Dinner Along the Amazon (29 page)

A pause.

She could feel him shake.

“What is it, Frannie?”

“Oh shit. I don’t…I really don’t know. I’ve been crying like this…waking up, even waking up, crying. Weeks. I don’t…I really don’t know why.”

Annie put her hand out: felt his naked stomach with her fingers, slowly rubbed his stomach—side to side—her fingers arched. The weeping vibrations slowly ebbed and her hand lay still: “Go on,” she said. “Finish about your dad.”

“Oh. He used to read—recite us stuff. Christ. He used to do us a number called ‘MacCrimmon comes no more.’ In the dark. It was electrifying.”

“Yeah.”

“And hymns. He used to do us hymns. He wouldn’t sing: he’d just…it was just the words. There was one—you remember: ‘Who would true valour see, let him come hither…?’”

“Yeah.”

“One here will constant be, come wind or weather. There’s no discouragement—shall make him once relent—His first avowed intent—to be—”

“A Pilgrim. Yeah. I know.”

Annie rolled onto her back. She got off the bed and went across the carpet. Somewhere, she found the whisky and brought it back.

They drank. And Frannie went on, propped up, with his legs beneath the sheet: “He wanted to be a poet, you know. My dad. And so did I. But, I ain’t. Films, for Christ’s sake. Fucking screenplays. For creeps without assholes…” The crying began again, but now it was only tears and his voice: “Do you know the last time I stayed in this hotel? When I was…after I was married. Here. Downstairs somewhere—we had our honeymoon. Someone and me. Marian. Me. In this hotel. And I’m queer, for God’s sake. Queer. But, I got married. Yeah. I sure did. Loaded with integrity. That’s me. All because—why? I don’t even know.”

Annie didn’t speak. She felt like ice. She drank—and sat at the foot of the bed, with the extra blanket round her shoulders.

“And the latest is,” said Frannie, “I fell in love with Hugh.” After the silence, he laughed. “A married man? You believe?”

“I believe.”

“What does it, Annie? Eh? What does it to us? Eh? What does it to us?”

Annie didn’t speak. She was thinking: “us.”

Frannie went on: “I never have time to write. I mean, I never have time to write. I never do. And I think—keep thinking—if I could just get out of this rut: if I could only write—if I could only find some nice, queer kid and fall in love, if I could only be my…” (whispered) “self. Be me. But—it’s been so long. Such a long, long time since I was…anyone. Ann. You know? Since I was anyone.” He laughed—but it was cynical. “And I am a. hopeless drunk. And I…”

“Frannie?”

He drew in his breath. “What?”

“Shut up.”

Annie got off the end of the bed and came around to the side.

“Shut up about your goddamn self and shove it. Go to sleep.”

She yanked the sheet and got underneath and threw the extra blanket down around her feet. Her back was to him: solid. He could see the shape of her shoulder and head.

He sat very still. But, all at once, she reared on her elbow and shouted at him: shouted—over her shoulder: “And you cry one more goddamn tear and, so help me Teresa, I’ll throw you out my fucking window!” And then she lay down, flat—and was gone to him: useless, unhearing. Stone.

Frannie finished his cigarette and gulped several times from the bottle. But he didn’t cry again. He sighed, instead, just once and then got up and went to the bathroom.

When he’d gone, Annie lay there thinking—wide awake: cold sober: afraid. She couldn’t understand what he meant.

She understood
him
, but not what he meant. His breaking—but not his being broken.
I mean—he’s F.N. Thompson, for God’s sake; F.N. Thompson. He has four books. Four books—and I just don’t understand. He can’t not know who he is. He can’t. He calls me Kabuki Bogan—and My Lady and he used to make me laugh
.

She listened. She heard him pee—then silence. But, he didn’t come back.

And she lay there, thinking now, well—I guess I’ve pinned another one I didn’t want to pin. And me? I was only…(drifting) waiting for someone.

She watched the windows: heard the rain, she saw the sky. It would be all night, before it would be morning. All the whole night; and then, just another day.

She drifted all the way, against her will, to sleep.

4:15 a.m
.

In the bathroom, Frannie sat on the John, drinking whisky from the bottle. The light was obnoxious white, unshaded. Still—he refused to sit in the dark.

