—An overcoat? No but listen, there’s something. There’s something. I went to the bank this morning, for some money. I went to get some money out, and they told me there’s only a few hundred dollars. Why, there should be . . . there should be . . .
Basil Valentine pursed his lips, not as though coming forth to the subject at hand, but shifting from one preoccupation to another. —You’ve never known what sort of hand Brown kept on that account, have you.
—Why no, I . . . He put money in, and I took it out.
—And you haven’t seen him . . . recently. Since your . . . the spree you went on?
—I interrupted his murder . . . but there. I’d just escaped my own.
—What do you mean? Valentine asked impatiently.
—Never mind. I won’t try to explain it. Situations are fragile.
—Come now . . . what happened? Basil Valentine demanded, walking on with his head lowered as they approached steps leading down. He spoke no more loudly than he might have done asserting some demand upon himself, and as impatiently, knowing the question but finding it necessary to hear it in words, as though the answer, cogent as the query, were bound to follow upon it, —and enough of this foolishness, he added.
—No. No, I’m not joking. Who can tell what happened? Why, we have movement and surprise, movement and surprise and recognition, over and over again but . . . who knows what happened? What happened when Carnot was stabbed? Why, the fellow climbed into the carriage and stuck a knife in his belly, and no one would ever have known it if he hadn’t stopped to shout, “Vive l’anarchie.” All of our situations are so fragile, you see? If I meet you, by surprise? in a doorway? or come by invitation, for cocktails? or by carefully prearranged accident? Even that. No matter, you’ll see. They’re extremely fragile. And all this . . . all this . . .
A hand was waved before Basil Valentine where he paused to take off his gloves at the top of the steps. All this had been going on for some minutes, and Valentine was obviously annoyed. Indeed he did know of the anarchist Caserio’s absurd blunder after assassinating the president of France, half a century ago, an image which assailed him now with all the vivid insistence of those irrelevant details which crowd a memory being probed for some calamity so alarming, or so disgraceful, that memory does not want to surrender it to consciousness until leavened by time, when the enormity of the deed may be appreciated at a distance, and, from this distance, dismissed. Basil Valentine got his gloves off, and stood looking at his hands for a moment there at the top of the steps as though recovering what the gloves had concealed, and verifying the left hand folded over the right with the glitter of the gold seal ring in the sun. Then, with the gray gloves clasped behind him, he descended.
—Did you see the moon last night?
—I can’t say I noticed it, Valentine answered, looking quite old; though in profile his face maintained its look of strength, even heightened now by the severe preoccupation which his voice reflected.
—Yes, in its last quarter. The horned moon.
They had walked down near the seal pool in the center, where a child of about eighteen months stood blocking their way, gazing up at Basil Valentine who paused again to take out a package of Virginia cigarettes. The child was hatless, wet-nosed, and dripping steadily from the breech.
—Here, here . . . Valentine burst out, looking up. —I shouldn’t touch it if 1 were you. He offered a distracting cigarette.
—Touch her! But she’s lovely! And the rose . . . ?
—You never know what they may have in their hair, and I shouldn’t like to think where she got the flower. It’s ruined, let her eat it, and come away. Valentine turned without looking back at the dripping figure, twisted to watch his retreat, chewing rose-petal. His effort to appear agreeable was being riddled by these thrusts, and he heard now beside him,
—Did you ever read the Grimm Brothers? the Froschkönig? No, never mind. Listen, those fragments? you have them? you still have them safe?
He stopped, to light their cigarettes. —I haven’t forgiven you for running off with that cigarette case, you know. Where is it?
—I didn’t ask you . . . that? that? Why, it’s probably in Ethiopia by now. The three Indies. And the bull? Well damn it, I brought you back a griffin’s egg, a much scarcer commodity, I found it in a secluded shrine in . . .
—You haven’t yet told me where you’ve been. Hunched over his cigarette, Basil Valentine looked through its smoke without taking it from his lips; and they stood there motionless as plants, Valentine in epinastic curve as the expression on his face unfolded to immediacy, and bent him down over the growth from the lower surfaces before him. —You still hope to expose these fakes then, do you? he said calmly. The stem before him was uprooted.
