The Recognitions
Page 128
America
My contrey tears a dee
Sweat land a liberty
of D.I.C.
Landwert ar fater dye
Land of thy pildrem bride
From every mountain sides
Every dumb breed
wrote a student at the Essex County Boys Vocational and Technical High School in Newark, New Jersey.
The 00th person leaped from the Empire State Building in New York.
In San Francisco, seven strands of barbed wire were strung at the jumping-off place on the Golden Gate Bridge, which one hundred and fifty people had chosen as a point of departure from this world since the bridge was opened in 1937.
In Moscow, Pravda announced that Hawaiian guitar music had been banned in Russia.
Was the long winter really done? and “the fireside, the slippers and the waiting bed” no longer there to “protect the depressed person from himself . . . This line of retreat recedes as the day grows longer,” the World Health Organization reported, finding, in these verdant expressions of springtime’s acceleration, “the never-ending daylight difficult to bear, . . . and the glorious sun becomes a curse.”
Any city that calls herself modern anticipates all her children’s needs, even to erecting something high for them to jump from: the Eiffel Tower went up more than half a century ago; but everywhere the rural population must make shift to civilize itself with what it has. In southwestern France, within the neighborhood of Landes, forty-eight hours in the Easter holidays saw a woman hung in a farm barn, two men in a forest, one into a river, and another into the sea, while Deauville was already preparing to celebrate Pentecost, some seven weeks hence, by issuing five-hundred-thousand-franc chips in the casino, for the first time.
“Plage a allengas to are flag,” wrote the New Jersey high-school student, hardpressed by his progressive education: “i plegance to are flag of the united states of American / An to the republican for region stands / One machone in the viguable / witch libryt an justest for all” . . .
Libryt and justest, Los Angeles police confiscated a hydraulic press, dies, and the plastic rubber compound with which the three arrested men were counterfeiting poker chips, to be cashed in the gambling palaces across the line in Las Vegas.
In the viguable, the machone’s customs agents were importuning a Hollywood movie producer for duties on a “Study by Candlelight” by Vincent van Gogh. The purchaser said it was an “original” and therefore should enter the machone duty-free, witch libryt an justest guaranteed to any genuine work of art no matter how valuable; but the guardians of the viguable demanded a healthy cut (10 per cent) of the purchase price (50,000.00), enforcing the tariff this sweat land levels on an “imitation or copy” whose entrance threatens the livelihood of the inspiration even now ringing from every mountain sides.
Lovers of beautiful things were thick as thieves. Some of the six hundred seventy-five thousand dollars’ worth of paintings stolen from a cathedral in Bardstown, Kentucky (including a Descent of the Holy Ghost by Jan van Eyck), were found in the trunk of a car in Chicago. Far across the sea, the axiom that aesthetic value is not enhanced by ownership was once more disproven: a caretaker of the Victoria and Albert Museum had in twenty-three years taken home nineteen hundred and sixty objets d’art hidden in his trouser-leg.
Spring came everywhere, as though for the first time.
And for the first time, civilized use was found for the Great Pyramid of Cheops in Egypt, where a native son hurled himself effectively down the slope of two-ton blocks. In South America, with seventeen dead and 4,990 in need of medical attention after Rio de Janeiro’s pre-Lenten festivities, Holy Week itself moved toward a comparatively peaceful close. Three hundred lepers were reported marching on the capital city of Colombia from their colony at Rio Agua de Dios. Nine Pilgrims were trampled to death, and twenty-five injured, jamming the gates of the Shrine of Chalma in Mexico. A Baptist minister in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, burned two copies of a new revised version of the Bible because it substituted the words young woman for virgin, and a Lutheran minister said they were both wrong: the word should be maiden. In Chicago there was a crime every 12.5 minutes. Some chickens exploded in a town near Hanover, Germany (they had eaten carbide dropped by British troops on maneuver and drunk water). The Sheik of Kuwait asked that posters portraying the Venus de Milo not be shown in his domain, not prudish about her undraped bosom, but because Islamic law punishes the thief by chopping a hand off. The right arm of Saint Francis Xavier arrived in Japan by air. In Moscow, Pravda asked, Where has Noah’s Ark disappeared?
