—Never mind.
—What’s the name of this book you’re writing?
—Baedeker’s Babel.
Noting only the striped tie on the taller of these two, Otto brought the handkerchief up again, and got by them.
—And you say you’ve become a misologist?
—Whisky-soda, Otto ordered at the bar, slurring his tone in casual rudeness as he imagined one used to command.
—Where’s the head in this place? Someone bumped him. —Right through that door, it’s called Tiffany’s here.
—But I ordered whisky-and-soda.
—You said whisky sour. Sixty-five cents.
Max’s back was turned to him at a near table, where a battered copy of Collectors Quarterly lay open to Mother and Child II, under the elbow of a man hunched in a green wool shirt who was saying to Max, —You had some work at the New School, well look. Would I have to prepare my lectures? or could I just bullshit. Otto took a step toward the table. He was blocked by a haggardly alert face, speaking to someone behind him, —She would have drownded herself if she could have found something to drownd herself in. And the response over Otto’s shoulder, —She’s been way out for a long time, man. You can’t fool with horse without getting hooked.
—That magazine, Otto said to a girl standing behind the table, —do you know what happened . . . where it . . .
—A bear chewed it.
—What? I mean that . . .
—Oh I thought you meant this Vogue. She held up a tattered copy of Vogue. —A bear chewed this in Yellowstone Park, the craziest bear . . . She turned her back and went on with her conversation, —Oh very very very very very much . . .
—Hello. Can you buy me a beer?
—Hello Hannah, of course, I’d be glad to. Otto ordered it, handed her the dripping glass, and said, —Really, I’ve just had the most maddening . . .
—Thanks, said Hannah, and returned to the tall colored boy she’d been talking to, and shared her glass with him in the corner. At Otto’s side a blond boy in dungarees said, —I tell you I felt just for all the world like Archimedes in his crwazy bathtub . . . But how could I? I tell you I was stuck. And at the near table, a green wool elbow knocked a glass of beer over Mother and Child II.
Otto winced, saw Stanley seated staring at a cup of coffee, started to approach, saw it was Anselm seated with him staring at nothing, and stopped. The haggard boy came up to their table and dropped into a chair with neither invitation nor greeting.
—You know how I made her the first time I made her? Anselm went on. —I described a wet dream to her, one I’d had about her, she listened as though it had really happened, and then before she knew it I was in again. He laughed, but sounded weary, not really interested in what he was talking about, and sat drumming blunt nail-bitten finger-ends on the table.
—She was probably high then, the haggard boy commented dully.
—You shouldn’t . . . Stanley commenced.
—What are you pretending you’re worried about her now for? Christ, she didn’t make it, did she?
—She could never make anything real, man. The gas was on all right, but there was air coming in all over the place.
—Just the same, Stanley appealed, —if her intention . . .
—Her intention! what’s that to you? Christ, wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? She ought to get her ass into a nunnery.
Stanley said nothing. He lowered his eyes, sipped his coffee, and opened a newspaper.
—What does Saint Jerome say about women? Anselm persisted. —She’s the gate of Hell. “A foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil,” says Chrysostom . . . And he broke off, watching Otto’s approach without recognition.
Otto got round the two young men whom he had interrupted with his entrance. —I’m doing for writing what Bruckner did for music, said one. —So what did Bruckner do for music? —Well put it this way, I’m doing in writing . . .
—Freud! . . . came borne in a pleasing Boston-bred voice from a tall girl. —Hahaha . . . Freud my ahss.
—You know what the trouble is, like Pascal says, all the malheurs in this world come from a man’s inability to sit alone in a small room, said the taller of them. —Can I buy you a drink? He was wearing a tie from the first crossing of the Queen Elizabeth.
—But why . . . ? why? Stanley repeated, plaintive and incredulous. —Why would Max say a thing like that? He’d know it’s not true, that Hannah and I were . . . sleeping together . . . ? He looked up and included Otto in his appeal. Anselm was laughing. He shrugged.
