The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  —You must do what you want to do.

  —It’s not as silly as staying in New York. Spending time with people like Chaby. And half-wits like Anselm. And Stanley.

  —They are very beautiful people, Esme said.

  —Chaby? Beautiful?

  —Yes, Otto, she said gently.

  —He’s a kind of a . . . there’s something really low, really disgusting . . .

  —He’s very unhappy.

  —That’s his own damned business.

  —Please don’t swear at me, Otto.

  —I wasn’t swearing at you, Esme. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean . . .

  —He was hurt in the war, and that’s where he got the bad habit.

  —What bad habit?

  —Of taking drugs, she said, sober and simple, staring at the floor where the rug ended.

  —He’s a drug addict? I might have known it.

  —It wasn’t his fault. They gave him morphine in the war when he was hurt, and that’s the way he learned about it.

  —Well, enough people came out of the war without being dope fiends.

  —Chaby didn’t, she said. She looked up, to watch Otto find an ant on the back of his hand, and crush it and roll it into a bit of lifeless dirt with his thumb. Then he said, —Is this one of your poems?

  —Yes, she answered, seeing he had picked it up from the bookcase.

  —Do you publish them?

  —Sometimes. If I like.

  He read it.

  To A CHILD, BEHELD IN SUMMER RAIMENT

  Little girl, one lesser garment

  Will suffice to clothe your crotch,

  Hide that undiscovered cavern

  Where old Time will wind his watch.

  —Where did you get a word like crotch? Otto asked, his voice mocking, shocked (for he was shocked, and this dissembling the only way he knew to evade it).

  —I got it.

  —But don’t you think it’s sort of . . . vulgar? I mean, why crotch?

  —It rhymes with watch, Esme explained. —It’s a poem. Then, in the tone of a child conspiring, she said, —I wrote a poem for Recktall Brown. It’s about him and me. Would you like to read it?

  Otto, ready to sulk again, took it from her. —What does Effluvium mean?

  —That’s the title.

  —Yes, I see. But what does it mean?

  —Why should it mean anything? It’s the title.

  He read it through, stared at it, and finally managed to say, —I didn’t know you knew words like perspicacious.

  —It’s just a word, Esme said.

  —It’s a very nice poem.

  —It isn’t nice at all.

  —I’m afraid I don’t understand it.

  —Why should you understand it?

  —But what does it mean?

  —What does it mean. It just is.

  One moment he thought she was laughing at him for finding no meaning; the next, that she took him a fool for looking for one. —It sounds hermaphroditic, he said, defensively.

  —Her-maph-ro-dit-ic? What is that?

  —Someone with the equipment of both sexes.

  —Like a succubus?

  —Queer. Queerer.

  —Queerer than queer?

  Even now, it was almost dark; and the daybed where he sat stood mounted on the surface of the painted rug, and she outside it, looking on as one looks at an odalisque. Alone in the chair she thought of this, and started to shiver. —What’s the matter? he said, and started to get up.

  —Don’t, don’t, she said quickly as though frightened. —Stay there, please. Please.

  —But what’s the matter?

  —I just get cold sometimes, all of a sudden my feet get very cold.

  —Esme, about last night . . .

  —What did you want to see me about, alone? she asked, seemed to mock him.

  —Well, about last night, I wanted to clear up . . .

  She sat still, far out of his reach, one leg folded under her. She had lit a cigarette, and its smoke rose between them. He had no wish to clear up the events of the night before: only to repeat it, in the pall of half-light, but while there was still light, light, so he could see. He got up and came to her chair.

  —Please sit down, please, where you were, she said, hiding her face. —If we’re going to talk I have to be able to see you. The cigarette burned, a protective brand between them. He turned, silent, and looked around, on the chest, on the table. There he picked up a paper, covered with writing in her large open hand. He read, “Baby and I / Were baked in a pie / The gravy was wonderful hot. / We had nothing to pay / To the baker that day / And so we crept out of the pot.” —Is this more of your poetry?

