The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (139 page)

Mr. Yák was out of bed and dressed before his morning coffee was brought. He did not wait for it in fact, but locked his room, tapped at the door down the hall, opened it and found the room empty, and interrupted a girl on a trip with two chamber pots down the chill front passage. She opened the front door for him, smiling, —Vaya Usted con Diós . . . and he went out, down the stairs and into the street, his hair square on his head and his mustache set stiff with purpose.

He passed the blind boy with the lottery tickets pinned to his coat, the line of women in black, before the charcoal-seller’s, children carried by bundled like Eskimos, men in bedroom slippers, cloth hemp-soled shoes, berets, mufflers drawn over the chin, capes out of Goya across half the face. The sound of English in the streets was startling: the same tall woman passed, pointing to a tattered old man before her, —Now there, I want some sandals like those, see them? —Those aren’t sandals, mumbled her husband beside her, —those are his feet.

Mr. Yák made a circle, looking in at every bar and café, from the Puerta del Sol back down the Calle de Atocha. It grew later, and his expression of impatience became more stern, entering the Plaza Tirso de Molina, watching, listening for
La Tani
, he stopped in at Chispero’s for coffee, still searching every face for the one he sought, searching faces as though the great city were a perpetual masquerade, where every face, like his own, hid another, so that at last it was not that specific square face knotted about the eyes in mild surprise that he sought, but familiarity to emerge from this world of shapes and smells, the amber color of Genesis coñac, the green of the bottles, the fixed stare of the silver fish on the bar, the smell of oil, dark squares of fried blood on a plate, shreds of liver, the seat of the emotions roasted, cut up, served beside the tall stemmed glass, waiting, watching for familiarity to emerge from this world of shapes and smells, clad against the cold reality of the outside in the yielding armor of drunkenness. An elderly man stood against the wall opposite, drinking coffee beneath a picture of Adelita Beltrán who would appear later on the stage inside, to dance, pounding her heels, brandishing her skirt to
La Sebastiana
, to sing
La Zarza Mora
, and Mr. Yák looked away from the old man quickly, aware that the resemblance he had sought and found in that face was his own. The coffee in his glass floated yellow globes of oil at the rim, and he drank it down and went out, pressing at his mustache with two fingertips.

It was not in a bar that he finally did find Stephan, but standing unsteadily outside one, a place called La Flor de mi Viña, where a car had just run over his foot, slowly, nudging him insistently from behind like a clumsy animal sidling up, leaving him with that expression of mild surprise confirmed in his face. And the only reason a policeman appeared was that one happened to be passing, and a handful of unoccupied people had set up a clamor. It happened so slowly. That gentle nudging might have been one of the burros that stand harnessed to trash carts in the streets of the city. The policeman was very polite, as Mr. Yák appeared, rescued his friend and set off with him in the direction of the Estación del Norte, walking briskly not speaking after his first reproof, —What did you want to tell the cop you’re a . . . what did you tell him? A Pelagian? . . . he just wanted to know what kind of a nationality you are, can’t you just say swisso? What if he asks for your Pelagian passport? Have you got your passport on you? What if I didn’t come along just then? The day was heavily overcast, and they walked on without looking up at the even unchanging gray of the sky. —How long you expect to keep this up, anyway? Mr. Yák muttered, expecting no answer, and he got none. They’d walked some distance before he commented, —This place is getting on both of our nerves.

They reached San Zwingli without incident, and very little conversation after Mr. Yák had outlined their plan. —We can’t take it away in the box, that’s too bulky . . . but if we leave about at dark . . . Then he looked closely at his companion, as though to see if he would be capable of carrying out his end of it when the time came. —How many monkeys you got sitting down up in your head now? he brought out finally, as they climbed the hill from the railway station.

—I? I haven’t had a drink all day.

—Where you been all day then? Mr. Yák’s tone was truculent, possibly to hide the surprise he felt at this answer. —I looked all over the place for you, he added, muttering, returning his eyes to the stones of the road. Up in the town, the bell of the church sounded, and both of them raised their eyes for a moment, then lowered them immediately as though in embarrassment, as it went on striking, and they continued side by side up the uneven grade, out of step, and so close they bumped each other. —Where were you all day? Mr. Yák asked again, when they bumped the second time.

—The Prado.

