’t honest like me, he got fired from three restaurants, same thing with Pete, both of them illegals, these immigrants get everything we do, then they take our jobs, they’re just liars and thieves, so why don’t they go back where they came from, probably ’cause they’re no good there either, no-good swindlers and hoods, they get Medicare but I don’t, how’s that, they get the whole thing but not me, oh now don’t be racist the boss says, but it’s true said Bryan, worked up, then he noticed night creeping gradually over the turquoise water, boy what a day this has been, he heard the cries of gulls, hens, and cocks, they’d soon be climbing into their hiding places in the trees and the branches would weep reddish petals, it was true about Vladimir and Pete, hoods, that’s what they were, but no one believed it, he was the honest one, okay, just one short stop for a pal who hailed him and he’d be off to rejoin Kim and Fleur, there in the bar he had a stroke of inspiration and he started drawing with his finger, no chalk, no pen, no pencil, nothing but his finger on the marbled bar, it was good, everyone said so, large birds, no matter if they all laughed and called him the Madman of Bahama Street or maybe he was playing the fool for fun, they considered him to be bright, and he went right on drawing and contemplated the cardboard box on the counter beside him, soon he’d be there with Kim, well Kim and Fleur plus their dogs, and he couldn’t take too long because he so needed to get some sleep, in fact right there with his head on the bar would do, he’d already drawn on it, maybe even written a chapter of his novel at the same time, and Maria laughed some more, the others too, oh how they laughed when he said yeah it’s probably Virgil, Marcus’s brother who took everything in my room, I mean I wrote on all the walls, even on the bathroom tiles, words jumping all over the place like fish, honest, I saw them, okay all those words and pictures would be invisible to you but I could see them and they were going to eat me all up, so maybe it’s time I moved out of there, while I’m still in one piece, skin, bone, all of me might be gone soon, no my friends, it’s time, I mean it, every single word of this is true, Virgil and Marcus, both of them caught with drugs after they sold all my stuff, up against the wall and the cops handcuffed him, of course you can go to hell and not come back in a day as well, I Brilliant hereby swear that every word of what I’ve seen today is true, oh boy do I feel tired, sleepy, then before slipping into a drunken sleep he remembered Kim waiting there for him same as every evening, he spotted the box on the marble counter, mustn’t forget that he thought, no mustn’t forget Kim and Fleur, though Fleur didn’t like either of them, no one in fact, thought Bryan, he was obsessed with music and nothing else, he disliked everyone, but Kim, thought Bryan, I mustn’t forget her. On this bizarre and unusual taxi ride with Robbie, Petites Cendres reflected that this wasn’t the only weird thing he’d encountered since being dragged out from under his bedcovers, why was he up anyway he wondered, and where was Mabel with the parrots Jerry and Merlin, how could Petites Cendres forget the scene when some nasty fan of Yinn’s, no doubt a junkie with white powder still on his nostrils from a recent line, and Petites Cendres still in withdrawal, headed straight over to Yinn in the street, grabbed his sexy leg, then his foot while Yinn was relaxing with Jason between shows at the Saloon, so relaxed in fact that one leg peeked out from under his blue satin dress, he hadn’t really noticed until an incongruous admirer took off his shoe and began greedily nibbling his foot, quite detached, Yinn asked what was going on, while the other, still holding the foot in both hands, said you’re such a great dancer, yeah well I won’t be tonight if you don’t stop biting and licking my toes like that, totally uninterested thought Petites Cendres, or did he not realize exactly how libidinous, more than lascivious the young man’s actions were, and why on earth was Yinn so complacent, even nonchalant about it, was he just weary or bored by the lubriciousness this late at night, did Yinn really like fooling wit
h sordid arrivals like this wondered Petites Cendres, jealous once more, fiercely jealous that night, with Robbie beside him so calm and wrapped up in his thoughts of coronation and all the partying he was chatting about with the driver, with not a thought for Petites Cendres and his inflamed memories, maybe love was vain if it meant feeling this kind of mean jealousy, jealousy killed love, didn’t it, but the sting of jealousy Petites Cendres felt could easily come back with raging ferocity he thought and go on living practically forever, Robbie, in all the innocence of his coronation daydreams and his determination to get Petites Cendres within sight of the sea where he could smell the salt air, then of course drag him off to said coronation later in the evening, and the other girls, especially Yinn, queen sublime for a decade, would be there of course, Robbie was fully expecting Petites Cendres to make this comeback, it would take more courage though because living was more than merely getting by Robbie said, and this lofty courage was the kind shown by Fatalité, right, but it didn’t keep him alive did it thought Petites Cendres, not in the least, someone in a green plastic bag was all he had become, sure he was beautiful onstage with those long legs that went on forever and that snarky smile, then poof, all gone, the shadow cast by a light bulb, the one they left on in her apartment, see she’s still with us, her shade having somehow woven its way through the harsh white rays splayed against the dark, there’s no other way it can end thought Petites Cendres, even for the ones who manage to draw things out at Acacia Gardens, unaware in their whitewashed places that they’re still being discriminated against, all conveniently gathered under one roof, one banner, even the ones who no longer dare to go out at night or walk in their own gardens by day, yet giving way a little at a time to the disintegration within as they endure, high up on their balconies gently rocked by the sea breeze, limbo is theirs already, clammy skins, unseeing eyes, and in need of canes if ever they dare to go out on the town, young yet skin and bones nevertheless, Petites Cendres thought no, this is not for me as he took Robbie’s hand overloaded with rings, then with more assurance he said out loud, so Robbie you’re taking me out for cocktails by the sea like you used to with Fatalité, daytime too, my brother and my ally Robbie said somewhat absently, brother most of all. Martha had made a museum of Fleur’s bedroom and now she was its curator and here time stood still, he reflected, there was a dust cover on his piano, newspaper clippings, pictures and articles all about him as a child still on the wall, even a poster of him with Clara at a music camp in Europe for an improvised concert they gave on piano and violin, this poster marked the cutoff point in his life he mused, after two faces joined in their passion for music came nothing, a dreary and unhappy existence in his case, the sordidness of the streets one could never wash off, the young boy playing piano barefoot in the fringed vest his mother had made, hair straight down to his waist and combed repeatedly till it shone, how was it that the boy willing to tackle such a demanding sonata hadn’t foreseen this, what careless folly had led him to squander his gifts, so indolent and joyous in these pictures, the boy was like a canary or a dove or the nightingale he used to imitate, fingers to the keyboard, so full of imagination, how had he become this sad thing in which, however diminished, the tiny flame still flickered, but tomorrow sitting at the piano would he hear his mother say no that’s off-key, you really need to practise more often, you don’t work the way you used to, living as a beggar, really, whatever did I do to deserve such a son, what indeed, and her brow would furrow into such wrinkles, did he put them there, lines of bitterness, first you’re getting a bath, she said bustling around him, patient and charitable despite it all, she did love this disgusting boy as only a mother could, mothers do understand everything, or they should, otherwise who else can she added, mother and son both humiliated he thought to himself, and he pictured those others he met performing in taverns and bars at night, so much like him, ambling slowly back to his spot on the beach with his imposing dog Damien leading the way and weary of it all, tired of the filth and the hunger his mother chided him about, condemned to keep moving through the dust of the town, alone but for his dog, sometimes bumping into some other musician, one of his future selves playing on the terraces, very young with a baby face and playing his electric guitar and stepping all over the wires on the wooden floor with his bare feet, he took requests and wore a fringed vest just like Garçon Fleur when he was small, his long hair flattened under a misshapen hat, the song was a sad one about a friend killed by a demonic gang in the middle of the desert for having double-crossed some cocaine- or heroin-pushers, poor errant knight, or perhaps he’d been unable to pay them off in time, poor errant knight my friend, so went the song of the boy who looked like Fleur, his moving sincerity got its share of applause, and if only it had been Fleur singing about his yearning for Clara, but this wasn’t for him, no, he was a concert musician, not the clown musician his mother wanted him to be, no more idiotic harlequinades, no, the pathetic days of Garçon Fleur the buffoon child prodigy dished up to a ravenous audience were over, this was the object of Fleur’s daily murders, begging in the street and still playing his flute so well, he was his own parent and thus far above this miserable condition, and the murder of Garçon Fleur consumed him, tormented with its spectre, yes, yes, this very murder consumed him day and night. Faust was interpreted by each writer in his own way, thought Adrien resting in the park surrounded by the silvery bushes after his round of tennis, he wasn’t quite young enough for such vigorous exercise anymore, losing a match now and then hardly mattered either, but health and exercise and taxing his muscles, these made Adrien the man of health he’d always been, then why these headaches and this insomnia now that Suzanne was gone, last night she’d been easier on him and he’d slept better, though he saw her in a dream wearing a white summer dress and she said hello dearest friend in all my life, surely you can see better days coming to you, but perplexed, he’d asked her if she wasn’t putting him on, making fun of him just a bit, are you sure, he asked, that I really was the friend of a lifetime, was and still am, I sense some resentment in you, I really do, but Suzanne hugged him, laughing her bright clear laugh, oh here they were together and embracing in that very same park beneath the silvered palms open to the summer like parasols, and they’d sit there on the same stone bench where Adrien sat before heading home from tennis, talking and touching hands, I’m telling you again, Suzanne said, you have been the friend of a lifetime, for so many years we were lovers, remember how we met when we were twenty, all set to be published at the same time by the same editor, but you’d be the one with the success and all those prizes and I’d be so proud of you, no, Adrien said, no I don’t, I don’t remember anything, what I do remember about being twenty was what a vain, obnoxious young man I was, I didn’t deserve you at all, what could be worse than a conceited writer, emboldened by his arrogance, the thing I hate most in young writers, ah that’s why you hounded poor young Augustino, no, no Adrien said, you can’t really call Augustino vain, though he does bother me a great deal, and at this point the conversation took a nastier turn, with Suzanne yet again accusing her husband of such awful negligence and other flaws, but this time the dream was not tarnished by her reproaches to him, she tenderly raised her eyes to him and appeared to forgive every last bit of his nonsense, she simply asked him how the work was coming on Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus and how far along it was, you were the man of my life she concluded as she prepared to leave him, leave where he asked, he tried to grasp the edge of her white summer dress and caress with his fingertips the sparkle of life and laughter beneath it, but she was already gone, nowhere in sight. Bryan hippity-hopped his way to Kim, still holding the cardboard box by its string, leaning a little as though tottering through the last crowd of cocks not yet flown up into the bougainvilleas, with horns honking at them the cocks and hens and day-old chicks panicked, boy what a racket Bryan thought to himself, go on and go to sleep all my angels, quick up into the trees you cocky cocks, boy, sending those flowers back was some insult, especially his m
