The Recognitions (Dalkey Archive edition) (140 page)

—Allí se mueren, said the man behind the bar of La Ilicitana. He placed a glass there, and brought down the bottle of Genesis, answering a question with his voice, and an order with the bottle of coñac. —En invierno no, pero quando vienen las hojas por los árboles, allí se mueren.

It was dark out of doors when the bartender at La Ilicitana leaned forth to direct his only client’s attention to the couple waiting outside. Mr. Yák stood just within the dim shaft of light, beckoning. Beside him, in the shadows, a small figure draped in a shawl waited patiently; and a moment later, the man behind the bar there watched the three of them leave with no misgiving curiosity in his face at all.

—Take her arm, said Mr. Yák in the street. —But be careful. You’re not drunk, are you? Are you? You got enough chairs for the monkeys? Come on. Be careful. We pretend it’s an old woman, see? Only when we get on the train she’s real stiff in the joints, see? But these Spaniards here are very reverent for an old woman, like it’s somebody’s mother, see? So be careful . . .

He was right.

The conductor even threatened to help the stiff figure aboard the First Class coach, but Mr. Yák was impressively filial, and they were soon seated abreast in a compartment. Mr. Yák pulled the shades down upon the aisle passing outside, for the figure between them sat stretched out at an uncomfortable length for her size, and there was no relaxing her into the cushions, —because we don’t want to break nothing.

The moon, in its last quarter, had not yet entered the sky, waiting to come in late, each night waiting nearer the last possible minute before day, to appear over the distant gate more battered, lopsided, and seem to mount unsteadily as though restrained by embarrassment at being seen in such condition. And so the train rattled out into the rock-strewn plain in darkness. Mr. Yák stood up, slipped the door open enough to peep into the corridor, and then displaced the glass and removed the light from above the seat across from them.

—You’re afraid the light will hurt her eyes?

—No. In case somebody should come in here with us so it don’t shine in her face, Mr. Yák answered earnestly. —See? he added as he resumed his seat and leaned forward, solicitously arranging the black shawl, tucking its long ends round the extended feet. Then he straightened up and said, —There! . . . patted down the shock
of black hair, pressed the mustache, and cleared his throat with satisfaction. The acrid smoke of an Ideal commenced to rise from the window side of the compartment, and they rode on, seated backwards, facing the place they’d come from, and looking in what light there was through the smoke like a weary and not quite respectable family.

The conductor, at any rate, showed no rude curiosity when he tapped at the glass panel, slid the door open, and took three tickets from Mr. Yák, who had bounded to his feet to meet him, with such zeal, in fact, that part of the shawl came along with him, exposing hands clasped one over the other on the sunken basin of the pelvis, above the wide separation of the lower limbs, and the head, tilted forward slightly, the surface of the face unbroken by a nose, the eyes sunken, the jaw dropped. But the conductor was gone.

—Come on! . . . cover it up! Mr. Yák burst out, getting the door closed, but the face he saw was a reflection in the glass. He pulled the shawl up quickly round the stiff figure, and drew it in a deep hood over the nodding head. —You got to keep alert, doing something like this, he went on when he got his breath, —you can’t just sit looking out the window, you . . . Are you drunk? Hey? Stephan? How many monkeys got upstairs while I left you there? Did you? Are you?

With no answer, and nothing of his companion but the back of his head and the steady image of his face in the glass, Mr. Yák recovered from his impatience, sat down again, and turned to the figure between them. —You wouldn’t think she’s only a little girl, would you have. He stared abstractedly at the flat lap for a minute, blinked, rubbed his hands, said, —Now we can really get to work, and sat back.

But he could not sit still. His foot commenced tapping on the vibrating floor. —What we want to do first, we want to find a place to bury that linen stuff awhile, so you can go there and sort of wet it down, see? Then I got to get into touch with this guy, this Egyptianologist, so he don’t give up hope and leave town. Then all I got to do is keep out of his way till it’s all set. See? Then we . . . Are you listening to me? Mr. Yák leaned over and tapped a far knee.

—What’s the matter?

—Are you listening to me? What’s the matter?

—Nothing, I . . . Nothing.

—Nothing? You . . .

—Nothing. I was just thinking about something.

—What?

—Nothing.

