Collected Fictions

by Gordon Lish

  The stone sink.

  A sink made out of stone.

  Humble, wasn't it?

  And how had they got to this place? Wasn't it up, had the girl not led them up a long dark twisting turning oh so, well, so humble hill?

  "My friends!" she had said. "My very best in all the world so lovely lovely friends!" the girl had said.

  So-and-so and so-and-so.

  Their names were so-and-so and so-and-so.

  Well, it was hard for the man to hear.

  He could hear voices, hear the voices of men—of the worshipful, the man imagined—chanting, or groaning, in a neighboring room.

  He said, "Are there people here? It sounds like zealots or something."

  Everything was so—well, glittery.

  The light was downright crepuscular in here.

  "The heavy Turkish cups—Morrocan—sacred, I think they were. Probably semi-sacred, don't you think? Mugs, ceremonial mugs, perhaps they were."

  That's it!—it was tea, wasn't it?

  A kind of tea was brewing, wasn't it?

  Look at her, troubling herself to separate out the glossy tape the bakery had used to bind the glorious foil. The man saw somebody save the tape, wind it into a tight spool, then set the result to the side of something—of the humble sink, that humble cavity—so shallow, so very shallow, it seemed to the man from where he sat—a scooped-out effect in a stone that must have been cut from the very oldest of old stones. Wait a minute—didn't the spool just sort of loosen itself when the girl let go of it? Then what was the point of that, what was the point of it?—of tightening the tape like that into such a precise spool of it like that if it was only to lose its form, the tension spilling out of it—spooling out of it in an instant—when the thing had been set to the side of what was it?

  Yes, the sink made out of stone—yes, to the side of the humble sink created from a humble stone.

  Humble, everything so humble.

  Well, the light in this place, whatever it was, it was so very crepuscular—by jiminy, this light in this place, isn't it altogether too terrifically crepuscular?

  Her dress, one of them, the dress of one of them—its loose sleeves seemed to the man cuffed or turned up in some interesting way, or twisted oddly, oddly twisted—that was it, twisted—so that the immense girl's immense arms appeared to the man to be too visible, to be sort of angrily visible, great bulky things, great swollen things, angrily jostling the amazed air. But thank goodness the man could see that the dress she wore—who was this, which one of them was this, was it the one in love?—that it was a sort of cream-colored affair, wasn't it, the color of this dress.

  The color of cream?

  It seemed to the man that there was somebody whose dress was colored a sort of creamy color—that there was a dotted effect scattered all about—some sort of dotted device—or not dot, not dot, but pinwheels perhaps, perhaps pinwheels. Yes, there seemed to the man to be a sort of dotted pinwheely effect, brought forth into the light by a range of strengths—in maroon, in the color maroon. Well, mightn't washings, mightn't long sad riverbank washings account for the variation from here to there in the vividness, or lack of it, the lack of it, mightn't it be the variability in this, in long sad desert-bound washings—they beat cloth, didn't they?—whipping at it with long thin sticks—with reeds probably, probably with reeds—mightn't it be the hard washings—actually whippings—the cloth had undergone to get it clean that accounted for the weak effect of one pinwheel and then of another pinwheel and then of yet a further even weaker pinwheel—maroon, hardly even still maroon, so beaten into proud cleanliness this least of all the pinwheels was?

  I mean, it wasn't a design, was it?

  Some intentionality in it of some sort?

  By design?

  And where was the knife point?

  The dango-dango, had they cut into it yet?

  The man rather liked the notion of this rough homespun subjected to a furor of care unique to this large mysterious person, common to these large mysterious persons. The word chestnut occurred to the man. The word maroon. Weak maroon, a weakened maroon, whipped to only barely scarcely even hints of a maroon—just barely visible tiny tiny—well, pinwheels of a kind of tiny-hearted maroon.

  Whatever pinwheels were.

  And maroon.

  How-hearted maroon, what-hearted?

  It was cold in here, or cool, wasn't it?

  "Oh, how lovely all this is—how lovely," the man murmured into the madly amazed space.