other’s note on the card, banished son, will you be ready when the cocks crow neither at evening nor at dawn, when the moon is a dark circle in the sky and the evening’s cup is filled with blood, will you be ready, son, to see the stars fall to earth from the sky, will you Bryan, and the woman’s great fear pierced Brilliant’s heart through and through, even at this distance, too many rum drinks with the affectionate Lucia, that must be it, delirium as Kim would say, transmitted from mother to son, more of her religious ramblings, each word resonating within him, yeah him and his hurricanes, she’d sowed the Fear in him alright, it beat inside him like a heart, but the Force would come to save him was his reply to her, look over there, it’s luminous in front of you, and there too, this I would wonder with the brush of Fear’s wings inside me, maybe it was only Lucia’s voice reasoning him back to calm, her hand or Kim’s on his cheek, they’d be the ones to save him when he untracked like this, but it might also be that these were really terrifying predictions written in the sky and he wasn’t going to be spared after all, true he did see them written everywhere, on the bathroom tiles and the marble countertop and on the bar, all messages from the Fear or from life or from some unfathomable and inaccessible design, everywhere too was Victor, Nanny’s real-life son, his black brother, since Nanny was a mother more real than his own, she’d been the one to teach him his very first prayers, and even then her jazzy voice rose in him against the deadly waters rising all around him, ballooning Victor’s coveralls and drowning him, drowning him and him only among all those whites who knew how to swim or paddled by, and Nanny’s voice calling out to Victor in the deluge, the sound of her prayers and supplications accompanied Victor’s swollen coveralls as they carried Victor away, now no longer trembling and thrashing and, thought Brilliant, it was Victor too who had given him the Fear, finally just too many calamities, Adrien wondered, why was I really so indifferent to Jean-Mathieu’s departure for his last Venetian summer, every day he wrote to me from his boarding house yet I hardly ever replied, okay sure I was busy working on my piece, I always am despite constant interruptions, but Jean-Mathieu, such a venerable friend, how could I forget him and the letter he meant for Caroline that she never got, Caroline the manipulated, Caroline the prisoner, no she never did see that letter of his, manipulated and held prisoner by Charly or so they said, but perhaps it wasn’t true, just a nasty piece of gossip, you can’t believe everything you hear can you, sometimes the most alluring people are victims of the worst envy and petty viciousness, and who doesn’t envy youth, today I’m visiting the Doge’s Palace Jean-Mathieu had written in that calligraphic hand, there I’ll see the works of Veronese once again, when I was on the third bridge over the canal I thought about the Titians I’d see again too, oh what happiness my dear Adrien, all I lack now is Caroline by my side, please drop me a line to say how she is, I’d really like that dear Adrien, without her I tend to forget my scarf, that’s how I caught cold this damp summer, Adrien smiled, he was so wrapped up in his art and his Venice walks that he forgot everything else, and what do you bet that all the time he’s looking at the Veroneses and Titians he’s really thinking about Caroline, they never travelled apart, and the more my old friend thought about her, the heavier it weighed on his heart, I’m sure it was like that when I failed to answer his letters in my icy indifference, so worried I was about finishing before autumn, Adrien, as you know, I’m an agnostic, and for us art is not the ultimate consolation, even this his last letter sounded like a call for help, and Adrien had not taken the time to reply, though it did strike him as odd that Jean-Mathieu mentioned a painting he’d seen in the Louvre with Caroline, Antonello of Messina’s Christ at the Column, she had hated it though for no reason Jean-Mathieu could find, the bareness of the face perhaps or the purposelessness of the painful contortions, what was it in Christianity, Jean-Mathieu wondered, that so repelled Caroline that they wound up quarrelling over it right there in the museum, something the peaceful Jean-Mathieu deplored, he so wished she’d understand that art related solely to the profane and universal soul, a choir of all voices, all impulses united, the absolute depth that precludes all division, and Jean-Mathieu, in his bed soaked with feverish sweat, shivered under his scarf that by now was also damp, thus died the aesthete in his Venetian boarding house, aesthete to the end, his Veroneses and Titians companions to hoist sail with him, as when he was a kid aboard his own boat in Halifax, where he’d learned his trade at the age of fifteen, master of the seas with fog drifting over his boat, and now in a modest Italian rooming house, while I, Adrien, was just as unresponsive as Caroline, though not manipulated and forcibly confined at home like her, never even receiving his letters she said, wandering the streets with her dogs when she was let out late at night so no one would see her, such is life thought Adrien, not enough time devoted to our friends, ah if only I’d known, if only, Jean-Mathieu, Caroline, and my dear Suzanne, if only I’d realized, of course I’d have done things differently, and alone on his stone bench Adrien watched the silvered palm leaves like umbrellas overhead, he was about to pull a notebook and pencil from the inner pocket of his blazer to record how the large leaves spread around him in the heat, especially seated at this spot in summer when their tropical growth is at its best, how these leaves seem like sharpened blades, no, that’s not right, there was nothing aggressive in this part of nature apart from the violent winds that shook his house right down to the stilts, what was it then that made him think of knife blades, oh how he missed his wife, that must be it, no he could no longer write or even prepare his mind for it, no this is not how it is with such aggressively driven images and metaphor, the thinking, the writing is cock-eyed, Charly’s black car showed up in the lane, its roof shining in the setting sun, that’s it, he was untracked enough to think it was real, that she was there lurking behind the window shades, pure evil, the powerful venom he thirsted for. Daniel could hear Laure’s sharp voice demanding the right to smoke, to smoke anywhere she liked, even in an airport, how many hours was it going to take before planes started taking off again, what was going on anyway, a bomb threat maybe, someone had something to hide, a plot against passengers held in waiting areas surrounded by screens showing nothing but sports as though nothing else was going on in the world, no, nothing to tell you, not a flight out since this morning, and what did Daniel think of that, there’s nothing normal about this, nossir, wait and see Daniel, they’ll find a way to pass a law forbidding us to smoke in our own apartments or even our cars and that’s only the start of their intolerance, we smokers are outcasts, now what do you think of that, but Daniel had fallen asleep in a rather uncomfortable chair as he watched the plover do its sand-dance on the beach while the sky pinked over the waves, the day’s nearly over he thought, she’s right, this isn’t normal, we get so used to delays and never knowing when we’re coming and going, in limbo between two places and neither is a certainty, at least he can read, write, and phone his kids, so this is his office, yes of course he’ll get there late, maybe never at all, and through the plate glass he saw a transparent sea beneath a pink sky, then briefly closing his eyes, he envisioned his grandson bathing there, yes Samuel was holding him by the hand and saying go for it, and as Samuel let go Rudolf’s the eager little hand, he was off running, dazzled, through the transparent water of this calm sea, but not too far, okay, come back now Samuel called, Rudy come back here will you, all at once the slack water became turbulent and the sea began to roar, where was the boy, his father continued to call him, Rudy, Rudy, as the water rapidly changed colour, weighted with something acrid, black and grey, and Daniel saw the boy again, this time among the brown-coated pelicans, turtles and fish off the coast of Louisiana, all of them struggling against the waves, barely breathing under the oily film completely covering them like a sheet clinging to their bodies, the boy was among them, barely breathing and yelling Papa, Papa and struggling for the beach, but where was Rudy’s body under all that, was he even alive now, all that could be seen was an eye shining through the encircling oi
l like a pelican’s or tortoise’s, the eye of children and animals judging us, and the voice, the searing voice of Laure desperate for cigarettes, pierced his dream and awoke Daniel, still haunted by what he’d seen as though his grandson’s burial in oil had been all too real, yes too real indeed, it had come to this, our worst nightmares no longer had to be imagined, they were all around us, and with no one to blame but ourselves, you dropped off said Laure, I knew you weren’t listening, we’ve got to clean off Rudolf, all of us, scrubbing till we see the white of their skin, the glint of their eyes beneath the sticky tears of black oil, let me clean them all up, all of them, Rudolf, the brown pelicans, the newborn turtles and their mothers, wash them all clean, but does that mean they can breathe, no matter what we do, will they still breathe, Samuel’s striking choreography would open in New York this fall, that is what Daniel had fallen into as he drifted away from Laure, he’d watched rehearsal clips on his computer, yes of course that was it, like Augustino when he wrote, Samuel had translated implacable reality only too closely into symbolic dance, and though Daniel admired his son, this was truly unsettling and upsetting, yes that was the thing, both sons troubled him by constantly confronting their father with what they were thinking, rebellious demonstrations and testimonials, as though haranguing him in unison, yes Papa, you’ve got to be part of this mutation and revolution Papa, its about being or not being, why hesitate, why hold back eh, what exactly are you clinging to, but Daniel had no answer for them, except Mai, he still had Mai and her innocence and Rudolf as well, they had to be spared, and perhaps even his own ingenuousness too, possibly an inexplicable sort of candour, perhaps behind the times, even backward they might say, candour being to them a weakness, then maybe he wouldn’t say anything, just listen to them in silence, and would that silence be a sign of victory for both Augustino and Samuel? Yes indeed, each writer had his own interpretation of the restless young Marlowe’s Faustus, the short-lived playwright must have seen his own defiance of death in the devil’s invitation to a feast of the immortal senses thought Adrien, pleasure being his own form of victory over death, rebel that he was, he struggled bitterly for justice and against the power of monarchs and the corruption of money, for Marlowe the devil was among us, at the core of kings and governments, leading us to ruin, the superstition and cruelty of the Middle Ages still so very close, his Faustus had to appear in the most vibrant colours, with blood flowing abundantly over the hanged and crucified, and finally Faustus, through the extravagant Marlowe, cast down and punished mercilessly for power-lust, not merely downfall but damnation, what disintegration, men abusing women, the poor Marguerites of this world abandoned with their children, yet neither overthrown nor punished, many men perverting the innocent, thought Adrien, then continuing on their way, the Mephistopheles of Goethe and Marlowe in all of us, dreaming of erupting in all his bestiality, caring little about being reduced to this sole part, thus ran Adrien’s musing there on his stone bench beneath the silvered palms, and if he had been this Faust, such dubious morals held under the sway of Mephistopheles, he would have requested an hour’s peace of mind so he could sleep one night alone without Suzanne, who was still too close while in her nirvana, yes, that’s what the devil could grant him, one night of peace without conflict or bewitching presence, one night that didn’t serve to sharpen his sense of her as before, that didn’t bring back the sound of her laughter, no, perhaps he’d also negotiate a brief hour in the car with Charly in the twinkle of her lying look as she turned to face him under that cap of hers, the dark twinkle of those trickster eyes, no, this he knew, he’d ask only to have one glance, as though Charly were a statue, then he could manage to forget Suzanne, well now maybe he should jot down these thoughts on Marlowe, if only to answer Suzanne’s metaphysical question how’s the Marlowe book coming my dear Adrien, as if he were an intellect and nothing more, a mind in search of words and phrases, or at least the mechanism of a mind, a precious thinking-machine, one that now seemed so empty, yes, one night without insomnia was all that he asked, or possibly one with some voluptuous phantasms, it was getting late and his dictionaries lay abandoned on the table as they did each evening, he’d take a long swim in the pool, bah he thought, pact with the devil or no, I’m happy to live my life, why not call old Isaac in his towers on The-Island-Nobody-Owns, still boyish-looking in his beige shorts, and tell him, tell the old architect, still developing plans for houses built high as always, so he could be close to the sea, surrounded by thousands of singing birds like some fresh-built paradise, say to him, well, immerse himself in the vigour of a man who seemed immortal, and what could be more comforting than that, Adrien thought, when one’s heart can be so troubled about so little, whether Charly or the devil. He may have been feverishly excited and that was why as he walked Bryan imagined that every woman and man was walking along with him, racing along faster than usual, but where to, and the febrility increased as they all shed their skins as though they were clothes, till they were a crowd of skeletons running wearily and discarding their flesh like leprous coats on their way to some illusory community dinner they’d been promised at home, the apartment that was no longer theirs, only a few would get into this delusion of a home, thus it was that they ran faster and faster and their bones grated against one another, men, women, children all running in the heat of the sun, and the thought of it panicked Bryan, who was walking too fast and wearing himself out, the cardboard box still in hand, no, his mother had invented those messages from heaven, she lied about everything, and it was cruelty that prompted her to send those birthday flowers back to her son, especially when she liked to think of herself as a charitable person, why hadn’t she taken pity on her son who was in the middle of this stampede of people running to their Friday community dinner and a place to spend Saturday night, he was taking a chance on losing his job at the Café Español to those sly ones Pete and Vladimir, oh no, he wasn’t going to let that happen, sure he was the same as Fleur and Kim and all those others racing for the Friday meal the merchants offered the homeless, especially the young ones, all of them running, running even as the flesh melted from their bodies till they could not even recognize one another, Daniel realized that what Augustino wrote was probably true after all, older criminals were no longer the ones being punished, they had the time to wait, officials guilty of a million crimes, videos showing the killing fields of their victims’ skulls and bones in Cambodia, sure these high officials of the Khmer Rouge were guilty of genocide but they’d never be sentenced for their crimes against humanity, no, old age was their way out and one was now Minister of Social Affairs, an idealistic member of parliament in the terror regime, impassive as the bones of the millions they’d killed unspooled before the court in unending videos, barely affording a sardonic and idiotic smile at the mountain of bones in a field, one, a woman, lowered her eyes behind her sunglasses, no, see nothing, not a thing, but as Augustino wrote, no one would be punished, not one of them, the fragility of age was their smokescreen, wilfully blind to their massacres, no feelings of shame, faces blank and showing no more than a sardonic wrinkle of a cruelty so infinite it would concede nothing, even hardening over time, petrifying into the idiotic stupidity of senility, little by little to be forgotten about, yes forget, that’s what we do, we acquit those who commit the worst crimes, so wrote Augustino in his book Letter to Young People Without a Future Daniel thought, no, of course these things cannot be denied but why must Augustino constantly rehash the past, he grew up amid happiness and celebration, so why must he turn against the very privilege that saw him born, it’s incomprehensible, it was the same for so many anarchistic minds, considered Daniel, touched by the revelation that reality is not what they thought, they became irate and complex like Augustino probably, pioneers against our well-being, yes he thought, that was probably it. Jerry, the fluffy white parrot, clung to Mabel’s shoulder as she rode her bike, and he kept squawking and asking her where they were going over and over, we’re going Mama, and she replied we’re going with M
