Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  AMONG THE POMERANIANS

  THE GIRL IN LOVE LEANT her head away from him. The girl in love let her head come to rest against the head of the young woman sitting to the other side of herself. The man loved this. The man did not love the girl in love. What the man loved was that the girl in love was doing this thing she was doing and how the girl in love did it, letting her head lean ever so lightly to the side to let it come to rest against the side of the head of the young woman sitting to the other side of the girl in love—and sighing—oh, sighing—and turning one of the rings on her fingers and smiling into the amazed space in front of her and murmuring madly to the other young women—the girl in love's friends, the girl in love's so very, she said, cherished friends—madly murmuring to them of love—oh, love, love!

  Were they to be married?

  They were to be married.

  Truly?

  "Yes, of course—truly," the man said.

  But when, when?

  Soon—possibly soon—immediately upon their arrival in the great nation of America.

  America?

  Yes, America.

  The United States?

  Yes, yes, isn't it wonderful, the United States!

  Oh, love, love.

  But the man did not love the girl in love. The man loved no one, had loved no one, would love no one, though the man loved, would love, without limit, without reservation, irrevocably, indelibly, this gesture of the girl in love's, this occasion of the gesture's occurrence, of all the infinitely divisible occurrences swarming furiously upon the moment—the phosphorescence in the vast kitchen, the very word phosphorescence—to contrive to make the occurrence occur and to produce upon the man the effect of a thing for the man to love.

  But not a person.

  Never a person.

  The girl in love leant her head away from the man. Something in a pot was heating on the stove. Was it coffee? Ah, no, it was not coffee. What, then, if not coffee? Oh, special, something special—wait and see, oh just you wait and see, you devil you.

  Oh yes, to see, to see, to hear, to hear—the women madly murmuring, these wondrously wonderful women all murmuring madly into the amazed space of the vast kitchen—the girl in love with her head leant away from the man so that her head lay against the side of the head of the large woman who sat to the other side of the girl in love, if indeed the girl in love was a girl in love, or was even a girl.

  The great éclair.

  They had brought it with them—so festive, so very festive—a pastry, the pastry—in celebration of this very festivity—a celebration of love—oh, love, love.

  Dango-dango, a dango-dango.

  It was called this, the pastry was actually called this—called, good God, a dango-dango—did you ever? But how grand, how so very grand—that such a way of speaking of a thing could possibly exist in a world where people had to speak of things—well, a dango-dango indeed and not just a giant éclair.

  The girl in love leaned her head away from the man in order that the girl in love might bring her head to rest against the head of the large woman sitting to the other side of the girl in love, her eyes glistening, their eyes glistening, everyone's eyes glistening—the strange light making everything it fell upon—if the man cared to look at what the light fell upon, if only the man cared to get a good close look at it all—glisten.

  Something was heating on the stove.

  There was a pot of something heating on the stove.

  The pot, the pot, wasn't it as well, didn't it too, wasn't it also glistening ever so strangely?—as if a radiance had been conceived in the very idea of its being a pot in which something was heating gently heating on a stove.

  Well, a phosphor, then.

  Chairs had been moved to the table. A bench had been brought up from a wall and positioned to one side of the table. This was where the girl in love sat with the large-bodied friend whose head it was the girl in love was resting her head against—on the bench drawn up to the table and positioned to the one side of the table—the man seated there at the table in the position, the post, the post, of importance. There was music, wasn't there?—voices, the voices of men, men's voices, as in a solemn chanting from somewhere elsewhere, audible to the man in this room but believed by him to issue from some other room, the source, the man concluded, not here but elsewhere, somewhere elsewhere. But where elsewhere was there? How many rooms in all would there be here, how many? Oh, there was so much the man did not know—could not know, could not have imagined it would have mattered for him to know, would never, when it came to that, ever come, come ever to know. Well, the man was not exactly a dolt, was he? I mean, he understood the one word meant wine, didn't it?—because, after all, it was a bottle of wine, wasn't it?—but the other word, what about this other word, what on earth did this other word mean?—holy or health-giving, sacred, sacrosanct, sacerdotal, not unclean?

  They sat at the table, those who were just now sitting. And who were these who were just now sitting? Why, the man, of course. The man was sitting. The girl in love, she was sitting at the table. And to the girl in love's other side, to the other side of the girl in love there was sitting another girl, another young lady, another large-, even larger-bodied, woman—the heads of the two very large women touching in such a manner as to tear at the man's heart, such as the man's heart was present in him to be torn at. And the foil, what about the foil, what had happened to the foil? Had the foil been torn? It was difficult for anyone to see, wasn't it? Or was seeing, was seeing anything, was really seeing any of these things, was it just a difficulty only for the man? The light in here—well, it was like a phosphor, wasn't it? The light was phosphorous, phosphorescent—a weak pulsing, a kind of throbbing pulsing, a pulsation that was deeply luminescent.

  Ah, luminescent, luminescence.

