The Recognitions

by William Gaddis

  The visor was jammed closed on the thumb which had opened it, jammed tight, as Valentine saw, crushing the white length between the joints, and Valentine moved nothing but his eyes, up, to the living eyes which burned green upon him. —But you and I, now, you and I . . .

  The green eyes did not move, and Valentine withdrew slowly, withdrew his foot from the visor whose edge moved no more than the still thumb recovering its shape forced, for the thumb itself stayed.

  —You know . . . Valentine said, getting his weight on both feet now, —all of this . . . He made a faint gesture over the room. —You and I . . . Then he watched the thumb withdrawn from the broken mouth, and that hand trailing a streak of watered blood down the breastplate. —You and I . . . listen. Listen . . . Valentine tried to smile; and was as instantly aware of the image he had left in the mirror returned to mock the cold lines of this face which he had learned so well to use and trust. —Listen . . . he said, watching the hand search between roses, and stop fingertips on the penknife, —Listen to me. You and I now, it won’t be . . . the kind of thing that . . . it won’t be vulgar . . . it won’t be vulgar, he repeated with half a step back, watching the other hand come away from the half-opened visor, and as he saw the hands join on the penknife his own reached toward his waist but it hung at the weight there, —Because you’re . . . part of me . . . damn you, damn you, damn you, he cried throwing both hands up before his face as the short blade stabbed him once, and again, and again, driven each time at the top of his chest, and he lost his balance and hit his head against the newel and went down.

  A cry, or a yelp was it? came from the kitchen. And there Fuller walked over to the sink, none too steady, and washed his hands. Then he washed the butcher knife and dried it on a hand towel, dropped the towel in a hamper and put the butcher knife in the rack where it belonged, and then picked up the two cardboard suitcases which he’d been all this time tying closed. He turned off the kitchen light by stooping and catching the switch with his shoulder, and emerged into the great room with a bag in each hand.

  —You, sar!

  —Fuller! . . . I . . .

  —But what occur sar? The bags in Fuller’s hands sank to the floor. —And Mister Valentine, sar?

  —Yes, yes I . . . I’ve just taught him the lesson . . . the only lesson the gods can teach, yes . . .

  —But you, sar, you unharmed?

  —I? Good God yes, I . . . I’m as free as the day I was born. Here! Here! . . . don’t go near there, don’t touch him.

  —But maybe Mister Valentine in danger of recoverin, sar.

  —But . . . no, don’t touch him. You never know what they may . . . have in their hair. Then he laughed. —And you, Fuller? taking a vacation, Fuller?

  —Yes sar. Where I belong to be, sar, after all the years of bondage. Then Fuller straightened up from the bags he’d returned to, saying, —Something enter my mind. He went over to a cabinet and took out a large flat cedar box. He opened it, passed a hand in, held it up and smelled its contents, and closed it again. When Fuller came back across that carpet, avoiding stepping on the roses, it was with an expression of guilty satisfaction. But he stopped to look up and say —What is it, sar? Fuller got no immediate answer, and stood watching him force the taces aside over the heavy buttocks, to get a hand into a trouser pocket and come out with some bills in a wet wad. Then he bent over the hand flung out there at his feet. Fuller by now was beside him, and they both stared at the diamonds embedded in the flesh of the finger.

  —Sar . . . Fuller hesitated, —I believe by now the diamonds grow there, and to my eyes have lost their luster. Then he turned his face against his will to that staring up at him from the carpet.

  —So the eyes, he said, and broke this hold for the last time, —the eyes look like that black dog one day havin the temperature taken.

  —Good God!

  —Sar? Fuller looked up, to see him pull open the dinner jacket and tug at the waist. The pistol fell out on the carpet, and he stood there wiping a hand across his forehead before he reached in and got the wallet, picked up the pistol, and put both into his pockets.