erlin, yup to the pet cemetery to bury Merlin your brother under some roses, as she wept Jerry kissed her on the cheek, sliding his feathery head closer to hers and gently pecking at her temples just under the thickness of her hair, Mama, Mama he repeated, OK, OK, we’re going, I managed to dig out the pellet the Shooter put in him, a tiny one really, that I got hold of with my fingers, it was in his wing and I got it out through his crest, boy one day I’m gonna get that Shooter and haul him over to the sheriff, you can bet on that Jerry, I will, I’ve got him here in the bicycle basket covered up with my shawl, the most beautiful bird in Brazil, they tore him apart on me, so cuddly, me cuddly Jerry picked up, yes under the red roses in my basket, Mabel answered, finding the ride a long one through traffic, feeling defeated, she pedalled slowly, so Jerry said, faster Mama, faster, but Mabel was feeling the heaviness of sadness and all she was wearing, so someone seeing her go by would take her for any poor black woman having a bad day, but they’d be wrong, for Mabel was the owner of a boarding house, in fact she was afraid they’d send Petites Cendres away for treatment when she really would like to keep him with her, especially now Merlin was gone, oh the most magnificent bird in all Brazil, a wonder, that’s what he was, and if Petites Cendres goes too the house’ll be empty, my Bahamian grandmother’s house and my mother’s, not all my guests are as nice as Petites Cendres even if he is lazy, which okay is a sin but his benefactor pays me well, let’s go Mama, let’s go Jerry insisted on her shoulder, at least I sold all my homemade ginger drinks tonight, some artist bought them all, the house still has a mortgage on it and quite a few of my tenants steal things, which is a sin, and I have to tell them to go shoot up somewhere else but they keep coming back, plus some of them are all right, yes Mabel still has her family home but what’s the use if Petites Cendres has to move out, his anonymous benefactor says there’s a whole medical team waiting for him at Acacia Gardens, still I know him like he is my own son, he just needs some love that’s all, Bryan was hippity-hopping drunk, recalled Lena, later a psychologist but now a student along with an army of volunteers who had opened the Lighthouse Centre for homeless kids, rainbow kids, and others like Fleur and Kim, not exactly kids anymore but she called them that anyway, Lena the exalted one gathered kids from Mexico, Peru, and wherever else she went and brought them to the Lighthouse Centre, that was their cause, all of them, but at eighteen Fleur and Kim were too old for this, you’ll get hot water at our shelters, toothbrushes, even the Internet so you can contact your parents if you want to, but Kim and Fleur said they had no one and anyway they could sleep on the toothless Old Salt’s boat, where the tattooed orphans helped him fish, teens with a history of violence who Kim and Fleur tried to stay away from, though the Old Salt had a way with them, as he said, they’re better off fishing with me than rotting in prison, you see you’ve got no radar to guide you said the psychologist Lena, our shelters will be your beacons, we’ll help get you back to your families, go back to school or find a job, no sermons, not from us, we only want to get you off of the streets, no one under eighteen sleeps in the dorms with the adults, we won’t allow it, no legal record of you or food stamps, our Lighthouse Centre is for emergencies only, look, wouldn’t you rather go to college and become an engineer or a biologist, adapt and fit in, the streets are dangerous for you my friends, think of those squatters in New Orleans this winter, burned alive in an abandoned house, eight of them wandering the streets and squatting together like ravenous wolves on the prowl and trying to keep warm on a freezing cold night, all of them burned, Lena was determined to save people like these homeless squatters, no child without a roof over his head, that’s what we’re about, they listened but they didn’t get it, Kim and Fleur and Jérôme the African, they weren’t going to be engineers or accountants or whatever, they’d just go on in the same old unwholesome way, brushing their teeth in the street or on the beach alongside their dogs or with their pet rats or mice perched on their heads or else snakes or iguanas clinging to them, no child without a roof over his head, such was Lena’s mantra, that’s all we want, as though she were talking about pets left out in the night by their owners, but there was a multitude of them and the charitable girl couldn’t take them all in, she was only a student after all, Brilliant longed to buy her a drink but she didn’t partake, only water she said, and what little she had on her was for the homeless, you know you are the lighthouse laughed Bryan, though he was put out that she refused his company, c’mon, one drink at the Café Español, still it did him good to remember her, maybe there were a few beacons in the night after all, not many mind you, I wonder where she is now, what city is she in or what alley or tin shack, no you didn’t see them often but they existed, these beacons in the night, where was Lena, in Mexico or Peru, still pursuing her dream of no child without a roof over his head, Lena bent double under her backpack in the dirty alleyways of slums, wherever she pitched her tent and kids ran through the open sewers, a beacon, sure she was, Bryan thought, a beacon, and he remembered the festive nights, what parties, so many celebrations on the beach where he worked as a waiter, lighting their bamboo torches in a halo of smoke that made his eyes water, evenings after weddings or some holiday or other, a white sea of tents all around him and white tablecloths with all the settings and candles in place, then suddenly it was time for the gigantic feast as two servers in white carried in a stuffed piglet on a silver platter, Bryan could barely bring himself to look at the poor animal freshly killed that morning, its whole body with the eyes put out, he dared not think, here it was about to be carved up and eaten by all these people who were already too well-fed, stuffed too, he dared not think about it, barely turning to face it like some wounded child on a stretcher, pink-skinned from the oven, oh if only he hadn’t seen this, was it his mother the mayoress who hosted these morbid banquets, the leftovers to be eaten downstairs by Victor and Nanny, now what was this, was it Vladimir and Pete pushing him to one side in their white outfit, yet looking like gravediggers, yes, something like Vladimir and Pete coming through, let us by they said, what’s your problem boy, go back and take care of your parasols you beach clown, don’t you know how dumb you look in those white shorts and socks, the sea beyond them was as blue as ever, luminous, and the bamboo torches threw their smoke into the sweet air, men and women laughing and singing, Bryan remembered those party nights, all that celebrating down by the beach when he didn’t even know where he’d be spending tonight or tomorrow, maybe in his boss’s car, for he couldn’t go back to his room, too many phantoms of the deluge with the dead and drowned following behind as you climbed the steps, always, they were always there, and people would just laugh at him and say the young Madman of Bahama Street is staggering home, they say he was locked away but his mother felt sorry for him and sent him here instead, we’ll take his place said the gravediggers Vladimir and Pete, sure, why not. Seeing the ocean and hearing the bird cries from his taxi window, Petites Cendres’ mind wandered to Dr. Dieudonné who’d be back from his volunteer work in Haiti soon, bet he’s a worn-out wreck, he got very little sleep as it was, sometimes he went three nights with none then fell into a chair at the clinic or the hospital, come back on Thursday he’d say to his patients, that’s the day I don’t charge, it was also Petites Cendres’ day, Dieudonné ran two hospitals and hospices and he was soon to be honoured by the town, receiving a plaque from the long red–tipped hands of Eureka, directress of the Ancestral Choir, he’d be needing a tux for that after he managed to catch up with his wife and kids thought Petites Cendres, despite free Thursdays for his most dissolute and wracked patients as well as Sunday consults, Dieudonné still managed to take his girls to school each morning, Reverend Ézéchielle called him a saintly man who took the word of God seriously by living for the poor, while Petites Cendres was swarmed by dreams and images far less praiseworthy as he once again felt Yinn’s fingers playing in his hair, it’s so curly Yinn said in those dizzy hours at the Porte du Baiser Saloon, I just love your hair but you do need to untangle and comb it, why not come
see me in my studio and I’ll brush it for you, or would you rather have corn-rows, oh Yinn’s fingers on his head, so vigorously insidious that Petites Cendres couldn’t suppress a shiver as they travelled down the nape of his neck and ruffled him every which way, he recalled as well the scenes of Yinn undressing his boys, well, his men, and forever measuring, poking, and prodding, pins between his lips as his mother would hold them, and it was all necessary for his work, so it went on everywhere, even when he was relaxing at the bar and maybe pulling over a boy or a man to undress him solely to toy with him and say oh is that your thing you’re covering with your hands, boy it doesn’t take much to give you a swelled head does it, that kind of false modesty won’t get you far in life, okay you can get dressed again, this’ll be easy, you haven’t even got underwear on, but what confused them about being undressed in this kind of sexual fantasy was that Yinn might be wearing sandals and his serious-looking boy outfit, or else a low-cut evening dress and stilettos, always surprising and captivating in his manner of abruptly grabbing everyone, even the least attractive, his male laughter infusing them with self-acceptance, even self-indulgence, or so his spontaneous abandon seemed to Petites Cendres when Yinn would take you into his arms, though they were really meant for Jason and perhaps also My Captain, you could never be sure, yes maybe Captain Thomas, though Petites Cendres preferred to avoid that avenue, the mystery of Yinn and My Captain, was it love or cocaine in exchange for a kiss or a sailboat ride before My Captain disappeared into the diamond depths in his rubber wetsuit to experience the ecstasy of disappearing like a merman rather than the young man Yinn liked so very much. What if Dieudonné were Petites Cendres’ anonymous donor, the one who kept track of his addictions to sex and crack and cocaine, of late Petites Cendres had done without these delights, his sweet taboos, so maybe Dieudonné his patron had decided it was time he stopped degrading himself as a prostitute just scraping by with physical exploits, but what if he’d also made Petites Cendres apathetic and helpless, this celestial or spiritual chaperone may have gone against the grain and taken away his pride along with his living, prostitution was both, so who had made this decision for him, Petites Cendres wondered with Robbie’s ringed hand weighing heavily on his own as the taxi sped along by the edge of the sea, the annoying thing about old Isaac, thought Adrien on his stone bench, is that he’s always after me to sign those petitions of his, yesterday it was to protect the Florida panther and its cubs on his primitive island, and what’ll it be tomorrow, why doesn’t he think about something else, like women for instance, of course not, too old for that, and when he stoops to come into town he eats only with the very rich, then more petitions for everyone to sign so he can get back to his island as quickly as he can and sit there planning new tours, he says when I’m gone The-Island-Nobody-Owns will be my legacy to young scientists so they can come here and do research on the fauna, well why not a retreat for old writers like me thought Adrien, that sort of vast solitude would give incredible inspiration to a newly widowed poet with practically no friends, but then the thought of atrophy in solitude on old Isaac’s deserted island laid him low, even with all its varieties of grasses and trees and birds, some of them very rare like blue and green hummingbirds, I’ve got to muster the courage to go and see him for a day, he thought, it mustn’t be like Caroline and Jean-Mathieu, no, we must learn from our mistakes or suddenly find ourselves deserted and alone, life is so changeable after all, but what on earth was Robbie up to, veer off onto the main road he told the driver, so we can get a glimpse of the girls all ready for my crowning tonight, so they stopped right in front of the Porte du Baiser Saloon, and as Petites Cendres cringed in the back seat of the taxi Robbie said