  The man understood he would one day tell of all this eventfulness, tell of the details constituting the eventfulness, grouping them together for the entertainment of all comers, and if no one came, if no one in the world ever came to hear the man say luminescent, then no matter, no matter, then the man would group together what he would group together only for himself, so that, yes, of course, of course—this long-ago eventfulness would prove to be an entertainment if only for himself—luminescent, a luminescence—I tell you, these words, the very abundance of them, how superb. Dim? No, not dim, never dim, but phosphorescent perhaps, luminescent perhaps—like a glimmering, yes, a glimmering. The light, it was like a glimmering, wasn't it? The light—ah, it fairly glinted, didn't it? It made things glint. It gave things to glint. So that things—glinted. So that everything—well, it glinted. So that there was this bounty of glintings in this domestic vastness—so that in the very vastation of the amazed space there was a definite, well, an indefinite distribution of hazy glintings—the pot, the forks and spoons, the spoons and forks, the bottle of wine, the wine bottle, the water tumblers for the wine, the knife, the immense the ridiculous, the ridiculously too severe—but quaint, yes, quaint—kitchen knife. For example, for further example, the patina of the table, for even further example—another glinting, such a glinting—the man would say the table, that the table had been a patinated table, this, uh, well, this refectory table, it had shone, by Jupiter, had it not?—with a glinting—the lovely young ladies having seated him at it in such a manner as to situate the man in the one important position at the table—honoring the man, yes, for was not the man being honored?—while the two of them, while two of the large women, while these were the large women who were the ones who were sitting side by side on the side of the table where the bench had been placed, the bench having been drawn up to the table from the wall where the bench was kept, the heads of the large women touching ever so, well, so touchingly—while wasn't there yet another woman, a third woman?—while this largest-bodied woman of the three large-bodied women, while this other one, that one, while she bustled all about in the amazed space, fussing all about with this sort of magisterially fussy bustling largest-bodied
womanly air of hers—ah, seeing to things—seeing to the wine and to the water tumblers the wine would be poured into, seeing to the pastry and to the queer knife that would cut the pastry, that would slice the pastry, that would be stuck point-first down into the heart of the pastry to divide the wounded pastry into certain unimprovable portions of pastry, seeing to the forks and to the dishes and to the spoons and to the marvelously crude napkins and to the heavy Tuscan cups, was it, or to the heavy Norman cups, was it, that had been distributed to various sites on the table to accept into them whatever it was, the man decided, that was heating gently gently heating on the stove.

  No, vastation didn't mean that. What in the world did vastation mean? And why three of them, these mugs, these cups, why only three of them, when weren't there four people present? Oh, so many present—so many.

  These superbly heavy Bavarian mugs.

  Or cups, were they? Were they instead to be called not mugs but cups? Very well, call them cups, then.

  Ah, yes, but wouldn't the man have some of it?

  "But of course he will have some of it! My precious will have all he desires of it!" the girl in love answered for the man in the wonderful way these wonderful people had, confections all of them, weren't they?

  Ah, the man—a delicate fellow, a fellow nowhere near the size of these oversized women and, since delicate, a man not unrespectful of things—a careful man, an aware man, a fellow not uninformed, for example, in a not very reliable way, of what style of table a refectory table would in fact be and rightly guessing that this wretched thing the three of them were sitting at, that it was no refectory table at all, not at all, but that it was just an ordinary sort of kitcheny thing made of some kind of ordinary kitcheny material meant to furnish durable service for the hard business kitchen work sometimes, in certain extreme cases—call them solemn, call them solemn—called for—but the word, the word refectory, refectory, would it not go far toward abetting the impression the man would want his tale to get across to all when all would want to hear of this mad murmuring romance of the man's when this mad murmuring romance of the man's had come at last to its mad murmuring annihilation and the man would stand restored to the country of his beginnings and to those to whom the man would then seek to address himself in order that the products of his travel might be enjoyed by all the stay-at-homes back home, those who would never themselves hear the mad murmurings in the earth?

  How young was she, did you say?

  Very young, would say the man—a shimmering young bit of a thing, the man would say—and oh how it was, how wonderful it was that the very one kept letting her head come to rest against the head of the friend who sat next to her on the bench, oh my, my—and the ring on her finger, one of the rings on her fingers, that she was turning and twisting the ring, kept turning and twisting it, and sighing—oh, how the girl in love let herself sigh—into the amazed amazing conflagration underway?

  Crepuscular, what exactly does it mean, crepuscular?

  "Ah," the man would say, "the young ladies of the house, they sat us, this shimmering slip of a thing and me, they sat us down in some sort of marvelous sitting room, don't you know. At a refectory table—if can you feature it. Can you feature it?—this great this massive this humble walnut affair—or couldn't it have been made of some obscure but no less humble fruit wood?—so lightly patinated it was—or darkly, darkly—and the light, I forgot the light—the light in this kitchen of theirs, it was positively crepuscular. Or in the, you know, in the whatever it was of theirs. The refectory?"

  Ah, the table.

  It shone, it gleamed—didn't it really?

  Formica.

  A layered pattern—overlapping half-moons.

  Iridescent.

  Fruit wood—what does it mean, fruit wood?

  Why would a wood be a fruit wood?