  —Oh no, Otto. That’s a nursery rhyme I used to know.

  —What did you write it here for?

  —Sometimes I just write things I know, things I remember, because I like to write lovely things.

  —I don’t see what’s so lovely about being baked in a pie.

  —Please sit down, she said. But when she put her cigarette out, he crushed his own quickly and reached her before she had time to do more than throw her elbow up before her eyes. He took her shoulders and turned them back until her face fell open to him. Her eyes were larger than he thought they could be, her lips quivering with fear, he kissed her crushing her down with his whole weight. Then like the pickpocket who calls attention to one’s arm by bump ing it, while his hand slips in to the billfold, Otto distracted the dress covering her breasts with one hand, while his other sought delicately, lower, until it came to uneasy rest in warmth and darkness.

  —But your arm? she whispered.

  —What arm? She pointed to that sling, come undone. —It’s all right, he said, flushing. —It’s all right. Esme’s thin face had the look of a small terrified animal never assailed, never before held and forced, and now caught in a snare; but a face that asked no pity, no stopping now, only assault, until every terror was consummated. Then she hid her face. —Otto, that thing scratches.

  —What thing?

  —This, she said, pointing at his mustache, exposing herself, and they went down in the chair again. Something snapped. Esme reached to her shoulder, embarrassed at this interruption of reality. Then, blithe as a little girl who has a secret game, or hiding place, which she shows to only one (or as candidly, one at a time) she led him back to the daybed.

  —Esther . . . Otto whispered, and buried himself more deeply on her, forced his head down over her shoulder, pressing the lips that lied into her neck. —Esme . . .

  As in Chinese fencing, whose contractual positions eliminate the fetters of time, time passed.

  —It’s a song from Tosca, she said, waking in the dark.

  —What is?

  —The song you wanted to know the name of.

  —Song? Then you were dreaming.

  —Then I was, she said. —Was it a dream? He felt her feet, very cold, against him. And he held her close to him, smiling. —I dreamt . . . he said, —Now don’t you smell it?

  —What?

  —Lavender. Don’t you smell the lavender? A moment of silence, and she said, —What did you dream?

  —I dreamt . . . I had a terrible dream. I was at a film with a woman I knew very well, and I was pretending to be blind, with my eyeballs looking way up under the lids. Then I really was blind, and I was walking with a stick with a retracting point. There was cloth over my eyeballs that scratched and hurt, but I didn’t seem to be upset. And the woman with me threatened me if I tried to escape her. Then another woman came along, she was very full-breasted, in a tight sort of bodice. We went to the park, and there was someone else there. Who was it? I can’t think who it was. But the woman with me led me down a long street, and we came to a movie palace. Then I realized I’d made myself blind. And then the stick split down the middle, and I was there alone. The woman had left me alone. It was terrible.

  —I dreamt about someone.

  —Who?

  —Someone you don�
�t know, she said. Then she said to herself, —He was in a mirror, caught there.

  —Now I remember who it was I saw in the park, Otto said.

  —Who?

  —Someone I used to know, someone you don’t know, he said, and saw that pale thin man standing in the park vividly silent, watching him without recognition as he approached, blind, with the stick and its retracting point. —A friend, I used to . . . it’s funny, that I miss him.

  —But why aren’t you missing me! she cried out in a suffocated voice. —I’m here . . . In the dark he felt her shudder, and traced her brow with his finger.

  Esme put her head under his chin. He held her, smiling. And in the darkness, he suddenly realized that she could not see his smile, and he relaxed his face, feeling what a. strain the smile had been.

  She straightened her clothes, getting up, and turned on a light. —Stop looking at me, she said.

  —You have a lovely body, he said.

  —That isn’t true.

  —It is, it’s so slim, almost like a boy’s body. Do you ever model?

  —Sometimes I do, Esme admitted.