don’t be afraid, no one can see through these tinted windows, hey look, it’s Geisha and Triumphant Heart and Santa Fe, they’re already strutting the street in the party show dresses made specially, wow the electric-bright flowers on their dresses, it’s almost as though every petal was a neon light under the fabric, every one of them has a distinctive flower thought up for her by some gardening genius, Robbie cried out joyfully, oh this evening’s gonna be such a hit, you wait and see Petites Cendres, but the latter panicked, thinking I can’t see these night-people, Geisha, Triumphant Heart, Santa Fe, and Cheng the second prince of Asia in his scarlet-flowered dress, almost another Yinn, barely post-adolescent, Cheng had once been called the Next One, and the soft masterful hands of Yinn had modelled and formed him for these nocturnal feasts of the senses and other pure ceremonials such as Robbie’s coronation, whether on an improvised stage, out on the street or down by the sea, community celebration even mothers could bring their little ones to, but this kingdom of the night was not for Petites Cendres any more, no, he thought, and now Rafael Sánchez was setting up his spot next to Kim, a folding chair with a table for his tarot cards and his jewels and necklaces, he was even decked out like a multicoloured work of art himself Kim thought, the Mexican was a good-looking guy, a Christ-like figure come among them, he had his own studio in a loft so he didn’t need to sleep out on the street or the beach, the ornaments he was wearing, like the tunic he’d sewed with golden thread, made him look imposing she thought, as soon as he joined them there seemed to be more respect for her and Fleur, Rafael had customers for everything, tarot and jewels, a sort of oracle with his singsong voice calling out the Moon or Death, his impressive hands on the tarot deck, the Moon, Death, the Chariot, while Fleur derisively told Kim this Mexican will tell your future, you want to know everything, don’t you Kim, but his mockery hurt Kim, you do know there’s nothing in the cards for us, don’t you, Fleur said bitterly, you know perfectly well he’s fooling himself and he’s fooling all the others who listen to his uplifting prophecies and predictions, though Fleur felt a twinge of guilt hearing himself talk to her the same way his mother would have talked to him, almost as though compelled to imitate her despite everything, Kim was so young and woebegone he thought, she really deserved a future, however short, it had begun badly, a misfire deep inside, yes, thwarted like his own life, it shook him that he always thought of her in terms of immense failure and sadness, a setback for him too indirectly, why such injustice, whatever his misfortune hers was worse, his parents weren’t junkies like hers, and contradictory as it was, he had been loved and spoiled by his own parents and grandparents, he’d even studied music, maybe he was jealous of the Mexican newcomer who had joined them and set himself next to Kim so close his green-eyed hypnotic stare was almost in her face, I can read the cards, the enchanting Rafael told her as she listened innocently, that was the weakness of her youth thought Fleur, she was so young and open with men, and what would become of her without him, what indeed he thought, I see a boat threatened by a tornado said Rafael, and two young people, oh it’s awful, you and Fleur mustn’t get on that boat, don’t go, I see a white heron in the night landing on black waters, so pale against the dark curtain of the storm at night Rafael told her, he was in a trance and speaking softly, almost a murmur, and Kim asked the seer, Fleur, what do you see in the cards for him, yes Fleur, see this boat, the one in the night, oh it gives me the shivers, may God or the gods that reign over the oceans and seas hear me, no I can’t look at this, there are young people who . . . but remembering she was waiting in all her candid innocence for an answer about Fleur, Rafael replied immediately oh Fleur I’m not worried about him, no not worried at all, then closing his eyes upon the vision Rafael said, far, very far, he will travel the globe, what is this I hear he has written, a symphony of gigantic proportions, something grand and hybrid with a great deal of noise, yes very noisy, but in the dark of night the white heron will land on the waves and the boat will capsize in the wind, I see monsters, yes I do, no you mustn’t get on that boat the two of you, he repeated, so he’s going away and we won’t be together, us and the dogs on the street anymore, he’s thinking of going away murmured Kim, he’s thinking of leaving me behind, there is a curse on the boat Rafael repeated, no, don’t go there tomorrow or even tonight the two of you, he
wants to leave me, go away on his own thought Kim, that’s what I was most afraid of and he will, I know it, she tried to keep from crying. If the past is a manuscript one cannot go back and change, thought Adrien, then there’s no point in thinking about corrections, it’s irrevocable so why then do we keep revisiting it, and wouldn’t going to see old Isaac on his island be just that, this time he’d be alone on the twin-hulled one-sail catamaran, no Suzanne or Caroline or Mélanie with Daniel and the kids, like that magnificent day they scattered Jean-Mathieu’s ashes over the ocean, the day Adrien tried not to remember, there were so many of them together on board the catamaran that Isaac had rented for them, then waited for them in his horse-drawn cart on that island paradise, perhaps it had been let go a bit, but that too was the past and therefore not to be undone, a broad but imperfect canvas of Adrien’s life that would gradually start to fall away, would he once again hear Caroline complaining that the wind was playing havoc with her hair and canvas hat when just that morning she’d been to the hairdresser, for she was still proud of her appearance back then even if her memory lapses were beginning, or possibly they were cultivated to sweeten her sadness, not knowing or pretending not to know that Jean-Mathieu had not come back from Italy alive, and adding in her distraction that he would soon be there and oh how this wind was annoying, yes, that was when it began, the forgetting, the erasures as Adrien considered them, and now perhaps he’d like to be the one to deny the memory of what he’d seen, yes, when Charly drove Caroline to the dock and said I’ll come and pick you up tonight, he recalled Caroline’s docile smile, thanks Charly my child, submitting herself to a disastrous fate that had taken Jean-Mathieu away from her, defenceless, and offered in his stead a creature as pernicious as Charly, an exchange she greeted by saying I don’t know what I’d do without her, of course her mind was really on Jean-Mathieu, as if meaning to say what will I do without my lover and companion and friend, or had she really forgotten everything Adrien wondered as Charly’s black car sped along under the brilliant sun, the same car he’d watched for a long while seated next to Suzanne in the big catamaran while the wind got on their nerves too and made them wonder how much worse it might get once they set sail, they’d be out on the sea for a full three hours before arriving at the island, he wished he could forget the touch of Suzanne’s hand at that moment, why so pessimistic dear Adrien, she asked, why, because of Jean-Mathieu he brusquely replied, he really shouldn’t have put us through this, if only he’d worn his scarf we wouldn’t be here, it’s all due to his absent-mindedness, what possessed him to go out not dressed properly when he knew how damp and cool it was, the evenings always are in Venice, what in heaven’s name was he thinking, just then Caroline raised her sunglasses, asking what’s happened, why isn’t Jean-Mathieu with us eh, why isn’t he here, do you think the planks of this boat are solid enough to get us there, Adrien groused to Suzanne, still she tenderly took him by the hand, surely there are too many of us for this old boat and I bet it’ll be uncomfortable once we get there, so Adrien would also have to forget the grouchy bad-tempered man sitting right beside the sweetest of women, Suzanne was there by his side, he hadn’t been able to love her well, too wrapped up in his grumbling melancholy on that funereal day, no regard for the passionate woman right there with him, his own Suzanne, attractive, seductive, yet he seemed oblivious to her, and now what he wouldn’t give to feel once again the warmth of this hand in hers, yes, what he wouldn’t give, he thought alone on his stone bench, no point in going back over it, was there, the past was a well of sadness and desolation, of regrets and remorse, a page badly written, one that with all his skill and ability he still could not fix, oh the translator and grammarian felt horribly helpless, still perhaps he should take on the past with Suzanne and Jean-Mathieu and Charles and Frédéric, for it was his most prized possession, the one that gave him the most joy, and what a blessing that his friends, all of them, writers and poets and musicians had never been estranged from him despite his disposition, which when he thought about it he had to admit had often been scratchy and disagreeable, offensive even, when his life to this point had been nothing short of a miracle, Robbie noticed the contrary look on Petites Cendres’ face and his slightly green-around-the-gills pallor despite his dark skin, why are you all squished back into your seat Robbie asked him, no one can see you, you know that, besides Geisha, Triumphant Heart, Santa Fe, and Cheng are your friends, aren’t they, and they’ll all be here with us tonight, Yinn too, Yinn in a white dress in my honour he said, wanting to shake Petites Cendres out of his torpor and terror, what’s this all about, you mean we can’t have fun anymore, no singing or laughing, and as he said this to Petites Cendres he saw himself with Fatalité as they tooled around California and Mexico, his hands on Fatalité’s thighs inside his jeans or his tight-fitting leather pants, this was their escape, their getaway, both of them crazy and laughing with their hair blowing in the wind when all at once Robbie raised his arms to the blue sky and yelled hurray, hurray, he didn’t know why, but there he was with his arms in the air, those were his last trips with Fatalité, so thin now that Robbie put his arms around him on the road at night and felt a little scared, was he really going to melt away so fast, Fatalité and the body he had were racing for some sort of unhoped-for happiness, was Robbie raising his arms to the sky and yelling hurray, hurray proving something to heaven and earth, proving how alive and invincible they were, when Robbie’s fingers slid over Fatalité’s skin and pierced left nipple, who said they couldn’t laugh and sing anymore cracked the insolent Fatalité with his hands on the handlebars on the windy highway, who says, eh Robbie, and that was the moment of unbridled happiness when Robbie lifted his arms, raised his hands to the sky and yelled, free, they were free, and Robbie told Fatalité faster, faster, there’s no cops out here to get in our way, they’ll want to stop me from entering Trinity College, they’ll rough me up in the school bus, and in the back it says “No faggy boys wanted here,” beat it Mick, we don’t want you here, the rough, uncouth students had scrawled graffiti all over the back window of the school bus to insult and intimidate him, despite their violent homophobic words I won’t let them discriminate against me or harass me thought Mick, I’m the son of a well-known novelist and a historian, not like them, also the son of the Prince, yes him and only him maybe, he walked with a dancing step and had on his black leather pants, shiny black shoes, pearly white gloves, or else his brother, the Prince’s brother, the coolest look, the sexiest dance steps, not effeminate, no way, I’m all about good looks, the best, and yoga champion if I want to be, but they won’t let me into the classroom ’cause they’re jealous, that’s right all of them, because of my parents who are very smart, not the best parents maybe for Tammy and me, but the others, the big, vulgar kids have another kind of parent, ours are open-minded, liberal, maybe not the best parents, okay, they don’t know what to do with Tammy and me, the new kids, not effeminate like they say, just bursting with good looks, I’m Mick and I look like me not them, who is that now, bisexual maybe or transsexual, eh Mick, so who are you my parents ask, you can tell us, we’ll understand, and at least you’re not like your sister, starving herself up in her room or in the hospital where they have to force-feed her through a tube, yes at least you’re not like her, that’s really contemptible, disgusting to your mother and me, and one day this thick-headed student at Trinity College hit me in the head as I was getting off the school bus, so who are you Mick, tell us and we’ll stop hitting you, all you have to do is tell us, well I managed to throw them both on the ground and my head wasn’t really injured, then I knocked them down again ’cause they’re heavier than I am, so you think you can scare me guys, well you’re not going to, and if I can’t take the school bus like everyone else I’ll walk, that’s all, maybe I’ll even dance my way there if I feel like it, but they’re not getting to me, besides I can walk for hours in the sun, and you’re not going to get to me or shut me out, and I won’t even take revenge either, I learned from the Prince and h
