Tintin in the New World: A Romance

by Frederic Tuten

  "And I, too, you, even now. But your adoration chains me. Venerate me from a distance. Write me long letters. I shan't be stopped this time. I need my life even more than what in it keeps me fixed to you. I need to live my time!"

  "Live it then! Live the paltry themes of your generation. Leave me for your cradles and your bibs, but not a penny of mine shall you have. Where's your freedom then? I disown you. Vanish in rags."

  Peeperkorn's words froze in her, and speechless she stood, her body rigid, her position held fast as though by guy wires anchored deeply into the earth.

  Tintin watched in disbelief, undecided whether to advance or to retreat, though soon, as if guided by sentient beams, he turned and silently made his way back to the hotel. Once there, he sank into a cane chair on the red veranda.

  As the air was growing darker about him, Tintin felt he had reached the end of something familiar, a frequented self from which he was about to part, and in the leaving, there was at first a sadness (farewell to friends at piers, as ship eases out of port; the final turning away from a beloved house), then a nostalgia (the perusing of old snapshots, letters, journals of one's life), then a murky recollection (old men are said to wonder whether they indeed lived the life recollected or ascribed to them, it seeming so far removed from the immediate time in which they live) that he once had been Tintin of Marlinspike, a youth.

  Tintin rose from his seat and, giving his body a feline quiver, commenced walking in the direction of the precipice and the humans he had recently left there. Finding the two poised by the precipice, in the exact attitudes and disposition last described, he advanced toward them rapidly. Peeperkorn seemed lost in himself or in his view of the silver-blue river sparkling thousands of feet below. Tintin's eyes met Clavdia's for an instant, and, believing an affinity of desire there, he swung around and lunged toward Peeperkorn, who, about to smile and speak, stepped back and fell into yielding space. Tintin and Clavdia watched him hurtle silently until the tiny form that was his body met the distant earth. Taking her cold hand, Tintin led Clavdia from the cliff. He spoke only once before arriving at the hotel some minutes later, his voice so firm, clear, and deep as to seem wholly new: "'I wish I could believe we are now forever wedded in guilt and love, but I have the premonition that in this act we instead have severed all bonds mutual to our lives.’"

  — Chapter XVIII —

  [Evening of the following day.]

  The lieutenant sat at the desk of a police station some miles below the hotel finishing his report — death by accident of one Herr Peeperkorn, who fell to his death, his great corpse cremated, the ashes flung across the ancient ruins and down to the river below — and he would stay the night. Captain Haddock and Snowy had retreated to their room just as Tintin and Clavdia appeared, the captain making much of his need to pack for the morning's departure. Settembrini and Naptha lounged morosely at the band's usual table, but without its full complement. The evening's dinner table, decked though it was with wild mountain flowers and sparkling with water glasses and gleaming silverware, looked funereal. When Tintin and Clavdia joined them, the atmosphere did not visibly improve. Settembrini shrugged his shoulders and opened his hands as if to ask, "Well, what excitement is left now without Peeperkorn to prod us with his dazzling life?" And Naptha, dressed for no apparent reason in a smoking jacket, gazed about the room looking for the absent one who had ruled the board these past days, days that indeed had seemed several years.

  "I see there is sorrow here," Tintin said. "It sits at the table."

  "Sorrow and vacancy and all manner of sadness there is," Naptha said dolefully.

  "Loneliness has taken mein Herr's seat," Settembrini added, but then, as if suddenly struck by the black band about Clavdia's arm, he composed himself, took the woman's hand, and kissed it. "For what little I have and what little I am, I offer you my services at this terrible time."

  "And I no less," Naptha said, rising and clicking his heels. Clavdia nodded her appreciation to the two men and began to speak, but Settembrini's words cut her short. "What does it mean for you to offer anything, Naptha, you who have so much? I grieve the loss of so great a spirit and offer Madame my spiritual aid in some small fraction of recompense for her loss."

