The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition)

by William Gaddis

  —Find what? he asked, as the glitter of her wrist watch, and the soft gleam of the pearl-white crucifix caught him again, weak-kneed with the words running through him, —et anathematizatum esse decernimus, et damnatum cum diabolo, et angelis eius, et omnibus reprobis in ignem aeternum indicamus . . .

  —Some Americans on Mount Ararat. They’re looking for Noah’s Ark.

  Next day an American picture magazine, whose insidious pretense to simplicity earned it a large circulation, gave a full page to a picture published earlier in Osservatore Romano in substantiation of the sun’s antics over Portugal at the time of the Virgin’s apparition there. The Pope himself (who had spent part of today blessing drivers at a motor-scooter festival, whom he praised for their “courage and agility”) had, on another inspired occasion, received “silent and eloquent” messages from the “agitated sun,” and witnessed “the life of the sun under the hand of Mary.” And here, as proof, was the picture (of “rigorously authentic origin”) of the sun near the horizon at 12:30 P.M., where it might well have been photographed if the horizon were Portugal, and the hour, Barbados, for even now it was near noon in the Caribbean as an evening Angelus bell sounded somewhere over Stanley’s head and he entered the Piazza di Spagna looking weary and disquieted.

  —Oh no! he found energy to say, as Don Bildow caught his arm and, at the same moment, he saw the tall figure he had not seen since the dock at Naples, the black homburg hat drawn over the forehead, the arm no longer in a sling but resting in a pocket of the Chesterfield coat.

  —I just came for my mail at American Express, Bildow said, not letting him go. —What’s the matter? Aren’t you all right?

  —I . . . I have to . . .

  —I guess I look pretty seedy myself, Bildow said looking him over, —but I’ve just been to this tailor, he’s making me a beautiful suit, forty thousand lire, I’m going to throw this one away when I get it. Everything else I have got shipped right to Paris, I’m going on up there in a few days. I’m going to throw this suit away and wear the new one so I don’t have to pay duty on it. Have you seen this? He held out the book he was carrying. —I just saw it at Piale’s. It’s Anselm.

  Stanley, who had been looking anxiously after the figure he knew only as the Cold Man, startled and looked down at the book. —Anselm?

  —His confession. I’m in here. You’re in here too. We’re all in here.

  —I . . . really? Stanley said, staring at it. —But I thought he was in a monastery?

  —He is. This is his confession of what drove him there. I’d like to . . . get my hands on him, Bildow added, clutching the book in a soft fist.

  —Could I borrow it? Stanley asked suddenly.

  —Why . . . why sure, if you want to. I haven’t read it yet, I just looked in it. We’re all in it. I don’t want to read it yet, he added, handing the book over, and Stanley took it in both hands, his broken bandaged finger across the title. —And do you know what happened to me last night? Bildow went on, sounding slightly incensed. —I can’t wait till I get to France. That girl I had, waiting for me, you remember?

  —I have to go, Stanley said quickly, holding the book up against his chest as though to shield himself.

  —I took her up to the room, and at first she wouldn’t take off her brassière. She had everything else off but . . .

  —I have to go, goodbye, thank you for the book . . . Stanley had caught another glimpse of the Cold Man.

  —And you know? You know the kind of a trick she was pulling on me? One of her breasts was wooden.

  —I . . . I don’t want to hear, let me go, goodbye . . .

  —Are you still in a hurry? What do you think of that, though, one of them was wooden, it was made of wood, just like . . . hey, when will I see you again? . . .

  But Stanley was out of earshot. He hurried along the pavement with the book under both forearms against his chest, darting looks ahead, unsure where he had seen that same strong profile and narrow chin, and the watery blue eyes, but certain now he had seen it long before the Conte di Brescia. But with some question far more important, more immediate, burning in his face, Stanley followed him to a café where he entered, looked round quickly, and sat down alone, putting his hat beside him, smoothing the ends of his hair with his fingertips, then resting his chin on his hand, turned in so that he appeared to be biting the gold seal ring there. Stanley stood uncertainly near a pillar behind him, catching the ragged ends of his mustache as though to find the words of address he sought in that way.