Mr. Yák snorted, and tapped his fingers on his knee. Then he turned abruptly and his neck shot out of the plexiglas collar. —Listen, he said, —I feel like I’m alone in here with this . . . with this. He nudged the figure beside him. The face beyond did not turn from the window. —See? So . . .

—What do you want me to do? Get up and dance?

—No. The vagueness of the tone irritated Mr. Yák. —But we . . .

—Shall I sing something? Una y una dos, dos y dos son tres . . .

—Listen, we . . .

—No sale la cuenta . . . Porque falta un churumbel. What’s churumbel?

—That’s a gypsy word here, Mr. Yák answered, the irritation still in his voice, speaking to the back of his friend’s head. —The bill doesn’t come out right because there’s a kid missing. It means a kid. His tone was belligerent, but he answered rather than have no conversation at all. —See? he added, paused, and prompted, —See?

—They don’t die in winter, the voice murmured from the reflection in the glass, which held the blackness of the night right up against it.

—What?

—But when the leaves come to the trees, the bartender told me, then they die, quando vienen las hojas . . .

—That’s t.b., they got a lot of t.b. here. The kids especially. Now listen, when we get into the station . . . Look out! Look what you’re doing! . . . Mr. Yák bent down so fast he almost fell. —You throw your cigarette on her feet like that, she’s liable to go up in a cloud of smoke. See? When he straightened up from blowing the ashes away, he went on, —Now from now on, we’ve got a lot of work to do, see? And you got to settle down now and be more . . . more serious, see? All this drinking, and these girls, you want to forget all that, you’re not a bum. All that kind of thing, he continued, with no response, —it’s a waste, it’s sinful, living like that.

—Yes, I know. I know . . .

—What? See what I mean? It’s sinful.

—I know.

—See? And if you go on like that . . .

—But . . .

—What? . . . See? What fun is it.

—But . . . it’s not the sin itself that’s what is . . . Good God . . . the voice went on dully, and distant, —staggering into one
after another . . . and then . . . and lying in the dark knotted up in wet sheets, and . . .

—See? What good is it? Mr. Yák demanded, leaning across and resting an elbow on the brittle lap between them for the moment before he realized it, then he drew up, —it’s always the same, isn’t it, so why do you want to do it again.

—Yes, but . . . it’s not the thing itself, it’s not sin itself. It’s never the thing itself, it’s always the possibility that . . . It’s always the prospect of sin that draws . . . draws us on.

Mr. Yák straightened up from his strained position, peering round the back of the head as he’d been doing, trying to reach the face if only in its reflection against the black surface of the night. —See? he confirmed. —After awhile you get tired of it, after awhile you get to the place where it doesn’t satisfy anything inside you like. You get to the place, he went on, staring at the shivering floor, —where no matter how much you’ve got mixed up with all kinds of the wrong things, that they don’t gratify you any more to do them, see? So then you have to kind of look up, and look for something bigger. See? See what I mean? He looked anxiously up at the window.

—Yes but . . . if you’ve done things . . . if you’ve done things to people, and they . . . and you can’t atone to them for . . . for what you’ve done . . .

—No, you can’t! You can’t! . . . not to them, but you . . . if you’ve like sinned against one person then you make it up to another, that’s all you can do, you never know when you . . . until the time comes when you can make it up to another. Like I once . . . this woman, I . . .

They paused, rocking together all staring in different vacant directions of the past.

—What?

—Nothing.

—What woman?

—You . . . Mr. Yák jerked his head up, to see only Mr. Yák’s face on the glass. —I’m going out to the gents’ a minute . . . He faltered a pause in the door to the corridor. —If anybody comes in to sit down, you want to kind of talk to her, see? . . . Then the door slid closed, and he left them together, steadying himself down the corridor like an old man.

Almost immediately, lights appeared in the darkness outside, moving past the windows slowly, lights so dim that they seemed to do no more than illuminate themselves. The train stopped.