is music, it’s me and so is this planet, me, Mick, Tammy said you can’t go out like that this morning, it’s exam time, you just can’t, a little lipstick, some mascara, hat down over my eyes, a really daring dance and the sexiest look, so tell us Mick who are you, then we’ll stop hitting you in the head when you get off the bus, go on Mick, tell us, then we can all have a good laugh, so are you gay, transsexual, you want us to strip you, that way we’ll finally know who you are under all that pricey gear, probably women’s undies, right, you know we’re gonna find out Mick, we don’t want you here, not on the bus, not in class, nowhere, that’s what they keep saying over and over those yahoo creeps, even the younger ones always grabbing stones to let fly, throwbacks to the days of bullying and self-destruction, you’ve gotta know how to defend yourself, I told Tammy that this morning, and when you’re a strong young male, well I’ll fix them with judo or karate, then they’ll stay away from me in the hallways, in a private school even the nurse and the psychologist aren’t going to put a stop to it and I’m not about to throw myself off a bridge like that young musician and promoter after those student criminals outed him, and he thought they were his friends, his good buddies, nothing but lies and tricks, like any college or university, sneaking propaganda and gossip, but not me, not Mick, neither victim nor martyr, and that’s what I told my sister this morning as she watched me leave, all afraid and saying Mick, couldn’t you at least wait till evening before you go out like that, and I said nighttime, why, I want to live and sing in broad daylight, not in the shadows, and I’ll pose for a magazine, he thought of his prince-brother in Neverland, now a zone of devastation where lone children wandered among the elephants and lions, the lone survivors of the paradise from which its monarch had been banished, when’s Papa coming back they asked, when, well someone else will have to stage a revolution first, but for now they had to be content to dream in there with the animals and whatever the Prince managed to finish on his Neverland farm before he left it, more like a ranch thought Mick, the Earth is for everyone, elephants and tigers and monkeys, you could still hear his music played live to an empty hall, the Earth is for all you children of the world, it’s all yours, he sang into empty space, so he sang it to Mick, you are not alone, “You Are Not Alone,” to an empty house under red spotlights, and when he recalled the music, Mick felt he had nothing to fear, nothing, and if they stopped him getting on the school bus, well he’d walk that’s all, a long walk in the sun but he was invincible, right, invincible, as Daniel continued waiting in the terminal for his plane to board, he saw an eleven-year-old girl sleeping propped up against her bag, legs stretched out over her father’s knees, long, thick legs covered in mosquito bites, the seat was uncomfortable so her father had arranged the bag around her head as a pillow, how gracefully affectionate and protective the care he gave his little girl, half-lying on the seat, legs unfolded on Daddy’s lap while he spoke in a monotone on his cellphone, constantly mindful of the sleeping girl, the entire scene touched Daniel in its simplicity, he’d experienced moments like this travelling with Mai when she was little, mosquito bites on the legs and all, the utter passivity of the sleeping girl who might as well be dreaming in her bed at home, when she shifted herself and lifted her legs, the father unthinkingly arranged the hem of her red dress, all at once seeming to Daniel an oversized child himself, mindful of her decency, pulling the short dress over her knees, then a caressing hand through her hair and over her neck to straighten the gold cross on this brown-skinned child madonna laid out across her father’s knees, sensuality already apparent on her sleeping lips, the picture of youth nearing its full bloom and so full of promise for her father, and though Mai was a few years older, Daniel couldn’t help thinking of her, a similar face and lips, and what an awakening underlay this corporeal blossom that was already emerging, never dormant even when she herself was, such trust between father and daughter, the days of mosquito-bitten legs, of afternoon naps in hammocks long gone, thought Daniel, the springtime and summer of our children’s vitality and our own as well, so short-lived in the face of either the revolt and disobedience to come or some other wild behaviour unexpected by a father still in the thrall of childhood charms now suddenly extinguished, seemingly forgotten by those who lived it, or perhaps better forgotten, though rich in so much their parents had given them, refusing nothing, so strange this cut-off and how does one get over it, he mused as he watched the sleeping girl, how can one believe the heartache this girl will cause her father or mother with a spree of wild adventures, especially since it couldn’t be otherwise, no one’s fate was meant to please anyone else, and here it was that the shadow of Augustino, so far off in India, passed before him, one day so close by and the next nowhere to be found, couldn’t he just write books in his room like his father, be more of a homebody and raise a family, but that was not how he saw a writer’s life, no, it would take orphanages in Calcutta and slum kids who slept in the streets or asking why the Ganges was the most worshipped river in the country, what Daniel needed to know was how was his son able to fuse commitment onto action wherever he went and still be so rootless, how could one reconcile standing up for the wretched and untouchable with writing about them in the comfort of one’s own home, a father’s home, Daniel as a writer and ecologist still gave a few lectures and conferences in order to feel less sedentary and more anchored in his overarching mission, as much simply human as he was nomadic, but Augustino was different, he could find a way to be useful no matter where, even if it wasn’t always with a very open disposition, he ordered his brother Vincent, who was studying medicine, to send him emergency packets of biscuits, a hundred of the nutritional ones rich in proteins, vitamins, and minerals, in fact why not come himself and help save lives, wasn’t studying a waste of time after all, this troubled Vincent, who couldn’t drop out now and wrote, I’m sending the rations for your orphanage but you realize I have to work and study extra hard because my bouts with asthma hold me back, though at least they’re less frequent now, but I can’t up and leave like you, timid words to which Augustino replied, you’re going to end up like so many of your colleagues, insensitive to real pain, though perhaps the real lack of sensitivity was Augustino’s towards his brother, considered Daniel, he the committed writer working in so many of the worst situations in the world, so generous with those he didn’t know yet the most execrable towards those closest to him, his own family, as Lou left her mother’s house at six o’clock she was on her way out for Friday supper with her father, and Ari considered this his weekly reward, but since she often went to eat with Ingrid, herself often too rushed for evening meals, it was more a duty than a reward in Lou’s mind, her parents always forgetting that Friday was her night to sleep over at Rosie’s, now that was a reward, to see neither of her parents for a night, for Lou they were both just a harassment to be avoided, yes of course they loved her, but for ages they hadn’t loved one another and Lou preferred to stay away from them and go to Rosie’s instead, there she’d be woken in the morning by babies crying, Rosie had lots of brothers and sisters, yet she only had to be away for a few hours to miss Ari or Ingrid fiercely, as her mother said, she was still rather immature, despite her precocious air and the increasing resemblance to Ingrid, one thing’s for certain she said, you’re going to be tall and well developed like me, oh and even more beautiful than your mum, Ingrid kept busy with lots of things, mother, Catholic school commissioner, real estate agent, but Mama no, you’re the most beautiful, Lou reacted, she usually had little good to say about her parents but once in a while she was capable of being kind to her mother, after all they were both women and as such more fragile than men, whereas men weren’t Lou decided, and going out for supper with Ari was no fun because he wouldn’t let her eat fries, just soup and salad, booooring, that day he reached for his sketch portfolio and pulled out Lou’s report card and then, denying her dessert, he said she was getting a bit too plump because your mother lets you gobble down anything you want, but I’m not bringing you up that way, okay, be
sides your grades aren’t terrific he said authoritatively, pretty good but you can do better, especially now you’re in the gifted class and I’m paying for it, so you could do better, he fixed his gaze on her as she played with her bread, her hands tanned and ringed with bracelets made of hearts, she was bothered by it and pulled up the tie she’d borrowed from Jules and loosely put on over her T-shirt the way they were doing these days, Ari noticed with irritation, wearing her brother’s ties when he was almost an adult, how could Ingrid put up with her boyish hairstyle too, he wondered, was the bohemian effect her mother’s doing, and he told her you need to be more like before, more feminine, you’re prettier without your brother’s tie though I’m sure it’s normal at your age to try things out, gee she thought is he going to give me a little more leeway, yeah maybe with an eyedropper she thought, if only he would stop with all this old-fashioned stuff, okay, okay, let’s get back to the report card, you’re tops again in math and drawing, I told you don’t cut your bread like that, and look at me when I’m speaking to you, it’s time you stopped acting the way your mother brought you up, she brings me up fine came the reply, now she doesn’t make me go to church with her and I don’t have to get up so early either, great, just what we needed grumbled Ari, you going to church with her when you need to stay away from religion and not fill your head with all that garbage, but you’re Buddhist aren’t you she said without raising her eyes to meet his, you do as you like and so should she, it’s not her fault if she’s Catholic, she got that from her mother and her grandmother, her whole family Lou said, her face beaming, all right let’s get back to your grades Ari said, you know you really could do better, you’re at the best school in town and in an advanced class too, so what’s the deal with sleeping at Rosie’s every Friday night, okay Papa I really have to go Lou said, you can just drop me off at her place, but you used to spend Friday nights with me at my place with your own books and videos, and I haven’t seen you all week Lou, was he going to beg when all she wanted was just to leave, too chubby for dessert was what he said, geez he was self-important and tiresome these days, and she’d loved him so much till his mistress Noémie kept him in New York all the time, no she no longer loved him with his white hair wavy down the back of his neck, why couldn’t he stay handsome and young, he still had manly charm but that harsh sharp way he spoke to her and above all this new conformism, no, he wasn’t the same anymore, and what a liar she thought, he’d definitely changed, and there was no way of knowing if he had other mistresses besides, he no longer talked to her about such things, no, he wasn’t truthful anymore with her or Ingrid or anyone, what a sneak, besides Lou knew how much he loved women, he even smiled at the waitress, everyone, and it was always that same winning smile, and this only served to torment and embarrass Lou, so now the long and eventful love story they’d shared was over, because he was ageing no doubt, yet he still seemed alert and sailed as well as ever, he had even finished building a new studio, he’d promised they’d go to Panama but when would that be, he’d forgotten no doubt, look Lou, Marie-Louise, he corrected himself, I’m not unhappy about this report card of yours but I would like a little more next time, promise me? she was certainly not going to answer that, I mustn’t reassure him she thought, and her father felt the coming storm of her bad temper, a climate of anger that would soon break out, spreading far and wide, and he’d say yes, you’re disagreeable that way Lou, I don’t recognize you anymore, it’s like being with your mother again, as Lou sat there with her eyes lowered to her tanned hands holding the bit of bread she sensed the fog of father–daughter uneasiness about to rise between them Ari worked at disarming her by asking suddenly, what’s going on in that turbulent little head of yours eh Lou, tell me, I’m your friend aren’t I, I can see you brought your big backpack to sleep at Rosie’s, as if her parents didn’t have enough kids to contend with, Ari could just imagine the jumble inside it because Lou’s notion of order was to jam things in one on top of the other, that’s why you couldn’t get past the door to her room, what a mess Ari thought, though Lou seemed to be saying to herself you have no idea what’s inside, do you, still caped in the fog bank of her forbidding mood, you want to go see some galleries tomorrow he said, see he’s got everything planned and programmed she thought, perhaps if he talked about his latest drawings he’d soften up his pose as creative educator, for some days Lou wanted to become a designer after her father showed her the talented work of Alexander McQueen on the computer, and Lou sketched models wearing green dresses with bouquets of flying herbs atop their heads, nice but a bit offhand Ari said, especially the headpieces, not very practical, you need to pay more attention to detail like the great designer, because he was so adept that in his hands they became veritable constructions, works of art that reached to the sky, movable works, yes, he said, still as he looked at her drawings, more imaginative than his own, Lou was forever interested in serpents, her models often wore them as crowns with bunches of grapes or roses woven through their hair and she didn’t feel the need for restraint, unlike her father in his paintings or sculptures, it was this very extravagance combined with precision in her choice of images or symbols or invention that amazed Ari, ah this generation surely wasn’t his own, but where were they headed after they took over the rules of art in order to destroy them, you’ve got a fantastic imagination he finally told her and she pleased him with a searing look from her blue eyes, maybe the fog bank between them would thin away after all, I’ll drop you off at Rosie’s by eight he said in a voice that was less intransigent all of a sudden, please realize sweetheart that I haven’t seen you for a week, that’s a long time for me and it’s a pity you’re so unfriendly when you’ve spent time with your mother, really a shame, though he might not actually say that out loud, knowing it was better to wait for later, yes Ari had no doubt Lou was Ingrid’s much more than his own but it might not last forever, yes, perhaps. I suppose, thought Daniel, children are led by secret motivations as we are, hurt maybe or some affliction could change them forever, thus it was that Augustino never spoke of his grandmother any more than his mother Mélanie did, secret reasons for this hardening in Augustino or the sadness that often woke Mélanie at night in tears while Daniel pretended to sleep, he asked no questions, letting her weep as she had to, and this would go on for months, Daniel was certain one could not console others, at least not without a certain embarrassment, on the troubled surface of dreams in which one glimpsed the dead rejuvenated by some supernatural effect bound to surprise us, as if to say can I return, it’s so good here at home, why aren’t you more welcoming, perhaps they’ve seen the closed door to the room or cabin they lived in and wonder why it’s been closed up so soon after, with all the other rooms they used to wander through, looking for us in our refusal of death, and we who have no wish to realize its constant presence in life, no matter if, like Mélanie, we are gripped by our own nighttime fits of stabbing grief, crushing bouts of sadness, this is how it was for Augustino, whether briefly visiting his parents or working on a book in India or living in the streets of Calcutta with slum kids, he alone knew what he was living through with the memory of the joy he’d lost with the one he adored so very much, suddenly no longer a man but the child he used to be, with parakeets on his shoulder in his grandmother’s doorway bringing her breakfast when she wasn’t feeling well, or still younger when she swung him on the veranda, they talked about the trees and plants of Texas and she said you’re going to remember all of these later on, every tree, every plant, some of ours in the garden were blown down in the storm last winter, always an incalculable loss when one of them dies, Augustino heard his grandmother’s voice in the cooing of his parakeets, another life, another time, all gone, snatched away, even from a distance he knew it, he knew his mother’s searing pain would never let up, all-consuming and her spirit forever in revolt, these, Daniel thought, were probably the keys to Augustino’s harshness as he reached manhood, a writing voice imbued with anger and bile, as Robbie ran into Yinn again in the dressing r