  Was there not a platter being just now just now being reached down from somewhere just too high up in the clerestory of this place for the man to exert himself to look? But just see it now, now see it—the mad pastry in its shimmering wrapping having been lifted from where it waited in its paper and daintily ever so daintily lowered upon it, the platter, this platter. How was it that in this strange land that a mere serving dish should come created in the character of what is this, what is this?—is it not suggestive of the speckled eggshell derived from a, well, from a speckled bird? But what of the wondrously silvery point of all attention, the bright thing, that brightest thing, brighter than even the brilliantly gleaming knife blade was bright—wasn't it then that the very largest of the three so very large women made her quick way to it and with such cleverly large long fingers, didn't the woman—oh, the girl, the girl, then!—didn't she first undo the glittery tape the bake shop had been applying to make a fancy package of the treat as the man was pushing his hand down into his pocket for him to extract from it the great lump of money through which the girl in love would have to sort for the man for him to present to the clerk the strange bank notes that appeared to satisfy the matter?

  But indolent—hmm, yes, he would say indolent.

  But would he say confectionery?

  Instead of bake shop?

  "The air of the place, the kitchen, if it were a kitchen, it was redolent with indolence"—or would this be going too far for such a man, do you think?—"and there was this marvelous chanting effect that seemed to be encouraging this kind of marvelous under-effect of everything welling up from somewhere elsewhere. Voices of like men, I think—like probably like of monks, like of votaries, like of the, well, like of the ardent—cantorially speaking."

  But, by thunder, in a world of dango-dangos, by Jove, how can there be any going any too far in anything in a world where confections came at you anointed with a moniker like that? For pity's sake, dango-dango, a dango-dango—did you ever in all your days? Who who who ever did?

  Oh, love, love!—the man loved it, anointed with a moniker. Words, words—anointed, moniker, ahh.

  A thing you got in a bakery anointed with—or anointed by?—well, a moniker—going by a moniker—keep it plain, keep it simple, and watch it with the little words, oh the pesky these pesky these tiny little pesteriferous little words everywhere. But, anyway, no really, anyway, this too, this too, everything—it all, it all—it all of it so very fittingly fit the scheme of the narrative the man was assembling for when it all—better told than this, you may be certain—could be told.

  Oh, he saw it, he saw it—the foil being collected into itself, the massive woman collecting the foil into itself for her to make a very correct bolus of the thing before discarding it—no, not discarding—say instead letting gracefully ever so gracefully go of it—so that the thing seemed to the man to drift luminously down into the dark hollow beneath the sink. Was there a receptacle under there? Oh, there had to be a receptacle down under there. Didn't there have to be a receptacle down under in there? But what man could be convinced of much in this crepuscular light? Yet the man could be certain of the teeth of the girl in love, for example—ah, her teeth, such teeth. The girl in love was smiling into the amazing space. Her ring, one of her rings, this one ring among her many many rings, she turned it, kept turning and twisting it, kept sighing and smiling, the large head leaning, leant up against the even larger head of the woman—oh no, of the girl, of course of the girl, the even larger head of the even larger girl who sat on the bench beside her—no, to the other side—who sat to the far side of the girl in love.

  The man marveled—the man was marveling over all of it, everything—or marveling at it. At how the bustling about was like a languor—or was it that the languorousness of the biggest of the girls was somehow like a slumbrous bustling about everywhere actually—very managerial, magisterial, big-bodied, indolent—yet quick and exacting—or fastidious, this was the word, fastidious—massively fastidious even, really pretty massively.

  Oh, everything was opposites!

  Everything here was in such a state of being opposites here. Yes, wasn't this the only wa
y to say it, that all here was so marvelously, well, just a jumble of opposites here?

  Jostling opposites.

  All these opposites jostling one another.

  Or is it oppositions, oppositions?—and is it not each other, not one another but each other?

  Well, everything was a jumble, wasn't it?—a murmuring madness—amazed and amazing—the large handsome little-toothed young woman—a girl, a mere girl—so wondrously in love with, of all things, the man, this man.

  With such speed.

  With such ease.

  Or ease first and next, then next, speed.

  Well, so much for travel.

  It was wonderful to travel.

  It was marvelous to travel.

  The man had traveled, was traveling—had come to this land to get a bit of a travel in him taken care of. Wasn't travel experience?

  Experience.

  An experience.

  And this was what it was to really have it, wasn't it?

  The girl?

  A girl in love insisting that she is what the story says she is—a girl in love—and in love—crazily, crazily—with this wonderful wonderful marvelous marvelous, can you believe it, American!

  The girl in love sighed.

  Her little teeth showed in her big sighing face.

  There was something on the stove, heating. There was a pot of something heating gently gently heating on the stove. He would have some, wouldn't he? Your lover, your fiancé, your American from the United States, he would have some of this, wouldn't he? And the wine? Aren't we ready for the wine? Who is ready for the wine? But first—the dango-dango!

  The man caught sight of the shimmering glimmering foil—the amazing paper. Someone was collecting it into a ball of some kind—a bolus, a bolus—and was now laying it—this was the biggest girl, the really biggest one, right?—was just now laying it ever so gracefully down into the dark well beneath the humble sink.

  Oh my God, the sink.