—The art museum? Mr. Yák shrugged. —What did you do there? He glanced up at the face beside him, and said, —You don’t look like you liked it much. The art there.

—Well they . . . the El Greco, his companion began, as though called upon to comment, and he drew his hand across his eyes. —They have so many in one room, they’re almost hung on top of each other and it’s too much, it’s too much plasticity, there’s too much movement there in that one room . . . He suddenly looked up at Mr. Yák, holding a hand out before them which appeared to try to shape something there. —Do you . . . do you see what I mean? With a painter like El Greco, somebody called him a visceral painter, do you see what I mean? And when you get so much of his work hung together, it . . . the forms stifle each other, it’s too much. Down where they have the Flemish painters hung together it’s different, because they’re all separate . . . the compositions are separate, and the . . . the Bosch and Breughel and Patinir and even Dürer, they don’t disturb each other because the . . . because every composition is made up of separations, or rather . . . I mean . . . do you see what I mean? But the harmony in one canvas of El Greco is all one . . . one . . . He had both hands out before him now, the fingers turned in and the thumbs up as though holding something he was studying with a life which Mr. Yák had not seen in his face before. But he broke off abruptly, and his hands came down to his sides.

After a pause, Mr. Yák said more quietly, —I didn’t know you ever went there.

—I . . . I go there every day.

—You spend the whole day there? Mr. Yák turned on him in amazement.

—Well, I . . . not today, I . . . I had the strangest dream today, I . . . when I came back. And I woke up and I thought. . . it was almost dark, but I thought it was dawn and I thought I’d slept there all night, and all I heard was . . . I heard a child crying somewhere, that was all I heard. But I thought I’d slept all night and it was dawn. Then I tried to use my right arm, I reached out for a cigarette and it wouldn’t work, my arm wouldn’t work, it just hung there and fell over, and I . . . and all I could hear was a child crying somewhere.

They had reached the town. Mr. Yák glanced at him again, shrugged when he did not go on, and as they approached the doors of La Ilicitana muttered, —I just hope that barrel organ don’t catch us out, as they entered, and his order for two coffees was not countermanded, or even qualified, by his companion, which, after the revelation concerning the Prado, brought Mr. Yák to observe soberly, —I even said you weren’t a bum. Eh Stephan?

That brought a smile to Stephan’s face for a moment, though it
was one of detachment and when it faded away, left a vague abstracted expression.

—That girl you were with last night, Mr. Yák commenced, pressing his mustache and speaking with the ease of someone mentioning an event long forgotten, —I was glad to see you got away from her with your diamond ring.

—But you . . . wait, you don’t understand, you see she . . . I don’t know, never mind.

—You paid her, didn’t you? Forget her. Mr. Yák shrugged, sipped his coffee, and asked, —That blonde, did you pay her anything?

—Well, I . . . that’s just it, you see I . . .

—Forget it. That’s nothing, forget it.

—No, because the blonde didn’t ask for anything, at first she didn’t ask for any money, I thought, she just came with me as though she wanted . . . to. But then after a few times, then she borrowed some money from me just before she went away and I thought, I lent it to her. I would have given it to her except I still thought she’d come with me because she’d wanted to, and I lent it to her.

—Never mind, forget it. The kind of tramps you’re picking up now you’re lucky you still got your diamonds.

—No no but that’s the point! when the blonde pretended she didn’t come with me for money but all the time she . . . don’t you see? And this one, this . . . Pastora, she . . . with her it was money right from the start, and now, she couldn’t afford to pretend because she needed the money, she really needs it but now, now with me what she wants . . .

—I know what she wants . . . Mr. Yák drew back as the diamonds came up in his face. —You gave her those rhinestone earrings?

—Those cheap things! Twenty pesetas. When I gave them to her I told her that, how cheap they were and she nearly cried just because . . .

—Just because you didn’t go get your diamonds made into earrings.

—No, listen, look, those cheap clothes she wears coming apart at the seams, she doesn’t mind, if they’re clean, if I . . . if I tell her she looks good, but if I say anything like . . .

—You make quite a couple in the street, said Mr. Yák.

—Yes, he laughed himself quietly, looking down. —I was walking with my hands in my pockets, and all of a sudden she stops right there on the sidewalk, she was furious, Si tu no me coges . . . she wouldn’t walk a step further with me if I didn’t take her arm. He
stood there looking at the floor and almost smiling, until Mr. Yák said,

—You could do better, if you’re going to get mixed up with . . .