oom at the Cabaret, he discovered with stupefaction it had been only a few days ago that Herman’s condition had worsened, a second black flower had blossomed on his right leg, and in the filmy green dress, a product of Yinn’s oriental inspiration, his orange wig, bracelets, and necklaces for the evening show, he had suddenly flopped into a chair in a gesture of desperation, I’m so worn out tonight he told Yinn, and when I think that Marcus is in prison because of me and now his brother and friends can’t think of anything but avenging him, and behold my remission is over, I’m not going to shake this Herman said coolly, you’ve got to want to shake it said Yinn, but he knew his consolation and advice were pointless when the black flower on Herman’s leg rapidly grew out of all proportion, embedded in the contaminated flesh, yeah he said to Yinn with fury and desperation in his voice, no more operations now, let nature take its course to putrefaction, no more wheelchairs like Fatalité, you gotta be able to die on your feet, right Yinn, and this time Marcus won’t be there to get me morphine from his infirmary, bit by bit it’ll get so none of you will even know me, I’ll become this deformed monster, bit by bit, and Yinn dared not look his friend in the face, you’ve got to will it, to want to live he said again, oh I’ve got a few months’ grace Herman said, sure, a few months for lumps to form all over me, things growing out of me and who knows what else, but it won’t stop me working, nossir, he went on, gotta get some hash for tonight, stoned is good, you don’t feel anything, who says you gotta die sober, right Yinn, d’you think you could find me some my friend, maybe Captain Thomas has some on that boat of his, you’re coming out for a drink with me after the evening’s over said Yinn taking Herman by the shoulder, no more hash, you’ve already had too much, more than enough to get high Herman, too much of everything, crack, ecstasy, hash, enough, and tomorrow we’re going to see your surgeon, you’ve got to want to live Herman, Yinn repeated, oh yeah what for came the question, why eh, not one of you is gonna tell me what to do, not even you Yinn, about to lose yet another of his friends, Yinn told Robbie, why is it, why is it eh, why so much injustice, he was looking at Herman now but all he could do was keep repeating why oh why, why, is it because we’re different, we live free and without shame, just sensuous and alive, why, it’s so unfair, we’re the artists society needs, the ones they try to adapt to, or maybe they just want it too much, what’s happening anyway Yinn went on, suddenly humbled and bewildered, quickly though, the need to save Herman surged to the fore again and swept him up, be at my studio tomorrow morning by eight he told Robbie, we’re gonna drag him to hospital, don’t forget, eight a.m. Robbie, between the two of us we can do it whether he likes it or not, he’s damn well going to start treatment again, like it or not. Nora asked Christiensen over and over again do you really like the painting sweetheart, really, really I do was his answer, I don’t just like it, I love it he reassured her, but however positive and encouraging her husband’s reply, Nora had trouble believing it, of all your self-portraits this one’s the most transcendent, said Christiensen with some hesitation, he wasn’t sure the word transcendent was quite what she’d been looking for, it’s got sublime qualities he added, but aren’t the whites of the eyes too bright wondered Nora, who was also concerned that dinner wasn’t ready, they were always having people over for meals the day before one of his trips, but this one was different thought Nora, when this mission was over she would join him in Africa and this meeting would be a second honeymoon after all these years, finally together and alone, just the two of them and no kids, I’ll go back to the country where I was born thought Nora, our wedding anniversary, uh-oh dinner’s burning she shouted, and your pup Tangie won’t stop getting underfoot when I’m cooking, she could do without his habit of gathering in every stray animal, especially when there was so little time for the two of them together, it really did get on her nerves, he’s hungry but I’ll take care of it Christiensen replied as he got ready to feed him out in the garden, but instead of eating, Tangie jumped into his master’s arms and covered his face with kisses, my sweetie Christiensen said, I’m so glad you’ve got a healthy appetite, you’re a brave little dog, beaten and abandoned, well not with us you won’t be, we’re gonna love you too much, yes, and who’ll do it when you’re away, me as usual, it sounded as though Nora was teasing him from the kitchen, thinking he couldn’t hear her, he was supposed to be getting out the champagne and glasses as he always did on his nights before leaving, almost as though these time-honoured separations were actually celebrations, she reflected, but you never know, maybe they really were enjoyable to him, off there away from his family and fulfilling his own destiny with men and women at his command, an economist yes, but his missions were essentially humanitarian she reminded herself, still it was an odd sort of evening just the same, why did she have such curious intimations of fear, fear or emptiness, maybe it was the heat or the fact that she’d hardly slept, plagued as she’d been by awful nightmares, she tried to find her way back to it, a plunge into the void from unknown heights, falling and falling as a voice intoned such is Nora’s end, wife of Christiensen, she’s tumbling through the void, and then she awoke covered in perspiration, then calmed herself saying it was only a dream, she’d have liked to confide her terror to him but lately he’d been working late, then sleeping in Greta’s empty room, sometimes when he was up late reading she ran and clung to him, with the day’s international papers and books squashed between them, he’d caress her absently and say sleep now Nora, sleep my dear, then go on reading till dawn, I’m worried we might be turning into an old couple she thought with agitation, he goes right on reading even when I have these terrors, okay, all right, it’s almost time to get up, I’ll feel better after a dip in the pool, yes that will help, and it did, even if the worst dreams involved falling from sky to sea or emptiness as though cut loose from a parachute, it all seemed the same whether high or low, for the words coming from behind her were the same, Nora is no more, Nora, wife of Christiensen, Nora, like when her father, a surgeon in the African bush, said concentrate, you’re too much of a dreamer, you’ll never become the doctor I need to help me later on, no never, too much of a dreamer, Nora made for a tumble into the void, and her father’s denial hurt her even more, look you have no rigour Nora, you’re scatterbrained, you have no focus, yet that very diffuseness was what transported her still in her painting, Christiensen had spoken of transcendence in her self-portrait but he was generous by nature, perhaps not to be fully believed, and now she could hear the clinking of champagne glasses as he placed them on the garden table, oh this is going to be a delicious dinner she said, sober though, very sober, a Chinese salad, a dorado with lemon sauce, sherbets the way you like them Christiensen, she also realized she was jabbering too much, nervous, tense about her husband’s departure tomorrow at dawn, she was always thrown off when he left and she talked too much, not knowing in the instant quite where to flee and trying to fob off on Christiensen the pup Tangie that followed her everywhere, in Africa they weren’t able to keep pets because the hyenas would attack them at night, even pushing through the mosquito screens where my brother slept with his tame monkey, no it wasn’t possible for us, but you’re no longer in Africa, Christiensen told her as though calling back over his shoulder from a great distance, already on his way, no longer in her world but delighted at the prospect of soon being surrounded by his friends, painters, writers, he so loved seeing them before he departed, it was real pleasure, a joyful celebration when he was about to leave thought Nora, somewhat bitter, he seems to love them more than me, he’s always beaming when they’re around but with me he always seems melancholic, of course he’s always busy night and day, the poor getting poorer, oh but this time it’ll be different, we’ll be alone together in the very city where I was born, this’ll be a charming evening with our friends, fragrant breeze, time to forget those awful nightmares, such relief when Christiensen called my painting transcendent, sublime, so what if she herself wasn’t that sure and if her husband liked it a bit too much, she had pleased
him and that’s what mattered most of all, though she did have her doubts, too much white in the eyes or did it make for a more captivating look, well she’d pick this up again tomorrow when she’d seen Christiensen off at the airport. When the student yahoos pushed him around and kept him off the school bus, Mick’s mind projected a photo of the Prince ahead as far as the horizon and heard the voice again, courage, Mick, courage, they won’t get away with it, Mick, I got persecuted too for no reason, in fact that’s why they do it, because you’re innocent, I remember one show, really dramatic, some sort of farewell performance at the Super Bowl in Pasadena, California, the Prince in his flowered white silk outfit over a white vest and black pants, Mick would have to learn to dress with that kind of celestial lightness, half of the Prince’s left hand was bandaged and his fingers red from burns, here I am defenceless the picture seemed to say, just listen, I’m singing about hope for future generations, and soon they’ll hear me all the way to China, and you too Mick, you too, arms wide open and face as greedily sensuous as it was tightly sealed, mouth trembling, eyes closed, Mick’s image of redemption in happiness, the pioneer prince crucified against a screen on fire, moving frontiers around the globe, freedom, and in the face of this illuminating image nailed to the horizon, Mick no longer feared the toughs who pushed him around, besides he’d soon be able to deal with them, outfox them with his new-found skills in karate and judo, even tied to a fence he’d know how to get free, free of this perversity and humiliation, yes, this he’d learned, how to get free, but at a price he’d never forget, that of past mutilation and sacrifice, four younger students had committed suicide that year alone, liquidated along with taboos against the guerrilla tactics of school bullying in schools, colleges, and universities, the cruel new disorder dishing out new weapons ignored by teachers and profs, a few seconds on Facebook, video screen, or cellphone used to destroy the reputation of Tyler, a promising violinist who jumped off a bridge, or William, who hanged himself in the family garage, or Asher, only thirteen, who shot himself in the head with his grandfather’s rifle, or Seth the passionate Bible reader who hanged himself within sight of his helpless mother but lingered on for a week afterwards, all of them, teachers, profs, and tutors, had said nothing, how was it they hadn’t been able to save just one of those wondered Mick, striding in the sunlight, the coolest looks, the most provocative moves, his life would forever be influenced by those who had been snuffed out at their dawning, it was going to be a long walk in the sun, no way they’d let him ride the school bus with “You don’t belong” here, written across the back window, good thing he had his water bottle on this long, hot walk, slowing down when he had to, like the Prince’s waltz, for the music never left his head and sounded over and over in his ear, No, you are not alone, no, no, never alone, Mick also heard the violin music played by the promising Tyler, one of a circle of pure, innocent faces with William, Asher, and Seth, the gentlest despite what was done to him, still childlike, a melody played seconds before Tyler first kissed a boy on the lips, then a companion’s betrayal and the impulse that drove Tyler to the bridge and the void that awaited him, one message for all, goodbye, I’m going to jump off the bridge, sorry for the way things are, right, sorry thought Mick, for having to die, boy what irony, a kiss, a very first kiss on a boy’s lips, and what heart-rending melody on his violin, at the end of that day he was betrayed, Tyler the musician commits self-murder, why bother with vigils in churches and temples, why cry, students