  —The whole cabin was filled with the most God-awful stench, said the tall woman sitting over an apéritif nearby, —simply all his vitamin B pills had melted. He takes them for hangovers.

  A girl to his right said, —All the drawers were full of empty Bromo bottles when she left. Have you read this? It’s Firbank.

  Then just as Stanley was about to step forward, a man with a smooth unpliant oriental face, tight but not tense, and moving only faintly at the corners of the mouth as he approached, came forward from another table. He was quite short, and wore a trench-coat. They greeted one another with apparent surprise, and the man in the trenchcoat started to speak as he sat down.

  —Fenn és . . .

  —Speak English, you idiot . . .

  At the sound of that voice, even muffled as it was behind the clasped hands, Stanley remembered, and his lip trembled. The whole night came back to him, and he lowered his face and sat down half behind the column, opened Anselm’s book and stared at a page: “If we had stopped for even a minute then, a minute of silence . . .” He closed his eyes tightly, and his head was filled with the roar of the subway train. Now he almost drew his hands up to find if his shirt was unbuttoned, to button it as he had been doing then; instead he only shivered, as he had been shivering then, and as a woman’s voice near him came out with, —There are little electric lights on the graves, and you pay by the hour, just like they were candles burning down . . . Stanley heard echo the voice of the woman on the subway embracing him and the man who stood with the handkerchief before his mouth, as he sat with hands clasped there now. —Up where Keats is buried, or is it Shelley? . . . Her voice, and the tangled mass from under her skirt embracing them both in the intimacy of horror, out onto the platform where the liquid blue eyes froze above the white handkerchief: —Those, my dear young man, are the creatures that were once burned in witch hunts . . .

  —The stench, everywhere . . .

  Stanley wiped his face with his hand, as he had done that morning, waking suddenly, looking at the palm, dropped it, and listened.

  —It could not have been more simple, more inviting, the man in the trenchcoat was saying in a low tone. —He invited me there, in fact, to see the mummy. He had made one himself for me! Oh, but with such ingenuity, it was really a masterpiece . . .

  —Really, my dear fellow . . .

  —I confess I did not have heart to finish our business so immediately, I spent a few minutes congratulating him. He became very angry when I appeared to question the . . . authenticity? of this thing, but he was very proud. I saw in his eyes, he was very proud, when we finished our business together.

  They sat silent for a moment, and the man in the trenchcoat twitched a little at the corners of his lips, gazing at the ceiling, as though he were fondly recalling some pleasant encounter with the past. Then he shrugged, and added, —The Spaniards, however, they are not . . . sane, of course.

  The man with him had hardly moved, except to shift an elbow to make way for a glass on the table before him. He sat staring past the door of the café from vacant light blue eyes.

  —You don’t look well, said the other. —You are more haggard than when I saw you, over there.

  —I don’t sleep well.

  —You did not sleep well then.

  —Even as well as . . . then.

  —Cigarette?

  —No.

  —You no longer smoke.

  —No.

  After a minute of solicitous silence th
e man in the trenchcoat said, —And you do plan to go back? He got no answer but a faint nod. A waiter appeared with more wine, and some Gorgonzola cheese. —Yes, you are then? certain you want to go back? For there is still time . . .

  —What . . . business is it of yours! Certainly I’m going back. Still he barely turned his face from the hands clasped before it, for this outburst of impatience, and quickly muffled them there again.

  —Your lip is badly scarred? The man in the trenchcoat twisted again round the ends of his mouth. —You know it can be fixed, of course, he murmured, listening, watching with glittering eyes.

  —What did you mean by that? Going back, why not. What did you mean?

  The shoulderstraps on the trenchcoat shrugged slightly. —Nothing. Of course, rumors?