  Hadn't he meant to say chilly?

  Well, the man was certain someone was waiting for him to speak. So the man spoke. He said, "It's so terribly lovely in here." He said, "I am the happiest man there is in here."

  Ah, perfect.

  Splendid.

  The man let himself settle back into the one good chair. He listened to the heating of whatever it was—tea—yes, it was tea—that was heating on the stove. The adorations of the adoring, their obeisances, superb, superb. Had the man ever heard anything more superb? Belief was a wonderful thing—marvelous, really—faith. Was there a sanctuary nearby? Was such a sanctuary actually here within? Were they in it? Is this what this was?—no kitchen, after all—not a scullery but a site where life leant over to huddle into itself in great grand occurrences of prayer?

  "Perfect—perfectly perfect," the man murmured as he settled back into the vast depths—the vastation, isn't it permissible to say vastation?—of this very decent—an important piece actually—of this very good, though humble, probably emphatically sturdy humble chair.

  The young ladies seemed to be looking at the man in very deep approval of this.

  Or at—at this.

  "Perfect," the man said, a little madly, he now thought. "Oh, this is perfect," the man said.

  Yes, yes, a toast, somebody called—time for a toast! Mustn't something be said in testimony of this great happiness? But how conduct a toast when the cork had yet to be taken from the bottle? No wine had been poured yet, had it? Oh, these people, these perfect people, water tumblers in lieu of wineglasses and a wine that was devised as sacred and health-giving, even sacerdotal.

  Or holy and so on.

  As in consecrated and so on.

  In lieu of, the man loved that, in lieu of. Oh such innocents, these big-bodied hill-dwelling people, such perfect—the lot of them—such perfect naifs—water tumblers in lieu of, of all the things in the world.

  Instead of?

  In place of?

  No, in lieu of, in lieu of!

  Sacrality, now there was a word!

  Ah, well, what else did the man love?—apart, of course, from his loving in lieu of and loving how the girl was still keeping her head leant against the head of the girl sitting next to her, now the both of them sighing now, now the both of them sighing now into the burning phosphor now, and smiling with little dots of little teeth. Let me see, then, let me see—what else did the man love, you ask me, what else?—well, you shall have your answer, shan't you!—for this man loved, had loved, would always love the tapping of his mother's fingernails tapping on the backs of playing cards. That, that, and the way the woman had of shooting a look heavenward in hopeless appeal and of rolling her eyes at him, one of the wives the man had had, or was it really indeed the man's mother who had done this?

  Oh, that's a good one—those hads—a mad murmuring distribution of hads we of us who are still striving to keep paying attention just had. Ah, but what a confusion of things this is getting to be—the man standing amid such a confusion of things—or sitting amid it, settling deeply into the humble chair, the young ladies, no more now than mere biggish impressions of amazingly biggish things, forever seeming to him to be directing at him looks of deeply satisfied approval.

  Well, the wife was dead and the mother was dead and people were only their repertoire of gestures anyway and here was the man traveling as travelers will travel and here all of a sudden was suddenly this mere biggish impression of a biggish girl now somehow
traveling with the man—and now look, will you please just look, all these festive others now settling with the man into the glimmering deep light of the crepuscular—as if the world had been lifted off its course and laid down into, laid ever so gracefully down into—no, let go of gently gently falling falling—into a very, well, harem—say harem, then.

  Or that other word.

  Seraglio.

  Say seraglio.

  Ah, that was the one, that was the very one—at least as words go, it was—into a very, say, seraglio.

  What a word, what a word!

  At least as words go, what a winner.

  "A toast!" the man bleated.

  Gad, but who says the man bleated?

  Well, the man would not tell of this, of bleating. There would be no telling of this bleating, by gum. Had the man bleated? Had he, well, burped, belched, eructated? What on earth had the man done if not offered a toast? For the man had the sense—or, rather to say, impression, wasn't this the word, had an impression?—for there was this impression forming around him somewhere elsewhere, wasn't there?—perhaps in the man, perhaps somewhere to either side of the man, or all around the man—it was the impression of a kind of bleating or something eructating from somewhere elsewhere. Well, the man could have burped, could he not have? Or belched—or, you know, or eructated? The man could have eructated in a—of course, of course—eructated in a ructation, couldn't he have? Well, the wine—after all, the wine. And the man had done a fine job of it, hadn't he?—of getting the cork from the wine.

