The Listener (13 page)

“You are a pretentious mess,” Moira had said to him. “You are as insulated as a baby in an incubator.” Had he begun to despise her then? Stupid Moira.

He really must go to the Taj Mahal. He forgot to open the bottle of whiskey. Smiling happily, he put on his black coat (London-made) and his black severe hat (London-made). His ridicule of the Taj Mahal would reach the European correspondents, who would then write articles for their foreign newspapers on the ‘naiveté and utter unsophistication of the American people’. “Mr. Alexander Damon, the Architect,” one London feature writer had written, “is one of the few truly intellectual Americans of today.” Alexander loved to make charming bons mots about Americans, which were widely quoted in Europe, and especially in Russia.

Alexander was in almost a happy and exhilarated mood when he took a taxicab to John Godfrey’s little ‘Parthenon’. (It had overtones of Zen-Buddhism.) He regarded taxi drivers as part of ‘the people’. Witty, wise, illiterate Socrateses. He said, “Have you ever been to John Godfrey’s building?”

“Nope,” said the driver sullenly. (What could you expect outside New York? Even the taxi drivers were stupid.)

“Do you take many people there?”

The driver was silent.

Alexander looked with cool distaste at the interior of the cab. A typical American ‘job’. He said with his usual sang-froid when he was speaking to a member of ‘the people’, “Why don’t you fellers insist on the European cars? Quicker, more agile, and not gas-eaters? There’s nothing like a foreign car. I have a small Mercedes-Benz, myself.”

“You do, huh?” said the driver. He had a thick neck, and now it became crimson. He did not turn. “Look, mister, I got a son and his family in Detroit. He works in one of them automobile joints, makin’ cars. You’re puttin’ him out of business, you and your foreign cars! What can they make better’n an American car? You tell me that! If people want little cars, we got the tools in Detroit to make them better than in Europe. You one of them Communists, everythin’ better outside this country than in?”

Alexander was startled. But then, he was in the ‘hinterland’, where everyone was one hundred percent American, no matter where one was born. He knew how to handle ‘the people’. He peered at the driver’s certificate. “Now, Bob, you know that Europe does have some talents we don’t have, don’t you?”

“Sure, I know,” said the driver. “We’re all Europeans here, ain’t we? Your dad or granddad, or maybe even way back — they was Europeans. Think we’re all Indians, eh? You’re sure mixed up. Mister, you sure are mixed up!”

Alexander did not answer. He felt hot and disgusted. He liked love and humility in ‘the people’, and an eagerness to learn obediently. And an anxiety to be ‘led’ by their natural rulers, the intellectual elite. This driver was definitely not one of ‘the people’.

The driver stopped the cab. “One dollar fifty,” he said in a surly voice. “Can’t drive the car up there. You gotta walk a little.” Alexander got out of the cab. He counted out precisely one dollar and sixty-five cents. The driver looked at the money and snorted. “I shoulda known!” he said, and drove off.

Alexander laughed softly. That idiot was exactly like any New York taxi driver. They wanted nothing but money. That was the grossness of America. He walked up the gently winding red gravel walk; everything was dimly illuminated. Almost European in its effect; no glare. No neon signs. He had expected neon, in various flaming colors, going on and off, in big pink and blue and purple letters: ‘Come! The Man who Listens!!!’ Like a Revivalist temple. It was nothing like that.

The small marble building raised itself purely against the dark sky, shining and simple. Alexander thought, Why, it’s very artistic! And very emotional, in a restrained and serene sort of way. The gravel under his feet reminded him of Oslo, of Rome, of Stockholm. He nodded approvingly. No smooth concrete or asphalt. That would be out of character. He detested things out of character. The men who built this place, laid out these gardens, were very sophisticated and knowing. He could not have designed this better himself.

Nor, he thought, could he have imagined anything more restful and beautiful than the waiting room. No money had been spared. Where had that silly old lawyer gotten that money in this city? And the decorator? Very restful. No modern furniture, no amoeba-like, free-form glass tables on one or two scattered legs. But I designed an office like that, thought Alexander Damon. It was photographed for a national magazine. It gave me the horrors. In fact, everything gives me the horrors. He sat down in his coat and hat and looked before him. “The horrors,” he said aloud. There was no one there but himself. The proletarian dinner hour. There was a chime.

“For me?” he asked courteously. The chime sounded again. He stood up, smiling in anticipation, and went into a stark-white marble room with blue velvet curtains concealing an alcove, and a marble chair.

He sat down in the marble chair. He looked at the curtains. There was no sound here, no hurrying, no shrill whisper. No sense of amusement. The white walls were without decoration. They beamed at him, illuminated and waiting.