—I am one to tell you, my lord, Stanley and a palindrome are making the beast with two backs, he said, and took Stanley’s newspaper.
—But why do they . . . people have to . . . say such things?
—People? You sound like it’s the first time in history somebody got laid, Anselm said, his tone musing and vague. —Das Unbeschreibliche, hier wird’s getan . . . He did not look up from the paper, whose pages he turned without apparent pauses to read. —Das ewig-Weibliche, for Christ sake, he mumbled.
Otto stood unable to turn away, bound by the hurt accusal in Stanley’s eyes, which lowered uncertainly back to the table.
—The last time I saw her, the haggard boy said, —she had to have somebody around her all the time, so she could ask if she’d really done something or gone somewheres. She looked like she was going to flip then.
Anselm tore something out of the paper and pushed it across the table. —This ought to cheer you up, Stanley, he said. —The bell tower at Saint Mark’s is ready to flip too.
—She told me once the reason her eyes bug out like that is some doctor gave her henbane, did you know that? She said she can even see the stars in the daytime. If she’d really wanted to make it she would have sliced her wrists like Charles . . .
—For Christ sake! will you . . . stop talking about it? Anselm broke out at the haggard boy suddenly, then looked at Stanley who was staring dumbly at the headline. —You better get over there before the whole thing falls down, Anselm said to him.
—Hannah . . . Otto interrupted, —tried to kill herself? I just saw her.
—Hannah! Anselm looked up and laughed at him.
—It was Esme, Stanley said quietly. —Last night.
—But what happened?
—You’re spilling your drink. What are you drinking whisky sours for anyhow? Anselm demanded.
—She flipped, man. Chaby found her with the gas on. Then the haggard boy returned to Anselm. —Did you hear about Charles? His old lady came from Grand Rapids to take him back there, she’s a Christian Science.
Otto put his glass on the table. He looked back as though minutes were hours, and the hours had been days since he’d seen her: he had driven her to it. His chest expanded as he got his breath and turned away.
—She came on all sweetness and light, you know man. She thought she could turn him on with Mary Baker Eddy, but she won’t give him a penny unless he comes home with her. I don’t blame him for flipping.
Anselm reached for Otto’s glass as Otto hurried toward the door, pressing on between the two young men, interrupting
—Scatological?
—Eschatological, the doctrine of last things . . .
—Good lord, Willie, you are drunk. Either that or you’re writing for a very small audience.
—So . . . ? how many people were there in Plato’s Republic?
Otto passed through the streets in a great hurry, but he was moving almost mechanically, one foot before the other and the load of the sling pounding against him, so that his excitement did not show until he passed the head of her stairs and stood breathless at her door. All the way his lips had been moving, and slight single sounds escaped them, chirps of forgiveness which he was trying to draw together.
Chaby opened the door. His sleeves were rolled up, and his shirt, the back of the collar turned up, was unbuttoned to the waist, showing a blue tattoo line which came, apparently, from the shoulder. Otto stared at the mirac
ulous medal swinging from his throat, and then looked up at Chaby’s small good teeth. —Is she . . .
Chaby nodded over his shoulder and turned away, leaving the door ajar. Otto pushed it open.
She came out to him from the other end of the double room. She wore a clean red cotton dress, and had a spotted blue coat on over it. She greeted him with almost a smile, her tranquil face looking as though she were going to smile, and then not.
—But you . . . are you all right? he asked going in to her.
—No. She must go to the doctor, she said to him. In her hand she held the book she had been reading, finger still between the closed pages. It was Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
It was only as he came close that he realized how heavily made-up she was. From the door, there was an almost bluish look to her face, but this proved to be a reflection of the careful make-up on her eyes, which seemed to be diffused over her face by the paleness of her skin. Her lips were as carefully made-up, with a slightly softened but still brilliant red. On the wall where she had just come from hung a mirror, rather an unsquared piece of mirror going off to a sharp point at one side.