  Or bottle.

  Well, the man did not remember any of it—the struggle to get any cork out of anything, or which of them it was who had called out into the bleating air "Praise be the day!" What the man remembered was this—something was heating on the stove, something in a pot was heating on the stove, there was something in a pot that was heating heating gently gently heating heating hotly on the stove.

  The man spoke with enormous care.

  "I feel sacred," the man said. "I feel healthy," the man said. "I feel," the man said, "as if I have been given health," the man said—"and a certain holiness. Or sacrality!—I mean sacrality, don't I?"

  Was he bleating?

  The man burped a little, or belched a little, and touched the tip of his finger to the lips of the girl in love, whereupon the girl in love took the tip of the man's fingertip between her little teeth and gave to it a little tugging nip to it with her little tiny teeth.

  "Next time your nose," said the girl in love.

  "Watch out it's not next time your nose," the man heard the girl in love say.

  "What did you say?" the man said, grinning madly into the amazing eventfulness of this experience.

  "Bite it, bite it!" either or both or neither of the other girls shrieked. But this was impossible. Everything was impossible. It was all these opposites ceaselessly disposed to opposing each other, or one another—in a state of ceaseless—well, of opposition, if you like. Ah, the devil take it, love!—yet when in all his days had the man ever seen anything anything anything lovelier?—this gesture of the girl's. The head-leaning. The head-resting. Combined with the murmuring, combined with the mad murmuring combinatory madness of it all—the smiling and the sighing and the sighing and the smiling. Well, hadn't her head—the head of the girl in love—hadn't it been laid to rest, or lain, lain, is it?—against the head of a nearby girl? Look, the main thing is this enormous cup. An altogether wrong sort of a cup for people to be drinking tea out of, isn't it?

  Or mug.

  Mexican, it looks like, doesn't it?

  Tribal.

  Humble.

  Rudimentary.

  Crude.

  "Will you just listen to me!" the man said. "My goodness!" the man said. "Oh my goodness," he said.

  How strange, the man thought, that a passion could come about in any language, let alone in his own.

  "Oh, but we are listening to you," said the one with the bright-bladed knife.

  The stove—it was the tiniest humblest affair. It might have been a thing for a child to play with, though fire, although fire, burbled up from its one encrusted burner, a subtle, an even demure, flame.

  Pinwheel.

  What is a pinwheel, anyway?

  Good heavens, is it possible for a story to be told when what is in it are only words?

  There was a platter being reached down from somewhere very high up in this place. Wasn't one of the girls reaching down a platter from very high up above the head of the man up in the amazed air of the world far up above the head of the man somewhere altogether too terribly overhead in this place? Because wherever it was—given the man's age, given the man's ridiculous age—the event was altogether too high up for the man to be able to lean back his head far enough for him to give anything that high above his head a look to see what the event up over himself unbearably was.

  Clerestory.

  Hadn't the word clerestory once been sort of a part of all of this?

  Oh, love, love!—here was the cake.

  Behold the cake.

  The great éclair, the celestial éclair.

  The dango-dango, by God—it lay relieved of the foil and the foil lay dropped into the black well beneath the stone where—unseen, unseen!—the foil struggled to relieve itself of the folds that had been folded into it, strained to throw off the cruel twistings the cruel turnings all the multifarious cruelties folded into it to force its silver wing into a crusted lump of goo.

  His money!

  Where was his money?

  Ah, my money, the man said to himself.

  "Ah, my money," the man said aloud, touching the pocket where the great lump of money in it was still making a great comforting lump of itself all thick and becrusted on the man's chest.