  —For fashion magazines? She hesitated, and turned away, looking for a belt. —Yes, that’s it, she said, and Otto pursued her no further, busy as he was tying up his bandage which had come loose, exposing a healthy, though pallid, length of forearm. —I like my body because it’s just easy to wash, Esme said, and went out, to the communal bathroom.

  His hair was rumpled; looking for a mirror, all he found was a medicine chest, the mirror’s place filled by a painting of dark abstraction.

  —Do you like the painting? she said, coming in behind him.

  —Don’t you have a mirror?

  —Don’t you see? There aren’t any, she said.

  —But why not?

  —Mirrors dominate the people. They tell your face how to grow.

  —Now Esme, really. Mirrors are made to look in.

  —Made to look in? she said. —They are evil, she said, thinking of her own dream now. —To be trapped in one, and they are evil. If you knew what they know. There are evil mirrors where he works, and they work with him, because they are mirrors with terrible memories, and they know, they know, and they tell him these terrible things and then they trap him . . . She was speaking with hysteric speed.

  —Esme, he said, holding her. —Now relax Esme, and she reached her arms around him, pulling him down to her as though never to let go.

  —Is there a mirror in the bathroom? he asked as he let her go.

  —Yes, she whispered.

  He tried to take her round the waist again, but she twisted away. —Let me go. I have to hurry, she said.

  —Why?

  —I have to meet somebody.

  —Who?

  —Somebody you don’t know, she said, suddenly recovered, and as though playing his game with him like a child.

  In the communal bathroom, he felt for his wallet in his pocket, then caught his face’s image in the mirror: crooked, out of proportion, it looked a stranger to him, because her face in this hour past, searching in it so deeply that his own face was forgotten, all faces other than hers forgotten, her face had become the very image, the definition of a face.

  He pulled at the roll of paper on the wall, to wipe away a smudge on his cheek, and that paper rolled out to him with a great creaking, and one small brave passenger, a cockroach, riding like Palinurus piloting the ship of Aeneas, where he went to sleep at the helm and fell overboard, to be murdered by natives ashore.

  VII

  And as Jesus Christ, of the house of David, took upon himself human nature in order to free and to redeem mankind who were in the bonds of sin because of Adam’s disobedience, so also, in our art, the thing that is unjustly defiled by the one will be absolved, cleansed and delivered from that foulness by another that is contrary to it.

  —Raymond Lully, Codicillus

  That afternoon, Fuller sat on a bench, his back turned to Central Park in December. Women scuttled past him the bulks of furs, bearing gold and precious ornaments which he watched without envy. He’d only to smile, to yawn, or frankly raise his upper lip and he could show more gold than any of them could wear, even in their most offensive aspirations to taste: jewels by the pound-weight, rings so heavy that they looked like weapons. The cold wind made continuous suggestion to his hat, a narrow-brimmed, imperially high-crowned straw, to join the fuzzy commotion that passed. The hat would have none of it. It was as firm on his head as his right hand on the umbrella, or his left hand holding the leash on the black poodle.

  His face remained peacefully arranged until that leash tightened, and then the lines in Fuller’s forehead and around his mouth tightened too. When they walked, the leash was taut like a bar holding them apart, instead of a binding tie. The black faces viewed one another with mistrust, but a weary mistrust which had by now settled down to resigned loathing. Though now as Fuller looked down at the dog, there was an element of glee in his expression of disgust. It was cold; and though Fuller was cold, the dog was shivering. Fuller too was inclined to shiver, but refused to give the dog that satisfaction. He sat quite tense, restraining himself, but staring directly at the dog, who could not stop shivering. But the disgust in Fuller’s face was evident. He wanted to visit a dear friend, whose office was a bare six blocks off, and sat now considering whether he could get there and back to Mr. Brown’s before the cocktail hour. Mr. Brown had gone to the doctor. Sometimes he was late, returning from the doctor. Fuller knew that he would be punished if he were late. On the other hand, he knew that Mr. Brown would hear about the visit, late or not. That was why Fuller looked at the poodle with troubled eyes now, for he was certain that this poodle and their master communicated, that if he went to see his friend, the poodle would tell on him.