  —Yes, yes, yes, the other whispered with sharp impatience behind his hands. —And after your reports, eh? Watching over me . . . yes, little things like, the moment I show some dismay over our paintings being dumped for dollars, did you tell them that too?

  —Please, of course . . .

  —Yes, which proved conclusively that I must be working for the restoration of the crown . . . aphhh . . . this kind of logic . . . Certainly I’m going back, why not? where . . . what else? he whispered staring straight ahead. Then he lowered his eyes slowly, and sat studying the cheese on the plate at his elbow.

  —Of course, I meant to say, I understand you . . .

  —Of course, you explained that once. No . . .

  —I meant only to say, things there are not going well, nothing is going well there. Everything there, the corruption has spread . . . His voice tailed off, he sat silent with his small glittering eyes, startled when the cheese was suddenly pushed toward him with an elbow.

  —There, try some of that, taste it, corruption put to good use . . .

  And they were silent again, the man in the trenchcoat did not touch the Gorgonzola, finally he said, —Tomorrow? There is one more? they told me, a priest?

  —Dressed like one.

  —And you, you will indicate him to me, you will not mistake him?

  —Yes I, I’ll point him out to you. I won’t mistake him, his companion muttered behind his hands, drew them aside and appeared to spit something from the end of his tongue. —If you think you can take care of it then, on the street, in daylight?

  —Of course . . . the man in the trenchcoat murmured, then, —A Véres költö . . . you remember that . . . ?

  —You? The clasped hands fell away for a moment, with a sparkle of gold, and the scar on the lip drew it into what appeared to be a sneer. —The poet stained with blood! . . . He drew his hands up again.

  —Or . . . you?

  —Enough . . .

  —You will be on the train tomorrow night?

  —Yes.

  —I should like a last good dinner, before we go back. Eh? The Piccolo Budapest? Eh?

  —Yes. Early. About seven.

  —You are . . . going back, then? the man in the trenchcoat said, and studied the profile beside him.

  —Yes, yes, and now good night. Good night.

  —The personal affairs no longer take precedence, eh? Good night. Until tomorrow? Under Saint Peter’s Umbrella . . . eh?

  Stanley looked down at his book quickly.

  —And have you ever seen anything so frankly hideous as this, the tall woman’s voice took up. —A piece of dirt enshrined forever in clear lifetime plastic. My God! . . . with a certificate of Miraculous Origin and the Seal of the Church. A piece of dirt from the church of Cana in Galilee, where they turned wine into water, my God. My husband’s picking up all sorts of things, you can see the state he must be in after what happened to Huki-lau . . .

  A distant voice said, —I don’t care if Joan of Arc was a witch, that hasn’t a thing to do with it . . .

  And another, —Of course everyone knows that the Franciscans were canonized for the very things the Waldensians were burned alive for . . .

  And then Stanley looked up as though he had been struck. A waiter stood before him, and he whispered, —Café, hoarsely, trying to look round the dirty apron to where the voice had come from he had so certainly heard. When he saw her, she was already seated, and although so close, in the chair which the man in the trench-coat had left, she had not seen him, and she did not look round, but down at her hands on the table. At that instant Stanley might have leaped up, or cried out, or simply spoken beginning with some overladen conjunction, as though to continue a conversation of minutes or hours before: and it was not her company that stopped him but the absolute, absolved quiet on her face, in spite of the small sore which disparaged the delicate line of her lip.

  —Something bit her, perhaps, she said at that moment, answering a question from the man half turned from Stanley, and a reproachful smile touched her face, still looking down. Then they were both silent. He only appeared to have glanced at her, and he went on, staring straight ahead.

  —Of course Huki-lau isn’t dead, she’s . . . The tall woman whispered something. —Which is just as bad. I don’t see how it happened, she’s had her belt on every minute she’s been over here. There was a goat, in Spain, though, with designs on her. You could see in his eyes.