  "It is selfish and cruel of you to quarrel at this moment of anguish to Madame. I ask you to desist, if there is kindness left you," Tintin said.

  "Yes, of course," Settembrini answered ruefully. "My apologies, Madame. Yet to lose mein Herr speaks to me of all my losses and of those yet to come, of all the deprivations I have lived and have been made to live," Settembrini continued, transfigured by his urgent misery.

  "And you, Naptha, who offers services, offers nothing that cannot be provided by your wealth while I must suffer the humiliation of making a second-class gift, the paltry present of my feelings, the gift of all who are penniless. That this should be my lot, a second-rate life, I, who was born in the image of a prince! A second-rate life. I, who should have dined at the tables of the Farneses, supped with the Duke of Montefeltro in his exquisite court in Urbino, I in the company of poets and philosophers, I, munching sugary pears and grapes fresh from the tame hills. For one who understands quality, anything second-rate is humiliation. I go with cloth coat; you, Naptha, with fur. I must purchase reprints; you, first editions — in original bindings. I travel second class, with children and needy professors on grants, lodging always at the lesser hotels, in rooms without view, sometimes without windows. Breakfast specials, sugared bun, weak coffee, the waiters never frightened or withered by my displeasure, knowing I am only second class, only a cut above them. In your capacious apartment, Naptha, you have guests for tea, a servant producing silver trays of biscuits and moist sandwiches, the dark rims of crust cut away; you invite and are in turn invited; I am the perennial guest with no hospitality to return and thus forever at the rear of the table (and dare I not be charming to hostess and her friends, dare I contradict or show my boredom, dare I not play the ebullient bachelor!). They do not say of me: 'He dresses shabbily because he is eccentric, but in truth he is rich.' Or, 'He is not rich, but he is famous, for something or another.' I am invited to the dinner table, but the host has long forgotten why.

  "Alone, all alone. I, who dreamed of beauty and love, who dreamed, as a youth as well as now, of my ideal, my Beatrice, my life, mother and virgin and ravishing puttana who wants to be plunged front and back, who would hold me, head on her lap, she in a blue silky gown, her golden hair fanned by the hilly breeze, hold me and caress me and speak lovingly to me, always loving me, always attentive and respectful of my learning and culture, and yet here I am, I, I, who dream of her, ill from longing and deprivation. I cannot bear it, my dear friends, old and new. Perhaps I am pathetic in my longings, in my vision of beauty and love, ma sono fatto così! I am made this way.

  "And you, Naptha, the world is yours, yet you despise it, not what it refuses you but for what you cannot provide it, a fair form, handsomeness, beauty."

  "To be just," Naptha replied sadly, "we are both somewhat meager."

  Clavdia signaled Tintin her readiness to leave. But he stilled her with a calming movement of his hand.

  "No, we are nothing, you ugly, I poor; unloved."

  "Loveless."

  "Lovelorn, I may add."

  "But," Naptha said timidly, "I feel, sometimes, I care for you."

  "And I you, at times."

  "Most likely I shall never find the Isolde of my dreams," Naptha said fiercely, "no such woman seeks me, yet I, too, have yearned for a love greater than love. Or at the very least for a companion to scale cliffs over a furious sea at dusk, for a mate to share a dinner and an evening's concert in winter. Has not Brüderschaft a place in human love? And if I cannot find an Isolde, may I not find solace in Tristano? In short, must a quirk of gender keep one — me — from love when love — or affection, its diminutive form — presents itself, as I feel, Signor Settembrini, it is currently presenting itself?"

  "I, too, feel its presen
ce, and it shames the various unpleasantries between us."

  "Why, then, we have, if no one else, each other."

  "Do we?"

  "I shall protect you; you shan't want again."

  "Is there enough in your hoard for two? Or must you dilute your treasures, leaving us to live in less than first-class style?"

  "More than enough, a superabundance. I have lived humbly in comparison with what I might, for there was never reason for luxury before," Naptha said.

  "You dazzle me. Here, let me butter your toast."