—There, Otto said, holding out an empty hand which he let fall slowly. —I’m sorry about . . . I can . . . She waited, with this same unachieved smile. —Are you all right? . . . he repeated, noticing the great hoops of earrings for themselves for the first time. Until that moment they simply served to complete her figure.
—She must go for a long walk, for today she has had nothing to eat, she said to Otto, —and the doctor put barium sul-phate in her stomach so that he can X-ray her and find out if she has a stomach. Isn’t that silly? she added after a pause.
—Yes, but you . . . I mean I heard that you . . . that something happened to you last night . . .
—Last night, she repeated, looking away from him, —last night she did a very foolish thing, turning on the gas . . . She swung round to him suddenly, her tone mocking laughter and her eyes bright open: he looked from one to the other, saw in both his own distended reflection. —Turning on the gas, when the bill was so high already . . . ! And she allowed him a moment longer to stare at the image on the surface of her eyes, before she turned away to say, —But then Chaby came and everything was all right.
Otto rubbed his hand over his face and muttered something without turning round to Chaby (where she looked then, over his shoulder) who was seated smoking a cigarette in the room behind him. —Oh yes . . . he said and took a step away from her, dropping his hand, looking down to where the rug painted on the floor came to an end between them.
She went over to a drawer, looking for something, a handkerchief, and left him standing there looking round, but keeping his eyes from the room behind him. —I see you’ve finally got a mirror up, he said, rather distastefully, glancing into it to see his face shorn off at the jaw. When she said nothing he added, —You must need it, to get all that paint on your face.
—Oh no, the paint is not for the mirror, she said looking at him, half turned from the opened drawer and clinging to it. —But now a ghost lives here who is not happy. And when it comes she hides in front of the mirror where it cannot find her.
Otto muttered —Oh . . . , glanced in at the other room, and took a cigarette out. He lit it and tapped his foot on the floor, looking for a place to throw the match. —What’s this? he said suddenly, over near the bookcase, turning a drawing round with his toe on the floor where he’d found it. —Why . . . who is this? he asked, and stooped over to pick it up and look at it close.
—Some one, she said.
—But where did you . . . how do you know him?
—It is just some one, she said.
—But it’s . . . what’s wrong with this? He stared at the face: it stared back, exactly like, but exactly unlike he remembered, faithfully precise but every honest line translated into its perfect lie, as a face seen from behind.
—It’s a funny joke, she said suddenly, speaking more loudly, and she laughed but the laugh was gone by the time he looked up to her face.
—No, it isn’t funny, he said, looking back at the picture. He started to hold it up before the mirror out of curiosity, and then abruptly he threw it down and turned to her. —Can you come out for a walk?
—She must go for a long walk with the chem-ical in her no-stomach, she said. She was pulling on gloves.
As they went out, she stopped in the door. —You will be here? she asked Chaby. Chaby nodded.
—But you will! . . . she said with a desperate step toward him.
—Sure, I’ll be here, Chaby said from the chair, and he winked at her and smiled, hardly raising the ends of his hair-line mustache.
At that she lost her rigidity, and wilted against the edge of the open door, smiling at him.
Otto waited at the stairhead. As they went out he tossed an end of the green scarf over his shoulder and spoke as casually as he could, —Where’d you get those earrings, anyhow?
—She has always had them.
—I never saw them on you. I didn’t even know your ears were pierced. She said nothing. —Don’t they hurt? I mean, they’re so big.
—Yes, she answered turning away, —they hurt her.
Otto thought of taking her arm, but he did not, yet. Also he was walking on her right, and could do no better than bump her with his slung elbow. He was thinking about the picture he had found, and left, on her floor; was, in fact, intensely curious about it, but put it off, as he was putting off taking her arm until they should be well away from her door (as though once into territory strange to her, she would be at the mercy of his protection): all this, though the self-portrait hung square before his eyes, as he said to her, —I have to meet my father in a little while, in an hour or so. When she did not comment, he added, —For the first time.