In Hungary’s capital, the newspaper Esti Budapest complained that children were not being taught to read and write in the state welfare schools: a painful confession, in the face of the strides being made in progressive education by her most redoubtable political antagonist, so far off, in the New World, where that intrepid young patriot at the Essex County Boys Vocational and Technical High School in Newark, New Jersey, soared to new heights of enthusiasm when asked to write his country’s national anthem, . . . the Stears Sbangle baner.
Oho see can you sing by the doon ter lee rise
Who’s so brightly prepaid as the twiylight least evening.
Who saw stars and bright strip threw the merilla fite
Where the ram what we watch where so ganley strening
And the rock that red clar bom boosting in air
Gave thru thur the nite that are flage was stild their
Oo sake of that stear sparkle baner yet quake
Over the home of the free and the land of the grave.
In a corridor outside a private room in the Z—— hospital in Budapest, two doctors talked.
—Napok óta nem aludt.
—Hetek óta.
—Seconal, Luminal, Somnadex, mindent megprobáltunk. Még amerikai szereket kényszerüsegükben.
—And you still do not sleep? said the man in the trenchcoat, inside.
—No.
—Your voice is clear, not strong perhaps but clear. He stood with his plump hands clasped behind him, looking out the window, his back to the figure on the bed. When he turned, the round flare of the trenchcoat’s skirt broke unevenly in front with the weight of the pistol in the pocket. —And the eyes are clear, he went on, —not strong perhaps, but clear.
—Yes, the eyes, the voice . . . my mind is clear, everything is clear but if I, cannot sleep? Everything is clear, my mind has never been more clear, do you hear me? My mind has never worked faster or . . . or more clearly, but this . . . this . . . without sleep, thinking, thinking, but none of it . . . without sleep?
—They say it cannot last very much longer, the man in the trench-coat said, and shrugged his shoulders slightly. The corners of his lips twitched, but otherwise his expression did not change at all.
There was no pillow on the bed, and the head lay back, the chin thrust upward and the whole profile sharp and hard in its features. The hands lay separate on the counterpane.
—Nincsen oka . . . the words of one of the doctors drifted in.
—Yes, there’s no reason, it isn’t reasonable that . . . there’s no reason, no reason! he brought out gasping, the watery blue eyes still on the white ceiling, a vein at the temple showing itself in throbbing. —Someone laughed, he gasped after another moment, —the Hapsburg lip, yes! We did our work there, you did didn’t you? You did meet Martin, in Rome?
—On the street “in broad daylight.” It was the work of a moment, the man in the trenchcoat shrugged again, rounding out the circle of his skirt as he lifted the weight in the pocket, coming closer to the bed. —How loose the ring is on your finger, he said. —You will lose it.
—Don’t . . . touch me, don’t . . . don’t be so close!
He looked down for a moment longer at the face almost full before him, the strength in the profile gone, drained out through the narrow chin. Then he returned to the window murmuring, —A pretty thing, the ring, the gold. And your family crest, in America?
—You should not try to laugh so, said the man at the window.
—Eh? eh? my family crest in America, eh? Aetas parentum pejor avis tulit nos nequiores . . . eh? We cannot insure against inherent vice. No, damn it, I’ll have it through, this time. You see? You see how clear . . . how clear my mind is? But still with no reason . . . no reason, it can’t . . . t . . . He had struggled to raise his head; and then he cried out rigid with terror, gripping the neatly folded counterpane at his chin. —There! there! take it . . . His voice abruptly regained peremptory control, but he spoke the three words as one, —Take-it-away . . . take-it-away . . .
The man in the trenchcoat stood over him. —But . . . what? All he saw was a delicate coil of hair on the white sheet drawn quivering up to the chin, and idly he reached to remove it.
—Yes yes that, take it away take it away . . .
With his other hand the man in the trenchcoat signaled the figures in the door, where a doctor spoke to the priest who had just entered, —Nincsen oka nem aludni . . .