He sat. No one asked him any questions or gave an indication of impatience. He continued to sit and to wait. The room waited with him. What had that pamphlet said? ‘All the time there is’.

“That’s the trouble,” he said to the curtains. “There’s too much time.”

He was aghast at this blunder.

“I must be candid,” he said in his cool voice. “I’m not here because I have a ‘problem’. I am here only as an investigator. I won’t tell you my profession or business. That is immaterial.”

What was wrong with him? His profession, immaterial! He must call his analyst tonight. When a man thought his work was ‘immaterial’ he was out in the deep end.

“Are you a psychiatrist?” he asked contemptuously. “Not that I dislike psychiatrists. We all need help. I have an analyst of my own. If there were more psychiatrists in America we’d all come to understand ourselves more. ‘Know thyself,’ said Socrates. A very sound idea. My analyst assures me that I know myself completely. But I have the worst possible propensity for selecting wives that are bad for me. He has studied my last wife, Moira, and is convinced, as I am, that she is the most stupid selection of them all. She has no flair, no style, though she had convinced me she had before we were married. A dull, plodding woman, Moira, though she paints. But every woman, I am sure, is dull and plodding. Their biological necessity, their nest-building. But who would have thought it of Moira, the modernistic painter? Everyone lives in deception.”

There was no sound, no movement, no rustle of traffic.

“Every psychiatrist, and I am sure you are no exception, wants to know your background, from birth on, your childhood traumas, your parents, your siblings. Your teachers. Your playmates. Your relatives. It is only in that way that they can fix the blame where it belongs, for your misery, your meaningless life.”

He leaned forward, flushing. “I’m sorry. That was a slip of my tongue. My life has meaning. The only trouble is that there is no meaning in others. They exist only as impediments, slowing up your flow of ideas, your enthusiasm, your dreams.”

No one spoke. “And when that happens there is nothing left, no life, no drama, no significance, no zest, no meaningful end, nothing to strive for, to hope for, to work for. No color, no vitality, no excitement, no passion, no drive — no goal. We kill each other, not with an honest knife or a blow, but through our inertia. That is the real murder. I’ve been murdered, from my childhood on. By pointless people, by conformists, by repetition. Always repetition.”

He smiled slightly at the curtains. “I have read your pamphlet. If one doesn’t wish to see the face of the psychiatrist who listens, one doesn’t need to press the button. I have no intention of pressing it. I prefer that you hear me in silence and in anonymity.”

He said, “I wish to be perfectly candid. I’m here to expose this silly nonsense. I was always an honest person. I intend to speak of this place when I make my appearance on a certain television program called ‘Visit Him Now’. Very poignant, isn’t it? ‘Visit Him Now’. No doubt you are familiar with the program. Very urbane; civilized. One of the few civilized programs on the television circuit. It has a high rating, I’m told, and this surprises me. I was under the impression that the public prefers Western shooting and gangsters and what they call ‘situation home dramas’. But Mr. Brewster — Gene, we call him — is very popular, even if he has a late broadcasting. Every intelligent person listens to him. Of course the yuks are in bed at that time.”

Alexander waited. He looked coldly at the curtains. “Of course you have seen his programs?”

Why this damned, white, marble silence? Oh, the Man who Listens.

“I’m a listener, myself,” said Alexander. “In fact, it seems to me that I’ve been listening — too much! — all my damned life.

“At any rate, I am going to expose this sentimental slop on that program. I hope you don’t mind. After all, when your identity is known you’ll have more publicity than you ever had before! Is that your object?”

He shrugged. “Everything is Madison Avenue,” he said. “Look, I’m not condemning you. We all live by advertisement, don’t we? And I must say that the way you advertise — discreet and artistic — is very well done. I couldn’t do better, myself. Of course you know the origin of the word ‘broadcasting’. It was done by the Romans, and the Greeks before them, and the Egyptians. ‘Public letters’. So even the most stupid would understand when the letters, or the parchment, or the paper, appeared on the walls of the city. Catiline was famous for it. He would make it especially dramatic by pinning the broadcasts to the walls of the temples with a naked dagger. Very startling; caught the attention of the populace at once. It didn’t really matter that the daggers could be bought for five hundred a sesterce. Very cheap metal; of no value. But interesting. Very interesting. But even politicians in these days are dull. No bright ideas. They must hire people to give them ideas, who will then broadcast them in the names of the politicians. That is public relations.”

He paused. He felt a hungry, sick crawling along his nerves, a desperate aching. “It is not,” he said, “that I am an alcoholic. My analyst assured me I am not. It is only that I can’t stand — — ” He stopped. Then he exclaimed, “I can’t stand living!”

He rubbed the palms of his hands together, over and over, in the immemorial gesture of despair, and did not know it. “What an idiotic thing to say,” he murmured apologetically. “I never blurted out that to my analyst! I’m sure if I had said an imbecile thing like that he’d have recommended shock treatment at once. Manic depression. I’m not in the least ‘depressive’. You can take the word of one of your colleagues about that! I am not even manic-depressive-manic. I’m quite normal. If I sometimes drink to excess, who can blame me? No one.”

He stood up restlessly. “I’m afraid I’m taking up too much of your time. After all, you don’t find many people like myself, do you, in this city? Still, it may be interesting to you to listen to someone who doesn’t have bunions, or constipation, or bewildering teen-age children, or a quarrel with a husband or wife — ordinary, foolish problems. One of my friends, who is an advertising manager, told me that the ‘problems’ of the stupid were big business in America. They created ‘wants and needs and demands’. To satisfy the ‘problems’. In other words, give a man whose soul is aching a nice sweet strawberry-flavored lollipop. That will do it! Suck like a baby, and smile and gurgle, and then there are no more problems. The soul doesn’t ache anymore. It settles down to enjoy the momentary syrup. I’m sure you understand that I’m speaking of the soul in a loose sense — the psyche. An aching soul.”

He had a sudden intense sensation that someone had moved closer to him and was listening acutely. He shrugged, smiled about the room. He sat down again.

“Do you know what happens to me when I drink too much, as I usually do? You see, I’m being candid, and no alcoholic is candid. When I was in preparatory school we studied Swinburne, that Victorian, gloomy, unsophisticated poet. I remember his
Garden of Proserpine
— when I’m drinking. Only one stanza, I’m pleased to say. May I repeat it?

“I am tired of tears and laughter,

Of men that laugh and weep;

Of what may come hereafter

For men that sow to reap;

I am weary of days and hours,

Blown buds of barren flowers,

Desires and dreams and powers

And everything but sleep.

“I drink,” said Alexander Damon, “for sleep. Only for sleep. To forget.”

He settled deeply in the chair. He was exhausted, yet he felt released. He said, “ ‘Blown buds of barren flowers’. All my life was barren. And pointless. And without meaning.”

He looked at the curtains again. “I am not whimpering. Everybody’s life is like that. Nobody’s life ever was fruitful. Not even Christ’s. His was the most fruitless of all. Don’t you agree? Two thousand years! And there are no real Christians. When you come down to it, there are no religious people anywhere, are there? Can you imagine them in public relations, or business, or anywhere else, for that matter? The very idea is calamitous. I met a Jewish writer the other day, a young man. A Talmudist, he called himself. He was actually writing a book about his ‘God’. I told him he’d never get a publisher for such a naive idea. He said, ‘I certainly will. We need a new affirmation, every generation, of the presence of God in our lives’. Everyone at the table laughed. I’m afraid that I laughed the hardest of all. Moira — she is my present wife — was very indignant. She told me I’d been drinking too much. But all my wives have said that, though they understood I am not an alcoholic. They make, as the proletariat say, a federal case of it.”

The wild hunger moved through every organ of his body, demanding, screaming. He moistened his lips. He would leave almost immediately. It was late, very late. But he could begin his slow, steadfast drinking as soon as he got back to his hotel. Be quiet, he told his urgent body. His thirsty, hungering body that would never be satisfied or contented. That was always waiting for something.

The white light and the silent walls waited.

“My father,” said Alexander Damon, quietly mopping his face and hands, “was a very successful lawyer in New York.

Unfortunately, he died when I was only fourteen. I missed a father’s influence. My mother was one of those Victorian ladies with a high sense of rectitude and duty and responsibility. The minister was always at our house. My father used to make fun of him when he left, he was such a simple soul, very naive and earnestly full of faith. ‘Louise,’ Father would say to my mother, ‘how can you endure that droning nonsense? After all, you are an intelligent person for a woman. We aren’t living in the Dark Ages any longer, you know’. But my mother would say, ‘Don’t be silly, Edgar. If you’d listen to Mr. Thayer you’d find some direction, some purpose, some meaning in your life. You would know why you had been born’. I remember my father laughing. He was a very distinguished man, really, and civilized and adult. He would kiss my mother and say, ‘You’re my meaning in life’. She’d become very disagreeable to him then and push him away and warn him, ‘Alex is listening. I don’t want him to be as frivolous as you’.