  —How tired you look, like he looked sometimes, like an old man, with nothing left before you to regret. And are you old? or are the scars still unhealed down your front. Raise your left hand . . . you can’t, it sits there relishing another scar. She laughed, a sharp sound, and left it between them, looking at her own hands on the table. She was wearing a simple dark gray suit, with a long unbroken skirt and a short cape. She had nothing on her hair.

  He muttered something.

  —What? You’re joking. And she laughed again. His right hand had come down on the table, and she took it in hers, and laid her left hand over both. Still, he appeared to bite the gold seal ring on the other, staring ahead.

  —Still . . .

  —Today? In Assisi, she went through and through and through the gate. No one appeared in person, granting indulgences. No one, in a “heavenly brightness shining,” no one, do you remember? When no one was at the door? Now granting indulgences, O friars minors, is he in Purgatory if he drowned? Down, on a rope, did he tell you that story? Drowned, in the celestial sea come down the rope to undo the anchor caught there on a stone with no one’s name on, and a date, inclined against the bottom by the darkness, and so no wonder that the anchor caught, and he came down the rope. If there were time . . .

  —Listen. Just tell me . . .

  —More you know? His blood on the leaves, I saw it. But no thorns? that’s someone else then, for I saw him delivered, down. Yes, streaked with no one’s oil and delivered, down, that damned black androgyne who held him back and lost him, down . . .

  —I may not see you again.

  She did not raise her eyes.

  Stanley swallowed with self-conscious effort and pretended, to himself, to find his place in the book before him. At another table, a group had settled to worry the most recent dogma, that of the Assumption. One of them said, —There’s a perfectly good scientific explanation . . .

  —And then when we drove back, a monk drove with us. She had her belt on then, but I didn’t watch . . .

  —She would have died of asphyxia at fifty thousand feet.

  —You hear things, about life in monasteries.

  —Or if she’d gone fast, burned up like a meteor.

  —Will you marry her?

  Stanley looked up at that, eyes wide but the lids drawn upon them in disbelief, as though trying to hide what he heard from himself; and hide what he saw, for her eyes were wide, and no lids discernible.

  —Marry you! the man said, and he withdrew his right hand from under hers.

  —All right, Mary was a Jew, wasn’t she? A Jewish woman, if she went bodily to heaven, how does she eat?

  —This little piece of dirt, enclosed in lifetime plastic forever. Does a plastic lifetime last forever?

  —Is there a kosher
kitchen in heaven?

  —You see, he put it there, and he did not take it away. Stanley stared at her. His own expression, and even the movement of his hands, commenced to follow hers, then those of the man when he answered, then his face hers and his hands those of the man, except intricate muscles tried round the edges and round the eyes, and the corners of his mouth, to rescue his own face from that unguarded openness, and his hands quivered.

  —Marry you! Me!

  —For he put it there, and did not take it away as he promised, as he always had done before, as he promised.

  —Me!

  —Take the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. You try to preserve Mary from the taint of Original Sin, then what about Elizabeth? You can go all the way back.

  —Of course we met the people who make these things. Religious novelties, and mostly plastic. And she even admitted openly she was a convert. But my husband can tell a Jew a mile away.

  —So Mary Herself told Saint Anthony of Padua her body remains incorruptible in Heaven.

  —Saint John of the Cross said . . .

  —Listen! Listen . . .

  —Where there is no love . . .

  —This is the last time I will see you.

  —But why do you do the things you do? Why do you live the life you live?

  Stanley watched his shoulders hunch forward, watched one hand grip the other, and though he could not see the watery blue eyes, his own by now lay open with the same implications of desire as those wide dark eyes he sought.

  —Because . . . do you understand? the Cold Man said, speaking with quiet clarity for the first time, —because any sanctuary of power . . . protects beautiful things. To keep people . . . to control people, to give them something . . . anything cheap that will satisfy them at the moment, to keep them away from beautiful things, to keep them where their hands can’t touch beautiful things, their hands that . . . touch and defile and . . . and break beautiful things, hands that hate beautiful things, and fear beautiful things, and touch and defile and fear and break beautiful things . . .