in one another’s arms, a storm wind blowing at candles in temples and churches, a howl of rage to be heard from beneath the bridge where he died, Mick recalled as he walked faster and faster towards Trinity College, the most daring moves, the coolest looks, no this was not going to be his tragedy, as Paul the trumpet-player asked Fleur and Kim, can I hang out here and improvise a few minutes, I won’t be long, there’s a bunch of other musicians waiting for me tonight, say Fleur would you rather hear Mozart or Vivaldi, done my way of course, always and everywhere, but Fleur’s annoyed response was yeah we hear that cheap stuff everywhere, no respect for the composers, TV ads everywhere all the time, even movie theatres and store aisles, it’s a real shame, all Paul wanted was to play his trumpet and blend into what Fleur was playing as if wanting to bring back his smile, you know what, you’re downright sinister under that hoodie of yours he replied, you ought to play in a real group like me, not out here in the street, your symphony must be ready for the contest by now, c’mon get the cobwebs out my friend, but it seemed to Kim that Fleur was determined to take this with worse and worse grace, Paul was after all a true and gifted musician and this underscored Fleur’s failure, c’mon why not join us Paul said, jazz or pop, we take it all seriously, and Fleur, who’d played a long piece on the flute, looked as though he were holding his breath noticed Kim, his lips a brilliant red, glowed from beneath his hood, music’s a joy we all need to share Paul went on, right Kim, am I right, but her only response was a silent pout, still Paul went on with his praises for the new Golden Age of music soon to be played anywhere and everywhere, no more boring concert halls, orchestras were giving outdoor performances nowadays in all kinds of public spaces like parks and even under the arches of New York and places still more tucked away, no more being confined to rich antiseptic concert halls, uh-uh said Paul, our symphony orchestras are getting a new life and the musicians’ strike will be over, Kim felt a sort of luminous self-satisfaction emanating from Paul, like Rafael the Mexican with his tarot cards, Paul was quite a charmer, a joyous hustler who had a house and a black mistress who was also a musician, sweet kids too that he dragged around with him almost anywhere, music is epic and luxuriant he said, and off he’d go to find his musician friends, whistling with his trumpet under his arm, such a triumphal air, his ease at being both a man and a musician darkened Fleur’s mood it seemed to Kim, flute in hand he appeared to be holding his breath. Tomorrow wrote Daniel to his daughter from the terminal, which increasingly had been transformed into his office, tomorrow he typed, seated at a table in the bar under Laure’s sour look, six hours without a cigarette was all she could think about, breathing its faint aroma would have brought her some comfort but there was no way around the rules, she wasn’t even getting that, no cigarette, no trace of smoke, nothing, and while Daniel seemed so happy writing, Laure felt reduced to nothing, not even there she thought, there were esthetic considerations too, for she was a lot nicer when she had a smoke, more attractive to the men in the bar, really someone, still no flight announcements, when on earth were they going to get out of there she wondered, when, tomorrow I’ll be in James Joyce country Daniel wrote as he reread tomorrow’s presentation, oh my sweet I feel as though I should change it all from the start, after all I’m headed for the land of poetic reinvention and everything really comes to us from within, including linguistic audacity, language picked up from others and recycled as poetry or song, the writer identified with his people’s suffering and all peoples’ as well, that’s really what I’m going to be driving at wrote Daniel to Mai, the critics called him subversive but he was right-thinking and conscientious man, what was happening all of a sudden, the text became garbled in Daniel’s mind, a rush of words far too sonorous, the sort of thing Adrien would write, and he didn’t like it, dear Mai he began again, I realize you’ve written me several times and I haven’t answered any of your questions these past few days, so you’ve decided on the Art and Photography program and you and your African friends have a project to produce a documentary on slavery, what a horribly freighted word, why, you asked me, why an entire social system built on the humiliation and servitude of a people, the slave trade, and why in this day and age it still goes on, even children, sexual slavery too, I can’t erase it from our history or world history like that, imagine, we who feel so free, the race of owners, how can we call ourselves free when we’ve done irreparable damage, so many men, women, and children subjugated and abused, why, he wrote back, well there was nothing I could say, nothing helpful, these are things I’ve dealt with s
o often in my books, particularly contemporary racism which is still alive and kicking, but like you I’m incapable, perhaps I don’t want you to take this weight on your shoulders, the remembered guilt of masters from one end of the earth to the other, condemning the subjugation and annihilation of those they called inferior, the old photos you sent me that will be in your documentary, hundreds of slaves marching under the broiling sun carrying bales of cotton on their heads, men, women, and children in the cotton fields of South Carolina, well I look at those pictures and I tremble with disgust, the one of the old man from the Congo for instance, broken by labour on the plantations, dear Mai if only you didn’t have to know all this, yet here we are you and I, your mother too, infallibly linked by a single conscience but with no idea if it will do any good, suddenly reaching a space so disturbing that Mai’s questions reduced him to silence, and Mai, leaving her own email unfinished, had to go back to life as a student, courses, going out with friends, a whole social life that was hers alone, one Daniel hoped would help her forget Manuel and his father and the shadow world they represented, a subterranean world subject to the rigours of the law and one where, though Daniel couldn’t be wholly certain, Mai had her first encounter with drugs and probably her first emotional and sexual experiences with Manuel, maybe even his father too, a world Daniel preferred to steer clear of, yes, the cowardice of so many fathers, he thought, willful blindness and silence, abdication before the actions of their offspring, even when those seemed inexplicably dangerous, perniciously amoral, yet still an act of cowardice in willing to forget that our children can undergo their own kind of hell as we all have done, as though such oblivion could simply erase the experience of errors past with one swipe, as though ignorance somehow redeemed our irresponsibility and what comes of it, still with the cardboard box containing Kim’s dinner in his grasp, this evening, this beach, as the sun slowly dipped into the sea and an autumn breeze, still torrid, lifted the hair on his head, Brilliant hippity-hopped his way to Kim and Fleur, too bad about Lucia, his loving old Lucia, oppressed by her own sisters who threatened her with the loss of everything, house, animals, garden with its orange and lemon trees, they’d just have a word with the judge they said, after all she was constantly drunk and her memory was a wasteland, all she recalled was far in the past, not the present, not even feeding her animals, too bad, but Brilliant told her nothing will happen to you while I’m here Lucia, no, nothing at all, yes but if my sisters tell the judge I’ll be stripped of everything she replied, everything gone and I’ll be locked away, think of that my dear Brilliant, me in an institution for the aged or crazy, nonononono, that’s not going to happen he said kissing her on the cheeks, no, never, not while I’m around, I’ll watch out for you Lucia, a trickle of sauce dripped from the box onto his shorts, too bad, they were new he thought, I’ll have to clean them so I’m presentable for tomorrow’s breakfast shift, otherwise the boss will call on Pete or Vladimir instead, sneaky lowlifes, cheaters, far off Brilliant could see the steamers lighting up one by one like windows in a hotel, at night that’s what they were, floating hotels with passengers all set to leave in the morning, all of them come so far and headed farther, the Bermudas perhaps, or parts unknown, green signal lights around the smaller boats out on the water, in an hour it would be dark, too bad Brilliant already felt drunk, it was all that time spent listening to Lucia and Maria and writing the whole time, mime-sketching in the smoky air, no need for a pencil or pen for this, when he’d run out of things to say, not the briefest idea, Brilliant thought that this was really what life is about, everything up in smoke, a solitary musician pulling his guitar out of its case breathed in as though expecting a storm tonight instead of such calm, Brilliant hailed him as he went by, just some wind, that’s all said the musician, a sleeping hen rustled in her little square of green grass with her chicks beneath her spreading wings, a vagabond opens a rubber bag and tosses the hen some bits of bread like some kind of ritual, the chicks come straight to him chirping, Brilliant waves his approval and spies a straw beach mat inside the bag, looks like the only thing he owns, same as Fleur and Kim sleeping on theirs day and night hidden away someplace, the man seemed a bit cranky and growled his response, mistrustful of anyone outside this little family of his, and he went on scattering bread for the mother hen and her little ones, just one family he muttered, probably even more drunk than Brilliant, who’d rather not wind up looking like this guy, no, he was tidy and proud, he’d never let himself go like that, hey Misha, soon he’d see Misha cured of all his trauma, it had to be soon the vet said, then there’d be no separating them ever again, they were so patient with Misha there, he’d keep him in his room, though it was pretty bare since Marcus’s brother had robbed him, white walls, one table, that was all Virgil hadn’t taken for drug money, yes, it was going to be a strict kind of solitude from here on but Brilliant would at long last finish his endless novel, yes, tomorrow gotta remember to buy a pen and paper, his sister the painter had offered him a computer, but no, no question of that, way too much of a risk he’d get plagiarized or imitated, inspiration was as thin as air, mustn’t forget the paper, right, tomorrow, the act of writing had to be consummated, that’s what Lucia said, it had to come true she said as she reread his poem between kisses, give or receive, receive or give, two different things thought Adrien on his stone bench beneath the silvered palms, some late tennis players were still on the verdant green court under the evening lights, Adrien recalled when Charly still drove Caroline and read with her, Charly probably lolled by the pool amid a welter of sunscreens and creams, plus Caroline’s newspapers and literary magazines plopped here and there around the edge of the pool, Charly languidly thumbed through them under the midday sun, yes, and while Adrien posed for Caroline’s collected portraits of writers, when she admonished him in a very professional tone now don’t move Adrien, he’d heard Charly seductively whisper, you know Adrien I really love that poem “Give or Receive” that Caroline had me read, but it’s odd, why would the man in your poem feed sunflower seeds to starving crows in a snowy field, why in exchange for this gift to them in spring would he hope for one summer more she asked, well these poems were written in the cold when I visited my children, they ski downhill in winter he replied, you see Charly, it’s a metaphor, a metaphor he repeated evasively, one can offer bread or sunflower seeds to the birds who are hungry in the winter snow and hope Heaven will help us to something, say another springtime or even another summer my dear Charly, you can’t possibly understand, you’re too young, so these are the poems of an aging man Charly said impudently, but Adrien just laughed and Caroline had to keep telling him not to move or she’d botch it, he had a photogenic profile and she wanted to bring out the decisiveness and strength of will in it, Adrien liked Caroline’s paying tribute to my writerly profile while little Charly wrestled with my poem not too successfully, no matter, it’s all very charming, but now as I reread it so long after that session, Adrien considered that he’d had that springtime and summer gift, and now not far from the age of old Isaac, perhaps it was time to sow an entire harvest of sunflower seeds for his own crows and possibly it wouldn’t be too much to ask for two or three more springs in return, having written in a long-ago poem that it was reasonable to make an apparently gratuitous offering and still receive something in return, a wholly legitimate expectation, ah but this time he’d also ask for Suzanne to be restored to him safe and sound, regardless of Charly’s laying her head in his lap, artfully caressing him as she’d done with Caroline, all the better to drag him down, this time Adrien knew better, he wasn’t going to fall in, all of a sudden he felt a chill, something he wasn’t used to in this tropical climate, especially wearing a blazer and straw boater, although his temples and forehead felt hot, from here on every poem pulled from his blazer pocket, every day and night, after tennis at the hour of solemn silence around him, from birdsong to the to-and-fro of cock crow, yes, from now on his poems would be written in the cold, that inner chill of desolation at the loss