—What is it, what is that smell, oil? oil? what is it, where is it?
—Of course it has not been easy, but we have arranged that a priest comes to see you.
—Yes, yes here, here he is, yes but no reason, it can’t . . . no! no!
—Nézzen rá, nézzen a szemére . . .
—. . . indulgeat tibi Dominus . . .
—Do you remember? Aut castus . . . Martin? Martin? damn it, damn you, do you remember! Aut castus sit aut . . . aut . . . yes, sit aut pereat, you see? how clear my mind is? Aut castus . . . you see?
—Nincsen oka, nincsen oka, nincsen oka . . .
—. . . deliquisti per oculos . . .
—Martin! Martin! Damn it! Damn you! You see, how clear . . . do you remember? Be pure or perish, aut . . . aut pereat, do you see?
—Quidquid deliquisti per manus . . .
—. . . et pereat! do you see?
On a caned veranda, Fuller blew a slow cloud of cigar smoke at the rising sun. From this bungalow, situated at an extreme end of what had recently become the Pilot Project, he could see the sun both rise and set, and greeted both occasions in this same manner.
But finally the sun was full in the sky, and still the usual figures did not appear, the pale young man with an arm in a sling who set his helpers a slow pace, approaching —with the vitameen pills and the littel wite boxes . . . in the morning; and at evening appearing once more, to accumulate from one after another of the bungalows, the specimens, —a peculiar thing to go about collectin, still he conduct it all very proper and decorous. Seem I recall the face of this young mahn so put upon with the littel wite boxes. Once I have a mahn in my eye, I do not forget him.
For a commotion had arisen, at daybreak, in the heart of the Pilot Project, where Doctor Fell rushed to the bungalow of his assistant.
—I knew it! I knew it! And I warned you, didn’t I? Warn you not to trust that . . . that tattooed . . . I won’t say it, but didn’t I? Warn you? And now he’s gone, he’s stolen all your money and gone. He did follow us here, he followed you here, just to steal your money. Yes, didn’t I warn you? Thousands of dollars, wasn’t it, didn’t I warn you? What are you smiling about? Are you all right? Gordon? Gordon! Are you all right? Now you’ll have to start all over again. I knew it. He knew you had trouble in the dark, didn’t he, that tattooed . . . idiot, he knew it didn’t he, that’s how he took advantage of you, and now he’s gone and stolen all your money. What are you going to do? There’s nothing you can do. What are you going to do now? You’ll have to start all over again. Gordon! . . . what is it? what are you smiling . . . Gordon! stop it, you can’t tear off your bandages like that, you can’t . . . you poor . . . Sit down! stop laughing! stop . . . tearing off your bandages, stop . . . think! You can . . . you must . . . start all over again.
There was a soft wind from the southland the bells ringing a morning Angelus sounded all the way up the coast from Bridgetown.
It was near noon in Rome, where peace had come, if nowhere else the night before, to the rooftops of the Vatican, with the death of the black tomcat belonging to the Cardinal librarian and archivist, and the gray mouser owned by a Monsignor Gentleman-in-waiting to the Pope. Newspapers reported that they had struggled for preeminence for some time, and their bodies were found “still locked in mortal combat” in the Belvedere Courtyard seventy feet below.
Rounding a corner into the Via Umiltà, Stanley looked a good deal more frail than he had in some years. He even glanced up nervously himself whenever he saw a reflection, for the haircut, his last concession to Mrs. Deigh, seemed to take pounds, and a year or two, from his appearance. Nonetheless, a new quality of intensity showed in his face; and if it was the despair and conquest which had raged through him in the events of the past few days, or simply the haircut, he himself might not have said immediately. But possibly the very possessed way in which he now spoke of his work, especially that part to be played so soon at Fenestrula, betrayed the depths made real to him for the first time by the experiences which had suddenly brought him into his new estate, experiences which had raised the childish masks of anxiety from the face of the resident dread, exposing conflicts he did not yet understand, posing questions he could not answer now, and he sensed, might never. The two tragedies had occurred so close that they might have been coupled; so they were, in him, and here was the unforeseen conflict in the demands of his new manhood, in that he had suffered directly from neither.