  Then he smiled. Today must be different, and he tried to evade the habit of fear. He had his ticket, and tomorrow he would be gone. Mr. Brown would shout for him, the poodle would bark, but he would be far away. This ticket which he carried deeply hidden was the most expensive he had ever got. Its destination must be much nearer home than any of the others.

  He looked down to see that the poodle was watching him with that look which seemed to enter his mind and rummage in his memory. Was it learning about the ticket? Fuller stood, pulling the poodle to its feet roughly as it lunged toward a bird alighted near. He set off defiantly toward First Avenue, the witness a taut four feet away.

  We would believe that Fuller had had a childhood only in helpless empiricism, because we all have. But it was as unreal to him by now as to anyone looking at his face, where time had long since stopped experimenting. That childhood was like a book read, misplaced, forgotten, to be recalled when one sees another copy, the cheap edition in a railway station newsstand, which is bought, thumbed through, and like as not left on the train when the station is called. The slow train of Fuller’s life had made one express dash, when Recktall Brown had found him while on a Caribbean cruise, bought him from himself with something he had prized above life, not having it, this set of gold teeth, and a promise of magic unfulfilled: he was delivered at what seemed to be the last stop, Mr. Brown, Mr. Brown’s dog, and Mr. Brown’s apartment. That promise of magic, which had appealed so to youth, never materialized, though Fuller did not doubt but what Mr. Brown could make his skin white if he wanted to, a possibility which, grown older, he regarded now more as threat than redemption, and did not speak of it.

  The dog hated his singing. Today, in easily understood levity (the ticket), he sang:

  —Littel girl, please leave my bachelor room.

  Littel girl, littel girl please leave my bachelor room,

  You are so brazen, you are so free,

  You must proteck your mo-ral-i-ty:

  Littel girl, please leave my bachelor room,

  as they walked toward Third Avenue, and the elevated train which the dog hated too. Fuller knew this, and always waited at the corner until a train was in sight, pretending to the dog
that he was looking into a cigar-store window there.

  —Hello mahn, how you goin? Fuller greeted his friend after the pleasant walk (there had been two trains, from opposite directions, passing above them in a roar).

  The little mortician shook hands with him. —We had a big one, a . . . I mean we had a big one today, a funeral. Why I have more, there, do you see them all, all those at the end, those flowers, I have more flowers for you than you’ll be able to carry, Fuller. He motioned at the tall erectly wired bank of lilies, browning a bit at the edges. Fuller looked distressed.

  —I cannot go off with them, mahn.

  —But why? I mean, why not?

  —It’s that Mister Brown, mahn, sayin to me Fuller don’t you bring any more of your God-damned corpse bouquets in at this house.

  —But in your own room, I mean even in your own room you can’t have them?

  —No mahn, and he find out some way too if I try. Like the birds, I believe he even know about the birds. Somebody inform on me, I know, he added, looking at the poodle.

  —What birds?

  —I tell you about that another time, when we not under surveillance. But the gloves? You reserved another selection of gloves for me?

  —Yes, I mean I have eight pairs. Eight of them, I mean sixteen. Sixteen gloves, eight pall-bearers I mean. He fetched the gloves, and Fuller looked them over carefully.

  —These are very choice, Fuller said holding up one pair. —Very clean and immaculate. I suppose he don’t carry the coffin, just walk alongside to be respectable.

  —But doesn’t he mind the gloves? I mean Mister Brown, he doesn’t mind you wearing these gloves that were used to carry the, a . . . well I mean there’s no harm in it but some people are peculiar, I mean to serve things wearing these?

  —He think I purchase them, said Fuller. —That is how I managin to finance my trip mahn. The money I save.

  —Your trip?

  —Yes, I fear this is sayin farewell to you. Tomorrow I will be a distance away, goin to my home.

  —To the Barbados?

  —I plan departin tomorrow in the morning.

  —But Fuller, I mean not like the other times, I mean you’ve started out other times . . .