  "No butter, my dear, and you must forswear it, too," Naptha said reprovingly. "We have little enough to offer each other without worsening our lot, bad for the arteries, and fattening, you know."

  "Nonsense!" roared Tintin in a voice consonant with the recently departed one's. "Faddish slander! Your butter, lard, margarine, olive oil, all the holy brotherhood of unction lubricate the bones and muscle and give an unguent sheen to the crackling skin. Why, these little butter patties are oily eucharist to the dry spirit as well as the dry flesh, quite. I anoint your bread; here, I'll froth your toast with butter. Lovers you shall be, and hearty ones. Let you love robustly, no watery spendings! Settled! May proud Priapus love you. Toast, butter, eat."

  "I am so pleased for you both!" Clavdia exclaimed, kissing the two on the cheek. "A reconciliation at last."

  Naptha and Settembrini, their eyes shining, left the table shyly, followed by Clavdia, who flashed a distracted smile on Tintin, leaving him alone in the candlelight, his man-size hands folded on the linened table.

  — Chapter XIX —

  [The following day.]

  In late afternoon Tintin and Clavdia strolled arm in arm along the grassy trail leading to the summit of the ancient city.

  "Come to Marlinspike, live with me. Inseparable and happy. Think now what has opened to us! We shall meet each day as an adventure, never to be bored or sad, always to do as we feel and wish. Clavdia, so few humans have our chances."

  "Which ones?"

  "To wake in the morning in our broad bed, under Egyptian sheets; to start our hearts to beat in lovemaking — I shall improve and make you happier — then to breakfast (only now do I understand how lovely that): silver trays aglow on the rich wooden table, on which rest Georgian silver forks and knives beside thick linen serviettes; on table and highboy the morning's freshly cut flowers. Before I imagined sharing one with you, to me, all meals were merely necessary intervals that broke the day. Breakfast shall be our most sacred meal, as it is the one that heralds and fuels our each new day together. What would you like? Cold poached salmon with a touch of dill or capers, or perhaps a lighter fare, some spoonfuls of choice caviar between drafts of chilled French champagne? Then coffee, brewed from beans still fresh from the blue, wet hills of Jamaica ... or some other kind of caffeinated beverage should you prefer."

  "My little menu, I've had all that all my life."

  "With someone you love and who loves you?"

  "With men."

  "But all that does not count now. There's never been happiness before. Why fasten the past to our present lips?"

  "The past lives in my every cell. Every gesture of my every day."

  "Nonsense."

  "Nonsense you! A man is his cohered world, all that which has made him his power, his cuff links. A man is where and with whom he dines, the stitch and cut of his shoes, the lines of his luggage."

  "You loved me, not my monograms and suspenders."

  "And like you still. But we can't make oaks from acorns in one night. My dear Tintin, take what we've had as a present of fortune, for the lovely moment it was. It is unfair to attempt to build on what was so captivating, so fleeting, so spontaneous an impulse. And of course, there is him. Do you think I can cast off his weight like that? Sooner toss an iceberg. And when I do shed him and grief has its end, I must live my life anew, with no hint of the tainted past. There's no less affection for you in that, but you can't expect me to begin again with you or with anyone just yet."

  "Why not? You break my heart just now I've gotten one. It's cruel of you."

  "No recriminations, no regrets. Don't press me, or soon I shall loathe you, as I sometimes did my former guardian, my keeper. Let the future recall us tenderly."

  "My God, Clavdia, I can feel it. It's breaking. It's the cliff for me, too, then."

  "So be it. I can't and won't stop you. No one person is sufficient, no one person can be all for us for too long. I can't endure any one person too long. Nothing for too long, especially myself."

  A condor soared above them in an ever-narrowing spiral, as if winging to some point of infinity in the leaden sky. A chilling cloud passed over Tintin's heart.

  "He will fly that way until his lungs burst," Tintin said. "That's farfetched," Clavdia answered, her voice terse. "Perhaps, but for that creature it is true; he neither knows nor cares why he aspires so fatally upward, but it is his time to do so."