It was odd: being drunk, so terribly drunk, stark naked, sitting on the John, in this, of all hotels. He hadn’t even thought of Marian for years. She was married again, now: happy, with kids.

He guessed he really had upset Kabuki Ann—surprised, because he’d thought, he really had, that Annie was riding high. Of course, she was always riding high but…Joke. Bad joke. Bad. Bad joke.

Jesus: oh Jesus; why did they have to speak in voices when they meant their hearts to break?

He rose.
Go to bed
.

He crossed to the sink. He set the bottle down. He opened (God knows why—he wished forever after that he hadn’t), opened the medicine-cabinet door and found the whole of her mystery: staring at him, flashing in his face. Her collection.

Of razors.

The Sunday 11 a.m.

Frannie had left her sleeping, Saturday morning. All day Saturday it rained. And all day Saturday, she stayed in her room and wandered between the windows and the bathroom. She had a little food sent up, but hardly ate. She gave herself the needle: 4 p.m. and went again to sleep, without the pause of thought.

Now, it was Sunday. Down below in the church there’d already been one Mass and now they began to arrive for the next. And Frannie, he’d been right: quite right. It snowed. The park was full of ghosts.

Annie made herself sit still. She was dressed. Erect. Immensely real. The mirror told her so, far off across the room. And now, she truly waited.

Music. That would have been nice. And then it was. There were bells. Obtrusive. Making her count.
Don’t count
.

The shells at her finger-ends were resting on her knees. Behind her, on the bed, the razors waited, laid in their boxes—some on velvet, folded.

She lifted the book from her lap. Open.

“I have made razors of my life, my words,” she read “because my life, my words have razored me…” and closed it over, flat and open, cover up on the bed, in hand.

She rose in one step to the windows.

There.

Jesus and St. Teresa: here.

And she flung the book to the street.

And she waited.

And she waited.

And she waited.

2:15 p.m
.

Kabuki Bogan came out of the Bar and Grill and noted the woman behind the magazine counter, coming on duty: late again. There she was; pinned: her handbag; humbugs; jangling bracelets; lips and lacquered beads. And her pointed crest: L’
ÉTOILE
. The Star.

By the doors to the street, Annie paused. The man stood ready to let her through, unseen. She smiled: “Merci.” And was gone, till, maybe, some other success she’d engendered overtook her by surprise, and brought her back.

And the old hotel still smelled the same and gave off the same gold light. In the lobby, the dark oak panels shone with the same deep glow of oil-of-lemon wax and the smoky mirrors reflected still the same old women, the same brocaded chairs. The people were changed, perhaps: but never their image. Never the basic reflection of what was there.

Daybreak at Pisa

For William Hutt

This is a scene from a work-in-progress: a play about the poet Ezra Pound. The characters are self-explanatory; but perhaps it should be said that the cage referred to is the cage in which Pound was kept at the end of the Second World War by the American military authorities while he was being detained in Italy before being sent to the
U.S.
, where in time they would attempt to bring him to trial as a traitor. In the end he could not be tried because he was found to be legally insane.—
T.F.

Pre-dawn: and Ezra burns in his cage, caught in the white hot glare of a searchlight.

He wears his overcoat against the cold—its collar turned up next to his ears. His mad, electric hair appears to be standing on end. His hands are in his pockets, as far into the depths as they can get. But the whiteness of the light and its intensity prevent us from seeing the features of his face. There is nothing there but a white paper mask with burn holes and beard. One of the burn holes—down near the bottom—slowly opens, spreads, and issues words.

And Ezra says: “That moon of yours is a travesty, my friend. Your sense of subtlety is worse than mine…Might I suggest a filter of cream and gold? Old Ceres’ moon, with honey dripping from her lips…? And a bowl, with a spoon if you please…”

There is no reply.

“I’m hungry, damn it!” Ezra says. “A person’s stomach knows when morning comes. If you could just turn out that light—I bet you’d find the sun could find the sky all by itself…It doesn’t need your help, you know. It’s not a moron, boy. There is a track it follows every day.” He raises up his hand and points. “An old, well-beaten track. With breakfast at one end and supper at the other…” His finger traces the track across the sky. “Eh, boy? You hear me? Yes? If you put out that light of yours—who knows? The hen might lay her egg and we could eat…”

Ezra withdraws his hand from the air and puts it back in his pocket: cold. “You want me to starve out here? You bastard, boy! Put out that God damn light!”