  Fuller went back to his suitcases. —Seem I goin to enjoy the legacy of some excellent cigars, he said picking up the flat cedar case, unable to resist opening it wide enough to peep in, and sniff the contents. Then the dull jangle of the radio ceased, and Fuller watched him cross the carpet slowly, finishing the brandy he’d poured earlier. In the silence he stood looking down at the expanse of the table painting, the contour of his figure still before the fire until the movement of an arm broke it, and the empty glass shattered over the burning logs. Then the figure was all movement, sliding the glass top off of the table, smashing a foot down into the table’s surface, hands rending the painted panel into one piece after another small enough to throw into the fire, while he whispered, —Cave, caveat emptor, Dominus videt, Christ! the original! . . . a whisper broken by laughter, —yes, thank God there was the gold to forge!

  It was all the work of a few moments, and he was still again standing before the fire. The flames rose and moved quietly beyond his profile throwing a radiant edge to it and leaving the features in shadow and the streaks of blood indiscernible.

  Fuller watched, cleared his throat, but did not interrupt. The fire rose with sharper cracks of insistence and sudden shocks of flame throwing longer shadows and Fuller moved like one of them toward his luggage, speaking softly. —So long ago, wen he tell me he goin to make me from a black man to a wite. He picked up his bags and got the cedar case of cigars under one arm. —Evidence of the great power watchin over me, that he did not succeed in his design. And after a moment’s waiting, standing straight, Fuller started to the door without another look on that great room, startled, to be sure, passing the youthful portrait, as he went out to the hall and unloaded briefly to reach his hat down from the very small panel closet. Hat in hand he paused, readying to break the silence pouring out to him with his own voice in farewell perhaps, when the silence was broken, by a rattling of metal; and Fuller quickly busied himself with picking up his bags, embarrassed at eavesdropping on an intimacy which for the first time he understood, hearing now,

  —Good God! what a luxury you were!

  Out in the street Fuller waited. He stood and breathed deeply. Then when the door behind him opened again and closed he spoke without turning, looking toward the sky, —Seem we have the moon waitin to light us upon the way . . .

  —The moon? the moon? where . . . They both sought the sky for it.

  —A moment ago . . . Fuller commenced.

  —Ah but it’s all right, when we need it why, charms, yes charms can bring it down . . . Fuller, here, listen, this money. Will you take some of it? I don’t know how much there is, but, where are you going now?

  —First I must seek a telephone, inform a friend of the condition of these we leave behind, requirin his professional services. Then I believe escape from this vicinity to be desirable for many reasons. And you sar?

  —Yes, to go. To go, but first, even if . . . it didn’t turn out like I thought it would but, it turned out, it had its own design. Yes to go. where. But I have to get her first, you understand, you would understand, where I’ve been all this time. Fuller? the money . . . ?

  —Oh no sar, Fuller started to retreat, a pale shaft of light yellowing the life of the streetlights full upon him. —I quite sufficiently provided for as it is: in a smile his pink tongue fled delicate and in danger, into the darkness of that donjon keep as he closed the gold portcullis of his teeth.

  The moon, and other lustrous blisters of heaven, were gone. It had commenced to snow again when the cab drew into Central Park, and the driver looked up into his mirror to see the figure slumped in back suddenly pull himself up at the apparition of trees and stare out, as though alarmed and uncertain where he was in the dark wood, until they came out of it.

  The cab slurred up in the slush and stopped, and the driver twisted round in his seat. —Now look, Jack, we been riding ar
ound an hour now, I already told you an hour ago you can’t just go into Bellevue this time of the night without something like you got your throat cut. Haven’t you got a home somewheres you want to go? Haven’t you got some dame you could go visit? Me, I got to get all the ways out to Astoria yet . . . what? Now you want to go back downtown? Horatio Street, that’s down on the West Side? O.K., this is the last time, we’ll go down, but this is the last time.

  Above, windows were lighted, occasionally blocked by the shadows of incurious faces looking forth only in order not to look back, and her own back turned on this room of faded Edwardian elegance, motionless, heedless of the paper littering the carpet about her feet. The letter under her left foot opened, “I have written you a number of times now, and you have not answered me . . .” and its lines were streaked and awash, where a drink had spilled. She stared out into the dark chasm beneath her high window, unable to make out its depths from the laceration framing her figure in light, and turning away, the breath drawn so slowly was expelled in resolution as she crossed the strewn carpet. A moment later, the pen moved in upright strokes of vicious indignation: “Dear Doctor Weisgall. It may interest you to know that my mother and the Pope . . .”