  The voices seemed ever so ardent, so urgent, these voices raised in oblation in a nearby place of prayer, or in prayer in a nearby place of oblation. Well, it's probably in or very near a kind of sanctuary of some kind. Perhaps some sort of hilltop, or hillside, or hill-bound—that's it, hill-bound!—retreat of some kind.

  Redoubt?

  A redoubt?

  Well, where was this place, anyway?

  Was this some crazy like claustral place like outside of somewhere elsewhere like some improbable land such as Turkistan or something?

  Some abbey in Nepal, do they call it?

  Or Tibet—perhaps in Tibet, in perhaps Tibet?

  Oh, love, love!—the things we people will do and do again until done for for love.

  His head hurt. His back hurt. His legs, they were finished. You'd had to twist and turn so many times for you to make it up the hill. The man had had to twist and turn so many times for him to make it up the hill.

  It was oh so cruel.

  So grotesque.

  "To the happy couple!" the girl with the knife called out into the burning air.

  Yes, yes, to the happy couple—of course, to the happy couple, yes of course—but this was so strange, such an expression as this in such a place as this.

  The air burned.

  Was burnt.

  Was a phosphor scorched—had become a phosphorescence scorched to the very core of the word.

  There was something heating. A pot of something, something in a pot—wasn't an ember of it still heating gently gently heating on the stove?

  "To us!" the man bleated.

  "By Jove, to all of us!" the man bleated, the ponderous cup—no, mug, call it a mug—leaden in his hand.

  With all his might the man sought to elevate the massive vessel from the table, his uncontainable heart smouldering with the violence of choice.

  Iberian.

  Moravian.

  Anatolian.

  Sudanese.

  Ah, it was somewhere along the Levant, of course.

  "I had been having for myself a bit of a travel, you understand, and been putting up somewhere elsewhere, I do believe—along the Levant, was it not?"

  Pomeranian!

  Perfect, p
erfect—the stupendous cup, it was a Pomeranian cup—or Pomeranian mug. So that these, therefore, these females, didn't every large-bodied one of them have to be a Pomeranian person, female female female?

  Oh, love, love!

  The man had never been happier.

  "Everybody, everybody!—I want you to hear this! I have never been happier, I have never been happier!"

  Was this bleating?

  Then so be it, if indeed it be it—a ructation, an eructation, of the bleating kind.

  The man cared not. The man was happy. The man was a happy man—just able to twist and turn his head to see the girl in love with her head leant ever so cruelly just so. Leant, burnt, becrusted—wonderful, it was all so wonderful. Well, it put the man in mind of the word indolence. Yes, this was your authentic indolence for you, wasn't it? By golly, what I would like to know is this—is the smoking air redolent enough with enough authentic indolence for you? Oh, it all reminded the man of the way his mother had had of tapping her lacquered fingernails against the backs of playing cards—how the man had loved that, how the man had really loved that—and loved too the way the woman had of rolling her eyes at him in a show of what he took to be a sort of mock surprise at him—or bewilderment—or, that's it, in a sort of a show of a kind of a good-natured mocking befuddlement over him, of her regarding the man with a certain air of what you might have said appeared to be a kind of a genuine mock befuddlement with him, or over him, genuinely actually real.

  Unless it had been a wife of his.

  Unless it had been one of the man's wives who had rolled her eyes at him. Who had lifted her eyes heavenward in a show of authentically mock consternation with him. But good-naturedly, good-naturedly, even if real.

  Or at him.

  Well, what matter which and who and all of that? It was only this that counted. But what, in fact, was this, anyway? And where was it, where?

  Was he under the card table?

  Was the man down under the table where his mother had played card games at the table, clicking her painted fingernails against the backs of the playing cards that the women, all the women, played with at the table?

  No, no, of course not.

  Hadn't the man made his way up some dreadful hill? Well, he had, hadn't he? And how on earth had he managed it, such a ceaseless twisting turning in the desperately angry heat, the immense child clunking along at his side as the man struggled to keep the grotesque pastry from leaning all the way away from him and with the torporous abandon of the inanimate sagging all the way away from him and slumping into the mad wild buzzing fields of, well, of Pomerania.