—That’s why I came back! I . . .
—Back? Valentine straightened up. —You went home, did you? he said, and seemed to appreciate the confusion this remark brought to the downcast face beside him as they walked on: it was at moments like this, absorbed in satisfaction, gleaned surreptitiously in a steady look from the corner of narrowed eyes, that Basil Valentine added ten, or even twice that many years to the face he showed to others. Even so, his silence evoked nothing as they walked toward the lion house, no response but an uneven cadence in the footsteps beside him, and he finally questioned, —That cut on your cheek? what is it?
—I fell in the snow, killing wrens. There. But this . . .
—You’re done with that drunken inspiration for the priesthood, at any rate? . . . Eh? Tell me, what happened.
—What happened! What happened to Huss? John Huss, enticed by a salvoconducto up to Constance, where three bishops sat on his case, and he was burned . . .
—Anyone who hints that the Antichrist is to be found in Rome, my dear fellow, Valentine interrupted patiently, —and denies Peter as head of the Church . . .
—Burned and his ashes thrown into the Rhine, fishing for men, O sancta simplicitas! . . . yes, I’ve been off to see good old King Wenceslaus, there, and . . . my sainted mother! the women’s voices . . . do you remember the Boyg? Why, I was almost pulled into the priesthood.
—And wasn’t that why you went?
—And if it was! if it was! My sainted mother? . . . it’s as though I’d left before she named me. Do you remember that story the poet tells? “I lay this destiny upon him, that he shall never have a name until he receives one from me” . . . never mind. The women’s voices, and even that one, I left with her kiss on my cheek, see the scar? . . . there without so much as a talitha cumi I left that wise virgin.
—And now? The look from the corners of Valentine’s eyes was the same concentrated appraisal of a few steps before. —The last time we talked . . .
—Yes, we talked about Shabbetai Zebi, didn’t we. It’s a way of getting acquainted, discussing the failings of mutual friends. A messiah? At Smyrna a letter from God falls out of heaven to confirm him. He’s flogged and imprisoned. He denies he’s the messiah, while the Jews outside are breaking their neck to free him, fasting, jumping naked into rivers, remember? They say he’s never slept with a woman, though God knows he’s been married for years. Before the Sultan, he denies it again, he’s given the choice of death or Islam. Damnation! Sirius the Dog Star, the bright star of Yemen, Al-Shira . . . what was it? a sun itself where it rises with the color of ruby, then sapphire, emerald, amethyst, and then the most brilliant diamond . . . damn it, listen. In that immaculate place of yours, you . . . yes, immaculate, a thing like that would show up. It would show up immediately, a package like that wrapped up in old newspaper.
—You’re still bent on this . . . suicide? Valentine asked, drawing on his cigarette, lowering his hand to take it from his lips. It stuck to his lips, and the coal burned his fingers as they slipped over it. The cigarette dropped to the ground, his lower lip trembled for that instant at losing control of it, his right hand came up clenched and behind him his left hand dropped a glove. —But here, he snapped, —will you walk up beside
me where I can talk to you, instead of . . .
—Suicide!
They were approaching the steps to the lion house, passing a fat woman on a bench with two books in her lap, one gaudy but closed, A Day with the Pope, the other opened, First Lessons in Italian. With a hand mounting two mean pearls on a thin line of gold almost absorbed in the flesh, she drew an enameled nail down the page, and then wiped her nose, each time folding the piece of disposable tissue in half until she clutched only a wet wad, forming the words behind it, mi piace, with her lips, —mee piachay, mee piachay . . .
Three little girls had just deferred to the clamorous wishes of the smallest of them, and bought a balloon.
—It’s been noted, of course, that the thought of suicide has got many a man through a bad night. Nietzsche, I believe . . .
—Suicide? this? Do you think there’s only one self, then? that this isn’t homicide? closer to homicide? that, listen . . .