  Further down, in this concentric ice-ridden chaos, heavy wet snow was falling. The wind bellowed down fighting against itself in the dark gaping ruin where the building had been, and he turned slipping again in the slush, to see red lights streaming across the street further down, near the corner. He had to stumble round the dark edge of a pool to reach the bar, and even at that was forced to wait in the door, his entrance blocked by two beer barrels being rolled in opposite directions, meeting here head-on while the owner and the bartender swore at each other and rolled them back again. He came in muttering, felt for the sharp packet inside his coat, and ordered a drink. Someone ordered drinks all round. The place was foul-smelling, the floor awash and streaked with things spilled, and a clogged drain behind the door to the men’s room. A small figure clutching a filthy dollar bill fixed him with a strabismic stare. He drank, breathing through his mouth to avoid the smell, and was trying to count the edges of the bills protruding from his inside pocket when a fight started and he withdrew, slowly for fear of being drawn in on their mud-spattered anger where they came on wildly at one another, hand and foot and a butting head which almost upset him before he recovered the darkness and the streets streaming red as though consumed with wet flame. The argument emerged behind him, as he set out to cross the dark lake.

  —Look, Leroy . . .

  —Dis city . . .

  —Leroy . . .

  —Dis

  Across the chasm, the mirror reflected a brightly lighted and harsh reality, which included, immediately, two drunks busy in conversation. One of them, speaking from a twisted face, trod backwards upon Mr. Pivner’s foot, forcing him to move slightly closer to his own companion, at whom, every few moments, he stole glances in the glass behind the bar.

  —You know what I am? demanded the drunk on the far side. They were enjoying their discussion very much, each finding the other intelligent, witty, in all, a good companion, for neither was listening to what the other was saying. —I’m a male nurse.

  —Well I say anybody can make a million dollars. You just have to start out thinking that way, and if you keep on, if you keep right on, you get into the habit and you can’t help it.

  —Well let me tell you what we had today. We had a c.a., do you know what that is?

  —After awhile, you can’t help it, you can’t help making a million dollars. You know what I am? I’m a fortune teller. Hands, cards, I can read anything.

  Mr. Pivner had taken off his wet hat when they came in, looked round, and put it on again. He felt well, but a little giddy. Their conversation was not hurried, he responded alertly enough, but found himself far behind: while listening, even while speaking, he was still examining the words of three or four sentences before. Speaking, —Well, what are you studying now? . . . he was still weighing his own embarrassed greeting when they’d met in the street, —I was going home, but, why no, no I’m not really in a hurry. Hearing, —I’m not studying anything special yet. It’s pretty expensive going to night school, it’s just the books that run into money, you’d be surprised how much they can cost. These are mostly books on science, that’s mostly what I’m interested in . . . he was still savoring, —Merry Christmas, gee, I’m glad to see you sir. I was just going to midnight Mass . . . Savoring, again, —I’m glad to see you sir . . . he licked his lips, and looked to the mirror.

  —This c.a., up in the hospital, you haven’t never seen anything like it.

  —Like a friend of mine, he’s getting married, like I even foretold him he was going to. Tomorrow, Christmas, he’s getting married. He was screwing this little Bronx girl regular, I foretold him he’d have to marry her.

  —Now let me describe to you what a c.a. is.

  —In a way you might say that this guy’s lucky, in a way you might say maybe it’s a good thing. A thing like that, when you put it off, after a wile you begin to get scared, but if it happens early like with this guy then there you are and you don’t know no different, you get in the habit and you can’t help it. Like I foretold him, I foretold him, you get in the habit and you can’t help it. And with a step back, the fortune teller jostled the ribs behind him with an elbow.