—That will be nice, she said.
—I don’t know how nice it’ll be, he said. —Imagine, being my age and meeting the old man for the first time. He paused as they turned the corner and sorted themselves out from strangers walking there. —Put off the old man, says the Bible, put on . . .
Suddenly she took his arm, his whole slung arm in hers. —Do you know? . . . she said.
—What? . . . He tried to reach his hand out the end of the sling, and snare her gloved hand, but he could not find it.
—I have discovered that there is no one, she said, in intimate confidence.
—No one?
—Last night there was a knock upon the door. I went and opened the door, and no one was there. No one was really there at my door. No one had come to call.
Otto mumbled and looked at her quickly, at the blue hollows of her eyes in the light of the street. —And . . . did no one come in? he managed to say, reaching across with his right hand to find hers.
—No, she said, and let him go as abruptly as she had caught him.
—Now look, you know . . . you mustn’t get . . . you mustn’t be too upset, you know, I mean after what happened . . .
—Do you know what happened too? she asked, looking up at him quite surprised.
Otto looked at her excitedly. It is true, he was confused; but she was with him, they were together after what seemed a very long time, and —All this . . . he said, —All this . . .
—He made love to her, and then she went away.
—What did you say? . . .
—Love that smelled like lilies of the Madon-na, she went on, her voice rising evenly to a plane of wonder and distance. —Yes, she said intently; then her voice dropped. —Like the pus of Saint John of the Cross.
He had started to get round and get hold of her, but she held him where he was with a look of infinite reproach.
—That smelled of Madon-na lilies, she said in this low tone, a tone of infinite regret.
—Now look, you . . . he who? . . . Otto burst round to the other side of her, started to take her arm and realized that she was still carrying Uncle Tom’s Cabin. His mind churned a vast array of irrelevancies, from the faces passing th
em which turned here and there in dull curiosity to that incunabular joke which said that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was not written by hand because it was written by Harriet Beecher Stowe . . .
—He in the mir-ror, -who, she said in her mocking tone.
—Now look, that photograph, and his . . . look, what is it? . . . Have you been modeling? . . . for him?
—Sometimes she did.
—But where is . . . but where are the pictures?
—He did not show them to her. Her voice was brisk with disappointment. They were passing outside a bar whose door just then came open and poured out a heavy broken stream of German music which was gone with their next step, leaving her face in the blue and red lights of the window sign for beer, exposed in the expression of fear he first remembered on it when he had gone down on her in the chair in the afternoon and something, somewhere, broke: but in this instantaneous conspiracy of lights and make-up that immaculate fear became terror, and jaded terror sustained beyond human years and endurance, and he shuddered at this hag before he knew it.
—When the witnesses come, she said to him, not taking his arm but touching it with her fingertips, —will they identify her? or will they turn from her to the pain-tings of her which are not of her at all, and shudder as you shudder and look away.
So he had looked away, passing the window of a fun store, a bright litter of novelties, of colors and false faces, pencils, puzzles, a kiddies’ toilet seat, Christmas cards, ashtrays, a paint set, rings with false stones, a phosphorescent crucifix, —jingle all the wa-a-ay, came from the transom above.
—We are the gypsies, she said to him as he turned quickly back to her, and she spoke in that low tone of earlier, of deep remorse, —the Lost Egyptians, and we pay penance for not giving Them asylum, when They fled into Egypt. What harsh laws they make against us, she went on, her voice becoming dull. —They will not permit us to speak our own language, she said looking up at him again, —for they believe we can change a child white-into-black, and sell him into slavery! She laughed at that, suddenly, looking up at him; but with his hand tight closed on her wrist the laugh disappeared and left her surprised, staring into his eyes. They had come to a stop, and she took up walking again though he seemed to try to hold her back.
The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) Page 65