An egg sails out across the stage and breaks on Ezra’s cheek.

“You fascist pig!” a voice calls out from somewhere in the wings. “Soo-soo…you piggy-pig!”

More eggs are thrown, and slops.

But Ezra stands his ground.

The walls behind him, of the cage, are spotted with garbage, some of it making scarlet blotches on the stones.

“Sooey-sooey-sooey! Piggy-piggy-pig!”

The climax of this outrage comes when a pail of muck is emptied through the lattices of Ezra’s roof onto his head.

But, though he cowers against the wet of it, he straightens once the streaming ends. And then—the movement slow, deliberate, precise—he lifts his fingers to his cheek and wipes away the egg, placing his finger-ends inside his mouth and sucking them clean.

When this is done he reaches out towards the light and raises up his fingers: one, and then another.

“You there, with the arsehole,” he says. “I dare you to sit on my breakfast now…”

The light goes out.

The sky is all pale blue, seen through the lattices of Ezra’s roof.

There is a slow and careful fading-in of insect noise—and faraway a dog, and further still a cock, and further still, beyond them all, a bell.

Ezra—dragging an old grey piece of sheeting from his pocket—starts to clean himself, with spittle when he must, but he pauses now and listens. “You’ve left out the birds again…“he calls into the wings. “You hear me? Where are the birds?”

Silence.

“What? You do this every morning and you still can’t get it right?” says Ezra. “Insects first: then
birds
, you dolt! And
then
the dog, the cock, the bell! Dear Jesus Christ…!” He looks at God. “You know what you need down here?” he yells. “You know what you need down here, you
ditz
?” And he points into the wings. “What you need is a new stage manager!” Ezra shakes his fist—his piece of sheeting at his imagined enemy. “You pea-eyed priapus! GET IT RIGHT! INSECTS—BIRDS—then DOGS…!”

Dorothy enters, falling up the steps from the auditorium; carrying her little folded chair and table; crawling carefully through the wires that are stretched between the stage and the house. She also carries—as always—her knitting bag, her old cloth shopping bag, and her parasol. Ezra hides in the furthest corner he can find.

All at once the birds begin to sing.

Dorothy says: “Good morning, Ezra,” setting her things on the ground. Ezra, as usual, does not respond. Dorothy surveys the mess in his cage.

“Looks like the birds have been at you again,” she says.

“There are no birds,” says Ezra. “All the birds are dead. Save one…” He glowers. “Good morning, Dorothy.”

Dorothy gauges the distance between herself and the cage with a practised paranoic eye and sets her chair in place accordingly. The length of her husband’s reach is known by heart: just as the depth of his thrust was known in earlier times. In youth. There had always been a part of her, inside, he could not reach. And now—when the reach is all external—she is determined each of the visible sanctuaries must remain inviolate: her wrists; her eyes; the nape of her neck; and, especially, her lips. She will never let him touch her lips again—as once she had—lest some unwilling word be drawn into the open and revealed.

Looking up at the latticed sun—the lattices of other bars than Ezra’s—Dorothy unfolds her small tin table, placing it beside her chair.

“So what have you brought this morning?” Ezra says.

“Tea,” says Dorothy. “Same as always.”

“Tea?”

“That’s right.”

“Tea stands for Traitor…” Ezra snarls. “How dare you?” he roars.

“Ezra.

“Every day you bring it here to taunt me! Tea! Tea! Tea! For Traitor…!”

“Nonsense,” says Dorothy, shaking out her handkerchief and watching it drift down towards the table—Dorothy’s tea-cloth, unembroidered, neat and square and clean.

“I only told the truth. Tea-tea for Truth!”

“Be quiet. You want them to come?” Dorothy lifts her chin towards the wings, where danger lounges, dressed as soldiers, barely visible to those of us who sit beyond the wires and watch. Ezra leans up close against the bars and reaches out with both his hands towards his wife and whispers at her, vehemently; “
Aiuto, Dorothea. Aiuto
…”

She ignores him, fearful of his languages, never quite certain which of them is real—and, if they are real, never quite certain of the meaning. Her shoulders tell us this: the way she turns away and produces from her shopping bag her cup and saucer, jar of milk, and thermos bottle. Also biscuits, each one wrapped in a separate piece of paper, each one very dry and thin and old.