  "And what pretty analogy shall you make from that? Are we being signaled of man's urge for the beyond, the above, the high?"

  "Humans long for the everything."

  "Quite the philosopher! All this from one who only yesterday was incapable of — "

  A sudden gust of wind blew across the trail, taking

  Clavdia's words away with it to the gorge below.

  "I grow to know less and less of yesterdays, Clavdia.

  'These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God today. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.’"

  "Above time! Indeed. A gallant speech to direct at me, who is your elder and each day drifting to youth's end. Your mouth grows wiser by the hour, but your heart stays offensively simple."

  "Your soul has no age, my Clavdia."

  "More pretty speeches. Is this rhetoric the fruit of your new learning?"

  "I learn new things each day," Tintin said, his blue eyes darkening.

  "Wonderful! You learn all that which is common knowledge to most ordinary men."

  "I have had to begin from the naked origins of things, but I soon shall thrust ahead, far beyond the common scope."

  "What did you learn today, for instance?"

  "That you are discontent down to your marrow."

  "Revelation! You're ablaze with perception."

  "Clavdia, your scorn wounds me and blurs you in my loving eyes. You grow harsh and hard."

  "Because you oppress me. I feel oppressed by you. You were delightful when innocent, someone to play with, a novelty. But you've grown too solemn. I admit you are better-looking now, beautiful, in fact, golden, a man's slim body, your voice mellow, your gestures smooth, but I'm weary of you. I am obscure by nature — though I think I hide it well — and need light, and light men, distance, distraction. If you were a tango dancer or a polo player, you would calm me by your natural indifference to my misery. But you want to protect me — and look at the results — you love me without proper reserve, and I'm growing to dislike you for it."

  "And I thought, still think in some dream I had of you, though that shall perhaps fade, that you were matchless. That while the world, save animals and plants and stones, was murky and plain, you illuminated this shadow earth."

  "And I thought," Clavdia said sorrowfully, "often still think in some forgotten dream of ours, that you were intended for me, my cells matched to yours. Well, dream or no, I do care for you yet."

  "Then, Clavdia," Tintin pleaded, "let us begin again, a new l
ife together, come —

  "Contigo mano a mano

  busquemos otro llano

  busquemos otros montes y otros ríos,

  otras valles jloridos y sombríos,

  donde descanse y siempre pueda verte

  ante de ojos míos

  sin miedo y sobresalto de perderte."

  "Life has many paths, roads, stations, and we shall emerge and disappear, connect and disconnect, in different guises and moods. We have had our moment, but we have lingered over it too long, have let it ripen into sorrow and distraction, into what we now have become to each other," Clavdia said, her hand caressing Tintin's stricken face.

  Tintin "glared at her a moment through the dusk, and the next instant she felt his arms about her and his lips on her own lips. Her kiss was like white lightning, a flash that spread, and spread again, and stayed."

  Clavdia felt Tintin's warm tears on her cheek and lips; she felt his soul strain to preserve itself, to remain within him, fearful lest it fly from the youth's parted mouth into her own. She drew back abruptly, leaving him momentarily with his arms partly outstretched, his torso inclined as if preparing to board a train that had unexpectedly shot away.

  Seeing him in such stunned solitude, his face careworn, his eyes swollen and red-rimmed, Clavdia felt herself soften, opening to him as a mother would to her own hurt child; she would press him to her breast, stroke him, call him sweet names, she would take him back to the hotel, bathe and feed him, undress and make love to him, she would take him into her tenderly, letting him release his anguish in her pitying embrace. But this impulse, noble and plausible as it first seemed, presently felt too imbued with the murky spirits of self-sacrifice and guilt and thus dangerous to her own safety and need for flight. Tintin would have to fend for himself in this world where human feelings change profoundly and suddenly, and if he broke, it was he in his untried soul who broke, but not she, who would return to her separate self once again.