Approaching the door, the lines on and around Basil Valentine’s eyelids became apparent as he looked at the anxious face turned up to him; and, brought out of profile into the smiling duplicity of the full face, the strength seemed to drain out through the narrow chin. —It mayn’t be so simple, you know. This so-called homicide of yours, he said. —This putting off the old man?
A child posted by the door pointed to a remarkably symmetrical dog spiral on the walk. —Look at that dog-do! the child said with intense admiration.
—Get out of the way, Valentine snapped, and pushed the child aside with a firm narrow foot. —Shall we go in? he asked, still smiling, with a step back to hold the door open.
The place was filled with noise coming from the opposite end, moaning which broke into a stifled scream, relapsed in a heaving sob, repeated, and repeated, interrupted by a hiss and spitting. The animals moved about their cages in the restless patterns of their lives, to turn their heads in that direction as they passed, across the front of the cage, round to the back, emerging again; and the tigers coming forth approached the bars as though they were coming straight through. Some of the animals did not move. A black panther, caged down across the way, stood watching, motionless but for the black tail whose weaving tip just cleared the floor. Other leopards sat waiting, and watched; an albino with pink eyes. The lion lay still, archetype of the calm of enduring vigilance, forepaws extended. The racket went on, leaving only two apes, caged halfway down one side, generically unconcerned.
—And you don’t hate Brown, do you? Basil Valentine asked abruptly. —For what he’s done to you.
—Brown? hate him? for what he’s done to me?
—There’s a favor I have to ask of you, Valentine went on, as though he considered his question answered.
—That Patinir? I remember. You think I don’t, but I remember.
—No. Something else, Valentine commenced, his tone both fresh and casual. —The Stabat Mater? What do you plan doing . . .
—She? . . . bury her and marry her, after all, she . . .
—No, no. That painting, the last one you were working on.
—Why?
—Well, if you are as you say, through with all this, I . . . thought I’d rather like to have it. What’s the matter?
—You? Yes, I told you, how fragile situations are! Every moment reshaping the past. You? you want it?
—If you’d give it to me, as a . . . to a friend, a favor to an old friend? Valentine put a hand out to his shoulder, but he turned away.
—Everything down there’s destroyed. I burned everything, I put everything into the fireplace and set fire to it.
—But not that? not that picture too?
—Why not? he demanded, turning.
—If it was, as you said, becoming . . . not van Eyck, but what you want?
—What I want? he whispered, and shuddered. Moans from the other end rose above the broken echoes of human voices.
—The face, Valentine said. —The . . . reproach in that face, it was very beautiful, I thought. Then Valentine felt his wrist gripped tightly.
—Yes, the reproach! That’s it, you understand?
They were halfway down the tiers of cages.
—Gee lookit how he does it, said a boy before the apes’ cage.
—That’s a her . . . and lookit her eat it, she’s stoopin over and eatin it.
The caterwauling rose. The two pumas, as they would prove to be, were in the last cage to the right. Next to them, and separated by a metal wall, a white African lioness brushed the bars of her cage, stalked to the back, and came forth round a tree trunk in the center, its length torn by her claws and teeth. Her tail wove to one side and the other, and she twisted to bare her teeth and snap at it, making no pause when the cries in the next cage broke. —Weh weh weh it’s all right beautiful lady, yes, come on, you gonna eat it all up today? you gonna eat your tail all up? Yes . . . weh weh weh . . . said a woman before the cage, sharp-nosed, with too much make-up, she held out a skinny hand with a ring mounting a miserable stone, to the lioness.
—Listen. You see why it’s important now?
Shocked as much by the smile fixed on him, as he was by the grip fastening his wrist, Valentine had started to withdraw. The instant his arm tightened the hazardous hand left it, but the smile persisted; and Valentine asked, —Why what’s important?
—Yes, clearing up all this, these . . . those fragments, if they won’t believe me. If you saw it too, in that face? The eyes turned away, the eyes not looking at you, but the forgiveness, the . . . grace? Yes, but even in that, the reproach. If you saw it too, that reproach? You understand, then, don’t you. How I’ve felt since that dream? The Seven Sins, when they come to confess, and be shrived? The second dream, I don’t remember the first one, but the second one, he wakes up but he goes to sleep again over his prayers, and there’s Reason preaching, a “field full of folk”? And one by one, Superbia, Invidia . . .