  There was already a similarity between their noses, so was the revelation in the glass; and if it were a negative one, that is, if neither his own, nor that which signaled the skinny face so close to his, was in any way exceptional, there was no time for such apprehension: it still seemed to be happening too fast. He heard himself speaking with the cordial restraint he had envisionedly prepared for his first conversations with his son; but it was a conversation which he had anticipated in such detail, in so many rehearsals, that now each channel and bend was cherished, not to be lost in the mutability of chance exchange, but clenched: yes, for in this instant the truth of it was, that doubt abided in the actuality: that this actuality urged the doubt, a featureless transient until now so abruptly given quiddity and a carnal selfishness of its own. Speaking, —But what I mean is, if you’d like . . . I mean I’d like to get these books for you, because if I can . . . if you and I . . . His lip twitched, but instead of looking away as he would usually have done, Mr. Pivner looked straight at Eddie Zefnic’s face. —I think we can manage, he said. He smiled, and his lip stopped twitching.

  —But gee Mister Pivner . . .

  —And listen, Eddie. Here, Eddie, here there’s something I want to give you. It may not seem . . . but it’s Christmas Eve and, here, please I, think you should have it.

  —You can’t imagine what a mess it was, but you got to expect that with a c.a.

  —So you see it come out just like I foretold him, there’s certain things which you can’t escape them.

  —But gee! . . . a watch? and it’s, gold? A gold watch?

  —I think you should have it, because . . .

  —But gee! sir. And gee, look it’s almost twelve. You wouldn’t want to come to Mass with me?

  —But I don’t think I’d know what to do.

  —But if you’re with me . . .

  —It’s that or religion.

  —Or helping out to preform a c.a.

  —Yes, if I’m with you . . . And Mr. Pivner blew his nose. He had almost thanked Eddie Zefnic for the robe.

  Otto rounded a corner, walking the curb as though himself on the edge of a chasm, his back turned to the river whose wind followed him, momentarily dazzled by fire and pitch where a tub of asphalt stood in the street sentineled by kerosene flares. The snow had changed to sleet, to rain, and stopped; but his coat was wet, and hung heavy as lead from his shoulders.

  —Otto! . . . Stanley appeared as though risen from an exposure of pavement. He shivered, his eyes were red, his mustache looked lop-sided.

  —Stanley, where are you going? . . .

  —Otto why did you do that? Did you know? di
d you know?

  —What, what, did I know what?

  —I’ve been arrested, all this time, I’ve been in the police station since the last time I saw you.

  —But what? what for? what happened?

  —And the police, do you know what they’re like, the police? like machines, they’re so bored, they don’t listen, they don’t know who you are, but you can’t do anything, you can’t do anything . . .

  —But what is this? what happened?

  —You didn’t know? That money you gave me, you didn’t know? The money you lent me, that twenty-dollar bill, you didn’t know it was no good?

  —No good . . . ?

  —That it was counterfeit?

  —Counterfeit?

  —If you didn’t know, thank God if you didn’t know. I shouldn’t have thought what I did, I shouldn’t have thought you’d do that to me, I’m sorry, forgive me, forgive me for thinking that about you.

  —But no . . . Otto whispered: —No. No, not all that . . .

  —I’m sorry, forgive me, I’ll pay it back to you. Forgive me, Otto. I have to go now.

  —But wait, wait wait wait . . .

  —I can’t stay, I have a toothache, I’ve had it all day, I have to go, I have to go to midnight Mass now, and then I have to go see my mother, they moved my mother to a new hospital today and she’ll wonder where I’ve been, and then I think the police might . . .

  —The police, what did you tell them?

  —About the money? I said I didn’t know, I told them I didn’t know where I got it, I don’t know whether they believed me, they just look at you, maybe they’re following me, I don’t know, but it doesn’t matter now, and forgive me, I’ll pay you back . . .

  —But no, Otto whispered.

  —What is it? I have to go, will you come with me now? Do you want to come to Mass with me?

  —No. No. Otto rubbed his forehead, then dropped his hand to the sharp weight in his jacket. —He couldn’t have done that . . .