—Better? He brought his eyes up again, their vacant quality restored.

—If you’re going to pay good money . . .

—But it isn’t . . . paying!

—I get it. You just give her some money afterwards.

—Yes but, listen . . .

—You’re going to catch something, you probably caught something from her already. Those kind of tough girls you meet like that . . .

—Tough, yes, the scars on her belly and down one leg, listen . . .

—You probably caught something from her already.

—Caught something . . . ? His hand was up between them again, squared fingers closing upon nothing; and he was staring there. —I was, I had her breast and I was . . . she, all of a sudden she said, No, son para la niña, she didn’t want me to . . . to take what was . . . wasn’t mine.

Mr. Yák shrugged. —If you were getting what you paid for . . .

—But that’s what I’m trying to tell you! right in the middle of it, when I was still . . . His closed hand quivered between them. —All of a sudden crying out, she burst out crying, Me quieres? me quieres? Díme lo . . . que sí! aunque no es verdad . . .

Mr. Yák finished his coffee and studied the face before him with the composure of a man examining something unobserved. Then he shrugged again and said, —You get one every once in a while like that, they have to cry right in the middle of it. So you told her yes, you loved her? even if it wasn’t true? He got no answer, put down the cup he’d been holding, and shrugged again. —You ought to have told her yes. A time like that, it’s the only thing you can do, if you want to get your money’s worth.

The town was quiet in the late afternoon. Mr. Yák tucked the purple and gold cord into his front as they came out on the street, and reopened the conversation on a more promising note. —Wait till you see this mummy thing when we get through with it, it will be so terrific it’ll make your nose bleed.

The sky was unchanged, except for seeming closer to the earth, more oppressive upon the mountains, as the light of day drained from it. The two men approaching the rock-studded road up behind the town did so in silence, the one swinging his arms as he walked, allowing sounds of anticipation to escape him, the other hands clasped behind, watching every detail of the pavement they
followed. It is true, Mr. Yák’s gait was somewhat irregular, his head bobbing up to the challenge ahead, then down, and aside, as the past threatened in the dull intent profile beside him. He wondered, if this climb would recall its earlier end, when they’d met over a past beyond them both, if this prolonged gesture of atonement of his should suddenly shatter between them while the future yet promised, if he should mention any of that simply to hold it at bay, before it attacked of itself.

—Good God! . . .

—What’s the matter with you? Mr. Yák asked before he looked for reason, finding, for the first time, this hand on his arm.

A white carriage, all white, drawn by horses strung with broken white netting, mounting a small white casket beneath the white coronating cross, climbed before them, —Christ! are they always held at the fall of the day? Another one, up that broken road to the cypress trees, and the men follow, carrying their hats, and that girl on her bicycle, in her green dress, making the stupid windings of life in the road behind it, and she’ll be back down the hill before they unload the box . . . As though that child had . . . chosen this time to die.

His hand had fallen away, and Mr. Yák caught his arm. —Listen, Mr. Yák said quickly, —you go back there and wait for me, go back to that bar and wait for me, see?

—Well I . . . then you’ll have to lend me some money.

—You’re broke . . . you’ve spent . . . you don’t have any money?

—Point d’argent, point de Suisse . . .

—Listen, I don’t want to let you . . . have you got your passport? Mr. Yák had pulled out a wad of paper money. —If they . . .

—It says I’m from Zurich. Quick! I’ll speak to them in German . . . aber die jüngste war so schön, dass die Sonne selber . . . Quick! . . .

The procession gone up the hill had been drawn by two horses, and now, down through the town, came a cart drawn by one, loaded with refuse from the factory nearby. Watching it with the same apparent interest as she had watched the other, an old woman withdrew from her railed balcony, leaving her husband in his chair, put out there in the afternoon for the sun, to look and cough, with his piece of bread, waiting. And the sun, which had kept so close all the day, sought before leaving it to fill the sky with color, a soft luster of pink, and then purple, against the pure blue, color which refined the clouds to their own shapes and then failed, discovering in them for minutes the whole material of beauty, then leaving them without light to mock the sky, losing form, losing
edges and shape and definition, until soon enough with darkness, they disappear entirely.