—Well
I
would have thought the name of the town was Urinarios, a tall woman said getting on, —it’s the only word you can see on
the station out there. She stopped while her husband opened the door of a compartment, and they went in. They sat down side by side, and she stared at the couple sitting side by side across from them. —So much
smoke
, she whispered to her husband. He offered her a cigarette. The train started. —And if we ever go all the way to a town like
that
again, if you could call it a town, just to see a church or whatever it was . . . I don’t see how you ate a bite of that lunch. You’ll regret it too, she added, trying to arrange her feet round the wrapped legs stretched before her. The spike of her heel caught the edge of the shawl, and she gasped. At that, the man across from her appeared to recover some long-lost consciousness, and he did so with a wild light in his eyes, darting down as though he were going to grab the tall woman’s feet and pull her off her cushion. But he very busily brought the ends of the shawl back where they’d been wrapped, and then, lighting a ferocious-looking yellow cigarette, started chattering to the hooded figure beside him. —Díme lo, he said, —aunque no es . . . díme que tu me quieres, aunque no es . . . The tall woman cleared her throat, drew her feet together carefully, managed a prim smile across the way, and gripped her husband’s arm. —Let’s get out of here, she whispered, —this . . . She stood, straining her smile, sustaining it until her husband was up, fomenting it with embarrassment of being polite, whispering, as the door slid open, —And my God! . . . did you see her face? —Syphilis, her husband said, —they’ve got a lot of syphilis here, even in the children, it’s inherited . . . as he closed the door, and Mr. Yák, coming down the corridor behind him, opened it and entered.

—Who was that? he asked, seating himself, squaring his hair as he did so.

—I told you, people . . . people will disdain no ruses, no ruse at all to prove their own existence.

—Listen, you . . . But Mr. Yák found that he was again speaking to the back of a pair of shoulders, and he wilted back.

—Good God, the desolation of that place, that station we just stopped at. The window again held off the black surface of the night.

—I feel like we been riding on this thing all my life.

—Yes, yes that’s it, that’s it, you know? It’s like . . . like being at sea. Somebody’s said that going to sea is the best substitute for suicide. Why, in this country . . . in this country . . .

—Suicide? . . .

—Look, what if we’re caught?

—With this? Mr. Yák shrugged. He had recovered his composure.

—No, I mean . . . whatever you . . . whatever we’re . . . wanted for.

Mr. Yák looked up quickly, to see him turning back to the window. —What’s the matter, you scared now? he said, and then repeated, —Wanted for?

—Yes, I . . . I am. I am scared.

—Sometimes I think I ought to have gone to Brazil. But that’s the thing, a place like that, Brazil, everything’s too new, what you want to do, you always want to go to the mother country of the place you maybe should have gone to . . . His voice tailed off. He had recovered his composure, but he looked weary, and older, jouncing back against the seat cushion, his hair slightly crooked on his brow, staring vaguely straight ahead, and the shaking of the train kept him nodding thoughtfully. —But now you go one place, and then you go somewheres else . . . His own tone was vague now, as he turned his attention to the reflection in the glass.

—Sail on, sail on, like the Flying Dutchman. Why good God, in this country . . .

—Who?

—It was Herr von Falkenberg, sailing without a steersman around the North Sea condemned to never make port, while he and the Devil played dice for his soul.

Suddenly they were face to face, and Mr. Yák found the hand mounting the two diamonds clutching his wrist. The eyes he stared into were burning green, the face even more knotted than that first day he had seen its confusion in the cemetery, and the voice more strained with desperation. —Why, in this country you could . . . just sail on like that, without ever leaving its boundaries, it’s not a land you travel in, it’s a land you flee across, from one place to another, from one port to another, like a sailor’s life where one destination becomes the same as another, and every voyage the same as the one before it, because every destination is only another place to start from. In this country, without ever leaving Spain, a whole Odyssey within its boundaries, a whole Odyssey without Ulysses. Listen . . .

—You . . . anyways, Mr. Yák interrupted, trying to break away from the eyes fixed on him and even to withdraw from the hold of the hand he had sought so many times, —anyways you couldn’t drownd on the land.

—You couldn’t! Well it’s . . . it’s like that. It’s like drowning, this despair, this . . . being engulfed in emptiness.

The grip on Mr. Yák’s wrist quivered with intensity, as did the eyes and the whole face as though waiting for some answer from him. Mr. Yák broke the hold of the eyes, lowering his own to the
hand there, and the diamonds glittering over the flat lap which separated them. —What you’d want to do maybe, he commenced, —you might like go to a monastery awhile, you don’t have to turn into a monk, you’re like a guest there, you . . . he filtered, staring at the hand, and the two diamonds, —you . . .