—Damn it . . .!
—What?
—I’ve dropped a glove somewhere, Valentine said in a tone which penetrated the cry of the puma. Before him the lioness came forward with her head lowered and out to one side, waiting for him to appear in her view. Then their eyes met, and without turning from her as she did from him, passing the bars, he added, —Come now, what is all this . . .
—I’ll tell you about it, listen. When I was away, I was dreamt, I mean I dreamt, I had two dreams I think, but the first one, I don’t remember the first one. But the other one, sitting bolt upright in a chair, was it? And there she was, she touched me. Her lips were blue like indigo, and she . . . I didn’t understand it then, but now, you can see, yes that reproach, if you saw it too. You can see that I can’t just go to her, like this, after what I’ve done and, done to her. That I couldn’t just go to her and offer her this . . . what’s left.
—What is it, all this, this dream . . . ? Valentine interrupted, not turning nor raising his voice, nor his attention which seemed to seethe and recede with the shape of the lioness looming toward the bars and retiring. —This she, this face in that study . . . ?
—Yes, and you see why it’s crucial. Why, when we’ve settled all this and we can leave . . .
—Leave! Valentine took a step back, without looking round his hand caught the wrist rising before him. —Tell me, what are you talking about?
—She . . .
—She? This . . . stabat Mater . . . dolorosa, it’s she standing over you, is it? isn’t it? Yes, you’ve told me, this blessed Queen of Heaven? . . . Valentine looked up quickly as the lioness turned away. The hissing in the next cage rose to broken cries. —Yes, your mother, isn’t it? Your . . . “sainted mother”?
—My mother? He twisted in Valentine’s hold, which was not tight but rigidly closed on his wrist. Beyond Valentine’s shoulder, across the way, the rigid pattern of the bars was broken by dark blond hair and dark eyes, the abrupt, aware delicacy of a woman of undamaged beauty, who turned from the leopard cage to look for the child with her. She carried a fur coat over the arm of a tail
ored suit, and her expensive walking shoes lent purpose to the steps of her slender frame, deceptively fragile, full-bosomed and, again, so well tailored that that modesty was such only because she could afford simplicity, turning now to catch, for an instant, the eyes in the distraught face turned, for no reason, to her. He mumbled, or cleared a constricted throat, which was it? and she moved on quickly.
—Your . . . blessed Queen of Heaven? Basil Valentine seemed to force attention to his words as he stared into the cage where the lioness came forth again with her head lowered, turning, to look up, paused at the bars with forelegs crossed left over right, and then with no effort leaped to one side and was gone. —This woman, the “women’s voices,” and did I see the moon last night? this . . . good heavens, like Lucius in the Golden Ass, eh? Valentine faltered on, unwilling to pause and allow contradiction, postponing denial with whatever memory crowded upon him, casting up shattered shapes and fragments, shapes and smells. —And you, I suppose you went down and plunged your head seven times in the sea? You . . . “Little by little I seemed to see the whole figure of her body, bright and mounting out of the sea and standing before me . . .” One recalls her “odoriferous feet” but . . . yes, so it’s not, then? Not your mother at all, that reproach and all the rest of it . . . ? Unwilling to stop until his hold was broken, unwilling to let go the wrist until it turned from his hand, unwilling to listen, until their embrace was sundered by laughter.
—My mother? why she . . . good God, she in the painting?
—Yes, you told me, you know . . .
A boy in the remnants, or perhaps the beginnings of a Boy Scout uniform had got between Valentine and the bars, and reached out over the rail. —Gimmeyatail, Zimba, he said. The sharp-nosed woman repeated, —Yes, weh weh weh . . . The lioness approached, looking beyond them.
—It’s some girl you’ve picked up, is it? And all this talk about clearing things up, it’s all some notion she’s . . .
—No. Not that, all that is still itself, it’s only part of itself.
The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) Page 74