Ashamed at having run out of the place in the Via Flaminia that night, after all she had done for him, the weight of the letter to Fenestrula she’d procured for him heavy in his pocket with his show of ingratitude, he’d pulled himself together and gone back, though this time it was the woman who wept through his broken apologies. First thing, he’d got his hair cut, to please her.
It was that same day he learned of the first tragedy. With it, all of his anxieties returned redoubled, his uncertainties flared in every direction, his fears for every moment of the past and future worked upon each other, and his guilt reared through him more oppressively than it had ever. In one of the first moments of distraction, whether to confirm the one certain prospect he had left, or to confirm the apprehension he suddenly felt for even that, he opened the letter to Fenestrula himself, and found there nothing but a grocery list. At that point he tried to force himself to think of nothing, to try to understand and solve nothing, until he could find Father Martin, as he was fortunate enough to do, and he confessed everything which his evasion of just such an encounter had intensified in every detail of the past few weeks. The priest was obviously busy, and it was quickly apparent that his work concerned more than mere shepherding of Pilgrims from one shrine to another, that the questions which concerned him embraced broader problems than the confessional. Still an hour passed, possibly two, as Father Martin listened, his face losing its joviality, recovering it for a moment, returning to its lines of medieval sternness, while Stanley told him of every detail he knew since he had boarded the Conte di Brescia. Every detail, even to the broken crucifix, the beads rolling on the floor, the fat woman, Stanley’s teeth chattered sometimes while he talked, and in the midst of narrative he might break off for some urgent incoherence like, —Sorcery, maléfice, is it from maleficiendo, is that from male de fide sentiendo, I mean does that mean is ill doing from ill thinking on matters of faith? . . . And now this last tragedy; and his work, and Fenestrula.
Father Martin listened to him, and talked to him, with an extraordinary gentleness and sternness at once, with a calmness which was never complacent, a strength of understanding (though he never said he understood), an interest which was not patent curiosity to excuse pat answers (for he gave none), and a patient sympathy with the figures Stanley spoke of, a quality which showed itself the deepest aspect of his nature, the most hard ear
ned and rarely realized reality of maturity, which was compassion. He was an extraordinary man, as the later event might attest. The longer Stanley went on, the more frequently he returned to his work, and its importance to him. Father Martin did not come all out in encouragement, though finally he said, —We live in a world where first-hand experience is daily more difficult to reach, and if you reach it through your work, perhaps you are not fortunate the way most people would be fortunate. But there are things I shall not try to tell you. You will learn them for yourself if you go on, and I may help you there. He arranged things for Fenestrula immediately, and Stanley left with that assurance to steady the bewilderment of his heart at everything else, a bewilderment exactly doubled, as Fenestrula became the only possible position left, when Father Martin was shot and killed in broad daylight, later in the day.
Even now, as he entered the Via Umiltà, a song danced through his bowed head and he could not shake it out. Every word brought with it the shades of anxiety in the sea washing up to him again, the shuddering decks, and even now, walking, he sought the tooth in his pocket and remembered it was gone: in an instant, the end of his tongue found the healing hole on his jaw, and someone leaped from a lime-green convertible at the curb and caught his arm.
—God damn it, I’m glad I found you. It was the man in the green silk necktie, though today, the silk was yellow. There were pictures of nuts and bolts on it. —I’ve got to find that girl, that kind of skinny girl you were looking for that night, I’ve got to find her. Where is she?
—She’s dead, Stanley said clearly, and the two of them stood there for a moment looking at each other as though someone else had said it.
—Wait, she can’t . . . What did you say?
—She died. Stanley spoke more faintly, and he looked down from the man’s face to the nuts and bolts.
—She . . . she can’t do that. I’ve got to find her, she won this contest for the B.V.M., just like I told her she would, she can’t . . . just . . . skip out, she . . . she have an accident?