of Suzanne these past months, the chill of his lost youth, the chill of nighttime, he wouldn’t be able to confide these thoughts of his own futile mortality to Isaac because the older man didn’t believe in death, up on high where the ocean rose to meet him night and day in one eternal movement, and he came down only when it was time to care for his panthers and foxes and deer, last remnants of an earthly paradise he was drawing out as long as he possibly could, was this perhaps just a way of living seamlessly without disruption in magical meditation of indestructible beauty? Yeah, the coolest looks, the most daring moves thought Mick as he zigzagged through the streets in the sun, and what if evil was something that simply proliferated in this day and age, so maybe good had the same properties, why not, surely it exists in the college and classes and buildings and lecture halls and library, maybe there’d be one or two people he could ally himself with, yeah, the Alliance, the Pact Against All Discrimination, they’d climb to the roofs of all the schools in town and raise their blue and gold and mauve banner, or maybe only a white flag as an invitation to peace with the enemy side, heh heh, why hadn’t Mick thought of this before, now to find a girl or boy to start the pact, an Alliance Against Every Form of Criminal Hate, all of them, same as Mick in his eccentric way of dressing or his odd way of walking, no keeping a Hispanic off the bus or a dark-skinned girl, no judging, no misunderstanding, no punishment for social causes, and if he did actually get to make this alliance with someone, then they could make it grow into a group united in solidarity, but where to find someone, where were all the likely ones to recruit under the banner and climb to the rooftops of schools and colleges, especially Trinity which had been such a symbol of tyranny to him, climbing up the steps of the fire escape to the third floor and the roof, he saw only an empty blue sky and below, should he fall, the blue void of roofs speckled with scarlet petals shed by the jasmine all around, over sidewalks and trees, a blue void he’d always have to flee, the enemies chasing after him would be frightened by it, and what if they fell off while beating him up, a smooth karate kick from him would upend them one after another on the cement roof, the very same ones who jostled him at the bus stop, forever the same, oh yes they’d be the ones to turn around when they were on their way up to biology or chemistry, it wouldn’t take much for Mick to send them flying all the way down into the blue void, one smooth move and he’d never hear from them or their hatefulness again, their fat faces in his, forgotten during a fight up on the roof, well no, that would be a crime, besides his goal was to make peace, an alliance not enemies, now how to find that one person who’d go along with him, Mick was sure they existed, but where, maybe they were afraid to approach him and say we’ve been bullied too, we’re with you, we want an alliance too, a pact against hate, we’ll raise the banner on the roof with you, then when the persecution is over and they’ve hightailed it to biology or chemistry class, it’ll finally be peaceful around here, then, then Mick could dance alone in the blue void where you could see the sea on both sides, hey, every ocean that exists, you could see them all clearly he thought and beneath the clear sky he’d dance alone, moonwalking like the Prince in his black patent leather shoes, just like some astronaut bouncing weightless on the spongy lunar soil, the magnetic step they’d invented as they slowly weaned themselves of their space capsule, and the Prince had adopted it as his own, maybe an astronaut in his own right slipping beyond the Earth’s atmosphere, oh he’d dance that way a long time up on the roof, thinking no one could get to him up there, he was already somewhere else, then he heard voices, students below him quarrelling and fighting, yeah but there had to be one or two boys or girls who’d join his pact against hate, someone waiting, maybe afraid, and he’d find them and the first resilient link in the chain would be forged, Mick murmured to himself, the most provocative moves and the coolest look, oh, they’ll see, yes they will. Naturally it couldn’t be any other way for Augustino thought Daniel, his rebellious son was bound to go from one disappointment to another, one more email he’d forgotten to read, it had to be from annoyance at Laure’s shadow hovering over him, it was unceasing by now, her resentment at not being able to smoke anywhere in the terminal, she’d write to them she said, they’d have to compensate her, and that’s not all, she was a victim of the times, someone whose fundamental rights were being violated, no doubt thought Daniel, his eyes still fixed on the screen as Augustino’s words of disappointment spread across it, as always, yesterday it was the huge oil slicks across rivers and oceans, black foam on the heads of pelicans and sea tortoises, and here it came again, the litany of man’s laying such waste, disappointed that here and now in India unspeakable things were accumulating in the sacred rivers, well, which sacred rivers actually, because none of them were anymore, no such thing as a sacred city either when it came to that, industrialization was trampling and defiling everything he wrote, his father had to agree this time and for an instant they fully connected, the water from the Himalayas to the plains was rare and filthy with detritus, noble women in red saris walking for three or four hours each day to villages where the springs and rivers had dried up, the sacred Ganges had become the poisoned Ganges, no sacred Ganges anymore, no sacred city of Varanasi, and those who bathed in the waters were contaminating themselves wrote Augustino, to which Daniel rapidly replied I’ve just read a scientific article that suggests the rivers might be saved, and I’m inclined to believe it, there is a massive rescue operation going on, hey don’t tell me you’ve finished your book now and under those conditions, I hope you’ve got a measure of comfort at least, you must look after your health dear Augustino, then Daniel’s mind wandered to his conference next day in Ireland, James Joyce, prodigy or miracle, how else to describe what this ability to write means in a world where so little genuine literature is actually read, not scanned the way one automatically consumes so much electronic merchandise, educational or not, tactile playthings which demand little thought and stampede us into stunned mobility, dumbing us down softly in such comfort, numbing us more and more to one another thought Daniel, right here in this airport for instance, to each his own game perhaps, eventually forgetting the passage of time, nearly six hours in this enclave in expectation of a flight announcement, a leatherette-lined hell in which the barely conscious could survive a bomb attack and be unaware of it thanks to their individual electronic shells that formed a heat shield around them, ears deaf behind buds, eyes transfixed by the stream of images before them, something Daniel had elaborated on in his book Strange Years, he reproached himself for going months without writing anything, how had he become so neglectful, then he drifted to Olivier and Chuan, the one no longer writing, not even an article, and Daniel considered them vital, he’d written numerous times to tell Olivier that he missed his accusatory pieces, we need to hear your voice in journalism, my husband’s grown very depressive came Chuan’s reply, and we’re anxiously by his side, Jermaine and I, hoping it’s just a phase he’s going through, dear Olivier, yes of course, a phase, a creeping psychic pain has now attacked his body too, you know he can barely even walk, we don’t know what to think anymore, we’ve consulted several doctors, you know how affectionate he is, he says you love me and you go on loving me and I thank you for it, it’s a lot for someone as enfeebled as I am, what is not known is that depression can lead to death, but I don’t want to die, oh no, or end my days either like so many writers I’ve been friends with, still, where I used to condemn them for their suicides I can no longer do so, not now Olivier told his wife, this has me worried she wrote to Daniel, please come dear Daniel, I beg you, whatever the sadness in our lives, please come and see us again as you used to, our family would be overjoyed to see you, I don’t know why dear Olivier feels this kind of chronic dissatisfaction, especially when up-and-coming generations have such admiration for his political and social courage, he was one of the very first black senators elected in this country and he’s always fought hard, maybe too hard? wondered Daniel, fought against forces that were hostile, ill-willed, and indefatigable,
even early on, as a young street demonstrator they set fierce dogs on him and beat him with nightsticks back when that was still allowed, Olivier was at the beginning of a veritable evolution in the world, laws had been changed because of him, the course of history modified, so why this weariness now, yes the weariness of an old fighter, when after all the struggle had only just begun thought Daniel recalling how Chuan had danced the night away on Mère’s birthday, oh yes, I’m going to dance all night she decided on that summer evening, it was in the house and orient-scaped gardens she’d created around herself, a light luxuriousness Mère had called it, oh how good it is this airiness around one, even then Olivier often stuck to himself in the cottage by the sea, talking to his wife and son by phone, already a recluse drowning in dark thoughts Daniel realized, Chuan’s work often kept her abroad, Paris, Milan, Hong Kong, and they phoned each other several times a day, Jermaine had come back from California to be with his father, such love between them, such loyal affection among them all, and then a veil was drawn that darkened Olivier’s spirit, the naked misery of a spirit suddenly disarmed and drained of all initiative, and although it pained Chuan and their son they still danced all night at Mère’s birthday celebration, both of them with the same smile, the same slanted eyelids, and in those days Jermaine dyed his hair blond, Chuan said tonight I’m going to do what I never do, I’m going to have some ecstasy with my son, you know I don’t let him use it but one day they stop being our kids, simply big young people who do what gives them pleasure and makes them feel free, maybe we should learn from them and be less rigid, more relaxed, yes that’s right, and Daniel suddenly wanted to pick up this conversation with her again, such a refined woman and one who so loved Mère and Mélanie, old friends until she dared not leave her husband alone or invite those she was close to with all this sudden internal tension, yet how she loved a laugh and a dance, surely it was unfair for her to assume this despair so foreign to her, considered Daniel, and as they continued their taxi ride Robbie and Petites Cendres spied Herman strolling along with the other girls before the eight-o’clock show, this was no longer Herman triumphant on his tricycle who went yelling “victory” through the lines of bikers with his lace cape flying behind him, no not anymore, what was going on here anyway, did Petites Cendres even want to know, was the flowering gangrene blossoming on his leg again, then why not let them amputate it if he wanted to go on living, so if he had an artificial leg who would notice under a long dress, he needed to put up more of a fight, and Robbie was afraid Herman really was stuck in a rut with heroin now, a way of avoiding suffering, the same with any other substance Marcus had given him, that’s what got Marcus thrown in prison, now too stoned to fight, Herman vanquished was what they saw before them, like a marionette with broken strings, helpless in the puppeteer’s hands, this is what Petites Cendres saw in tonight’s procession a bare few hours before Robbie’s crowning out on the platform by the sea, Petites Cendres wasn’t even expecting Herman to be there with the others, probably leaning up against the wall of the bar with one hand on his cane for balance, he kept it hidden beneath the folds of his wispy green dress, his face held high and imperious under the orange wig in the last glow of dying day, it was a festive procession that night and Herman had no intention of missing it, weary as he felt, he’d admitted as much to Yinn, weary, very weary, he’d spent a long time staring at Cheng and Cobra and Santa Fe and Geisha and Triumphant Heart, who called Know-It-All his sweet love ever since lifting his cap and kissing his face, all the girls stunning in their outfits, high heels and all, Herman ate them up with his eyes in fond regret, couldn’t really miss what was already behind you, such a pathetic look that Petites Cendres could have wept if it weren’t that Herman’s courage and bravery outstripped his own, every night and for many more to come at the Cabaret shows said Robbie, then at the tail-end of the night when there was no one left in the pale light of dawn, Yinn would oh so carefully carry Herman downstairs in his arms and place him on the red sofa, saying there my friend, you’ve used again haven’t you, you’ve got to stop doping yourself, please, c’mon wake up, from under the long eyelashes Herman’s green eyes would shine, greedy for the good things in life as Robbie put it, and Herman said to Yinn don’t worry brother, I was just having a little nap, really it’s not hurting so much now, oh yeah how good that feels, and if Yinn had been honest at that very moment, if he’d felt a bit less pity for his friend, he’d have exploded and said what he was really thinking, that for years Herman had been reckless and without respect for his health and body, first roasting on the beach from the time he got up till noon, despite knowing for years that in his quest to get browner the skin he called too pale was already stamped with cancerous cells, without a thought to what was eating him up from the inside, white men don’t look good he said, pure vanity was Yinn’s answer to that, look what it’s got you, you and your noon beach-bathing under a harsh flaming sun, in that same pale light of day Herman’s mother would appear in the Saloon doorway, a young woman with red hair and every bit as valorous as her son, I’ve rented a room with a veranda nearby she told Yinn, that way Herman can sleep a few hours and won’t have to walk so far for tomorrow’s show, Yinn listened, knowing that the weight of this mother’s sorrow would soon crush her and he grasped her hands, covering them with kisses, we’re heartbroken he murmured, yes really heartbroken, it is possible he did not actually dare say that but she could see it in his terror-stricken eyes, later at the Saloon he said humbly this hasn’t spared us, it really hasn’t, we’re bewildered at the way things have turned out, speechless, then between Yinn and the courageous mother of the boy with curly red hair asleep on the sofa there was nothing but long moments of silence in which they bonded in desolate comradeship. I know, I know I was probably wrong to take those two in and make them my apprentices, thought the Old Salt on the deck of his boat, watching for the grey heron: