The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (114 page)

—Tuthmosis third, eh? Good heavens yes, remember him well, the white-haired man went on, now deep in confusion with a sharp-bearded “oriental sort of chap” as he would say when he escaped. —Probably the greatest Pharaoh of them mphht all, I daresay, eh? Had a very low forehead I remember, curious thing, eh? Looked a bit like this mphht chap here somewhere, works in pictures they tell me. Pitiful sort of mppht way to live eh? He finished and glanced up, startled again at the sharp eyes fixed on him.

—Ah yes . . . and the child princess Ink-naton, is she perhaps familiar?

—Ink . . . mphht . . . Ikhnaton, daresay that’s who you mean, eh? Good heavens yes, very interesting chap he was, Ikhnaton. Put down the mphht what-do-you-call-ems, don’t you know. Religious reform, all that sort of thing. Good heavens yes, had them all running round worshiping the sun. All very well, that sort of thing, don’t you know, pushing out the mphht old gods, eh? But keep an eye on politics, eh? Keep an eye on politics. Not like this fellow what’s-his-name we’re talking about, building his temple out there on the edge of nowhere, eh? Spending everything he could get his hands on out there worshiping the mphht visible disc of the sun, eh? Won’t do, won’t do at all.

—This is perhaps your field of interest? Because it is mine also.

—Interest? Good heavens no, my dear chap, don’t care a damn for the whole lot of them.

—You are very well informed, nevertheless?

—Oh, pick things up, don’t you know, pick things up. Old school chum of mine, Lord mphht the devil, what the devil was his name, dug up old King Tut don’t you know, not so long ago. Tutankhamen you know, the son of this fellow mphht Ikhnaton don’t you know, who built Akhetaton out there on the edge of nowhere for his sun-worshiping, and let his politics go out the window. Go-od heavens yes, this white-haired man paused to grip his lapels and stare up with an air of recollection, —before the whole thing went to pot, don’t you know, the Nineteenth Dynasty, eh? Too much gold, that was their difficulty, gold kicking around all over the place, and vulgarity everywhere, eh? Yes, that’s what happens, that’s when the decadence sets in, eh? Same damn thing running around today from the look of things, eh? Wasn’t like this fifty years ago, eh? Good heavens no, people then who had money inherited it don’t you know, knew how to spend it. Some sense of responsibility to their culture, eh?

—Nevertheless, I hear on the radio that gold to the amount of
three-hundred fifty-six thousand dollars will bring a million dollars on the black market? . . .

—The radio? . . . good heavens yes, total loss in this country, don’t you know. Turned it on meself and had some brazen idiot ask me how was the color personality of my house, eh? Who the devil puts up with all that nonsense do you spose. A pound a year we pay at home, don’t you know, a pound a year to keep the airwaves clean, you might say. Cheap enough, eh? to keep that kind of infernal rubbish out of your house.

—Of course. But now, in the field of Egyptology, have you ever encountered a gentleman by the name . . .

—Good heavens, not my field at all, don’t know you. I say, I’ve gut to get over and have a word with that chap, d’you mind? That offensive little Frenchman don’t you know.

He almost stumbled over the Argentine Trade Commissioner, who had been worrying his way about that vast room for some time, and now approached the elbow of a man whom he apparently took for a countryman.

—Con permiso, señor . . . conoce Usted el Señor Brown?

—Iført den uovervinnelige rustning . . . eh?

—Nada . . . nada, gracias . . .

Even the tapestried eyes above avoided him.

At the foot of that sylvan enterprise, M. Crémer took out a blue coarse-paper packet, offered one of the harsh cigarettes, and took it himself when it was declined. —Oui, à vendre
à l’aimable
, vous savez, au prix d’un retable de . . . Hubert van Eyck. They turned again to look at the painting, hands in trouser pockets bunching the jackets behind. Crémer blew a steady stream of smoke at its surface. —Memlinc, bien sûr, he murmured again. —La force, voyez vous, encore plus la . . . tendresse.

The white-haired gentleman approached, side-stepping the argument going on behind them which went something like this,

—Roughly, .00000000000000000000000006624

—Roughly! It’s nearer to .000000000000000000000000006624

—Good heavens, eh? Lots of odd ducks here this evening. Crémer straightened round to him. —Just met some wog over there who talked me ear off about mphhht lot of dead Egyptians he carts about with him. You’re buying this thing, are you? He leant over Crémer’s shoulder to look close at the painting.

—I am interested in it, Crémer answered him, and then he introduced the two. The white-haired man was identified with a London gallery of some prominence, and Crémer was careful to add an R.A. after his name.

—Odd bit of business we had here earlier, eh? the R.A. said to them. —Funny sort of chap, storming in here like that, eh?

Crémer shrugged. —There are madmen everywhere.

—And he really had a go on this, didn’t he, this Memlinc here, almost tore it from the wall, don’t you know. I was standing nearby here, almost expected him to . . . attack me, don’t you know, no reason on earth.

Crémer’s shrug still hung in his shoulders, and he emphasized it with a twitch, throwing the exact lines of his neat blue suit off, for it was a thing of careful French construction, and fit only when the figure inside it was apathetically erect, arms hung at the sides, at which choice moment the coat stood up neat and square as a box, and the trousers did not billow as they did in walking, but hung in wide envelopes with all the elegance that right angles confer, until they broke over the shoes, which they were, fortunately, almost wide enough at the bottoms, and enough too long, to cover. —I saw him only this distance across the room, you know. But these spectacles, these spectacles you know . . . Crémer waved a hand before him as though he were going to take the cigarette from between his lips. —In America they are not uncommon. And this Memlinc, you know, it is beyond a doubt. He jerked his head back, dropping the long ash on the carpet, to indicate the painting hung behind him. —I am familiar with the origin, you see . . . et surtout, vous savez . . . there is no test to which it has not been subjected.

—That mmph what that curious fellow had to say about the sky here, don’t you know, eh? Prussian blue, don’t you know. ’T’s what it is.

—Bleu de Prusse, alors. What difference?

—Mphh eighteenth-century color, don’t you know.

—Bien alors, Crémer said wearily, —the hand of a restorer, you know. It is not uncommon. He shrugged again. The R.A. had been leaning over his shoulder, and straightened up now with a glance at Crémer which, if he had given himself to rudeness, might have been one of extreme distaste. Nevertheless, he said,

—Nevertheless, don’t you know, a lovely thing, this. Ought to pick it up meself, I spose. Eh?

—I have no intention to bid against you, said Crémer, staring straight out into the room.

—Eh? Mphh . . . nothing like that, of course, I mean to say, don’t you know. Good heavens! Quite out of my reach right now. I mphht special sort of taste for these Flemish things meself. So cleean, don’t you know.

Crémer almost smiled, at that. Still looking across the room he murmured, —You should enjoy what Michel-Ange has to say about
these painters, perhaps. Les tableaux flamands plaisent aux femmes, surtout aux vieilles et au très jeunes, ainsi qu’aux moines et aux religieuses . . .

—Mphh . . .

—. . . et enfin aux gens du monde qui ne sont pas susceptibles de comprendre la vraie harmonie . . .

—Mphht . . . The R.A. started to turn his back. —Eh? Don’t keep up on these things much any more. Modern mphht attitudes, don’t you know, modern art and all that sort of thing, eh? They try to say their paintings are the spirit of the times, don’t you know, but good heavens aren’t the times bad enough without having pictures of it hanging all over the place?

But M. Crémer, with the cigarette gone out and stuck like a sore on his lip, was looking across the room. —Your Monsieur Brown, you know, he is exceptional?

—Not mine, old fellow. Good heavens, not mine.

—See his feet behind the table, so small they are as he moves on them, it is a wonder he can find equilibrium. How he sways this evening. Pffft. On va faire des zigzags, eh?

Behind them, to one side, someone said something with the precise care of a radio announcer mispronouncing something from another language.

—Excuse me, said their companion, silent all this time, to their right now as they stood facing momentary exposures of the delicately detached balance which their host had broken, and restored, and maintained again with the man beside him across the depths of that room, —I am not here early for this . . . contretemps? What happened?

And the guests drifted past on courses which left no more trace than water, glassy-eyed, with as little purpose apparent as movement undersea but, as there, interrupted by swift predatory sweeps, and darting search for cover. In striking differences of shape, and protective coloration, exotically helpless, deceptively dull, distinct varieties fed together in clusters, or tended to move separately, here and there raising wide-open eyes, and bumping the sides of the tank.

—We’re shooting
Faust
now, a sort of bop version, we’ve changed him to this refugee artist, and Mephistopheles is . . .

—But it’s funny seeing pictures of yourself everywheres, starin out at you eatin things and drinkin things and smokin things you never heard of . . . went on the one with no more forehead than a black bass; and in spite of the shocks of sound that broke the surface, a pelagian quiet drenched the whole place.

So the sprays at the ears of the tall woman shone like growths of
some special nature, antennae perhaps, or merely lures, as she said to her husband, —You might ask him now, about that Queen Anne table? or was it a chair.

—And that . . . person over there? with the beard?

—Oh yes, carries art to the masses, women masses, you know. A pontificator in . . . Oh! Oh
that
one, calls himself Kuvetli, an Egyptian . . . And where they turned their eyes, that denizen lurked and caught their glances instantly, though he went on talking to the person before him, and though, until that moment, he had not been looking in their direction at all.

—Of course, I do not concern myself with politics, or such triumphs of scientific ingenuity as your atom bombs and hydrogen bombs. All that I leave for the newspapers, it is so necessary to their self-importance to have all the answers. For me this war will be no more than a matter of academic interest, of course, a confirmation of the prophecies contained in the Great Pyramid of Cheops. As I say, we have entered the period . . . ahm, symbolized by the King’s Chamber, in 1936, and it is only last year we have entered the period of final woe at last. But at this moment, he went on, pulling a stream of tinsel from the tree and winding it around his finger, —I am more interested in this mummy of which I speak, the mummy of Ink-naton. Of course she died when only twelve years of age, the Fourth Dynasty . . . of course it is too much to hope that I may encounter here someone who will be able to assist me with information? . . . And here he returned his black eyes, not to the man before him, to whom he spoke, but beyond him, directly across the room.

—What happened! What do you mean, what happened.

—You know very well what I mean, Valentine answered after all these minutes of silence which Brown was, finally, unable to sustain.

—You’ve seen him, Brown broke out, suddenly turning on Valentine.

—I give you my word, I haven’t though.

—Your word! Recktall Brown muttered, turning away once more. —He went after you. He left here to go after you.

—So I understand.

—There! What do you mean, you didn’t see him.

—My dear man, I haven’t seen him in some time, please get that straight. Fuller mentioned that he’d gone off looking for me, why, I cannot imagine.

—You can’t imagine! You God damn well can imagine. Valentine has the proof, he said to me right square in my face, I left it with him . . . so what the hell did he mean? Recktall Brown
turned his heavy face up again; and Basil Valentine faintly smiled, and as faintly shrugged.

—You expect him back then?

—How the hell do I know. Sure I expect him back. Don’t you?

—And nothing happened when he was here earlier? No one . . .

—Nobody would listen to him. Brown lowered his eyes again to the table before him. His cigar stood out between fingers as thick as itself in his left hand hanging beside him; and he raised his right hand to wipe his mouth.

—Still, it is rather embarrassing. You know, Basil Valentine said, falling into his familiar caustic tone, —you do sound rather disappointed?

Recktall Brown did not move. He did not even raise the cigar; but stood, staring down at that table. His forehead glistened.

—Now listen, Brown, I don’t know what’s got into you tonight besides a gallon of liquor, but you . . .

—That last picture he did, Brown interrupted, raising his cigar and looking over the room, —there’s some people here who I want to have a look at it.

At that point Brown started round one side of the table, and Basil Valentine came rapidly after him round the other.

The cigarette in Crémer’s mouth had gone out at about a thumbnail’s length, and stuck there as he discussed a contemporary French painter, who was, he said, —Racinien, vous savez . . . le goût de l’en deçà. L’instinct de . . . de l’atticisme, alors. Comme Corot, comme Seurat, vous savez, il est racinien. Comme je viens d’écrire, suprême fleur du génie français et qui ne pouvait pousser qu’en France . . . With that Crémer stopped, raised an eyebrow, and carefully removed the blemish from his lip with a thumb and third finger, in anticipation of his host.

Recktall Brown swerved, as Valentine grabbed his arm when they met coming round the foot of the low table before the fireplace.

—Wait a minute now . . .

—Let go! . . . let go of my arm.